Holding history in your hand: Rare letter from American Revolution surfaces
The short letter was dashed off quickly, 246 years ago this month. Sent from New London, Conn. across Long Island Sound to Shelter Island, it arrived damp from what must have been a rocky crossing, but to this day is still sturdy and legible.
Written on April 27, 1775 from Thomas Fosdick to his brother-in-law Nicoll Havens, the letter is an insight into the emotions Americans felt at the moment the American Revolution was born.
Thomas Fosdick wrote: “Dear Brother, I Send You Inclosed the News Paper containing the most a Larming News of the King’s Soldiers Striking a Blow on the Americans, I’ve Recd the News Last Night, & are one Fixing To Go Immediately for Boston, So I have only Time To Let You Know that I am one that is Going who am your Affectionate Brother Thos. Fosdick.”
Further down on the paper, he added: “This Morning News is Arrived that they have had Three Battles Since the first News Come away —T. Fosdick.”
It’s said that bravery is marching toward the sound of gunfire for a good cause; that’s exactly what Fosdick was telling his brother-in-law on Shelter Island he was preparing to do. “The a Larming News” were reports of the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. And young Fosdick was off to Massachusetts to enlist.
He rose to the rank of major and was the adjutant to Brigadier General John Glover, fighting in many of the battles of the War Of Independence. He was named in dispatches to General George Washington, a high honor for any American soldier.
The letter, history you can hold in your hands, is now for sale by Manhattan’s Gosen Rare Books & Old Paper. Owner Gary Gosen told the Reporter he has several other items of historical interest relating to Shelter Island. For more information, contact Mr. Gosen at [email protected].
The Battle of Lexington and Concord was the culmination of years of simmering disputes and bitter resentments between the English Crown and the American colonists, which gradually, inevitably ignited into the flames of revolution and war. Massachusetts was the center of revolutionary ardor, with citizens arming themselves and preparing for a full-scale showdown with British troops.
On the evening of April 18, 1775, the Redcoats marched from Boston to Concord to investigate reports of arms being stored for the rebels. The silversmith and revolutionary Paul Revere alerted the local militia, who were ready at Lexington to engage the British regulars. The ill-trained and outgunned Americans fought fiercely and routed the British, who retreated back to Boston.
Every American knows the story, immortalized in poetry especially, “The Landlord’s Tale,” which opens, “Listen, my children/ and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,/ On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five…”
But as Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, it wasn’t just Americans who were affected by the battle of Lexington and Concord: “By the rude bridge that arched the flood/ Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,/ Here once the embattled farmers stood/ And fired the shot heard round the world.”
Nicoll Havens, who married Anna Fosdick, Thomas Fosdick’s sister, played a large part in the history of his town, region and country. He signed Shelter Island’s “Declaration of Independence,” dated May 1775, which was drafted and signed by the Island’s male heads of households just one month after the Battle of Lexington and Concord. In his life he held many Shelter Island elected offices, plus county and state offices.
In a Reporter story from July 2019, Karen Kiaer, historian of the Shelter Island Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and Joyce Bowditch-Bausman, the DAR’s honorary regent, spoke about how during the Revolution, when neighbors could be friend or foe, Shelter Island had surprisingly uniform support for independence from the British,
According to Ms. Kiaer, the Island paid a dear price for their rebellion. In a 2010 issue of the DAR’s magazine, “American Portals,” there’s an account of Islanders’ commitment to the Revolution. After George Washington’s defeat in August 1776 at the Battle of Long Island, 1,000 revolutionary soldiers were captured. Those prisoners of war were kept in hastily built prisons, as well as on board prison ships, anchored off the East End, and according to historical accounts, kept in deplorable conditions, with overcrowding, hunger, and disease rampant.
Some of those 1,000 patriots were from Shelter Island, and some are buried on the Island.
And now, a long-ago letter from one brother-in-law to another has surfaced, giving us an insight into the urgency and passion of two patriots during a moment when the wheel of world history turned.
