The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 10

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770

USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 10

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1 [" The Town House is fitted up in the most elegant manner, with the whole of the outside painted of a stone color, which gives it a fine appearance."-June, 1773, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865, p. 324. Hancock had the pre- vious March, 1774, delivered the usual Massacre oration, which in the opinion of some was writ- ten by Samuel Adams. John Adams's Works, ii. 332; Wells's S. Adams. - ED.]

2 [Gage at this “ elegant entertainment gave ' Governor Hutchinson ' as a toast, which was re- ceived by a general hiss."-Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865, p. 328 .- ED.]

8 [The friends of Hutchinson and the pre- rogative made themselves conspicuous by an ad- dress on his leaving the province, and a list of the "addressers" is given in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October, 1870. - ED.]

4 [There are at the City Hall various lists of donations received at this time, with the records of the donation committee. Sec Vol. I. p. xx. The correspondence of this committee is in 4 Mass. IFist. Coll., iv. Colonel A. H. Hoyt has given an account of these gifts in the N. E. Ilist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. A subscription- list of contributions raised in Virginia in 1774, for the "distressed inhabitants of Boston, " is printed in the Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., Decem- ber, 1857. When the Marbleheaders sent in provisions for the Boston poor, they were re- fused passage for them by water, and an expensive land-carriage of twenty-eight miles was rendered necessary, as cven a ferry passage was refuscd. Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., 1865, p. 336. Benefactors in South Carolina and Connecticut were equally compelled to pay for a land passage. - ED.]

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

by the sufferings of Boston, and offered the free use of their wharves and stores.1

The committee of correspondence assumed with much ability the ar- duous and responsible task of guiding public affairs at this crisis. "A solemn league and covenant " to suspend all commercial intercourse with England, and forego the use of all British merchandise, was forwarded to every town in the province; and the names of those who refused to sign it were to be published. The first act of the Legislature at Salem was to protest against the illegal order for its removal. The House of Represen- tatives was the fullest ever known in the country, one hundred and twenty- nine being present. It was for them to fix the time and place for the proposed meeting of the Continental Congress, for which Samuel Adams and his coadjutors were diligently laboring.2 While they were sitting with closed doors a message came from the Governor dissolving the Assembly, but not until its important work had been done.3 Baffled in his purposes and chagrined at the success of the Patriots, Gage, without consulting the council, issued his foolish and malignant proclamation against the com- bination not to purchase British goods. He denounced it as " unwarrant- able, hostile, and traitorous ; " its subscribers as " open and declared enemies of the King and Parliament;" and he " enjoined and commanded all ma- gistrates and other officers .. . to apprehend and secure for trial all persons who might publish or sign, or invite others to sign, the covenant." It was known that the Governor was endeavoring to fasten charges of rebellion upon several of the popular leaders, in order to secure their ar- rest ; but his plans did not succeed.

In August the Regulation Acts were officially received by Gage and immediately put into effect, sweeping away the long cherished Charter of Massachusetts, and precipitating the irreversible choice between submis- sion and resistance. Samuel Adams wrote : 4 -

" Boston suffers with dignity. If Britain by her multiplied oppressions accelerates the independency of her colonies, whom will she have to blame but herself? It is

1 [In 1774 John Kneeland printed at Boston a part of Thomas Prince's sermon on the de- struction of D'Anville's fleet in 1746, " with a view to encourage and animate the people of God to put their trust in him, under the severe and kcen distresses now taking place, by the rigor- ous execution of the Port Bill." Ellis Gray, writing from Boston at this time to a friend in Jamaica, somewhat drolly apologizes for his slack correspondence on the ground that he lived " seventeen miles from a sca-port," -re- ferring to Salem and Marblehead. Sec Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc , March, 1876, p. 315. The Royal Amer. Mag., June, 1774, has one of Revere's satires on the Port Bill, in " The Able Doctor, or America swallowing the bitter Draught." The same magazine for May contains the act for blockading the port of Boston. An expression

of the prevailing feeling is found in Andrews's letters. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865, P. 327. - ED.]

2 [C. M. Endicott's Leslie's Retreat, p. 9. - E1.]

8 The Congress was appointed to meet in September, at Philadelphia, and the Massachu- setts delegates were Bowdoin (who, however, could not attend), Samuel Adams, John Adams, Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine. [This Con- gress sat in Philadelphia from September 5 to October 26. The idea of it is said to have originated with Franklin. Its proceedings, is- sucd in Philadelphia, were at once reprinted in Boston. Numerous references are given in Winsor's Handbook, pp. 16-19 - ED.]

+ Letters to William Checkley and Charles Thomson, Junc 1 and 2, 1774.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

a consolatory thought that an empire is rising in America. . .. Our people think they should pursue the line of the Constitution as far as they can; and if they are driven from it they can with propriety and justice appeal to God and to the world. . .. Nothing is more foreign to our hearts than a spirit of rebellion. Would to God they all, even our enemies, knew the warm attachment we have for Great Britain, notwithstanding we have been contending these ten years with them for our rights ! "

That attachment was ruthlessly severed by the operation of the new acts. "We were not the revolutionists," says Mr. Dana.1 "The King and Parlia- ment were the revolutionists. They were the radical innovators. We were the conservators of existing institutions. They were seeking to overthrow and reconstruct on a theory of parliamentary omnipotence. . . . We broke no chain."

Boston was now occupied by a large military force. The Fourth, Fifth, Thirty-eighth, and Forty-third regiments, together with twenty-two pieces of cannon and three companies of artillery, were encamped on the Common.2 The Welsh Fusileers were encamped on Fort Hill, and several companies of the Sixty-fourth were at Castle William, where most of the powder and other stores had been removed from New York. The Fifty-ninth was en- camped at Salem, to protect the meetings of the new mandamus council ; and two companies of the Sixty-fourth were at Danvers, to cover the Govern- or's residence.3 The camp at Boston was, in the absence of Gage, under command of Earl Percy, who had recently arrived with Colonels Pigott and Jones. Lord Percy describes the situation with some minuteness in his letters written to friends in England at this time : 4-

"The people, by all accounts, are extremely violent and wrong-headed ; so much so that I fear we shall be obliged to come to extremities." " One thing I will be bold

1 Oration at Lexington, April 19, 1875.

2 [We get a glimpse of the British camp at this time in the privately printed Memoir and Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn of the Fourth Regiment ("King's Own"), which was printed in 1879 at Oxford, edited by G. D. Scull. This officer joined his regiment in June, 1774, and wrote home sundry letters here preserved, in which the provincials appear as "rascals and poltroons." In December he was quartered in a house, and, having "laid in a good stock of Port and Madeira, hoped to spend the winter as well as our neighbors." He speaks of Sam Adams " as moving and directing this immense conti- nent, -a man of ordinary birth and desperate fortune, who, by his abilities and talent for fac- tious intrigue, has made himself of some conse- quence ; whose political existence depends upon the continuance of the present dispute, and who must sink into insignificancy and beggary the moment it ceases " (p. 46). " Hancock is a poor contemptible fool, led about hy Adams." Dr. Holmes draws the picture of the Common at this time : -

"And over all the open green Where grazed of late the harmless kine, The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, The war horse stamps, the bayonets shine."

John Andrews, writing of the delegation to the Congress of September, 1774, says : " Robert Treat Paine set out with the committee this morning [Aug. 10]. They made a very respect. able parade in sight of five of the regiments encamped on the Common; being in a coach and four, preceded by two white servants well mounted and armed, with four blacks behind in livery, two on horseback and two footmen." - Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865, P 339 .- ED.]

8 [Here, at the country residence of Robert Hooper, "King Hooper " of Marblehead, Gage had his headquarters for a while, Salem being then, under the Port Bill, the capital. On Aug. 27, 1774, Gage left Danvers and moved his headquarters to Boston, and the Fifty-ninth and Sixty-fourth regiments soon followed him, the former taking post on Boston Neck to throw up entrenchments there. - En.]

4 Private letters in possession of his Grace the Duke of Northumberland, and copied, by

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

to say, which is, that till you make their committees of correspondence and con- gresses with the other colonies high treason, and try them for it in England, you never must expect perfect obedience from this to the mother country." "This is the most beautiful country I ever saw in my life, and if the people were only like it we should do very well. Everything, however, is as yet quiet, but they threaten much. Not that I believe they darc act." "We have at last got the new acts, and twenty-six of the new council have accepted and are sworn in; but for my own part, I doubt whether they will be more active than the old ones. Such a set of timid creatures I never did see. Those of the new council that live at any distance from town have remained here ever since they took the oaths, and are, I am told, afraid to go home again. As for the opposite party, they are arming and exercising all over the country. . . . Their method of eluding that part of the act which relates to the town-meetings is strongly characteristic of the people. They say that since the town-meetings are forbid by the act, they shall not hold them ; but as they do not see any mention made of county meetings, they shall hold them for the future. They therefore go a mile out of town, do just the same business there they formerly did in Boston, call it a county meeting, and so elude the act.1 In short, I am certain that it will require a great length of time, much steadiness, and many troops, to re-establish good order and gov- ernment. I plainly foresee that there is not a new councillor or magistrate who will dare to act without at least a regiment at his heels ; and it is not quite clear to me that he will even act then as he ought to do." "The delegates from this province are set out (August 21) to meet the General Congress at Philadelphia. They talk much of non-importation, and an agreement between the colonies. . . . I flatter myself, however, that instead of agreeing to anything, they will all go by the ears together at this Congress. If they don't, there will be more work cut out for administration in America than perhaps they are aware of."

It soon appeared that the new acts were powerless to accomplish the end contemplated by the Government. With all the support furnished by a royal governor, royal judges, and a royal army, the courts could not sit, jurors would not serve, and the people would not obey. Sheriffs were timid, councillors resigned their places and soldiers deserted. Meanwhile the colonists were busy, maturing their plans in clubs, caucuses, and conventions. Whether these were legal or illegal under the new act, they did not stop to inquire.

permission, by the present writer. Hugh Earl Percy was born August 25, 1742. In early life he adopted the military profession, and served under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in the Seven Years' War. He arrived in Boston July 5, 1774, with the Fifth Regiment of foot, and re- mained in the service in this country until May 3, 1777, when he returned to England with the rank of licut .- general in North America. lle was especially prominent at Lexington, and in the attack on Fort Washington, at King's Bridge. Soon after his return to England, he was selected to head a commission to offer terms of concilia- tion to Congress; but, owing to a division in the British Cabinet, Lord Percy declined the offer, and the project was abandoned. After this, he represented the city of Westminster in Parlia-

ment until the year 1786, when he succeeded his father as Duke of Northumberland. For many years his time was chiefly employed in improving his princely estates. During the war with France, he raised from among his tenantry a corps of fifteen hundred men, called the "Percy Yeo- manry," the whole corps being paid, clothed, and maintained by himself. lle was a Knight of the Garter, a member of several learned societies, and the recipient of many of the highest hon- ors of the realm. He died at Northumberland House, London, July 10, 1817, in the seventy- fifth year of his age, and was buried in St. Nicholas Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

1 [This explains the somewhat strange appel- lation of the "Suffolk Resolves," mentioned later in the text. - ED.]

VOL. III. - 8.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

Sin your humble for? Percy.

Apl 20th 1775

No act of Parliament, they maintained, could impose restrictions upon those ancient and chartered rights which they had always enjoyed. With this

1 This cut follows an engraving by V Green, executed in London, in 1777, and measuring 18 X 121/2 inches. The plate was engraved from a

portrait presented by the Duke of Northumber- land, July 30, 1776, to the magistrates of West- minster, and placed in the council chamber of

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

conviction they had resisted the injustice of the Stamp Act and the Tea Act, and they were not the men to yield now to a tyranny far greater than either.

THE WARREN HOUSE IN ROXBURY.1

The Regulating Act had not been long in operation before the popular resistance which it encountered found appropriate expression in the famous Suffolk Resolves drawn up by Warren, who acted as a kind of director-gen- eral during the absence of Samuel Adams at Philadelphia. These resolves,

their Guild Hall in commemoration of Lord Per- cy's public services. The portrait was evidently a duplicate of the one by Pompeio Battoni, now at Alnwick Castle, a copy of which was made in 1879 by order of the present Duke and presented, through the writer of this chapter, to the Town of Lexington. Another likeness of Earl Percy, taken later in life, may be seen with a brief ae- count in Captain Evelyn's Memoir and Letters, p. 127

1 [This cut follows a painting now owned by the wife of Dr Buckminster Brown, of Boston, a descendant of General Warren. The house was built in 1720 by Joseph Warren, the General's grandfather. It was used as quarters for Colonel David Brewer's regiment during the summer of

1775. The late Dr. John C. Warren acquired the estate in t805; and selling off all but the house in 1833, he built, in t846, the present stone cottage on the site. (Life of Dr. John Warren, ch. i.) In the old house (of which another view, as well as one of the present cottage, is given in Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 213) Joseph Warren was born, in 1741; but at this time he lived on Hanover Street, where the American House now stands, hiring the mansion house of Joseph Green, which stood there. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1875, p. 101. Ellis Ames, Esq., has parts of Warren's day-book between January, 177t, and Jannary, 1775, showing the extent of his medical practice. Frothingham, Life of Warren, p. 167. - ED.]

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

nineteen i a number,1 were adopted in September by the Suffolk convention, which met successively at Stoughton ( Canton), Dedham,2 and Milton.3 They

In Committee of Safely Cambridge May /Li VS Los WarrenCh

declared that the sovereign who breaks his compact with his subjects forfeits their allegiance. They arraigned the unconstitutional acts of Parliament,

1 Given in Frothingham's Warren, pp. 365- in the possession of Dr. Buckminster Brown, of 367, and Appendix i.

2 At the house of Richard Woodward.

8 At the house of Daniel Vose.

4 [This cut follows a painting by Copley, now

Boston, who kindly allowed it to be photographed · for the engraver's usc. Perkins, in his Copley's Life and Paintings, p. 115, says : "The canvas is about five feet long by four wide, and the color-

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

and rejected all officers appointed under their authority. They directed collectors of taxes to pay over no money to the royal treasurer. They advised the towns to choose their officers of militia from the friends of the people. They favored a Provincial Congress, and promised respect and submission to the Continental Congress. They determined to act upon the defensive as long as reason and self-preservation would permit, "but no longer." They threatened to seize every Crown officer in the province as hostages if the Governor should arrest any one for political reasons. They

ing is very beautiful. It was one of Copley's last portraits before he left Boston for Europe in 1774, and as a piece of artistic skill, as well as for its historic interest, has been pronounced by good judges to be one of the most valuable of Copley's portraits in this country. It was painted while General Warren was the presiding officer of the Massachusetts Congress." The sitter and the artist were intimate friends, and the portrait was painted for General Warren's children, and has always been in the possession of some branch of the family. This portrait, with that of Mrs. Warren, by the same artist, was loaned to Mr. W. W. Corcoran for exhibition in his gallery at Washington, D. C. There is ex- tant a letter from Lord Lyndhurst in which he makes inquiries respecting it, in reference, it is supposed, to the possibility of securing it for an English collection. These paintings have been in Boston since the spring of 1876, and have never before been reproduced. That of Mrs Warren, of the same size, was probably painted three or four years previously. She died in 1773, at the age of twenty-six.

The familiar engraved likeness of General Warren, fo.lowing another Copley, 29 x 24 inches, in citizen's dress, showing one hand, was origi- nally owned by General Arnold Welles who mar- ried Warren's daughter, from whom it passed to the late Dr. John C. Warren, and is now owned by his grandson of the same namnc. Another half- length by Copley, belonging to the city, is now in the Art Museum. Early engravings of Warren are to be found 'in the Impartial History of the War, Boston edition (engraved by J. Norman, full-length, and showing the battle of Bunker Hill in the background), and in the Boston Maga- zine, May, 1784, following Copley's picture and engraved by J. Norman. A colored engraving resembling Copley's likeness was also frequently seen, and a copy is now preserved in the pavilion on Bunker Hill. A portrait statue, based on Copley's likeness, and executed by Henry Dexter, was erected in this pavilion in 1857, when dedica- tory services took place on the anniversary of the battle, with an address by Edward Everett. An engraving of the statue is given in the com- memorative volume which was issued at the time by the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Sce

also George Washington Warren's History of the Bunker Hill Monument Association.

General Warren left four children, two sons and two daughters. The sons died in early manhood. One daughter married General Ar- nold Welles, of Boston, and died without chil- dren. The second daughter was twice married: first to Mr. Lyman, of Northampton, and sec- ond to Judge Newcomb, of Greenfield, Mass. This daughter died in 1826, leaving one son, Joseph Warren Newcomb, who had two chil- dren, a son and daughter. The descendants of General Warren now living are a great-grand- daughter, who is married and lives in Boston, and a great-great-grandson, who is a cadet at West Point.

A sumptuous volume, Genealogy of Warren, by Dr. John C. Warren, was printed in Boston, in 1854, to show the connections of the Patriot both in this country and presumably and pos- sibly in England. For an account of the papers of General Warren, see Life of John C. Warren, i. 217. One of Pendleton's earliest lithographs was of Warren's portrait, which appeared with a memoir in the Boston Monthly Magazine, Junc, 1826.

Abigail Adams repeats a story of an intended indignity to the body of Warren after his fall at Bunker Hill, from which he was saved by his Freemasonry affiliations. (Familiar Letters, p. 91.) On the repossession of Boston after the siege, the body was exhumed from the spot where he fell; and after an oration pronounced over it by Perez Morton (which was printed and is quoted in Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. [27*), it was deposited in the Minot tomb in the Granary Burying-ground; and in 1825 was re- moved to a tomb beneath St. Paul's, whence, at a later day, the remains were again removed to Forest Hills cemetery. Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 251. See an account of some relics of Warren hy J. S. Loring in the Hist. Mag., De- cember, 1857. His sword is in the possession of Dr. John Collins Warren. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., September, 1866, p. 348. - ED.]

. Also reprinted in a Biographical Sketch of General Joseph Warren, embracing his Boston Orations of 1772 and 1775: together with the Eulogy pronounced by Peres Morton, in 1776 By a Bostonian. Boston : 1857.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

also arranged a system of couriers to carry messages to town officers and corresponding committees. They earnestly advocated the well known Amer- ican principles of social order as the basis of all political action ; exhorted all persons to abstain from riots and all attacks upon the property of any person whatsoever ; and urged their countrymen to convince their " enemies that in a contest so important, in a cause so solemn, their conduct should be such as to merit the approbation of the wise, and the admiration of the brave and free of every age and of every country." For boldness and prac- tical utility these resolves surpassed anything that had been promulgated in America. They were sent by Paul Revere as a memorial to the Congress at Philadelphia, where they were received with great applause, and recom- mended to the whole country.

Gage, perceiving that the time for reasoning had passed, applied 1 for more troops, seized the powder belonging to the Province,2 and began the construction of fortifications on the Neck, near the Roxbury line, command- ing the only land entrance which Boston had.3 Beyond the limits of Boston

1 [Correspondence of Gage at this time with Lord Dartmouth is in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1876, p. 347. See also Life of Lord Barrington. -ED.]

2 [On September 1, 1774, Gage sent 260 sol- diers, who embarked in boats at Long Wharf, to seize the Province's store of powder, which was kept in the old mill on the road from Winter Hill to Arlington. William Brattle, at that time commanding the Province militia, had instigated the movement. It was successful, and the troops returned bringing not only the powder, but two field-pieces which they had seized in Cambridge. This theft was soon avenged. An artillery com- pany had been organized by Capt. David Mason in 1763, and was known commonly as " the train," and attached to the Boston regiment. Its com- mand had passed in 1768 to Lieutenant Adino Paddock, who was a good drill master, and who

Adino Paddock 1772

derived instruction himself from members of a company of royal artillery stationed at the Castle ; and the train became the school of many good offi- cers of the Revolution. Paddock received two light brass field-pieces, and uniformed a number of German emigrants in white frocks, hair caps, and broadswords, to drag the cannon. These pieces had, it is supposed, been cast in London for the Province from some old cannon sent over for the purpose, and they bore the Province arms. They seem to have been first used when the king's birthday was celebrated, June 4, 1768, in firing a salute, when the train paraded with Colonel

Phips's governor's troop and Colonel Jackson's regiment. At the outbreak of the war these pieces were kept in a gun-house at the corner of West Street ; and as Paddock adhered to the royal cause, and might surrender them to Gage, they were stealthily removed by some young Patriots and, on a good opportunity, conveyed by boat to the American camp, where they did good service then and through the war; and in 1788 Knox, then secretary of war, had them inscribed with the names of Hancock and Adams, and they now may be seen in the summit-chamber of Bunker Ilill Monument. (Drake's K'nox, p. 127.) The young men who accomplished their removal were, among others, Abraham Holbrook, Nathaniel Balch, Samuel Gore, Moses Grant, and Jeremy Gridley. (Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 452.) Judge Story's father was another. (Life and Letters of Judge Story, i. 9. See also N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. vii. 139.) The commit- tee of safety, Feb. 23, 1775, instructed Dr. Warren to ascertain what number of Paddock's men could be de- pended on. Drake, Cincin- nati Society, p. 543, gives a partial list of the train-mem- bers, designating such as subsequently served in the Patriot army.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 10

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897 Publication date: 1880-1881 Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood Number of Pages: 770

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770