tween thirty and forty, very fat, but very active, and of a gay and amiable character. From the very first campaign he was intrusted with the command of the artillery, and it has turned out it could not have been placed in better hands. It was he whom M. du Coudray endeavored to supplant, and who had no difficulty in removing him. It was fortunate for M. du Coudray, perhaps, that he was drowned in the Schuylkill, rather than be swallowed up in the intrigues he was engaged in."

Knox's corpulency was the subject of an ill-timed pun from Dr. Byles. An intimacy existed before the war, and when, on the day Boston was evacuated, Knox marched in at the head of his artillery, the doctor audibly remarked, "I never saw an ox fatter in my life." Knox did not relish the joke from the old tory, and told Dr. Byles he was a fool." The graduate of the little shop in Cornhill was volunteer aid at Bunker Hill, commanded the artillery during the siege of Boston, and became Secretary of War. His greatest service, perhaps, was the bringing of more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, etc., to the lines before Boston. This feat was accomplished early in 1776, the ordnance being dragged on sledges in midwinter almost through a wilderness.

Knox was a generous, high-minded man. His portrait, by Gilbert Stuart, hangs in Faneuil Hall. A gunning accident having injured one of his hands, it is concealed in the picture.

sacre.

The celebrated Benjamin Thompson, a native of Woburn, afterwards a count of the German Empire, was, like Knox, an apprentice to a shopkeeper in Cornhill at the time of the MasHe was at the American lines in Cambridge at the time of Bunker Hill, and accompanied Major, afterwards Governor Brooks until they met the retreating Americans. After endeavoring unsuccessfully to obtain a commission in the Continental army, he turned loyalist. He was sent to England by General Howe after the fall of Boston, but returned to America and raised a regiment of horse, called the "King's Dragoons."

After the war he was knighted, and became Sir Benjamin Thompson. The Elector of Bavaria, whose service he entered

in 1784, made him a count, with the title of Count Rumford, that being the ancient name of Concord, N. H., where Thompson had formerly resided. Rumford went afterwards to Paris, and married the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, from whom, however, he afterwards separated.

The Rumford Professorship at Harvard testifies to the remembrance of this distinguished man for his native country. He left a munificent bequest to the College for the advancement of the physical and mathematical sciences.

John Winslow, one of Knox's compatriots, and a captain in Crane's Artillery during the Revolutionary War, was a hardware merchant with his uncle, Jonathan Mason, at No. 12 Cornhill, just south of the present Globe newspaper office. He remained in Boston during the siege, and buried the Old South communion plate in his uncle's cellar; his uncle was deacon of that church. It was Winslow who recognized the body of Warren, the day after the battle of Bunker Hill. He was at Ticonderoga, Saratoga, and White Plains, and held a number of State offices after the war. Winslow lived in Purchase Street, just north of the Sailors' Home.

CHAPTER III.

FROM THE OLD STATE HOUSE TO BOSTON PIER.

Captain Keayne. - Coggan, first Shopkeeper. -Old Cornhill. - Old State
House. First Church. - Stocks and Whipping-Post. John Wilson.
Wilson's Lane. United States Bank. - Royal Exchange Tavern.
William Sheaffe. - Royal Custom House. - Exchange Coffee House.
"Columbian Centinel." - Benjamin Russell. Louis Philippe. - Louis
Napoleon. Congress Street. -Governors Dummer and Belcher. - First
United States Custom House. -Post-Office. - Bunch of Grapes. - General
Lincoln. General Dearborn. - First Circulating Library. - British Coffee
House. Merchants' Row. - First Inn.- Lord Ley. · Miantonimoh.
Kilby Street. Oliver's Dock. - Liberty Square. - The Stamp Office.
Broad Street. - Commodore Downes. - Broad Street Riot. - India Street
and Wharf. - Admiral Vernon. - Crown Coffee House. - Butler's Row.
-The Custom House. - Retrospective View of State Street. - Long Wharf.
- The Barricado. -T Wharf. - Embarkation for Bunker Hill.

THE

earliest settler on the southwestern corner of State Street was Captain Robert Keayne, who has left his name to us in connection with a legacy to build a Town House. He was also the first commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, and was by business a tailor. Captain Keayne fell under the censure of court and church for selling his wares at exorbitant profits, we have before mentioned that the authorities regulated the prices of goods, products, etc. His will, of nearly two hundred pages, is devoted largely to an effort to relieve himself of this charge. What would Washington Street say to-day to such a regulation?

The opposite or northwest corner of State Street was occupied by John Coggan, one of the names in the original Book of Possessions. He has the distinction of establishing the first shop for the sale of merchandise in Boston. From this small beginning dates the traffic of Boston.

Having crossed ancient Cornhill, which name applied to that

part of Washington Street
from Dock Square to
School Street, and in
which congregated the
early booksellers, we are
at the head of old King
Street. Before us is the
earliest market-place of
the town, on the space
now occupied by the Old
State House. King Street
was changed to State in
1784, but it was frequent-
ly called Congress Street
before the present name was settled on.

"And mark, not far from Faneuil's honored side,
Where the Old State House rises in its pride.
But, O, how changed! its halls, alas! are fled,
And shop and office fill their slighted stead."

The early history of this edifice has been given in connection with the City Hall, as its progenitor. Besides being used as a Town House and by the Colonial Courts, it has been occupied by the General Court of the Colony and of the State, by the Council of the Province, and as a barrack for troops. It was the first Exchange the merchants of Boston ever had, and is still used for a similar purpose. In it met the Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States before adjourning to Federal Street Church. In the west end was located the Post-Office, in its beginning, and again in 1838, when a force of fifteen clerks was sufficient for the transaction of its business. In 1832 it was again slightly damaged by fire.

Under its shadow the Massacre was enacted by a detachment of the 29th British Regiment, the result of constant collisions between the people and the soldiery. At the time of its occupation by the British troops, admitted by Governor Bernard in 1768,- James Otis moved to have the Superior Court held in Faneuil Hall, "not only as the stench occasioned by the

troops may prove infectious, but as it was derogatory to the honor of the court to administer justice at the mouths of cannon and the points of bayonets." This referred to the estab lishment of the main-guard opposite, with two field-pieces pointed toward the Old State House.

The following was the interior arrangement of the building after the fire of 1747. The eastern chamber was originally occupied by the Council, afterwards by the Senate. The Representatives held their sittings in the west chamber. The floor of these was supported by pillars, and terminated at each end by doors, and at the east end by a flight of steps leading into State Street. On the north side were offices for the clerks of the supreme and inferior courts. In the daytime the doors were kept open, and the floor served as a walk for the inhabitants who thronged it during the sessions of the courts. After the removal of the Legislature to the new State House the internal arrangement was changed to suit later occupants.

In the Chamber of Representatives, according to John Adams, "Independence was born" and the struggle against the encroachments of the mother country sustained for fourteen years by the Adamses, Bowdoins, Thachers, Hancocks, Quincys, and their illustrious colleagues. According to Hutchinson, in this chamber originated the most important measures which led to the emancipation of the Colonies, with those giants who, staking life and fortune upon the issue, adopted for their motto,

"Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,

Who dare to love their country, and be poor."

It was customary to read the commissions of the royal governors in presence of the court, attended by military display, in the Court House, as it was then called. The news of the death of George II., and accession of George III., was read from the balcony; the latter was the last crowned head proclaimed in the Colonies.

The popular indignation against the Stamp Act found vent, in 1766, in burning stamped clearances in front of the Town House. A council of war was held by Gage, Howe, and Clin