Tag: revwar

“This Perilous Hour of Trial, Horror & Distress”: Loyalist Exile and Return in Revolutionary Massachusetts, with Dr. Patrick O’Brien (episode 285)

In this episode, professor Patrick O’Brien of the University of Tampa will be examining the loyalist experience of our Revolutionary War, mostly from the perspectives of women and enslaved African Americans. From our vantage point 250 years later, it’s easy to view the War for Independence as a simple story of good and bad.  The good patriots battled the bad British from Lexington to Yorktown, until we had a country to call our own.  Look a little closer, however, and the story isn’t so simple.  Many of the tens of thousands of loyalists who were eventually forced to flee the new United States had roots that went back a century and a half in this country, every bit as long as the patriots who drove them out.  And, as Dr. O’Brien points out, many of those who left everything behind to start new lives in London or Halifax didn’t really have much say in the matter, as enslaved people, indigenous groups, and women were more or less forced to adopt the political positions of the white men in their lives.  Dr. O’Brien will bring those stories to light by focusing on a few prominent Boston loyalist families.

This talk was delivered as part of Old North Illuminated’s Digital Speaker Series.  Many thanks to ONI and Dr. O’Brien for sharing it with us.


Continue reading “This Perilous Hour of Trial, Horror & Distress”: Loyalist Exile and Return in Revolutionary Massachusetts, with Dr. Patrick O’Brien (episode 285)

The Adamses Declare Independence (episode 278)

Between the John Adams miniseries on HBO and the musical 1776, everyone knows that John Adams was one of the leading voices for independence in the Continental Congress.  And along with negotiating the treaty of Paris and keeping the US out of the Quasi War, Adams always considered the Declaration one of his chief accomplishments.  50 years after Congress adopted it, John Adams remembered it on the morning of July 4, 1826, remarking “it is a great day. It is a good day.”  That evening, he died, with many sources reporting that his last words were “Jefferson still lives.”  He was wrong, though.  Earlier that day, Jefferson had woken briefly, asked “is it the fourth” and then declined further medical treatment before slipping into a coma and himself dying.  For someone who was so closely associated with America’s founding document, why did John Adams believe we should celebrate it on July 2nd?  And how did his closest and most trusted advisor, his wife Abigail, urge him on toward independence in a letter that history remembers for other reasons?  Let’s find out!


Continue reading The Adamses Declare Independence (episode 278)

Thomas Jefferson in Boston (episode 277)

Thomas Jefferson visited Boston in 1784, arriving in town on June 18th.  That also happened to be the same day when Abigail Adams left her home in Quincy to start making her way to France to join John at his diplomatic posting, though her ship didn’t actually leave Boston until the next day.  In this episode, we’ll explore how the friendship that was kindled during their single day together in Boston carried on through their shared months in France, their decades of correspondence, and even through the years when Jefferson and John Adams were feuding.  We’ll also examine Thomas Jefferson as an early New England tourist, who explored not only Boston, but also New Haven, Portsmouth, and other key regional population centers, as well as taking a fun look at his epic Boston shopping spree just days before he too boarded a boat to Europe.


Continue reading Thomas Jefferson in Boston (episode 277)

Revolution’s Edge, with Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart (episode 276)

The new play “Revolution’s Edge” will debut at Old North Church in June 2023.  It tells the story of three Bostonians and their families on the eve of the Revolution.  Mather Byles is the Loyalist rector of Old North Church, Cato is an African American man who’s enslaved by Byles, and John Pulling is a whiggish ship’s captain and member of the Old North vestry.  The three men have very different stations in life, but they all have young families with intertwined lives, and on April 18, 1775, they all had very different decisions to make about those lives.  My guests this week are Patrick Gabridge, producing artistic director of the Plays in Place theater company, and Nikki Stewart, executive director of Old North Illuminated.  Together, they’ll tell us how this, um, revolutionary new drama came to be.


Continue reading Revolution’s Edge, with Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart (episode 276)

The Schuyler Sisters in Boston (episode 274)

Thanks to the Hamilton musical, it’s almost impossible to hear the names Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy without bursting into song.  The play made the three eldest daughters of Philip Schuyler famous, and in this episode we’re talking about the first two sisters, but mostly just Angelica.  Fans know that there was a flirtation between Angelica and Hamilton, but that relationship was exaggerated for the show.  Angelica’s actual romance and marriage were downplayed for the show, but it was this union that brought Angelica Schuyler Church to Boston, where she lived for over two years under an assumed name.  What was she doing here, and who was the mysterious John Carter who escorted her here? 


Continue reading The Schuyler Sisters in Boston (episode 274)

The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)

John Adams later described the prosecution of William Corbet as a case “of an extraordinary Character, in which I was engaged and which cost me no small Portion of Anxiety.”  In 1769, four common sailors were brought into Boston to stand trial for murder.  The victim was an officer in the royal navy, and the crime had taken place just off Cape Ann, almost within sight of home.  As Boston suffered under military occupation, could a military victim receive justice in a radicalized Boston?  And what really happened on that ship near Marblehead?  Had the dead officer really just been searching for cargo that the captain hadn’t declared and paid customs on?  Or were they up to something darker, like illegally kidnapping Massachusetts sailors and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy?


Continue reading The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)

Watchmen, Redcoats, and a Fire in the Old Boston Jail (episode 267)

In the 1760s, the town gaol (jail) where prisoners were held while awaiting trial was a cold, dark, and truly terrifying edifice on Queen Street, just up the hill from the Old State House.  When a fire was discovered in the jailhouse just after 10pm on January 30, 1769, it briefly became the focal point of the long-simmering tensions between the town and the occupying British soldiers that would eventually culminate in the Boston Massacre.  Who deliberately set the fire in the jail, and why were some of the prisoners grievously injured before they could be rescued?  Who was responsible for patrolling the streets of a city under military occupation?  What was the legal role of the occupiers during a fire emergency, and how did the fire at the old Boston jail become a surprising story of cooperation between the rival factions in Boston?  Listen now for all those answers and more!


Continue reading Watchmen, Redcoats, and a Fire in the Old Boston Jail (episode 267)

A Christmas Eve Execution (episode 263)

Boston witnessed a grim Christmas in 1774, at the height of the British occupation.  There had been redcoats in Boston for six years at that point, but after the Tea Party the previous December, the number of occupying troops skyrocketed, until there was nearly one British soldier for every adult male Bostonian.  They were there to enforce the intolerable acts, and their presence only fanned the flames of rebellion in the colony.  An increased Army presence in Boston always led to an increase in desertions, and December 1774 was no exception.  On the 17th, while his unit was away on exercises, Private William Ferguson got really drunk, and then he either tried to desert and start a new life here in America, or he went to see about getting some laundry done.  Either way, he was convicted, and Boston was shocked to bear witness to an execution by firing squad in the middle of Boston Common, bright and early on Christmas Eve.  


Continue reading A Christmas Eve Execution (episode 263)

Mutiny at Prospect Hill (episode 256)

During the summer of 1775, when the siege of Boston was at its peak, about 1500 Pennsylvania Riflemen answered a call for volunteers.  By the time they reached the American lines in Cambridge, expectations for these troops were through the roof.  Thanks in no small part to a publicity campaign engineered by John Adams, the New England officers commanding the troops around Boston believed that these fresh troops were capable of nearly everything.  Their reputation was based in part upon the riflemen’s origins on the frontier, and in part on the advanced weaponry they carried.  While they’re the status quo today, rifles were new to both armies that were facing off in Boston and nearly unheard of here in New England.  However, fame went to these soldiers’ heads, and after only a couple of months on the front line, they were nearly ungovernable.  They refused to take part in the regular duties of an American soldier, they staged jailbreaks when their comrades were locked up for infractions against military discipline, and on September 10th, they staged the first mutiny in the new Continental Army.  


Continue reading Mutiny at Prospect Hill (episode 256)

Hostibus Primo Fugatis: The Washington Before Boston Medal (episode 253)

Back in 2015, I was at the Boston Public Library for a special exhibition called “We Are One,” which showcased items from their collection dating from the French and Indian War to the Constitutional Convention, showing how thirteen fractious colonies forged a single national identity.  Libraries have a lot more than just books, of course.  The BPL has everything from streaming movies and music to historic maps to medieval manuscripts to Leslie Jones’ photos to one remarkable gold medal.  Some of the items on display were breathtaking, like a map hand drawn by George Washington, Paul Revere’s hand drawn diagram showing where the bodies fell during the Boston Massacre, and a gorgeous 360 degree panorama showing the view from the top of Beacon Hill during the siege of Boston.  What stopped me in my tracks, though, was a solid gold medal.  It was about three inches in diameter, but it was hard to tell through the thick and probably bulletproof glass protecting it. 

On the side facing me, I could see a bust of George Washington and some words, but they were too small to read.  A special bracket held the medal in front of a mirror, and on the back I could make out more lettering, as well as a cannon and a group of men on horses.  Later, I learned that this was the Washington Before Boston Medal, commemorating the British evacuation of Boston.  It was the first Congressional gold medal, and the first medal of any kind commissioned by the Continental Congress during our Revolutionary War.  This illustrious medal’s journey to the stacks of the Boston Public Library will take us from Henry Knox’s cannons at Dorchester Heights to John Adams at the Second Continental congress in Philly to Ben Franklin in Paris to a Confederate’s dank basement in West Virginia during the Civil War.  


Continue reading Hostibus Primo Fugatis: The Washington Before Boston Medal (episode 253)