The Byles Family

— There are some still living in Boston who have vivid remembrances of the personality of the Misses Byles, mentioned by a Contributor at the last meeting of the Club ; for with their quaint, old-fashioned garb, and their somewhat severe and tart features and look, they would be likely to leave an impression on one who might see them at their doorway or gazing from their windows. Their house, after a portion of it had been cut away to widen the street, presented a mutilated appearance, as it stood upon what is now the site of the Children’s Mission on Tremont Street. As age grew upon them, they seemed to belong to a past period, and they emphasized their antiquity by a general contemptuousness of the innovations and habits of the new generation ; retaining without change the old furnishing and adornments of their home, which doubtless would prove profitable articles to a dealer in such relics. Though their father and a brother had the repute of learning and scholarship, the daughters do not appear to have caught much of such attainments. Certainly they are not remembered as are the contemporaries of their later years, also maiden daughters of a famous New England minister, Dr. David Osgood, of Medford. The Misses Mary and Lucy Osgood, who lingered on the stage till quite recently, were Hebraists and German scholars, capable of discussing and arguing upon the merits of the new schools of Transcendentalism and Agnosticism of our times.

Dr. Byles was constant through his whole life to the Puritanical and Congregational principles held by his ancestors, the Cottons and the Mathers. At the invitation of the Old Colony Club he wrote a Hymn, sung at their commemoration of the Pilgrim landing at Plymouth, December 22, 1772. His Toryism previous to and during the Revolutionary War was a matter of deep conviction with him. Many of his contemporaries were sympathizers in his views, though not so bold as he in utterance. He did not believe that the grievances of which the patriots complained justified the passions which prevailed in the community, and regretted the mobs and riots of the time, which in their destructive and insulting spirit led to the sending of British troops to the town to prevent the wrecking of the property and violence to the persons of Crown officials, culminating in the socalled Boston Massacre. Nor could he be persuaded that the “rebels,” as he viewed them, could cope with the power of Britain. But from principle and discretion he abstained strictly from all reference to politics in his pulpit. When asked why he did not introduce politics into his sermons, he replied that it was because his people seemed to know more about politics than he did. But in conversation, and in outside discussion with those who challenged him, he allowed full vent to his spirit of raillery and sarcasm against the rebels. He stuck by his post during the siege of Boston, and gave aid and countenance to the British officers. His Toryism, however, did not save his meeting-house from desecration, as the troops used it for a barracks and defiled it. He was an ardent lover of monarchy and of royalty. One of the treasures of his library, which he highly valued, was a French Bible with a Commentary in folio, which had been presented by Queen Anne to the French Protestant congregation for use in their meeting-house in School Street.

The Misses Byles must have found more and fuller sympathy than even with their father in a brother of theirs who bore his name, and whose loyalty took in not only the English monarch, but also the English Church. Mather Byles, Jr., graduating from Harvard College in 1751, twenty-six years after his father, was ordained as a Congregational minister in New London, Conn., in 1757, his father preaching the sermon on the occasion. The son was one of several of the ministers of Connecticut who entered the Episcopal Church, and in 1768 he was inducted as minister of Christ Church, Boston. The troubles of the Revolution of course marked with a stigma all who prayed publicly for the king. He found his way to Halifax in 1776, and served as rector to a church in St. John, N. B., till his death in 1814. His surviving sisters had his memory of double loyalty to comfort them, and descendants of his to whom they might leave their little property, thus rescuing it from the hands of rebels. One — if not more — of those descendants, however, has found his way back to rebeldom, and has brought with him the old family Bible. Mather Byles, Sr., received the degree of D. D. from Aberdeen. The son received the same from Oxford.