1782 Massachusetts currency bearing the signature of Thomas Dawes.Paul Revere did the engraving and printing of this "rising sun" currency. On theverso is an image of a pine tree, which was engraved (and sometimes printed) by another noted silversmith and engraver of the time,Nathaniel Hurd. Sometimes therecto would be printed by one printer and the verso by another.
Dawes was born inBoston. Prior to the Revolution, he attended a regular school and worked as amechanic. He ardently supported theWhigs, gaining infamy amongRoyalists; 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 besideJohn Adams, and worked as anarchitect and builder designing many notable buildings in Boston, including theBrattle Street Church and repairs and/or modifications on theOld State House in about 1772.[4][5][6]
This elevation of the Old State House was drawn by Thomas Dawes when he was 20 years old, and engraved byNathaniel Hurd. This view shows the building's appearance after having been rebuilt after a fire gutted it in 1747.[7]
Dawes, a member of the prominent Dawes family of Massachusetts Bay, was a cousin of the April 1775 Whig patriotWilliam 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 ofHarvard University, graduating in 1777, served in the Massachusetts ratifying convention for theUnited States Constitution in 1787-1788, and served in theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1792 to 1802; he married Margaret Greenleaf.[12] Through his son Thomas, Thomas Dawes was the 3rd great grandfather of the poetT.S. Eliot.[13]
^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.
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