The Handy Boston Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

did Boston look like in or around the year 1770?

      The topography and landscape were much the same as a century earlier, but the town was beginning to acquire a look of sophistication. In the decade prior to the American Revolution, Boston was divided between a small upper class of perhaps ten percent, and a struggling working class of perhaps fifty percent. In between these two were all sorts of middle-class folk, few of whom enjoyed much economic security. For that upper ten percent, however, life was fine indeed.

      Coaches had appeared in Boston as early as 1720, but the really sumptuous ones—those that echoed of wealth and status—came in the 1760s. The two-story house continued to be the staple, but one could imagine the time when the three-story mansion would come into its own. Upper-class Bostonians could be identified (by their poorer counterparts) half a mile away based on their dress, manner, and attitude. But one of the most telling commentaries was the extent to which the person partook of tea.

      One often hears of the Boston Tea Party. Is it true that most Bostonians were tea drinkers?

      For the lower class it’s difficult to say because few of them left diaries. For the upper class, it’s apparent that the drinking of tea was one of the signs of a sophisticated and cultured person. Tea and the vessels in which it was served appear in many portraits and paintings from the period. And while we’re on the subject of painting and tea, it’s impossible to refrain from saying something about John Singleton Copley.

      Was Copley the genius that his friends and neighbors believed him to be?

      Copley—after whom one of the most important squares in Boston is named—was an American painter of undeniable genius. His great skill lay in depicting the wealthy and well-to-do of Boston, and he achieved this with great flair. From Copley’s pencil, and then ink, we see the Bostonians of the 1760s and 1770s. The men tend to be handsome with just a touch of rural ruggedness; the ladies seem more at ease and urbane. Copley had special skill in the painting of faces, and we therefore know what a good many of the prominent Bostonians looked like.

      Thomas Hutchinson—the unfortunate last Loyalist governor of Massachusetts—was tall and thin with a youthful arrogance that evolved over time into a sad resignation. Samuel Adams, perhaps the best-known Bostonian of that remarkable time, comes across as strong, uncompromising, and perhaps too heavy-handed. Of all the many portraits Copley painted, his of Paul Revere may be the most remarkable. Revere comes to us as the serene, hard-working artisan, a person who knows he has done his best, and is willing to leave the rest to Providence. But perhaps the most important of all the Copley portraits—for our purpose—is the one of his own extended family.

      Did John Copley become a patriot? Or was he a Loyalist?

      One senses that Copley didn’t really want to make the choice: that he could have remained on the fence a very long time. But this was not true of the family he married into: the Clarkes were among the most notorious of Boston Loyalists. Copley’s portrait of the Clarke family shows a clan intensely devoted to family, duty, and the British crown. With Richard Clarke at center, these people are Anglo-Americans with the emphasis on the first half of the word: not for them the revolutionary antics that will follow.

      Upper-class Bostonians such as those Copley painted tended to love their town, but they wanted it to remain part of the British Empire. When forced to make the choice, most of them reluctantly departed Boston.

      Did Copley discriminate between those that turned out to be prominent revolutionaries and others who became ardent Loyalists?

He did not. Copley departed Boston shortly before the Revolution began, and, thanks to his in-law connection with a major merchant family, he was largely Loyalist in sentiment. In portrait painting, however, Copley seemed as interested in the patriots as the king’s loyal friends. Perhaps the two most memorable of his many portraits are those of Paul Revere and John Adams.

      Paul Revere appears to us as the successful craftsman, he who has already made good, and whose good-hearted approach to life calls to much that is good within the viewer. Sam Adams comes across as a trifle stern, but his obvious sincerity and intentionality make up for this.

      The artist John Singleton Copley painted many prominent Bostonians in the 1760s and 1770s. This is a self portrait.

      Speaking of Paul Revere, was he not an artist himself?

      Revere was a silversmith, a family man, a dispatch rider, and an engraver of no small skill. His engraving of the British troops landing in Boston in October 1768 brought him to the attention of many colonists; his engraving of the Boston Massacre made him famous.

      Do we have any specific information about Boston’s population from the 1770s?

      Thanks to a handful of Boston newspapers, we surely do. We know, for example, that between January 1, 1772, and January 1, 1773, there were a total of 595 burials in Boston: 533 whites and 62 blacks. We know that the number of people baptized in the various churches came to 485 for the same period, suggesting that Boston required immigration for its overall population to increase. Moving to the succeeding year, the record states that there were 458 white burials and 59 blacks (for a total of 517) in the year 1773, and that only 393 persons were baptized during that period. We can also state unequivocally that black slavery continued to be a fact of life in pre-revolutionary Boston. The Boston Gazette carried this advertisement on February 28, 1774:

      WANTED: A Negro man of an unexceptional character, warranted, for such an one a good price will be given, brought up in a country town, and understands a little of house business will be preferred.

KING GEORGE III AND HIS COLONISTS

      History tells us that King George III is responsible for many of the problems between Old England and American colonists. What was he like?

      When he ascended the British throne in October 1760, George III was twenty-two years old. He succeeded not his father, who had died, but his grandfather, King George II.

Both to his English subjects at home and the American colonists, George III seemed a big improvement on his grandfather. The “Georges,” as Bostonians sometimes call them, were a German family who inherited the English throne after the death of Queen Anne in 1714. King George I spoke virtually no English, and George II spoke it haltingly. George III, by contrast, was English born and bred, and he was sometimes so well liked in England that his subjects called him “Farmer George,” referring to his love of the land and agriculture. George III had one bad trait, however: he was determined to make the crown more powerful, both in Old England and America. And he had an innate stubbornness that pushed him to move ahead even when he should, by reason, have slowed down.

      King George III reigned over Britain during the American Revolution. He was popular in England, but reviled in America.

      Did Bostonians and Americans recognize that they were in for a difficult time with George III?

      They did not. The succession of George III brought a wave of congratulations and applause from the American colonists. Boston, however, encountered difficulty long before running into any problems with the monarch. In February 1761, the town was hit by another of the “Great Fires” which bedeviled its existence. This fire was so extensive that commerce, as well as individuals, suffered for years to come.

      Bostonians had dealt with financial difficulty for so long that it seemed perpetual. Not only had commerce fallen off with fewer ships visiting than in previous decades, but the collection of town taxes was significantly in arrears. Some people blamed the lax tax collectors, one of whom was Samuel Adams.

      One normally has the impression of Boston being quite powerful. Could Boston not leverage its position as capital of the Massachusetts colony?

      In earlier times that was possible.