Sermon copyright (c) 2025 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. The text below has typographical errors, missing words, etc.
Readings
The first reading was the well-known poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called “Concord Hymn,” which was written in tribute to fallen Revolutionary War soldiers. This poem was first read in public on July 4, 1837, at the dedication of a monument to those soldiers.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
The second reading was a poem written by Captain George Bush, an officer in George Washington’s army.
How luckless the fortune we soldiers endure.
Uncertain our pleasures, mischances are sure.
If friendship should bind us, or love’s softer tie
The drum beats; from friendship and love we must fly.
Submissive to fate, then adieu to the fair.
Peace, smile on our friends, and redeem them from care.
May angels indulgent detach’d from above
Soon vanquish fell discord with friendship and love.
The third reading told the story of Persis Tower Lincoln, a Revolutionary War heroine whose husband died in military service in about 1776. This comes from Narrative History of Cohasset by Victor Bigelow.
“[An act of] blockade running… is credited to a Cohasset heroine, Persis (Tower) Lincoln…. Persis had been married to Allen Lincoln, November 23, 1775…. Allen Lincoln was a seaman, and tradition says that he was taken from a vessel which the British captured and was carried to England, where he was placed in Dartmoor prison, from which he never returned. The wife of this absent seaman knew how to sail a boat and was not afraid of the sea. In that year when Boston was besieged by our soldiers on land and when the harbor was filled with British vessels, it is said that Persis did the work of our absent men by sailing one of our vessels across the bay to Gloucester to get supplies that could not be had in the blockaded port of Boston. This daring deed makes her properly a Revolutionary heroine.”
Sermon: Remembering the American Revolution
Originally, Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. It was the day when families would tend to the graves of loved ones who had died in military service. But of course, as long as you were tending to the grave of a dead soldier, you would also tend to the other graves in your family’s plot in the cemetery. Thus by the mid-twentieth century in the New England town I grew up in, Memorial Day had become a day when many families would see the Memorial Day parade in the morning, and then in the afternoon would head to the cemetery to put flowers on all the family graves. Now, of course, many of us — perhaps most of us — live far enough away that we can’t go tend to family graves. Nevertheless, Memorial Day is still a day for us to remember those who died in military service, and additionally all those who have died.
I’ll take some time tomorrow to remember my parents, grandparents, cousins, and others in my life who have died. But I’m one of the people who can’t actually go and visit any of their graves tomorrow; the closest graves I could visit are more than a day trip away. And given the busy-ness of life, I know it’s going to be hard to carve out any time to just sit and remember. I suspect many of you are in the same boat — you live too far away to go and visit family graves, and your life is so busy that it might be hard to some quiet time to just sit and remember. (If that’s true of you, maybe you could take the next fifteen minutes to remember — just tune out the rest of the sermon and devote the next fifteen minutes to your memories.)
But what I’d like to talk with you about this morning are the veterans of the American Revolution who died in military service. I’d like to talk about these people for three main reasons. First, as of April 19 this year, the American Revolution began 250 years ago; this significant anniversary is a good time to reflect on the sacrifices that were made by Revolutionary War-era soldiers and sailors. Second, in a time of deep cultural and political division, one thing that nearly all Americans hold in common is a respect for the people who fought in the American Revolution; remembering the soldiers and sailors of the American Revolution could be a way for all of us to begin to reach across some of the divisions that lie between us. Third, it turns out that we don’t know as much as we think we know about the soldiers and sailors of the American Revolution. We don’t have very good records of exactly which soldiers and sailors died during the Revolutionary War; there simply weren’t full and accurate records of military service,(1) and we don’t even have accurate figures for how many military deaths there were in the Revolution.(2) Yet by digging in to the historical record, historians have been able to recover some remarkable stories that had been forgotten or mis-remembered.
And so I’d like to tell you a couple of stories about people from First Parish who served in the American Revolution, stories that have been partially forgotten then recovered through the efforts of historians..
First I’d like to tell you the story of Persis Tower Lincoln, a story which some of you may have come across in the book Narrative History of Cohasset by Victor Bigelow (this was the third reading this morning). Persis Tower’s story is dramatic enough by itself. During the occupation of Boston, which lasted from spring of 1775 into 1776, Persis was married to Allen Lincoln, a seaman; Persis was then 16 years old, and Allen was 20; John Browne, minister of First Parish, officiated at their wedding. Allen then left Persis to go off on a voyage. While he was away, Persis sailed a small boat across Massachusetts Bay to Gloucester to get supplies through the British blockade, so we remember her as a heroine of the American Revolution. Meanwhile — so the traditional story goes — Allen’s ship was captured by the British, and according to local tradition he was taken to Dartmoor prison in England where he died.(3)
Persis’s story appears to be true. Unfortunately, Allen’s story has been remembered incorrectly. Dartmoor Prison wasn’t completed until 1809, so he couldn’t have been imprisoned there during the Revolution. Then too, Allen and Persis had daughter together, who was was born in 1778.(4) Finally, military records show that Allen Lincoln of Cohasset served in the Continental Army after his purported death, in 1776, 1777, and again in 1778.(5)
A more accurate history of Allen Lincoln appears to be something like this: After serving in the military for several months in both 1776 and 1777, Allen re-enlisted in the Continental Navy with the rank of Seaman. Then on March 17, 1778 he was taken prisoner by the British — this happened about a month after his daughter Sally was born. Allen was initially imprisoned at Rhode Island.(6) Subsequently, he was probably taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died in 1778.(7) It’s not surprising that he died while he was a prisoner of war; the mortality rate was notoriously high among prisoners of war held by the British, and more Revolutionary War soldiers and sailors died in prison camps than died in battle. Allen died when he was 22 years old, leaving behind an 18 year old wife and an infant daughter whom he probably only saw for the first few weeks of her life.
Allen Lincoln’s story is worth remembering on its own merits. But it’s also a reminder of how much has been forgotten or mis-remembered about the sailors and soldiers who died during military service in the Revolution. Indeed, historians aren’t even sure how many prisoners of war died while being held captive by the British; it may have been as many 19,000 men.(8) At a local level, it seems that we’re not even sure of how many people from First Parish served in the Revolution. It should be simple to generate such an honor roll of military service — First Parish was the only church in Cohasset, everyone in town belonged to the church, so all we’d need is a list of Cohasset residents who served. However, the only such list I found lists almost certainly includes men from other towns who were recruited by Cohasset to help fill the town’s quota.(9) Given the incomplete records that remain, we may never know exactly how many people from Cohasset served in American Revolution — nor how many of those soldiers and sailors never returned from their military service.
Yet even though the historical record has gotten a bit muddled over the past two and a half centuries, what’s remarkable is how much we still remember. We still remember Allen Lincoln and Persis Tower, and we still tell their stories when we talk about the history of First Parish. Even if some of the details of the story have been confused or forgotten, we still remember this young couple from First Parish who can be counted among the heroes and heroines of the American Revolution. Memories are passed down in communities like this one, and through such communal memories individuals can achieve a kind of immortality.
For my second and final story, I’d like to tell you about another veteran of the American Revolution, a man who because he lived in Cohasset belonged to First Parish. I find this story especially interesting because of the way historians have been able to connect separated facts in the historical record, and then tell a fuller story of a Revolutionary War soldier.
In the historical record, you can find a list dating from July 19, 1780, giving the names of nine men from Cohasset who began six month’s military service on that day.(10) One name on that list, the name of Briton Nichols, stands out for two reasons. First, he had a very unusual name; the written record shows no other man in Massachusetts with the first name of Briton. Second, Briton Nichols is identified as being Black, the only person on that list whose race is given, and (as near as I can tell) the only Black man from Cohasset who served in the American Revolution.
Because Briton Nichols had such an unusual first name, and because his race is given, historians have been able to trace his life in more detail.(11) Historians discovered that in 1760, he published a book in which he told of thirteen years worth of adventures.(12) As a boy, he was enslaved by the Winslow family of Marshfield. At that time, he called himself Briton Hammond. On December 25, 1747, with the permission of his master, Briton left Marshfield to go on a sea voyage; perhaps his master hired him out as a sailor, taking a cut of his salary, a common practice in those days. Briton doesn’t say how old he was when he sailed, but later sources give his birth year as roughly 1740, so he may have been a boy or a young teen. The ship Briton was on sailed for Jamaica, took on a cargo of wood, and sailed north. Having struck a reef off Florida, the ship was attacked by Native Americans who killed everyone except Briton, and then set the ship on fire. After being held captive by the Native Americans for five week, he was able to make his escape on a Spanish schooner, whose captain recognized him, and took him to Havana, Cuba. The Native Americans followed and demanded the Governor of Havana return Briton to them, but the Governor paid ten dollars for him and kept him. A year later, Briton was caught by a press gang, but he refused to serve in the Spanish navy and was thrown in a dungeon.
Briton was finally released from the dungeon four years later, though he was still trapped in Havana. Then a year after his release from the dungeon, he managed to escape from Havana aboard a ship of the British Navy. It appears Brition served in the British Navy for some time thereafter, aboard several different ships, until 1759 when he was wounded in the head by small shot during a fight with a French ship. Briton was put in Greenwich Hospital, where he recovered from his wounds. After additional service on British Navy ships, this time as a cook, he managed to find a berth on a ship bound for New England. By coincidence, his old master, one General Nichols, was on the same ship. Through that chance meeting, Briton was finally able to return to his home in Marshfield after a thirteen year absence.
Soon after his return from Marshfield, Briton’s account of his adventures was published in Boston, perhaps the earliest published memoir written by an African American. Two years later, in 1762, Briton married Hannah, a Black woman who was a member of First Church in Plymouth (today this a Unitarian Universalist congregation). In the late 1770s, Briton left the Winslow family, possibly upon the death of his master, and moved to Cohasset to join the Nichols family; at this time he changed his last name from Hammond to Nichols.
In 1777, Briton joined the Continental Army.(13) He must have been around forty years old when he enlisted. We can only speculate as to why he decided to enlist at that age. Most likely, enlisting in the military was a way for him to free himself from slavery. Ambrose Bates, who was one of Briton’s messmates, left a diary that tells a little about their military service.(14) Briton Nichols, Bates, and the rest of their contingent left Cohasset on August 27, 1777, and finally reached Saratoga, New York, in early September. There they joined the conflict between the Continental forces and General Burgoyne’s forces. Much of their military service was filled with boredom. Several days were filled with monotonous marching back and forth from one place to another. On other days, Bates simply records, “Nothing new today.” Those days of boredom were interspersed with days where they had more than enough excitement. To give just one example, on October 7, Bates recorded: “today we had a fight we were alarmed about noon and the fight begun, the sun two hours high at night and we drove them and took field pieces and took sum prisners.” The tide of battle was with the Continental forces, and Burgoyne finally surrendered on October 16. Soon thereafter, Bates and the other Cohasset men marched down to Tarrytown. Their service in Tarrytown was less exciting. Finally, on November 30 their term of military service ended, and they began marching home. They finally arrived back in Cohasset on December 7. So ended Briton Nichol’s first term of military service.
Briton Nichols enlisted again in 1780, giving his age at the time as forty years old.(15) I suspect he lied about his age, presenting himself as younger than he was. I could find no details of his 1780 military service. The next time I found him in the historical record was in the 1790 federal census. At that time, he was living in Hingham as a free Black man, along with his second wife Experience and one other household member, probably their child.
The story of Briton Nichols shows how we can recover some of the lost knowledge of Revolutionary War veterans. Briton Nichols was little more than a name on a list of soldiers, until historians were able to deduce that he was almost certainly the same person as Briton Hammond who had had such amazing adventures from 1747 to 1760.
Of special interest to us here at First Parish, Briton Nichols would have attended Sunday services right here in this very building. We know his wife Hannah was a member of the Plymouth church before they were married. When they moved here to Cohasset, we can imagine them sitting upstairs in the balcony, where people of color and White indentured servants had to sit. We can imagine Briton sitting here on Sunday, August 24, 1777, a few days before he marched off to Saratoga. We can imagine the prayers of the entire congregation centering on the hope that all the Cohasset men marching off as soldiers that week would return home safe and sound.
We today think of all those from this congregation who have served in the military. We think of all those veterans who are now members and friends of First Parish. We also think of those who grew up in this congregation and went off to join the armed services. And we think of those people from First Parish who died in military service. It is good for us to keep alive the memories of all those who served in our armed forces.
And because Memorial Day has become a day when we remember not just military personnel, we think of all those who have died — parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins, friends and mentors, everyone whom we remember with love. It is good to keep those memories alive, because it reminds us of the bonds of love which transcend even death.
Notes
(1) Historian mark Edward Lender states that “…most combat was local and took place without major British or Continental forces on the scene”; in other words, many soldiers served in militia units. Lender, Citizen Soldiers or Regulars? The Revolutionary Militia Reconsidered,” in Jim Piecuch, ed., Seven Myths of American Revolution (Hackett Publishing, 2003) p. 59. Militia units did not necessarily keep accurate records, and even where good records were kept they may not have survived or may be hidden in local archives.
(2) According to historian Howard Peckham, who carefully reviewed military records kept by the original thirteen colonies, 5,992 soldiers were killed in military engagements, and 832 sailors were killed in naval engagements, for a total of 6,824 battle casualties. In addition, Peckham estimated that 10,00 soldiers died in camp from diseases such as dysentery, and 8,500 soldier and sailors died in British prisoner-of-war camps. Thus, Peckham estimated the total number of probable deaths in service at over 25,000. Source: Howard Peckham, The Toll of Independence : Engagements & Battle Casualties of the American Revolution (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974), “Summations and Implications.” However, other historians feel that Peckham underestimated the number of deaths among prisoners of war, see e.g., Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (Basic Books, 2008), p. 317 n. 12; Burrows places the total number of prisoners of war who died at 19,000, giving a total death toll that is closer to 35,000. (Burrows cites the total number of Americans who took up arms during the war as 200,000.)
(3) Victor Bigelow, Narrative History of Cohasset (1898), p. 290. The marriage record showing that John Browne officiated at the wedding may be found here: Entry for Allen Lincoln and Persis Tower, 23 Nov 1775, “Massachusetts, State Vital Records, 1638-1927,” archived on FamilySearch website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FHQY-G2B accessed 23 May 2025.
(4) According to the Massachusetts State Census of 1855, Sally was born in 1778; so this was not a matter of a christening that was delayed for three years. According to Cohasset Vital records, she was christened on 18 Oct. 1778.
(5) A search for military records for Allen Lincoln on genealogy website FamilySearch.org turned up two records for military service of Allen or Allyn Lincoln from Cohasset: First, as one of the soldiers who mustered at Hull on June 14, 1776, to serve in the military: Entry for Allyn Lincoln, 14 Jun 1776, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783″, FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-LHBT accessed 22 May 2025. Second, as serving in “the Northern Dept.” in 1777: Entry for Allen Lincoln, 24 Aug 1777, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783,” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-9CH6 accessed 22 May 2025.
(6) Entry for Allyn Lyncoln, 17 Mar 1778, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783,” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-2NLM accessed 22 May 2025.
(7) The FamilySearch.org entry for Allen Lincoln lists his date of death as 1778, and place of death as Halifax, Nova Scotia, unfortunately with no documentation. See person entry for “Allen Lincoln” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/LCZP-2JH accessed 22 May 2025.
(8) See e.g. Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (Basic Books, 2008), p. 317 n. 12.
(9) See “The American Revolutionary War Honor Roll,” Cohasset Veteran’s Memorial Committee website https://cohassetveteransmemorial.org/the-american-revolutionary-war-honor-roll/? accessed 22 May 2025. I counted 179 names on this honor roll. However, according to Victor Bigelow, it was something more than 120 men from Cohasset out of a total population of 165 adult males who served during the Revolution (p. 309). If there were only 165 total men in Cohasset, we couldn’t have sent 179 men into military service. This should not be taken as a criticism of the efforts of the Cohasset Veteran’s Memorial Committee. I estimate it would take dozens or even hundreds of hours of research among tax rolls and genealogical material to determine which men actually lived in Cohasset, and even then we might not have a final answer. Thus the Cohasset Veteran’s Memorial Committee’s “American Revolutionary War Honor Roll” remains the best list of Revolutionary War veterans.
(10) Victor Bigelow, Narrative History of Cohasset (1898), p. 308.
(11) An introduction to a narrative by Briton Nichols, who earlier in life was called Briton Hammond, gives an overview of what historians conclude about his life: “It is accepted that in 1762 Hammon married Hannah, an African American woman and member of Plymouth’s First Church, with whom he had one child. For many years this was all that was known of Hammon’s life after his return to New England. More recent research, however, has revealed that Hammon probably changed his name to Nichols some time in the late 1770s, after the family with whom he and his master were living when Winslow died in 1774. Briton Nichols is listed as having fought for the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, as did many members of the white Nichols family…. In later census records, Briton Nichols is described as a free husband and father.” Derrick R. Spires, editor, Only by Experience: An Anthology of Slave Narratives (Broadview Press, 2023), p. 54.
(12) In this paragraph, the details of the earlier life of Briton Nichols/Hammond are taken from his book, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760); as reprinted on the Pennsylvanian State Univ. website https://psu.pb.unizin.org/opentransatlanticlit/chapter/__unknown__-9/ accessed 22 May 2025.
(13) Victor Bigelow, p. 208.
(14) Victor Bigelow reprints the text of this brief diary, pp. 299-303.
(15) Entry for Briton Nichols, 19 July 1780, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783,” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLLS-BBT3 accessed 22 May 2025.