USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Boston of to-day; a glance at its history and characteristics: with biographical sketches and portraits of many of its professional and business men, 1892 > Part 11
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The Old West End may be defined as that portion of the city lying between lower Tremont, Court, and Sudbury streets and the Charles river, and all of Beacon hill. That part lying on the westerly slopes of the hill, bounded by Pinckney street on one side and Beacon street on the other, is a region of fine, old- fashioned dwellings, not showy, like many of those of the New West End, or remarkable for architec- tural design, but comfortable, substantial, and with an unmistakable air of gentility. No statelier line of dwellings than that along Beacon street, facing the Common, from the State House to Charles street, is to be seen in the town. Mt. Vernon street, with its mansion-houses set well back from the walk, and its blocks of roomy, old-time dwellings, and Louisburg square, with its old-fashioned fenced enclosure filled with venerable trees, have a quiet dignity which only age and solidity can attain ; Chestnut street, one side lined with lindens, possesses a charm all its own ; and Pinckney street, with its quaint, broken lines as seen from Joy street, where it starts, is one of the most picturesque ways in Boston.
Within this quarter many of the old Boston fami- lies have long resided, and it has been the favorite dwelling-place of literary folk. It was in Chestnut street, in Dr. C. A. Bartol's rare old house, that the famous Radical Club used to meet ; here Richard Henry Dana the elder lived for years, and here he died ; Francis Parkman's winter home is on this street ; Bishop Paddock lived here in the episcopal resi- dence to the end of his long service. On Walnut street, opposite the head of Chestnut, the father of John Lothrop Motley lived when the historian was a boy. On Mt. Vernon street, T. B. Aldrich, the poet, lives, and farther down the way Mrs. Margaret De-
land, the novelist ; here also Miss Anne Whitney has her studio. On Charles street, near by the house which was long the home of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mrs. James T. Fields still resides, and with her Sarah Orne Jewett. On Pinckney street Edwin P. Whipple and George S. Hilliard lived. On Beacon street, between Spruce and Charles streets, the old- fashioned swell-front house No. 55 was the home of William H. Prescott during the last fourteen years of his life. Here he wrote "The Conquest of Peru" and " Philip II.," in that famous working- room above his library, reached by a winding staircase from a secret door hidden behind the books. The noctograph which the historian (for all purposes of work a blind man) used is now in the possession of the Historical Society. In the stately old house on Beacon-hill place, just off from Mt. Vernon street, Dr. T. W. Parsons, the poet, has for several years made his winter home.
The larger part of this territory was at one time included in the estate of John Singleton Copley, the artist. From 1773 to 1795 he owned all the land on the hill bounded by Beacon, Walnut, Mt. Vernon streets, Louisburg square, Pinckney street, and the water, -eleven acres in all of upland and about nine of flats, the greatest private estate in town at that time. This embraced the six acres upon which the house of Blaxton, the original settler, stood, and which he reserved from the sale of all his interests in the peninsula to Winthrop's colony for $30, about four years after they had moved over from Charles- town.1 Blaxton's cottage was on the slope of the' hill, between Charles and Spruce streets ; and north- east of it was his garden, or " orchard," of English roses and fruit trees, within which, not far from the middle of the grass-plot in the present enclosure in Louisburg square, was the "excellent spring of water " of which he " acquainted the governor . . . withal inviting him and soliciting him hither." Copley married a daughter of Richard Clarke, one of the obnoxious tea consignees, and the year before the Revolution went abroad. He finally settled in London and never returned to his native city. In 1795 Gardiner Greene, his son-in-law, sold his estate here to Jonathan Mason and H. G. Otis for $18,450 ; and when Copley realized that the land had greatly increased in value during his absence, he endeavored to annul the bargain, sending his son (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst) here with a power-of- attorney to act for him in the matter. Subsequently a compromise was effected and the conveyance duly sanctioned by his representatives. The new owners and their associates, under the name of the " Mount
1 Sec introductory chapter.
T-OT:40: 201208
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Vernon Proprietors,"1 made additional purchases in the neighborhood, so that their holdings eventu- ally included all the land enclosed within a line starting, as now laid out, from the corner of Charles and Beacon streets, up Beacon to Walnut, through Walnut to Mt. Vernon, thence to Joy (first called Belknap street), through Joy to Pinckney, and down Pinckney to the water and the flats west of the es- tate: The hill was partly cut down, other extensive improvements made, and the proprietors realized handsomely upon their investment. During Copley's ownership this part of the hill was generally called "Copley's hill."
Copley's house, a two-story dwelling of comfort- able proportions, surrounded by fine grounds, and with an extensive stable, stood facing the Common, where the Somerset Club-house now stands. Here he painted some of his best pictures, " probably those of Hancock and Adams among the number," says Drake. For a while after the Revolution General Knox lived in it. The white granite " double-swell " house now occupied by the Somerset (originally having but one bow in the centre, and fronting on a yard or carriage-way), built by David Sears, was one of the earliest erected in this part of Bea- con street after the Mt. Vernon Improvement, and, says Drake, " was long the admiration of the town.". And so it remains to-day, especially in early autumn, when its striking exterior is enriched by the glowing color of the mass of Japanese ivy upon it. The marble panels on the façade were made by Solomon Willard.ª Behind the house, in 1775, was a barn which was converted into a temporary, hospital for the wounded British officers, after the Bunker hill fight. The old-time mansion next be- low the Somerset, whose dignified front and classic portico have long been familiar to Bostonians, was that of Harrison Gray Otis ; and that farther up the hill, on the lower corner of Walnut street, has the distinction of being the first house of brick on the street. It was built in 1804 by John Phillips, for ten years president of the State Senate, the first mayor of the city, and father of Wendell Phillips. Afterwards Lieut .- Governor Winthrop, father of Robert C. Winthrop, lived here from 1825 until his death, in 1841. The famous old Hancock house, the removal of which in 1863 good Bos- tonians will ever deplore, stood back from Beacon street, near what is now Hancock avenue, a fine
example of the rich mansion-house of the colo- nial period, built of stone, with a balcony projected over the generous entrance-door, and approached from the street through the gateway in the old stone wall, by terraces planted with ornamental trees. The site is now marked by a tablet on the fence in front of the brown-stone double house next but one to Hancock avenue.
The older part of the Old West End, on the north-east side of Cambridge street, also contains a number of quaint streets with old-fashioned Bos- ton houses, notably those in the immediate neigh- borhood of the Massachusetts General Hospital, such as McLean, Allen, and Blossom streets. The hospital itself (founded in 1799), or at least the main building, with its imposing portico of Ionic columns and dignified dome, is a fine example of Bulfinch's work. This part, first built (completed in 1821), is constructed of Chelmsford granite, hammered out and fitted for use by convicts of the State prison. In 1846 two extensive wings were added, and other additions and extensions have from time to time been made, until now it is one of the largest in the country. The important pavilion-wards, constructed in 1873-75, bear the names "respectively of Jackson, Warren, Bigelow, and Townsend, in recognition of the services of Drs. James Jackson, J. C. Warren, Jacob Bigelow, and S. D. Townsend. The operating-room of the hospital is distinguished as the place in which one day in October, 1856, the first extensive surgical operation upon a patient under the influence of ether was successfully performed, Dr. W. T. G. Morton di- recting. This the " Ether Monument " on the Public Garden (see next chapter) commemorates, and in the hospital hangs a large painting show- ing portraits of those who were present on the occasion. The hospital grounds are carefully kept, and the walls of the main building are pic- turesquely adorned with ivy. Among the earliest benefactors of the institution was John McLean, for whom the McLean Asylum for the Insane, in Som- erville, a branch of the hospital, is named, and also McLean street ; and prominent among its founders was John Lowell, of the distinguished Lowell family. The old Harvard Medical School building (now oc- cupied by the Harvard Dental School, established in 1868, and furnishing a complete course of instruc- tion in the theory and practice of medicine), on North Grove street, adjoining the hospital grounds, has a ghastly fame as the scene of the murder of Dr. George Parkman by Prof. John White Web- ster, November 30, 1849, whose trial was the most famous criminal case here. "No similar event,"
" The " Mount Vernon Proprietors " were Jonathan Mason and H. G. Otis, each three-tenths: Benjamin Joy, two tenths; and Hepsibah C. Swan, wife of James Swan, by General Henry Jackson, and later William Sullivan, trusted, the remaining twotenths.
" See chapter on Some Noteworthy Buildings for reference to other work by Willard.
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says Drake, " ever produced so great a sensation in Boston. Both of the parties were of the first standing in society. The deadly blow might have been struck in a moment of passion, but the al- most fiendish art with which the remains were con- cealed and consumed was fatal to Dr. Webster. Not the least touching episode of the trial was the ap- pearance of the daughters of the prisoner on the witness-stand giving their evidence under the full conviction of their father's innocence." Dr. Park- man lived, at the time of the murder, on the east side of Walnut street, next the house on the cor- ner of Beacon street. Dr. Webster was executed the following year in the old Leverett-street jail. The Charles-street jail, built of Quincy granite, cruciform in plan, the arms radiating from the cen- tral octagonal building, succeeded the old Leverett- street in I851.
The churches in this quarter are now few in num- ber. The most noteworthy is the Church of the Advent, at the foot of Beacon hill, on Mt. Vernon and Brimmer streets, and the most interesting is the old West Church on Cambridge and Lynde streets, no longer open for services and soon to disappear. The latter has stood since 1806, and well represents the style of church . architecture prevailing at the opening of the century. Its quaint pulpit was that from which Charles Lowell, father of James Russell Lowell, preached for sixty years, and Cyrus A. Bartol, first as Dr. Lowell's colleague, and after his death as sole pastor, for half a century and more ; and its stiff, old-fashioned pews have been occupied by the most cultivated and thoughtful of Boston congregations. The old meeting-house succeeds the wooden one used by the British as a barrack during the Siege, the steeple - of which they pulled down because the " rebels" had employed it for signalling to the camp at Cambridge. The building was restored after the Revolution, and was finally taken down to make way for the present structure.
The Church of the Advent is an elaborate struct- ure of brick and stone, designed by the architects Sturgis & Brigham. Its construction was begun March, 1878, but the work moved slowly, and it was not until 1892 that it was completed. The plans of the architects embraced the main body of the church, 72 by 73 feet, consisting of nave, 76 feet high two aisles and transepts; the chancel with polygonal end; the chapel on the south side of the chancel ; school-rooms hexagonal in shape, and various other rooms corner tower and steeple the baptistery in the church under the tower; and at the north side the clergy house, containing vestry, clergy and choir rooms, refectory and dormitories.
The larger portion of the building was completed in 1883, when the parish moved in. The steeple tower was completed in 1891. The interior of the church is richly decorated. The parish of the Church of the Advent was organized in 1844, and it is the representative free " high " church in Boston. It has daily morning and evening services, many ser- vices on Sunday, and strictly observes all holy-days.
Charlesbank, the artistically designed public park along the water-front of Charles street, between the West Boston and Craigie's bridges, picturesquely marks the water boundary of the Old West End. It is the beginning of the Charles River Embankment, ultimately to extend the entire distance from Lever- ett street to Cottage Farms Station, about two and three-quarters miles in length and attractively laid out as a parkway. The men's and women's open- air gymnasium on Charlesbank are most popular features, large numbers of the people making use of the apparatus provided by the city.
IX.
THE COMMON AND THE GARDEN.
MODERN FEATURES OF THE HISTORIC " TRAYNING FIELD " OF WINTHROP'S TIME, AND THE NEWER PARK.
ROSTON COMMON, in the heart of the city, is one of its most cherished possessions. Its establishment is due to the wise forethought of the first settlers of Boston, and to those who early suc- ceeded them. Very soon after the purchase of the peninsula from Blaxton, Winthrop's people laid out this ground as a "trayning field and a place for the feeding of cattell." A "trayning field " it has been from that day; and the " cattell " only ceased to graze in 1830, when grazing here was prohibited by law. The original limits were somewhat larger than now, reaching to the site of the Tremont House and Mason street on the north and east, and to the Back Bay on the west. The Common was fenced in about the year 1734, and in 1836 the iron fence, which originally extended on every side, was put up, partly by private subscription, at a cost of $32,159 .- 35. The enclosure now comprises forty-three and three-fourths acres. The low iron fence on Tre- mont street was placed a dozen or more years ago, when the sidewalk was thrown into the street to widen it.
The Common in days of old was the scene of
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many more or less exciting events. On the slope of Flagstaff hill on a July evening in 1728 the first duel here in Boston was fought, the " principals " being two young men of social position, Benjamin Woodbridge and Henry Phillips, who had a dispute at the card-table. They fought with small-arms, and Woodbridge was mortally wounded by a thrust through the body. Woodbridge had just completed his twentieth year, and Phillips was but four years his senior. Phillips was also wounded, but slightly ; and by the aid of his brother and Peter Faneuil he made his escape on board the "Sheerness," a British man-of-war then lying in the harbor, which sailed for France at daybreak. Within a year young Phillips died at Rochelle, of "grief and a broken heart." Witches, Quakers, murderers, and pirates have been hanged from the limbs of the old elm which stood at the foot of Flagstaff hill until blown down in 1876, during a winter gale. The parade- ground bordering on the Charles-street mall has been the mustering-place of many warlike as well as peaceful gatherings. During the Siege the Com- mon was a fortified camp, and earthworks were thrown up on several of the little hills ; but all traces of them have long since disappeared. The British forces engaged in the battle of Bunker hill were arrayed on the Common before starting for Charles- town ; and it was from its south-western corner that, two months before, the troops embarked in boats for their disastrous expedition to Lexington and Con- cord on the night of the 18th of April. In still earlier times a part of the force that captured Louis- burg assembled on this field. Here, after the evacu- ation by the British, Washington reviewed the Continental troops; and in our own time, during the Civil War, Governor Andrew reviewed the Massachusetts regiments, and sent them to the front with words of patriotism and cheer.
The Common of to-day is a fairly well-kept park, the privileges which the public are permitted to enjoy upon it varying with the views of the munici- pal government in power. The five broad malls are shaded by graceful and rugged elms and lindens, some of them having been planted as far back as 1728. The Tremont-street mall, in the vicinity of West street, used to be occupied by strolling Punch and Judy shows, lifting and hing-testing devices, and a big telescope ; but with the exception of the latter, which still occasionally points its wooden barrel skyward, all have been ordered off by the city fathers, who have no eye for the picturesque. Within the enclosure and bordering on Boylston street is the old Central Burying-Ground, estab- lished in 1756, where Stuart, the portrait painter,
and M. Julien, the most noted restaurateur of the town in his day, who gave the name to the Julien soup, were buried; but the land never actually belonged to the Common.
Of the two monuments on the Common, the Army and Navy memorial on old Flagstaff hill, the site of the British redoubt during the Siege, is the design of the late Martin Milmore, and cost the city $75,000. The corner-stone was laid on the 18th of September, 1871 ; and on the occasion of the dedication of the completed work, the 17th of September, 1877, General Devens delivered the brilliant oration, and there was a memorable military and civic demonstration. The granite shaft, a dec- orated Doric column crowned by a bronze ideal statue of the " Genius of America," rises to a height of seventy feet. The statues supported by the four projecting pedestals represent the Soldier, the Sailor, History, and Peace. The bronze bas-reliefs be- tween these illustrate the Departure of the Regi- ment, the Sanitary Commission, a Naval Action, and the Return from the War and the Surrender of the Battle Flags to the Governor. All of these reliefs give portraits of well-known citizens, depicted as taking part in these scenes. The four figures at the base of the shaft itself represent North, South, East, and West. The " Genius of America," which crowns the structure, is a female figure in a flowing robe over which is a loose tunic bound with a gir- dle at the waist. On the head is a crown with thirteen stars, and in the right hand, resting on the hilt of the unsheathed sword, are two laurel wreaths. The left hand holds a banner draped about the shaft. The inscription on the monument was writ- ten by President Eliot, of Harvard. Judged as a whole, this most ambitious work we have of Mil- more's is unsatisfactory. While some of the statu- ary, particularly the figure of the Sailor, is well modelled and displays the skill and genius of the sculptor, the architecture is bad. The faults in the composition are the faults to be found in much of our monumental work. For such an undertaking the art of the architect and of the sculptor should be combined. Had this been the case in the design of this monument, and had the architect given to the outline and proportions of his part of the work the same care and study which the sculptor gave to the modelling of a portion at least of his figures, we should have had here a work to commend rather than to excuse. The other monument, popularly known as the " Crispus Attucks," commemorating the " Boston Massacre " of the 5th of March, 1770, is a much simpler affair : a plain granite shaft, bear- ing on its front, facing the Tremont-street mall, the
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bronze figure of a woman representing Revolution, written by James Russell Lowell and a selection and a bas-relief depicting the scene of the massa- from " Elijah " were sung by members of the Han- cre in old King's street (now State). The base and del and Haydn Society. shaft are of one piece of granite, and are fashioned with little art. The shaft most resembles in its form an old-fashioned sugar-loaf. The sculptor was Robert Kraus. The monument was dedicated on the 14th of November, 1888, with a procession, speeches in Faneuil Hall, and a banquet.
The other so-called ornaments on the Common are the Brewer and the Coggswell fountains. The for- mer is graceful in design ; the latter has rightly been characterized as " a reproach to the good taste of the citizens." Unhappily the earnest appeals for its removal from leading journals and such or- ganizations as the St. Botolph and the Paint and Clay clubs fell upon deaf ears. . The Brewer foun- tain was given to the city in 1868 by the late Gard- ner Brewer, an opulent merchant. It was cast in Paris, and is a duplicate of a design by Liènard which received the gold medal at the Exposition of 1855. The recumbent figures at the base are Neptune, Amphitrite, Acis, and Galatea, and the upper basin rests on graceful standing figures. With a generous supply of water it would be a re- freshing and delightful object, but unhappily water is permitted to flow through it at rare intervals, and then sparingly, so that its beauty is never fully dis- closed. The position selected for it, on rising ground near the Park-street mall, displays the work to the best advantage. The Coggswell, a drinking- fountain, is one of several given to Eastern cities by Dr. Coggswell, of San Francisco, and was placed in its present position, near the West-street gate, in 1884. The water flows from the gaping mouths of two inverted dolphins, whose bodies are inter- twined, set up on a granite pedestal, in the middle of a granite edifice, the heavy canopy supported by four polished columns. Near each of the four cor- ners of the structure is a lamp with colored-glass shades.
The Frog pond is one of the most ancient features of the Common. Once it was a marshy bog, but in 1826 the first stone edging was placed around it, and with the introduction of Cochituate the foun- tain was put in. It was here that the celebration took place, on October 25, 1848, commemorating the introduction of the public system of water- works. The day was made a special holiday. There was a long procession through the streets, its route ending on the Common, where, on the edge of the pond, the second Mayor Quincy and Nathan Hale, editor of the "Advertiser," as chairman of the water committee, made addresses, and an ode
Many attempts have been made to encroach upon the Common by erecting buildings, pushing thoroughfares or elevated railroads across it, or tunnelling parts of it, but all have thus far been unsuccessful. It is strongly protected by a clause in the city charter withholding from the city council the power to lease or sell it ; and an order is still in existence, passed by the early townspeople in March, 1640, prohibiting the granting of any ground for any purpose within the prescribed limits. So the Common remains to-day what it has been from the beginning, - a public ground for the use of the people. On holidays, and especially the Fourth of July, it is the Mecca for the crowds of country folk who then flock to the town. On that day the rules are relaxed, and booths and tents for the sale of cakes, lemonade, and all sorts of gimcracks line the broad malls. The band concerts near the parade-ground are regular and popular features of summer Sunday afternoons.
The Public Garden, the parkway to the New West End, has risen from the "marshes at the bottom of the Common," a thing of beauty. Like the " Back Bay Improvement," its construction was a matter agitated for years ; but when once seriously entered upon, the work was done in accordance with an intelligent and tasteful plan. Originally a part of the Common and the property of the town, these marshes were in 1794 recklessly given away to the owners of several ropewalks burned in the great fire that year in Pearl and Atkinson (now Congress) streets, for their new buildings, - not altogether from motives of generosity, but to prevent the rebuilding of such structures in a district which they would endanger. Then, in 1819, when the new ropewalks were in turn burned, and their owners, in view of the enhanced value of the land, - Charles street had been opened in 1804 and the great Mill Dam project was under way, - decided not to re- build but to sell the territory in lots for business and dwelling purposes, the eyes of the citizens were opened, and its recovery by some means was earnestly urged. At length, early in 1824, during the elder Quincy's administration, these efforts were successful, and the property given away by the townspeople thirty years before was regained by the city by the payment of $55,000. No sooner, however, had this been done, than a serious attempt was made through the city council to sell the terri- tory for building purposes, and this was defeated only through reference of the question to the legal
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