The James Otis Tricentennial

This sculpture of Otis by Thomas Crawford, brother-in-law of

Born 300 years ago today, American patriot James Otis, Jr. (1725-1783).

Otis was an important figure of the pre-Revolutionary period, and the oldest of several Otis siblings who were devoted to the cause. Their father Col. James Otis Sr. (1702-1778) was an important lawyer and judge in Colonial Massachusetts, at one time serving as Attorney General. Otis, Jr. followed in his footsteps, becoming one of the top lawyers in Boston by the late 1750s. He came to prominence in 1761 in arguing against the Crown’s “writs of assistance”, which gave officials license to search private property without cause. His five hour speech dazzled both Samuel Adams and John Adams, and was said to have been a crucial moment in crystalizing public sentiment in the direction of Independence. He is also said to have been responsible for devising the principal “taxation without representation is tyranny”, later immortalized by Patrick Henry in Virginia. Otis published four important pamphlets that energized the public between 1762 and 1764. In addition to the Adamses, he was also a correspondent of Thomas Paine.

By the late 1760s, Otis was slipping, his erratic behavior attributed to both alcoholism and mental illness. In 1769, a tax collector for the Crown brained him with a cane in a coffee house, which was said to have exacerbated the situation. He rapidly fell out of the first ranks of Revolutionary leaders, though his famous speech was published in 1773, a crucial time in the period leading to the War for Independence.

Otis sat out the Revolution at the homes of friends, and died in a most startling way in the spring of 1783. He went to the doorway to watch an electrical storm and was struck by lightning. A more fitting end, one would have thought, for Benjamin Franklin. Hostilities had only recently ceased at the time of Otis’s death, though the Treaty of Paris would not be signed until September 3.

Interestingly, Otis’ wife and eldest daughter were Tories. The younger daughter was married to the son and namesake of Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln.

Otis’ siblings all figure in Revolutionary history. The least notable, Joseph Otis (1726-1810) was a lawyer and brigadier general in the Massachusetts militia, later receiving as a sinecure the job of customs inspector of Barnstable, which he considered an indignity given his family’s prominence. Sister Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) was an important American literary figure and wife of Patriot Leader James Warren (1726-1808). She has her own post here. Another sister, Mary Otis Gray (1730-1763) died before the Revolution. Her husband John Gray owned the ropewalks that became the site of early pre-Revolutionary skirmishes, including the Boston Massacre. The youngest sibling, Samuel Otis (1740-1814) was arguably the most notable in terms of forming the new nation. He was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and to the Congress of the Confederation, as well as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and, for 25 years, the first Secretary to the United States Senate.

As for James Otis, you may have heard that name in an entirely different context. It was also the pen name of the gent who wrote Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with the Circus.