Gaspee
Virtual Archives
Daniel Pearce (c1755 - 1800)
The Gaspee Days Committee at www.gaspee.COM
is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community
events
in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous Gaspee Days Parade
each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the burning of
the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island
patriots in 1772 as 'America's First Blow for Freedom'®. Our
historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives at www.gaspee.ORG
, has presented these research notes as an attempt to gather further
information
on one who has been suspected of being associated with the the burning
of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or further questions
to webmaster@gaspee.org.
This web page presents research notes on Daniel Pearce
only.
None of the information is considered authoritative at the present time.
Evidence
Implicating Daniel Pearce:
From: The
Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee --
by William R. Staples, quoted from the account of Ephraim Bowen, p13:
About the time of the shutting
up of the shops soon after sunset, a
man passed along the Main street beating a drum and informing the
inhabitants
of the fact, that the Gaspee was aground on Namquit Point, and would
not
float off until 3 o'clock the next morning, and inviting those persons
who felt a disposition to go and destroy that troublesome vessel, to
repair
in the evening to Mr. James Sabin's house.
From: Stone, Edward Martin. The Life
and Recollections of John Howland, Late President of the Rhode Island
Historical Society.
Providence, Geo. H. Whitney, 1857, p35 (This book was written
from direct interviews with John Howland):
When Lindsey arrived with the
news, a muster was made, and somebody set Daniel Pearce, a boy who had a drum,
to beating through the street, and proclaiming that the Gaspee was
ashore high and dry below Pawtuxet.
John Brown Francis was the
grandson of Gaspee raid leader
John Brown, and who related a personal
history as told him by John Brown himself published in Life,
times, and correspondence of James Manning, and the early
history of
Brown University by Reuben Aldridge Guild. Boston, 1864,
p170-172:
Information of the enemy's
situation was proclaimed by beat of drum; and a man named Daniel Pearce passing along Main
Street invited such of the inhabitants as were willing to engage in a
perilous enterprise for the destruction of the Gaspee, to meet at the house of
James Sabin.....
In the Pictoral Field Book of the Revolution
by Benson J. Lossing,, Volume I, Harper Brothers,
New York, 1859, Lossing also cites that the drummer's name was Daniel
Pearce. Lossing, during his trip to Providence had extended
conversations with eyewitness John Howland
at the RI Historical Society.
At dusk, a
man
named
Daniel Pearce passed along the
Main Street, beating a drum, and
informing
the inhabitants that the Gaspee lay aground on Namquit Point;
that
she could not get off until three o’clock in the morning; and inviting
those who were willing to engage in her destruction to meet at the
house
of James Sabin......
Catharine Williams,
in her Biography of
Revolutionary
Heroes: Containing the Life of Brigadier Gen. William Barton and Also
of
Captain Stephen Olney. (New York, Wiley & Putnam, 1839),
retelling the story of the burning of the Gaspee, we feel, misidentifies the
drummer as a Daniel Price.
The Saturday Evening Post of August 22, 1829 (Philadelphia, Vol.
VIII-Whole
No. 421), on the other
hand, gives a totally different name to the drummer, as Peter
Crooch. The name
is previously unknown to us, and the very extensive character
description
reminds us of someone attempting to write in the style of Charles
Dickens. Perhaps
the reporter was attempting to impress his editors more than to strive
for historical accuracy.
We note that the 6June1772 and 12June1773 editions of the Providence Gazette published the
names of appointees to town positions, of which, Town Cryer was Mr.
Daniel Branch. The
simple fact that Daniel Branch was the appointed Town-Cryer does not
make him the one that beat the drum to the Gaspee, but the single
syllable name
similarity certainly gives one pause.
Finally, James Otis-Kaler, in his fictionalized tale, When
We
Destroyed
the Gaspee, (1901): Boston, D.
Estes
& Co. Library of Congress # 01018525 uses the name of Daniel Pearce
as one of the main characterizations along with Justin Jacobs.
Biographical
Notes:
Left:
Daniel Pearce House (c1781) still stands at 53 Transit
Street in Providence, noted by its steep "lightning splitter" roof.
We do note that a Daniel Pearce and his wife
both died of yellow fever in Providence in September 1800 (Field.
Edward. State of Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations at the End of the Century: A History.
Boston, Mason Publishing Co, Vol II, p35). We note that 52
Providence citizens died in that epidemic, all South of Transit
Street. In the Life and
Recollections of John Howland, the author relates that these
periodic summer epidemics of yellow fever were predominant in the South
area of town (near Fox Point), which would be expected since we now
know that this disease is transmitted by mosquitos, probably imported
to us from the many merchant ships that traded with trhe Carribbean and
South America, and which were known to have docked at Fox Point.
We also know
that Daniel Pearce's house was on Transit Street, and that is smack in
the middle of the South part of that town.. It also would be a close
location to the Providence wharves in 1772. The RI Historical Society papers of William
Greene (MSS 470) indicate that while he was in the merchant
partnership of Greene & Sarle, they
contracted Eben Marvin and Daniel Pearce to build the brig Catharine
Ray. We see from the United States
Chronicle [Providence] of 11June1789 that Daniel Pearce was
appointed a constable of that town. There were two young ladies married
after the turn of the century that were cited as daughters of the 'late
Daniel Pearce', including Fanny (1801), and Ann (1805) In 1807
the house of the 'late Daniel Pearce' located on Transit Street was
sold at auction.
Wayne G. Tillinghast in The
Tillinghasts in America: The First Four Generations
(2006), cites a Daniel Pearce who was the son of William Pearce (
___--1784) and Elizabeth Tillinghast
Pearce (1718-1761). This Daniel became a tailor according to a
relative's probate records in 1776. Unfortunately, we don't have more
exact vital records other than by extrapolating his mother's dates, so
this Daniel Pearce was presumably born sometime after 1734 and before
1761. Also of interest is that WGT indicates than William Tillinghast
was an innkeeper. We find ads in the 1763 Providence Gazette for the sale of
a large house on the Pawtuxet Village waterfront suitable as an
inn or for shipbuilding, and which was apparently co-owned by William
Pearce and James Rhodes. The Providence house of William Rhodes was
notable enough to have been a landmark used by several ads in the Providence Gazette, including one
1773 ad to meet and organize for the erection of a bridge connecting
Providence with Rehoboth (now East Providence).
We note that Daniel Pearce is variably referred to as a 'boy' and 'man'
in the retellings of the Gaspee Affair above. John Howland called
him a boy, and John Howland was known to have become an astute
historian, even President of the RI Historical Society. Howland's own
age at the time, put him close to the age of Daniel Pearce himself, so
the c1756 birth age we have selected for our Daniel Pearce seems about
right.
No Daniel Pearce of the right dates appears in the RI
Historical Cemetaries Database, but there is a Pearce family plot
in East Greenwich. The 1770 List of
Providnce Taxpayers does give a Benoni Pearce living in
section XI C 5 of the map, just West of the Great Bridge on Broad
Street Comprehensive offspring records
of Benoni do not list a Daniel Pearce.
Very little else in known about Daniel Pearce. Ancestry.com
gives us a Daniel Pearce born 3 MAR 1752 in East Greenwich, RI died 12
FEB 1824.
But we also know that our Daniel Pearce died in 1800, so this
man is not him.
Our conclusion is that the Daniel Pearce we seek is probably born and
raised in Providence. It really matters not that we can't track
his ancestry. We know he existed, he was named in first person
accounts of the attack, and we know he died in 1800. Since he was
a boy in 1772 we can assume his birth year was about 1750-1759, and
most probably he was the son of William and Elizabeth Pearce.
While Daniel Pearce may or may not
have
directly
participated in the attack on the Gaspee,
he did encourage others to do
so.
We therefore recognize him as an unindicted co-conspiritor in the
Gaspee Affair.
Originally
Posted
to Gaspee Virtual Archives 9/2004 Last Revised
01/2008 DanielPearce.html