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John A. Nagy - Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution

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John A. Nagy Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution
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Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution: summary, description and annotation

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Newly Discovered Evidence Against a Man Who Has Long Been Suspected as Being a British Agent and Americas First Traitor

Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr. (17341778) was a respected medical man and civic leader in colonial Boston who was accused of being an agent for the British in the 1770s, providing compromising intelligence about the plans of the provincial leadership in Massachusetts as well as important information from the meetings of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Despite his eminence as a surgeonhe conducted an autopsy on one of the victims of the Boston Massacreand his own correspondence and the numbers of references to him from contemporaries, no known image of him exists and many aspects of his life remain obscure. What we do know is that George Washington accused him of being a traitor to the colonial cause and had him arrested and tried; after first being jailed in Connecticut and then Massachusetts, during which he continued to profess his innocence, he was allowed to leave America on a British vessel in 1778, but it foundered in the Atlantic with all hands lost. The question of whether Dr. Benjamin Church was working for the British has never been conclusively demonstrated, and remains among the mysteries of the American Revolution.

In Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution, noted authority John A. Nagy has scoured original documents to establish the best case against Church, identifying previously unacknowledged correspondence and reports as containing references to the doctor and his activities, and noting an incriminating letter in the possession of the Library of Congress that is a coded communication composed by Church to his British contact. Nagy shows that at the cusp of the revolution, when the possibilitylet alone the outcomeof an American colonial rebellion was far from assured, Church sought to align himself with the side he thought would emerge victoriousthe British crownand thus line his pockets with money that he desperately needed. A fascinating investigation into a centuries-old intrigue, this well-researched volume is an important contribution to American Revolution scholarship.

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Frontis A Warm PlaceHell An engraving made by Paul Revere in 1768 criticizing - photo 1

Frontis A Warm PlaceHell An engraving made by Paul Revere in 1768 criticizing - photo 2

Frontis: A Warm PlaceHell. An engraving made by Paul Revere in 1768 criticizing the seventeen merchants who rescinded their support of the nonimportation act. The illustration is accompanied by a verse written by Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr. See page 23 for a further description. (Library of Congress)

2013 John A. Nagy
Maps by Paul Dangel
Maps 2013 Westholme Publishing

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Westholme Publishing, LLC
904 Edgewood Road
Yardley, Pennsylvania 19067
Visit our Web site at www.westholmepublishing.com

ISBN: 978-1-59416-566-5
Also available in hard cover.

Produced in the United States of America.

TO IDA MARIE NAGY, my wife, for her encouragement and an enormous amount of patience that allowed me the time to finish this book.

List of Illustrations
Abbreviations in the Notes
AHRAmerican Historical Review
CPHenry Clinton Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
FFFounding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses
GPAGage Papers, American Series, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
GPEGage Papers, English Series, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
GWPGeorge Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
JCCJournals of the Continental Congress
JPCJournals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775 and of the Committee of Safety
MHSMassachusetts Historical Society
NavalNaval Documents of the American Revolution Series
NYPLNew York Public Library
PCCPapers of the Continental Congress
INTRODUCTION

I first heard about Dr. Benjamin Church Jr. when I read Carl Van Dorens Secret History of the American Revolution in the early 1980s. I followed it up with Allen Frenchs General Gages Informers; New Material Upon Lexington & Concord: Benjamin Thompson as Loyalist & the Treachery of Benjamin Church, Jr. I was intrigued with the story of this first American traitor and have been interested in his involvement in American Revolutionary War events ever since. Most accounts of Church record his public activities, his membership in committees, and other generalities. I wanted to know more. As with most spies, there is very little of a paper trail of his nefarious activities. Spies by nature try very hard to avoid leaving evidence. I took up the challenge of assembling his story in 1992.

Churchs story is about one of the most admired and respected patriots in Massachusetts. It is intertwined with the founding of the revolutionary movement in Massachusetts. He was a very skilled doctor, poet, and orator. In this book, I am not going to evaluate his poetry. For those interested in his poems, I suggest Jeffrey B. Walkers The Devil Undone: The Life and Poetry of Benjamin Church 17341778. It contains all of Churchs poems and a critique of his efforts.

Church was an esteemed member of the inner circle of Massachusetts revolutionaries. He was certainly in the same leadership level with John and Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, and John Hancock, and a step above Paul Revere. He was on almost every committee of importance and involved in drafting many important letters. I thought his involvement in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and Committee of Safety needed to come to light and have included them. To understand him, it is important to know some of the events that occurred around him, and I have included these, too.

With the Adamses and Hancock in Philadelphia for the Continental Congress and Warren having been killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, Church was left as the on-site political leader of Massachusettsand Church was a British spy. It makes me wonder how we won the war; his activities certainly increased the odds against an American victory.

The Adamses and Hancock did have a long reach back to Massachusetts from Philadelphia. Two weeks after Warren died, George Washington garnered all the public attention with his arrival as commander in chief of the army, dimming Churchs public persona.

When Church appeared before the Continental Congress meeting in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in June 1775, its members were so impressed with his abilities that they appointed him director and chief physician of the first American army hospital at Cambridge, Massachusetts. It gave him unlimited access to American military facilities and knowledge of the readiness of American forces.

The emotional impact on American society of his discovery as a British spy would be surpassed during the American Revolution only by Benedict Arnolds being found to be a traitor of the blackest dye. The discovery of one of their inner circle being a British spy was a shock to John Adams and many others in fall 1775. It was an inconceivable event.

A number of books have been published over the last few years on forgotten founders of the United States. Church certainly is one of the forgotten founders and one of the American Revolutionary Wars political elite. His story is one that I thought finally needed to be told.

ONE

Ancestry and Early Years

In 1630, just ten years after the arrival of the Pilgrims, Richard Church arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He served as a sergeant against the Pequot Indians in the Pequot War (16341638).

Richard and Elizabeths third child was Benjamin Church, who was born in 1638 or 1639 in Plymouth.

Governor Josiah Winslow of the Plymouth Colony commissioned Benjamin Church to form a ranger company. The family lived in Boston, and he was a vendue master, now called an auctioneer. His business was on Newbury (now Washington) Street, two doors south of the sign of the Lamb. He served as a captain under his father, Colonel Benjamin Church, in the fifth expedition against the French and Indians in 1704. He died in late 1706. Edwards brother Thomas published an account of their fathers exploits in King Philips War in 1716.

Edward and Martha Church had a son named Benjamin. He graduated from Harvard College in 1727 with some politically important classmates: Thomas Hutchinson, the future governor of Massachusetts, and Jonathan Trumbull, the future governor of Connecticut. The family moved to Boston circa 1740. Benjamin followed in his fathers business as a vendue master in Boston. His place of business was on Newbury Street.

In 1745, he served as constable of Boston, and he was an assessor for the town from 1752 to 1777.

On Sunday, January 16, 1763, a fire broke out about 10 a.m. in Daniel Joness hatter shop on Newbury Street or in a tenement next to it. The fire quickly spread to several buildings on the north and south sides of the street. The fire destroyed David Wheelers blacksmith shop, William Wheelers cooper shop, Jonathan Wheelers house, and a double house belonging to Benjamin Church that was occupied by Ambrose Vincent and Benjamin Hanners.

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