On February 26, 1775, a confrontation occurred in the port town of Salem, Massachusetts, today known as “The Salem Affair.” Although many historians gloss over this event, it nearly triggered the start of the American Revolution and accelerated Massachusetts’ wartime preparations.

The Salem Affair resulted from General Thomas Gage’s desire to locate and recover four missing pieces of brass cannon. On the eve of the American Revolution, brass cannons were considered “weapons of mass destruction.” They were light, easily maneuverable, and deadly. In September 1774, four of these weapons were stolen while under guard and smuggled out of Boston. In mid-February 1775, Gage learned that “twelve pieces of Brass Cannon” were located in Salem’s seaport community. Shortly after that, he learned that the “Field pieces [were] in an old store, or Barn, near the landing place at Salem, … [and] are to be removed in a few days.”¹

However, Gage’s intelligence was wrong. The cannons in Salem were old iron French pieces purchased in 1774 by Colonel David Mason of Salem. Afterward, he had Robert Foster, a local blacksmith, mount them to carriages. The guns were stored in Foster’s shop along the North River and were readied for service in case war with England commenced.

The general was unaware that the pieces were old iron guns and was convinced that the four missing brass cannons were stored in the seaport community. Desperate to recover them, he ordered Lt. Colonel Alexander Leslie and 240 soldiers from His Majesty’s 64th Regiment of Foot to sail from Castle William in Boston Harbor to Marblehead. The strike force would then march four miles to Salem to seize the cannons.

18th century reproduction brass cannon 

On the afternoon of February 26th, at two o’clock, a Royal Navy vessel anchored off the coast of Marblehead. Since it was a Sunday, many locals attended afternoon religious services. The troops landed and commenced a quick march towards Salem.

Of course, the operation was almost immediately detected, and news reached Colonel Mason that “troops were marching into the town … to take possession of his guns.” In turn, Mason raced towards Foster’s blacksmith shop. En route, he stopped at Salem’s North Church to announce, “The Regulars are coming after the guns and are near Malloon’s Mills!” Many churchgoers assisted Mason and Foster in hiding or relocating the cannons. They raised a drawbridge over the North River, preventing the Regulars from accessing Foster’s blacksmith shop.²

When Leslie’s strike force arrived, the Salem residents and the troops had a tense standoff. The colonel demanded that the drawbridge be lowered. Foster and Mason refused. In response, Leslie contemplated aloud whether he should order his troops to fire into the civilian crowd. Some of his soldiers tried to seize a pair of gondolas moored in the North River, but the residents got to the boats first and purposely sank them. Other Regulars got into a shoving match with some of the townsmen, resulting in Joseph Whicher being slightly scratched with the tip of a bayonet.

British light infantry sergeant

| Permission to use image given by Rory Nolan, His Majesty’s Fifty-Second Regiment of Foot, Light Company (recreated), Newburyport, Massachusetts.

At the height of the confrontation, Mason loudly announced that alarm riders had been dispatched and Essex militia companies would converge on the town in mere hours. Violence seemed inevitable. Suddenly, the Reverend Thomas Barnard stepped forward to defuse the situation and negotiate a compromise. Aware that the cannons were long gone, Barnard suggested that the bridge be lowered. Leslie, in turn, “pledged his honor he would march not above thirty rods beyond it, and then immediately return.”³ The colonel would not search for the cannons. All parties agreed to the proposal. The 64th marched across the bridge and then marched for Marblehead empty-handed.

As the troops passed through Marblehead, Sarah Tarrant, in one of the houses near the regiment’s landing site, called out, “Go home and tell your master he has sent you on a fool’s errand and broken the peace of our Sabbath.” One of the soldiers pointed his musket at her, and she exclaimed, “Fire if you have the courage, but I doubt it.”⁴

The troops sourly boarded their transport and sailed back to Boston.

One of the more humorous stories from the Salem Affair hails from Newburyport. On the eve of the American Revolution, Newburyport had no less than nine military companies in its community: four militia companies, two minuteman companies, two “private” companies composed of the town’s elite, and one private artillery company that was uniformed. In the late afternoon of February 26th, an alarm rider arrived in Newburyport with news of the Salem Affair. The nine military units all mobilized and marched for Salem. It appears the men advanced as far as Rowley when they received word that the confrontation was over. The Newburyport soldiers turned around and stopped at the first tavern they found. While there, they raised their glasses to countless patriotic toasts and drank the tavern dry. The men then promptly left without paying their tab. The poor tavern keeper kept writing to the Newburyport selectmen for the next two years, asking the town to reimburse him. At first, the town ignored his pleas, but eventually, the selectmen reluctantly agreed to repay the bill.⁵

General Gage, stung by the failure of his operation, would later report, “The circumstance of the eight field pieces at Salem led us into a mistake, for supposing them to be brass guns brought from Holland, or some of the foreign isles, which report had also given reasons to suspect, a detachment of 400 men under Lieut. Col. Leslie was sent privately off by water to seize them. The places they were said to be concealed in were strictly searched, but no artillery could be found. And we have since discovered that there had been only some old ship’s guns, which had been carried away from Salem some time ago.”⁶

In the days after the encounter, Salem quickly moved to relocate the guns. According to the March 3, 1775, edition of the Essex Gazette, residents reported, “Pieces of cannon were removed out of this Town, to be out of the way of Robbers.”⁷ By mid-March, the guns were relocated to Colonel James Barrett’s farm in Concord, setting in motion the fateful events of April 19, 1775.

Sources:

1 Thomas Gage, Intelligence from unidentified writer, February 24, 1775, in James Duncan Phillips, “Why Colonel Leslie Came to Salem,” Essex Institute Historical Collections Volume XC, October 1954 (Salem: Newcomb & Gauss Co., 1954), 314.

2 William Gavett, February 26, 1775, “Account of the Affair at the North Bridge,” Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Volume I, 1859 (Salem: Essex Institute Press, 1859), 126-128.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 The Essex Journal And Merrimack Packet, Wednesday, March 1st, 1775.

6 General Thomas Gage to Lord Dartmouth, 4 March 1775, Thomas Gage Papers, American Series 1755–1775 (William Clements Library, University of Michigan), 1:394.

7 Essex Gazette, March 3, 1775; John L. Bell, The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannons Ignited the Revolutionary War (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2016), 133.