THEOPHILUS LILLIE.
Edward Lillie by the recorded births of his children appears to have been in Boston as early as 1663. As he was devoted to the Church of England, it may be presumed that he came from that country, and the date of his eldest child's birth makes it likely that he was born before 1640. This branch of the Lillie family probably lived for a while in Newfoundland, and if so, they are likely to have been of the Devonshire or West-of-England stock, which supplied the first settlers for that Province. They became possessed of real estate at St. John's during the latter half of the seventeenth century, described as "a plantation"—a term signifying full proprietorship.
Edward Lillie married about 1661, Elizabeth, whose maiden name is unknown. He was one of the well known citizens of the town of Boston when its estimated population was from five to seven thousand inhabitants. In 1687 he was one of the sixty citizens whose property was rated at £50 or more,—taking rank with such contemporaries as Elisha and Eliakim Hutchinson, Adam Winthrop, Samuel and Anthony Checkley, and Simon Lynde.[202] Edward Lillie carried on a large business as "cooper," at that period one of the most important industries of New England in its connection with commerce.
Prior to 1670 Edward Lillie had land "in his tenure and occupation" at the North End. He purchased July 8, 1670, an estate at what was then the South End of the town,—a dwelling-house and land. This estate was situated on the south-east corner of Washington and Bedford Streets, and it is in part now (1907) the site of R. H. White's dry-goods establishment. In January 1674 he purchased of Captain Thomas Savage land on Conduit (now North) Street and erected thereon in 1684 a brick dwelling-house. The estate was valued in inventory at £1300.
Edward Lillie's will was dated December 24, 1688, and proved January 7, 1688-9. His wife was probably the "Mrs. Lily" whose death, according to town records, took place January 4, 1705. They had six children.
Samuel Lilly, born March 20, 1663, was the eldest child. June 4, 1683, he married at the age of twenty Mehitable Frary, daughter of Captain and Deacon Theophilus Frary, one of the founders of the Old South Church. Her mother was the daughter of Jacob Eliot, and the niece of John Eliot, the "Apostle to the Indians." Mehitable, was born February 4, 1665-6, and as her father had no sons, his estate was divided between the daughters.
Samuel Lillie, like his father, was a "cooper," but early in life became interested in commerce, sending as early as May 23, 1684, merchandise to the island of Nevis. For the next twenty-three years he was widely engaged in commercial transactions, and was uniformly styled "merchant" in formal documents. After his father's death he bought and occupied the latter's premises at the North End, enlarging them by other purchases.
Mrs. Royall, wife of Isaac Royall and mother of the Loyalist was a cousin of Mrs. Samuel Lillie. During his latter years Samuel Lillie was absent from America quite frequently. It is not likely that he was in Boston from 1708 till shortly before his death.[203] Mrs. Lillie died March 4, 1723. They had eleven children, born in Boston and baptised (except one or two) in the Second church, each a few days after birth.
Theophilus Lillie, the fourth child of Samuel and Mehitable Lillie, was baptized August 24, 1690. He married July 8, 1725, Hannah Ruck (Rev. Cotton Mather officiating). Seems to have done much in settling his father's affairs, but was not engaged in active business.
On the 28th of July, 1732, in Town Meeting, he with others, was appointed a committee to receive proposals, touching the demolishing, repairing, or leasing out the old buildings belonging to the town in Dock Square. The committee to give their attendance at Mr. William Coffin's the Bunch of Grapes tavern, on Thursdays weekly, from six to eight o'clock in the evening. In 1736 he appears as one of the subscribers to Prince's Chronological History of Boston, the list containing, according to Drake, the names of persons most interested at that period in literary concerns.
Hannah Ruck, his wife, was born December 4, 1703 and was the daughter of John Ruck, a successful merchant, a citizen active in municipal affairs and holding municipal offices. Her mother was Hannah Hutchinson, daughter of Colonel Elisha Hutchinson, and aunt of Thomas Hutchinson, the last Royal Governor. A close friendship existed between the two families, and their homes were near together at the North End. This friendship was continued in Halifax, after the Loyalist exodus in 1776.
Theophilus Lillie sold the family estate at the corner of Newbury and Pond Streets March 9, 1754. Before this sale he had removed to the Ruck homestead "near the old North Meeting House." Mr. Lillie died late in March, 1760. He left but little property. His eldest son Samuel, died young and John and Theophilus Lillie were his father's sole heirs.
Theophilus Lillie, the youngest son, was born August 18, 1730. He married late in 1757 (intentions of marriage published October 27, 1757) Ann Barker, who had been a shop-keeper, in company with Abiel Page, "near Rev. Mr. Mather's meeting-house." He was educated as a merchant and was in retail trade as early as 1758, as shown by the numerous collection suits brought by him, and his advertisements in the Boston "Gazette" May 22 of that year. His store was on "Middle (Hanover) Street, near Mr. Pemberton's meeting-house." His stock was miscellaneous English Dry Goods and Groceries.
When it was determined to resist the tax on imports, a non-importation agreement was entered into in August, 1768, by the merchants of Boston, many were forced to sign it through fear of offending the mob, the agreement ended in 1769, and some of those who had been forced into it were determined to proceed in their regular business, and would pay no attention to a renewal of it, among these was Theophilus Lillie. They were proscribed and persecuted for several weeks by the rabble collecting to interrupt customers, passing to and from their shops, and houses, by posts erected before their shops with a hand pointed towards them, and by many marks of derision. At length on February 22nd, 1770, a more powerful mob than common, collected before the house of Theophilus Lillie and set up a post on which was a large Wooden Head, with a board faced paper, on which was painted the figures of four of the principal importers. One of the neighbors, Ebenezer Richardson, found fault with the proceedings which provoked the mob to drive him into his home for shelter. Having been a custom house officer, he was peculiarly obnoxious to the mob. They surrounded his house, threw stones and brick-bats through the windows, and, as it appeared upon trial were forcing their way in, when he fired upon them, and killed a boy eleven or twelve years of age. He was soon seized, and another person, George Wilmot with him, who happened to be in the house. They were in danger of being sacrificed to the rage of the mob, being dragged through the streets and a halter having been prepared, but some more temperate than the rest, advised to carry him before a justice of peace, who committed him to prison.
The boy that was killed was Christopher Snider, the son of a poor German. The event was taken advantage of by Sam Adams, and other revolutionary leaders to raise the passion of the people, and thereby strengthen their cause. A grand funeral therefore was judged to be the proper course to pursue. In the Evening Post of 26 Feb. is a very minute account of the affair, which had a very great deal to do with subsequent events. The corpse was set down under 'Liberty Tree' whence the procession began. About 50 school boys preceded, and there was "at least 2000 in the procession, of all ranks, amid a crowd of spectators." The pall was supported by six youths chosen by the parents of the deceased. On the Liberty Tree and upon each side and foot of the coffin were inscriptions well calculated to excite sympathy for the deceased, and at the same time indignation against him, who occasioned his death.
On the 20th of April following the two culprits were tried for their lives. Richardson was brought in guilty of murder, but Wilmot was acquitted. Drake says "In this account of the case of Richardson and Wilmot, it must be borne in mind that it is almost entirely made up from the facts detailed by their enemies. Richardson was no doubt insulted beyond endurance, which caused his rashness, in a moment of intense excitement he fired on the mob. These facts doubtless had their weight with the court, for the Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson, viewed the guilt of Richardson as everybody would now, a clear case of justifiable homicide, and consequently refused to sign a warrant for his execution, and, after lying in prison two years, was, on application to the King pardoned and set at liberty."[204]
After the affair of the Wooden Figure at Lillie's, there was constant trouble in Boston between the soldiers and roughs of the town, until the 5th of March, when occurred the affray between the Mob and the Soldiers known as the "Boston Massacre."[205]
Mr. Lillie had taken no part in the affair that happened near his store, but popular feeling was influenced by that occurrence against him. Mr. Lillie's full statement of the interference with his business by the illegal committee of citizens, will be found in the "Massachusetts Gazette," January 11, 1770. An extract will show his attitude towards the affair.
"Upon the whole, I cannot help saying—although I have never entered far into the mysteries of government, having applied myself to my shop and my business—that it always seemed strange to me that people who contend so much for civil and religious liberty should be so ready to deprive others of their natural liberty: that men who are guarding against being subject to laws [to] which they never gave their consent in person or by their representative should at the same time make laws, and in the most effectual manner execute them upon me and others, to which laws I am sure I never gave my consent either in person or by my representative. But what is still more hard, they are laws made to punish me after I have committed the offence; for when I sent for my goods, I was told nobody was to be compelled to subscribe; after they came, I was required to store them. This in no degree answered the end of the subscription, which was to distress the manufacturers in England. Now, my storing my goods could never do this; the mischief was done when the goods were bought in England; and it was too late to help it. My storing my goods must be considered, therefore, as punishment for an offence before the law for punishing it was made.
"If one set of private subjects may at any time take upon themselves to punish another set of private subjects just when they please, it's such a sort of government as I never heard of before; and according to my poor notion of government, this is one of the principal things which government is designed to prevent; and I own I had rather be a slave under one master (for I know who he is, I may perhaps be able to please him) than a slave to a hundred or more whom I don't know where to find, nor what they will expect of me."
In 1770 Mr. Lillie removed to Oxford in Worcester County,—a removal induced probably by his recent experiences in Boston. His domicile is stated to be in that town in actions brought by him in Suffolk County. On account of his political views his new residence did not prove to be any more congenial than Boston had been.
In 1772 he attached for a debt the house of Dr. Alexander Campbell and the people of Oxford took umbrage, and threatened him with violence. In the same year he sold his place in Oxford, and returned to Boston. He bought in 1774 an estate in Brookfield, but it does not appear that he lived upon it at any time. Until the political troubles Mr. Lillie seems to have been in good circumstances, and to have kept up in his manner of dress the fashions of the period, according to family traditions. He left Boston in March, 1776 with the British troops for Halifax. His family thus embarking numbered four persons—himself and wife, and one of the other two being, doubtless, a negro servant.
Mr. Lillie's death occurred in Halifax two months after leaving Boston, on May 12. His property in Massachusetts was confiscated. Jacob Cooper, of Boston, administered on his estate. Mrs. Lillie continued to live at Halifax, and notwithstanding the confiscation proceedings, she undertook to collect, by suits in Massachusetts in 1784-85, some of the debts due to her husband. The Confiscation Act however, was a bar to any recovery.
Mrs. Lillie survived her husband eighteen years. Her funeral is registered on the records of St. Paul's church, Halifax, as being on September 16, 1794, at the age of seventy-nine. Her will dated December 10, 1791, and August 5, 1794 (appointing Foster Hutchinson, the younger, Executor) was proved September 20, 1794, on the oath of John Masters and Foster Hutchinson, the younger. Certain provisions of the will show a particular interest in a colored servant. The will provides: "It is also my will and intention that my black man Caesar be free, and that the sum of ten pounds be retained and left in the hands of my hereinafter named executor, to be applied to the use of said Caesar in case of sickness, or other necessity, at the discretion of said executor." She also bequeathed to him "a suit of mourning cloths suitable for a man in his situation in life"; and in a later codicil, "the feather-bed and bedstead whereupon he usually sleeps, and also the bedclothes and bedding belonging thereto." Mr. Lillie's confiscated personal effects indicate that he lived in a liberal style. At the time of his death. Governor Hutchinson, then in England, wrote in his Diary, July 24, 1776:
When I came home I heard of Mr. Lillie's death at Halifax. What numbers have been brought to poverty, sickness, and death by refusing to concur with the present measures of America!
Theophilus Lillie died childless. Search was made in July, 1895, by Edward Lillie Pierce and his son George, in the old graveyard at Halifax, but no stone for him or his wife was discovered, although her funeral had been duly recorded in the church register. The stones of Foster Hutchinson and his family were well preserved; and the Lillie stone if ever set up, would be likely to be found near them.
Mr. Lillie's personal property in Massachusetts was disposed of and his three pieces of real estate were sold at public auction. His debts were small and the whole amount turned into the treasury, £595, valued at £446 in sterling money. The public gain was considerable.
John Lillie, the only surviving brother of Theophilus was born August 8, 1728. He is described as a "mariner" in public documents, but no details of his career on the sea have been transmitted. He married in Trinity church, August 16, 1754 Abigail Breck (born June 19, 1732.) She was the daughter of John and Margaret Breck. John Lillie died April, 1765, and his will was proved on the 19th. He left six children. John Lillie, his son, became a Major in the Continental Army and served in many engagements with great bravery during the war. General Washington certified that Major Lillie "conducted himself on all occasions with dignity, bravery, and intelligence." He was married to Elizabeth Vose, January 20, 1785, and was survived by several children.
Mehitable and Ann Lillie, two of John Lillie's daughters (the mariner) have always with their descendants been well known.
LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO THEOPHILUS LILLIE IN SUFFOLK COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.
To John Greenough, May 26, 1781; Lib. 132, fol. 216. Land and buildings in Boston. Middle St. E.; Samuel Ridgeway S.; Thomas Greenough W. Thomas Greenough and Edward Foster, an absentee, N.
To Samuel Howard. Aug. 3, 1781: Lib. 133, fol. 5. One undivided third of land and large brick dwelling-house in Boston, Sun Court St. N.; Joseph Hemmingway and others E.; John Leach and others S.; Market Square W.