The life of Artemas Ward, the first commander-in-chief of the American Revolution ...

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Birth of Artemas Ward. His Boyhood 3

II 1 744-1 763. At Harvard College. The

Introduction

THIS volume, modest though its size, represents a great deal of labor. It has involved a personal scrutiny of the original official records of half a century, and of a great quantity of other material, printed and manuscript, in scores of public and private depositories.

Its story is of the high elevation of an eighteenth-century Massachusetts country-township leader. In Artemas Ward it presents a type as clear-cut and distinct as that of the Samuel Adams of the Boston town-meeting and the wealthy Washington of Virginia; and it tells of a life lived in the strength of an unquestioning faith in the Puritan religion, of an intelligence of high order "directed chiefly to the practical interests of mankind," of a character distinguished by industry, and patience, and forgetfulness of self, by tenacity of conviction and complete integrity.

I have worked throughout with the intent to produce a biography faithful to accuracy. I have kept ever in mind the title of historians and students to the full evidence without interpolation, omission, or evasion; and I have ruthlessly discarded pleasing family traditions except when I have found them to be supported by impartial authorities.

I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of many individuals.

Chief among them is Mr. Artemas Ward of New York, publisher of the biography, whose whole-hearted cooperation has been extended every step of the way, who stimulated enthusiasm when the task grew wearisome — who never begrudged expense, and who sturdily agreed with me on an xii INTRODUCTION

unswerving policy of tiie truth, — only the truths — and the whole truth.

Next came Miss Clara Denny Ward of Shrewsbury, Mass., custodian of the Artemas Ward Manuscripts. It is my one regret that she did not survive to read the story in which she was so keenly interested.

Lengthening the list are the other descendants of General Ward who opened family collections for my use, and officers of archives, historical societies, and libraries.

A great deal of my material was obtained from the rich store of manuscripts in the Massachusetts Archives. Most of my research there was done while Mr. James J. Tracy was Chief, and he accorded me every possible aid and facility. I found the same earnest effort to be of service when Mr. John H. Edmonds succeeded Mr. Tracy. A special tribute is due to Miss Alice R. Farnum, First Assistant, for much long-continued painstaking investigation.

I have frequently delved also in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society; and Mr. Julius H. Tuttle, librarian of the former, and Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, librarian of the latter, have always met me with most kindly helpfulness.

I have, in addition, spent months in the New York Public Library and have enjoyed the consistent courtesy of its officials; and I have been the recipient of many favors from the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, from the Boston Public Library, and from Mr. William C. Lane, librarian of Harvard College.

Finally, I acknowledge my indebtedness to Lord Dartmouth, great-great-grandson of the Lord Dartmouth of this biography, for generously free access to the famous Dartmouth Manuscripts; and to Mrs. Harriette M. Forbes for having placed at my service the manuscript of her forthcoming Bibliography of Early New England Diaries.

For the convenience of students and in support of statements, I have given copious references, except that I have

INTRODUCTION xiii

omitted all references to executive and legislative journals. Every statement made of the proceedings of the Massachusetts General Court, the Provincial Congresses, the Continental Congress, and the United States Congress has — unless otherwise especially noted — been taken from the official journals, and, being dated, can be found almost as easily without, as with, page numbers. To have given references for all such statements would have greatly Increased the number of foot-notes, and would have been of only trifling assistance to students.

Charles Martyn.

Chapter I

The Birth of Artemas Ward. His Boyhood

MASSACHUSETTS was in the throes of a religious awakening when on Sunday, November 26/ 1727, in the new settlement of Shrewsbury, a boy was born "unto Nahum Ward and Martha, his wife." They christened him "Artemas," having drawn the name from the Bible in the old New England way. This book is his biography.

In 1727 we are still but a little way beyond our first century in North America.

The English colonies have waxed strong despite their losses and tribulations in conflict with nature, the French, and the Indians; despite their struggles with fiscal problems; despite the mixed blessings of the Imperial control of the seventeenth (and eighteenth) centuries. Their farms and plantations are productive, their ships and boats are many, and their commerce has steadily grown.

Their dominion comprises, however, a mere ribbon of territory along the Atlantic seaboard. And if one add to it the French settlements and outposts to the north and west, and the Spanish efforts to the south and southwest, the total thus attained of all the works of European hands and brains on the North American continent is still utterly overshadowed by the immensity of the unconquered spaces — the millions of miles of wild land peopled by savages. The French and English bloodily disputed the ownership of a continent upon whose surface all their forces were but as toy soldiers on a prairie.

^ Shreivsbury Town Meeting Records, I, 300. Not November 27, as generally stated.

This was less than two hundred years ago — yet there are today within the United States a number of cities which have each a greater population than the total, then, of all the white people in North America.

The house in which Artemas Ward was born, and in which he grew to manhood, stood back from the Connecticut Road — later known as the Great Country Road (frequently abbreviated to the Great Road or the Country Road), the Post Road, the County Road, and (now) the State Road — nearly opposite the present Artemas Ward House. It was a square frame structure, with a big stone chimney and home-hewn oaken timbers.^

His father — known generally at that time as "Lieutenant Ward" from his militia rank — was a man of importance in the little group of farmers which constituted the Shrewsbury community. He had been one of the founders of the township — as, early in the history of New England, his grandfather, William Ward, a Puritan exodist, had shared in the founding of Sudbury and Marlboro. He was Shrewsbury's first moderator and its first selectman, and, as years went by, he filled every other town office — sometimes several of them simultaneously. On the incorporation of Worcester County, he became a justice of the peace and was admitted to the bar. Later, he was commissioned as a colonel in the colony service and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. As a youth he had followed the sea, and as a young man in his early twenties he had been master of a merchantman in the West Indian service.

Lieutenant Ward's wife, Martha, was a daughter of Captain Daniel How and Elizabeth Kerley. She was his first cousin, once removed: a great-granddaughter of William Ward, the exodist, through his daughter Hannah, and a granddaughter of Abraham How, another of the early "proprietors" of Marlboro.

'After the death (1754) of Nahum Ward, the house was sold to Henry Baldwin and achieved local fame as the Baldwin Tavern.

HIS BOYHOOD 5

The child life of little Artemas was that of the average eighteenth-century Massachusetts country boy in a family of comfortable circumstances. He was one of six children: four of them older, one of them younger. He attended school during the short periods that "school kept" in Shrewsbury, and supplemented this instruction by home studies under the / supervision of the minister, the Reverend Job Gushing; he did his share of the farm chores; he got into a moderate amount of boyish mischief. He rode to the neighboring towns on his father's errands : with greatest frequency to the little county-town, Worcester. As his penmanship acquired neatness and steadiness, he helped his father in the filling out of writs and other legal papers — an apprenticeship to the judicial career which later so well became him. And on the Sabbath he sat and stood through the long sermons and long prayers which consumed the greater part of the day.

Nor, for their influence on an imaginative young mind, let us forget the evenings of the New England winters as the family sat within the glow of the big log fire, and Lieutenant Ward (or Colonel Ward, as his father became while Artemas was still a small boy) told of the dangers and adventures and hardships encountered and overcome during the first century of the history of Massachusetts: dwelling much on the early Puritan days, and what had been lost, and what had been saved, of their works and faith; and recounting tales of the French and Indian wars which had blazed and devastated.

He told of his grandfather's house in Marlboro, garrisoned as a fort in King Philip's War; and of his uncle, Eleazer, who in the same conflict was killed by Indians on the highway between Marlboro and Sudbury. Of the township of Worcester, only five miles away, twice abandoned because of the redskin danger: Lieutenant Ward was twenty-nine years of age when it was finally resettled in 17 13, and for yet another dozen years It was intermittently in peril of being again blotted out. Of the slaying or capture of his brother Elisha by Indians, and how his mother never gave up hope of

Elisha's return: when she died, eleven years later, her will contained a remembrance for him If he "shall ever come again." Of other relatives and many friends who had lost their lives In frontier skirmishes or along the Indian trail.

Thus the boy grew up, the history of an eventful century strong in his ears and mind, and blending therein with the lore of township and provincial politics universally and perpetually discussed by those around him.

As he passed Into his teens the development of his character set him somewhat apart from his brothers, and suggested and justified his father's decision to send him to Harvard College. So to the Reverend Gushing was assigned the duty of preparing him for entrance.

For home reading, he had the benefit of his father's library — twoscore books and several dozen pamphlets, chiefly on religious subjects and the law; a very small library by modern standards, but much above the average of the time.

Chapter II

Enters Harvard College 1744. Is graduated, A.B., 1748. Goes to Groton to "teach school." Returns to Shrewsbury and opens a general store. Marries Sarah Trowbridge. Elected to various township offices. Commissioned as Justice of the Peace. A.M., 1 75 1. Captain and Major in the county militia. Elected Representative for Shrewsbury, and repeatedly reelected. Marches on the alarm after the capture of Fort William Henry by the French. Major in a regiment raised for the Ticonderoga campaign. Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. The Battle of Ticonderoga. Commissioned as Colonel. Appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Worcester County. Moves his family into the "Old Part" of the present Artemas Ward House.

THE full chronicle of the life of Artemas Ward commences with his admission to Harvard College In 1744. He was then sixteen years old. Prior to that time, testimony is scant; after It, his footsteps may be clearly followed.

The tutor for Ward's class was Thomas Marsh, a graduate of 1 73 1. From 1737 to 1741 he had been college librarian and In 1755 he became a Fellow of the Corporation.

Marsh, as was then the custom at Harvard, took his class through the entire course from freshman to senior, excepting divinity, Hebrew, higher mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. It was not until 1767 that the four tutors began to divide the subjects Instead of the pupils they taught.

Much time was spent on theology and the classics, and Hebrew was an Important Item of the curriculum.

The Professor of Divinity was the Reverend Edward Wigglesworth, of the class of 17 10 and S.T.D. Edinburgh

University, 1730. Higher mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy were taught by Professor John Winthrop, 1732, a man of broad acquirements who became an authority on astronomy and seismology. Hebrew classes were conducted by Judah Monis, a converted Jew of Italian birth who served as a Harvard instructor for nearly forty years.

In Ward's day the number of students at Harvard averaged about a hundred, against the several thousands of recent years.

Customs differed also — the breakfast served at Commons then consisted of bread and a "cue of beer" I Equally distinctive was the "placing" of students by the social rank of their famihes — a custom closely related to the New England practice of "dignifying" the meeting-house. The stations thus assigned held good everywhere within college jurisdiction: in chapel, at recitations, at Commons, etc. Of the twenty-nine freshmen of 1744, Ward was "placed" as seventh.

Ward's record at college is very clean. During his term a number of the students were brought before the faculty on various charges, — for not returning on time at the close of vacations, for drinking liquors, for being absent from Commons without leave, and for disorderly conduct of various degrees, — but Ward's name never appears among the delinquents.

In 1747 (November 21), a senior sophlster, he Is second on the list of twenty-two students who volunteered to assist the president of the college in a crusade against "swearing and cursing."

Profanity was a common falling of the times. In later years, as justice of the peace. Ward Individually supplemented this students' crusade by fines freely and frequently laid upon offenders 1

Those twenty-two student volunteers held no conception of profanity as merely "disorderly speech" or "vulgarity." For

1744-1748'] AT HARVARD COLLEGE 9

them, it held its original significance in the fullest force : it was a sinful taking in vain of "the great and holy name of God"; a breach of one of the Commandments on which their forefathers had founded the laws of a new country; a crime against their supreme Sovereign, the dread Ruler of the universe. The Puritan religion had lost its earlier harsh inhumanity and had dropped much of its bigotry, but it remained a very virile creed, not at all given to euphemistic glossing.

Ward was between twenty and twenty-one years of age when he was graduated on July 6, 1748. A great occasion for him and his classmates when they marched, two abreast, to the meeting-house to receive their Bachelor degrees.^ And the little town of Cambridge echoed the thought, for it overflowed with dignitaries and lesser visitors from far and near. Commencement Day being then the chief of Massachusetts holidays.

Four of Ward's classmates were to achieve political prominence in the province. Two of them took their stand on the patriot side when the break came; two of them adhered to the tory, or prerogative, party.

After graduation Ward went to Groton, Mass., to "teach school."

He boarded with the Groton minister, the Reverend Caleb Trowbridge, well known in his own right and with a wife who represented a line of famous Massachusetts theologians: she was a daughter of the Reverend Nehemiah Walter, a granddaughter of the Reverend Increase Mather, and a great-granddaughter of the Reverend John Cotton.

^ Because no names are attached to the theses by the candidates for the Bachelor's degree, it is impossible to determine which was Ward's, but in 1751 when he came up for his Master's degree he was Affirmat Respondens on the Quaes tio, "An conscientia constituat Identitatem personalem."

The defense of theses by A.B. candidates, and of the positions assumed on quaestlones by A.M. candidates, had descended as a custom from previous generations. Each candidate was supposed to be ready to uphold his proposition or standpoint, but in the course of time it had come about that in most cases the listing was both the beginning and the end of the subject: he was an exceptional candidate who spoke at the commencement exercises. Ward was one of the exceptions in 1751 — he was one of the three candidates for the Master's degree who actually defended their standpoints. The other two were Perez Marsh and Thomas Sanders.

lo ARTEMAS WARD [A^e 20-23

The Trowbridge house, a square two-story building, then stood on the site of the present High School.

Young Ward's room was on the second floor rear, overlooking the meadow which stretched away from the base of the high ground of the house location. Within easy range was a pond which attracted wild ducks on their migrations. The tradition is that the young school-teacher — at a future year to be the first commander-in-chief of the American Revolution — used to amuse himself by "potting" ducks from his chamber window.

Not all of his spare moments were, however, devoted to duck shooting, or otherwise spent in the privacy of his own room. Some were given to courtship, for it was not long before he found himself attracted to the minister's oldest daughter, Sarah, a young woman of twenty-five years, three years his senior.

There remains no description of Sarah Trowbridge as a girl, but as remembered in later life she was a "calm, selfpossessed woman." Family tradition has it that she "inherited some of the firm characteristics of her Mather ancestors." Her strength of mind was probably pleasing to Artemas Ward, for there was nothing light or frivolous in his composition I

With matrimony in prospect Ward resigned his position as schoolmaster and returned to Shrewsbury early in 1750 to establish himself in the house known to tradition both as the Yellow House and the (first) Sumner House, standing westerly of the meeting-house and facing toward the Great Country Road.

The boundaries of the property, of inverted-L shape, enclosed about thirty-four acres of farm-land, fronting about five hundred feet on the road.^

^ The Yellow House and farm were purchased by his father, Colonel Nahum Ward, in three lots on April 4 and 7, 1750: the house, two acres of land, and a barn on the adjoining "meeting-house land," from Moses Hastings ; about nine acres to the west and north of the Hastings plot, from Asa Bowker; and twenty-three acres adjoining the

D. Cubarto l^olpofee,

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IV. An Statu. rivU"^ omtur « PaflU. ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ C A R O L U S C H A U N C Y.

jifirmat Rifpcndens ARTEMAS WARD.

IX. An Idea adzquiu juftltdc in Deo, a nobis fomari poflit. ^ ,, ^ ,_,_.„ „ r- r^ r^ v r

XII. An PtxTcientia divina loUat Ujertatera agendi. . . ,, „ „ a r n> iir 1 m

yiff.rmat RefpofJins THOMAS SANDERS.

I XVI. An Tnnor b Amore neceflaric inCudatur. _„,.,. t, r^

Jffim^t Re/pondtm THOMAS HIBBERT.

HisSuccedit O R ATI O Valediaoria.

From an original (9^/^ X IS^^) in Harvard College Library

THE QUESTIONS TO BE DEBATED BY THE CANDIDATES FOR THE DEGREE OF A.M., HARVARD COLLEGE, 1751

174S-1751'] BEGINNING OF PUBLIC CAREER 11

The house had a rear lean-to which had been used as a shoemaker's shop, and in this, on April 21, Ward opened a small general store. His stock ranged from dry-goods to rum.

Rum, be it remembered, was then an article of thoroughly good standing in New England, and a part of every man's diet, whether preacher or layman; as essential at church-raisings and ordinations as on strictly secular occasions. "Temperance societies" did not come into being for another half century, and total abstinence and prohibition were still longer delayed.

Most of his accounts were with men of Shrewsbury; a few were with residents of neighboring towns.

Some of his customers paid in cash. Others by merchandise — homespun cloth, "cyder," fish, etc.; or in labor — "making a saw, staples, etc.," "making a pair of [leather] breeches," "dressing one deer skin," carting, etc.

His marriage quickly succeeded the opening of his store. It was solemnized on July 31 at the Trowbridge home In Groton.

The following spring (March 4, 1751) the Shrewsbury farmers made him tax assessor — the first of his many civic appointments, and an ofl'ice to which he was reelected a score of times.

Three months later (June 22), though only twenty-three years old, he entered upon his long service as justice of the peace — an official of dignity and importance in that generation. It was undoubtedly with much pride that he received his commission issued "By order of the Lieutenant-Governor with the Advice and Consent of the Council" : an imposing document with its round red seal, its conventional "greeting" by "George the Second, By the Grace of God, of Great

Bowker plot on the north, from Moses Hastings. The house stood a little to the west of the original structure of the present Sumner House, and nearer the road.

Three years later (February 15, 1753), Colonel Ward transferred the property as a gift to Artemas Ward ("in consideration of the love, good will and affection which I have and do bear towards my well beloved son Artemas Ward").

Britain, France, and Ireland, KING, Defender of the Faith, etc.," and its signature by Spencer Phips, Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay.

The next year (1752) the town clerk's duties were added to his responsibilities, and he was also voted into the full dignity of a selectman: his first of twenty terms as such.

These township offices developed and shaped Ward's character and career.

Of special influence was the experience gained as one of the selectmen, — the executive officers of the township, — for he thus encountered the many-sided problems of human government.

Improving this experience was that as justice of the peace: both locally and in General Sessions at Worcester. The sitting-room of the Yellow House was his home court, and in it he married many couples, tried a large class of minor offenders, and balanced the scales of justice between disputant neighbors.

By province laws a justice of the peace had wide discretion In many cases — up to the point of sentencing a culprit to be whipped or to be put in the stocks. Drunkards, profaners of the Sabbath, and peace breakers were among those who could thus be punished.

A "profaner of the Sabbath" included any rash or selfindulgent person who essayed to travel on Sunday except on a very real and easily demonstrable emergency. And this law was strictly enforced in Shrewsbury — as, generally, in the other country districts of Massachusetts. Nor did Ward ever relax his early sabbatical vigilance : we find him, a generation later, a man of sixty-one years, a general and a chief justice, standing in the Shrewsbury highway to halt infractors of the Sunday law.

That these functions as selectman, justice of the peace, etc., were performed upon a small stage, gave them additional educative value, for the audience sat very close to n 52-17 55\ BEGINNING OF PUBLIC CAREER 13

the actors and was prompt to note and quick to protest any false step or sentiment.

Local opinion was very strong. It was Indeed more than that — it was almost omnipotent in local affairs, for the town-meeting appointed all town officials and had the making or approval of all local laws" and orders, subject only to the authority of the General Court ;^ and in town-meeting every inhabitant had an equal voice and spoke his mind — proposing, arguing, and disputing as his interests and sentiments moved him.

Ward's repeated reelection as selectman and the continuous acquiescence of the townspeople in his tenure as justice of the peace, testify both to his willingness to assume responsibility and to his intelligent grasp of human relations: to a knowledge of, and respect for, local needs, sentiments, and traditions; and to a reputation for even-handed justice.

The cumulative responsibilities undertaken also testify to the industry which distinguished him. The combination of duties, clerical and otherwise, as selectman, town clerk, and assessor, added to those of justice of the peace, with the incidental drawing up of documents, letters, etc., which accrued from that office — all imposed upon the conduct of his store — must have made him the busiest young man in Shrewsbury !

On May 7, 1754, his father died, closing a much respected and enterprising life at the age of sixty-nine. His will, after carefully providing for his widow, divided his estate among his four surviving children and his two grandchildren by his eldest son Nahum, who had died In 1738.

Artemas and his brother Elisha were named as executors and residuary legatees.

On January 28 of the following year (1755), Ward was commissioned major of the Third Regiment of Militia In

* "General Court" was the customary abbreviation of "Great and General Court" — the title of the Massachusetts legislature under both the first and second charters. With the adoption of the state constitution, the abbreviation became the title.

the counties of Middlesex and Worcester, and captain of the First Company in the town of Shrewsbury.

Two years later (May 16, 1757) he was elected for the first of many terms as the township's representative In the General Court, and nine days thereafter he was in the capital for the short spring session.

The Boston to which he came as a provincial legislator, had led the continent for more than a century. It was only a little town of about 16,000 inhabitants, but It hummed with trade, and shipping, and shipbuilding. Its social life, too, was varied and attractive, and It treasured no small amount of luxury in the homes of its many well-to-do citizens. It was capable of a substantial brilliancy In display and entertainment, and on gala dates, such as the anniversary of the King's birthday, and Accession and Coronation days, it miniatured London with excellent effect.

It was at this time even more than ordinarily full of life and bustle, its normal industry enhanced by the activities of war. The Seven Years' conflict was flaming across the civilized world and, crossing the Atlantic, had locked France and England in the final struggle for supremacy in North America.

The Representatives' Chamber in which Ward took his seat under the carved wooden codfish, was on the second floor of the Old State House — the same building which stands today at the head of State Street, though then known as the Court House, or, locally, as the Town House.

Ward's assignments during his initial term were confined to committees to consider soldiers' petitions.

In the following August came his first call to arms In the excitement which swept Massachusetts on news of the fall of Fort William Henry to the French and their Indian allies — the story made lurid by the Indian atrocities which stained the French victory.

There was widespread fear that Montcalm would follow up his success : first with an assault on Fort Edward and then

1 7 57-^ 7 5^] THE TICONDEROGA CAMPAIGN 15

a general eastward invasion. Thousands of militiamen grasped their firelocks and marched west and north toward the fort to meet the enemy. Among them were Major Ward and his companies.

Montcalm, however, displayed no intent to attack, and General Webb, commander at Fort Edward, dispatched orders halting all militiamen on their way toward it. So Ward marched his men back to their homes after a very brief absence. And Montcalm, satisfied with his capture of all the supplies at Fort William Henry and his total destruction of the post, retired to Montreal, releasing his Canadians for the harvest.

Ward had thus missed the summer meeting of the legislature, but he was promptly on hand for the opening of its third session on November 23, and during the two months following he was again on committees to consider soldiers' petitions, and on others respecting army supply claims and subsistence payments, and town and guardianship detail.

He returned to Shrewsbury on January 26, 1758, and shortly after was enlisting men for a regiment to be commanded by Colonel William Williams in a new and formidable expedition against the French forces and positions at Ticonderoga and Crown Point — designated by Pitt as part of his threefold plan for the destruction of French power in North America. The Ticonderoga-Crown Point army was to be headed by Abercromby, the King's commander-in-chief on the continent.

Ward was commissioned as a major in Williams' regiment.

He was in Boston again on March 3 for the opening of the last session of the 1757-175 8 legislature.

On the fourteenth he was named on a committee to examine a militia act passed January 25, and "Report whether it may not be expedient to suspend the Operation of some Parts thereof for some Time, and to prepare the Draught of a Vote accordingly." The Abercromby campaign would draw so many men away from farms and other callings that public opinion was opposed to the further interruption of essential labor by the general assembling of militia companies on "training-days" as required by the act.

On March 20 the committee reported a bill which the governor refused to sign. After much effort, a substitute bill came out as Chapter 26, Acts of 1757-1758.