March 13, 1743; died December 22, 1817. He was an upholsterer, on Union
Street, and his son, Moses, was a partner with him until his death. He
was an ardent patriot; was one of the volunteer guard on the
"Dartmouth," on the night of November 29, 1773; was one of those who
seized and carried off the cannon from the gun-house, on West Street,
and one of the renowned "tea party." Member of the company of cadets,
and a deacon of Brattle Street church.
[Illustration: Signature, Moses Grant]
NATHANIEL GREENE
Was in 1789 register of deeds, at 42 Cornhill. He was an ardent Son of
Liberty, and was present at the public celebration in Dorchester, where
three hundred of them gathered, August 14, 1769.
[Illustration: Signature, Nathaniel Greene]
SAMUEL HAMMOND,
One of the tea party, died at Wadsborough, Vt., January 4, 1842; aged
ninety-three. In 1774, he began a settlement near Otter Creek, N.Y., but
the hostility of the Indians drove him to Vermont, and he fixed his
residence at Wadsborough. He was an industrious farmer, and an active
patriot.
WILLIAM HENDLEY,
A Revolutionary pensioner, formerly of Roxbury, died at Waldoborough,
Me., in February, 1830; aged eighty-two. He was a mason, on Newbury
Street, Boston, in 1796.
GEORGE ROBERT TWELVES HEWES,
Born in Boston, September 5, 1742, died at Richfield, Otsego County,
N.Y., November 5, 1840, at the great age of ninety-eight. His education
was scanty; farming, fishing, and shoemaking being his chief
occupations. Excitable and patriotic, he took part in numerous
ante-Revolutionary disturbances in Boston, and engaged in the naval, and
afterwards in the military, service of his country during the war. His
residence was at the Bulls Head, an old house that stood on the
north-east corner of Congress and Water Streets. The most detailed
account we have of the destruction of the tea in Boston, was given by
him, in "Traits of the Tea Party," by B.B. Thatcher, published in New
York, in 1835. An oil portrait of Hewes is in the possession of his
grandson, Mr. Henry Hewes, of West Medford, Mass.
JOHN HICKS,
Born in Cambridge, May 23, 1725, was one of the earliest martyrs to the
cause of American liberty, having been killed by the British on their
retreat from Lexington, April 19, 1775. John, his son, was a printer,
and became in 1773, a partner with Nathaniel Mills, in the publication
of the "Post Boy," a Tory sheet.
SAMUEL HOBBS,
Born in Lincoln, Mass., in 1750, died at Sturbridge, Mass., in May,
1823. While in the employ of Simeon Pratt, a tanner, of Roxbury, he
aided in throwing the tea overboard, and afterwards said that chests of
Bohea, weighing three hundred and sixty pounds, were rather heavy to
lift. He settled in Sturbridge, as a farmer, also carrying on his trade
of tanner and currier. By his wife, Lucy Munroe, of Lexington, he had
four children.
JOHN HOOTON,
An apprentice, while at work on the tea, saw a person who looked like a
countryman, coming up with a small boat to the ship's side, evidently
intending to secure a cargo for his own use. He, and three or four other
"North Enders," as full of spirit as himself, being directed to dislodge
the interloper, jumped over and beat the canoe from under him "in the
twinkling of an eye." Hooton was an oarmaker, at Hooton's wharf, Fish
Street, in 1789. In 1806, he was a wood-wharfinger, on North Street,
residing in Prince Street. In 1838, his residence was in Chelsea, Mass.
SAMUEL HOWARD,
A Boston shipwright, resided at the "Mansion House," as it was called,
which stood on the site of the Mariner's Church, North Square. He died
here in January, 1797, at the age of forty-five, and was buried in
Copp's Hill. His wife, Anna Lillie, the sister of Major John Lillie, of
the Revolutionary army, died in North Andover, in 1804. Two of our
well-known fellow citizens, Henry Lillie Pierce and Edward L. Pierce,
are grandsons of Major Lillie. Theophilus Lillie, the Tory trader, who
was mobbed during the tea excitement, was Major Lillie's uncle.
Caroline, the youngest child of Samuel and Anna Lillie Howard, born
October 3, 1794, married Rev. Samuel Gilman, D.D., of Charleston, S.C.
She is still living, at the age of ninety, and resides at Tiverton,
R.I., with a daughter Mrs. Bowen.
[Illustration: GEORGE ROBERT TWELVES HUGHES.]
EDWARD C. HOWE,
Ropemaker, died in September, 1821, aged seventy-nine. E.C. Howe & Son
(Joseph) dissolved partnership August 1, 1800. Howe's rope-walk was one
of seven, on the west side of Pearl Street, all of which were burnt in
July, 1794.
JONATHAN HUNNEWELL,
The son of Richard, followed his father's trade, of a mason. He was born
in Boston, May 19, 1759; died in April, 1842. He was several times a
selectman of Boston, and member of both branches of the legislature; was
connected with many benevolent institutions, and was for nine years
president of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. He was
one of the principal agents in the establishment of the glass-works, in
Boston and Chelmsford, and its failure, in 1822, made him a poor man.
For many years he had a country residence at Newton, which was the seat
of a generous hospitality. The latter part of his life was passed in
seclusion, at Roxbury, where, in 1800, he married the widow Theoda
Davis. Jonathan, his brother, and Richard, his father, were also in the
tea party.
RICHARD HUNNEWELL,
A mason, member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association,
died in October, 1805. He resided in Essex Street; was an active Son of
Liberty, and was one of the volunteer guard on the "Dartmouth," on the
night of November 30, 1773. His two sons, fourteen and sixteen years of
age, were with him at the throwing overboard of the tea.
THOMAS HUNSTABLE,
Was born in 1753. He lived for many years on Brighton Street, and was a
Freemason.
COLONEL ABRAHAM HUNT,
Was born in Braintree, Mass., June 2, 1748; died December 5, 1793. He
was apprenticed, in 1763, to Edmund Quincy, who kept a wine-store, and
was afterwards connected with him in the trade. In 1789, his place of
business was in Middle (Hanover) Street, and his residence on Federal
Street. He served as lieutenant and adjutant at the siege of Boston; was
in the Ticonderoga campaign, remaining some years in the service, which
he quitted with the rank of captain. June 24, 1781, he was agent for the
privateer "Buccaneer," Captain Hoysted Hacker. For a time he was
inspector of the ports of Boston and Charlestown. In 1777, he became a
member of St. Andrew's Lodge of Freemasons. October 15, 1771, he married
Mary St. Leger. His orderly books for June and July, 1775, are in the
possession of his grandson, ---- Urann, Esq.
DANIEL INGERSOLL,
Housewright, formerly of Boston, died in Keene, N.H., October 17, 1829,
aged seventy-nine. He was a member of St. Andrew's Lodge, in 1782.
[Illustration: Signature, David Kinnison]
DAVID KINNISON,
The last of the tea party, born in Old Kingston, near Portsmouth, Maine,
November 17, 1736; died in Chicago, February 24, 1852; aged one hundred
and fifteen years. Up to the Revolution he was a farmer, at Lebanon,
whence, with a few comrades, members of a political club, he went to
Boston, with the express purpose of destroying the tea. He was in active
service during the war, participating in many battles, and was a
prisoner among the Indians at its close. He was a farmer, at Wells,
Maine, when the war of 1812 broke out, and was in the battles at
Sackett's Harbor and Williamsburg, and in the latter was badly wounded
in the hand, by a grape-shot. He afterwards lived at Lyme, and at
Sackett's Harbor, N.Y., and in July, 1845, went to Chicago. At Lyme,
while felling a tree, he was struck down by a limb, which fractured his
skull, broke his collar bone, and two of his ribs. While engaged in
discharging a cannon, at a training at Sackett's Harbor, both legs were
broken and badly shattered. Up to 1848 he had always made something by
his labor, and was the father of twenty-two children. He learned to read
when past sixty. A daughter, who survived in 1848, was made acquainted
in that year with her father's existence, by the publication of Mr.
Lossing's "Field Book of the Revolution." Hastening to him, she smoothed
the patriarch's pillow in his passage to the grave.
JOSEPH LEE,
Merchant, on Long Wharf, afterwards at 9 Doane Street, was a member of
Massachusetts Lodge of Freemasons, in 1773, and died February 6, 1831;
aged eighty-six.
[Illustration: signature, Joseph Lee]
AMOS LINCOLN,
Born in Hingham, Mass., March 17, 1753, died at Quincy, Mass., January
15, 1829. He was apprenticed to a Mr. Crafts, at the North End, who, on
the evening of December 16, 1773, secretly procured for him an Indian
disguise, dressed him in his own chamber,--darkening his face to the
required tint,--and then, dropping on his knees, prayed most fervently
that he might be protected in the enterprise in which he was engaged.
Joining Stark's New Hampshire regiment, he was in the battle of Bunker
Hill; was afterwards a captain in Craft's artillery regiment, and was at
one time in charge of the castle, in Boston harbor. When Shays'
insurrection broke out, he assisted in its suppression. He was a
housewright of much skill. The wood-work of the State House was under
his charge, and evinces the grace and beauty of his workmanship. He
married a daughter of Paul Revere. His grandson, Frederick W. Lincoln,
has been mayor of Boston. He joined St. Andrew's Lodge of Freemasons,
in 1777. Governor Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts, and Governor Enoch
Lincoln, of Maine, were nephews of Captain Amos Lincoln.
[Illustration: Signature, Amos Lincoln]
MATTHEW LORING
Was a cordwainer, on Devonshire Street, residing on Brattle Street. He
died November 7, 1829; aged seventy-nine.
THOMAS MACHIN
Was born in Staffordshire, England, 20th March, 1744; was employed by
Brindley in canal construction, and in 1772 came to America, and settled
in Boston. He was wounded at Bunker Hill, while acting as lieutenant of
artillery; 18th January, 1776, was commissioned second lieutenant in
Col. Knox's artillery regiment, and was employed from April to June in
that year in laying out the fortifications for the defence of the town
and harbor of Boston; from July, 1776, to 1781, he was employed in
constructing the fortifications which were to render the Hudson
impassable to British vessels. In October, 1777, when Forts Montgomery
and Clinton were taken by the British, Captain Machin was wounded by a
musket-ball, which entered his breast and passed out under his right
shoulder. In April, 1779, he accompanied Colonel Van Schaick's
expedition against the Onondagas, of which he kept a journal, and in
June joined Sullivan's expedition to the Genesee Valley, as engineer. A
map of this expedition, executed by him, was in the possession of his
son, Captain Thomas Machin. In the fall of 1781, he aided in laying out
the works of the American army, then besieging Yorktown. In 1783, he
began a settlement at New Grange, Ulster County, and in the following
year erected several mills at the Great Pond, a few miles west of
Newburgh. March 12, 1793, he was commissioned a captain, to take rank as
such from 21st August, 1780. In January, 1797, he removed to Montgomery
County, N.Y., where he practised surveying, and where he died, at his
residence in Charleston, a part of the old town of Mohawk, 3d April,
1816; Member of Army Lodge, West Point, 1782.
ARCHIBALD MACNEIL,
Died in Scituate, Mass., February 1, 1840; aged ninety.
CAPTAIN MACKINTOSH
Was a tradesman of Boston, who acquired great prominence in the local
disturbances of the town, prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, but who
disappears from her history after that period. He first came into notice
as the leader of the South End party, in the celebration of Pope Day,
which took place on the 5th of November, in commemoration of the discovery
of the gunpowder plot. In 1765, the two factions of the North and South
Ends harmonized, and after a friendly meeting in King (now State) Street,
marched together to Liberty Tree. The leaders,--Mackintosh of the South,
and Swift of the North End,--appeared in military habits, with small canes
resting on their left arms, having music in front and flank. All the
property used on such occasions was afterwards burnt on Copp's Hill.
Mackintosh was a ringleader in the riot of August 26, 1765, when
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson's house was destroyed, and was arrested in
King Street next day, but was immediately released by the sheriff, on the
demand of a number of merchants, and other persons of character and
property.
From the Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, we take the following
passage:
"The Governor had summoned a council the day after the riot.
The sheriff attended, and upon enquiring, it appeared that
one Mackintosh, a shoemaker, was among the most active in
destroying the Lieutenant-Governor's house and furniture. A
warrant was given to the sheriff to apprehend him by name,
with divers others. Mackintosh appeared in King Street, and
the sheriff took him, but soon discharged him, and returned
to the council chamber, where he gave an account of his
taking him, and that Mr. Nathaniel Coffin, and several other
gentlemen, came to him and told him that it had been agreed
that the cadets, and many other persons, should appear in
arms the next evening, as a guard and security against a
fresh riot, which was feared, and said to have been
threatened, but not a man would appear unless Mackintosh was
discharged. The Lieutenant-Governor asked, 'And did you
discharge him?' 'Yes.' 'Then you have not done your duty.'
And this was all the notice taken of the discharge. The true
reason of thus distinguishing Mackintosh was that he could
discover who employed him, whereas the other persons
apprehended were such as had collected together without
knowing of any previous plan."
Mackintosh was styled the "First Captain-General of Liberty Tree," and
had charge of the illuminations, hanging of effigies, etc. Long
afterward, in speaking of the tea party, he said, "It was my chickens
that did the job." My informant, Mr. Schuler Merrill, then a boy of ten,
remarks that it was a mystery to him, at that time, "how chickens could
have anything to do with a tea party!" Mackintosh is described by
Merrill as "of slight build, sandy complexion, and nervous temperament."
He died in extreme poverty, at North Haverhill, N.H., about the year
1812, at the age of seventy. His unmarked grave can be pointed out by
Mr. Merrill, who still resides in North Haverhill, at the age of
eighty-two.
COLONEL JOHN MAY,
Born in Boston, November 24, 1748, died July 16, 1812. On the afternoon
of December 16, 1773, he went in haste to his home, on North Square, and
said to his young wife, "Nabby, let me have a beefsteak as quickly as
possible." While he was eating it, a rap was heard on the window, and he
rose at once from the unfinished meal and departed. He returned late,
tired and uncommunicative. In the morning, there was found in his shoes,
and scattered upon the floor, a quantity of _tea_. The inevitable
inference from these circumstances is strengthened by evidence of a very
different character. Near the close of Major Melvill's life, he gave,
while dining with a few friends, some anecdotes of the tea party, and
turning to Henry Knox May, the son of Colonel May, he said, "Harry,
there was one John there." The son, who knew the family tradition, was
eager to learn more. "Not now, Harry," said the major, "Come and see me,
and I will tell you all about it." Mr. May called repeatedly upon him,
but could never obtain any further satisfaction respecting the object of
his inquiry. Colonel May was a man of great energy and courage, an
ardent patriot, and one not likely to be overlooked in the making-up of
a company of picked men for such an enterprise. He was at one time
colonel of the Boston regiment, and was for many years a selectman, and
a firewarden of the town. He made a journey of exploration to the Ohio
region, in 1788 and 1789, an account of which has been published. Two
sons, Frederick and George Washington May, were skilful physicians, in
Washington, D.C. He has numerous grandchildren living, among them Prof.
Edward Tuckerman, of Amherst College, and Samuel P. Tuckerman, Mus.
Doc., resident in England.
I am indebted for the above facts to my friend, John Joseph
May, Esq., of Mayfield, Dorchester.
[Illustration: =The relic of the Tea=, destroyed in Boston, Dec. 16^th
1773. found on the following morning by Thomas Melville, in his shoes;
and put into this phial, for preservation.]
[Illustration: Signature, Thomas Melvill]
MAJOR THOMAS MELVILL
Was born in Boston, January 16, 1751, and died there September 16, 1832.
He was the grandson of Thomas, minister of Scoonie Parish, Fifeshire, a
cadet of the Scottish family of the Earls of Leven and Melvill. Allan,
his father, left Scotland, and established himself in business in
Boston, in 1743. Left an orphan at the age of ten, the care of his
education devolved upon his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Cargill, a
relative of the celebrated surgeon, Dr. Abernethy. Young Melvill was
graduated at Princeton College, in 1769, with a view to the ministry,
but impaired health led him to make a visit to Scotland, in 1771.
Returning to Boston, in 1773, he established himself in business in that
town, just at the time when the tea excitement began, and being strongly
in sympathy with the "Sons of Liberty," and a member of the Long Room
Club, he took an active part in the event of December 16, 1773. Some of
the tea taken from his shoes, after his return home, was preserved, and
is now in the possession of Mrs. Thomas Melvill, of Galena, Illinois.
The picture here given is a fac-simile of the venerable relic itself. In
1773, he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts, from Harvard
College. In 1774, Melvill married Priscilla, daughter of John Scollay, a
prominent Boston merchant. He had been selected by General Warren as one
of his aids, just before the fall of the latter at Bunker's Hill, and
was successively captain and major in Colonel Thomas Crafts's regiment
of artillery, raised for the defence of the State. When, soon after the
evacuation of the town, in March, 1776, the British fleet was driven
from Boston harbor, Captain Melvill discharged the first guns at the
hostile ships, from his battery, at Nantasket. He afterwards served in
the Rhode Island campaigns of 1777 and 1779. After the war, he was naval
officer of the port of Boston, in 1786-89, and through the influence of
his friend, Samuel Adams, was, in the latter year, appointed inspector
under the United States Government, a post which he held until made
naval officer, in 1811. President Jackson removed him from this office
in 1829, after which period he was a member of the Massachusetts House
of Representatives. From 1779 to 1825, he was one of the firewards of
Boston, and on retiring from his forty-seven years' service, was made
the recipient of a silver pitcher as a testimonial of the appreciation
of his services, by his associates. Major Melvill's long and honorable
connection with the Boston Fire Department began in the good old times,
when the firewards carried staves, tipped at the end with a brass flame,
and marshalled the bystanders into lines for passing buckets of water to
the scene of conflagration. One of the town engines was named "Melvill,"
in honor of the major, whose death was finally caused by over-fatigue at
a fire near his house. He was a Democrat, and a firm friend of
Samuel Adams, of whom he had a small portrait, by Copley, now at
Harvard University. At the time of his death, he was president of the
Massachusetts Charitable Society. Major Melvill was a man of sound
judgment and strict integrity. He is still remembered by our older
citizens as the last to wear, in Boston, a cocked hat and small
clothes--the costume of the Revolution. Herman Melville, a grandson, has
attained popularity as an author. The front door of Major Melvill's
residence, which formerly stood near the easterly corner of Green and
Staniford Streets, now does similar duty for the house at the corner of
Bartlett and Lambert Streets, Roxbury. The accompanying portrait is from
an oil painting in the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Samuel
Downer, of Dorchester. The beautiful garden at Downer Landing, Hingham,
near which is her summer residence, perpetuates the name of this worthy
and patriotic citizen of Boston. Admitted member Mass. Lodge, 1772.
[Illustration: Signature, Thomas Melvill
This print shows the Major in his Continental hat, the last he wore: now
carefully preserved and in possession of Mr. John L.D. Wolfe, Tremont
Street, Boston, near Brookline and Boston line, who has kindly allowed
us to sketch it for this work.]
[Illustration: Signature, Thomas Melvill]
WILLIAM MOLINEUX,
A distinguished and patriotic merchant of Boston, died there October 22,
1774; aged fifty-eight. Like Revere and Johonnot, he was of Huguenot
ancestry. About the year 1760, he, with William Phillips and others,
established the "Manufactory House," on the east side of what is now
Hamilton Place. Here the people were taught spinning and weaving, free
of cost, and soon many were clad in garments of their own manufacture.
This building was put to other uses, in 1768. Molineux, from the very
beginning of the dispute with the mother country, was an active and
influential Whig. He was a member of the "Long Room Club," formed in
1762, and of the Sons of Liberty, in 1765; was one of the Boston
committee of correspondence, from its origin, in 1772; one of the
committee, and its spokesman, appointed by the Liberty Tree meeting,
November 4, to request the consignees of the tea to resign, and took an
active part in all the public meetings that followed. Molineux and Dr.
Young were the only prominent leaders of the people who were known to
have been actively present at the destruction of the tea. Molineux was a
member of a committee, of which Samuel Adams was the chairman, to demand
the removal of the British troops from Boston. John Adams relates that
Molineux was obliged to march by the side of the troops, to protect them
from the indignation of the people. With the exception of Samuel Adams,
no name is oftener found, in connection with the public acts of the day,
than that of William Molineux, and his death, a few months before the
war broke out, was a great loss to the patriot cause. While the Boston
Port Bill was under discussion in the British Cabinet, Governor
Hutchinson was told by Lord Mansfield that the Lords of the Council had
their pens ready to sign the warrant for the transportation to England
and trial of Adams, Molineux and others, for high treason, but were
prevented by the doubts of the Attorney and Solicitor-Generals as to the
sufficiency of the evidence to convict them. Molineux resided at the
corner of Beacon and Mount Vernon Streets, near John Hancock, where in
1760 he built a mansion-house that was considered as "quite splendid"
for those days.
[Illustration: Signature, W Molineux]
THOMAS MOORE,
Son of Hugh Moore, wharfinger, on Fish Street, informs his father's
"good customers," in the _Gazette_ of November 24, 1773, that he
"carries on the business as usual, and solicits their custom." Ben.
Russell speaks of seeing Moore and his (Russell's) father blacking each
other's faces on the 16th of December, 1773. He died in August, 1813;
aged sixty.
ANTHONY MORSE.
"Anthony Morse, my father, afterwards a lieutenant during the
Revolutionary war, and Mr. Joseph Roby, now (1819) of Hanover, N.H.,
were active in the destruction of the tea, December 16, 1773."
--Niles' Acts and Principles of the Revolution, p. 326.
JOSEPH MOUNTFORD,
A cooper, on Prince Street, died in Pepperill, Mass., May 11, 1838; aged
eighty-eight.
E[LIPHELET] N[EWELL],
Of Charlestown, repeatedly informed Dr. Joseph Bartlett, author of a
historical sketch of that town, that he was one of the Indians who
destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge
of St. Andrew, in 1778.
[Illustration: Signature, Eliphelet Newell]
JOSEPH PEARSE PALMER