USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Historic Quincy, Massachusetts > Part 2
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Abigail Adams Cairn, Penn's Hill. Erected 1896
CHAPTER IV TOWN OF QUINCY; COLONEL JOHN QUINCY
AS EARLY as 1728, the question of political separation of the Town into "Two Towns" arose. For over sixty years persistent discussions continued at Town Meetings. About 1790, those who formed the first parish turned their attention seriously to the subject of dividing the town. On February 22, 1792, they were incorporated into a distinct town under the name of Quincy. Reverend Anthony Wibird, then minister of the First Parish Church, was requested to give a name to the place. On his refusal, a similar request was made to the Honor- able Richard Cranch, who recommended its being called Quincy in honor of Colonel John Quincy, who had been the owner of the Mount Wollaston Farm which had given the first civilized name to the place.
This member of the Quincy family was in the third generation from Edmund Quincy, the immigrant. John Quincy, the son of Daniel and Anna (Shepard) Quincy, was born in Boston, July 21, 1689. His father died the following year. On January 7, 1700, his mother married the Reverend Moses Fiske, third minister of the Church of Christ in Braintree.
Thus John Quincy, a boy of eleven years, became identified with Old Braintree. In 1708, he graduated from Harvard College. In the following year he inherited from his maternal grandmother, the daughter of William Tyng, her father's property, the original Mount Wollaston. Soon he took possession of the broad acres of Mount Wollaston or Merry Mount. In 1715, Elizabeth Norton, daughter of the Reverend John Norton, third minister of the old church in Hing- ham, became his wife.
For many years John Quincy was a member of the Suffolk regi- ment of Massachusetts, of which his grandfather, Edmund Quincy, at one time was Lieutenant-Colonel. As early as his twenty-sixth year, John Quincy was called "Colonel," a dignity conferred by popular brevet. His actual rank was that of a Major as commissioned by the Governor. His youthful appointment to this rank was highly compli- mentary and denoted social distinction and political advancement.
On August 3, 1716, "The inhabitants of Braintree chose Major John Quincy moderator for the day." Early appointed a justice of the peace, he was next commissioned as a special justice, then a justice of quorum, and finally a justice through the Province. In 1717, he was elected to represent Old Braintree in the General Court. When he was again elected in 1719, his unparalleled career as representative and moderator commenced. For twenty-two successive years, 1719 to 1741, he was returned to the House of Representatives with unfailing regularity; later he represented Braintree for five additional years. At forty-two town meetings he was chosen moderator.
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His personality, character and judgment so impressed his fellow representatives that they elected him Speaker of the House from 1729 to 1741. Later a marked distinction was paid him by his elevation to His Majesty's Council, in which he served nine years, a period which included some of the most trying episodes of the Provincial period.
During this time he was also serving his community in other posi- tions of trust, among them guardian, at their own request, of the Ponkapog Indians, a remnant of the Massachusetts tribe. For twenty- one years he dealt with these wards "as under the strongest obligations to be faithful."
At the age of sixty-five he retired to his farm at beautiful Mount Wollaston. There in the colonial homestead which he had erected on what is now Samoset Avenue near Sea Street, he passed the closing days of a busy and useful life.
Colonel John Quincy was the maternal grandfather of Abigail Smith who became the wife of President John Adams. On July 12, 1767, as old Colonel John Quincy lay dying, his day-old great-grand- son was baptized by the Reverend John Hancock, and named in honor of his great-grandfather, John Quincy Adams, at a service in the Hancock Meeting House. The following day in the seventy-eighth year of his life, Colonel John Quincy died. His grave in the Hancock Cemetery was appropriately marked in 1904 with a granite memorial by the Quincy Historical Society.
"In private life, Colonel John Quincy was exemplary; he adorned the Christian profession by a holy life, a strict observance of the Lord's day, and a constant attendance upon the public ordinances of religion, - in one word he was a gentleman true to his trust, dili- gent and active in public business, punctual in promises and appoint- ments, just towards all men, and devout towards God."
It was in honor of this sturdy Provincial patriot that Richard Cranch recommended that the separated North Precinct be known as Quincy. On the twenty-second day of February, 1792, one hundred and fifty-two years lacking three months after its original incorpora- tion as Braintree, the General Court enacted, "That the lands com- prised within the North Precinct of the Town of Braintree, as the same is now bounded, with the inhabitants dwelling thereon, be, and they are hereby incorporated into a town by the name of Quincy." The following day Governor John Hancock approved the act incorporating his birthplace as the Town of Quincy.
The name of Quincy, however, was not wholly acceptable. At the town meeting of May 14, 1792, the opposition name was proposed, - Hancock, in honor of John Hancock, a native born and living man, then at the height of his popularity as governor of the Commonwealth of. Massachusetts. The records show that the discussion which ensued was long and exciting. At the close of the debate, the motion to peti-
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tion the General Court for an alteration of name was defeated. The original appellation was thus confirmed. Today seventeen localities in the United States bear the name Quincy.
"Quincy in truth, seems the one name congenial to the spirit and history of this locality, deep-rooted in chivalrous Norman life, trans- planted here with the first settlers, associated with much that is fine and high in those who bore it, and in utterance full and dignified. It is a distinction to be called of Quincy."
The first town-meeting of Quincy was held March 8, 1792, at which the following town officers were chosen: Town Clerk, Ebenezer Vesey; Town Treasurer, Thomas B. Adams; Selectmen and Assessors, Ebenezer Miller, Benjamin Beale, Jr., Captain John Hall; Constable, Joseph N. Arnold; Fence Viewers, Lieutenant Peter Brackett, Lieuten- ant Jonathan Baxter; Surveyors of Highways, Lieutenant Peter Brack- ett, Ebenezer Nightingale, Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter, Ensign Sam- uel Bass, Jonathan Beale; Hogreaves, Peter Adams, 2d, John Sanders; Tithingmen, William Adams, William Sanders; Surveyor of Boards and Stileworks, Lieutenant Thomas Pratt; Surveyor of Hemp, John Billings; Packer of Beef, Ebenezer Adams; Culler of Fish, Captain Samuel Brown; Bread Weigher, Deacon Jonathan Webb; Sealer of Leather, Thomas Cleverly, Jr .; Hay Wards, John Nightingale, Lemuel Billings; Fire Wards, Edward W. Baxter, Samuel Nightingale.
At the date of its incorporation, February 22, 1792, the Town of Quincy had a population of nine hundred, made up of less than two hundred families.
Old Braintree and Quincy were a part of Suffolk County until March 26, 1793, when the present Norfolk County was established.
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Adams Mansion - 1787
Adams Mansion - 1944
CHAPTER V NATIONAL TRADITIONS; NINETEENTH CENTURY
, DURING the nineteenth century, four major contributions affect- ing the history of the United States were made by men of Old Brain- tree and Quincy.
The reorganization of the United States Military Academy was carried out by Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer, a military genius, who became known to history as the "Father of West Point."
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was primarily the work of John v Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, who wished "to make an American cause and adhere inflexibly to that." The prolonged fight of John Quincy Adams for Freedom of Speech and the Right of Pe- tition, in the repeal of the so called "Gag Laws," is one of the most dramatic contests in the history of the Congress of the United States.
A famous friendly settlement of an international controversy was the Geneva Tribunal of 1871-1872, in which the Honorable Charles Francis Adams, Minister to Great Britain 1861-1868, was American Arbitrator. Here he initiated an illustrious pattern for arbitration between nations, a victory for civilization. "None of our generals in the field, not even Grant himself," asserted James Russell Lowell, "did us better or more trying service than he (Charles Francis Adams) in his forlorn outpost of London."
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113111
Hancock Meeting House
QUINCY CENTER - 1822
Town House
CHAPTER VI THE TOWN HOUSE OF QUINCY 1844
NOVEMBER 1, 1944, marked the One Hundredth Anniversary of the completion and the occupancy of the Town House of Quincy.
Fifty-one years previous to the building of the Town House, the inhabitants of Quincy at their Town Meeting of April 11, 1793, had voted to build a School House. At their Town Meeting of Novem- ber 16, 1795, Lt. Elijah Veazie, Moses Black, and Benjamin Beale were chosen a committee to build the School House at a cost of one thousand dollars, on the Training Field which included the present site of the First Parish Church, a part of Washington Street, and a large share of Temple Street.
This School House was a plain two-story building which stood about one hundred feet north of the Hancock Meeting House. The upper story of this building was used as the Town Hall.
The first Town Meeting held in this hall was on December 8, 1796. This building was entirely destroyed by fire, December 29, 1815.
During the first six months of 1816, a spirited controversy waged relative to a location for a new combination Town House and School House. Finally, on July 16, 1816, it was voted to purchase "a lot of Mr. Briesler's adjoining the burying ground, which measures fifty square rods, five feet. The price six dollars per rod; the whole cost of said piece of land, three hundred and nine dollars." The Town House and School House was completed on July 21, 1817, at a cost of two thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven dollars and nineteen cents. It is of interest to note that the Town of Quincy "hired" money for the first time on August 3, 1816, to finance the building of the Town House and School House.
In 1842, this building was moved to a site on Coddington Street, near the Coddington School. The land on which it had stood was added to the now Hancock Cemetery. Fourteen years later the build- ing was removed nearly to its old site, and remodeled. In 1872, the old Town Hall was the seat of the District Court of East Norfolk, and later the headquarters of the Young Men's Christian Association. This building exists today and is known as the Central Building.
The subject of a new Town House was a prominent one during the year of 1841. During the following three years many exciting meetings were held at which the location and plans for the Town House were "hotly" discussed. At the Town Meeting of February 9, 1844, a committee of five, consisting of Daniel Baxter, John Souther,
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Town Hall -- 1875
City Hall of Quincy - 1900
Benjamin Page, James Newcomb, and George Veazie, were chosen to procure a suitable plan for a Town House, of wood or stone, and estimates of the same. On April 18, 1844, the town voted to purchase the lot of land offered by Daniel French for one thousand dollars, and ordered that the Town House should be built of stone. (At that time stone was synonymous with Quincy Granite.) At the same Town Meeting the following were added to the building committee: Solo- mon Willard, Henry Wood, George W. Beale, William Torrey, Abel Wright, Thompson Baxter, Levi G. Folsom, Ebenezer Jewett, Jona- than Jameson, and John A. Simpson.
On the following day, April 19, 1844, Daniel French and his wife, Hannah French, deeded to the Town of Quincy the present site of City Hall with the following stipulation, "Always however upon this condition that the said parcel of land shall not be used for any other purpose than as a place for a Town House for the said Inhabitants; and upon any breach of this condition, this conveyance shall be void to all intents and purposes."
The following notice appeared in the Quincy Patriot of April 27, 1844: "To Contractors. Sealed proposals will be received by the Build- ing Committee until next Monday, the sixth day of May next at two o'clock in the afternoon, for furnishing and delivering on the spot, all materials for building a Stone House, fifty by eighty feet, and thirty-five feet, four inches in height, the front end and the two sides to be of dressed blue Granite of uniform color, the back end to be of rough Ashlar, and the whole to be laid in cement, together with about one hundred perches of stone for the cellar.
"Proposals will be received for furnishing the stone for the cellar, for the front, for either side, and for the back, separate, or the whole together.
"The whole of the mason work, including the cellar, must be on contract. For furnishing the lumber, etc., and Carpenter's work, separate proposals must be made.
"Bonds satisfactory to the Committee will be required of contrac- tors for the fulfilment of their contract.
"Said building to be finished on or before the first day of Novem- ber next, in a workmanlike manner, satisfactorily to the Committee.
"Specifications and plans may be seen at the office of Mr. Solomon Willard.
"Per order of the Building Committee
"John Souther, Chairman."
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Later the Quincy Patriot reported: "The Building Committee of the Town House have effected a contract for the building of a Town House which will be one of the most elegant edifices in New England. The Town House will be fifty feet by eighty feet and thirty-five feet six inches to the eaves, of fine hammered stone, the front to be like the Merchants Exchange in State Street, Boston, having four beautiful fluted pilasters and handsome capitals with architrave frieze and cor- nice - the sides to be finely hammered, and laid in Ashlar courses sixteen inches rise.
"The Hall will have four large windows on both sides, each con- taining fifty square feet of glass. There will be an office or store in each front corner, and another room in the rear of them, which will take up about one-half of the room on the first floor. The remainder will make a commodious lecture or lyceum room, nearly twice as large as the old Town Hall, the entrance to which will be on the south side of the building.
"The Town Hall will be forty-six by seventy feet in the clear including the gallery, which is to be over the Committee Room and the whole will be capable of seating twelve hundred persons."
EXPENSE OF BUILDING NEW TOWN HOUSE
REPORT OF TOWN TREASURER, TOWN MEETING, MARCH 3, 1845
Town Records, 1844 - 1880. Volume 4, Pages 26 and 27.
Daniel French, Land for Town House $1,000.00
Solomon Willard, Drawing plans and Superintending the building for five months. 280.00
James B. Perkins, Materials and Carpenter's work
4,654.18
Extra alterations in desk, glass, etc. 145.91
Joseph B. Whitcher, Contract for Front of Building Interest on same 15.00
4,244.00
Extra lettering and fitting in their stone
96.75
Rowland Owens, Contract for One Side of Building 2,375.00
2,300.00
Wright and Barker, Contract for One Side of Building Contract for Cellar Stone
273.70
Extra fitting in their stone, 41 days at $2.25 per day Ebenezer Jewett, Contract for Rear of Building
600.00
Interest on same 4.78
2,200.00
William N. Gardner, Stone, Mason Work and Materials Extra Bill 60.25
92.25
Nathan Goss, Extra labor, lewising stone per order of Solomon Willard, 75 days at $1.75 per day ............. 132.56 Labor 36.56
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H. G. Emery, Fitting stone, 22 days at $2.00 per day. .... 44.00
John Adams, Fitting stone, 22 days at $2.00 per day. 44.00
A. Wentworth, Free stone
2.69
Thomas Patson, Soap stone.
2.87
Josiah Savil, For clamps, etc.
169.88
Samuel Thomas, For slate
27.25
Joseph F. Wiggins, Carting slate.
2.00
J. S. Carr, Carting slate.
2.00
John Briesler, Lead
.88
Thompson Baxter, Services on Building Committee. For writing, etc.
10.61
Joseph French, Superintending 341/2 days at $1.75 per day
60.37
G. Clements, Five days on the Building Committee
7.50
Benjamin Page, Superintending and Carpentery work
12.00
Thomas Adams, Digging celler and digging around the Town House at $1.35 per square
162.00
C. L. Badger, Drawing plans, 111/4 days at $1.75 per day
19.69
George H. French, Use of rooms for Committee
17.00
Total Cost of Town House $19,115.93
It is of interest to note that the granite for each side of the Town House was furnished by a different contractor.
The Town House of Quincy remains in use today as Quincy's City Hall, a great tribute to the enduring qualities of Quincy granite, to Solomon Willard, the architect and superintendent, and to the work- manship of that day 71958
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20.25
CHAPTER VII THE CITY OF QUINCY
WITH the startling increase of industry and commerce, the Quincy of the eighties was no longer a quiet agricultural village. Its town government -- an ideally democratic institution in which freedom of speech had prevailed - was outgrown and outmoded. Municipal func- tions, as well as population, had multiplied. Centralized adminis- tration and responsibility were essential.
A charter drafted by two eminent Quincy men, Josiah Quincy, sixth of the name, and Sigourney Butler, enacted by the Legislature May 17, 1888 (Chapter 347, Acts of Massachusetts, 1888), adopted by the town (by a vote of 812 in favor, to 454 against) at a special town- meeting held on the 11th of June of the same year, provided that "the inhabitants of the town of Quincy shall continue to be a body politic and corporate under the name of the 'City of Quincy'; that the administration of all the fiscal, prudential and municipal affairs of said city, with the government thereof, shall be vested in an executive department which shall consist of one officer to be called the mayor, and in a legislative department which shall consist of a single body to be called the city council, the members whereof shall be called councilmen. The mayor and councilmen shall be elected annually. The executive department shall never exercise any legislative power, and the legislative department shall never exercise any executive power. The territory of the city shall be divided into six wards. The general management and control of the public schools of said city shall be vested solely in a school committee, consisting of members at large and members from wards, who shall serve without pay and shall be elected from the inhabitants."
The charter simply substituted a single executive for the Board of three Selectmen, and established the council as the legislative body in place of Town Meeting. The fundamental principle of the charter was the distinct line of demarcation consistently preserved through- out between the executive and legislative functions and responsibility.
To the mayor the charter gave more arbitrary powers within his department than had ever in the United States been entrusted to the executive head of any organization classed as political. Under the charter the absolute power of appointing and removing all municipal officers was conferred upon the mayor exclusively, irrespective of the legislative department excepting only the members of the council, officials appointed by the governor, the members of the school com- mittee, which constituted a co-ordinate and independent branch of the executive department, and the auditor of accounts and comp- troller, if any, the latter officers being chosen by the council to act as a check upon the executive.
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The original city council of Quincy consisted of twenty-three councilmen, five elected at large by and from the qualified voters of the whole city voting in their respective wards, and three elected from each of the six wards of the city by and from the qualified voters in each ward.
The framers of the charter in distributing the powers and func- tions of the city government of Quincy followed the maxim that "De- liberation is the work of many, Execution is the work of one."
Twenty-eight years later, on November 7, 1916, a new City Char- ter, Plan A. Government by Mayor and City Council Elected at Large (Chapter 267, General Acts of Massachusetts, 1915), was accepted by the citizens of Quincy.
PART II. PLAN A. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
Section 1. The method of the city government provided for in this part shall be known as Plan A.
Section 2. Upon the adoption of Plan A by a city in the manner prescribed by this act, such plan shall become operative as provided in Part 1; and in its powers of government shall be exercised as is prescribed herein and in Part 1.
Section 3. There shall be a mayor, elected by and from the qualified voters of the city, who shall be the chief executive officer of the city. He shall hold office for the term of two years from the first Monday of January following his election, and until his successor is elected and qualified.
Section 4. No ballot used in any annual or special or city election shall have printed thereon any party or political designation or mark, and there shall not be appended to the name of any candidate any such party or political designation or mark, or anything showing how he was nominated or indicating his views or opinions.
Section 5. The legislative powers of the city shall be vested in a city council, which shall consist of nine persons, elected at large by and from the qualified voters of the city. One of its members shall be elected by the council annually as its president. At the first elec- tion held in a city after its adoption of Plan A, the five candidates receiving the largest number of votes shall hold office for two years, and the four receiving the next largest number of votes shall hold office for one year. Thereafter, as these terms expire, there shall be elected at each annual city election a sufficient number of members to fill the vacancies created by the expiration of said terms, each of the members so elected to serve for a term of two years.
Section 6. The mayor shall receive for his services such salary as the city council shall by ordinance determine, not exceeding five thousand dollars a year, and he shall receive no other compensation from the city. His salary shall not be increased or diminished during the term for which he is elected. The council may, by a two thirds
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act the councillors elected from each ward shall be elected to serve for one year, and those elected at large shall be elected to serve for two years, from the first Monday in January following their election and until their successors are elected and qualified; and at each annual city election thereafter the councillors elected to fill vacancies caused by the expiration of terms shall be elected to serve for two years. When- ever the number of wards of the city is increased, the number of mem- bers of the city council shall be correspondingly increased, and at the first municipal election after the creation of a new ward a councillor shall be elected by and from the qualified voters of the new ward, to serve for two years from the first Monday in. January following his election. Whenever by reason of an increase in the number of wards the number of members of the city council would be increased to an even number, an additional councillor shall be elected at large by and from the qualified voters of the city to serve for two years from the first Monday of the following January.
Section 2. The term of office of the members of the city council in office at the time of acceptance of this act shall expire on the first Monday in January following said acceptance.
Section 3. Section five of Part II of chapter two hundred and sixty-seven of the General Acts of nineteen and fifteen, relating to Plan A, in so far as it is inconsistent with the provisions of this act shall not apply to the city of Quincy; provided, however, that except as changed by this act, the form of municipal government now in force in said city, and the special laws relating thereto shall continue in force until amended or repealed.
Section 4. This act shall be submitted to the registered voters of the city of Quincy at the next state election and shall take effect upon its acceptance by a majority of the voters voting thereon. The act shall be submitted in the form of the following question to be placed upon the ballot: "Shall an act of the general court, passed in the current year relative to ward representation in the city council of the city of Quincy be accepted?" Yes-No. Approved March 24, 1920. Accepted November 2, 1920 by voters of City.
Chapter 17. Acts of 1926.
An Act relative to preliminary elections for the nomination of candidates for elective municipal office in the City of Quincy.
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