Massachusetts: 1777, Peter Nelson

Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga

Percy Moran, c1911, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

The story of Peter Nelson's 39 days of militia service in the Revolutionary War and eventual freedom.

In mid-November 1777, a fourteen-year-old African American named Peter Nelson returned to Lincoln, Massachusetts, the home of his enslaver, after 39 days of active militia service near Saratoga, New York. In the previous two months, Nelson likely traveled farther than he had ever gone in his life, survived a rigorous campaign, and helped to escort nearly 5,900 British, German, and Canadian prisoners of war to Cambridge, Massachusetts.¹ Although this adventurous campaign is recorded in the annals of history as a critical moment for the liberty of the United States, the irony of Peter’s enslaved status is not lost. In 1777 Peter lived within a precarious part of American society and as such the implications of enslaved service to the cause of “liberty” elicited varying degrees of discussion. While few primary sources tell the story of Peter Nelson, the existing evidence does produce an intriguing narrative that illuminates the difficulties that Peter and others like him faced in 18^th century America.

On January 29, 1765, Josiah and Elizabeth Nelson purchased a nineteen-month-old enslaved boy named Peter from their neighbors Joshua and Mary Brooks.² Although the Brooks enslaved numerous individuals at their estate along the Bay Road in Lincoln, Massachusetts, Peter was the first for the young Nelson family. Like many people that lived on the fringes of recorded history in the 18^th century, the identity of Peter’s parents remains a mystery. In the past thirty years, numerous researchers have attempted to identify Peter’s lineage without success. One tenuous hypothesis suggests that Peter was the son of Jupiter, enslaved by Deacon Joshua Brooks, and Pegg, enslaved by William Reed, however Massachusetts law in the mid-18^th century considered a child born to one or more enslaved parents to be the property of the mother’s enslaver. It is thus unclear how Peter ended up with the Brooks Family or if his parents were indeed Jupiter and Pegg.³

When Josiah and Elizabeth Nelson purchased Peter in 1765, the couple had no children of their own. In fact, by the time Elizabeth Nelson died in 1776 the couple never produced heirs. According to Joyce Malcom in her work Peter’s War, the lack of Nelson children meant Peter was raised like a son in their household and had similar experiences to white children; This assessment is problematic and misleading.⁴ Although, no direct evidence exists to indicate the type of relationship the Nelson’s had with Peter, societal conceptions of slavery in 18^th century Massachusetts often meant people of color received belittling and degrading treatment. In a culture that valued social ranking and dependency, race played a central role in keeping people of color in the lowest classes. The concept of dependency ensured those at the bottom of the social order required support from those higher up. This dependency existed in every aspect of 18^th century Massachusetts and allowed the powerful to exert control over others, especially the enslaved.⁵

The assertion that Peter was raised as a son on equal footing with those around him dismisses his enslaved condition and detracts from the everyday abuses that characterized life for people of color in 18^th century Massachusetts. While it is possible Josiah and Elizabeth Nelson felt bonded with young Peter this did not remove the inherent racism that existed in colonial society. Historians such as Emily Blanck and William Peirsen contextualized how Massachusetts enslavers viewed slavery as “an idealistic vision…,” referred to as “family slavery.” According to Blanck and Peirsen, most enslaved people in Massachusetts lived within the enslaver’s household and thus enslavers often cultivated a sense of “responsibility for the slave’s wellbeing.” This quasi-paternalistic control allowed enslavers to justify their system of human bondage and further protect their monetary investments. This does not mean that slavery in Massachusetts was any less horrific and degrading than elsewhere.

Although previous scholars attributed family like qualities to Peter’s relationship with the Nelson’s, this version of “family slavery” “meant that the owner intruded on all parts of the slaves’ lives, [and] white dominance could take on an idealized form that humanized the enslaved person.” In his work, Unfreedom, Jared Hardesty also argues, “Slaves were, in the eyes of their masters, perpetual children, to be provided for and used as the head of the household saw fit. And if they stepped out of line, they could be ‘corrected,’ punished, usually by whipping, for their transgressions.”⁶

Dependent on the benevolence of their enslavers, and subjected to forms of violent control, enslaved people like Peter existed in an unforgiving system. While the Nelson family may have felt an emotional responsibility to Peter, his enslaved status speaks volumes to their cultural ideas about racial equality and social hierarchy. Unfortunately, little evidence exists of Peter’s childhood; however, the broader contextualization of slavery in Massachusetts illuminates the racist power dynamic at play in the Nelson household.⁷

It should be noted that a survey of property from Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1774 lists two male inhabitants at the Nelson residence and no “slaves.” According to Historian Donald Hafner, Male sons that owned no land and were sixteen or older were tallied as “polls” along with the head of household. Given that Peter was likely 11 or 12-years-old in 1774, Hafner and John C. MacLean speculate that on the contrary, enslaved people were not generally included in taxation until they reached 16-years-old. Hafner explains, “If this was the case, then the two male polls in the Nelson household may simply have included someone who was working for Josiah and living with him.”⁸

As Peter grew up on the Nelson farm along the Bay road, the world dramatically changed around him. Between 1770-1775, political tensions in the city of Boston spilled across the New England countryside, resulting in an escalation toward war by late 1774. When an arms race erupted between rebellious locals and the British Army garrison in Boston, Josiah Nelson joined his patriot neighbors to establish a system of alarm riders meant to warn local towns of encroaching British raids.⁹ According to a local legend first published around 1890, Josiah entered into an agreement with the town of Bedford to help spread an alarm if British soldiers marched into the countryside. On the evening of April 18, 1775 a party of mounted British officers road past the Nelson farm to set a trap for other patriot alarm riders. Later that night, the British officers captured Paul Revere a quarter of a mile past the Nelson farms. After hours of interrogation the British officers turned back toward Boston, passing the Nelson house again. Legend says, Josiah mistakenly confused the British patrol passing his home for patriot alarm riders and asked for news of the British march. The confrontation escalated and one officer struck Nelson across the top of the head with his sword. After dressing his wounds, Josiah supposedly mounted his horse and spread the alarm to Bedford. Later that morning, the crackle of musketry from the Lexington Green announced that the British column arrived and encountered local militia soldiers. Although many aspects of Nelson’s late-night confrontation remain a mystery, and historians question the legitimacy of the legend; it is likely that Peter Nelson witnessed the mounted British patrol, if not the column of 700 Regular soldiers marching past on their way to Concord later that morning.¹⁰

The grave of British soldiers near the Nelson farm

NPS Photo

Unfortunately, what happened to the Nelson family during April 19, 1775 remains a mystery. No records currently exist to indicate if Josiah Nelson served in a militia company on April 19, 1775 but narratives recorded over 100 years later debate the subject. It is likely 12-year-old Peter Nelson joined Elizabeth Nelson in fleeing their home as fighting erupted in Concord and spread along the Bay Road toward Boston. By mid-afternoon the fighting swept across the Nelson property leaving many casualties strewn in its wake. While it is unclear when the Nelson family returned to their home, local lore tells of two British soldiers killed yards from the Nelson house. One well known story recorded in the early 20^th century is that of Lincoln Minute Man, William Thorning. According to narratives recorded over a century later, Thorning attacked the Regular column near the Nelson farms. When British flankers combining the fields along the road caught Thorning in a crossfire he dropped into a ditch and eventually found refuge behind some large boulders on the Nelson property. After the flankers passed by, Thorning fired again into the main British column marching along the road. In this action, Thorning supposedly killed two Regulars near the Nelson farm. At the time of the battle, Josiah Nelson’s brother, Thomas Nelson Jr. lived next door. When the Hastings family purchased Thomas’s house after the war they passed on legend that the Regulars left a mortally wounded soldier on the doorstep of the Thomas Nelson Jr. House. In 1890, historian Frank Coburn walked the property with George Nelson, the grandnephew of Josiah Nelson. According to George Nelson , "Across the road from the [Josiah Nelson] house is a little knoll which is called "The Soldiers' Graves," even to this day, for therein sleep two British soldiers whose summons undoubtedly came from behind the Nelson bowlders." While many accounts elaborate on the fighting around the Nelson farms on April 19, 1775, the role Peter Nelson played remains a mystery. Given the dramatic upheaval of the local community following the battle, it is likely that the conflict changed Peter Nelson’s life forever.¹¹

When the fighting on April 19th concluded, the siege of Boston began. For the remainder of 1775 and the first few months of 1776, militia from Massachusetts and various other colonies surrounded the town of Boston. During this period, Local militia’s served at various locations on the siege lines. Years later the town of Lincoln reimbursed Josiah Nelson for service in the militia between 1775 and 1776; however, it is unclear if Josiah physically served and if 12-year-old Peter joined him. After British forces in Boston evacuated in 1776, the war shifted south into New York and the lower colonies. During this new phase, Massachusetts called on volunteers to fill the ranks of the Continental army. Occasionally, local militia soldiers mobilized in emergency situations and marched south. When British forces invaded northern New York in 1777, Peter Nelson enlisted in Capt. Samuel Farrar’s company of Col. Reed’s Regiment during the Saratoga Campaign. Pay records from the Lincoln Town Treasure indicate Josiah Nelson sent Peter in his stead, and thus collected bounty money for “service” that Peter rendered. It is unclear if 14-year-old Peter chose to enlist willingly.¹²

During the alarm of 1777 Peter’s company did not reach Saratoga in time to participate in the battle, however they did participate in the surrender of British forces on October 17, 1777. After a short period at Saratoga, Peter’s company escorted 5,900 British, German, and Canadian prisoners back to Cambridge, MA. After mustering out of service Peter then returned to the Nelson household in Lincoln.¹³

While Peter was away, many things changed in the Nelson household. When Elizabeth Nelson died in 1776, Josiah Nelson quickly courted Mellacent Bond of Lexington. By 1777 the couple married and when Peter returned from the front the family likely knew Mellacent was pregnant. On January 23, 1778 Josiah and Mellacent welcomed their first child, Josiah Jr to the family. Although little evidence documents the family dynamic in the Nelson household, the addition of Mellacent and Josiah Jr. likely impacted the Nelson’s relationship with Peter.¹⁴

When the summer campaigning season renewed in June 1778, Peter enlisted again in Capt. Edward Richardson’s Co, Col. Thomas Poor’s Regiment, with the permission of his enslaver. During this enlistment Peter traveled to the Hudson Valley and served around North River, N.Y. On July 22, 1778, Poor’s Regiment received orders to march to West Point, New York where new fortifications were under construction at a bend in the Hudson River. It is unknown exactly where the Regiment was assigned to garrison or camp, but it is possible Peter helped construct some of the first fortifications at West Point. On February 24, 1779, Poor’s regiment mustered out and recorded paying Peter for 8 months, 21 days in service. At the end of his enlistment Peter was paid 11 additional days (220 miles) travel home; however, It is unclear if Peter Nelson ever returned home. Documentation of Peter Nelson suddenly disappears at the end of his service in 1779, but other historians speculate he did return to Lincoln, Massachusetts.¹⁵

If Peter returned to Lincoln, Massachusetts it is possible he gained emancipation and departed the Nelson family. It is currently unclear if military service impacted Peter’s severance from the Nelson family. State officials in Massachusetts did wrestle with the concept of slavery and military service long before the Revolution began, and by 1779 no laws dictated that enslaved men obtained emancipation at the conclusion of their service. Joyce Malcom speculated that Peter Nelson returned to Lincoln, gained his freedom for serving in the military, changed his name, and reenlisted in the Continental Army. Malcom’s case hinged on town records that indicate around the time Peter Nelson disappears from documentation, another individual named Peter Sharon appears. Given the similar age of the individuals and lack of records related to both, Malcom speculated Peter Nelson and Peter Sharon were the same person. Historians such as Richard Wiggin, and Donald Hafner, acknowledge it is possible but without definitive evidence it is difficult to know.¹⁶

Author
Jared Fuoss

Sources

¹ Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary of State. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War: A Compilation From The Archives, Prepared And Published by the Secretary of the Commonwealth In Accordance With Chapter 100, Resolves of 1891. (Boston: Wright and Potter Printing Co., State Printers, 1896.) lists Peter Nelson, Private Capt. Samuel Farrar’s co., Col. Reed’s Regiment, enlisted September 29, 1777; discharged Nov. 7, 1777; service 1 mo. 10 days; company detached from Col. Eleazer Brooks’s regt. To reinforce army under General Gates at the Northward.

² Bill of Sale for Peter Nelson, Lincoln Town Archives, Lincoln, MA.

³ In Joyce Malcom’s work Peter’s War: A New England Slave Boy and the American Revolution (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009) the author hypothesizes Peter’s parents were two locally enslaved individuals named Robbin and Peggy. Historian Richard C Wiggin thoroughly debunked Malcom’s evidence as a misreading of vital records in his work Richard Wiggin, Embattled Farmers: Campaigns and Profiles of Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1775-1783 ( Lincoln: MA, Lincoln Historical Society, 2013), 353. Wiggin offers a secondary hypothesis that Peter was the child of Jupiter and Pegg, however acknowledges that this is speculative.

⁴ Joyce Malcolm, Peter’s War, 3-5.

⁵ For more information on the system of dependency see Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependency In Eighteenth Century Boston (New York: New York University Press, 2016).

⁶ Emily Blanck, Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts (Athens, GA: The University of Georgie Press, 2014), 16; Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery And Dependence In Eighteenth Century Boston, 76.

⁷ Emily Blanck, Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts, 15-16; William Dillon Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988).

⁸ Donald Hafner, “First Blood Shed in the Revolution: The Tale of Josiah Nelson on April 19, 1775.” eScholarship@BC. Boston College University Libraries, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:103654 (Accessed December 2020), 13-14.; Lincoln Public Library, Archives, Town of Lincoln Assessors Records, Valuation Book, 1774, 2003.021.1.4

⁹ For more information about the arms race see, John L. Bell, The Road To Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited The Revolutionary War, (Yardley, Pennsylvania: Westholme Publishing LLC, 2016). ; Hafner, First blood shed in the revolution, 2.; William Francis Wheeler in D. Hamilton Hurd, compiler, History of MiddlesexCounty, Massachusetts, Vol. II, (Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis & Co., 1890), 619.

¹⁰ Hafner, First Blood Shed in the revolution, 2015. In this work, Hafner raises serious concerns about the legitimacy of the Josiah Nelson legend. The story recorded in 1890 does not match the timeline for other known events, and was recorded by generations far removed from the participants of April 19, 1775.

¹¹ Donald Hafner, addresses the controversy of Josiah’s militia service in Hafner, First Blood Shed in the revolution, 12. Many of the Nelson’s neighbors such as the Fiskes and Whittemore’s fled the area during the battle; See Jacob Whittemore Reed, History of the Reed Family in Europe and America (Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1861), p. 139; Rebekah Meriam Fiske Howe quoted in The Harvard Register, 1827-28 (Cambridge, MA: Hilliard And Brown, 1828) 112-114. It is likely, that the Nelson family also fled to a safer location until the fighting passed the home. Thorning narrative in Frank Hersey, Hero's of the Battle Road, 1775, (Boston: Perry Walton, 1930)., Hastings and George Nelson accounts in Frank Coburn, The Battle of April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts (Lexington, Ma: Author, 1912), 103.

¹² Wiggin, Embattled Farmers, 91-137; June 10, 1779, “By twelve pounds ten shillings paid Mr. Josiah Nelson for his service at Cambridge in the year 1776, and for service at ticondoroga in the year 17776 and for service at Saratoga in the year 1777,” Lincoln (Mass). “The book of the Treasurers accompts[sic] in Lincoln, 1755.” Book 1755. Book. 1755. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/wm118w70t (Accessed January 2021)

¹³ Wiggin, Embattled Farmers, 353.; MA Soldiers and Sailors, Vol. XI, p 321.

¹⁴ Wiggin, Embattled Farmers, 349-354.; Hafner, First Blood Shed in the revolution, 8-9.

¹⁵ Wiggin, Embattled Farmers, 353; “General Orders, 22 July 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-16-02-0138. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 16, 1 July–14 September 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006, pp. 121–123.]; MA Soldiers and Sailors, Vol. XI, p 321.;

¹⁶ Joyce Lee Malcolm, Peter’s War, 2009, Wiggin, Embattled Farmers, 395-397.; Hafner, First Blood Shed, 215.; Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors, Vol. XIV 17, 150.