Radio Script #70

Little Talks On Common Things
May 28, 1950

Of all the old newspapers that have recently come to my attention, by far the most important historically is an old copy of the Boston Gazette, discovered and shown to me by a friend of long standing, Waterville carpenter Charles Rhodes. Although itself a facsimile copy of the original, it was obviously made many years ago, and was carefully preserved under glass.

There is reason for that careful preservation, for it is an original source document of outstanding historical importance. What important historical event do you think this paper records? It is none other than the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770.

Every schoolboy knows the story of the incident which caused the marker to be placed in the pavement of the square back of the old State House, between WaShington Street and Faneuil Hall — the marker where one may still read that here BritiSh troops fired on Boston citizens, killing five of them, one a colored man named Crispus Attucks.

Many a historian has treated the incident in the 180 years since its occurrence. That faithful old historian whose books many a man and woman now in middle life read in”their schooldays — David S. Muzzey — says about the Boston Massacre: “Two British regiments were sent to Boston to awe the inhabitants into obedience. Roughs baited the redcoats in the streets, pelting them with brickbats and calling them “lobsters” and “bloody-backs”. In the riot that followed in MarCh, 1770, five men were killed. The funeral of these victims was made the occasion for a popular demonstration engineered by Samuel

Adams.”

Not so well known, because the old history books were silent about it, was the fact that the lawyer who defended and won acquittal of Captain Preston, commander of the British troops involved, was John Adams, the Boston attorney who was to become the second President of the united States.

In the cooling process of 180 years most historians no longer call it a massacre, but an unfortunate incident of heated times when tempers were getting short and passions ran high. That a Boston crowd of not too respectable persons continuously baited the British troops is certainly true, but the wisdom of bringing the two regiments to Boston in the first place can be seriously questioned.

Now , within the past month, has come to my hands, not the erudite research of modern historians, but contemporary information about that Boston incident, printed in the Boston Gazette of March 12, 1770, exactly one week after the massacre occurred.

The Gazette was a small, four-page paper. The inside pages, 2 and 3, of this issue of March 12, 1770, have deep, black mourning borders around all six columns, and five of those columns are devoted to the troublesome times which culminated in the massacre and the burial of four of the victims. The fifth did not die of his wounds until a week later.

The first column of page 3 contains a drawing of four coffins, decorated with skull and crossbones, and bearing respectively the initials S.G., S.M., J.C., and C.D., standing for Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks. This is the Gazette’s account of the funeral:

“Last Thursday, agreeable to a general request of parents and friends, were carried to their graves in succession the bodies of Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks, the unhappy victims who fell in the bloody massacre of the preceding Monday evening. “On this occasion most of the shops in town were shut, all the bells were ordered to toll a solemn peal. The procession began to move between the hours of 4 and 5 in the afternoon. Two of the unfortunate sufferers, James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks, who were strangers, were borne from Faneuil Hall, attended by a numerous train of persons of all ranks. The other two, Samuel Gray and Samuel Maverick, were taken respectively from the houses of Mr. Benjamin Gray and Mrs. Mary Maverick, each followed by relations and friends. The several hearses, forming a junction at King Street, the theatre of that inhuman tragedy, proceeded from thence through the Main Street, lengthened by an immence concourse of people, so numerous as to be obliged to follow in ranks of six, and brought up by a long train of carriages belonging to the principal gentry of the town. The bodies were deposited in one vault in the Middle Burying-ground. The aggravated circumstances of their death, the distress and sorrow visible in every countenance, together with the peculiar solemnity with Which the Whole funeral was conducted, surpass description.”

In a riot like that Which came to be called the Boston Massacre it is very difficult to tell exactly What happened, especially 180 years after the event. The Gazette was clearly prejudiced against the British troops and reluctant to believe ill of the townsmen, even the town toughs. Yet as one reads the Gazette’s account written When the tragedy was only a week old, he can see that the mere presence of armed soldiers of the king in Boston was bound to make trouble.

Indeed trouble had been fomenting for many weeks. As the Gazette puts it: “Many have been the squabbles between our youth and the soldiery, and the latter being so often worsted in these encounters has served to irritate them to worse behavior. Citizens have been picked with bayonets, even our magistrates have been assaulted, and now four of our inhabitants lie dead from the fire of soldiers’ muskets.”

The Gazette points out that the events which led up to the massacre had culminated in the riot at Gray’s Rope-walk, about which historians have since written much. There on Saturday, February 24, 1770 fist-fights broke out between half a dozen young men of the town and an equal number of soldiers. In a few minutes these numbers were swollen to several hundred. In the end the soldiers got the worst of it and dispersed to their barracks. No shot was fired. Says the Gazette: “That defeat was humiliating. Divers stories were circulated among the soldiery that served to inflame them further. One rumor was that a certain Sergeant Chambers, represented as a sober man, had been missing since the event and must therefore have been murdered by the townsmen.

An officer of distinction so far credited this report that he insisted on searching Mr. Gray’s Rope-walk for the body. On Monday this so-called sober sergeant was found unhurt in a house of pleasure.”

At this point the Gazette editor throws his opinion into the news account.

He writes: “We do not pretend to say that there was any preconcerted plan to kill our citizens, but we venture to declare, as appears probable from their conduct, that some of the soldiery aimed to draw and provoke the townmen into squabbles, and that they intended to make use of other weapons than canes and clubs.”

Now what actually happened on the evening of March 5, 1770? Here is the way this Boston newspaper told the story one week after the event.

itA few minutes after 9 o’clock, four youths named Edward Archbald, William Merchant, Francis Archbald and John Leech, Jr. came down Cornhill together, and separating at Dr. Loring’s corner, Edward and William were passing the narrow alley leading to Murray’s barracks, in which a soldier was brandishing a broadsword of an uncommon size against the walls, out of which e struck fire plentifully. A person of mean countenance armed with a large cudgel bore the soldier company. Edward warned~William to look out for the sword, on which the soldier turned around and struck Archbald on the arm, then puShed at Merchant and pierced through his clothes inside the arm close to the arm-pit, and grazed the skin. Merchant then struck the soldier with a short stick he had. Meanwhile the other person who was with the soldier ran to the barracks and brought out two more soldiers, one armed with a pair of tongs, the other with a shovel. He with the tongs pursued Archbald back through the alley and laid him over the head with the tongs. The noise brought people together, and John Hicks, a young lad, coming up, knocked the soldier down, but let him up again. More lads, gathering, drove the soldiers back into barracks, where the boys stood for some time, as it were to keep them in. Then ten or twelve soldiers came out with drawn cutlasses, clubs and bayonets, and set upon the unarmed boys and young folks, who stood them a little while, but finding the inequality of their equipment, dispersed.

“On hearing the noise, one Samuel Atwood came up to see what was the matter, and entering the alley from Dock Square, heard the latter part of the combat. Meeting the dozen soldiers rushing down the alley toward the square, he asked them if they intended to murder people. “Yes”, they shouted, “root and branch”. Whereupon one of them struck Mr. Atwood with a club, which was repeated by another. Retreating, Mr. Atwood met two officers and said, “Gentlemen, what is the matter?” They answered “You will see by and by.” The  soldiers proceeded into King Street, where they attacked single and unarmed persons till they raised much clamor. Thirty or forty persons, mostly lads, were by this means gathered in King Street. Captain Preston with a party of soldiers with charged bayonets came from the main guard, the soldiers puShing their bayonets and crying, “Make way!”. As they continued to push the people off, the latter began to throw snowballs. On this the Captain conunanded the soldiers to fire, and more snowballs coming, he said, “Fire, be the consequence what it will!” One soldier then fired, and a townsman with a cudgel struck him over the hands with such force that he dropped his musket. The townsman rushed on and aimed a blow at the captain’s head, which grazed his hat and fell pretty heavy upon his arm. The soldiers continued the fire, successively, until 7 or 8, or some say 11, guns were discharged. By the maneuver three men were laid dead on the spot, and two more were struggling for life.

“Mr. Benjamin Leigh, now undertaker in the Delph Manufactory, interposed, and after some conversation with Captain Preston relative to his conduct, advised him to draw off his men, with which request the captain complied.”

So much for the Gazette’s story. History records what followed: the orderly investigation culminating in the withdrawal of the regiments from Boston, the trial of Captain Preston, John Adams’ staunch legal defense of the British captain, and his acquittal by a jury of Boston citizens.

Even the prejudiced Gazette reveals that there were two sides to the affair.

Not all of Boston condemned the captain nor blamed his soldiers for starting the trouble. Far down in the lower left corner of page 3 the Gazette printed a public notice, one which I have never seen mentioned by any historian, yet it reveals clearly that not all Boston citizens wanted to see Preston punished for the death of the massacre victims. Here is the notice, as it appeared word for word in that paper on March 12, 1770:

“Boston Jail, Monday, 12th March 1770”

“Permit me through the channel of your paper to return my thanks in the most public manner to the inhabitants in general of this town, who, throwing aside all party and prejudice, have with the utmost humanity and freedom stepped forth advocates for truth, in defence of my injured innocence, in the late unhappy affair that happened on Monday night last; and to assure them that I shall ever have the highest sense of the justice they have done me, which will be ever gratefully remembered by their much obliged and most obedient humble servant, Thomas Preston.”

Year: 1950