USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 23
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A large gang was required to work the old hand engine with success, and the population of Brookline sixty years ago 1 was only 852 males and 830 females. To secure the necessary membership for the company, a canvasser was paid to cir- culate a paper for thirty-five or forty signatures in the spring of 1846, and his efforts brought a great deal of new life into the organization. Fifty members signed the constitution and started making history with a new record book ....
At the first meeting of this company it was decided to be inexpedient to go out of Brookline unless absolutely needed at some large fire in one of the adjoining towns.
On the morning of July 4th, 1846, the company met at half past five o'clock, proceeded with the tub to the Village, played her out through three hundred feet of hose, then proceeded to the Orthodox meeting-house and played her out again, then returned to the engine house and sat down to a breakfast prepared by friends of the company.
During this year, and for the next few years, few alarms were given for fires in Brookline, and the company devoted nearly all its time to a strenuous social life. On the 7th of December, 1846, the Selectmen by vote were invited to partake of the company chowder.
'The company formed themselves into couples, proceeded 1 About 1843.
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down stairs, and after waiting some time the Fathers of the town arrived. The company arose and remained uncovered while they passed upstairs. The chowder was then attacked as though we were half starved - and such a chowder as fit to his Majesty, the best ever made in Brookline.'
The temperance question came to the front'again1 in 1847, but alas for the company, the glorious example of the Washingtonian era was not followed. Trouble ensued and out of it the Fire Department gained much discredit, although the innocent majority no doubt suffered for the offensive minority. The immediate cause of the trouble was a small bill of $13.75 for refreshments furnished after a fire in the Village. These refreshments, so the records say, 'were liquid, something carried in a bucket and which smelt very strong of brandy.' This bill the Selectmen refused to approve, and this disapproval displeased a considerable number of the company. The Selectmen's account of the affair recites that the Engine Company met, and raised the flag half-mast, union down, evidently as a public demonstration of con- tempt and disrespect for the authority of the Selectmen.
The Selectmen at once enforced measures for discipline, discharging some of the members and putting new officers in charge. At the June meeting a long evening was spent in very acrimonious discussion by the company, which was becoming much heated and quite personal, when the gath- ering was broken up by an alarm of fire; the company manned the rope, ran as far as Jamaica Plain, returned to the house, and disbanded.
LAST OF THE FIREWARDS
The selectmen rose to the occasion, announced that they would appoint officers, and asked for volunteers to join the company. After two disastrous fires in 1848, when the lack of water was severely felt, the town arranged for the installa- tion of hydrants in the Village and along Boylston Street, con- necting with the mains which conducted the Lake Cochituate water supply to Boston. Incendiaries were active in the town about this time, and the offer of official rewards brought at least one conviction for setting fires. Of equally serious import was the conduct of an unidentified miscreant who twice cut
I An earlier company had allied itself with local total abstinence societies.
DR. TAPPAN E. FRANCIS (1823-1909)
DR. CHARLES WILD (1795-1864)
Two Beloved Brookline Physicians of the Nineteenth Century
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the leading hose of the engine while firemen were endeavoring to save the Roman Catholic church which caught fire in 1855.
There was no organized company and there were few fires between 1855 and 1860. In the latter year the selectmen sanc- tioned a newly organized force, which was somewhat disrupted by the military demands of the Civil War. The Good Intent Hose Company was formed in 1865 to take charge of the extra hose and ladder, and by 1870 they were provided with a new brick building facing the Village Square.
With this step, so far in advance of anything preceding it, came the change in policy in regard to Fire Department management recommended by the Selectmen in their next year's annual report:
'We therefore recommend the town to omit the choice of Firewards at the annual March meeting, and that the Select- men appoint a Board of Engineers so that "as with the growth of the town this department must naturally increase, its affairs can be economically administered and its efficiency promoted by being placed under its proper head."' ...
With the passing of the Firewards ends the story of the old volunteer organizations.1
POLICE PROBLEMS
Protection against crime and misconduct, or police main- tenance, played a much less important part in the affairs of the town. True, stocks had been provided in 1772, but the in- habitants of Brookline were so orderly that no jail existed until the town voted $75 in 1847 to build a lockup under the town hall. Perhaps citizens went in for a streak of misbehavior, or possibly the construction of the cells had an evil suggestive effect. At any rate, the March meeting in 1851 voted $325 for a new lockup, also under the town house.
If it is possible to form an opinion from the town records, there can have been little need to use the place except as an occasional refuge for those who had celebrated too enthusi- astically at the Punch Bowl or elsewhere. Even in as respect- able a town as Brookline, intoxication furnished a recurring problem.
I The passages from Mr. Baker's account end here.
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In 1844 an unfortunate old man named Robert Noyes was drowned as the climax to an inebriate career, and the coroner's jury pointed an accusing finger at the Punch Bowl. A measure of public opinion was aroused and the town named a com- mittee of twenty to remonstrate with the proprietor of the Punch Bowl or whomever they might find in charge, 'against intoxicating drinks hereafter being sold by him or them, the result of which are disasterous to the town and community and especially to the youth, and should a friendly remonstrance prove unavailing, then said committee are hereby fully author- ized and instructed to abait said nuisance and maintain the honor of the town and vindicate the violated laws of the com- monwealth.'
Bootlegging evidently gave trouble also, for the March meet- ing of 1846 voted that
In view of the increasing and alarming extent to which the sale of intoxicating drinks is openly and fearlessly prose- cuted in the neighborhood -
We hereby authorize and instruct our Selectmen to prose- cute every person that shall continue to sell Spirituous liquors in this Town without license.
That some progress was made in this direction is evidenced by the words of the Reverend John Pierce in his discourse on March 15, 1847, when he said he felt there had been a recent wonderful temperance reform in Brookline. 'As proof,' he said, 'I will state the indisputable fact, that, for several years, since my acquaintance here, I may venture to assert, that there was not a single family, in which it was not customary to treat guests with alcoholic drinks of various kinds; and especially to supply workmen with ardent spirits, twice at least, every day. Now, it is confidently believed, that not a single farmer in the whole town, and it is hoped, but here and there one of any class ever thinks of poisoning himself or his workmen with these vile and unnatural mixtures.'
Seven years later it was resolved
That the Selectmen be directed to use their utmost en- deavors to effectually suppress the drinking and billiard saloon in the village, and for this purpose they may retain
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counsel, and to meet any expenses which may be incurred in the premises, the Treasurer is hereby authorized to bor- row, under their direction, not exceeding the sum of five hundred dollars, and that they carry out to the best of their ability the vote of the town passed at the annual meeting on the present subject, and employ the police if necessary.
The annual meeting had ordered prosecution of all violations of the law governing the sale of intoxicants, and appropriated $200 for that purpose.
It is not clear just who were the police to be called in aid if necessary. Presumably the reference was to the constables as arresting officers, for the first appropriation earmarked 'police' in the town budget is $200, in 1857. This was fol- lowed, in December of the same year, by a vote of $2500 for the same purpose, and authorization of the selectmen to make use of the police force by night or day.
At the same meeting, night-time security was enhanced by a resolution permitting the selectmen, in their discretion, 'to light lamps erected by the citizens in ways not accepted by the town.' A proposition of the Brookline Gas Light Com- pany had been accepted in 1853, providing for the erection of twenty lamps and their maintenance at twenty-five dollars each per year. It was agreed that 'On nights when the moon shines and while the moon is up, the lamps will not be lighted.' The town's committee to locate the lamp posts was also ordered to arrange for the lighting of the Town Hall, inside and out, with gas. Then, in 1856, the town took over the lamp posts, made a new contract for gas at $3.50 per thousand feet, and appropriated $1200 for street lighting.
LOCAL PROHIBITION
But evidently bootleggers rather than night-prowlers con- tinued to be the principal concern of the policemen. In 1867 the town 'Voted, That the sum of two thousand dollars appro- priated for police be employed by the Selectmen in the enforce- ment of the laws, more especially for the prohibitory liquor law.' Three years later, however, citizens declined, by a mar- gin of 95 to 64, to forbid the sale of beer and ale. In eight months they reversed this decision by a vote of 86 to 53.
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Brookline was to be a wholly moral community, if laws could make it so. Nevertheless, there was an appropriation of $3000 in 1870 'to finish and furnish a police station in the new hose- house.'
The town's marked interest in the restriction and prevention of drinking may in part be explained from a strictly economic angle. No doubt the moral concern was present, too, but the sensitive pocket-book nerve is usually the first to produce political reaction; and too many of the town's paupers were said to have reached that deplorable state of dependency as a result of intemperance. Drinking resorts in the town were over-costly to sober citizens who had graduated from putting down a few barrels of cider for the winter, to stocking their wine cellars from the cargoes of their own or their neighbors' ships.
The legitimately poor were still to be cared for, of course, but at minimum expense. The plan of boarding them out was long continued, although in 1845 it was persuasively argued that a poor farm ought to be established. The first serious steps to establish an almshouse were taken in the early eighties.
STREETS AND SIDEWALKS
Something has been told in the preceding chapter about the improvement of streets and highways which accompanied the expansion of the town. With this there developed a fairly com- prehensive program of town-planning. The matter of publish- ing a map of Brookline came up in 1841, languished, was re- newed in 1844, and resulted in an authentic survey and a map offered to citizens at fifty cents a copy. Ten years afterward a topographic survey was undertaken and a new and more elaborate map published, the partial purpose of which was to establish street lines, prevent encroachments on the public ways, and furnish a kind of guide to further steps in town- planning. Change was so rapid that by 1870 it was thought desirable to provide a still newer map.
In addition to some relocation of old streets and the laying out of many new ones, the town had gone in for other more or less related improvements. An appropriation of six hundred
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dollars was made in 1858 for 'a plank sidewalk on Beacon street across the marsh from the high land to its junction with the Mill Dam,' provided 'the abutters on said street will make a continuous line of sidewalk up to Kent street.' Sidewalks, in the early days, were largely a matter of individual taste and pride, which might take any form, or none at all. Conse- quently a committee appointed on the subject in 1869 found themselves with a rather formidable problem on their hands.
First of all they went extensively into the matter of paving materials, visited Cambridge and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire, and corresponded with the mayor of New York and citizens of other cities. They priced stone flagging, brick, curbstones, and two varieties of patented 'coal-tar concrete.' Flagging, they said, had the advantages of requiring no curbstones, and of being removable if the grade of the street were changed; while both coal-tar and pine-tar concretes had to be destroyed if they were taken up, although they were comparatively cheap.
'The condition of the sidewalks of the town being so bad,' they said, 'your committee would urge that there be no further delay than is absolutely necessary, and recommend the imme- diate appropriation of eight thousand dollars, to be expended by the Selectmen in laying such walks as they shall deem best suited to the different streets, always remembering that a good sidewalk should protect from mud at all seasons of the year.'
Streets, of course, were still of dirt, and subject to frequent repair. Repairs cost money, and it was therefore important to keep wear and tear at a minimum. Repairs to individuals were also expensive, so there was a dual reason for the first speed law, passed in 1857:
No person having charge of any beast with intent to drive the same, shall suffer or permit any such beast to run, gallop, trot, or go at any rate exceeding eight miles to the hour through any way, avenue, or street in this town, and if any person shall violate the provisions of this by-law he or she shall be liable to a fine of not less than five dollars nor more than twenty dollars for each offence, to be paid into the town treasury.
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THE TOWN'S BUSINESS
For the town of Brookline, the period between 1820 and the close of the Civil War was one of almost continuous expansion and progress. Most of the ramifications of that development were expensive. In 1820 the inhabitants voted that 'Thirty nine hundred dollars be raized for the expenses of the Town the current year and for the State and County Tax assessed upon this Town.' In addition there was a highway tax of $500, to be worked out at $1.25 a day for a man or a team.
Twenty years later the committee to audit the accounts of the town treasurer and of the school fund, reported that 'cur- rent expences of the year' amounted to $4180.23. To this they added:
Your committee have great satisfaction in reporting that the pecuniary concerns of the town are in a very prosperous condition at no time within the last twelve years has there been less debt or responsibility resting upon the town, and they believe the fact unprecedented that within ten months after the last annual tax had been levied every cent of it (except the abatements found necessary by the statutes of the Commonwealth) has been paid into the treasury, every order drawn by the Selectmen paid, and the balance, $469.55, tendered in cash by the treasurer to your committee ....
It has been suggested by the Selectmen that the commis- sion allowed to the town treasurer as collector of taxes is by no means an adequate compensation for his labors & sacri- fice in their collection, and the committee cheerfully concur in the opinion that for duties so faithfully and punctually performed a greater recompense would be no detriment to the general interest.
He was accordingly voted a two and one half per cent com- mission for the next year.
The annual meeting in 1850 thought that appropriations totaling $11,595 would cover the town's needs for the year. In 1860 the amount was just under $63,000, and in 1870, something over $215,000.
These expenditures were of course mainly accounted for by the municipal concerns described above, but there were a host of minor items that called for a little here and a little there.
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Thus, with the separation of church and government, the cem- eteries remained public property, and the town faced from time to time the need of enlarging the burial grounds, and pro- viding ornamental trees and shrubbery. This seems to have been done, if not on the whole with a slight profit to the town, with little expense at any rate. True, in 1843, there was a mighty hullabaloo about the cemetery committee, who were accused of removing gravel and even stones from the tombs, to use for outside construction in which they were interested. Only an extremely conciliatory speech by George Griggs suc- ceeded in getting the disagreeable matter tabled, by a vote of 56 to 47. Apart from this, public administration of the ceme- tery was uneventful. The town even maintained a hearse.
A threatened expense was met, in 1848, by directions to the town's representative to oppose the petition of the mayor of Roxbury to have the county seat removed there, unless Rox- bury would assume all the cost of such removal. That same year, fifty-six dollars went for a town seal, of which Town Clerk Artemas Newell reported:
It is engraved upon steel, and represents a group of agri- cultural and farming implements, a view of the City of Bos- ton in the distance, with a train of cars running between the two places; and bearing this inscription: 'Muddy River, a part of Boston. Founded 1630. Brookline incorporated I705.
The design is intended to be emblematical of the char- acter of the Town from its early settlement, when designated and known as Boston Cornfield & Boston Plantation, to the present time, - the inscription to perpetuate, in a degree, its early historical associations.
Even the cost of 'ringing the bell' went up. In 1846 the town voted 'That the sum of Sixty-five Dollars be appropri- ated for the purpose of Ringing a Bell in this Town three times a day during the ensuing year, the whole details as to what bell, time to be rung, person to ring it, and the amount of com- pensation, to be submitted to the control of the Selectmen.' By 1855 the cost was $100 a year, and it soon rose to $125 and $150, which does not seem an extravagant reward for the bell ringer, even though the hour of the morning clangor was
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shifted from six to seven o'clock by a vote of the town in 1854. Perhaps, being deprived of the doubtful advantages of mill towns with their six and seven o'clock whistles, Brookline felt a real need of the bell.
THE SOCIAL SCENE
Certainly a merchant who must be at his office on T-Wharf for the day's business had to rise betimes if he lived in Brook- line. And the social customs of the earlier part of the nine- teenth century, at any rate, did not necessarily involve late sleeping. Mrs. Mary W. Poor 1 has described her own recol- lections:
Families met together, old and young. The circle com- prising the Goddards, Heaths, Howes, Pennimans, Sum- ners, Searles, Dr. Wild's and other congenial families, were often invited to each other's houses, to spend evenings in music, dancing and friendly conversation. As the Heaths were an especially musical family and the sons, Charles and Frederick, had fine voices, a musical treat was always ex- pected at their house. The brothers often invited young men from Boston who were in the habit of singing in quartets, or single voices of especial excellence, to assist in the entertain- ment. The dancing was simple, consisting chiefly of what were called 'cotillions' and contra-dances. Round dances had not then arrived on this side of the Atlantic. We had never heard of the waltz except as it was mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's novel, 'Patronage.' ... The first time I ever saw waltzing was at a dancing class mostly consisting of Miss Lucy Searle's scholars taught by the elder Papanti. The great charm of the parties in those days was their perfect simplicity. The elders enjoyed seeing the younger people dance and joined in the sport when they felt so inclined. Dr. Wild's dancing was with his whole soul. He flew around like a joyous boy, the steps being after his own fashion, but nobody criticized, each being intent on enjoying him or her- self and having a good time. These festivities closed by half past nine or ten, and the younger participants were as fresh and wide-awake at school the next day as if nothing out of the usual routine had happened the evening before ....
Madam Babcock was an object lesson in real old-fashioned I See p. 217 above.
HEATH STREET IN THE EIGHTIES (AND TODAY UNCHANGED)
Lyman estate on right; Lowell estate and Warren Street on left with T. H. Perkins estate beyond
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gentility. She lived in the house [on Warren Street] now I occupied by Miss Julia Goddard. The place was exquisitely kept. A walk having beds of lovely flowers on each side went quite round the place and there were beautiful trees and shrubs near the house. Madam Babcock always drove to meeting in a coach, with her footman, John Green, standing on a shelf behind, holding tassels which came from the top to keep himself steady. He sprang down the moment the coach stopped in front of the church, opened the door, let down the steps with solemn gravity and assisted his mistress to alight. When I was sent with a message to her house I always saw her sitting in the bow chamber in state. After I had delivered it she would tap upon a panel in the wall near her chair and John Green would immediately enter, so quickly that I fancied he always stood with his ear close to that panel. His mistress would then send him to fetch a piece of delicious hard ginger-bread for my refreshment, and John was always despatched for a paper and string, and all that I had not eaten was put up for me to carry away for future use.
There was pleasant entertainment for children at Captain Glover's - a gentle horse to be ridden, a tiny pond to row upon, and a barn full of hay in which to play. May Day was a picnic time for school children, with expeditions to Jamaica Plain or Longwood.
The beautiful Walley estate
extended all over the land bounded by Cypress and Boylston Streets, running behind the parsonage to the Sumner estate on the west .... The house was a picturesque object with ever- green trees so close to the piazza as to make it always cool and shady in summer .... Mr. Walley married a beautiful heiress from Martinique named Feroline Lalong. They had six sons and six daughters; several of the latter inherited their mother's beauty, and all were gay and pleasing. As Mrs. Walley was a Roman Catholic they were an important fam- ily in the church in Boston, the clergy of which were their constant guests. Bishop, afterwards Cardinal, Cheverus was there frequently .... My father 2 was very fond of Bishop Cheverus and learned French in order to read many books recommended by him ....
I 1903.
2 The Reverend John Pierce.
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ELYSIUM THREATENED
These, then, were the years of 'Beautiful Brookline,' the Paradise on earth. There were beautiful homes and charm- ing society, contact with the world of affairs, and alertness to the best of the new and the old. There were taxes, too, an unheavenly touch compensated by schools, highways, street lights, and a host of other improvements that had little to do with heaven, but were regarded as great conveniences on earth.
Brookline was from every point of view a desirable place in which to live. And it was this very desirability in so many respects, this wealth and beauty and charm and modernity all in one, that presently compelled the town to fight for its existence. The inhabitants, on April 11, 1870, were con- fronted with a proposed bill in the State legislature, respecting which they voted 'That the Selectmen be instructed to appear before the Legislative Committee on Towns, with counsel, look after its best interests, and oppose its annexation to Boston.'
CHAPTER X BROOKLINE IN THE CIVIL WAR
IF A difference of opinion on the justifiability of Negro slavery was a primary cause of the Civil War, it had also been, from very early times, in some degree a point of dissension in Brook- line. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slavery was not generally viewed with humanitarian horror, and New Eng- landers of high rectitude and commendable virtue owned both Negro and Indian servants, while indentured men and women were scarcely better off, until their time was up.
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