GLStJRGridley
RICHARD GRIDLEY 1710-1796
- MM 1746, WM 1756, 1757, First Lodge
- Junior Grand Warden 1758; Deputy Grand Master 1768-1782
NOTES
According to Robert Freke Gould, Military Lodges, The Apron and the Sword, or Freemasonry Under Arms, 1899, Col. Gridley constructed the works on Bunker Hill where Gen. Joseph Warren was killed.
BIOGRAPHY
From New England Freemason, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1874, Page 201.
Major General Richard Gridley.
by W. BRO. D. T. V. HUNTOON.
Richard Gridley was born in Boston, June 3, 1711. He was the son of Richard and Rebecca Gridley, and younger brother of Col. Jeremy Gridley, who was appointed Provincial Grand Master of North America by the Marquis of Carnarvon in 1755. Of the early life of Richard, nothing is known. His subsequent life shows that he must at some time in his early years have devoted himself to the study of mathematics and drawing.
In "A General List of the Brethren made in the First Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Boston, N. England, also those accepted members in it," under date of Jan. 22, 5745, appears the name of Richard Gridley, but this only indicates when he was admitted a member. No record is known to exist showing in what Lodge he received the first degree; but the following record from the Master's Lodge will show when he was made a Master Mason. "April 4, 1746; the Lodge being open, Bro. Richard Gridley attending, was rais'd Master and paid £3." Three months after his name appears in the first Lodge he joined the expedition under Gen. Pepperell, and, upon the death of M. Meserve, was chief in directing the engineering operations at the reduction of Louisburg. Here he obtained his first laurels, and won that reputation as an able and skill ful engineer which, in the trying years that were to come, was so valuable to his country and so honorable to himself. He did not see active service again for some years, as the regiment of Gen. Shirley, in which he held a captaincy, was disbanded in 1749. In 1755, he was appointed Chief Engineer and Colonel of Infantry, and immedi ately joined the expedition against Crown Point, under command of Gen. John Winslow.
May 13, 1756. — "The Right Worshipful Grand Master, Jeremy Gridley, authorized the Right Worshipful Richard Gridley, Esq., to congregate all Free and Accepted Masons in the present expedition against Crown Point, and form them into one or more Lodges, as he should think fit, and to appoint Wardens and other officers to a Lodge appertaining." All the fortifications around Lake George were planned and constructed by him. He was not only the trusted officer, but the valued friend of Winslow, and was selected by that General to accompany him when he went to meet the Earl of Loudoun, then Commander-in-chief of His Majesty's forces in America, and Past Grand Master of Masons in England. One month later, at a meeting of the Provincial Grand Lodge, held in Boston, at which, without doubt, His Excellency John, Earl of Loudoun, was present, the "R. W. G. M. appointed Bro. Richard Gridley, then Master of the First Lodge, to make the above five gentlemen Masons, who was made entered Prentices and Passed Fellow Crafts."
In 1758, Gridley joined Lord Amherst, and fought with Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham. This ended his military experience for the time. During the next sixteen years he was not disturbed by wars or rumors of wars, and found leisure to devote a portion of his time to the " oyal Art." In 1762, he purchased a house on Prince street, Boston, and it is probable that he occupied it himself. In 1768, on the sixteenth of November, at a meeting of the Second Lodge, with a father's pride he proposed the name of his only and well-beloved son, Scarborough, to be made a Mason, and, by a Dispensation from the Master, he was unanimously balloted in and made a Mason in due form. We cannot but contrast the feelings of the parent upon this occasion, and upon that when this son was tried by court martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy. John Rowe appointed Richard Gridley Deputy Grand Master January 27, 1769, and he was reappointed for several years following.
In 1770, he purchased of Edmund Quincy one-half of Massapoag Pond in Sharon, and was for some time engaged in the iron business. For his distinguished services at the siege of Quebec, Magdalen Island was given to him with half pay, and in 1773 the Governor of New Hampshire granted him three thousand acres of land. He was now sixty-two years of age. To himself and to his contemporaries it must have seemed as if life's work was done, and that nothing remained to him but to enjoy the consciousness of a well-spent life. With the honors of a veteran of the French wars, and substantially aided by the pension from the Crown, he might pass the remainder of his life in his country home at Canton with comfort and the respect of his countrymen. But it was not so to be. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, despite his age, he eagerly accepted the over tures that were made to him by his grateful countrymen. They could ill spare one of such marked ability in the profession of arms.
The men who had seen service in Canada and Nova Scotia were the very men needed to regulate and discipline troops who possessed at this period only one of the requisites of soldiers — courage. Throwing aside, then, the inducements which would naturally have held him to the service of the King, Colonel Gridley cast his lot with the Colonists.
The second day after the meeting of the Provincial Congress at Concord, April 23, 1775, it was resolved that an army of thirty thousand men was needed for the defence of the country. Artemas Ward, who had served under Abercrombie, was appointed Commander-in-Chief, and Richard Gridley chief engineer. He was actively engaged in the duties of his office until the night preceding the battle of Bunker Hill, when we find him in earnest conversation with two generals well known in American history. The question at issue was whether Breed's or Bunker Hill was the proper one whereon to erect fortifications. The consultation had been long and acrimonious. Time was precious. The veteran Gridley had urged with all the force of his ardent nature that Bunker Hill was the only proper one whereon to erect breastworks. He had sustained his opinion by ex amples from his own experience and from the chronicles of military history. One of the Generals (probably Putnam) coincided with him, but the other (probably Prescott) was stubborn and determined not to yield. At length Gridley said to the latter, "Sir, the moments are precious. We must decide at once. Since you will not give up your individual opinion to ours, we will give up to you. Action, and that instantly, only can save us." Thus the obstinacy and stubbornness of this General decided the matter, and Breed's Hill was the one selected.
The first detachment had no sooner reached the hill, than Gridley began to mark out the plan of the fortifications. With his usual celerity and skill he drew his lines, gave orders to his men, and, when not busy in directing others, worked himself, spade in hand, throwing up the fortifications which were to be the protection of the embryo nation. It was near being a fatal mistake for one having such knowledge and ability to do the manual labor, which could bet ter have been done by a farmer's boy from Berkshire. The next morning, that never to be forgotten seventeenth of June, Gridley was unwell, owing to his fatigue of the night previous, and was obliged to leave the hill; but to the joy of all, he so far recovered as to return later in the day. He immediately placed himself at the head of his own battery of artillery, and, judging from all accounts, it was poor enough. It had been raised especially for Gridley, and great exer tions had been made to complete it. It was confidently believed if confided to him it would do great execution ; yet, notwithstanding all that had been done, at the time of the battle it consisted only of ten companies and four hundred and seventeen men. Nevertheless,
Gridley went boldly forward, and himself aided in discharging the pieces, until his guns were disabled and he was obliged to order them to the rear. Near the close of the action he was struck in the groin by a musket ball. An historian, describing the state of affairs at this critical moment, says, "Warren was killed and left on the field, Gridley was wounded." All seemed to be lost. Finding that he could do no more, Gridley entered his sulky to be carried off, but meeting with some obstruction, had but just vacated it when the horse was killed and the sulky riddled by the bullets of the enemy. The British sharpshooters could not overlook so prominent a mark, and rightly surmising that the vehicle contained some person high in authority, they directed their fire towards it with such accuracy that had Gridley been in it he would most certainly have been killed. The next day one of his neighbors from Canton (then Stoughton) went to Boston and conveyed him home. His wound could uot have been very serious, for a lew days after, assisted by his son, Lieut. Col. Scarborough Gridley, ho took charge of a battery of guns placed at the Highlands. Richard Gridley not only planned the fortifications in Roxbury but all the defences around Boston, which were thrown up immediately after the battle of Bunker Hill, were the off spring of his single mind.
On the twentieth of September, 1775, he received from the Provincial Congress the rank of Major General, and was ordered to take command of the artillery Nov. 17, 1775. He was, on account of advanced age, succeeded by Colonel Henry Knox. But, although too old for active service in the field, he was not wanting in mental vigor. On the memorable night when Dorchester Heights were to be fortified, no one was judged so capable as Gridley. In 1776, after the evacuation of Boston by the British, he was entrusted with the duty of again throwing up works at Charlestown and other points about the harbor. His great value as an officer was acknowledged by General Washington, when, on December 31, 1775, he stated to Congress "That no one in the army was better qualified to be Chief Engineer than Richard Gridley."
Gridley retired to Canton and was engaged in the iron business in that town. Feb. 14, 1777, Congress empowered Robert T. Paine to contract with him for forty eight-inch howitzers, to be sent to Ticonderoga, and, four years later, resolved that it be recommended to the State of Massachusetts to make up to Richard Gridley the depreciation of his pay as engineer, at sixty dollars per month, from the time of his appointment to the first of January, 1781.
In a letter dated March, 1778, he writes to General Heath for more men to close the fortifications at Castle William and Governor's Island. He desires that the assistance be sent him that spring, as he fears a return of the enemy. In doing this, he says he is insti gated by his love of country, and that should any accident happen through delay, the blame would fall upon him.
In 1780, he writes to Major General Heath that he has had no pay for thirteen months, and begs that the General will allow him some thing, and charge it to his department. He complains that the last pay he received he was obliged to divide with his son who assisted him. In this want of funds, it is probable there were at this time many officers of the army who could heartily sympathize with him.
He died at Canton, June 21, 1796, at the ripe old age of eighty-four. He was a Universalist in religious belief, and at his funeral the Rev. John Murray preached the sermon, when crowds of people from far and near came to pay their last tribute of respect.
A little back from what is now the main street of Canton, formerly the old Taunton road, not far from the Sharon line, stands a deserted burial ground. Few persons were ever interred in it, and they belonged to one or two families, It is flanked on two sides by a moss grown and dilapidated wall. The other two sides are open, the fence having long since gone to decay. Few of the inhabitants of the town know of this sacred enclosure (if a place so neglected and forlorn can be called sacred, or an enclosure), and fewer still know, that in this place, with no stone to mark his grave, lies all that was mortal of Richard Gridley, Chief Engineer of the Army.
The school that is situated nearest to where his house stood is called the Gridley School, but the children, as they pass and repass the little graveyard, know not that one of the distinguished men of the Revolution sleeps his last sleep in its quiet precincts. But the Patriot and the Mason, as he passes, may pause, and ask himself: Is it right that one, who in days gone by defended his country with bravery, and upheld the ancient landmarks with zeal, should thus be forgotten and neglected by his Brethren and countrymen?
