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East Greenwich RI

How the Daughters of Liberty Fought for Independence

On August 14, 1768, the Daughters of Liberty cheered from windows as the Sons of Liberty paraded through Boston to commemorate their riots against colonial officials three years earlier.

They were far more than cheerleaders, though they did rally the men in Newport, R.I., to steer clear of taverns selling English whiskey. The women organized boycotts of British goods, especially tea, and they manufactured replacement products, especially cloth. They pressured men to embrace the patriot cause, refusing to date anyone unwilling to risk life and property for freedom. Some even took on dangerous military missions.

The Daughters of Liberty, though not as celebrated as the Sons, were crucial to the cause of liberty in the run-up to the American Revolution.

“With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble,” Samuel Adams said.

Daughters of Liberty

The Daughters of Liberty didn’t always organize and people didn’t always call them the Daughters of Liberty. Some newspapers called them ‘Daughters of Industry’ or ‘noble-hearted nymphs.’

Abigail Adams, 1766 (Benjamin Blythe)

Abigail Adams is often linked with the Daughters of Liberty, though she wasn’t a card-carrying member. So are Deborah Sampson and Prudence Cummings Wright. Sampson dressed as a man and joined the Continental Army, while Wright led a group of women in capturing two British spies. Sarah Bradlee Fulton, a card-carrying Daughter of Liberty, was the ‘mother of the Boston Tea Party’ and spied for George Washington.

Well before the Revolution, though, the ladies formed chapters throughout New England to free themselves from British economic tyranny. The ladies equated political independence with economic independence.

A Daughters of Liberty chapter branched off from the Sons of Liberty in Providence in 1766, followed in Rhode Island in East Greenwich and Newport.

Parliament unintentionally provoked more resistance among the colonial women when it passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, taxing imports of British glass, lead, paints, paper and tea.

In Massachusetts, there were 300 daughters of Liberty in Boston by February 1770; they were also in Beverly, Byfield, Ipswich, Newbury, Rowley and Salisbury.

Spinning for Freedom

From early in 1766 to about 1771, spinning bees were all the rage in New England. Women wanted independence from British textile manufacturers, and started making their own cloth. Homespun became the politically correct fashion item.

On April 7, 1766, the Boston Gazette reported 18 daughters of liberty gathered at the house of Dr. Ephraim Brown. “There they exhibited a fine example of industry, by spinning from sunrise until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking country, rarely to be found among persons of more age and experience,” reported the newspaper.

Spinning for freedom

Newspapers continued to report on the smallest cloth-making development.

Spinning schools were revived and awards were offered for the person who wove the most cloth. A woman raised 6,000 silk balls from a single mulberry tree in Windham, Conn. A 70-year-old woman in Newport, R.I., learned to spin for the first time. In February 1769, two Connecticut women held an all-day spinning contest in which the winner spun seven skeins and two knots of fine linen yarn, just a little more than her competitor.

Women began gathering in large groups, often at ministers’ homes, along the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. For 32 months starting in March 1768, more than 60 spinning meetings were held from Harpswell, Maine, to Huntington, Long Island.

“I presume there never was a Time when, or a Place where, the Spinning wheel could more influence the Affairs of men, than at present, in this and the neighbouring colonies,” wrote one contemporary writer in the newspaper series, A Journal of the Time.

The boycott worked: The value of imported goods from Great Britain fell by half in 1769 over the previous year, from 420,000 to 208,000 pounds.

Sarah Bradlee Fulton

In 1770, Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea. The Daughters of Liberty had already pledged not to drink the stuff. They made ‘liberty tea’ from currant and raspberry, basil, mint, even birch bark.

Then the Tea Act of 1773 gave a virtual monopoly on tea to the floundering Dutch East India Company. It also inspired the Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party

Sarah Bradlee Fulton was a Medford, Mass., housewife and leader of the Daughters of Liberty.

She is credited with the idea of disguising the men who dumped the tea into Boston Harbor as Mohawk Indians. She painted their faces and found Native American clothing for them. After the Tea Party, the men returned to her home to clean off the paint and get rid of their disguises.

When war broke out, the Daughters of Liberty melted metal for bullets and sewed soldiers’ uniforms. Fulton organized women to nurse soldiers wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. She also served as one of George Washington’s spies.

During the siege of Boston, Maj. John Brooks had important dispatches to send from Medford to Washington. Fulton volunteered, thinking the British wouldn’t suspect a woman of spying. She walked across enemy lines at night, rowed to Charleston and delivered the message.

Sarah Bradlee Fulton died in 1835, and 65 years later a memorial stone was placed at the Salem Street Burying Ground in Medford.

This story was updated in 2022.

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The Six Oldest Courthouses in New England

Some of the oldest courthouses in New England have had revolutionaries argue cases in them. Patriots, heroes and traitors walked within their walls.

One of the oldest courthouses served as the seat of state government. One was built to replace a building burned by the British. One was once a tavern.

As places where disputes are argued and settled, courthouses have always been central to the civic life of the region.

Here are the six of the oldest courthouses in New England, one in each state. If you know of a historic old courthouse, please share it with us in the comments section.

New London County Courthouse

The New London County Courthouse was built from 1784-86 to replace the courthouse burned by the British during the American Revolution. It was an ambitious and expensive building for its time and place. Designed by Isaac Fitch of Lebanon, Conn., it was also used as town hall during its early years. Originally it sat at the head of State Street, but in 1839 it was moved to 70 Huntington Street. It is not only the oldest courthouse in Connecticut, but one of the oldest courthouses that continuously operates in America.

Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Marquis de Lafayette and Horace Greeley spoke at the New London County Courthouse.

For more information, click here.

Pownalborough Courthouse

Pownalborough Courthouse – still standing and open to the public

The Pownalborough Courthouse in Dresden, Maine, dates to 1761. Located at 23 Courthouse Road in Dresden, It is the only courthouse that remains from Maine’s colonial era.

The town of Dresden was named Pownalborough after Massachusetts governor Thomas Pownall. The court was established when Lincoln County separated from neighboring York. The building was designed by Boston architect Gershom Flagg and was visited by Benedict Arnold, Robert Treat Paine and John Adams, who tried cases there.

In addition to serving as a courthouse, the building also housed a tavern – as many early courthouses did. Adams’ trip there, though arduous, helped him build his practice, and he maintained fond memories of Pownalborough.

“I am sorry that the name of Pownalborough has been changed to that of Dresden,” he wrote, “that of a virtuous and sensible man to that of a scene of frivolity. Pownall was a Whig, a friend of liberty, a lover of his country, and he considered North America part of his country as much as England, Scotland, or Ireland.”

The courthouse today is maintained by the Lincoln County Historical Society and is open in the summer months as a museum. For more information, click here.

Plymouth Old County Courthouse

Plymouth Old Town House, Plymouth, Mass.

Known as Plymouth Old County Courthouse or the Old Town House, the oldest courthouse in Massachusetts was built in 1749. It is believed to be the oldest wooden courthouse in the United States. It stands on 4 Town Square, the site of the courthouse built in 1620 by the Plymouth Colony settlers. Another courthouse had been built in 1670, and parts of it may have been used in the Old Town House.

Like the New London County Courthouse, it was originally used as a courthouse and town hall. It was built by Peter Oliver, a Loyalist and brother of Andrew Oliver, the tax stamp administrator who was hanged in effigy by the Sons of Liberty. From 1820, when the town built a new courthouse, to the early 1950s, it was used for town offices.

The building was later restored and opened as the 1749 Court House and Museum. It is free to the public and open during the summer. Nearby are the Burial Hill cemetery, The First Parish Church, Brewster Gardens and Leyden Street, which was laid out by the Pilgrims. For more information, click here.

Old Grafton County Courthouse

Old Grafton County Courthouse, Plymouth, N.H.

The Old Grafton County Courthouse located at 1 Court Street in Plymouth, N.H., can claim roots dating at least to 1774.

It was used as a meeting house during the Revolution and later a library and a wheelwright shop. Its most famous moment came in 1805 when it was the site of Daniel Webster’s first court pleading.

Today the building has been restored, and it is maintained as a museum of the Plymouth Historical Society. It’s open for visitors during the summer. The building is not in its original location, however, as it was moved in 1823 when its service as a courthouse ended. For more information, click here.

Kent County Courthouse

The Kent County Courthouse in East Greenwich, R.I., was built in 1804-05 to replace the courthouse built in 1750, when Kent County was split off from Providence County.

The courthouse was used by the Rhode Island Legislature, which sat in each county seat on a rotating schedule until 1854. Then, only the buildings in Providence and Newport were used. The Rhode Island State House was built in 1901, and the courthouse was turned over to Kent County. In 1908, an architectural firm gutted the building and rebuilt the interior, which was common during the Colonial Revival. For years it was used as a town hall. Today the courthouse is used by probate court, which makes it the oldest active courthouse in Rhode Island.

Windham County Courthouse

Windham County Court House, Newfane, Vt.

The Windham County Courthouse in Newfane, Vt. dates to 1825, when it was built as a simple, boxy structure to carry out court business. Additions in 1853 and 1907 gave the courthouse its current Greek Revival appearance, with a porch and massive Doric columns.

The courthouse replaced the Westminster Courthouse, which dated to 1707 and was the site of the 1775 Westminster Massacre and was, in 1777, the location where Vermonters met to declare their independence.

The building is still an active courthouse. It can be found on the Newfane Green. For more information, click here.

Photos: New London County Courthouse, by By Beyond My Ken – Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29628529; Old Plymouth County Courthouse by Swampyank at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18002605

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The 21 New England Colonial and State Capitals

New England cities and towns used to vie for colonial and state capitals the way they now court sports stadiums, with the result that 21 New England capitals graced the land since Europeans settled the region.

Typical 18th century New England government building

Typical 18th century building you’d find in New England state capitals

Rhode Island, the tiniest state, has had the most state capitals, while Massachusetts, the largest, has had the fewest.

Connecticut once had its state capital in New York and Maine had its in Canada. Two of Vermont’s capitals have served as the seat of a national government, and Boston was at one time the capital of all New England.

The reasons for moving colonial and then state capitals had to do with conquest, migration and the ideals of the American Revolution. Americans thought they were taxed without representations, and they blamed the distance from the British Parliament. After independence, they believed they needed equal physical access to the state legislature to get represented equally.

21 New England State Capitals

From 1776 to 1812, the people of the 13 original colonies agitated to move their state capitals to the center of the state, writes Rosemarie Zagarri, in The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776-1850.

“The confidence of people in their government rested on people’s ability to know and be known by their representatives,” Zagarri wrote. After decades of westward migration, it made no sense to them to have a capital on the Atlantic coast.

Old State House 1793

Boston, the longest continuing state capital in the United States, was the one New England capital that stayed put. John Winthrop’s city on a hill had too much power to let any upstart town take the government away from it.

As is still the case, western Massachusetts resented Boston for it. The people of Springfield, Mass., commented in 1780 that “It is probably, by Reason of their different situations, that many of the more distant Towns will generally omit the full Exercise of their Rights, and that those at or near the Center of Government will exercise them in their full Extent.”

Seating the commonwealth’s government in Boston was on the list of grievances during Shay’s Rebellion.

East vs. West

Residents of Lenox objected to the Massachusetts constitution of 1778 because, as they put it, “[Article 6] has a tendency to induce the Remote parts of the State … to neglect keeping a Representative at the General Court. In a word it is making Representation unequal.”

Plymouth

Boston reigned as the capital of all New England when King James II created the Dominion of New England in 1686. James correctly worried the colonies were too independent and thought consolidating the colonies would solve the problem. It didn’t. The Dominion lasted all of three years. In 1689, the Boston Revolt ended the Dominion and sent Royal Gov. Edmund Andros packing.

Boston, however, wasn’t always the capital of all Massachusetts. For 70 years, Plymouth was the capital of Plymouth Colony, which included Cape Cod, Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury, Bridgewater, Taunton, what is now New Bedford and Fall River, Dartmouth and Freetown. Plymouth could even argue a history as capital of Rhode Island, as Plymouth Plantation claimed parts of Rhode Island including Bristol, Rehoboth and Little Compton.

The Flying State Capitals of RI and Conn.

View of Newport, 1730. Courtesy Library of Congress.

View of Newport, 1730, one of RI’s many state capitals. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Rhode Island and Connecticut resolved the conflicts over the location of their state capitals. They decided on rotating state capitals, a solution dubbed ‘The Flying Statehouse.’

From 1639 to 1644, Portsmouth, R.I., served as the capital of the English colony of Aquidneck Island and Providence the capital of – well, Providence. For more than a century, Providence prevailed as the seat of government when the two colonies merged in 1644, with the brief interruption of Boston as the capital of the Dominion.

In 1776, Rhode Island embarked on a lively experiment, rotating its capital to each of the five county seats: Providence, Newport, East Greenwich, South Kingstown and Bristol. The experiment proved too lively. After 1853 the state legislature stopped meeting in the Kent, Washington and Bristol counties and alternated between Providence and Newport. Providence grew and Newport declined, and in 1900 the government finally settled down in Providence.

The old Connecticut Statehouse,.

The Dutch once claimed Connecticut. Its capital was New Amsterdam, a fort at the tip of the island now known as Manhattan. In 1639 Connecticut broke off as a separate English colony. A year later, so did New Haven.

Hartford and New Haven held sway as respective state capitals, except during the three years of the Dominion of New England.

From 1701 to 1875, Hartford and New Haven were the co-capitals of Connecticut, with the General Assembly holding spring sessions in Hartford and fall sessions in New Haven. Lawmakers got fed up with the complicated arrangement and decided to settle on one city. Hartford and New Haven vied for the privilege of hosting the government, and Hartford won.

Vermont and NH

Artists’ conception of the first New Hampshire Statehouse

Portsmouth became the capital of New Hampshire in 1689 until 1775, with the usual caveat about Boston.

During the American Revolution, New Hampshire’s General Assembly shuttled among Concord, Hopkinton, Dover, Amherst, Charlestown and Hanover, but officially settled in Exeter. After the war, New Hampshire citizens clamored for a centrally located capital and travel-weary lawmakers agreed.

Portsmouth cautioned against the move in 1790, arguing that citizens were less likely to be represented when their state capitals were far away.

Concord became New Hampshire’s de facto capital in 1808, though not by law until 1816.

Montpelier

Vermont has had four capitals. The state started out as disputed territory between New York and New Hampshire. On Jan. 15, 1777, representatives meeting in the oldest town, Westminster, declared independence from both and gave themselves the name, The Republic of New Connecticut. Almost six months later, representatives of the new republic met in the biggest town, Windsor, and changed their name to the Republic of Vermont.

Vermont succumbed to the prevailing desire for a central capital in 1805, 14 years after it became a state. Windsor lost out to the small town of Montpelier, then with a population of less than 2,000.

Maine

Part of Maine was once the French colony l’Acadie, and in 1604 its capital was Ile St. Croix, now the uninhabited St. Croix Island. In 1605 Port Royal, now in Nova Scotia, became the capital of Acadia. Then by 1658 Maine had joined Massachusetts, and until 1820 its capital was Boston.

The people of Augusta chipped in $11,000 for this

For the next 12 years, Portland served as Maine’s capital, but many lawmakers wanted to move the seat of government to a central city or town. In 1822 a committee was appointed to visit Portland, Brunswick, Hallowell, Augusta, Waterville, Belfast and Wiscasset. The Lewiston Saturday Journal reported, “In each of which towns a choice of very valuable lots was freely offered for the acceptance of the state.”

They said if it were to be on the seaboard, it should be in Wiscasset, but if inland, on Weston Hill in Augusta because of its scenic beauty. Augusta bought the hill and gave it to the state. That sealed the deal; Augusta it was.

Still Not Resolved

Architects drew up plans for a statehouse budgeted to cost $80,000. In the end it cost $138,991.34. Augusta citizens picked up $11,000 to keep the capitol, but the tug-of-war hadn’t ended. Portland, now known as ‘the deserted village’ after the capital moved, kept trying to get the government back.

On Jan 26, 1907, the Lewiston Saturday Journal reported ‘ever since 1821, the issue has been right there in the same old place. Sometimes it has been quiescent. Sometimes it has been acute. It comes in cycles–usually of ten years separation. Several times it has shaken the state from border to border. It may do so again — this session or next. In either case, Augusta must wake up. … a serious and important movement [is] forming.”

Augusta kept the capitol.

This story about the 21 New England state capitals was updated in 2023. Image of the Old Connecticut Statehouse By olekinderhook, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54816354.

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