Bunker Hill

refers to the Government Act as “a blank piece of paper” while chronicling the news from the western portion of the province during August 1774 in LJA, pp. 343–49. Richard Brown also writes of the increasing political activity in the western counties that summer in
Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts
, pp. 212–20. Ray Raphael provides an excellent account of Massachusetts’s response to the Government Act during the summer and fall of 1774 in
The First American Revolution
, insisting that “it was the Massachusetts Government Act, not the Boston Port Act, which led common people throughout the colony to take decisive action” (p. 222). John Andrews writes of Daniel Leonard’s problems in Taunton and Gage’s standoff with the Salem Committee of Correspondence over the town meeting issue, as well as the town of Danvers’s outrageous challenge to his authority in the August 24, 25, 26, and 29 entries of LJA, pp. 346–48. Gage writes that “conciliating, moderation, reasoning [are] over” in a September 2, 1774, letter to Dartmouth; see
Gage Correspondence
, pp. 369–72. Robert Gross describes the divisions and resource challenges faced by the towns of Massachusetts in the first half of the eighteenth century and how resistance to Great Britain brought an unprecedented consensus to the region in
The Minutemen and Their World
, pp. 60–108. On Joseph Hawley’s role in the Northampton controversies in the aftermath of the Great Awakening, see Peter Shaw’s
American Patriots and the Rituals of Revolution
, pp. 131–52.
Samuel Quincy’s June 1, 1774, letter to his brother Josiah is in Josiah Quincy’s
Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy Junior
, pp. 160–64. John Andrews’s description of Gage and his entourage near the common is in his letter of August 31, LJA, pp. 349–50.
    Chapter Four— The Alarm
    On the history of the militia system in New England, see Fred Anderson,
A People’s Army
, pp. 26–28. Peter Oliver writes of the Indian scalps “waving in the wind” and of “savage” being “convertible” in
OPAR
, pp. 132–33. John Adams and James Otis represented the Marblehead fisherman who harpooned a British officer; see Adams’s
Diary
, 1:348; see Hiller Zobel’s
Boston Massacre
for a detailed discussion of the case, pp. 113–31. David Hackett Fischer writes of New Englanders within twenty miles of the sea bringing their weapons with them to meeting every Sunday in
Albion’s Seeds
, p. 120.
On the importance of gunpowder to the colonies see the chapter “The Value of Gunpowder” in Robert Richmond’s
Powder Alarm 1774
, pp. 37–45.
The search for alternative supplies of gunpowder may have been why the patriot merchant John Winthrop Jr. (aka Joyce Junior) was reported to be “strolling in the West Indies” in the spring of 1775; see MHS
Proceedings
, 2nd ser., 12 (1897–98): 142. In addition to Richmond’s
Powder Alarm
, Patrick Johnston provides a helpful analysis of the importance of the Alarm to the events preceding Lexington and Concord in “Building to a Revolution: The Powder Alarm and Popular Mobilization of the New England Countryside, 1774–1775.”
    On William Brattle, see Clifford Shipton’s biographical essay in
SHG
, 7:10–23. John Andrews describes how by “chance or design” Brattle’s letter slipped from Gage’s pocket and the repercussions of the letter (which he quotes from) becoming public knowledge in a September 1 letter in LJA, pp. 350–51. Richmond reprints Brattle’s letter in
Powder Alarm
, pp. 51–52. John Andrews writes of the “conjectures” about the troop activity in the September 1 entry of LJA, p. 350. On the history of Ten Hills Farm, see C. S. Manegold’s
Ten Hills Farm
, pp. 3–101. Accounts of the British operation to take the powder from the Quarry Hill arsenal and what came to be called the Powder Alarm appear in the September 5, 1774,
Boston Gazette
and John Andrews’s September 1, 2, and 3 letters in LJA, pp. 350–53. Benjamin Hallowell’s September 5, 1774, letter to Grey Cooper, as well as Thomas Gage’s September 2, 1774, letter to Lord Dartmouth and Thomas Oliver’s September 3, 1774, letter to Dartmouth, are in
DAR
, 8:187–91, 179–82, 182–84. McNeil’s firsthand account of the Alarm is in
Ezra Stiles’ Literary Diary
, 1:476–83. Thomas Young’s September 4, 1774, letter to Samuel Adams is in the Adams Papers at the Manuscripts and Archives Division, NYPL, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.