Tag:

smuggling

Prohibition in Vermont and the Legend of Catherine Dillon

Prohibition in Vermont started early. Liquor officially became illegal in parts of Vermont in the early 1800s, with towns demanding the right to outlaw sales of alcohol within their borders. In 1850 the state officially banned licensing alcohol-selling establishments and two years later banned all manufacturing of alcohol. With that, the state went dry – sort of.

New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of prohibition (Library of Congress)

Enforcement of prohibition was always a spotty affair, with each town and county taking its own approach to policing liquor sales. In some places, alcohol virtually went underground. But others openly tolerated saloons, though the growing temperance movement in the country began pressuring Vermont cities and towns to crack down on the “rum holes” in their midst.

Vermont’s remote northern border was always popular with bootleggers. Bringing liquor surreptitiously from Canada to avoid taxes was a common enough activity. But with the change in the laws in 1850, it became far more attractive. The crackdown on domestically produced liquor pushed the demand for bootleg hooch through the roof. The border region became a hotbed for bootlegging right through the era of nationwide prohibition in the 1920s.

Catherine Dillon Comes to America

Into this turbulent environment came Catherine Dillon. If you were given just two words to describe Catherine, you wouldn’t go far wrong with “beautiful” and “feisty.” She came to America in 1851 to Oswego, N.Y. at roughly the age of 25. Catherine (maiden name Driscoll) was part of the wave of Irish immigrants who poured into America. Famine, political persecution and economic recession in Ireland made America look like a paradise of jobs and opportunity.

In northern Vermont and New York, the railroads provided jobs for the Irish. Catherine Dillon, meanwhile, decided to provide them with everything else — food, shelter and drink.

Following the workers as they migrated from railroad to industrial jobs, Catherine moved from Oswego to Rouses Point and finally across into Vermont, spending time in Swanton and finally settling in St. Albans. There she and her husband, Patrick, began assembling a small village of tenements populated with her fellow Irish immigrants. In addition, she offered alcohol at two saloons, and it didn’t take long for the law to notice.

In December of 1854, in Franklin County Courts, Catherine and Patrick were fined $40 for illegally selling liquor. Patrick went to jail for failing to pay the fine. And in December of 1855, Catherine was back in court, this time sentenced to three months in prison.

Courts and Jails

Catherine fought the charges with a vengeance all the way, at one point losing her case only because her lawyer didn’t get an appeal filed fast enough.

In March of 1856, the police found six barrels of liquor on her property during a raid. No one was willing to step forward and admit they owned the booze, and so it was ordered dumped.

Around 1857 she sought a divorce from Peter. She claimed he was abusive. Peter argued that anyone who knew Catherine knew he was no match for her. The story of how she finally rid herself of Patrick goes like this: One day they arrived back in Vermont on a train and Patrick went to collect their luggage. Catherine pointed out a suitcase and told him to take it. It didn’t belong to her, however, and she reported her husband to the police and had him jailed. The incident was enough to send Patrick packing, off to the Army as a bugler. How much of the story is true and how much is legend remains a mystery, but it was reported in her obituary.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s legend grew. In one instance, a man died after getting drunk in her saloon. She initially faced manslaughter charges, but they were dropped. In other cases, she would be arrested, only to escape and be back in business within days. The ease with which she navigated the legal system left many wondering if she wasn’t managing to corrupt the police.

Prohibition in Vermont Gathers Steam

By 1865 the calls for putting a stop to liquor sales were growing louder. In 1868 Catherine was convicted of smuggling liquor from Canada and fined $1,500. She disappeared, leaving the sheriff to seize her animals and property to settle the fine. In another case, two men claimed she waved a pistol at them when they approached her about paying a bill.

While prohibition in Vermont still had a long run ahead, Catherine Dillon did not. Finally the persistent fines and costs of fighting in court got to Catherine, and she gave up the liquor trade around 1870. Whether she would have stayed out of the business is a moot point. In September of 1871 Catherine suffered $5,000 in losses when a fire swept through St. Albans and destroyed a large section of the city.

By this point Catherine was nearing the end of her life. At just 45 years of age, she died alone in her house. She left a considerable estate, including 125 acres of land, a farm, tenement houses and commercial buildings. Estimates put its value at somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000.

Catherine’s two brothers were the beneficiaries of her estate, though her death would eventually provoke a protracted lawsuit. A long-lost sister argued she was owed a portion of the estate. She charged that her brothers, though they knew how to find her, neglected to tell her that Catherine had died a very wealthy woman.

This story was updated in 2023.

1 comment 2.4K views

The Coldest Temperature Ever in Each New England State

New Hampshire poet Donald Hall’s grandmother once said, “Thirty below this morning. Seems like it might get cold.” It does get cold in New England, and the coldest temperature in the region was well below minus 30.

The good news about cold snaps in New England is that they don’t last long. “They have a tendency to be more short-lived than in other parts of the country,” wrote Gregory A. Zielinski and Barry D. Keim in New England Weather, New England Climate. Thus, “The socioeconomic impact is not as widespread or as great as in other parts of the country.” Still. “Heat waves and cold spells can be dramatic in New England,” concede the authors.

April may be the cruelest month, but January tends to be the coldest in New England. The coldest temperature in four of six New England states was recorded in January, and the other two close in late December and mid-February.

The January thaw provides some consolation during the bitter weeks of winter. It’s a climatic singularity — a climate event that happens every year at about the same time. The January thaw happens nearly every January, usually between the 21st and the 25th. Temperatures will rise from about January 22 to January 25 throughout the region.

“Snowy Night, Woodstock, Vt. Courtesy Library of Congress.

New England weather varies from the north to the south, and from the coast to the interior. The lowest temperature inland — in places like Caribou, Maine, Burlington, Vt., and Keene, N.H. — happen around January 17. In the south and along the coast — Hartford and Boston, for example — the coldest temperature happens around January 31.

The Lake Champlain region — northwestern Vermont — has the greatest daily variation in temperature in the country. Lowest temperatures vary day-to-day by as much as 10 degrees in January.

Here, then, are the places that recorded the coldest temperature in each New England state.

Connecticut’s Icebox

Norfolk, known as the “Icebox of Connecticut,” recorded the coldest official temperature in the state on Feb. 16, 1943. Unofficially, temperatures fell to 45 below zero in some northwest Connecticut towns. Subzero temperatures that night were also recorded in places as far south as Nantucket and New Haven.

“A chilly spot,” is how a New York Times reporter characterized the town in a Feb. 14, 1988 story. “It is the place where the snow is said to be deeper, the temperatures lower and the winters longer than elsewhere in Connecticut.” Norfolk also gets the most snow in Connecticut during an average year — 107 inches.

February 1943 was a frigid month throughout the Northeast, a time when World War II raged overseas. The government had just announced shoe rationing in order to make more leather available to the military. That spurred scare buying of apparel in early February. But then the Arctic cold that settled over the region put an end to the panic buying of clothing, the Times reported. The government, by the way, also rationed coal, the heating fuel used by most New Englanders.

Coldest Temperature in Maine

Hunting in winter is popular in Aroostook County.

The coldest cold in New England happens when high pressure in Canada pushes air from the North Pole into the region — the “Siberian Express.” It can drop temperatures well below zero for several nights and keep them below zero during the daytime.

The Siberian Express hit New England in January of 2009, a winter already colder than usual. On January 16 the thermometer read minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit in Clayton Lake, an unincorporated village in Aroostook County, Maine. That was two degrees colder than the coldest temperature ever recorded in Maine. So cold, in fact, that it triggered two meetings of the state’s Records Verification Committee.

The University of Maine’s Maine Climate News reported the committee brought together people from an alphabet soup of government agencies. They included the National Weather Service (NWS) in Caribou, the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) in Augusta, the Maine state climatologist, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) in Ithaca, N.Y. and the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

An instrument at the Big Black River station for the USGS had recorded the Arctic temperature. The climatologists then challenged the reading and had several instruments tested. In the end, the Records Verification Committee unanimously voted to accept the minus 50 degree verdict.

Henry David Thoreau had written about another cold Friday in 1810, but that was before alphabet soup.

Coldest Temperature: The Bay State

Aerial view of Chester, Mass., 1905

On Super Bowl Sunday in 1984, the temperature plunged to a record minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit in Chester, Mass., a small town on the eastern edge of the Berkshires. Any Chester resident who braved the cold to attend a Super Bowl party that January 22^nd watched the Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins, 38-9.

Chester also holds the distinction of being only one of three U.S. places that recorded the hottest and coldest temperature in its state. On Aug. 2, 1975, known as New England’s Hot Saturday, the mercury rose to 107 degrees Fahrenheit. (The other two are Millsboro, Del., and Warsaw, Mo.) That’s higher than the highest recorded temperatures in the Florida cities of Miami and Orlando.

Sargent’s Purchase (aka Mount Washington)

The White Mountains have a way of creating their own weather, and on Jan. 22, 1885, their highest peak, Mount Washington, came up with a doozy. The thermometer showed minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mount Washington, not known for its balmy weather, has recorded temperatures as low as eight degrees Fahrenheit — in June.

Mount Washington from Intervale, N.H.

The mountain’s mean annual temperature is near 26 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Zielenski and Keim. They call it “the ultimate New England example of how elevation affects temperature.” Temperature decreases at a rate of 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit every thousand feet up. Mount Washington is 6,288 feet high. It also averages 254 inches of snow every year.

Mount Washington also set a record, since broken for the highest wind speed. On April 12, 1934, observers recorded a gust of 231 mph — and lived to tell about it.

Rhode Island’s Coldest Temperature

The United States had entered World War II just six weeks earlier when Richmond, R.I., experienced the state’s coldest temperature: minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit. It was January 17, 1942, the day after a German U-boat sank the tanker Coimbra off Long Island.

It figures that the warmest coldest temperature would happen in Rhode Island. The Ocean State, along with southern Connecticut, has a mean average temperature higher than the rest of New England.

Rhode Island has widely varying weather, from day to day and from season to season, according to the state meteorologist, Lenny Giuliano.

But Richmond lies a few miles inland in the southwest part of the state. “Southwestern Rhode Island, from four to 10 miles inland, exhibits a coolness not suggested by the nearness to the ocean,” Lenny Giuliano, state meteorologist, wrote.

Subzero temperatures happen rarely in Rhode Island — typically, one day a year or not at all along the coast and five per year in most of the interior. But in cold winters, the southwest part of the state can get as many as eight below-zero days a few miles in from the coast.

Cold Comfort in Vermont

The tiny town of Bloomfield, Vt., shared the coldest temperature ever in New England with Clayton Lake, Maine, 75 years earlier. On Dec. 30, 1933, the weather service reported temperatures of −50°F in the Northern Vermont town of about 400.

Prohibition had ended that month, which may have stopped the smuggling of booze across the line from Canada. Rum running wasn’t uncommon in those lean times, and the line houses along the border were a little over 20 miles away from Bloomfield.

So when Prohibition ended that December, Bloomfield residents could warm themselves with a shot of brandy – legally.

This story was updated in 2023.

Images: Mount Washington By Harvey Barrison – originally posted to Flickr as White Mountains_12 30 09_81, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10396490. Snowy Night Wolcott, M. P., photographer. (1940) Center of town. Woodstock, Vermont. “Snowy night”. United States Vermont Windsor County Woodstock, 1940. Mar. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017802584/..

1 comment 5K views

Don Pedro, The Last True Pirate To Raid the Atlantic

Don Pedro, the handsome, ruthless Spanish pirate, apparently didn’t get the memo in 1832 that piracy was over in the Atlantic Ocean.

He made a reckless move on the high seas against a brig from Salem, Mass., and he paid for it with his life.

Don Pedro

Don Pedro Gibert

Don Pedro was born around 1800 in Catalonia, Spain, as Pedro Gibert. He started out in an honest job — as a privateer working for the Colombian government. He soon turned to piracy, attacking American merchant vessels, raiding the east coast of Florida and smuggling liquor and tobacco.

According to legend, Don Pedro once told his crew what to do with their captives. “Dead cats don’t mew. You know what to do.”

He commanded the Panda, a black Baltimore clipper with a white streak. The pirate captain had a favorite technique of terrorizing its targets. Panda would hide in protected coves and lure unsuspecting vessels into shallow water with a fake distress call. The merchant vessel would come to help and the pirates would ambush the crew.

Boxes of Silver

On Sept. 20, 1832, the pirate schooner Panda captured the American brig Mexican, sailing from Salem to Rio de Janeiro carrying $20,000 in silver. That amounts to about $555,667 in today’s dollars.

Don Pedro, departing from his usual technique, ordered the Panda crew to chase the Mexican into open water off the Florida coast sometime between 2 am and 3 am.

The Mexican captain, John Groves Butman, first spotted the Panda at 4 am, just as dawn broke. He thought the schooner looked suspicious and tried to evade her.

The pirates fired a gun at the brig, and the captain saw the Panda had several large guns and 60 men crowding her deck. Butman hove to. By 9 a.m. the pirates boarded the Mexican. They then brandished long Spanish knives and beat the captain until he told them where the silver was. The pirates took away the silver in 10 boxes, each containing $2,000 worth of silver.

Likeness of Don Pedro taken at the trial.

The pirates then locked the crew of the Mexican into the forecastle, slashed the rigging and the sails and set the ship on fire. They didn’t do a good enough job. Because the pirates didn’t fasten the skylight, the captain escaped when they sailed away in midafternoon.

Return of the Mexican

The Mexican crew put out the fire, but made sure the ship still smoked. Hence the pirates sailed over the horizon expecting no mewing.

The Mexican crew repaired the ship and made it back to Salem six weeks later.

In Massachusetts, the Mexican crew reported the crime. The British Royal Navy then hunted Don Pedro. The pirates knew they were wanted, so they buried $11,000 – what was left of the treasure – on the beach of Cape Lopez in what is now Gabon. They dug it up again, took out $6,000 and left the rest for Don Pedro. Then they divided up the loot.

The Panda explodes

HMS Curlew caught the Panda off the coast of West Africa, and the two vessels fought. During the engagement, the Panda exploded. The British captured Don Pedro and his crew, identifying several of them as participants in the Mexican attack.

The British dumped the men off in Salem for a preliminary hearing. They were then shipped to Boston for trial. A jury found seven men guilty, including Don Pedro, and acquitted five. To read a transcript of the trial, click here.

On June 11, 1835, Don Pedro and four of his men were hanged until dead behind the Leverett Street Jail. More than 20,000 spectators watched.

This story was updated in 2022.

0 comments 10.8K views

John Rowe Takes the Middle Path in the American Revolution

John Rowe was a prominent Boston merchant, socialite and politician at the time of the American Revolution. Born in England in 1715 he died in America in 1787. In between, he made a fortune in America.

Rowe placed business as his primary concern. His politics reflected his priorities, as he tried very hard to take neither side in the fight between England and America.

Here are 10 facts about the man who managed to stay neutral through the Revolutionary War.

John Rowe

1. Rowe’s Wharf Named for Him.

John Rowe was a land developer as well as a ship owner. He owned vast swaths of property, and today his name remains a Boston landmark. He is the Rowe of Rowe’s Wharf, the location of the Boston Harbor Hotel. It is built on a wharf Rowe owned.

1899 map of Boston showing Rowes Wharf

2. He Took Part in the Loyal Nine.

When Britain passed the Stamp Act of 1765, a group of Boston businessmen organized a secret organization, called the Loyal Nine. They intended to agitate and prevent the act from going into effect. The Loyal Nine ushered in the Sons of Liberty, who instigated the riot that destroyed colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson‘s home in 1765.

3. He Owned a Tea Party Ship.

Rowe owned the Eleanor, which was carrying a cargo of tea in Boston Harbor on the day of the Boston Tea Party in 1773. The ship was raided as part of the protest against the Tea Act, and the tea it contained dumped into the harbor. Rowe was a member of the Boston “Donation Committee,” which coordinated the dispersal of funds contributed to Massachusetts to offset the suffering caused by the British blockade of the port (retaliation for the Boston Tea Party).

The Boston Tea Party

4. ‘Salt water and tea,’ he said.

Rowe’s role in the Boston Tea Party has been debated for centuries. One account of the events of the day of the Tea Party suggests Rowe attended a meeting in Boston’s Old South Meeting House. He was heard to say, “perhaps salt water and tea will mix tonight.” Some suggested that meant he supported the protest. Several witnesses noted his presence at the meeting. Some suggested he was one of the rioters who tossed tea into the harbor. Rowe’s diary, however, says he stayed at home all day, feeling ill. Of the tea party, he wrote, “this might, I believe, have been prevented. I am sincerely sorry for the event.”

5. The British Pillaged His Belongings.

Rowe did not flee Boston during the British siege of the city at the start of the Revolution, as John Hancock and Sam Adams did. But he was not fully in British favor. When British troops evacuated the city they ransacked his store and stole a good deal of his merchandise.

The British evacuating Boston

6. He Did Not Favor War.

Though there is no record that Rowe was a pacifist, he did not favor war against Britain. He believed his whole life that the conflict between Britain and America could be resolved through negotiation. This put him at odds with John Hancock and Sam Adams.

7. He Smuggled.

Part of John Rowe’s fortune came from smuggling. This was not uncommon, as businesses worked to find ways around British trade and tax regulations. Rowe and others, such as Hancock, never recorded how much of their fortunes came from illegal activities.

8. Thomas Hutchinson Disliked Him.

Rowe, who was very active socially, had a remarkable number of friends and acquaintances on both sides of the political debate. He counted both Samuel Adams and colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson as friends, yet both opposed him politically. Adams ran against Rowe for office and backed John Hancock against Rowe in political contests.

Thomas Hutchinson in 1750.

Hutchinson, meanwhile, thought Rowe belonged to the group behind the destruction of his home in the Stamp Act riot of 1765. Hutchinson wrote: “When there is occasion to burn or hang effigies or pull down houses, these [rabble] are employed; but since government has been brought to a system, they are somewhat controlled by a superior set consisting of the mastermasons, and carpenters, &c., of the town of Boston. When anything of more importance is to be determined, as opening the custom-house on any matter of trade, these are under the direction of a committee of the merchants, Mr. Rowe at their head . . .”

9. He Survived the 1765 Financial Panic.

Nathaniel Wheelwright was a prominent Boston merchant whose businesses collapsed spectacularly in January of 1765. Wheelwright fled the city, but he left behind debts of more than £150,000, an enormous sum. In his diary Rowe notes that the panic touched him indirectly as he had lent money to friends who had loaned money to Wheelwright, and his friends failed financially. Reflecting Wheelwright’s preference for business over politics, his diary contains far more discussion of the bankruptcy and mediation proceedings to settle the debt than the politics of the day.

10. He Most Likely Owned Slaves.

Slavery was not the economic engine in the northern colonies that it was in the south, but slaves existed in the mid 1700s. Rowe advertised in 1746 that he would like to purchase some slaves that could work as carpenters for him.

This story updated in 2022.

3 comments 4.4K views

Maine Smuggling and the Raid on Calais

The northern tip of the Maine coast was a smugglers’ paradise for generations. In fact, Maine smuggling was an essential part of the economy there.

The famous turncoat Benedict Arnold chose to set himself up on Campobello Island to engage in illegal trade with America shortly after the American Revolution. Arnold recruited men from both the Canadian and U.S. sides of the border to load and unload merchandise.

Postcard view of the International Bridge dividing Saint Stephen and Calais

Then in the War of 1812, Maine’s northern coast served as a prime thoroughfare for smuggled goods.

And the booze smugglers were an industry unto themselves as Maine adopted prohibition in the late 1800s. They slipped in and out of the lightly patrolled coves and rivers. They also brought imbibers across to Canadian bars for a legal taste.

Maine Smuggling

It was no picnic for the customs agents, or ‘preventers,’ on either side of the border. A Canadian preventer’s son was kidnapped in one attempt to stop the illegal plaster trade. Pushing and shoving occasionally turned to gun play and threats as the customs agents were held at bay. Nationally, Maine got a reputation as a wild center for smuggling. But a raid on Calais in 1837, recorded in the Annals of Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, New Brunswick probably tops all the stories for sheer ingenuity and moxie.

Lumber was the matter at hand at the time. Lumber came down the Saint Croix River from both Canada and the United States. The river snakes its way through Calais, separating the two countries as it carves an exotic series of “S” curves on its way to the ocean. Crossing between Canada and the United States was as simple as walking across a bridge, or in winter as simple as walking across the ice when the river froze.

Map of Calais, Me. and Saint Stephen, N.B.

When the lumber reach the mouth of the river, it was taxed. Crafty lumbermen would declare the lumber’s country of origin based upon which country would cost them less. Customs officials were hard pressed to differentiate between a Canadian log and one from the U.S.

In 1837, however, the Customs House seemed to be getting smarter. One, two, three loads they declared illegal because they had the wrong country of origin. There was only one explanation: Someone who knew where the lumber was coming from upstream was providing that information to the Customs Office.

Odious Villain

The town was outraged. The Calais Advertiser labeled the informant an “odious villain.” One man accused of informing placed an advertisement in the paper. He declared he didn’t inform, and customs officers attested that he told the truth.

Finally, a group from town decided to put an end to the information flow. U.S. Customs had seized a cache of U.S. contraband across the border in Saint Stephen. On the bridge to America, the customs officer was greeted with an odd sight – a band of men dressed as Indians.

The men seized the officer, placed him in a wagon and drove him to into the woods on the Canadian side. Along the way, one of the disguised men dragged a sword along the rolling wagon wheel, sharpening it in a menacing manner.

The customs officer did not hold out long. While he may not have named the informant, he gave the crowd enough information to identify him. Faced with the charge, the informant fled town and the smuggling activity returned to normal.

This story last updated in 2022.

6 comments 2.8K views

The Liberty Affair – John Hancock Loses a Ship and Starts a Riot

In the spring of 1768, Boston smuggler Daniel Malcolm approached the British customs officials overseeing the port of Boston. And so he set the stage for the Liberty Affair.

Malcolm asked how much they would charge to let him land a load of wine in the city without paying the mandatory taxes.

John Hancock

The British officials rebuffed Daniel Malcolm because they would no longer accept bribes.

Thus educated about the officials’ new tactics, Malcolm did what came naturally to him. He moored his vessel five miles off shore, unloaded the wine into smaller ships that went ashore in remote spots and sailed into Boston to declare the remaining portion of his cargo.

His lightly loaded ship teetered high on the water, and the customs officials doubted he had really bothered to import such a small cargo. But lacking evidence, they let the matter drop and assessed him tax on only the declared cargo.

Malcolm had dodged the law in eight years earlier when the sheriff had accompanied customs officials to his house to search it for illegally imported wine. In that case, Malcolm had employed an angry crowd of his friends to drive away the officials.

Now, however, the word was out. The lax days of accepting a bribe and letting cargo come ashore untaxed were over. The Liberty Affair was about to begin.

Seeds of The Liberty Affair

John Hancock, one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts, next came into the sight of the new customs agents. Hancock’s vessel the Lydia sailed into port in April and the customs officers tried to board it and search it.

Hancock demanded to see warrants authorizing the men to search his vessel. When they couldn’t produce them, the customs officials were asked to leave.

If British customs officials weren’t deliberately harassing John Hancock before the Lydia incident, they almost certainly put him on their radar following it.

The British had established the American Board of Commissioners in the fall of 1767 to step up the collection of customs mandated under the Townshend Acts. The new board wanted to show the government would no longer turn a blind eye to smuggling. The wealthy and popular John Hancock was just the person to use to send the message.

The Liberty Affair Begins

On May 9, 1768 the board got another chance. Hancock’s ship the Liberty came into port loaded with Madeira wine. Again, customs officers visited the ship – this time with the proper papers. The ship was offloaded and Hancock paid his customs. But the commissioners thought, as in the Malcolm case, the shipment seemed small – 25 casks of wine – about a quarter of the ship’s capacity.

Nevertheless, Hancock began loading the vessel for its next voyage. On May 17, however, the HMS Romney sailed into port and the dynamics in the city began to change. Armed with 50 guns, the Romney had a formidable presence and it marked a change in the way Britain dealt with the colonies.

Boston at the time of the Liberty Affair.

This Romney wasn’t there to defend the colonials; it was there to police them. The Romney’s captain, John Corner, had been ordered to do nothing to inflame the colonists and to make sure his sailors behaved.

Impressment

Corner, however, had requirements of his own. His ship needed men, and he began pressing (essentially kidnapping) sailors on in-bound ships into service. As word spread, even honest vessels, let alone smugglers, stayed away from the port of Boston, fearful of losing seamen.

Now the British angered honest merchants as well as the smugglers. On June 9, matters came to a head. Thomas Kirk, the customs officer who boarded the Liberty, changed his story.

While on the Liberty, he said, he had been offered a bribe. He could have several casks of wine if he would support the story that the ship contained only 25 casks. He insisted that he took no bribe, but that John Marshall, Hancock’s captain, had him locked in a hold. Kirk said he listened as a great portion of the ship’s cargo was offloaded. When Hancock’s men released him, he said, they threatened him if he told the truth.

Historians have tended to credit Kirk’s revised story, supposing that it was the British military presence, as well as the unexpected death of the ship’s captain, John Marshall, that emboldened him to talk.

The King’s Mark

Joseph Harrison, the official collector of the port, brought Kirk’s new statement to commissioners. They ordered him to take action. Harrison’s initial reaction was to place the king’s mark on the Liberty’s mast and wait for the legal proceedings.

Comptroller Benjamin Hallowell urged him to seize the Liberty instead, and Harrison enlisted the crew of the Romney for assistance. With his son and Hallowell for support, Harrison walked to the wharf. The smuggler Daniel Malcolm and a handful of men were startled to see Harrison boarding the vessel and making preparations to seize it. Malcolm argued that Harrison should at least wait for Hancock to arrive before taking action.

A scuffle broke out, but the men from the Romney cleared the Liberty and it was towed from the wharf to the side of the Romney. There it rested under the protective guns of the ship. Hallowell, Harrison and his son fled the wharf with scrapes and bruises, but an angry crowd began to assemble as word of the Liberty affair spread.

Castle William, where British officials fled during the Liberty Affair.

An outraged crowd of up to 3,000 people began searching the city for Harrison and Hallowell. When they couldn’t find the men, they satisfied themselves with shattering the windows on his house. When they returned to the harbor, the mob decided to respond to Harrison’s actions in kind.

Harrison maintained a pleasure boat in the harbor, and the angry crowd dragged it from the water and hauled it up the street to the Liberty Tree. There they reduced it to ashes in the final actions of the Liberty Affair.

Harrison, Hallowell and the Board of Commissioners fled the city. They spent the night of June 10 aboard the Romney, then relocated to Castle William.

Unable to negotiate the return of his vessel, Hancock, defended by John Adams, was later cleared of smuggling charges. The evidence against him in the Liberty Affair was simply too flimsy.

More Unrest

The Liberty Affair, however, set the stage for the greater unrest to come.

The British kept the Liberty and refitted her to serve as a Royal Navy ship in Rhode Island. The British used Liberty to patrol for customs violations along the Rhode Island Coast. In July of 1769, the summer after the Liberty Affair, the crew of Liberty seized two Connecticut ships. In retribution, a Rhode Island mob boarded the Liberty and later burned it.

This story about the Liberty Affair was updated in 2022.

12 comments 6.5K views

Newer Posts

Older Posts