USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston.. > Part 2
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INTRODUCTION.
soliciting him thither." If seclusion was Blackstone's object, it gave way to his interest in the welfare of his fellow-colonists.
Upon Blackstone's advice the Charlestown settlers acted, and many removed to Shawmut by the end of August, 1630. In the first boat-load that went over was Anne Pollard, who lived to be nearly, if not quite, one hundred and five years old. She herself related, when more than one hundred years of age, that she "came over in one of the first ships that arrived in Charlestown ; that in a day or two after her arrival, on account of the water there being bad, a number of the young people, including herself, took the ship's boat to cross over to Boston ; that as the boat drew up towards the shore, she (being then a romping girl) declared she would be the first to land, and accordingly, before any one, jumped from the bow of the boat on to the beach." According to this statement, which is based upon good authority, Anne Pollard was the first white female that trod upon the soil of Boston. Hudson's Point, now the head of Charlestown bridge, but formerly the site of the old ferry, was probably the place where Anne first left the impress of her foot. Her portrait, at the age of one hundred and three years, is in the possession of the Massachusetts His- torical Society, and her deposition, at the age of eighty-nine years, was used to substantiate the location of Blackstone's house. In it she says that Mr. Blackstone, after his removal from Boston, frequently resorted to her husband's house, and that she never heard any controversy about the land, between her husband, Pepys, or Blackstone, but that it was always reputed to belong to the latter.
Blackstone, in 1634, removed to Rehoboth, not liking, we may conclude, the close proximity of his Puritan neighbors, of whom he is reported to have said, that he left England because of his dislike to the Lords Bishops, but now he would not be under the Lords Brethren.
In 1659 Blackstone was married to Mary Stevenson of Boston, widow, by Governor Endicott. He died in 1675, a short time before the breaking out of King Philip's War, during which his plantation was ravaged by the Indians, and his dwelling
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
destroyed, with his papers and books, - a circumstance that has prevented, perhaps, the veil being lifted that shrouds his early history. It is said no trace of his grave exists; but he left his name to a noble river, and the city which he founded per- petuates it by a public square and street.
The settlers at Charlestown called Shawmut Trimountain, not, says Shaw, on account of the three principal hills, - subse- quently Copp's, Beacon, and Fort, -but from the three peaks of Beacon Hill, which was then considered quite a high mountain, and is so spoken of by Wood, one of the early writers about Boston ; the reader will know that Beacon and its two outlying spurs of Cotton (Pemberton) and Mt. Vernon are meant.
On the 7th of September, 1630 (old style), at a court held in Charlestown, it was ordered that Trimountain be called Boston. Many of the set- tlers had already taken up their residence there, and " thither the frame of the governor's house was car- ried, and people began to build their houses against winter." Clinging to the old associations of their native land, the settlers named their new home for old Boston in Lincolnshire, England, whence a num- ber of members of the com- pany had emigrated. The name itself owes its origin to Botolph, a pious old Saxon of the seventh cen- tury, afterwards canonized ST. BOTOLPH'S, BOSTON, ENGLAND. as the tutelar saint of mar- iners, and shows an ingenuity of corruption for which England is famed. Reciprocal courtesies have been exchanged between English Boston and her namesake. The former presented her
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INTRODUCTION.
charter in a frame of the wood of old Saint Botolph's church, which hangs in our City Hall, while Edward Everett, in the name of the descendants and admirers of John Cotton, gave $ 2,000 for the restoration of a chapel in St. Botolph's, and the erection therein of a monument to the memory of that much venerated divine, who had been vicar of St. Botolph's and afterwards minister of the First Church of Christ in Boston, New England.
Boston had three striking topographical features. First, its peninsular character, united by a narrow isthmus to the main land ; next, its three hills, of which the most westerly (Beacon) was the highest, all washed at their base by the sea ; and lastly, corresponding to her hills, were three coves, of which the most easterly, enclosed by the headlands of Copp's and Fort Hill, became the Town Cove and Dock. Of the other coves, the one lying to the south of the Town Cove was embraced between the point of land near the foot of South Street, formerly known as Windmill Point, and the head of the bridge to South Boston ; this bight of water was the South Cove. A third inlet on the northwest of the peninsula, lying between the two points of land from which now extend bridges to Charlestown and East Cambridge, became subsequently the Mill Pond, by the build- ing of a causeway on substantially the present line of Causeway Street. Only the most salient features are here given ; other interesting peculiarities will be alluded to in their places.
At high tides the sea swept across the narrow neck, and there is every reason to believe also covered the low ground now traversed by Blackstone Street. This would make, for the time being, two islands of Boston. The early names given to the streets on the water front described the sea margin, as Fore (North) Beach, and Back (now Salem) Streets.
In process of time these distinctive characteristics have all changed. Boston can no longer be called a peninsula ; one of its summits, Fort Hill, has to-day no existence, while the others have been so shorn of their proportions and altitude as to pre- sent a very different view from any quarter of approach ; as for the three coves, they have been converted into terra firma.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
The area of original Boston has been variously estimated. By Shaw, at 700 acres ; Dr. Morse, the geographer, placed it in 1800 at 700 acres, admitting that some accounts fix it as high as 1,000 acres, while Dr. Shurtleff says less than 1,000 acres.
There is good authority, however, for computing the original peninsula at not more than 625 acres of firm ground. To this has been added, by the filling of the Mill Pond, 50 acres ; the South Cove, 75 acres (up to 1837) ; and by the filling of the Town Cove or Dock, and the building of new streets on the water front, enough had been reclaimed by 1852 to amount to 600 acres, - nearly the original area. Since that time the Back Bay improvement, which covers 680 acres, and Atlantic Avenue, which follows the old Barricado line, have added as much more to the ancient territory, so that we may safely consider her original limits trebled, without reference to what has been acquired by annexation.
At the time of the English settlement hostilities existed be- tween the Massachusetts and the eastern Indians ; the natives,
who seldom neg- lected to provide for retreat in case of defeat, chose rather to locate their villages far- ther inland, at Mystic and else- where.
There is evi-
dence, however, that Shawmut was either inhabited by
INDIAN WIGWAM.
the Indians at a very early period, or used as a place of sepul- ture by them. Dr. Mather related that three hundred skull- bones had been dug up on Cotton (Pemberton) Hill when he was a youth, and tradition long ascribed to this locality a sort of Golgotha. To support this view there was found in April 1733, says the New England Journal, a number of skulls and
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INTRODUCTION.
larger human bones by workmen digging in a garden near Dr Cooper's house on Cotton Hill. These remains were considered, at the time, to be those of the natives. Boston has been thoroughly excavated without finding any further material to confirm this belief.
The character of the first buildings was extremely rude. They were of wood, with thatched roofs, and chimneys built of pieces of wood placed crosswise, the interstices and outside covered with clay. Such was the economy of the times, that Governor Winthrop reproved his deputy, in 1632, "that he did not well to bestow so much cost about wainscotting and adorning his house in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard of the public charges, and for example." The answer was, that it was for the warmth of his house, and the charge was little, being but clapboards nailed to the walls in the form of wainscot .*
It is comparatively recent that Boston began to be a city of brick and stone. A few solidly built structures were scattered here and there over a wide area ; but the mass were of wood, in spite of some attempts made by the town to induce a safer and more durable style of architecture. A lady, entering Boston in 1795, remarks : "The ranges of wooden buildings all situated with one end towards the street, and the numerous chaises we met, drawn by one horse, the driver being placed on a low seat in front, appeared to me very singular." Another writer ob- serves of the town in 1805 : "The houses were most of them wood, seldom enlivened by paint, and closely resembling the old- fashioned, dark-looking edifices still to be seen in Newport, R. I." At this time there was but one brick house in the whole of Tremont Street, and it was not until 1793 that the first block of brick buildings was erected in what is now Franklin Street. In 1803 the inflammable character of the town was thus described :
" A pyre of shapeless structures crowds the spot, Where taste, and all but cheapness is forgot. One little spark the funeral pile may fire, And Boston, blazing, see itself expire."
* Winthrop's Journal, p. 88.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
Winthrop's company located chiefly within the space com- prised between what are now Milk, Bromfield, Tremont, and Hanover Streets and the water. Pemberton Hill was also a favorite locality, as we shall have occasion to note. The North End, by removals and accessions, soon became also settled ; that portion of the town lying north of Union Street being thus designated, while all south of that boundary was called the South End. A third geographical division, embracing the district lying to the west and north of Beacon Hill, and west and south of the Mill Pond, was known as New Boston, and also as West Boston, and finally as the West End. These names have been retained, but the boundaries of all but the North End have been considered movable, and would be diffi- cult to follow.
The first settlers found Boston thinly wooded, whatever its original condition may have been. The timber lay mainly along the Neck, with clumps of trees here and there. The great elm on the Common is doubtless one of native growth, and be- fore the Revolution of 1776 there was another almost equally large near the corner of what is now West and Tremont Streets. Traditions exist of the Indians having planted on the penin- sula, clearing away the wood, as is their custom, by burning. There are old houses now standing at the North End, the tim- bers of which, some of them a foot square, are said to have been cut near Copp's Hill.
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Water was abundant and good. Besides the spring or springs near Blackstone's house, mention is made in the early records of the "great spring" in what is now Spring Lane. The latter was filled up, but people now living have seen it bubbling out of the ground after heavy spring rains. Opinions are divided as to which spring Blackstone had reference, when he invited the thirsty Charlestown company to Shawmut, but the fact of Governor Winthrop having located by the side of the "great spring," and Isaac Johnson in the immediate vicin- ity, are significant. Other springs existed, or were found in course of time on the Neck and elsewhere.
The settlement of Boston opens in the reign of Charles the
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INTRODUCTION.
First, and the dress, as well as the manners and customs of the people bear the impress of that time, with the distinction, that the religious sentiments of the settlers entered largely into both questions. The short cloak, doublet, and silk stockings were worn by people of condition, but the colors were subdued and sober, and the rapier, which King Charles's gallants were so ready to draw, was not much worn abroad, except on state occasions. Some, like Winthrop, wore the stiff, plaited ruff, containing a furlong of linen, and making the modern beholder sympathize with the pillory the unfor- tunate head is placed in, while others wore the broad falling collar in which we always see the great Protector. High- crowned felt hats were worn out of doors, while the velvet skull-cap was the favor- ite headdress within.
Myles Standish, whom we single out as a type of the Puritan soldier of those days, is described by Longfellow as " clad in doublet and hose, with boots of Cor- dovan leather"; glancing complacently at his arms on the wall, "cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus," with its curved point and UEL CAVALIER. Arabic inscription. The manner of wearing the hair became very early an apple of discord. Those of the straitest sect, and it may be of the straightest hair, cut their locks in the short fashion of the roundheads ; while others, to whom nature had, perhaps, been more lavish in this respect, wore their hair long. The wearing of veils by ladies when abroad was the subject of a crusade by Rev. John Cotton, though championed by Endicott.
In 1750 cocked-hats, wigs, and red cloaks were usually worn by gentlemen. Except among military men, boots were rarely seen. In winter, round coats were worn, made stiff with buckram, and coming down to the knees in front. Boys wore wigs and cocked-hats until about 1790. Powder was worn by gentlemen until after 1800.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
The toilets of ladies were elaborate, especially the hair, which was arranged on crape cushions so as to stand up high. Some- times ladies were dressed the day before a party, and slept in easy-chairs to keep their hair in condition. Hoops were indis- pensable in full dress until after 1790. The usual dinner hour was two o'clock. Drinking punch in the forenoon, in public houses, was the common practice. Wine was little used, con- vivial parties drinking punch or toddy.
The bearing of the townspeople in public was grave and austere. How could it be otherwise under the operation of such ordinances as the following. " No strangers were permitted to live within the town without giving bonds to save the town harmless from all damage and charge for entertaining them." " For galloping through the streets, except upon days of mili- tary exercise or any extraordinary case require," was two shillings fine. Football was prohibited in the streets. "No person shall take any tobacco publicly, under penalty of one shilling." "For entertaining foreigners," or receiving "in- mates, servants, or journeymen coming for help in physic or surgery, without leave of the selectmen," was twenty shillings fine a week. The selectmen had authority, under the colony, to order parents to bind their children as apprentices, or put them out to service, and, if they refused, the town took the children from the charge of the parents.
Sobriety was strictly inculcated, though the sale of liquors was licensed. It is on record that, September 15, 1641, there was a training of twelve hundred men at Boston for two days, but no one drunk, nor an oath sworn. Officers were appointed, with long wands, to correct the inattentive or slumbering at church. To be absent from meeting was criminal, while to speak ill of the minister was to incur severe punishment. An instance is mentioned of a man being fined for kissing his wife in his own grounds; and do not the following instructions to the watch smack strongly of Dogberry's famous charge ? The number being eight, they are "to walk two by two together ; a youth joined with an older and more sober person." " If after ten o'clock they see lights, to inquire if there be warrant-
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INTRODUCTION.
able cause ; and if they hear any noise or disorder, wisely to demand the reason ; if they are dancing and singing vainly, to admonish them to cease; if they do not discontinue, after moderate admonition, then the constable to take their names and acquaint the authorities therewith." "If they find young men and maidens, not of known fidelity, walking after ten o'clock, modestly to demand the cause ; and if they appear ill-minded, to watch them narrowly, command them to go to their lodgings, and if they refuse, then to secure them till morning."
Negro slavery appears in Boston as early as 1638, when at least three were held by Maverick on Noddle's Island. In this year the ship Desire brought negroes here from the West Indies. In 1680, according to Judge Sewall, there were not above two hundred African slaves in the colony. An effort is on record in 1702 to put a stop to negroes being slaves, and to encourage the use of white servants, the representa- tives of the town being instructed to this purpose. Slavery seems, however, to have steadily increased in the colony, the traffic proving profitable, until at length it was as common to see negroes offered for sale in the public prints, as it ever was in the Southern colonies. In 1767 the town again moved, through its representatives for the abolition of slavery, to no effect. A Tory writer asserts that there were at this time two thousand slaves in Boston. During the troubles of 1768 the British officers were charged with inciting the slaves to insurrection, and blacks were held in servitude until after the Revolution.
But this was not all. It is but little known that white slavery was tolerated in the colony, and that the miserable dependents of feudal power were sold into servitude in England and transported to this country. Prisoners of war were thus disposed of under the great Cromwell, some of the captives of Dunbar having been shipped over seas to America. A ship- load of Scotch prisoners was consigned 1651 to Thomas Kem- ble of Charlestown, the same who was afterwards resident of Boston. They were generally sold for a specific term of ser-
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
vice, and used chiefly as farm laborers. Many were sent to North Carolina, and indeed but few of the colonies were with- out them.
Among the early customs was that of the watchmen crying the time of night and giving an account of the weather as they went their rounds, a practice which prevailed for a hundred years. The British sentinels later gave the cry of " All's well !" as they paced their beats. The ringing of the nine-o'clock bell was first ordered in 1649. The watchman's rattle was intro- duced about the time Boston became a city.
The government of the town was vested in nine selectmen, and is first found on the records, November, 1643 ; but not until November 29, 1645, is the official statement recorded that John Winthrop and nine others were chosen selectmen. This con- tinued to be the form of government until the city was incor- porated, Feburary 23, 1822. The first city government was organized on the first of May following, and John Phillips was the first, Josiah Quincy the second, and Harrison Gray Otis the third mayor. Steps were taken as early as 1708 to petition the General Court to have the town incorporated into a city or borough, and again in 1784, but without success.
In 1632 the Colonial legislature declared it to be " the fittest place for public meetings of any place in the Bay," since which time it has remained the capital of Massachusetts. Boston at first included within its government the islands of the harbor, - Muddy River (Brookline), Winnisimet (Chelsea), Mount Wol- laston (Braintree), Randolph, and Quincy. She is now striving to recover portions of her ancient territory.
For a long time the allotment of lands was the principal business of the town officers. In the limits of the peninsula the rule was, " two acres to plant on, and for every able youth one acre within the neck and Noddle's Island " (East Boston). In 1635 it was agreed, " no new allotments should be granted unto any new-comer, but such as may be likely to be received members of the congregation." The town regulated the price of cattle, commodities, victuals, and the wages of laborers, and none other were to be given or taken.
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INTRODUCTION.
The spirit of intolerance which the fathers of Boston exhib- ited towards the Quakers, Anabaptists, Episcopalians, and other sects illustrates their view of religious liberty. Well did Dryden say : -
" Of all the tyrannies on human kind, The worst is that which persecutes the mind ; Let us but weigh at what offence we strike, 'T is but because we cannot think alike ; In punishing of this we overthrow The laws of nations, and of nature too."
It was an offence to harbor a Quaker ; to attend a Quaker meeting was a fine of ten shillings, to preach, £ 5. When the Baptists first attempted to enter their meeting-house in Still- man Street, they found the doors nailed up, and when they proceeded to worship in the open air, they were arrested and imprisoned. No one could be found to sell land for an Episco- pal church, nor could they find a place to hold services in until Andros obtained the Old South for them by force. The crimi- nal law decreed banishment to such as broached or maintained " damnable heresies," by which was meant such as did not agree with the views of the congregation.
The excessive severity of the following deserves notice. " Any one denying the Scripture to be the word of God should pay not exceeding £ 50 to be severely whipped, not exceeding forty strokes, unless he publicly recants, in which case he shall not pay above £ 10, or be whipped in case he pay not the fine." The repetition of this offence was to be punished by banish- ment or death, as the court might determine. "T is death for any child of sound understanding to curse or strike his parents, unless in his own defence."
There is a grim humor in the following decisions. In 1640 one Edward Palmer, for asking an excessive price for a pair of stocks, which he was hired to frame, had the privilege of sit- ting an hour in them himself. " Captain Stone is sentenced to pay £ 100, and prohibited coming within the patent with- out the governor's leave, upon pain of death, for calling Mr. Ludlow (a magistrate) a "Justass." We infer the punishment must have been inflicted more for the joke than the offence.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
" Catherine, wife of William Cornish, was found suspicious of in- continency, and seriously admonished to take heed." " Sergeant Perkins ordered to carry forty turfs to the fort for being drunk."
According to Neal, the principal festival days were that of the annual election of magistrates at Boston, and Commence- ment at Cambridge. Business was then laid aside, and the people were as cheerful among their friends and neighbors as the English are at Christmas.
" They have a greater veneration for the evening of Saturday than for that of the Lord's Day itself ; so that all business is laid aside by sunset or six o'clock on Saturday night. The Sabbath itself is kept with great strictness ; nobody being to be seen in the streets in time of Divine service, except the constables, who are appointed to search all public houses ; but in the evening they allow them- selves great liberty and freedom."
This custom has prevailed up to a comparatively late period.
In those days the pulpit took the lead in matters temporal as well as of theology. Public questions were discussed in the pulpit, and news from a distance, of moment to the col- ony, was disseminated through it ; the first newspaper was not attempted in Boston until 1690, and then only a single number was published. The whole field was open to the preacher, who might either confine himself to doctrinal points or preach a crusade against the savages. The attire of the ladies, the fashion of the hair, the drinking of healths, after- wards abolished by law, were all within the jurisdiction of the teacher of the people ; the constituted authorities might make the laws, but the minister expounded them. The official proclamations were then, as now, affixed to the meeting-house door, which thus stood to the community as a vehicle of public intelligence.
Many intelligent travellers, both English and French, have recorded their impressions of Boston. Wood, who is accounted the earliest of these writers, says : -
" This harbor is made by a great company of islands, whose high cliffs shoulder out the boisterous seas ; yet may easily deceive any unskilful pilot, presenting many fair openings and broad sounds
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INTRODUCTION.
which afford too shallow water for ships, though navigable for boats and pinnaces. It is a safe and pleasant harbor within, having but one common and safe entrance, and that not very broad, there scarce being room for three ships to come in board and board at a time ; but being once in, there is room for the anchorage of five hundred ships."
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