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 16
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RESIDENCE OF JOHN P. SPAULDING.
repaired and renovated, the old architecture and another is the homestead of the Putnams, where the impressive simplicity of the interior finish have Rev. Dr. Putnam lived for a long period ; and another is the home of Edward Everett Hale. On the hill in this neighborhood, between Beach, Glen, and Fort avenues, from which the ornate stand- pipe of the Boston Water-works rises, was the " Roxbury High Fort," built in June, 1775, under the direction of General Thomas, which crowned the Roxbury lines of investment at the Siege. It was the strongest of the several Roxbury forts, others of which guarded the single land-passage to Boston over the Neck. The outer earthworks at the Neck were just below the George's Tavern. which stood a short distance south of Washington Market, in the neighborhood of Lenox street, and were in musket-range of the British outpost. The been carefully preserved. John Eliot, the great apostle to the Indians, was the minister of the First Church for nearly sixty years, laboring unremit- tingly in good works until his death in 1690, at the age of eighty-six. He was buried in the ancient burying-ground marking the corner of Washington and Eustis streets, where also are the tombs of other ministers of this church, and of the famous Dudley family -- Thomas and Joseph Dudley, the first a governor of Massachusetts under the first charter and the second under the second charter, and Paul, the chief justice and son of Gen. Joseph Dudley. It was under the pastorate of Eliphalet Porter, minister for over half a century, until his
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
tavern was early burned by the British ; and soon after the latter's outpost, Brown's farmhouse, a little worth of the present Blackstone square, was burned by a raiding party of Americans. The part Rox- bury took in the Revolution was conspicuous. It was the native place of the lamented Warren, und of Heath and Greaton, generals in the Continental army. Heath signed the first " gen- erd order" for the army. He was at Lexington still Bunker Hill, and during the Siege commanded
ishes, a valued institution. John Eliot was .chief among its founders. Warren, when a lad of nine- teen, was master of the school, in 1760. Roxbury when annexed added to Boston 2,700 acres of ter- ritory, and taxable property valued at $26,551,700.
DORCHESTER DISTRICT.
The first settlers of the Dorchester District came in the " Mary and John," a vessel of Winthrop's fleet. Before setting sail from Plymouth, Eng., a church
RESIDENCE OF CHARLES V. WHITTEN.
a part of the right wing. Later, he was appointed by Washington to the command of West Point. Moses Whiting and William Draper commanded companies at Lexington, and one hundred and forty Roxbury men were there. Major-general Dearborn, on the staff .of Washington, was a Roxbury man ; and Robert Williams, master of the Latin School, " changed his ferule for a sword," taking a commis- sion in the army. Roxbury's part in the Civil War was as honorable. The site of the birthplace of Joseph Warren, on Warren street, is marked by a tablet. That of Thomas Dudley's house is occu- pied by the Universalist Church on Dudley street. The Roxbury Latin School, established in 1645, but ten years after the Boston Latin School, still flour-
was organized, and John Maverick and John War- ham were chosen pastors. Dorchester, therefore. like Plymouth, launched its church from foreign shores. Why the new settlement was called Dor- chester is uncertain ; but James Blake, an early his- torian, referred it to the gratitude of the colonists to Rev. John White, of Dorchester, Eng., who was an active promoter of Puritan emigration, or to the fact that some of the settlers were from Dorset- shire. In 1633, Dorchester was the largest and wealthiest town in Massachusetts. It is said that it had the first special town-government in New England. The first Dorchester record-book is the oldest town record-book in Massachusetts. The honor is also claimed for Dorchester of having
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made, in May, 1639, the first public provision in America for a free school to be supported by direct tax or assessment of the inhabitants of the town. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this event was duly celebrated. In 1635-36, a large number of the inhabitants of Dorchester emigrated to Connecticut. Richard Mather, the founder of the Mather family in this country, arrived in 1635, and became pastor of the reorganized church in 1636. He was one of the fathers of New England Congregationalism and assisted John Eliot in the making of that unique paraphrase of the Psalter,
to within a few rods of the Providence line. Mil- ton, Canton, and Stoughton were afterward set off by themselves. Dorchester Neck and Washington Village became South Boston, and finally what re- mained of the old town was annexed to the city. Since the annexation here, as in Roxbury, many of the old colonial estates have been cut up. New streets have been introduced, and a vast number of houses have been built. Dorchester still re- mains principally a place of residence. The old burying-ground at Upham's Corner (Dudley and Boston streets) is one of the oldest burying-grounds
BUILDING OF THE FORBES LITHOGRAPHIC COMPANY.
the Bay State Psalm Book. Another distinguished in the State, and is still used for interments. Rich- son of Dorchester was Lieutenant-Governor Stough- ard Mather, Stoughton, and other celebrities were buried here. When annexed to Boston in 1870, the population of Dorchester was 12,200. In 1880 it had grown to 17,800, and in 1890 to 29,600. The area added to Boston by its annexation was 5,614 acres, and the taxable property $20,315,700. ton, who was chief justice of the commission on the witchcraft trials. Stoughton Hall at Harvard Col- lege is named after him, in recognition of a gift to that institution. The townspeople of Dorchester have been distinguished for their patriotism. They joined with Boston in the days preceding the Revo- lution in resisting English oppression. The town CHARLESTOWN DISTRICT. indorsed by resolution the action of the Boston The Charlestown district, the oldest part of the Boston of To-day, having been settled on the 4th of July, 1629, more than a year before Winthrop's company moved over to the peninsula, has changed less than any of the outlying districts since annexa- tion. When annexed in 1872 it had 31,000 inhabi- tants; in 1880, 33,700 ; and in 1890, but 38,300. Nor has its valuation greatly increased. It is a Tea Party, and a stray chest of tea which had sur- vived the ordeal of water, and floated on the Dor- chester marshes, was effectually destroyed by fire. Dorchester men were active in fortifying Dorches- ter Heights in the closing days of the Siege. Dor- chester originally covered a great deal of territory. It was nearly thirty five miles in length, extending
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
3
BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.
quiet quarter of Boston, still possessing a few old Thomas Beecher, founder of the famous Beecher estates, several pleasant streets, and Bunker Hill family in America. Before the Revolution it was a flourishing town. In 1775 it contained about four hundred houses, built about the hills; and when the battle was fought, we are told, "Breed's Hill Monument. In its old burying-ground on the shore, with those of other worthies, are the graves of John Harvard, founder of Harvard College, and
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
and the higher Bunker Hill beyond were covered by pastures or mowing-lots, and without buildings of any sort." Its destruction by the British was com- plete. The portion about the square was set on fire by the shells thrown from Copp's Hill, and the easterly part by the marines landed from the " Som- erset " in the river. The property loss was set at $500,000. Fortunately, the townspeople had aban- doned their houses, stores, and workshops and re- moved many valuables before the battle. The fullest of all the newspaper reports of the burning was this brief but vigorous paragraph in the " Essex Gazette," then published in Cambridge, which has been preserved in Hunnewell's " A Century of Town Life : "
" The Town of Charlestown, supposed to contain about three hundred dwel- ling houses, a great number of which were large and elegant, besides one hundred and fifty or two hundred other buildings, are almost all laid in Ashes by the Barbarity and wanton Cruelty of that infernal Villain, Thomas Gage."
And General Burgoyne wrote of the scene from Copp's Hill : "Strait before us was a large & noble Towne in one great Blaze : the Chh. Steeples being of Timber were great Pyramids of Fire above the rest." The recovery of the town from the blow was slow, but by the opening of the present century it had again become well built up with important industries established within its limits. In 1786 the first bridge to Boston was built, supplanting the old ferry. In iSoo the Navy Yard, at Moulton's Point, where the British troops had landed for the Bunker Hill fight, was established. In 1804-5 the State Prison was built. At that time we are told the town contained 349 buildings and 2,251 inhabi- tants. By 1812 the population had about doubled. In 1334 it was 10,000, and two years after the question of annexation to Boston was first agitated. In 1847 the town government was abandoned, and Charlestown became a city.
The movement for the Bunker Hill Monument was begun in 1823, when the Monument Association was formed. Two years later the corner-stone was laid by Lafayette with great ceremony, under the direction of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Masons, and Webster delivered the oration : but for nearly twenty years the work by unfinished for lack of funds. Finally, in iSo, a determined effort was made, and through the proceeds of a great fair in Faneuil Hall and generous subscriptions, one of the last that of Fanny Filsier, the dancer who had turned
the heads of all Boston, a sufficient sum was secured ; and in 1842 Solomon Willard, the architect, saw the completion of his great work. The last stone on the apex was raised on July 23 that year, and one Edward Carnes, jr., accompanied its ascent, tri- umphantly waving an American flag. At the dedi- cation there was a vast concourse of people, and Webster was again the orator. The obelisk, built of courses of granite, is thirty feet square at the base and, rising two hundred and twenty feet, is capped by a high observatory, the fine view from which is worth the cost of the ascent. It is reached from the base by a spiral flight of stone steps -somebody who has counted them says there are two hundred and ninety-five in all - winding around the hollow cone within the shaft. The monument marks. the lines of the old redoubt. A stone standing in the grounds near by marks the spot where Warren fell, and Story's statue of Prescott, placed in the main path, is supposed to be on the spot where he stood when encouraging his men at the opening of the battle. The marble statue of Warren in the build- ing. at the base of the monument, with various memorials of the battle, is the work of Henry Dex- ter, a native artist, and was dedicated on the 17th of June, 1857. The marble Tuscan pil- lar within the monument is an exact reproduc- tion of the first memorial to Warren, placed by the King Solomon Lodge of Masons of Charlestown, on the 2d of December, 1794.
The Prescott statue was placed in 1881, on the 17th of June, when Robert C. Winthrop was the orator. It-is one of the best of our few good portrait statues. The pose is spirited and dramatic. The night preceding the battle was very hot, and Pres- cott, who worked at the digging as hard as his men, had thrown off the outside uniform-coat and put on a loose seersucker coat and a broad-brimmed farmer's hat. It is in this easy and picturesque costume, the big hat giving an effective sombrero shadow to the face, and the skirts of the loose coat almost sweeping the ground, that the hero is repre- sented. " His eager gaze is riveted with intense energy on the close approaching foe. With his left hand he is hushing and holding back the impetuous soldiers under his command who await his word. With his right hand he is just ready to lift the sword which is to be their signal for action."" It is the moment when he has uttered the memorable words : " Don't fire until I tell you. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes! " The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, in Winthrop Square, a short walk from Breed's Hill, was placed on June 17,
1 Winthrop's oration.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
1872, the oration on that occasion delivered by Richard Frothingham, the historian of Charlestown. It stands on the old training-ground of colonial days. This is another of Martin Milmore's works, and presents a group of three figures on a high pedestal -- the "Genius of America " holding laurel wreaths above the soldier and sailor stand- ing on each side.
house erected after the "burning of 1775," and a remnant of it still stands on Main street. Bunker Hill is now crowned by a Catholic church, and at the Neck beyond, which was raked by the hot fire of the British vessels in the river during the battle on Breed's Hill and the American retreat, is now a pleasant park. Charlestown added to Boston when annexed only 586 acres of territory, but it brought
The part of Charlestown occupied by the first taxable property valued at $35,289,682.
WORKS OF THE LOW ART TILE COMPANY.
settlers is the square and "Town Hill," which rises behind the old City Hall, which itself stands on the site of the "Great House " of the governor, in which the Court of Assistants named Boston. On the slope of the hill behind it was the First Church. Charlestown is distinguished as having been the birthplace of Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, whose father, Rev. Jedediah Morse, was minister of the First Church in the town, from 1789 to 1820. The son was born April 27, 1791, in the mansion-house of Thomas Edes, whose hospitality Parson Morse's family had accepted while the new parsonage on Town Hill was building. The Edes mansion was the first
BRIGHTON DISTRICT.
The Brighton district, until 1805, was a part of Cambridge. Then it was a place of farms, with a modest cattle-trade. Subsequently it developed into the great cattle-mart of New England, for which it became widely known. In 1832 the great Cattle Fair Hotel was opened, and on market days the scenes within and round about it were animated and picturesque. For many years the natural attractions of the place for dwellings were injured by the various slaughtering and rendering houses scattered about it. The establishment of the great Abattoir on the banks of the Charles in 1873, and the prohibition of private slaughtering, changed all
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
this, and also revolutionized the cattle trade. The Washington Allston, whose home and studio were Abattoir is subject to regular inspection by officers at one time in the near neighborhood - on Maga- zine street, Cambridgeport. Brighton added to Boston 5,978 people, 2,277 acres of land, and taxable property valued at $14,548,531. of the Board of Health. It is directly connected with the tracks of the Boston & Albany Railroad, and the ' Fitchburg. Brighton also early became famous for its fine nurseries and gardens. In recent years the district has been greatly improved WEST ROXBURY DISTRICT. and developed, and to-day some of the finest road- ways within the city limits, and many beautiful and costly dwellings, are here found. In the region
West Roxbury, when annexed, was the most rural part of the enlarged city, abounding in charming scenery. It had pleasant country roadways and
RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM F. WELD.
about the Chestnut-hill Reservoir, especially, are grassy bypaths, spacious country-seats with fruit fine estates and charming drives. Not far from and flower gardens, and picturesque villas set in well-cultivated grounds. It is yet semi-rural, and much of its beauty and charm still remains ; but, like its neighbor, old Roxbury, and Dorchester beyond, it is growing with great rapidity. Fine old estates have been cut up into house lots, byways have been transformed into streets, and houses are springing up in every direction. Good taste, however, is displayed in much of the new work, and the district, embracing as it does charm- ing Jamaica Plain, the grounds of the Bussey Insti- tution and the Arnoldl Arboretum, Franklin Park and many natural attractions, will long continue to be one of the fairest parts of picturesque Boston. the Reservoir, on Lake street, is the picturesque estate formerly known as " the old Stanwood place," which the Catholic authorities of the diocese pur- chased in 1880 for their newly organized " St. John's Theological Seminary." The present build- ing, within the beautiful grounds, was completed in 1885. A massive structure of stone with brick trimmings, rising from a slight eminence, built in the Norman style of architecture, with towers at the corners, it forms a striking feature of the land- scape. The village of Allston, the part of Brighton nearest the city proper, has grown with great rapid- ity within the last dozen years. It was named for
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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When it was separated from Roxbury, in 1851, five years after the old town had become a city, - of which change the western section disapproved, - it took away about four-fifths of the territory of the new municipality. Efforts for the establishment of an independent town, however, were begun more than a century and a quarter before it was effected : immediately after this section was made the Second of " Upper " Parish of Roxbury, in 1712. Of the First Church in West Roxbury (now on Centre street), which was one of the earliest to fall into the Unitarian fold, Theodore Parker was pastor for the years - from 1837 to 1846. His parishioners here are described by O. B. Frothingham " as " a sm.dl but choice circle of elegant, graceful, culti- vated people, used to wealth, accomplished in the arts of life, of open hearts, and, better still, of human instincts, who lived in such near neighbor- hood that a path from Mr. Parker's gate led di- rectly to their gardens and welcoming doors." In Jamaica Plain used to be the country-seats of Governors Bernard, Hancock, and Bowdoin. Gov- ernor Bernard's mansion was for a time during the early days of the Revolution used as a camp hos- pital. The sparkling Jamaica Pond was the first piece of water drawn upon for the supply of the town of Boston ; pipes of pitch-pine logs were em- ployed, and the service was by a private corpora- tion chartered in 1795.
The Bussey Institution, the school of agriculture, horticulture, and veterinary science attached to Harvard University, is on the noble estate of the late Benjamin Bussey, bequeathed by him to the university in 1842, together with funds in trust for the support of the institution. Being subject to life interests, it was not until 1870 that the estate passed into the possession of the university. Then the picturesque main building was erected and the school was opened. Two years after, the Arnold
Arboretum was established in accordance with the will of James Arnold, of New Bedford, who left one hundred thousand dollars to the university to establish here a professorship of tree culture, and to create " an arboretum ultimately to contain all trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants that can grow here in the open air." The entire estate embraces 360 acres, of which 137 comprise the arboretum, and are tastefully laid out with roadways and walks. Of the latter portion, the city of Boston in 1881 acquired 120 acres, and this territory, with about 44 acres contiguous, is now part of the great chain of public parks.
Within the West Roxbury district was also the famous Brook Farm, where early in the forties the effort was made by a group of cultivated people, led by the late George Ripley, to establish a social- istic community. It comprised about two hundred acres, part of which was meadow land reaching to the Charles River, the brook, which gave it its name, coursing through it, and passing near the roomy mansion-house pleasantly set upon a knoll. For a while Hawthorne was a member of the com- munity, and, at one time and another, Margaret Fuller, Channing, Charles A. Dana, and John S. Dwight were connected with it. The products of the farm were in common, the labor was divided among the members, and the system of coopera- tion was closely followed. But it did not flourish, and after a brief existence of half a dozen years it quietly expired. Brook Farm is now the "Martin Luther Orphan Home." The Forest Hills Ceme- tery, just within the limits of the district, embraces 225 acres of upland and lowland, with thick groves, peaceful lakes, and avenues and footpaths over the hills and through the glades, its natural beauty en- hanced by the skill of the landscape gardener. West Roxbury, when it became a part of Boston, brought 9,000 inhabitants, 7,848 square acres of territory, and taxable property valued at $22,148,600.
1 Frothinghain's Life of Theodore Parker.
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XIII.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS
OF
REPRESENTATIVE MERCHANTS, BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL MEN,
ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.
A BBOTT, JOSIAH GARDNER, was born in Chelms- ford, four miles from Lowell, Nov. 1, 1814, and was a descendant in the seventh generation from George Abbott, an English Puritan, who migrated to Massachusetts in 1640, and settled in Andover. His father, Caleb Abbott, settled in Chelmsford, and married Mercy Fletcher, a descendant from William Fletcher, an English Puritan, and one of the first settlers of Chelmsford in 1653. Both of his grandfathers fought under Prescott at the battle of Bunker Hill, and held commissions in the. Continental army. The influences under which he was brought up were as good as the blood which he inherited. Three excellent teachers fitted him for college - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. Abiel Abbott, D.D., and Cranmore Wallace. He entered Harvard in 1828, and graduated with distinction in 1832, being the youngest of his class. He studied law first under Joel Adams of Chelms- ford, and under Nathaniel Wright, afterwards mayor of Lowell, and began practice at Lowell in 1836 as the copartner of Amos Spaulding. In 1837 he served in the House of Representatives, the young- est member of that body. In 1838 he married Miss Caroline Livermore, .one of the daughters of Judge Edward St. L. Livermore. In 1840 he edited the " Lowell Advertiser, " a Democratic tri-weekly journal, which he conducted with ability and good taste, never descending to personalities. In 1842 he formed a copartnership with Samuel A. Brown, which lasted until 1855. In 1842 and 1843 he was a State senator from Middlesex, in the latter year chairman of the committee on the judiciary and also of the railroad committee. In 1853 he served as a delegate from Lowell in the constitutional con- vention, where he advocated making the judiciary elective, and making juries judges of law as well as of fact in criminal cases. In 1855 he was appointed a justice of the Superior Court for the County of Suffolk, but in 1858 the larger emolu- ments which he knew he could obtain at the bar induced him to resign this office and to decline,
two years later, a place on the supreme bench. His salary as judge was only $3,000 a year, but during the first year after he left the bench his professional income was more than $29,000, and at a later period amounted to $36,000. From 1834 to 1861 Judge Abbott resided in Lowell ; but in the latter year he removed to Boston, and afterwards supplemented his city home by an elegant summer residence at Wellesley Hills. In 1862 Williams College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. During the Civil War, from the first shot at Sumter to the last at Appomattox, he gave his voice, his purse, his pen, to the cause of the Union. Three of his sons rendered distinguished services as officers of the Union army, and the memorial window in the Memorial Hall of Lowell will remind the Lowell- ians of the future that two of them perished in the struggle. Captain and Brevet-Major Edward G. Abbott fell at Cedar Mountain, Aug. 9, 1862 ; Major and Brevet-Brigadier Gen. Henry L. Abbott, in the Wilderness, May 6, 1864. In 1874 Judge Abbott was elected a representative in Congress. He served on the special committee which was sent to South Carolina to inquire into the alleged irregularities attending the presidential election of 1876 in that State, and prepared that committee's report. The bill creating the electoral com- mission was introduced without his knowledge and during his absence from Washington, and was not approved by him. But after it had been proposed by the Democrats, accepted by the Republicans, and enacted as a law, he felt bound in honor to see that its provisions were carried out. The plan originally was to give one place on the commission to one of the Democratic representatives from New York who had been longest in congressional life, - Fernando Wood or Samuel S. Cox. Judge Abbott was a new member. Friends of his, how- ever, without his knowledge, and with the warm approval of Speaker Randall, proposed his name to the Democratic congressional caucus, and
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