Since George Washington chose, for whatever reason, not to identify the woman who named Dr Church as the person for whom she attempted to smuggle a letter into Boston, historians have had no first hand, reliable information upon which to identify her. That her identity was well known to a number of individuals in Washington's Headquarters and the camps of the Continental Army besieging Boston is quite obvious. She was seen, obviously, as a quite minor character in the drama of Dr Church's alleged treachery. So then, other than curiosity, why is her identity important? For one reason, there has been a widely held belief for over 240 years that Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr "betrayed" the revolutionary effort in order to finance his relationship with his mistress, not to mention the purchase of an expensive mansion in southeastern Massachusetts. ( see my post dated August 10 2010 )
The key to determining the identity of this woman lies with the "Mr. Wainwood" mentioned in Henry Ward's letter to Nathanael Greene. According to the letter, Wainwood was approached by a woman with whom he had been acquainted in Boston, and she asked him to perform what could be considered a treasonous act. Are we to believe that this woman approached Wainwood with such a task based on a casual acquaintance some years earlier in Boston? Or is there more to this relationship than Wainwood is admitting? If Wainwood was such a committed patriot, why did he do nothing upon being first approached by this acquaintance, but only acted after this woman persisted in her efforts. Indeed, he only acted after another party was witness to the affair.
So, then who was this "Mr. Wainwood"?
Godfrey Wenwood, as he styled himself in the 1770s , was a baker who emigrated to Newport, R.I. from London, in 1764, at the age of 25, describing himself as a "native of the Kingdom of Prussia." He became a naturalized citizen in the early 1770s. In January 1765, soon after arriving in Newport, Wenwood married a woman named Mary Butler. In September 1774, Wenwood obtained a divorce from Mary Butler stating that Mary "had absented herself from his Bed and board, committed adultery and cohabitated with other men." Mary had apparently fled to Boston after stripping her home of "sundry articles." Mary appears to have retuned to Newport several months later because her ex-husband posted this notice in the Boston Weekly Post-Boy in January 1775:
Now that's a bitter divorce.
But why then why should we identify Mary Wenwood nee Butler as the woman who was Dr Church's mistress?
On 1 October 1775, James Warren, the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, who Washington immediately notified of the Church letter, wrote John Adams as follows:
Dr. Ezra Stiles ( see my August 10, 2010 post) of Newport, although not always reliable, was involved peripherally and gives some additional, conflicting details concerning Wenwood and the woman who brought him the Church letter, in his diary. Dr Stiles has the advantage of knowing Mr. Maxwell. In a 2 October 1775 entry, he writes:
In a further entry on this matter on October 23, 1775 Stiles, referring to a deciphered copy of Dr Church's letter writes that:
Why is it most likely that Mary Wenwood nee Butler was the woman who brought Dr. Church's letter to Wenwood? General Washington's October 5, 1775 letter to John Hancock describes his investigation and subsequent arrest of Dr. Church. The explanations Wenwood gave Washington of his interactions with this woman just don't ring true. Either Wenwood was shaving the truth or Washington was trying to save the man's sensibilities, or both. It just suffers credulity to believe that Wenwood would take this dangerous action for some casual acquaintance from Boston. His account of the discovery of the cypher letter also just doesn't ring true. The account given by Dr Stiles, the one he got from the Schoolteacher Maxwell certainly sounds more plausible. That Wenwood offered to help the woman once she informed him of the letter is more plausible than Wenwood's story to Ward and Washington. Not to over-psychoanalyze, but perhaps Wenwood still held some passion for his wife and saw his helping her as some way to get back together. I think Wenwood panicked when he saw the cypher letter and was desperately trying to find a means to extricate himself from the whole affair. Once Mr. Maxwell got involved there was no turning back. Perhaps Washington sensed this and as repayment for his information decided to save Wenwood.
The final piece of evidence for me is the letter from the woman to Wenwood asking him why she hadn't heard from him. In it she mentions her sister. There is a level of familiarity that implies a close relationship. And there is little doubt in my mind that the woman writing the letter knew that Wenwood still held a passion for her and she was using that as an allurement to get him to cooperate. This woman had to survive and was undoubtedly playing any angle she could.
I could well imagine that Dr. Church, desperate to get a letter to his brother-in-law, thwarted, by his own admission, at every turn, would have seized on the fact that Mary Wenwood was from Newport, an area with which he was very familiar and a logical place from which to smuggle a letter into Boston since the British still controlled the port and the ocean route to Boston. If Mary Wenwood informed him that her ex-husband still resided in the city and still yearned for her, Dr. Church would have seized the opportunity. Church certainly would not have used someone with whom he had no relationship and no measure of control.
Of course, none of this can be proven unless some historical discovery occurs, but the sequence of events, the players involved, lead to the logical conclusion that Mary Wenwood was the woman employed by Church to get his letter to his brother-in-law.
Finally, if one accepts that Mary Wenwood was indeed the woman attempting to smuggle the letter into Boston, then I have a hard time having her defined as Church's mistress. Undoubtedly there was a relationship, sexual and otherwise. But I don't think we should characterize the relationship in the "classic mistress" sense. Gossip about Church's womanizing goes as far back as the late 1760s. After Lexington/Concord, Church was cut off from Boston and it would be logical to assume that he had certain needs. Perhaps he met Mary Wenwood in Boston in late 1774 or early 1775 and continued a relationship in Cambridge. Or perhaps he met her there. We certainly would know if Church and Mary were cohabitating because we know where Church was residing. Could he have "kept" her? Possibly. But it appears that the woman who wrote the letter was living on a farm in Little Cambridge. Could that farm have been something other than a farm? Perhaps. Let us also not forget that Church was financially stressed since his income had ceased after Lexington/Concord.
But can one really see Dr Benjamin Church, Jr. America's first great poet, classically trained, who could quote Virgil, in Latin, or Alexander Pope or a dozen other scholars off the top of his head besotted with the barely literate woman who wrote that letter to Wenwood? So yes, I agree that Church had a relationship, sexual and otherwise, with Mary Wenwood, but let's just not get carried away.
Wenwood remained in Newport after this incident, married a 17 year old in 1776, and died in 1816 at the age of 77, leaving two daughters from this marriage.
Mary Butler Wenwood disappears from the historical record although a Mary Wainwood of Rhode Island was in out of the alms house in Boston, dying in it in May 1797.
The key to determining the identity of this woman lies with the "Mr. Wainwood" mentioned in Henry Ward's letter to Nathanael Greene. According to the letter, Wainwood was approached by a woman with whom he had been acquainted in Boston, and she asked him to perform what could be considered a treasonous act. Are we to believe that this woman approached Wainwood with such a task based on a casual acquaintance some years earlier in Boston? Or is there more to this relationship than Wainwood is admitting? If Wainwood was such a committed patriot, why did he do nothing upon being first approached by this acquaintance, but only acted after this woman persisted in her efforts. Indeed, he only acted after another party was witness to the affair.
So, then who was this "Mr. Wainwood"?
Godfrey Wenwood, as he styled himself in the 1770s , was a baker who emigrated to Newport, R.I. from London, in 1764, at the age of 25, describing himself as a "native of the Kingdom of Prussia." He became a naturalized citizen in the early 1770s. In January 1765, soon after arriving in Newport, Wenwood married a woman named Mary Butler. In September 1774, Wenwood obtained a divorce from Mary Butler stating that Mary "had absented herself from his Bed and board, committed adultery and cohabitated with other men." Mary had apparently fled to Boston after stripping her home of "sundry articles." Mary appears to have retuned to Newport several months later because her ex-husband posted this notice in the Boston Weekly Post-Boy in January 1775:
Wheras a certain pretended Lady, now known and called by the name of Mary Wenwood, formerly called Mary Butler, a Native of Marblehead, a very lusty Woman much pitted with the Small-Pox, who generally wears the best of Cloathing, did some time past, take, steal, and carry away from my Dwelling House in Newport, a Woman's red Broad cloth Coat and Head, a Muff an Tippet, a Silk Shirt, and sundry other articles, - I do hereby offer a Reward of the said Sum of Twelve Dollars to any Person or Persons who will apprehend the said Mary and confine her in his Majesty's Goal in Newport, exclusive of all reasonable Charges, that he or they may be reasonably at in performing the same.
Now that's a bitter divorce.
But why then why should we identify Mary Wenwood nee Butler as the woman who was Dr Church's mistress?
On 1 October 1775, James Warren, the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, who Washington immediately notified of the Church letter, wrote John Adams as follows:
The history of the whole matter is this. The Doctor having formed an infamous connection, with an Infamous Hussey to the disgrace of his own reputation, and probable ruin of his family, wrote this letter last July, and sent it by her by Newport ... She not finding an opportunity very readily, trusted it with a friend of hers to perform the orders and came away and left it in his hands.
Dr. Ezra Stiles ( see my August 10, 2010 post) of Newport, although not always reliable, was involved peripherally and gives some additional, conflicting details concerning Wenwood and the woman who brought him the Church letter, in his diary. Dr Stiles has the advantage of knowing Mr. Maxwell. In a 2 October 1775 entry, he writes:
Some weeks since he [Church] sent a letter privately by a woman who brought it in her stocking on her leg, with orders to deliver it to either to Mr Dudley the Collector or & so as to go on board Captain Wallace & so thru his hands into Boston. She was a Girl of Pleasure, & one Wainwood a Baker in Newpt had known her in Boston, & they now fell into compt together in Newport. And she inquiring how she might get a letter on board Wallace, he offered to do it. She confided in him & told him who it came from. He afterwards suspected & opened it....Wainwood applied to Schoolmaster Maxwell to decipher it. He could not - but I remember some weeks ago Mr Maxwell ask me whether I could decypher characters - & said he believed there could be some occasion for a decypherer to detect an illicit correspondence in the Army. The Saturday before last [ September 23 ] I dined with Mr Maxwell & he spake more of the matter as a fact & advised me as to going to the Army with the man tha had the letter. I desired him first to let me have a line of it - he said he would persuade him to suffer it. Master & Wainwood went to the Army last week and opened the matter to Gen Greene with whom Master was intimate. Thus the matter came before Washington. The Girl was first arrested, she denied but at last own'd & disclosed the whole....
In a further entry on this matter on October 23, 1775 Stiles, referring to a deciphered copy of Dr Church's letter writes that:
This letter was brought to Newport by Dr. Church's concubine & she delivered it in Confidence to Mr. Wainwood, her former Enamorato (sic) who promised to deliver it to Wallace on board the Rose.The letter that Church's mistress wrote to Wenwood remains in the archives:
Dear Sir:
I now sett down to right afeu Lines hoping they will find you in good helth as they Leave me I expeted (?) you would have arote to me be for this But now Iexpet to sea you hear every Day I much wonder you never Sent wot you promest to send If you did I never reseve it so pray Lett me know By the first orpurtunuty wen you expet to be hear & at the Same time whether you ever sent me that & wether you ever get a answer from my sister I am a little unesey that you never rote that is aserten person hear wants to Sea you very much so pray com as swon as posebell if you righ Direct your Lettr to me Ewerd Harton* Living on Mr. Tapthonges farm in Little Cambrig [Brighton}
Why is it most likely that Mary Wenwood nee Butler was the woman who brought Dr. Church's letter to Wenwood? General Washington's October 5, 1775 letter to John Hancock describes his investigation and subsequent arrest of Dr. Church. The explanations Wenwood gave Washington of his interactions with this woman just don't ring true. Either Wenwood was shaving the truth or Washington was trying to save the man's sensibilities, or both. It just suffers credulity to believe that Wenwood would take this dangerous action for some casual acquaintance from Boston. His account of the discovery of the cypher letter also just doesn't ring true. The account given by Dr Stiles, the one he got from the Schoolteacher Maxwell certainly sounds more plausible. That Wenwood offered to help the woman once she informed him of the letter is more plausible than Wenwood's story to Ward and Washington. Not to over-psychoanalyze, but perhaps Wenwood still held some passion for his wife and saw his helping her as some way to get back together. I think Wenwood panicked when he saw the cypher letter and was desperately trying to find a means to extricate himself from the whole affair. Once Mr. Maxwell got involved there was no turning back. Perhaps Washington sensed this and as repayment for his information decided to save Wenwood.
The final piece of evidence for me is the letter from the woman to Wenwood asking him why she hadn't heard from him. In it she mentions her sister. There is a level of familiarity that implies a close relationship. And there is little doubt in my mind that the woman writing the letter knew that Wenwood still held a passion for her and she was using that as an allurement to get him to cooperate. This woman had to survive and was undoubtedly playing any angle she could.
I could well imagine that Dr. Church, desperate to get a letter to his brother-in-law, thwarted, by his own admission, at every turn, would have seized on the fact that Mary Wenwood was from Newport, an area with which he was very familiar and a logical place from which to smuggle a letter into Boston since the British still controlled the port and the ocean route to Boston. If Mary Wenwood informed him that her ex-husband still resided in the city and still yearned for her, Dr. Church would have seized the opportunity. Church certainly would not have used someone with whom he had no relationship and no measure of control.
Of course, none of this can be proven unless some historical discovery occurs, but the sequence of events, the players involved, lead to the logical conclusion that Mary Wenwood was the woman employed by Church to get his letter to his brother-in-law.
Finally, if one accepts that Mary Wenwood was indeed the woman attempting to smuggle the letter into Boston, then I have a hard time having her defined as Church's mistress. Undoubtedly there was a relationship, sexual and otherwise. But I don't think we should characterize the relationship in the "classic mistress" sense. Gossip about Church's womanizing goes as far back as the late 1760s. After Lexington/Concord, Church was cut off from Boston and it would be logical to assume that he had certain needs. Perhaps he met Mary Wenwood in Boston in late 1774 or early 1775 and continued a relationship in Cambridge. Or perhaps he met her there. We certainly would know if Church and Mary were cohabitating because we know where Church was residing. Could he have "kept" her? Possibly. But it appears that the woman who wrote the letter was living on a farm in Little Cambridge. Could that farm have been something other than a farm? Perhaps. Let us also not forget that Church was financially stressed since his income had ceased after Lexington/Concord.
But can one really see Dr Benjamin Church, Jr. America's first great poet, classically trained, who could quote Virgil, in Latin, or Alexander Pope or a dozen other scholars off the top of his head besotted with the barely literate woman who wrote that letter to Wenwood? So yes, I agree that Church had a relationship, sexual and otherwise, with Mary Wenwood, but let's just not get carried away.
Wenwood remained in Newport after this incident, married a 17 year old in 1776, and died in 1816 at the age of 77, leaving two daughters from this marriage.
Mary Butler Wenwood disappears from the historical record although a Mary Wainwood of Rhode Island was in out of the alms house in Boston, dying in it in May 1797.
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