He was
then employed in a jeweler's establishment in Boston.
Groton sent a company of volunteers for the day numbering about
seventy-five men, under command of Captain William Shattuck, then a
sturdy Democrat and afterwards an equally sturdy Republican. Shattuck
was the grandson of Captain Job Shattuck, of Shays' Rebellion. Job
Shattuck had been a captain in the War of the Revolution, and he was
always an earnest patriot. He was also a man of wealth, having large
possessions in land, and being wholly exempt from the pecuniary
distresses that harassed the majority of men, from the close of the
war to the close of the century. Job Shattuck's action was due to his
sympathy for the sufferers and to his sense of justice. In every town
there were traders and small capitalists who had supplied the families
of soldiers who were absent in the service.
Either by mortgage or by executions, the creditors had secured liens
upon the homesteads of the soldiers and from 1783 to 1789 the liens
were enforced. Petitions went up to the General Court for a stay act.
James Bowdoin was Governor. The General Court did not listen to the
appeal. Daniel Shays and others organized forces for the suppression
of the Courts. Shattuck was the leader in the county of Middlesex,
and at the head of his force he broke up the Court at Concord.
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