The 1774 Ipswich Convention “To Consider the Late Acts of Parliament”

Featured image: Treadwell’s Inn is the yellow house on N. Main St., where the 1774 Ipswich Convention was held.

In 1774, in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, General Gage was sent to Boston with troops and assumed the governorship. The colony’s Charter rights were abrogated by the  Intolerable Acts, punitive measures enacted by the British Parliament in retaliation for acts of defiance by the colonists. The acts prescribed that members of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council would be appointed by the King, instead of being elected by the provincial assembly.

Leaders with patriot sympathies called for meetings to create a new provisional government. The Massachusetts Government Act outlawed unauthorized town meetings, so the defiant patriots cleverly scheduled congresses to be held in each Massachusetts county to deal with the political crisis. These meetings set the stage for the establishment of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.

The Suffolk County Convention was held in private homes in Dedham and Milton on September 9, 1774, and the result of its deliberations, known as the Suffolk Resolves, were delivered by Paul Revere to the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. The Middlesex County Convention took place in Concord in August 1774. The Hampshire Convention was held in Northampton on September 22 and 23, and the Plymouth County Convention was held in Plympton on September 26 and 27.

On Saturday, August 20, 1774, printed notifications were posted in Salem “desiring the Merchants, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants” to meet at the Town House the following Wednesday at 9 in the morning to appoint representatives to meet at Ipswich on September 6 along with the representatives of the other towns in the county “to consider and determine on such measures as the late acts of Parliament, and our other grievances render necessary and expedient.“

Governor Gage, in turn, issued a proclamation to prevent this meeting in Salem from choosing delegates to the convention at Ipswich. Eighty troops marched to within one-eighth of a mile of the Salem Town House under Col. Peter Frye, but failed to intimidate the assembled crowd. The Governor was outwitted while delegates were quickly chosen, and the meeting adjourned. Two of the chosen committee members were arrested, but charges were dropped under public pressure, and Col. Frye soon issued an apology.

The Worcester Revolt

In the early morning of September 6, before Essex County representatives convened their meeting in Ipswich, over 4000 militiamen from 37 Worcester County towns marched on Worcester to shut down the courthouse to prevent the new Crown-appointed judges from taking their seats.

The Ipswich Convention

Sixty-seven delegates representing every Essex County town arrived in Ipswich at Treadwell’s Inn on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1774, and the Convention began two days of deliberations, with Jeremiah Lee of Marblehead as the chairman. Ipswich was represented by Captain Michael Farley, Mr. John Patch 3rd, Mr. Daniel Noyes, Mr. Jonathan Cogswell, and Mr. Nathaniel Farley. Resolutions were adopted by unanimous vote, binding themselves to stand together in opposition to the Crown, demanding the resignation of officials holding office by Royal appointment, and declaring the Provincial Congress, soon to assemble, as absolutely necessary for the common safety.

The Convention resolved that the representatives would adjourn for a general assembly to be held at Salem on October 5, where representatives were to choose representatives to a new Provincial Congress which would meet in Concord on October 7, 1774. The Provincial Congress met in three sessions, each spanning several weeks. The third Provincial Congress dissolved itself on July 19, 1775, when the General Court convened in Cambridge as the new official government of Massachusetts, and confirmed the resolves of the Provincial Congresses.

Resolutions of the Essex Convention Gathered at Ipswich

After two days of deliberations, the 1774 Essex Convention meeting in Ipswich issued the following report, declaring allegiance to the Crown, but calling for the creation of a Provincial Congress:

THE DELEGATES appointed by the several towns in this county to meet together at this alarming crisis, to consider and determine on such measures as shall appear to be expedient for the country to adopt; deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of this delegation, of the abilities and gratifications necessary for conducting our public affairs with wisdom and prudence, but with the firmness and resolution becoming freemen with the respect and difference due to the sentiments of our brethren in the other counties of the province, with submission to the future determinations of a provincial assembly, and the decisions of the great American Congress, do in the name of the country make these resolves, vis:

• SECOND. That the judges, justices, and other civil officers in this country, appointed agreeably to the charter and the laws of the province, are the only civil officers in the country whom we may lawfully obey. That no authority whatever can remove these officers, except that which is contributed pursuant to the charter and those laws; that it is the duty of these officers to continue in the execution of their respective trusts, as if the aforementioned act of parliament had never been made; and that while they thus continue, untainted by any official conduct in conformity to that act, we will vigorously support them therein to the utmost of our power, indemnify them in their persons and property and to their lawful yield a ready obedience.

• THIRD. That all civil officers in the province as well as private persons, who shall dare to conduct in conformity to the aforementioned act for violating the charter and constitution of the province are and will be considered by this country as its unnatural and malignant enemies, and in the opinion of this body, such men, while they persist in such conduct, and so contribute to involve the colonies in all the horrors of a civil war, are unfit for civil society; the lands ought not to be tilled by the labor of any American, nor their families supplied with clothing or food.”

• FOURTH. The fourth resolve, which respected Peter Frye, Esq., was omitted by the direction of the delegates of Salem, Marblehead, and Danvers, they opposing his frank and generous declaration inserted in the papers, would give full satisfaction to the country, and under a publication of this resolve, superfluous and improper.

• FIFTH. That a committee be raised to wait on William Browne, Esq., of Salem, and acquaint him that with grief his country has viewed his exertions for carrying into execution, acts of parliament, circulated to Enslave, and ruin his native land. That, while the country would continue the respect for several years paid him, it firmly resolves to detach from every future connection with all such as shall persist in supporting or in any way countenancing the late arbitrary edicts of parliament; that the delegates in the name of the country, request him to excuse them from the painful necessity of considering and treating him as an enemy to his country, and therefore that he would resign his office as a councilor on the late establishment, and decline as a judge and in every other capacity, to execute the late acts of parliament and all others deemed by the province unconstitutional and oppressive.

• SIXTH. That in the opinion of this body all town meetings in this county ought to be called agreeably to the laws of the province, and the ancient usage of the country.

• SEVENTH. That it is the opinion of this body of delegates that a provincial government is absolutely necessary in our present unhappy situation; and that, as writs are now issued for the election of representatives, for a general assembly, to be held at Salem on the 5th day of October next, the representatives so elected will properly form such provincial congress. And it is further our opinion that these representatives should be instructed by their several towns to resolve themselves into a provincial congress accordingly, if, when assembled, they shall deem it necessary or expedient; in order to consult and determine on such measures as they judge will tend to promote the true interest of his majesty, and the peace, welfare and prosperity of the province.

• EIGHTH. Deeply affected with a sense of the miseries and calamities now impending over the colonies, and this province in particular, we are compelled to form these resolutions; which as we apprehend, being founded in justice and necessity, on the principles of our natural, essential, and unalienable rights, we are determined to abide by it. At the same time, we frankly and with sincerity declare that we still hold ourselves subjects of His Majesty King George the Third; as such, will bear him true allegiance, and are ready with our lives and fortunes to support and defend his person, crown, and dignity, and his constitutional authority over us. But by the horrors of slavery, by the dignity and happiness attending virtuous freedom, we are constrained to declare that we hold our liberties too dear to be sported with, and are therefore most seriously determined to defend them. This, in the present dispute, we conceive may be effected by peaceable means. But though above all things, slavery excepted, we deprecate the evils of a civil war, though we are deeply anxious to restore and preserve harmony with our brethren in Great Britain, yet if the disposition and violence of our enemies should finally reduce us to the sad necessity, we undaunted, are ready to appeal to the last resort of states, and will, in support of our rights, encounter even death, sensible, that he can never die too soon who lays down his life in support of the laws and liberties of his country.

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The meeting adjourned without closing because the Governor had forbidden new meetings. The representatives to the General Court, which Gen. Gage had moved to Salem, were now empowered by the resolutions of the Ipswich Convention.

Judge William Browne of Boston gave a written reply to the fifth resolve on September 9: “Gentlemen, I cannot consent to defeat his Majestie’s intentions and disappoint his expectations by which he has been graciously pleased to appoint me, an appointment made without my solicitation, and accepted by me, from a sense of duty to the King and the hopes of serving my country. I wish, therefore, to give him no cause to suspect my fidelity, and I assure you I will do nothing without a true regard to its interests, as a judge and in every other capacity.” Browne, an avowed Loyalist, and his family soon left all of their possessions and fled to Boston. He was appointed by the British Prime Minister to the Governor’s post in Bermuda in 1781; his property in Salem was confiscated by the new State of Massachusetts.

On Sept. 1, Governor Gage ordered a meeting of the Legislature in Salem for Oct. 5, but adjourned it indefinitely on Sept. 28th. Notwithstanding, the representatives met at the appointed time in Salem. Ipswich was represented by Captain Michael Farley and Mr. Daniel Noyes, the schoolteacher and postmaster. After waiting a day for the Governor to appear, the assembled representatives chose John Hancock as their chairman and passed resolutions declaring the actions of the Governor to be unconstitutional. They then resolved themselves to be a Provincial Congress, and recommended that companies of armed Minutemen be organized and that they be “disciplined three times a week and oftener as opportunity may offer.” The assembly adjourned to meet at Concord on October 11, where 250 elected delegates met as the illegal provisional Congress, which governed the state from that time until 1780.

In 1788, representatives from the towns met again in Ipswich to consider the draft of a new constitution for Massachusetts. The assembled representatives registered 18 objections to the draft, which became known as the Essex Result. A new draft Massachusetts Constitution was written by John Adams and won overwhelmingly in a referendum, and it is still in effect today.

Several representatives to the Ipswich and Salem meetings became the local backbone of the Federalist Party, advocating the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton. Among its members were George Cabot, Timothy Pickering, Nathan Dane, and Theophilus Parsons. President John Adams had an intense dislike for Hamilton and coined the name “Essex Junto” for this group. The Federalist Party dominated Ipswich politics until its demise in 1816.

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Sources and further reading:

• Smith, Sara Sprague Saunders: The Founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Volumes 1-2, page 99
• Stone, Edward Martin: History of Beverly
• Northern Illinois Digital Library: The Meeting at Salem
• New England Historical Society: The Year 3000 People Came to Town Meeting in Salem
• Waters, Thomas: Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Wikipedia: Massachusetts Provincial Congress: Essex Convention
• Streeter, Gilbert L: Salem Before the Revolution
• Sons of the American Revolution: The Worcester Revolt of September 6, 1774
• Historic Ipswich: “A State of Nature”, Worcester in 1774
• Historic Ipswich: The 1778 Ipswich Convention and the Essex Result

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