Ward Family Papers 1721-1953 Guide to the Microfilm Edition Microfilming and published guide supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Online finding aid sponsored by the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketches Sources Collection Description Related Materials Acquisition Information Organization Detailed Description of the Collection List of Correspondents Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketches

Nahum Ward

Nahum Ward (1684-1754) was one of the founders of Shrewsbury, Mass., in 1717. Colonel Ward, as he was called, became a moderately prosperous farmer and a central personage in Shrewsbury local government for many years. He was the town's first selectman, its moderator, and its representative to the General Court. He later served as a justice of the peace for Worcester County and, for the last nine years of his life, as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

Artemas Ward

Artemas Ward was born on November 26, 1727, the fifth child and fourth son of Nahum and Martha Ward of Shrewsbury, Mass. After graduating from Harvard in 1748, he taught school briefly, married Sarah Trowbridge in 1750, and opened a small general store in Shrewsbury. Also in 1750, Ward was appointed adjutant major in the local militia. He became a justice of the peace the following year and was soon elected to various town offices. In 1757, he was chosen Shrewsbury's representative to the General Court, an office he would hold 15 more times. In 1762, he began his 30-year tenure as judge of the Worcester County Court of Common Pleas; from 1775, he was chief justice.

Ward had his first military experience in 1755 during the French and Indian War. In the summer of 1758, he participated in the Fort Edward expedition, which culminated in the defeat at Ticonderoga of British General James Abercrombie (1706-1781). He was promoted during the expedition to lieutenant colonel, but had little chance to exercise the responsibilities of command.

When he returned from military service to the General Court, Ward joined the Whig opposition to Royal Governor Francis Bernard (1712-1779). This opposition, spearheaded by James Otis, Jr. (1725-1783) and Samuel Adams (1722-1803), marked the beginning of an alliance between Ward and Adams that was to last for 20 years. Ward served on a committee to prepare a reply to Bernard's Stamp Act riot message. Because of his support for the patriot cause, Bernard revoked his military commission in 1766. However, Ward's strong stand made him popular with the Whigs, and two years later, with the help of his friend Adams, he was chosen for the Governor's Council over the loyalist Thomas Hutchinson (1711-1780). His election was vetoed by Bernard. A few months later, Ward was one of the "Glorious 92" who refused to rescind Adams' 1768 circular letter opposing taxation without representation and calling on colonists to unite against the British government. In 1769, Ward was elected to the Council a second time, but the governor again voided the election results. When Ward was elected for the third time the next year with only ten dissenting votes out of 125, acting governor Hutchinson yielded to pressure and allowed his election to stand.

Because of his popularity with the colonists, Ward was chosen to serve in the first three Provincial Congresses and reinstated to his former militia rank, second in command after Jedediah Preble (1707-1784) and before Seth Pomeroy (1706-1777). At that time, he was 47, a full 20 years younger than either of his fellow commanding officers. On April 19, 1775, the day of "the shot heard round the world," Ward was sick in bed, suffering from "the stone," a condition that would bother him for most of his adult life. Nevertheless, he rode to Cambridge the following day to take command of the American troops besieging Boston, and there he held the first war council of the Revolution. The would-be soldiers, however, were not yet officially enlisted and ranked, and discipline, salaries, supplies, food, uniforms, and hygiene were critical concerns. Furthermore, Ward was faced with a division in command. General John Thomas (1724-1776) had autonomy in Roxbury, and the Connecticut and Rhode Island forces were independent of Ward's command. In early May, the besieging lines were so distended that the Provincial Congress debated a retreat, but Ward held his ground and managed to keep his men together around Boston. When American intelligence learned that the British were planning to attack Bunker Hill, Ward gave the orders to fortify that position, setting the stage for the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. However, James Warren (1726-1808) and others later criticized Ward for his slowness in reinforcing the American troops in that battle.

In the spring of 1776, according to John Adams, the majority of the delegates to the Continental Congress preferred Ward for the position of commander-in-chief. However, for the sake of national unity, George Washington--a Southerner--was chosen. As a result, Ward's relationship with Washington was never good. On March 22, due in part to ill health, Ward resigned, though he stayed on until a replacement could be found to head the Eastern Department. For the next year, the theater of war moved away from New England, and Ward's primary task was the fortification of Boston against a suspected British counterattack. On March 20, 1777, he was finally replaced by General William Heath (1737-1814).

Despite the end of his military career and his poor health, Ward continued in public service. In May 1776, he was elected once more to the Governor's Council, where he served for the next three years. For the majority of this time, he was president of the Council and therefore effectively the executive head of Massachusetts. When the new state constitution was adopted in September 1780, Ward supported James Bowdoin (1726-1790) for governor against John Hancock (1737-1793), with whom he had fought in late 1778 as a Harvard Overseer over treasurer Hancock's alleged mishandling of college funds. However, Hancock won the election easily.

Ward was chosen as a delegate to the Continental Congress for the 1780 session. He was re-elected the next year, and again in 1782, but declined because of his health. In May 1782, he was elected to the Massachusetts House, where he served for four of the next five years (he declined election in 1783), and he was Speaker of the House at the time of Shays' Rebellion in 1786. This office and his position as chief justice of the Worcester Court put Ward right in the middle of the trouble. His harangue of the mob from the courthouse steps on September 5, 1786, is the most well-known incident of his lifetime.

Ward ran for the First Congress, but came in third behind his old classmate, the loyalist Timothy Paine, and the winner, Colonel Jonathan Grout. On his second attempt in November 1790, Ward defeated Grout in a runoff election. He served in both the Second and Third Congresses, despite frequent indispositions on account of his chronic ailments. A die-hard Federalist, he unfailingly supported the policies of the president and broke with his long-time friend Samuel Adams over the question of Franco-American relations. In 1795, he left public life and returned home to Shrewsbury, where he died on October 28, 1800, at the age of 73.

Sources

Martyn, Charles. The Life of Artemas Ward, the First Commander-in-Chief of the American Revolution. New York: A. Ward, 1921.

Martyn, Charles. The William Ward Genealogy: The History of the Descendants of William Ward of Sudbury, Mass., 1638-1925. New York: A. Ward, 1925.

Shipton, Clifford K. Sibley's Harvard Graduates. Vol. XII. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. 326-348.

Ward, Andrew H. History of the Town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Boston: S.G. Drake, 1847.

Wilder, Catharine K. "Artemas Ward and the Siege of Boston." Cambridge Historical Society Publications. Vol. 36. Cambridge: Cambridge Historical Society, 1957-1958. 45-63.

Collection Description

The bulk of the Ward family papers consists of the personal and family correspondence, official documents, accounts, receipts, and other papers of Artemas Ward, including a diary (1758) and an orderly book. Artemas Ward's papers relate to his participation in campaigns at Fort Edward and Fort Ticonderoga; the siege of Boston; his duties as head of the Eastern Department in the Continental Army, as a Shrewsbury official, and as Speaker of the Massachusetts House; his term as a member of the Harvard College Board of Overseers; his activities with the Continental Congress concerning political, state, and federal affairs; and Shays' Rebellion. Correspondents include Henry Dana Ward, Thomas W. Ward, Joseph Ward, James Bowdoin, General Horatio Gates, John Hancock, Robert H. Harrison, Benjamin Lincoln, James Warren, and George Washington.

This collection also contains the personal and official papers of Nahum Ward, correspondence of the Perry and Dexter families, and genealogies and other records of the Ward family.

For an alphabetical list of the correspondents in this collection, see the List of Correspondents below.

Related Materials

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, Mass., has 38 boxes and 17 volumes of Ward family papers. 33 of the boxes and most of the volumes consist of the papers of Thomas Walter Ward, Artemas' son. One box contains Artemas Ward papers, but many of these are photostats from other collections. Four boxes contain the papers of Thomas Walter Ward, Jr.

Other Ward material can be found at the Massachusetts Archives, the Chicago Historical Society (in the papers of Joseph Ward, the general's secretary), the National Archives (in the papers of the Continental Congress), and the Library of Congress (in the Washington papers).

Acquisition Information

Acquired by gifts and purchases, 1924-1965. Donors include Mrs. Artemas Ward Lamson of Dedham, Mass., Florence Grosvenor Ward of Shrewsbury, Mass., and Catharine K. Wilder, of Cambridge, Mass.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

List of Correspondents

This list contains the names of all the correspondents in the Artemas Ward collection, arranged alphabetically. To the left of each name is the reel where correspondence with that individual is located. Wherever possible, each correspondent has been identified briefly according to the period, locale, or subject matter of his or her correspondence with Ward. Each correspondent's letters are listed chronologically after his or her name, and Ward is always the recipient, except where noted. Resolutions, returns, deeds, receipts, petitions from more than one person, and other similar documents have not been included.

Note: Reel 5 contains two series with two distinct chronological sequences. The reel begins with Series V, loose papers arranged chronologically (1747-1953), followed by Series VI, the disbound volume of Ward family correspondence (1821-1890). To distinguish between the two series, items located in Series VI (Ward family correspondence) have been identified with: "Reel 5 (Ward family)."

Preferred Citation

Ward family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.