USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Annals of King's Chapel from the Puritan age of New England to the present day > Part 4
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At the time of his death he was captain and owner of " The Young Eagle Letter-of-Marque of 30 guns," as is shown by his commission
1 The Rev. Dr. Gardiner preached in Trinity Church, June 8, 1811, a discourse entitled " A Preservative against Unita- rianism," in which Unitarians are dealt with in a most unjust and ungenerous spirit. A single sentence will suffice to show its temper : "The candour of an Unitarian resembles the humanity of a revolutionary Frenchman " (p. 22). Quoting from Soame Jenyns (ii. 287, Dublin edition), he tells his hearers that "The Unitarian hopeth for noth- ing but from his own merits, feareth nothing from his own depravity, and believeth nothing the ground of which he cannot understand " (p. 12).
Dr. Gardiner married Mary, daughter of Col. William Howard, of Hallowell,
and had four children : William How- ard; Charles, died young; Louisa, mar- ried John Perkins Cushing, of Watertown (now Belmont) ; and Elizabeth, died un- married.
William Howard Gardiner graduated first in his class at Cambridge, 1816; married Caroline, daughter of Thomas Ilandasyd Perkins, and was long a prominent member of the Suffolk bar. He had six children.
2 See Genealogy in New-Eng. Ilist. and Genealogical Register (1863), xvii. 317-320. The account given in the text is chiefly taken from an article by Augustus T. Perkins in the Heraldic Journal, iii. 97.
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from Governor Belcher of Massachusetts, lately found among the papers of Thomas Hancock, with whom he seems to have been engaged in business.
He married in Boston, June 12, 1716, Susannah, only daughter and heiress of Henry Ferry, formerly of Havre de Grace, and added the quartering of Ferry to his arms. In the records of the Probate Court of Boston, we find that Susannah Dumaresq, widow, was appointed, 30 Jan- uary, 1744, guardian of her " son Philip Dumaresq, a minor aged about seven years, son of Philip Dumaresq, late of Boston, mariner deceased, with full power to receive any part and portion of estate accruing to him in right of his grandfather Elias Dumaresq, Lord des Augres, late of the Island of Jersey, deceased, and Madam Frances de Carteret, his wife, also deceased."
Philip Dumaresq and Susannah Ferry, his wife, left two sons and five daughters : the sons were Edward (m. Mary Boutineau) and Philip (m. Rebecca Gardiner) ; the daughters were Susan (first wife of Mathew Saumerez, the father of Admiral Lord de Saumerez), Douce (m. George Bandinel of Jersey), Elizabeth, Anne (m. Nicholas Mallet of Jersey), and Frances.
PHILIP, second son of Philip Dumaresq and Susannah Ferry, his wife, was born in Boston, 1737. With his sisters he was sent to England to be educated. He returned to this country as an Aide-de-Camp to Lord Dunmore. He left the army, and married at the King's Chapel, Dec. 13, 1763, Rebecca, daughter of Dr. SYLVESTER GARDINER. He was a determined Loyalist ; an addresser of Hutchinson, 1774, and of Gage, 1775 ; and two years later, says Sabine, was proscribed and banished. He retired to the Island of New Providence, and was ap- pointed Collector of the King's Revenues at Nassau, where he died. He left three sons, James, Philip, and Francis, and six daughters, Anne, Rebecca, Susan, Frances, Hannah, and Abigail.
James, eldest son of Philip and Rebecca Dumaresq, was born in Bos- ton, 1772. With his brother Philip, afterwards a Commander in the Royal Navy, he was sent to England and educated under the care of his kinsman, Admiral Thomas Dumaresq. Having inherited from his mother lands in Maine, he visited Vassalboro, where he married, Oct. 17, 1797, Sarah Farwell of that place. He settled at Swan Island, and lived in a house built by Dr. Gardiner, his grandfather, where he remained until his death, 1826. He left one son, Philip, and two daughters, Jane Frances Dumaresq, who married Thomas Handasyd Perkins, junior, and Louisa Dumaresq, who married Hon. John Rice Blake.
Philip Dumaresq, only son of James and Sarah Dumaresq, was born at Swan Island, 1804, and married, June 9, 1836, Margaretta, daughter of Francis Deblois. They had four sons : Philip Kerney (m. Sophia Hurl- but), James Saumerez, Herbert, and Francis ; and three daughters, Marga- retta, Frances, and Florence Saumerez, who married George Wheatland, junior.
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We have already referred1 to the public career and ser- vices of Hon. George Richards Minot (1758-1802), who as a young man was actively interested in the building up of this congregation after the long interval that followed Dr. Caner's exile.2 His name may be held to represent the purest patri- otism of the new era of reconstruction on which we are now entered, as well as its finest scholarship and its best social quality ; while his own close connection with the life of King's Chapel, continued to the present day by his descendants, makes a more extended notice here especially appropriate. He was the youngest son of Stephen Minot, a Boston merchant whose estate had been much reduced by the events of war; 3 and his conspicuously honorable though too brief career was a triumph of high principle and intelligence over a delicacy of constitu- tional health that with a less resolute will might have made him
1 Ante, page 343. See also p. 3So, post. 2 See Dr. Greenwood's tribute to Governor Gore, who also joined the Society at this time, in which he refers to Judge Minot, p. 479, post.
3 A memoir of Judge Minot may be found in a pamphlet reprinted from the " Polyanthos " of March, 1806 (Boston, David Clapp, 1873). From a family rec- ord in the New-Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Register (i. 171-178, 256-262) we take most of the particulars which follow.
GEORGE MINOT ( 1594-1671), the first of the name in New England, was son of Thomas Minot, who acquired a consid- erable cstate as secretary (or steward) of the Abbot of Saffron Walden, in Essex Co., England. He settled early in the seventeenth century, in Dorchester, near the Neponset, and was proprietor of the peninsula of Squantum. Of his four sons the eldest, JOHN (1626-1669), continued to live in Dorchester. ITis third son, STE- PHIEN (born, 1662), became a merchant in Boston, and was a member of Brattle St. Church at its foundation in 1699. Ilis wife was Mary, daughter of Christopher Clarke, and mother of twelve children. Of these the eldest son, STEPHEN (born, 1688), had by his first wife, Sarah ( Wain- wright), one son, Stephen ; he afterwards married Mary Brown, who became the mother of eleven children. STEPHEN MINOT ( 1711-1787), the father of George Richards Minot, was a Harvard graduate
of 1730, and married Sarah, daughter of Jonas Clark, a Boston merchant. Of their ten children - the sixth generation in New England - we here record the names of these four : -
JONAS-CLARK (born, 173S), the eklest, married Hannah Speakman, and had four daughters, of whom the eldest, Hannah (17So-1860), married William Gordon Weld, of Roxbury (Jamaica Plain), and was the mother of eleven children ; the youngest, Sarah ( 1787-1869), whose por- trait by Trumbull is in the Boston Art Museum, married her kinsman Stephen Minot, with whom she lived for some years in Calcutta, where was born their only child, Susan Inman. FRANCIS (1746-1774), was of frail health, but of the finest and noblest personal traits, and was held by Dr. Freeman to have had much to do with shaping the char- acter and career of his younger brother. He died at the age of twenty-eight in Marlborough. SARAH (1749-1786), the only daughter, married Gilbert War- ner Speakman. GEORGE-RICHARDS (1758-1804), the youngest child, married
Mary Speakman. Their children were WILLIAM (1783-1873 : see below, p. 367), who married Louisa, sister of Admiral Charles Henry Davis, and whose sons, George-Richards, William, and Francis, have been well-known Boston citizens of a later generation ; and JANE, wife of Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Esq., of New York.
Ico. R Minoh
1
For a portret by threaten tinellogetin possession of the Family
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a lifelong invalid. From a newspaper sketch by a friend, pub- lished not long after his death, we copy the following: --
This gentleman was born in Boston, in December, 1758, and, after profiting by all the advantages resulting from the best education our country can bestow, was admitted to the bar, in 1781. As he possessed a delicacy of temperament ill suited to that tumultuous and jarring profes- sion, he early left the wrangling of the Forum, to exercise his talents and integrity as private counsel. In this situation he increased his legal knowledge, indulged his honorable preventive skill, and left others to profit by the soundness of his judgment ; and often will his opinions be quoted when the most eloquent harangues may be forgotten.
In May, 1782, he was appointed Clerk to the House of Representa- tives ; which office he filled with great reputation for ten years, and then resigned it, and received the unanimous thanks of the House, which were voted to be specially presented to him by the Speaker. In this station he acquired that political knowledge and temperate system of reasoning on the motives and actions of parties, which secured to him a complete independence of sentiment during the tempestuous season which has so long continued to distract and divide our country. He learnt and deeply felt the importance of the conviction to his beloved fellow citizens, " that to obey the laws was to reign with him."
In 1782 he delivered and published an oration, at the request of the inhabitants of the town, on the subject [the " Boston Massacre "] that first sounded the tocsin, in the eventful night of the 5th of March, 1770, which was an epoch that led to the Revolution afterwards so gloriously effected. In 1788 he published the History of the Insurrection [of Daniel Shays] in Massachusetts. Of this work it may be said that it was without a rival in any previous provincial publication. In January, 1789, he was admitted a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and died an officer of that respectable association. He was among the first twelve original members of the Massachusetts Historical Society ; 1 and it must be unnecessary to add that a man of his indefatigable re- search and patience of detail was one of its most distinguished associates.
In 1792 he was appointed Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk, and sustained that arduous office until his death. For this station he was admirably qualified. Mildness, patience, knowledge, philanthropy, and feeling endeared him to all the suitors of that Court, as the inflexible guardian of the widow, and the orphan's friend.
In May, 1795, he delivered a discourse to the members of the Chari- table Fire Society. He was one of the principal founders of that institu- tion, and died its President. This literary effort to aid its fund has been annually pursued since, and it largely contributed to the humane views of its supporters. In January, 1799, he was appointed Chief Justice of the
1 He served the Historical Society on cessively its Recording Secretary, Cabi- its Standing Committee, and was suc- net Keeper, Librarian, and Treasurer.
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Court of Common Pleas, for the County of Suffolk ; and the gentlemen of the bar know best how to appreciate the learning and benignity that could change the professional arena of a Court House into a hall of cheerfulness and dispatch.
In all capital seaports, larcenies and petty crimes are numerous. To relieve the heavy expense of the town of Boston, arising from this source, and if possible to check the evil, an application was made to the Legis- lature to establish a peculiar Municipal Court, whose business should be exclusively criminal, and by its frequent meetings supersede in this respect the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions. This plan was carried into effect. The Court was erected, and in May, 1800, Judge Minot was commis- sioned sole Justice. The great number of cases that have come before that Court since his appointment, demonstrates the utility of the system. In no causes more than in criminal prosecutions, ought trials to be prompt and without delay. The humanity that tempered the severity of offended justice, whilst it excited his reverence, satisfied the victim that his Judge considered that protection was the aim, and reform, not ruin, the sole end of the law.1
On the twenty-eighth of May, 1802, a few weeks after the death of George Richards Minot, a eulogy upon him had been spoken by the Hon. John Quincy Adams, in a public address,2 characterizing him as " to vice a merciful but inflexible judge; to misfortune a compassionate friend; to the widow a protector of her rights; to the orphan one in place of a father; in every station which the voice of his country called him alternately to fill [one who] displayed that individual endowment of the mind, and that peculiar virtue of the heart, which was most essential to the useful performance of its functions."3 Seventy-one years later, on the twelfth of June, 1873, the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, before the Massachusetts Historical Society, said of the son, William Minot : " Though never taking any prominent part in the public action of life, no person passed his days in the per-
1 Boston Gazette, March 1, IS02.
We here append a brief memorial notice of the elder brother, to whom (as before noted) the younger appears to have been so deeply indebted : -
"On Thursday last died at Marl- borough of a lingering Disorder, Mr. FRANCIS MINOT, of this Town, Merchant, and Son of Mr. Stephen Minot : - The remarkable Piety, and Prudence of this young Gentleman, his exemplary De- portment in all the early Walks of Life, his uncommon Sweetness of Temper and gentleness of Manners, engag'd the At-
tention and Esteem of all his Acquaint- ance, and greatly endeared him to all his near Relations and Friends : - His Years were few, but his Life was long, if Wisdom be the grey Hair to Man, and an unspotted Life old Age." - Boston Evening Post, No. 2045, for Monday, Dec. 5, 1774.
2 To the Members of the Massa- chusetts Charitable Fire Society, printed in part in I Mass. Hist. Coll., viii. 105- 109.
8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. for March, 1874, xiii. 255.
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formance of duties more useful to society or honorable to him- self. Confidence in the fulfilment of obligations, of pecuniary trusts, is only merited by a life of the purest integrity. The many who reposed it in him, during the long course of his active career, had cause to congratulate themselves, when reflecting how much shifting sand was visible always around them, that they had built their house upon a rock."1 After quoting both these characterizations, in March, 1874, the President of the Society, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, continued in the fol- lowing words : -
The Hon. William Minot was born in the homestead of his father and grandfather, in what is now known as Devonshire Street, Boston, oppo- site the New Post-Office, on the 17th of Sept., 1783; and he took his Bachelor's Degree at Harvard University with the distinguished class of 1802, a few months after his father's death. He was admitted to the Bar of Suffolk County in 1805, and entered at once on the profes- sional pursuits in which his father had been so eminent. To those pur- suits he perseveringly adhered ; only abandoning them when compelled to do so by the infirmities of old age. He was particularly devoted to the Law of Wills and Trusts. A man of the purest life, of the highest principles, of the most scrupulous and transparent integrity, his counsel was eagerly sought, during a long term of years, by those who had estates to bequeath, or trusts to be arranged and executed ; and no one enjoyed a greater share than he did, in these and all other relations, of the esteem and confidence of the community in which he lived.
Among other funds committed to his care, was that bequeathed to the town of his birth by Benjamin Franklin, with a primary view of encour- aging young and meritorious mechanics. This fund was placed in Mr. Minot's hands by the authorities of Boston in 1804, and was gratuitously administered by him for the long period of sixty-four years ; and when it had increased from four thousand to one hundred and twenty-five thou- sand dollars, the City Government did not fail to enter upon its records a grateful acknowledgment of the eminent prudence and probity with which the fund had been managed.
Naturally of a retiring disposition, Mr. Minot never sought public office, and very rarely yielded to the solicitation of friends by accepting it. He served his native place for a year or two, when it was first incorporated as a city, as the presiding officer of one of its wards ; and he served the Commonwealth, for another year or two, with fidelity and honor, as a member of the Executive Council, during the administration of Governor Everett. He rendered valuable services also to the community for a con- siderable time as an Inspector of Prisons. But his tastes were for pro-
1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. for June, 1873, xiii. 49.
-
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fessional and domestic life, and he resolutely declined all further public employment.1
Some notice has been already given of the family of TIIOMAS BULFINCH, second of the name, long honorably connected with the annals of King's Chapel.2 We add here a few particulars concerning him and his family, from other sources : 3 -
THOMAS BULFINCH was the son of Adino Bulfinch, who came to this country from England about the year 1680, was actively engaged in commercial pursuits in Boston, and was chosen by that town Surveyor of Highways in 1700. His son. the subject of this memoir, was born in 1654. He did not receive a college education, but obtained the rudi- ments of medical instruction under Dr. Zabdiel Boylston. Letters from him still extant show that he studied anatomy and surgery in London under the famous Cheselden in 1718, and afterwards completed his medical studies at Paris in 1721. Dr. Boylston wished him to join him in partnership, which he declined, as at the time of the invitation he had not completed his regular course of lectures. On his return to Boston he married the daughter of John Colman,4 a distinguished merchant, brother of Dr. Benjamin Colman, first pastor of Brattle Street Church.
THOMAS BULFINCH. the only son of the preceding, was born in Bos- ton in 1728,5 and fitted for college in the Latin school under Mr. John
I A memoir of William Minot is given in Mass. ITist. Soc. Proceedings for March, 1874, xiii. 255-259.
2 Ante, p. 343. See also p. 379, post.
3 Taken from Thacher's Medical Bio- graphies, i. 209-211. See also Dr. Eph- raim Eliot's reminiscences of the phy- sicians of Boston, in Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proceedings for November, 1863, vii. 179, ISO; and Sargent's Dealings with the Dead, ii. 449 et seq.
+ John Colman was " Agent for the Lord Iligh Admiral, and one of the Commissioners for Prizes." (Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, 1678-1706, ii. PP. 537-540.)
In August, 1705, Colman declared himself " Deputed D the IIonoble John Dod, Esq! the Receiv! of the rights and Perquisites of his Royal Highness, Prince George of Denmark, Lord Iligh Admiral of England & # to receive wt might become due to his Royal Highness in these parts." - Mass. Archives, ii. 154. See also Province Laws, viii. 528.
5 Ile was baptized at the Church in Brattle Square, to which the family at that time belonged, June 30, 1728. His
connection with King's Chapel, where he afterwards became so prominent, was through his marriage, Sept 13, 1759, with Susan, daughter of Charles Apthorp, Esq. The following notice of her death is taken from a contemporary record :
"On the evening of the 15th Inst. de- parted this life, Madam Susan Bulfinch, aged Si years, relict of the late Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, and daughter of Charles Apthorp, Esq., formerly a dis- tinguished merchant of this town. Few persons have acted their part in life more honourably, or left behind them a more revered and cherished memory, than this respectable lady. Nature had given her intellectual powers of uncom- mon vigour ; and she had cultivated them in early life with great assiduity, and adorned them by various reading and by habitual intercourse with im- proved society. There was a propriety and decorum in her manners, a strength, richness, variety, knowledge of life, can- dour, and cheerfulness in her conversa- tion, which endeared her to all who had the privilege of her acquaintance. IIer reverence for the Supreme Being was un- --
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Lovell; he was distinguished for his classical attainments, and entered college in 1742. The class [of 1746] was small, on account of the troubled state of the times occasioned by the efforts making by the Pretender of the house of Stuart for the recovery of the British crown, consisting of only twelve members, of whom the venerable Dr. Holyoke, of Salem, survived till 1829. After leaving college he entered upon his studies with his father in 1753, and afterwards passed four years in England and Scotland, attending the hospitals in London, and going through a regular course of instruction at Edinburgh, where he took his degree of M. D. in 1757. Being called home by the death of his fither, he returned and commenced the practice of medicine at Boston. At the general spread of the small-pox in 1763, he was actively engaged in introducing the antiphlogistic mode of treatment in that disease, which was attended with extraordinary success ; and in conjunction with Drs. Joseph Warren, Gardiner, and Perkins, he attempted the establishment of a small-pox hospital at Point Shirley, in Boston Harbor, which was soon relinquished for want of encouragement, the prejudice being very strong against a voluntary and (as it was then called) a presumptuous exposure to disease.1 Dr. Bulfinch lived in the stormy period which led to the Revolutionary war; he was in feeling and principle a decided friend to the rights of the colonies, but remained with his family in Bos- ton while the place was occupied by the British troops in 1775. He was subjected not only to the privations common to the inhabitants, but to the loss of a large quantity of medicine forcibly taken by order of the British general for the use of the troops, without any acknowledgment or remuneration. He had, however, the pleasure of seeing the enemy abandon our shores in March, 1776, and the town immediately occupied by the Patriot army of his fellow-countrymen. After this time he en- joyed an extensive practice, and numbered among his friends Governors Hancock and Bowdoin.
feigned and constant. This principle supported her through severe afflictions, and became the parent of many virtues. She was a Christian from conviction, from a careful study of the Scriptures, from an enlightened and upright mind. . She was a Christian too, without an ex- clusive spirit or bigotry, conscious of her infirmities, and looking to Heaven for light and assistance and forgiveness. In the relations of private life, as a wife, a mother, a friend and patroness of the poor, an attentive consoler of the sorrowful, a friend to all practica- ble modes of beneficence, she exhibited the divine spirit of Christianity. Her life, thus adorned with moral and in- tellectual graces, terminated in a serene, dignified, and advanced old age.
" Death advanced slowly, and without
terrors, and this ripe shock of corn was at length gathered in its season." - Boston Gazette, of Feb. 20, 1815. The initials, " S. C.," appended to this notice are probably those of Rev. Samuel Cary.
Dr. Freeman and Mr. Cary both preached Funeral Sermons after Madam Bulfinch's death. These were printed in a volume entitled Funeral Sermons, Preached in King's Chapel, Boston ( 1820). The Notes to this volume contain re- prints of the foregoing Obituary notice, of another (signed "C. B.") from the New England Palladium of Feb. 21, ISI5, and of a third notice signed " S. B."
1 " Dr. Bulfinch has petitioned the General Court for leave to open a hos- pital somewhere [for small-pox] and it will be granted him." - Mrs. Adams's Letters, P. 79, 17 June, 1776.
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The character of Dr. Bulfinch was of the same mild and unobtrusive kind as that of his father ; he was possessed of the same cheerfulness and goodness of heart, and sincere and unpretending piety. Con- tented with the love and esteem of his numerous acquaintance, and especially of all who came under his professional care, he avoided every occasion of public display ; and when on the formation of the Massachu- setts Medical Society he was invited to take a leading part in that in- stitution, he declined it upon the plea that such undertakings should of right devolve on the younger members of the profession. He published only two small treatises, - one on the treatment of scarlet fever, in the cure of which he was remarkably successful ; the other on the yellow fever, a subject then but little understood, which seemed to baffle at the time all the efforts of medical practitioners. Of an active, healthy frame, and distinguished for an uncommon attraction of person and elegance of manners, he continued in practice until two years previous to his death, which took place in February, 1802.1 He left one son, Charles, the in- genious architect and superintendent of the public buildings at the City of Washington, and two daughters ; all were married during the life of the father, - the son to Hannah, the daughter of John Apthorp, Esq. ; the eller daughter to George Storer, and the younger to Joseph Coolidge, son of Joseph Coolidge, Esq.2
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