USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The site of Saint Paul's Cathedral, Boston, and its neighborhood > Part 6
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castle was constructed, which was called Castle Wil- liam. On July 15, 1665, Captain Davenport was asleep in this building, his room being separated from the powder magazine by a slight partition, and was killed by lightning during a severe storm.1 Judge Addington Davenport was born August 3, 1670. He graduated at Harvard in 1689 and traveled exten- sively in England, Spain and the West Indies. Re- turning to Boston, he became Clerk of the House of Representatives under the second Charter, of 1692, and Register of Deeds for Suffolk County. He was one of the founders of Brattle Street Church in 1699, a Selectman of Boston and a member of Governor Dudley's Council.
In 1715 he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court of Judicature. . He was also one of the judges of a Court assembled at Newport in 1723, for the trial of pirates. His wife was a daughter of John and Elizabeth Wainwright, of Ipswich.
The . Reverend Addington Davenport, eldest of eight children of the preceding, was born in Boston May 16, 1701. (Harvard College, 1719.) He prac- tised law for some years, and was appointed Attorney General in 1728. Visiting England in 1732, he re-
1 History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. 1. 87.
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ceived a Master's degree at Oxford, and took orders in the Church. Returning to Massachusetts, he served for three years as missionary at St. Andrew's Church in Scituate, and for a like period as assistant minister of King's Chapel. He became the first rec- tor of Trinity Church, Boston, in 1740, and held that office until his death in 1746.
Thomas and Edward Hutchinson, two of the mort- gagees above-mentioned, were among the most influ- ential citizens of the Town. The former (1711-1780) was the son of a rich Boston merchant, and a gradu- ate of Harvard in 1727, who held many important offices. He was Selectman, Representative, a mem- ber of the Council, Judge of Probate, and Chief Jus- tice of the Superior Court of the Province. He was also the author of a valuable History of Massachu- setts Bay. Mr. Hutchinson was the last royal Gov- ernor, being succeeded in 1774 by General Thomas Gage as Military Governor. He then went to Eng- land and became an adviser of King George III and the British ministry ; and in this capacity he uniformly counseled a policy of moderation in all dealings with the American Colonies. In 1775 he was elected to Parliament, where he opposed the notorious and op- pressive Boston Port Bill, "a measure for suspending the trade and closing the harbor of Boston during the
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. King's pleasure.".
Edward Hutchinson, of Boston, a half-brother of the Governor, was actively engaged in civic affairs during the first half of the eighteenth century. He held the positions of Constable, Selectman, member of the Legislature, Justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, and Judge of Probate. He was also the Treasurer of Harvard College for thirty years, a Colonel in the militia, and Captain in the Artillery Company. His residence was opposite the head of Hancock's wharf on North Street, and was after- ward known as the North End Coffee House, where the Proprietor, David Porter, who had been a sea- rover during the Revolution, advertised in 1783 that "gentlemen shall be entertained in a genteel manner."
Jonathan Williams
ONATHAN WILLIAMS, the younger (1699- 1788), of Boston, wine-merchant, acquired posses- sion of the lot in question, May 28, 1739, together with the "brick wall thereon standing, and all the houses, barns, stables, fences, alleys, passages, wells and wa- ter-courses thereunto belonging." His father, Jona- than Williams, Senior (d. 1737), was keeper of the Granary, which then stood at the upper side of the
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Common, but was removed soon afterward to the foot of Park Street, where the Church now stands. The Granary was established in order that the poorer townspeople might obtain grain in small quantities at the lowest possible cost. . . . At a Town meeting, March 8, 1730, it was voted that Mr. Jonathan Wil- liams be "alowed and paid out of the Town Treasury the sum of seventy pounds Pr Annum for his service in managing the Grainery." And at a meeting of the Selectmen, May 23, 1733, he was appointed "to re- ceive the money due from the owners of the Cows going at large on the Common."
The name of Jonathan Williams, the younger, ap- pears frequently in the municipal records. He had a wine-shop on Cornhill (the portion of Washington Street between School Street and Dock Square) where he also resided.
He served the Town at different times as Clerk of the Market, Constable, Fireward and Visitor of the Schools. In the year 1767 there prevailed a period of economic depression, which was thought to have been largely due to the extensive employment of foreign products. Mr. Williams was one of a committee ap- pointed to "lessen the use of loaf sugar, men's and women's hats, gloves, snuff, mustard, clocks and watches, muffs, furs and tippets, fire-engines, china-
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ware," and divers other articles. He was in full sym- pathy and association with the leading patriots of those days. It was Jonathan Williams who presided, by unanimous election, at the great mass meeting of inhabitants of Boston and the neighboring towns, on November 29, 1773, called to devise measures to pre- vent the landing of chests of tea from British vessels then arriving in the harbor. This meeting, the largest ever assembled in Boston up to that time, met first at Faneuil Hall, and adjourned to the Old South Church, where Samuel Adams, General Joseph War- ren and John Hancock were among the principal speakers. A vote of thanks to Mr. Williams for his services on that occasion was afterward passed.
Green and Russell's Boston Post-Boy and Adver- tiser, January II, 1762, has this notice:
"Whereas there was taken out of the House of Jonathan Williams, in Cornhill, on the 23rd inst., two great-coats, one of his own wearing, a cloth colour'd Drab; Whoever has taken them, and will return the first to said Williams, shall have the latter gratis, and no Questions asked."
Similar notices were not uncommon in the newspa- pers of the Provincial era. For example, the follow- ing Proclamation appeared in an issue of the Boston News-Letter, of the year 1720:
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"Whereas some evil-minded persons, on or about the 22nd day of January last, being blindly led to fol- low the dictates of their own corrupt hearts, did seek, after a grope in the dark, for the sign of Mr. Samuel Tyley, one of the public Notaries of the Province, and having discovered the same, their distempered eyes could not bear the sight of it ; because, (as is supposed ) it was such a manifest sign of the power committed to him by the Government; so that their high-flying zeal exalted them above measure to reach up thereto, and by force and arms to pull down, carry away or de- 'stroy the same, contrary to law, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord, the King; these are therefore to give notice that, if any persons shall give evidence against the malefactors, so as they may be convicted, such informers shall be generally rewarded for their good services."
At a meeting of the Selectmen, January 26, 1715, "they being sensible of the great Perplexity that the Inhabitants of this Town Labour under, by reason of the Frequent Attempts Lately made of Robbery in several parts of ye Town," it was voted to petition the Governor and Council to issue a reward for the apprehension of the thieves, "and for the more effec- tual discovery of the Combination or Knotts of Rob- bers, with which the Town hath been of late dis- tressed."
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The following advertisement appeared in a Boston newspaper, July 19, 1725: "Last Tuesday night some wicked and evil-minded person or persons broke into the Governor's Coach House, and maliciously broke the front glass of his Excellency's Chariot. Who- ever can give any intelligence to Mr. John Boydell at the Governour's house in Boston, of the Actor or Actors of so unheard of villainy, so as he or they may be brought to Condign Punishment, shall receive of him a reward of Ten Pounds."
Here follows a Notice from the Boston Evening Post, October 29, 1753:
"Lately lost in one of the streets of Boston, or on the Long Wharf, an Irish Stitch Pocket-Book, with about Thirty Pounds in Bills of the Old Tenor, and a great number of Papers and Accounts of no Use to any Body but the Owner of the Book. If the Per- son who has it ('s) Possession, will return it to the Owner, with the Money and Papers, he or she shall be very well rewarded for their Trouble and Care. But if their Consciences shall suffer them to keep the Money, yet they are desired to contrive some way or other, that the Owner may have his Book and Papers again.
N. B .- They may throw it over the Wall into the Printer's Yard."
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A keen business rivalry appears to have existed between Mr. Williams and John Hamock, another wine-merchant, of Boston. This led to the publica- tion of spicy advertisements in several issues of a contemporary newspaper, as follows:
Monday, January 15, 1750.
"To be Sold Cheap by John Hamock, nigh the Town House, Boston; A Valuable Collection of the most nutritive Wines and other Spirituous Liquors, reserved out of all that was imported last Year; and quite different from the Stuff the Wine-Coopers Sell, which, I believe, tend rather to destroy Men's Lives than to Save them."
Monday Jan'y 22, 1750.
"To be sold at the Cheapest Rate by Jonathan Wil- liams at the Black Boy and But in Cornhill, Boston.
Choice Vidona, George's, Pico or Fayal Wines, &c., well approv'd of by the best judges, and reckoned to be some of the best Wines of the Sort in Town. And notwithstanding the Mean & Base Insinuation of John Hamock in his late Advertisement, I doubt not will yet be esteem'd and prefer'd by all Gentlemen of Taste in Town and Country."
January 22, 1750.
"To the Author of the Post-Boy,
"Sir, Tho' any Man of Common Sense must think that the Advertisement refer'd to by Mr. Jonathan
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Williams was intended as a Jest, yet I find (tho' mean and base as it is) he has been so weak as to take it to himself in another Shape, I must therefore beg Leave to quote the old Proverb to him, Viz. that 'there are many true Words spoke in Jest.'-And another, that 'touch a gall'd Horse, and he'l winch.'
"I believe he had better have been silent, and drank a Glass of good, nutritive Wine (if he has any such), than to have exposed his Bitterness and Folly in tak- ing Notice of it.
"Your most humble Servant, "V. D." [John Hamock.]
John Hamock or Hammock had a wine-shop on Shrimpton's Lane, now Exchange Street. He was approved and recommended by the Selectmen as an Innholder, and licensed to sell strong drink, August 17, 1738. He was styled "Captain" in the Town Rec- ords. At a meeting of the Congregation of Christ Church, Boston, holden on Easter Monday, April 26, 1736, Mr. John Hammock was chosen a Vestryman and served as such seven years, and as warden four years. His name is inscribed on one of the bells within the steeple of the Church, in recognition of his zeal in obtaining funds wherewith to defray the cost of the chime.
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The Reverend Roger Price
T HE Reverend Roger Price (1696-1762), an English clergyman, with his family, occupied the spacious house on this lot and fronting on Common Street, for several years. The owner, Stephen Green- leaf, was a relative of Mrs. Price. This was one of the most pretentious estates at the south end of the Town, and in later years was known as the Wash- ington Gardens. After graduating at Balliol Col- lege, Oxford, in 1717, Mr. Price took orders in the Church of England. He then made a voyage to West Africa and accepted a position as Chaplain at Widdaw, on the coast of Guinea. While en route there he was relieved by pirates of most of his per- sonal belongings. He next visited the British West Indies, and served for a time as minister of Saint Ann's Parish, in Jamaica. Returning to England, he spent two years in retirement at Leigh in Essex. He then accepted an invitation to become the rector of King's Chapel, Boston, and was inducted into that office, June 25, 1729, with appropriate formalities, in accordance with the time-honored usage of the Church of England. After the reading of his license and cer- tificate of appointment, the wardens, vestry and mem-
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bers of the congregation all left the church, where- upon Mr. Price locked himself in, and tolled the bell. Then, opening the doors, he formally received the Parish officers and people, who congratulated him on having possession of the church.1 Mr. Price re- mained as rector for seventeen years. Toward the latter part of his incumbency, he became somewhat discontented, and wrote the Bishop of London that he "found the New England ministers too overbearing, and to want some balance." And again he wrote that his "parishioners were for the most part very haughty, and expect more compliance from a minister than is consistent with his character or comfort." He re- signed as rector in November, 1746, and took up his residence in the town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where he already owned a country place and consid- erable land. Here too was the favorite summer re- sort of some of his parishioners. At Hopkinton Mr. Price built a small church at his own expense, and ob- tained an endowment of 170 acres of glebe land, whose revenues contributed to its support. Soon after Mr. Price's arrival at Boston, the Right Reverend Ed- mund Gibson, D.D., Bishop of London, appointed him Commissary over the Episcopal Churches in New England, with authority to exercise spiritual jurisdic- 1 Annals of King's Chapel.
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tion. He was the only clergyman thus honored in the history of the English Colonies in America. In this capacity it devolved upon him to call conventions of the Episcopal clergy; and the first one was held in Christ Church, Boston, in September, 1738. Mr. Price returned to England with his family in 1753, and again made his home at Leigh, a small town in Essex, where he had a living.
In March, 1780, the Hon. Oliver Prescott, of Gro- ton, Judge of Probate for the County of Middlesex, in response to a petition from the Selectmen of Hop- kinton, appointed Captain Gilbert Dench agent to care for four farms, so called "British property," lying in Hopkinton, and belonging to the estate of Mr. Price. The latter had found living in Boston very ex- pensive and "his situation very uneasy." In remov- ing to Hopkinton and founding Saint Paul's Church there, he hoped that it might serve as a sanctuary for persecuted Churchmen. He seems to have been an earnest and devoted minister, who had more- over a taste for country life. He occasionally hunted foxes in company with Sir Henry Frankland, Col- lector of the Port of Boston, who had a fine estate in Hopkinton, where he was wont to entertain his friends. And it does not appear that the Reverend Mr. Price lost caste in the community by reason of
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his indulgence in field sports. The famous glebe land, instead of being a help, was for many years a hindrance. Until comparatively recent times, it yielded but little income, and paralyzed the incentive to give generously. People said, "Oh, there is the glebe, nearly 200 acres of land." As if any parish or rector could be supported by stones, timber, and a gravel pit, or lands gone to waste by neglect.1 When Major William Price (a son of the Reverend Roger Price) returned to America in 1783, to recover his father's property, he found that the Hopkinton lands had been taken by the Town authorities; but as the Prices were neither Tories nor aliens, most of the land was regained.
Major Price found that Saint Paul's Church at Hopkinton was occupied by an old woman named Fanning, and her daughter. The interior was as black as charcoal, there being no chimney. Various attempts to eject these intruders were unsuccessful, until it became necessary to remove the windows, a proceeding which enforced their departure, inasmuch as they were squatters, without any right or title to the Church property.
1 An Historical Sermon, by Rev. Waldo Burnett. This manu- script is preserved among the records of Saint Paul's Church in Hopkinton.
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Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf
J ONATHAN WILLIAMS and Martha, his wife, sold the Carter's pasture lot, August 25, 1742, to Stephen Greenleaf, merchant. And on May 28, 1754, the latter bought of Daniel Tent Tuckerman, "taylor," and Stephen Harris, baker, and Thankfull, his wife, all of Boston, a small parcel of land adjacent to the above-mentioned lot on the north, and including the westerly two-thirds of the 10-foot strip previously described, now a part of the Cathedral land. .. . Stephen Greenleaf, a son of the Reverend Daniel and Elizabeth (Gookin) Greenleaf, was born October 4, 1704. He was a Harvard graduate of the year 1723. (A.M., Yale, 1750.) After leaving College he ob- tained a position as clerk in a Boston store, but soon began business on his own account, and was for many years a successful merchant. He was one of a num- ber of "well-disposed Gentlemen in London, Boston and elsewhere," who responded in 1745 to an appeal from the wardens of Christ Church, Boston, and helped defray the cost of a "fine ring of bells" for that Church. This was the first chime of bells in North America. Mr. Greenleaf was the owner of a pew in King's Chapel, and was one of the subscribers
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for a new organ, which was built in London in 1756. At a meeting of the Selectmen, October 31, 1748, he was appointed a member of Prison Fire-Engine Com- pany Number Seven.
He was the sheriff of Suffolk County during the administration of the unpopular Governor, Sir Fran- cis Bernard, in the troublous times preceding the Rev- olution. When Governor Bernard arrived, coming by land in his stately chariot in August, 1760, Sheriff Greenleaf and other officials with a troop of horse- guards escorted him from Wrentham to Dedham, on the journey to his residence at the Province House in Boston. Being a staunch Royalist, Mr. Greenleaf remained in Town during the Siege, exercising the authority of his office within the lines.
At this period a battalion of British troops was said to have been quartered on his fine estate opposite the Common. After the Declaration of Independence he resigned as sheriff, and remained in comparative retirement until his death at the age of ninety-one. In the inventory of his estate, dated February 13, 1795, the "Mansion House and land, near the Com- mon," were appraised at fifteen thousand dollars.
In the summer of 1774, Earl Percy, who com- manded the troops sent to cover the retreat of Major Pitcairn's forces, on April 19 of the following year,
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was occupying a fine mansion belonging to John Wil- liams, Inspector-General of the Customs, on the north- erly corner of Tremont and Winter Streets. Earl Percy was therefore a near neighbor of Sheriff Greenleaf, and several regiments of the former's command were encamped on the Common at the time above mentioned.
General Henry Jackson
O N March 9, 1796, the Reverend Doctor Samuel Parker (rector of Trinity Church, and after- ward Bishop of Massachusetts), William Scollay, Esq., and Abigail Howard, widow, all of Boston, ex- ecutors of the will of Stephen Greenleaf, sold the lat- ter's estate on Common Street to Henry Jackson. There were at least three persons of this name hailing from Boston in the last decade of the eighteenth cen- tury. The purchaser of the land above mentioned was General Henry Jackson (1747-1809), a distin- guished soldier of the Revolution. He was a son of Colonel Joseph Jackson, commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and Susannah Gray Jackson. General Henry Jackson commanded the Independent Company of Cadets, 1776-1778, and
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recruited the so-called Boston Regiment, "which at once took high rank for its soldier-like appearance, and excellent discipline. This regiment demonstrated its valor on several hard-fought battle-fields."
He was made a Brigadier-General after the Revo- lution, and was also Major-General of the Massachu- setts Militia from 1792 to 1796. General Jackson was the first Treasurer of the Society of the Cincin- nati, and a man of wit and gallantry. He was gen- tlemanly in manners, and eminently social in disposi- tion. At the end of the war he engaged in mercan- tile pursuits, and bought considerable land in dif- ferent parts of the Town.
John Coffin Jones
G ENERAL HENRY JACKSON retained pos- session of "Greenleaf's Gardens" for a little more than two years, and transferred the property July 28, 1798, to John Coffin Jones and Joseph Rus- sell, the latter well-known as an auctioneer, in trust for Hepzibah Swan, wife of James Swan, of Dor- chester.
John Coffin Jones was a graduate of Harvard in 1768 and became a prosperous merchant, whose resi-
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dence was on Hanover Street. He was one of the incorporators of the Canal Bridge Company, under whose supervision Craigie's Bridge was built in 1809. He was the owner of a pew in King's Chapel, and an honorary member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Mr. Jones was also a mem- ber of the first Board of Managers of the Boston Dispensary in 1796, and a loyal friend of that Insti- tution.
The following Notice appeared in a Boston news- paper Monday, May 22, 1786:
"Married; on Thursday, IIth inst, at Newport, John Coffin Jones Esq. of this town, Merchant, to the truly amiable and accomplished Miss Abigail Grant, Daughter of the late Alexander Grant Esq., a Lady of real merit, and highly qualified to render the con- nubial state desirable and supremely happy."
James Swan
J AMES SWAN, a native of Fifeshire, Scotland, came to Boston when quite young, and found em- ployment as a clerk in a counting-room on one of the wharves; living meanwhile at a boarding-house on Hanover Street. He soon became known as an ad- vocate of the oppressed, a pleader for human free- .
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dom, and a determined opponent of the slave trade.
He was one of the famous Boston Tea-Party of De- cember 16, 1773, whose members were disguised as Mohawk Indians. The personnel of this company was kept secret, but many years later Mr. Swan re- counted the particulars of their doings on that mo- . mentous occasion, to Mr. Thomas C. Amory of Bos- ton, whom he met in 1830 at Paris, France. He told how they stove in the tea-chests and tumbled them into the waters of the harbor from on board the three British vessels. Then, "returning late to their abodes, they groped their way silently to bed. And when the next morning they arose as usual before day- break, their shoes contained a liberal quantity of the obnoxious herb; and at the breakfast-table smooches on their countenances were still visible."1
Quiet reigned throughout the Town during that eventful evening, but there were merry hearts among the patriots.
James Swan was with General Joseph Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and received a wound in the side. He was Secretary of the Board of War of Massachusetts in 1777, and later became Adjutant- General. At the close of the Revolution he held the rank of major in a cavalry corps. At about this ' Mass. Historical Society's Proceedings. December 1873.
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time he married Hepzibah Clarke, heiress of a large estate, and soon after went to France, where he ac- cumulated a considerable fortune. Returning to Massachusetts, he invested extensively in landed property, and bought a fine country place in Dorches- ter. In 1798 he was occupying the mansion on Com- mon Street, Boston, which had been acquired by his wife that same year. This property was held in trust for him, and formed a part of one of the most valu- able estates in the Town at that period, being ap- praised at $15,000. Turn-again Alley (now Temple Place), which was then a cul-de-sac, served as a drive-way to the mansion-house. In a water-color of the year 1800, a brick wall is shown surrounding the estate, with a gate-way on Common Street.
Mr. Swan soon revisited France, and again en- gaged in business ventures, which proved unprofita- ble. Through the dishonesty of his partners, and not on account of any fault of his own, he became in- volved in financial difficulties, and was confined in the Debtor's Prison at Paris, where he remained for twenty-two years, preferring to endure captivity un- justly rather than yield his principle. For his for- tune was ample enough to have secured his release. The Revolution of 1830 threw open the prison doors, but Mr. Swan did not long survive his freedom.
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