USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 23
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1 Boston Town Records, May 14, 1773.
2 Boston Gazette, Jan. 1, 1770.
8 Boston Gazette, Feb. 19, 1770. 4 Ibid., May 21, 1770.
151
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
There was no mincing of matters. If a man went counter to the popular sentiment and passion he was denounced by name, and made to feel the scorn of his neighbors. The rebuke was open and public: -
" Upon a motion made and seconded, voted unanimously, that this town have the greatest abhorrence of one of its inhabitants, - viz., Samuel Waterhouse, - who, in defiance of the united sentiment, not only of his fellow-citizens but all his fellow-countrymen, expressed repeatedly in the votes and records of the Honorable House of Representatives of this Province, has continued to accommodate troops at this time so justly obnoxious to a free people and abhorrent to a free constitu- tion, and thereby basely prostituted a once respectable mansion-house to the use of a main guard." 1
There is something half petty, half sublime, in the solemn way in which the town, in measured sentence, proceeds to write down for posterity the names of those who have shown themselves unworthy townsmen. At a town-meeting held March 19, 1770, this vote was unanimously passed : -
" The merchants, not only of this metropolis but through the continent, having nobly preferred the public good to their own private emolument, and with a view to obtain a redress of the grievance so loudly and justly complained of, having almost unanimously engaged to suspend their importations from Great Britain, - a measure approved by all orders as legal, peaccable, and most likely of all others to effect the salutary design in view, and which will be regarded by posterity with veneration, for the disinterested and truly public spirit appearing in it, - the town cannot but express their astonishment and indignation that any of its citizens should be so lost to the feelings of patriotism and the common interest, and so thoroughly and infamously self- ish as to obstruct this very measure by continuing their importation ; be it therefore solemnly voted, that the names of these persons - few, indeed, to the honor of the town [and then follow a dozen names, one only of which, that of John Mein, the bookseller, has any other notoriety] - be entered on the records of this town, that posterity may know who those persons were that preferred their little private ad- vantage to the common interest of all the Colonies in a point of the greatest importance ; who not only deserted, but opposed their country in a struggle for the rights of the Constitution that must ever do it honor ; and who, with a design to en- rich themselves, basely took advantage of the generous self-denial of their fellow- citizens for the common good."
The intimation in the last clause is of a not unnatural indignation felt and expressed by those traders who signed the agreement, and saw business fall- ing into the hands of less zealous merchants.
Meanwhile, though foreign trade was paralyzed and the community was restless and often disorderly, the very excitement of life was doubtless a stimulus to activity in many directions John Hancock gave the town a fire-engine, and the town, accepting it with pleasure, directed with an honest simplicity that the engine " be placed, under proper cover, at or near Han- cock's Wharf; and in case of fires the estate of the donor shall have the
1 Boston Town Records, March 6, 1770.
152
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
John armory Rickyaller
Timothy Fitch
San Malcom
Alex Hill ) Richard Cary Joshua Henshaw
John Scott Jame Elich
Hemy Lloy John IrvingHar Joshua Winslow Sam Hughes _ Thomas Gray Ther mory growE Forgreen Edward Payne
Mich Boylston
BOSTON MERCHANTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
preference of its service."1 A number of meetings were held to take measures for lighting the town, and the result was a private subscription and the purchase of between three and four hundred lamps.2 Two respon-
1 Boston Town Records, May 22, 1772. [Sev- Proc., October, 1877, P. 349.) He had already eral papers relating to the engines and engine- men of this time are among the old papers in the Charity Building. - ED.]
2 ['Thomas Newell's diary notes: " March 2, 1774. - A number of lamps in town were lighted this evening for the first time." (Mass. Hist. Soc.
(January 8) recorded : " Began to make the lops of the glass lamps for this town." The lamps had come from England, and were on board one of the tea-ships which was wrecked in Decem- ber, 1773, on Cape Cod. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865, p. 327. - ED.]
153
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
John Hancock
Ebenezer Storer
Coffin Sol Davy
for Barrett Nath Greene,
Thom Russell In Spooner
Joseph Lee Joseph Sherburne
W: Phillips Isaac winston.
John avery
Berg Hallowell Hm Fisher Nath appleton Jon Williams
Dant Hubbard Jonª Majon, Henderson Inches
Nath Gary Harrison Gray Jun 2
BOSTON MERCHANTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
I54
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
sible persons from each ward were appointed to decide, with the committee, upon the most fitting places. Gawen Brown, whose name is familiar upon many hall clocks which are still ticking regularly, set up a great clock on the Old South, which " goes with such regularity and exactness that for this fourteen weeks it has not lost by two minutes of time."1 In February of the same year the newspaper takes notice of the finishing of an excellent spinnet,2 " which, for goodness of workmanship and harmony of sound, is esteemed by the best judges to be superior to any that has been imported from Europe." The protective high tariff of non-importation was evidently at work.
The order of the town was naturally disturbed by the state of affairs; and one article in the warrant for a town-meeting in March, 1770, was " to con- sider of some effectual methods to prevent unlicensed strangers, and other persons, from entertaining and supplying the youth and servants of the town with spirituous liquors ; for the breaking up of bad houses, and re- moval of any disorderly intruders to the places from whence they came; and for the further discountenancing of vice and promoting a refor- mation of manners." A committee was appointed, but reported that the laws were sufficient, and only needed to be enforced. They ad- vised, however, the appointment of twelve tithing-men to see to such enforcement.
The population which remained in Boston, when the town was fairly beleaguered, consisted of the garrison and its immediate camp-following ; the Crown officers with their households; a small society of Tories, rich and well-bred, many of whom had sought refuge in the town ; 3 a consider- able body of poor people, whose sympathies were chiefly with the Patriots; and a few citizens who, belonging to the popular party, remained either to perform the duties of their offices as ministers or doctors, or to protect, as far as possible, their own property and that of their connections. It is probable that among these last would be found those whose interests were chiefly commercial, and who warily avoided committing themselves unreservedly to either side in the conflict. Our sources of information re- garding the common life of the town are derived from letters, journals, and the like,4 from representatives of these several classes, excepting the very
1 Boston Gazette, April 16, 1770.
2 [See an account of the spinnet of this time in Harper's Magazine, Iviii. 860. - ED.]
3 [Most of these are named in the Editorial Note on "The Loyalists," following this chap- ter. - ED.]
p. 281, -100 cautious to disclose much; letters to G. Greene, in Ibid., June, 1873; letter of Samuel Paine, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876; British officer's journal, in Atlantic Monthly, April, 1877; Memoir and Letters of Captain W. G. Evelyn, 1879, from which there are some extracts in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1879, p. 289. After the action at Bunker Hill, thirty-one Pa- triots were thrown by General Gage into the jail in Boston. Among them was James Lovell, who had delivered one of the Massacre orations. (See Loring, Hundred Boston Orators, p. 33). The diaries of two of these captives have been preserved :
4 [Such sources are the letters of John An- drews, in Mass. Hist. Soc. "Proc., 1865, p. 405; letters in American Historical Record. December, 1872; Newell's Diary, in 4 Mass. Hist. Col., i .; letters in Essex Institute Collections, July, 1876; and Mr. W. P. Upham's paper, in Essex Insti- tute Bulletin, March, 1876; Andrew Eliot's let- ters, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., September, 1878, that of Peter Edes was printed in Bangor in
155
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
humble; and from the scanty chronicles preserved in the meagre Boston News-Letter, the only paper published in town during the siege, which was, of course, in the Tory interest. The life of which we catch glimpses was one of petty contrasts and of much common discomfort and misery. In the matter of shelter, the gentlemen and ladies of the Royal cause took posses- sion of houses which had been deserted by prominent citizens, or were welcomed by those who remained with satisfaction in their own houses. Hancock's house 1 was occupied by, General Clinton; Burgoyne was in the Bowdoin mansion; 2 and Lord Percy in the Gardiner Greene house ; 8 Gage and his successor, Howe,4 took possession, in turn, of the Province House. The officers 5 found lodgings in the aristocratic boarding-houses, which long after this period were the resort of persons who wished a more dignified and comfortable resting-place than the taverns afforded. The troops were dis- posed in barracks in different parts of the town; 6 and the general aspect of the place was altered by the exigencies of the situation. A number of build- ings were taken down near the old Hay-Market, to permit unobstructed pas- sage across the southern part of the peninsula, where the strongest works
1837 ; that of John Leach is in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1865. The manuscripts of both are owned by Mr. H. Il. Edes. His let- ter relating to the two journals is printed in the Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., December, 1871, p. 176. See the Evacuation Memorial, p. 157 .- ED.]
I [There is in the collection of Mellen Chant- berlain, Librarian of the Public Library, a paper signed by William Bant, "attorney to Mr. Han- cock," dated Boston, Feb. 26, 1777, which shows the damage done to Hancock's estate by the British troops during their occupancy, "so far as I have been able to collect it," amounting to £4,732 25. 834d., of which, £345 1os. 6×d. was damage to the mansion-house and its fences, " since April 19, 1776, taken to Decr 1776," in- cluding wines, furniture, "6 muskets given in to Gen! Gage by his arbitrary order, @ So / ," " lin- ing of the chariot torn out and carried away, L9," "rent of the House one year, {133- 6s. Sd." Mention is also made of a "house back of the Mansion House, pull'd down and destroyed, £300;" also " a house in Ann Street pull'd down and destroyed, £500."- ED.]
2 [Dr. Ellis's paper on " Burgoyne in Boston," in Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876, p. 233, gives a synopsis of so much of Fonblanque's Life of Burgoyne as relates to his stay here. -ED.]
8 [Percy at one time occupied a fine mansion, with garden, which stood on the northerly corner of Winter and Tremont streets, and which be- longed to Mr. John Williams, and had been the town residence of Governor Bernard. After the war it was the home of Samuel Breck (whose Reminiscences we have had, as edited by Mr. Scudder), who sold the estate to John Andrews,
whose letters, however, at the time now under observation, were written from a house in School Street, where he then lived. Percy is sometimes said at different times to have occupied also the Hancock House, Mrs. Sheaffe's at the corner of Columbia and Essex streets, and perhaps others; but Mr. C. W. Tuttle (Daily Advertiser, May I, 1880) says he has seen no evidence, originating in that period, of his having lived in any house but that of Mr. Williams. - ED.]
4 [The quarters of General Howe were, be- fore Gage left, in a house at the corner of Oliver and Milk streets. Drake's Landmarks, 1872, p. 271 .- ED.]
6 [Brigadier Pigot, of the Forty-third, “im- . proved a house just above Liberty Tree ; " but after the fight at Charlestown, his command of the troops on Bunker Hill required his resi- dence on that side of the river. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. Adjutant Waller's Orderly-Book has the following : -
" 16 Aug., 1775. Whereas some evil-minded person did, on monday last, in the middle of the day, cut off the tail of a little black cow belong- ing to B. Gen1 Pigot, whoever will give infor- mation against the person guilty of so much cruelty shall receive a guinea reward." - ED.|
6 [Drake, Landmarks, p. 313, says that a bat- talion of troops was quartered in Sheriff Green- leaf's gardens, at the corner of Tremont and West streets. John Adams's house, in Queen Street (Court Street), was "occupied by one of the doc- tors of a regiment." It was found, after the evacuation, "very dirty, but no other damage done to it ; but the few things which were left in it, all gone." Familiar Letters, pp. 149, 154. -ED.1
156
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
were built for defence against possible attack.1 The Old South was used as a riding-school for the light dragoons, -not without a contemptuous ref- erence to the prominence of the building as a gathering-place for the sedi- tious inhabitants, -and other meeting-houses were used for barracks. The Old North Meeting-house was pulled down for fuel, and over a hundred houses were destroyed for the same purpose; chiefly, probably, the old, small, and decaying wooden buildings.2 There was, of course, no sentiment which would preserve the house of Governor Winthrop for a later destruc- tion by indifferent citizens. The order for destruction was not given until necessity compelled it. Supplies of fuel had been ordered but did not arrive, and the winter set in with uncommon severity.
The customary avenues by which fuel, food, clothing, and other neces- sities entered the town had been closed, with the exception of the water-way into the harbor, and privateersmen were hovering about the coast harassing the transports that entered there. The town, before the siege, had taken care of itself by the ordinary dealings with the country, and by its com- merce; but now it was the work of a military organization to supply the most common necessities of a large and helpless population. Suddenly to feed a town and garrison numbering together twenty thousand souls, and to be dependent chiefly upon slow-sailing vessels, coming from a distance in the inclemency of weather, was a task beyond the capacity of any common quartermaster's department ; and rich and poor found themselves in a sad quandary. The testimony on this point is varied and explicit, for men be- come very talkative about their dinner when they have either had none or fear there is none to come; and the journals and letters of the siege are largely occupied with this topic.8 John Andrews, one of the merchants who remained behind to have an eye on family property, and whose shrewd- ness and ready wit plainly stood him in good stead with both parties, makes a survey of the situation near the end of the siege : -
" I am well in health, thank God ! and have been so the whole of the time, but have lived at the rate of six or seven hundred sterling a year ; for I was determined to eat fresh provisions while it was to be got, let it cost what it would; that since
1 [These works are best shown in Page's map, given in another chapter. This southern approach to the town is shown pictorially in the annexed heliotypes of two views of Boston, dat- ing from this time; the upper is one of Des Barres's views, and the Neck lines are shown at the point where a flag flies. Something of the ruggedness of Beacon Hill is indicated in the mount beyond the town. In the lower view, which gives Shirley Hall in the middle distance on the left, Beacon Hill seems to assume an ap- pearance which it is hard to accept. The view is much the same as the upper one, but from a point farther back from the shore. It follows a copy of a large print now in the Boston Athenæum. What seems to be the same has been not very accurately engraved in Lossing's Washington, and
in Frank Moore's Diary of the American Revolu- tion, p. 97 ; also as a wood-cut, in Lossing's Field- Book of the Revolution, i. 512. - ED.]
2 [The immediate occasion is said to have been to supply transports with fuel which were about to sail for England with sick. Moore's Diary of the Revolution, i. 182. - ED.]
8 [" 29 May. Any women, as may be wanted as nurscs at the General Hospital, or to do any other business for the service of the Garrison, and shall refuse to do it, will immediately be struck off the provision list."- Waller's Orderly- Book, 1775. In August, 1775, John Leach, then confined in Boston jail, enters in his diary : "This afternoon my wife came to ask my advice about signing for buying meat, as none were to have it but friends of Government."-ED.]
1
157
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
October I have scarce eat three meals of salt meat, but supplied my family with fresh at the rate of one shilling to one shilling sixpence sterling the pound. What wood was to be got was obliged to give at the rate of twenty dollars a cord ; and coals, though Government had a plenty, I could not procure (not being an addressor or associator' ), though I offered so high as fifty dollars for a chaldron, and that at a season when Nabby and John, the only help I had, were under inoculation for the small-pox ; that, if you'll believe me, Bill, I was necessitated to burn horse-dung. Many were the instances of the inhabitants being confined to the provost for purchas- ing fuel of the soldiers, when no other means offered, to keep them from perishing with cold. Yet such was the inhumanity of our masters, that they were even denied the privilege of buying the surplusage of the soldiers' rations. Though you may think we had plenty of cheese and porter, yet we were obliged to give from fifteen pence to two shillings a pound for all we ate of the former ; and a loaf of bread of the size we formerly gave three pence for, thought ourselves well off to get for a shilling. Butter at two shillings. Milk - for months without tasting any. Potatoes, from nine shillings to ten shillings and sixpence a bushel ; and everything else in the same strain." 2
The besieging soldiers had a joke that the town bull, aged twenty, was killed and cut up for the use of the officers ; and in a letter from one of these to his father in England, it is said: "Why should I complain of hard fate? General Gage and all his family have for this month past lived upon salt pro- vision. Last Saturday, General Putnam, in the true style of military com- plaisance which abolishes all personal resentment and smooths the horrors of war when discipline will permit, sent a present to General Gage's lady of a fine quarter of veal, which was very acceptable, and received the return of a very polite card of thanks." At one time during the siege only six head of cattle were in the hands of Butcher-Master-General Hewes, as entire stock for troops or inhabitants, and the rejected portions of the slaughtered animals found purchasers among those who were both rich and dainty. One of the accounts, dated the middle of December, says: "The distress of the troops and inhabitants in Boston is great beyond all possible descrip- tion. Neither vegetables, flour, nor pulse for the inhabitants, and the king's stores so very short none can be spared from them; no fuel, and the winter set in remarkably severe. The troops and inhabitants absolutely and liter- ally starving for want of provisions and fire. Even salt provision is fifteen pence sterling per pound."3 John Andrews, writing at one time when he was a little less cheerful than usual, did not boast of his fare: "Was it not for a trifle of salt provisions that we have, 't would be impossible for us to live. Pork and beans one day, and beans and pork another, and fish when we can catch it." He gives, frankly enough, his reason for braving all these discomforts: " Am necessitated to submit to such living, or risk the little
! An "addresser " was one of those, presum- ahly Loyalists, who joined in congratulatory addresses to Gage and Howe on different occa- sions. An "associator " was one of the military company of Loyal American Associators, - vol-
unteers who had offered their services to the commander-in-chief, and were enrolled under that name.
2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865.
8 Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 280.
158
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
all I have in the world, which consists in my stock of goods and furniture, to the amount of between two and three thousand sterling, as it's said without scruple that those who leave the town forfeit all the effects they leave behind. Whether they hold it up as only a means to detain people or not, I can't say ; but, in regard to slaves, their actions have been consistent with the doctrines, however absurd. It has so far availed as to influence many to stay who would otherways have gone."
The higher life of Boston, which had made the town the spokesman for liberty, was perpetuated now outside of its limits, in Cambridge camp, and in the councils of the embryo nation; but there was still a light left burn- ing within the besieged town, where were also the memorials of its past vitality. The very endurance of the poor tradesmen who remained, num- bering among them, doubtless, some of those who at an earlier stage of the struggle had refused to build barracks for the English troops, and thus had offered their little sacrifice of wages, the privations of life which stanch Patriots bore, - these were witnesses to the indestructible spirit of the town ; and it may be said that the town, whether within or without the lines, was at any time ready for the doom of destruction if that sacrifice was required. The monuments of its cherished ideas bore also a dumb testimony to the conflict which was going on. The houses of the chief citizens, occupied by prominent officers, were for the most part respected by the occupants ; but that of Sam Adams, the arch-rebel, was mutilated and disfigured past his slender means of restoration. The public buildings were devoted to the uses of the soldiers. The Old South, as we have seen, was turned into a riding-school, the pulpit, pews, and seats being hacked and carried off. A beautiful carved pew, with silk furniture, belonging to Deacon Hubbard, was taken away and used for a hog-sty, according to Timothy Newell, upon the solicitation of General Burgoyne; and it is difficult not to see in some of the acts of officers and soldiers a spiteful temper. "Dirt and gravel were spread over the floors; the south door was closed; a bar was fixed, over which the cavalry leaped their horses at full speed ; the east galleries were allotted to spectators ; the first gallery was fitted up as a refreshment room. A stove was put up in the winter, and here werc burned for kindling many of the books and manuscripts of Prince's fine library."1 Timothy Newell's diary contains an amusing account of the shifts to which the worthy deacon resorted to evade the requisition made upon him for the use of Brattle Street Church, then recently built, and the pride of the town. He gives a
· sigh of relief as he records the fact that the necessity of taking down the pillars, and thus endangering the safety of the building, was all that saved the church from being used as a riding-school. It was used as a barrack. The West Church was used for barracks, and its steeple pulled down for firewood.2 The North Church, built of wood, was pulled down for the same reason. The Federal Street Meeting-house was filled with hay. The Hollis Street Church was used for barracks. The Liberty Tree was cut
1 Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 328. 2 [Shown in the frontispiece of this volume. - En.]
159
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
down amidst the jibes and taunts of the soldiers and Tories, who had not forgotten its almost personal symbolism. The most distinguished citizen who remained was the Rev. Andrew Eliot, who shared the ministerial work chiefly with Drs. Mather and Byles.1 He was detained much against his will, but spent his time in service of the poor and sick. The Thursday Lecture gave way near the end of the siege; and Dr. Eliot notes in his. diary, -
" November 30 [1775]. Preached T. L. Coctus vere parva. The attendance of this lecture being exceedingly small, and our work greatly increased in other respects, Dr. Mather and I, who, since the departure of our other Brethren, had preached it
THE LIBERTY TREE.
alternately, thought proper to lay it down for the present. I preached the last sermon from those words in Rev. 2, 'Remember how thou hast received,' etc. An affecting occasion of laying down a lecture which had subsisted more than 140 years. The small congregation was much moved at the conclusion."
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