Northeastern University Press
Boston
Northeastern University Press
Copyright 1997 by John A. Schutz
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without
written permission of the publisher.
With gratitude to the National Endowment for the Humanities whose research grants made the project possible.
Contents
Preface ix
Part 1
The Beginnings 1
1 The King’s Lawmakers 5
2 The Family Man and Townsman 11
3 The Legislator 20
4 Organizational Matters in Serving the King and People 33
5 Running the House of Representatives 50
6 Public Votes in the Legislature 69
7 Centers of Power 88
8 In War and Revolution 109
9 Wives of the Legislators 127
Notes on the Biographies 139
Part 2
The Legislators 143
Bibliography 393
Preface
Every year in March and May the people of Massachusetts Bay gathered
in their town halls to vote for local and provincial officials. No special ceremonies were connected with this act of public faith in representative government, but there was associated with the elections often much emotion that touched the vitals of the process.
The English rulers William and Mary, at the height of the Glorious Revolution, bestowed upon the colony its second charter in 1691, and that royal constitution remained essentially the same document until a revolutionary people assembled in the Convention of 1779 to draw up a constitution for a free people. The beloved document of 1691 offered a large measure of self-government to colonial Massachusetts and Maine. Only in the executive branch could the hand of the king be seen. Otherwise, the people acting through their representatives were everywhere else generally in control of their local destiny. That power was exercised, of course, within a mighty empire whose heart was at Whitehall and whose blood was commerce. In their own way, most New Englanders were loyal to that heritage of King and Parliament, and Empire.
This book is concerned with the men of the Massachusetts legislature. It identifies all 3,117 of them, describes tersely their activities both in and out of the General Court, and provides a series of essays on the men and the mystique of being representatives of the people. Most of their work in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, was done in single-issue committees, with a few standing committees, so that a man’s activities were revealed in part by the number of committees on which he sat. Members of the Council, the upper chamber, worked around a large conference table as a second legislative body and only occasionally did some of them deliberate with representatives in a joint committee.
The research materials behind this book are much more extensive than what appears on its pages. A very large computer structure is erected to trace committee work by the week and note the specialty action of various legislators. Because I could not write immediately on everything that was discovered, I decided to concentrate on the men of the General Court in terms of the offices held in the townships, counties, and houses of the legislature.
May I first express my appreciation for the generous help of the National Endowment for the Humanities for the three research grants that it awarded me. I appreciate, likewise, the financial assistance of the University of Southern California, the help and encouragement of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and the support of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Over the years, I visited most of the Massachusetts town clerk offices, the county probate offices, and many historical societies. Town officials can be a warm, thoughtful group of people who will walk the last mile to find missing documents. Happily the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filmed many town documents. Its films are generously available on request and, though not always complete or readable, they are valuable by being shelved alongside other town films at the Church’s Salt Lake City headquarters.
My appreciation is also extended to the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C., for letting me read the lineage records in their great library. So many of the legislators served in the Revolution that the DAR has extensive records of many New England families. I wanted to identify the wives of legislators and was pleased to find often elusive data in these lineage files for some wives of America’s revolutionary heroes. The Huntington Library closer to my home has been a wonderfully rich place to do research.
Over the years I have the personal help of my graduate students. Perhaps none gave as loyal help as Ralph J. Crandall, now director of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. We learned the investigative techniques of genealogists and have come to appreciate their accomplishments. His staff at the Society, Gary Boyd Roberts, Jane Fletcher Fiske, David Curtis Dearborn, and Jerome E. Anderson, have often given me professional advice on genealogical problems. Marshall K. Kirk has checked the genealogical entries. Nat Shipton filled in my set of his father’s Sibley’s Harvard College Graduates; both his friendly regard and the valuable gift keep alive my appreciation of his father’s great scholarship and warm friendship. Early in the project, Dean Tipps of Whittier College and the University of California, Berkeley, joined me in developing some ways to examine the research materials with the computer. He invented a structure of classification that I still use. Paul Cartwright, between 1991 and 1995, put the present manuscript on computer diskettes. His advice has often kept me from serious errors.
Finally, I wish to thank William Frohlich and John Weingartner of the Northeastern University Press for their patience in waiting for me to finish the manuscript. Their confidence over many years has been a source of gratification.
John A. Schutz
Los Angeles, California
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