The Green Bag

VOL. XX.

No. i

BOSTON

JANUARY, 1908

ROYALL TYLER BY RUSSELL W. TAFT LATE in the year 1790 Royall Tyler, the subject of this sketch, removed from Boston to Guilford, the next to the easterly of the southernmost tier of towns in Ver mont, and bounded on the south by Massa chusetts. Vermont was then, and had been for some twelve years prior thereto, operat ing as a strictly "non-union" common wealth; she was not admitted to the Union until 1791. The subject of our sketch was christened William Clarke Tyler, but, at the request of his mother, he had his name changed, by act of the General Court of Massachusetts, to Royall, the name borne by his father, then deceased. The latter was a man of some importance in Colonial times; he was a graduate of Harvard, held many positions of responsibility and trust, and was a member of the King's Council from 1765 until his death in 1771. Royall, his second son, was born near the site of Faneuil Hall market, in Boston, on July 18, 1757. He entered Harvard at the age of fourteen, graduating as valedictorian in 1776, and at the same time Yale College paid him the unusual compliment of con ferring upon him a like degree in honorarium. Among his classmates were Christopher Gore, Governor and United States senator from Massachusetts, and Chief Justices Sewall and Thacher. He at once began the study of the law with Francis Dana of Cambridge, but his studies were interrupted by a campaign of active service in the war as aide-de-camp on the staff of General Sullivan, during the latter's Rhode Island operations in 1778. In 1779 Tyler was admitted to the Bar and opened an office in Falmouth (now

Portland) Maine, business in Boston being at a standstill by reason of British occupa tion. In a sketch of the early Bar of Maine it is said of him, "He was a fine scholar and an accomplished man." He returned to Boston in 1781 and resided for two years in Braintree, now Quincy, thence removing to the city, where he practised for several years. During Shays' rebellion, in 1786-7, Tyler served as aide-de-camp on the staff of General Benjamin Lincoln, and in this capacity was sent by Governor Bowdoin of Massachusetts to Vermont, to make arrange ments for the apprehension and delivery of certain of Shays' fugitive adherents who had fled to that jurisdiction. Minot's History of the Insurrection (Boston, 1810), thus touches upon the matter: "With respect to that Government (Ver mont), the Legislature had been officially informed, that on the I3th of February, (1787), General Lincoln dispatched Royall Tyler, Esq., one of his Aides-de-Camp, to request their assistance in apprehending the rebel ring-leaders: That, upon his com municating his instructions and request in writing, the subject of them was put in Committee, and a report made for request ing the Governor, (Thomas Chittenden,) to issue his proclamation, enjoining it upon their citizens not to harbor the leaders or abettors of the rebels : That this report was accepted by their lower House, and sent up to their Council, where there also appeared eight or nine assistants (councillors,) in favor of it: That it would of course have passed there, but for the Governor's objec tions, which were at first founded upon his