USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 31
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
and William Homes's "Key," and the crooked old arch- way over Scottow's alley that led to Creek Square and Hatters' Square. In Union street to the northeast the memory will extend to the "Union Stone " near At- wood's Oyster House, and to the "Boston Stone" at the corner of the old building that used to stand in " Mar- shall's Lane." In Hanover street the "Mill Bridge," a stone arch, the old " Star Tavern "at the northeasterly corner of Union and Hanover streets, the ancient " Green Dragon Tavern " in North Union street, and the old "Tallow Chandler House," more generally known as the "Blue Ball," on the corner of Union street, in which the parents of Franklin dwelt the last years of their lives, and in which the great Bostonian passed his boyhood, and which was demolished on the tenth of November, 1858, and its site turned into the street, will not soon be forgotten. These, with in- numerable other objects of interest, will occur to any one who retraces the steps of his younger days in pass- ing around this noted neighborhood. Each of these could furnish a chapter of interesting reminiscences, and some of them could awaken memories of the past connected with the most important 'era in our national history.
CHAPTER XXXI.
PONDS AND AQUEDUCTS.
The Town's Watering Place in Pond street, now Bedford street . . . Its Site . . . Attempts to have it filled up . .. Its Sale in 1753 to David. Wheeler .. . First Mention of it in the Book of Possessions, 1643 . . . Estates Contiguous to it ... Size of the Pond Lot . . . The Rowe Estate . .. Avon Place . .. Owners of the Pond Lot . . . Swamps and Marshes . . . Jamaica Pond Aqueduct . . . Aque- duct Company incorporated in 1795 .. . Location of the Logs, and Extent of Supply of Water . . . The Lake Cochituate Water Act Passed 1846 . . . Water Introduced into Boston in 1848 . . . Mystic Water Introduced into East Bos- ton, January, 1870.
EXCLUSIVE of the ponds on the Common, there were, two hundred years ago, two other ponds so called; but both of them have now disappeared forever. One of these was formed by natural causes, and was coexistent with the town; while the other, a work of human art, had its origin in the exigencies of the early settlers of the peninsula. The latter of these, the Old Mill Pond, made by the building of the Old North Causeway, has been sufficiently described in a former chapter; the for- mer, the old watering place, is worthy of a short notice.
The natural pond was of very small size; but its water is said to have been of considerable purity for such a location as it possessed, and was much valued by the townsmen of the olden time, who took good care of it, it being, as the old records styled it, the "Town's watering place for their cattle." Although this ancient convenience, which our forefathers enjoyed, has been
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destroyed, and no vestige of it left, yet its position is distinctly noted on the oldest map of the town, - Bon- ner's plan, as it is called, published by William Price in 1722. It was on the northerly side of Pond street, which took its name from this circumstance, and which, in February, 1821, took the name of Bedford street, in honor of the late Jeremiah Fitch, Esq., one of the last Board of Selectmen, whose family had a summer resi- dence in the town of that name; and its exact site was a short distance west of the meeting-house occupied by the society of the Second Congregational Church, now under the ministry of Rev. Chandler Robbins, D. D., and nearly opposite the Latin school-house.
Tradition, passed down from the early inhabitants, would lead to the inference that this pond was the con- venience chiefly used for the cattle, and that cows and horses were driven to it from great distances in the town. This may be true, for the nearest public pump, a hundred years ago, was farther from it on the north than State street, and there was no accommodation south of it belonging to the town. The spring in Spring Lane was undoubtedly used somewhat for the same pur- pose, and the ponds on the Common were chiefly for the supply of the cattle that pastured there.
In course of time the pond became a great trouble to the families in its immediate neighborhood, and mo- tions were made by the inhabitants to have it filled up, and the Selectmen were required to consider the subject; but no satisfaction could be obtained from this body, further than the following opinion, which was ventured by them on the second of May, 1739: "That it is with the town to give leave for filling up the said pond if they see fit, and we are of opinion it may be convenient
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to have it so done accordingly." Nothing resulted from this opinion, except renewed efforts for getting it out of the possession of the town; and with this view Mr. Ben- jamin Church, a land-owner in the vicinity of it, peti- tioned the town, on the fourth of May, 1743, that it might be granted to him; but the town refused the re- quest. Again, in the year 1753, David Wheeler, who owned the estate just west of it on the main street (then Newbury street), petitioned, requesting that he might be allowed to hire or purchase the same; and the matter was referred to a committee to examine into the condition of the pond, and ascertain what encroach- ments had been made upon it. The committee subse- quently reported that the pond, so called, was a nuis- ance, and recommended that it be sold to help pay Mr. Dolbeare a debt owing him, he having erected certain buildings near the town dock for the benefit of the town; and on the fifteenth of May, 1753, the freeholders and other inhabitants in town meeting accepted the re- port, and voted to sell the land on which the pond was situated, which was done at public auction, on the twenty-seventh of the following August, to Mr. David Wheeler, blacksmith, for fifty-one pounds in lawful money.
The first mention of "the watering place " is to be found in the "Book of Possessions," which contains an inventory of the landed property of the real estate owners in Boston, as it was held by them about the year 1643. This book, which is carefully preserved among the city archives, had its origin in an order passed by the General Court of the Colony, on the ninth of Sep- tember, 1639, and complied with imperfectly by the town about the years 1643 and 1644. At this early
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date, the land in which the pond was situated was at the then southerly part of the town, abutting southerly on the south lane leading to Fort Hill, then known as the Pond street, and fronting the estate of Mr. Robert Woodward, a carpenter, who had his house and work- shop upon his lot, which extended westerly to the High street (now Washington street). Westerly the pond lot was bounded by the estates of Mr. Thomas Wheeler and Mr. William Blantaine, and northerly by the estate of Mr. Blantaine, -the easterly boundary being open land or highway between the pond and the estate of Mr. John Viall.
In 1753, the time the estate was purchased by Mr. Wheeler, the lot was very small, containing less than one-ninth of an acre, and measured southerly on Pond street (now Bedford street) only forty-seven feet. Westerly it measured one hundred and eight feet, partly on the estate of the heirs of Samuel Adams, Esq., and partly on land of Mr. Benjamin Church ; northerly forty-six feet on the same estate of Mr. Church ; and easterly ninety-four feet in part on land of Mr. Church, and partly on land of Mr. Robert Thompson.
The estate on the east of the pond, which, in 1753, belonged to Mr. Thompson, was purchased by him of Mr. Benjamin Church in 1742, and, in 1764, was sold to Mr. John Rowe (the person who gave name to Rowe's Pasture), and his heirs sold a large portion of it to Hon. William Prescott on the thirty-first of May, 1817. The Prescott heirs conveyed their portion of the estate, in 1845, to Hon. Henry B. Rogers, for the Church of the Saviour, then under the ministry of Rev. Mr. Water- ston; and on the easterly portion of which his congre- gation erected the meeting-house now occupied by the
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society of which Dr. Robbins is the pastor. On the northerly part of the Prescott lot now stands a large brick dwelling-house, and immediately west of this was the Old Pond, the Town's Watering Place, or Wheeler's Pond, just as any one pleased to call it. The two lots on the west of the Pond iot extended to the High street, as it was called, and have been divided and sub- divided many times, until they now number many inde- pendent estates. The portion of Mr. Church's land on the rear was, in the year 1818, in connection with other estates, laid out into Avon place, chiefly through the instrumentality of the late Charles Ewer, Esq. This place has recently, by an order passed in 1867, been ex- tended into Chauncy street, and now with Temple place forms a continuous avenue to Tremont street.
Mr. Wheeler did not destroy the pond when he bought the estate, but probably kept it many years in the condition in which it was when he received it. He died on the twentieth of September, 1770, giving his wife Hepzibah a life estate in the property, and pro- viding that at her decease two-thirds of it should go to his son David, and the other third to his daughter Sa- rah, the wife of Jonathan Jones, a hatter. Goodwife Wheeler died in January, 1773; and David Wheeler, the son, also a blacksmith, as his father had been, died on the sixth of August, 1772, and his third wife, Dorcas, survived him, together with his daughter Elizabeth by his first wife, Elizabeth Davis. This daughter died un- married on the first of December, 1808, and the Pond estate passed into the possession of her aunt Sarah Jones, who with her husband Jonathan Jones and her maiden daughter Nancy conveyed the estate by quit- claim deeds in 1809 and 1811 to their daughter Hepzi-
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bah Jones. Hepzibah, in turn, on the thirtieth of July. 1830, quitclaimed her right in the estate to Richard Dewerson, a well-known ingenious mechanic, who died not long ago.
The long continued interest that the early Wheelers had in this estate, it being contiguous to the possession of the earliest of the name long before David became the purchaser, gave to the pond the name of Wheeler's Pond; and by this designation it was most generally known during the last half century of its continuance. It has not been known to supply water within the mem- ory of any person living, although there are many per- sons now on the stage of life who think that they can remember skating on this pond during their early years. Be this as it may, it is certain that the boys of fifty years ago used in winter to gain access, through a passage- way leading from Washington street, not far from the present Avon place, to a small plat of ice, which was situated not far from the back part of Mr. Wheeler's lot.
With this pond disappeared all that could be called a natural pond on the peninsula; for there is no evi- dence whatever that the Frog Pond on the Common was ever anything more than a marshy bog transformed into an artificial pond by the industry and labor of the older townsmen. Similar places were in other parts of the town, and it would be an omission, deserving of being considered a fault, were no mention made of the most memorable of the swamps or bogs which were once to be noticed in Boston, and some of which can well be remembered by the old people now living in the city. The most noted of these were in places now perfectly dry, and so well guarded as to defy the scrutiny of the
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most profound geologist to point out their locality from any present indications. A very noted one occupied a large space south of the Public Library building, be- tween Boylston street and Eliot street, its central part being where Van Rensselaer place now is. Another covered the territory of Franklin place, extending from Hawley street nearly to Atkinson street; and a third, nearly contiguous to the last named, was situated where the southerly end of Devonshire street now is, a little north of Summer street. Where the estates lie between Rowe place and Kingston street was another, which was formerly a part of the large field known as Rowe's Pas- ture; and on this spot a noted antiquarian writer has been known to have shot a killdee not far from the com- mencement of the present century. At the South End, marshes were on each side of the main street, especially in the neighborhood of Northampton street; and at the West End, between McLean, Allen and Blossom streets, was a considerable swamp, the remembrance of which has not entirely passed away. Unquestionably there were other low places of a marshy character, but those mentioned above are the most known.
Before quitting the subject of water, it may not per- haps be amiss to say a few words about the Jamaica Pond aqueduct, which at the early part of the present century supplied so large a portion of the inhabitants of the south part of Boston with fresh water for domestic use. On the twenty-seventh of February, 1795, Gov- ernor Samuel Adams approved an act of the General Court, whereby Luther Eames, Nathan Bond and Wil- liam Page, and their associates, were vested with cor- porate powers for the management and direction of the business, as a company, of bringing fresh water into the
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town of Boston by subterraneous pipes; and, by a sub- sequent act, passed on the tenth of June, 1796, this cor- poration was empowered to assume the appellation of " The Aqueduct Corporation." The corporation was authorized "to bring from any part of the town of Roxbury into the town of Boston, and into any street in the same town, all such fresh water as they, the said Luther Eames, Nathan Bond, and William Page, and their associates, or any, or either of them, in their private and natural capacities" then had or hereafter should "have a right to dispose of, or to convey from the springs or sources thereof." The act gave power also to open the ground in any of the streets or high- ways in Roxbury and Boston as should be required for the sinking of the water pipes, but with very prudent provisions, which prevented the aqueduct from becom- ing a nuisance, or impairing any right of the town of Roxbury or any of its inhabitants in and to the waters of Jamaica Pond. The corporation could hold only $33,000 in real estate, and the water works were to be divided into one hundred shares. The price of water was to be regulated by the General Court, the towns of Boston and Roxbury were to have the privilege of hy- drants for extinguishing fires, and the first meeting was to be called by Hon. James Sullivan upon the proper application of the persons named in the act. On the twenty-second of June, 1803, an additional act was passed to facilitate the operations of the corporation. The capital of this company, as far as can be ascertained, was about $130,000, or about $1,300 to a share, which became much depreciated in value. No dividends were made during the first ten years after the commencement of the works, and subsequently the average of the divi-
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dends for thirty years amounted only to a fraction less than four per cent a year. When the aqueduct was in its greatest prosperity, it supplied about fifteen hundred houses with water, chiefly at the South End, and in the neighborhood of Summer and Essex streets, and of Pleas- ant and Charles streets. The water was brought from Jamaica Pond in Roxbury through four main pipes of pitch pine logs, two of four inches bore, and two of three inches, the lateral pipes having a bore of one and a half inches. The lineal extent of the water pipes in Boston was about fifteen miles, and they extended north as far as Franklin street, and branched off easterly through Harrison avenue into Congress street nearly to State street, and to Broad street. They also branched off westerly through Pleasant and Charles streets, ex- tending as far as the Massachusetts General Hospital, which was supplied with Jamaica Pond water. With comparatively a very small outlay, the aqueduct could have increased its benevolence in a tenfold ratio, and this the corporation desired to do, but was prevented by the citizens, who, on the twelfth of April, 1846, by ac- cepting an act of the legislature, passed thirtieth of March, 1846, voted to introduce water from Cochituate Pond (then called Long Pond), in Natick, Framingham and Wayland, on a much more extensive plan; and ground was broken at Wayland for the purpose on the twentieth of August following; and the water intro- duced on Boston Common through the tall fountain in the Frog Pond on the twenty-fifth of October, 1848, to the great joy of the advocates of the measure, and also with the greatest acceptation of those who had consci- entiously opposed the proposed plan of introduction at the inception of the enterprise. On the establishment
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of the Cochituate Water Works, of course, all minor institutions of the kind had to yield way, and the old Jamaica Pond Aqueduct ceased to be of any special use either to owners or the public, and was consequently discontinued, leaving its more powerful rival a full pos- session of the field.
Since the annexation of the city of Roxbury, prudence and a foresight of the future requirements of Boston has induced the city to make arrangements for supplying East Boston and the public institutions at Deer Island with water from Mystic Pond; consequently an agree- ment was made with the city of Charlestown for this purpose, and water was let into the pipes leading to East Boston on the first of January, 1870, and from this date the inhabitants derive their supply of pure water through Charlestown from an extensive and undoubtedly never-failing source.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ENTRANCES TO BOSTON.
Early Attempts for a Bridge, 1720 . . . Charles River Bridge, opened 1786 . .. Description of the Bridge . . . West Boston Bridge, opened 1793 . Free from Toll 1858 . . . Canal Bridge, opened 1809 . . . Prison Point Bridge . Bos- ton South Bridge, opened 1805 .. . Name changed to Dover Street Bridge in 1857 . . . Mill-dam, or Western Avenue, opened 1821, and made free 8 December, 1868 . . . South Boston Free Bridge, now Federal Street Bridge, opened 1828 . . . Warren Bridge, opened 1828, entirely free from Tolls 1858 . . . Chelsea Free Bridge, now Chelsea Street Bridge, opened 1834, rebuilt 1848 . . . East Boston Free Bridge, now Meridian Street Bridge, com- pleted in 1856 . . . Chelsea Point Bridge, opened 1839 . . . Mount Washington Avenue Bridge, opened in 1856 . .. Broadway Bridge, 1869 . . . Contemplated Bridges . . . Malden Bridge, 1787, free 1859 . . . Chelsea Bridge, 1802, free 1869 · · · Old Ferries.
IN the olden time, and for a long number of years after the settlement of Boston, there was only one carriage entrance to the town, and that was through Roxbury and over the Neck. Although very early in the last century, in 1720, there had been some thoughts about connecting Charlestown with Boston by means of a bridge, there was no actual advance towards the accom- plishment of such a design until about the year 1785, when the townsmen seem to have aroused themselves on this subject, and came to the determination that a bridge should be built connecting the north part of the town with the neighboring peninsula of Charlestown. The bridge in question was to extend from Prince street in Boston to a street in Charlestown leading northerly
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to the main square of that town. At the same time another bridge, which should connect Cambridge with Boston, was also talked of, to reach from Barton's Point, at the northwesterly end of Leverett street, to Lechmere Point, now known as East Cambridge. Both of these bridges were subsequently built.
The Charles River Bridge Company was incorpo- rated on the ninth of March, 1785, by an act of the General Court, granted to Hon. John Hancock, Thomas Russell, Nathaniel Gorham, James Swan and Eben Par- sons, Esquires, and their associates; and they were em- powered to build the bridge and receive certain tolls, which were to be double on the Lord's day, for the term of forty years, commencing on the day of the first opening of the bridge for passengers; and they were required to build the bridge forty feet wide, with a draw at least thirty feet wide; and to pay annually to Harvard Col- lege the sum of two hundred pounds in compensation for the annual income of the Boston and Charlestown Ferry, which the college might have received had not said bridge been erected. On the ninth of March, 1792, in consequence of a charter granted to another bridge to cross the same Charles River, the term for taking toll was extended thirty additional years under the same conditions, and the double toll on the Lord's day was required to be relinquished, and a single toll only ex- acted, as on secular days. Preparations for building were immediately commenced; an architect, Major Sam- uel Sewall, and a master workman, Mr. Cox, appointed, and the stock, consisting of one hundred and fifty shares, the par value of each of which was one hundred pounds, was assessed and collected, making the capital of the company fifteen thousand pounds. The first pier of the
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bridge was laid on the fourteenth of June, 1785, the last on the thirty-first of May, 1786, and the bridge, 1,503 feet long, was opened for public travel, with considerable parade and ceremony, on the seventeenth of June fol- lowing, the bridge having been built in about one year's time. The bridge was built forty-two feet wide, upon seventy-five piers, each composed of seven oaken tim- bers; and four solid wharves and buttresses were laid with stone in different parts of the structure, to strengthen and sustain the wooden piers. It had on each side a passage-way of six feet railed in for safety, and was lighted at night by forty lamps in lanterns mounted upon posts.
The opening of the bridge took place on the Charlestown holiday, -the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, - and was attended with the greatest en- thusiasm, and with the usual parade and festivities. At dawn of day thirteen guns, the number of the confeder- ated States, were fired from Copp's Hill in Boston, and from Bunker Hill in Charlestown, as a Federal salute, and the bells in both towns were rung, as now on the Fourth of July, and the peal of bells belonging to Christ Church joined in with their musical chimes. A large procession of the proprietors, State officials, town officers and notables of the town, was formed at the Old State House; and, when the time came for its moving, another Federal salute was given from the Castle, and one from Copp's Hill as the cortege arrived at the draw of the bridge. The number of persons present was im- mense for the time, supposed to be equal in number to the total population of the two towns. The draw was fixed by the master workman, and the procession passed over it under salute. When the retinue arrived in
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Charlestown, it passed through the great square, and took its course towards the renowned hill where the battle was fought eleven years previous, and was there received with another salute of thirteen guns, and a din- ner was served in great style to about eight hundred persons, who were seated at two tables of three hundred feet each in length, united by a semi-circle, and who re- mained in festivity until six o'clock in the evening. The joy on this occasion was unbounded, and it is said that the arrangements on that day far surpassed any that had ever been known in the neighborhood before.
From being private property, Charles River bridge subsequently became the property of the State; and after being made passable for a time without toll, and then with a toll, finally a sum of money was obtained for keeping it in repair, and it has been opened as a perfectly free bridge, without any expectation or reason that the public will ever again be inflicted with a toll for passing over it either on foot or in carriages.
A company for building West Boston bridge, more generally known as Cambridge bridge, which extended from the point of land at the westerly part of the town, where formerly stood the Pest House, over Charles River to Pelham's Island (so called) in Cambridgeport, was incorporated on the ninth of March, 1792. The persons named in the act were, Hon. Francis Dana, Hon. Oliver Wendell, Hon. James Sullivan, and Henry Jackson, Mungo Mackay, and William Wetmore, Es- quires. The act of incorporation required that the bridge should be at least forty feet wide, with side- railings, lamps, a sufficient draw, a watch-house near the draw, the proper signboards, and a good road from Pel- ham's Island to the nearest part of the Cambridge road.
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