SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM Concord’s Tories were the Reverend Daniel Bliss of 1st Parish Church and his attorney son Daniel Bliss, Junior, Dr. Joseph Lee, Squire Duncan Ingraham, Colonel Charles Prescott, and Captain Jonas Minott. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1715 In Concord, John Heald, Benjamin Whittemore, William Wheeler, Joseph Dakin, and William Wilson were Selectmen. Ordinarily, Concord’s five selectmen acted as Overseers of the Poor and as Assessors, but in this period there was in addition a board of five Overseers of the Poor. In Concord, William Wilson continued as Town Clerk. In Concord, Samuel Jones was Treasurer. In Concord from this point forward, every man married in town during the year was chosen “to observe the law relating to swine” (hog-reeves, as they would come to be called in 1721). Also, until 1722, Samuel Jones would be the Town Treasurer. A fulling mill1 was in existence by this date on the site of an old bog iron works, toward the west end of Concord, and was supervised by Lot Conant, Jr. and his descendants. The only structures to the west of this mill building were the small separated shacks and sheds of the powder mills, separate so that they would only 1. Fulling is from the Old French fuler meaning “to tread upon.” Before the development of fulling mills, homespun woolen cloths would be put in a tub and saturated with soap, and groups would join hands and stomp “fuller’s earth” –a clay that absorbs grease– into the cloth in the tub to remove some of its lanolin and to compact it. After this cleaning and felting, the cloths would be stretched over frames to block as they dried. Then the new cloths would be laid over poles and “curried” with the dry seedpods of the teasel (Dipsacus laciniatus, a member of the daisy family), which are covered with hooked spines that raise the nap. Then the cloths would be wrapped around a cylinder and the raised nap would be evened, using a shears with long blades weighing up to 60 pounds. In fulling mills driven by water power, clean feet were replaced by wooden pestles, plunging up and down. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM blow up one little group of powder workers at a time. “I, Concord, have power, take notice / To carry towns and move millstones / Yes, I am an invincible one for all enemies / But sighing and weeping will overwhelm those who crush my followers / And they will lose their refuge with great shame / As has become clear in various lands / But whoever loves me and keeps me in mind / He must lock up Discord / Or otherwise he’ll find himself deceived in the end.” In this year Concord kept a grammar school for the education of its young, for only one quarter, in different parts of the town, and the total cost of this was £40. Although the Ingraham family is not listed in the assessor’s list for Concord of 1747, actually Squire Duncan Ingraham would come from a family that had been present in Concord prior to this year. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1726 November 29, Tuesday (Old Style): Duncan Ingraham was born in Boston, a son of Joseph Ingraham and Mary Ingraham. Although the Ingraham family is not listed in the assessor’s list for Concord, Massachusetts of 1747, actually Joseph Ingraham had come from a family that had been present in Concord prior to 1715. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1730 December 27, Sunday (Old Style): Mary Minot was born in Concord, Massachusetts, a daughter of the Reverend Timothy Minot (who for more than 4 decades was Concord’s schoolmaster) with Mary Brooks Minot. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1747 In Concord, Samuel Heywood, James Minott, Jr., John Jones, Ephraim Jones, and Samuel Minot were Selectmen. In Concord, Samuel Heywood was again Town Clerk. Ephraim Jones was Concord’s deputy and representative to the General Court. Chambers Russell of Concord was serving as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and of the Court of Vice- Admiralty. James Minott of Concord was an Assistant and Counsellor. Although the Ingraham family is not listed in the assessor’s list for Concord of this year, actually Squire Duncan Ingraham had come from a family that had been present in the town since prior to 1715. The plot now occupied by Concord’s Wright Tavern had been owned by the Reverend Peter Bulkeley, then by Timothy and George Wheeler, and then was given by Timothy Wheeler to the town of Concord. In this year HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM the town sold the lot and whatever tavern structure was then on it to its town clerk and selectman and militia captain Ephraim Jones, who would soon have the present public house constructed. The town selectmen would dine and drink there at municipal expense while meeting in the community interest. Ephraim Jones would sell the property to Thomas Munroe of Lexington in 1751, who would sell it to Samuel Swan who would rent it to Amos Wright in 1775 (hence the name it now bears). It would eventually be willed by Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and Reuben Rice to the “First Parish Society.” You can inspect it in the background of the famous painting by Doolittle and Earle, of the redcoats standing in Concord Square — or if you are thirsty you should stop by and wet your whistle: HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1749 December 7, Thursday (Old Style): Duncan Ingraham, who had prospered in Boston as a sea captain in the Surinam trade and as a slave trader, got married with Susanna Blake, daughter of Henry Blake and Susanna Newell (although Susanna had been born on November 10th, 1724 in Boston, she was a wealthy widow who had resided in Concord). This union would produce Susannah Ingraham Geyer, Duncan Ingraham, Jr., Mary Ingraham Condy, Henry Ingraham, Nathaniel Ingraham, Joseph Ingraham, and Francis Ingraham. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1750 September 25, Tuesday (Old Style): Susannah Ingraham was born to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (she would get married with Frederick William Geyer of Boston, and that couple would produce Charlotte von Geyer, who would be the mother of the British novelist and naval officer Captain Frederick Marryat). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1752 December 2, Saturday: Duncan Ingraham, Jr. was born in Boston to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (he would get married with Susanna Greenleaf). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1753 2 November: In MEN OF CONCORD it is recorded how Cato Ingraham dealt with a problem dog that had killed turkeys and cows, and bitten someone: The next that was heard of him, Black Cato, that lived at the Lee place, now Sam Wheeler’s, on the river, was waked up about midnight by a noise among the pigs, and, having got up, he took a club and went out to see what was the matter. ETC. Cato worked as a day laborer and he and his wife Philis evidently during their old age would have a guest room in their home near Goose Pond which they made available to transients of color. George Washington led an expedition west from Virginia to challenge French claims to the Allegheny River Valley. 2.“Cato, the slave of Duncan Ingraham who lived next to Daniel Bliss on what is now called Walden Street.” I don’t know whether this means that Cato and his wife lived alone at that location, or whether Squire Duncan Ingraham lived at that location and they had a cottage on his estate. Ingraham had been the captain of a seagoing vessel and it is said that he had engaged in the slave trade. During the American revolution he favored the British cause. CATO INGRAHAM HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1754 August 8, Thursday: Mary Ingraham was born to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (she would get married with James Foster Condy, an Episcopalian clergyman). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1757 August 28, Sunday: Henry Ingraham was born to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (no further record). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1759 June 6, Wednesday: Nathaniel Ingraham was born in Boston to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham. This son would get married, 1st, with Mary Cochran, and 2d, with Louisa Harriet Hall. He would serve as a volunteer officer on Captain John Paul Jones’s USS Bonhomme Richard during its 1779 battle with HMS Serapis. The US federal Congress would present Ingraham with one of the 3 medals it awarded for this action and with a silver cup made from the prize money of the Bonhomme Richard. He was John Paul’s best friend and, at the point of the Captain’s death due to kidney inflammation in Paris in 1792, his friend would present him with the bronze medal awarded by the US federal Congress for the action against the Serapis. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1762 March 28, Sunday (1761, Old Style): Joseph Ingraham was born to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (he would get married with Jane Salter). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF CONCORD: SQUIRE DUNCAN INGRAHAM 1764 January 12, Saturday: Francis Ingraham was born to Duncan Ingraham and Susanna Blake Ingraham (he would get married with Elizabeth Duffield).