The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Some of the more adventurous patriots climbed to the top of the raised drawbridge and hurled insulting taunts at the British infantry, yelling “Fire and be damned to you.” Rev. Thomas Barnard of the North Church tried to make peace and addressed Colonel Leslie: “You cannot commit this violation against innocent people, here on this holy day, without sinning against God and humanity. Let me entreat you to return.”

At the head of the crowd of armed men of Salem stood Captain Richard Derby. He owned eight of the nineteen cannon which had been collected for the use of the Provincial Congress and he had not the slightest notion of surrendering them. There was a parley while Colonel Leslie argued that he was in lawful use of the King’s highway. The Salem rejoinder was to the effect that the road and the bridge were private property to be taken from them only by force and under martial law. At this juncture, when bloody collision seemed imminent, Captain Richard Derby took command of the situation, and roared across the stream, as if he were on his own quarterdeck:

“Find the cannon if you can. Take them if you can. They will never be surrendered.”

A fine portrait of this admirable old gentleman has been preserved, and in a well-powdered wig, with a spyglass in his hand, he looks every inch the man who hurled this defiance at Great Britain and dared a battalion of His Majesty’s foot to knock the chip off his stalwart shoulder. Colonel Leslie made a half-hearted attempt to set his men across the river in boats, and it was at this time that the only casualty occurred, a Salem man, Joseph Whicher, receiving a bayonet thrust. Meanwhile the Marblehead regiment of patriot militia had been mustered under arms, and the Minute Men of Danvers were actually on the march toward the North River bridge. Perceiving that to force a passage meant to set the whole colony in a blaze, and unwilling to shoulder so tremendous a responsibility without orders from General Gage, the British colonel delayed for further discussion. At length Captain Derby and his friends proposed that in order to satisfy Colonel Leslie’s ideas of duty and honor, he should be permitted to cross the bridge and immediately thereafter return whence he came. This odd compromise was accepted, and after marching to the farther side of the river the troops faced about and footed back to their transport at Marblehead, without finding the cannon they had come out to take. It was a victory for Captain Richard Derby and his townsmen and well worth a conspicuous place in the history of the beginnings of the American Revolution.

Another prominent figure in this tremendously dramatic situation was Colonel David Mason, a veteran soldier who had commanded a battery in the French War in 1756-7, and a scientist of considerable distinction who had made discoveries in electricity of such importance that he was requested to journey to Philadelphia to discuss them with Doctor Franklin. Colonel Mason was a man of great public spirit and patriotism, and in November, 1774, he had received an appointment as Engineer from the “Massachusetts Committee of Safety,” which was the first military appointment of the Revolutionary War. He was from this time actively engaged in collecting military stores for the use of his country and making secret preparation for the approaching contest with England. He had obtained from Captain Derby the cannon which Colonel Leslie wished to confiscate and had given them to a Salem blacksmith to have the iron work for the carriages made and fitted.

Colonel Mason resided near the North Bridge and Doctor Barnard’s church. When he heard the British troops were drawing near he ran into the North Church and disrupted the afternoon service by shouting at the top of his voice: “The regulars are coming and are now near Malloon’s Mills.” He and others in authority among their fellow-townsmen tried to control the hotheads and avert hostilities. But the task was made difficult by defiant patriots who bellowed across the drawbridge:

“Soldiers, red jackets, lobster coats, cowards, damn your government.”

A high-spirited dame, Sarah Tarrant by name, poked her head out of a window of her cottage overlooking the scene and shrilly addressed the British colonel:

“Go home and tell your master he has sent you on a fool’s errand, and broken the peace of our Sabbath. What? Do you think we were born in the woods to be frightened by owls? Fire at me if you have the courage, but I doubt it.”

John Howard of Marblehead, who was one of the militia men under arms, stated in his recollections of the affair at the North Bridge that there were eight military companies in Marblehead at that time, comprising nearly the whole male population between sixteen and sixty years of age. They were all promptly assembled under Colonel Orne, to the number of a thousand men. Their orders were “to station themselves behind the houses and fences along the road prepared to fall upon the British on their return from Salem, if it should be found that hostile measures had been used by them; but if it should appear that no concerted act of violence upon the persons or property of the people had been committed, they were charged not to show themselves, but to allow the British detachment to return unmolested to their transport.”