On the morning of November 17, 1773, a little party of family friends had assembled at the home of Richard Clarke, Esq., near the King's Chapel on School Street, to welcome young Jonathan Clarke, who had just arrived from London. All at once the inmates of the dwelling were startled by a violent beating at the door, accompanied with shouts and the blowing of horns, creating considerable alarm. The ladies were hastily bestowed in places of safety, while the gentlemen secured the avenues of the lower story, as well as they were able. The yard and vicinity were soon filled with people. One of the inmates warned them from an upper window, to disperse, but getting no other reply, than a shower of stones, he discharged a pistol. Then came a shower of misseles, which broke in the lower windows and damaged some of the furniture. Some influential Revolutionists had by this time arrived, and put a stop to the proceedings of the mob, which then dispersed. The consignees then called upon the governor and council for protection.
The eventful Thursday, December 16, 1773, a day ever memorable in the annals of Boston, witnessed the largest mob yet assembled in Boston. Nearly seven thousand persons collected at the Old South Meeting House. The tea ships had not taken out clearance papers, the twenty days allowed by law terminated that night. Then the revenue officers could take possession, and under cover of the naval force, land the tea, and opposition to this would have caused bloody work. The Revolutionists desired to avoid this issue, so it was decided to destroy the tea. Rotch, the owner of the "Dartmouth," applied to Governor Hutchinson, at his residence in Milton, for a pass to proceed with his vessel to London, for the governor had ordered Colonel Leslie, commander of the castle, and Admiral Montagu, to guard the passages to the sea, and permit no unauthorized vessels to pass. The governor offered Rotch a letter to Admiral Montagu, commending ship and goods to his protection, if Rotch would agree to have his ship haul out into the stream, but he replied that none were willing to assist him in doing this, and the attempt would subject him to the ill will of the people. The governor then sternly refused a pass, as it would have been "a direct countenancing and encouraging the violation of the acts of trade."
Between six and seven o'clock in the evening three different mobs disguised as Indians proceeded from different parts of the town, arrived with axes and hatchets, and hurried to Griffin's (now Liverpool wharf), boarded the three tea ships, and, warning their crews and the custom house officers, to keep out of the way, in less than three hours time had broken and emptied into the dock three hundred and forty-two chests of tea, valued at £18,000. A Loyalist writer of the time says: "Now this crime of the Bostonians, was a compound of the grossest injury and insult. It was an act of the highest insolence towards government, such a mildness itself cannot overlook or forgive. The injustice of the deed was also most atrocious, as it was the destruction of property to a vast amount, when it was known that the nation was obliged in honor to protect it." This memorable occurrence was undoubtedly in the immediate sequence of the events which it produced, the proximate cause of the American Revolution.[241]
Richard Clarke was treated with much severity by the Revolutionists. His name is found with the Addressers of General Gage. He arrived in London December 24, 1775, after a passage of "only" twenty-one days from Boston. He was one of the original members of the Loyalist Club, for a weekly dinner, and discourses. He lived with his son-in-law, Copley the painter, Leicester Square. Lord Lyndhurst was his grandson. He died in England in 1795.
Jonathan Clarke, son of Richard Clarke, accompanied his father to England. He was his father's partner in business. He was a member in 1776 of the Loyalists Club, in London, and had lodgings in Brompton Row the next year. In 1778 he was proscribed and banished. After the Revolution he went to Canada.
Isaac Winslow Clarke, son of Richard Clarke, was born in Boston, 27 October, 1746. He was sent by his father to Plymouth to collect debts, but in the night was assaulted by a mob and obliged to flee from the town, to escape from personal injuries. He became Commissary-General of Lower Canada, and died in that Colony in 1822, after he had embarked for England. His daughter Susan married Charles Richard Ogden, Esq., Solicitor-General of Lower Canada, in 1829.
PETER JOHONNOT.
The Johonnots in America are of French Huguenot origin. Daniel Johonnot, who was born in France about 1668, was one of the first parties of thirty families that arrived in Boston in 1686. He was in company with his uncle Andrae Sigournie, Distiller, from Rochelle, and went with him to Oxford in New England, remaining there until the settlement was broken up by the incursion of Indians August 25, 1696. Jean Jeanson (John Johnson) and his three children were killed during the massacre. Mrs. Johnson was Andrew Sigourney's daughter, and tradition in the Johonnot family relates that she was rescued at that time from the Indians by her cousin, Daniel Johonnot, to whom she was subsequently married.[242]
The first record we have of Daniel Johonnot in Boston was at the time of his marriage "on the 18th of April, by the Rev. Samuel Willard of the Old South Church, to Susan Johnson." This was in the year 1700. In 1714 it appears by the Suffolk Records he purchased for £300 "current money," of John Borland and Sarah his wife, an estate near the Mill Creek and bounded by Mill Pond, and the street leading to said pond (Union Street) etc. His last purchase of real estate was near the Old South Church and this land was afterwards occupied by one of the descendants of his daughter Mary, Mary Anne (Boyer), number 156 Washington street, opposite the Province House. At the time of Daniel Johonnot's death it was occupied by his grandson, and must have been Mr. Johonnot's last residence, as in an inventory it is described as being in the possession of Mr. Daniel Boyer. In Mr. Johonnot's French Bible, Amsterdam Edition of 1700, are recorded the births of his six children in French, all children of Daniel and Serzane Johonnot. This Bible later came into the possession of one of his descendants. Daniel Johonnot died in Boston in June, 1748 at the age of eighty years. His wife died some time after 1731, and before the death of her husband. He was remembered as being a friend to the poor, always industrious and frugal.