USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 36
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At the charter election, Dec. 9, 1844, several propositions in regard to procuring a supply of pure water for the inhabitants of Boston were sub- mitted to a popular vote. The proposition to take the supply from Long Pond in Natick and Framingham, or from any of the sources adjacent thereto, as recommended by Colonel Baldwin, was adopted by a vote of six thousand two hundred and sixty yeas, to two thousand two hundred and four nays. The Mayor was thereupon instructed to apply to the Leg-
1 Mr. Brimmer was born in 1793, and grad- board of aldermen, and one term as a represen- uated at Harvard College in IS14. Although lative in the Legislature. engaged in mercantile pursuits he was always " [Sce Mr. Dillaway's chapter on " Educa- tion, Past and Present," in Vol. IV. - ED.] interested in public affairs, and previous to his election as mayor had served one term in the VOL. 111 .- 32.
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islature for the necessary authority; and the last important act of his ad- ministration was a compliance with this instruction.1
Mr. Brimmer having declined a re-election for a third term, there was a remarkable contest over the election of his successor. Thomas Aspinwall Davis was the candidate of a new political organization, called the Native American party; Josiah Quincy, Jr., was the candidate of the Whigs, and Adam W. Thaxter, Jr., was the Democratic candidate. On the first ballot Quincy received four thousand four hundred and sixty-four votes; Davis, three thousand nine hundred and eleven, and Thaxter, two thousand one hundred and seventy-three. There being no choice, Mr. Quincy with- drew, and Thomas Wetmore was put forward as the Whig candidate. He proved less popular than Mr. Quincy, and on the second ballot Davis led; but Colonel Charles G. Greene, who had been nominated as the Democratic candidate in place of Mr. Thaxter, received sufficient votes to prevent a choice. It was not until the eighth ballot was taken, on Feb. 21, 1845, that Mr. Davis received a bare majority, and was declared elected. His principal opponent on the last ballot was Mr. William Parker, a Whig, who had been chosen chairman of the new board of alder- men, and who acted as mayor until Mr. Davis was sworn in on February 27. Mr. Parker appears to have had some feeling over his defeat, as he immediately withdrew from the board of aldermen.
Mr. Davis's inaugural address, delivered on February 27, was devoted mainly to the subject of a water supply; but he could not forbear referring to the contest over his election, and saying a few words in defence of the party which had brought him forward. He said: -
" The numerous and exaggerated statements that have been freely circulated in reference to the objects and aims of the American Republican party, which has re- cently sprung into existence and is so rapidly increasing in many parts of the coun- try, require a word upon this subject. It is not the object of the American party, by word or act, to engender unkind feelings between the native born and foreign born citizen. Its object is, by the establishment of general and salutary naturalization and registration laws, by educational and moral means, to place our free institutions upon such a basis that those who come after us, the descendants both of the foreign and the American citizen, may be free and independent."
On March 25 the Legislature passed an act authorizing the introduction of water from Long Pond; but the act was not to take effect unless ac- cepted by a majority of the legal voters of the city. The question of its acceptance was voted on at special meetings held in the several wards on May 19, and it was rejected by a small vote; the principal cause of its re- jection being the extraordinary powers given to the three water commis-
I [ History of the Introduction of Pure Water two vols., maps, and plans, Boston, 1868-1876. into the City of Boston, by N. J. Bradlee, with a See also, on the matter specially referred to, continuation from 1868 to 1876 by D. Fitzgerald, City Documents, 1844. - ED.]
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sioners, who were, by the terms of the act, to be appointed as the agents of the city council.
On October 6, Mr. Davis having been ill for some time, and unable to perform the duties of his office, sent his resignation to the city council ; but it was not accepted, and he continued to be the nominal head of the city government until November 22, when he dicd. He was a man of ex- cellent character, but lacked the qualities essential to success in the admin- istration of a public office.1
At the charter election on Dec. 8, 1845, there were three candidates for mayor: Josiah Quincy, Jr., nominated by the Whigs; John T. Heard, by the Democrats; and William S. Damrell, by the Native Americans. Mr. Quincy was elected by a handsome majority; and on the eleventh of the same month the city council elected him, as authorized in such cases by the city charter, to fill the office until the beginning of the next municipal year. During the interval between November 22 and December 11, Ben- son Leavitt, then chairman of the board of aldermen, acted as mayor.
Josiah Quincy, Jr.,2 served in the office of mayor from Dec. 11, 1845, to the first Monday in January, 1849. He had a thorough knowledge of mu- nicipal affairs, and his administration was characterized by much of the energy and ability which distinguished his father's service of the city. In his inaugural address on Jan. 5, 1846, he dealt with the water question in a way to secure the hearty co-operation of his associates in the government. The time for deliberation, he said, had passed. The time for action had comc. A competent and disinterested commission had decided that Long Pond was the source from which this blessing was to be derived, and the honor of beginning the important work had been conferred upon the pres- cnt administration. He then proceeded to make a financial statement, from which it appeared that the cost of introducing water, estimated by the commissioners to be $2,651,643, was more than covered by the value of the city lands, estimated at that time to be worth $3,175,000. The funded city debt on Jan. 1, 1846, amounted to $1,085,200, showing a reduction of over $600,000 since 1840. This favorable exhibit of the city's financial condition had much to do with securing the approval of the citizens to the next act of the Legislature, authorizing the introduction of water. Ten days after the new government came in, the Mayor was authorized to pc- tition for another act. It was granted, in the form desired, on March 30, and accepted by the citizens on April 13, the vote standing four thousand six hundred and thirty-seven in the affirmative, and only three hundred and forty-eight in the negative. On May 4, James F. Baldwin, Nathan Hale,
I His ancestors were among the earliest set- lers of the town of Brookline, Mass., where he was born on Dec. 11, 1798. He was educated in the public schools, and at the time of his elec- tion as mayor was engaged in business as a jeweller.
? He was born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1802, and was educated at Phillips Academy and Harvard College. He was a member of the common council for four years (1833-37), and its presi- dent for three years. [llis portrait is given in Mr. Adams's chapter in Vol. IV. - ED.}
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and Thomas B. Curtis were chosen by the city council as commissioners under the act; and on August 20 the ceremony of breaking ground for the beginning of the work at the lake was performed by the Mayor, as- sisted by his father and the venerable John Quincy Adams. At the colla- tion which followed, the Mayor called attention to the name by which the source of supply was generally known, and said the name Long Pond was like the name John Smith, without distinction. He suggested, therefore, that the Indian name "Cochituate " should be substituted, and the sug- gestion was immediately adopted.
On Oct. 25, 1848, in the last year of Mr. Quincy's mayoralty, there was another celebration, this time on Boston Common. The rising of the sun was saluted with a hundred guns, and by the ringing of all the church-bells. A great procession was formed, which marched through the streets and then to the Common, where an ode, written by Mr. James Russell Lowell, was sung by the school children, and addresses were made by the Mayor and by Mr. Nathan Hale, chairman of the water commission. After the citizens had been duly impressed with the importance of the blessing about to be bestowed on them, the Mayor inquired if it was their pleasure that water should then be introduced. There was a tremendous affirmative, and thereupon the gate was opened, and a column of water six inches in di- ameter rose to a height of eighty feet. What followed is thus described by the historian of the water works: -
" After a moment of silence, shouts rent the air, the bells began to ring, cannon were fired, and rockets streamed across the sky. The scene was one of intense ex- citement which it is impossible to describe, but which no one can forget. In the evening there was a grand display of fireworks, and all the public buildings and many of the private houses were brilliantly illuminated."
The committee on finance, of which the Mayor was chairman, was au- thorized in 1846 to borrow money to the amount of $2,500,000, for carrying on the work; but they found great difficulty in negotiating a loan upon any reasonable terms. The leading Europcan bankers who were consulted on the subject united in saying that the repudiation of some of the States had made it impossible to dispose of American bonds. During a part of 1847 the rate for money was two per cent a month, on the best paper. In April of that year it was decided to advertise for a loan of a million dollars. The city's financial condition was so well presented to capitalists, that the finance committee were enabled to place the whole amount at a little less than six per cent, a lower rate than was obtained by the United States.
During Mr. Quincy's first term the police force was reorganized. Francis Tukey, who occupies a large place in the traditions of the department, was appointed city marshal. He was a police officer of the French school, possessing great coolness and audacity, a thorough knowledge of the weak- nesses of human nature, and an entire indifference as to the methods by which he accomplished his ends. On a larger field, and under a less dem-
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ocratic form of government, he would have been one of the noted civil officers of his time. He made himself the terror of evil-doers, and, it must be added, of some who were not evil-doers. As the law then stood, the city was obliged to maintain a night-watch, separate and distinct from the police force. The watch numbered at this time about one hundred and fifty men, and were under the control of a captain. They were in the habit of enveloping themselves in large coats, and, after a round or two at the beginning of their watch, retiring to the shelter of the watch boxes, which were then provided, and slumbering peacefully until relieved. Marshal Tukey's force consisted in the beginning of only twenty-two day men and cight night men, - the night men being a sort of detective force, and, under the lead of their dashing chief, doing more effective police service than the whole night-watch. This force was gradually increased to forty patrolmen for day duty, twenty patrolmen for night duty, and five regular detectives. In 1853 the Legislature passed an act authorizing the city council to unite the watch and police, and in the following year the union was effected.
Among other police regulations introduced during Mr. Quincy's term, was one requiring licensed places of amusement to abolish what was known as the " third row," - a place which for years had been set apart in all the theatres for the special accommodation of prostitutes. By the Mayor's casting vote, licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors were refused. " When I left the office," says Mr. Quincy, "there was no place where such liquors were openly sold. An attempt was made on this account to prevent my re-election for a third term, but after a most excited canvass I was rechosen."
In order to make good his statement as to the city's means for mecting its obligations, the Mayor urged upon the city council the importance of preparing the lands owned by the city for public salc. In 1847 he was authorized to contract for filling a portion of the marsh lands on the cast- erly side of the Neck, known as the South Bay; and under the contracts then made an extensive tract of land was graded, laid out in streets and lots, and made ready for the market.
The subject of providing a new jail for the county of Suffolk, to which reference has already been made, was discussed a good deal during the first two years of Mr. Quincy's administration; but the two branches of the city council were unable to agree upon any plan of action. In 1848 the city solicitor gave an opinion that the duty of providing a county jail was imposed by law upon the board of mayor and aldermen, who in this matter, as in some others, had the powers of county commissioners. The Board lost no time in exercising its authority. The project of erecting the jail in connection with the House of Correction at South Boston was abandoned; a large lot of land on the north-casterly corner of Cambridge and Charles streets was purchased, and before the Mayor retired from office he signed the contracts for the new building.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The reforms in our public school system which Horace Mann and George B. Emerson were advocating at this time received the cordial sup- port of the Mayor. The " double-headed system," as it was called, under which a grammar master and a writing master exercised a divided authority over the schools, was abolished; women were more generally employed as teachers, and larger school buildings were erected.
At the municipal election on Dec. 11, 1848, John Prescott Bigelow,1 the Whig candidate, was elected by a majority of two thousand four hundred and twenty-seven votes, although all shades of the opposition were repre- sented in the four candidates who ran against him. He occupied the office for three terms, and performed its duties with marked ability and discretion.
In his inaugural address at the organization of the government in 1849, he dwelt particularly on the action of the mayor and aldermen of 1847 in refusing licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors. The attempt, he said, to suppress the traffic in that way had utterly failed. The number of drink- ing places had augmented to an extent never before witnessed, and there had been an appalling increase of intemperance and its attendant crimes. He therefore recommended that the license system be re-established, as, with all its defects, it produced better results than the prohibitory system. The Mayor's recommendation on this point was sustained by the grand jury of Suffolk County, who expressed the opinion that "the entire interdiction of the sale of ardent spirits, however beneficial its effects may be in small com- munities, is wholly inoperative for good in a great city." But the aldermen were unanimously opposed to the granting of licenses; and on a test case which came up in the board on March 3, 1849, the Mayor had not a solitary supporter. A majority of the members of the board were re-elected for the following year, and therefore the question was not taken up. In 1851 the increase of drunkenness and crime caused the aldermen to propound cer- tain interrogatories to Marshal Tukey. In reply to the question, "How many places are there where intoxicating liquors are sold?" he stated that there were fifteen hundred such places; and in reply to the request "to furnish an opinion as to the best method of checking the increase of crime and the traffic in liquors," he contented himself with the simple state- ment, - " Execute the law." This novel proposition appears to have filled the aldermen with such astonishment that they were unable to do anything further that year. In 1852 a prohibitory liquor law was passed by the Leg- islature. Governor Boutwell, who first vetoed the bill and afterward ap- proved it, said " it contained new principles of legislation and was of doubtful expediency." Before it went into effect the board of mayor and aldermen granted about five hundred innholders and victuallers licenses under the
I He was born in Groton, Mass., on Aug. 25, tion. The new mayor had taken an active inter- 1797, and was educated at Harvard College. His father was a well-known lawyer, and his grandfather, Colonel Timothy Bigelow, won an honorable reputation in the war of the Revolu-
est in City and State affairs, having served for seven successive terms in the common council (1827-33), and for the same length of time (1836- 42) as Secretary of State.
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provisions of the old law. A complaint was made by some of the prohibi- tionists against Moses Williams, who had received one of the licenses, with- a view to testing the power of the board to grant it; but the court sustained the license.
Mr. Bigelow did not look with much favor on the plans of his predeces- sor for the erection of a new jail. He suggested that it might be found advisable to cancel the contracts, and alter the old building in Leverett Street. The aldermen decided, however, to proceed with the work, modify- ing the plans so as to make a considerable reduction in the expense. The building was completed in 1851, at an expense, including the site, of about $450,000.
The great expense involved in introducing and distributing water, and in · raising the grade of the city's lands in the southerly section of the city justi- fied the Mayor in criticising any further expenditures which would add to the city debt. He called' attention for the first time to the fact that the high rate of taxation which these expenditures involved was inducing many of the largest owners of personal property to escape into the country at the annual period of taxation. The number of citizens who thus evade the payment of their proportion of the expense of providing for the public safety and convenience in the city where they reside during seven or eight months in the year, and where their business is protected during the whole year, has steadily increased since Mayor Bigelow's time. Several attempts have been made to check it by legislative enactments; but the decisions of the highest court, as to the right of a man to choose his domicil, have made the new legislation practically inoperative.
During the summer of 1849 Asiatic Cholera prevailed to an alarming extent; the death rate exceeded that of any previous year in the history of the city. With a population of about one hundred and thirty thousand, the number of deaths was five thousand and eighty; one-fifth of the num- ber being caused by the epidemic.
The seventh national census, taken in 1850, gave the city a population of one hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, showing an increase of about sixty-two per cent during the preceding de- cade. The rapid growth of the city at this period was due to the opening of communication by rail with the West and by steamship with the East. The assessors' valuation of real and personal property within the city this year amounted to $180,000,500.1 The tax levy was $1,237,000; and the rate of taxation was $6.80 on a thousand. The funded debt of the city on April 30, 1850, including water loans, was $6,195,144.35. In his address to the city government at the beginning of 1850 the Mayor said: "I have reason to believe that there is no other city in the world, certainly not in our country, the affairs of which in proportion to its size are administered at so great an expense as our own. The current annual expenditures of the
1 For an explanation of the remarkable increase in the valuation between 1840 and 1850 see note to p. 234.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
city of New York, with more than three times our population, do not more than double those of Boston."
Among the noteworthy events of this year in which the local govern- ment had an interest was the breaking up of a meeting in Fancuil Hall, called to congratulate George Thompson, then a member of Parliament, on his arrival in this country. Mr. Edmund Quincy presided. When Wendell Phillips attempted to speak there were cheers for Webster, for Jenny Lind, and for the Union, so loud and long continued that he was unable to proceed. Mr. Thompson undertook to read an address, but was obliged to give it up, and the meeting was declared adjourned. The per- sons who interrupted the proceedings were good-natured, but determined that neither Thompson nor his sympathizers should be heard. Marshal Tukey, who was present with a considerable police force, took no steps to , check the disturbance; and Mr. Quincy subsequently lodged a complaint against him in the board of aldermen. At the hearing before a committee of the board he met the charges against him with the statement that he acted under the instructions of the mayor; and the committee so found, and ex- onerated him.
At the beginning of the year 1851 the Mayor was able to state that every section of the city was supplied with pure water. The whole cost of the water-works at that time amounted to $4,321,000. The aggregate length of streets, courts, and lanes through which main and distribution pipes had been laid was ninety-six miles; and the number of water-takers was thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty-three.
During the year 1851 the new almshouse on Deer Island was completed at a cost of about $150,000. The Mayor recommended that all the inmates of the House of Industry at South Boston should be removed to Deer Island; and his recommendation was subsequently carried out. The system of telegraphic fire alarms invented by Dr. William F. Channing was intro- duced this year ; and although the old-fashioned engines were then in use, it was said to be hardly possible for a great fire to occur again. The first steam fire-engine was introduced into the department in 1854. It was long regarded as a failure, and the firemen found the English language quite in- sufficient to express the contempt they felt for it. But continued experi- ments led to improvements ; and in 1860 the manual engines were banished to those rural districts where the stagecoach was still in use, the steam- engines took their place, and the character of the department was wholly changed. The new fireman is as unlike the old fireman as the crew of a modern steamship is unlike the crew of a sailing vessel of thirty years ago.
On April 2, 1851, the police arrested Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave, and locked him up under the Court House to await the decision of the United States authorities on a process for his rendition. The day-police, number- ing at that time forty men, were armed with mariners' cutlasses, and drilled in anticipation of a disturbance ; but as Sims was a disreputable fellow, the public sympathy was not actively enlisted in his favor, and on April 12, at
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four o'clock in the morning, he was marched down State Street under a police guard, and placed without opposition on board a vessel bound for Savannah. Mr. Charles Devens, Jr., then United States Marshal, applied to the mayor and aldermen for a detail of police officers to aid in transporting Sims back to the State from which he had escaped; but the application was refused on the ground that the city needed all its officers for home duty.1
The board of aldermen of this year gained a sort of flickering notoriety by refusing the use of Faneuil Hall for a reception in honor of Daniel Webster. The ground of the refusal was that a similar application from the Abolitionists had been denied for fear of a disturbance. The intense indignation of Mr. Webster's friends can easily be imagined. On the day following their refusal another meeting of the mayor and aldermen was held, and a motion made to reconsider the action. The mayor and three aldermen voted to reconsider, and four aldermen voted in the negative. Mr. Moses Kimball, a member of the board, declined to vote, and there be- ing a tie, the motion to reconsider did not prevait. At a meeting of the common council held a day or two afterward an order was passed ap- pointing a joint committee "to tender Honorable Daniel Webster, in the name of the city council of Boston, an invitation to meet and address his fellow-citizens in Fancuil Hall at such time as he shall elect." The mayor and aldermen then met, and after passing a resolution asserting their own ·dignity and independence, concurred unanimously in the action of the com- mon council. When the committee waited upon Mr. Webster at the Revere House and humbly asked him to signify his pleasure in the matter, he treated them very coldly, and said he would give his answer in writing. The answer was a curt one : " It will not be convenient for me to accept the invitation." When election day came the mayor and aldermen found that political pre- ferment was not to be obtained through snubbing Mr. Webster. They were, all and singular, remanded to private life, and there they mostly remained. In the following year, on an invitation from a new and revised city council, Mr. Webster addressed his fellow-citizens in Fancuil Hall, " the doors on golden hinges turning," - as Mr. Choate said.
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