One Woman's Eyewitness Account of JP in 1775
Sarah Winslow Deming’s Journal
The Massachusetts Historical Society collection contains a vibrant account of the first days of the American Revolution in Boston by Sarah Winslow Deming (1722-1788). She wrote a 12-page letter to her niece Sally Winslow (later known as Sarah Winslow Coverly) sometime in June 1775, two months after the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred on April 19. The letter is written in the form of journal entries from April 15, when she first received news of the British troop movement leading up to April 19. It then recounts her harrowing flight from Boston after that “fatal” and “dreadfull” day with her husband and the two young women who were part of their household at that time. Her fear for her husband, friends and neighbors is evident. Her letter shares an unusual account of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War from the point of view of a 52-year-old woman and conveys a vivid sense of what was happening in Jamaica Plain.
In April 1775, Sarah Winslow Deming was living in Boston with her husband John Deming, Lucinda, a young woman enslaved by the Demings, and another niece, who was also named Sally Winslow. The Demings were supporters of the patriot cause and resistance to the British. It was a time of confusion: the British had occupied Boston and after the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, Boston was ordered to be sealed off by the British Crown. The area was surrounded by American militia.
Deming’s letter describes her experiences in various locations in Boston: Charlestown Ferry, Barton’s Point, the Boston Common, the Boston Neck, as well as outside of the town in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury Hill, Dedham, Attleborough, and Providence.
Lucinda
Part of Deming’s letter
Sarah Deming’s letter also gives insight into some of the experiences of Lucinda, a young woman who had been enslaved by Sarah and John Deming since she was seven years old. Born in West Africa, she was kidnapped as a young child to be trafficked into slavery, survived the brutal Middle Passage across the Atlantic, and was sold in Boston to the Demings. Lucinda was one of well over 1,000 Black people, both enslaved and free, living in Boston in the 1770s, and one of about 5,250 Black people in colonial Massachusetts at the time. Hidden Jamaica Plain is researching Lucinda for a separate article to be posted on the Jamaica Plain Historical Society website.
Read the transcribed letter with annotations about Jamaica Plain
Hidden Jamaica Plain annotated the letter below to highlight Deming's observations of Jamaica Plain in the first days of the American Revolution. The section headings have been added by Hidden Jamaica Plain.
Note on the Authors: Hidden Jamaica Plain
Note on Terminology
End Notes:
Sarah Winslow Deming was the eldest child of John Winslow and Sarah Peirce Winslow. She had two younger brothers: John, also a Patriot, and Joshua, a Loyalist who had to flee from Marshfield, MA to Halifax, Nova Scotia in April of 1775. Sarah married John Deming in 1752; it was a second marriage for both of them. She had no children, but boarded, tutored and introduced many young women to 18th century Boston society. Thanks to her niece Anna Green Winslow’s letters, which were collected and published as a book by Alice Morse Earle in 1894, we know that Sarah Deming was involved in politics. She took part in boycotts against taxed British imports such as fabric and tea, which required making clothes out of rough homespun fabric. http://www.revolutionarycharacters.org/sarah-deming
Sarah Winslow Deming supported her family income by taking in young women, often relatives, who were in Boston to learn reading, writing, sewing, and to develop social skills and graces. Her current charge, referred to as “Sally Winslow,” was not the Sally Winslow Coverly to whom this letter is addressed. She was likely a different niece from the Winslow family, once or twice removed.
John Deming was considered a respectable middle-class merchant. He was a Deacon of Old South Church in 1769, where the Demings were active members. Much of the information on the Demings comes from: Winslow, Anna Green, and Alice Morse Earle. Diary of Anna Green Winslow: A Boston School Girl of 1771, Houghton Mifflin and Co, 1900; 1894.