Daughters of the Revolution. Charles Carleton Coffin
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no account of the event.
To explain the motives and the play of forces which brought about the Revolution, I have endeavored to set forth society as it was not only in Boston but in Parliament and at the Court of George III. Most historians of the Revolutionary period regard the debt incurred by Great Britain in the conquest of Canada as the chief cause of the war, through the attempt of the mother country, subsequently, to obtain revenue from the Colonies; but a study of the times gives conclusive evidence that a large portion of the indebtedness was caused by mismanagement and the venality and corruption of Parliament.
To set forth the extravagance and frivolity of society surrounding King George, I have employed Lord Upperton and his companion, Mr. Dapper, as narrators. The student of history by turning to Jessee’s “Life and Times of George III.,” Molloy’s “Court Life Below Stairs,” Waldegrave’s “Memoirs,” Horace Walpole’s writings, and many other volumes, will find ample corroboration of any statement made in this volume.
The period was characterized by sublime enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and devotion, not only by the patriots but by loyalists who conscientiously adhered to the crown. In our admiration of those who secured the independence of the Colonies, we have overlooked the sacrifices and sufferings of the loyalists; — their distress during the siege of Boston, the agony of the hour when suddenly confronted with the appalling fact that they must become aliens, exiles, and wanderers, leaving behind all their possessions and estates, — an hour when there was a sundering of tender ties, the breaking of hearts.
I have endeavored to make the recital of events strictly conformable with historic facts by consulting newspapers, documents, almanacs, diaries, genealogical records, and family histories.
It was my great privilege in boyhood to hear the story of the battle of Bunker Hill told by three men who participated in the fight. — Eliakim Walker, who was in the redoubt under Prescott, Nathaniel Atkinson and David Flanders, who were under Stark, by the rail fence. They were near neighbors, pensioners of the government, and found pleasure in rehearsing the events of the Revolutionary War. My grandfather, Eliphalet Kilburn, was at Winter Hill at the time of the battle.
It was also my privilege to walk over Bunker Hill with Richard Frothingham, author of the “Siege of Boston,” whose home was on the spot where Pigot’s brigade was cut down by the withering fire from the redoubt. Mr. Frothingham had conversed with many old pensioners who were in the redoubt at the time of the battle. In my account of the engagement I have endeavored to picture it in accordance with the various narratives.
I hardly need say that Ruth Newville, Berinthia Brandon, and Mary Shrimpton are typical characters, representing the young women of the period, — a period in which families were divided, parents adhering to King George, sons and daughters giving their allegiance to Liberty.
I am under obligations to the proprietors of the “Memorial History of Boston” for the portrait of Mrs. Joseph Warren. The portrait of Dorothy Quincy is from that in possession of the Bostonian Society; that of Mrs. John Adams from her “Life and Letters.”
The historic houses are from recent photographs.
I trust the reader will not regard this volume wholly as a romance, but rather as a presentation of the events, scenes, incidents, and spirit of the people at the beginning of the Revolution.
Charles Carleton Coffin.
I
ROBERT WALDEN GOES TO MARKET
Joshua Walden, of Rumford, Province of New Hampshire, was receiving letters from Samuel Adams and Doctor Joseph Warren in relation to the course pursued by King George III. and his ministers in collecting revenue from the Colonies. Mr. Walden had fought the French and Indians at Ticonderoga and Crown Point in the war with France. The gun and powder-horn which he carried under Captain John Stark were hanging over the door in his kitchen. His farm was on the banks of the Merrimac. The stately forest trees had fallen beneath the sturdy blows of his axe, and the sun was shining on intervale and upland, meadow and pasture which he had cleared. His neighbors said he was getting forehanded. Several times during the year he made a journey to Boston with his cheeses, beef, pigs, turkeys, geese, chickens, a barrel of apple-sauce, bags filled with wool, together with webs of linsey-woolsey spun and woven by his wife and daughter. He never failed to have a talk with Mr. Adams and Doctor Warren, John Hancock, and others foremost in resisting the aggressions of the mother country upon the rights and liberties of the Colonies. When at home he was up early in the morning, building the fire, feeding the cattle, and milking the cows. Mrs. Walden, the while, was stirring the corn meal for a johnny-cake, putting the potatoes in the ashes, placing the Dutch oven on the coals, hanging the pots and kettles on the hooks and trammels.
Robert, their only son, twenty years old, would be glad to take another nap after being called by his father, but felt it would not be manly for one who had mowed all the hired men out of their swaths in the hayfield, and who had put the best wrestler in Rumford on his back, to lie in bed and let his father do all the chores, with the cows lowing to get to the pasture. With a spring he was on his feet and slipping on his clothes. He was soon on his way to the barn, drumming on the tin pail and whistling as he walked to the milking.
The cows turned into pasture, he rubbed down the mare Jenny and the colt Paul, fed the pigs, washed his face and hands, and was ready for breakfast.
It would not have been like Rachel Walden, the only daughter, eighteen years old, to lie in bed and let her mother do all the work about the house. She came from her chamber with tripping steps, as if it were a pleasure to be wide awake after a good sleep. She fed the chickens, set the table, raked the potatoes from the ashes, drew a mug of cider for her father. When breakfast was ready, they stood by their chairs while Mr. Walden asked a blessing. The meal finished, he read a chapter in the Bible and offered prayer. When the “Amen” was said, Mr. Walden and Robert put on their hats and went about their work. Mrs. Walden passed upstairs to throw the shuttle of the loom. Rachel washed the dishes, wheyed the curd, and prepared it for the press, turned the cheeses and rubbed them with fat. That done, she set the kitchen to rights, made the beds, sprinkled clean sand upon the floor, wet the web of linen bleaching on the grass in the orchard, then slipped upstairs and set the spinning-wheel to humming. His neighbors said that Mr. Walden was thrifty and could afford to wear a broadcloth blue coat with bright brass buttons on grand occasions, and that Mrs. Walden was warranted in having a satin gown.
Haying was over. The rye was reaped, the wheat and oats were harvested, and the flax was pulled. September had come, — the time when Mr. Walden usually went to Boston with the cheese.
“Father,” said Rachel at dinner, “I wish you would take the cheeses to market. It is hard work to turn so many every day.”
Mr. Walden sat in silence awhile. “Robert,” he said at length, “how would you like to try your hand at truck and dicker?”
“If you think I can do it I will try,” Robert replied, surprised at the question, yet gratified.
“Of course you can do it. You can figure up how much a cheese that tips the steelyard at twenty pounds and three ounces will come to at three pence ha’penny per pound. You know, or you ought to know, the difference between a pistareen and a smooth-faced shilling. When you truck and dicker, you’ve got to remember that the other feller is doing it all the time, while you will be as green as a pumpkin in August. When you are tasting ’lasses, you must run a stick into the bung-hole of the barrel clear down to the bottom and then lift it up and see if it is thick or thin. T’other feller will want you to taste it at the spiggot, where it will be almost sugar. When you are selecting dried codfish, look sharp and not let him give you all damp ones from the bottom of the pile, neither the little scrimped ones from the top. Of course you will get cheated, but you have got to begin knocking about some time. You’re old enough to have your eye teeth cut. You can put Jenny up at the Green Dragon and visit Cousin Jedidiah Brandon on Copp’s Hill, see the ships he is building, visit with Tom and Berinthia. Tom, I guess, is going