The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884

By their Honors Command,

James Prescott

Wm Severs

Cha Channey

B. Greenleaf

M. Farley

W. Spooner

Moses Gill

Caleb Cushing

J. Palmer

J. Winthrop

Eldad Taylor

John Whitcomb

B. White

Jedn Foster

B. Lincoln

Perez Morton

Dpt Secry.

The air of Lancaster, which proved so salubrious to the pensioners of the British government before named, grew oppressive to this tory bachelor, as we find by a lengthy petition in Massachusetts Archives (clxxiii, 546), wherein he begs for a wider range, and especially for leave to go to the sea-shore. A medical certificate accompanies it.

LANCASTER, OCT. 25. 1777

This is to inform whom it may Concern that Mr. Clark Chandler now residing in this Town is in such a Peculiar Bodily Indisposition as in my opinion renders it necessary for him to take a short Trip to the Salt Water in order to assist in recovering his Health.

JOSIAH WILDER Phn.

He was allowed to visit Boston, and to wander at will within the bounds of Worcester County. He returned to Worcester, and there died in 1804.

Joseph Wilder, Jr., colonel, and judge of the court of common pleas of Worcester County,—as his father had been before him,—was prominent among the signers of the address to General Gage. He apologized for this indiscretion, and seems to have received no further attention from the Committee of Safety. In the extent of his possessions he rivaled Abijah Willard, having increased a generous inheritance by the profits of very extensive manufacture and export of pearlash and potash: an industry which he and his brother Caleb were the first to introduce into America. He was now nearly seventy years of age, and died in the second year of the war.

Joseph House, at the evacuation of Boston, went with the army to Halifax. He was a householder, but possessed no considerable estate in Lancaster. In 1778, his name appears among the proscribed and banished.

The Lancaster committee of correspondence, July 17, 1775, published Nahum Houghton as "an unwearied pedlar of that baneful herb tea," and warned all patriots "to entirely shun his company and have no manner of dealings or connections with him except acts of common humanity." A special town meeting was called on June 30, 1777, chiefly "to act on a Resolve of the General Assembly Respecting and Securing this and the other United States against the Danger to which thay are Exposed by the Internal Enemies Thereof, and to Elect some proper person to Collect such evidence against such Persons as shall be demed by athority as Dangerous persons to this and the other United States of America." At this meeting Colonel Asa Whitcomb was chosen to collect evidence against suspected loyalists, and Moses Gerrish, Daniel Allen, Ezra Houghton, Joseph Moor, and Solomon Houghton, were voted "as Dangerous Persons and Internal Enemies to this State." On September 12 of the same year, apparently upon a report from Colonel Asa Whitcomb, it was voted that Thomas Grant, James Carter, and the Reverend Timothy Harrington, "Stand on the Black List." It was also ordered that the selectmen "Return a List of these Dangerous Persons to the Clerk, and he to the Justice of the Quorum as soon as may be." This action of the extremists seems to have aroused the more conservative citizens, and another meeting was called, on September 23, for the purpose of reconsidering this ill-advised and arbitrary proscription, at which meeting the clerk was instructed not to return the names of James Carter and the Reverend Timothy Harrington before the regular town meeting in November.

Thomas Grant was an old soldier, having served in the French and Indian War, and, if a loyalist, probably condoned the offence by enlisting in the patriot army; his name is on the muster-roll of the Rhode Island expedition in 1777, and in 1781 he was mustered into the service for three years. He was about fifty years of age, and a poor man, for the town paid bills presented "for providing for Tom Grant's Family."

Moses Gerrish was graduated at Harvard College in 1762, and reputed a man of considerable ability. Enoch Gerrish, perhaps a brother of Moses, was a farmer in Lancaster who left his home, was arrested and imprisoned in York County, and thence removed for trial to Worcester by order of the council, May 29, 1778. The following letter uncomplimentary to these two loyalists is found in Massachusetts Archives (cxcix, 278).

Sir. The two Gerrishes Moses & Enoch, that ware sometime since apprehended by warrant from the Council are now set at Libberty by reason of that Laws Expiring on which they were taken up. I would move to your Honrs a new warrant might Isue, Directed to Docr. Silas Hoges to apprehend & confine them as I look upon them to be Dangerous persons to go at large. I am with respect your Honrs. most obedient Hum. Sert.

JAMES PRESCOTT.

Groton 12 of July 1778.

To the Hone Jereh. Powel Esq.

An order for their rearrest was voted by the council. Moses Gerrish finally received some position in the commissary department of the British army, and, when peace was declared, obtained a grant of free tenancy of the island of Grand Menan for seven years. At the expiration of that time, if a settlement of forty families with schoolmaster and minister should be established, the whole island was to become the freehold of the colonists. Associated with Gerrish in this project was Thomas Ross, of Lancaster. They failed in obtaining the requisite number of settlers, but continued to reside upon the island, and there Moses Gerrish died at an advanced age.

Solomon Houghton, a Lancaster farmer in comfortable circumstances, fearing the inquisition of the patriot committee, fled from his home. In 1779, the judge of probate for Worcester County appointed commissioners to care for his confiscated estate.

Ezra Houghton, a prosperous farmer, and recently appointed justice of the peace, affixed his name to the address to General Gage in 1775, and to the recantation. In May, 1777, he was imprisoned, under charge of counterfeiting the bills of public credit and aiding the enemy. In November following he petitioned to be admitted to bail (see Massachusetts Archives, ccxvi, 129) and his request was favorably received, his bail bond being set at two thousand pounds.

Joseph Moore was one of the six slave-owners of Lancaster in 1771, possessed a farm and a mill, and was ranked a "gentleman." On September 20, 1777, being confined in Worcester jail, he petitioned for enlargement, claiming his innocence of the charges for which his name had been put upon Lancaster's black list. His petition met no favor, and his estate was duly confiscated. (See Massachusetts Archives, clxxxiii, 160.)

At the town meeting on the first Monday in November, 1777, the names of James Carter and Daniel Allen were stricken from the black list, apparently without opposition. That the Reverend Timothy Harrington, Lancaster's prudent and much-beloved minister, should be denounced as an enemy of his country, and his name even placed temporarily among those of "dangerous persons," exhibits the bitterness of partisanship at that date. This town-meeting prosecution was ostensibly based upon certain incautious expressions of opinion, but appears really to have been inspired by the spite of the Whitcombs and others, whose enmity had been aroused by his conservative action several years before in the church troubles, known as "the Goss and Walley war," in the neighboring town of Bolton. The Reverend Thomas Goss, of Bolton, Ebenezer Morse, of Boylston, and Andrew Whitney, of Petersham, were classmates of Mr. Harrington in the Harvard class of 1737, and all of them were opposed to the revolution of the colonies. The disaffection, which, ignoring the action of an ecclesiastical council, pushed Mr. Goss from his pulpit, arose more from the political ferment of the day than from any advanced views of his opponents respecting the abuse of alcoholic stimulants. For nearly forty years Mr. Harrington had perhaps never omitted from his fervent prayers in public assemblies the form of supplication for divine blessing upon the sovereign ruler of Great Britain. It is not strange, although he had yielded reluctant submission to the new order of things, and was anxiously striving to perform his clerical duties without offense to any of his flock, that his lips should sometimes lapse into the wonted formula, "bless our good King George." It is related that on occasions of such inadvertence, he, without embarrassing pause, added: "Thou knowest, O Lord! we mean George Washington." In the records of the town clerk, nothing is told of the nature of the charges against Mr. Harrington, or of the manner of his defence. Two deacons were sent as messengers "to inform the Revd Timoo Harrington that he has something in agitation Now to be Heard in this Meeting at which he has Liberty to attend." Joseph Willard, Esq., in 1826, recording probably the reminiscence of some one present at the dramatic scene, says that when the venerable clergyman confronted his accusers, baring his breast, he exclaimed with the language and feeling of outraged virtue: "Strike, strike here with your daggers! I am a true friend to my country!"

Among the manuscripts left by Mr. Harrington there is one prepared for, if not read at, this town meeting, containing the charges in detail, and his reply to each. It is headed: "Harrington's answers to ye Charges &c." It is a shrewd and eloquent defence, bearing evidence, so far as rhetoric can, that its author was in advance of his people and his times in respect of Christian charity, if not of political foresight. The charges were four in number: the first being that of the Bolton Walleyites alleging that his refusal to receive them as church members in regular standing brought him "under ye censure of shutting up ye Kingdom of Heaven against men." To this, calm answer is given by a review of the whole controversy in the Bolton Church, closing thus: "Mr. Moderator, as I esteemed the Proceedings of these Brethren at Bolton Disorderly and Schismatical, and as the Apostle hath given Direction to mark those who cause Divisions and Offences and avoid them, I thought it my Duty to bear Testimony against ye Conduct of both ye People at Bolton, and those who were active in settling a Pastor over them in the Manner Specified, and I still retain ye sentiment, and this not to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against them, but to recover them from their wanderings to the Order of the Gospel and to the direct way to the Kingdom of Heaven. And I still approve and think them just."

The second charge, in full, was as follows:—

"It appears to us that his conduct hath ye greatest Tendency to subvert our religious Constitution and ye Faith of these churches.—In his saying that the Quebeck Bill was just—and that he would have done the same had he been one of ye Parliament—and also saying that he was in charity with a professed Roman Catholick, whose Principles are so contrary to the Faith of these churches,—That for a man to be in charity with them we conceive that it is impossible that he should be in Charity with professed New England Churches. It therefore appears to us that it would be no better than mockery for him to pretend to stand as Pastor to one of these churches." To this Mr. Harrington first replies by the pointed question: "Is not Liberty of Conscience and ye right of judging for themselves in the matters of Religion, one grand professed Principle in ye New England Churches; and one Corner Stone in their Foundation?" He then explicitly states his abhorrence of "the anti-Christian tenets of Popery," adding: "However on the other hand they receive all the articles of the Athanasian Creed—and of consequence in their present Constitution they have some Gold, Silver, and precious stones as well as much wood, hay, and stubble." He characterizes the accusation in this pithy paragraph: "Too much Charity is the Charge here brought against me,—would to God I had still more of it in ye most important sense. Instead of a Disqualification, it would be a most enviable accomplishment in ye Pastor of a Protestant New England Church." A sharp argumentum ad hominem, for the benefit of the ultra-radical accuser closes this division of his defence. "But, Mr. Moderator, if my charity toward some Roman Catholicks disqualified me for a Protestant Minister, what, what must we think of ye honorable Congress attending Mass in a Body in ye Roman Catholic Chappel at Philadelphia? Must it not be equal mockery in them to pretend to represent and act for the United Protestant States?" …

The third charge was that he had declared himself and one of the brethren to "be a major part of the Church." This, like the first charge, was a revival of an old personal grievance within the church, rehabilitated to give cumulative force to the political complaints. The accusation is summarily disposed of; the accused condemning the sentiment "as grossly Tyrannical, inconsistent with common sense and repugnant to good order"; and denying that he ever uttered it.

Lastly came the political charge pure and simple.

"His despising contemning and setting at naught and speaking Evil of all our Civil Rulers, Congress, Continental and Provincial, of all our Courts, Legislative and Executive, are not only subversive of good Order: But we apprehend come under Predicament of those spoken of in 2 Pet. II. 10, who despise government, presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities &c."

Mr. Harrington acknowledges that he once uttered to a Mr. North this imprudent speech. "I disapprove abhor and detest the Results of Congress whether Continental or Provincial," but adds that he "took the first opportunity to inform Mr. North that I had respect only to two articles in said Results." He apologizes for the speech, but at the same time defends his criticism of the two articles as arbitrary measures. He also confesses saying that "General Court had no Business to direct Committees to seize on Estates before they had been Confiscated in a course of Law," and "that their Constituents never elected or sent them for that Purpose," but this sentiment he claimed that he had subsequently retracted as rash and improper to be spoken. These objectionable expressions of opinion, he asserts, were made "before ye 19th of April 1775."

It is needless to say that the Reverend Timothy Harrington's name was speedily erased from the black list, and, to the credit of his people be it said, he was treated with increased consideration and honor during the following eighteen years that he lived to serve them. In the deliberations of the Lancaster town meeting, as in those of the Continental Congress, broad views of National Independence based upon civil and religions liberty, finally prevailed over sectional prejudice and intolerance. The loyalist pastor was a far better republican than his radical inquisitors.

[Since the paper upon Lancaster and the Acadiens was published in The Bay State Monthly for April, I have been favored with the perusal of Captain Abijah Willard's "Orderly Book," through the courtesy of its possessor, Robert Willard, M.D., of Boston, who found it among the historical collections of his father, Joseph Willard, Esq. The volume contains, besides other interesting matter, a concise diary of experiences during the military expedition of 1755 in Nova Scotia; from which it appears that the Lancaster company was prominently engaged in the capture of Forts Lawrence and Beau Séjour. Captain Willard, though not at Grand Pré, was placed in command of a detachment which carried desolation through the villages to the westward of the Bay of Minas; and the diary affords evidence that this warfare against the defenceless peasantry was revolting to that gallant officer; and that, while obedient to his positive orders, he tempered the cruelty of military necessity with his own humanity.

The full names of his subalterns, not given in the list from General Winslow's Journal, are found to be

"Joshua Willard, Lieutenant,

Moses Haskell, Lieutenant,

Caleb Willard, Ensign."

Of the Lancaster men, Sergeant James Houghton died, and William Hudson was killed, in Nova Scotia.

The diary is well worthy of being printed complete.

H.S.M.]

LOUIS ANSART

BY CLARA CLAYTON

One of the notable citizens of Revolutionary times was Colonel Louis Ansart. He was a native of France, and came to America in 1776, while our country was engaged in war with England. He brought with him credentials from high officials in his native country, and was immediately appointed colonel of artillery and inspector-general of the foundries, and engaged in casting cannon in Massachusetts. Colonel Ansart understood the art to great perfection; and it is said that some of his cannon and mortars are still serviceable and valuable. Foundries were then in operation in Bridgewater and Titicut, of which he had charge until the close of the Revolutionary War.

Colonel Ansart was an educated man—a graduate of a college in France—and of a good family. It is said that he conversed well in seven different languages.

His father purchased him a commission of lieutenant at the age of fourteen years; and he was employed in military service by his native country and the United States, and held a commission until the close of the Revolutionary War, when he purchased a farm in Dracut and resided there until his death. He returned to France three times after he first came to this country, and was there at the time Louis XVI was arrested, in 1789.

Colonel Ansart married Catherine Wimble, an American lady, of Boston, and reared a large family in Dracut—in that portion of the town which was annexed to Lowell in 1874. Atis Ansart, who still resides there, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, is a son of Colonel Ansart; also Felix Ansart, late of New London, Connecticut, and for twenty-four years an officer of the regular army, at one time stationed at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and afterwards at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he remained eight years, and died in January, 1874.

There were five boys and seven girls. The boys were those above named, and Robert, Abel, and Louis. The girls were Julia Ann, who married Bradley Varnum; Fanny, who died in childhood; Betsey, who married Jonathan Hildreth, moved to Ohio, and died in Dayton, in that State; Sophia, who married Peter Hazelton, who died some twenty years ago, after which she married a Mr. Spaulding; Harriet, who married Samuel N. Wood, late of Lowell; Catherine, who married Mr. Layton; and Aline, who died at the age of eighteen years.

Colonel Ansart was trained in that profession and in those times which had a tendency to develop the sterner qualities, and was what would be termed in these times a man of stern, rigid, and imperious nature. It is said he never retired at night without first loading his pistols and swinging them over the headboard of his bed.

After settling in Dracut,—and in his best days he lived in excellent style for the times, kept a span of fine horses, rode in a sulky, and "lived like a nabob,"—he always received a pension from the government; but his habits were such that he never acquired a fortune, but spent his money freely and enjoyed it as he went along.

Before he came to America he had traveled in different countries. On one occasion, in Italy, he was waylaid and robbed of all he had, and narrowly escaped with his life. He had been playing and had been very successful, winning money, gold watches, and diamonds. As he was riding back to his hôtel his postilion was shot. He immediately seized his pistols to defend himself, when he was struck on the back of the head with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to consciousness until the next morning, when he found himself by the side of the road, bleeding from a terrible wound in his side from a dirk-knife. He had strength to attract the attention of a man passing with a team, and was taken to his hôtel. A surgeon was called, who pronounced the wound mortal. Mr. Ansart objected to that view of the case, and sent for another, and with skilful treatment he finally recovered.

It is said that he was a splendid swordsman. On a certain occasion he was insulted, and challenged his foe to step out and defend himself with his sword. His opponent declined, saying he never fought with girls, meaning that Mr. Ansart was delicate, with soft, white hands and fair complexion, and no match for him, whereupon the young Frenchman drew his sword to give him a taste of his quality. He flourished it around his opponent's head, occasionally stratching his face and hands, until he was covered with wounds and blood, but he could not provoke him to draw his weapon and defend himself. After complimenting him with the name of "coward," he told him to go about his business, advising him in future to be more careful of his conduct and less boastful of his courage.

During the inquisition in France, Colonel Ansart said that prisoners were sometimes executed in the presence of large audiences, in a sort of amphitheatre. People of means had boxes, as in our theatres of the present day. Colonel Ansart occupied one of these boxes on one occasion with his lady. Before the performance began, another gentleman with his lady presented himself in Colonel Ansart's box, and requested him to vacate. He was told that he was rather presuming in his conduct and had better go where he belonged. The man insisted upon crowding himself in, and was very insolent, when Colonel Ansart seized him and threw him over the front, when, of course, he went tumbling down among the audience below. Colonel Ansart was for this act afterward arrested and imprisoned for a short time, but was finally liberated without trial.

History informs us that a combined attack by D'Estaing and General Sullivan was planned, in 1778, for the expulsion of the British from Rhode Island, where, under General Pigot, they had established a military dépôt. Colonel Ansart was aide-de-camp to General Sullivan in this expedition, and was wounded in the engagement of August 29.

On a certain occasion he was taking a sleigh-ride with his family, and in one of the adjacent towns met a gentleman with his turn-out in a narrow and drifted part of the road, where some difficulty occurred in passing each other. Colonel Ansart suggested to him that he should not have driven into such a place when he saw him coming. The man denied that he saw the colonel, and told him he lied. Colonel Ansart seized his pistol to punish him for his insolence, when his wife interfered, an explanation followed, and it was ascertained that both gentlemen were from Dracut. One was deacon of the church, and the other "inspector-general of artillery." Of course the pistols were put up, as the deacon didn't wish to be shot, and the colonel wouldn't tell a lie.

In his prime, our hero stood six feet high in his boots, and weighed two hundred pounds. He died in Dracut, May 28, 1804, at the age of sixty-two years.

Mrs. Ansart was born in Boston, and witnessed the battle of Bunker Hill, and often described the appearance of the British soldiers as they marched along past her residence, both in going to the battle and in returning. She was thirteen years of age, and recollected it perfectly. She said they were grand as they passed along the streets of Boston toward Charlestown. The officers were elegantly dressed and were in great spirits, thinking it was only a pleasant little enterprise to go over to Charlestown and drive those Yankees out of their fort; but when they returned it was a sad sight. The dead and dying were carried through the streets pale and ghastly and covered with blood. She said the people witnessed the battle from the houses in Boston, and as regiment after regiment was swept down by the terrible fire of the Americans, they said that the British were feigning to be frightened and falling down for sport; but when they saw that they did not get up again, and when the dead and wounded were brought back to Boston, the reality began to be made known, and that little frolic of taking the fort was really an ugly job, and hard to accomplish.

Mrs. Ansart died in Dracut at the age of eighty-six years, January 27, 1849. She retained her mental and physical faculties to a great degree till within a short time before her death. She was accustomed to walk to church, a distance of one mile, when she was eighty years of age. Colonel and Mrs. Ansart were both buried in Woodbine Cemetery, in the part of Lowell which belonged to Dracut at the time of their interment.