Bunker Hill

Joseph Warren’s September 4, 1774, letter to Samuel Adams is reprinted in Frothingham’s
LJW
, pp. 355–57.
    Peter Oliver writes of Joseph Warren’s youth as “a bare legged milk boy to furnish the Boston market” (
OPAR
, p. 128). Joseph Warren’s youngest brother John was two years old at the time of their father’s death; John’s son Edward writes in
The Life of John Warren, M.D.
, “The sight of his father’s body borne home to the house, made an impression upon his mind at this early age which was never effaced” (p. 4). Edward Warren even claims that “the fearful scene which he witnessed in childhood” later motivated John Warren to become a doctor (p. 12). Nathaniel Ames records three different performances of
Cato
“acted at Warren’s Cham[ber]”: on July 3, 1758; on July 6 (“to perfection”); and on July 14 (“Cato more perfect than before”); Ames,
Diary
, p. 14. Samuel Forman in
DJW
writes of Warren’s speculative involvement with the militia company at Harvard (pp. 40–41). J. P. Jewett in
The Hundred Boston Orators
, pp. 47–48,
recounts the rainspout incident, as does Samuel Knapp in
Biographical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, Statesmen, and Men of Letters
; Knapp claims he was told of the incident by “a spectator of this feat” who “related this fact to me in the college yard, nearly half a century afterwards, and the impression it made on his mind was so strong, that he seemed to feel the same emotion, as though it happened but an hour before” (pp. 107–8). Samuel Forman in
DJW
writes about the Spunkers and cites the November 17, 1773, letter of William Eustis (who was one of Joseph Warren’s apprentices) to John Warren, describing how he and fellow Spunkers competed with another group of medical students for the body of Levi Ames (pp. 35–36). Forman believes that Warren’s rainspout incident may have been related to his Spunkers activities; while I’m not sure the evidence warrants that specific speculation, I agree with Forman that Warren’s association with the Spunkers “suggests . . . a tolerance of illegality and secrecy, if such is in the service of a higher good” (p. 39). John Cary in
Joseph Warren
writes in detail about Warren’s activities during the 1764 smallpox epidemic (pp. 21–23); as does Forman, pp. 55–61, who also describes Warren’s activities with the masons (pp. 109–25). John Eliot in his
Biographical Dictionary
writes of how the North End Caucus was “guided by the prudence and skillful management of Dr. Warren”; he also writes of “the secret springs that moved the great wheels” (p. 472). See William Tudor,
The Life of James Otis
,
for yet another account of Warren’s involvement in this secret political group (pp. 461–62). Samuel Knapp in
Biographical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, Statesmen, and Men of Letters
writes of how Warren had “the wisdom to guide, and the power to charm”; he also writes that Warren “could discern the signs of the times, and mold the ductile materials to his will, and at the same time seem only to follow in the path of others” (p. 111).
    In a July 25, 1773, letter to Samuel Danforth, Benjamin Franklin writes of Danforth’s supposed discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone: “I rejoice . . . in your kind intentions of including me in the benefits of that inestimable stone, which curing all diseases (even old age itself) will enable us to see the future glorious state of our America. . . . I anticipate the jolly conversations we and twenty more of our friends may have in a hundred years hence on this subject,”
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin
, vol. 2 (London: Colburn, 1818), pp. 13–14. The pronunciation of Danforth as “Danfurt” is mentioned by Clifford Shipton in his biographical essay in
SHG
, 14:250. On Benjamin Hallowell, see Sandra Webber’s “Benjamin Hallowell Family and the Jamaica Plain House.” In addition to the previously cited letter to Grey Cooper, Hallowell describes being chased back to Boston in a detailed September 8, 1774, letter to Gage (
PIR
, 1:609–12). John Andrews relates that Hallowell, one of the two customs commissioners “born among ourselves,” was responsible for the unnecessarily harsh interpretation of the Boston Port Bill in an August 2 letter in LJA, pp. 336–37. On Thomas Oliver, see Clifford Shipton’s essay in
SHG
, 13:336–44. Joseph Warren writes of “the little matters in which we are engaged” in his