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Memories (Public & Private) of America’s Infancy

A Reflection of Georges Hewes; the Forrest Gump of the American Revolution

By Jacob HerrPublished 4 years ago Updated 3 years ago 7 min read
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To say that the American Revolution was a radical experiment to implicate democracy to the agitated populations of Britain’s colonies, is certainly a sensible statement. Yet, it cannot be shared by the private memories of those who participated in it. In Alfred Young’s book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, the story of the Bostonian cobbler and patriot partisan, George Hewes, is one of how the ideals of what one may call the American Hypocrisy Story (land of the free, home of the brave, all are created equal, justice is blind, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, law enforcement is on your side, your standard of living will never decline, etc.) emerged from this treasonous, ironic, and metaphorical middle finger to the world’s strongest superpower at the time. Alfred Young’s words apply to the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the experiences of George Hewes, in a manner which allows the reader to create their own understanding and conclusions about how the events leading up to and defining the American Revolution, ought to be remembered by current and future generations.

Front Cover of Alfred Young's book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, circa 1999.

The story of the artisan shoemaker and revolutionary war veteran George Robert Twelve Hewes, tells of how a young man’s contempt for his life’s prospects, totalitarian authority around him, and his aspirations to radically change things for the better transform him into a bitter and regretful old man, who fails to see the difference in his world before and after the revolution, except for the national flag designs. Born to a lower class family in Boston, George never acquired much of an education in terms of academics, but was later forced into an apprenticeship for a shoemaker. By the time George was in his late teens and early twenties, he had become a shoemaker simply to help support the family. He had no other choice. As a child and a young adult, George Hewes was heavily disciplined, abused, and neglected by his mother and other various narrow-minded authority figures, who he never cared for, due to how they never gave him a chance to prove his proper worth.

"George was the wrong boy to put in a sedentary trade that was not to his liking. He was what Bostonians called “saucy”; he was always in Dutch. The memories of his childhood and youth that Thatcher elicited were almost all about defying authority-his mother, his teachers, his schoolmaster, his aunt, his shoemaker master, a farmer and a doctor." (Young 20)

"The town had to fill some two hundred minor positions; it was customary to stick artisans with the menial jobs. Hewes’s father was a hogreeve (responsible for dealing in stray wine) and measurer of boards. Harry Rhodes held town offices. McIntosh was made a sealer of leather. Hewes was appointed to nothing" (Young 31).

However, George would soon see that times were changing and that there was what some people would define as a geographical, cultural, and generational divide between those who called themselves Englishmen, and those who referred to the title “American”. The events which led to the opening battles of America’s war for independence (the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party) heavily impacted George Hewes; being that he happened to be in the right place and at the right time, as a Bostonian. In interviews with both Thatcher and Hawkes he claimed to have been present during both events.

"On the evening of the massacre he appeared early on the scene at King Street, … Private Kilroy dealt Hewes a blow on his shoulder with his gun. … The five men killed were all workingmen. Hewes claimed to know four." (Young 38)

"Four years later at the Tea Party on the night of December 16, 1773, Hewes the citizen “volunteered” and became the kind of leader for whom most historians have never found a place. … Hewes said that he got himself up as an Indian and daubed his “face and hands with coal dust in the shop of blacksmith.” In the streets “I fell in with many of who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination. … for Hewes there was something new: he was singled out of the rank and file and made an officer in the field." (Young 42-44)

It was in these years, when Hewes dedicated himself to the patriot cause. His anger for the social and governmental systems which confined him to a life of poverty, as a shoemaker, could be used as a powerful tool to strengthen this cause. His hopes to escape his prospects and socially advance as a soldier or politician in what would become a revolution for an independent nation of united states seemed quite feasible. In essence, such emotions from a poor man of his young age, is similar to numerous future generations, strongly defined by history for advocating cultural change for their own good (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millenials, etc.) They are driven by events of violence and deviance as a means of making their own statements to those of authority, that there would come the day when the power would be truly theirs and that their generation would make right and just the wrongful errors made by the old and corrupted geezers.

Though, as seen in George Hewes' military career during the years of the Revolutionary War, such a mind and soul of youth, vigor, and ambition to excel in society, can very quickly evolve into a mindset and faith centered in stone cold realism. Between the years 1776 and 1783, George Hewes signed on as a privateer and served two tours on board the ships USS Diamond and USS Defence of the fledgling Continental Navy. The primary reason as to why George took up privateering for the United States, was for one simple reason. Better pay. Unlike militiamen who were only able to make money by scavenging dead bodies on the battlefield, and soldering in the Continental Army which was meagerly paid by Congress with overtly inflated paper currency, privateering involved a contract license (known as a Letter of Marque & Reprisal) which allowed the ship's captain, crew, and a government official who notorized the license an equal share of the loot captured by enemy ships. Another aspect which would have heavily influenced George to sign on, would be that life on board a privateering vessel was a pure democracy. The captain could only wield true leadership only in a time of battle. Otherwise all crew members have an equal say and vote in regards to all aspects of the ship and it’s voyage.

HMS Observer Engaging the USS Jack. Robert Dodd. 1784.

Even though George’s time as a privateer was certainly an adventurous one and resulted in a profitable seizure of British valuables, he ultimately never acquired his share. Captain Samuel Smedley cheated him of his cut due to “emergency financial reasons”. He was promised his share at a later time, but such a promise was never kept. For the duration of the war from 1778 to 1783, George enlisted in a patriot militia company, which was reinforcing the Continental Army regulars, under Major General John Sullivan. It was then where, George claimed that he had fought at the Battle of Rhode Island. However, his memories of the more mundane side of life in the militia were lingered more prevalently in his mind. They had to encamp apart from the regulars, rations of food and ammunition were always low, and for the most part, they would march for hundreds of miles for the sake of meaningless goals assigned by the Continental high command. In the eyes of a 40 year-old Hewes (who didn’t have two coins to rub against after being cheated of his privateer pay) this time would cause him to lose almost everything that drove him to even join or support the patriot cause in the first place; and such a sentiment was permanently settled into his personality by the end of the war. His shoemaker shop was torn down, most of his relatives were dead, and he felt that everything he once thought he could do to escape his life of poverty in the colonies, now meant nothing in the newly formed United States. He was a poor man then, and he would remain a poor man for as long as he lived.

Painting by Don Troiani depicting the Patriot militia engaged with the British Army.
Battle of Rhode Island. January 1, 1779.

Such memories of George Robert Twelve Hewes are a reminder of how the events of history, which have practically been mythologized by several generations of people, do not always benefit the people who were involved or exposed to the action. The myth itself, being that all people who were involved in these historically defining events ought to be destined to succeed sometime afterwards. Yet, the reality couldn’t be any further away from such a perception. Like many other things in life, some people are meant to succeed and change the world, while others are meant to live ordinary lives; because the one’s who are meant to succeed can’t do so without the obedient workers of ordinary life. Even if such an obedient worker is that of a patriotic shoemaker.

Works Cited

  • Young, F., Alfred. “The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution”. Beacon Press. 1999. Print. Accessed March 25, 2020.

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About the Creator

Jacob Herr

Born & raised in the American heartland, Jacob Herr graduated from Butler University with a dual degree in theatre & history. He is a rough, tumble, and humble artist, known to write about a little bit of everything.

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