USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 20
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To that end the town meeting applied itself to the study of new educational methods, the investigation of improved fire- fighting apparatus, the advantages of street lights - in a word, to all innovations in the complex business of municipal admin- istration which held out the promise of progress toward a higher standard. Did a new type of paving material possess superior advantages? A committee would visit towns where it has been used, question authorities, and examine the pave- ment for themselves. Was the teaching of calisthenics appro- priate in the public schools? It might be tried out for a few months, by way of experiment.
So much, of course, could not be gone into by the town as a whole, and there is perceptible a very marked tendency to entrust all matters of importance to committees, directed to investigate, and make their report and recommendations to the town meeting for the guidance of voters. But this com- mittee system did not degenerate into a delegation of authority subject only to rubber-stamped approval, to which the impulse to shift responsibility can so easily lead. More than a few times the town declined to accept a committee report, or voted con-
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trary to its recommendations. The men who attended town meetings retained a keen sense of personal interest in public affairs, and the determination to give expression to their own best judgment on behalf of the town. It was a spirit which extended to almost every field of community interest, and to which must be attributed the progressive leadership so char- acteristic of Brookline during those busy years.
THE NEWER INHABITANTS
Perhaps no factor was as important in shaping the character of the growing town, as the kind of men who made up its changing population. At first composed of farms, Brookline became after the Revolution a community of country estates. It has remained for the twentieth century to see the subdivision of the larger of these estates, and the growth of the town as a whole into a community of comfortable suburban homes, while in certain newer parts, apartment houses have multiplied rapidly.
It was about 1800 that the merchants of Boston began to lead a movement of wealthy citizens to the rural suburb. Among the first were Stephen Higginson, George Cabot, and Thomas Lee. Mr. Cabot had been Washington's Secretary of the Navy, a post of no little distinction. And to Mr. Lee be- longed the credit of undertaking perhaps the first serious land- scaping in Brookline; he is said to have made the first English lawn in the town, and his gardens and greenhouses were hos- pitably open to passers-by who found them attractive.
Henry Lee, a descendant of John Leigh who had come to Ipswich about 1634, started his business career as junior partner in the firm of Bullard & Lee, East India merchants, who main- tained houses in Boston and Calcutta. When that partnership was dissolved in 1853, he joined George Higginson and John Clarke Lee in founding Lee, Higginson & Co., which survived as a famous banking house until 1932. Henry Lee had married Elizabeth Cabot in 1845, and made his home in Brookline, next to the famous Boylston-Hyslop house opposite the old Brookline reservoir. He was active as a banker until after his eightieth birthday, in 1897, but found time also for public service, on Governor Andrew's staff during the Civil War, and later as a
COLONEL HENRY LEE 1817-1898
THEODORE LYMAN 1833-1897
.
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representative to the General Court, and an overseer of Har- vard College.
Edward Philbrick, son of Brookline's leading abolitionist, came as an infant to Brookline. Like his father, he was public- spirited, and most independent in thought. He was educated as an engineer, and found his opportunity in the expanding network of railroads, supervising location and construction for the Rutland & Burlington line, a part of the Erie, and the Boston & Worcester. After the Civil War he was appointed by the Governor as inspecting engineer of the Boston, Hart- ford & Erie Railroad, to see that the State's loan of $3,000,000 was not misapplied. Later he supervised the rebuilding of bridges for the Boston & Albany, and was made consulting engineer on the Hoosac tunnel construction. That tunnel, interestingly enough, had been first proposed by Colonel Loammi Baldwin, engineer of the Mill Dam, who thought a canal might be put through to western Massachusetts by this means; but had it been undertaken by the means then avail- able, its construction must have taken not less than fifty years. Mr. Philbrick was first called in in 1870, after the work had been under way for twenty years, with little progress. Subse- quently he supervised the construction of the Brookline water- works, and other projects about Boston. With all this, Edward Philbrick found time to serve six terms as selectman, and to per- form public duties on various committees.
William Aspinwall was born a Londoner, son of the United States consul there, whose valor in the War of 1812 had cost him an arm. He attended Harvard, studied law, and in 1847 became a resident of Brookline, where his public services to the town in many offices, as well as his activity in state and national politics, attested the new eminence of a name long honored in the community.
Amos Lawrence graduated from Harvard in 1835, at the age of twenty-one, and promptly embarked on his mercantile career. This was interrupted by a few years in Europe, but resumed in 1843, and enlarged in 1846 with the formation of the firm of A. & A. Lawrence & Co. Mr. Lawrence was a moving spirit in a wide variety of industrial projects, and engaged also in numerous philanthropies. Officer of half a
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dozen important manufacturing companies, founder of the town of Appleton and of Lawrence University in Wisconsin, treasurer and overseer of Harvard, promoter of the New Eng- land Emigrant Aid Company, and once a candidate for the governorship, Amos Lawrence belonged in the first rank of nineteenth-century men of affairs. He became a resident of Brookline in 1851, and though he did not participate actively in local politics, he found time to lend his advice to numerous committees, so that his wise counsel was definitely felt in the business of the town.
John L. Gardner was a commercial and financial leader, remembered for his public benefactions. The name was also distinguished by the contributions of his son, John L. Gardner, and his daughter-in-law, Isabella Stewart Gardner, many years later to the art treasures of Boston.
Frederick Law Olmsted, called the founder of landscape architecture, had gone far in his professional career before he became a resident of Brookline. He followed an experience of five years at sea with the study of agricultural science and engineering at Yale, practical experience of farming, and wide travel. With his associate, Calvert Vaux, he competed suc- cessfully for the appointment to lay out Central Park in New York, and this was followed by a numerous succession of simi- lar commissions, one of which brought him to Boston, and resulted in his making a home in Brookline. His opinion was more than once consulted on matters of importance to the town, particularly the planning of the metropolitan park system.
Robert C. Winthrop was a lawyer trained in the office of Daniel Webster whom, twenty years later, he succeeded in the United States Senate, under appointment by Governor Briggs. Whether his brilliant political career is to be attributed to the masterful oratory for which he was renowned, or whether the oratory reflected his association with Webster, are questions scarcely to be solved at this distance. But he possessed a keenly analytical mind and a fine capacity for stating political thought in popular terms - qualities which furthered his career while they made him a really valuable public man. He was a resi- dent of Boston until late in life, though at the close of his career
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he was regarded as a Brookline man, and contributed to the town some carefully thought-out plans for overcoming the difficulties which resulted from an over-large town meeting.
It would be misleading to intimate that these men repre- sented a fair cross-section of the population of the town in their time. There were 605 inhabitants in 1800, 900 in 1820, 1043 in 1830, 1365 in 1840, 2516 in 1850, 5164 in 1860, 6650 in 1870, 8057 in 1880, 12,103 in 1890, and 19,935 in 1900, representing an increase of thirty-fold during the century. Substantial citi- zens doubtless insisted, even during the first fifty years, that the character of the town was being ruined by the cutting-up of old properties and the eager influx of outsiders. In the decades that followed, of course, the situation was aggravated. It would be impossible that such growth should be exclusively of citizens of the first rank, or even that all of them should be desirable. But Brookline won more than its share of those from the higher cultural and economic brackets, and a very mini- mum of the disorderly, as is attested by the fact that not until 1847 was there even a village lockup.
AN ECCENTRIC CITIZEN
To offset the sober propriety of some of those named above, there was the low comedy relief of Captain Benjamin Bradley, who cannot have been wholly irresponsible or he would never have been elected constable. It is related that Benjamin God- dard opposed the captain when he ran for the office, and the latter was moved to seek revenge. On Bradley's Hill, some- times called Vengeance Hill (on the north side of Boylston Street, west of Cypress), where he lived, he constructed a 'property' church out of an old barn with an added tower and belfry, which obstructed Mr. Goddard's view of Boston. Sur- rounding it stood a community of cheap houses which were let, Dr. Carleton S. Francis has said,
to poor but not always respectable families.
On Sundays he held services in his church and anyone who could drink a glass of whiskey straight, could become a member of his parish. The services and sermons were often facetious and profane. He had a coffin made for himself and placed it in front of the pulpit; every few weeks he would
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lie down in this and see if it fitted. He finally outgrew the original one and had another made and used the first one as a wine closet.
Captain Bradley would vary the monotony of his life by every now and then going off on a trip with a certain con- vivial friend. They would start off in an old one-horse chaise on pleasure bent. In a day or two the old horse and chaise would come wandering home, much the worse for wear, then in due time Mr. Bradley's companion, and in a day or two after the captain himself would turn up. He would then stay at home for a longer or shorter time, holding services in his church until his pocket book became replenished. He would then once more start out to see the world.
How the captain profited by his church services does not appear, though from the basis of communion one might sus- pect that the pulpit was converted into a bar. He doubtless derived an income from rented properties, which seem to have constituted the only slums of Brookline in his day, for his cluster of buildings on the hill are referred to as an eyesore, and fifteen years after his death in 1856, they were removed to a locality on Hart Street which came to be referred to as Whiskey Point.
But the natural beauty of the town, with the pride, good taste, and affluence of substantial citizens, accounted for its acceptance as one of the loveliest possible places of residence. Brookline of the early nineteenth century was such a place as inspired a visiting minister to say that its inhabitants must be little concerned with the attainment of heaven, for they already possessed it.
SEPARATION OF PARISH AND TOWN
It was, of course, a time when religious formalities flour- ished, along with secular enterprises, despite the separation of Church and State in 1833. After the distribution of property in 1834, church affairs vanish from the town meeting records, and public worship is supported, not by general taxation, but by private contribution. Surrender by the town of land and buildings which it had held for the use of the parish was com- plicated by the fact that a Baptist church had been established
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in 1828, and was regarded as entitled to a part of what the town, as such, was about to give up.
To insure fairness, a committee was appointed which included Richard Sullivan and Benjamin Goddard, members of the Congregational Society, and Elijah Corey and Thomas Griggs, both deacons in the First Baptist Church. Their report defines the church situation so well that it may be quoted at length:
... That until the organization of the second religious soci- ety the first Parish under the existing laws was deemed to be a territorial Parish and as such its limits were identicle with those of the Town and each and every Inhabitant was liable to taxation on his poll and property real and personal for the support of Public worship - But any Inhabitant being a member of any other religious society in another Town was entitled under a Law of 1811 to require that any such tax assessed should be paid over to his own Minister - The Assessors of the Town were the Parish Assessors the Town Clerk was also the Parish Clerk, and the Town Treasurer the Parish Treasurer. The Parochial expenses were not paid from any fund kept apart from the funds of the Town, but in the estimates of the year Ministers Salary and other Par- ish Charges were classed as Items of a general estimate of monies required for the disbursements of the Town. On the 5th September 1804 the Town purchased of William Aspinwall and Stephen Sharp the piece of land [where the present meeting house and horse sheds were built] ...
The Supreme Court have decided that whenever any Number of individuals being inhabitants of any town and belonging to the territorial Parish therein secede from said Parish, and form another religious Society within the limits of the same town, the property before appointed by the town to the use of the first Parish shall be considered thereafter as the property of said parish and not of the Town.
The committee according to the Principle of the above decision have now to point out what property of the town appears to have been appropriated or may be thought now equitably assignable to the said first Parish.
The essence of the committee's analysis was that the First Parish properly owned the meeting-house and sheds and the land where they stood, that the town house clearly belonged
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to the town, and that the land around the meeting-house and the lot south of it should remain as open commons. The par- sonage had been given in carefully restricted terms for the use of the minister of the First Parish, and in 1806 the town had voted to add the old meeting-house lot to the parsonage, so there was little room for question on that score. Finally, Sam- uel White in 1759 had deeded to the selectmen as trustees a wood lot 'to supply the Minister or Minister's that may be settled in said town from time to time,' and it was thought the Baptists had some claim to this. The income from the wood lot was accordingly divided equally between the two churches.
From this time, church history in Brookline is church history rather than town history. Other religious bodies found ad- herents, with a growing population, and established churches; the Congregationalists in 1844, Episcopalians in 1849, Roman Catholics in 1852, the Church of the New Jerusalem in 1857, the Methodist Episcopal in 1863, the Universalists in 1892, the Presbyterians in 1894. I
A REVERED MINISTER
Of all the religious leaders whom Brookline has ever had none served so long or was more loved than the Reverend John Pierce. Another minister once said of him, 'As I understand it, Dr. Pierce is Brookline, and Brookline is Dr. Pierce.'
A native of Dorchester, he graduated from Harvard in 1793 at the age of twenty. Two years later he commenced the study of theology and in 1797, while a tutor at Harvard, he was called to succeed the Reverend Mr. Jackson in the First Church in Brookline. In that post he served for more than half a century until his death in 1849.
Dr. Pierce appears to have been a man of remarkable per- sonal charm as well as a person with a capacity for systematic arrangement, and close attention to details. The affection in which the community held him is evidence of the first and testi- mony to his powers of observation and analysis is found in the public addresses which he made on several occasions. He was
I A comprehensive summary may be found in the chapter entitled 'Outlines of Church History' in Charles Knowles Bolton's Brookline: The History of a Favored Town, pp. 130-56.
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intensely interested in the progress of the community with which he was so long identified and he took delight in describing the substantial changes that had come to pass within his memory. These accounts of his are not very entertaining to read but they are immensely helpful in understanding the character of Brookline a century ago.
Ordinarily the sort of man who is noted for his precise mem- ory of all details, whether of village events or neighborhood genealogy, is likely to be a dull companion. But, although it was said of Dr. Pierce that on reaching the Pearly Gates he might be expected to pull out his watch and tell Saint Peter precisely how many steps there were in the golden stairs and how many minutes it had taken him to come from Brookline, he seems not to have been an unsociably mathematical man, but a person of great vigor, large, fine-looking, and beaming with cheerfulness and benignity. He was long active on the school committee and took particular interest in visiting the schools and examining pupils. He was very fond of fine, re- sounding hymns in church. A little knowledge of the things that Dr. Pierce liked is enough to make it plain that he was a man of magnetic vitality, great powers of spiritual leadership, and an effective cultural influence in the community.
THE CHURCH AS IT WAS
The atmosphere of the old First Church in the eighteen- twenties is preserved in the recollections of Mary W. Poor, youngest daughter of Dr. John Pierce, which she related to the Brookline Historical Society in 1903. The meeting-house itself was simple, though the social distinctions within were marked. To the child mind
the Hyslop pew with elegant upholstery and its hymn books bound in scarlet morocco, having book plates bearing the family coat of arms, and the legend, 'By the name of Hyslop,' ... left a strong impression of earthly grandeur ...
In front of the meeting-house was a graveled terrace sur- rounded by granite posts with two rows of iron chains hang- ing in loops between them. It had three front doors, the central one opened into a large porch which led to the broad or central aisle and was so high that it presented quite a grand
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appearance to a child. The other doors opened into smaller and lower porches and thence into the side aisles. In these porches were flights of stairs going up into the galleries, in which were three long rows of seats for the singers, and many pews. The house was warmed by two stoves which stood between the broad and the two side aisles. Iron 'pipes ran from the whole length of the building to the windows in the back of the church. ...
A small flight of stairs from the northeastern side porch led to the third story of the meeting house, where was a long pew for colored people, raised as far above the singers' gal- lery as that was above the auditorium. When a little child, I used to amuse myself by looking at 'Black Susie,' who was stout and had such a round face that I fancied she resembled a full moon! She was for a long time the only specimen of the colored race in the town.
Above the stairs to the Negro seats were rough steps lead- ing to the belfry and thence to a charming room with win- dows on eight sides, whence were splendid views of Brookline, Boston, surrounding towns, and the Harbor. Comfortable seats under these windows provided a rest for feet weary with climbing so long a flight of stairs, and also standing places for children too little to see the prospect from the floor. They were forbidden to ascend to these heights with- out the escort of some older person, as the stairs had no side rails and were unsafe for careless climbers. ...
It was the custom when there was a funeral in town to send a boy to the highest open space in the steeple to watch for the funeral procession leaving the house of mourning. When it began to move the bell ringer would toll the bell till it reached the church ....
Everybody went to meeting in those days, both to morning and afternoon services. As I look back so many years I recall nothing whatever of the sermons, but every face in the audi- ence is in my memory still, particularly that of the dear old lady who invariably repeated as she passed the Parsonage pew going out, no matter who preached, 'Truly a most ex- cellent discourse.' Among the leading figures was Deacon Goddard, then a tall, handsome young man, in the singing seats; the Miss Gardners, who dressed in brighter colors than any other worshippers; in General Dearborn's pew, his daughter, Miss Julia, who seemed to me a perfect beauty; Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Clark, with their pew full of pretty
WALNUT STREET WITH THE OLD TOWN HALL (LEFT) AND THE THIRD BUILDING OF THE FIRST PARISH CHURCH
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children; old Captain Goddard, sometimes standing up to keep himself awake; and my uncle Charles Tappan, shaking his head at me when I was restless; the kind old ladies who had footstoves, which were filled with hot coals, of walnut wood, I suppose, which they passed over the tops of their pews to neighbors, after they had sufficiently warmed their own feet. It was a relief from the tedium of a long sermon to watch them.
Tedium it must have been if there is truth in the aphorism that few souls are saved after the first twenty minutes. But in those days Sunday was still set aside for worship rather than for diversion, and citizens who were forbidden to drive out on Sunday except upon 'business of charity or necessity' seem to have preferred the tedium of two long church services to that of sitting idly at home.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
However, people are disposed to be more conservative about their religion than about anything else, and if the attitude toward worship underwent little substantial change, the spirit of change and progress was by no means restrained in other directions. The concern for the education of children which had marked the earliest days of Muddy River, found expres- sion in an unsurpassed school system, and a vigorous interest in plans for the education of adults.
Disposed to show the same consideration for others that they had once sought for themselves, the town voted, April 5, 1824, 'That the Inhabitants on the Mill Dam have their pro- portion of Tax allowed them for the support of a school there,' and 'they were allowed $46.91 cents.' Then, a little more than a month afterward, a subject that had been under considera- tion for a long time came to a head. Something had to be done about the old brick school house, and on May 10, 1824, the committee appointed to look into the matter made their report.
The records of that meeting are devoid of dramatic details, but there seems to have been a pretty spirited discussion, par- ticularly as to the type of new building which ought to be erected. A school and a town house were needed, and it was decided to make one structure serve both purposes. Joseph
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Sewall and John and Lewis Tappan had recently built stone houses, and there was a faction in the town who thought stone was none too good for a public building. But there was also a faction of conservative die-hards, who were against abandon- ment of the old brick school from the beginning, and at length grudgingly agreed to the passage of a vote for erection of a two- story wooden building, forty-eight by twenty-eight feet.
Having carried this much, the progressives renewed the fight, had the vote reconsidered, and won for the committee power to build the basement of stone if they thought it desir- able. Still further reconsideration resulted in additional gen- erosity, and on January 1, 1825, 'the New Town Hall was Ded- icated by Prayer and Sacred musick.' The room in the second story was used for town meetings, and the ground floor pro- vided accommodations for the school. This was the structure eventually purchased by the Unitarian Church, and now known as Pierce Hall.
The meeting of April 1, 1833, appropriated $800 for a new school house 'in the North District near the situation of the present building, to be not less than twenty five by thirty feet, and two stories in height ... ' And this was merely the begin- ning of the program of expansion.1
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