City of Newton, MA

18th-century Newton was a town experiencing rapid development and social change. Primarily
a farming community of about 1300-1400 people, Newton’s average English settler family relied
on their own land to provide food, clothing, shelter, and fuel through farming, raising livestock,
and maintaining orchards and woodlots. Land ownership was also required for men to
participate in Newton’s civic life through town meetings and elected positions. However,
population growth made land in Middlesex County increasingly scarce, and many sons who did
not inherit property in Newton moved north and west to less populated areas. Meanwhile,
Newton’s Indigenous people including the Massachusett faced population decline due to war,
disease, and restricted access to land and food. The “Praying Indian” town of Natick, which had
been moved from Nonantum in 1651, housed about 200 people at the beginning of the 18th
century, while a 1763 census counted 37 people living in Natick.

For Newton’s settler population, the increasing scarcity of local land produced social upheaval
and mobility. As an alternative to subsistence farming, some men pursued careers in ministry or
a trade such as law or medicine. The 18th century also saw the development of Newton’s mill
industry and the construction of numerous new roads and bridges. Children could attend one of
Newton’s five public schoolhouses, although these schools were not open to girls until 1789.
First-hand sources on women’s lives in the 18th century are rare, as women were largely
occupied with domestic labor and with the management of large households, which could
include several generations of children, extended family, boarders, and enslaved people.
Slavery was a legally recognized institution in Massachusetts from 1641 to 1783, when the
Massachusetts Judicial Court declared slavery unconstitutional. Before 1783, at least 33
Newton residents enslaved at least 50 people.

Newton’s proximity to the port city of Boston and the more established towns of Cambridge and
Watertown connected the rural community to international trade and politics in the years leading
up to the Revolution. Town meeting records reveal Newton’s prevailing political sentiments; for
example, in 1765, the town instructed Judge Abraham Fuller, its representative to the
Massachusetts General Court, to register the town’s opposition to the Stamp Act, but resolved
to condemn the rioting and destruction of private property that took place in Boston in protest of
the same act. In 1767, in protest of trade restrictions imposed on the colonies by the British
Navigation Acts, Newton resolved to avoid buying imported goods, instead focusing on home
industry. In 1773, the town specifically organized a boycott of tea imported by the East India
Trading Company, and several Newtonians participated in the Boston Tea Party in December of
that year. In June 1776, the town passed a unanimous vote to support the struggle for
independence with “their lives and fortunes” should the Continental Congress decide to split
from Britain, and the following month, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to
Newton residents in the First Church. In 1777, in the interest of wartime security, Newton
resolved that anyone harboring loyalist sentiments should be removed from town borders, and
at least two individuals were pushed out of Newton as a result.

In addition to ideologically supporting the Revolution, Newton had a strong military involvement
in the war, sending 430 soldiers to battle – about a third of the town’s population. The money
required to pay and outfit soldiers from Newton was largely contributed by private citizens. The
town prepared for the possibility of war in 1774 by raising a militia and providing firearms to
citizens who did not have the means on their own. At the outbreak of conflict at Lexington and
Concord in April 1775, 218 men from Newton enlisted and formed 3 companies, marching 28
miles to join the conflict.The Newton East and West Companies were briefly commanded by
General George Washington in March 1776 to march on occupied Dorchester Heights, shortly
before the British evacuated to end the Siege of Boston; individual soldiers from Newton were
involved in many of the major battles of the Revolutionary War from Bunker Hill to Yorktown.
Newtonians not involved in armed conflict saw the war brought to their doorstep in 1777 when
prisoners taken from General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga were marched through
West Newton on their way to Cambridge. At least 82 Revolutionary War veterans are interred in
Newton, in the East Parish, West Parish, and South Burying Grounds and elsewhere.

Several Newtonians played important political and military roles in the events of the Revolution
locally and nationally, including members of the Durant and Jackson families. Edward Durant III
(1715-1782) is often described in Newton histories as one of the town’s foremost outspoken
advocates for independence. In 1772, Durant was elected to the town’s newly formed
Committee of Correspondence to make recommendations for action, and was among the
authors of a resolution stating that “no good Man can be silent, or inactive in the cause of
Liberty, at this alarming period…” Durant was also selected to represent Newton at Provincial
Congress meetings in Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775. Several other Durants, including sons
Edward, Thomas, and Nathaniel, were involved in the war; the younger Edward was a doctor
during the Revolutionary War and went on to join a privateer crew, while Thomas fought at
Lexington and Concord and Nathaniel enlisted in the Continental Army for three years.
Michael Jackson (1734-1801), along with Obadiah Curtis (1724-1811), was one of Newton’s
participants in the 1773 Boston Tea Party, and he went on to have a prestigious military career.
At the outbreak of battle at Lexington and Concord, Jackson famously took command of his
volunteer company of minutemen when the commissioned officers failed to arrive. Jackson went
on to be promoted through the military, serving as a major at the Battle of Bunker Hill and
becoming seriously wounded while leading a raid on Montresor’s Island, New York in 1776. He
eventually attained the rank of General, serving under George Washington. Jackson’s wife,
Ruth Parker of Newton, accompanied him to war and acted as a nurse. The Historic Newton
collection includes several artifacts associated with Jackson’s military career, including a
powder horn and a large umbrella he allegedly carried in the field. Among Michael Jackson’s
company at Lexington and Concord was his cousin, Major Timothy Jackson (1756-1814), who
built the Jackson Homestead. Timothy Jackson enlisted as a privateer in 1775 and was
captured and pressed into service by the British; he escaped in the West Indies, was captured
again and imprisoned in New York, and escaped back to Newton on foot.

Another notable Newtonian serving in the military was Colonel Joseph Ward (1737-1812), aide-
de-camp to General Artemas Ward, his second cousin once removed. Joseph Ward was a
public school teacher and writer involved with Boston’s prominent Revolutionary thinkers; he
rode to Lexington and Concord from Boston when he heard the alarm. He served as General
Ward’s aide at the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he took fire from a British man-of-war while riding
over Charlestown Neck to execute an order. Ward held the position of aide-de-camp until
General Ward’s retirement in 1777; he then was appointed colonel as Commissary-General of
Musters, in which capacity he served until 1780. Ward retired from service with a letter of
commendation from George Washington, which is in the Historic Newton archives.

While the stories of white soldiers like Jackson and Ward are more widely told, thousands of
Black and Indigenous men were enlisted in the Continental Army. George Washington briefly
banned military service for people of African descent in 1775, but the decision was reversed in
1776 and Black soldiers were permitted to continue serving. Altogether, approximately 5,000-
8,000 people of African descent served in the Continental Army, mostly in integrated regiments
alongside white and Indigenous soldiers, while thousands more served in state militias or at sea
through privateering or other naval efforts. We know the names of several soldiers of color with
ties to Newton and the nearby “Praying Indian” town of Natick.

● Cornelius Lenox (born c. 1754) was a free Black man who served in the Continental
Army for approximately five years and settled in Newton in the 1780s; he owned a farm
on the Newton-Watertown line where he lived with his wife Susannah and eight children.

● Caesar Ferrit (c. 1720-1799), who was born in the Caribbean and had African, Native
American, French, and Dutch ancestry, immigrated to Massachusetts and eventually
settled in Natick; Caesar and his son John both enlisted from 1775 to 1781.

● James Anthony, also of Natick, enlisted from 1775 to 1780, saw combat at both Battles
of Saratoga and spent the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge.

● Pomp Jackson had been enslaved by Jonathan Jackson (then of Newburyport, a
descendent of Newton’s Edward Jackson) and was manumitted in 1776. Jackson soon
enlisted, served throughout the war, and received an honorable discharge.

However, a much larger number of Black soldiers ultimately supported the British side, as
freedom was offered to men enslaved by “rebels” who escaped to serve in the British army; an
estimated 20,000 enslaved people fought with the British in search of freedom. Meanwhile,
Black Newtonians like Pamela Sparhawk (born c. 1761) fought for their own freedom in other
ways: Sparhawk, who had been enslaved by Newton’s Rev. Jonas Meriam during the years of
the Revolution, went on to petition for legal recognition as her brother’s heir after they were
separated by enslavement. Other enslaved people in Newton were not granted freedom even
as their enslavers advocated for the principles of the Revolution, such as Titus, who was
enslaved by Edward Durant III. General William Hull (1753-1825), who settled in Newton after
the Revolutionary War, enslaved a man known as Tillo, short for Othello, in Newton; Othello
remained with the Hull family even after slavery was made illegal in Massachusetts and is
reportedly buried without a marker in the Hull family tomb in the East Parish Burying Ground.

While residents of Newton differed ideologically on issues of freedom and independence, as
shown by town meeting records, numerous Newtonians contributed to the Revolutionary cause
in ways large and small. The following are a few more notable figures in this history.

● Abraham Fuller (1720-1794) was a prominent Newton judge and politician whose roles
included representation of Newton to the state General Court, acting as a delegate to the
Provincial Congress, and in 1788 participating in a statewide congress to ratify the new
Constitution. In 1775, Fuller hid papers containing critical information about
Massachusetts military supplies at his home, preventing their seizure by British troops.

● The widow of Nathaniel Coolidge (died c. 1770) operated a tavern near Nonantum
Bridge which in 1775 was appointed the town’s rendezvous point in the event of alarm.

● John Pigeon (1725-1778), a local delegate alongside Durant and Fuller, made the critical
donation of two field-pieces for use by Newton troops in 1775 as the town made
preparations for potential war. Pigeon also held the role of Commissary-General of 8,000
Massachusetts troops encamped in Cambridge before the arrival of George Washington.

● Roger Sherman (1721-1793), a Newton native although he spent most of his life in
Connecticut, has the distinction of being the only person to have signed the Continental
Association from the first Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the
Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution.

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