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The Portsmouth Fires That Turned the City to Brick

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Three Portsmouth fires, all at Christmas, destroyed 500 buildings within a decade in the early 19th century. Miraculously, no one died in the blazes.

Portsmouth, N.H., was then a gracious seacoast town, home to wealthy merchants and the first federal shipyard. It had served as the colony’s seat of government before the Revolution, and remained so until 1808.

The fires would spare the wooden mansions of the wealthy, separated by wide lawns. But the poor and middle class who lived in crowded quarters would find themselves out on the street, again and again.

1st Portsmouth Fire

The first of the Portsmouth fires started early in the morning of Dec. 26, 1802. It began in an old wooden building downtown, swept through the city and destroyed 100 homes.

Firefighting then amounted to ‘engines’ – water pumps on wheels – which fed the bucket brigades. Homeowners hung leather fire buckets (now highly collectible) near their doors for use in the bucket brigades. ‘Rescue’ involved fire societies, who salvaged items from burning homes. Members carried bags to rescue household valuables and bed keys to quickly dismantle beds and remove them.

Women and men fought the fire in bucket brigades until they dropped, relieved by volunteers from neighboring towns. When it was all over, only the North Church and the Old State House still stood. “The whole beauty of the town is gone! is gone!!!” wailed The New Hampshire Gazette.

statehouse

Artists’ conception of the old New Hampshire Statehouse in Portsmouth (after the fire of 1813).

Most of the building owners had no insurance, and they had to rely on private charity to recover. Donations came in from near and far, amounting to f $45,410.43.

Congress stepped in – for the first disaster relief ever. In January 1803, Congress passed a law to temporarily suspend “the collection of bonds due by merchants of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, who have suffered by the late conflagration of that town.”

Historic North Church in downtown Portsmouth.

New Hampshire businessmen also responded by incorporating the N.H. Fire and Marine Insurance Co.

2nd of the Portsmouth Fires

Four years later, the second of the Portsmouth fires broke out on Bow Street, raced up Market Street and gobbled up a row of wooden commercial buildings along the Piscataqua River.

The blaze wiped out Market Square, which had barely recovered from the previous fire, as well as St. John’s Episcopal Church, built in 1732. The damage was estimated at $130,000, about $2.7 million in today’s dollars.

portsmouth

Portsmouth’s Market Square in 1853.

The disastrous fire preceded two more blows to the city: the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812. Both events sent Portsmouth, heavily dependent on shipping and trade, on a long downward slide. The industrial revolution bypassed Portsmouth, spurring growth in nearby mill towns like Dover and Rochester.

john-langdon-house

Gov. John Langdon’s house in Portsmouth, N.H., spared by the fires.

Last of the Portsmouth Fires

Then almost exactly seven years after the second fire, on Dec. 22, 1813, the worst of the Portsmouth fires caused more devastation.  The blaze started in Mrs. Woodward’s barn at the corner of Court and Church streets, allegedly set on purpose by an angry servant.

The fire then marched down to the river, burning everything in its path.  The conflagration wiped out 300 buildings, reducing 15 acres to smoking rubble and, as one resident put it, ‘a forest of naked chimneys.’

The huge fire could be seen as far away as Salem, Mass. Volunteers from that town traveled 48 miles in six hours to help put out the blaze. Help also came from Newburyport, Mass., and the New Hampshire towns of Dover, Exeter and Durham.

Market Square, well after the Portsmouth fires

The fire sent the N.H. Fire and Marine Insurance Co. into bankruptcy. It destroyed many businesses that had relocated after the first fire of 1802.

After the Fires

Portsmouth had been growing at a good clip before the fires. Its population increased 13.1 percent from 1790 to 1800, and then at a spectacular 29.9 percent from 1800 to 1810. After the fire of 1813, the city’s growth slowed to only 5.7 percent from 1810-1820. to 7,327. Some people, including a young lawyer named Daniel Webster, packed up and left.

In 1814, the New Hampshire General Court passed the Brick Act, requiring every building over 12 feet high to be built of brick with a slate roof. Portsmouth rebuilt its downtown in brick, and tried to enjoy the holidays.

Jefferson Street in Portsmouth’s Strawbery Banke Museum.

You can still get a feel for what Portsmouth was like before it went brick at the Strawbery Banke collection of house museums, right in the middle of the city.


With thanks to Dennis Robinson, The Three Fires of Christmas, SeacoastNH.com, 2005. Images: North Church By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34161214. Gov. John Langdon House By Daderot – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5643711. Jefferson Street By Ken Gallager (Ken Gallager from en.wikipedia) – Author, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15734947. This story about the Portsmouth Fires was updated in 2022.

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A Vermont Moose Visits Paris in 1787

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In 1784, a Vermont moose went to Paris to settle an argument between a French natural historian and Thomas Jefferson.

The historian, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count Buffon, attacked the character of the new American nation. He believed in the theory of degeneration, and he boosted it in Histoire Naturelle, a 44-volume exploration of the natural world.

Scientific Racism

Degeneration held that all natural elements began in one location (presumably Europe), where they existed in their purest form. As people, plants and animals spread out to other parts of the world, they degenerated into inferior versions of their species.

The theory, of course, provides one of many examples of scientific racism throughout history.

It held that Europeans were superior to their counterparts in other parts of the world. As humans moved farther from their European roots, living conditions and traditions, they degenerated. The same held true for animals.

moose

Inset: Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale in 1800.

Leclerc’s theory played well with the European aristocracy since it described Americans, with democratic ideals, as inferior beings. And he didn’t stop there. He castigated American Indians as physically weak people with small genitals and a limited drive to procreate.

Jefferson Pushes Back

Thomas Jefferson, American minister to France and himself an avid student of natural history, confronted LeClerc over his theories.

Indians, Jefferson noted, were as fertile as any people when afforded healthy surroundings.

LeClerc also held the lack of facial hair on many Indians was a sign of inferiority. Jefferson retorted that it was actually a product of Indian grooming traditions, which held that hair was unmanly. They plucked it. LeClerc agreed to correct his research in future editions.

Next Jefferson tried to challenge LeClerc on his assertions that European deer were much larger than their American counterparts. He told LeClerc of deer and elk with large antlers, to say nothing of the moose. Jefferson claimed the American moose were so tall a a European reindeer could walk underneath one without touching the moose’s stomach.

To prove his point, Jefferson shipped from his home an enormous set of deer antlers. And LeClerc said he would stand corrected if Jefferson could prove his point about the moose.

The Vermont Moose

To defend the moose’s honor, Jefferson badgered New Hampshire Gov. John Sullivan, as he knew moose abounded in Northern New England. He asked Sullivan to procure the bones and hide of a moose and ship them to France.

In 1786, Jefferson continued pressing Sullivan on the matter. In a letter he wrote:

“The readiness with which you undertook to endeavor to get for me the skin, the skeleton, and the horns of the Moose, the Caribou, . . . and the Elk, emboldens me to renew my application to you for those objects, which would be an acquisition here, more precious than you can imagine.

“Whatever expense you incur in procuring or sending these things, I will immediately repay either here or in Boston as you please.”

After years of Jefferson’s pestering, Sullivan finally rounded up a team of hunters who went moose chasing. They got their specimen, most likely in the town of Brookfield, Vt. The dead moose then began a long journey to France, via Durham and Portsmouth, N.H., where it was packed, along with an assortment of other animal specimens, and shipped to France.

An Expensive Trip

Sullivan didn’t show his dismay with the request, but he did note the trouble to get the moose. When submitting his bill to Jefferson, he said, “from motives of friendship for you I only Charge for the expenses I have paid in Cash without any thing for my own Trouble which has been very considerable.”

All in all, shipping the moose cost over 46 pounds. The bill included:

  • Paid to Capt. Robert Colburn for the Skeleton of a moose and Transporting to Durham.
  • moose horns and expence of procuring them.
  • a pair of Elks horns & expence of procuring.
  • a pair of Deers horns & expence of procuring.
  • pair of Caribous Horns & expense of procuring.
  • expense of cleansing the Skeleton from flesh and salting and tending the same to prevent putrefaction.
  • Expense of Dressing the Skins to preserve it with the hair on, free from worms & with expense of Alum brick Dust & Tobacco.
  • a Tanner for fleshing the Skins.
  • Expense of a Box and putting up the skeleton.
  • expense of sending the Box to Portsmouth.
  • horns of the Spike horned Buck.
  • Expense of 3 times sending to Effingham Connecticut River and the province of Main, to procure the skeleton
  • Truckage and Storage paid at Durham and Portsmouth

Though the moose skin and skeleton arrived somewhat worse for wear, they did persuade LeClerc he was incorrect in his assessment of the size of American moose. He promised to correct the error in a future edition of his work. He died, however, before he could publish.


Thanks to Jefferson, Buffon and the Moose by Keith Stewart Thomson in American Scientist; Antlers for Jefferson, New England Quarterly. This story about the Vermont moose that went to Paris was updated in 2022. 

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Wentworth Cheswell, the Black Man Who Rode With Revere

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In the middle of December 1774, messengers on horseback carried news to the people of New Hampshire’s seacoast. Two British warships were headed to New Castle to reinforce Fort William and Mary. The messengers, or dispatch riders, helped organize the resistance. One messenger was Paul Revere. And one was Wentworth Cheswell.

Revere made quite a few rides before war broke out, and so did dozens of dispatch riders before and during the American Revolution. As part of the secret patriot network, the riders shared intelligence about the enemy and communications between the colonial provisional governments.

Wentworth Cheswell took a number of rides like Revere. He volunteered to serve in the military and fought at Saratoga.  He is also considered New Hampshire’s first archaeologist — and the first African-American elected to public office in the United States.

Wentworth Cheswell

He was born on April 11, 1746, to a biracial father, Hopestill Cheswell (sometimes spelled Cheswill), and Katherine Keniston,  who was white. Hopestill was the son of a white woman and an enslaved black man, Richard Cheswell. Under the laws of the day, Hopestill’s status followed his mother, making him free.

Eventually Hopestill’s father bought his freedom. and in 1717 purchased 20 acres of land in Newmarket, N.H. Richard’s land purchase is considered the first by an African-American in New Hampshire.

John Paul Jones House

John Paul Jones House

Hopestill, a housewright and carpenter, built the John Paul Jones House in Portsmouth, N.H., as well as the Samuel Langdon House (now in Sturbridge Village). He also built the Bell Tavern (since burned in the Portsmouth fire of 1867).

Hopestill earned enough money to send Wentworth to Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Mass. Wentworth took advantage of his unusual educational privilege and worked as a schoolmaster in Newmarket. By the time he reached 21 he owned more than 30 acres and a pew in the meetinghouse.

At 21 he married 17-year-old Mary Davis of Durham, N.H. They then had 13 children. Their descendants identified as white, and the census listed Cheswell as white. Records of comments by his contemporaries suggest they viewed him as biracial.

Public Office

In 1768, 22-year-old Wentworth Cheswell won election as town constable. George Mason University determined that made him the first African-American elected to public office. Cheswell beat out Vermont’s Alexander Twilight for the honor. For all but one year of his life, Cheswell held public office including town selectman, assessor, scrivener, justice of the peace and auditor.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Grant Wood

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Grant Wood

His civic involvement included founding the Newmarket Social Library with several other men and bequeathing his books to it.

He also won election as town messenger for the Committee of Safety, which meant he had to carry news to and from the patriot Committee of Correspondence in Exeter.

Riding With Revere

For several years, New England colonists had risen up in sporadic violence to protest Parliament’s taxation and restrictions. Boston had its Tea Party, Providence its Gaspee Affair and New Hampshire its Pine Tree Riot — to name a few. In the fall of 1774, the British government grew concerned about the rebellion then developing. And so it secretly banned the export of munitions to the American colonies. Redcoats also seized gunpowder in Charlestown, Mass., in September.

Boston’s patriot leadership knew that only a few soldiers guarded Fort William and Mary. They believed British troops and ships would sail to New Hampshire to secure the fort. And they thought the gunpowder and weapons at the fort would serve a more useful purpose in patriot hands.

On Dec. 13, 1774, Paul Revere rode the 66 miles to Portsmouth with a letter from Boston’s Committee of Correspondence to its counterparts in Portsmouth and Exeter. The letter advised them to seize the weapons and gunpowder at the fort before the British warships arrived.

Portsmouth mustered volunteers for an assault the next day on the British soldiers who guarded the fort. The men of Newmarket, a strongly patriotic town, wanted to take part in the attack as well. But where and how?

Wentworth Cheswell then rode to Exeter to find out from the Committee of Correspondence where the Newmarket volunteers should go. The next day, 400 New Hampshire men marched on the fort and forced it to surrender. They took 100 barrels of gunpowder, light cannon and small arms.

The ships never arrived, but the patriots used the gunpowder and weapons in the Siege of Boston.

Wentworth Cheswell, Town Father

Some people claim Cheswell rode north from Boston on April 18, 1775, alerting the countryside to the British attack even as Revere did the same riding west.  Local historian Rich Alperin, however, said there’s no evidence Cheswell ever made that ride.

Cheswell did enlist in Col. John Langdon’s Company of Light Horse Volunteers and fought at the Battle of Saratoga. When he finished his military service he returned to Newmarket, where he ran a store next to his schoolhouse. As a prosperous, well-educated citizen, he continued his leadership of the town.

When he realized that Newmarket’s town records might disappear, he copied them all by hand in a journal. The Newmarket Historical Society now holds them.

The Massachusetts Historical Society holds another document written by Cheswell — a letter sent to the Rev.  Jeremy Belknap. The letter contains descriptions of artifacts left by indigenous people that Cheswell recovered around Newmarket. Belknap included the information in his history of New Hampshire, and Cheswell earned the distinction as New Hampshire’s first archaeologist.

Wentworth Cheswell died at age 70 of typhus on March 8, 1817. He and his descendants were buried on his farm.

Missouri Compromise

Three years later, Wentworth Cheswell’s name surfaced on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sen. David Morril of New Hampshire rose to speak against the Missouri Compromise, which forbade biracial people from obtaining citizenship in Missouri.

“In New Hampshire there was a man by the name of Cheswell, who, with his family, were respectable in point of abilities, property and character,” Morril said. “He held some of the first offices in the town in which he resided, was appointed justice of the peace for the county, and was perfectly competent to perform with ability all the duties of his various offices in the most prompt, accurate and acceptable manner. But this family are forbidden to enter and live in Missouri.”

This story about Wentworth Cheswell was updated in 2022.

Image: Historic marker By Slulek – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68100118. To read more about Paul Revere’s ride to New Hampshire, click here. 

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Professor Marvin Hewitt Takes a Twisting Journey from Dropout to Imposter to Rocket Scientist

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In 1954, University of New Hampshire president Robert Chandler had a problem faculty member, Professor Kenneth Yates. He was “undoubtedly a brilliant physicist,” Chandler would recall. He had taught at various schools and colleges for nearly 10 years, making him polished, capable and comfortable in the classroom. His students liked him because he clearly communicated complicated mathematical concepts. To his colleagues in Durham, he seemed like another academic with a wife and young children. The problem?  He had another name, Marvin Hewitt.

Marvin Hewitt, Busted

Marvin Hewitt

Marvin Hewitt

But a struggling undergraduate student of Yates’ decided to look up his professor’s credentials in the reference book, American Men of Science. He found that Yates did indeed have a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. But more importantly, the book listed Yates as currently employed at an oil company in Chicago.

The professor who claimed he was Yates would later say he thought the young student was investigating him. Nevertheless, he gave the young man a failing grade – which he deserved. In retaliation, the student notified the faculty that he suspected Professor Kenneth Yates was a phony.

Summoned by the university administration to explain himself, Yates confessed. He was not Kenneth Yates at all. Nor did he have a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, nor anywhere else for that matter. He was Marvin Hewitt, a high school dropout from Philadelphia.

Nonetheless, Marvin Hewitt was a brilliant physicist. He told a remarkable story of a decade of deceit and no fewer than eight teaching posts in physics and electrical engineering.

A Nerdy Child

Marvin Hewitt had been a bookish child, bored at school and viewed as a poor student. His police officer father urged him to take an interest in sports. But instead he buried himself in advanced mathematics, an undiscovered, self-taught child prodigy.

Once when called upon to speak at school, he delivered a lecture on the theory of relativity that astounded the teachers and students. Marvin Hewitt suspected, perhaps rightly, that they didn’t understand a thing he said.

After a stint in the Signal Corps during World War II, Hewitt took up a series of factory jobs. Bored to tears, he answered an advertisement seeking a math teacher at a military school. The school quickly hired him to teach eighth graders.

Marvin Hewitt didn’t find the teaching academically challenging, but an idea started to grow in his mind. He clearly had a gift for teaching. Why not do it at a higher level?

Professorships

Using forged letters of recommendation, Marvin Hewitt fashioned himself a new career as Julius Ashkin, physics professor. He found work at Minnesota, St. Louis and Utah. Each step gave Hewitt a raise in pay and prestige.

The real Ashkin was at the University of Rochester, and Marvin Hewitt cringed every time Ashkin published a scientific paper.

The real Julius Ashkin.

But he tap-danced his way around the questions. Once, while walking down the street with his future father-in-law, he nearly fainted when a student approached him and called out his name: “Hello Dr. Ashkin.”

But his act fooled everybody — almost. When asked about him, a professor at Columbia University once explained there were two Dr. Ashkins, the physicist from Rochester and another ‘some place in the west.’

Of course, there was only one. And the real Dr. Ashkin wrote to his doppelganger in Utah with a remarkably generous offer. He said he would find a place for Hewitt in an actual physics program where he could quickly earn an actual Ph.D. and relieve himself of the stress of being an imposter. Hewitt declined and the university quietly dismissed him.

Back to Philly

Marvin Hewitt returned to Philadelphia, bringing his wife to live with his mother. By now Hewitt’s father had died, gunned down by a car thief. Hewitt tried to get an honest job in industry, but he was thwarted by his lack of a security clearance and formal education.

Finally he decided to adopt a new identity. This time he was George Hewitt, director of technology at RCA, and he applied to the University of Arkansas explaining that he missed teaching. Even though the salary of a professor was not equal to industry, he longed to return to the classroom, he said.

university-arkansas

Agriculture Building at the University of Arkansas

At Arkansas, Marvin Hewitt taught electrical engineering. As a professor prolific with his research, he published in numerous journals. He planned to make a name for himself over three years and seek a tenured position.

His plans unraveled when a recruiter from RCA came to the campus. Did he know, a senior faculty member asked, that RCA’s former technology director was currently teaching there?

Quietly drummed out of Arkansas, Marvin Hewitt returned to Philadelphia, now father to twins. He knew the lies he would have to tell to obtain a security clearance would get him thrown in jail. So once again he found another name to adopt: Kenneth Yates. Off to the University of New Hampshire he went for one more year of teaching.

Marvin Hewitt Makes National News

When exposed at New Hampshire, the university let him slip quietly away – as the others had. But a month later newspapers got hold of the story and he made nationwide news.

thompson-hall

Thompson Hall at UNH

In the aftermath of his exposure, Hewitt was treated kindly. The city of Philadelphia offered him work. As the son of a slain police officer, the city felt it could do no less.

Government agencies gearing up for a space race reached out to him. Ultimately, though, Marvin Hewitt, at age 34, wound up designing satellites for a Maryland technology company and publishing papers on his discoveries.

“If they’d only let me be a professor, I’d never want anything else,” he told Life magazine. “You know, I lied only to get those jobs. I was a good teacher. I’ve never hurt anyone.”

But he did, he admit, feel good about his final exposure:

“It was a relief. I felt glad about it. Once the thing broke in the newspapers I knew that it was finished for keeps . . . or don’t you think so?”

This story about Marvin Hewitt was updated in 2022.

Images: Thompson Hall by By AcrossTheAtlantic – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63031225.

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Peyton Place – A Town, Its Scandals and the Woman Who Told the World

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The dirty novel Peyton Place landed like a bombshell in 1956, a surprise hit by an unknown author. The critics panned it, the public loved it, the town it pictured resented it – and for the next 13 years it was a staple of American entertainment.

Grace Metalious

Grace Metalious

Peyton Place became shorthand for secret scandals, mostly involving sex. Its author, Grace Metalious, was a New Hampshire schoolteacher’s wife whose own scandals were anything but secret. She was a mother of three and, by all accounts, a lousy housewife who drank, swore, wore baggy jeans and cheated on her husband.

She based some of Peyton Place on the town she lived in with her family, Gilmanton, N.H.

“To a tourist these towns look as peaceful as a postcard picture,” Metalious once said.  “But if you go beneath that picture, it’s like turning over a rock with your foot — all kinds of strange things crawl out.”

The people of Gilmanton felt victimized by Peyton Place, but it was Grace Metalious who was the book’s real victim.

Grace Metalious

Metalious was born Grace de Repentigny on Sept. 8, 1924, to poor Franco-American parents in Manchester, N.H. Her father, a merchant seaman, left the family when she was 10.

She graduated from Central High School, married George Metalious at 19, and gave birth to three children. Since her childhood she dreamed of being a writer. She began writing Peyton Place at 30, while George taught school in Gilmanton.

new-england-films-peyton-place

Scene from Peyton Place, the film

The fictional town of Peyton Place has shady streets, white church steeples, traditional New England houses and brick mills along the Connecticut River. But beneath the bucolic surface lurk ugly secrets.

In the book, Rodney Harrington, a rich kid, dies in a car crash while ogling a topless women driving with him, and Constance MacKenzie lives in fear that the illegitimacy of her daughter will be discovered.  Metalious based the character of Selena Cross on a woman from Alton, N.H., who killed her father after he raped her. The story was uncovered by crusading reporters including a young Ben Bradlee.

She insisted Peyton Place was based on several places in New Hampshire – including Durham, where her husband attended the University of New Hampshire; Gilmanton, where he taught school; and Laconia, where her favorite bar was located.

Peyton Place, The Book

The book Peyton Place, published in 1956, was a smash hit, selling 100,000 copies in the first month. The average first novel sold 3,000 copies — if the author was lucky enough to get it published.

peyton-place-promo

Promo for the film Peyton Place.

Critics trashed the book. Manchester Union-Leader publisher William Loeb called it ‘filthy sewage.’ Grace Metalious responded,  “Even Tom Sawyer had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass.”

Peyton Place was one of the most widely read novels in American history. One in 29 Americans read it (mostly in secret), according to one estimate.

“If I’m a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste,” Metalious said.

Fame

Peyton Place was followed in 1957 by a hit movie of the same name starring Lana Turner and set in Camden, Maine. As many as 500 locals appeared as extras.

Lana Turner and betty Field in Peyton Place.

At first Peyton Place didn’t attract many moviegoers, but then Lana Turner’s daughter stabbed Turner’s boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, and the film took off. It received nine Academy Award nominations.

The book and the movie made Grace Metalious rich — and reckless. She carried on a stormy affair with a Laconia DJ, divorced her husband and burned through millions of dollars. She took a floor at the Plaza hotel, ordered champagne by the case and flew chartered flights to the Caribbean.

Downward Spiral

Grace Metalious wrote three more books, none of which sold as well as Peyton Place. For the last five years of her life, she drank a fifth of liquor every day.

Grace Metalious in 1957

She dumped her Laconia DJ, reunited with George Metalious and parted again. Then she had an affair with a married British journalist. On a trip to Boston, she collapsed and ended up in Beth Israel Hospital. Grace Metalious died days later on Feb. 25, 1964, of cirrhosis of the liver.

Hours before she died, she changed her will to leave her entire estate to her British lover, who promised to take care of her children. Her family successfully contested the will, but it turned out she had $41,174 in the bank and debts of more than $200,000. Years of high living, gifts to friends and an embezzling agent left her insolvent.

peyton-place-cast

Promotional photo showing the cast of Peyton Place in 1968.

In 1964, seven months after Grace Metalious died, ABC aired a prime-time soap opera based on the novel. (The producer refused to call it a soap opera, instead calling it a ‘high-class anthology drama.’) It launched the careers of Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal, among others. Peyton Place ran until 1969.

This story was updated in 2022. If you enjoyed this story about Grace Metalious, you may also want to read about other Franco-American writers here. If you’re interested in towns with hidden scandals, you may want to read Bar Harbor Babylon by the authors of this post. 

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Alexander Scammell, the Lovesick Revolutionary War Hero

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On a June night in 1777, Gen. Alexander Scammell poured out his heart in a letter to Abigail Bishop of Mistic, Mass. He had marched to Fort Ticonderoga, where the Continental Army hoped to fend off a British attack. He told her he was concerned about the sufferings of his men, he disliked court-martial duties and he longed to marry her.

Alexander Scammell

Alexander Scammell

For four long years, Alexander Scammell pleaded with Abigail Bishop to marry him. He was a battlefield hero, a rising star in the Continental Army and a favorite of George Washington. The thought of his possible future happiness with her sustained him through the hardship and fatigue of war.

Abigail Bishop refused to marry him until he left the army. She led a life of privilege in Mistic (now Medford), where her parents hosted Washington, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. At times she raised his hopes. At others, she dashed them.

In the end, Abigail Bishop drew a line in the sand. She wouldn’t consider marrying Alexander Scammell unless he quit the army. Scammell, torn between his love for her and his love for his country, couldn’t have both.

Abigail and Alexander

Abigail Bishop was born Oct. 5, 1753 in Mistic, the daughter of John and Abigail Tufts Bishop. Her mother was an intimate friend of John Adams’ wife, her cousin Abigail. The Bishops lived in a big house on High Street, where Alexander Scammell probably met Miss ‘Nabby’ while visiting her parents.

Alexander Scammell was handsome, dashing, tall for his era at 6’2” and unusually likable. He was a member of George Washington’s inner circle, one of the few who could make him laugh with his stories and jokes.

He was born March 27, 1747 in Mendon, now Milford, Mass., the son of a doctor and his wife who had emigrated from England. Alexander Scammell graduated from Harvard, taught school in Plymouth and Kingston, Mass., then did some surveying in New Hampshire and Maine, where he became a proprietor of the town of Shapleigh.

He then studied law under John Sullivan in Durham, N.H., joining him in the raid on Fort William and Mary in 1774. During the raid, Scammell hauled down the British flag flying over the fort, the first patriot to do so.

Alexander Scammell Goes to War

1790 watercolor showing Fort St. Jean in the background.

1790 watercolor showing Fort St. Jean in the background.

When he heard about the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he joined the New Hampshire Regiment, part of Sullivan’s brigade, as a major. He probably met Abigail Bishop during the Siege of Boston.

After the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, Alexander Scammell’s regiment was ordered to provide reinforcements during what turned out to be the disastrous invasion of Canada. He sailed up the Hudson River to Albany and proceeded to Fort St. John. There he viewed the forts and fields where patriots had been killed.

Everything was in confusion, the cold was disagreeable and mosquitos drove him to distraction.

Abigail sent him a letter, a ‘dear epistle’ that gave him ‘a new flow of spirits’ though she accused him of insincerity. On June 2, 1776, he wrote back to her:

Tis cruel, my dearest, tis cruel to ever think I am insincere You wrong me to entertain the least Suspicion of that kind…I expect a warm Summer. But console myself with the Hopes of being so happy as to see you next Winter, which will richly make amends for the greatest Fatigues.

1775 map of Lake Champlain and upper Hudson River

1775 map of Lake Champlain and upper Hudson River

Alexander Scammell was ordered to return to Fort Ticonderoga, where the Continental Army had staged the failed invasion. He arrived on May 20, 1776, after a severe, 100-mile march on foot, ‘through the woods in an excessive miry Road, wet, rainy weather accompanied with Snow and Hail.’

Disagreeable court-martial duties then consumed him, and he didn’t write to Abigail Bishop until June 8, 1776.

Torn

He told her how much he wanted to marry her, but he couldn’t leave the army:

Tho I should much rather be able to retire to enjoy the sweets of Liberty and domestick happiness, but more especially the pleasing Charms of your dear Company. But so long as my Country demands my utmost Exertions, I must devote myself entirly to it’s Service

Then he got mushy:

The tender moments which we have spent together still, and ever will, remain fresh in my memory—You are ever present in my enraptur’d heart—& a mutual return of Affection from you, I find more and more necessary to my Happiness—cherish the Love my dearest Nabby, which you have so generously professed for me—Altho I am far distant from you, still remember that I am your constant, and most affectionate admirerer.

As always, he begged her to write.

Washington

By August Alexander Scammell served as aide-de-camp to Gen. John Sullivan, and in September they went to New York to join Washington’s forces. A series of defeats sent Washington and his army on the run to New Jersey.

Scammell hadn’t heard from Abigail since he left Ticonderoga. On Oct. 29, 1776, he dashed off a quick note to her:

I have not had the Happiness of hearing from you since I left Ticonteroga. Nor had Opporunity to write to you since. My Passion flatters me that you have had no Opportunity  of writing. I long for the happy moment when I can press you to my Heart. … My dear Girl write to me every Opportunity. A Letter from you would soften the Fatigues of War.

Alexander Scammell remained with Washington as the British chased the shrinking American army through New Jersey. On Christmas night, Alexander Scammell crossed the Delaware in Washington’s boat before the morale-boosting victory of the Battle of Trenton. A week later, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Princeton.

In Princeton, Scammell saw the British beating the American forces and, in a daring move, rode to the fore to lead a charge against the enemy. Washington rode up moments later. They rallied the troops in what turned into a striking victory that put British forces on the defensive.

Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze,_MMA-NYC,_1851

Alexander Scammell crossed the Delaware with Washington.

Revived Romance

In early 1777, Alexander Scammell revived his romance with his dear Nabby by paying her several visits. On March 22, 1777, he followed up the visit with a love letter from Exeter, N.H. He was by then a colonel, raising a regiment in New Hampshire for the defense of Ticonderoga, which British General Burgoyne was expected to attack.

In his letter, Alexander Scammell begged her to change her mind and support her country by marrying him before he left for Ticonderoga. If she consented, he wrote, he would fly to her ‘on the wings of Love’ and they could enjoy nuptial bliss for a week or so before he took the field.

…as to myself I ever feel dejected when I am going from you…I cant feel happy when absent from my dearest Nabby. Heaven has certainly destined us for each other, else why should we be permitted to carry our mutual Affection to so a great a length. But cruel Fate, and a more cruel War has thrown an Obstacle in your way, but hope you will surmount it…pray consider the almost infinite Importance it is to me to call you my own before i march to Ticonteroga, how happy it will make me…consider me my lovely Girl, and enter into a noble Resolution to give your hand to the man, who loves you almost Adoration, before he takes the field to oppose our tyrannical foes,

He even appealed to her patriotism.  “Consider how many young Ladies have immortalized their Characters by encouraging their Lovers to defend their Country,” he wrote.

She didn’t buy it.

Saratoga

The war took a turn for the worse at Ticonderoga. The British recaptured the fort in July 1777 and Alexander Scammell evacuated with his regiment. Two months later he was involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the war at the Battles of Saratoga.

General Burgoyne surrendering at Saratoga by John Trumbull.

General Burgoyne surrendering at Saratoga by John Trumbull.

The fall of 1777 was the last he heard from his love object. He spent the bitter winter of 1777-78 with Washington at Valley Forge, where he was appointed adjutant general of the Continental Army. He hoped for leave to visit Nabby in Medford, but his duties prevented him.

On June 28, 1778, Alexander Scammell distinguished himself once again in battle – this time at Monmouth. The British were evacuating Philadelphia, and Washington ordered Gen. Charles Lee to attack. Lee refused.

Washington and Scammell took command, rallied the troops and held the field. Washington said, ‘the man who inspired us to do our full duty was Alexander Scammell.’ He then ordered Scammell to arrest Lee.

Scammell’s battlefield exploits went unrewarded by Nabby Bishop. He wrote to her on Nov. 2nd, 1778, from Camp Fredericksburgh (now Pawling) in New York:

I am at a Loss how to address you, whether as the same intimate dear friend as formerly, or as one who has contracted an intimate acquaintance with some gentleman more deserving of your good Opinion than I am.

He implored her to tell him if she was engaged to someone else. And it not, he hoped,

…’that I may be so fortunate as to deserve your hand as a reward for all the Hardships, & Fatigues I have undergone in the service of my Country.

She didn’t write back.

Heartbreak

1790 view of Medford, Mass.

1790 view of Medford, Mass.

On the day after Christmas in 1778, Alexander Scammell wrote to Abigail Bishop from Camp Middlebrook in what is now Somerville, N.J. He was low in spirits. Though she hadn’t written him, a clear signal of her disinterest, he asked her one more time to marry him. And he used every argument he could think of. They weren’t getting any younger, he wrote, and he just knew Washington would give him leave if she agreed to marry him. Plus, they had a duty to get married. On top of that, the war neared its end.

Finally, he wrote, no one could make her happier than he could, and she was too nice to leave him hanging.

“I know you have a generous Soul. I conjure you by all the tender moments we have spent together to write me an answer to this I must urge & insist upon it,” he wrote.

She still didn’t write.

Fixed Determination

He had almost given up by the following spring. In April 1779, during a lull in the fighting. Scammell, then an adjutant general, wrote to his friend Col. Nathaniel Peabody. “I fear that the war will doom me to old bachelorism—however, content myself with this consideration, that there is enough of the breed already, though this consideration don’t (sic) fully correspond with my feelings on the OPENING of Spring,” he wrote.

middlebrook

Entrance to the encampment at Middlebrook, now a historic site.

On April 13, 1779, he tried a Hail Mary. He wrote to Nabby’s father from Camp Middlebrook, begging leave to trouble him with a letter. His ‘fixed determination,’ he wrote,

…has been ever since hostilities commenc’d to continue in the army so long as my bleeding country demanded my services, and to prefer my Country’s good to every self-interested consideration.

However, he wrote, his happiness depended on her. Though he was willing she should find someone else who would make her happy, he was still interested in her if she hadn’t.

He worried, he wrote, that the Bishops thought he was ignoring their daughter because he didn’t visit. But, he explained, George Washington wouldn’t give him leave because his duties as adjutant general.  And he made one last, desperate attempt to win Abigail Bishop:

Your former  Goodness and Generosity imboldens me to ask your and Mrs Bishop’s consent to marry Miss Naby, without being oblig’d to leave the army, provided she is willing. At the same time could wish you would not mention to her that I have wrote this Letter to you, as I have not previously obtain’d her consent to make this proposal, besides it might wound her delicacy, if she knew I had wrote you on the subject, and so frankly opened the State of our Courtship.

dey-mansion

Dey Mansion

One Last Skirmish

On July 15, 1780, Scammell was at Washington’s headquarters in Preakness, the Dey mansion in Wayne, N. J. Washington was preparing for the Siege of Yorktown. Scammell nursed a broken heart, as Miss Nabby’s father wrote to him with the bad news. He wrote to her father again, thanking him. His hope had vanished, he wrote, and he hoped his daughter would bestow her hand on some worthy gentleman.

In May 1781, Alexander Scammell had command of a light infantry, the vanguard for the army’s march to Yorktown. On Sept. 30, 1781, he was scouting fortifications that the British had recently abandoned. He came upon a British cavalry patrol that he mistook for Americans.

When he realized his mistake he surrendered, but another cavalryman came up behind him and shot him in the back. The British paroled the wounded prisoner to a hospital in Williamsburg. Alexander Scammell died there on Oct. 6, 1781.

Afterward

Abigail Bishop married Dr. Archelaus Putnam of Danvers, Mass., on Nov. 12, 1786. He was 46, she was 33. Abigail Adams’ sister, Elizabeth Smith Shaw, wrote a letter to her niece suggesting Nabby Bishop married for money rather than love.

“Cupid I fancy got fast asleep in his Mothers Lap, and old Plutus, has yoked the dove,” she wrote to Abigail Adams Smith on Nov. 27, 1786.

Abigail Bishop Putnam had one daughter and one son who survived childhood. Archelaus Putnam died on April 14, 1800. She died in Medford on Dec 17, 1807. Her mother outlived her.

Read the love letters of Alexander Scammell to Abigail Bishop here and here.  This story about Alexander Scammell was updated in 2023. 

Image of Dey Mansion By Cmileo88 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11974191. The image of Middlebrook encampment entrance By Ekem at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38449076. Image of Alexander Scammell PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22608823.

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