Читать книгу The Handy Boston Answer Book - Samuel Willard Crompton - Страница 17

How important was the charter of 1629 issued by King Charles I?

To Bostonians, and their country cousins, the charter of 1629 was the single most important document of the time, perhaps even the century. Signed by King Charles I, the charter was granted to the “governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay,” an expression that outlived the document itself. Because King Charles did not anticipate the rapid growth of Boston or Massachusetts, he granted a rather liberal charter, which practically allowed for self-government, just so long as the laws of the Great and General Court did not conflict with those of the English motherland. To Bostonians, the charter of 1629 was the fount of their liberties.

Bostonians tended to assume that the charter would always remain in existence, that they would remain forever protected from the laws and regulations of the motherland. But in the early 1680s, one sign after another pointed in the opposite direction. King Charles II—best known as the Merry Monarch—had indeed been indulgent toward Boston and New England, but the tone of his government changed over time. In 1683 Boston was served with a summons, either to submit to the king’s mercy, legally speaking, or to send attorneys to defend her in London law courts.

The Old North Church of Paul Revere fame, seen from the narrow confines of Hull Street in the Old North End.

How did Bostonians respond to the summons issued by King Charles II?

To the best of our knowledge, Bostonians were more willing to submit than were their country cousins. Men from the towns of the hinterland proved keener to resist royal authority. Perhaps Bostonians were more conscious of the threat that might be posed by the Royal Navy.

That the Old North Church was prominent in the Revolution of 1775 is well known. What about its role in the 1680s?

Reverend Increase Mather was pastor of the Old North Church (he was simultaneously president of Harvard College). In 1688 Reverend Mather snuck out of town in disguise to escape the watchful eye of the English customs agent, Edward Randolph. Upon arriving in London, Mather importuned the king and queen to grant a new charter to Massachusetts. Upon his return in 1692, Reverend Mather was hailed as the foremost defender of Boston’s liberties.

What does Sam Sewall tell us about the charter controversy?

To Sewall and other devout Puritans, loss of the Massachusetts Bay charter was akin to spiritual death. In 1684 lawyers of King Charles II revoked the charter, and in 1686, King James II sent a new royal governor, armed with a powerful commission to reshape Boston, Massachusetts, and, indeed, all of New England.

Sir Edmund Andros came ashore on December 21, 1686, bringing with him roughly sixty British soldiers (these were the first redcoats seen in Boston). Sewall was in front of the Town House (right about where Faneuil Hall stands today) when the new commission was read aloud, and it seemed to him that Massachusetts Bay was in its death throes. Over the next twelve months, Sir Edmund Andros abrogated many of the liberties of the people of Massachusetts, and even questioned the land titles of many of the early Puritans. Sam Sewall, who owned part of Hog Island (where Logan Airport stands today) had good reason for concern.

Was there any hope? Was there any hero who could perhaps change the situation?

Sam Sewall hoped that Sir William Phips (1651–1695) would be that man. Born on the coast of Maine, Phips came to Boston in his twenties, and rose in a spectacular fashion. In 1687, he found the wreck of a Spanish treasure galleon, and after bringing up thirty tons of silver, he sailed to London where he was knighted by a grateful King James II. If there was anyone with the special combination of brains and brawn to restore the Massa chusetts charter, it was Sir William.

Events moved faster than anyone anticipated, however. In November 1688, William and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Orange, crossed the English Channel from Holland and ejected her father, King James II, from the throne of England. When Bostonians learned that Old England had carried out its so-called Glorious Revolution, they resolved to accomplish something similar. The stage was set for Boston’s first revolution.

What was the Boston Revolt of 1689?

Whether one calls it a revolt or a coup, it took about nine hours. On April 18, 1689, Bostonians rose against the governor, Sir Edmund Andros. They knew that his sponsor, King James II, had been removed from the British throne, and it seemed a good bet that the new monarchs, King William and Queen Mary, would approve their action. Even so, it required some nerve to challenge the royal governor, who was backed by about one hundred redcoats and the HMS Rose, a frigate in Boston Harbor.

Amazingly, the entire episode transpired without the loss of a single life. Captain John George, the frigate commander, was arrested while ashore, and the HMS Rose yielded without a fight. Sir Edmund Andros hung on at Fort Hill—one of the three original hills of Shawmut Peninsula—till mid-afternoon; then he, too, surrendered. All of his counselors were in custody by the end of the day. Boston—and Massachusetts—proudly sent word to England that they had overthrown Sir Edmund and asked for reconfirmation of their old political charter.

How did William and Mary feel about Bostonians taking matters into their own hands in this fashion?

The king and queen never went on record. They left it to their high judges and counselors to sort out the matter. In the end, Sir Edmund and all his people were exonerated of the many charges against them, but none of them ever returned to Massachusetts in any positions of authority. Boston, and the Bay colony, had to wait while the king and queen made up their minds about the charter issue.

In the year that followed the revolution—or the one-day coup, as some call it—Bostonians were eager, even anxious, to demonstrate their loyalty to William and Mary. When they learned that England and Holland had gone to war with France, Bostonians decided to prove their loyalty by undertaking a military campaign in William and Mary’s honor. In May 1690, about seven hundred Boston militia—led by Sir William Phips—captured French Port Royal in present-day Nova Scotia. Emboldened by their success, the Bostonians planned an even greater effort, hoping to conquer Québec City.

One often hears of Nantasket, but it seldom appears on the maps. How close is it to Boston?

As the crow flies, Nantasket is less than a dozen miles from downtown Boston, but the curve, or arc of the land means it is twice that distance by land. One has to travel south into Dorchester, make a hard “left” or turn to the east to arrive at Nantasket Beach, which is almost four miles long. Nantasket is a quiet place today, but in the late nineteenth century it was the place to go swim, and scores of thousands of Bostonians went there on muggy days.

Nova Scotia is one thing, but the City of Québec is quite another. What on earth convinced the Bostonians they could pull off so grand a feat?

One has to remember that the Bostonians had never been shy. They viewed themselves as the “city on a hill,” there to show the rest of the world how to conduct itself. So in the summer of 1690 Boston collected thirty-two ships of various shapes and sizes and placed 2,200 men aboard. Sir William Phips commanded this, the greatest enterprise New England ever attempted, and the ships sailed from Nantasket on August 9, 1690.

When was the first American newspaper printed?

Publick Occurrences issued its first edition on September 25, 1690, while the soldiers were off in Canada. Printed by Benjamin Harris, the four-page newspaper was the first attempt ever made in North America. The opening words tell us something about the times, hinting at the idea that the political quarrels of our own time are nothing new: “That something may be done towards the curing, or at least the charming of that spirit of lying, which prevails among us.” The Puritan authorities did not like some of the language employed, however, and they stopped Harris from ever printing a second edition. Boston had to wait until 1704 to see its first continuing newspaper, the Boston Gazette.

What happened to the Bostonian expedition to Canada?

Around November 20, 1690, Sir William Phips (1651–1695) returned. The expedition had come close to success, almost within a hairsbreadth, but as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The Bostonians failed to conquer Québec City, and perhaps five hundred men were lost, from battle wounds and disease (smallpox struck especially hard on the return voyage). Four of the thirty-two vessels were lost. The Massachusetts General Court hurriedly printed paper currency, the first seen in North America, to pay the costs of the expedition.

Sir William Phips was the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, serving from 1692 to 1694.

Many people blamed Phips, but he did not seem downcast or dismayed. He quickly left Boston for London, where he somehow, almost miraculously, persuaded King William and Queen Mary that this expedition was but the first, and that with help from England, Boston would eventually succeed in conquering Canada. Equally amazing is that William and Mary named Phips royal governor. The king and queen did not restore the old charter—that of 1629. Instead, they drew up a new one, the Charter of 1691, under which Massachusetts was governed as a royal province rather than a semi-independent colony.

Phips seems like a one-of-a-kind fellow, a continual winner. Did he ever fall from grace?

He did indeed. When he and Reverend Increase Mather—leader of the very influential family of pastors and Harvard presidents—returned to Boston in 1692, they found the province in an uproar over the Salem Witch incidents. Phips was confounded by the accusations of witchcraft, and he left most of the decisions to a special court appointed to handle the matter. Sam Sewall was one of the judges that heard the cases, and in the end, sentenced twenty men and women to death.

Phips did not receive all the blame for the witchcraft outbreak, but he earned demerits for his high-handed manner. Phips ignored the Great and General Court, and he even got into two known fracases in downtown Boston. Once he used his cane to thump a royal official. It came as little surprise when William and Mary summoned him to London to defend against charges of misconduct. Phips sailed to London, apparently confident he would meet and beat the charges, but he died of a bad fever shortly after arriving in the English capital.

War, failure, expeditions, witchcraft … this sounds like a truly crazy time. Did Bostonians recognize it as such?

They did. Phips was an embarrassment to the more dignified Puritan leaders, and no one could sort out or explain the witchcraft episode (people continue to attempt to do so today). The war with French Canada did not go well, and numerous Massachusetts residents were captured and taken north, to be held for ransom. To top it all off, many Bostonians were displeased with the Charter of 1691, which, they asserted, did not provide them with the liberties they had previously enjoyed.

Could things get any worse? That is a natural question that emerges from this period. And the one way in which matters did get worse was the weather. The 1690s saw some of the coldest, most ferocious winters in all of Boston history. Many believe 1697 was the worst. Through this decade, which Reverend Cotton Mather labeled the “dol orous decade,” the economic recession continued. It was with little sadness that Bostonians witnessed the end of the seventeenth century, and Sam Sewall penned their sentiments in some of the most memorable words:

Once more! Our God, vouchsafe to shine

Tame thou the rigor of our clime.

Make haste with thy impartial light

And terminate this long dark night.

Did the beginning of the eighteenth century improve anything for Boston?

It did, but the improvements came rather slowly. One of the first and most noticeable changes came in 1705, when the streets received official names for the first time. From the famous map of Boston, drawn in 1722, we see that King Street, Province Street, and Long Wharf all have their proper names, and that the peninsula has taken on a more organized appearance. By then, Boston had a population of between eight and nine thousand folk.

Trade, too, made a strong comeback early in the eighteenth century. The foundation for quite a few fortunes was laid, with Bostonians trading lumber, horses, and mules (three of the favorite exports) for sugar, molasses, and rum. Of course, it’s important to say that slaves were also part of the bargain.

Do we know the street names of early Boston?

We know some of them, but a good number went unnamed (at least to our knowledge) until early in the eighteenth century. Tremont Street, which comes from “Trimountain,” for the three hills of Boston, was named as early as the 1630s, and King Street just a bit later. But we turn to the record book of Benjamin Franklin, the uncle of the famous printer, philosopher, and scientist, to obtain more knowledge. Around 1706, Franklin made a long list of the names that had been approved by the town’s selectmen. Among them were names that we might expect, such as Sun Street and Long Wharf, but also less-known names like Bridle Lane, Cow Path, and so forth, were given to various streets. These names lasted until the time of the American Revolution, when most were renamed in honor of heroes of that conflict.

One often hears about African Americans in the later, or subsequent, history of Boston. But how many of them lived in the early town?

Far more than we used to think. The town fathers were skilled at writing blacks out of the record, and referring to them, politely, as “servants” rather than slaves. A lot of research has been done in recent decades, however, and we believe blacks represented at least ten percent, perhaps as much as fifteen percent, of the total population of Boston. Of these people, less than three dozen were free (they show up in the records). The great majority were household slaves, owned by ministers, merchants, and magistrates.

How often do the African Americans of Boston show up in the newspapers?

Boston did not have its first permanent newspaper until 1704, but the town had many “broadsides,” or broadsheets, released to the public. One of the most telling, where African Americans are concerned, was the “Rules for the Society of Negroes,” printed in 1693. The document begins as follows:

“We the miserable children of Adam and of Noah, thankfully admiring and accepting the free-grace of God that offers to save us from our miseries, by the Lord Jesus Christ, freely resolve with his help, to become the servants of that Glorious Lord. And that we may be assisted in the service of our Heavenly Master, we now join together in a society, wherein the following rules are to be observed.” The rules suggest that control of the African American population may have been as important to the (presumably) white organizers as any religious impulse.

A detail of a 1635 map of Boston.

How can a place that is so proud of its antislavery past reconcile the fact that plenty of slaves once lived there?

That is one of the toughest questions for any Bostonian. The city, in the mid-nineteenth century, would do many fine things for the cause of abolition, but the Puritan town, in the early eighteenth century, floated partly on the labor of black slaves. Bostonians are proud, and they are quick to point out that the first anti-slavery pamphlet was printed by one of their own. Once more, Sam Sewall plays a leading role.

When he watched the court trial of Adam, a black slave of John Saffin, Sewall was moved to pen The Selling of Joseph, a pamphlet printed in Boston in 1700. Sewall did not come right out and say that slavery was evil, but he called for greater racial understanding and he certainly pointed in the direction of eventual emancipation.

How can one person—Sam Sewall—be involved in so many aspects of the life of one town?

Anyone that studies Sam Sewall’s life story comes away amazed by the variety of his activities. He was a member of the governor’s council, a judge at the Salem Witch Trials, a confidante of Governor Simon Bradstreet, a very successful man of business, a good husband, and father to fifteen children, many of whom did not make it to adulthood. A close examination of Sewall’s life suggests that Boston—with its eight or nine thousand people—may have been precisely the right size for someone like Sewall, who came to know most of the townspeople by sight and name. He was the first of the great Boston diarists, and though many others would later come, none of them would know the place as intimately as he did.

Was Boston involved in any more military campaigns against French Canada?

It was inevitable that Boston would play a leading role in Queen Anne’s War, which began in 1702. Soon after learning that war was declared between England and France, Bostonians learned that the little town of Deerfield in western Massachusetts was conquered and sacked, and that more than one hundred people were taken to Canada as captives. Governor Joseph Dudley played a major role in ransoming many of these captives, who were returned to Boston by ship. Upon arriving safely at Boston, Deerfield pastor Reverend John Williams gave an inspired sermon that later became the title of his best-selling book, The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion. Captivity narratives became one of the most popular of all publications in eighteenth-century Boston. Beyond this, however, Boston also became involved in a major attempt to conquer Québec City.

We sometimes hear of the Four American Kings and wonder who they were. Did they come to Boston?

In 1710 four Native American sachems—three of them Mohawk and one Mahican—came first to Boston and then to London, where they appeared before Queen Anne. These Indians went to ask the English queen to help in the reduction of Canada, which, they claimed, would benefit everyone involved. The immediate connection between the four sachems and Boston has to do with the military campaign of 1711, but it’s also possible—though not proven—that the popularity of the four “American Kings” was linked to the eventual use of Mohawk clothing at the Boston Tea Party.

Duly impressed by the chiefs, Queen Anne sent a major British task force, which arrived in Boston Harbor in July 1711. Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker already had five British regiments, but he took on nearly one thousand Massachusetts militiamen, and the entire fleet sailed for Canada. Seven of the ships came to grief on the shoals near the entrance of the St. Lawrence River, and nearly seven hundred men were drowned. Rather than continue, Admiral Walker called it quits. He sailed to England, where the final tragedy occurred when his flagship blew up in Portsmouth Harbor, shortly after arrival. Bostonians long remembered the disastrous summer of 1711, and it lowered their opinion of the British military.

Queen Anne was the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland at the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, which was sometimes referred to as Queen Anne’s War.

What were conditions like as Queen Anne’s War came to an end?

In 1712 Bostonians learned that the second of the so-called French and Indian Wars was over, and that England had gained title to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Bostonians, and their country cousins, did not see any immediate profit, or improvement in their lives, however, and there was some sourness in British-American relations. Queen Anne was, at least, a native-born English queen, and when she was succeeded by her German—and German-speaking—brother, King George I, many colonists wrote off the English motherland (at least privately).

Boston had plenty of issues and concerns of its own. In 1721 the town was visited by its third major epidemic of smallpox, and this one was much worse than the previous. More than a thousand Bostonians died of the disease, and many others picked up and left town, never to return. It was during this, the great smallpox epidemic of 1721, that Boston implemented its first attempts to control disease.

Is Boylston Street named for Dr. Boylston?

There have been so many Boylstons in the history of Boston that it is difficult to say, but one can argue that Boylston Street should be named for Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who undertook the first inoculations for smallpox. In 1722, Boylston joined forces with Reverend Cotton Mather. Together, they attempted to persuade Bostonians of all social classes to receive inoculation, which meant inserting some of the pus into a section of the forearm or shoulder. For his pains, Cotton Mather received a handmade bomb, or grenade, thrown through his window. The inoculations were a remarkable success, however; only one-fifth as many people who had the inoculation contracted smallpox, and those that did had a much greater chance of survival. Bostonians of this period were deeply conservative, and it took another two generations for inoculation to become the rule rather than the exception.

How did the Bostonians get around?

They used nearly all the devices and means we associate with that period: on foot, on horseback in carriages and wagons. Boats of all shapes and sizes were perhaps the most important means of transport, however. It was easier to cross the Charles River by longboat and then walk to Harvard College than to go around. And the first stable bridge across the Charles River had not been built. We see, therefore, the interesting career of Reverend Increase Mather. He was pastor of Boston’s Old North Church—in the North End—but he was also president of Harvard College. In his contract, it was written that a ferry should be continually at his disposal so he would not have to go on horseback.

Did the early Bostonians enjoy life?

They certainly did. The work hours of a summer and spring day were long by our standards, but almost everyone relaxed a bit in winter, working shorter hours, and spending more leisure time indoors. From Samuel Sewall’s diary we learn that many upper-class Bostonians enjoyed beer and ale, and the chances are that their working-class contemporaries did the same. One holiday that the Bostonians did not celebrate was Christmas. Believing it a Popish invention, they chose to treat December 25 as any other day in the calendar. And while we are on the subject of the Pope, it’s worth discussing what Pope’s Day meant to the Bostonians.

The English celebrated November 5 as Guy Fawkes Day, the celebration of a failed Catholic attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Bostonians celebrated it as Pope’s Day, meaning one long extravagant festival to ridicule the Pope and Roman Catholicism. On a typical Pope’s Day, the gangs of the Old North End and Old South End met each other in mock combat, while gunpowder was exploded in the streets. The Pope was often carried about in effigy. Of course, these celebrations sometimes went too far, and in 1764 one gang member was killed.

An Italian religious house in the Old North End.

Where was the young Benjamin Franklin in all of this?

Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin was the youngest son of an Englishman who crossed the Atlantic in 1683. The Franklin family was a large one, and young Benjamin ended up an apprentice to his elder brother James, who was editor and printer of the New-England Courant. By the age of fourteen, Ben Franklin was expert at employing ink on the printing press, and he contributed a number of essays of his own—under the pen name of “Silence Dogood.” The elder brother beat the younger one on many occasions, and in 1723, Ben Franklin skipped town, heading first to New York and then Philadelphia. The rest, as they say, is history.

One can, of course, ask the poignant question: How could Boston have lost the most talented of its sons, a boy who later became the most famous man of his era? The same question will later be posed in regard to Babe Ruth. How could Boston have traded that outsized talent to the New York Yankees, and thereby ensure its own defeat in numerous baseball seasons? The answer is that Bostonians do not always treat their own very kindly, and they sometimes expel those that would render them the best service.

What did Franklin have to say about Harvard College?

We believe he had mixed feelings where Harvard was concerned. Before the age of eleven, he’d hoped to attend Harvard one day: this hope was dashed when his father apprenticed him, first to the candle-making trade, and then to his brother the printer. As “Silence Dogood” (the pen name he used for essays he wrote for the Boston Gazette), Franklin heaped scorn on the pomposity of those that believed Harvard would turn a common person into a scholar. Franklin wrote:

What is the earliest writing from Ben Franklin’s hand?

To the best of our knowledge, it is a charming, if trite, section of poetry on the topic of Edward Teach, the pirate known as Blackbeard.

Will you hear of a bloody battle,

Lately fought upon the seas,

It will make your ears to rattle,

And your admiration cease;

Have you heard of Teach the Rover, And his knavery upon the Main;

How of gold he was a lover,

How he loved all ill got gain.

At length I entered upon a spacious plain in the midst of which was erected a large and stately edifice: It was to this that a great company of youths from all parts of the country were going: so stepping in among the crowd, I passed on with them, and presently arrived at the gate. The passage was kept by two sturdy porters named Riches and Poverty, and the latter obstinately refused to give entrance to any who had not first gained the favor of the former; so that I observed, many who came even to the very gate, were obliged to travel back as ignorant as they came, for want of this necessary qualification.

Did Franklin talk about his youthful days in Boston?

Yes, and his comments are a fascinating mixture of nostalgia and disdain. He modeled his own early career on that of Reverend Cotton Mather, the industrious Bostonian who penned roughly 450 books, pamphlets, and placards during his amazing career. Franklin admired many aspects of Puritan Boston, but he never regretted the move to Philadelphia; on the contrary, he believed it necessary to break from one’s roots in order to achieve one’s full potential.

How much do we know about the streets of Boston in the early eighteenth century?

Thanks to the famous “Bonner Map,” made by Captain John Bonner in 1722, we have a rather good idea of the streets, the cow paths, and even the docks and wharves. We know, for example, that Orange Street, named for Prince William of Orange, was the longest street in town, running all the way from The Neck to the downtown area. Boston Common was larger in the early eighteenth century than it is today: it sprawled over the northwest side of town. The North Mill Dam ran from the Old North End to what is now Beacon Street: the Mill Pond was later filled in, adding to the size of the downtown. King Street, which had some of the most fashionable houses, ran straight from downtown to Long Wharf, which easily dwarfed the other thirty wharves of the town. The Old North End was the most densely populated section of town with Salem, North, and Ship Streets dominating the whole (their twenty-first-century descendants do the same today).

Boats, ships, and pleasure vessels are shown on the Bonner Map, indicating that Boston was the most nautical of all the towns in colonial North America. Boston was still in first place in terms of maritime activity, but it would soon lose this role, coming in third, behind New York and Philadelphia. But when one examines the Bonner Map, he or she almost inevitably sighs for what once was: a tight-knit town in which almost everyone was known and recognized, and where people got around quite well without cars, taxis, or subways.

Does the Burgis Map show us the same things as the famous Bonner Map?

No. The Burgis Map was executed about the same time, but it shows primarily the harbor and merchant fleet, rather than the town itself. One clue to the map’s importance lies in its title, however: “A North East View of the Great Town of Boston.” The artist clearly wishes us to think of Boston as London in the New World, and the types of boats that are sketched, while not unrealistic, make Boston Harbor seem rather like the River Thames in downtown London.

Boston Light in Boston Harbor is the oldest lighthouse in the United States.

What about Boston Light? When did it come into being?

Constructed in 1716, Boston Light was the first permanent beacon in any of the original Thirteen Colonies. Three years later, a cannon was placed near the lighthouse so the keeper could warn vessels in a fog. The first known illustration of Boston Light was executed in 1723: the portrait shows a ten-gun sloop passing between the viewer and the lighthouse, which looks to be around fifty feet high. Situated on Little Brewster Island, Boston Light served its purpose very well until the American Revolution, when it was burned twice (once by each side!). When the new stone edifice was erected in 1784, it was meant to be permanent and though Boston Light is not manned today, radar continues to warn sailors of the many dangers involved in entering Boston Harbor.

Was there any movement to incorporate Boston as a city?

We sometimes call eighteenth-century Boston a city, but that’s because we don’t take the terminology of the time seriously. In truth, Boston was a town, and was run by a town meeting style of government, the same which had been established in the 1630s. Just to demonstrate that Bostonians were conflicted on the subject, a pamphlet circulated in Boston in the year 1714. Entitled “A Dialogue between a Boston Man and a Country Man,” this pamphlet was one of a kind.

The Boston Man—as he is identified throughout the pamphlet—speaks against the idea of incorporation, saying that the town and its people will be inundated by new costs and charges. He concludes his argument by declaring that the “ancient rights, and undoubted property of our voting at town meetings” will be taken away. The Country Man—as he is identified—replies that any negative aspects will be overshadowed by the streamlined efficiency that will take place. The Country Man even speaks words on the subject of immigration (perhaps the first ones to enter the American record). “They will be able by this to regulate your town better than now it is, and to take notice who comes into the town; and to let in or keep out who they please.”