The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, October 19, 1781. The larger oil on canvas by John Trumbull hangs in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The smaller painting (completed around 1828) shown here: University Art Gallery, Trumbull Collection 1832.4; 79. Public Domain; www.aoc.gov.
Above painting: The defeated British army marches between the Americans on the right, led by General George Washington, and the French on the left, led by General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau. At the center, on horseback, Major General Benjamin Lincoln, Washington’s second-in-command, accepts the official surrender from General Lord Cornwallis’s deputy, General Charles O’Hara.
Honours of War
Honours of War was a symbolic recognition of a valiant defense, which gave the surrendering Army permission to march out with drums beating, bayonets fixed, and flags flying. Or their band could play a tune of its own choice.
On October 19, 1781 British General Charles E. Cornwallis formally surrendered. Cornwallis claimed to be ill and sent General Charles O’Hara to offer his sword to General George Washington.
General Washington would not permit the British Troops the Honours of War or accept the sword from General O’Hara.
Instead, General Washington sent Major-General Benjamin Lincoln to accept the sword. This helped to undo the indignity the British had caused Benjamin Lincoln when they rejected his request for a surrender with Honours of War after the Siege of Charleston, in 1780.
Declaration of Independence drafting committee: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin presenting their work to the Continental Congress, July 2, 1776. John Trumbull, artist. Oil on canvas, 1819. Yale University Art Gallery: Trumbull Collection: 1832.3.Gen. George Washington at Trenton. The January 2, 1777 battle at Assunpink Creek, NJ, in the background. John Trumbull, oil on canvas, 1792. Gift of the Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. Yale University Art Gallery. 1806.1.
John Trumbull, an artist, was the second personal assistant (aide-de-camp) to Washington during the Revolutionary War. After the war was over, Mr. Trumbull painted a series on American history.
In 1817 the U.S. Congress commissioned Mr. Trumbull to paint the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams recommended that all the delegates be included—whether they were present or not and whether they signed or not.
Though Thomas Jefferson was the main author, Trumbull’s painting shows John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin (who had worked on the draft) presenting the document to John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, on June 28, 1776.
John Trumbull worked on the Declaration painting for more than thirty years. Only forty-two of the fifty-six Declaration signers are represented, as Mr. Trumbull did not have likenesses for everyone.
In at least two cases, Trumbull painted sons who resembled their fathers. The 12-by-18-foot painting has hung in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, since 1826.
—artgallery.yale.edu; wikipedia.org; Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 60, 61.
Declaration of Independence printed in Baltimore, Maryland, by Mary Katharine Goddard, January 18, 1777. United States and Continental Congress Broadside Collection: Library of Congress: 90898037.
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
On July 2, 1776 the Second Continental Congress officially declared its freedom from Great Britain. On July 4 the Congress approved the Declaration of Independence and sent it to John Dunlap to be printed.
Thomas Jefferson, the main author, had input from John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin. On August 2 many members began to sign the Declaration.
The Declaration of Independence stated that the King was a tyrant, “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” It was not only the right of the colonies, but “their duty, to throw off such Government.”
Under Indictment, the Declaration listed a “long train of abuses” and “repeated injuries” of the King of Great Britain, which included: imposing taxes without their consent; often depriving them of the benefit of Trial by Jury; taking “away their Charters; abolishing their most valuable Laws; and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.”
At every stage the colonies had humbly petitioned to correct the situation but the other side had “been deaf to the voice of justice…We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
Mary Katherine Goddard
Mary Katherine Goddard, at the request of the Continental Congress, printed the second authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence on January 18, 1777. Though Mary Katherine’s was the second printing, it was the first printing to include (all but one of) the typeset names of the signers. Mary took a risk in printing the document, as the British would consider it treason.
Mary, Baltimore’s first Postmaster (appointed by Benjamin Franklin), also published (initially with her brother) Baltimore’s first weekly newspaper, the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser. Mary continued to print the Maryland paper throughout the War, sometimes paying post-riders with her own money.
There is much more to Mary’s story. An amazing woman, Mary (and her mother) deserve their own book.—constitutioncenter.org, “On This Day,” Scott Bomboy, August 2, 2019; guides.loc.gov; prologue.blogs.archives.gov, Samantha Payne, “Changing the Boundaries,” January 29, 2015.
Count de Rochambeau, French general of the land forces in America reviewing the French troops, British Cartoon, 1780. LOC: 2004673388.The disembarkation of French troops, under the command of Comte de Rochambeau, at Newport, Rhode Island, one of twelve scenes depicting the history of the American Revolution. Artist and Engraver: Daniel Chodowiecki. LOC: 2004670207.
1781 French Troupes in Southbury *
In June 1781, after several planning sessions with George Washington, General Count de Rochambeau and his French Troops (divided into four divisions) left Rhode Island to join forces with Washington in what is now Greenburgh, New York.
On each of four days, one of the divisions left Rhode Island. General Rochambeau on his “fine steed” was in the first division. Their route through Connecticut included, Hartford, Farmington, Southington, Waterbury, and Breakneck (a section in today’s Middlebury).
After a night at Breakneck, the French Troops began their thirteen-mile march through southern Woodbury (Southbury) to cross the Great River and set up camp in Newtown, Connecticut.
What a sight for fourteen-year-old Hannah Hickok (daughter of David and Abigail), her relatives, and neighbors. Starting on June 28, 1781, and for each of the following three days, one of four divisions arrived from Breakneck on the trek through Southbury.
Officers, in two-corner hats and white coats trimmed in green, were followed by enlisted men (in wigs) with muskets marching two by two carrying sixty-pound packs.
Each Division featured at least one thousand soldiers, followed by their Artillery, two “twelve-pounders” and one or two mortars. Teams of four horses pulled ten Regimental wagons.
John Leavenworth, the Southbury miller, furnished the French troops with wheat, corn, butter, and pork at no charge.** (John’s Mill went up for sale in 1783.)
Most of the supply wagons crossed Carleton’s Bridge. But the Artillery Units had to use teams of oxen to drag the heavy siege cannons two miles north and cross the river at the ford.
From July 6 to August 18, 1781, Rochambeau and his French forces set up camp on the Odell Farm in Greenburgh, New York. Then they headed to Virginia and the final battle of the Revolutionary War.
—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 60–61.
* Raymond E. Sullivan, Breakneck, pp. 88–9.
** Southbury miller: Elias Warner Leavenworth, A Genealogy of the Leavenworth Family in the United States, p. 326.
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His excy. George Washington Esqr. captain general of all the American forces. Engraver: John Normans, 1781. LOC: 2004666689.
On October 27, 1776, David Hickok wrote that at South Britain’s Sunday Meeting, “every able-bodied man in the Train Band” was ordered “to march to Stamford forthwith.”
Monday a battle took place in White Plains, New York, some fifty miles southwest of South Britain. David could hear the cannons:
“The cannon played briefly all day. Mr. Reynolds just come from the army and says they had a very hot battle at the White Plains yesterday.”—David Hickok, October 28, 1776.
“About a hundred and fifty were killed and wounded in the short space of an hour.
“Quite a number of Woodbury soldiers were killed and several others severely wounded.”—Rev. Mr. Wildman, Southbury; Cothren, Ancient Woodbury 1, pp. 199, 205.
“Daniel Downs, Amasa Garrit are killed and John Chilson had his arm shot off in the Battle of the White Plains. A soldier belonging to Boston Government lodged at my house this night, to whom I sold my old watch.”—David Hickok, November 4, 1776.
“Wednesday I did nothing of any value but sleep and write a letter for John Johnson for I watched last night with John Garrit who is sick of the long fever at brother Justus’s.
“News that Fort Washington (November 16) is taken. The night before last three soldiers which came from the camps lodged at my house; they belonged to the (Massachusetts) Bay government.”—David Hickok, November 20, 1776.
With the defeat at White Plains and the disaster at Forts Washington and Lee, General Washington was forced to retreat to New Jersey.—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 56–57.
Cannons at Artillery Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Carol M. Highsmith, photographer, 2019. LOC: 2019689455.
Knox entering camp with the artillery captured at Fort Ticonderoga, winter 1775-76. Hand-colored wood engraving: William H. Van Ingen, ca. 1855. Library of Congress: 3g09060.
Asa Hickok, 1775: “In the fall of the year the men at Ticonderoga were attacked with fever and dysentery and many of them died. My brother Reuben was very sick. (He died two years later.)
“I was taken sick with a fever late in the fall. It rendered me unable to go north with the troops to Fort Saint-Jean (John) south of Montreal in Canada, where we had been ordered to march.
“Around December 1, at the start of winter, I was discharged from further service with a view to get to my brother’s who resided near the head of South Bay.”
As Asa Hickok headed home to South Britain, Connecticut, Henry Knox arrived in Ticonderoga.
Henry arranged for 80 yoke of oxen to haul 42 sleds with much of the captured British equipment, including 60 tons of cannons, mortars, and howitzers, to Massachusetts.*
On January 27, 1776 after too much snow, not enough snow, adding oxen, and hiring new workers, the cannons and arms arrived at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Washington used the captured artillery to end the eleven months the British had held Boston hostage.
On March 17, 1776, the British evacuated (left) Boston.—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 44, 45.
Le Petit Déjeuner, between 1770 and 1820. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division: 2017648263.
The Colonists bought smuggled Dutch tea rather than pay for more expensive tea from the East India Company. So in 1767 Parliament passed the Indemnity Act, which lowered the tax on tea consumed in Great Britain and gave the East India Company a refund of the 25% duty on tea, if it was re-exported to the Colonies.
To help offset the loss of government revenue, Parliament passed the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act. Taxes levied on items imported by the Colonists included: glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. Protests were so strong that the British repealed all taxes except the one on tea.
The Colonists then boycotted legally imported tea. In 1768 British troops were stationed in Boston to protect officials appointed to enforce Parliament’s laws.
Boston Ladies Boycott Tea
“Fine,” said over three hundred Boston women who signed an agreement in January 1770. “We won’t buy or even drink tea that is offered to us.”
—Boston Evening Post, January 31, 1770; historyofmassachusetts.org.
The demand for tea dropped and tea surplus grew in the East India Company’s English warehouses. Over one hundred years later Julia Smith, David Hickok’s granddaughter, referred to the ladies’ tea boycott.
Only Half Benefit from Our Common Fathers
April 19, 1875 was the Centennial for the Battles of Concord and Lexington. On May 1, 1875 Julia Smith and her sister Abby spoke at the Melrose Woman’s Suffrage Convention held to celebrate the Centennial, honor their forefathers, and their inherited principles.*
Julia retold the story of the auction of her pet cows and their meadowland and added that the State was no help. Then Julia referred to the Colonial women who wouldn’t buy or drink tea.
“Maybe Abby and I would fare better under a king,” Julia quipped. “When King George collected taxes on tea, his subjects could quit drinking tea, which many of the women were brave enough to do a hundred years ago. Continue reading →
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“My animals include two cows, a calf, a yoke of oxen, a horse, a two-year old colt, two swine, and thirteen sheep, which I sheared in May.
“My neighbors, my father, and my brothers borrow my oxen for work on their farms, to go to the sawmill, to cart stone, and to go to Derby.”—David Hickok, South Britain, 1771 Journal.
Men in a long rowboat are drawing a net across the inlet, to enclose a school of shad. Artist: James Fuller Queen, 1855. Library of Congress: 40743.
“They put the fishnet into the river, but they catched no shad.”—David Hickok, South Britain, Connecticut, April 1771.
Shad, a fish in the herring family, was prevalent in early Farmington and the Great River, now known as the Housatonic River, Southbury’s southwestern border.
Two men in wheat field harvesting wheat using cradle scythes. Keystone View Company, PA, 1905. Library of Congress: 2015646638.
David Hickok was the older brother of my ancestor Asa Hickok, who settled in Lumberland. David and Asa each had a daughter named Hannah Hickok.
David Hickok was involved in at least one skirmish in the French-Indian War. He spoke fluent French, which he learned at Yale College. David was not able to complete a college degree because of health issues, which continued to plague him.
David was a mathematician, astronomer, teacher, farmer, inventor, and watchmaker. For a few years David taught “scholars” in the Bullet Hill School District of Southbury. (It is not known for sure if a school was there at the time.)
In his 1769–1783 journals, David detailed daily life in the South Britain section of Southbury, Connecticut. David built fences, planted, harvested or threshed grains, paid his rates (taxes), traded for rumb at Ensign Hinman’s, took grain to the Levenworth Mill, took apples to the mill to be made into cider, “measured a bushel of corn” for his pigs, helped rebuild bridges, wound many wruns of linen thread (which he had processed) or wool (from their sheep), and helped his wife with her weaving.
Some terms from David’s journals and other sources
(included in Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann)
• Cradle: A scythe set in a frame of wood with a row of long curved teeth projecting above and parallel to the scythe. A cradle laid the grain in bunches as it was cut.
• Hogshead: In America, a cask containing from 110 to 120 gallons; as a hogshead of spirit or molasses. “Hogshead” was possibly a corruption of the Germanic word for “oxhead.” It may be “the name arose from the branding of such a measure with the head of an ox.”—Webster’s 1828 Dictionary; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911.
• Quill: spool or bobbin.
• Sheaves: bundles of grain stalks of wheat, rye, oats or barley stacked lengthwise and tied together.
• Shock: sixteen sheaves of wheat, rye, or other grains.
• Wrun/run: A run of spun wool is 1600 yards.
Locations of David’s Journals
(Some entries may have been transcribed by his daughter.)
• Connecticut State Library: Diary of David Hickok, 1771–1783 covers 1771 and a few entries for 1775, 1776, 1778 and 1783.
• Historical Society of Glastonbury: David Hickok’s Diary, 1769–1770.
