| + | Reported died in service | Trum. | Trumpeter |
| * | Reported deserted | Chpl. | Chaplain |
| c | Reported captured | Intr. | Interpreter |
| ds | Reported discharged | Gun. | Gunner |
| Gen. | General | Suing. | Surgeon |
| Col. | Colonel | Qrm. | Quartermaster |
| Maj. | Major | Trm. | Truckmaster |
| Capt. | Captain | Corn. | Cornet |
| Lt. | Lieutenant | Armr. | Armourer |
| Ens. | Ensign | Plt. | Pilot |
| Sgt. | Sergeant | Adj. | Adjutant |
| Corp. | Corporal | Comm. | Commissary |
| Pvt. | Private | Co. | County |
| Trp. | Trooper | ||
| Clrk. | Clerk | ||
| Drum. | Drummer |
For more than two decades after the 1713 signing of the Treaty of Utrecht there existed among the powers of Europe what one historian aptly called the eighteenth-century equivalent of the twentieth-century "cold war."1 In North America the aggressive colonial policies of the French, English, and Spanish resulted in numerous border disputes and minor clashes. Two major conflicts - Dummer's War from 1722 to 1725 and the War of Jenkins' Ear from 1739 to 1742 - also disrupted the uneasy peace of these years. The latter conflict eventually expanded into an international war, known as the War of Austrian Succession on the Continent and as King George's War in America. The Massachusetts government during this time defended its frontiers by maintaining several companies of soldiers at small garrisons, forts, and trading posts from the Connecticut Valley to the Kennebec River in Maine. It also supported the British government by recruiting more than five hundred men to serve on the ill-fated expedition to Cartagena in 1740.
The present volume covers the latter two-thirds of this period and provides the names and service data for enlisted men and officers enrolled in the land forces of Massachusetts from 1723 to 1743.* It is the fourth in a biographical series published jointly by the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. It follows the format of Robert E. MacKay's Massachusetts Soldiers in the French and Indian Wars, 1744 - 1755 (Boston, 1978) and continues an alphabetical listing of all soldiers found in the Massachusetts Archives in the twenty-year period immediately preceding the years included in Mr. MacKay's volume.2
Following the Treaty of Utrecht which ended twenty-five years of warfare in North America between the English and French, Massachusetts families saw an opportunity to regain lost ground and began to move again to New England's northern and eastern frontiers. Settlement after 1713 fell into three categories. First was the reoccupation of abandoned towns such as Saco, Scarboro, Falmouth, and North Yarmouth in Maine. Second was the revival of claims by speculative land companies to areas in Maine occupied before 1696 but abandoned during Queen Anne's War - Pejepscot, Arrowsick, St. Georges, and Pemaquid (later Fort Frederick). Third were the settlements established by disbanded soldiers who had been granted lands by the Massachusetts General Court; by French Huguenots; and by hundreds of Scotch-Irish immigrants who arrived in Boston after 1718 under the encouragement of land speculators.
Massachusetts families moved in several directions. From Worcester, Massachusetts, they headed west and north up the Connecticut Valley; others crossed the Merrimack River and moved along its banks into New Hampshire; in Maine families spread out along the Kennebec River or moved northward into the contested territory above the Kennebec known as Acadia, including Nova Scotia. Both Britain and Massachusetts sought to colonize Acadia in order to prevent French domination. England claimed the entire region as part of the Treaty of Utrecht. The French, however, argued that Acadia was only a small part of Nova Scotia.3
Conflict soon arose on the eastern frontier as land speculators, settlers, and unlicensed traders began encroaching on the lands of the Abnakis Indians, who maintained their allegiance to the French. Encouraged by their French advisors, the most well-known of whom was the Jesuit missionary Sebastian Ralé the Abnakis finally erupted into open warfare. With the aid of the French, they descended in 1722 on a settlement of New England fisherman in Nova Scotia, plundering and destroying their camps. That same year a Massachusetts expedition tried unsuccessfully to seize Father Ralé at the Indian town of Norridgewock on the upper Kennebec River, blaming him for the renewed attacks The Abnakis retaliated by attacking new settlements; at Brunswick they burned many houses and carried off several inhabitants. Finally, in July 1722 Governor Samuel Shute of Massachusetts proclaimed a state of war against the eastern Indians. When he retired soon afterwards as governor, his successor William Dummer carried on the war and so the name "Dummer's War."
Because of the unexpected change of governors, and also because of disagreements between the Governor's Council and the House of Representatives over which body should conduct the war, an offensive effort was not undertaken until February 1723. Colonel Thomas Westbrook then led a force against the Indian town of Panawanske above Bangor, Maine, burning it to the ground.4 In 1724 the colonists struck a fatal blow in an attack on Norridgewock. Attempting to capture Father Ralé, they surprised the Indians and in the ensuing battle Father Ralé was killed. In retaliation the French instigated an attack on Dunstable, Massachusetts; this in turn prompted the town's militia captain, John Lovewell, to organize a party of bounty-seeking scalp hunters in the spring of 1725. Lovewell led several successful forays against the Indians before he and many of his company were killed in an ambush near Pigwacket.
Despite the massacre of his company, Lovewell's raids as well as the destruction of Norridgewock had seriously weakened and scattered the eastern Indians. Realizing the futility of their situation, and deprived of much needed English trade goods, they sent a delegation to Boston to sue for peace. An accord was reached in December 1725, bringing Dummer's War officially to an end. The Indians submitted to King George I and acknowledged the English right to all settlements made previously.5
The pacification of the eastern Indians increased the interest of settlers and speculators in the wilderness lands of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. Hundreds of families pioneered in central New Hampshire, while farther eastward settlers moved into formerly contested lands above the Kennebec River. In Massachusetts, the protection offered by Fort Dummer, built in 1723 eleven miles above Northfield, convinced many families to settle in the Berkshires.
Dummer's War also resulted in stricter government control of the Indian trade. After 1725, the Massachusetts General Court designated three truckhouses in Maine as officially sanctioned places of trade with the Indians: St. George's for the Penobscot Indians on the Kennebec River; Richmond, also on the Kennebec; and Saco on the Saco River near Union Falls. The first two had been established in 1719 - 1720, while the Saco garrison had existed as early as 1693. Following Dummer's War, the three truckmasters werethe only persons legally allowed to trade with the Indians. Also, Massachusetts troops were garrisoned at the truckhouse forts until at least 1763.6
From the 1720s until the outbreak of King George's War in 1744 the zone of settlement and forest clearing expanded rapidly, much to the alarm of the native tribes and the French. Despite the absence of open hostilities, this period was characterized by intense rivalry for Indian allegiance, the fur trade, and new territory. The competition ranged across the northern frontier from Maine to the Great Lakes region. When war with France was renewed in 1744 open hostilities were quickly resumed throughout this vast region. On the southern frontier Indian resistance to British settlement was broken in 1728 by the defeat of the Yamassees in South Carolina. However, in 1739 friction over trade in the Caribbean and the newly created colony of Georgia resulted in open conflict between Britain and Spain, later referred to as the War of Jenkins' Ear.
The War of Jenkins' Ear was the consequence of a protracted struggle between Spain and England over economic control of the West Indies and Spanish America.7 The Peace of Utrecht did little to solve longstanding differences between the two nations existing since before the Great Armada. Indeed, it spawned new issues as England was allowed to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean at Spain's expense. She also was permitted by its terms to remain at Gibraltar and to annex the island of Minorca. Later in the 1720s and '30s the two countries clashed over territorial expansion in North America. In 1733 tempers flared over the founding of Georgia as a British colony, as Spain felt her colonial interests in Florida were threatened. In 1735, during the growing conflict over Georgia, England further antagonized her old foe by dispatching a fleet to Lisbon to protect her interests there during a Spanish-Portuguese dispute. Also, relations were worsened by disputes over alleged British rights to cut logwood at Campechy Bay and to gather salt on Tortuga Island.8
The heart of the diplomatic struggle leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear was a quarrel over illicit trade by the English to the Spanish West Indies.9 Following the Peace of Utrecht, England had developed a growing illicit trade with Spanish America as a means of compensating for limited opportunities in that area. By the treaty, Britain's South Sea Company had been given the famous Asiento, a thirty-year monopoly of the Spanish slave trade; but otherwise only one British merchant ship a year was allowed to do business with Spain's American colonies. All other trade to this area was limited to a licensed Spanish-owned fleet which was scheduled to sail annually from such ports as Vera Cruz, Porto Bello, and Cartagena. The South Sea Company could trade only while the Spanish fleet was present; thus it was confined to the ports visited by the Spanish. Between 1713 and 1739 only nine Spanish ships sailed to the colonial ports, which severely limited British profits in this region.10
In their frustration many British and American merchants resorted to smuggling their goods into Spanish America. The demand for contraband was increased sharply by the erratic departures of the Spanish fleet. For example, in the 1730s there was a seven-year period when the fleet never left port. Also, the smugglers were assisted by corrupt local officials and port authorities who could be bribed to admit ships under provisions of a treaty which allowed storm-damaged British vessels to refit in Spanish ports.11
These "Spanish insults and depredations" increased sharply during the 1730s. After eleven ships were captured in 1737 an inflamed British public demanded stern measures be taken against Spain. Merchants trading to the West Indies led the protest and submitted a petition calling for action. To dramatize the need for protection, Robert Jenkins, who had been a merchantman in the Caribbean in 1731, visited Parliament in March 1738/39 carrying preserved in a bottle what he claimed was his ear, an innocent victim of guarda costa brutality. "Jenkins' Ear" was soon appropriated by the English populace as a rallying cry for military action.12
Politics delayed any relief to the West Indies merchants as Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, and Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle and secretary of State for the Southern Department, clashed over the proper course of action to be taken against the Spanish. Walpole was determined to avoid war and hoped to resolve differences with Spain through negotiation. Newcastle believed that the ministry should submit to the wishes of the mob, the merchants, and a growing faction in Parliament. As a show of force, he sent a naval squadron of nine ships to the Mediterranean early in 1738; at the same time he dispatched General James Oglethorpe's regiment to Georgia and issued Letters of Reprisal to American privateers.13
Walpole's diplomacy and Newcastle's ships resulted in the signing of the Convention of Pardo in January 1738/39. The Convention obliged Spain to pay £95,000 to the British government within four months of ratification as compensation for the British ships which had been improperly seized. Also to be settled were outstanding differences over the Florida-Georgia boundary, logwood cutting, and the right of search on the high seas.14
Despite the Convention of Pardo, relations continued to deteriorate between England and Spain. When Spain was denied a claim of £68,000 against the South Sea Company, she retaliated by refusing to pay the £95,000 which had been agreed upon as compensation for the seizure of British ships. She also protested the continued presence of the British squadron in the Mediterranean, which had been ordered to remain because of the news of an impending Franco-Spanish alliance. Finally, in July 1739, following the continued harassment and illegal searches of British ships, King George II authorized reprisals against Spain and made available letters of marque. Vice Admiral Edward Vernon was sent to the Caribbean to fulfill his boast that Porto Bello could be taken with "six ships only." War was officially declared on 23 October 1739, much to the pleasure of members of Parliament, English merchants and the London populace.15
In Massachusetts these developments were followed by first-hand reports and newspaper accounts. Returning Massachusetts merchantmen complained of the preying guarda costas. As early as 20 August 1739, the Boston Gazette declared that liberty had been granted by the king to make reprisals against the Spanish. Almost immediately three ships in Newport, Rhode Island, were outfitted for that purpose. Soon afterwards several ships were refitted in Boston and sent out to the West Indies. In all, thirty-two privateers were commissioned in Massachusetts.16
In the months of 1739 and early 1740 many Massachusetts men were excited by numerous accounts of booty and adventure in the West Indies. The Boston Gazette for 1017 December 1739 described a Rhode Island privateer with thirty men aboard which raided a town on the north coast of Cuba. The New Englanders drove off the town's defenders and collected more than £3,000 in gold and silver. Another Gazette report told of the capture of a rich Spanish prize carrying 20,000 pieces of eight. At the same time Spanish seizures of British and American ships were seldom mentioned in colonial newspapers, even though Spain actually captured 316 vessels between 1739 and 1741.17 There was more rejoicing when it was learned that Vice Admiral Vernon had indeed needed "six ships only" to capture Porto Bello in November 1739.
Many Massachusetts men, then, were already dreaming of adventure and booty when they learned on 21 April 1740 that England had declared war against Spain. Standing dramatically on the Council Chamber balcony, Governor Jonathan Belcher read the declaration to the town's militia, the troop of guards, and a great crowd of Bostonians. The announcement was received with a patriotic flourish of huzzas and volleys from the militia, the cannon at Castle William, and the two town batteries. In this charged setting Governor Belcher appealed for volunteers to serve on an expedition against the Spanish in the West Indies. Each volunteer, he informed his audience,
would be supplied with arms and proper clothing and be paid by His Majesty, and have their share in the booty that shall be taken from the enemy, [and] be sent back to their respective habitations when the service shall be over, unless any of them shall desire to settle themselves elsewhere…. And for the further encouraging of this affair, all volunteers that shall enlist and proceed in this service shall be exempt from all impresses for three years after their return.18
An additional impetus to enlistment came with the Gazette's printing of the Lord Mayor of London's declaration to the King praising him for Vernon's capture of Porto Bello:
IIThe Execution of this important service, with so small a force and with so much intrepidity must greatly redound to the reputation of Your Majesty's Arms and strike terror into the Enemy who will now by Experience be convinced (Whatever mistaken notions they may have formed from this Nation's long forbearance) that the maritime power of Great Britain, being at length exerted is able effectually to vindicate the Glory….of Your Majesty's Crown Revenge….and retrieve the Honour of the British flag.
This auspicious beginning of the War must give Your Majesty's faithful subjects the most reasonable expectation of obtaining such future successes.19
With expectations of easy victory, Americans responded to the appeal for volunteers in large numbers. Although the British government asked the Colonies to raise 3,000 men, most of them quickly filled and exceeded their quotas. In Massachusetts there were more than nine hundred volunteers.* Only Virginia resorted to impressment, and she solved an irritating problem in the process by impressing former indentured servants and convicts who wandered about as vagabonds and were responsible for much of that colony's crimes. Elsewhere, outside of Massachusetts, enlistees were drawn from all ranks of society: servants, freemen, and sons of gentlemen, although the greatest number came from the lower orders. Ambitious militia officers saw the expedition as a potential means of entry into the British Army, or they hoped for a pension or other financial reward. Among this group were Captain Lawrence Washington of Virginia and George Clark, the son of the lieutenant governor of New York. Only a minority of volunteers, however, were as affluent as these men. Most came from poorer families, as the incentives for enlistment suggest. In Maryland, for example, exemptions from military duty, freedom from arrest for debt, and excuse from taxes and ferriage fees were clearly intended to appeal to that colony's unstable population.20
In Massachusetts the Cartagena volunteers can be divided into three categories, although here too the greatest number were recruited from poorer families.21 In the first group were young, unmarried sons of locally prominent families. They had not yet received their inheritance, but could anticipate acquiring enough land from their fathers to begin life without undue hardship. They apparently joined the expedition for the sake of adventure, military advancement, and the prospects of booty. The second group consisted of the middle sons of less wealthy families. Mostly unmarried, they were not likely to inherit a homestead or large acreage. Another distinguishing trait was their families' record of military service. Most could count relatives who were local militia officers or who had fought in earlier wars: King Philip's War in 1675, the 1690 or 1710 Canadian expeditions, or the Indian conflicts of the 1720s. The few married men in this group usually had several sons to support. They may have enlisted with the expectation of winning land or booty which could then be used to give their sons a better start. The third group was composed of men with little, if any, property. For them volunteering for the Cartagena was an attractive escape from debt, unpleasant servitude, or a future of little hope. Many had been in trouble with the law or belonged to families that had been repeatedly warned out of towns.
A closer examination of the three categories of volunteers reveals more about differences in marriage, migration, and inheritance patterns among the three groups. Members of the first group - who came from stable families, who had inheritance waiting, and whose fathers were still living - enlisted at the early age of 22; their average age at marriage was 26.5. For the third group - those who were transient or escaping debt - the average age at enlistment was 31; the average age at marriage for these men was 23.22
TABLE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF ENLISTEES BY PLACE OF BIRTH:
| Number | Percent | |
| Middlesex County | 57 | 35 |
| Hampshire County | 19 | 11.6 |
| Suffolk County | 14 | 8.6 |
| Norfolk County | 12 | 7.4 |
| Worcester County | 11 | 6.7 |
| Essex County | 10 | 6.1 |
| Plymouth County | 3 | 1.8 |
| Bristol County | 2 | 1.2 |
| Dukes County | 1 | 0.6 |
| South Carolina | 1 | 0.6 |
| Rhode Island | 1 | 0.6 |
| Connecticut | 2 | 1.2 |
| Ireland | 19 | 11.6 |
| England | 4 | 2.4 |
| Scotland | 2 | 1.2 |
| Jersey | 3 | 1.8 |
| Jamaica | 1 | 0.6 |
| Born at sea | 1 | 0.6 |
| 163 | 99.6 |
| Birth | Birth | Residence | Residence | |
| Number | Percent | Number | Percent | |
| Middlesex | 33 | 68.8 | 30 | 62.5 |
| Hampshire | 4 | 8.3 | 8 | 16.6 |
| Essex | 5 | 10.4 | 3 | 6.2 |
| Worcester | 1 | 2.1 | 3 | 6.2 |
| Norfolk | 1 | 2.1 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Plymouth | 1 | 2.1 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Suffolk | 1 | 2.1 | 0 | 0 |
| Rhode Island | 1 | 2.1 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Connecticut | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Unknown | 1 | 2.1 | 0 | 0 |
| 48 | 100.1 | 48 | 99.9 |
These figures indicate that the wealthiest enlistees, who married later (26.8), were forced to put off marrying because of parental influence. Reluctant to give up a large inheritance by moving away, they usually were obliged to wait until their fathers' deaths before they could acquire enough land to set up families. By contrast, those who belonged to poorer and/or highly mobile families often left home sooner and married much earlier, at about age 23. From generation to generation much more mobility was exhibited in these poorer families than occurred among the stable families whose sons had enlisted for adventure or career advancement.23
Jonathan Heywood typifies the soldiers in the first category. Twenty-two years old when he enlisted, he was a fourth generation son of the Heywoods of Concord. His father, a cordwainer was still living in 1740. The older Heywood was prominent in town affairs and had served as deacon for thirty years, town clerk for seventeen years, and selectman for twenty-five years. Jonathan survived the expedition, and in 1742 petitioned the General Court for a grant of land for his service. The petition was refused. Two years later he married, settling in Concord as a tanner. At his father's death in 1750, he inherited a freehold right in neighboring Acton. Jonathan was the father of six children, including four sons. When he died in 1774, his estate was inventoried at £1511 and amounted to 200 acres of land, as well as a house, tavern, stone cutter's shop, slaughter house, and currier's shop. Besides his considerable estate, Jonathan was prominent in town affairs and held an appointment from the Crown as the coroner of Middlesex County.24
John Oldham of Cambridge was another young man who joined the expedition to Cartagena as an adventurer. Although only thirteen years of age when his father died, John was named in his parent's will as heir to the homestead of sixty-one acres, valued at £1250. He was to receive the property at age twenty-one. However, when John reached maturity he enlisted in the expedition rather than assume responsibility for the farm. Only after his adventure in Cartagena did he marry and settle down on the homestead, becoming the fifth generation of his family in Cambridge. Throughout his lifetime, it appears that Oldham showed a lack of interest in his property. When he died in 1757 be owned only thirty acres, and his property was worth just £370, of which £115 was sold to pay creditors and provide support for his widow.25
In contrast to the first category, the volunteers in the second group were clearly lacking the means of a secure future. Most of these men had or could expect to receive an inheritance that was insufficient to establish themselves comfortably in their towns. A majority were middle sons. Several had been sued for minor debt, and a few were married men with families. Many of these men later reentered service during the French and Indian wars. Josiah Holt falls into this second category. At the age of seven he had moved with his family from Andover, Massachusetts, to Hampton, Connecticut. The Holts were among the original settlers of Andover, a town which had lost half of its sons through emigration by the third generation because of insufficient land and lack of opportunity. Now at age nineteen, Josiah faced a similar problem. At Hampton he was the fourth of six brothers, of whom only the eldest was married. Realizing that he must wait for a meager inheritance, he chose instead to return to Massachusetts and enlist in the Cartagena expedition. Unfortunately his dream of quick wealth was in vain, as he died during the expedition.26
Noah Wiswall of Newton was one of the few married men in this second group. Forty-one years old at the time of his enlistment in 1740, he was the father of eight children. Joining him on the expedition to Cartagena was his eldest son, Thomas, aged seventeen. Noah was the first of three sons in the fourth generation of Wiswalls residing in Newton, Massachusetts. At the age of nine he had inherited thirty-seven acres from his father's estate: later, when he turned twenty-one, he bought the remaining one hundred acres of his father's land from his mother and other heirs. He used this land to begin married life. Several years later, however, with eight unmarried sons and daughters all needing a start in life, he undoubtedly hoped to gain income and land in return for risking his life as a volunteer. He also imagined that Thomas might be rewarded with enough booty and property to buy a farm, which would greatly relieve his own obligation to his eldest son. But both men were disappointed when their company's commander was not commissioned, and they were forced to disband. As Noah's sons reached maturity all but one moved from Newton. Thomas married in 1748 at the age of twenty-five and left soon afterwards for Mendon, Massachusetts. Perhaps Noah viewed the Cartagena expedition as a way of providing the means to keep his family intact in Newton for another generation.28
While Noah was a man of very modest circumstances, he was never classified as "one of the poor of the town." In contrast to Noah, the volunteers who were socially and economically unstable frequently enlisted out of desperation. Most enlistees that fall into this third category had lived in several communities prior to volunteering; many were being pursued for debt; and a great number had been warned out of towns as undesirables. These "strolling poor" had no hope of an inheritance and lived on the fringes of society. Occupationally, this group contained more men who called themselves laborers, while the other two groups were composed almost entirely of husbandmen and artisans.29
Jonathan Brown was as clearly without resources when he volunteered in 1740. One of the third generation of the numerous Brown family of Concord, Massachusetts, he was the second of three sons in a family of eleven children. Like his older brother, Jonathan married at age twenty, which suggests the absence of traditional land-based parental control in his home. Jonathan first settled in Concord where he worked as a blacksmith. Soon he was in deep financial trouble and was forced to sell a thirty-acre house lot in Rutland, Massachusetts. Two years later he sold his rights to his grandfather's estate. Brown's situation continued to deteriorate. In 1737 he and his wife and nine children were warned out of Littleton, Massachusetts, even though they had lived in this community since 1726. When the warning out occurred, he may have been in Brookfield, Massachusetts, inquiring if this town would accept him and his family as inhabitants. In 1738 he returned to Concord, but was promptly ordered to leave. Finally in 1740, two months after his tenth child was born, Jonathan enlisted in the Cartagena expedition.
Surviving the campaign, Jonathan returned to Massachusetts with nothing to show for his sacrifice but his meager pay. His desperate gamble had failed; his problems increased. In May 1742 he was sued for a debt of ten shillings and £1 16s. court costs. The following September Jonathan and his family, now traveling with the widow of one of the Cartagena volunteers, were warned out of Stow. In 1745 they appeared in Westford, but the constant travel and endless poverty were taking a toll; Jonathan was too ill to appear at a session of the Court of the General Sessions of the Peace in 1745. The following year he enlisted out of desperation on an expedition to Annapolis, where he died. His personal estate contained only his weapon, some clothing worth £38, and £45 in cash as payment for his service at Annapolis. After the accounting, only £25 remained to pay several creditors for debts amounting to £52. His estate was declared insolvent and the creditors had to settle for 9s. 6d. on every pound.30
Peter Grout was another troubled enlistee. He had received an inheritance of £239, but somehow fell heavily into debt. For him Cartagena was a way to escape his creditors. Peter was the last of three sons born to Jonathan Grout of Sudbury. The Grouts were among the founders of Sudbury, and Peter's father had left an estate that included a house, gristmill, and 260 acres of land, worth £849 in all. Ordinarily, as the youngest son, Peter may have expected to receive the largest part of the estate, as a reward for caring for his parents in their old age. But Peter's father died intestate, which insured that the oldest son would receive a double portion,including the house and mill. Peter was given only 68 acres.31
After his father's death, Peter lived six years with a guardian. Upon turning twenty-one, he was given £55 and one ounce of silver apparently the remainder of his inheritance. In 1738 Peter's fortunes declined. He defaulted on a £40 note from William Brattle which he had promised to repay within one year. Two years later he had run up debts totaling £131; making matters worse was a judgement against him for a note of £85, decided on 26 May 1740. The next day he enlisted. However, in June the sheriff caught up with Peter and arrested him.32
Arrests such as Peter's, and there were very many, prompted Governor Belcher to submit a bill to the General Court in 1740 entitled "An Act for Encouraging the Expedition Against the Spanish Settlements in the West Indies." By this law no soldier with debts less than £30 could be arrested and prevented from going on the expedition. Prosecution for debt was to be postponed until the soldiers return. This law may have worked in Peter's favor, as he rejoined his company. The expedition, however, proved to be Peter's undoing, as he died in Jamaica or Cuba. His will, made just before his departure, distributed eight acres and £150 to his brother and sister; undoubtedly all of it went to satisfy his creditors.
From the study of these volunteers in the Cartagena expedition, it appears that war meant several things: escape, self-improvement, adventure, a show of patriotism. However, the pursuit of wealth and status dominated the motives for enlisting. In most cases the Cartagena volunteers were in immediate need of money and land. That almost nine hundred men responded so quickly to the call suggests that colonial Massachusetts was burdened by a large pool of landless or potentially landless and destitute people. Military service as a common soldier also served a purging function in Massachusetts society. It removed enough men to reduce to some extent the problem of poor relief in some towns. More importantly, it eased the pressure for land within individual families - although this was a small consolation to loved ones for the loss of fathers and sons. But, as only fifty of the five hundred enlistees ever returned from Cartagena, some fathers as a consequence were able to do more for their surviving children.33
The ''cold war'' in the years following the Treaty of Utrecht allowed a generation of Massachusetts families to live in relative peace. They were the last generation to be free of wartime service until after the Revolution. Except during the minor clashes known as Dummer's War, the period was marked by rapid frontier settlement. Great numbers of European immigrants were transported by land speculators from the ports of Boston and Salem to remote areas in Maine and New Hampshire. The older counties of eastern Massachusetts also sent their native sons to newly opened wilderness townships.
Military service also excited the imaginations of young men in this period. At the least it allowed them briefly to escape personal crises - debt, family conflict, poverty, servitude. But it also provided a dramatic, if slim, chance of bringing light to a dim future: perhaps the volunteer would capture enough gold and silver to start a new and prosperous life back home; more realistically, he might be able to convince the General Court once he returned, to reward his heroic service with a large grant of valuable land.
Finally, it seems that the years covered in this volume reflect the progression of a distinctive American culture. By 1740 Massachusetts society was more Yankee than Puritan.34 Nowhere was the growth of Americanism more apparent than when Massachusetts and British soldiers were required to serve jointly. On the Cartagena expedition British officers confronted both American pride and the complex contractual arrangements under which the provincial soldier served. They reacted, unfortunately, with arrogance and condescension, forcing American soldiers to labor aboard ships or to carry supplies and build fortifications. Few Massachusetts soldiers ever saw battle, and few of their officers received promotions at the end of the campaign. As a result, there was much bitterness in Massachusetts over the way the British army had treated these young Yankees.
Dislike of the British military intensified in 1748 when Louisbourg, captured only three years earlier, was returned to the French. New Englanders believed that in making this decision Britain had failed completely to appreciate the vast potential of the American future; worse, she had ignored the region's fundamental security needs.
When the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle brought an end to nine years of conflict in 1748, colonial boundaries remained unchanged. But for the people of Massachusetts no amount of persuasion would restore their minds to the status quo ante bellum; old attitudes were changing; new prejudices were forming.
In preparing this volume I have relied upon the assistance and generosity of many people and institutions. I should like to thank the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and in particular Mr. Howard Gambrill, Jr., the Chairman of its Charitable Contributions Committee. Without their generosity and commitment to scholarship this work could not have been undertaken. Professors James A. Henretta and David D. Hall, both of Boston University, provided support, guidance, and encouragement. Thanks are also extended to the staff of the Massachusetts Archives, whose patience and assistance facilitated the research. I must express a special thanks to the Director, Dr. James B. Bell, and the editorial staff of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. A special debt is owed Dr. Ralph J. Crandall, editor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, for his patience, encouragement, and editorial precision. A number of other staff members, but particularly Robert MacKay, provided advice and the kind of support one always needs. Finally, thanks to Leslie Choquette, who typed this list.
Myron O. Stachiw American and New England Studies Program,
*Ship muster rolls have not been included in this list; nor are they included in Robert Mackay's volume. Because no offensive action was taken by Massachusetts forces until February 1723, that year was chosen as the beginning date for this volume.
1. Douglas F. Leach, Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America, 1607 - 1763 (New York, 1973), Chap. 5.
2. The information for this volume was taken extensively from volumes 91 and 92 of the Massachusetts Archives collection of the colonial muster rolls. All the available muster rolls have been reproduced on microfilm and can be viewed at the State Archives Search Room, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Massachusetts. A total of 136 muster rolls were consulted in the compilation of the following lists of Massachusetts Soldiers. Notes used in the preparation of the present work are on deposit in the Archives of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to Robert Mackay's volume, earlier volumes in the series include Charles Hambrick-Stowe and Donna D. Smerlas, Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers of the Lexington Alarm (Boston, 1976); and Nancy S. Voye, Massachusetts Officers in the French and Indian Wars, 1748 - 1763 (Boston, 1975). The reader is referred to the prefaces of both works for a brief discussion of the types of information included in the muster rolls in the Massachusetts Archives.
3. Douglas E. Leach, The Northern Frontier, 1607 - 1703 (New York, 1966), 133; Robert E. Moody, "The Maine Frontier, 1609 - 1763" (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1933), 319, 321.
4. Francis Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict (Boston, 1892), 1: 237.
5. Moody, "The Maine Frontier," 350.
6. Ibid., 350, 351.
7. John Tate Lanning. "The. American Colonies in the Preliminaries of the War of .Jenkins' Ear," Georgia Historical Quarterly, 11 (1927): 129-155: Harold V. W. Temperley, "The Causes of the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 3rd Ser., 3(1909); 197. Temperley calls the war the first English war in which trade interests absolutely predominated. The war was waged solely for the balance of trade rather than for the balance of power. From the war issued a series of conflicts waged between France and England in North America, known as King George's War and the Seven Years War; in Europe they were known as the War of Austrian Succession, with alliances drawn among Spain, France, and Prussia on the one side and England, Holland, and Austria on the other.
8. Devine, ''British North American Colonies," 12; Lanning, "The American Colonies," 130.
9. Temperley, "Causes," 204-207.
10. Devine, "British North American Colonies," 8, 9.
11. Ibid., 10, 11.
12. Ibid., 15. The symbol of "Jenkins' Ear" and the sentiment of the merchant, the self-constituted political liberator, the soldier of fortune, and the humiliated nationalist are represented in this eighteenth-century song: Our merchants and ears a strange pother have made With Losses sustained in their ships and their trade; But now hey may laugh and quite banish their fears, Nor mourn for lost liberty, riches and ears. Quoted in Lanning, "The American Colonies," 132.
13. Temperley, "Causes," 211); Devine, "British North American Colonies," 17.
14. Temperley, "Causes," 213 - 217.
15. Devine, "British North American Colonies," 20.
16. Boston Gazette, 13 - 20 August 1739; Lanning, ''The American Colonies,'' 142.
17. Lanning, "The American Colonies," 142; Boston Gazette, 10 - 17 December 1739; 17 - 24 March 1740.
18. Boston Gazette, 14 - 21 April 1740.
19. Ibid., 19 - 26 May 1740.
*Although nine hundred men enlisted, only five hundred actually participated in the expedition.
20. Lanning, ''The American Colonies," 147, 148; Devine, "British North American Colonies," 32 - 33.
21. A sample of 48 men was selected from a total of 163 names of men who enlisted for the expedition against the West Indies between May and July 1740. These muster rolls were found in the Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 91, Muster Rolls, 1710-1740. Muster rolls exist for all five of the companies that eventually went to the West Indies. However, only the rolls from these two compaines include such information as enlistees' age at time of enlistment, occupation, place of birth, and date of enlistment. An individual selected was then searched for in the vital records of the town he claimed as his birthplace, in genealogical records, in probate and land records, and in the records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace and the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. Probate and court records were examined only in Middlesex and Hampshire counties due to time constraints and the fact that these counties were the home of a majority of the men in the sample. If individuals could not be found in the vital records and no genealogical data could be compiled, they were eliminated and the next name in the interval was investigated. Many of those who claimed birth in Massachusetts towns could not be found in the vital records. This may be the result of the manner in which the records were compiled. Many were based on church-recorded births, deaths and marriages; omissions may have resulted from the loss of church records from a particular parish of a town. However, the omissions could also mean that the church or town officials did not record the event because the family had only a peripheral association with the stable community. In a study of Milford, Connecticut, in the seventeenth century, Gerald F. Morgan found that Milford's newcomers tended to be more mobile than the town's original settlers. Their length of stay in the community was directly related to their rate of religious participation. Taken from the other side, those who moved around and were not church members or town inhabitants may not have had the same attention given to recording their demographic events as did the members of the community ("Religious Renewal, Puritan Tribalism, and Family in Seventeenth Century Milford, Connecticut," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., 36 [1979]: 240, 241). John Waters also suggests that there existed two societies: a more stable society rooted in several generations of life in one village, and a second society characterized by constant mobility, social instability, and economic disadvantage. Those men who could not be identified in the records may have been a part of this second society. However, a genealogical history and inclusion in the vital records do not signify a stable position in society, as many of the 48 men in the sample demonstrated upon closer investigation (John J. Waters, "Family, Inheritance, and Migration in Colonial New England," paper presented at the 1979 meeting of the Organization of American Historians, New Orleans, LA., [April 1979]. The following tables provide counties of birth of all the men in captains Stephen Richard's and John Prescott's companies, and of the sample of 48 men. The sample of 48 contained nearly twice as many men who resided in Middlesex County as the population of 163.
22. The three categories presented in this paper are based on patterns of inheritance and mobility exhibited by the individuals' family members over the previous three or four generations. In addition, land transactions and court records were examined for the volunteers to determine their immediate economic situations. Where possible, the survivors upon their return were also examined. The three categories created from the sample of 48 contained the following numbers: the first group - 7, the second - 23, and the third group - 18.
23. This general statement is based on the genealogical histories of the men in the sample through five generations. Mobility, position in the birth order, and relative wealth were examined in arriving at this conclusion.
24. George Tolman, "Concord, Massachusetts Genealogical Records," typescript, (New England Historic Genealogical Society Library [NEHGS], n.d.); Concord, Massachusetts Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1635 - 1850 (Concord, n.d.), 91, 161, 434, hereafter Concord Vital Records; Middlesex Co. Probate Docket Nos. 10977, 11013; Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts (Boston, 1942), 20:308; Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (New York, 1976), 13, 46, 51, 160, 161, 174.
25. Ruth Story Devereux Eddy, "The First Two Hundred Years of the Oldham Family," typescript, (NEHGS, 1939); Vital Records of Cambridge, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1914); Middlesex County Probate Dockets Nos. 16208, 16209.
26. Daniel S. Durrie, The Hull Family, (Madison, 1864); Vital Records of Andover, Massachusetts (Topsfield, Mass., 1912), 1:204; Greven, Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, 1970), 167.
27. Concord Vital Records, 88, 89, 182; Middlesex County Probate Dockets, 7103, 7106: Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 20:308; Massachusetts Soldiers in the French and Indian War, 1714-1735, ed. Robert F. MacKay, (Boston, 1978), 146. Many examples of land petitioning can be found in the military volumes in the Massachusetts Archives. They suggest a relationship between the individual and his government based on personal economic gain. Many petitions to the General Court for land or financial support came from men with past military service or from their descendants.
28. Vital Records of Newton, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1905); Jonathan Wiswall, "The Wiswall Genealogy, 1450 - 1960," typescript, (NEHGS, 1961); James Burt Wiswall, A Wiswall Line: Ten Generations in Descent from Elder Thomas Wiswall of Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1635 (Boston, 1925); Middlesex County Land Records 31:419; 34:111; 41:194; 43:408; 48:244; 54:572; 83:1; Middlesex County Probate Dockets Nos. 25370, 25372; Voye, Massachusetts Officers; Mackay, Massachusetts Soldiers, 493.
29. The breakdown of occupations within the sample of 48 was as follows: 25 husbandmen, 19 artisans, 3 laborers and 1 physician. The first group was composed of 4 husbandmen and 3 artisans; the second had 12 husbandmen and 11 artisans; the final group contained 9 husbandmen, 5 artisans, 3 laborers and one man who called himself a physician. Based on the occupational composition of the sample, one can infer a similar breakdown for the entire group of volunteers. See note 30 for a discussion of the interchanging of occupational titles which may alter the composition of the final group.
30. Maxine Phelps Lines, "Records of Some of the Descendants of Thomas Brown of Concord, Massachusetts" typescript, (NEHGS); Middlesex County Land Records 25:565; 28:176; 32:335; Middlesex County Probate Dockets Nos. 3081, 3219; Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, Middlesex Co., 1735 - 1748 pp. 84 - 117, 320, 395, 406; Records of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, Middlesex Co., Docket No. 183. Jonathan Brown's occupation was often listed as laborer as well as blacksmith. When Jonathan referred to himself as the grantor of a land transaction, he would call himself a blacksmith. However, when referred to by others, as the grantee of a transaction or in the court records, he would be called a laborer. Obviously, Jonathan viewed his worth and occupation somewhat differently from other members of the community. Although he was unable to establish himself as a blacksmith in various towns from which he was warned out, he still claimed that as his occupation, while others saw him as an unskilled laborer.
31. Several historians have focused on the patterns of inheritance and their consequences in colonial New England. John Water's study of Barnstable, Mass., illustrates patterns of primo- and ultimogenture, the transmission of the estate to the eldest or youngest son. Repeatedly, it was these sons who were bequeathed the homestead over middle sons ("The Traditional World of New England Peasants: A View from Seventeenth Century Barnstable," Register, 129 [1975]: 6, 7; Waters, "Family Inheritance and Migration in Colonial New England," passim). Philip J. Greven demonstrates the changing patterns of inheritance for colonial Andover, Massachusetts. By the fourth generation, more than half of all sons in Andover were forced to leave their home towns for lack of a sufficient inheritance. Often it was the middle sons who made the move to a new community or newly opened lands (Four Generations, passim).
32. Elizabeth Boice Jones, Captain John Grout of Watertown and Sudbury, Mass. (Waterloo, IA, 1922); Middlesex County Probate Docket Nos. 9958, 9959, 9964; Middlesex County Records of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, Dockets Nos. 3, 5, 6; Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts (Boston, 1942), 18:109.
33. Jones, "Strolling Poor," Passim; Kenneth Lockridge, "Land, Population and the Evolution of the New England Society," in Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development, ed. Stanley N. Katz, (Boston, 1971), 467-491; Lockridge, "Social Change and the Meaning of the American Revolution," in Colonial America ed. Stanley N. Katz, 2nd ed., (Boston, 1976), 490-520; Greven, Four Generations; J. M. Bumsted, "Religion, Finance, and Democracy in Massachusetts: The Town of Norton as a Case Study," Journal of American History, 57 (1971): 817-831; Gross, Minutemen; Charles Grant, Democracy in the Connecticut Frontier Town of Kent (New York, 1961).
34. See Richard Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690 - 1765, (Cambridge, 1967).
CITATION INFORMATION:
Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers in the Lexington Alarm (Online database: NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002), (Orig. Pub. by The Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The New England Historic Genealogical Society, and The Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Archives Division, Boston, MA. Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe and Donna D. Smerlas, editors. Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers in the Lexington Alarm, 1976).
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