USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 61
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The same alarm was expressed regarding the cod-fishery and the dis- tillery business. The quantity of molasses distilled in 1742 had fallen off two thirds from that in 1735, and the complaint at that time was that it had suffered loss of half its customary business.
The merchant marine of Boston had other perils than those of naviga- tion. From the earliest settlement pirates had annoyed the colony, and in the disturbances connected with the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty they
2 " The oldest one is that now, and for some time, in possession of the French family, which appears to have been improved for that purpose
1 Burke, Account, ii. 174. as early as 1714, by Henry Hill, distiller, and by Thomas Hill after him. Besides this there were Avery's and Haskins's." - Drake, Old Land- marks of Boston, p. 406.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
began to be a serious obstacle to commerce. These pirates were by no means from over seas only, but came from Boston and other New England seaports.1 In 1689 one Ponnd was captured, and his indictment charged that " being under a red flag at the head of the mast, purposely and in dc- fiance of their Majesties' authority, had wilfully and with malice aforethought committed murder and piracy upon the high seas, being instigated there- unto by the Devil."2 In 1704 John Quelch, - most appropriate name for a pirate, - with five of his crew, was caught and executed in Boston.3 One of the most tragical terminations to a piratical career was in the case of Cap- tain Samuel Bellamy, master of the pirate ship "Whidah." It was in the year 1717, and this captain of the pirates had more than a hundred men in his fleet. He had captured a snow, and promised to give the skipper his vessel again if he would pilot him into Provincetown harbor. Tradition has it that the skipper threw over a burning tar-barrel which decoyed the fleet upon Wellfleet bar. At any rate the pirates were wrecked, a hundred dead bodies were washed ashore, and only nine men escaped. Of these six were tried, condemned, and executed. The wreck of the pirates haunted the coast. " At times to this day" [1793], says Levi Whitman, the historian of Wellfleet, " there are King William and Queen Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces of silver called cob-money. The violence of the seas moves the sands on the outer bar, so that at times the iron caboose of the ship at low ebbs has been seen." 4
1 [A law against piracy had been passed Oct. 15, 1673. - ED.]
2 Drake, History of Boston, p. 490. [The orig- inal minutes of the evidence against Ponnd are given in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ii. 393, being the testimony of Benjamin Gallop, Abraham Adams, Colburn Turell, and Daniel Langley, who accompanied Captain Samuel Pease in the Boston sloop "Mary," in pursuit. Pease was mortally wounded in the encounter. The name of the pirate is given as Pounds in the pamphlet, Vindication of New England, attrib- uted to Increase Mather, and reprinted in the Andros Tracts, ii. 54. Dr. Bullivant's Journal says : "Feb. 20, 1689-90. The Generall Court pardoned all the pirates except Tom Pounds. 24th. Tom Pounds further reprieved at the in- stance of Mr. Epaphus Shrimpton and sundry women of quality. 27th. The condemned pirates are now told that they may be at liberty, paying 13 :6 : 8 a man fees, or be sold into Virginea. Tom Pounds excepted." Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1878, p. 104 .- ED.]
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3 [A somewhat circumstantial account of Quelch's behavior at the execution was given in a sheet supplementing one of the News-Letters, and called " An Account of the Behaviour and Last Dying Speeches of John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Eramus Peterson, and Peter Roach, the six Pi-
rates that were Executed in Charles River, Bos- ton side, Friday, June 30, 1704." They walked guarded by forty musketeers, with constables, two ministers, etc., to Scarlet's Wharf, and were thence conveyed by water to the gallows. (Buck- ingham, Reminiscences, i. 15.) Sewall gives a bustling account of the movements made to cap- ture Quelch and his men. Sewall Papers, ii. 106-III, where various items appertaining are copied from the News-Letter in a note. - ED.]
4 1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., iii. 120 [where will be found a full account of the wreck of the " Whidah," which carried twenty-four guns. Captain Cyprian Southack had been sent out to look after her. (See Vol. I. p. 58, note, of this History.) And in the Massachusetts Archives, " Letters," i. 288, etc., are various reports from him about this pursuit. He represents that he buried one hundred and two of the pirates. Southack's Journal for the time is in Massa- chusetts Archives, " Journals," p. 16. Hutchin- son, Massachusetts Bay, ii. 223, also mentions it, giving the vessel twenty-three guns, and one hundred and thirty men. One Englishman and one Indian are represented as being saved from the wreck. Bellamy, before his catastrophe, had put some of his men on a prize he had taken, which was subsequently captured; and several of the prisoners thus secured were executed at Boston, Nov. 15, 1717 .- ED.]
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LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
Thoreau, in "The Highland Light," repeats another tradition: "For many years after this shipwreck a man of a very singular and frightful aspect used every spring and autumn to be seen travelling on the Cape, who was supposed to have been one of Bellamy's crew. The presumption is that he went to some place where money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such a supply as his exigencies required. When he died, many pieces of gold were found in a girdle which he constantly wore." 1
Another noted pirate, whose gibbeted body has haunted Nix's Mate, was William Fly, who was boatswain on the snow " Elizabeth " bound for Guinea from Jamaica, in May, 1726. Some of the ship's crew mutinously conspired with him, and after drowning the captain and mate they turned the peaceful " Elizabeth " into " Fame's Revenge," - for piracy seems to have a natural alliance with melodrama, - and, having their vessel well stocked with provisions and powder, set sail for the home coast. They captured a sloop off the coast of North Carolina, and began to enlarge their plans ; but William Atkinson, a passenger on the sloop, with some of the sailors who had been pressed, turned upon the pirates and got the upper hand. They secured Fly and three associates, bound them in irons, and brought the vessel into Boston harbor, where the pirates were tried, condemned, and all but one executed. Fly, as the captain, suffering the extreme penalty, was hung in irons at Nix's Mate, where his two confeder- ates were buried ; and his bones hung and rattled in the air for a good while as a warning to all seafaring men.2
A pirate in these days was as detestable an enemy to good order as a horse-thief in the early days on the frontier, and met with as swift and con- dign punishment. But he was treated to the entire process of the law, and a little more; for, true to the spirit of the community, the men thus convicted were visited with the strongest expression of spiritual reproof. The trial was invested with the most solemn and impressive ceremonies. The judge prayed, and made his sentence a sermon with a very pointed application. On the Sunday preceding the execution, or it may be at the Thursday lecture, the condemned man was brought into the meeting-house, well loaded with chains, and there, in the presence of all the people, was made the centre of the devotional and hortatory exercises. His sins were spread out before him in the face of the congregation, and he heard himself pre- sented in all his guilt at the throne of Divine retribution.3 When the day
1 H. D. Thoreau, Cape Cod, p. 148.
2 [Drake, Boston, p. 570, says that Bird Island was the usual scene of such ghastly gibbeting, and he refers to the Boston Gazette of 1724 as con- taining the best account of the career of another noted pirate, - John Phillips, - who, having forced into his service some young men, they rose upon him, killed him, mastered the crew, and brought his vessel into Boston, May 3, 1724. Jeremiah Bumstead's diary, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1861, p. 201, says : " Phillips's and
Burrill's [the mate] heads were brought to Bos- ton in pickle." This diary also confirms Drake's supposition. "June 8, 1724. Went to see the pirates in Gibbits at Bird Island." The man-of- war "Sea-horse," Captain Durell, was for some years stationed here to be used in expeditions against pirates. - ED.]
8 Several of the sermons preached on such occasions have been preserved in print, and con- tain references to the criminals which intimate that these men had as morbid an interest in their
VOL. II. - 57.
450
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of execution came, a public procession attended him as he was drawn in a cart with his coffin behind him. He was executed, after more preach- ing and praying, in the presence of a vast crowd of men, women, and chil- dren. The execution took place sometimes at the foot of the Common, sometimes on Boston Neck, at Charlestown Ferry, and at a place called Broughton's Hill, on Charles River, " about midway between Hanson's Point and Broughton's warehouse," when the river would be covered with boats containing spectators.1
This active commercial spirit which had made Boston the centre of cis- Atlantic trade, and had kept the shipwright's saw and hammer busy, while the harbor was lively with vessels coming and going, and the wharves and warehouses were confused with goods of all kinds, was bringing forward a Samusi Lund BWalker Thomas walk on James Barny -€ body of citizens who expanded under their wealth and pros- perity, and began to build for themselves those square, roomy mansions which have not yet wholly disappeared from Boston streets, but increase in splendor as the imagination travels back to those which have been de- stroyed in the changes of the Rik, Brapen town. We found it impossible to reconstruct the wooden walls of Governor Winthrop's house at the head of Milk Street. It was torn down during the siege of Boston ; but it was standing at this time as a memorial of early Colonial Boston in primi- ASSESSORS IN 1708. tive contrast to the stately buildings of Provincial Boston, - some of which lingered into the present century. Sam Adams's father was not one of the great merchant princes of the day ; he was a respectable citizen, living comfortably and honorably ; his house on Purchase Street,2 standing in a spacious garden, looked upon
execution as more modern offenders. The ser- mon preached before Fly's execution was printed under the title : " It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God. A Sermon preached to some miserable Pirates, July 10, 1720, on the Lord's Day before their Execution. By Benjamin Colman, pastor of a church in Boston." In an appendix giving an account of the piracy Mr. Colman says : "Fly refused to come into pub- lick. I moved the others for his sake to let me preach to them in private ; but they said it was the last Sabbath they had to live, and they ear- nestly desired to be in an assembly of worship-
pers, that they might have the Prayers of many together over them, and that others might take the more warning by them." - See Sargent, Dealings with the Dead, ii. 630. [It is said in Bumstead's diary that on the next lecture-day after execution Dr. Mather, in giving out the six- teenth psalm, did not mention them "otherwise than in a bold scorn," by reading the line, -
"My lips their names shall Fly."'-ED.]
1 Sewall's Diary, ii. 109, 110.
2 [ See Introduction to this volume. - ED.]
45I
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
the harbor, and was surmounted by an observatory, which could be reached also by an outer staircase. But Adams's friend Hancock lived in a house built by his uncle in 1737, which, even in its contracted quarters of a later date, when well known to Bostonians not yet of middle age, gave some notion of the generous living of Boston in the height of the provincial period. A description of it belongs to another chapter.
The novelist Cooper's description of the Frankland house on Garden Court Street may stand as a tolerably just account of a house which was regarded in the province as expressing the greatest personal pride : -
"The house was of bricks, and of an exterior altogether more pretending than most of those in the lower parts of the town. It was heavily ornamented in wood, according to the taste of a somewhat earlier day, and presented a front of seven windows in its two upper stories, those at the extremes being much narrower than the others. The lower floor had the same arrangement, with the exception of the princi- pal door. ... The youth was conducted through a hall of some dimensions, into an apartment which opened from one of its sides. This room would be considered, at the present day, much too small to contain the fashion of a country town ; but what importance it wanted in size was amply compensated for in the richness and labor of its decorations. The walls were divided into compartments by raised panel-work, beautifully painted with imaginary landscapes and ruins. The glittering, varnished surfaces of these pictures were burdened with armorial bearings, which were intended to illustrate the alliances of the family. Beneath the surbase were smaller divisions of panels, painted with various architectural devices ; and above it rose, between the compartments, fluted pilasters of wood, with gilded capitals. A heavy wooden and highly ornamented cornice stretched above the whole, furnishing an appropriate out- line to the walls. . . . The floor, which shone equally with the furniture, was tessellated with small alternate squares of red cedar and pine, and in the centre were the ‘salient lions' of Lechmere, attempted by the blazonry of the joiner.1 On either side of the ponderous and labored mantel were arched compartments, of plainer work, denoting use ; the sliding panels of one of which, being raised, displayed a buffet groaning with massive plate." 2
The houses and gardens of Boston of that day still remain in the memory of some; and, though they are gone now, a few similar estates in Cambridge, Salem, and Waltham continue to represent the spaciousness and ease of liv- ing which characterized houses dating from the first half of the eighteenth century. One may still hear the older generation describe the departed glories of the Gardiner Greene Place on Pemberton Hill, the Hutchinson house, the Andrews house, and other equally generous estates. The com- mercial prosperity was closely connected with the governing class, both in business and society. It was commerce which gave the Hutchinson family its distinction at first, and Sir Harry Frankland was an officer of the cus- toms. The royal governors and their assistants were engaged in trade, and
1 Cooper has applied the actual decoration
to the purposes of his story; the centre piece was a shield bearing the device of the family of
William Clark, who built and occupied the house before Frankland,-a bar with three white swans. 2 Lionel Lincoln, ch. iii.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
it was the prosperous voyages of their ships which filled their houses with solid furniture and plate, and gave their wives and daughters, as well as them- selves, the rich apparel which Copley found so useful in his portraits. We have already had from Mr. Bennett a glimpse of the horsemen and horse- women, the coaches and attendants, that made Boston streets look a little like London. Listen to him a little further: -
" When the ladies ride out to take the air, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and then but a single horse ; and they have a negro servant to drive them. The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in chairs, and others on horseback, with their negroes to
FURNITURE OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.1
attend them. They travel in much the same manner on business as for pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages.2 ... For their domestic amusements, every afternoon, after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence adjourn to one another's houses to spend the evening, - those that are not dis-
1 [John Adams's Diary shows us how the ele- gance of those days struck that rising man. He writes in 1766: "Dined at Mr. Nick. Boylston's -an elegant dinner indeed. Went over the house to view the furniture, which alone cost a thousand pounds sterling. A seat it is for a nobleman, a prince. The Turkey carpets, the painted hangings, the marble tables, the rich
beds with crimson damask curtains and counter- panes, the beautiful chimney clock, the spacious garden, are the most magnificent of anything I have ever seen." -Works, ii. 179. - ED.]
2 [ Jonathan Wardell, in 1712, set up the first hackney coach in Boston, at the Orange Tree Inn, near the head of Hanover Street. -ED.]
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LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
posed to attend the evening lecture ; which they may do, if they please, six nights in seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green common adjoining to the south-west side of the town. It is near half a mile over, with two
KILBURN
NICHOLAS BOYLSTON.1
1 [This follows the larger picture of the two owned by Harvard College, both of which are by Copley. The smaller one is dated 1767. A three-fourths length, likewise by Copley, is owned by the Hon. Moses Kimball. (Perkins, Copley's Life and Paintings, p. 38.) Boylston was born in 1716, and died 1771. He founded a professorship
of Rhetoric in the University. This picture was painted at the expense of the College after its benefactor's death, from an original in possession of the family. President Quincy calls it " one of the most successful and finished labors of that distinguished artist." History of Harvard Uni- versity, ii. 215. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON. .
rows of young trees planted opposite to each other, with a fine footway between, in imitation of St. James Park ; and part of the bay of the sea which encircles the town, taking its course along the north-west side of the Common, - by which it is bounded on the one side, and by the country on the other, - forms a beautiful canal, in view of the walk. Their rural diversions are chiefly shooting and fishing. For the former, the woods afford them plenty of game; and the rivers and ponds with which this country abounds yield them great plenty, as well as variety, of fine fish. The govern- ment being in the hands of dissenters, they don't admit of plays or· music-houses ; but, of late, they have set up an assembly, to which some of the ladies resort. But they are looked upon to be none of the nicest in regard to their reputation ; and it is thought it will soon be suppressed, for it is much taken notice of and exploded by the religious and sober part of the people.1 But notwithstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here, they don't seem to be dispirited nor moped for want of them, for both the ladies and gentlemen dress and appear as gay, in common, as courtiers in England on a coronation or birthday. And the ladies here visit, drink tea, and indulge every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode, and neglect the affairs of their families with as good a grace as the finest ladies in London." 2
The portraits by Copley in public and private galleries are, after all, the best testimony which we have of this aspect of Boston life, and of the pros- perous life of the province in general. Most of the houses are gone, the gardens have disappeared, the furniture has been scattered, the dresses have been worn out, save here and there a piece of rich goods which has been handed down as an heirloom; but the portraits by Copley, and the few by Blackburn, Smibert, and Pelham remain to give a distinct impression of the characteristics of wealth and social position in Provincial Boston.
Copley belongs essentially to this period, and the little glimpse which we get of the painter himself from the reminiscences of .Trumbull is in keep- ing with the style of his portraits. "We found Mr. Copley," says Trumbull, " dressed to receive a party of friends at dinner. I remember his dress and appearance, - an elegant looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth, with gilt buttons. This was dazzling to my unpractised eye! But his paintings, the first I had ever seen deserving the name, riveted, absorbed, my attention, and renewed all my desire to enter upon such a pursuit." 3
In the descriptive catalogue of Copley's works, given by Mr. A. T. Perkins, one meets constantly with such notes as these : -
" The picture is of half-length, and life-size, and represents him as dressed in a brown coat, a richly embroidered satin waistcoat, and a full wig. He stands with his right hand resting upon his hip, while his left is thrust into his waistcoat. A back- ground, with the sea and a ship in the distance completes the picture." "The color
1 [The suppression, however, failed to come. Captain Goelet, in his diary, thus mentions it ten years later, in 1750 : "Oct. 18, Mr. Quincy waited on me according to appointment to go to the assembly, he being steward or master of cer- emonies, - a worthy, polite, genteel gentleman. The assembly consisted of fifty gentlemen and
ladies, and those the best fashion in town. Broke up about twelve." N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1870, p. 56. - ED.]
2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1860-1862, pp. 125, 126.
8 Autobiography, Reminiscences, and Letters of John Trumbull, from 1756 to 1841, p. II.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
455
of the picture is now of a subdued richness, and represents the dress as being a gold- laced brown-velvet coat and small-clothes. Beyond are drapery, sky, the sea, and a ship." " He is represented as dressed in a blue-velvet doublet, with slashed sleeves, - evidently a fancy dress. The collar is large and trimmed with white lace." "The
KILBURN
THOMAS HUBBARD.1
dress is of brown satin, the sleeves ruffled at the elbows, and a lace shawl; over the neck a pearl necklace. A small lace cap completes the costume." "She was a hand- some woman ; and is dressed in a bodice of blue satin, and an overdress of pink silk trimmed with ermine. In her bosom she wears a damask rosebud." " Her picture is
1 [This cut follows a portrait by Copley, now hanging in Memorial Hall. Mr. Hubbard was a distinguished citizen and merchant, and for
twenty years was treasurer of the College. He was born in 1702, and died in 1773. See the Introduction to this volume, p. xxxi. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fifty inches long by forty wide, representing her as wearing a robe of olive-brown brocaded damask, with a dark-green cloak ornamented with scarlet. The dress is cut square in the neck, over which is thrown a muslin kerchief; embroidered muslin sleeves, a muslin cap, and a pearl necklace complete the costume." " Her dress is of white satin, with a train of purple velvet edged with gold. She has a Blenheim spaniel in her lap." " Mrs. Bowler is represented as dressed in a blue satin robe, the sleeves of which are trimmed with lace. On her head she wears a Marie Stuart cap, and she has a sapphire necklace about the throat." "The dress is a morning robe with a white-satin waistcoat." "He wears a very long dark-green velvet waistcoat, trimmed with narrow gilt braid. The sleeves of the coat reach about three fourths of the length of the arms, with buttons on the tops of the cuffs ; a small portion of the shirt sleeves are seen below, fastened with gold sleeve-buttons." "She is sitting with her hands- which are handsome - lying in her lap ; a lawn handkerchief crosses her neck, and the ends pass under a band of velvet ; sleeves of velvet and white lawn with ruffles leave the wrists cxposed. Her dress is of dark-blue velvet, with the skirt beautifully arranged." " As the last sitting was taken just before a dinner with John Hancock, we have a representation of the dress appropriate to such an occasion, which consists of a brown suit, a blue-satin waistcoat with silver buttons, and with ruffles at the neck and wrists." "Wife of the above ; the dress of pink damask, open in front, showing a petticoat of white satin, trimmed with silver lace. There is white lace on the sleeves and at the neck." "The picture is of life-size, and nearly full length, and represents her as dressed in a dead-leaf-colored satin, the bodice, waists, and sleeves of which are trimmed with deep falls of rich lace." "Represented as a child of five years of age. He was born in Boston in 1754. . . . He is dressed in a low-necked sacque of green satin, over a dress of white satin, richly embroidered with lace, and with ruffles at the wrists. In his plump and pretty right hand he holds two cherries, while on his left are two white turtle-doves. The plumes of his hat are seen behind the left hand. "1 " The subject is dressed in a crimson-velvet morning-gown, with white small-clothes, stockings, and wearing a dark-velvet cap." " A distinguished merchant of Boston. . . . It represents a gentleman seated by a table, on which is a cocked hat, and a letter bearing an address. The costume is a gold-laced coat and waistcoat, with a white wig and silk stockings." "Represents her as dressed in yellow satin, ornamented with silver lace. The sleeves - which are short - are edged with beautiful lace. She wears a large hoop, and her hair, which is brushed over a cushion, is decorated with a white bow. Her ear-rings are of pearl ; and. a necklace of the same encircles her throat." Here is the portrait of Governor Moses Gill : " He wears a powdered wig, and the hair crêped at the ears. His dress is a dark-blue single-breasted velvet coat, lined with white satin, unbuttoned, and held back to the hip by the right hand. The sleeves are very large, with deep cuffs fastened up with two buttons, - the shirt sleeves coming below, terminating with a very narrow band of linen cambric. He wears a very long, white-satin waistcoat, and a muslin cravat is round the throat. . .. For the background of the picture, - on the right is a long, white window-shutter, with bluish-green drapery ; on the left is part of a desk, with a green-velvet cover." And here is the portrait of his first wife, who was a daughter of Rev. Thomas Prince : " She is dressed in a dark-blue velvet robe, with muslin under- sleeves reaching below the elbows, and with double ruffles. Four rows of pearl beads
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