The series From Colony to Commonwealth steps back in time to the dank taverns, fledgling newsrooms and spy routes of colonial Massachusetts. As the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, we’re tracing the commonwealth’s tumultuous path to self-governance.
Textbooks, historians and descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers agree: the earliest live rounds of combat broke out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
But where the revolt against British rule actually began is open to interpretation — and little-known details of bold uprising point farther west.
Elaine Gardella, who leads the Worcester chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, says that by the time the minutemen and redcoats clashed on Lexington Common in 1775, the British had already lost control of most of the colony. In a wave of nonviolent rebellions, colonists took over local courthouses in Western and Central Massachusetts in 1774 and left the British reeling.
“Western and Central Massachusetts was the founding of the American Revolution,” she said, admitting a tinge of bitterness that Boston receives all the credit. “You can and should be bitter that your stories in your town have not been told.”
Gardella pointed to the work of historian and writer Ray Raphael who uncovered the rebellions in towns west of Boston. Raphael said the way the crown responded to the Boston Tea Party ended up eroding British authority across Massachusetts. As punishment for the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor, British Parliament retaliated by passing the Intolerable Acts — including the Massachusetts Government Act, which stripped the colony of all local autonomy.
Suddenly, colonists could only gather for town meetings once a year, and the crown took over appointing members to the colony’s legislature. An even bigger issue for many people in rural areas was that the British would start appointing local judges.
“The local courts — this is the fabric of everyday life,” Raphael said.
Judges handled day-to-day issues, from disputes over property lines and unpaid debts to how many hogs were allowed to run wild on a town common. They even ruled on accusations of sick cows sold as healthy. (Yep, welcome to 18th-century Massachusetts.)
“And so to have the British Parliament now going to run everything, that’s unacceptable for the average citizen of Massachusetts at the time,” Gardella said. “This is going to put their farms, their livestock, their homes at risk because they have no control over who’s going to be hearing their legal cases.”
Colonists in Great Barrington soon decided on a way to respond. In July of 1774, the town’s local courthouse was the first scheduled to open with new judges appointed by the crown. But with no British soldiers around to protect the judges, about 1,500 local colonists convened and locked them out of the courthouse. The judges had no choice but to resign.
Another 3,000 people in Springfield did the same two weeks later. It wasn’t long before word of the closures reached Worcester, the largest county west of Boston. You can imagine what happened next.
“This is where the courthouse stood in 1774 when the patriot militias came into Worcester to close the courts,” local historian Bob Stacy said, standing on the front steps of what is today the Courthouse Lofts apartment building in downtown Worcester.
A diary belonging to one of the militiamen’s fathers, currently housed at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, suggests there were over 4,600 militia members from across the county involved.
To avoid being seen as an unruly mob, Stacy said the militia members left their weapons behind as they closed the courthouse. They then forced the 25 newly appointed court officials to walk down the street to a local tavern. That’s where the judges received instructions on what to do next: They were to walk back up Main Street to the courthouse, hats in hand, recanting out loud their loyalty to the king.
As he retraced those steps recently, Stacy detailed the humiliation the judges had to endure.
“We have to stop at where each militia company is located and repeat that we apologize for the wrong we’ve done and we are going to resign as judges and we’ll never do it again,” he said.
Stacy and Raphael said the Worcester revolt demonstrated to the British that their rule no longer ran through Massachusetts. In fact, Raphael noted, soon after the uprising, Worcester’s town meeting called for Massachusetts to be independent from the British. It’s the earliest known instance of a public body demanding independence of the crown, Raphael said.
Worcester’s resistance to British authority was such a blow that Thomas Gage — Britain’s military governor of the colony at the time — considered sending soldiers from Boston to forcibly reopen the court and arrest some of the militia members.
Gage even dispatched two spies to Worcester to explore such an operation. But, historians say, he concluded the town was too far from Boston and British troops would encounter too much resistance.
As the United States now celebrates 250 years since the American Revolution, Raphael said it’s ironic that the courthouse closures in Worcester and Western Massachusetts are so overlooked. He said the revolts were so effective that they didn’t involve any bloodshed. Had there been shots fired, he speculates, they probably would have garnered a lot more attention.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s so clear where the heart of the resistance was,” Raphael said. “And it’s a story of who we are as a people. This is the story of a people coming together to do what needs to be done.”
