USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 7
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BOSTON.
The Province authorized Boston, in 1761, to establish a town police (4 Prov. Laws, 462). The theory had been that the town constable was the town policeman, that the constable might have officers to help him, and that where the constables proved insufficient the Colony or the Province must act, and that they would act by the militia. The theory broke down, because neither the Colony nor the Province was prepared or disposed to maintain a standing militia. After the theory had failed, the town of Boston was permitted to make what police arrangements it could. The chief difficulty was the cost. Well might the Province shrink from the cost of a police force for all Massachu- setts; but even a rich town that raised by lotteries the money required for paving the way to Roxbury, or for rebuilding Faneuil Hall, would have great difficulty in maintaining a standing police force such as it needed. In truth, the police of Provincial Boston was wretched. The first militia act of the Province, passed in 1693, provided for military watches, that is, for such night duty of the militia as the chief military officers of the town might order; and all males from sixteen to sixty years of age were liable to serve (1 Prov. Laws, 128). Of course, no- body was anxious to serve as night watchman, and pay his own ex- penses. In 1699, therefore, all towns were authorized to employ a night watch, with or without pay; but in case the watch was paid, the cost was assessed upon the ratepayers by the court of sessions (1. e., 381), although the law admitted the watch to be for the benefit and safety of the town, and the justices were not town officers. The act provided for a watch by night, and for a ward by day, including Sun- days; and to that extent marks the end of the constables' watch to- gether with the constables' character as general peace officers. The stately German marshal, and the French constable of higher rank, became in Massachusetts a beadle. And before the Province gave the authority, the town of Boston employed ten watchmen, to protect the inhabitants better by night than the constables did by day (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 231). To distinguish the new watch from the constables' watch and the bellmen (so called because they carried a bell to alarm the town in case of danger), the term "select watch " was used, the men being specially chosen or selected. In two years the new watch cost £265 per annum, and the amount was raised by special assessment (1. c., 232, 241, 243).
In 1:12, when Boston assumed the character of a provincial metrop- olis, its watchmen were given the powers of a modern police officer (1
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Prov. Laws, 699). On the whole, the arrangement worked well; it remained for a century and a half. When the British soldier came, to overawe revolutionary Boston, not only was the number of watchmen in- creased, but they received a new and efficient ally. In the annual town meeting of March 10, 1472, the town was asked to consider "the expediency of fixing lamps in proper parts of the town, for the better accommodation of the inhabitants." As usual in such cases, the mat- ter was referred to a committee. The committee recommended that three hundred lamps be put up, that the first cost be met by private subscription, and that the new department be maintained from the general tax levy. The lamps were bought by John Boylston in Lon- don, their cost was about five shillings sterling each, and within a year three hundred and ten street lamps were put up in all parts of Boston. Meanwhile the General Court had passed a good act giving the pro- ceeding the approval of law, and expressing the reasonable belief that the street lamps would help to prevent "fires, burglaries, robberies, thefts, and other lesser breaches of the peace " (5 Prov. Laws, 302; 18 Bost. Rec. Comm., 12, 115, 128, 135, 162-5). The intentions of the Province were that Boston should enter the Commonwealth properly lighted, and with all the appointments of a capital city. It had found the town unpaved, unlighted, and unguarded; it left Boston well paved, well lighted, and well protected. The town might have answered that it owed the Province very little, that it was in debt, that its streets were deserted, that a smallpox epidemic was more ritinous than a foreign army, and that the court of sessions had not been abolished. On one point Boston and Massachusetts were of one mind-that almost anything might be suffered to secure a free Commonwealth and a free town meeting. As soon as these were established-greatly surpass- ing the liberties of the ancient Colony-the miseries and shortcomings of the Provincial period were mercifully forgotten. Boston saw its darkest days in 1776: but the Boston of 1776 looked forward, and moved bravely onward.
The main sources for the constitutional and government history of Boston under the Province, from 1692 to 1776, are the " Acts and Re- solves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay," admirably edited, especially by A. C. Goodell, jr., and published by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 6 vols., Boston: 1869-92; and volumes ?, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18, also, 11, 13, 15, 14, 19, 20, and 23 of the Boston Record Com- missioners, published by the city of Boston.
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BOSTON.
COMMONWEALTH PERIOD OF THE TOWN, 1776 TO 1822.
The sources for the government history of Boston from 1776 to 1822 are not easy of access. The State laws, especially for the earlier part of the period, were not well printed, and are rarely found in a com- plete set. The Secretary of State has begun to reprint them from 1280 to 1806. For many purposes the edition of the General Laws, from 1480 to 1822, edited by Metcalf, will suffice (Boston, 1823, 2 vols .. 8vo.). The special laws for the same period have been published in five volumes, and exceed the general laws in local interest. The town- meeting records for the period exceed in bulk the entire period from 1634, when they began, to 1716, being the larger part of the ten volumes in the custody of the Boston City Clerk. The records of the town meetings are printed up to 1478. Of the twenty-three volumes containing the minutes of the selectmen, from 1401 to 1822, the publi- cation ends in vol. 15, with April 19, 1445. The records of the school committee, the assessors, and of a miscellaneous nature, are all in manuscript. Those in the possession of the Overseers of the Poor are important, as they cover a constitutional conflict between the town or city and the board. The records of the court of sessions are in the office of the clerk for the Supreme Court of Suffolk county. The town printed much, and most of this is lost. But the editions of the By-Laws issued in 1786, 1801, and 1818, are useful, as each undertook to give all the bylaws and the important acts of the General Court relating to Boston. The edition of 1818 is specially helpful. For the period from 1746 to 1780, when the Massachusetts Constitution was adopted, the fifth volume of the Province Laws, edited by A. C. Goodell, Jr., is a storehouse that supplies everything, as far as the General Court is concerned. Of private writers on the government of Boston from 1476 to 1822, Josiah Quincy's "Municipal History " is interesting, in that it rests largely upon direct knowledge. He had been the orator of Boston on July 4, 1798. From 1823 to 1828 he was mayor.
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
In 1733 the Boston Town Meeting presented elaborate reasons why Suffolk county should not be reduced, and why Dedham in particular should not be set off (12 Boston Rec. Comm., 50). When the Province became a State, Suffolk county comprised twenty towns: Boston, Rox- bury, Dorchester, Milton, Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Dedham,
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Medfield, Wrentham, Brookline, Needham, Stoughton, Stoughtonham, Medway, Bellingham, Hull, Walpole, Chelsea, and Cohasset. The county was more than a district for the administration of justice: it had large executive powers over each town, as Boston knew to its sorrow. The bill of rights had laid down the principle that "in the government of this Commonwealth the judicial [department] shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws, and not of men." This principle, best vindicated by John Adams, was violated in Boston throughout the period under discussion, the county judges having the veto power over all town bylaws, the power to grant liquor licenses, the assessment of county taxes, the appointment of certain local officers, the permitting of Sunday funerals, the right to discontinue highways, and the locating of distilleries, potteries, and slaughterhouses. The county, to which their jurisdiction extended, was large, and Boston in particular kept the court of sessions busy. Boston had always wished to be a separate county, and in 1793 Norfolk county was established, taking every Suffolk town, except Boston and Chelsea (1 Gen. Laws, 423). It was found proper to restore Hingham and Hull to Suffolk (1. c., 426); but in 1803 they were set off to Plymouth county (? Gen. Laws, 80). Suffolk county, then, was reduced to its smallest size, which remained until 1804, when South Boston was added. The next addition to Suffolk, of Roxbury, was not made until 1868. When Norfolk county was established in 1793, it had more inhabitants than Suffolk. In 1790 Suffolk County had a population of 44,815, of whom 18,320 were in Boston. Of the total 23,878 were set off to Norfolk county, and 20,991 remained in Suffolk, including Hingham and Hull. In 1820 Suffolk county had a population of 43,890, against 36,471 in Norfolk county. The population of Boston, in 1820, was 43, 298.
It is not clear whether the authors of the Massachusetts Constitution and the General Court considered the justices of the peace and the court of sessions executive or judicial officers (Constit., part ii, ch. iii, art. 3; amendm. S). It is certain that they did both judicial and administrat- ive work, and natural that neither was well done. The Constitution of 1480, which is still in force, provided that judicial officers should serve during good behavior, but excepted justices of the peace, on the ground that they might fail to discharge the important duties of their office "with ability or fidelity " (Const. of Mass., III, 1 and 3). Ac- cordingly they were appointed for seven years. Their authority, in
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the period under discussion, was great. In 1784 the General Court authorized them to determine civil causes up to twenty dollars, and expressly took such cases away from the Court of Common Pleas, save in appeal (1 Gen. Laws, 123). In 1808 the act was renewed (? Gen. Laws, 184). Their criminal jurisdiction was even more extensive, as all offenders were supposed to be brought first before a justice of the peace (1 Gen. Laws, 133). Fines for the violation of town and other laws were imposed by justices of the peace, who accounted for these fines annually to the town, county, or State treasury concerned. The justices were paid by the fees they collected. In addition, they exer- cised executive power, as a sort of check upon the selectmen. Most of the justices of the peace were laymen, and their judicial work was not good. Accordingly all civil jurisdiction was taken away from them in 1822, in the act that formed part of the city charter (? Gen. Laws, 585).
The justices of the peace together formed the court of sessions, which had original jurisdiction in criminal matters. But the act of July 3, 1782, which continued the Province court of sessions (1 Prov. Laws, 36?), omitted the quorum clause that required certain justices, or any one of them, to make the proceedings in the sessions complete. An appeal lay from the court of sessions to the Supreme Court (1 Gen. Laws, 68). The act of June 19, 1807, required the court of sessions for Suffolk county, at that time one of the smaller counties, to consist of a chief justice and four associates (? Gen. Laws, 121). This ruled the justices of the peace out of the court they could not dignify, and the members of the court were relieved of the duty, previously exer- cised, of assisting in the administrative work of laying out or discon- tinuing highways. None the less the court of sessions was abolished in 1809, and its power transferred to the Court of Common Pleas, which thus became a court with administrative duties attached to it (2 Gen. Laws, 208); but in 1811 the court of sessions was revived, and continued until Boston became a city (1. c., 295, 587). Its adminis- trative power was then transferred to the mayor and aldermen, at that time one board. The criminal jurisdiction was transferred to the police court, of three judges, who sat also as a justices' court, and as such inherited the entire civil jurisdiction previously vested in justices of the peace. It was the commingling of purely administrative work with judicial duties that impaired the usefulness of the ancient court of sessions. In town matters the court of sessions or the county justices, all paid by fees, could check many things the town or its selectmen
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were ready to do; and a judiciary living on fees was not likely to win confidence. A court without the confidence of the community is a failure where failure is most unfortunate.
To give relief, especially in prosecuting the violations of town laws, the General Court established, in 1800, the Municipal Court of Boston (? Gen. Laws, 26). It consisted of a salaried judge, who had the same criminal jurisdiction as the court of sessions, and was to take special "cognizance of all crimes and offenses against the by-laws of the town." In addition, the town was authorized to choose annually a town attorney, who was to prosecute in behalf of the town, and was allowed a salary. In 1813 the original jurisdiction of this Municipal Court was extended to all crimes in Suffolk county ; meantime the town attorney had become a county attorney (1. c., 328, 112). The field of the court of sessions was thus encroached upon in every direction, until in 1822 the anomaly of having a sort of lay court for judicial and ex- ecutive work was got rid of, to the profit of the law courts and the administrative interests of the town. The higher courts, being the Court of Common Pleas and the Supreme Court, had law judges only, and worked well. . The Court of Common Pleas heard civil cases in- volving more than forty shillings (1 Gen. Laws, 67); and in 1814 the Boston Court of Common Pleas was authorized to try minor cases with- out a jury (? Gen. Laws, 352). This was called the Town Court, which became a separate court in 1818 (1. c., 444), held by a special justice of the peace. The town judge for civil actions, together with the Boston Court of Common Pleas, which had added to its duties the hearing of certain criminal matters, was swept away by the act of February 14, 1821, establishing a Court of Common Pleas for the Commonwealth (1. c., 551). This court was to become, in 1859, the Superior Court.
The main reason why Roston became a city is not so much the fact that the town had become too large for a government by town meet- ing, selectmen, and other town officers, although this reason was strong, as the very serious fact that the town suffered because the county authorities, especially the justices, failed to do well what town business was by law entrusted to them, and because the administration of justice was bad, especially where the violation of town laws was in- volved. On December 10, 1821, a report commonly attributed to Lemuel Shaw, who was Chief Justice of the State from 1830 to 1860, urged the town to become a city for the double purpose of improving the administration of justice and the prudentials. In support of the
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BOSTON.
former this language was used: "The present mode of administering justice in its first stages is attended with many growing abuses; and though they have already attained to a very considerable extent, they must, unless prevented by an entire change in the system, produce eventually the most mischievous and immoral consequences." The report demanded two acts of the General Court, the town joined, and it is chapter 109 in connection with chapter 110 of the acts of 1821- both were signed on February 23, 1822-that made Boston a city, with some approach to autonomy, and without a court of sessions. The General Court reserved the right to annul bylaws made by the town ; but that was relief from the approval previously vested in the court of sessions. The town meeting was reluctant to ask for its own extinc- tion; the question whether the court of sessions should be abolished, received the support of 4,557 votes, with but 257 opposed (Quincy, Munic. History, 33). The people of Boston were not convinced that town government was a failure; they were convinced that the com- mingling of town business with the administration of justice was a mistake the consequences of which were as unfortunate as they were notorious. Had it not been for the hope of establishing justice in town matters where a court alone could establish justice, and where the justices of the peace, jointly and severally, had failed to establish so much as reasonable justice, the town would not have voted, on January ", 1822, that the " Town of Boston " should be changed to the "City of Boston." The proposals of 1784, 1792, 1804, and 1815, while favor- ing the adoption of a city charter, had failed to ask for reform where it was most urgently needed. This reform came in 1822, when Boston was made a city, in order that the judiciary should not exercise legis- lative and executive powers, or either of them. The city of Boston would have fared better still had the thirtieth article in the Declaration of Rights been applied in its full meaning and in all its consequences to the instrument known as our first city charter. But the charter was a great step forward, in that it limited and defined executive and judicial powers for the city of Boston and its government.
AREA AND POPULATION OF BOSTON.
In Colony and Province days it was customary to speak of Boston " within the neck," meaning the peninsula on which the capital of Mas- sachusetts is situate. This peninsula consisted of several parts. The old north end was separated from the centre of the town by a navigable
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creek or canal, since changed to Blackstone street, which was not built until after Boston became a city. Originally this canal was about six hundred feet long, the present Haymarket square and the junction of North and Blackstone streets being covered by the tide. The easiest road to Charlestown ferry was through Sudbury street, which is also the earliest street in Boston with a definite name attached to it (7 Bost. Rec. Comm., 3). The streets through the old north end to the Charles- town ferry were built later, and at great expense. The strip of land that connected the peninsula proper with Roxbury and the main land, was about two hundred feet wide at the present junction of Washington and Dover streets. But the territory of Boston extended beyond, the bound- aries toward Roxbury being two creeks that emptied respectively into the Back Bay and the South Bay (11 Bost. Rec. Comm., 80). Kendall and Arnold streets were in Boston, but the south end (south of Dover street) was not generally settled until after Boston had become a city. Boston west of Sudbury street, at that time called New Boston, was not generally occupied until the latter part of the Province period. Boston had become a narrow town as early as 1740, for East Boston failed to attract population until quick and sure communication by steam was established. The necessity of more room was felt as soon as Boston recovered from the ravages of the Revolution. By 1790 it had 18,038 inhabitants, not counting the islands. In 1800 this population was 24,655; in 1810, 32,896. In 1820 the population of Boston proper, not counting East Boston, South Boston, and the islands, was about 42,000. For the accommodation of such a population the old peninsula proved insufficient. Charlestown offered some opportunity for relief ; but communication with Charlestown was not easy, it was an inde- pendent municipality, and the system of separating the business and residence sections of a community had not forced itself upon atten- tion.
Some relief was had by the great bridges built in the period under consideration. The first of these was the Charles-River bridge, from the foot of Prince street to Charlestown, opened to travel on June 17, 1786. On November 23, 1793, the great bridge from the foot of Cam- bridge street in Boston, to Cambridge, was opened to travel. Until these great works were achieved, the only bridge over the lower part of Charles river was the "Great Bridge," from the foot of North Har- vard street, in Brighton, to Cambridge (4 Mass. Rec., part I, 470; 1 Prov. Laws, 158, 383). It was first built in Colony days, apparently in
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1662, and as late as 1833 the towns of West Cambridge (Arlington) and Lexington petitioned the General Court that they might be relieved of contributing toward the support of this interesting structure, which for more than a hundred and thirty years was the only highway connecting Boston with Cambridge, except by the Charlestown route. From Bos- ton the bridge was reached via Roxbury and Brookline. The bridges of 1786 and 1793 made travel easier, but did not relieve the growing population of Boston. For this purpose South Boston, known as Dor- chester Neck, was transferred, in 1804, from Dorchester to Boston. South Boston now covers 1300 acres ; in 1804 it covered less than half that area. But a bridge to South Boston (now Dover street bridge, originally the Boston South bridge) was opened to travel on August 6, 1805 (3 Spec. Laws, 368, 371), and a second bridge was immediately proposed. Before this was built, it was found best to encroach upon the South Bay by filling the area south of Beach, and east of Washington street (1. c. 375). This district is called the South Cove. The land so won from the sea re- tarded the settlement of South Boston, which had about two hundred in- habitants when annexed to Boston, and less than two thousand in 1820, though it had the second Catholic church in Boston. An addition of greater importance than the South Cove, for the immediate relief of the population, was the filling of the ancient Mill Pond, at the north end. This pond was made in 1643-46, by constructing a causeway or mill-dam along the present Causeway street, from Leverett to Prince street. The pond was roughly triangular, the base, along the causeway, being about two thousand feet, and the distance from the causeway to the point where a canal connected the mill pond with Boston harbor about fourteen hundred feet. The present Haymarket square was part of the mill pond. This territory was filled in 1807-22, and is still indicated by the names of North Margin and South Margin streets (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 74; By-Laws of 1818, p. 204). As early as 1693 there were three mills where the sluice connected the mill pond, or mill cove, with Charles river, and two mills where the pond was joined by the canal to Boston harbor (map in Boston city doc. 119 of 1879). The filling was taken from Beacon hill; the streets of the Mill-pond district were laid out by Charles Bulfinch, who was the leading man in town improve- ments for the period under consideration (Quincy. Mun. Hist., 26). From 1791 to 1817 he served with but one interruption as selectman, and most of the time as superintendent of police. The arrangements for filling the old mill pond were as admirable as was the skill that first de-
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vised the pond, with its double supply of water and power from the north and the south. The similar enterprise of using the Back Bay was planned on the like principle, and finally led to like results,-a large addition to the area of Boston by encroachments upon tidewater. The milldam from the junction of Charles and Beacon streets to Brook- line was first proposed in the town meeting of June 11, 1813. On Oc- tober 20, 1813, the town meeting accepted the committee report recom- mending a large grant of flats on condition that the grantees build the dam named, with proper sluice ways for mill purposes, and a second dam, of similar character, to South Boston, as well as a canal from the South Bay to the Back Bay, the canal to be near the present Dover street, and to supply mill power (By-Laws of 1818, p. 219). An act in this sense was passed by the General Court (5 Sp. Laws, 17, 136, 331). The South-Boston dam and the canal across Washington street were not built; the milldam to Brookline (Beacon street) was opened to travel on July 2, 1821. When the filling of the north cove was complete, the filling of the Back Bay began; about that time Boston adopted a city charter. The palm for enterprise appears to belong to Henry Simons and the grant of 1643.
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