Christmas in and around Boston - 1775

On Christmas Eve 1775, a Sunday, the whole of New England was in the grip of a heavy snowstorm. Around Boston a foot of snow had fallen and temperatures dropped to the low twenties. [Captain Francis Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, December 25, in Clark (ed.) Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, p.237; David McCullough, 1776. America and Britain at War, London, 2005, p.67].No pre-Christmas celebrations are recorded for that day or night in either British or American sources that I have seen. Perhaps the blizzard stopped them, though more likely it was in keeping with. the low-key celebration of Christmas that seems characteristic of the eighteenth century.

In Boston General William Howe, the British Commander-in-Chief,  laboured that day over a letter to Vice Admiral James Young at the British naval base at Antigua in the West Indies. Boston was chronically short of provisions because of 'the Hazards which Ships run in coming upon this Coast with Supplies when the Winter Season is so far advanced'. In desperation he had decided to send two transports to Antigua to purchase provisions there. He understood 'the markets there to be very full at this time.' If both ships could not be filled, he begged the Admiral 'to lade the smallest 'and to send her off immediately to this Place. after having provided Seamen and Guns for her Protection' or 'a Ship of War to convoy her to this Post.as the early arrival of a Vessel with Provisions may be of the last Consequence to His Majesty's Garrison in this Quarter.' He sought, too, a convoy of victualling Ships from Young. [Major General William Howe to Vice Admiral James Young, Antigua, Boston, 24 December, 1775 in Clark (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, p.224.]

Christmas Day broke 'clear, bright and cold.'. [Scheer and Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats, Cleveland, 1957, p.103.] It was a disastrous day for the Boston schoolmaster John Leach. Leach was suspected of rebel sympathies, having been earlier imprisoned for communicating with General George Washington's besieging army. The British Light Dragoons had been allotted Leach's wharf. He woke to find them tearing it down for firewood for winter fuel. The wharf destroyed, the soldiers threatened his school-house. The schoolmaster's protests to General Howe met with little sympathy. Leach denied his disloyalty and as an Englishman, demanded 'the protection of my property, and if my House was pulled down, I would follow him to England, or to China (Leach had been to China) for satisfaction.' To Leach's surprise Howe's response to this outburst was 'friendly.' The general referred Leach to his subordinates. That subordinate may have been Deputy Adjutant David Collins, who would later sail and serve with Governor Arthur Phillip in the convict colony of New South Wales, since Collins was on duty in Boston for Christmas Day. Whoever the subordinate was, they delayed giving orders for the destruction at Leach's wharf to stop until after the soldiers had broken into the school-house. The school-house was saved, but the Light Dragoons plundered 'valuable Books and Instruments, Drawings, Colours, Brushes, several Curious Optick Glasses and sundry things of Value that I brought from India and China, that I cannot replace for money.' [Allen French, The Siege of Boston, New York, 1911, pp.115-117. (General Books Edition.); William Howe, General Sir William Howe's Orderly Book, London, 1690, p.178.] We know that David Collins was a man with a deep interest in anthropology and it is hard not to conclude that he may have profited out of the morning's looting if he was the subordinate to whom Leach had been referred.

Collins had long been spared the rigours of the posting at Bunker Hill through the influence of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Tooker Collins who had been in Boston for several months. This was not the case for other soldiers stationed under tents in the freezing outpost, where detachments were now stationed for a fortnight at a time to spare them the hardship of the Boston winter. Their past fortnight had been 'very Quiet without any insult from the Rebels.' Like the rest of the regiments that Christmas Day, they were provided with 'one Butt of Porter ...to make they Men Keep Christmas day.' [Captain Frances Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, December 25, 1775 in op. cit., p.238.] 

The storm's end meant the resumption of normal activities. With the bitter easterly wind gone two hundred marines embarked on board the Scarborough for Savannah, Georgia, their hope to pick up much needed supplies of rice.  Their destination was not general knowledge. Rumours circulated the town that they were bound for the Bermudas 'where it is said the Rebels have a Magazine of Military tores' or for Rhode Island. [Lt. William Feilding to Earl of Denbigh, Boston, Jany 19th, 1776 in Balderston and Syrett, The Lost War, New York, 1975, p.59.]

Of particular interest to the British was the fact that the rebels had stopped working on the redoubt they had been constructing at Lechmere Point. The bitter cold had brought a temporary end to Patriot exertions.[Captain Francis Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, December 25, 1775 in Clark, op. cit., p.237.] It did not occur to the British that Christmas celebrations might also be occurring in the American camp.

General George Washington's Christmas pre-occupations were as grave as General Howe's. A lack of ammunition prevented him from using what little cannon he had. His only hope was that with the icy winter the Boston Harbour would freeze over, enabling his troops to make a land approach. This did not happen. [Annual Register, 1776 in David H. Murdoch (ed.) Rebellion in America, Moreover, he was faced with a continuing shortage of men, as the militia slipped away, their terms of enlistments ending, or absenting themselves for Christmas furlough. He had but 8,500 men left along a greatly extended line to face a superior British force.of 10,000. [George Washington to John Hancock, Cambridge, 25 Decr 1775 in Clark (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, pp.232-233; Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause. The American Revolution, 1765-1789, New York, 2007, p.302.]

According to William Gordon, the contemporary historian of the American Revolution, who at the time was the Congregationalist Minister to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Watertown, some miles from the camps around Boston, one American soldier spent his Christmas Day making 'a note of the numbers killed by the firings of the enemy on both the Cambridge and Roxbury sides of the rebel camp. This soldier calculated the British had fired 'upwards of 2,000 shot and shell' since the beginning of hostilities at Charlestown Heights, and lately threw more than 300 bombs at Ploughed Hill and 100 at Lechmere's Point. All up this curious militiaman decided that the British had killed no more than nineteen patriots, giving himself a peculiar kind of Christmas cheer.

Thus ended Christmas in and around Boston in the year of the siege.