Nahum Houghton as "an unwearied pedlar of that baneful herb tea," and
warned all patriots "to entirely shun his company and have no manner of
dealings or connections with him except acts of common humanity." A
special town meeting was called on June 30, 1777, chiefly "to act on a
Resolve of the General Assembly Respecting and Securing this and the
other United States against the Danger to which thay are Exposed by the
Internal Enemies Thereof, and to Elect some proper person to Collect
such evidence against such Persons as shall be demed by athority as
Dangerous persons to this and the other United States of America." At
this meeting Colonel Asa Whitcomb was chosen to collect evidence against
suspected loyalists, and Moses Gerrish, Daniel Allen, Ezra Houghton,
Joseph Moor, and Solomon Houghton, were voted "as Dangerous Persons and
Internal Enemies to this State." On September 12 of the same year,
apparently upon a report from Colonel Asa Whitcomb, it was voted that
Thomas Grant, James Carter, and the Reverend Timothy Harrington, "Stand
on the Black List." It was also ordered that the selectmen "Return a
List of these Dangerous Persons to the Clerk, and he to the Justice of
the Quorum as soon as may be." This action of the extremists seems to
have aroused the more conservative citizens, and another meeting was
called, on September 23, for the purpose of reconsidering this
ill-advised and arbitrary proscription, at which meeting the clerk was
instructed not to return the names of James Carter and the Reverend
Timothy Harrington before the regular town meeting in November.

Thomas Grant was an old soldier, having served in the French and Indian
War, and, if a loyalist, probably condoned the offence by enlisting in
the patriot army; his name is on the muster-roll of the Rhode Island
expedition in 1777, and in 1781 he was mustered into the service for
three years. He was about fifty years of age, and a poor man, for the
town paid bills presented "for providing for Tom Grant's Family."