USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Historic Quincy, Massachusetts > Part 3
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Be it enacted, etc., as follows :-
There shall be placed upon the ballot to be used at the next state election in the city of Quincy the following question: "Shall sections forty-four A to forty-four G, inclusive, of chapter forty-three of the General Laws, relative to the nomination by preliminary elec- tions of candidates for elective municipal offices in cities governed under a standard form of city charter, be accepted by the City of Quincy?" If a majority of the voters thereon in said city vote in the affirmative, said section shall there-upon take effect therein.
Approved February 4, 1926. Accepted by citizens November 2, 1926.
page forty-two
Chapter 163. Acts of 1941.
An Act providing for Biennial Municipal Elections in the City of Quincy.
Be it enacted, etc., as follows-
Section 1. Beginning with the year of 1945, municipal elections in the city of Quincy shall be held biennially on the Tuesday next following the first Monday in November in each odd-numbered year. There shall be no regular municipal election in said city in the year nineteen hundred and forty-four.
Section 2. At the regular municipal election to be held in said city in the year nineteen hundred and forty-two, the mayor and the councillors to be elected thereat shall be elected for terms of three years each. At the biennial municipal election to be held in said city in the year nineteen hundred and forty-five, and at each biennial municipal election thereafter the mayor and all of the councillors shall be elected for terms of two years each.
Section 3. At the regular municipal election to be held in said city in the year nineteen hundred and forty-one, and in the year nine- teen hundred and forty-three, the members of the school committee to be elected thereat shall be elected for terms of four years each. At the biennial municipal election to be held in said city in the year nineteen hundred and forty-five and at each biennial municipal elec- tion thereafter, all members of the school committee to be elected thereat to serve for terms of four years each.
Section 4. This Act shall be submitted for acceptance to the qual- ified voters of the city of Quincy at the regular municipal election in the current year in the form of the following question, which shall be placed upon the official ballot to be used at said election: "Shall an act passed by the general court in the current year, entitled 'An Act providing for Biennial Municipal Elections in the City of Quincy,' be accepted?" If a majority of the votes cast on said question is in the affirmative, this act shall thereupon take full effect; otherwise it shall be of no effect and the members of the school committee elected at said election shall hold office for terms of three years each.
Approved April 7, 1941. Accepted by citizens December 2, 1941.
It should be noted that, although the Mayor has broad powers in the appointment of municipal officers, the following officials are elected by the City Council: City Clerk, Auditor of Accounts, City Messenger, Clerk of Committees, and Director of Veteran's Relief.
Quincy held its first election as a city, December 4, 1888. On January 7, 1889, the Honorable Charles H. Porter took office as its first mayor. Since January 4, 1943, the Honorable Charles A. Ross, the twenty-second mayor, has served as the chief executive officer of the city.
page forty-three
In the intervening years, the executive office has been filled by the following men:
Hon. Henry O. Fairbanks
1891 - 1893
Hon. William A. Hodges
1894 - 1895
Hon. Charles F. Adams, 3d
1896 - 1897
Hon. Russell A. Sears
1898
Hon. Harrison A. Keith
1899
Hon. John O. Hall
1900 - 1901
Hon. Charles M. Bryant
1902 - 1904
Hon. James Thompson 1905 - 1907
Hon. William T. Shea
1908 - 1911
Hon. Eugene R. Stone
1912 - 1913
*Hon. John L. Miller
1914
Hon. Chester I. Campbell
1915
Hon. Gustave B. Bates
1916
Hon. Joseph L. Whiton
1917 - 1920
Hon.' William A. Bradford
1921 - 1922
Hon. Gustave B. Bates
1923 - 1924
Hon. Perley E. Barbour
1925 - 1926
Hon. Thomas J. McGrath
1927 - 1932
Hon. Charles A. Ross
1933 - 1934
Hon. Thomas S. Burgin
1935 - 1942
*Died in office.
On January 7, 1889, Harry W. Tirrell was elected by the City Council, as City Messenger. In 1941, as a tribute to him, the Revised Ordinances of 1937, were amended by the following to be known as Chapter 59; "As a mark of respect to and in honor of Harry Wallace Tirrell who, since 1889 when the City of Quincy became incorporated, has honorably and efficiently filled the office of City Messenger, the Council Chamber in City Hall shall hereafter also be known as the Harry W. Tirrell Hall." At the Council meeting of January 3, 1944, Harry W. Tirrell was elected to serve his fifty-sixth consecutive term as City Messenger.
The magnitude of the affairs which our municipal officials manage appears in startling relief in a comparison of figures. During the first ten years of independent town life (1792-1801) the annual tax levy by taxation was sixteen hundred and eighty dollars, or about one dollar and sixty cents to an inhabitant for the support of both Church and Town; in 1800, the annual appropriations had increased to twenty-one hundred dollars; in 1820, to four thousand dollars. Four years later the Church and Town were separated, and accordingly the appropriations for that year fell to twenty-eight hundred dollars. In 1840, the total sum raised by the Town was $11,130.62; total val-
page forty-four
uation of Real and Personal Property $1,721,025.00; tax rate $5.50 per thousand; total number of polls 1,100; estimated population 4,000.
The growth of the City of Quincy over a period of fifty-five years is most clearly shown by a comparison of figures on its financial con- dition and property valuation for the years ending January 7, 1889 and December 31, 1944.
January 7, 1889
REVENUE ACCOUNTS
Cash in treasury February 1, 1888
$7,901.18
Receipts February 1, 1888 to January 7, 1889
293,847.99
$301,749.17
Payments February 1, 1888 to January 7, 1889
299,943.63
Balance on deposit in bank $1,805.54
Total debt
$44,522.55
VALUATION -
Total valuation of real estate
$7,825,250.00
Total valuation of personal property 1,932,710.00
Total valuation of the city
$9,757,960.00
Tax rate per $1,000 valuation
$16.70
Tax as committed
$153,600.00
Number of persons assessed
5,612
Number of polls assessed
4,096
Number of houses
2,4531/2
Estimated population
14,600
December 31, 1944
REVENUE ACCOUNTS
Cash on hand January 1, 1944 $796,441.36
Receipts
Temporary Loans
$1,400,000.00
Receipts
7,147,475.06
Transfer from Non-Revenue
2.00
8,547,477.06
$9,343,918.42
page forty-five
Payments
Temporary Loans
$1,700,000.00
Tax Title Loans
3,000.00
Norfolk County Hospital Tax
45,609.95
Norfolk County Tax
143,610.74
State of Massachusetts
555,055.87
Court Judgment
Other Expenses
6,134,470.53
Transfers
- $8,601,806.93
NON-REVENUE ACCOUNTS
Cash on hand January 1, 1944 ........ ...
$338,049.03
Receipts
21,675.18
Transfers
20,059.84
$379,784.05
Transfer to Revenue
2.00
$379,782.05 109,999.37
Payments
$269,782.68
SUMMARY
Revenue Cash on hand $742,111.49
Non-Revenue Cash on hand
269,782.68
Total $1,011,894.17
Total Bonded Debt December 31, 1944 $2,416,500.00
The borrowing capacity (or legalized margin for borrow- ing within the debt limit) December 31, 1944 $1,769,881.10
VALUATION
Valuation of Buildings $86,933,125.00
Valuation of Land
35,415,550.00
Total
$122,348,675.00
Value of Personal Property
8,085,700.00 12,400.00
Assessments levied in December 1944
Total $130,446,775.00
Net value of Automobiles December 31, 1944
2,361,374.00
Total value of the city including automobiles
$132,808,149.00
page forty-six
20,059.84
$742,111.49
Total appropriations as certified by the City Clerk to be raised by taxation, Chapter 41, 15A $5,357,032.17
Total appropriations voted to be taken from available funds $96,975.87
Amount to be raised by polls
$42,546.00
Tax rate per $1,000 valuation
$30.00
Number of polls 27,039
Number of voters as of December 31, 1944
23,316
Male
19,604
Female
21,427
Total 41,031
Number of dwellings assessed more than
16,000
Number of automobiles registered
17,897
Area of Quincy (square miles)
16.77
Area of public parks (acres)
2,735.4
Estimated population 1944
81,000
Representative Districts
First Norfolk (3 Representatives), Ward 3, Ward 4, Ward 5, Ward 6.
Second Norfolk (1 Representative), Ward 1.
Third Norfolk (3 Representatives), Ward 2, Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth.
Senatorial District - First Norfolk.
Councilor District - Second.
Congressional District - Thirteenth.
Standing Committees of the City Council for 1944
Finance; Veterans' Aid; Public Buildings, Sewers, and Water Supply; Fire and Police, Health and Welfare; Ordinances and Legislative Matters; Streets, Sidewalks and Municipal Lighting; Public Utilities, Pensions; Land Conveyance.
Special Committees of the City Council for 1944
Adams Temple and School Fund; Woodward Fund and Property; Explosives; Veterans' Memorial.
Regular Meetings of the City Council are held the first and third Mon- day evenings of each month at 7:45 P. M.
Regular Meetings of the School Committee are held at 7:30 o'clock P. M. on the last Tuesday of each month.
page forty-seven
ZONING
Chapter 61. An Ordinance to limit buildings and premises in accordance with their use or construction to specified districts in the city, was passed by the City Council on June 30, 1943, and approved by Mayor Charles A. Ross, July 1, 1943.
The Zoning Ordinance is intended to promote the health, safety, convenience and welfare of the inhabitants, to lessen the danger from fire, and to improve the city.
For the purpose of this ordinance the City of Quincy is divided into six classes of districts:
Residence A
Business
Industrial A
Industrial B
N.
BOSTON
RIVER-
MILTON
QUINCY MASSACHUSETTS BUILDING ZONE MAP
COUNCIL ORDER Nº 209
JUNE 1943
---
Vill & Alfa CITY ENGINEER
APPROVED
PASSED TO BE. ORDAINED JUNE - 30- 1943
JULY . 1. 1945
MAYOR
CLERK OF COUNCIL
KEY
RESIDENCE
A
RESIDENCE
RESIDENCE C
LAPPMOUNT
BUSINESS
LACES
INDUSTRIAL A
INDUSTRIAL B
CITY PROPERTY
Ct-LI ...
KLIC HILLS RESERVATION
TOWN
RIVER
AXON PARK
RIVER
FORE
WEYMOUTH
BRAINTREE
Residence B Residence C
CHAPTER VIII
THE CITY AND TOWN SEAL OF QUINCY
ET
: QUINCY
AN Ordinance concerning the City Seal was passed March 4, 1889, and approved March 8, 1889:
"Be it ordained by the Council of Quincy as follows:
Section I. The design of the City Seal shall be a circle, one and one-half inches in diameter: in the center of the Seal a view of Mount Wollaston; in the outer circle over the top, the dates 1625, 1640, 1792; upon a scroll under the dates, the word Manet; upon a tablet under the view, the word Quincy, and the date of incorporation as a city, 1888."
MANET
1625
QUINCY
2
16
Seven years previous while Quincy was yet a town, a committee had been appointed at the town-meeting of March 6, 1882, to "cause a design for a Town Seal to be prepared." Three weeks later, March 27, the design reported by the committee was adopted as the Seal of the Town of Quincy. While considering a design, George W. Morton, a member of the committee, suggested to the chairman, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., that Mount Wollaston with the single bent cedar would be appropriate and picturesque. From a sketch of Mount Wollaston made by George W. Beale, Jr. (about 1832), was taken the important
page forty-nine
feature, the summit of the hill with its lone cedar and the sea beyond. To this was added the historical dates of the Town and the Latin word Manet, meaning "It Remains." The Seal of the City of Quincy recalls its early settlement.
Morton's famous Maypole of 1627, "a goodly pine tree of eighty foot longe, garlanded with ribbons and surmounted with the spreading antlers of a buck," stood on the hill nearby the cedar of the Seal. Although the Maypole was cut down by Governor John Endicott in 1629, the cedar remained until it was blown down in the famous (Portland) storm of November 26 and 27, 1898. A part of the huge trunk, which was thirty-three feet long and seven and one-half feet around the butt, may be viewed at the birthplace of President John Adams, another part at the Quincy Historical Society Room in the Adams Academy Building.
page fifty
CHAPTER IX THE DATES ON THE CITY SEAL OF QUINCY
ET
QUINCY
1625 - Settlement at Mount Wollaston.
1640 - (May 23) Separation from Boston "to be a Town called Braintree."
1792 - (February 22) Incorporation of the North Precinct of Braintree as the Town of Quincy.
1888 - (June 11) Incorporation of the Town of Quincy as the City of Quincy.
- MANET -
"The hill remains, connecting the present with the past
"The city remains, continuous in its history and development "The free spirit of it remains "The fame of it remains, and will remain forever."
page fifty-one
CHAPTER X QUINCY GRANITE
UNDERLYING the modern landscape of Quincy is a long and com- plex geological history. During the building of the new section of the Quincy Yard of the Bethlehem Steel Company, in the vicinity of the Old Hayward Creek Quarry, which is considered a classic locality of New England geology, many fine specimens of fossil trilobites of the Middle Cambrian System, called Paradoxides harlani, were discovered in the formation of the noncalcareous green to dark-gray or black, rather massive slate. The thickness of the formation is unknown but it is probably at least one thousand feet. These trilobites should be regarded with veneration as. "one of the oldest inhabitants of the state."
The picture which the rocks of Quincy compose tells us a story of very ancient rocks, submitted to extreme heat and pressure in the mountain-building processes, folded, crushed, changed in physical and chemical structure.
In the Quincy-Blue Hills area, the granite and associated rocks display an arrangement in concentric shells or zones, of which the outermost was the first and the central mass the last to solidify.
The central mass of normal moderately coarse-granite is sur- rounded by a shell of granite porphyry, which in places grades into a more mafic porphyritic phase and in others is replaced by a fine granite contact zone. The stock as a whole must have cooled very near the surface of the earth, and some geologists are inclined to believe that a part of the magma reached the surface and was poured out upon it or was cooled as a surface cover of the main stock, in either case forming the aporphyolite which is apparently peripheral to the granite porphyry.
Quincy Granite is a riebeckite-aegirite granite. Riebeckite and aegirite are varieties of amphibole and pyroxene, respectively, both rich in soda (8 to 10 per cent) and in iron sesquioxide (about 28 per cent) but poor in alumina, magnesia, and lime.
Quincy granite is a medium to coarse and even grained rock com- posed essentially of dominant feldspar (average 60.02), quartz (aver- age 30.60), and hornblende (average 9.37), the fourth, fifth, and sixth hardest of all the gem stones. Estimates of mineral percentages by the Rosiwal method. The accessory minerals in Quincy granite are ilmenite, magnetite (probably), pyrite (very rare), zircon in doubly terminated crystals, fluorite, glena, titanite, and the black minute particles in quartz. The secondary minerals are kaolin, yellow brown to orange hornblende in fibrous crystals, chlorite, calcite, leucoxene, hematite, siderite, limonite (associated with zircon and aegitite), and
page fifty-two
part of the reibeckite. One of the altered granites (Sartori quarry) located at Pine Hill on Willard Street, near the Braintree line contains spherulites which polarize like zircon. The granite of the (Savo) quarry in West Quincy near the Milton line, is cut by a veinlet of secondary epidote, quartz, and calcite.
The deepest quarry in Quincy is Swingles, "Extra Dark." This quarry has reached a depth of about three hundred and seventy-five feet without reaching the limit of the sheet structure.
Quincy granite is noted for its high polish. This susceptivity to high polish is due to the absence of mica and to the coarser cleavage of the varieties of hornblende and augite which takes its place. The hardness and impenetrable lustre of the surface always preserves its beauty.
The general color of the fresh normal granite of Quincy ranges from a medium gray or bluish or greenish or purplish gray to a very dark bluish gray, all with black spots which, on closer inspection, are seen to be blue-black or green-black or a mixture of both. In some areas the color ranges to reddish or brownish gray. A peculiar variety of Quincy granite, known as "Gold-Leaf Quincy," the lightest in color ever quarried in Quincy, is characterized by yellowish-brown and red- dish specks of iron oxide derived in part from oxidation of the unusual mineral aenigmative. These differences in shade are due in part to a variation in the amounts of the black silicates and of the smoky quartz, as well as to the degree of kaolinization of the feldspars and in the abundance of black particles and of hornblende in them. The smoki- ness of the quartz appears to be due to infinitesimal particles of some black mineral. The bluish tint of the feldspars is due to microscopic crystals of riebeckite and its greenish hue to minute aegirites. The contrast of color and shade is chiefly between the black silicates and the combined quartz and feldspar except where the feldspar is whit- ened by kaolinization, which causes it to stand out from the quartz. In the speckled mass the opaque, white, or reddish or greenish crystals with the glistening surface are feldspar; the transparent bluish glassy spots are quartz; and the specks are usually hornblende.
Quincy granite is sold under the various trade names, "Quincy Light," "Quincy Medium," "Quincy Dark," and "Quincy Extra Dark."
The weight of Quincy granite is 165 pounds to the cubic foot. Its crushing strength is 17,000 pounds to the square inch.
To the Colonists, stone seemed the only material of proper dignity for the construction of public buildings. The early days of the Colony,
page fifty-three
Quincy Granite
Bunker Hill Quarry
. .
:
:
a committee was sent from Boston to examine the granite exposures at Old Braintree. On their return they reported enough stone could be quarried there to erect a house for the Governor and as many as three other buildings.
The first public building to be erected in Old Braintree of native 1 field stone was the second Meeting-House in 1666. This served a double purpose, both as a garrison to defend the inhabitants against the Indians and as a place of worship. [The weather vane of this Meet-1 v
ing-House veers with the wind today from the library of the Adams Mansion, on Adams Street.
Boulders and surface stones, squared and hammered, from the North and South Commons were used in the construction of the Thomas Hancock House erected on Beacon Street, Boston, in 1737, and in the first notable building of American Stone, King's Chapel, built in Boston, 1749-1754. Foundation stones added to the Hancock Meeting House in 1790 may be seen today in use in the cellar walls of two dwellings on Cottage Avenue.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, Jackson Field, Josiah Bemis, William Wood and William Packard began to open the quarries of Quincy which had lain dormant since creation. These men may be considered the first to establish the stone business in Quincy.
The first stone actually quarried in Quincy was used in the con- struction of the State Prison erected in Charlestown, in 1815. In 1817, the old Dedham Jail was built of Quincy granite. Three years later, Saint Paul's Church, Boston, was built of granite from the hills of Quincy.
The actual opening of the granite quarries in Quincy, the first regularly worked in the United States, was due to the demand for suitable material for Bunker Hill Monument.
The quarry known as the Bunker Hill Quarry supplied the stone for the "first and second experiments" of Bunker Hill Monument. The stone for the "third experiment" came from the quarries of D. M. C. Knox, Rogers and Richards, Josiah Babcock, and Barker and Wright.
The insistence of Solomon Willard, architect and superintendent, on a strong and enduring material for the monument, and the result- ing enthusiasm for cut granite as building material introduced the "Stone Age" of American architecture.
Quincy's outstanding examples of this architecture are in Quincy Square, the City Hall and the First Parish Church. The facade of City Hall was considered by the late Ralph Adams Cram, noted archi- tect and author, to be one of the outstanding specimens of architecture in the country. The four Doric monolithic columns supporting the
page fifty-five
r
pediment of the Church, each weighing approximately twenty-five tons, were the first cut in Quincy. These came from the Rattlesnake Quarry on Willard Street and were transported from the quarry to the church green on a large carriage drawn by thirty-seven yoke of oxen. "Three of these columns were set in place on the sixteenth of June, 1828, the fourth on the following day." The cost of each column set in place was one thousand dollars. The old red chalk lines by which these columns were lined off are visible today.
The largest monolithic columns in the United States today are the thirty-two fluted monolithic columns, each five feet two inches in diameter, thirty-two feet high, weighing about forty-two tons, which surround the Boston Custom House built in 1837-1847. These were cut from the Pine Hill Quarry, now the Granite Railway Quarry, and transported to Boston by a team of fifty-five oxen and twelve horses.
Far and wide spread the fame of Quincy granite after 1825, and rapid was the growth of the granite industry, Quincy's principal in- dustry for more than one hundred years.
The development of Quincy from a community of farms to a center of industrial activity was due to three men, none of whom were natives of Quincy. Two of these were inventors, Solomon Willard, the architect, and father of the granite industry of the United States; and Gridley Bryant, the builder of the Granite Railway. The third was a financier, Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins. All associated with the granite industry through the building of Bunker Hill Monument.
page fifty-six
CHAPTER XI
TRANSPORTATION
TRANSPORTATION was one of the immediate problems of the early settlers. In 1635, the General Court authorized a ferry across the Neponset River for the purpose of opening communication between Boston and Mount Wollaston, now Quincy. In the same year another ferry over the Monatiquot River "betwixte Wessagusus and Mount Wollaston," now Weymouth and Braintree, was established at East Braintree, connecting with the old coast road which passed over Penn's Hill. This ancient and historical road of Massachusetts Bay, provided for by action of the General Court in 1639, was designed to connect all the outlying coast towns with Boston. The five miles of the Coast Road within the limits of Old Braintree was finally laid out in 1648. This old coast road connected Boston and Plymouth when both were capitals of separate colonies and remained the single thoroughfare from Old Braintree and Quincy to Boston from 1641 to 1803.
The Neponset River was first spanned by a foot-bridge in 1652 at Stoughton's Mill, now Milton Lower Mills. Three years later the General Court ordered a cart-bridge built at the same location. This .was the original county bridge over which the Plymouth turnpike passed.
In 1823, ex-President John Adams was asked whether Judge Edmund Quincy of Braintree went to Boston over Milton Hill. He replied, "No, Judge Quincy would have thought it unsafe to venture as far inland as Milton Hill, for fear of the Indians; he was accustomed to go to Boston by the way of the Penny Ferry - a ferry so called be- cause passengers paid a penny to be rowed over the Neponset." This ferry, opened in 1638, was located about half way between the present Neponset and Granite Avenue Bridges.
During the first two centuries of Old Braintree and Quincy, pleas- ure travel was not in vogue. The condition of the roads and trails was such that no carriage could be used outside the town. A few privately owned coaches had appeared, either the two-horse family type or the smaller two-wheeled chair or chaise type. In winter sleighs, called pungs or pods, drawn by one or two horses, or smaller sleds drawn by dogs were used. Post-riders carried mail and messages between villages of the same colony. Between colonies mail was entrusted to travellers and merchants.
Prior to 1800, no regular stage coaches passed through Quincy. In 1803, a chartered company established the original Neponset Bridge in its present location with a connecting turnpike that coincided with the northerly end of the present Hancock Street.
page fifty-seven
Quincy Canal
This for years was the favored stage-coach route. In 1863 both bridge and turnpike became public ways thus ending the toll system which made travel so expensive. On the completion of the Neponset Turnpike, Colonel James Thayer started to run a baggage-wagon, adapted also to the carriage of passengers from Quincy to Boston. This mode of transportation proved adequate during the following twenty years. In 1812 the Quincy and Hingham Turnpike Corpora- tion opened travel to the South Shore over the route represented today by Washington Street and the Fore River Bridge.
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