FRONTISPIECE. “COLONEL THOMAS DAWES” attributed to Gilbert Stuart, c. 1806.(Private collection.) ii OLD-TIME NEW ENGLAND A Quarterly Magazine Devoted to the Ancient Buildings, Household Furnishings, Domestic Arts, Manners and Customs, and Minor Antiquities oj ’ the New England People BULLETINOF THE !&IETY FORTHE PRESERVATIONOF NEW ENGLANDANTIQUITIES Vol. LXVIII, Nos. l-2 Summer-Fall 1977 Serial Nos. 249-250 Thomas Dawes: Boston’s Patriot Architect’ FREDERIC C. DETWILLER* ne of Boston’s most prominent professionalability in his capacitiesboth as leaders of the Revolution and the a legislator and a principal agent in the 0 Federal Era was Thomas Dawes construction of several Boston area land- (1731-1809), eminent patriot architect. Al- marks of the period. These two aspectsof though little recognized today for his sig- Dawes’s career must be considered to- nificant role in influencing the course of gether in any study of his life, as a signifi- both our political and our architectural his- cant portion of his architectural work was tory, Dawes was well known in his own undertaken, and much of our knowledge of time. A “high patriot,” Col. Thomas it gained, as a result of his political activi- Dawes actively served the public interest in ties. The importance of his combined polit- the military; in numerous town offices; and ical and architectural achievements is best in state governments as representative, summarized by the Rev. Joseph Eckley in senator, councillor, and for a brief period his eulogy delivered at the Old South Meet- as acting governor. His son, Thomas ing House of which Dawes was Senior Dawes, Jr., actually the third by that name, Deacon when he died in 1809: became a Judge of the Supreme Court of But few personshave been brought into Massachusettsg Early in his career as a more public view, and for a long course of builder, Dawes was considereda “mason” time sustaineda greater variety of offkes, by trade. It is clear, however, that he was than our late respectedBrother. capable of architectural draftsmanship by As a native of Boston, he discovereda very earnestattachment to its interest, and the age of twenty, and was referred to as “architect” in 1790.8 Much of Thomas Dawes’s work as a *Frederic C. Detwiller is an architectural histo- mason-architect was done for town and rian in the Consulting Services Department of the S.P.N.E.A. He attendedColumbii Univer- state governments, as well as other institu- sity School of Architectures’ program in Resto- tions and prominent individuals associated ration and Preservation of Historic Architec- with them. He was highly regarded for his ture. 1 Old-Time New England at an early seasonof life, bent in his mind, majority and may have influenced him from among other things, to the desire of its an early age. Dawes probably obtained exterior improvement. From the caging some of these volumes later in life, particu- which he pursued,and in which he actedas a principal, he greatly amendedthe style of larly Campbell’s work. However, by age architecture;and there is now a considera- twenty he had acquired his Builder’s ble number of private, as well as some Dictionary, which found its way into the public editices in this town and in the collection of Charles Bulfmch and is in- vicinity, indebted for their conveniency and beauty to his skill: The American scribed ‘Thomas Dawes. Jun., 1751.“6 We Academy of Arts and Sciences was sense from comparison with Dawes’s well justified in making him one of its known commissions that he apparently fa- members4 vored his Gibbs Book of Architecture and Salmon’s Palladio Londoniensis, though in Certainly a man of his eminence deserves his own portrait, painted by Gilbert Stuart recognition, and a study of Dawes’s life in 1806, he is shown holding “Palladio” reveals that his architecture and his politics (Frontispiece). were closely interrelated. In order to fully Certainly Dawes had acquired “a per- understand the nature of his buildings, fectly respectable drafting ability” by the therefore, we must delve as well into his age of twenty-one as suggested by a re- background and peripheral activities-all cently discovered 1751 architectural en- of which bear upon the current focus of this graving of the Old State House (rebuilt in discussion, Dawes’s domestic buildings. 1748) inscribed “T. Dawes, Jun. del.“’ In Thomas Dawes’s family, the trade of How Dawes arrived at this level of ability building was in a sense inherited since he before the age of twenty-one years is uncer- was in the fifth generation of an American tain, for aside from the knowledge of his clan consisting of masons, painters, and books, we must rely upon somewhat cir- housewrights, all descending from his cumstantial evidence regarding his early seventeenth-century immigrant ancestor, training-in both building and design. mason William Dawes.5 As a youth, Dawes Nevertheless, we know from Dawes’s own (known as Thomas, Junior, until the death account that Dawes worked with promi- of his father) may well have been exposed nent and influential members of his profes- to architectural design and pattern books sion in the fields of both architecture and belonging to his forebearsor contemporary government from the beginning. family members. His own well equipped For our knowledge of Dawes’s earliest architectural library, a significant portion work in building construction on the of which survives at the Boston Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury (c. 1746- Athenaeum, contains several important 47), we are indebted to a nineteenth- early works. Among these are Andrea Pal- century writer who recalls that: ladio’s First Book of Architecture (trans. Godfrey Richards, 6th ed.), published in The house of Dr. Eustis was an elegant 1700, The Builder’s Dictionary and Ar- one. It was built by Governor Shirley, as Col. Dawes, The Judges’ father, and who chitect’s Companion (1734), JamesGibbs ’s was one of Governor Hancocks’ Council- Book of Archifecrure (1739), William Sal- ion toldme, for‘ ,’ saidhe, I‘ was oneofthe mon’s Palladia Londoniensis or The Lon- masonsthat helpedto build it; and you wilJ don Art of Building (1748), and finally, seeif yougo into the stonebasement story, a haU or entry running through its centre, Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus (5 kitchensand other necessaryoffices on vols, 1715-71). Many of these were pub one side, and the servants’ rooms on the lished before Dawes had reached the age of other . There was an extensivelawn in Thomas Dawes: Bostons’ Patriot Architect FORMERLYUSEDAS A PRISONFORTITUS YES, ENTRANCETO BASEMENTHALL BASEMENT1819-21-1855 THE SHIRLEY-EUSTISHOUSE DUDLEYSTREET FRONT FIG. I. BASEMENT FLOOR PLAN OF THE SHIRLEY-EUSTIS HOUSE BEFORE 1867. Original drawn by Miss A. L. Blaisdellfrom memory and notesin 1922.(SPNEA Archives: re-drawn from the originalby the author.) front of the house,and the whole estab- Changes were also made in the exterior of lishmentmade then, as it doesnow, a most the house, reportedly at the time of its respectable appearance, suitable for a ownership by Governor Eustis (b. 1753, d. mansionof a govemor.‘s 1825). We may get an accurate picture of Thomas Dawes’s work on this house, the house as it originally appeared, how- with its designattributed to Peter Harrison, ever, by combining our knowledge of the the well-known architect of Newport, R.I., surviving building with that provided by undoubtedly made a great impression on the Reverend Ezra Stiles of Yale, who the young mason.9 Dawes’s description of sketched “Gov. Shirley’s seat” in 1763 the basement plan of Governor Shirley’s (Figs. 2 and 3). As shown in the recon- house lends credence to the layout of this structed elevation based on the Stiles floor as shown in a sketch by Miss A. L. sketch, the househad a monumental facade Blaisdell in the SPNEA Collection (Fig. 1). with its “Front rustic, with Double Doric Her plan details this area at the time of Pilasters,” and a full Doric entablature Madam Caroline Eustis (b. 1781, d. 1865), similar to that on Peter Harrison’s Christ prior to the moving of the house thirty feet Church in Cambridge (1759). With its im- from its original location and consequent posing entrance, heavy quoins and unusual loss of the basement story in 1867.1° fenestration, the Governor’s house would Old-Time New England FIG. 2. “GOV. SHIRLEY’S SEAT AT DORCHESTER” from Ezra Stiles Itineraries, Vol. I, page 123.(Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.) FIG. 3. FRONT ELEVATION OF THE SHIRLEY- EUSTIS HOUSE BEFORE REMODELLING. Based on measureddrawings by Bastille-Neiley, Architects, and other surviving evidence. (Drawing by the author.) Thomas Dawes: Boston’s Patriot Architect 5 greatly influence Dawes. His work with the in the attic of Dawes’s house.13 provincial governor served as an antece- Another contemporary description pub- dent to a future endeavor. He also worked lished about 1766 was written by Samuel on the Governor’s Province House in 1755 Waterhouse, a notorious tory and obvious and later collaborated with Gov. Francis enemy of Thomas Dawes. The thinly- Bernard, “a very ingenious architect,” on disguisedtract entitled Proposalsfor Print- the reconstruction of Harvard Hall after its ing by Subscriptionthe History of Adjutant destruction by fiie in 1764.” Trowel [Thomas Dawes] and Bluster One of the most intriguing of Thomas [James Otis] corroborates Adams’s de- Dawes’s early works is undoubtedly his scription and adds further insight into own house, and we are indebted to his Dawes’s peripheral affairs. Waterhouse military and political activities, his intimate suggeststhat his history: “BEGINS WITH friends, and his arch enemies for our rather ADJUTANT TROWEL’S military charac- limited knowledge of this important struc- ter..