Hancock Manor

A paved walk and a dozen granite steps with sandstone trim led to the mansion, situated at a little distance[4] back from the street on ground elevated above it.[5][6] The interior comprised a nobly paneled hall, having a broad staircase with carved and twisted balusters, which divided the house in the middle and extended through on both stories from front to rear.[6] Miss Eliza G. Gardner, who lived in the Manor for many years, described the interior and garden as follows: As you entered the governor's mansion, to the right was the drawing or reception room, with furniture of bird's-eye maple covered with rich damask.The grounds were laid out in ornamental flower-beds bordered with box; box-trees of large size, with a great variety of fruit, among which were several immense mulberry-trees, dotted the garden.[7]British soldiers pillaged the house about the time of the Battle of Lexington in April 1775; they also broke down and mutilated the fences for firewood, until a complaint by the selectmen caused General Gage to send Percy to occupy it.[8] It was in this center of Colonial society that Hancock entertained d'Estaing in 1778, Lafayette in 1781, George Washington in 1789, Jacques Pierre Brissot, and later Lords Stanley and Wortley, and Labouchière and Bougainville.Some forty French officers dined daily at his table, and on one occasion the unusually high number of guests forced the servants to milk the cows on Boston Common (although these belonged to other owners).[2][10] In 1795, two years after John Hancock's death, the town of Boston purchased most of the estate for £4,000 and designated the pasture land as the site of the state's future capitol.The heirs offered the mansion, with the pictures and some other objects of historical interest, as a free gift, with the intent of preserving it as a memento of Colonial and Revolutionary history.In 1916 the marble extension of the Bulfinch Front of the State House to the west, and the taking of the surrounding grounds, necessitated the elimination of Hancock Avenue (a footway connecting Beacon and Mt.It reads: "Here stood the residence of John Hancock, a prominent and patriotic Merchant of Boston, the first Signer of the Declaration of American Independence, and First Governor of Massachusetts, under the State Constitution".
View of Hancock's house from across the Common, 1768
The Hancock Manor, ca. 1860. The woman standing on the left of the balcony is identified as Elizabeth Lowell Hancock Moriarty, the great-grandniece of Governor John Hancock.
Winter view of the Hancock Mansion, ca.1860
Memorial plaque.
Replica, known as the Hancock House , Ticonderoga, New York.
Beacon Hill, Boston, MassachusettsMassachusetts State HouseUnited States Founding FatherJohn HancockThomas HancockJohn Singleton CopleyProvince of Massachusetts BayBoston CommonBeacon StreetSlavesQuincybaroquevolutesBraintreegambrelgatepostsdamaskmulberryBritishBattle of LexingtonGeneral GageSiege of BostonHenry ClintonCharlestownBunker Hilld'EstaingLafayetteGeorge WashingtonJacques Pierre BrissotBougainvilleGovernorRhode IslandBostonNathaniel BanksLegislatureRevolutionarySmybertCivil Warpublic auctionOliver Wendell Holmes Sr.CambridgePinebank MansionbrownstoneGinn and CompanyBulfinchOld South Meeting HouseOld State HouseHancock–Clarke HouseHancock HouseTiconderoga, New YorkHancock House (Ticonderoga, New York)Massachusetts Institute of Technology1st and 3rd Governor of Massachusetts, 1780–1785, 1787–1793PresidentSecond Continental Congress, 1775–1777, 1785-1786Boston Board of Selectmen, 1766–1775United Statesfounding eventsHMS Liberty confiscationSons of LibertyCo-inspired, Boston Tea PartyPresident, Massachusetts Provincial CongressChairman, Massachusetts Committee of SafetyUnited States Declaration of Independence(signingArticles of Confederation1788 Massachusetts CompromiseMassachusetts Hall, Harvard UniversityBoston CadetsAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences1788–89 United States presidential electionGranary Burying GroundAmerican RevolutionpatriotsFounding FatherSyng inkstand1972 filmLiberty's KidsJohn AdamsUSS HancockUSS John HancockJohn Hancock CenterJohn Hancock TowerMemorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of IndependenceDorothy QuincyJohn Hancock Jr.John Hancock Sr.Edmund Quincy