was born in Salem in 1677. By trade he was a mason and early settled in
Boston where he married, March 13, 1701, Sarah Hopkins. They were
married by the Rev. Cotton Mather of whose church John Goldthwaite was a
member. After the death of Cotton Mather he was one of three who took
inventory July 22, 1728. His home was in Boston until 1725, and the
birthplace of all his children was on the north side of Charter Street,
near Copp's Hill burying-ground, on the property given to his wife and
her sisters by their uncle, Major Thomas Henchman. He sold this place
May 17, 1725, and removed to another estate he had purchased on the
southeast side of Mill pond. Here he passed the remainder of his life.
His son Ezekiel inherited the estate after his father's death, and sold
it to Thomas Sherburn, his brother-in-law.
Sarah Goldthwaite died Oct. 31, 1715, at the age of thirty-five and is
buried in Copp's Hill. John Goldthwaite married Mrs. Jane Halsey of
Boston as his second wife. From 1708 to 1758 his name is often mentioned
in Boston records. He is one of seventeen named as the founders of the
New North church in 1714. His name appears in records of the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company, and in the town records with the title of
captain, in 1741. In his old age he had a barbecue for descendants on
North Square. It was held under a tent because they were too numerous to
assemble in a house. He died June 25, 1766, and is probably buried in
the tomb of his son Ezekiel on Copp's Hill. He had nine children by his
first wife and five by his second.
CAPTAIN JOSEPH GOLDTHWAITE (fourth generation) fourth child of John, was
born November 11, 1706, in Boston. He married February 8, 1727, Martha
Lewis, who was born in Boston and baptized in the second church, Feb.
29, 1707, the daughter of Martha (Burrell) and Philip Lewis. Joseph
joined the Artillery Company in 1730 and in 1738 was First Sergeant. In
1745 he joined the Colonial army for the siege of Louisburg and
according to records in the British war office, being commissioned
adjutant in the first Massachusetts regiment, Honorable William
Pepperell, colonel, March 12, 1744-(5) and captain (brevet) March 20,
1744-(5). After his return from the war he became a private citizen, and
is seldom spoken of in records by his military title, being rather
called esquire, or gentleman. In 1728 he appears as a goldsmith, and
later as a merchant, licensed as a retailer at his store on Marlboro
Street (part of Washington) in 1737 and again in 1742. He held several
appointments and later became constable. His home in 1744 was on Fish,
afterwards North Street. In 1773 he and his family retired to a farm
purchased by him in western Massachusetts, July 10, 1773, ten acres and
mansion house. Here Joseph Goldthwaite died March 1, 1780, aged
seventy-two. His widow died October 26, 1783, aged seventy-five, and a
double stone marks their graves in Weston. He had ten children.
EZEKIEL GOLDTHWAITE (fourth generation) son of John, born at Boston,
July 9, 1710. Married Nov. 2, 1732, Elizabeth Lewis of Boston. For the
greater part of his life he was Registrar of Deeds for the County of
Suffolk. His first signature as registrar was Nov. 6, 1740. He was an
Addresser of Hutchinson in 1774, and a protester against the
Revolutionist the same year, although like many other loyalists he was
one of the 58 Boston memorialists in 1760 who arrayed themselves against
the Crown officials, and having sowed the seeds of sedition, afterwards
became alarmed at its results, mob rule.
His last signature as registrar is said to have been written Jan. 17,
1776, two months before the evacuation of Boston. He died seven years
later, Dec. 4th, 1782, in his 73rd year. His widow died Feb. 6, 1794,
aged 80.
COLONEL THOMAS GOLDTHWAITE (fourth generation) son of John, born in
Boston Jan. 15, 1717, married August 26, 1742, Esther Sargent. He became
an influential citizen of Chelsea, acting as selectman, moderator of
town meetings, and from May, 1757, till his removal from the town, seven
years in succession, was its deputy to the House of Representatives,
where he was active in introducing important legislation.
He was given many important positions under the Colonial government. In
1763 he was appointed to the command of Fort Pownal, removing his
family there from Chelsea. This was an important frontier post,
commanding the entrance to the Penobscot River, and offered the
advantage, also of a rich trade with Indians, then numerous in those
parts. Not long after succeeding to this command in company with Francis
Bernard, son of the Governor he purchased a large tract of land, 2,700
acres in the neighborhood of the fort, on condition of their settling
thereon thirty families, of building an Episcopal church, and employing
a minister. The enterprise was interrupted by the Revolution, in which
each side endeavored to get control of all the arms and ammunition
possible, and to take into its possession, or render defenceless, such
posts as could be held by the enemy. With such an object in view, in
April, 1775, Capt. Mowatt, who afterwards burned Falmouth, now Portland,
anchored before Fort Pownal, and a letter containing Governor Gage's
orders having been delivered to Col. Goldthwaite he carried away the
cannon belonging to the fort. The attitude taken by its commander in
allowing the fort to be thus disarmed, was never forgiven by the
Revolutionists, and he ever after was regarded as a Loyalist. His
explanation of his conduct on that occasion is as follows:
"On the 27th of last month about 20 armed men arrived here from St.
George's who came in the name, and as a committee from the people of St.
George's, and others, who they say had assembled there to the amount of
250; and this party in their name demanded of me the reason of my
delivering the cannon belonging to this fort to the King's forces. I
went into the fort and got the Governor's letter to me, and it was read
to them. I then informed them that this was the King's fort, and built
at his expense, that the Governor was commander in-chief of it; that I
could not refuse to obey his orders."
Little is known of Col. Goldthwaite between the surrender of Fort Pownal
in the spring of 1775 and his arrival in England early in 1780. Gov.
Hutchinson mentions in his diary that, "T. Goldthwaite arrived at
Portsmouth Feb. 15, 1780." In an entry of the previous Dec. 4, the
Governor mentions a call from "young Goldthwaite, son of J. Goldthwaite
now at New York." It must have been quite soon after his arrival that
Colonel Goldthwaite settled at Walthamstow, Essex, a few miles north of
London. Samuel Curwen in his journal speaks of dining with him there
July 29, 1782. His son Thomas married Mrs. Primatt, a lady of fortune,
in the summer of 1780, and also lived in the town. The houses of both
father and son are still there and easily identified, and are in
excellent preservation. The Colonel's residence is of brick or stone
covered with stucco, the main portion three stories high, and an
entrance with Ionic pillars. The grounds are ample and handsomely laid
out with well kept walks and planted with trees and shrubbery.
After a life of nearly twenty years spent in retirement in England, Col.
Goldthwaite died Aug. 31, 1799, in his 82 year. Mrs. Catharine, his
wife, died Dec. 16, 1796, aged 81. They lie buried in Walthamstow church
yard.
MAJOR JOSEPH GOLDTHWAITE, (fifth generation), the eldest of Joseph's
children, was born in Boston, October 5, 1730. He entered the Boston
Latin school in 1738, and probably commenced his military career, which
he afterwards followed near the commencement of the French and Indian
war, when about twenty-five years old. He married October 5, 1730,
Hannah Bridgham, said to have been of Barre, Massachusetts.
In 1759 he appears as Major in the regiment from Boston under the
command of Col. John Phillips, January 1, 1760 to January 10, 1761, on
the roll of field and staff officers in Colonel Bagley's regiment in
service at Louisburg, in which he acted also as paymaster. He served
during the campaign of 1762 as Lieut. Colonel of the regiment commanded
by Colonel Richard Saltonstall, roll dated Boston, Feb. 19, 1763, in
which he is called "of Roxbury." He was addressed at that time as
colonel.
October 5, 1768, Joseph Goldthwaite was appointed as Commissary to the
British troops who had been quartered in Boston on account of the
resistance the inhabitants had shown to the custom officials. In
Massachusetts Historical Society's collections, Vol. X, p. 121, is
printed a list of the different nations of Indians that met Sir William
Johnson at Niagara, July, 1764, to make peace in behalf of their tribes
which was "inclosed in a letter from Colonel Joseph Goldthwaite of
Boston, to Dr. Stiles, A. D. 1766."[227]
[227] Dr. Ezra Stiles, afterwards President of Yale College, and at this
time a settled minister at Newport.
Among the Goldthwaites who remained loyal to the crown, Major Joseph was
one of the strongest. He was an Addresser of Hutchinson in 1775, and
during the siege he passed the winter in Boston. At the evacuation he
accompanied the British army to Halifax, and thence to Quebec. Nine days
before his departure from Boston he wrote a letter to his uncle Ezekiel
Goldthwaite, Esq., of Boston, acquainting him with his property and the
household goods he had left behind. "In short, I leave behind me at
least three thousand pounds sterling. You give the enclosed to my wife,
if you can meet her. When I shall see her God only knows. Don't let her
want for anything."[228]
[228] Goldthwaite Genealogy compiled and published by Charlotte
Goldthwaite.
Some experiences of Major Joseph's wife, Mrs. Hannah, while her husband
was shut up in Boston with the British army, appear in the Journal of
the Massachusetts House of Representatives.[229]
[229] See Forces American Archives. Vol. III, pp. 312, 314, 355.
August 4, 1775, Mrs. Goldthwaite with her sister-in-law and a Mrs.
Chamberlain, left Boston with a horse and chaise and crossed the
Winnisimmet Ferry. She was arrested and taken under guard to the general
court at Watertown. It appeared on her examination that her health was
impaired, and an order was passed to allow her to visit Stafford for the
benefit of the waters there, but under the care of the Selectmen, and
afterwards to retire to the house of her brother Joseph Bridgham at
Rehoboth, and to be under the committee of correspondence. It was
Colonel Loammi Baldwin who had them arrested and taken to Watertown and
according to his account, it was an act on their part which must have
required considerable courage "no such instance having happened before,"
the city being then closely besieged.
Mrs. Goldthwaite petitioned the court to allow her to use the waters in
Newton instead of at Stafford, her health being very delicate, and the
petition was accompanied by her physician's certificate. This was
granted to her and she probably remained through the siege at Newton
where the family of Mr. Benjamin Goldthwaite had also taken refuge.
After the siege she returned to Boston where she died, probably never
seeing her husband again.
Major Goldthwaite from Quebec, went to New York, and his death occurred
there October 3, 1779. He had been proscribed and banished in 1778. It
was at this time he drew up his will, which is at Somerset House,
London, dated Feb. 11, 1778. As he died childless, he bequeathed his
property to his brother's and sister's children "provided that none of
them are Rebels, and have borne arms against their King, otherwise to go
to the next eldest son of the same family who is loyal, and true to his
King, and country." Of the several Goldthwaite Loyalists, Major Joseph
was one of the most uncompromising in his devotion to his King and
country.
CAPTAIN PHILIP GOLDTHWAITE, (fifth generation), brother to Major Joseph
Goldthwaite, was born in Boston, March 27th, 1733. He was a member of
the Boston Latin School in 1741. He married June 7, 1756, Mary Jordan of
Biddeford. His title of captain seems to have come from his command of
vessels, and it is interesting to note that in every generation of his
descendants to the present day there have been more or less who have
chosen the same occupation.
Captain Philip was an officer of the Customs at Winter Harbor, and
remained loyal when the war broke out. Sabin says he was one of the two
persons of Saco and Biddeford dealt with by the Revolutionists of that
section for their loyal principles and that as soon as the war commenced
he placed himself under British protection at Boston. An earlier record
in regard to him says: "Captain Philip Goldthwaite was brought before
the New Hampshire Committee of Safety at Portsmouth, Nov. 23, 1775, on
suspicion of being unfriendly to the liberties of America. Upon
examination nothing appearing against him, ordered that he be
dismissed."
There can be no doubt however, as to Captain Philip's real sentiments.
The atmosphere in which he was living must soon have become unendurable
to one holding his opinions, and therefore we soon find him in England,
where he appears as early as 1780, at that date taking out his brother's
administration papers. He bought an annuity in the king's household and
became one of the Gentlemen of the bed chamber. In October, 1786, it
appears from the probate records at Boston, that he had died probably at
sea, for Edward Daws of Boston, trader, is administrator of the estate
of Philip Goldthwait, late of Boston, mariner. His inventory contained
clothes, a quadrant, books and chest, and amounted to L7, 10 s. He left
several sons and daughters, whose descendants are now quite numerous.
SAMUEL GOLDTHWAITE, (fifth generation), brother of the aforesaid Philip,
was born in Boston, March 20th, 1735, and married Amy Borden of Newport,
R. I., where he became a prominent merchant. He very early came under
suspicion as having loyalist sentiments. After the death of his brother,
Major Joseph, in New York, October, 1779, he petitioned the Rhode Island
General Assembly representing that his brother had lately died in New
York, leaving a large estate there in the hands of persons who were
wasting it, also that he had been authorized to settle it if he could
obtain permission to go to New York, asking to be allowed to do so, and
to return with the effects when obtained, which petition the Council,
after consideration, granted.
He did not, however, return, and in July 1780, an act was passed by the
Rhode Island Assembly, proscribing persons that had left the state and
joined the enemy, ordered if they returned they should be apprehended,
and imprisoned or transported. "Samuel Goldthwaite, merchant, late of
Newport," was included in the list. Orders were also given under the
same date that such property as he left in Newport should be inventoried
and taken into possession of the Sheriff. About this time Samuel had
gone to England on business connected with the settlement of his
father's and brother's estates, for in the same year he was
administrator on them in London. One year later he had returned to his
wife Amy, at that time preferring a petition to the Rhode Island
Assembly, stating that her husband was then in New York, and had
requested her, with her family, to come to him, and praying the Assembly
to permit her with her family, furniture, and effects, to go to him
there by the first opportunity. The petition was granted and she went in
a cartel vessel under the direction of William Taggart. The family
settled in Baltimore after the Revolution, and have left many
descendants there.
DR. MICHAEL B. GOLDTHWAITE, (fifth generation), son of Joseph, of
Boston, born there Jan. 5th, 1740, married Sarah Formon, March 8th,
1759. He was an eminent surgeon and attended the army at the taking of
Louisburg. Like most physicians of that day, he kept an apothecary shop,
which was in 1774 on Hanover Street. He was an Addresser of both
Hutchinson and Gage. He died in 1776. He was an ardent sympathizer with
the loyalists.
LIEUTENANT HENRY GOLDTHWAITE, (fifth generation) son of Colonel Thomas,
of Walthamstow, England, born at Chelsea, March 29, 1759, married in
England, Sarah Winch of Brampton, Oxon. Henry's name is found as one of
the garrison of Fort Pownal Oct. 23, 1775. He afterwards entered the
British Army remaining in America, in that service, for some years after
most of his family had taken up their abode in England. The records of
the British War Office show that he was ensign, Independent Co.
Invalids, Nov. 13, 1793. Lieutenant Royal Garrison Battalion, Sept. 9,
1795, and lieutenant half pay Oct. 31, 1796. He died at sea, in the
Mediterranean early in 1800. He left two sons, Charles, born 1796, and
Henry Barnes, born 1797, whose descendants are living in England.
LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO JOSEPH GOLDTHWAIT IN SUFFOLK
COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.
To Perez Morton, Sept. 24, 1782: Lib. 136, fol. 9: One undivided
half of land, distill house and other buildings in Boston. Pecks
Lane W.; John Osbourn N., N.W.; N.E. and N.; Francis Johonnot E.;
the sea S.
JOHN HOWE.
Abraham Howe came to Dorchester in 1636; was admitted Freeman May 2,
1637, he came from Broad Oak, Essex County, England, and died at
Dorchester, Nov. 20th, 1683. His son Isaac Howe, was baptized in Roxbury
in 1655. Isaac had a son Isaac, born in Dorchester, July 7, 1675. He had
a son Joseph, born in Dorchester, March 27, 1716, who was the father of
John Howe, born in Boston, October 14, 1754. Joseph Howe was a reputable
tradesman in Marshall's Lane. He apprenticed his son to learn the
printing business.
Richard Draper, the publisher of the _Massachusetts Gazette_, and
_Boston News Letter_ died June 5, 1774. He left no children. His wife
conducted the business for several months, and then formed a business
connection with John Howe.
Howe had recently become of age, and was a sober, discreet young man.
Mrs. Draper, therefore, was induced, a short time before the
commencement of the war, to take him into partnership, but his name did
not appear in the imprint of the Massachusetts Gazette till Boston was
besieged by the Continental Army.
Howe remained with his partner until they were obliged to leave Boston
in consequence of the evacuation of the town by the British troops,
March 17, 1776, when they went to Halifax, from there he went to
Newport, R. I., when the British took possession of the town December
8th.
John Howe was married at Newport by Rev. George Bisset, Rector of
Trinity Church, to Miss Martha Minns. Mr. William Minns accompanied his
daughter from Boston, and was present at the ceremony. William Minns was
born at Great Yarmouth, England, December 16, 1728. In 1737 he
accompanied his uncle, Robert Ball, and his widowed mother, and came to
Boston. Miss Martha Minns was sixteen years of age when she married John
Howe. She was noted for her beauty and her portrait is still in
possession of her family. The issue of this marriage was three sons and
three daughters.
Mr. Howe commenced the publication of a newspaper for the British at
Newport; it was called The Newport Gazette, and the first paper was
issued January 16, 1777.
The last number of a bound volume of this paper in possession of the
Redwood Library at Newport, is dated January 15, 1778, but the
publication of the paper probably continued till the evacuation of
Newport by the British, October 25, 1779.
The paper was published in a house on the opposite side of the Parade,
the Vaughn estate, now a market. A recent writer says:
"During the time the British were in possession of Newport, it was the
office of the Newport 'Gazette,' the paper printed by the British on the
press and type of the Newport 'Mercury.' Before that the 'Mercury' was
printed by Solomon Southwick, in Queen Street, but when the island fell
into the hands of the enemy, Southwick, as is well-known, buried his
type in the rear of what was the old Kilburn House on Broad Street (now
Broadway) and left the town. The loyalists recovered the type, and a
printer named Howe began the printing of the 'Gazette.'"
A bound file of the newspaper published by Mr. Howe is in the possession
of the Redwood Library. It runs, with a few numbers missing, from No. 1,
to No. 52, January 15, 1778.
The first number was issued Jan. 16, 1777, with the following
introduction.
"The Favours which the Subscriber has received from the Gentlemen
of the _Army and Navy_, in Boston and elsewhere, joined with the
Importunities of many of the Inhabitants of this Town, has induced
him, as speedily as possible, to gratify them with a _Newspaper_.
He can only say, that his best endeavors shall not be wanting to
render it as entertaining as possible: And he has nothing to wish
for, but the Exercise of that Candour he hath so often before been
indebted to. Its _size_ is at present contracted, owing to the
Impossibility of procuring larger printing Paper; but if more
Intelligence should at any Time arrive, than this can contain, the
Deficiency will be supplied with a _Supplement_. No Subscriptions
are received; but if any Gentlemen choose to have the Paper weekly
the Boy shall leave it at their houses. Articles of intelligence
will be thankfully received and every favor gratefully
acknowledged, by their
Obedient humble servant,
JOHN HOWE."
The British evacuated Newport, October 25, 1779, and Mr. and Mrs. Howe
accompanied them to New York, and thence removed to Halifax and took up
their permanent abode there, on the corner of Sackville and Barrington
Streets. Here on Friday, January 5th, 1781, he published the first issue
of the Halifax Journal, a paper that continued to be published regularly
until 1870. It is said that Mr. Howe brought with him the printing press
that had once belonged to Benjamin Franklin, and the first that the
philosopher had ever possessed. It did the printing for the Howe family
for years. Mr. Howe was for many years King's printer for the Province,
which secured to him all the government printing, including the
publishing of the official gazette. For some years previous to his
death, he held the office of postmaster-general and justice of the
peace, and was living at the time of his death, December 29, 1835, at
his beautiful residence on the Northwestarm, in good circumstances, and
had the respect of the whole community.
Mr. Howe was a Sandemanian, that is, a follower of Robert Sandeman, who
came to Boston from Glasgow in 1764; they held their first meetings at
the Green Dragon Tavern, and afterwards had a meeting-house in the rear
of Middle or Hanover street. This society rejected the belief in the
necessity of spiritual conversion, representing faith as an operation of
the intellect, and speculative belief as quite sufficient to insure
final justification. This sect continued till 1823, when the last light
was extinguished in Boston. Many of the Sandemanians were Loyalists, and
went to Halifax. They may have built on a sandy foundation, but judging
from their fruits, we may charitably conclude that in the main they were
correct. Probably they did not like a church and state religion; and
that may have been all. The few who were in Halifax met every Lord's day
in an upper room, in the building lately used by Baxter as a furniture
warehouse on Prince Street. The members, male and female, sat together
around a table and took the Lord's Supper. This was weekly. There was
singing and prayers, and Mr. Howe would afterward stand up, read a
chapter of the Bible, and give an address. No doubt it was very good and
simple and delivered with a calm, quiet sort of eloquence. When the
meeting was over the brothers and sisters in fellowship, (only the more
elderly members) rose and kissed one another, and seemed to be
remarkably happy. It is said that in the afternoon of every Sunday the
old gentlemen members went down to the room below and dined together,
and probably edified one another with religious conversation. Those now
living who have ever been with these Sandemanians in that upper room
will never forget the calm godly faces of such men as old Mr. Howe, Mr.
Greenwood and Mr. Mansfield. Strange to say, none of the Howes, and very
few, if any, of the other families have followed in the track of these
good men and women as to creed. It is to be hoped that many have been
influenced for good by what they may have recalled of such worthy
ancestors. Old Mr. Greenwood fell dead in the room while reading, and
Mr. Mansfield died the same day from some accidental cause.
In a speech delivered by his son JOSEPH HOWE, in Boston July 4, 1858, he
spoke of his father as follows: "The loyalists who left these States
were not, it must be confessed, as good republicans as you are, but they
loved liberty under their old forms, and their descendants love it too.
My father, though a true Briton to the day of his death, loved New
England, and old Boston especially, with filial regard. He never lost an
opportunity of serving a Boston man, if in his power. At the close of
your railway banquet, one gentleman told me that my father had, during
the last war, taken his father from the military prison at Melville
Island, and sent him back to Boston. Another, on the same evening,
showed me a gold watch, sent by an uncle, who died in the West Indies,
to his family. It was pawned by a sailor in Halifax, but redeemed by my
father, and sent to the dead man's relatives. And so it was all his
life. He loved his sovereign, but he loved Boston too, and whenever he
got sick in his latter days, we used to send him up here to recruit. A
sight of the old scenes and a walk on Boston Common were sure to do him
good, and he generally came back uncommonly well." Elsewhere the same
son remarked: "For thirty years he was my instructor, my playfellow,
almost my daily companion. To him I owe my fondness for reading, my
familiarity with the Bible, my knowledge of old colonial and American
incidents and characteristics. He left me nothing but his example, and
the memory of his many virtues, for all that he ever earned was given to
the poor. He was too good for this world. But the remembrance of his
high principle, his cheerfulness, his childlike simplicity, and truly
Christian character, is never absent from my mind."
Mrs. Martha Howe died Nov. 25, 1790, aged 30 years, and was buried in
St. Paul's churchyard, Halifax.
A few years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Howe married Mrs.
Austin, a widow with several children, wife of Captain Austin. By her he
had two children, Sarah and Joseph. Mrs. Howe died in 1837. He had eight
children, and at the present time there are eighty-five of his
descendants, out of all these the survivors who bear the name of Howe
only number sixteen. Many of his descendants were men of great
prominence. His son William Howe, Assistant Commissary-General, who died
at Halifax, January, 1843, aged fifty-seven. John Howe, Queen's Printer,
and Deputy Postmaster-General, who died at the same place the same year,
and David Howe, who published a paper at St. Andrew, N. B., Joseph, born
December 13, 1804, became Hon. Joseph Howe, Governor of Nova Scotia in
May, 1873.
SAMUEL QUINCY.
SOLICITOR-GENERAL.
Edmund Quincy, the first of the name in New England, landed at Boston on
the 4th of September, 1633. He came from Achurch in Northamptonshire,
where he owned some landed estate. That he was a man of substance may be
inferred from his bringing six servants with him, and that he was a man
of weight among the founders of the new commonwealth appears from his
election as a representative of the town of Boston in the first General
Court ever held in Massachusetts Bay. He was also the first named on the
committee appointed by the town to assess and raise the sum necessary to
extinguish the title of Mr. Blackstone to the peninsula on which the
city stands. He bought of Chickatabut, Sachem of the Massachusetts tribe
of Indians, a tract of land at Mount Wollaston, confirmed to him by the
Town of Boston, 1636, a portion of which is yet in the family.
Edmund Quincy died the year after making this purchase, in 1637, at the
age of 33. He left a son Edmund and a daughter Judith. The son lived, in
the main, a private life on the estate in Braintree. He was a magistrate
and a representative of his town in the General Court, and
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment.
Point Judith was named after his daughter. She married John Hull, who,
when Massachusetts Bay assumed the prerogative of coining money, was her
mint-master, and made a large fortune in the office, before Charles II.
put a stop to that infringement of the charter. There is a tradition
that, when he married his daughter to Samuel Sewall, afterwards Chief
Justice, he gave her for her dowry, her weight in pine-tree shillings.
From this marriage has sprung the eminent family of the Sewalls, which
has given three Chief Justices to Massachusetts and one to Canada, and
has been distinguished in every generation by the talents and virtues of
its members.
Lieutenant-Colonel Quincy, who was a child when brought to New England,
died in 1698, aged seventy years, having had two sons, Daniel and
Edmund.
Daniel died during his father's lifetime, leaving an only son John, who
graduated at Cambridge in 1708, and was a prominent public man in the
Colony for nearly half a century. He was a Councillor, and for many
years Speaker of the Lower House.
He died in 1767, at the time of the birth of his great-grandson, John
Quincy Adams, who therefore received the name which he has made
illustrious. Edmund, the second son, graduated in 1690, and was also in
the public service almost all his life, as a magistrate, a Councillor,
and one of the Justices of the Supreme Court. He was also colonel of the
Suffolk Regiment, at that time a very important command, since the
county of Suffolk then, and long after, included what is now County of
Norfolk, as well as the town of Boston. In 1737, the General Court
selected him as their agent to lay the claims of the Colony before the
home government, in the matter of the disputed boundary between
Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire.
He died, however, very soon after his arrival in London, February 23,
1737, of the smallpox, which he had taken by inoculation. He was buried
in Bunhill Fields, where a monument was erected to him by the General
Court, which also made a grant of land of a thousand acres in the town
of Lennox to his family, in further recognition of his public services.
Judge Edmund Quincy had two sons, Edmund and Josiah.
The first named, who graduated at Cambridge in 1722, lived a private
life at Braintree and in Boston.
One of his daughters married John Hancock, the first signer of the
Declaration of Independence, and afterwards Governor of Massachusetts.
Josiah was born in 1709, and took his first degree in 1728. He
accompanied his father to London in 1737, and afterwards visited England
and the Continent more than once.
For some years he was engaged in commerce and ship-building in Boston,
and when about forty years of age he retired from business and removed
to Braintree, where he lived for thirty years the life of a country
gentleman, occupying himself with the duties of a county magistrate, and
amusing himself with field sports. Game of all sorts abounded in those
days in the woods and along the shore, and marvellous stories have come
down, by tradition, of his feats with gun and rod. He was Colonel of the
Suffolk Regiment, as his father had been before him; he was also
Commissioner to Pennsylvania during the old French war to ask the help
of that Colony in an attack which Massachusetts Bay had planned upon
Crown Point. He succeeded in his mission by the help of Doctor Franklin.
Colonel Josiah Quincy, by his first marriage, had three sons, Edmund,
Samuel, Josiah, and one daughter, Hannah. His first wife was Hannah
Sturgis, daughter of John Sturgis, one of his Majesty's Council, of
Yarmouth. His eldest son, Edmund, graduated in 1752, after which he
became a merchant in Boston. He was in England in 1760 for the purpose
of establishing mercantile correspondences. He died at sea in 1768, on
his return from a voyage for his health to the West Indies.
The youngest son of Colonel Josiah Quincy bore his name, and was
therefore known to his contemporaries, and takes his place in history,
as Josiah Quincy, Junior, he having died before his father, he was born
February 23, 1744, and graduated at Harvard College, 1763. He studied
law with Oxenbridge Thacher, one of the principal lawyers of that day,
and succeeded to his practice at his death, which took place about the
time he himself was called to the bar. He took a high rank at once in
his profession, although his attention to its demands was continually
interrupted by the stormy agitation in men's minds and passions, which
preceded and announced the Revolution, and which he actively promoted by
his writings and public speeches. On the 5th of March, the day of the so
called "Boston Massacre" he was selected, together with John Adams, by
Captain Preston, who was accused of having given the word of command to
the soldiers that fired on the mob, to conduct his defence and that of
his men, they having been committed for trial for murder. At that moment
of fierce excitement, it demanded personal and moral courage to perform
this duty. His own father wrote him a letter of stern and strong
remonstrance against his undertaking the defence of "those criminals
charged with the murder of their fellow citizens," exclaiming, with
passionate emphasis, "Good God! Is it possible? I will not believe it!"
Mr. Quincy in his reply, reminded his father of the obligations his
professional oath laid him under, to give legal counsel and assistance
to those accused of a crime, but not proved to be guilty of it; adding:
"I dare affirm that you and this whole people will one day rejoice that
I became an advocate for the aforesaid criminals, _charged_ with the
murder of our fellow citizens. _To inquire my duty and to do it, is my
aim._" He did his duty and his prophecy soon came to pass.
There is no more honorable passage in the history of New England than
the one which records the trial and acquittal of Captain Preston and his
men, in the midst of the passionate excitements of that time, by a jury
of the town maddened to a rage but a few months before by the blood of
her citizens shed in her streets.
In 1774 he went to England, partly for his health, which had suffered
much from his intense professional and political activities, and also as
a confidential agent of the Revolutionary party to consult and advise
with the friends of America there. His presence in London coming as he
did at a most critical moment excited the notice of the ministerial
party, as well as of the opposition. The Earl of Hillsborough denounced
him, together with Dr. Franklin, in the House of Lords, "as men walking
the streets of London who ought to be in Newgate or Tyburn." The precise
results of his communications with the English Whigs can never be known.
They were important enough, however, to make his English friends urgent
for his immediate return to America, because he could give information
which could not safely be committed to writing. His health had failed
seriously during the latter months of his residence in England, and his
physicians strongly advised against his taking a winter voyage.
His sense of public duty, however, overbore all personal considerations,
and he set sail on the 16th of March, 1775, and died off Gloucester,
Massachusetts, on the 26th of April.
The citizens of Gloucester buried him with all honor in their graveyard;
after the siege of Boston, he was removed and placed in a vault in the
burying ground in Braintree. Josiah Quincy was barely thirty-one years
of age when he thus died.
His father, Colonel Quincy lived on at Braintree during the whole of the
war. He died on March 3rd, 1784.
His passion for field sports remained in full force till the end, for
his death was occasioned by exposure to the winter's cold, sitting upon
a cake of ice, watching for wild ducks, when he was in his seventy-fifth
year.
SAMUEL QUINCY, the subject of this memoir, was the second son of Colonel
Josiah Quincy, and the brother of Josiah, Junior, and Edmund. He was
born in that part of Braintree now Quincy, April 23, 1735. He graduated
at Harvard College in 1754, and studied law with Benjamin Pratt.
Endowed with fine talents, Mr. Quincy became eminent in the profession
of the law, and succeeded Jonathan Sewall as Solicitor-General of
Massachusetts. He was the intimate friend of many of the most
distinguished men of that period, among whom was John Adams. They were
admitted to the bar on the same day, Nov. 6, 1758.
As Solicitor for the Crown, he was engaged with Robert Treat Paine in
the memorable trial of Capt. Preston, and the soldiers in 1770; his
brother was opposed to him on that occasion, and both reversed their
party sympathies in their professional position. It was plain to all
sagacious observers of the signs of the times, that the storm of civil
war was gathering fast; and it was sure first to burst over Boston. It
was a time of stern agitation, and profound anxieties. In their emotion
Mr. Quincy and his wife shared deeply, and passionately. The shadows of
public and private calamity were already beginning to steal over that
once happy home. The evils of the present and the uncertainties of the
future bore heavily on their prosperity. The fierce passions which were
soon to break out into revolutionary violence and mob rule, had already
begun to separate families, to divide friends, and to break up society.
Samuel Quincy was a Loyalist and remained true to his oath of office,
wherein he swore to support the government. His father and brother were
revolutionists; as previously stated his brother died on shipboard off
Gloucester, seven days after the hostilities had commenced at Lexington,
and when his father saw from his house on Quincy Bay, the fleet drop
down the harbor, after the evacuation of Boston on March 17, 1776, it
must have been with feelings of sorrow that the stout-hearted old man
saw the vessels bear away his only surviving son, never to return again.
Such partings were common griefs then, as ever in civil wars, the
bitterest perhaps that wait upon that cruelest of calamities.
Samuel Quincy was an addressor of Governor Hutchinson, and a staunch
Loyalist. His wife, the sister of Henry Hill, Esq., of Boston, was not
pleased with her husband's course in the politics of the times, and he
became a Loyalist against her advice, and when he left Boston, a
refugee, she preferred to remain with her brother, and never met her
husband again. The following letter written to his brother by Mr.
Quincy, during the siege of Boston, will explain his position at that
time.[230]
[230] This letter and the following ones are extracts from original
papers, copies of which were communicated by Miss Eliza S. Quincy, and
published In Curwen's Journal and Letters.
To Henry Hill, Esq., Cambridge. Boston, May 13, 1775.
Dear Brother:
There never was a time when sincerity and affectionate unity of
heart could be more necessary than at present. But in the midst of
the confusions that darken our native land, we may still, by a
rectitude of conduct, entertain a rational hope that the Almighty
Governor of the universe will in his own time remember mercy.
I am going, my dear friend, to quit the habitation where I have
been so long encircled with the dearest connections.
I am going to hazard the unstable element, and for a while to
change the scene--whether it will be prosperous or adverse, is not
for me to determine. I pray God to sustain my integrity and
preserve me from temptation.
My political character with you may be suspicious; but be assured,
if I cannot _serve_ my country, which I shall endeavor to the
utmost of my power, I will never _betray it_.
The kind care of my family you have so generously offered
penetrates me with the deepest gratitude. If it should not be
within my power to reward you, you will have the recompense greater
than I can give you, the approbation of your own heart. Would to
God we may again enjoy the harmonious intercourse I have been
favored with since my union with your family. I will not despair of
this great blessing in some future and not very distant period. God
preserve you in health and every earthly enjoyment, until you again
receive the salutation of
Your friend and brother,
SAMUEL QUINCY.
[Illustration: SAMUEL QUINCY.
Born at Braintree, now Quincy, April 23, 1735. Solicitor-General of
Massachusetts. Died at sea in 1789. His remains were interred on Bristol
Hill, England. From a painting by Copley.]
Again on August 18th he writes to Mr. Hill and said, "You conjure me by
the love of my country to use my best endeavors to bring about a
reconciliation, suggesting that the Americans are still as determined as
ever to die free, rather than live slaves; I have no reason to doubt the
zeal of my fellow-countrymen in the cause of freedom, and their firmness
in its defence, and were it in my power, my faithful endeavors should
not be wanting (nay, I have a right to say they are not) to effect an
accommodation. But, my good friend, I am unhappy to find that the
opinion I formed in America, and which in a great measure governed my
conduct, was but too justly founded. Every proposal of those who are
friendly to the colonies, to alter the measures of government and
redress the grievances of which they complain, is spurned at, unless
attended with previous concessions on their part. This there is less
reason every day to expect, and thus the prospect of an accommodation is
thrown at a distance; nor is there yet the least reason to suppose that
a formidable, if any opposition will be framed against administration in
favor of America.
"These are facts, not of conjecture only, but visible and operative. Your
reflection will perhaps be, we must then work out our own salvation by
the strength of our own arm, trusting in the Lord. Really, my friend, if
the colonies, according to their late declaration, have made a
resistance by force their choice, the contest is in short reduced to
that narrow compass. I view the dangerous and doubtful struggle with
fear and trembling; I lament it with the most cordial affection for my
native country, and feel sensibly for my friends. But I am aware it is
my duty patiently to submit the event as it may be governed by the
all-wise counsels of that Being 'who ruleth in the heavens, and is the
God of armies.'"
In a letter to his wife, London, Jan. 1, 1777, he said: The continuance
of our unhappy separation has something in it so unexpected, so
unprecedented, so complicated with evil, and misfortune, it has become
almost too burdensome for my spirits, nor have I words that can reach
its description. I long much to see my father. It is now more than
eighteen months since I parted with him in a manner I regret. Neither of
you say anything of the family at Braintree. They ought not to think me
regardless of them though I am silent; for, however lightly they may
look upon me, I yet remember them with pleasure.
Again, on March 12, 1777, he said: You inquire whether I cannot bear
contempt and reproach, rather than remain any longer separated from my
family? As I always wished, and I think always endeavored, not to
deserve the one, so will I ever be careful to avoid the other. You urge
as an inducement to my return, that my countrymen will not deprive me of
life. I have never once harbored such an idea. Sure I am I have never
merited from them such a punishment. Difference of opinion I have never
known to be a capital offence, and were the truth and motives of my
conduct justly scrutinized, I am persuaded they would not regard me as
an enemy plotting their ruin. That I might yet be able to recover in
some respect the esteem of my friends, I will not doubt while I am
conscious of the purity of my intentions. When I determined on a voyage
to England, I resolved upon deliberation, and I still think, with
judgment. I did not, indeed, expect so hurried a succession of events,
though you must remember, I long had them in contemplation.
I am sorry you say nothing of my father, or the family at Braintree; I
have not received a line nor heard from them since I left America. * *
God bless you all; live happy, and think I am as much so as my long
absence from you will permit.
March 20, 1777.
I am not surprised much that, to the less of property, I have
already sustained, I am to suffer further depredations, and that
those to whom I am under contract should avail themselves of this
opportunity and endeavor to make what is left their own. All I ask
is that my brother and my other friends (if I have any) would think
of me as they ought, and to be assured, that as far as they
interpose their assistance to save me from suffering, they will not
hereafter find me deficient in return.
October 15, 1777.
If things should not wear a more promising aspect at the opening of
the next year, by all means summon resolution to cross the ocean.
But if there is an appearance of accommodating this truly unnatural
contest, it would be advisable for you to bear farther promise; as
I mean to return to my native country whenever I may be permitted,
and there is a chance for my procuring a livelihood. But I do not
say that I will not accept of an opening here, if any one should
offer that I may think eligible.
London, April 18, 1778.
If there is an accommodation, I shall certainly turn my views to
some part of the continent, unless something very promising should
offer elsewhere. It would grieve me very much to think of never
again seeing my father; God bless him, and many other worthy
friends and relations in New England; but a return to my native
country I cannot be reconciled to until I am convinced that I am as
well thought of as I know I deserve to be. I shall ever rejoice in
its prosperity, but am too proud to live despised where I was once
respected--an object of insult instead of the child of favor.
You suggest, that had I remained, I might still have been with you
in honor and employment. It may be so, but when I left America I
had no expectation of being absent more than a few months, little
thinking operations of such magnitude would have followed in so
quick a succession; I left it from principle, and with a view of
emolument. If I have been mistaken, it is my misfortune, not my
fault. My first letters from my friends congratulated me on being
out of the way; and I was pleased to find my undertaking met with
their approbation as well as my own. The hearts of men were not
within my reach, nor the fortuitous event of things within my
control. "I am indeed a poor man;" but even a poor man has
resources of comfort that cannot be torn from him, nor are any so
miserable as to be always under the influence of inauspicious
stars. I will therefore still endeavor to bear my calamities with
firmness, and to feel for others.
Those who have befriended my family are entitled to my warmest
gratitude, and I hope you will never fail to express it for me.
Whether it ever will be in my power to recompense them I know not,
but no endeavor of mine shall be wanting to effect it. * * * I
conjecture, though you do not mention from what quarter, you have
received unkindness. There are in this world many things we are
obliged and enabled to encounter, which at a distance appear
insupportable. You must have experienced this as well as I; and it
ought to teach us that best doctrine of philosophy and
religion--resignation. Bear up, therefore, with fortitude, and wait
patiently in expectation of a calmer and brighter day.
London, May 31, 1778.
By the public prints we are made acquainted with an act of the
state of Massachusetts Bay, that precludes those among others from
returning, who left it since the 19th of April, 1775, and "joined
the enemy." You do not mention this act, nor have I any information
by which I am to construe what is meant by "joining the enemy." The
love of one's country, and solicitude for its welfare, are natural
and laudable affections; to lose its good opinion is at once
unhappy, and attended with many ill consequences; how much more
unfortunate to be forever excluded from it without offence! It is
said also that there is a resolve of congress, "that no absentee
shall be permitted to take up his residence in any other colony
without having been first received and admitted as a citizen of his
own." This may have some effect on a movement I had in
contemplation of going southward, where I have a very advantageous
offer of countenance and favor.
London, March 15, 1779.
You may remember in some of my former letters I hinted my wish to
establish a residence in some other part of the continent, or in
the West Indies, and particularly mentioned to you Antigua--where
my kinsman, Mr. Wendell, my friend, Mr. David Greene, Dr. Russell
and his family, Mr. Lavicourt, Mr. Vassall, and others of my
acquaintance, will give the island less of the appearance of a
strange place. By the passing of the act of proscription the door
was shut against me in my own country, where I own it would have
been my wish to have ended my days. This confirmed my resolution. I
have since unremittedly pursued various objects, endeavoring to
drive the nail that would go.
My first intention was that of transplanting myself somewhere to
the southward. On this subject I thought long, and consulted
others. I considered climate, friends, business, prospects in every
view, and at last formed my opinion. The provinces in the south
part of America in point of health were not more favorable than the
island--in point of friends they might be preferable, but with
respect to business or the means of acquiring it, uncertain; public
commotion yet continued, violent prejudices are not easily removed.
I had neither property nor natural connections in either of them. I
could have no official influence to sustain me. What kind of
government or laws would finally prevail it was difficult to tell.
These and other reasons determined me against the attempt. But to
stay longer in England, absent from my friends and family, with a
bare subsistence, inactive, without prospects, and useless to
myself and the world, was death to me! What was the alternative? As
I saw no chance of procuring either appointment or employ here, the
old object of the West Indies recurred, where in my younger days I
wished to have remained; and by the influence of some particular
gentlemen I have at last obtained the place of "Comptroller of the
Customs at the Port of Parham in Antigua;" for which island I mean
to embark with the next convoy. My view is to join the profits of
business in the line of my profession to the emoluments of office.
This I flatter myself will afford me a handsome maintenance. I grow
old too fast to think of waiting longer for the moving of the
waters, and have therefore cast my bread upon them, thus in hopes
that at last, after many days, I may find it.
Transmit to my father every expression of duty and affection. If he
retains the same friendship and parental fondness for me I have
always experienced from him, he will patronize my children, and in
doing this will do it unto me. It was my intention to have written
to him, but the subjects on which I want to treat are too
personally interesting for the casualties of the present day. He
may rest assured it is my greatest unhappiness to be thus denied
the pleasing task of lightening his misfortunes and soothing the
evening of his days. Whatever may be the future events of his life,
I shall always retain for him the warmest filial respect, and if it
is my lot to survive him, shall ever think it a pleasure as well as
my duty to promote to my utmost the welfare of his posterity. My
mother will also accept of my duty and good wishes; the prosperity
of the whole household lies near my heart, and they will do me an
injustice if they think me otherwise than their affectionate
friend. * * *
With respect to my property in America, my wish and desire is, if I
have any control over it, that my friends there collectively, or
some one singly under your direction, would take it into their
hands, and consolidating the debts I owe into one sum, apply it to
their discharge. I can think of no better way than this. If
eventually I am deprived of it, I will endeavor to bear it with
that fortitude which becomes a Christian and philosopher.
P. S. I could wish above all things to preserve my law books.
TO HENRY HILL, ESQ.
London, May 25, 1779.
I have obtained an appointment at Parham, in Antigua, as
comptroller of the customs, and am to embark soon for St. Kitts. *
* It is this day four years since I left Boston, and though I have
been racked by my own misfortunes and my feelings for the
distresses of my family and friends, I have still by a good
Providence been blessed with health and comforted by the kindness
of many friends. If I have not been in affluence, I have been above
want, and happy in the esteem of numbers in this kingdom to whom I
was altogether a stranger. * * The education of my children is
uppermost in my heart. The giving my son the benefit of classical
learning by a course of college studies, is a step I much approve.
The sequestration of my books is more mortifying to me than any
other stroke. If they are not yet out of your power save them for
me at all events.
In a copy of a letter to a friend, apparently in the West Indies, but
whose name does not appear, Mr. Quincy thus expresses himself:
Antigua, Feb. 1, 1782.
You ask of me an account of my coming to the West Indies, the
manner of my existence and destination, &c. The story is long, and
would require many anecdotes to give the true history, but you will
excuse me if at present I say only, that in the year 1775, just
after the battle of Lexington, I quitted America for London on
motives of business, intending to return in a few months; but my
absence was construed by our good patriots as the effect of my
political principles, and improved first to my proscription,
afterwards to the very flattering title of traitorous conspirator,
and the confiscation of my estate. I remained in England several
years, but, tired of waiting for the moving of the waters, and
unwilling to waste the flower of my age in a state of indolence,
neither profitable to myself nor my family, I resolved to seek my
fortune in this part of the world, where I had been in my younger
days,--obtained a berth in the customs, which, together with the
emoluments of my profession, afford me a comfortable subsistence,
and the prospect of something beyond.
Your friend, &c.,
SAMUEL QUINCEY.
Mr. Quincy's wife died November, 1782 in Massachusetts. He married again
while at Antigua, Mrs. M. A. Chadwell, widow of Hon. Abraham Chadwell.
TO HIS SON, SAMUEL QUINCY, JR., CAMBRIDGE.
June 10, 1785.
How anxious soever I may feel to see my friends and relations once
more, I cannot think of doing it at the expense of my liberty; nor
will I ever visit that country where I first drew my breath, but
upon such terms as I have always lived in it; and such as I have
still a right to claim from those who possess it,--the character of
a gentleman. * * * The proposal Judge Sumner has hinted to me of
keeping his old berth for you at Roxbury, is a good one, at least
better than Boston. Cultivate his good opinion, and deserve his
patronage; he will bestow the latter for my sake, I trust, as well
as his personal esteem for you. It will also stand you in stead at
court, where I hope you will one day figure as a legislator as well
as an advocate. All depends upon setting out right. You are at the
edge of a precipice, or ought to consider yourself so; from whence,
if you fall, the "_revocare gradum_," is a task indeed. Resolve,
then, to think right, and act well; keeping up to that resolution
will procure you daily the attention of all ranks, and command for
you their respect. Keep alive the cause of truth, of reason, of
virtue, and of liberty, if I may be permitted to use that name, who
have by some injuriously been thought in a conspiracy against it.
This is the path of duty, and will be the source of blessing.
July 24, 1789.
I am exceedingly sorry to hear of the distracted political
situation of Massachusetts. * * * A constitution founded on mere
republican principles has always appeared to me a many-headed
monster, and, however applauded by a Franklin, a Price, and a
Priestley, that in the end it must become a suicide. Mankind do not
in experience appear formed for that finer system, which, in
theory, by the nice adjustment of its parts promises permanency and
repose. The passions, prejudice, and interests of some will always
be in opposition to others, especially if they are in place. This,
it may be said, is the case in all governments, but I think less so
in a monarchy than under a republican code. The people at large
feel an overbalance of power in their own favor; they will
naturally endeavor to ease themselves of all expenses which are not
lucrative to them, and retrench the gains of others, whether the
reward of merit or genius, or the wages of a hireling.
Tortola, June 1, 1789.
MY DEAR SON:
Your short letter of the 14th February gave me pleasure, as it
informed me of your health and that of your family, and other
friends in the neighborhood of Roxbury.
It would be my wish to make you a visit once more in my life, could
it be ascertained I might walk free of insult, and unmolested in
person. Two things must concur to satisfy me of this,--the repeal
of the act passed 1779, against certain crown officers, as
traitors, conspirators, &c.; and accommodation with those who have
against me pecuniary demands. The first I have never yet learned to
be repealed, either in whole or in part, and therefore I consider
it as a stumbling-block at the threshold; the second, no steps I
suppose have been taken to effect, although I think it might be
done by inquiry and proposition--with some by a total release from
demand, and with others by a reasonable compromise. If you ever
wish your father to repose under your roof, you will take some
pains to examine the list, and make the trial. I shall shortly, I
hope, be in a situation to leave this country, if I choose it; but
whether Europe, of the two objects I have in view, will take the
preference, may depend on the answer I may receive from you, upon
the hints I have now thrown out for your consideration and filial
exertions. * * *
I have been, as I informed you in my last, a good deal indisposed
for some time past. I find myself, however, better on the whole at
present, though I feel the want of a bracing air. Adieu.
Your affectionate parent,
SAMUEL QUINCY.
Soon after the date of this last letter, Mr. Quincy embarked for
England, accompanied by his wife. The restoration of his health was the
object of the voyage, but the effort was unsuccessful; he died at sea,
within sight of the English coast. His remains were carried to England,
and interred on Bristol hill. His widow immediately re-embarked for the
West Indies, but her voyage was tempestuous. Grief for the loss of her
husband, to whom she was strongly attached, and suffering from the storm
her vessel encountered, terminated her life on her homeward passage.
It was a singular coincidence that two of Mr. Quincy's brothers died at
sea, as he did on shipboard, Edmund, the eldest and Josiah, the youngest
brother.
Samuel Quincy had two sons: Samuel, a graduate of Harvard College in
1782, who was an attorney-at-law in Lenox, Mass., where he died in
January, 1816, leaving a son Samuel. His second son, Josiah, became an
eminent counselor-at-law of Romney, N. H., and President of the Senate
of that State.
Mr. Samuel Quincy was proscribed and banished and his property
confiscated.
COLONEL JOHN MURRAY.
About 1750 there appeared in Boston society a very handsome man by the
name of Murray, whose antecendents people seemed to be ignorant, when he
came to this country he settled at Rutland, and was very poor, and at
first "peddled about the country" and then became a merchant. He was a
man of great influence in his vicinity, and in the town of Rutland,
which he represented many years in the General Court. On election days
his home was open to his friends and good cheer dispensed free to all
from his store. His wealth, social position, and political influence,
made him one of the Colonial noblemen who lived in a style that has
passed away in New England. He was a Colonel in the militia, for many
years a member of the General Court, and in 1774 was appointed a
Mandamus Councillor, but was not sworn into office, because a mob of
about five hundred, with the "Worcester Committee of Correspondence,"
repaired to Rutland, to compel Colonel Murray to resign his seat in the
Council. On the way, they were joined by nearly one thousand persons,
among whom were a portion of the company who had compelled Judge Timothy
Paine to take the same course, marching directly to Rutland the same
day.
A delegation went to his house, and reported that he was absent. A
letter was accordingly sent to him, to the effect that; unless his
resignation appeared in the Boston papers, he would be waited upon
again. He abandoned his home on the night of the 25th of August of that
year, and fled to Boston.
As previously stated, there was always a mystery surrounding John
Murray, regarding who he was and where he came from, but his descendants
had some reason for supposing that he was one of the "Athol Family" of
Scotland, the surname of the Duke being Murray. Some years since one of
Col. Murray's descendants went to "Blair Athol," the family seat of the
Dukes of Athol, hoping to hear something about him, and there found an
old retainer of the family who recalled the fact that many years ago a
younger member of the family had disappeared, nothing being heard of him
again, though it was supposed he had run away to America.
Miss Murray, after her father's death, went from St. John to Lancaster,
Mass., to be with her relatives, the Chandler Family. She had with her
some amount of silver plate, and on each piece was the arms of the
"Ducal House of Athol." She had small means, and when in need of money
used to sell this silver, one piece at a time. In the grant of the town
of Athol by the General Court the first name is that of John Murray, who
probably gave the name of his ancestral home to the new town.
In 1776, with a family of six persons, he accompanied the Royal Army to
Halifax. Col. Murray left a very large estate when he fled from Boston,
and in 1778 he was prosecuted and banished, and in 1779 lost his
extensive property under the Confiscation Act.
After the Revolution, Colonel Murray became a resident of St. John, N.
B. He built a house in Prince William street, with a large lot of land
attached to it, which became very valuable.
A portrait by Copley is owned by his grandson, the Hon. R. L. Hazen of
St. John, a member of the Executive Council of New Brunswick. He is
represented as sitting in the full dress of a gentleman of the day, and
his person is shown to the knees. There is a hole in the wig, which is
said to have been done by one of the mob who sought the Colonel at his
house after his flight, vexed because he had eluded them, vowed they
would leave their mark behind them, accordingly pierced the canvas with
a bayonet.
Colonel Murray married several times, his first wife was Elizabeth
McLanathan, who was the mother of ten children. His second wife was
Lucretia Chandler, the daughter of John and Hannah Gardner, of
Worcester. His third wife was Deborah Brinley, the daughter of Francis
Brinley, of Roxbury.
Colonel Murray was allowed a pension of L200 per annum by the British
Government. His estate valued at L23,367, was confiscated except one
farm for his son Alexander, who joined the Revolutionists. He died at
St. John, 1794.
DANIEL MURRAY, of Brookfield, Mass., Son of Colonel John. He graduated
at Harvard College in 1771. Mr. Murray entered the military service of
the Crown, and was Major of the King's American Dragoons. In 1778 he was
proscribed and banished. At the peace he retired, on half pay. In 1792
he was a member of the House of Assembly of N. B. In 1803 he left the
Colony. In 1832 he died at Portland, Maine.
SAMUEL MURRAY, Son of Colonel John, graduated at Harvard College in
1772. He was with the British troops at Lexington in 1775, and was taken
prisoner. In a General Order, dated at Cambridge, June 15, 1775, it was
directed "That Samuel Murray be removed from the jail in Worcester to
his father's homestead in Rutland, the limits of which he is not to pass
until further orders." In 1778 he was proscribed and banished. He died
previous to 1785.
Robert Murray, Son of Colonel John. In 1782 he was a Lieutenant of the
King's American Dragoons. He settled in N. B., and died there of
consumption in 1786.
John Murray, Son of Colonel John. In 1782 he was a Captain in the King's
American Dragoons. After the Revolution he was an officer of the
Fifty-fourth Regiment, British Army.
JUDGE JAMES PUTNAM.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
John Putnam, the founder of the Salem family, was born in 1579, at
Wingrave, Buckinghamshire, England. He is described in the records an
husbandman. His farm was at Burstone in Wingrave. He emigrated to Salem
with his three sons in 1640, where grants of land were made by the town
of Salem to him and to his sons on their own account, in what was then
known as Salem Village, now the town of Danvers.
His sons were Thomas, born 1614, died at Salem Village 1686; Nathaniel,
born 1619, died at Salem Village 1700; John, born 1627, died at Salem
Village, 1710.
In deeds, John Putnam is described as both husbandman and yeoman. He was
a man of substance and of as much education as his contemporaries, but
neither seeking or desiring public office. In 1653 he divided his lands
between Thomas and Nathaniel, having evidently already granted his
homestead to his younger son John. He died in 1662.
The subject of this memoir was a descendent of John Putnam, in the fifth
generation, through his youngest son John, known as Captain John. It was
in the military affairs and in the witchcraft delusion that his
character is best shown. In 1672 he is styled Corporal, in 1678 he was
commissioned Lieutenant of the troope of horse at the Village, and after
1687 he is styled "Captain." He served in the Naragansett fight, and
retained his military manners throughout his life. In 1679 and later he
was frequently chosen to present Salem at the General Court, to settle
the various disputed town bounds. He was selectman in 1681. He was
deputy to the General Court for many years previous to the new charter.
His residence was on the farm originally occupied by his father, now
better known as Oak Knoll, the home of the poet Whittier.
The will of John Putnam is not on record. He seems to have disposed of
his property by deed to his children. Rev. Joseph Green makes the
following note in his diary: "April 7, 1710, Captain Putnam buried by ye
soldiers."
LIEUTENANT JAMES, son of CAPTAIN JOHN, was born in Salem Village, 1661,
and died there in 1727. He was a farmer, inheriting from his father the
homestead at Oak Knoll. In 1720 he is styled on the records Lieut.,
which title was always scrupulously given him. Although never caring to
hold office, he was evidently esteemed by the townspeople. He had been
taught a trade, and he in his turn taught his son the same trade, that
of bricklayer. This was a custom among many of the early Puritan
families. It is to the credit of all concerned, that far-sighted and
wealthy men of that day brought up their sons to know a useful trade, in
case adversity should overtake them.
JAMES PUTNAM, of the fourth generation, son of the aforesaid Lieut.
James, was born in Salem Village in 1689, and died there in 1763. He
lived in the house just to the south-east of Oak Knoll on the same road;
the house is still standing, in a fine state of preservation.
During his long life, James Putnam took considerable interest in town
affairs. He was one of those who succeeded in obtaining the
establishment of the district of Danvers. In 1730 he paid the largest
tax in the village.
HONORABLE JAMES PUTNAM, of the fifth generation, son of the aforesaid
James Putnam, was born in Salem Village, 1726, and died at St. John, N.
B., 1789. He graduated from Harvard College in 1746. In his class was
Dr. Edward H. Holyoke, whose father, Edward Holyoke, was then president
of the College. He studied law, under Judge Trowbridge, who according to
John Adams, controlled the whole practice of Worcester and Middlesex
Counties, and settled in Worcester in 1749, taking up the practice of
the law.
In 1750 he married Eleanor Sprague, by whom he had one daughter,
Eleanor, who married Rufus Chandler, of Worcester.
James Putnam, in 1757, held the commission of Major, under Gen. Louden,
and saw service. Between the years of 1755 and 1758, John Adams,
afterwards President of the United States, taught school in Worcester,
and studied law with Mr. Putnam. He also boarded in his family. Mr.
Adams remarks that Mr. Putnam possessed great acuteness of mind, had a
very extensive and successful practice, and was eminent in his
profession. James Putnam was one of the twenty signers to the address
from the barristers and attorneys of Massachusetts to Gov. Hutchinson,
May 30, 1774. His brothers, Dr. Ebenezer and Archelaus, both addressed
Gov. Gage on his arrival, June 11, 1774. In February, 1775, he, with
others, was forced by the threatening attitude of the mob to leave
Worcester and seek refuge in Boston, he having had his cattle stolen and
a valuable grist mill burned, and threatened with bodily harm.
On Oct. 14, 1775, eighteen of those gentlemen who were driven from their
habitations in the country to the town of Boston, addressed Gov. Gage on
his departure. Among the signers were James Putnam and James Putnam, Jr.
In 1778 the Massachusetts Legislature passed an act confiscating the
estate of 308 Loyalists and banishing them; if they returned a second
time, to suffer death without the benefit of clergy. Among these was the
Hon. James Putnam, who had in 1777 succeeded Jonathan Sewell as attorney
general of Massachusetts, the last under the Crown.
During the siege of Boston on the 17th Nov. 1775, the following order
was issued by the British Commander: "Many of his Majesty's Loyal
American subjects having offered their services for the defence of the
place" are to be formed into three companies under command of Hon.
Brigadier General Ruggles, to be called the Loyal American Associates,
to be designated by a white sash around the left arm. James Putnam was
commissioned captain of the second company, and James Putnam, Jr. was
commissioned second lieutenant of the second company. At the evacuation
of Boston, both James Putnam and his sons, James and Ebenezer,
accompanied the army to Halifax, and New York, where his sons engaged in
business. He sailed for Plymouth, England, December, 1779, with Mrs.
Putnam and his daughter Elizabeth.
While in England he wrote numerous letters to his brothers, from which
we make the following quotations. Under date of Nov. 13th, 1783, he
writes from London: "My countrymen have got their independence (as they
call it) and with it in my opinion, have lost the true Substantial Civil
liberty. They doubtless exult as much at the acquisition they have
gained as they do at the loss the Tories, as they call them, have
sustained."
"America, the thirteen states, at last separated from this country,
never more to be connected. For you may believe me when I say I firmly
believe, and on good grounds, that even the present administration would
not now accept of the connection, if America would offer it on the old
footing."
"You may be assured there is nothing I wish for more than to see my dear
brother and other dear friends in America again."
"At the same time, I can tell you with truth, unpleasing as you may
think the situation of the Loyalists to be, I would not change with my
independent countrymen with all imaginary liberty, but real heavy taxes
and burdens, destitute in a great measure, as I know they are, of order
and good government."
"Having this view of things, you can't expect to see me in Massachusetts
soon, even if I was permitted or invited to return with perhaps the
offer of the restoration of my estate. For what would it be worth but to
pay all away in taxes in a short time."
"I'm not yet determined whether to remain in this country or go abroad
to Nova Scotia or elsewhere."
Again, under date of July 20, 1784, he writes: "Your country is so
changed since I left it, and in my opinion for the worst, that the great
pleasure I should have in seeing my dear friends would be lost in a
great measure in the unhappy change of government."
His next letter was from Parr, on the river St. John, N. B., Nov. 18,
1784. He says: "Dear Brother. I have been at this place about ten days,
am surprised to find a large flourishing town, regularly laid out, well
built, consisting of about two thousand houses, many of them handsome
and well finished--And at the opposite side of the river at Carlton,
about five hundred more houses on a pleasant situation. A good harbor
lies between the two towns, which never freezes, and where there are
large ships and many vessels of all sizes. The country appears to me to
be very good, and am satisfied will make a most flourishing Province."
He writes again the next year: "You may wonder perhaps at my saying I
hope I'm settled in this Province for life, and that I can be contented
or happy in the place formerly called Nova Scotia."
"I want to see you and my friends, if I have any, but I don't wish to
live in your country or under your government. I think I have found a
better. No thanks to the Devils who have robbed me of my property. I do
not wish to live with or see such infernals."
"God bless you, your wife, your son, your daughter, my brother, etc.,
who I shall be glad to see again, but not in the American States."
In another letter, dated St. John, N. B., May 13, 1785, to his brother,
he says: "As to seeing you any more, you have no reason to expect it in
your State.
"You may be assured, I should be exceeding happy in seeing you both
here. I can give you a comfortable lodging, and wholesome good fresh
provisions, excellent fish and good spruce beer, the growth and
manufacture of our own Province.
"Tho' we should be glad to see the few friends we have remaining there
among you, we don't wish to give them the pain of seeing us in your
State, which is evidently overflowing with _freedom and liberty_[231]
without restraint.
[231] During 1785 Shay's rebellion occurred in Massachusetts and was put
down by General Lincoln.
"The people of the States must needs now be very happy, when they can
all and every one do just what they like best. No taxes to pay, no
_stamp act_, _more money_ than they know what to do with, _trade and
navigation as free as air_."
Under date of Nov. 4, 1786, he writes: "The people of your State seem to
be stirring up another revolution. What do they want now? Do they find
at last, to be freed from the British Government, and becoming an
independent State does not free them from the debts they owe one
another, or exempt them from the charge of taxation. I wish they would
pay me what they justly owe, they may then have what government they
please, or none, if they like that best."
He was appointed in 1784 Judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick,
and a member of the Council. It was said that he was the ablest lawyer
in all America. Judge Putnam was the first of the council and bench of
New Brunswick, who died from failing health; he had not attended council
meetings for over a year. He died 23 Oct., 1789, in his 65th year. In
character he was upright and generous; his health was never robust; and
loss of country, friends and wealth must have been a severe blow. Sabine
says: "I have often stood at his grave and mused upon the strange
vicissitudes of human condition, by which the Master, one of the giants
of the American Colonial Bar, became an outlaw, and an exile, broken in
fortune and spirit, while his struggling and almost friendless pupil,
elevated step by step by the very same course of events, was finally
known the world over as the Chief Magistrate of a Nation." It is thus in
all successful Revolutions, those that were at the head of affairs are
hurled from power, and their fortunes wrecked, whilst young men like
John Adams, of great abilities but poor, and little prospects for
advancement, are elevated to the highest offices. Who would have ever
heard of the "Little Corporal" had it not been for the French
Revolution, then there would not have been any "Napoleon the maker of
Kings."
Judge Putnam had two relatives who became famous in the Colonial wars,
and the Revolution. Major-General Israel Putnam was of the fourth
generation from John. He was born in Salem Village, 1717. He
distinguished himself at Crown Point, Montreal and Cuba, and later at
Bunker Hill. General Rufus Putnam was of the fifth generation. After
serving in the Colonial wars under his cousin Israel Putnam, he took
part in the siege of Boston, and constructed the works on Dorchester
Heights, on the 4th of March, 1776, that forced the evacuation of
Boston.
At no time during the youth of these two men would one have predicted
that they would be two great soldiers. Their early education was very
defective, partly because school advantages were then very meagre in the
rural districts, in which they passed their youth, and partly no doubt,
because their strong inclinations were for farming and active outdoor
life, rather than for books and sedentary occupation. Robust and full of
energy, they were as boys, given to feats of strength and daring.
In 1780 General Rufus Putnam "bought on easy terms" the confiscated
property of Colonel Murray, who married Lucretia Chandler. This property
was situated in Rutland, and consisted of a large farm and spacious
mansion.
JAMES PUTNAM, JR., son Judge Putnam, graduated at Harvard College in
1774. He was one of the eighteen country gentlemen who addressed Gen.
Gage, and were driven into Boston. He went to England and died there in
1838, having been a barrack master, a member of the household, and an
executor of the Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria.
JUDGE TIMOTHY PAINE.
Stephen Paine, from whom so many of the family in America are descended,
came from Great Ellingham, near Hingham, Norfolk County, England. He was
a miller, and came with a large party of immigrants from Hingham and
vicinity, in the ship Diligent, of Ipswich, John Martin master, in the
year 1638, bringing with him his wife Rose, two sons and four servants.
Mr. Paine first settled at Hingham, Mass., where he had land granted to
him, was made a freeman in 1639 and elected Deputy in 1641. In 1642 he,
with four others, settled at Seekonk, and became prominent in the
affairs of the new settlement at Rehoboth.
Mr. Paine survived the eventful period of King Philip's war and died in
1679, outliving his two sons, Stephen having died at Rehoboth in 1677,
and Nathaniel in 1678.
NATHANIEL PAINE, son of the aforesaid Nathaniel, of the third
generation, was born at Rehoboth 1661, married Dorothy, daughter of
Jonathan Rainsford, of Boston. He removed in early life to Bristol,
Mass., now R. I., and was one of the original proprietors of that place.
In 1710 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and Judge
of Probate. He was one of the Council of Mass. Bay from 1703 till his
death in 1723, with the exception of the year 1708. Nathaniel Paine died
at Bristol, R. I., in 1723, and his wife Dorothy Rainsford, in 1755.
NATHANIEL PAINE, of the fourth generation and fourth son of the
preceding Nathaniel, was born at Bristol 1688. He was an active and
influential citizen of Bristol, was for five years elected
Representative. In 1723 he was a member of a Court of Admiralty for the
trial of pirates. In 1724 was a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Mr. Paine married Sarah, daughter of Timothy Clark of Boston. After his
death in 1729, his widow married John Chandler and removed to Worcester.
TIMOTHY PAINE, son of the aforesaid Nathaniel and Sarah Clark, his wife.
He was born in Boston in 1730 and married Sarah Chandler in 1749, the
daughter of John Chandler, so these young people had probably been
brought up under the same roof from early childhood. He graduated at
Harvard College in 1748, and was a stout government man in the
controversies which preceded the Revolution.
Soon after leaving college, Mr. Paine was engaged in public affairs, and
the number and variety of offices which he held exhibit the estimation
in which he stood. He was at different times Clerk of the Courts,
Register of Deeds, Register of Probate, member of the executive council
of the Province, in 1774 he was appointed one of his Majesty's Mandamus
Councillors, Selectman and Town Clerk, and Representative many years in
the General Court. In 1771 he was also Special Justice of the Supreme
Court. Solid talents, practical sense, candor, sincerity, ability, and
mildness, were the characteristics of his life.
When the appeal to arms approached, many of the inhabitants of
Worcester, most distinguished for talents, influence, and honors,
adhered with constancy to the Government. Educated with veneration for
the sovereign to whom they had sworn fealty; indebted to the government
for the bounty, honor and wealth which they possessed--loyalty and
gratitude alike influenced them to resent acts that were treasonable,
and rebellious. The sincerity of their motives were attested by the
sacrifice of life, property, loss of power, and all the miseries of
banishment, confiscation and exile.
The struggle between the revolutionist, and the loyalty of a minority of
the people, powerful in numbers, as well as talents, wealth, and
influence, arrived at its crisis in Worcester early in 1774, and
terminated in the total defeat of the loyalists.
Among the many grievances of the revolutionists, was the vesting of the
government in the dependents of the King, it aggravated the irritation,
and urged the mobs to acts of violence.
Timothy Paine, Esq., had received a commission as one of the Mandamus
Councillors. High as was the personal regard, and respect for the purity
of private character of this gentleman, it was controlled by the
political feelings of a period of excitement; and measures were taken to
compel his resignation of a post which was unwelcome to himself, but
which he dared not refuse, when declining would have been construed as
contempt for the authority of the King, by whom it was conferred.
August 22, 1774, a mob of nearly 3000 persons collected from the
surrounding towns, visited Worcester and entered the town before 7
o'clock in the morning. They chose a committee to wait upon Mr. Paine
and demand his resignation as Councillor. They went to his house, and he
agreed to resign from that office, and drew up an acknowledgement,
mentioning his obligations to the country for favors done him, his
sorrow for having taken the oath, and a promise that he never would act
in that office contrary to the charter, and after that he came with the
committee to the common, where the mob made a lane between them, through
which he and the committee passed and read divers times as they passed
along, the said acknowledgment. At first one of the committee read the
resignation of Mr. Paine in his behalf. It was then insisted that he
should read it with his hat off. He hesitated and demanded protection
from the committee, which they were incapable of giving him. Finally,
with threats of tar and feathers, and personal violence, in which his
wig was knocked off, he complied, and was allowed to retire to his
dwelling unharmed.
At the commencement of the Revolution some American soldiers quartered
at his house repaid his perhaps too unwilling hospitality, and signified
the intensity of their feelings towards him by cutting the throat of his
full length portrait.
Madam Paine, in passing the guard house, which stood nearly where the
old Nashua Hotel stood in Lincoln square, heard the soldiers say "Let us
shoot the old Tory." She turned around facing them and said: "Shoot if
you dare," and then she reported to General Knox the insult she had
received, which was not repeated.
Mrs. Timothy Paine or Madam Paine, as she was styled from respect to her
dignity and position, was a woman of uncommon energy and acuteness. She
was noted in her day for her zeal in aiding as far as was in her power
the followers of the crown, and in defeating the plans of the
rebellious colonists. In her the King possessed a faithful ally. In her
hands his dignity was safe, and no insult offered to it, in her
presence, could go unavenged.
Her wit and loyalty never shone more conspicuously than on the following
occasion: when President Adams was a young man, he was invited to dine
with the court, and bar, at the home of Judge Paine, an eminent loyalist
of Worcester. When the wine was circulating around the table, Judge
Paine gave as a toast "The King." Some of the Whigs were about to refuse
to drink it, but Mr. Adams whispered to them to comply, saying "we shall
have an opportunity to return the compliment." At length, when he was
desired to give a toast, he gave "The Devil." As the host was about to
resent the indignity, his wife calmed him, and turned the laugh upon Mr.
Adams, by immediately exclaiming "My dear! As the gentleman has been so
kind as to drink to our King, let us by no means refuse in our turn to
drink to his."
Timothy Paine and Sarah Chandler, his wife, not only feared God, but
honored the King, so the old record goes. They belonged to families,
often associated together in the remembrance of the present generation,
as having adhered through the wavering fortunes and final success of the
Revolution, devoted and consistent to the British Crown. Solid talents,
practical sense, candor, sincerity, affability, and mildness, were the
characteristics of his life. He died July 17, 1793, at the age of
sixty-three. His widow died at Worcester, in 1811.
DR. WILLIAM PAINE.
William Paine, son of the aforesaid Timothy Paine, was born in
Worcester, Mass., June 5, 1750. He graduated at Harvard College in 1768,
his name standing second in a class of more than forty, when they were
arranged in the catalogue according to the dignity of families.
He then began the study of medicine with a very distinguished physician,
Dr. Edward A. Holyoke, of Salem, while here he made the acquaintance of
the lady whom he married a few years later.
One of his earliest instructors was John Adams, who was then reading law
in the office of Hon. James Putnam, at Worcester. He began the practice
of medicine in Worcester in 1771. That year Mr. Adams revisited
Worcester, after an absence of sixteen years, and notes the impression
of his former pupils as follows: "Here I saw many young gentlemen who
were my scholars and pupils. John Chandler, Esq., of Petersham, Rufus
Chandler, the lawyer, and Dr. William Paine, who now studies physics
with Dr. Holyoke of Salem, and others, most of whom began to learn Latin
with me."
In 1771, after about three years of study, he returned to Worcester,
with every prospect of becoming a leader in the medical profession. In
1773 he entered into partnership with two other physicians or "Traders
in the Art, Mystery and Business of an Apothecary and the practice of
Physick." This interest was confiscated in 1779.
In 1773 Dr. Paine was married to Miss Lois Orne of Salem, with a fortune
of 3,000 pounds sterling. Six children were born from this union.
For the purpose of facilitating his business abroad and of perfecting
his medical education, Dr. Paine in Sept. 1774, sailed for England, and
the following winter was passed in the study of medicine. During his
visit there he was presented to the King, and Queen Charlotte, wearing
the court dress prescribed for medical men, which was a gray cloth coat
with silver buttons, a white satin waistcoat, satin small clothes, silk
hose and wearing a sword, and a fall of lace from cravat or collar, and
lace in the sleeves. It is interesting to read some of his letters
written as he was about leaving England. In one of them he writes "The
Colonists had better lay down their arms at once, for we are coming over
with an overwhelming force to destroy them." His wife and children
seemed to have remained with his father and mother while he was in
England, but finding their position in Worcester unpleasant on account
of their unpopular political opinions, she left and went to Rhode
Island.
Dr. Paine returned to America in 1775, shortly after hostilities
commenced, and while there was apparently no legal impediment to his
return to Worcester, it was doubtless a very prudent decision of Dr.
Paine not to make the attempt. His feeling of personal loyalty to the
government was too strong to allow him even to appear to yield to the
Revolutionists, then dominating his native town, and he wisely returned
to England. His study of medicine there must have been pursued with
unusual zeal and success, for Nov. 1775, he received from Marischal
College, Aberdeen, the degree of M. D.
Soon after obtaining this distinction, he received an appointment as
Apothecary to the British forces in America, and served in Rhode Island
and New York till 1781, when he returned to England, in company with his
patient, Lord Winchelsea. While in England, in 1782, he is said to have
been made Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London.
October 23, 1782, he was commissioned Physician to His Majesty's
Hospitals within the district of North America, commanded by Sir Guy
Carleton, and he reported for duty at Halifax, N. S. Letters which have
been preserved show that during this year at Halifax he had won the
respect, friendship and confidence, not only of his immediate medical
superior, Dr. Nooth, but also of Lord Wentworth, Governor of the
Province.
In the summer of 1784, Dr. Paine took possession of La Tete, an island
in Passamaquoddy Bay, granted him by the British Government, for his
services in the war. He remained there less than one year, and then made
his residence in St. John, N. B., where he took up the practice of his
profession. The cause of the removal from the island was the protest of
his wife that the children could not receive a proper education in that
isolated spot.
He was elected member of the Assembly of New Brunswick from the county
of Charlotte, and was appointed Clerk of the House. He was commissioned
as a justice for the county of Sunbury. There is abundant evidence of
the high estimate placed on his character and ability in the numerous
offices which he held during his residence here.
July 29, 1786, he wrote to a friend: "I do a great deal of Business in
my Profession, but I get very little for it. The truth is we are all
very poor, and the most industrious and economical gets only a bare
subsistence. However, it will soon be better as the Province is daily
filling with stock of all kinds."
In 1787 Dr. Paine made application for leave to visit and reside in New
England while remaining on half pay, and a permit to that effect was
issued by the War Office.
In Salem he devoted himself to the practice of medicine in the town
where he had been known as a student of the famous Dr. Holyoke, and
where his wife had spent her early life.
In 1793 his father died, and he removed to Worcester, and for the
remaining forty years of his life he resided in the paternal mansion.
His father's property was large, and as he was not an absentee, it was
not confiscated. By his will it was equally divided between his
children, the farm and homestead covered 1230 acres. Dr. Paine bought
the shares of his brothers, and sisters in same for 2,000 pounds
sterling, but the deeds were given to Nathaniel Paine in trust for
William, for the doctor was as yet, but an alien in his native state.
The year 1812 was a critical one, bringing a most important question for
him to decide, for war arose between Great Britain and the United
States, and he was still a half-pay officer in His Majesty's service. He
therefore resigned from the British service, and in 1812 petitioned the
Legislature for its consent to his being a naturalized citizen of the
United States.
William Paine was one of the founders of the American Antiquarian
Society of Worcester. His name was omitted from the act of incorporation
because he was an alien. The next year, 1813, he was elected Vice
President of same.
He occupied the old paternal mansion on Lincoln street in a quiet, very
dignified and almost luxurious manner as befitted a country gentleman.
Here he died at the ripe age of 83, March 19, 1833.
SAMUEL PAINE, son of Timothy, was born at Worcester, Mass. Graduated at
Harvard College in 1771. The Worcester County Convention, Sept. 7, 1774,
voted to take notice of Mr. Samuel Paine, assistant clerk, for sending
out _venires_. Voted, that Mr. Samuel Dennison go to Mr. Samuel Paine
forewith, and desire his immediate attendance before this body, to
answer for sending _venires_ to constables commanding their compliance
with the late Act of Parliament.
Mr. Paine appeared and stated that he felt bound by the duty of his
office to comply with the Act, "Voted that Mr. Paine has not given
satisfaction, and that he be allowed to consider till the adjournment of
this meeting."
On September 21, he transmitted a paper to the Convention explanatory of
his conduct; but that body voted that it "was not satisfactory, and that
'his letter be dismissed' and Mr. Paine himself 'be treated with all
neglect.'"
In 1775 he was sent to the Committee of Worcester under guard, "to
Watertown or Cambridge, to be dealt with as the honorable Congress or
Commander-in-Chief shall, upon examination, think proper." His direct
offenses consisted, apparently, in saying that the Hampshire troops had
robbed the home of Mr. Bradish; that he had heard the Whig soldiers were
deserting in great numbers, and that he was told "the men were so close
stowed in the Colleges that they were lousy." This is the substance of
the testimony of a neighbor, the only witness who appeared against him.
In 1776 Mr. Paine accompanied the British Army to Halifax when they
evacuated Boston. During the war he wandered from place to place without
regular employment. He returned to Worcester where he died in 1807. The
British government allowed him an annual pension of L84.
JOHN CHANDLER.
The founder of this family, so large and so influential before the
Revolution, came to these shores from England in 1637, when William
Chandler and Annice, his wife, settled in Roxbury. Mr. Chandler died in
1641, "having lived a very religious and godly life," and "leaving a
sweet memory and savor behind him." Annice Chandler must have been an
attractive woman, for she was not only soon married to a second husband,
but to a third, and her last one evidently expected her to enter into
matrimony a fourth time, for in his will he provided that she shall have
the use of his warming pan only so long as she remained his widow.
Goodwife Parmenter, however, died in 1683, in full possession of the
warming pan, the widow of the third husband.
JOHN CHANDLER, a son of William, emigrated to Woodstock, Conn., and
became a farmer. He was selectman and deacon of the church, and died
there in 1703, leaving a family and property valued at L512.
The second John Chandler, son of the first of that name, had before his
father's death, moved to New London, Conn., where he married, and in
1698 had opened a "house of entertainment" there. He at a later date
moved back to South Woodstock, and in 1711 was chosen representative to
the General Court at Boston for several years. After the erection of
Worcester County by Act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, April 2,
1731, the first Probate Court in Worcester was held by Col. Chandler as
Judge in the meeting house, 13th of July, 1731, and the first Court of
Common Pleas and General Sessions on August 10 following, by the Hon.
John Chandler, commissioned June 30, 1731, Chief Justice. These offices
he held until his death, as well as Colonel of Militia to which stations
of civil, judicial and military honors, he rose by force of his strong
mental powers, with but slight advantages of education. Judge John
Chandler died August 10, 1743, in his 79th year, leaving in his will
L8,699.
JOHN CHANDLER, the third of that name, son of the Hon. John Chandler,
held nearly all the offices in the town of Worcester, Selectman,
Sheriff, Probate Judge, Town Treasurer, Register of Probate, Register of
Deeds, Chief Judge of County Courts, Judge of Common Pleas,
Representative to the General Court, Colonel of Militia and a member of
the Governor's Council. He died in 1762, wealthy and full of honors.
JUDGE CHANDLER, was married to Hannah Gardner, daughter of John Gardner
of the Isle of Wight (known afterwards as Gardner's Island), in 1716.
She died in Worcester in 1738, aged 39 years, leaving nine children, the
first members of the Chandler family who were born and bred in
Worcester.
JOHN CHANDLER, son of the aforesaid, the fourth to bear that name was
born in New London, Connecticut, in 1720, was married twice and had
sixteen children. His father removed to Worcester when he was eleven
years of age. At his father's death he succeeded him to the principal
county offices. He was Colonel in the militia, and was in service in the
French war, and he was Sheriff, Judge of Probate and County Treasurer.
Up to 1774 John Chandler's life had been one of almost unbroken
prosperity, but when the rebellion broke out, his loyalist sentiments
brought upon him the wrath of the mob, and he was compelled to leave
home, and family and retire to Boston. When Boston was evacuated, he
went to Halifax, and thence to London, and two years after he was
proscribed and banished. He sacrificed his large possessions, L36,190 as
appraised in this country by commissioners here, to a chivalrous sense
of loyalty. In the schedule exhibited to the British Commissioners,
appointed to adjust the compensation to the Americans who adhered to the
government; the amount of real and personal property which was
confiscated, is estimated at L11,067, and the losses from office, from
destruction of business, and other causes, at nearly L6,000 more. So
just and moderate was this compensation ascertained to be, at a time
when extravagant claims were presented by others, that his claim was
allowed in full; he was denominated in England "The Honest Refugee."
Sabine says "I am assured that, while he was in Boston he was supported
for a considerable time by the sale of silver plate sent him by his
family; and that when he left home he had no idea of quitting the
country. I am assured also, that when the Revolutionary Commissioners
took an inventory of his household furniture, the females were plundered
of their very clothing." His adherence to the government, and his
departure for England, seems to have been his only offences, yet he was
treated as harshly as though he had borne arms in the field.
He is spoken of as having a cheerful temperament, engaging in manner,
hospitable as a citizen, friendly and kind as a neighbor, industrious
and enterprising as a merchant, and successful as a man of business. He
died in London in 1800, and was buried in Islington churchyard. In 1741
he married Dorothy, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Paine. She died in
1745. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Colonel Church, of Bristol,
R. I., a descendant of the warrior who fought King Philip. She died at
Worcester in 1783. His portrait in oil is preserved in the rooms of the
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester. George Bancroft, the
distinguished historian, and the widow of Governor Davis of
Massachusetts, are Colonel Chandler's grandchildren.
CLARK CHANDLER, son of Colonel John, was born at Worcester in 1743. At
first a clerk in the office of the Register of Probate, he became joint
Register with Hon. Timothy Paine, and held the appointment from 1766 to
1774. He was also Town Clerk of Worcester from 1768 to 1774. In 1774 he
entered upon the town Records a remonstrance of the Loyalists to the
great anger of the Revolutionists, who voted in town meeting that he
should then and there "obliterate, erase, or otherwise deface, the said
recorded protest, and the names thereto subscribed, so that it may
become illegible and unintelligible." This he was obliged to do, in
presence of the revolutionists, to blot out the obnoxious record by
dipping his fingers in ink, and drawing them over the protest.
He left home in June, 1775, and went to Halifax, and thence to Canada.
He returned in September of the same year, and was imprisoned in the
common jail. Confinement impaired his health, and he was removed to his
mother's home. Finally he was allowed to go to Lancaster, on giving
security that he would not depart from that town. He returned to
Worcester and kept store at the corner of Main and Front streets. His
person was small, and he wore bright red small clothes; was odd and
singular in appearance, which often provoked jeers and jokes of those
around him, but apt at reply "he paid the jokers in their own coin." He
was never married, and died in Worcester in 1804.
RUFUS CHANDLER, fifth child of Colonel John by Mary Church, his second
wife. He was born in 1747, and graduated at Harvard College in 1776 in a
class of forty, with the rank of the fourth in "dignity of family." He
read law in the office of his uncle, Hon. James Putnam, in Worcester,
where he afterwards practised his profession until the courts were
closed by the mobs in 1774. He was one of the barristers and attornies
who addressed Hutchinson in the last mentioned year. He inherited the
loyalty of his family and left the country at the commencement of
hostilities. He went to Halifax in 1776 and in 1778 was proscribed and
banished. His mother used a part of his estate for the support of his
daughter; but the remainder appraised at L820, was confiscated. He
resided in England as a private gentleman, and died in London in 1823,
at the age of 76, and his remains were laid with those of his fathers in
Islington churchyard. His wife was Elizabeth Putnam, his only child, who
bore her mother's name, married Solomon Vose, of Augusta, Maine.
GARDNER CHANDLER, son of Colonel John, of Hardwick, Mass., was born in
1749, and was a merchant in that town. His property was confiscated, and
the proceeds paid into the treasury of the state. He left the colony and
returned some time after to Hardwick. He made acknowledgments
satisfactory to his townsmen, it was voted by the town "that as Gardner
Chandler has now made acknowledgment, and says he is sorry for his past
conduct, that they will treat him as a friend and neighbor, so long as
he shall behave himself well." He removed to Brattleboro, Vermont, and
again to Hinsdale, N. H. He died in the last named town. His wife was
Elizabeth, daughter of Brigadier Timothy Ruggles.
NATHANIEL CHANDLER, son of Colonel John, was born in Worcester, 1750,
graduated at Harvard College in 1768. He was a pupil of John Adams, and
commenced the practice of law in Petersham. His brother-in-law, the Rev.
Dr. Bancroft, wrote "that he possessed personal manliness and beauty,"
that "he was endowed with a good mind and a lively imagination" that "in
disposition he was cheerful." He was one of the eighteen county
gentlemen who addressed General Gage on his departure in 1775. In 1776
he went to Halifax. In 1778 he was proscribed and banished, and his
estate confiscated. Entering the British service he commanded a corps of
Volunteers and did good service. He returned to Petersham in 1784, and
engaged in trade, but relinquished business on account of ill health,
and returned to Worcester. Citizenship was restored in 1789, by Act of
the Legislature of Mass. He was a very pleasant companion, and a
favorite singer of songs in social parties. He never married. He died at
Worcester in 1801.
WILLIAM CHANDLER, eighth child of Colonel John, was born at Worcester in
1752, and graduated at Harvard College in 1772. At that time students in
that institution were ranked according to "dignity of family" and
William was placed in the highest class. He was one of the eighteen
county gentlemen who were driven from their homes to Boston, and who
addressed General Gage on his departure in 1775. In 1776 he went to
Halifax. He was proscribed and banished under the Act of 1778, but
returned to Mass., after the close of the Revolution. Among the articles
in the inventory of his estate when it was confiscated was seven pairs
of silk hose, at fourteen shillings; plated shoe buckles, six shillings;
and pair of velvet breeches.
Gardiner Chandler, brother of Colonel John. He was born in Woodstock in
1723. In the French war he was a major and was in service at the
surrender of Fort William Henry. He was Treasurer of Worcester County
eight years and succeeded his brother John, as sheriff, in 1762. He
presented General Gage an Address in behalf of the Judges of the Court
of Common Pleas in 1774; and was compelled by a Convention of the
Committee of Correspondence to sign a "Recantation." In time, he
regained the confidence of the community, and was suffered to live
undisturbed. He died in Worcester, in 1782. His first wife was Hannah
Greene, of Providence, R. I., his second, Ann Leonard, of Norton, Mass.
The Chandlers were in every respect the most eminent family in Worcester
County, and furnished many men of distinction in its ante-revolutionary
history. They were closely allied by blood, marriage or friendship with
the aristocracy of the county and province, in which they had unbounded
sway. They had large possessions, and shared with the Paine family (with
whom they were allied), the entire local influence at Worcester, but did
not, like that family, survive the shock of the Revolution, and retain a
local habitation and a name. Their property was confiscated and they
were declared traitors.
The family was broken up; some members of it went abroad and died there,
others were scattered in this country, yet not a few of their
descendants eminent in the most honorable pursuits, and in the highest
positions in life under different names and in various localities,
represent that ancient, honorable and once numerous race, wrecked by the
Revolution.
John Adams says in his diary, "The Chandlers exercised great influence
in the County of Worcester until they took the side of the government in
the Revolution, and lost their position. They were well bred, agreeable
people, and I visited them as often as my school, and my studies in the
lawyer's office would admit."
JOHN GORE.
John Gore, of Roxbury, and his wife Rhoda, were both church members in
1635. He died June 2, 1657, and his widow married Lieut. John Remington.
He had ten children, of whom John, Samuel, Abigail, Mary, Mylam, and
Hannah, were mentioned in his will.
Samuel Gore, son of the former, lived in Roxbury, and was a carpenter.
He married August 28, 1672, Elizabeth, daughter of John Weld. He died
July, 1692. They had seven children.
Obadiah Gore, son of Samuel, was also a carpenter, and lived in Boston.
He married, October 26, 1710, Sarah Kilby. He died October 8, 1721, and
was survived by five children, all of whom were baptized at the Brattle
Street church.
JOHN GORE, son of the former, lived in Boston, and was a painter and
merchant. He married, May 5, 1743, Frances, daughter of John Pinkney.
She was born September 20, 1726. They had fourteen or fifteen children,
nine of whom lived to be married. The baptisms of nine of his children
are given in the records of the Brattle Street Church. John Gore was an
Addresser of Gage, and in 1776 went to Halifax and thence to England. He
was proscribed and banished in 1778, and pardoned by the Legislature in
1787. He died in Boston in 1796, aged seventy-seven. His will is in the
Suffolk Register, Lib. 94, F. 182. His son, CHRISTOPHER GORE, was born
in Boston, Sept. 21st, 1758. He was educated in the public schools of
Boston, and was prepared at the South Latin school under the tuition of
Mr. Lovell, the most noted educator of his day. At the age of 13,
Christopher entered Harvard College, and was among the youngest of his
class. But he commenced his collegeate course in troubleous times, for
in his junior year the Revolution broke out, which created confusion and
disorder through society, and deranged the plans, and changed the
pursuits of many in every grade and profession. The College at Cambridge
was considered by the Revolutionists as "nest of tories" and during the
siege of Boston the college buildings were taken possession of by the
continental army stationed at Cambridge, and the students were dispersed
for several months. Young Gore was determined to follow out his course
of college training, however, and to this end went to Bradford, in Essex
County, and studied under the direction and in the family of Rev. Mr.
Williams, afterwards professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in
Harvard College. When the college removed to Concord he, with most of
the students, repaired thither, and resumed his studies. He graduated in
1776, the year that his father was driven from the land of his birth.
Christopher Gore soon commenced the study of law in the office and under
the direction of Judge John Lowell, in whose family he resided while a
student. He commenced the practice of law in Boston with every prospect
of success. He had to depend on himself alone, for not only had he his
own fortune to make, but after he left college, he had to contribute to
the support of his mother and three unmarried sisters, who were left in
Boston without means when his father went to Halifax.
By his own exertion and industry, he paid his college bills after he
entered on his profession, in addition to his other responsible duties,
devolving upon him with honor to himself. During 1809-10 Mr. Gore was
Governor of Massachusetts. While Governor, he occupied the home corner
of Park and Beacon streets, and it is said he drove through the streets
of Boston in a carriage drawn by four horses. This was more than the
plain republican people of Boston could stand, and they did not want him
for Governor again, besides it is undeniable that Mr. Gore was a good
deal of an aristocrat at heart, and consequently more or less a
loyalist. But he made a fine administrator, and at the end of the term
retired to private life, and did not resume the practice of his
profession.
In 1791 Christopher Gore purchased in Waltham about 1000 acres of land
which formerly belonged to an ancestor of President Garfield. Here
Governor Gore erected a stately mansion upon a knoll or rise of the land
not far distant from Gore street, where one of the drives, leading to
it, runs under rows of stately trees, and through a finely kept lawn. In
the rear of the house are the flower gardens, and conservatory, and
behind that the kitchen garden; to the west of this is the deer park.
After the death of Governor Gore this stately structure was sold to
General Theodore Lyman, who after living there seven years sold it to
Singleton Copley Greene, the son of Gardner Green, who married a
daughter of Copley the artist, the sister of Lord Lyndhurst: (see p.
216.) Christopher Gore married Rebecca Payne, 11 Nov. 1783. They had no
children. Gov. Gore died 1 March 1827, his widow 22 Jan. 1833.
JOHN JEFFRIES.
David Jeffries was born at Rhoad, in Wiltshire, England, 1658, and
arrived at Boston, May 9, 1677. He married Sept. 15, 1686, Elizabeth,
daughter of John and Elizabeth Usher, by whom he had several children.
Of his two sons, John, born Feb. 5, 1688, and David, born June 15, 1690,
John became Town Treasurer, was a very prominent citizen. He married
Sept. 24, 1713, Anne Clarke, and had issue, an only child Anne, who died
young. He went to London in 1710, and returned in 1713. He resided in
Tremont Street opposite the King's Chapel.
David Jeffries Jr., who continued the name, married in 1713, Katherine,
daughter of John and Katherine Eyre, by whom he had an only child David,
born 23 Oct. 1714. He was a merchant, and in 1715 he sailed for England,
and was lost in the Amity, Sept. 13, 1716, on the sands near Dungeness.
His son,
DAVID JEFFRIES, married his cousin, Sarah Jaffrey, 1741, by whom he had
eight children, all of whom died young except John, born Feb. 4, 1744,
alone preserved the name.
JOHN JEFFRIES, the only son of the former, graduated from Harvard
College in 1763, having pursued his medical studies with Doctor Lloyd.
He continued his study of medicine in London, and was honored with the
degree of M. D. at Aberdeen in 1769. In 1771 he was appointed surgeon to
the "Captain" a British Ship-of-the-line in Boston Harbor, by his
friend, Admiral Montague. He held that position until 1774.
Dr. Jeffries practised in Boston until the Revolution. He landed with
the forces at the battle of Bunker Hill, and assisted in dressing the
wounded of the Royal Army, and, it is said, identified the body of
Warren, in the presence of Sir William Howe. He accompanied the British
troops at the evacuation in 1776 to Halifax, and was appointed Chief of
the Surgical Staff of Nova Scotia. In 1779 he went to England; and on
his return to America, held a high professional employment to the
British forces at Charleston and New York. He resigned in 1780, and
going to England again, commenced practice in London.
[Illustration: DR. JOHN JEFFRIES.
Born in Boston, Feb. 4, 1774. In his balloon costume. Dr. Jeffries and
Blanchard were the first to cross from England to France in a balloon.
Died in Boston Sept. 16, 1819.]
On the 17th of January, 1785, Dr. Jeffries crossed the English channel
with Blanchard in a balloon, landing in the forest of Guines in France.
This feat procured for him the attention of the most distinguished
personages of the day and an introduction to all the learned and
scientific societies of Paris.[232]
[232] A narrative of his two aerial voyages was published In London in
1786, exact and entertaining, with a portrait of the adventurer and a
view of the monument erected by the French government, on the spot where
he landed.
Dr. Jeffries' first wife was Sarah Rhoads, whom he married in 1770. By
her he had three children, who died unmarried. He married again, Sept.
8, 1787, Hannah, the daughter of William and Hannah Hunt. In 1790 Dr.
Jeffries returned to Boston in the ship Lucretia.
He resumed his practice, and delivered the first public lecture on
anatomy, a branch of his profession of which he was very fond.[233] He
was eminent as a surgeon, midwife and physician. He attended the poor as
faithfully and cheerfully as the rich, and was never known to refuse a
professional call. His death occurred in Boston, September 16th, 1819,
aged 76 years, after a successful practice of fifty-three years.
[233] Curwen's Journal, P. 537.
Dr. Jeffries had by his second wife eleven children, all of whom died
unmarried excepting John, Katherine who married G. C. Haven, Julia Ann,
who married Thomas E. Eckley, and George J., who took the name of
Jaffrey.[234]
[234] New Eng. Hist. & General Reg., Vol. 15, P. 16.
John Jeffries, son of the doctor, was born March 23, 1796, and became
the only representative of the name in the city. He was a distinguished
physician in Boston. He married, November 8, 1820, Anne Geyer, daughter
of Rufus Greene and Ann (McLean) Amory. His children were Catherine,
Anne, Sarah, Augustus, Edward P. and Henry N. Jeffries.
George Jaffrey, an elder son of Dr. John Jeffries the loyalist, was born
December 21, 1789. George Jaffrey, his grand-uncle, who graduated from
Harvard College in 1736, became a Counsellor and held various important
positions in Portsmouth, N. H. He married Lucy, the daughter of Adam
Winthrop, but had no issue. His loyalty to the crown involved him in
trouble several times, but he died in 1802 leaving property, then a
large amount to George Jaffrey Jeffries, on condition that "he should
drop the name of Jeffries; become a permanent resident of Portsmouth,
and never follow any profession except that of being a gentleman."
George Jaffrey made his home in Portsmouth and for many years was
librarian of the Portsmouth Athenaeum. He died May 4, 1856, and a
merited tribute was paid to his character and his labors by Mr. Brewster
in the Portsmouth Journal of the 10th.[235]
[235] New Eng. Hist. & General Reg., Vol. 15, P. 17.
The Jeffries family have always ranked among the gentry of Boston, and
have maintained that position from the date of the earliest settlement,
to the present time.
THOMAS BRINLEY.
Thomas Brinley, Auditor general to Charles First and Second, had a son
Francis who settled at Barbados, but the climate not being suited to his
habits and constitution, came to New England and settled at Newport, R.
I., in 1652. This was about fourteen years after the settlement of that
place, and Francis Brinley held various offices; among them that of
Judge. He occasionally resided in Boston, owning a large estate at the
corner of Hanover and Elm streets. He died there in 1719, aged
eighty-seven, and was buried in a grave in the King's Chapel
burial-ground in Boston, on the spot where the family tomb now stands.
Thomas, son of the latter, was one of the founders of King's Chapel and
resided in Boston. He married Mary Apthorp, and in 1684 went to England,
where he died in 1693. His daughter Elizabeth married William
Hutchinson, Esq., a graduate of Harvard College, in 1702. Mrs. Brinley,
Francis and Elizabeth, returned to Newport, R. I.
Francis Brinley, the son of Thomas, was born in London in 1690, and was
educated at Eton. He became a colonel and resided in Roxbury. His
mansion was named Datchet from the house of that place in England.
Colonel Brinley returned to London, where he died November 27, 1765.
Francis Brinley's wife was Deborah, daughter of Edward and Catherine
Lyde, and his marriage took place April 18, 1718. They had five sons and
two daughters; one of whom married Colonel John Murray, and the other
Godfrey Malbone.
Of the sons, THOMAS BRINLEY was a Mandamus Councillor, and lived on
Harvard Street. He married his cousin Elizabeth, the daughter of George
Cradock, but they left no children. He was a graduate of Harvard College
in 1744, and became a Merchant in Boston.
His name appears among the one hundred and twenty-four merchants and
others, who addressed Hutchinson in Boston in 1774; and among the
ninety-seven gentlemen and principal inhabitants of that town, who
addressed Gage in October of the following year. In 1776 he went to
Halifax, and thence to England in the same year. In 1778 he was
proscribed and banished. His death occurred in 1784, and Elizabeth, his
widow, died in England in 1793.
EDWARD BRINLEY, brother of Thomas, married Sarah, daughter of Thomas
Tyler and left many descendants.
NATHANIEL BRINLEY, another brother, also married his cousin, Catharine
Cradock, was a resident in South Street and at one time lived in
Framingham. About 1760 he leased the "Brinley Farm" of Oliver DeLancey,
agent of the owner, Admiral Sir Peter Warren, of the Royal Navy, and as
is said, employed fifteen or twenty negroes, in its cultivation. It is
related that Daniel Shays, the leader of the insurrection in 1786, was
in the service of Mr. Brinley on this farm. In 1775 he was an Addresser
of Gage, and was ordered, in consequence, to confine himself to his own
leasehold. He fled to the Royal Army in Boston, and after the evacuation
of that town, he was sent to Framingham by sentence of a Court of
Inquiry, ordered to give bond in L600, with two sureties, to remain
there four months and to be of good behavior.
"In September 1776, Ebenezer Marshall, in behalf of the Committee of
Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, represented that the 'people take
him for a very villain,' as he had declared that 'Parliament had an
undoubted right to make void the charter in part or in whole'; 'that ten
thousand troops, with an artillery, would go through the continent, and
subdue it at pleasure'; that he had conveyed 'his best furniture to
Roxbury, and moved his family and goods into Boston,' and had himself
remained there, 'as long as he could have the protection of the British
troops;' that he approved of General Gage's conduct in the highest
terms;' that 'his most intimate connections were some of our worst
enemies and traitors;' and that, while he had been under their
inspection, they had seen nothing 'either in his conduct or disposition,
that discovers the least contrition, but otherwise.'"[236]
[236] Sabine's Loyalists, Vol. 1, P. 256.
To some of these allegations, Mrs. Brinley replied in two memorials to
the General Court. She averred that, by the conditions of the
recognizance, her husband was entitled to the freedom of the whole of
the town of Framingham; that he was in custody on the sole charge of
addressing Gage; and that instead of being a refuge in Boston, he was
shut up in that town while accidentally there, etc. She stated that he
at one time had been compelled to work on John Fisk's farm, without
liberty to go more than twenty rods from the house unless in Fisk's
presence; and that he was denied the free use of pen, ink and paper. She
said that after Mr. Brinley had been transferred to the care of Benjamin
Eaton, he was not allowed to go from the house, and was fearful that his
departure from it would occasion the loss of his life; also that she or
any other person was not allowed to converse with him, unless in the
hearing of some member of Eaton's family. She urged that he might be
removed to some other inland town, and be treated in accordance with his
sentence. Mr. Brinley's defence of himself seems to have been the simple
remark: "I am a gentleman and have done nothing to forfeit that
character." He merely had a rational opinion, but that was enough.
On the 17th September, 1776, the General Court, by resolve, committed
him to the care of his father, on security in L600 for his appearance;
and, in October of the same year, the committee of Framingham reported
to the council that they had disposed of his farm, stock, farm-utensils
and household furniture. Nathaniel Brinley removed to Tyngsborough,
where his son Robert, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Pitts. This
staunch loyalist died at that place in 1814, at the age of eighty-one.
LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO THOMAS BRINLEY IN SUFFOLK
COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.
To Gustavus Fellows, Sept. 28, 1782; Lib. 136, fol. 11; Land,
dwelling-house, distill house and wharf in Boston, Hollis St. S.;
heirs of Joshua Henshaw deceased W.; low water mark.
REV. JOHN WISWELL.
John and Thomas Wiswell were early residents of Dorchester. John's name
is found in the records as early as 1634. His brother Thomas came to
Dorchester about 1635. Noah, son of Thomas, born in 1640, was a military
man, and was in command in the desperate battle with the Indians near
Wheelwright's Pond, N. H., where he and his son John were killed, July
6th, 1690. Another son of Thomas, Inchabod, born in 1637, was minister
of Duxbury. He had a son Peleg, born in 1683, who was schoolmaster at
Charlestown in 1704. John Wiswell, son of Peleg, married Elizabeth,
daughter of Dr. Samuel Rogers, graduated from Harvard College in 1705,
was a master of a Boston Grammar School in 1719. He died in 1767, aged
84 and is buried in Copps Hill burying ground.
JOHN WISWELL, son of the aforesaid, was born in 1731, and graduated from
Harvard College in 1749. In 1753 he was teaching school in Maine, but he
pursued the study of divinity as a Congregationalist. Occasionally he
preached, and in 1756 he was invited to become the pastor of the New
Casco parish in Falmouth, now Portland, and was ordained November third
of that year. In 1761 he married Mercy, the daughter of Judge John
Minot, of Brunswick.
In 1764 John Wiswell suddenly changed his religious views and left his
people. He embraced the Episcopal form of worship, and preached for
several Sundays in the town-house. On September 4, 1764, the Parish of
St. Paul's Church, Falmouth, was organized and Mr. Wiswell was invited
to become their rector. For want of a bishop in the colonies, he was
obliged to go to England to receive ordination. A writer at this time
says, "There was a sad uproar about Wiswell, who has declared for the
church and accepted of the call our churchmen have given him to be their
minister." They voted him L100 a year and later he received L20 as a
Missionary from the Missionary Society. After a year's elapse, he was
able to report to the Society in London for the propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, that his Congregation had increased to seventy
families, and the admittance of twenty-one persons to the communion. In
1765 the parish addressed a letter to the Rev. Mr. Hooper of Boston,
asking his good offices in enlisting the sympathy of the churchmen
there, in behalf of their oppressed fellow-worshippers in Falmouth. John
Wiswell was an ardent Loyalist, as were about twenty of the leading men
of his church. He continued to preach until the revolution broke out.
After the trouble came in the colonies, he was seized while out walking
one day with Captain Mowatt, by Colonel Samuel Thompson of Brunswick,
who had arrived with about fifty men unknown to the inhabitants. Colonel
Thompson refused to release Mr. Wiswell, and Captain Mowatt, but finally
seeing that the town was against him, he consented to release them if
they would give their parole to deliver themselves up next day. After
his capture, the clergyman was obliged to declare his abhorrence of the
doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and was then released.
Mr. Wiswell now joined the British Forces, and after going on board a
man-of-war addressed a letter to the wardens of his church, resigning
his charge. After Captain Mowatt burned Falmouth, he sailed to Boston,
and then to England. After leaving his parish he was for three years a
chaplain on the British Naval Ship Boyne, and later for a short time was
a curate in Suffolk. He and fifteen others from Falmouth had their
estates confiscated, and were banished.
At the close of the war, Mr. Wiswell accepted the call of some of his
former parishioners, and settled in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, over a
parish they had formed there, and in 1782 he was appointed a missionary
of that place. Having lost his first wife, he married a widow Hutchinson
from the Jerseys, as the Rev. Jacob Bailey, the frontier missionary
writes, who married them. John Wiswell was afterwards a missionary at
Aylesford, and after a very full and worthy life, died at Nova Scotia in
1812, at the age of eighty-one. He left two sons, born in Falmouth, who
were Lieutenants in the Navy. Peleg, one of his sons, was appointed
Judge of the Supreme Court, of Nova Scotia, in 1816 and died at
Annapolis in 1836, at the age of seventy-three. When the Rev. John
Wiswell lived in Falmouth, Maine, he occupied a house painted red, which
stood on the corner of Middle and Exchange Streets, afterwards owned and
occupied by James Deering, and which gave place to the brick block built
by that gentleman.
HENRY BARNES.
John Barnes, and his wife Elizabeth (Perrie) came to Boston about 1710.
He was a prominent merchant, and was in partnership with John Arbuthnot,
who married Abigail Little, of Pembroke, in 1719, and whose daughter
Christian married Henry, the son of John Barnes, Sept. 26, 1746. John
Barnes was a prominent Episcopalian, was vestryman of King's Chapel from
1715 to 1724, warden from 1724 to 1728, was the first mentioned of the
trustees concerned in the purchase of land for Christ Church, and
afterwards of those who bought of Leonard Vassal, Esq., his estate on
Summer street (see p. 286) for the building of Trinity Church. His home
in Boston was on the north side of Beacon street, extending from Freeman
Place to Bowdoin Street, a portion of which is now occupied by the Hotel
Bellevue, he purchased this property in 1721, and died, seized of it. In
1756 it was conveyed by John Erving (see p. 298) to James Bowdoin.
John Barnes died early in 1739 at Clemente Bar, St. Mary Co., Maryland.
His wife died in 1742 in Boston.
Among their children was Elizabeth, who married Nathaniel Coffin the
Cashire (see p. 234). Among their distinguished children were General
John Coffin and Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, of the British Navy.
Catherine, another daughter, born in 1715, married Colonel Thomas
Goldthwaite (see p. 356). She was his second wife, and died at
Walthamstow, England, 1796, aged 81.
HENRY BARNES. The subject of this memoir was baptized Nov. 20, 1723. He
was brought up in his father's business, and established himself as a
merchant in Marlborough, Mass., in 1753, and was appointed magistrate.
He was possessed of considerable property, and was one of the largest
tax payers in the town, and was the owner of several slaves, one of whom
"Daphne," he left in Marlborough, and she was supported out of his
estate.
Henry Barnes was thoroughly loyal, and for that reason he was probably
the best hated man in Marlborough. A late town history says Marlborough
was cursed by a Loyalist named Henry Barnes.
Towards the close of February, 1775, General Gage ordered Captain Brown
and Ensign D'Bernicre to go through the Counties of Suffolk and
Worcester, and to sketch the roads as they went, for his information, as
he expected to march troops through that country the ensuing spring.
Their adventures after their departure for Marlborough, are related by
one of them as follows:
"At two o'clock it ceased snowing a little, and we resolved to set off
for Marlborough, which was about sixteen miles off. We found the roads
very bad, every step up to our ancles; we passed through Sudbury, a
large village near a mile long; the causeway lies over a great swamp, or
overflowing of Sudbury river, and is commanded by a high ground on the
opposite side. Nobody took the least notice of us, till we arrived
within three miles of Marlborough, (it was snowing very hard all the
while,) when a horseman overtook us, and asked us from whence we
came--we said from Weston; he asked us if we lived there--we said no; he
then asked where we resided, and, as we found there was no evading his
questions, we told him we lived in Boston. He then asked us where we
were going: we told him to Marlborough, to see a friend; (as we intended
to go to Mr. Barnes's, a gentleman to whom we were recommended, and a
friend to the Government;) he then asked us, if we were of the army; we
said no, but were a good deal alarmed at his asking us that question; he
asked several rather impertinent questions, and then rode on for
Marlborough, as we suppose, to give them intelligence of our coming--for
on our arrival the people came out of their houses (though it snowed and
blew very hard) to look at us; in particular, a baker asked Capt. Brown,
'Where are you going, Master?' He answered, 'To see Mr. Barnes.'[237]
[237] The horseman that met them was Col. Timothy Bigelow, of the
Committee of Safety.
"We proceeded to Barnes's, and on our beginning to make an apology for
taking the liberty to make use of his house, and discovering to him that
we were officers in disguise, he told us that we need not be at the
pains of telling him, that he knew our situation, that we were very well
known, he was afraid, by the town's people. We begged he would recommend
some tavern where we should be safe; he told us we would be safe no
where but in his house; that the town was very violent, and that we had
been expected at Col. Williams's tavern, the night before, where there
had gone a party of liberty people to meet us. While we were talking,
the people were gathering in little groups in every part of the town
(village).
"Mr. Barnes asked us who had spoken to us on our coming into town; we
told him a baker; he seemed a little startled at that, told us that he
was a very mischievous fellow, and that there was a deserter at his
house. Capt. Brown asked the man's name; he said it was Sawin, and that
he had been a drummer. Brown knew him too well, as he was a man of his
own Company, and had not been gone above a month; so we found we were
discovered. We asked Mr. Barnes, if they did get us into their hands
what they would do with us; he did not seem to like to answer; we asked
him again; he then said, he knew the people very well, that we might
expect the worst treatment from them.
"Immediately after this, Mr. Barnes was called out; he returned a little
after, and told us the Doctor of the town had come to tell him, he was
come to sup with him, (now this fellow had not been within Mr. Barnes's
doors for two years before, and came now for no other business than to
see and betray us). Barnes told him he had company, and could not have
the pleasure of attending him that night; at this the fellow staid about
the house, and asked one of Mr. Barnes's children, who her father had
got with him; the child innocently answered, that she had asked her
papa, but he told her it was not her business; he then went, I suppose,
to tell the rest of his crew.
"When we found we were in that situation, we resolved to lie down for
two or three hours, and set off at twelve o'clock at night; so we got
some supper on the table, and were just beginning to eat, when Mr.
Barnes, who had been making inquiries of his servant, found the people
intended to attack us; he then told us plainly, that he was very uneasy
for us, that we could be no longer in safety in the town; upon which we
resolved to set off immediately, and asked Mr. Barnes if there was no
road round the town, so that we might not be seen. He took us out of his
house by the stable, and directed us by a by-road which was to lead us a
quarter of a mile from the town; it snowed and blew as much as I ever
saw in my life. However, we walked pretty fast, fearing we should be
pursued; at first we felt much fatigued, having not been more than
twenty minutes at Barnes's to refresh ourselves, and the roads were
worse, if possible, than when we came; but in a little time it wore off,
and we got on without being pursued, as far as the hills which command
the causeway at Sudbury, and went into a little wood, where we eat a bit
of bread that we took from Barnes's, and eat a little snow to wash it
down.
"A few days after our return, Mr. Barnes came to town from Marlborough,
and told us that immediately after our quitting town, the Committee of
Correspondence came to his house, and demanded us; he told them we were
gone; they then searched his house from top to bottom, looking under the
beds and in the cellar, and when they found we were gone, they told him,
if they had caught us in his house, they would have pulled it down about
his ears. They sent horsemen after us on every road, but we had the
start of them, and the weather being so very bad, they did not overtake
us, or missed us. Barnes told them we were not officers, but relatives
of his wife's from Penobscot, and were going to Lancaster; that perhaps
deceived them."
In the House of Representatives, November, 1775, the "Petition of Henry
Knox[238] humbly showeth. That your petitioner having been obliged to
leave all his goods and home furniture in Boston, which he has no
prospect of ever getting possession of again, nor any equivalent for the
same, therefore begs the Honorable Court, if in their wisdom see fit, to
permit him to exchange house furniture, with Henry Barnes, late of
Marlborough, which he now has in his power to do." The prayer was
refused, but he was allowed to _use_ the Loyalist's goods, on giving
receipt to account for them to the proper authorities.
[238] Subsequently Chief of Artillery in the Revolutionary Army, and
Secretary at War under Washington.