Object of the Month

Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site has a large museum collection consisting of thousands of objects, many of which are not regularly displayed in the house's furnished exhibit rooms. Every month, an object will be featured on this page, providing a look at an unusual piece from the collection.

 

Image of bayonet by James Jones, 2021.

Our object this month is a possible Revolutionary War relic unearthed on the grounds of the Longfellow House almost 130 years ago. It is a socket bayonet, so named because of the way the bayonet was attached to a musket with a “socket” or metal sleeve at the bayonet’s base. This arrangement, coupled with an offset blade, allowed the musket to be loaded and fired with the bayonet attached. Earlier bayonets were simply plugged into the musket’s muzzle, preventing the weapon from being used as a firearm when so equipped. The socket bayonet was developed near the end of the 17th century, and by the mid-18th century was being used by a majority of Europe's armies. In the late 1750s Massachusetts regulations called for each militia company to have half of its men outfitted with bayonets.

This bayonet’s discovery was recorded in the diary of then fifteen-year-old Harry Dana, grandson of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and resident of the house at 113 Brattle Street next door to his famous grandfather's home. Harry wrote on April 10, 1896, that “John Sullivan found a bayonet in back garden thought to be a revolutionary relic . . .” Sullivan was then a coachman for the Longfellow family and uncovered the bayonet about a foot below the surface of the ground while working behind the Longfellow Carriage House. Harry Dana took possession of the artifact and composed a short, fictional story about its background that involved espionage and two brothers caught, at least for a moment, on opposite sides of the struggle. Published the following month in his family newsletter titled As You Like It, the story provided a colorful scenario speculating how the bayonet came to rest in a garden on the property.

Many years later, while Harry lived in his grandfather Longfellow’s home at 105 Brattle Street, a March 18, 1930, article in The Boston Post reported that Dana had enlisted the help of a firearms expert, who “after studying its design and the quality of its material, gave his opinion that it was a French bayonet, brought to this country by a soldier during the French and Indian wars. Later, he said that it fell into the hands of the revolutionary soldiers, as did a great quantity of French military equipment.” Further examination by NPS staff has discovered a potential maker’s mark on the bayonet in the form of a stamped “A” on the ricasso, although a positive identification of the manufacturer has not yet been made, and the bayonet’s deteriorated condition means that any potential additional markings are no longer detectable.

The bayonet is currently on display as part of the park’s temporary exhibition Washington’s Headquarters and the Memory of the American Revolution celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

 

Click here to view past Objects of the Month.