USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 4
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Boston Weather-The much discussed Boston weather may be summed up in cold figures based on a fifty year average: Annual temperature 49.5°, January temperature 27.1°, July temperature 72.0° ; annual precipi-
28
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
tation 41.5 inches. For those who feel that the climate of the city is one of its principal resources, who insist that it plays an important role in mak- ing the metropolis and its citizens great, the following table is given :
BOSTON'S WEATHER RECORD. (Based on Observations Ranging from 20 to 50 Years).
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Annual
Temperature:
Monthly Mean
27.9 28.8
35.6 46.4 57.1
66.5
71.7 69.9 63.2 53.6 42.0 32.5 49.6
Daily Mean Maximum ...
35.9
36.7
43.3
54.3
65.7
75.7
80.0
77.8
71.2
61.5
49.3
34.7
25.1
41.6
Highest on Record ..
70
64
83
87
97
08
104
98
102
90
76
69
104
Lowest on Record ...
-13
-II
-8
II
31
42
46
47
34
25
-- 2
-14
-14
Precipitation :
Total, Inches
3.82
3.44
4.08
3.55
3.51
3.03 3.36 4.03 3.19 3.86
4.10
3.41 43.38
Days With 0.01 Inch or More
12
IO
12
IO
IO
10
9
9
10
II
125
Total Snowfall, Inches ...
II.2
12.5
7.9
2.5
0
O
o
1.7
8.4 44.2
Percentage of Possible Sun- shine
49
58
57
55
59
63
64
63
62
56
48
48
57
Hourly
Wind
Velocity,
9
IO
IO
9
9
9
9
II
II
II
IC
9
117
Miles
11.6
12.3 12.4 11.2 10.1
9.3
8.9
8.4
9.2
10.2
11.2 11.4 10.5
20.0
20.8
27.9
38.3
48.5
57.8
63.4
62.0
55-3
45.7
39-9 57.6
Daily Mean Minimum ...
*Trace.
If one wishes more statistics on the weather, here are some which have to do with the year 1925, as given out by the weather bureau. Dur- ing the year the precipitation was below the normal, amounting to 41.15 inches. The snowfall was also below normal, being only 21 inches, as against the average of 44.2. The maximum monthly precipitation was in March 5.21 inches, and nearly as much water fell in December, or 5.20 inches, the total of these two months being 23.3 per cent. of the year's rainfall; the maximum rainfall in twenty-four consecutive hours, 1.74 inches on December 3-4; thunder storms came on twenty-two days, six of these in July and August; snow on thirty-four days, twenty-two being in January, February and March.
Number of clear days, 130; cloudy days, 100; partly cloudy, 135; days showing precipitation, 114; highest temperature, 100 degrees (June 6) ; lowest, o degrees (January 23) ; mean for the winter months, 35 degrees ; for the summer months, 71.5 ; number of days with a tempera- ture of 90 degrees or over, 12; freezing or lower, 100 days; greatest monthly range of temperature, 61 degrees in March; least monthly range, 41 degrees in May and July. Sunshine, per cent. for the month, highest in August, 69 per cent .; lowest in October, 42 per cent .; mean for the year, 58 per cent. Wind, highest velocity, 46 miles per hour (Feb- ruary 26) from the west; average hourly velocity, 10.1 ; prevailing direc- tion of the winds in the summer months, southwest; in the winter months, west; gales (i. e., 40 miles or over per hour) on 7 days, mostly in March and October. Humidity, highest per cent., for the month of September (74 per cent.) ; lowest, January (62 per cent.); mean for the year, 68.5 per cent.
Again the Harbor-As we entered this chapter by way of the harbor, as did the Puritans who founded Boston, so we will leave it, but now by
Number of Clear Days.
29
METROPOLITAN BOSTON'S NATURAL SETTING
the way of statistics. Our forefathers would no longer recognize either the harbor or the peninsula upon which they settled. The hills are gone or partly dismantled; there is no peninsula, and the port has been trans- formed. The harbor has been reduced in size, but there still remain some 30,000 acres of its area. The water front is less, but makes up the rather large total of 141 linear miles; there is a berthing space of 40 miles, more than 8 miles of which fronts on a depth of 30 feet or more at mean low water. The Puritans and the folk who followed them into the harbor for the next few generations, were fortunate in having vessels drawing but little water, but even so the difficulties of bringing them safely to berth were many. There is now practically no limit to the size of the ships which can be accommodated. There is a mile of berthing space available at the Army Supply Base in South Boston; the railroad terminals in East Boston add their quota. The Commonwealth Pier, erected by the State, at a cost of $4,500,000, is one of the finest of its kind in the world ; it is 1,200 feet long and 400 wide, providing docking room for five ocean-going steamers at once, and warehouses have floors cover- ing 900,000 square feet. The dry dock at South Boston is the only one in this country large enough to accommodate the largest vessels now afloat -the massive "Leviathan" when in need of repairs must come to this great dry dock. One might go on and write of the Navy Yard at Charles- town, the Fish Pier, the changes going on among the islands. But the subject of aviation is taking so much of the attention of the present (1927) that mention must be made of the Boston Airport. It will be described at length later in this work; it is sufficient here to point out that the airport is the most recent change made in the lands bordering the harbor, and is the pride and hope of the forward-looking Bostonian. It was the first to be created by any American municipality, and is situ- ated better in relation to the business section of the metropolis than is true of any other city. This summer has witnessed the flights across the Atlantic of Lindbergh, Chamberlain and Bird, with others following in the reverse direction. These flights mean much to aviation and have spurred the people of Boston to a new interest in their landing field. What would catch the attention of Governor Winthrop, could he return, and which holds the mind of the residents of Boston, is the flight of the mail planes every afternoon as they wend their way in and out of the harbor. Three hundred years, or nearly that number, have wrought marvelous changes in the Boston of the Puritans.
F
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY.
Motives Back of the Settlement of New England-It is seldom that personal acts are prompted by single motives ; when a group of indi- viduals try to do some one thing, the motives actuating it are certain to be many. The considerations that inspired the settlement of New Eng- land differed as radically as the classes concerned in it were dissimilar. Kings, merchants and religionists had a hand in the colonization of our State, but all were inspired by unlike purposes. The English King and his Parliament granted charters to large tracts of territory in New Eng- land, and settlers were encouraged to go and locate in the new land in order that the wealth and standing of Great Britain might be increased and the glory and the power of the King enhanced by the addition of col- onies. If, at the same time, the State and its ruler could be rid of danger- ous malcontents by the emigration of these elements, so much the better. The struggle between Charles I and the Puritans had assumed portentous proportions. The Puritans were feared by the higher authorities, and well they might be, for in Cromwellian times a few years later, they deprived England of a crowned head. There is little doubt that Charles was quite willing to help out of England those whose presence so threat- ened his peace and safety ; the liberality of the charter given the Massa- chusetts Bay Company, and the ease with which that document was brought to this country is proof of this. He probably thought he had made a shrewd move, and one that would redound to the glory of him- self and his kingdom when he made easy the colonization of the vast unsettled region of almost unknown America.
The Commercial Motive-The modern interpreters of history seem pledged to the use of the "commercial norm" in the measuring of the progress or evolution of nations. They believe, apparently, that all col- onizing, all expansion, all wars are the results of commercialism, the craving for wealth. There are enough events in the history of the settle- ment of Massachusetts to give body to such a theory. The Gorges and Mason were not inspired by religion or the desire to glorify a king in seeking and gaining a grant to immense territory in this country, nor were their efforts at development motivated by altruism. One has but to scan the records of the "Council of New England," of which Ferdinand Gorges was president, to realize that the first attempt to settle the shore of the "Bay" was wholly commercial in intent. The favorable natural
32
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
features of Boston Bay and harbor were even then well known. The fisheries which had first centered in the neighborhood of Newfoundland had, by 1619, shifted to Massachusetts Bay. The council secured a monopoly of the fishing in this locality and tried to establish a village or so on the bay that they might the more completely control and exploit the bonanza which they felt was theirs by kingly grant. It was expected, also, that trade with the Indians and export of the vast timber supplies would prove important sources of wealth. That "The ill choice of a place for fishing, the ill carriage of the men at the settlements, and the ill sales of fish" as reported by John White, of Dorchester, proved the undoing of the Gorges colonizing scheme, shows the more clearly its commercial character.
The Massachusetts Bay Company, which succeeded to the effects of the Council of New England, was in a measure a business association, backed by wealthy men who were willing to make a small investment in a new country with the expectation of receiving large returns. It would not be fair to overlook the evident fact that mingled with the hope of profits was the desire to do good and advance the cause of religion. The Dorchester immigrants who, at South Boston, preceded Winthrop by a fortnight in the settlement of Boston, expected their place to become the principal town in New England. They based their expectation on its location in regard to the fisheries, and were frank in their commercialism.
The Religious Motive-The transition from a fishing and trading co-partnership to a development dominated by religious people and motives was both rapid and complete. To Reverend John White and his Dorchester followers must credit be given for the inception of the greater colonization of New England. The fulfillment came only when religious persecution had spurred on the Puritans to seek a place where they might be free from interference with their personal liberties, particularly those of worship. The great exodus was not occasioned by a desire to profit from the fisheries or by traffic with the Indians, neither was it made by those who sought the profits of a voyage or the pleasure of a visit to new lands. As expressed in the "Agreement at Cambridge" (1629), it was to "inhabit and continue," for "the God's glory and the Church's good." It was urged "as preparation for the voyage" that each should "dispose of his estate and affairs." The old was to be left behind and the new established. Although the founders of New England never used the term, they came to set up a Puritan Commonwealth, a the- ocracy with God as its head and the Scriptures as the statute-book. If they realized that they were founding a colony of the King of England whom they despised, they established one so loosely joined to the mother country as to be virtually independent. Holding such ideas, the Massa-
33
REVIEW OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY
chusetts Bay Company was very careful to bring its charter with them, and to insure that its administration should be by those who dwelt within the settlement. New England became, in embryo, an independent reli- gious state; the germ was in it of that freedom which eventually com- pletely separated it from the Nation that fostered it.
This chapter has to do with a review of the early political history of Boston, and from necessity, in the beginning, at least, of New England. There can be little understanding of the evolution of a "small fishing village" into a metropolis and capital of a Commonwealth of the United States, unless the motives lying back of its early settlement are recalled and considered, for each had a profound effect in shaping the destinies of the colony, and all were unlike. The Kings of England cared only for the aggrandizement of their empire and the enhancement of their per- sonal glory. The would-be pre-Winthrop exploiters of the Massachusetts Bay country were dominated by commercialism ; and this same commer- cialism was by no means lacking in the later developments. The Puri- tan, the real founders of New England, were intent upon securing the freedom to do as they pleased, to set up a Christian Commonwealth. With such varied and opposed desires involved, with so many dis- similar classes striving to dominate the New World, it is but natural that the evolution of Boston and its government should be marked by many strange and exciting events. Nor is it surprising that New England gave to this country the political principles which incited it to revolution, and upon which were based a republican government.
Outlines of Early Colonization-Before entering upon the details of the early political history of Boston, it may be well to recall some of the history taught in every grammar school. Shortly after the discoveries of Columbus, Henry VII, then King of England, sent John Cabot, a Vene- tian living at Bristol, off to find a northwestern passage to India and China. Cabot failed, but seems to have been the first to discover the continent of North America (1497), taking it in the name of the King. Sebastian Cabot, son of John, in 1498, explored the coast of North America from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras, also taking possession of the land in the name of the King of England. Other English explorers made voyages of discovery, such as Sir Martin Frobisher (1576), John Davis, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Francis Drake, not to mention a score of others. As the result of these discoveries and explorations, especially of the Cabots, England laid claim to all the land from Florida to Labrador on the Atlantic, and westward to the Pacific. The Spanish, French and Dutch all had conflicting claims, but as we know, in 1664, the English took New Netherland from the Dutch and called it New York, and the
Met. Bos .- 3
34
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
French and Indian War, which was so much a New England affair, drove the French out of America as a dominant force, the battle of Quebec set- tling the question. Spain retained the nominal control over the interior.
England and France were the only nations that were really successful colonizers. Spain made a brilliant beginning, but stopped there. There were three classes of English colonies established which differed in the motives behind their settlement, in the class of people who came, and mainly in the government control under which they existed. The three forms of Colonial government among the English colonies were known as Charter, the Proprietary, and the Royal or Provincial. Boston at dif- ferent periods was under the first and last kinds; the proprietary, where the owner of a large tract was granted the power to rule over it, never had a place in New England. Massachusetts was fortunate in being granted a charter conferring the power of government upon the people, and as we shall see, had leaders wise enough to bring that charter with them to this country. These charters were somewhat similar to our pres- ent State Constitutions. Boston, under a second charter, lost the right to elect its own Governor, but the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island were retained without change as State Constitutions until 1818 and 1842, respectively.
New England Forms of Government-The form of Colonial govern- ment under which Boston throve for more than sixty years gave the people many valuable rights; they elected their own Governor and the members of the legislative bodies. The King interferred but little and the colony resembled a small independent republic, our present National Government, with its executive officer and two houses, and the former bi-cameral government of Boston City being of the same type. The one principal exception to home rule as exemplified in the early Colonial government was the rule that no law could be passed contrary to the laws of England. In 1692, the King of England assumed the responsi- bility for selecting the governors of Massachusetts, ten of whom were named before all family relations were broken with England. There might have been little hardship for Massachusetts in the rôle of a pro- vincial colony if it had not grown up through two generations who had practiced self-government. There had developed in New England a system of local control differing from the other colonies, known as the Town System. Almost from the first the Massachusetts Bay Company encouraged the laying out of the surface of the land into districts which came to be called towns. These were governed by a town-meeting held once a year, at which every male citizen was expected to be present to address the meeting if he chose and vote on all subjects that came up. It was pure democracy. It taught independence of thought and action ;
35
1247265
REVIEW OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY
it brought independence to America. It was the bold and uniform oppo- sition of the New England town governments to the acts of Parliament which they considered unjust which aroused the other sections of this country to revolution.
Boston was organized as a town in 1630, and before many years had passed was the principal place in the colonies. For one hundred and ninety-two years the town government was retained. By 1821, Boston was the largest town in the United States, too large to be managed by direct methods. It had long passed the stage where a pure democracy should give way to a representative government. A town-meeting where all must come, and speak and vote, was an absurdity, an impossibility, in a place of 45,000 inhabitants. On May 1, 1822, Boston became a city with a municipal government changed as little as was possible, but with the voters' powers delegated. In 1909, under a new charter, the city stopped trying to manage its affairs as though it were a miniature State, and patterned its government after that of a business concern.
The Georges Patent-Passing from the general to the particular, the political history of Boston may be considered under the heads Colony, Province, Town, and City. Boston dates officially from September 17, 1630, with the passage by the Court of Assistants of the Colony of Mas- sachusetts Bay, sitting at Charlestown, of the order: "That Trimon- taine shalbe called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester; & ye towne vpon Charles Ryver, Watertown." The peninsula upon which Boston was founded was a part of the territory conveyed by the Council for New England to the Massachusetts Bay Company on March 19, 1627-28. If one cares to inquire further into the charters upon which the colony of Massachusetts was based, of which Boston was the center throughout all its existence, one must go back to April 20, 1606, to the first of the patents which opened the coast of America to legal settlement. On that date King James of England issued a charter or "letters patent" to all the land between thirty-four and forty-five degrees north latitude, extending into the interior for one hundred miles. The territory was called Vir- ginia and was divided between two companies known as the Northern and Southern Virginia Companies. The dividing section between the two companies was a strip of land between the thirty-eighth and forty- first parallels; the proviso being, that the first of the organizations to establish permanent settlements on this strip should have the jurisdiction over it. It was also stipulated that no colony of one company should be founded within a hundred miles of the other. The King reserved the right to appoint a resident council in each division, while a council hav- ing its seat in England had supervision over both.
The Southern Company had the better of the first arrangement, but
36
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
the King, offended by some of the members of the Southern Company, issued a new patent to the Northern, which greatly extended its limits and powers. A charter given November 3, 1620, to the Northern Com- pany of whom Ferdinand Gorges was head, established a council at Plymouth (England), to which was given the jurisdiction over the land ranging from the fortieth to the forty-eighth parallels and extending westward to the South Sea (Pacific Ocean). This patent broadened the territory from one hundred miles to an Atlantic coast line which, starting in south New Jersey, reached to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Ferdinand Gorges and his associates were empowered to "make laws, appoint gov- ernors and other officers" and generally to set up any type of government they saw fit.
The Pilgrim Settlement-The settlement of parts of this vast domain was attempted by several groups before it was done effectively by Winthrop and the Puritans at Boston. The Pilgrims differed from their successors, mainly in the fact that while, like the Puritans they desired to "purify" the English church, they did not stay in the church to do it, but were Seceders, Separatists, as a people stood alone. They left England as pilgrims, almost without friends, without legal protec- tion, lacking a charter to the land upon which they made their homes. Their intended destination in the new land was somewhere in south New Jersey or Delaware, but the winds of God or chance brought them to Cape Cod and the earliest of the permanent settlements in New England was established. "It was left," says John Fiske, "for religious enthusi- asm to achieve what commercial enterprise had failed to accomplish."
The Pilgrims soon realized that the patent from the South Virginia Company was of no value in their present location. By the "May- flower," on its return trip, they sent for a patent from the holding organi- zation. Fortunately, the Gorges associates were very free in the disposal of the vast domain which was theirs, and a patent was sent forthwith, issued on June 1, 1621, to John Pierce and his associates in trust for the Plymouth Colony. This parchment document is now preserved in the Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, being the oldest State paper in New England.
Ferdinand Gorges, of the Northern Company, also patented to Robert Gorges, December 30, 1622, all the mainland "commonly known under the name of Messachusiack on the "northeast side of the Bay called or known by the name of Messachusiack, for ten miles towards the north- east and thirty English miles into the mainland through all the breadth aforesaid." Robert Gorges was made the Lieutenant-Governor of New England, and made a feeble but unsuccessful effort to settle his. lands, and died within a few years. His estate, coming to his brother John, had that part of it leased to John Oldham and John Dorrill, a part of the
--
37
REVIEW OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY
description reading, "All the lands within the Massachusetts Bay between the Charles River and the Abousett (Saugus) River, continuing in a straight line five miles up the Charles River into the mainland northwest from the said Bay; the three miles in length from the said mouth of the aforesaid river Abousett up into the main land upon a straight line south- west; and all the land in bredth and length between the aforesaid rivers. This area was the cause of much dissension since it covered a part of a later grant to the Massachusetts Bay Company. John Gorges also con- veyed to one William Brereton, January 10, 1629, all the land in breadth lying on the east side of the Charles to the easterly part of the cape called Nahant, and all the lands in length extending twenty miles northeast into the main land northeast from the said Cape Nahant: etc." Some of the difficulties requiring solution by the Massachusetts Bay Company, under whose charter Boston was founded, will be mentioned later. For the present it is sufficient to note that the grants to Oldham and Dorrill were simply ignored in the new charter, while Brereton's charter was repudi- ated by the company, and Brereton was invited to join the organization and be given land.
Early Bay Settlements-When one recalls that in addition to the various charters, patents, grants and the like, there were claims to the bay in which the Puritans located their main settlement made by Holland and France; that the section was but little known by actual visitors of scientific or political standing, it will be realized that only by redistribu- tion of the disputed territory could its legal status be established and a stable government set up by colonists. Of the latter there were but few outside of Plymouth before the Massachusetts Bay Company was formed. The most of the settlements were mere fishing villages. Weston was at Wessagusset (Weymouth) in 1622; those who located at Nantasket in 1623-24 had removed to Cape Ann the following year; Morton was at Merry Mount in 1625; Conant and others at Naumbeg (Salem) in 1626; and when Higginson came in 1629, he "spoke of those already settled at Cherton" or Charlestown. The fisheries were not making money as had been expected; Gorges had proven a failure as the Governor of the region; the Council for New England, which had in charge the whole territory and the commercial development of it were in despair. The time had come for a change.
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