ulty, to say nothing of the “scholars,” actually miss the more social conditions of the meeting-house, where the pretty faces of the village belles and the eccentricities of the local worthies relieved to some extent the monotony of exegesis and homiletic? Or was the maintenance of a now practically superfluous building more than Mr. Treasurer cared to assume? It is hard to say; but the surprising fact remains that when the new Harvard Hall was finished in 1766 to replace the old one burned two years before, the ancient “intramural” system was resumed, the west room on the ground floor was set apart as a “new chapel,” and the “old chapel,” as it had already become—so short is collegiate memory!—was abandoned.
From this date Samuel Holden’s memorial entered upon a series of metamorphoses that would have puzzled Ovid himself. The first was that of a legislative chamber. In November of 1768 the advance detachments of British troops marched up Long Wharf, and Boston, to its intense disgust and apprehension, became a garrison town. No portion of the community was more perturbed than the members of the Great and General Court, when they assembled as usual on the last day of the following May. They promptly declared that they could not deliberate under virtual duress, and petitioned Sir Francis Bernard, the Royal Governor, to remove the
