Page 16 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 47 Spring 2024

Moses Dunbar: Honorable Tory 1746-1777

After the crowd dispersed and the dust had settled, Dunbar
was buried in Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground with a
headstone. Later the family moved the body to the St. Mat-
thew’s Episcopal Church cemetery in East Plymouth, near
where they resided. They did not mark the grave.

conclusion
Ironically, had Britain won the war, which was the way things
were headed when Dunbar was hanged, he would have been
a celebrated hero, while Nathan Hale, another victim of the
gallows only a year previous would
have been remembered as a traitor.
Neither man set out to be a rebel
or a Tory, and both honorably em-
braced their beliefs and allegianc-
es. But today it is Hale we remem-
ber.

The old house where the Dunbar
document was discovered origi-
nally belonged to Stephen Graves,
a relative of the Dunbar family and
was a rendezvous point for loyal-
ists. In the mid-1900s the Graves
Homestead was purchased, dis-
assembled, and relocated to New
Canaan. Since then, the document
has disappeared. Entitled “The
Last Speech and Dying Words of Moses Dunbar”, the earli-
est known handwritten copy resides in the Morgan Library in
New York City. The oldest printed copy from the early 19th
Century is in the Hamden Historical Society.

lEgEnDs
Several legends are associated with the moment of Dunbar’s
death. Some witnesses claim they saw a white deer spring
from the forest nearby and pass directly beneath the victim as
he hung from the gallows. In another story, Isaiah Dunbar, a
relative who was not present at the execution, is said to have
uttered, “I see. I see a sky and a man there. It is Moses Dunbar
hanging!” His brother mocked him first because Isaiah was
blind and could not see anything; and second because they
knew nothing of this hanging. As it turned out Isaiah’s vision
corresponded exactly with the time of Moses Dunbar’s death.

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