USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 22
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THE TRADES
The trades by which these Bostonians supported themselves were diverse. The principal occupations were those of bakers, blacksmiths, block makers, boat builders, cabinet and chair makers, carvers, coach makers, watch makers, coopers, dis- tillers, engravers, glaziers, plumbers, goldsmiths, hair dressers, hatters and furmen, carpenters, leather workers, limners and portrait painters, masons, instrument makers, millers, painters, paperstainers, printers and book makers, riggers, rope-makers, saddlers, sail-makers, shipwrights, sugar boilers, tallow chand- lers, tanners, tailors, tin-plate workers, tobacconists, tankmen, turners, upholsterers, wharfingers and wheelwrights.
SCALE OF LIVING
Walking out on the Mall at the eastern end of the Common on a summer afternoon in the middle of the eighteenth century, one would have had some little difficulty in believing that he was not in a thriving English town. Here was the promenade of fashion after tea drinking, and there was plenty of fashion in Boston. A visitor of this period wrote: "The ladies here
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visit, drink tea, and indulge in every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode, and neglect the affairs of their families with as good grace as the finest ladies in London."
The Bostonians lived well. . The best of food was cheap in New England and, although money was scarcer here than in old England, the cost of living was far lower in these prov- inces than in the mother country. The variety was no less west than east. Beef, lamb, veal, pork, game were abundant. Sea food was prevalent and absurdly cheap. A twelve pound cod fish, just out of the sea, cost tuppence. A fine salmon, weighing fifteen pounds, could be had for a shilling. The finest butter brought three pence a pound. The New Eng- landers enjoyed the same fruits in season as did the Londoners. Peaches in particular were so abundant that only the very finest were served at table and the ordinary sort were fed to the hogs. Beside cultivated fruits were products of the wilder- ness, wild grapes for which prudent housewives had plenty of uses, berries and black cherries which made a delicious cordial.
The fashionable dinner wine was Madeira; rum punch was also an aristocratic tipple. The Boston breweries were con- ducted for export, but they delivered table-beer at home. The chief drink of the average Bostonian was cider, which he could get at three shillings a barrel.
The regulation of the sale of wines and spirits was not greatly different in the early Boston from the system which prevailed until the advent of national prohibition. The muni- cipality in the early days did not profit from licenses; but the Court of General Sessions of Suffolk county (subject to the veto of the selectmen) granted permission for the sale of these commodities to such responsible persons as in its judg- ment should be given the privilege.
Care was taken to protect the poor in their purchase of food- stuffs. Imported provisions could not be sold at wholesale until the crier had given three days' notice, so that all might buy at wholesale rates in small quantities. The town pro- hibited the purchase, except for personal use, of produce at the Neck, coming into the town through Roxbury, to prevent dealers forestalling the general patrons of the markets.
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CHURCHES AND MINISTERS
CHURCHES AND MINISTERS
If the churches did not make up the electorate as of old, they did what they could to control it. When a new church was needed the town made a grant; as in 1715, when to sundry petitioners it granted Church Green "for the Erecting thereon an Edifice for a Meeting House for the Publick worship of God" known as the New South, or in 1709 when the town meeting "voted a grant of one hundred pounds to be raised and laid out in building a meeting house at Rumney Marsh."
Furthermore we find town appropriations for the support of the clergy. Few matters of importance were inaugurated without the invocation of divine aid. At the annual election of the Artillery Company a sermon was invariably delivered. The same ceremony took place on the Sunday before an exe- cution. The poor wretch was brought through the town from the bridewell and sat quivering under the thunders of the ser- mon and the glances of the congregation.
Nevertheless Boston was a thriving and pleasant town. The town house and the meeting house were the centres of civic life. Newspapers were infrequent, their items exceedingly brief, and public opinion was usually regulated by the two pub- lic agencies. Not only did the churches hold regular services, but lectures and other meetings were frequent, and the minis- ters were tenacious of their influence. After the provincial charter deprived them of their outward political influence, they were still assiduous in maintaining it in fact, if not in law.
So ambitious were the ministers, that early in the eighteenth century (1705) they endeavored to increase their clerical power. In 1705 the Boston Association of Ministers issued a pamphlet, the authorship of which was not disclosed but which was generally attributed to the Mathers, entitled Ques- tions and Proposals. It was palpably issued to pave the way for a movement which would gradually reduce the powers of the members of churches in the government of those churches, and place it increasingly in the hands of the clergy. The sturdy John Wise of Chebacco led the assault on this pro- posed extension of ministerial power through his books The Church's Quarrel Espoused and A Vindication of the Govern- ment of the New England Churches, which demolished the
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semi-episcopal plans of the clergy. Half a century later they emerged in a new edition just before the Revolution, when their views of independence within the church might be applied to the state itself.
AMUSEMENTS
The people generally provided their own pleasures. The aristocracy, and it very certainly existed, had their promenades and tea drinkings. The mechanics and small tradesmen had their taverns and the Common. New England frugality did not encourage holidays. Religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter were too pagan for recognition in the minds of the Bostonians, and was not the Thursday lecture, a mid-week religious service held in the morning, quite enough interruption of business, without light and joyous celebration? Thanks- giving was a holiday of course, the Puritans' own. The brim- ming Thanksgiving tables of the present hark back to the abundance of the blessings for which these New Englanders gave thanks, and which were spread before them in recogni- tion of these blessings. It was a religious day for all that and rigorously observed. The now forgotten "Guy Fawkes Day" was the liveliest holiday of the time and that was celebra- ted at night. Parades bearing the effigy of the luckless conspirator traversed the town and not infrequently came into impact and wound up in a glorious free fight for all. At last the best influences brought about a joint celebration in which the North and South-Enders bore an equal part.
No theatres existed in Boston before the last decade of the century. Only gradually did public theatricals develop. Brit- ish theatricals during the siege of 1775-76 were carried on under the auspices of the soldiery. Whether that gave the populace a taste for it or not, the lecture room on Broad Alley soon followed. In spite of legislation and protests from Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the people enjoyed the "moral lectures" which it presented within its crude pro- scenium. When the proprietor was arrested during a "lecture" known as "The School for Scandal" the populace greatly enjoyed Sir Peter Teazle's acquittal. At last, though frowned on by the "good people," the Federal Street theatre, first
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RELATION TO THE COLONY
acknowledged Temple of Thespis in Boston, rose, free from hostile legislation, in 1792.
Dancing was a more informal work of the Devil than the playhouse. Ministerial protests against "Profane and Promis- cuous Dancing" were heard as early as the last quarter of the seventeenth century; but the amusement went on. By 1735 a dancing school was set up, though its purpose was stated in the seemliest possible manner : it was announced as "a school for reading, writing, cyphering, dancing and the use of the needle." It is easy to guess which branch of learning was responsible for the school's prosperity.
Boston was not without individual itinerant amusements. For instance, William Clagget, "Clock-Maker, whose Business will not suffer him to make any long Stay here," set up an electrical show at the house of Captain John Williams, near the Golden Fleece in King Street, in September, 1747. There he exhibited the "Wonderful Phenomena of Electrical Attrac- tion, Repulsion and flamific Force; particularly the new Method of electrising Several Persons at the same Time, so that Fire shall dart from all Parts of their Bodies, as the same has lately been exhibited, to the Astonishment of the Curious in all Parts of Europe." Thomas Sharp exhibited feats of horsemanship in 1770 or thereabouts. He rode two horses at full speed, standing, and drove them far enough apart to admit a third between them and performed with a single horse other feats now conventional enough. Toward the century's end the curious could see an elephant for the reason- able fee of a quarter of a dollar. In New England arose the germ of a later exhibit, the "greatest Show on Earth."
RELATION TO THE COLONY
The province charter placed the towns entirely under the Province. Of course the Crown could veto Province laws, but it never interfered with those relating to town organization and authority. Hence the town of Boston came after a time to be in a kind of quasi-partnership with the Province. It was both capital and capitol. Here in the Town Hall the General Court held its meetings and all its members were for the time being residents of Boston. It was the largest town in the Prov-
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ince. Many, perhaps most, of the Province's leading citizens were inhabitants of the town. Others, such as Richard Dana of Charlestown (he afterward moved to Boston), Increase Sumner of Roxbury and William Stoughton of Dorchester, to name only a few, were residents of contiguous towns and spent enough time in the centre to be considered Bostonians.
Although now and then the size of the town and the differ- ence of the problems from those of other towns was the occa- sion of special Boston legislation, it may reasonably be doubted whether the influence of the Province was greater on its chief city, than that city's influence on the Province itself.
The chief drawback to Boston's freedom of self development was the Court of General Sessions of the Peace. It consisted of the justices of the peace for the county, or of so many as should be limited in their commissions. Beside the ordinary civil and criminal jurisdiction of primary courts its members had charge of the county prudentials and so had absolute veto on town orders and by-laws. In 1730 Suffolk County included not only Boston, Roxbury and Dorchester, but also Hingham, Braintree, Dedham, Medfield, Medway, Weymouth, Milton, Hull, Wrentham, Mendon, Woodstock, Brookline, Needham, Sutton, Oxford, Bellington, Walpole, Stoughton and Ux- bridge. Although legislation was passed which sought to abolish this power, it was incorporated in an act concerning other matters which was thrown out by the Privy Council. In 1701 Boston undertook to codify its laws and passed a code of nearly forty titles, of which the Court of Sessions left only twelve. Another set was passed the same year and was ap- proved. Little opposition to the Court of Sessions is revealed by the records of the Town Meetings; but its supervisory power greatly irked the selectmen. Even laying out of town ways was vested in the court whenever the selectmen were charged with delay.
ELECTIONS AND REPRESENTATIVES
The town and province voting was carried on in town meeting. When representatives were to be elected, the proce- dure of town meeting varied. The provincial laws called for a ballot in charge of the selectmen. Therefore that particular
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meeting was organized under the moderatorship of the chair- man of the board; and the moderator took his seat after the election. At the annual meeting in March the town officers were elected under the usual conditions. In 1730 the town meeting cast 530 votes. At the April election in 1798, under the constitution, a town meeting in form, 1581 votes were cast for governor at Faneuil Hall between 9 A.M. and 2 P.M.
The election of representatives was a grave duty. Boston early in its civic career claimed the principle of town repre- sentation in proportion to the number of citizens. As early as 1679 the Boston Town Meeting asked, not without some asperity : "Shall twenty freemen (this was the number which entitled rural towns to two deputies and also was the number to which Boston was then entitled) have equal privelege with our great Town which consists of near twenty times twenty Freemen?" Before 1701 Boston had gained her point and she had four representatives. Under the constitution of 1780 with a legislature of two branches, in 1800 Boston's propor- tion of representatives was seven; and the Boston vote was then practically predominant in Suffolk county, which was entitled to four senators. There were no legislative districts; the senators were voted for at large in their county, and the representatives in their town.
Membership in the General Court was the office most prized of any within the town's gift. Usually the most distin- guished men the town could offer were elected. This was especially so in the middle years of the century and during the struggle with England. It was not so sure in the days of the Commonwealth.
Boston was served between 1700 and the time of the siege by about seventy-five different representatives. At no time did the town's representation fall below four. Hence the deputation from Boston was always an experienced one, the changes in the delegation averaging about one each year. Among the few great leaders of the town who never served in the General Court were Joseph Warren, Josiah Quincy and Church. But among the representatives were Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, John Adams, James Bowdoin and Harrison Gray. Thomas Hutchinson, who was then honored by his townsmen, attained this office and held it for nine
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years between 1737 and 1748. Among lesser but still honor- able Boston names in the roster are Elisha Cooke, who served for sixteen years in all during the first forty years of the century; Oxenbridge Thacher, Adam Winthrop, Thomas Cushing Jr., John Phillips, Maj. Samuel Sewall, Oliver Wen- dell, Nathan Appleton, and many others of similar service- ability.
BOSTON POLITICS
But eminent as these men were, they were not considered above the town's supervision. They stood somewhat in the relation to the town as would lawyer and client. Practically in the principal matters they were "briefed" by the town. What their specific arguments should be, how they should go tactically to work as a rule was not generally a matter for the town to decide but for the representatives. Nevertheless they were sent to look after the town interests and, whatever the method they pursued, it was not for them but for the town to decide in matters of large public moment just what that interest was; hence the system of instructing the repre- sentatives.
At each meeting where representatives were elected a com- mittee was created to report to the body a series of instructions, which was submitted either at that or a subsequent meeting. When acted upon by the town the recommendations were accepted as binding by the men elected. As the century progressed, the town found colonial affairs critical. The in- structions in those days, so far as practical effect was con- cerned, were superfluous. So entirely known were the sentiments of the representatives, that their instructions, the product of the body which elected them, were merely echoes of their own desires. The caucus and Sam Adams had taken care of that; but these instructions were written by some of the clearest thinking and purest patriots of their time, hence these instructions in effect became almost state papers.
In the early years of the century the town meeting was exceedingly sensitive to the influence of private conferences. The townsmen would have welcomed with enthusiasm the phrase "open covenants, openly arrived at." There ought to be good public reasons for what they were asked to vote; and
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BOSTON TOWN MEETING
they were suspicious of anything agreed upon in secret. So strongly did they feel on this matter that in 1701 they made their regulation: "That whosoever in any Publick Town Meet- ing shall fall into private conference to the hindering of the publick business, shall forfeit one shilling for every such of- fence, to the use of the poor of the Town." Thus was not only the methodical New England orderliness safeguarded but political wire pulling and log rolling prevented in the assem- blage.
At last, however, there came a time when the vital questions of the relations with the mother country were in the balance; when the advocates of colonial rights, if they were to prevail, must put their best foot forward; when the minority was so strong that the patriots must have a program. No man knew this so well as the greatest of Bostonians, Samuel Adams.
BOSTON TOWN MEETING
The suffrage of Boston, as in the rest of the Province, was expanding. In 1647 "inhabitants" who were not freemen, but who had taken the oath of allegiance and were twenty-four years old, were eligible to vote and to hold town office. The Province charter did away with the legal class of freemen; and the suffrage was given to freeholders and other inhabitants possessing the statutory property qualification. To vote for members of the General Court was a higher right than to vote in an ordinary town meeting. In the first class were the citizens whose freeholds were worth forty shillings a year or who had other property to the value of fifty pounds. In town matters all inhabitants "rateable at twenty pounds estate" possessed the suffrage.
Boston slowly but steadily grew, until a halt toward the middle of the century. During and after the siege of 1775- 1776, Boston lost in population and prestige until post-Revo- lution activity sent things forward once more. The voting population also increased, and new precautions had to be taken to safeguard the ballot. Even then there were rumors of fraudulent voting.
The Boston Town Meeting, if we look fairly at the eight- eenth century town, was the heart of the municipality. It is
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not easy to describe it as an entity, separate from the general town meeting system of New England, which receives adequate interpretation elsewhere. The significant point is that the eighteenth century town meeting of the capital of the colony heartened the colony in the days of protest, and gave the lesser towns courage, in which pulsed the spirit of the Com- monwealth. "It hectored the governor; it appointed agents in London to procure the veto of obnoxious colonial acts; it incited other towns to insubordination; it put forth declara- tions of the rights and wrongs of the colonists."
In this work the Boston Town Meeting assumes its greatest importance; but this was not the only great problem of the men of Boston in joint council together. The strength and value of the town meeting lies in the fact that, in both great and little things, the men of the town took council and made their own decisions. It might be a resolution looking toward an inter-colonial declaration of independence, or it might be a vote prohibiting the digging or carrying away of gravel on Fox Hill; the procedure was the same.
Outside New England the county was and still is the prime political unit. Not so in Massachusetts. Here the political unit from the beginning has been the town; and around that government of the municipality revolved the personal life of the old-time inhabitants. Ernst has written: "A kindly star stood over the birth of the Massachusetts town. The Mas- sachusetts town was not created, like a city, by the General Court, but was born at a happy moment. The supreme author- ity was glad to acknowledge the town, and to help in making it an instrument for good, both to the town itself and to the country ... The town was the immediate neighborhood of men and women that had one mind, one church and one common endeavor ... The General Court of Massachusetts recognized what the early founders of towns did for them- selves, and added its approval and aid."
NOTABLE TOWN MEETINGS
It is difficult to ascertain the conditions of calls for town meetings since they were issued partly under custom, partly under law. The annual meetings appear to have been regularly
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fixed. So, presumably, were those which chose the representa- tives in the General Court. The request of an adequate number of voters imposed on the selectmen the duty of calling meet- ings; and in case of their neglect or refusal it became the duty of the next justice of the peace. When the date was fixed and the town constables had circulated the notice by personal service the preliminaries had been accomplished.
Meetings might be few or many according to the need. In the twelve months of 1774-75 the town meeting was in session at various intervals during thirty-one days. Bostonians took their meeting very seriously indeed. Few snap judgments were made, and there was much grave debate. It was not unusual for a town meeting to adjourn from day to day. For example : the annual meeting of 1735 convened in the forenoon of March 10, reconvened in the afternoon, adjourned to the following morning then to the following afternoon, put in a full day the next day as well, and then adjourned to March 20 for an afternoon session which concluded its labors.
One meeting stands out in the town records which was not regularly called but was organized by the impulse of the citi- zens. That was on the morning of March 6, 1770, the day after the Boston Massacre. It was a mass meeting presided over by the town clerk, the selectmen being in conference with the Governor. It assembled for business and it meant business. Held in Faneuil Hall, it finally adjourned to meet at three o'clock in the afternoon at the Old South Church. In the meantime the selectmen attended to the formalities so that it came in as a legal body at that time. Both these sessions are to be found recorded in the town records-which say nothing of that stern gathering in the Old South, with the sturdy souled Samuel Adams in the chair, in that Decem- ber twilight in 1774 when he so gravely declared: "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country"; and the resultant war-whoops echoed upon the frosty air outside as the pseudo Mohawks started on their way to Guffin's Wharf.
On the other hand some of the meetings were brief. It cannot of course be said that the meetings which occupy the least space in the town records were necessarily the shortest for these records take no cognizance of the amount of length
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or debate. A short word-picture of a routine town meeting may be had from these town records.
"At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston Duly Qualified being Regularly Assem- bled in a Publick Town Meeting at the Town House in Boston on Tuesday September the 14th 1731:
"After Prayer by the Reve Mr John Webb
"Hubijah Savage Esq was chose to be Moderator for this Meeting
"Proposed to Consider About Repairing mr Nathaniell Williams His Kitchen &c ---
"In answer to the Earnest Desire of the Honourable House of Representatives-
"Voted an Intire Satisfaction in the Town in the late con- duct of their Representatives in Endeavoring therein-
"Voted That the Afair of Repairing of the Wharff leading to the North Battery be left with the Selectmen to do therein as they deem best."
Of course the warrant limited the scope of the meeting somewhat. That action could be taken only on matters therein contained not only prevented the town being taken unaware and swept off its feet, but it prevented the meetings from being even longer than they were. It was a serious and patient citizenry which sacrificed so much time in sober efforts of self-government.
TOWN MEETING RECORDS
Much of the history of Boston, its local problems, its pre- judices, its way of thinking, is to be read from the records of the Boston Town Meeting. And not merely read, for much of it became the history not alone of Massachusetts but also of the American nation. For this study they are of use to inter- pret the Bostonian in his attitude to his church, to his business, to his liberties and to himself.
In 1701 it was ordered by the pious suffrage of the freemen and inhabitants "That no person shall hereafter ride any horse mare or Gelding into the Common or, Wheeler's pond or to any usual place of watering, on the Lord's day, on pain of forfieting the sum of five shillings." In the same year
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