Revolutionary Shore: Northampton sends corn to Boston

THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE

September 4, 1774

On this very day, 250 years ago . . .

A great shipment of Northampton County corn was Boston bound!  In the last days of August, Northampton farmers busily gathered heaps of multi-colored corn to aid the forlorn and starving folks of British-blockaded Boston.  The farmers filled at least one thousand bushels for shipping on the “prodigiously fast” schooner Lucretia captained by Nathaniel Brown of Rhode Island. Captain Brown worked for many New England merchants, including John Hancock.  The Northampton shipment was generous, even considering the abundant corn crop that summer, but the offering of alliance to Bostonians in this tender moment was bold and priceless.  

A “gift card” accompanied their shipment.  It pledged to pay for Brown’s shipping costs and, because the “people of this county compassionating (pitying) the distressed poor of your town,” the Northamptonians promised to be allies until Providence restored the Bostonians’ rights and liberties. The correspondence was signed “your affectionate brethren and countrymen, the People of NORTHAMPTON.” 

Brown’s arrival literally overwhelmed Boston’s Committee on Donations.  They needed the advice of thirty-year-old Boston organizer Elbridge Gerry (future Vice President and “gerrymandering” namesake) to most wisely distribute the corn sent “by our friends in Northampton.” Marblehead, some sixteen miles north of the city, was the likely place for Captain Brown’s landing, but it remains unclear who actually received the corn. Many other communities throughout the colonies also reinforced Boston with food and financial aid.  This was personal; if the British could do this to Boston, they could do the same or worse to any colonial organization.  

On September 30, Boston’s Committee on Donations wrote an effusive letter of gratitude to Northampton leaders John Harmanson, Littleton Savage, and John Kendall. By then, however, hopes for a peaceful resolution were dimming.  Boston Harbor was full of warships, local militias drilled with increased vigor, and an assemblage of colonial representatives met at Philadelphia in what would become known as the First Continental Congress.  The folks of Northampton County would soon learn a difficult truth: there was a cost to making alliances and a dear price to pay for eluding them.  

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence.  Get ready for the Revolutionary Shore!