In Which Patrick Graham Gets in a Lot of Trouble - A Revolutionary War Tale

 

Happy Fourth of July! For today’s post I thought I write about Patrick Graham and the trouble he got into during the early years of the Revolutionary War because of a smuggling scheme in which he was involved. Not all Colonial citizens were in favor of breaking away from England. And while some were very much for making a break after the battle of Lexington and Concord, others saw the conflict as a way to pursue personal profit.

Patrick Graham may have come from Chester County, Pennsylvania as his name and that location are included in a list of persons who had letters in the post office at Charles Town (Port Tobacco), which was published in the Maryland Gazette in October 1767.[1] He probably arrived in Port Tobacco shortly after that date as he married a woman from Charles County named Elizabeth Godfrey. Their first son James was born in December 1768, followed by John in November 1772, William in January 1774, and a fourth child who was born by 1775.[2]

Graham was a tailor by trade and he probably rented a building in the town until 1774 when he purchased Lot 4 (the Swann House Lot). Life was looking up for Patrick Graham, he owned his shop and as a tailor he had some standing in the community. In 1747, Robert Campbell wrote to a correspondent “No Man is ignorant that a Taylor is the Person that makes our Cloaths; to some he not only makes their dress, but, in some measure, may be said to make themselves.”[3] 

18th-century Tailor Shop
from Diderot’s Encyclopedia 1751-1766 

Clothing identified a man as a planter, a merchant, an artisan, a laborer or farmer, an indentured servant, or an enslaved person. Everyone in Port Tobacco and on the surrounding plantations and farms would at some point in their lives have to seek the services of a tailor. By establishing a steady clientele in the town Graham could expect a stable income. His probate inventory indicates that he had shoemaker’s tools,[4] which suggests that he was also producing and selling foot ware in addition to clothing. By selling other goods from the shop, such as books or other imported goods, he would increase his income.

Continental Congress
Getty Imagines

Graham’s attempts to increase his financial standing ran him smack into trouble with the local Charles County Correspondence Committee. On 20 October 1774, the first Continental Congress passed the Articles of Association, which took effect on 1 December 1774. The document outlined a boycott on the import and export of goods from Britain and her other colonies. Graham and his associate John Baillie decided that the non-importation was a perfect time to make money. Baillie boarded the Lady Margaret in Scotland in the early spring of 1775 with goods that were banned by the Articles of Association. In May, when Baillie arrived in the Wicomico River, Graham helped him off load the cargo. The two hid the goods in Graham’s house, which was probably the one on the Swann Lot (Lot 4). Then the two began to secretly sell the cargo.[5]

Graham and Baillie’s timing could not have been worse. Tempers were running high in the American Committees of Correspondence. On 19 April 1775, a month before the two landed their illegal cargo, the British clashed with Minute Men in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. What were Graham and Baillie thinking? That they’d get away with a slap on the wrist? That all would be forgiven? That the non-importation rules of 1774 would go away as quickly as those in 1766 and 1768 and that it would be business as normal? In the meantime, why not make loads of money selling hard to get British goods?

The North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
“The Shot Heard Around the World”
Photograph by Esther Read, October 2022

The secret sales didn’t stay secret for long, On May 29^th the Charles County Committee was informed that Baillie and Graham “…had imported and were privately selling, goods in a daring and direct violation of the continental association.”[6]

The Committee held a public meeting on June 3^rd that was largely attended by the local residents. After hearing the evidence the Committee produced the following resolution:

Resolved, That the said John Baillie and Patrick Graham, for their infamous conduct ought to be publically known and held up as foes to the rights of British America and universally condemned as the enemies of American liberty; and that every person ought henceforth to break off [all] dealings with the said John Baillie and Patrick Graham.[7]

Maryland Gazette, 15 June 1775, page 2

The Committee further ordered the confiscation of all unsold goods remaining in Graham’s house, the collection of sold goods from the purchasers, and for those goods that could not be collected Graham was to pay the cash value to the committee. The confiscated goods and the cash were to be kept by Zephaniah Turner until 12 months after the Continental Congress established importation regulations. All of this was entirely at the risk of the owners.

What this meant was that Patrick Graham could no longer practice his trade as a tailor or engage in any sort of commerce. In July 1775, Graham presented a petition to the Maryland Convention stating his contrition for his behavior and asking to be reinstated to his former rights as a citizen. He further stated that “...should he continue much longer in the present situation, his Offence must reduce an innocent wife & four young children to beggary & ruin.”[8] What Elizabeth Graham thought of her husband’s smuggling escapade was never recorded, but in all probability she was worried about what the lack of income would mean to her family. Would they lose the house? Would she and the children be forced to depend on her relatives for support? Would the family be broken up with the children farmed out to different relatives or put out as apprentices? Or would they be forced to depend on handouts from the parish Overseers of the Poor?

Signatories to Patrick Graham’s Petition
Maryland Archives Vol. 11, pp 35-37

Fortunately for Patrick Graham he may have been the village idiot, but he was a well-liked idiot. His petition was signed by 119 of the County’s male citizens. These men included leading citizens such as Raphael Neale, Walter Hanson, Thomas Howe Ridgate, and members of the Boarman, McPherson, and Chandler families. In contrast, John Baillie’s petition was only signed by four Charles Countians.[9] Why did the men of the county back Patrick Graham, but not John Baillie? One of the reasons may be Graham’s young family. Elizabeth Graham’s Uncle Ledstone Godfrey was one of the signers of the petition, most likely in an attempt to protect his niece and the children. Others in the community may have also been looking out for the family. If Patrick couldn’t work they would become a burden on the Parish. There was also the very real problem of debt. All of these men were part of a web of debts and obligations for services rendered, objects purchased, the purchases of enslaved people, mortgages, loans, and sundry other things. If Graham became insolvent it meant no one could collect from him, which could lead to the down fall of other financial houses of cards. Finally, there was Graham’s position as the town tailor, everyone came to him for clothing – from the wealthy planter to livery for one’s enslaved servants – everyone needed Graham’s services. And so 119 of them backed him, he was after all one of them, he might be an idjit, but he was their idjit. John Baillie on the other hand was probably an outsider. He came from Scotland. He might have been associated with one of the mercantile houses operating in the town, but he hadn’t put down roots, he didn’t own property, he wasn’t connected to anyone in town. He may have had connections to the firm of Baillie and Knox who operated out of Nanjemoy, but neither Andrew Baillie nor John Knox signed John Baillie’s petition. He barely garnered any support for his petition.

On Friday, July 28th the Maryland Convention met and read Graham’s petition. The Convention concluded that “Patrick Graham be allowed to exercise his former Trade of Taylor, and that he also be permitted to buy provisions and other necessaries for the use of his family.” But he was “...not allowed to carry on any Traffick or merchandize, until it be otherwise resolved by this, or some future Convention.” Graham petitioned the new Continental Convention in December 1775 for remission of the judgement, which the Convention granted. [10] He had evidently proved himself as worthy of complete forgiveness between July and December. Baillie was not so lucky, on Saturday August 12^th the convention read his petition for the second time and rejected it. Baillie was persona non grata in Maryland. He disappears from the records after August 1775. I don’t know what happened to him after his petition was rejected; he couldn’t trade or work as a merchant. It’s possible that he returned to Scotland.

Patrick Graham continued to live and work in Port Tobacco until he died in June or July 1777. He was never brought up on charges again during the approximately 18-month period between the resolution of his petition and his death.

 

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[1] Maryland Gazette, No. 1154, page 2, 22 October 1767.

[2] Charles County Orphans Court Records, Wills Book 7, pages 430, 435, 446, 449-451. Maryland Archives, Vol. 11, page 35.

[3] Gruber, Katherine Egner 2015 “By Measures Taken of Men”: Clothing the Classes in William Carlin’s Alexandria, 1763-1782. Early American Studies 13(4):931-953.

[4] Charles County Orphans Court Records, Wills Book 7, page 65.

[5] Maryland Gazette, No. 1553, 15 June 1775, page 2.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid, page 3.

[8] Maryland Archives, Vol. 11, page 35.

[9] Ibid, pages 36-37.

[10] Maryland Archives, Vol. 11, pages 5 and 14; Vol. 78, pages 58 and 61.