Page 17 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 47 Spring 2024
P. 17

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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