On September 27, 1774, 26-year-old Dr. Nathaniel Freeman of Sandwich, Massachusetts, led 1500 Patriots from the Cape Cod area in “the first open overt act done in the face of day without disguise, which according to the British jurisprudence, would be called treason,” as reflected on the 1774 event in the June 3, 1837 issue of Niles’ Weekly Register.
Freeman led the massive party to the Barnstable County Court House to protest an unfair British-imposed method of juror selection. For more background about this historic event, read Mary Hall Leonard’s Cape Cod Magazine article titled The Breaking Up of The Barnstable Court (1915).
The purpose of this post, however, is to raise awareness of what may be the Tory retaliation for Freeman’s march on the Barnstable Court. The October 24, 1774 issue of the Newport Mercury reports that six Tories attempted to murder Freeman. According to the report, pictured below, Freeman escaped and the six Tories eventually received their own justice from the Sons of Liberty.
If you were a gambling American in late 1774, you would have appreciated reading these betting odds, published in the October 24, 1774 issue of the Newport Mercury (Rhode Island). “Five to one that if the sword is drawn, General Gage mistakes a windmill for a magazine of arms, and is more intent on gaining bread, than victory, for his troops.”
Colonial newspapers are unsung heroes of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. Specifically, several newspapermen and women deserve recognition for their role in America’s founding, including:
Benjamin Edes and John Gill, Boston Gazette
Isaiah Thomas, Massachusetts Spy
William Goddard, Pennsylvania Chronicle
Peter Timothy, South Carolina Gazette
Thomas Green, Connecticut Courant
John Holt, New York Journal
Solomon Southwick, Newport Mercury
William Gradford III, Pennsylvania Journal
Mary Goddard, Maryland Journal
Anne Catharine Green, Maryland Gazette
James Rivington, Royal Gazette
Paul Revere, engraver for colonial newspapers (e.g., Massachusetts Spy and Boston Gazette)
One author who recognizes the revolutionary role of newspapers, and their printers and journalists, is Eric Burns, author of Infamous Scribblers (2006).
Marrying the story-telling flair of McCullough with the journalism history acumen of Mott and Emery, Burns says that the Boston Gazette, arguably the most influential newspaper the country has ever known, got us into the Revolutionary War, sped up the course of the war and may have even determined the outcome of the war. And a good chunk of Infamous Scribblers is dedicated to supporting this thesis.
As Burns admits, “Perhaps the importance of the press to the outcome of the war can be exaggerated, but not easily and not by much. It was newspapers that kept the colonies informed of the progress of the fighting in a way that letters and patterers could not have done, and in the process united the colonies in a way that was beyond the ability of the jerry-built wartime government.”
Burns points out that newspapers were the only form of media at the time and served as the great unifier of our nation during a time when America “needed unity as much as we needed ammunition.”
Below are a few other highlights from Infamous Scribblers:
On reporting and publishing during the Revolutionary War:“The Revolutionary War was not an easy one to cover. For one thing, once the fighting started there was more news than ever but no more shipments of ink or type or spare parts for the presses coming into American ports. There were no more shipments of paper either, and, as for the quantities still available or smuggled into the colonies from a friend in the motherland or a trader in another European nation, there were higher priorities for it than journalism.”
On a newspaper’s role in the Revolutionary War:“It was Franklin, though, who most succinctly and accurately assessed the role of the media in the days leading up to the war. It was he, astute as ever, who pointed out that the press not only can ’strike while the iron is hot,’ but it can ‘heat it by continually striking.’”
On an unlikely spy embedded as a printer:“Jemmy [James] Rivington’s Tory newspaper, the Royal Gazette, was extremely critical of George Washington. However, Rivington was also a spy who passed along secrets of the British navy to colonial leaders. On one occasion, Rivington helped break a British code that almost surely saved American lives during one of the war’s earlier battles.” Read the Rag Linen blog post on this topic.
Additional resources on the role and significance of colonial printers during the American Revolution:
