LIFE AND TIMES

OF

JOSEPH WARREN.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY DAYS.

INTRODUCTORY. FAMILY OF WARREN. HIS BOYHOOD. DEATH OF HIS FATHER. HIS COLLEGE DAYS.-POLITICAL EVENTS.-ANECDOTE.-A SCHOOL-TEACHER. —A MASON. HIS PROFESSION.

1741 TO 1763.

JOSEPH WARREN was one of the popular leaders of Boston during the early stage of the American Revolution. He grasped its basis idea of civil freedom, and aimed to impress on the public mind its dignity and glory. By ten years of devotion to the patriot cause, he rose to be the head of public affairs in Massachusetts, and became one of the most prominent characters of New England.1

Warren, through life, was a man of action, whose words were deeds. To repel the aggressions of arbitrary power, and to maintain the principles of liberty, he wrote in the political journals, was zealous in the private clubs, and was a leader in the public meetings.

1 Both in civil and military affairs, the most prominent man in New England. - Life of Warren, by Alexander H. Everett, 107.

When his townsmen desired an exponent of their sentiment, he became their orator; when the time arrived for American union, he was active in organizing committees of correspondence; and, when revolutionary action was required, he appeared in the front of responsibility in destroying the tea, and in resisting the acts altering the Massachusetts Charter. As the virtual executive of a free State, he acted with the comprehensiveness of the patriot, and the administrative ability of the statesman. On the field of war, he impressed his associates with his coolness, judgment, and resources. He volunteered to share, with a band of militia, the perils of an extreme post; and, when he fell in the Bunker-hill battle, co-laborers in the cause, who felt the magnetism of his influence, and knew the value of his service, declared that his memory would be endeared to the worthy, in every part and age of the world, as long as virtue and valor should be esteemed among mankind.1

The tributes paid to Warren, when he was crowned an immortal, indicate a career of no ordinary character; and the future seemed burdened with his honors.2 But so scanty is the material relative to him, of a strictly personal cast, that the greater part of his civic service has been overlooked. The Boston records place him in the front rank of great political action, but are barren of details. Contemporary eulogy, however abundant, is not copious in facts; and his letters are but few in number, until the last fifteen months of his life. Then, utterances,

1 Massachusetts Committee of Safety, July 25, 1775. 2 Bancroft, vii. 433. 8 The first public appearance of Dr. Warren, in connection with the political affairs of the day, was on the occasion of the delivery of the Anniversary Address of 1772.-Everett's Life of Warren, 114.

elicited by his public labors, often in a prophet's tone, and always aglow with patriotic fire, reveal the inner springs of a noble life, and justify the judgment, that Warren lived an ornament to his country.1

His words, interpreted in action, show his grasp of issues, his motive, and his aim; but, to see him as a social power, it is necessary to follow him through scenes when the public passion was roused, and high resolve ruled the hour, and when he was a leader in company with kindred spirits. These scenes must ever be of interest from their connection with the events that led to national independence. In weaving descriptions of them into a biography which demands traits of personal character, there is a liability of encroaching on the province of history on the one hand, and, on the other, of being incomplete; and, while a view will be given of the great popular demonstrations in which he was an actor, only so much general history will be related as may be necessary to show the working of political influences on the community among whom he passed his life.

The career of many of the revolutionary men extends over a longer period than that of Warren; but few have connected their names more enduringly with vital principles or salient events, and seldom is there seen a life of nobler devotion to country, and hence better calculated, by its lesson, to strengthen patriotic influences. The contemplation of such a character as the self-devoted martyr of Bunker Hill is the noblest spectacle which the moral world affords.2

1 As he lived an ornament to his country, his death reflected a lustre upon himself, and the cause he so warmly espoused. — Eliot's Biographical Dictionary. 2 Everett's Warren, 182.

In a genealogy of the Warren Family, the name is traced back to William, Earl Warren, a Norman baron of Danish extraction. He accompanied William the Conqueror on his expedition to England; fought at the battle of Hastings; was rewarded with riches that were shorn from the intrepid Saxons; and won the confidence of the 'Court to such an extent, that, when the king left England on a visit to his native land, Earl Warren was appointed one of the two guardians of the kingdom. From this ancestry, the Warrens are followed down through earls, knights, and commoners, to the period of the colonization of our country. Then emigrants of this name settled in Plymouth, Watertown, and Boston; but no proof has been discovered of a connection between these famiilies. A careful examination of the records of the parish in England, whence the Watertown family came, fails to connect it with the Boston family. Joseph Warren's ancestry have not been authen

1 I am indebted to the late Dr. J. C. Warren for a copy of his beautiful 'Genealogy of Warren, with some Historical Sketches," printed in 1854. In "Patronymica Britannica" is an account of the Warren surname, dated Oct. 1, 1860: "Warren. - William de Warene, or Warrena, who married Gundrada, a daughter of William the Conqueror, received great possessions in Sussex, Surry, Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., and became progenitor of the Earls of Warenne and Surry. His chief seat, anterior to the Conquest, was at Bellencombre, a small town in the arrondissement of Dieppe, in Normandy, on the little river Varenne. By this name, the town itself was anciently known, until, upon the erection of a fortress upon an artificial mound, or bellus cumulus, it received, from that circumstance, the appellation of Bellencombre. - Arch, Journal, iii. 6. The Norman de Warrennes were doubtless progenitors of many existing families of Warren; but it must not be forgotten that the surname may have a totally different source,—namely, warren, which Baily defines as "a franchise, or place privileged by the king, for keeping conies, hares, partridges, pheasants," &c.; though the phrase is now more commonly applied to a colony of rabbits. Thirdly, Warran, or Warinus, is an old baptismal name, whence Fitz Warine."

2 Savage's Genealogical Dictionary.

8 H. G. Somerby, MS. letter.

tically traced beyond Peter Warren, whose name appears first on the Boston records, in 1659, where he is called Mariner. His second son, Joseph, a housewright, built a house, in 1720, in Roxbury, and died in 1729. His son Joseph, born in 1696, married, May 29, 1740, Mary, the daughter of Dr. Samuel Stevens, of Roxbury; and here their son Joseph, the subject of this biography, was born, on the 11th of June, 1741. The family mansion, which was substantial and commodious, stood in what is now Warren Street, and was then near the centre of the principal village. On the site of it there is now a modern house, built of stone, which has two inscriptions on the front of the second story. One is: "On this spot stood the house erected, in 1720, by Joseph Warren, of Boston, remarkable for being the birthplace of General Joseph Warren, his grandson, who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775." The other is: "John Warren, a distinguished physician and anatomist, was also born here. The original mansion being in ruins, this house was built by John C. Warren, M.D., in 1846, son of the last named, as a permanent memorial of the spot.

Roxbury, which borders on Boston, is characterized, by an early writer, as having been settled by a laborious people, who turned its swamps into fruitful fields, and planted flocks and herds on its rocky hills.2 The father of Warren was a farmer, who was highly esteemed and respected, led an exemplary life, and held several municipal offices to the acceptance of his townsmen. He paid much attention to fruit-raising, and introduced into the neigborhood of Boston the

1 Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, 47.

2 Hubbard.