JOSIAH

See also:

• QUINCY
• JOSIAH QUINCY (1744–1775)

QUINCY (1744–1775)  , American patriot, son of Josiah Quincy (1709–1784), was born in Boston on the 23rd of February 1744 . He was a descendant of Edmund Quincy, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1633, and received in 1636 a grant of land at Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount, after-wards a part of Braintree and now Quincy . He graduated at Harvard in 1763, and studied law in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher (d . 1765), to whose large practice he succeeded . In 1767 Quincy contributed to the Boston Gazette two bold papers, signed "Hyperion," declaiming against British oppression; they were followed by a third in September 1768; and on the 12th of February 1770 he published in the Gazette a call to his countrymen to break off all social intercourse " with those whose commerce contaminates, whose luxuries poison, whose avarice is insatiable, and whose unnatural oppressions are not to be borne." After the " Boston massacre " (5th of March 1770) he and John Adams defended Captain Preston and the accused soldiers and secured their acquittal.' He used the signatures " Mentor," " Callisthenes," " Marchmont Needham," " Edward Sexby," &c., in later letters to the Boston Gazette . He travelled for his health in the South in 1773, and left in his journal an interesting account of his travels and of society in South Carolina; this journey was important in that it brought Southern patriots into closer relations with the popular leaders in Massachusetts . In May 1774 he published Observations on the Act of Parliament, commonly called " The Boston Port Bill," with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies, in which he urged " patriots and heroes " to " form a compact for opposition—a band for vengeance." In September 1774 he left for England, where he consulted with leading Whigs as to the political situation in America; on the 16th of March 177 5 he started back, but he died on the 26th of April in sight of land . See the Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jun., of Massachusetts (Boston, 1825; 2nd ed., 1874), by his son, which contains his more important papers . His son, JoSIAH QUINCY (1772-1864), American lawyer and author, was born in Boston on the 4th of February 1772 . He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, graduated at Harvard in 1790, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1793, but was never a prominent advocate He became a leader of the Federalist party in Massachusetts; was an unsuccessful candidate for the national House of Representatives in 'Soo; served in the Massachusetts Senate in 1804–5; and was a member in 1805–13 of the national House of Representatives, where he was one of the small Federalist minority . He attempted to secure the exemption of fishing vessels from the Embargo Act, urged the strengthening of the American navy, and vigorously opposed the erection of Orleans Territory (Louisiana) into a state in 1811, and stated as his " deliberate opinion, that if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States that compose it are free from their moral obligations to maintain it; and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation,—amicably if they can, violently if they must." This is probably " the first assertion of the right of secession on the floor of Congress." Quincy left Congress because he saw that the Federalist opposition was useless, and thereafter was a member of the Massachusetts Senate until 182o; in 1821–22 he was a member and speaker of the state House of Representatives, from which he resigned to become judge of the municipal court of Boston . In 1823–28 he was mayor of Boston, and in his term Faneuil Hall Market House was His eldest brother, SAMUEL QUINCY (1735-1789), was at this time solicitor-general of Massachusetts, and opened this trial .

He remained loyal to the

Crown, left Boston in 1776, and was attorney for the Crown in Antigua until his death . built, the fire and police departments were reorganized, and the city's care of the poor was systematized . In 1829–1845 he was president of Harvard College, of which he had been an overseer since 1810, when the board was reorganized; he has been called " the great organizer of the university ": he gave an elective (or voluntary ") system an elaborate trial; introduced a system of marking (on the scale of 8) on which college rank and honours, formerly rather carelessly assigned, were based; first used courts of law to punish students who destroyed or injured college property; and helped to reform the finances of the university . During his term Dane Hall (for law) was dedicated, Gore Hall was built, and the Astronomical Observatory was equipped . His last years were spent principally on his farm in Quincy, where he died on the 1st of July 1864 . He wrote a Memoir of his father (1825); a History of Harvard University (2 vols., 1840), marred by a tendency to belittle the clerical regime; The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw (1847); The History of the Boston Athenaeum (1851); The Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston (1852); a Memoir of the Life of J . Q . Adams (1858); and Essays on the Soiling of Cattle (1859), only one of his many practical contributions to agriculture . See Edmund Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1867) . JoSIAH QUINCY (1802-1882), son of the last-named, was mayor of Boston in 1845–1849, and author of Figures of the Past (1882); his brother EDMUND (1808–1877) was a prominent Abolitionist, and author of the biography of his father and of a romance, Wensley (1854); and his sister ELIZA SUSAN (1798–1884) was her father's secretary and the biographer of her mother . Josiah Quincy (1802–1882) had two sons—JosIAH PHILLIPS (1829-1910), a lawyer, who wrote, besides some verse, The Protection of Majorities (1876) and Double Taxation in Massachusetts (1889); and SAMUEL MILLER (1833–1887), who practised law, wrote on legal subjects, served in the Union army during the Civil War, and was breveted brigadier-general of volunteers in 1865 . JOSIAH QUINCY (b .

1859), a son of Josiah Phillips Quincy, was prominent in the Democratic party in Massachusetts, and was mayor of Boston in 1895–1899 .