USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 27
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It may be that William Blackstone, the first white man to live within the bounds of the present city, was not only the first, but perhaps the greatest of Boston's benefactors. The Supreme Court of the Common- wealth has decided that the Boston Common is not the property of any but the people. Blackstone's forty acre farm is the most precious pos- session the Boston folk have, one, it is to be hoped, that may never be lost to our children's children and the generations that follow them. To George F. Parkman and his largest of gifts must the largest share be credited for the continued care and preservation of the Common. A strange man he was, educated, brilliant, a lawyer, a financier, but a recluse, never un- derstood. His father was Dr. George Parkman, an able physician who had much to do with the establishment of the McLean Hospital for the blind. The son was called back from Paris by the news of his father's murder. From this tragedy, George Francis Parkman never was able to break away, his career, bright with promise, was ended be- fore it had really started. He was the secret benefactor throughout his life, but his bequest of $5,500,000 "to be applied to the maintenance and improvement of the Common and parks now (1908) existing" was a surprise to all, but gave the citizens of Boston a glimpse of the spirit of this sad, much misunderstood gentleman.
In the olden days Boston lacked a market house. Where the old State House now stands there was an open market place, but New England hasn't just the climate that calls for an outdoor shopping cen- ter. Peter Faneuil, a prosperous business man of the town, and the heir of a still more wealthy uncle, felt the inconvenience of such a place. In July, 1740, he offered "to erect a noble and complete structure to be im- proved for a market for the sole use, benefit and advantage of the town, provided that the town of Boston would pass a vote as shall be thought necessary and constantly supported for the said use." The offer all but failed of acceptance as the vote taken by the citizens only gave a majority of seven. Two years were required for the erection of the market, mean- while a hall was built above the sales section. It was the hall that made the market famous, for it became the famous "Cradle of Liberty," the
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treasure of a whole nation. The name of the donor was given to the hall, and the fact that, in 1761, the structure was burned and rebuilt from the proceeds of a lottery does not offset the truth of the statement that both market and hall came to Boston from Peter Faneuil. Peter died March 3, 1743, the event being suitably recognized by the town people.
The story of Benjamin Franklin is too well known to need repetition ; what Boston has not told, Philadelphia has. Franklin left to both cities a thousand pounds sterling to be invested for a hundred years, after which sixty-nine per cent. of the total at that time was to be used in the creation of a trade school. At the end of the century, 1891, the Boston fund amounted to $320,000; Philadelphia had only accumulated $76,000. The Franklin Union on the corner of Appleton and Berkeley streets, was erected and equipped at a cost of $427,991.64. The school fills a unique place in education, in that it is one of the few institutions built and equipped solely for the instruction of adults.
Andrew Carnegie, possibly because of a kinship in financial philoso- phy, gave, in 1905, $408,396.48, the income of which was to be used for the expenses of the Union. It is hoped that some other wealthy man and philosopher will add to the too small endowment of this valuable result of Franklin's canny wisdom and philanthropy.
The large results growing out of a small trust fund wisely handled and continued over a long period of years has appealed to the minds of many as is witnessed by the great number held by the city. The Ran- didge Fund, the bequest of a Boston tailor, affords many a pleasant and healthful summer excursion to the children of the city. The Foss 17th of June and Flag Fund, gives annually a small sum to aid in the cele- bration of the Battle of Bunker Hill. There is an Ellen C. Johnson fund which paid for the erection and care of a drinking fountain at the en- trance to the Fens. John Phillips created by his will, upon his death in 1860, a fund which has supplied the city during the last sixty-seven years many of its statues of distinguished Bostonians. John Fitzgerald, recently, in honor of his father, Thomas, started a fund to be held in trust for a century to be used for some public purpose.
One can grasp more readily the significance of the small fund, but is somewhat abashed by trying to conceive of the possibilities of such a funded amount as that given by the will of the late George Robert White. A native of Lynnfield, born July 19, 1847, he started to work when seven- teen in the office of Weeks and Potter of Boston, he being admitted to the firm when twenty-six. In 1883, with Andrew G. Weeks and Warren G. Potter, he organized the Potter Drug and Chemical Company, with which concern he continued throughout his life. A patron of the Art
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Museum of the College of Pharmacy, of the town of Acton, in which the earlier years of his life had been spent, he had given liberally to them and to other institutions all through his career. Upon his death, he provided by his will $100,000 to the Museum of Fine Arts, a like sum to the Massa- chusetts General Hospital, $100,000 to the Children's Hospital, the rest of the property going to the city of Boston, "the same to be held as a per- manent charitable trust fund to be known as the George Robert White Fund, the net income of which is only to be used for creating works of public utility and beauty for the use and enjoyment of the inhabitants of the city. It is my intention that no part of said income however, shall be used for religious, political, educational, or any purpose which it shall be the duty of the city in the ordinary course of events to provide." He further provided that "no substantial expenditure shall be made for any purpose until it shall have been under consideration by the trustees for at least three months." In other provisions Mr. White made clear that moneys spent were not to be frittered away on minor objects, but "used only for important civic improvements."
The first accumulation of the income was expended for an institution, the purpose of which surely would have met the approval of the donor. This was the erection of a "Health Unit" in the North End, an establishment for the preventive treatment of children so as to bring about their proper bringing up and growth, and the teaching of the mature in the care of their bodies. This crowded section of Boston has thus been provided with the advantages of intelligent foresight and care such as even the more wealthy sections of the city might envy. The babies are brought in as they are born, and the mother given suggestions and aid in their care. As the child grows older, their proper development is looked after. An oculist inspects the eyes, a dentist cares for the teeth, exer- cises are provided, while a number of district nurses are waiting to answer the call of the ill. The Health Unit is another of Boston's unique establishments, one containing great possibilities. As this is being writ- ten (1927) another unit is being created at East Boston. It seems likely that the income from the George Robert White Fund will be allowed to accumulate until some great building for the housing of public gather- ings, a second Cradle of Liberty, can be erected and be to the name of the giver what Faneuil Hall has been to Peter Faneuil.
In the chapter having to do with the medical affairs of Boston, there is brought to one's attention some of the most remarkable philanthropic enterprises of the city. The hospital seems to appeal to the benevolent spirit of many, and millions of dollars have been given or bequeathed to the medical institutions. The two Brigham hospitals, beautifully built and located, amply endowed, stand as a memorial of Peter Bent Brigham,
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Robert Breck Brigham and Elizabeth Fay Brigham. They were uncle, nephew and niece, thorough Yankees from Bakersfield, Vermont. Peter peddled fish for his first work in Boston; his nephew joined him in the making of a paying restaurant business. Means once secured were invested in real estate, in railroads-Peter was one of the directors of the Fitchburg Railroad-in industrial concerns, until the uncle had acquired a fortune of $3,000,000 before his death. This was left to build a hospital when it had been allowed to accumulate to a sufficient amount. When the hospital that bears his name was opened, November 12, 1914, it had cost $1,250,000 to build, and the fund for its maintenance stood at $5,- 000,000.
Robert Breck Brigham inherited the money-making ability of his uncle. He founded the Brigham Hotel in 1882 on the site where Garret Brown had his house and garden in 1636, near which was the Liberty Tree, the old elm cut down by the Tories in 1775. The house became a tavern known as Liberty Hall, the meeting place of the Sons of Liberty. In 1822, on the site was built the Lafayette Hotel, where the Marquis received a glass of wine when visiting the new chartered city of Boston that same year. Robert's sister, Elizabeth Fay, came to assist him in the management of the Brigham Hotel, and shared in the prosperity that came to them. In 1900 Robert Brigham died ; nine years later his sister passed away. They provided in their wills for the creation of the Rob- ert Breck Brigham Hospital for Incurables, on which is the inscription "Erected by Robert B. and Elizabeth F. Brigham." The building was completed in 1914 and was used for the relief of the wounded in the World War, in 1923 being turned over to the purpose for which it had been con- structed. The two hospitals stand high on the hills of Roxbury, some dis- tance apart, but either by intent or accident, facing each other. Robert Brigham's will also provided for the annual payment of $1,000 to twenty- two charitable institutions, all save one located in Boston.
On November 12, 1914, the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for Children was dedicated, a most remarkable charity. Within ten years 150,000 youthful patients had been treated for dental faults, and diseases of the throat and ear, an evidence of the need is supplied. The fee paid by the children for their treatment is the large sum of five cents. The Infirmary, a beautiful building, the seventy-five doctors and others who use their skill, the training school in connection with the institution, are the result of a passing suggestion by a dentist to John Hamilton Forsyth, the sec- ond oldest of four brothers. This brother died, leaving an unsigned will providing for the use of $500,000 in the founding of an infirmary. Before the provisions had been carried out the youngest brother, George Henry, died, and the two surviving brothers added to the amount a sum sufficient
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to not only erect and equip the infirmary, which cost more than $1,000,- 000, but endowed it with double the sum that its work might not be lim- ited by any lack of means. A splendid memorial, splendidly done, but even now, although the infirmary was opened in 1914, very few citizens of Boston know anything about the Forsyths, father and four sons, who spent nearly three quarters of a century within the city limits. Of dis- tinguished ancestry, successful in business, they contented themselves in the able management of a single business, leaving the white marble memorial as their contribution to the notable institutions of Boston. One might multiply instances of men who gave to our hospitals. Andrew Carney, in 1863, gave the hospital that bears his name, which is under the direction of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. George L. Thorndike left $237,500 to the city of Boston to be used in cooperation with the City Hospital to erect a hospital in memory of his brother, Wil- liam H. Thorndike, for nearly twenty-five years a visiting surgeon in the city establishment. The Faulkner Hospital, Jamaica Plain, was given by Dr. George Faulkner and his wife as a memorial to their daughter, Mary. The hospital was instituted in 1900.
Quite along other lines are the gifts of Henry Lee Higginson to music, Eben D. Jordan to opera, John Lowell to literature, Mrs. Jack Gardner and Mrs. Robert D. Evans to art. Henry Lee Higginson, coming to Boston when four years of age, entered Harvard in 1850 but had to give up his studies on account of the weakness of his eyes. He sailed to Europe and spent some time in the study of music. Twenty-two years later he founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his great gift to the city. He was responsible for the possession by Harvard of the Soldiers Field. It was but a marsh on the Brighton side of the Charles River, a marsh beloved by Longfellow, but of little value intrinsically. He dedi- cated it to men who like him had served well during the Civil War, but who had paid the final sacrifice. Higginson, a major and cavalry man, had been severely wounded by sabre and bullet in a hand to hand fight at Asby's Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but had recovered and turned his attention to business. Harvard is still further indebted to him for his gift of the Harvard Union, the club house erected for the use of all stu- dents; and for his work with the university covering many years.
To Boston, the name of Major Higginson means that of the founder of its prized Symphony Orchestra. From 1881 until his death in 1919, he managed the institution, was its principal backer, paying out great sums to make up the yearly deficit the organization made. In his eightieth year, he spoke to the members of the orchestra somewhat in this fashion : "Sixty years ago I wished to be a musician, therefore I went to Vienna, where I studied two and a half years diligently, learning something of
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music, something about musicians, and other things-that I had no talent for music. I heard there, and in other cities, the best orchestras, and much wished that our country should have such fine orchestras. I watched musical conditions in Boston, hoping to make them better. I believed that an orchestra of excellent music, under one head, devoted to a single purpose, could produce fine results, and wished for the ability to support such an undertaking, for I saw that it was impossible to give music at fair prices and make the orchestra pay expenses-beyond the fine gift of a very dear friend I have borne the cost alone. I faced con- tracts with seventy men and a conductor expecting a loss of $20,000 a year ; giving the conductor every power possible." Perhaps the pluckiest yet saddest experience with the Symphony came during the World War when upon him was thrust the responsibility of maintaining the orchestra which was made up chiefly of enemy aliens. The known deficit made up by Mr. Higginson during the third of a century of his connection with it totalled nearly one million dollars.
Eben Jordan (1857-1916), class mate of Roosevelt at Harvard in the class of 1880, wished to have grand opera cared for in Boston on the scale of Higginson's orchestra. He wanted it to be provided with an adequate building, one well located, one in which a long series of operas could be given by a home organization. He erected the beautiful Boston Opera House farther up Huntington Avenue from Symphony Hall. The house could hardly have been bettered, the expenditures for a producing com- pany were not limited. For some few seasons, opera flourished in Bos- ton, but at great expense to those who stood behind it. The conditions growing out of the World War, added to those already extant, crushed the enterprise and in 1916 the Opera House was sold. While now used as a theatre, it still provides the place where performances of opera are given annually by visiting companies.
Mr. Jordan also, and earlier, built Jordan Hall in the New England Conservatory of Music, where are held the concerts of students and in- vited artists. There are several other evidences of his philanthropy and interest in Boston. Seemingly he felt that some of the wealth that came to him through that department store that might well be called one of Boston's institutions, that the Jordan Marsh Company ought to be used for the betterment of the people who made that wealth possible.
Isabella Stewart came from New York as the wife of John L. Gardner, Jr., and by her vivid personality, brilliancy of mind, and occasional eccen- tricities won a fame and a name of more than local character. She be- came "Mrs. Jack Gardner," a woman of fashion, traveler of distinction, interested in music, art and literature, and a collector of beautiful and unique things. She built a palace on the filled-in marshes of the southern
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part of the city, which was fitly called Fenway Court, a true Italian pal- ace where summer was kept captive under glass. She furnished it as pleased her, filling it with pictures, statues, tapestries, objects of art. Upon her death, all that she had wrought was given to the city, with ample funds to maintain it; but, with it was the provision that everything should be left as she had arranged it under the penalty of its being sold. and the proceeds given to Harvard University. This rare beneficence is one of the delights of Boston, where the work-weary visitor is free to. come and forget his cares in a vision of the lovely and unusual.
The Museum of Fine Arts is, of course, the art center of Boston. Founded in 1870, its perfections are the results of years of intelligent selection. The present gallery was erected in 1909, the result of several years of study of the museums of the world. The noble extension that looks out over the Fens, whose façade is a work of art in itself, is the gift of Mrs. Robert D. Evans. She is but one of the many benefactors who have made the museum possible.
For awhile we have been reviewing the givers and their gifts of more recent times. There is one of nearly a century ago that should not be forgotten, since it has much to do with maintaining the place of Bos- ton as a center of learning. In 1839, the Lowell Institute was established in fulfilment of the provisions of the will of John Lowell, Jr., which gave nearly a quarter of a million for the purpose. What the Institute is, and does, is told in the chapter on education. Briefly the Institute has given the citizens of New England the opportunity of listening to lectures covering many fields, delivered by men eminent in the line on which they spoke. In the first half century of the institution four hun- dred and twenty-seven regular courses of lectures were given in the In- stitute, besides many in the name of such societies as the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Historical Society. A list of the men who have held the platform includes such names as Silliman, Lyell, Agassiz, Tyndall, Everett, Lyman Abbott, Mark Hopkins, Sparks, Felton, J. R. Lowell, Norton, Howells, Fiske, Bryce, Holmes, and re- cently General Maurice of the British Army, author of a history of Robert E. Lee.
Besides the lecture course, there is a free evening school, now under the auspices of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The plan of the founder of the Institute was evidently taken from a like one in France, where a course of free lectures is given to the public, and also to classes of students. The fund was never large enough to carry out the intention of its giver; the income from it is now expended solely for lectures. The Lowell family is of even more interest than the in- stitution, and few others have played a more important part in the prog-
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ress of New England. One of the first of the family was the first min- ister in Newburyport ; his son was Judge John Lowell, jurist and states- man, who wrote and introduced the clause in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, 1780, the first prohibition of slavery by statute in this country. His son, Francis Cabot Lowell, did more than any other one person to establish the textile industry in America, shortly after the War of 1812. John Lowell, Jr., the next in line, the founder of the Institute, was a successful merchant, a great traveler, who died in Bombay when only thirty-four. One of the provisions of the legacy to the Institute was that a Lowell, by preference one in direct descent from his grand- father, John Lowell, should be the sole trustee of the Institute. John Amory Lowell was the first trustee, serving nearly forty years; he was succeeded by his son, Augustus Lowell ; he in turn to be followed by his son, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, the honored president of Harvard Uni- versity.
Great benefactions, and great givers, are easily remembered, if only by their size, but the spirit that has been Boston's from very early times had inspired many small philanthropies, which in the aggregate have brought large results. In the Franklin Fund one has an example of what the time element means in the growth of small sums multiplied by years. Then, too, what was a great benefaction of an earlier period is not so considered now when large figures are a commonplace. With the single exception of Girard's gift to Philadelphia, Lowell's bequest was, at that day, the largest ever bequeathed for the endowment of a literary institution. And it was less than a quarter of a million of dol- lars, and founded well under a century ago. The first known gift to Boston was made nearly thrice as far back as that to the Lowell In- stitute. It was made to the poor of the city by Stephen Winthrop, the fourth son of the famous Governor, and was willed May 3, 1658. Wil- liam Paddy's legacy of "fifteene pounds" was received that same year. Between that date and 1697, there were many donations to the town for the care of the poor, the most of which went for the erection of an almshouse. The Charlestown Poor's Fund was founded in 1674; the Stoughton Poor Fund of Dorchester in 1701. What a total has been ex- pended during two centuries and a half from the income of these funds.
In 1735, Boston town was authorized by law to receive and manage the gifts made to it for the poor; in 1772, the overseers of the poor were incorporated to give a stronger legal status to this distributing body. The amount of property they might hold was limited to £60,000 (the sum now held in trust by the city was, in 1925, $19,000,000). The first of the gifts to the overseers mentioned on their records has a romantic in- terest and offers a striking illustration of the uncertainties of life. This
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donation was made in 1760 by one who refused to have his name made known. The "interest thereon to be given by them to Such Person or Persons of good character who, by the Providence of God, have been reduced from affluence or good circumstances to Penury and Want." Twenty-five years later the donor had to solicit "that charity which he once little expected to want." The Board aided him from the funds in their hands, but respecting his reluctance to have his name made known, referred on their books to this earliest of founders as "A. B., known by the Board to be the person who, under that signature, gave £66 13s. 4d. into the hands of the overseers . he being now reduced, and is a real object of the charity which his benevolence first instituted." The fund started by A. B. is now the Pemberton or General Fund; Benjamin Pemberton, an overseer in 1708, from whom the title was taken, was simply a larger giver to the fund and not its founder.
Before ending this discussion of funds and their founders, it is but fair to record the names, at least, of some of the minor benefactors of the city and the funds they established. The John Boylston Fund of 1795, for the poor of over fifty and the needy children under fourteen, has al- ready been mentioned. The George William Stoughton Fund of 1701 was of but fifty pounds. David Jeffries, in 1786, gave a sum, the inter- est from which was to be used for the purchase of tea, coffee, choco- late and sugar for the poor. It was added to the general fund in 1908 by the Supreme Court decision. Samuel Dexter, in 1880, established a fund, the income of which was to be expended for firewood. One by Caleb Pierce, gave to Charlestown moneys that fuel might be given to the widows in the town. The Holton Protestant Fund benefits the in- habitants of Brighton by seeing that the needy have something on Thanksgiving Day to be thankful for. The Holton Protestant Pauper Fund of Brighton was established by the same James Holton, and went to aid the "paupers of the place on holidays." Jonathan Mason's bequest of 1798 was to be invested and the income paid to chaplains in the Alms and Work Houses. It now goes to the chaplains of the House of Industry. The David Sears Fund for charitable purposes, has grown like the Boylston, to large proportions, although small in its beginnings. The Lucy Bull Fund came from an estate in Cambridge which was bequeathed to Boston in 1832. Elisha Goodnow left $5,000, Rachel Stevens, nearly a like sum, the income to be used for the needy. The Moses Hunt Fund (1889) of $10,000, gives aid to the poor of Charles- town, and the George L. Thorndike Fund (1901) must be expended to furnish the poor of East Boston with coal. The Nathaniel Frederic Thayer Fund, established by Caroline C. Thayer in 1900, was founded for the benefit of the widows and single women of the community. The will of Susan T. Balch added to this fund during the same year.
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