Hancock's haunt

When I was a Ghost City Tours tour guide, I'd point out Boston's sole surviving ghost of John Hancock, a little-known landmark sequestered in the shadows of the city's oldest street pattern, the Blackstone Block, as the sole remnant of that pattern's period in history. The Ebenezer Hancock House, which John built in 1767 as the home and office of his younger brother, Deputy Paymaster-General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, has an angular shape unusual for its time, being built within the confines of the skew lanes and cowpaths that defined it. Since it changed hands last month and has an iffy future, perhaps it's time to revisit its architecture, history and backstory.

What makes us stop and stare at it the most is that it thinks outside the box, having no right-angled corners – as well as a cropped corner, which John may have arranged to bring his brother more sunlight or to allow freer passage of cows and horses there. Its iron S-ties secured its structure at another corner, and the stringcourses in its Flemish-bond brickwork defined its floors. Its larger first-floor windows likely illuminated Ebenezer's disbursements of payments to troops during the Revolutionary War. But despite its less-than-erudite form (compared to brother John's manor, which I'll go into later), it can proudly boast that George Washington Slept Here when it was an inn later on, as well as Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1778, the house stored a loan of 2 million French silver crowns from Louis XIV of France, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin as Minister to France and brought into Boston by Admiral Charles Henri Hector, Comte d'Estaing, as back payment to Washington's Eastern Continental Army. In 1798, Benjamin Fuller opened America's longest continually operating shoestore on the first floor.

William H. Learnard took over Fuller's shoestore in 1821, and ran it until 1886, but it miraculously remained in the building as a shoestore until 1963, as other enterprises in the house and the Blackstone Block came and went over the years, including the Marshall House restaurant, inn and tavern, which operated mainly in the 1890s and the 1910s.

By the early 1970s, the East India Trading Co. antique and souvenir shop was operating in that space. Over the years the house fell into disrepair, even though most of the original interior details remained amazingly intact, probably due to underutilization. I remember walking past it with my father around that time and noticing that its storefront was smashed; my father suspected a break-in. Later the house was "left vacant following a serious car accident in the 1970s, which nearly destroyed the storefront at the corner of the building,” wrote city archaeologist Joseph M. Bagley in Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them. Swartz & Swartz came to the rescue, acquiring it as their law office in 1974 and restoring it to its colonial condition, preserving as much interior detail as possible.

And look at what they did...

Of course, their intricate preservation of all those rooms in their original dimensions, materials and structural elements, from hand-hewn beams to brick walls to wrought-iron cauldrons and andirons, entailed considerable sacrifice of valuable space to conduct legal business. So Swartz & Swartz built an addition on the back in the parking area, careful to hide it from the view of Freedom Trail tourists and to distinguish its modern architectural style from the original. 

Incidentally, that parking area once contained a row of houses John Hancock had built on spec to abut Ebenezer's digs. Sadly, they did not survive past the 1950s, leaving the Ebenezer Hancock House as a "holdout" from Boston's Colonial-Revolutionary era:

Hancock Manor (1737-1863), Boston. Photo c.1859.

Engraving of Hancock Manor, Alexander Jackson Davis & Thomas Illman, 1832.

They don't compare in social standing, do they? More than a holdout, the Ebenezer Hancock House is the sole surviving building in Boston associated with its favorite son, due to not only the razing of his spec rowhouses but also the leveling of his own manor, which stood on Beacon Hill on Beacon Street by the site of the Massachusetts State House from 1737 to 1863.

View of Hancock Manor from the Boston Common by Christian Remick, 1768.

Built by Joshua Blanchard for John's merchant uncle Thomas Hancock and later willed to John, this brown Braintree granite and Connecticut sandstone manse was bedecked with corner quoins, a gambrel roof balustrade, and a Juliet balcony from a French window capped with baroque volutes, and it commanded a peerless view of the Boston Common's pastureland.

A view of Hancock Manor and the Boston Neck, Richard Williams, 1775.

As these drawings show, Hancock Manor had the advantage of being built on many acres of rural virgin land. This afforded it a full pasture and garden and a breathtaking view of the Boston Common that extended into the Boston Neck, which attached the town to the mainland by a narrow isthmus at the time, making John Hancock feel like master of all he surveyed. By contrast, the Ebenezer Hancock House had the disadvantage of having to conform to densely settled, firmly established urban street patterns, which hemmed it in considerably.

Hancock Manor staircase. Wood engraving from Ballou’s Pictorial
Drawing-Room Companion, March 26, 1859. Courtesy Bostonian Society.

Hancock Manor's lavish interior began with a paneled parlor with a bridal stair of carved twisted balusters leading up to a landing with a circular-headed window overlooking the garden of ornamental flower-beds, fruit-bearing box trees, mulberry trees and other exotic plantings. "As you entered the governor's mansion, to the right was the drawing or reception room, with furniture of bird's-eye maple covered with rich damask. Out of this opened the dining-hall [...] in which Hancock gave the famous breakfast to Admiral D'Estaing and his officers," reported Eliza G. Gardner, who lived in the Manor for many years.

John Hancock House, painting by Charles Furneaux, c.1859.

The house was occupied by Lt.-Gen. Hugh Percy during the British Army's 1775-1776 Siege of Boston, and then Gen. Henry Clinton set up his headquarters there, all while Hancock was in Philadelphia as President of the Second Continental Congress, and shortly before he inscribed his venerable "John Hancock" on the Declaration of Independence. After the Second Treaty of Paris concluding the Revolutionary War in 1783, Hancock entertained luxuriantly at his Manor, attracting the likes of le Comte d'Estaing, le Marquis de Lafayette, and, yes, George Washington, and Hancock lived there as the first and third Governors of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. On his death bed he dictated his will to give his home to the Commonwealth but died before the will could be finalized in writing.

Protest sign calling for the preservation of Hancock Manor. Courtesy of Historic New England.

Following many failed attempts to preserve Hancock Manor – ultimately because the Legislature were too preoccupied with Civil War matters to agree upon the terms of acquiring the house – it was sold at public auction for $230 on June 16, 1863, and demolished, despite a rallying cry to preserve this icon of history. But its demise sparked one of the first historic preservation movements, which led to the salvation of Boston's Old South Meeting House (1729) and Old State House (1711).

What replaced Hancock Manor were these very erudite, elegant townhouses, developed by prosperous merchants James Madison Beebe and Gardner Brewer, from plans by Gridley James Fox Bryant, architect of Boston's Old City Hall and Charles Street Jail. These bowfront rowhouses boasted rare examples of exterior paneling, festoons and rustication, bracketed lintels, and a rare Eastlake interior of carved mahogany, outwardly expressing the wealth and ambition of their developers and the upscale clientele they were catering to.

Ultimately, we lost John Hancock's historical treasure for nothing, for those fancy rowhouses were removed for the construction of the State House's marble wings in 1916, leaving but a ghost of what once stood there and should still be standing there today, as well as a plaque marking its sad site:

Ebenezer Hancock House at night. Photo by Ryoko Sha.

So Ebenezer Hancock's old haunts are all the architecture we have left to memorialize John Hancock's immeasurable legacy in the growth of our city, the founding of our Commonwealth, and the declaration of our independence as a nation. Now that the house is under new ownership, it'll be interesting to find out what ghost will haunt it now, and how well it'll preserve the ghosts of the past...

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

Sources:

"Brewer and Beebe Townhouses // 1863-1917," Buildings of New England, July 17, 2024, https://buildingsofnewengland.com/2024/07/17/brewer-beebe-townhouses-1863-1917/

"Ebenezer Hancock House," Wikipedia, last edited on 4 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Hancock_House

Floyd, Margaret Henderson, "Measured Drawings of the Hancock House by John Hubbard Sturgis: A Legacy to the Colonial Revival," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 51: Architecture in Colonial Massachusetts, https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1965

"Hancock Manor," Wikipedia, last edited on 13 July 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_Manor

Killen, Dave, "Ebenezer Hancock House, 10 Marshall Street," LandVest, 2026, https://landvest.com/listing/MA4941/10-marshall-street-boston-ma-02108/

Lankston, Charlie, "Founding Father John Hancock’s Boston Home Is on the Market for First Time in Half a Century—More Than 250 Years After It Was Built," realtor.com, July 17, 2025, https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/john-hancock-founding-father-home-boston-sale/

Marian, Sara, and Clio Admin., "Ebenezer Hancock House," Clio: Your Guide to History, June 3, 2022, accessed October 12, 2026, https://theclio.com/entry/22660

McDonald, Danny, "For sale: the only house left in downtown Boston that was built in the run-up to the American Revolution," The Boston Globe, updated July 13, 2025, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/13/metro/for-sale-house-boston-american-revolution/?event=event12

Rosen, Andy, "The Massachusetts governor’s mansion that might have been," The Boston Globe, November 27, 2014, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/27/the-massachusetts-governor-mansion-that-might-have-been/B06ZY75VkWCVkjnVbVGjbO/story.html

Smith, Dana, "John Hancock House, a historic Georgian estate in Boston, MA," Boston Mass, Vintage, Facebook, May 25, 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/513744017561133/posts/1167845008817694/

Strahan, Derek, "Ebenezer Hancock House, Boston," Lost New England, August 14, 2014, https://lostnewengland.com/2014/08/ebenezer-hancock-house-boston/

Strahan, Derek, "John Hancock House, Boston," Lost New England, October 23, 2017, https://lostnewengland.com/2017/10/john-hancock-house-boston/

"The John Hancock House, Boston, Mass., Historic New England, 2008, https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/gusn/103657

"Tiny Story: Ebenezer Hancock House," Boston Preservation Alliance, February 6, 2025, https://www.bostonpreservation.org/news-item/tiny-story-ebenezer-hancock-house

A court of inquiry

For most Bostonians and visitors, this cavernous cut-through between State Street and Faneuil Hall Marketplace wedged in the shadows of two overbearing buildings is just that—a cavernous cut-through between State Street and Faneuil Hall Marketplace wedged in the shadows of two overbearing buildings.

But if we weren't so rushed to make our next business meeting, gung-ho to grab those takeout French fries, impatient to indulge in that Starbucks latte, or obsessed with social distancing in the age of COVID-19, we might well stop and inquire about this pedestrian path's historic origins. 

Given the remnants of colonial Boston's erratic network of winding and narrow lanes and alleys in places like the Blackstone Block near Faneuil Hall, Spring Lane in Downtown Crossing, Boylston Place in the Theater District, and the North End, our inquiry might revolve around the kind of stomping ground this lane was in premodern times, and the architectural atmosphere it may have led people to or through back in the day.

Corn Court, late 19th century. (All images courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)

The path marks the approximate site of Corn Court, a cobblestoned lane that meandered from Dock Square to Merchants Row in an obtuse zigzag pattern. It typified the way Boston's streets fell in line according to where buildings were placed in colonial times, with no formal city planning to lay out orderly grids and develop real estate along the template the streets had established. 

These photos depict the two approaches to the court, which was built c.1650 for carrying goods from the docks at the harbor's edge Faneuil Hall was later built on. At first unnamed, the lane was simply called "a wheelbarrow-way of five full feet" in 1670, as well as the "alley that leads from the house of James Oliver towards the dock." 

(James Oliver [1617-1682] was a merchant who rose to captain of the Boston Artillery Company and then Boston's militia and later became a town selectman. In 1675, he commanded Narragansett Campaign troops in the Great Swamp Fight in King Philip's War against the Narragansett tribe in Rhode Island.)

The lane was named Corn Court in 1708 for a common New England crop often exported from Boston Harbor. Expanded into Noyes Alley in 1796, it became best known as the approach to the Hancock House, later the Hancock Tavern (visible in both photos), an inn with rooms to let built between 1807 and 1812 in brick with a granite post-and-lintel entrance level and a clapboard rear wall (presumably to save money). It was carefully sited so its clapboard elevation was hidden from view and its more orderly brick/granite faces were visible from the court's main entry from Dock Square, as an invitation for merchants, politicians and others to quaff an ale, port or sherry over the latest scuttlebutt.

Hancock House, mid-to-late 19th century.

Not as strictly symmetrical as most other Federal-style structures, the Hancock House/Tavern had a corner bay that was spaced furthest apart from the other windows to allow more wall area, which possibly indicated larger interior spaces for dining and tea rooms above. This lopsided fenestration also emphasized the tavern's wide corner entrance and gave it a cleaner, more solid "wall" look from its Dock Square approach when the neighboring left-hand building concealed its other windows as one entered the court from Dock Square.

Hancock Tavern, c.1890 (colorized). Note the Boston Stock Exchange (1889-1891,
Peabody & Stearns, now Exchange Place and The Boston Globe offices) in the background.

By the 1880s, the Hancock Tavern had become the stuff of legend. Its signs and menus spun the yarn that it was established in 1634 (four years after the founding of Boston) as the next phase of a tavern begun by Samuel Coles. Rumors spread that it had hosted John Hancock (hence its name!), future French king Louis-Philippe I when he was in exile during the French Revolution of 1789, French foreign minister Talleyrand, Benjamin Franklin...and, yes, George Washington wined and dined here, they claimed! 

Tea room, Hancock Tavern, c.1895-1900.

Yet another note from the Old-Myths-Die-Hard Department: the Hancock Tavern's owners boasted that this was where the Sons of Liberty met before staging the Boston Tea Party. A menu told this tall tale: “Visit the Historic Tea Room Up Stairs. In this room the ‘Boston Tea Party’ made their plans, and dressed as Mohawk Indians to destroy the tea in Boston harbor, Dec. 16, 1773.”

The Daughters of the American Revolution perpetuated that myth when they convened at the Hancock Tavern in December 1898—dressed as Colonial maids—to celebrate the Tea Party's 125th anniversary. Complementing the occasion was a wall inscription of the illusion, probably placed there by then owner E.B. Wadsworth & Co.: “In this room the Boston tea party made their plans and dressed as Mohawk Indians, and went to Griffin’s (now Liverpool) wharf, where the ships Beaver and Eleanor and Dartmouth lay, and threw overboard 342 chests of tea, Dec. 16, 1773."

Hancock Tavern, 1901.

As the above images of tall office buildings rising behind and around Corn Court and the Hancock Tavern signify, commercial real estate value was on the rise, giving birth to Boston's Financial District and sealing the tavern's fate, despite Wadsworth & Co.'s clear attempt to bump up its visibility in that dark, narrow enclave with signage on the commercial level of the encroaching high-rises.

And well they might. The tavern had gone through a succession of proprietors and had been a gambling den for years when Edward and Lucina Wadsworth acquired it in 1897, engaging in a last-ditch attempt to trumpet its alleged historical connection as well as its array of wines, liquors, cigars, lagers and bass ales. ("Burton Musty" was a brand of ale brewed by J.K. Souther & Sons, a short-lived Boston brewery operating from 1884-1889.)

Site of Corn Court and Hancock Tavern, 1920s.

Upon the tavern's demolition in 1903, all of its myths died with it when City Registrar Edward W. McGlenen confirmed its construction date range and reported that the two-story house it had replaced had received its tavern license in 1790, thus retiring the Hancock's Revolution connection to Boston's folklore annals. McGlenen confirmed that Samuel Coles' 1634 inn had no connection either, thus scuttling the Hancock's boast as "Boston's oldest tavern."

History couldn't save the Hancock, because it had no history to speak of, save for its unusually functionalist take on Federal architecture, its placement in one of Boston's oldest street patterns, and its Beacon Hill-style allure.

But the office building that replaced it carried on Corn's court tradition in some form, forming a central light court to give more sun to more of its offices—an innovation that was to figure prominently in modernist buildings such as Boston City Hall more than half a century later. And the building's granite construction continued a proud Boston building tradition the Hancock Tavern was a part of.

So next time you cut through this little alley on your way to work or to satisfy your comfort-food craving or caffeine fix, be sure to pause and reflect on the history—corny or kosher—that took place on this site. (The new social distancing protocol should make that easier.)

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!