"S'R,--Sheperdson's Stay being Longer than Expected Brings
me to the 5'th of July, and if you have not bought my
Glass According to the Demention per Cap't. Morris I Pray
you to have no regard to those, but the following viz.
"380 Squares of best London Crown Glass all Cutt Exactly 18
Inches Long & 11-1/2 Inches wide of a Suitable Thickness to
the Largness of the Glass free from Blisters and by all
means be Carefull it don't wind or worp.--
"100 Squares Ditto 12 Inches Long 8-1/2 wide of the Same
Goodness as above.
"Our Friend Tylers Son William Comes per This Conveyance, I
only add what Service's you doe him will Assuredly be
Retaliated By his Father, & will Oblidge S'r
"Your most Obedient Hum'e Serv't
"T. H."
The window-glass being fairly off his mind, Mr. Hancock next turns his
attention to the subject of wall-papers, on which head he comes out in
the most strong and even amazing manner. We doubt if the documentary
relics of the last century can show anything more truly _genre_ than the
following letter "To Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London," dated
"_Boston, N. E. Jan. 23'd. 1737-8._
"Sir,--Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a
Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have
Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for
my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for
me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of
the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room
Lately Come over here, & it takes much in y'e Town & will
be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion
may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get
mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it
more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there,
with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let
the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top &
Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would
have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks
Esq'r. had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much
handsomeer Sent over here for M'r Sam'l Waldon of this
place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he
or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts
of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of
Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers
&c, But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr.
Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same
hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have
two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer &
Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your
particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the
pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods.
Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Tho's. Pike of Pool[9] to pay
you £10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by
Sam'll Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have
also Crist'o Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esq'r. for £10
wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other
Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain S'r. Your
Assured Fr'd & Hum'e. Servt.
"T. H."
There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the
glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of
New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is
fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear
Kilby," dated
"22'd Mar. 1739-40.
"I Pray the favour of you to Enquire what a pr. of Capitolls
will Cost me to be Carved in London, of the Corinthian
Order, 16-1/2 Inches One Way and 9 y'e Other,--to be well
Done. Please to make my Compliments Acceptable to Mr. Wilks,
& believe me to be
"S'r.
"Your assu'd. Friend & very
"Hum'e. Sev't.
"T. H."
One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr.
Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by
his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where
all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an
elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties
necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so
bountiful a _cuisine_, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th,
1738, inclosing an order in these terms:--
"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,--Good works, with Iron Barrell,
a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it."
Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters,
certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on
the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not
without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable
admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a
postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,--"I Desire you also
to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a
letter to Captain Partington, master of one of his vessels, then in
Europe, he writes,--"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring
me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, &
Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of
those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost
Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter &
Rob't. Scott," as follows:--"I have the favour to ask of you, when
please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return
the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,--I don't Stand for any
Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in
Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my
own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he
orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6
Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fash'd wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers,
Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses,
12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby,
not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill."
There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which
takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate
and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no
doubt a most stately and learned lady,--she looks very splendid in her
royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of
Windsor; but can her pompous old _stylus_ bring back for us the
every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,--paint for us the
things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"--or show
us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times,
one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We
seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried
years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of
their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr.
Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the
earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to
the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers.
Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions
revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems
to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and
downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for
one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of
his time, and that is their _directness_. He is the very antipode to Don
Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he
draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to
his meaning by inferences,--_he comes to the point_. If he likes more
"Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,--if he
thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by
him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end.
----"He pours out all, as plain
As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne."
Perhaps the particular phase of change which the language itself was
going through at the time may assist in giving these letters, to us,
something of their air of genuine force and originality. But after
making due allowance for the freshness of a vocabulary as yet unimpeded
by any cumbrous burden of euphemism, we are still convinced that we must
recognize the source of much of the quality we have noted only in the
_naïve_ and outspoken nature of the writer. For, if ever there was a man
who knew just what he wanted and just how he wanted it, it was the T. H.
of the amusing correspondence before us.
Thus lived, for some quarter of a century more, this cheery and
prosperous gentleman, growing into a manly opulence, and enjoying to the
full the pleasant "seate of self-fruition" which he had so carefully set
up for himself on Beacon Hill. Not much addressing himself, indeed, to
"looking abroad into universality," as Bacon calls it, but rather
honestly and heartily "doing his duty in that state of life unto which
it had pleased God to call him." He filled various posts of honor and
dignity meanwhile,--always prominent, and even conspicuous, in the
public eye,--and was "one of His Majesty's Council" at the commencement
of the troubles which led to the War of the Revolution. The full
development of this mighty drama, however, Thomas Hancock did not live
to see. He died of an apoplexy, on the first day of August, 1764, about
three of the clock in the afternoon, having been seized about noon of
the same day, just as he was entering the Council Chamber. He was then
in the sixty-second year of his age. By his will he gave one thousand
pounds sterling for the founding of a professorship of the Oriental
languages in Harvard College, one thousand pounds lawful money to the
Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, six hundred pounds
to the town of Boston, towards an Insane Hospital, and two hundred
pounds to the Society for carrying on the Linen Manufactory,--an
enterprise from which much appears, just then, to have been expected.
His property was valued, after his decease, at about eighty thousand
pounds sterling,--a very much larger sum for that time than its precise
money equivalent would represent at the present day. Having no issue of
his own, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John,--a gentleman
who, without a tithe of the nerve and pith and vigor of this our Thomas,
has yet happened, from the circumstances of the time in which he bore up
the family-fortunes, to have acquired a much more distinguished name and
filled a much larger space in the tablets of History than has ever
fallen to the share of his stout old uncle.
The Hancock estate, as we have been accustomed to see it of late years,
is greatly reduced from its original dimensions, and shorn of much of
its ancient glory.[10] The property, in Mr. Thomas Hancock's time,
extended on the east to the bend in Mount Vernon Street, including, of
course, the whole of the grounds now occupied by the State
House,[11]--on the west to Joy Street, called Hancock Street on the
ancient plan of the estate now before us,--and in the rear about to what
is now Derne Street, on the north side of Beacon Hill, and comprising on
that side all the land through which Mount Vernon Street now runs, for
the whole distance from Joy Street to Beacon-Hill Place. Thus was
included a large part, too, of the site of the present reservoir on
Derne Street, a portion of which, being the last of the estate sold up
to the present year, was purchased by the city from the late John
Hancock, Esq., some ten or twelve years ago. The two large wings of the
house--the one on the east side containing an elegant ball-room, and
that on the west side comprising the kitchen and other domestic
offices--have long ago disappeared. The centre of the mansion, however,
remains nearly intact, and with its antique furniture, stately old
pictures, and the quaint, but comfortable appointments of the past
century, still suffices to bring up to the mind of the visitor the most
vivid and interesting reminiscences both of our Colonial and
Revolutionary history.
The central and principal portion of the house, which remains entire, is
a very perfect and interesting specimen of the stateliest kind of our
provincial domestic architecture of the last century. There are several
other houses of a similar design still standing in the more important
sea-port towns of New England. The West House, on Essex Street, in
Salem, has but lately disappeared; but another in that neighborhood, the
Collins House in Danvers, (now the property of Mr. F. Peabody, of
Salem,) the Dalton House, on State Street, Newburyport, the Langdon
House, (now the residence of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burroughs,) in
Portsmouth, N. H., and the Gilman House, in Exeter, N. H., removed, not
long since, to make way for the new Town Hall, were all almost identical
with this in the leading features of their design. A broad front-door
opening from a handsome flight of stone steps, and garnished with
pillars and a highly ornamental door-head, a central window, also
somewhat ornamented, over it, and four other windows in each story, two
being on either side of the centre, a main roof-cornice enriched with
carved modillions, a high and double-pitched or "gambrel" roof with bold
projecting dormer-windows rising out of it, and a carved balcony-railing
inclosing the upper or flatter portion of the roof, are features common
to them all. The details of the Hancock House are all classical and
correct; they were doubtless executed by the master-builder of the day
with a scrupulous fidelity of adherence to the plates of some such work
as "Ware's Compleat Body of Architecture," or "Swan's Architect,"--books
of high repute and rare value at the time, and contemporary copies of
which are still sometimes to be found in ancient garrets. There is a
very perfect specimen of the former in the Athenæum Library, and another
at Cambridge, while of the latter an excellent copy is in the possession
of the writer,--and it is not difficult to trace, in the soiled and
well-thumbed condition of some of the plates, evidences of the bygone
popularity of some peculiarly apposite or useful design.
The material of the walls is of squared and well-hammered granite
ashlar,--probably obtained by splitting up boulders lying on the surface
of the ground only, above the now extensive quarries in the town of
Quincy. We incline to this conjecture, because it bears an exact
resemblance to the stone of the King's Chapel, built in 1753, and which
is known to have been obtained in that way. In fact, the wardens and
vestry of the Chapel, in their report on the completion of the
building, congratulated themselves that they had had such good success
in getting all the stone they needed for that building, as it was
exceedingly doubtful, they remarked, whether the whole country could be
made to furnish stone for another structure of equal extent.
The interior of the house is quite in keeping with the promise of its
exterior. The dimensions of the plan are fifty-six feet front by
thirty-eight feet in depth. A nobly panelled hall, containing a broad
staircase with carved and twisted balusters, divides the house in the
centre, and extends completely through on both stories from front to
rear. On the landing, somewhat more than half-way up the staircase, is a
circular headed window looking into the garden, and fitted with
deep-panelled shutters, and with a broad and capacious window-seat, on
which the active merchant of 1740 doubtless often sat down to cool
himself in the draught, after some particularly vexatious morning's work
with poor Glin's "Plumb Trees and Hollys." On this landing, too, stood
formerly a famous eight-day clock, which has now disappeared, no one
knows whither. But the order for its purchase is before us in the old
letter-book, and will serve to give a very graphic idea of its unusual
attractions. The order is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Wilks, and bears
date December 20th, 1738. As the safe reception of the time-piece is
acknowledged in a subsequent letter, there can be little doubt as to its
identity.
"I Desire the favour of you to procure for me & Send with my
Spring Goods, a Handsome Chiming Clock of the newest
fashion,--the work neat & Good, with a Good black Walnutt
Tree Case, Veneer'd work, with Dark, lively branches,--on
the Top insteed of Balls let be three handsome Carv'd
figures, Gilt with burnished Gold. I'd have the Case without
the figures to be 10 foot Long, the price 15 not to Exceed
20 Guineas, and as it's for my own use I beg your particular
Care in buying of it at the Cheapest Rate. I'm advised to
apply to one Mr. Marmaduke Storr at the foot of Lond'n
Bridge, but as you are best Judge I leave it to you to
purchase it where you think proper,--wh. being the needfull,
Concludes
"Sir Your &c. T. H."
On the right of the hall, as you enter, is the fine old drawing-room,
seventeen by twenty-five feet, also elaborately finished in moulded
panels from floor to ceiling. In this room the founder of the Hancock
name, as a man of note, and a merchant of established consequence, must
often have received the Shirleys, the Olivers, the Pownalls, and the
Hutchinsons of King George's colonial court; and here, too, some years
later, his stately nephew John dispensed his elegant hospitalities to
that serene Virginian, Mr. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the
Army of the Revolution, and to the ardent young French Marquis who
accompanied him. The room itself, hung with portraits from the honest,
if not flattering hand of Smibert, and the more courtly and elegant
pencil of Copley, still seems to bear witness in its very walls to the
reality of such bygone scenes. We enter the close front-gate from the
sunny and bustling promenade of Beacon Street, pass up the worn and gray
terrace of the steps, and in a moment more closes behind us the door
that seems to shut us out from the whirl and turmoil and strife of the
present, and, almost mysteriously, to transport us to the grave shadows
and the dignified silence of the past of American history.
Over the chimney-piece, in this room, hangs the portrait of John
Hancock, by Copley,--masterly in drawing, and most characteristic in its
expression. It was painted apparently about ten or twelve years earlier
than the larger portrait in Faneuil Hall,--an excellent copy of which
latter picture, but by another hand, occupies the centre of the wall at
the end of the room opposite the windows. But by far the most
interesting works of this great artist are the two pictures on the long
side of the room opposite the chimney,--the portraits of Thomas Hancock
and his handsome wife Lydia Henchman, done in colored crayons or
_pastel_, and which still retain every whit of their original freshness.
These two pictures are believed to be unique specimens of their kind
from the hand of Copley,--and equally curious are the miniature copies
of them by himself, done in oil-color, and which hang in little oval
frames over the mantel. That of the lady, in particular, is exquisitely
lifelike and easy. On the same long side of the room with the pastel
drawings are the portraits of Thomas Hancock's father and mother,--the
minister of Lexington and his dignified-looking wife,--by Smibert. In
one of the letters to "Dear Kilby," of which we have already made
mention in this article, there is an allusion to this portrait of his
father which shows in what high estimation it was always held by Mr.
Hancock. "My Wife & I are Drinking your health this morning, 8 o' the
Clock, in a Dish of Coffee and under the Shade of your Picture which I
Rec'd not long Since of Mr. Smibert, in which am much Delighted, & have
Suited it with a Frame of the fashion of my other Pictures, & fix'd it
at the Right hand of all, in the Keeping-room. Every body that Sees it
thinks it to be Exceedingly Like you, as it really is. I am of Opinion
it's as Good a Piece as Mr. Smibert has done, and full as Like you as my
Father's is Like him, which all mankind allows to be a Compleat
Picture." It is to be regretted that the picture of Kilby has now
disappeared from this collection. We have called the pastel portraits of
Thomas Hancock and his wife unique specimens; we should add this
qualification, however, that there is a _copy_ of the former in this
room,--also by Copley, but differing in the costume, and perhaps even
more carefully finished than the one already mentioned.
The chamber overhead, too, has echoed, in days long gone by, to the
footstep of many an illustrious guest. Washington never slept here,
though it is believed that he has several times been a temporary
occupant of the room; but Lafayette often lodged in this apartment,
while a visitor to John Hancock, during his earlier stay in America.
Here Lord Percy--the same
"who, when a younger son,
Fought for King George at Lexington,
A Major of Dragoons"--
made himself as comfortable as he might, while "cooped up in Boston and
panting for an airing," through all the memorable siege of the town. It
was from the windows of this chamber, on the morning of the 5th of
March, 1776, that the officers[12] on the staff of Sir William Howe
first beheld, through Thomas Hancock's old telescope, the intrenchments
which had been thrown up the night before on the frozen ground of
Dorchester Heights,--works of such a character and location as to
satisfy them that thenceforth "neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax could
afford them worse shelter than Boston." And here, too, years after the
advent of more peaceful times, the stately old Governor, racked with
gout, and "swathed in flannel from head to foot," departed this life on
the night of the 8th of October, 1793. As President of the Continental
Congress of 1776, he left a name everywhere recognized as a household
word among us; while his noble sign-manual to the document of gravest
import in all our annals--that wonderful signature, so bold, defiant,
and decided in its every line and curve--has become, almost of itself,
his passport to the remembrance and his warrant to the admiration of
posterity.