USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 79
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" Then voted, raised, and granted one thousand Spanish mill dollars as a bounty to eight soldiers that shall enlist into the Continental service for three years, or during the war.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
"Then voted to choose a committee of three persons to lay out said money in hireing the eight soldiers as cheap as they could."
The meeting adjourned to the fifteenth, and thence to the twenty-ninth of January, when they
" Voted, to give to eight soldiers that should enlist into the Continental service for three years, or during the war, to have eight calves a-piece, raised and kept, and to be delivered to each of them at the end of three years.
" Voted, that if the Committee should agree to give more than 125 dollars to any other men, then the town voted to give Sam" Cheever more. The meeting then ad- journed to Feb. 7th, when it was decided to leave the hiring of soldiers with the Committee to get them in the best manner they could, with stock or money."
The vote of the town for a bounty of too many calves of undiscriminated sex, and too little money, seems to have failed of the desired effect, and led to a special modification of terms on the first of March, as appears in the following vote : -
" To give John Sack one Hundred Hard Dollars and four Hefer Calves, to be kept and to be delivered to him at three years' old, for a Bounty for his Listing into the Continental service for three years for the town of Chelsea, and to pay him down 70 Hard Dollars or the exchange, and the Remainder to be paid to him or his order when call[ed] for by him."
This proposition appears to have been accepted, and led to certain votes of the town three years later : -
"Jan. 17, 1784. Voted, not to give John Syckes thirty Dollars in lieu of two of the heffers that the town owe to him. Voted, to Reconsider said last vote relative to said heffers. Voted, to give said John Syckes thirty Dollars in lieu of two of the heffers or cows that the town of Chelsea owe to him. Voted, to raise thirty Dollars to pay to the said John Syckes in lieu of said two cows or heffers that the town owe to him. Voted, to raise thirty Dollars to pay for two cows for said John Syckes. Voted, to choose a Committee to by said two cows."
As the war drew to a close, the financial difficulties of the town seemed to increase. At the March meeting in 1781 it was voted to raise £11,836 to defray the town charges. This was in the depreciated currency of the day, and seems not to have proved satisfactory; for in September of the same year it was determined to raise £150 in gold and silver money, to be assessed on the polls and estates. This sum, if raised, appears to have been insufficient; for in the January following they voted twenty-five dollars for the same purpose. But the vote was followed by this cry of anguish: " Voted, that they think they are almost Duble taxcd to other adjasent towns; " and they chose a committee to petition the General Court for the abatement of the taxes. And this state of their affairs led them the next year, July 22, 1783, to choose a committee of five, -of whom the Rev.
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CHELSEA, REVERE, AND WINTHROP, ETC.
Phillips Payson was onc, - to address the town of Boston on the subject of reunion. But the citizens of that town cvinced no more inclination to pay the debts of Chelsea than have their unfeeling successors on two similar in- vitations, now within legal memory.
"Jan. 3, 1782. The town voted to instruct their representative to do the best of his abilities to retain the fishery to the Northern States, if there should be a treaty for peace ; and
" May 12, 1783. That, in their opinion, it was utterly incompatible with the dig- nity and safety of the Commonwealth, that any of those persons that justly come under the denomination of Refugees should ever be admitted to the privilege of citizenship among them ; and their representative was instructed to act in conformity with this vote in the General Court."
Not long after the close of the war the people of Chelsea found them- selves involved in a renewed contest for the cstate of Governor Bellingham at Winnisimmet, which had raged with varying fortunes for nearly thirty years, and ended only in 1787 with the defeat of the town. This result subjected the community to the expenses of a protracted law-suit, and also to the necessity of accounting for the rents and profits of such parts of the Bellingham estates as had been in their possession between 1776 and 1787.
The venerable Dr. Phillips Payson died Jan. 11, 1801, and was succeeded in the pastoral office by Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, who was ordained Nov. 4, of the same year, and ministered to the people just a quarter of a century, - preaching his farewell sermon Nov. 4, 1826. Dr. Tuckerman immedi- ately began his service in the "Ministry at Large," in Boston, to which place he soon removed with his family. He died at Havana, April 20, 1840, and his life and distinguished services were duly commemorated by Dr. Channing in a discourse delivered Jan. 31, 1841.
For some years after 1830 Rumncy Marsh, Pulling Point, and Winni- simmet maintained their relative importance, - the principal settlement, meeting-house, and town offices being at the first-named of these localities. But the time was approaching when Winnisimmet, instead of being the least in population and wealth, should become the greatest. For two hun- dred years that precinct had consisted of four great farms, severally now known by the names of their most recent individual proprietors, as the Williams, Shurtleff, Cary, and Carter farms; and the only houses at Win- nisimmet-apart from those connected with the Ferry-were the mansions and farm houses attached to these estates. In 1831 the Williams Farm, with the Ferry franchise, was purchased by trustees, who in 1833 conveyed their estate to the Winnisimmet Company, then recently incorporated. This company became the owner of the Shurtleff Farm in 1835; and, by the purchase of several lesser estates, werc sole proprietors of a large and compact territory which was carefully resurveyed in 1836, and divided into house lots of convenient size. With increased ferry facilities and the sale of these house lots, a considerable village rapidly grew up, which, March
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
19, 1846, became the town of Chelsea, - Rumney Marsh and Pulling Point being erected into a separate town by the name of North Chelsea. These were divided March 27, 1852, when Pulling Point was incorporated as the town of Winthrop. Chelsea became a city March 13, 1857; and the name of North Chelsea was changed to Revere, March 24, 1871.
Within a few years past Revere and Winthrop have attracted attention as convenient and salubrious places for summer residence, and the locali- ties of Ocean Spray and Beachmont, bordering on the sea, have grown into considerable villages.
The relative growth of these towns between 1875 and 1880 will be shown by the State and United States Census, respectively, of those years. Chelses, 20,737; 21,785. Revere, 1,603; 2,263. Winthrop, 627; 1,043. The construction of the Narrow-Gauge Railroad has contributed largely to these results.
Mallen Chamberlain
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRESS AND LITERATURE OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
BY CHARLES A. CUMMINGS.
F the five newspapers which were printed in Boston when the war of the Revolution broke out, only two remained in existence at its close. The Massachusetts Spy had been at once removed to the safer town of Wor- cester, where it maintained an honorable and useful existence, not only through the Revolutionary struggle, but continuing even to the present day. The Boston Gazette alone from its old office hailed the return of peace, and the triumph of the good cause which it had so bravely aided. Its chief rival at this time was the Boston Chronicle, which had been established in 1776 by Powars & Willis as a weekly paper, which had been printed straight through the war, and which found itself, when the war ended, dividing with the Gazette such reputation and prosperity as the press of those days was competent to achieve. Several competitors had indeed entered the field, but none of them was able to keep itself alive for any considerable time. The Independent Ledger, published on Mondays by Draper & Folsom, was first issued June 15, 1778. Buckingham says, "The latest number of this paper which I have seen is dated Dec. 29, 1783; whether it was continued later I have not been able to ascertain." The partnership of Edes & Gill having been dissolved, and the Boston Gazette remaining the property of Edes, Gill began on May 30, 1776, a new weekly paper called the Continen- tal Fournal and Weekly Advertiser. Gill died in 1785, having previously sold out his newspaper which apparently soon followed him. There was also the American Herald, published for six or seven years previous to 1788 by Edward Eveleth Powars.
A more formidable competitor than these ephemeral sheets appeared during the first year of peace, in The Massachusetts Centinel and Republican Fournal, published every Wednesday and Saturday by Warden & Russell " at their office in Marlborough Street," and of which the first number ap- peared on March 24, 1784. The long life of this celebrated newspaper; its management for more than forty years by its original editor, Major Ben. Russell; and the vigor and constancy with which it maintained the principles of public policy which were held by the great majority of well-to-do citizens of Massachusetts and New England during these early years of the repub-
VOL. III .- 78.
618
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
lic, - have made its name more famous than that of any of its numerous contemporaries, from which, however, there was at first little either in its appearance or its contents to distinguish it. Its size was, after the first two ycars, the same as that of the other papers; and the general aspect of its columns, and the prevailing style of its articles, were not materially different. . It may then, since a detailed account of all these newspapers would be both tedious and profitless, be taken as a fair specimen of what was in those days regarded as a satisfactory newspaper. The first number contained naturally the appeal of the publishers "To the candid Publick," 1 which oc- cupied the whole of the first page. The remainder was made up of an un- important extract or two from "late London papers," the latest bearing date three months back; an official copy of a resolve passed by the Legis- lature; a summary of domestic news, very barren indeed; " food for senti -. mentalists," being a moving history of a father rescued from impending ruin by the devotion of a son ; a highly artificial poem on "The Newspaper; " a facetious anecdote ; a little shipping news ; and two advertisements, - one of "Painters' Oils and Colors," by Grant & Dashwood, and another of spelling- books, etc. by Warden & Russell. That is all. The remotest village in the South or West would to-day throw aside such a newspaper as worthless. Yet the publishers in their next issue find it difficult to express their grati- tude for the extraordinary favor with which it has been received. "Our hearty thanks but feebly speak the gratitude of our breasts. As a number of our customers were disappointed in not receiving the first number (a sufficiency not being printed to supply the demand), we shall as soon as possible strike off a second edition. As we shall adorn the Centinel with the most delicious sentimental sustenance we can obtain, as well the pro- duction of our soil as exotick, those who would wish to be supplied with the first numbers to bind up can thus be gratified."
1 After a high flight of rhetoric declaring that the chief duty of the hour was to second the cherub peace "in shedding her delectable bles- sings over this New World," and that the surest way to accomplish this end, and at the same time "to obtain a competency for our support," was to set on foot "a Free, Uninfluenced News- paper," the publishers proceed with the prospec- tus of their undertaking, as follows :-
" CONDITIONS.
"1. This paper shall be printed with legible type oo good paper, to contain four quarto pages, demi.
"2. The price of this paper will be twelve shillings the year, one quarter to be paid on subscribing. If, agreeably to the custom in the cities of London, New York, & Phil- adelphia, the subscriber should choose to pay per num- ber, the price will be Two Pence.
"3. The papers in the town of Boston shall be delivered to the Subscribers as early as possible on publication days.
" 4. Advertisements shall be inserted at as low a priee as is demanded by any of their brethren in the art, and contin- ued, if desired, in Six numbers.
"5. Gentlemen in the Country may be supplied with this Paper at the above price (postage excepted), which is
cheaper than any other papers if the advantage of receiving them twice in the week is considered.
"The publishers engage to use every effort to obtain the most serutinous circumspection in collecting whatever may be thought of public utility or private amusement. Variety shall be courted in all its shapes, -in the impor- tance of publie information, io the sprightliness of mirth ; in the playful levity of imagination, in the just severity of satire, in the vivacity of ridicule, in the luxurianee of poe- try, and in the simplicity of truth. We shall examine the regulations of office with candor, approve with pleasure, or condemo with boldness. Uninfluenced by Party, we aim only to be just.
"The assistance of the learned, the judicious, and the cu- rious is solicited. Productions of public utility, however se- vere, if consistent with truth shall be admitted, and the modest correspondent may depend on the strictest secrecy. Reservoirs will be established in public houses for the re- ception of information, whether foreign, local, or poetical.
" Anxious to deserve, they hope a display of that patron- age and assistance which the people of these States are celebrated for bestowing on the efforts of young beginners. And finally, if their abilities be inadequate, it will at least be some recompense that such as they have shall be ex- erted with candour."
"W. WARDEN, " B. RUSSELL."
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
The Centinel was from the first peculiar in separating its contents under various highly imaginative headings, which partook of the ambitious and sophomoric flavor of most of the matter which appeared under them. Thus the poetical corner, which was a constant feature of the paper, was headed in the earliest numbers "Sentimental Repast." By the eighth number a
Broy Russell.
1
more elegant title had occurred to the editor. It was now called "The Helicon Reservoir." Some weeks later this was again changed to " Senti- mental Sustenance." Under this head the Deserted Village of Goldsmith was published, running through a dozen numbers or so.1 The " Castalian Fount,"
1 But the poetry is not often of this order. It is more commonly prefaced by a note like this : " MESSRS PRINTERS, - Your admission of the fol-
lowing in the Centinel will implant an agreeable sensation in the breast of a female reader." Then follows a highly sentimental poem beginning,
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and the " Cabinet of Apollo " were successively chosen to please the uneasy and fastidious taste of the editor. Under the heading, "Entertainment for the Disciples of Zeno," a department was established containing brief anecdotes, in most of which it would be difficult to discover the qualities which distin- guish the stoic philosophy. " Preparation for Sunday " was a department of every Saturday's issue, containing some short extract from a religious book or a sermon. In time the editor, becoming dissatisfied with this heading, made this announcement: "As under that head the great and important subject is too much circumscribed, we propose continuing to teach the prin- ciples of piety and morality under the title of 'The Moral Entertainer,' and we hope much benefit may be derived therefrom."
It is quite clear from a glance at these early numbers of the Centinel that no reason existed in the nature of things for the establishment of such a newspaper. If newspapers are indeed the mirror of the times which pro- duce them, how portentous was the dulness of this little town! The excite- ment of the Revolution had died away, leaving a reaction in which the ex- haustion consequent on a war in which the whole people had engaged, was not mitigated by the abundant resources or the varied opportunities of a great people. The Province no longer existed; the Nation was not yet created. Trade was prostrate ; manufactures were not yet dreamed of; com- munication was slow and for half the year difficult. A sort of apathy seemed for the moment to possess the minds of the people. These were not the conditions under which a newspaper was likely to make itself either interesting or useful. For the first two years accordingly the Centinel strug- gled for existence ; and the same may perhaps he said of its contemporaries. The political questions which a few years later were to divide the people into parties had not yet arisen, and the occasions for newspaper comment or criticism on public affairs were extremely infrequent. A gentle breeze of interest can be seen now and then to have moved over the slumberous sur- face of Boston life. During this first year a sort of social club, composed of ladies and gentlemen of good position in society, was holding what were called " tea assemblies " at stated intervals at Concert Hall,1 at which the entertainment was made up of "music, dancing, tea, coffee, chocolate, cards, wine, negus, punch, and lemonade." A severe writer in the Centinel, signing himself " Observer," took occasion to criticise without reserve the proceedings and manners of this club,-of which the name, " Sans Souci, or Free and Easy," did, it must be confessed, rather invite remark, - declaring that it was "an assembly totally repugnant to virtue, .... throwing aside every necessary restraint; those being esteemed the politest who are the most careless," etc. In the same issue of the paper an advertisement ap- peared to this effect: " A new Farce. On Monday next will be published
-" When Damon asked me for a kiss," etc., the obscurity in which the timidity of female and signed "Clorinda." To which the gallant delicacy would shelter itself, and to animate the female breast to catch at the laurels due to their vivacity and their merits." editor appends this approving note : "Clorinda has our hearty thanks for this effusion of her pen. It is our wish to rescue the fair sex from
1 [See Vol. II. p. xvii. - ED.]
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THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
' Sans Souci, alias Free and Easy, or an Evening's Peep into a Polite Circle.' An entire new entertainment in three acts." In the next number of the Centi- nel the editor takes occasion to state that he has been called upon by Mr. Sam- uel Jarvis, a member of the Sans Souci, and assaulted. This is the oppor- tunity for a long and rhetorical article, occupying nearly the whole paper, on the enormity of this " infringement of the liberty of the press," and the in- flexible determination of the injured editor to maintain the position of the Cen.incl as " a Free, Uninfluenced Newspaper, in spite of the threats of sanguinary assassins." The quarrel is taken up by the other newspapers, and communications on both sides are rained upon the fortunate public for some weeks.
A more reasonable excitement was occasioned a little later by the visit of several foreign agents or factors, chiefly from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, selling the goods of English merchants and manufacturers. Not only the patriotism but the business instincts of the town took offence at this new and most unwelcome enterprise. The indignation and alarm grew the more rapidly, perhaps, from the absence of any law which could be invoked to abate the nuisance; until at length the inflammatory writing in the news- papers culminated in an excited public meeting in Faneuil Hall, at which the merchants and traders pledged themselves to have no dealings with the offensive strangers. The proposal to restore the Tory refugees in the Pro- vinces and elsewhere to their rights as citizens of the United States, excited almost as much anger and alarm as the visits of the factors, and with less excuse.
The watchful jealousy of a people which had but just freed themselves from the restraints and vexations of arbitrary and aristocratic rule, was quick to take alarm at dangers which from our safe distance seem most trivial. The institution of the Cincinnati seems to us as innocent of harm as any association of gentlemen united by community of patriotic memories and associations could well be. Grave danger was, however, at its inception perceived to lurk under this dignified organization, and some of the news- papers, among which the Chronicle was the most emphatic, attacked the society with violence. "The institution of the Cincinnati," said one of the correspondents of the Chronicle, " is designed to establish a complete and permanent personal distinction between the numerous military dignitaries of their corporation and the whole remaining body of the people, who will be styled Plebeians through the community." These sentiments were shared by the people to such an extent that the citizens of Cambridge, by a vote in town-meeting, instructed their representative in the Legislature to use his best influence to insure the suppression of this society. The Centinel poured oil on the waters by reminding the alarmists " that his Excellency, George Washington, Esq., is president of that society, - a circumstance that greatly recommends it."
The Legislature of 1785 passed an act laying a duty of two thirds of a penny upon every newspaper, and a penny on almanacs, all of which were
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to be stamped. The words " stamp act" had a horrid sound in the ears of the men of the Revolution, and so violent an opposition to the proposed tax was excited throughout the State that the act was repealed during the same session, and another was substituted laying a duty on all advertise- ments, - sixpence on each insertion. This was not, in general, much more favorably received, though the Centinel, perhaps because its advertisements were then extremely few, excused the new tax on the ground that it " con- tributed thousands to the exigencies of the State."1 The Centinel was in- creased in size at the end of the second year, but the conduct of the paper showed no essential improvement. The matter was still trivial. The style was still ambitious and uneasy. The communications, for the most part under grotesque and affected signatures, - as Tantarabogus, Desideratum, Whackum, Whackum Secundus, Moralibus, Mulier, Slap-dash, Publicola, Agricola, and the like, - are generally marked by turgid and pompous rhetoric, savage and brutal personal abuse, and ridiculous attempts at satire, - almost never by calm discussion of any subject.
During the first months of 1787 we find some lively accounts of the progress and ignominious collapse of Shays' Rebellion; and later in the same year interesting reports of the proceedings of the convention in Phila- delphia for the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In January of the next year the Massachusetts convention for ratifying the Constitution was held in the meeting-house in Long Lane, and Mr. Russell then made what was probably the first systematic attempt at reporting for any Boston news- paper. The speeches seem to have been, on the whole, very well reported, and the proceedings filled the greater part of every issue of the paper for four weeks. An amusing tribute occurs at the close of one of the reports. " We came in," says the editor, " while the Hon. Judge Dana was speaking ; but captivated by the fire, the pathos, and the superior eloquence of his speech, we forgot we came to take minutes, and thought to hear alone was our duty. Our memory will not enable us to do it justice, but we shall attempt a feeble sketch of it." 2
1 The Boston Gazette thus complained of the burden of the tax, and thus evaded it :-
" While the newspapers of other States are crowded with advertisements (free of duty) those of this State are almost destitute thereof, which justly occasions the oppressed printers of those shackled presses to make their separate com- plaints, as many do, owing to their being pro- hibited advertising in their own papers their own books and stationery, without incurring a pen- alty therefor. We, for the same reason that our brother typographers use, forbear publishing that Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, Spelling-books, Primers, Almanacks, &c., besides Stationery and all kinds of blanks, may be had at No. 42 Cornhill. The duty on advertisements also prevents our publishing that we have lately reprinted an ex- cellent Moral Discourse, entitled 'The Short-
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