Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. The two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Boston Tea Party is right around the
Speaker 1: corner on December sixteenth this year, which is twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: There have been various events related to this anniversary already,
Speaker 1: leading up to a commemoration on the afternoon and evening
Speaker 1: of the sixteenth, and the plan for that is to
Speaker 1: culminate in a reenactment of dumping the British East India
Speaker 1: Company's tea into Boston Harbor. There is an episode on
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party in the archive from way back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, when the show was only
Speaker 1: about six months old and was just almost a completely
Speaker 1: different podcast from what it is now. And while I
Speaker 1: definitely don't encourage people to take the name Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class completely literally, you can't really describe
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party as lesser known, at least not
Speaker 1: in the United States. At the same time, I wanted
Speaker 1: to do something connected to all of this, and eventually
Speaker 1: I landed on Sarah Bradley Fulton, who is sometimes called
Speaker 1: the mother of the Boston Tea Party. What we know
Speaker 1: about Sarah Bradley Fulton is kind of a series of anecdotes.
Speaker 1: They mostly trace back to the same sources, and those
Speaker 1: can't really be corroborated. We can't prove that they didn't happen,
Speaker 1: but we also can't prove that they did. So that
Speaker 1: is where we will start. The first written mention at
Speaker 1: least that we know of, connecting Sarah Bradley Fulton to
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party is from eighteen seventy three. It
Speaker 1: was written by Eliza M. Gill for the Boston Tea
Speaker 1: Party centennial, and it was printed in the Boston Evening
Speaker 1: Traveler a day later. Gil was born in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: one and had been a school teacher before going to
Speaker 1: work for the city of Medford, Massachusetts, and she was
Speaker 1: also active in local history. She described the content of
Speaker 1: her letter as something quote imparted to me by descendants
Speaker 1: still living of men who took part in the Boston
Speaker 1: Tea Party. So this letter includes some of the same
Speaker 1: basic points as our main source of information on Sarah
Speaker 1: Bradley Fulton that was written by Helen T. Wilde about
Speaker 1: twenty five years later. There are a whole lot of
Speaker 1: like recently written articles about Sarah Bradley Fulton that are
Speaker 1: point for point this article. Wilde was born in Medford
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty. She also worked as a school teacher
Speaker 1: before eventually going to work for the city, first as
Speaker 1: a clerk and then as a tax assessor. She and
Speaker 1: Gil knew one another. Both of the held leadership roles
Speaker 1: in the Medford Historical Society, and both of them were
Speaker 1: among the founders of Medford's chapter of the Daughters of
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. That chapter was named for Sarah Bradley Fulton,
Speaker 1: and when that chapter was first founded, wild was its
Speaker 1: secretary and gil was historian. Wilde's piece on Fulton was
Speaker 1: written for the eighteen ninety seven inauguration of the Sarah
Speaker 1: Bradley Fulton Chapter of the DAR and it was later
Speaker 1: printed in the Medford Historical Record and in American Monthly Magazine.
Speaker 1: And just about everything that comes up in articles about
Speaker 1: Sarah Bradley Fulton today traces back to this one piece.
Speaker 1: Gil had not named the descendants still living that she
Speaker 1: talked to when writing her letter to the Boston Evening Traveler,
Speaker 1: other than saying that it was one of the descendants
Speaker 1: of Sarah's husband, John, and Wild doesn't name her sources
Speaker 1: in her piece either, but Fulton's grandson, also named John
Speaker 1: f had been profiled by The Boston Globe the year before,
Speaker 1: and he told some similar stories about his grandmother. As
Speaker 1: a side note, this Boston Globe article includes a three
Speaker 1: paragraph quotation that as presented as though it is in
Speaker 1: Sarah Bradley Fulton's own voice and words. It's not totally
Speaker 1: clear whether this was something she actually said or wrote,
Speaker 1: or if this quotation was more like a literary device
Speaker 1: That passage is gonna come up again later. This article
Speaker 1: also describes John Fulton as walking quote arm in arm
Speaker 1: with a modern analyst. So could that modern analyst have
Speaker 1: been Wild or Gill or someone else completely different who
Speaker 1: can say, we don't really know. And just to be clear,
Speaker 1: that's not analyst like someone who analyzes things. It's analyst
Speaker 1: an n al like someone who is involved in the
Speaker 1: animal of history. Right. There are some discrepancies between what
Speaker 1: Eliza M. Gill wrote and Helen T. Wild's piece a
Speaker 1: couple of decades later, Like according to Gill's letter, Sarah
Speaker 1: Bradley and John Fulton were not married yet when the
Speaker 1: Boston Tea Party happened, but according to Wild, they were.
Speaker 1: Wild is correct. We also don't really know the explanation
Speaker 1: for the discrepancies, like if the information came from different people,
Speaker 1: or if Wild and Gil each talked to the same
Speaker 1: person and their recollection changed over the years, or if
Speaker 1: new documentation was unearthed, or some other possibility. Regardless, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about today was definitely part of local law
Speaker 1: in Medford and Fulton family law by the mid to
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, but there's no direct evidence to substantiate
Speaker 1: a lot of it, and no corroborating accounts from the
Speaker 1: same time, like there were no friends of Sarah Bradley
Speaker 1: Fulton who wrote about her in their diary that we
Speaker 1: have unearthed so far to kind of back up these stories.
Speaker 1: Although some of the Bradleys were documented as being actively
Speaker 1: involved with the Colonists uprising, there are no written mentions
Speaker 1: of Sarah Bradley Fulton or her family members in connection
Speaker 1: to the Boston Tea Party until about one hundred years
Speaker 1: after the fact. Her grandson John was in his thirties
Speaker 1: when she died, and he did know her, but that
Speaker 1: was also decades after the Boston Tea Party happened, and
Speaker 1: then the Boston Globe profile and Wilds Peace for the
Speaker 1: dar Those are written another sixty more years or so
Speaker 1: after her death. There are also some details that seem
Speaker 1: maybe a little questionable. We will talk about them. We
Speaker 1: do know that Sarah Bradley Fulton was a real person.
Speaker 1: She was born Sarah Bradley on December twenty fourth, seventeen forty,
Speaker 1: in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Her birth was registered with the town
Speaker 1: of Dorchester, although her last name in the registry is
Speaker 1: spelled bradleydl e Y instead of Brdlee. Allegedly, this spelling
Speaker 1: change was intentional because there were so many Bradley's that
Speaker 1: it was getting hard to keep up with who was
Speaker 1: related to who. At the time, Dorchester was its own town,
Speaker 1: but it was annexed by the City of Boston in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy. In seventeen sixty two, so skipping ahead quite
Speaker 1: a bit, Sarah Bradley married John Fulton. Later they moved
Speaker 1: to Medford, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: They had at least ten children together, with seven or
Speaker 1: eight of them surviving to adulthood, I found slightly different
Speaker 1: names and counts among different sources. A few years after
Speaker 1: getting married, Sarah Bradley Fulton reportedly became active in the
Speaker 1: Daughters of Liberty. As with the more widely known Sons
Speaker 1: of Liberty, the origins of the Daughters of Liberty are
Speaker 1: pretty murky. It also seems like the name Daughters of
Speaker 1: Liberty was used for established organizations as well as more
Speaker 1: broadly for women who were, in one way or another
Speaker 1: working toward the same overall goals, that is, resisting British
Speaker 1: taxation and advocating for the rights and freedoms of Britain's
Speaker 1: colonies in North America. This is another case or we
Speaker 1: don't have specific documentation of what she was doing, but
Speaker 1: both the Sons and Daughters of Liberty started to coalesce
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty five in response to the Stamp Act.
Speaker 1: This is a tax on legal documents and printed materials
Speaker 1: that Parliament passed in the wake of the Seven Years
Speaker 1: War as a way for Britain to bring in more revenue.
Speaker 1: All such documents had to be stamped as proof that
Speaker 1: the tax had been paid, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the colonies objected to this tax, both because of
Speaker 1: the tax itself and because the colonies did not have
Speaker 1: direct representation in the Parliament that had passed it, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, no taxation without representation. In the wake
Speaker 1: of protests and unrest and various threats against tax collectors
Speaker 1: and other British officials, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty seven, while stressing that it did have the
Speaker 1: right to tax the colonies. Soon after, Parliament passed another
Speaker 1: set of acts known as the Townsend Acts. One of
Speaker 1: the towns In Acts was the Revenue Act, which established
Speaker 1: duties on various goods including lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea.
Speaker 1: Another of the acts, the Indemnity Act, was passed a
Speaker 1: few days later and lowered the duty on the East
Speaker 1: India Company's tea imports into England and also refunded duties
Speaker 1: on tea that was then exported to the American colonies
Speaker 1: or to Ireland. This was really an effort to try
Speaker 1: to save the East India Company from financial collapse. Smugglers
Speaker 1: were bringing a lot of Dutch East India Company tea
Speaker 1: into the colonies, which could be sold much cheaper than
Speaker 1: British East India Company tea with all its duties in place,
Speaker 1: People were still not happy about these taxes. Though. While
Speaker 1: the Sons of Liberty were known for public and sometimes
Speaker 1: to destructive protests like hanging officials and effigy and eventually
Speaker 1: the destruction of the Tea that later became known as
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party, the Daughters of Liberty were not
Speaker 1: usually out in the streets demonstrating. Instead, they wrote letters
Speaker 1: and gathered signatures. They organized boycotts of British goods, and
Speaker 1: they sought out locally made alternatives. When the Sons of
Speaker 1: Liberty organized non importation associations in which merchants would agree
Speaker 1: not to import British goods, the Daughters of Liberty worked
Speaker 1: on ways to deal with all the resulting shortages. Linen
Speaker 1: and cloth were among the goods that merchants refused to
Speaker 1: import from Britain, so the Daughters of Liberty's part in
Speaker 1: this included a lot of spinning. Spinning bees were already
Speaker 1: a thing, but especially in the Northeast, they became a
Speaker 1: widespread act of collective resistance among colonial women, as did
Speaker 1: wearing homespun like Here's a description from the Boston Chronicle
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty six quote on the fourth instant eighteen
Speaker 1: daughters of Liberty, young ladies of good reputation, assembled at
Speaker 1: the house of Doctor Ephraim Bowen in this town in
Speaker 1: consequence of an invitation of that gentleman who had discovered
Speaker 1: a laudable zeal for the introducing home manufacturers. There they
Speaker 1: exhibited a fine example of industry by spinning from sunrise
Speaker 1: until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking
Speaker 1: country rarely to be found among persons of more age
Speaker 1: and experience. In the wake of all of this, the
Speaker 1: value of imports from Britain into the colonies dropped enormously
Speaker 1: between seventeen sixty seven and seventeen sixty eight, although this
Speaker 1: drop was largely focused in the North. In terms of
Speaker 1: British imports, things didn't really change all that much in
Speaker 1: the South at all, with the exception of the tax
Speaker 1: on tea. The Towns and Acts taxes were repealed in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy. We're going to come back to the Tea
Speaker 1: and the Boston Tea party after we have a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: While Sarah Bradley Fulton and her husband John established their
Speaker 1: home in Medford, which is northwest of Boston on the
Speaker 1: Mystic River. Her brother, Nathaniel Bradley, continued to live in Boston.
Speaker 1: He was a carpenter and a craftsman, and according to
Speaker 1: Helen T. Wilde's account, friends and neighbors gathered at his
Speaker 1: home at the corner of Hollis and Tremont Streets for
Speaker 1: codfish suppers on Saturday nights. In her words, his carpenter
Speaker 1: shop and kitchen became quote meeting places for Boston's most
Speaker 1: devoted patriots. And again, according to Wilde's account, the Bradley
Speaker 1: home in Boston was one of the places where men
Speaker 1: prepared for the Boston Tea Party, although that name was
Speaker 1: not coined until decades after it happened. The Boston Tea
Speaker 1: Party circled back to Britain's efforts to keep the British
Speaker 1: East India Company afloat in terms of both revenue and
Speaker 1: offloading enormous amounts of tea that were sitting in London
Speaker 1: warehouses unsold. Enormous as in about seventeen million pounds of
Speaker 1: unsold tea. Parliament passed the t act on May tenth,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy three, which gave the British East India Company
Speaker 1: the right to ship tea directly to the colonies, rather
Speaker 1: than having to ship it to Britain first. The company
Speaker 1: was also allowed to employ its own agents to sell
Speaker 1: tea rather than going through colonial merchants, since it was
Speaker 1: no longer having to ship tea to England and pay
Speaker 1: a duty on it there. This meant the British East
Speaker 1: India Company could start selling tea in the colonies for
Speaker 1: less than the price of smuggled Dutch tea. But to
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the colonies, access to cheaper
Speaker 1: tea was not what mattered. It was that tax they
Speaker 1: would be paying if they bought it. Although the Townshenacts
Speaker 1: tax on tea had still been in place between seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy and seventeen seventy three, and there were still a
Speaker 1: lot of people the colonies who refused to drink tea
Speaker 1: during those years, the Tea Act really revived people's anger
Speaker 1: and frustration over this issue. A lot of people in
Speaker 1: the colonies really doubled down on their boycott of tea,
Speaker 1: and the Daughters of Liberty promoted alternatives sometimes called Liberty Tea,
Speaker 1: including mint, raspberry leaf, and various herbs and roots. Ships
Speaker 1: arriving in American ports were met by angry mobs and
Speaker 1: forced to leave still laden with their tea. On November
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, seventeen seventy three, a ship called the Dartmouth
Speaker 1: arrived in Boston. The Eleanor arrived on December second, and
Speaker 1: the Beaver on December fifteenth. Each of these ships carried
Speaker 1: more than one hundred chests of East India Company tea,
Speaker 1: but the ships themselves were owned by local merchants. Newspapers
Speaker 1: had started reporting on shipments of tea that were headed
Speaker 1: for the colonies in October, so the Sons of Liberty
Speaker 1: had been holding public meetings on the issue for weeks
Speaker 1: before these ships started arriving, at locations including the Liberty
Speaker 1: Tree near Boston Common and Faniel Hall. These meetings grew
Speaker 1: after the Dartmouth arrived, with organizers moving to the Old
Speaker 1: South Meetinghouse to accommodate the larger crowd. So people like
Speaker 1: the Sons of Liberty demanded that these ships be sent
Speaker 1: back to England, but the Collector of Customs refused to
Speaker 1: let them leave the harbor without the duties being paid
Speaker 1: on the tea. Of course, the people who owned these
Speaker 1: ships did not want to pay a duty on a
Speaker 1: product that could not be unloaded or sold. While officials
Speaker 1: in other port cities had allowed ships carrying tea to
Speaker 1: return to England, Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted
Speaker 1: that the ships remain in the port until the tea
Speaker 1: was unloaded, and he stationed two gunships at the harbor
Speaker 1: to prevent their departure. He was not interested in de
Speaker 1: escalating the situation at all. The last of a long
Speaker 1: series of public meetings was held at the Old South
Speaker 1: Meetinghouse on December sixteenth, seventeen seventy three. That day, the
Speaker 1: governor was once again asked if the ships could be
Speaker 1: sent back to England, and he once again refused. There's
Speaker 1: a little bit of fuzziness regarding the sequence of events
Speaker 1: from here. There's a popular story that Samuel Adams gave
Speaker 1: a pre arranged signal for the men to go down
Speaker 1: to the harbor to destroy the tea, by saying this
Speaker 1: meeting can do nothing more to save the country. But
Speaker 1: this is another thing that didn't appear in writing until
Speaker 1: almost one hundred years after the fact. Regardless, shortly after
Speaker 1: getting this last update on the governor's refusal, a group
Speaker 1: of men boarded the dartmouth the Eleanor, and the beaver
Speaker 1: broke open the more than three hundred crates of tea
Speaker 1: they were carrying and dumped the contents into the harbor.
Speaker 1: At least some of these men were dressed in costumes
Speaker 1: meant to resemble indigenous people. Here's an account from participant
Speaker 1: George Hughes, written in eighteen thirty four years after this
Speaker 1: event occurred. Quote. It was now evening, and I immediately
Speaker 1: dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with
Speaker 1: a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk,
Speaker 1: with which and a club. After having painted my face
Speaker 1: and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith,
Speaker 1: I repaired to Griffin's Wharf, where the ships lay that
Speaker 1: contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street
Speaker 1: after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who
Speaker 1: were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who
Speaker 1: fell in with me and marched in order to the
Speaker 1: place of our destination. There's really no first hand documentation
Speaker 1: about why, specifically at least some of the men were
Speaker 1: in these costumes, and it's also not clear what exactly
Speaker 1: those costumes entailed. Some participants' first hand accounts used generic
Speaker 1: words like Indian or Indian dress, including that of Joshua Wyeth,
Speaker 1: who wrote the first published account from a participant more
Speaker 1: than fifty years later. One Boston news report from a
Speaker 1: couple of days after the event describes the men as
Speaker 1: dressed as quote Mohawks or Indians. Well, another references Indians
Speaker 1: from Narraganset, and still other accounts mentioned that at least
Speaker 1: some of the men were not in indigenous dress at all.
Speaker 1: We also don't definitively know why the Mohawk and the
Speaker 1: Narraganset were the nations that were specifically named in various
Speaker 1: news reports and other accounts. But these are not the
Speaker 1: same indigenous nation. The Mohawk or the Kenyukinaka are one
Speaker 1: of the six nations of the Hudenashani. They're an Iroquois
Speaker 1: speaking people. Their ancestral homeland is in what's now eastern
Speaker 1: New York State, as well as adjacent parts of Canada
Speaker 1: and Vermont. The Narraganset are an Algonquian speaking people whose
Speaker 1: ancestral homeland is in what's now Rhode Island. So these
Speaker 1: are two different nations from two different language groups whose
Speaker 1: homelands are hundreds of miles apart. Neither of them are
Speaker 1: among the nations whose homelands are near what's now Boston.
Speaker 1: The reason for adopting this dress also is not clearly
Speaker 1: documented anywhere, but a lot of colonists, particularly colonists who
Speaker 1: were aligned with groups like the Sons of Liberty, already
Speaker 1: saw Indigenous people as something of a symbol representing ideas
Speaker 1: like autonomy, freedom, and unity. People had warned so called
Speaker 1: Indian dress and other protests against British policies. Prior to
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party in New York, Broadsides signed the
Speaker 1: Mohawks had been circulating warning people against assisting with the
Speaker 1: landing of ships carrying British tea. The destruction of the
Speaker 1: tea was also a symbolic protest, and dressing as Native
Speaker 1: Americans or in clothing inspired by indigenous dress was symbolic
Speaker 1: of the men's connection to America, not to Britain. So
Speaker 1: this may have been meant as a basic disguise or
Speaker 1: to try to deflect suspicion away from the colonists, But
Speaker 1: Indigenous imagery already had these additional layers of maning and
Speaker 1: There's obviously also some irony here. Colonists were appropriating indigenous
Speaker 1: imagery as an emblem of ideals like freedom while also
Speaker 1: waging war against indigenous nations and violating treaties and generally
Speaker 1: viewing Indigenous peoples as savage and inferior. Also, the idea
Speaker 1: that these men were specifically dressed as Mohawk rather than
Speaker 1: more generically Indian or possibly narraganset like that doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to have really solidified until decades later. Okay, So, to
Speaker 1: get back to Sarah Bradley Fulton. According to Wilde's account,
Speaker 1: some of the men who participated in the destruction of
Speaker 1: the tea met and prepared at her brother Nathaniel Bradley's
Speaker 1: carpenter shop. Fulton and her sister in law, who was
Speaker 1: just referred to as Missus Bradley in surviving accounts, were
Speaker 1: there to help. This is also one of the discrepancies
Speaker 1: between wild and gil Eliza m. Gill's letter says this
Speaker 1: happened at the home of Bradley's father, not her brother.
Speaker 1: The letter also says that John Fulton and four Bradley
Speaker 1: brothers Nathaniel, Josiah, David and Thomas, were all involved. That
Speaker 1: passage from the Boston Globe that reads like a quote
Speaker 1: from her says that Sarah Bradley Fulton helped her brothers
Speaker 1: quote make a perfect disguise, And some sources describe Fulton
Speaker 1: as having been the one to come up with the
Speaker 1: whole idea that the sons of liberty should dress like
Speaker 1: indigenous men. Is really not clear who first gave her
Speaker 1: the credit for doing that, But as we just established,
Speaker 1: so called Indian dress had already become part of the
Speaker 1: culture of protest among the colonists, especially in the Northeast,
Speaker 1: and doing this already had some layers of symbolic meetings.
Speaker 1: So even if she was the person who said, and
Speaker 1: also where this y'all should do this? Yeah, like that
Speaker 1: was something people were already doing. The accounts we have
Speaker 1: of Sarah Bradley Fulton's involvement very a little bit. Either
Speaker 1: she stayed behind to keep the water hot so the
Speaker 1: men could remove whatever they'd put on their faces when
Speaker 1: they returned, or she went down to the harbor to
Speaker 1: watch from a distance and then left before the men
Speaker 1: did to get everything ready. And there's some suggestion that
Speaker 1: a British soldier or spy stopped by the Bradley Holme
Speaker 1: at some point during the evening, either while Fulton was
Speaker 1: there with her sister in law or after the men
Speaker 1: had come back and removed their costumes. But this soldier
Speaker 1: or spy concluded that there was just some laundry or
Speaker 1: other housework being done, and he moved along. Wild's account
Speaker 1: describes it this way, quote, Nathaniel Bradley's principles were well known,
Speaker 1: and a spy, hoping to find some proof against him,
Speaker 1: peered in at the kitchen window, but saw these two
Speaker 1: women moving about so quietly and naturally that he passed on,
Speaker 1: little dreaming what was really in progress there. Uh, this
Speaker 1: isn't one of the things that doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 1: Though Gill's letter and the Boston Globe profile mentioned this
Speaker 1: as well. All three of them seemed to make it
Speaker 1: sound like this guy came and looked in the window
Speaker 1: and left unnoticed. So how did anyone know they had
Speaker 1: that he had been there. This is what the Internet
Speaker 1: would call a plot hole. Regardless of all that, toward
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century, in the AARW, when
Speaker 1: Wild and Gil were writing about Sarah Bradley Fulton, the
Speaker 1: Bradley home at the corner of Tremont and Hollis became
Speaker 1: known as the Tea Party House. There were even photo
Speaker 1: postcards of it available for sale, which is what people
Speaker 1: had to content themselves with after the house was torn
Speaker 1: down in eighteen ninety eight. We will talk about Sarah
Speaker 1: Bradley Fulton's life after the Boston Tea Party, after a
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Tensions between Britain and its colonies and the
Speaker 1: Americas had been growing for years before the Boston Tea Party,
Speaker 1: which again was not called that until much later. Those
Speaker 1: tensions escalated really dramatically and its aftermath tea protests continued
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts and other colonies. In seventeen seventy four, Parliament
Speaker 1: passed a set of laws that came to be known
Speaker 1: as the Intolerable Acts as one of several putative measures.
Speaker 1: The Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and
Speaker 1: conquered in April of seventeen seventy five. According to Helen T.
Speaker 1: Wilde's account of Sarah Bradley Fulton's life, she was actively
Speaker 1: involved in the war, hearing Paul Revere's ride to raise
Speaker 1: the alarm as he passed through Medford on April eighteenth,
Speaker 1: he allegedly made a little pit stop for some Medford rum.
Speaker 1: On June seventeenth, the Medford militia fought at the Battle
Speaker 1: of Bunker Hill, across the Charles River from Boston and
Speaker 1: down the Mystic River from Medford. Fulton organized local women
Speaker 1: to work as nurses in a field hospital that was
Speaker 1: set up in an open area by Wade's tavern. In
Speaker 1: Wilde's words quote, among them, the steady nerves of Sarah
Speaker 1: Fulton made her a leader. One poor fellow had a
Speaker 1: bullet in his cheek, and she removed it. She almost
Speaker 1: forgot the circumstance until years after he came to thank
Speaker 1: her for her service. A year later, Major John Brooks
Speaker 1: of Medford needed a message delivered to General George Washington
Speaker 1: at the front and asked Fulton's husband to do it.
Speaker 1: She went herself instead, and according to a story passed
Speaker 1: down in her family as recorded by a great great
Speaker 1: great great granddaughter, Fulton concealed the message in the hem
Speaker 1: of her skirt, and then after the war, Washington came
Speaker 1: to thank her in person for delivering that message. Again
Speaker 1: in Wilde's words quote, it is said that, according to
Speaker 1: the fashion of the day, John Fulton on this occasion
Speaker 1: brewed a potation whose chief ingredient was the far famed
Speaker 1: product of the town. The little silver mounted ladle was
Speaker 1: dipped in the steaming concoction in the first glass for
Speaker 1: Missus Fulton's new punch bowl was sipped by his excellency.
Speaker 1: This was the proudest day of Sarah Fulton's life. The
Speaker 1: chair in which he sat and the punch bowl and
Speaker 1: ladle were always sacred and are still treasured by her descendants.
Speaker 1: That far famed product of the town mentioned in Wilde's
Speaker 1: account was that rum that was allegedly enough of a
Speaker 1: draw to entice Paul Revere to stop for some while
Speaker 1: warning people of an advancing army. Distilling rum was also
Speaker 1: a major part of the New England economy. In one
Speaker 1: of the ways it was interconnected with slavery. The sugar
Speaker 1: that was used to make the molasses that was turned
Speaker 1: into rum in New England distilleries was grown and processed
Speaker 1: at slave labor camps on islands in the Caribbean. There's
Speaker 1: also a story about the siege of Boston. A load
Speaker 1: of firewood was expected to come through Medford, or maybe
Speaker 1: was being harvested at one of Medford's woodlots, and it
Speaker 1: was meant for Revolutionary troops in Cambridge. Knowing that this
Speaker 1: wood would likely be confiscated by the British, Fulton sent
Speaker 1: her husband to buy it, hoping that the British soldiers
Speaker 1: would respect it is his private property. This didn't work out,
Speaker 1: and the soldiers confiscated it anyway. This is one of
Speaker 1: the things I have some questions about, like how they
Speaker 1: knew about this wood and why they thought that buying
Speaker 1: it would leave it untouched, because you know, the British
Speaker 1: confiscating property from people was kind of a thing. In
Speaker 1: Wild's words quote, when his wife heard the story, she
Speaker 1: flung on a shawl and went in pursuit. Overtaking the party,
Speaker 1: She took the oxen by the horns and turned them around.
Speaker 1: The men threatened to shoot her, but she shouted defiantly
Speaker 1: as she started her team shoot away. Astonishment, admiration, and
Speaker 1: amusement were too much for the regulars, and they unconditionally surrendered.
Speaker 1: It's a delightful story, even though there's some question marks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. At some point after the war, the Marquis
Speaker 1: de Lafayette reportedly visited the Fulton home and he was
Speaker 1: seated in the same chair and served from the same
Speaker 1: punch bowl as Joris, which Washington had been years before.
Speaker 1: In Wild's account, the chair, punch bowl, and ladle were
Speaker 1: always sacred. The punch bowl was donated to Mount Vernon
Speaker 1: in Fulton's memory in two thousand and six. Some accounts
Speaker 1: described this punch bowl as silver, but the one that
Speaker 1: was donated to Mount Vernon is porcelain. After the war,
Speaker 1: the Fultons bought a house on the road that ran
Speaker 1: from Medford north to Stoneham. John Fulton died on February ninth,
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety, when Sarah was forty nine. Decades later, on
Speaker 1: November ninth, eighteen thirty five, Sarah Bradley Fulton died in
Speaker 1: her sleep at the age of ninety five, and she
Speaker 1: was buried at Salem Street Cemetery in Medford. At the
Speaker 1: first town meeting to be held after her death, the
Speaker 1: road she had lived on was renamed Fulton Street in
Speaker 1: her honor. As we said at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: the Medford chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution
Speaker 1: was named for Sarah Bradley Fulton. When it was established,
Speaker 1: the DAR placed a marker at Fulton's burial site in
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, made from the stone that had served as
Speaker 1: the door stop at her Medford home. It reads Sarah
Speaker 1: Bradley Fulton seventeen forty to eighteen thirty five, Heroine of
Speaker 1: the Revolution, created by the Sarah Bradley Fulton Chapter of
Speaker 1: the DAR. Nineteen hundred, poet and playwright Grace Stett Austin
Speaker 1: wrote a play called Sarah Bradley Fulton Patriot, a Colonial
Speaker 1: drama in three acts in nineteen nineteen. Austin was born
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire, but at this time was living in Bloomington, Illinois,
Speaker 1: and she wrote this play under the auspices of the
Speaker 1: Letitia Green Stephenson chapter of the DAR. Letitia Green Stephenson
Speaker 1: was the wife of Adelaie Stevenson, vice president under Grover Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and she was one of the founders of that Bloomington chapter.
Speaker 1: To circle back on the authors of those two sources
Speaker 1: of information on Sarah Bradley Fulton that we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: Eliza m. Gill lived in her family's home in Medford
Speaker 1: for more than sixty years before eventually moving to Waltham
Speaker 1: message Chusetts. Toward the end of her life. She died
Speaker 1: there on February tenth, nineteen twenty three, at the age
Speaker 1: of seventy one. In addition to her work with the
Speaker 1: DAR and the Medford Historical Society, she was also a
Speaker 1: member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, also
Speaker 1: of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.
Speaker 1: Helen T. Wilde died in nineteen forty eight at the
Speaker 1: age of eighty eight. In addition to her work that
Speaker 1: we've already talked about, wild was part of the Medford
Speaker 1: dar's efforts to purchase and restore a property known as
Speaker 1: Royal House. To that end, she helped establish the Royal
Speaker 1: House Association in nineteen oh six. Today, Royal House is
Speaker 1: a museum called the Royal House and Slave Quarters, which
Speaker 1: we visited Holly and I back in twenty sixteen. We
Speaker 1: talked more about this house and its history in our
Speaker 1: episode Belinda Sutton's post Enslavement Petitions. We haven't talked very
Speaker 1: much about slavery in today's episode, but enslaved people in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts were advocating for their own lib before and during
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War, and it was through that advocacy that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Judicial Court effectively abolished slavery in Massachusetts in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty three, and during and after the war, Belinda Sutton,
Speaker 1: who was enslaved at Royal House, petitioned to be paid
Speaker 1: for her years of labor while she was enslaved by
Speaker 1: the Royals. We are going to run our episode on
Speaker 1: this as our next Saturday Classic. Yeah. Uh. I also
Speaker 1: have a little bit of listener mail. All right, it
Speaker 1: is from Kristen. Kristen says, good morning, Tracy and Holly, Wow,
Speaker 1: you're Marie Lawrence. Podcast popped up on my YouTube feed
Speaker 1: this morning. Marie Lawrence is having a moment. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited that you were struck by her work when you
Speaker 1: were in Paris and that you feature her in your podcast.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from your research. It's curious why
Speaker 1: she didn't want Suzanne Moreau to sell her paintings or
Speaker 1: research her. I was wondering why other than the fact
Speaker 1: that she was a woman, queer and that her work
Speaker 1: was figurative and subtle in the boundaries that they pushed against.
Speaker 1: I volunteer as a docent at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: where we have the first major exhibition of Marie Lawrencen's work.
Speaker 1: In over thirty years, our curators have put together the
Speaker 1: exhibition and catalog Marie Lawrence Sapphik Paris that explores her
Speaker 1: life and the vast output of her work paintings, poetry, illustrations,
Speaker 1: the Maison Cubiste, the Ballet le beche, and how her
Speaker 1: sexuality is a large part of twentieth century modernity. Which
Speaker 1: is a wonderful exhibition and I hope you have fine
Speaker 1: time for a visit before it closes on January twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Thanks for all you do, Kristin. Kristin,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for this email. In a real weird irony,
Speaker 1: I got this email as my spouse was returning home
Speaker 1: from a trip to Philadelphia that he took without me.
Speaker 1: I'm not this is not a criticism. I was not
Speaker 1: planning to go with him. I had other things going on,
Speaker 1: including I had other things going on on Monday while
Speaker 1: he was on the way back when we got this email.
Speaker 1: So maybe I will make a little trip to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: sometime before we will see I mean, obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on between now and January twenty first, as
Speaker 1: we are approaching the end of the year, but I
Speaker 1: sure do like the idea making a little trip down
Speaker 1: there and doing that because I did, like. I haven't
Speaker 1: re listened to that episode, but I definitely remember just
Speaker 1: being so captivated by her work and immediately like I
Speaker 1: want to do an episode on this person. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for letting me know about this U,
Speaker 1: And now I have let our listeners know too. If
Speaker 1: you would like to send us a note about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast, We're at History Podcasts, adiheartradio dot com.
Speaker 1: We're all over social media at Mison History, which is
Speaker 1: where you will find us on Facebook and Instagram and
Speaker 1: the X thing, and still not any of the other
Speaker 1: ones because I don't know, I just haven't been real
Speaker 1: motivated to do that. You can subscribe to our show
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you'd like to
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.