Not Your Father's Founders

by Arthur G. Sharp

  Ironically, Adams was not pleased with the federal government that emerged after the fight for independence ended. He was especially unhappy with the U.S. Constitution, primarily because of the strong central government it proposed and the lack of rights it afforded individuals. Once he was satisfied that a Bill of Rights would be included, he voted for the document at the Massachusetts ratifying convention. His support turned the tide in the state. (Massachusetts narrowly ratified the U.S. Constitution on a vote of 187−168.)

  Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

  “I CONFESS, AS I ENTER THE BUILDING I STUMBLE AT THE THRESHOLD. I MEET WITH A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, INSTEAD OF A FEDERAL UNION OF STATES.”

  —SAMUEL ADAMS TO RICHARD HENRY LEE, 1787

  Adams retired from politics after his final term as governor ended in 1797. The man Thomas Jefferson called “the Father of the Revolution” left behind an unparalleled record of achievements—even though he had never mastered the art of brewing beer.

  ETHAN ALLEN

  Litchfield, Connecticut

  January 21, 1738−February 12, 1789

  An Overrated Historical Figure

  Ethan Allen showed Americans that they could beat the British in military battles. He led the Green Mountain Boys’ assault on Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775, where they captured the artillery the troops in Boston used to drive the British army out of the city. That was his only significant contribution to the Revolutionary War, but it etched his name in American history.

  Sparring for Land

  After his father died in 1755, Ethan took over the management of the family farm, which short-circuited his education. Two years later, he joined the militia to participate in the ongoing French and Indian War (1754−63), but didn’t see any action. In 1769, Ethan and his brothers acquired some land in the New Hampshire Grants, despite the fact that the ownership of the land (and thus the legal ability to grant it) had actually been given to New York by King George. The New York provincial government attempted to exert its authority in the disputed area, demanding additional payment to validate ownership of the lands.

  Local lads formed their own militia to fight off New Yorkers who tried to take what they thought was theirs. These locals called themselves the “Green Mountain Boys” and chose Allen as their leader.

  Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

  “EVER SINCE I ARRIVED TO A STATE OF MANHOOD AND ACQUAINTED MYSELF WITH THE GENERAL HISTORY OF MANKIND, I HAVE FELT A SINCERE PASSION FOR LIBERTY.”

  —ETHAN ALLEN

  As a result of their frequent skirmishes with the New Yorkers, Allen’s militia members were combat veterans by the time the Revolutionary War began.

  Taking Ticonderoga

  General George Washington needed artillery to help him drive the British army out of Boston. Benedict Arnold (among others) knew where there was some for the taking: Fort Ticonderoga in New York.

  The Massachusetts Committee of Safety authorized Benedict Arnold to raise a force of 400 men and lead it to Fort Ticonderoga.

  The Connecticut Committee of Public Safety asked Ethan Allen and Captain Edward Mott and their 200−300 soldiers to join with Arnold to capture the fort. Everyone met at Lake Champlain to complete the mission. There was one problem: Who would lead the attack?

  Allen and Arnold both had egos the size of a New Hampshire Land Grant, each of which was about six miles square. They argued about who should lead the troops.

  Eventually both swallowed their high opinions of themselves and compromised: They would share command.

  On May 10, 1775, Allen, Arnold, and eighty-three troops approached Fort Ticonderoga at dawn. They surprised the British troops and captured the fort without firing a shot and without any injuries.

  The Americans captured the cannons and shipped them to Boston. Arnold and Allen picked their next target: Fort St. John, at the northern end of Lake Champlain. Allen’s part in the raid turned into a comedy of errors.

  Prisoner of War

  Arnold and fifty of his troops boarded a schooner armed with swivel guns and sailed toward the fort. Allen and 100 men loaded into four oar- and sail-powered boats to reach the fort. It was a four-day trip, for which Allen did not prepare adequately. He neglected to pack enough food for the attack. Not surprisingly, Arnold reached the fort first, captured it, and headed back to his new headquarters at Crown Point. He met Allen and his “armada” en route; they were still rowing toward Fort St. John. Arnold and Allen greeted one another, drank a couple toasts to Arnold’s success, and went their separate ways.

  Next, Allen traveled to Philadelphia to ask Congress to include the Green Mountain Boys in the Continental Army. Congress did—but rejected Allen as the Green Mountain Boys’ leader. Uncharacteristically, Allen accepted the rebuke and accompanied the regiment in its Canadian invasion as a civilian scout. He was captured on September 25, 1775, by the British, and held as a prisoner until 1778. Even the American commander of the expedition was happy about Allen’s predicament.

  Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

  “I AM VERY APPREHENSIVE OF DISAGREEABLE CONSEQUENCES ARISING FROM MR. ALLEN’S IMPRUDENCE. I ALWAYS DREADED HIS IMPATIENCE AND IMPRUDENCE.”

  —AMERICAN GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER REGARDING ETHAN ALLEN’S CAPTURE

  The war went on without Allen. After he was included in a general prisoner exchange in May 1778, he joined General George Washington’s forces at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Washington applauded Allen and told him he would be in touch, which was just as much a brushoff then as it is today.

  REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

  The Continental Army awarded Allen with the brevetted (temporary) rank of colonel and payment of $75 a month. He was never activated, and his payments gradually disappeared.

  Welcome Home

  Allen had been away from Vermont for so long that he did not realize it had declared independence in 1777. The following year, Vermont enacted a Banishment Act that allowed the republic to seize and sell the property owned by Tories. The republic was busily confiscating property owned by Tories within its borders. This created the perfect job opening for Allen, who received an appointment as a judge to determine who qualified as a Tory. He even escorted some of the people found guilty of being Tories to New York to be handed over to British authorities. His judgeship did not last long, but he kept finding Tories on his own and turning them over to officials.

  Between 1780 and his death in 1789, Allen wrote books and poems, remarried after his first wife’s death, and sold his land. Allen almost ended up in debtors’ prison a couple times, but he managed to squeak by until he died after a stroke.

  REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

  Ethan Allen reported his brother Levi to a Board of Confiscation, whose job it was to seize and dispose of Tories’ property to raise revenues for the republic. Though Levi had tried to secure Ethan’s release from British captivity during his three-year incarceration, it’s possible that he might have been trying to swindle Ethan and another brother out of some land when Ethan turned him in. They reconciled in 1783.

  Allen’s original grave marker disappeared in the 1850s. The Vermont legislature authorized a replacement, which was placed in the graveyard where he is buried. But the exact location of his grave is unknown. Moreover, there is no known likeness of Ethan Allen in existence. That is fitting: The country had enough trouble dealing with the original.

  PENELOPE BARKER

  North Carolina

  1728−1796

  The Edenton Tea Party

  Penelope Padgett Hodgson Craven Barker was one of the first women of the Revolutionary era to make a public statement about the outrageous behavior of King George and his Parliament. In October 1774 she hosted a tea party in Edenton, North Carolina, where fifty-one women signed a pledge to boycott tea and other manufactured goods sent to the colonies from Britain. Her name does not appear in many history books, but her role in the history of the American rebellion should not be underestimated.

  The Richest Wo
man in North Carolina

  North Carolina was a hotbed of opposition to Britain. While the patriots in Boston were getting most of the press, the citizens of North Carolina were fomenting a revolution of their own. Penelope Barker spearheaded a boycott movement among women throughout the colonies—and she was not afraid to take a jab at men.

  Barker was not a neophyte when it came to politics. She had spent a considerable amount of time around the leading politicians of Edenton during her childhood and three marriages. Her father was a prominent doctor and planter who taught her management skills and the need for personal responsibility. Her marriages reinforced those lessons.

  Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

  “MAYBE IT HAS ONLY BEEN MEN WHO HAVE PROTESTED THE KING UP TO NOW. THAT ONLY MEANS WE WOMEN HAVE TAKEN TOO LONG TO LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD. WE ARE SIGNING OUR NAMES TO A DOCUMENT, NOT HIDING OURSELVES BEHIND COSTUMES LIKE THE MEN IN BOSTON DID AT THEIR TEA PARTY. THE BRITISH WILL KNOW WHO WE ARE.”

  —PENELOPE BARKER

  She married in 1745 for the first time to John Hodgson (or Hodges), who had been married to her sister Elizabeth. He died soon after, and left Penelope as a nineteen-year-old pregnant widow with his and Elizabeth’s two children, one of their own, and another one on the way.

  Barker inherited a significant amount of land from Hodgson, which was uncommon at the time. Normally, widows received one-third of their deceased husbands’ estates, primarily to enhance their chances of attracting another husband. That worked in Penelope Barker’s case.

  Husband number two was James Craven, a wealthy planter. He, too, left his entire estate to Barker.

  The deaths of two husbands by the time she was only twenty-eight did not dissuade her from marrying a third time. After all, she was—at that young age—the richest woman in North Carolina. Attorney Thomas Barker became her third husband, with whom she had three more children.

  Thomas traveled to England on business quite often. Penelope managed their affairs while he was gone, which gave her some valuable insights into the political realities of the time. Thomas was gone on one trip for seventeen years! He sailed to London in 1761 to serve as agent for the North Carolina colony. There was a British blockade of American ships in place at the time, which prevented him from returning to North Carolina. He finally made it back in 1778, long after Penelope’s party ended.

  Not the Typical Tea Party

  Penelope Barker did not see why the men of North Carolina should bear the burden of rebellion during this tumultuous time. Her female friends agreed with her. Barker invited many of them to a tea party at the home of Elizabeth King to sign a document she had written proclaiming their intention to boycott British goods.

  Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

  “WE THE LADYES OF EDENTON DO HEREBY SOLEMNLY ENGAGE NOT TO CONFORM TO YE PERNICIOUS CUSTOM OF DRINKING TEA OR THAT WE, THE AFORESAID LADYES, WILL NOT PROMOTE YE WEAR OF ANY MANUFACTURE FROM ENGLAND, UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT ALL ACTS WHICH TEND TO ENSLAVE THIS OUR NATIVE COUNTRY SHALL BE REPEALED.”

  —PENELOPE BARKER’S PETITION

  Barker was ahead of her time in recognizing the value of good public relations. She sent a copy of her declaration to a London newspaper, which published it in the form of text and cartoons lampooning their boycott. Consequently, the meeting and the boycott drew a lot of attention in the city. That was not surprising, since newspapers there portrayed Barker and her friends as bad mothers and loose women. Their ad hominem attack did not stop the women back in the colonies from supporting the ladies of Edenton.

  Women in several other locations in America launched their own boycotts. The negative impact on the British economy got the attention of the king and Parliament, even if the Edenton Tea Party declaration did not.

  Penelope Barker’s appearance on the Revolutionary-era stage was brief. Eventually, the furor over her Tea Party document subsided. Her impact on the rebellion did not. She died in 1796 at age sixty-eight, but she will always be remembered as a leader who encouraged other women to get involved openly in the American movement for independence.

  Although Penelope Barker gets most of the credit for the Edenton Tea Party, it took courage for all the women to sign the document. No doubt the fact that many of them were related to one another buoyed their courage due to moral support. They all deserve public acknowledgement. Here are their names:

  FEDERAL FACTS

  Penelope Barker’s October 25, 1774, tea party was reputedly the first women’s political rally in America. There may have been others, but they did not get the publicity Barker’s did.

  Anne Anderson

  Penelope Barker

  Sarah Beasley

  Elizabeth Beasely

  Ruth Benbury

  Lydia Bennet

  Jean Blair

  Mary Blount

  Rebecca Bondfield

  Lydia Bonner

  Mary Bonner

  Margaret Cathcart

  Abigale Charlton

  Grace Clayton

  Elizabeth Creacy

  Mary Creacy

  Elizabeth Crickett

  Tresia Cunningham

  Penelope Dawson

  Elizabeth Green

  Anne Hall

  Frances Hall

  Anne Haughton

  Sarah Hoskins

  Anne Horniblow

  Sarah Howe

  Sarah Howcott

  Mary Hunter

  Elizabeth Johnston

  Anne Johnstone

  F. Johnstone

  Mary Jones

  Mary Littedle

  Sarah Littlejohn

  Sarah Mathews

  Elizabeth P. Ormond

  M. Payne

  Elizabeth Patterson

  Margaret Pearson

  Mary Ramsay

  Elizabeth Roberts

  Elizabeth Vail

  Susannah Vail

  Sarah Valentine

  Marion Wells

  Jane Wellwood

  Mary Woolard

  JOSIAH BARTLETT

  Amesbury, Massachusetts

  November 21, 1729−May 19, 1795

  New Hampshire’s One-Man Delegation

  For a young man from rural New Hampshire, a large city like Philadelphia in 1776 must have seemed like a foreign country. The entire population of New Hampshire at that time was around 80,000 people. There were 30,000 in Philadelphia. Yet Josiah Bartlett had the courage and credentials to travel to the big city alone and take his seat at the Continental Congress that year for the sake of independence. Bartlett was not the rural bumpkin stereotype that people in more culturally advanced places such as Boston pictured. He knew Latin and Greek, was a physician, a colonel in the militia, and a justice of the peace. Bartlett was a well-rounded man, just the kind New Hampshire needed to represent it at the Continental Congress. He had a reputation as a principled individual and legislator who was willing to defy pro-British authorities such as the royal governor. He did not disappoint the people of his state.

  A Whig Gets Into the Governor’s Hair

  Josiah Bartlett began his political career in the tiny frontier town of Kingston, New Hampshire. There were few families living there, and he was the only doctor in the area. Since he was well educated, people looked to him for guidance in political and health matters. It was not surprising that they elected him to the Colonial Assembly in 1765.

  REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

  Bartlett was married on January 15, 1754. There is some question about whom he married. Local records show that he was married to a Mary Bartlett. Genealogy documents at the Harvard Library list his wife as his cousin, Hannah Webster. Either way, he and his wife had twelve children, three of whom became doctors—as did seven of their grandsons.

  As the colonists began to express their dissatisfaction with British policies, Bartlett became more vocal about his Whig views.

  Whigs were anti-king and Parliament. They were opposed by the Tories. Bartlett’s views put him on a collision course with New Hampshire�
��s royal governor, John Wentworth—a course that would end well only for one of them. It was not Wentworth.

  Dueling Assemblies

  Like many of his patriot brethren, Bartlett got his start in the Continental Congress through the Committee of Correspondence, which he joined in 1774 while serving in New Hampshire’s Assembly. Wentworth learned that year about the formation of a committee of correspondence appointed by the assembly to promote independence for New Hampshire and coordinate its efforts with similar groups from other colonies. Consequently, he dissolved the assembly. Undeterred, the disbanded delegates formed their own Provincial Assembly.

  FEDERAL FACTS

  It was common among the colonies at the time for members of dissolved general assemblies to form their own legislative bodies in defiance of their governors. Then, the rogue, extralegal assemblies would select delegates to the Continental Congress.

  The New Hampshire Provincial Assembly immediately appointed Bartlett as one of its two delegates to the First Continental Congress. He turned down the assignment “to spend more time with his family.” (That much-loved excuse is older than you may think!) However, it’s possible that Bartlett stayed in New Hampshire to protect his family; his home had burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1774. The Tories were prime suspects. By a strange coincidence, the home of the other delegate, John Pickering, also burned down that same year.