USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 22
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The town, ever ready to embrace a worthy project with practical enthusiasm, began to think in terms of a library building, and a committee on that subject was appointed at the March meeting in 1864. Two years later they reported their recommendation that a lot be purchased at the corner of Cypress Street and Cypress Place for $3700, and that $20,000
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be appropriated to erect a building. The town voted accord- ingly, but at the adjourned meeting a fortnight later added the admonition that, if the high prices of labor and materials precluded the erection of a suitable library for $20,000 plus whatever voluntary contributions could be had, the program should be held in abeyance.
This was evidently the case, for at March meeting in 1866 the question of erecting a library building was tabled, and a committee was appointed to consider the expediency of add- ing accommodations to the Town Hall instead. When they reported, however, it was to recommend an appropriation of $6000, and this proposal was rejected, as was one by the library trustees asking $36,000 for a new building. Brookline wanted cultural advantages, but a majority of its citizens were still giving pretty serious thought to their pocketbooks. A new committee was therefore named to examine the various sites that had been proposed, and find out how much could be had in the way of private subscriptions toward construction on each one of these.
They reported, December 5, 1867, in favor of building on land already owned by the town, with the provision that about seven thousand dollars be spent to obtain additional lands ad- joining, west and north on Prospect Street. They also sub- mitted plans suitable for the various lots under consideration, and won approval of their recommendations, along with an appropriation of $30,000 for the new building. The following March this was confirmed, and the library trustees were author- ized to build 'upon any part of the town's land between Wash- ington, School, and Prospect Streets.'
The next year, more than 10,000 volumes were removed to the new structure. Twenty years later, nearly 33,000 books required the construction of a new wing, and in 1892 a reading room was opened, which was called Gardner Hall, in honor of John L. Gardner, a generous benefactor. Thus conserva- tism yielded to enthusiasm, and the Brookline tradition of do- ing things thoroughly if they were to be done at all, gained expression once more.
HOUSE OF JOHN LOWELL GARDNER ON WARREN STREET, ABOUT 1864
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SIGNS OF GROWTH
If there was a little hesitation about laying out money for the library, it should at least be regarded in the light of several considerations. The population of the town had been growing rapidly, as has been indicated above. This increase in num- bers could scarcely be effected but at the cost of some diminu- tion of per capita wealth. There was thus an expanding body of citizenry to whom the expense of public projects was a mat- ter of serious financial concern, and a smaller group of men to whom money was a secondary consideration if the advan- tages of Brookline as a place of residence could be materially improved. In a number of instances the course of progress is fairly obvious to chart. A costly improvement is successfully opposed by a large body of conservatives on the ground of ex- pense, as in the case of the Mill Dam Road, and the efforts of a small band of enthusiastic proponents are at first checked. A year or two may pass, in the course of which one may be sure a vigorous campaign has been going on, to 'sell the idea' to the community. There are new proposals in the town meet- ing, and what had been rejected is at last approved. Many of those with reluctant purse-strings have yielded to the per- suasiveness of progress.
Another matter that must have stimulated the impulse to conservatism was the ever-growing demand for additional and better public buildings, and a variety of services such as the village of 1800 did not require. It was not merely a question of churches and schools and a public library. A better town hall was needed; some provision must be made for a water supply, and for sewage disposal; fire and police protection be- came increasingly important; better streets, with sidewalks and street lights were in order. For even a prosperous com- munity it was no simple matter to keep abreast of all these de- velopments, to say nothing of a host of minor ones.
Furthermore, the growth of the town reflected not merely a healthy natural increase in population, but some enlarge- ment of territory as well. Early in 1841 seven residents of Rox- bury, whose properties adjoined the Brookline boundary, peti- tioned the Legislature to make them a part of Brookline. The opinion of the town was duly sought and, no objections being
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offered, the change was made. To their report upon this mat- ter, the town's committee added that
Agreeable to instructions, your committee have also ex- tended their inquiries into the circumstances connected with a prospective application for the annexation to Brookline of the whole Village, including the land and meadow on this side of the Brook, ... and they find the whole number of inhabitants in said Village to be One hundred and seven, of which number fourteen are children of suitable age to attend public schools. That there is now one person among them deriving support from the Town, and that the amount of Taxes they now pay to the Town of Roxbury is about Three hundred and seven dollars ...
It is evidently this anticipated petition of which the Legis- lature gave the town notice in February, 1843, and Brookline approved the request of Jeremiah Lyon and his group. But there seems to have been some opposition before the Legis- lature, for the petition was renewed, in somewhat different terms, late in 1843, again approved by the town, and shortly afterward acted upon favorably by the Legislature. This meant not only a modest immediate increase in population, but a still greater potential one.
A NEW TOWN HALL
In November, 1843, therefore, the time seemed ripe to con- sider the town's need of a new administration building. The old structure on Walnut Street, now known as Pierce Hall, was not merely outgrown; it had been largely turned over for school purposes. Furthermore, fire had destroyed the engine house the previous summer, and central quarters were needed for the fire-fighting equipment. It was thought that a new town hall might supply both needs, and possibly some additional school rooms as well. Consequently, following the usual procedure, a committee was put to work on the case.
They considered several locations, and reported on Janu- ary 30, 1844, describing three lots, one of which, on Wash- ington Street, was described as having special topographical advantages. This was accepted by the town, an appropriation made, and the work of building undertaken, though the plan
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of incorporating the engine house in the structure was recon- sidered, on account of the inaccessibility of water and the prob- able interference of winter snows. Later instructions from the town meeting directed the committee to erect a two-story build- ing, with a town hall above and rooms below suitable for school use. The Reverend John Pierce participated in the dedica- tion services on the evening of October 13, 1845, when he delivered a résumé of the town's history to that time.
On November 10 the building committee presented their final report, patting themselves somewhat vigorously upon their respective backs in recognition of their own 'assiduous perseverance' in their 'arduous and responsible duties.' They had spent $6357.52, apart from the cost of the land, and for once, at least, in history a public building had been erected within the appropriation made for the purpose. They had even bought almost $400 worth of furniture that had not been contemplated in the original estimates. And they had provided a structure that would serve its purposes for a quarter of a cen- tury. The previous one, 'Dedicated by Prayer and Sacred musick' on January 1, 1825, had been adequate for only two decades.
THE WATER PROBLEM
The highly important question of water supply had first arisen in connection with the schools. A committee appointed at March meeting in 1846 reported:
That those families which reside near where the Schools are located have been very much annoyed, by the frequent applications of the scholars for Water especially in the summer season of the year, is matter of fact: - And that the scholars are interrupted in their studies by leaving school in school hours, and going in some cases the distance of a quarter of a mile for the purpose of obtaining water, is also true.
That it is the duty of the Town to endeavor to remedy these evils, we think no one will doubt. This can be done most effectually by sinking a well and providing a pump where it is necessary and practicable. We believe that wells can be supplied at each School House in the Town without any difficulty, except at the middle district or high school [on Walnut Street] where the land is very rocky, and there is
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already a well and pump in rear of the house of Dr. Pierce for the benefit of that school which should be kept in repair at the Town's expense, - your committee would not recom- mend that the Town should provide a well at each school house, only in those districts where most needed, - as it will be rather a matter of experiment, whether or not the pumps can be kept in good order, - one at the Town House as the abasement rooms are soon to be occupied for schools, one also at the South Middle District. The expenses estimated at 75 dolls. each ....
These were presumably the comparative innovations known as drilled wells, to distinguish them from the old-fashioned dug wells. Otherwise the committee need not have been in doubt about whether the pumps could be kept in order. Anyhow, they do not seem to have proved troublesome.
It was to be a long time before Brookline felt the need of a public water supply, but the subject was one about which the town had opportunity to learn a great deal from the earlier activities of Boston. In 1839 a committee was appointed to protest against the Boston Aqueduct Corporation's proposal to appropriate the brooks flowing through a town, on the ground that 'the streams are so small they can be but as a drop in the Bucket in comparison with the wants of the City, yet are of im- mense importance to the public in another point of view as they pass through a great proportion of the town, crossing the roads in several places, affording watering places (for the In- habitants and to the travelling community) of which there are none other between the city and the upper part of Newton.'. Brookline at that date relied upon domestic wells, and public watering places in the brooks, and interference with the latter would be a really serious matter.
Twenty years later Boston seems to have effected an actual encroachment, for in 1860 the selectmen were authorized to act according to their own discretion, and remove 'the whole or any part of the water pipes illegally laid by the city of Bos- ton through the town the past year,' or bring an action for damages, or both. While this did not, of course, deprive Brook- line of any water, it did amount to an invasion of property rights, and in it lay the risk of future inconvenience in changing
REV. AND MRS. JOHN PIERCE Dr. Pierce was minister of the First Parish, 1797-1849
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the location and grade of streets. What settlement was effected does not appear on the records, but presumably one was arrived at.
In 1865 an opportunity presented itself to gain some of the advantages of a water supply with a comparatively small part of the expense. A bill was pending in the Legislature to author- ize Boston to build an additional reservoir, in connection with plans for using the waters of Lake Cochituate. The pipes were to be laid through Brookline, and the town therefore instructed their representative in the General Court to try to have in- serted in the legislation 'a provision that the city may dis- tribute the waters of Lake Cochituate through the said town of Brookline, and shall make and establish hydrants therein in the same manner it now may throughout the city of Boston, and if the Legislature shall, upon a respectful request therefor, refuse to make such provision,' the representative was to pro- test against the laying of pipes through the streets of the town. The motive for this program was not to supply running water in homes, but to establish hydrants through the town where water might be had to fight fires. It ties in closely with the de- cision in 1869 to appropriate $2400 for building a reservoir at Beacon and Carlton Streets, and another on Walnut near High Street, as a fire protection measure.
The first move for a publicly owned domestic water supply came also in 1869, however, when Amos A. Lawrence asked that 'George M. Dexter, Francis P. Denny and E. C. Cabot be a committee to ascertain whether it is expedient to purchase the property of the Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Company, or any other supply of water, for the town ... ' This proposal was not accepted, but in May, 1871, a committee was named to con- sider the matter of supplying the town with pure water.
TOWN DRAINAGE
Meanwhile the nucleus of a sewer system was being evolved. In the beginning this seems not to have been a means of remov- ing household wastes, but simply provision for the drainage of rainfall. When Boston built the new Chestnut Hill Reser- voir, it was so designed as to throw surface water away from that supply, with the result that the capacity of the village
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brook was severely taxed. The overflow threatened serious damage, and the town voted to put the matter squarely up to Boston. Apparently the nub of the trouble was that the forty- inch Cochituate aqueduct had been built across the course of the brook, and an effort made to conduct the stream under this virtual dam. The increased flow resulted in silting the passage under the pipe, and before the water could run over, it had to back up considerably. The solution was to provide a channel parallel to the aqueduct, to the point where the brook crossed back again, and the Boston Water Board inti- mated a disposition to do the right thing about the expense involved.
In 1867 the brook running past the railroad station had been laid out as a common sewer. Then the committee appointed to deal with the difficulties mentioned in the preceding para- graph, recommended an appropriation of $12,500 for draining in Tappan, Cypress, Walnut, Boylston, and Washington Streets. Four months later, in August, 1869, the town voted $55,000 to build a sewer from Tappan Street to Muddy River, but this was reconsidered in November, and replaced by an appropriation of $50,000 for similar construction along a some- what revised route. Modern sanitation might be expensive, but there was little debate over its necessity.
VOLUNTEER FIREMEN
Since every householder had his own well, we have seen that the first concern for a public water supply was to provide fire protection. Early apparatus was crude at best, and the traditional bucket brigade or the hand pump was of little avail if a real blaze started. Still, Brookline was concerned to guard itself as well as might be; the disastrous experiences of Boston furnished a series of impressive warnings.
Edward Wild Baker has prepared an account of the history of fire-fighting in Brookline,' in which he cites Samuel Sewall's Diary on the first known fire in the district. It was March 26, 1688, when, 'three Indian children being left alone in a wigwam
I Read before the Brookline Historical Society Nov. 18, 1903, and published in their Proceedings for 1904, pp. 18-41. The passages quoted on this subject are from Mr. Baker's paper.
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at Muddy River, the wigwam fell on fire, and burned them so that they all died.'
Something has been told of the destruction of Isaac Gard- ner's house in 1768, and there were a half dozen other serious fires in Brookline in the course of the century preceding 1787. Roxbury had been forehanded in organizing a volunteer fire department, and in 1787 a new fire engine was located in the Punch Bowl Village. Of the eight members of the company, only Joseph Davenport appears to have been a Brookline resident.
The first public recognition of the Punch Bowl Village company [says Mr. Baker] came in 1794 at the great fire in Boston, July 30th. Mr. How's ropewalk near Milk street, with about thirty-six houses, barns, out-buildings and stores, was burned, and the Selectmen of Boston published in the newspapers an 'acknowledgment of the very timely and effi- cient aid by their brethren of the several towns in the vicin- ity with their fire-engines and their personal services at the distressing fire of yesterday ... The towns from which en- gines were brought to the fire were Cambridge, Charlestown, Roxbury, Milton, Brookline, and Watertown.'
This public recognition, and the hope of future glory, was possibly the immediate incentive for the town of Brookline to vote in 1795 to assume one-half the expenses, after enjoy- ing the protection of the engine and its company for eight years.
The general direction of fire-fighting was under 'fire- wards,' so called, elected by the town at the annual town meetings in March ....
The functions and duties of firewards were set forth in the Laws of 1791 as follows:
'Firewards shall have for a distinguishing badge of their office a staff five feet long, painted red, and headed with a bright brass spire, six inches long.
'On notice of a fire, they shall immediately repair to the place (taking their badges with them), and vigorously exert themselves to extinguish and prevent the spreading of the fire, and for the pulling down or blowing up of any house, or any other services relating thereto as they may be directed by two or three of the chief civil or military officers of the town, to put a stop to the fire, and in removing household
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stuff, goods and merchandise out of any dwelling houses, store-houses, or other buildings actually on fire, or in danger thereof, in appointing guards to secure and take care of the same and to suppress all tumults and disorders - and due obedience is to be yielded to them and each of them for that service on penalty of 40s.
'NOTE. - Persons who embezzle, carry away or conceal goods at such a time, and do not restore them, or give notice thereof to the owner, shall be deemed thieves and punished as such.'
That the badges of office probably saw hard service we may gather from an item in the records of the early part of the last century covering the expense of 'repainting the fire-staffs.' ...
The new wagon purchased by vote of the town in 1797 must have been for the old engine first mentioned in 1787 - at least nothing is intimated to the contrary - but this en- gine, so called, was probably little more than a box, equipped with force-pumps and a brake for working them. The water had to be brought in buckets and poured into the box, from which the pumps forced it through a pipe attached to the body of the engine, as the use of hose was not then introduced.
But the old machine was well built, and was worth $30 in 1828, when it was sold, and a new fire-engine, built by Thayer, was purchased for $400.
The purchase price of the new engine was raised by popular subscription, the citizens of Brookline contributing $325 and those of Roxbury $150; and it was the intention of the subscribers that the engine should be for the use and benefit of both towns, without reserving claim of individual interest. The balance of the amount subscribed, with the $30 received from the sale of the old machine, was expended in building a new engine-house, which was located over the brook where Washington Street crossed it, [near the rail- road bridge.]
With a new engine and a new house, the company at- tached to the Roxbury and Brookline Engine, the 'Norfolk' as it was named, organized in 1829; and with this company the real story of the Brookline fire department begins, al- though for some years later the 'Norfolk' was listed as 'No. 7' of the Roxbury department at Punch Bowl Village.
The 'Norfolk' was not a suction engine, although it did use hose in place of the old style pipe, and in April, 1829,
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Brookline appropriated $50 for the purpose of aiding jointly with Roxbury in providing buckets and hose.
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF FIRE-FIGHTING
The Engine Company in those days had as prominent a place in the community as a social factor as it did as a fire- fighting organization, and the old 'Vigilants' and 'Norfolks' no doubt assembled more often in the hospitable tap room of the old Punch Bowl Tavern nearby, than they did in the engine-house, in which there was room enough only to run the engine out and in.
The Engine Company was to its members what libraries, reading rooms, lectures, clubs, lodges, and historical societies are to us today, and, if we could only refer to them, the old account books of the Punch Bowl would give us many inter- esting side-lights on the doings of the organization attached to the Roxbury and Brookline Engine ....
This group, and its nearly annual reorganizations, indulged in a series of highly fanciful constitutions; it participated in public displays, and in competitive exercises with other com- panies; and it provided its members with an interesting social life.
For ten years things went along with many apparent but few substantial changes. A hook and ladder were added to the equipment at small expense. The company in 1834 named a committee to ask the selectmen 'to enlarge the house and have a kettle,' the latter presumably as an accessory to chowder parties. Failing to receive this modest grant, the firemen voted to disband, but others organized to take over their duties. Then in 1839 the town voted $900 for a new engine of the suction type, with a hose that could be dropped into any con- venient body of water, from which a stream might be drawn and thrown through another hose onto the conflagration. The old engine was sold, and a sum turned over to Roxbury in pro- portion to the original subscriptions of its inhabitants toward the cost of the apparatus in 1828.
Fires were announced by ringing a church bell, usually that on the Baptist church.
The deacons and brethren, however' [says Mr. Baker],
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did not allow any interference with the services even for an alarm of fire, as is recorded in at least two instances.
To quote from the record of the Clerk of January 20, 1843:
'An alarm of fire was given this eve at 12 past eight (I said alarm, it was not an alarm inasmuch as the bell did not ring, though the Co. did what they could towards it by hullooing.)
'There was an attempt to ring the bell, but the proprietors of the church (as there was a meeting in the vestry) dis- patched their infatigable [?] sexton, Mr. Luther Seaverns, to allow no one to ring the bell. The fire was on the old Porter Estate in Cambridge near the Colleges.
'April 16, 1843. An alarm of fire was given this eve. Came from Roxbury. The proprietors of the Brookline Baptist Church Refused to allow the Bell to be rung because they had a meeting in the vestry, thereby refusing that the engine and company should help their Roxbury neighbors in case of fire.'
One suspects that the Baptist deacons were inclined to view the majority of alarms as summonses to social occasions rather than critical events, and looking thus at the substance rather than the form, were reluctant to have their deliberations inter- rupted. It is unlikely that they would have objected to ringing the bell for a fire in Brookline, but when it was merely a mat- ter of 'running with the engine' to a blaze so distant that it must be either extinguished or burned out by the time the com- pany arrived, men engaged in serious spiritual concerns were scarcely to be disturbed.
After the engine house was burned in 1843, and the engine itself seriously damaged, the town was so slow to provide suit- able quarters that the firemen indignantly disbanded again. A new company was formed and flourished for six months, pre- sumably stifled by the paucity of social opportunity. This was remedied in part by the construction of a building on Wash- ington Street at a cost of nearly $3000, an inspiration to a fresh organization of fire-fighters.
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VALIANT DISPLAYS
A public meeting was held in the new house on the evening of September 2, 1844, at which an address was drawn up and signed as follows:
'Officers of the Town:
'Sirs: Owing to the little interest that has been manifested during the past year by the young men of the town of Brook- line as regards the Fire Department, those who are the Bone and Muscle of your town, and knowing her to have been but feebly manned by our much respected and aged Sires, and for the last two or three months no fire department at all in a town that has justly been termed the "Garden of New England," we could not but deem it our duty to unite our- selves together, providing the Town will give us suitable encouragement, once more to join ourselves together by subscribing our names to a paper, etc.' [To this were ap- pended the signatures of thirty-nine of the 'Bone and Muscle' of the town.]
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