Paul Revere's Ride (64 page)

Josiah Adams,
Centennial Address on Acton
(Boston, 1835), and
Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, Esq., of Boston … in Vindication of the Claims of Capt. Isaac Davis, of Acton …
(Boston, 1850), published eight new depositions from six participants: Charles Handley, Hannah Davis Leighton, Solomon Smith (2 depositions), Thomas Thorp (2 depositions), all sworn in 1835; plus Bradley Stone (sworn Aug. 16, 1845) and Amos Baker (sworn April 22, 1850).

For another history of Concord, Lemuel Shattuck interviewed eyewitnesses including Mrs. Peter Barrett (Nov. 3, 1831); Abel Conant (Nov. 8, 1832), Reuben Brown, and others. His manuscript notes are in the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, Boston.

A deposition by Tilly Buttrick, at the age of 78, is in Letterfile 7, B6, CFPL.

The last deposition from a participant was recorded seventy-five years after the battle. It was taken from Amos Baker of Lincoln in 1850, when he was ninety-four years old and was thought to be the last survivor of the American militia at the North Bridge. The document was sworn as an affadvit before three witnesses. Baker’s memory misled him in a few details, but was still crystal clear and can be confirmed by other accounts. It was published in Robert Rantoul, Jr.,
Oration and Account of the Union Celebration at Concord, Nineteenth of April, 1850
(Boston, 1850), 133-35.

Depositions of British Troops

Nothing as full as the systematic collection of sworn testimony from the American side is available from British participants. But there are several bodies of depositional materials that have yet to be used extensively by historians. Among them are depositions by British soldiers stationed in Boston during 1769-70. They were taken with particular attention to the Boston Massacre, and also contained much information about conditions of British troops in Boston and the repeated violence of the inhabitants toward them, all of which help to explain hostile attitudes of British regulars toward Americans in general and New Englanders in particular. These documents were not used in the Massacre trial, and have not been published in any study or compilation. They are in manuscript in the Public Record Office (CO 5/88). Transcripts are in the author’s possession.

They include depositions from Lt. Alexander Ross, Capt. Charles Fordyce, Sgt. John Phillips, Cpl. Samuel Heale, Pvt. Jonathan Stevenson, Ens. John Ness, Sgt. Samuel Hickman, Pvt. William Fowler, Pvt. John Kirk, Lt. Daniel Mather, Ens. Cornelius Smelt, Cpl. Thomas McFarland, Pvt. Samuel Bish, Pvt. Stephen Cheslett, Sgt. Thomas Light, Pvt. Samuel Unwin, Pvt. Jessey Lindley, Pvt. John Park, Pvt. Thomas Sherwood, Pvt. Robert Holbrook, Pvt. William Morburn, Pvt. Richard Ratcliff, Pvt. John Woolhouse, Cpl. William Lake, Sgt. Thomas Hood, Drummer John Gregory (2 depositions), Pvt. Thomas Smith, Sgt. Hardress Gray, Pvt. Roger McMullen, Sgt. John Norfolk, Pvt. William McCracken, Pvt. William Browne, Pvt. Joseph Whitehorse, Cpl. Robert Balfour, Pvt. David Young, Pvt. William Banks, Cpl. William Halam, Pvt. Thomas Lodger, Pvt. Richard Henley, Cpl. John Arnold, Pvt. John Shelley, Pvt. Dennis Towers, Pvt. Jacob Brown, Sgt. Thomas Thornby, Cpl. John Shelton, Pvt. James Botham, Pvt. William Mabbot, Pvt. William Wilson, Pvt. William Barker, Pvt. Gavin Thompson, Sgt. John Ridings, Sgt. John Eyley, Pvt. George Smith, Pvt. John Care, Sgt. William Henderson, Pvt. William Leeming, Pvt. Eustace Many-weather, Pvt. Edward Osbaldistan, Pvt. Jacob Moor, and Pvt. George Barnet all of the 14th Foot.

Also Ens. Alexander Mall, Pvt. William Godson, Pvt. Henry Malone, Pvt. William Normanton, Pvt. Cornelius Murphy, Sgt. Thomas Smilie, Cpl. Alexander McCartney, Pvt. Patrick Donally, Pvt. John Rodgers, Sgt. Hugh Broughton, Pvt. John Dumphy, Pvt. James McKaan, Pvt. John Croker, Cpl. John Fitzpatrick, Cpl. Hugh McCann, Pvt. James Corkrin, Cpl. Thomas Burgess, Pvt. Joshua Williams, Sgt. William James, Sgt. Richard Pearsall, Pvt. John Timmons, Cpl. Henry Cullin, Pvt. Patrick Walker, Cpl. William Murray, Pvt. Richard Johnson, Pvt. Robert Ward, Pvt. John Addicott, Pvt. George Irwin, Surgeon’s Mate Henry Dougan, Ens. Gilbert Carter, Capt. Jeremiah French, Cpl. John Eustace, and Drummer Thomas Walker of the 29th Foot.

Depositions were also taken after the fighting at Lexington and Concord from British troops who bore witness to the American atrocity committed on a wounded British soldier near Concord’s North Bridge. Deponents included Cpl. Gordon, Pvt. Thomas Lugg, Pvt. William Lewis, Pvt. Charles Carrier, and Pvt. Richard Grimshaw of the 5th Foot; all sworn on April 20, 1775, and witnessed by Capt. John G. Battier, 5th Foot. They are published in part by Allen French in
General Gage’s Informers,
111.

Pension Applications

A large body of sworn testimony by veterans of the War of Independence also appears in records of Federal pension applications submitted under U.S. pension acts of 1818 and 1832. These acts required veterans to submit a narrative of Revolutionary service, sworn in a court of law, and supported by two character witnesses, one of whom had to be a clergyman. Pension agents played an active role in this process. Many accounts were dictated to court stenographers, sometimes in front of a large crowds. John Dann writes, “The pension application process was one of the largest oral history projects ever undertaken.” Altogether,
under all the pension acts, as many as 80,000 narratives were processed. They are available on microfilm from the National Archives, in a collection of 898 reels. The author used the set at the New England Regional Center of the National Archives, in Waltham, Mass. The records are indexed by name (not, unhappily, by subject, date, or place of service), in
Index of Revolutionary War Pension Applications in the National Archives
(Washington, D.C., 1976). These materials must be used with caution. Problems of evidence are complex, but not more or less than for other historical sources. Among the narratives used for this study were those of Jonathan Brigham (Marlborough, Mass.), Richard Durfee (Tiverton, R.I.), Nathan Fisk (Northfield, Mass.), Robert Fisk, Abel Haynes (Barre, Mass.), Robert Nimblet (Marblehead, Mass.), John Nixon (Sudbury, Mass.), Abel Prescott (West-field, Mass.), Jesse Prescott (Kensington, N.H.), Richard Vining (East Windsor, Conn.), Ammi White (Concord, Mass.), Cuff Whittemore, Sylvanus Wood (Woburn, now Burlington, Mass., 1830), and Hannah Davis Leighton, the widow of Captain Isaac Davis (Acton, Mass).

Claims for Damages, April 18-19, 1775

Many householders who lived along the Battle Road submitted claims for losses. These records also document some of the events of the day. They are in the Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston. Some are published in the
Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts:
Joseph Loring, Jonathan Harrington, Lydia Winship, John Mason, Matthew Mead, Benjamin Merriam, Nathaniel Farmer, Thomas Fessenden, Benjamin Fiske, Jeremiah Harrington, Robert Harrington, Joshua Bond, Benjamin Brown, Hepzibah Davis, Benjamin Estabrook, Samuel Bemis, Nathan Blodget, Elizabeth Samson, Jonathan Smith Jr., John Williams, John Winship, Margaret Winship, Marrett Monroe, William Munroe, Amos Muzzy, Lydia Mulliken.

Another file of damage claims by Concord residents, including Ezekiel Brown, Reuben Brown, William Emerson, Abel Fisk, Timothy Minot, and others, is in the 1775 Folder, Concord Archives, CFPL

Personal Records: The Papers of Paul Revere

The Revere Family Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society include a large quantity of business records, but less in the way of materials of a personal or political nature. They are stronger for Revere’s life after the American Revolution than for the period before 1776. The collection is available on microfilm, with a calendar. Many scholars since Elbridge Goss have worked through the Revere Papers, but much remains to be gleaned from them. Of particular value are Paul Revere’s letters to and from his relatives abroad, and his correspondence with public figures in the early republic. This collection also includes some business records before 1776, and Paul Revere’s three accounts of the midnight ride, which have been published many times. The standard edition is Edmund S. Morgan (ed.),
Paul Revere’s Three Accounts of His Famous Ride
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1968). Serious students should read these works in manuscript (or in the facsimiles published by Morgan), for Revere deleted important passages that do not appear in printed texts.

Many other American repositories have a few Revere manuscripts in autograph collections and vertical files. Scattered items are also to be found in the Massachusetts Archives, which has bills and receipts by Paul Revere for courier service, 1774-75. The Paul Revere Memorial Association holds a pass signed by James Otis for Revere to ride express to the Continental Congress, November 12, 1775.

Much Revere material also appears in the papers of other American Whig leaders. The manuscripts that survive in these collections were carefully pruned by American leaders.
Benjamin Edes kept the records of the Boston Tea Party under lock and key for many years, and deliberately destroyed them before he died. In Samuel Adams’s house it was said that “trunks and boxes were filled, and shelves around the walls of the garret piled high with letters and documents” (William Wells,
Samuel Adams.
3 vols. [Boston, 1865], I, xi). Many were destroyed by Adams himself, who was observed by others in his late years reading through his papers and throwing them one by one onto the fire. After his death, an “ignorant servant” was discovered using much of what survived for kindling. The remnant found its way to the New York Public Library, and includes correspondence to and from Paul Revere, with many references to his activities.

Also in the New York Public Library (among the papers of the historian George Bancroft) are the records of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, which were specially helpful to this inquiry for letters from other towns, and for material on the Powder Alarm. A small but very important set of letters to and from Revere and about him is in the John Lamb Papers at the New-York Historical Society.

Other relevant materials are in the Sparks Papers and the Palfrey Family Papers in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Also useful are the papers of William Heath, John Thomas, Henry Knox, Thomas Young, and various members of the Warren family in the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the papers of John Hancock and Isaiah Thomas at the American Antiquarian Society.