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  William Shirley (1694-1771) was born in London where he studied to be a lawyer. He moved his family to Massachusetts in 1731 to practice as a lawyer. He was appointed Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1741-1756 by King George II. He was a firm believer in the American colonies and proposed that the colonies be given representation in Parliament. While governor, Shirley launched a successful expedition in 1745 to capture the French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Ten years later, on the death of General Braddock in the French and Indian Wars, Shirley became Commander in Chief of the British Forces in North America. With his war profits from the capture of Louisbourg, Shirley bought 33 acres in Roxbury in 1746, and the following year built a mansion on a hill that he called Shirley Place. The house was used primarily in the warmer months as Shirley still occupied Province House in Boston for his official duties. After further service as Governor of the Bahamas, Shirley returned to live out his days with his daughter and her husband at Shirley Place, where he died in 1771.  Shirley's son-in-law acquired Shirley Place in 1763 when Shirley, then Governor of the Bahamas, was recuperating from an illness in Boston. Hutchinson retained his imposing mansion on Dock Square in Boston, so again Shirley Place was used as a summer place. Hutchinson was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, and one of Boston's richest men. He was also a target of Boston's Sons of Liberty. He died in 1775 after hostilities had broken out. His wife fled to England via Nova Scotia with other loyalists who left Boston in March 1776.  Shirley Place was abandoned, and soon occupied by Colonel Asa Whitcomb's Massachusetts Sixth Foot Regiment in November 1775. Shirley Place lay on the front lines of the Siege of Boston. The Massachusetts Committee on Absentee Estates officially seized it as Loyalist property in 1778. The house was then unoccupied until purchased in 1782 by John Read.  Read was a tanner in Roxbury but made his money through land speculation in Maine. He repaired the neglected mansion, then arranged to sell it at a handsome profit.  Madame de Fitz Patrice, widow of a French planter, fled the slave revolt in St Domingue, now Haiti. Her relationship with du Buc, who helped her finance the house is unclear. Du Buc was a wealthy planter on St. Domingue and Martinique, and at one time was councilor to Louis XVI. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and wrote tracts in favor of free trade that were found in the libraries of Washington and Jefferson. Both Mme de Fitz Patrice and du Buc disappeared from Boston after Louis XVI was guillotined in Paris.  A wealthy merchant and wharfinger at Long Wharf in Boston, Giles was also a real estate speculator and owned considerable property in Boston, Roxbury and Charlestown. He maintained his mansion in Charlestown while he owned Shirley Place, so it may have continued to be used as a summer residence. Roxbury was a fashionable summering place for Federal Bostonians.    James Magee was an Irish-born seaman who commanded a privateer during the Revolution, then was captain of the ship "Astrea" on the voyage to Canton in 1789 that opened China for trade with the new Republic. He then became a merchant in the lucrative China trade. Magee lived in the house with his wife and nine children. His wife remained in the house after his death in 1801.  Eustis was a medical student of Dr. Joseph Warren, and is said to have driven his mentor to Bunker Hill in 1775 where Warren died in the Battle. Eustis served as a surgeon in  the
Revolutionary War and thereafter mixed public service with occasional
practice as a physician. He served several terms in Congress and became
Secretary of War under James Madison. He was blamed by some for America's
lack of preparation in the War of 1812 when the new capital, Washington,
was burned by the British. He and his wife then were sent to the Kingdom
of Holland with Eustis serving as ambassador from 1815 to 1818. On his
return, he served two more terms in Congress, then won the hotly contested
gubernatorial contest of 1823 to become the first Democratic-Republican
governor of Massachusetts.
William and Caroline Eustis were known as particularly fine hosts, and entertained Lafayette in 1824 during his triumphal return to America. Eustis died in office soon after his second term began. Caroline, some 27 years his junior, continued living in Shirley Place until her death in 1865. Madam Eustis (as she chose to be called) was said to have maintained Shirley Place much as it had been during her husband's lifetime. She had no children, and the estate passed to distant relatives in New Orleans. The contents of the house were auctioned off immediately. In 1867, in anticipation of Roxbury's annexation into Boston in 1868, the remaining acreage was subdivided in 53 lots and sold at auction. The mansion was sold with the stipulation that it be moved about 60 feet in order to make way for Shirley Street. By 1886, the house was occupied by more than a dozen tenants, and in 1897 was said to have housed 10 families. The house deteriorated and was abandoned in 1911.  The Association was founded specifically to save the house, and purchased it in 1913. Initially it was used for storage by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Just before World War II, there was discussion of moving the house again to the Fenway or Jamaica Pond. In 1955, there was some effort to have the house become the sitting governor's mansion, an idea rejected by Governor Foster Furcolo. Finally in the 1980's, funds were raised and restoration begun. The house was opened to the public in 1991. |