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.]