William Brattle

William Brattle
Massachusetts Attorney General
In office 1736–1738
Monarch	George II
Preceded by	John Overing
Succeeded by	John Overing
Personal details
Born	(1706-04-18)April 18, 1706 Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died	October 25, 1776(1776-10-25) (aged 70) Halifax, Nova Scotia
Resting place	Old Burying Ground
Spouse(s)	Katherine Saltonstall (m. 1727) Martha Fitch (m. 1752)
Children	9
Nickname	Brigadier Paunch
Military service
Allegiance	Massachusetts
Branch/service	Massachusetts Militia
Years of service	1729–1776
Rank	Major general
Unit	1st Regiment of Militia of Middlesex
Battles/wars	King George's War French and Indian War

Major-General William Brattle (April 18, 1706 – October 25, 1776) was an American politician, lawyer, and militia officer who served as the Massachusetts Attorney General from 1736 to 1738. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, Brattle inherited the estates of his father and uncle at a young age and attended Harvard College, graduating with a master's degree in 1725. He proceeded to dabble in preaching, law and medicine, though in 1729 Brattle began a career in politics and the military, being elected to the Massachusetts House of Assembly and commissioned into the militia at the rank of major.

Over the course of the 1730s, Brattle continued to be involved in politics. In addition to establishing his own private law practice, he was also appointed as the colony's Attorney General in 1736, though he never prosecuted anyone as attorney general due to resistance from Governor Jonathan Belcher. In 1745, he was appointed as the commander of the garrison at Castle William after King George's War broke out, though Brattle saw no action. He married twice, once in 1727 and again in 1755, with the marriages producing nine children, though only two, Thomas and Katherine, survived to adulthood.

During the early years of the American Revolution, Brattle was a leader of colonial opposition to British policies, though by the 1770s he had gradually shifted to the Loyalist side. In 1774, Brattle unwittingly sparked the Powder Alarm, leading to a riot which forced Brattle to flee to Boston. In 1775, the Revolutionary War broke out, with the Continental Army besieging Boston. When the British evacuated the city in 1776, Brattle went with them to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died after staying there for several months. In the 21st century, Brattle's ownership of slaves has come under increasing scrutiny.

Early life

William Brattle was born on April 18, 1706 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was born into a prominent Massachusetts family that had emigrated from England during the early 17th century. His father, also named William, was a Congregationalist clergyman and fellow of the Royal Society who served as the minister of the First Parish in Cambridge from 1696 to 1717. Brattle's mother was Elizabeth Brattle (née Hayman), who married his father on November 3, 1697 in Boston. Brattle had only one sibling, an older brother named Thomas who died at a young age.

His father died in Cambridge on February 15, 1717, and Brattle inherited his estate along with that of Brattle's uncle Thomas. In 1718, he began attending Harvard College. Brattle graduated four years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree, before graduating again with a master's degree in 1725. Once graduating from Harvard, he began a career in preaching, aiming to become the town clergyman of Ipswich. Discouraged by the poor reception he faced, Brattle switched careers and began working as a physician in 1726, with many of his patients being prominent local families or Harvard College students.

In December 1726, he accompanied a diplomatic expedition under Lieutenant Governor William Tailer to the Wabanaki Confederacy as a physician. On November 23, 1727, Brattle married Katherine Saltonstall, the daughter of Connecticut governor Gurdon Saltonstall. In the same year, he arranged for the construction of a large Georgian mansion in Cambridge, which eventually became known as the William Brattle House or "Old Brattle House" and was described by British-American writer James H. Stark as "the resort of the fashion and style of this section of the country."

The William Brattle House in 2011

Political and military career

In 1729, Brattle "plunged immediately into public affairs." He was elected to serve on the Cambridge select board and also as a representative at the Massachusetts House of Assembly, in addition to being appointed as a justice of the peace (JP). In the same year, Brattle was commissioned into the Massachusetts Militia at the rank of major and elected to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. Despite his youth, he quickly joined in the ongoing political battle between populists in the House of Assembly and Governor William Burnet on the side of the former.

Brattle served on the committees which welcomed the new governor Jonathan Belcher in 1730 and delineated Massachusetts' border with Rhode Island in 1733, though he refused to serve on the committee which delineated the border with Connecticut due to feeling he had enough experience. While serving as an officer in the 1st Regiment of Militia of Middlesex, Brattle published a military training manual titled Sundry Rules and Directions for Drawing up a Regiment in 1733, which "many an English or American officer packed in his haversack" during the French and Indian War.

In 1736, having earlier established a private law practice, he was appointed as one of the JPs who sat with judges in the Middlesex County court. Brattle was appointed as the Massachusetts Attorney General by the House of Assembly in the same year, though he never prosecuted anyone during his two years as attorney general as Belcher insisted the office could only be filled by those chosen by himself and the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Despite this, Brattle did sit as a special justice in the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1749. Historian Clifford K. Shipton argued Brattle's "ability in law was not much greater than in medicine and preaching."

Dhring the early 1740s, Brattle became involved in the First Great Awakening, a Christian revival that swept Great Britain and its North American colonies. As an opponent of the revival, he publicly quarrelled with its North American leader George Whitefield, an evangelist who accused Harvard College of irreligiosity and Arminianism. To rebut Whitefield's claims, Brattle published two letters in the Boston Gazette on April 20 and June 29 in 1741 which argued that much of the accepted history of Harvard College, in particular its earlier years, was rife with misinformation. Paul Dudley, the chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, was so impressed by the letters that he made a speech about them to a jury praising Brattle's arguments.

In 1745, amidst a French invasion scare in the Thirteen Colonies as a result of King George's War, Governor William Shirley, of whom Brattle was a strong supporter, appointed him commander of the garrison at Castle William. There, Brattle did little more than serve as the garrison's drillmaster. Katherine died in Cambridge in 1752, and on November 2, 1755, Brattle remarried to Martha Fitch Allen, the widow of Boston politician James Allen. In either 1755 or 1756, he was elected to serve on the Governor's Council, and during the French and Indian War Brattle represented Massachusetts in negotiations with Connecticut for the purpose of mutual defence. Having been promoted to the rank of colonel by 1741, he was promoted again to brigadier general in 1760.

American Revolution and death

During the 1760s, despite having supported earlier governors, Brattle emerged as a leader of colonial opposition to British policy toward the Thirteen Colonies. Disappointed by the fact that Thomas Hutchinson was appointed as chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1761, he led the anti-government faction in the Governor's Council, while in the House of Assembly the faction was led by fellow populist James Otis Jr. On November 5, 1765, in lieu of the traditional Guy Fawkes Night, in which mobs from Boston's North and South Ends battled over the possession of effigies of the pope and Stuart pretender, Brattle and fellow populist Ebenezer Mackintosh headed a procession to symbolise the militia and mobs joining forces, angering Governor Francis Bernard.

In 1767 and again from 1772 to 1773, Brattle served with Hutchinson and John Hancock in a committee which conducted boundary negotiations with New York. Brattle and James Bowdoin were elected to the Governor's Council in 1769, though this was blocked by Bernard, who claimed the two men were "the Managers of all late Opposition in the Council to the Kings Government." Bernard also revoked Brattle's colonelcy of the 1st Regiment of Militia of Middlesex, while Brattle sent a private letter to Lord Dartmouth explaining the situation and reaffirming his loyalty to the Crown. In the spring of 1770, Brattle was elected by voters in Cambridge to the House of Assembly, where he served on a committee for building new gunpowder magazines in Massachusetts.

Despite having previously supported the anti-government Sons of Liberty, Brattle publicly split with them in January 1773 over his argument in a Cambridge town meeting on December 1772 that judges in Massachusetts should have fixed salaries to make them independent from both the governor and House of Assembly. Brattle's argument led to a war of letters between him and attorney John Adams, which brought the latter into the political limelight. Shipton argued that Brattle had not intended to provoke a controversy while Adams "tried to split legal hairs". From that point onwards, "Brattle could be counted among the increasing numbers of the old political élite who, while initially having opposed British policy, feared that the growth of popular politics threatened the social order."

To reward him for his role in the affair, Hutchinson promoted Brattle to the rank of major general in 1773. On August 27, 1774, Brattle sent a letter to Governor Thomas Gage, informing him that only British-owned gunpowder remained in the Old Powder House near Boston. Four days later, Gage dispatched roughly 260 soldiers from the 4th Regiment of Foot to remove the gunpowder. At the same time, Gage lost the letter Brattle wrote to him, which was soon found by local Patriots and publicized. Rumors emerged that violence had broken out during the powder's removal; an angry mob went after Brattle's mansion, forcing him to flee to Castle William seeking British protection. However, tensions soon subsided as it became clear that no violence had actually occurred.

On September 5, 1774, several newspapers in Boston published a letter from Brattle in which he insisted that he had not persuaded Gage to remove the powder; according to Brattle, Gage had requested a full account of the Old Powder House's contents from him, and he had merely complied. Brattle continued to live in Boston when the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, with the Continental Army laying siege to the city. On March 17, 1776, General Sir William Howe, having decided his position was untenable, ordered the British garrison in Boston to be evacuated to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Brattle went with them, and died in Halifax on October 25, 1776. After a ceremony at St. Paul's Church, he was buried at the Old Burying Ground on October 26.

Personal life, family and legacy

During his lifetime, Brattle gained a reputation as a "jovial, pleasure-loving man whose... family connections placed him among the Massachusetts élite." He enjoyed gambling, fishing and eating, with his political enemies nicknaming him "Brigadier Paunch" due to his weight. In addition to sitting 21 times on the Cambridge select board, Brattle was also a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, serving on the committees responsible for overseeing the construction of Hollis Hall and reconstruction of Harvard Hall. Brattle commissioned a portrait of himself from John Singleton Copley in 1756, depicting him wearing the uniform of a militia colonel. Stylistically, the portrait was influenced by earlier painters active in the colonies such as Joseph Blackburn and Robert Feke.

Brattle's two marriages produced nine children, though only two survived to adulthood, Thomas and Katherine. Thomas was in England when the Revolutionary War broke out, and posed as a Loyalist. Upon returning to North America in 1779, Thomas convinced American authorities that he was a Patriot and in 1784 inherited the William Brattle Mansion, which had been entrusted by Brattle to Katherine in 1776. In addition to his estate in Cambridge, Brattle also owned properties in Boston, Oakham, Halifax and southeastern Vermont. Brattle was also a slaveholder, being recorded in church records as owning two enslaved women, Philicia and Zillah, in 1731 and 1738 respectively. Brattle Street in Cambridge is named after him, as is the town of Brattleboro, Vermont.

In the 21st century, Brattle's ownership of slaves has come under increasing scrutiny. An art installation titled "Forgotten Souls of Tory Row: Remembering the Enslaved People of Brattle Street" was installed at the Hooper–Lee–Nichols House in Cambridge in 2022. The installation was composed of two circles of metal trees, which were intended to represented those enslaved by prominent Cantabrigians such as Brattle. On April 26, 2022, Harvard University released a report detailing the university's ties to slavery and plans to redress such connections. The report, which noted that both Brattle and his father owned slaves, stipulated that the university would commit $100 million for an endowed "Legacy of Slavery Fund", though it did not provide direct reparations for slavery.

References

Bibliography

Books

• Billias, George Athan (1969). George Washington's Opponents: British generals and admirals in the American Revolution. William Morrow and Company. OCLC 11709.
• Bunting, Bainbridge (1985). Harvard: An Architectural History. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-6743-7291-7.
• Coolidge, Austin Jacobs; Mansfield, John Brainard (2019) [1859]. History and Description of New England. Inktank Publishing. ISBN 978-3-7477-0378-6.
• Fischer, David Hackett (1994). Paul Revere's Ride. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1950-8847-2.
• French, Allen (1911). The Siege of Boston. Macmillan Publishers. OCLC 3927532.
• Kamensky, Jane (2016). A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-3936-0861-8.
• Marble, Allen E. (1993). Surgeons, Smallpox, and the Poor: A History of Medicine and Social Conditions in Nova Scotia, 1749-1799. McGill–Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-0988-7.
• Nester, William R. (2000). The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607-1755. Praeger Publishing. ISBN 978-0-2759-6772-7.
• Richmond, Robert P. (1971). Powder Alarm 1774. Auerbach Publications. ISBN 978-0-8776-9073-3.
• Sibley, John Langdon (2011) [1873]. Biographical Sketches Of Graduates Of Harvard University: In Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1-2465-4637-8.
• Sharples, Stephen Paschall (1906). Records of the Church of Christ at Cambridge in New England, 1632–1830: Comprising the Ministerial Records of Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths, Admission to Covenant and Communion. Eben Putnam. OCLC 1732612.
• Shipton, Clifford Kenyon (1995) [1963]. New England Life in the Eighteenth Century: Representative Biographies from Sibley's Harvard Graduates. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-6746-1251-8.
• Stark, James Henry (2015) [1910]. The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution. Andesite Press. ISBN 978-1-2977-6256-7.
• Stebbins, Theodore E.; Renn, Melissa; Barrett, Ross (2008). American Paintings at Harvard. Vol. 1. Harvard Art Museums. ISBN 978-0-3001-5352-1.
• Tyerman, Luke (1877) [1833]. The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield. Anson D. F. Randolph.
• Pencak, William (2004). "Brattle, William (1706–1776)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68472. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Websites

• Folsom, Beth (May 30, 2022). "'Forgotten Souls of Tory Row' art installation remembers enslaved people of Brattle Street". Cambridge Day. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
• Hartocollis, Anemona (April 26, 2022). "Harvard Details Its Ties to Slavery and Its Plans for Redress". The New York Times. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
• Seward, Zachary M. (April 6, 2008). "Get Me Rewrite!". The Harvard Crimson. Harvard University. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
• Harvard, University of (2022). "List of Human Beings Enslaved by Prominent Harvard Affiliates" (PDF). Retrieved May 22, 2025.