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Robert Treat Paine Papers

Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2

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Epitaph of Elizabeth Poole

July 1770

From Abigail Tailor

5 September 1770
From John Singleton Copley
Copley, John Singleton RTP
Boston Augst. 14. 1770 Sir,

I1 learn from Mr. Quincy you where furnished with Mr. Banisters will & the other papers necessary to give you a clear Idea of the case depending between Mr. Banister & myself.2 I now request you will prepare yourself to speak to the case & leave nothing undone to secure a474decision in my favour your acting for me in the same maner as if your own interest was at stake will greatly Oblige your most Obet. Humble Sert.,

JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY

RC (Dana Family Papers IV, Massachusetts Historical Society); addressed: "For Robt. T. Paine Esqr. in Taunton. pr. favour Capt. Cobb"; endorsed by RTP; in another hand, the following is written on the verso, and later cancelled: "This letter subscribed by me, in presence of Stephen Gorham & James Savage, Esquires, is one of the letters referred to in my deposition taken before them the sixth of October."

1.

John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), the artist, was a native of Boston. His fame as a portraitist began with the London exhibition in 1766 of "The Boy with the Squirrel," a portrait of his half-brother Henry Pelham. He was painting in New York in 1771 and in 1774 removed to England (DAB).

 2.

The case of Banister v. Coply concerned a challenged title to Copley's estate on Beacon Hill in Boston. It was a successor case to Banister v. Henderson and Banister v. Cunningham, both of which are treated in Quincy, Reports of Cases, 119-159.

RTP was brought into the case to replace James Otis, Jr., whose ill-health already impaired his legal performance. The co-counsels were James Putnam, Josiah Quincy, and Samuel Quincy. The case was carried by demurrer from the Inferior Court of Suffolk County (Apr. 1769) to the Superior Court (Feb. 1772), where judgment was made for the defendant. See Letters & Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, 1739–1776 . Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 71 (Boston, 1914), 131 passim. RTP's case notes and minutes are among his Papers at the MHS.

Copley sold the land in 1796 to the Mount Vernon Proprietors, of which Jonathan Mason and Harrison Gray Otis were the two chief shareholders. In 1809 the title was again challenged, this time by the Cunningham heirs, and at that time RTP provided a deposition about the earlier history of the case (Manuscript collections, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston). For a discussion of the disputed title, see the articles by "Gleaner" [Nathaniel I. Bowditch], published in The Fifth Report of the Boston Records Commissioners, 1880 (rev. ed. Boston, 1887), 185–203.