HANNAH’S REVOLUTIONARY OTIS COUSINS #3: the “other” Hannah Otis

"The Million-Dollar View of Boston Common"

SMITH (Post, Dort, Winsor, Secord, Harris, Harris, McCall, Otis, Thacher, Gorham, Howland, Tilley, Hurst)

Our Otis Family Connections

Faith McCall’s mother -HANNAH OTIS- was the great-granddaughter of

1635 Immigrant, John Otis, Jr.

Sons of John Jr. included John Otis III and our 6^th GGF Joseph Otis.

Both of these brothers had sons (James & Nathaniel-1^st cousins).

Both James and Nathaniel had daughters named HANNAH.

This made Hannah Otis (of James) and  7GGM Hannah Otis (of Nathaniel) 2^nd Cousins.

This sketch is about our 2^nd Cousin, the “other” HANNAH OTIS.

Detail from Hannah's work

HANNAH was one of thirteen children born to James, Sr. and Mary (Allyne) Otis, and one of six who survived infancy. Her family were among what was considered the 18^th century Massachusetts “elite” and, as such, were painted by popular portrait artists of the Revolutionary era along with the likes of George Washington, Paul Revere, John Hancock, John Q. and Samuel Adams. Paintings commissioned by John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Joseph Blackburn provide vivid images that allow us to look back 250 years into the eyes of our more famous Otis cousins: James “the Patriot” Otis, Mercy Otis and her husband James Warren, Samuel Allyne Otis and his son Harrison Gray. Even Hannah’s parents sat for professional portraits in 1760. Unfortunately, I could not find a painting of cousin Hannah. Instead, I found something better.

 

Hannah Otis' "View of Boston Common" c1750

At the age of eighteen, Hannah completed what I like to call her “Million-Dollar View of Boston Common.” It was a huge undertaking, requiring untold hours of delicate needlework and creativity. As explained by the Google Art Project (now Google Arts and Culture):  

“Affluent girls were educated in the feminine arts of embroidery, painting on glass, and quillwork, as well as in reading and writing. After completing a sampler in their embroidery classes, girls worked pictures that proudly were hung in the family home. While the majority of the pastoral scenes depicted on Boston schoolgirl embroideries are based on European print sources, Otis's chimneypiece is a realistic depiction of Boston Common, with the beacon on Beacon Hill and the stone mansion, built in 1737 by merchant Thomas Hancock, clearly delineated.”

Measuring an impressive 53 inches wide, Hannah’s pictorial needlework tapestry was hand-crafted upon linen -stitch-by-knot- with wool, silk, and metallic threads. As a mantelpiece display, her carefully-preserved work is a folk depiction of what was, at the time, a familiar scene: Boston Common. Upon closer examination, you will see the Beacon Hill signal light and old North Church in the distance, a “pre-Revolution” British flag flying over a blockhouse, and the Hancock Manor prominently placed amid the three oldest oaks of the commons (one that may likely have been the infamous “hanging” tree). Examples of North American flora and fauna are scattered throughout the scene, with a variety of birds a’flight and a’light. It is thought that the man and woman in the foreground are the guardian uncle and aunt of John Hancock, with young John riding upon his pony, attended by his groom.

Detail of Hancock Manor

The scene is clearly a labor of love, wonderfully executed and designed without pretense of fine artistry or symbolism. Since Hannah was born in 1732, she was yet a teenaged girl when she completed it. Little did she know that 269 years later, her work would be sold at Sotheby’s for over a million dollars! Her “View of Boston Common” was purchased in 1996 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for $1,157,500.



Photo: Wikipedia Commons

HANNAH’S REVOLUTIONARY OTIS COUSINS #2: Mercy Otis Warren

SMITH (Post, Dort, Winsor, Secord, Harris, Harris, McCall, Otis, Thacher, Gorham, Howland, Tilley, Hurst)

Our Otis Family Connections

Faith McCall’s mother -HANNAH OTIS- was the great-granddaughter of

1635 Immigrant, John Otis, Jr.

So was MERCY OTIS, daughter of Hannah’s father’s first cousin, James “Colonel” Otis.

Statue of Mercy Otis Warren, Barnstable

Mercy Otis Warren

(1728-1814)

“Conscience of the American Revolution”

2nd Cousin, 9x

On July 4^th 2001, a seven-foot high bronze statue was dedicated on the grounds of the County Superior Courthouse in Barnstable, Massachusetts. It depicts a representation of Mercy Otis Warren, dressed in 18^th century dress, holding aloft a book in one hand, a quill in the other. Our cousin Mercy was a writer whose words helped to pave the way for our first Independence Day. The inscription on the statue’s granite pedestal states:

MERCY

OTIS

WARREN

BORN W. BARNSTABLE

1728 – 1814

CHAMPION OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

PLAYWRIGHT – POET – HISTORIAN

PATRIOT

 At a time in history when women authors had to publish under pen names, Mercy’s written works helped to influence Revolutionary thought and action. Sister of James “The Patriot” Otis and wife of outspoken politician and Anti-Federalist*, James Warren, Mercy is recognized today for more than just supporting their political careers. (*The Federalists advocated a strong national government, while Anti-Federalists favored power to remain under state and local control. Mercy was critical of the nation’s constitution because it lacked a bill of rights that would safeguard individual liberties.)

Among her notable works of poetry, satire, and scholarly historical research, she is also responsible for widely-distributed persuasive essays including a pamphlet** that planted the seed for what would later become our Bill of Rights.

She later wrote:

“The United States form a young republic, a confederacy [alliance] which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence.”

**NOTE:

‘Writing as “A Columbian Patriot,” she argued that the Constitution, which lacked a bill of rights, undermined several liberties key to republican thought: freedom of the press, prohibition of warrantless searches and seizures, civil trials by jury, freedom from military oppression, annual elections, rotation of elected officials (“term limits” in today’s parlance), direct access to representatives, explicit repudiation of aristocratic rule, and local control over taxation. Not knowing the “Columbian Patriot” was a woman, Antifederalists in the key battleground state of New York printed and distributed 1,700 copies of Warren’s Columbian Patriot pamphlet to counter the 500 printed copies of the now-famous Federalist Papers.’

[Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “Conscience of the Revolution: The Story of Mercy Otis Warren,” American History Magazine. 4/5/2016; retrieved online 7/4/19.]