USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
As Lodge and other historians have pointed out, the most important results of the Shays' Rebellion were the promotion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and making the people of this country see the necessity of establishing a National form of government suited to the needs of the country at large. Boston was the scene of the protracted struggle in the convention which was held to consider the adoption of the Constitution submitted to the State by the National Convention. Public opinion was against the idea of a strong central government; "moreover, the great leaders of the Revolutionary period, Hancock and Adams, were lukewarm." The Constitution was adopted in 1788, Massachusetts being the sixth of the thirteen States to take such action. The event was celebrated by Boston with one of those fetes for which it is noted. Dur- ing the autumn of the next year, President Washington visited the town, an event which furthered the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union.
At the Close of the Eighteenth Century-By 1790, Boston had come again to her own, as far as population was concerned, the United States cen- sus of that year crediting her with 18,320. In 1800, the number of inhabitants had risen to 24,937 ; in 1810, to 33,787, these latter figures including 519 on the islands and 354 in South Boston. In 1791, there were 2,376 dwell- ings in the town and several hundred buildings coming in this class. As yet, there had been few changes in the topography of Boston, the inhab- ited portion being confined mainly to the original square mile of peninsula. There was still a beacon on Beacon Hill, or was until 1789, when it was blown down and a monument built in its place. Its slopes were used for pasturing cows, as was the common until after Boston had been a city government for some years. Prior to the close of the century no street had been laid out west of Pleasant Street and the common. Boston was still a very compact town, but the seat of many fine residences and busi- ness establishments. The "aristocracy" of the State was again making the capital its home, which was one of the reasons for the jealousy and fear of the other parts of the State. The business and building operations of the "Boston Aristocracy" were, nevertheless, the foundation on which the prosperity of the Commonwealth was to be rebuilt.
In 1786, a stock company built the first bridge to Charlestown, a notable bit of engineering for that day. Seven years later the West Boston Bridge to Cambridge was erected. In 1795, two acres of former Governor Hancock's cow pasture was purchased for the Commonwealth,
74
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
and on it was begun the construction of the State House designed by Bulfinch. The laying of the corner-stone took place on July 4, 1795, with Paul Revere and others of the Grand Lodge of Masons assisting His Excellency, Samuel Adams, Governor. The building, as completed in 1799, cost $135,000, and was first occupied by the General Court of the Commonwealth January II, 1798. The gash cut in Beacon Hill by the erection of the State House paved the way for one of the "fills" which now make so large a part of the area of Boston. Beginning about 1804 the Mill Pond Corporation had been using some of the gravel of the hill in filling its pond. In 1811, the town sold what land it owned on Beacon Hill to Samuel Spear and John Hancock and much of the summit went into the mill pond.
The Industrial Situation-Prior to the Revolution, Boston had carried on a large shipbuilding industry, having twenty-seven dockyards at one time. This business never again played so proportionately a large part in the industries of the town, although the establishment of the Navy Yard in Charlestown, in 1798, gave quite an impetus to building trades in gen- eral. Rope-walks were numerous, and the making of cotton duck, aided by a bounty granted in 1789 by the General Court, was a very important business. Indeed, in 1789, there were three large plants manufacturing cottons and woolens, concerning one of which Washington wrote, after his visit in that year: "I went to a card manufactory, where I was informed there were about nine hundred hands." Paper had been one of the first manufactures turned out in Boston, and glass was also among the early products. Sugar refineries and rum distilleries had been started before the war; these industries still employed many but had waned dur- ing and since the Revolution. A number of minor industries might be mentioned, all of which combined had much to do with the development of the Boston of the decade preceding the end of the century, and the succeeding one. But not until the town was again to suffer the set-back which came from a breaking of political relations with England, was it to learn that upon manufacturing depended its growth and prosperity, and that its place in the Commonwealth was not so much that of being an industrial section, but rather the financial center providing the capital for the construction of manufacturing plants throughout the eastern part of the State, and the middleman who handled the products of the surround- ing district and placed them in the markets. The later rise of commerce with the nations abroad, and the position held as the outlets of the rail- roads of the early part of the new century, all emphasized the place Boston was to hold in relation to the Commonwealth. Her political leadership was already a settled fact.
The Business Depression of the War of 1812-Boston was to learn many things from the War of 1812. The almost continuous state of war
75
REVIEW OF EARLY RELIGIOUS HISTORY
which existed between England and France, from 1793 to 1815, so dis- rupted the trade of all nations that the United States, as the only impor- tant neutral with a strong merchant marine, reaped the fruits of this disorder, with her merchant service. Much of the harvest fell to New England and Boston. In 1807 the shipping of Boston totaled 310,309 tons, or more than a third of the mercantile marines of the United States. In 1810 the foreign and coastwise tonnage owned in Massachusetts was nearly half a million tons, or "more than the combined tonnage of the States of New York and Pennsylvania." Boston was not to enjoy her advantages for very long; the nations of Europe were not going to build up the commerce of America at an expense to themselves. Seizures on the high seas began to be made by the naval vessels of both France and England, although the latter mentioned nation was the only one in a position to actively engage in the interference with our maritime affairs. Condemnations in the English Admiralty Court became numerous and unfair; on the heels of this followed the oppressive Orders in Council. Boston urged the immediate declaration of war when an English ship fired upon one of our national vessels. President Jefferson, evidently thinking that the European nations were somehow dependent upon our shipping for their existence, placed an embargo on our trade with foreign ports. The effect of the embargo on Boston was stunning. "Her mer- chant ships rotted at their wharves, or were hauled out and dismantled. The busy shipyards were still and silent, and all who gained their living by them were thrown out of work. The fisheries were abandoned and agriculture was distressed. Ruin threatened the merchants, and poverty stared the laboring classes in the face. .... The injuries inflicted by England were trifling in comparison with the total destruction of trade caused by the embargo." The embargo was modified in 1808 without appreciable benefit. The declaration of war in 1812 brought about a blockade of Boston which was even more disastrous to its shipping than had been the restrictions of Jefferson. One set of figures is illuminating. In 1814 the exports of Boston were valued at only $118,285, a decrease of $5,733,736 from 1811. In 1816, one year after peace was declared, the exports of Boston had risen to $7,925,692. In addition to the commercial depression which had a hold on the town at this time, there was always the danger of attack by the British, whose naval policy was to make sud- den descents in force upon the coastal towns. Boston was not only rela- tively unprotected from such attacks, but raged under the neglect of the National Government to send aid under the circumstances. Not wishing to suffer the fate of Washington, the town folk went busily to work to protect themselves. The old forts were put in order, and new ones con- structed under the direction of the noted engineer, Loammi Baldwin.
76
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
The War of 1812, ruinous as it was in many ways to Boston, was a blessing, of sorts, to the town. Hitherto shipping had been one of the main stems of its prosperity ; the destruction of trading facilities forced enterprise to seek other outlets. Capital had accumulated and lacked use even when the city was struggling with financial depression. This capi- tal and enterprise entered new channels, of which manufacturing became the principal. Not that shipping and ship building ceased, for the revival of the foreign trade after 1814 created a demand for larger and faster vessels, and the rise of the clipper ship dates from this time. As late as 1850 the United States owned one-third of the tonnage of the world, and the most of this had been constructed in New England. Four East Bos- ton shipyards in the year 1854 built thirty-nine vessels. The Boston clipper ship was the finest thing afloat, and she not only brought fame to the port from whence she sailed, but wealth in increasing amounts to the "merchants" who cargoed her. But some of the moneys coming to the coffers of the merchants went out into factories, was expended in the promotion of manufacturing.
Attention Turns to Manufacturing-The business interests of Boston, even as late as 1830, were largely commercial, and its manufactories chiefly those which had to do with shipping and the equipment of ves- sels. The War of 1812 taught her capitalists the folly of putting too many eggs in a single basket, just as it impressed everyone with the necessity of becoming independent of England, in fact as well as politi- cally. There was little hope for a nation-or a town-which could be so completely upset by the stoppage of intercourse with Great Britain. America must make for itself the thousand and one manufactured lux- uries and necessities then made abroad. It was during the early years of the nineteenth century that the business interests of Boston changed, and the financial policies began to take on the aspects that now character- ize them. Manufactures were stimulated, particularly in the making of textiles, and the needed capital provided. Lowell set up at Waltham, in 1814, the first cotton factory of the world which completed all the oper- ations comprised in the weaving of cotton in a single establishment. A few years later saw the rise of Lowell, the first town in this country to be planned and built as an industrial center. Other industries sprang up in various parts of eastern New England; many manufacturing plants were established in or close to Boston. It was Boston capital which went into the factories, and started the greatest advance made in industries by the Commonwealth. In later years it was Boston capital which financed the railroads of the State, of the West, and even of the Republic of Mexico. Always there were large amounts put into commerce and shipping. The readiness with which the Boston capitalist now seeks new and far flung
77
REVIEW OF EARLY RELIGIOUS HISTORY
investments is proverbial. The disposition was inherent in those who invested in the Massachusetts Bay Company, but the habit of investing well and boldly was acquired in the early years of the nineteenth century.
Political Changes-The financial and industrial changes in the prog- ress of Boston were reflected in its politics. It had been a strong free-trade town; with infant industries on its hands. The town became staunchly protectionist. The town government had been under the control of the Federalists, that great party of Washington; with its former leaders either dead or retired, others had taken their place of a different political faith. Boston had continued under the town system of government for a decade less than two centuries. Efforts had been made to change this as far back as 1708, when a committee was appointed to "draft a charter of incorporation," for the better government of the town. Three-quarters of a century later another attempt was made "to form the town of Boston into an incorporated city." From this time on the question was agitated every few years, but without result.
The "town" had become a fetish in the Bostonian mind, and the con- servatism of the town's voters refused to consider any radical change in the form of government. It was something passed down by the "fathers" and good enough then, even though Boston had grown to have a popula- tion of forty-five thousand, the largest number of people in the United States still governed as a town. The system had undergone many changes since the Puritan days, it had grown up in an irregular way and was full of make-shifts. It was no longer fitted for the management of so important a place as the Capital of the Commonwealth, and the indus- trial and financial center of New England. Yet the town was an unique form of government, similar but unlike any known to the Old World. It was one admirably adapted to a small homogeneous community. It had worked well for nearly two centuries, and still held together well in spite of being covered with patches. No wonder the system was held in fond affection. But it was time for it to be replaced ; and anyway Boston had never been formally organized as a town. All that had been done was the changing of its name from Tri-mountaine to Boston by the Court of Assistants in 1630, which act was later "construed by the courts to be sufficient to entitle it from that time forward to all the privileges of a town."
The Town Becomes a City-In 1821 the charter movement won recog- nition, and on April 29, 1821, the Constitution of the Commonwealth was amended to permit of the establishment of a city form of government. On February 23, 1822, the Governor signed the act establishing the city of Boston, and on March 4 of the same year, the still reluctant voters of the town accepted the charter-2,797 in the affirmative and 1,881 in the
78
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
negative. The new city government was organized in Faneuil Hall on May I, 1822. The debt transferred to the city from the town amounted to about $100,000, and was incurred on the account of two prisons build- ing and a new courthouse. The first city hall was the present Old State House. John Phillips was the first mayor and Josiah Quincy the second and the more notable. The history of Boston under the mayors is out- lined in a later chapter, and the political history of Boston as a city is the subject of still another chapter.
For one hundred and ninety-two years after its foundation Boston was a town. With its beginning a trading company created a Puritan Commonwealth which endured more than half a century. It survived the degradation to a Crown Province, a condition which held for more than eighty years. So great was the vitality of the town that was able to lead in the Revolution which freed not only itself, but thirteen fellow-colonies, and later to throw the weight of her influence to the side of the union which brought into strength the United States. Boston suffered from the vicissitudes of fortune as did few other towns in our country, but emerged battered and spent at times, to become the "life center of New England, its great mart, the principal seat of industry, the port of entry. . . In learning and art its first rank was undisputed." Boston, in 1821, has been truthfully described as the "most populous and illustrious town in the world."
Perhaps no better tribute has been paid her than that of Ralph Waldo Emerson :
This town of Boston has a history. . . Its annals are great historical lines, inex- tricably national; part of the history of political liberty. .... America is growing like a cloud, towns on towns, States on States; and wealth (always interesting, since from wealth power cannot be divorced) is piled in every form invented for comfort or pride. . Moral values become also money values. When men saw that these people, besides their industry and thrift, had a heart and soul and would stand by each other at all haz- ards, they desired to come and live here. A house in Boston was worth as much again as a house just as good in a town of timorous people, because here the neighbors would defend each other against bad governors and against troops; quite naturally house rents rose in Boston. Besides, youth and health like a stirring town, above a torpid place where nothing is doing. In Boston they were sure to see something going forward before the year was out. For here was the moving principle itself, the primum mobile, a living mind agitating the mass and always afflicting the conservative class with some odious novelty or other; a new religious sect, a political point, a point of honor, a reform in education, a philanthropy. . ... There never was wanting some thorn of dissent and innovation and heresy to prick the sides of conservatism. . . . Here stands today as of yore our little city of the rocks; here let it stand forever, on the man-bearing granite of the North. 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 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." "Sicut Patribus, Sit Deus Nobis !"
CHAPTER III. REVIEW OF EARLY RELIGIOUS HISTORY.
The settlement of Massachusetts, as we have seen, was the result of a carefully thought out plan, directed by capable men with an abiding pur- pose. In the founding there was leadership, a reasonable amount of wealth, religion. The founders were Englishmen familiar with the gov- ernment of their native country, loving it even when they disapproved of its ways and rulers. They were Puritans who had engaged in the early stages of that struggle between the Crown and the hierarcy, on one side, and the Parliamentary party on the other; and the struggle in 1629 seemed to be one destined to have no end or favorable result. The Puri- tans were striving for reform in the church and State, but the hope of success, as far as the homeland was concerned, was rapidly passing into a desperate feeling of failure. They must look elsewhere for the possible realization of their dreams of a purified church. The success of the Pil- grim settlement turned the attention of the leaders upon this new land. Here, it seemed, might be erected a religious Commonwealth, a State wherein God should rule. They neither thought or spoke of this State as a Commonwealth; possibly the word "theocracy" more truly conveys their intention-a Christian State, which should bear the same relation to the whole Bible, as its statute-book, as the Jewish Commonwealth bore to the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The desire for Religious Freedom-The company that was formed to make the great experiment in the New World, was nominally a trading company with headquarters in England. The Massachusetts Bay Com- pany and Governor derived certain defined rights and privileges from a patent purchased by them from the "Grand Council of Plymouth," con- firmed to them by a royal charter. The selfsame week that this charter was granted by Charles I saw the dissolution of a Parliament which had no successor for a decade. Under the circumstances, it was quite easy for the charter, contrary to its manifest intent, to be transferred to Massa- chusetts, and what was to be a simple trading company transformed into a Puritan Commonwealth, set up and administered far from England. The dream of a theocratic State composed of like-minded believers, and based on an interpretation of the laws of the primitive Israelites, had its chance to be realized. Perhaps never has there been in the world a better opportunity to make the experiment of a theocracy than fell to the lot of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. That the experiment failed, that the dream ended in disaster when Charles I revoked their
80
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
charter and compelled the toleration of the sects they abhorred, Quakers, Baptists and Anglicans, does not lessen the boldness of the idea nor the courage of the attempt. The Commonwealth crumbled beneath the assaults of enemies at home and abroad; under the restored Stuarts it was reduced to the status of a Crown Colony. But the Puritans builded better than they knew for they laid the foundations of the free State of Massachusetts.
For a half century the Puritans held sway, a time sufficient to not only indelibly mark the spirit of community, but to impress upon it a character that three centuries have not been able to efface. The Boston of today is a hundred fold larger in the number of its inhabitants than the little town of 7,000 at the end of the Puritan reign; the present city is the home of many races and religions, the fires of Puritanism burn low, but have never been extinguished. Boston is a unique city, and is so because of its founders. From the political side, "The framework and constitu- tion of its government is full of ghosts that have never been completely laid since they first began to walk in that fateful half century, 1634-84."
The Union of Church and State-The political aspects of the Puritan theocracy do not concern us here, neither need there be any attempt to analyze its purposes and failure. Attention must be confined to the reli- gious phase of the experiment, for to the Puritans must we go for the early history of the religions and churches of Boston. Five years after Governor Winthrop had located on the peninsula that was to be the prin- cipal settlement and the capital of the Commonwealth, the frank avowal was made in reply to certain English authorities that the Puritan State was founded on and was identical with the Puritan church; that mem- bership in the church (and there was only one considered as such) was a pre-requisite to the right to vote; and that the only magistrates who could be established in office must be "men fearing God," those "chosen out of their brethren," by "saints." The "church," therefore, was before and above all other organizations or things, above Kings and worldly authori- ties. With this view, it is natural that one of the first efforts of each com- munity was the forming of a church, and the earliest, of the public build- ings to be erected was a "meeting-house." Most of the towns established in the first century were formed for the purpose of having some sort of an organization wherewith to care for a meeting-house and a minister. Grants of land were made by the "Court" often on the condition that continued possession of them was contingent upon the erection of a meeting-house and the settlement of a pastor.
The First Church of Boston Organized-In Boston a meeting-house was in the course of construction while the newly-landed colonists were starving, doubtful of the arrival of any ship bringing supplies before they
1723
THE JOHN HANCOCK HOUSE
81
REVIEW OF EARLY RELIGIOUS HISTORY
died. Only a few weeks after the arrival, at Charlestown, after appro- priate exercises, Governor Winthrop, Deputy-Governor Dudley, Isaac Johnson and John Wilson adopted and signed the following simple church covenant :
"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in obedience to his holy will and divine ordinances :
"We, whose names are here underwritten, being by his most wise and holy Providence brought together into this part of America, in the Bay of Massachusetts ; and desirous to unite in one congregation or church, under the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, in such sort as becometh all those whom he hath redeemed, and sanctified to himself, do hereby sol- emnly and religiously, as in his most holy presence, promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere conformity to his holy ordinances, and in mutual respect and love to each other, so near as God shall give us grace."
The First Meeting-house-The church thus formed is now the First Church of Boston, and one of its prized possessions is an embossed silver cup with "The gift of Governor Jnº Winthrop to ye It Church." When the colonists removed to "tra-montane," the first meeting-house, built with mud walls and thatched roof, was located on the south side of what is now State Street, near the corner of Devonshire, and John Wilson was installed as "Teacher." The primitive structure was succeeded by a much more pretentious building, on Washington Street, opposite the head of State, which stood until its destruction by fire in October, 171I. A new building was immediately erected upon the same spot, but was used for services only in May, 1713. It was a solidly constructed brick edifice of the plain architecture of its period. Here was installed the first church organ ever heard in Boston. In 1808 this building was sold to John Joy for $13,500 in money, and the cost of a new church in Chauncey Place. The present strikingly beautiful edifice in the Back Bay District replaced that of Chauncey Place in 1868. So much for the lineal descend- ants of the mud and thatch meeting-house of the First Church in Boston.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.