Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
King Hancock with Brooke Barbier
John Hancock, the most famous signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a man of contradictions. He was a man born into privilege, and yet he became one of the most passionate voices for the rights of the common man. He was a wealthy man of business, but longed for military glory. We talk with Brooke Barbier, author of King Hancock: The Radicat Influence of a Moderate Founder, about this enigmatic figure we think we know so well. Brooke Barbier is also the founder of Ye Olde Tavern Tours, for those who want beer with their history (and vice versa), and the author of Boston in the American Revolution: A town vs. an Empire, available from Amazon or as part of a tour.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
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I'm Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev 250 advisory group, also teach history at Suffolk University.
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And Rev 250 is a collaboration among about 70 groups in and around Massachusetts looking at ways to commemorate the beginnings of the American Revolution.
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And our guest today is Brooke Barbier.
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Brooke, thanks for joining us.
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And Brooke is the founder and proprietor of Ye Olde Tavern Tours, which is now going strong for after 10 years, as well as the author of two books.
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Her first is Boston and the American Revolution, a town versus an empire.
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And her new book is John Hancock, the radical influence of a moderate founding father.
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So, Brooke, thanks for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm so excited.
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This is a podcast I listen to regularly, so it's such a thrill to be on with you.
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Well, thanks for listening.
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It's great to have you.
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Great to have you now speaking to our many listeners out there.
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And so Hancock is one of those character figures everyone knows, but then again, after reading your book, I realized we don't really know him as well as we should.
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So what intrigued you about John Hancock?
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How'd you get into writing this book?
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Well, one of the things is how present he was during the American Revolution.
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I love that he was at a lot of these key moments, but he wasn't always steering these key moments.
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And then he goes on to become...
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you know, synonymous with the name signature today in 76, this bold, iconic signature.
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But again, looking, digging into him more, his politics were much less bold than his signature.
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And so I wanted to explore that, how someone goes on to have such great influence without being a political radical in a time and place of radicals.
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Yeah.
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And there's this kind of idea that either he is this vain guy who's easily swayed by or he is the one paying for all of these things.
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He's susceptible to flattery from either side.
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So who is the real John Hancock behind all this?
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Yeah, I think there is a narrative among, in fact, I know there's a narrative among many historians that he's this vapid dupe.
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And I can see why that narrative has been perpetuated over the years.
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And certainly he was susceptible to flattery, but most men at this time were.
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Most men in politics were, certainly.
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And this time too.
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Yes, exactly.
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And so who he was, though, is he was someone who...
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cared about appearance and cared very much about his popularity, but he cultivated his appearance and his popularity intentionally.
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And that makes him a little bit more modern than we tend to think of politicians at this time.
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He deliberately hosted parties and deliberately was kind to people below him to gain popularity.
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Now, if somebody wants to criticize
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If a historian takes issue with that, I think that's fine as long as they recognize that some of what he was doing was intentional.
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He was trying to cultivate popularity.
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In the mid-1760s, it's essential.
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There's angry mobs targeting wealthy men, and he needs to make sure they stay on his side.
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So there's reasons to do this, not just to be flattered, but also for self-preservation, but also if you want to keep getting elected and you want to have some influence, you need to be popular.
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So it's that so he's in business, but he makes this move into politics, which then is.
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And so this is part of a political strategy.
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Yeah.
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So I think he he sort of I wouldn't give him that much credit for entering politics intentionally.
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He kind of falls backwards into it because his uncle, who sort of adopted him as his uncle,
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The uncle adopts John Hancock as his son, essentially, when he was a young boy.
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He was the statesman of the family.
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And when he dies suddenly in 1764, all of a sudden John Hancock is considered for a political role.
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And really, if the uncle had stayed alive, and I don't really like counterfactuals like that.
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John Hancock said in 1764 and 1765, I'm not much interested in politics.
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Really?
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How old was he at this time?
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He's 28 at this time.
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And he had been named a partner a few years earlier in the house of Hancock, this merchant house that his uncle had built from the ground up.
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He's not exactly, he doesn't have the same business sense, the same cunning that his uncle has.
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But he's certainly taken on the role of this prominent merchant in Boston.
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And then when his uncle dies, that's when he enters politics.
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And you can see him writing his letters and reading what other people are saying about him, that he's really finding his way.
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He'd rather not have there be an imperial crisis coming his way.
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He'd rather just...
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You know, even just have things the way they were, because that's when the House of Hancock was making a lot of money, even if others were destitute.
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Right.
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Right.
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So how does he then get involved with the Samuel Adams, James Otis side of things, as opposed to the Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Oliver side of things?
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That's really the question, Bob.
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It's so interesting because.
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One of my chapter titles is a traitor to his class because throughout his life, he seems to be a traitor to his class.
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So before independence and the formation of the United States, he's a traitor to other wealthy men because a lot of wealthy men in Massachusetts sided with the crown.
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Right.
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because that's how they made their money is siding with the crown.
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But then after the revolution, when he's governor of Massachusetts, he again betrays the wealthy by siding with the poor.
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or struggling.
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And so how he goes about becoming a member of this inner circle is, it's unusual.
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And I think I can attribute it, one, to the Stamp Act riots really awaken him.
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I think they terrify him.
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He doesn't say that, but it's pretty clear how he acts after that.
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The riot against Andrew Oliver,
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the first riot, which happened in August.
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He's the stand-back collector.
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John Hancock said, that was good.
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And I hope there are other mobs like this that permeate throughout the continent.
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Wow.
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Yeah, right.
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But then two weeks later, with the attack on Thomas Hutchinson's house, who really had nothing to do with this, as you know, thought it was a bad idea.
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Yeah.
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Hancock says, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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What happened with Oliver has been a decades long tradition of revolt.
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And then you kind of get your way and then everything goes back to peaceful.
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And the mob got their way.
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Andrew Oliver resigns the next day.
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To target Hutchinson two weeks later, I think that really scared Hancock.
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And like I said, he doesn't say that, but it's clear the way that he
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engages after that, that he doesn't want people to turn on him.
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And he wants, it's better for everyone, especially him if there's peace in Boston.
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So he does something really interesting.
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He
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As you know, Pope's Day and Pope's Night was this big occasion and often a time for violence in the streets.
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And it happens on November 5th, every November 5th.
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But officials were particularly worried about the one happening in 1765 because the Stamp Act was to go into effect on November 1st.
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Right, yeah.
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Right.
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And so people are worried, is this just going to be a huge uprising
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not coupling Pope's Day with the Stamp Act protests because no one knew what would happen on November 1st.
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And so Hancock hosts a meeting at the Green Dragon Tavern between the North End gang and the South End gang, the two gangs that usually face off in Pope's Day.
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And he says, let's not do that.
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Let's all work together and be peaceable.
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And they were.
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On November 1st, they were peaceful.
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And on November 5th, it was a totally different look.
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And...
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I see that as nothing other than self-interest, is wanting to preserve your own property, your own place in society, recognizing that a calm Boston is better than a violent Boston.
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And so that's how he sort of enters it.
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But I wouldn't even say at this time that he's an ally of James Otis or Samuel Adams.
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When the Stamp Actors repealed the following year, this always cracks me up to think about.
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They have this big party on Boston Common to celebrate fireworks.
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Paul Revere made this pyramid.
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And Hancock did his own fireworks display.
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And the newspaper said in an answer to that by the Sons of Liberty.
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So he was really trying to show he was he wanted to be a town leader, but he wanted to do it in his own way.
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Right.
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Right.
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Even even when he's with that Adams and Otis, he's not.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We're talking with Brooke Barbier, who is the author of King Hancock, the new biography of John Hancock.
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And so what about the Sloop Liberty?
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I mean, that's one of the big signal events leading up to this.
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His Sloop, the customs.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Big story.
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Yeah.
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And you know so much about this.
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This is one of those kind of iconic Boston mobs.
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But what's really interesting is it
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you see a through thread from the way he calmed mobs in the stand back riots to to what happens with the liberty.
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You see his influence with the people of Boston.
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So what happened was in April 1768, one of Hancock's ships called Lydia, named after his aunt,
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comes in and these two tidesman customs officials board the ship and someone alerts Hancock that they boarded the ship.
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And so he goes down to his work and he says, You can't go below deck.
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You're allowed to go on top of the deck, but you can't go below deck.
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And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, okay.
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And then they go below deck anyway.
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And Hancock's men pull him out and say, you know, you're going to lose your bread if you keep going down there.
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And so that sort of started the, planted the seed in the customs board's mind.
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They were already pretty suspicious of Hancock.
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Mm-hmm.
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But they started to say, this guy's acting recklessly.
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He can't tell our tidesmen what to do.
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And of course, he was huzzahed and cheered in the street by everyone.
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And so people said, this guy's dangerous.
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And so then a month later, when the Liberty ship, just called Liberty, Liberty docks,
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He claims that he has 25 casks of Madeira on board.
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And the tidesman at that time accepts that number and says, okay, you know, when Hancock pays what he needs and goes about his way.
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And then it was only...
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It's only a month later that that same tidesman said, actually, wait, no, he didn't.
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They must have been smuggling.
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In fact, they locked me downstairs.
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I could hear the hoisting of the goods upstairs.
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They really roughed me up.
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And this is complete fiction.
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But you can tell that the tidesmen, there had been pressure on him to change his story because ultimately when people said 25 casks of wine, there's no way.
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Liberty was sold so much more.
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Hancock has a way of getting at the customs officers.
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He just has a way of needling them.
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And so they said, we have to get him.
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So a month later, this guy changes his story and says, oh, I was locked downstairs while they smuggled.
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So you think that story is made up, that he was locked downstairs?
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Oh, completely, Bob.
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Do you believe me?
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I'm not sure.
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I'm not sure.
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You know, I kind of give more, maybe I'm more wary of the mobs than you are.
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Oh, I'm wary of the mobs, but I'm also wary.
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Okay, okay, I can see that.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, we're stuck.
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It's like handcuffs.
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The bureaucrats and the mob.
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Yes, exactly.
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I'll tell you why I so forcefully disbelieve the story is that it comes out a month later.
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He had accepted the story then.
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He didn't have any problems then.
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But then a month later, he says, oh, I was locked downstairs.
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And in fact, a lot of his story resembles the Tidesman story about the...
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the Lydia confrontation.
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Right.
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Right.
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Right.
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It's like a little too similar.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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And I'm not trying to convince you.
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I'm just telling you.
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No, this is, this is great to know there are different ways of looking at this and whom do we believe here?
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I mean, that's really one of the, we think everything's been settled, but here clearly it hasn't.
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So, so, so the tidesman changes his story and, and then what happens?
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And then they seize his ship.
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These two customs officials say, we're going to get him on a rarely used technicality.
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They don't actually get him on this smuggling because they can't prove that.
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And by the way, just in terms of some things aren't settled, some people don't think that Hancock smuggled that day.
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OK.
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I very much believe that he did.
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But they couldn't prove that.
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OK, so were there more than 25 casks of Madeira on the Liberty?
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Again, we don't know.
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But knowing Hancock's, knowing people, if you can get away with something, you might try to.
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But also Thomas Hancock, his uncle, had smuggled.
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There is evidence of that.
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Oh, sure.
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Yeah.
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So he would have known some tricks.
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So these two customs officials go down and seize Hancock's ship.
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Just prior to doing that, though, they're warned.
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They say, do not seize the ship.
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There will be big trouble in Boston if you do.
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And they do anyway, and they get beat down.
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I mean, it is a savage beating.
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Wow.
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of Harrison and Hallowell, these two customs officers and one of their sons who wasn't even involved in the seizure of the ship.
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Yeah, they're attacked with brick bats.
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Yes, and like dragged through the street.
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And then they would go, they went to their homes and
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and broke windows and threatened people.
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So it was a pretty scary event.
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And one thing that I point out in the book is
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I am very wary of mobs.
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And what I do point out is that there are people who help these guys find safe houses.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So not everybody, while we kind of say, oh, Boston revolted or there was this mob in Boston.
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Yeah.
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There were many in Boston who said, whoa, this is too much, you know?
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Oh, yeah.
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Even at the time of the massacre.
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I mean, there are people going to war and press that they better get this guy off the street and all.
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Yeah.
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By the way, Jonathan just pointed out that in 1770, something like a million pounds of tea
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were sold in America, but only 90,000 had passed through customs.
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So less than 10%.
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Right.
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Well, and that's the thing, too, that I didn't really get into.
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But in 1768, they set up a new customs board here in Boston.
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And so they were determined to get people.
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And it cost more money to have these guys here than it did for money that they collected.
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But so they beat down these customs officers and then the mob takes one of their ships, like a pleasure ship, out of the harbor, drags it through Boston, sets it on fire.
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Wow.
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On Boston Common.
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It's stunning.
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It's a stunning show of force.
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Yeah.
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Now, one thing that historians sort of they have different takes on is whether or not the mob was writing in defense of Hancock, but some believe that they were writing in defense of impress or against against impression.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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And.
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So and both sides are compelling.
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I do say that John Roe, the merchant in Boston, unequivocally believed that they were mobbing in defense of John Hancock.
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But then there's others who it seems that Thomas Hutchinson or Governor Bernard seemed to think that they were rioting against impressment.
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Interesting.
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So, yeah, it's this big, big event.
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Really, if you think about it, all in defense of John Hancock's right to smuggle wine.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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And then John Hancock doesn't care that much because the British go to him with a deal and they say, well, return your ship if you agree to stand trial and you tell the mob to calm down.
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And he agrees that that's a reasonable request to go back to making money.
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Right.
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And then you can imagine this scene, Bob, because Hancock had this mansion at the top of Beacon Hill.
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And one night, his house is full.
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And it's got James Otis, Samuel Adams, a bunch of other Sons of Liberty who say you made a bad deal.
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And you can't go through with this deal.
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Wow.
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And so Hancock enlists Joseph Warren, who at the time was a real...
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and remained a trusted, I don't want to say mediator, but he was sort of trusted on both sides.
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So he mediated this meeting and said, Hancock's not going to take the deal.
19:06.717 --> 19:07.157
Sorry.
19:08.158 --> 19:11.642
And the Customs Board is disappointed.
19:11.682 --> 19:12.603
They put him on trial.
19:12.643 --> 19:14.405
Ultimately, it really leads to nothing.
19:15.606 --> 19:27.041
But but they afterward, this is where this line of him being gullible and just like a follower comes up where the customs board.
19:27.081 --> 19:32.728
So British officials, not even Samuel Adams or James Otis, they're saying he followed the mob.
19:32.748 --> 19:33.249
Right.
19:33.289 --> 19:33.449
Yeah.
19:34.350 --> 19:58.398
subject to otis's and adams's whims and he did i mean he did back down from his deal but again i think this is self-preservation it is yeah and again it makes us think well what you do in this situation when there's no clear way out of this you know you know not knowing about what is going to happen right now you're facing these two really um
20:00.735 --> 20:03.016
opposite sides and you're kind of in the middle.
20:03.556 --> 20:04.197
Yes.
20:04.717 --> 20:13.541
I think about that all the time, actually, because I know it's so hard for us to think about history and not know the ending of the American Revolution.
20:13.721 --> 20:14.301
Yeah.
20:15.202 --> 20:18.183
Especially from a distance of 250 years later.
20:18.443 --> 20:18.743
Yeah.
20:18.963 --> 20:25.606
But at the time, you know, especially you know this better than I do, after the massacre, Boston really calms down.
20:25.626 --> 20:25.766
Oh, yeah.
20:25.786 --> 20:28.908
It's almost surprising or it could seem surprising.
20:29.068 --> 20:29.188
Mm-hmm.
20:29.588 --> 20:39.595
if you didn't realize that there's different groups here in Boston and people may have just thought the crisis with the crown was over.
20:39.895 --> 20:40.055
Yeah.
20:40.075 --> 20:46.619
We're talking with Brooke Barbier, who is the author of King Hancock, The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.
20:49.261 --> 20:54.945
In your book, you deal with these different pieces of Hancock and really do it in a very compelling way.
20:55.546 --> 20:59.948
And now there are some things we all know, like he wrote a signature very large on the Declaration of Independence.
20:59.988 --> 21:01.608
So what's that all about, Brooke?
21:02.248 --> 21:03.629
Well, okay.
21:03.849 --> 21:04.089
I know.
21:04.149 --> 21:06.610
I love that this is what he's famous for.
21:06.650 --> 21:09.271
I think he'd be delighted that this is what he's famous for.
21:10.651 --> 21:23.535
If you look at the Olive Branch petition, which was signed the year before and was sort of an act of extending an olive branch to the king, his Hancock is just as big and just as bold on the Olive Branch petition.
21:23.956 --> 21:24.396
So this is...
21:25.617 --> 21:26.858
how he signed his name.
21:27.459 --> 21:38.955
But what I do notice too, is if you go to DC and you see the declaration of independence, it's completely battered as you know, but there's tons of space on the bottom.
21:39.015 --> 21:40.617
It's a really large parchment.
21:40.836 --> 21:41.096
Yes.
21:41.296 --> 21:46.438
When we view the the copy now, you don't see the bottom space.
21:46.458 --> 21:48.258
They just sort of cut it off at the bottom.
21:48.999 --> 21:50.839
But I think so.
21:51.279 --> 21:54.280
Number one, he didn't sign it as big as we actually think he did.
21:54.401 --> 21:55.501
It's big and it's bold.
21:55.661 --> 21:55.921
Yeah.
21:56.421 --> 21:59.302
But he was also the president of the Continental Congress.
21:59.322 --> 22:01.563
So he's the first to sign and authorize the declaration.
22:01.963 --> 22:03.644
But also, I think of it sort of as
22:05.024 --> 22:21.296
you know a birthday card where people want to sign small to give they don't know how many people are going to sign yeah yeah um and so some people sign smaller and then some sign bigger but but there's tons of room at the bottom so people could have signed bigger they just didn't
22:22.023 --> 22:22.324
Yeah.
22:22.364 --> 22:22.704
Okay.
22:22.724 --> 22:23.064
So, yeah.
22:23.264 --> 22:24.386
So it's not him.
22:24.746 --> 22:32.554
Now, the other, some, by the way, some of the things that you do somewhat debunk are some of my favorite stories.
22:32.654 --> 22:36.077
Like the one about when John, no, this is great.
22:37.098 --> 22:44.686
When John Adams nominates Washington to be the commander of the Continental Army and Hancock thinks he's going to mention, nominate me.
22:44.706 --> 22:45.206
Yes.
22:46.977 --> 22:49.778
I mean, we know this from Adams' diary.
22:50.419 --> 22:51.599
Adams tells the story.
22:51.719 --> 22:53.160
Doesn't he?
22:53.180 --> 22:54.981
Yeah, he does, yeah.
22:55.061 --> 22:59.723
And unfortunately, Hancock didn't save everything and didn't write down his thoughts of the day.
23:00.023 --> 23:00.263
Right.
23:00.303 --> 23:01.964
So what do you think was happening then with that?
23:02.444 --> 23:04.346
Well, I think it's pretty clear.
23:04.506 --> 23:06.628
I love John Adams because he's such a gossip.
23:06.788 --> 23:07.149
Oh, yeah.
23:07.609 --> 23:18.319
He just gives you so much material to use, but you have to use your discretion when reading John Adams, as actually when you're reading anybody, in fact.
23:19.200 --> 23:23.344
But Adams really seems to be writing for the future in some of his books.
23:23.903 --> 23:34.292
His postings, you can you he gets very hurt and sensitive, especially later in his life about the way he's remembered or not remembered.
23:35.133 --> 23:39.397
And so I think he wanted to put himself at the center of this.
23:39.977 --> 23:43.140
What amounted to be a huge success.
23:43.620 --> 23:46.182
George Washington as the general of the Continental Army.
23:46.943 --> 23:51.144
But there's no corroborating evidence for John Adams.
23:51.224 --> 23:56.926
The notes just say Washington nominated and confirmed.
23:57.527 --> 23:59.967
And John Adams wasn't writing it contemporaneously.
24:00.007 --> 24:02.208
He didn't go home that night.
24:02.828 --> 24:06.430
And so I don't think that's the way that it happened.
24:06.510 --> 24:12.752
I don't think that John Adams and Samuel Adams nominated and seconded Washington's
24:13.792 --> 24:37.564
nomination and that hancock was visibly disappointed now hancock had ideas about his military prowess throughout his life so i wouldn't put it past him to think that he could be the general it made sense it's a new england army he was very popular among new englanders why would you send a virginian to take command of this group
24:38.061 --> 24:38.963
Right, right.
24:39.043 --> 24:43.170
So I don't have any doubt that Hancock may have thought he'd be a good pick for it.
24:43.350 --> 24:44.271
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:44.792 --> 24:47.477
But I don't think it happened the way Adams said it did.
24:48.471 --> 24:50.192
Although I love Adam's story.
24:50.452 --> 24:51.752
Oh yeah, it's a great story.
24:52.212 --> 24:52.812
It's great.
24:52.832 --> 24:57.954
You know, he sees Washington thinking maybe he's talking about me and Washington leaves the room.
24:58.594 --> 24:58.994
Right.
24:59.074 --> 25:02.515
And then he says, and Hancock's face fell.
25:02.735 --> 25:03.755
He's mortified.
25:03.795 --> 25:06.816
You know, he keeps kind of going on about Hancock's embarrassment.
25:06.896 --> 25:10.937
He seems to take pleasure in that story.
25:12.118 --> 25:17.399
But then Hancock, when Washington is president and comes to Boston and Hancock is a
25:18.755 --> 25:22.818
He thinks that he being governor should receive the call of the visitor.
25:22.858 --> 25:26.500
And of course, Washington believes as president, he should receive the call of the governor.
25:28.060 --> 25:29.261
How do you explain that?
25:29.801 --> 25:31.282
Oh, I love that story.
25:31.342 --> 25:32.463
It's another great story.
25:32.523 --> 25:33.403
Yeah, because...
25:36.362 --> 25:41.665
By the way, I meant like not in my book, just like that historical story that you tell it in my book.
25:42.065 --> 25:51.310
But because it shows the humanness of these very larger than life men who are used to power and deference and authority.
25:52.010 --> 25:53.051
And right.
25:53.131 --> 25:59.493
So exactly like you said, Washington is going on this tour of the 13, his new 13 states under his purview as president.
26:00.154 --> 26:03.175
And exactly as you said, there's sort of this power struggle.
26:03.255 --> 26:04.996
Hancock says, call on me first.
26:05.076 --> 26:06.636
Washington wants him to call on him.
26:07.237 --> 26:17.321
And I think what's so interesting about this one is it shows how human, as I said, they were, how sensitive to slights they were serving their country.
26:18.301 --> 26:21.603
their stature, that's very important to the story.
26:21.703 --> 26:23.683
And ultimately, Hancock has to cave.
26:24.544 --> 26:36.069
And that in itself is, I think, a pretty tough moment for him because Washington got the better of him basically through Hancock's whole life.
26:39.190 --> 26:44.152
But what I think is playing out on a larger scale, and this is why I find this story fascinating,
26:44.970 --> 26:46.931
is this is 1789.
26:46.991 --> 26:48.632
The Constitution has just passed.
26:48.712 --> 26:52.374
We don't even know what a president of the United States is going to look like.
26:52.435 --> 26:56.337
We take it for granted today, knowing they're the highest authority.
26:56.477 --> 27:02.981
But in 1789, Hancock says, I've been governor of this state for seven of its last nine years.
27:03.541 --> 27:07.283
And I'm the highest authority of this state.
27:07.503 --> 27:09.365
And so when you come here, you call on me.
27:10.285 --> 27:17.488
Hancock was very sensitive to states rights and really and that means a different thing today.
27:19.969 --> 27:30.234
In the late 18th century, Hancock was worried about encroachment by a strong federal government into what he called separate republics.
27:32.381 --> 27:44.804
So in some ways, he's playing out on this very small, petty scale, a much bigger issue, which is who gets to decide who gets called on first and who is the ultimate authority.
27:45.024 --> 27:46.164
And Hancock loses.
27:46.244 --> 27:47.344
And that's still true today.
27:47.804 --> 27:51.145
It's still the president that's the highest authority, not a governor of a state.
27:51.685 --> 27:55.626
Yeah, it's interesting because on the one hand, we do look at these as kind of these petty things.
27:55.726 --> 28:00.747
But for Washington and for Hancock, these are very serious issues about deference and
28:01.294 --> 28:02.575
You know, stature and so on.
28:02.615 --> 28:10.818
Not just it's why Washington won't answer letters that the General House sends him just to Mr. Washington, because he's not recognizing him as General Washington.
28:11.498 --> 28:19.342
And so I wonder if you could we could talk a little bit about Dorothy Quincy and Hancock's personal life.
28:20.467 --> 28:22.108
Yeah, she's tough to get a read on.
28:23.169 --> 28:26.351
Partly because a lot of her letters don't survive.
28:26.711 --> 28:38.138
So the sense that I get is that she was lukewarm about any affection for John Hancock throughout her life.
28:39.259 --> 28:44.182
Much, much, much later in life, John Hancock has been dead over 20 years.
28:44.423 --> 28:46.204
She talks about...
28:47.653 --> 28:54.616
about Hancock's experience both at the Continental Congress and her experience supporting him and then him as governor.
28:54.636 --> 29:01.419
And in that account, she indicates that she wanted to get rid of him.
29:01.439 --> 29:02.059
Wow.
29:02.419 --> 29:04.580
That Aunt Lydia really wanted to see him married.
29:04.640 --> 29:06.201
He was very late to get married.
29:06.261 --> 29:07.321
Yeah.
29:07.541 --> 29:08.021
And so...
29:09.922 --> 29:11.863
Dorothy seemed like the right fit.
29:13.363 --> 29:16.044
She was from a she had a good family name.
29:16.084 --> 29:21.186
They weren't wealthy anymore, but they had a good family name from the same hometown as John Hancock.
29:22.286 --> 29:28.968
And so they get married, but it doesn't it's it's really sad on both ends.
29:30.068 --> 29:31.749
The letters that survive from Hancock.
29:32.629 --> 29:40.935
He is begging Dorothy Dolly for letters and news about their son or their daughter, both of whom died very tragically young.
29:41.955 --> 29:47.259
And she doesn't seem to find any comfort in him when their young daughter dies.
29:48.820 --> 29:57.746
She doesn't seem to really like the business of being the statesman's wife, the only wife accompanying him to the Second Continental Congress.
29:58.426 --> 30:02.189
So while she's tough to get a read on in a lot of ways,
30:02.969 --> 30:04.790
A lot of her letters don't survive.
30:05.890 --> 30:10.292
You get a sense about her from other people, particularly Hancock.
30:10.372 --> 30:18.714
And I think she was likely happier when she remarried after Hancock died.
30:19.555 --> 30:21.435
Someone well beneath her station.
30:21.455 --> 30:23.176
And her family didn't like this idea.
30:23.236 --> 30:27.477
But I think she was probably marrying that second time someone more of her choosing than Sam.
30:27.497 --> 30:28.018
Interesting.
30:29.538 --> 30:29.778
Wow.
30:30.098 --> 30:30.258
Wow.
30:30.579 --> 30:31.239
That's interesting.
30:31.279 --> 30:37.062
And then John Adams wrote in 1809 that he thought Hancock would be forgotten by history.
30:37.282 --> 30:38.262
Yes!
30:38.402 --> 30:40.283
Which is an interesting take on this.
30:40.663 --> 30:40.903
Yes.
30:40.923 --> 30:42.984
And of course, Adams was sure he would be forgotten.
30:43.064 --> 30:43.945
Well, exactly.
30:44.465 --> 30:51.528
I think, Bob, he's responding to his own internal insecurity and crises around... You know, he writes a lot.
30:53.269 --> 30:54.870
The one you're referring to in 1809 and then 1811, he says...
30:58.598 --> 31:03.180
You know, he laments the way that the founding of the country isn't being remembered.
31:03.481 --> 31:03.921
Right.
31:03.941 --> 31:06.082
Because he's so sensitive.
31:06.182 --> 31:08.003
He says, oh, it's just Washington.
31:08.303 --> 31:10.124
Right.
31:10.164 --> 31:11.205
Yeah.
31:12.125 --> 31:18.649
And and so, yeah, I think I think Adams was worried as much more about his own place.
31:18.729 --> 31:22.451
But he was using Samuel Adams or John Hancock as a way to.
31:23.372 --> 31:24.775
say they're forgetting us.
31:25.277 --> 31:29.047
And then much later in his life, he softens towards Hancock.
31:29.087 --> 31:30.049
He says, you know, I wasn't
31:31.997 --> 31:35.258
Essentially, I didn't treat him as well as I could have.
31:35.318 --> 31:36.219
Interesting, yeah.
31:36.279 --> 31:39.800
No one spent more time and was more devoted than Hancock.
31:40.480 --> 31:42.001
Yeah, wow.
31:42.701 --> 31:43.342
It's interesting.
31:43.702 --> 31:48.744
And of course, Hancock's mansion on Beacon Hill was demolished during the Civil War.
31:48.804 --> 31:56.107
And it's an interesting story and also spurs then the preservation of some of the sites you can take people on your tours today.
31:56.487 --> 31:58.008
Yeah, so I think...
31:59.676 --> 32:05.625
I talk about this in the epilogue of King Hancock because the destruction of John Hancock.
32:05.665 --> 32:08.849
So part of the epilogue is how does his legacy live on?
32:08.929 --> 32:12.234
How do we get to where there are tall buildings named after him?
32:12.274 --> 32:14.537
How do we get to where we remember his signature?
32:15.078 --> 32:16.340
Because I think that's an important part
32:17.674 --> 32:20.076
It's not just how he lived, but how he's remembered today.
32:21.256 --> 32:29.582
And one thing he's not remembered for, but that his house can take credit for, is yes, exactly.
32:29.642 --> 32:32.984
His house was demolished on the top of Beacon Hill.
32:33.685 --> 32:37.948
And when it was demolished, there was a real grassroots effort to try to save it.
32:38.828 --> 32:40.649
And that didn't work.
32:41.370 --> 32:46.493
And there was an idea to save it, to send it somewhere else, maybe put it in...
32:48.272 --> 32:49.894
put it in, in the public garden.
32:50.134 --> 32:57.101
Imagine just mansion in the public garden, just to move it as so that it would be preserved.
32:57.962 --> 33:04.509
But when his house was leveled, this was really sort of a wake up call for citizens to say, Oh, the government's not going to,
33:05.530 --> 33:30.683
this house was offered for such a low price and they didn't raise the money to buy it or move it and so it really spurs preservation efforts for these historic buildings that dot the freedom trail today many of them wouldn't exist without the efforts these noble heroic efforts ordinary people who said this building means something to us history um and so
33:33.521 --> 33:50.326
There's a preservation historian, you know, preservationist historian who argues that Hancock's mansion being destroyed was the catalyst for these future preservation efforts, both in Boston and nationally, because the federal protection of buildings doesn't come around until the early 20th century.
33:51.926 --> 33:52.086
No.
33:52.286 --> 33:56.110
And it was only in the 1850s that Mount Vernon was preserved.
33:56.130 --> 33:57.911
I mean, that was also going to be.
33:58.492 --> 33:59.673
Yeah, exactly.
33:59.873 --> 34:00.234
Sorry.
34:00.754 --> 34:01.295
But exactly.
34:01.335 --> 34:02.956
That was done by private citizens.
34:02.996 --> 34:03.216
Right.
34:03.236 --> 34:03.456
Yeah.
34:03.657 --> 34:03.857
Yeah.
34:04.137 --> 34:08.441
You know, these women who said this is something important and this is George Washington's house.
34:08.521 --> 34:09.081
So, yeah.
34:09.302 --> 34:09.662
Yeah.
34:09.702 --> 34:16.088
John Hancock's house, in some senses, didn't stand a chance because they just didn't understand that somebody might want to see it.
34:16.668 --> 34:18.288
Right, yeah.
34:18.629 --> 34:21.969
And, you know, visit later or that it has some sort of meaning.
34:22.289 --> 34:36.193
Yeah, there's a great quote in the 1960s during the urban renewal in Boston on their demolishing Scully Square and a member of the city council said when people come to Boston they want to see the nice shiny revenue generating buildings like they'll see in Houston, Miami.
34:36.213 --> 34:40.854
They don't want to see some crummy printing shop where William Lloyd Garrison turned out the liberator.
34:41.634 --> 34:45.615
And this idea that people don't want to see these things, but as you know, they do.
34:45.695 --> 34:48.036
I mean, you're showing people these things four days a week.
34:48.436 --> 34:49.517
Oh, I didn't know that.
34:49.597 --> 34:52.358
And they specifically said Houston and Miami.
34:52.538 --> 34:53.018
Yeah, yeah.
34:53.118 --> 34:55.179
Or some big new cities like that.
34:55.239 --> 34:55.839
Yeah, yeah.
34:55.979 --> 35:01.101
That's so interesting because there's parts of Boston today that are being developed that I say, oh.
35:01.801 --> 35:02.442
Yeah, yeah.
35:02.622 --> 35:03.263
Like the seaport.
35:03.303 --> 35:04.204
We don't need to name names.
35:04.364 --> 35:05.566
Yeah, we don't need to name names.
35:05.586 --> 35:07.568
We don't need to name names.
35:07.728 --> 35:11.953
But there's neighborhoods today that I see, this looks like any other city.
35:12.874 --> 35:14.836
This doesn't, like faceless city.
35:14.976 --> 35:16.879
It doesn't look like Boston.
35:16.979 --> 35:17.459
Right, yeah.
35:18.345 --> 35:20.687
And that's one thing that's so special about Boston.
35:21.027 --> 35:32.518
And one of the reasons that I moved here from San Diego is because you could walk the streets of Boston and get a coffee or a beer right next to these historic sites.
35:32.598 --> 35:34.720
And that was so exciting and different to me.
35:35.177 --> 35:36.259
Right, yeah.
35:36.299 --> 35:45.093
We're talking with Brooke Barbier, who is the author of King Hancock, the Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father, and also the proprietor of Ye Olde Tavern Tours.
35:45.113 --> 35:49.300
Why don't you tell us a little bit about Ye Olde Tavern Tours and how you got into being a tour guide?
35:49.727 --> 36:02.070
Yeah, OK, so when I finished my PhD at Boston College, I threw a Freedom Trail pub crawl for my family coming in from California and for friends around New England.
36:02.790 --> 36:03.931
And it was a big time.
36:04.011 --> 36:05.351
It was a big, fun time.
36:05.791 --> 36:08.632
But I had written up this little pamphlet
36:09.790 --> 36:15.614
about the historic sites that we'd be passing and the historic taverns that we were going to go into.
36:16.035 --> 36:22.239
And a couple of people in attendance whose opinions I really respected said, oh, who did this?
36:22.319 --> 36:23.880
Who designed this pamphlet?
36:24.160 --> 36:25.661
Who designed the whole concept of this?
36:25.722 --> 36:26.862
And I said, I did.
36:26.882 --> 36:29.224
And they said, you should do that for other people.
36:29.424 --> 36:31.846
And so I put that in the back of my mind.
36:33.567 --> 36:36.509
eventually decided to do it for other people.
36:36.549 --> 36:42.853
So I didn't ever intend to become a tour guide or a tour company owner.
36:42.993 --> 36:44.054
I love it now.
36:44.194 --> 36:48.877
Of course, it's suited me since I started because I love talking about history and I love beer.
36:50.078 --> 36:55.141
On the tour, you stop at three taverns and you drink beer while seeing historic sites.
36:55.961 --> 37:00.424
And you really learn about the American Revolution in Boston, this critical period.
37:02.406 --> 37:12.772
So I never intended to necessarily think that I would give tours, but I wanted to provide an experience for visitors and locals in Boston.
37:13.112 --> 37:13.793
Good time.
37:14.753 --> 37:16.154
I like learning new things.
37:16.474 --> 37:18.816
And like I said, I like drinking beer.
37:19.496 --> 37:20.417
So I combined them.
37:21.528 --> 37:22.508
Oh, great.
37:22.548 --> 37:22.969
That's great.
37:22.989 --> 37:23.729
And you do it.
37:23.749 --> 37:26.470
You also have other folks you've hired to do tours.
37:26.970 --> 37:29.010
Yeah, I'm out there leading a lot of tours.
37:29.130 --> 37:34.932
And then I have fantastic tour guides who have a very strong background in history.
37:34.972 --> 37:35.793
That's one thing that...
37:37.333 --> 38:06.005
we're really known for is really knowing our history and not sharing myths or or other things yeah yeah but not simply making it a recitation of footnotes and dates this is great it's really it's really meant to be fun and accessible for people yeah good um no the footnotes are in my life they are literally in the footnotes or the end yeah that's not usually a part of the way i talk about history
38:06.502 --> 38:07.382
It's good.
38:07.662 --> 38:12.964
So one of the places you do see on the tour, I'm presuming, is the granary burying ground where Hancock is buried.
38:13.024 --> 38:20.766
And I'm just thinking that next to Hancock's big pillar, there's a small marker for Frank, who is one of his servants.
38:20.866 --> 38:22.987
And Hancock, like a lot of other...
38:23.700 --> 38:26.423
People of his social class in Boston owned slaves.
38:27.444 --> 38:32.089
But you talk a bit about his relationship with the institution of slavery in the book.
38:32.109 --> 38:36.573
I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about that before we let you go.
38:37.094 --> 38:37.514
Yeah.
38:37.654 --> 38:41.538
So Hancock's relationship to slavery is sort of like you...
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like you said at the beginning, he inherits, he comes from a family of enslavers and he inherits enslaved women and men when his aunt dies.
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So when his uncle dies, the property, including enslaved men and women get transferred to his,
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or bequeath to his aunt.
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And then when she dies in 1776, they go to John Hancock.
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But mostly she was freeing them, but a couple of the enslaved men and women had conditions.
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So you have to, you can be free after a year if you please your master, you know, things like that.
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So Lydia-
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freed many but not all.
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And Hancock goes on, we don't know exactly when this happens.
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And unfortunately, we don't hear from him about why he does this.
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But by the end of the 1770s, he has freed the enslaved men and women that he inherited.
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And part of this, I attribute to simply being in Massachusetts at this time and being on the House of Representatives.
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As you know, both free and enslaved Black persons were sending petitions in the early 1770s.
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Hancock is a part of a committee to consider this and consider ending the slave trade.
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Ultimately, it doesn't go anywhere because Hutchinson
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doesn't confirm those ideas.
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So he's hearing this in the early 1770s.
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Certainly, he uses the language after the Declaration of Independence that he thinks that everyone will be free after this.
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And he's not referring to Black persons there.
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He's just referring to political freedom.
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So he's not
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he's still figuring it out.
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Like with a lot of things in his life, he's taking his time to figure it out.
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But what I found so interesting is that
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as governor, he took steps to weaken slavery.
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So the narrative is often that in 1780 with the constitution thing, the Massachusetts constitution saying everyone's free and equal, and then the Kwok Walker case shortly after, and then that ends slavery.
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There's historians now who say it wasn't
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it wasn't exactly that clean, but also people had been bottom up emancipating.
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Right.
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Courts told them they had to.
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And so Hancock goes on to
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goes on to weaken slavery in other ways too.
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So he gets petitioned by Prince Hall for these men that were kidnapped and going to be sold down in the West Indies.
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And Hancock writes down there and says, these are free people, don't enslave them.
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There's a couple of instances like that.
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But one of the most notable instances of how his mind had clearly shifted
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not just on slavery, but on Black personhood even, was he held a ball at his home for free Black men.
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I couldn't find any source that said that women were there, but certainly women were there.
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And he was derided in a newspaper by critics who mocked him, calling it an equality ball, because he was hosting
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Right.
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And so and and then, you know, someone else comes to his defense in the newspaper and says, oh, big crime to host black people in your home.
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Well, but it was really it was it was controversial what Hancock was doing.
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But ultimately what I argue is that.
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Hancock wasn't a policy wonk.
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He really wasn't an ideologue, but he knew how to connect with people.
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And that often was through hospitality and throwing parties.
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And so one way he could set an example was to host black men and women for a ball in his home.
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And he did this with other people too throughout his life.
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That was one way that he connected people was through his entertainment.
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So you really see his mind change throughout his life.
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But as with everything with Hancock, it takes some time and energy.
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There's some parts of his decision making that are lost to history, but you can figure out that he ultimately not only decided that he couldn't enslave people anymore.
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but that he was going to try to help in some ways promote, if not equality, at least dignity.
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Interesting.
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Interesting.
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Fascinating.
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We've been talking with Brooke Barbier, who is the author of King Hancock, the Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.
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And she also is the proprietor of Ye Olde Tavern Tours.
43:52.012 --> 43:57.917
And her first book is on Boston in the American Revolution, A Town Versus an Empire, which I also recommend.
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So thank you so much for joining us, Brooke.
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Oh, my gosh.
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It's been so fun to talk about John Hancock.
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And I'm just like honored to be on the podcast.
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Well, we're honored to have you and we'll hope to have you back to talk about Hancock and other things.
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So thank you.
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Thank you for being a listener.
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I want to thank our other listeners.
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You know, we have folks.
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in Boston and in Boston's greater Boston, as well as in Westboro and Attleboro in Massachusetts, as well as Topanga, California.
44:26.662 --> 44:30.325
I don't know if that's near San Diego, but kind of, okay.
44:30.625 --> 44:35.249
And Jasper, Georgia and Milan, Paris and Sioux, Korea.
44:35.629 --> 44:36.670
Thank you all for listening.
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And folks in all places between, if you're in one of those places, send Jonathan Lane an email, jlaneatrevolution250.org.
44:44.056 --> 44:46.578
They'll send you one of our Rev 250 lapel pins or,
44:47.113 --> 44:49.925
refrigerator magnets, and thank you all for joining us.
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And now we will be piped out on the road to Boston.