Governor Hutchinson's Passion

On this day in history, in 1754, Governor Thomas Hutchinson's youngest child was born. The child was a daughter. She was one of five children out of twelve to survive into adulthood. She was named after her mother, Governor Thomas Hutchinson's wife, Margaret Sanford Hutchinson. Margaret Sanford and Thomas Hutchinson had been more than just a political match, they also were a love match. Therefore, when Margaret entered into complications from childbirth, Hutchinson was thrown into a state of despair. Margaret would die a couple weeks after the birth of her namesake. Margaret and Thomas Hutchinson had been married for 20 years, and Hutchinson was so distressed that he would never even think of marrying another woman again. This was rare for the time period, as usually the custom was to try and remarry. Hutchinson would choose to remain a widower for the rest of his life. Hutchinson would also continue honoring and remembering his wife through annual dinners every year on the anniversary of his wedding to her, inviting his family and her relatives to dine with him, commenting that he was honoring what was the happiest day of his life.

From that point forward, Hutchinson began to throw himself into his work serving Massachusetts as a politician most devotedly in an attempt to distract himself from his distress. He also preoccupied his time with his passion for gardening and with taking care of his family. It soon became clear that the young Margaret, or Peggy as she was called for short, was Hutchinson's favorite child, being his wife's namesake, and as she reminded him of the wife he had lost. Despite this he never lost sight of remaining an affectionate father to all his children. For example, his ledgers recording all his economic transactions, weekly recorded the ordering of cakes for his eldest daughter Sarah, who he called Sallie as a pet name, and would make efforts to remove his entire family to safety whenever there was political upheaval in Boston that might threaten their safety. He often mentioned, in letters, his fears, and hopes for his family during times of political crises, and actions he had taken to protect them.

It is partially due to this love and protection of his family, that Governor Hutchinson at 62-years-old would finally decide that the political turmoil in Boston had made things too dangerous. Dangerous enough to feed into his decision to move his family to Great Britain, despite the fact that the idea distressed him to death. While in exile in England, he found himself entirely homesick for Massachusetts which had been his home since birth. He could not grow accustomed to the culture of the mother country and also was disgusted by the corruption of the British aristocracy which he finally was able to see first hand. He spent his days in England at home, pretending to be living in a New England run culture and society.

In 1779, matters were made worse when the Province of Massachusetts declared that Governor Hutchinson was never allowed to set foot on Massachusetts soil again. Hutchinson had spent his life not only serving Massachusetts most passionately as a politician, but on a personal level as well. He not only was a born and raised Bostonian, but also a fifth generation Bostonian who descended directly from Anne Hutchinson. Anne is best known today for being excommunicated by the colony, and sent to Rhode Island where she was fundamental in the founding of part of the Aquidneck. As a result of his love and passion for his homeland, Hutchinson had undertaken the task of making himself a historian of it. Even writing a three volume history of the colony itself. To suddenly now be permanently exiled with no hope of returning, at a time of feeling homesick, would undoubtedly have served as an emotional blow to a man who was already in low spirits.

In addition to this in 1777, Thomas Hutchinson's favorite daughter, his wife's namesake, died of tuberculosis. This devastated Hutchinson, much like the loss of his wife had, only 23 years before. As Hutchinson's favorite daughter, Peggy had become Hutchinson's travel companion and he had trouble coping with the loss.

In 1780, Hutchinson's youngest son, William (nick named Billy), died of a similar affliction as well. Even though both father and son were living in the same household, the servants decided to delay informing the father of Billy's death until the father had at least finished his morning breakfast. At some point during the morning, however, Hutchinson realized something was amiss and decided to see his son. He found the servants guarding the door to his son's room, and upon entering, discovered his son's death. Only a couple months later, all of this emotional stress caused Hutchinson's own state of mind and health to begin to decline, and in June of 1780 he would suffer a stroke and die.

Hutchinson was a governor whose only crime was that he cared too much. He harbored an extreme love and passion for his home colony, for his wife, and for his children. Everything he did for Massachusetts, even if it went against the people's wishes, was in his own mind, what was best for the continual health of the people and colony that he so loved. It is because of his passion that he took his job serving Massachusetts to heart. So on this Valentine's day we remember that love and passion come in many, and sometimes surprising, forms.

Governor Hutchinson's daughter Sarah, or Sallie Hutchinson

Title page of Governor Hutchinson's "History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay."  His work of researching and writing history on the colony exemplified his passion and devotion to the country in which he was born and raised.

Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson

An Exchange between Governor Hutchinson and the House of Representatives

In December 1772, Governor Thomas Hutchinson went on vacation with his family in his country home in Milton.  While there, he spent most his time preparing a speech for the upcoming new year to address the rights of the colonists under the British Government in response to much of the political upheaval that had occurred due to new policies and taxes coming from Parliament ever since the mid-1760’s.

Thomas Hutchinson would deliver his speech when the General Court, the legislative branch of the Massachusetts colonial government, returned to session on January 6, 1773.  Hutchinson addressed the General Court and acknowledged to them his awareness of the disorder of the government in Massachusetts over new policies coming directly from the British Parliament without consent from the colonies.  Governor Hutchinson had hoped that the violence and upheaval within the colony would subside but it had by this time become clear to him that the problem needed to be addressed if it were to be resolved.  In his speech, Hutchinson argued:

“…When our predecessors first took possession of this plantation, or colony, under a grant and charter from the Crown of England, it was their sense, and it was the sense of the kingdom, that they were to remain subject to the supreme authority of Parliament.  This appears from the charter itself, and other irresistible evidence.”

In other words, by moving from the mother country to unknown lands, the colonists did not escape the duties owed to the mother country and the laws that applied to the entire empire.  By accepting the protection of the mother country while settling in distant lands, the colonists had long ago consented to adhere to the laws that came forth from Parliament regardless of representation.  In Hutchinson’s view, that had continued to be the case from the time in which the colony had first settled, up until the 1770’s.

Governor Hutchinson feared that by offering the mother country an ultimatum that the colonists either be allowed representation or just be allowed to govern themselves  independently would estrange the mother country from its colonies, creating a whole new and separate government rather than remaining part of the British Empire:

“I know of no line that can be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total independence of the colonies: it is impossible there should be two independent Legislatures in one and the same state; for, although there may be but one head, the King, yet the two Legislative bodies will make two governments as distinct as the kingdoms of England and Scotland…”

His fear of the colonies breaking away from the mother country in this regard stemmed from the idea that as an independent government the colonists would lose the protection of a strong and stable country and could easily be subjected to being over taken by other countries such as Spain or France, at which point the colonists would lose their rights as Englishmen altogether, and would have to adapt to the stricter rules and regulations that might be put on the subjects of other countries.  Hutchinson even felt that subjects in one colony or empire did not all have access to the same rights and policies as other subjects within an empire.  He argued that even within the democratic nature of election of representatives, the colonists agreed to give up some of their rights to the individual elected; whether it was they themselves who voted for that individual or if they were a part of the minority who voted against him.  Once a man was elected into office to speak as the voice of the people, the individual people gave up their rights to the one man who was elected to act as the group voice for them.  As not every man elected would have the same ideas and motives, this would mean that each colony would have different laws and ideas of what the rights of Englishmen really were, all based off of their elected officials and the way each colony adapted to them.  Therefore, what one colony may have the right or privilege to do may not be the same as other colonies within the empire, and in extension, what the subjects in the mother country had the rights and privileges to do, did not necessarily have to be the same rights and privileges that were extended to the colonies.

Despite all of this, Governor Hutchinson did acknowledge that governments do make mistakes, that no one governing entity is perfect.  As a result, he felt that to question policies that came out of one’s government was healthy.  He just did not agree with the mode of questioning policies which the colonists had adopted: through violent rioting, and questioning the superiority of the mother country over the colonies every time there was a new policy they did not agree with.  Instead, Hutchinson argued, there had to be healthier and more constitutional channels through which to question the offending policies:

“I have no desire, gentlemen, by anything I have said, to preclude you from seeking relief, in a constitutional way, of any cases in which you have heretofore, or may hereafter suppose that you are aggrieved; and, although I should not concur with you in sentiment, I will, notwithstanding, do nothing to lessen the weight which your representations may deserve.”

In making this speech, Governor Hutchinson had hoped to have adopted a middle ground between Parliament and the colonists: acknowledging to Parliament that they still had full superiority over the colonies while acknowledging the right of the colonists to question policies when they feel their government has been in error.  Unfortunately for Governor Hutchinson, his speech was too little too late.  By this time, the colonists had already traveled too far down the channel of independence, and Parliament had adopted beliefs that if they ignored the upheaval in the colonies, it would eventually blow over.  Therefore, when Parliament heard of Governor Hutchinson’s speech, instead of supporting him, they condemned his speech for bringing a problem which they hoped would die away back to the forefront of the minds of the colonists.

"The wicked Statesman, or the Traitor to his country, at the Hour of DEATH"

Depicting Thomas Hutchinson being tormented and judged by death while under his arm is a list representing the salary the governor collected from the Tea Tax

The Ransacking of the Foster-Hutchinson Boston Home August 26, 1765

On August 30, 1765, then Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson wrote to correspondent Richard Jackson in Great Britain explaining the events of August 26 when his house had been attacked by an angry crowd of colonists. In the letter he explained that over £3000 of damage had been brought down upon his house by the angry mob who felt that Hutchinson may have had some authorship in the Stamp Acts that the colonists so resented. Hutchison, in his letter explained that he was forced to hide with his family in the house of his niece, sister, and her husband (the Mather family) but that the mob had heard of his departure and came looking for him so was forced to hide elsewhere. The next morning Hutchinson arrived at the Town House (the seat of colonial government for the colony of Massachussetts) wearing nothing more than a tattered night shirt and breeches saying, "Some apology is needed for my dress. Indeed, I had no other." And indeed he did not, for all his clothing and his children's clothing had been carried away or torn apart by the mob, his furniture torn to kindling, his paintings and family portraits ripped from their frames, the wine drunk from his cellar, the cupola of his roof torn off, his books torn apart and strewn about, the beds ripped open, and the very partitions of his house beaten in so that by morning nothing was left of his mansion but a desolate husk. Hutchinson, as a historian, had also been in the midst of writing a volume on the history of the Massachusetts Bay colony which was torn apart and thrown about. Hutchinson would spend the next few days trying to pick up each page of his work from the mud as well as many official documents that had been under his care without any certainty that all could be recovered.

The morning after his house was torn apart, on August 27, Hutchinson not only arrived in the Town House wearing nothing more but a tattered night shirt and breeches, but he also delivered an impassioned speech to the House of Representatives (some members of which had been responsible for the crowds and their ransacking of his house) explaining that he had had no authorship nor offered any support in the Stamp Act.

Later that same day Hutchinson tried to remove his family to his country home in Milton for safety, but along the road they were met by two or three parties of the same ruffians who had torn apart their house and his daughters felt so threatened that they thought they would never be safe again. Instead of continuing on to Milton, Hutchinson decided to hide his daughters in the Castle on what today is called "Castle Island" (At the time the Castle was known as William and Mary but today it is called Fort Independence), where the Royal Governor, Francis Bernard, and his family were also staying in order to remain safe.

In his letter Hutchinson expressed a hope that the people would see the dangers result from such actions when they are let loose in a government where there is no constant authority at hand. He also wrote that the British Ministry must be embarrassed and that they cannot conceive the state that Boston is in. The resentment of the Stamp Duty from the people required the courts could not be depended on to enforce it and it would cause all trade to cease, all courts to fall, and all authority to end. Yet on the other hand, if Parliament gave in to the colonists' demands they would lose all authority, and if external force was used then they would risk alienating any lasting affection the colonists might still have with their mother country. Were these words not prophetic?

Pictures below are some objects that used to be owned by Governor Hutchinson:

Pictures 1-3: Governor Hutchinson's desk from his house in Boston. It was removed to his country home in Milton a few days before his house in Boston was ransacked and therefore was saved from the fury of the people. It is now residing at the Milton Public Library in Milton, MA

Picture 4: An elaborate mirror from Governor Hutchinson's Milton country house, courtesy of the Milton Public Library. Before Governor Hutchinson's house in Boston was ransacked it was said that he owned the biggest and most beautiful looking glass in all New England. When Governor Hutchinson's house in Boston was ransacked the mirror was smashed to pieces by the angry colonists.

Picture 5: Surviving tiles from the Foster- Hutchinson house after it was ransacked and a plate with the Hutchinson Family Crest. At the bottom of the crest is the family motto in Latin "Proceed and you shall succeed." These items can be found on display at the Old State House, Boston. 

Picture 6: Thomas Hutchinson's bedroom and study door from the Foster-Hutchinson house in Boston. This was an "escape door" so that Hutchinson could escape into his study and room without even his family noticing. The door now resides at the Forbes House Museum which sits on the same property that used to be part of Thomas Hutchinson's Milton Country Estate.

 Picture 7: Unquety/Unquity house. The country home of Thomas Hutchinson where Thomas Hutchinson and his family repaired for a time after their house was ransacked in Boston. Picture courtesy of the Milton Public Library, Milton, MA