Planning for the Sestercentennial of Battle of Lexington and Concord

As the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord approaches, I’ve gotten requests for information about where the commemorations will happen.

The answer is that they’ll happen all over because that battle didn’t take place on one field, but spread out over twenty miles.

Furthermore, we New Englanders like our traditions. Many towns and organizations have their own time-honored ways of celebrating the anniversary: local parades, marches, pancake breakfasts, and the like. We’re not going to cancel those just because this anniversary ends in 50.

That said, because of the Sestercentennial many of our commemorations this year will be much bigger than usual: more participants, more spectators, more traffic. And that’s not counting the potential complications from the weather and from Washington, D.C.

Therefore, my only recommendation is to choose a couple of events to enjoy from the many on the schedule. But don’t assume that when I say “schedule,” there is one master schedule. Oh, no, that’s not how we operate here. Here are multiple sources to consult, and I don’t claim this list is exhaustive.

Battleroad.org is a venerable website [check out that coding!] which is updated each year with the latest details about events in Middlesex County. These include celebrations on the weekend before the big anniversary, such as Bedford’s pole-capping and Lincoln’s Paul Revere Capture ceremony. More events in early April appear on Minute Man National Historical Park’s page.

On Friday, 18 April, the National Parks of Boston, the Paul Revere House, and the Old North Church all have events linked to the start of Paul Revere’s ride to Lexington. Those three links go to overlapping lists of offerings, which include a reading of the play Revolution’s Edge, a reenactment of Revere’s movements, the lighting of two lanterns in the steeple, a talk by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson, and a talk by me. It’s impossible to see all those since the whole point is that they’re on opposite sides of the Charles River.

Saturday, 19 April, will start with the confrontation on Lexington common; see the Lexington 250 events calendar. Then the action moves into Minute Man Park for the clash at Concord’s North Bridge, followed by what promises to be the largest, most authentic reenactment ever of the fighting along the Battle Road. The best information on those happenings and how to enjoy them safely comes from the park.

This year the reenacting continues on Sunday afternoon with the Battle of Menotomy along Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington. The setting looks modern, but it’s the actual ground of the bloodiest fighting in April 1775.

Monday is of course Patriots’ Day, the state holiday best known for the Boston Marathon. And the celebrations aren’t over yet. It looks like the Lincoln Salute for fife and drum corps has been pushed to 27 April, for example. So choose your fighters.

Two Revolutionary Symposia Coming Up in New York

The month of May brings two gatherings of Revolutionary War researchers in upstate New York, just a scenic drive away from Boston.

Saratoga 250 will host its fourth annual Turning Point Symposium in Schuylerville on 3 May with these speakers:

• Dr. Phillip Hamilton – “Washington’s Artillerist: Henry Knox Commands the Continental Guns”
• Matthew Keagle – “My Dinner with Andre?: Henry Knox Arrives at Fort George on Lake George”
• Dr. Bruce M. Venter – “Irascible Ethan Allen: He Cared Little About Ticonderoga’s Guns”
• Michele Gabrielson – “American Calliope: The Writings of Mercy Otis Warren and Her Friendship with Henry Knox”
• Dr. Mark Edward Lender – “The Woman at the Gun Reconsidered: Molly Pitcher’s Legendary Performance at Monmouth”

Registration for that day is $89 and includes two meals.

The following day, 4 May, Hamilton will conduct a bus tour of the “Sled Tracks of Henry Knox.” That has a separate registration cost.

At the end of the month, the Fort Plain Museum convenes its annual American Revolution Conference in Johnstown. This year’s presenters include:

• Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson – “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780”
• Maj. Gen. Jason Q. Bohm, U.S.M.C. (Ret.) – “The Birth and Early Operations of the Marine Corps: 250 Years in the Making”
• Alexander R. Cain – “We Stood Our Ground: 250th of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775”
• Abby Chandler – “Choosing Sides: North Carolina’s Regulator Rebellion and the American Revolution”
• Gary Ecelbarger – “The Mammoth of Monmouth: George Washington’s 1778 Campaign in New Jersey”
• Michael P. Gabriel – “Richard Montgomery and the Other Invasion of Canada”
• Shirley L. Green – “Integrating Enslaved and Free: Rhode Island’s Revolutionary Black Regiment”
• Don N. Hagist – “Marching from Peace into War: British Soldiers in 1775 America”
• Patrick H. Hannum – “The Virginia Campaign of 1775-76: Kemp’s Landing & Great Bridge”
• Wayne Lenig – “The Mohawk Valley’s Committee of Safety in 1775”
• James L. Nelson – “Bunker Hill: The First Battle of the American Revolution”
• Eric H. Schnitzer – “Breaking Convention: How a Fussy Detail about British Uniforms Doomed Burgoyne’s Army to Captivity”
• William P. Tatum III, Ph.D., the James F. Morrison Mohawk Valley Resident Historian – “‘To Quell, Suppress, and Bring Them to Reason by Force’: Combatting the Loyalist Threat in New York during 1775”
• Bruce M. Venter – “‘It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones’: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys Take Fort Ticonderoga”

This program extends from the afternoon of Friday, 30 May, to the morning of Sunday, 1 June. Registration for people not already members of the museum costs $160 and includes lunch on Saturday.

The Fort Plain conference also offers a bus tour—in this case beforehand, on Thursday, 29 May. Alex Cain will guide attendees along the Battle Road in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. So that would be a busman’s holiday for folks coming from the Boston area.

“This distortion of history renders the past unrecognizable”

Earlier this month, the nation’s two main associations of historians issued this statement condemning federal censorship of the nation’s history:

The American Historical Association (A.H.A.) and the Organization of American Historians (O.A.H.) condemn recent efforts to censor historical content on federal government websites, at many public museums, and across a wide swath of government resources that include essential data. New policies that purge words, phrases, and content that some officials deem suspect on ideological grounds constitute a systemic campaign to distort, manipulate, and erase significant parts of the historical record. Recent directives insidiously prioritize narrow ideology over historical research, historical accuracy, and the actual experiences of Americans.

As the institution chartered by the U.S. Congress for “the promotion of historical studies” and “in the interest of American history, and of history in America,” the American Historical Association must speak out when the nation’s leadership wreaks havoc with that history. So, too, must the O.A.H., as the organization committed to promoting “excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history.” It is bad enough to forget the past; it is even worse to intentionally deny the public access to what we remember, have documented, and have expended public resources to disseminate.

At this writing, the full range of historical distortions and deletions is yet to be discerned. Federal entities and institutions subject to federal oversight and funding are hastily implementing revisions to their resources in an attempt to comply with the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and executive orders such as “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” These changes range from scrubbing words and acronyms from websites to papering over interpretive panels in museums. Some alterations, such as those related to topics like the Tuskegee Airmen and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, have been hurriedly reversed in response to public outcry. Others remain. The scrubbing of words and acronyms from the Stonewall National Monument webpage, for instance, distorts the site’s history by denying the roles of transgender and queer people in movements for rights and liberation. This distortion of history renders the past unrecognizable to the people who lived it and useless to those who seek to learn from the past.

It remains unclear whether federal agencies are preserving the original versions of these materials for future reference or research. Articles written by historians for the National Park Service, for example, have been altered, and in some instances deleted, because they examine history with references to gender or sexuality. These revisions were made without the authors’ knowledge or consent, and without public acknowledgment that the original articles had been revised. The A.H.A.’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct is clear: “Honoring the historical record also means leaving a clear trail for subsequent historians to follow. Any changes to a primary source or published secondary work, whether digital or print, should be noted.”

Words matter. Precision matters. Context matters. Expertise matters. Democracy matters. We can neither deny what happened nor invent things that did not happen. Recent executive orders and other federal directives alter the public record in ways that are contrary to historical evidence. They result in deceitful narratives of the past that violate the professional standards of our discipline. When government entities, or scholars themselves, censor the use of particular words, they in effect censor historical evidence. Censorship and distortion erase people and institutions from history.

The A.H.A.’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct makes clear that historians can neither misrepresent their sources nor omit evidence because it “runs counter” to their interpretations. The O.A.H. and A.H.A. condemn the rejection of these professional standards. Classifying collective historical scholarship as “toxic indoctrination” or “discriminatory equity ideology” dismisses the knowledge generated by the deep research of generations of historians. It violates the training, expertise, and purposes of historians as well as their responsibility to public audiences.

Our professional ethics require that “all historians believe in honoring the integrity of the historical record.” We expect our nation’s leadership to adhere to this same basic standard and we will continue to monitor, protest, and place in the historical record any censorship of American historical facts.

Several other societies affirmed their support for this statement: the Association of University Presses, Education for All, Labor and Working-Class History Association, National Council for the Social Studies, North American Conference on British Studies, PEN America, and the Society for U.S. Intellectual History.

The examples of suppressed information in this statement are all about twentieth-century history, but White House demands haven’t spared Revolutionary parks. For example, at the beginning of this year one park’s webpage on non-white people working for American independence included this question: “Why don’t we hear more about this part of the American Revolution?” The answer was historic racism. We’ve known that since William Cooper Nell’s work in the 1850s. But the current administration doesn’t like that answer, so it’s gone.

Fortunately, the rest of that webpage remains, as do many related articles and profiles on the same site. The hard-working staff of the N.P.S. is still dedicated to telling our national story, including the hard parts, as fully and accurately as they can.

And on that topic, the Sestercentennial events at Minute Man National Historical Park include:

Saturday, 19 April, 3 P.M.
A Fight for Freedom: Patriots of Color Walking Tour
start at the North Bridge Lower Parking Lot on Monument Street

“Secrets on the Road to Concord” in Scituate, 15 May

On Saturday I attended the “Spies Among Us” event in Concord, described back here.

Top highlights:

• Seeing the Wright Tavern sprucing up as it prepares to reopen to the public next month, including the Pursuit of History weekend on “The Outbreak of War” that I’m helping to organize there (a couple of seats may still be available).
• Enjoying all the special touches the National Park Service staff and volunteers brought to this event, including a full-size replica of Ens. Henry DeBerniere’s map from the Library of Congress and a Concord role-playing game.
• Hearing details about what brought the British troops to Concord and remembering back during the 2000 commemoration when many of those were still little beads I was trying to string together into a narrative that became The Road to Concord.

So I’m eager to keep spreading the word at my upcoming speaking engagement for the Scituate Historical Society. [This event was originally scheduled for March and postponed.]

Thursday, 15 May, 7–8:30 P.M.
Secrets on the Road to Concord
G.A.R. Hall, 353 Country Way, Scituate

Early in the spring of 1775, British army spies located four brass cannon belonging to Boston’s colonial militia that had gone missing months before. British general Thomas Gage devised plans to regain the cannon. Massachusetts Patriots prepared to thwart the general’s hopes. Each side wanted control of those weapons, but each also had reasons to keep their existence a secret. That conflict would end with blood on the road to Concord.

Admission is $15, or $10 for society members. Reservations are recommended, but payment will be accepted at the door.

I look forward to meeting more folks in shoreside Plymouth County.

(The picture above is a page from one of Scituate Historical Society’s artifacts of the 1770s: Caleb Litchfield’s notebook from when he was a teenager studying mathematics and navigation. Litchfield served in the Continental forces on land and sea during the war. After a brief time as a merchant ship’s master, he retired inland to Milton and then Weathersfield, Vermont.)

Anderson on Rebellion 1776 in Cambridge, 1 Apr.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest novel about the American Revolution is set in Boston: Rebellion 1776.

Anderson has won awards for her Seeds of America Trilogy (Chains, Forge, and Ashes), as well as her earlier novel Fever 1793 and the picture book Independent Dames: What You Never Knew about the Woman and Girls of the American Revolution.

She’s even better known for her contemporary novel Speak, which is frequently challenged in public schools and libraries because it addresses the problem of rape. She’s one of the handful of American authors who have won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Anderson described the scope of this new book:

My book covers the traumatic effects of the Siege of Boston, the growing political divide within families and communities, and the frightening smallpox epidemic, which threatened everything. One reason I continue to write about this era is because I think we could do a better job depicting the state of the colonies at the start of the Revolution in recognizing that independence was not a done deal.

As a protagonist Anderson created a thirteen-year-old girl named Elsbeth Culpepper, orphaned but taking advantage of the chaos and need for labor in Boston after the British evacuation to keep herself away from the Overseers of the Poor.

Anderson’s long conversation with Horn Book editor Roger Sutton goes deep into her research and storytelling processes:

First I had to understand what the cultural, financial, and sociological constraints were then on a thirteen-year-old kitchen maid. But then came the chaos of the siege, then the changing of the armies, and then it took a while for Boston's government to get up and running again. That chaos opened the door for me and my character to break some rules, some constraints. And then as society gets its act back together, the walls and rules come back up again.

I recommend that interview for anyone writing historical fiction.

Anderson will be speaking and signing books at a ticketed event for Porter Square Books on Tuesday, 1 April. That will happen at the Marran Theater in Cambridge. Admission is $25 (which includes a signed book) or $10 (which doesn’t).

New Book on Revere’s Ride Arriving

For the Sestercentennial, Macmillan is publishing The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, by Kostya Kennedy.

The publisher’s description says:

In The Ride, Kostya Kennedy presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh primary and secondary source research into archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more. Kennedy reveals Revere’s ride to be more complex than it is usually portrayed—a loosely coordinated series of rides by numerous men, near-disaster, capture by British forces, and finally success. While Revere was central to the ride and its plotting, Kennedy reveals the other men (and, perhaps, a woman with information about the movement of British forces) who helped to set in motion the events that would lead to America’s independence.

Kennedy’s background is in sports writing, with books on Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, and Pete Rose.

Looking at how the industry advance notices of the book, I don’t see anything new mentioned. What those reviewers tout as news—that Revere made many rides besides the famous one, that there were many riders on that date besides Revere, and that Margaret Gage may have leaked news of the British march—were all in David Hackett Fischer’s book Paul Revere’s Ride, published in 1994. But the reviews praise Kennedy’s fast-paced and witty writing style.

Kennedy is doing a book tour in New England in the coming fortnight.

Monday, 24 March, 6 P.M.
Harvard Coop
Cambridge

Tuesday, 25 March, 7 P.M.
Papercuts Bookshop
Jamaica Plain
Reserve space here

Thursday, 27 March, 7 P.M.
RJ Julia
Madison, Connecticut
Reserve space here

Monday, 7 April, 6 P.M.
Griswold Memorial Library
Colrain

Abraham Fuller and “the exact records of the military stores”

Yesterday I quoted a description of the Rev. Jonathan Homer of Newton late in life, by the poet and doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Homer’s writings include a “Description and History of Newton, in the County of Middlesex,” published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1798. And that article includes an anecdote related to the British army expedition to Concord 250 years ago next month.

In writing about the local politician Abraham Fuller (1720–1794), Homer said:

To him, as principal of a committee of the Provincial Congress at Concord, were committed the papers containing the exact records of the military stores in Massachusetts at the beginning of 1775. Upon the recess of the Congress, he first lodged these papers in a cabinet of the room which the committee occupied.

But thinking afterwards, that the British troops might attempt to seize Concord in the absence of the Congress, and that these papers, discovering the public deficiency in every article of military apparatus, might fall into their hands, he withdrew them, and brought them to his house at Newton.

That foresight and judgment, for which he was ever distinguished, and which he displayed in the present instance, was extremely fortunate for the country. The cabinet was broken open by a British officer on the day of the entrance of the troops into Concord, April 19, 1775, and great disappointment expressed at missing its expected contents.

Had they fallen into their hands, it was his opinion, that the knowledge of the public deficiency might have encouraged the enemy, at this early period, to have made such a use of their military force, as could not have been resisted by the small stock of powder and other articles of war which the province then contained. He considered the impulse upon his mind to secure these papers, as one among many providential interpositions for the support of the American cause.

Fuller was indeed a member of a Massachusetts Provincial Congress committee appointed on 22 Mar 1775 “to receive the returns of the several officers of militia, of their numbers and equipments,” plus inventories of the towns’ “stock of ammunition.”

He wasn’t the senior member, named first and thus by tradition the chair. All the others—Timothy Danielson of Brimfield; Joseph Henshaw of Leicester, Spencer, and Paxton; James Prescott of Groton; and Michael Farley of Ipswich—were colonels in the Massachusetts militia while Fuller was still a major. But he lived the closest to Concord, so it makes sense he felt responsible for securing the committee’s sensitive records.

(I should note that at this time, the congress included both Abraham Fuller from Newton and Archelaus Fuller from Middleton, and that spring both men held the militia rank of major. Sometimes clerk Benjamin Lincoln remembered to identify which “Major Fuller” the congress meant, and sometimes not. In this case, the official record dovetails with Homer’s story.)

Another version of this anecdote appears in the family genealogy Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller, Newton, 1644–1698, published in 1869 by Samuel C. Clarke:

Judge Fuller was a very earnest patriot before the Revolution, and it is told that previous to the fight at Concord, fearing that the British might destroy the County Records at that place, he rode over from Newton the day before the fight, and carried away the most valuable of the papers in his saddlebags to his house in Newton.

Interestingly, in a footnote Clarke quoted Homer’s text, which says Fuller hid sensitive records for the whole province, making his action more important. Yet Clarke stuck to what seems to be the family’s idea that those were only “County Records.” In a way they were, since the militia regiments were organized at the county level.

Clarke’s version also said that Fuller wanted to prevent the British regulars from destroying those records rather then to prevent those soldiers from reading them. That seems more in keeping with the Patriot mindset in early April 1775. They thought they were preparing well for war, not woefully deficient, and feared the army might destroy their means of self-governance.

All that said, I’ve never come across evidence that the British troops in Concord were looking for Provincial Congress records. Gen. Thomas Gage didn’t gather any intelligence about where those documents were kept or put them on his list of what the regulars should look for. No British officers on the march described such a search.

I therefore think that everything Homer wrote about “a British officer” breaking into the cabinet because he “expected” to find records inside is probably imaginary.

Fuller took care to keep those papers away from the army, just as Paul Revere and John Lowell took care to move John Hancock’s trunk into the woods at Lexington, and just as Azor Orne, Elbridge Gerry, and Jeremiah Lee took care to hide from the troops passing by their tavern in west Cambridge. But that doesn’t mean those careful actions thwarted the British mission in any way. We like to think our actions have an effect on the world.

(The photo above, courtesy of Find a Grave, shows the Fuller family tomb in Newton’s east burying-ground. It’s about half a mile from my house.)

“The procession of the old clergymen who filled our pulpit”

Back in January I quoted Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on one of the impressive clergymen who came to preach in his father’s pulpit in Cambridge while he was a boy.

Young Oliver was born in 1809 in the house that had belonged to the Harvard College steward Jonathan Hastings. In 1775 the Massachusetts committee of safety and Gen. Artemas Ward took it over as the first rebel headquarters of the war.

In The Poet at the Breakfast Table, Holmes described some ministers whose names I know because they wrote recollections about the Revolutionary period when they themselves were boys.

Holmes recalled the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris (1768–1842) of Dorchester this way: “already in decadence as I remember him, with head slanting forward and downward as if looking for a place to rest in after his learned labors.”

The Rev. David Osgood (1747–1822) has made only one appearance in Boston 1775, guarding his privilege to perform all marriages in his town. Holmes recalled him as “the most venerable David Osgood, the majestic minister of Medford, with massive front and shaggy over-shadowing eyebrows.”

Holmes’s longest profile limned the “attenuated but vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton, who was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in wickedness or wit.”

Homer (1759–1843) was minister of the first congregation in Newton, where Homer Street preserves his name. Holmes went on:

The good-humored junior member of our family [Holmes himself?] always loved to make him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale’s Version, and the Bishop’s Bible, and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or other, and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he was very much pleased with the contents of his letter, and so on about Sir Isaac, ad libitum,—for the admiral was his old friend, and he was proud of him.

Homer and Coffin had been classmates at the South Latin School, one becoming an American clergyman and the other a British admiral. Coffin’s recollections of life in that school were invaluable to me in writing about its culture.

The kindly little old gentleman was a collector of Bibles, and made himself believe he thought he should publish a learned Commentary some day or other; but his friends looked for it only in the Greek Calends,—say on the 31st of April, when that should come round, if you would modernize the phrase.

In other words, that magnum opus’s day of publication would never arrive.

William Browne, John Glover, and a Farmhouse in Swampscott

Save the Glover is a campaign by several historic organizations in Swampscott and neighboring towns to preserve an eighteenth-century farmhouse.

The house was originally built in the third quarter of the 1700s by William Browne (1737–1802), a wealthy and respected lawyer. It was his country estate since he already owned a mansion in Salem, as well as part of a family seat in what’s now Danvers.

Browne was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1762. Though he joined the Customs service in 1762 as collector for the port of Salem, he favored local merchants enough to keep getting reelected—until he voted to rescind the Circular Letter of 1768.

After that, Browne was firmly on the side of the royal government. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson rewarded him with appointments: as colonel of the Essex County militia, as judge in the county court, and eventually as the last royal appointment to the Massachusetts superior court in 1774. That same year, the London government named him to the mandamus Council.

Refusing to resign from the Council made Browne unpopular locally. Dozens of militia officers refused to serve under him. He moved to Boston late in 1774, to Britain in 1776, and to Bermuda as royal governor in 1781. The state of Massachusetts confiscated Browne’s real estate, including that country house and land.

Gen. John Glover (1732–1797) of the Continental Army bought the property and moved in with his second wife in 1782. He lived there for the rest of his life, welcoming fellow veterans and serving in local offices.

In 1793 the Rev. William Bentley recorded how “the general received us with Great Hospitality” when a committee came through to settle the boundaries of Marblehead, Salem, and Lynn. Glover evidently felt he still lived in Marblehead, but surveyors determined that his house stood in a narrow splinter of Salem which later became part of Swampscott.

The property remained a farm through the nineteenth century. The photo above shows how it looked about 1910. In the twentieth century, the original house became the core of a larger inn and then restaurant, both named, in fine Colonial Revival fashion, for Gen. Glover. For the last thirty years or so, however, that complex has been abandoned.

Originally the Save the Glover campaign sought to preserve the house from being taken down for a new residential development (to be called Glover Residences, naturally). However, the developer has scrapped that project. Now weather and decay are the biggest dangers to the Glover house.

The Plain Language of the Alien Enemies Act

In 1798 the U.S. Congress, caught up in the possibility of war against France (then under the Directory government), passed a series of controversial laws.

The Naturalization Law made it harder for immigrants to become citizens of the U.S. of A. by increasing the number of years a person had to live in the country before applying. This was repealed in 1802.

The Act Concerning Aliens (distinguished as the Alien Friends Act) empowered the President to jail or deport any non-citizen who he determined was “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” This expired after two years.

The Sedition Act criminalized combining to oppose government measures and criticizing the U.S. government, House, Senate, or President. The John Adams administration deployed this law against Jeffersonian politicians and printers. It expired in 1800.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were strongly opposed at the time. They led to Jeffersonian victories over Federalists. Since then, historians and legal scholars have almost universally treated these laws as a Bad Thing.

The fourth of those laws from 1798 remained on the books, however: the Act Respecting Alien Enemies. It didn’t have an expiration date. Instead, its language limits the circumstances under which a President can invoke it.

The Alien Enemies Act empowers a President to act only

whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government

If “any foreign nation or government” is in a “declared war” with the U.S. of A. or has made a “predatory incursion,” then the federal government can jail and deport that country’s male citizens aged fourteen or older. The U.S. Constitution further vests the power to declare war in Congress, not the executive branch.

Last week the White House illegally invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador even though there’s no declared war against Venezuela nor any invasion by Venezuela.

In place of the law’s actual conditions, the White House claimed that the Tren de Aragua criminal gang and Venezuela amount to something it calls “a hybrid criminal state.” (It didn’t address how in 2023 the Venezuelan government deployed 11,000 soldiers to break up a Tren de Aragua stronghold.) The White House also claims that illegal migration by individuals, in unspecified numbers, is the equivalent of a government-led invasion.

In some ways, the President is an expert on criminal states. He’s a convicted felon, facing additional federal and state charges, adjudicated as liable for sexual assault, and bound by multiple legal settlements for fraud. But that experience in crime doesn’t give this President the legal power to invoke a statute contrary to its provisions.

The executive branch then further demonstrated its lawlessness by ignoring a judicial order to stop flying people out of the country until the legal issues can be decided.

The Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela shows the danger of allowing a coup plotter—in this case, Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez after 1992—to take political office. Coup plotters by definition don’t respect elections and the rule of law. Venezuela is now only nominally republican, actually authoritarian (as is El Salvador). But Venezuela isn’t in declared war against or invading the U.S. of A., as the Alien Enemies Act stipulates. It’s not the only criminal state in this story.

“Phebe Oliphant (a Black woman)”

At the Eleven Names Project, Wayne William Tucker shared a long essay about the preferred names of the black woman who helped to raise Abigail Adams and was part of her household later in life.

As Abigail grew up and married, that woman was enslaved to her father, the Rev. William Smith, probably coming from the family of her mother, formerly Elizabeth Quincy. The Quincy and Smith families referred to her by her first name only: Phoebe.

After becoming free in 1783, Phoebe married a man whom Abigail referred to as “Mr. Abdee.” Seeking to treat her in the same way as white women, the Adams Papers editors therefore referred to her as Phoebe Abdee.

Following that lead, I’ve tagged her under the name Phoebe Abdee. So did Woody Holton in one of the few articles written about her.

Tucker has found a more complex story in local records, however, indicating that Phoebe did adopt her husbands’ surnames—but Abdee wasn’t one of them.

First, Tucker brings up the possibility that Phoebe married and had children while enslaved to the Smiths, based on mentions of other people in the accounts settling the minister’s estate in 1784. That’s just a possibility, though.

In 1777, the Rev. Mr. Smith read out an intention to marry for his “Phebe” and “Brester Sternzey of Boston.” There’s no confirmation this union went through. (Boston’s town records don’t mention this intention. They state that the Rev. Joseph Eckley married Bristol Stenser and Deborah Foster on 16 Dec 1784.)

In 1784, Phoebe married a man Abigail Adams identified as “Mr. Abdee whom you know.” His name appears in town records as Abdi and Abda, elsewhere as Abdy. Tucker connects this man to “Abde Deacon Savil’s negro man,” who had married a woman enslaved to a Braintree minister back in 1754. It appears that Abdee (however spelled) was his given name, and that after emancipation (if not before) he used Savil as his surname. This man died in the first week of 1798, according to Abigail’s sister Mary Cranch.

On 19 Sept 1799, Quincy vital records show a woman named Phebe Savil marrying William Olifant. A month later, John Adams mentioned that Phoebe had remarried. In 1800, Abigail referred to Phoebe’s husband as William for the first time.

Finally, on 7 Oct 1812, weeks after Abigail referred to Phoebe as “sick and dying,” the Quincy records state that “Phebe Oliphant (a Black woman”) died at age eighty-three.

As Tucker says, the coincidences of the dates strongly suggest that the Adamses were referring to Phebe Savil/Oliphant, the woman Abigail had known all her life, without using her surnames.

Thus, it appears that “Phoebe Abdee” went by:

• Phebe as an enslaved woman, not by choice—her choice of surname, if any, unknown.
• Phebe Savil from 1784 to 1799, after her husband Abdee.
• Phebe Oliphant from 1799 to 1812, after her husband William.

This is a nice piece of research, supported by clips of the documents themselves, which helps to fill out a life we’ve known only through the Adams family.

“Spies Among Us” in Concord, 22 Mar.

On Saturday, 22 March, Minute Man National Historical Park and local partners will present a day of presentations and activities on the topic “‘Spies Among Us’: Intelligence Gathering by the British Army and Provincial Congress.”

This event will take place at the Wright Tavern in the center of Concord, a building that Massachusetts Provincial Congress committees and Lt. Col. Francis Smith both used at different times in April 1775.

National Park Service Rangers and volunteer living historians are preparing to welcome visitors to an open house from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., when they can see the newly refurbished tavern interior and learn about life in Middlesex County as the spring of 1775 began.

According to the current schedule, at 11 A.M. and 2 P.M. former Ranger Thompson Dasher will speak on “‘For the Information of Gen. Gage’: The British Spy Mission to Concord.” This interactive program will put visitors in the position of Concord citizens in March 1775 when Capt. William Brown and Ens. Henry DeBerniere of the British army came to town in disguise, gathering intelligence about hidden weapons.

Plans for this event had to be changed last month when the White House fired one Minute Man Park interpretive ranger, among several hundred more “probationary” employees across the agency—mainly public servants who had been in their current jobs for less than a year. For a short time it appeared that “Spies Among Us” would even be canceled.

Congress just funded the federal government through the end of its fiscal year in September, providing a little more stability. However, the executive branch continues to hold back legally authorized funds and initiatives, acting like a developer stiffing contractors after they’ve finished their work. It continues to break contracts and policies. Therefore, I doubt we’ve seen the end of trouble for public servants doing the jobs they were hired to do.

Five weeks from now, on Saturday, 19 April, Minute Man Park will host the Battle Road Tactical Demonstration—the largest, most authentic Revolutionary War reenactment yet planned. That event depends on on the expertise, authority, and coordination of the Park Service. It would be a damn shame if it’s made more difficult by monarchical impulses out of Washington.

N.P.S. personnel have been told to assure the public all is well. Propublica reported, “If asked about limited offerings, one park’s rangers were instructed to say ‘we are not able to address park or program-level impacts at this time.’” So we can only hope for the best.

On a less galling note, the Wright Tavern is also the home base for the Pursuit of History weekend on “The Outbreak of War,” scheduled for 3–6 April. We’ve planned that event to include visits to historic sites both in Minute Man Park and outside, and we have contingency plans for different situations. I understand a couple of slots have opened up, so it’s still possible to join us in exploring the start of the Revolutionary War.

“1775: A Society on the Brink” Conference in Concord, 11–12 Apr.

On 10–11 April, the Concord Museum will host a conference, organized with the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society, on the topic “1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution.”

The full schedule is available here.

The conference will start with a reception on Thursday evening, followed by a keynote discussion at 7 P.M.:

From Boycotts to Bullets: Was the Outbreak of the American Revolution Inevitable?

• Serena Zabin, Carleton College
• Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut, Emeritus
• Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College

On Friday, 11 April, the day will be devoted to five paper sessions, each seventy-five minutes long and featuring three papers by scholars ranging from graduate school to emeritus rank. A panel moderator will offer commentary and coordinate questions from the floor. One of those panels stands out for me—I’m sure you’ll see why.

9 A.M.: Faith and Ideas

10:30 A.M.: Communities in Crisis

• Donald Johnson, North Dakota State University, “From Observers to Generals: The Transformation of Local Committees at the Outset of the Revolutionary War”
• Sarah Pearlman Shapiro, Brown University, “Care Work Vulnerabilities and Sexual Assault in 1775 Boston”
• Kevin M. Sweeney, Amherst College, Emeritus, “The Guns of April: Kinds and Quantities of Firearms Kept and Borne in 1775”
• Comment: J. L. Bell, Boston1775.net

1:30 P.M.: The Coming of War

3:00 P.M.: Myth, Material, and Memory

4:15 P.M.: Concluding Remarks

The conference registration is only $20 and includes the Thursday evening reception and a boxed lunch on Friday. All attendees must register in advance. I hope to see some of you there!

Chatting with Some Revolutionary Figures

Here are a couple of first-person interpretations of Revolutionary figures to enjoy next week.

Wednesday, 19 March, 7 to 8 P.M.
Affectionate Friends and Humble Servants: Martha Washington and Mercy Otis Warren in Conversation
Concord Museum

Set in the late 18th century, this forum presents a fictional dialogue featuring Martha Washington (portrayed by Sandy Spector), the First Lady, and Mercy Otis Warren (portrayed by Michele Gabrielson), a prominent playwright and activist. In a cozy parlor setting, they discuss their friendship, their respective roles during the revolutionary era, and the challenges they encountered.

Through a mix of dialogue and historical anecdotes, their conversation highlights their personal reflections and the broader political context, emphasizing the bond that contributed to their influence on the emerging nation.

Admission is $10, or free to museum members. This event will not be livestreamed. Click here to reserve seats.

Thursday, 20 March, 6 to 8 P.M.
Fireside Chat with Paul Revere
Wayside Inn, Sudbury

Join Paul Revere by the fireside at this historic tavern for a spirited review of the notoriously inaccurate Longfellow poem that immortalized his “Midnight Ride.” Heavy hors d’oeuvres included with the price of a ticket, and drinks will be available for purchase at the bar. For the last thirty minutes of this event, interpreter Michael Lepage will step out of character to answer questions about the work that goes into representing historical figures.

Tickets are $20 for members of the Wayside Inn Foundation or the Paul Revere House, $25 for nonmembers. Phone 978-443-1776×1 to reserve tickets at the member price. For general-admission tickets without the member discount, click here.