Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 65

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 65

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(III) Colonel Edmund (3), son of Edmund (2) Quincy, was baptized in England, March 15, 1627-8. He married (first) July 26, 1648, Joanna, or Joane, Hoar, sister of Rev. Leon- ard Hoar (H. C. 1650), third president of Harvard College, whose grandfather was Charles Hoar, of Gloucester, England, and whose father was Sheriff Charles Hoare, of the "Cittie" of Gloucester. The illustrious family of Concord, Massachusetts, of whom Senator George F. Hoar, of Worcester, was one, were of this Hoar family. Mrs. Joanna Hoar Quincy died May 16, 1680, and he mar- ried (second) December 8, 1680, Elizabeth Eliot, daughter of Major General Daniel Gookin, and widow of Rev. John Eliot, oldest son of Rev. John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. He lived a private life on his estate at Braintree; was magistrate, representative to the general court, and lieutenant-colonel of the Suffolk regiment. When Governor Andros was deposed, Quincy was chosen one of the committee of safety which formed the provi- sional government until the new charter of William and Mary arrived. He died January 8, 1697-8, leaving his second wife, who died November 30, 1700. He had a military fun- eral, and his grave is marked by two granite stones in which his name and arms, cut in lead, were inserted, but in the revolution the

stones were robbed of the lead, and all knowledge of their object would have been lost, had not President John Adams remem- bered the engravings on the lead. The same vandals broke the tablet on which the coat-of-arms was inscribed on the Quincy tomb. The fragments of this stone have been preserved by the family. Children of first wife: I. Mary, born March 4, 1650; married Ephraim Savage (Harvard College, 1662). 2. Daniel, born February 7, 1651 ; married Anna Shepard, daughter of Rev. Thomas Shepard of Charlestown; their son John was speaker of the house. 3. John, born April 5, 1652. 4. Joanna, born April 16, 1654 ; married David Hobart, of Hingham. 5. Judith, born June 25, 1655 ; married Rev. John Rayner Jr. 6. Eliz- abeth, born September 28, 1656; married Rev. Daniel Gookin; of Sherborn, son of General Daniel Gookin. 7. Edmund, born July 9, 1657 ; died young. 8. Ruth, born October 29, 1658; married John Hunt, of Weymouth, October 19, 1686. 9. Ann, born about 1663 ; died September 3, 1676. 10. Experience, born March 24, 1667 ; married William Savill. Chil- dren of second wife: II. Edmund, mentioned below. 12. Mary, born-December 7, 1684; married, 1714, Rev. Daniel Baker, of Sherborn. (IV) Judge Edmund (4), son of Colonel Edmund (3) Quincy, was born in Braintree, October 14, 1681, and graduated at Harvard College in 1699. He was in the public service almost all his life, as a magistrate, councillor, and justice of the supreme court. He was colonel of the Suffolk regiment, when that was a very important military body. In 1737 the general court appointed him its agent to repre- sent it in the adjudication of the disputed boundary between Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire. He died, however, very soon after his arrival in London, February 23, 1737-8, of the small pox, which he had taken by inoculation. He was buried in Bunhill Fields, where a monument was erected to him by the general court, which also made a grant of a thousand acres of land in the town of Lenox to his family in further recognition of his public services. Two portraits of Judge Quincy were painted by Symbert, probably in 1728, one of which is deposited in the Boston Art Museum, the other is preserved by the family of the late Edmund Quincy, of Ded- ham, mentioned below.

He married, November 20, 1701, Dorothy Flint, daughter of Rev. Josiah Flint (Harvard College 1664) of Dorchester. Children, born at Braintree : I. Edmund, born June 13, 1703;

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graduated at Harvard 1722; judge of court of common pleas ; married Elizabeth, daughter of Abraham Wendell ; their daughter Dorothy, born May 10, 1747, married (first) Hon. John Hancock, first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and afterward governor of Massachusetts ; (second) Captain James Scott, July 27, 1796. 2. Elizabeth, born October 17, 1706; married, November 10, 1724, John Wendell, brother of the wife of Edmund Quincy. 3. Dorothy, born January 4, 1709; married, December 7, 1738, Edward Jackson; died 1762, the "Dorothy Q" of Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem. Dorothy was an ancestor of Dr. Holmes. 4. Josiah; see forward.

(V) Colonel Josiah, son of Judge Edmund (4) Quincy, was born in Braintree, April I, 1710, and graduated at Harvard College in 1728. He married (first) January 11, 1733, Hannah Sturgis, of Yarmouth, daughter of John Sturgis. He married (second) in 1756, Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. William Waldron, of Boston. He married (third) in 1761, Ann, daughter of Rev. J. Marsh, of Braintree. He died March 3, 1784, his widow in 1805.

He accompanied his father to London in 1737-8, and afterwards visited England and the continent more than once. For some years he was engaged in commerce and ship building in Boston, in partnership with his brother and brother-in-law, Edward Jackson. A rather singular adventure in 1745 was the occasion of his withdrawing from business. Though then but about forty years old he retired, and for thirty years lived on his share of the home- stead at Braintree, the life of a country gentle- man. He was the local magistrate, and colonel of the Suffolk regiment. He was sent by the provincial government to Pennsylvania in 1755 as commissioner to ask the help of that colony in the proposed expedition to Crown Point in the French and Indian War. He suc- ceeded in his mission by the help of Benjamin Franklin, who relates in his autobiography that "a most cordial and affectionate friendship sub- sisted between them for the next thirty years." Whenever he came to Boston, Dr. Franklin always visited Colonel Quincy at Braintree, and an intimate correspondence was kept up between them as long as he lived. A portrait of Colonel Quincy by Copley (1769) is in the house of the nine hundred and ninety-ninth son Josiah P. Quincy. Children : I. Edmund, born October 1, 1733, (H. C. 1752) ; died at sea, 1768, unmarried. 2. Samuel, born April 13, 1735; (H. C. 1754); solicitor-general of Massachusetts under the Crown, succeeding

Judge Jonathan Sewell; in 1700 was engaged on the popular side in the trial of Captain Preston in opposition to his patriot brother, Josiah Quincy, who appeared for the defend- ants; was in England on business when the revolution broke out, but not approving the idea of a Republic, stayed in England; was included in the banishment act of 1778; was appointed comptroller at Parkin Bay, Antigua, and died on his passage from Tortola to Eng- land, for his health, August 9, 1789; portraits of him and his wife by Copley are owned by the family ; he married (first) Hannah Hill; (second) Mrs. M. A. Chadwell. 3. Hannah, born September 11, 1736; married (first) Dr. Bela Lincoln; (second) Ebenezer Storer. 4. Josiah, mentioned below. Children of second wife: 5. Elizabeth, born December 27, 1757 ; married, May 27 1784, Benjamin Guild. Child of third wife: 6. Ann, born December 8, 1763; married Rev. Asa Packard, of Marl- borough.

(VI) Josiah (2), son of Colonel Josiah (I) Quincy, was born February 23, 1744, and graduated at Harvard, in 1763. "On taking his master's degree," says his grandson, "he delivered an English oration, the first in our academic annals, on the characteristic subject of 'Patriotism,' by the rhetorical merits and graceful delivery of which he gained great reputation. % * He studied law with Oxenbridge Thacher, one of the principal lawyers of that day, and succeeded to his practice at his death, which took place about the time he himself was called to the bar. He took a high rank at once in his profession, . although his attention to its demands was continually interrupted by the stormy agita- tion in men's minds and passions which pre- ceded and announced the revolution, and which he actively promoted by his writings and public speeches. On the fifth of March, the day of the Boston Massacre, he was selected, together with John Adams, by Cap- tain Preston, who gave the word of command to the soldiers that fired on the crowd, to con- duct his defence and that of his men, they having been committed for trial for murder. * *

* At that moment of fierce excitement it demanded personal and moral courage to perform this duty. * * He did his duty, and his prophecy (that the time would come when the people would rejoice that he became an advocate for the prisoners) soon came to pass. Notwithstanding his youth (he was but twenty-six at the time of the trial), he was taken into the counsels of the elder patriots

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and his fervid eloquence at the popular meet- ings, and his ardent appeals through the press, were of potent effect in rousing the general mind to resist the arbitrary acts of the British ministry. He was one of the first that said, in plain terms, that an appeal to arms was inevitable, and a separation from the mother country the only security for the future. In 1774 he went to England, partly for his health, which suffered much from his intense pro- fessional and political activity, but chiefly as a confidential agent of the patriotic party, to consult and advise with friends of America there. His presence in London, coming as it did at that critical moment, excited the notice of the ministerial party, as well as of the *

opposition. * He had interviews, by their own invitation, with Lords North and Dartmouth, and was received and treated in the kindest and most confidential manner by Dr. Franklin, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barry, Governor Pownell, and many others of the leading men in opposition at that time. The precise results of his communications with the English Whigs can never be known. They were important enough, however, to make his English friends urgent for his immediate return to America, because he could give information viva voce which could not safely

be committed to. writing. * His * health failed seriously during the latter months of his residence in England, and his physician, Dr. Fotheringill, strongly advised against his undertaking a winter voyage, assuring him that the Bristol waters and the summer season would restore him to perfect health. His sense of public duty, however, overbore all personal considerations, and he set sail on the sixteenth of March, 1775, and died off Gloucester, Massachusetts, April 26. In his last hours he repeated again and again his heart's desire for one hour with Samuel Adams or Joseph Warren. His contempor- aries always spoke of his gift of eloquence as something never to be forgotten, and as of a higher strain than that of the other famous orators those times called forth. His voice is described as combining strength, sweetness and flexibility in an extraordinary manner, and old citizens have told me that they could hear him at the head of State Street when he was speaking in the Old South Church. *

Josiah Quincy Jr. was barely thirty-one years of age when he died, as truly perhaps, in the cause of his country, as his friend Warren, who fell, less than two months afterwards, at Bunker Hill. Their names have been com-

monly and not unjustly associated, together with that of James Otis, who had been already removed from active life by mental disease, as those of men to whom the revolution was largely owing, though they were not permitted to assist in its progress, or to witness its triumph." The sword which he wore as a part of his court dress is now in the possession of his great-grandson, Josiah P. Quincy. He married, October 26, 1769, Abigail Phillips, daughter of Hon. William Phillips, of Boston.

(VII) President Josiah (3) Quincy, only child of Josiah (2) Quincy, was born Febru- ary 4, 1772. At the age of six years he was sent by his mother to begin his education in Phillips Academy, Andover. After eight years there he entered Harvard College, graduating in 1790 with the highest honors of his class. He was admitted to the bar in 1793. It soon appeared, however, that he was destined to a more conspicuous career than that which is opened by the practice of law. He was elected to congress in 1805 as the candidate of the Federalist party, and stood from that time until 1813 a leading champion of the founda- tion principles of the Federal constitution, eloquently expounding and enforcing them on all questions of the day. These included the disposal to be made of slaves surreptitiously imported into the United States after the year 1808, the Embargo, the purchase of Louisiana, and the War of 1812. His party was all this time in a minority, calling the more for mingled discretion and courage on his part, and he proved himself fully equal to the call. Mr. Quincy retired from congress of his own accord, and for ten years devoted his energies to scientific farming on his ancestral estate at Quincy. (formerly Braintree), and to the exercise of a large hospitality there, partly toward strangers drawn to him by the attrac- tions of his home and personal character ; and to various personal objects in which he became interested in his native town, serving for seven or eight years out of the ten as state senator and representative to the general court. For about a year he was judge of the municipal court at Boston, and in that office had occa- sion to lay down for the first time a definition of libel which has since been universally adopted in this country and in England, namely, "that the publication of the truthi from good mnotives and for a justifiable end, is not libellous." From 1823 to 1828 he was. mayor of Boston, an eminent example of official devotedness, integrity, wisdom and taste. The next year after his retirement

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from the mayoralty he was chosen and inaug- urated president of Harvard College, the finances of the college were reduced to order, the library multiplied, and the new building for its reception erected, the observatory was established, the instruction of the college was enlarged and extended in every direction, and "in every particular he left the institution in a more flourishing condition, both as to pros- perity and usefulness than it had ever been from its foundation." He established new relations with the students of social juris- prudence, and administered the discipline of the college with a firmness, mingled with kind- ness, which secured him respect and affection. After the Commencement of 1845, when he was in his seventy-fourth year, he took leave of Cambridge and removed to Boston, between which city and his estate at Quincy he divided his years about equally. He took his farm again into his own hands and amused himself with conducting its economy for more than ten years, when he resigned it into the hands of his eldest son, and gave the leisure which the management of his own private affairs and of extensive trusts permitted him, to read- ing and his pen, and constant intercourse with society and his many friends. His life thus declined with gradual and almost unperceived decay in the society of his children, grand- children and friends, the most revered and honored man of the city where he lived, rounding out a life of singular freedom from misfortunes by an old age of extraordinary vigor and enjoyment. His interest in public affairs remained to the last and he was one of the few examples of a man keeping at least abreast of the times to an extreme old age. He was never accused even by his worst enemies of any selfseeking. His public spirit was real and his disinterestedness perfect. He died July 2, 1864, over ninety-two years of age ; born before the Revolution, he died soon before the close of the Civil War, he saw the growth and took part in the making of the American nation. There are two portraits of President Quincy by Gilbert Stuart, one of the year 1806, owned by the heirs of Edmund Quincy, of Dedham. A statue by Story stands in Memorial Hall, Sanders Theatre, at Harvard College; and another by Ball, pro- vided for in the will of the late Hon. Jonathan Phillips of Boston, is on Court Square, Boston.

President Quincy married, June 6, 1797, Eliza Susan, daughter of Colonel John Mor- ton, a native of the north of Ireland, one of

the most prominent and wealthy merchants of New York city before the revolution, an earnest and self-sacrificing patriot during the struggle for independence. Her mother was a daughter of Jacob Kemper, an immigrant from Germany to America in 1741, born at Bacharach, a fortified town of the Rhine, of which his father, Colonel Kemper, was mili- tary governor, the office being hereditary in the male line of the family. Of his mother her son writes: "She was characterized by great sensibility of temperament, qualified by sound judgment and infallible good sense, by a refined taste and love of literature, and man- ners at once dignified and engaging."

Children: 1. Eliza Susan, born in Boston, March 15, 1798, whose contributions to the history of this family have been drawn upon freely in this sketch; she added not a little to our knowledge of both private life and public affairs in New England colonial and provincial life ; she died at the family mansion at Quincy, January 17, 1884, aged nearly eighty-six years. 2. Josiah, born January 26, 1802; mentioned below. 3. Abigail Phillipa, never married. 4. Maria Sophia, never married. 5. Margaret Morton, married Benjamin Daniel Greene, May, 1826; died March 16, 1882. 6. Edmund, born February 1, 1808; married, October 14, 1833, Lucilla P. Parker ; graduate of Harvard 1827; died April 17, 1877. 7. Anna Cabot Lowell, married Rev. Robert C. Waterston, of Boston, in March, 1840; children: Helen Ruthven Waterston, Robert Waterston; both died young.

(VIII) Hon. Josiah (4) Quincy, son of President Josiah (3) Quincy, was born in Boston, January 26, 1802, and died November 2, 1882. He was educated in the public schools and at Harvard College, where he was graduated in the class of 1821. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar October 5, 1824, but preferred a business career. He was interested in various enterprises, and a busi- ness man of great ability and success. He was for many years treasurer of the Western rail- road, as that section of the Boston & Albany railroad west of Worcester was known formerly. He was treasurer of the Boston Atheneum, in the work of which he was greatly interested.

Like his distinguished father, he took a prominent part in public life. He was a mem- ber of the common council of Boston, and its president for three years. He was elected mayor in 1845, serving the city with signal ability and distinction until 1849, for three

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terms. His administration was notable for the introduction of the Cochituate Lake water supply ; the abolition of the liquor traffic under the prohibition law of the state; the reorgani- zation of the municipal police force ; the filling of a part of the Back Bay, which is now com- pleted, adding thousands of acres to the most valuable district of Boston; increasing the school accommodations and the number of female teachers in the schools; and the erec- tion of the Charles street jail. He was presi- dent of the state senate in 1842-44. In politics he was a Whig. "His sprighty mind always made him a favorite in society, and even in his old age it sparkled with reminiscences of younger days." He took an active interest in public affairs all his life. In later years he devoted himself to the organization and maintenance of co-operative societies. In religion he was a Unitarian. He was a mem- ber of the Wednesday Evening Club, a prom- inent social organization, and served upon many occasions of note as a presiding officer, among them a dinner given to Charles Dickens, the author, also a dinner given upon the arrival in Boston of the first Cunard steamship, and many other notable occasions.

He married, December 18, 1827, Mary Jane, daughter of Samuel R. Miller. Children: I. Josiah Phillips, born November 28, 1829 ; men- tioncd below. 2. Samuel Miller, born June 13, 1832 ; graduated at Harvard College, 1852; ad- mitted to the bar January 23, 1856; became editor of the Monthly Lawe Reporter ; was cap- tain in Second Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War, enlisting May 25, 1861 ; lieutenant- colonel Seventy-second United States Regiment ment Colored Troops, commissioned October 2 1863, promoted colonel May 24, 1864, and b: evet brigadier-general March 13, 1865 ; died unmarried, at Keene, New Hampshire, April 24, 1887. 3. Mary Apthorp, born August, 1834, deceased.

(IX) Josiah Phillips Quincy, son of Josiah and Mary Jane ( Miller ) Quincy, was born in Boston, November 28, 1829. He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1850. After admission to the bar he went into the real estate business. He removed his resi- dence to the then town of Quincy in 1858, and there conducted a large milk business, sending three carts daily to Boston. He resumed his residence in Boston in 1885. He married, December 23, 1858, Helen Fanny, born at Northampton, Massachusetts, daugh- ter of Judge Charles Phelps and Helen (Mills) Huntington. He was judge of the

superior court of Massachusetts.' Mr. Quincy has contributed to the daily and weekly press and to many magazines. During the civil war he wrote for the Anti-Slavery Standard, both in the editorial and correspondence depart- ments. He published "Lyteria," and "Chari- cles," dramatic poems ; also "Peckster Profes- sorship," "The Protection of Majorities," and other papers ; also several pamphlets upon cur- rent topics of discussion, and several memoirs of notable persons. At one time he lectured upon Education and other subjects. His chil- dren are: I. Josiah; see forward. 2. Helen, wife of James F. Muirhead ; children : Phillips Quincy, Langdon, Mabel. 3. Mabel, mar- ried Walter G. Davis, director of the Mete- orological Department of Argentine Repub- lic. 4. Fanny Huntington, married. M. A De Wolfe Howe, editor of the Youth's Com- panion; children: Quincy, born August 17, 1900; Helen Frances, January 11, 1905 ; Mark De Wolfe, May 22, 1906.

(X) Hon. Josiah Quincy, son of Josiah Phillips Quincy, was born at Quincy, October 15, 1859. He was fitted for college in the Adams Academy of Quincy, when Dr. Dimock was head-master, and graduated from Har- vard College in the class of 1880, of which President Roosevelt was also a member. After leaving college he served for a year as instruc- tor in the academy in which he had been a student, under Dr. William Everett, then the head-master. He studied law at Harvard Law School without completing the course, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1883, but he has never engaged in active practice in the courts.

He has been from his student days inter- ested in public affairs. In 1881 he was active in the movement for civil service reform, and became secretary of the Civil Service Reform League of Massachusetts. Two years later he was elected secretary of the Massachusetts Tariff Reform League. In the national cam- paign of 1884 he was an active member of the committee of one hundred, representing the independent voters who supported Cleve- land against Blaine, and since then has been a prominent Democrat. He was elected in 1886 to the general court from the Fifth Nor- folk Representative district, composed of the towns of Quincy and Weymouth, and served in the house in 1887 to 1888, retiring in 1888 to accept the Democratic nomination for con- gress in a strong Republican district. He was defeated, but was re-elected the next year as a member of the house of 1890 and again for 1891. During these four years in the general

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court he took a leading part in debate and was active in the work of the committee rooms, serving on the committees of labor, rules, cities, election laws, and woman suffrage, and also on two special investigating committees. During the last two years he was the recog- nized Democratic leader of the house. He was one of the organizers and original mem- bers of the Young Men's Democratic Club of Massachusetts in 1888. In 1890. the year in which Governor Russell was first elected, he was chosen secretary of the Democratic state committee ; in 1891 he became chairman of the executive committee, and in 1892 chair- man of the state committee, holding this posi- tion until 1894. In 1891 he gave up his resi- dence at Quincy and became a citizen of Bos- ton. In 1892 he was a delegate to the Demo- cratic national convention at Chicago, and was chosen by the delegation as the Massachusetts member of the Democratic national committee. He was made a member of the campaign com- mittee, and had charge of the preparation and distribution of documents and of the news- paper work of the campaign. Immediately after the inauguration of President Cleveland in March, 1893. he was offered the office of first assistant secretary of state, and accepted with the understanding that he would hold it for a limited time only, being unwilling to remain in Washington. As Secretary Gres- ham wished to devote his attention exclusively to the diplomatic service, Mr. Quincy under- took the reorganization of the consular service to bring it into harmony with the tariff reform ideas of the administration. After serving as assistant secretary for six months he resigned and returned to Massachusetts. In the winter of 1894 he was in Washington act- ing as counsel for the Argentine government in the preparation of its side of the boundary dispute between that country and Brazil, sub- mitted to President Cleveland as arbitrator.

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Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 65

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924