people didn’t have to have a college education or be part of these growing networks to understand that the British policy toward America amounted to tyranny. After all, the population of the American colonies was at least half that of England and twenty times that of Canada. That meant almost one-third of the so-called British dominions were ruled by a Parliament in which they had no representation.36 These facts began to seep into the consciousness of the now vaguely united colonists, from the farmers and the craftspeople to the housewives and the innkeepers. This popular support meant governmental sponsorship; as early as 1769 Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania had adopted the strategy of not importing British goods. Those who refused were often pressured by their more progressive colleagues and neighbors.37
The Tea Act in 1773 led to more protests and widespread dumping of tea by Americans, from the housewives who refused to serve it to their guests to the merchants who refused to import it. Nathaniel Shaw wrote in October, “In regard to the tea that is expected from England, I pray heartily that the colonies may not suffer any to be landed.”38 Many burned or discarded tea and other British-made objects in public demonstrations, and Labrador tea or coffee became the drinks of choice. Things seemed to be coming to a head, and Benedict Arnold could not help musing to his wife that winter, “how uncertain life is, how certain Death: may their loud & affecting calls awaken us to prepare for our Own Exit, whenever it shall happen.”39 He had created a new family from the ruins of the old, rebuilt his fortune twice, and now they were threatened by the simmering conflict, which may have been inevitable and just, but not welcome.
The Boston Port Act of 1774 was the fuse that lit the fire. The king and his supporters in Parliament had decided that their only options were capitulation to the American demands or war. Without reason to stand on, tyranny becomes the last refuge. And the Americans gave the king plenty of excuses to enforce that tyranny. When Boston was blockaded and put under military law by the British parliament on June 27, mobs harassed Tory politicians and demagogues throughout New England, while kidnapping, riots, and threats swept the land.40 Special town meetings were held across Connecticut, most of which ended in a denunciation of England and a pledge of support for Boston. Shaw met with the New London town committee and vowed to adhere to the acts of the Continental Congress.41
Elected as a representative from Weathersfield two years earlier, Silas Deane sent a letter in June for publication in the Connecticut Courant that detailed the injustices of the British, asking, “Is there, my Countrymen, any other Alternative now left you but to submit, or prepare for resistance even to Blood? I declare I know of none. Our petitions dispised, our Liberties sported away, our private as well as public Interest invaded, and our lives at the Mercy of a General and his army!”42 He was swiftly elected by his peers to serve in the upcoming Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Massachusetts delegation, with Samuel and John Adams, reached Hartford in August 1774, on their way to Philadelphia. Deane and his stepson Samuel Webb rode up to meet them, and the following day they visited his house, where his wife Elizabeth served punch and coffee. A few days later, after settling his business affairs, Deane followed the delegation to Philadelphia, the second-largest city in the English-speaking world, to debate a course of action.43
Some in Connecticut could not wait for the results of the new Congress. Delegates from Windham and New London counties met in Norwich, condemning the “unconstitutional acts” and presence of General Thomas Gage’s standing army in Boston, which was “too great to be given to any Person in a free Country … an Army not under the Control of the civil Magistrate! What Country? What State?” They lamented the possible “disagreeable necessity of defending our sacred and invaluable Rights … for, we could not entertain a thought that any American would or possibly could be dragoon’d into Slavery.” Among the men at the Norwich meeting were Samuel Huntington, Nathaniel Shaw, William Ledyard, Jonathan Trumbull, and Israel Putnam. They all signed their names to this radical protest, two years before delegates from the entire country would sign a similar document, putting reputations and lives on the line for liberty.44
Not everyone was ready for rebellion. The reverend Samuel Peters of Hebron wrote a proclamation urging his flock not to take up arms, “it being high treason.” The result, he wrote, was that “riots and mobs … have attended me and my house…. The clergy of Connecticut must fall a sacrifice, with the several churches, very soon to the rage of the puritan nobility.” He pleaded for the Lord to “deliver us from anarchy.”45 The proclamation was not well received by the majority of the townspeople. A number of men arrived at Peters’s house and found it full of his armed followers. They held a meeting outside, in which they argued about his use of tea, and during the argument Peters claimed there were no weapons in the house. The reverend started to “harangue” the crowd, when suddenly a gun went off inside. The men rushed inside to find loaded guns and pistols, swords, and two dozen large wooden clubs. After confiscating these, they let Peters go back inside to write a confession of what happened. He was not cooperative and the crowd grew “exasperated.” Finally, the people seized him, took him to the green at the center of town, and forced him to sign a confession.46
According to Peters, admittedly not the most reliable witness, when he fled Windham County’s mob rule to New Haven, he was met with more of the same from the local Sons of Liberty, including Benedict Arnold. At ten o’clock “Arnold and his mob came to the gate,” and after Peters said he would not come out, supposedly “holding a musket” in his hand, Arnold told the mob to “bring an axe, and split down the gate.” Peters replied, “Arnold, so sure as you split the gate, I will blow your brains out, and all that enter this yard to-night!” When Arnold retreated, the mob called him a coward, but he said, “I am no coward; but I know Dr. Peters’ disposition and temper, and he will fulfill every promise he makes; and I have no wish for death at present.” According to Peters, David Wooster showed up with another mob a half hour later, and these and other threats encouraged him to leave Connecticut altogether, heading for Boston.47
That autumn of 1774 people around the state quietly began to arm for a war many suspected would come, even though the first shots had not yet been fired. New military companies were commissioned, artillery was inventoried, weapons were repaired, and militia was trained. Connecticut called for a meeting of all the colonies to join forces and protest the Coercive Acts and even at this early date called for a more permanent union. The same year the monarchist Tories met in Middletown and tried to remove the radical Governor Trumbull from office. They were a dwindling minority, though, and failed. The council under Trumbull asked Nathaniel Shaw to send ships to the Caribbean to covertly buy powder and shot from the French. Arnold himself tried to gather muskets equipped with bayonets.48
In early 1775 a group of Tories in Stamford found out about a large shipment of gunpowder secretly entering Connecticut. They told a sympathetic customs officer, who seized the powder and kept it at his house. But the next day a large group of Revolutionaries, having heard of this incident, “proceeded in an orderly manner to the house where the powder was lodged, which they entered without opposition, and having found it, rode off with the casks.” The Tories and their informers “hid themselves until all was over.”49
Trumbull and the assembly also joined the new Continental Association. Every town but Ridgefield and Newtown publicly accepted their actions. These holdouts were promptly shunned by the rest of the towns in Fairfield County, who suspended all commerce dealings and connections from the inhabitants of these two villages.50 In March 1775 Trumbull stood in front of the assembly and called the Tories “depraved, malignant, avaricious, and haughty,” rallying for “Manly action against those who by Force and Violence seek your ruin and destruction.”51 By April Shaw had obtained powder and was trying to stock up on lead from Philadelphia.52 He wrote on April 1 that “matters seem to draw near where the longest sword must decide the controversy.”53
He was right. The first shots were fired at Lexington on April 19, and swift riders carried the word west across Connecticut. Hour by hour each town heard the news and
