Hull

ing merchants in the colonies, marketing furs
and other colonial products in England, the West
Indies, and France and importing sugar, cocoa,
tobacco, and molasses into Massachusetts. He
was also interested in a number of land projects.
His wealth enabled him to be most useful as a
banker to the struggling colony, to which he oc-
casionally advanced money from his own pocket
In addition to his many other activities he con-
tinued to practise his craft, and today his name
survives chiefly in the pieces of silver still pre-
served and bearing his mark, surprisingly lovely
monuments to the austere old Puritan. His mark
consisted of crude initials with a fleur-de-lys in
a heart below or with a rose above in superim-
posed circles. Some pieces bear both Hull's
mark and that of his partner, Sanderson.

Of his children only one, Hannah, survived
him. She was married in her eighteenth year to
Samuel Sewall (later Judge Sewall) and even
at the time of her marriage her father's pros-
perity was such that the romantic folk-tale grew
up that her dowry had been her weight in pine-
tree shillings.

[See "The Diaries of John Hull," in Archaeologict
Americana: Trans, and Colls. Am. Antiq. Soc., vol. Ill
(1857) ; "Diary of Samuel Sewall," Mass. Hist. Soc.

Colls., 5 sen, V-VII (1878-82) ; Hollis French, A List
of Early Am. Silversmiths and Their Marks (19:7);
F. H. Bigelow, Historic Silver of the Colonies and Its

JL . J.JL. -Uigduwj j.4t&i/istHr ot*t/e./ vj H*G v v*i/7**c<> i*/i>u> jn>o

Makers (1917) ; C. L. Avery, Am. Silver of the XVII
and XVIIl Centuries : A Study Based on the Clearwater
Coll. (1920) ; S. S. Crosby, The Early Coins of America
(1875) ; S. G. Drake, The Hist, and Antiquities of Bos-
ton (1836) ; S. E. Morison, Massachusettensis de Con-
ditoribus or the Builders of the Bay Colony (1930).
The story of Hull's daughter's dowry (actually £500,
paid in instalments, according to Morison, p. 138) finds
a place in literature in Hawthorne's Grandfather's

K.H.A.

HULL, WILLIAM (June 24, i7S3-Nov. 29,
1825), soldier, was the son of Joseph and Eliza
(Clark) Htdl, and fifth in descent from Richard
Hull, who emigrated from Derbyshire, England,
to Massachusetts at some time prior to 1634.
The family later removed to Derby, Conn., and
here William was born. He graduated from
Yale College at the age of nineteen, studied law
at Litchfield, Conn., and was admitted to the bar
in 1775. In July of that year he joined the
American army before Boston as captain of the
militia company from his native town. During
the Revolutionary War he saw active and almost
continuous service, taking part in the battles
of White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga,
Monmouth, and Stony Point, and commanding,
for three successive winters, the American ad-
vanced lines just above New York City. In these
campaigns he displayed bravery and energy, won
the commendation of both General Washington
and Congress, and was promoted to the rank of

Hull

major and later to that of lieutenant-colonel. Af-
ter the close of the Revolution, he practised law
at Newton, Mass., the home of his wife, Sarah
Fuller, whom he had married in 1/81. He adopted
his nephew, Isaac Hull [q.v."\, son of his brother
Joseph. In 1784 and 1793 he went on missions
to Canada. He helped to put down Shays's re-
bellion, served as a judge of the court of common
pleas and as a state senator, was prominent in
organizing the Society of the Cincinnati, and be-
came known as an ardent supporter of the Jef-
fersonian party.

On Mar. 22,1805, he was appointed by Presi-
dent Jefferson governor of the newly organized
Michigan Territory. As governor he secured
from the Indians large cessions of land in south-
eastern Michigan, his energy in this undertaking
contributing to the rise of Indian discontent and
hostility in the Northwest (Annud Report of
the American Historical Association, 1906,1908,
I, 267). In the spring of 1812, while on an of-
ficial visit to Washington, he was persuaded
against his wishes to accept a commission as
brigadier-general and the command of the army
designed to defend Michigan Territory and at-
tack Upper Canada from Detroit. Although he
had pointed out to the War Department the ne-
cessity of a naval force on Lake Erie to insure
the communications of Detroit, he had made at
the same time the utterly impracticable sugges-
tion that a superior American army at Detroit
might force the British to abandon their ships on
the lake and thus secure naval control without
the expense of building a fleet Upon this unfor-
tunate suggestion the Administration based its
plans for Hull's campaign, and to this extent
Hull was responsible for the faulty strategy. On
July 5,1812, he arrived at Detroit with an army
of some 2,000 men, the majority of them Ohio
militia. A week later, pursuant to orders from
Washington, he crossed into Canada. At this
time his force was superior to that of the British
at Amherstburg, and it is possible that a sudden
blow at that post might have resulted in success.
Hull delayed in the belief that the Canadian mili-
tia would desert and make his task easier. Events
now began to turn against him. British and In-
dian detachments cut his exposed comrnunica-
tions along the shore of the lake and the Detroit
River. The British captured the American post
at Mackinac, with the result that the Michigan
Indians openly espoused the British sick. Gen.
Henry Dearborn [?.*>.], who had been expected
to create a diversion on the Niagara River, failed
to do so, and British reinforcements reached
Amherstburg from that qttarter. Gen, Isaac
Brock, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, aa

363