May 24, 2025 • 24 mins
When we talk about the American Revolution, we're often talking about the patriots and revolutionaries who rose up and fought back against the British, especially in Massachusetts where so much of the movement took root. In Weston, there's a museum telling a story that you may not have heard that often: the story of the Loyalists, or Redcoats, who wanted to stay loyal to Britain. Katie Campbell, the Executive Director of the Golden Ball Tavern Museum in Weston, talks with Nichole about their new exhibit focusing on colonial espionage and sheds light into the life of a prominent Loyalist.
This segment is the sixth interview in our series "Revolutionary Roots", where we take a closer look at the stories, people, events, and local ties that connect New England to the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary in 2026.
This segment is the sixth interview in our series "Revolutionary Roots", where we take a closer look at the stories, people, events, and local ties that connect New England to the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary in 2026.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each and every week we come together right
here we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. Great to have you
back with us on this Memorial Day weekend. I'm Nicole Davis.
Oftentimes when we talk about the American Revolution, we're talking
about the revolutionaries and the patriots, the colonists, the ones
(00:29):
who rose up and fought back against the British and
the king. Now in Weston, there is a museum that's
telling a story that we don't talk about that often,
the fact that there were still people around here during
all this who wanted to stay British, the loyalists, the
red Coats as they were called. There's a new exhibit
at the Golden Ball Tavern Museum that focuses, at least
in part on one fateful visit from some spies and
(00:51):
then overall the art of colonial espionage. This is the
latest installment of our series called Revolutionary Roots. We've been
over the past few months learning a bit more about
the people, places and events that connect us to the
celebration next year of our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
Katie Campbell, the executive director of the Golden Ball Tavern Museum,
is here to talk about this. Katie. It's great to
(01:13):
have you with us, and I would love to hear
more at first about the history of the tavern and
the museum.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well. So, the house was built in seventeen sixty eight
by Isaac Jones, who was a Loyalist, and he and
his family lived in the house until nineteen sixty three
when the last of his descendants died off. Direct descendants
died off and we became a museum. All of the
(01:40):
objects in our collection, all of the records that we have,
reflect Isaac's politics at the time, which was he was
he was in favor of the crown and of the king,
and during that the pivotal time of the American Revolution
(02:01):
and the days leading up to it, we were visited
by General Thomas Gage's spies and it sort of set
the tone for the stories that we tell. We were
also the site of the Western Tea Party, which was
(02:22):
which was a protest, if you will, by the patriots
against Isaac and his family and his establishment because they
were serving tea when tea was not was was being
boycotted for political reasons. Isaac actually continued to serve Tea
(02:43):
well beyond the Boston Tea Party, and consequently there were
a number of issues and a number of incidents, including
the West and Tea Party, where people expressed their unhappiness
with Isaac's alliance with the Crown. So that being the case,
(03:05):
we wanted to continue to tell that story of Isaac,
why he made the decisions he did, how it affected
Isaac through the American Revolution. Side note, he did eventually
become a Patriot and signed Oath of Allegiance and was
(03:26):
karting for the Patriot side, and we have records of
that that were found in the house, so we know
that happened. But up until probably the latter part of
the seventeen seventeen seventy nine, he was on the loyal
He was on the Loyalist side.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Do we know why he decided to switch it up like.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That, Well, we don't know specifically. Although he was very
good friends with Samuel Savage, who was a nearby neighbor who,
as you probably know, wassta It was a pivotal player
in the Sons of Liberty. We don't know if he
had any influence on him or not. We know they
(04:13):
were good friends because Isaac was a pall bearer at
Samuel Savage's wife's funeral, and we have in our collection
a snuff box that was given to Isaac from Samuel
Savage and as engraved as such. However, we think he
probably changed because he was a savvy businessman and he
(04:34):
could smell, you know, the way it was going to go. Yeah,
and the plight of loyalists at that time were pretty dire,
and many of them fled back to England, fled to
Nova Scotia, had their property seized and taken by the
(04:55):
Patriot side, or they were tard and feathered or killed.
So it wasn't it wasn't cool to be a loyalist.
And so I think I really do think he, you know,
he read the writing on the wall, and I think
he just sort of decided that that was the way
(05:15):
to go. But that's my speculation. We don't have it
in writing, but we do. What we do have is
the understanding that he went from one side to the other.
What was the impetus, not really quite sure. What we
do know is that up until the Revolution, Isaac Jones
was a active part of the Western governmental system, so
(05:38):
he was a selectman. He was not a tax collector,
but he worked on a number of committees consistently. And
he was a very wealthy man by the time the
Revolution came about, because he had a myriad of businesses,
including the tavern, but he also had a cartage business,
and he owned quite a bit of real estate all
(06:00):
over New England, in Maine, well Maine it was Massachusetts then,
but in Vermont, New Hampshire, other places in Massachusetts further
west Worcester. So having all of that made him very influential. However,
right during the early Revolutionary War years, he sort of
(06:27):
fell off the radar. He wasn't he kept his head down.
He wasn't and he didn't have any political office. We
don't see him, you know, speaking up in the town records.
After he changed sides, he goes right back to being
a selectman and being somebody who was responsible for the
government of Weston, including being part of the Massa Massachusetts
(06:50):
Congressional Congress. So he played the system somehow and was
influential enough, whether that was simply because he was wealthy
or because he was smart to sort of evolve from
one party to another.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And what about his tavern. How long did that stay open?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So the tavern was actually a functioning tavern until seventeen
ninety so during the revolution it was it was still
a functioning tavern. When he got a little bit older,
it went back to being a single family house, and
he bequeathed the east side of the house to his
(07:32):
only living son and his family, and he and his
wife and unmarried daughters lived on the west side of
the house. It's a center corridor or center hall Georgian,
so each side of the house is completely independent of
the other, so you can with staircases that go top
(07:53):
to bottom, so you can get from the attic to
the basement on either side and never run into the
people on the other side. So yes, so it became
a house in the seventeen nineties.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Trying to preserve it these days, it's got to be
a labor of love. But you know, from the photos
I've seen, from everything that I've seen about the museum,
you've really been able to do a great job and
stay true to the period we have.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So when Howard Gambrel made an arrangement with Ralph Jones,
who was the last living descendant, shortly before he died,
to purchase the house. He and his friends made a
concerted effort to take the house and preserve it, not
(08:42):
restore it like say Gore place, but not leave it
as they found it, but to sort of accurately restore
parts of it. And they surveyed the town when they
did this, and the town all agreed that they wanted
to see sort of how it evolves in place. So
(09:05):
they didn't want to see it, you know, looking exactly
like you'd find it in seventeen in seventeen sixty eight.
They wanted to see how the family had lived in
the house through the decades, and so that they made
a concerted effort to do that. They were also shrewd
enough that they they were a club at that time,
(09:28):
and they were you know, Western is a fairly affluent town,
and mister Gambrel and his history focused friends all sort
of put money into a trust, and that money helped
keep the museum the way it is now. So you know,
any sort of restoration that was done, or any sort
(09:50):
of repairs to keep it as close to what we
might have seen during Isaac's lifetime have the opportunity to
be to be made because because the funding is there,
and the will is there. The trustees feel very strongly
about how they want the house to be preserved and
(10:11):
represented and displayed for visitors to see.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
So then let's talk about your new exhibit. This is
all about spies. And clearly we're not talking about mission
impossible stuff because the technology was very much not a thing.
But you don't need that sort of technology to be
an impactful spy.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Do you? You don't. So here's here's the story. As
I think I said, Thomas Gage sent two spies, Captain
William Brown and Enst Henry de Bernier, in February of
seventeen seventy five, from Boston to what they hoped was
(10:50):
going to be to Wooster. He said. What he said
specifically is go through Suffolk and the Wooster counties and
basically scope out what you see, Show us where the
camps could be, show us where munitions might be hidden.
Map it out. Where are the rivers, where are you know,
where are the embankments? Where are the things that we
(11:12):
as a as an army need to be aware of.
So he sent them out in February along with their
servant John, and they they went to They went to
Watertown and they were supposedly in disguise as country people,
but apparently were not very good at disguises and were
(11:36):
immediately recognized for what they were, which was potentially spies.
And sort of. They raced away from Watertown and made
their way to Weston, and they stopped at the Golden
Ball purely by accident, to get something to drink to
continue their way to Worlster. This is all on foot.
They get to the Golden Ball and Isaac Jones, and
(11:59):
they asked for coffee. And Isaac jonas I mentioned, because
he continued to serve tea, offer them coffee or tea,
and they immediately knew because tea was essentially a code
word for a loyalist, because Patriots did not serve tea
that this was. They were with friends, they were with
somebody that they could trust, somebody that was, you know,
(12:20):
had their same politics, and so they easily started chatting
with Isaac and ended up spending the night. They ended
up in their in their mission for general gauge, coming
back to the Golden Ball three different times on their
way to Worcester, on their way to to Shrewsbury and
on the way of Marlborough, and then again when they
(12:43):
came back to go to Concord, which was a few
about a month later, so later in March of seventeen
seventy five. The spy story is sort of something that
we glom onto because because we have a record of it.
Henry de Bernier wrote not only a report for General Gage,
(13:06):
which they sent on to General Gage, but he wrote
an account of the mission, and he left a copy
of it in the attic of the Golden Ball, which
it was found. Later in seventeen seventy nine, a copy
of that mission was printed by John Gill in Boston
and was distributed for the patriots enjoyment. In other words,
(13:30):
they wanted to figure out. They were sort of mocking
the fact that they that Brown and de Bernier had
had such a hard time and the Patriots were sort
of doing their job. But so the Patriots, the spy
story is important to the Golden Ball. So that made
us start to think about, okay, so let's talk about
(13:50):
spies and an espionage, if you will, And that all
sort of ties back to when George Washington and Thomas
Gage were both British soldiers and both being taught the
same sort of military tactics, which included espionage. When Washington's
(14:12):
change sides, he brought those skills with him, and Washington
was just a little bit better at that than Gage was,
so he was always sort of one step ahead of Gauge.
They had sort of the same you know, they had
the same tools, but Washington sort of bumped it up
(14:32):
a little bit. So in addition to sort of you know,
things you would think of like disguises and invisible ink
and codes, Washington went a little bit further, and he
had the cul perspir Ring, which was a very elaborate
spy group of a group of men passing information back
(14:54):
and forth. And we thought that was, you know, really interesting.
But along with that we also had sort of the British,
the British spies like Brown and the Bernier. But then
we had double agents, people who claimed to be on
one side and you know, played for the other. And
there were and there were a number of them, like
(15:16):
Benedict Arnold and doctor Benjamin Church and doctor Edward Bancroft.
In addition to that, there were women spies that people
don't always don't always get in the history books, you know.
For for the British, there was Anne Bates who pretended
she was a She gave herself an alias and was
(15:37):
working in Washington's camp, and because she was a woman, nobody,
you know, paid attention to her, and she got all
this information and she passed that on to the British.
And on the Patriot side you had people like Lydia
Barrick Barrington Darrow, who who with her husband because her
house was seized by the by the British Army and
(16:00):
her family was allowed to stay in there, would eavesdrop
on the officer's conversations and then put it in code
and put it inside the buttons of her son's jacket,
and her son would run to Washington's camp and the
buttons would be cut off and the coded messages would
be received that way. Anna Strong, who was also part
(16:20):
of the Cold Perspy ring but and she's probably my
favorite story. She worked with Abraham wood Hall and when
they had information that they wanted to pass. This was
on Long Island. He would pass her the information or
(16:41):
tell her where the information was. She would hang her
laundry on her and if there was a black petticoat,
that meant that there was information that the sailors out
around Long Island knew they had to pick up. And
there were six coves on Long Island, and there were
six handkerchiefs. Depending on which handkerchiefs she put on the clothesline,
(17:04):
they know which which harbor to go in to collect
the information so that they could pass that along. And
nobody ever figured it out. And I just think, I
just think that's crazy and cool. Yeah, So there's just
all of these really fascinating stories about things that ways
(17:25):
that information was passed or spying was done, and we
and we show a lot of different tools besides you know,
as I said, the coded messages and invisible ink they had.
They found ways to put codes in musket shot, so
you know, British weren't looking for that. Or they would
roll up messages and stick them inside the hollowness of
(17:50):
a quill and people wouldn't know to look in there.
Or they used grills and masks, which is where you
send one letter with a cutout to your your your
colleague or whomever, and then you send a second letter separately,
and you put them together and what's inside the cutout
(18:12):
is the actual message, but the letter itself is innocuous,
and the cutout means nothing without the other letter, so
people didn't know, you know, they didn't catch on to
you know, what sort of information was being passed. So
there's a whole lot of things. You know. It's certainly
not James Bond, like you said, but very clever using
what they had and and I don't know, just sort
(18:38):
of the thrilling part of really never knowing who's on
what side at any given time.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I mean, honestly, it's almost better than James Bond because
they really had to kind of dig deep and figure out,
all right, how were we going to get this message
across and not get our heads blown off by our
you know, the guy around the corner.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So they really get creative, right, and arguably Washington wouldn't
when it was strictly a game of force. The British
were way too outmanned, the Patriots way way too much
and had the munitions to fight. But because Washington was
just a little a little bit cleverer and and the
(19:17):
Patriots were just a little you know, one step ahead
of the of the British, they sort of I would
say won the war through espionage rather than anything else.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I agree. So how did you get a hold of
these artifacts?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
So? So we upstairs at the at the museum, we
have a what's called a ballroom, which is the biggest
room in the house, which is where people would have
come for, you know, any kind of social event in town.
Remember there's no town hall, there's no there's no commonplace
other than the church. So this is where you know,
(19:52):
the court would be held. And this is where you
got your newspaper, and this is where you got your mail.
There was no postal service at that time, and this
is where where where people would congregate. So that room
is the room where we put the spy exhibit, and
we basically took many, many different resources to sort of
(20:12):
collect that. Nothing is original to the museum other than
copies of Ensign's report his you know, his description of
of what happened. I'm sorry, not Ensign, but to Bernier's
report of what happened. But we have examples of the mask,
and we have the examples of the sympathetic stain, which
(20:36):
was put together by James, by James j who was
John Jay's brother, who was a chemist, and he figured
out this sort of secret, secret formula for sending secret messages.
And we have you know, we have we have a
quill with with a message you know, stuck inside, and
and and and pictures and biographies of all of these
(20:59):
different different spies on the walls so that people can
understand who they are and how they relate to whatever
side they're representing, and how they, you know, how they
relate to the you know, sort of the timeline of
the American Revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, So if people want to come and check out
this new exhibit and learn all about the rest of
Isaac's story and this beautiful building, I mean, there's so
much to take in at the Tavern. When are you
open and when can people come by?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We're open every Thursday from ten to four and then
we're open the second Sunday of every month from one
to three and the exhibit is going to be on
display through November.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Oh so people have time.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's good, They have time. Yep.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Is there any sort of fee they have to pay
to get in? Is this free or do you have
to reserve a ticket?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Free? Nope, it's free, and we'd love people to come
and check it out. We have an orientation exhibit that's
basically embellishes on the three major stories that we tell
the Western Tea Party, despised visit and Paul Revere's men
when they came to the Golden Ball, and we have
(22:10):
some we do have some of our collection out that
reflects those stories in the orientation. But mostly what we
want people to do is appreciate the house and the
stories that happened in the house and the family that
lived here and how they lived here, and you know,
give them a chance to see, you know, what a
(22:31):
wealthy person in Weston might experience, you know, in the
late seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Now, if somebody wants to help you continue to take
care of this building, because I'm sure upkeep of a
several centuries old home is not exactly cheap. Do you
accept donations or how can people help in that regard?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Sure, you can either go on our website, which is www.
Goldenbaaltavern dot org and there's lots of information on our website.
If people are interested, we can sign you up for
our monthly newsletter where you can find out all the
things that are happening. And if you do visit, we
(23:12):
have a bunch of different collateral that talks about the
museum in different ways. You can support us and we would,
you know, we would love that.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And you even have a store if you want to
bring part of the Tavern museum home with you, which
I love. I love this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sure yeah, I mean it's a very small curated collection
of things, but yes we do have some things to
commemorate your visit and so that you can take a
little piece of the Golden Ball home with you.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Phenomenal. All right, Well, Katie, if people want to find
out more, I'm assuming the website is the best place
to go Goldenballtavern dot.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Org, or you can get us on social media on
Instagram or Facebook.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Okay, cool. You know I have learned a lot today.
Thank you so much, Katie Campbell from the Golden Ball
Tavern Museum in Weston. What an interesting side of the
revolutionary story that we don't often hear. Thank you so
much for preserving that history and coming on to talk
about it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each and every week we come together right
here we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. Great to have you
back with us on this Memorial Day weekend. I'm Nicole Davis.
Oftentimes when we talk about the American Revolution, we're talking
about the revolutionaries and the patriots, the colonists, the ones
(00:29):
who rose up and fought back against the British and
the king. Now in Weston, there is a museum that's
telling a story that we don't talk about that often,
the fact that there were still people around here during
all this who wanted to stay British, the loyalists, the
red Coats as they were called. There's a new exhibit
at the Golden Ball Tavern Museum that focuses, at least
in part on one fateful visit from some spies and
(00:51):
then overall the art of colonial espionage. This is the
latest installment of our series called Revolutionary Roots. We've been
over the past few months learning a bit more about
the people, places and events that connect us to the
celebration next year of our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
Katie Campbell, the executive director of the Golden Ball Tavern Museum,
is here to talk about this. Katie. It's great to
(01:13):
have you with us, and I would love to hear
more at first about the history of the tavern and
the museum.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well. So, the house was built in seventeen sixty eight
by Isaac Jones, who was a Loyalist, and he and
his family lived in the house until nineteen sixty three
when the last of his descendants died off. Direct descendants
died off and we became a museum. All of the
(01:40):
objects in our collection, all of the records that we have,
reflect Isaac's politics at the time, which was he was
he was in favor of the crown and of the king,
and during that the pivotal time of the American Revolution
(02:01):
and the days leading up to it, we were visited
by General Thomas Gage's spies and it sort of set
the tone for the stories that we tell. We were
also the site of the Western Tea Party, which was
(02:22):
which was a protest, if you will, by the patriots
against Isaac and his family and his establishment because they
were serving tea when tea was not was was being
boycotted for political reasons. Isaac actually continued to serve Tea
(02:43):
well beyond the Boston Tea Party, and consequently there were
a number of issues and a number of incidents, including
the West and Tea Party, where people expressed their unhappiness
with Isaac's alliance with the Crown. So that being the case,
(03:05):
we wanted to continue to tell that story of Isaac,
why he made the decisions he did, how it affected
Isaac through the American Revolution. Side note, he did eventually
become a Patriot and signed Oath of Allegiance and was
(03:26):
karting for the Patriot side, and we have records of
that that were found in the house, so we know
that happened. But up until probably the latter part of
the seventeen seventeen seventy nine, he was on the loyal
He was on the Loyalist side.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Do we know why he decided to switch it up like.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That, Well, we don't know specifically. Although he was very
good friends with Samuel Savage, who was a nearby neighbor who,
as you probably know, wassta It was a pivotal player
in the Sons of Liberty. We don't know if he
had any influence on him or not. We know they
(04:13):
were good friends because Isaac was a pall bearer at
Samuel Savage's wife's funeral, and we have in our collection
a snuff box that was given to Isaac from Samuel
Savage and as engraved as such. However, we think he
probably changed because he was a savvy businessman and he
(04:34):
could smell, you know, the way it was going to go. Yeah,
and the plight of loyalists at that time were pretty dire,
and many of them fled back to England, fled to
Nova Scotia, had their property seized and taken by the
(04:55):
Patriot side, or they were tard and feathered or killed.
So it wasn't it wasn't cool to be a loyalist.
And so I think I really do think he, you know,
he read the writing on the wall, and I think
he just sort of decided that that was the way
(05:15):
to go. But that's my speculation. We don't have it
in writing, but we do. What we do have is
the understanding that he went from one side to the other.
What was the impetus, not really quite sure. What we
do know is that up until the Revolution, Isaac Jones
was a active part of the Western governmental system, so
(05:38):
he was a selectman. He was not a tax collector,
but he worked on a number of committees consistently. And
he was a very wealthy man by the time the
Revolution came about, because he had a myriad of businesses,
including the tavern, but he also had a cartage business,
and he owned quite a bit of real estate all
(06:00):
over New England, in Maine, well Maine it was Massachusetts then,
but in Vermont, New Hampshire, other places in Massachusetts further
west Worcester. So having all of that made him very influential. However,
right during the early Revolutionary War years, he sort of
(06:27):
fell off the radar. He wasn't he kept his head down.
He wasn't and he didn't have any political office. We
don't see him, you know, speaking up in the town records.
After he changed sides, he goes right back to being
a selectman and being somebody who was responsible for the
government of Weston, including being part of the Massa Massachusetts
(06:50):
Congressional Congress. So he played the system somehow and was
influential enough, whether that was simply because he was wealthy
or because he was smart to sort of evolve from
one party to another.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And what about his tavern. How long did that stay open?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So the tavern was actually a functioning tavern until seventeen
ninety so during the revolution it was it was still
a functioning tavern. When he got a little bit older,
it went back to being a single family house, and
he bequeathed the east side of the house to his
(07:32):
only living son and his family, and he and his
wife and unmarried daughters lived on the west side of
the house. It's a center corridor or center hall Georgian,
so each side of the house is completely independent of
the other, so you can with staircases that go top
(07:53):
to bottom, so you can get from the attic to
the basement on either side and never run into the
people on the other side. So yes, so it became
a house in the seventeen nineties.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Trying to preserve it these days, it's got to be
a labor of love. But you know, from the photos
I've seen, from everything that I've seen about the museum,
you've really been able to do a great job and
stay true to the period we have.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So when Howard Gambrel made an arrangement with Ralph Jones,
who was the last living descendant, shortly before he died,
to purchase the house. He and his friends made a
concerted effort to take the house and preserve it, not
(08:42):
restore it like say Gore place, but not leave it
as they found it, but to sort of accurately restore
parts of it. And they surveyed the town when they
did this, and the town all agreed that they wanted
to see sort of how it evolves in place. So
(09:05):
they didn't want to see it, you know, looking exactly
like you'd find it in seventeen in seventeen sixty eight.
They wanted to see how the family had lived in
the house through the decades, and so that they made
a concerted effort to do that. They were also shrewd
enough that they they were a club at that time,
(09:28):
and they were you know, Western is a fairly affluent town,
and mister Gambrel and his history focused friends all sort
of put money into a trust, and that money helped
keep the museum the way it is now. So you know,
any sort of restoration that was done, or any sort
(09:50):
of repairs to keep it as close to what we
might have seen during Isaac's lifetime have the opportunity to
be to be made because because the funding is there,
and the will is there. The trustees feel very strongly
about how they want the house to be preserved and
(10:11):
represented and displayed for visitors to see.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
So then let's talk about your new exhibit. This is
all about spies. And clearly we're not talking about mission
impossible stuff because the technology was very much not a thing.
But you don't need that sort of technology to be
an impactful spy.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Do you? You don't. So here's here's the story. As
I think I said, Thomas Gage sent two spies, Captain
William Brown and Enst Henry de Bernier, in February of
seventeen seventy five, from Boston to what they hoped was
(10:50):
going to be to Wooster. He said. What he said
specifically is go through Suffolk and the Wooster counties and
basically scope out what you see, Show us where the
camps could be, show us where munitions might be hidden.
Map it out. Where are the rivers, where are you know,
where are the embankments? Where are the things that we
(11:12):
as a as an army need to be aware of.
So he sent them out in February along with their
servant John, and they they went to They went to
Watertown and they were supposedly in disguise as country people,
but apparently were not very good at disguises and were
(11:36):
immediately recognized for what they were, which was potentially spies.
And sort of. They raced away from Watertown and made
their way to Weston, and they stopped at the Golden
Ball purely by accident, to get something to drink to
continue their way to Worlster. This is all on foot.
They get to the Golden Ball and Isaac Jones, and
(11:59):
they asked for coffee. And Isaac jonas I mentioned, because
he continued to serve tea, offer them coffee or tea,
and they immediately knew because tea was essentially a code
word for a loyalist, because Patriots did not serve tea
that this was. They were with friends, they were with
somebody that they could trust, somebody that was, you know,
(12:20):
had their same politics, and so they easily started chatting
with Isaac and ended up spending the night. They ended
up in their in their mission for general gauge, coming
back to the Golden Ball three different times on their
way to Worcester, on their way to to Shrewsbury and
on the way of Marlborough, and then again when they
(12:43):
came back to go to Concord, which was a few
about a month later, so later in March of seventeen
seventy five. The spy story is sort of something that
we glom onto because because we have a record of it.
Henry de Bernier wrote not only a report for General Gage,
(13:06):
which they sent on to General Gage, but he wrote
an account of the mission, and he left a copy
of it in the attic of the Golden Ball, which
it was found. Later in seventeen seventy nine, a copy
of that mission was printed by John Gill in Boston
and was distributed for the patriots enjoyment. In other words,
(13:30):
they wanted to figure out. They were sort of mocking
the fact that they that Brown and de Bernier had
had such a hard time and the Patriots were sort
of doing their job. But so the Patriots, the spy
story is important to the Golden Ball. So that made
us start to think about, okay, so let's talk about
(13:50):
spies and an espionage, if you will, And that all
sort of ties back to when George Washington and Thomas
Gage were both British soldiers and both being taught the
same sort of military tactics, which included espionage. When Washington's
(14:12):
change sides, he brought those skills with him, and Washington
was just a little bit better at that than Gage was,
so he was always sort of one step ahead of Gauge.
They had sort of the same you know, they had
the same tools, but Washington sort of bumped it up
(14:32):
a little bit. So in addition to sort of you know,
things you would think of like disguises and invisible ink
and codes, Washington went a little bit further, and he
had the cul perspir Ring, which was a very elaborate
spy group of a group of men passing information back
(14:54):
and forth. And we thought that was, you know, really interesting.
But along with that we also had sort of the British,
the British spies like Brown and the Bernier. But then
we had double agents, people who claimed to be on
one side and you know, played for the other. And
there were and there were a number of them, like
(15:16):
Benedict Arnold and doctor Benjamin Church and doctor Edward Bancroft.
In addition to that, there were women spies that people
don't always don't always get in the history books, you know.
For for the British, there was Anne Bates who pretended
she was a She gave herself an alias and was
(15:37):
working in Washington's camp, and because she was a woman, nobody,
you know, paid attention to her, and she got all
this information and she passed that on to the British.
And on the Patriot side you had people like Lydia
Barrick Barrington Darrow, who who with her husband because her
house was seized by the by the British Army and
(16:00):
her family was allowed to stay in there, would eavesdrop
on the officer's conversations and then put it in code
and put it inside the buttons of her son's jacket,
and her son would run to Washington's camp and the
buttons would be cut off and the coded messages would
be received that way. Anna Strong, who was also part
(16:20):
of the Cold Perspy ring but and she's probably my
favorite story. She worked with Abraham wood Hall and when
they had information that they wanted to pass. This was
on Long Island. He would pass her the information or
(16:41):
tell her where the information was. She would hang her
laundry on her and if there was a black petticoat,
that meant that there was information that the sailors out
around Long Island knew they had to pick up. And
there were six coves on Long Island, and there were
six handkerchiefs. Depending on which handkerchiefs she put on the clothesline,
(17:04):
they know which which harbor to go in to collect
the information so that they could pass that along. And
nobody ever figured it out. And I just think, I
just think that's crazy and cool. Yeah, So there's just
all of these really fascinating stories about things that ways
(17:25):
that information was passed or spying was done, and we
and we show a lot of different tools besides you know,
as I said, the coded messages and invisible ink they had.
They found ways to put codes in musket shot, so
you know, British weren't looking for that. Or they would
roll up messages and stick them inside the hollowness of
(17:50):
a quill and people wouldn't know to look in there.
Or they used grills and masks, which is where you
send one letter with a cutout to your your your
colleague or whomever, and then you send a second letter separately,
and you put them together and what's inside the cutout
(18:12):
is the actual message, but the letter itself is innocuous,
and the cutout means nothing without the other letter, so
people didn't know, you know, they didn't catch on to
you know, what sort of information was being passed. So
there's a whole lot of things. You know. It's certainly
not James Bond, like you said, but very clever using
what they had and and I don't know, just sort
(18:38):
of the thrilling part of really never knowing who's on
what side at any given time.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I mean, honestly, it's almost better than James Bond because
they really had to kind of dig deep and figure out,
all right, how were we going to get this message
across and not get our heads blown off by our
you know, the guy around the corner.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So they really get creative, right, and arguably Washington wouldn't
when it was strictly a game of force. The British
were way too outmanned, the Patriots way way too much
and had the munitions to fight. But because Washington was
just a little a little bit cleverer and and the
(19:17):
Patriots were just a little you know, one step ahead
of the of the British, they sort of I would
say won the war through espionage rather than anything else.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I agree. So how did you get a hold of
these artifacts?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
So? So we upstairs at the at the museum, we
have a what's called a ballroom, which is the biggest
room in the house, which is where people would have
come for, you know, any kind of social event in town.
Remember there's no town hall, there's no there's no commonplace
other than the church. So this is where you know,
(19:52):
the court would be held. And this is where you
got your newspaper, and this is where you got your mail.
There was no postal service at that time, and this
is where where where people would congregate. So that room
is the room where we put the spy exhibit, and
we basically took many, many different resources to sort of
(20:12):
collect that. Nothing is original to the museum other than
copies of Ensign's report his you know, his description of
of what happened. I'm sorry, not Ensign, but to Bernier's
report of what happened. But we have examples of the mask,
and we have the examples of the sympathetic stain, which
(20:36):
was put together by James, by James j who was
John Jay's brother, who was a chemist, and he figured
out this sort of secret, secret formula for sending secret messages.
And we have you know, we have we have a
quill with with a message you know, stuck inside, and
and and and pictures and biographies of all of these
(20:59):
different different spies on the walls so that people can
understand who they are and how they relate to whatever
side they're representing, and how they, you know, how they
relate to the you know, sort of the timeline of
the American Revolution.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, So if people want to come and check out
this new exhibit and learn all about the rest of
Isaac's story and this beautiful building, I mean, there's so
much to take in at the Tavern. When are you
open and when can people come by?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We're open every Thursday from ten to four and then
we're open the second Sunday of every month from one
to three and the exhibit is going to be on
display through November.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Oh so people have time.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's good, They have time. Yep.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Is there any sort of fee they have to pay
to get in? Is this free or do you have
to reserve a ticket?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Free? Nope, it's free, and we'd love people to come
and check it out. We have an orientation exhibit that's
basically embellishes on the three major stories that we tell
the Western Tea Party, despised visit and Paul Revere's men
when they came to the Golden Ball, and we have
(22:10):
some we do have some of our collection out that
reflects those stories in the orientation. But mostly what we
want people to do is appreciate the house and the
stories that happened in the house and the family that
lived here and how they lived here, and you know,
give them a chance to see, you know, what a
(22:31):
wealthy person in Weston might experience, you know, in the
late seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Now, if somebody wants to help you continue to take
care of this building, because I'm sure upkeep of a
several centuries old home is not exactly cheap. Do you
accept donations or how can people help in that regard?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Sure, you can either go on our website, which is www.
Goldenbaaltavern dot org and there's lots of information on our website.
If people are interested, we can sign you up for
our monthly newsletter where you can find out all the
things that are happening. And if you do visit, we
(23:12):
have a bunch of different collateral that talks about the
museum in different ways. You can support us and we would,
you know, we would love that.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And you even have a store if you want to
bring part of the Tavern museum home with you, which
I love. I love this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sure yeah, I mean it's a very small curated collection
of things, but yes we do have some things to
commemorate your visit and so that you can take a
little piece of the Golden Ball home with you.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Phenomenal. All right, Well, Katie, if people want to find
out more, I'm assuming the website is the best place
to go Goldenballtavern dot.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Org, or you can get us on social media on
Instagram or Facebook.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Okay, cool. You know I have learned a lot today.
Thank you so much, Katie Campbell from the Golden Ball
Tavern Museum in Weston. What an interesting side of the
revolutionary story that we don't often hear. Thank you so
much for preserving that history and coming on to talk
about it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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