USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 50
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In 1767, when the duty was laid on paper, glass, and other articles, a meeting was held on the 22d of December, and a committee of nine appointed to report if anything could be done to lessen the use of foreign superfluities. At a meeting held Jan. 19, 1768, the committee recom- mended the following vote : -
" Voted, That this town will take prudent measures to encourage the produce and manufactures of this Province, and to lessen the use of foreign superfluities."
In the same year Dorchester chose a representative to the convention of the Province recommended by Boston on the dissolution of the General Court.
It is probable that the town had its sprinkling of Loyalists; but they were too inconspicuous or too discreet to be influential. When, in Novem- ber, 1768, John Hancock was arrested for alleged smuggling of wine from his sloop "Liberty," the man who made the arrest was Mr. Arodi Thayer, marshal of the Court of Admiralty and, for many years after the Revolution at least, a resident of Dorchester. He lived to be eighty-eight years of age, and, dying in 1831, is still remembered by the oldest citizens for his personal eccentricity. His commission and badge of office - a silver oar - are de- posited with the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society.
The 14th of August, 1769, was a merry day in town; for the Sons of Liberty, after assembling in Boston at Liberty Tree, adjourned for dinner to Liberty Tree Tavern, known also as Robinson's Tavern, in Dorchester. Tables were spread in the field under a tent, and more than three hundred people sat down to an abundant feast, which included three barbacued pigs. Speech and song enlivened the afternoon. The last toast given was, "Strong halters, firm blocks, and sharp axes to all such as deserve them." At five
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
o'clock the Boston people, we are told, started for home, led by John Han- cock in his chariot. Although fourteen toasts were given in Boston and forty-five in Dorchester, John Adams says in his Diary that " to the honor of the Sons I did not see one person intoxicated, or near it."
In 1770 the town passed a resolution not to purchase goods of any merchant who imported them from Great Britain contrary to the " noble resolution and agreement " entered into by the merchants of Boston. At the same meeting the following vote was passed : -
" Whereas a duty has been laid upon foreign tea, Voted, that we will not make use of it in our families, except in case of sickness, until the duty be taken off."
In December, 1772, the votes and proceedings of the town of Boston, containing a statement of the rights of the colonists and a list of " the en- fringements committed thereon," were communicated to the town, and a committee appointed to draw up a similar statement. On Jan. 4, 1773, the committee reported nine sturdy, ringing resolutions, too long for insertion here, which have the same heroic pitch as did the Declaration of Indepen- dence three years after. The resolutions speak of the " lawless usurpation" of Parliament, " subversive of every principle of good and lawful government." They protest against the wresting of the Castle from the control of the Province; against the power extended to the Courts of Admiralty; the appropriation of the Provincial revenues, and the act by which persons supposed to be guilty of certain crimes may be hurried away to be tried in England." The Dorchester representative was then instructed to join in any constitutional measures for the redress of these grievances, and not to consent " to give up any of our rights, whether derived from Nature or by compact."
The warm feeling which Dorchester entertained towards Boston at this time is shown in one of these resolutions : -
" Resolved, that the sincere and hearty thanks of this town be given to the town of Boston for the care and attention with which so respectable a number of its worthy inhabitants have watched for the common good, and have communicated the danger- ous machinations of our restless enemies, who might otherwise have finished their plan and have involved us in most remediless destruction before this day."
At this meeting Captain Lemuel Robinson, Captain John Homans, and Samuel How were chosen a committee of correspondence to "watch over our liberties and to correspond with committees of other towns." This committee of correspondence met with the committees of Roxbury, Brook- line, Cambridge, and Boston on Nov. 22, 1773, in Faneuil Hall, to take measures to prevent the landing and sale of the cargoes of tea that were then on the way to Boston. The action of this conference was "highly approved " at a town-meeting in Dorchester, held Nov. 30, 1773, the day after the great meeting at the Old South Church, at which Dorchester was also represented. It was then determined to " assure the public that should this country be so unhappy as to see a day of trial for the recovery of its rights by a last and solemn appeal to Him who gave them, we should not
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be behind the bravest of our patriotic brethren; and that we will at all times be ready to assist our neighbors and friends when they shall need us, though the greatest dangers should attend them." The promise of this resolution, which was one of the first of this nature to be adopted by any of the towns, was amply redeemed.
The fate of the three hundred and forty-two chests of tea which afterward came to Boston harbor is well known. But, through the action of a Dor- chester man, one case was destined to be tried by fire as well as by water. Ebenezer Withington, a town laborer, on going around upon the marshes found a strange chest of tea, and "brought off the same, thinking no harm." It soon became known to the town. The tea was quickly seized by a party from Boston and burned upon the Common, and Mr. Withington was required to make an explanation before town-meeting. The following resolution passed by the town shows what was thought in Dorchester about the destruction of the tea: -
" Resolved, That this town on the most mature deliberation highly approve of the proceedings of the people who assembled in the Old South Meeting-house in Boston, on the 29th November last and since, and the endeavor they then used to preserve the property of the East India Company ; and that it is the opinion of this town that the destruction of the tea proceeded entirely from the obstinacy of the consignee and the Collector of the Customs in refusing to grant a clearance, and of the Governor in refusing to grant a pass for Mr. Rotch's ship."
We have given enough from the old records of the town to indicate the bold and patriotic spirit of the people on the very threshold of the Revo- lutionary conflict. The stand thus early taken was firmly adhered to all through the struggle. A significant resolution passed in September, 1774, shows that the battle of the following year was scented afar off. After instructing its representative to the General Court to join with members of the neighboring towns in the General Provincial Congress, in case the General Court was dissolved, it was voted to " add six barrels of powder to the stock already belonging to the town, and that the selectmen be a com- mittee to provide such a quantity of ball, small and great, in addition to the quantity of ball the town already has, as they judge needful." A number of carpenters having gone from the town to build barracks for the soldiers at Boston, it was voted " that they be desired to desist therefrom, and that if they refuse to desist they will incur the displeasure of the town." In De- cember, 1774, it was also voted to pay the province tax to Henry Gardner, of Stow, treasurer for the Sons of Liberty, instead of to Harrison Gray. Steps were promptly taken for the encouragement of minutemen; and on May 23, 1776, it was voted that " if the Continental Congress should think it best to declare independency with Great Britain, we will support them with our lives and fortunes." When the Declaration was made, it was copied in full on the town record, as ordered by the council. A bounty of twenty pounds, in addition to the pay offered by the colonies, was offered in 1777 to each
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
man who would enlist for three years, or during the war. A return made by the selectmen of the number of male inhabitants of Dorchester at home or abroad, above sixteen years of age, shows that there were two hundred and ninety-four at home, seventy-nine in service; six Boston people and ten mulattoes, - a total of three hundred and eighty-nine.
On Jan. 26, 1778, the town voted " that we approve of the articles of confederation and perpetual union between the United States of America, and that our representative be instructed to act accordingly." The town records also show the active interest felt by Dorchester in the formation of the State Constitution in 1778-80. In every case her action was in the direction of the largest liberty and the most perfect safeguards.
As the religious history of Dorchester has been more frequently written than its civil history, we have given more space to the latter in this chapter. A few minutes' examination of the town records would show us that nearly as much of the time of the ancient town-meeting was spent in regulating the interests of religion as was spent upon its civil affairs. It would have been heresy at that time to draw any line which separated the parish com- pletely from the town.
In the previous volume the religious history of the town was brought down to the death of Richard Mather, in 1669. On failing to induce Mr. Stoughton to become its minister, the church and town reluctantly turned to seek another man. Choice was finally made, in 1671, of Rev. Josiah Flint, a native of Braintree and a graduate of Harvard College. Mr. Flint began his labors in the new meeting-house, the first one to stand on the hill. After a zealous ministry of nine years, somewhat interrupted by feeble health, he died in 1680, at the age of thirty-five. He was succeeded in 1681 by Rev. John Danforth, son of Rev. Samuel Danforth, of Roxbury, the col- league of John Eliot. Mr. Danforth served the Church of Dorchester with honor and fidelity for forty-eight years. Blake tells us that he was a man of great learning, and that "he understood the mathematics beyond most men of his function. He was exceedingly charitable and of a very peace- ful temper." He was buried in the old burying-ground, in the tomb of Governor Stoughton. It was during his ministry, in 1698, that the Young Men's Union was formed in Dorchester, - a society for religious purposes which continued in existence until 1848, a period of one hundred and fifty years.
Though we have this evidence that the young men were carnest and reverent, neither the boys nor the dogs of Dorchester seem to have been sufficiently pious to keep still during meeting-time without restraint. In 1727, " Because of late," as the town records say, "dogs have frequently come into our meeting-house on Sabbath days, and by their barking, quarrelling, etc. have made disturbance in the time of divine service," the town found it expedient to affix a penalty of five shillings upon their owners if the trouble was repeated. In the same year the selectmen of the town were directed
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to appoint from time to time some "meet person to inspect the boys in the meeting-house in time of divine service." The boys seem to have re- peatedly forced themselves into the business of the town-meetings by their Sunday disorder, for several such votes occur on the town records. In 1753 William Severs was allowed sixteen shillings a year " to keep the boys orderly in the time of divine service." He was also to tarry at noon and "prevent disorder then." But in 1776 the spirit of independence seems to have been so rife that six men were necessary for this purpose, and it was voted " that if the boys be disorderly, the men appointed to take care of them give them proper discipline."
The Rev. Jonathan Bowman, the next pastor, was called, in 1729, to be colleague to Mr. Danforth, about six months before the latter's death. Mr. Bowman was a native of Lexington, and, like two of his predecessors, a graduate of Harvard College. His ministry was somewhat disturbed by the arrival of Rev. George Whitefield in Boston, in 1740. Blake, in his Annals,
THE EVERETT HOUSE.
describes the great impression which the revivalist's preaching made upon Boston and the surrounding towns. He records his opinion "that things are by some Persons carried too far, contrary to ye design of ye Holy Spirit,
.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
- as in some places where Laymen go about Exhorting (as they call it), and people crowd in large Assemblies to hear them; and many cry out in ye Assembly, and are so struck (as they call it) that for a time they loose their Senses and Reason, and ye like." Four years later Blake adds of Whitefield's second visit : "But Ministers and People were generally Offended with his Conduct and manner of Preaching; but some were most firmly attached to him, and endeavored to defend all that he either said or did, which caused much Writing and Disputing." 1
During this excitement seven male members of the church, " for their separation and injurious treatment of the minister, were laid under censure and forbid to come to communion until repentance and reformation." The disaffected members called for a council. The church consented; the council was held May 19, 1747; Mr. Bowman and the church were sustained, and the dissatisfied brethren were advised to submit and return to the church.
Some twenty-six years later Mr. Bowman came somewhat violently into collision with his parish, largely on account of a personal difficulty which he had with one of his neighbors. A bitter controversy ensued. Another council was called in 1773. It was charged that he refused baptism to a child; that his sermons were too short; that he preached old sermons; and that he did not insist upon the doctrines of original sin and self- denial, and that he acted arbitrarily as moderator of the church meeting.
The unhappy differences resulted in the dismission of Mr. Bowman, after a pastorate of forty-three years. During his ministry the fourth meeting- house was built, in 1743, at a cost of £3,300. It is worthy of notice also that the Scriptures first began to be used in Dorchester as a part of public worship, Sept. 23, 1753, one hundred and twenty-two years after the church was established.
Rev. Moses Everett, the next in the ministerial line, was ordained in September, 1774. Though town and country were in the midst of intense political agitation, his ministry seems to have been one of great peace and satisfaction. He served in Dorchester for eighteen years, when failing health compelled him to resign. He was a brother of Rev. Oliver Everett, who was settled as pastor of the New South Church in Boston, in 1782. On giving up his pastorate Rev. Oliver Everett also removed to Dorchester, and his son Edward was born in the house on the corner of Pond and Bos- ton streets, now owned by Mr. John Richardson, a picture of which is herewith given.
S. J. Barrow www.
1 [The Great Awakening under Whitefield is more fully described by Dr. Mckenzie in this volume. - ED.]
CHAPTER XIII.
BRIGHTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
BY FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
TN this, as in the preceding epoch, while speaking of the events in which each section had its due share, we are still to consider Brighton as a constituent part of Cambridge.
The news of the abrogation of the charter reached Boston in the summer of 1685.1 In December, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros, " Captain General and Commander-in-Chief of New England," arrived. Not the least among the grievances complained of by the people during his administration was the claim of its adherents to enrich themselves by grants of land to which they had not the shadow of a right. The notorious Edward Randolph endeavored to obtain possession of seven hundred acres of land in Cam- bridge near Spy Pond, - one of his many similar attempts to benefit him- self at the public expense. That it failed of consummation was, no doubt, due to the revolution which so speedily ensued. In that sudden uprising of the people in April, 1689, which resulted in a brief restoration of the former government of the colony, the inhabitants of Cambridge actively participated. The movement was full of danger, but that did not deter them from pledging their persons and estates to the support of the principal actors in it; one of the most conspicuous of whom, their favorite and trusted leader Thomas Danforth, was reinstated as deputy-governor. The delegates of Cambridge to the convention, held May 9, presented the following dec- laration :
" Cambridge, May 6, 1689. We, the freeholders and inhabitants of the town of Cambridge, being very sensible of, and thankful unto, God for his mercy in our late deliverance from the oppression and tyranny of those persons under whose injustice and cruelty we have so long groaned ; and withal desirous heartily to express our
1 It is worth noting that the loss of the Massachusetts charter was not wholly due to the abuse of its privileges. Those towns in England which opposed the policy of the Court were de- prived of their municipal liberties at the same VOL. II. - 47.
time by the quo warranto process, and their rep- resentation secured to the Crown, in furtherance of the settled policy of the King to make himself despotic, - a policy in which at the time of his death he had nearly succeeded.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
gratitude to those worthy gentlemen who have been engaged in conserving of our peace since the revolution, yet withal, being apprehensive that the present unsettle- ment may expose us to many hazards and dangers, and may give occasion to ill- minded persons to make disturbance, - do declare that we expect that our honored Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Assistants, elected by the freemen of this colony in May, 1686, together with the deputies then sent down by the several respective towns to the court then holden, which was never legally dissolved, shall convene and re- assume and exercise the government as a General Court, according to our charter, on the ninth of this instant, May, or as soon as possible. And in so doing we do engage that, to the utmost of our power with persons and estates, we will contribute to their help and assistance as in duty and equity we are bound, praying that God would direct them in this difficult juncture ; and do hope that all that are concerned for the peace and good of this land will readily join with us therein.
" Memorandum. It is here to be understood that what we expect to be done as above is only for a present settlement, until we may have an opportunity to make our address unto, or shall be otherwise settled by, the supreme power in England.
" These lines above written as they are worded, was agreed upon by the inhabitants of the town of Cambridge this 6th of May, 1689, as attests Samuel Andrew, clerk, in the name of the town."
By an act of the General Court dated March 20, 1712-13, the north- ern precinct of Cambridge was made a separate town by the name of Lexington. For more than half a century afterward few events of impor- tance occurred in Cambridge. The small-pox was unusually prevalent and fatal in 1721, 1730, and again in 1752, occasioning the dispersion of the college students for brief periods. This was also the case in 1740, when an epidemic called the " throat distemper " occasioned great alarm.
Cambridge was not behind her sister towns in her opposition to those measures of the British Parliament which brought on the American Revolu- tion. Soon after the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, her town-meeting expressed the opinion "that the inhabitants of this province have a legal claim to all the natural, inherent, constitutional rights of Englishmen, and that the Stamp Act is an infraction upon these rights." To the convention of delegates from the various towns which Boston, in view of Governor Bernard's refusal to convene the legislature, had summoned to meet in Faneuil Hall, Sept. 22, 1768, she sent Captain Samuel Whittemore and Thomas Gardner. In May, 1769, the session of the House of Representa- tives was held in the college halls, - the sitting of that body having been adjourned to Cambridge by the Governor. In response to Samuel Adams's project for committees of correspondence in December, 1772, she selected for that duty Captain Samuel Whittemore, Captain Ebenezer Stedman, Captain Ephraim Frost, Captain Eliphalet Robbins, Captain Thomas Gard- ner, Joseph Wellington, Abraham Watson, Jr., Nathaniel Sparhawk, and Samuel Thatcher, Jr., who, a few days later, addressed a letter to the Boston Committee, acknowledging the vigilance and care discovered by the town of Boston of the public rights and liberties, and acquainting them that Cambridge " will heartily concur in all salutary, proper, and constitutional
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measures for a redress of grievances." Of this committee Robbins, Gard- ner, and Sparhawk were citizens of Brighton. In November, 1773, the tax on tea called out a very full meeting of the inhabitants, who, in a series of resolves expressed their abhorrence of the measure and their deter- mination to oppose it. In the preliminary measures for the disposal of the tea sent to Boston, the Cambridge committee united with those of the neighboring towns, holding daily meetings for the purpose in Faneuil Hall. On Sept. 2, 1774, the people of Middlesex assembled in large numbers and waited on Lieut .- Governor Oliver, Samuel Danforth, and Joseph Lee, who were compelled publicly to resign the office of coun- cillor, held by them under Governor Gage's mandamus. They also ex- acted from Sheriff Phips a pledge that he would not execute any precept sent to him under the new acts of Parliament for altering the constitution of the Province.
The appeal to arms soon followed ; and on May 27, 1776, the inhabitants of Cambridge unanimously voted to support Congress with their lives and fortunes in the Declaration of Independence. June 16, 1777, her represen- tatives were instructed not to agree to any attempt to form a new constitu- tion for the State by the General Court or any other body; and when, after having done so, the Court submitted a constitution to the people for approval, it was unanimously rejected by the town. The instrument formed by a convention of delegates was accepted by her, May 22, 1780. The names of fifty-seven citizens of Brighton have been preserved who served in the Revolutionary army, - a few of whom on account of age served by proxy.
Cambridge, the headquarters of the provincial army during the siege of Boston, was also the post of its centre. Her militia, enrolled in Samuel Thatcher's company of Colonel Gardner's regiment, took part in the conflict of the 19th of April, 1775. This was an eventful day for Cambridge, where the carnage was greater than in any other town, - twenty-six of the Amer- icans, or more than half of those slain, six of them inhabitants of the town, having fallen within her borders. The planks of the bridge over Charles River were taken up to barricade its northerly end, and some of the Water- town militia were posted there. Earl Percy, who with a reinforcement passed through Brighton between ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon of that day, found no difficulty in replacing the planks and continuing his march.
After Warren, the most illustrious of the victims of the sanguinary battle of Bunker Hill was Colonel Thomas Gardner, of Brighton. Like Warren, he had already rendered yeoman service in the political arena. From 1769 until his death he was a selectman and representative to the General Court, and was one of the most active and influential members of the Provincial Congress. He was also an energetic member of the important committees of correspondence and of safety ; and on Nov. 29, 1774, was chosen Colonel of the First Middlesex Regiment, in which he had previously been a cap-
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tain. Commissioned a colonel in the Continental army, June 2, 1775, on the 17th he led his regiment to Bunker Hill, and was descending its north- ern slope at the head of his men, when he was mortally wounded, dying July 3, in the fifty-second year of his age. He was borne from the field to the house of his sister, the wife of Samuel Sparhawk. This house may still be seen on old River Street, now Western Avenue. Colonel Gardner's residence, built of massive oak, is yet standing on Allston Street, near Union Square. A street running east from Harvard Avenue, - the old county road to Brookline, - laid out through his land, bears the name of this worthy and patriotic citizen. The next day after taking command of the army, Washington issued the order for Colonel Gardner's burial " with the military honors due to so brave and gallant an officer, who fought, bled, and died in the cause of his country and mankind."
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