USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 68
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The list of streets of 1708 had also been published,3 showing a wide- stretched inhabited area; although it must not be forgotten that certain of these highways and byways were streets only in name, and others then, and for a long time afterward, were sparsely enough settled, as appears on Bonner's map published fourteen years later. The Tramount especially was as yet unoccupied, save for a few houses upon the eastern slope of Cotton Hill; Beacon Street, doubtless, extended no further than the Alms- house; and all beyond was as wild a waste as when, in 1688, the decorous Sewall went in swimming at Blackstone's Point; while the fact that it was not until three years afterward, in 1713, that shooting was prohibited on the Neck, shows the condition of things at the South End, beyond Boylston Street.
1 [See S. G. Drake, Boston, pp. 532, 591, 631 ; S. A. Drake, Landmarks, 329. The Mass. Ar- chives. "Military," viii. 604, show a petition for the removal of the powder-house from m WeSaltin Boston, and the Coun- cil appointed a com- mittee to find a place for it in Cambridge. William Salter was its keeper in 1736 .- ED.]
2 [These defences were built in 1710 more thoroughly than before. See notes upon the sub- ject in Shurtleff's Boston, p. 140; in Sewall Papers, ii. 309 ; and in Drake's Landmarks, p. 424 .- ED.] 8 [Sewall speaks (May 27, 1708) of "the Broad Side of Boston Streete, which came out this week " ( Sewall Papers, ii. 225) ; and a copy of this sheet, showing the streets as named by the selectmen (May 3) is preserved in the Massa- chusetts Historical Society's library. It is re-
504
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The frequency and extent of the early fires proved a serious check to the growth and prosperity of the town. The slightly-constructed wooden buildings which offered no resistance to the flames, and the want of engines,1 or of any effective means - except the expensive alternative of blowing up contiguous buildings - to stay their progress, rendered these conflagrations grievous public calamities.
Four considerable fires, without counting those of minor importance, occurred in the first twenty-five years of the period. Concerning that of 1690, one of the two most severe, Chief-Justice Sewall makes the following entry in his Diary : -
" Vae malum ! about 2 a'clock after midnight a fire breaks out on t'other side the Mill Crick, which gets over to this side and consumes about fourteen Dwelling- Houses, besides Warehouses. Madam Leverett and Mrs. Rock are great Sharers in the Loss."
But the fire of 1711, the most sweeping and disastrous that had yet oc- curred, burned down all the houses -" some of them very capacious build- ings "- on both sides of Cornhill, from School Street to Dock Square, besides the First Church, the Town House, all the upper part of King Street, and the greater part of Pudding Lane, between Water Street and Spring Lane. In all nearly one hundred houses were destroyed, of which the rubbish taken from the ruins was used to fill up Long Wharf. " Thus the town of Boston," says the Rev. Cotton Mather, in his sermon on the event, "just going to get beyond four-score years of age, and conflicting with much labour and sorrow, is, a very vital and valuable part of it, soon cut off and flown away." 2
In recording the havoc of this great fire, besides the loss of the two principal public buildings of the town, and the turning of a hundred or more families houseless into the streets, there is to be added the tragic fate of seven or eight men whose lives were lost in blowing up buildings or otherwise striving to arrest the progress of the flames.3 The fire, ac- cording to an account in the News-Letter published directly after the event, " broke out in an old Tenement within a back-yard in Cornhill, near the First Meeting-house, occasioned by the carelessness of a poor Scottish woman by using Fire near a parcel of Ocum, Chips, and other combus- tible Rubbish." 4
printed in the Report on the Nomenclature of Streets (City Document, 119, of 1879), as well as later lists, like that which appeared in the Vade Mecum for America, Boston, 1732 .- ED.]
1 There is reason to believe that there were in the town at the time of this fire two engines, -one at the North and the other at the South End. "These engines were constructed of wood, with iron hoops." See Dr. Belknap's Letter to Judge Minot, Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 188.
2 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 52.
8 Including several sailors who went up into the cupola of the First Church to save the bell. "They were seen at work just before the roof fell in, and all perished in the flames." Belknap's Letter, Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 189.
4 [See Sewall Papers, ii. 323; also Introduc- tion to this volume, p. xxxiv, where will be found the autographs, from petitions on file, of various sufferers by the fire. - ED.]
505
TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
This wide-spread desolation at length aroused the townsmen to the ne- cessity of taking more efficient measures of defence against this their now most dreaded enemy.1
The houses which were rebuilt along Cornhill soon after the fire " were of brick, three stories high, with a garret, a flat roof, and balustrade." Snow describes some of them as standing when his history was written, in 1825 ; and thirty years later Drake tells of several still remaining on both sides of
FEFIELES
SE
THE OLD CORNER BOOK-STORE.
Washington Street, while one at least has come down to us, and is still in a state of excellent preservation, - to wit, the Old Corner Book-store, on the corner of the present Washington and School streets. This spot, in the midst of a neighborhood teeming with historical association, has continued to be a centre of interest and affairs since the days when Mrs. Anne Hut- chinson held here her Antinomian séances, under the very nose of Governor Winthrop, when " over against the site of the old corner store dwelt the
1 [See Mr. Scudder's chapter in this volume. - ED.]
VOL. II. - 64.
506
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
notables of the town, - the governor, the elder of the church, the captain of the Artillery Company, and the most needful of the craftsmen and arti- ficers of the humble plantation; and at a short distance from it were the meeting-house, the market-house, the town-house, the school-house, and the ever-flowing spring of pure water." 1
The Old Corner Store is supposed to have been built directly after the fire of 1711. It is an excellent example of what is known as the colonial style of architecture, and is thought to be the oldest brick building now standing in the city. It bears the supposed date of its construction, 1712, imprinted upon a tablet on its western gable. Well known to the writers and readers of this generation as the headquarters of the Atlantic Monthly, and the old stand of Messrs. Ticknor & Fields, it is still occupied by the popular book-store of Messrs. Alexander Williams & Co.2
With characteristic energy and promptness the damage done by the fire was made good. The Society of the First Church rebuilt upon the old spot, which had, it seems, already become hallowed ground. "Methinks," says Mather, in the sermon above quoted, "I find myself preaching a funeral sermon for that ancient and famous edifice which had from the days of our grandfathers (I suppose mine 3 preached the first sermon in it, sixty-five or six years ago) been the place of our most considerable solem- nities." To which natural outburst of feeling he adds the following amus- ing and thoroughly characteristic touch: "I could not pass the honorable rubbish of that building without making this reflection, - That the HOLY ONE seems to put us in mind of that shameful negligence with which too many people in this town treated the weekly lecture there." 4
The new building was of brick, and three stories in height, and must have been, when finished, the most costly church edifice of its time, al- though, from the cuts 5 handed down to us, it appears but a plain building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Besides a bell, it contained the first organ ever used in a Congregational church in the country, while three years later it was still further dignified by the addition of the town- clock, which was placed upon its sloping roof, just over the façade and under the small bell-tower. This building remained standing until the society removed to Chauncy Place.
Meanwhile, committees were appointed by the town and the province to confer about " constructing a House to accommodate both the Town and the Colony." It was agreed that " the Province was to bear one half of the expense, the county of Suffolk and the town of Boston each one quarter." In 1714 we find that the town voted "235 pounds fourteen shillings and eight-pence," as its share of the building fund. The new structure was, of course, of brick, and must have been some time in process of erection, for
1 Shurtleff, History of Boston ; see also the Introduction to this volume, p. xxxiv.
2 For a complete list of all the former owners and occupants of this famous corner, see Shurt- leff's Description of Boston, p. 671.
8 The Rev. John Cotton.
4 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 55.
5 [See one in Dr. Mckenzie's chapter, p. 219 of this volume, with a note giving references to reminiscences of the edifice. - ED.]
507
TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
there is no mention made of its being occupied until March 8, 1714, when it was used for a town-meeting.
The Town House was destined to be again partially destroyed by fire before the end of the period, Dec. 9, 1747. " It was repaired in the year following in its present form," says Pemberton, writing in 1794, " and is in length one hundred and ten feet, in breadth thirty-eight feet, and three
THE OLD STATE HOUSE.1
stories high. On the centre of the roof is a tower, consisting of three stories, finished according to the Tuscan, Dorick, and Ionick orders. From the upper story is an extensive prospect of the harbour into the bay, and of the country adjacent." 2
1 [See also the old view, reproduced in the Evacuation Memorial, 1876. There is another view on the cover of the Boston Magazine, 1785. - ED.]
2 A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, reprinted in Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 241. There are manuscript notes by the same writer in the Historical Society's keeping.
508
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Pemberton's description of the interior is interesting as being doubtless an accurate picture of this principal building of the province during the last half of the period. He says: -
"The lower floor of the building serves for a covered walk for any of the inhabitants. On this floor are kept the offices of the clerks of the supreme judi- cial court and the court of common pleas. The chambers over it are occupied by the General Court, the senate in one and the representative body in the opposite chamber. The third story is appropriated for the use of the committees of the General Court. On the lower floor are ten pillars of the Dorick order, which support the chambers occupied by the legislature. This building is in Cornhill, one mile two hundred and seventy-nine yards from Washington Street, the late fortification entrance from the Neck into the town."
This building, hallowed by so many grand and stirring memories, still stands, in outward aspect much as it was; but within, alas! how
" Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, - Fallen from its high estate ! "
Here absolutely nothing remains to tell of the scenes of its former dignity and glory. A confused assemblage of railroad, insurance, and brokers' offices now fills the walls which once echoed to the tread of the Royal Governors, who came hither amid salvos of artillery to have their commis- sions read to the unwilling people; the walls which echoed to the voices of the early patriots who here sounded the alarm-note that awoke the nation to successful resistance; the walls which have re-echoed, now the stately proclamations of the death and accessions of British sovereigns, and anon that far more solemn and thrilling proclamation, - the Declaration of American Independence; the walls, in fine, which have resounded with the honored footsteps of Washington and of Lafayette, who were brought hither crowned with the laurels of victory to receive a people's homage.
While all this alternate ravage and repair was going on at the South End, north of the Mill-creek several memorable buildings were erected which deserve more than the passing mention that can here be afforded them. One of these was the small wooden building of the New North Church, - erected in 1714, and enlarged in 1730, - whose story has been told in another chapter.1.
But a structure more interesting, from its architecture and location, and more famous as being associated with incidents in our history never to be forgotten, is the well-known Christ Church, on Salem Street. This was the house of the Second Episcopalian Society of Boston, built in 1723, in a style which may well be called the New England classic. Placed upon higher ground than any other church edifice in the town, it must have formed one of the most prominent and interesting landmarks of the period. The first steeple was blown down by a tempest early in the present century,
1 [By Dr. Mckenzie. - ED.]
509
TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
crushing in a neighboring dwelling in its fall, and was rebuilt by the accom- plished architect Mr. Charles Bulfinch. From the old steeple flashed forth the famous warning to Adams and Hancock of the movement of the British troops towards Lexington, as told by Paul Revere.1 Mention has been else- where made of its chime of bells.2 Among the church silver there are
CHRIST CHURCH.
1 [The place of the display of these lanterns is not agreed upon among antiquaries. The sub- ject will be more fully treated in Vol. III. -ED.]
2 [The ringing of the church bells at stated hours on week days marked a custom which pre- vailed all through the Provincial period, and which has continued to our day. Various bills on the City Clerk's files show the particular hours
of the different neighborhoods. In 1734 Lindall Williams rang the bell of the First Meeting-house at five, nine, and eleven o'clock. In 1757 John Roulstone rang the Old South bell at five, one, and nine ; John Ranstead rang the New South at eleven, one, and nine ; Thomas Williston, the " Brick bell " at eleven ; David Lenox, the " New Brick bell" at eleven ; and John Williston, the Old North at five, one, and nine o'clock .- ED.]
510 -
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
several pieces presented by King George II., bearing the royal arms; while included in the church furnishings are a couple of brass chandeliers said to have been taken from a French prize ship in 1758.1
Various alterations have been made in the interior since the church was first built. The former centre aisle and large altar-window have been closed, and the walls enriched with various paintings and mural ornaments, among which is a monument to Washington, the first ever erected in the country.
As was the custom in many of the old churches, there are a number of tombs under the building, concerning one of which the following curious circumstance is related by Shaw : -
" Some years since, while the workmen were employed in the cemetery, building tombs, one of them found the earth so loose that he settled his bar into it the whole length with a single effort. The superintendent directed him to proceed till he found solid earth. About six feet below the bottom of the cellar he found a coffin, covered with a coarse linen cloth, sized with gum, which, on boiling, became. white, and the texture as firm as if it had been recently woven. Within this coffin was another, pro- tected from the air in a similar manner, and the furniture was not in the least injured by time. The flesh was sound, and somewhat resembling that of an Egyptian mummy. The skin when cut appeared like leather. The sprigs of evergreen deposited in the coffin resembled the broad-leaved myrtle ; the stem was elastic, the leaves fresh and apparently in a state of vegetation. From the inscription, it was found to be the body of a Mr. Thomas, a native of New England, who died in Bermuda. Some of his family were among the founders of Christ Church. His remains when discovered had been entombed about eighty years."
This, now the oldest church-building in Boston, is still in excellent preser- vation, and its time-honored walls and quaint interior will richly repay the antiquary, the student, or the mere curiosity-seeker for the small trouble of a visit to the North End.
Meantime the town grows apace. Bonner's map, published in 1722, and elsewhere described,2 gives a very fair notion of its extent at that date. Among other interesting features to be remarked is the presence of a goodly number of trees, - doubtless for the most part fruit trees, - scattered through the thinly-settled fields north and south of Summer Street, and in the gardens lying between the present Washington and Tremont streets, and along the steep hill-sides of Beacon Street, as far as the alms-house,3- showing that some attention had already been paid to horticulture. The inhabitants, moreover, had increased to eighteen thousand 4 and more; additional streets had been paved, a postoffice established by Parliament, while the rumble of an occasional coach or chariot over the cobble-stones attracted the wondering notice of the idle and the curious.5
1 Rev. Mr. Eaton's Historical Account of Captain Nathaniel Uring, who visited Boston Christ Church, p. 27.
2 See the Introduction to this volume, p. liii.
8 It is remarkable that all these trees are at the South End, while north of the Mill Creek scarcely one appears.
4 This estimate is taken from the account of
again in 1717 and 1720; and, although not official, is doubtless based upon reliable information ob- tained by him at the time.
5 Coaches are mentioned as being in use as. early as 1669; but even as late as 1750 there were still very few.
1
TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD. - 511
A few years previous to the publication of Bonner's map, -in 1718,- a great stir had been created in the town by the arrival of a number of Irish spinners and weavers, bringing the implements of their craft. Abiel Wally. John Walley Habjak Savage Directly the "Spinning Craze," as it was aptly called, took pos- session of the town, and the women, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, flocked to the spinning school, which, for want of better quarters, was set up on the Common, in the open air. Here the whir of their wheels was heard from morning till night ; premiums were offered for the best work, and the - enthusiasts Edm Quincy Daniel Henshaw Um Rand went about proudly clothed in the home-spun products of their own hands.1 The fashion, how- ever, like so many popular foibles, was as short-lived as it was furi- ous; but it had one memorable result - the building of Manu- factory House. This structure, which was located in Long-Acre Street, is described as a " hand- Benezer Storer Joseph Wells gaber Hunt some large brick building, on the east side of the street.2 An act of the General Court, laying an excise on carriages and other articles of luxury, was appropri- ated to this building, designed originally for the purpose of carrying on manufactures in the town, particularly the linen man- ufacture, which was begun here with a spirit exerted too violently to continue long." 3 PETITIONERS FOR A DIVISION BY WARDS.4
1 [See Mr. Scudder's chapter in this volume. -ED.]
2 Corner of Tremont Street and Hamilton Place.
3 Pemberton, Topographical and Historical Description of Boston.
4 [The document from which these signatures are taken is dated March 1, 1734-35, and is pre- served in the City Clerk's office (Original Papers,
ii. 66). The town, March 9, accepted the report of a committee (Jacob Wendell, William Tyler, Jeffrey Bedgood, John Hill, and Thomas Hub- bard) for making such a division. An earlier apportionment by precincts had been made in 1713. See Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 129; Record Commissioners' First Report, p. 15. This early division is shown by pricked lines in Burgiss's map. - ED.]
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512
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
This building owes its notoriety to the sturdy defence here made by Elisha Brown, in 1768, against the combined forces of the county and the province, civil and military. Colonel Dalrymple, it seems, wanted the build- ing for quarters for his troops, the 14th Royal Regulars, and accordingly obtained an order from Governor Bernard directing Brown to vacate. This, Brown, who was in possession under a lease from the Province, emphati- cally declined to do; and, when the sheriff was sent to oust him, boldly shut his door and defied the minions of the law, even when subsequently reinforced by a file of soldiers. The Governor, meanwhile, considering doubtless the state of public opinion at the time, chose not to pursue the matter, and left the triumphant Elisha in possession.
At this time the Province had already bought the mansion-house of Peter Sergeant, Esq., and set it apart as a gubernatorial residence. Previous to this the governors had lived where they could best find quarters.1 Com- plaint had been made some years before of the want of an official residence, by Lord Bellomont, who querulously recommended that one should be built, and spoke of a fitting spot " in the best part of the town, where Sir Edmund Andros lived." Of its external appearance and the change effected by its new owners, a sufficient account has been given in another chapter.2
Of the interior we have little account, - Hawthorne's well-known picture of the house in its decay belonging to a later page; but from the few hints given the ready fancy may easily rear again the vanished walls, and call back the old-time scenes of stately ceremonial, official pomp, or social gayety, many a dinner, rout, or ball where dames magnificent in damask and brocade, towering head-dress and hoop petticoat, - where cavaliers in rival finery of velvet or satin, with gorgeous waistcoats of solid gold brocade, with wigs of every shape, the tie, the full-bottomed, the ramillies, the albemarle, with glittering swords dangling about their silken hose, - where, in fine, the wise, the witty, gay and learned, the leaders in authority, in thought and in fashion, the flower of old provincial life, trooped in full tide through the wainscoted and tapestried rooms, and up the grand old winding staircase with its carved balustrades, and its square landing-places, to do honor to the hospitality of the martial Shute, the courtly Burnet, the gallant Pownall, or the haughty Bernard.
At about the time of the purchase of the Province House a new church was built at the South End, which, to distinguish it from the Third Church, was called the New South. The project was formed at the old Bull Tavern on Summer Street, by " sundry inhabitants at the southerly end of the town,"
1 Andros lived somewhere on Cotton Hill, according to Drake (Landmarks, 228), who infers it from a clause in the description of Lady Andros's funeral by Sewall, where he says the soldiers made "a guard from the governor's house down the Prison Lane to the south meet- ing-house." Andros is also said to have lived at one time on Washington Street a little north of Summer, and to have had a country resid-
ence in Dorchester besides. Phips dwelt on the corner of the present Salem and Charter Streets, in the "fair brick house" which he had coveted when young. Bellomont complains of having to pay one hundred pounds a year rent for a house, besides an extra charge for a stable.
2 [See Dr. Ellis's chapter in this volume, where a cut of the edifice is given. - ED.]
513
TOPOGRAPHY, ETC., OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
who petitioned, Sept. 20, 1715, " for leave to erect a meeting-house at said south end, and for a grant of that piece of land called Church Green in Summer Street for the said house, to be sixty-five feet long and forty-five broad; and by the situation and name of said land it was, no doubt, in- tended by our forefathers for that purpose." 1
MYRICK
THE LONG LANE MEETING-HOUSE.
The above two dimensions form the only description of the first building that has been vouchsafed to us; but when the church was rebuilt, early in the present century, from the designs of Mr. Charles Bulfinch, we have abundant details of the new building, which was undoubtedly one of the finest in the city ; and we are very ready to believe that it occupied " one of the most beautiful locations in town," in the days when Summer Street was lined with stately dwelling-houses and shaded by arching elms, and from the
1 [See the Introduction, p. xxx, and Dr. Mckenzie's chapter, in this volume. - ED.] VOL. II. -- 65.
514
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
church portico one could gaze at will far down over the blue waters of the harbor.
But more interesting in many ways was the church originally called the Long Lane Meeting-house, founded about the year 1729 by a small colony of Scotch and Irish emigrants, headed by the Rev. John Moorhead, an earn- est and enthusiastic young Irishman. Their beginning was humble enough ; so humble indeed, that their first building was nothing but a barn hastily altered over to suit their convenience, and later enlarged by a couple of small wings. This house, located on the corner of Bury (or Berry) Street and Long Lane, - since Channing and Federal streets, - was replaced in 1744 by a commodious and convenient building, about which, however, there was nothing noteworthy save an inscription upon two of its columns, a jumble of Latin and English so oddly disposed as to the sequence of the words that even those skilled in both languages found it an enigma.1 This pulpit was distinguished in after years by the labors of Dr. Jeremy Belknap, Dr. Channing, and Dr. Gannett; but the church is chiefly memorable for the meeting there in 1788 of the convention to consider the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The State House having been found too small for the purpose the convention adjourned, doubtless at the suggestion of Hancock who was presiding, to the Long-Lane meeting-house, which hence received the name of the Federal-Street Church, by which it was ever afterward known. The old building, as seen in the accompanying cut, was after the fashion of many of the earlier churches, and not remarkable architecturally.
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