“Rum Parties” Lecture at Shirley-Eustis House, 30 Jan.

On Sunday, 30 January, the Shirley-Eustis House hosts a lecture by Jonathan L. Fairbanks titled, “Rum Parties – Not Tea — Launched Liberty in 1768 for Boston and America.”

Fairbanks will illustrate consequences of disobedience by Members of the House who voted NOT TO RESCIND THE CIRCULAR LETTER in 1768. To celebrate this act, Paul Revere produced the Sons of Liberty Bowl (to hold rum punch) and posed for his famous portrait (pictured holding a teapot) made by John Singleton Copley. Both bowl and portrait were made in 1768. They are displayed together in the newly opened American Arts Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. . . .

The speaker, Jonathan Fairbanks, founded the Department of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture in 1971 and headed that department at the Museum of Fine Arts with an endowed curatorship until 1999 as The Katharine Lane Weems Curator (now emeritus). He is currently the Vice President for Research at http://www.artifact.com/ and continues work as a painter of landscapes, portraits and other subjects.

The Shirley-Eustis House, built by royal governor William Shirley in 1747 and home of Democratic-Republican governor William Eustis in 1819, is located on 33 Shirley Street in Roxbury.

The lecture starts at 1:30 P.M. Refreshments will be provided. The event is free, but donations for further historical educational programming will be welcome. Because of the volume of snow piled on the curbs, the site has arranged for parking space at the Ralph Waldo Emerson School at the end of Shirley Street. Also because of the snow, attendees should enter the Shirley-Eustis House through its rear entrance.