Centinels, etc. [was: True Blue]

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/12/2006 08:21 PM, James Landau wrote:
>The following extracts are from a letter dated "31st Octo. 1768",
>published in the "Supplement to the New York Journal or General
>Advertiser, No. 1351, November 24, 1768".
...
>"there is not a single Resident in this City---Blush, if it be
>possible, ye Whigs of New-York, ye Centinels of Philadelphia, ye
>Founts of Connecticut, and ye Ram-Chickens of Boston---who has the
>Hardiness even to Insinuate"

Wouldn't a historian of the pre-Revolutionary period be able to tell
us quickly whether "Centinels", "Founts", and "Ram-Chickens" were
names applied to political factions?   (My area is Boston, but circa
1740, and I haven't come across "Ram-Chickens".)

Surely "Centinel" is -- my first Google hit for "centinels" and
"philadelphia" comes up with Samuel Bryan, from Steven R. Boyd;
presumably now published in "The Politics of Opposition:
Antifederalists and the Acceptance of the Constitution", KTO Press, 1979.

See the "Centinel" broadsides -- "One of largest series of
Anti-Federalist essays was penned under the pseudonym "CENTINEL." The
Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer ran this 24 essay series between
October 5, 1787 and November 24, 1788."
[http://www.barefootsworld.net/antifederalist.html]

"For a discussion of the Centinel papers and attribution to Samuel
Bryan, cf. Konkle, Burton Alva. George Bryan and the Constitution of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1922, p. 308-319." [Harvard Univ. library catalog]

While this is post- the 1768 of the original quotation, I hypothesize
that the journal took its name from the faction.

Joel

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