History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 181

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 181

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Abel Adams

June S.

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: Increase Davis

June 8.

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Lemuel King ..

June 11.

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Jacob Harvey

July 31.

December 15.

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£88 138. 4d.

" B. WHITE,

Selectmen

" JOHN GODDARD,

"W. CAMPBELL,

Brookline.

" The original sworn to before

"STEPHEN SHARP, Town Clerk."

Beginning of the Present Century .- Up to the latter part of the last century, or the commencement of the present, the people of the town were depend- ent upon the products of their land, and were of the thrifty sort of farmers. About that time a new order of things commenced; the attractions of the place drew many people from the large and thickly- populated towns, who were desirous to retire from the noise and bustle of active commercial life and to seek a home in the country, for this was then a good specimen of a country town. The elegant native forest-trees, the elevated lands, the rich soil, the near- ness to the seat of government, and many other ad- vantages, soon attracted the attention of wealthy people of other localities. Among the first, if not the first, of this class was Hon. Stephen Higginson, a native of Salem, a leader in the politics of Massa- chusetts, and a merchant of Boston, who purchased thirteen acres of land, formerly used by Ebenezer Richards for a sheep-pasture, for the sum of one hundred and twenty dollars an acre, upon which he erected an elegant dwelling-house. This locality is an elevated and beautiful spot, commanding a fine view of Boston and the many islands, while near at hand, as if to lend a charm to the scene, are the placid waters of the old Boston Reservoir, of irreg- ular elliptic shape, the surface water covering twenty- two and one-half acres, and containing one hundred million gallons. This land is on the heights near Warren and Heath Streets ; it was afterwards owned and occupied by Dr. John C. Warren, who did much to beautify the same. A portion of this land was

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sold to William Appleton, Esq., M.C., who was for- merly president of the Boston branch of the United States Bank, also of the Massachusetts General Hos- pital and Provident Institution of Savings, etc. Mr. Henry Upham afterwards occupied Mr. Appleton's place, and the Warren mansion has since been occu- pied by George Bacon, and now by Augustus Lowell, Esq. Following the above-named Higginson were the families of Hon. Jonathan Mason, M.C., a stu- dent of President John Adams, counselor-at-law, member of the State Legislature, and member of the Governor's Council, who purchased the farm of Moses White on Heath Street. Benjamin Guild, Esq., next purchased the house, and afterwards sold the same to Gen. Theodore Lyman, the well-known founder of the Farm School at Westborough, who pulled down the old house and erected the present mansion, now owned by his son, Hon. Theodore Lyman, member of Congress from this district.

Next in order, and near to the estate of Dr. War- ren, was the residence of Hon. George Cabot, M.C., who was Secretary of the Navy under Washington, afterwards president of the Boston branch of the United States Bank. He was a retired sea-captain. Stephen Higginson, Jr., succeeded Mr. Cabot in this home, who sold to Capt. Adam Babcock, afterwards purchased by the late Samuel Goddard. The land owned and occupied by John L. Gardner, Esq., was part of this estate, and was sold to Mr. Gardner by Capt. Ingersoll, a son-in-law of Capt. Babcock. Op- posite to the estates of Messrs. Appleton and Warren, on Warren Street, was the old-time mansion of the late

858

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Col. Thomas H. Perkins, who was formerly president of the Boston branch of the United States Bank, member of the State Senate, active in establishing the Massachusetts General and the Insane Hospitals, contributing eight thousand dollars to its funds, and was a patron of the Blind Asylum, for whom it was named; also of the Mercantile Library Association and Boston Athenaeum. Adjoining this estate, on the west, was the residence of the late Samuel Cabot, built in 1806, which gave way but a few years since to the present mansion of William Gray, another of Boston's merchants. Did our space permit we might, with equal justice, mention a long list of persons emi- nent in the various walks of professional and mercantile life. Prominent among whom were John E. Thayer, Nathaniel I. Bowditch, Richard Sullivan, Samuel G. Perkins, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, James S. Amory, Thomas C. Amory, Amos A. Lawrence, William R. Lawrence, George B. Blake, Ignatius Sargent, Wil- liam Dwight, David Sears, Barthold Schelesinger, Edward C. Wilson, William I. Bowditch, William Aspinwall, Samuel Goddard, Thomas Parsons, Eben Wright, John W. Candler, and many others.

While among those who have held or do now own large estates in various portions of the town may be mentioned Benjamin White, Ebenezer Francis, Amos A. Lawrence, William R. Lawrence, David Sears, Charles Stearns, Marshal Stearns, Charles H. Stearns, William Stearns, Thomas Griggs, Timothy Corey, Elijah Corey, Abijah W. Goddard, William Aspinwall, Col. Thomas Aspinwall, George Babcock, James Leeds, Ebenezer Davis, George B. Blake, Ignatius Sargent, William I. Bowditch, Moses Jones, William Dear- born, and others.

At a later date than the above the names of White, Griggs, Lawrence, Stearns, Goddard, Corey, Withing- ton, Thayer, Davis, Sargent, Sharp, Craft, Coolidge, Sears, Perkins, Cabot, and others, appear as among the largest land-owners of the town. The Win- chesters, Aspinwalls, Buckminsters, Gardners, and Whites were perhaps the largest and the oldest land-

owners. The earliest settlers were agriculturists, their first business being to clear the primitive forests and prepare the land for the first crops. They were men of great physical powers, resolution, and stability of purpose, and applied their energies of body to clear- ing and improving their township, and if we may judge of the results of their efforts, they were faith- ful to their calling. The nearness to the capital of the State made it the natural locality for the raising | of produce of all kinds; a great opportunity was presented to grow and increase in wealth, as well as | to improve their land, and this was brought about by |

hard labor and strict frugality, which lent its aid in the work.

There was a ready demand for all kinds of vege- tables and fruit, large and small, and this town con- tributed largely to supply the want.

The Town as it Is .- Of the present aspect of the town, with all the various changes since the com- mencement of this century, much has been said and published, some of which are well worth noticing. The learned and well-known editor of Winthrop's Journal pronounced Brookline to be the most beauti- ful village in New England. For local scenery, rich cultivated fields and gardens, and green-house pro- ductions, for continually increasing costliness and taste in its public and private buildings, the praises of this town resound far and wide, and this is but the echo of the sentiments generally expressed by persons of taste and observation.

On a hot summer's day many years since, a seaman's preacher, after regaling himself in a beautiful grove behind the First Church, in the course of his sermon said, "I know not, my friends, how you can help being Christians, for you already live in paradise."

In the summer of 1860, when the Prince of Wales was on a visit to this country, among the many re- ceptions given him was that of the city of Boston. The Prince alighted at the Cottage Farm Station in Longwood, where he was received by the city govern- ment. When he arrived at the station previous to seating himself in the carriage provided for him, he took a look at the surroundings of the town, and ex- claimed in the writer's presence, " Of all the country he had passed through, none had reminded him so much of the scenery of Old England as that around here."

A modern poet, in the " Poet's Tribute" in 1840 contributes the following lines :

" I have revisited thy sylvan scenes, Brookline ! in this the summer of my day. Again have reveled in thy lovely vales, And feasted vision on thy glorious hills ; As once I reveled, feasted, in the spring : Of careless, happy boyhood. And I've bowed Again within thy temple, and have heard, As though time's footfall had these years been hushed, Thy patriarch pastor's lips, like dew, distill Gentle instruction. And the same is he, As to young love and reverence he was, My cheerful friend, benevolent, and good. The same thy hills and dells, those skies the same Of rich October; such as only bend Over New England; and the same gray walls, Reared in New England's infancy, are those Which charmed imagination. Thou art fair And beautiful as ever. Fancy decms

Thy sweet retreat excused the common doom

BROOKLINE, MASS. RESIDENCE OF AMOS A. LAWRENCE,

L., H. Everts, Bugraver, Philadelphia.

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859

BROOKLINE.

Caused by the fall, as if the Architect Were willing, by such specimen, to show What Eden, in its primal beauty, was."

"I think that no one will dispute that Brookline was for a long time pre-eminent in the little cordon of towns which have so long constituted the exquisite environs of Boston, emboss- ing it with a rich and varied margin of lawn and lake and meadow and wooded hill-side, and encircling its old ' plain neck,' as William Wood called it, in his ' New England Prospect,' with an unfading wreath of bloom and verdure. I think no one will dispute her claim to have given the earliest celebrity to those environs for rural culture and beauty. Visitors from other countries, or from other States, carried home with them a deeper impression of the charms of this spot and its sur- roundings than of any other region in New England; and when the well-to-do Bostonian, before there were any railroads or steamers to whirl him off to Scotland or the Alps, or even to Newport, or Saratoga, or Niagara, for his summer vacation, desired to get a breath of pure air, or a glimpse of green fields, or a scent of fresh flowers, by an afternoon's drive, the horse's head was turned first, and last, and almost all the time, towards Brookline, by the way, perhaps, of Pine Bank 1 and Jamaica Pond. Nature had done much, but cultivation and taste had hardly done less, in producing this result. Nowhere did Hor- ticulture find earlier or more successful votaries than here. Nowhere could there be sought and found more exquisite flow- ers or more delicious fruits, in season or out of season, in the open air or under glass. Nor was experimental Agriculture without its early and devoted followers here. Meantime there was an elegant and distinguished hospitality to be enjoyed in Brookline homes, then filled by men of large acquaintance and of larger hearts, to say nothing of accomplished and beau- tiful women, to complete the attraction.

" I do not forget that there were individual instances of the same sort of homes in Dorchester or Milton, in Roxbury or Jamaica Plain or Dedham, in Brighton or Watertown or Wal- tham. Still less do I forget that almost all these places have been catching up with Brookline-perhaps outstripping her -- in all these particulars; and that both Horticulture and Agriculture may now look elsewhere for more than one of their highest illustrations and their most conspicuous disciples. I speak of half a century sometime closed, during a part of which, certainly, Brookline enjoyed a prestige for culture and beauty, which might almost have entitled her to that appella- tion of 'a Peculiar' for which her old inhabitants petitioned.

" Let me not be thought too much disposed to narrow the limits either of time or space within which the special graces and attractions of the town were to be witnessed. But I have sometimes thought that there was a little circle of our territory, from which had emanated, in successive years, as many good influences and examples, in the way of philanthropy and be- neficence, of kindness and hospitality, and of every refined culture which pertains to rural enjoyment or improvement,- the culture of the field and of the garden, of the manners and of the human heart,-as from any spot of equal circumference on any part of the globe. Within or around that little circle have lived men of wide distinction in every walk of life, some of whose names are associated with the foremost places of the State or the Nation."-Hon. Robert C. Winthrop.

Longwood .- In the northeasterly portion of the town of Brookline (now thickly dotted with elegant villas and handsomely laid-out grounds, with walks

and borders of grass) was a tract of land containing . three hundred and fifty acres which once belonged to the estate of John Hull, the " mint-master," and afterwards came by inheritance to Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, who married a daughter of Mr. Hull. This was well known as "Sewall's Farm." These lands embraced the territory between Aspinwall's and Sharp's land, on the south, to Pleasant Street, on the north, and from Harvard Street, on the west, to Charles River.

Previous to the building of the mill-dam, in 1821, there was no public road leading to what is now called " Longwood" and "Cottage Farm." The name of Longwood was given to this section on account of the long line of beautiful woods on the rolling ridges of land which extended from Charles River nearly to Brookline Village. In 1850 Beacon Street was built through this land, which was chiefly owned by Messrs. Lawrence and Sears. Up to that date, in order to pass through this vicinity, it was necessary to enter where is now " Cottage Farm Bridge," going towards " Hall's Pond," at the end of Essex Street ; then, taking down some bars, one could ride or drive over the cart-paths, which ran very much in the same direction as the roads do now, to the Aspinwall house, near St. Paul's Episcopal Church. The Sears land lies west of the Cottage Farm, and is beautifully situ- ated and laid out. When the mill-dam was completed, several enterprising merchants of Boston, thinking that land in Brookline would be greatly enhanced in value, bought farms adjacent to the new avenue in Brookline and Roxbury containing about five hundred acres. Prominent among these purchasers were the Thorndikes, David Sears, and Ebenezer Francis, but, as the new thoroughfare was a toll turnpike, there was not that demand for land that there was in many other places. About thirty years since one of the owners, David Sears, began to improve his lands by laying out streets, setting out trees, and building houses on both sides of the river. In 1820, Ebenezer Francis purchased two farms which had previously belonged to the Sewall. estate. One contained about sixty acres, known as " Cottage Farm," the other was 1 designated " Maplewood Farm." "Cottage Farm" was purchased by Messrs. Amos A. Lawrence, Esq., and Dr. William R. Lawrence in 1850, who erected residences on the same, which they now occupy. The name of " Cottage" as applied to the farm above was derived from the fact that the estate now owned by Dr. William R. Lawrence had on it the "Sewall" house. It was a small old-fashioned gambrel-roof structure, built about 1689. It was torn down, to- gether with two barns, to make room for a modern

1 The residence of James Perkins.

860

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

residence, in 1851. The ground from this farm to Brookline Village was mostly in grass.

There are several historical associations connected with this part of the town. At Cottage Farm Sta- tion, in the Revolution, was a very extensive fort, known as Sewall's Fort, which commanded Charles River. Col. Thomas Aspinwall was the commander of the fort. This was nearly quadrangular, and was stronger than many of the other forts of the Ameri- can army, having six guns, and had accommodations for more troops than most any other during the siege of Boston. Col. Thomas Aspinwall had the com- mand of the Sewall Fort during the Revolution. The building of the mill-dam, and afterwards the cut- ting through for the Boston and Albany Railroad, nearly destroyed these works, though a portion re- mained till 1852.

Col. Prescott's headquarters were at the Walcott house, now occupied by Charles H. Stearns. Walcott took sides with the colonies, while the Sewalls did not.

On the south side of Muddy River, near St. Mary's Street, was a three-gun battery, one of a line of bat- teries surrounding Boston in the siege. It was on the land now owned and occupied by Amos A. Law- rence, Esq., and where that elegant grove of trees now stand, that Col. Prescott's regiment had its headquar- ters, also a Rhode Island regiment, after the battle of Bunker Hill. Here they remained until the evacuation of Boston by the British, about nine months afterwards. On the land of Mr. Lawrence, when he purchased his estate, were the ovens used by the occupants of Sewall's Fort, which were long since removed. The well which supplied the army with water is at the entrance of the drive-way, on Dearborn's lumber wharf.

This and the other objects of Revolutionary interest were pointed out to the late Judge William Prescott (the father of William H. Prescott, the historian), by his father, the colonel, not many years after the war ; and later, when Mr. Ebenezer Francis owned these farms, Judge Prescott went with him and pointed out these localities, and Mr. Francis (whose father was the first general officer killed in the Revolu- tionary war) took such an interest in these things that he went over the ground with Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, after he had sold the land to him and his brother in 1850.

On the grounds of Amos A. Lawrence stands an old and very large pear-tree, the date (1689) of which is inferred from the fact that it bears the button-pear which is mentioned by Judge Sewall in his diary as having been planted in his garden in Boston ; besides, it bears evidence of great age. There were two of

these trees in 1850, one of which was destroyed by a gale about twenty years later.

The Boylston Place .- One of the most interesting spots in Brookline is the Boylston place. On it stands a large, old-fashioned wooden house on Boylston Street,1 opposite the westerly end of the reservoir, now owned by Henry Lee, Esq., which was known for many years as the old " Boylston" house, after- wards, for many years, as the " Hyslop" place. It is one of the most interesting historical places in the town.

Thomas Boylston came to this country from Eng- land, and settled in Watertown in 1635. His son Thomas, born in that town in 1644, became a sur- geon. He took an active part in the Narragansett war. He married Mary Gardner, of Muddy River, in 1665, and settled upon the place which we are de- scribing, and from that time forward the Boylstons were identified with Brookline. There were twelve children of this marriage. His son Peter inherited the homestead. One of the daughters (Susanna) married John Adams, of Braintree, and was the mother of John Adams, second President of the United States. The second child of Dr. Thomas Boylston was the eminent Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, born in 1680, who acquired wide celebrity, and at first a most unenviable one, by the introduction of inocula- tion for the smallpox. His memoir has been written, and is full of interest. The smallpox was making fearful ravages in Boston in 1721, when the Rev. Cotton Mather communicated to Dr. Boylston an account of the transactions of the Royal Society re- specting inoculation as practiced in Turkey. Instead of allowing the disease to be taken in its natural way, the chances being that more than one-sixth of the patients would die, the matter was forestalled by pre- paring the system for it by medical treatment, and then scarifying the skin and applying the virus under a nutshell. Under inoculation it was seldom that a patient lost his life. The practice was not even be- gun in England when Cotton Mather suggested it to Dr. Boylston for experiment. He introduced the subject to the attention of other physicians in Boston and vicinity, and was met with violent opposition ; the medical men, both in this country and in England, taking the ground that it was a crime, which came under the classification of poisoning, while the clergy preached against it, and wrote pamphlets, arguing that the smallpox was a judgment from God for the sins of the people, and that to try to check its sway would only " provoke him the more."

1 This street was named in honor of the Boylston family.

GEO. R. Tolman Del

"BOYLSTON PLACE," PROPERTY OF HENRY LEE, BROOKLINE, MASS.

861

BROOKLINE.

A sermon was preached by a Rev. Mr. Massey, in 1722, against " The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation," from the text, " So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot until his crown," from whence he argued that the Devil was the first inoculator and Job his first patient. Some fifty years afterwards an epigram appeared in the Monthly Mis- cellany on this sage opinion of the Rev. Mr. Massey, as follows :

" We're told by one of the black robe The Devil inoculated Job : Suppose 'tis true, what he does tell, Pray neighbors, did not Job do well ?"

The inhabitants of Boston and vicinity became so excited that men patroled the streets with halters in search of the doctor, threatening to hang him to the nearest tree. The doctor was secreted fourteen days in his own house in a hiding-place known only to his wife. During this time the house was repeatedly searched for him by day and by night without suc- cess. One evening a hand-grenade was dashed through the parlor window where his wife and children were sitting. Fortunately, the fuse was knocked off against a piece of furniture and the family escaped death.

The doctor could only visit his patients in the night and in disguise. Yet notwithstanding all this violence he was brave enough to persevere with his experi- ments, being sanguine of success. He inoculated his own child and two servants, and though they all had the disease mildly and recovered, the authorities of Boston summoned him before them to answer for his practice. He underwent repeated examinations, and received insults and threats. During the year, how- ever, he inoculated two hundred and eighty-six per- sons of all ages, from infancy to old age, of whom only six died, while of five thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine who took it in the natural way during the same period, eight hundred and forty-four died. The success of the practice was established, but the opposition did not cease. During this time the doctor England, Sir Hans Sloane, and was invited to visit London. This invitation he accepted, and on his arrival he was treated with great attention and was made a " Fellow of the Royal Society," the first American thus honored. He remained in England a year and a half and then returned.

and very successful in improving the breed of vari- ous domestic animals, especially horses, for which his farm became celebrated. He often broke the animals himself, being a fine horseman. His biographer speaks of him as having been seen in Boston, after he was eighty-four years of age, riding a fine colt he was breaking. He lived to see inoculation universally practiced. This custom prevailed till it was super- seded by vaccination as practiced by Dr. Waterhouse in Cambridge, and Dr. Aspinwall in Brookline. He died at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried in Brookline Cemetery. His epitaph is said to be a just and appropriate one :

" Sacred to the memory of Zabdiel Boylston, Esq., and F.R.S., who first introduced the practice of in- oculation into America. Through a life of extensive benevolence, he was always faithful to his word, just in his dealings, affable in his manners, and after a long sickness, in which he was exemplary for his pa- tience and resignation to his Maker, he quitted this mortal life in a just expectation of a happy immor- tality, March 1st, 1766."

It is said that, Dr. Boylston in his will bequeathed his house and farm to the town as a home for the poor ou certain conditions, to which one of his rela- tives was expected to accede, but this not being com- plied with, the town missed the donation.

From Dudley Boylston, a brother of the doctor, who married Susanna Gardner, descended the first wife of the late Deacon Joshua C. Clark. Her daugh- ters are the last of this old family in Brookline. From Thomas, another brother, descended Thomas, who died in London, a wealthy merchant, who made bequests to the city of Boston. His sister, Mary, mar- ried a Hallowell. One of her sons became an admiral (Sir Benjamin Hallowell) of the British navy. An- other of her sons, preferring the family name of his mother to that of his father, changed his name to Ward Nicholas Boylston. He became a merchant of London, acquired great wealth, and was distinguished for his liberality. He returned to his native place and was in correspondence with the court physician in lived for several years in Roxbury, and afterwards in Princeton.

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History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 181

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534