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Shays’ Rebellion:
A Loud and Solemn Lesson
Mount Vernon
Fairfax County, Virginia
October 12, 1785
“I’ll ride out to the front gate with you, James,” George Washington said to his young visitor upon the end of his three-day visit.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, sir,” answered thirty-four-year-old James Madison. But the look on Washington’s face indicated that this offer wasn’t simply a courtesy; his host had something more to say.
Madison, returning to his beloved Virginia from official business in Philadelphia and New York, had stopped at Mount Vernon to consult with Washington—and to vent his frustrations. The nation, the Confederation, was falling apart. The states could not agree on anything, be it taxes, a common defense, or trade either with foreign nations or among themselves. They were not so much a patchwork quilt of pieces sewn together, but thirteen shards of jagged glass, lying haphazardly upon the ground, ready to cut anyone foolish enough to try to reassemble them.
Before his visit, Madison had strongly suspected that Washington shared his concerns.
Now, Madison knew he did.
Riding out to Mount Vernon’s front gate, Washington fumed once more that a stronger national government was essential to protect everything the revolution had been fought for. Madison nodded silently in agreement, his small hand firmly on his large traveling carpetbag.
The carriage reached the gate and came to a sharp halt. Washington, limber for his fifty-three years, jumped out. Rather than saying goodbye to Madison, he instead handed him a copy of Noah Webster’s new pamphlet advocating a strong national government. “Read this,” he counseled. “We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern, act as a nation. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending it.”
George Washington’s greatest fear was that these United States would fall apart. He worried that individual states would not be able to preserve their own internal order, private property rights, or the validity of their contracts. He worried about lawlessness, anarchy, and chaos taking root in one state and then spreading across the country.
As Washington bade farewell to Madison on that crisp autumn evening, he had no way of knowing that those fears were less than one year away from becoming reality.
The Hancock Manor
30 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Nine months earlier: January 27, 1785
“Well, there you have it!” the tall, slim man exclaimed as he finished affixing his grand, sprawling signature to the official document before him.
Though that signature read “John Hancock,” the document was not the Declaration of Independence, nor was the place Philadelphia, or the date July 4, 1776. Instead, it was nearly a decade later, and the Honorable John Hancock, looking far older than his forty-nine years, sat at a desk in Boston’s Beacon Hill and made his resignation as governor of Massachusetts official.
“That’s it!” he added for emphasis, hobbling toward the door on his gout-ridden foot. “Time to rest and get well. This body is simply worn out from service to its country. And, I suppose, service to a few other things as well!”
Everyone in the commonwealth knew very well of John Hancock’s pronounced taste for the finer things in life. Some suspected, however, that it wasn’t really gout or illness that plagued John Hancock, but rather the events occurring in Massachusetts’ rural, western areas. Farmers and townsfolk alike were angry. Personal bankruptcy cases overwhelmed the courts. Massachusetts’ state government suffered from massive debt, and its legislature, the General Court, had drastically raised property and poll taxes to pay it off.
“I wish I had gout!” Lieutenant Governor Thomas Cushing retorted. But instead of gout, Cushing now had, at least temporarily, the governorship—and all of the problems that came along with it.
“Yes, I hear you, Mr. Cushing,” Hancock answered. “There’s an anger out there. And it’s been brewing for years. Where will it end?” Hancock shook his head. Was the revolution really fought for this mess?
“I don’t blame them. Not entirely, anyway,” he continued. “The new taxes go to pay off the bonds issued during the war. But who gets the money? Not the patriots who originally bought the bonds to help secure our liberty. Or the officers and men who bled at Lexington or Concord and kept fighting on through Yorktown. No, it’s the speculators who bought the paper for pennies on the dollar. They own the bonds—and now they own the citizens of this fine commonwealth as well.”
Hampshire County Convention
Hatfield, Massachusetts
Nineteen months later: August 24, 1786
“Then, it’s agreed!”
“Of course, it’s agreed!” came the impatient retort. “We have been here for three days and we know what we want!”
This was an unruly group, with representatives from fifty towns located in western Massachusetts’ Hampshire County. They had aired their grievances and now had to present a united front against the state government in Boston. But deciding on exactly what that unified front would be was proving difficult.
Many of the men at the meeting were battle-hardened veterans of the Continental Army. One of them, Colonel Benjamin Bonney, was also acting as the meeting’s chair. “So it’s settled, then,” Bonney said. “We will send the petition to the General Court and to Governor Bowdoin.”
“Governor Bowdoin!” The name was shouted by a man in the back of the room; the words spat out as if it were Lucifer’s name itself. “That’s a waste of good Massachusetts paper! Our esteemed new governor, as we all know, is one of the biggest bondholders in the entire commonwealth. It is for him and his kind that we are bled white with taxes—so he and his Boston friends can be paid as much and as soon as possible. Yes, by all means, send our petition to King James Bowdoin—it will be fun to watch him use the paper to tally how much our taxes will increase next.”
“Tell ’em! Tell ’em!” came a rum-soaked exclamation from a young man in a threadbare coat and torn knee breeches. “Tell ’em we can’t afford to pay neither debts nor taxes. We want—we need—paper money printed and accepted for all transactions! We want no more of our money shipped to the Continental Congress! Tell ’em loud and clear: ‘To blazes with the Senate and the courts and lawyers!’?”
“Yes, we will tell them all of that,” Colonel Bonney reassured him. “That’s what we have agreed to by the vote of all free men present.”
“And, one more thing!” came a Scotch-Irish burr-tinged demand from a man seated to Bonney’s right. “We want our demands dispatched to the conventions meeting at Worcester and Lenox as well. They’ll be very glad to hear that we Hampshire County men stand strong for our liberties.”
“Agreed, Captain Shays,” answered Colonel Bonney. “Couriers will leave in the morrow.”
And with that, Daniel Shays, a resident of nearby Pelham, tapped the residue from his simple clay pipe and took comfort in the thought that the common people—he among them—were finally standing up to the wealthy merchants and lawyers of Boston town.
Court of Common Pleas
Hampshire County Courthouse
Northampton, Massachusetts
August 29, 1786
Captain Daniel Shays had not originally cared much for protest. But now, as he stood before Northampton’s Hampshire County Courthouse and pondered the accelerating tumult around him, he quickly reconsidered that position.
Shays was approaching forty years of age and he looked every bit of it. He had been born poor, and life had not done much better by him. The little land he owned called for endless, backbreaking work and seemed to result in nothing but an increasing pocketful of debts.
Shays had earned his fine title of “captain” during the revolution, fighting at Saratoga, Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Stony Point—the last engagement under the great Marquis de Lafayette, who had bestowed upon him an elegant gold-handled sword. Shays was, by all accounts, a good soldier, but there were some things about him that rankled his fellow officers. For one thing, he had received his commission for having recruited the private soldiers who served under him, not for any actual battlefield merit. There was also the matter of that sword. Any other patriot would have treasured it, but Shays had quickly sold it to pay a twelve-dollar debt.
And there was one other thing that bothered some of the other officers: in 1780, when pay had run short and morale had run low, many—too many—of George Washington’s officers ingloriously departed for home.
Captain Daniel Shays was among them.
? ? ?
Five hundred men marched on Northampton from Daniel Shays’ hometown of Pelham. Another column of men, led by Captain Joel Billings, approached from Amherst. Hundreds more swaggered north from West Springfield under the leadership of Captain Luke Day, another veteran of Lexington. Still more rough-and-ready protesters streamed in from the hill towns to the west. They sported sprigs of green hemlock in their battered hats, carried flags, and marched to the sound of fifes and the threatening beat of drums. Some came outfitted with swords and flintlock muskets; others were armed with just sticks and bludgeons. But this was a real army—at least as real as the one that had appeared in Lexington in April 1775—and look what they had accomplished.
In all, fifteen hundred men had descended upon Northampton’s courthouse, where Hampshire County’s Court of Common Pleas was scheduled to be in session that morning. The sheer size of the crowd made it difficult for the three bewigged, black-robed justices and their clerk to enter the courthouse. “Allow us in,” Judge Eleazar Porter demanded. Derisive laughter rang through the crowd. “You might care to rethink that request, your honor,” snapped Captain Luke Day. “It looks like the people have a different idea about who’s meeting where and when from now on.” Day liked talking as much as he liked soldiering.
The three judges nervously conferred. After agreeing that there was no way they could force their way through this jostling, threatening mob, they retreated to a nearby inn. No cases would be heard today and no debtors or tax delinquents arraigned. Soon these judges would mount their steeds and make the wisest decision possible—to ride out of town.
It wasn’t until midnight that the mobbers finally departed from Northampton’s courthouse. They were tired but emboldened, and their actions had ignited a spark that would lead to an explosion in Pelham and, eventually, in all of western Massachusetts.
Daniel Shays’ Farmhouse
Pelham, Massachusetts
August 30, 1786
If Daniel Shays was concerned about changing his reputation, he had a funny way of doing it. The previous morning his neighbors had asked him to lead them on their march to Northampton. He refused. Fifty-year-old Deacon John Thompson took command in his place.
But, now, after a night of rest and some deep thinking, Shays was having second—and third—thoughts. Who was better suited to lead his aggrieved neighbors than he, a man as burdened by debt and Boston oppression as anyone, a patriot who had never even been paid for his wartime service?
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had been a fool to turn down his neighbor’s request. Daniel Shays resolved to step forward and lead.
Supreme Judicial Court
Hampden County Courthouse
Springfield, Massachusetts
September 26, 1786
The virus spread, hopscotching from town to town and county to county.
An epidemic had begun.
Three hundred men shut down the state’s Supreme Judicial Court when it tried to meet at Worcester. A drunken horde—men too poor to pay their debts, but not to buy rum—pulled the same trick when Middlesex County’s court convened at Concord. Mob rule struck again at Great Barrington in the Berkshires and at Taunton, south of Boston, near the Rhode Island border. Soon the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court would indict eleven protest leaders for rioting and sedition.
Today, that court was due to convene in Springfield and, with a thousand protesters, or “Regulators,” as they now called themselves, surrounding the courthouse, it looked like the pattern might repeat itself yet again.
“A fine morning for a court closing,” joked Captain Luke Day to the ex-officer standing beside him.
“Indeed,” answered Daniel Shays.
Day eyed Supreme Court justice William Cushing attempting to wade through the mob and called out to him: “No trying of debtors today! The road back to Boston lies yonder! I would advise you to take it, sir! Now!”
From around the corner another column of men approached.
Ah, reinforcements, thought Shays.
He could not have been more wrong.
The men now marching toward him were responding to a far different kind of call: that of the rule of law. They formed uneven ranks in the sun-drenched courthouse square, but they snapped to a quick and soldierly attention on a sudden call of “Halt!” from Major General William Shepard, the pudgy, fifty-year-old commander of the Massachusetts state militia. “Cannon!” he barked, and a brace of cannons quickly rolled into place. Crews scurried to put them in working order—their barrels aimed squarely at Luke Day’s poorly armed Regulators.
With the reinforcements in place, Chief Justice Cushing and his fellow judges gingerly entered the courthouse. Their victory, however, proved hollow. No business was conducted that day as not even one juror had dared run Luke Day’s gauntlet to appear for duty.
It was difficult to say who had won the day: General Shepard or Captain Day. But one thing was clear: the forces of the law had finally entered the fight—and so had Daniel Shays.
Daniel Shays’ Farmstead
Pelham, Massachusetts
October 23, 1786
“What are you writing so furiously, Daniel?” Abigail Shays asked her husband.
Daniel hesitated before answering.
General Shepard’s unexpected intervention at the Springfield courthouse the previous month had angered Daniel Shays. It did not frighten him, which might have made things easier since he would have simply retreated to his own little world and abandoned any contact with the Regulators. No, the show of force was an insult, and Daniel Shays did not like to be insulted.
“Abigail,” said Shays, “I have already put on my uniform. I think it is time to add my name to this fight for our liberties. Listen to this, it is going out to all the counties and towns that stand with us.”
Pelham, Oct. 23, 1786