by John B. Dower, Robert A. Geake, Marilyn T. Harris
Their World Turned Upside Down: Were the Updikes Loyalists or Patriots?
Among the anecdotes on the history of Smith’s Castle collected and recorded by Austin Fox, owner of the property and the Cocumcussoc Dairy in the early twentieth century, was an amusing story. The tale claimed that the interior shutters in the dining room were installed during the time of the American Revolution so that neighbors could not spy the family drinking British tea.
The few 18th century neighbors the Updikes had were quite far removed from sight of the house. One could , however, argue that a determined patriot might have gained access through Updike Harboras it was called on the 1777 British period map on display in the dining room, to seek evidence of such “disloyal” activity. While we find the idea of the shutters being constructed for that purpose as amusing today as it would have for the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Fox regaled with the tale, it seems the neighbors may have had other good reason to suspect the family of Loyalist tendencies.
The colonists who most opposed war with Great Britain were wealthy merchants, and those men whose farms supplied goods to British and West Indian ports. Several of the famous Narragansett Planters were identified as loyalists, others were suspect throughout the conflict and into the years beyond. At the beginning of the unrest between British authorities and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, avowed loyalists had fled to Newport where the ports remained opened. They continued there for the duration of the British occupation of Aquidneck Island (Dec. 1776-Dec. 1778). It was especially during this time that suspicions reached their peak, and Rhode Island’s authorities openly questioned the loyalty of Lodwick Updike.
Lodowick Updike was fifty-two years old at the time the conflict with Great Britain began, and his loyalty was questioned almost from the beginning. At least one neighbor did so publicly. On the basis of this accusation, the Town Council refused to let him add his signature to the oath of allegiancewith the other colonies.
Such a ban not only placed a public stain on the accused, but could also mean outright banishment. Most suspected loyalists were no longer given the protections and rights of ordinary citizens. They were often prohibited from practicing their profession, given higher tax rates, and banned from purchasing any land. For Updike, a prolonged period of punishment could have ruined the family export trade.
Among Sheriff Beriah Browns papers were the documents detailing at least some of the suspicion.
An order issued by Rhode Island’s General Assembly on April 19, 1777 reads in part:
Whereas Mrs. Sarah Slocum and her family are suspected of having communicated intelligence and afforded supplies to the enemy at Newport. It is therefore resolved that Mr. Lodowick Updike be requested and enpowered forthwith to remove the said Mrs. Sarah Slocum and her family from his farm in North Kingstown…[i]
The order further stated that if Updike refused to remove the family within ten days,
The Sheriff for the County of Kings County (Beriah Brown) is hereby directed to remove them, and that she with her family reside in such parts on the main as are distant not less than two miles from the salt water.
An entry from minister Ezra Stiles shows that the Slocum family may well have been engaged in such activity, and potentially worse enterprises. Stile’s entry for May 17, 1777 reads:
This Day Hart executed at Providence for Treason by Judg at a court Martial. He was connected with the Slocums of Updikes Newtown in giving Intelligence to the En(em)y, in putting off forged Money, Enlisting &c. He avowed it & openly approved of the Kings Cause & wished Success to it. He was apprehended Tuesdy or Wedy last, a Court Martial found him guilty on Thursdy, two ministers attended him on Friday, and this day the Gallows were made & he was executed, as one told me who saw the Execution, This is speedy Justice[ii].
This was John Hart, born in Little Compton, but now returned to Rhode Island under nefarious business, the forgery and counterfeiting of paper currency. Such an act was condemned by General Washington because it deflated the actual Continental funds that supported the Army. Hart’s name was known to Washington, as he wrote to Jonathan Trumbell Jr. nearly a month before the arrest of the forger:
…one John Hart is gone to Rhode Island to pass Counterfeit Money-it highly imports us to detect and apprehend these Villians whose Crimes are of great enormity…[iii]”
The Providence Gazette and Country Journal of 17 May 1777 reported that on 12 May
“a Person by the Name of Hart was taken at Exeter, and committed to Gaol here as a Spy. A Number of counterfeit Forty-eight Shilling Bills, dated November, 1776, in Imitation of the Massachusetts Money of that Date, were found on him, which he confesses he brought from New-York. He was Yesterday tried by a Court-Martial, and we hear is to be executed this Day, at Eleven o’Clock[iv]”.
As for the Slocums family, despite the clear order that the sheriff should remove the family if Updike refused to carry out the order, a second order from the Assembly on December 21stshows that if the Widow Slocum and her sons had been removed to another location, it did not deter their efforts. Given Updike’s reputation, it is also likely that the first order was simply ignored. The second order, composed in the Upper House of the Assembly, should have made the seriousness of the matter perfectly clear:
Wheras this Assembly hath received information that a Correspondence is maintained with the enemy at the House of the widow Slocum in North Kingstown, and it being known that the Family there are very unfriendly to the Liberties of America whereby it is very unsafe for the Welfare & happiness of this State that said family should be suffered to continue any longer in Possession thereof.
Whereas Resolved, that the Sheriff of the County of Kings County forthwith remove the said widow Slocum and the Family that t lives there to some other place at least ten miles distant from the shore…
That same day, the Lower House of the Assembly passed the order and amended that:
…if the said Sarah Slocum, or either of her Children shall after their said removal be found in any part within this State within the said distance of ten miles of any of the shores thereof, The said Shefiff of the County in which they, or either of them may so transgress, or his Deputy is hereby empowered and directed forthwith to apprehend and Commit them to the Gaol in said County…
There is no documentation of Lodowck’s response.
Records of the February Assembly session of 1778 revealed that at least some of the local population were loyalists and had chosen to abandon their farms and businesses. The Assembly noted that they had received notice that
Samuel Boone, William Boone, John Wightman, son of Valentine, Ephraim Smith, Ebenezer Slocum, Charles Slocum, and Thomas Cutter, have gone to the Island of Rhode Island, and have joined the Enemy…
Sheriff Beriah Brown was then ordered to confiscate and make a full accounting of all property.
Lodowick Updike did not leave Cocumscussoc, neither did his brother-in-law Benjamin Gardiner. Both estate owners had been persistently accused of disloyalty by a Mr. Phillips, which prevented them from signing the oath. Now the men petitioned the General Assembly for permission to sign.
The year 1778 was one of upheaval for the Updike family and there way of life. Indeed, it was their world turned upside down. One disruption was caused by a reduction in their work force. In the month of February two, possibly three slaves enlisted in the Continental Army when the Assembly passed an Act permitting enslaved men to enlist and earn their freedom. Then there was the necessity of appearing before the Assembly to settle the matter of the oath.
Sixteen year old Daniel Updike recorded in his 1778 diary that in July he travelled with his father to Providence for his appearance at the Assembly, along with his Uncle and their legal representatives:
Sept. 30th
…Went to Assembly with my Father for hi to have permission of signing the First Oath; which the Town Council had denied him, and my Uncle Benja Gardener by the influence of P. Phillips.
31sr Benja Gardners case came on anf he was allowed to sign by all the lower house but six & and all the Upper house but one. Accordingly my Father & I went to NKingstown this night. N.E. storm
November 1st My Father and I attended the assembly but his affair would not come on as Mr. Phillips had let the Evidences on his side go home to delay the ,atter. We staid at Mr. Robinsons all night. Bad Storm at N.E. & it was observed by all the House tha Mr. Phillips concerned himself very much in these matters or cases which made him appear interested in it, as I believe he was[v].
The young, and soon to be lawyer Daniel suspected that Phillips was profiteering from the property confiscated from the families who had fled to Newport and was trying to force Lodowick to do so as well. However, there were further delays in resolving the matter.. His Father’s case was adjourned until December. They travelled home in a heavy rain, as the storm continued through another day.
On the last Monday of December, the General Assembly convened once again, and during the proceedings voted and resolved that
“Mr. Lodowick Updike be, and is hereby, permitted to subscribe the test, heretofore ordered to be subscribed by the inhabitants of this state; and that hereupon he is entitled to all the privileges of a subject of this state”.
The father was thus acquitted in the eyes of authorities, but the records of his sons service during the war would later come under question.
On October 18, 1779 Daniel recorded in his diary:“Went up to the Hill where I trained with militia first time”. This specified first date of service would cause him much delay and bring renewed suspicion on himself when he applied for a pension in July 1833. The problem was that in his pension testimony before Chief Justice Thomas W. Green, Daniel Updike, then seventy-two years old claimed that he “had enrolled in Captain John Browns Company of Militia in said North Kingstown in Col. Dyer’s Regiment early in the spring of the year 1777. He also testified that he was drafted several times & served in said Company in the Course of that year, not less than four moths…”
Updike claimed to have been stationed in Wickford, patrolling Boston Neck, and Bissel Mills[vi], as well as serving a month at the encampment of troops positioned for General Jeremy Spencer’s planned invasion of Newport.
Daniel claimed also to have served in the same company in the following year of 1778, mentioning a brief episode against “the incursions of Wallace”, and later to have served in the Battle of Rhode Island. All these events of course, took place before the date that Daniel himself had recorded as his first training with the militia (October 1779).
There may be a logical reason for this discrepancy. Perhaps he meant two different militias and enlistments? Wickford had its own Newtown Rangers.In the spring of 1777, the time Daniel mentions in his pension testimony, enrollment in the local militia would have been a far less risky enlistment, and a popular option for the sons of wealthy plantation owners. The date of his later first training with the militia came just a week before the British evacuated Rhode Island.
His diary from 1778-1779 , while sparse, does mention Col. Harry Babcock, the Major-General of the Rhode Island Militia, with whom at 16, he was familiar enough to call at his home. The diary contains references to Babcock’s brother-in-law John Bours, and meeting Captain Dudley Saltonstall, then returning from the beating his fleet had taken from the British on the Penobscot River.
So what are we to make of the discrepancy in years served? In the difference between the testimony of joining in the spring of 1777 and the recorded evidence of its being in the fall of 1779? To further complicate matters, nearly two years after Daniel’s pension was filed, a questionable came in reference to the pension application filed by younger brother James Updike.
James Updike had enlisted as the record shows “being then 14 years of a age…was received as his father’s substitute”. He claimed in his application that at the age of 15 he was appointed adjutant, a position of staff officer that came with much responsibility and the recording of received and written orders.
In a lengthy letter, a man signing himself as “Your Friend, A Republican Farmer”, lists a number of hopeful pensioners who he resoundingly felt did not deserve a cent of government money.
Dear Sir, You have begun a good work in this town by Suspending two of the Revolutionary pensioners namely Samuel Thomas and James Updike for they have already drawn from our government more dollars than they ever did hours service in the Revolutionary War to my Certain knowledge …I have known them both from my Cradle and I am sure that these two men never did more than one week service in that war.
Now Sir, if you will suspend 8 or 10 more of them that I allege never did one year’s service in that war….I will give you their names:
Daniel Updike never did one day of service in that war
Daniel E. Updike Do. Do. Do.
The Republican Farmer’s letter continues to name others who he claimed had falsified their pension applications, including Augustus Hurling, John Northup, Isaac Spink, Isaac Hall, and William Reynolds who did but “four months service”. His letter lists another slew of men who served three months or less, but who he believed had falsified their testimonies; even Major Harry Babcock, who the writer claimed “got some of his drunken Generals to testify for him[vii].”
Clearly the writer of the letter had a bone of contention with these men. Or did he possibly misunderstand or disagree with the 1833 Act of Congress that allowed men who had served in militia units to apply for pensions?
Let’s re-examine Daniel Updike’s testimony about enlisting in the spring of 1777. The previous year had seen the formation of the Newtown Rangers after a field cannon had been sent from the State for the towns defense in March 1776. The Newtown Rangers trained themselves in its usage and set up three fortified locations in town from which they could fire it, should the need arise[viii].
Such fortified sites were constructed at Quidnesset. Poplar Point, and Barbers Heights above Saunderstown. The Newtown Rangers, as historian G. Timothy Cranston has described them “were made up of boys too young and men too old to serve in the armies of the Revolution…”. Daniel Updike would have been fifteen at time he recalled enlisting.
That year of 1777, the Rangers fended off an attempted landing by scoring a direct hit on a British sailing vessel from Poplar Point. This may be Daniel’s recollection of fending off an “incursion” that he testified as occurring a year later. Further, the afore-mentioned Col. George Babcock commanded the Newtown Rangers during that encounter.
It would seem that Updike was recalling his time with the Newtown Rangers, and that he would have joined another unit after turning sixteen by 1779, the year he remembered as training with a militia the first time. The distinction between a unit trained in Artillery and one trained as a field unit, is distinct on many levels.
Further evidence can be found in an Order issued on the same day his Father was absolved of any disloyalty through involvement with the Slocums and John Hart. The Assembly ordered that the militia in Updike’s Newtown be “formed out”, or inactivated. Daniel may well then have had his first formal muster and drill as a member of the Rhode Island militia the following year, after the Continental Congress commissioned the states to formalize the previously loosely regulated bands of independent units from New England communities.
James Updike was awarded a pension of $80.00 per annum on April 25, 1831. Claims that he served less than his application stated were rebutted by numerous witnesses who stated that he had served two years and “entered the journals of Colonel Dyer”. Daniel Updike’s widow Ardelissa was awarded a payment of $240.00 on November 4, 1834 for her husband’s service as a private for two years under Captain Brown of Colonel Dyer’s Regiment.
It seems then that the Updike’s did everything they could to prove they were loyal to the patriot cause, even if they did like to sip their tea behind closed shutters.
[i]Arnold, James ed. Narragansett Historical Register Vol. 3, p. 57
[ii]Diary of Ezra Stiles Vol. 2, p. 160
[iv]http://founders.orgUniversity of Virginia See Washington’s Letter to Jonathan Trumbell Jr. April 12, 1777
[v]As transcribed by Robert A. Geake from A Diary of Daniel Updike, in the Years 1778-1779 Rhode Island Historical Society. Published in A Cocumscussoc ReaderRIFootprints Press 2017 pp. 40-41
[vi]An early name for the area near Tower Hill.
[vii]NARA M804. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files. 2435 Page 55
[viii]Cranston, Tim The Oft-Forgotten Story of the Wickford Gun The Independent, July 15, 2018