Drinker, Draftsman, Soldier, Spy (episode 321)

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Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.

Introduction to Spies

Jake:
[0:15] This is episode 321. Drinker, draftsman, soldier, Spy. Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m talking about two British spies who were sent into the small towns around Boston 250 years ago this week. General Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief of all British forces in North America, carefully selected two redcoats to go undercover, roaming highways and country lanes and taking painstaking notes about their terrain and relative military advantages. First they surveyed the western roads to Worcester, then the northern roads to Concord, anticipating a spring offensive against one town or another. Unfortunately for them, however, their disguises were not as good as they’d hoped, and they were soon under nearly constant surveillance from patriot counterintelligence that left them in fear for their lives.

Jake:
[1:12] But before we talk about British spies in revolutionary Massachusetts, I just want to pause and say thanks to our sponsors for making this podcast possible. As you might imagine, I listened to a whole lot of podcasts before I decided to start one of my own. I still listen to a lot today. There’s a podcast for every interest, even an incredibly small niche, like, say, 321 episodes about weird subtopics in Boston history. One of the best things about podcasts is that they’re free to listen to. Unfortunately, it’s not free to make a podcast, not even a small niche one about Boston history. We have expenses for things like podcast media hosting, web security, research databases, and the automated tools that I use for transcription and audio mastering. Luckily, our Patreon sponsors pay the way, so all I have to do is show up. Oh, and, you know, think up a topic, figure out what sources might be available, write a 10 to 20 page script, record it, edit all my terrible takes together into something that sounds halfway decent. And then hit the publish button.

Jake:
[2:24] To everyone who’s already supporting the show, thank you. If you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com/hubhistory or visit hubhistory.com and click on the support U link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

The Revolutionary Season

Jake:
[2:44] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

Jake:
[2:47] In my mind, Boston’s revolutionary season runs from Patriots Day in April to evacuation Day in the following March. So while America is celebrating the 250th anniversary of independence in July of 2026, most of our local anniversaries are coming up sooner. We already had the 250th anniversary of the Boston massacre, just days before COVID lockdown started in March 2020, then the citywide celebration of the anniversary of the Tea Party in December 2023. In 2025, Boston’s gonna be celebrating the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride on April 18th, and the battles of Lexington and Concord on the 19th. We have the anniversary of Bunker Hill on June 17th, Washington taking command on July 3rd, and then with evacuation day, our own little independence Day falls on March 17, 2026. I recently sat down to map out how I was gonna handle the semi-quincentennial on the podcast. We’ll see a mix of some new episodes, mostly about smaller historical events that might get lost in the shuffle, alongside some reruns of past episodes and hopefully some new interviews.

British Intelligence in Massachusetts

Jake:
[4:03] This is the show that goes far beyond the Freedom Trail, so of course, not every episode in the next year will be about the war for independence.

Jake:
[4:12] Because I now have some sort of a plan in place, I’m treating this episode as the first in a year-long series on the 250th anniversary of the revolution in Boston.

Jake:
[4:23] On the night of April 18th, 1775, 2 lanterns briefly shone out from the steeple of Old North to signal that the British were moving toward Concord by sea. Meaning that they would row across the back bay from Boston Common to Phipps Farm, and then march from Cambridge through Lexington to Concord. Why do they decide not to march out Boston neck and take the land route over the bridges at Harvard Square or Watertown Square and then make their way to Concord from there? And how do they know which of the many roads that crisscross the countryside they should take from Cambridge through Charlestown in Monotony to Lexington and Concord? Well, British General Thomas Gauge had detailed notes and maps prepared by his intelligence network just weeks before. Gau had been working on confiscating colonial weapons and ammunition that could be used against the redcoats for months. In September 1774, he sent a detachment of troops to raid the powder house in Charlestown, and apart this today Somerville, where they loaded up all the gunpowder and made it back to Boston before anyone realized what had happened.

Jake:
[5:31] With rumors swirling through the countryside that shots had been fired and Cambridge was ablaze, militia marched to the scene from all over Massachusetts and even parts of Connecticut, but they got there too late to make a difference. By the end of the month, patriot leaders had met and reorganized about a third of the militia into a quick reaction strike force, known as the Minutemen. They also set up a network of alarms and express messengers who would ride across the region to muster the militia to arms in the face of another raid.

Jake:
[6:03] That December, Joseph Warren’s Patriot spy network in Boston alerted him to a potential British raid on colonial supplies in Newport or Portsmouth. The intelligence later turned out to be a false alarm, but Warren sent Paul Revere on a wintertime ride to New Hampshire to warn the local militia. The New Hampshire militia turned out, took over Fort William and Mary at the mouth of the Piscatacour River from its skeleton crew of redcoats that manned it and spirited away all the gunpowder. You can hear more about both powder alarms in our episode 76 from April 2018. In the face of this unexpectedly sophisticated resistance, General Gage thought carefully about his next target. He was sure that when the spring came, he’d be ordered to take a more aggressive stance in putting down the growing rebellion in the New England countryside. There were a few potential objectives for this spring campaign, but one of the most obvious was Worcester. In his 1994 retelling of Paul Revere’s ride, David Hackett Fisher explains why the metropolis of central Mass was so attractive. As General Gauge studied the reports that came across his desk, his first thought was to revive an earlier plan and strike at the shire town of Worcester, 40 miles west of Boston.

Jake:
[7:25] That village had become a major center of the revolutionary movement. Various provincial bodies had met there. A large supply of munitions was stored its houses and barns, and the tools of war were manufactured in its mills. Agents reported that 15 tons of gunpowder were on hand, and 13 cannon were parked in front of the congregational meeting house. For many months, the inhabitants of Worcester had been outspoken in support of the Whig cause, and it spurned all compromise. Fisher quotes a letter that Gage wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth concluding, I apprehend I shall soon be obliged to march a body of troops into that township. If he was going to have to launch a strike against the most heavily armed and ideologically zealous patriot stronghold some 40 miles from his base of power in Boston, the general needed to know some things about how to get there. In February, he recruited two officers to go into the countryside in civilian clothes and map the roads and gather information. Among the many papers that were abandoned when the British evacuated Boston in March of 1776 were Gage’s actual orders to these officers, which were dated Boston, February 22, 1775.

Jake:
[8:45] Gentlemen, You will go through the counties of Suffolk and Worcester, taking a sketch of the country as you pass. It is not expected you should make out regular plans and surveys, but mark out the roads and distances from town to town, as also the situation and nature of the country. All passes must be particularly laid down noticing the length and breadth of them, the entrance in and going out of them, and whether to be avoided by taking other routes. The rivers also to be sketched out, remarking their breadth and depth and the nature of their banks on both sides, the fords, if any, and the nature of their bottoms, many of which particulars may be learned of the country people. You’ll remark the heights you meet with whether the ascents are difficult or easy, as also the woods and mountains with the heightened nature of the latter, whether to be got around or easily passed over. The nature of the country to be particularly noticed, whether enclosed or open if the former, what kind of enclosures and whether the country admits of making roads for troops on the left or right of the main road or on the sides.

Jake:
[9:56] You will notice the situation of towns and villages, their churches and churchyards, whether they are advantageous spots to take post in and capable of being made defensible. If any places strike you as proper for encampments or appear strong by nature, you’ll remark them particularly and give reasons for your opinions.

Jake:
[10:17] It would be useful if you could inform yourselves of the necessaries their different counties could supply, such as provisions, forage, straw, etc. The number of cattle, horses, etc. and the several townships. I am gentlemen, your most obedient humble servant, Thomas Gauge.

The Chosen Officers

Jake:
[10:38] On his excellent blog, Boston 1775, JL Bell has identified the two men chosen for the job as Henry de Bernier and William Brown. De Bernier was an Irish descendant of French Huguenot refugees. He enlisted in the British Army in 1770 as an ensign, which is the equivalent of the modern 2nd lieutenant rank in the US Army, making him quite obviously a soldier. He was assigned to the 10th regiment of foot and quickly sent to America, where he was stationed along the Niagara River in 1773. Bell points out that he made detailed sketches of Niagara Falls, Fort Niagara, Fort Erie, and Detroit, indicating that he was an experienced draftsman, which made him perfect for the scouting mission into the rebellious countryside. On the blog, Bell points out that de Bernier is a much easier name to track down than Brown is, but he was able to identify the other scout as William Brown of the fifty-second regiment. It’s unclear when he enlisted, but he was promoted to captain by 1771. By the late winter of 1774 to 1775, British authority in Massachusetts only extended to the city gates at Boston Neck, or as far as a musket would fire from the nearest British patrol.

Jake:
[12:00] General Gauge was nominally the governor of the colony, but the Whigs who effectively controlled it had set up a provincial congress that served as the shadow government of the colony in the fall of 1774. In response to the hostile population around Boston, General Gage deployed an extensive intelligence network. In his book on Paul Revere’s ride, David Hackett Fisher wrote. In the winter and spring of 1774 and 1775, 2 months before Gage’s secret orders to seize colonial arms and patriot leaders arrived, his staff began to collect information about eastern Massachusetts. Every officer in the garrison with knowledge of the countryside was ordered to report to headquarters. Loyalist agents were actively recruited. They began to send a steady flow of information on provincial politics and military affairs.

Jake:
[12:55] While they weren’t going into a foreign country, Gage’s scouts would need to infiltrate hostile territory under false pretenses, while in disguise and out of uniform. That makes them spies, at least by any common definition of the word. De Bernier kept detailed notes on the mission, which were left behind in the confusion of the British evacuation from Boston and published in 1779. His account begins. We set out from Boston on Thursday, February 23rd, disguised like countrymen in brown clothes and reddish handkerchiefs around our necks. At the ferry of Charlestown, we met a sentry of the fifty-second regiment, but Captain Brown’s servant, whom we took along with us, bid him not to take any notice of us, so that we passed unknown to Charlestown. From there we went to Cambridge, a pretty town with a college build of brick. The ground is entirely level on which the town stands. We next went to Watertown and were not suspected. It’s a pretty large town for America, but would be looked upon as a village in England.

Jake:
[14:07] It took me a little bit of time to work out who Captain Brown’s servant was, because in that era, the word servant sometimes meant a free white person who earned wages, and sometimes it meant an enslaved black person. In this case, the servant was an enlisted soldier in Brown’s fifty-second regiment, a white man named John.

Jake:
[14:28] After leaving Watertown Square, the 3 British scouts worked their way west on the Boston Post Road. I want to do a whole episode about the postro one of these days, so I won’t go into a ton of detail here, but it was basically our first interstate. The route was formerly laid out in the 1670s, in many cases following an older eququat trail. It leads from Boston out through Sudbury, down toward Worcester, then out to Springfield. From there it follows the valley of the Connecticut River to Hartford before veering off to Newhaven and then hugging the coast until it reaches Manhattan. Built to ensure that mail service could run between Manhattan and Boston all the year round, it was the first publicly maintained for much of the route that it followed. It was the main overland route between Boston and New York for centuries. Their first major stop would be a tavern on the Watertown Waltham town line. De Bernier notes a little out of this town we went into a tavern, a Mister Brewer’s, a wake.

Jake:
[15:34] On his blogussin Rambles, Gary Denton points out that calling the proprietor John Brewer a whig was a major understatement. Born in Framingham in 1726, Brewer gained military experience at an early age. In 1748, he was at Fort Dummer in Vermont fighting the French and also as part of campaigns in New York and in Quebec during the French and Indian War from 1754, ultimately becoming a captain by 1759. On April 24th, 1775, 8 weeks after the visit of the two spies and only days after the events at Lexington and Concord, Brewer volunteered his services to the rebels and was charged with forming a regiment, which only eight weeks later served at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775.

Jake:
[16:25] Brewer got wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. After that, he commanded the Massachusetts Regiment of Artificers, which typically served behind the lines.

Brewer’s Tavern Encounter

Jake:
[16:35] The point being that Brewer’s Tavern was not the best place for a pair of redcoat spies to settle in, spread their maps and papers all over the table, and start making a plan for the next day’s intelligence gathering. But that’s precisely what DeBarnier and Brown did, recording. We called for dinner, which was brought in by a black woman. At first she was very civil, but afterwards began to eye us very attentively. She then went out and a little while after returned when we observed to her that it was a very fine country. Upon which she answered, so it is, and we have got very brave fellows to defend it, and if you go up any higher, you will find it so. This disconcerted us a great deal. We imagined she knew us from our papers, which we took out before her, as the general had told us to pass for surveyors.

Role of Taverns in Society

Jake:
[17:33] Most modern establishments that call themselves taverns are essentially bars, but back in the 1700s, they were a catch-all third place for Americans. If you weren’t at home or at work, there was a good chance that you were on your way to the tavern. They served food and drink, and they provided lodgings for travelers. Gary Denton notes. Taverns in 18th century America had a much more important place in society than their contemporary role of providing a meeting space to drink, eat, and watch sports. Taverns were indeed places to drink, and colonists drank quite heavily, but they were also one of the few places where people could meet and talk openly in public, and to many colonists, the life of the tavern came to seem the most democratic experience available to them. In December 1775, after Massachusetts was openly at war with the redcoats, the legislature recognized the important role that inns and taverns played in the war effort, when they voted to reimburse inholders like John Brewer. For supporting the soldiers in their march from their homes to headquarters and For support of prisoners and their guards and also for the support of 6 soldiers and Indians.

Jake:
[18:52] Brewer had opened his tavern in 1770 at the corner where the road to Monotony split off from the post road. Today, Monotony is Arlington, Mass. The post road is US Route 20 or Main Street in Waltham, and the road that splits off toward Monotomy is Warren Ave. The original site of Brewer’s Tavern was on the south side of that intersection, on the grounds of Gore Place, the very Monticello-esque home of Governor Christopher Gore. Around the time that Gore bought the property, half the original brewer Tavern was moved across the post road where it continued as a tavern under new management. The original building was demolished in the 1920s, but there’s still a brewer’s tavern on the north side of the intersection today. Gary didn’t visited it, so you don’t have to writing. Today, a modern John Brewer’s Tavern exists almost directly across the street from the original tavern, on Main Street in Waltham, just over the Watertown border. Today’s incarnation with a few small rooms, a dark wood interior, and pleasant wooden booths in the bar room has a bit of an 18th century feel. However, the televisions on virtually every wall, disgorging a steady stream of college basketball games, dispel any sense of traveling through time.

Jake:
[20:16] Their waitress’ warning about brave fellows who would defend their fine country had spooked brown and deeper near, so they decided not to spend the night at Brewer’s Tavern as they had initially intended. Instead, their account continues. Accordingly, we paid our bill, which amounted to 2 pounds odd shillings. They attempted to pay an English pound sterling, and the conversion to colonial paper money had to be explained to them. After we had left the house, we inquired of John, our servant, what she had said. He told us that she knew Captain Brown very well, that she had seen him 5 years before at Boston and knew him to be an officer, and that she was sure I was one also, and told John that he was a regular. He denied it, but she said she knew our errand was to take a plan of the country, that she had seen the river and rode through Charlestown in the paper. She also advised him to tell us not to go any higher, for if we did, we should meet with very bad usage.

Jake:
[21:20] Having to inquire of John what the waitress had said to him indicates that they had him sit separately from them, as it would have been unheard of in the British class system for an enlisted man to dine at the table with his commanding officers or for a servant, free or enslaved to join his master. They soon realized that that was a mistake. One of many they had made, with Charles Holman noting in a 2006 article, in spite of their failure to achieve anonymity, this abortive first foray had been a useful learning experience, and the two Britons remained determined to go on with the mission. Many brother officers were jealous of them because they had been chosen for this assignment, and they would look foolish they turned back after their first day abroad. They also decided, however, to avoid being observed surveying if they could help it. No spreading of maps on the table. Most important, they would take their meals with the servant John rather than consigning them to another table as officers usually did with enlisted men.

Jake:
[22:24] The scouts had been unsettled by their first experience of a Massachusetts country tavern. They were tempted to turn back to the safety of Boston. In his notes, de Bernier records how they decided to press onwards instead in search of safer lodgings for the night. We called a council and agreed that if we went back we should appear very foolish, as we had a great number of enemies in town because the general had chose to employ us in preference to them. It was absolutely necessary to push on to Worcester and to run all risk rather than go back until we were forced.

Continuing the Mission

Jake:
[23:01] Accordingly, we continued our route and went about 6 miles further. We met a country fellow driving a team and a fellow with him whom we suspected to be a deserter. They both seemed very desirous to join company with us and told us upon our saying we were going towards Worcester that they were going our way.

Jake:
[23:23] As we began to suspect something, we stopped at a tavern at the sign of the golden ball with an intention to get a drink and so proceed. But upon our going in, the landlord pleased us so much as he was not inquisitive that we resolved to lie there that night. So we ordered some fire to be made in the room we were in and a little after to get us some coffee. He told us that we might have what we pleased, either tea or coffee.

Jake:
[23:52] The offer of tea was a coded message. In his article, Holman says. Since the imposition of the tea tax, and especially since the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, no self-respecting Whig landlord would offer his guests tea. The keeper of this golden ball tavern was no whig, however. Isaac Jones had founded the tavern in 1768, though the oldest parts of the building are likely older. He already had a reputation as a Tory and a loyalist, by the time of the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, and it made him unpopular as the political tides in Massachusetts turned toward revolution. In March of 1774, less than a year before a scouts showed up and asked for a cup of tea, local patriots organized a Western tea party, where they painted their faces and ransacked the tavern in search of tea. They didn’t find any tea, but they did steal most of Jones’s liquor on the way out.

Jake:
[24:54] Deeper near continues. We immediately found out with whom we were and were not a little pleased to find on some conversation that he was a friend to government. He told us that he had been very ill used by them some time before, but that since he showed them that he was not to be bullied, they left him pretty quiet. The Golden Ball Tavern still stands in Weston, along a section of the Boston Post Road that modern Route 2 bypasses. The next morning, the scouting party continued toward Worcester. After asking Jones to recommend a friendly tavern further down the road and selecting Buckminster’s Tavern in Framingham as their destination for the night. Soon after leaving the golden ball, they diverted off the post road onto an alternate route, probably the old Connecticut path. De Bernier’s account makes February 24th sound like a pretty miserable time to be outside in the elements.

Jake:
[25:54] The second day was very rainy and a kind of frost. With it, however, we resolved to set off, and accordingly we proceeded to Mister Buckminster’s. We met nothing extraordinary on the road. We passed some time in sketching a pass that lay in our road, and of consequence, were very dirty and wet on our arrival. Their tavern that night stood near the corner of today’s Union and Main Streets in Framingham, where a statue of a Minuteman today overlooks a rotary. The statue is a bit of a giveaway. In the months before the war, Buckminster’s Tavern was known as a hotbed of patriot activity. Joseph Buckminster himself was a militia colonel and a longtime town selectman. Deeper near his notes make it clear that the soldiers got bad vibes from the patriot tavern, but the service was adequate and their night passed uneventfully. On our entering the house, we did not much like the appearance of things. We asked for dinner and they gave us some sausages. We praised everything exceedingly, which pleased the old woman of the house much. When we told them we intended on staying the night, they gave us a room to ourselves, which is what we wanted. Brown, I, and our man John made a very hearty supper, for we always treated him as our companion since our adventure with the black woman, meaning the waitress at Brewer’s Tavern in Waltham.

Jake:
[27:23] On Saturday, February 25th, the three travelers decided that they would press on to Worcester, which was still a full 30 miles away.

Jake:
[27:32] Back at the Golden Ball, innkeeper Isaac Jones had recommended a tavern run by a William Jones. No relation, and that’s where they were headed. They walked about 9 miles before lunch, then paused to dine in a grove of trees, rather than drawing attention to themselves in yet another tavern with deer near writing. We then dined in the woods on a tongue and some cherry brandy we brought with us and changed our stockings, which refreshed us much, our feet being very wet. They got a bit lost after lunch, wandered into Southborough, and eventually passed through Shrewsbury to the outskirts of Worcester. They stopped to sketch a narrow spot along the road. They stumbled into William Jones’s tavern after 5 p.m., dirty, exhausted, and happy to pass an uneventful evening.

Jake:
[28:26] Luckily for them, they wouldn’t be able to travel on the Sabbath without attracting unwanted attention, so it forced them to rest and regroup with dearnier writing. The next day being Sunday, we could not think of traveling as it was contrary to the custom of the country.

The Golden Ball Tavern

Jake:
[28:44] Nor dare we stir out until the evening because of meeting, and nobody is allowed to walk the streets during divine service without being taken up and examined. So that thinking we could not stand the examination so well, we thought it prudent to stay home, where we wrote and corrected our sketches. The landlord was very attentive to us, and on our asking what he could give us for breakfast, he told us tea or anything else we chose. That was an open confession what he was, but for fear he might be imprudent, we did not tell him who we were, though we were certain he knew it. In the evening we went round the town and on all the hills that command it sketched everything we desired and returned to the town without being seen.

Jake:
[29:31] Brown and de Barnier weren’t as incognito as they had hoped, and that evening Jones came to their room and said that two men were waiting downstairs to talk to them. The landlord vouched for these two interlopers, but the scouts decided to stay in their room and wait them out. It turned out that they were two loyalists who had heard that British officers were staying at the tavern and wanted to complain about how their patriot neighbors were treating them, but Brown and de Bernier stayed in their room until they were gone. After the strangers left, Jones shared a bottle of wine with the officers and let it slip that all the loyalists in town knew that they were soldiers. They decided that they’d stuck around Worcester long enough, resolving to head back to Framingham the next morning. On Monday morning, de Bernier writes. Off we set after getting some roast beef and brandy from our landlord, which was very necessary on a long march and prevented us going into houses where perhaps they might be too inquisitive. We took a road we had not come by, and that led us to the pass 4 miles from Worcester. We went on unobserved by anyone until we passed Shrewsbury, where we were overtaken by a horseman who examined us very attentively and especially me, whom he looked at from head to foot as if he wanted to know me again.

Jake:
[30:51] After he had taken his observations, he rode off pretty hard and took the Marlborough Road. But by good luck, we took the Framingham Road again to be more perfect than it, as we thought it would be the one made use of.

Jake:
[31:05] For two spies in hostile territory, any attention was unwelcome, and someone very conspicuously memorizing their features and clothing and then galloping off was the most unwelcome attention of all. After this encounter, the scouts must have been relieved to arrive back at Buckminster’s tavern, which, despite the vibes, had proved to be a safe haven for them on Friday night. Now, on Monday, it didn’t feel so safe after all.

Jake:
[31:33] We arrived at Buckminster’s Tavern about 6 o’clock that evening. The company of militia were exercising near the house, and an hour after they came and performed their feats before the windows of the room we were in. We did not feel very easy at seeing such a number so very near us. However, they did not know who we were and took little or no notice of us. After they had done their exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech, recommending patience, coolness, and bravery, particularly told them that they would always conquer if they did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them. He quoted Caesar and Pompey, Brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men. Put them in mind of Cape Breton and all the battles they had gained for His Majesty in the last war, and observe that the regulars must have been ruined, but for them. After so learned and spirited a harangue, he dismissed the parade, and the whole company came into the house and drank until 9 o’clock and then returned to their respective homes full of pot valor. We slept there that night and nobody in the house suspected us.

Jake:
[32:52] Despite de Bernier’s confidence, some historians think that everyone in the tavern suspected them and that the entire military drill and rousing speech about staying cool under fire was a warning for the two redcoats. On Tuesday, the party continued their retreat, falling back to the Golden Ball in Weston. Word was quickly spreading of the three phony surveyors abroad on the roads, and tavern keeper Isaac Jones warned them that they should wrap up their mission and head back to Boston immediately. They decided that they should disregard this advice and continue surveying the Boston Post Road to Sudbury beyond where they had diverted onto the old Connecticut path when they passed through on Friday. Worried that they might be discovered by curious citizens or patriot spies. Deernier described the precautions they would take.

Journey Back to Boston

Jake:
[33:44] We slept at Jones’ that night and got all our sketches together and sent them to Boston with our man so that if they did stop and search us, they would not get our papers. In the morning, Brown’s body servant John headed back to Boston with the notes and maps the trio had made thus far. Deeper near and Brown himself headed west out the post road today’s Route 20, then up a stretch of the old Sudbury Road that I’ve driven through a couple of times in search of kayak launches along the Sudbury River.

Jake:
[34:17] Wednesday, March 1st was another miserable New England day with de Bernier describing how they spent much of the day trudging through ankle-deep slosh. The next day was very cloudy and threatened bad weather. Towards 12 o’clock it snowed. We dined soon in hopes that the weather would clear up. At 2 o’clock it ceased snowing a little, and we resolved to set off for Marlborough, which was about 16 miles off. We found the roads very bad, every step up to our ankles. We passed through Sudbury, a very large village near 1 mile long. The causeway lies across a great swamp or overflowing of the River Sudbury and commanded by a high ground on the opposite side.

Jake:
[35:06] This was exactly the sort of tactical red flag that Gage had dispatched the scouts to take note of. A mile-long bottleneck where the colonial militia could easily cut off and ambush a British patrol.

Jake:
[35:18] This was clearly not the route to take. The goal was a quick thrust to Worcester to seize the colony’s warlike supplies. But Brown and de Bernier continued out the post road and started making their way toward Marlborough, while their position became more and more tenuous as more locals took notice of them.

Jake:
[35:36] Deeper near notes, nobody took the least notice of us until we arrived within 3 miles of Marlborough. It was snowing hard all the while. When a horseman overtook us and asked us from whence we came, we said from Weston. He asked if we lived there. We said no. He then asked us where we resided, and as we found there was no evading his questions, we told him we lived at Boston. He then asked us where we were going, and we told him to Marlborough to see a friend as we intended to go to Mister Barnes’s, a gentleman to whom we were recommended and a friend to government. He then asked us if we were in the army. We said not, but we’re a good deal alarmed that is asking us that question. He asked several rather impertinent questions and then rode on for Marlborough as we suppose to give them intelligence there of our coming. For on our entering the town, the people came out of their houses, though it snowed and blew very hard to look at us. In particular, a baker asked Captain Brown, where are you going, master? He answered, want to see Mister Barnes. The baker gave them directions to the home of Henry Barnes.

Jake:
[36:53] Longtime listeners will remember Henry Barnes as a distiller and a manufacturer of pearl ash or potassium carbonate, which was used as a leavener before the invention of baking powder. He also enslaved Prince Dama, the gifted black portrait painter who we featured back in episode 229. Barnes was a notorious loyalist with his neighbors tarring and feathering his horse and hanging him in effigy five years earlier for ignoring the colonial boycott of British goods. The Barnes estate stood just about where the former firehouse venue for the Vin Bin restaurant is today on Marlborough’s Main Street. They introduced themselves to Barnes, and he said he knew very well who they were. In fact, everyone in town knew who they were by their mission, if not their names. Asked how they got directions to his house, Brown and de Barnier said that they had talked to the baker. Barnes said that the baker was a mischievous fellow, that there was a British deserter in his house. This deserter turned out to be a drummer from Brown’s own company who had slipped away less than a month before, so there was no doubt that he could recognize Brown on sight.

Jake:
[38:11] Things were heating up and soon would come to a boil. With liberty men beginning to assemble into a mob, the officers decided that they would have dinner with Barnes, then nap for 2 or 3 hours and try to leave town around midnight. Just that moment, the town doctor knocked on the door and tried to invite himself in for dinner, despite having not set foot in the Barnes home for over 2 years. When Barnes didn’t invite him in, the doctor asked one of the merchant’s daughters who was coming to dinner. She said she didn’t know. The doctor wandered off to tell the mob what little information he’d learned, and Barnes decided that it was no longer safe for the spies to stay for dinner. After spending less than 20 minutes recovering at the loyalist’s home, the scouts decided to leave town immediately before the liberty mob could take action. Henry Barnes led them across the field behind his stable and showed them a back road that could take him out of town without attracting attention. Moments after the scouts left, the liberty men pushed their way into Barnes’s house and searched it from top to bottom for the pair who had just made good their escape. The officers pushed through their fatigue and a swirling blizzard to make tracks out of town, watching carefully to make sure nobody followed them. Barnes would later say that the patriots had sent riders in pursuit, but they either went down the wrong road or they missed the two spies in the storm.

Jake:
[39:40] De Bernier and Brown were once again wading through slush and fresh snow, but the storm cleared by the time they arrived back at the causeway across the valley of the Sudbury River, the one that they had already marked as the perfect spot for an ambush. De Bernier wrote that they went into a grove of trees out of sight to eat a bit of bread and wash it all down with melted snow, which was the best they could do in terms of mustering their strength for a potential fight. De Bernier wrote after that we proceeded about 100 yards when a man came out of a house and said these words to Captain Brown. What do you think will become of you now? Which startled us a great deal thinking we were betrayed, we resolved to push on at all hazards, but expected to be attacked on the causeway. However, we met nobody there, so began to think it was resolved to stop us in Sudbury, which town we entered when we passed the causeway. About a quarter of a mile in the town, we met 3 or 4 horsemen from whom we expected shots. When we came nigh, they opened the right and left and quite crossed the road. However, they let us pass through them without taking any notice. Their opening being only chance, but our apprehensions made us interpret everything against us.

Jake:
[41:01] De Bernier and Brown stumbled back into the Golden Ball Tavern for the 3rd time at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. De Bernier noted that they had walked 32 miles in less than 8 hours in their push to and retreat from Marlborough. The innkeeper Jones seemed surprised but glad to see them alive, and he split a bottle of mulled wine with them before they collapsed into bed. Reading this tickled me because it means that de Bernier was also an accomplished drinker, able to keep up with his tavern keeping host at least. We’ve already heard that he was a trained draftsman, a British soldier, a spy for Gage, and now we know he’s a drinker too. And there’s our show title. The next morning, their host Jones pointed out an alternate route that brought him back to the south side of the Charles River just downstream of the bridge at Watertown Square. Well, they had come out of Boston over the Charlestown ferry, they would return via Boston neck, where they met several officers they were acquainted with. Nobody recognized them, though whether this was due to the effectiveness of their disguises or just how filthy and bedraggled they were after barely escaping with their lives, isn’t clear.

Jake:
[42:18] After they got back into Boston on Thursday, March 2nd, and one assumes after they got warmed up and cleaned up a little bit, de Bernier and Brown delivered their report to General Gauge. David Hackett Fisher wrote General Gage was pleased with the thoroughness of their report but not happy at the thought of sending a force to Worcester. The distance was so great that surprise could not be assured. The roads were difficult, and a dangerous river crossing through the broad marshes at Sudbury could turn into a deadly trap. In an article about Joseph Warren’s Patriot Intelligence Network for the Journal of the American Revolution, Derek W. Beck notes that Gage received intelligence reports on March 9th that were written in very bad French, which he speculates was done to disguise the source of the report, believed to be Doctor Benjamin Church. Church was a member of the patriot inner circle, a delegate to the provincial Congress and a member of the Committee of Safety, and he was later revealed to be a secret spy for General Gage.

Jake:
[43:24] In his book, The Road to Concord, JL Bell points out that the reports from church were so detailed that they included exact amounts of gunpowder, food stores, and other supplies stored in each individual house in Concord. David Hackett, Fisher’s retelling continues. The commander in chief returned to his map of New England and searched for another target. His eyes fell on the half shire town of Concord. This village had also become an arsenal of revolution. The provincial congress had been meeting there. It was barely 20 miles from Boston, half as far as Worcester. With hard marching on dry roads, Gage reckoned that his troops could be there and back in a long day.

New Mission to Concord

Jake:
[44:11] Not much more than 2 weeks after their harrowing journey through the Worcester countryside, General Gage ordered de Bernier and Brown to undertake another mission. This time, the patriot stronghold and conquered. Gage’s orders for the 2nd mission didn’t survive the evacuation of Boston, but we have de Bernier’s summary of them in his report which says. On the 20th of March, Captain Brown and myself received orders to set out for Concord, to examine the road and situation of the town, and also to get what information we could relative to what quantity of artillery and provisions.

Jake:
[44:48] While they had taken the Charlestown ferry on February 23rd, the scouts went out of Boston through the gates at Boston Neck on Monday, March 20th. De Bernier wrote, We went through Roxbury and Brookline and came into the main road, meaning the Boston Post Road, between the 13 and 14 milestones in the township of Weston. We went through part of the pass at the 11 milestone, took the Concord Road, which is 7 miles from the main road.

Jake:
[45:19] This report isn’t as detailed as the first one, so it’s harder to follow the route the scouts took. They went out Boston neck into the independent town of Roxbury and then into Brookline. At today’s Brookline village was an important crossroads called the Punch Bowl, where several westward roads converged. I thought at first that they had taken the right fork and followed the alignment of Washington Street from the Punch bowl up to Galen Street and the bridge at Watertown Square, but that had put them on the post road at the 9th milestone. De Bernier says that they came to a close to the 14th milestone and backtracked to the 11th, where the Concord Road splits off. The problem, of course, is the Charles River. By 1775, there were bridges at Harvard Square and Watertown Square, and there was a major bridge in Dedham Square, but that would have made a single day’s walk too grueling to pass without a mention. In between, there were 3 bridges in Newton, one of the upper falls at today’s Nehanan Street, one at the lower falls at today’s Elliott Street, and one at Auburndale, where Commonwealth Ave today crosses the river. Known as the Weston Bridge, it was built around 1753 to carry the newly laid out Worcester Road across the river.

Jake:
[46:38] They would have taken the left fork of the punch bowl, basically following the line of Route 9, though Route 9 was laid out much later along a straighter right of way. Heath Street would have taken them into Newton just south of Hammond Pond. Then they went up Cypress Street into Newton Center, then left on Homer Street to Fuller Street, since Com Ave hadn’t been laid out yet, and then down Woodland Ave to the Weston Bridge. On the other side of the river, they took a right at a fork in the road where Newton Street splits from Route 30 today. They could follow that fork back to the main branch of the Boston Post Road, not far from the Golden Ball Tavern.

Jake:
[47:19] The fact that they had to backtrack on the post road tells me that they took the great road toward Concord, basically following the alignment of today’s Route 117, rather than today’s Concord Road. But somebody who knows the geography out there could correct me. It took me over 8 hours of research to write those last 2 paragraphs, if you’re wondering what the life of a podcaster’s like. I really wanted to understand how the spies got to Concord, but de Bernier’s report doesn’t give us a lot to go on, which meant pouring over histories of Newton to understand when each bridge was built, and then reviewing a bunch of 18th and 19th century maps to figure out where the local roads went before the major turnpikes were built. I think my estimate of the route is about as good as it can get, but boy, did I waste some time on it.

Jake:
[48:10] De Bernier’s account continues. We arrived in Concord without any kind of insult being offered us. The road is high to the right and low to the left, Woody in most places and very close and commanded by hills frequently. The path they went through near the 11th milestone is sometimes referred to as a defile, meaning that the roads flanked by high banks. Closer to Concord itself, the roads were wooded and commanded by hills. None of that would be good for an approaching army that was trying to avoid ambushes.

Jake:
[48:44] Brown and de Bernier were apparently impressed with the warlike preparations under way in Concord. After giving a brief description of the topography of the town, the scattered groupings of houses, and the two bridges over the river, their report to General Gauge describes what they saw there. We were informed that they had 14 pieces of cannon, tin iron, and 4 brass, and 2 cohorns, meaning basically a mortar. They were mounted, but in so bad a manner that they could not elevate them more than they were. That is, they were fixed to one elevation. Their iron cannon, they kept in a house in the town. Their brass they concealed in some place behind the town in the wood. They had also a store of flour, fish, salt, and rice, and a magazine of powder and cartridges. They fired their morning gun and mounted a guard of 10 men at night.

The Escape from Concord

Jake:
[49:41] Again, the report of this expedition isn’t as detailed as the one about their trip to Worcester, but if they were there for the evening guard and there for the morning gone, that tells me that they probably spent a night in Concord.

Jake:
[49:54] We know that after arriving in Concord and exploring a bit, they asked a woman they passed for directions to the home of Daniel Bliss, a loyalist attorney who might have been one of General Gage’s spies. We know this because the report notes that soon after they got to Blissa’s house, she came in crying and told us they swore if she did not leave the town they would tar and feather her for directing Tories in the road.

Jake:
[50:21] Their cover wasn’t holding up much better in Concord than it had on the road to Worcester. Just days after Henry Barnes had helped the British scouts escape from Marlborough, the local patriots had run Barnes out of town. The 20 minutes that deeperne and Brown had spent at his house were the last straw, and he had been forced to come into Boston to seek protection from the redcoats there. He would never return home. Instead moving to London just a few weeks before the British packed up and left Boston behind. Now it looked like the same thing was happening with their host in Concord. In the morning, the local patriots sent him a message saying that he was a marked man for having helped the spies, and they weren’t going to let him leave town with his life. The British scouts were officers, and they took this threat as a point of honor. De Berne writes, We told him that if you would come with us, we would take care of him as we were 3 and all well armed. He consented and told us he could show us another road called the Lexington Road. We set out and crossed the bridge in the town and of consequence left the town on the contrary side of the river to what we entered it. With the help of two disguised redcoats, Daniel Bliss made his escape. He would later become a redcoat himself, joining the British Army after the outbreak of war in his own home town.

Jake:
[51:48] Like Henry Barnes, the house and property belonging to Bliss would be confiscated by the state under the Massachusetts Banishment Act. So he settled in New Brunswick after the war ended. Those were problems for later. For now, the party still had to make its way into Boston along this alternate route that Bliss had found for them. De Bernier continued to make notes of their journey, writing, the road continued very open and good for 6 miles. The next 5 a little enclosed. There is one very bad place in this 5 miles. The road good to Lexington. You then come to Monotony. The road’s still good, a ponder lake at Monotony. You then leave Cambridge on your right and fall into the main road a little below Cambridge, and so to Charlestown. The road is very good, almost all the way. Unlike the route they had taken to Concord through the passer defile and along roads commanded by high ground on all sides, this road was very open and good.

Jake:
[52:53] JL Bell put some effort into locating the one very bad place de Bernier mentions and concludes. The area between Liberty Heights and the Mill Brook in East Lexington indeed seems to be the best candidate, about where Wicked Bagel sits. One very bad place aside, this was the route the redcoats eventually followed for their raid on Concord on April 19th, 1775. And it was along this road in monotony in Lexington, where the bloodiest fighting of the day took place. When the British came back to Concord on that fateful April day, Captain Brown was commanding a company of light infantry. Skirmishers, whose closest modern equivalent would be the seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment. His company was among 3 that crossed the North Bridge and searched Barrett’s farm, which was the furthest British incursion into Concord that day. Henry de Bernier was also there, serving as a scout and adviser to the regimental colonel in charge of the raid, Francis Smith. De Bernier’s notes about the fighting on that day were also captured along with his reports about the scouting missions in the months before the battle.

Jake:
[54:05] As I mentioned at the top of the show, De Bernier’s reports, his account of the conquered battle, and his copy of Gage’s order for the February mission were all captured in 1776 and published in Boston in 1779.

The Rediscovered Map

Jake:
[54:19] Amazingly, his map of the countryside around Concord that he drafted after the second mission in March was rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress and identified as de Barnier’s work in 2016.

Jake:
[54:33] Ed Redmond was a reference specialist in the map division of the Library of Congress, and he wrote extensively about historic maps, especially ones from the 18th century. And a post that he published to mark the 241st anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride in 2016, he describes how he connected a hand-drawn map with no known author to General Thomas Gauage’s spies from the winter of 1775. Several years ago, I stumbled across an unsigned manuscript map with a supplied title of Roxbury to Concord, Roads and Distances, etc. At first glance, the unassuming map appears to simply depict the rose from Roxbury to Concord. But when paired with another primary source from the library’s collections, a larger untold story of British spies skulking about the Lexington and Concord countryside emerges. All of the towns mentioned in the text, including Brewer’s Tavern, appear on the manuscript map. All the towns mentioned in the text with the exception of Lexington, appear on our map. Additionally, the distances between the towns are laid down on the map and correlate with the figures given in the text, even though the map isn’t drawn completely to scale.

Jake:
[55:51] Unfortunately for that British column on April 19th, 1775, the road from Concord to Lexington, the deeper near and Brown fled down on the morning of March 21st, and that Colonel Smith marched the men up on April 19th, does not appear on this map.

Show Notes and Resources

Jake:
[56:10] To learn more about Deeper Near and Brown, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com/321. I’ll have a link to the reports of Henry de Bernier that give us a firsthand account of his intelligence gathering missions into the Massachusetts countryside in 1775. I’ll also include the map that deeper near prepared and Ed Redmond’s article about how it was traced back to its creator. I’ll include maps that show the rough outlines of the roads that the spies followed and that I spent way too much time puzzling over, as well as one that shows the key Boston Post Road milestones of the era.

Jake:
[56:51] I’ll link to Charles Holman’s 2006 article about the spies that originally appeared in the journal Military History, as well as Gary Denton’s article about Brewer’s Tavern and his attempts to recreate Brown and de Bernier’s treks along the post road. I think that instead of linking to all the individual posts from JL Bell’s Boston 1775 blog that helped point me in the right direction this week, I’ll instead link to the tag there for Henry de Bernier, which will lead you to his many insightful articles. Big thanks also to JL Bell this week for pointing me towards the correct bridge for the March 20th mission to Concord. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I still maintain profiles for hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but lately, I’ve mostly been posting and interacting with listeners on Blue Sky, where you can find me by searching for Hubhistory.com. I still haven’t fully embraced Mastodon, but if that’s your social platform of choice, find me over there as at hubhistory at better.boston.

Jake:
[58:01] If none of that’s your cup of tea, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, chop me a line, and I’ll send you a hubbistry sticker as a token of appreciation.

Jake:
[58:25] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners. Did I not hit record? I did hit record. OK.