BOOK REVIEWS 353

Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution. By John A. Nagy. (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2013. Pp. xii, 212.$24.95.) In the fall of 1775, American patriots around Boston reeled at the stunning news: Dr. Benjamin Church Jr., one of the leading figures in the resistance to English tyranny, had been exposed as a British spy. His former associates vocally denounced him as a traitor, but Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/87/2/353/1792454/tneq_r_00377.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 despite two formal proceedings regarding the matter—one council of war convened by General and the other by the House of Representatives, of which Church was a member—there was no trial, no legal finding of guilt. Church’s case unfolded in a kind of legal limbo as the loyal attachments of the colo- nial government broke down, and the Continental Congress began to forge new legal allegiances. Church admitted to corresponding with loyalist relatives in Boston but adamantly denied any treachery; in- deed, he claimed his effort was intended to help the patriot cause. On the face of it, a good deal of the intercepted letter supposedly impli- cating him did appear to be calculated disinformation. What exactly was going on? Author John A. Nagy, a specialist in the subject of espionage in Revolutionary America, sets out to trace the development of the case against Church. Nagy provides the reader with some biographical in- formation about Church, a member of one of ’s more storied families, as well as details on his medical practice. Yet Church’s increasing influence as a political figure in the resistance against par- liamentary tyranny is perhaps a key to understanding the case, as he moved from his role as propagandist to one of real political leadership in Revolutionary committees. A proteg´ e´ of Samuel Adams, Church was a member of the inner circle of the patriot cause, and so if a spy, he was well placed to do great damage to the fight for American independence. That would be a big “if,” however. Church’s own version of the letter’s contents and their meaning was, if not convincing, at least not implausible; both Samuel and John Adams were astonished by the missive, and confounded. Others found it easier to believe in Church’s treachery. Church’s contemporaries, in fact, seemed to base their vilification of the doctor more on rumors of his marital infi- delity than on proof of his perfidy—demonstrating the link between moral and civic virtue in Revolutionary Boston. Unfortunately, Nagy takes Church’s guilt as a given and so builds his case from back to front. The papers of General , the last colonial governor 354 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY of Massachusetts, verify that espionage did indeed occur; however, those documents bear no signatures, and it is evident from them that Gage had more than one source of information. Nagy simply concludes that many of the reports must have come from Church because he assumes Church was, in fact, a spy. This is somewhat problematic; Nagy offers no positive evidence—analysis of the docu-

ments, for example—and internal indications that the reports might Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/87/2/353/1792454/tneq_r_00377.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 not have been from Church—such as third-person references to the doctor—are explained away as simply confirmation of his craftiness. Church had been accused of holding a criminal correspondence with the enemy. By his own admission, he was in contact with peo- ple inside the besieged city of Boston, and the full scope and nature of that communication—whether treacherous or benign—cannot be known. But one overarching unanswered question looms over Nagy’s discussion of the case, and that is motivation. Although Nagy points to contemporary rumors of the doctor’s shaky finances and his own conviction that most spies were in it for the money, the author claims that Church’s real drive must have been the pursuit of fame—a pur- suit that resulted, ironically, in infamy. Again the evidence with which Nagy argues his case is rather thin—with a few rather formulaic lines from a poem composed by a twenty-year-old Church cited as proof. Certainly the theme of fame appears frequently in the writings of several of Church’s contemporaries, such as John Adams, but there does not appear to be a correlation between Church’s desire for fame and the argument that he abandoned the patriot cause to act as a spy for the British. By asserting speculation as given fact, Nagy ultimately undermines what might have been a very interesting subject. The case of Benjamin Church could well illuminate much about the period in which loyalties were shifting and hard decisions were being made. The doctor was not Boston’s only leader with friendships and relations on both sides of the ideological divide. How did other elite Bostonians negotiate those turbulent times? Nagy makes no effort to discuss Church’s case in relation to recent scholarship on urban Revolutionary politics, the ideology of personal and political virtue, loyalism in its various hues, or the motivation of fame among that generation of Americans. There is great potential here, but unfortunately, Nagy has skimmed only the surface. A fuller, more sophisticated analysis of Church and his presumed treachery remains to be written.

David Kiracofe is Professor of History at Tidewater Community College in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is the author of Thomas BOOK REVIEWS 355

Jefferson: A Private Life, A Public Life (2007). In 1997, his “Dr. Benjamin Church and the Dilemma of in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1775–1778,” appeared in this publication.

Curiosities of the Craft: Treasures from the Grand Lodge of Mas- sachusetts Collection. By Aimee E. Newell, Hilary Anderson Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/87/2/353/1792454/tneq_r_00377.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Stelling, and Catherine Compton Swanson. (Boston: Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, 2013. Pp. 288.$44.95.)

An all-male fraternity that traces its organizational roots in Mas- sachusetts to 1733, Freemasonry has been a somewhat hidden but nonetheless influential factor in American life for almost three hun- dred years. An excellent homage to this rich history, which Americans have occasionally viewed with suspicion, can be found in Curiosities of the Craft, a lavishly illustrated book jointly published by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts and the Scottish Rite Masonic Mu- seum and Library—also known as the National Heritage Museum—in Lexington, Massachusetts. The museum was founded in 1975 by the Scottish Rite Freemasons (Supreme Council, 33o, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite) of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction in the United States. In 2004, the museum began managing and housing the collection of the Grand Lodge, whose Masonic building is located on Tremont Street in Boston. The book’s three authors, who have worked at the museum and library for a number of years, bring considerable exper- tise to their project. In her preface, author Aimee Newell recounts the many hours she spent unpacking boxes from the Grand Lodge, during which she grew increasingly eager to delve into the stories behind its artifacts. At her suggestion, this volume was compiled. Large of format, the hardbound book features over one hundred fifty objects and documents chosen from over ten thousand items. The volume’s heft and stunning photography convey the gravitas of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, the third oldest Masonic Grand Lodge in the world. An introduction, written by Newell, outlines the history of the Grand Lodge’s library, established in 1815,aswellas of the committee assigned to collect the “curiosities of the craft” in 1887. Despite fires in 1864 and 1895, the collection had grown to include many significant treasures by 1930. In the book, the artifacts featured are grouped into distinct thematic sections—“Traditions and Roots,” “Ritual and Ceremony,” “Gifts and Charity,” “Brotherhood and Community,” and “Memory and Commemoration.” Each object