jJT IXAMINATION OF MR WHITMQR£ OLD STATE HOUSE MEMORIAL Moore ' >&*■ / With the Complimep I jpr^taneum Bostonienee EXAMINATION OF Mr. William H. Whitmore's OLD STATE HOUSE MEMORIAL AND REPLY TO HIS APPENDIX N. BY GEORGE H. MOORE, LL.D. LIFE MEMBER OF THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY Am I therefore become your e?iemy, because I tell you the truth Gal. iv. 16. SECOND EDITION— WITH ADDITIONS BOSTON : CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO. THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. MDCCCLXXXVII. FT3.8 D4M84 II>v\>tarteum Bostoniense. EXAMINATION OF Mr. William H. Whitmore's OLD STATE HOUSE MEMORIAL AND REPLY TO HIS APPENDIX N. GEORGE HfMOORE, LL.D. LIFE MEMBER OF THE BOSTOMAN SOCIETY Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell yon the truth 2 Gal. iv. 16. BOSTON »U«f U^f SECOND EDITION— WITH ADDITIONS >HESTNUT H1LL. MASSt BOSTON: CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO. THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. MDCCCLXXXVII. Copyright, 1887, by GEORGE H. MOORE. TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK. ^m*- PREFATORY NOTE. THIS pamphlet is a second issue of the third Appendix to my second paper on the Old State House, from which it is reprinted with some additions. It is intended chiefly for gratuitous distribution to the members of the Bosto- nian Society and the City Council of Boston. In the latest edition of Mr. Whitmore's Old State House Memorial, he charged me with having assailed the City Council in my first paper by "offensive" criti- cisms, which he characterized as "an unworthy return for their great liberality." Being promptly called upon to point out the offensive criticisms, he was unable to do so. The only important criticism which he has ever quoted was in these words of my first paper — 11 No such division of the space on the second floor, as the present, existed at any time during the official use of the building by the Legislature, Colonial, Provincial, Revolutionary, or State." The chief purpose of the appendix now reprinted was to demonstrate the truth of this statement. I think that purpose was accomplished ; and that nothing yet pro- duced by Mr. Whitmore has shaken it in the least. For the rest, when he points out anything I have written on this or any other subject, which can be justly charac- terized in such terms as he has seen fit to use, it may be my duty to pay further attention to him and his com- plaints. I do not think that any other member of the City Council has discovered or been rendered unhappy by what he calls my " attacks " on them or the Old State House ; and the estimate placed upon my papers by our 4 Whitmore s Old State House Memorial. associates in the Bostonian Society, has been shown very conclusively to me ; in the first place, by their cordial reception of them when read, and again, by their large orders of printed copies for distribution. It is hardly nec- essary for me to add that I entertain a very grateful sense of their kindness and liberality, which has not been dis- turbed in the least by the unanimous disapprobation of Mr. Whitmore. To those who read both parts of this pamphlet, which are reproduced in a second edition with the express pur- pose of affording the means of direct reference and easy comparison, it is hardly necessary for me to add much by way of comment or criticism upon the performance of Mr. Whitmore. It speaks for itself, and the reader now and hereafteu will be enabled to judge of the real merits of the discussion, as well as the temper of both sides, thus fully and fairly presented to his view. It will be observed that in estimating the value and novelty of my facts and researches, Mr. Whitmore flatly contradicts himself on pages 27 and 28 and again on pages 32 and 34, in the passages which I have itali- cized ; and in his final paragraph, he contradicts all four of the previous editions of his own " address which had the sanction of the Committee," by altering the date of its delivery from July nth, 1882, to June 29th, 1882. These are " trifling details," to be sure, but they serve to indicate high pressure in the "tea-pot," so elegantly al- luded to in one of his opening paragraphs. Even if the entire series of his ebullitions were within the range of literary or historical criticism, a just sense of self-respect would forbid me to characterize them in such terms as they richly deserve. Charity inspires the trust that they have brought relief to his sorely troubled spirit, and shifted the strain upon that "impartiality and courtesy in dis- cussing literary matters " which he values so highly. In his earnest though mistaken attempt to identify the Lion and the Unicorn with the ancient Colony Arms of Massachusetts, he very justly said that "the loyalty Reply to his Appendix N. 5 of our people to their chosen form of government does not depend upon any falsification of history " {p. 148). I think it may be said with equal justice and greater em- phasis, that the truest reverence for the Old State House and most honest regard for its traditions do not in any degree depend upon the falsification of its history. Enough remains of its mutilated walls and timbers to con- secrate the reconstruction in which those remains have been piously preserved ; and the convenience and pro- priety of the renovated Halls for the purposes designed justify themselves. They need no defence, for as they have not been, they are not likely to be attacked. No- body has objected to the general plan adopted and so well executed by Mr. Whitmore's Committee, and nobody but Mr. Whitmore himself has said anything about the expense of the work of renovation, since it was so satis- factorily accomplished. If he or any other member of the City Council, charged with the absolute duty of economy in the administration of the public property and revenues derived from taxa- tion, finds the expense which has been or is likely to be incurred in devoting this estate to its present pious uses, too great a burden on his conscience ; the plan which I shall now propose might lift that burden forever. An act of common honesty and simple justice on the part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would make the Old State House a permanent possession, and insure its pres- ervation as the Museum of Memories of the historic past, of the three-hilled City. In my first paper I brought to light the obscure and previously neglected fact, which I had occasion to empha- size by re-statement in the appendix (now reprinted) to my second paper — that the State of Massachusetts never paid the County of Suffolk for the appropriation and use from 1776 to 1798 of its property a?id rights i?i the Old State House. Let the Commonwealth now take up and discharge this long neglected obligation ! Let the Legis- lature provide at once by an adequate appropriation to 6 WJiitmore's Old State House Memorial. pay the long arrears of rent, adding a just allowance of interest, with proper rests in its calculation and statement of the account, and with the consent of the County of Suffolk, let the money be devoted to the endowment of the Old State House ! Let the BOSTONIAN SOCIETY be charged with the administration of the trust ! and Boston will have one place of pilgrimage consecrated by grand and glorious memories in all the time to come — a princi- pal and perpetual shrine of American Patriotism. George H. Moore. New York: April, 1887. EXAMINATION AND REPLY TO MR. W. H. WHITMORE'S "APPENDIX N." The "re-dedication" of the Old State House, Boston, took place on the nth of July, 1882. Mr. "William H. Whitmore, member of the Common Council from Ward 12," was the " orator of the day," and his Address on that occasion, " the address sanctioned by the Committee," as he styles it with laudable pride, to distinguish it from anything of less authority, was im- mediately printed in an octavo pamphlet of seventy-seven pages, of which a large number were circulated like other public docu- ments at the public expense. Since that time three other editions have been issued as the Old State House Memorial, also at the expense of the city of Boston, very fully and handsomely illus- trated, and liberally distributed. These several editions bear ample testimony to the ability and research of the learned orator and editor, to whose great reputation as the local historian ot Boston I ventured to pay my humble tribute in my first contribu- tion to the history of the Old State House. The several editions of the Old State House Memorial have gradually increased in bulk — the latest being a splendid octavo of two hundred and six- teen pages of text, besides no less than thirty-three full-page il- lustrations. The knowledge of the editor, great as it may have been, has evidently been added to in the course of these pub- lications, and he has availed himself to some extent of his oppor- tunities for correction, painful as it seems to be for him to sub- 8 Whitmore 1 s Old State House Memorial. mit to it. The present review, therefore, will be limited to an examination of the latest revision of the work, and chiefly the latest additions of the author. The errors which he has ac- knowledged and corrected need no further notice ; those to which he obstinately adheres will furnish subjects enough for present treatment. If my readers find the matter somewhat in- coherent or wanting in proper method, I trust I shall be ex- cused for the attempt to follow that of my critic, seeking my game wherever I find it, whether " in the open " or " in shadiest covert hid." If I should be accused of " going all round Robin Hood's barn," my only excuse is that " I was looking for some- body ! " At an early stage of his labors, Mr. Whitmore, we are informed by his architect, discovered "the original plans of the building" at Cincinnati (p. 159), and although we are subsequently told the truth that the plan thus brought to light was evidently the design of Isaiah Rogers, adopted and carried out in the recon- struction of 1830 (pp. 200, 203), the first impressions of its origi- nality seem to have colored all the subsequent conceptions of Mr. Whitmore, his architect, and his committee, of what it was their province and duty to reconstruct in 1881-82. The prin- cipal new feature in the reconstruction of 1830, was the intro- duction of a circular staircase in the centre of the building, the evidence of whose existence there at some time previous to 1881 was "the most important development" on stripping the interior and accompanied with at least " one mysterious circumstance " (P. 159)- Mr. Whitmore says (p. 62) : " When the work of restoration was commenced ... it was found that the framing of the timbers was such that there must have been a circular stairway in the place now occupied by it, from the first floor to the halls, and that the landings must have presented their present form." It was found that the heavy oak girders were hung by iron rods from the tie-beams of the roof trusses in the third floor ; but it seems not to have occurred to the enterprising explorers that in the original construction of the building, those very girders extended from wall to wall, and that the centres had been sawed out, and the Doric pillars beneath, which originally supported them, taken away in order to make room for Mr. Rogers's new circular staircase in 1830. This was unquestionably the fact. No iron Reply to his Appendix N. 9 rods existed there at any time before the supporting pillars were taken out between the first and second floors at those points. Taken in connection with the facts now demonstrated, Mr. Whitmore's " discoveries" and the " important indications " of his architect are sufficiently ludicrous. It is unnecessary to pursue these details. When the building was erected in 1712, the committee was instructed "to fit the East Chamber for the use of His Excellency the Governor, and the Honorable the Council, the Middle Chamber for the House, the West Chamber for the Superior and Inferior Courts." Mr. Whitmore says of the latter : " Notwithstanding the order to construct a west room for the courts, it is very doubtful if this were really done " — but he produces nothing whatever in the shape of evidence to justify his doubt, and in fact, as will abun- dantly appear, there can be no doubt about it. Every subsequent description and allusion to it sustains the fact, of which the proof is abundant in records which demonstrate the existence of the Court Room, and its use by the courts, until the completion of a new Court House in Queen Street, and its occupation in March, 1769. Nobody has questioned the existence of the Council Chamber or the Representatives' Chamber, so that there were three rooms of unequal size known to be included in that second story. It is also perfectly well known that the building was not less than one hundred and ten feet in length. If Mr. Whitmore's central staircase occupied no more than ten feet of that dimension of length, this would leave on the west side of it fifty feet for the Representatives' Chamber and Court Room. It needs but one glance at the plans which he has fur- nished to satisfy any reasonable mind on this point. They show more than one third of the entire " space on the second floor " to be taken up with the circular staircase hall, and the adjoining ante- rooms, and all in the centre of the building ! Can anybody be made to believe that anything like that could have been devised for or adjusted to the purposes and uses of the Legislature, colo- nial, provincial, revolutionary, or State ? Yet this is the enter- tainment to which we are invited by Mr. Whitmore. The thing is preposterous on its face ! There is no evidence what- ever to show that there was at any time before 1830, any stair- case (circular, spiral, or straight) in the centre of the Old State House. io Whitmore 's Old State House Memorial. The staircases and entries with lobbies, and there were two of each through all the period of legislative use of the building, never occupied more than twenty feet in all, probably less than ten feet on each side of the middle room, leaving nearly four fifths of the space for the principal and necessary accommodation of the three official bodies of men who met there. The communication with the second and third floors by a staircase in the centre of the building was the dominant feature in the plan of 1830, which had to provide for two rooms of assembly, and various executive offices on the same floor. This is substantially reproduced in the present arrangement, consisting of two halls of equal size divided by a rotunda, up the centre of which rises a winding stairway, with four small rooms in the corner spaces between the rotunda and the halls. The architects of the original building had to provide for three rooms of public assembly, for which two separate ways of access were distinctly and obviously necessary, and are known to have existed. There were eleven second-story windows, in each of the side walls of the building, opposite each other. My own conjecture as to the division would assign to the Council Chamber space to include three windows from the east wall ; to the eastern staircase entry and lobby, the fourth window ; to the Representatives' Chamber, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth windows ; to the western staircase entry and lobby, the ninth window ; and to the Court Room, the tenth and eleventh windows to the west wall. Making due allowances for the partitions, of which there must have been four, although not exact for want ot exact measurements, we can come near enough to indicate the general plan, and demonstrate the utter folly of Mr. Whitmore's discoveries, guesses, arbitrary assumptions, and groundless as- sertions. But it is time to point out and do justice to his chief discovery — and his marvellous manipulation of the recorded dimensions in figures. I have quoted his remarks on the " find " of the circular stairway. He continues : "The same investigation showed that the Representatives' Hall had its easterly end curved, while the Council Chamber was square. These indications coincide with a description published in 1791, when the halls were still oc- cupied by the Legislature of the State, and when, apparently, no changes had been made" (pp. 62-63). He reprints the whole description in his text. The statement is therein expressly made Reply to his Appendix N. n that " the Representatives' Chamber is fifty-seven and a half feet in length." To this statement Mr. Whitmore appends the fol- lowing note : " This figure, fifty-seven and one-half feet, is an impossibility, being more than one-half the length of the building. But thirty- seven and one-half feet would reach exactly to the line of the curved end of the hall as shown in Rogers's plans, and now re- constructed. Evidently the writer put his notes of the measure- ments in figures, and either he or his printer mistook thirty-seven and one-half for fifty-seven and one-half. The error really con- firms the exactness of the record " ! The description of the State House is in the Massachusetts Magazine for August, 1791, vol. hi., 467-8. The dimensions of the chambers are not given in figures, but plainly spelled out in roman letters — so that there is no ground whatever for the sug- gestion of error on the part of either writer or printer, by mis- taking 3 for 5. The measurement was undoubtedly correct and the record needed no error to confirm it. It is Mr. Whitmore himself who sins against the light, deliberately digging the hole and ostentatiously getting into it ! Struck by the wonderful coincidence of one of the measure- ments on Rogers's plan and his own ingenious invention of a mis- take in the figures of the "contemporary witness" of 1791, Mr. Whitmore eliminated the theory of construction and re- construction, which has been present to the mind of the restorer ever since. It has " mastered his intellectuals" and is still "a thing of beauty" to him, though I fear it will not be "a joy for- ever." His arithmetical ignis fatuus has misled his judgment upon every fact which cannot be made to fit his theory. If he would only drop that, all the facts would fall into their proper places without friction, and no awkward explanations or apologies would be necessary. It seems a pity to demand such a sacrifice, but it cannot be helped. The "contemporary witness" must have justice, and will, undoubtedly, secure the protection of the court. And this is the "contemporary witness," whom Mr. Whitmore has the audacity to charge me with having "ignored"! So far from ignoring the description of 1791, I have relied and still rely upon it as accurate and unimpeacha- ble. I agree with the witness, but I reject the utterly ground- less and unwarrantable alteration of the testimony deliber- 12 Whitmore' s Old State House Memorial. ately made and avowed by Mr. Whitmore, in support of his theory. He says that the length of fifty-seven and a half feet for the Representatives' Chamber is an impossibility. Wherein is the impossibility of it in a building one hundred and ten feet in length ? The impossibility is in his attempt to put the Repre- sentatives' Chamber into less than one-half of the building when divided by a central staircase — to say nothing of another large public room with separate staircase entry and lobby to be pro- vided for in the same space ! Mr. Whitmore's "important question" is thus easily and em- phatically answered. Mr. Rogers's plan does not " represent in its outlines the arrangement when the Legislature quitted the building January n, 1798," or at any other time previous to its "creation" by the architect in pursuance of his instructions for the reconstruction of 1830 (p. 201). Although very positive in his own contrary opinion, the historian of the Old State House declares his inability to secure " definite information " on this point. lb. He alleges that " the newspapers of 1830 are, un- fortunately, entirely silent as to the extent of Mr. Rogers's altera- tions." lb. This statement is incorrect. The newspapers are not silent, and one phrase from one of them is a sufficient answer to all this part of his apology. The New England Palladium of September 24th, 1830, says : " The interior of the building is wholly altered." It is needless to multiply quotations from the press to the same effect. The alterations were the chief topic of the newspaper references to what was going on at the Old State House, at that time — June to October, 1830. Let us accompany the historian on his " return to surer ground," to use his own phrase (p. 202). He says of the Council Chamber that " its only entrance was from the centre of the building." How does he know that there was but one entrance? or that to have been in the centre of width from north to south ? As to the centre of length, east to west, there is considerable difference between thirty-two feet — the place of the west wall of the Council Chamber — and fifty-five feet — the centre of the build- ing — by all scales of measurement with which I am familiar. Again, how does he know that any " winding stairway " was in any part of the building as "originally constructed in 1748?" On the contrary, it is absolutely certain that no "spiral stairway Reply to his Appendix N. 13 was in the place occupied by the present one" at the time re- ferred to, notwithstanding " the report of the City Architect." Whatever shape it may have had, the way "from the second floor to the tower" went up from one or both the eastern and western staircase entries and not from or out of any part of the Repre- sentatives' Chamber, which itself occupied not less than one-third of the whole space on the second floor — that third including the centre of the building. Mr. Whitmore' s speculations about "curved ends" and " straight ends," have no value in the discussion, and might be passed without further notice, as a part of a crooked treatment of a crooked subject. But I may remark in passing that there is not the slightest evidence or probability that the curves in ques- tion existed anywhere in the building before Rogers made them in 1830. In the plenitude of his newly acquired familiarity with the " trifling details," Mr. Whitmore informs us twice in the space of ten lines on one point, viz. : that "it was not until 1776 that the State bought out the rights of the county," and that it was in the year 1776 "when the State bought out the county" (p. 201). Now the State never bought out the county at any time, and never paid the county anything for the use of its property so generously offered in 1776, accepted and used until 1798 !* Referring to the plan for utilizing the Court Room thus offered in 1776, which I brought to light in my first paper, Mr. Whitmore ingenuously inquires : " What plan did the Committee adopt?" when the matter was referred back to them with power. I think it is not unreasonable to suppose that they carried out substan- tially the plan they had recommended. The House had approved * Although the statement in the text is literally true, it seems proper to mention here that a motion was made in the House on the 25th September, 1777, that a committee be appointed to consider what sum shall be paid to the county of Suffolk, for that part of the present Representatives' Chamber which belonged to said county, whereupon a committee was appointed to con- sider the motion, and report. Journal, 88. On the 16th of October, the vote was reconsidered, and a new committee was appointed for the purpose mentioned in the motion, i.e. to consider the question of compensation ; 7b. in, but it is evident that the County received none at any time from the State, and realized their share only when the whole was finally secured to the Town of Boston in 1803. 14 Whit more 's Old State House Memorial. that plan as reported, at the same time giving them power to make alterations. If they made any, it is certain that they made no changes which would impair or defeat the purpose of their plan. That purpose was to obtain more room, and all the room they could, for the vast number of new members, and at the same time increase the facilities for public accommodation in the galleries. Mr. Whitmore manifests a peculiar intolerance for the gallery, and " doubts if the gallery was retained" after 1776. From the beginning of his researches he seems to have cherished a dislike to it. In face of absolute testimony he almost doubted its ex- istence at any time ; and after reading my notes showing what an interesting feature it was in the history of the building, he still exhibits some spite against it and does not even give it a chance to cool off in winter. In the end, he parades his first doubts about it and his apparently reluctant admission of its existence as "all that the most enthusiastic antiquary could ask." If he reads my second paper with attention, I think he will no longer doubt that the gallery, which he classes with the Court Room as " an ac- cident and transient," continued to exist to the end of the State occupation ; and was sometimes thronged by crowds of interested visitors.* Mr. Whitmore recurs to this topic in connection with his ad- ditional Court House notes and declares that these " notes make it plain that the Gallery in the Representatives' Chamber was be- gun at about the same time as the new Court House. There is evidently a connection between the two facts." What this mys- terious connection is he does not tell us : perhaps it was like that of the Goodwin Sands and Tenterden steeple, but as to the rest of his statement — the records show that the gallery had been finished and paid for in March, 1767; the new Court House was not begun until after the 4th of May, 1 768, and was finished and first in use in March, 1769 — two years later than the gallery. * The recent publication of the Diary and ^Letters of Hutchinson furnishes an additional notice of this gallery in a MS. of Chief Justice Oliver, pre- served among the Hutchinson Papers in England. It is as follows: "There was a gallery at a corner of the Assembly Room, where Otis, Adams, Hawley and the rest of the Cabal used to crowd their Mohawks and Hawcubites, to echo the oppositional vociferations to the rabble, without doors." The Editor says the word Hawcubites "is of doubtful reading." Diary : i., 145. Reply to his Appendix N. 15 It is in this part of his performance that Mr. Whitmore himself undertakes what a few pages before he informs us " it is un- necessary to attempt," i.e. " to show what the probable size of the Court Chamber was." After considerable wrestling with it, he finally gets it down to thirteen feet in width ! with the gallery over the chamber even then, and stairs in the chamber leading up to that gallery ! The intelligent reader hardly needs to be informed that this is almost too absurd for comment. Were the principal courts of the Province of Massachusetts held for a period of more than twenty years in a room thirteen feet wide and fifteen feet high ? and that height diminished during the latter years of its occupation by thrusting in a gallery overhead, thus putting " between decks" judges, lawyers and the whole judicial business of the principal county in the Province ? that county having paid one fourth of the entire cost of the whole building, in order to insure suitable accommodations. It is amazing that any man in his right mind should indulge in such ridiculous non- sense, actually figuring it out (p. 210) with contradictory meas- urements and impossible calculations ! As for the " stairs in the late Court Chamber in the Town House, so called, leading up to the Gallery there," which he has discovered — the order of the Court of General Sessions in May, 1769, to have them "immediately taken down " indicates not only the temper of the county authorities, but some evidently re- cent trespass committed on their property, which they naturally enough resented. Negotiations for the sale or exchange of their interest in the building had been going on for several years; and they had no reason to be satisfied with having the Court Cham- ber made use of as a thoroughfare to the Representatives' Gallery, or for any other purpose, without their permission. The peremp- tory order of the Court was perfectly justifiable ; and I dare say that it was promptly executed. Mr. Whitmore is careful to tell us what he says " every one knows, that during the forty years after the City Government quitted this building [1841-1881] and while it was leased for business purposes, the interior suffered great changes." He might have said with equal truth that it suffered changes quite as great during the time between its final purchase by the town in 1803, and its reconstruction in 1830. Instead of this, he says " there is no record of anv considerable alterations in the interior 1 6 Whitmore' s Old State House Memorial. between 1798 and 1830" ! He forgot that in his previous pages he himself had furnished a considerable record on that subject, which might easily be extended (pp. 99-109). I will add but one extract which seems to have escaped his attention when he was quoting Mayor Otis' s grand address. Referring to the former history of the building, with which he was familiar from child- hood, the Mayor said : "In 1747 the interior was again consumed by fire, and soon repaired in the form which it retained until the present improve- ments [of 1830] with the exception of some alterations i?i the apartments made upon the removal of the legislature to the new State House. Since the removal of the legislature, it has been internally divided into apartments and leased for various uses in a mode familiar to you all ; and it has now undergone great re- pairs, this floor adapted to the accommodation of the City Gov- ernment and principal officers, while the first floor is allotted to the Post Office, News Room, and private warehouses." In the matter of dimensions — note that in the description by Bowen : Picture of Boston, Ed. 1828-9: the size of the Ma- sonic Hall is given as length 43 ft., breadth 32 ft., height 16 ft. Mr. Whitmore repeats these dimensions without criticism or question or even comment. In the same notice, the occupation by the Free Masons is in- dicated as being of all the second a?id third stories " except one room at the west of the second story which is occupied for the City Treasurer's office.''' It is also stated that as early as April 29, 181 2, the County Treasurer was assigned a room adjoining West- erly that of the Town Treasurer. Mem. Vol. 106. When the lease was made to the Freemasons for ten years from October 1, 1820, it covered u all the rooms above the lower story, except two on CornhiH" (i.e. Washington St.) lb. 109. Mr. Whitmore has thus himself furnished in three editions con- clusive evidence that there were still at least two ways of ac- cess to the second floor in 18 12 when the town and county treasurer's offices were established at the west end of the build- ing and were not disturbed by the Freemasons in 1820, when the latter leased all the other rooms in the second and third stories. Was the Masonic Temple a thoroughfare to those offices, or were they reached by ladders from the outside through the windows of the second story ? Reply to J lis Appendix N. 17 Mr. Whitmore's later studies among the Court records have resulted in a series of notes under the sub-title of " The Court House and the Gaol." My reference to the Court House in Queen Street was incidental, for the purpose of indicating the time when the Old State House was first disused by the Law Courts. It has turned out to be important in leading Mr. Whit- more to a knowledge of the facts that it was " a building distinct from the Old State House," and situated in " what is now Court Street." I also mentioned incidentally the tradition of Governor Bernard's having furnished the plans. Mr. Whitmore character- izes "Bernard's share in the work as a matter of tradition only." This is true, and Mr. Whitmore is indebted to me for all that he seems to know about it. If I had also given him the in- formation, he might (or might not) have added that William Sullivan was the man who preserved the tradition. He was born in 1774 and died in 1839. He was familiar with the building from childhood ; and although he was not a contem- porary of Governor Bernard in Massachusetts, the tradition is sufficiently authenticated by his statement alone, that " this house was planned by Governor Bernard." Address to Suffolk Bar: 37. The same authority states that "in the Hall in the centre (over the first floor, formerly used as the Exchange), the representatives assembled. Adjoining this hall, at the westerly end, was the judicial court room." Ibid. 36, 37. Mr. Whitmore's contribution to the history of the new Gaol, which he says "was erected at the same time" with the new Court House, also needs correction. He furnishes in the same sentence the record evidence that it was " finished the twenty-first day of March, 1767;" and (as I have previously stated) the new Court House, begun more than a year afterward, was not finished and occupied until March, 1769. He also says that before the settlement of accounts for the construction of the Gaol, it was "greatly injured by a fire." * This is his way of stating the fact which appears of record, that it was " entirely consumed by fire, no part thereof but the stone * Mr. Whitmore makes the same remark on page 57 with respect to the Town House. He says it was "greatly injured by a fire," in 1747, the fact being that it was entirely destroyed, except the bare walls. Cf. p. 175. 1 8 Whitmore's Old State House Memorial. walls being left." * On page 154, he reprints for the third time without correction the blunder of a writer whom he quotes, giv- ing the date of that fire as the 30th June, instead of the 30th January, 1769. If he had never met with the Court records, he might have made the correction from the newspapers of the day without much exertion. , The county building was called the New Court House at first because it was a new Court House, and afterwards to distinguish it from the Province Court House — although the latter was even then more frequently called the Town House, especially by the citizens of Boston. When Powars and Willis established their " New England Chronicle" in Queen St. in June, 1776, it was published "at their office opposite the new Court House in Queen St." but on the 7th of November, they emphasized the word "new," by printing it in small capitals — "at their Office opposite the New Court House in Queen St." In 1769 "the Town Hall" meant " Faneuil Hall" — the "Town House." was what is now the Old State House. Appeal to the World : etc., 1769, p. 28. So also in 1770, the testimony in the trial of the soldiers shows that the building was commonly called and known as " the Town House." Trial, etc. ; 1770, pp. 20, 28, 32, 40, 48, 52 : and especially 86. At this period, too, the name was emphasized by the persistent efforts of the popular party to compel Hutchinson to bring back " the General Court to its ancient and constitutional place, the town-house in Boston." Journal H. of R. 1770, p. 36. The confusion of these names may have led Mr. Whitmore into his error of supposing that the trials of Michael Corbett and others before the Special Court of Admiralty, in 1769, as well as the trials of Captain Preston and his soldiers, in the following year, took place in the Old State House. No evidence is fur- nished to prove that either of them was "held in this hall", and * For an account of the burning of " the new Jail" January 30, 1769, see Boston Chronicle, February 2, 1769. Further particulars, trial of the prisoners who fired it, etc., in same paper; February 6, April 7, and May 1, 1769. Vol. ii. 39, 43, in, 140. "Nothing remained but the bare stone walls." " The loss to the county, by burning of the goal (sic) is estimated at ^3000 sterling." Cf. the Massachusetts Gazette, February 2, 1769, and Holt's Journal: February 16, 1769, in which it is described as "the large new coitnty gaol." Reply to J lis Appendix N. 19 it is certainly not true that both the latter occurred in the same month of October, to which they are assigned by the learned orator. Preston's trial began on the 24th of October and held six days. The Court was adjourned to November 20th, and the trial of the soldiers began on the 27th and held nine days. The trial of those accused of firing on the people from the Custom House windows was on the 12th December: when the jury ac- quitted them all without leaving their seats. Appendix to Trial, etc. 1770. On the 14th of December, two of Preston's soldiers, who had been found guilty of manslaughter, prayed the benefit of clergy, which was allowed, and they were branded in the hand in open court and then discharged. The benefit of clergy was taken away in Massachusetts by a law passed March 11, 1785. " A few days after the trials, while the Court continued to sit, an incendiary paper was posted up, in the night, upon the door of the Town House, complaining of the court for cheating the injured people with a show of justice, and calling upon them to rise and free the world from such domestick tyrants. It was taken down in the morning, and carried to the Court, who were much disturbed, and applied to the lieutenant governor, who laid it before the council, and a proclamation was issued, which there was no room to suppose would have any effect." Hutchinsori s Mass., iii. 330. Hutchinson's proclamation against the authors of a paper posted upon the door of the Town House in Boston is in the Mass. Gazette of December 13, 1770. The paper and lines " stuck up at the door of the Town House" are in the same newspaper, Draper's Mass. Gazette : No. 3507, December 20, 1770. It is hardly worth while for me to take up the confused state- ments and repetitions of the "Appendix F. p. 154 " to which Mr. Whitmore directs attention on p. 207. It is evident, however, chat he has profited by study, if not instruction, since he wrote that part of his work : for he has discovered that the Court House and Gaol figured in his extract from Osgood Carleton's Map of 1800 are the same which were there in 1769. But he is not contented with this — adding that "the Court Records not only show that there were two separate buildings in 1769, viz. : a Court House and a Gaol, but'also a brick Probate Court build- ing there." * 20 Whitmore s Old State House Memorial. The fact is, however, that the " brick Probate Court building ' was not "there" in 1769. It had been erected in 1754 and repaired in 1756, as appears from the records of the Court of General Sessions which he quotes : but in 1768, it was " taken down, for the better Accommodation and Convenience of a New Court House " — by order of the Court which determined at the same Sessions upon the erection of that new Court House, in which a new Probate office was duly provided for.* Mayor Otis in the inaugural address so often quoted refers to the "offices for the clerks of the supreme and inferior courts" which were " on the north side and first floor" of the Old State House. " In them (he says) the Judges robed themselves and walked in procession followed by the bar at the opening of the courts." After the removal of the courts to the new Court House in 1769, these offices continued to be kept in the Town House, and the procession became a more imposing and conspicuous affair in marching thence to the new place for holding the courts. It must have been a striking scene — the procession of official personages with all their proper insignia, the Judges with rich robes of scarlet English broadcloth in their large cambric bands and immense judicial wigs, and all the barristers-at-law of Bos- ton and the neighboring counties, in gowns, bands and tie-wigs. Something certainly was lost when " the trumpet, the scarlet, the attendance " were taken away from judicature. The following extracts from the newspapers of the day, confirm tne accuracy of the tradition preserved by Mayor Otis, and present a lively suggestion of the scenes in 1774 and 1785: "Boston: Sept. 1, 1774. Last Tuesday [August 30th] being the day the Superior Court was to be holden here, the Chief Justice, Peter Oliver, Esq., and the other Justices of the said Court, together with a number of gentlemen of the Bar, attended by the High and Deputy Sheriffs walked in procession from the state-house to the Court House, in Queen Street." [On this oc- casion all the members of the Grand and Petit Jury panels * It is a fact worth mentioning here that the earliest notice of any occupa- tion of the building which I have met with is an advertisement that "The Probate Office for the County of Suffolk is now kept in the new Court House, Boston." Massachusetts Gazette: March 9, 1769. Reply to his Appendix N. 21 refused to serve and to take the oath — a full account of proceed- ings, &c. follows.] Gaine : No. 1196, September 12, 1774. 11 1785. August 30. The Supreme Judicial Court opened Tuesday, August 30th, in this town with the usual Solemni- ties. The following was the order of procession from the State House — Constables with their Staves 2 and 2 Deputy Sheriffs High Sheriff Clerks of the Court B *S^ The Honorable the Judges The Attorney General Barristers, Attornies, &c. &c." Cefitinel : Aug. 31, 1785. Doubtless other and more recent examples might be cited. I have not the means at hand to determine when these formalities ceased to be observed — though I am under the impression that some of the elder members of the Bar in Boston may recall them among their youthful experiences. Among the " trifling details " not excluded from notice in " the address sanctioned by the committee," the carving of the ancient arms of the colony, which was one of the interior deco- rations of the building, is made to " point the moral and adorn the tale " as a part of Mr. Whitmore's defence, if not exalta- tion, of the royal emblems, whose perennial contest for the crown is curiously symbolized by their bold reproduction, at least twice as large as the original, in the angles of the eastern facade of the Old State House. In my first paper, I referred to the figure of the Indian in the arms of the Commonwealth, as a survival of that in the centre of the colony seal and arms. A comparison of the two may be interesting. The survival is described in the language of heraldry, as " an Indian dressed in his shirt and mogossins, belted proper, in his right hand a bow topaz, in his left an arrow, its point towards the base of the second," etc. His predecessor was dressed in his long hair, so exaggerated as to resemble a very full-bottomed wig — with a breech-cloth and perhaps moccasins — not girded or belted at all, but with his bow where it ought to 22 Whitmore s Old State House Memorial. be, in the left hand, and his arrow in the right, his attitude being by no means hostile, though sufficiently warlike. It is a fact worthy of notice that when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the great Missionary Society of the Church of England, was established, its founders seem to have taken a hint for the design of its seal from this old one of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay. The Macedonian cry, however, is no longer the individual appeal in English of a single savage, but floats in a Latin scroll over a number of people, who are figured as running towards the shore of the sea, on which is borne towards them, with swelling sails a ship, from the bow of which a clergyman holds out the token of good-will in the shape of an open Bible or Prayer Book. Mr. Whitmore gravely informs us (p. 147) that " although no specimen is now known of the Colony Arms, it cannot be doubted that they were the same as those on the Great Seal" of the Province. If the Province Arms were the same as those on the Province Seal, why should we suppose that the ancient arms of the Colony were other than the device on the Colony Seal ? And how would the Lion and the Unicorn look in the capacity of supporters for that primitive Massachusetts Indian ? His pitiful cry for help would indeed be an appropriate motto for a naked savage, flanked by two such beasts entirely unknown then as now in the American fauna. Mr. Whitmore has bestowed a good deal of critical operosity on this subject of the Massachusetts Seal, and it is largely due to him that the great seal of the Commonwealth now has a solid foundation of suitable legislation. The evolution of the arms thus established by statute reflects little credit, however, upon their manipulation in any generation since the first. Their story is told in House Document No. 345, April, 1885. Paul Revere' s patriotism was evidently of a much higher quality than his genius as an artist or skill as an engraver — if it is to his performances upon the arms and seal that we must refer the transformation of the original type of the savage warrior into the left-handed and more or less civilized Indian of the later period. The early Massachusetts engraver who made the cuts representing the Colony Seal for the various publications of laws in 1672 and afterwards, was more faithful, keeping the bow in the bow-hand, and preserving in other respects the verisimilitude of his subject. Reply to his Appendix N. 23 Ln 1775 the committee charged to produce a new Colony Seal went back to the Indian ; but portrayed him with a Tomahawk and Cap of Liberty ! This was changed into a straddling, if not bowlegged English-American, holding a sword in his right hand and Magna Charta in his left, with the famous Latin motto by Sidney, " Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietemV When in 1780 they came back to the aboriginal type, they restored the bow and arrow, but in the wrong hands respectively. It might have been fortunate if the House Committee on the Judiciary, in 1885, while studying proper legislation on the Great Seal of the Commonwealth, had been as well instructed in archery as they were in heraldry. The architect's report mentions one or two u minor details " deserving notice, of results obtained when the " careful carpen- ter" made the thorough examination "for more than four weeks under the immediate observation " of Mr. Whitmore and himself, in order to detect "any hidden traces left of the original interior." The marvellous coincidences revealed of conformity to the plan of re-construction by which new partitions had been put in fifty years before, would be much more to the purpose, if proof could be offered of any resemblances in either to the original building of 1748-9. In view of the fact, however, that but one of these partitions could possibly have been a part of the original build- ing, we cease to regard the discovery of their " indications " with any considerable interest. So, too, with respect to the windows, which Mr. Whitmore has asserted to be original, as well as the walls, timbers, and floors. It can be demonstrated that " new window frames, sashes, &c," were a part of the reconstruction in 1830. It would not be difficult to point out other errors of statement in more or less " trifling details ;" but I am not disposed to find fault with the enthusiastic imagination of the orator of the day who had " the sanction of the committee " upon such an occa- sion — and I forbear. Mr. Whitmore, very unexpectedly to me, has taken it upon himself to treat my paper as though I had wantonly attacked the Committee of the City Council of Boston, of which he was the chief member, and criticised their doings in an " offensive" man- ner. I am not conscious of having done anything of the kind ; and on my request to him to point out the criticisms to which 24 Whitmore' s Old State House Memorial. he referred, 1 regret to say that he failed to do so. It is Mr. Whitmore alone who says that the truth of my statements would furnish a serious ground of complaint against the committee. My statements were true, as I have now shown " with confirma- tion strong." Yet I have neither made nor suggested any such complaint, though I will not at this time withhold my opinion that his own aggressive and unnecessary defence does no honor to his committee, and will reflect little credit upon its author. Unless I am seriously mistaken, the head and front of my offence con- sists in my substantial correction of Mr. William H. Whitmore in matters respecting which he justly enjoys a high reputation for knowledge and skill as a historical critic and local antiquary. He must pardon me, if in acknowledging his great merits, I stop short of recognizing his infallibility. " Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim." H w 'y** *& w •'■