A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip’s War

A Note on Method

15 A Note on Method King Philip’s War (1675–1676) offers the ideal moment in time to study the character of impressed seventeenth-century New England soldiers and how and why they were chosen for service. This study is built primarily on the techniques of historical prosopography, or collective biography. In order to capture their true identity, I created a social portrait of every man from Essex County, Massachusetts, who served in an active company or garrison during the war. Men were determined to be active-duty soldiers either by their appearance on the official pay lists of the colony (with a unit and commanding officer listed) or if two other credible sources (predominantly town, probate, and court records or reliable town histories) recorded active war service.1 In all, at least 434 Essex County men received some kind of payment from the colony during the war. Twenty-four of these men were officers or noncommissioned officers, 53 men were paid for some unknown reason, and 357 were soldiers or troopers in active-duty companies or garrisons (see appendix 1). While it is possible that the 53 men who were paid for an unknown service were actually pressed into one of the colony’s fighting companies, it is much more likely (given the extensive manpower records on the active fighting units) that these men received compensation for some other service that they performed during the war, such as providing troops with military supplies or building fortifications. Men who simply received payment from the colony, with no confirmation of active-duty service, are not treated in this study.2 In all, 357 biographies of the active-duty soldiers of Essex County inform the conclusions of this investigation. While a few men who served from the county have undoubtedly been lost from the historical record, I am confident that all but a scant few of the men who actually fought in the war from Essex County are examined in this study. Once I authenticated the identity of each soldier, genealogical and community records were explored in order to create a social portrait or biography of each man. Because many of these young men still lived with 16 A Note on Method their parents, their birth families were also examined for clues into the soldiers’ status in their community. A large variety of records were consulted in order to create each soldier’s profile, including: birth, marriage, death, probate, church, town and colony government, land, military, and court records. In addition, I carefully examined both published and manuscript genealogies to glean important information, as well as town, county, and colony histories.3 In order to place the men and their families in the proper context, a short social history of each town in Essex County was also constructed. In addition, the members of each town’s militia committee were researched and their place in the community (and in relation to each soldier) was examined. While some data has undoubtedly been lost, a considerable amount of information about the men, their families, and their communities inform the conclusions offered here. I selected Essex County in the Massachusetts Bay Colony as the subject for this study mainly for the diversity of its towns. When the war broke out in 1675, Essex County was home to twelve towns (see map 2).4 Historians of New England claim that there were either three or five different types of towns in colonial New England.5 Essex County contained at least one town of every type, from commercial Salem to Lynn, the market center, as well as Andover, the farming hub, and the isolated Wenham. Essex County is thus representative of the entire colony and, in a way, all New England. As one of the first counties organized in the colony, it had A Note on Method 17 a large, stable, and mature population; thus it produced almost a third of the soldiers who fought in the war for Massachusetts Bay.6 These factors , along with the fact that Essex County has incredibly rich surviving records from the period, made its soldiers the best subjects for this study. Lastly, by studying an entire county, and every active-duty soldier pressed from that county, I do not claim to be choosing a representative sample for examination; instead, I am analyzing an entire population, which has clear statistical advantages. There are numerous instances throughout this study where I...