May 6, 2026 • 46 mins
What does 1692 have to do with 1775? More than you might think.
The families of 1692 did not vanish from history. One to two generations after the Salem witch trials, descendants of both the accused and the accusers were drilling on village training fields, defying British soldiers, and dying on the same battlefields. Israel Putnam, one of the Revolution's boldest generals, was born in Salem Village, raised in a family at the center of 1692, and though he moved to Connecticut, he answered the call when Massachusetts needed him most.
From Leslie's Retreat in Salem to the Battle of Menotomy, Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston, Long Island, and Saratoga, the men of Essex County were present from the first confrontation to the wider war. And Benjamin Franklin's tie to the Salem witch trials runs closer than most people know.
This episode connects two of American history's most significant chapters and asks: what did the witch trial era leave behind, and how did it shape the people who built this country?
Danvers and Salem historian Dan Gagnon, author of A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse, returns to The Thing About Witch Hunts to tell stories of the North Shore's role in the American Revolution as part of America 250. From a standoff at a toll bridge to the bloodiest stretch of road on Patriots Day 1775, the story of Essex County and the Lexington Alarm is one most Americans were never taught.
Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack trace the thread from the Salem witch trials through Lexington and Concord, from the Rebecca Nurse Homestead to the halls of the Continental Congress, and from the accused of 1692 to the soldiers of 1775.
What You Will Learn:
The through-line between 1692 and 1775 that changes how you understand both
Why Leslie's Retreat in Salem months before Lexington and Concord matters more than you have been told
What happened when Salem witch trial family names started showing up on revolutionary muster rolls
Israel Putnam: the founding-era general with Salem Village roots whose story was nearly erased from history, and why
A founding father with a direct family tie to the Salem witch trials, and what that connection reveals
What one brutal day at the Battle of Menotomy cost a single Massachusetts town, and why they brought their dead home
What you can see at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead today that quietly holds the story of two centuries
Dan Gagnon leads walking tours in Danvers and the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open seasonally.
#AmericanRevolution #America250 #IsraelPutnam #LesliesRetreat #BattleOfMemotomy #BattleOfBunkerHill #SiegeOfBoston #LexingtonAndConcord #LexingtonAlarm #PatriotsDay1775 #BattleOfLongIsland #FrenchAndIndianWar #BostonTeaParty #GeneralGage #GeorgeWashington #BenjaminFranklin #RebeccaNurse #RebeccaNurseHomestead #DanversAlarmList #Minutemen #ContinentalCongress #CoerciveActs #Marblehead #Menotomy #Arlington #EssexCounty #NorthShore #ColonialHistory #AmericanHistory #FoundingFathers #RevolutionaryWar
Links
Rebecca Nurse Homestead: rebeccanurse.org
A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse by Dan Gagnon: www.bookshop.org/Shop/endwitchhunts
End Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.org
About Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.com
Salem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
83 years after the Salem witch trials divided Salem Village,
the descendants of those same families answered a bell, stood
together on a village training field and ran 16 miles together
toward the sound of British gunfire.
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. I'm Sarah Jack.
(00:20):
Today we are talking with Dan Gagnon, Danvers teacher,
historian, and author of A SalemWitch, a biography of Rebecca
Nurse. Dan is back with us today to
connect the Salem witch trials to the American Revolution.
Welcome back Dan Gagnon to the Thing about Witch Hunts podcast.
Tell us a little bit about your work and what brought you to
(00:42):
Salem history. Hello all.
Well my name is Dan Gagnon. I live in Danvers, MA.
They used to be known as Salem Village during the time of the
witch hunt. My book was A Salem Witch, a
biography of Rebecca Nurse, one of the victims of the 1692 witch
hunt. And recently, in the past year
(01:02):
or two, I've been invited to give some talks on some events
of the 250th anniversaries of events during the American
Revolution locally here on the North Shore.
And so today those two interestskind of intersect.
It's so great to have you here today with America 250 going on.
(01:23):
We're really excited to talk about ties between Witch Trout
families and the American Revolution, and I'm so excited
to hear from a Danvers historian.
Personally, as somebody whose grandfather came from Danvers
and have a lot of my family history from that town, it's so
exciting to learn more about therole of Essex County in
(01:46):
Massachusetts in the Revolution and some of those key figures.
So why is it significant that the area known for one of
America's darker chapters contributed to the creation of
an independent nation? Well, I think one thing about
these two sort of historical topics, the creating the
(02:06):
independent nation of the UnitedStates and the witch trials, is
that they seem very far removed from one another with the way
people learn history in many high schools in America, they
really start with the American Revolution, and therefore the
witch trial seems so distant behind it because it's like not
even covered. So it must have been a long time
(02:27):
ago. In reality, it's only about a
generation later in some cases. In others, we have participants
in the witch trials. You have grandchildren, it'd be
like 2 generations later. But if some of these are just
their sons, their daughters still alive at the time of the
revolution and play important roles with the witch hunt, we
(02:47):
see a real movement as it ends at the end of 1692 to try to
give people accused of crimes, prisoners more rights.
We have the witch hunt ends because of public pressure.
It's not, you know, real democracy.
But if public pressure, the Puritans all throughout the
(03:08):
1600s were really concerned about their rights.
They really valued their self government.
And so it really isn't much of asurprise that it was
Massachusetts that were really some of the most vocal advocates
for these rights when the king in the 1760s and 1770s starts to
(03:29):
infringe on them. So in that 83 years, their
personality as a colony just continues to develop.
It definitely does. We saw in the 1680s prior to the
witch hunt, when Massachusetts had its first charter taken away
and there was more direct rule by London.
We saw protests across the NorthShore here, Essex County.
(03:51):
People were complaining that they're being taxed without
representation. You know, wow, I wonder where
that comes from, that slogan. If they're saying that in the
1680s, you can bet they're saying it wicked loud when it
comes time to the 1770s, that that really is a long standing
set of beliefs there. And with the 83 years that
passed, I mean, Massachusetts inthe 1680s is not exactly the
(04:12):
same as the 1770s. You know, Of course not.
We have new groups of people moving in.
Not everybody is a Puritan, really.
Of course we would be discussingthe Congregational Church at
that point more known about thatname.
But there is still that foundation that the people of
Massachusetts for the most part,trace themselves back to those
Puritan settlers or the pilgrimson the South Shore of
(04:35):
Massachusetts. And with that is sort of their
founding fathers aren't that Puritan migration still?
I was thinking about the whole the 83 years thing and looking
back 83 years from today puts usin the middle of World War 2.
And certainly I've known plenty of World War 2 veterans in my
(04:56):
lifetime, even met World War Oneveterans early on.
And so it doesn't seem to me that 1775 to 1692 is that huge a
time period. What's the significance that
people whose families were directly involved in the witch
(05:17):
trials were now kind of moving forward with this Bolt step to
create this country? Well, one thing I think that it
shows really importantly is thatthe community has returned to
some sense of normalcy in Salem Village that becomes Danvers in
the town of Salem, now the city of Salem.
(05:37):
And that they really had to get a lie because your ancestor
might have been on one side of the witch hunt.
The other persons might have been on the other side.
But like, you're living on farmsnext door to each other.
It has to be made to work. And what we see is locally, we
have muster rolls of people who are in the Danvers militia and
(05:59):
also the Minutemen as we get closer to the actual outbreak of
the revolution, people who are elected as selectmen, people who
are important at various town meetings.
And we see all of these last names that are connected to
people from 1692 working together and moving forward,
really a area that was very muchon the Patriot side leading up
(06:20):
to the Revolution. You have them joining forces,
for example, to basically blackballed merchants who are
still importing from Britain. We have them drilling and really
in the creation of the militia, or the reorganization, I should
say, 'cause it had existed before of the militia.
You have these groups that electtheir own officers.
(06:41):
You have these people elected from the community that really
is kind of a direct democracy. It's your officer.
Wasn't the officer 'cause he's friends with the king.
Like the British Army, they elected people based on respect,
based on how they had known themthroughout their lives.
These people really didn't move around.
So you would have known that guyliving in the same town for your
entire life. And it really shows how a
(07:01):
community unites, comes togetherand is willing to fight and die
for one another. That is a whole different scene
than in 1692 when the whole community is really ripped in
half. So the revolutions first fight
occurred in Massachusetts. There's stuff bubbling up in
Boston. What is that first sense of
(07:25):
something's happening for Danvers in Salem in that area?
So people in the Danvers in Salem area would have heard
about many acts passed by Parliament.
They were really taking away their rights.
Many of these people involved inthe revolution, at least those
who are slightly older, not the very youngest, had fought in the
French and Indian War. They had fought for the king.
They had fought for the British Empire.
(07:47):
But when they get back home, they think they're being
mistreated by this government they just spent years and years
fighting for in Salem and Danvers.
It really starts to heat up in 1774.
What happens is in December of 1773, there's the Boston Tea
(08:07):
Party. And after that, once it takes a
couple months for word to reach Britain about it, the royal
government is absolutely enragedand furious at this destruction
of property, this attack on the East India Company, who were
really well tied in with the royal family, of course.
And what happens is we have a series of coercive acts
(08:29):
specifically against Massachusetts that will really
alienate more and more people who had not already been
alienated by taxes. And in particular, they closed
the port of Boston. They change the Massachusetts
charter just like they did in 1691, but nobody heard about it
(08:49):
till 1692 in Massachusetts by the time it showed up.
So we have a parallel there. And the capital of Massachusetts
has moved to Salem. The legislature, the General
Court meets in the townhouse in downtown Salem, which is not the
same building though which trials took place in.
It's the sequel of the building,but it's like right next door.
(09:10):
It's the same spot right on Washington Street in downtown
Salem and. What we have here.
Is British soldiers camped on the Common in Salem?
General Gage is made governor. It's really like a military
governor of Massachusetts. He lives in Danvers that summer,
bringing soldiers there. And when he's in Danvers, he's
right down the road from the Rebecca Nurse homestead that you
(09:31):
have these British soldiers camped out like almost across
the street. It's that close where the
soldiers listed up there in the encampment.
And that summer you're going to have real local issues that
basically all of these things people have been reading about
are now in their backyard. We have the legislature meets in
Salem that summer, and they wantto choose delegates for a
(09:57):
Continental Congress. Well, the world governor doesn't
like this. I mean, of course, and he's
going to try to stop this. And what ends up happening is
Gage, General Gage had sent British troops to downtown Salem
the day that legislature is meeting.
This is June 17th of 74, exactlya year before the Battle of
(10:19):
Bunker Hill. And so they're in the townhouse
and they're meeting and they decide to lock all the doors and
kick the public out. And somebody there goes to
General Gage and says they're, you know, they're up to
something. And why did they kick everybody
out and lock all the doors? So that's when he sends
soldiers. He sends the secretary of the
province, like the Secretary of State, basically, but it's not a
(10:42):
state. And he has a proclamation
dissolving the legislature, but they can't get in.
And so the Secretary of State reads it on the street outside
the House of Representatives. Inside, they never heard it.
So they can keep going about their business.
They don't. They can claim they didn't know
that they had been shut down. And they pick people for the
(11:04):
Continental Congress. And downtown Salem are 4
representatives from Massachusetts.
And that really sets off a couple other events that summer
of people trying to defy GeneralGage.
Salem hosts a town meeting, which seems totally normal.
It's your local government that had been around since the 1600s.
All the voters gather, but General Gage had effectively
(11:27):
banned town meeting local government other than your once
a year set your town budget meeting because they were using
these meetings to spread ideas that he didn't like.
He arrests the Salem Committee of Correspondence.
Their soldiers are in downtown Salem.
And then 3000 protesters, I guess is the word, show up.
(11:49):
Engage backs down and releases the people he had arrested.
And so a week later, the end of our local pressure, A few days
later, Danvers had watched this in the town next door.
And they decide we should have our own town meeting, see if
General Gage shows up. And so they do, and they meet.
(12:13):
They don't really have a lot to really say.
It's really just like a dare. And then they just extend it and
they're hanging out for like a few hours just waiting to see
what the reaction will be. And someone does tell General
Gage, but he decides he doesn't have enough soldiers.
He yells out at the messenger. Damn them.
I won't do anything about it unless His Majesty sends me more
(12:36):
troops. And the next day he returns to
Boston because he was afraid similar things would start
happening in Boston. That's so fascinating about that
happening right there in Salem and Danvers in 1774.
It's one of those chapters, thathigh school where you learn
about the Boston Tea Party and the massacre and all the those
(12:58):
big events. But what's happening in Danvers
in Salem is so important. And you also have in February
1775, something big goes down inSalem with Leslie's.
Retreat locally. It's sort of our our next step
is Colonel Leslie and his soldiers had actually been some
of those camped in Danvers and Salem calm in that summer, but
(13:20):
they went back to Boston with Gage and at the end of the
summer. And so a few months go by, a few
months go by and Gage and the royal government start doing
powder raids, which were they realize these local militias had
a bunch of guns and they had a bunch of gunpowder.
And this was making General Gageuneasy.
(13:41):
So in in several towns, he wouldsend out soldiers to try to
seize them. The last time he tries that is
Lexington and Concord. But he done this up in what's
now Somerville with the Salem, the gunpowder raid in
particular. There were a couple cannons
there, small like field pieces. He sends the Colonel Leslie by
boat to Marblehead, gets off, marches into downtown Salem,
(14:04):
getting back to our the local Puritan heritage that was still
there in the 1770s. General Gage picks Sunday
morning because they're all in the meetinghouse and church and
they can't raise the militia easily.
That was a intentional, pretty effective tactic because the
British soldiers get all the waythrough Marblehead, all the way
(14:24):
into downtown Salem before anybody notices.
So it is a surprise in that sense, pretty much, at least
effectively a surprise. And they want to cross the
bridge to North Salem, which would be like as if you're
heading into Danvers out of downtown Salem, and they raise
the bridge or just don't let theBritish soldiers cross.
They get into a somewhat comicaltechnical argument that Colonel
(14:47):
Leslie says, this is the King's Hwy.
You can't stop a British soldier.
The local people say, actually it's a private bridge.
It's a toll bridge that we builtwith our own money.
So yes, we can deny you access and things you didn't think
anybody would actually care about or be involved in a
serious confrontation. And what happens is that just
buys time so that men from Marblehead, Salem, Danverson,
(15:11):
Beverly can turn out with their guns.
And they come to a negotiated settlement where they let Leslie
cross the bridge, walks about 100 pieces, looks around,
doesn't see any cannons, goes home.
And he can tell the governor I looked, didn't see him.
And they avoid actual fighting. There's there's one person who
(15:32):
gets stabbed because General Gage has a soldiers try to seize
the boats to cross the river as people in the boats are breaking
them up with hatchets so they can't be used.
And somebody does get stabbed, they don't die.
So it's not that there's zero bloodshed, but effectively.
I wasn't familiar with the stabbing aspect of it.
(15:53):
That just is so fascinating thatthere actually was some
bloodshed a couple months prior to Lexington and Concord.
So that's interesting to me as all.
Yeah, it I think it's, it's sucha great opportunity to look back
and see that I don't want to usethe word expression or really
(16:15):
resistance, but it was this comfortable, healthy.
Like to them, that's what we do.We want to protect our rights or
our land, our community. It means something to us.
We want it a certain way and we're going to do something
about it. I find that part fascinating.
At that point, obviously there'sliterature and pamphlets and
(16:39):
there's responses to resistance.But when it came in that moment,
this little community just was like, well, our bridge is going
up. It's our bridge.
I think that's amazing. The other thing I was going to
ask would have the homestead bend the reddish tone.
(16:59):
It is because I was thinking about all that red camped out in
the field. Oh.
Whether it matches the the house, while it would have been
originally, I'm unsure if at that moment it would have been.
We know that by the end of the late 1800s, it had changed and
red was just so commonly used just because it was cheap.
It was just the red, like the iron oxide in the ground that
(17:23):
I'm not sure. My, my guess would be that that
definitely would have continued into the 1700s.
But by the 1770s, you do have sort of fashion change.
You have houses that are redone in the Georgian style that have
some white paint. We have others that are like
tan. We've kind of moved away from
red is the cheap color in the 1690s and black, like the witch
(17:44):
house was the fancy color. There's a lot more options than
we have, some that are green. So I'm not sure I would assume
it continued. Well, at any rate, I think it's
really cool to see the communitycoming together.
And I do know that there were loyalists.
Not everybody resisted, but hereyou are within those generations
(18:08):
really seen a lot of unity. Yeah.
Here locally, pretty much everybody in town as a farmer or
small workshop manufacturer typebusiness.
The people who stayed loyal to the crown were really those who
are well off, who had taught ties to the government.
You know, that kind of makes sense.
(18:29):
Or ties to shipping. We do have a Putnam, James
Putnam, who had been the last royal attorney general for
Massachusetts. He stays loyal.
He decides to his best interest to leave town after Patriots
Day, the Battle of Lexington andConcord.
And he goes up to Nova Scotia with other, you know, they call
them the Loyalist refugees that leave and go up to Maritime
(18:52):
Canada. So they do definitely exist, but
it's very much a minority in communities like this.
How did the men from Danvers andSalem areas, how did they
respond to the Lexington alarm? That is an excellent question
and really one of the core ways that they are involved in the
(19:13):
American Revolution is day one. We have the Danvers Militia has
many companies. On the day of Lexington and
Concord, there's going to be more than 300 men under arms who
answer the call. And what happens is to take us
back to the Rebecca Nurse homestead.
We have Rebecca Nurse's great grandson, Francis Nurse is a
Sergeant in one of the companies.
(19:35):
His captain is John Putnam. There's another Sergeant who's a
Tarbell, which would win, and his cousins, another name from
the witch trials. And at about 9:00 AM on April
19th, 1775, they would have heard the battles of the Danvers
meetinghouse Tollin, which wouldhave been not typical.
And they all gather on the village training field from the
(19:57):
north part of Danvers, what's now the town of Danvers.
They gather up, they March S to what's to the city of Peabody.
That was the southern half of Danvers.
They meet up right near Peabody Square.
The tree is still there, where they all gathered up underneath
the different companies before they set off to intercept the
British. That tree does exist.
(20:18):
It's a giant old tree on the corner.
And what they do is they are going to hurry.
They run. A lot of it. 16 miles to cut off
the British. And at this point, they've heard
the British have marched on Lexington.
They know there's some patriot leaders, they're sure.
(20:38):
But it really is another move toseize arms and powder just like
they tried at Salem. And what lesson had been learned
by the British that is kind of what leads to the actual war
breaking out that day was they felt like they lost Leslie's
retreat in Salem, that they wereoverpowered by the militia, that
(21:02):
oh, they look kind of foolish. They were sent packing back to
Boston and when they do this again, there is this
determination of that's not going to happen again, which
will lead to it being a much more confrontational situation.
So when they opened fire in Lexington and then Concord, the
word spreads really quickly throughout Massachusetts with
(21:23):
the Danvers men and a couple from Beverly that they just live
closer to downtown Danvers. They know they can't make it to
Lexington in time. It's too far.
But they try to cut them off on their way back to Boston.
So they meet up at the Jason Russell House in monogamy, which
is today the town of Arlington. Jason Russell is actually the
(21:43):
ancestor of Kurt Russell, the famous actor.
He had a big visit to this historic site sometime around
the 250th last year of Patriots Day.
And with this event mostly at Russell's house.
But that little downtown neighborhood is really, really
brutal. Danvers loses the most men on
(22:06):
that day, second only to Lexington.
The fighting is savage. It's brutal.
And the reason for that is when the British are retreating from
Lexington, they are constantly being shot at behind all these
trees, all these rock walls. What you think of in those
paintings, what you learn about in school about it.
And the British, by the time they get to Arlington, a column
(22:28):
of reinforcements has met up with them.
So they're stronger. They have twice as many soldiers
and they are really really really P owed at how their
morning has gone. They are enraged at what has
happened to them and they take it out on Monotamy.
The Danvers militia, the local militia.
(22:49):
There's other towns that made itthere to take up positions
waiting for the British to approach them.
Basically like standing their ground as the British are
marching on them, not hiding behind a bunch of wall of them
and running away. So it really is a confrontation.
And what happens is the British will kill pretty much anybody
(23:11):
during if a gunshot comes out ofa house, they'll kill everybody
in the house. At the Russell house in
particular, Russell was 58. Jason Russell, he could like
barely walk, but he was not verywell.
But he said he was going to stay.
The entire British column had toMarch right past his front door.
So people were telling them not to stay 'cause that was a bad
(23:32):
set up. What happens is the dangerous
man dug in at his house. And in total, eleven Americans
are killed in his house. They're fighting outside.
They're fighting in the doorway.He's killed in his doorway,
Russell. They are fighting in the living
room, the cellar, the attic, just room by room with bayonets
(23:52):
with swords. And to show you how enraged the
British work, Russell's body is destroyed.
Every soldier that passed his doorway stabbed him on their way
by just because they were mad. And it really is a like very
savage day. There's people who are just in
(24:15):
downtown monogamy. There's a story of people not
involved in any sort of fightingthat were just captured by the
British and were robbed. The British execute prisoners of
war, they plunder, they steal, they loot the houses on their
way by. There's a story of two guys who
were just at a bar, the Cooper Tavern in Monotamy, and they
decided not to leave, which probably should have, and they
(24:39):
end up mangled by the British soldiers.
They're just sitting there having a beer.
They weren't involved in the battle.
They didn't have any anything todo with the damage militiamen.
In total, I should say this about 49 Massachusetts people
who were killed and 68 British soldiers at Menotomy.
(24:59):
And we see people from Danvers again, all of these people with
seemingly ties to the witch huntwe have.
Danvers is one of the few towns that brings back their people
who were killed and they weren'tjust buried there that we have
again, Putnams. We have cousins of the nurse
family who fight and die at thisevent.
Right before the British do makeit back to Boston.
(25:20):
There's a cemetery on the nurse homestead.
How did putnams and nurses end up buried together?
I think that's something that a lot of visitors to their rec and
nurse homestead ask about or arepuzzled about.
And it does get us back to a Revolutionary War connection in
that one of the last nurses to be buried there is Sergeant
(25:41):
Francis Nurse, who dies in 1780.Hugh answered the call the first
day of the Revolution and one ofthe other people buried there is
a an officer who's a Putnam fromDanvers who fought in the
revolution. And our link between the two is
that Sergeant Francis, Nurse marries someone named Eunice
Putnam. And therefore the two families
(26:05):
merge. And when their descendants
continue on, Sergeant Francis, his son, we'll sell it basically
just cousins, the Putnams and that they will take over
ownership of the nurse homestead.
And so Sergeant Francis is buried where Matthew Putnam is,
almost like 2 ends of the same sort of where there's a
(26:27):
different section for the Putnams.
And it was Matthew's father who purchased it from his cousin,
the farm. So he's the first to really live
his the rest of his life there after the revolution.
And I think that that really shows how groups are coming
together. They clearly put bygones be
bygones. Fortunately, those Putnams were
also descendants of Nathaniel Putnam, who had defended Rebecca
(26:50):
Nurse at that point in time. And so that cemetery for
generations continued to have both families buried there, that
their agreement was the Nurse family could keep burying people
there. The Putnams could now bury
people there. And so that goes on for a while.
The last burial is in the Putnamsection and sometime in the
1920s. So who was Israel Putnam?
(27:13):
I know he was a big figure in the revolution, wasn't he?
But he had a Danvers connection.Absolutely.
So Israel Putnam is born in 1718in Salem Village.
His father, Joseph Putnam was the half brother of Thomas
Putnam, one of the main accusersin the witch hunt.
Now, the difference is that Joseph Putnam was not on the
(27:37):
side of the accusers in the witch hunt and really did not
believe in the witch hunt, leading to the Putnam family
really being split on this issue.
And so Israel is Joseph's son. His father was an opponent of
the witch hunt, not involved in those accusations, but yet his
whole extended family pretty much had been involved in
accusing people. So he was baptized at the Salem
(27:59):
Village Church. Israel Putnam is by this time we
no longer of urban Paris. It's Joseph Green, the minister
who had come to Salem Village tokind of put the community back
together, so to speak, afterwards.
And he lives in Salem Village for a while.
His only education was at the little congregational school run
(28:19):
by the minister. And Israel Putnam does not write
very well. His formal education is
definitely limited. He was a very bright person, but
in terms of his school learning,very limited.
He plays an incredibly significant role in the American
(28:41):
Revolution. He is one of the oldest
Revolutionary War generals, so he does not live all the way to
the free and independent United States of America.
He ends up having a stroke in later years.
So he's he's not involved in thearmy throughout the war.
He's not involved. Once it, it really becomes our
own Republic. He.
(29:03):
Is not as famous as one might expect.
And I think part of it is we don't have a lot of his personal
writings. He's not John Adams, he's not
John Hancock. He doesn't have all these
Diaries, all of these things because of his kind of limited
education. Well, he's a general.
He always has his assistant write all his letters for him
(29:26):
and we do read the couple that he writes himself like on the
fly in the middle of a battle. It's kind of hard to figure out
what's being said here. So I think that's why he's not
as well remembered, but he should be.
He moved to Connecticut after hegets married.
He fights in the French and Indian War in upstate New York.
Interestingly posted alongside alot of militiamen from the
(29:49):
Danvers in Salem area who are like his cousins, people he
would have grown up with, peoplewho then fight at monotomy.
Also, when Lexington happens, he's on his farm down in
Connecticut and there's so many legends with Israel Putnam that
are. Some.
Are plausibly true, like him fighting a wolf and that's why
(30:11):
they call him old Wolf. Other things are seemingly
embellished. He reported.
Louis out in his field when the messenger comes from Boston,
from Watertown really is where the Massachusett, the
revolutionary government sent out riders went from Worcester
straight down to Connecticut to him, and he's out there
(30:34):
allegedly plowing his field. Now the story is set up so much
like an ancient Roman. It's a true story, but it's one
of those, it's a legendary storyjust in the way people retell it
of Cincinnatus. Who was this Roman guy in like
the five 80s BC and he was retired, He'd been a military
(30:56):
leader, retired. And then Rome's under attack and
they call him, he literally lefthis plow in the field, went to
Rome. They gave him absolute power as
a dictator. He defends Rome and when it's
done, he gives all the power back and goes home again.
The idea of like with great powers, great responsibility.
And it's funny that people portray Israel Putnam as that
(31:17):
because that's what people portrayed George Washington
also, that's why you have the order of the Cincinnati is the
revelers, noir veterans and such.
So it's interesting that that myth is actually here really
attached to Putnam. But to make a Long story short,
he allegedly leaves his plow in the field and immediately rides
for Boston. But he got his stuff together
(31:37):
1st and then came up here. He will lead the Army of
Connecticut outside Boston. That after Patriots Day, all of
these Massachusetts militiamen keep pouring in towards Boston.
People from out in the more western Massachusetts, people
from Southern New Hampshire answer the call.
And so Boston's surrounded. You.
(31:58):
Have different generals from different colonies that don't
really answer to one another because they're separate armies
technically. And it's kind of a mess.
But he's in charge of the Connecticut soldiers and with
him his local most important event is going to be the Battle
Bunker Hill. He's also involved at the end of
(32:20):
the siege of Boston and he'll bereally important in the Battle
of New York the following summerin in the 76 he.
Overall. Was an interesting figure in the
siege of Boston because he had actually known a lot of the
British officers in Boston. The British are now nowhere in
Massachusetts except bottled up in Boston, and they're
(32:42):
surrounded other than the Royal Navy that can, you know, keep
bringing ships in and out. But it's weird that he knows a
lot of his adversaries, that he fought with them up in upstate
New York against the French Canadians and such.
And he's one of the bolder generals or officers in general
in what is this provincial army.He is one of the first to say
(33:05):
that the colony should take Bunker Hill and fortify it
against the British. And at first, the Council of war
that they called the meeting of all the generals whenever
they're trying to decide on a battle plan is not in on that,
not in on that. Too bold, too bold.
But then by the time another month passes and they're June,
he suggested in May, it's not really going to work mid June,
(33:28):
they're in on it. And so he not just proposes it,
but he is physically there in the battle that he is the
highest ranking officer like fighting other than we're going
to have General Ward who actually will die.
And he was the president of the Massachusetts provisional
government. So the revolutionary government
(33:49):
with Putnam, he allegedly says don't fire if they see the
lights of their eyes. There are people for generations
and generations who fight over who said those words.
There is articles upon article there, angry letters from the
early 1800s after angry letters of no, you know, my ancestor
(34:10):
said that. No, our ancestor said that.
That is a whole oral issue for kind of another day.
But what it seems to be is that that were the common phrase
don't fire till they see the whites of their eyes had been
said by other military leaders in the previous generation.
And that yeah, Putnam probably said it, but he also probably
wasn't the only one who said it.And that kind of tells you why
(34:32):
everybody is like, no, this guy said it.
No, that guy said it. Wolf Putnam himself, he does
frequently return to visit Danvers throughout his life, and
he will liberate Boston on evacuation day.
When the British withdraw, they are kind of afraid to go into
Boston because there had been this horrible smallpox outbreak
(34:55):
and that Putnam was old enough that he had had the smallpox the
last time it came around. And so that he was given command
of the troops that actually werethe first to March into the
city. His career does last for years.
His other moon notoriety is the battle of New York, of Long
Island, specifically Brooklyn. Once the war moves out of
Massachusetts, New York is really the next focal point with
(35:19):
us in our 250th events around here.
We are through most of them at this point.
Yet the war is only just beginning, it seems.
And at Brooklyn, he will commandthe defense of Long Island when
the British Lance the British invade.
It's the largest amphibious invasion in world history.
(35:41):
At that point in time, the British Land 20,000 soldiers on
Long Island. Putnam had a different job.
He was in charge of Manhattan. And then General Green in charge
of Long Island got sick and got replaced.
And then his replacement needed to be replaced.
(36:01):
So Putnam's put in charge like aday before this enormous battle,
and it doesn't go great. But you're severely outnumbered.
They have a fleet, and it was someone else's battle plan.
And so he'll continue fighting around New York for and
Connecticut for, like most of the rest of the war.
(36:22):
Great. Did he have sons fighting?
He did. He had a son who came up with
him around Boston. He had a couple sons who in
several capacities, One of them is really they de Camp Daniel
for a while. He has another son with him when
he's in upstate New York. That, yeah, that they were
involved. And throughout the way, he also
(36:43):
keeps bumping into his Massachusetts cousins.
He's a cousin, Rufus Putnam, who's involved in the basic like
a military engineer of the fortifications around Boston.
What they're going to dig on Bunker Hill, how they built the
fortifications on Dorchester Heights that then they put
(37:04):
cannons there and the British had to leave because they
realized that they could shoot into Boston.
His cousin, he also had been in upstate New York with during the
French and Indian War. That it's funny how these people
keep crossing paths with people that they knew from around here,
basically wherever they end up on campaign.
Israel Putnam Did he know General Gage in the French and
(37:25):
Indian War? I don't believe that they had
crossed paths that Gage had beenfurther South.
He had actually crossed paths with Washington in the French
and Indian War down in Virginia,but he had crossed paths with
people like General Clinton, basically the generals directly
below Gage. Do you know much about Colonel
(37:46):
Israel Hutchinson? Yeah, he had been a captain, the
Danras militia. He goes on to be a Colonel.
He was with Putnam in upstate New York.
He. Answers the call on Patriots Day
and then his group goes on to later Saratoga in upstate New
York. Yeah, he's happens to be my
(38:08):
first cousin. That's why I asked because my 2
Hutchinson ancestors in Danvers at the time were Josiah and
Josiah. And one I think was just a
little too old for to fight and one was a little too young.
So I kind of look at my, you know, what were my cousins up to
at that fight? And he was definitely involved
(38:31):
in monotomy. And with Joseph Hutchinson his
the site of where his house was has a large monument.
And the reason for that is aftermonotomy, the seven the remains
of the seven Danvers soldiers who were killed were brought
back to his house 1st and that'swhere they were lame.
(38:52):
And so on Patriots Day, the Danvers Alarmless Company, the
Revolutionary War re enactors that own and operate the Rebecca
Nurse Homestead. They do their stations in the
morning of visiting every known grave of those who had died at
Monotamy, as well as they go to Hutchinson's house every
Patriot's Day. How is Benjamin Franklin?
(39:13):
He's one of our favorite founding father.
Every child knows about him in America.
How was he connected to both therevolution and the Salem Witch
trials? Yes.
So Benjamin Franklin is like Israel Putnam in the sense that
they're only one generation removed.
Both of them were among the older people in the 1770s
(39:34):
involved in the revolution, but their parents were in Benjamin
Franklin's cases. Aunt played important roles in
the witch hunt in Salem Village.Benjamin Franklin's aunt was
Bethshewa Pope, who's an accuserin 1692.
She becomes one of the afflictedaccusers and she's one of the
first two adults to claim to be afflicted.
(39:57):
It's her and Missus Putnam are are the first two adults. 2
moments of her time in the witchhunt that stick out to me are on
March 13th, 1692 as we've only had a handful of accusations
yet. At that point, she interrupts a
service in the meeting house claiming that she had been
struck blind. Interrupts the minister, stands
up, claims that through some witchcraft, through some magic
(40:21):
that she struck blind. And then again only about 11
days later on March 24th, she has a giant fit claimed to be
caused by witchcraft. On the day Rebecca Nurse is
arrested and brought before the two judges.
And when she stands up as the judges are sort of easing up on
(40:41):
their questions to Rebecca Nurse, she stands up, has this
giant fit flailing and screamingand then all the other accusers
break out. Also does she starts that whole
round in that moment and with Benjamin Franklin before someone
familiar to all of your listeners.
I think he's interesting in the start of the Revolution in that
(41:01):
he is in London in 74 when all these laws against Massachusetts
are being passed. Although he's from Boston
originally, since his family wasaround here, of course, he's
much more associated with Philadelphia, where he had gone
on to live. He's in London at the start
because he's the agent for some of the North American colonies.
The colonies weren't representedin the House of Commons.
(41:25):
The whole no taxation without your representation thing.
But they also couldn't send an ambassador to London because
they're the same country. So the colonists would hire
agents that were like basically their lobbyist to go meet with
members of Parliament and say the Massachusetts government
would actually prefer this instead of that.
(41:46):
So he's lobbyist and he's there on behalf of multiple colonies,
but Massachusetts for a while, primarily Pennsylvania,
sometimes both representing their interests as it breaks
out. He then of course returns home.
And I think the rest of the story is pretty known there.
But he has an interesting perspective in that he's
overseas for some of these beginning events.
(42:09):
You've mentioned the Danvers Alarmless Company in the
Homestead. Tell us about the homestead in
the company. Yeah.
So the Rebecca Nurse Homestead predominantly of course, a
museum about the witch hunt of 1692 is owned and operated by a
nonprofit group of revolutionarywarring actors because of
(42:29):
Rebecca Nurse's great grandson, Sergeant Francis Nurse, who
fought at Monotomy. And they have been incredible
busy for the 250th, the AmericanRevolution they started for the
bicentennial. So this is sort of Round 2 for
some of them. And of course had many younger
recruits also who this is round one for and the event locally.
(42:55):
So many of them for the 250th have been organized by the
Danvers alarmless not just things in Danvers but in Salem.
The anniversary of Leslie's retreat was a large part
organized by them. The actual reenactment was
organized by them. They've been in surrounding
communities on on various eventsand they'll continue to follow
the war going out with the goal being to go to the reenactments
(43:21):
of anywhere that people from their original unit in the 1770s
actually had fought where the men from Danvers had actually
fought. With the homestead itself.
There is some reinterpretation or reorganization for the 250th
that, although not yet completed, there is a part of
(43:42):
the house, one of the bedrooms, that's going to be set up as it
would have been in 1775 when Francis Nurse left the house to
answer the alarm. The house was built in so many
different time periods that thatpart of the house was more about
the 1750s, we think. And so that's the part of the
house that most fits with his era.
And so sort of realigning and reinterpreting that helps reach
(44:05):
that other generation of history.
Are there tours available? Yeah.
The Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open weekends in the spring,
rainy days in the summer, and about half a week in the busy
fall season. Additionally, I do walking tours
in Danvers of some of the witch trials sites in the historic
(44:25):
district. In Danvers, we start at the
training field where the militialeft from anatomy.
Not that that's our theme of thetour, but it's true.
We see the foundation of Reverend Samuel Paris's house,
what's left of the building thatwas the Tavern in Salem Village,
the memorial to the victims of the witch hunts, the First
Church of Danvers. That was the same congregation
(44:46):
that was in Salem Village in 1692.
So that's our loop. We've been doing that.
Let's see. I started doing that in 2021,
which was when the book came out.
And so this will be our fifth season, which that went quick,
but yeah, still going. Awesome.
Yeah, we really appreciate your research.
(45:09):
Oh, thank you. Well, I appreciate your program,
the podcast. It's a great way to have people
related not just to Salem, but to other witch hunts who have
different expertise, the different perspectives and
categories than I had encountered other places.
I'm sure you, our listeners, enjoyed getting to know more
(45:31):
about the American Revolution and the Salem history as much as
we did. Thanks, Dan.
We hope you share this episode with someone who loves American
history. Find us wherever you listen to
podcasts and learn more about our work at endwitchhunts.org
and consider picking up dansbookifyouhaventfromourbookshop@bookshop.org/shop
(45:53):
slash end witch hunts. Have a great today and a
beautiful tomorrow.
83 years after the Salem witch trials divided Salem Village,
the descendants of those same families answered a bell, stood
together on a village training field and ran 16 miles together
toward the sound of British gunfire.
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. I'm Sarah Jack.
(00:20):
Today we are talking with Dan Gagnon, Danvers teacher,
historian, and author of A SalemWitch, a biography of Rebecca
Nurse. Dan is back with us today to
connect the Salem witch trials to the American Revolution.
Welcome back Dan Gagnon to the Thing about Witch Hunts podcast.
Tell us a little bit about your work and what brought you to
(00:42):
Salem history. Hello all.
Well my name is Dan Gagnon. I live in Danvers, MA.
They used to be known as Salem Village during the time of the
witch hunt. My book was A Salem Witch, a
biography of Rebecca Nurse, one of the victims of the 1692 witch
hunt. And recently, in the past year
(01:02):
or two, I've been invited to give some talks on some events
of the 250th anniversaries of events during the American
Revolution locally here on the North Shore.
And so today those two interestskind of intersect.
It's so great to have you here today with America 250 going on.
(01:23):
We're really excited to talk about ties between Witch Trout
families and the American Revolution, and I'm so excited
to hear from a Danvers historian.
Personally, as somebody whose grandfather came from Danvers
and have a lot of my family history from that town, it's so
exciting to learn more about therole of Essex County in
(01:46):
Massachusetts in the Revolution and some of those key figures.
So why is it significant that the area known for one of
America's darker chapters contributed to the creation of
an independent nation? Well, I think one thing about
these two sort of historical topics, the creating the
(02:06):
independent nation of the UnitedStates and the witch trials, is
that they seem very far removed from one another with the way
people learn history in many high schools in America, they
really start with the American Revolution, and therefore the
witch trial seems so distant behind it because it's like not
even covered. So it must have been a long time
(02:27):
ago. In reality, it's only about a
generation later in some cases. In others, we have participants
in the witch trials. You have grandchildren, it'd be
like 2 generations later. But if some of these are just
their sons, their daughters still alive at the time of the
revolution and play important roles with the witch hunt, we
(02:47):
see a real movement as it ends at the end of 1692 to try to
give people accused of crimes, prisoners more rights.
We have the witch hunt ends because of public pressure.
It's not, you know, real democracy.
But if public pressure, the Puritans all throughout the
(03:08):
1600s were really concerned about their rights.
They really valued their self government.
And so it really isn't much of asurprise that it was
Massachusetts that were really some of the most vocal advocates
for these rights when the king in the 1760s and 1770s starts to
(03:29):
infringe on them. So in that 83 years, their
personality as a colony just continues to develop.
It definitely does. We saw in the 1680s prior to the
witch hunt, when Massachusetts had its first charter taken away
and there was more direct rule by London.
We saw protests across the NorthShore here, Essex County.
(03:51):
People were complaining that they're being taxed without
representation. You know, wow, I wonder where
that comes from, that slogan. If they're saying that in the
1680s, you can bet they're saying it wicked loud when it
comes time to the 1770s, that that really is a long standing
set of beliefs there. And with the 83 years that
passed, I mean, Massachusetts inthe 1680s is not exactly the
(04:12):
same as the 1770s. You know, Of course not.
We have new groups of people moving in.
Not everybody is a Puritan, really.
Of course we would be discussingthe Congregational Church at
that point more known about thatname.
But there is still that foundation that the people of
Massachusetts for the most part,trace themselves back to those
Puritan settlers or the pilgrimson the South Shore of
(04:35):
Massachusetts. And with that is sort of their
founding fathers aren't that Puritan migration still?
I was thinking about the whole the 83 years thing and looking
back 83 years from today puts usin the middle of World War 2.
And certainly I've known plenty of World War 2 veterans in my
(04:56):
lifetime, even met World War Oneveterans early on.
And so it doesn't seem to me that 1775 to 1692 is that huge a
time period. What's the significance that
people whose families were directly involved in the witch
(05:17):
trials were now kind of moving forward with this Bolt step to
create this country? Well, one thing I think that it
shows really importantly is thatthe community has returned to
some sense of normalcy in Salem Village that becomes Danvers in
the town of Salem, now the city of Salem.
(05:37):
And that they really had to get a lie because your ancestor
might have been on one side of the witch hunt.
The other persons might have been on the other side.
But like, you're living on farmsnext door to each other.
It has to be made to work. And what we see is locally, we
have muster rolls of people who are in the Danvers militia and
(05:59):
also the Minutemen as we get closer to the actual outbreak of
the revolution, people who are elected as selectmen, people who
are important at various town meetings.
And we see all of these last names that are connected to
people from 1692 working together and moving forward,
really a area that was very muchon the Patriot side leading up
(06:20):
to the Revolution. You have them joining forces,
for example, to basically blackballed merchants who are
still importing from Britain. We have them drilling and really
in the creation of the militia, or the reorganization, I should
say, 'cause it had existed before of the militia.
You have these groups that electtheir own officers.
(06:41):
You have these people elected from the community that really
is kind of a direct democracy. It's your officer.
Wasn't the officer 'cause he's friends with the king.
Like the British Army, they elected people based on respect,
based on how they had known themthroughout their lives.
These people really didn't move around.
So you would have known that guyliving in the same town for your
entire life. And it really shows how a
(07:01):
community unites, comes togetherand is willing to fight and die
for one another. That is a whole different scene
than in 1692 when the whole community is really ripped in
half. So the revolutions first fight
occurred in Massachusetts. There's stuff bubbling up in
Boston. What is that first sense of
(07:25):
something's happening for Danvers in Salem in that area?
So people in the Danvers in Salem area would have heard
about many acts passed by Parliament.
They were really taking away their rights.
Many of these people involved inthe revolution, at least those
who are slightly older, not the very youngest, had fought in the
French and Indian War. They had fought for the king.
They had fought for the British Empire.
(07:47):
But when they get back home, they think they're being
mistreated by this government they just spent years and years
fighting for in Salem and Danvers.
It really starts to heat up in 1774.
What happens is in December of 1773, there's the Boston Tea
(08:07):
Party. And after that, once it takes a
couple months for word to reach Britain about it, the royal
government is absolutely enragedand furious at this destruction
of property, this attack on the East India Company, who were
really well tied in with the royal family, of course.
And what happens is we have a series of coercive acts
(08:29):
specifically against Massachusetts that will really
alienate more and more people who had not already been
alienated by taxes. And in particular, they closed
the port of Boston. They change the Massachusetts
charter just like they did in 1691, but nobody heard about it
(08:49):
till 1692 in Massachusetts by the time it showed up.
So we have a parallel there. And the capital of Massachusetts
has moved to Salem. The legislature, the General
Court meets in the townhouse in downtown Salem, which is not the
same building though which trials took place in.
It's the sequel of the building,but it's like right next door.
(09:10):
It's the same spot right on Washington Street in downtown
Salem and. What we have here.
Is British soldiers camped on the Common in Salem?
General Gage is made governor. It's really like a military
governor of Massachusetts. He lives in Danvers that summer,
bringing soldiers there. And when he's in Danvers, he's
right down the road from the Rebecca Nurse homestead that you
(09:31):
have these British soldiers camped out like almost across
the street. It's that close where the
soldiers listed up there in the encampment.
And that summer you're going to have real local issues that
basically all of these things people have been reading about
are now in their backyard. We have the legislature meets in
Salem that summer, and they wantto choose delegates for a
(09:57):
Continental Congress. Well, the world governor doesn't
like this. I mean, of course, and he's
going to try to stop this. And what ends up happening is
Gage, General Gage had sent British troops to downtown Salem
the day that legislature is meeting.
This is June 17th of 74, exactlya year before the Battle of
(10:19):
Bunker Hill. And so they're in the townhouse
and they're meeting and they decide to lock all the doors and
kick the public out. And somebody there goes to
General Gage and says they're, you know, they're up to
something. And why did they kick everybody
out and lock all the doors? So that's when he sends
soldiers. He sends the secretary of the
province, like the Secretary of State, basically, but it's not a
(10:42):
state. And he has a proclamation
dissolving the legislature, but they can't get in.
And so the Secretary of State reads it on the street outside
the House of Representatives. Inside, they never heard it.
So they can keep going about their business.
They don't. They can claim they didn't know
that they had been shut down. And they pick people for the
(11:04):
Continental Congress. And downtown Salem are 4
representatives from Massachusetts.
And that really sets off a couple other events that summer
of people trying to defy GeneralGage.
Salem hosts a town meeting, which seems totally normal.
It's your local government that had been around since the 1600s.
All the voters gather, but General Gage had effectively
(11:27):
banned town meeting local government other than your once
a year set your town budget meeting because they were using
these meetings to spread ideas that he didn't like.
He arrests the Salem Committee of Correspondence.
Their soldiers are in downtown Salem.
And then 3000 protesters, I guess is the word, show up.
(11:49):
Engage backs down and releases the people he had arrested.
And so a week later, the end of our local pressure, A few days
later, Danvers had watched this in the town next door.
And they decide we should have our own town meeting, see if
General Gage shows up. And so they do, and they meet.
(12:13):
They don't really have a lot to really say.
It's really just like a dare. And then they just extend it and
they're hanging out for like a few hours just waiting to see
what the reaction will be. And someone does tell General
Gage, but he decides he doesn't have enough soldiers.
He yells out at the messenger. Damn them.
I won't do anything about it unless His Majesty sends me more
(12:36):
troops. And the next day he returns to
Boston because he was afraid similar things would start
happening in Boston. That's so fascinating about that
happening right there in Salem and Danvers in 1774.
It's one of those chapters, thathigh school where you learn
about the Boston Tea Party and the massacre and all the those
(12:58):
big events. But what's happening in Danvers
in Salem is so important. And you also have in February
1775, something big goes down inSalem with Leslie's.
Retreat locally. It's sort of our our next step
is Colonel Leslie and his soldiers had actually been some
of those camped in Danvers and Salem calm in that summer, but
(13:20):
they went back to Boston with Gage and at the end of the
summer. And so a few months go by, a few
months go by and Gage and the royal government start doing
powder raids, which were they realize these local militias had
a bunch of guns and they had a bunch of gunpowder.
And this was making General Gageuneasy.
(13:41):
So in in several towns, he wouldsend out soldiers to try to
seize them. The last time he tries that is
Lexington and Concord. But he done this up in what's
now Somerville with the Salem, the gunpowder raid in
particular. There were a couple cannons
there, small like field pieces. He sends the Colonel Leslie by
boat to Marblehead, gets off, marches into downtown Salem,
(14:04):
getting back to our the local Puritan heritage that was still
there in the 1770s. General Gage picks Sunday
morning because they're all in the meetinghouse and church and
they can't raise the militia easily.
That was a intentional, pretty effective tactic because the
British soldiers get all the waythrough Marblehead, all the way
(14:24):
into downtown Salem before anybody notices.
So it is a surprise in that sense, pretty much, at least
effectively a surprise. And they want to cross the
bridge to North Salem, which would be like as if you're
heading into Danvers out of downtown Salem, and they raise
the bridge or just don't let theBritish soldiers cross.
They get into a somewhat comicaltechnical argument that Colonel
(14:47):
Leslie says, this is the King's Hwy.
You can't stop a British soldier.
The local people say, actually it's a private bridge.
It's a toll bridge that we builtwith our own money.
So yes, we can deny you access and things you didn't think
anybody would actually care about or be involved in a
serious confrontation. And what happens is that just
buys time so that men from Marblehead, Salem, Danverson,
(15:11):
Beverly can turn out with their guns.
And they come to a negotiated settlement where they let Leslie
cross the bridge, walks about 100 pieces, looks around,
doesn't see any cannons, goes home.
And he can tell the governor I looked, didn't see him.
And they avoid actual fighting. There's there's one person who
(15:32):
gets stabbed because General Gage has a soldiers try to seize
the boats to cross the river as people in the boats are breaking
them up with hatchets so they can't be used.
And somebody does get stabbed, they don't die.
So it's not that there's zero bloodshed, but effectively.
I wasn't familiar with the stabbing aspect of it.
(15:53):
That just is so fascinating thatthere actually was some
bloodshed a couple months prior to Lexington and Concord.
So that's interesting to me as all.
Yeah, it I think it's, it's sucha great opportunity to look back
and see that I don't want to usethe word expression or really
(16:15):
resistance, but it was this comfortable, healthy.
Like to them, that's what we do.We want to protect our rights or
our land, our community. It means something to us.
We want it a certain way and we're going to do something
about it. I find that part fascinating.
At that point, obviously there'sliterature and pamphlets and
(16:39):
there's responses to resistance.But when it came in that moment,
this little community just was like, well, our bridge is going
up. It's our bridge.
I think that's amazing. The other thing I was going to
ask would have the homestead bend the reddish tone.
(16:59):
It is because I was thinking about all that red camped out in
the field. Oh.
Whether it matches the the house, while it would have been
originally, I'm unsure if at that moment it would have been.
We know that by the end of the late 1800s, it had changed and
red was just so commonly used just because it was cheap.
It was just the red, like the iron oxide in the ground that
(17:23):
I'm not sure. My, my guess would be that that
definitely would have continued into the 1700s.
But by the 1770s, you do have sort of fashion change.
You have houses that are redone in the Georgian style that have
some white paint. We have others that are like
tan. We've kind of moved away from
red is the cheap color in the 1690s and black, like the witch
(17:44):
house was the fancy color. There's a lot more options than
we have, some that are green. So I'm not sure I would assume
it continued. Well, at any rate, I think it's
really cool to see the communitycoming together.
And I do know that there were loyalists.
Not everybody resisted, but hereyou are within those generations
(18:08):
really seen a lot of unity. Yeah.
Here locally, pretty much everybody in town as a farmer or
small workshop manufacturer typebusiness.
The people who stayed loyal to the crown were really those who
are well off, who had taught ties to the government.
You know, that kind of makes sense.
(18:29):
Or ties to shipping. We do have a Putnam, James
Putnam, who had been the last royal attorney general for
Massachusetts. He stays loyal.
He decides to his best interest to leave town after Patriots
Day, the Battle of Lexington andConcord.
And he goes up to Nova Scotia with other, you know, they call
them the Loyalist refugees that leave and go up to Maritime
(18:52):
Canada. So they do definitely exist, but
it's very much a minority in communities like this.
How did the men from Danvers andSalem areas, how did they
respond to the Lexington alarm? That is an excellent question
and really one of the core ways that they are involved in the
(19:13):
American Revolution is day one. We have the Danvers Militia has
many companies. On the day of Lexington and
Concord, there's going to be more than 300 men under arms who
answer the call. And what happens is to take us
back to the Rebecca Nurse homestead.
We have Rebecca Nurse's great grandson, Francis Nurse is a
Sergeant in one of the companies.
(19:35):
His captain is John Putnam. There's another Sergeant who's a
Tarbell, which would win, and his cousins, another name from
the witch trials. And at about 9:00 AM on April
19th, 1775, they would have heard the battles of the Danvers
meetinghouse Tollin, which wouldhave been not typical.
And they all gather on the village training field from the
(19:57):
north part of Danvers, what's now the town of Danvers.
They gather up, they March S to what's to the city of Peabody.
That was the southern half of Danvers.
They meet up right near Peabody Square.
The tree is still there, where they all gathered up underneath
the different companies before they set off to intercept the
British. That tree does exist.
(20:18):
It's a giant old tree on the corner.
And what they do is they are going to hurry.
They run. A lot of it. 16 miles to cut off
the British. And at this point, they've heard
the British have marched on Lexington.
They know there's some patriot leaders, they're sure.
(20:38):
But it really is another move toseize arms and powder just like
they tried at Salem. And what lesson had been learned
by the British that is kind of what leads to the actual war
breaking out that day was they felt like they lost Leslie's
retreat in Salem, that they wereoverpowered by the militia, that
(21:02):
oh, they look kind of foolish. They were sent packing back to
Boston and when they do this again, there is this
determination of that's not going to happen again, which
will lead to it being a much more confrontational situation.
So when they opened fire in Lexington and then Concord, the
word spreads really quickly throughout Massachusetts with
(21:23):
the Danvers men and a couple from Beverly that they just live
closer to downtown Danvers. They know they can't make it to
Lexington in time. It's too far.
But they try to cut them off on their way back to Boston.
So they meet up at the Jason Russell House in monogamy, which
is today the town of Arlington. Jason Russell is actually the
(21:43):
ancestor of Kurt Russell, the famous actor.
He had a big visit to this historic site sometime around
the 250th last year of Patriots Day.
And with this event mostly at Russell's house.
But that little downtown neighborhood is really, really
brutal. Danvers loses the most men on
(22:06):
that day, second only to Lexington.
The fighting is savage. It's brutal.
And the reason for that is when the British are retreating from
Lexington, they are constantly being shot at behind all these
trees, all these rock walls. What you think of in those
paintings, what you learn about in school about it.
And the British, by the time they get to Arlington, a column
(22:28):
of reinforcements has met up with them.
So they're stronger. They have twice as many soldiers
and they are really really really P owed at how their
morning has gone. They are enraged at what has
happened to them and they take it out on Monotamy.
The Danvers militia, the local militia.
(22:49):
There's other towns that made itthere to take up positions
waiting for the British to approach them.
Basically like standing their ground as the British are
marching on them, not hiding behind a bunch of wall of them
and running away. So it really is a confrontation.
And what happens is the British will kill pretty much anybody
(23:11):
during if a gunshot comes out ofa house, they'll kill everybody
in the house. At the Russell house in
particular, Russell was 58. Jason Russell, he could like
barely walk, but he was not verywell.
But he said he was going to stay.
The entire British column had toMarch right past his front door.
So people were telling them not to stay 'cause that was a bad
(23:32):
set up. What happens is the dangerous
man dug in at his house. And in total, eleven Americans
are killed in his house. They're fighting outside.
They're fighting in the doorway.He's killed in his doorway,
Russell. They are fighting in the living
room, the cellar, the attic, just room by room with bayonets
(23:52):
with swords. And to show you how enraged the
British work, Russell's body is destroyed.
Every soldier that passed his doorway stabbed him on their way
by just because they were mad. And it really is a like very
savage day. There's people who are just in
(24:15):
downtown monogamy. There's a story of people not
involved in any sort of fightingthat were just captured by the
British and were robbed. The British execute prisoners of
war, they plunder, they steal, they loot the houses on their
way by. There's a story of two guys who
were just at a bar, the Cooper Tavern in Monotamy, and they
decided not to leave, which probably should have, and they
(24:39):
end up mangled by the British soldiers.
They're just sitting there having a beer.
They weren't involved in the battle.
They didn't have any anything todo with the damage militiamen.
In total, I should say this about 49 Massachusetts people
who were killed and 68 British soldiers at Menotomy.
(24:59):
And we see people from Danvers again, all of these people with
seemingly ties to the witch huntwe have.
Danvers is one of the few towns that brings back their people
who were killed and they weren'tjust buried there that we have
again, Putnams. We have cousins of the nurse
family who fight and die at thisevent.
Right before the British do makeit back to Boston.
(25:20):
There's a cemetery on the nurse homestead.
How did putnams and nurses end up buried together?
I think that's something that a lot of visitors to their rec and
nurse homestead ask about or arepuzzled about.
And it does get us back to a Revolutionary War connection in
that one of the last nurses to be buried there is Sergeant
(25:41):
Francis Nurse, who dies in 1780.Hugh answered the call the first
day of the Revolution and one ofthe other people buried there is
a an officer who's a Putnam fromDanvers who fought in the
revolution. And our link between the two is
that Sergeant Francis, Nurse marries someone named Eunice
Putnam. And therefore the two families
(26:05):
merge. And when their descendants
continue on, Sergeant Francis, his son, we'll sell it basically
just cousins, the Putnams and that they will take over
ownership of the nurse homestead.
And so Sergeant Francis is buried where Matthew Putnam is,
almost like 2 ends of the same sort of where there's a
(26:27):
different section for the Putnams.
And it was Matthew's father who purchased it from his cousin,
the farm. So he's the first to really live
his the rest of his life there after the revolution.
And I think that that really shows how groups are coming
together. They clearly put bygones be
bygones. Fortunately, those Putnams were
also descendants of Nathaniel Putnam, who had defended Rebecca
(26:50):
Nurse at that point in time. And so that cemetery for
generations continued to have both families buried there, that
their agreement was the Nurse family could keep burying people
there. The Putnams could now bury
people there. And so that goes on for a while.
The last burial is in the Putnamsection and sometime in the
1920s. So who was Israel Putnam?
(27:13):
I know he was a big figure in the revolution, wasn't he?
But he had a Danvers connection.Absolutely.
So Israel Putnam is born in 1718in Salem Village.
His father, Joseph Putnam was the half brother of Thomas
Putnam, one of the main accusersin the witch hunt.
Now, the difference is that Joseph Putnam was not on the
(27:37):
side of the accusers in the witch hunt and really did not
believe in the witch hunt, leading to the Putnam family
really being split on this issue.
And so Israel is Joseph's son. His father was an opponent of
the witch hunt, not involved in those accusations, but yet his
whole extended family pretty much had been involved in
accusing people. So he was baptized at the Salem
(27:59):
Village Church. Israel Putnam is by this time we
no longer of urban Paris. It's Joseph Green, the minister
who had come to Salem Village tokind of put the community back
together, so to speak, afterwards.
And he lives in Salem Village for a while.
His only education was at the little congregational school run
(28:19):
by the minister. And Israel Putnam does not write
very well. His formal education is
definitely limited. He was a very bright person, but
in terms of his school learning,very limited.
He plays an incredibly significant role in the American
(28:41):
Revolution. He is one of the oldest
Revolutionary War generals, so he does not live all the way to
the free and independent United States of America.
He ends up having a stroke in later years.
So he's he's not involved in thearmy throughout the war.
He's not involved. Once it, it really becomes our
own Republic. He.
(29:03):
Is not as famous as one might expect.
And I think part of it is we don't have a lot of his personal
writings. He's not John Adams, he's not
John Hancock. He doesn't have all these
Diaries, all of these things because of his kind of limited
education. Well, he's a general.
He always has his assistant write all his letters for him
(29:26):
and we do read the couple that he writes himself like on the
fly in the middle of a battle. It's kind of hard to figure out
what's being said here. So I think that's why he's not
as well remembered, but he should be.
He moved to Connecticut after hegets married.
He fights in the French and Indian War in upstate New York.
Interestingly posted alongside alot of militiamen from the
(29:49):
Danvers in Salem area who are like his cousins, people he
would have grown up with, peoplewho then fight at monotomy.
Also, when Lexington happens, he's on his farm down in
Connecticut and there's so many legends with Israel Putnam that
are. Some.
Are plausibly true, like him fighting a wolf and that's why
(30:11):
they call him old Wolf. Other things are seemingly
embellished. He reported.
Louis out in his field when the messenger comes from Boston,
from Watertown really is where the Massachusett, the
revolutionary government sent out riders went from Worcester
straight down to Connecticut to him, and he's out there
(30:34):
allegedly plowing his field. Now the story is set up so much
like an ancient Roman. It's a true story, but it's one
of those, it's a legendary storyjust in the way people retell it
of Cincinnatus. Who was this Roman guy in like
the five 80s BC and he was retired, He'd been a military
(30:56):
leader, retired. And then Rome's under attack and
they call him, he literally lefthis plow in the field, went to
Rome. They gave him absolute power as
a dictator. He defends Rome and when it's
done, he gives all the power back and goes home again.
The idea of like with great powers, great responsibility.
And it's funny that people portray Israel Putnam as that
(31:17):
because that's what people portrayed George Washington
also, that's why you have the order of the Cincinnati is the
revelers, noir veterans and such.
So it's interesting that that myth is actually here really
attached to Putnam. But to make a Long story short,
he allegedly leaves his plow in the field and immediately rides
for Boston. But he got his stuff together
(31:37):
1st and then came up here. He will lead the Army of
Connecticut outside Boston. That after Patriots Day, all of
these Massachusetts militiamen keep pouring in towards Boston.
People from out in the more western Massachusetts, people
from Southern New Hampshire answer the call.
And so Boston's surrounded. You.
(31:58):
Have different generals from different colonies that don't
really answer to one another because they're separate armies
technically. And it's kind of a mess.
But he's in charge of the Connecticut soldiers and with
him his local most important event is going to be the Battle
Bunker Hill. He's also involved at the end of
(32:20):
the siege of Boston and he'll bereally important in the Battle
of New York the following summerin in the 76 he.
Overall. Was an interesting figure in the
siege of Boston because he had actually known a lot of the
British officers in Boston. The British are now nowhere in
Massachusetts except bottled up in Boston, and they're
(32:42):
surrounded other than the Royal Navy that can, you know, keep
bringing ships in and out. But it's weird that he knows a
lot of his adversaries, that he fought with them up in upstate
New York against the French Canadians and such.
And he's one of the bolder generals or officers in general
in what is this provincial army.He is one of the first to say
(33:05):
that the colony should take Bunker Hill and fortify it
against the British. And at first, the Council of war
that they called the meeting of all the generals whenever
they're trying to decide on a battle plan is not in on that,
not in on that. Too bold, too bold.
But then by the time another month passes and they're June,
he suggested in May, it's not really going to work mid June,
(33:28):
they're in on it. And so he not just proposes it,
but he is physically there in the battle that he is the
highest ranking officer like fighting other than we're going
to have General Ward who actually will die.
And he was the president of the Massachusetts provisional
government. So the revolutionary government
(33:49):
with Putnam, he allegedly says don't fire if they see the
lights of their eyes. There are people for generations
and generations who fight over who said those words.
There is articles upon article there, angry letters from the
early 1800s after angry letters of no, you know, my ancestor
(34:10):
said that. No, our ancestor said that.
That is a whole oral issue for kind of another day.
But what it seems to be is that that were the common phrase
don't fire till they see the whites of their eyes had been
said by other military leaders in the previous generation.
And that yeah, Putnam probably said it, but he also probably
wasn't the only one who said it.And that kind of tells you why
(34:32):
everybody is like, no, this guy said it.
No, that guy said it. Wolf Putnam himself, he does
frequently return to visit Danvers throughout his life, and
he will liberate Boston on evacuation day.
When the British withdraw, they are kind of afraid to go into
Boston because there had been this horrible smallpox outbreak
(34:55):
and that Putnam was old enough that he had had the smallpox the
last time it came around. And so that he was given command
of the troops that actually werethe first to March into the
city. His career does last for years.
His other moon notoriety is the battle of New York, of Long
Island, specifically Brooklyn. Once the war moves out of
Massachusetts, New York is really the next focal point with
(35:19):
us in our 250th events around here.
We are through most of them at this point.
Yet the war is only just beginning, it seems.
And at Brooklyn, he will commandthe defense of Long Island when
the British Lance the British invade.
It's the largest amphibious invasion in world history.
(35:41):
At that point in time, the British Land 20,000 soldiers on
Long Island. Putnam had a different job.
He was in charge of Manhattan. And then General Green in charge
of Long Island got sick and got replaced.
And then his replacement needed to be replaced.
(36:01):
So Putnam's put in charge like aday before this enormous battle,
and it doesn't go great. But you're severely outnumbered.
They have a fleet, and it was someone else's battle plan.
And so he'll continue fighting around New York for and
Connecticut for, like most of the rest of the war.
(36:22):
Great. Did he have sons fighting?
He did. He had a son who came up with
him around Boston. He had a couple sons who in
several capacities, One of them is really they de Camp Daniel
for a while. He has another son with him when
he's in upstate New York. That, yeah, that they were
involved. And throughout the way, he also
(36:43):
keeps bumping into his Massachusetts cousins.
He's a cousin, Rufus Putnam, who's involved in the basic like
a military engineer of the fortifications around Boston.
What they're going to dig on Bunker Hill, how they built the
fortifications on Dorchester Heights that then they put
(37:04):
cannons there and the British had to leave because they
realized that they could shoot into Boston.
His cousin, he also had been in upstate New York with during the
French and Indian War. That it's funny how these people
keep crossing paths with people that they knew from around here,
basically wherever they end up on campaign.
Israel Putnam Did he know General Gage in the French and
(37:25):
Indian War? I don't believe that they had
crossed paths that Gage had beenfurther South.
He had actually crossed paths with Washington in the French
and Indian War down in Virginia,but he had crossed paths with
people like General Clinton, basically the generals directly
below Gage. Do you know much about Colonel
(37:46):
Israel Hutchinson? Yeah, he had been a captain, the
Danras militia. He goes on to be a Colonel.
He was with Putnam in upstate New York.
He. Answers the call on Patriots Day
and then his group goes on to later Saratoga in upstate New
York. Yeah, he's happens to be my
(38:08):
first cousin. That's why I asked because my 2
Hutchinson ancestors in Danvers at the time were Josiah and
Josiah. And one I think was just a
little too old for to fight and one was a little too young.
So I kind of look at my, you know, what were my cousins up to
at that fight? And he was definitely involved
(38:31):
in monotomy. And with Joseph Hutchinson his
the site of where his house was has a large monument.
And the reason for that is aftermonotomy, the seven the remains
of the seven Danvers soldiers who were killed were brought
back to his house 1st and that'swhere they were lame.
(38:52):
And so on Patriots Day, the Danvers Alarmless Company, the
Revolutionary War re enactors that own and operate the Rebecca
Nurse Homestead. They do their stations in the
morning of visiting every known grave of those who had died at
Monotamy, as well as they go to Hutchinson's house every
Patriot's Day. How is Benjamin Franklin?
(39:13):
He's one of our favorite founding father.
Every child knows about him in America.
How was he connected to both therevolution and the Salem Witch
trials? Yes.
So Benjamin Franklin is like Israel Putnam in the sense that
they're only one generation removed.
Both of them were among the older people in the 1770s
(39:34):
involved in the revolution, but their parents were in Benjamin
Franklin's cases. Aunt played important roles in
the witch hunt in Salem Village.Benjamin Franklin's aunt was
Bethshewa Pope, who's an accuserin 1692.
She becomes one of the afflictedaccusers and she's one of the
first two adults to claim to be afflicted.
(39:57):
It's her and Missus Putnam are are the first two adults. 2
moments of her time in the witchhunt that stick out to me are on
March 13th, 1692 as we've only had a handful of accusations
yet. At that point, she interrupts a
service in the meeting house claiming that she had been
struck blind. Interrupts the minister, stands
up, claims that through some witchcraft, through some magic
(40:21):
that she struck blind. And then again only about 11
days later on March 24th, she has a giant fit claimed to be
caused by witchcraft. On the day Rebecca Nurse is
arrested and brought before the two judges.
And when she stands up as the judges are sort of easing up on
(40:41):
their questions to Rebecca Nurse, she stands up, has this
giant fit flailing and screamingand then all the other accusers
break out. Also does she starts that whole
round in that moment and with Benjamin Franklin before someone
familiar to all of your listeners.
I think he's interesting in the start of the Revolution in that
(41:01):
he is in London in 74 when all these laws against Massachusetts
are being passed. Although he's from Boston
originally, since his family wasaround here, of course, he's
much more associated with Philadelphia, where he had gone
on to live. He's in London at the start
because he's the agent for some of the North American colonies.
The colonies weren't representedin the House of Commons.
(41:25):
The whole no taxation without your representation thing.
But they also couldn't send an ambassador to London because
they're the same country. So the colonists would hire
agents that were like basically their lobbyist to go meet with
members of Parliament and say the Massachusetts government
would actually prefer this instead of that.
(41:46):
So he's lobbyist and he's there on behalf of multiple colonies,
but Massachusetts for a while, primarily Pennsylvania,
sometimes both representing their interests as it breaks
out. He then of course returns home.
And I think the rest of the story is pretty known there.
But he has an interesting perspective in that he's
overseas for some of these beginning events.
(42:09):
You've mentioned the Danvers Alarmless Company in the
Homestead. Tell us about the homestead in
the company. Yeah.
So the Rebecca Nurse Homestead predominantly of course, a
museum about the witch hunt of 1692 is owned and operated by a
nonprofit group of revolutionarywarring actors because of
(42:29):
Rebecca Nurse's great grandson, Sergeant Francis Nurse, who
fought at Monotomy. And they have been incredible
busy for the 250th, the AmericanRevolution they started for the
bicentennial. So this is sort of Round 2 for
some of them. And of course had many younger
recruits also who this is round one for and the event locally.
(42:55):
So many of them for the 250th have been organized by the
Danvers alarmless not just things in Danvers but in Salem.
The anniversary of Leslie's retreat was a large part
organized by them. The actual reenactment was
organized by them. They've been in surrounding
communities on on various eventsand they'll continue to follow
the war going out with the goal being to go to the reenactments
(43:21):
of anywhere that people from their original unit in the 1770s
actually had fought where the men from Danvers had actually
fought. With the homestead itself.
There is some reinterpretation or reorganization for the 250th
that, although not yet completed, there is a part of
(43:42):
the house, one of the bedrooms, that's going to be set up as it
would have been in 1775 when Francis Nurse left the house to
answer the alarm. The house was built in so many
different time periods that thatpart of the house was more about
the 1750s, we think. And so that's the part of the
house that most fits with his era.
And so sort of realigning and reinterpreting that helps reach
(44:05):
that other generation of history.
Are there tours available? Yeah.
The Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open weekends in the spring,
rainy days in the summer, and about half a week in the busy
fall season. Additionally, I do walking tours
in Danvers of some of the witch trials sites in the historic
(44:25):
district. In Danvers, we start at the
training field where the militialeft from anatomy.
Not that that's our theme of thetour, but it's true.
We see the foundation of Reverend Samuel Paris's house,
what's left of the building thatwas the Tavern in Salem Village,
the memorial to the victims of the witch hunts, the First
Church of Danvers. That was the same congregation
(44:46):
that was in Salem Village in 1692.
So that's our loop. We've been doing that.
Let's see. I started doing that in 2021,
which was when the book came out.
And so this will be our fifth season, which that went quick,
but yeah, still going. Awesome.
Yeah, we really appreciate your research.
(45:09):
Oh, thank you. Well, I appreciate your program,
the podcast. It's a great way to have people
related not just to Salem, but to other witch hunts who have
different expertise, the different perspectives and
categories than I had encountered other places.
I'm sure you, our listeners, enjoyed getting to know more
(45:31):
about the American Revolution and the Salem history as much as
we did. Thanks, Dan.
We hope you share this episode with someone who loves American
history. Find us wherever you listen to
podcasts and learn more about our work at endwitchhunts.org
and consider picking up dansbookifyouhaventfromourbookshop@bookshop.org/shop
(45:53):
slash end witch hunts. Have a great today and a
beautiful tomorrow.
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