USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Historic Quincy, Massachusetts > Part 4
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It is of interest to note that while in 1803 the cost of the Neponset Turnpike and Bridge, including all land purchases, was $34,000. Fore River Bridge was erected in 1936 at a cost of $2,500,000.
Following the opening of the Quincy and Hingham Turnpike, the Old Field's District, now Quincy Point, became a place of con- siderable importance. The Weymouth Packets which passed daily to and from Boston included the "Point" as a regular stop. Later a steamboat service was maintained until after the railroad through Quincy was opened.
The transportation of stone was an important problem in early Quincy. The cartage of surface stone and huge boulders, such as may be seen today in Faxon Park, was accomplished by the use of heavy carts drawn by oxen or horses, or both. To save part of this long cartage of the granite and to facilitate the handling of larger blocks, Joshua Torrey in 1824, started to build a canal from the tidal basin at Broad Meadows nearly to Quincy Center. Although Torrey's project for carrying the water nearer to the stone was unsuccessful, canals were still the only mode of transportation the general public at that time would consider. In the following year a group of enter- prising citizens formed the Quincy Canal Corporation which built a canal for large sloops carrying general supplies as well as granite. This canal ran from the tide mill at Town River to the stone bridge constructed by John Adams, while surveyor of highways in 1760, on the Quincy and Hingham Turnpike, now near the corner of Canal and Washington Streets.
Transportation of stone became an increasing problem with the determination of Solomon Willard to use large blocks of granite in the construction of Bunker Hill Monument. During the sixteenth century in England, the wagon or tramway utilizing rails had been frequently employed to haul burdens to rivers or ports. Probably, the first of such tramways in the United States was an inclined plane used in Boston in 1795 for moving brick. Thus this mode of trans- portation provided the solution. In the fall of 1825 Gridley Bryant won the consent of a group of prominent Boston men interested in the Monument to see what could be done about building a rail- way from the quarry to the tide-waters of Massachusetts Bay.
An act of incorporation to construct the railway was passed and approved on the fourth of March, 1826. The builder of this rail-
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Incline Plane of the Granite Railway Company
Replica of the first car used on the First (commercial) Railway in America
way, Gridley Bryant, stands in the first rank of pioneer engineers in America. His inventive mind was responsible for many important improvements in railway machinery, including the switch, the por- table derrick, the turn-table, and the moveable eight-wheel railroad car.
Bryant surveyed several routes from the quarry purchased (called Bunker Hill) to the nearest tide-water. Although the town of Quincy as a body, as well as individual owners of the quarries, pressed for a route directly through the center of the town to Brackett's Wharf or to the "Point," the way selected ran from "Furnis Lott" through West Quincy and East Millton to a wharf at the elbow in the Neponset River, not far from the present Granite Bridge. The old Granite Rail- way wharf, fifteen hundred feet in length, built at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, is still in existence today and is now a part of the Metropolitan Park System.
On April 1, 1826, work commenced on the Granite Railway of Quincy, the First (commercial) Railroad in the United States, which continued in operation for a period of about forty-five years.
Shortly after the organization of the Railway Company, Mr. Willard advised the Building Committee of the Bunker Hill Monu- ment Association: "It has been the wish of some of the railway com- pany for sometime that we should relinquish the Bunker Hill Quarry and take the stock at Pine Hill (a quarry recently purchased by the company.) The exchange would undoubtedly be advantageous to that company, as it would save the expense of some rods of railway. For my part, I doubt whether they will make any offer which would be for our interests or credit to accept." Mr. Willard's advice was heeded. On mutual consultation the directors of the Railway Com- pany acceded to the request of the Building Committee and extended the railway to what was called Bunker Hill Ledge, the highest part of which was ninety-three feet above the general level; on the top of this was erected an obelisk or monument forty-five high.
The Pine Hill Quarry referred to in Mr. Willard's letter quoted above is today known as the Granite Railway Quarry. From this quarry, the most famous of the Quincy quarries, later came the stone for many notable buildings throughout the United States and for the second Minot's Ledge Light, one of the world's most famous light- houses, built in 1855-1860. Charles A. Lawrence, in his article "Minot's Light," which appeared in the New England Magazine of October 1896 stated: "It was important that none but the best granite should be employed in the building of Minot's Light. Samples from many localities were submitted to the severest tests. Of the stone taken from Rockport, Cohasset and Quincy, that of the last named place was proven to be the finest of grain, toughest and clearest of sap."
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Early Transportation of Granite
In Mr. Willard's opinion, it soon began to be demonstrated that the railway was not so great a benefit as it was anticipated and that it was not worth waiting for. Besides the delay of over a year, there was an inconvenience attending the putting into operation of a new method of transportation, the transshipment to the vessel, and the reloading at the wharf in Charlestown for the teaming to the site of the monument, a distance from the ledge of twelve miles. Mr. Wil- lard declared that he could have better afforded to pay all the dif- ference in the saving of cost of transportation rather than suffer these inconveniences. The practical difficulties of the inception were after- wards overcome, and the railway very soon demonstrated its great value to the public.
The Granite Railway was completed on October 7, 1826. On that memorable day, "a quantity of stone weighing sixteen tons, taken from the ledge belonging to the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and loaded on three wagons, which together weighed five tons, mak- ing a load of twenty-one tons, was moved with ease by a single horse to the wharf on the Neponset River."
The first contract for the transportation of freight by rail in the United States was made and concluded on March 27, 1827, "by and between the Granite Railway Company, by Thomas H. Perkins, their president, and the Building Committee of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, by John C. Warren, chairman of said committee." Under the terms of the contract, the Granite Railway Company agreed to deliver three thousand tons of hewn stone at Deven's Wharf in the town of Charlestown during the year of 1827. The amount of stone to be delivered per day was not to exceed thirty tons, at the rate of seventy-five cents per ton. To complete their contract, that of carry- ing the stone from the wharf to Charlestown, the company purchased the little steamer, Robin Hood, for six thousand, five hundred dol- lars, and two tow boats at one thousand dollars each.
The Granite Railway, more than three miles in length, was con- structed at a cost of $33,158.95, about $11,000 per mile. The total cost, including land, wharf, horses, cars and other equipment, was estimated at $100,000. The road was substantially constructed. It rested on a foundation of stone laid deep enough to be beyond the reach of frost. The ties or sleepers were made of stone placed eight feet apart, upon which were laid longitudinal pine timber rails six inches wide and twelve inches high. On top of the rails was an oak strip two inches by four inches faced with an iron plate three inches wide and one quarter of an inch thick, which was fastened with spikes. At all crossings of public roads and driftways, stone rails were used with an iron plate four inches wide and one-quarter inch thick bolted firmly to the stone. The wooden rails were subseqently replaced with stone rails. The road bed was filled with broken stones and covered with gravel, over which the horse or horses traveled. The gauge of the track was five feet. On account of its construction, the upkeep of the road for many years was less than ten dollars a year.
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The first Granite Railway Company carriage designed by Bryant, was built by Phinehas Dow at a cost of $717.79. It had a frame for a body, which consisted of three timbers extending longitudinally and resting with each end on a cross bolster, to which they were firmly bolted. There were two of these bolsters, each resting upon and across a four-wheel carriage or truck, having center plates and side bearings of iron, and secured in the middle to each truck by a vertical king bolt, to allow a horizontal swivelling motion between them and the bolsters. Each car had wheels six and one-half feet in diameter and a platform suspended by chains under the axles. The platform was let down at any convenient place and loaded. The car was then run over the load. The chains attached to the car were hooked in eye- bolts on the platform; and the loaded platform was then raised a little above the track by machinery on the top of the car. The loads averaged about six tons. Following the car came the trucks or four wheel carriages, which were constructed with two heavy timbers, to each of which was bolted an iron axle-tree. The wheels were made of cast iron with inside flanges and treads running upon edge rails. These wheels were about eighteen inches in diameter and revolved separately upon the fixed axles, not in pairs with the axles as in the cars today. When stones of eight or ten tons weight were to be transported, two of these trucks were attached by a platform and a king bolt, thereby making an eight-wheel car. When larger stones were to be carried, the number of trucks or carriages was increased, by which arrange- ment a sixteen-wheel car was made. This type of car, drawn by a team of sixty-five yoke of oxen (one hundred and thirty oxen) and twelve horses, was used in 1834 to transport one by one the eight columns, each weighing sixty-four tons in the rough, for the old Suf- folk County Court House, Boston.
The Granite Railway, always utilizing the principle of gravity and horses as motive power, afforded the rest of the country a test- ing ground for railway principles. The construction of the Granite Railway marks an era of prime importance, not only in the history of Quincy, but in that of the United States.
In March of 1844, the Old Colony Railroad Corporation was charted, with a capital of one million dollars, to build a railroad from South Boston to Plymouth. One year and ten months later, on Novem- ber 10, 1845, the Old Colony Railroad Company opened its line for travel from South Boston, through the village of Quincy, to Plymouth, a distance of thirty-seven miles. Two years later, the line was extended to its new depot on Kneeland Street in Boston proper. In June of 1855 the "Cumberland," the first coal-burning locomotive on the Old Colony, passed through Quincy.
On December 19, 1870, the Old Colony and Newport Railroad Company purchased the roadbed of the Granite Railway Company, together with its rights and franchise as a railroad company, for the sum of twenty-nine thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. The
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ancient structure was demolished. Ten months later, on October 7, 1871, the Granite Branch of the Old Colony, utilizing the greater part of the old Granite Railway roadbed, was opened from Atlantic to West Quincy. (This line from Atlantic to East Milton was discon- tinued in September, 1940.) In 1893, the Old Colony Railroad Com- pany was leased to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, which serves Quincy today. The New Haven maintains five railroad stations in Quincy: Atlantic, Norfolk Downs, Wollaston, Quincy and Quincy Adams.
Quincy annals state that one of the first horseless trucks of the United States, a "steam buggy" built by Badger Brothers in 1861, made a successful run from West Quincy to the Town House in Quincy Center. In 1862, the Quincy Horse Railroad opened, celebrating its first day of operation by inviting the ladies of Quincy "to enjoy a free ride over the road." The ambitious route, stretching from the foot of Penn's Hill to Field's Corner, Dorchester, was a forerunner of the later electric and bus lines of the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Com- pany, which serve Quincy today. Bus service direct from Quincy to New York City is provided by the Greyhound Lines.
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First Parish Church and Hancock Cemetery
The Crypt of the Presidents o the Stone Temple Quincy Mass.
President Adams Crypt in the First Parish Church
CHAPTER XII
CHURCHES
THE religious history of Quincy has been a record of peace and tolerance since the controversy which accompanied the early settle- ment here. For almost a century a single church served the needs of the community. That church, now the First Parish Church, Unitarian, still lives. Its present and fourth house of worship, dedicated Novem- ber 12, 1828, is a national shrine; for here lie the mortal remains of Quincy's two most famous sons, Presidents of the United States, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and their wives, Abigail (Smith) Adams and Louisa Catherine (Johnson) Adams.
As early as 1689, there was in Old Braintree a little body of Church of England communicants. The Reverend John Hancock noted in his Century Sermons of 1739: "The Church of England in this place, within the compass of forty years, have had several missionaries from the society in London for propagating the Gospel, besides occasional preaching, but they soon returned." In 1727, the Church of England established what is now Christ Church, in a location on School Street adjacent to the old Episcopal Cemetery, not far from the site of its present house of worship. Christ Church is the oldest Episcopal parish in Massachusetts, and, with the exception of Trinity Church in New- port, Rhode Island, is the oldest in all New England.
One hundred and five years later, in 1832, another church was organized in Quincy, the Evangelical, now Bethany Congregational Church. Its first house of worship, dedicated August 20, 1834, stood at the corner of the present Revere Road and Hancock Street. The present edifice of the Bethany Congregational Church is located at the junction of Coddington and Spear Streets, Quincy Center.
Mass was never celebrated in Old Braintree. From March 1631, when Sir Christopher Gardiner fled into the woods from his hummock on the banks of the Neponset River, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, there is reason to believe that no communicant of the Roman Catholic Church had a permanent abode in Old Brain- tree or Quincy. The opening of the granite quarries brought many Catholics to West Quincy. In 1826, Father Pendergast called at the Adams Mansion upon the President of the United States to inquire concerning the Catholics of Quincy. President Adams through John Kirk (an Irishman in his employ for many years) spread the news that "the Priest had come." Confessions were heard that night. Early the following morning the first Mass in Quincy was celebrated in the so called "Long House," which then stood near the brook on Adams Street at the junction of the present Furnace Brook Parkway. (Quincy Monitor, May 1886.)
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Saint Mary's Church
Ahavath Achim Synagogue
For almost forty years the Catholics of Quincy were obliged to walk to Boston on Sunday to hear Mass, unless a Missionary priest visited the town. During the years of 1839 to 1842, occasional Masses were celebrated in the old West District school-house by Father T. Fitzsimmons of South Boston.
The first Catholic parish in Quincy, Saint Mary's in West Quincy, the Mother Church of the South Shore, consecrated by the Right Rev- erend Bishop Fenwick, September 18, 1842, included the towns of Milton, Braintree, Randolph, Stoughton, Weymouth, Hingham, Co- hasset, Scituate, Abington, and along the South Shore to Plymouth.
The first Jewish people in Quincy settled in South Quincy in 1888. Soon they banded together and founded a small Synagogue at now 339 Water Street, which is still being used for week day services. In 1903, Ahavath Achim Synagogue (Brotherly Love) was dedicated.
Today there are fifty-two churches in Quincy, having a total mem- bership of more than forty-four thousand, an energetic Council of Churches and an active Ministerial Association.
CHURCHES IN QUINCY
Apostolic - 1 Assembly of God - 1
Hebrew - 2
Baptist - 2
Italian Evangelical Mission - 1 Jehovah's Witness - 1
Catholic - 7
Lutheran - 5
Christadelphian - 1
Methodist - 4
Christian Assembly - 1
Nazarene - 1
Christian and Missionary Alliance - 1
Presbyterian - 2
Christian Science - 1
Quincy City Mission - 1
Congregational - 9
Salvation Army - 1
Episcopal - 2
Spiritualist - 1
Evangelical - 1
Squantum (Catholic) Mission -- 1
Evangelical Baptist Mission - 1 Friendly Mission - 1
Unitarian - 2
Pentecostal - 1
From 1640 to 1824, the affairs of Church and Town in Old Brain- tree and Quincy were one, "the Church the One." The practical sepa- ration of this relationship was accomplished in Quincy on April 12, 1824. Nine years later on November 11, 1833, Article XI of the Amend- ments to the Constitution of Massachusetts was approved and ratified by the people. Article XI of the Amendments rendered the oppressive Article III of the Declaration of Rights null and void, and declared that "all religious sects and denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens of the Commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law." Thus the relationship of Church and State in Massachusetts was legally dis- solved and the equality of sects was established.
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CHAPTER XIII
EDUCATION
THE Puritan founders of Massachusetts, who brought with them the tradition of English culture, understood the value of education and desired to advance learning in the new colony. The first words appearing on the opening page of the original town book of Old Braintree, dated 1640, are "Schoole Land." Then follows the memo- randum of a conveyance of that year, under which a portion of the tract originally allotted at the "Mount" to William Coddington passed to the town as common lands and was devoted to the support of a school. The existence about 1645 of a public Latin school in Old Braintree is evidenced by a petition in 1735, "prefer'd to the General Court to grant us something Gratis for our having kept a free Latin School for about ninety years."
In 1642 the General Court of the Colony required the municipal authorities to see that every child within their jurisdiction should be educated, and that this education should not be narrow or superficial. The selectmen of every town were required to "have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors; to see first that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them to read the English tongue and obtain a knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty shil- lings for each neglect therein." In 1647, a general educational law required: "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, it was ordered in all the Puritan colonies that every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all children to write and read; and when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred fam- ilies, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof to be able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University; pro- vided that if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year, that every such town shall pay five pounds to the next school, till they shall perform the order." This act definitely established the principle of compulsory education in Massachusetts.
The earliest village school-house in Old Braintree, which must have been a structure of the humblest description, stood at the side of the old Plymouth Road, not far from the meeting-house. When it was built is not recorded, but in "November 1648, Mr. Flynt, teacher of the Church of Christ, made acknowledgment of the sale of the Schoolehouse." On March 3rd, 1678/9, the town agreed with Benja- min Tompson that he should be "Schoole Master" receiving for his services thirty pounds or about one hundred dollars a year. Tompson, a graduate of Harvard College, was by profession a "Practitioner of Physick" and is supposed to have been the first practising physician
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in Old Braintree. "In urgent cases he was obliged to close his school to attend to his professional duties." From 1695 to 1698, Tompson, in addition to his other duties, served as Town Clerk.
Education at that time was not free, for part of the agreement with Tompson was "that every child should bring into the schoole master, halfe a cord of wood beside the quarter money every yeare." In 1701, a more definite provision was made; for, the salary still stand- ing at thirty pounds, the town voted that every parent or master send- ing a scholar to school pay the town treasurer for the support of the school, five shillings a year. The selectmen were further empowered to abate any part or the whole of this payment on the application of any poor persons in this Town who "shall find themselves unable to pay, and any deficiency over and above the Rent of the Town Lands and the head money of the Schollars shall be raised by a Town Rate equally proportioned upon the Inhabitants." This vote seems to have been the initial step in the introduction of a free public school system in Old Braintree. The practice of exacting payment for the schooling of children and servants continued to about 1720; from that time the whole expense was assumed by the town.
In 1739, a species of special school committee had been provided with Colonel John Quincy at the head. In the following year "after some debate thereon," the Town ordered "That the affair of the Schools be regulated by the Selectmen, In all things as heretofore."
A "warm" desire for useful education in trade, navigation and fishery, with the attendant arts and manufactories, was the most im- portant part of the petition of 1791, to incorporate the North Precinct of the Town of Braintree into a separate town.
On April 11, 1793, the Town "voted to build a school-house. Two years later on April 6, 1795, the Town voted "to have but one school" in the Town, and that to be kept in the School-house in the Centre of the Town." The location of the School-house was finally settled at the Town Meeting of November 16, 1795, at which time the Town voted that "the school-house shall be built on the 'Training Field' which included the present site of the First Parish Church, a part of Washington Street, and a large share of Temple Street.
This school-house was a plain two story building which stood about one hundred feet north of the Hancock Meeting House. The upper story was used as a Town Hall, and in the winter time a "cipher- ing school" was kept in the same room; on the lower floor the Gram- mar school was taught.
The first report of the School committee of the Town of Quincy was made at the Town Meeting of May 13, 1793. This report was merely a financial statement setting forth the appropriations voted by the committee, for the support of the schools for the year of 1793. The report reads as follows, viz: - "Thirty Pounds for an English
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reading and writing school in the School House; Five Pounds to the Farms and Squantum; Five Pounds to Hoff's Neck and Germantown; Eighteen Pounds and Twenty Shillings for four Women's Schools in various locations in the town."
The first recorded appropriation for the establishment of the Primary Department, in the various local neighborhoods, was in 1800. These local or "Dame" schools, for which specific sums varying from four dollars to forty dollars were annually appropriated, were estab- lished for the smaller children whose walk to school, in many cases, measured miles.
On December 29, 1815, this school-house was entirely destroyed by fire. For the next two years, school was held in the home of William Wood on Poverty Street, now Franklin Street, near the easterly corner of School Street. "Poverty Street was so named on account of a weed by that name which grew in abundance in it, and not from the poverty of its residents. This weed has long since disappeared, 1876."
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