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The Brahmin Rough Riders of New England

Some people believe that the Rough Riders were almost all cowboys from out West. After all, it had earned the nickname “The Cowboy Regiment.”

But that wasn’t entirely the case, as you shall see. Brahmins from New England with refined backgrounds also joined the Rough Riders.

Men from every New England state volunteered for Teddy Roosevelt’s U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders. Massachusetts had as many as 25. As a matter of fact, the actual commander of the unit, Leonard Wood, hailed from New Hampshire. Frederic Remington featured Woodbury Kane from Rhode Island in his famous painting of the immortal charge up San Juan Hill.

Col. Roosevelt and the Rough Riders on top of San Juan Hill.

Roosevelt had four recruiting stations out West, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the Oklahoma/Indian Territories. He had vast experience in the West and knew the cowboys already knew how to ride and shoot. But Roosevelt knew another target-rich area full of ready-for-action men: His wealthy, pedigreed friends throughout New York and New England.

Roosevelt put out the word. They responded in droves from polo clubs, boxing clubs, duck blinds, steeplechase courses, yacht clubs, Ivy League athletic fields and glee clubs. Many had graduated from Harvard.

One Rough Rider, James McClintock, who hailed from California, said they were in it for the adventure.

The Rough Riders are the stuff of legend, having generated a movie, a television show and, of course, a President. They were, however, one of the shortest lived units in American military history. They only existed for four months and 13 days before they disbanded.

Rhode Island Rough Riders

Woodbury Kane, Newport;Joseph S. Stevens, Newport; Norman Maxwell, Newport; Charles Hatch, Newport; Joseph F. Flynn, Cranston.

Rough Rider Woodbury Kane

Woodbury Kane, a classmate of Teddy Roosevelt’s at Harvard, was born in Newport, a cousin of John Jacob Astor IV. A noted yachtsman, he belonged to the New York Yacht Club and served on the crew of the Columbia in the 1899 America’s Cup Race. He was also a noted big game hunter.

After graduation, he lived the life of a bon vivant in Newport and New York. In April 1898 he and other East Coast friends joined the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry.

After enlistment, he, William Tiffany and other East Coast friends donated two $7,500 Colt machine guns to the unit. When the unit expanded to a thousand men he received a lieutenant’s commission.

While serving in the Rough Riders he was always noted for being dressed to a T, no matter the conditions. While leading K Troop in the charge on San Juan Hill, he was wounded in the forearm. Kane was awarded a citation for gallantry and promoted to captain.

He spent the rest of his life living the life of a dandy until a heart attack cut him down at the age of 46. His obituary noted he left no children, but he did leave his beloved polo pony.

Vermont

Ira A. Hill, Grand Isle; Wallace Batchelder, Chester.

Wallace Batchelder graduated from Chester Academy in Chester, Vt., before enlisting in the Rough Riders. He later fought in the Philippines under General Wood. After his service he returned to Vermont, where he became a lawyer and chaired the state’s committee to elect Roosevelt President of the United States in 1904. He later broke with Roosevelt, who in 1912 sent him a telegram telling him not to support any candidate who didn’t support Roosevelt. Batchelder replied he wouldn’t support Roosevelt.

New Hampshire Rough Riders

Dudley S. Dean, Laconia; Walter F. Hickey, Nashua; Leonard Wood, Winchester.

Leonard Wood was the actual commander of the Rough Riders; Teddy Roosevelt was his second in command.

A descendant of four Mayflower passengers, he trained as a physician at Harvard Medical School. He served as a major general in the Army. When he came to command the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry in Cuba, he was a seasoned Indian fighter in the West and had already been awarded the Medal of Honor. After the Spanish-American War, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines and contended for the Republican nomination for President in 1920.

Dean was an All American football quarterback for Harvard from 1888 to 1890. He participated in the charge on San Juan Hill. That was not to be his last military adventure. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant colonel In the U.S. Army Air Force. He was the executive producer of the play Winged Victory, which ran from November 1943 to May 1944. He lived until the age of 79, passing away in 1950.

Dudley Dean, football star

Dudley’s son John H. Dean played football for Harvard too. At Harvard, he befriended Joseph P. Kennedy and they spent summers together at Cohassett, Mass.

Maine

Guy Muncie, Calais; Harrison J. Holt, Portland; Frederick C. Wesley, Bangor.

Harrison Holt graduated from Phillips Andover and Harvard. Upon his Harvard graduation in 1898 he enlisted with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. After the war and some business ventures in Mexico he joined the New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser as a reporter. Later in life he wrote novels and detective stories, including The Calendared Isles, a Romance of Casco Bay (read it here) and Midnight at Mears House.

Connecticut

Edward C. Hall, Wallingford.

Unlike most of the Ivy League Rough Riders, Edward Hall graduated from Yale, not Harvard. Upon graduation in 1894, he went to work for Westinghouse and did a brief stint at a North Dakota ranch before enlisting with the Rough Riders. After the war he joined General Electric in Lynn, Mass., then transferred to the Schenectady office, where he died in 1912.

Massachusetts

Harry A. Curtis, Boston; Prescott H. Belknap, Brookline; John D. Hubbell, Boston; Rufus K. Thomas, Boston; Wellman H. Saunders, Salem; John P. Gardner, Boston; Guy H. Scull, Boston; Harry A. Davis, Boston; Francis B. Crowninshield, Marblehead; William H. Mitchell, Salem; Winslow Clark, Milton; Edward F. Donnelly, Boston; Michael F. Hogan; William T. James, Fitchburg; Arthur M. Leroy, Boston; Raymond Morse, Springfield; Edward A. O’Brien, Charlestown; William J. Tudor, Boston; Harry C. White, Somerville.

Francis Boardman Crowninshield, another Harvard graduate, went on to become a noted international yachtsman. He fought with Troop K of the Rough Riders and took part in the charge up San Juan Hill. In 1900, he married Louise DuPont from the famous chemical family. In 1911, he won the King of Spain’s Cup in Spain, now among his many trophies at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead, Mass.

Rough Riders. Image courtesy New York Public Library.

About the author of this story: Leo Caisse of East Providence, R.I., passed away in 2020. He published the book, The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Guide to Their Works in Rhode Island. He also published a number of historical articles, including Ears On the World in America in World War II Magazine, October, 2017. Leo earned a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Providence College and he lived in East Providence, R.I.

This story updated in 2022.

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Samuel Maverick Writes A Guide to the Wonders of New England – in 1660

Samuel Maverick, as his name suggests, didn’t like to go along with the crowd. The Puritan crowd, that is.

He came to Boston sometime in the 1620s, before the Puritans arrived, and lived on Noddles Island in Boston Harbor. Noddles Island is now East Boston, which has a Maverick Square and a Maverick T stop.

Samuel Maverick, a firm Anglican and staunch royalist, saw amazing changes in New England during the first 30-some years of his residence. When he arrived, several hundred Europeans were scattered over 150 square miles of wilderness. By 1660, Maverick saw 86 towns that fielded militia, vast herds of livestock, an abundance of English fruit, and harbors bustling with many dozens of ships, some as large as 300 tons.

Other changes he didn’t like so much. He chafed under the Puritans’ rigid laws and suffered from their religious intolerance. Another Samuel Maverick – who may have been a descendant – shared his independent spirit in 19^th century Texas. The Maverick name would brand movies and cars and sports teams into the 21^st century.

East Boston, 1841. The large building in the center is the Maverick Hotel.

Samuel Maverick

He was born in England around 1602, the son of the Rev. John Maverick, who later followed him to the New World.

Samuel arrived in Massachusetts when in his twenties. With another colonist named David Thompson he built a house on Noddles Island and fortified it with guns. Thompson died, and Maverick married Thompson’s widow, Amias. They had three children in addition to her son by David Thompson.

When Maverick started out in Massachusetts, fewer than 300 Europeans lived within a radius of 150 miles. Then in 1630, John Winthrop and his band of Puritans arrived and started running the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Things would change dramatically in a few decades.

Maverick Guide to New England

In 1660, Samuel Maverick returned to England with a guide he wrote about New England. He intended to present it to King Charles II, along with his complaints about how the Puritans treated him.

He called the guide A Briefe Discription of New England and the Severall Townes Therein, Together with the Present Government Thereof. In it, he described 86 towns from Damariscotta, Maine, to Greenwich, Conn. Maverick described how New England had once had only a sparse population of scattered colonists. By 1660, however, almost all of those towns could field a militia (“a full Company of Foote and some Horse”).

Changes in the Boston shoreline from 1630-1675

When he first arrived in New England, he wrote, he found nothing but shacks save for three or four decent houses in Plymouth. Boston, which wasn’t even Boston then, was “a swamp and pound.” It grew into a “great Towne” with “two churches, a Gallant Statehouse & more to make it compleate, then can be expected in a place so late a wilderness.”

“Now to behold the handsome Houses & Churches in so many Townes as I have named is a wonder,” wrote Maverick.

Wonders

Farming and husbandry had flourished in every town he mentioned.

In 1626 New England had not a single head of cattle, nor horse, nor sheep, and very few goats or hogs. But less than 40 years later, New Englanders exported livestock to the Caribbean, consumed much of it themselves and provisioned the ships that called at New England ports.

Along with the livestock, “the great abundance of English Fruite, as Apples, Pears, Apricots, Plumbs, Cherries Musk-Mellons, Water-Mellons &c. is not to be beleeved but by those that have seene it,” wrote Maverick.

Massachusetts also had harbors filled with “great Shipps of Burthen” and “many Vessels…of all sorts and seizes,” he wrote. “And I am confident there hath not in any place out of so small a number of People been raised so many able Seamen and Commanders as there hath been.”

In southern New England, he wrote, “it is incredible what hath been done.”

The Puritan by August Saint-Gaudens. Samuel Maverick chafed under their intolerance

Majority Rule

As colonists carved towns out of the wilderness, the Puritans gained power at the expense of the minority Anglicans. They took over Maine, then largely Anglican, and they persecuted Thomas Morton, a free-thinking Anglican in Braintree. They cast out nonconformists, who often ended up in free-thinking Rhode Island.

The Puritans also created and enforced a set of laws that reserved privileges for members of the Puritan church, or freemen. Samuel Maverick was not one of them. As such, he couldn’t hold government office, but he had to pay taxes. He also couldn’t take communion and he couldn’t have his children baptized.

Nevertheless, Samuel Maverick prospered and contributed to the community’s defense. Contemporaries described him as a “whole-souled, generous, hospitable man, of warm impulses and courteous behavior.” He was “a royalist and Episcopalian, living in a strongly fortified residence on Noddle’s Island,” according to A History of East Boston: With Biographical Sketches of Its Early Proprietors, and an Appendix, by William Hylsop Sumner.

Intolerance

Ironically, Maverick owned three slaves. His treatment of them is another story. Suffice it to say he felt he was the one denied civil and religious liberties.

By 1647, Maverick and others began to resent the colony’s rigid laws. He joined several others in a petition to end taxation without representation and to gain basic civil and religious rights.

They complained the colony did not base its laws on the fundamental laws of England. The government also denied them the same civic and religious privileges as the church members, or freemen. They protested they were entitled to those privileges as “freeborn Englishmen of sober lives and conversation.”

Maverick and the other petitioners threatened to take their complaints to England if the Puritans didn’t cave in to their demands.

And so the Puritans sent him to jail for conspiracy and perjury and slapped him with a steep fine. After 12 days he paid the fine and went free.

Successful Complaint, Failed Commission

Maverick wasn’t going to get any satisfaction in England while the English Civil War raged. Nor would he while Oliver Cromwell ruled the country. But when Charles II restored the Crown in 1660, Samuel Maverick headed straight for England to air his complaints about the Puritans to the King.

He brought with him the little book he’d written, outlining the lay of the land. A Briefe Discription of New England and the Severall Townes Therein, Together with the Present Government Thereof received the King’s attention. For centuries it rested in private hands, its existence unknown to but a few. Then in 1875 its owner put the book up for auction and the British Museum bought it.

King Charles II

His little book convinced the king he needed to rein in his independent colonies. Maverick returned to New England in a position of authority as one of four commissioners. The King charged the commissioners with enforcing liberty of conscience and oaths of allegiance as well as forcing local militias to follow the King’s orders.

The commissioners couldn’t exercise their power, though, and Samuel Maverick moved to New York. He is believed to have died sometime around 1670.

Maverick’s Brief Description

Here are excerpts from his descriptions of 20 towns from Maine to Connecticut. (To see all 86, click here.)

Note his disapproval with how the Massachusetts Puritans took over Maine towns, originally settled by Anglicans like himself. And he makes clear his disdain for the poor, weak and Dutch-friendly Plymouth Colony.

Map of New England, 1677

Maine

Pem˜a—Westward from Penobscott (which is the Southermost Fort in Nova Scotia) … is Pem˜aquid…many Families are now settled there… by vertue of [a patent granted by King James I] they hold the Islands of Monahegan and Damerells Coue, and other small ones adjacent Commodious for fishing.
Casco Bay.— In this Casco Bay are many scattering Families settled…[Col.] Alexander Rigby…[held the patent] and under this Goverment the People lived some yeares, till of late the Government of the Massachusits hath made bold to stretch its Jurisdiction to the midle of this Bay, and as lyeing in their way have taken in a dozen of Goverments more.

New Hampshire

Strawberry Bank. The Great House & Isle of Shooles.—Within 2 Myles of the Mouth is Strawberry Banke where are many Families, and a Minister & a Meeting House …This Strawberry Banke is part of 6000 acres granted by Patent about y^eyeare 1620 or 1621, to M^r David Thompson, who with… assistance … went over with a Considerable Company of Servants and built a Strong and Large House, enclosed it with a large and high Palizado and mounted Gunns, and being stored extraordinarly with shot and Ammunition was a Terror to the Indians, who at that time were insulting over the poor weake and unfurnished Planters of Plymouth… all is at this day in the power and at the disposall of the Massachusitts. Two Leagues of lyes the Isle of Shooles one of the best places for ffishing in the land, they have built a Church here and maintaine a Minister.

Massachusetts

Newbury—… the Houses stand at a good distance each from other a feild and Garden between each house, and so on both sides the street for 4 Miles…
Salem—… very commodious for fishing, and many Vessells have been built there and (excep^tBoston) it hath as much Trade as any place in New England.
Marblehead or Foy.—… the greatest Towne for ffishing in New England.
Lynne—… within the bounds of it are the greatest Iron works…
Cambridge—[In] Cambridge … is a Colledge a Master and some Number of Students belonging to it…
The Old State House in Boston
Boston—the Metrapolis of New England lying pleasantly on a plaine and the ascending of a High Mount which lyes about the midle of y^eplaine, …It hath two handsome Churches in it, a handsome market place, and in the midest of it a Statehouse. In the Towne are fouer full companys of ffoote and a Troope of horse…The Towne is full of good shopps well furnished with all kind of Merchandize
Braintree—once called Mount Wolaston, … It subsists by raiseing provisions, and furnishing Boston with wood.
New Plymouth.—… This place was seated about y^eyeare 1620 or 1621 by a company of Brownists, …[They] found this place and there settled liveing extream hardy for some yeares and in great danger of the Indians, and could not Long have subsisted, had not Plymouth Merchants …at Monhegon and Pascattaway … supplyed them…It is a poor small Towne now, The People being removed into Farmes in the Country.
Sandwich—a good Towne … which affords good store of Provisions, and some yeares a quantity of Whalebone made of Whales which drive up dead in that Bay.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island.— It is full of people haveing been a receptacle for people of severall Sorts and Opinions.
Warwick Providence.— I think they still keepe a seeming forme of Goverment but to litle purpose, none submitting to Supream Authority but as they please.

Connecticut

(Pequot Plantation, now Mystic and Stonington—Haveing gone through New Plymouth Goverment we come next to Connecticot Goverment. The first that was under this Goverment was Pequate
Hartford—From Withersfield to Hartford the Metropolis of the Goverment, it is about 3 Miles, it is a gallant Towne, and many rich men in it.
Springfield— This is the Massachusetts bounds. And above Springfeild 8 Miles is another Towne at first Intended but for a tradeing house with the Indians, but the gallant Land about it hath invited men to make it a Toune. This Connecticott River is a great River before y^eTowne[which] is also in the Massachusetts bounds and under its Goverment although 8 Miles from it.
Woodcut of New Haven, 1786
Newhaven—This Towne is the Metropolis of that Goverment, and the Goverment tooke its Name from this Towne; … was the first built in those parts, many stately and costly houses were erected the Streete layd out in a Gallant forme, a very stately Church; but y^eHarbour proveing not Comodious, the land very barren, the Merchants either dead or come away, the rest gotten to their Farmes, The Towne is not so glorious as once it was.
Milford—From Newhaven to Milford it is about 10 Miles, This Towne is gotten into some way of Tradeing to Newfoundland, Barbados, Virginia, So also hath some other Townes in this Goverment.
Greenwich—From Stamford to Greenwich…these two last Townes are under Newhaven Goverment, and there was another place begun and much done in it, but the Dutch came and tooke it by force, and since the people of this Towne call it New Chester…

The Rest of the Story

New England had no shortage of Mavericks, and it’s hard to tell who was the ancestor of the famous Maverick who moved to Texas as a baby. That Maverick, also Samuel, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, served as mayor of San Antonio, owned huge tracts of land and practiced law. He also had a few cows. He didn’t brand his cattle, and, according to lore, those who strayed into another rancher’s herd were called mavericks.

His grandson Maury Maverick coined the term ‘gobbledygook.’

This story was updated in 2022. Image of map of New England: By http://maps.bpl.org – A map of New England, being the first that ever was here cut … places, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27807459.

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A Sad Condition: Wilmot Redd and the Salem Witch Trials

In 1692, Wilmot Redd died on the gallows because her neighbors didn’t like her.

Redd (or Reed/Read, by some accounts) was the only victim of the Salem witch trials who lived in Marblehead, Mass., Salem’s neighbor to the south. Townspeople singled her out for persecution because she had made a bad impression on many of them.

Wilmot Redd

Redd, born sometime in the early seventeenth century, lived in a modest house near the foot of Old Burial Hill in Marblehead with her husband, fisherman Samuel Redd. She lived next to a small pond that now bears her name (Redd’s Pond). Redd developed a reputation for being ornery and unlikeable.

Redd’s Pond

She sometimes sold butter to supplement her husband’s small income. Either her butter was of poor quality or she was wrongfully blamed for it turning sour after she sold it. Regardless, she fell out with some of her neighbors over the issue.

She was also known to be irritable and curt. She became the subject of superstitious tales that circulated around Marblehead and Salem. In some of them, people accused her of using curses to kill babies and curdle her neighbors’ milk. One rhyme survives that hints at her reputation:

Old Mammy Redd
Of Marblehead
Sweet milk could turn
To mold in churn.

Witchcraft Charges

Redd was first accused of witchcraft in 1687, but nothing came of that accusation.

A few years later, however, in 1692, witch hysteria swept the region. Redd’s reputation inspired some of the young Salem girls who instigated the Salem witch trials to name her as one of their tormenters.

Like other Salem witch trial victims (Bridget Bishop and Ann Pudeator, for example), Redd’s unpopularity made her an easy target. It probably did not help that Redd’s daughter married another accused witch, the Rev. George Burroughs. He was eventually hanged.

A local constable arrested Wilmot Redd on May 28, 1692. Two judges signed her arrest warrant: John Hathorne, the patrilineal ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Jonathan Corwin. Three days after her arrest, authorities took Redd to Deacon Nathan Ingersoll’s house and tavern in Salem Village. Ingersoll had accused at least seven witchcraft defendants.

As soon as Redd arrived, four girls who had accused her of witchcraft (Abigail Williams, Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott) fell into fits. According to official records of this “examination,” Redd was asked what she thought was wrong with the girls. She responded, “I cannot tell.” Asked again to give her opinion, she said, “My opinion is they are in a sad condition.” When Redd touched the girls, their fits miraculously stopped.

The Trial of Wilmot Redd

Three Marbleheaders — Sarah Doddy, Ambrose Gale and Charity Pitman — testified against Redd at her trial four months later. Pitman claimed Redd had cursed a neighbor with “distemper of the dry bellyache” (constipation). The neighbor, a Mrs. Simse/Syms, had accused a girl staying with Redd (possibly a servant) of stealing some of Simse’s linen. Redd had supposedly met her at her door with a litany of curses.

The Salem girls present at Redd’s examination in Salem also formally accused her of choking and pinching them and causing other bodily harm. Mary Walcott testified that “…if [Redd] did but look upon me she would strike me down or almost choke me.” The girls gave nearly identical testimony, all painting Redd as their assailant.

The court indicted Wilmot Redd for “detestable arts called Witchcraft and Sorceries…practiced & exercised at the Towne of Salem.”

The Salem witch trials

Guilty

Redd had no defense counsel at her trial. The court found her guilty on Sept. 17, 1692, and sentenced her to death by hanging.

On Sept. 22, 1692, Redd belonged to the last group of victims executed during the Salem witchcraft trials. Authorities brought her and seven others to Gallows Hill. The cart carrying the condemned got stuck as it made its way up to the execution site. Some of the victims’ accusers, who had assembled to watch them die, then cried out the devil was trying to hold back the cart and save the witches.

With their last words, the victims proclaimed their innocence, just as they had done during their trials.

Redd was buried in an unmarked grave. Its location remains unknown. Today, markers memorialize Redd at Old Burial Hill in Marblehead and at the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. Then in 2016, archaeologists confirmed her execution site at Proctor’s Ledge below Gallows Hill in Salem. Markers now memorialize the victims there as well.

Wilmot Redd memorial

In the centuries following the witch trials, political figures pardoned the victims as a gesture of remorse for their wrongful deaths. On Halloween in 2001, Massachusetts Acting Gov. Jane Swift signed a bill that pardoned five witch trial victims, including Wilmot Redd.

This story last updated in 2023. The author of this story, Rebecca Del Giudice, is a writer and editor who lives in Massachusetts.

Sources

Brooks, Rebecca Beatris. “The Execution of Wilmot Redd.” History of Massachusetts Blog.
https://historyofmassachusetts.org/wilmot-redd-salem/ Last accessed September 21, 2019.

Bultrusis, Sam. Wicked Salem: Exploring Lingering Lore and Legends. Guildford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot, 2019.

Gamage, Virginia Clegg and Lord, Priscilla Sawyer. The Spirit of ’76 Lives Here: Marblehead. Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1972. P. 52.

Ray, Benjamin. Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. University of Virginia. SWP 114.1-9 http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n114.html Last accessed September 25, 2019.

Roads, Samuel Jr. The History and Traditions of Marblehead. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1880.

Images: Wilmot Redd Memorial: Keitei at the English Language Wikipedia; Redd’s Pond: By Elizabeth B. Thomsen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51908871.

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Caleb Gibbs Leads George Washington’s Secret Service

At the dawn of the American Revolution, George Washington realized he needed personal protection. And so he formed the Commander-in-Chief’s Guard in March of 1776. The guard functioned as his personal security service, similar in many ways to today’s Secret Service. To lead the guard, Washington chose Marblehead’s Caleb Gibbs, who greatly admired Washington. However, they didn’t always have an easy relationship.

Fifty-eight men were assigned to the guard, and Gibbs ran it for nearly four years. Originally from Newport, R.I., Gibbs had moved to Marblehead where he served in Glover’s Regiment. He fought at Lexington, Mass., at the start of the war. During the Siege of Boston, he came to the attention of Washington, then headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. Gibbs’ ability to create order and his command presence impressed Washington. He appointed him captain of his new guard.

George Washington takes command of the troops in Cambridge, Mass.

Made up of four corporals, four sergeants and 50 rank and file, the guard originally served as Washington’s security detail. But Gibbs soon took on the role of managing Washington’s household as well, as he moved southward from Cambridge during the Revolution.

Guns and Butlers

Washington had the guard outfitted to dress like him, in buff and blue. He also demanded the men adhere to high standards of personal conduct. And Gibbs had the curious responsibility of running a military unit whose duties overlapped with the household staff.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze, 1851.

In May of 1777, Washington tasked Gibbs with procuring a steward for his household. “If you could get a man who had been employed in that capacity, or as a Butler in a Gentleman’s Family and who could be well recommended and by such as may be depended upon for his honesty—Sobriety—and care, he would answer the purpose much better than a mere greenhorn,” Washington wrote.

Washington went on to note his own servants’ shortcomings. They “stand so much in need of being checked for their extravagance, and roguery, in making away with Liquors, & other Articles laid in for the use of the Family,” he wrote.

Washington gave Gibbs dozens of other assignments, such as procuring salt, flower, wine and socks. All were in short supply during the war.

Caleb Gibbs in the Soup

By October of 1779, Washington and Gibbs had fallen out. Apparently they had a disagreement over a tent. Washington had reduced the number of officers in the guard. Though still serving as captain, Gibbs no longer dined with Washington.

In a letter discussing the matter, Washington writes: “What Major Gibbs’s plan is, and what his present line of conduct tends to, I shall not take upon me to decide; nor shall I at this moment enquire into them.”

“I mean to act coolly & deliberately myself, and will therefore give him an opportunity of recollecting himself,” Washington wrote. “He has been guilty of a piece of disrespect; to give it no worse a term—such an one, as I much question if there is another officer in the line of the army would have practiced,” he continued. “And because I would not suffer my orders to be trampled upon; a supercilious, and self-important conduct on his part is the consequence.”

The matter blew over. Gibbs apparently returned to the dinner table and continued rendering loyal service. In October of 1780 he even dipped into his own funds for $1,600 to pay Washington’s household expenses. The Continental Army at the time faced a shortage of funds.

Washington, meanwhile, tolerated Gibbs’ shortcomings. He was apparently not fully versed in how to run a proper household. That made him something of a curiosity to Washington’s southern society friends. Yet he made up for his weaknesses with a wonderful sense of humor and a love of singing.

Martha Daingerfield Bland wrote of him: “Capt. Gibbs of the General’s Guard (is) a good natured Yankee who makes a thousand blunders in the Yankee style and keeps the dinner table in constant laugh.”

At the Close of War

Gibbs eventually transferred out of Washington’s personal guard, possibly because he wanted a more active assignment. He continued serving in the Army and suffered wounds at the Battle of Yorktown.

Siege of Yorktown. Washington and Rochambeau give orders just before the attack. Painting by Auguste Couder.

After the war, Gibbs had some setbacks. He struggled to find work. At one point he wrote to Washington asking to be repaid money that he had advanced the household during the war. In it, he bemoaned the fact that “The unequal distribution of this world’s goods amongst mankind make it necessary for those in a dependent Line to look seriously about them for the mere comforts and necessaries of life.”

Washington advocated for Gibbs several times. He nominated him for a post in the Army, but Gibbs had apparently rubbed some in Congress the wrong way. The nomination was blocked.

Secretary of War James McHenry told Washington that, while Gibbs might have made a good officer, he could not back him. He wrote: “it is a fact, that his character is very low in Boston, that he is looked upon as a trifler, and has no weight whatever in that quarter of the union.”

Nevertheless, Gibbs and Washington maintained friendly relations. Gibbs organized a celebration for Washington when he toured New England in 1789. And Washington wrote references for Gibbs, attesting to his character.

Gibbs finally found work as a clerk in the Boston Navy Yard, and would eventually work his way up to superintendent. He died in 1818 at age 70.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like: George Washington Breaks Up a Snowball Fight at Harvard. This story was updated in 2021.

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From Soups to Nuts – Ten Eponymous New England Classic Foods

What could be a better guarantee that your name will never be forgotten than having a food named after you? Here, in no particular order, are 10 eponymous New England classic foods and the people who inspired them. (Plus a couple extras.)

Hubbard Squash. Captain Knott Martin was a master mariner from Marblehead, Mass. On returning from one of his voyages in 1854 he introduced his neighbor, Elizabeth Hubbard, to a strange, foreign vegetable. It was a squash. Elizabeth began extolling its virtues to a seed merchant, James Gregory, and he decided to produce seeds from the vegetable to market. Since no one could tell him the name of the vegetable, he dubbed it the Hubbard Squash. It can grow to 45 pounds and last in the pantry for months, making it a valuable addition to any garden. There are competing theories as to how the squash got its name, but we’re sticking with this one.

New England Classic Foods

Real New England Classic Foods

Mary Janes. You’ve probably eaten a Mary Jane. They’re a molasses and peanut butter flavored little taffy style block sold in a yellow wrapper with a picture of a little girl on them. That’s Mary Jane. Charles Miller of the Charles N. Miller Candy Company said he named them (but maybe Robert O. Lord did). His company was actually located in Paul Revere’s house. The products were popular on the penny candy scene since their inception in 1914. Miller told the story that he named the candies after a favorite aunt. Others have suggested it was just a popular name in that era. NECCO subsequently bought Mary Janes, but went bankrupt. The Atkinson Candy Co. now makes them under a licensing agreement with Spangler.

The Baldwin Apple. The Baldwin apple made its debut on the farm of John Ball of Wilmington, Mass., in 1740. A random hybrid, it only grew for about 40 years in and around Wilmington. But it got its name from Loammi Baldwin, a farmer and hero of the American Revolution. Baldwin promoted the variety aggressively. Firm, bright red and a reliable and abundant crop, the Baldwin was for many years the most popular apple in New England and New York.

Baldwin Apple

Soup and Cake

Rumford’s Soup. One of Loammi Baldwin’s good friends was Benjamin Thompson, who would be made a German count in 1791 for his assistance to the German government. Count Rumford was a prolific inventor and not shy about attaching his name to things. His Rumford stoves are still in use. Concord, N.H., was at one point named Rumford after him. Working in Germany, Rumford researched nutrition and developed a soup, Rumford’s Soup, as a nutritious food staple that could be served widely in the military, workhouses and poorhouses. The barley-pea soup became a basic military ration in Europe for much of the 1800s and into the 1900s. Germans still trot out the classic recipe at Oktoberfest.

German Chocolate Cake. Though it may sound improbable, German chocolate cake is not German. It gets its name from Samuel German who worked for Dorchester’s Baker’s Chocolate Company. The company produced its dark “German’s Chocolate” bearing Samuel German’s name. It was adapted as the standard chocolate brand to be used in making a German chocolate cake, the chocolate layer cake with pecans, coconut and cherries on top that became wildly popular in the 1950s. German Chocolate Cake day is June 11, which is as good an excuse as any to bake one of these delicious dessert treats.

An Accident and Connoisseurs

Parker House Rolls. Mainer H.D. Parker established the Boston Parker House Hotel in 1855. He ran it until he died in 1884. Sometime during the 1870s the roll that bears his name got started. The soft, white rolls are slightly sweet and have several legends about their creation. The stories feature a baker growing furious and throwing dough into the oven, only to accidentally produce the hotel’s signature rolls. A local favorite from the start, Fannie Farmer made them famous when she included them in her 1896 Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

The Parker House in 1910

Bartlett Pear. The most common pear in America, the Bartlett Pear, is names for Enoch Bartlett, a Dorchester, Mass., farmer. Bartlett bought his farm from James Carter, who planted his land with Bartletts around 1799. To connoisseurs, the flavor of the Bartlett epitomizes the pearishness they seek in the fruit. Carter had imported the pear trees from Europe, where they are known as Williams pears. Farmer Bartlett apparently did not know what to call them, and so when he began marketing them he named them after himself. The name stuck. By the time people identified the Bartlett as being the same as the Williams pear, it was wildly popular in North America and kept its new name.

Health Food Nut

Graham Crackers. Connecticut’s Rev. Sylvester Graham was born in 1794 in Suffield, Conn., to an aging father and mentally ill mother. Raised by relatives, he developed a fierce ideology that he carried with him into the pulpit when he took up the family trade of ministering. He hated waste and unhealthy food almost as much as he hated alcohol, and so he preached that people should eat a simple vegetarian diet of minimally processed foods. In his sermons around the county, he advocated for people using Graham flour and Graham crackers, made of unrefined whole wheat. Though he earned no money from the products he advocated, he did earn fame because the name stuck. We have Graham crackers in American pantries to this day.

Sylvester Graham

More New England Classic Foods

Needhams. The Needham candy, a chocolate-covered coconut and potato sweet that is popular in Maine, was actually invented in the candy kitchens of John Seavey in Auburn, Maine, around 1872. But the modest Mr. Seavey chose not to name them after himself or his employee who dreamed them up. Rather, he named them after George Needham, a well known minister of the day who had settled in Boston from his native England. Needham’s remarkable life had very little to do with the candy that keeps his name alive today.

The needham

Joe Froggers. In Marblehead, Mass., Joe Frogger cookies have been a prized sweet for generations. They are large ginger cookies first baked by a man known as Old Black Joe Brown and his wife Lucretia, known as Aunty Crese. Joe served as a soldier in the American Revolution. After the war, he and his wife ran a tavern on Gingerbread Hill near a small pond filled with frogs. Hence the name ‘Joe Frogger.’ The cookies kept for a long time, and sailors and fishermen took barrels of Joe Froggers with them on their voyages.

Burbank Plum and Burbank Potato. Luther Burbank of Lancaster, Mass., headed west to California in the 1870s and spent a lifetime developing new strains of plants. He created dozens of varieties of flowers and vegetables, including two that bear his name. The Burbank Plum and the Burbank Russet Potato. The Burbank Russet, which Luther developed in Massachusetts and used to pay for his westward migration, is the most widely grown potato in the United States today. It appears in, among other preparations, McDonald’s French fries.

This story about New England classic foods was updated in 2022.

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Six Gravesites of Military Heroes

Military heroes who sacrificed for their country certainly deserve to be remembered on Memorial Day weekend. Some people remember them with parades and speeches, others with flowers on their graves.

The New England Historical Society honors them with this story about the place where each state’s greatest military heroes rest, we hope, in peace.

Wooster Cemetery

David Wooster

Connecticut produced many military heroes, including Benedict Arnold, a hero at least for a while.

Nathan Hale is the first among all Connecticut’s military heroes, having given his life for his country. But no one ever found his body.

And you might get into an argument if you called Revolutionary War Gen. Israel Putnam a hero.

But Gen. David Wooster definitely qualifies as a military hero from Connecticut, albeit a largely forgotten one. He gave his life for his country in the Battle of Ridgefield, chasing British troops back to New York after they burned Danbury.

As Wooster lay dying, he said, “I am dying, but with a strong hope and persuasion that my country will gain her independence.”

He was buried in Wooster Cemetery on Mount Moriah in Danbury. And yes, Wooster Square in New Haven was named for him.

Monument to David Wooster in Wooster Cemetery.

Wooster Cemetery, Ellsworth Ave., Danbury, Conn.

Pine Grove Cemetery

Of all of Maine’s military heroes, Joshua Chamberlain stands as the greatest.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, by Matthew Brady

When the Civil War broke out, Chamberlain left his job as a Bowdoin College professor to command the storied 20^th Maine Regiment.

On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the 20th Maine held off three savage charges by Confederate regiments. By evening, the 20th Maine ran low on ammunition. He could either hold the hill and face certain destruction, or retreat and allow the Confederates to overrun the Army of the Potomac.

Instead, the men fixed their bayonets and charged down the hill. The shocked rebels broke and ran.

Chamberlain suffered grievous wounds during the Second Battle of Petersburg. He then received a promotion to brigadier general on what was thought to be his deathbed. He lived to the age of 85 and received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry at Gettysburg.

A simple headstone marks Joshua Chamberlain’s grave in historic Pine Grove Cemetery near Bowdoin College, where he returned after the war.

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Pine Grove Cemetery, image courtesy Google Maps

Pine Grove Cemetery, Brunswick, Maine

Old Burial Hill

The Americans might have lost the Revolution if it weren’t for one of Massachusetts’ great military heroes, John Glover.

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John Glover

Glover raised a regiment of Marblehead fishermen and sailors known for their discipline and teamwork. The regiment, which, included African-Americans and Indians, ferried George Washington and 2,400 men across the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776.

The Battle of Trenton, which followed, gave the American cause a boost in morale when it badly needed one.

Glover had already saved Washington’s Army. When the British defeated the Continental Army on Long Island, Washington ordered Glover’s Regiment to evacuate the troops to Manhattan. They safely landed 9,500 men, along with all their baggage, nearly all their artillery, stores, horses and provisions. Had the evacuation failed, Washington’s army—and probably the war—would have been lost.

John Glover is buried in Marblehead in the picturesque Old Burial Hill cemetery.

Old Burial Hill

Marblehead, Mass.

Stark Cemetery

John Stark

John Stark, , the most famous of New Hampshire’s military heroes, was also a quote machine. During the Battle of Bennington, Stark rallied his men with the words:

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

Stark’s performance earned him the nickname Hero of the Battle of Bennington:

He may have been the one who said, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” at the Battle of Bunker Hill. And he most certainly coined New Hampshire’s motto, Live Free or Die.

Stark fought with distinction during the entire war, then went back to his farm in New Hampshire. He is buried with his wife in Stark Cemetery in Manchester, N.H. It’s in the back of Stark Park.

Stark Cemetery

Stark Cemetery, River Road, Manchester, N.H.

Common Burying Ground

You would expect Rhode Island’s greatest military heroes to be mariners and you would be correct.

But Rhode Island’s Oliver Hazard Perry wasn’t just a military hero. He defeated a British squadron in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. His victory turned the tide of the war in the West, and he became a national hero as well as a military hero.

Perry didn’t have long to enjoy his fame. He died of yellow fever in 1819 at the age of 34.

Perry joins many of Newport’s most prominent citizens at the Common Burying Ground in Newport. His neighbors include Ida Lewis, Ann Smith Franklin and William Ellery.

The Common Burying Ground has a large number of colonial era headstones, including the largest number of colonial African American headstones in the United States.

military-heroes-perry-common-burying-ground

The Common Burying Ground

Farewell St & Warner Street, Newport, R.I.

St. Joseph’s Cemetery

Capt. John Lonergan

John Lonergan realized his men were under heavy fire from a house in front of them. Lonergan ordered his men to charge it. They surrounded the house and Lonergan knocked in the front door, bellowing, ‘’Surrender! Fall out here, every damned one of you!’ The Confederates tumbled out of the house, and Lonergan’s company took 83 of them captive.

Lonergan later headed the Vermont branch of the Fenian Brotherhood and organized two failed raids into Canada from St. Albans. His aim was to pressure Britain to leave Ireland. He died in 1902. In 2013 his great-granddaughter unveiled a memorial marker to honor him in Burlington’s City Hall Park. He is buried, however, in St. Joseph Cemetery in Burlington.

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St. Joseph’s Cemetery

206 Auburn St. Burlington, Vt.

End Notes

Images: David Wooster’s monument, By Kensphotos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4064498. Common Burying Ground By Swampyank at en.wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17984252. Oliver Hazard Perry, By Gilbert Stuart(Life time: 1755-1828) – Original publication: Portrait by Gilbert Stuart Immediate source: http://www.toledomuseum.org/2013/08/08/artwork-of-the-week-august-9/, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40572296. Stark Cemetery By AlexiusHoratius – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26455478. Google images by Google Maps. Image of Oliver Hazard Perry courtesy Toledo Museum of Art.Old Burial Hill By Newenglandhistory1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114115853.

This story was updated in 2022.

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