USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston.. > Part 32
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
guished pastor of the First Church, was laid out in 1807, over a part of the estate of Ebenezer Preble, brother of Commodore Edward, a leading merchant of Boston, and at one time a partner of William Gray. Mr. Preble's house was on the lower corner of what is now Chauncy Street. The estate of the First Church adjoined on the west.
We have noticed the residence in this street of Daniel Web- ster, which the stranger may find without trouble, and will not pass without rendering silent homage to the matchless abilities of that great man. Mr. Webster cared little for money, and was sometimes pressed by his creditors. On one occasion he was dunned by a needy tradesman for a trifling sum, and, after emptying his pockets in vain, he bade his visitor wait until he could call on a friend near at hand for the money. The loan was no sooner asked than obtained ; but at his own door Mr. Webster was met by an application from another friend for a deserving charity, to whom he gave the money he had bor- rowed, and returned empty-handed to his creditor. r
When Mr. Webster received Lafayette after the ceremonies at Bunker Hill, to give éclat to the occasion and accommodate the numerous and distinguished company, a door was made con- necting with the adjoining house of Mr. Israel Thorndike.
The bullet which the Marquis received in his leg at Brandy- wine was the occasion of a graceful compliment by President John Quincy Adams. A new frigate was ready to launch at Washing- ton, in which it was intended Lafayette should take passage for France, and, when all was ready, the President, who had kept his purpose a secret from every one, himself christened her the Bran- dywine, to the surprise of Commodore Tingey and the naval constructor, who supposed she would be called the Susquehanna.
The impression has obtained that Boston ceased to be a gar- risoned town after the evacuation by Sir William Howe, and the departure of the great body of our own troops for New York. This is very far from being the case. The command of the town was first assumed by Putnam, was transferred to Greene, and finally remained with General Ward, whose age and infirmity prevented his taking the field actively. The
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camps at Cambridge and Roxbury continued to be the rendez- vous of the new levies. The town of Boston was the head- quarters of the Eastern District, with a regular garrison. James Urquhart, the British town-major, was succeeded by an American officer, Major Swasey, with the same title. Colonel Keith was deputy adjutant-general under Heath.
General Ward was relieved by General Heath in 1777, and retired from the army. General Heath established his head- quarters at the mansion-house of Hon. Thomas Russell, which stood some distance back from Summer Street, about where Otis Street now is. Here the General entertained D'Estaing, Pulaski, Silas Deane, Burgoyne, Phillips, and Riedesel. It was the fortune of General Heath to command in Boston while the prisoners from Saratoga and Bennington remained at Cambridge, and he was soon engaged in a petit guerre with Burgoyne. Soon after the arrival of the convention troops, Phillips proposed to General Heath that all orders affecting the prisoners should be transmitted through their own generals, but the American com- mander was not disposed to thus delegate his authority.
Heath was succeeded by General Gates in October, 1778, who arrived with his wife and suite on the 6th of that month and assumed the command. Gates, like Washington and Gage, had served in the campaign of Braddock, where he was severely wounded, and brought off the field by a soldier for whom he ever after entertained an affectionate regard. Gates was then a captain in the British army, and his preserver was a private in the royal artillery, named Penfold. The old soldier, having been invalided, desired to remain in America, and applied to Gates for his advice. We give a part of the reply, which does honor to the heart and memory of Gates : -
"Come and rest your firelock in my chimney-corner, and partake with me ; while I have, my savior Penfold shall not want ; and it is my wish, as well as Mrs. Gates's, to see you spend the evening of your life comfortably. Mrs. Gates desires to be affectionately remembered to you."
Boston can thus boast of having been commanded by the ablest generals on either side of the Revolutionary struggle.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
General Gates was said to have lived at one time with his father in the service of Charles, Duke of Bolton. ] It was his fortune to have achieved the greatest victory of the Revolution at Sara- toga, and sustained the most complete defeat at Camden, of any officer commanding in that war.
The Russell mansion was afterwards occupied as a public house by Leon Chappotin. Jerome Bonaparte, after his mar- riage with Miss Patterson at Baltimore, made a visit to Boston, and lodged here for a time. It will be recollected that this marriage was never sanctioned by the Emperor. Otis Place, now Street, was laid out through the estate of Sir William Pepperell.
The Sir William Pepperell of our notice was the grandson of the captor of Louisburg, and son of Colonel Nathaniel Spar- hawk. By the tenor of his grandfather's ,will, which made him the residuary legatee of the baronet's possessions, he was re- quired to change his name to Pepperell. This was done by an act of the Massachusetts Legislature. The baronetcy became extinct with the decease of the elder Sir William, and was re- created by the king for the benefit of his grandson in 1774. The younger Sir William was a stanch friend of the mother country, and was one of the King's Mandamus Councillors in 1774. He left America with the Royalists in 1775, and his large estates in Boston and in Maine were confiscated.
At No. 8 Otis Place lived Nathaniel Bowditch, so long Actuary of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company in Boston. Born in poverty, after serving an apprenticeship to a ship-chandler until he was twenty-one, and following the sea for a number of years, he published in 1800, before he was thirty, his work on navigation. His commentary on the cele- brated Mécanique Céleste of Laplace established his fame as one of the leading scientific minds of either the Old or New World. His son, Nathaniel Ingersoll, had improved an anti- quarian taste by exhaustive researches among the records of the town and colony, and the articles from his pen under the sig- nature of " Gleaner " were of the greatest interest to all students of our local history. His contemporary " Sigma ". (L. M. Sar-
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gent), wielded in the same cause a brilliant and caustic pen, investing the characters of the dead past with life and action.
At the corner of Winthrop and Otis Place was the residence of George Bancroft in 1840, at which time he was Collector of the port of Boston. His History of the United States, begun in 1834 and just completed, is the most extensive work on that subject now extant. Mr. Bancroft entered the cabinet of President Polk as Secretary of the Navy in 1845, establishing, while at the head of his bureau, the Naval Academy at Anna- polis. He is now our minister at Berlin.
The estate at the southwest corner of Summer and Chaun- cy Streets was the property of the First Church, having been conveyed to it in 1680. The greater part of the original place was laid out over the church estate to gain access to the church, which was placed upon that part of the ground in the rear of Summer Street formerly the garden of the parsonage. Four brick dwellings were built on the Summer Street front by Benjamin Joy in 1808. Before this took place the ground was occupied by the parsonage. One of the pastors who filled the pulpit after the removal to this locality was William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the essayist and poet. His ministrations continued from 1799 to 1811, and he had the distinction of preaching the first sermon here.
After sixty years' service, the house in Chauncy Place was deserted by the society for the new and elegant temple at the corner of Marlborough and Berkeley Streets, which was occu -- pied December, 1868. An enduring relic of the " Old Brick " church remains in a slab of slate taken from beneath a window in the second story, south side, on which is inscribed, -
" Burned to ashes October 3, 1711. Rebuilding June 25th. 1712. July 20, 1713."
The Post-Office occupied this corner in 1859, at which time Nahum Capen was postmaster ; but remained only until the next year, the site not being considered an eligible one.
By the year 1728 King's Chapel could not accommodate its numerous parishioners at the south part of the town, and steps were taken to build an Episcopal church at the corner of Haw-
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
ley and Summer Streets. The corner-stone was not laid, how- ever, until 1734, when Mr. Commissary Price of King's Chapel officiated at this ceremony. The next year it was opened for worship. Among the first officers we find the familiar names of Charles Apthorp, Benjamin Faneuil, Philip Dumaresq, William Coffin, and Thomas Aston. Rev. Addington Daven- port, a brother-in-law of Peter Faneuil, who had been an assistant at King's Chapel in 1737, was the first rector of Trinity.
The first building was of wood. It was ninety feet long, and sixty broad, without any external adornment.
OLD TRINITY CHURCH.
It had neither tower nor stee- ple, nor win- dows in the low- er story of the front. There were three en- trances in front unprotected by porches. The interior was composed of an arch resting up- on Corinthian
pillars with
handsomely carved and gilded capitals. In the chancel were
some paintings, considered very beautiful in their day. Taken altogether, Trinity might boast the handsomest interior of any church in Boston of its time. In 1828 it was supplanted by the granite edifice seen in our view on the opposite page, Rev. John S. J. Gardiner laying the corner-stone. Trinity, like the other Episcopal churches, has tombs underneath it.
We do not learn that Trinity received any special marks of royal favor, such as were shown to its predecessors, King's Chapel and Christ Church. To the former the king and queen (William and Mary) gave, besides the communion plate, a pul- pit-cloth, a cushion, and a painting which reached from the top
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FROM CHURCH GREEN TO LIBERTY TREE.
to the bottom of the east end of the church, containing the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed. But Governor Shirley, who had so liberally aided the Chapel, gave Trinity a service for communion, table-cloths, and books. Peter Faneuil had in 1741 offered £ 100 towards an organ, but one was not procured until 1744.
When General Washington was in Boston in 1789 he passed the Sabbath here, and went to hear Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Parker in the forenoon, and to Brattle Street in the afternoon, where he sat in Governor Bowdoin's pew.
Curiously enough, Trinity Church occupies the site of the old " Pleiades " or " Seven Star Inn," from which Sum- mer Street took its ancient name of Seven Star Lane. There was another sign of the same name displayed by TRINITY CHURCH IN 1872. William Whitwell, a tradesman near the drawbridge, in 1763.
Peter Faneuil occupied pew No. 40 in Old Trinity. We may easily picture him descending from his chariot on a Sun-
Eter Vaneur de
day morning while his negro coachman assists him to alight. We doubt not the heads of the young Boston belles were turned towards the wealthy bachelor as he advanced up the aisle to his devotions. His good brother Davenport no doubt enjoyed those perquisites so pleasantly referred to by Pope when he says, -
" He that hath these may pass his life, Drink with the 'squire, and kiss his wife ; On Sundays preach, and eat his fill ; And fast on Fridays, -if he will ;
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
Toast Church and Queen, explain the news, Talk with church-wardens about pews, Pray heartily for some new gift, And shake his head at Dr. Swift."
The corner of Hawley Street, next below Trinity, will be remembered as the estate of Governor James Sullivan and of Lieutenant-Governor Gray.
Governor Sullivan was the brother of the Revolutionary general ; was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1807, and re-elected in 1808. He had been a member of the Massachu- setts Provincial Congress ; Judge of the Superior Court ; and Delegate to Congress in 1784, from the District of Maine where he then resided. Mr. Sullivan was also a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and one of the Commissioners ap- pointed by Washington to settle the boundary between the United States and British Provinces. William Sullivan, son of the governor, was a distinguished lawyer and scholar. He was a stanch Federalist, and wrote an able vindication of that, party.
When Governor Sullivan was before the people as a candi- date, it is said a caricature appeared in the Centinel reflecting severely upon his integrity. His son, Richard Sullivan, way- laid Benjamin Russell, the editor, in the vicinity of Scollay's Buildings, as he was proceeding to the office from his residence in Pinckney Street, and after demanding of Russell if he was responsible for all that appeared in his paper, and receiving an affirmative answer, struck him a blow across the face with his cane, leaving Russell staggered by the violence and suddenness of the attack.
The elder Levi Lincoln was lieutenant-governor with Gov- ernor Sullivan, and on his decease became acting governor. His son Levi was lieutenant-governor in 1823, and governor in 1825- 34. Another son, Enoch, was governor of Maine in 1827-29. On the decease of their mother, Martha Lincoln, her remains were followed to the grave by her two sons, then chief magistrates of two States.
Joseph Barrell, whom we have mentioned in our view of Franklin Street, was one of the foremost of the old merchants
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of Boston. His name stands first on the list of directors of the Old United States Bank, in company with John Codman, Caleb Davis, Christopher Gore, John Coffin Jones, John Low- ell, Theodore Lyman, Jonathan Mason, Jr., Joseph Russell, Jr., David Sears, Israel Thorndike, and William Wetmore.
It is related that a person carried to a bank in Pennsylvania some bills which that bank had issued, and demanded gold and silver for them. He was answered that the bank did not pay gold or silver. "Give me, then," said he, " bills of the United States Bank." "We have none." "Then give me bills on any bank in New England." "We have none of these." "Pay me, then, in the best counterfeit bills you have."
The reader will perhaps experience some incredulity when he is told that, before the discovery of the present mode of vaccina- tion, small-pox parties were among the fashionable gatherings of Old Boston." The guests were inoculated, and withdrew for a time from the world. An invitation of this kind appears in the following extract from a letter of Joseph Barrell, dated July 8, 1776 :-
" Mr. Storer has invited Mrs. Martin to take the small-pox at his house : if Mrs. Wentworth desires to get rid of her fears in the same way, we will accommodate her in the best way we can. I've several friends that I've invited, and none of them will be more welcome than Mrs. W." *
Joseph Barrell occupied store No. 3, south side of the Town Dock, where he advertised brown sugar, double and treble re- fined, looking-glasses, wine, oil, etc.
He was the owner of the triangular estate at the junction of Washington with Brattle Street, of which he gave a portion to the town for the widening of the latter.
The fine granite structure of the Messrs. Hovey stands on the site of the old-time mansion of the Vassalls, erected by Leonard Vassall, whose son William built the house on Pem- berton Hill, afterwards the residence of Gardiner Greene. Thomas Hubbard, who preceded Hancock as Treasurer of Har- vard College, and Frederick Geyer, who left Boston with the
* Brewster's Portsmouth.
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
adherents of the crown, were subsequent proprietors ; as the estate of the latter it was confiscated, but was subsequently restored.
When the Duke of Kent, son of George III., and father of Victoria, the reigning Queen of England, was in Boston, he was present at the wedding of Nancy W. Geyer, who married Rufus G. Amory. Prince Edward, as he was then styled, did not in- cline to visit Lieutenant-Governor Samuel Adams.
South of the Vassall-Geyer property was the estate of John Rowe, whose house-subsequently that of Judge Prescott, father of the historian - stood upon the spot lately occupied by Dr. Robbins's Church in Bedford Street, opposite the English High and Latin Schools. A wharf and street once handed down the name of Rowe, - as true a friend to his country as any whose names have reached a greater renown, - but the wharf alone retains this title. Rowe Street, which was given to and accepted by the city on condition that it should be so called, has be- come since 1856 absorbed in Chauncey Street, that part lying between Bedford and Summer Streets having been previous to this divided by an iron fence, the southerly portion being known as Bedford and the northerly as Chauncey Place.
Bidding adieu to Summer Street, we pause for a moment at what was formerly Bethune's Corner, where now are the glit- tering shop-windows of Shreve, Crump, and Low, and where a ceaseless human tide, crossing the narrow street, struggles with the passing vehicles. From the old mansion-house of Thomas English, which stood here, was buried Benjamin Faneuil.
Looking in the direction of the Old South, a little north of Summer Street, was the reputed residence of Sir Edmund An- dros, who dwelt, it is said, in an old house which disappeared about 1790, and which stood nearly on the spot now occupied by W. H. Allen, 216 Washington Street. This tradition ex- isted early in the present century, and may have been true, though it could not have been the habitation of the knight when Lady Andros, to whose funeral we have referred in a former chapter, died. Andros was governor of New England only three years. We know that his country-seat was at
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Dorchester, - it was still standing in 1825, - and there is abundant evidence that he lived in Boston, but none that we are aware of, that he owned an estate here. Though a change of residence was less common among the old inhabitants of Boston than at the present day, it was no anomaly.
Earl Bellomont, writing to the Lords of Trade from Boston, in 1698, says he paid £ 100 a year for a house, besides his charge for a stable, and continues in the following strain :-
" It is for the King's honour that his Governour have a house ; there is a very good house plot where Sir Edmund Andros lived in the best part of the town. 'T is the least of their thoughts I doubt to build a house for the King's Governour."
This refers without doubt to Cotton Hill or the vicinity, which was then the best part of the town, and Andros only followed the example of Endicott, Bellingham, and Vane, when he located there. The region lying around Summer Street was then considered remote, and less than fifty years ago, when Ann Bent kept a little shop on the spot where the despotic old dragoon of Prince Rupert is said to have dwelt, her customers at the North End complained that she was too far out of town.
Threading our way through old Newbury Street with our face towards the south, we pass the old stand of Thomas and Andrews. As early as the great fire of 1711, Increase Mather says, there were seven booksellers' shops in Boston. In 1747 the Exchange (Old State House) was surrounded with book- sellers' shops, there being at the same time no less than five printing-offices in the town, which were generally well em- ployed, deriving their chief support from the colleges and schools of New England. At this time the Boston Gazette was printed twice a week. Thomas printed the Spy in " Union Street, near the market," "at the south corner of Marshall's Lane, leading from the Mill Bridge into Union Street," and " at the bottom of Royal Exchange Lane near the Market, Dock Square," besides Back Street, where the first number was probably printed.
We cannot pass by the neighborhood of Avon Street with-
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
out thinking of old Bartholomew Green and his News Letter, of Benjamin Church and his treachery, of Margaret Fuller and her untimely fate, any more than we can pass the Old South without thinking of the riding-school, or Bunker Hill Monu- ment without thinking of Prescott and Warren.
A group of taverns next claims our attention. The inns of Old London rendered up their names freely to their colonial imitators, and our older residents might drink their punch under the same signs they were used to frequent beneath the shadow of Old Saint Paul's. We have had no Johnson with his corner at the Mitre, no Dryden with his snug retreat at Will's Coffee-house, nor can we show any as famous as Button's, where Pope, Steele, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Addison were wont to assemble at "the best head in England "; but we have visited some where matters more serious than wit and sentiment were discussed, and where measures were digested more important to mankind.
We commend to our modern hotel-keepers the following ex- tract from a law enacted about 1649 : -
"Nor shall any take tobacco in any inne, or common victual house, except in a private room there, so as the master of said house nor any guest there shall take offence thereat ; which if any do, then such persons shall forbear, upon pain of two shillings and sixpence for every such offence."
We come first to the Adams House, which stands on the ground formerly occupied by the Lamb Tavern, sometimes styled the White Lamb. The " Lamb " was an unpretending building of two stories, but of good repute in Old Boston. The sign is noticed as early as 1746. Colonel Doty kept at the sign of the Lamb in 1760 ; Edward Kingman kept it in 1826 ; after which it was conducted successively by Laban Adams, for whom the house was named, father of " Oliver Optic " (W. T. Adams), and by A. S. Allen. The first stage-coach to Providence, advertised July 20, 1767, by Thomas Sabin, put up at the sign of the Lamb.
The White Horse Tavern was a few rods south of the Lamb, situated nearly opposite the mansion-house of Dr. Lemuel Hay- ward, physician and surgeon, from whose estate Hayward Place
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FROM CHURCH GREEN TO LIBERTY TREE.
is named. It had a large square sign projecting over the foot- way, on which was delineated a white charger. We find this tavern mentioned in 1794, and infer that it was the rendezvous of one of the companies of the Boston Regiment, as young Woodbridge came here for his sword before meeting Phillips on the Common. It was kept by Joseph Morton, father of Perez Morton, in 1760, and for a long time thereafter. In 1787 Israel Hatch became mine host ; we append his advertisement entire : -
TAKE NOTICE !
Entertainment for Gentlemen and Ladies At the White Horse Tavern, Newbury-Street.
My friends and travellers, you 'll meet With kindly welcome and good cheer, And what it is you now shall hear : A spacious house and liquors good, A man who gets his livelihood By favours granted ; hence he'll be Always smiling, always free : A good large house for chaise or chair, A stable well expos'd to air : To finish all, and make you blest, You 'll have the breezes from the west. And - ye, who flee th' approaching Sol, My doors are open to your call ; Walk in - and it shall be my care T'oblige the weary traveller. From Attleborough, Sirs, I came, Where once I did you entertain, And now shall here as there before Attend you at my open door,
Obey all orders with despatch, - Am, Sirs, your servant, ISRAEL HATCH. BOSTON, May 14, 1787.
Colonel Daniel Messinger, who was always in request to sing the odes on public occasions, commenced business near the Lamb Tavern in 1789. He was by trade a hatter, and had served an apprenticeship with Nathaniel Balch (Governor Han-
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LANDMARKS OF BOSTON.
cock's favorite) at 72 Old Cornhill. Colonel Messinger had a voice of great strength and purity, and had sung in presence of Washington, Lafayette, Jerome Bonaparte, and other distin- guished personages.
Another neighbor of the Lamb was the Lion Tavern, on the site of the present Melodeon. Its sign was the traditional British Lion, but it seems to have lived on terms of amity with its peaceful neighbor. The tavern at length passed into the possession of the Handel and Haydn Society, and was devoted to the performance of oratorios. This society organized 30th March, 1815, and first met at Graupner's Hall, Franklin Street. The original number of members was thirty-one, and their first public performance was given in King's Chapel, Christmas evening, 1815, when selections from the Creation, Messiah, etc. were given in presence of an audience of upwards of a thousand persons. The Lion was, in 1789, called the Turk's Head.
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