USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The book of Boston: the Federal period, 1775 to 1837 > Part 2
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In 1797 the ** U. S. S. Constitution was launched, and became our remarkable warship, Old Ironsides. She was designed by Joshua Humphries of Philadelphia. Ephraim Thayer supplied the forty-four gun carriages and Paul Revere the copper bolts, screws, and blocks. The figure- head and stern ornaments of stars and a spread eagle were beautifully carved and gilded. This famous sailing ship was built by Edmund Hartt when his yard was privately owned on the site of the Navy Yard.
U.S. Frigate Constitution in the Navy Yard, painted by Robert Salmon
Old Ironsides, the U.S.S. Constitution, showing the gun carriages
In recognition of his skill Mr. Hartt received a silver tea set made by Paul Revere and engraved, "Presented by a membership of his fellow citizens as a memorial of their sense of his Ability Zeal and Fidelity in the completion of that ornament of the American Navy 1799."
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Shipping
Old Ironsides was so called after she engaged in her well-known encounter with the British Guerriere during the War of 1812. This famous sea battle was often portrayed on the mirrors of the day in full color. These paintings on glass were set above the looking-glass panel.
This ship, our oldest man-of-war, is moored today where she was built at the ** Boston Naval Shipyard (estab- lished in 1800 in Charlestown) and is visited by thousands yearly. She is one of the many treasures of old Boston.
Across the Charles River from the Navy Yard, at the foot of ** Copp's Hill on Boston's northern shore, were many of the busy shipyards which were building our mer- chant fleet. Several classes of ships - brigs, schooners, sloops, and later the great square-riggers and the graceful fast clip- pers - slid down the ways in these and other Boston yards.
The Hartt silver tea set by Paul Revere
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Federal merchants' homes on Beacon Street
Doorway at 64 Beacon Street
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New Fashions
The new sailing ships brought home cargoes of foreign merchandise. The "China trade" and commerce with other countries in the East supplied a growing demand for oriental goods.
Ivory-handled parasols and canes, fans and sewing gadg- ets, porcelains, silks, japanned ware of black tin with gold decoration, madras and other cottons, lovely cashmere wool shawls and stoles with bright colored borders were all very fashionable. A sheer white cotton, known as India mull, was also popular. Ladies had dresses, caps, turbans, and long stoles of this transparent gossamer fabric, delicately em- broidered in white or color. Curtains of the same material appeared at the windows. In stylish and elegant homes of the early 19th century white mull was often combined with silk in the overdrapery treatments.
Chinese Export porcelain miniature tea set with one full size cup and saucer
French, Louis XVI, andirons of ormolu in the Swan Collection
French materials and other merchandise were also eagerly sought after. Lafayette was popular in Boston and French taste was the fashion. James Swan, a wealthy local merchant engaged in trade with France, sent home to his wife beautiful pieces of furniture, andirons, and candelabra for their new home on Chestnut Street. Many of these treas- ures are now on display in the Swan Collection at the Mu- seum of Fine Arts.
French chair, c. 1787, in the Swan Collection
AMEER AN
INDEPEND
JNERTY
THEE
TEMPLE OF FAME
ERE IN
TRY
LIBERTY
THE
1.1
English copperplate print cotton, Washington and Franklin, c. 1800
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(Left) Portrait of Mrs. Hephzibah Lord Waterston by Gilbert Stuart, showing a cashmere shawl and mull cap. (Right) Portrait of Mrs. John Amory, Jr., by Gilbert Stuart, showing a mull turban
Luxurious silks, without a pattern, or with the new designs of small flowers or stripes, and of more delicate coloring than the colonial fabrics, were imported for the fashionable classic-style gowns of the Federal ladies.
French copperplate prints on cotton were very much in vogue. These had classic and pastoral designs of rose-red, cobalt blue, or puce on white. There were also English copperplate prints depicting our patriotic heroes, especially Washington and Franklin, surrounded by symbolic god- desses and other classic motifs. These were in great demand in Boston for furniture "covers" and for bed and window hangings. (See illus. on p. 31.)
The portraits of the period, many of which are on view in local collections, display these fabrics. Wives of prom-
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(Left) The Athenaeum Portrait of Martha Washington by Gilbert Stuart, showing a mull cap. (Right) The Athenaeum Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, used on the dollar bill
inent citizens were painted in their best dresses of silk or mull with stoles of cashmere or India mull over their shoulders. These new high-waisted, narrow, straight-skirted dresses, so fashionable in France and England in the early 19th century, had replaced the colonial hoop skirts. Most gentlemen had discarded their knee breeches and cocked hats for the new-style long trousers and high-crowned head- gear although some, like Paul Revere, still wore “small- clothes."
Many Bostonians of this early Federal period sat for Gilbert Stuart, the great American portrait painter of the time. Several of these paintings may be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts where more than half of Stuart's works are now in the collection.
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(Left) Obelisk tombstone of Benjamin Franklin's parents in the Old Granary Burying Ground. (Right) Obelisk tombstone of Chevalier de St. Saveur in King's Chapel Burying Ground
The head of George Washington painted from life by Gilbert Stuart in 1796 is one of these; it also may be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts where it is on loan from the Boston Athenaeum. This well-known portrait of our first president is now on our one-dollar bills.
Later, after Napoleon had conquered Egypt and Italy, Egyptian and Roman-classic designs were popular. Bos- tonians followed the French interpretation of these styles. They erected an obelisk monument on Breed's Hill and obelisk tombstones in their graveyards. Other gravestones at this time were surmounted by classic urns.
Ladies embroidered both obelisk and urn memorials, rendered under weeping willow trees in colored silks on white satin. These mourning pictures were very much in favor during this period.
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1163751
Field canopy bed hung in cop- perplate print cotton, Mourning Picture over the mantel
Americans slept in "sleigh beds," the French Empire version of the Roman couch. They used smooth Roman col- umns on their buildings as on the Federal portico of King's Chapel.
See Colonial Boston, page 99.
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Embroidered Mourning Picture, 1805, showing an urn tombstone and weeping willow
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(Left) Tall clock by Simon Willard, Roxbury c. 1800, with an eagle finial. (Right) Wall or banjo clock by Simon Willard, c. 1800, with an eagle finial.
The eagle, standard of the ancient Romans, became the emblem of the United States. This led to a craze for eagles. They were inlaid in Federal furniture, carved on the crest- ings of mirrors, cast in brass and placed on the finials of secretaries and tall clocks. Door knockers and the hub dec- oration of the fanlights of entrance doors, as well as the sterns of ships, were ornamented with gilded spread eagles. 36
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Girandole looking glass, Boston c. 1800, with an eagle finial
Roman motifs were used on our new national silver and gold coins. The ten-dollar gold piece was known as "the eagle." Our silver ten-cent piece is still embossed with the Roman fasces and our twenty-five and fifty-cent pieces also exhibit the eagle. The use of this motif has given rise to the humorous comment that New Englanders are so frugal they hold onto a quarter until the eagle squeals.
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CONSTITUTION
Stern ornaments on the U.S.S. Constitution, stars. and spread eagle Fanlight doorway at 61 Beacon Street with an eagle above the door
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TOWN OF
BOSTON !!
Liverpool pottery pitcher with an inscription to Boston and another type of jug with a portrait of Captain Hull of the U.S.S. Constitution
Letters conveyed the "latest taste" from abroad to Bos- ton, and orders were sent out with the sea captains from here. Carved white marble mantelpieces were imported from Italy and quantities of china from the East. Merchants liv- ing temporarily in England described the British way of life and sent home a variety of movables, including furniture, carpets, glassware, Liverpool and Staffordshire pottery,
Silver pitcher by Paul Revere
Interior of the first Harrison Gray Otis House showing Federal Hepplewhite style chairs and a Hepplewhite-Sheraton style sofa
"setts of tea and coffee china," Sheffield plated ware, and George III silver. Wedgwood and other pottery mantel objects were also highly prized and often were included in the early Federal household inventories.
Liverpool pitchers, jugs of cream-colored pottery with black transfer-printed designs, were common. These often had a portrait of an American hero or ship on one side and American emblems or flags on the other. The shape of these English jugs inspired Paul Revere to make his famous pitcher, here illustrated.
Furniture was of the English Hepplewhite and Sheraton styles, imported or made here by local cabinetmakers. Out-
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Transportation
standing among these were Duncan Phyfe of New York and John Seymour of Boston. Boston inventories record "setts of hair bottom chairs" with upholstered seats covered to match other pieces of furniture and curtains in the rooms, or, as they phrased it, "en suite" or "ditto," with the "sopha," "lolling chair," and "window curtains." Many of these beautiful chairs survive in the homes of Boston families and in the local museum collections.
It was a new and elegant age, very different from the early colonial, with classic and oriental influence predom- inating.
Transportation
As transportation developed, new ideas circulated more quickly. Not only did the sailing ships bring in foreign materials and fashions but inland waterways and canals were dug to stimulate trade in domestic goods to and from Boston. Barges were drawn on these canals by a horse walking along a narrow towpath beside the water. New industries were established and many mills were set up.
East View of Lowell, Massachusetts, showing the Cotton Mill
The BOOK of BOSTON
Colonel Loammi Baldwin who originated the Baldwin apple also planned the Middlesex Canal. This waterway, incorporated in 1798 and completed in 1804, was of great importance in the development of the cotton industry and later, the granite business.
The course of this waterway, although overgrown and partially lost, may still be traced today, and it is hoped that part of it may be reclaimed, perhaps as a park. This canal, more than twenty-five miles in length, brought boats from Chelmsford and the Merrimack River to Charlestown. The granite for some of Boston's handsome Greek Revival build-
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The Middlesex Canal, a reconstructed scene by Louis R. Linscott, showing the Baldwin Mansion in North Woburn and the tow path
BOSTON, Plymouth & Sandwich MAIL STAGE, CONTINUES TO RUN AS FOLLOWS:
A.D .- 1795
LEAVES Burton every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning at 5 o'clock, breakfast at Leonard's, Sritoate ; dine at Bradford's, Plymouth ; and arrive in Sandwich the same evening. Leaves Sandwich every Mon- dat, Wedumalay and Friday mornings ; breakfast at Bradford's, Plymouth: line at Lamard'», Situate, and arrive in Boston the same evening. Pawing though Dortunter, Quincy, Wyrmouth, Hingham, Scituate. Hammer, Pembroke, Duxbury, Kingston, Plymouth to Sandwich. Fare, fresa Benton to Scituate, I doll, 25 cts. From Boston to Plymouth. 2 dolls Siete From Brian to Sandwich, 3 dolls, 63 %.
1. I Extra Carruagens can be chained of the wayyoume'n art books sind Promarath of shares ihre
BOSTON, Com+++ -4, 1810.
LEONARD & WOODWARD.
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(Left) Boston Mail Stage, 1810. (Right) Bell in Hand sign of John Wilson, The Town Crier, hung over his restaurant and later over an alehouse in Pie Alley
ings was brought from Concord and Chelmsford in this way, or was shipped from Neponset across the harbor after hav- ing been hauled from Braintree (now Quincy).
Water was still the easiest means of travel, but more and longer highways were being constructed. New roads such as the Boston Post Road made travel in and out of the town less difficult, although far from comfortable. Stage- coaches carrying passengers and mail were eagerly awaited in the taverns. The first stage left Boston from the Royal Exchange Tavern on King Street (now State Street) in 1772. Regular service followed to several points, and by 1806 the mail went by stagecoach as far as the towns of Albany and New York. It took six days then to reach New York from Boston.
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DO.TON EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, BUILT 1808 ... BURNT 1810.
Exchange Coffee House, State Street, 1808-1818, woodcut by A. Bowen
Taverns
Taverns were numerous and continued to be the gather- ing places where one heard the latest news. The Bell in Hand Tavern was established in 1795 by the former town crier, who had rung his bell every hour as he walked the streets and called out, "All is well." The original signboard with the bell and hand painted on it is now in the collection of the Bostonian Society at the Old State House. Some old colonial taverns changed their names to "coffee houses" in the Federal period or took the more popular names of our new patriotic heroes. The Washington Coffee House and The Hancock Tavern were two of these. The latter, the oldest inn in Boston, situated on Corn Court, a narrow lane near the old Town Dock, had been operated since 1634 as a colonial ordinary. In 1780, when John Hancock became
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Taverns
the first governor of the state of Massachusetts, the name was changed to the Hancock Tavern. Washington and Franklin had been among the well-known guests. In 1795 Talleyrand stayed here and in 1797 the future King Louis Philippe was a visitor.
As transportation developed and more people came to Boston, there were more and larger hostelries. These were often called "houses" in the early 19th century.
In 1808 the famous Exchange Coffee House was built on Congress Street with entrances also on State and Devon- shire streets. The great hotel was the largest "house" in the town and Boston's first skyscraper, rising to an unheard-of height of seven stories. Over the center of this brick build- ing was a shallow saucer-like dome of the type which be- came so popular later in Boston during the Greek Revival period of architecture. Originally the principal floor was intended to be used as a public exchange, but the plan never materialized, as the merchants preferred to continue stand- ing in the street. This circumstance, however, along with the Coffee Room, gave the name to the new hotel. The luxurious interior, in addition to the Coffee Room, included a reading room, a drawing room, a bar, and, on the second floor, a dining room which seated three hundred. Above these were a ballroom, several society rooms, including those of Masonic Lodges, eleven printing offices, and about two hundred bedrooms. Stagecoaches brought notable guests, and many important banquets took place here before the hotel burned in 1818.
Other famous old hotels were the Revere House, the Tremont House, and the Parker House. Only the last named remains in business today. It is well known for its scrod, tripe, and "Parker House rolls."
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Bridges
Boston's water-front construction was spreading out like fingers, with wharves and bridges projecting from the tight fist-shaped peninsula that had been colonial Boston. Three of the bridges spanned the ** Charles River. The first, the Charles River Bridge, completed in 1786, con- nected Boston with Charlestown. This was a splendid wooden toll bridge with a draw in the middle and a wide center lane flanked by railed-off passageways for pedestrians. It was illuminated at night by "forty elegant lamps." A huge crowd assembled for the grand opening which was held on the eleventh anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
MALES RIVERBRIDGE.
5
qu'il Fineday of that stroke
Key" Devenus your April hverity second 15
The Devens silver tankard, by Benjamin Burt, engraved with a view of the Charles River Bridge
View of Boston and the South Boston Bridge by J. Milbert, showing the State House
This bridge was recognized as an outstanding engineer- ing feat of the day as shown by one of the gifts presented to those responsible for its construction. A silver tankard, made by Benjamin Burt (1729-1805), was given to Richard Devens, an engineer. On one side was a picture of the bridge and on the other was engraved "Presented to Richard Devens, Esquire, by the Proprietors of Charles River Bridge in Tes- timony of their entire Approbation of his faithful Services as a special Director of the Work, begun A.D. 1785 and Per- fected A.D. 1786." It may be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts.
The second bridge, the West Boston Bridge, joining Cambridge with Boston, was opened to public travel in 1793. This fine wooden structure stood on the site of the present
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Beacon Hill and the Mill Dam
Longfellow Bridge and formed a continuation of Boston's Cambridge Street, affording the most direct route to Har- vard College.
In the carly 19th century Dorchester Neck was taken over by Boston and another bridge was built to this new area which became known as South Boston. This third wooden bridge, opened in 1805, extended out from the present Dover Street across the South Bay. It became a fashionable prom- enade and afforded an admirable view of Boston crowned by the new State House.
The Canal Bridge, the third across the Charles River, connecting West Boston to Lechmere's Point in Cambridge, was built in 1809.
Another important engineering feat which facilitated travel out of town was the building in 1814 of the new Mill Dam, west of the city. In 1804 it was voted at a town meet- ing to fill in the colonial Mill Pond in the North End in order to gain about fifty acres of needed land. (See illus. on
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More Changes
p. 18.) To create new sites for the mills the stone Mill Dam was built across the Back Bay. This ambitious project was one of the many suggested by Uriah Cotting (1766- 1819) for the improvement and growth of Boston. A new turnpike, extending from Beacon Street at Charles Street, ran out over the Mill Dam to the hills of Brookline and Brighton and created a second highway from the town, supplementing the old colonial road which followed the Neck to Roxbury.
More Changes
Boston grew slowly immediately after the Revolution, but rapidly in the 19th century. At the time the first census was taken in 1791, there were 18,000 people in the town and 2,376 houses. With the increase in population, the orig- inal compact colonial settlement became crowded. New houses were tucked in between the older dwellings on the garden plots and orchards, and the town farms disappeared. These houses seldom faced the street and the ways to them became narrow and often crooked alleys. Soon the old colonial North and South Ends were outgrown.
Beyond these early centers of the town, Summer Street in the new Federal South End and Bowdoin Square in the West End now became the fashionable residential districts. Many prominent old families, however, continued to live in the North End.
The early Federal town gradually became a beautiful and very English Boston of classic red-brick buildings.
Along the new straight streets lots were sold and houses built on them. By 1808 most of these streets were paved
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The BOOK of BOSTON
with cobblestones brought up from the beaches and laid hit or miss. Some of them may still be seen on Beacon Hill, in Acorn Street, and Louisburg Square. There were a few pri- vate street lamps, but as early as 1792 the streets were illu- minated by public street lamps. These were cared for by a lamplighter who filled them with whale oil and lit them at twilight.
Some streets were called by the old familiar English names, such as Charles Street, Cambridge Street, and Somer-
Acorn Street, Beacon Hill, showing the original cobblestones and brick sidewalks
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Miniatures of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bulfinch
set Street; but others changed their names after the War of Independence. King Street became State Street, Queen Street was changed to Court Street, and the long road to the Neck, which had been called by four names at various places along the way - Corn Hill, Marlborough, Newbury, and Orange streets - now became Washington Street. Other streets were also called after our American patriots: Hancock, Franklin, Pinckney, and Warren, to mention but a few. The seasons of summer and winter, and trees were also favored names. Beacon Hill still retains Spruce, Willow, Chestnut, and Walnut streets. In 1825 street signs were put up for the first time.
Inadequate water supply caused extensive losses from fire as it had so often during the colonial period. Finally, in 1795, water was brought to Boston through log pipes from Jamaica Pond. Most people, however, were still dependent on wells, pumps, and rain-water cisterns. The Independent Chronicle, one of the Boston newspapers, printed advertise- ments of dwelling houses for sale at this time featuring these conveniences.
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Charles Bulfinch
As Boston grew, it was its good fortune to be dom- inated by the taste of one of America's foremost architects and town officers, Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844). He was New England's first professional architect. His parents were of the colonial aristocracy. The family home, his birthplace, was a three-story gambrel-roofed mansion in Bowdoin Square, built by his grandfather near the present site of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company building. The houses here had large lawns in front and lovely gardens in the rear. Later, from 1810 to 1815, when blocks of red- brick Federal town houses were built in this area, Bulfinch had his own residence nearby at 8 Bulfinch Place.
After attending the Boston Latin School, graduating from ** Harvard College, and working in a countinghouse, he traveled in Europe for two years. While in France he saw Paris with the Marquis de Lafayette and was very much impressed by the beauty of the town planning there. In 1796 he wrote home to his mother, "Every town in France has one or more public walks shaded with trees and kept in con- stant repair." *
Returning from abroad in 1787, after what was to him "a highly gratifying tour," * he "passed a season of leisure, pursuing no business but giving gratuitous advice in archi- tecture."
Devoted to Boston, Bulfinch gave generously of his time, not only in the planning of buildings and streets, but
* The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch, Architect, by Ellen Susan Bulfinch and the Autobiographical Sketch by Charles Bulfinch.
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Leveling Beacon Hill, the rear of the State House, and the Bulfinch Monument
also in serving as selectman from 1791 until 1818 when he went to Washington, D.C., to work on the national capitol.
Due to his interest and cultural training, Boston led the country during the early Federal period in the field of archi- tecture and town planning.
On the site of the old colonial beacon that had given the name to Beacon Hill Bulfinch built a * fine monument. This memorial pillar erected in 1790 replaced the beacon blown down the previous year. Erected before the new State House was built or the Hill leveled, this Roman-Doric column of brick covered with stucco stood sixty feet high in a small park that afforded an unbroken view of Boston
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The BOOK of BOSTON
and the harbor. Set in the base were four tablets depicting the events of the Revolutionary War. The shaft terminated in a beautiful spread eagle now in the Senate Chamber. In 1811, when the peak of the Hill was cut down about sixty feet by the Hancock heirs, the monument was destroyed. In 1899 the Bunker Hill Monument Association set up a replica of the Bulfinch monument near the original site and presented it to the Commonwealth. This is now crowded on all sides by automobiles in a parking lot beside the State House.
The New State House
Bulfinch designed the ** Massachusetts State House on Beacon Street in 1787 but it was not until 1795, two years after John Hancock's death, that the town bought his pas- ture as the site for the new building. The cornerstone was laid by Governor Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in his capacity as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Masons. The stone was drawn to the site by fifteen white horses, one for each state in the Union at that time. The impressive red- brick building with white marble trim, approached by stone steps and set on a turf terrace, was completed in 1798. A letter written by Lord Coleridge (who came to America in 1883) says, "Far the most beautiful city in America so far as I have seen is Boston, and the State House is the most beautiful building in the country - in perfect taste and proportion."
Crowning Beacon Hill, the State House overlooks the Common and dominates Boston. The center of the present
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