University of Virginia Library

62. A Child of the Revolution
BY SAMUEL BRECK (1771-1782)

I WAS born on the 17th of July, 1771, in the then town of Boston. It was at a period of political excitement, and I feel myself identified with the Revolution, having been nursed at Lexington, where the first blood was spilt, and an unconscious spectator of the great battle of Bunker Hill.

I say unconscious, because at the date of that battle (17th of June, 1775) I was too young to receive a durable impression, or indeed any recollection at all about it. I have been told, however, that the woman who had the care of me stood on an eminence with me in her arms watching the engagement.

I remember perfectly an event that took place shortly after. Boston was closely invested by Washington, and in the bombardment a shell fell in our courtyard that cracked a beautiful mirror by the concussion of the air in bursting, and gave my father a broad hint to provide for the safety of his family.

He obtained a passport from the British general, and, being allowed to traverse the camp of the

besiegers, brought his wife and children to Philadelphia, stopping a few days at New York, and travelling from that city in company with the late Vice-President, George Clinton, who, as I have heard my father say, had the kindness to bring me part of the way in his sulky.

My parents have often told me how hospitably we were received in that city, where, in common with all the colonies, a strong sympathy was entertained for the sufferers in Boston. I, of course, have few recollections of that period. One thing only can I remember, and that is the inoculation of my sister and myself for the small-pox.

We stayed a few months in Philadelphia, and then removed to Taunton in Massachusetts, in order to be ready to enter Boston as soon as the British should evacuate the town. It was here at Taunton that I distinctly recollect seeing the procession of the Pope and the Devil on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Effigies of those two illustrious personages were paraded round the Common, and this was perhaps the last exhibition of the kind in our country.[171]

In due time we returned to Boston, and having been nursed, as I said before, at Lexington, I may boast of having been cradled in the midst of the brave men who so nobly commenced and so gloriously terminated our immortal war of Independence.

The winter of 1780 was colder than any that has occurred since. I was then a scholar at Chelsea, and perfectly well remember being driven by my father's coachman, in a sleigh with two horses, on the ice directly across the bay of Boston, starting from the north part of the town, and keeping for many miles

on the ice, which we left, to traverse farms, without being stopped by the stone fences, which were all covered with snow.

It was in the summer that suceeded this cold weather, I think, that the famous Dark Day happened in New England. I was at the same school. It began about eleven o'clock in the morning, when I was standing by the master reading my lesson. The light grew dim, and in a very short time faded into utter darkness. The school was dismissed, and we went below stairs. The cause was wholly inexplicable at the time, nor do I find that it has ever been satisfactorily explained. Some ascribed it to an extensive conflagration in the backwoods, but I do not remember any heavy smoke or other indication of fire.

I know that candles were lit, and the frightened neighbors groped their way to our house for spiritual consolation and joined in prayer with our reverend principal, and that after we had dined by candlelight—probably about three o'clock—it cleared up and became bright enough to go abroad.

The day having been one of terror, and now more than two-thirds spent, we were not called to school in the afternoon, but were permitted to go into the fields to gather fruit and bird's eggs. Yet the succeeding night was "palpably obscure." Many accidents happened to those who were on the road. Nothing could exceed the darkness. No doubt there was a natural cause for it, but whether smoke or vapor, or other atmospherical density, remains unknown.

Beacon Hill was a famous spot, known to everybody who knew anything of Boston. It received its name from a beacon that stood on it. Spokes were

fixed in a large mast, on the top of which was placed a barrel of pitch or tar, always ready to be fired on the approach of the enemy.

Around this pole I have fought many battles, as a South End boy, against the boys of the North End of the town; and bloody ones too, with slings and stones very skilfully and earnestly used. In what a state of semi-barbarism did the rising generations of those days exist! From time immemorial these hostilities were carried on by the juvenile part of the community.

The schoolmasters whipped, parents scolded—nothing could check it. Was it a remnant of the fighting habit of our British ancestors? or was it an untamed feeling arising from our colonial situation? Whatever was the cause, everything of the kind ceased with the ending of our Revolutionary War.

I forget on what holiday it was that the Anticks, another exploded remnant of colonial manners, used to perambulate the town. They have ceased to do it now, but I remember them as late as 1782. They were a set of the lowest blackguards, who, disguised in filthy clothes and ofttimes with masked faces, went from house to house in large companies, and thrust themselves everywhere, particularly into rooms that were occupied by parties of ladies and gentlemen; and they would demean themselves with great insolence. I have seen them at my father's, when his assembled friends were at cards, take possession of a table, seat themselves on rich furniture and proceed to handle the cards, to the great annoyance of the company. The only way to get rid of them was to give them money, and listen patiently to a foolish dialogue between two or more of them. One of them

would cry out, "Ladies and gentlemen sitting by the fire, put your hands in your pockets and give us our desire." When this was done and they had received some money, a kind of acting took place. One fellow was knocked down, and lay sprawling on the carpet, while another bellowed out,

He calls for a doctor, who soon appears, and enacts the part so well that the wounded man revives. In this way they would continue for half an hour; and it happened not unfrequently that the house would be filled by another gang when these had departed. There was no refusing admittance. Custom had licensed these vagabonds to enter even by force any place they chose.

The celebrated Latin School in my days was kept by Mr. Hunt. He was a severe master, and flogged heartily. I went on, however, very well with him, mollifying his stern temper by occasional presents in money, which my indulgent father sent to him by me. Thus my short career at his school (seventeen or eighteen months) passed without any corporal correction. I was even sometimes selected for the honorable office of sawing and piling his wood, which to most boys is a vastly more delightful occupation than chopping logic, working themes or dividing sums; in short, a translation from intellectual labor to any bodily toil was looked upon as a special favor, and, dunces as we were, we preferred it greatly to a bans ration from Latin into English.