USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston.. > Part 21
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Gage's well-known proclamation was thus humorously hit off soon after its appearance : -
"Tom Gage's Proclamation, Or blustering Denunciation, (Replete with Defamation, And speedy Jugulation, Of the New England Nation), Who shall his pious ways shun.
" Thus graciously the war I wage, As witnesseth my hand -
TOM GAGE."
Sir William Howe, as Gage's military successor, took up his quarters at the Province House, and occupied it during the winter of 1775-76. As the siege had now begun, its position was central and well adapted for communication with the works at the Neck, or at Copp's Hill, from which it was about equally distant. The "Governour's House " now presented a busy scene, and so indeed did the neighborhood. The dragoons held possession of the Old South. The orderlies' horses stood hitched in front of the general's quarters, and armed heel and sabre clattered up and down the broad staircase, bringing re- ports from the various outposts.
Howe was a good soldier, but not an enterprising one. He had fought with Wolfe at Quebec as lieutenant-colonel, receiving the grade of major-general in 1772. During the siege he coolly gave the order to occupy or pull down churches or dwellings as necessity dictated. He has been much execrated for setting fire to Charlestown, but the fire kept up from some of the houses justified the act in a military view. Finally Howe effected the withdrawal of his army without loss from Boston, by making the safety of the town a guaranty of his own. His after career in America was measurably successful ; defeating Washington at Long Island and White Plains, he took posses- sion of New York, while the battles of Brandywine and Ger- mantown gave him Philadelphia. He was relieved by his old comrade Sir H. Clinton, and returned home in 1778, when an official inquiry was made into his conduct. Howe's address- to his troops before the battle of Bunker Hill is a soldierly document.
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"Gentlemen, - I am very happy in having the honor of com- manding so fine a body of men ; I do not in the least doubt that you will behave like Englishmen, and as becometh good soldiers.
"If the enemy will not come from their intrenchments, we must drive them out, at all events, otherwise the town of Boston will be set on fire by them.
" I shall not desire one of you to go a step further than where I go myself at your head.
" Remember, gentlemen, we have no recourse to any resources if we lose Boston, but to go on board our ships, which will be very disagreeable to us all."
There is every reason to believe Sir William's military duties did not prevent his exercising a generous hospitality. The hall of audience has no doubt resounded with mirth and music when the general received. There were his royalist neighbors, the Mascarenes, Harrison Gray, the Boutineaus and Master Lovell, with many kindred spirits of the court party. There were Clinton, Burgoyne, the noble Percy, and many more of the army and navy to grace the levees of their commander by their presence. The buzz of conversation ceases as Sir William leads out some beautiful tory for the stately minuet, an ex- ample speedily followed by his guests. Perhaps amid the strains of the Fusileer's band strikes in the deep diapason of the continental cannon.
The coming of the troops into Boston made formidable innovations in the customs and dress of the old founders. The sad-colored garments and high-crowned hats gave place to velvet coat, ruffles, and cocked hat. Gentlemen of condition wore the small sword in full dress, with a gold-headed cane to set off the lace depending from their sleeves. A gentleman's ball dress was a white coat, trimmed with silver basket but- tons, collar and button-holes crossed with silver lace. Or, a coat of blue or scarlet cloth trimmed with gold might serve a gallant of the period. His hair was craped and powdered. A satin embroidered waistcoat reaching below the hips, with small clothes of the same material, gold or silver knee-bands, white silk stockings, and high-heeled morocco shoes, with buckles of some precious metal, completed a truly elegant attire.
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The ladies wore a sacque with a long trail petticoat hand- somely trimmed. Satin shoes with paste or metal buckle con- fined delicate feet. The hair was craped and ornamented according to fancy, and profusely sprinkled with white powder. The gown was set off to advantage by two or three tiers of ruffles. Such was court dress, and court etiquette prevailed. The manners were distinguished for stiffness and formality, relaxing a little under the influence of the ballroom. The last queen's ball was held February 22, 1775.
Our reader will care little to know who originally owned the ground whereon stood the Province House. Peter Sargeant built it in the year 1679, and the Provincial Legislature became its purchaser in 1716. After the Revolution it was occupied by the Treasurer and other officers of the Commonwealth. When the building was reconstructed in 1851, old copper coins of the reign of the Georges, and some even of as old date as 1612, were taken from the floors and ceilings, where they had lain perdu since dropped by a careless functionary, or perhaps from the breeches pocket of my Lord Howe. Ancient-look- ing bottles of Holland make were found too, suggestive of Schnapps and Dutch courage. Burnet perchance may have inherited the weakness with his Dutch blood.
After the adoption of the State Constitution it became a. " Government House." The easterly half was occupied by the Governor and Council, Secretary of State and Receiver-General. The other half was the dwelling of the Treasurer. The State was inclined to keep up the character of the Province House by making it the governor's official residence, and voted sums of money for the purpose. In 1796 the Commonwealth, being then engaged in building the present State House, sold the Pro- vince House to John Peck, but it reverted back to the State in 1799, Peck being unable to fulfil his part of the contract.
Governor Caleb Strong occupied it after his election in 1800. He had been active in promoting the cause of the Revolution, and took part in all the prominent measures of organization of the body politic at its end. He was in the United States Senate in 1789 - 97. In 1812 he was again elected governor.
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THE OLD SOUTH AND PROVINCE HOUSE.
Being a strong Federalist, he refused to answer the calls made upon him for troops by the general government, but took measures to protect the State from invasion. The old revolu- tionary works at South Boston were strengthened and manned, and a new one erected on Noddle's Island in 1814, which bore the governor's name. This conflict between State and Federal authority forms a curious chapter in the political history of the times.
Governor Strong is described as a tall man, of moderate ful- ness ; of rather long visage, dark complexion, and blue eyes. He wore his hair loose combed over his forehead, and slightly powdered. He had nothing of the polish of cities in his de- meanor, but a gentle complaisance and kindness.
In 1811 the Massachusetts General Hospital was incorpo- rated and endowed by the State with the Province House. The trustees of the institution leased the estate, in 1817, to David Greenough for ninety-nine years, who, erecting the stores in its front, converted it to the uses of trade. It be- came a tavern, a hall of negro minstrelsy, and was finally destroyed by fire in October, 1864.
Some relics of this venerable and historic structure remain. The Indian came into the possession of Henry Greenough, Esq., of Cambridge, and was permitted to remain some time in the hands of the late Dr. J. C. Warren, of Park Street, but at his decease no traces of it could be discovered, much to the regret of its owner. Perhaps it is still in existence. The royal arms are in the possession of the Historical Society. Colonel Ben- jamin Perley Poore became the possessor of much of the cedar wainscot and of the porch. The panelling he has devoted to the finish of a pre-Revolutionary suite of rooms, while the porch forms the entrance to his garden at Indian Hill, West Newbury.
The grand staircase down which Hawthorne's ghostly pro- cession descended led to apartments devoted to domestic uses. The massive oaken timbers were memorials of the stanch and solid traits of the builders. Here Shute brooded and fumed ; here Burnet wrote and Bernard plotted ; and here Gage and Howe planned and schemed in vain. All have passed away.
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The Blue Bell and Indian Queen tavern stood on each side of a passage formerly leading from Washington Street to Haw- ley. Nathaniel Bishop kept it in 1673, which entitles it to be · ranked with the old ordinaries. The officers from the Province House and Old South often dropped in to take their cognac neat. The landlady, at this time, a stanch whig, had the re- pute of an amazon. Some officers one day, exciting her ire by calling for brandy under the name of "Yankee blood," she seized a spit and drove them from her house. Zadock Pomeroy kept the inn in 1800. About 1820 the Washington Coffee House was erected in place of the Indian Queen, but it, too, has vanished. It will be remembered as the starting-place of the old Roxbury Hourlies. No. 158 indicates the site, corre- sponding with the Parker Block.
Another Indian Queen was in Bromfield's Lane, since Street. Isaac Trask kept it, and after him Nabby, his widow, until 1816. Simeon Boyden was next proprietor ; Preston Shepard in 1823, afterwards of the Pearl Street House ; and W. Mun- roe. This was the late Bromfield House, now occupied by a handsome granite block styled the Wesleyan Association Build- ing. It was a great centre for stages while they continued to run. The likeness of an Indian princess gave the name to old and new tavern.
The Bromfield House site becomes important as the birth- place of Thomas Cushing, lieutenant-governor under Hancock and Bowdoin, friend and coworker in the patriot cause with · Adams, Otis, and Warren. The British Ministry ascribed great influence to Cushing. He was member both of the Provincial and Continental Congresses, and commissary-general in 1775. Governor Cushing was a member of the Old South. He died in 1788, and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.
A few paces from the site of the old Indian Queen, or, ac- cording to the present landmarks, 166 Washington Street, was the abode of the gifted Josiah Quincy, Jr., and the birthplace of his son, Josiah, who is best known to Boston as the greatest of her chief magistrates. Uriah Cotting, Charles Bulfinch, and Josiah Quincy are the triumvirate who, by waving their magi-
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THE OLD SOUTH AND PROVINCE HOUSE.
cian's wand, changed Boston from a straggling provincial town into a metropolis.
Josiah Quincy, Jr., died at the early age of thirty-one, while returning from a voyage to England, undertaken partly for the benefit of his health. He was constitutionally delicate, and his mental strength far exceeded his physical. He was chosen, with John Adams, by Captain Preston, to defend him on his trial for the Massacre in King Street, and did defend him with all his ability, notwithstanding his own father warmly opposed his undertaking it. Mr. Quincy was possessed of high oratorical powers. The phlegmatic John Adams named him the Boston Cicero ; his political writings, begun in the Boston Gazette of October, 1767, are full of fire and patriotic fervor. When in England he was, with Franklin, singled out for a brutal allusion by Lord Hillsborough, who declared they "ought to be in Newgate or at Tyburn." His strength proved unequal to the voyage, and he breathed his last within sight of his native land only a few days after the battle of Lexington.
" Ask ye what thoughts
Convulsed his soul, when his dear native shores,
Thronged with the imagery of lost delight,
Gleamed on his darkening eye, while the hoarse wave
Uttered his death dirge, and no hand of love Might yield its tender trembling ministry ?"
Josiah Quincy, Jr. is said to have been the first Boston lawyer who put up a sign-board over his door.
Josiah Quincy succeeded Mr. Phillips as mayor in 1823, over his competitor Otis. We have paid a tribute to his forecast and enterprise already. To him is due the establishment of Houses of Industry and Reformation. Commercial Street completed his transformation of the Town Dock region. Under him the Fire Department was founded in 1827. After a long and useful public service in city, State, and national councils, Mr. Quincy took the presidency of Harvard University in 1829, where he continued in office until 1845.
At the annual festival of the public schools of Boston in Faneuil Hall, August, 1826, and on completion of the granite market-house, Judge Story, being present, volunteered the fol- 11 *
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lowing sentiment, -" May the fame of our honored mayor prove as durable as the material of which the beautiful market- house is constructed." On which, quick as light, the mayor responded, " That stupendous monument of the wisdom of our forefathers, the Supreme Court of the United States; in the event of a vacancy, may it be raised one story higher." * . This pun has also been attributed to Edward Everett.
Benjamin Hichborn, another Revolutionary patriot, next oc- cupied the premises made vacant by the Quincys. He was a graduate of Harvard, and an eminent member of the Suffolk bar. For his zeal in his country's cause he was imprisoned on board a British vessel, the Preston, lying in Boston harbor. Mr. Hichborn was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He was colonel of the Cadets in 1778, and marched at their head into Rhode Island. In the year following he had the misfortune to be connected with an unfortunate accident which caused the death of his friend, Benjamin Andrews. The gentlemen were exam- ining some pistols, Mrs. Andrews being present. One of the weapons, incautiously handled, was discharged, taking effect in Mr. Andrews's head, causing death in a few minutes.
* Quincy's Life.
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CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE OLD SOUTH ROUND FORT HILL.
Birthplace of Franklin. - James Boutineau. -- Bowdoin Block. - Hawley Street. - Devonshire and Franklin Streets. - Joseph Barrell. - The Ton- tine. - Boston Library. - Cathedral of the Holy Cross. - Bishop Cheve- rus. - Federal Street Theatre. - Some Account of Early Theatricals in Boston. - Kean, Finn, Macready, etc. - John Howard Paine. - Federal Street Church. - The Federal Convention. - Madam Scott. - Robert Treat Paine. - Thomas Paine. - Congress Street. - Quaker Church and Burying-Ground. - Sketch of the Society of Friends in Boston. - Mer- chants' Hall. - Governor Shirley's Funeral. - Fire of 1760. - Pearl Street. - The Ropewalks. - The Grays. - Conflicts between the Rope-Makers and the Regulars. - Pearl Street House. - Spurzheim. - Washington Alls- ton. - Theophilus Parsons. - T. H. Perkins. - Governor Oliver. - Quincy Mansion. - Governor Gore. - Liverpool Wharf. - Tea Party and Incidents of. - The Sconce. - Governor Andros Deposed. - Sun Tavern. - Fort Hill.
W E enter on Milk Street, the ancient Fort Street, con- ducting from the governor's house to the Sconce, or South Battery, -a route we now propose to follow.
Before we come to Hawley Street we see a granite edifice with " Birthplace of Franklin" standing out in bold relief from the pediment. No new light has been shed upon this interesting question since we left the Blue Ball. It is enough that we honor the philosopher's name in many public places, - no locality may claim him. Apropos of Franklin, when he was at the court of his most Christian Majesty, he soon became the rage, not only of court circles, but of the capital. Presents flowed in upon him, which he, with ready tact, contrived to share with his fellow-commissioners, so as to avoid the appear- ance of invidious distinction. Among other things, there came to his lodgings a superb gift of fruits, labelled " Le digne Frank- lin." "This time," said Silas Deane, "you cannot pretend this is not for you alone." "Not so," said Franklin ; "the French-
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men cannot master our American names ; it is, plainly, Lee, Deane, Franklin, that is meant."
Arthur Lee, Franklin's fellow-commissioner, composed eight lines of the famous Liberty Song of John Dickinson, which the latter sent James Otis, upon news that the Legislature of Massachu- setts refused to rescind the resolve to send a circular letter calling a convention of the sister colonies to oppose taxation without representation. It was printed in the Pennsyl- vania Chronicle, July 4, 1768, and is the earliest of the Revolutionary lyrics FRANKLIN'S BIRTHPLACE. that boldly speaks of in-
dependence and union.
" Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all ; By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall ; In so righteous a cause let us hope to succeed, For Heaven approves of each generous deed. Our purses are ready, - Steady, friends, steady, - Not as slaves, but as freemen, our money we'll give."
The old house here represented is a quaint specimen of the old order of buildings. It was burnt December 29, 1810, shortly after a drawing had been secured. Old Josiah Frank- lin, the father of Benjamin, was a native of England, and by trade a silk-dyer ; he became a respectable soap-boiler and tallow-chandler in Boston. Benjamin was born on the 6th of January, 1706, and is upon the church records as having received baptism the same day. Upon this is founded the claim of the old house to be the place of his nativity. The sign of the statue of Faust, displayed by the present occupants of the Birthplace of Franklin, is the same used by Thomas
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and Andrews in years gone by at the old stand in Newbury Street.
Opposite to us, and just below, is the "Old South Block," built upon the site of the parsonage in 1845. Next below is Sewall Block, which covers the site of the mansion of James Boutineau, a royalist, who departed from Boston in the train of Howe. Boutineau married Peter Faneuil's sister, Susannah, and was, like Faneuil, descended from the French Huguenots. He was a lawyer and managed the case of his son-in-law, Rob- inson, - the same who assaulted James Otis ; his house, a brick mansion, stood a little removed from the street, with the usual flagged walk, shaded by trees, leading up to it.
" Bowdoin Block " has a noteworthy record. It stands at the east corner of Hawley Street, once known as Bishop's Alley, probably from Bishop of the Blue Bell, and also as Boarded Alley, - from its having been boarded over at one time, - a name our readers will see reproduced in a lane leading from Hanover Street to North. On the corner of the alley, Seth Adams once carried on printing ; his son was the first post- rider to Hartford, and rode hard to carry the post in four days. In this same Boarded Alley was established the first theatre in Boston, of which more hereafter.
Morton Place was named at the request of Thomas Kilby Jones, whose wife was a Morton, and not for Governor Morton, as has been supposed. It was here Payne, father of John How- ard, kept a school, before Morton Place was constructed.
On the site of Bowdoin Block was another old-time mansion, which belonged at one time to James Bowdoin, son of the governor, minister to Madrid in 1808. He was once a merchant in State Street, occupying a row of three stores with John Coffin Jones and Thomas Russell. He was a man of highly cultivated intellectual tastes, but of slender habit. He filled many offices within the State before his appointment to the court of Madrid. James Bowdoin was a munificent patron of Bowdoin College, to which he gave lands, money, and his valu- able library and philosophical apparatus collected abroad. His widow, also his cousin, married General Henry Dearborn, and
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both resided there until their decease. This house was also the birthplace of the Hon. R. C. Winthrop ; it became afterwards a hotel called the Mansion House.
Devonshire Street has swallowed up the old Theatre Alley, which conducted by a narrow and by no means straight way to Franklin Street, by the rear of the old Boston Theatre, - hence its name. Besides Pudding Lane, a name borrowed from old London, Devonshire Street, meaning that part lying north of Milk Street, has been known as Jolliffe's Lane. Where the new Post-Office is was once an old inn called the Stackpole House, first the mansion of William Stackpole, and afterwards kept as a tavern by Rouillard of the Julien. It was a large brick building, - end to the street with court-yard in front.
Previous to the year 1792 all the lower part of Franklin Street was a quagmire. No greater change has taken place in Boston than the conversion of this swamp into useful, solid ground. Joseph Barrell, Esq., whose estate was on Summer Street, first drained the slough for a garden, in which he had built a fish-pond, amply stocked with gold-fish. Where the old Boston Theatre stood was a large distillery, and behind it a pasture extending between Summer and Milk Streets as far as Hawley Street.
This Joseph Barrell, whose handsome grounds and mansion became afterwards the property of Benjamin Bussey, was a pioneer in the northwest coast trade, which opened such a magnificent field to American commerce. He with others fitted out the first Boston vessels which doubled Cape Horn. They were the Columbia, Captain Kendrick, and Washington, Captain Gray. The captains exchanged vessels at sea, and the Columbia's was the first keel that passed the bar of the great river, which now bears the name of Captain Gray's vessel, the Columbia.
The improvement was carried out by Charles Bulfinch, Wil- liam Scollay, and Charles Vaughan. The Legislature refused to incorporate the projectors on the Tontine plan, but the im- provement was afterwards carried successfully through, with some modification. A block of sixteen handsome buildings,
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designed for dwellings, was erected in 1793, and called the "Crescent," or "Tontine." It has been mentioned that this was the first block of buildings erected in Boston. The name " Tontine " signified an association for building purposes on the annuity plan, as practised in Europe. A large arch penetrated the block, flanked by buildings on either side, standing a little in advance of the rest ; these were ornamented with pilasters and balustrade. The opposite side of the street was called Franklin Place. In the middle of the street was an enclosed grass-plot three hundred feet long, containing a monumental urn to the memory of Franklin, then recently deceased. This central strip, oval in form, has, like the Tontine-Crescent, passed from view ; the original conveyance prohibits the erection of buildings upon it.
The rooms over the arch were occupied by the Historical Society and by the Boston Library. This latter was incor- porated in 1794, and was designed to be somewhat more pop- ular in its character than either the Athenæum or Historical Society. It grew steadily in public favor, and by the reversion of its shares to the corporation at the death of the shareholder a handsome fund was in time obtained. The Library sold its property, which rested upon no foundation, -the arch ex- cepted, - and removed first to Essex Street, and finally to the building remodelled for them in Boylston Place. These peculiar tenures of houses without land are uncommon in this country, but are said to be quite usual in Scotland, where separate stages or flats of the same building are owned by different proprietors.
Looking south across Franklin Street, we see a noble pile with the name of Cathedral Buildings on its lofty front. This is, or was, consecrated ground, and supported the weight of the Church of the Holy Cross, until traffic swept it from the street. A brief notice of the origin of the Romish wor- ship in Boston has been given. This church was erected, in 1803, by the efforts of Rev. Father Matignon, who came to Boston in 1792, and of John Cheverus, afterwards Bishop of the diocese, - since of Montauban, France, - who followed him
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in 1796. The Protestants generously contributed to build an edifice their fathers would not have for a moment tolerated. It was consecrated by Bishop Carroll of Baltimore when completed. The greatly enhanced value of the ground led to its demoli- tion some years ago ; a massive and lofty temple is now rearing its huge bulk on the Neck, mainly founded on the price of the Franklin Street Cathedral. Beside the church, the Catholics erected a building which was used as a convent of Ursulines. Boston was constituted into a see in 1810 which included all the New England States. A curious parallel might be drawn in the occupation of the house of the French Huguenots, who fled from Catholic persecution, by a congregation of that faith.
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