In the dead of night on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere leapt onto his trusty steed and flew
through the town of Lexington, shouting “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
at the top of his lungs. Having successfully warned the Patriots that the American Revolution
was about to go down, our dashing hero … rode … off into the night, or something? Who
even was that guy?
Okay, maybe some of us are a little hazy on the details of Revere’s life pre- and post-Midnight
Ride, but we can all agree that his claim to fame was yelling “The British are coming!”
across Massachusetts, right? Because U.S. history teachers wouldn’t have instilled
those four words into millions of young minds without being absolutely sure Revere … actually
said them … right?
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd, welcome to Misconceptions. Today we’re tackling some widely-known tales
from colonial America that don’t ring quite as true as the Liberty Bell (which, by the
way, doesn’t ring at all anymore. Its clapper was frozen in 1915 to prevent the crack from
widening any further. But that's a different story.)
The first misconception is that Paul Revere never shouted his own signature catchphrase—and
it wouldn’t have made much sense if he did.
Not only did some of the Massachusetts population still consider themselves British in 1775,
but Revere’s assignment was very much a covert operation. British soldiers were patrolling
the area that night, and Revere would’ve made the world’s worst secret messenger
if he tore through the towns screaming his head off. After going house by house to alert
people in the towns of Medford and Menotomy, Revere made his way to the Lexington parsonage
where Samuel Adams and John Hancock were staying. Upon Revere’s arrival, a guard named William
Munroe told him the residents had already turned in for the night and had asked “that
they might not be disturbed by any noise about the house.”
According to Munroe’s later testimony, Revere replied: “‘Noise! You’ll have noise
enough before long. The regulars are coming out.”
So I guess, at that point, Revere wasn’t too concerned with being as quiet as a churchmouse
in the church house, but how did “The regulars are coming out” get turned into the far
catchier “The British are coming!”?
There’s no conclusive answer to that question, but there are accounts of someone else shouting
the phrase at the time. In an 1854 issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical
Register, a Bostonian named William H. Sumner recounted the story of the battle of Lexington
as told to him by John Hancock’s widow, Dorothy Scott. According to Sumner, Scott
remembered another man arriving the day after Revere’s Midnight Ride to report that the
British troops had left Concord and were on their way seemingly to where Hancock and Samuel
Adams were hiding.
“Half frightened to death, he exclaimed, ‘The British are coming! the British are
coming!’”
And the wildest part? That man … was my ancestor. I’m just kidding, we don’t know who that guy was.
On the Fourth of July, we celebrate the day America ended its toxic relationship with
King George III by lighting fireworks, guzzling cheap beer, and eating as many hot dogs as
possible, which is pretty much what I do after a breakup, too. But the day we actually declared
independence from Britain was actually a little earlier than July 4.
On June 7, 1776, more than a year after the fighting broke out, the Second Continental
Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, where Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee introduced
a resolution declaring “that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free
and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and
that all political connection between them and the State of great Britain is and ought
to be totally dissolved.”
If you’re thinking that Lee’s resolution doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well
as all that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” stuff, you’re not the only
one. Several colonies straight up opposed breaking away from Britain, so Congress decided
to delay the vote while Thomas Jefferson and a few other men drafted a better, more detailed
justification for independence.
Jefferson and company turned in their homework on June 28, and it ended up being one of the
best argumentative essays ever written. When Congress voted on July 2, 12 out of 13 colonial
delegations voted in favor of declaring independence, and the resolution was officially passed.
New York abstained, but only because the delegates were waiting for their state legislature to
let them know how to vote—and back then, “just circling back” about something might
involve several days’ ride on horseback. They finally got word later that week, and
approved the resolution on July 9.
Anyway, on July 4, Congress formally OK’d an edited version of Jefferson’s Declaration
of Independence, but the delegates didn’t whip out their feather quills just yet. Jefferson
and Benjamin Franklin claimed it was signed on the Fourth, but most modern historians
doubt those accounts. The consensus is that, at most, Congressional President John Hancock
and the Congressional Secretary signed the document that day. Some even dispute the timing
of those signatures. What’s more clear:
Though we probably celebrate July 4 as Independence Day because that’s when the general public
first started finding out about the declaration, some people did think the Second of July should’ve
been the official holiday.
In a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams wrote that “The Second Day of July 1776,
will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America… It ought to be solemnized
with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations.”
He hit the nail on the head with the bit about pomp and parade, but Adams missed the mark
when it came to naming the date. Practically nobody remembers that anything happened on
July 2, and to add injury to insult, John Adams actually died on the Fourth of July
in 1826. Thomas Jefferson died on the same exact day.
Ah, Fate. She has a cruel hand, but a good sense of humor. Also, a killer serve in tennis,
they don't tell you about that one.
How on Earth the inside of George Washington’s mouth ever became a hot-button topic in history
class is truly beyond me, but for some reason most of us have heard that the venerated general
had a face full of wooden teeth.
Look, there’s no doubt that Washington was plagued with dental issues for most of his
adult life. He had his first tooth extracted at age 24, and by the time he was inaugurated
as president at age 57, his mouth was home to one, lone homegrown, not-so-pearly white.
Which, for the record, also eventually left the building.
He mentioned these problems pretty often in his correspondence. In a letter from 1783,
for example, Washington asked his aide William Stephens Smith to check out a certain dentist
for him.
“Having some teeth which are very troublesome to me at times and of which I wish to be eased,”
he wrote, “I would thank you for making a private Investigation of this Mans [sic]
character.”
Considering that Washington made it a point of saying that he “would not wish that this
matter should be made a parade of,” he’d probably be mortified to find out that a set
of his dentures are currently on display at Mount Vernon.
Throughout his life, Washington wore false teeth formed from a variety of materials,
including elephant and hippopotamus ivory, horse and cow teeth, and even human teeth.
Yeah, it gets worse.
According to a note from his ledger dated May 8, 1784, Washington paid, and I'm going
to quote Washington using a phrase we now consider a slur, 6 pounds 2 shillings
to “Negroes for 9 Teeth on Acct. of Dr Lemoire”. Dr Lemoire is agreed by historians to be Doctor Jean-Pierre
Le Mayeur, who was a dentist at the time and an expert in teeth transplants. He also advertised
for human teeth in the newspaper. For instance, a 1784 Pennsylvania paper had the ad “Any
person disposed to sell their Front Teeth, or any of them, may call on Dr. Le Mayeur
. . . and receive Two Guineas for each Tooth.” So quick math: nine teeth times two guineas
equals 18 guineas, which converts to 18 pounds 18 shillings. Washington seems to have paid
far below market value.
Whether the teeth were destined for dentures or an attempt at an implantation is unknown,
but because he paid so little for them, it’s generally believed that he took the teeth
from people who didn’t have an option to refuse—enslaved people at Mount Vernon.
But that still doesn’t explain where we got the idea that Washington had wooden teeth.
The leading theory is that the dark wine he was so fond of drinking stained his dentures,
giving the ivory teeth a grainy, wooden appearance. In 1798, Washington’s dentist John Greenwood
even advised him to clean them more often to prevent the discoloration.
“The sett [sic] you sent me from Philadelphia … was very black, occasioned either by your
soaking them in port wine, or by your drinking it,” he wrote. Who ever said colonial dentists
weren’t funny? Nobody, probably.
If you had the good sense to watch Disney’s 1995 film without actually believing that
Pocahontas and John Smith had a whirlwind fling in a magical forest that somehow allowed
them to communicate in the King’s English, congratulations—you probably weren’t three
years old when the movie came out. But regardless of when (or if) you realized that the Disney
version of events was more fairytale than history, you might not know exactly what went
down. Unfortunately, nobody really does—and it’s not because we don’t have any written
accounts.
Though John Smith wrote extensively on his adventures in Jamestown, the man himself had
developed a reputation as a pretty unreliable narrator. During his life, he was known kind of
as a shameless braggart, and Welsh writer David Lloyd actually satirized him in a poem
called “The Legend of Captaine Jones,” published in 1631. They just don’t make
biting satirical poems like they used to.
What we do know is that Pocahontas and John Smith definitely did know each other, and
their relationship definitely wasn’t romantic. Pocahontas was born around 1595, which would’ve
made her 11 or 12 years old when John Smith showed up in Jamestown. By the way, her real
name was Amonute, and she was also known as Matoaka. Some people—John Smith included—called
her Pocahontas, meaning “Little Playful One” or “Little Mischief,” but that
was just a childhood nickname. She even used to goof around doing cartwheels with the British
kids in the settlement.
One hotly contested passage from Smith’s 1624 book The Generall Historie of Virginia,
New England and the Summer Isles is the story of how Pocahontas saved him from being killed
by her father, Powhatan, who governed an alliance of about 30 Native American tribes.
Smith claimed that after he was captured, a mob of people dragged him before Powhatan,
laid his head on two great stones, and stood “ready with their clubs, to beat out his
brains.” Then Pocahontas “got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to
save him from death.”
After that, Powhatan spared Smith’s life, said they were now buds, and sent him on
his merry way back to Jamestown… Which seems like a suspicious 180°. Some historians don’t
think Smith’s life was ever in danger, and that Powhatan may have actually been holding
a kind of adoption ceremony from the get-go. After all, nobody said “Hey, we’re going
to beat out your brains with these clubs.” Plus, as historian Camilla Townsend explained
to History.com, the powerful chief probably wouldn’t have changed his plans for a prisoner
of war just because a little kid happened to like him, even if that little kid was his
daughter. And that’s assuming that the chief’s young daughter would’ve been present at
such a ceremony in the first place, which is also unlikely.
Other experts think John Smith completely made up the story, especially since it’s
missing from his earlier accounts of his time in Jamestown. When he did finally write about
it, Powhatan and Pocahontas had both already died. So chances of someone disputing his
story were basically zilch. Pretty shady stuff from a guy who made himself out to be a hero
in every way. Though I suppose we should’ve seen it coming from a guy named John Smith,
which is just the go-to fake name for all bad liars.
Every year, about a million people journey to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and pay a visit
to the most famous pet rock of all time—it’s even contained in what looks like a zoo cage.
Plymouth Rock has long been considered the place where the Pilgrims first set foot in
the New World after arriving on the Mayflower in 1620. But there are two first-hand accounts
of that event, and neither one discussed landing at a rock.
The first time anyone mentioned it in relation to Pilgrims was in 1741, a full 121 years
after the Pilgrims pulled up. City officials were planning to build a new wharf, and a
94-year-old resident named Thomas Faunce expressed worry that they’d end up destroying the
rock that the Pilgrims first stepped on. Faunce’s father had come to the colonies three years
after the Mayflower’s arrival, and Faunce remembered some of the original settlers showing
it to him.
So a few kindly citizens carried the elderly man down to the shore in a chair, and he was
able to identify the Plymouth Rock from all the other Plymouth rocks. It quickly became
a point of pride for the townspeople, though they accidentally split it in two when relocating
it to the town square in 1774. Instead of aborting the mission, they just took half
into town and left the other half at the harbor. Forget Hamilton, I think we need a Broadway
musical about the colonists who tried to carry this giant granite slab into town, broke it,
and then decided that half was good enough.
Anyway, in 1880, the two halves were cemented together and engraved with “1620,” and
they’ve been in their original spot on the shore ever since (renovations excluded). Several
pieces did get broken off in the interim, though. The Smithsonian has two of these chunks,
and there’s a 40-pound block in the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights.
At this point, it’s estimated that the dinner-table-sized Plymouth Rock is only one-third to one-half
of its original size.
Even if the rock is more of a symbolic landing place than a real one, at least Plymouth has
the distinction of being the first place the Pilgrims landed, right? Also not right. The
Mayflower first anchored at Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod, which is where
the passengers signed the Mayflower Compact. But William Bradford called the area “hideous
and desolate." The Pilgrims moved on to Plymouth, and that’s where they stayed.
Now that you have a more accurate understanding of the era’s most important dentures, rocks,
and revolutionary catchphrases, I’m gonna wrap up this episode with a few rapid-fire
facts about good old daily life in the colonies.
For one, men didn’t all walk around in floofy white wigs. No—those cascading curls were
reserved for the elite, leaving everyone else to embrace their receding hairlines and bald
spots, or else cover them up with a nice tricorn hat.
And if a colonist complained aloud about the blisters from his new boots, he wouldn’t
have sounded like a BBC broadcaster. That posh, r-less accent we associate with England
is technically called Received Pronunciation, and it didn’t become widespread until the
early 1800s. In other words, Americans didn’t start pronouncing hard r’s after being in
America for a while—they had just...always pronounced them.
Of course, they did begin to develop regional accents as time wore on, which were influenced
by other nearby settlers, like the Dutch, Swedish, French, and Spanish. Some even adopted
Received Pronunciation as a sort of status symbol. This was more common in port cities
who did a lot of trade with Britain, which might explain Boston’s whole “Park your
car in Harvard Yard” thing. I have to do it in the voice? Are you serious?
Pahk ya cah in the hahvad yahd. Ehh. Insulting.
Speaking of trade, colonists had to import quite a few goods that weren’t easy to produce
in the New World. Two of these were wine and beer, since grapes and barley didn’t grow
well on American soil. Apple orchards, on the other hand, were absolutely everywhere,
so hard cider became the de facto drink of choice for most colonists. Even upper-class
citizens who could probably shell out for another kind of alcohol favored cider: John
Adams is said to have drunk a glass every morning, and Thomas Jefferson loved his homemade
cider almost as much—if not more—than he loved France.
Thanks for watching Misconceptions. If you have any ideas for future topics you want
us to cover, leave them in the comments. We’ll see you next time.
I mean is this even colonial? Why am I wearing this?