USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Municipal history of the town and city of Boston during two centuries : from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 > Part 8
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a city debt were brought to bear upon the popularity of the administration.
'The next important question on this subject was, the manner in which the streets should be hereafter cleansed. The old prac- tice was to depend upon the interests of the farmers in the vici- nity, who came when they pleased, took what they pleased, in the manner they pleased. The comparative advantage and economy of effecting this object by contract, or by teams and laborers, provided and employed by the city, became a subject of serious debate and deliberation. There were no data on which the principles of a contract could be based and safely adjusted. Neither the value of the sweepings, as manure, nor the quantity which could annually be taken from the surface of the city, could be ascertained. To attain the information the case required, the Mayor and Aldermen advertised for contracts for the work. Among the proposals consequently made, only one embraced all the operations of scraping, sweeping, and carrying away, and including an offer to do the whole work for seven thou- sand dollars. All the other proposals expressly declined having any thing to do with scraping and sweeping the streets, and con- fined their offer exclusively to carrying the dirt away. 'T'he lowest of these proposals was eighteen hundred dollars for the yeur. All of them were rejected; and it was decided that the city should perform all the operations by its own teams and laborers, and on its own account. This determination being known, the same persons fell in their demands, from eighteen to eight hundred dollars. This being rejected, they offered to do it for nothing. Even these proposals were rejected; the Mayor and Aldermen being of opinion that the interest of the city required that this work should be done thoroughly, and that the cheapest was not the best, or even the most economical mode of conducting such operations; it being, in their judgment, im- possible to do it satisfactorily for any length of time by contract. All the contractors were farmers in the vicinity, whose object it was to obtain manure for their lands, and whose performance would be limited by that interest. Whatever was worthless as a manure would be left. During the months of July and August, when the health and comfort of the citizens required that the work should be most thoroughly performed, it being the busiest season of the year to the farmer, the work in the city would be neglected.
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There were also other occasional wants of the city, which rendered the possession of teams and laborers of its own highly expedient and economical. The Mayor and Aldermen, there- fore, resolved to take the care of the streets into their own hands; and, having obtained authority from the City Council, proceeded to purchase carts and horses and to hire men, at the cost and on the account of the city.
The expediency of this measure was tested by keeping accu- rate accounts, during the two first years, of the work done, the expenses incurred, and the incomes obtained; and the experi- ment resulted in a perfect conviction, that this was not only the most economical, but the only effectual mode, to relieve the citizens from the nuisances incident to streets. The responsi- bility was thus devolved upon the Mayor and Aldermen. If any cause of complaint occurred, they could not throw the blame off upon contractors. As had been anticipated, great convenience and economy resulted from having horses and teams always at command, and ready to be applied to any sudden exigeney which might occur. Exclusive of the first general sweeping, the ex- penses of cleaning the streets, alleys, and courts of the city amounted, the first year of the experiment, to three thousand and eight hundred dollars. After deducting, at the end of the year, the value of the teams owned by the city, and also the value of the city work done by them, not connected with the streets, it was found that twenty-eight hundred tons of manure had been collected, and used on the city lands, and at the city farm at the House of Industry, the value of which was deemed a full equi- valent for the whole cost of the operation.
On the succeeding year, the cost of this process was about six thousand dollars; from the sales of the manure collected two thousand dollars were received. Fifteen hundred tons of manure, valued at a thousand dollars, had been sent to the city farm at the House of Industry; and the work done for the city by the teams and laborers, exclusive of that on the streets, was estimated to be worth two thousand dollars; and the teams on hand at the end of the year were estimated at the value of six hundred dollars. From these general estimates, it was evident, that no general mode of removing street dirt, an operation so essential to the health and comfort of the citizens, could possibly combine an equal degree of convenience and economy ; and,
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during the subsequent years of this administration, its expediency was never authoritatively questioned.1
In all these arrangements, the Mayor and Aldermen had the benefit of the practical skill and business talents of Enoch Pat- terson and Caleb Eddy, members of the Board of Aldermen, to whose intelligence, activity, and judgment the city of Boston is greatly indebted for the degree of success which, in the course of this and the ensuing year, was attained in this and other branches of the police services of the city.
The experience of this year of the city government had satis- fied the Mayor and City Council that the whole subject, relative. to filth and nuisances affecting the comfort and health of the citizens, ought to be taken under their direct control, and could be better managed by a single health commissioner than by an independent board. The satisfactory result of the measures adopted in relation to cleaning the surface of the city, led to the determination that the remaining objects, such as the docks, night soil, and house dirt, should be placed under like control. To prepare the way for this change, a Committee of the City Council, of which the Mayor was chairman, made a report early in February, 1824, - that the Board of Health, in executing the arrangements relative to the internal health regulations, had effected the same by contraet, and paid that year nearly three thousand dollars for these objects; that in respect of house dirt the contractors were often remiss; that recurrence to the penalty, although it might punish them, did not effect the chief object in this concern, - the certain convenience of the citizens. Living in the country, they came in heavy ox wagons; were a long
1 1st. The work is done thoroughly and satisfactorily to every inhabitant, in every lane, alley, and court. 2d. It is done responsibly. If it is not so donc, the blame falls where it ought to fall, on the Mayor and Aldermen ; they cannot throw it off on contractors. 3d. There is great convenience, and often great economy, in having teams and horses at connnand. The amount of this con- venience is great, but difficult to estimate. To the Executive Board, practically speaking, the trouble is nothing in comparison with the gratification they derive, from seeing the streets cleansed of all offensive substances, and a population satis- fied with its condition in this respect.
On the 10th of April, 1826, an ordinance was passed by the City Council, prohibiting the removal through the streets, &c. of Boston any house dirt, house offal, or refuse substance, animal or vegetable, unless licensed by the Mayor and Aldermen, on such conditions as they should prescribe. This was unaccount- ably omitted to be published among the ordinances in the edition of 1827, but was inserted in subsequent editions of those ordinances.
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time in loading; and the collections being dragged slowly along the streets, became in the summer season a great nuisance ; that the contractors, being farmers, were negligent during the summer months. Besides, being only interested in carrying away the substances which, by their usefulness, would compensate them for the transportation, they often left articles cumbersome, and often noxious to the citizens. The substances carried away were acknowledged by the contractors to be worth, as a food for swine, two thousand dollars, and probably, in fact, were of far. greater value.
The Committee recommended that the city should undertake the removal of it on its own account, as they had done in the case of street dirt.
Because, being removed in wagons with horses, they would pass the streets more expeditiously, and being well covered, and the men employed being directly and constantly responsible to the Commissioner of Health, the inconvenience to the citizens would be less, and exactness would be more easily effected; and, if carried to the House of Industry at South Boston, would relieve the city from a great part of the expense ; the superin- tendent of the House of Industry being of opinion that, if ap- plied to the keeping of hogs, the profit on the pork would pay for the transportation, and leave the manure a clear gain to the city.
The Committee then entered into calculations, showing the feasibility, the economy, and the far greater convenience and comfort to the citizens, than the old mode of effecting the same object, by means of contracts with farmers.
Similar views were expressed in relation to the night soil and its removal. This could not well be effected by teams employed by the city. It was unavoidable that the work should be done through the agency of farmers in the vicinity. But the rules adopted, concerning the mode of conducting these operations, the time when the teams should enter and leave the city, the neatness, the silence, and the care with which the work should be performed, -were all circumstances deeply affecting the health and comfort of the citizens, and, perhaps more than any other, ought to be made to rest upon the responsibility of the Mayor and Executive Board.
In consequence of these views and recommendations, the old
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mode of managing the concerns of the health department, by the means of a board of commissioners, was abandoned. That board was discontinued. An ordinance was past by the City Council, on the thirty-first of May, 1824, placing the internal police of the city under the superintendence of the City Marshal; the external police, under that of a Commissioner of Health; and that relative to the interment of the dead, under an officer, de- nominated the Superintendent of the Burial Grounds.
The advantages resulting from these changes became soon apparent, and were acknowledged by the citizens. New con- tracts on the subject of night soil were made; greater exact- ness and more regularity in their fulfilment were required, and in case of failure or neglect, rigorously enforced; in some, even to the forfeiture of the contractors' obligations, after very con- siderable expenditures already incurred by them, for performance of the work during a term of long continuance.
The measures for removing house and street dirt, by means of city teams, were not less satisfactory. In the hottest seasons of the year, the convenience of the citizens was no longer sub- jected to the interest or caprice of the farmers. Every subject of complaint became the object of the immediate attention of the responsible officer. And when the heat, or any particular urgency, called for additional teams, they were without delay applied to the objects. In reply to a letter making inquiries con- cerning the result, by one of the city authorities of Philadelphia, the Mayor of Boston thus wrote, on the twentieth of July, 1825 : " So well regulated are our city teams and operations, that, not- withstanding the excessive heat of the last week, the whole number of complaints of neglect in carrying away the house- hold dirt, in the whole city, for that week, was but four. I do not believe it is possible for any city of equal population to carry into effect this species of cleaning at a less expense, or more thoroughly, or to more general satisfaction."
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CHAPTER VI.
CITY GOVERNMENT. 1823-1824.
JOSIAH QUINCY, Mayor.
Inconvenient State of Faneuil Hall Market - Difficulties attending its Exten- sion - Measures taken for surmounting them - Invitation to the Proprietors of the Land in the Vicinity to become Associates in the Improvement - Not accepted by them - The Project approved by the Citizens in a General Meeting - Authority obtained from the Legislature - Purchase of the Estates commenced.
THE enlargement of the market under and in the vicinity of Faneuil Hall was one of the first objects to which the attention of the second administration of the city government was di- rected. The labors and responsibilities the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council incurred in accomplishing this great improve- ment, the extent of their operations, and the extraordinary financial results, are probably without a parallel in the history of any other city. A granite market house, two stories high, five hundred and thirty-five feet long, fifty feet wide, covering twenty-seven thousand feet of land, including every essential accommodation, was erected, at the cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Six new streets were opened, and a seventh greatly enlarged, including one hundred and sixty-seven thousand square feet of land; and flats, docks, and wharf rights obtained, of the extent of one hundred and forty-two thousand square feet. All this was accomplished in the centre of a populous city, not only without any tax, debt, or burden upon its pecuniary resources, -notwithstanding, in the course of the operations, funds to the amount of upwards of eleven hun- dred thousand dollars had been employed, - but with large per- manent additions to its real and productive property. The pro- prietors of land in the north section of the city were also enabled by this improvement to open Fulton and Commercial Streets, thus greatly enlarging mercantile accommodations, facilitating intercourse with the great southern wharves, and creating oppor-
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CITY GOVERNMENT.
tunities for the foundation of those noble blocks of granite stores, which have since been erected to the eastward of those streets.
It is due to the men who constituted the city councils at that day, whose intelligence devised, and whose energy effected these great results, and also to the spirit of the citizens, whose votes sustained and encouraged them, through good report and evil report, that the difficulties with which they had to struggle, and the course of measures by which they were surmounted and success ultimately obtained, should be permanently recorded, as an honor to the past and an example to the future.
At the commencement of the second city year, the whole space occupied by stalls in Faneuil Hall market did not exceed fourteen thousand square feet. Even the best of these were inconvenient, and the passages to them obstructed. The dealers in fish and vegetables occupied a wooden shed, without glass windows, and without doors. Their consequent exposure to the inclemency of the winter storms caused premature sickness and death. It was calculated that twenty years changed the whole number of the individuals there employed. The space around Faneuil Hall, devoted to the market, was broken, in its centre, by Odin's Buildings, as they were then called, and was bounded to the eastward by the Roebuck Passage and the Town Dock. The central common sewer of the city opened into the head of this dock, which was also a station for oyster boats, and became consequently a receptacle for every species of filth, and a public nuisance. All the buildings on the north side of the Town Dock were old, and for the most part inhabited by a very trou- blesome and irregular population. It was impossible to intro- duce order and systematic arrangement into a market so ex- tremely deficient in local accommodation. The avenues leading to it were in general narrow and crooked, especially the Roebuck Passage, the shortest and most frequented thoroughfare, between the northern section of the city and this central market and the wharves in the middle and southern sections. In a distance of one hundred feet it had three bends, and its width varied from thirteen to twenty feet. Serious accidents had occurred within this incon- venient passage. One child had recently been killed, another had been mutilated, and almost every year petitions had been pre- sented to the town authorities for its enlargement, but without effect. On high market days, Union, Elm, Brattle, Washington,
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and Exchange Streets were often completely obstructed. Farmers coming from a great distance in the country, were compelled to take their stand along Union Street, as far as Marshall's Lane, and in Washington Street, as far as Court Street. They were tlms excluded from the space around Faneuil Hall, where their customers chiefly resorted, and were often obliged to sell their goods to forestallers, greatly to their loss and discontent. Fore- stalling became, consequently, not only a lucrative but an acknowledged employment. Individuals engaged in it, when prosecuted, were seldom convicted by juries, since, from the many obstructions, arising from the local inadequacy of the market, to all fair competition, forestalling seemed to be indis- pensable for the interests both of the farmer and the citizens. Such were the general relations and accommodations of the central market of the city, at the commencement of the second administration; and the Mayor, in the first month after his inauguration, having consulted with the Board of Aldermen, decided that the exertions of the city government would be most usefully directed to ameliorate its condition. The general and financial prosperity of the city were favorable to the undertaking. The support of the proprietors of the Long Wharf, and of the inhabitants of the northern parts of the city, were confidently anticipated, since the value of their estates would be enhanced should the project succeed, by the formation of new streets and more commodious water rights, and by the opening of the Roe- buck Passage.
'These powerful interests and propitions circumstances induced the Mayor immediately to refer the subject of the improvement of the central market to a connnittee of both branches of the City Council, of which he was chairman. But, so little was the public mind prepared for the extensive plan contemplated, that this Committee could only be induced to assent to a report for the erection of a large vegetable market, thirty-six feet wide, one hundred and eighty feet long, on the north side of Faneuil Hall, which, on the twenty-fifth of June, was accepted in both branches, and fifteen thousand dollars were appropriated for its completion. Those who concurred in the original project were not discouraged by the opposition thus evinced, and, while the report was in discussion, the Mayor took measures, personally, to ascertain the prices at which the estates comprehended within
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the plan first conceived could be obtained. Some of the princi- pal proprietors refused to sell their estates at any price, and the demands of others were extravagant. But it was evidently for the interest of them all that the plan contemplated should suc- ceed, and not be defeated, or postponed, by the erection of the vegetable market. No obstruction was therefore made to the acceptance of that report ; but it was used as an argument, to influence those proprietors to be more moderate in their demands. The policy had the effeet anticipated. The appropriation was therefore left untouched and uncalled for; and, on the thirty-first of July, 1823, the Mayor communicated to the City Council his views concerning the improvement contemplated, by a special message, stating the inconveniences of the existing market; the relief which enlarged accommodation and consequent competi- tion would confer, by reduced prices of provisions, on the poorer classes ; the circumstances favorable to advantageous purchases ; and the necessity of obtaining a power to borrow the sums requisite for the object. The appointment of a committee to take the subject into consideration was recommended, and the Mayor, Aldermen Benjamin and Patterson, and Messrs. E. Wil- liams, Stoddard, Silsby, and Winslow, of the Common Council, were appointed.
It was now thought advisable to postpone further proceedings, until the final terms of the proprietors of the land embraced within the proposed sphere of improvement should be aseer- tained, and such conditional contracts from them be obtained, as should prevent any one of them falling back from his engage- ments, after the city should determine to proceed with the pro- ject. The Mayor charged himself with this undertaking; and, during the months of August, September, October, and Novem- ber, he was occupied, during his leisure from other duties, in obtaining plans, forming an acquaintance with the interests, and negotiating with the proprietors. The original scheme embraced all the land between Ann Street and the Mill Creek on the one side, and Butler's Row on the other, limited on the west by the estates on the eastern side of the Roebuck Passage and of Merchants' Row, and extending as far to the east as the flats might reach, which the city, by purchasing the proposed estates in the progress of the improvement, might be able to attain. It was found that, as valued by the proprietors, eight hundred 7 *
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thousand dollars was the lowest sum for which the whole of that property could be obtained. As the advantages of so ex- . tensive an improvement were difficult to be made apparent to the citizens in general, among whom there was an instinctive and prevailing dread of a city debt, the Committee postponed the attempt to carry into effect their original project, and for the present, apparently restricted their operations to the space be- tween Ann Street and the street leading to Bray's Wharf, which included about thirty estates, owned by about an equal num- ber of proprietors, and comprising, according to the estimates then made, about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand square feet of ground, inclusive of the docks and passage-ways, and exclusive of the flats in front of the wharves. With two or three exceptions, all the proprietors demanded prices at that time generally deemed extravagant, but which, in the opinion of the Committee, the city might well afford to give, provided it could be made certain of ultimately attaining a title to the whole space. To prevent the scheme being defeated, after the purchase of some estates, by the selfishness and caprice of the owners of the residue, a plan was taken, comprising a general ontline of the streets and stores in the contemplated improvement, which at that time it was thought expedient to propose. Estimates hav- ing been made, and confidential persons of great practical know- ledge having been consulted, the Committee were convinced that an important enlargement of the market might be effected with- out injuriously increasing the debt or affecting the credit of the city. The Mayor, therefore, proceeded to obtain conditional con- tracts from the several proprietors, by force of which each bound himself, on the payment of a specified sum by the city of Boston, on or before the first of May then ensuing, to convey his land to the city, with full title and warranty. These negotiations were unavoidably attended with great and peculiar difficulties. Each contract was made separately, often under mutual pledges of secrecy ; the proprietors often considering the price they de- manded as extravagant, and fearing their estimates might be assumed as a basis of taxation by the assessors. After reducing the price of each estate to its minimum, the Mayor took the contract, deeming it essential to success that, after the plan was made publie, no proprietor should be able to avail himself of the advantage of a knowledge of the effect of the improvement on
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his particular estate, or of its special importance to the general design.
By the middle of December, a conditional purchase was effected of almost all the land required. The contracts signed included five sixths of the estates, and amounted to nearly four hundred thousand dollars. The remaining land, it was estimated, might be obtained for less than one hundred thousand dollars. It chiefly belonged to minors, whose trustees or guardians pro- mised to cooperate with the city government, in obtaining author- ity to sell and invest their title in the city at a fair price.
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