USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston.. > Part 8
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" William Brooker, being appointed Postmaster of Boston, he, on Monday, OLD PRINTING-PRESS. December 21, 1719, began the publication of another newspaper in that place. This was the second published in the British Colonies, in North America, and was entitled 'The Boston Gazette.' James Franklin was originally employed as printer of this paper ; but in two or three months after the publication commenced Philip Mus- grave was appointed Postmaster, and became proprietor of it. He took the printing of it from Franklin, and gave it to Kneeland. Kneeland also published here, in 1727, 'The New England Jour- nal.' He occupied the office for about forty years."
This is also the location assigned James Franklin, the brother of Benjamin, who, as we have mentioned, printed "The Boston Gazette," on Monday, December 21, 1719. He began, August 6, 1721, the publication of "The New England Courant," the third newspaper in the town. It was, like the other papers,
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printed on a half-sheet of foolscap, and, being of a more pro- gressive cast than the others, soon fell under the ban of rigid Puritans like Rev. Increase Mather. The first number of this paper, made famous by Benjamin Franklin's connection with it, has been reprinted, and the whole contents might easily be contained in a single column of one of our present journals. Two very primitive woodcuts, one representing a war ship under full sail, the other a postman galloping over a village, adorn the pages.
Benjamin became his brother's apprentice at the age of twelve, in 1718. He soon began to write clandestinely for the paper, and thrust his productions furtively under the office door. But his essays were approved and printed. In 1723, James Frank- lin being forbidden to publish the Courant, it was issued under the name of his younger brother, and bore the imprint, " Boston, printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin, in Queen-Street, where advertisements are taken in."
Benjamin Franklin remained but a short time with his brother after this. The old press on which he worked is in the possession of Major Poore, of West Newbury, Mass., who obtained it of Isaiah Thomas's heirs. It bears no date, and is old enough to be located at any time since printing began, without danger of dispute. Major Poore is confident of the authenticity of this press, tracing it by Thomas to the office of James Franklin. The building, interesting by its association with the early history of printing in Boston, became a book- store, ornamented with a head of Franklin, and disappeared more than fifty years ago. The amusing rencontre of Franklin with his future wife, Miss Reed, of Philadelphia, will always excite a smile.
The house was occupied for eighty years as a printing-house, by Kneeland and others. In 1769 it became the office of Edes and Gill, who continued there until hostilities commenced, in 1776. Edes and Gill printed a copy of the "Stamp Act," in a pamphlet of twenty-four pages. They also published "The Boston Gazette and Country Journal," a successor of the Ga- zette of Franklin, Kneeland, etc., which had been discontinued.
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Eles and Gill, when they printed the Stamp Act, occupied premises on the south side of Court Street, about on the pres- ent site of the Adams Express Co. In their back office, on the old corner, the council for the destruction of the tea was held, of which Samuel Adams was the master spirit. The Gazette, under the control of Edes and Gill, was the paper in which Adams, Otis, Warren, Quincy, and other leaders of popular feel- ing, wrote, and became conspicuous for its able political articles. We present two speci- mens of the renowned British Stamps.
SEMP
H
F
ALFR DER HA L E F Over the printing-office was a long room in which were wont to meet the active pa- triots. They took the name of the Long Room Club. Samuel Adams was the leader. Hancock, Otis, Samuel Dexter, William Cooper, town clerk, Dr. Cooper, War- ren, Church, Josiah Quincy, Jr., Thomas Dawes, Samuel Phil- lips, Royal Tyler, Paul Revere, Thomas Fleet, John Winslow, Thomas Melvill, and some others, were members. In this room were matured most of the plans AXIERICA. for resistance to British usurpation, from the Stamp Act to the formation of the Provincial Congress at Water- town.
INON
After the avenues from the town FENS were closed by General Gage, Edes made his escape by night, in a boat, with a press and a few types, with MOS DROIT & SHILLINGS which he opened an office in Water- town, and printed for the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. John Gill, his partner, remained in Boston and was imprisoned for printing treason, sedition, and rebellion. Green and Russell, in 1758, became occupants of the corner, and printed the "Weekly Advertiser " therein, which may be considered the progenitor of the present journal of that name.
Court Street was long the headquarters of the newspaper
4 *
F
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press. During exciting political controversies abuse sometimes waxed warm. In the language of a writer at the beginning of the present century, -
" Press answers press ; retorting slander flies, And Court Street rivals Billingsgate in lies."
The first book printed in Boston was an election sermon preached to Governor John Leverett, the Council, and Deputies of the Colony, May 3, 1676. It was a small quarto pamphlet of sixty-three pages. John Foster was the printer.
The first regular newspaper was the "News Letter," issued April 24, 1704, by John Campbell, Postmaster of Boston at that time. Bartholomew Green was the printer. Green con- tinued to print it until the close of 1707. The building in which the News Letter was printed stood very near the east corner of Avon Street, on Washington.
Tudor's Buildings are named from Colonel William Tudor, who lived on the site. He was a member of the old Boston Bar, having studied with John Adams. He was colonel and judge- advocate-general in the Revolutionary army, on the staff of Washington. Colonel Tudor was also a member of the Massa- chusetts House and Senate, Secretary of State 1809 - 10, and one of the founders of the Historical Society. Fisher Ames, Judge Parker, afterwards Chief Justice, and Josiah Quincy, studied law with him.
It is related that Colonel Tudor was once presented at the court of George III. by our ambassador, Rufus King. His Majesty catching the name, ejaculated in his disjointed way : "Eh ! what, what, Tudor, Tudor, - one of us, eh ?"
Rufus Choate, who as an advocate left no successor at the Boston bar, had an office in the gloomy granite block that for- merly stood below the Court House, on the site of the Sears Building. He had also, for a time, an office on Tremont Row. Choate came to Boston in 1834, after having studied law in the office of William Wirt at Washington. He was not long in taking the place left vacant by Mr. Webster.
Besides pathos, which he could bring to bear with over- whelming effect, Choate possessed a fine humor. It is said
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that, coming into court one day to hear a decision against him from Chief Justice Shaw, who was by no means a handsome man, Choate addressed his Honor in these words : "In coming into the presence of your Honor I experience the same feelings that the Hindoo does when he bows before his idol, - I know that you are ugly, but I feel that you are great." *
Mr. Choate's face possessed great mobility, and his voice was capable of the most varied modulation. When pleading a crim- inal cause he held court, jury, and auditory alike in a spell, and seldom failed to sway the jury by his eloquence. He had the magnetism of a natural orator, and could make his auditors weep or laugh at will. Mr. Choate held the offices of State representative and senator; was elected to Congress from the Essex district ; and succeeded Webster in the Senate in 1841. In 1853 he was attorney-general of Massachusetts and a mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention. He retired from prac- tice in 1858, on account of failing health, and died in Halifax in 1859, while en route to Europe. He was sixty years old when this event occurred.
Where now stands the stately Sears Building was once the habitation of Governor John Leverett, during whose adminis- tration occurred King Philip's war. Leverett went to England in 1644, and served under Cromwell,
" From Edge-Hill Fight to Marston Moor."
Charles II. made Leverett a knight, - a title which he never assumed. Few names connected with the colony are more honorable than Governor Leverett's. He commanded the An- cient and Honorable Artillery ; was agent of the colony in England ; on terms of intimacy with the Protector, major-gen- eral, and deputy-governor. He died in 1679. Governor Lev- erett's house was afterwards in State Street, next east of the present Exchange. Before the adoption of the Federal Consti- tution the post-office was located on this corner. In the build- ing lately taken down was once the law office of John A. An- drew, a man whose memory is warmly cherished by the soldiers of Massachusetts in the Rebellion, who gave him the name of the war governor.
* Bench and Bar.
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On the northeast corner of Court and Washington Streets was the estate of Henry Dunster, first president of Harvard College. Here also stood the Town Pump, yielding its cooling fluid to our thirsty ancestors, or drenching some maudlin va- grant of the kennel. Here is Hawthorne's invocation from the Town Pump to the passers-by :-
" Like a dramseller on the Mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice : Here it is, gentlemen ! Here is the good liquor ! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up ! Here is the superior stuff ! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam, - better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price ; here it is by the hogshead or single glass, and not a cent to pay ! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves !"
Public notices and proclamations were affixed to the Town Pump.
A little south of the Sears estate is Joy's Building, around which is a vacant space now known as Cornhill Court and Court Avenue, once Cornhill Square.
This is the site of the second location of the First Church of Boston, removed from State Street in 1640. In 1808 the society sold this site to Benjamin Joy, on which he erected the present structure, and the church was removed to Chauncy Street. From the church the space around it took the name of Church Square. The old meeting-house was of wood, but after standing seventy-one years, was de- stroyed by the great fire of OLD BRICK CHURCH. 1711, and was then rebuilt of brick. After the building of the Second Church in Hano- ver Street this house took the name of the "Old Brick." It
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was of three stories and decorated with a bell-tower and clock. This clock was, without doubt, the first placed in any public position in the town. The records show that in 1716- 17 the town voted to obtain a town clock to be set up in some conven- ient place in Cornhill. Before this the bells were called clocks. The bell of the Old Brick sounded the alarm on the evening of the Massacre of March 5, 1770.
On the corner of State Street, nearly opposite the Old Brick, was the bookstore of Daniel Henchman, and later that of Whar- ton and Bowes. In this shop Henry Knox, afterwards one of the most famous generals of the Revolutionary army, was an apprentice. Here he acquired, by reading, the rudiments of the military art. The store was the resort of the British officers, who were very friendly with the future general. At eighteen Knox was lieutenant of the grenadier company of the Boston Regiment, - a company distinguished for its martial appearance and the precision of its evolutions. He was one of the watch on board the tea ship before it was destroyed, and by his prox- imity was early at the scene of the Massacre in King Street. In Knox's account of this affair he said, "Captain Preston seemed much agitated. Knox took him by the coat and told him, 'for God's sake to take his men back again, for if they fired, his life must answer for the consequences.' While I was talking with Captain Preston the soldiers of his detachment had attacked the people with their bayonets. There was not the least provocation given to Captain Preston or his party." Knox, after serving his time, published for himself. “A Dis- sertation on the Gout," etc., bears his imprint in 1772.
After Lexington Knox escaped with his wife from Boston ; Mrs. Knox concealing within the lining of her cloak the sword he subsequently wore through the war. She accompanied her husband through all his campaigns. The Marquis Chastellux, who visited the headquarters of the American army in 1782, says : "We found Mrs. Knox settled in a little farm where she had passed part of the campaign ; for she never quits her hus- band. A child of six months and little girl of three years old formed a real family for the general. As for himself, he is be-
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tween thirty and forty, very fat, but very active, and of a gay and amiable character. From the very first campaign he was intrusted with the command of the artillery, and it has turned out it could not have been placed in better hands. It was he whom M. du Coudray endeavored to supplant, and who had no difficulty in removing him. It was fortunate for M. du Cou- dray, perhaps, that he was drowned in the Schuylkill, rather than be swallowed up in the intrigues he was engaged in."
Knox's corpulency was the subject of an ill-timed pun from Dr. Byles. An intimacy existed before the war, and when, on the day Boston was evacuated, Knox marched in at the head of his artillery, the doctor audibly remarked, "I never saw an ox fatter in my life." Knox did not relish the joke from the old tory, and told Dr. Byles he was a "- fool."
The graduate of the little shop in Cornhill was volunteer aid at Bunker Hill, commanded the artillery during the siege of Boston, and became Secretary of War. His greatest service, perhaps, was the bringing of more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, etc., to the lines before Boston. This feat was accomplished early in 1776, the ordnance being dragged on sledges in midwinter almost through a wilderness.
Knox was a generous, high-minded man. His portrait, by Gilbert Stuart, hangs in Faneuil Hall. A gunning accident having injured one of his hands, it is concealed in the picture.
The celebrated Benjamin Thompson, a native of Woburn, afterwards a count of the German Empire, was, like Knox, an apprentice to a shopkeeper in Boston at the time of the Mas- sacre. He was at the American lines in Cambridge at the time of Bunker Hill, and accompanied Major, afterwards Governor Brooks until they met the retreating Americans. After endeav- oring unsuccessfully to obtain a commission in the Continental army, he turned loyalist. He was sent to England by General Howe after the fall of Boston, but returned to America and raised a regiment of horse, called the " King's Dragoons."
After the war he was knighted, and became Sir Benjamin Thompson. The Elector of Bavaria, whose service he entered
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in 1784, made him a count, with the title of Count Rumford, that being the ancient name of Concord, N. H., where Thomp- son had formerly resided. Rumford went afterwards to Paris, and married the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, from whom, however, he afterwards separated.
The Rumford Professorship at Harvard testifies to the remem- brance of this distinguished man for his native country. He left a munificent bequest to the College for the advancement of the physical and mathematical sciences.
John Winslow, one of Knox's compatriots, and a captain in Crane's Artillery during the Revolutionary War, was a hardware merchant with his uncle, Jonathan Mason, at No. 12 Corn- hill, just south of the present Globe newspaper office. He remained in Boston during the siege, and buried the Old South communion plate in his uncle's cellar ; his uncle was deacon of that church. 3 It was Winslow who recognized the body of Warren, the day after the battle of Bunker Hill. He was at Ticonderoga, Saratoga, and White Plains, and held a number of State offices after the war. Winslow lived in Purchase Street, just north of the Sailors' Home.
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CHAPTER III.
FROM THE OLD STATE HOUSE TO BOSTON PIER.
Captain Keayne. - Coggan, first Shopkeeper. - Old Cornhill. - Old State House. - First Church. - Stocks and Whipping-Post. - John Wilson. - Wilson's Lane. - United States Bank. - Royal Exchange Tavern. - William Sheaffe. - Royal Custom House. - Exchange Coffee House. - "' Columbian Centinel." - Benjamin Russell. - Louis Philippe. - Louis Napoleon. - Congress Street. - Governors Dummer and Belcher. - First United States Custom House. - Post-Office. - Bunch of Grapes. - General Lincoln. - General Dearborn. - First Circulating Library. - British Coffee House. - Merchants' Row. - First Inn. - Lord Ley. - Miantonimoh. - Kilby Street. - Oliver's Dock. - Liberty Square. - The Stamp Office. - Broad Street. - Commodore Downes. - Broad Street Riot. - India Street and Wharf. - Admiral Vernon. - Crown Coffee House. - Butler's Row. - The Custom House. - Retrospective View of State Street. - Long Wharf. - The Barricado. - T Wharf. - Embarkation for Bunker Hill.
T THE earliest settler on the southwestern corner of State Street was Captain Robert Keayne, who has left his name to us in connection with a legacy to build a Town House. He was also the first commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery, and was by business a tailor. Captain Keayne fell under the censure of court and church for selling his wares at exorbi- tant profits, - we have before mentioned that the authorities regulated the prices of goods, products, etc. His will, of nearly two hundred pages, is devoted largely to an effort to relieve himself of this charge. What would Washington Street say to-day to such a regulation ?
The opposite or northwest corner of State Street was occu- pied by John Coggan, one of the names in the original Book of Possessions. He has the distinction of establishing the first shop for the sale of merchandise in Boston. From this small beginning dates the traffic of Boston.
Having crossed ancient Cornhill, which name applied to that
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FROM THE OLD STATE HOUSE TO BOSTON PIER.
part of Washington Street from Dock Square to School Street, and in which congregated the early booksellers, we are at the head of old King Street. Before us is the earliest market-place of the town, on the space now occupied by the Old State House. King Street was changed to State in 1784, but it was frequent- ly called Congress Street before the present name was settled on.
OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1791.
" And mark, not far from Faneuil's honored side, Where the Old State House rises in its pride. But, O, how changed ! its halls, alas ! are fled, And shop and office fill their slighted stead."
The early history of this edifice has been given in connec- tion with the City Hall, as its progenitor. Besides being used as a Town House and by the Colonial Courts, it has been occu- pied by the General Court of the Colony and of the State, by the Council of the Province, and as a barrack for troops. It was the first Exchange the merchants of Boston ever had, and is still used for a similar purpose. In it met the Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States before adjourn- ing to Federal Street Church. In the west end was located the Post-Office, in its beginning, and again in 1838, when a force of fifteen clerks was sufficient for the transaction of its · business. In 1832 it was again slightly damaged by fire.
Under its shadow the Massacre was enacted by a detachment of the 29th British Regiment, the result of constant collisions between the people and the soldiery. At the time of its occu- pation by the British troops, - admitted by Governor Bernard in 1768, - James Otis moved to have the Superior Court held in Faneuil Hall, "not only as the stench occasioned by the
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troops may prove infectious, but as it was derogatory to the honor of the court to administer justice at the mouths of can- non and the points of bayonets." This referred to the estab- lishment of the main-guard opposite, with two field-pieces pointed toward the Old State House.
The following was the interior arrangement of the building after the fire of 1747. The eastern chamber was originally occupied by the Council, afterwards by the Senate. The Rep- resentatives held their sittings in the west chamber. The floor of these was supported by pillars, and terminated at each end by doors, and at the east end by a flight of steps leading into State Street. On the north side were offices for the clerks of the supreme and inferior courts. In the daytime the doors were kept open, and the floor served as a walk for the inhabi- tants who thronged it during the sessions of the courts. After the removal of the Legislature to the new State House the internal arrangement was changed to suit later occupants.
In the Chamber of Representatives, according to John Adams, "Independence was born" and the struggle against the en- croachments of the mother country sustained for fourteen years by the Adamses, Bowdoins, Thachers, Hancocks, Quincys, and their illustrious colleagues. According to Hutchinson, in this chamber originated the most important measures which led to the emancipation of the Colonies, - with those giants who, staking life and fortune upon the issue, adopted for their motto,
" Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor."
It was customary to read the commissions of the royal gov- ernors in presence of the court, attended by military display, in the Court House, as it was then called. The news of the death of George II., and accession of George III., was read from the balcony ; the latter was the last crowned head pro- claimed in the Colonies.
The popular indignation against the Stamp Act found vent, in 1766, in burning stamped clearances in front of the Town House. A council of war was held by Gage, Howe, and Clin-
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FROM THE OLD STATE HOUSE TO BOSTON PIER.
ton, here before Bunker Hill. On the 18th July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read from the east balcony by William Greenleaf, Sheriff. All the Continental troops in the vicinity of Boston were paraded in State Street, and at its conclusion fired thirteen volleys commemorative of the thirteen Colonies. Here the Constitution of Massachusetts was planned. In 1778 Count D'Estaing made a splendid entry into Boston with his fleet, and was received by Governor Hancock in the Council Chamber.
After the Revolution it became the place of meeting of the Legislature, and has been ever since called the Old State House, - except during the interval when it was the City Hall, - and this name is its customary appellation. In October, 1789, Washington received the homage of the people, from a tempo- rary balcony at the west end. A triumphal arch was thrown across the street there, and a long procession passed before him, whose salutations he occasionally returned. In January, 1798, the Legislature took possession of the new State House.
The building has undergone material alterations, especially in the roof, which gives it a more modern appearance, and the stee- ple or tower was once considerably higher than at present. The sun-dial, which formerly adorned the eastern gable, has been superseded by a clock; the Lion and Unicorn once replaced the ornamental scrolls at either end. There have been a lottery office, engine-house, and even a newspaper published in the old building, - the latter printed in 1805, in the Senate Chamber, and called the "Repertory." After the Grand Lodge of Masons was burnt out of the Exchange Coffee House it occupied quar- ters in the Old State House. At the great fire of 1711, by which it was destroyed, several gentlemen, at imminent risk of their lives, succeeded in saving the Queen's portrait from the flames.
The old First Church of Boston was situated on the ground now covered by Brazer's Building, until its removal to another location. Here preached John Wilson and John Cotton, and here came Winthrop and Bellingham, with their zealous Puri- tan followers, men
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" Stern to inflict and stubborn to endure, Who smiled in death.
In an old two-story wooden house which stood upon the site of Brazer's Building were located the first United States Bank, and also the first government Post-Office. The former remained here until the erection of the building on the site of the Ex- change ; the Post-Office was removed here from Cornhill. Jonathan Armstrong was postmaster, and easily performed, from his perch on a high stool, all the duties pertaining to his office.
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