The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 30

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 30

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1 [This cut follows the well known Boston Athenæum head by Stuart, now in the Art Mu- seum. Washington gave the artist sittings in the spring of 1796; it was never finished. This picture was bought, after Stuart's death, of his widow, and given to the Athenæum, which also owns the companion head of Mrs. Washington, and a considerable portion of Washington's li- brary. See Mason's Gilbert Stuart, 103, for a photogravure of the original canvas. It is from this that Stuart's later pictures of Washington were reproduced. Replicas of Stuart's Washing-

ton, varying sometimes in accessories, are owned in Boston : one by Chief-Justice Gray, formerly the property of the Pinckney family, of South Carolina; one painted for Jonathan Mason, now owned by Mrs. William Appleton ; a copy of the Athenæum head, made in 1810 for Josiah Quincy, now at Quincy; one belonging to the Hon. K. C. Winthrop, formerly owned by the MacDon- ald family ; one which was in a series of the first five presidents of the United States, bought of Col George Gibbs's estate by Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge. These items are taken from a long

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several days there was a round of dinners and state visits. Washington lived during his stay in Boston on the corner of Tremont and Court streets, where a small and lofty tablet still commemorates his sojourn. The most amusing incident of his visit, and the one most characteristic both of the men and the times, was the little conflict between him and John Hancock on a point of etiquette. Hancock, as the chief officer of what he esteemed a sovereign State, undertook to regard Washington as a sort of foreign potentate, who was bound to pay the first visit to the ruler of the Commonwealth in which he found himself; while Washington took the view that he was the superior officer of the Governor of Massachu- setts, and that, as the head of the Union, Hancock was bound to visit him first. Washington's sense of dignity, and of what was due to his position, had often been exemplified, and the Governor's vanity and State sovereignty were no match for it. Hancock prudently made the gout an excuse for giving way; and having as fine a sense as the first Pitt of the theatrical properties of his malady, appeared at Washington's door, swathed in flannel, and was borne on men's shoulders to the l'resident's apartments. After this all went well, and Washington's visit not only drew out the really vigorous personal loyalty of the people, but still further kindled the en-

enumeration of copies, by himself, of Stuart's like- nesses of Washington given by Mr. Mason.

A silhouette of Washington, taken during the last years of his presidency, is now preserved in the Mass. Hist. Society's cabinet, of which a heliotype is given in their Proceedings, Decem- ber, 1873.

The Historical Society also owns a copy of C. W. Peale's full-length of Washington, fol- lowing the copy owned by the Earl of Albe- marle ; while other repetitions of Peale's work are at present in the Smithsonian Institution, at Versailles, and at the College of New Jersey. Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., 1873-75, PP. 324, 350, 366, 375-77.

In 1851 there was published in Boston a pro- file likeness of Washington, purporting to have been taken in Boston, in 1776, by one Fullerton. A pen-and-ink sketch, marked J. Hiller, 1794, mentioned in Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., 1874, p. 243. is thought to have been drawn from this. It is thought that a miniature likeness of Washington, in plaster, mentioned as belonging to Mr. Melvin Lord, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc , February, IS74, p. 254, may have been taken in Boston or Cam- bridge at the time of the siege.

During Washington's visit to Boston in 1789, Gullagher, the painter, stealthily made a likeness of the General, while he was at chapel; but a day or two later, following him to Portsmouth, he made the likeness which is engraved in the Afuss, Hist. Soc. Proc., March, IS5S, p. 309. The artist sold his picture in Boston, by a raffle, and it finally came into the possession of Dr. Belknap. Harvard College had given its first doctorate of

laws to Washington in 1776; and at the request of its corporation his likeness was painted in 1790 by Edward Savage, of which there is an engraving by the artist, published in 1793. The painting hangs in Memorial Hall.

Christ Church contains the first monument ever erected to his memory. It is a bust in mar- ble, of which photographs have recently been taken by Notman at the instance of Mr. John C. Ropes. Chantrey's statue of Washington, which stands in the State House, was erected in 1828, at a cost of $15,000. In this building are lo be seen fac-similes of the monumental stones erected in the church at Brington, Northamptonshire, to the memory of members of the Washington fam- ily, who were Inng supposed to be ancestors of George Washington, the reproductions having been given by Earl Spencer to Charles Sumner, and by him to the State, in 1861. Later investi- gations of Colonel Joseph 1. Chester have ren- dered it almost certain that the American family did not spring from this stock. See Herald and Genealogist, London, and Heraldic Journal, Bos- ton, 1866. The equestrian statue in the Public Garden, modelled by Thomas Ball, of which an engraving is given in Vol. IV. was not placed in position till 1869, though begun some years earlier.

It was after this visit of the General, in 1789, that the main thoroughfare into the town from Roxbury was named for him; but the various names that designated this street north of Dover Street, were not displaced, and the name applied to the whole length of it, till 1824. - ED.]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

thusiasm of Boston and of New England for the Union, and consequently strengthened the hands of the Federalists.1

The assumption of the State debts by the new Federal government did much to relieve the financial burdens of Massachusetts; and this, combined with the sense of stability in public affairs, aroused the spirit of enterprise everywhere, so that Boston became the centre of many great schemes for public improvements, most of which came to nothing, although they served, nevertheless, to encourage the business of the town. The population had

THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH.2

again reached the number which it had before the Revolution, and the new era to which the war had been a prelude was fairly begun. As if to mark the change which had set in, one of the most conspicuous characters of the old period passed away at this time, by the death of John Hancock.3 There have been but few men in history who have achieved so much fame, and whose names are so familiar, who at the same time really did so little, and left so slight a trace of personal influence upon the times in which they lived, as John Hancock. He was valuable chiefly from his pictur-

1 [Recollections of Washington's visit, by a light upon the matter more favorable to Han- General W. H. Sumner, are printed in the New cock. - En.] England Historical and Genealogical Register, 2 [This is a fac-simile of the view of this tri- umphal arch, which appeared in the Massachu- setts Magazine, January, 1790 "The erection stretched with a triple arch across Washington Street, just north of Court Street. The inscrip- tion read : " To the man who unites all hearts." - ED.] April, 1854, and April, 1860, p. 161. See also Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 114; Ed- ward Everett's Mount Vernon Papers, 106. Sce the account of the musical accompaniments in the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop's Speeches and Addresses, 1852-1867, p. 330. Some explana- tions by Nathaniel Gorham upon the disturb- 3 []Iancock died Oct. 8, 1793, and was buried in the Granary burying-ground. See Shurtleff, Description of Boston, p. 212. - ED.] ance between Hancock and Washington, printed in Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 15, throw

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esqueness. Everything about him is picturesque, from his bold, hand- some signature,1 which gave him an assured immortality, to his fine house which appears in the pictures of the day as the " Seat of His Excellency, John Hancock." His position, wealth, and name made him valuable to the real movers of the Revolution, when men of his stamp were almost without exception on the side of the Crown ; and it was this which made such a man as Sam Adams cling to and advance him, and which gave him a factitious importance. Hancock was far from greatness; indeed it is to be feared that he was not much removed from being "the empty barrel," which is the epithet, tradition says, that the outspoken John Adams applied

John Hancock

to him.2 And yet he had real value after all. He was the Alcibiades, in a certain way, of the rebellious little Puritan town; and his display and gor- geousness no doubt gratified the sober, hard-headed community which put him at its head and kept him there. He stands out with a fine show of lace and velvet and dramatic gout, a real aristocrat, shining and res- plendent against the cold gray background of every-day life in the Boston of the days after the Revolution, when the gay official society of the Prov- ince had been swept away. At the side of his house he built a dining hall, where he could assemble fifty or sixty guests ; and when his company was gathered he would be borne or wheeled in, and with easy grace de-

1 [Few signatures are so well known as Han- him prepared in 1876, which is printed in the cock's; and, as it happens, that oftenest scen, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, attached to the Declar- ation of Independence and Harvard Collège may 1. 1754 given in the text, is one of the boldest and finest of them all. Ordinarily his signature, though preserv- ing some of the character- your ever Loving Brother. till Death hace separate us. John Hancock istics of that, lacked its steadiness and regularity of curve. That which is given in Mr. Scudder's chapter, and under his portrait in Vol. IV. p. 5, is more near- ly an average one. The one annexed, taken from a writing of his college days, shows some of the i. 73. A favorable account is given in Sander- possibilities of the later ones. - ED.}

2 [Yet see what John Adams says of him in Works, x. 259-26t ; and the grandson, Charles Francis Adams, not unfairly estimates the value of Hancock to his times in the brief memoir of

son's Signers of the Declaration of Independence. which has been by some attributed to John Adams; but see John Adams's Works, ii. 416. See also Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 261, and II. E. Scudder's chapter in the present volume. - ED.]

VOL. tff .- 26.

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

KILBURN

THE HANCOCK HOUSE. I

light every one by his talk and finished manners. In society his pettiness, peevishness, and narrowness would vanish, and his true value as a brilliant

1 [This cut follows a view of the house given in the Massachusetts Magazine, July, 1789; also given in heliotype in the Evacuation Memorial, p. 99 Another view of it, twenty years later or more, will be found in the view of upper Beacon Street, taken from the Common in 1804-1811, given in the fourth volume ; and a still later view (1825) is that in Snow's Boston, p. 325. Views of it as it appeared at a later day, when but a mere house-yard was left about it, are num- crous. Hinton, United States, Boston, 1834, ii. 342; S. A. Drake's Landmarks, P. 339; S. G. Drake's Boston, p. 681 ; King's Handbook of Bos- ton, p. 12; Lossing's Field-book of the Revolution, i. 507, etc.

In 1859 a strenuous effort was made in the State Legislature to secure the passage of a bill by which the Commonwealth should become the owner of the house, using it for the residence of its Governors, or for any other good purpose. The Governor had raised the question of its purchase in his message, and a committee with the Hon. Edward G. Parker at its head had re- commended that $100,000 be appropriated for the purpose, and the heirs executed a bond to sell for that sum. This report was printed in the Boston newspapers, in February, 1859 The IIon. Charles W. Upham, March 17, 1859, made a strong appeal in the House of Representa- tives, in urging the claims of Hancock on the grateful recognition of the State, and this speech is reported in the Boston Daily Advertiser, March 24, 1859. The project failed; and finally, on

Feb. 18, 1863, the land was sold to James M. Beebe and Gardner Brewer, for $125,000, who built for their own occupancy the two houses now standing on the site. The mansion was re- served for re-erection elsewhere; but this plan likewise miscarried, and it was at last pulled down and sold as old material. The knocker of the front door was given to Dr. O. W. Holmes, who put it on the door of the old IIolmes house in Cambridge. Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., May, 1875, p. 38. There is a historical account, by Arthur Gilman, of the Hancock house and its founder, in the Atlantic Monthly, 1863, p. 692. The house was built in 1737, by Thomas Han- cock (see Vol. II. p. 519, for his portrait), of whom there is an account by Alden Bradford, in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, i. 346; and who, dying in 1764, left his mansion and the bulk of his estate to his nephew, John Hancock. See the genealogy in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. ix. 352. There is no trace of a grant to war- rant the use of the arms borne by John Hancock. (Hleraldie Journal, ii. 99.) For a time after he resigned the presidency of Congress, Hancock lived during the summer in Jamaica Plain, in a cottage which stood just beyond the present resi- dence of Mr. Moses Williams, The story goes that he gave up his residence there because his neighbor, William Gordon, the historical writer, who was one of the overseers of Harvard Col- lege, greatly offended Hancock by his severe strictures on Hancock's neglect to settle his ac- counts as treasurer of that institution. - ED.]

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and picturesque figure would come out. His death was but one of the incidents which, as the old century hastened to its close, marked the change which had fairly come. The old simplicity, as well as the old stateliness and pomp, were alike slipping away. Those were the days when the gentry lived in large houses, enclosed by handsome gardens, and amused themselves with card parties, dancing parties, and weddings; when there were no theatres, and nothing in the way of relaxation except these little social festivities. But the enemy was at the gates, - a great, hurrying, successful, driving democracy. Brick blocks threatened the gardens; the theatre came, des- pite the august mandate of Governor Hancock; 1 the elaborate and stately dress of the eighteenth century began to be pushed aside, first for grotesque and then for plainer fashions; 2 the little interests of provincial days began to wane; Unitarianism sapped the foundations of the stout old church of Winthrop and Cotton; 8 and the eager zest for intellectual excitement poured itself into business and politics, the only channels then open, giv- ing to the latter an intensity hardly to be appreciated in days when mental resources are as numerous as they then were few. Boston was feeling the effects of the revolution which had been wrought by the War for Inde- pendence, the first act of the mighty revolutionary drama just then reopen- ing in Paris.

To this change and progress in society and in habits of life the French Revolution gave of course a powerful impetus.4 The tidings from Paris were received in this country at first with a universal burst of exultation, which found as strong expression in Boston as anywhere. The success of Dumouriez was the occasion of a great demonstration. A liberty pole was raised,5 an ox roasted, and bread and wine distributed in State Street ; while Sam Adams, who had succeeded his old companion as Governor, presided, with the French Consul, at a great civic banquet in Faneuil Hall. The follies of the Parisian mob were rapidly adopted; "Liberty and Equality " was stamped on children's cakes; and the sober merchants and mechanics of Boston began to address each other as "citizen " Brown, and " citizen " Smith. The ridiculous side of all this business would soon have made itself felt among a people whose sense of humor was one of their strongest characteristics ; but when the farce became tragedy, and freedom was baptized in torrents of blood, and the gentle, timid, stupid king, known to Americans only as a kind friend, was brought to the block, the enthu- siasm rapidly subsided.6 Every one knows how the affairs of France were dragged into our national politics for party purposes, with Democratic societies and Jacobin clubs in their train, and the bitterness which came

1 [Sce the chapter on "The Drama," by Colonel Clapp, in Vol. IV .- ED.]

2 [Sce Mr. J. P. Quincy's chapter in Vol. IV. - ED.]

8 [Sce Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present volume. - ED.]

4 [Sce its effect on the press, noted in Mr. Cummings's chapter in this volume. - ED.]

6 [The pole, sixty feet high, was raised, Jan. 24, 1793, in the area then named, and since called, Liberty Square. The ox was roasted on Copp's Hill, and the viands were served on lables in State Street, stretching from the Old State House to near Kilby Street. - ED.]

6 [See Mr. J. P. Quincy's chapter in Vol. IV. p. 1 .- En ]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

from them; but all this gained little foothold in Boston, where the insults of Genet roused general indignation, and the attitude of Washington toward the insolent Frenchman found hearty support. But fidelity to Washington and to the Federalist party was about to encounter a much severer strain. The war with England was so recent that it was hazardous to make any treaty with that country, and to carry through such a treaty as was actually made was a task for which Washington alone was capable. The Jay treaty, - which even Hamilton is said to have called, in the first moment of irrita- tion, " an old woman's treaty " on the one side; and which Charles Fox, with all his liberalism, thought unfavorable to England on the other, - was received in America with a cry of rage so general that it seemed uni- versal. In Boston a popular meeting 1 was held, and Democratic leaders indulged in vehement and acceptable denunciation. Riots broke out of a rather ugly character, which Governor Adams, blinded by prejudice, refused to repress ; 2 and the excellent Mr. Jay was hung and burned in effigy, to the perfect satisfaction of the mob. The Federalists were stunned. Many of them openly condemned the treaty, while only the very coolcst heads among them believed in sustaining the administration. Gradually, however, the leaders rallied. The Boston Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions in support of the President; reaction began; the stern, calm replies of Washington checked the tide of angry passion, and men at last began to sce, especially in a business community, that the treaty, even if not the best possible, was necessary and valuable, and that the fortunes of the young nation could not be entangled with those of the mad French Republic. Boston was once more Federalist, and the stormy gust of anger had blown over.3

The growth of the Federalist party was shown when Sam Adams re- tired from public life, by the choice of Increase Sumner4 as his succes-

sor. Governor Sum- ner was an ardent sup- porter of John Adams, Unklare Jumper then just beginning his eventful administra- tion, and the troubles with France which ensued awakened deep indignation in Boston. Sumner's course drew out the most violent attacks, but he was re-clected by an overwhelming majority. Thc fortunes of the Feder-

1 [At a town-meeting convened in Boston to consider it but one defender of it spoke. The' selectmen transmitted to the P'resident their Res- olutions of disapproval, and drew from Wash- ington a dignified reply. Sullivan's Public Men, p. 96. See further, on the opposition to Jay's treaty in Boston, in Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 307. Harrison Gray Otis at this time made his first political speech. - ED.]

2 Wells's Life of S. Adams, iii. 351.

8 [It was the masterly speech of .Fisher

Ames which carried the House of Representa- tives into measures sustaining it. This, the most famous of his speeches, is in his Works, and in the later Speeches, where an interesting note on it is prefixed. - En.]

4 [Increase Sumner was born in Roxbury. See a memoir and genealogy in N. E. Ilist. and Geneal. Reg., April, 1854; also Genealogy of the Sumner Family, by W. S. Appleton, 1880; Gen- eral W. H. Sumner's History of East Boston ; and Bridgman's Pilgrims of Boston. - En.]

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alists were at their highest point, and Moses Gill, the Lieut .- Governor, whom the death of Sumner left at the head of the government, was suc- ceeded by Caleb Strong,1 an ex-senator and one of the stanchest of Federalists. But Masestilo even in the midst of their success the hour of their downfall was at hand. The admin- istration of John Adams was torn with fierce

internal dissension, and the President and the leaders in New England were hopelessly estranged. But although many of the chiefs in Boston baker Trong drew off from the President, the clans stood by him and gave him the vote of Massachusetts. It proved a use- less loyalty. The Federalists fell . from power, and the new century opened with the accession of Jefferson, - an event which both leaders and followers in Boston had brought themselves to believe would be little else than the coming of a Marat or a Robespierre. It is hardly necessary to say that nothing of this sort happened, but that on the contrary a period of prosperity, for which the short-lived peace of Amiens opened the way, be- gan, as unequalled as it was unexpected. This prosperity took the form of maritime commerce, and poured its riches into the lap of Boston, con- spicuously among all the seaports.2 At the same time, of course, all the country throve, although the great advance was most apparent among the merchants of Boston and New York and the seafaring population of New England. When men are making money and prospering it is not easy to awaken among them great political enthusiasm, nor is it easy to convince them that the administration under which they have succeeded is a bad one; but this was not the case with the leaders. Nothing could check their deadly hatred of Jefferson, which increased as they saw their own power decline and that of the Government wax strong. As the conviction forced itself upon their minds that the sceptre of government had passed finally to the South, before whom a divided North was helpless, they struggled vainly against fate; and the bitterness of party, so marked in the first decade of the century, found its origin in the years of Jefferson's first term, when peace and prosperity reigned throughout the country. Like the Whig party in England after the coalition, when they were called to face Pitt and his vast majorities, the thin ranks of the Federalists were still further weakened by the internal dissensions growing out of the sorry strifes of the Adams admin- istration. These quarrels had been allayed by defeat ; but they were only partially healed, and were soon to bear bitter fruit. Of all this Boston was of course the centre; and when the annexation of Louisiana roused the Federalists to desperation, it was in Boston that a meeting was to be held at which Hamilton should be present, and where the schemes of secession,

1 [An engraving, after Stuart's portrait, will

" [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV. be found in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. 290. - ED.] - ED.]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

which the New England leaders had been seriously discussing under their breath, should find expression and obtain a decision on their merits. The

HAMILTON.1

good sense of some of the leaders contributed with other causes to prevent the occurrence of this meeting; but had there been no other obstacle, the

1 { This statuc, cut in granite, designed by Rimmer, and given to the city in 1865 by Tho- mas Lee, stands in Commonwealth Avenue. It is inscribed, " Alexander Hamilton, born in the

Island of Nevis, West Indies, 11 January, 1757 ; died in New York, 12 July, 1804." " Orator, writer, soldier, jurist, financier. Although his particular province was the treasury, his genius

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THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.

death of Hamilton would have sufficed to cause postponement, if nothing else. The loss of that great man was peculiarly felt in Boston, where almost every man of note was one of his devoted followers, and where Federalism had struck its roots deeper and clung with a greater tenacity than anywhere else. In Boston Hamilton's death was deeply mourned. There the money - a large sum for those days - was raised to buy his lands and relieve the necessities of his family; and there the first statue of later times was raised to the great Secretary, commemorating alike his genius and the enduring and faithful Federalism of the old town in the years when the power of the Democracy seemed universal.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 30

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