Hutchinson's House

Hutchinson's House, the brick mansion of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson on Garden Court Street in the North End, was gutted by a crowd on the night of 26 August 1765, the most destructive of Boston's Stamp Act riots. Hutchinson was at supper when the crowd arrived. He sent his children away and escaped with his eldest daughter through neighbouring yards and gardens, and by four the next morning, in his own words, there was nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. Doors were split with axes, partitions beaten down, the cupola destroyed and the slate stripped from the roof. Plate, family pictures, clothing and about £900 sterling in cash were carried off. Hutchinson was also a historian, and the manuscript of the second volume of his History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, covering 1691 to 1750, was thrown into the street. It lay in the mud all night, was gathered up in the morning and passed to his neighbour the Reverend Mr. Eliot, and went back to its author; the second volume was published in 1767, and the trampled pages survive in the Massachusetts Archives. His inventory that October put the loss of its contents at more than £2,200, with nearly £1,000 more for the house. The General Court at first refused to compensate him, and when it voted to pay in December 1766 the same act pardoned the rioters. The house was confiscated after the Revolution and pulled down in the 1830s. It stood on the west side of Garden Court Street, a few steps from North Square.