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E.J. BREHAUT 
 BOSTONIANA CCLL^TTON 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 A BEIEF ACCOUNT 
 
 OF A BOSTON 
 
 WAY 
 
 I 
 
 at 
 
 IIM1 
 
 Ut,0 
 
 PRINTED FOE THE 
 
 STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
Is. {,7 
 $7 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1906 
 STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY 
 
 0JJW> 1Lf,l1 
 
 THE ORNAMENTS ON PAGES ONE, THIRTY- 
 NINE AND FORTY-TWO ARE REPRODUCED 
 FROM THE STONES MARKING THE SPOT 
 IN STATE STREET WHERE THE BOSTON 
 MASSACRE OCCURRED. THE ORNAMENT 
 ON PAGE THIRTY-SIX IS A COPY OF THE 
 TABLET ON THE BUILDING OPPOSITE 
 THE MASSACRE 
 
 fcOSTOM r RART 
 
 GH&5THU1 hiUi MA S3 « 
 
 WALTON 
 
 ADVERTISING AND PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 / 1 ~1 ^ 1 
 
THE OEIGINALS OF THE CUTS 
 USED IN THIS PAMPHLET AND 
 MANY OTHEE QUAINT AND IN- 
 TEEESTING PICTUEES MAY BE 
 SEEN ON THE WALLS OF THE 
 MAIN OFFICE OF THE STATE 
 STEEET TEUST COMPANY AT 
 38 STATE STEEET, BOSTON 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF A WAY. 
 
 THE street is old, — as old as Boston 
 itself. If one would look for its ori- 
 gin, he must go back to the days 
 before the Puritans of St. Botolph's town set 
 foot upon the hills that run up from Boston Har- 
 bor. Even then he is forced to fall upon con- 
 jecture, and surmise that it may have been the 
 trail which the Indians followed from their camps 
 on Shawmut Hills to their fisheries in the 
 bay. William Blackstone, the only white in- 
 habitant on Tri-mountain previous to 1630, 
 may have trod the self-same trail on his way along 
 the ridge, which was the principal spur from 
 Century Hill down to the water. State Street, 
 despite the uncertainty of its origin, has been 
 from the very day of Boston's settlement Bos- 
 ton's most important thoroughfare. 
 
 The street has written itself large and per- 
 manently in the records of an ancient town and 
 on the page of a nation's history. When Eng- 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 lish ships brought English goods to Puritan 
 homes in the days of the first settlers, it was the 
 mart of trade and the seat of justice. Upon 
 it lived the early settlers and the town's first mer- 
 chants. Many scenes of Provincial interest and 
 Colonial importance had here their setting, and on 
 its frosty pavement was spilled the first blood of 
 the Revolution. To-day about it throbs the 
 financial interest of a great State, and to it are 
 ever turning for help the industrial projects of 
 a great nation. 
 
 EARLY COLONIAL LANDMARKS. 
 
 OUR Puritan forbears were men of order 
 and system, — men who believed in metes 
 and bounds to everything. So we find 
 them early setting down their names and lands 
 in the Book of Possessions, and back to this old 
 record go many of the deeds of Boston. This 
 book was a record of a survey, by order of the 
 General Court, April 1, 1634, of the lands and 
 houses of the first inhabitants. On the old map, 
 five by nine feet, is the earliest record of State 
 Street. It appears a short, nameless way from 
 the water up to the hills, and is dotted on either 
 side with the houses of the first settlers. 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 At its head, where now the Old State House 
 stands, was the first market-place. And so it 
 was that, as early as 1636, when the lines of cer- 
 tain streets were fixed and had by popular con- 
 sent been named, State Street was known as 
 Market Street. 
 
 THE FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON. 
 
 ACROSS the way from the market-place in 
 1632, on the site since occupied by Brazer's 
 Building, stood the first meeting-house, 
 later dignified as the First Church. It was a rude 
 but substantial building, with walls of mud and 
 thatched roof. Its first pastor, the Rev. John 
 Wilson, lived on his farm, on the opposite side of 
 Market Street; and his colleague was the redoubt- 
 able John Cotton, formerly the pastor of old St. 
 Botolph's, Boston, England. Services were held 
 under the trees previous to its erection. The 
 meeting-house had become too small in 1639, and 
 in 1640 a new one was erected on the site of the 
 late Joy Building. The second meeting-house 
 was destroyed in the conflagration of 1711, the 
 greatest of the eight great fires that Boston had 
 then experienced, but was rebuilt. General Wash- 
 ington with all his troops, after the siege of Boston, 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 attended services at the First Church, and then 
 adjourned to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern to re- 
 fresh the body. 
 
 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND A 
 PRISONER. 
 
 IN those early days of rigid lives the Bible and 
 the rod were often inseparable. The whipping- 
 post and the stocks, therefore, stood on Market 
 Street, almost in front of the door of the First 
 Church; and great was the impartiality with which 
 justice, at least, was then dealt out. The first 
 prisoner, for instance, of the stocks was the car- 
 penter, Edward Palmer, who built them in 1639, 
 The town fathers were incensed at his exorbitant 
 bill for their construction, and they laid their 
 strong hands upon him, and he forthwith spent an 
 hour as a prisoner of his own creation and as a for- 
 bidding example to like grasping merchants with 
 whom the early town may have been "afflicted." 
 These instruments of punishment were, in later 
 years, put on wheels, and were moved from place 
 to place. The stocks in 1801 were located near 
 Change Avenue. Public whipping was not inflicted 
 in Boston after 1803. 
 
 Market Street was also the "sacred way" along 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 which the train band of our Puritan fathers 
 marched and manoeuvred. 
 
 The Provincial Governors were inaugurated in the 
 Town House, and then, appearing in the famous 
 window of the east balcony, received the cheers 
 of the populace. As the town grew, the streets 
 slowly multiplied about this parent of Boston's 
 thoroughfares; and finally, May 3, 1708, the select- 
 men, determining that Market Street should have 
 a worthier name, ordered that "the street leading 
 from Cornhill, includeing the wayes on each side 
 of the Town house extending easterly to the sea," 
 should be called "King Street." In 1784, after 
 the Revolution had severed all the regal ties of 
 the Commonwealth, the name was changed to 
 State Street. 
 
 AN OLD MAP, SOME STREETS, 
 AND THE FIRST MERCHANTS. 
 
 A VIEW early in the seventeenth century 
 shows the street paved with pebbles and 
 without sidewalks. There were "many 
 faire shops," and over them lived the Boston mer- 
 chants. The first map upon which the name 
 "King Street" appears was that of Captain John 
 Bonner, printed in 1722 by Francis Deming, and 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 sold by William Price "over against ye Towne 
 house." Here first appears also Long Wharf. 
 The harbor previous to the building of Long 
 Wharf in 1710, which quadrupled King Street, 
 flowed as far inland as Kilby Street on the south 
 and Merchants' Row on the north. King Street 
 was intercepted between Cornhill, now Washington 
 Street, and the bay by Pudding Lane and Crooked 
 Lane, now Devonshire Street. Crooked Lane ran 
 through the farm of the Rev. John Wilson, pastor of 
 the First Church. Shrimpton Street, now Exchange 
 Place, took its name from an old Bostonian, as did 
 Pierce's Alley, now Change Avenue. Leverett's 
 Lane, now Congress Street, took its name from 
 Governor Leverett. Mackerel Lane, now Kilby 
 Street, probably took its name from its proximity 
 to the fish market. 
 
 FROM WOOD TO BRICK AND 
 STONE. 
 
 AS early as the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury brick and stone had begun to replace 
 * wood, with which the town was originally 
 built. Upon State Street most of the early "first 
 citizens" of Boston had their homes. On the 
 south-west corner lived Captain Robert Keayne, a 
 
 7 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 leading merchant, founder of the Ancient and 
 Honorable Artillery Company, and also the 
 founder of the old Town House. The site of 
 his house later was that of Daniel Henchman's 
 bookstore, where General Henry Knox served 
 his apprenticeship. The first shop in Boston was 
 opened by James Coggan on the north-west 
 corner of the same street. He lived over his 
 place of business, as did all the leading 
 merchants of early Boston. The Rev. John 
 Wilson's home, too, was on Market Street, and 
 just east of the old Exchange was the residence 
 of Governor Leverett. The home of Richard 
 Fairbanks, the first postmaster, stood not far from 
 the old Town House. The General Court in 
 1639 designated it as the place for all letters to 
 be sent for delivery or forwarding over the seas. 
 
 All the banks and brokers' offices in the town 
 were at one time on State Street, and even as late 
 as 1837 twenty-two of the thirty-five banks stood 
 upon this street. A branch of the United States 
 Bank from 1791 to 1836 stood on the site of the 
 Brazer Building. The Massachusetts Bank was 
 situated where No. 66 State Street was in 1870. 
 The Union Bank, established in 1792, and located 
 on the south-east corner of State and Exchange 
 Streets, is on the site of the old Custom House. 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 Previous to the occupancy by the Union Bank the site 
 was the dwelling-place of Perez Morton. Now 
 it is the home of the State Street Trust Company. 
 
 LONG WHARF AND ITS STIRRING 
 EPISODES. 
 
 THE houses that stood on Long Wharf are 
 thought to have been the first numbered 
 ones in Boston. The numbers ran from 
 one to sixty-nine, inclusive. The Directory of 
 Boston for 1801 shows the highest street number 
 on State Street as eighty-two. On the north side 
 of Long Wharf, which the Directory says "in 
 every respect exceeds anything of the kind in the 
 United States," large and commodious stores are 
 shown. Long Wharf had a thoroughfare thirty 
 feet wide on one side and a space of fifteen feet in 
 the middle for boats to come up and unload. 
 The wharf extended State Street one thousand 
 seven hundred and forty-three feet into the harbor 
 in a straight line with the street, and the breadth 
 of the wharf was one hundred and four feet, with 
 seventeen feet of water at ebb tide at the end. It 
 was the largest of the eighty wharves and quays 
 in Boston at this time. 
 
 The wharf has witnessed many stirring and 
 

STATE STREET 
 
 interesting scenes. It was the landing-place of 
 the Royal Governors, who, escorted by the flower 
 of the Colony's Militia, marched up King Street to 
 the Town House. Here, in 1768, landed the first 
 British soldiers, sent over by the king to overawe 
 the colonists, still incensed by the injustice of the 
 Stamp Act. Some of these soldiers were quartered 
 for a time in the Old State House before going into 
 camp on the Common and Dock Square. The 
 French allies, under Rochambeau, were later 
 received here with delight by the populace. And 
 on that momentous day, in June, 1775, the Royal 
 Regiment of Colonel Dalrymple marched down 
 King Street, embarked at Long Wharf, and en- 
 tered the battle of Bunker Hill, from which many 
 of the regiment never returned. The old custom 
 of marching on State Street has continued, and 
 down this street went many of the regiments that 
 Massachusetts during the Rebellion sent to the front. 
 
 GLEANINGS FROM AN OLD DI- 
 RECTORY. 
 
 TO the Bostonian of to-day the Directory 
 of 1801 also throws much light on well- 
 known Boston names. Here are some 
 who appear with offices on Long Wharf: Thomas 
 
 11 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 C. Amory, merchant, No. 36; Uriah Cotting, 
 merchant, No. 47, who built Broad Street in 1808, 
 India Street in 1809, New Cornhill in 1817; Ben- 
 jamin W. Foster, merchant, No. 26, founder of 
 the McLean Asylum; Caleb Stimpson, merchant, 
 No. 2; Arnold Welles, merchant, No. 14, com- 
 mander of the Cadets and prominent in military 
 affairs; Timothy Williams, merchant, No. 12. 
 
 Among the other prominent business men on 
 State Street in 1801 were James Abelard, No. 78, 
 with whom Due de Chartres, afterwards Louis 
 Philippe, lived during his residence in Boston; 
 Peter C. Brooks, father-in-law of Charles Francis 
 Adams; Humphrey Clark, No. 79, and Thomas 
 Clark, No. 61; William Endicott, tailor, No. 9; 
 Joseph Foster, merchant, No. 31; Moses M. 
 Hayes, Insurance, No. 68, Grand Master A. F. 
 & A. M. 1788-92; Benjamin and Josiah Loring, 
 bookbinders; Francis C. Lowell, merchant, No. 
 25, in whose honor the city of Lowell was named; 
 Benjamin Russell, editor and publisher of the 
 Sentinel, No. 10; Robert G. Shaw, merchant and 
 philanthropist; and Samuel Thaxter, mathematical 
 instrument maker, No. 49 State Street. 
 
 Other well-known Boston names can be found 
 in the Directory of 1801. Some business enter- 
 prises of Boston go back farther than this. 
 
 12 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT STATE 
 STREET'S OLD TAVERNS. 
 
 NUMEROUS and interesting have been 
 the public houses on State Street which 
 at some time or other have offered their 
 good cheer to stranger and townsman. A " water- 
 side resort," the Crown Coffee House, was the 
 first house on Long Wharf in 1712. Seamen from 
 every land and the leading merchants and the young 
 bucks of the thriving town found good cheer here, 
 and gossiped at a time when a gentleman was not 
 above the seductions of piracy. Many strange 
 tales of those fierce buccaneer times were told over 
 the glasses of this ancient hostelry. On the south- 
 west corner of Exchange Place and State Street 
 stood the Royal Exchange Tavern, where in 1690 
 Chief Justice Sewall and Colonel William Phipps 
 had a famous dinner. This William Phipps, by 
 the way, son of a Maine gunsmith and blacksmith, 
 had located a treasure-ship sunk off Hispaniola. 
 He recovered three hundred thousand pounds, 
 gave the Crown ten thousand as its share, took 
 twenty thousand pounds as his, and in return was 
 made a knight by the king, and then first Governor 
 of the New England colonists under the Charter. 
 
 14 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 And a very good governor he was, at a time when 
 good Colonial Governors were few and far between. 
 At the Royal Exchange in 1748 occurred an 
 altercation between Phillips and Woodbridge that 
 resulted in a duel on the Common and in the death 
 of Woodbridge. This old tavern was still stand- 
 ing in 1801, and was then kept by Israel Harris. 
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON AND THE 
 SEAMAN'S "GROG." 
 
 THE Admiral Vernon Tavern, which took 
 its name from the famous English "sea 
 dog" whose name was subsequently given 
 to Mount Vernon by Lawrence Washington who 
 had served on his staff, stood on the easterly 
 corner of State Street and Merchants' Row. Over 
 it was the wooden figure of the English admiral, 
 sextant in hand, in the uniform of his rank, — 
 quite appropriate as a sign for a tavern, when we 
 learn that from the hero of Porto Bello comes the 
 term "grog," which sea-faring men have given to 
 strong drink. It was Admiral Vernon's custom in 
 stormy weather to appear on deck clad in a coarse 
 grogram. From this he was dubbed by his sailors 
 "Old Grog," and soon "grog" was the term they 
 gave to the rum and water he occasionally dealt 
 
 15 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 out to his men. Shem Drowne, who carved the 
 figure over the tavern, was noted in his day for 
 the ships' figure-heads he turned out, and his work 
 on the hero of Porto Bello was watched with in- 
 terest by the artist Copley. 
 
 Another tavern that could have been found on 
 State Street in 1787 was Cummings Tavern. The 
 Bunch of Grapes, a famous resort, kept by James 
 Kendall, in 1801 was on the north-east corner of 
 State and Kilby Streets. 
 
 Where No. 66 State Street was in 1870, then the 
 site of the Massachusetts Bank, the British Coffee 
 House offered its cheer. Here James Otis, of 
 Stamp Act fame, was mortally assaulted by one of 
 the Excise Commissioners in 1769. Poor Otis, he 
 who might have been "the flame of fire" during 
 the Revolutionary days that he was during the ex- 
 citement of the Stamp Act, became deranged from 
 the blow, and, though he took part in the battle of 
 Bunker Hill, he retired to Andover, Mass., where 
 in 1783 he was killed by a stroke of lightning. 
 
 The Exchange Coffee House, corner of State 
 and Devonshire Streets, with an entrance on each, 
 was built in 1804, burned down in 1818, rebuilt 
 in 1822, and closed as a tavern in 1854. On the 
 site of 75 State Street stood in 1803 Fuller's 
 Tavern. 
 
 17 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 ROAST OX AND THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 THE strangest scene that State Street 
 has witnessed was the barbecue at the 
 time of the French Revolution. America 
 was full of its partisans, and nowhere was this 
 friendly sympathy keener than in Boston. Bos- 
 tonians of this era delighted in calling each other 
 "citizens," and strove in many other ways to show 
 their sympathy with the spirit of liberty then sweep- 
 ing through France. The feeling found expres- 
 sion, two days after the execution of Louis XVI., 
 in the barbecue. A thousand-pound ox was killed, 
 and its horns gilded and placed on an altar twenty 
 feet high. Drawn by fifteen horses and preceded 
 by two hogsheads of punch pulled by six horses, 
 and accompanied by a cart of bread, it was es- 
 corted through the streets of Boston, and finally de- 
 posited in State Street. Tables had been spread 
 from the Old State House to Kilby Street, and the 
 citizens feasted upon roast ox and strong punch, 
 to the subsequent confusion of many. Boston's 
 fair women decked the windows of the neighboring 
 houses, and amused themselves by throwing flow- 
 ers upon the feasters, until the scene culminated 
 
 18 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 in what some of the best citizens characterized as 
 a " drunken revelry." When the news of the exe- 
 cution of the king reached America, there was a 
 sudden revulsion of feeling against his executioners. 
 
 It was on State Street near the Old State House, 
 in August, 1806, that Ben Austin, Jr., son of 
 "Honestus," a well-known political pamphleteer, 
 was shot and killed, during a political row, by 
 Charles Self ridge. Anthony Burns, the fugitive 
 slave, was escorted by the entire police and military 
 force of Boston, May 26, 1854, down State Street 
 to the vessel that carried him back to slavery. 
 
 The extension of State Street from Chatham 
 Row to Commercial Street occurred April 13, 
 1858. It was extended along the north side of 
 State Street Block, and accepted on the same date 
 in 1858, and was extended to Atlantic Avenue 
 March 27, 1876. 
 
 BUILDING THE TOWN HOUSE. 
 
 THE chief historic interest of State Street 
 centres about the Boston Massacre and 
 the Old State House. The original 
 Town House stood, as we have learned, on 
 the site of the first market-place, and may be called 
 the forbear of the Old State House. It was to 
 
 19 
 
\ c\ 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 Captain Robert Keayne, one of Boston's earliest 
 prominent merchants, that the town was indebted 
 for its Town House. His generosity must have 
 heaped coals of fire upon the heads of his towns- 
 men. He was charged by them with making ex- 
 orbitant profits, found guilty, and cast into prison. 
 At his death, in 1656, he left three hundred 
 pounds to Boston for the erection of a Town 
 House, and defended in the will his business 
 conduct. 
 
 He outlined that the Town House should con- 
 tain a market-place, room for the Courts, room for 
 the Townsmen, Commissioners, for a library, a 
 gallery for the Elders, a room for an armory, and 
 rooms for merchants and masters of vessels. The 
 selectmen considered it, and in March, 1656-57, 
 the town chose a committee to consider the plans 
 for the Town House. A committee was given full 
 power in August, 1657, to erect a building, and to 
 bind the town for the payment of the contract 
 price. 
 
 The building thus constructed was sixty-six 
 feet long, thirty-six feet wide, set upon twenty-one 
 pillars ten feet high. The second story was parti- 
 tioned, making the rooms desired. There was a 
 walk on top fifteen feet wide, with two turrets, and 
 balusters and rails around the walk. 
 
 21 
 
The Old State House, as it will appear at the Jamestown Exposition 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 BURNING OF THE OLD TOWN 
 HOUSE. 
 
 AS the building cost six hundred and eighty 
 pounds, the balance required in addition 
 to the legacy of Captain Keayne was con- 
 tributed by one hundred and four citizens. The 
 settlement of the builder's bill was on Feb. 28, 1661. 
 The building stood until the fire of 1711, when it 
 and one hundred houses on arid in the neighborhood 
 of King Street were consumed. This fire burned 
 all the houses from School Street to Dock Square, 
 all of the upper part of King Street, the Town 
 House, and the old Meeting House. The leading 
 newspaper of the day, the News-Letter, ascribed 
 the source of the fire to an old Scotch woman who 
 lived in a tenement at the head of the street. A 
 fire she was using spread to some chips and other 
 combustibles near by, and thence to the tenement 
 in which she lived. 
 
 A new Town House was immediately erected, 
 one-half of the expense being met by the Province, 
 and one-quarter by the town of Boston, and one- 
 quarter by the county of Suffolk. The building 
 was of brick, one hundred and ten feet long, 
 thirty-eight feet wide, and provided accommoda- 
 
 23 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 tion for the Governor, the Courts, the Secretary of 
 the Province, and for the Register of Deeds. This 
 second Town House was partially burned in 1747, 
 and the present structure, built in 1748, has an 
 exterior but slightly altered, though the interior has 
 undergone many changes. 
 
 A CHAMBER OF EVENTS.-A 
 PIRATE'S TRIAL. 
 
 JOHN ADAMS said, "In it Independence was 
 born." The death of George II. and the 
 accession of George III. were here pro- 
 claimed. In it Generals Howe, Clinton, and 
 Gage held a counsel of war before the battle of 
 Bunker Hill. On July 18, 1776, from its famous 
 east window Colonel Crafts read to the assembled 
 multitude the Declaration of Independence, and 
 from it also the sheriff of Suffolk County pro- 
 claimed the adoption of the Constitution of the 
 United States. The Constitution of the State 
 in 1778 was planned within its walls. Beneath 
 it John Hancock was inaugurated first Governor 
 of the Commonwealth. Its old walls witnessed 
 the convening of the Convention before the dele- 
 gates adjourned to adopt in Federal Street Church 
 the Constitution of these United States. Every 
 
 24 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 page of the old records of the Town House has 
 interest. It was the centre of the Revolution of 
 1689 when, in the person of Governor Andros, 
 royal authority was temporarily overcome, and in 
 1699 it was the scene of the trial of Captain Kidd, 
 the greatest pirate of an age of famous buccaneers. 
 What an interesting audience of spectators there 
 must have been, — stern Puritans, soldiers, swarthy 
 seamen, perhaps here and there a pirate, in dis- 
 guise, and the austere Governor of the Province. 
 What a picture for a Macaiilay ! 
 
 After his trial and conviction in the Old State 
 House, Captain Kidd was conducted to the gloomy, 
 forbidding pile of stones, the first prison of the 
 Commonwealth, that stood on the site of the old 
 Court House at the head of Queen, now Court 
 Street. In this prison, where Kidd remained until 
 his execution, were imprisoned the witches of 
 those curious witchcraft days. So cold were its 
 dark dungeons that the pan of charcoal allowed 
 the prisoners often failed to keep the frost 
 from them during the bleak, old-fashioned 
 winters. 
 
 This prison, at the time of its erection, was 
 one of the strongest in the colonies. Puritan jus- 
 tice, once its hands fell upon an offender, was in- 
 deed difficult to escape. 
 
 25 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 OLD TOWN HOUSE BECOMES THE 
 STATE HOUSE. 
 
 THE Town House was the scene of fes- 
 tivities on State occasions, and in it 
 also were held the public funerals of the 
 early times. When Faneuil Hall was erected in 
 1740-42, the building on King Street became the 
 State House, where the Legislature as well as 
 the Courts assembled, and in its place Faneuil 
 Hall became the Town Hall. 
 
 The plans for the capture of Louisburg, June 
 17, 1746, described as "the proudest boast of our 
 Provincial history," were conceived and com- 
 pleted beneath the walls of the Old State House. 
 James Otis, "a flame of fire," in its Court-room 
 in 1761 made his celebrated plea against the 
 Writs of Assistance, and in 1766, in front of its 
 doors, a mob burned the Stamp Clearances, 
 one of the violent protests against the injustice 
 of the Stamp Act. In the Court-room also 
 occurred, four years later, the trial of Captain 
 Preston and the soldiers implicated in the Boston 
 Massacre. And here Samuel Adams presented 
 the demand for the withdrawal of the troops to 
 the fortress. 
 
 26 
 
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 Reproduced from Paul Revere's Print of the Boston Massacre 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 
 
 THE Boston Massacre was the culmina- 
 tion of the altercations between the peo- 
 ple of Boston and the British troops 
 which began in 1768, and grew more and 
 more frequent and brutal. The massacre 
 itself, which Paul Revere attempted to picture, 
 took place March 5, 1770, almost in front of the 
 Union Building, Nos. 38 and 40 State Street. 
 Soon after nine o'clock on a frosty, bright moon- 
 light night two young men, named Archibald 
 and Merchant, were coming down Cornhill Street 
 (now Washington) together, and attempted to 
 pass through Boylston Alley without answering the 
 challenge of the sentry there posted. The sentry 
 was talking with a rough-looking character, de- 
 scribed at the trial as a "mean-looking Irishman," 
 who had in his hand a large club. Archibald 
 and Merchant were held up, and in the scuffle 
 which followed Archibald was struck on the arm, 
 and Merchant had his clothes pierced and his skin 
 grazed. He struck the soldier with a stick he had 
 with him, and the Irishman ran to the barracks 
 to alarm the soldiers, returning immediately with 
 two of them. 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 MOB ATTACKS SOLDIERS. 
 
 THE noise of this scuffle brought a num- 
 ber of people to the place, and one of 
 them knocked down a soldier. Fol- 
 lowed by the crowd, the soldiers returned to the 
 barracks, where a dozen of the rest of the soldiers 
 ran out, armed, and drove back the people as far as 
 Dock Square. The officers succeeded in inducing 
 the soldiers to return to their barracks on Brattle 
 Street, and they were followed and jeered by the 
 mob. 
 
 "Now for the main guard, damn the dogs! Let 
 us go and kill the damn scoundrel of a sentry!" 
 shouted the crowd. A part of the mob, which 
 John Adams, the patriot, in his plea in defense 
 of the soldiers, described as "a motley rabble 
 of street boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish 
 teagues and outlandish Jack-tars," turned upon 
 the sentry who stood on the corner of Royal 
 Exchange Lane and King Street in front of the 
 Custom House, now No. 40 State Street, on the 
 corner of Exchange Street. 
 
 "There is the soldier who knocked me down," 
 said a boy, pointing to the sentinel. The senti- 
 nel retreated up the steps, and loaded his gun. 
 
 29 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 "The lobster is going to fire," said the boy. 
 
 "If you fire, you must die for it," said Henry 
 Knox, who was passing. "I don't care," replied 
 the sentry. "If they touch me, I will fire." 
 
 CAPTAIN PRESTON TAKES COM- 
 MAND. 
 
 CAPTAIN THOMAS PRESTON, hearing 
 of the trouble, said that he would go there 
 himself, to see that they would do no more 
 mischief. Bells began to ring, as many supposed, 
 for a fire on King Street. The soldiers in the 
 mean time, who had come to the rescue of their 
 comrades, were attacked and insulted by the mob, 
 led by a mulatto, named Crispus Attucks. 
 
 The soldiers were obliged to present bayonets 
 and form a half -circle in front of the Custom House, 
 to protect themselves. In great peril Captain 
 Preston stood for a while between his men and the 
 mob, using every effort to prevent further dis- 
 turbance. 
 
 "Are the soldiers loaded?" asked a bystander 
 of Captain Preston. 
 
 "Yes," answered the captain, "with powder and 
 ball." 
 
 "Are they going to fire on the inhabitants ? " 
 
 30 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 "They cannot," said Captain Preston, "with- 
 out my orders." 
 
 "For God's sake," said Henry Knox, seizing 
 Preston by the coat, "take your men back! If 
 they fire, your life must answer for the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 "I know what I am about," said Captain 
 Preston, hurriedly. 
 
 Some called out: "Come on, you bloody backs, 
 you lobster scoundrels! Fire, if you dare! We 
 know you dare not." 
 
 Just then a soldier received a severe blow from 
 a club, whereupon he stepped a little to one side, 
 lifted his piece, and fired. Captain Preston rep- 
 rimanded him for firing, and while he was speaking 
 he came near being knocked down by a blow from 
 a club aimed at him. The crowd pelted the 
 soldiers with stones and snowballs. 
 
 CITIZENS ARE KILLED. 
 
 THE tumult became great. Horrid oaths 
 and imprecations were hurled by the mob 
 at the soldiers. No one was ever able to 
 tell whether Captain Preston or anybody else or- 
 dered the troops to fire, but fire they did, some seven 
 or eight of the soldiers, and the mob hurriedly drew 
 
 31 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 back, leaving three dead on the ground, two 
 mortally wounded, and several slightly wounded. 
 The killed were Samuel Bray, Samuel Maverick, 
 James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks, and Patrick 
 Carr. Six were wounded, two of them, Chris- 
 topher Monk and John Clark, mortally. 
 
 The people came back to remove their dead, 
 and, thinking they were about to renew the at- 
 tack, the soldiers lifted their guns to fire again, but 
 Captain Preston stopped them, and ordered them 
 back to the main guard, thus preventing further 
 bloodshed. A citizen informed the captain that 
 there were five thousand people coming to take 
 his life and the lives of his men. He disposed his 
 men into firing parties on the side streets, and 
 people began to gather from every direction. The 
 people cried everywhere, "Turn out with your 
 guns, every man!" 
 
 Officers of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of the 
 British, on making their way to their companies, 
 were knocked down by the mob and many injured, 
 and a number of them had their scabbards taken 
 away from them. 
 
 Under the influence of Livingston, Colonel 
 Carr, and other distinguished citizens, the people 
 were persuaded to go to their homes. 
 
 32 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 SOLDIERS ARE TRIED AND CON- 
 VICTED. 
 
 A HUGE meeting in the Old South Church 
 was held the next morning, and it was re- 
 solved impossible for the townspeople and the 
 soldiers to live longer together in amicable relations. 
 A committee was appointed to request the soldiers' 
 removal. Accordingly, the soldiers were sent to 
 the Castle. Captain Preston and the soldiers en- 
 gaged in the affray were arrested and tried for 
 murder. Robert Treat Paine and Samuel Quincy 
 appeared for the government, and John Adams, 
 Josiah Quincy, and Sumner Salter Blowers appeared 
 for the prisoners. Adams made an eloquent plea 
 in their defence. Two were found guilty of man- 
 slaughter, and were branded on the hand with a 
 red-hot iron and discharged. The others were 
 acquitted. The remains of the dead were buried 
 in the Granary Burying ground. Only recently 
 was a monument to their memory erected on Boston 
 Common. The place of the massacre in State 
 Street is indicated by a stone block, with paving- 
 stones radiating therefrom, about twelve feet south 
 of the south-east corner of State and Exchange 
 Streets. 
 
 33 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 MORE EPISODES OF THE OLD 
 STATE HOUSE. 
 
 GOVERNOR GAGE was sworn into office 
 in the hall of the Old State House in 1774, 
 and from the east balcony window went 
 forth again the usual proclamation of a new royal 
 representative. From 1692, until 1774-75, when 
 the Province concluded to dispense with its Gov- 
 ernors, eleven such chief magistrates had received 
 the Royal Commission, and had been proclaimed 
 to the people from the State House. 
 
 Musty records tell of General Thomas Gage, com- 
 mander of all the troops in the country, landing 
 at Long Wharf, and marching up King Street, 
 escorted by Boston Cadets, under command of 
 John Hancock, who later was sorely disappointed 
 because he was not made commander-in-chief 
 of the army that fought these same red-coats. On 
 the same balcony stood the sheriff of Suffolk 
 County on April 27, 1783, when he read to the 
 assembled multitude the Proclamation of Peace; 
 and, when General Washington visited Boston in 
 October, 1789, he received the honors of the town, 
 and viewed the procession that did him homage 
 
 34 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 from the balcony on the west end of the Old 
 House, from which there had been erected a trium- 
 phal arch, 
 
 DARK AGES OF COMMERCIALISM. 
 
 THE completion of the new State House 
 on Beacon Hill in 1798 marks the end 
 of the old one as the place of meeting of 
 the Legislature, and the date of the removal of the 
 irts to the Court House on Court Street, pre- 
 viously known as Queen Street 
 
 After the removal of the Legislature and Courts 
 from the Old State House, the State, the County, 
 and the City had a falling out as to the ownership 
 of the Old State House and land, but, finally, the 
 property came into the possession of the city of 
 Boston. The city leased the building to tenants 
 until 1830, when it became the Citv Hall. After 
 the removal of the city offices to the new Chy Hall 
 on School Street, the historic building was again 
 given over to tenants. 
 
 Then began the era that one can term the "Dark 
 Aires" of the building. It was defaced with signs, 
 wires and advertisements so that its worthy ex- 
 terior became a shabby patchwork of colored 
 publicity. It was an eye-sore, and cried aloud 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 against Boston's lack of veneration for its historic 
 past. The city awoke finally to the shame of the 
 old building and in 1881 it ordered a complete 
 restoration. The historic edifice, July 11, 1882, 
 was rededicated with appropriate ceremonies as a 
 repository of historic things, and since it has re- 
 ceived the careful consideration of the city govern- 
 ment. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Bostonian 
 Society, " which promotes the study of the History 
 of Boston and the preservation of its antiquities, " 
 it is what the venerable building ever should be, — a 
 memorial and museum of the most important 
 events in the history of this nation. 
 
 OPPOSITE THIS SPOT 
 
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 OCCUPIED BY 
 
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 JOHN HANCOCK 
 
 SIGNER OF 
 
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 WAS HERE INAUGURATED 
 
 FIRST GOVERNOR OF 
 
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STATE STREET 
 
 STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY. 
 
 ONE of the oldest buildings and one of the 
 landmarks of State Street is the Union 
 Building, which stands directly opposite 
 the spot where the Boston Massacre took place. 
 This building was erected in the year 1826. The 
 lower floor of the building is occupied by the main 
 office of the State Street Trust Company, which 
 is one of the well-known financial institutions 
 of Boston to-day. Occupying as its main office 
 one of the old buildings on State Street, the 
 company has established in the Back Bay, on the 
 corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston 
 Street, a banking building of the most modern 
 type exclusively for its own use. 
 
 39 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 INSCRIPTION ON THE PRINT 
 SHOWING THE LANDING OF THE 
 BRITISH IN BOSTON IN 1768. 
 
 THE lower right-hand corner of the illustra- 
 tion on page 10 reads, "To the Earl of 
 Hillsborough, His Majest 8 , Scr y of State for 
 America this view of the only well Plan'd Expe- 
 dition formed for Supporting y e dignity of Britain 
 & Chastizing y e insolence of America is hum 7 
 inscribed." 
 
 The printing at the bottom of the cut gives 
 the names of the numbered ships and wharves 
 and battery shown in the cut: — 
 
 "#1 Beaver, #2 Senegal, #3 Martin, #4 Glas- 
 gow, #5 Mermaid, #6 Romney, #7 Launceston, 
 #8 Bonetta. 
 
 "On fryday Sept r 30 th 1768, the Ships of War, 
 armed Schooners, Transports &c, Came up the 
 Harbour and Anchored round the Town; their 
 Cannon loaded, a Spring on their Cables, as for 
 a regular Siege. At noon on Saturday, October 
 the l 8t the fourteenth & twenty-ninth Regi- 
 ments, a detachment from the 59 th Reg* and a 
 Train of Artillery, with two pieces of Cannon 
 landed on the Long Wharf; there Formed and 
 
 41 
 
STATE STREET 
 
 Marched with insolent Parade, Drums beating, 
 Fifes playing and Colours flying up King Street, 
 each Soldier having received 16 rounds of Powder 
 and Ball." 
 
 The imprint is, "Engraved, Printed & Sold 
 by Paul Revere, Boston." 
 
 42 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 uexj i t 
 
 1994 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRODUCTS, INC. #859-5503 
 
F STATE STREET 
 
 73.67 
 
 •87 
 
 S7 
 
 Bapst Library 
 
 Boston College 
 Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167