Cobblestones Home : Colonial Lives : Put Your Page Title Here
The Memoir of Jared Fisher
by Ezra Spofford
In 1770, I was
transferred to America. My brother, some other
solders, and I went walking down around Boston, some infidels started
throwing stones at us. Things got out of hand. A club was
thrown and hit a officer in the head. In all the confusion, we
thought our commander gave the order to “fire!”. My brother was
the first one to shoot, I hesitated to pull the trigger and decided not
to discharge. This was the beginning of what was known as the
Boston Massacre.
 Click play to hear my story |
In 1770, I was transferred to America. My brother, some other solders, and I went walking down around Boston, some infidels started throwing stones at us. Things got out of hand. A club was thrown and hit a officer in the head. In all the confusion, we thought our commander gave the order to “fire!”. My brother was the first one to shoot, I hesitated to pull the trigger and decided not to discharge. This was the beginning of what was known as the Boston Massacre.
My brother, several other soldiers and I knew that we would be arrested and charged even if we did not shoot, so we ran. We ran blindly for our lives and found an abandoned house to hide in. We stayed there for a week before we were discovered and brought to prison to await trial. After a little while, I noticed that my brother was not there. I asked one of my fellow soldiers about him and he said that my brother was brought to another prison with more room.
The arrangement was that our commander was to be tried separately and before us. We feared that our ‘captains’ best defense was denying that he gave any orders to fire, and our best defense was claiming that we only followed our captain's orders. If our captain were to be tried first, our defense might well be endangered, so we objected in a letter to the court: "We poor distressed prisoners beg that ye would be so good as to let us have our trial at the same time with our captain, for we did our captain's orders, and if we do not obey his command, we should have been confined and shot for not doing it." Our request for a joint trial was denied without an explanation. I felt doomed. Even if we were acquitted on all charges, I wonder what life would be like in Boston. I had no where else to go. And so, our captain’s trial started. The trial ran from October 24 to the 30th. The prosecution was led by Samuel Quincy. Josiah Quincy assisted John Adams in his defense of Preston (our captain). John Adams apparently succeeded in creating uncertainties in the minds of jurors as to whether Preston ever gave the order to fire. The twelve-man jury conversed only a few hours before clearing Preston on all charges.
Eight weeks later, we faced our trial. The prosecution's most condemning testimony was by Samuel Hemmingway, who swore that Private Matthew Killroy--established by another prosecution witness as the man who shot citizen John Gray--"would never overlook an opportunity, when he had one, to fire upon the inhabitants, and that he had wanted to have a chance ever since he landed." After presenting more than forty witnesses, John Adams (our defense attorney) summed up for the defense. His meaningful speech blended law and politics. He finished by telling the jury that this was a case of self-defense. After less than three hours conference, the jury cleared us on all charges.
I now reside in Boston, every day I get strange looks from people out of the corners of there eyes. I hear whispers in crowds “that's one of them”. It is a lonely life, people steer clear of me. I am trying to find a way to get back home, but I fear that will never happen.
Epilogue
Jared later on found his brother John. They worked hard together to earn enough money to go back home and did. Jared died at the age of eighty on February 15, 1829 from old age. John died the following year from Small Pox.