In spite of having to make their trip overland, the Massachusetts delegates began their journey far earlier than was necessary for an ontime arrival at a congress that wasn’t due to begin its business until September 5. But the four men did not intend their trip through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to be a tourist junket. Over the course of the past decade political leaders and street protesters alike in their colony had behaved in ways that seemed calculated to provoke a hostile British response, and the Massachusetts delegates were acutely aware that many in America felt a mixture of sympathy for and annoyance at their colony—sympathy because Massachusetts had been the particular target of Parliament’s attempt to punish the rebelliousness through the recent passage of the Coercive Acts and annoyance because many of the colonists still believed that if the extremists of Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, had been more restrained in their actions, the current crisis in Anglo-American relations might have been averted. Their extended trip through New England and the mid-Atlantic would allow them to introduce themselves to many of the leaders of those colonies to begin to make their case and, perhaps, also to get some advance indicators of the support their colony was likely to receive in the Philadelphia congress.
A thousand miles to the south, in Charleston, South Carolina, three extraordinarily rich, powerful and self-confident men prepared for their departure to Philadelphia. John Rutledge combined his skills as a London-trained lawyer and owner of more than 300 slaves working on his five rice plantations to become his colony’s most powerful politician. His younger brother Edward, Oxford-educated and similarly trained as a lawyer in London’s Middle Temple, had not yet acquired such massive wealth, but with an older brother like John, he was hardly lacking in either influence or prestige. Edward’s father-in-law, Henry Middleton, was another fabulously wealthy low-country planter, owner of some 50,000 acres of land and nearly 800 slaves. Edward Rutledge and Henry Middleton boarded their ship and set sail for Philadelphia on July 30, arriving on August 10. John Rutledge left ten days later on the brigantine Besey, headed first for New York, then overland to Philadelphia. If the Massachusetts delegates brought with them their best, but still somewhat dowdy, locally tailored woolen suits and waistcoats, we can be sure that the South Carolinians were well-prepared to show off their superior sense of style with the most up-to-date fashions—probably crafted from silk and linen—from London. And though the New Englanders traveled alone, the two Rutledges and Henry Middleton brought their wives and a full complement of slaves who would serve as their maids and manservants.3
The other two South Carolina delegates to the general Congress—Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Lynch—departed on August 15, sailing on the brigantine Sea Nymph. Whereas the Rutledges and Henry Middleton had set sail with little fanfare, Gadsden and Lynch were escorted to their ship by hundreds of Charleston’s residents. According to the South Carolina Gazette, they received “prayers and every mark of respect” as they walked out on Market Wharf in Charleston, and as they boarded their ship, the local militia honored them with a salute of cannon fire. It is not clear how much experience the militia had in staging such a ceremony, and, tragically, some of the powder for the cannon was accidentally ignited, badly burning three men, one of them fatally.
Gadsden, age fifty, a Charleston merchant of only modest means, was viewed by the Rutledge clan as untrustworthy. They thought him too much inclined to demagoguery as he went about rousing opposition to British policies among the “lower sort” of Charleston. Of all of South Carolina’s political leaders, he had been the most fervent opponent of Great Britain’s attempt to tax the colonies ever since Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act back in 1765. His shipmate, the forty-four-year-old Thomas Lynch, seemed at first glance to have been a more appropriate traveling companion of the Rutledges, for he was one of South Carolina’s wealthiest rice planters. But Lynch, like Gadsden, considered himself a representative of the common people. According to Connecticut congressional delegate Silas Deane, Lynch was “plain and sensible” in his appearance, preferring to wear clothing that was “the manufacture of this country”; and, unlike many of his “powdered” South Carolina counterparts, he wore his hair “straight.” Most important, he had consistently advocated taking bold steps to protest the recent actions of the British Parliament. He felt much more comfortable traveling with Gadsden than with the Rutledges and Henry Middleton.4
On August 30, the Virginia radical Patrick Henry arrived at Mount Vernon, the stately plantation of Colonel George Washington. He was joined that day by two of the most respected figures in the Virginia House of Burgesses, George Mason, Washington’s good friend and neighbor, and Edmund Pendleton, a Virginia lawyer of a more conservative bent. Henry, born, raised and propelled to political power by his quick wit and silver tongue in the Virginia Piedmont, had never before experienced life at a plantation as luxurious, expansive and bustling with activity—almost like a small village. And Washington no doubt gave his guest a full tour, riding amidst fields devoted to the cultivation not only of tobacco, but also of flax and wheat, and the grazing of cattle and sheep, touring the Colonel’s gristmill and distillery and, most impressive of all, viewing the vast expanse of the Potomac River from the veranda of the gracious main house.5
It is hard to imagine two men more different in social background, personal temperament and public personae than Patrick Henry and George Washington. From the moment that news of the passage of the Stamp Act by the British Parliament in 1765 reached America, Henry had stirred up a ruckus in the Virginia House of Burgesses, delivering fiery speeches denouncing British attempts to rob Americans of their liberties. Although by 1774 Henry had already served as a burgess for nine years, many of his more conservative Virginia colleagues still regarded him as both a newcomer and a rabble-rouser. Everyone who ever encountered Washington was struck by his physical presence—not merely his six-foot-three-inch height, but by his relaxed, but reserved and self-confident demeanor. Washington not only had served in the House of Burgesses for a longer period of time than Henry—sixteen years—but he had also earned the universal respect of his colleagues as a man of uncommon self-restraint, thoughtfulness and judgment. Yet on virtually every issue from 1765 to 1774, Washington had supported Henry’s radical positions—allowing his more volatile Virginia colleague to make the impassioned speeches while he remained silent—but ultimately, both inside the House of Burgesses and out of doors, making it clear that he was on Henry’s side.
Henry and Washington, joined by Mason and Pendleton, ate, drank and talked well into the night and then, after a good night’s sleep and further conversation the next morning and afternoon, they mounted their horses at around three in the afternoon, with the three congressional delegates preparing to head to Philadelphia and Mason to return to his nearby plantation a few miles away. As they were about to set off, Martha Washington, knowing that her husband and Henry were of the same mind, offered the more conservative Edmund Pendleton a bit of advice: “I hope you will stand firm. I know George will.”
There were others in the riding party as well. Henry, Washington and Pendleton were accompanied by three slaves who would serve as manservants to them during their time in Philadelphia.6
The Delegates Arrive in Philadelphia
Edward Rutledge and Henry Middleton would be the first delegates from outside of Pennsylvania to arrive in Philadelphia. Sometime during the day on August 10 they sailed up the Delaware River into the port of Philadelphia. All of Pennsylvania’s delegates lived in Philadelphia, so they had no journey at all to make. Most of Philadelphia’s 28,000 residents—the largest population of any city in America—lived within a few blocks of the riverfront, and, as a consequence, the city’s prospect from aboard ship was far more impressive than any view of it by land.
As they pulled into port, Edward Rutledge and Henry Middleton could see the rooftops of the city’s principal buildings: the Pennsylvania State House, the Academy of Philadelph
ia (later to become the University of Pennsylvania), the American Philosophical Society, the Court House, the Pennsylvania Hospital and the new city jail, as well as the steeples of the city’s numerous churches. Both men had spent some of their youth and early adulthood in London, so perhaps they were less than overwhelmed by the architecture and scale of what was, by English standards, really only a medium-sized town. But by the provincial standards of rural America, and compared to Charleston, with a population of 11,000, more than half of whom were slaves, it was an impressive sight nonetheless. Since the Rutledge and Middleton entourage arrived in Philadelphia ahead of all of the other out-of-town delegates, they immediately took up lodging at Frye’s Tavern, considered the city’s finest, if not the largest, of Philadelphia’s hostelries. They also reserved some rooms for the later-arriving John Rutledge. The retinue of those three South Carolina delegates was so large that they took up most of the space in the tavern, much to the chagrin of delegates from other colonies who had been hoping to lodge there as well.7
Gadsden and Lynch arrived in Philadelphia on August 22. They found lodging in the home of Mrs. Mary House, a “genteel and sensible” recently widowed forty-year-old, who, with the death of her husband and the impending marriage of her daughter Eliza, had decided to take in boarders. Mrs. House’s boardinghouse would become the home away from home for a variety of members of the Continental Congress, including Silas Deane and Eliphalet Dyer, both of Connecticut.
The Massachusetts Delegates Arrive in Philadelphia
On August 29, at dusk, the four Massachusetts delegates reached the small Pennsylvania town of Frankford, five miles outside of Philadelphia. Their nineteen-day “listening tour” of the Northeast had been on the whole gratifying. According to John Adams, the Massachusetts delegates were greeted with enthusiasm in virtually all of their various stopping places along the way. He made particular note of the reception his party received in New Haven, where, he exulted, “as we came into the Town all the Bells in Town were sett to ringing, and the People—Men, Women and Children—were crowding at the Doors and Windows as if it was to see a Coronation!” Perhaps the only downbeat note in his report of his travels was his reaction to the manners and mood of the people of New York City. Adams was well aware that New York, along with Philadelphia, had often expressed disapproval of the “radical fanatics” of Boston, and as Adams surveyed the scene in that city, he could not resist observing that “with all the Opulence and Splendor of this City, there is very little good Breeding to be found. We have been treated with an assiduous Respect. But I have not seen one real Gentleman, one well bred Man, since I came to Town.”8
And so that evening of August 29, as the party of Bostonians reached the outskirts of Philadelphia, they were greeted warmly by “a Number of . . . Gentleman came out of Phyladelphia to meet us.” Included in the welcoming party was Thomas Mifflin, one of the Pennsylvania delegates certain to join in common cause with the Bostonians; Thomas McKean, a delegate from Delaware; Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan, the delegates from New Hampshire; and John Rutledge. The Bostonians had had a long ride beginning in Trenton, New Jersey, and it had been a hot, sultry day. As they were escorted into town by their welcoming party, they felt “dirty, dusty, and fatigued.” The prospect of the city as they arrived overland, from the north, was far less impressive than that of an approach by water. Philadelphia may have been America’s largest city, but the Bostonians, as their coach bumped along the dusty road through fields of wheat and corn, were unaware that they were even approaching a town of any size until they were right on top of it.9
When their carriage finally dropped them off at the City Tavern, on Second Street, just above Walnut, they received a hearty, raucous welcome from a large contingent of delegates from many of the other colonies who had gathered there. City Tavern, referred to variously as the New Tavern or Smith’s after its proprietor, Daniel Smith, had quickly become the unofficial gathering place for delegates as they arrived in town. Even though no one there had ever actually met them, the Massachusetts delegates were considered something like celebrities, coming as they did from Boston, that “hotbed of sedition.” Virtually all of the delegates to the Congress were eager to take the measure of the “New England fanatics.” At least one of those delegates, the ultraconservative Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, was polite, but cautious in his assessment of them. He noted that, upon first impression, they were “in their Behaviour and Conversation very modest,” but he also noticed that they had already begun “to throw out Hints, which, like Straws and Feathers, tell us from which Point of the Compass the Wind comes.” Galloway, who had already been outspoken in his dismay at the upheaval caused by the radical actions of the New Englanders, plainly did not wish to have the upcoming Congress controlled by the “wind” from Massachusetts.10
After a long evening of drinking and dining—“a Supper . . . as elegant as ever was laid upon a Table,” John Adams enthused—the Massachusetts delegates departed from City Tavern just before midnight. They crossed the street and checked into the much more modest lodgings of Sarah Yard’s Boarding House on the corner of Second and Market Streets. The Bostonians, like most of their fellow delegates, would have to become accustomed to accommodations in tiny rooms like those in Mrs. Yard’s boardinghouse for the remainder of their stay in Philadelphia. John Adams would live in that cramped room at the boardinghouse for most of the next four years.11
George Washington, Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton rode into Philadelphia in the late afternoon of September 4, a cool, cloudy Sunday. On previous occasions, Washington had traveled to both Boston and Philadelphia, but it was Henry’s and Pendleton’s first time outside of Virginia. The three Virginians would be the last delegates to arrive before the Congress began the following morning. The other Virginia delegates—Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Richard Henry Lee and Peyton Randolph—had arrived a few days earlier. (The North Carolina delegates did not leave their colony until after the proceedings had begun and did not show up at the Congress until September 14.) As they approached Philadelphia, Washington, Henry and Pendleton crossed the Schuylkill on a flatbed ferry, which with its ropes and pulleys hauled them and their horses across. They were met by cheering crowds organized by the city’s Sons of Liberty, and then made their way to City Tavern. Richard Henry Lee, the Virginian who would eventually introduce a resolution for independence into what by then was being called the Continental Congress, greeted the three men enthusiastically and proceeded to introduce them to the delegates from other colonies.12
Patrick Henry, author of the “Virginia Resolves” protesting the Stamp Act, had already earned a reputation as an orator of unusual style and ability, and within a week of his arrival, he was being referred to by some delegates as “the Demosthenes of America.” But those gathered at the City Tavern that evening were certainly most interested in taking the measure of the forty-two-year-old Colonel Washington. Several delegates, writing back home to family and friends following that evening, went on at length not only about his commanding stature, but also his personal manner. Like virtually everyone who encountered him, the delegates were impressed, even awestruck, by his physical appearance—not only his height, but also his countenance—serious, yet youthful, firm, yet friendly. Writing home to his wife, Connecticut’s Silas Deane described Washington as “modest,” “cool in countenance,” impressively “soldierlike” and then went on to repeat a story—most likely apocryphal, that such was Washington’s devotion to the patriot cause that on hearing of the passage of the Coercive Acts he had offered to raise an army of a thousand men at his own expense for the defense of his country. Although unlike Henry or Richard Henry Lee, Washington did far more listening than talking, and though Washington had never aspired to a position of political leadership within his own Virginia House of Burgesses, there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Washington appeared the ideal paragon of a true leader.13
After leaving the tavern, Washington would spend his first n
ight in Philadelphia at the home of Doctor William Shippen and thereafter would board, along with his slave Billy Lee, at the Harp and Crown, a tavern located on Third Street, just below Arch Street, a few blocks from Carpenters’ Hall. Patrick Henry followed his fellow Virginia delegate and political ally Richard Henry Lee to the handsome townhouse of Lee’s brother-in-law, where both delegates would make their lodgings during their time in Philadelphia.14
The men who traveled from Massachusetts, South Carolina and Virginia to Philadelphia represented only three of the thirteen delegations that would eventually gather to deliberate on the next steps to be taken in what was becoming a rapidly escalating conflict with England. Like their counterparts from the other ten colonies, they came to Philadelphia with the fear that their colony’s relationship with their mother country had reached a state of genuine crisis. But in spite of their anger at the recent actions of the British Parliament—in particular, the parliament’s passage of the Coercive Acts—they also carried with them a sense of hope—hope that their longstanding and generally affectionate relationship with Great Britain could be restored. With the exception of perhaps a few of those “fanatical New Englanders,” they did consider themselves to be loyal—even loving—subjects of the King of England.15
Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor Page 7
