Chapter M: C. C (2)

The second American general to be attracted by the luxury of the Royall mansion was that General Lee whose history furnishes material for a separate chapter. General Lee it was to whom the house's echoing corridors suggested the name, Hobgoblin Hall. So far as known, however, no inhabitant of the Royall house has ever been disturbed by strange visions or frightful dreams. After Lee, by order of Washington, removed to a house situated nearer his command, General Sullivan, attracted, no doubt, by the superior comfort of the old country-seat, laid himself open to similar correction by his chief. In these two cases it will be seen Washington enforced his own maxim that a general should sleep among his troops.

In 1810, the Royall mansion came into the possession of Jacob Tidd, in whose family it remained half a century, until it had almost lost its identity with the timid old colonel and his kin. As "Mrs. Tidd's house" it was long known in Medford. The place was subsequently owned by George L. Barr, and by George C. Nichols, from whose hands it passed to that of Mr. Geer, the present owner. To be sure, it has sadly fallen from its high estate, but it still remains one of the most interesting and romantic houses in all New England, and when, as happens once or twice a year, the charming ladies of the local patriotic society powder their hair, don their great-grandmother's wedding gowns and entertain in the fine old rooms, it requires only a slight gift of fancy to see Sir William Pepperell's lovely bride one among the gay throng of fair women.

MOLLY STARK'S GENTLEMAN-SON

Of the quaint ancestral homes still standing in the old Granite State, none is more picturesque or more interesting from the historical view-point than the Stark house in the little town of Dunbarton, a place about five miles' drive out from Concord, over one of those charming country roads, which properly make New Hampshire the summer and autumn Mecca of those who have been "long in populous city pent." Rather oddly, this house has, for all its great wealth of historical interest, been little known to the general public. The Starks are a conservative, as well as an old family, and they have never seen fit to make of their home a public show-house. Yet those who are privileged to visit Dunbarton and its chief boast, this famous house, always remember the experience as a particularly interesting one. Seldom, indeed, can one find in these days a house like this, which, for more than one hundred years, has been occupied by the family for whom it was built, and through all the changes and chances of temporal affairs has preserved the characteristics of revolutionary times.

Originally Dunbarton was Starkstown. An ancestor of this family, Archibald Stark, was one of the original proprietors, owning many hundred acres, not a few of which are still in the Starks' possession. Just when and by whom the place received the name of the old Scottish town and royal castle on the Clyde, no historian seems able to state with definiteness, but that the present Dunbarton represents only a small part of the original triangular township, all are agreed. Of the big landowner, Archibald Stark, the General John Stark of our Revolution was a son.

Another of the original proprietors of Dunbarton was a certain Captain Caleb Page, whose name still clings to a rural neighbourhood of the township, a crossroads section pointed out to visitors as Page's Corner. And it was to Elizabeth Page, the bright and capable daughter of his father's old friend and neighbour, that the doughty John Stark was married in August, 1758, while at home on a furlough. The son of this marriage was called Caleb, after his maternal grandfather, and he it was who built the imposing old mansion of our story.

Caleb Stark was a very remarkable man. Born at Dunbarton, December 3, 1759, he was present while only a lad at the battle of Bunker Hill, standing side by side with some of the veteran rangers of the French war, near the rail fence, which extended from the redoubt to the beach of the Mystic River. In order to be at this scene of conflict, the boy had left home secretly some days before, mounted on his own horse, and armed only with a musket. After a long, hard journey, he managed to reach the Royall house in Medford, which was his father's headquarters at the time, the very night before the great battle. And the general, though annoyed at his son's manner of coming, recognised that the lad had done only what a Stark must do at such a time, and permitted him to take part in the next day's fight.

After that, there followed for Caleb a time of great social opportunity, which transformed the clever, but unpolished New Hampshire boy into as fine a young gentleman as was to be found in the whole country. The Royall house, it will be remembered, was presided over in the troublous war times by the beautiful ladies of the family, than whom no more cultured and distinguished women were anywhere to be met. And these, though Tory to the backbone, were disposed to be very kind and gracious to the brave boy whom the accident of war had made their guest.

So it came about that even before he reached manhood's estate, Caleb Stark had acquired the grace and polish of Europe. Nor was the lad merely a carpet knight. So ably did he serve his father that he was made the elder soldier's aid-de-camp, when the father was made a brigadier-general, and by the time the war closed, was himself Major Stark, though scarcely twenty-four years old.

Soon after peace was declared, the young major came into his Dunbarton patrimony, and in 1784, in a very pleasant spot in the midst of his estate, and facing the broad highway leading from Dunbarton to Weare, he began to build his now famous house. It was finished the next year, and in 1787, the young man, having been elected town treasurer of Dunbarton, resolved to settle down in his new home, and brought there as his wife, Miss Sarah McKinstrey, a daughter of Doctor William McKinstrey, formerly of Taunton, Massachusetts, a beautiful and cultivated girl, just twenty years old.

It is interesting in this connection to note that all the women of the Stark family have been beauties, and that they have, too, been sweet and charming in disposition, as well as in face. The old mansion on the Weare road has been the home during its one hundred and ten years of life of several women who would have adorned, both by reason of their personal and intellectual charms, any position in our land. This being true, it is not odd that the country folk speak of the Stark family with deepest reverence.

Beside building the family homestead, Caleb Stark did two other things which serve to make him distinguished even in a family where all were great. He entertained Lafayette, and he accumulated the family fortune. Both these things were accomplished at Pembroke, where the major early established some successful cotton mills. The date of his entertainment of Lafayette was, of course, 1825, the year when the marquis, after laying the corner-stone of our monument on Bunker Hill, made his triumphal tour through New Hampshire.

The bed upon which the great Frenchman slept during his visit to the Starks is still carefully preserved, and those guests who have had the privilege of being entertained by the present owners of the house can bear testimony to the fact that the couch is an extremely comfortable one. The room in which this bed is the most prominent article of furniture bears the name of the Lafayette room, and is in every particular furnished after the manner of a sleeping apartment of one hundred years ago. The curtains of the high bedstead, the quaint toilet-table, the bedside table with its brass candlestick, and the pictures and the ornaments are all in harmony. Nowhere has a discordant modern note been struck. The same thing is true of all the other apartments in the house. The Starks have one and all displayed great taste and decided skill in preserving the long-ago tone that makes the place what it is. The second Caleb, who inherited the estate in 1838, when his father, the brilliant major, died, was a Harvard graduate, and writer of repute, being the author of a valuable memoir of his father and grandfather. He collected, even more than they had done, family relics of interest. When he died in 1865, his two sisters, Harriett and Charlotte, succeeded him in the possession of the estate.

Only comparatively recently has this latter sister died, and the place come into the hands of its present owner, Mr. Charles F. Morris Stark, an heir who has the traditions of the Morris family to add to those of the Starks, being on his mother's side a lineal descendant of Robert Morris, the great financier of the Revolution. The present Mrs. Stark is the representative of still another noted New Hampshire family, being the granddaughter of General John McNeil, a famous soldier of the Granite State.

Few, indeed, are the homes in America which contain so much which, while of intimate interest to the family, is as well of wide historical importance. Though a home, the house has the value of a museum. The portrait of Major Stark, which hangs in the parlour at the right of the square entrance-hall, was painted by Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the discoverer of the electric telegraph, a man who wished to come down to posterity as an artist, but is now remembered by us only as an inventor.

This picture is an admirable presentation of its original. The gallant major looks down upon us with a person rather above the medium in height, of a slight but muscular frame, with the short waistcoat, the high collar, and the close, narrow shoulders of the gentleman's costume of 1830. The carriage of the head is noble, and the strong features, the deep-set, keen, blue eyes, and the prominent forehead, speak of courage, intelligence, and cool self-possession.

Beside this noteworthy portrait hangs a beautiful picture of the first mistress of this house, the Mrs. Stark who, as a girl, was Miss Sarah McKinstrey. Her portrait shows her to have been a fine example of the blonde type of beauty. The splendid coils of her hair are very lustrous, and the dark hazel eyes look out from the frame with the charm and dignity of a St. Cecilia. Her costume, too, is singularly appropriate and becoming, azure silk with great puffs of lace around the white arms and queenly throat. The waist, girdled under the armpits, and the long-wristed mits stamp the date 1815-21.

The portrait of General Stark, which was painted by Miss Hannah Crowninshield, is said not to look so much like the doughty soldier as does the Morse picture of his son, but Gilbert Stuart's Miss Charlotte Stark, recently deceased, shows the last daughter of the family to have fairly sustained in her youth the reputation for beauty which goes with the Stark women.

Beside the portraits, there are in the house many other choice and valuable antiques. Among these the woman visitor notices with particular interest the fan that was once the property of Lady Pepperell, who was a daughter, it will be remembered, of the Royall family, who were so kind to Major Caleb Stark in his youth. And to the man who loves historical things, the cane presented to General Stark when he was a major, for valiant conduct in defence of Fort William Henry, will be of especial interest. This cane is made from the bone of a whale and is headed with ivory. On the mantelpiece stands another very interesting souvenir, a bronze statuette of Napoleon I., which Lafayette brought with him from France and presented to Major Stark.

Apropos of this there is an amusing story. The major was a great admirer of the distinguished Bonaparte, and made a collection of Napoleonic busts and pictures, all of which, together with the numerous other effects of the Stark place, had to be appraised at his death. As it happened, the appraiser was a countryman of limited intelligence, and, when he was told to put down "twelve Bonapartes," recorded "twelve pony carts," and it was thus that the item appeared on the legal paper.

The house itself is a not unworthy imitation of an English manor-house, with its aspect of old-time grandeur and picturesque repose. It is of wood, two and a half stories high, with twelve dormer windows, a gambrel roof, and a large two-story L. In front there are two rows of tall and stately elms, and the trim little garden is enclosed by a painted iron fence. On either side of the spacious hall, which extends through the middle of the house, are to be found handsome trophies of the chase, collected by the present master of the place, who is a keen sportsman.

A gorgeous carpet, which dates back fifty years, having been laid in the days of the beautiful Sarah, supplies the one bit of colour in the parlour, while in the dining-room the rich silver and handsome mahogany testify to the old-time glories of the place. Of manuscripts which are simply priceless, the house contains not a few; one, over the quaint wine-cooler in the dining-room, acknowledging, in George Washington's own hand, courtesies extended to him and to his lady by a member of the Morris family, being especially interesting. Up-stairs, in the sunlit hall, among other treasures, more elegant but not more interesting, hangs a sunbonnet once worn by Molly Stark herself.

Not far off down the country road is perhaps the most beautiful and attractive spot in the whole town, the old family burying-ground of the Starks, in which are interred all the deceased members of this remarkable family, from the Revolutionary Major Caleb and his wife down. Here, with grim, towering Kearsarge standing ever like a sentinel, rests under the yew-trees the dust of this great family's honoured dead.

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

"The only time I ever heard Washington swear," Lafayette once remarked, "was when he called General Charles Lee a 'damned poltroon,' after the arrest of that officer for treasonable conduct." Nor was Washington the only person of self-restraint and good manners whose temper and angry passions were roused by this same erratic General Lee.

Lee was an Englishman, born in Cheshire in 1731. He entered the British army at the age of eleven years, was in Braddock's expedition, and was wounded at Ticonderoga in 1758. He also served for a time in Portugal, but certain infelicities of temper hindered his advancement, and he never rose higher in the British service than a half-pay major. As a "soldier of fortune" he was vastly more successful. In all the pages of American history, indeed, it would be difficult to find anybody whose career was more interestingly and picturesquely checkered than was his.

Lee's purpose in coming to America has never been fully explained. There are concerning this, as every other step of his career, two diametrically opposed opinions. The American historians have for the most agreed in thinking him traitorous and self-seeking, but for my own part I find little to justify this belief, for I have no difficulty whatever in accounting for his soldierly vagaries on the score of his temperament, and the peculiar conditions of his early life. A man who, while still a youth, was adopted by the Mohawk Indians,--who who bestowed upon him the significant name of Boiling Water,--who was at one time aid-de-camp and intimate friend of the King of Poland, who rendered good service in the Russian war against the Turks,--all before interesting himself at all in the cause of American freedom,--could scarcely be expected to be as simple in his us-ward emotions as an Israel Putnam or a General John Stark might be.

General Lee arrived in New York from London, on November 10, 1773, his avowed object in seeking the colonies at such a troublous time being to investigate the justice of the American cause. He travelled all over the country in pursuance of facts concerning the fermenting feeling against England, but he was soon able to enroll himself unequivocally upon the side of the colonies. In a letter written to Lord Percy, then stationed at Boston, this eccentric new friend of the American cause--himself, it must be remembered, still a half-pay officer in the English army--expressed with great freedom his opinion of England's position: "Were the principle of taxing America without her consent admitted, Great Britain would that instant be ruined." And to General Gage, his warm personal friend, Lee wrote: "I am convinced that the court of Tiberius was not more treacherous to the rights of mankind than is the present court of Great Britain."

It is rather odd to find that General Charles Lee, of whom we know so little, and that little scarcely to his credit, occupied in the military court of the American array a position second only to Washington; he was appointed a major-general on June 17, 1775, a date marked for us by the fact that Bunker Hill's battle was then fought. Not long after his arrival at the camp, General Lee, with that tendency to independent action which was afterward to work to his undoing, took up his quarters in the Royall house. And Lee it was who gave to the fine old place the name Hobgoblin Hall. From this mansion, emphatically remote from Lee's command, the eccentric general was summarily recalled by his commander-in-chief, then, as ever after, quick to administer to this major-general what he conceived to be needed reproof.

The house in which General Lee next resided is still standing on Sycamore Street, Somerville. When the place was occupied by Lee it had one of those long pitched roofs, descending to a single story at the back, which are still occasionally met with in our interior New England towns. The house was, however, altered to its present appearance by that John Tufts who occupied it during post-Revolutionary times. From this lofty dwelling, Lee was able to overlook Boston, and to observe, by the aid of a strong field-glass, all the activities of the enemy's camp.

Lee himself was at this time an object of unfriendly espionage. In a "separate and secret despatch," Lord Dartmouth instructed General Gage to have a special eye on the ex-English officer. That Lee had resigned his claim to emolument in the English army does not seem to have made his countrymen as clear as it should have done concerning his relation to their cause.

Meanwhile, General Lee, though sleeping in his wind-swept farmhouse and watching from its windows the movements of the British, indulged when opportunity offered in the social pleasures of the other American officers. Rough and unattractive in appearance,--he seems to have been a kind of Cyrano de Bergerac, "a tall man, lank and thin, with a huge nose,"--he had, when he chose, a certain amount of social grace, and was often extremely entertaining.

Mrs. John Adams, who first met General Lee at an evening party at Major Mifflin's house in Cambridge, describes him as looking like a "careless, hardy veteran," who brought to her mind his namesake, Charles XII. "The elegance of his pen far exceeds that of his person," commented this acute lady. In further describing this evening spent at Major Mifflin's home, in the Brattle mansion, Mrs. Adams writes: "General Lee was very urgent for me to tarry in town, and dine with him and the ladies present, but I excused myself. The general was determined that I should not only be acquainted with him, but with his companions, too, and therefore placed a chair before me, into which he ordered Mr. Spada (his dog) to mount, and present his paw to me for better acquaintance."[2] Lee was very fond indeed of dogs, and was constantly attended by one or more of them, this Spada being a great, shaggy Pomeranian, described by unbiased critics as looking more like a bear than a harmless canine. In this connection, it is interesting to know that Lee has expressed himself very strongly in regard to the affection of men as compared with the affection of dogs.

This love for dogs was, however, one of the more ornamental of General Lee's traits. His carelessness in regard to his personal appearance was famous, and not a few amusing stories are told of the awkward situations in which this officer's slovenliness involved him. On one of Washington's journeys, in which Lee accompanied him, the major-general, upon arriving at the house where they were to dine, went straight to the kitchen and demanded something to eat. The cook, taking him for a servant, told him that she would give him some victuals directly, but that he must first help her off with the pot--a request with which he readily complied. He was then told to take a bucket and go to the well for water, and was actually engaged in drawing it when found by an aide whom Washington had despatched in quest of him. The cook was in despair when she heard her assistant addressed by the title of "General." The mug fell from her hands, and dropping on her knees, she began crying for pardon, when Lee, who was ever ready to see the impropriety of his own conduct, but never willing to change it, gave her a crown, and, turning to the aid-de-camp, observed: "You see, young man, the advantage of a fine coat; the man of consequence is indebted to it for respect; neither virtue nor ability, without it, will make you look like a gentleman."[3]

Perhaps the most remarkable episode in all Lee's social career, was that connected with Sir William Howe's famous entertainment at Philadelphia, the Mischianza. This was just after the affair at Monmouth, in the course of which Washington swore, and Lee was taken prisoner. Yet though a prisoner, the eccentric general was treated with the greatest courtesy, and seems even to have received a card for the famous ball. But, never too careful of his personal appearance, he must on this occasion have looked particularly uncouth. Certainly the beautiful Miss Franks, one of the Philadelphia belles, thought him far from ornamental, and, with the keen wit for which she was celebrated, spread abroad a report that General Lee came to the ball clad in green breeches, patched with leather. To prove to her that entire accuracy had not been used in describing his garb at the ball, the general sent the young lady the very articles of clothing which she had criticised! Naturally, neither the ladies nor their escorts thought any better of Lee's manners after this bit of horse-play, and it is safe to say he was not soon again invited to an evening party. Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Mercy Warren both call Lee "a crabbed man." The latter described him in a letter to Samuel Adams as "plain in his person to a degree of ugliness; careless even to impoliteness; his garb ordinary; his voice rough; his manners rather morose; yet sensible, learned, judicious, and penetrating."

Toward the end of his life, Lee took refuge in an estate which he had purchased in Berkeley County, Virginia. Here he lived, more like a hermit than a citizen of the world, or a member of a civilised community. His house was little more than a shell, without partitions, and it lacked even such articles of furniture as were necessary for the most common uses. To a gentleman who visited him in this forlorn retreat, where he found a kitchen in one corner, a bed in another, books in a third, saddles and harness in a fourth, Lee said: "Sir, it is the most convenient and economical establishment in the world. The lines of chalk which you see on the floor mark the divisions of the apartments, and I can sit in a corner and give orders and overlook the whole without moving from my chair."[4]

General Lee died in an obscure inn in Philadelphia, October 2, 1782. His will was characteristic: "I desire most earnestly that I may not be buried in any church or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Baptist meeting-house; for since I have resided in this country I have kept so much bad company that I do not choose to continue it when dead." In this will, our singular hero paid a tribute of affectionate remembrance to several of his intimate friends, and of grateful generosity to the humble dependents who had adhered to him and ministered to his wants in his retirement. The bulk of his property--for he was a man of no small means--was bequeathed to his only sister, Sydney Lee, to whom he was ever devotedly attached.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers.]

[Footnote 3: Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex."]

[Footnote 4: Sparks's "Life of Charles Lee." Little, Brown & Co.]

THE MESSAGE OF THE LANTERNS

There are many points of view from which this tale of Paul Revere may be told, but to the generality of people the interest of the poem, and of the historical event itself, will always centre around Christ Church, on Salem Street, in the North End of Boston--the church where the lanterns were hung out on the night before the battles of Lexington and Concord. At nearly every hour of the day some one may be seen in the now unfrequented street looking up at the edifice's lofty spire with an expression full of reverence and satisfaction. There upon the venerable structure, imbedded in the solid masonry of the tower front, one reads upon a tablet:

THE SIGNAL LANTERNS OF

PAUL REVERE

DISPLAYED IN THE STEEPLE

OF THIS CHURCH,

APRIL 18, 1775,

WARNED THE COUNTRY OF

THE MARCH OF THE

BRITISH TROOPS TO LEXINGTON

AND CONCORD.

If the pilgrim wishes to get into the very spirit of old Christ Church and its historical associations, he can even climb the tower----

"By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startle the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him make
Masses and moving shapes of shade"----

to look down as sexton Robert Newman did that eventful night on----

"The graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still."

The first time I ever climbed the tower I confess that I was seized with an overpowering sense of the weirdness and mystery of those same spectral graves, seen thus from above. It was dark and gloomy going up the stairs, and if Robert Newman had thought of the prospect, rather than of his errand, I venture to say he must have been frightened for all his bravery, in that gloomy tower at midnight.

But, of course, his mind was intent on the work he had to do, and on the signals which would tell how the British were to proceed on their march to seize the rebel stores at Concord. The signals agreed upon were two lanterns if the troops went by way of water, one if they were to go by land. In Longfellow's story we learn that Newman----

"Through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore."

It had been decided that the journey should be made by sea!

The Province of Massachusetts, it must be understood, was at this time on the eve of open revolt. It had formed an army, commissioned its officers, and promulgated orders as if there were no such person as George III. It was collecting stores in anticipation of the moment when its army should take the field. It had, moreover, given General Gage--whom the king had sent to Boston to put down the rebellion there--to understand that the first movement made by the royal troops into the country would be considered as an act of hostility, and treated as such. Gage had up to this time hesitated to act. At length his resolution to strike a crippling blow, and, if possible, to do it without bloodshed, was taken. Spies had informed him that the patriots' depot of ammunition was at Concord, and he had determined to send a secret expedition to destroy those stores. Meanwhile, however, the patriots were in great doubt as to the time when the definite movement was to be made.

Fully appreciating the importance of secrecy, General Gage quietly got ready eight hundred picked troops, which he meant to convey under cover of night across the West Bay, and to land on the Cambridge side, thus baffling the vigilance of the townspeople, and at the same time considerably shortening the distance his troops would have to march. So much pains were taken to keep the actual destination of these troops a profound secret, that even the officer who was selected for the command only received an order notifying him to hold himself in readiness.

"The guards in the town were doubled," writes Mr. Drake, "and in order to intercept any couriers who might slip through them, at the proper moment mounted patrols were sent out on the roads leading to Concord. Having done what he could to prevent intelligence from reaching the country, and to keep the town quiet, the British general gave his orders for the embarkation; and at between ten and eleven of the night of April 18, the troops destined for this service were taken across the bay in boats to the Cambridge side of the river. At this hour, Gage's pickets were guarding the deserted roads leading into the country, and up to this moment no patriot courier had gone out."

Newman with his signals and Paul Revere on his swift horse were able, however, to baffle successfully the plans of the British general. The redcoats had scarcely gotten into their boats, when Dawes and Paul Revere started by different roads to warn Hancock and Adams, and the people of the country-side, that the regulars were out. Revere rode by way of Charlestown, and Dawes by the great highroad over the Neck. Revere had hardly got clear of Charlestown when he discovered that he had ridden headlong into the middle of the British patrol! Being the better mounted, however, he soon distanced his pursuers, and entered Medford, shouting like mad, "Up and arm! Up and arm! The regulars are out! The regulars are out!"

Longfellow has best described the awakening of the country-side:

"A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in its flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat."

The Porter house in Medford, at which Revere stopped long enough to rouse the captain of the Guards, and warn him of the approach of the regulars, is now no longer standing, but the Clark place, in Lexington, where the proscribed fellow-patriots, Hancock and Adams, were lodging that night, is still in a good state of preservation.

The room occupied by "King" Hancock and "Citizen" Adams is the one on the lower floor, at the left of the entrance. Hancock was at this time visiting this particular house because "Dorothy Q," his fiancée, was just then a guest of the place, and martial pride, coupled, perhaps, with the feeling that he must show himself in the presence of his lady-love a soldier worthy of her favour, inclined him to show fight when he heard from Revere that the regulars were expected. His widow related, in after years, that it was with great difficulty that she and the colonel's aunt kept him from facing the British on the day following the midnight ride. While the bell in the green was sounding the alarm, Hancock was cleaning his sword and his fusee, and putting his accoutrements in order. He is said to have been a trifle of a dandy in his military garb, and his points, sword-knot, and lace, were always of the newest fashion. Perhaps it was the desire to show himself in all his war-paint that made him resist so long the importunities of the ladies, and the urgency of other friends! The astute Adams, it is recounted, was a little annoyed at his friend's obstinacy, and, clapping him on the shoulder, exclaimed, as he looked significantly at the weapons, "That is not our business; we belong to the cabinet."[5]

It was Adams who threw light on the whole situation. Half an hour after Revere reached the house, the other express arrived, and the two rebel leaders, being now fully convinced that it was Concord which was the threatened point, hurried the messengers on to the next town, after allowing them barely time to swallow a few mouthfuls of food. Adams did not believe that Gage would send an army merely to take two men prisoners. To him, the true object of the expedition was very clear.

Revere, Dawes, and young Doctor Prescott, of Concord, who had joined them, had got over half the distance to the next town, when, at a sudden turning, they came upon the second redcoat patrol. Prescott leaped his horse over the roadside wall, and so escaped across the fields to Concord. Revere and Dawes, at the point of the pistol, gave themselves up. Their business on the road at that hour was demanded by the officer, who was told in return to listen. Then, through the still morning air, the distant booming of the alarm bell's peal on peal was borne to their ears.

It was the British who were now uneasy. Ordering the prisoners to follow them, the troop rode off at a gallop toward Lexington, and when they were at the edge of the village, Revere was told to dismount, and was left to shift for himself. He then ran as fast as his legs could carry him across the pastures back to the Clark parsonage, to report his misadventure, while the patrol galloped off toward Boston to announce theirs. But by this time, the Minute Men of Lexington had rallied to oppose the march of the troops. Thanks to the intrepidity of Paul Revere, the North End coppersmith, the redcoats, instead of surprising the rebels in their beds, found them marshalled on Lexington Green, and at Concord Bridge, in front, flank, and rear, armed and ready to dispute their march to the bitter end.

"You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled--
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

"So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm----
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night wind of the past,
Through all our history, to the last,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers.]

[Footnote 6: "Paul Revere's Ride:" Longfellow's Poems. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers.]

HANCOCK'S DOROTHY Q.

The Dorothy Q. of our present interest is not the little maiden of Holmes's charming poem--

"Grandmother's mother; her age I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair,
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene."

but her niece, the Dorothy Q. whom John Hancock loved, and was visiting at Lexington, when Paul Revere warned him of the redcoats' approach. This Dorothy happened to be staying just then with the Reverend Jonas Clark, under the protection of Madam Lydia Hancock, the governor's aunt. And it was to meet her, his fiancée, that Hancock went, on the eve of the 19th of April, to the house made famous by his visit.

One imaginative writer has sketched for us the notable group gathered that April night about the time-honoured hearthstone in the modest Lexington parsonage: "The last rays of the setting sun have left the dampness of the meadows to gather about the home; and each guest and family occupant has gladly taken seats within the house, while Mrs. Jonas Clark has closed the shutters, added a new forelog, and fanned the embers to a cheerful flame. The young couple whom Madam Hancock has studiously brought together exchange sympathetic glances as they take part in the conversation. The hours wear away, and the candles are snuffed again and again. Then the guests retire, not, to be sure, without apprehensions of approaching trouble, but with little thought that the king's strong arm of military authority is already extended toward their very roof."[7]

Early the next morning, as we know, the lovers were forced to part in great haste. And for a time John Hancock and his companion, Samuel Adams, remained in seclusion, that they might not be seized by General Gage, who was bent on their arrest, and intended to have them sent to England for trial.

The first word we are able to find concerning Hancock's whereabouts during the interim between his escape from Lexington, and his arrival at the Continental Congress, appointed to convene at Philadelphia, May 10, 1775, is contained in a long letter to Miss Quincy. This letter, which gives a rather elaborate account of the dangers and triumphs of the patriot's journey, concludes: "Pray let me hear from you by every Post. God bless you, my dear girl, and believe me most Sincerely, Yours most Affectionately, John Hancock."

A month later, June 10, 1775, we find the charming Dorothy Q., now the guest at Fairfield, Connecticut, of Thaddeus Burr, receiving this letter from her lover:

* * * * *

"MY DEAR DOLLY:--I am almost prevail'd on to think that my letters to my Aunt & you are not read, for I cannot obtain a reply, I have ask'd million questions & not an answer to one, I beg'd you to let me know what things my Aunt wanted & you and many other matters I wanted to know but not one word in answer. I Really Take it extreme unkind, pray, my dear, use not so much Ceremony & Reservedness, why can't you use freedom in writing, be not afraid of me, I want long Letters. I am glad the little things I sent you were agreeable. Why did you not write me of the top of the Umbrella. I am sorry it was spoiled, but I will send you another by my Express which will go in a few days. How did my Aunt like her gown, & let me know if the Stockings suited her; she had better send a pattern shoe & stocking, I warrant I will suit her.... I Beg, my dear Dolly, you will write me often and long Letters, I will forgive the past if you will mend in future. Do ask my Aunt to make me up and send me a Watch String, and do you make up another and send me, I wear them out fast. I want some little thing of your doing. Remember me to all my Friends with you, as if named. I am Call'd upon and must obey.

"I have sent you by Doctor Church in a paper Box Directed to you, the following things, for your acceptance, & which I do insist you wear, if you do not I shall think the Donor is the objection:

2 pair white silk } which stockings
4 pair white thread } I think will fit you

1 pair black satin } Shoes, the other,
1 pair Calem Co. } Shall be sent when done.

1 very pretty light hat
1 neat airy summer Cloak
2 caps
1 Fann

"I wish these may please you, I shall be gratified if they do, pray write me, I will attend to all your Commands.

"Adieu, my dear Girl, and believe me with great Esteem & affection,

"Yours without reserve,

"JOHN HANCOCK."[8]

It is interesting to know that while Miss Quincy was a guest in Fairfield, Aaron Burr, the nephew of her host, came to the house, and that his magnetic influence soon had an effect upon the beautiful young lady. But watchful Aunt Lydia prevented the charmer from thwarting the Hancock family plans, and on the 28th day of the following August there was a great wedding at Fairfield. John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, and Miss Dorothy Quincy were joined in marriage in style befitting the family situations.

The noted couple went at once to Philadelphia, where the patriot lived at intervals during the remainder of the session. Mrs. Hancock seems to have been much of the time in Boston, however, and occasionally, in the course of the next few years, we catch delightful glimpses through her husband's letters of his great affection for her, and for their little one.

Under date of Philadelphia, March 10, 1777, we read: "I shall make out as well as I can, but I assure you, my Dear Soul, I long to have you here, & I know you will be as expeditious as you can in coming. When I part from you again it must be a very extraordinary occasion. I have sent everywhere to get a gold or silver rattle for the child with a coral to send, but cannot get one. I will have one if possible on your coming. I have sent a sash for her & two little papers of pins for you. If you do not want them you can give them away.

"... May every blessing of an Indulgent Providence attend you. I most sincerely wish you a good journey & hope I shall soon have the happiness of seeing you with the utmost affection and Love. My dear Dolly, I am yours forever,

"JOHN HANCOCK."

After two years and a half of enforced absence, the President of the Continental Congress returned home to that beautiful house on Beacon Street, which was unfortunately destroyed in 1863, to make room for a more modern building. Here the united couple lived very happily with their two children, Lydia and Washington.

Judging by descriptions that have come down to us, and by the World's Fair reproduction of the Hancock House, their mansion must have been a very sumptuous one. It was built of stone, after the manner favoured by Bostonians who could afford it, with massive walls, and a balcony projecting over the entrance door, upon which a large second-story window opened. Braintree stone ornamented the corners and window-places, and the tiled roof was surrounded by a balustrade. From the roof, dormer windows provided a beautiful view of the surrounding country. The grounds were enclosed by a low stone wall, on which was placed a light wooden fence. The house itself was a little distance back from the street, and the approach was by means of a dozen stone steps and a carefully paved walk.

At the right of the entrance was a reception-room of spacious dimensions, provided with furniture of bird's-eye maple, covered with rich damask. Out of this opened the dining-room, sixty feet in length, in which Hancock was wont to entertain. Opposite was a smaller apartment, the usual dining-room of the family. Next adjoining were the china-room and offices, while behind were to be found the coach-house and barn of the estate.

The family drawing-room, its lofty walls covered with crimson paper, was at the left of the entrance. The upper and lower halls of the house were hung with pictures of game and with hunting scenes. The furniture, wall-papers and draperies throughout the house had been imported from England by Thomas Hancock, and expressed the height of luxury for that day. Passing through the hall, a flight of steps led to a small summer-house in the garden, near Mount Vernon Street, and here the grounds were laid out in ornamental box-bordered beds like those still to be seen in the beautiful Washington home on the Potomac. A highly interesting corner of the garden was that given over to the group of mulberry-trees, which had been imported from England by Thomas Hancock, the uncle of John, he being, with others of his time, immensely interested in the culture of the silkworm.

Of this beautiful home Dorothy Quincy showed herself well fitted to be mistress, and through her native grace and dignity admirably performed her part at the reception of D'Estaing, Lafayette, Washington, Brissot, Lords Stanley and Wortley, and other noted guests.

On October 8, 1793, Hancock died, at the age of fifty-six years. The last recorded letter penned in his letter volume was to Captain James Scott, his lifelong friend. And it was to this Captain Scott that our Dorothy Q. gave her hand in a second marriage three years later. She outlived her second husband many years, residing at the end of her life on Federal Street in Boston. When turned of seventy she had a lithe, handsome figure, a pair of laughing eyes, and fine yellow ringlets in which scarcely a gray hair could be seen. And although for the second time a widow, she was as sprightly as a girl of sixteen. In her advanced years, Madam Scott received another call from Lafayette, and those who witnessed the hearty interview say that the once youthful chevalier and the unrivalled belle met as if only a summer had passed since their social intercourse during the perils of the Revolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: Drake.]

[Footnote 8: _New England Magazine._]

BARONESS RIEDESEL AND HER TORY FRIENDS

The most beautiful example of wifely devotion to be found in the annals connected with the war of the Revolution is that afforded by the story of the lovely Baroness Riedesel, whose husband was deputed to serve at the head of the German mercenaries allied to the king's troops, and who was herself, with the baron and her children, made prisoner of war after the battle of Saratoga.

Riedesel was a gallant soldier, and his wife a fair and fascinating young woman at this time. They had not been long married when the war in America broke out, and the wife's love for her husband was such as to impel her to dare all the hardships of the journey and join him in the foreign land. Her letters and journal, which give a lively and vivid account of the perils of this undertaking, and of the pleasures and difficulties that she experienced after she had succeeded in reaching her dear spouse, supply what is perhaps the most interesting human document of those long years of war.

The baroness landed on the American continent at Quebec, and travelled amid great hardships to Chambly, where her husband was stationed. For two days only they were together. After that she returned with her children to Three Rivers. Soon, however, came the orders to march down into the enemy's country.

The description of this journey as the baroness has given it to us makes, indeed, moving reading. Once a frightful cannonade was directed against the house in which the women and the wounded had taken refuge. In the cellar of this place Madam Riedesel and her children passed the entire night. It was in this cellar, indeed, that the little family lived during the long period of waiting that preceded the capitulation made necessary by Burgoyne's inexcusable delay near Saratoga. Later the Riedesels were most hospitably entertained at Saratoga by General Schuyler, his wife and daughters, of whom the baroness never fails to speak in her journal with the utmost affection.

The journey from Albany to Boston was full of incident and hardship, but of it the plucky wife writes only: "In the midst of all my trials God so supported me that I lost neither my frolicsomeness nor my spirits...." The contrast between the station of the Americans and of the Germans who were their prisoners, is strikingly brought out in this passage of the diary: "Some of the American generals who were in charge of us on the march to Boston were shoemakers; and upon our halting days they made boots for our officers, and also mended nicely the shoes of our soldiers. They set a great value upon our money coinage, which with them was scarce. One of our officers had worn his boots entirely into shreds. He saw that an American general had on a good pair, and said to him, jestingly, 'I will gladly give you a guinea for them.' Immediately the general alighted from his horse, took the guinea, gave up his boots, put on the badly-worn ones of the officer, and again mounted his horse."

The journey was at length successfully accomplished, however, and in Massachusetts the baroness was on the whole very well treated, it would seem.

"We remained three weeks in wretched quarters at Winter Hill," she writes, "until they transferred us to Cambridge, where they lodged us in one of the most beautiful houses of the place, which had formerly been built by the wealth of the royalists. Never had I chanced upon any such agreeable situation. Seven families, who were connected with each other partly by the ties of relationship and partly by affection, had here farms, gardens, and magnificent houses, and not far off plantations of fruit. The owners of these were in the habit of meeting each other in the afternoon, now at the house of one, and now at another, and making themselves merry with music and the dance--living in prosperity united and happy, until, alas! this ruinous war severed them, and left all their houses desolate except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged to flee....

"None of our gentlemen were allowed to go into Boston. Curiosity and desire urged me, however, to pay a visit, to Madam Carter, the daughter of General Schuyler, and I dined at her house several times. The city throughout is pretty, but inhabited by violent patriots, and full of wicked people. The women especially were so shameless, that they regarded me with repugnance, and even spit at me when I passed by them. Madam Carter was as gentle and good as her parents, but her husband was wicked and treacherous. She came often to visit us, and also dined at our house with the other generals. We sought to show them by every means our gratitude. They seemed also to have much friendship for us; and yet at the same time this miserable Carter, when the English General Howe had burned many hamlets and small towns, made the horrible proposition to the Americans to chop off the heads of our generals, salt them down in small barrels, and send over to the English one of these barrels for every hamlet or little town burned down. But this barbarous suggestion fortunately was not adopted.

"... I saw here that nothing is more terrible than a civil war. Almost every family was disunited.... On the third of June, 1778, I gave a ball and supper in celebration of the birthday of my husband. I had invited to it all the generals and officers. The Carters also were there. General Burgoyne sent an excuse after he had made us wait until eight o'clock in the evening. He invariably excused himself on various pretences from coming to see us until his departure for England, when he came and made me a great many apologies, but to which I made no other answer than that I should be extremely sorry if he had gone out of his way on our account. We danced considerably, and our cook prepared us a magnificent supper of more than eighty covers. Moreover, our courtyard and garden were illuminated. As the birthday of the King of England came upon the following day, which was the fourth, it was resolved that we would not separate until his health had been drank; which was done with the most hearty attachment to his person and his interests.