By 1776, Colonists had had enough of the British, and most desperately wanted freedom from the tyrannical rule of “the Crown.” But not everyone shared these sentiments. Some remained “loyal to the Crown” and liked things just the way they were. Needless to say, this was a point of friction in the Colonies.

In Hollis, NH, four of its citizens, Benjamin and Leonard Whiting, and Samuel and Thomas Cumings, were understood by their fellow townsmen to be Loyalists or Tories and opposed to the independence of the colonies. To these four should probably be added Richard Cutts Shannon, a lawyer from Portsmouth who had settled in Hollis just before the Revolution.

In early 1776, the four aforementioned men were summoned for trial, before the Committees of Safety of the towns of Hollis, Dunstable, Merrimack and Litchfield, “upon a charge of the character referred to.” In other words, they were arrested and charged for being Loyalists.

Upon the petition of the accused, shortly after the first of March, the case was transferred for hearing to the New Hampshire General Court then sitting at Exeter. Capt. Reuben Dow, of Hollis, as chairman of the Committees of Safety, appeared before the General Court and filed his complaint in their behalf with the evidence charging all the accused as “persons suspected of being “inimical to the Rights and Liberties of the United Colonies.” In other words, they were charged with being hostile to the Rebellion.

The accused appeared at the trial by their counsel and made their defense, and at the final hearing on the 20th of June, it was decided that the testimony was not sufficient to sustain the complaint and all of them were discharged.

But events very soon proved that the suspicions and charges of the Committees of Safety were well grounded. In the same month of June, as shown by the court records, Thomas Cumings was indicted before the Superior Court, and gave bail for his appearance to the following September term of the Court to answer to the charge.

In the meantime, he ran off, abandoning his family, the town, and country, failed to appear before the court, forfeited his bond, and never returned. Some months later, Samuel Cumings and Benjamin Whiting left the town and state, both abandoning their families, and remained absentees. All three died in exile.

The names of all of them, along with seventy-three other New Hampshire Tories, were named in the “Act of Banishment,” passed by the New Hampshire General Court in November, 1778. The estates of Samuel Cumings and Benjamin Whiting were confiscated, and all of them were forbidden to return under the “penalty of transportation”, and in case of a second return, they were to suffer death. This was a sure cure for recidivism.

(Author’s Note: Penalty of Transportation was a “severe punishment for certain crimes” during that period. It involved banishing the accused to some faraway and remote place, never to return. In the case of Great Britain, they “transported” their miscreants to the Colonies in America to get rid of them. In the case of the Colonies, they might have “transported” their miscreants to the western frontier.)

It is assumed that Thomas Cumings and Whiting both died within a very few years after leaving the country. In an ironic twist, Grace Whiting, the deserted wife of Sheriff’ Whiting (as appears from the Hollis records), married Burpee Ames, of Hollis, May 28, 1782, and upon her death, which occurred shortly after this marriage, Mr. Ames married, for his second wife, Hannah Cumings, the deserted wife of Thomas Cumings.

Leonard Whiting did not leave the country, but continued to reside in Hollis for many years after the war. But for a large portion of the years 1777 and 1778, he was imprisoned in the jail at Amherst, NH, with several other accused persons, all under the charge of being “inimical to the Rights and Liberties of the United Colonies.” It also appears that Richard Cutts Shannon, the Hollis lawyer, was imprisoned in the jail at Amherst for part of 1777, along with Whiting and others under the same charge. Yet it seems that the offence of Mr. Shannon, whatever it may have been, was afterwards so far forgotten or forgiven by the people of Hollis that in the year 1782 he was chosen Representative of the town to the General Court.

(Author’s Note: Amherst, NH, was the Hillsborough County seat from 1770 to 1869, being on a major east/west route through the state. As in any county seat, a large degree of business was conducted there, including the jailing of miscreants.)

After the war, the British Commissioners, in their negotiations for peace, were persistent in seeking the return of the banished adherents of the crown (the Tories or Loyalists) and the restoration of their confiscated estates. This subject was widely and “warmly discussed” by the American press of the time, and wherever Colonists assembled.

A special town meeting was called in Hollis to consider this subject in the spring of 1783, “and to see if the Town would give their Representative any instructions in respect to the Absentees from this State and their returning.” As will appear from the following extract, copied from the record of that meeting, the sentiments of the people of the town upon this question found expression in language “more vigorous and emphatic than forgetful or forgiving”, as follows:

About the Returning of those Miserable Wretches under the name of Tories, Absentees or Conspirators.

• Voted unanimously that they shall not be allowed to return or regain their forfeited Possessions.
• Voted that a committee be chosen to give the Representative of this Town particular Instructions which may convey to him the unanimous sentiments of the people in respect to the Absentees above mentioned.
• Voted that Col. John Hale, Noah Worcester, Esq., Master Cumings, Deacon Boynton, Captains Dow, Goss, and Kendrick be a committee to give the Instructions above mentioned.

Determined to have a fresh start with their shiny, new country, the Colonists were entirely and utterly through with the Tories. There was no room in America for British Loyalists.

Source: The History of the Town of Hollis, NH by Samuel Worcester, published 1879