USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 24
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given whole-heartedly to the Union. Upon the occasion of his death when more than seventy years of age, Lincoln issued a public proclama- tion of the fact to the Nation.
Rufus Choate, born in Essex, Massachusetts, October 1, 1799, died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 13, 1859, was the other member of this tri- umvirate of orators, which included Webster and Everett. One wrote of him, "Webster is like other folks, only there is more of him ; but as to Choate, who ever saw or knew his like?" He evidently was almost the equal of the other two in the power of oratory, his skill as a lawyer, and his position in politics, yet his fame seems to have been all but forgotten in the passage of years. He, like Webster, was a graduate of Dartmouth College (1819) and practiced law for ten years at Danvers, Massachu- setts ; and moved to Boston in 1834, where he made his name as a lawyer. As a public servant he was elected to both branches of the Massachu- setts Legislature ; was a member of Congress and United States Senator from 1841 to 1845.
There was a little group of Boston statesmen who, during the Civil War, brought honor to the city from whence they came, and wisely helped to guide this and other States of the Nation during that crisis. Four may be singled out, two of these serving in public office, and two doing their share in the moulding of public opinion. Charles Sumner represented the Commonwealth as its National Senator; John Albion Andrew was Governor of the State, both when strong men were needed. William Lloyd Garrison, the eldest of the group, was an anti-slavery leader ; Wendell Phillips might also be classed as another anti-slavery leader, but in his long and active life stood for reform in many lines. Charles Sumner, born January 6, 1811, died March II, 1874, was a graduate of Harvard College and Law School (1830 and 1834) and practiced his profession in Boston as well as becoming a lecturer in the Law School at Cambridge. He succeeded Webster in the United States Senate, and the brutal attack on the floor of the Senate by Brooks is a matter well known to every school boy. What is not recalled is that Sumner, al- though incapacitated by the attack for several years, continued to repre- sent Massachusetts in that august body, and held, during the period of the war, the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
John Albion Andrew, born in Windham, Maine, May 31, 1818, died in Boston, October 30, 1867, was the "War Governor of Massachusetts." A lawyer, graduate of Bowdoin College, 1837, he was admitted to the bar in 1840. His public career began with election to minor office, but, in 1858, he was made a State Representative, and later served in the convention which nominated Lincoln for the presidency. In 1860, Andrew was elected Governor of the Commonwealth, serving throughout the war period from 1861 to 1865. It was through his vigorous efforts that the
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first well-equipped regiment in the United States was sent to Washing- ton at the call of the President, and the other troops which Massachusetts was so prompt to supply all during the conflict. Like many another, Andrew gave his life for his State and country, not on the more dramatic field of battle, nor at the hands of an assassin. He so steadily over- worked in conduct of his office that he survived the end of the war but two years.
William Lloyd Garrison, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, De- cember 12, 1804, died in Boston May 24, 1879, was a printer by trade, the editor of papers, and a reformer by nature before settling in Boston. In this city, his whole soul being imbued with the desire to end slavery as an American institution, he founded the "Liberator," for the expression of his, then, unpopular views. He was only about twenty-six at this time, but the vigor with which he advocated abolition won him no plaud- its in a community which was in most friendly relations with the South and very much dependent upon it for its prosperity. Garrison was mobbed in 1835 and escaped with his life only by being thrust into jail over night until a way could be made for his safety. He was the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1832, and its president from 1843 to 1865. Probably no one organization of that period had more to do with the moulding of Boston's sentiments on the question of slavery than this society.
Wendell Phillips, born in Boston, November 29, 1811, died in Boston February 2, 1884, was the son of the first mayor of Boston as Josiah Quincy was of the second, both sons being anti-slavery men. Phillips was a lawyer by profession, having graduated from Harvard College and Law School, and admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1834. "He abandoned his pro- fession, as he could not conscientiously subscribe to the Constitution of the United States, which then countenanced slavery." He made his maiden speech for the cause of which he was to become one of its prin- cipal orators, at a meeting held to denounce the murder of Elijah Love- joy in Illinois by a pro-slavery mob. "That speech changed the whole feeling with regard to it (slavery) though the bigotry and pigheadedness of the abolitionists prevented my acting upon it," said John Murray Forbes, who later became the confidential advisor and helper of Gov- ernor Andrew. Wendell Phillips was president of the Anti-Slavery So- ciety from 1865 until its dissolution in 1870. His later life was that of a public lecturer.
Boston Clergy-As was to be expected, the clergy of Boston, partic- ularly the Unitarian, came out very emphatically for abolition, and many of its members stood shoulder to shoulder with Garrison, Phillips, Quincy, Higginson, and the other anti-slavery proponents of the pre-
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Civil War period. Theodore Parker stands out above the crowd, mainly because he was a radical in many matters, and one capable of seizing the attention of even his opponents. He was a native of Lexington, Massa- chusetts, born August 24, 1810, and died at Florence, Italy, May 10, 1860; Installed as the pastor of the Second Unitarian Church of West Roxbury, in 1837, he was the most practical of preachers, but so unorthodox a thinker as practically to have separated himself from his fellows of his denomination in polity and faith. In 1846 he came into Boston proper and founded what was called the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. Six years later his preaching in the Music Hall, continued until 1859, attracted the attention of New England; his fame spreading for elo- quence, radical theology, and reform measures, of which temperance and the abolition of slavery were the principal. It was Parker who per- formed the marriage ceremony of. the negro fugitive Crafts to whom, at the ceremony, he presented a Bible and a bowie knife for defense, while he, Parker, wrote his sermons with a drawn sword and pistol beside him to protect the fugitives should that be necessary.
The ministers of Boston, whether in the beginning or in the later times, rose to heights of influence and leadership somewhat unusual. It was so during the abolition controversies before the Civil War, and dur- ing the crises preceding and following it. Although much space has been given to the men of this profession, it would not be fair to pass by in this list of Boston's immortals, the first Catholic bishop of Boston, de Cheverus, and the first among the separated Unitarians, William Ellery Channing. When Jean Lefebre de Cheverus came to Boston in 1796, it was hardly expected that the church he represented could by any whim of fortune become the largest religious organization in Boston. He was of distinguished parentage, born at Mayenne, France, January 28, 1768, and died at Bordeaux, France, July 19, 1836. Since a fairly full account is given of this man and his work in Boston in the chapter on Boston's religions, it is not necessary to indicate here more than his place among the great ones of the city. He was made the bishop of Boston in 1808.
William Ellery Channing, born in Newport, Rhode Island, April 7, 1780, died at Bennington, Vermont, October 2, 1842. His biography is given elsewhere in the story of the Unitarian Church of which he was the leading exponent in the early part of the nineteenth century.
Architects, Scientists, and Benefactors-Before leaving the more ancient days, let honor be given to Charles Bulfinch, architect of the State House, and many of the early public buildings of the city, includ- ing the Massachusetts General Hospital's central structure, the first Roman Catholic Cathedral, the State Prison and the first Boston theatre. Charles Bulfinch was born in Boston, August 8, 1763, and died in Boston
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April 15, 1844. His training in architecture was secured abroad, his re- turn to Boston being in 1787. The "Bulfinch architecture" still dom- inates much of Boston's local landscape, but the gentleman who became dejected in later years because there was no more room for buildings of his design might be somewhat astonished by the space that has been added to the city, and the type of architecture which has since come into style. Bulfinch lived in Washington, D. C., from 1818 to 1830, when act- ing as the architect of the National Capitol.
Nathaniel Bowditch, born in Salem, Massachusetts, died in Boston, March 16, 1838, may be called Boston's first mathematician, navigator, and astronomer. He had little early schooling, was an apprentice until of age, after this a seaman for nine years. His last trip was made as the captain and supercargo of the good ship "Putnam" (1802). "Although self-taught, he so mastered mathematics that he published 'The Practical Mariner,' but his great work is his 'Commentary' on the 'Mecanique Celeste of Laplace,' the celebrated astronomer and mathematician." He was a member of many of the scientific societies of Europe and the United States.
Abbott Lawrence, born in Groton, December 16, 1792, died in Boston, August 18, 1855, was the first of the great merchant princes and phil- anthropists of the many in Boston. A country boy, clerk in a cross- roads store, he became a member with his brother of the firm of A. & A. Lawrence, importers, whose ships were known in the ports of the Seven Seas. Among his many benefactions was the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, founded with an endowment of $100,000, a very large gift for that day. Mr. Lawrence served two terms in Congress and was the United States minister to England from 1849 to 1852.
Samuel Gridley Howe was another of the early benefactors of Boston, not through the giving of large sums of money, for he never was wealthy, but through his ability to persuade men of means to support the works to which he was willing to give himself. He was a Boston boy, born November 10, 1801, died in Boston, January 9, 1876. A graduate of Brown University when twenty, he studied medicine but devoted his life to philanthropic enterprises, the most remarkable of which was the Perkins Institute for the Blind which he organized in 1832, and with which he was connected the remainder of his life. It was the result of his studies abroad in the methods of educating the blind, that he opened a little back room school for a dozen blind students, whom he taught by raised types made by pasting twine on paper. Colonel Thomas Hand- asyd Perkins, merchant and ship-owner, becoming interested in Howe's labors, gave to the work a mansion with its grounds on Pearl Street, on the condition that twice the value of the place be contributed by others. Such was the beginning of the largest institution for the blind in New England.
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Authors-So far the list of "Immortals" have included none whose principal activities were literary, and Boston has been and is a "literary center." M. A. DeW. Howe is sure that "Boston was the literary centre -without quotation marks-during the period in which American litera- ture acquired a shelf of its own in the library of the race. . . . The pro- duction of books possessing something like permanence is perhaps the most characteristic mark of a centre to which the term literary, in its true meaning of 'related to literature' may be applied. Name the American writers whose works have stood the test of half a century, and with a few notable exceptions they belong to Boston and its neighborhood." With so many names from which to choose, the responsibility for limiting the number mentioned here shall be placed upon those who selected the famous "forty" notables of Boston.
Among the Boston historians, Prescott and Parkman stand out, and from the birth of the former to the death of the latter covers a period of nearly a century. William Hickling Prescott, born in Salem, Massa- chusetts, died in Boston, January 28, 1859, chose a literary career, not despite of practical blindness, but because of it. His whole life was one courageous fight to overcome a handicap; the quantity and quality of his work under the circumstances is remarkable. The more noted of his works, "The Conquest of Peru," "The Conquest of Mexico," and the "History of Philip II of Spain," were translated into half a dozen lan- guages, and won for their author membership in many of the learned soci- eties of America and Europe. Nor was he an unimportant figure in Bos- ton's civic affairs ; he was one of the group of abolitionists in the day when they were decidedly unpopular.
Francis Parkman, born in Boston September 16, 1825, died in Boston November 8, 1893, was another of those whose disabilities of eyesight "at once restricted his intercourse with the world and demanded of his own life a strain of heroism as genuine as any his pen recorded of others." Parkman was a graduate of Harvard Law School, but instead of practic- ing law, devoted his energies to literature. He traveled extensively through America, thus laying the foundations for his works touching the pioneer history of the country. In 1851 he published the "Conspiracy of Pontiac," which was followed by a series of publications issued under the title "France and England in America."
Edward Everett Hale, born in Boston, April 3, 1822, died in Boston, June 10, 1909, did much to make history popular both with the young and the old. His long, well-rounded life was spent in many fields of activ- ity. He was a loved pastor all his days after graduating from a school of theology-he was a member of the class of 1839, Harvard University. A noted preacher, director and co-laborer in many uplift movements, he
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found the time to be a voluminous writer. Had he written only "The Man Without a Country," he would not have written in vain.
Limiting the literary lights, aside from historians, to two, the choice falls upon Longfellow and Holmes. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, died in Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, March 24, 1882, is more often associated with Cambridge, where he had his historic home, than with Boston. Yet, after his second mar- riage, he was closely allied with the literary and social life of Boston. He was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, studied law under his father, but like many another, gave up the practice of his profession for literature. After being the Professor of Modern Literature and Languages at Bowdoin, he was called to Harvard University to fill a like chair. His poetry is too well known to need even a reference to his most famous poems. At his home, he received notables from all over the world, and that same historic mansion is the destination of many a literary pilgrimage of today. The lofty sentiment and benignant beauty of his verses were but the reflections of the character of the man.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, born in Cambridge, August 29, 1809, died in Boston, October 7, 1894, so completely identified himself and his work with Boston as almost to become Boston to the world at large. His own idea that "the identification with a locality is the surer passport to immor- tality than cosmopolitanism is" was true in his case. He was a member of the famous class of 1829 of Harvard, and began his literary production while in school. Verse and prose flowed readily from his pen, and many of both still stand out above the enormous mass of writings which smother so much of what is good in the literature of the past. One must still go to his "Autocrat" or "Professor" of the breakfast table, if one would get the feel of Boston's uniqueness. Howe remarks of "Little Boston" one of the characters in the "Professor" and its author: "His thoughts and words could have been put on paper only by one who was saturated with the local spirit and traditions. It is good to hear the crooked little man glorying in his birthplace, 'full of crooked little streets'; but I tell you Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than any other city of live or dead men, I don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples !" Meanwhile it is well to recall that Holmes was a really notable physician, although greatest as a professor of anat- omy and physiology at both Dartmouth and Harvard Colleges.
As the list of the "Forty Immortals of Boston" began with the clergy- man, John Cotton, just so will this close with one of Boston's greatest of ministers. Phillips Brooks was a native of Boston, born December 13, 1835, and died in the city January 23, 1893. Unlike most of the "Immor- tals" he confined his efforts to one line, and however successfully he
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might have engaged in other pursuits, he was preëminently the Christian minister. He prepared for his labors at Harvard, graduating in 1855, and at the Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia. His first par- ish was at Philadelphia, but in 1869 he returned to his native city and became the rector of Trinity Church. He here remained until sudden death deprived Boston of one of its broadest minded and most spiritual citizens. His loss was not only mourned by the city, but regretted by the thousands elsewhere who had loved and been influenced by the life and words of this bishop of Massachusetts. As one has written, but before the monument which now graces the church-yard of his church was placed: "The space before Trinity Church may still afford to wait the monument which is to stand there, for the people hardly need to be reminded yet that their city is a better place because Phillips Brooks lived in it."
CHAPTER VI. CIVIL AFFAIRS TO THE PRESENT.
The rise and growth of the municipal government of Boston is worthy of attention and study, for its story not only illustrates the development of city government in all New England cities, but shows many of the stages that characterize the evolution of all American municipalities. Then, too, even a brief study of the various lines of activity, the many great undertakings, the vast and complicated machinery by which Bos- ton cares for itself, opens one's eyes to the varied and great problems that confront the modern cities of today. Not all the chapters in this story are pleasing, yet there is far less of the discreditable than might be expected. Neither has the highly organized machinery of government kept pace with modern needs and the expansion of the city, but neither has this been true of any large place. More than a century has passed since Boston secured its first municipal charter. Many revisions were made in this, and the city now operates under a charter of 1909 with its amendments. Originally the municipal system was based on the assump- tion that a city was a little state and should be governed in a similar manner. The bicameral legislative idea found in the charters of all early established New England cities has gone by the board in Boston together with many other obsolete notions, and the city government is no longer a State government in miniature. There has been a great deal of friction in the bringing about of these changes; an added difficulty-and advan- tage-has been the position of Boston as the capital of the State. The story of municipal affairs is full of adventures and misadventures and must continue to be, but the tale is one which can be told with pride. The words once used by Emerson in regard to the city still apply: "Let her stand fast by herself. She has grown great. She is filled with strangers, but she can only prosper by adhering to her faith. Let every child that is born of her and every child of her adoption see to it to keep the name of Boston as clean as the sun and in the distant ages her motto shall be the prayer of millions on all the hills that gird the town : as with our Fathers, so God be with us."
Disadvantages of the Town Meeting-For nearly two hundred years after the founding of Boston it remained under a town form of govern- ment. When the handful of men came at the invitation of William Blackstone, in 1630, from Charlestown and located on the Shawmut peninsula they had no thought that they were laying the foundations of
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a great city. Their choice of location appealed to later incoming Puritans and others, and a straggling village sprawled over the hills of Trimount. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, a very simple form of govern- ment grew up. Town meetings were held to transact the business of the village, in which every freeman had a voice; the town's affairs being run by the whole body of freemen. As the village grew, this method became unwieldy and selected men were delegated to perform some of the duties of the whole. Out of these grew the "Board of Selectmen"; still further needs and changes led to the election of individuals whose duties were strictly defined and limited. In 1822 Boston had grown to be a town of 45,000 inhabitants, 7,000 of whom were voters. It was the largest town in this country, and rule by open meeting was impos- sible. No hall could accommodate such a number. If a considerable portion of the voters attempted to attend town meeting, only a few could get near enough the moderator to take an active part in the business to be transacted, or even to hear what was going on. Hence it came about that only the town officers and a few personally interested citizens attended the town meetings. In brief, the town meeting became a farce, the machinery of town government broke down under its own inadequacy.
Efforts to Change the Town Government-As early as 1708 efforts were made to offset the inefficiency of the town form of government, but with no result. In 1784 a petition of influential citizens secured the appointment of a committee which reported on two plans: one "making the body politic a mayor, aldermen and a common council of the city of Boston"; the other "making the town a body politic, the president and selectmen of the city of Boston." When put to the voters the report was rejected. Other efforts were made and submitted to the voters of the town, purposing the chartering of Boston as a city in 1792, 1804 and 1815. So habituated were the people to the old method of government not one of the plans was accepted, although the defeat of the 1815 provi- sion was by a lack of but thirty-one votes. Some few years later it was discovered that there was no provision in the State Constitution for the incorporation of cities, so that it may have been just as well that none of the efforts at attainment of a city government had succeeded. The real- ization of the lack of authority on the part of the General Court to erect a city government gave a new impetus to the desire to incorporate Boston. On April 29, 1821, the Constitution was amended and during the next year the city of Boston was chartered.
The Cumbersome Officialdom of the Town-The town government as elaborated during the one hundred and ninety-two years in which it
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had existed was as follows: The town had been divided into twelve wards. There were nine selectmen, whose chairman generally had charge of the police ; twelve overseers of the poor; thirty-five fire wards ; twelve school committeemen; twelve members of a Board of Health- one chosen from each ward; twenty surveyors of boards; six fence viewers; six cullers of staves and hoops; nine cullers of dry fish; four field drivers; three inspectors of lime ; two surveyors of hemp; two sur- veyors of wheat ; two assay masters; a town treasurer and a town clerk. Seven selectmen acted as surveyors of the highways, and there were twenty-four assistant assessors, two from each ward. These officials were chosen annually at ward meetings and presided over by wardens who were themseives elective officers. The financial policy and affairs of the town were largely controlled by the selectmen, the overseers of the poor and Board of Health, as a standing committee on finance, which chose the town treasurer-the principal assessors were selected by the twenty-four assistant assessors. In all, at the last town meeting, 112 officers were elected besides those appointed by the selectmen or elected by each ward. It was a rather cumbersome officialdom that had grown up under the town system. One wonders whether its numerical strength and the multitude of political honors did not form one of the main reasons for the reluctance of the voters to change to a more efficient, but numer- ically less, city system.
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