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Photograph copyrighted 1887 by George C. Cox.

Walt Whitman "Sept: 187

THE

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

NEW SERIES.

MARCH, 1899.

VOL. XX. No. 1.

I'

THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY OF SONS OF THE REVOLUTION.

By Walter Gilman Page.

T was in grateful memory of the founders of the republic and in sympathy with the revival of interest in our country's history marking the period of the centennial of our independence, that the Society of the Sons of the Revolution was formed. Instituted on the birthday of Washington, February 22, 1876,-the original roll of membership being preserved in the library of the New York Historical Society, the association took fuller and firmer shape on the centennial celebration of the anniversary of the formal evacuation of New York by the British, December 3, 1883. It was incorporated as a society of the state of New York, May 3, 1884. Numbers were attracted to an organization so patriotic in its object and rapidly becoming so popular; and, with added numbers, there arose in the minds of many descendants of Revolutionary sires outside of the state of New York the wish to share in this patriotic purpose of honoring our fathers' memory.

Pennsylvania was the first to organize a state society of the Sons of the Revolution, independent of the parent society of New York. The District of Columbia followed; Iowa, New Jersey and Geogia successively organized societies; and these six state societies

united in a general or national organization, in March, 1890.

On the evening of October 1, 1891, in response to a call for organization issued September 23, some twentyfive or thirty gentlemen met in the anteroom of Faneuil Hall and formed a Society of Sons of the Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, electing the following list of officers: William Leverett Chase, president; Hazard Stevens, vice-president; Frank Harrison Briggs, treasurer; Henry Dexter Warren, secretary; Walter Kendall Watkins, registrar; Francis Ellingwood Abbot, historian; and Eben Norton Horsford, Andrew Robeson, William Curtis Capell, Theodore Harold Clapp, Arthur Henry Dutton, Gilbert Hodges, Charles Howard Bailey, Jr., Walter Gilman Page and Winthrop Wetherbee, as a board of managers.

On October 9, 1891, a charter was granted the society by the secretary of the Commonwealth. October 24

the first meeting of the board of managers was held, and it was at once decided that immediate action should be taken towards fulfilling the requirements of the constitution of the society, which were "to perpetuate the memory of the men who, in the military, naval and civil service of the

colonies and of the Continental Congress, by their acts or counsel achieved the independence of the country; to inspire the members of the society with the patriotic spirit of their forefathers; and to promote the feeling of friendship among them."

A committee of three was appointed as the "tablet committee," whose duty should be to select sites of important events connected with our Revolutionary history, and to commemorate them with tablets descriptive of these events. The committee proceeded immediately to act in accordance with the vote of the board; and the first site selected for commemoration was the Green Dragon Tavern, which stood on Union Street, not far from Hanover. Through the courtesy of the Lodge of St. Andrew, the present owners of the property, a suitable place for the reception of the tablet was provided in the front wall of a building then in process of erection upon the site, as nearly as this can be determined, of the Green Dragon Tavern. The tab

let was unveiled without formality on August 19, and placed in the keeping of St. Andrew's Lodge.

Towering lone and grim at the summit of a solitary hill, its peculiar shape and time-worn walls making it a conspicuous feature in the landscape, the Old Powder House at Somerville has always been an object of curiosity to the visiting stranger; but while its form was so familiar to the public, its true history was not as well known. The Powder House, or old mill, has few rivals in the country in historical interest. The exact date when it was built is not known. It was originally a gristmill and was undoubtedly built several years previous to 1720, and for some time after that it continued to grind the corn for the neighboring farmers. After varied experience as a powder house, it came in 1836 into the possession of Nathan Tufts, in whose family it remained until turned over to the city of Somerville in 1892. This old relic. of bygone days is about thirty feet high, with a diameter of fifteen feet at

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the base. Its walls, which are of bluestone, probably quarried on the hillside, are two feet thick. Within, the structure formerly had three lofts, supported by heavy beams. These have been removed, and the interior is entirely empty. Originally it had but one entrance, that on the southwest side. A narrow porch of brick stood over the door at one time, but this has fallen down, and most of the bricks have been removed. It now bears upon its northerly. side a bronze tablet, measuring thirty by forty-two inches, presented to the city of Somerville on November 21, 1892, and accepted by the city government, December 14, 1892, by the passage of the following order:

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"Ordered, that the bronze memorial tablet recently placed upon the Old Powder House, and presented to the city by the Massachusetts Society of Sons of the Revolution, by its letter of presentation received this day, be and hereby is accepted by the City Council for and in behalf of the

city, with a hearty concurrence in the sentiment expressed by the society in its letter of presentation, that 'the tablet may serve to remind the present generation. and the generations which shall follow, of the patriotic deeds of our heroic forefathers.'

The society observed the one hundred and sixty-first anniversary of the birth of Washington by holding a commemorative service in King's The Chapel, February 22, 1893. scholarly oration by Francis Ellingwood Abbot, historian of the society, had for its theme "The Boston Tea Party."

records in the office of the secretary of state engaged the active interest of a committee appointed by the board of managers.

On Tuesday, April 4. 1893, a public meeting was held at Chickering Hall, called by a committee of the Sons of the Revolution, to take action regarding the protection of all public parks in Massachusetts, including Boston Common in particular, against attack by interested parties representing syndicates or corporations. This meeting, over which the late Colonel Henry Lee presided, was composed of many of Boston's distinguished citizens, and made a spirited and effective protest, which, for that time at least, preserved the integrity of the Common for the use and benefit of the

The printing of the Revolutionary people.

*This address, fully illustrated, was published in the NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE for June, 1893.

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The same year the society placed two bronze tablets, one to mark the

site of the home of Samuel Adams, on the corner of Winter Street and Winter Place, and the other, the finest tablet yet placed in Boston, to commemorate the destruction of the tea, December 16, 1773.

The home of Samuel Adams was a three-story wooden house fronting on the street, with an L, and in the rear a garden. A substantial looking building, built early in the eighteenth century and originally painted yellow, in its later days it had taken on a dingy and weather-beaten appearance. Its front door, ornamented with a

Street had formerly been known as Blott's Lane and Bannister's Lane; and in the early part of the century the houses on the same side of the street were of a similar style to that of Mr. Adams, with the exception of a few small shops, one of which, a barber's, stood next to Mr. Adams's residence and between it and Tremont Street. On pleasant days, in his declining years, Mr. Adams's erect figure, a little above the medium height, in tie wig, cocked hat, buckled shoes, knee breeches and red cloak, would be seen in front of his domicile.

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brass knocker, was surmounted over its arched entrance by a bow window. A single step admitted to the broad entry, from which heavily capped banisters led to the upper stories. On the ground floor, with their windows descending to within two feet of the ground, were parlors, one of which was used as a library by Mr. Adams. The parlor was spacious, having a large fireplace, with its huge brass andirons and its surrounding of blue tiles. On the walls were paintings of Mr. and Mrs. Adams and pictures of prominent Americans. The thoroughfare which is now known as Winter

The Tea Party tablet was unveiled on the one hundred and twentieth anniversary of the deed of which it marks the site, at the corner of Pearl Street and Atlantic Avenue. The inscriptions for tablets placed up to this time were written by Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Ph. D., historian of the society.

On February 22, 1894, in the Old South Meeting-house, fine framed photogravures of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington, known as the Athenæum portrait, were presented to the school children of Boston, in behalf of the society, by Rev. Edward

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