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Lebanon Conn.

Joseph Brant, Mohawk Leader, Goes to Dartmouth (Before It Was Dartmouth)

On Aug. 1, 1761, three teenaged Mohawk boys arrived on horseback at Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon (now Columbia), Conn. Two, Nickus and Senter, wore practically no clothes. The third, Joseph Brant, wore full Indian dress – probably a white tunic shirt, leggings, breechcloth and moccasins. All three were dirty from their trip from New York and covered with lice.

Their headmaster, Eleazar Wheelock, found them remarkably backward. Only Joseph spoke English, and just a little at that. The boys sat on the ground like children, and they cared for cleanliness as much as children. They had no concept of English furniture and utensils, and thought a wineglass as durable as a hand iron. “They are as unpolished & uncultivated within as without,” wrote Wheelock.

Joseph Brant by Charles Willson Peale

Lebanon was just a wide place in the road in 1761, and Moor’s Charity School just a couple of houses. But two years at the school gave Joseph Brant the tools he needed to move comfortably in elite European circles. What he learned in Lebanon would serve him well as a Mohawk leader navigating a place for his people in the changing transatlantic world.

In 1769, Moor’s Charity School removed to Hanover, N.H., and became Dartmouth College. Generations of uncouth boys went to Dartmouth (and the other Ivies, for that matter) for the same reason Joseph did. They sought the education, polish and social connections that would help them succeed in life.

Young Joseph Brant

Brant was born somewhere along the Cuyahoga River in Ohio in March 1743. His name was Thayendanegea, which in the Mohawk language means, “He places two bets together.”

He belonged to the Six Nations confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee people.

He had Iroquois Christian parents named Peter and Margaret Tehonwaghkwangearahkwa. His father died when he was young, and his mother moved with him and his sister Mary, or Molly, to Canajoharie, a Mohawk village on the Mohawk River in New York. Margaret gathered and sold the ginseng that grew there, for export to Europe and China.

Fort Johnson today

Canajoharie then was a frontier town, but a multicultural one where Mohawk families coexisted with German and British immigrants. As a boy, Joseph hunted and fished with English boys his own age. His family had ties to William Johnson, a wealthy Irishman and nephew of naval hero Peter Warren. Johnson built a mansion along the Mohawk River and served as Britain’s superintendent of Northern Indian Affairs.

William Johnson

When his older sister Molly became William Johnson’s common-law wife, Joseph moved in with them.

In 1758, 15-year-old Joseph followed Johnson into action during the French and Indian War. He served as a scout during the assault on Fort Carillon (renamed Ticonderoga) and watched the French rout the British. He joined Johnson in the Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759 and Jeffery Amherst‘s expedition to Montreal. The British gave Joseph a silver medal for his military service.

And so 18-year-oldJoseph Brant rode up to Moor’s Charity School as a decorated military veteran.

Moor’s Charity School

Seven years earlier, the Puritan minister Eleazar Wheelock had started Moor’s Charity School, a free school for Indian boys. He aimed to turn out Indian missionaries who would Christianize the American Indians. The Boston board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge paid for their schooling.

Eleazar Wheelock

Only a few Indian students lived at the school when Joseph arrived: a Mohegan, a Montauk and some Delawares. Some white boys, intent on going into missionary work, also attended the school. The sight of the Indians shocked one white boy.

“I was struck with horror at the sight of these wild indians, a sight of one I had never seen before,” he wrote. Some, like Joseph, were nearly grown men, others were his own age, he noted. “These last could not speak a word of english and still had on their indian costume, from my first sight at these indians it gave me such a shock that I determined that I never should be willing to spend my life with such people as they were.”

Upon the arrival of the three Mohawks, Wheelock immediately gave them each a pair of English pants and a shirt. He thought Joseph came from noble birth, because William Johnson – now a baronet known as Sir William – had gotten him the place at the school. So Wheelock gave Joseph a better shirts and a pair of pants with checks on them. Joseph liked those pants and took good care of them. Wheelock also gave each of the boys a book – Joseph’s cost more – and combs. Joseph got his own, but the others had to share one.

Curriculum

Wheelock at first found Joseph a bit sulky—not surprising that an 18-year-old Mohawk fresh from the battlefield would chafe at the strict Puritan regimen. But plentiful food improved Joseph’s mood. Lunch, for example, consisted of boiled meat, Indian pudding, bread, milk and sweet cakes.

The students slept and studied on the second floor of Wheelock’s home. They had to have wakened and dressed by six when Wheelock prayed over them on the first floor. Then breakfast and free time until 9:00.

In the schoolhouse next door, they learned reading, writing, English, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, along with civility and good manners. Then lunch, and then more lessons from 2 pm to 5 pm. They said prayers at the end of the school day and at sundown, then they studied until sleep time.

Wheelock liked Joseph, calling him a “considerate, modest and manly spirited youth.” He let Joseph, Sander and Nickus go home for a visit in November. Joseph returned to the school the next month, but Sander died and Nickus stayed behind to get married.

Progress

At Moor’s Charity School, Brant learned to speak English, to read and to write with a decipherable hand. He could read the New Testament and discuss Homer’s Odyssey. He also developed a preference for English clothes, which he wore except when posing or portraits.

Joseph Brant by Gilbert Stuart

“Brant’s ability to move between communities is key to his career,” wrote historian Elizabeth Hutchinson.

Wheelock wanted to send him to Princeton to study with one of his proteges, but he couldn’t get permission from Joseph’s family quickly enough. Sir William wanted to send him to Columbia (King’s College), but Pontiac’s Rebellion broke out. Joseph had to leave school to fight another war.

The Rest of the Story

He worked as a translator and for British officials, including his brother-in-law, Sir William Johnson. He also translated a catechism and the Gospel of Mark into Mohawk.

In 1775, Joseph Brant joined Sir William’s nephew, Guy Johnson, on a trip to London to seal his appointment as his uncle’s successor as superintendent of Indian affairs. Brant pledged Haudenosaunee support for the British during the American Revolution. In exchange, the British agreed to compensate the Iroquois for property taken, both in the past and future. He made a splash in London society and with King George III, who invited him to join the Masonic brotherhood. Though he usually wore English clothes, he wore Indian garb to have his portrait painted by the English portrait painter George Romney.

Joseph Brant by George Romney

He served as a captain in the British Army during the Revolution, and after the war emerged as an Indian leader. He negotiated for land for the Haudenosaunee along the Grand River in Ontario, and he helped form the Western Confederacy of Indian tribes.

For the rest of his life Joseph Brant worked to preserve and protect Six Nations control over Iroquois lands.

Conflicting Views

The Haudenosaunee people have conflicting views of his legacy. Some say he bargained away Indian land for his own purposes and helped destroy the traditional culture by espousing Christianity. His legacy is also tarnished by his ownership of black slaves.

But others say his negotiating ability gave his people sovereignty over their own land.

He died after a short illness in his home in Burlington, Ontario, on Nov. 24, 1807 at the age of 64. Legend has it that he said to his nephew while on his deathbed, “Have pity on the poor Indians; if you can get any influence with the great, endeavor to do them all the good you can.”

With thanks to Elizabeth Hutchinson in “The Dress of His Nation”: Romney’s Portrait of Joseph Brant in Winterthur Portfolio, Summer/Autumn 2011. And special thanks to Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds By Isabel Thompson Kelsay. This story last updated in 2021.

Images: Fort Johnson By Webmasteratfort at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Matthiasb using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6840563.

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Pickled Whaling Captain Captured by Confederates

In life, Sluman Gray was a prosperous whaling captain from Lebanon, Conn., harsh with his men but kind to his wife Sarah. In death, he was a pickled whaling captain taken prisoner by Confederates.

During the Civil War, he took Sarah on a voyage aboard the whaling ship James Maury with three of their children: Katie, 16, Sluman, Jr., 10, and Nellie, 2. They sailed out of New Bedford in June 1864.

Stiff competition for whale oil forced American whalers to sail as far as the South Seas to find whales. In the summer, the whaling fleet sailed for the Bering Sea. The voyages could take years.

After nine months at sea, the James Maury sailed off the coast of Guam. Sluman Gray, 51, suddenly took ill and died two days later of ‘inflammation of the bowels.’

Pickled Whaling Captain

Rather than bury her husband at sea, Sarah Gray decided to preserve his body in a cask of spirits, probably rum. She thought she’d then take him home to be buried. The March 24, 1864 log reads, “Light winds from the Eastward and pleasant weather, made a cask and put the Capt. in with spirits.”

The James Maury, carrying its pickled whaling captain, then turned north with the whaling fleet to hunt for whales in the Bering Sea.

Shenandoah capturing a whale ship

The whalers had the misfortune to encounter the Confederate ship Shenandoah, which preyed on the North’s commercial shipping. Its captain, Lt. Commander James Waddell, either didn’t get the news that the Civil War had ended or refused to believe it. In June of 1865, the Shenandoah captured 24 unarmed whaling ships in the Bering Sea. On one day, the Shenandoah captured 10 whalers, including the James Maury, within the space of seven hours. It sunk or burned the vessels and took most of the crewmen.

Waddell spared the James Maury because Sarah Gray and her children were aboard. Southern men, explained Waddell, don’t make war on women or children. The Shenandoah then sailed to Honolulu with 222 prisoners aboard – and the pickled remains of Sluman Gray.

Home Again

Sarah Gray and her children found their way back to Lebanon in March 1866, with their cask of rum and Sluman Gray intact. She buried him in Liberty Hill Cemetery.

CSS Shenanadoah in dry dock in 1865.

According to local legend, Sluman Gray was buried in his cask. Though his body may have been moved to a casket, town historian Alicia Wayland said there is no record of Sarah Gray buying a coffin or paying a carpenter to build one.

Shenandoah Surrenders

Six months after the Civil War ended, Waddell finally surrendered on Nov. 6, 1865. He had learned about the South’s surrender three months earlier from a Liverpool barque. He lowered his flag in surrender, the last official Confederate sovereign flag furled.

Waddell feared returning to the United States. The North hadn’t extended amnesty to commerce raiders, and he was in danger of being hanged as a pirate.

Only six years later, the U.S. whaling fleet would suffer another blow when 33 whaling ships were crushed by Arctic ice.

This story was updated in 2022.

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A Tour of New England’s Uncommon Town Commons

New England has no shortage of town commons, as many communities were laid out with a parcel specifically reserved for the meeting house. The yard of the meeting house generally evolved into the common.

In the earliest European settlements of New England, colonists built their businesses and homes next to commons. They kept their livestock on them at night and when they closed off the town for fear of attack.

One of the oldest of them all, Boston Common

But there is no single story behind the New England town common. Each developed along its own lines, once launched by the original settlers. Later, large landowners gave commons to towns as donations.

Early Town Commons

Generally they had trees on them, and often turned into dumping grounds and nuisances. Cattle were often placed on them to keep down the grass. In areas where people were most leery of the state embracing a religion, the meeting house (and the attached common) were far less common.

Over the centuries many have been modified to fit the times. In the earliest days, the commons often became a home to cemeteries. In the middle and late 1800s, it became fashionable to plant, landscape and manicure the commons. Many were trimmed to make way for a paved street. And in more recent days, they’ve played host to baseball or soccer fields. In some cases, they were outright destroyed.

Connecticut’s Lebanon Green was used during the American Revolution. It reminded us of just how many greens and commons remain in New England and how they are a good jumping off point for some interesting visits to the less-traveled areas of the region.

In Connecticut, there’s the aforementioned Lebanon Green. Another old favorite is Litchfield Green in Litchfield, Conn., which has served many purposes over the centuries. Dating to 1720, the green has been home to the town’s meeting house, a school and courthouse. It was also a recruiting spot for soldiers during the Civil War. Today visitors to the green are more likely to be shoppers rather than soldiers.

New Haven Green with the Center Church in the background.

A much more well-traveled common is the New Haven Green, a privately owned park once the center of the original Puritan settlement.

Connecticut’s Trust for Historic Preservation maintains a website with information about all the state’s town greens.

Vermont’s Town Commons

The State of Vermont also has created a website that provides some details about many of the state’s commons.

In St. Albans, Vermont, the common goes by the name Taylor Park. It was donated to the city in 1799 by Col. Halloway Taylor, and it’s rather ornate. The St. Albans Historical Museum fronts on it. Though in the upper third of Vermont, New England history lovers will want to clear a few days in their calendar to visit this tiny city. It boasts some of the most remarkable stories of New England’s past, including a rich history of smuggling during the embargo leading up to the War of 1812, a nearby naval battle in which a band of Vermonters vanquished the invading British, an unlikely (and unsuccessful) attempt at conquering Canada and the northernmost battle in the Civil War.

As you’re as far north as St. Albans you might as well travel through Bridport. As opposed to St. Alban’s fanciful park, Bridport’s common probably looks more like it did in colonial times, laid out at the center of the farming community. On the route to nearby Crown Point you’ll travel the roads where Ethan Allen and Eli Roberts fled an attempt by British soldiers to capture him in 1772 and cross the path Thomas Jefferson took through the state (before it was a state) in his northern tour.

Craftsbury Common

And to see Vermont’s most photographed common, you can visit Woodstock. There an 1830s vintage common sits quaintly in the middle of the picture-perfect, upscale shopping and dining center. Or you could just rent the classic film, The Trouble With Harry, and view another quintessential New England common in Craftsbury.

Maine’s Town Commons

In Bethel, Maine, the Town Common is the centerpiece of many activities. Visitors in July can watch the Molly Ockett Days festivities, names for an Abenaki healer from northern Maine and New Hampshire.

A short drive away is Paris Hill, Maine – which could be correctly described as Maine’s political capital. Paris Hill was established as the county seat in 1805. The tiny village produced congressmen, governors, a senator and vice president (Hannibal Hamlin). When the county seat was moved, Paris Hill was left behind in time. Its common sits at the center of a remarkably well-preserved historic district that includes Vice President Hamlin’s home.

In 1714, the Pejepscot Company formed out of the Plymouth Colony and bought a large area of land in Maine from the Native Americans. Today it comprises Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell. The purchase would set off disputes for more than 100 years between American Indians and other settlement groups. They all questioned the validity of its boundaries..

Ultimately, the Pejepscot Company prevailed. One of the early acts of the company, in 1719, was to establish common land. Unlike most town and village commons at the center of the town, the Pejepscot group chose to set aside an enormous tract of 1,000 acres as the commonage. Walking the common today is more like hiking a forest than strolling most preserved, pastoral commons. But it is a look at Maine’s past. Brunswick Commons, for example, has pine barrens once numerous in the state.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is also home to countless historic commons. Orford, New Hampshire has a beautiful six-acre common along Route 10. Just a couple miles north is the distinctive double commons at Haverhill Corner. A wonderful excuse to wind your way up through some of the rarely visited towns of the Connecticut River Valley.

Another favorite is the common at Walpole, N.H., in another of the state’s less-visited and less-congested corners.

The Green, Walpole

Bay State Commons

Massachusetts, of course, ranks right up with Connecticut in terms of the numbers of commons it houses. There are, of course, most famous ones at Lexington, Concord and Boston.

Lexington Battle Green

But some less famous ones that still retain charm and history are West Brookfield and Dogtown Common in Rockport.

Anyway, that’s a sampling of our favorites. We’re sure you’ve got your own favorites, too.

This story updated in 2022.

Images: Walpole Town Green By User:Ken Gallager – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84089424. Dogtown Common CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8398833. Lexington Battle Green By Dudesleeper at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11116213.

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Jonathan Trumbull Sends Good News to George Washington

Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull was the only colonial governor to side with the patriots during the American Revolution.

Jonathan Trumbull

When Gen. Thomas Gage arrived in Boston in the spring of 1774, he wrote to Trumbull saying he was ready to cooperate ‘for the good of his Majesty’s service.’ Trumbull had other ideas. After the Battles of Concord and Lexington, Gage asked Trumbull for help. Trumbull replied that the British troops would ‘disgrace even barbarians’ and accused Gage of unprovoked attacks on his Majesty’s subjects.

George Washington called Jonathan Trumbull “the first of the patriots.” He wrote frequently to Trumbull, asking for more men, food, cannon and the always-scarce gunpowder for the Continental Army. Trumbull complied, earning Connecticut the nickname ‘The Provision State.’

Since the British had cut off trade routes to the Caribbean,

Connecticut farmers thus benefited from Trumbull’s relationship with Washington. They found the Continental Army a ready market for their food and livestock, especially as the British had cut off trade routes to the Caribbean.

Jonathan Trumbull Writes a Letter

In August 1775, Washington had taken command of the rebel troops in Cambridge, Mass. The siege of Boston dragged on. A letter that Jonathan Trumbull then wrote to Washington on August 11 that month shows him deftly managing the movement of men and materiel.

Trumbull wrote from Lebanon, Conn., where he maintained a store known as the War Office.

The Trumbull store, aka the War Office

“Sir,” it begins. “Yesterday twelve o’ clock received your letter by Major Johnson; immediately gave the necessary directions,” he wrote.

He then describes how he sent some companies to New London and some to New Haven. He then wrote that he ordered Col. Webb to take his station at Greenwich with the companies that didn’t march.

More Requests

Trumbull then goes on to tell Washington that on the same day he received a letter from Brig. Gen. David Worcester, stationed at the Oyster Ponds on Long Island.

“[H]e had with him four hundred and fifty men, besides militia, designing to preserve the stock at that place. The ships were then plundering Gardiner’ s Island; the people on the island had left it. He applied to me for three hundred pounds of powder.”

Trumbull then wrote that he sent Wooster some powder “not withstanding our exhausted condition.”

“I am informed a quantity of powder for the camp is to be at Hartford this evening, and more to follow soon. We have none lately arrived, which is daily expected. I request your direction that of the next quantity that comes to Hartford, there may be lodged there so much as you shall judge expedient; if what is expected do arrive in the mean time, shall have no occasion to use your allowance.”

I am, most respectfully, Sir, your most obedient very humble servant,

JONATHAN TRUMBULL.

His Excellency General Washington.

With thanks to American Archives at Northern Illinois University Libraries. Photo: Detail from ‘Jonathan Trumbull engraving circa 1855’ courtesy Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. This story was updated in 2021.

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Flashback Photo: Polaroid Sunflower

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The Polaroid camera and instant photography would probably not have been invented if Edwin Land hadn’t been inspired by a science teacher at a boys’ camp in Lebanon, Conn., in 1922.

Land was born in Bridgeport, Conn., on May 7, 1909. His father prospered disposing scrap metal from Electric Boat. When Land was 13 years old, he was sent to Camp Mooween (now Mooween State Park). There, a teacher showed him how a crystal filter screened light waves to eliminate the glare from a tabletop. From that moment, the entire direction of Edwin Land’s remarkable career was set.

Edwin Land was not only a brilliant inventor, but a business pioneer who hired women for important positions, stood at the forefront of the affirmative action movement and established the prototype for the successful Silicon Valley startup. Steve Jobs called him his hero.

Read the full story of how Edwin Land invented the Polaroid camera — and many other things — here.

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The First Lady of Connecticut Newspapers, Hannah Bunce Watson

As if caring for five children under the age of seven wasn’t enough for the newly-widowed Hannah Bunce Watson, American revolutionaries needed the support of her Connecticut newspaper, the Courant.

An early edition of the Connecticut Courant.

Hannah Bunce Watson was born on Dec. 28, 1749 in Lebanon, Conn., and married Ebenezer Watson, the Hartford printer who published the Connecticut Courant. It was a second marriage for both of them. Ebenezer Watson died suddenly of smallpox in late 1777, creating a dilemma for American patriots.

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 newspapers were all Loyalist and printed nothing but pro-British news. The Courant was the only paper large enough to provide reliable news to patriots in the Northeast.

Hannah Bunce Watson knew little about printing, but she went ahead publishing the Courant to support the war effort. She made 20-year-old George Goodwin a business partner, as he had already worked for the newspaper for 12 years. They ran stories about battles, short local news items, analyses of colonial politics and criticisms of the British Parliament.

No Recipes

Hannah Bunce Watson may have been one of the first women to edit a newspaper in America, but the Courant didn’t have much in the way of recipes and fashion. She published only nine non-news stories during the two years she ran the paper.

A year later, Tories set fire to the mill that produced paper for the Courant. Watson and Goodwin managed to print a half-sheet paper the day after the fire — and announced it would have to close soon.

The loss of the paper mill was a blow not just to the newspaper but to the patriot cause. It produced writing paper — crucial to communication in that era — as well as newsprint. The British had made sure paper in all forms was scarce in America by cutting off imports.

Sarah Ledyard was the widow of Ebenezer Watson’s partner in the mill. She and Hannah Bunce Watson decided to appeal to the Connecticut Assembly. They asked the Connecticut Legislature for a loan to rebuild the mill. Within a day, lawmakers agreed to establish a state lottery to raise funds for the paper mill. It was rebuilt in the spring, and the Courant continued publishing without interruption.

Despite all the demands on her, Watson managed to find time for a courtship with Barzillai Hudson. They married in 1779, and he took control of the newspaper. In 1837 the Connecticut Courant became the Hartford Courant. It is to this day the largest daily newspaper in Connecticut.

Hannah Bunce Watson died on Sept. 27, 1807. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994.

If you enjoyed this story about Hannah Bunce Watson, you may want to read about another early American printer, Ann Smith Franklin, here. This story was updated in 2018.

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