In this episode, we’ll revisit two murder trials that were held in revolutionary Boston. The first case was against four ordinary sailors accused of murdering an officer of the Royal Navy on a ship in Massachusetts coastal waters, and the other was against nine British prisoners of war who were accused of murdering a guard aboard a prison ship in Boston Harbor. The sailors were accused in 1769, when Boston was under military occupation and the tensions that would result in the Boston Massacre were coming to a head. The redcoats stood trial over a decade later, in the midst of a bloody war that had touched the lives of all Bostonians by 1780. In both cases, attorneys and judges worried whether a jury could deliver justice in a polarized city. Both cases were argued by signers of the Declaration of Independence, with John Adams defending the American sailors in 1780 and Robert Treat Paine prosecuting the redcoats in 1780. In both cases, the defendants argued that they had acted in self defense, and amazingly, both cases ended in acquittal.
Tag: Seafaring
The Ship Boston from Boston and the Sailor from the Other Boston (episode 323)
222 years ago, on March 22, 1803, a teenaged sailor named John R Jewitt from Boston, Lincolnshire was onboard the ship Boston from Boston, Massachusetts when it was captured in Nootka Sound on the west coast of today’s Vancouver Island in Canada by a powerful king of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people. For almost three years, Jewitt and one other survivor from the Boston were enslaved by the king Maquinna, during which time Jewitt kept a journal that has become an important ethnographic study of indigenous life on the northwest coast of North America. Besides life among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth, this incident helps reveal the importance of Boston’s maritime economy in the years between independence and the war of 1812. It also joins our episodes on the ship Columbia and the Park Street missionaries to Hawaii in illustrating how Boston merchants and whalers had an outsized influence on the culture of the west coast, even before America laid claim to the region. How did John Jewitt ingratiate himself to his captors well enough to survive his ordeal, and how did he manage to concoct an escape long after it seemed that all hope was lost? Listen now!
Continue reading The Ship Boston from Boston and the Sailor from the Other Boston (episode 323)
Hail Britannia! (episode 305)
This episode explores the impact of the Cunard Line of steamers and its flagship Britannia on Boston in the mid-19th century. Before the Britannia, transatlantic travel relied on fickle winds, making each crossing perilous and unpredictable. The introduction of steamships revolutionized transatlantic travel by offering faster and more reliable journeys. Boston became a central hub for this new era of maritime transportation, benefiting from its proximity to Europe and the construction of railroads and modern wharf facilities. However, the challenges of winter ice necessitated innovative solutions, such as cutting a seven-mile canal for the Britannia to depart. Cunard’s regular service between Liverpool and Boston not only boosted the local mercantile economy but also transformed Boston into a center for European news dissemination. However, as the 19th century progressed, technological advancements and shifting economic factors led to a decline in Boston’s dominance in transatlantic shipping, with New York eventually overtaking it as the primary port for Cunard and other steamship lines.
Around the World With a Less Famous Revere (episode 301)
Joseph Warren Revere was a Boston boy, but a military career kept him from spending much of his adult life here. He was the grandson of the famous Paul Revere and named after the secular saint Joseph Warren. As a young Navy officer on the USS Constitution, he fought slavers and pirates, discovered buried treasure, met a czar, and almost killed a king. Falling in love with California while serving in the Mexican-American War, he made a small fortune during the Gold Rush, while getting mired in scandal. By the time he served as a union general in the US Civil War, Revere had fought under the flag of three nations. He had seen war on four continents, discovered a fifth, and traveled to all of them. He had dined sumptuously with monarchs and nobles, and broken bread with native peoples around the world. He was a skilled artist and map maker, and an aggressive combat leader. None of those accomplishments, however, could save his career from an ignominious end amongst charges of cowardice after the battle of Chancellorsville.
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JFK and PT-109, 80 years later
80 years ago this month, on a tiny Pacific island, a legend was born. In the darkness before dawn on August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed and sank a small, plywood boat commanded by a 26 year old Lieutenant Junior Grade named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In the hours and days that followed, young Jack Kennedy would prove to be a true American hero, swimming mile after mile through shark and crocodile infested waters, while towing an injured crew member by a strap clenched in his teeth. In the ensuing decades, PT-109 has become one of the most famous small craft in US Navy history, largely due to Kennedy’s actions. However, it also became a craven political ploy, when JFK and his father Joseph Kennedy used the story of PT-109 to launch a political career that would carry Jack Kennedy to the Oval Office.
Bostonians on the Pacific (episode 280)
This week, enjoy three classic stories about Bostonians and their adventures on the Pacific Ocean. First, we’ll hear about the voyages of the Columbia to the Pacific Northwest starting in 1787, then we’ll move on to the Congregational missionaries who descended on Hawaii in 1823, and finally, we’ll talk about the Boston whaler who brought the industrial revolution to Spanish California. While you’re listening to these three classic stories, see if you can figure out what I’m working on that would involve a Brookline native on a small boat in the Solomon Islands in August 1943!
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.
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?
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The Nazi Spy Ship (episode 259)
When it came steaming into Boston Harbor 81 years ago this week, the fishing trawler Buskø was escorted by a Coast Guard cutter, with armed guards watching over her crew. The next day’s headlines declared that the US had captured a Nazi spy ship manned by Gestapo agents who were setting up secret bases in Greenland, but the truth turned out to be more complicated. The Busko was sailing under the Norwegian flag and manned by a Norwegian crew, yet their peaceful voyage to deliver supplies to isolated Norwegian hunters in the arctic was used to cover up Nazi intelligence gathering, so what would the fate of the ship be? And while war was raging in Europe, the United States was technically at peace, so on what charges were the Norwegian crew held at the East Boston immigration station?
Old North and the Sea (episode 255)
Independent researcher TJ Todd recently gave a presentation about Old North Church and the sea. TJ’s talk focuses on two notable sea captains, both of whom longtime listeners will remember from past episodes. Captain Samuel Nicholson was the first, somewhat hapless, captain of the USS Constitution, and Captain Thomas Gruchy was the privateer who captured the carved cherubs that keep watch over the Old North sanctuary from the French. Exploring the lives of these two famous captains will reveal what life was like for the ordinary sailors and dockworkers who made up a significant portion of Boston’s population in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as drawing connections to other incidents from Boston’s maritime past, including many that we’ve discussed in past episodes.
Thanks to our friends at the Old North Foundation for allowing us to share this presentation with you.