Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 16.

Jeremiah Page of Danvers responded to the Lexington alarm and served as an officer in the Revolution. He was an ardent patriot, and forbade any tea to be drunk under his roof. The story of the clever ruse of his wife, who managed to enjoy her tea drinking without breaking the letter of the law of her liege lord, forgotten by reason of her death, that occurred soon after, was not recalled until nearly seventy years had passed, and was revived again at the time of the centennial celebrations of the stirring events of the Revolution, and made the subject of a pleasing poem by Lucy Larcom.

Stories told in rhyme deviate from facts and are not always plain, unvarnished tales, but the poetic license accorded to and used by poets only adds to the charm of the story, and knowing this we can take without harm our dose of poetry and fiction. I imagine Miss Larcom's poem, ‘A Gambrel Roof,’ differs but little from the true facts of the case, and though perhaps a digression from our subject, the following concerning Dill, whom Miss Larcom introduced in her story, may not be amiss. One authority says the child was bought April 19, 1766, and died about the middle of the nineteenth century, a nonagenarian. The item to which I especially refer was made public by the Boston Herald, November 8, 1908, and was a receipt, given in connection with a sale of slaves, found in a garret of a house in North Adams, and reads as follows:—

Danvers, Mass., April 19, 1774.

Received of Mr. Jeremiah Page fifty eight pounds thirteen Shillings And fore pence lawful money And a negro woman called dinah, which in full for A negro girl Call Cato And A negro Child Called deliverance or dill which I now sell and deliver to ye said Jeremiah Page.

Frank Tapley. John Bancroft. General John Stark. Boston, Mass., April 18, 1774.