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1775

The Jeremiah Lee Mansion, Marblehead’s Crown Jewel

When Jeremiah Lee lost his fortune in the American Revolution, he left behind a magnificent Georgian mansion in Marblehead, Mass., that remained little changed for centuries.

Jeremiah Lee by John Singleton Copley

Jeremiah Lee was one of the great lost leaders of the American Revolution. On the night of April 18, 1775, he was meeting with fellow Marbleheader Elbridge Gerry, Sam Adams and John Hancock in Lexington, Mass. When Paul Revere warned that the red coats were coming to arrest them, they hid in a field. Lee caught pneumonia and died soon afterward.

Lee had accumulated an enormous fortune as a shipping merchant. He owned a warehouse and wharf, a fleet of trading ships and fishing vessels. He employed a great many sailors and tradesmen. In 1768 he built the 16-room trophy house in Marblehead that stands today.

Lee knew that British rule would soon ruin him and his fellow Marblehead merchants. So, he became a representative to the rebel Congress and began preparing for war. He imported cannons, powder and shot from Europe. He also established connections in Maryland and Virginia to procure supplies for war. Lee raised a regiment of mariners and fishermen, and he would have led it had he lived. Now known to us as Glover’s Regiment, it ferried Washington across the Delaware on that fateful Christmas Eve.

The Jeremiah Lee Mansion

It took two years to build the mansion, from 1766 to 1768. Lee spared no expense in appointing his showplace. He had mahogany wainscotting imported from Santa Domingo, ordered wallpaper from England and hired talented local craftsmen to carve the woodwork.

In the Great Hall, the ornately carved wooden mantle over the fireplace formed the focal point of the room. The Lees entertained dignitaries including the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington in the Great Hall.

Martha Lee by John Singleton Copley

Lee worked from home in his counting room, where he met with his ship captains and other employees. His double-door safe is still in the chimney.

The house fell out of the Lee family’s hands when the fortune dwindled away, and in 1909 the Marblehead Museum (now the Marblehead Museum and Historical Society) took ownership.

The U.S. government designated the Jeremiah Lee Mansion as a National Historic Landmark in 1960 as one of the finest Late Georgian houses in the United States. It has changed little since Jeremiah Lee lived in it (no restrooms, for example).

King Hooper Mansion

Roughly 50 yards away from Lee’s mansion is the King Hooper mansion, named for Robert “King” Hooper, son of a candle maker who had built himself a fortune in shipping. Hooper and Jeremiah Lee were brothers-in-law. Unlike Lee, however, Hooper thought his best hope for preserving his fortune lay in befriending British officials during the Revolution. It’s unclear how deeply their political differences affected their personal lives.

Hooper, too, lost his fortune in the war.

The Marblehead Arts Association owns the Hooper Mansion, which you can visit year-round from 12-5, Wednesday through Sunday.

Marblehead

You’ll want to stroll around Marblehead’s dense waterfront historic district and look for signs of its Revolutionary past. You might look up and see a plaque on a house telling you it’s Founding Father Elbridge Gerry’s birthplace.

Old Fort Sewall offers a stunning view of Marblehead’s harbor, now a public park with underground, bomb-proof quarters.

Fort Sewall

Stop by Abbot Hall, where you’ll get a good sense of Marblehead’s Revolutionary history, with exhibits, busts and paintings, including The Spirit of ’76. Abbot Hall, part museum and part municipal office, is open during the week.

Marblehead Harbor

Stop in a local bakery to pick up a Joe Frogger, rum-and-molasses cookies named for Joseph Brown. He won his freedom from slavery by fighting in the Revolution. Afterward he ran a tavern by a frog pond and served the cookies made by his wife, Lucretia.

If you’re ready for lunch and you want to mingle with the locals in a no-frills (and we mean no-frills) atmosphere, check out the Driftwood. (No dinner and no credit cards). 63 Front St. The Barnacle serves lunch and dinner at 141 Front St. If you’re in town during a winter storm, there’s no better vantage point to take it in than the Barnacle.

Five Things You’ll Remember About the Jeremiah Lee Mansion

The old Lee Mansion, sometime before 1906

The Grand Staircase

Once you enter the large entryway, you can’t help but notice the grand staircase. Local craftsmen carved the ornate balusters in different patterns.

The Lee mansion staircase.

Trompe L’Oeil

From the outside, the house looks like it was made of stone, but it isn’t. Lee had workmen pain the wooden exterior to look like marble, a feature of the so-called Georgian Gothic style of architecture.

Furnishings and Art

The Lee Mansion has a fine collection of early American furniture, though only a few pieces are original to the house. It includes pieces by cabinetmakers from Boston, Salem and Marblehead. The yellow silk damask furniture in the guest bedroom is especially stunning. The great John Singleton Copley painted two portraits that hang in the Lee Mansion – one of Jeremiah, one of his wife Martha.

Third-floor furnishings

Wallpaper

The exquisite, hand-painted wallpaper is original to the house. It’s still intact, a testament to the durability of paper.

The Garden

Since 1936, the Marblehead Garden Club has maintained the Lee Mansion Gardens. The plants and designs are inspired by history. Visitors can walk, picnic or rest on the benches.

If you visit the Lee Mansion…

Since the Lee Mansion Hasn’t changed much since Revolutionary times, it’s not accessible for people with mobility issues. The garden, however, is partially accessible.

The mansion, at 161 Washington St., is open for guided tours from June 1 to October 31 at 10 am. Tours run every hour on the hour, Wednesday through Saturday.

Website: www.marbleheadmuseum.org/properties/lee-mansion/

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Learn more about Marblehead’s Revolutionary history in this complete guide to Revolutionary War sites in New England. Brought to you by the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy in paperback, here to order an ebook.

Images: Lee Mansion exterior By Daderot at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17977334. Hooper mansion By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9928890. Fort Sewall By Zandcee – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11376896. Marblehead Harbor By massmatt – https://www.flickr.com/photos/momentsnotice/50299834536/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123587128.

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Six Fun Facts About Paul Revere’s Ride

The poem Paul Revere’s Ride took an obscure patriot of the American Revolution and elevated him to American myth.

In 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first asked his children to listen so they shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere. He meant it as legend but people took it as historical fact.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1868

The poem created legions of Paul Revere fans who solidified his fame after the Civil War. They installed an equestrian statue in Boston’s North End, where he had lived for 30 years. His great grandson then bought his house to save it from demolition. The Paul Revere Memorial Association raised the money to buy and restore it. Paul Revere’s house is now an important stop on Boston’s Freedom Trail.

But the backlash had already started in 1896, when a poet named Helen F. Moore wrote a parody of Paul Revere’s Ride called The Midnight Ride of William Dawes. It read, in part,

‘Tis all very well for the children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear —
My name was Dawes and his Revere.

1. Paul Revere’s Ride

Paul Revere’s Ride was really about fighting slavery, which Longfellow hated. He gave money to fugitive slaves, bought slaves their freedom and supported African-American churches, schools and newspapers. His close friend, U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner, was such an outspoken abolitionist that a southern colleague, Preston Brooks, beat him within an inch of his life on the Senate floor.

Longfellow published Paul Revere’s Ride in The Atlantic Monthly magazine, which appeared on newsstands the day South Carolina seceded. At the time, people viewed it as a call to arms for the North. More recently, historian Jill Lepore has argued the poem is an allegory about slavery itself. Paul Revere’s Ride is “a poem about waking the dead,” wrote Lepore in The American Scholar. “The dead are Northerners, roused to war. But the dead are also the enslaved, entombed in slavery…”

2. Paul Revere Made Lots of Rides

Paul Revere had made the same ride a week and a half earlier. He made lots of rides, in fact. On Dec. 13, 1774, Revere rode all the way to Portsmouth, N.H., to warn the patriots that the King’s troops were on their way to seize gunpowder from Fort William and Mary in New Castle. The redcoats arrived three days late, and they didn’t intend to take the powder in the first place. But a skirmish did result — between 400 New Hampshire volunteers and six British soldiers defending the fort. The redcoats surrendered. Then, 11 days before his midnight ride, Revere rode to Concord to warn that the redcoats would probably come to seize the large cache of military supplies stored there. The patriots moved the supplies.

3. Longfellow and Revere

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a family connection to Paul Revere dating to the American Revolution. His grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, commanded Revere, then a colonel, during the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. Recrimination followed the worst U.S. naval disaster until Pearl Harbor. And investigation revealed Revere had made enemies because of his arrogance. He demanded a court martial, which exonerated him.

Penobscot Expedition by John Thomas Serres

4. Some Birthday Present

Rose Kennedy made all of her children memorize the poem. John F. Kennedy campaigned for U.S. Congress in 1946 at the base of Paul Revere’s statue in the North End. His brother Edward recited the entire poem during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. When in 1975 Rose Kennedy turned 85, she asked each of her 28 grandchildren to memorize a stanza of the poem as a birthday present.

5. Mistakes Were Made

The poem got a lot of facts wrong about Paul Revere’s ride. For example, Revere – not a friend – ordered the lanterns hung in the belfry of Old North Church. He also had help, which Longfellow omits. The aforementioned William Dawes took a parallel route to the south and met in Lexington. There they encountered a third rider, Dr. Samuel Prescott, while”‘returning from a lady friend’s house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m. (Revere’s words).”

Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley

6. Obituary Omission

No one outside of the Boston area knew who Paul Revere was until Longfellow wrote Paul Revere’s Ride. Even during his lifetime, Bostonians knew Revere as a successful businessman who had lots of friends. That’s how his obituary read after he died on May 10, 1818. It didn’t even mention the ride.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Capt. John Parker on April 19, 1775: ‘Stand your ground!’

Capt. John Parker was dying of consumption when he led 70 militiamen against 700 British regulars during the Battle of Lexington.

Capt. John Parker, Detroit Publishing Co., courtesy Library of Congress

Born July 13, 1729, in Lexington, Mass., he had lived 45 years and didn’t have one more left. But his military experience made him a natural choice to command the local militia. He had fought in the French and Indian War, then settled down as a farmer, mechanic and town officer. He and his wife, Lydia Moore Parker, had seven children.

His grandson, Theodore Parker, described him as “a great, tall man, with a large head, and a high, wide brow.”

On April 18, 1775, locals had seen redcoats in the area, including mounted officers. That night, Paul Revere and other express riders swarmed the countryside, spreading the alarm.

A messenger had roused Parker from his sickbed to tell him the British regulars had left Boston and were headed toward Concord.

John Parker left his house in the wee hours of April 19 and walked two miles to the Lexington Green. There, 30 militiamen — farmers mostly — waited in the dark for the arrival of British troops. Parker sent two men to scout the British. One returned saying he’d seen nothing. At the crack of dawn the other scout came galloping up the road shouting the regulars were just a mile behind him.

Parker ordered the drummer to beat a call to arms. He lined up his 77 militiamen in two lines on the Lexington green. Then he called the roll, and told them to load their firearms with powder and ball.

The British

Lt. Col. Francis Smith, commander of the expedition to Concord, had his own scouts. From them he learned the militia might try to oppose his troops on their march to Concord. He ordered a detachment of light infantry to march ahead under the command of Maj. John Pitcairn.

As the redcoats came into view, some heard Parker say, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” Paul Revere, off to the side, heard him say, “Let the soldiers pass by. Do not molest them without they begin first.”

A British officer, probably Pitcairn, then yelled, “Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels!”

Parker ordered his men to disperse, but they didn’t all hear him, perhaps because his illness left him with a raspy voice. Some men had turned their backs when the famous shot went off. The redcoats fired at the militiamen and then charged with bayonets. Col. Francis Smith then arrived with the main body and saw British soldiers running amok. He ordered his drummer to play “Down Arms,” again and again. Finally the troops returned to their ranks.

John Parker saw his cousin, Jonas Parker, lying on the ground, bayoneted to death. Seven other Americans died, eight were wounded. Col. Smith ordered the men to march on to Concord to seize arms and ammunition. The British fired a victory volley and marched out of Lexington.

Line of the Minutemen Memorial, courtesy Library of Congress

In Concord, 500 militiamen forced the British troops to retreat–back through Lexington.

Parker’s Revenge

Parker rallied his men, once they’d gotten over their shock and bandaged their wounds. They reformed along the road the British would take on their way back to Boston. When the redcoats appeared, Parker’s men fired on them from behind rocks and trees in an attack called “Parker’s Revenge.” One musket ball hit Lt. Col. Smith in the thigh and knocked him from his horse.

Archaeologists in 2017 located and mapped Parker’s Revenge. They concluded that the British were ordered to line up near the bottom of a granite outcrop. Parker’s men fired one volley, then turned and ran over the hill, planning to intercept the redcoats again. The British troops then fired a single time and ran after the militiamen, bayonets fixed. (Watch the video here.)

Colonial forces repeated those tactics as the British retreated, inflicting heavy casualties. They killed 79 British soldiers and wounded 174, losing 49 themselves over the course of the day.

Legacy

John Parker participated in the Siege of Boston, which began as soon as the British returned. But his tuberculosis progressed to the point that he couldn’t join in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He died on Sept. 17, 1775.

His grandson, abolitionist Theodore Parker, helped keep his memory alive. Parker inherited his eloquence, inspiring some of the most well-known speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the 19th century, Parker gave two of John Parker’s muskets to the commonwealth of Massachusetts. They hung in the Senate Chamber in the Statehouse until a renovation in 2018.

The statue The Lexington Minuteman, erected in 1900, is said to be modeled on Capt. John Parker, though there are no known likenesses of him.

This story was updated in 2021.

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