Revolutionary Stories

Hold, that’s Prue’s voice, and she would wade through blood for the rebel cause. ~ Cousin Samuel Cummings

Cousin James Chandler and the hidden cache

I found this story about James Chandler (2C8X) on the National Park Service website.

Cousin James was born in Concord in 1714. He was the grandson of our aunt Mary Symonds (8A) of Woburn. Mary was the daughter of our immigrant ancestor, William Symonds (9GGF). According to the National Park Service: "Tucked into the folds of a small hillside and surrounded by a low stone wall is the grave marker 'Erected In Memory of Mr. James Chandler who died of the Small Pox Dec 8th, 1792 in the 79th year of his age.' Although the marker has remained beautifully undisturbed for nearly 228 years, there is much the grave of Mr. Chandler can tell us."

In 1737, when he was twenty-three, James married Mary Wright and the couple had two children. In 1746, James and Mary purchased a home not far from Col. James Barrett's farm.

Note: In our "First Alarm" post we mentioned Barrett's Farm. That's where the cache of arms that the British were after had been stored.

Sadly, that same year Mary died. James, left with two children, married another Mary the next year. They also had two children. Only six years into that marriage, James' second wife died. In 1756 he married for the third and last time. James' third Mary turned out to be the charm. His last child, fittingly named Mary, was born in 1758.

When the Revolutionary War loomed, James served his country as a member of Concord's Committee of Correspondence. When word leaked out that the British were planning to raid the nearby Barrett farm and seize the cache of arms stored there, a decision was made by the Committee to move as much of it as they could. Five kegs of gunpowder were taken to Cousin James' house. By the time the British came onto the scene on April 19, 1775, most of the arms had been safely moved. The timely arrival of American militiamen disrupted any further search by the British and the kegs remained secure. As we've seen, the British hightailed it back to Boston with little to show for their day of terror.

After the war, James and his third Mary lived a quiet life together until Mary died in 1791. She was buried near the other Marys in Concord's Old Hill Burial Ground. Then, in 1792, a smallpox epidemic hit the town of Boston. Concord acted quickly, setting up an emergency hospital in order to innoculate the townspeople. In the end, only ten people died of smallpox, eight of the disease and two from innoculation. One of the ten to die in Concord was our cousin James.

According to Lemuel Shattuck, author of A History of Concord, the victims of smallpox "were buried by themselves; it being considered improper to inter them in the usual ground." Cousin James, not allowed to be laid to rest with his three Marys, was buried in a small plot next to his property, two miles away from his three Marys.

(1) Old Hill Burying Ground (2) James' Nation Park Service Burial Plot

James' house has been demolished but the house of Col. James Barrett still stands. Nearby, in a small plot surrounded by stones, lies a lonely headstone commemorating the life and death of Patriot James Chandler.

James' plot today is maintained by the National Park Service.

our Hildreth cousins and the British deserter

In his Boston 1775 blog, J.L. Bell brings up an interesting story about a British soldier, James Hall, who was reported killed at the Battle of the North Bridge in Concord on the day of the Alarm. He was believed to have been buried there with the other three British men killed at the bridge. Much later, however, personal papers belonging to one of his grandsons reveal an entirely different story. According to these documents, Hall's shoulder was "grazed" by a musket ball during the skirmish and afterward he found it "convenient" to pretend his death, desert the British army and start a new life in America.

In his endeavor to leave England behind forever, Hall was aided by our cousin John Hildreth (2C8X). John and his (and our) third cousin, Oliver Hildreth (3C7X), had marched on the alarm from the town of Westford, an offshoot of Chelmsford. Both took part in the battle at the North Bridge. Somehow, after the British retreat from the bridge, Hall must have indicated to Cousin John that he wanted to remain in Massachusetts. The two evidently made some sort of an arrangement because James Hall ended up in Westford working for Cousin John and his brother Ephraim (2C8X).

The North Bridge as it looks today

According to J.L. Bell, after a stint in Chelmsford learning the blacksmithing trade from Phineas Chamberlain, husband of our cousin Sybil Hildreth Chamberlain (2C8X), James Hall "had grown so fond of his adopted country and its ambitions for independence that he took up the call for nine months’ service in the Continental Army." He served his time at West Point, some of it during the "winter of deep snow."

At the war's end, James took his newly learned blacksmithing trade to Cavendish, Vermont where other Westford residents had also made their homes. He didn't, however, forget his Westford sweetheart. In 1784, James returned to Massachusetts to marry the niece of his very first benefactor in America, Cousin John Hildreth. James took his wife, our cousin Thankful Hildreth (3C7X), with him back to Cavendish. His wife's name may have described exactly how James felt, thankful to have found new friends, a new trade, a new wife and a new life in the newly formed United States of America.

Note: We'll have more on our Hall family cousins in Vermont in a future post.

Cousin Moses Richardson

Our cousin Moses Richardson (4C7X) was killed at Watson's Corner in Cambridge during the British retreat from Concord and Lexington. We wrote about his death in our "The British Retreat" post. According to his great-grandson, James Kimball (7C4X), Cousin Moses had been an artificer in the final French and Indian War. Artificers were "skilled artisans and mechanics who kept military equipment in good working order so the troops could operate effectively." James Kimball's mother, Katherine Russell (6C5X) told him that "[t]here were in the family quite a number of trophies taken from the homes of the French (during the war). . .These were brought home by her grandfather (Moses), together with some rich goods of silk..."

James goes on to say that his grandfather was among "the strong-minded men of his time. He was an excellent mathematician, being also a surveyor and housewright. He used to have his leather apron and breeches covered with calculations in chalk. . .he was the college carpenter and was called by the students "Old Mathematicus." One of the professors told the students "it would be to their credit if they should ever become as good mathematicians as Mr. Richardson."

Our mathematician cousin was cut down in Cambridge in his prime at age 53.

Prudence Cummings Wright and the arrests at Pepperell Bridge

Our cousin Prudence Cummings (4C6X) was born in Dunstable in 1740. The Cummings family descended from our Aunt Sarah Howlett (8A), daughter of our immigrant ancestor Thomas Howlett (9GGF). Sarah married John Cummings in 1656. In 1761, Sarah's granddaughter Prudence married David Wright and moved to Pepperell, a mere six miles from Dunstable.

(1) Dunstable (2) Pepperell

Cousin Pru became something of a folk legend because of her actions, along with a group of women, in defense of her hometown at the beginning of the war. Her story began on 19 Apr 1775 when the Pepperell minutemen responded to the alarm that had sounded throughout the colonies. As their men marched away, the women of Pepperell gathered together to try and defend the road leading over the river into their town. The bridge over the Nasua River seemed the likeliest point of defense. A bridge over the river has existed in Pepperell since the 1740s. Below is a photograph of the covered bridge that sits there today:

Back when the Pepperell women stood at the bridge it was a simple wooden structure across the river that led to the rest Massachusetts. The earliest account of the women's presence at the bridge appears in Caleb Butler’s History of the Town of Groton: including Pepperell and Shirley. His romanticized account was published in 1848, a full seventy-three years after the event.

After the departure of Col. [William] Prescott’s regiment of “minute men,” Mrs. David Wright (Cousin Pru) of Pepperell, Mrs. Job Shattuck of Groton, and the neighboring women, collected at what is now Jewett’s bridge, over the Nashua. . .clothed in their absent husbands’ apparel, and armed with muskets, pitchforks, and such other weapons as they could find, and having elected Mrs. Wright their commander, resolutely determined, that no foe to freedom, foreign or domestic, should pass that bridge. For rumors were rife, that the regulars were approaching, and frightful stories of slaughter flew rapidly from place to place and from house to house.

Note: Pepperell's William Prescott would go on to become one of the main players at Bunker Hill.

It's difficult to ascertain the truth of what followed. What seems likely is that a man, later identified as "supposed to be treasonably engaged in conveying intelligence to the enemy" was detained by the women guarding the bridge. By "the implicit command of Sergeant Wright, (Cousin Pru)" the man was arrested and sent to Colonel Prescott who identified him as Captain Leonard Whiting, a noted Tory from a neighboring town.

According to J.L. Bell in his Boston 1775 blog, the legend began to get wilder as time wore on. Mary Shattuck wrote her own version of the tale in 1912 after interviewing descendents of both Cousin Pru and Captain Whiting. According to Shattuck's version, there was another man on the scene who was arrested along with Whiting. That man turned out to be none other than our cousin Samuel Cummings (4C6X), Pru's own brother. In Shattuck's version, Samuel heard a woman shouting and exclaimed “Hold, that’s Prue’s voice, and she would wade through blood for the rebel cause.”

Whatever the truth of Pepperell Bridge story, Leonard Whiting and his brother Benjamin had definitely been under suspicion. Benjamin, a former sheriff of Hillborough County, NH was considerd by the Hillsborough County Congress to be "an open and avowed enemy to his country (America),” and the populace was cautioned against "connexions with him.” Then, in the spring of 1776, a year after the bridge event, Cousin Samuel Cummings and the Whiting brothers were summoned before the local Committee of Safety and the New Hampshire assembly. In that same investigation, Samuel and Prudence's brother Thomas Cummings (4C6X) was also summoned.

Luckily for all four men, the New Hampshire legislature agreed that "the said Suspicion is not sufficiently Supported, and that the said Leonard Whiting, Benamin Whiting, Samuel Cummings, and Thomas Cummings be acqitted & fully Discharged."

But were they really innocent?

Soon afterwards, the New Hampshire courts indicted Cousin Thomas on new charges. Instead of answering the charge, Thomas forfeited his bail and skedaddled north to Canada. It wasn't long before Cousin Samuel and Benjamin Whiting followed. The province of New Hampshire confiscated all of their properties. Leonard Whiting was the only one who remained in America and “for a large portion of the years 1777 and 1778 he was imprisoned in the jail at Amherst, with several other accused persons.” When he was finally released, he returned to New Hampshire and lived his life out there.

Cousin Pru had eleven children. One she named Liberty and another Artemus, quite possibly after the general who was beloved by his men and, at the time, commander in chief of the American army, our cousin Artemas Ward (4C10X)

Prudence Cummings Wright gained a little noteriety over the years. Below is a picture of her with her trusty gun drawn by an unknown artist.

The Pepperell D.A.R. chapter is named after Prudence and, in 1889, they erected a memorial stone near the site of the bridge:

In 1908, a new gravestone was placed on her burial site which reads"IN MEMORY OF THE CAPTAIN OF THE BRIDGE GUARD."

the Adams family

Our cousin Samuel Adams (2C9X) was the son of Abraham (1C10X) and Ann Longfellow Adams. Samuel inherited the family homestead in Byfield, an offshoot of Newbury. The property had inititally been owned by relatives of Ann Longfellow.

Samuel, who was described as "a shrewd businessman ammasing a large property," was lucky enough to be blessed with five sons. Four of those sons, along with their father served in the militia during the Revolutionary War. In an article for "The Essex Antiquarian " Sydney Perley describes the Adams family setting off to war:

When the news of the battle of Lexington reached Newbury, at eleven o'clock in the night, at once all was excitement at the homestead. The father and his sons quickly gathered their old lead and run bullets, while the mother cooked and mended in preparation for their departure. Next morning, Samuel (3C8X), David (3C8X) and Josiah (3C8X) started for the scene of conflict, while his son Stephen (3C8X), then a stripling of fourteen who stood six feet four in his stockings, took his father's place in the service a few months later.

In fact, Stephen did not take his father's place a few months later. He did, however, start his Revolutionary service two years later, joining up when he was sixteen.

This small depiction of a family setting off to fight for independence probably played out in hundreds of households all across the country. These men gathered in Cambridge, 20,000 strong to maintain their stranglehold on the British holed up in Boston.

Cousin Nathaniel's letters

Our cousin Nathaniel Patten (2C9X) lived with his family in Roxbury which was a suburb of Boston.

(1) Boston (2) Cambridge (3) Roxbury

In excerpts of three letters, Nathaniel describes what life was like for those who lived in close proximity to the action at the beginning of the war. He and his wife Mary were in their 70s at the time.

On 16 July 1775, Nathaniel wrote a letter describing the family travails as the battles in Boston began and progressed:

The very seat of civil war--cannon balls often flying among us and into our houses. About the 19th of April we heard the British troops were coming out of Boston into the country on some hostile design. We thought it likely that they would destroy Roxbury, as they went along. We therefore in a hurry tumbled out what we could of our most valuable effects under fences, or where we thought they would be a little out of sight, as we had not time to remove them far. But it appeared their orders were to go to Concord, and destroy the magazine, and stores there. . .our people kept gathering, until they amounted to about three hundred, as I have heard some say, who were in the battle, that attacked the king's troops , at any one time, and yet they fled before our people, for the Lord was with them, and they could not stand before them. How wonderful was it to see 500 men drive 2,000 veteran troops, for twenty miles, who had boasted so much what they could do with the Yankees. After this battle, in which they lost five hundred men, according to the best accounts we could get I thought they would not dare to come out again. I got our things into the house again, and staid until all the people had removed from the lower end of the town. . .still I thought there was no danger of their coming out; perhaps they might take it into their heads to fire their cannon, and spoil our houses, but thought after the first shot or two we should have time to escape; but one night about nine o'clock, there was news that the troops were coming out of town; (this was probably the Battle of Bunker Hill); my son came in and told his mother, he thought she had better get out of the way if she could; it was very dark and muddy and no horse to be got, they were all gone; so she was obliged to travel nearly a mile in the mud, which she had not done for seven years. After that she said she could not go home again--she could not run away if there should be occasion. Afterwards she was taken sick with a fever, and was nigh death, according to human appearance; but God had something more for her to do or suffer. Afterward Jonathan (3C8X) and I staid until they fired their cannon balls into a number of houses, and one into our store and two more, one on each side. Since that every few days they fire into Roxbury, and have shattered some of the houses very much. After we were driven away, we went just up by the middel meeting house, and hired a store, and part of a house so that we have as good accomodations as we can expect in these times. My son Jonathan is in very good business he is a setler for the army.

Note: A settler was someone who provides provisions for the army.

Note: Nathaniel, receiving news word of mouth had his figures wrong. By the time the British had reached Lexington on their return march the playing field was somewhat leveled with approximately 1,000 colonists to 1,700 British.

In December of 1775, while the British remained ensconsed in Boston, Nathaniel wrote another letter complaining that "I am now going to remove the third time to make room for our friends the soldiers."

Finally, with the British evacuation of Boston in March of 1776, Nathaniel was able to return to his home. He wrote: "We have returned to our little habitation and have some of our children with us. My son Nathaniel (3C8X) is confined at Nova Scotia. The government will not suffer him to come away."

Nathaniel had been a sea captain and one of the original incorporators of the Boston Marine Society which was founded in 1742 and still in existence today. He died in Roxbury in 1790. In his doctoral dissertation for Boston University, Mathew McKenzie wrote about our cousin Nathaniel's funeral:

In July 1790, for example, the Society voted to attend the funeral of the deceased treasurer, Nathaniel Patten.  More than just attending a gravesite service, however, the Society agreed to attend in procession, “from his late dwelling house in Roxbury, & that carriages be provided for the members at the expense of the society.”  While other members did not receive such lavish attention—Patten had been a member since 1752 and died holding the office o f treasurer—members’ deaths allowed the Society and the town to publicly mourn one who had served their community.