Dawes was born in
Boston. Prior to the Revolution, he attended a regular school and worked as a
mechanic. He ardently supported the
Whigs, gaining infamy among
Royalists; his house was plundered by the British when they withdrew from Boston in 1776. Later, he became active in politics, lived in a roomy house on Purchase Street beside
John Adams, and worked as an
architect and builder designing many notable buildings in Boston, including the
Brattle Street Church and repairs and/or modifications on the
Old State House in about 1772.[4][5][6]
Dawes, a member of the prominent Dawes family of Massachusetts Bay, was a cousin of the April 1775 Whig patriot
William Dawes. He married Hannah Blake on July 1, 1752. Their son Thomas Dawes (July 8, 1757 – July 21, 1825) was a jurist and an alumnus of
Harvard University, graduating in 1777, served in the Massachusetts ratifying convention for the
United States Constitution in 1787-1788, and served in the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1792 to 1802; he married Margaret Greenleaf.[12]
Hollis Hall, Harvard University
Harvard Hall, Harvard University
Stoughton Hall
References
^Dawes, Thomas. An Oration Delivered March 5, 1781 at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, to Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770, printed by Thomas and John Fleet, Boston, 1781.
^Dawes, Thomas. An Oration, Delivered July 4, 1787, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, printed by Samuel Hall, Boston, 1787.
^Eckley, Joseph. "Obituary: Sketch of the Character of the Late Hon. Thomas Dawes, Esq.," 1809, Boston Athenaeum Library, Tracts B438, B1213.
^Holland, Henry W. William Dawes and his Ride with Paul Revere, p. 60, John Wilson & Son, Boston, Massachusetts, 1878.
^Dawes, C. Burr. William Dawes: First Rider for Revolution, pp. 60, 70, Historic Gardens Press, Dawes Arboretum, Newark, Ohio, 1976.
^Moore, George Henry. Prytaneum Bostoniense: Notes on the History of the Old State House, pp. 27-28, Upham & Co., Boston, Massachusetts, 1885.
^Cummings, Abbott Lowell. "A Recently Discovered Engraving of the Old State House in Boston," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2017. (
https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/774) Retrieved August 2018.
^Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, pp. 171-2, 176, 178, 186, 201, Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, 2010.
ISBN978-0-684-86854-7.