USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 15
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CHAPTER X.
THE THREE HILLS OF BOSTON.
The Three Hills, Copp's, Fort and Beacon Hills . .. Appearance of the Hills on approaching the Town ... Copp's Hill, and its earlier Names ... The Old Windmill . . . Stanley's Pasture ... Stanley's Gift to the Free School .. . An- cient Redoubt . .. Claim of the Artillery Company . .. Prospect from Copp's Hill . . . Burial Ground . . . Fort Hill, its Position and Early Name . . . Streets Leading to the Fort . . . Fort Field .. . Fortification on Fort Hill . .. Widow Tuthill's Windmill . . . The Mill Lane . .. Elder James Penn's Land on the Hill ... Seizure of Andros .. . Charity School ... Views of the Hill and Fort ... Changes in the Neighborhood of Fort Hill.
To ANY one approaching the old town of Boston, as it appeared at the time of its first settlement by Euro- peans in 1630, its most distinguishing feature consisted in its several hills, three of which, particularly prominent to the sight, were noticeable from all points of view, whether from the land or the sea. The most northerly of these, situated at the extreme north end of the town, between Hudson's and Merry's Points, has at various times been known as Windmill Hill, Snow Hill, and Copp's Hill, the last of which designations is most familiar to Bostonians. The most easterly, situated be- tween the Great and South Coves, and near the Fort Point, bore at times the names Corn Hill and Fort Hill. But the largest, and by far the most remarkable of the three, was in the more westerly part of the peninsula, although some of its eminences, for it had many, ex- tended easterly almost to the most central portion of the
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
town, and was early known as Treamount, and after- wards as Beacon Hill, with several names for its many peaks and eminences.
In the olden time, before the hand of modern civiliza- tion had reached these old landmarks - the familiar holi- day resorts of the forefathers of the town-the first objects that met the eye of the stranger who ventured to approach the capital of the Massachusetts Colony were the ancient windmill and its busy wings, the lone tenant of the north hill, grinding out the rich yellow corn of Indian origin, raised on nearly every garden lot on the peninsula; and the tall and sturdy beacon pole on the loftiest eminence of Treamount, sometimes topped with a blazing bonfire, the warning to the neighboring villagers that danger was at hand; and the old, but for- midable wooden breastwork, upon the Fort Hill, a safe reliance when the danger should come.
Copp's Hill, though not very lofty, being only about fifty feet in height, rose with a gentle ascent from Hud- son's Point, whence the ferry boat of honest Francis Hudson, the fisherman, started for Charlestown. On its northerly side, fronting Charlestown, it presented some- what of an abrupt face, like many of the bluffs, or heads of islands in the harbor; while the three sides, bounded by the streets now known as Charter, Prince and Salem streets, were of a gradual and easy slope. Upon the summit of this hill there was a level plain, which in early days had been the site of a noted windmill, and from which the hill itself had taken its earliest remembered name " Windmill Hill," and the contiguous land around it that of the "Mylne Field," or "Mill Field," by which appellation it was most frequently known in the record of grants and conveyances of land made in that neigh-
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borhood in the olden time. The old windmill had for- merly performed the accustomed work at a place some miles distant; for Governor Winthrop in his valuable journal informs us on the fourteenth of August, 1632, that "the windmill was brought downe to Boston, because (where it stoode neere N-town) [Newton, perhaps a part of Cambridge], it would not grind but with a west- erly winde." In later days the same hill obtained the name of Snow Hill, a cognomen only kept in remem- brance by Snow Hill street, which in early times was content with a position on its northwesterly side, though it now, disturbing the earthly resting-place of the for- mer residents of the North End, sacrilegiously passes over the edge of the old bluff, extending itself in a northerly direction to Charter street on the northeast- erly side. Commercial street also has interposed itself between the hill and the water side, and Hull street has contracted its limits by separating it from its old western boundary, Prince street. After a lapse of time, the hill took another and more permanent name, which it now bears, Copp's Hill, probably after William Copp, an in- dustrious cobbler, who dwelt hard by on his half-acre, and owned a homestead there; and who died in March 1670, aged sixty-one years, and was buried, as his family were, in the graveyard that was a few years earlier located on the brow of the hill. On the southerly slope of this hill was Stanley's Pasture, extending to Hanover street, and covering the large tract of land lying between Prince and Charter streets, the westerly end of Bennet street at its junction with Salem street being the centre of the lot. This individual was a tailor, if old records can be be- lieved, and dwelt near his pasture at the North End; he died not far from March 1646, at the age of forty-
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
three years, a fit person to be remembered by Bosto- nians, as the first who devised property to the town for the support of public schools; for in his will dated the twenty-seventh of March, 1646, we find the following, "It", I give to the maintenance of the free-schoole at Boston a p'cell of land lying neere to the waterside & foure roads in length backward."
During the siege of Boston in revolutionary times the British threw up a redoubt upon this hill, the para- pets of which were constructed of barrels filled with the natural soil of the place. At the battle of Bunker Hill, on the seventeenth of June, 1775, the battery on Copp's Hill consisted of about six heavy guns and howitzers, three of which pieces, twenty-four pounders, were found, on the re-occupation of the town after its evacuation by the British on the seventeenth of March, 1776, spiked and clogged, so as to prevent their immediate use by the provincials. The vestiges of these works remained upon the hill - near the southwest corner of the old burial- ground -for many years after they were used by the British, and were a favorite playground for the North End boys, until improvements to the neighborhood re- quired their removal. The Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery Company a long time ago claimed the ownership of a part of this hill, and is said to have occupied it on one occasion for parade and drill during the war of the Revolution, in consequence of being refused admittance to the Common, the place to which they had prescrip- tive right by their charter. After the British soldiery left Boston, the company made claim to it again by right of an old mortgage, which had run out without the redemption of the land; but this was subsequently discharged.
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Although the location of this eminence was such that it did not command a prospect of any considerable part of the town, even before the high and capacious build- ings of the present century were erected, nevertheless it afforded a good opportunity for viewing the towns of Charlestown and Chelsea, and a large part of the harbor and its pleasantly situated islands. In late years an agreeable number of thrifty trees have been transplanted on its summit by direction of the city authorities; and the spot has again become the holiday resort of the in- habitants residing in its neighborhood, who are wont on Sundays, and the evenings of the sultry days of summer, to refresh themselves with the breezes which still con- tinue to visit the old hill, though the wings of the wind- mill have long since ceased to move, and the grinder to garner in his toll from the scanty produce of the neigh- boring fields and garden plots. Many memories of the past, however, cling to this well known spot, and no old Bostonian visits the ancient monuments which tell of other days without a pious thought of the years that have passed away forever, and without recalling well remembered incidents and many recollections and asso- ciations of the pleasantest period of life. A description of the ancient burial-ground will be given hereafter when treating of the town cemeteries.
Fort Hill, the second of the three great hills of Bos- ton, was situated at the easterly part of the town, on the promontory that projected easterly between the Great Cove at its north and the South Cove at its south. It was estimated, before any alteration had taken place in the contour of its summit, to be about eighty feet in height, and was quite extensive at its base, originally including under its name all that part of the town now
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
lying between the water on the northeast, east and south, Atkinson's Pasture (the region between the pre- sent Federal and Pearl streets, but which were anciently known as Long Lane and Hutchinson's street) on the west, and on the northwest was a creek which in days long past ran through a marsh that occupied the space known as the lower part of Milk street, Kilby street and Liberty square, till it reached Oliver's Dock, at the north- erly part of Broad street, where it is crossed by Central street. On its northerly and easterly sides it presented rugged bluffs, difficult of ascent, and consequently afford- ing good defences for the town, which were early made available; while on its other sides its gradual slopes made it easily accessible from the other parts of the town. The hill was anciently approached by two ways, the first of which led from Governor Winthrop's house on "the High Street" (where now the South Block is on Wash- ington street), opposite the School street, by "the Fort Street" (now Milk street) and Oliver's street; the second, also, from the same High street, but farther south, by passing through either the way leading by "the town's watering place," now Bedford street, or through "the Mill Lane" (now Summer street), and then through " Cow Lane" (now High street), to its foot.
The land immediately around this hill was designated, in the early days of the town, the Fort Field, and was used so extensively at first for the cultivation of corn that the eminence had previously obtained the name of Corn Hill, an appellation which it soon lost in conse- quence of the fortification which was so early erected there by the forefathers of the town. An attempt was made early in the last century to call this hill Bowling Green, and still later, after the honored name of Wash-
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ington; but the former failed entirely, and the latter suc- ceeded no farther than naming the empty square space which surrounded the summit of the hill, which was afterwards, and until quite recently, encircled with an iron fence.
After the Governor and the Company of the Massa- chusetts Bay, while in England, had resolved to remove with their charter to New England, among their earliest considerations they took counsel about matters of defence in the new country, by whom they should be erected, and how they should be maintained; and came to the conclusion, that the Company should be at one-half the expense and the planters at the other half, and that all men should be employed in the building thereof in equal proportion until the works should be completed. The first place selected for raising fortifications was Boston, and the place may be inferred from the following extracts taken from Governor Winthrop's often quoted journal: 24 May, 1632, "The fortification vpon the Corne Hill at Boston was begun:" 25. " Charlestowne men came & wrought vpon the fortificane; Roxbury the next, and Dorchester the next." Again, on the third of August, 1633, the Governor being asked by the Deputy-Governor by what authority he had removed certain ordnance and erected a fort at Boston, replied, "that the ordnance lying vpon the beach in danger of spoiling, & having often complayned of it in the Court, & nothing done with the helpe of divers of the Assistants, they were mounted vpon their carriages, removed where they might be of some vse: & for the forte, it had been agreed, above a year before, that it should be erected there: & all this was done without any peny charge to the publ." These extracts clearly show that Governor Win-
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
throp originated the project of erecting the fortifications upon the hill, and actually accomplished the undertaking, in which he was opposed by Mr. Dudley the Deputy- Governor. The first mention made of these fortifications in the Colonial Records of Massachusetts is under the date of the twenty-ninth of May, 1633, when it was or- dered by the General Court "that the ffort att Boston shalbe finished with what convenient speede may be, att the publique charg." In September of the same year all hands, except magistrates and ministers, were ordered to afford their help to the finishing of this fort until it should be completed; and on the first day of the sub- sequent October, Sergeant Perkins is ordered to carry forty turfs to the fort, as a punishment for drunkenness. On the third of September, 1634, the same records show that "Mr. John Samford is chosen canoneere for the ffort att Boston; & itt is ordered, that for two yeares ser- vice that hee hath already done att the said ffort, & for one yeare more hee shall doe, to be accompted from this day, hee shall have allowed him out of the treasury the some of xxl." By these extracts it is evident that the construction of the fort was commenced in May, 1632, more than two years before the earliest town record now extant.
After this date, the town records abound in orders passed with reference to the building of the fortifications upon Fort Hill, and petitions are frequently mentioned as having been presented by persons who wished to be relieved from working upon the same.
The following extract from the town records shows what passed at a general town meeting, and contains much information; it bears date the twenty-third of January, 1635-6:
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"Item, it was likewise agreed, yt for ye rayseing of a newe worke or fortification vpon ye fforthill, about yt wch is there alreaddy begune, the whole towne would bestowe fourteene dayes worke by equall pr'portion, & for this s" M" Deputie, M' Henry Vane, M' John Winthrop, Sen., M' Will" Coddington, M' John Win- throp, ju., Captaine John Underhill, & M' Will™ Bren- ton, were authorized as commissioners, yt they, or ye greater part of them, should sett downe how many dayes worke be equall for each man to doe, & what money such should contribute beside their worke, as mene of greater abilities, & had fewer servants, that therewith pr'vision of tooles & other necessaryes might be made, and some recompence given to such of ye poorer sort as should be found to bee overburdened wth their fourteene dayes worke; & M John Cogan is chosen treasurer, & M" Will™ Dyer, clerke, for ye furtherance of this worke; the worke also is to be put in hand wth, soe soone as weather will p'mitt, in regard yt ye ingineer, M' Lyon Garner [Gardner], who doth soe freely offer his help therevnto, hath but a short time to stay."
From this time the work on the fortifications seems to have progressed reasonably well, although they were not immediately completed. On the thirty-first of October, 1642, "there is liberty granted vnto Widdow Tuthill to remove her windmill into the Fort there to place it at the appointmt of Capt. Gibones." In December, 1642, "It is ordered that the highway begun from Widdow Tuthills windmill to the Fort, 20 feet in width, shall be laid out by W" Colbron and Jacob Eliot," and in March, 1643, the same persons were appointed to lay out a cartway near the Widow Tuthill's Windmill, and on the fifteenth of September, 1645, the same Mr. Colbron with James
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Penn are directed to lay out the way through the gar- dens to the south windmill, passing between the house of Nicholas Parker (at the southwest corner of the present Winter street), and the garden of Robert Renolds, which was situated east of the present site of Trinity Church. This way (now Summer street) is the old Mill Lane that led to the Widow Tuthill's Windmill on Fort Hill. The other lane (Bedford street), leading to the Fort passing by the town's watering place, was laid out by vote passed the thirty-first of January, 1644-5, and was to pass between Thomas Wheeler's garden, at the northwest corner of Bedford street, and Robert Woodward's garden at the southwest corner.
From the following record it appears that the land taken on Corn Hill for the fort must have belonged to James Penn, a person of much note in the early days of the town, having been the beadle, then the marshal, and finally the ruling elder of the First Church: - December 30, 1644. "There are two acres of ground added to James Penn his former grant of 26th 6mo 44, for more full satisfaction for his land taken on ye fort hill, taken to the use of the fortification "; and afterwards three acres " neare Rockbury gate " are granted to him for the same purpose.
Fort Hill has been quite noted in the early history of the town; and among the most noted events was the seizure of Sir Edmund Andros, who sought shelter within the fort, on the tenth of April, 1689, a daring act on the part of Bostonians, which might have made many of them lose their heads had it not been for the lucky occurrence of the great English revolution that elevated the Prince of Orange to the throne. The fol- lowing vote, passed the ninth of March, 1712-13, shows
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that Boston was not altogether wanting in good acts and charities :
" Voted, That the Selectmen be desired to view the House and ground on Fort Hill or elsewhere at the Request of ye Gentlemen that are about to erect a Charity School, or Hospital for such children, and that they lay out what ground may be thought convenient for the sd Intention, and make Report at the next General Town Meeting for the Townes confirmation of the same, to be continued and appropriated for that use so long as such school shall be upheld there."
Many engravings have been made representing the hill and the fort on its summit. On Bonner's plan of the town, published in 1722, it appears like a quadrangular stockade; but in a later map, published in 1775, it has the appearance of a regular fort; and again the plates connected with Des Barres's charts give it simply the resemblance of a common board fence. A view of the town taken in 1743, and published by William Price, and republished a century afterwards, exhibits a good view of Fort Hill from an easterly point of view; as also does another ancient engraving made in 1774, and published with the Royal American Magazine. In the Columbian Magazine for December, 1787, and the Massachusetts Magazine for June, 1791, are other views of this locality. There is no evidence on record, nor is there any creditable tradition that the town ever parted with its right to Fort Hill. From the earliest days of the town to the close of the war of the Revolution, the hill was chiefly used for military purposes; since then, the fortifications have been suffered to decay, until not a vestige of them remained to be seen at the time Boston became a city, in 1822.
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Great changes have taken place in the appearance of Fort Hill. As late as the year 1784 no street was nearer its summit than Batterymarch, Purchase, and Oliver streets, at which time it had visible remains of the old fortifications enclosed with a wooden fence. A very creditable engraving, published in 1781, with the charts of Des Barres, a noted hydrographer, exhibits the ap- pearance of the hill at the time of the American Revolu- tionary war. Since this time, the hill has been nearly covered with private houses and one or more public buildings; and a circular plat of ground, surrounded by a wide street forming a square, has alone been retained as a breathing place for its numerous inhabitants. Be- fore the buildings were erected upon the hill, an excellent view of the harbor and of the towns lying southerly, Dorchester and Roxbury, and the Blue Hills of Milton, could be obtained from its top. Now, alas! there is very little remaining about it that can interest the visitor. A project of removing the soil and reducing the hill to a much lower grade was sanctioned by the city council by a resolve and order approved on the sixth of September, 1865; and which will be fully carried out, as an order appropriating the large sum of twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the purpose was approved by the mayor on the twenty-third of July, 1869. This improve- ment will give much valuable room to the business part of the city, and make a large increase in its taxable prop- erty, and at the same time remove many of the noted places of filth and sickness which are now found in its immediate neighborhood.
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CHAPTER XI.
BEACON HILL AND ITS EMINENCES, BEACON POLE AND MONUMENT.
Beacon Hill, anciently called Treamount ... Its many Eminences and their Names . .. Beacon Hill proper . . . Copley's Hill, Mount Vernon . . . Cotton's Hill, Pemberton's Hill . . . West Hill . . . Height of Highest Summit ... Early Mansion Houses . . . Hancock House, and its Stable, etc . .. The Han- cock Cow Pasture, now the site of the State House .. . Changes in the Vicinity of Beacon Hill ... The Beacon Pole and its History . .. British Fort ... Centry Street .. . Thurston's House . . . Approach to the Hill ... Beacon Hill Monument, and its Inscriptions . .. The Tablets and Gilded Eagle . . . Exact Site of the Old Monument ... Sale of the Land and Remo- val of the Monument ... Temple Street laid out ... House of Daniel D. Rogers . . . Present Condition of Treamount.
BEACON Hill, early known as Treamount, or Tramont, and sometimes called Tremont, was the third of the three great hills of Boston, and presented to the sight the most prominent object of the town when it was viewed at any considerable distance. It was not only conspicuous on account of its loftiness, but was also a distinguishing feature of the peninsula, in consequence of the peculiar shape of its summit, which exhibited three eminences that were particularly noticeable from the neighboring town of Charlestown, and which gave to it its first name "Treamount," to the town the first English designation " Trimountaine," and to a principal street, one of the oldest and most noted, the name " Tremont," by which alone is preserved the remembrance of a peculiarity now lost to the sight forever. One of
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
these eminences was situated behind where the State House now stands, and was anciently known as Centry Hill, and was the site of the ancient beacon pole; at the west of this was a lesser elevation, sometime called Copley's Hill, and later, Mount Vernon; and at the east was a summit known as Cotton's Hill, and Pemberton's Hill, that consisted of three more humble risings upon a lofty eminence, which in recent times were occupied as the gardens of the late Lieutenant-Governor William Phillips, Gardiner Greene, Esq., and Dr. James Lloyd. Another portion of the ancient Treamount stretched nearly to the present line of West Cedar street, where it terminated in a high bluff called West Hill - a portion of the ridge enjoying names which it would be much better to forget than to continue in remembrance with the unpleasant associations of the past with which they are inseparably connected.
The loftiest of these eminences was about one hun- dred and thirty-eight feet above the level of the sea, and afforded the best view of the neighboring towns and harbor that could be obtained within the limits of the peninsula. This cluster of elevated points extended from the head, or westerly end of Hanover street on the east to the water on the west, and from Cambridge street on the north to the Common on the south. On the easterly slope, the site of the present Tremont row, were, in the olden time, many of the principal mansion houses of the town; but upon the more westerly part there were scarcely any buildings until Mr. Thomas Hancock, a princely merchant, erected on the southerly slope his sightly stone house, in 1737, afterwards the aristocratic mansion of his nephew, Governor Hancock, which was taken down in 1863, to give room for the two
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magnificent houses of Messrs. Beebe and Brewer. On the west of the Hancock house were the carriage house and stable, about the last use of which was for the ex- hibition of caravans of wild animals; and on the east was the cow pasture, which was bought by the town and given conditionally to the State for the erection of the present State House, the corner stone of which was laid by the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Massachusetts on the fourth of July, 1795, in the presence of Governor Samuel Adams, who made a most appropriate speech on the occasion, which probably took him less than five minutes to deliver.
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