children, of whom Samue was the eldest. Samuel Thaxter, Sr., 

 was apparently a man of means, for he is listed as a "Gentleman" 

 and a loyal subject of King George. He resided on North Street in 

 Hingham, near Ship Street. He died on the island of Campobello 

 at the age of 44 years on May 27, 1788.'°' 



Samuel Thaxter, as well as several generations of his family 

 before him, was born in the old Thomas Thaxter mansion that was 

 built by the settler of that name in 1652. During the Revolution 

 Samuel's father, Maj. Samuel Thaxter, concealed Tories from the 

 Committee of Safety in a blind passage with a secret door in the old 

 house. From there he smuggled them to Boston. At the massacre 

 of Fort William, Major Thaxter was one of those captured by the 

 Indians. While tied to a tree, he saw two French officers, and 

 demanded whether this was the treatment they gave to commis- 

 sioned officers. They allowed him to go free and he dragged him- 

 self to Fort Edward. Meanwhile, his comrades had reported him 

 missing in action, and Dr. Gay preached his funeral sermon in 

 Hingham shortly before Thaxter's return. The old Thaxter 

 mansion was torn down in 1864.'*^ 



Young Samuel Thaxter moved from Hingham to Boston, where 

 he is first heard of in 1792. On June 14, 1792, Thaxter married 

 Polly Helyer, the niece of William Williams. 



Within a month after the sale of Williams' property at public 

 auction, Thaxter acquired the instrument-making business. Ap- 

 parently the new owner of the premises required the business 

 to move, and Thaxter established himself at No. 9 Butler's Row. 

 A month after the Williams auction Thaxter announced his new 

 location in an advertisement (fig. 50) in The Columbia Centinel of 

 May 22, 1793. 



Thaxter's new location was a wooden store structure, on the 

 north side of Butler's Row that was owned by Andrew Hall and 

 Eunice Fitch in 1798. It was in the rear of the north side of State 

 Street, running from Merchants Row to the water. 



By 1796 Thaxter had moved from this location to No. 49 State 

 Street, on the north side opposite to Broad Street, a brick store 

 owned by Joseph Lovering & Sons, tallow chandlers. He con- 

 tinued to do business at this address until 1815, when he moved to 

 27 State Street, on the opposite side of the street. The new loca- 



^'^^ History of Hingham [Massachusetts], Hingham [n. d.], vol. 3, p. 236. 

 '"^ Katherine M. Abbott, Old Paths and Legends of New England (New York: 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909), pp. 341-342. 



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