Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Thomas Paine, George Washington and American Politics

Thomas Paine By Laurent Dabos- 1791 National Portrait Gallery UK

The unique pamphlet Common Sense has time and time again been credited as a major catalyst in getting the middling classes involved in the American Revolution. The pamphlet, in some senses kick started the uprising. Common Sense made simpler, to the common man, the reasons for rebellion. For all its use of plain language the pamphlet initially left one big mystery, the author. When the work was first published the author chose to remain anonymous. Who was the person who seemed to speak directly to these people in language they could understand? Eric Foner writes, “The author of Common Sense was Thomas Paine, ‘a gentleman,’ as John Adams described him, ‘about two years ago from England, a man who…has genius in his eyes.”[1] If the pamphlet was, in fact the catalyst for the masses to revolt, it was also a personal catalyst for Paine to enter into Philadelphia politics and form relationships with some of the most powerful men of the revolutionary period, including George Washington. This relationship in particular would grow and then through the changing and unstable years after the revolution disintegrate, due to differing political views and circumstances.

To understand how Thomas Paine arrived at this point, we must first examine where he came from. What experiences did he have in his early years that would have led him across the ocean to a settlement who’s populous was filled with a rising distaste for the country in which he was born? Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England on January 29, 1737. His Father Joseph, a Quaker, was a Farmer and a Staymaker (Corset maker.) His Mother, Elizabeth was the daughter of an attorney and a member of the Church of England. On this winter day in 1737, William M. Van der Weyde states “The parents and the doctor and the visiting neighbors little suspected that the tiny infant they gazed upon would someday fire the temper of a whole people into resistance against tyranny.”[2] In his youth Paine would have the chance to receive a good education; Van der Weyde will quote Paine reflecting back on this time saying "My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good fortune to have an exceeding good moral education, and a tolerable stock of useful learning.[3]

Thetford Grammar- Paine's School- Courtesy Google

During his school years Paine would be in very close proximity to the stocks, and as he walked past each day he would hear the terrifying screams of the prisoners. Being merely a child, Paine was horrified by what he heard. It is therefore, a distinct possibility that being daily, within audible range of the sounds of imprisoned and tortured men, could have led Paine in his future to align himself with the causes of freedom, liberty and rights for all mankind. Despite any promise the young Paine showed in his studies, as soon as he turned thirteen he was taken out of school and sent to work, as was customary at the time, in his father’s Staymaking business.

Although he found the work to be terribly boring, Paine would stay on at his father’s Thetford shop for four years. During this time, circa 1754, Paine would become increasingly fascinated with the sea. Van der Weyde states, “The outcome was the shipping of the lad aboard the Terrible, a privateer, under the command of Captain Death. This inauspicious conjunction of names seems to have had no deterrent effect upon the youth eager for adventure."[4] As soon as Paine’s father found out about the plan he rushed to the ship and pulled his soon off the boat and brought him back to the shop. This was a good fortune for Paine, as on the Terrible’s next voyage, she would lose 175 of her 200 men and the captain in an engagement with another ship named the Vengence. In 1756, after England declared war on France, Paine would find himself again, a privateer on a ship called the King of Prussia.

The nautical stint did not last long and eventually Paine went to London and worked once more as a Staymaker. He eventually would go on to establish himself as a master of Staymaking in Sandwich, Kent. It was in Kent that Paine now twenty two years old, met and married Mary Lambert. The new couple moved to Dover, England, where Paine established his own staymaking business. The business did not take off and within a year had completely failed. To add insult to injury, Mary Lambert passed away at the very same time. However, as Eric Foner writes “Mary Lambert’s father was an officer in the Customs and Excise Service, and seems to have inspired Paine to abandon staymaking. Paine returned to Thetford to study for the excise officers’examanination, which required a grounding in mathematics and an ability to write in clear English.”[5] By December 1, 1762 Paine was collecting Taxes; by 1765 he was dismissed for the common practice of filing official reports on goods without first examining said goods.

After being let go from the excise collecting job, Paine tried to reestablish himself as a staymaker, which was also short lived. In fact, before reaching the shores of America, Paine would go on to teach, preach, collect excise and marry (both for the second time,) lead a group of seemingly underpaid excisemen to ask for higher salaries, write his first pamphlet; The Case of the Officers of Excise, run a shop and become separated. Upon separating from his wife Paine returned to London. While in London he met and befriended Benjamin Franklin. The details of how the friendship between the two men began are hazy, never the less; it is a fact that the two most definitely knew and respected one another. Paine actually had the unique experience of being present when Franklin conducted some of his experiments with electricity. Benjamin Franklin could see that Paine was in need of a drastic change in his life. Van der Weyde conveys that,

Dr. Franklin not only perceived this but he also appreciated the talents and genius of his friend, and the farsighted philosopher was keenly alive to America’s need of just such a spirit as Thomas Paine. He
Benjamin Franklin- Paine's ticket to America

strongly urged the young man to migrate to America – thereby not only befriending Paine but at the same time conferring upon this country the greatest of the many obligations for which it is indebted to Franklin.[6]

At the age of 37, having been a virtual failure at everything he had attempted, Paine decided to start anew in America. Van der Weyde relays Paine’s recollection of his youth, where he stated “I happened, when a schoolboy, to ‘pick up a pleasing natural history of Virginia, and my inclination from that day of seeing the western side of the Atlantic never left me.”[7] This inclination combined with a letter of introduction form Benjamin Franklin would find Paine setting off on a journey that would exceed his wildest expectations and change his life for the better, at least for a short time.

Paine arrived on America’s shores on September 30, 1774. Richard Bache, Franklin’s son-in-law, would be expecting Paine in Philadelphia. Paine carried with him, like a badge of honor, the letter of introduction from one of America’s most well respected thinkers. Paine would present the letter to Bache upon their first meeting. Van der Weyde relays what the letter read,

The bearer Mr. Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man. He goes to Pennsylvania with a view of settling there. I request you to give him your best advice and countenance, as he is quite a stranger there. If you can put him in away of obtaining employment as a clerk, or assistant tutor in a school, or assistant surveyor, of all of which I think him very capable, so that he may procure a subsistence at least, till he can make acquaintance and obtain a knowledge of the country, you will do well, and much oblige your affectionate father.[8]

Bache did oblige his father and by 1775 Paine was working for The Pennsylvania Magazine. Van der Weyde writes that Paine, in a 1775 letter to Benjamin Franklin, thanking him for his help, would say that “Robert Aitkin, has lately attempted a magazine, but having little or no turn that way himself, he has applied to me for assistance. He had not above six hundred subscribers when I first assisted him. We have now upwards of fifteen hundred, and daily increasing.”[9] Paine would go on to become editor of this paper for eighteen months. There would appear in the Magazine many items written by Paine, sometimes under pen names like “Vox Populi” or voice of the people. Paine also wrote descriptions of the latest technology from England. Because of these articles specifically, Paine was able to befriend many of the scientists who were members of Ben Franklin’s Philosophical Society. These scientists would spark Paine’s interest in all things scientific, which would lead him to further explore some experimentation later in his life.

Paine had begun to make quite a name for himself in America. Always taking on the burdens of the people, Paine would now tackle one of the most taboo subjects of the time. Van der Weyde writes “on March 8, 1775 -- a notable essay by Paine on the subject of slavery, appeared in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser. This essay, which was printed under the title of "African Slavery in America," was the first article published in this country urging the emancipation of slaves and the abolishment of the system of negro bondage. “[10] Paine had now taken a side, he was showing America that just because he was a native of England, it did not necessarily mean he considered himself an Englishman or had any allegiance to that country whatsoever.

As Foner states, “During the period of his residence there, from 1774 until his return to England in 1787, Paine’s Philadelphia would undergo enormous political, social and economic changes. New classes, particularly the city’s artisans, would emerge into political consciousness, challenging the dominance of a previously entrenched elite and often finding their voice in Paine’s writings.”[11] Paine’s writing indeed provided a voice, particularly in the pamphlet Common Sense, whose precursor was a short essay, entitled “A Serious Thought” to which Paine signed the pen name “Humanus.” Many scholars say this essay was the first indication that there would be a Declaration of Independence.

Following the essay Paine set to work on Common Sense. He would spend the autumn of 1775 writing
Common Sense and a Portrait of Paine
both from the MORR collection - on exhibit in the Smith Gallery 

passionately about why he felt the colonies needed to break free from what he saw as tyrannical British rule. The pamphlet was published by Robert Bell on January 10, 1776. It is estimated that in the first three months of the pamphlet being on sale 120,000 copies were sold. The title page, however, only indicated that the piece had been “written by an Englishman,” there was no name to attribute the stirring work to. “Although no announcement was made of the fact” Van der Wyde states, “Paine gave to the cause of independence all of his financial interest in the pamphlet, thereby depriving himself quite a large fortune, the price of the pamphlet being two shillings.”[12] Paine’s devotion to his adopted country is unquestionable; the selfless action of taking no compensation for Common Sense proves that his heart lay solely in seeing the people of America break free from England and establishes themselves as a republic. Eric Foner quotes Paine’s reason for writing Common Sense,“ My motive and object in all my political works, beginning with Common Sense,’ Paine recalled in 1806,’…have been to rescue man from tyranny and false systems and false principles of government, and enable him to be free.”[13] It was as simple as that for Paine. It is also no coincidence that six month after the publication of Common Sense the people of America had the Declaration of Independence drafted and signed.

The influence of Common Sense was an easy ticket for Paine to make his way into the inner circle of politics in Revolutionary Philadelphia. Once men like George Washington and John Adams saw what Ben Franklin had seen in Paine, back in 1774 combined with the brilliance of his best selling pamphlet they too would want him in their circle. Before the publication of Common Sense, Van der Weyde relays that,

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher in May, 1775, crossing the Potomac in a rowboat, happened in midstream to encounter another boat carrying George Washington, on his way to Congress. The two men had some conversation about the prospects of the colonies. Washington unequivocally declared himself loyal to the crown, saying to Boucher, "If you ever hear of my joining in any such measures" (measures for separation) "you have my leave to set me down for everything wicked." Two months later, in July, when Washington took command of the army, he (as he subsequently related) "abhorred the idea of independence.[14]

Soon after this account, Van der Weyde states “Washington, who only shortly before was protesting his loyalty to Great Britain, carefully read Paine’s pamphlet and was at once converted to the cause of independence.”[15]In 1776, Washington would be inspired by Paine again after the publication of his pamphlet entitled The American Crisis, Washington was so moved that he ordered that the pamphlet be read to all of the troops in the continental army. Indeed these examples would indicate that George Washington had an overwhelming respect for Paine and his ideas.

“In the course of this year,1776,” according to Thomas Clio Rickman, “Mr. Paine accompanied the army with General Washington, and was with him in his retreat from the Hudson River to the Delaware.”[16] Only a year later in 1777, Paine was first appointed secretary to a commission sent to Pennsylvania to make a treaty with the Native Americans. On April 17th of the same year Paine would be unanimously appointed by Congress as Secretary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. This office saw Paine receive all letters written by Congress as well as all replies sent to Congress. Paine was expected to follow Congress wherever they met or were forced to flee to. He was afforded, in this position the opportunity to see foreign courts and how they conducted their politics.
 
Paine's personal message to Washington in a compilation of his works-
MORR Collection



The secretary position would also see Paine embroiled in the Silas Deane Affair, where Mr. Deane was accused of making bad deals with France in order to secure provisions for American troops. Paine spoke out against Deane, and would end up resigning from the position in 1779. Rickman quotes Paine, in his letter to Congress after his resignation saying “I prevented Deane’s fraudulent demand being paid, and so far the country is obliged to me, but I became the victim of my integrity.”[17] Despite this unfortunate downfall, Paine was, in late 1779 given a degree of Master of Arts by the University of Philadelphia and in 1780 he was inducted into Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society. Still respected by his political peers, in 1781 Paine was asked to accompany Colonel Laurens to France, to yet again try to obtain more money for the failing American economy. According to Rickman “his value, his firmness, his independence, as a political character, were now universally acknowledged.”[18] George Washington, once more in his undying respect for Paine, would ask that he rejoin Congress upon his return; Paine rejected him on the grounds that he simply thought it was inappropriate after his resignation only a few years earlier.
George Washington



Washington however would still visit with Paine. On September 10, 1783 Washington sent a letter to Paine, upon having heard of his presence in Borden Town, New Jersey where Washington happened to be staying as well. Washington wrote “if you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind congress of your past services to this country …”[19] In fact the two men did meet at the home Washington was staying at called Rocky Hill. While they visited, Paine and Washington got into a debate about the fact that the nearby Millstone River could be set on fire. Paine proposed the phenomena causing this was inflammable air, while two of Washington’s troops argued that it was solid combustible material that had floated up to the surface from the river’s bottom, upon reaching the top this material would thereby provide fuel for the river to be ignited. The following night Paine, Washington and the soldiers took a flat bottom boat out on the river, Paine and Washington held burning paper just above the rivers surface, while the two soldiers stirred up the muck from the river bed. Marc Mappen writes that “according to Paine, ‘When the mud at the bottom was disturbed by the poles, the air bubbles rose fast, and I saw the fire take from General Washington’s light and descend from thence to the surface of the water.”[20] Paine was right, although it would take many more years to be discovered, the thing that ignited the river was Methane.

Paine and Washington shared a mutual respect and a solid friendship. This would change, however when Paine took off for Europe in 1787. Feeling he had in essence, worn out his welcome in America the great writer set his sights on the other side of the Atlantic. Though he spent much time in England working on his designs for an iron bridge, Paine would eventually get back to writing. His next offering would be the Rights of Man. The book was Paine’s thoughts on the French Revolution and in some ways could be said to be a catalyst for the uprising by peasants in France at the end of the 18th century. After the book took off and sold many, many copies worldwide, it was evident that Paine had ruffled the wrong feathers. However, George Washington was an admirer, once again, of his friend’s latest work. In a 1792 letter, thanking Paine for the fifty copies of Rights of Man that he had sent him, Washington wrote “Let it suffice, therefore, at this time to say, that I rejoice in the information of your personal prosperity—and as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I do, that it is the first wish of my heart that the enlightened policy of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they are entitled—and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.”[21] Robespierre, France’s new leader, on the other hand would call for Paine to stand trial. He tried to escape, being slightly confused as to what he was actually being hunted for. Eventually Paine was caught and consequently found guilty of liable and was jailed in Paris.

From his prison cell he wrote letter after letter to his old friends in the United States. Paine’s main concern was trying to convince French officials that he was in fact an American citizen, since France was an ally to America, naturally he should be set free. It seemed the more Paine wrote, the less he was answered on this subject. Paine finally wrote to George Washington who was now the President of the fledgling republic pleading with him for assistance. Again, Paine heard nothing back.

Paine was finally rescued by James Monroe but was now feeling completely betrayed by his former brethren. In an out of character episode Paine would channel all his fear and anger at his erstwhile comrade George Washington. Paine gathered up all the letters he never sent Washington while he was imprisoned and that Monroe urged him not to send and had them published in Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora. Now the entire nation could read Paine’s tirade. In a letter dated July 30, 1796 Paine would unleash a world of insults on the first President. He begins by saying “I shall offer you no apologies for this letter…”[22] he will go on to state his reasons for being unhappy with the American government. He will also lament how his vision of liberty was being put into practice. Paine will then go on to take full credit for the idea of unifying the colonies into one, as illustrated here,

I declare myself opposed to several matters in the Constitution, particularly to the manner in which what is called the Executive is formed, and to the long duration of the Senate; and if I live to return to America, I will use all my endeavours to have them altered. I also declare myself opposed to almost the whole of your administration; for I know it to have been deceitful, if not perfidious, as I shall show in the course of this letter. But as to the point of consolidating the States into a Federal Government, it so happens, that the proposition for that purpose came originally from myself.[23]

Paine will exhaust many topics in this particular letter, but the most surprising are his direct attacks on Washington’s character and conduct during and after the Revolutionary war. For Example Paine wrote “The part I acted in the American Revolution is well known; I shall not here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received from France, in men, money and ships that your cold and unmilitary conduct (as I shall show in the course of this letter) would in all probability have lost America…”[24] Paine again recalls Washington’s service as Commander of the Continental Army by saying “You slept away your time in the field, till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have but little share in the glory of the final event.”[25] In a final attack, Paine will directly compare Washington to an English Monarch by saying “Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of everything to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many addresses in your chest as James the II.”

Though Paine will go on to set forth some seemingly common thoughts about George Washington, as Joseph J. Ellis describes the public charges levied against Washington, “He had no compunction about driving around Philadelphia in an ornate carriage drawn by six cream colored horses; or, when on horseback, riding a white stallion with a leopard cloth and gold-trimmed saddle; or, accepting laurel crowns at public celebrations that resemble coronations.”[26] This is not how you correspond with a friend.

Paine will call out for an answer as to why not one person from the executive branch of the government made any inquiries as to his wellbeing, and will say “Mr. Washington owed it to me on every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say, friendship; for it has some time been known by those who know him, that he has no friendships; that he is incapable of forming any…”[27] The letter ends with Paine saying to Washington “And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”[28] In a final insult, Elis writes that while “Tom Paine celebrated Washington’s departure, (he) actually prayed for his imminent death.”[29]

Although Washington himself never officially responded to Paine, he did once state according to Ellis “these attacks, unjust and unpleasant as they are, will occasion no change in my conduct; nor will they work any other effect in my mind.” [30] One friend did take it upon himself to come out in Washington’s defense, as stated in a 1798 letter to Washington from Timothy Pickering, he relays the news of a William Cobbet in his Porcupine Gazette saying “The vile traducers of the old General must blush to read what a foreigner and a Briton says of him.”[31]

It is true that Paine’s writings can be described as the ravings of a man gone mad. We must, however take into consideration Paine’s circumstances at the time the letter was written. He had given America a lifetime of service and now, in a time when his own soul was being tried, he stood alone and companionless in a foreign country. None of the great men who praised him and that he stood shoulder to shoulder with through the birth of a nation came to his aid. What Washington’s reasons were cannot be known. Perhaps it was his aids urging him to not get involved with the French Revolution, or perhaps his fondness for Paine had faded. Whatever the explanation, it seems that George Washington’s quote of "I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination" did not quite hold true when it came to Thomas Paine.

Written by: 
Holly Marino, Museum Specialist
___________________________________________________________

[1] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), xxvii
[2] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 1-2.
[3] Ibid, 4.
[4] Ibid, 6.
[5] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 2.
[6] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 15.
[7] Ibid, 4.
[8]Ibid, 17-18.
[9] Ibid, 18.
[10] Ibid, 20.
[11] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 20.
[12] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 30-31.
[13]Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 75.
[14] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 28.
[15] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 31.
[16] Thomas Clio Rickman, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine: Volume 1, Life and Appreciations of Thomas Paine, (New York, NY: Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), 25.
[17] Ibid, 26.
[18] Ibid, 28.
[19] Ibid, 29.
[20] Marc Mappen, There’s More to New Jersey than the Sopranos, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 48.
[21] The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.< http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-10-02-0225> (13 Apr 2010)
[22] The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 5, Letters & Dissertations, ed. William Van der Weyde (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 139.
[23] Ibid, 141
[24] Ibid, 146
[25] Ibid, 156-147
[26] Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, Inc., 2000), 127.
[27] The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 5, Letters & Dissertations,ed. William Van der Weyde (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 152.
[28] Ibid, 200-201.
[29] Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, Inc., 2000), 126.
[30] Ibid,126.
[31] The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008. <http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-06-02-02-0046> (13 Apr 2010)






Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Chief Justice John Marshall as historian

Follow this link to read a post on the Journal of the American Revolution about America's third chief justice John Marshall and his crucial role as a biographer of George Washington.

This post is by Morristown NHP chief of cultural resources Dr. Jude Pfister. 

https://allthingsliberty.com/2024/02/john-marshall-historian/


         Title page of volume 1 (1804) of Marshall's Life of Washington 

from the park collection

Listen to the Podcast with Dr. Pfister and the Journal of the American Revolution's Brady Crytzer (author of The Whiskey Rebellion, The Distilled History of an American Crisis) at the following link:

https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.google.com%2Ffeed%2FaHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2phcmRpc3BhdGNoZXMvZmVlZC54bWw%2Fepisode%2FamFyZGlzcGF0Y2hlcy5wb2RiZWFuLmNvbS9kY2Q4YWJhNC00YWY0LTMyMDUtYTM2Yy1lYzY5YjhmNWM0YjA%3Fep%3D14&data=05%7C02%7Cjude_pfister%40nps.gov%7Cbe5bf636527144b0abb808dc36d21204%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C638445523071164860%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=DVsVMgBPJT2TE8bEfCQCtestUER87YRYwxfnV%2BkXMOc%3D&reserved=0

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Christmas 1783

 


George Washington arrived at his Mount Vernon home two hundred and forty (240) years ago this week, on Christmas Eve 1783. Resigning his commission to the Confederation Congress in Annapolis the day before, he told the assembled legislators there in the Maryland State House that he was Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence.”

George Washington was a civilian once again.

Throughout his adult life Washington—and his family—had grown accustomed to his long absences from home, including during the holidays. At no time was this truer than during the Revolution. General Washington and his men famously crossed the Delaware on Christmas Night 1776 to surprise the Hessians at Trenton the following day. He and the 11,000 exhausted, ill-clad men under his command spent Christmas 1777 just trying to survive the elements at Valley Forge. One of the most difficult Christmases came two years later here at Morristown, where Washington and his men faced not just the cold but the threat of British attack. General Washington wrote to New Jersey Governor William Livingston on December 21 seeking help should the Redcoats strike. General Washington explained to Governor Livingston that “The situation of our army at this time compared with that of the enemy makes it necessary we should be very much upon our guard. They have more than double our force collected at New York and we are mouldering away dayly.”

When the war finally did end in 1783 Washington and others celebrated in New York City for a few weeks in late November and early December before they began heading home. Washington was determined to get back to his Virginia farm and family in time for Christmas. That was easier said than done on the muddy roads of the era, Nonetheless Washington managed to get home in time to celebrate that Christmas 240 years ago.

All of us here at Morristown National Historical Park wish you a happy holiday season.

 

Image credit: Mount Vernon as it was in the early decades of the twentieth century / Library of Congress

Keith J. Muchowski, a librarian and professor at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) in Brooklyn, volunteers at Morristown National Historical Park.

Monday, December 11, 2023

Remembering the Boston Tea Party

 

The Dye is cast: The People have passed the River and cutt away the Bridge: last Night Three Cargoes of Tea, were emptied into the Harbour. This is the grandest, Event, which has ever yet happened Since, the Controversy, with Britain, opened!

The Sublimity of it, charms me!”  

Those were the words of John Adams writing to friend James Warren on December 17, 1773. The evening prior nearly one hundred Bostonians, thinly disguised as Native-Americans, had boarded three ships docked at Griffins Wharf and tossed at least 340 chests of tea weighing upwards of forty-five tons into the water below. This was of course the Boston Tea Party, the 250th anniversary of which is this Saturday, December 16.

                                        Silver teapot made in New York by Jacob Boelen, circa 1690–1700

Americans—or colonists as they still were when Adams wrote the above lines—had long protested British efforts at taxation without representation.” Just eight years previously in 1765 colonists had vehemently, even violently, opposed the Stamp Act, which was quickly rescinded in March 1766. After its repeal however came the equally-loathed Townshend Revenue Acts, most of which were  themselves revoked in 1770. Parliament passed a Tea Act on May 10, 1773, granting the financially strapped British East India Company a monopoly in the American colonies. Grown overseas and introduced by traders in the seventeenth century, tea by this time had long been part of American culture. Silversmiths like Paul Revere had been crafting beautiful tea pots and services for decades by this time. British officials thought there would be little outcry; the tax after all was nominal, designed more to combat the smuggling of contraband Dutch tea” and to shore up the ledger books of the floundering East India Company than to generate revenue per se. The British plan back-fired. Now the question on everyones mind was how King George III and Parliament would respond once news reached London regarding the Boston protest. The punishment came that winter and spring in the form of the so-called Intolerable Acts, a set of punitive measures demanding payment for the tossed tea and tightening British political and military control in Massachusetts. These measures led the colonists to resistance, revolution, and eventually independence.

Protests against the tea tax were hardly unique to Boston. Less than two weeks prior to the Boston Tea Party leaders in South Carolina had decided they too would not allow an East India Company shipment that had just arrived in Charleston to be sold, eventually impounding the tea and keeping it under lock-and-key to make certain the tax would not be paid. Nor would Griffin’s Wharf be the last place of protest; well over a dozen tea demonstrations of various forms took place throughout the colonies in 1773 and 1774. Still colonists grasped—as John Adams had just hours after the fact—that Boston was, in Adams’s words, the cutting away of the bridge. The rest of the world understood too. Here we see a remarkable political cartoon by the Dublin-born artist and engraver John Dixon entitled The Tea-Tax-Tempest (The Oracle)” from 1774. 



Dixon, who by the 1760s had relocated to London, created this rendering just months after the Boston Tea Party, and a year before the firing at Lexington and Concord. The mezzotint shows Father Time using an early type of visual projection called a magic lantern to show the fighting soon to come. Through the depiction of the various figures representing individuals of different backgrounds, Dixon also captures the global implications of what would very much become a world war. The five varieties of tea dumped into Boston Harbor—Bohea, Congou, Hyson Singlo, and Souchong—were themselves the products of international trade and interaction. Dixons allegorical cartoon became iconic and was imitated and satirized several times throughout the Revolution.

What came to be known as the Boston Tea Party thus was part of American and world iconography from the outset. One hundred and fifty years ago this week people turned out at numerous functions in Boston for several days of celebration marking the centennial. The New England Woman Suffrage Association hosted an event at Faneuil Hall on December 15. Speakers at the “Woman’s Tea Party” included, among others: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” author Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore, Lucy Stone, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, who like many of the others in attendance had long supported women's suffrage in addition to abolitionism and civil rights.



In the twentieth century the Boston Tea Party grew even larger in the public imagination. Esther Forbes won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for her non-fiction “Paul Revere and the World He Lived In” and a Newbery Medal in 1944 for “Johnny Tremain: A Novel for Old & Young,” her coming-of-age story whose protagonist witnesses the Boston Tea Party and events that came after it. Ironically, Forbes downplayed tensions between Colonists and Redcoats in “Johnny Tremain” because she wrote the novel during the Second World War—by which time the United States and Great Britain were no longer enemies but allies. On the Fourth of July in 1973 the United States Postal Service issued this set of se-tenant stamps, among the first in what would eventually be more than one hundred commemorative issues in the Bicentennial Series.



This week in 2023 there are again services and commemorations across the country marking this major anniversary in American history.

 

Image credits:

The Tea-Tax-Tempest (The Oracle), by John Dixon, 1774

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Silver teapot made in New York by Jacob Boelen, circa 1690–1700

The piece was owned at different times by the Philipse and Jay families.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

New England Woman’s Tea Party ticket, 1873

Boston Athenaeum

The Boston Tea Party Bicentennial Era stamp series, 1973

United States Postal Service

 

Keith J. Muchowski, a librarian and professor at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) in Brooklyn, writes occasionally for the Morristown National Historical Park Museum & Library blog.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Did People Celebrate Halloween in Early America? A Brief History of the Holiday

 Did People Celebrate Halloween in Early America?

Modern Halloween, as we know it today, is a deeply engrained American tradition, elements of which have since dispersed all over the globe. However, that was not always so. The cheerful celebration we have today has origins in the ancient festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st by the Celts in ancient Britain, Scotland, Ireland, and Northern France. Samhain was a festival that marked the end of the summer and harvest-time, and a beginning of the cold, dark, winter ahead – and the beginning of a new year. It was supposed by many that the eve of this new year was a time of liminality and that the lines between the living and the dead were blurred, with otherworldly spirits finding their way to the material realm. When ancient Rome conquered the Celtic lands, Roman and Celtic traditions became intertwined. The Romans celebrated Feralia, a holiday for the dead, in mid-October and the Roman goddess Pomona was also celebrated on November 1st. These two holidays would eventually converge with Samhain and the traditions mingled for many centuries. Ancient celebrations of Samhain and the hybrid Roman holidays included feasting, merry-making, sacred rituals, and communing with the dead.[i] [ii]

Victorian Depiction of "Souling," 1882. Credit: Wikipedia
In the early Catholic church, many were concerned about the ongoing celebration of ancient pagan traditions in addition to saints’ days. By the 8th century, however, Pope Gregory III determined that combining Catholic holidays with the traditional pagan holidays could bring people closer the Christian faith. The Church moved All Saints’ Day, a holiday that venerated Christian saints and martyrs, from May 13th to November 1st and All Souls’ Day, during which prayers were said for those in purgatory, to November 2nd. The night before November 1st became All Hallows' Eve – Hallowe’en. Christian pieties were migrated to the holidays, but many traditions remained similar, often including bonfires, parades, and disguises.[iii] It is said that during these festivities, the poor would go from house to house to beg for food, and that morsels called “soul cakes” would be given to them in exchange for prayers for the family’s dead. This activity, called "Souling," displaced the pre-Christian tradition of leaving offerings for the souls of the dead, and was eventually taken up by children, who were given food, drink, and coins – a precursor to modern trick-or-treating.[iv] Celebrations of this holiday were once more transformed in the 14th century when the Protestant Reformation lead many to eschew Catholic traditions like All Saints’ Day. In Protestant countries, the feast days were displaced by new events that often assumed the trappings of the old All Hallows' Eve – such as Guy Fawkes Day, which celebrated the defeat of a Catholic plot to overthrow the government of England.[v] 

Historic Depiction of Guy Fawkes Night, Credit: TorontoPast.com
The American colonies were founded on a variety of different religious and political traditions, meaning that All Hallows' Eve could have been celebrated in certain places but not others. In New England, for example, strict Protestant outlooks forbade the celebration of any holiday that alluded to Catholicism. Like many at home in England, Puritans in New England preferred Guy Fawkes Day. In the 17th century, this celebration included the community gathering around a bonfire, and in the 18th century it was quite a party. John Adams wrote: “Punch, wine, bread and cheese, apples, pipes, tobacco and Popes [referring to effigies] and bonfires this evening at Salem, and a swarm of tumultuous people attending.”[vi] 

Majority Anglican colonies, however, had a much more relaxed approach. All Saints’ Day and All Hallows’ Eve were often found on Anglican calendars.[vii] The colony of Maryland, which was the only Catholic colony, also permitted these celebrations. New Jersey, as a middle colony that practiced religious toleration, represented a convergence of many different religious faiths. It is possible that early New Jerseyans would have understood the significance of All Hallows’ Eve or, alternatively, celebrated Guy Fawkes Day. Indeed, the popular “mischief night” (considered by many to be a New Jersey tradition) is associated with the importation of the Fawkes celebrations.[viii] Presbyterians like the Ford family probably did not celebrate All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day, as many holidays traditionally associated with Catholicism were banned in the 18th century Presbyterian church. Despite a wide variety of approaches, the first generations of American citizens, including the Founders, were still likely familiar with the holidays. However, their understandings would have been influenced by the legacy of ancient celebrations (like bonfires and feasting), as well as the displacement of Catholicism by Protestant traditions in Britain and North America. It is very unlikely that they would recognize the Halloween traditions that many Americans enjoy today.

Ford Mansion in the Fall, Credit: Amy Hester
Halloween as we know it in the 21st century did not begin to be celebrated in a widespread fashion until the mid-19th century. In the wake of the revolution and rapid westward expansion, Fawkes celebrations and other old revelries fell out of fashion. However, activities such like bonfires, dancing, gossiping, and fortune-telling, were preserved in the context of other kinds of community celebrations, including rural harvests.[ix] The arrival of many Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1820s and 1840s, however, brought a resurgence of participation in All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day. Irish immigrant traditions carried traces of ancient Samhain, as well as their traditional Catholicism, and though All Saints’ Day was a relatively somber event, the evening before was one of merriment and mischief. Fortune telling was a popular All Hallows Eve activity, particularly for young women, as well as the creation of jack-o-lanterns. The Irish immigrants innovated the holiday in North America as well, with such changes as the use of pumpkins to replace turnips for jack-o-lanterns and recreating the soul cake tradition. Instead of dressing as saints in church parades or begging for soul cakes, revelers dressed in secular outfits and solicited treats from neighbors.[x]

Romantic Halloween Fortune-Telling on postcard,
Credit: marklawsonantiques.com
Transportation and communication innovations like the railroad, telegraph, and magazines brought Halloween traditions to the whole country, where they slowly underwent a secular transformation until, ultimately, Halloween was divested of religious significance in the 20th century. Through the turn of the century, Halloween was increasingly imagined as a romantic event for young lovers and a community event that could foster cohesion, particularly among communities with immigrant populations. It was in the 1920s that many of the first citywide Halloween events took place and when American children took up the time-honored amusement of going door-to-door for candy.[xi] By the 1990s, about 92% of children in the United States participated in trick-or-treating. Today, Americans spend more than $6 billion a year on Halloween, designating it the largest commercial holiday besides Christmas.[xii]

Halloween has transformed over the centuries from a deeply spiritual ritual to a commercialized, secular event. Our forebears would not recognize the event as we celebrate it today - and they might be dismayed by the celebrated presence of witches and ghouls. Although Halloween changes generationally, some important qualities are enduring: the gathering of a community for fellowship and the opportunity for frivolity as winter looms. We at Morristown National Historical Park hope you have enjoyed the Halloween season in 2023!



[i] Ellen Feldman, “The History of Halloween,” American Heritage 52.7 (October 2001), The History of Halloween (October 2001)

[ii] Norfolk Towne Assembly, “Halloween – Its Origins and History in Colonial and Early America” (2023), Halloween – Its Origins and History in Colonial and Early America  

[iii] Feldman, “The History of Halloween.”

[iv] Norfolk, “Halloween – Its Origins and History in Colonial and Early America.”

[v] Feldman, “The History of Halloween.”

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Dan Nosowitz, “Why is Mischief Night Different From All Other Nights?,” Atlas Obscura (Oct 2021), Why Is Mischief Night Different From All Other Nights? - Atlas Obscura

[ix] Feldman, “The History of Halloween.”

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Editors, “Halloween 2023: Origins, Meaning & Traditions,” History.com (2023), Halloween 2023: Origins, Meaning & Traditions | HISTORY.

...