The Loyalists of Massachusetts Part 58

"Probatum est I. N."

The Censor not proving a success, Mr. Russell attempted to establish a newspaper at Salem, but that also failed. He returned to Boston, where he obtained support princ.i.p.ally by printing and selling ballads, and small pamphlets. His wife was an active and industrious woman, who not only a.s.sisted him in printing, but sometimes wrote ballads on recent tragical events, which were published, and had frequently a considerable run. Ezekiel Russell died September 1796, aged fifty-two years. Joseph Russell, brother of Ezekiel, son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Russell, was born at Boston, 8 September, 1734, and died at St. John, New Brunswick, in 1808, aged 74 years.

JONATHAN SEWALL.

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

The family of Sewall is traced to two brothers, Henry, and William Sewall, both Mayors of Coventry, England, Henry Sewall born about 1544, was a Linen Draper, Alderman of Coventry, Mayor in 1589 and 1606. Died 1628, aged 84. Buried in St. Michael's Church, Coventry. Married Margaret, eldest daughter of Avery Grazebrook.

Their son Henry Sewall, emigrated to New England in 1634. He came over "out of dislike to the English Hierarchy" and settled at Newbury. He died at Rowley in 1657, aged 81 years. Married Anne Hunt. They brought with them their son, Henry Sewall, born in Coventry, in 1614, died in 1700, aged 86. Married Jane Dummer in Newbury, 1646. He went back to England and resided for some years at Warwick. In 1659 he returned to New England, "his rents at Newbury coming to very little when remitted to England." His son Stephen was born at Badesly, England in 1657. He came to New England in 1661, settled at Salem and was a Major in the Indian wars. He died in 1725. Married Margaret, daughter of Rev.

Jonathan Mitch.e.l.l of Cambridge in 1682. They had an only son Jonathan, who was a merchant at Boston. He married Mary, sister of Edward Payne, of Boston. They had a son,

JUDGE JONATHAN SEWALL, the subject of this notice. He was born at Boston in 1728. Graduated at Harvard College in 1748, and was a teacher at Salem till 1756. He married Esther, daughter of Edmund Quincy, Esq., of Braintree, afterwards of Boston, and sister of Dorothy Quincy, wife of Governor Hanc.o.c.k, and of Elizabeth Quincy, wife of Samuel Sewall, of Boston, the father of Samuel Sewall, Chief Justice of Ma.s.sachusetts.

Jonathan Sewall studied law with Judge Chambers Russell, of Lincoln, commenced practice in his profession at Charlestown. He was an able and successful lawyer. He was Solicitor General, and his eloquence is represented as having been soft, smooth and insinuating, which gave him as much power over a jury as a lawyer ought ever to possess. At the death of Jeremy Gridley, he was appointed Attorney-General of Ma.s.sachusetts, September, 1767. In 1768 he was appointed Judge of Admiralty for Nova Scotia. He went there twice in that capacity, and remained but a short period.

He was a gentleman and a scholar. He possessed a lively wit, a brilliant imagination, great subtlety of reasoning and an insinuating eloquence.

He was an intimate friend of John Adams, they studied together in Judge Russell's office, and afterwards, while attending court, they lived together, frequently slept in the same chamber, and often in the same bed, and besides the two young men were in constant correspondence.

He attempted to dissuade John Adams from attending the first Continental Congress, and it was in reply to his arguments, and as they walked on the Great Hill at Portland, that Adams used the memorable words, used so often afterwards in 1861 when the ordinance of secession was pa.s.sed: "The die is now cast, I have now pa.s.sed the Rubicon; sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination." They parted, and met no more until 1788. Adams, the Minister of the new republic at the Court of St. James, and the eloquent and gifted Sewall, true to the Empire, met in London. Adams laying aside all etiquette made a visit to his old friend and countryman, he said, "I ordered my servant to announce John Adams, I was instantly admitted, and both of us forgetting that we had ever been enemies, embraced each other as cordially as ever. I had two hours conversation with him in a most delightful freedom, upon a mult.i.tude of subjects." In the course of the interview, Mr. Sewall remarked that he had existed for the sake of his two children, that he had spared no pains or expense in their education and that he was going to Nova Scotia in hope of making some provision for them.

In 1774, he was an Addresser of Governor Hutchinson, and in September of that year his elegant home in Cambridge (which he rented from John Va.s.sal, afterwards Washington's head-quarters, since occupied by the poet Longfellow) was attacked by the mob and much injured. He fled to Boston to escape from the fury of the disunionists. He had ably vindicated the characters of Governors Bernard, Hutchinson and Oliver, he was esteemed an able writer, and a staunch loyalist. He was proscribed in the Conspirators Act of 1779. He resided chiefly in Bristol till 1788, for the education of his children, then he removed to St. John's, N. B., having been appointed Judge of Admiralty for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He immediately entered upon the duties of his office, which he held till his death, which occurred September 26, 1796, at the age of sixty-eight. His widow survived him, and removed to Montreal, where she died January 21, 1810.

JONATHAN SEWALL, son of the aforesaid, was born at Cambridge, 1766, was educated at Bristol, England, and afterwards resided at Quebec, where he occupied the offices of Solicitor and Attorney General and Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court, until 1808, when he was appointed Chief Justice of Lower Canada, which he resigned in 1838. For many years he was President of the Executive Council, and Speaker of the Legislative Council.

In 1832 he received the degree of Doctor of Law from Harvard College. He died at Quebec in 1840, aged seventy-three. His brother Stephen was Solicitor General of the same Province in 1810 and resided in Montreal.

He died there of Asiatic cholera in the summer of 1832.

SAMUEL SEWALL son of Henry Sewall and brother of Major Stephen Sewall, was the first chief justice of Ma.s.sachusetts. This was the famous Sewall that sat in judgment upon the witches and afterwards repented it, who refused to sell an inch of his broad acres to the hated Episcopalians to build a church upon, who was one of the richest, most astute, sagacious, scholarly, bigoted and influential men of his day, who has left us in his Diary a transcript almost vivid in its conscientious faithfulness of that old time life, where he tells us of the courts he held, the drams he drank, the sermons he heard, the petty affairs of his own household and neighborhood, and where he advised with the governor touching matters of life and death. He married Hannah, the only child of John Hull, the mintmaster, who it is said gave her, on her marriage, a settlement in pine tree shillings equal to her weight. Hull owned a large farm of 350 acres in Longwood, Brookline, which descended to his son-in-law, and was known afterwards as Sewall's Farm.[267]

[267] Curwen Journal, pp. 463-5. 506. Sabine's Loyalists, pp, 265-8.

Samuel Sewall, son of the aforesaid, married Rebecca Dudley, a daughter of the governor. His son, Henry Sewall, born in 1719, died in 1771, was a gentleman much respected, and a lawyer of prominence. His son,

SAMUEL SEWALL, the subject of this article, was born at Brookline, December 31, 1745. Graduated at Harvard College in 1761. He studied law and settled in Boston. His name occurs among the barristers and attorneys who addressed Governor Hutchinson in 1774, and in the Banishment and Proscription Act in 1778, when his large estate which he had inherited from his ancestors, was confiscated. He went to England, and in 1776 was a member of the Loyalist Club, London. Two years later he was at Sidmouth, a "bathing town of mud walls and thatched roofs." In 1780 he was living in Bristol, and on the 19th of June amused himself loyally celebrating Clinton's success at Charleston in the discharge of a two-pounder in a private garden, and three days later was shot at by a highwayman and narrowly escaped with his life. Early in 1782 he was at Taunton, and at Sidmouth. He died at London, after one day's confinement to his room, May 6th, 1811, aged fifty-six years. He was unmarried.

LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO SAMUEL SEWALL IN SUFFOLK COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.

To Edward Kitchen, Wolcott, July 19, 1782; Lib. 135, fol. 113; Land 263 A. 1 qr., in Brookline, Thomas Aspinwall E.; marsh road to Charles River N E.; Charles River N.; Thomas Gardner and Moses Griggs S. and S.W.; Solomon Hill S. and S.E.----Land, 16 A. 3 qr., and half of house in Brookline on Sherburn Road and the marsh lane, bounded by Capt. Cook, Samuel Craft and Elisha Gardner.

To John Heath. Nov. 12. 1782; Lib. 136, fol. 102; Land and buildings in Brookline. 9 A. 33 r., Sherburn Road S.E.; a town way N.E.; Mr. Aker N.W.; a town way S.W.----32 A. 3 r., Daniel White and the pound S.W.; road and Joseph Williams S.E.; Joshua Boylston and William Hyslop N.E.; Sherburn Road N.W.----18 A. 2 qr. 5 r., Samuel White N.W.; John Dean S.W. and S.; a town way S.E., said Dean N.E.; S.E. and S.; said town way E.; road N.E.----59 A. 3 qr.

4 r., Benjamin White and Dr. Winchester N.E.; Sarah Sharp S.W.; Samuel White and heirs of Justice White S.E.; Benjamin White N.E.; S.E. and N.E.; Sherburn Road N.E.----23 A. 3 qr. 33 r., Ebenezer Crafts and Caleb Gardner N.W.; said Gardner and Benjamin White S.W.; Moses White S.E.; Benjamin White and Moses White N.E.; Moses White S.E.: a town way N.E.--- 3 A. 28 r, Ebenezer Craft S.W.; S.E.

and N.E.; the County line N.W.----8 A. 1 qr., 31 r., Daniel White N.W.; the County line S.W.; David Cook S.E.; heirs of Ebenezer Davis N.E.----5 A. 2 qr. 38 r., said Craft N.W.; saw mill meadow W.; William Heath S. and S.E.; Benjamin White and William Hammon N.E.----7 A. 2 qr., 32 r., Edward K. Walcott S. and W.; Benjamin White S.; William Acker S.E.; John Child E.; Charles River N.; Joseph Adams and Daniel White W.----4 A. 26 r., Moses White W., Esquire White, Ebenezer Craft and a creek S.; Nehemiah Davis and heirs of Caleb Denny S.E.; the marsh road N.

To John Molineux, William Molineux, Aug. 11, 1783; Lib 139, fol.

153; Land and buildings in Boston, Newbury St. W.; Daniel Crosby, John Solely and heirs of Benjamin Church deceased S.; land late of Frederick William Geyer E.; Thomas Fairweather, Sampson Reed, John Homands and Edward Hollowday N.; said Sewall W.; N.; W. and N.

To John McLane, Dec. 18, 1783; Lib. 140. fol. 207; Land and buildings in Boston, Newbury St. W.; said Sewall S.; E.; S. and E.; Edward Hollowday N.

THOMAS ROBIE.

William and Elizabeth Robie were inhabitants of Boston as early as 1689, when their son Thomas was born on March 20th of that year. He graduated at Harvard College in 1708, and died in 1729. He was tutor, librarian, and Fellow of the college. He published an account of a remarkable eclipse of the sun on Nov. 27, 1772, also in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society, papers on the Alkaline Salts, and the Venom of Spiders (1720-24). The following extract from the diary of President Leverett shows the estimation in which he was held. "It ought to be remembered that Mr. Robie was no small honor to Harvard College by his mathematical performances, and by his correspondence thereupon with Mr. Durham and other learned persons in those studies abroad." In mathematics and natural philosophy he was said to have no equal in New England.

His mother was Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of James Taylor, long treasurer of the Province.[268] He went to Salem and established himself in the practice of physic, and married a daughter of Major Stephen Sewall.

[268] Memorial His., of Boston. Vol. iv. p. 492. Vol. ii. p. 549.

Thomas Robie, of Marblehead, was a son of the preceding Dr. Robie. He was a merchant, and married a daughter of the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, who was the great grandson of Gov. Bradstreet, called the Nestor of New England. Mr. Robie was a staunch loyalist, was an Addresser of Gov.

Hutchinson, and thus brought upon himself and family the ire of the Revolutionists. They were obliged to leave the town and take refuge in Nova Scotia. Crowds of people collected on the wharf to witness their departure, and many irritating and insulting remarks were addressed to them concerning their Tory principles, and their conduct towards the Whigs. Provoked beyond endurance by these insulting taunts, Mrs. Robie retorted, as she seated herself in the boat that was to convey her to the ship: "I hope that I shall live to return, find this wicked rebellion crushed and see the streets of Marblehead run with rebel blood." The effect of this remark was electrical among the Revolutionists and only her s.e.x prevented them from doing her person injury. But there were other loyalists in Marblehead who, if not so demonstrative, were not less sincere in this opinion. With fort.i.tude and silence they bore the taunts and insults to which they were subjected, honestly believing that their friends and neighbors were engaged in a treasonable rebellion against their lawful sovereign.

Mr. Robie first went to Halifax, but afterwards to London, Feb. 5, 1776.

He pa.s.sed his time of exile mostly in Halifax, where one of his daughters married Jonathan Stearns, Esq., another refugee; another was married to Joseph Sewall, Esq., late treasurer of Ma.s.sachusetts.

After the war was over some of the refugees attempted to return to their former homes. During the month of April, 1783, the town was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement by the return of Stephen Blaney, one of the loyalists. Rumors were prevalent that other refugees were also about to return, and on April 24 a town meeting was held, when it was voted that "All refugees who made their appearance in town were to be given six hours notice to leave, and any who remained beyond that time were to be taken into custody and shipped to the nearest port of Great Britain." Late one afternoon after this action of the town a vessel from the provinces arrived in the harbor. It was soon ascertained that the detested Robie family were on board, and, as the news spread through the town, the wharves were crowded with angry people, threatening vengeance upon them if they attempted to land. The dreadful wish uttered by Mrs.

Robie at her departure still rankled in the minds of the people and they determined to give the Robies a significant reception. So great was the excitement that it was feared by many of the influential citizens that the unfortunate exiles might be injured and perhaps lose their lives at the hands of the infuriated populace. During the night, however, a party of gentlemen went on board of the schooner and removed them to a place of safety. They were landed in a distant part of the town and secreted for several days in a house belonging to one of the gentlemen. In the meantime urgent appeals were made to the magnanimity of the turbulent populace, and the excitement subsided.

Mr. Robie went into business again in a limited extent, and died at Salem about 1812, well esteemed and respected. The large brick mansion house of Thomas Robie is situated on Washington street, near the head of Darling street, Marblehead.

SAMUEL BRADSTREET ROBIE, son of the above, of Halifax, was appointed solicitor-general of Nova Scotia in 1815, speaker of the house of of a.s.sembly in 1817, 1819-20, member of the council in 1824, and master of the rolls in 1825, and died at that city January, 1858, in his eighty-eighth year.

BENJAMIN MARSTON.

The origin of the name Marston, is the English of Marsius (Lat.) Marson (Ger.) and signifies warrior, being derived from Mars, the G.o.d of war.

John Marston, the first of this name to come to America came from Ormsby, Norfolk, England, to Salem, in 1637, when he was 22 years of age. He married Alice, surname unknown, on Aug. 4, 1640, and on June 2, 1641 was admitted freeman. He had ten children between 1641 and 1661.

His occupation was that of carpenter. He was diligent and prosperous in his business, and at his death bequeathed to his children "his house and land, and some money." His sons were influential in town matters, and three were chosen representatives to the general court.

He died Dec. 19, 1681, and was buried in the Old Salem Burying Ground.

BENJAMIN MARSTON, the first of this name and lineage, was the fourth son of the preceding John Marston, and was born in Salem, Jan. 9, 1651. He was an active and enterprising merchant and carried on for many years an extensive and profitable business with the West Indies, Spain, Nova Scotia, and Southern Colonies. He owned two warehouses, and the wharves on which they stood, several vessels, Brigantines, Ketches, Shallops and Sloops. In the year 1700 he built a large and handsome brick dwelling house, the first brick house in Salem. It was built by George Cabot, a mason from Boston. Its location was afterwards occupied by the Lee house on the corner of Ess.e.x and Crombie streets. Towards the close of his life, his estate suffered great losses, some of his vessels were lost at sea, some taken by the French and pirates, and others having lost all their crew by disease, or otherwise, "ye voiages were spiled."

In June, 1719, he sailed with his son Benjamin, Jr., in "The good Briganteen Ess.e.x" from Salem to Ireland. His son wrote from Dublin, Nov.

6, 1719, to his mother announcing "the death of his father there, from the Small Pox, and that he was taken ill of the same distemper, the night he died, and that he had recovered and was not much marked."

BENJAMIN MARSTON, the second of this name, son of the preceding Benjamin Marston, was born in Salem, Feb. 24, 1697. He graduated from Harvard College in 1715. It appears after the death of his father he remained in Ireland, conducting all the business matters connected with the Ess.e.x, with a degree of energy and capacity not often found in a young man of 22 years of age. The voyage turned out to be much more profitable than was expected, and much of the property that had been sold or mortgaged by his father was redeemed.