USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > History of Milton > Part 4
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1151/2 dwelling houses 54 ft. of wharf 1 grist mill
36 tons of shipping £667 stock in trade £5148 money loaned out at interest
38
The Story of the Town
439 cow pastures (acres?)
179 horses
5635 bushels of grain
176 oxen
1660 barrels of cider
388 cows
934 tons of hay
1359 sheep
14 slaves3
42 hogs
LACROIX
WADSWORTH HOUSE
3. It is impossible to say just how common slaves were in Milton. Between 1695 and 1761 I have found records of at least 21 different Negro slaves. Samuel Miller at the time of his death in 1761 owned five.
39
PAPER MILL
PAPER MILLS
COTTON MILL (Dorchester)
(Blue Hill Ave.)
GRIST, CHOCOLATE, PAPER, DRUG & DYE GRINDING MILLS
EF
DR. GLOVER'S
TAVERN
1774 POUND 3
ATHERTON TAVERN
(Centre St.)
ALGERINE
CORNER
BENT'S CRACKERS 1801 -b
NEW STATE
+GRANITE RAILWAY
SMALLPOX HOSPITAL 1809
SCOTCH
BLUE HILLS
OSS. II.
WOODS
MILTON 1831 Pop. 1600
Source : E. J. Baker's 1831 Survey. E. P. H. Feb. 1954
S.H.
H.
DeS. H
NEPONSETES
POOR HOUSE
BILLINGS TAVERN
(Randolph Ave.)
1831
For the first time we have an exact map showing all roads and houses, as well as the names of the householders. This map, which also includes the Town of Dorchester, was made by Edmund J. Baker, a leading citizen of Neponset Village. The major change in the road net is the appearance of two turnpikes, Blue Hill Avenue and Randolph Avenue. The Quincy quar- ries and the Bunker Hill Monument have produced the first railway in Amer- ica, the horse-drawn Granite Railway, and Railway Village came into being at the point where Adams Street was crossed. The other physical changes were the increase in the number of farms, many of which were now produc- ing for the Boston markets rather than for their own subsistence, the further utilization of the water power of the Neponset, and the growth of Neponset Village into a considerable little settlement, complete with shops and other local activities. The Milton Post Office had arrived in about 1803 with Dr. Samuel Glover in charge, and had been located in several places in the Vil- lage. General Whitney had been postmaster for a dozen years, with the of- fice in the old Rising Sun Tavern on the corner of Adams Street and Canton Avenue. In 1831 Nathan C. Martin kept the post office in his store, which was immediately north of the present MTA tracks on the east side of Adams Street.
For some unknown reason there was a busy little industry in Milton pro- ducing ship biscuits, or water crackers. Samuel Tucker at this time had a bakery on Hillside Street, as did Artemus Kennedy. Bent and Company were established in 1801 with a bakery located on Highland Street. Some- time toward the end of the last century the business was moved to Pleasant Street near Randolph Avenue, where it still continues to produce the old- fashioned water cracker. A little after 1831 there were also other cracker bakeries near Hillside Street, at Algerine Corner, and in the Village.
At this period Milton could be considered a typical New England town, composed largely of farmers, but with an industrial development of some
41
History of Milton
size, and a number of local men of wealth, such as Asaph Churchill, Caleb Hobart, Dr. Amos Holbrook, Squire Nathaniel Tucker, and Gen. Moses Whitney. By this time there were again beginning to be a few summer visitors who boarded at some of the houses in town, but the period of summer places was still a number of years in the future. The first Forbes house on Milton Hill, however, was built just before 1831 as a summer place, but the family could hardly be considered summer residents, as their roots in Milton even at that time went back for seventy years or more.
Milton in the 1830's must have been much like any other prosperous New England town of fair size, with its interests still almost entirely local, and its activities divided between agriculture, industry, and commerce. Although it was most convenient to Boston, its life still centered within itself. Milton Vil- lage and Dorchester Lower Mills still constituted one community, and vari- ous social and intellectual activities on either side of the river were mutually enjoyed. Dorchester Lower Mills was a similar country village which served as the center for a considerable farming district north of the Neponset.
There was still but one Church in the Town, but it was about to split apart amidst bitter recriminations, and within a very few years the Town would be barred from holding Town Meeting in the Meeting House which it had built. The temperance movement was just beginning to make prog- ress. A little before the Revolution the Town had gone on record in a pro- test against any tax being placed on rum, but times were changing and soon the Town would feel differently. In 1819 the Warrant included an article "To see what measures the town will take to suppress intemperence", and the Selectmen and the Overseers of the Poor were directed by Town Meet- ing to visit all taverns and retailers of liquor to make certain that the laws were observed, and they were also directed to search out all habitual drunk- ards, and to try to prevent excessive drinking. A few years before, a Milton woman had asked to be relieved of her husband, who was "considered an id- le disorderly lewd person given to intemperence if not a common drunkard", and the Overseers of the Poor were directed to take him into custody. The Town Meeting of 1834 went still farther, and directed the Selectmen "not to give their approbation to any Retailer to sell ardent spirits", yet only four
42
WARREN ST.
J. CAMPBELL
VOSE &
WOOLEN FACTORY
GARDNER'S MILL
& CHOC'L'TE MILL
DRY
HOUSE
SIIOP
FLUME
GRIST
-
E. LAPHAM JARVIS
MILL
SHOP
PAPER
MILI-
L. VOSE
B. CREHORE
FOSTERS D. KIMBALL
SHOP
J. TALBOT'S STORE
ENGINE NO. 1
TAVERN
DR. IIARRIS
GEN. WHITNEY
J. SWIFT
D. T. VOSE
DURRELL
LOBSTER ALLEY,
R. SWAN
J & A PIERCE
OLD PAPER MILL
P. CRANE
I. SANDERSON
I. CRANĖ
NEW PAPER MILL
S. PIERCE SHOP
-
PRESTON'S MILLS
LEDGE
RIVER
SUMMER IIOUSE
MILTON VILLAGE
-
1826
BATII HOUSE
--
-
-
--
BATHING
-
-
Traced from Edmund J. Baker's 1826 survey of "Neponset Village". Ledge outline added.
F P. H lan. 1052
COMMERCIAL ST.
GEN. WHITNEY
E. CURTIS
HIGH ST.
HUMPHREYS
J. SUMNER
CAMPBELL
COLLINS
SHORT ST.
N. LEMAN
FRANKLIN ST.
T. DAVIS
W. SWAN
STANLEY
WALER ST.
NEPONSET
BOAT IIOUSE
C. DUNMORE
TURNPIKE
History of Milton
years later it directed that the paupers be given rum when they worked.
Two interesting little items of about this period have survived. Dunmore's stage in those days left the Village every morning at about eight o'clock, and returned in the afternoon. It was the only public conveyance to Boston. Mr. Beal, the milkman, was a kind and obliging soul who often helped people by carrying their mail from and to the post office in the Village while he drove his milk cart from house to house in his daily round.
I think that we may say that Milton of this period was a normal and pros- perous New England town which was standing on the threshold of becom- ing a suburb of a great city. The population was sixteen hundred, living in about two hundred dwellings.
PAUL'S .BRIDGE
44
-
--
EAST MILTON SQUARE, ABOUT 1860 Looking toward Quincy. Granite Railroad car is crossing Adams Street.
1857
Milton in the years just before the Civil War was not very different from what it had been a quarter century earlier, but a new era in the development of the town was just commencing. Probably the greatest single change was the arrival of the railroad in 1847. One could now in a short half hour or so be whisked from the Village to a point a little south of today's South Sta- tion, and commuting to work in Boston became simple and practical. The other major factor which was now starting to make its appearance was the summer resident. Additional houses belonging to the Forbes family were built on Adams Street, while Eustises and a Wolcott now had places near Blue Hill. Benjamin Rotch, recently moved to Boston from New Bedford and its whaling interests, and married to the daughter of the merchant prince Abbot Lawrence, had bought many acres near today's Blue Hills Parkway and Canton Avenue, and was establishing one of the early experiments in scientific farming. Jointly with Thomas Motley, who had a farm at Forest Hills, Mr. Rotch introduced the first Jersey cattle to this country.
The town itself had not changed much physically, except that East Mil- ton had shown very considerable growth. Whereas in 1831 it consisted of only a church, a tavern, and some half-dozen dwellings, it now boasted two churches, two stores, and about forty-four houses. Moreover it was tending somewhat to become a separate village with a social life of its own. The Granite Railway still was running, and the rail connection with Boston would not come for another dozen years.
At the other end of town on the northwesterly slope of Brush Hill, a land company had recently developed a district called Fairmount, which already contained some two dozen houses and a school. In 1868 this area would be- come part of the Town of Hyde Park.
Near the junction of Canton Avenue and today's Blue Hills Parkway, then called Mattapan Street and stretching without a single house along it from Canton Avenue to Brook Road, there was another little hamlet. It consisted of a store, two or three woodworking shops, and some houses. Before many
45
History of Milton
years it would be known as Blue Hill and would have a post office of its own.
At Mattapan, or Milton Upper Mills, there were a dozen houses scattered around in the vicinity of the paper mill and the fire engine house, but there was neither Eliot Street nor Central Avenue, and all the area from Mattapan to the Village, the old grazing place of the Dorchester cattle, reinained farm, pasture, and waste lands, with only a single house where Ruggles Lane crossed Pine Tree Brook.
Milton was still a farming community, and the new influx of wealthy sum- mer residents had as yet had little if any effect upon the life and doings of the town. At the Center, the old Unitarian Church and its new Congrega- tional neighbor flanked the Town House, with the Academy Building in the rear. There was a second Congregational Church in East Milton, but the Old Stone Church then stood unused without any congregation.
So far as I have been able to learn, the life of the town still centered large- ly within itself, although shopping and visiting trips to Boston must have become more common. In 1856 the Dorchester horsecar line was opened, and a slower but cheaper trip to Boston was thus offered in competition with the railroad. There was as yet no free library, but the "Ladies Circulat- ing Library of Dorchester and Milton" served the Village area until the Town, assisted by private subscriptions, established the Public Library in 1870. There was also an agricultural library operating during this period un- der the sponsorship of the "Farmers' Club", which appears to have been some- what short-lived. Various lecturers and speakers came here from time to time, including Abraham Lincoln, who spoke in Richmond Hall on the Dorchester side in 1848. Milton's Nathaniel S. Safford was chairman of the meeting.
In the 1856 election Milton Hill went all out for the new Republican par- ty and Fremont, its candidate for President. There were various illumina- tions and a torch-light parade over Adams Street.
We may be sure that there were church suppers, occasional balls, and all the other normal social life of a fair-sized New England town, but I have been unable to find much detailed information on this subject. The slavery question agitated the good citizens of Milton, and at least one of them, Ed- ward L. Pierce, was a most determined abolitionist. At the outbreak of the
46
FAIRMOUNT Ceded to Hyde Park 1868
Hills Parkway)
(Blue
TOWN . FARM .
Granite Ave.)
+(Hartland St.)
BLUE HILLS
MILTON 1857 Pop. approx. 2660
Source : Mss. Map, No name of maker.
History of Milton
Civil War in 1861 he was a rising young lawyer, and Moderator of the March Town Meeting of that year, yet he enlisted as a private soldier the moment the militia was called out. Many others were equally patriotic, but I doubt if they felt quite so strongly about the issue of slavery.
John M. Forbes was a winter resident in Milton and at about this period he customarily rode to his Boston office on horseback, returning the same way in the afternoon. He was an anti-slavery man but could not stomach the ex- cesses of the abolitionists. In the spring of 1859 he had a most interesting guest. John Brown of Kansas fame came out to Milton Hill for the night, and described to the Forbes family and a few assembled friends the details of his fight at Osawatomie. Within a few short months he was to make his mad attempt at Harper's Ferry and to meet his death on the scaffold. By a most extraordinary coincidence the Governor of Missouri, who had a re- ward of $3250 out for Brown's capture, visited Mr. Forbes the very next day in connection with some railroad business, and slept in the room occupied the night before by the abolitionist.
The Town Reports of this period show that in 1852 there was in opera- tion a "Town Agency for the Sale of Alcoholic Medicines" which operated for a year at a loss, but when the word "Medicine" in the title was changed to "Liquors" it appears to have prospered for a number of years. The Tem- perance movement had at last succeeded to a point where the sale of liquor in Milton was evidently restricted, at least to some extent.
I have picked up a few interesting little facts of Milton life at a slightly la- ter time, which however seem to fit in better here than in the discussion of the next period. The Sewing Circle of the Unitarian Church always planned its monthly meetings for the night of the full moon in order that the ladies might have good light on the way home. Mr. Whall, the expressman, made daily trips to Boston, and was always glad to do a little errand for one, such as picking up a parcel or matching a piece of ribbon. I also find mention of the dressmaker coming to a house to stay for a week twice a year, while she turned out the new dresses for the ladies of the household.
The population of the Town was about 2660, but if you wish to know the number of houses you will have to count them on the map for yourself!
48
MILTON VILLAGE IN 1865 Looking up the hill from the bridge
A
-
1888
By 1888 Milton had achieved the character and position which it was to re- tain for the next forty years. It had become a very wealthy suburb of Boston, but one which still retained its own identity, characteristics and local insti- tutions. Many residents of Boston were establishing summer homes here which in the course of years would become winter homes as well. From Mat- tapan, Central Avenue, and the Village, eight trains ran to Boston in the morning and ten in the afternoon, with the same number making the return trip. The run was not much over twenty minutes from the Village. The resi- dents of Brush Hill were even better served, for trains ran from Readville to Back Bay Station in ten minutes, and not much longer to the South Station. East Milton also had its daily ten trains each way. The Granite Railway had ceased operations during the 60's, and the line to Boston started in 1871. If one felt economical and had plenty of time, he could ride the horsecars from the Village, arriving at the Old South Church in one hour after changing horses at Fields Corner. Thus access to Boston was very simple, and a con- siderable portion of the town commuted to work. Analysis of the Milton Directory of 1885, the earliest available, leads me to believe that about one- sixth of those actively employed then worked outside of the town, practical- ly all in Boston. This directory also gives us a detailed report as to what oc- cupations the inhabitants of the town followed.
Capitalists and Executives 29 Businessmen, Salesmen, etc. 94 Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, etc. 29 Teachers 22
Skilled Laborers and Craftsmen 158 Factory Hands 72
Housekeepers 9
Coachmen 43 Gardeners 28
Clerks 58
Quarrymen and Stonecutters 78
Farmers 116
Town and Govt. Employees 19
Laborers 159
[Total 914 reported out of a population of 3600]
49
History of Milton
Directories of this period are available which list all the stores and shops, and I will merely summarize the various activities taking place at the main centers. The Village had a lunch-room operator and caterer, a drug store, jeweller, harness maker, carriage shop, livery stable, hay and grain business, barber, meat market and grocery store, shoe store, men's furnishing shop, carriage painter, dentist, coal and lumber yard, paint shop, and newspaper and job printer, as well as a blacksmith. There was also a large carpenter shop making sash and trim.
In East Milton there was a livery stable, a general store, two groceries, a fish market, a shoe store, and two blacksmiths, as well as some stone-cutting sheds. At Blue Hill on Canton Avenue at the southern end of Blue Hills Parkway there was a grocery store which also was the post office for that area. Two churches stood near the Town Hall, Unitarian and Congrega- tional, with a second Congregational group in East Milton, and a Baptist church meeting in the new Associates Building in the Village. St. Gregory's, just over the river, included Milton in its parish at that time.
The town in those days consisted in many ways of three or even more separate communities. The Center and Milton Hill patronized the Village and Talbot's store just over the Dorchester line, while Brush Hill gravitated toward Readville. East Milton was almost a little town in itself, with its own post office, stores, and railway. There was also a considerable settlement on Hillside Street, a inaterial distance from any other part of the town.
A glance at the map will show that most of today's main roads then exist- ed with the exception of Eliot Street between Central Avenue, where a con- siderable number of houses had just been built, and the Upper Mills at Mat- tapan. Another missing road was Brook Road south and east of Canton Av- enue. Toward the close of the century a major Metropolitan sewer was laid through Milton. It was large enough to drive a two-horse team through, and required several years to build. A very large tar-paper shack was built as a dormitory on a site near Brook Road and Central Avenue. Most of the la- borers were Italians who slept there during the week and went into Boston for Sunday. Upon completion of the sewer in the early 1900's Brook Road was continued along its course until it reached Adams Street. Edge Hill
50
.
E.P
BLUE HILLS
MILTON 1888 Pop. 3600
Source : Robinson's map of 1888. E. P. H. Feb. 1954
History of Milton
Road would shortly be built between Pleasant Street and Adams Street at East Milton Square.
In 1893 a considerable amount of land in the town was taken over by the State and incorporated into the Blue Hills Reservation. Most of it was in the hills and was of relatively little value for farming purposes, and its develop- ment as a park was of material value to many citizens of Milton.
While plumbing and running water had existed for many years in some houses in Milton, they were still very far from being in general use. There was, of course, neither public water supply nor sewerage system. Some houses secured running water by installing a large tank in the attic and a force pump connected to the well. Half an hour to an hour's pumping by a son of the house or a servant (for servants were usual in those days even among the only moderately well-to-do) would put sufficient water into the tank for a day's use. Increasing wealth and the demands of the new residents moving to town from Boston led to a desire for more of the amenities of life, and in the last decade or so of the century these came "bursting out all over", the telephone, electric lights, a water and sewerage system, electric street cars, and Town collection of ashes and garbage.
The telephone was the first to appear. William H. Forbes, son of John M. Forbes, had come out of the Civil War as a young lieutenant colonel, and was devoting his energies to helping manage the family's interests in Wes- tern lands and railroads. In the late seventies, however, he invested in the newly developed telephone, and in 1879 became president of the ancestor of today's American Telephone Company. Milton had its first switchboard in- stalled in Nye's Drug Store in the Village on the corner of Eliot Street in July 1881. By 1886 a line had been extended to the top of Blue Hill to serve the Observatory, and there were instruments in a number of the stores. The use of the telephone could not have spread very rapidly, for ten years later there were still less than one hundred subscribers to the Milton exchange.
The 1887 Town Meeting appointed a committee to consider a water sup- ply and sewerage system, but a private company commenced the distribu- tion of water in 1889 with some seven miles of pipe and forty-six hydrants in the Brush Hill area. This little utility, the Brush Hill Water Company, was
52
PAUL ROAD CROSSING LOOK OUT 1-14 ENGINE.
CAREY HILL View from Granite Avenue in the 1890's. Squantum Street is in the foreground.
The Story of the Town
GJLACROIX
The MILTON CHOCOLATEMILLS
MILTON VILLAGE IN 1885 Looking South and West
owned by local capitalists, and drew its water from wells operated by a com- pany in Hyde Park. In the next year another company was formed to serve the Milton Hill area, and the two were merged that summer into a single corporation which was soon supplying water to a large part of Milton. In 1902 the company was bought by the Town.
By 1889 the Village area had its first sewers, which two years later were connected with the Metropolitan system. In 1890, when there was a popula-
53
History of Milton
tion of 4278 living in 731 dwellings, the Town voted to establish a sewerage system and a Board of Commissioners to operate it.
Parts of Milton had long had gas lights, for the Dorchester Gas Company had laid pipes in Randolph Avenue in 1874. In 1889 the Town refused the offer of the Norfolk Electric Light Company to install street lights. The next year Edwin T. Ruggles built a small steam generating station on Central Avenue, and the Town soon was using electricity from this source for street lighting. I understand that, in the earlier years, electricity was available only during the evening hours. In the spring of 1892 there were seven hundred house and three hundred street lights in use. In 1903 the Boston Edison bought the local company and incorporated it into its system. The Town then secured the old power station and converted it into today's Police Station.
The last decades of the century produced a great innovation in transpor- tation, the electric street railway. The first formal request for a franchise to build and operate such a system in Milton presumably was made in 1894, for in October of that year a special Town Meeting was held to consider the re- quest. Brush Hill and Milton Hill turned out en masse and gave tongue to violent opposition, the gist of which was that their coachmen would be un- able to control their horses if a street car was met along the road.1 This was, I think, the last stand of privilege in Milton, and the defeat of the franchise was overwhelming, four hundred and two to one! Less fortunate citizens of other parts of the town had to wait until 1897 when a franchise was granted, and the first street car was put into operation in July of 1899. The introduc- tion of the street railway caused a revolution in transportation nearly as great as that later brought about by the automobile. The trolley line of most value to Milton residents started in the Village on the Dorchester side, went along Eliot Street to Central Avenue, which it then followed to Brook Road, then along today's Reedsdale Road, and following Pleasant Street and Edge Hill Road to East Milton Square, where connections could be made with cars going to Quincy and Braintree. There was a transfer station on Reeds-
1. Horses in those days were not accustomed to new and unusual sights and noises, and they were very apt to run away, or at least dance around on their hind legs, to the great detriment of harness, dash boards, and nerves, whenever the unexpected was encountered. They were very different from today's sophisticated equines.
54
---
A BRUSH HILL GOVERNESS AND HER CHARGES About 1895
A MEADOWBROOK CART About 1895
The Story of the Town
dale Road where one could change for a car going down Randolph Avenue to Brockton, and there was also a line along Brook Road to Mattapan, whence cars ran to Blue Hill and farther south. Another track from Readville crossed the Neponset near Paul's Bridge and established the line of that portion of the Parkway running today by the Seminary of the Columban Fathers to Blue Hill Avenue. All the local systems were connected together with inter- urban lines, and in those days one could, practically speaking, travel almost anywhere in New England by trolley car.
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