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Tea, Tories and the Almost-Battle of Marshfield
Join historian Patrick Browne as he explores the tension and resistance to British rule in Duxbury and on the South Shore of Massachusetts during the Revolutionary period. This talk will be held in person and broadcast online. Dr Browne will highlight the unique loyalty of Duxbury’s neighbor Marshfield to the Crown.
He will discuss Marshfield’s request for British troops and the dynamics of local patriot and loyalist factions. The narrative culminates in the near-confrontation between local militia and British forces stationed in Marshfield after the outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord. The almost-Battle of Marshfield reflected the broader revolutionary fervor and the precarious balance of loyalties in the region. Join in person in or online via Zoom. Register here to attend online.
It could have happened in Marshfield
Browne is a local historian and executive director of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society.
About Marshfield
On Jan. 23, 1775, Redcoats arrived in the town of Marshfield. Explains Browne in his blog, Historical Digressions,
Nothing like this had ever been seen on the South Shore of Massachusetts. That day, 250 years ago, Marshfield became the only town outside of Boston to be occupied by a detachment of the King’s troops. More peculiar still, the inhabitants of the town (or a large portion of them at any rate) had actually requested the presence of the Redcoats.
We don’t know how the inhabitants reacted that day. We do know they were deeply divided, roughly half of them Loyalists (far more than in other surrounding towns) and the other half identifying with what had come to be known as the Whig or Patriot cause.
Browne will explain why the South Shore town could have been the site of the second battle of the American Revolution at the Duxbury Free Library on the evening of March 25.
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