Pane of Window Glass

Massachusetts, 1700s
Glass
Collection of Edmund Quincy 

This cracked pane of glass is originally from the monitor at the top of Quincy House, which in the eighteenth century afforded a clear view of Boston Harbor. By its history, Colonel Josiah Quincy spent hours there watching troop movements during the American Revolution. On October 10, 1775, he scratched “Governor Gage sail’d for England with a fair wind” onto the glass, referring to General Thomas Gage’s departure to England after the British defeat at the Battle of Bunker Hill.