Henry D. Thoreau 12

Henry D. Thoreau 12

Four months later, in April, 1775, this Concord mechanic made good the

words of his Tory townsman, for it was his speech to the minute-men

which goaded them on to the fight. After forming the regiment as

adjutant, he addressed them, closing with these words: "I have often

heard it said that the British boasted they could march through our

country, laying waste every village and neighborhood, and that we

would not dare oppose them,--_and I begin to believe it is true_."

Then turning to Major Buttrick, who commanded, and looking off from

the hill-side to the village, from which a thick smoke was rising, he

cried, "Will you let them burn the town down?" whereupon the sturdy

major, who had no such intention, ordered his men to march; and when,

a few minutes later, the British fired on his column of companies,

the Acton men at the head, he sprang from the ground shouting, "Fire,

fellow-soldiers, for God's sake fire!" and discharged his own piece

at the same instant. The story has often been told, but will bear

repetition. Thoreau heard it in 1835 from the lips of Emerson, as he

pronounced the centennial discourse in honor of the town's settlement

and history; but he had read it and heard it a hundred times before,

from his earliest childhood. Mr. Emerson added, after describing the

fight:--

 

"These poor farmers who came up, that day, to defend their

native soil, acted from the simplest instincts; they did

not know it was a deed of fame they were doing. These men

did not babble of glory; they never dreamed their children

would contend which had done the most. They supposed they

had a right to their corn and their cattle, without paying

tribute to any but their own governors. And as they had

no fear of man, they yet did have a fear of God. Captain

Charles Miles, who was wounded in the pursuit of the enemy,

told my venerable friend (Dr. Ripley), who sits by me,

'that he went to the services of that day with the same

seriousness and acknowledgment of God, which he carried to

church.'"

 

Humphrey Barrett, fifth in descent from the original settler, was born

in 1752, on the farm his ancestors had owned ever since 1640, and was

no doubt in arms at Concord Fight in 1775. His biographer says:--

 

"Some persons slightly acquainted with him in the latter

part of his life, judged him to be unsocial, cold, and

indifferent, but those most acquainted with him knew him to

be precisely the reverse. The following acts of his life

make apparent some traits of his character. A negro, by the

name of Cæsar Robbins, had been in the habit of getting

all the wood for his family use for many years from Mr.

Barrett's wood-lot near by him; this being done with the

knowledge and with the implied if not the express consent

of the owner. Mr. Barrett usually got the wood for his own

use from another part of his farm; but on one occasion

he thought he would get it from the lot by Cæsar's. He

accordingly sent two men with two teams, with directions to

cut only hard wood. The men had been gone but a few hours

when Cæsar came to Mr. Barrett's house, his face covered

with sweat, and in great agitation, and says, 'Master

Barrett, I have come to let you know that a parcel of men

and teams have broke into our wood-lot, and are making

terrible destruction of the very best trees, and unless we

do something immediately I shall be ruined.' Mr. Barrett

had no heart to resist this appeal of Cæsar's; he told him

not to be alarmed, for he would see that he was not hurt,

and would put the matter right. He then wrote an order to

his men to cut no more wood, but to come directly home

with their teams, and sent the order by Cæsar."[3]

 

The biographer of Mr. Barrett, who was also his attorney and legal

adviser, goes on to say:--

 

"A favorite nephew who bore his name, and whose guardian he

was, died under age in 1818, leaving a large estate, and

no relatives nearer than uncle and aunt and the children

of deceased aunts. Mr. Barrett believed that the estate in

equity ought to be distributed equally between the uncle

and aunt and the children of deceased aunts by right of

representation.[4] And although advised that such was

not the law, he still insisted upon having the question

carried before the Supreme Court for decision; and when

the court decided against his opinion, he carried out his

own views of equity by distributing the portion that fell

to him according to his opinion of what the law ought to

be. After he had been fully advised that the estate would

be distributed in a manner he thought neither equitable

nor just, he applied to the writer to make out his account

as guardian; furnishing the evidence, as he believed, of

the original amount of all his receipts as such guardian.

I made the account, charging him with interest at six per

cent. on all sums from the time of receipt till the time

of making the account. Mr. Barrett took the account for

examination, and soon returned it with directions to charge

him with compound interest, saying that he believed he had

realized as much as that. I accordingly made the account

conform to his directions. He then wished me to present

this account to the party who claimed half the estate,

and ask him to examine it with care and see if anything

was omitted. This was done, and no material omission

discovered, and no objection made. Mr. Barrett then said

that he had always kept all the property of his ward in

a drawer appropriated for the purpose; that he made the

amount of property in the drawer greater than the balance

of the account; and (handing to me the contents of the

drawer) he wished me to ascertain the precise sum to

which it amounted. I found that it exceeded the balance of

the account by $3,221.59. He then told me, in substance,

that he was quite unwilling to have so large an amount of

property go where it was in danger of being distributed

inequitably, and particularly as he was confident he had

disclosed every source from which he had realized any

property of his ward, and also the actual amount received;

_but_, as he knew not how it got into the drawer, and had

intended all the property there to go to his nephew, he

should not feel right to retain it, and therefore directed

me to add it to the amount of the estate,--which was

done."[5]

 

Conceive a community in which such characters were common, and imagine

whether the claim of King George and the fine gentlemen about him,

to tax the Americans without their own consent would be likely to

succeed! I find in obscure anecdotes like this sufficient evidence

that if John Hampden had emigrated to Massachusetts when he had it in

mind, he would have found men like himself tilling their own acres in

Concord. The Barretts, from their name, may have been Normans, but,

like Hampden, the Hosmers were Saxons, and held land in England before

William the Conqueror. When Major Hosmer, who was adjutant, and formed

the line of the regiment that returned the British fire at Concord

Bridge, had an estate to settle about 1785, the heir to which was

supposed to be in England, he employed an agent, who was then visiting

London, to notify the heir, and also desired him to go to the Heralds'

Office and ascertain what coat-of-arms belonged to any branch of the

Hosmer family. When the agent (who may have been Mr. Tilly Merrick, of

Concord, John Adams's attaché in Holland), returned to America, after

reporting his more important business to Major Hosmer, he added,--

 

"I called at the Heralds' Office in London, and the clerk

said, '_There was no coat-of-arms for you, and, if you were

an Englishman you would not want one; for_ (he said) _there

were Hosmers in Kent long before the Conquest; and at the

battle of Hastings, the men of Kent were the vanguard of

King Harold_.'"

 

If Major Hosmer's ancestors failed to drive back the invaders then,

their descendants made good the failure in Concord seven centuries

later.

 

Thoreau's favorite walk, as he tells us,--the pathway toward

Heaven,--was along the old Marlborough road, west and southwest from

Concord village, through deep woods in Concord and in Sudbury. To

reach this road he passed by the great Hosmer farm-house, built by the

old major already mentioned, in 1760 or thereabout, and concerning

which there is a pretty legend that Thoreau may have taken with him

along the Marlborough road. In 1758, young Jo. Hosmer, "the little

black colt," drove to Marlborough one autumn day with a load of

furniture he had made for Jonathan Barnes, a rich farmer, and town

clerk in thrifty Marlborough. He had received the money for his

furniture, and was standing on the doorstep, preparing to go home,

when a young girl, Lucy Barnes, the daughter of the house, ran up to

him and said, "Concord woods are dark, and a thunderstorm is coming

up; you had better stay all night." "Since you ask me, I will," was

the reply, and the visit was often repeated in the next few months.

But when he asked farmer Jonathan for his daughter, the reply was,--

 

"Concord plains are barren soil. Lucy had better marry her

cousin John, whose father will give him one of the best

farms in Marlborough, with a good house on it, and Lucy can

match his land acre for acre."

 

Joseph returned from that land of Egypt, and like a wise youth took

the hint, and built a house of his own, planting the elm trees that

now overshadow it, after a hundred and twenty years. After the due

interval he went again to Marlborough, and found Lucy Barnes in the

September sunshine, gathering St. Michael's pears in her father's

garden. Cousin John was married, by this time, to another damsel.

Miss Lucy was bent on having her own way and her own Joseph; and so

Mr. Barnes gave his consent. They were married at Christmas, 1761;

and Lucy came home behind him on his horse, through the same Concord

woods. She afterwards told her youngest son, with some pique:--

 

"When my brother Jonathan was married, and went to New

Hampshire, twenty couples on horseback followed them to

Haverhill, on the Merrimac, but when your father and I were

married, we came home alone through these dark Concord

woods."[6]

 

The son of this lively Lucy Hosmer, Rufus Hosmer, of Stow, was a

classmate, at Cambridge, of Washington Allston, the late Chief

Justice Shaw, and Dr. Charles Lowell, father of Lowell the poet. They

graduated in 1798, and Dr. Lowell afterwards wrote:--

 

"I can recall with peculiar pleasure a vacation passed in

Concord in my senior year, which Loammi Baldwin, Lemuel

Shaw, Washington Allston, and myself spent with Rufus

Hosmer at his father's house. I recall the benign face

of Major Hosmer, as he stood in the door to receive us,

with his handsome daughter-in-law (the wife of Capt. Cyrus

Hosmer) on his arm. There was a charming circle of young

people then living in Concord, and we boys enjoyed this

very much; but we liked best of all to stay at home and

listen to the Major's stories. It was very pleasant to have

a rainy day come for this, and hard to tell which seemed the happier, he or we."