Slip-Slidin’ Down Gold Mountain - Part 1, Chap. 4
Edward Orem
A Salty Dog Production
Copyright registered 2017, U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-365-98841-7
All rights reserved. You may not reprint any of this book for commercial purposes without prior authorization from the publisher.
Anyone using anything longer than a sentence in any other format—print, digital, electronic—is forbidden without said authorization.
Chapter Four
The American Revolution needed fresh meat on the lines. The Boston Committee of Correspondence of 1776 ordered all free whites to present themselves at the Commons for inscription.
There was a lot of grumbling among the men—1/3 opposed the War, another third were neutral—when agents of wealthy families openly solicited paid substitutes for inscription of their soft sons. Some shouted in anger. “Tyranny be tyranny no matter whence it issues!” A man had to be pretty mad to get that mouthful out effectively.
But Manford Lowe thought of the whole matter as a way to improve his foul lot in a hard life of scrabbling for crumbs left by the rich. Manford was one of thousands of indentured servant-workers who wouldn’t finish his five-year contract to the man who bought him when he landed at Port Royal, South Carolina, in 1764. He was one of “those Ticketed Out,” i.e. summarily convicted by a British court or merely accused. The be-powdered barristers of the Crown offered him an option for the extreme inconvenience of getting caught forging deeds, then selling vacant properties to unsuspecting buyers. Manford opted for first passage to the Indies or the American Colonies instead of awaiting judgment.
Manford didn’t last six months as contract field laborer in the cotton plantation outside Beaufort. Just long enough to work alongside Negros who knew how to get him aboard a local “Liberty Train.” In exchange for being put into that conduit, when he arrived at the safe house in Charleston, Manford invented some “At Liberty” papers for his colored friends and himself, as well as regional travel documents. Any stranger in cities or countryside could be stopped anywhere in the 12 Colonies, be commanded to correctly identify himself, and prove without a doubt that he possessed the proper documents confirming he had completed his bondage, thus free to travel at large.
When Manford presented himself at Boston Commons, the recruiting officer tendered the rank of Private. But Manford had come prepared: he fetched a leather tube tucked inside his waistcoat and extended it to the Captain.
Scowling slightly, the officer extracted the rolled parchment. His features soon changed to interest as he read, then to consternation, and back to a scowling incredulity. “But, but—what’s this mean?” he finally puffed at Manford.
“It means that I am an engraver of extraordinary skill, sir,” Manford bowed with a slight smile.
“Then Lord Cornwallis has not bequeathed you this very Commons where we stand, as indicated here?” He snapped the parchment with his glove.
“Nay, Captain, sir, you needn’t be bringing me rent for use of the Commons this day.” Manford turned with a wink for the men queued behind him.
They roared, and the Captain scratched out “Private” and quilled “Sergeant” next to the name of Manford Lowe. “We need spies of the lower class,” he sniffed in dismissal. “Next!”
The War went comparatively softly for Manford, as his slight of hand with quill and ink was too valuable for Gen. Washington to place his new chief forger in jeopardy infiltrating British-held zones.
But Providence would decree that young Manford upgrade to a new social model after the Mutiny of Morristown, New Jersey, in 1781. It wasn’t the first uprising of the Colonial rank-and-file against their officers—nor would it be the last—but it was the one that transformed his family line, forever.
It had been a rough winter so far that January, with men dying in large numbers from extreme cold, scarce rations, inadequate or non-existent billeting, and a lack of proper clothing. Manford counted himself lucky: as Aide to a Major in Gen. Washington’s camp, he at least could count on a great coat, boots, and second dibs at whatever food was leftover after officers’ mess. A sight better than the rest of the rank-and-file got in that man’s Colonial Army.
A company of rummed-up troops from Pennsylvania had decided to just do it that day in Morristown; they had had enough of fighting the rich man’s war. They dispersed the officers all a-fright, killing the commanding Captain, wounding others, then took off marching toward the Continental Congress in Philly. Dragging all their company armament, including cannons, they meant business.
Manford just happened to be in Morristown that morning, delivering some fresh forgeries. His lower rank saved his skin. He marched with the mutineers, brandishing his musket, until they hit the turnpike for Penn. He gingerly slipped away, feigning a bout with loose bowels, then high-tailed it for Washington’s camp up-river.
Thanks to that timely bit of intelligence and espionage, Washington was able to stem the motley tide of rebellious conscripts. A grateful General Washington personally awarded a field commission of Lieutenant to Manford. And so it came to be that a Liverpool street urchin found himself dining with officers and gentlemen, businessmen and land-grant holders—most all ex-functionaries of the King.
Washington once asked Manford where he was headed after the War.
“That’d be back to Boston, General, sir,” came the answer.
Washington beckoned to his young aide-de-campe, Major Alexander Hamilton, talked low into his ear, and lo! four months later Manford was the proud owner of 160 acres in Mt. Vernon, near Boston. No big thing for Gen. Washington, the richest man in the Colonies, a man nearly pressed into service in the nascent nation as King. No big thing for two members of a Continental Congress dominated by the wealthy, associates by means of business and family ties. The affluent often assured loyal backing of the emerging middle class by such grants of land, position, and hopes for a raise in their comfort zones.
The previous owner of Manford’s windfall was one of the hundreds of Boston area Loyalist families who fled (most to Canada, others back to Mother England), leaving their entire lives quickly and quietly behind—lock, stock, barrel, house, provisions, and slaves. A large number of the new landowners like Manford had to pay off pending mortgages, but his new place was clear of debt.
Manford was further lucky: the War against British rule allowed a certain group of colonial elite to replace the English Loyalists, giving key benefits to a few landowners. The Continental Congress finally voted (two years after War’s end) all officers who lasted the duration their half-pay for life. The grunt soldiers—indentured White workers, Indians, Negros, and tenant farmers—remained the same as they were before, that is, disenfranchised and poor.
By War’s end, Manford had become something unique in the long line of Lowe’s: respectable. With real papers yet, to prove his government-awarded annuity as a veteran officer (something not tendered to lower ranks), with the resultant ability to maintain his 160 acres outside Boston. And as property owner—in accord with Massachusetts’ new post-war State Constitution—he was qualified to vote and hold public office.
That was no change from the pre-War requisite (in fact, the only State to quit that litmus for a citizen was Pennsylvania), but it made all the difference to Manford. He jumped right into a small post as Commerce Marshall for vessel traffic on the Charles River. Well, it wasn't that easy—he had to marry into the right family to get the appointment.
But not too hard, either: there was a glut of well-connected ladies available after the War. Not because so many upper class men had died in battle—get real—but rather due to so many Loyalists losing everything except their connections.
By 1790, the elite 1% of landowners controlled about half of the generated wealth of the whole Colony. Manford Lowe felt a lump of pride well up in his throat of humble beginnings whenever he reminded himself of how far he had gotten. He swallowed; hmm—just the rich blood pudding revisiting my tracheal tract? Anyway, What a wonderful country that a thief could rise to such heights!
But heavy repression produces predictable results. Manford’s quick initiation into the world of the influential brought him face-to-face with the angry frustration of the very types of humans he was accustomed to live with, the poor. The privileged class had to remain ever vigilant following the Revolution.
A rebellion of blacks worried the Boston coalition of wealthy families. But far more troublesome was the concern that white poor discontents would throw in with the blacks to depose the established order.
Their own fault, thought Manford, these wealthy families. He had first-hand experience with the leveling equality of servitude; early on in the Colonies, before racial prejudice had entrenched itself in the society, bonded whites were treated equally as badly as Negros. Not like jolly old Liverpool, where a white man were allus a step-up on a darkie.
He shook his head. Old ways of thinking wouldn’t help; he was no longer one of them, the sub-humans. I am one of the others, he surmised, I have a mansion, I travel in carriages, I had my portrait painted, I sport a wig, I gorge on rich food and Madeira. My son attends St. Albans. I got mine.
He turned to beckon to his indentured man waiting at the head of a team of coach horses. The driver walked back to the coach, climbed up on the seat, coaxed the team forward to the 20 feet where his master stood, then hopped down to open the door.
“Roxbury,” said Manford curtly as he lifted his nine-year-old son Maxwell inside. They were off to celebrate yet another grand holiday festivity of the New Year. With my own kind, he reminded himself.
Manford’s rise out of the starving and suffering mobs was beyond the odds of the likely. Propaganda of the times trumpeted that indentured workers who fulfilled their contracts became prosperous landowners, men of influence and distinction. The truth is that almost none of those of
hefty means came from families of contracted, bonded workers.
By contrast, early leaders of Boston were no different from the majority of the privileged elsewhere in the Colonies: all were men of grand fortunes who worked with the Anglican Church of England (or its American expression in Boston, the Episcopal Church) to continue the social ties and influence they enjoyed in their English homeland.
But it could be somewhat uncomfortable in Boston and elsewhere in the Colonies for the well-educated, socially-ensconced, law-making citizen-transplants from Western Europe. Most of the new Americans who provided the muscle to move mountains for the privileged were rebels of one sort or another and social misfits, or downright criminals. It was the new world, after all, and the disenfranchised were less shy than on the Continent about voicing their displeasure and following up with forceful action.
It was an unwise business decision of one wealthy Boston merchant who thought he should get a better price by sending scarce Massachusetts rye and corn to Jamaica. Two hundred of the great unwashed offered an impromptu option.
They gathered in Boston Square, marched to the docks to wreak collective havoc with the merchant’s vessels. After destroying the Publick Market at Dock Square, they stormed his dockside warehouses to partake of the man’s stores. The Lt. Governor tried to placate the mob, but found out too late that you can’t reason with hunger; he got stuffed into in an emptied grain barrel, rolled to the wharf and tossed into the drink. Last seen, he was bobbing along on the receding tide, headed for Jamaica.
Bostonians of little social consequence also demonstrated against forced recruitment of men for the Colonial Navy. They surrounded the Governor’s house, beat the sheriff, locked him and his Deputy up in his own holding cell, and took by force the meeting chambers of the High Court. Tired of nothing happening afterwards, the men one by one left the Court to go eat supper at home.
The next day The Clarion condemned the protestors, branding them “…a violent and tumultuous assembly of foreign sailors, drunken Indians, indentured workers, negros, and other persons of poor background.” The use of persons instead of people was intentional. “People” did not mean Negros, Indians, or indentured whites.
“We, the People…” meant exactly what it said. Not everyone was intended to partake of the privileges of the new nation.
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Harriet blitzed Livingston further. “It exhibits an embarrassing impotence of character, Livingston. That is why your father and I have decided to send you off with scarcely more funds than necessary to—“
“What? Not giving me more money? You are placing me in harm’s way, Mother!”
“It is you who is placing yourself in harm’s way in this foolish venture” admonished Manson. “We do not wish to appear to condone this—this whimsy of yours.”
Livingston started to protest again, but Harriet interrupted. “You have your passage booked already on one of our ships, correct? Our method will help fortify your lack of strength in character. Be resolute and diligent in pursuing God’s golden path, dear. Go pack your trunk now, that’s a good boy.”
Livingston was stunned; his legs no longer had any strength, but somehow he found himself on his feet, shuffling towards the door.
“And Livingston--” began his father.
Livingston paused to look back, his hand on the door. “Sir?”
“Godspeed,” offered Manson. “Be sure you return with your head straight, new accounts in hand, and your absent frockcoat. The one you left at the Gentlemen’s Retreat. ”
“Do write occasionally, dear,” said his mother, resuming her place in the ledger.
Livingston moved out the room quickly as possible, but not before catching his foot on the edge of the carpet and banging his shoulder against the doorframe. He could swear he heard his father through the oak saying something like, “He’s the only one I know who can walk across an empty room and trip.”
The next evening, September 18, 1848, Livingston Lowe paused at the clipper’s gangplank and bade his uncles and friends “On God’s morrow!” to sail from the safety of Boston harbor and his family’s lap.
Livingston stood there amidships, counting the weather beacon pulses from the top of the Hancock Building (“Flashing blue, clouds are due…”). He couldn’t restrain himself—he just had to let out a Whoop! when the light finally faded along with the rest of the City Upon a Hill, along with all of New England.
“‘Here’s to good old Boston,’” young Lowe recited, raising a leather flagon of the family’s imported rum towards the densely darkened west. “‘The land of the bean and the cod. Where Lowells talk only to Cabots—and Cabots talk only to God.’”
Boston Brahmins have a special covenant with God, all right—see who can kiss the most heavenly ass and look like they enjoy the smell of Divine Tookus. Winner gets a measured life, parsed right down to its dullest moments with their required responses. Then they die, nose-to-Tookus.
He took another pull of port. “Here’s to gilded coffins.”
The other deck class passengers gave him more space against the railing.
“Here’s to Divine Tookus.” Who said that? Ne’er mind, partner. Pard. I’m a pard now. He looked up to say something to someone, anyone, but all had left him alone on the whole port rail. “Doesn't matter, on my way to the Wild West!” he yelled into the wind. “‘N you aren’t!” he shouted, gesturing toward the quickly receding harbor. He snarffed audibly through his nose, thinking of Royce and Wainwright and Edwin, his best friends in childhood.
Royce was already setting up his family’s third Bouncy Spring Bed factory—“Bouncy-Beddie Roycie!”
--Edwin assisted his uncle in managing a furniture manufacturing company—“Dead-Head Desk-Ed!”
--and Wainwright was learning to market his family’s confectionaries. “Candy-Ass Whiney Weenie Wainie!”
They were barely out of their teens, and their lives were etched in Boston Brahmin granite.
Alla us--Same neighborhood in Westminister, same St. Albans prep, same First Congregational Church, same grooming for lineage and dynasty.
“Not for me!” he told the wind. My God-appointed destiny is to battle wild Indians, blaspheme like a cowboy, and come back with a five-pound gold nugget!
He took another snort, digging deep this time. “Here’s to an enthrrralling life.”
The New Pilgrim must have heard him. Her multi-canvases snapped, and the clipper bucked hard to ride that southern swell toward the fantastic wilds of the Panama Isthmus.
Livingston responded by reeling out of control to bang against the windlass, and then promptly, mercifully collapsed on the white pine deck where he stood.
The captain looked up from the wheel to make brief notations in a small journal; none of the boy’s tirade had gone unnoticed. He gestured to a swab, who roped one of Livingston’s ankles to a spar.
Wouldn’t do to have the Old Man’s son wash overboard.
