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Kittery

Six Courageous Heroes From New England

Not all courageous heroes receive their due on Veterans or any other day. So many sacrifices have gone unheralded, so many men and women who risked their lives for their country were all but forgotten.

For all of New England’s courageous heroes and veterans, we mention these six on Veterans Day. One comes from each state. If you know of another courageous hero who deserves accolades, please share it in the comments section.

Henry Mucci, Bridgeport, Conn.

Henry Mucci, one of many courageous heroes who rescued POWs.

One of the most courageous heroes of World War II, Lt. Col. Henry Mucci led a daring rescue mission in the South Pacific.

Stationed in New Guinea during World War II, he created a new Army Ranger unit, the 6^th Ranger Battalion.

In October 1944, the Japanese held more than 500 mostly American survivors of the Bataan Death March in the Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the 6th Army was marching toward Manila to liberate it from the Japanese. The American prisoners were in imminent danger of being massacred by the Japanese before their countrymen could save them.

Mucci received orders to save them.

On Jan. 28, 1945, Mucci led a march 30 miles through Japanese territory and rendezvoused with Filipino guerillas near the POW camp. A total of 378 rangers and guerillas faced 3,000 Japanese. Some of the guerillas didn’t even have weapons.

At dusk on January 30, the guerrillas set up ambushes along the highway. Mucci led the Rangers on a half-mile crawl across an open field to a ditch outside the POW camp. An Army Air Force fighter buzzed the Japanese to distract them.

The surprise attack lasted but half an hour. None of the Japanese troops or tanks got past the guerrillas along the highway. Many didn’t survive the strafing by the 547th Night Fighter Squadron. The Rangers liberated all but one of the 513 prisoners.

Cabanatuan POWs celebrate their liberation.

More than 500 Japanese troops were killed or wounded. Only two Rangers died and 21 Filipino guerillas suffered wounds.

Some prisoners, weakened from disease and starvation, couldn’t walk, so the Rangers carried them, sometimes two at a time.

More…

Henry Mucci came home to Bridgeport, welcomed as one of the war’s most courageous heroes. He received the Distinguished Service Cross.

A section of Route 25 between Bridgeport and Newtown was named the Col. Henry A. Mucci Highway. Additionally, a film, The Great Raid, was released in 2005.

To see a videos and photos of the liberation of Cabanatuan, click here, here and here.

Donald Skidgel, Bangor, Maine

Sgt. Donald Skidgel

Sgt. Donald Skidgel of Bangor, Maine, gave his life at the age of 20 to save others on a battleground in Vietnam.

He joined the Army in 1968 and soon rose to sergeant. On Sept. 14, 1969, his unit guarded a convoy near Song Be. The enemy began firing from hiding places in tall grass and bunkers.

Skidgel maneuvered off the road and started shooting, silencing one enemy position. Then he ran across 60 meters of bullet-raked ground and fired at other enemy positions.

Suddenly Skidgel saw the convoy’s command group coming under intense attack. He tried to draw the enemy’s attention by manning a machine gun while his driver steered through the hostile fire.

An exploding grenade knocked him onto the rear fender, but he staggered to his feet and continued firing. Finally, small arms fire killed him.

He saved the convoy command and inspired his fellow soldiers to defeat the enemy.

Donald Skidgel received the Medal of Honor posthumously.

On Oct. 15, 2011, the bridge on Route 2 over the Sebasticook River in Newport Maine was dedicated as ‘The Donald Sidney Skidgel Memorial Bridge.’

John Mihalowski, Worcester, Mass.

John Mihalowski

When Worcester, Mass., native John Mihalowski enlisted in the Navy in 1927, he couldn’t know he would play a key role in the greatest submarine rescue in history.

Mihalowski trained as a Navy diver and rose to chief torpedoman. As the U.S. entry into World War II loomed, he joined the crew of the U.S.S. Falcon.

On May 23, 1939, the Falcon raced from New London, Conn., to rescue the U.S.S. Squalus. The submarine sank during a test dive from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Some of the men survived, but they probably wouldn’t last long because they had so little air. Besides, no one had ever survived a submarine sinking.

Once the Falcon reached the Squalus, Mihalowski and several other divers managed to make four dangerous, difficult trips to the sub in an experimental diving ball. At great risk, they carried all 33 survivors to the surface.

John Mihalowski received the Medal of Honor ‘for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession.’ Read more of the dramatic story of the greatest submarine rescue ever here.

The Kittery Historical and Naval Museum in Kittery has an exhibit dedicated to the Squalus rescue.

Alexander Scammell, Durham, N.H.

Alexander Scammell

George Washington thought Alexander Scammell one of the funniest men in the Continental Army. Washington enjoyed the company of the tall, handsome and charming soldier.

Scammell was born in Mendon (now Milford), Mass., but spent most of his adult career in New Hampshire after graduating from Harvard. He studied law in Durham, N.H., with John Sullivan, who became a general and a governor.

Alexander Scammell saw action even before the Revolution began. He seized the British flag during a raid on Fort William and Mary in New Castle, N.H., in December 1774.

He joined the 2^nd New Hampshire Regiment during the Siege of Boston and eventually joined Washington’s Army. Scammell remained with Washington as the British chased the shrinking American army through New Jersey. On Christmas night 1776, Alexander Scammell crossed the Delaware in Washington’s boat before the morale-boosting victory of the Battle of Trenton.

A week later, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Princeton.

Alexander Scammell saw the American forces being badly beaten and, in a daring move, rode to the fore to lead a charge against the enemy. Washington rode up moments later. They rallied the troops, turning a defeat into victory and putting the British on the defensive.

Scammell didn’t survive the war. He died from his wounds during a skirmish before the Battle of Yorktown.

Alexander Scammell’s portrait hangs at the New Hampshire Statehouse, along with dozens of other portraits of military heroes. They belong to the Collections of the New Hampshire Statehouse & State Library. Scammell’s likeness may be viewed in the Visitor’s Center, Rooms 118 and 119. Fort Scammell in Casco Bay, Maine, and the Alexander Scammell Bridge over the Bellamy River near Durham were named after him.

Esek Hopkins, Scituate, R.I.

Esek Hopkins

Esek Hopkins, born in 1718 in Scituate, R.I., had sailed to nearly every part of the globe by the time the American Revolution broke out.

On Dec. 22, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed him to head America’s infant navy. He ignored his orders to head to the Chesapeake Bay, and took eight merchant ships outfitted for war to the Caribbean.

He defied orders because he risked annihilation of his small fleet in the Chesapeake. Hopkins decided instead to divert the British Navy from the American coast and capture a prize.

On March 3, 1776 Esek Hopkins launched the Battle of Nassau in the first U.S. amphibious landing. Sailors and marines captured munitions and two ships, while severely injuring another. Hopkins received praise by some, condemnation by others for the bold stroke.

Esek Hopkins got no medals during the war. He had a hot temper and criticized Congress, which did not view him as one of the war’s courageous heroes. Finally, Congress relieved him of his command in July 1778.

Esek Hopkins’ home in Providence is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Willie Johnston, Derby, Vt.

Willie Johnston

Willie Johnston of Salem (now Derby), Vt., received the Medal of Honor as the youngest and one of the most courageous heroes of the Civil War.

When his father enlisted in the Union Army in December 1861, 11-year-old Willie begged to join him as a drummer boy. He mustered into the 3d Vermont Infantry Regiment on May 1, 1862, and soon saw action.

During the Seven Days Battles near Richmond, Va., the Confederate Army drove the Union Army down the Virginia peninsula. Many men threw away their guns to lighten their load while retreating. Willie hung on to his drum and brought it safely to Harrison’s Landing.

As the only drummer boy left with a drum, he was given the honor of drumming for the division parade. President Abraham Lincoln heard the story and recommended the boy receive a medal. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton presented the Medal of Honor on Feb. 15, 1864, when Willie was 13 years old – for something he did when he was 11.

Willie Johnston mustered out of the army on Dec. 30, 1864, the second-ever recipient of the Medal of Honor.

You can see Willie Johnston’s drumsticks and a photograph of him at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. A statue of him stands in Santa Clarita, Calif., and a book, Mr. Lincoln’s Drummer, came out in 1995.

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Puritans Name, Shame and Take Over Anglican Maine

In 1652, Massachusetts Puritans decided to bring the English Civil War to North America by taking over Anglican Maine.

The year before, Puritans in England had won the final battle of the English Civil War. They had abolished the bishops, beheaded Charles I, exiled Charles II and put Parliament in control of the government. They also did away with High Anglican practices that smacked of Roman Catholicism.

The Massachusetts Puritans, emboldened by their success in England, sent negotiators to the scattered settlements along Maine’s west coast. One by one, the Maine communities agreed to the Puritan ‘suggestion’ that they join the Bay Colony. The Massachusetts militia may have helped them make up their minds.

The Puritans then gave new names to some of the Anglican Maine communities – names some of the Mainers didn’t like one bit.

Early map of eastern New Hampshire and the western Maine coast.

East vs. West

Take a look at the place names along the southern Maine coast: Kittery, Wells, Biddeford, Dartmouth and Falmouth. They mirror place names in Southwest England, known as the West Country.

Map of the West Country

Historians compare the region to the American South. In the 17^th century, it had large plantations and a rural population. Its people were more likely to support the Anglican Church than were the Puritans in eastern England.

Now take a look at Massachusetts place names: Boston, Lynn, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Cambridge, Essex. They come from eastern England, or East Anglia.

East Anglia gave names to 63 percent of Massachusetts towns founded before 1660. Most of those had names from towns within 60 miles of Haverhill in the East Anglian county of Suffolk.

That’s because the Puritan elite of Massachusetts came from East Anglia.

Unlike the West Country, East Anglia in the early 17^th century was urban, entrepreneurial and a hotbed of Puritan opposition to the monarchy and its High Anglican practices.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, born around 1565, came from an Anglican family that claimed royal descent. A military man loyal to King James I, for a time he served as governor of Plymouth in the West Country.

Gorges decided to colonize the New World after receiving three captured North American Indians from an English ship captain.

King James I

In 1607 Gorges helped finance the failed Popham Colony in present-day Phippsburg, Maine. The Popham settlers brought with them an Anglican priest, Richard Seymour, brother to Henry VIII’s wife Jane Seymour. Richard Seymour conducted the first Anglican service in America.

In 1620, King James I granted Gorges a patent for ‘planting, ruling, ordering and governing’ the territory between Virginia and New France.

Gorges, as head of the Council for New England, gave himself and his partner John Mason a grant for all lands between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers.

Mason took New Hampshire, and Gorges took the territory north of the Piscataqua River. He called it New Somersetshire after his own home in England.

Anglican Maine

While Gorges was off fighting the French in 1627, the Massachusetts Bay Company got a royal charter for Massachusetts. Gorges thought Massachusetts belonged to him.

To add insult to injury, the Massachusetts Puritans believed in self-rule. Gorges wanted his territory run by Anglican feudal lords and their deputies.

Gorges tried maneuvering in Parliament to get Massachusetts back. His efforts sparked antagonism between the Anglican, Royalist Gorges and the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, a trickle of Anglicans from the West Country came to fish, farm and trade along the southern Maine coast in places they called Black Point, Blue Point, Stratton’s Island, Spurwink and Casco.

Gorges tried to establish another colony between the Saco and Kennebec Rivers, which he called the province of Lygonia after his mother, Cecily Lygon. Another settlement took Gorges’ own name — Gorgeana.

The settlers in Anglican Maine and Lygonia squabbled over who owned what land. Their disunity didn’t help them when the Massachusetts Puritans came calling.

What’s In A Name?

Since the arrival of the Winthrop fleet in 1630, Massachusetts had steadily grown in size and in wealth. With an organized government, its citizens had the rights of trial by jury and the freehold tenure of land. Freemen elected councils to write bylaws and deputies to attend the General Court, observed historian Hannah Farber.

By 1650, Massachusetts’ rapidly growing population reached 14,000. In contrast, only about a thousand English colonists lived in Maine, and most of them barely scratched out a living.

John Endecott

Massachusetts Gov. John Endecott sent commissioners to their eastern neighbor, where they went from town to town. They suggested to the people of Maine and Lygonia they might have more legal rights and more prosperity if they joined Massachusetts Bay. The Puritans also may have mentioned the size of their militia.

Town by town the Maine settlements voted to join Massachusetts. In 1652, Kittery came to Massachusetts, and the next year Wells, Cape Porpoise and Saco followed. Lygonia caved in 1658 and the Puritans changed its name to Maine.

Names carried great importance to the early New England Puritans. And so when Gorgeana agreed to join Massachusetts, the Puritans renamed it York. Gorges had died by then, but the Puritans undoubtedly didn’t want to honor the Royalist who tried to take away their charter. The name York carried a special sting as it was shared by the Royalist city that fell to Parliament during the just-ended English Civil War.

New Overlords in Anglican Maine

The Massachusetts Puritans also renamed two towns after the last Royalist strongholds to fall to the Puritans in England.

Black Point, Blue Point and Stratton’s Island became Scarborough, which in England had surrendered only a month before the execution of Charles I.

Maine coast in 1623-4

Spurwink and the Casco Bay settlements would be called Falmouth, later renamed Portland. Queen Henrietta and the Prince of Wales (the future Charles II) found safety in Pendennis Castle in Falmouth for five months before it surrendered to the Puritans.

“The Puritans of Massachusetts imposed the names Falmouth and Scarborough in conquest, a reminder to the population of their fate and of their new overlords,” wrote historian Emerson W. Baker in an essay, Formerly Machegonne, Dartmouth, York, Stogummor, Casco and Falmouth: Portland as a Contested Frontier in the Seventeenth Century.

After the monarchy was restored in England, a royal commission came to Maine in 1665 and put the province under royal authority. But it took only three years for the Massachusetts Puritans to retake control of Anglican Maine.

Not until March 15, 1820 would Maine separate from Massachusetts as a result of the Missouri Compromise.

This story was updated in 2023.

Images: West Country England, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2530598.

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Six Loyalist Houses

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.

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, 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.

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 18^th 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.

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.

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.

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 Green Book Guides African-Americans to Safety in New England (and Elsewhere)

African-Americans driving through New England from the 1930s to the 1960s carried the Green Book to guide them to friendly hotels, restaurants and service stations.

It was a time when they might find themselves in sundown towns, which banned minorities from within municipal limits after dark. The practice wasn’t limited to the Jim Crow South — it happened in New England, too.

James Loewen, a historian who researches sundown towns, found evidence of a sign in Connecticut that said, “Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark.”

Always alert to potential embarrassment or danger, African-Americans carried blankets, packed lunch and even toted cans of gasoline when they took to the road.

And they carried the Green Book.

The Green Book

Victor H. Green was an African-American letter carrier in New York City. Among his deliveries were Jewish guides that told Jewish readers what restaurants and hotels didn’t admit them. He asked his colleagues in the postal service to help him by asking around on their routes about good places to stay. He then published the first Green Book in 1936, focusing on metropolitan New York City.

The 10-page book, which sold for 25 cents, included listings for restaurants, service stations, hotels, tourist homes, taverns, liquor stores, beauty parlors, nightclubs, drugstores and tailors.

It included a quotation from Mark Twain on its cover:

Travel is fatal to prejudice.

Expansion

The Green Book expanded over the years to include every U.S. state. It also included advertisements for lodgings, for Ford automobiles and for service stations. During World War II, Victor Green suspended publication, but by 1949 it ran to more than 80 pages.

Esso (now ExxonMobil) promoted the Green Book because of the work of James ‘Billboard’ Jackson, the company’s first black marketing specialist. Esso sponsored the guide, telling its black customers it allowed them to ‘go further with less anxiety.’ African-American drivers could buy the Green Book and get maps at Esso stations. Shell, on the other hand, had a reputation for turning away black customers.

Green’s timing was good. African-Americans were buying cars as soon as they could afford them to avoid the indignities of traveling on trains or buses. The interstate highway system was still in the future, so motorists had to drive through unfamiliar towns where they might not be welcome.

Journalist George Schuyler, a Rhode Island native, explained in 1930,

…all Negroes who can do so purchase an automobile as soon as possible in order to be free of discomfort, discrimination, segregation and insult.

Obsolescence

Green looked forward to the day people wouldn’t need the Green Book. In the 1949 edition he wrote,

There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.

The year the Civil Rights Act passed, 1964, was the Green Book’s last. By then Civil Rights activists demanded equal access and discouraged voluntary segregation.

Jim Crow Bible

Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe

During the Jim Crow era, the Green Book was the Bible of black travel. Today it is a guide to a past that hasn’t completely vanished.

In the 1949 Green Book, for example, listings for the African-American neighborhood in Boston’s South End include eight hotels and guest houses, nine restaurants, a couple of barbers, the Savoy Nightclub (where Malcolm X once shined shoes) and a half-dozen tailors.

Charlie’s, one of the restaurants listed on Columbus Avenue, was where Sammy Davis. Jr., used to tap dance for change as a young boy. Charlie’s, now known as Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe, closed in 2014 but reopened under new ownership.

As New Haven revives the jazz that once made it a mecca for musicians, the 1949 Green Book limns the Dixwell neighborhood where Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday performed. There was the Phillis Wheatley Hotel, the Dr. M.F. Allen tourist home, the Belmont Restaurant, the Elks Nightclub and Lillian’s Paradise.

The Monterey Café, where owner Rufus Greenlee danced with Josephine Baker, lasted long enough to foster New Haven’s Hip Hop scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Providence

Most of the accommodations listed in the Green Book in New England were small hotels and tourist homes owned by African Americans. In cities, they were usually found in marginal or minority neighborhoods.

One notable exception was the Providence Biltmore, an elegant 19-story hotel in the middle of downtown. It was built in 1922 after the Providence Chamber of Commerce campaigned for a signature hotel where people could gather for important civic and cultural events.

The hotel had an open occupancy policy, accepting both black and white guests. But it took a step further by actually paying for a listing in the Green Book. Beginning in 1941, it simply reads, “Biltmore” under the heading “Providence.”

The Providence Biltmore closed in 1975, but reopened four years later after renovation and a landmark designation. It changed hands, underwent another renovation, changed hands again, and was renamed Graduate Providence.

Oak Bluffs

Today, the Town of Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard is a resort community visited by such prominent African-Americans as Spike Lee, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In 1956, it provided even more of a reprieve for upper-middle-class African-Americans like Martin Luther King, Jr., who wrote speeches on the porch of an Oak Bluffs cottage.

In 1948, Dorothy West wrote a novel about the town’s social life, The Living Is Easy. That year the Green Book listed eight places where cottages could be rented in Oak Bluffs. (You can watch an online documentary about Oak Bluffs for free here.)

The Shearer Cottage on Martha’s Vineyard catered to black vacationers starting in 1912. Charles and Henrietta Shearer built their wooden tourist home in the Highlands area of Oak Bluffs. Charles had been born into slavery but graduated from Hampton Institute in Virginia, then worked as a teacher.

Shearer Cottage is still in business and still run by the Shearer family.

Ironically, the Green Book didn’t list the Shearer Cottage until 1963, along with such establishments as Brownie’s Cottage, Cinderella Cottage and Dunmere-By-The-Sea.

Rock Rest

Rock Rest in Kittery, Maine

One New England destination popular among African-Americans did not list in the Green Book: Rock Rest in Kittery, Maine. Clayton and Hazel Sinclair once owned the 2-1/2 story wooden Cape, running it as a guest house from 1946 to 1977. They advertised by sending postcards to their mailing list.

Clayton worked as a chauffeur in New York, Hazel as a ladies’ maid to a family that summered in Maine. When Clayton and Hazel decided to relocate, Clayton found a dilapidated house on Route 103 and Kittery and promised to fix it up. He did, and Hazel’s reputation as a cook drew enough guests to run Rock Rest as a business in the summer. Clayton Sinclair also worked in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Hazel catered in the off season. Today the house is on the National Register of Historic Places. On June 4, 2022, two historic markers were scheduled to be unveiled commemorating Rock Rest.

For an interactive map showing places listed in a 1956 Negro Travelers’ Green Book, click here. View the text of the 1949 Green Book, courtesy The Henry Ford, here.

Photos: Oak Bluffs by Elkman at Wikipedia, Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe by John Phelan at Wikipedia. Rock Rest By Robm154 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35858018.

This story was updated in 2023. If you enjoyed it, you may also want to read about New England’s sundown towns (which only allowed white people to stay after dark) here.

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Seven Strange Facts About Colonial Funerals

New England’s early colonists paid a great deal of attention to death and funerals. Many people attended colonial funerals, and would think it strange for a town’s resident not to pay respect to an upstanding citizen by attending a funeral.

Customs at colonial funerals were quite different from today.

Many of today’s traditions, such as giving right of way to a funeral procession, stem from the earliest days of America. Other traditions from colonial funerals have died out or changed over time.

Here are seven strange practices of colonial funerals that faded away:

2 sets of pall bearers, sometimes 3

Early colonists carried the body of the deceased all the way from the funeral service to the graveyard. The older, more respected members of the community often found that a long way to carry a heavy coffin.

So two sets of men got pallbearer duty. The younger men of the community would be assigned as under bearers to carry the bier on which the coffin rested. Older men would carry the pall, which draped the casket. In cases where the graveyard was a long way off, a second set of under bearers spelled the first group.

Occasionally, the men set down the bier on a slab to rest.

Gloves, Routine Parts of Colonial Funerals

Families sent mourning gloves to people expected to attend the funeral of a departed loved one. Mourners wore the gloves during the funeral and at the graveside.

They were fashionable, respectful and, for ministers at least, plentiful. Andrew Eliot, ordained pastor of Boston’s North Church in 1742, kept a careful diary of his life. In his 32 years as a minister, he received 2,940 pairs of funeral gloves.

What did he do with them? He sold them, at least as many as he could. His diary shows a steady effort to divest himself of the gloves over the years.

Old North Church

Rings Were the Thing

The families of the deceased often created commemorative rings for their loved ones. They would be distributed to families, close friends and ministers. The rings represented a steady stream of business for goldsmiths and silversmiths.

The rings frequently had inscriptions with sayings, such as: ‘Death Parts United Hearts,’ or ‘Death Conquers All’ or ‘Prepare for Death.’ Because of the expense, mourning rings were more common at the colonial funerals of the wealthy.

The minister Andrew Eliot, in addition to collecting gloves, also had a massive ring collection. He stored it in a tankard.

Families often cherished the rings and handed them down from one generation to the next. The colonists didn’t view them as maudlin, but rather cheerful reminders of their reunion with their dead family in the afterlife.

No Sermons

While many townspeople attended colonial funerals, the services were virtually silent affairs. The earliest colonists, wishing to avoid any appearance of papistry, conducted minimalist funerals that no one could confuse with the Catholic ceremonies.

Sermons and eulogies were non-existent. Instead, the pallbearers would silently conduct the body to the graveyard. Mourners attached notes of praise for the deceased to the bier, which would be compiled and published as memorials to the deceased.

Bostonian Thomas Lechford (1590-1644) offered a description of colonial funerals in his notebooks:

At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all the neighborhood or a goodly company of them come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and then stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most commonly present.

At funerals for major civic leaders, a minister would say a few words at the grave about the man’s character. For the most part, however, interment was a silent affair. This custom began dying out in the early 1700s, however. Popular sentiment began to build behind the idea that the dearly departed should have a few well-chosen words said over his grave.

Sober Affairs, Funerals Were Not

Early New Englanders used colonial funerals as a great excuse to tie one on.

Lucius Manlius Sargent, in his collection Dealings with the Dead, noted that in early colonial funerals guests viewed the body and then proceeded to a nearby table – always provided. They could then choose liquor from a well-stocked bar.

Mourners then generally went outside and to chat until it was time to carry the coffin to the burial ground. Though rarely did colonial funerals cause drunkenness, the idea of not serving liquor would have shocked. And the bar tab could grow quite large.

The following listing represents the funeral expenses for David Porter of Hartford, who drowned in 1678. The biggest outlay: booze.

A pint of liquor for those who dived for him. – 1 shilling
A quart of liquor for those who brought him home. – 2 shillings
Two quarts of wine & 1 gallon of cider to jury of inquest. — 5 shillings
8 gallons & 3 quarts wine for funeral. – £1, 15 shillings
Barrel cider for funeral. –16 shillings
1 Coffin. –12 shillings
Winding sheet. — 18 shillings

Sargent noted the practice of serving alcohol at funerals finally petered out, saddening a great many of the older citizens.

Mourning Got Out of Hand

As the colony grew wealthier, more and more mourners received rings, scarves and gloves. The wealth or popularity of the deceased was highlighted by the number of gifts distributed or the length of the funeral bell ringing.

The showiness and expense offended Puritan leaders, and several efforts limited the practices. In 1741, the Massachusetts government decided to fine a person 50 pounds for distributing wine or rum or funeral rings. The colony also restricted gloves to pall bearers and the clergy.

In Salem, the government hoped to curb excessive bell ringing and grandiose funerals by limiting what undertakers could charge for bell-ringing. Officials also limited the number of times a bell could be rung, as well as the overall cost of organizing the funeral.

Objects, Even Houses, Were Draped

People didn’t only decorate themselves colonial funerals. In some places, they decorated objects with black crape.

In Hartford, black cloth covered all wall decorations, mirrors and pictures. Mourners closed window shutters and sometimes tied them together with black ribbon or a sash. They kept it that way for a year-long mourning period.

Following the death of Sir William Pepperell of Kittery, mourners draped his entire house.

Again, the prominence of the deceased generally dictated the size of the colonial funeral show and the quantity of black bunting used.

If you enjoyed reading this story, you may also want to read about epitaphs in New England graveyards here.

Hat tip to Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle. This story about colonial funerals was updated in 2021.

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When Paul Revere Rode to New Hampshire

On Dec. 13, 1774, Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth, N.H., to warn the redcoats were coming. It was a much less famous ride than the one he made four months later, but it did have consequences.

Hundreds of New Hampshire patriots would respond to Revere’s message by storming the colony’s only fort, William and Mary in New Castle. The conflict had elements of farce, since only six of the King’s men defended the fort. But the patriots crossed the bright line of treason when they took what belonged to the King.

Would phone spying have identified Paul Revere?

Paul Revere, 6 years before he rode to Portsmouth. Photo courtesy Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Rebellion Looms

In December 1774, the Revolutionary War approached. Because King George feared an armed rebellion, in October he issued a confidential Order in Council forbidding the export of arms and ammunition to the American colonies.

Secretary of State Lord Dartmouth followed up the order with a letter to all the royal governors. It ordered them to seal every port against the import of munitions that could aid a rebellion.

The American patriots feared the British would seize their gunpowder and munitions – again. On Sept. 1, 1774, British troops had removed gunpowder from the powder house in Charlestown, Mass. (now Powder House Square in Somerville).

As a result, the patriots moved arms inland from Newport, R.I., Providence and New London, Conn. Then a rumor spread in Boston that redcoats were on their way to seize powder from Fort William and Mary.

The stone fort stood at the mouth of the Piscataqua River guarding access to the Portsmouth harbor and to Kittery, Maine, then part of Massachusetts. The six men who would try to hold the fort reported to the royal governor, John Wentworth.

Paul Revere Rode to NH

Fort William and Mary

Paul Revere and his network of patriots caught wind of the new policy. They knew the lightly guarded fort in New Castle was vulnerable to attack. So Boston’s Committee of Correspondence told him to warn the people of New Hampshire about the British plans for Fort William and Mary.

Early on the morning of Dec. 13, Paul Revere rode the 66 miles to Portsmouth. Frozen slush filled the rutted roads and a stiff west wind pierced his clothing. As he neared Portsmouth, dusk turned to dark. He headed for Market Square looking for someone he knew. He recognized William Torrey, and asked him where he could find Samuel Cutts, a patriot merchant. Torrey found Cutts for Revere.

Samuel Cutts

Cutts quickly convened the town’s committee of correspondence so Revere could report the news: British troops were on their way to Fort William and Mary. The patriots sort of got it right. British naval vessels had headed from Boston, but to make sure no one brought guns and powder into the northern ports.

A Loyalist townsman — it isn’t clear who — told Wentworth of Revere’s arrival. Wentworth sent a rider to Boston to ask for help from Gov. Thomas Gage. Gage ordered a small vessel to sail to Portsmouth with a detachment of marines and a 20-gun frigate to follow. They arrived too late.

The Raid

Early the next morning, a fife and drummer marched through the streets of Portsmouth summoning men to raid the fort. Four hundred men mustered by noon, and a fleet of small boats formed.

As a snowstorm began at 3 pm, some of the men paddled down the Piscataqua River while some marched overland.

The raiders approached the fort and demanded the six soldiers inside surrender. Capt. John Cochran told them ‘on their peril not to enter.’

The New Hampshire men then rushed the fort as Cochran and his five men tried to fend them off with cannon fire, shot and hand-to-hand fighting. Finally Cochran offered to surrender his sword, but the raiders let him keep it.

Then Alexander Scammell, a Harvard-trained lawyer from Durham, pulled down the British flag flying over the fort. Cochran drew his sword and the raiders pinioned his arms. Another soldier tried to stop them and a raider knocked him down with the butt of his pistol. The raiders confined Cochran and his soldiers.

The patriots then broke open the powder house. They took 100 barrels of gunpowder subsequently used in the Siege of Boston.

Start Spreading the News

Couriers fanned out across the countryside spreading the news. John Giddinge, an Exeter doctor who participated in the raid, wrote to Josiah Bartlett, then serving on the committee of correspondence from Kingston.

Giddinge wrote that Exeter was ‘happily furnished’ with 72 barrels of gunpowder. He suggested storing some with the Sons of Liberty in Kingstown. Giddinge also thought it would be ‘necessary and pleasant’ if some of the Sons came to Exeter as well.

John Sullivan by A. Tenney

Bartlett in turn wrote a letter to the citizens of Sandown, N.H. — one of the many that circulated after the raid.

Bartlett wrote that an express rider brought him a letter late the night before. It told him the British would try to seize the powder and that men from Exeter were ready to go to help Portsmouth. Kingstown citizens were also meeting to ‘consult upon the occasion,’ and Bartlett advised Sandown to do the same.

The Second Raid

Bartlett’s letter arrived too late. At daybreak on Dec. 15, a thousand armed men from across New Hampshire and Maine began to appear in Portsmouth.

John Sullivan led them to the parade in front of the colonial State House, where Wentworth and the General Court were meeting in emergency session. The patriots stood outside and demanded to know whether Royal troops were on the way to protect the fort. Wentworth said they weren’t.

Sullivan and the men gathered at Jacob Tilton’s tavern, the Marquis of Rockingham, to await nightfall. Wentworth ordered another tavern keeper, James Stoodley, to round up 30 men to guard the fort.

Stoodley and a drummer walked the Portsmouth streets trying to enlist supporters. Unlike the patriots’ experience the day before, not one person volunteered.

New Hampshire Gov John Wentworth by John Singleton Copley.

After dark, Sullivan led his men on a second assault of the fort. Without being fired upon they took the rest of the powder, muskets, bayonets, cartouche boxes and 16 cannon.

The patriots shipped the gunpowder to Durham by boat and then carted it inland so they could hide it. Some was stored in the homes of patriots. The militiamen released the prisoners and returned home unpunished. For the most part, they remained anonymous.

Aftermath

less famous ride of paul revere statehouse

New Hampshire Statehouse

Furious British authorities knew who provoked the people of New Hampshire. Wentworth wrote the trouble started when Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth with a dispatch.

Before then, wrote Wentworth, all was perfectly quiet and peaceable in the place.

The raid was deemed high treason. It was also the first — and last — Revolutionary War battle in New Hampshire.

In New Hampshire Fort William and Mary, now Fort Constitution, is part of a state park on the National Register of Historic Places. The public may visit.

With thanks to On the Road North of Boston: New Hampshire Taverns and Turnpikes 1700-1900 by Donna-Belle Garvin and James L. Garvin and Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer. This story about the time Paul Revere rode to New Hampshire was updated in 2021. If you enjoyed it, you may also want to read about Isaac Bissell, Connecticut’s Paul Revere, here.

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