The Reverend Samuel Andrew Peters

Home , Ezra Stiles, Samuel Andrew, Samuel Jarvis

AMERICAN REVOLUTION BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION OF CONNECTICUT

MEMBERS The Honorable Ella T. Grasso, Honorary Chairman Harlan H. Griswold, Chairman Whitney L. Brooks, Vice Chairman Frederick K. Biebel Margaret C. Brown Warren B. Fish Berthold Gaster Peter J. Kilduff Nicholas Lenge Bruce L. Morris John E. Rogers Nancy Spada Albert E. VanDusen John W. Shannahan, Director

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Whitney L. Brooks Robert A. East David M. Roth Albert E. VanDusen Oscar Zeichner

Sheldon S. Cohen (Ph.D., New York University) is professor of History at Loyola University of Chicago. His most recent book is History of Colonial Education. CONNECTICUT BICENTENNIAL SERIES , XVII

Connecticut's Loyalist Gadfly: The Reverend Samuel Andrew Peters

By SHELDON S. COHEN

FIRST PRINTING

The Waverly Printing Co., Portland , Connecticut Contents

Part I 5

Part II 24

Part III 35

Part IV 48

Footnotes 54

Bibliographical Essay 62

Index 65 Here rests until the Resurrection the Body of the Rev. Samuel Peters LLD who was born in Hebron on November 20, 1735 and died in New York April19, 1826. He was ordained in England Deacon and Priest 1760, and while residing in that country after the Revolution was elected though on account of those troubled times was not consecrated Bishop of Vermont. His life was full of adventures, adversities and trials which he bore with fortitude, patience and serenity. This monument is erected to his memory by his grandson Samuel Jarvis Peters of New Orleans. A.D. 1841

(From the Epitaph to Samuel Peters, St. Peter's Churchyard in Hebron, Connecticut) Part I

IN August, 1908, the Reverend Samuel Hart, Dean of New Raven's Berkeley Divinity School and President of the Connecticut Historical Society, delivered an address at the bicentennial celebration of the town of Hebron. Hart spoke to the residents of the many past achievements made by their small Connecticut settlement, and he also reserved a considerable portion of his remarks to recounting a list of the town's most noteworthy sons. One by one he extolled their eminent roles in history. Then, after mentioning the name Samuel Andrew Peters, Dean Hart continued somewhat more circumspectly, "The name ofthis townsman may call forth a smile or a frown."I Hart's hesitancy was not surprising. For over two centuries the name of the Reverend Samuel Andrew Peters has provoked distinct, varied , and, almost invariably, partisan reactions among Americans, particularly those in his native state. During the period of the American Revolution, one Episcopal cleric called him "courageous," "honest," "noble," "kind," and a "Solomon," at the same time that President Ezra Stiles of Yale College referred to him as an "infamous parricide," and the noted poet John Trumbull dismissed him as "our fag-end man, poor Parson Peters."2 In the nineteenth century, there were further disparate opinions concerning his character. One Peters descendant defended his controversial ancestor as a "good, exemplary, and venerable old clergyman," while a president of the Connecticut Historical Society concluded that the parson's "abhorrence of truth was in fact a disease," and that he was not "morally responsible for its outbreaks." About the same time, one New England pastor even linked Peters' birth with Benedict Arnold's as "one of the two greatest disasters that ever befell Connecticut."J And, in the present century, scholars have alternately described him as "modest," "arrogant," "charitable," "selfish," "devoted," "malicious," and, in one instance, "a celebrated liar."4 Undoubtedly, historians can discover in Samuel Peters' long lifetime ample evidence of a man who Shakespeare might have said "endured the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," or conversely proved the adage that "the evil that men do lives after them." Yet, to dismiss Peters too offhandedly is to overlook the career of one of the most colorful men in the history of Connecticut. Samuel Andrew Peters was born in Hebron during the late autumn of 1735. Although his father had resided in Connecticut only since 1718 , Peters later claimed that his forefathers had been close observers of the Connecticut scene for over three generations, and he repeatedly boasted of his own descent from a brother of Hugh Peter, the renowned Puritan divine.s His family genealogy, however, reveals the falsity of such pretentious allegations. Peters' great grandfather, Andrew Peeters, was born in England about 1634 or 1635 and apparently migrated to Boston around 1659 . Andrew, who died in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1713 , was 5 neither a brother to Hugh Peter nor "a close observer of the Connecticut scene." His sixth son William (1672-1696), who was killed by Indians in Andover, had a son John (1695-1754) who married Mary Marks (1698 1784) in April 1717 . The newly-wedded couple, along with Mary's stepfather, moved to Hebron either late that year or early the next. It was in Hebron that John Peters prospered as a farmer of the "better sort" in the community. There he also helped establish the town's first Episcopal worship and sired twelve children, of whom Samuel was the tenth.6 Most of Samuel's youth was spent in Hebron, the Biblical "Town of Refuge" (Chronicles 6:57) assigned to the "descendants of Aaron." This small hamlet, located in the rolling hills ofeastern Connecticut, had held its first town meeting, and was officially incorporated in 1708, only a decade before John Peters' arrival. By 1732, Hebron had a total of over seventy householders, almost all of whom were engaged in agricultural pursuits .7 It was within this austere, though peaceful, rural atmosphere that Samuel Peters developed the familial pride that marked so much of his later writing. It was also within this placid agrarian environment that he received his early religious instruction, his formal elementary education at the town school, and, as befitting his parental desires, his advanced , classical preparations for admission to Yale College. Success marked his educational endeavors, and in September 1753, young Samuel set off for New Haven to join his freshman classmates. At that time Yale College was still under the firm, authoritarian rule of President Thomas Clap. Eight years before Peters' arrival, Clap and the Yale trustees had obtained a new college charter from Connecticut's General Assembly which had given them the almost autonomous status of a corporate body, and within this corporate body, left President Clap as the dominant power. About this time, Clap, once referred to as the "New Light Pope," also promulgated his own revised code of college laws that strictly regulated all aspects of student life. 8 Using his broadened powers, the Yale president had proceeded to develop the college along lines of his own choosing. Greater emphasis was given to courses such as natural philosophy (science) and mathematics; new scientific apparatus and books were brought to the school; a second student residence (Connecticut Hall) was completed in 1752; and the student enrollment was increased to 165 by 1755 . Perhaps the most serious setback to "Old Tom" Clap's dominant administrative authority during Samuel Peters' undergraduate career occurred in 1754 when the Yale president reluctantly allowed Anglican students to attend their own Sabbath services in New Haven.9 Samuel Peters' four-year undergraduate career, although circum scribed, was apparently rather pleasant. Years later he was to lament his alma mater's rigid disciplinary system, but at the same time he wistfully recalled to one college contemporary their "halcyon days" of relaxation and pipe smoking outside the college hall. Despite the fact that the insubordinate tendencies of many Yale undergraduates was reflected in the multitude of varying penalties listed in the faculty punishment book, 6 scholar Peters' name appeared but once- a ten pence fine for partaking in an unauthorized lottery.JO His academic performance remains unclear, since his low ranking of 35 in a class of 40 was determined primarily by his family's social and religious prominence rather than his scholastic achievement. And the curriculum, despite President Clap's innovations, remained predominantly sectarian and classical. An existent Latin and English declamation , written by Peters prior to his commencement in July 1757, reflects much of the restrictive, shallow, and generally antiquated intellectual training he had received during his years at Yale: Nothing is more precious than time, and yet nothing is held cheaper than this today . Studies which during adolescence are, as it were sprouting, indicate what virtues there will be in maturity and what the fruits of industry will be - Therefore, dear colleagues, look that you walk cautiously, not like stupid , but like wise people. Redeem the time, do not become foolish , but try to understand what God's will is.-- The years go like flowing water, and the wave which has passed cannot be called back, nor can the hour which has passed come back . ... 11 The flowing years of his undergraduate career had indeed meant changes and challenges in the life of Samuel Peters. In the autumn of 1754, both his father and an older brother, Andrew, died , and this left Samuel with a sizeable inheritance, but with greater financial and personal responsibilities. The French and Indian War, that erupted the same year, had continued and intensified by the time of his commencement.t2 Within Connecticut, the war's effects offered differing opportunities to a fairly affluent and well-educated young man such as Samuel Peters. Besides the broadened opportunities in commerce, law, or medicine, the increased demand for foodstuffs in New England would have allowed him to concentrate simply on managing his fertile Hebron farmlands . Instead, the needs and wishes of his Anglican neighbors proved most convincing, and during the year after his Yale graduation, Samuel Peters acted to become their spiritual shepherd. By 1758, Hebron's minority of Anglican communicants still remained in a forlorn situation. Episcopalianism in the community had begun twenty-two years earlier, when the town's Congregational minister, John Bliss, and several members ofhis congregation had declared for the Church of England. Although Bliss had given land for a church, and the Reverend Samuel Seabury, Anglican missionary at New London, had begun to hold occasional services, Hebron's Anglicans had been unable to complete their projected church or, more importantly, to obtain a resident missionary. Bliss, who acted as lay reader for several years, died in February 1742, as he was about to depart for ordination in England. The next prospect, the Reverend Barzillai Dean, was lost at sea, while his successor, Jonathan Colton, who was ordained in London in 1752, died of smallpox on his homeward voyage. A fourth candidate for holy orders, James Usher, also died of smallpox, but in a French prison, following his capture at sea. Such 7 events were naturally disquieting for Hebron's Episcopalians, but Peters himself ignored these foreboding past occurrences. Within a year after his graduation, he enthusiastically announced a desire to aid "his poor and unfortunate brethren" by seeking ordination. He easily procured recommendations from Anglican churchmen in Connecticut, and, after receiving a petition on his behalf from Hebron's vestry (September 29, 1758), Peters departed on the hazardous trip abroad.t 3 The journey to England proved both exciting and memorable. After joining his classmate, James Scovil of Waterbury, who also had decided to seek holy orders, Peters travelled to New York, where the two candidates were welcomed by the Reverend Samuel Johnson, president of King's (Columbia) College. Johnson, a former Anglican missionary in Stratford, not only extended them his hospitality and composed letters of recommendation, but he also assisted with their embarkation. Armed with their many written commendations, plus their vestrymen's petitions to the Society for the Propagation ofthe Gospel in Foreign Parts (the S.P.G.), the two young men arrived in London early in 1759 .14 Shortly afterward, Peters had an audience with Thomas Seeker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Apparently, still marvelling at his fascinating surroundings, the young colonial rustic was supposedly so "overwhelmed with awe" upon seeing the noted prelate that he was briefly unable to speak. Thereupon, the Archbishop graciously assured him, "I am such a mortal creature and you have no reason to be awed at my presence." It was reported that after these assuring words, "Mr. P. soon recovered the use of his Tongue and senses." Peters' subsequent ordination as a deacon on March II , I759, was immediately followed by an attack of smallpox. His stout constitution, however, as well as the personal attention of Archbishop Seeker's physician , carried him through the illness, and by the following summer he had recovered all his strength.t5 Still awed by the pageantry, pomp, and splendor of England and its established order, Samuel Peters attained the object of his pilgrimage on September 25, 1759, in the stately halls of Fulham Palace. There he was ordained a priest in the Church of England by the Bishop of Rochester, acting in place of the ailing Bishop of London. Shortly after this ceremony, the new parson preached his first sermon in London's Church of St. Sepulchre where his alleged great-uncle Hugh Peter had once officiated. Although he later claimed to have been offered an attractive clerical post in the city, Peters nonetheless followed his original intent and the desires of his Anglican townsmen in Connecticut. He made a final tour of the intriguing sights and sounds of London, and then, accompanied again by John Scovil, the newly-appointed missionary for Waterbury, he embarked for the familiar shores of his native colony. 16 But in addition to his ordination and his missionary assignment, Peters also returned to America with a vain and stubborn affection for both Hanoverian bishops and royalty. It was this latter characteristic that would inevitably lead to his downfall and humiliation.

8 Initially, the newly-returned Anglican cleric settled into his post with general ease and constancy, though not without the usual financial insuff:ciencies experienced by Connecticut's S.P.G. missionaries. By this time, he possessed the physical features that marked most of his adult life: "impressive in appearance; six feet in height, of powerful build, with light blue eyes, and features strongly marked with the smallpox." 17 On February 14, 1760, shortly after his return, he married Hannah Owen of Hebron and formally settled into his own pastoral and family obligations. By the end of that year, the Reverend Matthew Graves, S.P.G. missionary at New London, was reporting that the new Hebron parson was "painstaking and well-behaved ." In his first report to the secretary of the S .P .G. on Aprill3, 1761 , Peters himself gave an interesting, though probably biased , description of his alleged achievements, some of which were even made amongst his Congregationalist neighbors: I cannot but think it will be very agreeable to you and the Society's pious intentions to hear that the Church of England increases in America. This account I have the joy to write: the people belonging to the Church of Hebron seem religiously attentive to my instructions, and desire me in their behalf to say, they return all thanks that hearts filled with gratitude are thankful to you and to the honourable Society for your gracious notice in sending them their desire in a worthy missionary- The Church is 58 by 30 feet. I have a full congregation , in general. The dissenters, though very spiteful at my coming home, doing all they could to destroy my character; taking many grovelling ways to prevent my service and the growth of the Church; una wed by modesty and truth ; railing against the Society and Bishop by many bitter words, worthy of American puritans, are become more mannerly and sensible of their ignorance and folly , that they will almost any of them come to hear me. Their teachers seem to be very fond of me at present: good friendship now seems to subsist. I hope I've seen the worst and that a short time will confirm my hope. 18 The next few years seemed to increase the young cleric's expectations for a growth of the Episcopal minority within the colony. In his Aprill761 correspondence with the S.P.G. secretary, Peters had mentioned that he was visiting Simsbury and ministering to Anglicans in the community because of the chronic mental incapacity of its rector, William Gibbs. He continued his work in this small hamlet (located about forty miles from Hebron) until a new missionary, Roger Viets, arrived to assume the post. Besides Simsbury, he energetically travelled to other Connecticut communities such as Sharon, Middletown, Bolton, and Glastonbury to assist his fellow communicants. At the end of 1762, he proudly wrote the Society that he had already travelled about two thousand miles , "and am willing to persevere as long as my health and purse will permit, the former being very high the latter very low ."t9 Recognition of the parson's labors came from various sources. The Society showed its appreciation for his endeavors, and apparently his initial financial needs , by sending him extra gratuities in 1761 and 1763. In the latter year, they increased his annual stipend to £30 . King's College in 9 New York awarded him the Master ofArts degree, and in September, 1764, he was selected to preach Hebron's local election sermon. Several new bequests and legacies were obtained for Peters' church in Hebron, and by the time of its final completion in 1766, his parish communicants had increased from thirty to fifty-six or fifty-seven families. The principal setback in the face ofall these early successes appeared to be the death ofhis wife Hannah on October 25, 1765, and the passing of two of their three children. Only one daughter, Hannah Delvena, born in January, 1762, remained to the grieving young parson.2o Yet, by the mid-1760's Peters found other concerns besides his personal sorrow. The ripples of political turmoil that had emerged over the Proclamation Line of 1763 had considerably expanded with Parliament's adoption of other restrictive actions, such as the Sugar Act and Currency (Revenue) Act in 1764. The following year, the Stamp Act, a blatant case of internal taxation, brought widespread reaction throughout the American colonies against royal authority . Animosity against the arbitrary actions of the British government and representatives of Crown authority ran particularly high in Connecticut. A threatening mob forced Jared Ingersoll's resignation as a stamp collector. Simultaneously, a number ofeastern Connecticut communities held mock trials for other stamp men and exhibited effigies of English officials.2' Because of their ties to the British establishment, many of the colony's Episcopal minority became an object of particular scorn from anti-stamp activists. During the spring of 1765 , for example, eight Anglicans in Hebron were fined for disregarding a public fast on Easter Sunday. Apparently, however, Samuel Peters' parishioners were not overly concerned about increased harrassment from the radicals at this time. The parson later wrote that his Churchmen "shunn'd every connection, & openly condemned them, declaring they feared the Lord and the King more than the threats of this rebellious gang." Peters himself even managed a defiant retort to the activists' suggestion that he should officiate at a mock funeral for Ingersoll, by declaring that he "refused to be made sport of or to bury a dissenter. "22 A wave of relief descended over all the colonies after the Stamp Act's repeal in March 1766, but in eastern Connecticut, resentment still smoldered against Hebron's audacious parson. Recently it has been shown that, while there was growing annoyance with and intimidation of the Episcopal minority in pre-Revolutionary Connecticut, there was concurrently a considerable increase in Anglican participation within the colony's Standing Order. Additionally, there was even "a renewed communalism" in several communities between Congregationalists and Episcopalians.23 This spirit ofinterdenominational amity, however, was not the case in Hebron, where the Reverend Samuel Peters' openly-obstructive actions appeared to provoke particular apprehension and animosity from the Congregationalist majority. Aside from Peters' political loyalism, his zealous and evidently successful efforts to obtain new Episcopal communicants became a prime 10 cause of suspicion. On March 23, 1767, he wrote to the S.P.G. in London: "Twelve heads of families have joined the Church in this town. The prospect of an increase is considerable." By the end of that year, Peters reported "confirming" several more communicants in Hebron, and during subsequent years he wrote of gaining several more Churchmen both within the community and on his extensive ministerial journeys.24 During this period, Peters also publicized eastern Connecticut's most notable convert to Episcopacy in his pamphlet, Reasons Why Mr. Byles Left New-London, and Returned into the Bosom ofthe Church ofEngland.. .(New London, 1768). The Reverend Mather Byles, son of a prominent Boston Congregationalist pastor and a great grandson of Increase Mather, had been the Congregationalist minister in New London, and Peters' work defended Byles' actions in abandoning his parishioners and conforming to the Church of England. But Peters himself was suspected of being more than a mere champion of Byles in the affair. One New London parodist in a poem entitled "The Proselyte, A New Ballad," expressly referred to Hebron's missionary as the "tempter" who had led New London's pastor to his dramatic decision.25 Such apparent proselytizing by Hebron's S.P.G. missionary was answered with considerable hostility from New England Congregation alists already fearful over rumored designs of the Church of England in the American colonies. These Congregationalists were apprehensive that the Episcopal hierarchy was plotting to establish an American bishopric, which, for several reasons, would challenge their basic civil and religious privileges. Peters, who had already signed one of several petitions by Connecticut's Anglican missionaries to establish such a colonial Episcopate, must have appeared to his enemies as an obvious abettor of such a menacing scheme. Not surprisingly then, Peters complained to the Society in March 1767 that "little conventicles" were scheming against him. On June 25 of the following year, he wrote condescendingly of a "peasantry" refusing to submit to lawful acts of"a British Parliament or an American Episcopate," and "a fanatic mob that would judge my life too cheap a victim to pacify their belching stomachs." (Apparently Peters' initial reference concerned colonial protests against the enactment of the Townshend Duties in 1767 and the following year's establishment of an American Board of Customs Commissioners.) Despite this concern for his personal safety, the "fanatic mobs" were not yet prepared to menace him physically. Most of the abuses were in the form ofanti-Episcopal invectives such as, "The Church of England is the Sinagogue of Satan & if you have a mind to go to Hell-go to the Episcopal Church." Peters persistently defended his faith from such barbs in both the press and pulpit, but his success was limited.26 Meanwhile, Parson Peters was confronted with other challenges besides religion and politics. Personal tragedy occurred again in July 1769, when his second wife Abigail Gilbert of New Haven died less than three 11 weeks after the nuptials. On the young girl's tombstone was engraved the plaintive inscription: "A wedding changed to Lamentation-ye greatest grief in all creation-a mourning groom in desperation." Peters and his mother once more had to care for his growing daughter Hannah. His communicants, although increasing somewhat in number, failed to meet what the parson considered their ecclesiastical obligations concerning the size of his glebe. Although financial matters were no longer a pressing concern, Peters was sufficiently distressed by this situation to seek transfer to another post about the beginning of 1770. However, when the Episcopal society at Hartford was officially placed under his care, Peters became less dissatisfied and withdrew his request.27 Since the parson already had his own considerable landholdings to manage, as well as significant financial and civic interests in Hebron, his transfer request may well have been merely a personal ploy for attention from his superiors in London. The year 1770 proved to be an interesting interlude in the career and concerns of Samuel Peters. When a convention of Connecticut's Episcopal clergy met in June of that year at Litchfield, Peters not only gave the main sermon urging crown loyalty, but he was also authorized by his fellow priests to lead a missionary tour along the distant regions of the Connecticut River. 28 The journey covered about 800 miles, not as long a journey as Peters was to take almost half a century later, but certainly quite as arduous. In early September, he started up the picturesque Connecticut River with his parish clerk. The travelling missionary preached and baptized among the scattered inhabitants of the wilderness settlements in "New Connecticut," subsequently named "Vermont." In fact, Peters late in life was to claim that he himself had named these lands "Verdmont," and that he had even performed a baptism on the infant colony with a "bottle of spirits" on the pinnacle of "Mount Pisgah." Later, he was also to bemoan an alleged change from his own spelling: "Since Verdmont became a state in Union with the thirteen states of America, its general assembly have seen proper to change the spelling of Verd-mont, Green Mountain to that of Vermont, Mountain of Maggots. Both words are French; and if the former spelling is to give place to the latter, it will prove that the state had rather be considered a mountain of worms than an ever green mountain."29 After crossing the Green Mountains, the journey moved onward to its climax in the late autumn of 1770. Samuel Peters and his companions hiked to Fort Miller, about fifty miles north of Albany. He remained there for several days of sermonizing and baptizing, and then travelled to the Mohawk River to preach at Schenectady. He traced his final steps on the long journey through Albany, Sharon and Woodbury in Connecticut, and finally his homecoming in Hebron.Jo Writing to the S.P.G. shortly after his return, Peters related the details of his expedition and his personal observations on the wilderness from which he had just returned. In the realm of imperial affairs, he thought it would be advantageous for the imperial government to foster settlement of

12 these frontier lands: "The spirit of colonization seems worthy of all encouragement from the patrons of Great Britain, as thereby very soon its dimension will reach from sea to sea." In addition, by establishing the seat of "a new Government" at Crown Point, the parson believed that the conflicting land claims to the area between New York and New Hampshire would be ended. Peters also saw considerable benefits for the Church of England if deliberate missionary work were undertaken in the area: "I must confess the prospect existing in my mind of future accessions to the best of Churches, in such as shall be found in these new plantations, fill me with a principle of enthusiasm which guided the primitive Christians to wander about." He added loquaciously that "was my ability equal to my inclinations, I would choose to spend my life among them." In this way, the parson concluded, he might "fly from the midst of these sons of liberty," who so obstinately defied "his sacred Majesty."3 1 Peters' pretentious offer to retreat to a wilderness life of privations was mere braggadocio. Despite his disappointments in Hebron and the emigration of some of his parishioners, the passing years pushed the parson's roots ever more deeply into the soil ofhis home town. The ties with family and friends, as well as his own charitable pursuits, broadened, the longer he lived in the community. And his own family responsibilities proved another reason for remaining. Besides his aging mother and his growing daughter to care for, there were new obligations. On April 21, 1773, the Reverend Samuel Peters became a bridegroom for the third time, when he married Mary Birdseye in Stratford. A son, William Birdseye Peters, was born on June 5 of the following year, but the mother died less than two weeks later. 32 Again a widower, and now approaching middle age, Peters now found it far more difficult to leave Hebron in spite of all its tragic personal associations . Perhaps the major reason for remaining, however, was Peters' increasingly influential position within the community. Through shrewd and efficient management, he had been able to develop a thousand-acre inheritance from his father and his glebe lands into a very prosperous estate. His additional position as a creditor for some of his townsmen added to his income and the rather luxurious style of living. Undoubtedly to the envy of many neighbors, Peters rode in his own expensive coach during summer months and coach-sleigh during the winter. He subsequently testified to the Loyalist Claims Commission that his landholdings in August 1774 contained seven houses, nine barns, five cowhouses, and a smoke house. In the same sworn statement, Peters listed some very expensive household furniture, worth £1298; farming utensils, valued at £378; provisions worth £1141; nine slaves; and considerable live stock, listed at £1316 .33 Peters, like most other Loyalists, probably exaggerated both his pre-war holdings and their values, but it was clear that, for the parson, Hebron had indeed become a prosperous and plentiful "place of refuge," where he expected to live out his remaining days. But external events conspired to destroy Parson Peters' comfortable 13 mode of living and forced him to seek a distant place of refuge for thirty one years of his lifetime. The imperial tensions, which had relaxed following Parliament's repeal of most of the Townshend Duties in 1770, emerged again barely two years later. In 1772 , the British revenue cutter Gaspee was burned in Narragansett Bay. The next year, activist Committees of Correspondence were formed following the publication of Massachusetts' Governor Thomas Hutchinson's provocative personal correspondence. Then in December 1773 the Boston Tea Party occurred , illustrating the depth of colonial dissidence. British counter-reaction was equally strong; the following March, Parliament enacted its repressive Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, one of which closed the port of Boston until the colonists provided compensation for the destroyed tea . The return of spring weather to New England in 1774 brought an ever-lessening hope of reconciliation with the mother country. By the summer of 1774, Patriot sentiment was running extremely high in eastern Connecticut. The Colony's widely-circulating newspapers carried numerous partisan appeals from both individuals and town meetings calling for unity in defense of American rights and liberties. Extra-legal committees were busily engaged in organizing boycotts and other commercial blacklisting of British goods. English customs officials were intimidated; effigies ofvarious "enemies ofliberty" were paraded; and intensified mob action was taken against those individuals in the region suspected of strong Loyalist sentiments. Meanwhile, Jonathan Trumbull , the colony's governor, gave further incentives to the militant mood . Under his own authority, Trumbull circularized a request that meetings be convened in Connecticut's towns to raise contributions for support of Boston's "poor and distressed" inhabitants. With only minimal opposition, most towns in the eastern counties responded to this executive request with immediate and generous pledges of support.J4 Hebron proved to be another story altogether. In its July town meeting, Samuel Peters emerged as the leader in the successful opposition to pledging any donations to Boston. Peters blatantly declared that he considered the governor's request premature, since Boston's inhabitants could easily move to and from the town, and he reportedly concluded that As the good people of Boston had destroyed the tea, the private property of the East India Company, they must pay for it; and then if their port was not opened he would give them I ,000 sheep and I 0 fat oxen, but until they had paid for the tea, he should not willingly bestow any thing upon them---35 Peters' haughty triumph over the Patriot "upstarts" in Hebron and later Hartford proved reckless and short-lived. Perhaps he regarded himself as a courageous champion espousing the cause of law and order, but in an area where advocates of Loyalism were in a shrinking minority, his conduct brought prompt reaction. The principal instigator of the retaliation, according to Peters, was no less than Governor Trumbull himself. It was Trumbull, the parson subsequently claimed , who ordered a proclamation read in Connecticut meetinghouses on August 14, 1774, that 14 branded Peters "a dangerous enemy to America, by his correspondence with Lord North and the bishops of England ." The declaration also hinted that he " ought to be driven out of his native country." However, according to a statement of the Bolton Committee of Correspondence, the reaction against Peters resulted spontaneously, following a report that the parson was writing to England making "false representations of the measures the Colonies are taking to retrieve the difficulties they labor under." Whatever the actual causes , rumors of his "high tory" sentiments spread through nearby towns, and early on Monday morning, August 15, a mob of about 300 people appeared outside the parson's home.36 The ensuing events were reported afterwards in disparate accounts. According to Peters' recollection, he was awakened by the mob "calling themselves Sons of Liberty, Friends to America," who said that they had come to search his house and demanded: "Open Your doors!" Peters replied that he would open his doors shortly, and after dressing, he admitted a ten-man delegation into his house. To their claim that they be allowed to search his house for papers, the parson afterwards said that he graciously replied: "Here are my keys and library, and you can search my house, but I hope you will not destroy my papers." A two-hour fruitless search reportedly followed , after which the delegates told the remainder of the mob that they had "found nothing against the liberty and rights of America," and suggested that they all return home. But, according to Peters and the testimony of two visitors, the mob had only gone a short distance, when they returned and demanded that the parson read and sign thirteen resolves that they had prepared for the newspapers. They also demanded a sworn promise that he had not and would not write to England anything further concerning the "present controversy." About twenty members of the mob remained after the others had left and reportedly tried to extract further concessions, but the arrival of forty of Peters' friends caused them to depart without satisfaction.J7 The Bolton Committee of Correspondence told a different story. According to them, the mob, which Peters claimed had called him "a Traitor to God and this Country," had, in fact, acted quite "civilly." They had merely asked Peters about the truth of a report that he was about to send a packet to England with misrepresentations about the colonists' quest for a redress of their grievances. After an inquiry, they reportedly found nothing but a set of resolves which Peters had prepared for the press and promptly surrendered to the Committee. The Committee criticized the "arrogance" of the resolves, though they added their general satisfaction with the parson's promise to avoid any further partisan communication with England.38 Unfortunately, Peters was unable to extricate himself from further contention. At another Hebron town meeting held on August 29, 1774, the parson argued again against sending any aid to Boston, stating in part, "We may with as much Propriety vote convicts free , and a murderer not to be hanged, as to vote anything for Boston's Poor." The meeting adjourned for 15 three weeks after failing to vote any aid. On September 2, further antagonisms against Peters were provided with the publication of his thirteen resolves in New London's Connecticut Gazette. Most of these resolutions attempted to give a reasonable and balanced defense of Parliament's passage of the Tea Act, viz.: "The duty laid on teas is not a tax upon America because tea grows not within the limits of our charter." The last two resolves, however, proved no less than vituperative and menacing denunciations of certain militant Connecticut towns: 12. We cannot find any Reasons why the good People of Windham, undertook to arrain and condemn Governor Hutchinson, "for Treason against his Country," and those distinguished Ministers, Merchants, Barristers and Attornies, for Ignorance, Insult, Treason against Law and Common Sense, only for differing in Sentiments with some of their Neighbours- since there were a few Names in Sardis. 13. Farmington burnt the Act of Parliament, in great Contempt by their common Hangman, when a Thousand of their best inhabitants were conven'd for that glorious Purpose of commiting Treason against the King; for which vile Conduct they have not been stiled a Pest to Connecticut, and Enemies to Common Sense, either by his Honor, or any King's-Attorney, or in any Town Meeting. "We sincerely wish and hope" a Day will be set apart by his Honor very soon, for Fasting & Prayer thro'out this Colony, that the Sins of those haughty People may not be laid to our Charge as a Government; And we recommend a due Observation of said Day to all our Neighbours , by giving liberally Food and Raiment to the indigent Poor of every Town in Connecti cut, and also to draw up Resolutions, that for the Future we will pay the Poor their Wages and every Man his Due. J9 Two days after the publication of these resolves , events occurred which produced a climactic confrontation. On Sunday, September 4, the day prior to the convening of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, rumors reached Hebron that General Thomas Gage's redcoats had killed "old men and babies and that Boston was on fire." Almost instantly, the call to arms was given, and many of the residents prepared to march off to Massachusetts. Acting quickly to check this surging militancy, Parson Peters blatantly defended the British general and confidently warned that "those who left for Boston would be hanged for rebels." Nevertheless, many of the town's "Sons of Liberty" ignored the parson's pleas, but after only a short march they learned that the Boston report was fallacious. Although the eastern-county Patriots promptly returned to their homes, several ofthese militants sought out a scapegoat to assuage their anger and frustration. Thus, it was not surprising that a second , and even more threatening, mob appeared outside Peters' comfortable home on Tuesday, September 6.4o Again, there were conflicting accounts of the events that followed. According to Peters' written account in 1781 , the affair was directly instigated by Governor Jonathan Trumbull, who dispatched a mob of 3,000, led by his son David and a Major Seth Wright, with instructions "to go and conquer Peters and that nest of Tories in Hebron , and to chastise

16 Peters, but to spare his life." In contrast, in Peters' "Mobbing History," written shortly after the affair, he claimed that only 600 to 900 men appeared at his gate. Both accounts agree, though , that Peters had anticipated their arrival with a protective guard of his own house. The mob's ringleaders, reportedly unwilling to risk a confrontation, sent a committee, led by David Trumbull, to list their grievances against the parson and to demand his acceptance of Connecticut's Solemn League and Covenant. In his "mobbing" narrative, Peters claimed that after listing complaints against him, such as his published resolves and his defense of General Gage, the committee declared that he was guilty of "high treason against his country, a Tory" and a "Tool of Tyranny," who ought to be "hung on a liberty pole & tarr'd and feathered ." When Peters summarily rejected their subsequent demand that he sign the Covenant, the mob allegedly seized the parson, and despite his brother's resistance, broke into his home. In his 1781 account, however, Peters stated that the mob's leaders had assured him that he could speak to them in good faith, but that he was seized "after some conversations" and his hat, wig, gown, cassock, and shirt "taken and torn to pieces."4I All of Peters' accounts agree that the mob raised considerable havoc once inside his house. In 1781, Peters recalled that the Patriots "rushed into the house, destroyed the windows and furniture, wounded his mother and daughter with swords and attempted to throw the parson out ofa window." (Another version also noted that the mob first fired guns into the house before proceeding with their destruction.) Peters added that two of his brothers were wounded and claimed erroneously that one of them (Jonathan) "died afterwards of the bruises he received."42 Finished with their mayhem within his household, the mob turned again to the Reverend Samuel Peters. The parson had been ignominiously stripped of most of his clothing, and, as he later wrote, was "Naked except for the breeches." Unconcerned about his embarrassing state, the crowd was supposed to have put him on a horse and forced him to ride two miles to a liberty pole. There, Peters, according to one account, again refused to sign Governor Trumbull's Covenant, adding boldly that "he would rather suffer death than sign such a treasonable paper." The mob, it was recorded, replied by sentencing Peters to be tarred and feathered, but the execution of this added indignity was prevented by a party of Peters' armed friends, who rescued him from the mob. Before surrendering their prisoner, however, the Patriots' leader, Major Wright, reportedly declared that they were merely delaying action for four days because of the parson's "insanity."43 Another version, written in 1782, said that the parson was released and taken home by his slaves after some of the mob declared him insane. Actually, Peters did , under duress, sign a statement of retraction which appeared in the September 16 issue of the Connecticut Gazette: I, Samuel Peters, of Hebron, do hereby freely acknowledge, that I have justly offended the people of this Colony by drawing up , making & forming a certain set of resolves, which are published in the Ne w London Gazette, 17 No. 564, & representing them as being the resolutions of the town of Hebron, which I do renounce and revoke, as being most of them contrary to the principles of our compact with the King, expressed in our Royal Charter, an indignity to several worthy towns in this Colony, and an insult upon the chief and subordinate authority therein- - - Hebron Sept. 6th, 1774 Sam'l Peters44 Members of the mob outside Peters' home reported a sharply differing story of the events of September 6. In a deposition given on December 6, 1774, four Windham County residents testified that they had assembled in a large throng before Peters' home "on account of his making and publishing sentiments and principles incompatible with our civil liberties, subversive of our constitution, and tending to make discord and dissension amongst the people at that critical time when a union was absolutely necessary." The parson allowed a ten-man committee from the crowd into his home and acknowledged writing the controversial resolves. Peters attempted to justify his position, but the committee told him that if he wished to state his case, he could have safe conduct to do so before the entire multitude. The parson agreed, but as he began to speak, according to this version, a gun was discharged inside the house. Thereupon, the premises were ordered cleared, and the committee returned the parson "safely into the house." Afterwards, when Peters repeatedly refused to sign statements composed by the committee, the "impatient, weary, and hungry" people rushed into the house, seized the parson, and "transported him about :y.j of a mile to the Meeting House Green." At the Green, the deposition continued, Peters did sign and read his public apology, which the assembled throng accepted, '.'gave three cheers and dispersed." The testimony concluded that very little damage, in fact, was done to Peters' home, and that there was no intent to harm or injure any persons simply because of their Anglican beliefs. 45 The day after this humiliating experience, Samuel Peters travelled to nearby Lebanon for a personal call at Governor Trumbull's home. Peters later wrote that since a member of the mob claimed that the governor had sponsored their action, he desired to protest directly to Trumbull and to demand protection. According to one Peters version of their meeting, the governor met his accusations by declaring that "the people had assumed their natural right to judge for themselves, and to punish Jacobites and all enemies to America." Although Trumbull, by Peters' account, also intimated that the parson could only protect himself by signing the Covenant, Peters admitted that the governor did write a letter to Justice John Phelps of Hebron requesting protection.46 Trumbull's account of the meeting differed significantly; he stated that the clerical visitor had told him "That the Committee treated him with Decency & Respect-That it was not his Intention to complain ofany Injury they had done him." Peters had added, though, that "as he had many Enemies, his Fears were that he might fall into the hands of Violent and unreasonable Men who might hurt 18 him or his Property-"; he therefore requested that something be done for his protection. As a result, Trumbull said that he had sent the letter mentioned by Peters to Justice Phelps-as well as a proclamation to Hebron's civil authorities. The letter, which subsequently appeared m print, indicated that Peters was more tractable: John Phelps, Esq. Sir, I depend [that] you will use your prudence to quiet the minds of the people and by lenient Means to lead them to observe their mistake, that while they contend for Liberty, they do not destroy it, and by causing Divisions to hurt their own diligence. Mr. Peters shows himself greatly affected , and says he is well affected to our Liberties, and will do nothing to detriment the cause thereof. 'Tis best to calm the Peoples Minds in the best manner you can- 47 Peters, nevertheless, continued to show a justifiable alarm. Governor Trumbull had a known reputation for making belated and ambiguously worded proclamations opposing mob violence. In addition, Peters' September 8 appeal for protection to Connecticut's Superior Court was met with indifference and a suggestion from the justices that he sign the Covenant. Increasingly desperate, the parson rode to New Haven to seek protection from the town magistrates and aid from his fellow Connecticut missionaries who were meeting there. Upon his arrival in the coastal community, Peters, so it reported, sought refuge with James Hillhouse, but that prominent resident was fearful of the mobs of Benedict Arnold and David Wooster. As a result of this concern, he sent the parson to the Reverend Bela Hubbard, New Raven's S.P.G. missionary. Hubbard gave Peters sanctuary, while circumspectly sending his own family to some neighbors.48 That very evening, Arnold and his associates did visit Hubbard's home. The New Haven missionary, in anticipation of such a visit, had already barricaded the house with assistance from a few armed friends. Peters was also armed, and he later related that when Arnold's men threatened to enter the house, he boldly announced that "he had already been in the power of two mobs, but he would never be in the power of a third while he had life, and forbade them to enter upon pain of death." Peters added that, despite his associates' urgings to proceed, Arnold demurred saying he knew the parson "to be a man of his word." Thereafter, the Patriots reportedly dispersed, though later in the evening Peters claimed that he had to face down another mob, led by David Wooster and Arnold's father-in-law .49 It was quite apparent that New Haven failed to offer suitable sanctuary, and evidently unwilling to endanger his friends , Peters fled the town in disguise. His first stop was Branford, where he was housed by Anglican friends . From there , he took a boat along Long Island Sound to Saybrook. From Saybrook, the fugitive continued his roundabout journey until late Saturday evening, September 18, when he slipped back into his Hebron home. Although his reappearance was noticed by several Patriot 19 watchmen , Peters boldly presented himself to his congregation on the following day. The parson chose the rather appropriate words from Jeremiah (9: I) for his Sabbath text: "Oh that my head was water and mine eyes fountains of tears. I would weep day and night for the transgressions of my people."50 The sermon proved to be Peters' farewell to his communicants. Anticipating the reappearance of another mob, Peters made hasty preparations to depart. A servant was ordered to take a fresh horse and wait for him a few miles from town. As darkness descended, Peters hid his valuable papers, entrusted his children to the care of his mother, bade them all a solemn goodbye, slipped into his garden, and from there dashed across some woods and fields to his waiting horse. Later, during his one hundred mile escape to Boston, Peters claimed that he had been stopped several times by Patriot sentinels, but was allowed to pass when he identified himself as a messenger from Governor Trumbull to John Hancock.5 1 Peters' arrival in Boston, late in the afternoon of September 19, gave him the sanctuary he sought, as well as the adulation of the city's Loyalists. With General Thomas Gage's redcoats controlling the community, Peters was free to profess his loyalism and offer his own accounts of his mistreatment. Within a short time, he had even conversed with General Gage and Admiral Thomas Graves and was welcomed as a visiting preacher in the churches of Mather Byles and Henry Caner.52 Word of Peters' laudatory reception and his embellished tales of "sufferings," quickly filtered back to Connecticut. From Boston, the Patriot Thaddeus Burr wrote to Governor Trumbull (October 13, 1774) that he feared Peters had gained such favor with the loyal Tories, that he might in conjunction with them form some scheme that would be detrimental to Connecticut. Of particular concern was the parson's intimation that much of his persecution was part of a plan to harry and expel all Episcopal clergymen from the colony. Eager to contradict any accusations of religious oppression, as well as desiring to impugn the exiled parson's veracity, Connecticut Patriots immediately publicized their own sentiments. Trumbull replied to Burr on October 24, relating his version of Peters' treatment and declaring that Connecticut's Anglican clergymen were "in no Danger of Persecution or being driven from among us." That same day, a Boston Evening Post commentary attacked Peters as "the most unnatural Monster diabolical Incendiary & detestable Parricide to his country that ever appeared in America or disgraced Humanity." Two weeks later, the paper reprinted an item from the Connecticut press which denied that religious motives played any part in Peters' confrontations and printed Governor Trumbull's requests for the parson's protection.s3 In addition, statements by several Connecticut Episcopal priests dissociating themselves from Peters appeared in New England newspapers. Perhaps the most reasoned printed criticism of the parson was offered by Lebanon's William Williams, subsequently a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In a lengthy letter, Williams stated that he understood the 20 reasons for Peters' resentment, but in view of the threats to peace and American liberty, he urged restraint: If you should endeavour to subdue your anger & reflect cooly on your errand you might I think be far better to give it over, or instead ofexecuting so malicious a purpose to diffuse sentiments of moderation and equity, to proclaim the peaceable , benevolent and loyal temper of this country, their satisffaction (sic) and joy to remain forever the most faithfull Subjects of the King of Great-Britain , in the present august line and succession of Brunswick , and only to enjoy their constitutional liberties as Englishmen---54 Characteristically, however, Peters was personally responsible for much of the belligerence directed against him. Almost immediately after his arrival in Boston, he began writing letters against his Connecticut antagonists . And since he dared not rely on the regular post for delivery, the parson had secretly entrusted much of his mail to his brother Jonathan who visited him in Boston. Unluckily for Peters, his brother and an associate were stopped by suspicious Patriots at a Windham tavern , the letters were discovered and confiscated, and two of the most incriminating of them soon appeared in print. One of these messages, dated September 28 , 1774, was sent to the parson's mother and showed that he had requested Jonathan "to collect all facts touching mobs and insults offered the clergy of our churches ." Vengeance, Peters predicted , would soon be meted out to the offending radicals: "Six regiments are now coming from England , and sundry men of war; so soon as they come, hanging work will go on, and destruction will first attend the seaport towns; the lintel sprinkled on the side posts will protect the faithfuJ."55 The other published letter, dated October I, 1774, and sent to the Reverend Samuel Auchmuty in New York City, was even more unrestrained and incriminating. Evidently oblivious to the retaliations which might descend upon Connecticut's Anglican missionaries, Peters bitterly described his picture of the situation in his homeland . He also suggested that Auchmuty assist him in procuring an extreme royal punishment for the colony: Boston, October I, 1774 Reverend Sir: The riots and mobs that have attended me and my house , set on by the Governour of Connecticut, have compelled me to take up my abode here; and the clergy of Connecticut must fall a sacrifice , with the several churches, very soon to the rage of the puritan mobility, if the old serpent, that dragon, is not bound. Yesterday I waited on his Excellency, the Admiral, &c., Doctor Canner, Mr. Troutbeck, Doctor Byles, &c. I am soon to sail for England; I shall stand in great need of your letters , and the letters of the clergy of New- York ; direct to Mr. Rice Williams, woolen draper, in London , where I shall put up . Judge Achmuty, &c ., &c., will do all things reasonable for the neighbouring charter; necessity calls for such friendship , as the head is sick , and the heart faint, and spiritual iniquity rides in high places with halberts , pistols, and swords. See the Proclamation I send you by my nephew , and their pious Sabbath day , the 4th of last month, when the preachers and magistrates left the pulpits, &c ., for the gun and drum, and set off for Boston, cursing the 21 King and Lord No rth , General Gage, the Bishops and their cursed Curates, and the Church of England. And for my telling the church people not to take up arms, &c. , it being high treason, &c. , the Sons of Liberty have almost killed one of my church, tarred and feathered two , abused others; and on the sixth day destroyed my windows, and rent my clothes, even my gown, &c., crying out, down with the church, the rags of Popery, &c. ; their rebellion is obvious; treason is common; and robbery is their daily diversion; the Lord deliver us from anarchy. The bounds of New- York may directly extend to Connecticut river, Boston meet them , and New-Hampshire take the Province of Maine, and Rhode Island be swallowed up as Dothan. Pray lose no time, nor fear worse times than attend , Reverend sir, your very humble servant, Samuel Peters.s6 The widespread publication of this letter brought an irate answer from Auchmuty criticizing Peters' "careless entrusting of such incriminating letters," but by then the parson had already left Boston. General Gage was not gratified by the additional controversy that Peters had caused. He summarily rejected the parson's absurd request for a commission to return to Connecticut and enlist a force of armed Loyalists, and, instead , he suggested another course of action. Gage felt that Peters could best aid the imperial cause by travelling to England and representing himself as a "sufferer" for his devotion to the British Crown. This offer proved too tempting to resist. Accepting the general's proposals, Peters made preparations for a London residence. On Wednesday, October 12, 1774, the disguised parson left Boston hoping to board a ship in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.57 Peters arrived safely by coach that same day in Portsmouth, but shortly afterward he became concerned again for his personal safety. A message arrived from Boston that his departure was known and that Patriot groups were seeking him. Later the parson maintained that one man showed him a Boston newspaper in which John Hancock had even offered a £200 reward for delivering Peters to a Committee of Safety. Aware of this precarious situation , Peters left his refuge in the home of the local customs comptroller and , as he later asserted , hid in a large cave while Patriot bands searched fruitlessly for him. Afterwards, friends reportedly assisted him in reaching the safety of Castle William, about eight miles from Portsmouth. Another version of the episode was that, while Peters was in Portsmouth, anonymous information came to Governor John Wentworth's wife "that insult was intended at poor Parson Peters." This version continued that Mrs . Wentworth then chose a man who conducted the parson safely to the castle.ss In any event, Peters remained in the castle under the Loyalist governor's protection for about eight days until October 27, 1774, when he finally departed the colonies. Several years later, Peters offered a dramatic description of his sailing. In contrast, his "Mobbing History," written shortly after the events, merely mentioned the captain of HMS Fox dispatching a boat for him and afterwards sailing immediately for England.59 22 The parson's subsequent accounts indicate that his ocean voyage was uneventful and that he arrived at Portsmouth harbor in England on December 21 , 1774. The next day he travelled to London where he received a warm reception from sympathetic Churchmen . As the first Anglican refugee priest from the American colonies, Peters was given considerable notice by civil as well as ecclesiastical officials. The S.P .G. even recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Lord North should give him special considerations. And perhaps the peak of his euphoric first months in London came when he was received by his Majesty, King George III. It was thus not without justification that the exiled parson soon surmised , he could indeed "make himself of much Importance" in England.60 Besides the enthusiastic welcome he received there, England also provided Peters with a secure sanctuary from the direct harassment of his Patriot adversaries. With the parson's departure , these antagonists were obliged to resort to written derision . The Reverend Ezra Stiles of Newport wrote disparagingly that Peters had embarked for England "to tell the King his story, get a Pension and perhaps a bishopric for his suffering in the cause of government as it is called ." Perhaps the most caustic comment, though , came in the Connecticut Gazette's description of Samuel Peters' audience with George III: "His Majesty's right arm is lame, occasioned by a sprain from flourishing his sword over the heads of his new made knights. The Rev. Mr. Peters from Lebanon has obtained his Majesty's leave to pick hops at 9d per day, a penny more than the usual price as a reward for his past faithful services; and by this lucrative business it is supposed he will soon acquire a fortune equal to that he left behind him."6t For several months, however, the Connecticut government did display a significant concern about their expatriate missionary's activities in England . On December 26, 1774, Governor Trumbull wrote to Thomas Life, Connecticut's London agent , giving his own version of the events preceding Samuel Peters' departure, so that Life might "obviate any misrepresentations that the said Peters may make or exhibit to the prejudice of the Colony ." Trumbull's added offer to supply supporting affidavits proved unnecessary. On April 5, 1775, Life reassured the governor: "On the 20th of last month, I attended Lord Dartmouth at his levee, and stated to him the facts from that general state, without delivering the state itself to his Lordship , who informed me that he had seen Mr. Peters but once, and did not seem to lay any part ofthe blame upon you."62

23 Part II

Two weeks after Thomas Life's letter, the American Revolution erupted at Lexington Green. The protracted conflict severed most of Peters' contact with his close friends in the colonies. Almost all of the limited correspondence that did arrive in England during the war was posted from areas under British control. To add to this isolation, most of his own family remained in America. His daughter Hannah sailed from Boston in 1776 to join her father, and Peters' brother Bemslee also joined him during the war. His other brothers and sisters remained in North America, while his mother, citing her advanced age, declined undertaking the long voyage to England . Shortly before the war formally ended in 1783, Peters made an effort to have his young son William Birdseye sent from New York, but the lad became apprehensive and remained for several more years under his grandparents' care in Connecticut.6J Like most other Loyalists who came to England during the Revolution, Peters learned that loneliness, frustration , penury, and discouragement were also part of their Old World refuge. And like most other Loyalists in England , Samuel Peters spent the larger part of the American Revolution in greater London. In December, 1775, Samuel Curwen, a refugee merchant from Massachusetts, noted that the parson was lodging with Ebenezer Pund-erson, a toyafistfrom Norwich. After the arrival of his daughter in 1776, Peters moved to other lodgings in London. During the latter part of 1777, Samuel and Hannah Peters resided temporarily in France and travelled to other parts of Europe before returning to London the following summer. The parson and his daughter then chose a less temporary abode in the more pleasant suburban atmosphere of Pimlico. On several occasions, the Reverend John Troutbeck, a refugee acquaintance from Boston, invited the Peters' to visit him and his wife in their rural Bedford home, but the parson apparently preferred the atmosphere and activities of metropolitan London.64 Peters, along with most of the colonial exiles, did not procure steady employment in London. As a result, he spent considerable time visiting Loyalist friends , discussing politics and religion in favorite metropolitan coffee houses, or merely passing time strolling through London's attractive parks and neighborhoods. It was a bearable, yet frustrating and tedious existence, and , although Parson Troutbeck chided him to be grateful for this peaceful sanctuary, Peters could not avoid being begrudgingly aware of his vastly altered circumstances from Hebron.65 The financial limitations of refugee existence were perhaps the most disagreeable circumstance for American Loyalists. Peters had fled his Hebron home nearly penniless, and he was forced to borrow thirty guineas from the Reverend Mr. Troutbeck in Boston in order to reach England _ One month after his arrival in London, the S.P.G. had awarded him twenty guineas "in consideration of his distressed case," and during the Revolution 24 the Society continued the small salaries previously paid to all its missionaries. The Society, however, made no attempt to secure positions for these clerics in England, so that Peters, like most other exiled missionaries, found little opportunity for a regular pastoral post.66 Occasionally, he performed religious functions, such as delivering sermons, but there was little remuneration involved in this, and he appears to have been less than inspiring in the pulpit. (Samuel Curwen, who heard Peters deliver a sermon at Lincoln's Inn Chapel in September, 1780, called him "an indifferent speaker and composer".) During the Revolution, Peters and other Loyalist exiles were voted pensions by Parliament, but Peters, denied the revenue from his Connecticut lands, received only a total annual income of about £150. Such earnings necessitated a modest and frugal lifestyle for Samuel and Hannah Peters, and the parson wrote in 1777 that he had regretfully "learned the art of not dying on so small a pittance." Six years later, he observed stoically that "like St. Paul," he "had learned to be content with his condition."67 Another very annoying matter for most Loyalists in England was the conduct of American affairs. The first colonial refugees, such as Parson Peters, were often asked for advice on how to deal with the rebellious colonists, and they were quick to offer it. Peters adopted a "hard line" stance toward dealing with the Patriots, recommending harsh action to quell their defiance. On April 14, 1775, he wrote to John Troutbeck in Boston that ninety per cent of the English people "are against America," and that "another fleet and Army are making ready to follow what is gone if needed." Peters' resultant assumption that he would see Troutbeck in Boston that autumn proved premature, as did several of his other predictions during the Revolution. In early 1778, for example, he wrote that there would definitely be no war that year between England and France, and on March 31, 1782, he confidently assured Samuel Curwen that the "Administration would not consent to the Independence of America."68 The protracted conflict, for all that, moved inexorably toward a Patriot victory, while Peters and his Loyalist friends observed and bemoaned the events. On November 24, 1781, a friend wrote him from Halifax, Nova Scotia, of the climactic British debacle: "The hint is that Lord Cornwallis is Burgoyned as they call it." Twenty months later, shortly before the Peace of Paris, Peters indicated that he may have found some solace from his frustrations in faith, as he wrote his brother that "ultimately religion conquers Death, Kings and Congresses."69 But religion failed to overcome Parson Peters' gloom over Britain's failures in America, nor did the bitter anti-Patriot invectives in his correspondence. Added to the frustration here must have been the monotony of daily strolls, and wasted, unproductive hours in the coffeehouses. It was evidently to combat this daily tedium, to attack his Patriot enemies openly, to offer Englishmen a greater understanding of his native colony, and, perhaps, to gain notoriety and patronage for himself, that the Reverend Samuel Peters published a series of writings in England. 25 The earliest of these works appeared in Th e Political Maga zine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military and L iterary Journal, a periodical that focused on British North America and wartime political propaganda. The November and December, 1780, issues of this journal carried Peters' "Account of Major General Benedict Arnold , who has abandoned the Rebel Service and joined our Army at New York." In this biographical sketch of the turncoat general, the parson deceptively portrayed himself as an "old Acquaintance" of Arnold from pre-Revolutionary Connecticut. He found considerable praise for the general' s courage and resourcefulness in battle, asserting that Arnold was so far superior to General Washington, that both the commander-in-chief and Congress had sought his disgrace . Peters' sketch, however, was not averse to personal critiques of Arnold's character as a fornicator , debt evader, and religious bigot. As evidence of Arnold's intolerance, Peters offered his version of the general's harrassment of him at New Haven in 1774. Apparently such adverse remarks were a prime cause of the general's later avoidance of Peters in England.70 The most scurrilous of Peters' articles in The Political Magazine appeared in the January, 1781 , issue. Entitled "History of Jonathan Trumbull , the Present Rebel Governor of Connecticut," the article was replete with character assassinations, beginning with the governor's birth. On this subject, Peters cast doubt about Trumbull's legitimacy: "At Jonathan's birth they [local gossips] remarked, that Captain Trumbull had only been at home seven months, that previously to these seven he had been absent at Boston for four months." Peters hinted that the actual father was Samuel Welles, Lebanon's Congregational minister, who "lodged and boarded in Capt. Trumbull's house when Jonathan was begot and also when he was born." Jonathan was sent to Harvard , but because he "could not obtain a parish," he married Faith Robinson to improve his social status. 71 As a merchant, Peters charged that Trumbull was little more than a fraud , cheat, and failure. He also averred that Jonathan had used his political offices to further his dishonest business practices. And to substantiate his charges of Trumbull's "barbarity and intolerance," Peters related his story of the persecution of Hebron's "extremely popular" missionary, "the Revd Mr. Peters," which the Connecticut governor supposedly had instigated. Peters' concluding description of Governor Jonathan Trumbull reflected the overall tone of this defamatory piece:

He is morose in his natural temper, reserved in his speech, vain and covetous; envious and spiteful to a great degree, never forgiving or forgetting an affront. He is at the same time very artful; he will smile in the face of those he hates , and court their friendship , at the very moment he is endeavouring by every means in his power to affect their ruin. As to justice he never had an idea of it; at least he never shewed [sic] any in practice; always judging according to a party spirit, which ever domineered in his merciless soul. He is far from being a slave to his promise, many promises has he made on money matters, but never yet performed one of them. He is selfish and mercenary without bounds. 72 26 Other articles by Peters in this English periodical were more graphic and much less vituperative. The November, 1781, issue of The Political Magazine carried his descriptions of the Connecticut River and the towns of New London, Norwich, and Groton. Peters likened features of these Connecticut towns to sites in England and included anecdotes that supposedly occurred during the earlier visits of the revivalist, George Whitefield. His description of the Connecticut River was vivid but exaggerated. An earlier issue of The Political Magazine for 1781 included an interesting illustrated description of Newgate Prison within the Old Simsbury copper mines. Peters compared this gaol to the ancient catacombs, and said that the King's Loyalists endured brutal treatment there. This same issue also contained excerpts from a "just Published" History of Connecticut, including "Their Blue Laws or Bloody Laws."73 It was this anonymous History of Connecticut which proved to be Samuel Peters' lengthiest, most noteworthy, and certainly his most controversial work. The first edition, published in 1781, displayed an extremely rambling title, typical of many works of its genre: A General History of Connecticut, From its first Settlement under George Fenwick, esq. to its last period ofamity with Great Britain, Including a Description of the Country, and many curious anecdotes. To which is added, an appendix, wherein new and the true Sources ofthe Rebellion in America are pointed out, together with the particular part taken by the people of Connecticut in its promotion. By a Gentleman of the Province. The title page also noted that it was printed for the author and sold by J. Bew, the publisher of the Political Magazine . The History of Connecticut can be assessed in various categories: historical, political, sociological, geographical, folkloric, and even as a work of personal vanity. Most importantly, it stands as the first significant narrative of the colony of Connecticut. It is also associated with the writings of other American Loyalists in England, such as Joseph Galloway, Peter Oliver, Alexander Hewitt, and George Chalmers who, along with Samuel Peters, sought to offer their own partisan views on the political origins of the American Revolution. 74 As for its characterization as a work of personal pomposity, reviewers have noted the book's loquacious affection for the name, Peters. Yet beyond such varying classifications, the History of Connecticut does contain certain recurrent features throughout its pages. The contents are often gossipy, verbose, distorted, and biased, but, at the same time, the work does offer an appealing anecdotal presentation. Perhaps most prominent is the author's repetitive love-hate attitudes toward his former colony. There are many instances of this dichotomy, including Peters' humorous description that the revivalist, George Whitefield, made of Connecticut's inhabitants as "the wisest of any on the continent; they are the best friends and the worst enemies; they are hair-brained bigots on all sides; and they may be compared to the horse and mule, without bit and bridle."75 27 In his manuscript's preface , Samuel Peters set the tone for his principal topics. Connecticut, he claimed, had been too neglected by such New England historians as Thomas Hutchinson. This fact allegedly resulted not only from a tendency to overemphasize Massachusetts Bay, but also because ofthe connivance of Connecticut's inhabitants: "Prudence dictated that their deficiency in point of right to the soil they occupied, their wanton and barbarous persecutions, illegal practices, daring usurpations, etc. had better be concealed than exposed to public view." None the Jess, the author claimed that he had written a dispassionate narrative , following "the line of truth freely and unbiased by partiality or prejudice." He closed the preface by noting the errors and distortions of New England historians yet, without scruple, boasted that for "three generations" his "forefathers were careful observers of the proceedings of the Connecticut colonists."76 The initial section of the History of Connecticut focused on the colony's first settlements in the seventeenth century. Peters began this portion with a simplified and somewhat inaccurate enumerating of the original Pilgrim and Puritan colonies in New England and the English patentee grants to the areas , and then claimed that the first English settlement within Connecticut was made in 1634 under George Fenwick and the Reverend Thomas Peters at Saybrook. Although the settlement was named for its supposed patentees, Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, Peters wrote that the land was in fact part of a grant owned by the Marquis of Hamilton.77 Next, the author stated that the Reverend Thomas Hooker and John Haynes had left Massachusetts Bay in 1636 intent upon destroying the Peters-Fenwick settlement, where liberal religious practices allegedly prevailed . The Saybrook settlement was supposedly unable to resist the pressures and persecutions of the upriver settlements and eventually allowed itself to be absorbed into the Hooker-Haynes Connecticut Colony. Even after its annexation, Saybrook was supposed to have outshone all other towns in the enlarged colony. It was in Saybrook, the author claimed , that a school was established by the Reverend Thomas Peters, which "his children saw develop into Yale College," named for a "West India Merchant."7S A brief glance at the facts illustrates the immense fabrication in this narrative of Connecticut's initial settlements. The first permanent English settlement was made at Wethersfield in 1634 by John Oldham, and it was not until the following year that the Saybrook fort was constructed under the direction of John Winthrop, Jr. George Fenwick was merely an aid to Winthrop, while the Reverend Thomas Peters spent most of his three-year Connecticut residence in New London. The Saybrook settlement was made on lands actually owned by Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, both of whom had been legally granted proprietorship in 1631. The questionable land claims of the Marquis of Hamilton already had been dismissed by the Privy Council, but the author, in his desire to ingratiate himself with the peer's descendants, maintained the accuracy of such claims. 79 The cause of 28 Thomas Hooker's migration to Connecticut did not include any scheme to persecute the Saybrook residents, who actually had organized no formal church until 1646. In fact , one reason that Hooker left Massachusetts stemmed from his moderate views on church membership. Saybrook became a part of the upriver Connecticut settlements in 1644 without any intimidation or pressure, and this occurred after John Winthrop, Jr., had already served as governor of the colony itself. Historical records offer no substantiation concerning the Saybrook school of Thomas Peters as the forerunner of Yale College. Lastly, Elihu Yale was indeed an affluent merchant, but his fortune was made in India, half-way around the world from the Caribbean Islands.so Peters' distortions concerning the early history of the colony were also reflected in his review of Indian affairs. He depicted Connecticut's Indians as "noble savages," victims ofexploitation, and ofalmost complete genocide. Ignoring the fact that the local tribes were barely out ofthe Stone Age, the author pictured them as living in an advanced state ofcivilization in the 1630s. He wildly exaggerated the death toll in Indian wars , claiming that New Englanders had slaughtered over 180,000 natives. He further maligned these settlers as having seized their lands through duplicity, guile, and even germ warfare! In a fantastic fable, Peters related how the Reverend Thomas Hooker deliberately caused the death of a supposedly uncooperative and unregenerate Indian prince by sending him a Bible whose pages were contaminated with smallpox virus. This great Indian ruler, for whom the colony was assertedly named, was purely ficticious, but he was nonetheless eulogized as a martyr to Puritan injustice: Thus in three years time by the Gospel and fanatic policy was destroyed Connecticote, the greatest king in North-America. This remarkable event was considered, as the work of the Lord ; and the savage nations were told that like calamities would befall them unless they embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jeshua [an Indian rival of Connecticote] was grateful to the English who had made him Sachem, and gave them deeds of those lands which had constantly been refused by Connecticote.s l Similar examples of oppression and perfidy were ascribed to neighboring New Haven Colony which was absorbed by Connecticut in 1664. Peters referred to this short-lived coastal province as "this Dominion, this tyrant of Tyrants," and he declared that under the rule of its founders, John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, the inhabitants "lived under far worse persecutions from one another, than they ever experienced or complained of in Old England." He added that "cruelty and godliness were perhaps never so well reconciled by any people as those of New Haven."82 As proof he listed forty-five statutes which he called "Blue Laws or Bloody Laws," designed to maintain a rigid despotism within the colony. While many of these forty-five laws were based on actual statutes of New Haven Colony, Connecticut, or Massachusetts Bay, several others were gross distortions or malicious fantasies. Among the latter category were the following examples:

29 No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day- No one shall read Common-Prayer, make minced pies, dance, play cards or play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp. Whoever says there is a power and jurisdiction above and over this dominion shall suffer death and loss of property. Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap. [Peters later added that when caps were not to be had, they substituted "the hard shell of a pumpkin which being put on the head every Saturday, the hair is cut by the shell all around the head.")83

In describing the century which succeeded the union of New Haven with Connecticut Colony, Peters continued his travesties on historical fact. Once, when discussing witchcraft trials in the Connecticut Valley, he reported that one Hugh Parsons, "the handsomest man in Springfield," was so admired by the women, that the townsmen in self-defense "cried out upon him for a witch." In fact the opposite was true: "most of Parson's accusers were women-the principal one being his own wife." In another instance, he garbled the story of the Charter Oak by claiming that Connecticut's charter had been purloined from Sir Edmund Andros' apartments in Hartford. He also generalized the true meaning of the Great Awakening-arguing that both Old Lights and New Lights aimed solely at personal power at the expense of religion.s4 Anglican missionaries were praised as benevolent and hard-pressed saints, and Peters declared that one of his fellow Churchmen was convicted and punished in 1750 for breaking the Sabbath by walking too fast from church and combing a lock of his wig on Sunday. Basically, however, Peters displayed a more charitable tone toward the Connecticut inhabitants during the century after 1664. He praised their industriousness, and he magnanimously proclaimed that, "their zeal, though erroneous," was "at least sincere." In boundary disputes, he even sided with Connecticut against New York. It was a curious period of restraint in Peters' narrative, but it was merely the calm before a downpour of new denunciations against his former homeland.ss The final decade of the book's coverage (1764-1774) was marked by a return to Peters' earlier vitriolic tone. In reviewing the turbulent events of these years, the author proclaimed that Connecticut's residents had encouraged ingratitude and rebellion against a benevolent Great Britain. Peters even traced the colony's serious turmoil during the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-1766 to a single conspiracy-a conspiracy formed at a Congregational Association meeting at New Haven in 1764. When Great Britain had repealed the Stamp Act, which Peters claimed was supported by two-thirds of the American colonists, this plot, according to this "imaginative" historian, spread throughout the colonies. Consequently, the door was opened for the later resistance to the Townshend Duties and later to the Tea Act.86 Like other Loyalist historians, Peters argued that the average colonist had no complaints against England, but had been duped 30 into hostile acts by this intrigue of disgruntled merchants, lawyers, and dissenting clergymen. By 1774, Governor Jonathan Trumbull, cited as arch conspirator in this alleged plot, ruled the colony, and the History ofConnecticut likened his government to a "mad mob" in London. Peters maintained that under such anarchical rule, Joyal subjects, and especially Anglican Churchmen, endured severe maltreatment. To illustrate this situation, he recounted the case of a "greatly venerated and beloved" Hebron parson, named Samuel Peters, who suffered gross indignation and exile for merely defending law and order from the governor's treachery. Without the restraining hand of the Mother Country-and also the Anglican Church-the author saw nothing in Connecticut's future but anarchy and chaos: From infancy their education as citizens points out no distinction between licentiousness and liberty; and their religion is so muffled with superstition, self-love, and provincial enmity, as not yet to have taught them that humanity and respect for others, which from others, they demand.87 Aside from the major emphasis given to the history of the colony, Peters did portray other features of Connecticut. His economic and geographical descriptions centered on quaint sketches of Connecticut's key towns. Several of these accounts are not only factual, but they also offer a rather authentic picture of local color on the eve of the American Revolution. Among other items, Peters presents a truthful representation of the medicinal spring at Stafford, the diversified domestic industries of Norwich, the prevalence of tobacco fields in Hartford County, and the excellent harbor facilities at New London. Equally accurate was his description of the New Haven Green, where "Elms and button-trees surround the centre square, wherein are two meetings [meeting houses], the court-house, the gaol, and the Latin School."88 As usual, though, there were the exaggerations and fabrications in these descriptions. Peters inaccurately asserted that the Connecticut River was over five hundred miles long, four miles wide at its mouth, and, that at one point, an iron crowbar could float on its waters. Moreover, he placed the total size of the colony at five million acres rather than its actual three million, and he stated that "half the land was covered by rivers, ponds, creeks, brooks, and lakes." An extreme, but amusing falsehood Jay in the description of New London wherein Parson Peters commented that the seaport might have been the largest in New England, but for the restrictions of Hartford residents who were influenced by the jealous merchants of Boston.s9 Accounts of plants and wildlife also mixed the true with the fanciful. Peters duly mentioned the many stately oaks and elms in the colony as well as the abundance of sassafras and Indian herbs. The superior virtues of Connecticut's livestock were also presented, with its pork and wool said to be the best in all the thirteen colonies. Descriptions ofwildlife, such as deer, badgers, squirrels, and birds were accurate enough. In other cases, however, the author moved to the absurd. He propounded some totally 31 new zoological specimens, including the bullfly- "a one-inch long insect with half-inch horns"; the brown "whappernocker," whose fur, he declared , sold for over thirty guineas, and the"cat-sized male cuba," whose mate would continually berate him during times of danger and would calm him with "affectionate kisses if he were ever placed in captivity." He also related an exaggerated tale of how a large army of bullfrogs made an orderly evening march through the streets ofWindham, causing near panic among the town's residents. The Connecticut skunk, despite its ability also to cause a panic, was praised for its virtues. In a rambling pseudo-medical discourse the author claimed that the skunk's bag cured "hiccups, asthma, tuberculosis, hysteria and even fainting spells ."90 The discussion of the customs and habits of Connecticut's inhabitants provided the author with still another category for spreading his derision . His accusations concerning the settlers' narrow, authoritarian, and bigoted ways , especially in matters of religion , were reflected in what he described as an oppressive legal code and the antagonistic attitudes shown toward dissenting sects. Peters claimed that the practice of tarring and feathering was invented in New London and was first inflicted upon Quakers and Anabaptists. Voluntown's Congregationalists were said to shun the funerals of all other denominations, including Presbyterians. In Norwich , he declared that Congregationalists had the practice of burying their corpses with their feet to the west, so that the elect "could arise quickly on Judgement Day." And while the parson stated that the inhabitants practiced these and other absurd customs in their blind obedience to the Standing Order, he also declared that the people were in no way concerned about their ingrained habit of violating the laws of Great Britain. "Smuggling is riveted in the constitution and practice of the inhabitants of Connecticut," wrote Peters . From the governor on down, he affirmed , the inhabitants "conscientiously study ways to cheat the King of those duties which, they say, God and Nature never intended should be paid."9I Yet not all the conventions of Connecticut were depicted as stern or malicious. Samuel Peters even found some of these customs appealing. Among these were several practices supposedly adopted from the Indians, including one of scrubbing newborn children with a mixture of honey and urine. The effects of this unusual combination were "wonderful," the author remarked.92 In another amusing vein he devoted a lengthy section to an endorsement of bundling, i.e . New England's courtship custom of unmarried couples sharing a bed without undressing. Bundling, he stated , prevailed among all classes, "to the great honour of the country, its religion , and ladies." Connecticut gentlemen were considered rude, continued Peters, if they spoke before a lady, "ofa garter, knee or leg, yet it was considered a piece of civility to ask her to bundle-a custom as old as the first settlement in 1634." The practice was regarded as "innocent, virtuous and prudent," and he concluded with his own parental endorsement. 32 Bundling takes place only in cold seasons of the year- the sofa is more dangerous in summer than the bed in winter- Upon the whole had I daughters now, I would venture to let them bundle upon the bed or even on the sofa, after a proper education sooner than adopt the Spanish mode of forcing young people to prattle the chit-chat of artless lovers. Could the four quarters of the world produce a more chaste, exemplary, and beautiful company of wives and daughters than are in Connecticut, I should not have one remaining favourable sentiment for the province.93

The History of Connecticut enjoyed a popular and evidently widespread audience in the years following its initial publication. In 1782, a second London edition appeared-apparently the result of significant interest in the previous year's printing. The book's readership also spread beyond the bounds of Great Britain. By the end of 1782, the Reverend Mather Byles in Nova Scotia was expressing his gratitude to Peters for sending him a copy of the History, and during the next two years the book was advertised for sale at Isaac Beers' New Haven bookstore.94 The volume was sold in other American cities at this time, and in 1790 Peters read that George Wyllys, Connecticut's venerable Secretary ofState, found the book a source of constant amusement. Four years later, Christopher Ebeling of Hamburg wrote to the Reverend Jeremy Belknap in Boston that the History of Connecticut now had a non-English version: "The book has been translated into German by one of our best political and geographical authors, Professor Sprengel, and got undeserved reputation." Ebeling, who was dismayed by the book's "partiality" and "falsities," added, "My book I hoped should make it fall; but your judgement shall annihilate it entirely." Ebeling was mistaken, however, for in 1829 a third edition, with quaint illustrations, was published in New Haven.95 Reactions toward this entertainingly satirical but often spiteful work varied following its appearance. Although an English review in 1782 criticized the History of Connecticut for its untruths and "malignant spirit," there were many individuals, including a few Patriots, who viewed the book with a tolerant attitude or accepted it as a satirical farce. However, Professor James L. Kingsley of Yale was far from tolerant in his critique in the Boston Review and Monthly Anthology in April, 1810. Kingsley considered the History as filled with "extraordinary exaggera tions," "misrepresentations," and "falsehoods" from an "injudicious" or "ignorant" artist, and he felt the book itself was "doomed to oblivion." Of course, the Yale pedagogue's prediction of oblivion was erroneous, and less than a decade after the publication of the third edition he found himself compelled to dismiss the work again as a "slanderous, outrageous," and "pretended history." The spark of contention continued, and after the Civil War, James Hammond Trumbull, Connecticut's State Historian, and Samuel Jarvis McCormick, a descendant of Samuel Peters, engaged in a polemic duel on both the parson's character and the veracity of his book.96 To a lesser degree, similar debate continued even into the present century. Interestingly, Samuel Peters remained largely detached from the early 33 controversies over his work. He never identified himself as the author in any of his existent letters , though several of his American correspondents mentioned him as the author of the anonymous volume. In May, 1782, the Reverend Ebenezer Learning, a fellow missionary, wrote from New York, "You are not uneasy I hope that you was drove off this land: Since it has procured a History which will perpetuate Your N arne." The Reverend Mather Byles in Nova Scotia received his copy from Peters in the autumn of 1782 and replied suggestively that there were "many Shibboleths" that betrayed the author "to those who are acquainted with his pen." Other individuals in America wrote their comments and criticisms to Peters concerning it, but the parson, while supervising the shipments of several volumes to various North American locales, declined taking credit for writing the work.97 Perhaps one reason for such reluctance emerged in Peters' letters to Bishop Samuel Parker in Boston. Parker had written to Peters in 1787 requesting a copy of the History and informing the parson that President Ezra Stiles of Yale had named Peters as its author. Peters replied to Parker that he could not send him one of the books without the "hazards" of "owning" himself the author. He also implied that in particular he did not wish to give his old antagonist, Stiles, the satisfaction of being proved correct:

The scoundrel calls himself Professor of Humanity- and at the same time quotes Peters' Histy, altho that history was anonomous [sic]- the Rule of Humanity in Europe is to give every one his due-but not to make an Author without authority- His laying that Book to Peters if he had done it handsomely, I should not have noticed his sermon, formed like an Hedgehog whose Pins have new points wherever you put your finger- I should not be ashamed of being the Author of that History, but proud of it- could I have owned it without being dictated . However your common report that I gave the particulars & another wrote it, is as false as Styles assertion. I both found the materials & wrote it or I had no part in it & whether one or the other no Person knows & never can know but by one.-or the Author.98

34 Part III QN September 3, 1783, a year after the History ofConnecticut's second edition, Britain signed the Peace of Paris. Within Connecticut, this formal end of hostilities was followed by a relaxation of harrassment against Loyalists . Word of this new conciliatory mood was prominent in Peters' renewed correspondence with residents of his former colony. One such Jetter sent from Hebron's Doctor David Sutton in January, 1784, assured the parson that "Our Whigs are cooling down," and that he could again visit Connecticut "with Safety." On November 18 , 1784, a Hebron attorney also guaranteed Peters that conditions in the state were now "ripe" for his return, while the next month the Norwich missionary, John Tyler, wrote that "the vindictive Spirit of the country is almost totally altered in the space of one year past." The analogous news that many Loyalists , in fact, had returned safely to their former residences seemed to confirm these reports. Yet neither this encouraging information nor the entreaties of his aged mother to see her son "once again in the Land of the Living" had any decisive effect on the parson.99 Samuel Peters' homecoming was to be postponed for twenty-two years after the triumph of American independence. The United States of America remained anathema to Peters as well as a reality which he never fully accepted. The Patriots' successful revolution was one reason for Peters' long-delayed return to America, besides being a subject for derision in much of his trans-Atlantic correspondence. Upon learning of various internal discontents during the Confederation period , Peters wrote to Connecticut's Lieutenant Governor Samuel Huntington on December 6, 1784, that because of the present "Mobility" rule in America , the "People of Connecticut had no reason to rejoice in being aliens to the King." The following spring he told the Reverend John Tyler of Norwich that the previous decade "had disgraced human nature and murdered everything divine," and he wrote to a nephew in August, 1785, that "all we hear from the United States of America is Poverty, Envy, Roguery, Contention and Bankruptcies."IOO Peters also suggested to some of his American correspondents that prosperity could be restored if the New England states would only rejoin the British Empire. He pursued the matter even further by proposing a confidential scheme to Lord Rodney in February 1788 whereby he should be appointed "British Consul in New Haven" in order to subvert Connecticut's ratification of the Constitution. When the Constitution was adopted, Peters nevertheless insisted to Benjamin Trumbull, a Congregational minister, "American independence has not made your people better, but much worse in Christian Duties." He was dismayed by the First Amendment's repudiation of a religious establishment, and he later prophesied to Trumbull that the new Federal government would devolve into a monarchy or aristocracy because of "religious heresies which we are told prevail among most of your Phisicians [sic] lawyers & Politicians."IOI 35 Despite all his censures, Samuel Peters was unable to avoid all direct involvement with the new American nation. In addition to many of his relatives continuing to reside in the United States , there was still the matter of the considerable estate he had abandoned in Connecticut. Shortly after arriving in England , Peters had submitted to the S.P.G. a Jist of his claimed holdings in Hebron, and in November, 1782, he again gave an account of such losses to John Wilmot and Daniel Coke, representatives of the Lords of the Treasury commission inquiring into Loyalist claims. But he opposed pressing the British government too strongly on obtaining quick and complete restitution , and he helped convince fellow Connecticut refugees against participation in a lobbying organization, which was formed in London in February, 1783. 102 This Loyalist group did have some influence, though , since Parliament passed a compensation act that summer, which established a commission for investigating all refugee claims. Peters submitted his initial memorial to this commission in December, 1783 , in which he claimed an estate of £22 ,500, including considerable property holdings outside Connecticut. The following year, he submitted a second and more detailed statement. Like many other Loyalists, Peters' inflated claims were questioned by the newly-created commission, and as late as 1786 he was still obliged to seek substantiating affidavits from his friends. 103 Meanwhile , several reports arrived in England concerning the status of his Connecticut lands . A letter from David Sutton in Hebron, dated August 7, 1783, declared that parts of Peters' property had been sold by his brother Jonathan in 1775 and 1776 , while the remainder of the estate was said to have been sold by the state's attorney for Hartford County under Connecticut's confiscation law. The following October, however, a more accurate letter was sent by Clement Sumner which informed Peters that his lands were not really confiscated, "but only leased out" by the state. The next month Sutton sent similar information to Peters, informed him who occupied his land, and advised him to appoint a legal agent if he did not wish to return to America . I04 Peters subsequently engaged Sylvester Gilbert of Hebron as his attorney. Gilbert soon advised him that the state's lease ofhis property was scheduled to expire in 1785 and that it would be best for Peters to send him a deed or power ofattorney for his lands. Peters evidently gave Gilbert such power, but he later became disillusioned with this attorney. In October, 1786, William Samuel Johnson wrote that Peters could have possession of his estate whenever he wished . Peters eventually rented out part of his lands for small sums, and in 1792 he requested that this remaining property be divided among his children. Legal actions concerning these lands were undertaken even after the exile's return to America , but his efforts to obtain complete financial compensation failed. lOS One notable contention over the clergyman's Hebron estate concerned his former slaves. In his deposition of 1784 to the Loyalist Claims Commission, Peters had listed nine Negro men , women , and children as 36 part of his itemized holdings. These individuals were slaves, principally members of the family of Cesar and Lois , who continued to live on lands near Peters' house throughout the Revolution . In April , 1784, Cesar allegedly wrote Peters requesting manumission for both himself and his family . On July 26, 1784 , the parson reportedly replied affirmatively but added that, since his property was taken by the state, it was up to them to 1grant manumissions. A subsequent Jetter to Peters' nephew Dr. Nathaniel Mann, dated February 14, 1785, seemed to confirm these sentiments. "As Cesar, Lois & the Negroes, their case will be perfect freedom by your Laws very soon, & if they are hereafter permitted by your state to be my Property again, Cesar & Lois shall be free by my Law- " Again , in the spring of 1786, Peters denied power over Cesar and his family , though he based this denial on the erroneous assumption,that Congress had freed all slaves. 106 Despite these disavowals of ownership, Cesar's family was not allowed to live peacefully. Apparently Dr. Mann concluded that Peters' former slaves were still that missionary's chattel. Furthermore, since Mann was already involved with Peters in a shaky business venture , he evidently determined that it was both necessary and permissible for him to sell his uncle's former slaves. Dr. Mann did proceed in the late summer of 1787 to sell Cesar and his family to a South Carolina planter, using the parson's alleged power of attorney. His action, however, precipitated immediate opposition from Hebron's indignant residents. Thus, when Mann's hired agents forcibly attempted to remove the blacks for shipment to the South, an armed mob intervened , released the former slaves, and returned them to their homes .107 On October 15 , 1787 , Peters was informed ofthe incident by Jedediah Buckingham , a Hebron attorney, who also asked the clergyman about his future intentions concerning the freed blacks. Aware ofthis local animosity , Peters wrote to Dr. Mann the following April , hoping to divorce himself from the affair:" As to theNegroes, I sincerely wish them all in Heaven where the Powers of Kings & Congress is not known , do with them according to what is right."108 In January, 1789, the Connecticut legislature relieved Peters of this problem by manumitting Cesar and his entire family. Although the following year Cesar reportedly instituted suit against Peters and Mann, he eventually abandoned any grudge against his former master and even sent the parson a respectful note, following his return to America·. 1o9 Besides the annoying controversy over Peters' former slaves, Dr. Nathaniel Mann also embroiled his uncle in considerable financial difficulties. Mann had visited Peters in London during the summer of 1784, and there the doctor apparently arranged to establish a trading enterprise between England and America. Under this venture , Nathaniel Mann and Company, the doctor would operate the sales outlets in the United States, his brother John would ship potash, herbs , sassafrass, and other items to England, while Samuel Peters would offer his personal surety to British firms shipping their manufactures to America. On October 12, 1784, Peters wrote to Nathaniel Mann noting that shipments of goods, including one 37 hundred copies of his History of Connecticut, had been sent. By the following summer, however, flaws in the arrangement appeared ; the uncle was obliged to inform his nephew that bills were not being paid, and several English merchants were balking at advancing further credit. This pattern continued for several years , as Dr. Mann proved negligent in meeting his obligations , while his uncle chided him on his poor business habits. Moreover, Peters found himself constantly obliged to pay irate English creditors himself or sign security notes at high interest rates.11o The situation became more entangled in 1791 when Dr. Mann fled Hebron for the warmer and safer climate of Georgia. After the English creditors learned of his departure, they unsuccessfully attempted to obtain payment from his American partners and then descended on Samuel Peters. Peters wrote to Mann's father and his uncle telling of his plight, and charging that Nathaniel "had acted shamefully ." John and Andrew Mann finally succeeded in meeting most of the defunct company's debts about 1794, but Peters meanwhile was forced to use part of his own limited funds to pay the creditors. 111 Surprisingly, in spite of his financial losses, the parson was to retain his belief that America could bring him eventual prosperity. In addition to these instances of direct involvement in America following the Revolution, the Reverend Samuel Peters offered many personal comments and observations on varying topics affecting Connecticut and the United States. The subjects of such observations in this post-war correspondence included education, politics, science, and religion, and Peters' pronouncements often revealed more about himself than the topic of his particular pronouncements. In education his comments focused principally on Yale College. Here he expressed a fondness for his old school, but his words were ambivalent and at times deceptive. "I am glad to see Mater Yale flourish ," he wrote to Benjamin Trumbull in 1789, yet shortly before this, Peters had written to an Anglican rector in Stamford, "Hiloh, Poor Yale, Columbia shall rise on her fall!" In another instance , he lauded "Alma Mater Yale whose birth was in piety," although he had previously downgraded the college's origins by passing along some rather spicy gossip to Trumbull about alleged immoralities of Elihu Yale, the college's great benefactor. 11 2 The college's firm Congregational basis also annoyed Peters. Despite the fact that many Episcopal students were comfortably attending Yale, the expatriate alumnus pictured them toiling under severe religious restrictions. Consequently, while Peters piously proclaimed that "All the Sons of Yale love their mother, & though they have different opinions in Religion & Polity, they will seek to do her good," he simultaneously circulated the ominous rumor that Connecticut's Episcopalians were about to found their own college. 11 3 Peters' greatest criticisms of Yale were made against Ezra Stiles, the college's eminent president from 1778 to 1795. Neither man had any love for the other, but Peters proved more vituperative in his personal attacks. 38 Among other epithets, this self-styled authority referred to Stiles as an "attic scholar," "a little rabbit," and "that envious crack-brained disgrace to Yale College and Connecticut." The Yale president, as Peters wrote to Benjamin Trumbull, was assuredly bringing the college to ruin. Besides Stiles' theological tenets, Peters also questioned the president's administrative policies. In particular, he could not understand why Stiles forbade the sale of honorary degrees. "The poorer Scottish Colleges" were doing it, and Harvard was repaid handsomely for its degrees to prominent men, asserted Peters: "If Dr. Styles shall do likewise he will soon increase his income, and Perquisites, bringing fame to Yale University- no longer College."II4 Coincidentally, the parson's own dubious claims to a doctorate also caused recriminations . When President Stiles expressed doubts about this critic's LL.D. and requested that Trumbull obtain further information concerning its source, Peters replied indignantly, "Samuel Peters is LLD at Cortona, Tuskany- but I am sorry to find any Envy should occur on the account." Stiles, however, doubted the existence of any such Italian institution and added the word alibi after this unverified LL.D. 11 5 Pronouncements on the arts and sciences ranged from the exaggerated to the ridiculous. Peters considered himself an able critic on all literary topics- especially philosophy. In one letter to Benjamin Trumbull, he demeaned the writings of David Hume; in another, he intimated a personal friendship with Voltaire. Yet, it was in the realm of science that this Churchman reached the ridiculous. In 1803, he wrote a pseudo-scientific treatise on destroying sheep ticks that was even published in a New York City newspaper. Before this work , however, he had sent his most absurd scheme to Trumbull, a complicated plan for restoring "the barren lands" between New Haven and West Haven. Itwas supposed to work by a system of horse-operated pumps spraying salt water into ditches which, when dried , were to be "covered with good Barnyard Dung mixed with ashes from a Potash works." 11 6 Despite Peters' assurances of its success, both New Haven and West Haven allowed this technological plan to remain in its theoretical stage. Political comments during this post-Revolutionary period were generally skeptical, since Peters continued to show little confidence in the United States. He wrote several American correspondents his belief that financial difficulties, incompetent rulers, greed , and, in particular, sectional differences would surely destroy the new nation. Consequently, as the Federal government was being formed in 1788, he pessimistically mentioned to Samuel Parker, "If you chuse [sic] Washington your president, How can Hancock live- Thus doing you Saints ofNew England will be hewers of wood to the sinners of New York and the South."11 7 During the Federalist period (1789-1801), Peters found fault with both the emerging Federalist and Jeffersonian political parties, though more censures were directed toward the latter group. And though the upheavals of the French Revolution helped sour him on European governments, he still denied the contention that the United States had become a 39 counterweight to Old World anarchy and vice . Religion , of course , dominated much of the parson's communications with America . On this topic , Peters was picayune and verbose, with some of his theological diatribes running over a dozen pages. His letters to fellow Churchmen in the years immediately following the Revolution were replete with advice on doctrinal unity and the advancement of the Episcopal Church in the United States. At this time, he strongly upheld the authority of the Church of England hierarchy, and he was quite critical of Connecticut's Bishop Samuel Seabury for obtaining his consecration from Scottish non-juring prelates in 1784. As for Congregationalist pastors such as Benjamin Trumbull , he regarded them as too "straight-laced toward your erratic fellows ," and he did not hesitate to differ with them on many theological tenets. He even proposed a plan to Trumbull for a union of Congregationalists and Episcopalians (including, of course, a hierarchical structure), since it would support "true Christianity against religious tyranny."! IS He countered the North Haven pastor's fears of "artful and designing bishops" by likening Episcopal Church polity to the American government and then adding, "Some Bishops I know are great and Rich & wise, and also good, and imitate the dove-like spirit before men in lower life." Several years later, however, after clerical superiors had thwarted his ambitions for religious preferment, Peters had become a religious skeptic. And disillusionment with his own Church was apparent as he wrote Trumbull in March, 1800, "I shall be disappointed if your Episcopalians do not grow sick of Episcopacy."ll9 Still it was not until the final years ofthe eighteenth century that Peters became completely disenchanted with his exiled existence in England. After the American Revolution, Peters had resisted the entreaties offriends and relatives to return to America, because of his stubborn belief that he could become an important figure in England or, at least, return with a prestigious appointment to show for his sufferings. And to an extent, he did obtain some small importance in London. His papers show that he was acquainted with certain prelates and a few members of the gentry. Additionally, many of his fellow Anglican clerics in the United States and Canada wrote to him for assistance with England's civil or religious establishment. Laymen from these territories also sought Peters' advice or assistance, particularly in commercial matters or Loyalist claims. Furthermore, he continually served as an intermediary for several correspondents' financial dealings in England, even after the collapse of Nathaniel Mann and Company. In one instance, he was selected as an executor for the estate of Dr. Thomas Moffatt, a prominent Loyalist refugee from New London. Beyond this, he performed beneficial services for London's Newgate prisoners and a few indigent widows in the city.1 2o Little is known of the Reverend Samuel Peters' personal life in post Revolutionary England, except for its apparent tedium and loneliness. For a time, his younger brother Bemslee remained in London, but he did not live with him. His daughter Hannah left him in December, 1785 , when she 40 married William Jarvis, a Connecticut Loyalist. Several months later, the newlyweds departed for Canada, where Jarvis served as a militia officer. After a brief return to England, the family again sailed to Upper Canada in 1792, where Jarvis served as provincial secretary to Lieutenant Governor John Simcoe. 121 Peters' son William Birdseye finally came to England in 1788, but he did not remain long with his father. Instead, he was educated briefly in France. Then he studied at Oxford and was given legal training at the Temple. Afterwards , William, who was apparently not as close to his father as Hannah was, departed for Canada as an ensign in the British Army, and on May 4, 1796, he married Mary Jarvis in Stamford , Connecticut. About the only suggestion of any personal dalliance during the missionary's English exile, appeared in a letter dated May 18, 1787, from a Mary Serjeant of Bath. In the letter, she thanked Peters profusely for all his "goodness toward me & mine which I shall ever acknowledge ." She also noted that her house was "quite empty," and added that "You would make me exceedingly happy if you all with my charming Samuel, would pay me a visit at Bath."122 Peters' varied activities in London and his rather solitary personal life were overshadowed by his repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to obtain a prestigious appointment in America. In these fruitless efforts, the parson was motivated by both his enormous pride and his desire to confound his many old enemies, such as Ezra Stiles . Although he showed occasional interest in secular appointments, his principal endeavors were made for a bishop's mitre . The first overtures were toward the bishopric of Nova Scotia, which was formally established in 1787. In spite of several fellow Churchmen writing Peters that they preferred him over Samuel Seabury as Connecticut's bishop, and though he later claimed to have refused the appointment, there was no serious effort to obtain this position. For one thing, Peters disliked Seabury, whom he called "fat and Lazy." Besides, in 1784 he was quite averse to superintending a diocese within the independent United States. 123 The bishop's mitre for Nova Scotia, the first English colonial Episcopate, was , however, a different matter. Shortly after Lord North made the first moves in 1783 for such an Episcopate (with the understanding that the appointed bishop was to be a Loyalist clergyman), the parson began lobbying for the position. His efforts were quite evident in a letter from Peters to Dr. Myles Cooper on November 23, 1783, in which the parson denigrated other candidates for the office, but added effusively that he would not compete with Cooper. (Peters neglected to note that the ailing Cooper was not under any consideration for the position.) 124 There were, nonetheless, several actual candidates for the proposed new Episcopate. Chief among Peters' rivals was Charles Inglis, an Irish born missionary, who had served in New York and Pennsylvania. In London, Inglis was able to make use ofhis friendship with Lord Dorchester 41 (Commander in Chief of the British forces in Canada, and, from 1786 to 1795, governor of Quebec and Lower Canada), as well as the favor of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Accordingly, when ill health forced Thomas Chandler, another prominent candidate, to withdraw his name, the Anglican hierarchy bypassed Peters and chose Inglis. 125 These events proved quite disillusioning to Peters, who had written rather optimistically to Nathaniel Mann in August, 1785, that he might be in Nova Scotia the following spring, since he had many "strong friends" in England. Peters also counted on his strong friends in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick region, including a distant cousin, Joseph Peters, postmaster in Halifax, and several exiled New England missionaries. In early 1786, he even made an unsuccessful attempt to enlist these clerics in sending the Archbishop of Canterbury a petition supporting his candidacy. But as one missionary, Jacob Bailey, pointed out (November 7, 1786), "We are so widely dispersed, it is very difficult to make a joint application." In the final analysis, patronage in England mattered most, and on August 9, 1787, Charles Inglis was consecrated bishop of Nova Scotia. 126 Peters, numerous times, expressed animosity toward Inglis, both before and after his consecration. Besides critical remarks made to his American correspondents, the amitious, and later frustrated, candidate made his most abusive accusations in a London pamphlet of 1784 entitled: Reply to Remarks on a Late Pamphlet Entitled a Vindication ofGovernor Parr and his Council... Using the pseudonym, "J. Viator," Peters denounced his rival as a dishonorable and incompetent priest, an unscrupulous land speculator, and an insincere Loyalist. In spite ofthe fact that the pamphlet evoked a sharp response from Inglis, Peters confidently wrote Nathaniel Mann on August 17, 1785, "Dr. Inglis will most likely after a tremendous whipping here by John Viator, retire among the wild Irish from whence he came."127 Later, shortly following Inglis' consecration, the disappointed priest wrote to his nephew referring to Inglis as "an Irish Taylor" and "a crane." Simultaneously, he wrote Bishop Samuel Parker calling Inglis an "ignorant Man," adding that if the Nova Scotia clergy "have any Brains left they will tell him to depart from our coast." For some time Peters continued to write his friends in Nova Scotia urging disobedience, but he eventually turned his attention to seeking another religious appointment in America.12s The new position he sought was the bishopric ofQuebec. Peters began soliciting support for this appointment sometime in late 1790, when it became evident that the government was considering the establishment of this new Episcopate. The position had added appeal to Peters, since it would bring him near his daughter's family. Besides his clerical supporters in Canada, Peters now could also use his son-in-law's influential position as Lieutenant Governor Simcoe's secretary. Principally, though, Peters had to rely on the favor of England's political and religious officials. From the end of 1790 through the summer of 1793, Peters made a determined effort to obtain the Canadian mitre. In early 1791, a friend informed him of a 42 Boston newspaper report that "The Reverend Dr. Peters, formerly of Hebron in Connecticut, is expected shortly to take charge of the Province of Quebec as Bishop." By the end of that summer, however, the Reverend Doctor had not received the appointment, and he was writing to Colonel Simcoe laying the blame primarily on Lord Dorchester.I29 Nevertheless, Peters did not abandon his struggle for the appointment, despite his complaints of the "Treachery of Ministers & Bishops & Commissioners." Peters continued to seek the backing of influential noblemen, such as the Marquis of Buckingham and Lord Rockingham. He promised Buckingham that if he were made Bishop of Quebec, "many would emigrate for America," and that he could be relied upon to promote "religion, morality, and loyalty to his majesty."IJO In several instances, he even included lengthy proposals for the political, economic, and religious development of the British Canadian possessions. The English noblemen ignored Peters' blandishments, and, once again the mitre was awarded to someone else. On Aprill5, 1793, Peters wrote to Buckingham that he had read in that day's Public Advertiser that the Reverend Jacob Mountain, chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln, had been appointed Bishop of Canada. He inquired about the truth of this report, adding "I cannot but feel pain for the disappointment ofGovernor Simcoe and a large number of settlers in Upper & Lower Canada, as well as for myself & children." After further queries from the parson, Buckingham answered evasively on May 16, 1793 , that he had been busy with other business, but promised to "talk the matter over" with other officials. Peters answered immediately, stating rather defensively that he was only writing the Marquis because of Simcoe's encouragement and concern that the appointment of someone "less qualified" would hinder Canadian development.I JI Buckingham failed to answer this letter, but Peters wrote him again on June 10, 1793 , citing a notice in the Public Advertiser that "Mr. Mountain is come to town for instructions when to take his departure, & orders have been given for preparing a frigate to carry over him & his suite to Canada." Peters pointedly asked Buckingham why this news "was kept secret" from him and, ifit was true, he concluded that "the Marquis has been lukewarm in his patronage of the wishes of Govr Simcoe." In a curt reply on June 17, Buckingham finally crushed Peters' hopes: "I have talked to Mr. [William] Pitt & told him of Governor Simcoe's strong recommendations, but I was sorry to find that this arrangement is not likely to take place , & that another gentleman is to be immediately nominated to that situation."132 Even after this confirmation of Jacob Mountain's appointment was received, Peters made a final effort to salvage a Canadian mitre for himself. On June 20 , 1793 , he wrote to Buckingham predicting that Bishop Mountain would not be happy in Upper Canada. Consequently, Peters suggested that Mountain should serve as bishop solely for Lower Canada, and Peters would volunteer to serve as bishop of Upper Canada merely for the continuation of his annual £120 pension. Nine days later he repeated 43 the offer, declaring that his appointment would not only satisfy Governor Simcoe but also "loyal friends in the United States" who were considering a move to Canada. Once more, Buckingham dashed his hopes by writing Peters on July 2, 1793, that he was unable to assist him, since "it is not the intention of the government to establish another Bishopric in Canada." 133 Peters' last and probably most exasperating attempt to obtain a North American bishopric began the next year. This time the available Episcopate was in Vermont, a state which had only recently entered the Union. All the same, by 1794, the aspiring priest was so disaffected with the unfulfilled promises of church and governmental officials in England that he was quite willing to overlook his earlier antipathy and condescension toward the United States. An invitation to Peters to lead a new Episcopate was proferred on February 27, 1794, by a special church convention meeting in Manchester. It had been called following the refusal of an invitation to the Reverend Edward Bass of Newburyport, Massachusetts, to become Vermont's bishop. Bass' rejection had necessitated the Manchester convention where Episcopal clergy and laymen sought to nominate another prominent candidate. During these deliberations, the most influential participant was Colonel John Graham, a prosperous lawyer and landowner, who had migrated to the state in 1783. Graham, a friend and distant relative of Samuel Peters, was joined at the winter convention by the parson's son-in law, Colonel William Jarvis, who had journeyed from Upper Canada. 134 Apparently by joint agreement, Graham nominated Peters, and , despite some opposition , secured a majority vote for the appointment. A letter was thereupon prepared , informing Peters of his election , requesting that he be duly consecrated in England or America, "according to the apostolic system," and , leaving the details ofconsecration to their nominee, they also sent a separate letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury requesting Peters' consecration .us News of the convention's selection reached England in the spring of 1794. Shortly afterward , on June 16, an elated Samuel Peters wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury informing him of his appointment as bishop of "Verdmont." The appointee also informed the prelate that he was awaiting receipt of the official documents and that, upon their arrival, he would "solicit your Grace's confirmation & consecration of me." He expected such actions to be taken shortly, so that he might assume the post by the following Christmas. Nine days later, he wrote the Archbishop that the credentials had still not arrived , but he enclosed the duplicate of a letter to him from the Episcopal Convention which confirmed his appointment.136 Peters, however, was mistaken in his apparent expectations that any delays in his consecration would be brief and technical. The parson had accumulated several influential opponents in England , particularly during his earlier quests for a bishopric. His intemperate actions and petty intrigues had caused considerable misgivings among both prelates and politicians, and the signs of this antipathy were obvious when John Moore , 44 the Archbishop of Canterbury, informed Peters on June 29, 1794, that regardless of the convention's appointment , the Act of Parliament of 1786 enabling English bishops to consecrate American bishops had long since been effected. Since bishops had been consecrated already for three American states, the Archbishop concluded , "We no longer consider ourselves as liable to be called upon, or indeed as authorized to confer consecration in such cases."IJ7 Moore's negative reply opened another frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful struggle. Peters replied to the Archbishop immediately. He pointed out that Vermont's convention had wished him consecrated in England and that it would be difficult to assemble the American bishops for his consecration there. Besides this, he denied that the Parliamentary Act of 1786 had set a numerical limit on the appointment of bishops for the United States. The Archbishop's prompt answer on July I again was quite negative: "In my opinion there is no probability of your receiving consecration in England."IJs Undaunted by this reply, Samuel Peters vainly sought to circumvent the adverse attitude of the Anglican hierarchy. He wrote to several noblemen, including the Duke of Portland, requesting their intervention on his behalf. Although the Duke, who was then Home Secretary, agreed with Peters that Parliament's Act of 1786 was not restrictive, he apparently used little of his influence on Peters' behalf. Besides the nobility, the rejected cleric unsuccessfully sought assistance from William Morice, Secretary of the S.P.G., and Bishop John Skinner of Aberdeen, Scotland, who had helped consecrate Samuel Seabury. 139 Both these Churchmen refused to become involved, so Peters turned to Thomas Pinckney, the American Ambassador. Pinckney did not comply with the parson's request for a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury urging Peters' consecration in England, though he did send his petitioner a letter certifying that the American government would not interfere with the appointment of any religious official. (The ambassador might have been less generous if he had known that Peters was formulating a proposal to an English noble whereby the parson, as bishop, would work to make Vermont dependent upon Upper Canada.)I40 By the beginning of 1795, the parson's last hopes for consecration seemed to rest with his supporters in Vermont. The previous summer he had written to the Reverend Daniel Barber, Secretary of the state's Episcopal Convention, stating that his delay in obtaining consecration was due to the lack of official certification documents . On October 15, 1794, another convention sought to overcome this obstacle, by dispatching newly-certified documents to Peters verifying his appointment. 141 One month later, Barber informed Peters that Colonel Graham had left Vermont for London to help the supplicant press his case for consecration. Barber also asked Peters to assist Graham in raising the question offormer S.P.G. lands claimed by the state with the American diplomat, John Jay, who was then conducting treaty negotiations in England. Colonel 45 Graham's arrival was delayed until January, 1795, but the previous month Peters received copies of the documents attesting to his appointment. These papers were quickly sent to the Archbishop on December 10 with a request for an immediate consecration.I42 Archbishop Moore ignored Peters' new request, but Colonel Graham's arrival in London forced a final confrontation on the issue. After two letters from Graham, the Archbishop finally agreed to an appointment on February 26, 1795, at Lambeth Palace. There the Colonel presented Peters' cause for consecration in England, including the difficulties in obtaining consecration from American bishops and the allegedly non restrictive appointment powers in the 1786 Act of Parliament. The Archbishop contested each of the points cited by Graham, specifically denying a right to any further intervention with the American hierarchy: "If I should consecrate a fourth bishop for the States of America, I should invade the rights and offend the college of bishops of America." Graham, apparently suspicious of this vehement opposition, asked the prelate if he had anything against Peters' character. Although the Archbishop quickly responded, "No, by no means. His character is exceptional," Graham left the audience aware of the hierarchy's animosity toward the aspirant priest.I43 Colonel Graham nevertheless persisted in his campaign to return to Vermont with his friend as a newly consecrated bishop, and he wrote several letters to English prelates and even petitioned King George III urging Peters' consecration. Shortly before his embarkation for home in July, 1795, he succeeded in obtaining a second audience with Archbishop Moore, but he found the prelate even more vehement in his opposition to Peters' consecration.I44 Graham's departure did not cause the parson to abandon his increasingly hopeless cause. He appealed once again to the Marquis of Buckingham, not only repeating his justification for obtaining consecration in England, but also offering his support for a canal from Montreal to St. John's "which would bind Vermont to England." Buckingham replied evasively that Peters should discuss the matter with the Secretary of State for the Home Department or simply let it rest with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Peters, however, refused to be put off by the unsympathetic Marquis. On March 2, 1795, he petitioned King George for assistance, and when the monarch failed to respond, he made an unsuccessful appeal to the Archbishop of York.I45 By the end of 1795, none of these many efforts had yielded any success. Besides Colonel Graham's departure and the continued opposition or indifference in England, Peters was also apprised of a considerable lack of support for him in the United States. In January, 1795, a friend wrote from America that Bishop Samuel Proovost and his assistant, the Reverend Samuel Beach (Peters' Yale classmate and a fellow missionary), were vigorously opposed to the appointment. Shortly afterward, the parson received the suggestion from Boston's Bishop, Samuel Parker, that he 46 should remain "in the agreeable society you are now in possession of than the trouble penury, & Vexations that will probably be annexed to that office." Parker later wrote a similarly pessimistic letter in which he defended the English bishops' refusal to create any more American bishops, but at the same time he denied that their actions formed "a particular Design" against Peters. 146 By this time, however, Peters was well aware of the concerted opposition to his appointment. The Vermont Convention also realized this impasse, yet instead of abandoning the parson, they reaffirmed him as their choice on November 14, 1795, and, expressing the hope that the "jealousy against him" would subside, they resolved to seek his consecration from American bishops. 147 Samuel Peters, still clinging to this thread of support from Vermont, continued to send advice to that state's Episcopal clergy. However, by the beginning of 1796, it became evident that even within Vermont this luckless seeker of a bishopric was losing support. On January 20, 1796, an Anglican priest wrote from Shelburne that there was considerable opposition to the appointment in "theNorthern part of the state" because of Peters' Loyalist past. This Churchman also noted that at the special convention in Manchester in 1794, only eleven of tw,pnty-three parishes were represented and only nine of these had voted .148 The following May, a four-man Episcopal committee meeting again in Manchester proved even more discouraging. They noted that Peters' "consecration as our Bishop in the usual mode either in England or America appears unattainable," and they added that "any other mode would produce a schism in the Church in Vermont." They also expressed regretfully to Peters their doubts that they had sufficient funds to support a bishop. In closing, they reiterated to Peters their desire for his consecration, but they added despairingly: "We expect a final failure of our wishes."J49 A few months later, the parson himself was begrudgingly admitting his own failure . He had been previously informed of the financial deficiencies of Vermont's Episcopal clergy, but he had hoped that the Anglicans at least could raise an amount equivalent to his pension in England. In a letter to a Vermont Churchman on February 11, 1796, he had stated, "I have lived 15 years in Connecticut without being a burden to my hearers when I was young and rich, but now I am old and poor I cannot do the like in Vermont."J5o Thus, the subsequent statement of indigence by the Manchester committee must have dashed Peters' lingering hopes for receiving any satisfactory remuneration. Consequently, on July 20 , 1796, he advised a member of the Episcopal committee to reappoint the Reverend Edward Bass on a temporary basis until Peters could be assured of adequate compensation. This letter, in effect, marked the end of this ambitious cleric's struggle for the Vermont bishopric although, briefly thereafter, he participated in a ridiculous attempt to obtain his consecration from French Roman Catholic bishops.'s'

47 Part IV

THE Reverend Samuel Peters remained in England for almost nine years following his humiliating disappointment in losing the Vermont mitre. In 1799, apparently through his son-in-law's influence, he was invited to become the missionary for York (Toronto) in Upper Canada, but the S.P.G. failed to grant him its approval. Again thwarted in his attempt to be near his daughter's family, Peters poured out his bitterness. In March, 1800, he wrote Benjamin Trumbull of his disillusionment with the Church of England, his fears of a general collapse of religion in Great Britain, and the "Pomp and Vanities" of English aristocrats. Four years later, he even described England to one Connecticut woman as "this ruined Island."l52 For its part, the British government showed its own hostilities toward this vexatious priest. The manifestation ofthis animosity became evident in 1804 when Peters' pension was withdrawn following a quarrel with Prime Minister William Pitt. The loss of his pension left the parson with little recourse. On May I, 1805, he wrote to a nephew in Hebron that his thirty year exile in England was almost over: As I mean to sail this season for America, the Land of Peace and Plenty, I will ask for no return till my arrival-- Europe Africa & Asia have too many troubles, & the prosperity & happiness depends on the patriotic virtues of Jefferson & Clinton & yet I will Hazard all to go to America, and if reports are true, I shall find Love and piety amongst all denomination;- The Changes which have taken place in your country make me a Stranger to it; I have only too add that I will soon after my arrival call on you, (God permitting.)ISJ Samuel Peters' return was part of an outlandish scheme to achieve both wealth and glory in his remaining years. This capricious endeavor had begun in London about twenty years before the parson's departure. At that time, Peters and a London physician had befriended a dying American explorer, Captain Jonathan Carver. Carver, in gratitude, had bequeathed the clergyman an extensive land grant around present-day Minneapolis, which he claimed had been given to him by two Indian chiefs in 1767. The explorer's only reservation was that Peters must share the grant with some of Carver's heirs who resided in Vermont. 154 Peters initially had done little about the legacy, but by 1805, with his pension stopped and no other visible means of support in England, he decided to exploit the opportunities ofthe grant by going to America. Peters remained in New York City for but a short time following his arrival during the summer of 1805. There he was greeted by his son and daughter, who had travelled from their homes in Upper Canada. The elderly cleric next journeyed with his children as far as Vermont, where the Carver heirs agreed to sell him their shares of the grant based upon future sales of land tracts. Afterwards, he travelled to Washington, accompanied 48 by an attorney for these heirs, and carrying with him a London affidavit dated Aprill9, 1805 , in which Peters swore that he had seen a copy of the original Indian deed among Captain Carver's papers. On March 25, 1806, the parson appeared before a Senate committee, but since he lacked an authentic deed , Congress failed to validate his claim. Eleven days later, he wrote Benjamin Trumbull a letter in which he noted that he was about to return to New York City.m Most of the next eleven years were spent in New York City awaiting confirmation of the land grant. Peters did make a journey through Connecticut in late 1806, and he apparently visited William Samuel Johnson in Stratford. His absence from New York, however, was not long, and by the beginning of the following year, he was again settled in the city. During the ensuing decade, he wrote to family and old friends from several addresses in lower Manhattan. On the prime topic of the Carver grant, the parson wrote often of his imminent departure for this wilderness empire which he named "Petersylvania." 156 This projected utopia of western land contrasts sharply with his continued disillusionment with religion and government in the Old World. In a letter to a nephew on January 26, 1813, Peters asserted that the continuation of the "vile practices of the Crusades carried on by the Popes and Kings and Bishops of Europe drove Christianity out of Asia & Africa and has caused the increase of Infidelity in Europe." Three years later, he wrote his daughter that "the Old World is yet insane and enemies to peace and Tyrants one over the others."157 Most of Peters' letters during this stay in New York were written to his relatives and reflected not only affection for his own children, but also the lifetime pride that he reserved for the family name. He expressed considerable happiness for the honors garnered by those named Peters, while downgrading the setbacks which befell others- particularly his own son. These approbations extended not only to the contemporary members of the Peters family, but also to their ancestors. Thus, he wrote a nephew in 1815, "Why shall we forget our venerable & Scientific Fathers, whose Virtues never fail to varnish our own? God forbid it."l58 It was probably this same familial self-esteem, as well as his continuing resentment at being denied a bishopric, which resulted in Samuel Peters' last published work: A History ofthe Reverend Hugh Peters. At the time of its publication in 1807, the parson wrote to his nephew, JohnS. Peters of Hebron, that the book would not only give an account of their Puritan ancestors, but would also "lay open the correspondence between the churches of Vermont and Dr. S. A. Peters Bishop Elect of that state which may hurt the College of Bishops as they call themselves."l59 Indeed , much of the book drew an analogy between the supposedly maligned character of Hugh Peter and the treatment his reputed descendant, Samuel Peters, received from England's civil and religious establishment. Hugh Peter, the author declared, was the victim of the envy of inferior antagonists, many of whom were English prelates. Moreover, a century after Hugh Peter's execution, the author argued that"the same bad 49 temper of the bishops and clergy of the Church of England rose up in the reign of George the third ." As evidence of this inequity, he stated that some Anglican priests who remained in America during the Revolution "with a muted opposition to independence were rewarded with mitres while others who fought for the king have received no compensation or thanks from those they served ." The book's final pages give a definitely partisan account of the ungrateful manner in which the Episcopal hierarchy denied the deserving Samuel Peters the mitre for Vermont.t6o The book, which Peters erroneously predicted would "make more noise than the History ofConnecticut," also contained a lengthy appendix filled with several rambling and ridiculous pronouncements. Part of this section has an inaccurate genealogical narrative, including his often repeated falsity that the Reverend Thomas Peters had laid the foundation for Yale College. The best example of personal vanity is evident in the author's self-description: He [Samuel Peters] is reputed to have the faculties of his uncle Hugh, the zeal and courage of his great grand parent, William Peters Esq . of 1634. The various colours which sum up the life of Dr. Samuel A. Peters, prove his fortitude , and shew [sic] what man can do and suffer in passing through time to a better world . He has passed the pharos of Messina, and touched not Scylla nor Charybdis.t 6t Sales of this pathetic, self-glorifying volume were minimal, but by 1816 there were more important concerns for Samuel Peters . News of the end of the War of 1812 reached America early in 1815 , and this gave Peters revived hope that the United States government would finally validate his western land claims . On April 25 , 1815 , he wrote optimistically to a nephew: "Next July I intend to retire to Petersylvania, my Land of Promise as Jerusalem was to Abraham." Peters, however, did not leave that July, and the following summer found him still in New York complaining about the delays. Meanwhile, he continued to propagandize the glories of his projected wilderness empire and to sell lots within this still untilled land. Then, in the winter of 1816-17, a congressional committee finally agreed to extinguish any Indian titles to the area if the resident tribes would acknowledge the Carver grant.t 62 Elated by this concession, the eighty-one year-old parson prepared to travel to his promised land . The laborious journey commenced during the early summer of 1817 from York [Toronto] in Upper Canada. Peters was accompanied by a French-Canadian, with his squaw and children, and five Americans, including Willard Keyes, an adventurous Vermonter. The party left York on July 10, travelling first by canoe to Lake Huron, where they purchased a small boat for continuing their trip.t63 Despite the arduous circumstances, the aged parson seemed to have held his own, as Keyes wrote in his diary, "A tough beginning for old Dr. Peters, but his courage holds good." Peters' courage continued to hold good , notwithstanding the mosquitoes, gnats , storms, and even a touch of lumbago as the party moved along the shores of Lake Huron. At last on July 28 , they reached the old trading center at 50 Mackinaw, which offered welcomed rest and resupply.I64 After a brief respite at Mackinaw, the travellers set off for Prairie du Chien on August 2. Recurrent storms delayed their journey somewhat, but on August 13, they arrived at Fort Howard, a small French settlement on the Fox River. Food was plentiful, but bad weather again hindered the journey. Nevertheless, on August 26 the entire party reached the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin River. From there it was a more pleasant four-day trip down the Wisconsin to their destination at Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi.I65 Prarie du Chien proved to be the western limit of Samuel Peters' journey. When the garrison commander refused to give him authorization to travel further, Peters was obliged to remain at the post throughout the next winter. There the aged traveller roomed with one of the settlers and mingled with Indians who visited the post. Later, Peters' nephew, Dr. John S. Peters, wrote that his uncle had told him that some of these Indians had acknowledged the Carver grant. Dr. Peters also related his uncle's claim that the awed Indians had "revered his gray hairs," and "indulged in the priviledge of kissing his hand."166 By the following spring, however, Parson Peters still lacked his documentary confirmation and reluctantly returned to New York. Willard Keyes, whom Peters left at the post to obtain such confirmation, wrote that the old man was "still confident he shall ultimately succeed, having had private intelligence from several sources that are encouraging."I67 Despite this note of optimism, the scheme to obtain a wilderness empire eventually collapsed. The expectations aroused by Keyes, and a letter from an associate in November, 1819, stating that two chiefs were willing to acknowledge the Carver grant, ultimately proved illusory. On July 28, 1821, Colonel Henry Leavenworth wrote to Return Jonathan Meigs, the Postmaster General, that "The Indians do not recognize or acknowledge the grant to be valid . ... The Sioux never owned a foot ofland east of the Mississippi."168 Notwithstanding the resultant government opposition, Peters submitted an affidavit in 1824, signed by two Indian chiefs, supporting the existence of a Carver deed . In responding to subsequent queries, Peters declared that the Indians had given Carver so much land because "they were generous to their friends and benefactors and Carver was their friend and benefactor and made peace between them." The American government remained skeptical, and the next year, Congress finally dismissed the claim.I69 Besides the failure ofhis western land schemes, Samuel Peters endured other setbacks after his return to New York. In 1821 , he again turned to writing and was seeking subscriptions for a projected history of Hebron. Peters completed a manuscript copy of the work in 1822, but a resident of the town wrote him afterwards that "there is not amibtion enough here to induce a subscription for the work or the printing thereof." The parson had also been unsuccessful in an attempt in 1819 to obtain an honorary LL.D. for his son from Yale University, despite an ostentatious letter to President 51 Jeremiah Day.'7o Any of Peters' lingering hopes that his son might provide assistance for his declining years were shattered in 1822 when William died almost penniless in Alabama. Peters had written to two nephews the previous year that his son "had lost his Talents, Science, Reason, & Character by taking too much hot water at Mobile in the State of Alabama near the tropic of cancer." His daughter Hannah visited her father occasionally from Canada, but after the death of her husband in August 1817, she was able to offer little financial assistance. Peters did make several attempts to collect on long-standing debts allegedly owed him by individuals and the state of Connecticut, but these efforts also proved futile , and ultimately he was forced to live largely on charity.'71 The correspondence during the last years of Peters' life was written from various addresses in New York City and New Jersey, and it reflects . the bitterness, frustration, and increasing senility of the old man . He continually sermonized on the prevalent evils and hypocrisies in the world, particularly those found in religion. In one instance, he wrote to his nephew, Dr. John Peters, in July 1823: "Religion now is not Piety as it was formerly thought to be, but is turned into Opinion & Faith unknown & strangers to good deeds, Honesty & Morality."l72 He expressed similar cynicism toward the secular world . In a letter to a niece and nephew, he gave an amusingly sarcastic portrayal of New York City and its inhabitants: ---Many Buildings, Churches, Courts, Banks, Laws, Lawyers, Bankrupts, Methodists, Prisoners, Grocers, Constables, Doctors, Surgeons, Preachers, Knaves, Hypocrites, Sailors, & Taylors [sic], Thieves, Poor Beggars, Justices ofPeace, Sects, Sabbitarians, Jews, Christians, Puritans, Rogues, Religionists, with Religion, without Reason in it, Drunkards, Idlers, Pickpockets, many Dealers, old Deals, and worst of them all are deemed Wine Bibbers, & Rum Swimmers--& Rulers without Rule---'73 Samuel Peters' last letters also displayed his long-standing interest in Connecticut's ecclesiastical and educational affairs as well as his pretentious family pride. He expressed considerable satisfaction at the "growth and prospects" of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Hebron. Similarly, he rejoiced in the Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut preaching the annual election sermon to the state's General Assembly and the chartering of Washington (Trinity) College in Hartford. He even appeared to forget the many rebuffs of his alma mater, referring to Yale as the "best University in America."'74 Yet, his major praises were still reserved for the achievements of the Peters family . He recorded the praises of relatives such as General Absalom Peters, Judge Thomas Peters, and Dr. JohnS. Peters, whom he called "Honourable Men by their Temperance, Morality, Wisdom, Piety and Benevolence." Peters also continued his erroneous assertions concerning his native state's history, though after one visit to Connecticut in 1825 , he conceded that "The People are much improved in their Manners & Buildings since 1774."1 75 The passing years also brought more infirmities to the aging cleric. In 52 March, 1820, Peters wrote of a recurrence of his lumbago and a cramp which had bedridden him for several weeks, "like a Pelican, alone in the wilderness." His daughter-in-law and her two daughters moved near him after his son's death, but his physical deterioration continued unabated . On July 18, 1823, he told a nephew, "My teeth are gone and I cannot taste what I eat or drink except Salt, Sugar, Vinegar, and Pepper; I live on Bread soaked in warm water, and I cannot eat fresh meat." He added that cramps and Rheumatic pains had made it impossible to dress or undress himself. 176 Nonetheless, he was still able to write, and during the autumn, he dispatched two last letters to his niece, Mrs. Mary Peters in Hebron. In a shaking hand , he thanked his niece for her hospitality during a recent visit to Hebron, made a few comments about family members and friends , and expressed regrets that he would be unable to attend the consecration of Hebron's new Episcopal church. He concluded that his many infirmities were augmented by distressing memories of so many departed friends , but then added philosophically, "My griefis abated knowing, I must soon go to them." 177 During the latter part of 1825, Samuel Peters received a visit from his nephew, Dr. JohnS. Peters, the husband of Mary Peters. Dr. Peters, a state senator and later governor of Connecticut, repeatedly entreated his ninety one-year-old uncle to return home with him . Though the aged parson had recently declared, "I love the Hebronites better than all other Peoples," he still retained his old stubborn streak and rejected all the doctor's offers, insisting, "I wont go- I'll perish first." On April 19, 1826, the Reverend Samuel Andrew Peters carried out his promise. t 78

53 Footnotes

I. "Remarks of the Reverend Samuel Hart," Hebron Connecticut Bicentennial August 23 to August25, 1908: An Account ofthe Celebration ofthe Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town, 1708-1908, (Hebron, Conn., 1910), 33-36. 2. John Troutbeck to Samuel Peters, April20, 1778, The Papers of the Reverend Samuel Peters, 1773-1822. The New-York Historical Society, I, 31. (Hereafter referred to as Peters Papers NYHS); Franklin B. Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary ofEzra Stiles(NewYork, 1901), I, 467; John Trumbull, M' Fingal, A Modern Epic Poem (Philadelphia, 1775), 19. 3. Samuel J. McCormick, Introduction to the 1877 edition of Samuel Peters' Hislory of Connecticut; James H. Trumbull, The True Blue Laws of Connec1icu1 and the False Blue Laws Forged by Peters (Hartford, 1876), 31; Horace Bushnell, "Historical Estimate of Connecticut," The Churchman, XXXIV (August, 1876), p. 209. 4. Twentieth century scholars who have made such disparate assessments of the Reverend Samuel Peters include the following: Maude O'Neil, Kenneth Cameron, Wayne Metz, Mary-Beth Norton, Samuel Middlebrook, Edmund S. Morgan, and Clifford K. Shipton. 5. Samuel J. McCormick, ed., The Rev. Samuel Peters' LLD General History of ConnecJicut From Its First Seulement Under George Fenwick, Esq. to I he Latest Period of Amity with Great Britain Prior to the Revolution; ... By a Gentleman of the Province, London: 1781 (New York, 1877), 6, 140-141; Samuel Peters, A History of the Rev. Hugh Peters A.M... . (New York, 1807), 91-94; Edmund F. Peters and Eleanor B. Peters, Peters of New England: A Genealogy and Family Hislory (New York, 1903), 153-155. (Peters' nephew, Dr. JohnS. Peters, cited his uncle's date of birth as November 20, 1735. However, the Hebron Town Records, I, 21, cite the date as December I, 1735. The latter source may be more reliable.) 6. Charles Mampoteng, "The Reverend Samuel Peters M.A., Missionary At Hebron, Connecticut, 1760-1774," Historical Magazine ofI he Protestant Episcopal Church, V (June, 1936), 76-77; E.F. and E.B. Peters, Peters of New England, l, 37, 153-155. 7. Rowland Rickets , Jr., "Hebron Connecticut: The Emergence ofa Connecticut Town" (unpublished M.A. Thesis, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1972), 1-24, 84-85; Maud O'Neil, "Samuel Andrew Peters, Connecticut Loyalist: A Study Relating to the SPG Missionary in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War Period" (unpublished Ph.D. diss ., UCLA, 1947), 3-24. 8. Louis L. Tucker, Puritan ProtagonisJ: Presiden1 Thomas Clap of Yale College (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962), 72-75; Charles J. Hoadly, ed., The Public Recordsofthe Colony of ConnecJicut (Hartford, 1850-1 890), IX, 113-119; Franklin B. Dexter, ed., Extractsfrom Jhe Itin eraries and Other Misscellanies of Ezra Stiles. 1755-1794 (New Haven, 1916), 491-492. 9. Thomas Clap, The Annals or History of Yale College in New Haven in the Colony of Connecticut (New Haven, 1766), 54-55; Tucker, Thomas Clap, 70-76, 89-93, 175-200 . 10. Peters to Abraham Beach, January 7, 1788, III, 63, Peters Papers, NYHS; Yale College Book of Faculty Judgements 1751-1758; Manuscript Room, Yale University Library. II. Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Gradua/es of Yale College with Annals of the College History (New York, 1896), II, 445-446; Undated Ms. Declamation of Samuel Andrew Peters, Beinecke Library, Yale University. 12. E.B. & E. F. Peters, Pe1ers of New England, 153-155 ; O'Neil, 81-83. 13. Mampoteng, 74-77; O'Neil, 83-87. 14. Mampoteng, 77; O'Neil, 87-101. 15. Mampoteng, 77-78; O'Neil, 102-105. 16. Mampoteng, 78; O'Neil, 105-107. 17. William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York, 1859), V, 194. 18 . Francis L. Hawks and WilliamS. Perry, eds., Documentary History ofthe Protestant Episcopal Church in 1he United Stales of America, Containing Numerous Hitherto Unpublished Documents Concerning the Church in Connecticut (New York, 1864), II, 20-21; E. B. & E. F. Peters, Peters of New England, 257; Mampoteng, 78. 54 19. Hawks & Perry, II , 21, 42. 20. Herbert and Carol Schneider, eds. , Samuel Johnson: His Career and Writings (New York, 1929), IV, 248; Mampoteng, 79; O'Neil, 124-125; E. F. & E. B. Peters, Peters of New England, 257 . 21. Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953), 144-150; Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776 (New York, 1968), 112-113, 138-139. 22. Hawks & Perry, II, 105-106; Mampoteng, 79-80 . 23 . Bruce E. Steiner, "Anglican Officeholding in Pre-Revolutionary Connecticut: The Parameters of New England Community," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXXI (1974), 396-406. 24. Hawks & Perry, II, 107-108, 117, 118; O'Neil, 125-27. 25. Reasons Why Mr. Byles Left New-London , and Returned into the Bosom of the Church of England.. .(New London , 1768), 1-12; Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of those Who Attended Harvard College (Boston, 1965), XIII , 12-14. 26. Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre: Transatlantic Faiths, Ideas, Personalities and Politics, /689-1775 (New York, 1962), 1-354; Eben E. Beardsley, The History ofthe Episcopal Church in Connecticut: From the Settlement ofthe Colony to the Death of Bishop Seabury (Boston, 1883) , I, 234-35, 266-68; Hawks & Perry, II , 107-10&, 125-126, 176-177 ; Mampoteng, 79, 81. (See also Peters' statement in the Connecticut Courant, Hartford , May 26, 1769.) 27. E. F. & E.B. Peters, Peters ofNew England, 257-258; Mampoteng, 80-81; O'Neil, 126, 133. 28. Beardsley, op cit., I, 273 ; Mampoteng, 81. (In her unpublished thesis , O'Neil erroneously cited the date of the Litchfield Episcopal convention as 1769 .) 29. Samuel Middlebrook, "Samuel Peters: A Yankee Munchausen," The New England Quarterly, XX (March, 1947), 77-78; Hawks & Perry, II , 162-163; Mampoteng, 81; Samuel Peters, History ofthe Rev. Hugh Peters , 94-99 . (In this work , Peters mistakenly claimed his journey was made in 1768). 30. Hawks & Perry, II , 162-163; Mampoteng, 81. 31. Hawks & Perry, II , 163-164. 32. E.F. & E.B. Peters, Peters of New England, 257-258; Mampoteng, 81. 33. Samuel Peters Memorial to the Loyalist Claims Commissioners, Feb. 8, 1784 (P.R.O ., A. 0. 13142 Library of Congress); Mampoteng, 82-83; An earlier memorial dated Dec. 6, 1783, can be found in Peters' Papers, NYHS I, 96. 34. Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (New York, 1972), 281-282 ; Shipton, Harvard Graduates, VIII, 280-282; Peters, History of Connecticut, 262. 35 . Samuel Peters, "History of Jonathan Trumbull," The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military and Literary Journal (London) II , (January, 1781); Samuel Peters' "Mobbing History," Peters Papers, NYHS, I, 3. 36. ~statement of the Bolton Connecticut Committee of Correspondence, August 18, 1774," Peter Force, ed., American Archives (Washington, D.C., 1837-1846), 4th ser., I, 7 I 2 713; Peters, "History of Jonathan Trumbull"; Peters, "Mobbing History," I, 3. 37. Peters, History of Connecticut, 264; "History of Jonathan Trumbull;" "Mobbing History." 38. The Connecticut Gazette and the Universallntel/igencer(New London) , Sept. 2, 1774; Force, ed., American Archives, 4th ser., I, 712-713. 39 . Peters, "Mobbing History"; Conn. Gazette, Sept. 2, 1774. 40. Peters, "Mobbing History," Mampoteng, 84. 41. Peters, History ofConnecticut, 264-265 ; "History of Jonathan Trumbull"; "Mobbing History." 42. Peters, History of Connecticut, 265; "History of Jonathan Trumbull"; "Mobbing History." (Peters' brother Jonathan did not die from his wounds shortly thereafter as claimed by the parson. See E. F. & E.B . Peters, Peters of New England, 162.) 43 . Peters, "History of Jonathan Trumbull"; "Mobbing History ." 55 44. Samuel Peters to the Commi ssioners of the Lords of the Treasury, Nov . 24 , 1782, Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 72; Connecticut Gazette, Sept . 16, 1774. 45. "Deposition of Hez . Huntington , John Ripley, Vine Elderkin, Ebenezer Gray , Windham , Dec. 6, 1774,ft Force , American Archives, 4th ser. I, 718 . 46. Peters, "History of Jonathan Trumbull"; "Mobbing History." 47. Jonathan Trumbull to Thaddeus Burr, Oct. 24, 1774. W. G. Lane Mss ., Manuscript Rm ., Yale University Library ; Boston Evening Post, Nov. 7, 1774; Conne cticut Gazette, Nov. 11, 1774. 48. Shipton , Harvard Graduates , VIII, 281; Peters, History of Conne cticut , 267-268; "History of Jonathan Trumbull ." 49. Samuel Peters, "Genuine History of Gen . Arnold , by an old Acquaintance . . . ," Political Magazine, I, (Dec ., 1780), 746-747; Peters, History of Connecticut , 268-269 ; Peters, "Mobbing History ." 50. Peters, Hist o ry of Conne cticut , 269 ; Mampoteng, 86. 51. Memorial to the Loyalist Commissioners, Dec. 6, 1783; Peters Papers, I, 96; Mampoteng, 87 . 52. Mampoteng, 87; O'Neil , 207-210. 53 . Thaddeus Burr to Governour Trumbull , Oct. 13, 1774, Force, ed. , American Archives, 4th ser., I, 714-715 ; Trumbull to Burr, Oct. 24, 1774, fo e. cit.; Bos ton Evening Post , Oct. 24, Nov . 7, 1774. 54. Connecticut Journal and the Post Boy (New Haven) , Oct. 21, 28 , 1774; Connecticut Courant, Oct. 24, Nov . 7, 1774; Connecticut Gazette, Nov . II , 1774; (the original manuscript copy of William Williams' Jetter dated Oct. 26, 1774, is in his papers at the Yale University Library) . 55 . Norwich Packet , Oct. 13 , 1774; Conne cticut Journal , Oct. 21 , 1774; Connecticut Courant, Oct. 17, 1774; American Archives , 4th ser., I, 715-716 ; Mampoteng, 88 . 56. Ibid. 57 . Samuel Auchmuty to Samuel Peters, Oct. 27, 1774, Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 5; Mampoteng, 88. 58. John Wentworth toT. W. Waldron , Oct. 25, 1774 "Belknap Papers," Massachusetts Historical Society Colle ctions , 6th ser. , IV (1891), 56-57; Mampoteng 89-90 ; Peters, History of Connecticut, 270. 59 . Peters, History of Connecticut , 270-272 ; "Mobbing History ," Mampoteng, 90. 60. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Mss. London Journals , XX , pt . 2, 1773-1776, 355-356, Library of Congress; Mary-Beth Norton , The British Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789 (Boston, 1972}, 61 ; Mampoteng, 90. 61. Franklin B. Dexter, ed ., Th e Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles . .. (New York , 1901), I, 467 ; Connecticut Gazette, May 4, 1775 . 62. Isaac W. Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull, sen ., Go vernor of Co nnecticut (Boston, 1859), 157-159; Thomas Life to Governour Jonathan Trumbull, April 5, 1775 , American Archives, 4th ser., II, 278. 63. Peters to John and Margaret Mann, July 20, 1783, Peters-Mann Correspondence, Photostat Connecticut State Library, Hartford (CSL} ; Mary Peters to Samuel Peters, Oct. II, 1774, Peters Papers, NYHS, I, 2; E. F . & E. B. Peters, PetersofNewEngland, 259-262 ; O'Neil, op cit., 298-299 ; Peters, Hist ory of Connecticut , 273 . 64. Andrew Oliver, ed ., The Journal of Samuel Curwen, Loy alist (Cambridge, Mass ., 1972), I, 90, 97 , I 13; Peters Papers, NYHS, I, 21 , 29-33 ; Norton, op. cit., 63 . (In Peters' letter of July 20 , 1783 , to John & Margaret Mann, op . cit., he claimed to have travelled as far as Hungary.) 65. Oliver, ed. , op . cit ., I, 124, 175 , 654, 668-694 ; Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 21. 66. SPG London Journals , op . cit. , Jan. 19, 1775 , XX , pt. 2, 292; Norton , op. cit ., 50-52, 104-105 , 283, n. 29 . 67. Peters to John Tyler, Aug . 4, 1783, Peters-Tyler Correspondence, CSL; Oliver, op. cit. , II , 668; Norton, op. cit., 54-55, 118-119 . 68. Peters to John Troutbeck , Apr. 14, 1775, Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 13; Peters to Charles Inglis , Mar. 20, 1778 ; Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 30; Oliver, op. cit., II, 822 . 56 69. Thomas Browne to Samuel Peters, Nov. 24, 1781 , Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 57; Peters to Jonathan Peters, July 20, 1783, Peters-Mann Papers, CSL. 70. Peters, "Genuine History of Gen . Arnold ," Po litical Magaz ine, I (Nov.-Dec., 1780), 690 , 746-748 . 71. Peters, "History of Jonathan Trumbull ," Po litical Ma gazine, II (Jan. , 1781) , 6-10. 72. Ibid. 73. Peters, "Description of New London ," "Description of Groton and Norwich ," "Description of the Connecticut River," Political Maga zin e, II (Nov. , 1781), 648 , 658; "Simsbury Mines," Political Magazin e, II (Oct. , 1781), 591 -597. 74. Norton , Chap. 5, "The Seeds of Sedition." 75. Peters, Histo ry of Connecticut , 212. 76. Ibid. , 3-6 . 77. Ibid. , 13-28. 78. Ibid., 29-34 , 45-47 , 49-50 , 156. 79. Charles M. Andrews, Th e Co lonial Period of American Histo ry (New Ha ven , 1936), II, 69-70, 75-76 , 120, 225 ; Oliver P . Chitwood , A History of Co lonial America (New York , 1961), 125 ; Charles Hammond , "Peters' History of Connecticut," Connecticut Valley Hist orical S ociety , Pap ers and Proceedings 1876-1881 (1881) , 96-97. In 1633, Edward Winslow of Plymouth Colony established a temporary trading post at Windsor, Co nnecticut , but Oldham's group was the first to plant a crop in the colony . Andrews , op . cit ., 68-70 ; Fed eral Writers Project , Conne cticut: A Guide to Its Roads, Lore, and People (Boston, 1937), 25 . 80. EdmundS. Morgan, Visible Saint s: The Hist o ry ofa Puritan Idea (New York , 1963), 106-108 ; Edwin Oviatt, Th e Beginnings of Yale , 1701-1 726 ( New Haven, 1916), 344-353 ; Richard Warch, S chool ofthe Prophets: Yale College, 1701-1740 (New Haven , 1973), 62-63 ; Andrews, 80-87 , 91-92; Hammond, 96-97 . 81. Peters, History of Conne cticut , 35 , 52-55 , 108-110 , 119-120 . 82. Ibid., 42-44 , 57 , 154. 83 . Ibid., 57-61 , 153-154; see also Charles C. Smith, "The ' Blue Law' Forgeries of Peters ," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Oct., 1877 (1878) , 301-308 ; Walter F. Prince, "An Examination of Peters' Blue Laws ," Annual Report of the American Histori cal Association for the Year 1898 (Washington, 1899), 97-136 . 84. Peters, History of Connecticut , 90, 99, 137; Samuel E. Morison , Builders ofthe Bay Colony (Boston, 1964), 364-366. The Connecticut Charter was actually taken from Andros in Jeremy Adams' tavern in Hartford . See W. Storrs Lee, The Yank ees of Co nn ecticut (New York , 1957) , 35. 85. Peters, Histo ry of Connecticut , 99-103, 169, 213. 86 . Ibid., 229-245. 87. Ibid., 221 , 258-265 . 88. Ibid. , 120-123 , 135-136 , 142, 148. 89. Ibid. , 114-118 ; 194-195; Hammond , op. cit ., 98-99 . 90. Ibid. , 129-131 , 180-189 . 91. Ibid. , 121-123 , 135 , 221. 92. Ibid., 223. 93. Ibid., 225-228. 94. Dexter, ed ., Yale Graduates, II , 485; Mather Byles to Samuel Peters, Oct. 22 , 1782, Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 69; for advertisements of Peters' book see Connecticut Journal , Jul. 16, 23 , 30 , 1783 ; Sept. 22 , Oct. 20, 1784 . 95 . Christopher D. Ebeling to Jeremy Belknap , Sept. 20 , 1794, "Belknap Papers ," Massachusetts Historical Society Collectio ns, 6th ser., IV (1891) , 582; Bela Hubbard to Samuel Peters, Oct. 30, 1790 , Peters Papers, NYHS IV, 98; Dexter, Yale Graduates , 11,485 . 96. The Monthly Review or Literary Journai(London), LXVI (Jan .-June 1782), 252-258; James L. Kingsley , The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, VIII (Apr., 1819), 272-279; James L. Kingsley, A Historical Dis course Delivered by Request Before th e Citi zens ofNew Haven (New Haven , 1838) , 84; James H. Trumbull , The True Blue Laws ofConnecti cut , 1-48; Samuel McCormick, Introduction to the 1877 edition of Peters' History of Connecticut.

57 97. Ebenezer Learning to Samuel Peters, May 6, 1782, "Historical Letters of the Rev. Dr. Learning to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Peters," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church (Sept., 1932), I, 125; Mather Byles to Samuel Peters, Oct. 22 , 1782, Peters Papers, NYHS , I, 69. 98. Samuel Parker to Samuel Peters, Sept. 29 , 1787, Peters Papers, NYHS , III, 45; Peters to Parker, Nov. 15, 1787 , Samuel Parker Papers, Episcopal Diocesan Library of Massachusetts , Boston . 99. Oscar Zeichner, "The Rehabilitation of Loyalists in Connecticut," New England Quarterly, Xl (June, 1938), 308-330; David Sutton to Samuel Peters, Jan. 7, 1784; Sylvester Gilbert to Samuel Peters, Nov. 18 , 1784; John Tyler to Samuel Peters, Dec. 2, 1784, Peters Papers, NYHS, II , I , 9, 19 , 23. 100. Peters to John Tyler, June 9, 1784, Peters-Tyler Correspondence, CSL; Samuel Peters to Nathaniel Mann, August II, 1785, Peters-Mann Correspondence, CSL; Peters to Samuel Huntington Dec. 6, 1784, Peters Papers, NYHS, II, 24. 101. Peters to the Right Honorable Lord Rodney, Feb. 15, 1788; Peters Papers, NYHS, III, 71; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 20 , 1789, Oct. 6, 1789, May 25, 1790. Samuel Peters Papers, The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS). 102. Peters to Dr. Markham, March 7, 1775 ; Peters to the Commissioners of the Lords of the Treasury, Nov. 24 & 27, 1782; Peters to Benedict Arnold , Feb. 3, 1783 , Peters Papers, NYHS, I, II , 72, 74, 76; Norton, 186-187. 103 . Samuel Peters Memorial to the Loyalist Commissioners, Dec. 6, 1783, June I, 1786, June 19, 1786, Peters Papers, NYHS I, 96, II, 77, 82; Samuel Peters to William Samuel Johnson, March 3, 1786, William Samuel Johnson Papers, Connecticut Historical Society; Norton, 185-222. (The Public Record Office in London has a "copy" of this second claim made to the Loyalist Commissioners and dated Feb. 9, 1784.) O'Neil, op. cit., 297-298. 104. David Sutton to Samuel Peters, Aug. 7, 1783; Nov. 18, 1783; Clement Sumner to Samuel Peters, Oct. 18, 1783, Peters Papers, NYHS, I, 79, 88, 93 . (Peters' farmlands had in fact been leased out by the state in May, 1778.) See: Charles J. Hoadly, Public Records ofthe State of Connecticut, II, 20 . 105. Sylvester Gilbert to Samuel Peters, Jan. 7, 1784, Nov. 18, 1784, William Samuel Johnson to Samuel Peters, Oct. 10, 1786, Peters Papers, NYHS, II, I, 19, 109; Peters to Andrew Mann, Aug. I, 1792, Peters-Mann Corres., CSL. 106. Leonard W. Labaree, ed. , Public Records of the State of Connecticut (Hartford, 1945), Vl , 531-532; Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Feb. 14, 1785, Apr. 5, 1786; Peters-Mann Corres. ; O'Neil , 297-298 . 107. Jedediah Buckingham to Samuel Peters, Oct. 15, 1787, Peters Papers, NYHS, II, 50; E. F. & E. B. Peters, Peters of New England, 260-261; (also Memorial from Cesar & Lois to Samuel Peters , Nov. 5, 1789, Peters Papers, NYHS , Nov. 5, 1789, IV , 56.) 108. Buckingham to Peters, foe. cit.; Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Apr. 24 , 1788, Peters Mann Corres., CSL. 109. Public Records ofthe State of Connecticut , VI , 531-532, VII, 28-29; Nathaniel Mann to Samuel Peters, Feb. 12, 1790, Cesar to Samuel Peters, Apr. 24, 1807 , Peters Papers, NYHS , IV , 72, VII, 86. 110. Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Oct. 12, 1784, July22, Aug. 17, Dec. 24, 1785, Apr. 4, 1786, Sept. 4, Oct. 2, 1787, May 14, Nov. 16, 1788, Peters-Mann Corres., CSL. Ill. Sylvester Gilbert to Samuel Peters, Apr. 26, Nov. 25, 1793, Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 96, 114, Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Nov . 12, 1791 , Peters to Andrew Mann, Aug. I, 1792, Nathaniel Mann to Andrew Mann, Aug. II, 1791, Peters-Mann Corres. , CSL. 112. Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 20, 1789, May 25 , 1793, Peters Papers, CHS; Peters to Ebenezer Dibblee, Nov. 16, 1787, Peters Papers, NYHS, IV, 63. 113 . Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 20, 1789, foe. cit.; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, Sept. 1789, Benjamin Trumbull Papers, Yale University Library. 114. Peters to Samuel Parker, June 26, Nov. 15, 1787, Samuel Parker Papers ; Peters to William Samuel Johnson, Feb. 12, 1786, William S. Johnson Papers, CHS; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 20, 1789, Peters Papers, CHS; Peters to Trumbull, Sept. 1789 , Yale 58 Lib.; Samuel Peters to Nathaniel Mann, July 22, 1785, Peters-Mann Corres., CSL. 115. Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 2, 1791 , Trumbull Papers, Yale Lib.; Benjamin Trumbull to Samuel Peters, Dec. 29, 1790, Peters Papers, NYHS, IV, 109; Dexter, ed ., Yale Graduates, II, 444 , 483-484 . 116. Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, Sept. 1789, May 2, 1791, Trumbull Papers, Yale Lib.; Peters to Trumbull, Oct. 6, 1789, CHS; Dexter, Yale Graduates, Il, 487. 117. Peters to Samuel Parker, Feb. 16, 1788, Samuel Parker Papers, Episcopal Diocesan Library of Massachusetts , Boston. 118. Bruce E. Steiner, Samuel Seabury, 1729-1796; A Study in the High Church Tradition (Athens, Ohio, 1971), 223; Peters to Abraham Beach, Jan. 7,1788, Peters Papers, NYHS, lll, 63; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 2, 1792, Benjamin Trumbull Papers; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, May 2, 1791 , May 25, 1793 , Peters Papers, CHS. 119. Peters to Trumbull, May 2, 1791 , March 10, 1800, Peters Papers, CHS. 120. Samuel Peters to Nathaniel and John Mann , Apr. 16, 1787, Peters-Mann Corres .; Peters to William Samuel Johnson, Mar. 3, 1785, Feb. 12, 1786, William Samuel Johnson Papers, CHS; Oliver, ed., The Journal of Samuel Curwen, II, 766. (Peters alleged such friendship with members of the Anglican hierarchy in a letter to Bela Hubbard on June 8, 1789, Peters Papers, NYHS , IV, 20.) 121. E.F. & E.B. Peters, Peters of New England, 257; Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Apr. 5, 1786, Peters-Mann Corres. 122. E. F. & E. B. Peters, 261-263; William Samuel Johnson to Samuel Peters, Sept. 22, 1788, Peters Papers, NYHS, Ill, 107; Mary Serjeant to Samuel Peters, May 18, 1787, Peters Papers, CHS. 123. Judith Fingard , "The Establishment of the First Colonial English Episcopate," The Dalhousie Review, XLVII ( 1967-1968), 481-489; Clement Sumner to Samuel Peters Oct. 18, 1783; Bela Hubbard to Samuel Peters, Nov. 29 , 1785; Peters to the Archbishop ofCanterbury June 16, 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS, I, 88, II, 59, VI, 19; Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Apr. 24, 1788, Peters-Mann Corres. 124. Fingard, 480-483; Peters to Dr. Myles Cooper, Nov. 24, 1783, Peters Papers , NYHS, I, 94. 125. Fingard, 483-487 ; Norton, The British Americans, 239. 126. Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Aug. 17, 1785, Peters-Mann Corres ., CSL; Jacob Bailey to Samuel Peters, Nov. 7, 1786, Peters Papers, NYHS, II, 117; Fingard, 485-487. 127. Reply to Remarks on a Late Pamphlet Entitled A Vindication ofGovernour Parr & His Council ... by J. Viator, esq. (London, 1784), 1-48; Charles Inglis, Dr. Inglis ' Defence of his Character (London, 1784), 1-15; Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Aug. 17, 1785, Peters Papers, NYHS , II, 117. 128. Peters to Nathaniel Mann, Sept. 4, 1787 , Peters-Mann Corres., CSL; Peters to Samuel Parker, Sept. 6, 1787; Fingard, 486-488. 129. William Montague to Samuel Peters, Feb. 26, 1791, Peters to Colonel John Simcoe, Aug. 30, 1791, Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 5, 33. The notice of Peters' alleged appointment can be found in the Columbian Centinel (Boston), Feb . 9, 1791. 130. Peters to the Marquis of Buckingham, Nov. 22, 1791 , Jan. 16, 1793 , Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 44, 87; Peters to Simcoe, foe . cit. 131. Peters to Buckingham , Apr. 15, 1793, May 16, 1793; Buckingham to Peters, May 16, 1793, Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 95, 99, 100. 132. Peters to Buckingham, June 10, 1793, Buckingham to Peters, June 17, 1793. Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 102, 104. 133 . Peters to Buckingham, June 26 , 1793, June 29, 1793, Buckingham to Peters, July 2, 1793, Peters Papers, NYHS, V, 106-108. (Peters subsequently claimed that Mountain's appointment was promoted by William Pitt as a means "to pay for voters." Peters to Parker. July 23 , 1793, Samuel Parker Papers, op. cit.) 134. James Nichols, Daniel Barber, et at. to Samuel Peters, Oct. 14, 1794; The Convention of the Episcopal Church in the State of Vermont to Samuel Peters. Feb. 27. 1794. Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 3, 36-38; Shipton, Harvard Graduates. XI, 354-355; H . W. Howard

59 Knott in DAB, s.v. Graham, John; (Edward Bass was a cousin of Bishop Samuel Seabury, Steiner, Samuel Seabury , 262 .) 135 . Convention of the Vt. Episc. Church to Peters, & to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Feb. 27 , 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 3, 6, 8; O'Neil, 299 . 136. Peters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, June 16, 24, 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 19, 22. (The original set of credentials to the Archbishop was apparently lost on the passage to England . O'Neil, 301.) (Undated replies by Peters to the Vermont clergy following his appointment can be found in Peters Papers, NYHS , VIII , 26-28 .) 137 . Archbishop of Canterbury to Samuel Peters, June 29, 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 24. 138. Peters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, June 30, 1794; Archbishop of Canterbury to Samuel Peters, July I, 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI, 25 , 26. 139. Peters to the Duke of Portland , undated , 1794; Peters to Thomas Pinckney, Sept.l6, 22, 1794; Peters to Sir George Yonge, Oct . 25 , 1794; William Morice to Samuel Peters, Dec. 31 , 1794; Peters to John Skinner, Aug. I, 1794. Peters Papers, NYHS , VIII, 34, VI , 30, 33 , 34, 41 , 68 . Steiner, Samuel Seabury, 215-219 . 140. Peters to Thomas Pinckney, Sept. 16, 22 , 1794; Thomas Pinckney to Samuel Peters, Oct. 17 , 1794, Peters to Sir George Yonge, Oct. 25 , 1794, Peters Papers , NYHS , VI , 33, 34, 40, 41. 141. Peters to Daniel Barber, July 17, 1794; Convention ofthe Vt. Episc. Church to Samuel Peters, Oct. 15, 1794, Peters Papers, NYHS, VI , 28, 37, 38; O'Neil, 28 . 142. The Correspondence ofJohn A . Graham with His Grace of Canterbury When on His Mission as Agent of the Church of Vermont. . .(New York, 1835), 8-14; Daniel Barber to Samuel Peters, Nov. 13, 1794; Samuel Peters to the Archbishop ofCanterbury, Dec. 10, 1794; John Graham to Samuel Peters, Jan. 19, 1795 , Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 45-46, 53 . 143. Correspondence of John Graham, 18-21; Peters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Feb. 6, 1795, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 58. 144. John Graham to the Archbishop ofCenterbury, Apr. 28, May 22 , 1795 ; Graham to the Archbishop of York, June 16, 1795 , Graham to His Majesty George III, Mar. 14, 1795, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 74-78, 81 , 84; Corres. of John Graham , 21-25 . 145. Marquis of Buckingham to Samuel Peters, March 10, 1795 ; Peters to Buckingham, Feb.-Mar. , 1795; Peters to the Archbishop of York, June 10, 1795, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI , 61 , 62, 65 , 66, 71, 82. 146. C. Jouets to Samuel Peters, Jan. 9, 1795; Samuel Parker to Samuel Peters, Dec. 30, 1794, Nov. 25, 1794, Peters Papers , NYHS, VI , 50, 51 , 59, Ill. 147. Convention of the Vermont Episcopal Church at Rutland, Nov. 13, 1795, Peters Papers, NYHS , VI, 107, 108; Corres. of John Graham , 25-28 . 148. Peters to Daniel Barber, June, 1795; Peters to Episc. Churchmen in Vt., Jan. 1796; Peters' proposed Vermont Election Sermon and Proposals for the Future of Vt. , Undated Mss. ; Bethel Chittenden to Samuel Peters, Jan. 20, 1796, Peters Papers, NYHS, VI , 83 ; VII , I , 7; VIII, 53 , 68. 149. Vermont Episcopal Committee Meeting at Manchester to Samuel Peters , May 30, 1796, Peters Papers, NYHS , VII, 19. 150. John C. Ogden to Samuel Peters, Feb. 28 , 1794; Peters to Truman Squire , Feb. II , 1796; Peters Papers, NYHS, VI, 4, VII, 9; O'Neil, 306 . 151. Peters to Citizen Delacroix, Aug. 19, 29 , 1796, Peters Papers , NYHS , 31-32, 35-37; O'Neil, 306 . 152. Ms. Letters of Samuel Peters, July 25, Nov. 2, 1799; SPG Mss., Connecticut Papers, 1635-1804 , page 8, nos. 113-114; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, Mar. 10, 1800, Peters Papers, CHS; Peters to Harriet D. Jarvis, Mar. 31 , 1804, Stokes Mss., Yale Univ. Lib . 153. Peters to Joseph Peters, May I, 1805 , Peters Papers, CHS; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, V, 193; Dexter, ed ., Yale Graduates, II, 484. 154. D . S. Durrie, "Captain Jonathan Carver and Carver's Grant," Wisconsin Historical Society Colle ctions (Madison, 1872), VI , 220-270; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, V, 193; Middlebrook, "Samuel Peters," 84-85; O'Neil, 307-308.

60 155. Indian Grant to Capt. Jonathan Carver, Sworn Statement by Samuel Peters and Peter Broadley, Ltd ., Apr. 19 , 1805 , Ms. in Rare Book Room , New York Public Library; Peters to Benjamin Trumbull, Apr. 4, 1806, Benjamin Trumbull Papers; Middlebrook, 85; O'Neil, 308 309. 156. Peters to William Samuel Johnson , Oct. 10, 1806, William Samuel Johnson Corres., CHS; Samuel A. Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Mar. 30, 1807; Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Apr. 25 , 1815, Peters Corres. , CHS . 157. Peters to JohnS. Peters, Jan. 26, 1813 , Peters Corres . CHS; Samuel Peters to "My beloved children grand and great grandchildren," June 24, 1816, Typescript Copy, Heinecke Library, Yale Univ . 158 . Peters to Capt . Samuel Peters, Dec. 10, 1807, Apr. 25 , 1815; Peters to Dr. JohnS. Peters, Jan. 26, 1813 , Peters Papers, CHS ; Peters to Thomas&Andrew Welles , Mar. 21 , 1821 , Peters-Mann Corres. 159. Peters to JohnS. Peters, Aug . 28 , 1807, Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Mar. 30, 1807, Peters Papers, CHS. 160. Samuel Peters, History of the R e v. Hugh Peters , 36-44, 65-66 , 81-86 , 95-107. 161. Peters, History ofthe Rev. Hugh Peters, 110-111 , 116; Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Dec . 10, 1807, Peters Papers, CHS . 162. Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Apr. 25 , 1815 ; Peters to Dr. Samuel Peters , Oct. 16, 1816, Peters Papers, CHS; Peters to JohnS. Peters, Apr. 24, 1813, Peters Papers, CHS ; John Tyler to Samuel Peters, Sept. 21 , 1813, Feb . 26, 1814, Mar. II, 1815; Peters Papers, NYHS, Yll, 91 , 92, 94 ; Sprague, 193; O'Neil, 309. 163. "The Diary of Willard Keyes ," Wisconsin Magazine of History, III (Mar. , June, 1920), 339-344 ; Middlebrook , 84. 164. "Diary of Willard Keyes ," 344-347. 165. Ibid., 348-360 . 166. Ibid., 360-363 . 167 . Sprague, 193; "Diary of Willard Keyes," 363; Middlebrook , 86-87 . 168 . Durrie, "Capt. Jonathan Carver & Carver's Grant," 263-268 ; O'Neil, 315-317. 169. Durrie, 267-270 ; O'Neil, 317 . 170. Samuel Peters' "History of Hebron ," in The Works of Samuel Peters of Hebron Connecticut, edited by Kenneth W. Cameron (Hartford, 1967), 152-162 (The original manuscript version of this work is held by the Connecticut Historical Society.); Peters to Thomas and Andrew Welles, Mar. 21 , 1821 , Peters-Mann Corres., CSL; Peters to JohnS. Peters, Mar. 29, 1822; Peters Corres., CHS; Peters to Jeremiah Day, Aug . 20 , 1819, Heinecke Lib., Yale Univ .; Silvester Gilbert to Samuel Peters, Oct. 5, 1822, Peters Papers, NYHS , Ill, 97. 171. Peters to Thos. & Andrew Welles, Mar. 21 , 1721 , /oc. cit ,; Peters to JohnS. Peters, July 21, 1821 , Mar. 29, 1822, Feb. 4, 1823, Peters Corres., CHS ; Sylvester Gilbert to Samuel Peters, Oct. 5, 1822, foe. cit. ; Sprague , 193. 172. Peters to JohnS. Peters , Jul. 15 , 1821, Jul. 13, 1823 , Peters Papers, CHS . 173 . Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Mar. 27 , 1820, Peters Papers , CHS . 174. Peters to JohnS. Peters, Jul. 15, 1821, Mar. 29 , 1822; Peters to Capt . Samuel Peters, Jul. 18, 1823, foe. cit. 175 . Peters to Mary Peters, Oct. 15 , 1825, Peters-Mann Corres ., CSL; Peters to JohnS. Peters , Jul. 15, 1821 , Mar. 29 , 1822, Feb . 4, 1823, July 18, 1823 , Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Mar. 27 , 1820, Peters Corres ., CHS. 176. Peters to Capt. Samuel Peters, Mar. 27, 1820; Peters to JohnS. Peters, Jul. 18, 1823; Peters to Mary Peters, Dec. 12, 1825, Peters Corres., CHS . 177 . Peters to Mary Peters, Oct. 15, 1825, Peters-Mann Corres., CSL; Peters to Mary Peters, Dec. 12, 1825, Peters Corres., CHS . 178. Peters to Mary Peters, De' 12, 1825, foe. cit .; Sprague, Y, 193 .

61 Bibliographical Essay

There are many places where manuscript material relating to the life and career of Samuel Peters may be located. The most bountiful source ofdocuments is the Samuel Peters Papers at the Church Historical Society in Austin, Texas . These papers can also be examined on microfilm at the New-York Historical Society in New York City. There are also sizeable and relevant collections of Peters papers at The Connecticut Hi storical Society in Hartford , Connecticut . Other manuscript materials, primarily correspondence, are among the holdings of these repositories in the United States: Yale University Library, The Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston), The American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Mass .), Episcopal Diocesan Library of Massachusetts (Boston), Harvard University Library, and the Library of Congress. In Canada, primary source documents concerning Samuel Peters are located at the Canadian National Archives (Ottawa), the Ontario Historical Society (Toronto) , the New Brunswick Historical Society (St. John), and the Nova Scotia Historical Society (Halifax). Manuscript material in England may be found at repositories in London such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the Lambeth Palace Library, and the Public Record Office . At present, there are no published book-length biographies of Samuel Peters. Two unpublished doctoral dissertations , however, have been written by Maude O'Neil , "Samuel Peters, Connecticut Loyalist. .. " (1947), and Wayne N. Metz, "The Reverend Samuel Peters ( 1735-1826), Connecticut Anglican , Loyalist Priest" ( 1974) . Metz's work is the more accurate and comprehensive of the two dissertations . Several articles or entries in reference works that relate to all , or part, of the career of Parson Peters have been published. The articles include the following: Charles Mampoteng, "The Reverend Samuel Peters M.A. Missionary at Hebron, Connecticut, 1760-1774," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church , V (June, 1936); "The Diary of Willard Keyes," Wisconsin Magazine of History, III (Mar.-June, 1920); Samuel Middlebrook, "Samuel Peters, A Yankee Munchausen," The New England Quarterly, XX (March, 1947); Eduard M . Mark, "The Reverend Samuel Peters and the Patriot Mobs of Connecticut," The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, vol. 40 (July, 1975) ; and Sheldon S. Cohen , "The Correspondence ofSamuel Peters and Benjamin Trumbull," The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, vol. 32 (July, 1967); "Samuel Peters, Connecticut's Eccentric Historian," New England Galaxy (Spring, 1972). Biographical entries of Samuel Peters may be found in Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches ofthe Graduates of Yale College , II (1896); William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit V (1859) ; Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches of the Loyalists of the American Revolution II (1966) ; and The Dictionary of American Biography. The printed writings of Samuel Peters were, of course, highlighted by his History of Connecticut which has gone through four editions since its initial publication in London in 1781. Peters' other writings published in the United States can be examined on microprint cards in Charles Evans' and Clifford K. Shipton's Early American Imprints series . Samuel Peters' "The Windham Frogs" appears in Brigham Payne's The Story of Bacchus and Centennial Souvenier (1876). The most complete compilation of Peters' published writings , including the first edition of his History of Connecticut , appears in Kenneth W. Cameron's edited volume , The Works of Samuel Peters .. .(1967). There have been numerous criticisms of The History of Connecticul. Examples of such critical reviews are found in the following published sources: James L. Kingsley, The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, VIII (April, 1819); Charles C. Smith "The 'Blue Law' Forgeries of Peters," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (October, 1877); Walter F. Prince,"An Examination of Peters' Blue Laws ," Annual Report ofthe American Historical Association for the Year 1898 (1899); Charles Hammond , "Peters' History of Connecticut," Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings, 1876-188/ (1881); Horace Bushnell, "Historical Estimate of Connecticut," The Churchman , XXXIV (August, 1876). The most vitriolic book-length attack on Peters' History was James H. 62 Trumbull's The True Blue Lows of Connecticut and the False Blue Lows forged by Peters (1876). There are a number of books and journal articles which relate to the history of the Episcopal Church as it affected the career of Samuel Peters. The best single source for such articles is the Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. A number of other scholarly journals also produced relevant articles dealing with Episcopalianism within this scope. Among such articles are those by Bruce E. Steiner, "Anglican Office Holding in Pre Revolutionary Connecticut: The Parameters of New England Community," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., XXXI (1974); Evarts B. Greene, "The Anglican Outlook on the American Colonies in the Early Eighteenth Century," The American Historical Review, XX (1914); and Judith Fingard, "The Establishment of the First Colonial English Episcopate," The Dalhousie Review, XLVII (1967-1968). Books relating to this subject include the following: Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre, Transatlantic Faiths, Ideas, Personalities and Politics 1689-1775 (1962); Eben E. Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. 2 vols (1865); Arthur Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies (1902); Francis L. Hawks, Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America . .. 2 vols. ( 1864); Bruce Steiner, Samuel Seabury, 1729-1796; A Study in the High Church Tradition (1971); and C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G... . (1901). Pascoe, incidentally, identifies Mary Serjeant, with whom Peters corresponded in 1787 (seep. 41), as the widow of the Reverend Winwood Serjeant (1730-1780) a refugee Episcopal missionary from Massachusetts. Within the past decades there has been a significant increase in the number of articles and books relating to the American Loyalists, of whom Parson Peters was a prominent figure. Some of the older and some more contemporary articles on Loyalists include the following: G.A. Gilbert, "The Connecticut Loyalists," American Historical Review, IV (1899); Paul H. Smith, "The American Loyalists: Notes on Their Organization and Numerical Strength," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., XXV (1968); Oscar Zeichner, "The Rehabilitation of Loyalists in Connecticut," The New England Quarterly, XI (1938). There have been several recent books with partiular reference to New England's Loyalists: Wallace Brown, The Good Americans: The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1969); Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1974); Catherine S. Crary, The Price ofLoyalty; Tory Writings from the Revolutionary Era (I 973); Mary-Beth Norton, The British Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789(1972); Andrew Oliver, ed., The Journal ofSamuel Curwen, 2vols. (1972). Several scholarly journals and books can be consulted for facts relating to the history of New England, particularly Connecticut, in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Such journals include The William and Mary Quarterly, The New England Quarterly, The American Quarterly, The Journal of American History, The American Historical Review, The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, and the more recently published periodical, Connecticut History. The Reverend Benjamin Trumbull's two-volume work, A Complete History of Connecticut ... to the Year 1764 (1818), is far more accurate, though far less lively, than Parson Peters' work. Other histories of Connecticut include these works: W. Storrs Lee, The Yankees ofConnecticut (1957); Forest Morgan, Connecticut as a Colony and as a State, 4 vols (1904); Mary J . A. Jones, Congregational Commonwealth: Connecticut, 1636-1662 (1968); Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition: 1775-1818 (1918); Oscar Zeichner, Connecticut's Years of Controversy, 1750-1776 (1949). The Series in Connecticut History (1975) contains two concise, well-written volumes on the early history of the state: Albert E. VanDusen, Puritans Against the Wilderness: Connecticut History to 1763, vol. I, and David M. Roth and Freeman Meyer, From Revolution to Constitution: Connecticut 1763 to 1818, vol. 2. General histories of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods can offer a portrait of the American environment in which Samuel Peters spent his early life. Examples ofsuch colonial histories include David Hawke, The Colonial Experience (1966); Darrett B. Rutman, The Morning of America, 1603-1789 (1971); Oliver P. Chitwood, A History of Colonial America 3rd edition (1961); Benjamin W. Labaree, America's Nation Time: 1607-1789 (1972); Max Savelle and Darold D. Wax, A History of Colonial America 3rd edition (1973). Instructive 63 books dealing with the Revolutionary period include Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) ; E. James Ferguson, The American Revolution, A General History, 1763-1790 (1974); Edmund S . and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis; Prologue to Revolution (1953); Merrill Jensen, The Founding ofa Nation: A History ofthe American Revolution, 1763-1776 (1968); Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (1972); and Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969). Finally, there are several miscellaneous published primary sources describing various aspects of the career of Samuel Andrew Peters . Among these are colonial newspapers such as the Connecticut Gazette, the Connecticut Courant, and the Connecticut Journal. Other material can be found within the publications of institutions such as the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society. There are also items relating to Samuel Peters in multi-volume works such as Peter Force's American Archives and publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission in London. Hebron's Loyalist parson also gains mention in the published writings of several of his noted contemporaries such as Ezra Stiles, Jeremy Belknap, and John Trumbull. Secondary writings in which the Reverend Samuel Peters receives citations include Eben E. Beardsley, Life and Times ofWilliam Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1886); Christopher Collier, Roger Sherman's Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution (1971); and EdmundS. Morgan, The Gentle Puritan: A Life of Ezra Stiles, 1727-1795 (1962).

64 Index

Albany, N.Y., 12 Gibbs, William, 9 Andover, Mass., 5 Gilbert, Sylvester, 36 Andros, Sir Edmond, 30 Glastonbury, Conn ., 9 Arnold, Benedict, 5, 19, 26 Graham, John, 44-46 Auchmuty , Samuel, 21-22 Graves, Matthew, 9 Bailey, Jacob, 42 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 25 Barber, Daniel, 45 Hancock, John, 20, 22 Bass, Edward, 44, 47 Hart, Samuel, 5 Beach, Samuel, 46 Hartford, Conn ., 12, 31 Beers, Isaac, 33 Haynes, John, 28 Belknap, Jeremy, 33 Hebron, Conn ., 4,5, 6, 7,8, 9,10, 12,13,14, Bliss, John, 7 15-16, 17-18,20,37, 48, 51, 52,53 "Blue Laws," 27, 29-30 Hewitt, Alexander, 27 Bolton, Conn ., 9, 15 Hillhouse, James, 19 Boston, Mass., 14-15, 20-22, 31 History of Connecticut, 27-35, 50 Boston Evening Post, 20 History ofthe Reverend Hugh Peters, 49-50 Boston Review and Monthly Anthology, 33 Hooker, Thomas, 28-29 Boston Tea Party, 14 Hubbard, Bela, 19 Branford , Conn., 19 Hume, David , 39 Buckingham, Jedediah, 37 Huntington, Samuel, 35 Buckingham, Marquis of, 43, 44, 46 Hutchinson, Thomas, 14, 16, 28 "Bundling," 32-33 Ingersoll, Jared , 10 Burr, Thaddeus, 20 Inglis, Charles, 41-42 Byles, Mather, 10, 21, 33-34 Jarvis, Mary, 41 Carver, Jonathan, 48-49, 51 Jarvis, William, 41, 44 Cesar and Lois, 37 Jarvis , Mrs. William, See: Peters, Hannah Chalmers, George, 27 Del vena Chandler, Thomas, 42 Jay, John, 45 Clap, Thomas, 6, 7 Johnson, Samuel, 8 Coercive {Intolerable) Acts, 14 Johnson, William S., 36, 49 Coke, David, 36 Keyes, Willard, 50-51 Colton, Jonathan, 7 King's (Columbia) College, 8, 9-10, 38 Connecticut Gazette, 16-17, 23 Kingsley, James L., 33 Cooper, Myles, 41 Learning, Ebenezer, 34 Cornwallis, Lord, 25 Leavenworth, Henry, 51 Currency Act, I0 Lebanon, Conn ., 18 Curwen, Samuel, 24, 25 Life, Thomas, 23-24 Dartmouth, Lord, 23 Litchfield, Conn. , 12 Davenport, John, 29 London, England, 6, 23, 24 Day, Jeremiah, 51-52 Loyalist Claims Commission, 13, 36 Dean, Barzillai, 7 McCormick, Samuel J ., 33 Dorchester, Lord, 41-42 Mackinaw, Mich., 51 Eaton, Theophilus, 29 Manchester, Vt., 44, 47 Ebeling, Christopher, 33 Mann, Andrew, 38 Fenwick, George, 28 Mann, John, 37-38 Fort Howard, Wise., 51 Mann , Nathaniel, 37-38, 42 Fort Miller, N.Y., 12 Mather, Increase, II Fox, H. M .S., 22 Meigs, Return J. , 51 Gage, Thomas, 20-22 Middletown, Conn ., 9 Galloway, Joseph, 27 Moffatt, Thomas, 40 Gaspee, H.M.S., 14 Moore, John, 44-46 George III, 23, 46, 50 Morice, William, 45 65 Mount Pisgah, Vt. , 12 Serjeant, Mary, 41 Mountain, Jacob, 43 Sharon, Conn., 9, 12 New Haven, Conn., 6, 19, 39 Simcoe, John, 42, 43-44 New London , Conn. , II , 31 Simsbury, Conn., 9 New London Gaze tte, 17 Skinner, John, 45 New York, N.Y., 8, 51-53 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in North, Lord , 15, 22-23, 41 Foreign Parts (S.P.G.), 8-9, 24, 25 , 36, 48 Norwich, Conn ., 31 , 32 Solemn League and Covenant, 17 Oldham, John, 28 Sons of Liberty, 15-16 Oliver, Peter, 27 Stafford, Conn., 31 Parker, Samuel, 34, 39, 42, 46 Stamp Act, 10, 30 Parsons, Hugh, 30 Stiles, Ezra, 5, 23 , 34, 38-39 , 41 Peeters, Andrew, 5 Stratford , Conn. , 13 Peter (Peters), Hugh, 5, 6, 49 Sugar Act, 10 Peters, Abigail (Gilbert), 11-12 Sumner, Clement, 36 Peters, Absalom, 52 Sutton, David , 35, 36 Peters, Bemslee, 24 Tea Act, 16, 30 Peters, Hannah Delvena, 10, 12, 24-25, Townshend Duties, II, 14, 30 40-41, 52 Troutbeck, John, 21 , 24-25 Peters, Hannah (Owen), 9 Trumbull, Benjamin, 35, 38-40 , 48, 49 Peters, John, 6 Trumbull, David, 16-17 Peters, JohnS., 49, 51 , 52, 53 Trumbull, Faith (Robinson), 26 Peters, Jonathan, 17,21 ,36 Trumbull, James H., 53 Peters, Joseph, 42 Trumbull, John, 5 Peters, Mary, 53 Trumbull, Jonathan, 14, 16, 17-19, 20, 23, Peters, Mary (Birdseye), 13 26-27, 31 Peters, Mary (Marks), 6 Tyler, John, 35 Peters, Samuel Jarvis, 4 Usher, John, 7 Peters, Thomas, 28, 52 "Viator, J.," 42 Peters, William, 6 Viets, Roger, 9 Peters, William Birdseye, 13, 24, 41, 52 Voluntown, Conn., 32 "Petersylvania," 49, 50 Voltaire, 39 Phelps , John, 18-19 Washington (Trinity) College, 52 Pimlico, England , 24 Welles, Samuel, 26 Pinckney, Thomas, 45 Wentworth, Mrs. John, 22 Pitt, William, 43 , 48 West Haven, Conn. , 39 Political Magazine, 26-27 Whitefield, George, 27 Portland, Duke of, 45 Williams, Rice , 21 Portsmouth, N.H ., 22 Williams, William, 20 Prairie du Chien, Wise., 51 Wilmot, John, 36 Proclamation Line of 1763 , 10 Windham , Conn. , 18, 32 Proovost, Samuel, 46 Winthrop, John, Jr., 28-29 Public Advertiser, 43 Woodbury, Conn. , 12 Punderson, Ebenezer, 24 Wooster, David, 19 Rodney, Lord, 35 Wright, Seth, 16-17 Saybrook, Conn. , 19, 28-29 Wyllys, George, 33 Schenectady, N.Y., 12 Yale College, 6, 7, 28-29, 38-39,51 Scovil, James, 8 Yale, Elihu , 29 Seabury, Samuel, 7, 40, 41,45 York (Toronto), 50 Seeker, Thomas, 8

Connecticut Bicentennial Series

Glenn Weaver, Editor

1973 I CONNECTICUT JOINS THE REVOLUTION Thomas C. Barrow II CONNECTICUT lN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS Christopher Collier III CONNECTICUT'S REVOLUTIONARY WAR LEADERS North Callahan IV CONNECTICUT'S BLACK SOLDIERS 1775-1783 David 0 . White v CONNECTICUT THE PROVISIONS STATE Chester M. Destler

1974 VI CONNECTICUT'S LOYALISTS Robert A. East VII CONNECTJCUT EDUCATION IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA J. William Frost VIII CONNECTICUT'S SEMINARY OF SEDITION: YALE COLLEGE Louis Leonard Tucker IX CONNECTICUT'S WAR GOVERNOR: JONATHAN TRUMBULL David M. Roth X CONNECTJCUT ATTACKED: A BRITISH VIEWPOINT TRYON'S RAID ON DANBURY Robert F. McDevitt

1975 XI CONNECTICUT'S FIRST FAMILY: WILLIAM PITKIN AND HIS CONNECTIONS Bruce Colin Daniels XII CONNECTICUT SIGNER: WILLIAM WILLIAMS Bruce P. Stark XIII CONNECTICUT'S REVOLUTIONARY CAVALRY: SHELDON'S HORSE John T. Hayes XIV CONNECTICUT'S REVOLUTIONARY PRESS Charles L. Cutler XV CONNECTICUT WOMEN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA Catherine Fennelly

1976 XVI CONNECTICUT ART AND ARCHITEC1'URE: LOOKING BACKWARDS TWO HUNDRED YEARS William Lamson Warren XVII CONNECTICUT'S LOYALIST GADFLY: THE REVEREND SAMUEL ANDREW PETERS Sheldon S. Cohen XVIII CONNECTICUT'S COLONIAL AND CONTINENTAL MONEY Wyman W. Parker XIX CONNECTICUT REVOLUTIONARY: ELIPHALET DYER William F. Willingham XX CONNECTICUT CONGRESSMAN: SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, 1731-1796 Larry R. Gerlach