USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people > Part 33
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L. from Johnny Cake Hill into William St.
7. The Customhouse, at the corner of North Second St., on which it fronts, is a granite structure more than a century old. It has two stories, a portico in classic style, and a winding stone stairway of unusual design. R. from Williams St. into Purchase St.
8. The Liberty Bell Tablet, on the eastern wall of the Merchants' Na-
NEW BEDFORD MAP INDEX
I. Public Library
2. Whaleman Statue
3. Bourne Office Building
4. Waterfront Area
5. Museum of Old Dartmouth His- torical Society
6. Seamen's Bethel
7. Custom House
8. Liberty Bell Tablet
9. Bridge Park
IO. Acushnet Park
II. Fort Rodman
12. Rodney French Memorial Tablet
13. Municipal Bathing Beach
14. Mark Duff Home
15. Perry House
16. Buttonwood Park
17. Wamsutta Mills
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Main Street and Village Green
tional Bank at Liberty St., reads in part: 'News of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law was brought from Boston in 1851 by an express messenger who rode all night, and the bell on the old Hall was rung to give warning to fugitive slaves that U.S. Marshals were coming.'
MOTOR TOUR - 6 m.
E. from Pleasant St. into Middle St.
9. Bridge Park at the head of the State bridge, is a beautifully land- scaped area.
R. from Middle St. into Front St .; R. from Front St. into Walnut St .; L. from Walnut St. into South Second St .; L. from South Second St. into Cove St .; R. from Cove St. into Rodney French Blvd.
IO. Acushnet Park (open-air dance hall, public bathing beach, clambake pavilion) (privately owned; open in summer; adm. free), adjacent to the Infirmary, is a public amusement park.
II. Fort Rodman (open, visitors restricted), at the top of Clark's Point, is one of the key defenses of the North Atlantic coast. Two active bat- teries are maintained here. The fort antedates the Civil War.
12. The Rodney French Memorial Tablet, at the entrance to Hazelwood Park (public; tennis; baseball; bowling), was erected by the Negroes of the city in honor of an abolitionist mayor in 1853-54.
13. The Municipal Bathing Beach (bathing suits for hire, outside showers) was cleared and improved, walls constructed, and a children's beach created by Emergency Relief Administration and Works Progress Ad- ministration projects.
L. from Rodney French Blvd. into Cove Rd .; R. from Cove'Rd. into County St. 14. The Mark Duff Home (private), between Madison and Cherry Sts., was designed by Russell Warren, early 19th-century Providence archi- tect. It is a two-and-a-half-story frame building topped by a cupola, surrounded by spacious grounds with sunken gardens.
R. from County St. into Walnut St .; L. from Walnut St. into Seventh St.
15. The Perry House (private), southeast corner of School St., a mansion of whaling days, is an excellent example of New England Georgian architecture. A winding, mahogany staircase rises through the center of the house from the street floor to the cupola or captain's walk.
L. from Seventh St. into Union St .; R. from Union St. into County St .; L. from County St. into North St .; L. from North St. into Rockdale Ave.
16. Buttonwood Park (west end of the city) is the largest in the city. Here is the Barnard Monument, a twofold tribute to the whalemen and to the promoters of the textile industry.
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Retrace Rockdale Ave .; R. from Rockdale Ave. into Mill St. (one-way, east); L. from Mill St. into Acushnet Ave.
17. Wamsutta Mills (not open to the public), between Wamsutta and Logan Sts., the oldest of New Bedford's many textile mills, are con- structed of granite.
NEWBURYPORT . City of Captains' Houses
City: Alt. 26, pop. 14,815, sett. 1635, incorp. town 1764, city 1851. Railroad Station: Winter St. for B. & M. R.R.
Accommodations: One hotel open all year; two open only during summer. Information: Chamber of Commerce, 12 Pleasant St.
ONCE seagoing vessels huddled so close in the Merrimack that they almost bridged the river from the Newburyport to the Salisbury shore. Now the great river runs placidly by the city, and the harbor is clogged with sand. Along the shore still stand a few factories, their red-brick walls faded and picturesque against the background of moving water. A dignified and charming city rises from the river level, bisected by the gleaming Turnpike - a modern note in a setting which is otherwise almost a monument to the glorious days of Newburyport's maritime supremacy. Shipowners and their captains built the stately houses which border High Street for several miles; square three-storied dwellings with hip roofs, often crowned by cupolas, their severity of line relieved by cornices, doorways, and window treatments, skillfully executed by men who had learned their craft as shipwrights in the famous Newburyport yards. Throughout the country the street is known as a distinguished survival of the best in Federal architecture.
Newburyport's business district is that of any busy modern city, although even in Market Square space is given to a tablet which tells the tale of old Goody Morse, victim of the witchcraft delusion. The aroma of mo- lasses still floats from the rum factory, and fine silver is made today in a plant whose antecedents go back to early Colonial days. Newer manu- factures have been established, and the city strives to adjust itself to the modern tempo. Yet it is in the upper reaches of the city, where the old jail used for British prisoners frowns over Bartlett Mall, and St. Paul's Church rears its bishop's mitre high over the roofs of the old houses, that Newburyport reveals its inner character.
Long before bands of sober-minded Puritans ventured northward to found the city of Newburyport at the mouth of the Merrimack, free-
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lance traders had realized its strategic position. They had tapped the rich Indian country to such an extent that the apprehensions of Governor John Winthrop were aroused. He feared lest such outsiders might secure too firm a foothold within the borders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1635, therefore, a party of colonists was dispatched to set up an out- post of virtue and commerce against these interlopers. For seven years they attempted to farm the forest at Old Newbury. In 1642 many of them gave up the thankless task and moved to the present site of New- buryport. Industry sprang up at once. Trapping and fishing were fol- lowed by whaling and international trade. The deep-channeled river and the limitless supply of lumber made shipbuilding an inevitable de- velopment. Between 1681 and 1741, 107 ships were launched from Newburyport shipyards. Subsidiary industries came to life. Along the waterfront appeared ironworks, sail lofts, and ropewalks. For a time the pre-eminence of Boston was seriously threatened, but heavy duties im- posed before the Revolution by the British Crown, and the exclusion of American ships from the West Indian trade and the Newfoundland fish- ing banks after the Revolution, left the town economically prostrate. By 1790 Newburyport had recovered a measure of its prosperity, but it was short-lived. The ninth ship-owning community in the country, it never recovered from the disastrous effects of the Jefferson Embargo Act. The town's plight was thus mourned by a Newbury poet in 1808:
'Our ships all in motion once whitened the ocean, They sailed and returned with a cargo; Now doomed to decay, they have fallen a prey To Jefferson - worms - and embargo.'
Another blow was the fire of 1811. Fifteen acres in the heart of the city were burned to the ground. The Industrial Revolution proved Newbury- port's commercial undoing. After the War of 1812, textile mills sprang up on every natural water site in Essex County; and the more farseeing mercantile families of Newburyport, such as the Lowells and the Jack- sons, turned from trade to manufacture. As the country became in- dustrialized, tariffs were enacted to protect infant industries. Such im- ports as India cottons, English woolens, Russian duck and canvas, and Baltic iron - backbone of Newburyport's seaborne commerce - were practically wiped out.
Shipbuilding, however, knew another day of glory in the clipper-ship era. The demand for packets to carry adventurers to the California gold- fields in '49 gave the industry new impetus. Donald McKay, noted designer of clipper ships, came to Newburyport after his New York apprenticeship. Between 1841 and 1843, in partnership with John Currier, Jr., he turned out three packet vessels of such perfection that his reputation was made. Later, in the same yards, the record-breaking clip- per 'Dreadnought' was built by Currier and Townsend.
A geographical position far from the mercantile centers, the ever-increas- ing sandbars and dangerous shoals at the harbor mouth, and the advent of steam brought to a close this last glorious era in Newburyport's history,
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Newburyport
and with its passing something of glamor and vitality seemed to leave the city. Newburyport turned to manufacturing, but without enthusiasm. Today the principal industries are shoes, iron and steel products, textiles, and cigars, besides the traditional Newburyport manufactures, rum and fine silver, that have persisted for more than two centuries.
TOUR - 6.5 m.
E. from Green St. into Pleasant St.
I. The Church of the First Religious Society (Unitarian), built in 1801, is virtually a duplicate of McIntire's Old South Church in Salem, and valuable - although ascribed to another architect - as an indication of the style of the Salem genius in church design.
L. from Pleasant St. into State St .; R. from State St. on Middle St .; R. from Middle St. into Federal St.
2. The Old South Church, corner of School St., now known as the First Presbyterian Meeting House, was built in 1756 and remodeled in 1856. Benedict Arnold and the men of the Quebec Expedition gathered here to worship on September 17, 1775. Here preached the great revivalist, George Whitefield.
R. from Federal St. into Temple St .; L. from Temple St. into State St.
3. The Tracy House (open), now the Public Library, is the red-brick building at the corner of Prince Place. This house was built in 1771 by Patrick Tracy for his son Nathaniel, who equipped and sent out the first privateer to sail from the United Colonies against England.
4. The Wolfe Tavern (open as a tavern June to Oct.), corner of Harris St., was built in 1807. The present building, three-story brick with full- length porch, replaced the original tavern built in 1762 and destroyed by the fire of 1811. William Davenport, the original proprietor of the hos- telry, named it in honor of the British General Wolfe, with whom he served against the French at Quebec.
5. The Dalton Club (open by special arrangement) is directly across the street. This spacious gambrel-roofed structure was built in 1746. Par- ticularly interesting are the fine doorway with its carved detail and the interior woodwork.
L. from State St. into High St.
6. The Cushing House (1808), on the corner of Fruit St., is a fine example of Federal architecture on a street noted throughout the country for its beauty. The square, three-story brick house is especially notable for its cornice. Caleb Cushing, distinguished statesman, entertained John Quincy Adams here in 1837.
7. The Wheelwright House (1797), now the Home for Aged Women, is
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Main Street and Village Green
characterized by a portico supported by Doric columns and surmounted by a balustrade; a central Palladian window adds charm to the façade. Retrace on High St .; R. from High St. into Green St.
8. The interior of the Sumner House (open 2-4; adm. free), corner of Harris St., is considered an excellent example of Federal architecture.
9. In Brown's Park, corner of Green and Pleasant Sts., stands the Statue of the 'Great Liberator,' William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, orator, and publisher of The Liberator, which championed the cause of the slaves.
Retrace on Green St .; R. from Green St. into High St.
Io. Across the green stretch of Bartlett Mall is the Old Hill Burying Ground. Here is buried the self-styled 'Lord' Timothy Dexter (see below).
L. at end of Mall on Aubin St.
II. The Old County Jail was built in 1744 and used until 1825 as the county prison. During the Revolution many British privateersmen were confined here.
Retrace on Aubin St .; L. from Aubin St. into High St.
12. St. Paul's Church, corner of Market St., is said to be the oldest Episcopal parish in Massachusetts, dating from the erection of Queen Anne's Chapel in 1711. In 1797 the rector was consecrated the first Bishop of Massachusetts. Atop the vine-covered stone church is a bishop's mitre.
13. The Historical Society of Old Newbury (open June-Sept. daily 2-5; adm. 25g) contains early relics of the Newbury settlements and a marine collection. This is the Pettingell-Fowler house, built in 1792.
14. The Moseley House (private), 182 High St., is a graceful building of the Federal period. Built in 1811, it has a two-story portico with Corin- thian columns.
15. The Jackson-Dexter House (private), at 201 High St., was built in 177I. The ornate wood-encased chimneys, the watch-tower surmounted by a gilded eagle, the columns flanking the door, give an aspect of ec- centric charm to this old dwelling, which was once the lavish residence of 'Lord' Timothy Dexter. Lord Timothy, Newburyport's self-titled eccentric, cluttered his estate with statues of the great, his own included. He beat his wife for not giving vent to sufficient grief at a mock funeral held for himself. But his 'lordship' was far from crazy. He gained a good portion of his wealth by buying up depreciated Continental cur- rency. He made a tidy profit out of a cargo of warming-pans sent, with every appearance of lunacy, to the West Indies, and there snapped up for molasses ladles. He published in 1802 a book called 'Pickles for the Knowing Ones,' in which all the punctuation appeared at the end of the book as pages of commas and periods, bearing the unique caption 'Salt and Pepper to Taste.'
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Newton
16. Atkinson Common, at the juncture with Moseley Ave., is a spacious Green in which stands a newly erected field-stone Observation Tower. This vantage-point affords an exceptional view of the Merrimack River, the inland country, and the sea.
R. from High St. into Moseley Ave .; straight ahead into Spofford St. (Ames- bury highway).
17. The Moseley Woods (parking space, tennis courts, pavilion, bathing beach, playground equipment, open fireplaces), on the Amesbury highway at the western end of the city, is one of the larger recreational centers of Newburyport.
18. Chain Bridge, which crosses the Merrimack from Amesbury Rd. near the entrance to Moseley Woods, was the first bridge over the navigable waters. It was rebuilt as a suspension bridge in 1810.
Retrace on Spofford St .; L. from Spofford St. into Merrimac St .; L. from Merrimac St. into Jefferson St.
19. Carr's Ferry Approach is the site of the first ferry established between Newbury and Carr's Island. The original ferry was the only connecting link between Boston and the northern frontier.
Retrace on Jefferson St .; L. from Jefferson St. into Merrimac St.
20. The Shipyard Sites are at the foot of Ashland St. Here was launched the famous 1400-ton clipper 'Dreadnought.' Its record crossing of the Atlantic (9 days, 13 hours, from Sandy Hook to Liverpool) was the mar- vel of the year 1859.
21. The Towle Company Factory (open by arrangement) is a survivor of an industry for which early Newburyport was noted. This firm is today one of the largest manufacturers of sterling silverware, exclusively, in the world.
22. The Caldwell Distilleries (open by arrangement) housed in a red-brick plant on the river bank, are the only distilleries in the city still manu- facturing rum, a commodity once inseparably associated with the name of Newburyport.
NEWTON . Commuter's Haven
City: Alt. 142, pop. 66,144, sett. 1639, incorp. town 1691, city 1873.
Railroad Stations: Newton, Newtonville, West Newton, Auburndale, and River- side for B. & A. R.R. (main line); Chestnut Hill, Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, Eliot, Waban, Woodland and Riverside for B. & A. R.R. (High- land branch); Newton Upper Falls for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. Newton Lower Falls (Wellesley) for B. & A. R.R. (Newton Lower Falls branch).
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Main Street and Village Green
Bus Stations: Chestnut Hill, Newton Highlands, and Newton Upper Falls for Boston & Worcester Lines; Charles Pharmacy, Elm and Washington Sts., West Newton, for Victoria Coach Lines (Boston & N.Y.).
Information: Bureau of University Travel, II Boyd St.
NEWTON is a city built, like Rome, on seven hills; but it is suburban and residential rather than truly urban. It has its business sections and a few isolated industries, but the slopes and summits of its hills are almost entirely mantled with small or large estates or acreage not yet developed. Its roads are excellent, its parkways beautiful, and its proximity to Boston, combined with its lavish natural beauty, places it in the front rank of commuters' towns.
In few Massachusetts cities has the identity of the original villages per- sisted as it has in Newton. These villages number fourteen. All except Nonantum are recognized by separate railway stations; all have distinct business and civic centers; and though the confines melt into each other, each has its own individuality and is worthy of a visit on its own account.
The town had been settled for seven years when, in 1646, John Eliot first began to preach to the Indians at Nonantum, an event commemorated by the city seal. His first sermon, an hour and a quarter in length, was followed by a distribution of apples and biscuits to the children and of tobacco to the men - an apparently effective method of holding the audience. Whether the women were so interested that no reward was necessary, or whether their attendance was a matter of indifference to the preacher, the record does not state.
John Eliot was the first pastor of Newton's first church. After his death in 1690 the church was for some years without a spiritual guide, during which time various visiting ministers, objecting to the inadequate com- pensation offered them, sued the town for additional payment. The Court ordered the town to pay, and pay it did.
In these early days in Newton, farming was a principal occupation, and friendly Indians were helpful in introducing the pioneers to such new crops as potatoes, maize, squash, pumpkins, and beans. Some of the settlers built looms or forges or engaged in fishing. Everybody prospered. Substantial frame houses soon supplanted the original log huts.
Newton Upper Falls and Newton Lower Falls became the seat of busy industries in the early nineteenth century with two year-round hotels, many stores, and, on the Needham side of the river, a cotton mill with three thousand spindles. The rest of the Newtons developed more slowly.
During one period Newton was distinguished by the residence of out- standing leaders of culture. For a time Horace Mann lived in West Newton at the corner of Highland and Chestnut Streets. After he moved away, his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Hawthorne, occupied the same house for a year, the year in which he wrote 'The Blithedale Romance.' 'It is calm as eternity and will give you lively ideas of the same,' wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in 1833 came with his mother to occupy an old
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farmhouse near the Upper Falls. At the Old Elms, the home of Governor Claflin in Newtonville, Mrs. Mary Claflin, author of 'Oldtime Folks' and 'Under the Elms,' entertained such distinguished guests as John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Presi- dent Hayes, Chief Justice Chase, and others. Another literary group used to meet with Celia Thaxter and her husband, Levi Lincoln Thaxter, a Browning enthusiast, in the Thaxters' barn in Newtonville.
The 1934 census of manufactures of the Department of Labor and In- dustry gives the total number of manufacturing plants in operation as fifty-four. The census of 1935 indicates a shrinkage to fifteen. It is not the hum of machinery which the casual visitor hears in Newton today, but . the passing of shining automobiles over well-built roads; it is not the brick walls and huddled squalor of a factory city which greets one's eye, but fine residences with spacious garages; not the soot of an industrial center which reaches one's nostrils, but the summer fragrance of carefully landscaped estates. It was not the destiny of Newton's hills to be mantled in smoke or of its glistening lakes to be filmed with a scum. When the rails of the Boston and Worcester Railroad reached out in 1834, Newton began to receive the residential overflow of the near-by metropolis, and from its earliest days it attracted a prosperous type of home-maker. Not to become an agricultural community, not to become an industrial center, but to be a city of quiet and handsome homes where the strain and un- certainty of a busy civilization seem like a distant murmur, this was Newton's destiny.
TOUR - 23 m.
W. from Newton Corner into Washington St. (one-way traffic); L. from Washington St. into Hall St. (short unmarked street at end of first block); R. from Hall St. into Centre St.
NEWTON CORNER is the first of the fourteen famous Newton villages. Its core, covering several blocks, is occupied by stores and office buildings, giving the effect of a busy small town. Immediately on turning into Centre St., however, the visitor enters typical residential Newton. This is one of the older sections characterized by large comfortable Victorian dwellings, some of them slightly shabby but more of them very well preserved, or by the smaller modern houses, popularly of Tudor brick and timber, which have replaced their more substantial predecessors. Here and there handsome churches and prosperous city buildings rise as appropriate civic accents in the residential scene.
I. The Shannon House (private), 749 Centre St., suggests the early Victorian by its solid quiet lines and its serenely terraced lawn and shading trees. It was, however, built at a still earlier date (1798) and was one of the show houses of the town. The small conservatory was at-
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Main Street and Village Green
tached to the house by its 19th-century owner, Miss Mary Shannon, a local philanthropist, whose hobby was gardening.
Retrace on Centre St .; R. from Centre St. into Sargent St .; straight ahead from Sargent into Kenrick St .; R. from Kenrick St. into Magnolia St.
2. The Eliot Memorial is a small stone terrace attractively landscaped. A tablet in the superstructure records the date of 1646, when the Apostle to the Indians preached his first sermon near the spot in the wigwam of Chief Waban.
R. from Magnolia St. into Eliot Memorial Rd .; L. from Eliot Memorial Rd. into Waverley Ave .; R. from Waverley Ave. into Cotton St .; L. from Cotton St. into Centre St .; L. from Centre St. into Commonwealth Ave.
On the way one passes residence after residence of handsome design, all with lawns and trees, and hardly a shop to indicate any commercial interest.
Commonwealth Avenue skirts the second and perhaps the most opulent village of all, that of Chestnut Hill, which Newton shares with Brookline. Here are the really large estates, to every one of which is attached some name well known in national trade, finance, or political history.
3. Boston College spreads its fine open campus on a hill slope overlooking the beautiful Chestnut Hill Reservoir. Four imposing gray-stone build- ings in English Collegiate Gothic accommodate a large student body made up largely of day students. Its library contains illuminated manu- scripts, including breviaries, books of hours, and missals, of the medieval era, and a very famous collection of the Negro folklore of Africa and the West Indies. The College is operated by the Society of Jesus.
Retrace on Commonwealth Ave .; L. from Commonwealth Ave. into Ham- mond St .; R. from Hammond St. into Beacon St.
4. The Home of Mary Baker Eddy (open weekdays 2-5; adm. by card only, obtainable at Administration Office of Mother Church, Boston), at 400 Beacon St., Chestnut Hill, is of modified Tudor architecture. Mrs. Eddy resided here for about three years, from 1908 to 1910.
Along here is a procession of stately homes as the visitor approaches NEWTON CENTRE, the third village, with its small focus of business, its civic buildings and churches.
R. from Beacon St. into Centre St.
5. The Smith House (private), 1181 Centre St., a broad, low frame house painted cinnamon color, was the home for many years of the Rev. Samuel Francis Smith, author of 'America.' A tablet within the grounds which refers to this as the 'site' of the house is slightly misleading, as this is not only the site but actually the house itself.
Retrace on Centre St .; L. from Centre St. into Institution Ave.
6. The Andover Newton Theological School, impressively crowning a salient hill, combines the former Newton Theological Institution, founded in 1825 for training young men for the Baptist ministry, and the former
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