Ebenezer Punderson

April 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Norwich Packet (April 27, 1775).

“I am sorry that I have drank any Tea.”

Ebenezer Punderson had the misfortune of appearing in an advertisement placed in the Norwich Packet by the local Committee of Inspection in the issue that carried the first newspaper coverage of the battles of Lexington and Concord.  The committee accused him of drinking tea in violation of the Continental Association, disparaging the First Continental Congress, and refusing to meet with the committee to discuss his conduct.  In turn, the committee advised the public not to carry on any “Trade, Commerce, Dealings or Intercourse” with Punderson.

Perhaps Punderson would have weathered that sort of public shaming under other circumstances, but news of events at Lexington and Concord made his politics even more unpalatable and his situation more dire.  From what ran in the newspaper, it did not take him long to change his tune, meet with the committee, and publish an apology for his behavior.  In a missive dated four days after the committee’s advertisement, Punderson reiterated the charges against him and “seriously and heartily” declared the he was “sorry I have drank any Tea since the first of March” and “will drink no more until the Use thereof shall generally be approved in North-America.”  In addition, he apologized for “all and every Expression that I have at any Time uttered against the Association of the Continental Congress.”  Furthermore, Punderson pledged that he “will not at any Time do any Thing that shall be inimical to the Freedom, Liberties, and Privileges of America, and that I will ever be friendly thereto.”  He requested that his “Neighbours and fellow-Men to overlook” his transgression and “sincerely ask[ed] the Forgiveness of the Committee for the Disrespect I have treated them with.”

Norwich Packet (April 27, 1775).

Punderson apparently convinced the committee to give him another chance.  Dudley Woodbridge, the clerk, reported that Punderson “appeared before them, and of his own Accord made the above Confession” and seemed “heartily sorry for his … conduct.”  In turn, the committee voted to find Punderson’s confession “satisfactory” and recommended that he “be again restored to Favour” in the community.  The committee also determined that “the above Confession, with this Vote, be inserted in the Public Papers,” perhaps less concerned with restoring Punderson’s good name than the example his recantation set for other Tories.  When the notice appeared in the Norwich Packet, Punderson inserted an additional note that extended an offer to meet with anyone “dissatisfied with the above Confession” and asserted that he would “cheerfully submit” to any further decisions the Committee of Inspection made in response.

Yet what appeared in the Norwich Packet did not tell the whole story.  According to Steve Fithian, Punderson “attempted to flee to New York but was captured and returned to Norwich where he spent eight days in jail and only released after signing a confession admitting to his loyalist sympathies.”  He did not stay in Norwich long after that.  “Several weeks later he fled to Newport, Rhode Island and boarded a ship which took him to England where he remained for the entire Revolutionary War.”  Apparently, he convincly feigned the sincerity he expressed, well enough that the committee accepted it.  While imprisoned, Punderson wrote a letter to his wife about his ordeal.  After arriving in England, he published an account with a subtitle that summarized what he had endured: The Narrative of Mr. Ebenezer Punderson, Merchant; Who Was Drove Away by the Rebels in America from His Family and a Very Considerable Fortune in Norwich, in Connecticut.  Just as the Committee of Inspection used print to advance a version of events that privileged the patriot cause, Punderson disseminated his own rendering once he arrived in a place where he could safely do so.

**********

The Committee of Inspection’s notice appeared with the advertisements in the April 20, 1775, edition of the Norwich Packet.  Punderson’s confession, however, ran interspersed with news items in the April 27 edition.  It may or may not have been a paid notice, but it was certainly an “advertisement” in the eighteenth-century meaning of the word.  At the time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an advertisement was a “(written) statement calling attention to anything” and “an act of informing or notifying.”  Advertisements often delivered local news in early American newspapers.  Punderson definitely made news as the imperial crisis became a war.

April 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Norwich Packet (April 20, 1775).

“Ebenezer Punderson … has repeatedly drank Tea … in open Contempt and Defiance of the Continental Association.”

Ebenezer Punderson went too far and now it was time for consequences.  He brazenly and repeatedly violated the Continental Association, the nonimportation and nonconsumption agreement enacted by the Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts.  As a result of his actions, the Committee of Inspection in Norwich, Connecticut, placed an advertisement in the April 20, 1775, edition of the Norwich Packet to document his behavior and advise the community to shun Punderson.

The committee reported that Punderson “has repeatedly drank Tea … in open Contempt and Defiance of the Continental Association.”  When the committee sought to investigate the matter, he “utterly refuse[d] to pay any Regard to their Requests” to appear before it.  Even worse, he “endeavours to discard and vilify the Doings of the Continental Congress; and by every Means to persuade and entice Mankind to disregard and break over the Continental Association.”  His refusal to abide by the Continental Association damaged the movement and had the potential to do even more harm by inspiring others to ignore it as well.  In addition, he stridently declared that he had no intention of adhering to the agreement, insulting the Continental Congress in the process:  “to use his own words, ‘that he has drank Tea, and means to continue in that Practice, that the Congress was an unlawful Combination, and that the Petition from the Congress to his Majesty was haughty, insolent, and rascally.’”

The Committee of Inspection, in turn, determined that it was Punderson who was haughty, insolent, and rascally.  It ordered that the “Conduct of the said Punderson be published, and that no Trade, Commerce, Dealings or Intercourse whatsoever be carried on with him.”  Furthermore, the committee declared that “he ought to be held as unworthy of the Rights of Freemen, and as inimical to the Liberties of his Country.”  Punderson acted in opposition to the patriot cause.  The Committee of Inspection intended to see him pay for his transgressions.

Norwich Packet (April 20, 1775).

Punderson chose the wrong time to draw attention to himself.  Some of the first coverage of the battle at Lexington to appear in American newspapers ran at the top of the column that featured the advertisement about his offenses.  “Just as this Paper was ready for Press,” the printers declared, “an Express arrived here from Brookline with the following Advices” from J. Palmer, “One of the Committee of S[afet]y,” and dispatched to “Col. Foster, of Brookfield.”  The missive reported that before dawn on the morning of April 19 “a Brigade [of British troops] … marched to Lexington, where they found a Company of our Colony Militia in Arms, upon whom they fired, without any Provocation, and killed Six Men, and wounded Four others.”  Palmer stated that he had “spoken with several Persons who have seen the Dead and Wounded.”  He also relayed news that another Brigade “are now on their March from Boston.”  Israel Bissell carried the message, “charged to alarm the Country” in western Massachusetts all the way to Connecticut.  The printers published this account from a “true Copy, taken from the Original, per Order of the Committee of Correspondence for Worcester.”  The details were sparse, yet the “FRIENDS of AMERICAN LIBERTY” reading the Norwich Packet now knew that fighting had commenced near Boston.  That news quite likely had an impact on their attitude when they read about Punderson’s offenses further down the column.