Thomas Ditson rode into Boston -March 8, 1775

When Thomas Ditson rode into Boston on the morning of March 8, 1775, he was on a mission. The 33-year-old farmer from Billerica was there to sell some produce and perhaps acquire a new coat. But his primary objective was to buy a gun.

Guns were hard to come by in the countryside outside Boston, and it was becoming increasingly clear to the farmers who lived there that to resist the British army occupying the city they were going to need more weapons. Ditson hoped to take advantage of a black market that had emerged, as some British soldiers were secretly selling purloined guns to the colonials. Believing that Sergeant John Clancy of the 47th Regiment of Foot was a good candidate for such a transaction, Ditson approached him. After buying a coat from the soldier, Ditson inquired about a musket.

According to Ditson, Clancy readily agreed to the sale, took his money, then reneged on the deal and turned him over to the authorities. According to Clancy, after Ditson asked about buying a gun and encouraged him to desert, he arrested him. Either way, Ditson found himself before British Lt. Colonel Thomas Nesbit, who ordered a painful and humiliating punishment.

Ditson was stripped to his waist, then tarred and feathered. That is, hot tar was poured over his body, and he was then coated in feathers—an excruciating ordeal that was sometimes fatal. A placard was hung around his neck, which read: “American Liberty or Democracy exemplified in a villain who attempted to incite one of the soldiers of his Majesty’s 47th Regiment to desert and take up arms with rebels against his King and country.” The tarred-and-feathered man was then placed in a cart and paraded around Boston, while being taunted by British soldiers. Composing a new verse to “Yankee Doodle,” the song they used to mock and ridicule the colonial Patriots, the soldiers sang:

Yankee Doodle came to town,

For to buy a firelock,

We will tar and feather him,

And so we will John Hancock.

Ditson might have been executed had an angry crowd of locals not begun to form and protest. Fearing another Boston Massacre, Nesbit ordered Ditson released.

News of the incident spread throughout the colonies and aroused great indignation, adding to the ever-growing anti-British sentiment. For his part, Ditson went back to his farm. There, at little over a month, he was one of the Minutemen who peppered the retreating British during the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The fighting at Meriam’s Corner became known locally as “Ditson’s Revenge.”

Ditson fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill and served as a sergeant in the Massachusetts Line. In 1777 he lost an eye to smallpox and spent most of the rest of the war in the Invalid Corps.

Thomas Ditson died in New Hampshire at age 86, on September 2, 1828.