In a few days we will celebrate Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts (and Maine, which used to be Massachusetts). This unique state holiday, held on the third Monday in April, became a little better known last year due to the tragic Boston Marathon bombing. Although the Marathon and the 11 AM Red Sox game at Fenway Park, a mile from the finish line, have become part of the Patriots' Day tradition, officially the day commemorates "Paul Revere’s" ride on April 18, 1775, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord the following day. It is marked by battle re-enactments all over the state.
A Patriots' Day re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington
Although "Revere's" ride is famous, thanks to Longfellow’s historically inaccurate poem of some eighty-five years later, Paul Revere was just one of several riders who left from Boston to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams (hiding in Lexington) that the British Army was coming for them. Revere and the others notified other riders along the way, so a large network was fanning out across the countryside. After conferring with Hancock and Adams in Lexington, Revere and William Dawes actually were arrested on the way to Concord. They were released the next morning, when their captors realized they had to warn the soldiers coming from Boston that hostile militiamen were awaiting their arrival.
Likewise, though people speak of the "Battles of Lexington and Concord," the worst fighting took place in Arlington (then called Menotomy) and Cambridge. After the British soldiers left Concord, they were harassed on the road back to Boston at multiple junctures. Their return trip through Lexington proved difficult until reinforcements arrived from Boston, but colonists continued to attack the regulars as they passed through Menotomy, just east of Lexington. The fighting grew intense, and remained so all the way across Cambridge.
Fighting in Menotomy (Arlington) on the way back to Boston
The battles sparked 239 years ago today started the Revolutionary War in earnest. Militia poured in from all over New England to pin the British in Boston, a siege that ended in March 1776 with the British fleeing by sea. In the interim heavy fighting took place only once, Bunker Hill in June 1776 when the British set out to recapture the strategic Charlestown peninsula. They succeeded, but with heavy casualties. Bunker Hill hardened both anti-British feelings in the colonies and anti-colonial feelings in Britain.
But this is a genealogy forum. As the regulars here know, two years ago I learned for the first time that I descend from a number of people who fought in the American Revolution. As we approach Patriots’ Day, I’d like to tell their stories. (I planned to do it last year but the bombings and lockdown changed my week somewhat.) I'll start with three ancestors from Massachusetts, then next week tell the stories of two more who represented New Hampshire.
John Perkins III: John Perkins III was born in Middleboro, Massachusetts in 1748. His grandfather, John Perkins I, had moved from Charlestown near Boston to Middleboro. John III’s 3x-great-grandfather, Abraham, and his two brothers were the first Perkins men in the colonies. Abraham settled in far northeastern Massachusetts Bay in 1640; the town today is Hampton, New Hampshire, first town north of the state line. John III’s father, John II, died when he was a small baby; he was raised by his mother and step-father, Elkanah Cushman.
John III married Hannah Gardner in 1772 and they had two sons in their first two years of marriage. In the months before Lexington and Concord in April 1775, as patriots across Massachusetts prepared for the coming conflict, John enlisted as a minuteman in Col. Theophilus Cotton’s Plymouth County regiment, in Captain Joshua Benson’s company of Middleboro men. Col. Cotton was a direct descendant of the famed Boston preacher John Cotton. Captain Benson, a son of an old Middleboro family, moved to South Carolina after the Revolution.
Middleboro, Mass. honors its Revolutionary War veterans, including those described in this post
When news came of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the regiment was too far to join the fighting. Instead, it formed a circle around the town of Marshfield, a Loyalist stronghold where a small number of British soldiers were staying. John noted in his pension application that he was among those marching to Marshfield. The cautious Col. Cotton, however, decided not to attack Marshfield and the British troops escaped to Boston by ship on April 21.
From there John’s company went to Roxbury, right outside Boston, and joined Washington’s Continental Army, which had the British pinned in Boston. Due to this siege of Boston, fighting in southern New England was limited after Lexington and Concord, except for Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. John III’s company spent about nine months camped in Roxbury in relative comfort, waiting the British out. Apparently soliders from the lower fort there, near the entrance to Boston Neck, would exchange rifle volleys with British soliders, but nothing serious.
Marking the site of Roxbury's High Fort, in today's Highland Park on Fort Hill. There was also a Low Fort near today's Linwood Street.
An excerpt from a map of the Siege of Boston. The British were penned in town, then accessible by land only via the narrow Boston Neck. John Perkins and his regiment were among those blocking that egress, as the red arrow indicates.
When the British finally gave up, evacuating Boston by sea on March 17, 1776. John and his company-mates were sent home, where they reconstituted their local militia. They had no uniforms or discipline; rather, when an alarm sounded, they would grab their muskets and a stash of homemade bullets from over the fireplace. After the British evacuation of Boston the Revolution was mostly fought south of New England, although the British did hold Newport, Rhode Island and made numerous minor raiding forays into towns on the southern coast of New England. Many of these happened on the Rhode Island coast, though some attacks also came on the Connecticut coast and Massachusetts’s South Coast. In what are called the “Rhode Island Alarms,” the militia often were sent for short-term service to these skirmishes between 1776 and 1778.
During these two years John’s militia company (the First Company of Infantry under Lt. Jonah Washburn) were called out to Dartmouth, Providence, New Bedford, and Warwick. Nonetheless, he was able to spend much of his time at home. As I’ve come to learn more about my family history, I’m very thankful for that. I’m also thankful that the British evacuated Boston when they did: John’s third son Gaius, my 4x-great-grandfather, was born less than ten months after John’s unit was sent home from Roxbury. Had the British held out any longer, I might not be here. Just one of a billion things that had to happen just so for any of us to exist.
John also spent the fall and winter of 1778-79 at home, and his son Ichabod was born at the end of that stretch. In April 1779, however, a call went out for volunteers. John signed up and despite no naval experience was sent to the Warren, one of the Continental Army’s three ships in Boston Harbor. There the volunteers waited weeks for orders. They might have been better off had the orders never come.
In the first half of 1779, the British had consolidated their control of Maine, then part of Massachusetts. They called it “new Ireland.” The leaders in Massachusetts were very worried about losing Maine to the British, or to another state like New Hampshire in a post-war settlement. So they called for volunteers, John Perkins III being among them, to recapture Maine, and particularly the strategically important Penobscot Bay halfway up the coast, through a sea invasion.
A historic marker commemorating the Penobscot Expedition in Bucksport, Maine
On July 19, 1779 John’s ship, the
Warren, finally left Boston under the command of Commodore Dudley Saltonstall. Also sailing north were two smaller Continental Army ships and some forty Massachusetts State Navy and privately owned ships. The flotilla arrived in Townsend (now Boothbay Harbor) on July 24, and near Penobscot Bay that same evening. Over the next few days the Americans attempted to weaken the British forts through cannon fire and shelling. The British fired back from forts and ships.
An affidavit from John Perkins's son, my ancestor Gaius, in the pension application filed by John's heirs after his death. It reads: The Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is hereby requested to furnish evidence from the rolls in his office of the servis (sic) of my father John Perkins. He enlisted from the town of Middleborough in the County of Plymouth and State of Massachusetts. He performed as a marine on board of the ship Warren which was burnt in the Penobscot River Me. and several months in the militia was stationed at Roxbury & Plymouth and Fairhaven. I cannot tell the name of his officer. I am now 72 years old and my memory does not enable me to state my father's servis (sic) more fully than above listed. Witness my hand this 6 day of September AD 1850,
Gaius Perkins
On July 28, Gen. Peleg Wadsworth led 200 militiamen (including John) and 200 marines in a land invasion to capture a British fort. They succeeded, but with heavy casualties, particularly among the marines. Marine Commodore Saltonstall was so incensed he refused to allow any more marines to go ashore. The American advance halted. Saltonstall refused to commit to a full naval invasion, leading to a siege that lasted two weeks. Each day brought small skirmishes, with only one (failed) American attempt to advance on land coming on August 1.
Finally, on August 11, the Americans again attempted to advance toward an abandoned British battery high above the bay. A small British sortie came out to meet them and they fled back to their fort, leaving their guns behind. At this point Commodore Saltonstall agreed to launch a naval invasion the next morning. Unfortunately, it was too late. Soon after the Americans arrived, the British sent word of their situation to New York. A Royal Navy fleet of ten warships came to the rescue, attacking the Americans from behind. The Americans fled up the Penobscot River, scuttling ships along the way and sinking the remainder when they reached the impassable falls at Bangor. Out of food and ammunition, they had to walk back to Boston. It was considered the worst American naval defeat ever until Pearl Harbor, and Commodore Saltonstall was court-martialed and discharged.
An artist's rendering of the Penobscot Expedition
According to
A Naval History of the American Revolution, each man aboard the ship received the following provisions:
Sunday: 1 lb bread, 1 lb. Beef, 1lb potatoes or turnips;
Monday: 1 lb bread, 1 lb pork, ½ pint peas; four oz. of cheese;
Tuesday: 1 lb bread; 1 lb beef; 1 lb potatoes or turnips and pudding;
Wednesday: 1 lb bread; 1 lb pork, ½ pint of peas;
Thursday: 1 lb bread; 1 lb pork, ½ pint of peas;
Friday: 1 lb bread; 1 lb beef; 1 lb potatoes or turnips; pudding;
Saturday: 1 lb bread; 1 lb pork; ½ pint peas; 4 oz. of cheese;
Half a pint of rum per man every day, with discretionary allowance on extra duty and in time of engagement.
A pint and a half of vinegar for six men per week;
The pay of the men (per calendar month): 3 dollars.
John Perkins had one more enlistment after coming home from the disastrous Penobscot expedition in August 1779. In June 1780 he enlisted in the Plymouth County militia regiment under Col. John Jacobs of Scituate. He served in Captain Sparrow’s company. Not Captain Jack Sparrow the pirate, but Captain (later Major) Edward Sparrow of Middleboro. John later wrote “I entered this time to go to West Point but was ordered to Rhode Island where I was marched and remained three months in the service.”
By September 1780 the war was concentrated in the South and John Perkins, like many northern militiamen, was sent home. Two years later he moved his family to Vermont, where many people from the Middleboro area were relocating. He died in Barnard, Vermont in 1835 at the age of 86.
Isaac Churchill and Capt. Perez Churchill: Like John Perkins, Isaac Churchill was born in Middleboro, Massachusetts, but Isaac was ten years younger (born in 1758). He was only sixteen at the time of Lexington and Concord. In early 1777, shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he married Betsey Raymond. Two weeks later he enlisted as a private in Capt. Job Peirce’s company of Middleboro militia, under Col. Theophilus Cotton. His even-younger brother Joseph soon enlisted in the same company.
An except from the affidavit of Phineas Raymond (Isaac Churchill's brother-in-law) in support of the pension application filed by Isaac's heirs: I further say that while I resided in said Middleboro I was a neighbour of Isaac Churchill son of Capt. Perez Churchill and I was personally knowing that said Isaac was out in said Revolutionary service from said Middleboro six months or more but under what officers I am unable to state and I never knew of any other Isaac Churchill in that town while I lived there. I further say that said Isaac Churchill after being in service aforesaid, and about the year 1779, married my sister Elizabeth Raymond and they had had a number of children, and the oldest son now living is Zebedee Churchill, who lives within a short distance from me. I removed into Vermont about the year 1787 and my brother in law Isaac...
Capt. Peirce, at forty, was a battle-tested veteran of the French and Indian War, but the company he led was the fourth of four from Middleboro. It had the youngest soldiers and did not see much action. Isaac stayed at home for the most part, and his first son Joseph was born in June 1778.
Isaac and his company were sent out, however, on many of the same “Rhode Island Alarms” that John Perkins went out on, in particular the thwarted British raids on Fairhaven and Dartmouth, Mass. in 1778. During these British raids a prominent local citizen, often the minister of the First Church, would ride through the countryside alerting the locals. They would grab their weapons but also their treasures like the Family Bible and silver, and flee with their families, not knowing if their homes would be under British control by the end of the day. By and large the militia were able to drive off the British, who were not altogether serious about their “invasion” attempts.
Isaac also took part in the (not so) “secret campaign” at Tiverton, R.I., a mission of three months’ duration in late 1777. The Americans solidified their fort there and amassed a large body of troops with a view toward retaking Newport, which remained in British hands across the bay. The Tiverton campaign was plagued, like the Penobscot campaign, by indecision on the part of the commanders. The order to attack by boat finally was given by Washington, then quickly countermanded. General Joseph Spencer, in charge, rightly concluded that the British were aware of his intentions and the seemingly open pathway to Newport was a trap. He called off the invasion.
On this map, drawn by the French, the British in Newport are circled in red, the Americans in Tiverton in black. General Spencer was correct in thinking the coast was a little too clear; the British were waiting for the Americans in August 1778 and held Newport for more than a year afterward.
Spencer, like Saltonstall, was court-martialed. Though acquitted, he resigned in a huff. Spencer was proven correct when his replacement, Gen. John Sullivan, launched a failed attack on Newport in August 1778. The complete lack of any element of surprise, combined with strategic disagreements between the Americans and their new French allies, doomed the effort.
The ill-fated American attempt to reclaim Newport in the Battle of Rhode Island, August 29, 1778
In late 1778 Isaac was mustered out. His son, my ancestor Zebedee, was born in February 1780. Not long after the young Churchill family, like John Perkins III and his family, moved to Vermont. The families settled in adjacent towns there and the grandchildren of these two Revolutionary War veterans would marry and be my 3x-great-grandparents. Isaac died fairly young, in 1803, and his widow Betsey later collected his pension.
Isaac’s father Perez, born in 1722 and thus in his late 50s at the time, also served briefly. He was the captain for an additional Middleboro company raised after the Tiverton failure. The population of southern New England, disheartened by the Gen. Spencer’s timidity, was encouraged by word the French Army would be joining the invasion. Capt. Perez’s company was formed in April 1778 and responded to British coastal raids in May. It was called to Newport on August 25, 1778, weeks after the American assault on Newport started. It was probably the last company summoned for the Rhode Island campaign. This company contained two brothers of Isaac’s wife Betsey Raymond (one of them Phineas, whose affidavit is excerpted above).
The grave of Captain Perez Churchill (1722-1797) in Lakenham Cemetery. The cemetery is just east of Middleboro. It then was in Plympton, but today is in the town of Carver. Perez Churchill was the only one of my revolutionary ancestors who lived his whole life in Massachusetts, though four of the five were born there. The others all moved north, not west, in search of opportunity.
Capt. Perez’s troops marched to Tiverton but arrived too late. The French had already decided the invasion was doomed and sailed for Boston. The militia already on the scene were angered and dismayed by this, with mass desertions resulting. Capt. Perez Churchill’s company never were ordered across the river to Newport, and by August 29 the Americans had pulled out of the Tiverton-Newport area in retreat. On September 2, the company was discharged. Though it did come to the defense of Fairhaven and New Bedford in British raids the following week, there was no more active duty for this final Middleboro company. Capt. Perez Churchill’s war was over before it began.
* * *
None of these ancestors singlehandedly won American independence, but their efforts and the efforts of thousands more like them created a nation that has changed the world in the two-plus centuries since. It falls to our generation, in these difficult times, to do all we can to ensure our nation remains worthy of their efforts.