occasion, in Italy, he was waylaid and robbed of all he had, and
narrowly escaped with his life. He had been playing and had been very
successful, winning money, gold watches, and diamonds. As he was riding
back to his hôtel his postilion was shot. He immediately seized his
pistols to defend himself, when he was struck on the back of the head
with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to
consciousness until the next morning, when he found himself by the side
of the road, bleeding from a terrible wound in his side from a
dirk-knife. He had strength to attract the attention of a man passing
with a team, and was taken to his hôtel. A surgeon was called, who
pronounced the wound mortal. Mr. Ansart objected to that view of the
case, and sent for another, and with skilful treatment he finally
recovered.
It is said that he was a splendid swordsman. On a certain occasion he
was insulted, and challenged his foe to step out and defend himself with
his sword. His opponent declined, saying he never fought with girls,
meaning that Mr. Ansart was delicate, with soft, white hands and fair
complexion, and no match for him, whereupon the young Frenchman drew his
sword to give him a taste of his quality. He flourished it around his
opponent's head, occasionally stratching his face and hands, until he
was covered with wounds and blood, but he could not provoke him to draw
his weapon and defend himself. After complimenting him with the name of
"coward," he told him to go about his business, advising him in future
to be more careful of his conduct and less boastful of his courage.
During the inquisition in France, Colonel Ansart said that prisoners
were sometimes executed in the presence of large audiences, in a sort of
amphitheatre. People of means had boxes, as in our theatres of the
present day. Colonel Ansart occupied one of these boxes on one occasion
with his lady. Before the performance began, another gentleman with his
lady presented himself in Colonel Ansart's box, and requested him to
vacate. He was told that he was rather presuming in his conduct and had
better go where he belonged. The man insisted upon crowding himself in,
and was very insolent, when Colonel Ansart seized him and threw him over
the front, when, of course, he went tumbling down among the audience
below. Colonel Ansart was for this act afterward arrested and imprisoned
for a short time, but was finally liberated without trial.
History informs us that a combined attack by D'Estaing and General
Sullivan was planned, in 1778, for the expulsion of the British from
Rhode Island, where, under General Pigot, they had established a
military dépôt. Colonel Ansart was _aide-de-camp_ to General Sullivan in
this expedition, and was wounded in the engagement of August 29.
On a certain occasion he was taking a sleigh-ride with his family, and
in one of the adjacent towns met a gentleman with his turn-out in a
narrow and drifted part of the road, where some difficulty occurred in
passing each other. Colonel Ansart suggested to him that he should not
have driven into such a place when he saw him coming. The man denied
that he saw the colonel, and told him he lied. Colonel Ansart seized his
pistol to punish him for his insolence, when his wife interfered, an
explanation followed, and it was ascertained that both gentlemen were
from Dracut. One was deacon of the church, and the other
"inspector-general of artillery." Of course the pistols were put up, as
the deacon didn't wish to be shot, and the colonel _wouldn't tell a
lie_.
In his prime, our hero stood six feet high in his boots, and weighed two
hundred pounds. He died in Dracut, May 28, 1804, at the age of sixty-two
years.
Mrs. Ansart was born in Boston, and witnessed the battle of Bunker Hill,
and often described the appearance of the British soldiers as they
marched along past her residence, both in going to the battle and in
returning. She was thirteen years of age, and recollected it perfectly.
She said they were grand as they passed along the streets of Boston
toward Charlestown. The officers were elegantly dressed and were in
great spirits, thinking it was only a pleasant little enterprise to go
over to Charlestown and drive those Yankees out of their fort; but when
they returned it was a sad sight. The dead and dying were carried
through the streets pale and ghastly and covered with blood. She said
the people witnessed the battle from the houses in Boston, and as
regiment after regiment was swept down by the terrible fire of the
Americans, they said that the British were feigning to be frightened and
falling down for sport; but when they saw that they did not get up
again, and when the dead and wounded were brought back to Boston, the
reality began to be made known, and that little frolic of taking the
fort was really an ugly job, and hard to accomplish.
Mrs. Ansart died in Dracut at the age of eighty-six years, January 27,
1849. She retained her mental and physical faculties to a great degree
till within a short time before her death. She was accustomed to walk to
church, a distance of one mile, when she was eighty years of age.
Colonel and Mrs. Ansart were both buried in Woodbine Cemetery, in the
part of Lowell which belonged to Dracut at the time of their interment.
* * * * *
BEACON HILL BEFORE THE HOUSES.
BY DAVID M. BALFOUR.
The visitor to the dome of the Capitol of the State, as he looks out
from its lantern and beholds spread immediately beneath his feet a
semi-circular space, whose radius does not exceed a quarter of a mile,
covered with upward of two thousand dwelling-houses, churches, hotels,
and other public edifices, does not in all probability ask himself the
question: "_What did this place look like before there was any house
here?_" When Lieutenant-Colonel George Washington visited Boston in
1756, on business connected with the French war, and lodged at the
Cromwell's Head Tavern, a building which is still standing on the north
side of School Street, upon the site of No. 13, where Mrs. Harrington
now deals out coffee and "mince"-pie to her customers, Beacon Hill was a
collection of pastures, owned by thirteen proprietors, in lots
containing from a half to twenty acres each. The southwesterly slope of
the prominence is designated upon the old maps as "Copley Hill."
We will now endeavor to describe the appearance of the hill, at the
commencement of the American Revolution, with the beacon on its top,
from which it took its name, consisting of a tall mast sixty feet in
height, erected in 1635, with an iron crane projecting from its side,
supporting an iron pot. The mast was placed on cross-timbers, with a
stone foundation, supported by braces, and provided with cross-sticks
serving as a ladder for ascending to the crane. It remained until 1776,
when it was destroyed by the British; but was replaced in 1790 by a
monument, inclosed in a space six rods square, where it remained until
1811. It was surmounted by an eagle, which now surmounts the speaker's
desk in the hall of the House of Representatives, and had tablets upon
its four sides with inscriptions commemorative of Revolutionary events.
It stood nearly opposite the southeast corner of the reservoir lot, upon
the site of No. 82 Temple Street, and its foundation was sixty feet
higher up in the air than the present level of that street. The lot was
sold, in 1811, for the miserable pittance of _eighty cents_ per square
foot!
Starting upon our pedestrian tour from the corner of Tremont and Beacon
Streets, where now stands the Albion, was an acre lot owned by the heirs
of James Penn, a selectman of the town, and a ruling elder in the First
Church, which stood in State Street upon the site of Brazer's Building.
The parsonage stood opposite, upon the site of the Merchants Bank
Building, and extended with its garden to Dock Square, the water flowing
up nearly to the base of the Samuel Adams statue. Next comes a half-acre
lot owned by Samuel Eliot, grandfather of President Eliot of Harvard
University. Then follows a second half-acre lot owned by the heirs of
the Reverend James Allen, fifth minister of the First Church, who, in
his day, as will be shown in the sequel, owned a larger portion of the
surface of Boston than any other man, being owner of thirty-seven of the
seven hundred acres which inclosed the territory of the town. His name
is perpetuated in the street of that name bounding the Massachusetts
General Hospital grounds. Somerset Street was laid out through it. The
Congregational House, Jacob Sleeper Hall, and Boston University
Building, which occupies the former site of the First Baptist Church,
under the pastorship of the Reverend Rollin H. Neale, stand upon it.
Next comes Governor James Bowdoin's two-acre pasture, extending from the
last-named street to Mount Vernon Street, and northerly to Allston
Street; the upper part of Bowdoin Street and Ashburton Place were laid
out through it; the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, formerly
Freeman-place Chapel, built by the Second Church, under the pastoral
care of the Reverend Chandler Robbins, and afterwards occupied by the
First Presbyterian Church, the Church of the Disciples, the
Brattle-square Church, the Old South Church, and the First Reformed
Episcopal Church; so that the entire theological gamut has resounded
from its walls; the Swedenborgian Church, over which the Reverend Thomas
Worcester presided for a long series of years, also stands upon it.
Having reached the summit of the hill, we come abreast of the
five-and-a-half-acre pasture of Governor John Hancock, the first signer
of the immortal Declaration of American Independence, extending from
Mount Vernon Street to Joy Street, and northerly to Derne Street,
embracing the Capitol lot, and also the reservoir lot, for which last
two he paid, in 1752, the modest sum of eleven hundred dollars! It is
now worth a thousand times as much. For the remainder of his possessions
in that vicinity he paid nine hundred dollars more. The upper part of
Mount Vernon Street, the upper part of Hancock Street, and Derne Street,
were laid out through it. Then, descending the hill, comes Benjamin
Joy's two-acre pasture, extending from Joy Street to Walnut Street, and
extending northerly to Pinckney Street; forty-seven dwelling-houses now
standing upon it. Mr. Joy paid two thousand dollars for it. At the time
of its purchase he was desirous of getting a house in the country, as
being more healthy than a town-residence, and he selected this localty
as "being country enough for him." The upper part of Joy Street was laid
out through it. Now follows the valuable twenty-acre pasture of John
Singleton Copley, the eminent historical painter, one of whose
productions (Charles the First demanding in the House of Commons the
arrest of the five impeached members) is now in the art-room of the
Public Library. It extended for a third of a mile on Beacon Street, from
Walnut Street to Beaver Street, and northerly to Pinckney Street, which
he purchased in lots at prices ranging from fifty to seventy dollars per
acre. Walnut, Spruce, a part of Charles, River, Brimmer, Branch Avenue,
Byron Avenue, Lime, and Chestnut Streets, Louisburg Square, the lower
parts of Mount Vernon and Pinckney Streets, and the southerly part of
West Cedar Street, have been laid out through it. Copley left Boston, in
1774, for England, and never returned to his native land. He wrote to
his agent in Boston, Gardner Greene (whose mansion subsequently stood
upon the enclosure in Pemberton Square, surrounded by a garden of two
and a quarter acres, for which he paid thirty-three thousand dollars),
to sell the twenty-acre pasture for the best price which could be
obtained. After a delay of some time he sold it, in 1796, for eighteen
thousand four hundred and fifty dollars; equivalent to nine hundred
dollars per acre, or _two cents_ per square foot. It is a singular fact
that a record title to only two and a half of the twenty acres could be
found. It was purchased by the Mount Vernon Proprietors, consisting of
Jonathan Mason, three tenths; Harrison Gray Otis, three tenths; Benjamin
Joy, two tenths; and Henry Jackson, two tenths. The barberry bushes
speedily disappeared after the Copley sale. The southerly part of
Charles Street was laid out through it. And the first railroad in the
United States was here employed. It was gravitation in principle. An
inclined plane was laid from the top of the hill, and the dirt-cars slid
down, emptying their loads into the water at the foot and drawing the
empty cars upward. The apex of the hill was in the rear of the Capitol
near the junction of Mount Vernon and Temple Streets, and was about
sixty feet above the present level of that locality, and about even with
the roof of the Capitol. The level at the corner of Bowdoin Street and
Ashburton Place has been reduced about thirty feet, and at the northeast
corner of the reservoir lot about twenty feet, and Louisburg Square
about fifteen feet. The contents of the excavations were used to fill up
Charles Street as far north as Cambridge Street, the parade-ground on
the Common, and the Leverett-street jail lands. The territory thus
conveyed now embraces some of the finest residences in the city. The
Somerset Club-house, the Church of the Advent, and the First African
Church, built in 1807 by the congregation worshiping with the Reverend
Daniel Sharp, stand upon it.
[Illustration: MAP OF BEACON HILL AND WEST END IN BOSTON]
Bounded southerly on Copley's pasture, westerly on Charles River, and
northerly on Cambridge Street, was Zachariah Phillips's nine-acre
pasture, which extended easterly to Grove Street; for which he paid one
hundred pounds sterling, equivalent to fifty dollars per acre. The
northerly parts of Charles and West Cedar Streets, and the westerly
parts of May and Phillips Streets have been laid out through it. The
Twelfth Baptist Church, formerly under the pastorship of the Reverend
Samuel Snowdon, stands upon it. Proceeding easterly was the
sixteen-and-a-half-acre pasture of the Reverend James Allen, before
alluded to as the greatest landowner in the town of Boston, for which he
paid one hundred and fifty pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to
twenty-two dollars per acre. It bounded southerly on Copley's, Joy's and
Hancock's pastures, and extended easterly to Temple Street. Anderson,
Irving, Garden, South Russell, Revere, and the easterly parts of
Phillips and Myrtle Streets, were laid out through it. Next comes
Richard Middlecott's four-acre pasture, extending from Temple Street to
Bowdoin Street, and from Cambridge Street to Allston Street. Ridgeway
Lane, the lower parts of Hancock, Temple, and Bowdoin Streets, were
laid out through it. The Independent Baptist Church, formerly under the
pastorship of the Reverend Thomas Paul; the First Methodist Episcopal
Church, built in 1835 by the parish of Grace Church, under the
rectorship of the Reverend Thomas M. Clark, now bishop of the diocese of
Rhode Island; the Mission Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, which was
erected in 1830 by the congregation of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, just
after the destruction of their edifice by fire, which stood at the
southeast corner of Hanover and (new) Washington Streets, stand upon it.
Next comes the four-acre pasture of Charles Bulfinch, the architect of
the Capitol at Washington, also of the Massachusetts Capitol, Faneuil
Hall, and other public buildings, and for fourteen years chairman of the
board of selectmen of the town of Boston, extending from Bowdoin Street
to Bulfinch Street, and from Bowdoin Square to Ashburton Place, for
which he paid two hundred pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to
six hundred and sixty-seven dollars. Bulfinch Street and Bulfinch Place
were laid out through it. The Revere House, formerly the mansion of Kirk
Boott, one of the founders of the city of Lowell; Bulfinch-place Church,
which occupies the site of the Central Universalist Church, erected in
1822 by the congregation of the Reverend Paul Dean; and also Mount
Vernon Church, erected in 1842 by the congregation over which the
Reverend Edward N. Kirk presided, stand upon it. Then follows the
two-acre pasture of Cyprian Southack, extending to Tremont Row easterly,
and westerly to Somerset Street, Stoddard Street and Howard Street were
laid out through it. The Howard Athenæum, formerly the site of Father
Miller's Tabernacle, stands upon it. Then follows the
one-and-a-half-acre pasture of the heirs of the Reverend John Cotton,
second minister of the First Church, extending from Howard Street to
Pemberton Square, which constitutes a large portion of that enclosure.
And lastly, proceeding southerly, comes the four-acre pasture of William
Phillips, extending from the southeasterly corner of Pemberton Square to
the point of beginning, and enclosing the largest portion of that
enclosure. The Hotel Pavilion, the Suffolk Savings Bank, and Houghton
and Dutton's stores, stand upon it.
Less than a century ago Charles River flowed at high tide from the
southeast corner of Cambridge Street and Anderson Street across
intervening streets to Beacon Street, up which it flowed one hundred and
forty-three feet easterly across Charles Street to No. 61. When Mr. John
Bryant dug the cellar for that building he came to the natural beach,
with its rounded pebbles, at the depth of three or four feet below the
surface. It also flowed over the Public Garden, across the southern
portion of the parade-ground, to the foot of the hill, upon which stands
the Soldiers' Monument. A son of H.G. Otis was drowned, about seventy
years ago, in a quagmire which existed at that spot. It also flowed
across the westerly portion of Boylston Street and Tremont Street, and
Shawmut Avenue, to the corner of Washington Street and Groton Street,
where stood the fortifications during the American Revolution, across
the Neck, which was only two hundred and fifty feet in width at that
point, and thence to the boundary of Roxbury. A beach existed where now
is Charles Street, and the lower part of Cambridge Street, on both
sides, was a marsh.
Less than a century ago, land on Beacon Hill was as cheap as public
documents. Ministers are enjoined not to be worldly minded, and not to
be given to filthy lucre. But the Reverend James Allen would furnish an
excellent pattern for a modern real-estate speculator. In addition to
his pasture on the south side of Cambridge Street, he had also a
twenty-acre pasture on the north side of that street, between Chambers
Street and Charles River, extending to Poplar Street, for which he paid
one hundred and forty pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to four
hundred and sixty-seven dollars, equal to twenty-three dollars per acre.
He was thus the proprietor of all the territory from Pinckney Street to
Poplar Street, between Joy Street and Chambers Street on the east, and
Grove Street and Charles River on the west; for which he paid the
magnificent sum of nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars! It was called
"Allen's Farm." The Capitol lot, containing ninety-five thousand square
feet, was bought by the town of Boston of John Hancock (who, though a
devoted patriot to the American cause, yet in all his business
transactions had an eye to profit), for the sum of thirteen thousand
three hundred and thirty-three dollars; only _twenty_ times as much as
he gave for it! The town afterward conveyed it to the Commonwealth for
five shillings, upon condition that it should be used for a Capitol. In
1846, the city of Boston paid one hundred and forty-five thousand one
hundred and seven dollars for the reservoir lot containing thirty-seven
thousand four hundred and eighty-eight square feet. In 1633, the town
granted to William Blackstone fifty acres of land wherever he might
select. He accordingly selected upon the south-westerly slope of Beacon
Hill, which included the Common. Being afterward compelled by the town
to fence in his vacant land, he conveyed back to the town, for thirty
pounds, all but the six-acre lot at the corner of Beacon and Spruce
Streets, and extending westerly to Charles River, and northerly to
Pinckney Street, where he lived until 1635, when he removed to Rhode
Island, and founded the town which bears his name.
It will thus be perceived that the portion of Beacon Hill, included
between Beacon Street, Beaver Street, Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Square,
Court Street, Tremont Row, and Tremont Street, containing about
seventy-three acres, was sold, less than a century ago, at prices
ranging from twenty-two to nine hundred dollars per acre, aggregating
less than thirty thousand dollars. It now comprises the ninth ward of
the city of Boston, and contains within its limits a real estate
valuation of sixteen millions of dollars. Its name and fame are
associated with important events and men prominent in American annals.
Upon its slopes have dwelt Josiah Quincy, of ante-Revolutionary fame,
and his son and namesake of civic fame; and also his grandson and
namesake, and Edmund, equally distinguished; Lemuel Shaw, Robert G.
Shaw, Daniel Webster, Abbott Lawrence, Samuel, Nathan, and William
Appleton, Samuel T. Armstrong, Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, J. Lothrop
Motley, William H. Prescott, Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, John C.
Warren, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Lyman Beecher, William E. Channing, and
Hosea Ballou. Lafayette made it his temporary home in 1824, and Kossuth
in 1852. During the present century, the laws of Massachusetts have been
enacted upon and promulgated from its summit, and will probably continue
so to be for ages to come.
* * * * *
BRITISH FORCE AND THE LEADING LOSSES IN THE REVOLUTION.
[From Original Returns in the British Record Office.]
COMPILED BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U.S.A.
At Boston, in 1775, 9,147.
At New York, in 1776, 31,626.
In America: June, 1777, 30,957; August, 1778, 33,756; February, 1779,
30,283; May, 1779, 33,458; December, 1779, 38,569; May, 1780, 38,002;
August, 1780, 33,020; December, 1780, 33,766; May, 1781, 33,374;
September, 1781, 42,075.
CASUALTIES.
Bunker Hill, 1,054; Long Island, 400; Fort Washington, 454; Trenton,
1,049 (including prisoners); Hubbardton, 360; Bennington, 207 (besides
prisoners); Freeman's Farm, 550; Bemis Heights, 500; Burgoyne's
Surrender, 5,763; Forts Clinton and Montgomery, 190; Brandywine, 600;
Germantown, 535; Monmouth, 2,400 (including deserters); Siege of
Charlestown, 265; Camden, 324; Cowpens, 729; Guilford Court House, 554;
Hobkirk's Hill, 258; Eutaw Springs, 693; New London, 163; Yorktown, 552;
Cornwallis's Surrender, 7,963.
* * * * *
HISTORICAL NOTES.
BIRD AND SQUIRREL LEGISLATION IN 1776.
"_Whereas_, much mischief happens from Crows, Black Birds, and
Squirrels, by pulling up corn at this season of the year, therefore, be
it enacted by this Town meeting, that ninepence as a bounty per head be
given for every full-grown crow, and twopence half-penny per head for
every young crow, and twopence half-penny per head for every crow
blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every red-winged
blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every thrush or jay
bird and streaked squirrel that shall be killed, and presented to the
Town Treasurer by the twentyeth day of June next, and that the same be
paid out of the town treasury."
BARRINGTON, RHODE ISLAND.
At the meeting of the town held on the fourteenth of March, 1774, James
Brown, the fourth, was the first on the committee to draw up resolves to
be laid before the meeting respecting the infringements made upon the
Americans by certain "ministerial decrees." These were laid before a
meeting held March 21, 1774, and received by the town's votes, as
follows:--