Moses Dunbar

Background

Moses Dunbar was born on June 14, 1746 in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. He was the second of the family of sixteen children of John Dunbar and his wife, Temperance Hall. The father was a Congregationalist.

Career

About 1760 Dunbar removed to what was then a part of Waterbury, Connecticut, now Plymouth. In 1764 he and his wife left the Congregational Church, in which both had been brought up, and declared themselves of the Church of England. In Connecticut at that time the little Episcopal churches, served by missionaries sent from England and feeling themselves oppressed by the dominant Congregational authorities of the state, were practically unanimous in opposing the movement for American independence, and in supporting the cause of the King. The record book of the early Episcopal Church, which is preserved in the Bristol Public Library, bears on its title-page the significant text: “Fear God; Honor the King”.

This church Moses and Phebe Dunbar attended, and in this book are recorded the baptisms of their children. The Revolutionary War was now in full progress, and Dunbar was already an object of suspicion. “Having spoken somewhat freely on the subject, ” he says, “I was attacked by a mob of about forty men, very much abused, my life threatened and nearly taken away, by which mob I was obliged to sign a paper containing many falsehoods. ” Soon after he says that he was taken before a committee of the Sons of Liberty “and by them ordered to suffer imprisonment during their pleasure, not exceeding five months. ”

When he was released he fled to Long Island where Lord Howe was in command of the royal army, enlisted in the King’s service, and received a commission as captain. He was given the dangerous errand of persuading other young men to enlist for the King. He procured the enlistment of a youth bearing the patriotic name of John Adams, but was betrayed to the officers of the state of Connecticut, was committed to jail at Hartford, and was tried in January 1777, for treason.

He was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, and the sentence was carried out, March 19, 1777, on a hilltop near Hartford, where the buildings of Trinity College now stand.

After his death his wife with her step-children, and one child of her own, left Connecticut and went to Nova Scotia, as did many of the Loyalists of New England. More than a century after his death, an old house in Harwinton was pulled down, and in the debris of the garret were found two papers, copies of letters written by Dunbar in the Hartford jail on the night before his execution. One was a letter, of an intimate and tender character, to his children; the other was a longer document, and contained an account of his life and a defense of his religious and political faith. Both are heroic in temper and strongly charged with religious feeling.

Achievements

• Moses Dunbar was the one of the few men in the state of Connecticut to be convicted of high treason and executed.

Connections

In 1764 Moses married Phebe Jerome (or Jearom) who lived in that part of Farmington, Connecticut, which is now within the city of Bristol; and they established there their marital home.

On May 20, 1776, Phebe died, having born seven children of whom four survived. Soon after, Moses married Esther Adams.

Father:

John Dunbar

Mother:

Temperance Hall

Spouse:

Phebe Jerome

Spouse:

Esther Adams