Author: David M. Lamb
Capt. Job Shattuck
1735 – 1819

Born: 11 Feb., 1735 in Groton, Mass.
Died: 13 Jan., 1819 in Groton, Mass.


Shattuck’s family owned large holdings of land at Groton, Massachusetts bordering upon the Nashua River. At the age of nineteen, he joined the local militia company of Captain
Ephraim Jones that was then assigned as colonial militia to the British Army during the Seven Year’s War (1754/56-1763) under Lt/Col. Robert Monckton. He took part in the action at the Battle of Fort Beausejour, and other engagements that resulted in the ultimate removal of thousands of French settlers in the Canadian maritime province of Nova Scotia.

At the outbreak of hostilities between the American Colonies and the British Empire, Shattuck responded as a 1st Lieutenant with Capt. Josiah Sartell’s company to the “Lexington Alarm: of April, 1775, and moved with this band of patriots to Lexington, but arrived too late to have participated in the action. They then traveled onward to Cambridge where they resided for eight days before being ordered to return to Groton.

He was later 1st lieutenant in Capt. Henry Haskell’s company of Col. William Prescott’s 10th Regiment at the battle of Bunker Hill, 17 June 1775 (for his actions in that engagement he was given a certificate of merit signed by Prescott).

Shattuck then accepted a commission as a Captain of Militia on February 25th, 1776, from the Council of Massachusetts, and proceeded to muster a Company of “Seventy-five men, exclusive of subalterns and musicians” and proceeded with them to Boston at about the time that the British forces evacuated the city to assist Washington in the investiture of the city following the exit of the British. After six weeks, Shattuck and he men again returned to Groton where he served as a town committeeman aiding in the re-settling of refugees who had fled Boston.

In the summer of 1776 he again led militia to Mt. Independence and thence to Fort Ticonderoga and Saratoga, as part of the Northern Defense Forces. Returning to Groton in December of 1776 he learned that his commission had been renewed by the provincial congress. He was also elected as Town Selectman for Groton on three occasions over the course of the war. In July, 1779, Shattuck would again be commissioned as Captain of the 2nd company, 6th Regiment of Massachusetts Militia by the Provisional Congress of Massachusetts, and served in that capacity until the end of the war.

His two eldest sons (Job* and William**) also served in local militia according to Butler’s History of Groton; p.300.




Shay’s Rebellion; or, “The Groton Riots” of 1781

In October, 1781, while serving as a town selectman, Job Shattuck was one of eighteen men obstructing the tax collection efforts of two constables on three separate occasions. In April, 1782, he was arrested for his opposition to the levy of taxes to pay for the recent war and pleaded guilty to a charge of “rioting” for which he paid a fine of 10 pounds sterling. Probably because of his penchant for resistance to what many felt to be unreasonable taxation by the new state government, Shattuck was re-elected on several occasions by his constituents. Many who could not pay their taxations were faced with debtor’s prison, or worse, and on several occasions violent incidents against officials of what was increasingly seen as a repressive government in Boston occurred. A contemporary and known acquaintance of Shattuck’s named Captain Daniel Shay was widely recognized as the leading voice of opposition, but Shattuck’s role was also considered to be insidious by the governing authorities in Boston.

In September, 1786, matters came to a head when Shattuck led a mob of roughly two hundred men (many, like himself, former soldiers of the Revolution) that forcibly closed the Court of Sessions of Middlesex County in Concord, to keep it from enacting foreclosure documents upon local citizens who had refused to pay their taxes.

Shattuck was arrested on November 30, 1786, and charged with treason. During his arrest, Shattuck was grievously wounded by one of his pursuers when one of his legs was nearly severed with a sword wound. He would remain a cripple, from this wound for the remainder of his life. He was transported to the town jail in Concord and then on to Boston where he would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang in May of 1787 by then Governor James Bowdoin.

That spring, Bowdoin would be voted out of office and replaced by John Hancock, who pardoned all but two of the men who had been convicted of crimes related to this populist uprising.

Governor Hancock commuted his sentence and pardoned him in September of 1788.

Butler’s History of Groton, Mass.
Massachusetts Muster and Pay Rolls, Vol.41, p. 148; vol. 45, p.312
Mass. Militia Officers vol. 28, pp.124-5
Field and Staff Rolls, vol. 54, p.21
Records of the Office of Secretary of State of Massachusetts, Boston
“History of the Shattuck Family”; publ. at Boston, 1855
Lineage Book : NSDAR : Volume 139 : 1918
Massachusetts Vital Record Transcript, 1620-1849
“Groton During the Revolution” with an appendix, by Samuel Abbott Green, Groton, Mass., 1900; pps. 28, 40, 65-71, 94-5, 152, 154-5, 158, 164, 174, 248-9, 276.
Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Vols. 1-17
5th Great-grandfather of SAR member #178895, David M. Lamb