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Thomas Hutchinson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Hutchinson (September 9, 1711 – June 3, 1780) was the American colonial governor of Massachusetts from 1771 to 1774 and a prominent Loyalist in the years before the American Revolutionary War. For many years he had worked on a history of the commonwealth compiling original manuscripts and source materials. He published his history of Massachusets in England after he left the colony in 1774 when its government was temporarily turned over to General Gage.
Hutchinson was born in Boston, where his father, the great-grandson of Anne Hutchinson, was a wealthy merchant and ship owner. He was a highly intelligent man who graduated from Harvard in 1727 before his sixteenth birthday. He entered his father's counting room, early showed remarkable aptitude for business, and by the time he was 24 had accumulated considerable property in trading ventures on his own account. He married Margaret Sanford in 1734-a granddaughter of Rhode Island Governor Peleg Sandford and a great granddaughter of both Rhode Island Governor William Coddington and of Anne Hutchinson.
As his career advanced he became involved in the civil leadership of the colony, first as a selectman in Boston in 1737. Later in the same year he was chosen a representative to the General Court of the Colony and at once took a strong stand in opposition to the views of the majority with regard to a proper currency. His unpopular opinions led to his retirement in 1740. In that year he went to England as a commissioner to represent Massachusetts in a boundary dispute with New Hampshire. In 1742 he was re-elected to the General Court, and was chosen annually to the General Court until 1749, serving as the Speaker from 1746 to 1749. He continued his advocacy of a sound currency, and when the British Parliament reimbursed Massachusetts in 1749 for the expenses incurred in the Louisburg expedition, he proposed the abolition of the bills of credit, and the utilization of the parliamentary repayment as the basis for a new Colonial currency. The proposal was finally adopted by the Assembly, and its good effect on the trade of the Colony at once established Hutchinson's reputation as a financier.
On leaving the General Court in 1749 he was appointed at once to the Governor's Council. In 1750 he was chairman of a commission to arrange a treaty with the Indians in the District of Maine, and he served on boundary commissions to settle disputes with Connecticut and Rhode Island. In 1752 he was appointed judge of probate and a justice of the Common Pleas. In 1754, as a delegate from Massachusetts to the Albany Convention, he took a leading part in the discussions and favored Franklin's plan for Colonial union.
In 1758 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor, and in 1760 Chief Justice, of the Province. In the following year, by issuing writs of assistance, he brought upon himself a storm of protest and criticism. His distrust of popular government as exemplified in the New England town meeting increased. Although he opposed the principle of the Stamp Act, considered it impolitic, and later advised its repeal, he accepted its legality, and, as a result of his stand, his city house was sacked by a mob in August, 1765, and his valuable collection of books. For many years he had been working on a history of the commonwealth, compiling original manuscripts and source materials. After the destruction of his home, he bitterly rescued many of these materials from the muddy road.
In 1769, upon the resignation of Governor Francis Bernard, he became acting Governor, serving in that capacity at the time of the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770, when popular clamor compelled him to order the removal of the troops from the city.
In March, 1771, he received his commission as Governor, and was the last civilian governor of the Massachusetts colony. His administration, controlled completely by the British ministry, increased the friction with the patriots. The publication, in 1773, of some letters on Colonial affairs written by Hutchinson, and obtained by Franklin in England, still further aroused public indignation. In England, while Hutchinson was vidicated in discussions in the Privy Council, and Franklin was severely criticized and fired as a colonial postmaster general. The resistance of the colonials led the ministry to see the necessity for stronger measures. A temporary suspension of the civil government followed, and General Gage was appointed military governor in April, 1774. Driven from the country by threats in the following May and broken in health and spirit, Hutchinson spent the rest of his life an exile in England.
Hutchinson had built a country estate in Milton, Massachusetts. Although the house is now gone, the original "ha-ha" of the estate remains today beside Governor Hutchinson's Field, maintained by the Trustees of Reservations.
In England, still nominally Governor, he was consulted by Lord North in regard to American affairs; but his advice that a moderate policy be adopted, and his opposition to the Boston Port Bill, and the suspension of the Massachusetts constitution, were not heeded.
Still officially the acting governor, because of severe financial losses when his American estates and other property in Massachusetts was confiscated without redress by the Crown, he was compelled to refuse a baronetcy on account of lack of means. Bitter and dissillusioned, Hutchinson, nevertheless, continued to work on his history of the colony which was the fruit of many decades of research. Two volumns were published in his lifetime. His History of Massachusetts Bay (volume i, 1764; volume ii, 1767; volume iii, 1828) a work of great historical value, calm, and judicious in the main, but considered by some to be entirely unphilosophical and lacking in style. His Diary and Letters was published in 1884–86. He died at Brompton, now a part of London, aged 68. This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
- Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, 1974)
- J. K. Hosmer, Life of Thomas Hutchinson (Boston, 1896)
- Vernon Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (1927), online
- US History
- Website of the Trustees of Reservations for Governor Hutchinson's Field
- official Massachusetts Governor biography
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Thomas Pownall |
Acting Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony June 3, 1760 — August 2, 1760 |
Succeeded by Francis Bernard |
| Preceded by Francis Bernard |
Acting Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony August 2, 1769 — March 14, 1771 |
Succeeded by Thomas Hutchinson (appointed governor) |
| Preceded by Thomas Hutchinson (as Acting Governor) |
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony March 14, 1771 — May 17, 1774 |
Succeeded by Thomas Gage |