USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston.. > Part 26
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But the Great Mall was not at the beginning of this century, as now, a grove of near a third of a mile in length. The large trees scarcely extended below West Street, those beyond being merely saplings. That part of the Common forming the southeast corner, comprising a little more than two acres, and lying east of the burying-ground, was not acquired until 1787, when it was purchased of William Foster, whose mansion stood where now the Hotel Pelham is. The tract acquired was known as Foster's Pasture.
The British soldiers, with a truly vandal spirit, cut down several of the largest trees in the mall the morning they evac- uated the town. A large number had before been sacrificed to provide fuel, but this was the act of malice alone. The surface of the Common was greatly disfigured by cellars and ditches dug throughout the camps, traces of which long remained visible, even to the circles made by the tents. General Howe stayed the destruction of the trees of the mall at the solicita- tion of the selectmen.
Before the Revolution there was a wooden fence, but this, too, was used for fuel, and the Common lay open until after the peace, when it was rebuilt by a subscription set on foot by Dr. Oliver Smith. The iron fence was erected in 1836, at a cost of # 82,500. Its length is 1,932 yards, - rather more than a
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mile. In 1733, when the town voted to plant a second row of trees at a suitable distance from those already set out, the selectmen were directed to set up a row of posts with a rail on the top of them, extending from the Granary Burying-Ground to Colonel Fitche's, leaving openings at the several streets and lanes. In 1739 a similar fence was ordered from Common Street to Beacon.
The Common appears to have been first called "Centry Field," taking this name from the hill on whose slope it lay, which later received the name of Beacon Hill. Century Field is another instance of the quaint orthography, of which the records furnish abundant specimens. It appears to have been indifferently called the "Training Field " and "Centry Field" for a long time.
Turning once more to the street, we pause at the entrance of the Music Hall. There was, in 1768, a hall of this name in Brattle Street, opposite the meeting-house. A concert was ad- vertised to be given November 21, 1768, to be followed by a ball. Tickets twenty shillings, lawful money.
On the corner of Winter Street once stood an old ante-Revo- lutionary house, with a fine garden, in which, it is said, Governor Bernard at one time made his town residence. It became a famous boarding-house under the successive auspices of Mrs. Hatch and Mrs. Dexter. Governor Strong, when in town during his second term, resided with Mrs. Hatch.
The following toast was published in 1817, as having been given at the celebration by the blacks in Boston of the anni- versary of the abolition of the slave-trade : -
" Governur Brouks, may the mantelpiece of Caleb Strong fall upon the hed of his distinguished predecessor."
John McLean, the eminent merchant, founder of the McLean Asylum, boarded with Mrs. Dexter. His financial reverses are well known. It is related of him that he one day assembled his creditors at a dinner, where each found under his plate a check for the full amount due him. This was after he had been legally released from his obligations.
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Among the names bestowed upon this busy mart of fashion was Blott's Lane, from Robert Blott ; also Bannister's and Wil- lis's Lane.
Winter Street once boasted a resident so influential in the cause of liberty as to receive the distinction of outlawry from George III. The offences of Samuel Adams and John Hancock were too flagitious to admit of pardon. The house of Samuel Adams stood on the south side of Winter Street, on the corner of Winter Place. It was a two-story wooden house, fronting on the street ; at the back was an L, and in the rear a small gar- den. The building was standing as late as 1820, and, while it re- mained, was not the least interesting object to be seen in Boston.
Samuel Adams was a Boston boy. Born in 1722, he had seen the administrations of the royal governors from Burnet to Gage. He took his degree at eighteen at Harvard, and after trying unsuccessfully a merchant's career, devoted himself to literature, until called to a political life. First a tax-gatherer, then a representative, his influence begins to appear at the com- mencement of the Stamp Act difficulties. After the Massacre, he overbore the flimsy objections of Hutchinson to a removal of the troops from the town by a manly, bold, and unanswer- able argument.
In later times, in all the movements of the people of Boston preceding actual hostilities, Samuel Adams was the admitted power behind the throne. Warren was brave, Hancock rich, and Adams sagacious. It was remarked of Hancock that he paid the postage, while Adams did the writing. Lord North, when informed that Hutchinson had yielded to the demand of the chairman of the town committee, called the regulars " Sam Adams's two regiments," in contempt. The Ministry styled him "Chief of the Revolution."
Mr. Jefferson's opinion of Samuel Adams is a concise and deserved tribute to the patriot. Says the sage of Monticello, "I can say that he was truly a great man, - wise in council, fertile in resources, immovable in his purposes, -and had, I think, a greater share than any other member in advising and directing our measures in the Northern war."
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When Adams, a fugitive with Hancock, heard the firing on Lexington Common, he exulted, knowing that the day of hu- miliation was passing forever away. The sword was now to decide the contest, and Adams labored without intermission in the councils of the incipient nation. He was an active member of the Congress of 1774; and he drew up, with John Adams, the draft of the State Constitution. A member of the con- vention to consider the Federal Constitution, he was not at first in favor of its adoption, but acceded to the plan of Hancock to ratify the instrument and propose amendments to it in accord with the views of Massachusetts statesmen. He was lieutenant-governor under Hancock, and followed him to his last resting-place. From 1794 to 1797 the venerable Sam- uel Adams governed the State. He died in 1803, an octoge- narian.
It is related by Waterhouse that the two Adamses, John and Samuel, were one day walking in the mall we have just been describing. As they came opposite the noble mansion of Han- cock the latter remarked, with emphasis, " I have done a very good thing for our cause, in the course of the past week, by en- listing the master of that house into it. He is well disposed, and has great riches, and we can give him consequence to enjoy them."
Samuel Adams was of ordinary height, muscular form, and had light complexion and light blue eyes. He wore a red cloak, a gray tie-wig, and cocked hat. In person he was very erect. His father was a brewer, and his son Samuel succeeded to his business. Admiral Coffin used to relate that he had car- ried malt on his back from Adams's brewery.
The old estate on Purchase Street, where Adams was born, was only about sixty feet north of Summer. It faced the harbor, commanding a fine view, and was conspicuous among the few buildings contemporary with it. On the roof was an ob- servatory and a railing, with steps leading up from the outside. It was improved in 1730, and the grounds were still adorned with trees and shrubbery as late as 1800." This was the estate
* Wells's Life of Samuel Adams.
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preserved by Samuel Adams after his father's unsuccessful speculation in the Land Bank scheme.
Other statesmen and soldiers famous in the pages of history have walked in the old mall. We have no doubt that Wash- ington and Winslow, Loudon, Amherst, and Hood, Gage, Clin- ton, Burgoyne, and Howe, have all sought its leafy shades. Talleyrand, Moreau, Louis Philippe, and Lafayette have doubt- less paced within its cool retreats, and meditated upon the fate of empires they were to build or overthrow. Silas Deane, Pulaski, Gates, and Greene have certainly trod this famous walk.
St. Paul's, overshadowed and overtopped as it is by its feudal- looking neighbor, has yet some points of attraction. It was
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH AND MASONIC TEMPLE.
designed by Captain Alexander Parris, though, it is said, Wil- lard drew some of the working plans, and superintended the stone-work, cutting some of the capitals with his own hand in the adjoining gardens. The front is unfinished, and the general
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aspect of the building did not satisfy the expectation for a model of ancient art. The pediment was intended to be orna- mented with bas-reliefs representing Paul before Agrippa, which would have added to the beauty of the front, but want of funds compelled the abandonment of this design. The main building is of gray granite, once white, but now blackened by the action of the elements. The portico is of sandstone from Acquia Creek, the columns of which have been compared, not inaptly, to a collection of grindstones, they being composed of many separate sections. Taken as a whole, the appearance of St. Paul's may be styled "dark, gloomy, and peculiar."
The erection of St. Paul's marked an era in the architecture of Boston churches. Hitherto the houses of worship were of the same general character, King's Chapel and Brattle Street alone excepted. The latter were the only departures from the stiff, and, we may add, ugly structures introduced by the Puri- tans. St. Paul's was the first specimen of the pure Ionic in the town.
This was the fourth Episcopal church erected in Boston ; consecrated June 30, 1820. Dr. Samuel F. Jarvis was the first rector. The interior is chaste and beautiful. The ceiling is a cylindrical vault, with panels spanning the whole width of the church. Underneath the floor are tombs. The remains of General Warren were deposited under St. Paul's in the tomb of his nephew, Dr. John C. Warren, until removed in August, 1855, to the family vault at Forest Hills.
Solomon Willard came to Boston in 1804, and first worked at his trade of carpenter. He was employed on the famous Ex- change Coffee House, the conflagration of which, in 1818, was seen a hundred miles from Boston. He very soon applied him- self to the study of architecture and carving in wood. The cap- itals for the Brighton Meeting-house, and those for Park Street Church steeple, are by his hand. He also carved a bust of Washington for the seventy-four-gun ship of that name, and executed a model of the public buildings in Washington for Mr. Bulfinch. The eagle now on the apex of the pediment of the Old Custom House was carved by Mr. Willard ; it is five
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feet high, and measures the same distance from wing to wing. His great work was the Bunker Hill Monument, of which he was the architect, and he was also the discoverer of the Bunker Hill Quarry at Quincy. The Court House, in Court Square, was designed by Mr. Willard.
The old Masonic Temple, now used by the United States courts, is built upon a part of the Washington Gardens. The corner-stone was laid in 1830, and two years elapsed before it was dedicated. The basement and belt is of hammered granite. Two lofty Gothic towers, with battlements surmounted by pin- nacles, flank the entrance, and are a picturesque feature of the environs of the Great Mall. Bench and Bar now usurp the high places of Masonry, to which a newer and more magnificent temple has been dedicated.
In the upper story of the Masonic Temple was the school of A. Bronson Alcott, the philosopher, and father of the popular authoress, Louisa May Alcott. In Mr. Alcott's school Sarah Margaret Fuller, afterwards Countess d'Ossoli, was an assistant teacher before she went to Providence, R. I., to teach. Miss Fuller, "the best talker since De Staël," lived with her uncle, Henry H. Fuller, on the north side of Avon Place (Street), where she held for several seasons her "Conversations " for young ladies. She was afterwards invited to New York, by Horace Greeley, as a contributor to the New York Tribune. The memory of her remarkable talents and literary successes is still fresh, and recalls the painful impression caused by her sad fate from shipwreck on Fire Island, when returning from Europe in 1850 with her husband and child.
It is said she could compose Latin verse when only eight years old. Her writings, much as they were admired, were not equal to her conversation, in which her wonderful brilliancy and force of expression came forth with full power, until the best talkers preferred to become listeners in her society. The story of her life has often been told, and constitutes one of the brightest as well as one of the saddest pages of our history.
The Washington Gardens extended to the corner of West Street. They were surrounded by a brick wall, a part of which
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is seen in the foreground of the view of the Haymarket in the frontispiece. A concert was announced here as early as 1815, by J. H. Shaffer. In 1819 an amphitheatre was erected within the grounds, which afterwards took the name of the Washing- ton Theatre. The managers of Federal Street were at first interested in this establishment, until it passed from their con- trol and became a rival. The house was adapted to the uses . of a circus as well as for a theatre, equestrian performances having been given in it a number of times. As such it appears to have been the first in Boston. Following the Old Drury and Haymarket, it had an English name, being called Vauxhall. A battalion of British troops is said to have been quartered in the grounds at the time of the occupation, when they were known as Greenleaf's Gardens.
The site of these gardens was the residence of Stephen Green- leaf, the old sheriff of Suffolk under the stormy administration of Governor Bernard. He was the same whose exploits at the Manufactory House have been chronicled. The sheriff was a confirmed royalist, but did not join in the hegira of that party from Boston. He died at the great age of ninety-one. After him it became the mansion of James Swan, who long lived in Paris, and was imprisoned in St. Pelagie for many years.
The reader will obtain from the frontispiece an excellent idea of what the district embraced between West and Boylston Streets was in 1798. At the lower corner of West Street was the Haymarket. Beyond, at the south corner of Mason Street, was Hatch's Tavern, with Frothingham's carriage factory in the rear ; farther on is seen the Old Haymarket Theatre, and, at the corner of Boylston Street, the residence of William Foster, where now the Hotel Pelham stands. In the right foreground is the West Street entrance to the Common ; the trees receding along the mall disclose the river beyond, whose breezes then fanned and invigorated the habitués of the spot. The picture is from a water-color by Robertson, once the property of John . Howard Payne, now in possession of the Public Library. The Whipping-Post and Pillory were situated near the West Street gate after their removal from State Street.
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Long before the Revolution, as early as 1722, a free school was established in what is now Mason Street, near the corner of West. It was then on the boundary of the Common, the land now lying between having been sold off from it. The school was called the South Writing, was the fourth in the town, and has, in later times, been known as the Adams School. The Common extended to Mason Street since 1800.
A gun-house stood at the corner of West Street at the begin- ning of the Revolution, separated by a yard from the school- house. In this gun-house were kept two brass three-pounders , belonging to Captain Adino Paddock's train. These pieces had been recast from two old guns sent by the town to London for that purpose, and had the arms of the province engraved upon them. They arrived in Boston in 1768, and were first used at the celebration of the King's birthday, June 4, when a salute was fired in King Street. Both school and gun-house are con- nected with a celebrated event.
Major Paddock had expressed an intention of surrendering these guns to Governor Gage. The mechanics, who composed this company, resolved that it should not be so. The British general had begun to seize the military stores of the province and disarm the inhabitants. Accordingly, the persons engaged in the plot met in the school-room ; and when the attention of the sentinel stationed at the door of the gun-house was taken off by roll-call, they crossed the yard, entered the building, and, removing the guns from their carriages, carried them to the school-room, where they were concealed in a box in which fuel was kept.
The loss of the guns was soon discovered, and search made, in which the school did not escape. The master placed his lame foot upon the box, and it was not disturbed. Several of the boys were privy to the affair, but made no sign. Besides the schoolmaster, Abraham Holbrook, Nathaniel Balch, Samuel Gore, Moses Grant, Jeremiah Gridley, - Whiston, and some others executed this coup de main.
Loring's account says the guns remained a fortnight in the school-room. At the end of that time they were taken in a
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wheelbarrow at night and carried to Whiston's blacksmith's shop at the South End, and deposited under the coal. From here they were taken to the American lines in a boat. The guns were in actual service during the whole war. After the peace the State of Massachusetts applied to Congress for their restoration, which was granted by a resolve passed May 19, 1788, in which General Knox, Secretary at War, was directed to place a suitable inscription upon them. The two guns were called the " Hancock " and " Adams," and were in charge of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, until presented, in 1825, by the State to the Bunker Hill Monument Associa- tion. They are now to be seen in the chamber at the top of Bunker Hill Monument. The inscription. except the name, is the same on each : -
The Hancock : Sacred to Liberty. This is one of four cannon, which constituted the whole train of Field Artillery possessed by the British Colonies of North America at the commencement of the war, on the 19th of April, 1775. This cannon and its fellow, belonging to a number of citizens of Boston, were used in many engagements during the war. The other two, the property of the Government of Massachusetts, were taken by the enemy. By order of the United States in Congress assembled, May 19, 1788.
The two guns referred to as captured by the enemy were concealed in a stable belonging to a house on the south side of Court Street, near the Court House. They were taken out over the Neck in a cart loaded with manure, driven by a negro ser- vant of George Minot, a Dorchester farmer. Thus the four guns belonging to the province escaped the clutches of Gage. The
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two last referred to were some time in possession of the Dor- chester Artillery.
Colonnade Row, a uniform range of twenty-four brick build- ings, was constructed in 1811, and occupied by the élite of Boston society. Each house had, or was intended to have, a row of freestone columns in front supporting a piazza, - hence the name. In 1824, after the visit of Lafayette, Amos Law- rence and other occupants of the row petitioned to have Colonnade Row called Fayette Place, but it failed to receive official sanction, though it continued to be so called by the resi- , dents. At the same time the name of South Allen Street was changed to Fayette Street. But few of the buildings in the row retain their original appearance, inexorable trade having demanded and obtained admittance into this stronghold of Boston aristocracy. A more plebeian appellation of the block was " Cape Cod Row," either from the antecedents of some of the dwellers, or their traffic in the staple of the Commonwealth.
The Lowells have been a distinguished family in Massachu- setts, from Revolutionary times to the present day. Judge Lowell was a delegate to the Congress of 1782-83, and was appointed by Washington Judge of the United States District Court at its organization. The judge will ever be remembered as the member of the convention which framed the State Con- stitution, where, as one of the committee to draft that in- strument, he inserted in the "Bill of Rights" the clause declaring that "all men are born free and equal," with the avowed purpose of abolishing slavery in the Commonwealth.
Rev. Charles Lowell, of the West Church, was a son of Judge Lowell, who first studied law in Boston before he took up theology. Our distinguished contemporary poet, James Russell Lowell, is a son of the clergyman. Another of the sons of the Revolutionary judge was Francis Cabot Lowell, to whom, more than any other, belongs the credit of establishing the Waltham cotton factory, the precursor of the Lowell works. The city of Lowell was named for him. It was his son, John Lowell, Jr., who founded by his will the Lowell Institute.
At No. 19 of the Colonnade resided John Lowell, son of the
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judge of Revolutionary antecedents. Mr. Lowell acquired fame as a political writer, wielding a trenchant pen. As an opponent of the "Last War,"-as that of 1812 was long called, - he obtained considerable celebrity under his nom de plume of the " Boston Rebel," from the boldness and severity with which he attacked the administration. He refused office, deeming the post of honor the private station, but is remembered as a founder of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Athenaeum, Savings Bank, and the Hospital Life Insurance Company. He built a brick house in School Street, occupied for lawyers' offices, on the ground now open in front of the City Hall.
The Massachusetts Medical College, an appendage of Harvard University, was at one time situated in Mason Street, imme- diately behind Colonnade Row. It was a brick edifice, with a. pediment raised above the central portion. A dome, with bal- ustrade, surmounted the whole. The double tier of windows were enclosed in arches rising the whole height of the building. Taken altogether, its external aspect might be called ugly. Within, the central building was occupied by an anatomical museum, with a laboratory underneath ; the lecture-room was in the south wing.
Untold horrors were associated with this building in the minds of the urchins who frequented the adjoining school-house. Its contiguity to the Common Burying-Ground, too, seemed to savor of a strong union between demand and supply. The professors were regarded in the neighborhood as so many ogres, and the students as no better than vampires. They ate their oysters or passed the jest over the dissecting-table with a sang- froid simply horrible to the uninitiated. An instance is re- membered of a student, who went to pass the evening at a friend's house, taking a dead woman's arm, which he coolly unwrapped from a newspaper to the affright of his hostess. The college was removed to the West End, where it has ac- quired a fearful notoriety in connection with a well-remembered tragedy enacted there.
The Haymarket Theatre stood next south of Colonnade Row. This was an immense structure of wood, erected in 1796, and
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opened December 26, of that year, by Powell, of the Federal Street. Powell had fallen out with the proprietors of the latter house, and the Haymarket was built by his friends. It was designed to accommodate the middling interest, but the town could not support two theatres. The property proved a poor speculation, and was demolished after standing six years only. The huge structure was said to have been the largest and best- arranged theatre in America ; while it stood it was a source of terror to the neighborhood from its liability to take fire. No other theatrical enterprise was started in Boston until the Washington Garden entertainments, in 1819.
The Haymarket opened with the " Belle's Stratagem." Mr. J. A. Dickson, afterwards of the Federal Street, appeared on the boards here for the first time. He became, after his retirement from the stage, a well-known merchant in Cornhill, and accu- mulated a handsome fortune. Dickson was the first agent in this country of Day and Martin's blacking. Mrs. Darley made her début at this theatre as Narcissa in "Inkle and Yarico." There were a pit, gallery, and three tiers of boxes, with a hand- some saloon and minor conveniences for the audience. Mr. and Mrs. G. L. Barrett also appeared at this house, the latter making her début as Mrs. Beverly in the "Gamester." The following was the bill on the opening night at the Haymarket : -
BELLE'S STRATAGEM.
Doricourt,
S. Powell.
Sir George Touchwood,
Marriott.
Flutter,
C. Powell.
Saville,
J. H. Dickson.
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