Among early Bostonians who owned argosies and had a prosperous trade with France and England was a young bachelor named Peter Faneuil, who, like Paul Revere, was descended from Huguenot refugees. He was the heir of his uncle, Andrew Faneuil, who died in 1738 and left a large fortune. Fond of good living and hospitable, “Here’s to Peter Faneuil!” was the toast often proposed above brimming bumpers. From Madeira he ordered amber wine, from London, chariots and sets of crested harness, and fine stuffs, buttons and laces. His ships carried cargoes of tobacco, black walnut, fish, stoves and general merchandise. At forty years of age he was a prince among Colonial merchants. He had, moreover, pride in Boston’s advancement, and offered “at his own cost and charge” to build a market for “the use, benefit and advantage of the town.” Later, the donor of the market house instructed his architect, the renowned John Smibert, to add a hall above the space given over to provisioners’ stalls. In 1742 the two-story brick building was completed. When Peter Faneuil received the formal thanks of Boston, he made the prophetic response, “I hope what I have done will be for the service of the whole country.” A year later he died, and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.
The chamber over the market became the seat of public offices, and, as the Town Hall, was in demand for patriotic celebrations, debates and banquets. In 1761, all of the structure except the walls was destroyed by fire. As no benevolent townsman offered to duplicate Faneuil’s gift, the selectmen were empowered to raise the necessary funds for rebuilding by holding a lottery. “Faneuil Hall Lottery Tickets” bore the signature of John Hancock, then a young politician of promise. In 1763 the reconstructed Town Hall was ready for occupancy. It was this rebuilt meeting-place that became the forum of free speech in Boston, the Altar of Liberty from which rose the flame that “roused a depressed people from want and degradation. Here those maxims of political truth which have extended an influence over the habitable globe, and have given rise to new republics, were first promulgated.”
The Stamp Act (1765) was denounced within its arched and pillared walls, and the repeal celebrated with festivities. Revenue laws were discussed, and when troops were ordered to the provincial capital, a convention in session here raised a fearless voice in defence of Colonial independence. The day following the massacre of the fifth of March, 1770, a mass meeting was called in the Hall, but so many citizens responded that it was necessary to repair to Old South Church, where there was more room. Early in November, 1773, John Hancock presided over a Town Hall meeting, the object of which was to protest against threatened importations of tea by the East India Company of London. At numerous conclaves the tea question continued to agitate the grave townsfolk, until on December sixteenth a group of patriots in the disguise of Indians summarily put an end to discussion by dumping the cargoes of the newly-arrived tea ships into Boston harbor.
Faneuil Hall echoed to vigorous protests against the Port Bill, which so vitally affected Boston commerce, and from the same “Old Faneuil” printed letters were dispatched to the other colonies for the purpose of presenting facts and securing coöperation against proposed aggressions by the mother country. At Faneuil Hall representatives of General Gage assembled one tragic day to receive the arms of the Bostonians. In joyous contrast were the meetings held in the honored edifice after the evacuation of the city by British troops.
French naval officers and the Marquis de Lafayette were feasted here; two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, were guests of honor at Faneuil Hall banquets; and in 1793 the execution of Louis XVI was celebrated by sons of freedom who sympathized with the French Revolutionists.
In the year 1806 the sturdy building was remodeled and enlarged. During the naval war with England, citizens again held meetings in the Town Hall to inveigh against renewed violations of their “national rights and sovereignty.” In the “Cradle of Liberty” Charles Francis Adams, Daniel Webster, Wendell Phillips, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate and Charles Sumner championed justice and democracy. In 1834, at a memorial meeting for Lafayette held in Faneuil, Edward Everett delivered one of his most glowing and eloquent orations, in which he extolled the departed French patriot as the “Lover of Liberty.” Referring to the Hall in which he spoke, he said, “The spirit of the departed is in high communion with the spirit of this place.”
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 10, SERIAL No. 158
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
