by Ben Tarnoff
13–14, Satisfied with the silversmith’s services
Fairservice’s counterfeiting operation: Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial America, p. 187, and “Counterfeiting in Colonial New Hampshire,” pp. 17–18. Bull Wharf, shown in Captain John Bonner’s 1722 map of Boston, stood on the city’s southern coast, near the Bull Tavern. The tavern’s history: Samuel Adams Drake, Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs (Boston: W. A. Butterfield, 1917), pp. 102–103. John Fairservice married Mary Lawrence on January 25, 1755, according to A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, Containing Boston Marriages From 1752 to 1809 (Boston: Boston Municipal Printing Office, 1903), p. 14. Their messy divorce: Nancy F. Cott, “Divorce and the Changing Status of Women in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts,” William and Mary Quarterly 33.4 (October 1976), pp. 586–614. “criminal conversation…”: from Fairservice’s court testimony, quoted in Thomas A. Foster, Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America (Boston: Beacon, 2006), p. 31.
14, In the meantime
Sullivan’s trial: the Massachusetts SCJ Record Book, vol. 1750–1751, pp. 100–101, and Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial America, p. 187. Notice of Sullivan’s pillorying and whipping: Boston News-Letter, September 13, 1750, and Boston Evening-Post, September 14, 1750. The layout of colonial Boston, including the location of the pillory and the whipping post: Edwin Monroe Bacon, Boston: A Guide Book to the City and Vicinity, rev. ed. (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1922), pp. 4–8. The man who received twice as many stripes as Sullivan was one Monsieur Batter, known as the “French doctor,” whose punishment is described in the New-York Gazette, September 24, 1750, and the Boston Gazette, September 18, 1750.
14–15, Being a counterfeiter
The approximate commodity prices: Ruth Crandall, “Wholesale Commodity Prices in Boston During the Eighteenth Century,” Review of Economics and Statistics 16.6 (June 15, 1934), pp. 117–128. The actual amount people paid for goods like wheat and molasses varied widely; also, paper money emissions (or “tenors,” as they were called) from different years traded at different values, which makes things even more complicated. Boston’s population: Andrew N. Porter, Atlas of British Overseas Expansion (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 44. Thomas Wilson claimed to have seen Fairservice print 680 shillings in a single day; Wilson’s testimony: Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial America, p. 187, and “Counterfeiting in Colonial New Hampshire,” pp. 17–18.
16–17, Sullivan couldn’t have picked
The currency conflict in Massachusetts: Elizabeth E. Dunn, “‘Grasping at the Shadow’: The Massachusetts Currency Debate, 1690–1751,” New England Quarterly 17.1 (March 1998), pp. 54–76, and Malcolm Freiberg, “Thomas Hutchinson and the Province Currency,” New England Quarterly 30.2 (June 1957), pp. 190–208. The origins of Massachusetts paper currency: see Andrew McFarland Davis, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay, pt. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1901), pp. 8–23.
17, On May 1, 1749
The scene: Thomas Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, ed. Peter Orlando Hutchinson (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1883), pp. 53–54. Report of the fire: Boston Gazette, May 2, 1749.
17–18, The house belonged
Hutchinson’s early life: John Fiske, Essays: Historical and Literary, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 10–13, and Andrew Stephen Walmsley, Thomas Hutchinson and the Origins of the American Revolution (New York: NYU Press, 1999), pp. 9–11. After weeks of deliberation, Hutchinson’s bill was finally approved on January 25, 1749; see Freiberg, “Thomas Hutchinson and the Province Currency,” pp. 198–203.
18–19, It’s possible that
History of colonial paper currency: Richard Sylla, “Monetary Innovation in America,” Journal of Economic History 42.1 (March 1982), pp. 21–26. Depreciation of bills: Alvin Rabushka, Taxation in Colonial America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 364–366.
19, In 1744, a conflict
Nineteen new paper issues and the inflation that halved the currency’s value: Freiberg, “Thomas Hutchinson and the Province Currency,” p. 196.
19, Although the war
Louisbourg reimbursement and passage of the bill: ibid., pp. 195–199, 203. “I am convinc’d…”: ibid., p. 198.
20, The approaching elimination
Mood in Boston: Thomas Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters, p. 54, and Freiberg, “Thomas Hutchinson and the Province Currency,” p. 200. “Few Tokens of Joy…” and the scene of the unloading: Boston Evening-Post, September 25, 1749, and Pennsylvania Gazette, October 5, 1749.
20–21, Instead of subsiding
“[W]e shall have…”: Boston Evening-Post, August 21, 1749. “Fraud, Injustice and Oppression…”: Boston Gazette, December 12, 1749.
21, As the bickering
“Fear not Honestus …”: Boston News-Letter, February 1, 1750.
22, Paper’s proponents
Contrasting definitions of value: Dunn, “‘Grasping at the Shadow,’” pp. 66–70. The Congregationalist preacher was John Wise. His 1721 pamphlet, “A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country,” appears in Andrew McFarland Davis, ed., Colonial Currency Reprints, 1682–1751, vol. 2 (Boston: The Prince Society, 1911), pp. 159–223. “necessary Evils…”: Davis, Colonial Currency Reprints, p. 192.
22–23, Paper money’s most articulate
“The riches…”: Benjamin Franklin, “A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency,” Benjamin Franklin: Writings, ed. J. A. Leo Lemay (New York: Library of America, 1987), p. 127.
23, Increasing the quantity
Franklin’s argument and the pamphlet’s reception: Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 63–64. The Pennsylvania legislature initially gave the commission for printing the money to Franklin’s competitor Andrew Bradford; Franklin wasn’t awarded a contract until 1731. “This was another…”: Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Macmillan, 1921), p. 69. Franklin’s anticounterfeiting innovations: William N. Goetzmann and Laura Williams, “From Tallies and Chirographs to Franklin’s Printing Press at Passy: The Evolution of the Technology of Financial Claims,” The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, ed. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 117–118.
24, The intangible nature
The Protestant minister’s name was Thomas Paine—not the famous pamph-le-teer, although the men shared an aversion to paper money. “Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation…”: Thomas Paine, “A Discourse Shewing That the Real First Cause of the Straits and Difficulties of This Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Is Its Extravagancey, & Not Paper Money,” quoted in Dunn, “‘Grasping at the Shadow,’” p. 68. “an abomination…”: from an anonymous letter published in the Independent Advertizer on March 28, 1748, quoted ibid., p. 69.
25–26, The only account
The people and places Sullivan mentions in his narrative are corroborated by the available evidence; the characters that appear in the confession (Captain Gillmore, Captain Bradbury, et al.) existed at the times and locations that Sullivan places them. The proper names are usually spelled wrong (Sullivan’s hometown Fethard appears as Fedard, Bradbury is spelled Bradbery), which suggests that Sullivan narrated the account while someone, most likely the printer, transcribed it by hand, writing out phonetically the names he didn’t recognize. As it’s impossible to confirm the truthfulness of much of the confession, I have relied on it only in part, mostly in sketching the otherwise unknown story of Sullivan’s life before 1749. A word on the time line: based on the confession, I’ve calculated he was probably born in 1723, spent his childhood in Ireland in the 1720s and 1730s, and departed for America in 1742.
26, Sullivan started hearing
“[F]rom my youth…”: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 3.
26–27,
At the age of thirteen
Irish landscape: Constantine FitzGibbon, The Irish in Ireland (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), pp. 220–221, and Mike Cronin, A History of Ireland (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 88–93. “miserable dress…”: quoted in Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970 [1949]), p. 251. “clothes so ragged…”: quoted in Arthur P. I. Samuels, The Early Life, Correspondence, and Writings of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), pp. 172–173.
27, Anglo-Irish Protestants
Population growth: Liam de Paor, The Peoples of Ireland: From Prehistory to Modern Times (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), p. 184. English economic restrictions on Ireland: Sean J. Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland, 1660–1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 [1992]), p. 107. Regular harvest failures and the 1740 famine: Daniel Webster Hollis III, The History of Ireland (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001), pp. 69–85.
27–28, A young face
Beggars and landless laborers: FitzGibbon, The Irish in Ireland, pp. 222–223. Sullivan ended up in Limerick County, about one hundred miles northwest from his hometown of Fethard (now Fethard-on-Sea).
28, Once he had recovered
“After I got well…”: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 6.
29, In the fall
The Sea-Flower incident: in A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Records of Boston Selectmen, 1736 to 1742 (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1886), pp. 317–318, and Boston Post Boy, November 23, 1741.
29–30, Fifteen days
“Just arrived…”: Boston Gazette, December 1, 1741.
30, While an extreme case
Scene with the biscuits: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 6.
30–31, The reason for
Conditions endured by indentured servants en route to America: Sharon V. Salinger, “To Serve Well and Faithfully”: Labor and Indentured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 87–97.
31, If Sullivan came
In A Short Account, pp. 6–7, Sullivan reports that his seven-year indenture was sold to Captain Gillmore, whom he served in “chopping of Wood and clearing of Land” near the St. George River in Maine. James Gillmore’s signature appears on a letter written on August 6, 1742, by several residents of the St. George region to Massachusetts governor William Shirley complaining of their cattle and horses being killed by Indians. The letter is included in the Massachusetts Archives Collection (1603–1799), vol. 31, p. 414, at the Massachusetts Archives. For more on the conflict over Maine, see George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, From the Discovery of the Continent, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton, 1895 [1837]), pp. 175–211, and Francis Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918 [1865]). Dummer’s Treaty, in 1725, had brought about a period of relative peace between the English settlers and the Indians.
31–32, The next conflict
Charles VI’s meal: Eduard Vehse, Memoirs of the Court, Aristocracy, and Diplomacy of Austria, vol. 2, trans. Franz Demmler (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856), p. 163. See also William W. Ford and Ernest D. Clark, “A Consideration of the Properties of Poisonous Fungi,” Mycologia 6.4 (July 1914), p. 168. The beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession: Reed Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), pp. 37–54. “This plate of champignons…”: Voltaire, Memoirs of the Life of Voltaire: Written by Himself, trans. unknown (London: G. Robinson, 1784), p. 49.
32, Despite heavy fighting
Delay in news reaching Boston and French surprise attack: George A. Rawlyk, Nova Scotia’s Massachusetts: A Study of Massachusetts–Nova Scotia Relations, 1630 to 1784 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973), pp. 136–140. Gillmore’s flight: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 7. Jabez Bradbury was a commanding officer at the fort at St. George River from 1747 to 1756, according to the fort’s payrolls held by the Massachusetts Archives: the Massachusetts Archives Collections (1603–1799), vol. 092, pp. 81–83, 88; vol. 093, pp. 51, 91–93, 152, 168; and vol. 094, p. 138. I’m grateful to John Hannigan of the Massachusetts Archives for finding this material.
32–33, Bradbury was a veteran
In 1755, Bradbury testified that he had been in Maine for thirty years; see Fannie Hardy Eckstrom, “Who Was Paugus?” New England Quarterly 12.2 (June 1939), p. 210. Bradbury’s past and frontier milieu: Ronald Oliver Macfarlane, “The Massachusetts Bay Truck-Houses in Diplomacy with the Indians,” New England Quarterly 11.1 (March 1938), pp. 48–65. Bradbury took command in 1742: Cyrus Eaton, History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine, vol. 1 (Hallowell, ME: Masters, Smith, 1865), pp. 52–53. “diliverd from this…”: James Phinney Baxter, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine, Containing the Baxter Manuscripts, vol. 24 (Portland, ME: Fred L. Tower, 1916), pp. 45–46. Bradbury and Shirley corresponded frequently in the 1740s and 1750s about Indian unrest in Maine.
33, While Sullivan and Bradbury’s
The Louisbourg siege: Rawlyk, Nova Scotia’s Massachusetts, pp. 154–155, 166–172.
34, Remarkably, though, the siege
The festivities: ibid., pp. 172–174. “The churl and niggard…”: Boston Evening-Post, July 8, 1745, quoted ibid., p. 174.
34, Not everyone greeted
The attack on the fort in July 1745: Samuel Gardner Drake, A Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War in New England and Parts Adjacent (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1870), pp. 79–80, and Eaton, History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine, pp. 55–56. The scalped corpse of the prisoner: from a letter from Bradbury to Shirley dated July 29, 1745, included in Charles Henry Lincoln, ed., Correspondence of William Shirley: Governor of Massachusetts and Military Commander in America, 1731–1760, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1912), p. 261.
34–35, Sullivan witnessed
In A Short Account, p. 7, Sullivan says he served Bradbury for two years from the time that the war broke out (in 1744), which means he didn’t go to Louisbourg until 1746, the year after its capture. Military service by indentured servants: Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America (New York: Octagon Books, 1975 [1946]), pp. 282–290. “took great Delight…”: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 7.
35, Perhaps for someone
Hardships of life in Louisbourg: Rawlyk, Nova Scotia’s Massachusetts, pp. 175–177. Twelve hundred soldiers dying of sickness: from a letter by William Pepperrell, quoted ibid., p. 177.
35–36, During the two
“I unhappily Married…” and “aggravating Tongue”: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 7.
36, Fortunately for Sullivan
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle: Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York: Vintage, 2001), pp. 35–36. Almost everything reverted to the map before the war, except for a few small concessions: for example, Prussia kept the Austrian territory of Silesia. The amount of the reimbursement was £183,649 2s. 7d., according to Rawlyk, Nova Scotia’s Massachusetts, p. 177.
36–37, While the windfall delighted
The Louisbourg cross: Alison D. Overholt, “University Returns Louisbourg Cross to Canada,” Harvard Crimson, June 30, 1995; John George Bourinot, “Once Famous Louisbourg,” Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries, vol. 27, ed. Martha J. Lamb (New York: Historical Publication Co., 1892), p. 191.
37, Sullivan returned to
“I thought it…”: Sullivan, A Short Account, p. 8.
CHAPTER TWO
38, On a summer day
Descriptions of Providence: Charles Rappleye, Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 8–9; Lynne Withey, Urban Growth in Colonial Rhode Island: Newport and Providence in the Eighteenth C
entury (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), pp. 9–10; and William Eaton Foster, Stephen Hopkins: A Rhode Island Statesman. A Study in the Political History of the Eighteenth Century, pt. 1 (Providence: Sidney S. Rider, 1884), pp. 86–88. Meadows outside the town: Andrew Burnaby, Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North America in the Years 1759 and 1760 (New York: A. Wessels, 1904 [1775]), p. 131.
38, When they had
Scene with Stephens: Owen Sullivan, A Short Account of the Life, of John——Alias Owen Syllavan…(Boston: Green & Russell, 1756), pp. 9–10. Stephens, whose full name is given in court documents as Nicholas Stephens Jr., was a laborer from Dighton, Bristol County, Rhode Island, according to his case entry in the Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Gaol Delivery, Providence County, Record Book 1, September Term, 1752, Rex v. Stephens, p. 97 (Judicial Archives, Supreme Court Judicial Record Center, Pawtucket, RI).
39, The Providence jail
The arrest of Sullivan’s associates and “he is now in the Country…”: Boston Post Boy, August 17, 1752. See also Kenneth Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial Rhode Island (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1960), pp. 31–33, and Counterfeiting in Colonial America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000 [1957]), p. 188. Providence’s taverns, churches, and inns: Rappleye, Sons of Providence, p. 8.
39, Colonial Americans had
The challenges of capturing and convicting counterfeiters in the colonial era: Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial America, pp. 9–10.
39–40, Sullivan was caught
History and location of Providence jail: William R. Staples, Annals of the Town of Providence, From Its First Settlement, to the Organization of the City Government, in June, 1832 (Providence: Knowles and Vose, 1843), p. 180. Providence’s commerce with the West Indies: Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, Providence in Colonial Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912), pp. 275–276. The wooden drawbridge: Rappleye, Sons of Providence, p. 8. Beds of oysters and clams on the eastern side of the river: Richard M. Bayles, ed., History of Providence County, Rhode Island (New York: W. W. Preston, 1891), pp. 134–135. Providence in mid-eighteenth century: Foster, Stephen Hopkins, pp. 87–88. Population estimates: Rappleye, Sons of Providence, p. 8; Bayles, History of Providence County, p. 3. Location of the shipyard: Foster, Stephen Hopkins, p. 88. For the overall layout of colonial Providence and its environs, see the 1750 map of the town included in John Hutchins Cady, The Civic and Architectural Development of Providence, 1636–1950 (Providence: The Book Shop, 1957), p. 27.
