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Joseph Warren

The Enigma of Dr. Benjamin Church

One man’s traitor is often another man’s patriot, depending on who does the labeling. Frequently the victor in a war dictates the label. But often the label is not that simple and clear. Such is the case of Dr. Benjamin Church, often called “America’s First Traitor.” The problem comes from the fact that “America” did not exist at the time of his alleged treason.

Dr. Benjamin Church

Benjamin Church

Benjamin Church was born in Newport, Colony of Rhode Island, British America, on Aug. 24, 1734. A Mayflower descendant through his ancestor Elizabeth Warren Church, his heritage was steeped in the founding of the New World. His father was a merchant. His grandfather, Col. Benjamin Church, played a prominent role in King Philip’s War and led the force that hunted down and killed King Philip.

Col. Benjamin Church, ca 1675

Being the son of a prominent, well-to-do family, much would have been expected of him. He went to Boston Latin School to prepare for Harvard, from which he graduated in 1754. He studied medicine in British America for a time before continuing the study in London. In England that he met and married his wife, Hannah Hill. After his return to Boston, he started a highly successful medical practice and was known for his medical and surgical skills.

By the 1760s Church began to be seen as a supporter of the burgeoning movement in Colonial America that would eventually lead to revolution. He became a prominent member of the Whig Party and was an intimate of Dr. Joseph Warren and Samuel and John Adams. The narrow telling of the story of the American Revolution has long fostered the myth that the intended purpose of the of the Patriot movement was dissolution of the union with England. But this is completely false. Most individuals who espoused the Patriot cause were not seeking to break their English bonds but to have perceived grievances redressed within the existing system. Open, armed rebellion was not a general cause celebre before 1775.

A Leading Patriot

Residing in Boston, Church became a trusted confidant of many of the prominent patriots. In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, he treated some of the wounded and examined Crispus Attucks’ body. He was a skilled orator, and three years after the Massacre, he gave a spirited oration commemorating the event.

The Boston Massacre, engraving by Paul Revere

Church’s involvement in Massachusetts politics culminated in his 1774 election to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Thereafter, he became a prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety. To all outward appearances, Benjamin Church was a leading patriot, deeply involved in the cause. Church commanded such respect that in July 1775 the nascent Continental Congress appointed him the first director general and chief surgeon of the new Medical Department.

However, sometime in early 1775, Church began to spy for the British military, with direct links to Gen. Thomas Gage. It is not clear how much information passed between them before the fatal shots on Lexington Green. His motives are still not clear.

General Thomas Gage (John Singleton Copley)

Certainly, the British paid him, and he did maintain a lavish lifestyle that required a large income. Was money the primary motivation for his ostensible change of heart? Or did he grow disenchanted with n increasingly militant patriot cause? Or was it a combination of greed and disenchantment?

The Coded Letter

There is even some suggestion, without any real proof, that he was a closet Tory. It is not likely that the truth will ever be known. The one thing to remember – often conveniently overlooked – is that treason can be a two-way street. Under British law, the law of the land in the colonies, patriots plotting against the government hovered on the borders of treason. When they began an armed conflict against the government, then they openly committed treason under the British law that governed them.

Church passed his messages to General Gage through a series of messengers. Then in October 1775, one of Church’s former mistresses gave a coded message to a Rhode Island patriot, who turned it over to Gen. Nathanael Greene instead of passing it along. Greene then sent it onward to General Washington.

Washington had the coded letter given to two men good at puzzles. They independently deciphered the message and came up with identical results. The letter provided details of ammunition, recruiting, American strength, New York artillery and Bunker Hill casualties. It was a damning missive.

Nathanael Greene

The former mistress, described as “a very lusty woman much pitted with smallpox,” was arrested and brought to Boston. Through her interrogation and clues from the letter, its author was identified as Dr. Benjamin Church. Church was immediately arrested and brought before the war council. He admitted to sending the letter, but professed innocence of any evil intent. Church claimed he sent it as a ruse to fool the enemy about the Americans’ real situation. He further claimed that nothing in the letter could not be gleaned from public documents and knowledge.

Despite his smooth talk, his lengthy protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears.

Church’s code. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

The Dilemma of Benjamin Church

The problem came when it was time to decide how to deal with him. It was one thing to call his conduct treason, but another to give it the force of law. In open rebellion, the Colonies could not simply fall back on British law and the articles of war adopted in Philadelphia said nothing about treason or espionage. In fact, under the current legal conditions, his actions did not rise legally to a crime of any kind. The easiest thing for Congress to do was strip Church of his appointment as Surgeon General and to turn Church over to the Massachusetts to decide his fate.

Church appeared before the Massachusetts House of Representatives to plead his innocence in an hour-long oration. Again, it fell on deaf ears. The House expelled him. But Massachusetts had the same legal problem as the Continental Congress. It had no laws governing treason, so it could not pass sentence. Congress simply ordered Washington to send him under arrest to Connecticut for indefinite confinement.

He was confined in a damp, dark cell, and specifically denied pen, ink and paper. He won a brief parole when several physicians attested to his poor health in confinement. But this release did not last long, as rioters sacked his Boston house. He returned to prison for his own protection. Efforts to use him in a prisoner exchange also failed. In 1778 he was released and sent in exile to Martinique. However, he never reached his destination as his ship was lost at sea. His wife and children made their way to London. There, the King granted her a £150 pension, over £30,000 today.

Treason or Not?

For 150 years, the single intercepted letter served as the only real proof of Church’s “treason.” Then definite proof emerged in General Gage’s papers showing that he spied for the British since at least the early part of 1775. Among the information passed on by him: the existence of Patriot arms in Concord. And the British paid him for all the information he gave them.

The question remains, however: Did he commit treason? Information passed to British authorities before April 19, 1775, when the Revolution broke out, would not have risen to the level of treason. Everyone was a British subject at the time so he could not have committed treason against any government.

It can be argued that he betrayed the trust of others. But that is not a crime. After April 19, 1775, from a British standpoint, the rebels committed treason against the Crown. So Church’s spying for British authorities, whether for money or not, served as patriotism to the mother country. Furthermore, at the time of his arrest, the colonies, while in open rebellion, had not declared independence.

Certainly, his contemporaries faced a quandary about what to do with him. Dangerous to the patriot cause, certainly, so they could not simply let him go free. But they didn’t find him guilty of anything.

Traitor or patriot? It depends on your point of view.

Bill Utley has a B.A. in History from Syracuse University and an M.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of New Haven. He has co-authored a book on the French history of Fort Niagara. Retired from the U.S. government, he is an Army veteran and Dr. Benjamin Church’s fifth cousin, seven times removed.

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The Body Snatcher of Chebacco Parish

In April 1818, the discovery that a body snatcher had removed eight human bodies from their final resting place shocked the people of Chebacco Parish on Massachusetts’ North Shore.

Several months earlier, people saw lights in The Old Burying Ground (now in Essex). It snowed that night, so no telltale footprints were left.

But when the snow melted, it revealed a hair ornament on the ground. It belonged to 26-year-old Sally Andrews, who died of consumption on Christmas Day 1817. Further investigation found her grave empty.

Heinous Crime

Not only did town officials discover a body snatcher had removed Sally’s body, they found seven more bodies missing as well. They included 10-year-old boys Isaac Allen and Phillip Harlow; Mary Millet, aged 35; William Burnham, 79; Elisha Story, 65; and Samuel Burnham, 26.

All had been recently buried. The body snatcher had also taken a colored man who had been buried six years previously.

The furious residents of Chebacco Parish raised the enormous amount of $500 for information about the person who had conducted this “most daring and sacrilegious robbery.”

As a reminder of the heinous crime, eight coffins were left open for the public to view for three months.

Anatomists

The townspeople had no hope of recovering the bodies, as they believed they had ‘passed under the dissecting knife of the anatomist.’

Suspicion fell on the ‘anatomist’ for a reason: In the 19^th century, body snatchers robbed graves to sell to doctors or medical students for anatomical research or lectures. Doctors even did it.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt van Rijn

The body snatchers generally targeted fresh graves, as the soft earth made digging easier. Sometimes they hired women to act as grieving relatives who claimed the bodies of the dead at poorhouses. Sometimes they hired women to attend funerals so they could detect any obstacles to the body snatching.

The demand for fresh bodies grew as colleges established medical schools in America. Harvard Medical School, established in 1782 by John Warren, younger brother of Joseph Warren, Aaron Dexter and Benjamin Waterhouse.

Wrote Warren’s son, John Collins Warren, Jr., “No occurrences in the course of my life have given me more trouble and anxiety than the procuring of subjects for dissection.”

Body Snatcher

Thomas Sewall, a promising young doctor in town, was a likely suspect as a body snatcher.

He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1812 and set up a physician’s practice in Ipswich. He also lectured on anatomy to medical students.

The Rev. Robert Crowell described his scientific approach to medicine:

Though endowed by nature with a bold and penetrating genius, and though rich in all the learning of his science and vigilant in marking its progress, he never allowed his judgement to yield to the fascination of theories, or to the authority of systems; but founded his practice on the solid basis of experience.

The townspeople suspected that ‘solid basis of experience’ included dissecting fresh bodies.

Sure enough, authorities discovered he possessed parts of the bodies of Sally Andrews and William Burnham.

Daniel Webster

Sewall hired Daniel Webster as his lawyer, but it didn’t matter. A jury found him guilty on two counts of knowingly and willfully receiving, concealing and disposing of the bodies of two of his patients. The court fined him $800 and ordered him out of the community.

Aftermath

Webster invited him to move to Washington, D.C., to reestablish his career. In 1825 he cofounded the medical department at Columbian College (later George Washington University), and he taught anatomy.

In 1819, Chebacco incorporated into the town of Essex.

Two decades after the body snatcher incident, the townspeople could still barely talk about it, wrote Duane Hamilton Hurd in his book, History of Essex County, Vol. II. Hurd had arrived in town 22 years later, and wrote that a ‘pungency and acerbity in every occasional allusion to it by the majority of the adults.’

If you liked this story about the body snatcher of Chebacco Parish, you may also like to read about Fortune, the slave whose body was used for medical training, here.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Joseph Orono, The Blue Eyed Indian Who Helped the Revolutionary Cause

The Penobscot sachem Joseph Orono died in 1801, too early to know about his consolation prize for losing his people’s land to white settlers.

He lived plenty long, though. He was said to have been born in 1688, which made him 113 when he died in 1801. If that’s true, Joseph Orono lived through every one of the French and Indian Wars as well as the American Revolution, in which he participated

A Penobscot chief

Five years after his death, Orono, Maine named itself after him. He probably would have preferred the land along the Penobscot River promised him, and then taken.

Joseph Orono

Historical accounts agree that Joseph Orono had reddish hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. He spoke fluent French, English and Penobscot.

Accounts disagree about his lineage. Some say he had some relation to Baron de Castine, a French nobleman who married an Indian. (Castine also had a town named after him in Maine.) Perhaps Orono was Castine’s son-in-law, or grandson.

Joseph Orono himself said his father was French, and his mother half French, half Indian. A devout Catholic, he believed the Indians had suffered from war, and advocated peace. White people viewed him favorably, and described him as able, friendly and sagacious.

Revolution

In 1775, Joseph Orono and three other Penobscot chiefs went to air their grievances to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, as Maine then belonged to that colony. The Indian delegation stopped in Falmouth, now Portland, where the people gave them money, horses and a carriage to help them on their journey.

Two days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, they arrived in Watertown, Mass., where the Provincial Congress then met. It included Sam Adams, John Hancock and Joseph Warren.

On June 21, 1775, Joseph Orono addressed the Provincial Congress on behalf of the whole Penobscot tribe. As he spoke, the men inside could hear the groans of the soldiers dying of their battle wounds.

Orono said that if the Congress took care of his people’s grievances, the Penobscots would aid the rebels with their whole force. Those grievances consisted chiefly of trespasses by the whites upon their timber lands and cheating them in trade.

The committee responded warmly, and said the Indians’ complaints would receive their attention as soon as they could take a breath from the Revolution. Eventually, Massachusetts signed a treaty giving six miles of land on each side of the Penobscot river to the Indians.

Frigates

In 1779, the British built a fort in what is now Castine. Joseph Orono communicated intelligence about their activities to the patriots. Massachusetts then sent the Penobscot Expedition to Castine, and the Penobscot Indians fought with them. Whether Joseph Orono actually fought is unclear; he would have been 91.

The British routed the Americans in the worst naval disaster until Pearl Harbor. But Joseph Orono continued to help the cause, communicating intelligence to patriots in Machias and Halifax.

In 1780, Joseph Orono earned his Indian nickname, K’tolaqu. It means ‘frigate.’

Orono went to Newport, R.I., where French forces had landed before marching to Yorktown. His mission: to request a Catholic priest from the French consul. But he was so amazed by the French frigates in the harbor that he couldn’t stop talking about them afterword.

Island Life

Joseph Orono had often stayed and hunted with a friend on Deer Isle, a white settler named Seth Webb. After he broke with other Penobscots in 1783, he moved a small group of his people to White Island, off Deer Isle.

Penobscot wigwams

They established a little village with a Franciscan missionary, a Catholic chapel and wigwams. But they couldn’t live in peace there, either. In 1786, Joseph Orono complained to Massachusetts Commissioner Benjamin Lincoln, once a member of the Provincial Congress. People were chopping down his trees and burning the wigwams, he said.

A decade later, Massachusetts reneged on its deal to deed the land along the Penobscot River to Orono’s people. All they had left was the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation.

Penobscot Indian reservation, ca. 1940s

Five years after Joseph Orono died, white settlers near the Indian reservation incorporated, naming the town Orono. Today, the University of Maine has its main campus there. An island in Penobscot Bay also bears his name.

In May 2018, the University of Maine and the Penobscot Nation were scheduled to signed an agreement ‘formalizing their collaborations in the past decade to help manage the tribe’s cultural heritage.’

With thanks to Canoe Indians of Down East Maine, by Bill Haviland. This story about the Penobscot chief Joseph Orono was updated in 2022.

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The 18 Patriots Condemned to Death – Who Wouldn’t Die

Shortly before the American Revolution broke out, an item appeared in a Boston newspaper identifying 18 patriots condemned to death.

On Sept. 19, 1774, New England was in a state of alarm. On September 1, British troops had seized a store of powder from a Boston powder house. Word spread that war had broken out. Militias from across New England streamed toward Boston.

It was just a false alarm, but it looked much like the response to the Battles of Lexington and Concord that would play out in just a few months.

A Sam Adams Prank?

The Boston Evening-Post published a notice. It purported to be a letter tossed into a British camp, identifying 18 patriots condemned to death by the British government.

Since then, historians have debated authorship of the letter. Some suggest Sam Adams — or perhaps other patriot pot-stirrers — cooked it up. They think it was meant to inflame public opinion against the British and elevate the reputation of the patriots condemned.

Others suggest it was genuine, written by a loyalist who actually wanted the 18 men named in the letter killed. The notice read as follows:

The Letter

The following is an authentic copy of a letter, which was lately thrown into the camp, with the following direction: ‘To the officers and soldiers of his majesty’s troops in Boston.

It being more than probable that the king’s standard will soon be erected, from rebellion breaking out in this Province, it is proper that you, soldiers, should be acquainted with the authors thereof, and of all the misfortunes brought upon the Province. The following is a list of them, viz:

Samuel Adams

John Hancock

James Bowdoin

William Cooper

Dr. Thomas Young

Dr. Chauncey

Dr. Benjamin Church

Dr. Cooper

Capt. John Bradford

Thomas Cushing

Josiah Quincy

Joseph Greenleaf

Maj. Nathaniel Barber

William Denning

William Mollineux

The friends of your king and country, and of America, hope and expect from you, soldiers, the instant rebellion happens, you will put the above persons immediately to the sword, destroy their houses, and plunder their effects. It is just that they should be the first victims to the mischief they have brought upon us.

(Signed) A Friend To Great Britain And America.

(Take Note) Don’t forget those trumpeters of sedition, the printers, Edes and Gill and Thomas.

18 Patriots Condemned to Death

So who were all those patriots? Many names are well known, others less so. It includes some actual rebels and others who weren’t. They all have one thing in common: None was killed by the British. They are:

Samuel Adams, one of the 18 patriots condemned to death.

Samuel Adams – If you had to blame just one person for the American Revolution you wouldn’t go far wrong nominating Samuel Adams. Officially he positioned himself as seeking reform rather than independence. But his opposition to British taxes and military occupation of Boston put him at the political edges of the patriot cause. He frequently wrote (anonymously) and argued against British policy. And when tensions boiled over at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Governor Gage issued a general offer of clemency for any man who would lay down his arms. But he made two exceptions: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Adams died in 1803 after serving as Massachusetts’ governor.

John Hancock – Despite years of wooing John Hancock, the British leadership failed to retain Hancock’s loyalty. One of the richest men in America, Hancock represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and eventually supported the bid for independence. He would serve as an immensely popular governor of Massachusetts and ensure the Commonwealth ratified the US Constitution. He died in 1793 in Boston.

Natural Causes

James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin – James Bowdoin wrote an inflammatory report about the Boston Massacre that infuriated British officials. He would go on to be Massachusetts’ second governor, following John Hancock. His son would donate land that would become Bowdoin College in Maine. Bowdoin was unpopular as governor (his policies helped spark Shay’s Rebellion), but his funeral in 1790 was widely attended. He died of disease.

William Cooper – William Cooper, brother to Samuel Cooper, confidante of John Hancock and town clerk of Boston for more than 40 years. Cooper was a frequent, anonymous author (along with John Adams) of pro-patriot news stories. He died in 1809 of natural causes.

Doctor, Doctor

Dr. Thomas Young – Thomas Young was John Adams’ family physician after he relocated to Boston from Albany in 1766. A key organizer of the Boston Tea Party, he did not participate in the event. Instead he gave a lecture on the evils of drinking tea on the night of the sabotage, probably as a diversion. A poet, writer, philosopher and violinist, Young died in 1777 of yellow fever. He probably contracted the disease at the Continental Army hospital in Philadelphia, where he treated soldiers.

Samuel Cooper, one of the 18 patriots condemned.

Dr. Chauncey – Charles Chauncey, a leading minister in New England, he preached for 60 years at Boston’s First Church. During the run-up to the American Revolution he firmly believed in the patriot cause, trumpeting the political philosophy of the American Revolution in sermons and pamphlets. Better known as a theologian than a revolutionary, he died of natural causes in 1787.

Dr. Benjamin Church – Benjamin Church, an outspoken patriot supporter, treated soldiers injured at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Afterward, it turned out he provided intelligence to the British about American forces. He probably did it because he desperately needed money. After a period of imprisonment, Church was allowed to leave America in 1778. The ship he left on disappeared.

Dr. Cooper – Samuel Cooper, a Congregational minister at the Brattle Street Church in Boston, home parish to Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren and other patriot leaders. He died in 1783 of natural causes.

Writers, Soldiers, Politicians

John Singleton Copley painted this portrait of John Hancock around 1771. Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society.

Capt. John Bradford – John Bradford, a protege of John Hancock, served as Continental Army agent and prize agent for the port of Boston during the revolution. In these roles he had to equip ships and troops. He also had to see that ships captured by privateers were sold off and the proceeds divided up properly among the government and the privateers. Bradford earned a commission himself. Hancock also made money because the privateers brought prize ships to Hancock’s wharf. About half the ships captured during the war passed through Boston, and a great many disputes broke out over how to handle them. As a result, Bradford was subject to a great deal of criticism. He died in 1784 of natural causes.

Thomas Cushing – Thomas Cushing, a long-time Massachusetts politician, rose to colonial Speaker of the House by 1775. He opposed British taxation, but initially opposed the Declaration of Independence. He was probably lumped in with the 18 patriots condemned because his name appeared on official correspondence between Massachusetts and British officials. Despite his slowness to accept independence, Cushing remained active in politics as an important supporter of John Hancock. He died in 1788 while still serving as lieutenant governor.

Thomas Cushing

Lawyer, Printer, Broker

Josiah Quincy – Josiah Quincy, a Boston lawyer, frequently wrote anonymous articles for the patriot cause. In 1774 he traveled to England to try to dissuade the government from war. He died of tuberculosis on a ship returning home, seven days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Joseph Greenleaf – Joseph Greenleaf, a printer and writer who, for a time, published a magazine that promoted the patriot cause. A one-time justice of the peace, he assisted the Boston Committee of Correspondence in its work. He died in 1810 of natural causes.

Maj. Nathaniel Barber – An insurance broker, he served as militia master of Suffolk County and participated in the Boston Tea Party. Barber belonged to the political clubs that discussed the ideology behind the revolutionary cause. During the war, Barber led a militia unit and oversaw Boston’s military supplies. He died at his home in 1787.

One New Yorker

Isaiah Thomas

William Denning – William Denning stands out as the only one on the list of 18 condemned patriots without a direct connection to Massachusetts. Denning belonged to New York’s Committee of 60 (that later grew to the Committee of 100), which enforced compliance with a trade embargo. American rebels had put the embargo in place in 1774 to protest Britain’s punishment of Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. When war broke out, Denning served as a deputy to New York’s patriot legislature, organizing wartime finances. He would go on to serve in Congress before he died in 1808 at his Wall Street home in New York City.

William Mollineux – William Mollineux, a hardware merchant, made the list of 18 patriots condemned because of his eagerness to lead public protests against British colonial government. He had a reputation before the war as incorruptible, zealous and an outspoken advocate for American liberty. But he died, of natural causes, in 1774 before the outbreak of war.

And Don’t Forget…

A final addendum to the list of 18 patriots condemned to death targeted Benjamin Edes and John Gill, who published the pro-patriot newspaper the Boston Gazette. It also named Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the radical Massachusetts Spy. All three died of natural causes, Gill first in 1785, Edes in 1803 and then Thomas in 1831.

This story about the 18 patriots condemned to death was updated in 2022.

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Joseph Warren, The Patriot Who Might Have Made Us Forget George Washington

Joseph Warren, say some today, would have been the first president of the United States had he not been killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Joseph Warren about 1765, by John Singleton Copley

Had Warren lived, said Loyalist Peter Oliver in 1782, George Washington would have been ‘an obscurity.’

British Gen. Thomas Gage said the death of Joseph Warren was ‘worth the death of 500 men.’

Counties in 14 states bear the name of Joseph Warren, as do four towns in New England (New Hampshire and Rhode Island each have a Warren named after Sir Peter). Five ships were named after him, four statues bearing his likeness are on display and a street in Detroit is named ‘Warren Avenue.’

So what was so special about Joseph Warren?

Joseph Warren

Unlike John Hancock, Joseph Warren didn’t have a wealthy uncle who took him under his wing when his father died. But Joseph Warren was ambitious, both for wealth and for glory.

He had taken to heart the words of his father: “I would rather a son of mine were dead than a coward.”

Joseph Warren was just 14 and about to enter Harvard in 1755 when his father was killed falling off a ladder while picking apples. His mother, Mary Stevens Warren, mortgaged the farm to send him to Harvard, though she probably could have used more of his help to run it.

After graduating from Harvard, he married a 17-year-old heiress, Elizabeth Hooten, in 1764. She died eight years later, leaving him with two young sons and two young daughters.

Joseph Warren became the youngest doctor in Boston and one of the best, with a stellar list of clients including Sam Adams, John Hancock, John Adams and his family. He saved 7-year-old John Quincy Adams’ finger from amputation.

Paul Revere

Warren also had Loyalist patients: the children of Thomas Hutchinson, British Gen. Thomas Gage and his wife Margaret. After his wife died, Joseph Warren is believed by some to have had an affair with Margaret Gage. She may have tipped him off about the British plans to raid Concord and arrest Hancock and Adams.

It was Joseph Warren who enlisted Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm on April 19, 1775.

Most Influential Patriot

Of Joseph Warren, military historian Ethan Rafuse wrote, “No man, with the possible exception of Samuel Adams, did so much to bring about the rise of a movement powerful enough to lead the people of Massachusetts to revolution.”

The Old South Meeting House in 1898

Joseph Warren was gregarious, charming and a powerful speaker who enlisted in the patriot cause. He became Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew when Paul Revere was the secretary. He was also a member of the Sons of Liberty. He tried to save Christopher Seider, the young boy killed in 1770 by British soldiers.

To commemorate the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre, he delivered a speech at the Old South Meeting House while wearing a toga.

In the fall of 1774, Joseph Warren wrote the Suffolk Resolves, which supported a boycott of British goods and urged armed resistance to the British.

By the first months of 1775 he was the most influential patriot leader in Massachusetts. Hancock and the Adamses were in Philadelphia attending the Second Continental Congress, and Warren, just 33, was the president of the Provincial Congress – Massachusetts’ shadow government.

Bunker Hill

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull.

Joseph Warren belonged to the Committee of Safety. He had made sure powder and arms were stored in towns throughout Massachusetts. He also tried to organize Massachusetts’ fighting forces into an ‘army of observation,’ and he propagandized so they’d be willing to fight.

On the day of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he sneaked out of Boston and led militia in harassing the British returning to the city. He then returned to Boston, where he organized soldiers for the siege of Boston and negotiated with Gage.

Joseph Warren Dies in the Battle of Bunker Hill

On June 13, colonial leaders learned the British planned to send troops to take the unoccupied hills surrounding the besieged city. That night, 1,200 colonial troops stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill and built an earthworks.

Warren had been commissioned a major general in the Massachusetts militia. However, he insisted on fighting as a private in the thick of the battle. He asked Gen. Israel Putnam where the heaviest fighting would be.

Joseph Warren conferring with Israel Putnam before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

During the battle he fought behind the earthworks until the patriots exhausted their ammunition. He stayed there to give the militia time to escape while the British made their final assault. A British officer then recognized him and shot him in the head. He died instantly, six days after his 34^th birthday.

The British stripped his body and stabbed it beyond recognition, then threw him into a shallow grave with another patriot killed in the battle. Paul Revere later identified his body.

The day after the battle, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband:

I have just heard that our dear Friend Dr. Warren is no more but fell gloriously fighting for his Country-saying better to die honourably in the field than ignominiously hang upon the Gallows. Great is our Loss. He has distinguished himself in every engagement, by his courage and fortitude, by animating the Soldiers & leading them on by his own example.

More on that Battle

Interested in the Battle of Bunker Hill? You might want to read what it was like for Abigail Adams and her young son to watch it from 10 miles away.

Many others watched the battle from hills and rooftops, including this 10-year-old Loyalist who told her granddaughter what it was like.

Or you might want to read about the printer’s apprentice who spent 107 days in a British prison for cheering the patriot side while watching the battle.

The most detailed account of the battle came from someone who fought in it: a private named Peter Brown who enlisted after he heard the news of Lexington and Concord. The British, he wrote, got a ‘choaky mouthful.’

The news about the Battle of Bunker Hill threw the surrounding towns into a panic. Read the first-person account of a Salem doctor who thought the British had reached the next town.

Here is a more detailed description of the death of Joseph Warren.

Paul Revere was a man of many talents. He became the first odontologist when he identified the Warren’s body nine months after the battle ended.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Eat Like A President, Part II

In honor of President’s Day, the New England Historical Society brings you another guide to how to eat like a president.

John F. Kennedy. Photo courtesy John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

We focus on New England presidents beginning with John Adams and including one or two diversions such as Abraham Lincoln. (Though it’s worth pointing out that Legal Seafood’s clam chowder has been served at every presidential inauguration since Ronald Reagan.)

Eat Like a President

Green Dragon

John Adams drank a tankard of hard cider when he got up in the morning, and when in Boston he stopped off later at the Green Dragon Tavern.

Paul Revere talks in his memoirs about meeting John and the other Sons of Liberty, like Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, to start a revolution. The tavern isn’t exactly where it was back in the day, but absent the karaoke bar and table tents it’s quite evocative of the Revolutionary era.

When at home, John and Abigail ate typical New England foods such as codfish cakes, New England clam chowder, Johnny cake, apple butter, succotash, Indian pudding and gingerbread.

John Quincy Adams

Their son, John Quincy Adams, was notoriously indifferent to food despite his exposure to many fine international cuisines. He liked fruit, and was known to say, “Five or six small crackers and a glass of water give me a sumptuous dinner.”

Pie at the White House

Franklin Pierce was another president who liked solid, traditional fare. It was a preference he would have picked up at his father’s tavern in Hillsborough, N.H., where a Christmas dinner was once held for Revolutionary War veterans. Pierce and his family were fond of maple syrup and New Hampshire fried pies, made with dried apples.

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Abraham Lincoln, though not a New Englander, had relatives in Massachusetts. His distant cousin Levi Lincoln supported his political career. You can visit Sturbridge Village and see his former mansion where Abraham Lincoln dined in September 1848.

Levi Lincoln, former governor and then the mayor of Worcester, held a meal that Cousin Abraham remembered long afterward. Thirteen years later, he told Massachusetts Gov. Henry Gardner:

I had been chosen to Congress then from the wild West, and with hayseed in my hair I went to Massachusetts, the most cultured State in the Union, to take a few lessons in deportment.

Lincoln, Gardner said, added

That the dinner at Governor Lincoln’s by reason of its elaborate hospitality and social brilliancy was different in kind from any function he had ever attended before. He remarked upon the beauty of the china, the fineness of the silverware and the richness of all the table appointments, and spoke of the company of distinguished and thoroughly educated whom he met there in the animated, free and intimate conversation inspired by such an accomplished host as Governor Lincoln.

Picky Presidential Eater

Where Calvin Coolidge developed his eating habits

Calvin Coolidge, as a state lawmaker and governor, enjoyed dining at the private Algonquin Club on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. He was a fastidious eater who believed chicken should be raised close to where they were eaten and kept chickens at the White House. They had an unusual flavor because the chicken yard was built on top of Theodore Roosevelt’s mint bed.

Coolidge liked roast beef, Vermont pickles and corn muffins. According to the Food Timeline, his fastidiousness created a problem for the White House chef, who couldn’t get the recipe for corn muffins right. First Lady Grace Coolidge finally sent off to a Northampton inn to get the recipe.

Coolidge’s discriminating dining habits are illustrated by several versions of a story told about him while he attended Amherst College. Here’s one version:

Dwight Morrow was a classmate of Coolidge’s at Amherst and the father of Anne Morrow, the wife of Charles A. Lindbergh. (Coolidge later appointed Morrow as Ambassador to Mexico.) Morrow used to like to tell the story of when he and Coolidge went to the same boarding house to take their meals. Hash was served frequently. When it was served, Morrow said Coolidge turned very grave. The landlady had a dog and a cat. As the hash was being served, Coolidge would ask “Where’s the dog?” and the dog would be brought in. Then he’d ask “Where’s the cat?” — and the cat would be called in. Only then would he help himself to the hash.

The Modern Era

George H.W. Bush in his broccoli-eating days.

As a member of Congress, John F. Kennedy stayed at a hotel near the Statehouse in Boston. He notoriously showed up at the nearby 21^st Amendment for a beer he never paid for.

Kennedy also liked to read his Sunday paper at the Union Oyster House, where another presidential wannabe, Daniel Webster, used to consume six plates of oysters and a tumbler of brandy for lunch.

Like Coolidge, Kennedy liked corn muffins. He also dearly loved Boston clam chowder. White House chef Rene Verdon remembered,

He asked me to prepare it for him on many occasions…I did everything I could to satisfy Mr. Kennedy’s New England liking for good fish cookery. Quite naturally, as a Catholic, he had it every Friday.

When vacationing on Cape Cod, the Kennedys liked the homemade ice cream from the Four Seas ice cream parlor in Centerville, near the family compound in Hyannisport. Jackie Kennedy’s favorite flavor: peach.

George H.W. Bush was as fastidious about vegetables as Calvin Coolidge was about everything else. He hated broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Barbara Bush said,

The day he was 60, he said to me: `I am never going to eat broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower or cabbage again.’ And he hasn’t!

Bush and his family liked lobster and ice cream, though. When vacationing in Kennebunkport, they enjoyed Mabel’s Lobster Claw, a seafood restaurant that’s been serving tourists since the 1950s. The Bushes allegedly liked the peppermint stick ice cream.

And on the walls of Frank Pepe’s Pizza Napoletana in New Haven hangs a framed photo of Bill Clinton. Though now a vegan, he liked a good white clam apizza in his day.

This story about eating like a president was updated in 2022.

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