USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 41
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Washington Street Becomes Commercial-The street, as has been suggested, began as the residential section of Boston, and, as the settle- ment grew and became prosperous, both sides of it were bordered with the homes of the best and wealthiest. Churches were erected ; where the "old Corner Bookstore" building later was erected, dwelt Anne Hutchin- son, of the keen wit and unorthodox theology; the Town and Province Houses were both on Washington ; and the "House of Sam1 Sewell, Esq., Judge Sewell of the witchcraft court and the choicest of Boston's diarists, -was on the site of the Jordan Marsh Company's store." It was, indeed, the "Main Street" of Boston, and the crème de la crème of colonial society thronged its way, "walking in the middle of the street, where the pavement was the smoothest."
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There was a fly in the ointment, however, for trade had gradually come to share with the fine estates this convenient and thickly settled highway. State Street early became the commercial center, where the importer and the wholesaler and the financier had his place of business, or such meeting places as the Merchant's Exchange. But it was not long before the shop-keepers spread out over Washington, each with his shop under the rooms in which he lived. Cogan was located on the corner of State and Washington streets, as we have seen, and the "butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker" were cheek to jowl with the mansion of the high official, and taverns were numerous. The aristocratic Lon- doner of the Provincial period must have suffered great discomfort as he sat upon his stately balcony and looked down on the doorstep of some little shop where the keeper haggled with his customers. The strange mixture of Colonial houses, taverns and shops persisted, in the central section of the Street until well on into the last century, before trade con- quered and Washington became in fact the street of the retailers.
The book-sellers seem to have been the first to dominate a given sec- tion, and this was naturally about the Town House; and, if literature can be said to have a geographical center, for many years it was located near the corner of Washington and State. But other trades and shops came and went without rhyme or reason. The first Boston directories- 1789 and 1796-listed here merchants, general shopkeepers, tailors, leather breeches makers, apothecaries, booksellers and stationers, book- binders, leather dresses, brass founders, saddlers, pewterers, crockery ware dealers, hardware dealers, goldsmiths and jewelers, watch makers, upholsterers and lace manufacturers, mantuamakers, milliners, hair dressers, brush manufacturers, paper stainers, painters and glaziers, masons, housewrights, blacksmiths, cordwainers, grocers, bakers, wine stores, physicians, dentists, brokers and school mistresses. Among the merchants are found such well known names as John and Thomas Amory, Samuel and Stephen Salisbury, Benjamin Vincent, Amasa Penneman and Abiel Winship. Among the booksellers: John Boyle, Joseph Nancrede, William Spotswood and David West. After the Revolution, and even before, Hanover Street changed from a little lane into one of the broad- est of the town's thoroughfares, the sides of which were closely built up. This, too, started as a residential street, but was altogether too near the wharves not to be seized upon by business. Meanwhile State Street had become a business district, and had been greatly lengthened by its exten- sion to the end of the "Long Wharf." A brochure issued by the State Street Trust Company mentions among the names of the Boston mer- chants as taken from a directory of 1801, whose places of business were on that street: Thomas C. Armory; Uriah Cutting, who built Broad, India and New Cornhill streets from 1808 to 1817; Benjamin W. Foster,
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founder of the McLean Hospital; Caleb Stimpson; Arnold Welles, com- mander of the Cadets; Thomas Williams; James Abelard; Peter C. Brooks ; Humphrey and Thomas Clark; William Endicott, tailor ; Joseph Foster; Moses M. Hayes, Grand Master of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, 1788-92; the Lorings; Francis C. Lowell, for whom the city of Lowell was named; and Robert G. Shaw, the philanthropist. No doubt many familiar names might be found in this directory, for some of the business enterprises date from farther back than 1801.
Boston Becomes a Wholesale Center-The Revolution gave a tre- mendous setback to Boston in every way, and it was not until a year or two before a city government was established that it expanded again greatly along commercial and mercantile lines. By 1830, the golden age in business seemed to have arrived. Many of the great mercantile houses date from this period. It was the heyday of shipping, the whole world being made to contribute to the needs and desires of the people. No part of the globe was unvisited by Boston's clipper ships. Ways and means of getting about were increasing. There were stage lines to many parts of New England and the southern towns and cities. Turnpikes were being constructed, a very great improvement over the publicly financed roads. A canal led to Lowell, and that city, the first of the textile cities of New England, had not only been started, but was turning out textiles by the thousands of yards. Boston was the center in which these goods were sold, and the dry goods trade became the leading market industry of the city. Woolens and wool, in which Boston was to be the country's largest factor, were coming to the fore; and leather and shoes were com- ing to be a factory rather than a small shop business. The railroads had still to be constructed, but talk of them was in the air, and Boston knew how she would profit by these feeders to her commercial growth. Before the crash of country-wide failure in 1837 hit the prosperity of the Hub a resounding blow, the mercantile interests of the city had expanded to a size all out of proportion to the population. Fortunately, the merchant builds to accommodate the growth of his trade, and the permanency of these structures make for a permanency of business not easily upset by financial collapses. Merchandizing was retarded but not stopped, and by 1840 was well on its way again.
Trade Districts Established-An interesting feature of the trade and commerce of Boston has been the tendency of its leaders to concentrate their business houses in localities given over to their particular interests. State Street was, and to an extent is, an example of this tendency. Include a few side and crossing streets, and one has the boundaries of the finan- cial district of early Boston, and with but little enlargement, of the city today. At one time "all the banks and brokers' offices in the town were
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on State Street," and even as late as 1837, "twenty-two of the thirty-five banks stood upon the street." Mention has been made of the booksellers who also centered at a very early day about the old Town House, and the importers not far from Long Wharf. Of the more recent trade centers, that of the dry goods dealers was the more notable, and, for a time, the most compact. Boston was the chief dry goods market in America from 1830 to 1850. As factories multiplied, and the commission houses selling textiles multiplied, great warehouses had to be erected which were fea- tures of the business landscape until the great fire of 1872 wiped them out. In the beginning, however, when the wholesale and retail mer- chants of dry goods still kept together, the center of this trade was on Hanover Street, then one of the finest, broadest arteries of traffic and nearer to the heart of the residential section than the streets which later saw the concentration of the business. Men like James M. Beebe, Lyman Nichols, Eden D. Jordan, founder of the Jordan-Marsh Company, started their careers on Hanover Street.
Shifting Centers of Trade Edwin Bacon, in his "Book of Boston," written in 1915, traces the shifting centers of trade from 1830. In one of his paragraphs he writes :
Gradually the trade (dry goods) reached into Tremont Row, into the lower part of Washington Street then ending at Dock Square, into Court Street, and between Court Street and School Street. Among the wholesale merchants established in these quarters are mentioned the Lawrences, the Appletons, the Tappans, and Gardner Brewer. A little later, the wholesalers and retailers separated. The former established themselves round- about State and Kilby streets, then by degrees about Doane and Central streets, Liberty Square, and Water Street. At that period, or between the later 'thirties and 'fifties, Boston was the chief dry-goods market in the country, due to the developing New Eng- land domestic manufactures. Next the centre moved to the region about Milk Street ; next to Pearl Street; then Federal, Devonshire, Franklin streets, Winthrop Square, where the fire of 1872 found and overwhelmed it. During these shiftings of the whole- sale trade, the retail trade began to reach southward. The pioneer in this direction was George W. Warren, with his "palatial" store on Washington Street near Summer. To this store later Jordan, Marsh & Company succeeded. Fifty years ago Jordan, Marsh & Company occupied the store on the ground floor of the building between Central Court, opening next above Summer Street,-once a choice residential place, later a little theatre and favorite chop house ("Billy" Park's) quarter, long since built over,-and Avon Place; and above the store, reached by a handsome broad flight of stairs from the street, was Chickering Hall. Following George W. Warren came Hill, Lincoln & Geer, with their dry goods establishment at the corner of Washington and West streets. Then C. F. Hovey, founder of C. F. Hovey & Company, establishing himself on Winter Street, and originating the "One Price System," a new departure in dry goods retailing. The ready made clothing trade, which originated in the old sailors' outfitting establish- ments, and beginning at the North End, after it rose to the standard of respectability, and attained the dignity of a branch of the wholesale jobbing dry goods trade, remained centered at the North End till about the 'fifties and 'sixties, when it worked southward
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toward the then retail dry goods centre. The hardware trade, in the 'thirties next in importance to the dry goods business, for a long time centered about Dock Square, Union Street, and Merchants Row. The flour and grain trade centre was from the beginning on the water front, with the old Corn Exchange at the head of Commercial Street. The great Boston wool trade, to become the largest of any American city, was early distinctively centered on Federal and Pearl streets. Later it took in High Street; and finally concentrated as now on the extension of Summer Street beyond Atlantic Avenue. The shoe and leather business, which began to assume large proportions in the 'thirties, and was early to become the greatest industry of New England with Boston as its market centre, was earliest concentrated near the water front on Broad, North and South Market, and Chatham streets. Shortly it moved upon Blackstone Street. Next it occupied Pearl Street, driving out the dry goods trade. Then High Street was invaded. After the Fire of 1872, wiping out the district, it centered about old Church Green, Lincoln, and South streets. The fish trade, foremost of Boston industries from Colony days, originally centered, in connection with the salt trade, on T and Long Wharves and Commercial Street. At T Wharf on Atlantic Avenue, it remained till the completion of the grand new Fish Pier, adjoining the grander Commonwealth Pier, on South Boston side in 1914. Then it reluctantly moved to the new site. But in 1915 many of the merchants returned to the old stand and revived it.
The Retail Section in 1927-The retail district in 1927, while still rela- tively compact, is no longer the close-knitted section of earlier days. Most of the large department stores still center on or near Washington Street, and the area which was destroyed in 1872, with the addition of Tremont Street, retains its preëminent position as the shopping district. A line starting at Court Street, extending down Tremont Street to Boyl- ston, and thence down this street to Washington, and then back up through this famous thoroughfare to Court again, encloses one of the most compact retail store areas to be found in any city of its size. To this must be added Boylston, which is solidly commercial almost to Mas- sachusetts Avenue; and the side streets extending from Washington Street in the general direction of the South Station are given over to trade, a good deal of which is wholesale, with the exception of Franklin, Summer, Avon and Bedford streets, which are important parts of the retail district. Huntington and Columbus avenues are losing their resi- dential character more and more, and Massachusetts Avenue has many stores. At Park Square and Arlington Street, with the Statler Hotel and its stores opened in 1927, and the Paine Furniture Company with its splendid building facing on a whole block, is what is apparently the beginning of a new shopping section. Nor must Park Street and the nearby part of Beacon be overlooked, with their bookstores so typical a part of the intellectual Boston
The Modern Washington Street-Washington still remains at the head of the commercial streets. The South Station, the motor car, and the subway daily pour into this narrow center the crowds which make
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this the most bustling, interesting business street of them all. One who forces his way through the milling mob at the corner of Summer and Washington streets on almost any day of the week, never forgets the experience. There are but few great stores of modern exterior architec- ture, for the buildings are mostly those erected before the present cen- tury. Then other interests compete for space on the street; one finds theatres, hotels, cinemas and even a church. It would seem that the limit of expansion had been reached unless radical measures are taken in the matter of rebuilding to greater heights and in the almost impossible task of widening the thoroughfare. Tremont and Boylston streets are lined with more modern structures, and some of the finest retail establishments of the city are located upon them. Sidewalk conditions are very different from those of Washington Street, for here they are wide, and the stores occupy but one side of the way, the historic Common forming the other. There is something very charming and unique about shopping where the store-fronts face upon broad acres of grass and trees. The weary shopper has but to take a step or two and she can pass from the hurly burly of trade to shady sidewalks, tree-bowered resting places, and the peace and beauty of nature.
"The Great Fire of 1872"-No chapter on the mercantile interests of Boston could fail to give an account of the "Great Fire of 1872" and point out how it affected the trade affairs of the city. Business had risen on a flood tide to unusual heights by 1872. There had been a quick recovery from the depression attendant upon the Civil War. There had been a revival of the trans-oceanic shipping. Cotton was coming from the South in quantity ; wool was pouring in; and the textile industries had taken a new hold on life. The railroads had improved their terminals; the Union Freight Railway, which united, in 1872, the trackage of all the chief rail- roads terminating in Boston, being of great assistance. Through trans- portation to the West had been secured. It was a period of National expansion, and the Hub was securing its full share of the new business; money was easy and being spent freely. The secretary of the Board of Trade had written, on the ninth of November, that 1872 "would be judged after its close as the most prosperous year that Boston had ever known." And that evening came the most disastrous fire that ever visited Boston, one that wiped out the greater part of her mercantile district (November 9-10, 1872). It burned over sixty-five acres of the most congested and valuable business property, one which included the leading establish- ments, with their warehouses, of those engaged in the wholesale and retail dry goods, leather, boot and shoes, paper and hardware trade. Nearly one thousand (960) firms were burned out; seven hundred and seventy buildings were destroyed; the total loss being estimated
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at $75,000,000. Happening so soon after the Chicago fire, which cov- ered twenty-six hundred acres, and Boston's ability to take care of her own losses, the fire of 1872 failed to make the National impression that the Chicago conflagration did. But to Boston and its business, the fire was a staggering blow, but one from which, with her peculiar effici- ency, she quickly recovered, so that after two or three years the only noticeable effects of the fire were the new sort of buildings which occu- pied the area, and the greater width of a few of the streets. Fortunately, few lives were lost, fourteen, and there were but a small number of dwellings in the burned section.
Where the Fire Started-How the fire started and why it spread with such rapidity has never been explained. It was a quiet evening with little wind-the fire burned against the wind rather than with it. About seven o'clock flames were seen issuing from one of the newest of the brick buildings on the corner of Summer and Kingston streets. The lower floor was occupied by the dry-goods firm of Tebbets, Baldwin, and Davis ; the upper by a manufacturing concern making hoop skirts and bustles. An alarm was turned in, and there was no great delay in getting fire apparatus upon the scene, but it was too late. The building had become a torch and was spreading flames all through the congested district. The progress of the fire was slow up Summer Street, faster as it went into Winthrop Square, and fastest of all as it struck northward into the thick- est of the business district. Fire engines and hose carts came hurrying in from all over the city and from the neighboring towns, even as far as from New Hampshire, before safety was assured, but to little avail. Some recall that the horses of the city were suffering from an epidemic of sick- ness, and that this somehow delayed the arrival of fire fighting machines, but most of the apparatus of the day could be hauled as speedily by hand, and was, and there was a full enough supply of horses, and an extra num- ber of firemen when the alarms were given. Once the fire was under full blast, and the fire engines had arrived in sufficient number to make some impression on the blaze, the water supply proved inadequate. At that time Summer Street had one six-inch main to carry its water, where today there are three services, a twelve-inch low service main, a twelve- inch high pressure main, and a sixteen high pressure fire service main.
The "Great Fire" described-The best short description of the Boston Fire of 1872 is that so often quoted, the one by Edward Stanwood in the "Memorial History of Boston," and which will bear quoting once more. He says, in part :
It is to be questioned if any person who saw the first brilliant flames felt any apprehension of a dangerous extension of the fire. The appreciation of danger came gradually, but it came irresistibly. The flames passed up and down the street (Sum-
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mer). The building on the opposite corner of Kingston caught. Summer Street was crossed at about the same time, and the whole district was doomed. Alarm had fol- lowed alarm in quick succession, and had brought to the scene not only the entire fire department of the city, but a vast throng of citizens. As soon as the extremely dan- gerous character of the fire was recognized, despatches were sent to all the suburban towns and cities, imploring the help of their engines and firemen; but by the time they had arrived, not only was the fire beyond the control of any force of firemen which could be employed, but there was a scarcity of water, without which all effort must be ineffectual. This district, formerly covered with residence's, had been newly appropri- ated for business purposes, and the water pipes had not been enlarged since the change was made. They were too small to carry the enormous quantities of water required; and they were fitted with hydrants of an old-fashioned pattern and ill adapted to the purpose. The flames spread in all directions. They advanced steadily up Summer Street, on both sides, towards Washington Street; they moved southward towards the Albany station; eastward towards the water; and northward into the very business heart of the city,-and in the latter direction most rapidly of all. It was an enlarging circle of fire. To attack it methodically seemed to be, and probably at that stage of its progress, was out of the question. Scarcely an attempt was made to stop its movement towards the wharves. Resistance was more effectual on the south side, where the buildings were not high, and by midnight it was practically checked in that direction; but by that hour the fire was close upon Washington Street. A most gallant and de- termined effort was made to hold the line of that street, and though it required such energy and fortitude as have rarely been demanded of firemen, it was successful.
The path of the fire was now fan-shaped. It extended in breadth the whole length of Summer Street, and advanced northward with inconceivable fury along the whole line from the harbor front to Washington Street. The streets were narrow and the buildings high. There was no point where a stand could be made. An engine stationed anywhere near the fire could not be got in working order before it became necessary either to remove it with all haste or to abandon it. Those who saw that terrible sight will never forget it, and the sounds were almost as fearful as the sight. The night sky was grandly illuminated, and a wild shower of burning brands and cinders was passing over the district which was shortly to be devastated. The crash of falling walls became an almost continuous roar. The streets were filled, as they were rarely filled at midday, with men and teams carrying away all portable goods to a place of safety. Perhaps there was no single point where the amazing power of the fire was so well observed as from the empty space where Fort Hill had been. The hill had been cut away but not built upon. Between it and the flames was Pearl Street, solidly built with handsome granite stores, where the shoe trade of the city had its headquarters. It happened that the fire attacked the whole street at once. Hardly five minutes elapsed after the appear- ance, to those watching from the Fort Hill space, of the first spark in one of the stores, before the whole block was a mass of roaring fire. The great warehouses were con- verted into so many furnaces, and the heat and light were so intense that at a distance of several hundred feet it was painful to face the fire many minutes at once. In almost as little time as it requires to read the account, the walls grew red hot, the floor timbers began to fall against the walls, and the great structures tottered and fell like a house of cards, but with a thundering crash.
The fire raged until Sunday afternoon. The firemen, having succeeded in holding the line of Washington Street, undertook to gain on the enemy by narrowing its path at Milk Street. The Old South Church and the new post office were used as barriers,
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and success was achieved. Point after point was gained by the weary but plucky men, thanks to the division of the fire by the vacant Fort Hill district, and at last it only remained to save single buildings from destruction, leaving those which had taken fire to burn. When this had been done, there was an opportunity to look around and see the extent of the desolation.
The city was in a deplorable condition. The wild excitement of that terrible night and day had unstrung the nerves of the strongest. Thousands upon thousands of people had seen their property consumed, or had been thrown out of employment, for how long nobody could guess. All the open spaces in the city, and even many in sub- urban homes, together with hundreds of private homes, were filled wtih merchandise hastily removed and in the utmost confusion. The lawless had taken full advantage of their opportunity, and many men not habitual criminals had been tempted too strongly by the chance to pilfer. The whole community was on the verge of panic. No time was lost in taking measures to reinforce the police, who were not numerous enough for the emergency. A whole brigade of militia was called out for active duty. A cordon of guards was stationed completely around the burnt district, and companies were located in various parts of the city, provided with arms and ammunition, to be ready for marching at a moment's notice. The Old South was again devoted to military purposes, and became a barrack for militia. Guards patrolled the streets at night. In short, until the danger of disorder had subsided, the city was under military rule. Happily the pre- caution was sufficient to prevent a breach of the peace.
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