This “diary” soon proved to be a forgery. It was first published in 1876 in Theatrum Majorum: the Cambridge of 1776, wherein is set forth an account of the town, and of the events it witnessed: with which is incorporated the diary of Dorothy Dudley, now first publish'd: together with an historicall sketch, severall appropriate poems, numerous anecdotes / done by divers eminent hands, and ed. for the Ladies Centennial Committee by A. G. [i.e. A. Gilman]. (Cambridge: Lockwood, Brooks, 1876).The real author of this “diary” was named Mary Williams Greely and was not born until 1848.

Samuel Batchelder explains why it must be a forgery: “Its whole phraseology is obviously modern, and it is full of small inaccuracies. In this passage, for example, the only house nearby was the Moore house, built around 1750, where the Shepherd Church now stands: as Cambridge had been virtually deserted by its inhabitants there could have been no thronging multitude of spectators: and the army was not then the Continental Army but the Army of the United Colonies. (Samuel Francis Batchelder, “The Washington Elm Traditon” in Bits of Cambridge History, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938) p. 241.

On fictional creations of women’s sources in the 19th century, see Mary Beth Norton, “Hetty Shepard, Dorothy Dudley, and Other Fictional Colonial Women I Have Come to Know Altogether Too Well” Journal of Women’s History Volume 10, No. 3, Fall 1998, page 141.

“Today he formally took command under one of the grand old elms on the Common. It was a magnificent sight. The majestic figure of the General mounted upon his horse, beneath the wide-spreading branches of the patriarch tree; the multitude thronging the plain around, and the houses filled with interested spectators of the scene, while the air rung with shouts of enthusiastic welcome as he drew his sword and thus declared himself the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.”