LENDALL PITTS,
Youngest son of Hon. James Pitts, a merchant and an active patriot of Boston; born in 1747, died December 31, 1787, and being captain of a volunteer company, was buried with military honors. According to Hewes, Pitts commanded the division of the tea party that boarded the brig "Beaver," and after the affair was over, formed the party in military order, with the aid of Major Barber and Colonel Proctor, and marched them back into town. A solemn pledge, for the protection of those engaged in this affair, was entered into by the committee of correspondence,—of whom Lendall's brother, John Pitts, was one,—about a week afterwards, when it was currently supposed that those who had borne a part in that daring performance would be arrested, if discovered, and executed for treason. It was worded as follows:
"The subscribers do engage to exert our utmost influence to support and vindicate each other, and any person or persons who may be likely to suffer for any noble efforts they may have made to save their country, by defeating the operations of the British Parliament, expressly designed to extort a revenue from the Colonies against their consent."
The names of four members of this family are prominently associated with the tea episode at Boston. James Pitts, the father, (H.U., 1731,) an eminent and wealthy merchant, who, as member of the Governor's Council, thwarted the chief-magistrate, Hutchinson, in his efforts to have the tea landed, and who died in Dunstable, Mass., January 25, 1776; aged sixty-four. His sons,—John, born in 1737, (H.U., 1757,) a selectman, and on the committee to urge the consignees to resign; an active member of the committee of correspondence, of the Provincial Congress of 1775; Speaker of the House in 1778, and member of the senate in 1780-84, who died at Tyngsboro', Mass., in 1815; Samuel, born in 1745, an officer in the company of cadets, said also to have been one of the tea party, and Lendall, the leader of the party, noted above, who was clerk of the market in 1775-6, and an officer in Hancock's cadets. The sons all had Huguenot blood in their veins, their mother being a sister of James Bowdoin. All were merchants, and active Sons of Liberty, and prior to the Revolution, were in business together, engaged in extensive commercial transactions. Pitts's wharf was just north of Faneuil Hall Market. Pitts Street perpetuates the name and fame of this noted family; no one of their descendants bearing the name now surviving in Boston. The Pitts mansion, a favorite place of meeting for the Boston patriots, occupied the ground now covered by the Howard Atheneum. The accompanying portrait of Lendall Pitts is taken from a painting owned by his grandson, Lendall Pitts Cazeau, of Roxbury.
For many of the above facts I am indebted to the Pitts "Memorial," by Daniel Goodwin, Jr., of Chicago.
THOMAS PORTER,
A merchant, formerly of Boston, died in Alexandria, Va., in June, 1800.
Captain HENRY PRENTISS,
Born in Holliston, Mass., March 27, 1749, died in Medfield, Mass., August 31, 1821; son of Rev. Joshua, forty-five years pastor of the Holliston church. Captain Prentiss served during the Revolutionary war, at Cambridge, at Long Island, and at Trenton. He was an Overseer of the Poor, in Boston, in 1784; a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1786; a sea captain in 1789, and was afterwards a merchant of Boston. He, with his brother Appleton, was one of the first to introduce into New England the art of printing calico,—producing a coarse blue and red article on India cotton. Their place of business was at the corner of Buttolph Street. Captain Prentiss' residence was in a stone house, near the head of Hanover Street, the former residence of Benjamin Hallowell, Comptroller of Customs, which was ransacked at the time Gov. Hutchinson's House was mobbed. Member Massachusetts Lodge, 1789.