Overview of Thomas Hutchinson's Political Career
Overview of Thomas Hutchinson's Political Career
Thomas Hutchinson, chief justice and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, despite his goal to prevent passage of the dreaded Stamp Act, was violently hated by the people of Boston. In the middle of dinner on August 26, 1765, the most violent mob in the history of America attacked the mansion of Governor Hutchinson. If he and his family had not fled the table and escaped their home, they might not have lived through the ordeal. But, why would an angry Boston mob ransack the home of man who wanted to better the lives of the people?
The day after the attack, Thomas Hutchinson appeared in court to defend against the accusation of him supporting the Stamp Act. Wearing the only clothing he had left (some even borrowed), he called God, his Maker, to witness:
I never, in New England or Old, in Great Britain or America, neither directly nor indirectly, was aiding, assisting, or supporting, or in the least promoting or encouraging what is commonly called the STAMP ACT, but on the contrary, did all in my power, and strove as much as in me lay, to prevent it.
Hutchinson was born in 1711 and grew up in a family of merchants. They produced no physicians, lawyers, teachers, or ministers in the course of a century and a half. They were all devoted to developing property and networking trade, based on kinship lines at every point. Thomas, in the fifth generation, was the end of this developing merchant clan. He was the one that accumulated all of the energy of the family and was the perfect merchant. Thomas' father, Colonel Thomas Hutchinson, married a merchant's daughter, which perfectly fit the family's ideology. This marriage increased contacts three fold between the two families. This set the perfect pattern for young Thomas' life. Thomas entered Harvard at the age of twelve. He inherited much from his father, which became a fortune by the time of the revolution. He had fifteen times his original capitol in cash, eight houses, including the Boston mansion, two wharves, a variety of lots and shop properties in Boston, and a universally admired house in suburban Milton with a splendid setting and a hundred acres of choice land. Basically, Hutchinson was a very rich man.
He entered the world...