Thomas Oliver (Lieutenant Governor)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Oliver (January 5, 1733 - November 29, 1815) was the last Royal Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts.
He was graduated from Harvard in 1753, and resided at 33 Elmwood Avenue, Cambridge. He took little part in public affairs until, upon the death of Andrew Oliver, he was appointed by the King at the suggestion of Thomas Hutchinson, who believed him to be a brother of Oliver.
A mob of five thousand angry citizens forced him to resign on September 2, 1774. He fled to Boston, remaining there for a year. When the British troops sailed to Halifax in March of 1776, Oliver went with them, going on to England. He was proscribed under the Massachusetts Banishment Act in 1778, and his estate confiscated.
Afterwards the Continental Army used his house, known as Elmwood, as a hospital. It was then sold at auction, becoming first the property of Arthur Cabot, then of Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and then Rev. Charles Lowell, who passed it on to his son, James Russell Lowell.
 |
This article about a Massachusetts politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
