Notes on Biographies: Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 1691-1780

Space for these biographies is limited to a few lines so that the 3,117 representatives and councilors can be identified without a multivolume set. Bibliographical citations have only one or two items, but a wide base of documentation for most legislators is available for further research. Town and county records can be consulted directly in many town clerk offices, in the film files of the Mormon Church library at Salt Lake City, in the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and in the Massachusetts Archives now at Columbia Point, Massachusetts. The massive lineage records of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) are housed at their headquarters in Washington, DC. The vast genealogical resources of family histories, vital statistic records, and research tools can be found at only a few libraries, but certainly at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Mormon Library in Salt Lake City, which has a great film archives. Other libraries like the DAR library in Washington, DC, the Library of Congress, the Maine Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and the American Antiquarian Society library are exceedingly rich in materials. Over the years this author also used the Los Angeles Public Library, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the Sons of the Revolution Library in Glendale, California, and often found abundant resources.

Biographical material in the sketches is generally limited, but not confined, to service as town clerk, selectman, treasurer, and moderator at the annual meetings. Information may be also included for assessor and auditor. Sometimes towns combined the duties of selectman and assessor so that the selectman performed both functions. Contributions as revolutionaries are noted by citation of military enlistments and services on Committees of Correspondence.

Whenever possible, military rank and commission date are provided. The dates in some cases are too general to be reliable as hard data. Some commissions may also be overlooked, but information was gathered from records in the towns and listings of vital statistics. All commissions as Justices of the Peace (JP) and of the quorum (JPq) are included when discovered in the records, and all regular court appointments (Inferior Court of Common Pleas and Superior Court of Judicature) are listed in the sketches.

Education experience at Harvard College (HarC), at Yale College (Yale C), Princeton College (Princeton C) and elsewhere is given. Deacons or elders have their dates of service listed whenever the records are available. If there is a reason to think the person served as deacon, the listing is made without dates, but that information is usually from sources other than church records. (Note that many church records disappeared long ago.)

Service as a member of the Honorable Artillery Company of Boston (ART) is always noted along with the year of election and the highest rank attained are provided.

Most of the representatives were farmers who inherited and acquired land by purchase and marriage. Over time they had families and many disposed of their property privately by transferring title to sons and grandsons. Wills were written by many legislators and additional inventories were filed during probate proceedings. Wealth can be generally observed, but it certainly cannot be estimated conclusively in any comparative sense. Whenever possible, if the estate seems large, extensive, and widely spread to other towns, or includes notes, silver, and books, an indication of this wealth is given. But in no sense should the appraisal be more than an impression of the representative’s economic condition. Likewise, ownership of slaves may indicate wealth or position, but again it is offered as an impression. Wills are left in many cases when there was no surviving family or the heirs were minority children and a second wife who required support and had a contractual inheritance.

Where farmers owned mills, these businesses are listed. They gave the farmer additional income and a community presence. Some farmers were often innkeepers, tavern owners, teachers, and town officials who may have received fees for services; these occupations describe financial conditions. Some farmers were blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, and even medical doctors and lawyers. Discovery of professional details is often made. Presumably most medical doctors did some farming on the side, but the listing of MD indicates education and practice, not really an extension of farming income.

Merchants are difficult to separate from shopkeepers and ship owners. Many merchants owned stores, shops, ships, wharves, warehouses, and wagons. Sometimes a ship captain was in the employ of others. He is often called a mariner. A shopkeeper may transport products, even provide services as banking and consignment. His business was smaller than the merchant’s and probably local or regional.

Most representatives married at least once in their lives. Sometimes the wife had been married previously. The maiden and earlier names will be provided if available. The maiden names of subsequent wives are given if located. If the wife survives her husband, the name of the husband of the next marriage is given. Children of the marriages are counted, but space limited giving dates of their lives. Most vital statistics are taken from the Vital Record series of Massachusetts and Maine townships or township manuscript records.

The published records of the General Court began in 1715 and continued to 1779. There are manuscripts to complete the 1779 legislative proceedings and to record the major business of the 1780 May legislature. There is no official record of members for the 1780 May sessions. Records before 1715 are confined to lists of elected members, the petitions, and the laws. From 1715 a brief note is given on the official activity of the legislator. One or two committees are minor activity, ten to twenty provides services, fifty or more seats indicates active participation and leadership. But each legislature is a bit different so that evaluation becomes impressionistic.

The Journals of the House of Representatives published by a subsidy from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and by the editorial staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society are the basic materials describing legislative activity. The volumes have introductions, a photo copy of the legislative proceedings, and indices. Often the index is done by someone other than the editors of the proceedings. Therefore, very little identification of legislators occurs in most volumes of the proceedings. Notwithstanding, the index of the proceedings is generally reliable.

Because specific data on the wives and marriages of legislators is relatively scarce, a method of completing the data has been employed. The reader is cautioned by the process and can follow his own inclinations. But first marriages occur at about 19 for women and 24 for men. The birth is included if the marriage data is known, for example c1719 or c1725. The wife was, therefore, born about 1700 or 1706. A second marriage occurs about one year after the death of the first wife or husband. Because many widows disappear from the records after the death of their husbands and after the last birth of their children, the death date of the last record is noted, for example, as “after 1734.”

Because most of these legislators and their wives are obscure, my intention has been to give the best available data on them. I have weighed information taken from tombstone lists, bible, diary, and town records, and the findings of genealogists and historians. In some cases, I have estimated the birth or death dates. The expectation that my report on these 3,117 legislators has no serious errors is a primary basis of this publication.