Boston Tea Party – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

John Adams saw the White House as a home for ‘honest and wise men’

A vintage creamware punch bowl, commemorating “John Adams President of the United States,” sold for $15,535 at a March 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

As the states prepared for the first presidential election under the new Constitution, it was clear that George Washington was the overwhelming favorite to become the first president of the United States.

Under the rules, each state would cast two votes and at the February 1789 Electoral College, all 69 Electors cast one of their votes for Washington, making him the unanimous choice of 10 states. Two of the original Colonies (North Carolina and Rhode Island) had not yet ratified the Constitution, and New York had an internal dispute and did not chose Electors in time to participate. Eleven other men received a total of 69 votes, with John Adams topping the list with 34 votes, slightly less than 50 percent. He became the first vice president.

Four years later, there were 15 states (Vermont and Kentucky) and the Electoral College increased to 132 Electors. Again, Washington was elected president unanimously, with 132 votes. Adams was also re-elected with 77 votes, besting George Clinton, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. All three of the runner-ups would later become vice presidents, with Clinton serving a term for two different presidents (Jefferson and Madison). Jefferson had cleverly picked Clinton as his VP due to his age, correctly assuming Clinton would be too old to secede him … thus ensuring that Secretary of State James Madison would be the logical choice. Clinton would actually be the first VP to die in office.

Two-time Vice President John Adams would finally win the presidency on his third try after Washington decided not to seek a third term in 1796. Still, Adams barely squeaked by, defeating Jefferson 71-68. Jefferson would become vice president after finishing second. It was during the Adams presidency that the federal government would make its final move to the South after residing first in New York City and then Philadelphia.

This relocation was enabled by the 1790 Residence Act, a compromise that was brokered by Jefferson with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, with the proviso that the federal government assume all remaining state debts from the Revolutionary War. In addition to specifying the Potomac River area as the permanent seat of the government, it further authorized the president to select the exact spot and allowed a 10-year window for completion.

Washington rather eagerly agreed to assume this responsibility and launched into it with zeal. He personally selected the exact spot, despite expert advice against it. He even set the stakes for the foundation himself and carefully supervised the myriad details involved during actual construction. When the stone walls were rising, everyone on the project assembled, laid the cornerstone and affixed an engraved plate. Once in the mortar, the plate sank and has never been located since. An effort was made to find it on the 200th anniversary in 1992. All the old maps were pored over and the area was X-rayed … all to no avail. It remained undetected.

The project was completed on time and with Washington in his grave for 10 months, plans were made to relocate the White House from Philadelphia. The first resident, President John Adams, entered the President’s House at 1 p.m. on Nov. 1, 1800. It was the 24th year of American independence and three weeks later, he would deliver his fourth State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. It was the last annual message delivered personally for 113 years. Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice and it was not revived until 1913 (by Woodrow Wilson). With the advent of radio, followed by television, it was just too tempting for any succeeding presidents to pass up the opportunity.

John Adams was a fifth-generation American. He followed his father to Harvard and dabbled in teaching before becoming a lawyer. His most well-known case was defending the British Captain and eight soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. He was not involved in the Boston Tea Party, but rejoiced since he suspected it would inevitably lead to the convening of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774.

He married Abigail Smith … the first woman married to a president who also had a son become president. Unlike Barbara Bush, she died 10 years before John Quincy Adams actually became president in 1825. Both father and son served only one term. Abigail had not yet joined the president at the White House, but the next morning he sent her a letter with a benediction for their new home: “I pray heaven to bestow the best blessing on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” Franklin D. Roosevelt was so taken with it that he had it carved into the State Dining Room mantle in 1945.

Amen.

JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

British General Had Unfortunate Assignment of Quelling a Revolution

A letter signed by Thomas Gage, a year before the opening shots of the Revolutionary War, sold for $5,625 at an October 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Thomas Gage was the general in charge of Great Britain’s forces in North America from 1763 to 1775. As commander-in-chief, he held the most powerful office in British America, although he spent a disproportionate amount of time in New York City, enjoying the lively social scene.

It was during Gage’s tenure that colonial tensions escalated over political acts in London, starting with the highly unpopular Stamp Act of 1765.

Although Gage and his family were in Great Britain in late 1773 and missed the Boston Tea Party (Dec. 16, 1773), it provoked the British Parliament to enact a series of punitive measures that became known as the Intolerable Acts (or the Coercive Acts). Since Gage had experience in North America that extended all the way back to the French and Indian War in 1755, he was selected to be the military governor of Massachusetts in early 1774. It was his job to implement the Acts and quell the nascent rebellion.

In April, John Hancock and Samuel Adams had decided to hide out in Lexington, Mass., in Hancock’s childhood home to avoid contact with the British as they made their way to the Second Continental Congress. It was a wise decision since Gage had received instructions from London to arrest them as ringleaders of the insurgency. He also planned to seize gunpowder that was stored in nearby Concord.

However, the patriots received a tip about the raid and Paul Revere was dispatched to warn Hancock and Adams. When British troops descended on Lexington on April 19, they were confronted by a small band of volunteers. Now-historic shots were fired, killing eight Americans and wounding 10, while the British lost a single horse before they moved on to Concord.

It was a much different story when the British proudly marched back to Boston in their crisp red uniforms. Suddenly, they were engulfed on all sides by armed men, many of them local farmers, who were protected by buildings, trees, rocks and fences. They were known as the Minutemen, since they were highly mobile, self-trained in weaponry, deadly accurate with firearms, and able to respond quickly to military threats.

The British, frantic to seek safety, scrambled back to Boston after 273 soldiers were either killed or wounded. The colonists lost 95 men and were now prepared to challenge the once-invincible British, despite the enormous difference in resources. A larger and longer conflict was finally ignited.

John Adams got it exactly right when he said, “The battle of Lexington on the 19th of April changed the instruments of warfare from the pen to the sword.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

‘We Can Never Know Enough About the American Revolution’

The 1998-S Crispus Attucks $1 was struck to commemorate the 275th anniversary of the birth of Attucks and to honor the nation’s Black Patriots.

By Jim O’Neal

A friend, Oscar Robertson, NBA Hall of Fame player, gained notoriety in 1955 by leading Crispus Attucks High School to the Indiana state championship, becoming the first all-black school in the nation to win a state title. In 1956, Oscar and his teammates won the state championship again, and this time they became the first Indiana high school to complete a season undefeated.

Crispus Attucks was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770) and many consider the former slave the first casualty of the American Revolution. In the 1850s, he became a martyr for the abolitionist movement. His probable mixed-race heritage – African and American Indian – allowed both African Americans and Native Americans to leverage his fame in their struggles for justice.

Despite the many eyewitness accounts, scholarly research and dozens of highly acclaimed books, this period is filled with alternate versions and is a continuing source of debate and uncertainty.

A common denominator in many of the high-profile events of the era is the city of Boston, with the Stamp Act of 1765 being a convenient place to start. This was an egregious act of the British Parliament putting a tax on all printed matter – newspapers, books, playing cards and legal documents. It aroused a storm of protest in all the colonies, with Boston’s reaction particularly violent. A Stamp Act administrator was burned in effigy and a mob ransacked the governor’s mansion.

Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but insisted they maintained the right to pass laws regulating all trade and issuing new taxes at will. This caused protests that were even more violent and into this highly volatile situation, Britain landed 4,000 troops in Boston, strictly “in anticipation of a crisis.”

By 1770, Boston was in an economic decline and the population of 15,000 was smaller than 30 years earlier in 1740. There was continual competition for scarce resources and tensions between British troops and citizens continued to increase. Finally, an argument over payment for a haircut escalated into an angry mob that challenged troops stationed at the Customs House.

The people taunted the soldiers with “Fire! Fire! Fire! We dare you to fire!” At some point, an order was given and they shot into the crowd. Four people were killed and several others wounded. The next day, British Captain Thomas Preston and a small group of soldiers were arrested and taken to Queen Street jail to await trial. Future President John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. agreed to be their lawyers. A little-known fact is that four citizens were accused of shooting into the crowd, but they were found not guilty along with all but two of the British soldiers.

Then came the famous Boston Tea Party (1773), when colonists dressed as Indians destroyed 342 chests of tea on three ships in Boston Harbor after the British Parliament levied taxes on tea and granted a monopoly to the British East India Company. All the elements were in place for a war and it lasted for seven years.

The 35 years from 1765 to 1800 are some of the most interesting times in American history and will continue to attract scholarly research and an unending parade of books. However, few have the insight of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, who has said, “We can never know enough about the American Revolution if we want to understand who we are, why we are the way we are, and why we’ve accomplished what we’ve been able to accomplish that no other country has.”

I agree.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Paul Revere Was a Patriot – and Silversmith – Who Helped Win Our Independence

This set of six silver tablespoons made by Paul Revere sold for $83,650 at an April 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic, they published a (now) well-known poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that begins:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

It was an attempt to bolster the North’s courage and resolve on the eve of the Civil War. Longfellow hoped to illustrate how much impact individuals can have during times of dramatic, historic occasions. He used Paul Revere as an example in the hope it would inspire others as the nation stared into the abyss of war.

At the time, it was titled Paul Revere’s Ride and also known as The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere or The Landlord’s Tale; Paul Revere’s Ride. (Take your pick since HWL fictionalized the facts for poetic effect.)

We do know that PR was at various times a silversmith, engraver and patriot. He was even a part-time dentist when the Boston-area economy was slow. As a militant, he was one of the “Indians” at the Boston Tea Party and probably participated in the Stamp Act Riots.

He joined the “Sons of Liberty” in 1765, acting as a courier for the revolutionary forces. The famous ride he is associated with was to alert the Colonial militia about the advancement of British forces just before the Battle of Lexington and Concord (“The shot heard around the world”). One of his personal accounts is that he yelled, “The Regulars are coming out” instead of the more familiar “The British are coming” as he dashed around alerting everyone.

He had a long commercial career in iron casting and bronze bell and cannon casting, in addition to all the silver metalwork that Boston is replete with. In fact, his extensive metal factory work led to him becoming the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets in 1800 for use as sheathing material for naval vessels.

But, thanks to Longfellow, we will always fondly remember him as a genuine patriot who helped win our independence. (Naturally, all the men from that era were in fact dead as Longfellow suggests in his famous poem.) Whether the poem had any effect on the North is doubtful. By 1861, the terrible war that cost 630,000 lives was already just a short time away, unfortunately.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].