REV. MATHER BYLES.
Josiah Byles, a saddler by trade, came from Winchester, Hants county. He was in Boston in 1695 and joined the church October 11, 1696; seven years later he married the pastor's daughter.
He had four children by his wife Sarah. His second wife, Elizabeth, he married October 6, 1703; she was the widow of William Greenough and the daughter of Increase Mather.
Mather Byles, D. D., son of Josiah and Elizabeth, was born in Boston in 1706. He graduated from Harvard University in 1725 and was ordained first pastor of the Hollis street church in 1733. This church was built on land given by Governor Belcher in 1733, the site is now occupied by the Hollis street Theatre. He married, February 14, 1733, Mrs. Anna Gale; the ceremony took place in the state room of the Province House, Rev. Thomas Prince of the Old South officiating. By this marriage he had six children born, all of whom died young except Elizabeth. His second wife was Rebecca, daughter of Lieutenant Governor Hon. William Tailor; the ceremony was performed by Rev. Joseph Sewell, D. D. By his second wife he had four children. He was created Doctor of Divinity at Aberdeen in 1765. He lived happily with his parish until 1776 when the connection was dissolved and never renewed. Of the Congregational clergy he stood alone against the revolution.
Mather Byles is one of the most interesting men of this period. He was a scholar and a great wit. Pope, Lansdowne and Watts were among his correspondents. In his pulpit he avoided politics and on being asked the reason, replied: "I have thrown up four breastworks, behind which I have entrenched myself, neither of which can be enforced. In the first place I do not understand politics; in the second place, you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place you have politics all the week, pray let one day in seven be devoted to religion; in the fourth place, I am engaged in work of infinitely greater importance; give me any subject to preach on of more consequence than the truth I bring you, and I will preach on it the next Sabbath."
The preacher became known as the "celebrated Dr. Byles." He wrote in poetry and prose very well, and some of his sermons are still extant. Also several of his essays, in the New England Weekly Journal, a poem on the death of George I; and the accession of George II, in 1727. A sort of memorial address to Governor Belcher, on the death of his wife, and a poem called the conflagration, and a volume of metrical matters published in 1744.
The serious writings of Dr. Byles are singularly free from everything suggestive of frivolous association. In his pulpit there was none of it, while out of it, unless on solemn occasions, there was very little else. One of that day said his wit at times was quite as clever as Jonathan Swift or Sydney Smith.
Mather Byles and his family were staunch loyalists. News of the repeal of the stamp act arrived in Boston May 16, 1766. The nineteenth of May was appointed for merry-making. "At one in the morning the bell of the Hollis street church began to ring," says a zealous writer of that day. "The slumbers of the pastor, Dr. Byles, were disturbed of course, for he was a tory, though a very pleasant tory, after all." In 1777 he was denounced in town meeting, and having been by a subsequent trial pronounced guilty of attachment to the Royal cause, was sentenced to confinement, and to be sent to England with his family. This Byles steadfastly refused to do and the doom of the banishment was never enforced, and he was permitted to remain in Boston. The substances of the charges against him were that he continued in Boston during the siege; and that he prayed for the king and the safety of the town.
For a time he was kept a prisoner in his own house. On one occasion while under guard he persuaded the sentinel to go on an errand for him, promising to perform sentinel's duty himself; and to the great amusement of all gravely marched before his own door with a musket on his shoulder, until his keeper returned. This was after his trial; and alluding to the circumstances that he had been kept prisoner, that his guard had been removed and replaced again, he said, that "he had been guarded, re-guarded, and disregarded."
REV. MATHER BYLES, D. D.
Born in Boston in 1706. "A man of infinite wit." Died in Boston July 5, 1788.
Near his house, in wet weather, was a very bad slough. It happened that two of the selectmen who had the care of the streets, passed that way driving in a chaise, stuck fast in this hole, and were obliged to get out in the mud to extricate their vehicle. Dr. Byles came out, and making them a respectful bow, said: "Gentlemen, I have often complained to you of this nuisance, without any attention being paid to it, and I am very glad to see you 'stirring' in this matter now."
Dr. Byles' wit created many a laugh and many an enemy. In person he was tall and commanding. His voice was strong and harmonious and his delivery graceful. He was intimate with General Knox, who was a bookseller before the war. When the American troops took possession of the town after the evacuation, Knox, who had become quite corpulent, marched in at the head of his artillery. As he passed on Byles thought himself privileged, on old scores, exclaimed, loud enough to be heard, "I never saw an ox fatter in my life." When confined in his own house and quite poor and had no money to waste on follies, he caused the little room in which he read and wrote to be painted brown, that he might say to every visitor, "You see, I am in a brown study."
From the time of the stamp act in 1765 to the period of the revolution the cry had been repeated in every form of phraseology, "that our grievances should be redressed." One fine morning the multitude had gathered on the common to see a regiment of redcoats parade there, who had recently arrived. "Well," said the doctor, gazing at the spectacle, "I think we can no longer complain that our grievances are not red-dressed." "True," said one of his neighbors who were standing near, "but you have two d's, Dr. Byles." "To be sure, sir, I have," the doctor instantly replied, "I had them from Aberdeen in 1765."
Some visitors called one morning, and Mrs. Byles unwilling to be found at her ironing board, and desiring to hide herself, as she would not be so caught by those ladies, the doctor put her in a closet, and buttoned her in. After a few remarks the ladies expressed a wish to see the doctor's curiosities, which he proceeded to exhibit; and after entertaining them very agreeably for some time, he told them he had kept the greatest curiosity to the last; and proceeding to the closet, unbuttoned the door and exhibited Mrs. Byles.
He had at one time a remarkably stupid and literal Irish girl as a domestic. With a look and voice of terror he said to her in haste, "Go and say to your mistress, Dr. Byles has put an end to himself." The girl ran upstairs and with a face of horror, screamed, "Dr. Byles has put an end to himself." The astonished wife and daughter ran into the parlor—and there was the doctor, calmly waltzing about with a part of a cow's tail, that he had picked up in the street, tied to his coat or cassock behind.
On the celebrated Dark-day in 1780 a lady who lived near the doctor, sent her young son with her compliments, to know if he could account for the uncommon appearance. His answer was, "My dear, you will give my compliments to your mamma, and tell her that I am as much in the dark as she is." He paid his addresses unsuccessfully to a lady who afterwards married a gentleman of the name of Quincy; the doctor on meeting her said: "So madam, it appears that you prefer a Quincy to Byles." "Yes, for if there had been anything worse than biles God would have afflicted Job with them."
Mather Byles had two daughters by his second wife, Mary born in 1750 and Katherine born in 1753. They were famous for their hospitality and their stout, unflinching loyalty to the throne, to the last hours of their existence. This thread of life was spun out more than half a century after the Royal government had ceased in these States; yet they retained their love of, and strict adherence to monarch and monarchies, and refused to acknowledge that the Revolution had transferred their allegiance to new rulers. One of these ladies of a by-gone age, wrote to William the Fourth, on his accession to the throne. They had known the "sailor-king" during the Revolution and now assured him that the family of Doctor Byles always had been, and would continue to be, loyal to the rightful sovereign of England.
Dr. Byles continued to live in Boston after the Revolution, the last twelve years of his life being spent in retirement. He died of paralysis July 5th, 1788 at the age of 82. As Dr. Byles refused to be driven out and made a refugee, or absentee, he therefore saved his property from confiscation, and his two daughters, maiden ladies, lived and died in the old family house at the corner of Tremont and Nassau street, now Common street. They were repeatedly offered a great price for their dwelling, but would not sell it, nor would they permit improvements or alterations. In the course of improvements in Boston a part of the building had to be removed in widening the street. This had a fatal influence upon the elder sister; she mourned over the sacrilege, and, it is thought, died its victim. "That," said the survivor, "is one of the consequences of living in a Republic. Had we been living under a king, he would have cared nothing about our little property, and we could have enjoyed it in our own way as long as we lived. But," continued she, "there is one comfort, that not a creature in the States will be any better for what we shall leave behind us." She was true to her promise, for the Byles estate passed to relatives in Halifax at their decease. One of them died in 1835, the other in 1837. They worshipped in Trinity church under which their bodies were buried, and on Sundays wore dresses almost as old as themselves. Among their furniture, was a pair of bellows two centuries old, a table on which Franklin drank tea on his last visit to Boston, a chair which more than a hundred years before the Government of England had sent as a present to their grandfather, Lieutenant-Governor Tailer. They showed to visitors commissions to their grandfather, signed by Queen Anne, and three of the Georges. They talked of their walks arm-in-arm, on Boston Common, with General Howe, and Lord Percy, while the British Army occupied Boston. They told of his Lordship's ordering his band to play under their window for their gratification. They took pleasure in exhibiting the many heirlooms which were in the possession of the family and enjoyed hearing a recitation of the bright stories of the day. The works of Watts were sent to Byles by the author from time to time and among the treasures highly prized by the family was a presentation copy, in quarto from Pope, of his translation of the Odyssey. At the sale of the library of Dr. Byles a large folio Bible in French, was purchased by a private individual. This Bible had been presented to the French-Protestant church in Boston, by Queen Anne, and at the time when it came into the hands of Dr. Byles was the last relic of that church, whose visible temple had been erected in School Street about 1716.[192]
The bible is now preserved in the library of the Divinity School at Cambridge and was presented in 1831 by the widow of the late Samuel Cobb of Boston, who had bought it at the sale of Mather Byle's library.
Mather Byles, Jr., D. D., a son of Rev. Mather Byles by his second wife, was born in 1734, and married Rebecca, daughter of Rev. N. Walter of Roxbury in 1761. He graduated in 1751 at Harvard University. In 1757 at the age of twenty-three he was ordained at New London; his father preached the sermon. Eleven years after, his ministry came to an abrupt termination. Without previous intimation, he called a meeting of his church and requested dismission, that he might accept an invitation to become Rector of the North Episcopal, or Christ Church, Salem street, Boston. His change to Episcopacy was soon a matter of discussion all over New England. Among the reasons he gave in the course of the discussion that ensued, were, that "another minister would do much better for them than he had done or could do, for his health was infirm, and the position of the church very bleak, the hill wearisome, he was not a country minister, and his home and friends were all in Boston." The debate was long and warm, and produced total alienation. April 12, 1768, the record is "The Rev. Byles dismissed himself from the church and congregation." Before the close of 1768, he was inducted into the desired rectorship; and of Christ Church, was the third in succession. He continued to discharge his ministerial duties until 1775, when the force of events compelled him to abandon his flock. He was a staunch loyalist, and resigned the rectorship of Christ Church on Easter Tuesday, 1775, meaning to go to Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, but political tumults there, making that impossible, he remained in Boston, and performed the duty of chaplain to some of the regiments, until the evacuation in 1776, when he left Boston. Accompanied by his family of four persons, he went to Halifax. In 1778 he was proscribed and banished. He settled at St. John, New Brunswick, after the war, and was Rector of the city, and Chaplain of the Province. He died at St. John in 1814.
His daughter Rebecca, born in 1762, married W. J. Almon, M. D., Surgeon to the Ordnance and Artillery, and died at Halifax in 1853.
Mather Byles (3) born in 1764, went to the British West Indies, was Commissary General at Grenada. He married June, 1799, Mary, eldest daughter of Chief Justice Bridgewater of Grenada. The writer was at St. George, Grenada, in 1907, and saw there in the Episcopal Church a marble tablet erected to the memory of Mather Byles of Boston, by his Brother Belcher. He died Dec. 17, 1802.
Elizabeth, born in 1767, married William Scoville, Esq., of St. John, and died in 1808.
Anna, born at Boston, married General Thomas DesBrisay, Lieut. General in the Army, Commandant at Halifax in 1799.
Belcher was born in 1780 at Halifax, and died in England in 1815.
Mather Brown, was a grandson of Rev. Mather Byles (1). His mother was Elizabeth, born in 1737, who married in 1760 Gawler Brown and died in 1763.
Mather Brown went to Europe in 1780, with a letter of introduction from his grandfather to Harrison Gray, Esq., London, a firm friend of the family. Mr. Copley had likewise been intimate with Dr. Byles before he left Boston. He also gave him a letter addressed by the old patriarch "To Mr. Copley in the Solar system." In a letter dated Paris 23, 1781, he writes: "Dr. Franklin has given me a pass, and recommendatory letter to the famous Mr. West. He treats me with the utmost politeness; has given me an invitation to his home. I delivered him my grandfather's message, he expressed himself with the greatest esteem and affection for him, and has since introduced me at Versailles, as being grandson to one of his most particular friends in America."
In his first letter from London, 1781, he writes: "In consequence of the recommendation of Dr. Franklin, who gave me letters to his fellow townsman, the famous Mr. West of Philadelphia, I practice gratis with this gentleman, who affords me every encouragement, as well as Mr. Copley, who is particularly kind to me, welcomed me to his home, and lent me his pictures, etc. At my arrival Mr. Treasurer Gray carried me and introduced me to Lord George Germaine." In a letter in 1783 he wrote: "I have exhibited four pictures in the exhibition; the king and queen were there yesterday." In 1784: "I have painted several Americans. Yesterday I had two pictures shown his royal highness, the Prince of Wales. They were carried to the palace by his page. He criticised them, and thought them strong likenesses. I believe I never told you that the king knew a picture of mine in the last exhibition, of the keeper of Windsor Castle, and took particular notice of Mr. Gray's picture; asked him who it was, and who did it, and what book he had in his hand. Mr. West told him it was the treasurer of Boston painted by his pupil, a young man, Mr. Brown of America. The king asked him what part. He told him Massachusetts." In 1785 he writes: "Among other great people I have painted, Sir William Pepperell and family, and Hon. John Adams, ambassador to His Britannic Majesty. On the 20th of June, I had the honor to be introduced to the Duke of Northumberland at his palace; his Grace received me with the utmost politeness."
Mather Brown became afterwards artist to the king, a worthy successor to Copley. And thus two Boston-born boys filled this honorable position.