The Chase Wild Animal Farm Mystery

Bill Chase is on the right.... we lifted this pic from the Circus No Spin Zone website

Halifax is a quiet little town off of Route 106 in the rural center of Plymouth County in Massachusetts. While it doesn't qualify as "the middle of nowhere" since the commuter rail hit it, Halifax is still a place where nothing happens. I don't mind saying this, because I'm a former resident of Halifax, and I know that locals like it when nothing happens there.

Halifax is largely residential today, but there was a time when it was a resort spot. The railroad lines that ran into town brought people from the teeming cities of the No Widespread Air Conditioning era. They were thrilled to spend a summer in a cabin, enjoying the many benefits of Silver Lake and (pre-algal blooms) Monponsett Lakes. Cars and highways brought day trippers.

Businesses in town were built to suit the needs of these cash-carrying tourists. Since the land was cheap, a businessman could afford to think Big. A man named Bill Chase got into the import/export business, and his stock in trade was wild animal hunting/exhibiting/selling. Most of us don't know anyone who could get us an elephant... but if you knew Bill Chase, you knew someone who could get you an elephant. You also missed your chance, as he died in the 1980s.

He had some gig, which I'm betting is quasi-illegal now, where he would capture animals in Africa, store them at his western Africa depot, and then ship them to zoos and reservations and whoever else orders things like Leopards. He also was in on some animal storage thing in Florida, which is most likely where his Wild Animal Farm animals spent their winters.

What wild animal farm, you ask? Why, I'm talking about the Chase Wild Animal Farm that used to be in Halifax, Massachusetts. In 1955, Chase moved his Chase Wild Animals Farm (which, due to his unfortunate last name, implies that you get to hunt the wild animals) from Egypt/Scituate Massachusetts to Halifax, Massachusetts.

The farm (part of the Chase Enterprises, Inc. empire) had permits allowing them to keep the animals in their "natural habitat," which is sort of funny because no part of Africa, let alone the parts with the cheetahs and hyenas running around, has Halifax's climate. They had a veritable Wild Kingdom happening off of Route 106, about where the Country Club is today.

Residents of the park included elephants, cheetahs, anteaters, leopards, zebra, llamas, various exotic birds and God knows what else. Admission was 50 cents for adults, and 25 cents "for moppets."

They used the Zebra as the mascot for the farm, and cardboard zebras were placed on highways to make sure that tourists didn't sleep on the Dark Continent happening in Halifax. They had free advertising from an animal-themed Boston TV show, sponsored by a Chase-friendly dog food manufacturer. They had a promotional deal with a local soda company. They opened themselves up to churches, schools and youth groups, making sure every kid left with a free (advertising) bumper sticker.

You could work a pretty good 1950s vacation in these parts. When you weren't splashing around in one of the Monponsett Lakes, you could go see a leopard at Chase's, then go to Edaville Railroad some other day, take the kids to Duxbury to see an ocean the next day, check out the Pilgrim stuff in Plymouth on another day, then finish off the week (and your paycheck) at Lincoln Park in Dartmouth.

This was pre-Internet, and not far from an era where kids rolled a hoop down the street for fun. It is very far removed from my own style of vacationing, which generally involves places where I can't be extradited from, coca and a bevy of gringo-friendly prostitutes. We're getting away from the point, however... and if the kids weren't happy seeing a leopard and going to Lincoln Park, you could always send them off to Vietnam or- if what I saw on Happy Days was customary- have the Fonz slap some sense into them.

I moved to Hally in 2000, and dudes were hitting 200 yard drives off the tee where CWAF was by the time I showed up. CWAF was unprominent (we make up our own words sometimes, and patent the really catchy ones) enough that I can't find out when it closed on the Internet. I could probably find out if I went to the town's historical society person, but I'm not going to Halifax from Cape Cod until I'm sure that I have a pretty good chance at getting a hippo skull (more on that later). I also have to convince Jessica to go, and the last time she and I went exploring in an old park, we were nearly arrested for breaking into Edaville Railroad. That is a story for another day, however...

I do know that Chase was still looking for Rhesus Monkeys in 1957, so the park lasted at least that long. They ran a nine month season, closing after their big Yule Festival promotion that had Santa with real actual reindeer. I'm sure that elephants and toucans love Massachusetts in late December.

A guy on Facebook said it ran through the 1960s, and it was his post (taken from a forum on cougars in Massachusetts) that got my imagination working. Several locals have told me a similar version of the story. I didn't canvas the town or anything, but no one I chatted with about the farm who actually had lived there when it was operating hadn't been told some version of this story.

If I may cut and paste some....

"I grew up in Halifax, in the fifties and sixties. There was a wild animal farm there called the "Chase Wild Animal Farm" It's now the Halifax Country Club Golf Course. It was one of those walk-thru zoos in the forest,where the animals were barely restrained, and was finally shut down. 

The owner, a man name of Bob Belinda, released all the animals into the swamp, including big cats, birds, everything, before he was run out. Even elephants, alligators, monkeys, lions were in the swamps for years, and some undoubtedly cross-bred with local animals. 

After that time, we saw weird-looking birds like vultures, there were even yellow canaries that would attack other birds in swarms, and huge cats lived in the area after that. My father shot one huge cat by our barn, that was larger than a bobcat. We used to hear wild screams from the swamp in the summer, and Gawd knows what types of inbreeding went on. 

We had horses, goats and sheep that had to be watched closely becuse of the wild dog packs, and some of those that we killed resembled Hyenas. 

This can all be verified at the Halifax Town Hall. This is the area about a mile behind the King Supermarket on Plymouth street. You can start your own "Monsterquest," for real."

Nowwwww, we have something we can work with.

You and I both know that is nonsense. Let us count the ways.

A guy who sells wild animals has very little to gain from releasing them into the swamps of Massachusetts. Even if he chose to do so (see: Zanesville, Ohio), it would have made headlines very quickly. An elephant rampaging through Plympton would be one thing, but it would get ugly with the quickness if the liberated leopard started picking off Kingston schoolchildren.

Please understand that Logic only gets in the way of a good urban legend, even out in the sticks.

If they did escape unnoticed somehow, some animals would have a better chance of surviving than others. The tropical birds would be hurtin' for certain. The cheetah once roamed North America, but I'm not sure if Massachusetts was part of that range. Asiatic Cheetahs are capable of growing a winter coat. Amur leopards range into Siberia. Hannibal once took 38 elephants over the Alps to invade Rome, possibly passing within sight of the Matterhorn, and got a few of them across.

Still, every animal in the park would face long odds in a Massachusetts winter.

picture from Christine Murray Pearl

I have no idea how these species would interbreed with native fauna. The only thing I can see an elephant being able to shag around here would be a Jeep. A domestic cat would explode if a leopard entered her. Our local seagull population would be cooler if they interbred with escaped Macaws, but something like that would have been noticed as soon as they started opening McDonald's around here.

Perhaps an alligator could be responsible for the hybrid car-sized turtle said to haunt Great Herring Pond in Plymouth, but the killer mutant canaries story sounds eerily like the plot of that Sylvester/Tweety episode where Tweety gets into the steroids and swells up like 10000%, to the extent that he is then able to hunt Sylvester.

However, some "proof" does exist if you insist on pursuing the mass-release story. Where I'm headed with this is the Bridgewater Triangle theory.

The Bridgewater Triangle is a term used to describe an area of heightened spooky/paranormal activity. It runs from Rehoboth to Abington back to Freetown, although you could make great arguments for including some of the surrounding areas.

You name it, someone has seen it in the Triangle. UFOs? Check. Bigfoot? Twice spotted, once eating a pumpkin. Thunderbirds? Yup. Anaconda-sized snakes? You know they have it.

A man who knows the basic Bridgewater Triangle legends can turn his imagination towards matching Triangle monsters to things that might have been released (or escaped- they say that Chase favored a barely restrained style of animal husbandry) from the Chase Wild Animal Farm in Halifax. This is especially true if it happens during a slow news week.

The Beast of Truro? Perhaps this is what became of the Halifax leopard. I do wonder if Chase would bother to report a cheetah escape, or- if it killed someone- he'd just be like "Oh well, it must have belonged to someone else around here who frequently purchases leopards." The Pamet Puma, described by witnesses as a Big Cat style big cat, made no appearances after 1982.

That alligator corpse in Westport recently? Could it be a sewer-living offspring of a Chase gator? No. We've discussed alligators up north before, it never ends well for the Gator.  The Silver Lake Frogman could have been someone getting a fast glimpse at an alligator, but it could not have been, too.

Daniel Webster's Sea Monster, spotted off Duxbury? OK, too early. The same goes for the Cape Ann sea serpent, and we should mention here that Chase did not have any plesiosaurs or however they spell that.

Pukwudgies? Too early, the Wampanoags had lore of them. The Dover Demon? That could easily be escaped Rhesus monkeys, who would most likely have had the best chance of escaping Chase's farm.

Bigfoot sightings in Bridgewater? Could it have been someone mistaking a llama? Even if your answer is no, you simply have to grade that possibility far above "a Yeti wandered into a Massachusetts college town." Chase procuring and losing a bear without Google knowing 60 years later is also a possibility.

Giant snakes menacing workers in Hockomock Swamp? I bet there was a very short list of "people who might import an Anaconda into the greater Halifax area," and Chase was probably on the top of it. While the Hockomock snake story goes back to the Great Depression, Chase was in business in Scituate at the time, and your guess would be as good as mine as to "where in Massachusetts to get rid of an unwanted Reticulated Python."

Those monster stories are best left to the Monster Hunters. There's one grotesque part of the Chase legend that fascinates me, and that may finally move me into a trip back to my old Halifax stomping grounds.

An ugly story followed Chase around, both in Halifax and in his prior Scituate digs. When his animals died, he was rumored to have buried them on-site. According to local legend, the remains of a giraffe are buried in Scituate. Halifax, where I intend to prowl around some, is said to be the final resting place of a hippo.

It makes sense in a pre-EPA way. Let's say that your elephant moves on to the Final Answer. It's not like you're going to ship him back to Africa for burial. I doubt that any animal cemetery in the region could accommodate one. Much like when you have to kill someone, you go find an isolated spot out in a forbidding swamp and dig a hole wide enough and deep enough. While an elephant funeral would most likely be a great media event, it would raise ugly questions with the local officials... who might be understandably leery of the guy who keeps free-ranging cheetahs in town.

You can see where my man might want to do his dirt by his lonesome, on the D Low.

It is for God to judge him, and- seeing as he died in the 1980s- that probably has already happened. All I care about is where to dig for that Hippo skull.

Most of the time, we write about foliage and snowstorms and local matters, but this column does piss someone off now and then, and they sometimes are able to deduce my identity and thus my home address. This leads to animated discussions and sometimes even the presence of Johnny Law.

Now, I'm not a small man, and I like a good slobberknocker as much as the next guy does... but, if I can avoid conflict because my stalker foes are intimidated by the giant and ghastly Hippo skull that I have nailed to the front gable of my cottage, that counts as a win.

Happy Halloween From Cranberry County Magazine!

As we await the Great Pumpkin, let's check out some Halloween decorations.

He's actually breathing fire, but my camera was frightened into blurriness.   

Witches are considerably more cheerful the further south you get from Salem.

Our Halloween special was shot in broad daylight and will be published close to the Witching Hour.

I was going to wear my twenty foot electric blue avenging angel costume, but this guy beat me to it.

Mayor McPumpkin of Wareham

They say that, during zombie apocalypses, the guys who tidy up cemeteries are the first to die.

"The line to get at them jugs on her starts at the left.... in fact, you're the first guy in it."

Let's see... a coward, a dummy, some trash, a girl leading them.... Hillary rally?

A couple o' guys wearing sheets, led by some strange orange-tinted evil creature.... Trump rally?

Some decorations get a forward lean if October is trending windy.

You can open a cemetery in your yard even if you have a small lawn, but you can only cater to midgets.

Same to you!

Yeti pretty much have to dress as Frankenstein. It's tough to play a witch or a princess when you're 8 feet tall and furry.

Most people go Scary when they decorate for Halloween, but this house went Cute.

I'd hit that...

When you're as famous as Frankenstein is, you can just grab girls by the pelvic bone,no consent needed.

That's pretty much how it works when I need a lawyer...

Early Season Leaf Peeping In Plymouth County

It's about two weeks too early, but we took to the streets to see what sort of early fall foliage we could find in Plymouth County.

Southeastern Massachusetts may be the weakest spot in New England for leaf peeping, but New England has the bar set pretty high.

One of the benefits of having a blurry camera is that, if you don't enjoy fall foliage, you can just squint at this picture and pretend that the article is about forest fires.

As you can see, we'll be working in the ROY part of the ROY G BIV color spectrum. I looked pretty hard for a purple tree without success. I may have seen a Magenta tree, I'm not sure.... never had that crayon.

Our basic route for this trip was Bourne to Wareham to Plymouth to Kingston to Plympton to Halifax to Bridgewater to Hanson to Pembroke to Duxbury back to Bourne.

I went down Route 106 after a huge yellow tree in Plympton, but it hadn't peaked yet. This tree in Halifax was up earlier.

I needed orange in my life badly enough to shoot the tree with wires in front of it.

Otherwise, a shutterbug develops  tendency to invite themselves into people's yards without permission to seek better shots. I haven't been beaten up or shot at yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have already forgiven my future assailant.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of  working with a crappy camera is that shooting out the window of a car going 50 MPH doesn't really lower the quality that much when compared to my stand-still work.

Neither of my MVP trees (the giant yellow one in Plympton and a deep red one next to the Middleboro 4H building) were at peak when I drove by.

I should really learn which types of tree are birch, cedar, maple, forsythia etc.... I only know maple leafs because they have a hockey team.

I shoot 100 pics or so, then go through them at the end of the trip. Memory issues come up, and you get captions like "I think this is Kingston."

No foliage here, but I love reflective work.

Don't let the week-old dates deter you on the pictures from Leaf Peeping. My camera calendar is  week slow.

Pine dominates our tree shots, preventing us (along with my camera) from getting those panoramic Vermont calendar shots.

Be sure to tune back in....

Because we'll be doing more of the South Shore....

And we'll also do the South Coast...

As well as Cape Cod!

I'll even drag Jessica along, as she takes better pictures than I do.

See you on the road!

90 Foot US Flag On Display In Halifax This Sunday

UPDATE: EXHIBIT CANCELLED DUE TO HIGH WINDS

National Flag Exhibit
Sunday, June 12, 2016 at 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Corner of Routes 106 and 58

There will be a showing of the 90 foot American Flag which was recently raised at Mount Rushmore on Sunday, June 12 from 4 PM to 6 PM at the intersection of Routes 106 and 58.

You won't have trouble finding it... as I recall, the flag needs to be lifted with a crane. It should be easy to spot.

Music provided by Delyte DJ Services. There is also an antique car show going on at the same time.

You can't get much more 'Merica than checking out a 90 foot Old Glory, player. No one will ever be able to question your patriotism.

The flag will be considerably better than the ones pictured here. I'm just emptying the Photobucket.

Hulk Smash(ed)!

I'm not a Trump supporter, and would vote for him only for economic reasons (i.e. "We get paid to write comedy on this website"). However, I'm here today to speak out against a damaged Trump sign.

I would vote for Trump if I was told to do so by The Incredible Hulk, of course... also for economic reasons ("I can't afford the hospital bills were I to be smashed into pulp by a big green gamma ray monster"). Vote early and often, my friend.

A home in Halifax had a TRUMP sign damaged last night, right in their own front yard. We're not cool with that. If you hate a candidate or the sitting President, hit back by peaceful means. Vote against him, aid the campaign of his/her rival, start a blog and mouth off all day... that's all good.

If your hatred leads you to invade and destroy someone's private property... well, you're an @ss clown.

My man in Halifax had a sign up... hanging off of what looks like a ten foot high Incredible Hulk statue. Because it's in Halifax, the Hulk had a really cool hat, too.

My friend decided to hang his TRUMP sign off of his Hulk statue, probably to attain greater visibility and probably not to reference the Trump SMASH! meme. He doesn't get in the streets and yell at people, nor does he go to rallies and sucker-punch Bern victims. He just hung a political sign off of his 10 foot Incredible Hulk statue, just like the Constitution says he can. I actually checked with the police, and found that 0.00 people were harmed by this sign.

That respect was not returned to the Hulk. Some butt-munch, most likely striking when a calmed Hulk was in his more-easily-messed-with Dr. David Banner personification, tore the sign down. Because the sign was tied to the statue by something stronger than what the statue was made off, the villain(s) tore the feet off of the statue in the process.

If you did this vandalism, here's why you suck.

The Hulk actually pre-dates Donald Trump in my friend's yard by a few years, and most likely viewed Trump as a potential VP candidate during the brief time that they shared the yard. The reason that the Hulk hangs around a Halifax front yard is because a mother took a lot of time to stitch the Hulk together. She did so because she had a child, a guy we'll call MADD MIKE.

(Editor's note: We're not sure if MADD MIKE is a drunk driving reference, and we don't plan to ask)

MADD MIKE passed away, and the Hulk was left up as a sort of tribute. A tribute to a lost son, in case we didn't hammer the point home hard enough earlier.

Now, someone who prefers Hillary or Ted Cruz might snatch a sign here and there. "Hey, what harm could it do?" or "How was I to know that the sign was something special to a grieving family?

Well, that's why you don't destroy the sign, pal. You never know...

There is a reward for information leading to the identification of the people responsible. I'm hoping that the owner of the Hulk, who I can assure you is not a man to be trifled with, understands the difference between an "A reward will be given if an arrest is made" legal bounty and an "A reward will be given once I break this kid's jaw" agreement (known among people who specialize in these matters as a "blood money contract") which the detectives will visit his house for.

Just to play it safe... if you know something, talk to the Halifax Police. You can reach them at 781-294-8713. If you worry that the police won't rough the perp up... understand that this is a small town, know that word gets around small towns, and karma is a bitch Hulk.

The Battle Of Marshfield

As we approach April 19th, it is easy to view the American Revolution as a US vs. England thing... even if most of the Americans still thought of themselves as English (Paul Revere never shouted "The British are coming!" during his ride, entirely because of this phenomena. Paul actually was shouting the less poetic "The regulars are out!") when the fighting started.

The US/England thing is easy to understand now, a few hundred years after the fact. What is less-known is that there existed considerable static between towns during the pre-revolt period.

The basic cause of this discord was the issue that would launch the Revolution. Some people thought that the colonies should break free from the crown, while others thought that we should remain in the kingdom. As that famous American we know as Mel Gibson once said, "an elected legislature can trample your rights just as easily as a king can." 

Others disagreed with Mel, and there was thick tension in the air throughout the 1760s and 1770s. If you voiced the wrong political opinion at the wrong tavern, you might be chased from the town by a mob.

Here are a few examples of what would happen to you if you failed to say "Screw The Crown" quickly enough in pre-war New England. Its a lot of reading, but it should prove entertaining.

- "At Taunton also, about 40 Miles from Boston, the Mob attacked the House of Daniel Leonard, Esqr.,3 one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace; & a Barrister at Law. They fired Bullets into the House & obliged him to fly from it to save his Life."

- "Peter Oliver Esqr., a Justice of the Peace at Middleborough, was obliged by the Mob to sign an Obligation not to execute his Office under the new Acts. At the same Place, a Mr. Silas Wood... was dragged by a Mob of 2 or 300 Men about a Mile to a River in Order to drown him, but, one of his Children hanging around him with Cries & Tears, he was induced to recant, though, even then, very reluctantly."

- "The Mob at Concord, about 20 Miles from Boston, abused a Deputy Sheriff of Middlesex, they making him pass through a Lane of them, sometimes walking backwards & sometimes forward, Cap in Hand, & they beating him."

- "All the Plymouth Protestors against Riots, as also all the military Officers, were compelled by a Mob of 2000 Men collected from that County & the County of Barnstable to recant & resign their military Commissions. Although the Justices of the Peace were then sitting in the Town of Plymouth, yet the Mob ransacked the House of a Mr. Foster, a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, a Man of 70 Years of Age, which obliged him to fly into the Woods to secrete himself, where he was lost for some Time and was very near to the losing of his Life."

- "A Jesse Dunbar, of Halifax in the County of Plymouth, (was) ordered it into a Cart, & then put ... into the Belly of the (slaughtered) Ox and carted him 4 Miles, with a Mob around him, when they made him pay a Dollar after taking three other Cattle & a Horse from him. They then delivered him to another Mob, who carted him 4 Miles further & forced another Dollar from him. The second Mob delivered him to a third Mob, who abused him by throwing Dirt at him, as also throwing the Offals [innards] in his Face & endeavoring to cover him with it, to the endangering his Life, & after other Abuses, & carrying him 4 Miles further, made him pay another Sum of Money. They urged the Councilor’s Lady, at whose House they stopped, to take the Ox; but she being a Lady of a firm Mind refused; upon which they tipped the Cart up & the Ox down into the Highway, & left it to take Care of it self. And in the Month of February following, this same Dunbar was selling Provisions at Plymouth when the Mob seized him, tied him to his Horse’s Tail, & in that Manner drove him through Dirt & mire out of the Town."

- "In November 1774, David Dunbar of Halifax aforesaid, being an Ensign in the Militia, a Mob headed by some of the Select Men of the Town, demand[ed] his Colors [flags] of him. He refused, saying, that if his commanding Officer demanded them he should obey, otherwise he would not part with them: upon which they broke into his House by Force & dragged him out. They had prepared a sharp Rail to set him upon;12 & in resisting them they seized him (by his private parts) & fixed him upon the Rail, & was held on it by his Legs & Arms, & tossed up with Violence & greatly bruised so that he did not recover for some Time. They beat him, & after abusing him about two Hours he was obliged, in Order to save his Life, to give up his Colors."

- "A Parish Clerk was taken out of his Bed in a Cold Night & beat against his Hearth by Men who held him by his Arms & Legs. He was then laid across his Horse without his Clothes & drove to a considerable Distance in that naked Condition. His Nephew Dr. Abner Beebe, a Physician, complained of the bad Usage of his Uncle & spoke very freely in Favor of [the royal] Government, for which he was assaulted by a Mob, stripped naked, & hot Pitch was poured upon him, which blistered his Skin. He was then carried to an Hog Sty & rubbed over with Hog’s Dung. They threw the Hog’s Dung in his Face & rammed some of it down his Throat;"

- In Freetown, they used to paint Loyalists yellow, as "the Mob found that paint is cheaper than Tar and Feathers."

- "Patriots from Duxbury did kidnap Marshfield Loyalists Paul White, Dr. Stockbridge and Elisha Ford, and carted them to the "Liberty Pole" in Duxbury. There they were "forced to sign recantations" of their Tory sentiments, likely in response to mob violence."

By 1768, the crown deemed it necessary to send 4000 troops to pacify Boston, which was also getting ugly. Other than the potential for a Lexington-style suburban incursion by British troops, the countryside was (mostly) left on her own.

You know how it went from there. In 1770, the redcoats fired on the colonists, in what is known as the Boston Massacre. In 1773, the Boston Tea Party went down. In 1775, on April 19th, warfare broke out at Lexington/Concord.

As you can still see in modern occupational wars like Iraq or Afghanistan, the occupiers tend to stick to the cities. You have airports and docks to move supplies in, and cities usually sit astride rivers and highways that other trade flows through. The countryside tends to belong to the rebels.

This was the case in Massachusetts. Remember, the Revolution didn't start until the redcoats marched far enough out into the countryside to find farmers crazy enough to pick a fight with the world's best light infantry. While they may not use exactly those terms, every schoolkid in America can tell you the basics of Lexington/Concord.

What they can't tell you about (unless they read this column, of course) is the Battle of Marshfield. There's a good reason for this... there was no Battle Of Marshfield.

Brant Rock, MA

However, history is often drawn by tricks of fate, coincidence, miscalculations and itchy trigger fingers. An itchy trigger finger set off the Boston Massacre, started the Revolution, and was still happening when the National Guard went hippy-hunting at Kent State almost 200 years after the redcoats landed in Boston Harbor. If Marshfield in 1775 had been visited by ol' Mr. Finger, our history lessons would have been very different.

While an apt high school kid could tell you that Boston was occupied by the redcoats before the Revolution, they might not know that Marshfield also bore this status. Marsh Vegas, as it was then not known as, was a Loyalist hotbed. People in Vegas had no problem at all with the crown, at least the ones with the money and influence. They preferred change through diplomacy over revolt.

Even noting the fact that Marshfield patriots in 1773 had their own Marshfield Tea Party (on Tea Rock Hill), Marshfield was the most Loyalist town in New England.

This put them at odds with the neighboring towns. Duxbury and Plymouth were hotbeds of Patriot activity, and you saw with the Dunbar brothers how Halifax handled Loyalists. Not wishing to be mashed in Hog Dung, the loyalists in Marshfield sent a letter to General Gage, who was in charge of Boston. They demanded protection, and Gage complied, sending 100 men and 300 muskets on two schooners (the Dianna and the Britannia) down to Marsh Vegas in 1775. They were under the command of future Parliament member Captain Nesbit Balfour.

These redcoats disembarked at the mouth of the North River and marched 6 miles to the Nathaniel Ray Thomas estate. He was only the second most famous occupant, which is why you know it today as the Daniel Webster House. You can see a picture of it here, or you can drive down Washington Street in Duxbury to see a similar house in person. It looked like the mansion from Django Unchained.

The redcoats set up their barracks on the grounds of the estate, and proceeded to piss off the locals. They would go to taverns or private homes in Duxbury and Plymouth. They behaved well enough, but they would have been hated in Duxbury even if they walked across water to get there. There is at least one story of a mob chasing a British officer into a Plymouth store, and not letting him out until he surrendered (and they broke) his sword.

Naturally, the entertainment in Boston served to get the locals' moxie up. Duxbury had already hosted Stamp Act protests, burned a dozen Englishmen in effigy and kidnapped Loyalists for Liberty Pole parties. The presence of 100 redcoats a town over was, as they liked to say then, intolerable.

You didn't see a lot of South Shore people at Lexington. Paul Revere went west, not south. By the time that word of Lexington/Concord got to Duxbury, they would not have had time to get up to Boston for the battle. We did send some men up to Lexington/Concord, but most of the South Shore got off no shots at the redcoats fleeing Concord.

They didn't need to march to get at the regulars... they had 100 of them right there on the South Shore, sleeping on the lawn of a Marshfield mansion.

The South Shore towns had militia, and they had been training for this moment. They dropped everything on April 19th and gathered at what is now known as the John Alden House in Duxbury, under the command of  Colonel Theophilus Cotton.

No one knows what went on in the John Alden house that night, nor on the day of the 20th, when a council of war was held. What we do know is that Cotton, of Plymouth, failed to attack. He may have hoped that the British would leave on their own, or he may have feared a rabble-vs-regulars fight, or he may have been waiting for more people.

He got more people quickly enough. Companies arrived from Rochester and Plympton to join the Duxbury, Plymouth and Kingston patriots. Fishermen from various local harbors, always fixin' for a fight, threw themselves into the mix. Colonel Cotton soon had five hundred men, five times the number of the British they wished to oust from Marshfield.

They marched to within a mile of the British regiment, not without some argument.  The cautious Cotton still refused to attack. A company from Kingston (led by Capt. Peleg Wadsworth), perhaps seeking to atone for their now-unfortunate town name, advanced without orders to within firing range of the British camp. Ish was about to get hectic.

However, there were no British to kill. The British garrison, who would have surrendered if fired upon, had instead run like a scalded dog.

The schooner Hope, along with two smaller sloops (the sloops had been "prest" into service, and were two of the first AmRev prizes taken by the Brisih Navy) arrived at the mouth of the Cut River in Green Harbor. They gathered up the soldiers and whatever Loyalists they could find and fled for Boston. The citizens of Marshfield alerted the British to the arrival of the ships by firing guns from Signal Hill. These were the only shots fired in the Battle Of Marshfield.

Then, the ass-kicking began. The South Shore is interesting, if not unique, in that our violence goes down after the troops leave.

Marshfield had 1200 people at the time, and only a few of them could get on those ships. Everyone else was left to fend for themselves, as the British Army and Navy were at this point bottled up in Boston.

Marshfield, a Tory town without the necessary Tory army to keep it safe, exploded in an orgy of assaults, tar-n-featherings, jailings, property confiscation, business boycotts and exile. Whoever could afford a boat ride to Nova Scotia fled. Everyone else stayed, and suffered abuse for it.

"Our fate now decreed, and we are left to mourn out our days in wretchedness. No other resources but to submit to the tyranny of exulting enemies or settle a new country," said Sarah Winslow of Marshfield not too long after the British surrender at Yorktown. Her father said, "I was the butt of the licentious, and had received every species of insult and abuse, which the utmost rancour and malice could invent."

People were more cheerful in Patriot towns. "Returning to Duxbury fro' Brant Rock, Lt. Colonel Alden paused, and to the Delight of the assembeld militia, doth dropped Trou and thusly disparaged the grounds of the traitorous Winslow house by dropping a most malodorous and sizable Steamer near the well of the property," one Revolutionary diary didn't, but should have, said.

Those who did get away weren't always welcomed back. A ship from Nova Scotia, loaded with returning Marshfield Tories, was refused permission to disembark in the Neponset River by the town of Milton. The Tories eventually were let off at the North River, where they were promptly arrested.

Marshfield, much like someone tied to the Liberty Pole or being made to run a Gauntlet, finally caved in. Three months after the British Army was chased from Brant Rock, a town meeting resulted in Marshfield agreeing to support the Revolution. They sent their men off to fight, just like other towns.

Marshfield, for a long time, had more subdued celebrations of July 4th than neighboring towns did. Some years, they didn't celebrate the holiday at all. This sort of got played out in the 1950s and especially 1970s, as the demographics of the town were wildly altered by urban immigration. The incoming Bostonians loved July 4th, and by the time of my childhood, the Vegas coastline represented as hard as anyone.

Duxbury and the surrounding towns contributed mightily to the cause. Taking the 300 British muskets they found at the Thomas estate, they marched to Boston and joined up with George Washington. Duxbury men were involved in fortifying Dorchester Heights, which forced the British out of Boston. Unlike just about everyone involved in the Siege of Boston, the Duxbury men had already seen the British Navy flee before them once by the time the Limey Poofters sailed away from Boston.

Duxbury men served with George Washington at Valley Forge, and fought with him at Germantown and Monmouth. Washington was known to favor the fishermen of coastal Massachusetts as rowers. Duxbury men also manned a fort built out on the Gurnet. It saw no action in the Revolution, but they got to let off a few shots during the War of 1812.

It is interesting to ponder how the Brits would have reacted if Capt. Wadsworth had decided to charge the overmatched regulars. We know how the immediate battle would have worked, as Captain Balfour told us himself. The Brits would have surrendered with the first Rebel shot.

There's a difference between 100 soldiers and the entire Royal Navy, however. As we saw during the Battle of Wareham in 1812. the British would sail a squadron into town and burn every ship in the harbor for piracy. How wold they react after the loss of a whole garrison, especially if the battle which lost them turned into a massacre? Probably not well.

Duxbury did not embrace shipbuilding until after the Revolution, but they did need their harbor, and had nothing beyond a crude fort to keep the British from sailing in to set the whole town ablaze. Duxbury was a backwater, perhaps not meriting an invasion, but Plymouth was a high-profile revenge target.

Taking Plymouth would effectively cut off Cape Cod and the South Shore from contributing to the war effort, and would have the Brits very well positioned for a march on Rhode Island. The South Shore would have almost certainly got some Grey's Raid kind of action.. Never drink Earl Grey tea, it's associated with the son of the Grey's Raid captain who attacked Fairhaven, New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard.

The Battle of Marshfield may have indeed proved to be a Phyrric Phirryc Pyrrhic costly victory, and the whole war effort may have been jeopardized by the desire of some Plymouth County farmers to seize a contested Marsh Vegas front yard.

However, all of that never happened. Colonel Cotton, viewed by many as a wussy, was actually a fine leader. He went all Sun-Tzu on the English, not moving to attack until victory was assured. He cleared out one of the two English-occupied towns in Massachusetts, and he did so without wasting an ounce of gunpowder.

Colonel Cotton is actually twice-famous, as he led a group of patriots in 1774 who tried to move Plymouth Rock to a better viewing area. He split the Rock while doing so, and you can still see the split today. That's a story or another day.

So, as you do something 'Murica today to commemorate the Patriot actions in Boston, Lexington and Concord, lay back and twist one in honor of the 500 South Shore bad-asses who chased the British away.

Old Glory flying on Duxbury Beach, facing Marshfield.