Dr. Eliphalet Downer, is the Patriot Ancestor of Lowell Downer, and this sketch is taken in part from the Biographical encyclopedia of Mass, from "Brookline in the Revolutionary War," published by the Brookline Historical Soc., and from original letters furnished by his descendants.
Eliphalet Downer resided at Brookline, Mass., within a short distance of the celebrated "Punch Bowl Tavern," and became widely known as "the fighting surgeon." Major-General Heath, in his Memoirs (p.14), describes him as "an active, energetic man," and Drake, in his History of Roxbury (p.348), speaks of him as a skillful surgeon, but a hard,rough man. He first came into prominence on the 19th of April, 1775. The night before, Paul Revere had set out on his famous ride to notify the people that the British troops had crossed the Charles River, on their way to Lexington to seize the military stores at Concord. The people of Boston and vicinity were intensely aroused. Among the patriots from Brookline who, on the day following, volunteered to oppose the British, was Eliphalet.
Accounts differ somewhat as to the part he took in the events on that day. One account states that he shouldered his musket and sallied forth on a guerilla expedition against the enemy. Meeting them on their retreat to Boston, after the purpose of their expedition had been accomplished, he was singled out by a British soldier who accosted him with the words, "You d-----d rebel! Do you dare face?" He did dare to "face" and the two approached each other in spirit of deadly hostility. When quite near they fired simultaneously. Both missed. A hand-to-hand conflict with bayonets ensued. The soldier's gun was the longer, and his acquaintance with the bayonet exercise so familiar that the surgeon's chances of victory seemed to be very slight. Nevertheless he was equal to the emergency. Stepping backward for a few paces, he reversed his musket, and fortunately succeeded in planting a stunning blow upon the head of his adversary. The weapon was broken in his hand. Casting it aside, the doctor seized the soldier's musket and ran him through with his own bayonet. The triumph only whetted his appetite for further achievement, and when, at night, he related his experience, he added: "It was not ten, minutes before I got another shot." Once during the same afternoon he came upon a British soldier lying in a barn. The Doctor asked him if he wanted his wound dressed, but the man, seizing his gun, rolled over and exclaimed: "Damn yer, I'll dress yer wound for yer!" The Doctor would probably have been killed but for the presence of a friend, who stepped forward and shot the man as he was taking aim.
During the siege of Boston the Doctor received his appointment as army surgeon. He was with the army there, going from point to point wherever there was fighting. Gen. Heath under date Dec.18 1775 (see p. 32, Memoirs), wrote: "Our General was ordered to prosecute the work begun at Leechmore Point [ one of the defenses of Boston). It was expected to have been a bloody day, and Doctor Downer was ordered down, with a detachment of 300 men, with his instruments, &c.,to assist the wounded."
Fighting was in perfect harmony with the surgeon's tastes. Soon after the evacuation of Boston by the British he enlisted as surgeon in the first or second privateer fitted out in New England. The naval warfare which followed was rewarded by the capture of so many prizes that the supply of prize crews to the captured vessels seriously endangered the safety of the captors. The number of prisoners far exceeded that of the privateers crews. It is said that while on board the sloop "Yankee" he worked one of the guns in the cabin below, when two sloops loaded with rum and sugar were captured. The number of prisoners takes exceeded the number of the privateersman's crew. As insurrection followed and the captors in turn became the captives. Our accounts of this affair are somewhat confused, but it appears that Dr. Downer and his associates were carried as prisoners to Halifax, thence to England where he was thrown into prison. He was, however, soon removed to become a hospital assistant, and in the course of a year escaped into France. He afterward joined the "Alliance" for a cruise in the English Channel. She secured 18 prizes. He subsequently sailed for home, but was again captured at sea after the vessel he was in had fought seven and half hours, lost both her masts, and fired her last round. He was severely wounded by grape shot and thrown into Portsea Prison, near Portsmouth, from which he and several others made their escape by tunneling a hole forty feet in length under the prison walls, their only tool being a jack knife. It seems that the surgeon was stout, and unfortunately stuck fast is the passage, and was not relieved until more earth had been removed. Some of fugitives were retaken and sent back to the "black hole," but the Doctor found friends, among them a Mr. William Downer and Mr. Thomas Wren, who aided them in reaching France. He afterwards entered into service with the famous John Paul Jones on the " Bon Homme Richard."
In many of the battles of that redoubtable hero, Dr. Downer acted as surgeon, and in others as volunteer with the title of surgeon His experiences were varied and exciting.
During the whole of Dr. Downer's three year's absence from home his wife received but one letter from him. Anxiety about his welfare was aggravated by domestic distress. The half-pay order he had left with her, through some informality, turned out to be valueless. Their family consisted of three sons, between the ages of four and ten years, and of one daughter, How in obtain necessary food was a question that awakened great anxiety. Not infrequently the mother did not know whence the next meal was to come. The boys did the best they could, and by catching pigeons in nets, scooping smelts out of brooks, and raising strawberries for the officers who were sick in the hospitals at Boston, contributed to the needful supplies. In the solitary letter from the absent husband and father that reached his struggling family he complained of the cruel and inhuman treatment of the American prisoners confined in the Forten Prison, and added: "It is a little better since they have heard of the surrender of Burgoyne."His own sufferings were augmented by a severe wound, inflicted while directing the operations of a gun pointed out of a cabin window. " A grape-shot, " he stated, "broke my arm so badly that the bone projected beyond the flesh but it is better now."
The Massachusetts Spy of August 21, 1777 contains "the deposition of Eliphalet Downer, surgeon, taken in the Yankee privateer, " which in the hands of the British, and which runs as follows: "That after he was made prisoner he and his countrymen were closely confined, yet assured that on their arrival in port they should be set at liberty, and these assurances were repeated in the most solemn manner; instead of which, on their approach to land they were in hot weather of August, shut up in a small cabin, the windows of which were spiked down and no air admitted insomuch that they were all in danger of suffocation from the excessive heat. three or four days after their arrival in the River Thames they were relieved from this situation in middle of the night hurried on board a tender and sent down to Sheerness, where the deponent was put into the 'Ardent,' and there falling sick of a violent fever, in consequence of such treatment and languishing in that situation for some time, he was removed, still sick to the ' Mars,' and notwithstanding repeated petitions to be suffered to be sent to prison on shore, he was detained until, having the appearance of mortification in his legs he was sent to Hester Hospital,from whence, after recovering his health, he had the good fortune to make his escape. While on board those ships he was informed and believes that many of his countrymen, after experiencing even worse treatment than he, were sent to the west Indies, and many of those taken at Quebec were sent to the coasts of Africa as soldiers."
The foregoing was only one of several depositions, and gave rise to a highly characteristic correspondence between Benjamin Franklin and S. Dean and Lord Viscount Stormont, at Paris. It is dated April 3, 1778 The American representatives " take the liberty of sending copies of certain depositions which," they add, "we shall transmit to Congress, whereby it will be known to your Court that the United States are not unacquainted with the barbarous treatment their people receive when they have the misfortune of being your prisoners here in Europe; and if your conduct towards us is not altered, it not unlikely that severe reprisals may be thought justifiable, from the necessity of putting some check to such abominable practices. For the sake of humanity it is to be wished that men would endeavor to alleviate as much as possible the unavoidable miseries attending a state of war. It has been said that among the civilized nations of Europe the ancient horrors of that state are much diminished; but the compelling men by chains, stripes and famine to fight against their friends and relations is a new new mode of barbarity, which your nation alone has the honor of inventing ; and the sending American prisoners of war to Africa and Asia, remote from all probability of exchange, and where they can scarce hope to hear from their families, even if the unwholesomeness of the climate does not put a speedy end to their lives, is a manner of treating captives that you can justify by no other precedent or custom except that of the black savages of Guinea."
This was vigorous, emphatic and truthful language, and evoked the following insolent reply: "The King's ambassador receives no letters from rebels, except when they come to ask for mercy." Neither Franklin, Dean, nor Downer was in any mood for asking mercy. Downer notwithstanding his broken arm, resumed active hostilities after his return home. Monarchy he found to be oppressive, and democracy to be technical and ungrateful, but his bellicose patriotism did not flag for moment. His application for a pension was refused, on the ground, " that as a surgeon he had no right to be in command of a gun. His services were welcome, but only within the limits of prescribed regulations. Outside of them all, militant risks were exclusively his own."
On July 9, 1779, Dr. Downer was commissioned as Surgeon-General in the "Penobscot expedition," which ascended the River Kennebec, but which had the misfortune to be overcome by superior force of British and Indians. In this he served three months, and lost his surgical instruments, which the Massachusetts Legislature afterwards appropriated fifteen dollars to pay for. When the end of the Revolution was achieved by the extorted acknowledgment of national independence, he retired to private life, with a soldier's portion of the Marietta Reserve in Ohio and a peck-basket full of Continental money. Professional pursuits were resumed on a large and prosperous scale.