USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 28
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The scene is also described by Mrs. Adams in her letters, July 21, Familiar Letters, p. 204, and in the New England Chronicle, July 25.
It was now in front of the old historic Bunch of Grapes tavern, on the upper corner of State and Kilby streets, that all portable signs of roy- alty in the town, - such as the arms from the Town House, the Court House, and the Custom House, - were brought and thrown in a pile to make a bonfire.
The first anniversary (July 4, 1777) of the Declaration of Independence was celebrated in Boston with great parade, a sermon by Dr. Gordon before the Legislature, a public dinner, and much booming of cannon. Moore's Diary, i. 463.
A copy of the broadside Declaration of Inde- pendence, attested in script, " A true copy, John Hancock, Presid'," is in Mass. Archives, cxlii. 23. It is one of the copies sent to each of the States by order of Congress, Jan. IS, 1777, and is marked in print " Baltimore, in Maryland;
printed hy Mary Katharine Goddard." With it is Hancock's letter transmitting it to the Massa- chusetts authorities. There is in the Public Li- brary another copy of the same broadside, on which is written " Attest, Cha. Thomson, Secy. A True Copy, John Hancock, Presid'." It is not evident to which of the States it was sent, if indeed it is one of those sent to the States.
GENERAL HIEATHI IN COMMAND. - In 1777 General Heath 1 succeeded Ward in command. His headquarters were in the house of Thomas Russell, which was in Summer Street, about where Otis Street is. Major Andrew Symmes had the immediate charge of the garrison of the town. During the summer an uncertainty as to the destination of the British fleet, then preparing to leave Newport, caused some uncasiness and renewed vigilance, and precautions were taken for alarming the country in case of impending danger. (See order in fac-simile on next page). Signals for announcing the approach of an ene- my's ship to Hull, were arranged by the Council Sept. 10, 1777, and they are given in the Mass. Archives, cxlii. 105. Mrs. Adams describes the fright : " All Boston was in confusion, packing up and carting out of town household furniture, military stores, goods, etc. Not less than a ^thousand teams were employed on Friday and Saturday."- Familiar Letters, p. 287.
It was during Heath's term of service here in Boston that the army of Burgoyne, which had surrendered at Saratoga in October, 1777, was marched to Cambridge. The news of the sur- render had preceded them, and was received with illuminations, bonfires, and cannon. Moore's Diary, i. 513. The provincial authorities had lost no time in chartering a swift vessel to carry the news to the Commissioners in Paris. The des- patches were entrusted to Jonathan Loring Aus- tin; and after prayers had been said by Dr. Chauncy in the old Brick Meeting-house, the vessel sailed, and reached Nantes in safety in November. Loring, Boston Orators, p. 174.
The English reached Prospect Hill Novem- ber 6, and were put into barracks there. The Ilessians arrived the next day at Winter Ilill, and were quartered there. General Burgoyne, who entered Cambridge in a pelting storm at the head of his troops, was lodged temporarily at Bradish's tavern, now known as Porter's ; but subsequently was quartered at the house oppo- site Gore Ifall, known as the Bishop's Palace.
I A portrait of General Heath is owned by Mrs. G. Brewer, of Boston. An old oval, engraved portrait of him is marked " It Williams, pinxt I. R. Smith, sculp." There is a copy in the Historical Society's Library Gen- eral Heath's estate lay in Roxbury at the foot of Parker's fill, and is now bisected by Heath Street. Here, on the easterly corner of that street and Bickford Avenue, the homestead stood. It was demolished in :343. Drake'a Town of Roxbury, p. 386.
184
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
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The British artillery was parked on Cambridge Common. General Rie- desel and his wife were established in the Jona- than Sewall house, on the corner of Brattle and Sparks streets. The camps of the "Conven- tion troops," as they were called in allusion to the terms of their condi- tional surrender, were guarded by Massachu- setts militia, while the officers signed a parole not to pass beyond speci- fied limits.
This document is re- ferred to by Barry (iii. 146) as being in the pos- session of J. W. Thorn- ton, Esq., and as if it were the original conven- tion paper signed at Sar- atoga by Burgoyne and his officers. One sheet is sub- scribed by Burgoyne and the Eng- lish officers; and the other by Riedesel and the German officers. Mr. Thornton put it into the great Sanitary Fair held in Boston, with the understanding that it should be given to the Public Library if $1000 were subscribed for the ob- jects of the Fair; and this being done, the interesting document, which was originally among the Heath papers, passed in 1864 into that depository.
The Convention troops proved a rather turbulent set. The militia were not disciplined, and encoun- ters not infrequently occurred be- tween the prisoners and their guards. Some blood and even life was lost ; and at last Colonel Da- vid Henley, who was in com- mand in Cambridge, was charged by Burgoyne with cruelty and unsoldierly conduct, and brought to trial. Colonel Glover presided, and Colonel William Tudor acted as judge-advocate. Ilenley was acquitted. Hle had been brigade- major to Heath during the siege. In the summer and autumn of 1778 apprehension arose that the British might make an attempt to rescue the prisoners by landing near Boston ; and so by detach-
185
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
ments the Convention troops were sent under guard into the interior of the State. The last of them left on the t 5th of October ; but some thirty or forty of the worst characters were left behind confined in the guardships in the harbor. In
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In November the Baron Steuben had arrived at Portsmouth, eager to throw his influence and
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skill into the American cause. Coming to Boston he found the community elated over the capture of Burgoyne, and addressed a letter at once to Gates, "the conqueror of Burgoyne," commend- · ing himself to his attention. We cannot follow him to Valley Forge, nor relate here the benefit which came to the camp there from his devotion.
Late in the summer of $778 the expedition which was intended to drive out the British from Newport, and with which Hancock had gone as Major-General in command of the Massachu- setts militia, came to nought. The French fleet blockading the English had been scattered in a gale ; and on returning to the blockade they were not prevailed upon to assist in an attack, but sailed for Boston, leaving Sullivan, who had charge of the expedition, to extricate himself as best he could. Arrived in Boston late in Au- gust, the French repaired their vessels and replenished their stores. Lafayette came to Boston and endeavored to prevail upon the French Admiral, D'Estaing, to remain on the coast ; while Howe, following the French, had come within the Capes with his fleet, as if cager for a battle. The contingency was alarming, and nine regiments of militia were ordered to Boston; but the danger passed when Howe withdrew. Mrs. Adams, mentioning the hos- pitalities which the French officers extended on board their ships, adds : " I cannot help saying that they have been neglected in the town of Boston. Generals Heath and Hancock VOL. III. - 24.
have done their part; but very few, if any, private families have any acquaintance with them." (Familiar Letters, p. 342.) Hancock entertained them at a "superb ball " in Concert Hall, October 29. (Moore's Diary, ii. 88, 102.) The French left for the West Indies in Novem- ber, and the regiments went home.
GENERAL GATES IN COMMAND. - In the au- tumn of 1778 (November 6) General Gates 1 suc- ceeded Heath in the command in Boston. He came with his wife and a suite, and the people welcomed him kindly. Here he continued till the following spring; but his stay was not altogether an agreeable one. William Palfrey writes tu General Greene in January, 1779, of the condition of affairs during Gates's command in Boston : "There seems to be a coolness between Hancock and Gen- cral Gates. Neither they nor their ladies have visited each other. Gen- eral G. seems not very well pleased with his situation, and I believe wishes most heartily to return to his Sabine fields. Ífis family have been involved in quarrels almost ever since they have been in the place, which bid fair to proceed to such a length that the civil authority thought proper to interpose. Mr. Bob. Gates and Mr. [John] Carter have fought ; but it proved a bloodless encounter." Sargent's Loyalist Poetry, 160.
The duel thus referred to took place on the last day of the year, in a pasture near the Rox- bury Meeting-house. Gates missed Carter, and Carter refused to fire.
THE PENORSCOT EXPEDITION. - This was seemingly the most formidable and actually the most luckless expedition which Boston sent out during the course of the war. There have been various incidental accounts and illustrative con- tributions, as detailed in Winsor's Readers' Hand- book of the American Revolution, p. 208 ; but dur- ing the present year the Weymouth Historical Society has published The Original Journal of General Solomon Lovell, kept during the Penobscot Expedition, 1779, with a Sketch of his Life, by Gilbert Nash.
Lovell, as colonel of one of the Massachu- setts regiments, had been at Dorchester Heights in 1776. The next year he was made the rank- ing officer of the militia of the sea- board, subordinate to the general of the department at Boston, - a position which he retained during the war. In 1778 he had
1 Stuart's superb portrait of Gates is given in photo- gravure in Mason's Stuart, p. 183.
186
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
commanded a portion of this militia in the Rhode Island campaign of forty-seven days; and in October following, upon him had de- volved the command of the militia hastily assembled at the apprehension of an attack from the British fleet.
In June, 1779, a British force had taken pos- session of a peninsula on l'enobscot Bay, where now Castine is, in order to prevent that region being longer the resort of the active Boston and Salem cruisers, which were preying upon the British supply-ships as they approached the coast. The Massachusetts authorities, with as- sistance from New Hampshire, at once organ- ized an expedition ; and, June 26, put Lovell in command of twelve hundred militia and one hundred artillery. The "Warren," a new ship of thirty-two guns, and the "Providence," a sloop of twelve guns, both Continental vessels, were borrowed ; and others were chartered and bought. Peleg Wadsworth, the adjutant-general
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of the State, was placed second in command. Paul Revere, then a lieut .- colonel, was put in command of the artillery. The fleet dropped down to Nantasket Roads on the 15th of July, and sailed on the 19th. It consisted of nineteen armed vessels, mounting three hun- dred and twenty-four guns, manned by over two thousand men, with over twenty transports, -all commanded by Dudley Saltonstall, the captain of the " Warren." After landing on the Maine coast and receiving some recruits from York and Cumberland, of a dubious character, and a few Penobscot Indians, they reached the enemy's station on the 25th. The next day the troops made in part a successful landing; but they were unsupported by the fleet. Two or
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three weeks were consumed in bickerings be- tween the Commodore and the General, with right apparently on the side of Lovell; when a British fleet reinforced the enemy, and led in an attack on the American armed vessels and transports. The result was the destruc- tion of the whole floating armament, and the thorough dispersion of the land forces through
the neighboring wilderness. Lovell got back to Boston about the twentieth of September. A court of inquiry, with General Artemas Ward. as chairman, exonerated Lovell, and blamed Saltonstall. Their report is in the Massachusetts Archives, cxlv., and is printed by Nash.
The Penobscot expedition-rolls are in Revolu- tionary Rolls, xxxvii. 83; with a list of vessels chartered for the service, p. 173, with orders, etc., p. 187. Vol. xxxviii. gives other papers ; and also xxxix. p. 113. Massachusetts Revolutionary Rolls, xxviii. 58, gives the officers of the expe- dition, and also the officers of the Boston regi- ments, and two new regiments.
THE NAVAL SERVICE .- On Dec. 11; 1776, the Government of Massachusetts authorized Mr. John Peck to build an armed vessel of six- teen guns, of a new construction. She was built in Boston, called the " Hazard," was brig-rigged, and of peculiar model. She had a short but bril- liant career, and took many prizes, some of them val- uable. One was the British brig "Active," Cap- tain Sims, of eighteen guns, sixteen swivels, and one hundred men, captured March 16, 1779, off St. Thomas, W. I., after a sharp action of thirty minutes, during which the "Hazard " lost three killed and five wounded, and the enemy thirteen killed and twenty wounded. She had also an - action with a British ship of fourteen guns and eighty men, which, after several attempts to board, sheered off. In these engagements she was commanded by Captain John Foster Wil- liams, who subsequently became celebrated as the commander of the " Protector." The " Haz- ard" was one of the unfortunate Penobscot expedition, and in August, 1779, was burned by her crew to prevent her falling into the hands of the enemy.
Mr. Peck, who modelled the " Hazard," was the most scientific naval architect · whom the United Colonies had produced. Among the vessels built by him during the Revolution were the "Belisarius " and the " Rattlesnake," noted for their stability and swiftness. One hundred years ago it was a common remark that to have a perfect vessel it must have a Boston bottoni and Philadelphia sides. The " Belisarius " does not appear on Emmons's Lists, but the " Rattle- snake," a ship of twenty guns, one hundred and eighty-five men, commanded by Mr. Clark in 1781, does. The British claim to have captured a cruiser of the name ; but as there were no less than four schooners so named belonging to Pennsylvania, and one from South Carolina, it
187
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
may have been one of them. Emmons, in his usually accurate tables, says that the frigates " Hancock " (32), and " Boston " (24), were built in Boston, in 1776; but they were both built by Stephen and Ralph Cross at their yard in New- buryport, by order of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and only equipped in Boston. The " Hancock " was launched July 5, 1776, the day after the Declaration of Independence, and before it had been noised abroad.
In March, 1777, Tucker was put in command of the " Boston ;" and on Feb. 17, 1778, he sailed in her to convey John Adams to France on his diplomatic mission.
On the 9th of November, 1776, Congress au- thorized the purchasing or building of thrce vessels of seventy-four guns, five of thirty-six guns, one of eighteen guns, and one packet. One of the seventy-fours, and the only vessel of war ordered by the Continental Congress to be built at Boston, was commenced in the yard of Benjamin Goodwin, afterward known as Tilley's Wharf, a short distance from Charlestown. Thomas Cushing, afterward the Lieut .- Gov- ernor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as the agent of the Government, took pos- session of the dwelling-house, store, wharf, and yard of Goodwin for the purpose of building this ship. It is probable but little progress was made upon her, as we find in the Journal of Congress, July 25, 1777,-
" The Marine Committee having represented that the extravagant prices now demanded for all kinds of material used in shipbuilding, and the enormous wages required by tradesmen and laborers, render the building of ships of war already ordered by Congress, not only exceedingly expen- sive, but also difficult to be accomplished at this time, " etc., wherefore it was
" Resolved, That the Marine Committee be empowered In put a stop to the building of such of the Continental ships of war already ordered by this Congress in be built, as they shall judge proper, and to resume the building of them again when they shall find it consistent with the inter- est of the United States to do so."
In 1784, the exigency having passed, the ship was sold on the stocks by Thomas Russell, as agent of the United States. The only seventy- four launched was the " Alliance," built under the superintendence of Paul Jones at Ports- mouth, and presented to the French Government in 1782, to replace the " Magnifique," lost in Boston Harbor.
In September, 1777, James Sullivan writes from Boston : "A ship arrived yesterday with twelve thousand nine hundred bushels of salt, and other goods, taken by the 'Tyrannicide,' a Massachusetts brig. Several of our public vessels have arrived within this day or two, from France and Spain, with clothing, tents, and arms; one with ten thousand pounds sterling in value of Dutch cordage. The stores imported by the Massachusetts Board of War arc immense."
There is in Massachusetts Archives, cxlii. 1 58, a paper signed by leading Boston merchants, agreeing to fit out two armed ships to protect vessels coming in and going out of the port of Boston. It is dated April 26, 1779.
In September, 1779, the two Continental fri- gates, " Boston," Captain Tucker, and " Deane," Captain Nicholson, arrived, bringing as prizes two British armed ships, with two hundred and fifty prisoners. Other of their prizes had been ordered to Philadelphia. Boston Gazette, Sept. 13, 1779; Independent Chronicle, Sept. 9, 1779- In 1780 Tucker, rich as he supposed from prize money, moved to Boston, and lived some- what luxuriously for six years, in Fleet Street ; when, meeting embarrassments in fortune, he returned to Marblehead : so Sheppard says in his Life of Samuel Tucker, 1868, -a perform- ance of some value, but rather too jejune for an octogenarian to write.
Massachusetts built in 1779 a twenty-gun ship, the " Protector," and gave the command to John Foster Williams, Boston-born, and one of the most conspicuous of the enterprising sea- rovers of the day. A recruiting office was opened on Hancock's Wharf, and by dint of daily parades with drum and fife a crew of two hundred and thirty mien was got together ; and the ship sailed from Nantasket Roads the first of April, 1780. Williams's first officer was a Marshfield man, Captain George Little, the same who twenty years later commanded the frigate " Boston." The " Protector's " second lieuten- ant was Joseph Cunningham of Boston. We have an account of her cruise from her log, now in the library of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society ; from the Revolution- ary Adventures of Ebenezer Fox of Roxbury, Bos- ton, 1838; and from the Memoirs (MS.) of Cap- tain Luther Little, who served on board as mid- shipman and prize-master. She engaged, June 9, an English letter-of-marque, eleven hundred tons, thirty-two guns, and after a severe fight the enemy's ship blew up. The " Protector " landed her sick on the coast of Maine, and caine shortly after back to Boston to refit. On this second cruise, during which she sent one prize at least into Boston, commanded by Luther Lit- tle, she was overpowered off Nantucket by two English cruisers and taken into New York. Williams and George Little were carried to England, where the former remained as a pris- oner till the war closed; while Little, bribing a sentry, escaped to France. See list of " Pris- oners Committed to the Old Mill Prison," in N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July, 1865, p. 209- There is much about American prisoners at Forton during the Revolutionary War, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1876-79 Washington appointed Williams to the command of the revenue cutter " Massachusetts," in 1790 ; and in
188
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
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After the defeat of Comte de Grasse in the West Indies, in 1782, a section of his fleet, four- teen sail, under Admiral Vaubiard, arrived in Boston, Aug. 11, 1782; and one of his ships, the " Magnifique," entering by the narrows, was stranded on the bar at Lovell's Island, where her ribs are still embedded in the sand. Many attempts have been fruitlessly made to secure treasure from the wreck. One attempt, made forty or more years ago, gave no return except specimens of very beautiful wood of which the vessel was built. In July, 1859, another trial yielded copper, lead, and cannon-shot in consid- erable quantities. In 1868-69, when General Foster of the United States Engineers was widening the main ship-channel, his machines brought up, from a depth of more than twenty feet, large pieces of plank and oak timbers, which were thought to be a part of the wreck. The pilot under whose misdirection the vessel was lost became the sexton of the New North Church, and the wilful boys of the parish used to taunt him by chalking this couplet on the meeting- house door : -
" Don't you run this ship ashore As you did the seventy-four."
(Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 552.) In October Mrs. Adams writes : "The French fleet still remain with us, and the British cruisers in- sult them. More American vessels have been captured since they have lain here than for a year before." - Familiar Letters, p. 407.
The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, April 29, 1776, ordered the naval flag to be a green pine-tree upon a white ground, with an in- scription, "Appeal to Heaven." The earliest representation of this emblematic pine-tree now known is found in the vignette of a contempo- rary French map, and is re-engraved in Froth- ingham's Siege of Boston. p. 262, and in Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, i. 570.
In the autumn of 1776, by orders of the council, the sloop "Freedom," commanded by John Clouston, and the sloop "Republick," commanded by John Foster Williams, had been ordered to Boston ; and one of these vessels, at least as late as Angust of 1777, bore the pine- tree flag, as the annexed bill shows.
The Editor has used in this section some notes kindly furnished by Admiral George Henry Preble, as well as this writer's exhaustive History of the American Flag.
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The Last Hundred Dears.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1782-1822.
BY HENRY CABOT LODGE, PH.D.
B ETWEEN the Treaty of Peace at Paris, which acknowledged American Independence, and the change of local government in Boston from the form of a town to that of a city, forty years elapsed. That period was to Boston a scason of growth and prosperity; the former slow, the latter bril- liant at times, and at times clouded by the storms of war which then shook the civilized world. The heroic period in the history of the town in its corporate capacity closed when Washington marched in at the head of his army, and Lord Howe sailed out of Boston Harbor. In the years preced- ing that event Boston had been the most important name in the long list of English possessions. It had figured in the newspapers, in the conferences of cabinets and the debates .of Parliament, with unrivalled frequency. It had lighted the flame of resistance, endured the first stroke of angry rulers, and had witnessed the first disaster to the British arms. During the Revo- lution, Boston - untouched after the first shock of war had passed away - had her share of glory and suffering ; but she ceased to be the central point of resistance, or to attract further the attention of England and Europe. In the forty years which followed the close of the war the old town, as such, took no memorable action, with one or two rare exceptions which will be described in their place. During this period, therefore, the history of Bos- ton is, in its most salient features, interwoven with that of national politics. and, above all, with the fate of a great political party, which found here some of its ablest and most steadfast leaders; and which here, too, pre- served longer than anywhere else an almost unbroken ascendancy. The history of the town, then, at this time is to a large extent the history of a party and of the men who composed and led it. In those days subjects of
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