"There Are Under the Care of the Selectmen and Overseers" - A Sampling of Local Community Concerns in the Shadows of the 1774 Coercive Acts

2024 marks the 250th anniversary of implementing the “Coercive Acts,” General Gage’s arrival in the colony, the formation of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and the buildup to war with England. With the passage of the Boston Port Bill and related acts, Massachusetts' opinions ranged from fear of economic ruin to resentment over the restriction of “English liberties.” As the weeks passed, a common belief amongst many colonists emerged that an immoral British government, having exhausted opportunities for plunder and profit in England and Ireland, was now seeking a dispute with the American colonies as an excuse to enslave and deprive them of their wealth and liberties. Parliament had hoped to accomplish this goal quietly, but the furor aroused in the colonies by England’s economic policies had given the government a temporary setback. Now, these mysterious men, who controlled Parliament and the king’s ministers, were undertaking to openly incite a war, declare American rebels, and enslave them.

For example, a Lexington town resolution noted, “[Our] Charter Rights & Liberties are in danger, are infringed and upon a most careful, Serious & mature Consideration of them . . . and are comparing them with Acts of the British Parliament, & Measures adopted by the British Court, Ministry & Government . . .some of which have been carried into Execution amongst us, We are clearly of opinion that . . . the Plan of Oppression is begun, & so far carried on that, if our Enemies are still Successful, and no Means can be found to put a Stop to their Career, . . . we have just Reason to fear That the Eyes of the Head of Government being blinded, the Sources of Justice poisoned and Hands of administration bribed with interest, the system of slavery will soon be compleat.”

"An Ale House Interior" by George Morland, c. 1790

While colonists were keenly aware of the political, economic, and constitutional threats of the “Intolerable Acts,” the Nerds had to ask, were there other daily concerns that took priority and occasionally overshadowed the constitutional crisis throughout the Summer of 1774?

Naturally, the answer is “of course.”

In Amesbury, residents were concerned about the condition of the roadways that passed through their town and voted to raise “￡80 … for the repairing of highways.” Lexington selectmen spent much of the summer addressing multiple notices centering on the arrival of several apprentices, children who were either orphans or separated from their families, and pregnant young women. On one such occasion, Thomas Harrington notified Lexington selectmen that he had taken in “a child named Sarah Harris, who came from “low circumstances.”

In Methuen, residents bickered over how best to improve a bridge that spanned over the Spicket River. After a considerable debate, the residents agreed to hire “Mr Henery Bodwell for plan to cover Spicket Bridge near Caleb Halls” and purchase wood planks from John Whittier Jr. and Abner Morriel. In Bedford, residents were outraged that a recent 1774 tax valuation had more than tripled their property taxes since 1770.

Along the Merrimack River, the seaport community of Newburyport received reports of an earthquake that had recently rattled Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Like Lexington, Newburyport residents were primarily focused on a growing influx of poor children and teens who required public assistance and care. According to an August 31, 1774 advertisement in the Essex Journal and Merrimack Packet, the town’s selectmen announced, “There are under the care of the selectmen and overseers of the poor of the town of Newbury Port two young men and a number of boys and girls, from six years old to eighteen, many of them likely children; Persons who incline to take any of them as apprentices may know who they are, and upon what terms they will be bound out, by applying to the Selectmen or Overseers of said town.”

"The Haycart" by Francis Wheatley, c. 1779

In Westborough, the Reverend Ebenezer Parker spent much of his summer “haying,” visiting members of his flock, selling a horse, repairing fencing, writing correspondence to friends and associates, and reading and borrowing books.

In Rowley, colonists argued over an appropriate salary for the town’s minister. Several residents held out because they believed including twelve cords of wood per year as part of Reverend Bradford’s pay was excessive. At the same time, residents of Lynn were upset over the property once owned by “Joseph Gould, a Quaker” that had fallen into disrepair and was “Unfit for use.”

In Plymouth, when residents weren’t dragging the famed “Plymouth Rock” through town to relocate it near the town meeting house, they likely noticed that the community’s fishing fleet had expanded to seventy-five vessels, many of them schooners.

July 1774 was an expensive month for Haverhill. At a town meeting, the residents voted to round up “those to whom the Town is indebted, to bring in their Claims - in order to be allowed.” Shortly afterward, it resolved to “see what Money the Town will Vote to Raise to defray Town Charges in the present Year.” Finally, the residents agreed to continue to finance two schools in the town, “the one a Grammar School, and the other an English School.”

Image of August 29, 1774 Pepperell Town Meeting Minutes (Town of Pepperell)

Of course, the Nerds would be remiss if we didn’t come full circle and return to the colony’s objections to the Coercive Acts. We recently found a fascinating account from an August 29, 1774, town meeting in Pepperell, Massachusetts.

According to surviving minutes, “This being a time when the civil liberty of this province are unjustly infringed upon, when the ministry of Old England have endeavored to take away our Charter rights and privileges and the people of this province very much disturbed, every one looking after English liberties as departing from North America when congresses are appointed and appointing and the struggles very high, the people of this District prepared and raised a pole by the name of Liberty Pole the height of which was one hundred feet on the common directly before the Publick Meeting House door on the 29th day of August A.D. 1774 with a flag of Blew and red cloth five yards long and four bredths wide with convenience to hoist it to the top of the pole with ease.”