Caricature of a Tea Partier
Colson joined the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons in 1763. In 1766 the town meeting elected him as a “Clerk of the Market,” a beginner-level office. By 1773, he was also a member of the North End Caucus (and, reportedly, the “Long Room Club”).
Colson was in the second set of volunteers patrolling the wharves to make sure no East India Company tea was landed. Benjamin Bussey Thatcher’s 1835 book Traits of the Tea-Party listed him among the men who destroyed that tea on 16 Dec 1773—the earliest such list to see print. Thatcher also wrote of that night’s meeting at Old South:
Some person or persons, in the galleries, (Mr. [William] Pierce thinks Adam Colson,) at this time cried out, with a loud voice, “Boston Harbor a tea-pot this night!”—“Hurra for Griffin’s Wharf!”—and so on.For Colson to have gotten down from the gallery during a crowded meeting and onto a tea ship would have been a feat.
In 1774 Bostonians voted Colson to be the town’s Informer of Deer, a post he held for years, and the next year he was chosen to be a Warden. In 1779, with the town hurt by shortages and price jumps, he was made an Inspector of the Market. He appears to have served only briefly in the military, patrolling the town under Col. Jabez Hatch.
During these years Colson maintained his business selling leather goods in the South End under the “Sign of the Buck and Glove” near Liberty Tree. But he also bought real estate, opening an inn and what by 1788 he called the “Federal Stable.” In 1782 he hosted the future Marquis De Chastellux, who was making a trip through the new U.S. of A.
In Boston’s 1792 state election returns, Colson garnered 7 votes for lieutenant governor, coming in third. Samuel Adams with 686 was the clear winner, and merchant Thomas Russell with 17 was second. Yet Colson was still just a tradesman and landlord, not a gentleman (he didn’t get “Esq.” after his name in the official tally). That made his relative prominence notable. So what were his post-Revolutionary politics?
In 1795 the Rev. John Silvester John Gardiner (1765-1830), future rector of Trinity Church, published a book called Remarks on the Jacobiniad through the new Federal Orrery newspaper and then the printers Weld and Greenough. It was a biting, satirical, and not entirely coherent attack on the nascent Jeffersonian party in Boston. In particular, Gardiner lampooned Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Austin, Samuel Hewes, “Justice [John] Vinal,” and Colson. Judging by a legal report in the Columbian Centinel in 1791, Gardiner must have been carrying on that feud for years.
Remarks on the Jacobiniad portrayed Colson as an illiterate veteran of the Revolutionary struggle. At what must have been some expense, the book even included caricatures of those five leading “Jacobins,” allowing us to see a version of Adam Colson, above.
Colson died in 1798, not surviving to see his party take the Presidency and hold it for six terms. He left an estate worth nearly $17,000, including $10,000 of real estate on Washington Street in the South End.
9 comments:
Colson’s last will and testament showed his one and only name was spelled Colson. He was a great relative of mine. I have the Queen Ann chair he left in his will, and a copy of his will.
I think you’re saying that in Adam Colson’s will he spelled his last name as Colson. That doesn’t surprise me because that’s how it usually appears. However, in the eighteenth century people’s names often appeared with different spellings in public records and newspapers, and sometimes even in documents they created themselves. To find the range of references to Adam Colson for this profile, I couldn’t afford to be a stickler for spelling, and I included the other forms of the surname to alert readers to that.
Can you cite an instance where Adam Colson spelled his name wrong?
This is an odd question. For one thing, if Adam Colson spelled his own surname in another way, who are we to say that was “wrong”? For another, I haven’t yet stated that Colson himself spelled his name in different ways, only that the family name appears in sources in multiple forms, as did other surnames in the eighteenth century. When looking for mentions of an individual, it’s useful to know all the possible name variations.
As it happens, numerous advertisements in Boston newspapers that appear to come from Colson himself present his name as “Adam Collson.” Examples start with the 23 Jan 1775 Boston Evening-Post, 22 Dec 1777 Boston Gazette, and 6 July 1778 Boston Gazette and run into the 1780s. In the same period and into the 1790s, other newspaper ads refer to him as “Colson”; some of those came from his neighbors or town officials, but others appear to have come from Colson himself. That suggests he either made a gradual change over the course of his career or just wasn’t as concerned about consistent spelling as some of us.
When Adam Colson died in 1798, the Columbian Centinel newspaper and several others reported the death of “Adam Collson.” (Mary Cranch wrote to her sister, Abigail Adams: “Adam Colison is dead. that Pickaxe of goverment.”)
Francis S. Drake’s Tea Leaves used the spelling “Collson,” and that book has become the authority for many lists of men participating in the Boston Tea Party and histories of that event.
Hannah Mather Crocker’s memoirs, the source of the myth of the Long Room Club, listed “Adam Colston” among its members.
The “Coulson” and “Coleson” spellings appear in references to people in previous generations of the family. Again, spelling was more variable in the eighteenth century than now.
Please pardon my first post explaining in his last will and testament that Adam Collson's Last Will and Testament spelled his name as Colson. I was wrong. I went back and double-checked the two page original document: it shows only "Collson." No matter how many times it was written incorrectly by the newspapers, etc., no matter how many times it was spelled incorrectly by previous or later generations, his name was Adam Collson, with two ls.
Please let me know if you would like a copy of his Last Will and Testament and I will send it to you.
If you would like a copy of "The Chair of Liberty," a short story about the Queen Anne chair which Adam Collson left to his sister, which has a very interesting history, I will be happy to send you a copy. It has been in our family since Adam Collson died, and it has been enjoyed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Mayor of Chicago.
Thank you again, and sorry I had it wrong.
Tom Hoke
Kemah, TX
My comments about the spelling of Adam Collson's name were incorrect. In his last will and testament he spelled his name with two ls, not one. Regardless of how previous generations may have spelled his name, or how later generation spelled his name, correctly or incorrectly, his real name was Adam Collson.
Adam left a Queen Anne chair, his prize possession, to his sister. It passed through the hands of some memorable people: Frank Lloyd Wright's mother-in-law, the Mayor of Chicago, etc. on its journey to 2021. My brother, Thad Collson Hoke, was the last owner with the Collson name, and now it belongs to me.
If you would like to read the short story called "The Chair of Liberty," it covers the various owners of this beautiful chair Adam Collson left to future generations.
Tom Hoke
Kemah, Texas
I had it wrong! In his will Adam Collson was the correct spelling, Sorry ‘bout that!
Tom I am also direct relative of Adam (hello great cousin or whatever!) and would love more information you have on him. It is amazing to me that a chair from back then has survived into the 21st century.
Shawn: I am not sure if I ever replied to you? At the age of 85 there was a small time gap due to medical reasons. Yes, the Queen Anne chair once owned by Adam Collson still exists, and it was passed down through our family since Collson died. I have a copy of his last will and testament, and the list of family members is all covered
very well in my unpublished story "The Chair of Liberty."’
I can send you a copy if you are interested?
Thomas T. Hoke
Kemah, Texas 77565
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