Ezekiel Goldthwait was a wealthy businessman and landowner in colonial Boston, Massachusetts. He was one of the foremost citizens and prominent in the town's affairs in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Born in the North End of Boston to a merchant family originally from Salem, Massachusetts, Goldthwait was quite prosperous. He lived on Hanover Street in a "Mansion House." He also owned houses on State Street and Ann Street, a country estate in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a chaise, considerable china, silver, glassware and furniture, over 30 paintings/drawings, several hundred books and pamphlets, and a gold watch. is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The museum also has a portrait by Copley of Mrs. Ezekiel Goldthwait in its collection. Goldthwait held a number of positions of trust. He served as executor of the wills of numerous prominent Massachusetts citizens of the time, including Governor William Dummer. He served on a committee relating to the British occupation of Boston, as well as many other colonial committees, and was appointed to meet with the governor on business for the town of Boston. He served as Town Clerk of Boston for 20 years. He was Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas and Clerk of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, and was Register of Deeds for Suffolk County for 30 years. At various times he also held the posts of Selectman, Town Auditor, and Town Meeting Moderator. In 1771, he was challenged by Samuel Adams for the position of Register of Deeds, but beat Adams in the election by a margin of over two-to-one. In 1769, John Adams and Goldthwait were on good terms. Adams recorded in his diary that Goldthwait had invited Adams "to a genteel dinner of fish, bacon, peas, and incomparable Madeira under the shady trees with half a dozen as clever fellows as ever were born." However, after Goldthwait defeated Adams's cousin, Samuel Adams, in the election of 1771, John Adams's diary entries regarding Goldthwait were quite uncomplimentary. Part of this may have been personal, but part of it may simply be a reflection of the hardening of divisions in political opinion in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Goldthwait's views were generally those of a loyalist, feeling that despite the grievances of the colonists, a break with England would be a mistake. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord started the Revolutionary War, the Massachusetts militia laid siege to Boston, trapping the British Army and the citizens of the city inside. When the Royal Navy evacuated the British Army 11 months later, it took thousands of loyalists with it to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Goldthwait, though, decided to stay in Boston. However, he was not condemned as a loyalist, and his valuable properties in Boston and country estate in Roxbury, Massachusetts were not seized by the revolutionary government.
A Loyalist Who Helped Start a Revolution
Ezekiel Goldthwait definitely had loyalist feelings by 1774. He was one of the “Addressors” of Governor Thomas Hutchinson when Hutchinson was recalled to England. Goldthwait and other influential Bostonians wrote a very kind letter to Hutchinson, thanking him for his service as governor and wishing him well. However, a decade and a half before, Goldthwait and a group of other businessmen had been appalled at the writs of assistance that the crown had started issuing to clamp down on colonial smuggling. Writs of assistance were essentially search warrants without any limits. They authorized customs officials to go anywhere, at any time. They required local sheriffs, and even local citizens, to assist in breaking into colonists’ houses or lend whatever assistance customs officials desired. In 1761, Goldthwait and a group of other outraged Boston businessmen engaged lawyer James Otis, Jr. to challenge the writs of assistance in court. Otis gave the speech of his life, making references to the Magna Carta, classical allusions, natural law, and the colonists’ “rights as Englishmen.” The court ruled against Goldthwait and the other merchants. However, the case lit the fire that became the American Revolution. Otis’s arguments were published in the colonies, and stirred widespread support for colonial rights. A young lawyer, John Adams, was in the packed courtroom, and was moved by Otis’s performance and legal arguments. Adams later said that “Then and there the child Independence was born.”
