The Story of the Old Boston Town House, 1658-1711
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Class _£ /""u> Book _^-^ GopNiight N'? ^^^1 ^ COPi'RIClIT DEPOSIT. The Story of the Old Boston Town House , i ir iir iii jbe t l Tir flH ,. - i M * , — "^ H HIM H The Story of the Old Boston Town House 1658-1711 BY JOSIAH HENRY BENTON, ll.d. AND DESCENDANTS' AUTHOR OF "SAJIUEL SLADE BENTON : HIS ANCESTORS "A NOTABLE LIBEL CASE," "EARLY CENSUS-MAKING IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1643-1765," &C. With Portraits and Illustrations BOSTON Privately Printed 1908 »»^- »» 5Mmm lllLl» ^— «» » »— COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY J. H. BENTON Copies [ 350 Printed ] LIBRARY of oor;ar:£SS Tv/fcCoyies ncCDived JaN 9 1909 «. Ciipyriei-u Er'.rrv _ COPY t- D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON 1 Contents PAGE INTRODUCTION ix CONDITIONS IN TOWN AND COLONY BEFORE THE TOWN HOUSE WAS BUILT 3 ORIGIN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE TOWN HOUSE 49 COLONY AND TOWN USES OF THE TOWN HOUSE 69 SHOPS UNDER AND ABOUT THE TOWN HOUSE 81 REPAIR OF THE TOWN HOUSE 89 GENERAL USES WHICH WERE MADE OF THE TOWN HOUSE 93 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE BY THE TOWN OF BOSTON 97 THE TOWN HOUSE AS THE PLACE OF POSTING NO- TICES AND PUBLISHING LAWS 107 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE AS THE PLACE OF PUBLIC RECORDS 1 1 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE FOR A PUBLIC LIBRARY 119 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE AS A PLACE OF WORSHIP 127 THE USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE BY THE COLONY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE ORIGINAL CHAR- TER, 1659-1686 145 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE BY THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT, I686-I689 173 USE OF THE TOWN HOUSE BY THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, I686-I692; AND BY THE PROVIN- CIAL GOVERNMENT UNDER THE PROVINCE CHARTER, 1692-1711 183 Contents DESTRUCTION OF THE TOWN HOUSE 201 APPENDIX 3* REFERENCE TABLES 19* AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 21* INDEX 29* List of Illustrations Facing page BOSTON TOWN HOUSE 3 Drawnfrom a Description in the Building Contract BOSTON TOWN HOUSE AND LOCALITY 71 View looking up State Street Drawnfrom a Description in the Building Contract PLAN OF BOSTON TOWN HOUSE 78 Drawnfrom a Description in the Building Contract SIMON BRADSTREET 94 From a painting in the State House, Boston INCREASE MATHER 101 From a painting hy John Vanderspriet in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston Sir EDMUND ANDROS 112 From a painting in the possession of W.F.Andros, Esq., of London JOHN ENDICOTT 154 From a painting in the State House, Boston SAMUEL SEWALL 170 From a painting hy John Smihert in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston JOSEPH DUDLEY 196 From a painting in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston "BURNINGS BEWAILED," by Increase Mather 207 (1711) Reproduction of Title-pagefrom the copy in the Boston Public Library "ADVICE FROM TABERAH," by Cotton Mather 211 (1711) Reproduction of Title-page from the copy in the Boston Public Library Introduction THE first important building for secular pur- poses in New England was the Boston Town House, built in 1658, at the head of State Street, where the present Old State House now stands. This Town House was destroyed in the great fire of 1711. The interest which properly attaches to the his- tory of the present building, constructed the year after the fire, has obscured the more important history of the original building. It may therefore be of value to those who love the memory of the olden time, when civil government in New England was getting under way, to give the story of the ancient edifice, which was for so long the centre of the civil and pohtical life of the town and colony, and to review some of the events which occurred in it and about it. No building in America has a history more interest- ing or instructive to the student of free government than the Boston Town House. Within its wooden walls American independence was born. It was the cradle of representative government in the New World, and a separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers was developed by the contests waged in and about it. Here freedom of religious worship was first recognized in Massachusetts, and freedom of speech and of the press, though at first denied, finally prevailed. The Bos- ton Town House was the seat of government of the Colony under the original Colony Charter, from 1659 to 1684; of the government of the "Province of New England" under the royal authority, from 1684 until [ix] ; Introduction 1689 ; of the government by the people, under the name of the "Council of Safety and Conservation of the Peace," from 1689 until the establishment of the "Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," under the Royal Charter of 1691, and then under this Charter until 1711. The accomplished Bellingham, the bigoted Endicott, the passionate Phips, the brave and popular Leverett, the wise and conservative Brad- street, the tyrannical Andros, the amiable Bellomont, and the crafty and selfish Dudley, all sat as governors in the council chamber of the Town House. It was here that Andros was proclaimed " Governor of New England" in 1686, and here he concentrated all execu- tive, legislative, and judicial power in his own hands for nearly three years, until his arbitrary rule was broken by the revolt of the people and he was driven from the Colony, never to return. Here Dudley disgraced the judicial ermine as chief justice, and when the colo- nists claimed their rights under Magna Charta told them they must not expect the laws of England would follow them to the ends of the earth. Here, upon the uprising of the people in 1689, Dudley was brought and guarded by armed men until he was imprisoned in the castle to protect him from the fury of the people and here, in 1702, by a strange turn of fortune, he again came into power and was proclaimed as "President of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Main, and the Nar- ragansett country, or King's Province." The Town House was for more than half a century the centre of the public affairs of the town and of the Colony. The laws of the Colony were there published, [x] Introduction and the regulations of the town were there posted. Dis- tances were measured from it, and those liable to mili- tary duty were summoned to assemble at it. Public meetings of humiliation and prayer and festivities were held in it. It was illuminated and decorated for victories, and darkened and draped for defeat. It was here that royal proclamations were read, and here the people met to protest against the tyranny of the royal governors and the oppression of the Crown. The stocks, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows stood close by, and the sentences pronounced by the courts within the Town House were executed under its walls. In this building the pulse of the people beat, and it became saturated and vibrant with the spirit of the time. Its story is the story of what was done in and about it, — the story of the time, — and is best told in the language of the records of the time. No modern phrases can bring to our minds the conditions of that olden time as effectively as the quaint and simple lan- guage of the records which were then written. The most important of these are the records of the select- men and of the meetings of the inhabitants of the town, and the records of the General Court and other courts of the Colony. During the period from 1674 until 1711 these are supplemented by the inimitable diary of the New England Pepys, Samuel Sewall. The process by which the people of Boston and of the Colony, having in the beginning no written laws and no established rules of conduct and of govern- ment, slowly created day by day and year by year, as the necessities of their conditions required, an orderly [xi] Introduction and efficient town and colony government is a most interesting social and political study. For such a study, the story of the Old Boston Town House makes an ex- cellent nucleus. Some of the details of its construction and uses may perhaps seem uninteresting ; but as they have historical value, they have been given place here. The location of the streets and of the houses of the pro- minent citizens, the market, the church, the jail, the meeting-places for the various official bodies, the cus- toms of the colony in respect to trade, to the punish- ment of crime, to education, and to the worship of God are all to be found in the records of those early years. The Story of the Old Boston Town House "The Puritan can well afford to be painted as he was." H. W. FoOTE Conditions in Town and Colony before the Town House was Built WHEN, in 1630, the first settlers of Boston came from Charlestown across the Mystic River to the peninsula then known as " Tri- mountain," most of them settled in the territory now included within Milk, Bromfield, Tremont and Han- over streets and the sea. The two principal streets were those now known as State Street and Washing- ton Street. State Street was called indifferently "the Water Street," "the INIarket Street," or "the Great Street;" it began at the sea, at about the present lo- cation of Exchange Street, and ran to Washington Street, then called "the Corn-Hill," "the High Street," or "the Road to Roxbury." Extending west from the Corn-Hill, at the head of the Great Street, was Prison Lane, twelve feet wide, leading to the prison where the Old Court House in Court Square now stands.