USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 27
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
not finished until many years afterwards; for, on the sixteenth of August, 1820, "the Committee on the Com- mon was instructed to build a road from Pleasant street to Fox Hill." The first foot-walk was made in conse- quence of the following vote passed by the Selectmen on the eleventh of June, 1812:
" The Chairman [Mr. Charles Bulfinch] & Mr. [Eben- ezer] Oliver were empowered to have the street next the ropewalks at the bottom of the Common raised so as to form a foot walk six feet wide, with a row of tim- ber on each side, & filled between with gravel, as a further security against high tides."
Soon after this the fence on Charles street was built, and, in the first year of the mayoralty of the elder Quincy, the mall was laid out, and its trees planted.
At the close of the last century, this portion of the Common was frequently used by the volunteer soldiery. On the twenty-third of May, 1787, "the selectmen allot for the Light Horse the west part of the Common to the beach for exercising the horses." It was then bordered eastwardly by a ditch, dug there for draining the marsh, of which it was a part. In October, 1797, a similar request, made by Capt. Rufus G. Amory for the Boston Cavalry, was refused.
Not many years ago the South Hayscales were kept on the southerly end of the Parade Ground, having been moved there in 1812; but these were removed when they appeared to be no longer needed; and it was determined to preserve the westerly portion unencum- bered for the use of the soldiers. The order which established the Parade Ground was passed by the Board of Aldermen on the eighteenth of October, 1852, in the following words:
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"Ordered, That the Committee on the Common and Public Squares be instructed to have graded forthwith that part of the Common along Charles street, from Beacon to Boylston streets, in conformity with a plan proposed by the City Engineer, for the purpose of keeping the same open as a parade ground, - free from trees or other obstructions."
Therefore it has since been kept clear of trees, which would have greatly interfered with military evolutions. During the summer of 1869, the Committee on the Common, under the chairmanship of Benjamin James, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Aldermen, has caused the northerly portion of the Parade Ground to be put to grass, and that portion of the Common has been much improved in appearance in consequence thereof.
Of late years the Parade Ground has become the favorite place for athletic exercises and games, and for the display of fireworks and balloon ascensions on public holidays.
From the earliest days of the town, four hills were perceptible upon the Common. Three of these had distinguishing names: Powder-House Hill, Ridge Hill, and Fox Hill; but the fourth was not of sufficient prominence and note to have gained any proper desig- nation, and has only come to any degree of distinction within the present century, and more particularly within the last fifteen years. These hills, with their intervening valleys, break up the otherwise disagreeable evenness of the enclosure, and add much to the picturesque appear- ance of the Common; and all of them have interesting associations connected with the history of the town.
Powder House Hill, more recently called Flag-staff Hill, - until the flag-staff was removed to Music Circle
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Hill, when the earliest attempt was made to erect a Soldiers' Monument, and the foundations therefor were laid and buried up in 1866, - was situated in what was the central part of the Common, before Charles street was laid out. It is to be seen delineated in all the ancient maps of the town, and was from very early times appropriated, as its name indicates, for a site for the town's powder-house. In ancient times, as far back as 1652, Ensign James Oliver and Sergeant Peter Oliver had liberty to set up a mill upon its top. During the occupation of the town, in the war of the revolu- tion, by the British troops, this hill was entrenched, and was held by the artillery. After the adoption of the city charter, these intrenchments began to disappear, and now none of them are to be seen. A few large trees grow upon its summit, thirteen of which form a circle; and west of them once arose from its most elevated part a tall flag-staff. This staff, which for a while gave name to the hill, was erected on the twenty- eighth of June, 1837. It has since been removed, as stated above, to another hill where the flag of the Union can float as conspicuously as on any point on the Common. The westerly slope of this hill was used by the small boys in winter for coasting; and many Boston boys, of an older growth, can well remember the in- iquity, in the form of drinking and gambling, that used to be carried on there before the mayoralty of the elder Quincy. Without descending too much into particulars, one may be pardoned for recalling to mind the egg- nogg, rum punch, and spruce and ginger beer which were so profusely distributed there on Election days; but no reminder is necessary to recall the gaming table, the black joke, and the tar on the heel. The memory
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of these will remain while any one of the boys of those days is left to relate the feats of by-gone times. Un- til within a very few years, when the present Parade Ground was appropriated for military use, the salutes on festal days, and for political rejoicings, were fired from the hill; and the old soldiers, many of whom are still living, can well remember their arduous task in drag- ging their mounted field-pieces over the ditch, and on the hill. In days long past, there stood near this hill a block-house, which was burnt on the twenty-eighth of September, 1761; and it is related that "as it was a monument of reproach, and an asylum of debauchery, the inhabitants, so much noted for their agility at fires, remained tame spectators" of the conflagration, and allowed the destruction to go on.
Fox Hill was on the westerly edge of the Common, not far from the place in the Public Garden assigned for a tower, and which projects into the pond that was arti- ficially commenced there on the fourteenth of November, 1859. It must not be mistaken for West Hill, one of the westernmost heads of Beacon Hill, and which was situated very near Cambridge street. This hill was not very large, being about twenty feet in height and fifty feet in diameter, and was almost surrounded by water, being on the edge of the part of Charles River generally known as the Back Bay. Old persons have a remem- brance of it, precipitous and gravelly; and many of a younger age may have not yet forgotten the rising ground beneath one of the old ropewalks, which used to skirt Charles street the first twenty-five years of the present century. This hill was often mentioned in the early records of the town; the following occurs under date of the twenty-seventh of August, 1649:
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"Tho. Painter hath liberty to erect a milne at Fox Hill by publicke consent of ye Towne in gen1, and yt he is bound to finish ye milne in too years, and at the first pecke of corne it grinds hee is to begin his rent at 40s. p annū for euer to ye publicke vse of ye towne."
Connected with Fox Hill was an extensive marsh, which, on the twenty-sixth of February, 1665-6, was leased for forty years, at an annual rent of thirty shil- lings, to John Leverett,-he who so faithfully served the town and colony in all their important offices, and died at last, while Governor, on the sixteenth of March, 1678-9,-at the same time the town "granting liberty to the inhabitants of the town to fetch sand or clay from the said hill." This marsh covered the space now oc- cupied by Charles street and the Public Garden, and extended south somewhat beyond the Station House of the Boston and Providence Railroad.
Ridge Hill extended in a westerly direction from the present Smoker's Circle to the shore of the Back Bay, and terminated in an abrupt bluff from ten to twelve feet high. It consisted of an ancient drift of gravel; and before it was levelled, not many years since, presented traces of the excavations made by the British soldiers, during the siege of Boston, for cooking places. Upon a portion of its crest is Ridge Path, leading from West street gate to the southerly corner of Charles street.
The other hill was situated a short distance south of Powder-House Hill. There is no evidence that it had any peculiar name until early in the present century, when it was known by the boys of the town who played upon the Common as Washington Hill. It has upon the easterly portion of it seven elm-trees, reg- ularly arranged in a circle, with comfortable seats for
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persons who indulge in the use of tobacco. Forty years ago this circle was a place of much resort, and it still keeps up its popularity with the present generation. When Mr. Bigelow was mayor, he laid out another circular walk, just west of the above and on the same rising ground, and in the area placed, in 1849, the cir- cular hedge of evergreens, which undoubtedly, for very good reasons, was girdled, and removed during the first year of the administration of his successor, Hon. Ben- jamin Seaver. A few years ago six trees were set out around the edge of this circle, one of which has died and been cut down. On holidays it is a noted position for a music stand, and hence has obtained the name of Music Circle. It is eagerly sought on the evening of Independence Day, as one of the best positions for viewing the fireworks usually exhibited on that occa- sion. It is now used for the flag-staff, and upon its summit was erected, in 1866, a small building, under the charge of the Committee on Health.
On some of these hills was anciently placed the gallows; for on the thirty-first of March, 1656, the gallows was ordered to be removed to the next knoll of land before the next execution.
There are three ponds, if such they may be called; for in early times they were merely marshy bogs, and had no defined borders. Of these the Frog Pond, a name which has never been taken from the one that is situated north of the old Flag-staff Hill, does not appear on any of the early maps of Boston, and is found only on those of a comparatively modern date. It is said to be of artificial construction, but is remem- bered by our oldest residents. After the stone edgings were placed around this pond, in the year 1826, an
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attempt was made to change its name to Quincy Lake; but this proved unsuccessful, as did other attempts to call it Crescent Pond, and Fountain Pond, when the Cochituate water first flowed into it through its foun- tain, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1848. A short time previous to this, a new curbing was placed around the pond, in the days of the junior Quincy.
Another pond, or wet marsh, and which could not have been dignified with the name as such, had not Boston been so deficient in these characteristics, was situated west of the Frog Pond, and was called She- han's Pond, from the name of a culprit who had many years ago been executed there. He was hung on the twenty-second of November, 1787, and the following is an account of his execution taken from the Centinel, of the twenty-fourth:
"On Thursday last, John Shehan, a native of Cork, in Ireland, was executed on the commons in this town, for burglary in the house of Mr. S. Eliot-in June last. At the place of execution his behaviour was becoming his unhappy situation-and he made his exit with con- siderable composure. He was 24 years old-was a Ro- man Catholick-and, except in the burglary for which he suffered, does not appear, by his life, to have been guilty of many atrocious offences."
The improvements of modern days have entirely obliterated all appearances of this pond, and the once damp and disagreeable place is now the most popular part of the Parade Ground, the portion usually selected for athletic games of exercise and amusement.
The other pond, merely a wet place, entirely desti- tute of springs, was between the two hills now to be seen on the Common, and lay exactly west of the four
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aspen-trees set out by Mayor Bigelow. This was called by some, Cow Pond, and by others, Horse Pond, and not only in wet seasons supplied the cows that pastured on the Common with water for drink, but also cooled their limbs in sultry weather. This marshy place gave a home to many frogs, which never took a fancy to the Frog Pond, so-called; and was sometimes so flooded with water, which ran into it in wet weather, that, if tradition can be believed, a man was once drowned there. After the removal of the cows from the Common, by an order of the City Council passed on the tenth of May, 1830, the watering place became useless; and, about the year 1838, the city authorities commenced filling it up with coal ashes. At the same time all of the Common lying west of the two hills was graded in the same manner, thus preparing a good surface for that part of the Common which was soon after appropriated as a Parade Ground.
In this connection the Wishing Stone, which can only be remembered by those whose heads have been whitened by more than fifty summers, should not be forgotten. It was situated just about where the path from Joy street runs to the Great Tree, and was near the Beacon street mall. Its name implied the use to which it was formerly put. It has long since disap- peared, removed probably by persons who were igno- rant of its associations.
It is astonishing how many people there are who have personal recollections associated with this old stone. When public convenience seemed to require new cross-paths in the Common, it was deemed necessary that the old rock, as it was called by those unacquainted with its history, should be removed from its ancient
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location. It was therefore blown to pieces by the usual process of blasting, and its fragments carried off, prob- ably to be put to some ignoble use; and the two walks leading easterly from the northerly end of the long path, near the gingko tree, diverging the one to Winter street, and the other to West street, were widened and beautified with side trees; for the exact position of this * noted stone was in the fork of the two paths. The young folks of by-gone days used to walk nine times around this stone, and then, standing or sitting upon it, silently make their wishes; which, in their opinion, were as sure to come to pass, if their mystic rites were prop- erly performed, as were the predictions of the famous Lynn witch, Moll Pitcher, who flourished in the days of our grand-parents, and who died, as perhaps the credulous will be glad to know, at Lynn, on the ninth day of April, 1813, aged seventy-five years, she being at the time the widow of Robert Pitcher, formerly a Lynn shoemaker.
During the siege of Boston, in the days of the revolution, there were upon the Common several fortifi- cations and barracks. The British artillery was sta- tioned upon Flag-staff Hill, where were intrenchments. A battery was located on Fox Hill; and at the end of Boylston street, as it was in those days, and exactly opposite Carver street, was a strong fortification. The marines were stationed on a line with Tremont street, and the infantry was scattered about the Common as was most convenient. Marks of the breastworks and encampments were noticeable for many years after they were left by the soldiery.
In December, 1851, a very careful survey of the Common was made, and all its topographical marks
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accurately laid down on a plan. The measurements differ slightly from those formerly given, perhaps on account of taking in the burial-ground and malls. By this admeasurement it was ascertained that the area, in- cluding cemetery and malls, contained forty-eight acres, one quarter, seventeen rods, and two hundred and thirty-seven feet; and the cemetery contained one acre, one quarter, twenty-three rods, and two hundred and seven feet. The exact length of the fence around the Common, including the four gates, and the other open- ings, was 5,946.9 feet, or one mile and one-eighth, and six and nine-tenths feet.
Allusion has been made several times in these chap- ters to executions upon the Common. It is known that the earliest were performed there, and upon regularly constructed gallows, though tradition says that the great tree was sometimes used for the purpose. It was not exclusively the place of execution, for persons have been hung during the last and present century on the neck, south of Dover street, where in 1769 the authori- ties erected the gallows; and some of the old pirates met their end in the harbor, on some of the flats and islands. In all probability Mrs. Dorothy Talbye (wife of John), who murdered her own daughter, Difficulty, was hung on the Common, on the sixth of December, 1638, as was also Mrs. Ann Hibbens (wife of William), who was hung as a witch on the nineteenth of June, 1656, as had also been Mrs. Margaret Jones, on the fifteenth of June, 1648. William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, Quakers, were hung on the Common on the twenty-seventh of October, 1659, and Mary, wife of William Dyer, on the first of June, 1660. Old Jethro, the Indian, was hung, and Matoonas shot upon the
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Common in 1676. Since this time, until the year 1812, executions were conducted upon the Common, though occasionally some were upon the Neck. John Quelch and his five associates were hung for piracy at low water mark on Charles River, Boston side, on the thirtieth of June, 1704, and William Fly and his as- sociates, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill, pirates, were executed at Charlestown Ferry, on the twelfth of June, 1726, Fly, the ringleader, being hung up in irons on Nix's Mate, as a spectacle for the warning of others, and the other two buried among its rough gravel at low water mark. The following record, taken from the Selectmen's minutes, shows how exe- cutions were stopped from taking place upon the Common:
"25 November, 1812. A memorial was received from a great number of inhabitants, remonstrating against the execution of the two persons now under sentence of death for piracy being permitted to be had at the bottom of the Common .- The subject was considered, and it was voted unanimously that the board could not consent that any part of the Common could be used for that purpose.
"The Chairman was desired to communicate to the Marshall the vote of the board, and at the same time to inform him of their readiness to aid the officers of the United States in executing the law: that a com- mittee should accompany him to South Boston, to select the most convenient and suitable place, it being their opinion, that the execution in a situation in a view open to the harbor will be best calculated to answer the end of punishment, the prevention of similar crimes, by the display of their awful consequences."
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The two pirates to be executed were Samuel Tulley and John Dalton; Tulley was hung at Nooks Hill, South Boston, on the tenth of December, 1812, and Dalton was reprieved. The hanging of John Holland (or Hal- loran), on the third of March, 1826, for the murder of one of the city watchmen, Jonathan Houghton, was the first of the executions in the rear of the Leverett street jail. These now take place more privately at the jail.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
PUBLIC GARDEN.
Land Granted and Ropewalks Built in 1794 ... Early Condition of the Garden ... Fox Hill and Round Marsh . . . Land Regained in 1824 . .. Committees for the Purpose and Reference . .. Streets around the Garden . . . The Mill- dam, Boylston street, and Arlington street . . . The Tripartite Indenture of 1856 · · · Attempt to Sell the Land in 1824 negatived by the Citizens . . . Agreements with the Water Power Company .. . Leased to Horace Gray and Others for a Public Garden in 1839 . . . Efforts to Sell the Garden in 1843 and 1850 . . . Act of April, 1859, by which the Garden was Saved from being Built upon . . . Mr. Snelling's Efforts for a Salt Water Lake . . . Alderman Crane's Order Establishing the Garden, and Mr. Meacham's Plan Adopted ... Size of the Garden . . . Fence, Pond, Conservatories . . . Granite Basins, Fountains and Figures . . . Bronze Statue of Everett . . . Ether Monument . . . Ball's Equestrian Statue of Washington . .. Bridge over the Pond . . . Im- provements by the Committee of the Aldermen . . . The Garden a Suitable Place for Memorials.
THE PUBLIC GARDEN was originally part of the Com- mon; but a great fire occurring in the neighborhood of Pearl and Atkinson streets, whereby the seven old rope- walks were burnt on the thirtieth of July, 1794, the towns-people opened their hearts, though they closed their senses, and resolved to grant the flats at the bot- tom of the Common for the erection of six new build- ings in place of those destroyed, on condition that no more ropewalks should be built between Pearl and Atkinson streets upon the old site. This rash act of our fathers fairly lost to the town the old Round Marsh, which had always, from the first settlement of the town, been a part of the Common or Training Field; and it
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was not until the first year of the elder Quincy's ad- ministration of city affairs that the lost estate was regained, by paying the owners the large sum (as it was then considered) of fifty-five thousand dollars, and obtaining a reconveyance of the land on the twenty- fifth of February, 1824, it having then been out of the possession of the town nearly thirty years, the grant from the town having been made on the first of Sep- tember, 1794.
In the days just alluded to, there were no streets forming the north and south boundaries of the flats; and the eastern limit of the present garden was de- noted by a muddy path through the bog or marshy ground, which had been more travelled over by beast than by man. With the exception of a small piece of land, consisting of gravel and coarse sand, known as Fox Hill, - the same described in the last chapter, and which was sometimes designated as an island because the high tides frequently flowed around it, - this consisted entirely of salt marsh and flats, with a few small salt ponds, and was not estimated as of much value; though from time immemorial it had been rented at times for a small compensation, under the name of the " Round Marsh," or the " Marsh at the Bottom of the Common." When the ropewalks were built, an open space was left at the southerly end, near the foot of Boylston street, and just beside the bluff of Ridge Hill; but no street was made there for many years, until the land west of the northerly end of Pleasant street was laid out and sold, and Boylston street extended westerly over the flats.
By those who were living and observant of the topography of the peninsula before the adoption of the
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city charter, this tract of land seemed quite useless, except to keep an open view of the country lying to the west. But on the accession of Mr. Quincy to the muni- cipal chair, the land seemed to acquire new value, and it was one of his earliest schemes for the benefit of Boston to get back the possession of this territory, so stupidly granted away by the old towns-people; and a committee, of which he was chairman, and Aldermen George Odiorne, Joseph H. Dorr, and Caleb Eddy, his associates, were indefatigable in their attempts to bring about the much-desired result.
In consequence of a recommendation of the commit- tee, the whole subject was committed to five eminently discreet persons, who were noted for their general intel- ligence and probity, as well as for their acquaintance with matters relating to landed property in the city. These referees, Messrs. Patrick T. Jackson, Ebenezer Francis, Edward Cruft, Peter C. Brooks, and John P. Thorndike, one only of their number dissenting, agreed upon the award already mentioned, of fifty-five thousand dollars, to be paid to the owners in fee; and, to the joy of all, the property became again vested in Boston in its corporate capacity, and subject to the ancient town orders and new city charter, which reserved its appropriation strictly to the legal voters of the town, and subsequently of the city.
On the fourteenth of June, 1814, Isaac P. Davis, Uriah Cotting, and William Brown, with their associ- ates, were granted an act of incorporation by the Gen- eral Court of the Commonwealth, under the name of the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, for building a mill-dam, forty-two feet wide, from Charles street at the westerly end of Beacon street, to the upland at Sewall's
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Point, so-called, in Brookline, and as near as might be to the north side of tide-mill creek, and to be made so as effectually to exclude the tide-water, and to form a res- ervoir or empty basin of the space between the Dam and Boston Neck. Among other privileges, the act gave that of building another dam from Gravelly Point in Roxbury to the Mill-dam. Other acts of a subsidiary character were afterwards passed, and in a few years after the passage of the general act, the land west of Charles street, being part of the empty or receiving basin, became comparatively a dry place, and a spot upon which persons of a speculative tendency were wont to cast their longing eyes. In consequence of the erec- tion of the Mill-dam, the Western avenue, as it has been termed, extending from Beacon street to Brookline, was laid out as a street, although it was not opened for pub- lic travel until the second day of July, 1821; and thus a definitive boundary was established on the northerly side of the town's land, back of the Common. The street on the southerly side, known as the extension of Boylston street, was laid out by a survey made on the eighteenth of August, 1843, by Alexander Wadsworth, and thus the southerly boundary fixed. The westerly boundary was established as late as the eleventh day of December, 1856, by the tripartite indenture executed by the Com- missioners of the Commonwealth, the Boston Water Power Company and the city of Boston, -the Com- mittee of the City Council being Aldermen Farnham Plummer and Pelham Bonney, and Councilmen Oliver Frost, Ezra Farnsworth and John G. Webster. This agreement, which settled many important points relating to the Back Bay Lands, received the approval of Mayor Rice on the thirtieth of December following. By this
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