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Fighting for Independence During a Smallpox Epidemic: Lake Champlain in 1776

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Throughout the first six months of 1776, the soldiers of the American Northern Army in Canada fought against two deadly enemies: smallpox and the British military. The British turned out to be the less lethal of the two.

Mount Independence and Fort Ticonderoga. Photo courtesy of the author.

Development of a vaccine has now largely eradicated the highly contagious smallpox virus. But the disease could be so virulent it was known as the ‘speckled monster.’ Symptoms began with vomiting and high fever, followed a few days later by pustules in the mouth and on the tongue before spreading across the body. Recovery could take up to three weeks. Once infected, a person had about a one in three chance of dying.

The American army did not beat those odds.

The Invasion of Canada

In September 1775, the Continental Congress sent two expeditions to invade Quebec. One initially consisted of 2,000 men commanded by Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery. They sailed up Lake Champlain toward Montreal, where they captured Fort St. John. Then they marched to Quebec, where they joined the second expedition led by Col. Benedict Arnold.

Arnold’s forces had dwindled to 600 men from the 1,100 that started out in Cambridge, Mass. It had taken months to reach Quebec through the Maine wilderness, and a third of Arnold’s men turned back during the grueling trek.

Map of the invasion of Canada.

Quebec

Montgomery’s forces joined Arnold’s in Quebec in early December. They launched an attack on the British fort in a howling snowstorm on New Year’s Eve – a disastrous mistake. Montgomery died in the battle, as did 50 men. Another 34 were wounded and 431 captured. The British lost only five killed and 14 wounded.

The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, Dec. 31, 1775, by John Trumbull

Smallpox had already begun to kill soldiers. The remaining forces under Arnold besieged the city for the next few months as the smallpox spread.

When reinforcements bolstered the British in May, the Northern Army began a disordered retreat. The army moved west from Quebec City toward Fort Ticonderoga, hindered by a staggering number of soldiers debilitated by smallpox.

Smallpox Misery

Dr. Lewis Beebe of Sheffield, Mass., arrived in Quebec in May. He kept a journal about his time in the army. In his entries we can see firsthand the misery caused by the epidemic. From Chambly, outside of Montreal, he wrote on May 26, “If ever I had a compassionate feeling for my fellow creatures… I think it was this day, to see Large barns filled with men in the very heighth of the small pox and not the least thing, to make them comfortable…”

Fort Chambly today. Photo courtesy of the author.

On June 17, as the army moved south toward Lake Champlain, Beebe wrote from Isle aux Noix:

Scarcely a tent upon this Isle but what contains one or more in distress and continually groaning, & calling for relief, but in vain! Requests of this Nature are as little regarded, as the singing of Crickets in a Summers evening. The most shocking of all Spectacles was to see a large barn Crowded full of men with this disorder… one nay two had large maggots, an inch long, Crawl out of their ears, were on almost every part of the body. No mortal will ever believe what these suffered unless they were eye witnessess.

Inoculation

Smallpox had no cure. But those who survived an infection would be immune. This led to soldiers seeking inoculation — intentional infection through the blood. This involved making an incision in the skin and applying pox to the wound. Those who were inoculated usually came down with a milder — though still harrowing — case of the disease with a much lower mortality rate. When recovered, those soldiers would have an immunity to future infections.

But inoculation violated regulations. Officers feared that inoculated soldiers would spread the disease to their comrades. If the soldiers all inoculated at one time, they would be too weak to defend against the enemy.

Nevertheless soldiers were surreptitiously inoculated. In May of 1776, Josiah Sabin served with the Green Mountain Boys at Quebec. Later in life Sabin recalled inoculating himself with smallpox. Then he also inoculated some of his comrades, blindfolded so as not to know who administered the inoculation. Nevertheless, Sabin was found out and only saved from severe punishment by the intervention of his commanding officer, Seth Warner.

Soldiering On

Finally, Benedict Arnold, in temporary command, issued an order allowing for inoculation. That lasted one day. Then Gen. John Thomas arrived, sent by Congress to take command of the army in Canada. He threatened execution for anyone performing or receiving inoculation. Thomas himself died of the disease in early June and the surreptitious inoculations went on.

Benedict Arnold

Later that summer, George Washington approved inoculation for the Continental Army.

Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, an army engineer from North Brookfield, Mass., took inoculation on May 17, 1776. He described the progress of the disease in his journal. In six days he began to suffer symptoms including headache and pox. Over the next three weeks he suffered more headaches, sore throat, chills and, of course, painful pustules on his skin. But Baldwin continued to do his job the best he could, helping the retreat.

Crown Point

The army moved south on Lake Champlain to Crown Point and the large, damaged fort built by the British following the French and Indian War. Beebe arrived on the 26th of June. “The Regiment is in a most deplorable Situation,” he recorded in his journal, “between 4 & 500 now in the height of the small pox. Death is now become a daily visitant to the Camps…”

Crown Point today. Photo courtesy of the author.

Three days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote a letter to Abigail in which he reported on affairs in the north. “Our Army at Crown Point is an Object of Wretchedness, enough to fill a humane Mind, with Horror,” he wrote. “Disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, naked, undisciplined, eaten up with Vermin—no Cloaths, Beds, Blanketts, no Medicines, no Victuals, but Salt Pork and flour.”

This army was charged with defending the newly minted United States of America from the 8,000 fresh British troops preparing to move south on Lake Champlain. The Americans had one advantage. The previous year, after capturing Fort Ticonderoga, they had also captured some gun boats. If the British tried to move south on the lake, the mini American navy could blow their troop ships to smithereens. Before the invasion could continue, the British needed to build their own war ships. This gave the Americans time to heal and prepare.

Philip Schuyler

From his headquarters in Albany, Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler had command of the entire Northern Department, including this ravaged army. In early July he traveled to Crown Point to get a firsthand look at conditions there. With the consent of his general officers, Schuyler drew up a plan to handle the situation.

philip-schuyler

Philip Schuyler

First they needed to separate the fit soldiers from the ill, otherwise reinforcements would refuse to mingle with the infected. The sick were transported to Fort George at the southern end of Lake George.

Next Schuyler and his officers decided it would be a mistake to try to defend Crown Point. They did not have a large enough force to cover the long, narrow peninsula. It would be too easy for the British to sail cannon around the deep bay to the west and get the Americans in a crossfire. And it would be much more difficult to bring supplies and reinforcements.

But where to make a stand?

On July 12th, Schuyler answered that question in a letter to George Washington. “I am just returned from Crown point,” he wrote,

to which place I accompanied General Gates — On our Way to that place we stop’d at Tyconderoga and left Colonel Trumbull to take a View of the Grounds opposite to it and on the East Side of Lake Champlain… 

Trumbull returned with a favorable report, wrote Schuyler, and on July 9 he and his general officers checked out the ground. They found it, “so remarkably strong as to require little Labour to make it tenable against a vast Superiority of Force, and fully to answer the purpose of preventing the Enemy from penetrating into the Country to the South of it.”

Mount Independence

The strong ground Schuyler referred to would soon be named Mount Independence, a 300-plus acre peninsula projecting northward from the Vermont shore. As a keystone to the defenses that included Fort Ticonderoga, the Mount would in a few short weeks buzz with activity as the Americans prepared to meet the British head on.

View of Mount Independence by By Zeph77 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Meanwhile, the steps taken by Schuyler paid off. The smallpox epidemic waned. By the end of August, Gen. Horatio Gates — in command of the Lake Champlain forces — could report to George Washington that the smallpox “is now perfectly removed from the Army.”

Dr. Beebe returned home at the end of July to recuperate from dysentery. He traveled north again at the end of August, intent on rejoining his regiment. he passed by Fort George, the smallpox hospital set up by Schuyler in early July.

“Visited the hospital,” he recorded on the 28th. [He] “found the number of sick to be about 700, viewed the burying place counted upwards of 300 graves… the appearance of which was melancholy indeed, to see such desolation made in our army.”

Bibliography

Cubbison, D. R. (2010). The American Northern Theater Army in 1776. McFarland.

Dann, J. C. (1999). The Revolution Remembered. University of Chicago Press.

Fenn, E. A. (2002). Pox Americana. Macmillan.

Frederic R. Kirkland, ed. “Journal of a Physician on the Expedition Against Canada.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. (Volume LIX, Number 4). October 1935.

Wickman, Donald. (2017) Strong Ground: Mount Independence and the American Revolution, Mount Independence Coalition.

Zeoli, Stephen. (2015) Mount Independence: The Enduring Legacy of a Unique Historic Place, 3rd Edition. Self published.

Stephen Zeoli spent two summers in his younger days as caretaker at Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, Vt. Today, Steve is the president of the Mount Independence Coalition, the friends group working with the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation to interpret the historic site. He is also the author of the self-published book Mount Independence: The Enduring Legacy of a Unique Historic Place.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Loyalists and Patriots: Mary Munro Sent Packing to Canada During the Revolution

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During the American Revolution, Vermont was a battleground that pitted loyalists and patriots against each other, not just on the battlefield but in quiet communities like Shaftsbury.

Shaftsbury was the home of John and Mary Munro, a prosperous loyalist couple with at least seven children. They had moved from New York in 1767 and built an estate called Fowlis on land disputed by New York and New Hampshire.

John left Mary and seven children on the property while he went off to fight the American Revolution — on the British side. Patriots constantly harassed Mary. After they won the Battle of Saratoga, Mary fled through the wilderness to Canada. Though she survived and lived for another 38 years, she never fully recovered from her ordeal.

Loyalist John Munro

John Munro

John Munro, born in Scotland to a family of modest means, came to the colonies in 1756 as a Highland soldier. Stationed in Albany, he fought in the French and Indian war. For his service he received from New York a grant of land in Vermont, and he rose to wealth and local distinction. He may have had help from his wife, born Mary Brouwer, the daughter of a prominent Dutch couple in Schenectady, N.Y.

Appointed sheriff and chief magistrate in Shaftsbury, John Munro tried to enforce the land claims granted by New York. Unfortunately, those conflicted with the claims granted by New Hampshire.

John Munro tangled with the Green Mountain Boys over the disputed territory. He famously captured Remember Baker, a cousin of Ethan Allen, but the Green Mountain Boys rescued Baker from prison. One legend has it that Seth Warner struck Munro on the head with his sword, but Munro’s thick hair and skull broke Warner’s weapon.

Then as revolution loomed, fighting between the ‘Yorkers’ and the Green Mountain Boys evolved into fighting between loyalists and patriots.

Loyalists and Patriots

Loyalists get short shrift in American history books. But as historian W.S. MacNutt, wrote in an essay, The Loyalists: A Sympathetic View, “To the Loyalists the Revolution was the antithesis of modernity and freedom, a conspiracy of reckless and designing men to raise themselves from adversity to affluence, from public disfavor to high prominence.”

The New Hampshire grantees no doubt had designs on John Munro’s land, which included a manor house, 100 tenants, grain and lumber mills, a nail factory, an ashery and a pottery. Loyalists and patriots viewed each other with contempt.

When the Revolution broke out, Munro joined the 48th Regiment of Foot, leaving Mary and the children behind. He recruited his own tenants and neighbors, and he spent his own money and farm stores to provision his troops. John Munro probably went off to war thinking the well-trained, well-equipped British Army would prevail over the patriots.

But as MacNutt noted, “To the amazement of many the conspiracy succeeded.”

In 1776, the patriots seized John Munro and imprisoned him in an Albany jail for 18 months. They sentenced him to hang, but he escaped to Canada in 1777.

Mary Munro

In the summer of 1777, the loyalists and patriots had both failed to gain military advantage. The French had not yet decided to join the patriots. Gen. John Burgoyne had taken command of the British forces and, stationed in Quebec, came up with an ambitious plan to end the war. He would lead his army south and cut New England off from the rest of the colonies. That, he believed, would make it easier to end the rebellion.

Meanwhile, the Vermont patriots seized the Munro estate and kept Mary and her children captive. They could stay in the house and keep two milk cows for the children, but otherwise they had little to eat. Mary sent an undated letter to her husband describing her dire straits.

“I am in a poor state of health and very much distresst. I must leave my house in a very short time, and God knows where I shall get a place to lay my head,” she wrote. “My own relations are my greatest enemies … The mills they have had a long time in their possession, likewise all your tenants’ lands and houses.’

Then in the fall of 1777, the patriots defeated Burgoyne during two battles in Saratoga, N.Y., just 35 miles from Shaftsbury. Burgoyne surrendered his army and, in the war’s turning point, the French decided to give the patriots military support.

loyalists-and-patriots-saratoga

Loyalists and patriots: Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga.

On the Run

Mary and her children had to flee. John Munro got permission for her to move to Canada, and she sold some silver plate she’d hidden to pay for the trip.

First she went to Schenectady, where her family (presumably patriots) refused to help her. Then she traveled toward Lake George to join other loyalists on their way to Canada. They decided to lighten their load by getting rid of their food and most of their clothes.

The Munros’ eldest daughter, Christiana, in 1795, years after the conflict between loyalists and patriots.

When they arrived at Lake George, they had to wait in the woods for six days, almost perishing of cold and hunger. Then three other families arrived, and together they persuaded the commanding officer at Fort Edward to give them a boat and a flag. A party of Indians discovered them and chased after them.

Mary and her children were ‘very sickly the whole winter’ after they arrived in Quebec. John Munro declared the children recovered. But, he wrote, “Mrs. Munro never will.”

Twenty years after her ordeal, her youngest son William wrote to his father. “For Gods sake keep a good store of nourishment in the house which is the only thing you can have to comfort you and my poor ailing Mother who has suffered so much for us all.”

Mary Munro outlived her husband by 15 years, however. They both died in Canada, he in 1800, she in 1815.


This story last updated in 2022.

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An 1839 Romance Novel Rescues Seth Warner From Obscurity

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Green Mountain Boy Seth Warner might have been a forgotten Revolutionary War hero had he not appeared in an 1839 romance novel. The story had it all: heaving bosoms, manly countenances, hardy sons of liberty, deadly strife and shocking racist descriptions of Indians.

Seth Warner for decades was the unsung hero of the Battle of Bennington, rescuing New Hampshire’s John Stark from a rout. He also led a successful rearguard action at the Battle of Hubbardton.

Stark got all the plaudits for Bennington (actually fought in Walloomsac, N.Y.). But then, 52 years later, New England’s best-known novelist wrote a popular adventure story featuring the noble, brave and handsome Charles Warrington – Seth Warner. “Warrington” fights gallantly at the Battle of Hubbardton and gets the girl, aka the “rosebud in the wilderness.”

The author, Daniel Pierce Thompson, not only rescued Seth Warner from obscurity, he stamped the Green Mountain Boys on the national consciousness. He also probably taught Danielle Steele a few tricks.

green-mountain-boy-seth-warner

General Stark at the Battle of Bennington (NYPL). No Green Mountain Boy in the picture.

Battle of Bennington

At the Battle of Bennington on Aug. 16, 1777, John Stark’s patriots routed a detachment of soldiers fighting under British Gen. John Burgoyne. After the redcoats retreated, the patriots’ discipline broke down. The men scavenged for valuables among the captured and killed troops. Some laid down and rested, while other tended to the wounded.

But then a second detachment of Burgoyne’s troops arrived and began to pummel the patriots. Stark came close to calling for retreat when Seth Warner arrived with 350 fresh troops and supposedly said, “Stand to it, my lads; you shall have help immediately.”

Bennington helped turned the tide of war. Casualties convinced the Indians to abandon the British. They also contributed to Burgoyne’s loss at Saratoga, which convinced the French to join the patriot war effort.

Stark won renown as the hero of the Battle of Bennington, and people in New Hampshire can still quote his words at Bennington, “”There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!” (They also remember Stark’s other famous quote, “Live Free or Die!”)

Decades after the Battle of Bennington, several prominent Vermont writers thought Seth Warner deserved more credit for saving the day. Daniel Pierce Thompson belonged to that group. And so he wrote a romance novel, The Green Mountain Boys.

green-mountain-boy-book

You can still buy the book!

Fictional Seth Warner

The author introduces Seth Warner as Charles Warrington, in the full bloom of vigorous manhood. He opens the novel as a Green Mountain Boy captain, evading the Yorkers who seize the property of settlers with grants from New Hampshire.

The “maliciously smiling” Yorkers declare Warrington an outlaw, “poltroon,” “audacious scoundrel” and “bold rascal.: ‘Warrington’ at the same time cautions, “the storm of a new war is gathering over us.” (That would be the American Revolution.)

There’s a girl, of course – a “rosebud in the wilderness.: Warner/Warrington, though, can’t yet storm the citadel of her womanhood because there’s a”‘hedge about her too high for his leaping.”

The Green Mountain Boy roams the woods one day when he stumbles across “a young lady of the most interesting exterior” attempting to escape a rude fellow who grasped her garment.”

“Back, ruffian, back!” exclaims Warrington. “Unhand the lady, or you die on the spot!”

One can only imagine Seth Warner rolling over in his grave.

Green Mountain Boy

In the novel, traitors leer, maidens blush, rapiers deliver finishing blows and redcoats retreat like scampering satans. Indians fare poorly; the good ones are still savages or red scamps, the enemies are hell-hounds.

The author skips over the Battle of Bennington, but pours on the purple in describing the Battle of Hubbardton.

Statue of Seth Warner

Observers gaze in “silent awe” upon the “grand and thrilling spectacle.” The maidens, of course, watch with heaving bosoms as the Green Mountain Boys “unflinchingly engage in deadly strife” with the “gorgeous and disciplined bands of their outnumbering foes.” The “fires of a thousand death-tubes blaze fiercely.”

The British bring reinforcements, though, and in stilted language one observer says, “There is no hope, then, that our troops can long withstand this fresh and formidable onset.”

One of the characters asks if a colonel died in battle by saying, “Has that noble fellow then indeed been added to the honored catalogue of martyrs in our glorious cause?” (“Did he die?” would have served the purpose just as well.)

Seth Warner Gets Deathless Laurels

Daniel Pierce Thompson skips the Battle of Bennington, perhaps because the novel approached 400 pages. So when “nature was again enrobing herself in the leafy glories of summer,” he quickly summarizes the battle. It “immortalized the name of the Roman Stark” and “covered the Green Mountain Boys with deathless laurels.”

Warner/Warrington gets the girl in the end. At their wedding he wears his lace-trimmed uniform, she is “richly and tastefully dressed” in an array of spotless white. They utter their vows in tender pathos. Then the ultimate Green Mountain Boy, Ethan Allen.  Two more Green Mountain Boys marry their blushing maidens. Then they all presumably live happily ever after.

You can read the whole book here.

Daniel Pierce Thompson

His action and adventure stories sold well into the 1900s, but Daniel Pierce Thompson had day jobs as well. A Montpelier lawyer, he also held a number of political posts including probate judge and secretary of state. He cofounded the Vermont Historical Society and joined the Republican Party early in its life.

Daniel Pierce Thompson

Thompson was famous in New England for his novels through the 1840s and 1850s until Nathaniel Hawthorne eclipsed him. He died in 1868. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was descended from him.


This story updated in 2022.

Images: Statue of Seth Warner By Jkb24 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61464961. 

 

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In 1777 a Deadly Fog of War Swept Across Vermont and Claimed John Irish

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On a hot summer day, July 27, 1777, John Irish, a Quaker farmer, had just finished threshing his wheat and was mowing his field on his farm in Tinmouth, Vt. when a former neighbor, a man named Clough, approached him. Clough had moved from the area when he joined the Vermont militia.

With the American Revolution under way and the countryside thick with spies, both British and American, Clough said he wanted Irish to guide him across his land so he could continue his travels undetected. Irish told him he would be safest sticking to the roads. That’s about where the agreement ends regarding the day John Irish died.

John Irish

Clough was a soldier with the Green Mountain Boys, serving under Isaac Clark in Samuel Herrick’s militia. The militia was just two weeks from fighting the Battle of Bennington when the encounter with John Irish occurred.

seth warner and the battle of bennington

General Stark at the Battle of Bennington (NYPL)

Irish, meanwhile, was son of a Tory, Jesse Irish. Just a week earlier Jesse Irish had visited British General John Burgoyne at his camp in Whitehall, N.Y. and pledged his loyalty to Great Britain. Irish received paperwork assuring him of his safety should British troops approach him – provided Irish and his family stayed out of the fighting.

William Irish, John’s uncle, was less neutral. He was a loyalist. Some sources say that the Green Mountain Boys had offered a reward for his capture.

Armed with their papers, the Irish family members were safely working their land when Clough approached. Clough was not alone. He had been sent to investigate the Irish farm by Isaac Clark, his commanding officer. The intent of his mission was probably to find out where Irish stood on the war.

After Clough and Irish spoke, Irish invited him to join the family for its noontime meal. Clough declined, but he did ask for a drink of water, which Rebecca Irish, John’s wife, drew for him. Then Clough left the house and sneaked around a corner.

Irish came out of the house and Clough ran for the woods where Isaac Clark, his commanding officer, was waiting. The loyalists and the patriots have two versions of what happened next.

The Loyalist Account

Rebecca would recall that she urged John to stay inside, but seeing Clough sneak outside made him suspect the rebels were up to no good. Irish left the house, following after Clough. From the tree line, Isaac Clark and his men opened fire and shot at Irish, striking his hand.

Irish approached the men and Isaac Clark demanded to know if Irish intended to take rebel prisoners. Irish said no, and angrily showed Clark his wounded hand. Clark fired again. Irish was so close that smoke from the musket puffed against his chest as the musket ball struck him in the heart. Irish turned and fell dead.

Rebecca said that John was unarmed when shot. He had dismantled the gun he used for hunting because both British and rebels had suggested that anyone in possession of a gun would be treated as a combatant.

The Patriot Account

Isaac Clark maintained that Irish had a musket when he followed Clough from the house. Clough had begun feeling uneasy inside the Irish home. He had nonchalantly approached the door and exited without drawing suspicion.

Once outside, Clough ran for the woods. Clark, watching from the trees, saw Irish come out of the house with a gun. Fearful that Irish intended to shoot the fleeing man, Clark shot and killed him.

The Aftermath

After John Irish’s death, Rebecca ran to her Uncle William’s home. He told her he could not help her. Fearing for his own life, William fled for shelter with Burgoyne’s troops.

Rebecca and her children, meanwhile, hauled John’s body into their home. Two neighbors assisted in digging his grave and piling stones upon it.

Because of her purported loyalist sympathies, the rebels would seize Rebecca’s land and sell it. She was evicted and moved to Danby where she spent the rest of her life. A later government inquiry would declare that Rebecca was entitled to reparations. But as a Quaker, her beliefs prevented her from taking oaths in court. Her family declined to seek damages.

Rebecca always believed that Isaac Clark came to the farm looking for William Irish, and that her husband’s refusal to cooperate was the source of the murder.

Isaac Clark’s Career

Following the war, Isaac Clark would rise to political prominence in Vermont. He fought with distinction at the Battle of Bennington, just a few days after the John Irish affair.

Clark married the daughter of Governor Thomas Chittenden in 1779. Later in the Revolutionary War he was briefly involved in negotiations to have Vermont break from America and join with Great Britain.

He rose to colonel in the War of 1812 when he was charged with stopping smugglers operating between Canada and Vermont. Twice during the war he was stripped of his command, but had his position restored.

Clark would go on to become a representative in Vermont’s legislature and a judge. His political opponents, however, would not forget the events of 1777 and used the murder charge against him in political debate.

Thanks to The History and Map of Danby, Vermont, J. C. Williams and Memoirs of Col. Seth Warner, Daniel Chipman. This story was updated in 2021.

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Six Loyalist Houses

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A Loyalist House was likely to be seized and sold when the American Revolution broke out. Many colonies passed laws that let them confiscate the property of known Loyalists, criminalizing dissent against the war and raising revenue for the war effort.

Many Loyalists fled to Canada or England. The British government compensated some for their loss, but tried to pressure the United States into giving restitution. Under the Jay Treaty of 1794, the U.S. agreed to ‘advise’ the states to return Loyalist property. Some families are still trying to get their property back.

Connecticut took a more lenient approach than the other New England states in confiscating Loyalist houses. It waited until four other states had passed confiscation laws. Local officials also dragged their feet in identifying Loyalist properties.

Vermont, on the other hand, eagerly seized Loyalist property in order to pay for the Green Mountain Boys.

Here, then, are stories of six Loyalist houses and their fate during the American Revolution.

Henry Whitfield House

A Loyalist house in Connecticut, owned by Joseph Pynchon on the eve of the Revolution.

A Loyalist house in Connecticut, owned by Joseph Pynchon on the eve of the Revolution.

When Joseph Pynchon purchased the Henry Whitfield House in Guilford, Conn., he was supposedly seeking a relaxing summer retreat. His timing was not good.

The Whitfield House, built in 1639, has the distinction of being the oldest house still standing in Connecticut.

The structure was built by Henry Whitfield, one of Guilford’s founders, before there was even a town in Guilford. Its stone walls helped it serve as a garrison for townspeople. It would later become an investment property for a wealthy English landlord who rented it to tenant farmers. Pynchon bought the house in November of 1772.

Originally from Springfield, Mass., Pynchon inherited substantial wealth. He had Loyalist political sympathies. He also joined the Sandimonians in New Haven, an obscure religious group that originated in Scotland. Not only was he a Loyalist, the Sandimonians were pacifists, giving Pynchon’s Patriot-leaning neighbors two reasons to be suspicious of him.

Fearing persecution, Pynchon sold the Guilford house just a week before the Declaration of Independence was signed, and he spent much of the war in exile under British protection. He returned to Connecticut when the danger cleared and Loyalists were allowed to reestablish ties to their homeland. Among Pynchon’s descendants was Thomas Pynchon, one-time president of Trinity College, and novelist Thomas Pynchon.

As for his summer house, today it has left the family that bought it from Pynchon and is now a museum.

248 Old Whitfield St, Guilford, CT 06437

William Pepperrell House

The William Pepperrell House.

The William Pepperrell House, Maine’s most prominent Loyalist house.

William Pepperrell led the Siege of Louisbourg during King George’s War in 1745, but his house in Kittery, Maine, predates that heroic maneuver by 63 years.

Pepperrell was the son of William Pepperrell, a fisherman who had lived and prospered on the Isles of Shoals before moving to the mainland in 1680. The senior Pepperrell married the daughter of John Bray, a wealthy shipwright, and went into business with his father-in-law. Soon Pepperrell was one of the richest men in New England and owned most of Kittery Point.

The junior William Pepperrell was born in the house in 1696. He joined his father in business and continued the family’s rise by marrying the granddaughter of Samuel Sewall, one of the Salem witch trials judges.

Pepperrell joined the Massachusetts militia and rose to colonel. It was he who assembled volunteer soldiers for capturing the Fortress at Louisbourg, trained them and financed the expedition.  After the fortress fell, King George II awarded him a baronetcy.

Pepperrell served as acting governor of Massachusetts in 1757 and died two years later. His grandson, born William Pepperrell Sparhawk, inherited the house after agreeing to change his name to William Pepperrell. The third William Pepperrell remained loyal to the English king on the eve of the American Revolution. He fled to England with his wife, who died of smallpox on the way in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Pepperrell died in London.

Massachusetts deemed the house Loyalist property and put it up for auction. In 1790 the house was purchased by Col. Samuel Smallcorn, and Daniel Frisbee bought some of the property. In 1973 the Pepperrell House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is privately owned.

94 Pepperrell Rd. (Rte. 103), Kittery, Maine

Isaac Royall House

Isaac Royall House.

Isaac Royall House.

The Isaac Royall House in Medford, Mass., is one of the few houses in New England that still has slave quarters. The Royalls had the largest number of enslaved people in New England during the 18th century.

Inside the house is a tea box, said to be among the batch thrown into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party.

Puritan leader John Winthrop built the first house on the property along the Mystic River in 1637. It became Charlestown and later Medford. A second house on the property was purchased with 504 acres in 1732 by Isaac Royall, a rum distiller and slave trader from Antigua. He brought 27 slaves with him to Massachusetts. Royall enlarged and remodeled the house between 1733 and 1737, then died in 1739.

Isaac Royall, Jr., inherited the house on his father’s death. He and his family were Loyalists who boarded a ship in Boston as British soldiers marched to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. They sailed to Nova Scotia and then to England, never returning.

Gen. John Stark then made the house his headquarters. His wife Molly supposedly watched British troop movements from the roof, and George Washington interrogated British soldiers inside.

In 1806, the estate was returned to Isaac Royall’s heirs. They then sold it and gave part of the proceeds to Harvard, which used it to found Harvard Law School. The Daughters of the American Revolution bought the house in 1908 and turned it into a Loyalist house museum.

The Isaac Royall House opens for tours on summer weekends.

In Stratford, Conn., the Judson House, home to the local historical society, also has former slave quarters. They’re in the basement and part of tours through the home.

15 George St., Medford, Mass.

Mark Wentworth House

The Mark Wentworth House.

The Mark Wentworth House.

Henry Appleton, a merchant, built the Mark Wentworth House in Portsmouth, N.H., in 1763. He sold it the next year to Mark Hunking Wentworth, brother of Royal Gov. Benning Wentworth.

Mark Wentworth’s son John was born in 1737 and attended Harvard with John Adams, with whom he formed a close friendship. John Wentworth II, however, remained loyal to the king.

In 1763, John Wentworth went to London on family business. Uncle Benning had been busy selling land grants in Vermont, but the Lords of Trade awarded the province to New York. They were on the verge of recalling Benning Wentworth when John II intervened, so they gave him the governorship.

John Wentworth returned to New Hampshire amidst pomp and ceremony in 1767. Then he moved into his father’s house, where he complained about its small rooms.

Wentworth served as a popular and able governor until resistance hardened to King George III. When a mob pointed a cannon at his front door in June 1775, John Wentworth and his family fled to the safety of Fort William and Mary. He sailed to Boston about a month later and sent his family on to England. On Evacuation Day he left for Halifax.

The New Hampshire government seized the Loyalist house, but saved the furniture and portraits for the family. In 1797 the house was sold, but 13 years later Ebenezer Wentworth bought it back. In 1911 Dr. Charles Wentworth and his sister Susan converted the house into a nursing home. It now houses Wentworth Senior Living.

346 Pleasant St., Portsmouth, N.H.

Lucas-Johnston House

The Lucas-Johnston Loyalist house.

The Lucas-Johnston Loyalist house.

Tucked among Newport, R.I.’s many historic homes is the Lucas-Johnston house. Augustus Lucas originally owned it. He arrived in Newport from France around 1700 and grew wealthy trading in slaves. Lucas’ grandson Augustus Johnston gave the house greater renown when he lived in it. Johnston , a British official,  accepted a position as Newport’s stamp agent – in charge of administering the Stamp Act.

As in Massachusetts, Rhode Island agitators protested vehemently against the Stamp Act. Johnston was hanged in effigy, and a mob drove him from his home into hiding until he agreed not to serve as stamp agent. In July of 1776 Johnston again ran into difficulty when he refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary cause. For that, he was imprisoned for a time.

When the British held Newport during the early days of the war, Johnston served in various capacities in the city. When the British left, Johnston left with them. His house was confiscated. He spent a good part of his life arguing for compensation for his losses due to both the Stamp Act riot and the American Revolution.

Today the Lucas-Johnston House is privately owned.

40 Division St., Newport, R.I.

Marsh Tavern

The Equinox Hotel.

The Equinox Hotel.

In July 1777 Vermont’s Col. William Marsh made a difficult decision. When the American Revolution broke out, Marsh had joined forces with the Green Mountain Boys. But he decided to switch sides and support the Loyalist cause.

Marsh came to Vermont from Connecticut via New York and settled in Manchester around 1765.

When war broke out he joined the Green Mountain Boys with the rank of colonel. But by 1777 he had grown uneasy by the way the Patriots harassed Loyalist Vermonters, and that prompted him to join forces with British General John Burgoyne.

Following Burgoyne’s defeat in Saratoga, the American military let Marsh return to visit family in Dorset, Vt. before his exile to Canada. During the war he acted as a diplomatic adviser and spy handler for the British. He actively lobbied to have Vermont switch sides and join with Britain.

The Vermont government confiscated and sold Marsh’s Manchester property. Marsh always retained hope that he could recover some of his property, but it did not happen. His name lives on, however, at the Equinox Golf Resort and Spa in Manchester where visitors can dine in the historic Marsh Tavern.

3567 Main St, Manchester, Vt.

Images: Lucas Johnston House By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20434670; Equinox Hotel By Rolf Müller (User:Rolfmueller) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1352242. This story was updated in 2023.

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The Gravesites of Six Revolutionary Heroines

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The gravesites of such revolutionary heroes as Paul Revere and John Adams are well known and well marked, but where are the revolutionary heroines buried? The New England Historical Society searched for the stories of courageous women willing to sacrifice for the patriot cause, and then for the their graves.

In each state, we found at least one (and often more) heroine and her resting place. Each found a way to support the American Revolution, whether by spying, nursing, publishing and even fighting.

Here, then, are six revolutionary heroines and their gravesites. If you know of another, please include it in the comments section at the end of this story.

Hannah Bunce Watson

revolutionary heroine grave old south

Hannah Bunce Watson stepped in to run the pro-patriot Courant newspaper when her husband died suddenly of smallpox.

The Courant was crucial to maintaining popular support in New England for the American Revolution, as the British had shut down all the newspapers in Boston. Plus, New York’s Loyalist newspapers printed nothing but pro-British news. Only the Courant could provide reliable news to patriots in the Northeast.

Hannah already had plenty to do, with five small fatherless children. She knew little about printing but kept the presses running, even after Loyalists burned down the mill that supplied her paper. The British wouldn’t export paper to the colonies so Hannah persuaded the Connecticut Legislature to lend her money to rebuild the mill.

For two years Hannah steered the Courant, publishing stories about battles, local news, analyses of colonial politics and criticisms of the British Parliament.

Hannah Bunce Watson died in 1807 and is buried next to her third husband, Barzillai Hudson in the Old South Burying Ground in Hartford. The name on her gravestone is Hannah Hudson.

Lucy Knox

revolutionary heroine grave thomaston

Of all the revolutionary heroines, Lucy Knox sacrificed the most for her husband. She defied her rich Loyalist parents in 1774 to marry Henry Knox, a mere bookseller. After the Battles of Concord and Lexington, she never saw or heard from her family again.

Henry taught himself about war from his books. He famously brought artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston and forced the British to evacuate. He served as the second commander of the Continental Army, first secretary of War and founder of West Point.

When Henry left for war, Lucy Knox begged to let her join him. He finally relented, and she stayed with him until he retired in 1794.

Lucy was often pregnant, and only three of her 13 children survived to adulthood. She stayed with Henry during the brutal winter at Valley Forge. She cheered the cold and hungry officers with food, wine and sometimes dancing. Lucy and Martha Washington sewed socks and clothing for the soldiers. The two revolutionary heroines also tended to them when they took sick.

Lucy and Henry Knox lived in borrowed or rented homes for the first 20 years of their marriage, finally settling in their own house, Montpelier, in Thomaston, Maine.

Lucy Knox died in 1824 and is buried along with her husband in Elm Grove Cemetery in Thomaston.

Deborah Sampson

revolutionary heroine grave sharon

At five-foot-seven, Deborah Sampson was tall enough to pass as a boy in 1782. That was an advantage for a girl like Deborah who wanted to join the Continental Army and fight in the war for independence.

Sampson’s father abandoned her after her birth in Plympton, Mass., in 1760. She grew up in indentured servitude. As a young woman, she taught school in Middleborough, Mass.

Her first attempt at enlisting ended as a joke. She disguised herself, joined up and then apparently thought better of it after spending some of her enlistment pay on a drunken bender.

In 1782 she tried again. Again disguised, she signed up for service in Uxbridge in the Massachusetts 4th Regiment as Robert Shurtlieff Sampson, her dead brother’s name.

Sampson’s undercover act held, for the most part, throughout her 17-month service. She had a close call during a skirmish in Tarrytown, N.Y., when  musket fire struck her head and legs. Fellow soldiers brought her to the hospital. Though she let a hospital doctor dress her head wound, she left the hospital before he treated her leg was treated. Fearing discovery, she removed one piece of shrapnel, but she couldn’t retrieve a second. It stayed with her for life.

After a cold winter in which she suffered frostbite, Sampson received a promotion to serve as a waiter to General John Paterson in April of 1783. When she came down with a fever that summer, her doctor discovered her secret. But he kept it. His wife and daughters nursed Sampson back to health.

With the war ended, Gen. Henry Knox honorably discharged her at West Point in October 1783.

Upon returning to Massachusetts, she married Benjamin Gannett of Stoughton and raised four children.

Sampson lectured about her adventures and sold a book about her experiences. But she did struggle financially, and didn’t get her military pension until 1816. After that, she lived comfortably until her death in 1827.

Deborah Sampson Gannett is buried in Rock Ridge Cemetery in Sharon, Mass.

Molly Stark

revolutionary heroine graves stark

Molly Stark is the best known of the revolutionary heroines because of the war cry uttered by her husband, Gen. John Stark. During the Battle of Bennington, Stark told his men:

There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!

But Molly Stark made her own contribution to the revolutionary cause. Born Elizabeth Page on Feb. 16, 1737, she had been married for 17 years to Stark when the American Revolution broke out. They had 11 children.

When her husband was camped near Fort Ticonderoga, smallpox broke out among his men. They were cold, hungry and disheartened. Molly Start sent a message to bring the sick home to her. She cared for some 20 patients, including her own children. She saved every patient, but she came down with the disease, which disfigured her for life.

Elizabeth (Molly) Stark is buried in Stark Cemetery in Manchester, N.H. A brass cannon captured at the Battle of Bennington – called ‘Old Molly’ – is fired every year in New Boston, N.H. in her honor.

Lucretia Allen

revolutionary heroine grave lucretia allen

Lucretia Allen, born in 1770, was easily the youngest of the revolutionary heroines. The oldest child of Judge John and Mary Allen, she lived in North Kingstown, R.I.

Judge Allen staunchly supported the revolution and refused to help the British when they occupied Newport in 1776. He gave the patriots livestock and provisions, and wouldn’t let a Loyalist neighbor use his skiff to bring supplies to the British fleet.

One cold morning in May 1779, the British came ashore to take care of Judge Allen. They drove off his livestock and marched him at the point of a bayonet to their vessels. Then they set his house on fire.

Eight-year-old Lucretia, her mother and siblings fled in their nightclothes to a neighbor’s house. The children were shivering, so Lucretia ran back to her house as the British ransacked it. She faced them and asked for a blanket. A soldier tossed her a quilt.

The British released Judge Allen, and he rebuilt his home.

Lucretia Allen married Silas Allen and had three children. She died in 1810 and is buried in the Deacon George Allen Lot in North Kingstown (also known as Rhode Island Historic Cemetery North Kingstown #81). The cemetery is off Fletcher Road, deep in the woods behind the old Allen homestead at 415 Fletcher Road.

Ann Story

revolutionary heroine grave story

Ann Story’s heroics during the Revolutionary War earned her the sobriquet ‘Mother of the Green Mountain Boys.’

Newly widowed, Ann Story moved to West Salisbury, Vt., in 1775 with her five children. Tall and strong, she could handle an ax as well as a musket.

When the Revolution broke out, Vermont got dangerous because Loyalists and their Indian allies harassed the patriots.

Many Vermonters left their farms. Ann Story not only stayed, but offered to spy for the Green Mountain Boys.

In one harrowing incident, Story and her children fled in a canoe while Indians burned their house. To hide from future attacks, the Story family dug a cave in the banks of the Otter Creek.

One day, one of her sons discovered a pregnant woman lost in the woods. Indians had captured the woman, but left her behind when she couldn’t keep up.  Ann Story took the woman in. Later, the newborn baby’s crying drew the attention of a Loyalist scout, Ezekiel Jenny. He demanded to know the hiding place of the Green Mountain Boys’ supporters.

Story defied him. “I had no fears of being shot by so consummate a coward as he,” she recalled. Jenny continued on his way, and Story told the patriots the Loyalists were afoot. Local patriots tracked down Jenny and his scouting party, captured them and hauled them to Fort Ticonderoga.

Ann Story later married Capt. Stephen Goodrich. She is buried at the Farmingdale Cemetery in Middlebury. Her headstone bears the name Hannah Goodrich. A second memorial marks her home site on Shard Villa Road, West Salisbury. It’s next to the Shard Villa Nursing Home, once the home of lawyer Columbus Smith.

End Notes on Revolutionary Heroines

Thanks to: History of Salisbury, Vermont by A.H. Copeland. You can read more about Ann Story here.

To find the grave of Lucretia Allen: According to findagrave.com, the easiest access can be made through Chimney Rock Drive, with permission of the owner at 150. A pipe rail and granite post fence enclose the lot.

Images: Stark Cemetery By AlexiusHoratius – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26455478; Lucretia Allen and Ann Story, artists’ conceptions.

This story about the gravesites of revolutionary heroines was updated in 2018. 

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