\nOurl ng the past week we have observed the 179thann I versary of the fi rst\u00a0shots fired in the American Revolution. Lexington and Concord are names known\u00a0to every American schoolboy. Phrases like “Listen my chi Idren and you shall\u00a0hear”, and “One if by land and two if by sea”, were memorized by rrost of us\u00a0older folk many years ago.<\/p>\n
I was I nterested therefore to encounter on Iy a few weeks ago a conte”l>orary\u00a0account of the his~rlc events of April 19,1775. The story in the Essex \u00a0Gazette of April 25,1775 — six days after the battles of Lexington and Concord\u00a0— Is so interesting that I want to read it to you Just as it was printed\u00a0in this 179 year old newspaper. This was of course a patriot paper and sure to\u00a0take the colonial side. But even al lowing for that, it Is amazingly factual.<\/p>\n
Now Just make believe you are an 18th century inhabitant of Salem or Gloucester\u00a0or Marblehead sitting in front of your big kitchen fireplace whi Ie some\u00a0member of the fami Iy reads aloud from the Salem Gazette which has just arrived.\u00a0This is what you hear.<\/p>\n
“Last Wednesday, April 19, the troops of His British Majesty commenced\u00a0hosti lities upon the people of this province, attended with circumstances of\u00a0cruelty not less brutal than our venerable ancestors received from the evilest\u00a0of savages of the wi Iderness.<\/p>\n
“On Tuesday evening a detachment from the army consisting of 800 to 900\u00a0men commanded by Lt. Col. Smith, embarked at Boston on board a number of boats,\u00a0and landed at Ph I pps I Farm, a I I ttle way up the Char les Ri ver. They proceeded\u00a0on their way to Concord, about 18 mi les from Boston.<\/p>\n
”The people were soon alarmed and began to assemble In several towns before\u00a0daylight, In order to watch the motion of the troops. At Lexington, six\u00a0miles below Concord, a company of mi11tla Qf about 100 men mustered near the\u00a0meeting house. The troops came insight of them Just before sunrise. ‘Disperse,\u00a0you rebels’, ordered Col. Smith. ‘Throw down your arms and disperse’.<\/p>\n
“I mmed I ate I y one or two off i cers dl scharged the i r pi sto Is, fo II owed I nstantaneously\u00a0by the firing of muskets by four or five of the soldiers, whereupon\u00a0there seemed to be a discharge from the whole body of troops. Eight of\u00a0our men were ki lied and ni ne wounded.<\/p>\n
“The enemy renewed the I r march to Concord, where they destroyed several\u00a0carriages, carriage wheels, and about twenty barrels of flour, al I belonging\u00a0to the Province.<\/p>\n
“When about 150 of our men went toward a bridge, of which the enemy were\u00a0in possession, the latter fired and ki lied two of our men. Our men returned\u00a0the fire and ob Ii ged the enemy to retreat back to Lexi ngton 1 where they met\u00a0Lord Pe rcy with I a rge re I n forcemen ts and two pieces of cannon.<\/p>\n
“The enemy, now havl ng a body of about 1,800 men, made a ha It 1 picked many\u00a0of thel r dead and took care of the I r wounded. After th I s ha I t of more than two\u00a0hours at Lexl ngton, the enemy found I t necessary to make a retreat, carrying\u00a0with them many of their dead and wounded, who were put into chaises and on\u00a0horses that were found standing in the road. The troops continued their retreat\u00a0from Lexington to Charlestown with great trepidation. Notwithstanding\u00a0their fiel.dpieces, our people continued pursuit, flrlnq at them until they got\u00a0to Charlestown Neck.<\/p>\n
liThe enemy set fl re to houses and pi Ilaged them. They broke down doors,\u00a0smashed windows, and carried off cloth! ng and other va I uab Ie objects. It appeared\u00a0to be their design to burn and destroy all before them. The savage barbarity\u00a0exercised upon the bodies of our unfortunate brethren who fell is almost\u00a0incredible. Not content with shooting down the unarmed, aged and inflrm, they\u00a0disregarded the cries of the wounded, killing them without mercy and mangling\u00a0thel r bodi es in the most shocki ng manner.”<\/p>\n
That last paragraph Is typical. In every war since the beginning of recorded\u00a0history each side has accused the other of atrocities, and in every Instance\u00a0there has been some grain of truth behind the charges. Cruelty and bruta\u00a0Ii ty, man’s i nhumani ty to man, are a Iways the accompan I ments of war.<\/p>\n
One of the most interesting features of this article in the old Salem\u00a0Gazette I sits accep tance of a s tate of war. On Ap r I I 19, 1775 the colon i es\u00a0had not declared war on anybody, nor had anyone declared war on them. They had\u00a0not even proclaimed themselves independent. That would come nearly fifteen\u00a0months tater, on July 4, 1776. They were sti II dependent provinces of the Brltlsh\u00a0crown. Yet, boldly and bluntly, the Salem paper called the troops of\u00a0their own king “the enemy” and the colonial mi Iitia as “our men”. Since the\u00a0Boston Massacre in 1770, and especially since the Tea Party In 1773, tension\u00a0had steadi Iy I ncreaseduntl I the I nc I dents at Lexl ngton and Concord c:ou I d on Iy\u00a0be I nterpreted as war. They were, as Ra Iph Wa Ido Emerson wrote nearly a century\u00a0later, “shots heard ’round the wor I d” \u2022<\/p>\n
Th rough one man Ma I ne had a connect I on wi th the Revo I uti onary events In\u00a0Boston. When a few years ago I told you about my prized possession of a facsimiIe copy of the Boston Gazette for March 12, 1770, I had no idea that the\u00a0Gazette’s editor, Benjamin Edes, had any connection with Maine.\u00a0Some of you wi II recall that I told you hew the Gazette of March 12, 1770\u00a0carried the detailed story of what came to be called the Boston Massacre, which\u00a0had happened in the street behind the old State House just one week earlier,\u00a0on March 5.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Edes was Boston’s most rabid patriot printer. Week after week\u00a0his Journal stirred up resistance against British restrictions — the tea tax,\u00a0the stamp act, the embargo acts, and the others. I t was in the prl ntl ng\u00a0office of Benjamin Edes that a band of men gathered early on the ewning of\u00a0December 14, 1773, disguised themselves as Indians, boarded the ships carrying\u00a0the hated tea, “tied up at the wharves, and dumped the tea into Boston Harbor.<\/p>\n
When British troops took Boston under martial law, following the Battle of\u00a0Bunker Hi” in 1775, Edes moved his press to Watert~n, where he continued the\u00a0Gazette until the Britl sh evacuated Boston and it was safe for patriot printers\u00a0to work there agarn.<\/p>\n
The connection with Maine is this. Benjamin Edes had a son Peter, who\u00a0learned the printer’s trade with his father. Born in 1756, Peter was 19 years\u00a0old when, ten days after the Battle of Bunker Hili, he was arrested by the\u00a0British garrison for having firearms concealed in his house. He was confined\u00a0in Boston Gaol for a hundred days, a long with other members of known patri ot\u00a0fami lies, and recei ved rather harsh treatment. When he was re leased he Jol ned\u00a0his father in Watertown, returned with him to Boston after the evacuation, and\u00a0helped him put out the Gazette unti I 1784. In that year Peter set up his Q>ln\u00a0printing plant in Boston.<\/p>\n
We now know that Peter Edes had already considered coming to Maine. He\u00a0came very near entering a partnership to publish Portland’s first paper, indeed\u00a0the first newspaper in Maine. When the first issue of the Falmouth Gazette\u00a0and Weekly Advertiser appeared on January ” 1785, pub I Ished by TltCOrrD\u00a0and Waite on Middle Street, It carried an announcement that Peter Edes had decided\u00a0not to enter on the proJect with Thomas Waite, but would remain in Boston,\u00a0and in his stead Benjamin Titcomb had becorne Waite’s partner to publish\u00a0the Fa I rrouth Gazette.<\/p>\n
Peter Edes did leave Boston soon afterward, hotever, going to Rhode Island,\u00a0where he started the Newport Hera Id in 1787. That was by no means Rhode\u00a0Island’s first newspaper. As early as 1733 James Franklin, brother of Benjamin\u00a0Franklin, had printed the Rhode Island Gazette. In 1758 Benjamin Franklin\u00a0hi mse I f had been pub I i she r, though not res i dent p rl nter, of the Newport Mercury.\u00a0It was the assets of that paper, recently defunct, which Peter Edes took\u00a0over and rechri stened the Newport Hera I d.\u2019<\/p>\n
Peter Edes came to Augusta in 1795. Why he came there is not certain, but\u00a0a good surmise is that his opposition to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts\u00a0was we II known, and Augusta merchants and I and owners who he I d the same\u00a0view wanted a newspaper which would espouse the anti-separation cause, The\u00a0Plymouth Company also was ardently opposed to separation, and they may very\u00a0possibly have backed Edes financially at the outset of his Augusta project.\u00a0That project was Augusta’s fi rst newspaper. Actually in 1795 there was no\u00a0town of Augusta. It was then part of Hallowell, which town had two princIpal\u00a0settlements, one at the present site of Hallowell, called the f-bok, and\u00a0the other at the site of modern Augusta, cal led the Fort.<\/p>\n
The year before Edes arrl ved at the Fort, a newspaper ca lied the Eastern\u00a0Star had been started at Hallowell. It lasted only a few months, but was immediately\u00a0succeeded by the Tocsin which, when Edes came on the scene, was\u00a0loudly shouting the claims for separation.<\/p>\n
The first issue of Augusta’s first newspaper, the Kennebec Intelligencer,\u00a0came from the press of Peter Edes on November 14,1795. Prompt delivery was\u00a0assured to out-of-town subscribers because in 1794 regular mail routes had been\u00a0estab I i shed by stage lines from Port I and to Ha II owe II and from the Hook to\u00a0Norridgewock, to Wiscasset, to Farmington and to Winslow.<\/p>\n
After the death of his father Benjamin Edes, the famous Boston printer of\u00a0the Revolution, Peter took his mother to live with him at Augusta, and she lies\u00a0buried in Augusta’s oldest cemetery.<\/p>\n
In 1800 Peter changed the paper’s name to the Kennebec Gazette, and changed\u00a0it again to the Herald of liberty in 1810. On this program we have often observed\u00a0that the War of 1812, especially its embargo acts, caused great hardship\u00a0In Maine, and saw especially flagrant inflation of prices. That experience\u00a0was a cripp ling b low to Peter Edes. After twenty years as Augusta’s pri nter\u00a0and pub I isher, he deci ded to seek’ greener pastures.<\/p>\n
In the autumn of 1815 Peter made a deal with Ephraim Ballard to move press\u00a0and equi pment to Bangor. The four ton load was too heavy for the new Augusta\u00a0bridge; so it was taken across part at a time. From the eastern end of the\u00a0bridge Ballard’s six-ox team moved it all to Bangor for $143, taking three\u00a0full weeks to go and return.<\/p>\n
To the eyes of Bangor’s nine hundred people, on Noverroer 25, 1815, appeared\u00a0that community’s fIrst newspaper, which Edes called the Bangor Weekly\u00a0Register. In that first issue Edes proclaimed the paper’s non-partisan policy.<\/p>\n
“The RegiSTer gl ves no prede Ii ction to either pol i ti ca I party; its col umns \u00a0equa Ily I nvite the we II-written productions and credltab Ie statements of bOTh.\u00a0The object of this paper is to be a faithful chronicle of the passing events\u00a0and current news, and not a receptacle of parTy obloquy and personal abuse.\u00a0Payment of $2 a year will be made easy in any produce of the country. II\u00a0Pete r soon found that money was no eas I er I n Bangor than In Augus ta. He\u00a0complained because the men who had induced him to come to the Penobscot town\u00a0had not kepT their promises. “We were told”, he wrote, “that we could expect\u00a0at least 600 subscribers from outlying towns. From Buckstown, Belfast and Castine\u00a0we have a I together on Iy six subsc’ribers. So great is the ri va I ry between\u00a0Bangor and Buckstown that inhabitants of the latter place promise us plenty of\u00a0subscribers if we wi II establish a paper there.”<\/p>\n
But Peter was all through with yielding to blandishments which might turn\u00a0out like the promi ses years before to anothe r prl nter, young Benjami n Frank I in\u00a0of Phi ladelphia. In his autobiography Franklin write of Governor Keith, who\u00a0made those promi ses, one of the most sti nging con demnat i ons ever put into pri nt\u00a0of such a man: “Having little to give he gave expectations~Il”<\/p>\n
Financial difficulties forced Peter Edes to sell the Bangor Reqister in\u00a01817. His son had become a printer in Baltimore, and there the aging Peter\u00a0went to make h is home. He he Iped hi s son get out the Ba Iti more paper, q uarreled\u00a0with him violently about politics, and when the son died suddenly in 1832,\u00a0Peter returned to Bangor to the home of his daughter, where he resided for\u00a0eight years unti I his own death in 1840.<\/p>\n
Such was Peter Edes, the first printer of two of Maine’s principal cities,Augusta and Bangor, son of another printer, Benjamin Edes, in whose Boston offices the memorab Ie Boston Tea Party had been conce i ved.<\/p>\n
Year: 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #224, broadcast on April 25, 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[749,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}