Benjamin Church

BA, Harvard University

He’s been called America’s first traitor^* and America’s worst traitor. Why? First, because, well, he was first; worst, because if he’d done his job a little better there might be no United States of America.

Born in 1734 to a prominent New England family, Benjamin Church studied medicine^* at Harvard, graduating in 1754.^* He traveled to England to continue his studies, made an English lady his wife, and returned to Boston to practice medicine. He quickly earned a reputation as an excellent physician, surgeon, and apothecary. He also earned a reputation as an author of patriotic—prorevolutionary—orations and poems as the Revolutionary War approached.^* He was on chummy terms with John Adams, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and, of course, John Hancock. He was the first doctor to treat the injured at the Boston Massacre of 1770. He was elected to the Massachusetts Provisional Congress after the Boston Tea Party. He was, before the country existed, the equivalent of the first surgeon general of the United States.

All in all, an outstanding collection of revolutionary credentials. But he had a fatal flaw: a lust for luxury, starting with an expensive summer place and a house in a ritzy part of Boston. Although he was spending his way into deep financial doo-doo, he always seemed to have a large supply of fresh British guineas.* Paul Revere and other peers didn’t necessarily know about the money problems and the British gold, but they grew suspicious when Dr. Church visited the home of General Thomas Gage, commander in chief of the British forces in North America. When the details of a secret meeting of revolutionaries were leaked to Americans loyal to the king, Revere was convinced that Church was the snitch.

The end for Church arrived with a serving of sordid-sauce.^* He gave his pregnant mistress, an off-duty prostitute named Mary Wenwood, a coded letter to take to a British officer. She, a master of the bad decision, brought in her ex-husband for assistance. The sight of a letter written in mysterious code freaked him out, and he turned it in to the rebel authorities. It quickly found its way to General George Washington himself, who had it deciphered,^* saw that it contained secrets meant to help the British—like the amount of gunpowder his army had stockpiled—and brought in Wenwood for questioning. She, of course, implicated the priapic, upwardly mobile Dr. Church.

Church did not deny that he was the author of the treasonous document. He did, however, claim that it wasn’t treasonous. Its purpose, he said, was to mislead his British contacts into thinking Washington’s army was so strong and well provisioned that it couldn’t be defeated, forcing the redcoats to give up and go home. Or something like that. He was applauded for his creativity, charged with treason, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without the use of pen, ink, or paper.

John Adams was appalled by his friend’s betrayal, fearing it could undermine the revolution. But it did not. The Americans, which is what we now call them,* won! In a 1778 doctor-for-doctor swap, the Americans agreed to exchange Dr. Church for Dr. James McHenry, a surgeon the British were holding. Church boarded a sloop for Martinique, the first leg of his journey to England, but the ship, with its passengers and crew, was lost at sea. He never got to entertain English friends with his poems or tales of derring-do and skullduggery during the American Revolution, set up an apothecary shop, or advise undergraduates looking to spend a semester at Harvard, if they had that back then, which they didn’t.

Mrs. Church and the Church children escaped to England, destitute; a mob torched their fancy house in Boston. Her only consolation was the pension the British government gave her as the wife of a fallen spy.