The Family Man and Townsman: Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 1691-1780

Most legislators shared the experience of living in large families and settling in towns, usually small rural villages. Most were fathers of large families by present-day standards and grandsons of early settlers. Not every man was a descendant of passengers on the Mayflower, Arbella, or the John and Mary, but many could trace their forefathers to the earth-breaking years of settlement. A few were descendants of Englishmen who escaped the Puritan revolutions, and a few more were Scots-Irish who had migrated in the early 1700s. Only a handful of families had Dutch or French ancestors.

These eighteenth-century New Englanders were frequently born in the same towns that their grandfathers or great-grandfathers had founded, often lived in the same house that their grandfathers had built, and owned lands that their ancestors had originally broken. Generations of the family went to the same church, attended similar town meetings, and served on town committees. Many families took root in a town and never left. Others, as their families grew, spread to unsettled lands of the town, to lands adjacent to the town, or to new townships that were constantly being opened and settled. Migration was not ever westward, but frequently northward up the Connecticut River into Vermont or along the Merrimac River into New Hampshire, and often eastward along the coast into the forested lands of Maine. By the Revolution and immediately afterward, some of these families went to New York. The migration there was frequently difficult to trace as families moved to new lands along the Mohawk and on the water route to the Great Lakes.

Although society's institutions were stable, the expanding population, the infertility of the soil, and the desire for a better standard of living caused considerable stirring in society as families sought sufficient land. New towns were being established in larger numbers as the Revolution approached, but almost every decade had a handful of new communities. Three families  - the Greenleafs, the Graveses, and the Wrights  - illustrate some patterns of settlement.

The energetic Greenleaf family arrived early in Newbury. Edmund (1574-1671) soon owned a tavern and farm and with Sarah Moore (1588-1663) had a family of eight children who multiplied and prospered. Edmund established commercial relations with merchants in Boston, and his sons and grandsons improved those connections over the years so that the family divided mostly between Newbury and Boston. For a time, Greenleafs lived also in Kittery and in Nantucket. Edmund's grandson, Stephen (1652-1743), was an original proprietor of Nantucket but retained his ties in Newbury.1 When Newburyport became the commercial center for Newbury, cousin Benjamin (1732-1799) acquired a wharf, warehouse, and store, and cousin Jonathan (1723-1807) became a shipbuilder, merchant, and landowner. Both were active in the House of Representatives and revolutionary government. William Greenleaf lived in Boston and was the sheriff of Suffolk County, a wealthy merchant and landowner, and father of fifteen. William had also commercial interests in New Bedford, where he died in 1803, but both he and Joseph, a distant cousin, remained in Boston during part of the Revolution when Benjamin
was also an influential official and Joseph a bookseller. The Greenleaf record clearly shows the family's commercial connection with Massachusetts and Maine seaports but some family members found as much satisfaction being farmers in Malden and Sutton, and a few were professionals. Joseph became a writer in the revolutionary cause and contributed to the Massachusetts Spy.

The Graves family came to Connecticut by the mid-1600s and settled along the river in Hartford and Wethersfield. Local religious differences soon displeased Thomas and two of his sons, and they moved northward to Hatfield, Massachusetts, in 1661. As frontiersmen and farmers, the family survived Hatfield's turbulent early years and amassed some wealth. They accumulated lands in Whately and Williamsburg as well as enlarging their holdings in Hatfield. Oliver and Perez Graves served one term apiece in the special revolutionary legislatures of 1774 and 1775, but they usually divided their work between the farms and the offices of selectmen, clerks, and treasurers.2

The Wright family migrated west from Boston either over land or by way of the Connecticut River. In 1655, Abel and Martha Wright were living in Springfield. As parents of 13 children, many of whom lived to be parents themselves, they watched their family spread to neighboring towns and later to Northfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield, and to towns in Vermont and New York. Although their children may have moved elsewhere in search of land, the heads of families often lived their whole lives in as ingle town and were successful farmers and willing public servants. Abel, Ebenezer, and Ephraim served Northampton at various times as representatives for nearly two decades.3

These examples illustrate families that had individual histories. They were not always bound to a single town, but moved once or twice during the lifetimes of some family members. Families often split, and a few members remained behind as brothers and sisters sought opportunities elsewhere. Almost all families were large, and the pressure on their resources must have been obvious to everyone from childhood. The nine Greenleafs who were examined averaged 10 children apiece. The two Graves families had a total of 18 children. Six of Oliver Graves's children, for example, survived their youthful diseases, married, and became parents. Some of these families were not as fortunate  - all of their children died in epidemics that often swept across the colony.

By modern standards, births occurred frequently. Sometimes the first birth came a few months after formal marriage, and hence forth, aboutevery 18 months. Jonathan and Sarah Woodman of Bradford had 13 children, and Sarah not only survived the ordeal but lived to age 91, 30 years longer than her husband.4 Robert and Mary Woodbury also had 13 children. They were married young in 1693 when she was 17 and he was 21. About 23 years later, the last of their children was born. The early births were successful, but Mary lost the eighth and thirteenth child at birth and two others before they turned 16. Mary lived to be 79, but Robert died at 74. They were farmers of Beverly, owned a large estate, and were active in town affairs. He was town clerk and selectman for most of the years from 1712 to 1721, moderator of town meetings, and captain of the militia. When he first went to the House of Representatives in 1726, his youngest child was 11 years old, but at least five were already married.5

Similar families certainly existed, but other patterns were likewise evident. Many men had two or more wives and fewer living children. For example, John Withington (1717-1798) had three wives over his long life and six children. His first wife, Martha, died at childbirth; the second, Desire, gave him five children; and the third, Hannah, was his companion in later years. John and Martha were both 27 when they were married in 1746. Three years after her death in 1748, he married Desire who was only 17. A year after Desire died in 1776, John married Hannah Tucker, undoubtedly a widow, who died in 1797 shortly before him. Their life experience contrasted with that of John Willis who had two wives, and the only child of his marriages died in early childhood.6

In a society with so many children, there were also families with very few children and marriages that had no living children at the deaths of the parents. Daniel and Lydia Witham of Gloucester had 12 children from their marriage in 1735, but only Daniel, Jr., survived them. Daniel and Ruth Winchester of South Brimfield lost their only child in 1752, years before their own deaths. By contrast, his brother Elhanan had three wives and 16 children during a full lifetime of 90 years in which he indulged his religious tastes by being a Congregationalist, New Light Baptist, Universalist, and Shaker. One of those children, Samuel (1753-1823) had three wives and a family of 21 children.7

Legislators' wives generally did not have a literary education, but as homemakers they obviously had much experience. They did not usually accompany their husbands to Boston and had no need ordinarily to know much about the law and legal customs. Some found themselves executors of their husband's estates, land owners, and managers of property. Because widows often remarried quickly, marriage contracts and wills governed new relationships. The change of names by marriage tended to obscure women, especially if they wed more than twice. Women usually had no independent existence from their husbands and were difficult to trace due to name changes. Maiden names are regularly lost by marriage, and sometimes even the name of a first wife who died in childbirth is obscured by the lack of recorded data.

The few surviving wills reflect much love between husbands and wives. Love's intensity, however, should not be judged solely by sentimental statements at death, or the repetition of names for future children when a son or daughter had died prematurely. Sometimes tombstones revealed emotion, especially a stanza of a poem or a terse line of innermost feeling. Everyone treated death as commonplace, accepted as an episode in the life experience, and difficult to combat in times of epidemics. As legislators departed for Boston, leaving families behind, the hazards of life were very much present in their thoughts. Everyone was anxious, but part of the legislator's desire to be near the family can be attributed to the uncertainties of life.

Most legislators were propertied gentlemen who had inherited land, increased the acreage by marriage, and accumulated more through frugal resource management. A land grant for colonial service was always possible. The surviving wills of most men list a homestead, scattered pieces of land of various sizes, salt marshes, timber lands, and waste lands. Wealthier men had many tracts, sometimes several homesteads, a few rentals, and interest in forest, grazing, and mineral lands. Their wealth also appears in silverware, furniture, clothes, and books. Cattle, implements, and tools were signs of wealth, occupation, and business. Wealthier families had black servants who were often regarded with loving care and remembered in the master's will. Farmers with extensive lands had laboring forces of African slaves, and merchants had gangs of longshoremen. Only a few families had Indian help.

With the Revolution, the use of credit changed the form of wealth a little. Representatives made loans to friends and townsmen, purchased stocks and bonds, and accumulated debts of various amounts. Settlements of estates increased in difficulty as court-appointed officials sought to pay off loans or collect sums due the estate. Sometimes administrators asked the courts for permission to sell property in order to pay bequests because they were expressed in monetary terms.

Country legislators rarely had property in Boston, but many Boston merchants had property throughout the colony  - country or suburban homes, lands, rentals, and businesses. Their homes at Roxbury, Milton, or Cambridge were frequently palatial, and some were laid out with gardens and hedges as most Virginia estates were. The William Shirley home in Roxbury had a grand view of the harbor and rare trees and bushes on lands reaching to the seashore. Designed by a professional architect, the house reflected good taste and high living. The surviving Oliver home in land at Middleborough with its beautiful grounds and views of forested hills had few rivals in Massachusetts. The luxurious homes of Robert Auchmuty, Thomas Hutchinson, and the Brattles were equally impressive. The oil portraits, imported furniture, oriental carpets, silverwares, and window hangings that decorated the houses inspired a feeling of gentility.

The usual houses of legislators, however, were much less ornate, judging by the items listed in wills and inventories. Proportionally more wealth went into clothes and less into furniture. Items of silver were frequently listed  - shoe buckles and silverware  - and books, which often defy cataloging except under such broad subjects as law, history, and religion, were identified. The mansion house was not often described, but was comfortable and roomy. Nearby was an apple orchard, a garden patch, and fields of grain for cattle. Extensions to the house permitted the chaise to be stored inside, hay and wood kept, and animals protected from winter cold.

The homes of the frontier legislators serving during the Revolution, when constitutional and legal restrictions for public office were generally relaxed, were probably more humble. Many of these men came from obscure backgrounds and later disappeared, migrating to Vermont or New York. Their obscurity may indicate that they had less wealth and fewer community ties than the pre-Revolutionary legislator. Caleb West, for example, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut; moved his family to Greenwich, Massachusetts, in the late 1760s; and was active shortly thereafter in the town's affairs. Elected representative in 1778 and member of the Constitutional Convention in 1779, he continued in the town until the 1790s when he disappeared.8 So did Nathan Fiske who lived briefly in Peru (Partridgefield) but had come by way of Enfield and Ashford, Connecticut. He married young, fathered ten children, and disappeared after serving as representative in 1776. Possibly a search for new opportunities drove him to Peru and dissatisfaction then took him elsewhere.9

Large families undoubtedly took care of any need for additional laborers on most farms. Nearby relatives could be called in for emergency work. Although some legislators had black slaves for household tasks, ownership of Africans was not widespread. A few could afford small gangs for hard work on the docks, in the fields, and in the lumber industry. White hired labor was probably preferred because it required less capital and care. It was used on the larger farms, and hired families may have been contracted to share-crop auxiliary farms. Indentured labor on larger farms relieved some legislators of routine tasks when they were absent in Boston or at the county seat.

Most farms grew crops that yielded modest surpluses that could be sold at nearby markets. Some towns were obviously better than others for selling surpluses. Worcester, Springfield, Taunton, and Concord formed networks of trading associations, and merchants would exchange other items for these farmsurpluses. Molasses, sugar, cloth, fish, cheese, and wine would come from outside the colony, but wheat, corn, and barley might also find their way to market. Farmers like the Otises, Chandlers, and Ashleys were merchants, too. It is difficult to know how many of the legislators were local merchants, or agents, but they often arranged to have local surpluses received by the Boston market. Their contacts were frequently relatives. The Otises, for example, had an extensive personal and consignment business for Barnstable with the Boston merchants.10

The roll of wagonwheels on the stones near the State House was frequently so noisy that the legislators inside the building were unable to hear themselves speak. In anger, they ordered chains attached to neighboring buildings to close off roads or reroute wagons. Such wagon turn-a-rounds were used at other coastal towns, and surpluses from that trade often found their way to Boston by ship. Apparently Boston had hundreds of day laborers available to handle this trade. Their presence was instantly obvious to the new legislators who brushed against them on the streets and worried often about their responses to naval impressment and low wages.

Many workers traveled daily into Boston by ferry from Charlestown, Chelsea, Cambridge, and Watertown or rode swiftly by horse along the turnpikes. Approximately 8,000 people lived in Boston early in the century and 15,000 by the Revolution. The suburban towns had an impressive additional population of a few thousand.

The legislators from Boston were usually born in the city and descended from old families. The city was attractive, however, and many men in search of opportunity migrated there and opened up businesses. In any yearly selection of four representatives from Boston, nameslike Hutchinson, Oliver, Clark, Fitch, Savage, and Cooke were evident; those of Otis, Welles, Cushing, and Tyng indicated surburban families. Jacob Wendell, for example, came from Albany in about 1710, and he and his son Oliver were important in business for nearly 60 years. Jacob married into the influential Oliver family of Cambridge, and he and Sarah had 12 children. Their ships, warehouses, wharfs, stores, land schemes, and merchant connections gave them a variety of pursuits and great influence. Their former apprentices, especially from Albany, opened up markets in New York. Jacob served for 26 years on the Council, and Oliver served terms on the Council and in the House of Representatives and later in the Massachusetts Senate, his last term in the Senate being in 1803.11

Most of Boston's representatives had formal educations, but frequently their fathers had begun as apprentices. For example, the merchant Andrew Belcher arrived in the 1670s, married in the 1680s, and beginning in the 1690s served five terms in the House of Representatives and 13 years on the Council. His son Jonathan, however, was sent to Harvard College, given European travel, and exposed to the lore of merchants' practices. Jonathan married well and gave his own son Andrew not only a Harvard education, but years of experience in London. Jonathan served as a member of the Council, as governor of Massachusetts and of New Hampshire, and, in old age, as governor of New Jersey.12 Similar patterns, but not so distinguished, were reflected in the careers of the Wendells and the Otises. Jacob Wendell, a merchant's son, had an apprenticeship, but son Oliver graduated from Harvard and inherited great wealth. James Otis, Sr., had business training in Barnstable, but his son James, Jr., studied at Harvard and apprenticed in a law office.13

Many legislators, of course, had neither form of education. Most college-trained legislators tended to live in seaport towns like Boston and Cambridge, but college people could be found in all parts of the colony. Without question, those men with college educations were predictably active and prominent in the legislature. They enjoyed measurable wealth and set themselves apart from the uneducated and unlettered. Peter Oliver's Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion drew a distinction between classes of legislators. In a sharp criticism of James Otis, Sr., Oliver mentioned his lack of education and polish and his country lawyer tactics:

He had a certain Adroitness to captivate the Ear of Country Jurors, who
were too commonly Drovers, Horse Jockies, & of other lower classes in life. He also, for many years, had been a member of the lower House of Assembly, too great an Ingredient of which Composition consisted of Innkeepers, Retailers, & yet more inferior Orders of Men.14

In another part of his Origins , Oliver reflects on the Otises, father and son, and their colleague, Joseph Hawley. These terrible men, he observed, had a "sway over the Country members, who were generally, Men of very inferior Understanding and were ever to be charmed with the Word Patriotism."15

As Oliver inferred, education for the rural legislators was also reflected by their occupation.Besides being primarily farmers, they were innkeepers, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers who learned much from daily contacts with townsmen. Many were popular opinion collectors and makers, and many had just enough formal education to be good businessmen. A college education would undoubtedly have been less useful in their occupations. Of course, for teachers and ministers, formal education was generally necessary. Many Harvard graduates spent their early careers in teaching and preaching and then drifted into law, officeholding, or business where there was presumably better compensation and peace of mind.

The local Congregational minister was usually a college graduate who, after ordination, settled down in the community that called him to spend most of his adult life  - which often included duties as a teacher, advisor, peacekeeper, and medical doctor. Ordinarily he did not exchange the cleric's robe for the layman's clothes. Only one or two legislators exchanged a post in the House of Representatives for a minister's, and only a few ministers became legislators. In the 1779 Constitutional Convention, however, many Baptist and Congregational ministers offered to serve the commonwealth as delegates. Their entry into the Convention should not be cited as a break in the tradition of separating church and state, but as an expression of the communities' urgent need to find someone knowledgable on issues of church and state.16

The strict separation of church and state certainly did not apply to deacons and elders; frequently a dozen or more of these dedicated men were members of the legislature. Their local church had kept them busy with religious and charitable duties, which gave them sympathy for the poor and defenseless. Their legislative service often reflected a sensitivity to religious problems and a drive to find appropriate remedies. They stood half way between the clergy and the laity and spoke often for God with a powerful voice.

In going off to Boston in May, the new representative probably would live with a family member who had taken up residence years before in the city. Family connections were part of the way society operated. From that family group, he learned of politics, and through their friendships, he conducted any business that the town had instructed him to handle. He had in his possession letters of introduction and credit and made his way around the city meeting the friends and relatives of his fellow townsmen. Boston was probably not a lonely town for new representatives, but it may have seemed strange and terribly distant from the familiar haunts of an inland village.

NOTES

1. James E. Greenleaf, Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family (Boston, 1896). Stephen was the first of the family to enter the House of Representatives in 1694 and served four terms.

2. John Card Graves, Genealogy of Graves Family in America, 2 vols. (Buffalo, 1896), I, 32-33, 37-38; James M. Crafts, History of the Town of Whately, Mass. (Orange, Mass., 1899), 477-478; Daniel White Wells and Reuben Field Wells, A History of Hatfield, Massachusetts (Springfield, 1910), 184, 410-411.

3. Albert Hazen Wright and Anna Allen Wright, "Our Parents: Delos C. and Emily A. Wright," 2 vols. (transcript, DAR Library, 1964). The Wrights in western Massachusetts were not all members of a single family. Some lived in Chelmsford. Edwin R. Hodgman, History of the Town of Westford (Lowell, Mass., 1883), 481.

4. Cyrus Woodman, The Woodmans of Buxton, Maine (Boston, 1874), 10.

5. Woodbury Genealogical Society, "Woodbury Genealogy," 3 vols., New England Historic Genealogical Society (transcript, 1957), 1: 29.

6. Frederic Scherer Withington, "Henry Withington of Dorchester, Mass., and Some of his Descendants," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 75 (1921): 197-198.

7. Henry Winchester Cunningham, "John Winchester of New England and Some of His Descendants," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 78 (1924): 26-28.

8. Letta Brock Stone, The West Family Register (Washington, D.C., 1928), 288. He was listed in the Massachusetts Census of 1790.

9. Fiske was apparently born in Ashford, Connecticut, and moved around the colony before going to Partridgefield (Peru) in the Berkshires. He served one term in the House of Representatives in 1776. Frederick Clifton Pierce, Fiske and Fisk Family (Chicago, Ill., 1896), 159.

10. John J. Waters, The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1968).

11. S. V. Talcott, Genealogical Notes of New York and New England Families (Baltimore, 1973), 385-386. Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley's Harvard Graduates (Boston, 1933-1972), 13 (1965): 367-374.

12. Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 4 (1933): 434-449; ibid., 7 (1945): 305-311.

13. John J. Waters, The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts, 149-161; Sibley's Harvard Graduates , 11 (1960): 247-287.

14. Douglass Adair and John A. Schutz, eds., Peter Oliver's Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion (San Marino, Calif., 1961), 27-28.

15. Ibid., 49.

16. Isaac Backus traveled extensively among his Baptist brothers encouraging them to agitate for religious liberty. Some heard his call, like William Ewing who consented to be a delegate to the 1779-1780 convention. See Diary of Isaac Backus , ed. by William G. McLoughlin, 3 vols. (Providence, R.I., 1979), 1: 418; 2: 599, 1026, 1033.