73 ,8 Class. Book. '■»i^ . 8 < ( JV/fb the Compliments of the Author I pr^taneum JScstonicnse- EXAMINATION OF -^y 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 enemy, because I tell you the truth 'i Gal. iv. i6. SECOND EDITION— WITH ADDITIONS BOSTON: CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO. THE OLD CORNER DOOKSTORE. MDCCCLXXXVII. lpv\>taneum Bostonicnsc. EXAMINATION Mr. William H. Whitmore's OLD STATE HOUSE MEMORIAL AND REPLY TO HIS APPENDIX N. GEORGE H. MOORE, LL.D, LIKE IIEMKER OF THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY A/ii I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth 1 Gal. iv. i6. SECOND EDITION— WITH ADDITIONS BOSTON: CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO. THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. MDCCCLXXXVII. Copyright, 1S87, by GEORGE H. MOORE. TROWS PRINTJNG AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, ^EW rOHK. 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 unAvorthy 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 — " 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 WJiitniorc 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 INIr. 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 hereafter 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 " (/. 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 front 1776 to 1798 of its property and rights in 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 Xowg 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, 1S82. 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's Old State House JMeinoriaL 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 1 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, JNIr. 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 ]\[r. 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. ^Vhitmore 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. Whitniore'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 17 12, 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. lo Whitinore'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 tlian 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. u that " the Representatives' Chamber is fifty-seven and a half feet in length." lo this statement Mr. Whitmore appends the fol- lowmg note : "This figure, fifty-seven and one-half feet, is an impossibility, bemg more than one-half the length of the building. r>ut 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 m 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. iii., 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- takmg 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 jud-ment 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 imwarrantable alteration of the testimony deliber- 12 Whitviorc s Old State House Memorial. ately made and avowed by Afr. AVliitmore, in sui:)port of his theory. He says that the length of fifty-seven and a half feet for the Rej^resentatives' 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 ii, 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 " delinite 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.'' IIk 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 JVew England Palladium of September 24th, 1830, says : " The interior of the builditig is 7vholly 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 — tlie 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 174S?'' 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 i)assing 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 \\\ 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 2Sth 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 viotion, and report. Joiirnal, 88. On the i6th 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 ; lb\ III, 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 1S03. 14 WJiitviorc s Old State House JHeiiwrial. 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 oft" 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. AV^iitmore 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, 176S, 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 Hiitchiuson 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 /us Appendix N'. 15 It is in this part of iiis performance that Mr. Whitmoie 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 [1841-1S81] 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 WJiitinorc 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] 7i