This is another book intended for young people that I missed growing up. And it was definitely around way back then – a 75th anniversary edition of this Newbery Award winner has been recently published. The fact that it was intended for a younger demographic makes it a quick and easy read. While it is light on the detail of the political factors leading up to the Revolution, Forbes does do a wonderful job talking about Boston and its environs, clothing, food, occupations, and some of the social and legal constraints which impacted Boston’s residents. Forbes wrote several other works of historical fiction, and a biography of Paul Revere for which she won a Pulitzer Prize, but Johnny Tremain remains her best-known work.
Forbes was a historian, and the first woman elected to the American Antiquarian Society, so we can definitely assume that her depictions of the era are accurate. She weaves into the story a number of actual people, whose names are well-known to anyone who knows even a little about American history during the Revolution. If you have not read the book, it spans a couple of years in the life of the title character, starting with his life as an apprentice to a silversmith. He loses this position as a result of an incident which injures his hand, and ends up working for a printer. Through his new employers, he gets caught up in the revolutionary zeal affecting Boston, and plays a minor role in events leading up to battle at Lexington & Concord. The book ends right after this event.
Johnny is an orphan, although his mother has told him he is related to a wealthy Boston family. Part of the plot involves Johnny asking them for assistance after his injury, but they refuse to admit that he is related. One incident in the book that distressed me greatly as a genealogist is a scene where Johnny finds a family bible, and tears out the pages which delineate his family line. As if that weren’t bad enough, he later decides to destroy them. Aaarrgh!
If this was your family, how would you research them? Most people keep their family bibles intact. If your family is still in possession of one, good for you! Check with cousins and older family members. There is no one repository for family bibles that are not still in the family. You will find a lot of links on FamilySearch under bible records, grouped first by state. Some other places to look might be historical or genealogical societies near where your ancestors lived, USGenWeb pages for those areas, or possibly Linkpendium or Hathi Trust. Apprenticeships were legal agreements. Finding the records could be challenging, as while many would be listed in the records with deeds, they might also be under probate, orphan’s records, guardianships, or “Minute Books”. If you can’t find anything at the county level, you might try the town. If you think you have a revolutionary in your family tree, one place to search is DAR. They have an extensive library, much of which is available online. Ancestry also has some DAR & SAR application records.