The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 34

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770

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At the close of his term he summoned the two branches of the city council to meet in convention, and delivered an address which those who had made themselves conspicuous in opposing him must have long re- membered. In concluding he said : -

" And now, Gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last time in your presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to surrender forever a station full of difficulty, of labor, and temptation, in which I have been called to very arduous duties, affecting the rights, property, and at times the liberty of others; concerning which the perfect line of rectitude - though desired - was not always to be clearly dis- cerned ; in which great interests have been placed within my control, under circum- stances in which it would have been easy to advance private ends and sinister projects, -under these circumstances, I inquire, as I have a right to inquire, - for in the re- cent contest insinuations have been cast against my integrity, - in this long manage- ment of your affairs, whatever errors have been committed (and doubtless there have been many), have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal, any- thing mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say : ‘Behold, here I am; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed ? At whose hands have I received any bribe ? '" 2

After Mr. Quincy's withdrawal from the canvass, Harrison Gray Otis was induced to become a candidate, and was elected without opposition for

windows beyond it, lighted his library, of which a view is given in Mr. Cummings's chapter in this volume. The house next beyond, originally the home of Abbott Lawrence, the merchant and ambassador, is now occupied by the Union Club. Mayor Quincy lived in a house further down the street. Park Street, when laid out by Charles Bulfinch in 1804-5, was called Park Place, and had the following residents from the church up : General Arnold Welles, Dr. John C. Warren, Richard Sullivan, Jonathan Davis, John Gore, Judge A. Ward, Jonathan Amory, Governor Gore. In 1860 the houses, going up the street, were occupied by Thomas Wigglesworth, Dr. J. Mason Warren, Mrs. T. W. Ward, Josiah Quincy, Jr., President Quincy, J. Sullivan Warren, Gov- ernor Henry J. Gardner, Mrs. Abbott Lawrence, George Ticknor. See view of Common in Life of John C. Warren. The statue of Daniel Web- ster, by Iliram Powers, standing in the State Ilouse yard, in the foreground, was erected in

1859, and Edward Everett delivered the dedica- tory oration. Sce Editorial Note to the chap- ter on " The Bench and Bar," in Vol. IV. - ED.]

1 On the first ballot Mr. Quincy lacked eighty- three votes of a majority; and on the second bal- lot he lacked sixty-six votes.

2 I have dwelt at some length on this early period of our municipal history, because the foun- dations of our present system were then estab- lished. Indeed, something more than the founda- tions were laid. It may be said in general terms that the only material changes made in the sys- tem which was put into operation during the ad- ministration and through the instrumentality of Mayor Quincy have been made in recent years ; and have been necessitated, as the change from the town to the city government was alone ne- cessitated, by the increase of population. See Report of Commissioners on the revision of the City Charter, City Document 3 of 1875.

VOL. III .- 30.

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

three successive ternis. He was at this time sixty-three years of age, having been born in Boston, Oct. 8, 1760.1

The principal recommendation which he had to make in his first address to the city council was that the project for railroad communication with the Hudson River should be encouraged. "Unless," he said, "the surveys and calculation of skilful persons employed in this business are fallacious, there is no doubt that a railroad from this city to the Hudson may be made with no greater elevation in any part than is found between the head of Long Wharf and the Old State House; and that the income would pay the inter- est of the capital employed."2

On the day fixed for the organization of the city government of 1830, Mr. Otis was unwell, and the members of the city council were invited to assemble at his private residence for the purpose of being qualified. It was a proceeding without precedent; but no one thought of questioning the propriety of any request from Mr. Otis. His invitation was equivalent to a command; and the aldermen and councilmen went to his house and were sworn in, and listened to the reading of the inaugural address. It appeared that the city debt was $883,630; and that the assets, exclusive of city lands, amounted to $257,341.42. The assessors' valuation of real and personal property for purposes of taxation was $29,793.00, and the rate of taxation was $8.10 on a thousand.3 The fifth national census, of 1830, gave the city a population of sixty-one thousand three hundred and ninety-two.

In May of this year the Society for the Suppression of Intemperance petitioned for a band of music on the Common during the afternoons and evenings of the general election, and on the Fourth of July, -"such a prac- tice having, in their judgment, a tendency to promote order and suppress

1 He had been prominent in public affairs al- most from the time of his leaving college. In 1788, when twenty-three years of age, he deliv- ered the Fourth of July oration before the town authorities. He was a man of courtly manners and winning address. His style of oratory was much admired in those days ; but his published speeches and addresses fail to sustain the reputa- tion which he held among his contemporaries. His political popularity had been on the wane for some years, and he could not forbear making a pathetic reference to the fact in his first inau- gural address as mayor. This address, delivered in Faneuil Hall in presence of a large assembly of citizens, had for its principal object the vindi- cation of Mr. Otis's political career. To afford him an opportunity for so doing, in a sort of semi-official way, was probably the chief induce- ment to his acceptance of the office. His con- nection with the Hartford Convention having been made the basis of a charge of disloyalty, he took occasion to "distinctly and solemnly assert that at no time in the course of my life have I been present at any meeting of individ-

uals, public or private, of the many or the few, or privy to any correspondence of whatever de- scription, in which any proposition having for its object the dissolution of the Union, or its dis- memberment in any shape, or a separate confed- eracy, or a forcible resistance to the government or laws, was ever made or debated ; that I have no reason to believe that any such scheme was ever meditated by distinguished individuals of the old Federal party." [See II. C. Lodge's chapter immediately preceding this. - ED.]

2 [Sce further on this subject Mr. C. F. Adams's chapter in Vol. IV. - ED.]

8 It should be stated that the law in force at this time (see Rev Sts. 1836, c. 7, §§ 15, 30, 37) permitted assessors after they had made a true valuation of the real and personal estate, to as- sess taxes upon a reduced value, provided their record should show both the real value and the assessed value. The assessors of Boston, from a clate preceding 1830, and including 1841, assessed half the true value. From 1842 to the present time assessments have been made upon the full valuations.

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BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.

an inclination to riot and intemperance." An appropriation was made from the city treasury to carry out the request of the petitioners.

On the recommendation of the Mayor, the city council voted to alter the Old State House, at the head of State Street, so as to provide accom-

Hg. Olaj 1

modations therein for the mayor, aldermen, common council, and other city officers. It was decided to take possession of the new apartments on

1 [This cut follows a likeness painted by Gil- N. E. Historic, Genealogical Society, ISSo, vol. i. | bert Stuart about 1814, and owned by the late See Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. ISS. George W. Lyman, who kindly permitted it to be A portrait of Mrs. Otis, after a picture by Mal- bone, is given in Griswold's Republican Court. engraved. A memoir of Otis by Augustus T. Perkins is in the Memorial Biographies of the -ED.]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

September 17, the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town. Mr. Josiah Quincy, who, after retiring from the mayoralty, had become President of Harvard College, accepted an invitation to deliver an address on the same day. Accordingly, on the morning of the seventeenth the two branches of the city council being assembled in convention, the Mayor made an address, "after which," as the record states, "the two branches went in procession to the Old South Church, escorted by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, where an address was deliv- ered by the Hon. Josiah Quincy, and a pocm by Charles Sprague, Esq." 1

In his inaugural address for 1831 the Mayor had no special recommen- dations to make except in regard to the administration of county affairs. What he had to say on this point led to the passage of an act by the Legis- lature, vesting all the property of the county of Suffolk in the city of Boston, and requiring the city thenceforward to furnish and maintain all the county buildings, and to pay all the county charges.

In the municipal election which took place Dec. 12, 1831, there were three prominent candidates, Charles Wells, William Sullivan, and Theo- dore Lyman, Jr. Mr. Wells and Mr. Lyman received, in round numbers, cighteen hundred votes each, and Mr. Sullivan eleven hundred. A second clection was held December 22, the contest being between Mr. Wells and Mr. Lyman, and the former was elected by a majority of seven hundred and four votes, and re-elected in the following year without opposition.

The election of Charles Wells 2 was a sort of protest from the middle classes against the magnificent way of doing things inaugurated by Quincy and Otis, and against any further increase of the city debt. Ile had some knowledge of city affairs, having served as a member of the common council and the board of aldermen. He was a man of simple character, not much versed in affairs of state, but not ill-qualified, on the whole, to perform the ordinary duties of the mayor's office. He made no formal ad- dress when the city government was organized in 1832, and his two terms of service were not marked by any events of importance beyond the crec- tion of the present Court House, the extension of Broad, Commercial, and Tremont streets, and the establishment and enforcement of strict quaran- tine regulations, by which the inhabitants were protected from the spread of cholera, then (in 1832) prevalent in the British provinces.

At the clection which took place in December, 1833, there were two candidates for the mayoralty. Theodorc Lyman, Jr., who was called the Jackson candidate, and William Sullivan, who was the candidate of the

1 [See Vol. I. p. 246 .- En]. The only other notable event of this year was the exclu- sion of cows from the Common. Rights of pas- turage on this public ground had been enjoyed by certain of the househoklers ever since 1660;

and had the cows behaved with proper respect to the ladies, Mayor Otis would never have inter- fered with their ancient privileges.

2 He was born in Boston, Dec. 30, 1786, and was by occupation a master builder.

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BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.

National Republicans, the party which had supported Mr. Wells. The con- test resulted in the election of Mr. Lyman, who held the office for two terms.1 He made no address when the government was sworn in on the first Mon- day in January; but he took occasion a few weeks later to send a long and carefully prepared message to the common council, recommending to its " early and earnest attention the subject of bringing a copious and steady supply of pure and soft water into the city of Boston." A portion

THEODORE LYMAN.ª

of the inhabitants were supplied with water at this time by an aqueduct corporation, chartered in 1795. The water was conveyed from Jamaica Pond, in West Roxbury, through four main pipes of pitch-pine logs.8 The

1 He was a native of Boston, born Feb. 20, 1792, and was educated at Phillips Academy and H farvard College. A man of admirable parts, of good understanding, enlarged by a liberal educa- tion and extensive foreign travel, he was well equipped for a more responsible and dignified office than the one which a laudable ambition 10 serve his fellow-citizens had prompted him to accept.

2 [This cut follows a likeness by Gerard, painted in Paris in ISIS, and now owned by

Colonel Theodore Lyman. There is a sketch of Mr. Lyman's character in L. M. Sargent's Dealings with the Dead, No. 56, p. 204; and a memoir by his son, Colonel Theodore Lyman, in the Memorial Biographies of the N. E. Hist Geneal. Soc., ISSo, vol. i. See the Genealogy of the Lyman Family, by Lyman Coleman, Albany, I872 .- ED.]

8 [The route of this aqueduct is shown in Dearborn's map of 1St4, given in another chap- ter .- ED.]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

lineal extent of the pipes in Boston was about fifteen miles, extending on the easterly side of the city nearly to State Street, and on the westerly side to the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1825, on the recommenda- tion of a committee of the city council, Mr. Quincy appointed Professor Daniel Treadwell a commissioner " to ascertain the practicability of supply- ing the city with good water for the domestic use of the inhabitants, as well as for the extinguishing of fires and all the general purposes of com- fort and cleanliness." Professor Treadwell subsequently reported that there were two places in the neighborhood of Boston from which an adequate supply of pure water could be obtained, and which appeared to possess advantages over all others; namely Charles River, above the falls of Water- town, and Spot Pond, in Stoneham. Estimates of the cost of bringing water into the city from those two places were furnished; but no further action was taken by the city council until 1833, when the Mayor was re- quested to apply to the Legislature for the necessary authority to supply the inhabitants with water. The authority was not granted; and there the matter rested until Mr. Lyman's message was received. The subject was then referred to a committee of which the Mayor was chairman, and they selected Colonel Loammi Baldwin, a distinguished engineer, to make a sur- vey of the several sources of supply. Colonel Baldwin's report was of great and permanent value. It furnished the basis on which all subse- quent surveys and reports relating to the water supply have been made. He came to the conclusion that Farm Pond, in Framingham, and Long Pond, in Natick, were the most eligible sources. The committee having the subject in charge recommended that the question of introducing water through the agency of the city council should be submitted to the people ; but no action was taken beyond printing and distributing the engineer's report. Twelve years elapsed, during which a water supply was the princi- pal topic of discussion in the city government ; and then, in 1846, satisfac- tory legislation was obtained, enabling the city to draw from the sources recommended by Colonel Baldwin.1

On the night of Aug. 11, 1834, the Ursuline Convent, on Mount Bene- dict in Charlestown (now Somerville), was destroyed by a mob, composed largely of men who lived in Boston. Vague threats of what the " Boston Truckmen " intended to do were made for days and even weeks beforehand, but they produced no serious impression upon the authorities or upon the citizens generally; and when the mob rolled up to the convent doors and began its work of destruction, there was not a solitary policeman or other peace officer to bar its progress.

The Ursuline school, from which the institution derived its support, was composed almost entirely of Protestant pupils, many of them the daughters of wealthy or well-to-do parents living in Boston or in its vicinity ; but dark stories had been circulated concerning the restraint put upon some of the

1 [A history of the introduction of water into

and printed in 1868; and a supplement, by D. Boston was prepared by Nathaniel J. Bradlee,

Fitzgerald, was added in 1876. - ED.]

2 39

BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.

nuns. One of them, while in delirium from brain fever, had escaped in her night-dress and taken refuge in a farm-house near by. While being taken back to the convent, her ravings had attracted attention, and it was said that she had fallen under the displeasure of the lady superior, and been long confined in an underground cell. About this time a sensational book, called Six Months in a Convent, was published as the work of a girl who had just escaped from the Ursuline Convent. "It purported to relate the threats and persuasions used by the inmates of the convent to make the writer a Catholic against her will; and it ended with an account of her escape from their clutches just in time to save herself from being carried off by force to St. Louis." The common people believed all these stories ; and it must be said that the original impulse which moved those who organized the attack on the convent was not a bad one. They regarded this institution, and all such institutions, as " anti-Christian, anti-republican," and in every way " injurious to the best interests of the community ;" but that feeling would probably never have moved them to acts of violence. What did move them was the belief that an old-world institution had been established among them where persons were deprived of their liberty, and where gross im- moralities were practised by " a company of unmarried women placed for life under the sole control of a company of unmarried men." The way in which they proceeded to vindicate republican institutions and the laws of society cannot, of course, be excused from any point of view; but there is this to be said, that they acted from a much higher motive than the men who, in the following year, dragged Garrison through the streets, or who, many years afterward, broke up Antislavery meetings and resisted the en- forcement of the Conscription Act.

As the mob surged up to the building, the lady superior, a woman of great courage and dignity, but altogether wanting in discretion, tore herself from the detaining hands of the sisters, and, rushing out on the front steps, ordered the men to disperse immediately; "for if you don't," she is re- ported to have said, " the Bishop has twenty thousand Irishmen at his com- mand, in Boston, who will whip you all into the sea." One cannot help feeling a sort of admiration for the fiery little French-Irish woman, standing alone before some thousands of riotous Protestant Americans and making such a speech; but such a speech, if made, was not calculated to soothe the passions of those to whom it was addressed. Two shots were fired at this time by some one in the crowd; " and the affrighted nuns, hovering in the shadow of the door, behind my lady, pulled her back by force and barred the door." All the inmates of the institution then withdrew to the back-garden, and subsequently found refuge in a private house on Winter Hill. The doors of the convent were forced, the rooms ransacked, and the building was then set on fire and entirely destroyed. Several of the engine companies in Boston, attracted by the light of the fire, went to the scene with their engines, and were afterward charged with aiding the rioters; but the charge was not sustained. As the work of destruction went on, the spirit

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

of lawlessness and violence developed rapidly, as is usual in such cases, and was stimulated by drink. The lady superior was sought for, and had she been found she would probably have been killed.

On the day following the affair at Mount Benedict, there were serious apprehensions of a riot in Boston ; and a conflict would undoubtedly have taken place between the returning rioters and the Irish population, had not the Mayor taken measures to prevent it.1 He called a meeting in Faneuil Hall at one o'clock that day; and, after speeches by Mr. Quincy and Mr. Otis, resolutions were adopted in which the attack on the convent was de- nounced as " a base and cowardly act; " and the Mayor was requested to appoint a committee of citizens to investigate the affair, and " to adopt every suitable mode of bringing the authors and abettors of the outrage to justice."

On the request of the Mayor, the State authorities made arrangements to call out the militia in case the posse comitatus was found inadequate to the support of the laws; but no further disturbance occurred. Madame St. George, the vivacious lady superior, being unable to hire another build- ing in this vicinity for her purpose, and making herself somewhat obnoxious by her snuff-taking, her levity, and her denunciations of the canaille, drifted off with her black-robed sisters into another part of the country, and was heard of no more by the " Boston Truckmen ; " but the blackened and crumb- ling walls of the convent remain to mark the spot where once stood the most " elegant and imposing building ever erected in New England for the educa- tion of girls." 2

In his inaugural address, at the beginning of the year 1835, the Mayor called attention to the city debt, now amounting to $1,265,164.28, and sug- gcsted that if the present policy of borrowing for all purposes that could not be considered as strictly belonging to the current expenses of the year was pursued, it was obvious that in a single century there would be an accumu- lation both of interest, which it would be troublesome and inconvenient to pay, and of principal, which it would be most burdensome to redeem. He recommended, therefore, that whenever any new public work was ordered, a certain proportion of the cost should be added to the appropriations of the year. To this recommendation we owe the establishment of a sinking

1 Colonel Theodore Lyman writes :-

"I used to hear my father relate the amus- ing device by which he prevented an anti-Catho- lic riot in Boston, after the convent affair. The Charlestown mob had arranged to march in pro- cession on the day following the fire, and to pass through Boston with a brass band, and bearing Catholic trophies stolen from the convent. Per contra, the Irish prepared to attack the proces- sion when it entered the city.

" My father sent for the leader of the band, and said : 'You are to play at the head of the procession. The militia are under arms. They will fire. You are a stout man, and will be surely

shot !' Immediately the band-master went in all haste and told them he would not play. This defection damped their ardor. However, a small number collected and began to move across Charlestown Bridge. At the city end my father had stationed a man on horseback, who, as the crowd drew near, turned and, in an ostentatious way, galloped furiously off. Immediately a cry rose : 'He is going for the military !' and the mob retired whence it came !"

2 [See the statements on these events made in the chapter on "The Roman Catholic Church in Boston," in the present volume, and also City Document 11 of 1834 .- ED.]

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BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.

fund, which has been of great value in preserving the city credit. He also dwelt at some length in his message on the subject of pauperism, and the reformation of juvenile offenders, making some valuable suggestions which were afterward acted upon.1

It was during this year that the famous demonstration against the Abolition movement occurred, of which a particular account is given in another chapter.2

On August 15 a great meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, to show that the wealth and intelligence of Boston were opposed to any interference with the constitutional guarantees which protected slavery. The Mayor pre- sided; and it should be said of him, as of many others who took part in this meeting, that, while condemning the methods of the Abolitionists, he was heartily in sympathy with any measures by which, in a constitutional way, slavery could be restricted or exterminated. His Fourth of July oration before the town authorities, in 1820, and his Report to the Massa- chusetts House of Representatives, in 1822, on the admission into this State of free negroes and mulattoes, show that from early manhood he had sym- pathized with the Antislavery cause.

A few days before the outbreak (October 21), a letter written by a graduate of the theological seminary at Andover, whose integrity of char- acter was vouched for by the professors, had been published in the news- papers, stating that George Thompson had said to him, three or four times, " that every slave-holder ought to have his throat cut." Thompson denied having made the statement; but in the face of a solemn re-affirmation of its truth by the person who originally made it, the denial went for little. What followed was undoubtedly due largely to the feeling created by this statement.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 34

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897 Publication date: 1880-1881 Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood Number of Pages: 770

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770