SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
When Rip Van Winkle came back home he found a new set of neighbors who scoffed at good King George. The Americans lived in a changed world. In the South most of the political leaders who were not Englishmen took the patriots’ side,—the Randolphs, and the Peytons, and the Carrolls, and the Rutledges, and the Pinckneys, and the Haynes,—and when the war was over the wheel had revolved under them, but left them still at the top. In the North there was a greater change,—Sam Adams, the untitled leader of the Boston town meeting, became leader of Massachusetts; John Hancock, the merchant accused of smuggling, was governor; John Adams, the struggling lawyer, was minister to England. Where were the rich and fashionable people who lived in the fine colonial mansions and drank too much Madeira? Hundreds of them gone, exiled, driven forth, farming in the eastern townships of Canada, waiting in the antechambers of the great in London.
PARSON CLARK’S HOUSE, LEXINGTON
Here Samuel Adams and John Hancock were sleeping when aroused by Paul Revere on his famous ride on April 19, 1775.
JOHN HANCOCK’S HOUSE IN BOSTON
Interesting not only in its historic associations, but as an attractive example of colonial architecture.