Biography
Country physician from Alps, Rensselaer County, New York and the most prominent leader of the Anti-Rent War (1839-1845), the mass tenant-farmer uprising against the patroon system of feudal-style perpetual leaseholds held by the Van Rensselaer and Livingston families and other Hudson Valley manor lords. Boughton organized the 'Calico Indians' — tenant militants who disguised themselves in calico-cloth masks and sheepskin face paint to resist sheriffs serving distress warrants and to intercept rent-collection parties. Riding under the nom de guerre 'Big Thunder,' he led mounted bands of hundreds across Columbia, Rensselaer, Albany, and Delaware Counties. Arrested in December 1844 and tried at Hudson, New York the following year for robbery — for taking a rent paper from a sheriff's deputy during one of the 1844 confrontations. First trial ended in a hung jury; retried in September 1845 amid statewide political pressure and convicted by Judge John W. Edmonds. Sentenced to life imprisonment in Clinton State Prison at Dannemora. Pardoned by Governor John Young in 1847 after Anti-Rent voting blocs delivered the governorship to him.
