USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
1
1
675
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
March, 1645, and called the "School-house estate," and now the " City Hall square "), and northerly by land of Major-General Robert Sedgwick.
Richard Hutchinson, who in the mean time became a famous ironmonger in London, and so wealthy as to be able to lose, in 1666, by the great fire in that city, the sum of sixty thousand pounds, without being ruined, sold the property on the eighth of March, 1657-8, to Mr. John Evered alias Webb, a merchant of Boston, for the small consideration of seventy-five pounds. On the twenty-fourth of May, 1661, Mr. Evered conveyed a portion of the lot-measuring fifty-nine feet upon the highway to Roxbury (now Washington street), and one hundred and fifty feet upon School-house Lane (now School street), which lane had been laid out as a public highway on the thirtieth of March, 1640-to Mr. Henry Shrimpton, another Boston merchant, for forty pounds; and the same was then fenced in by Mr. Shrimpton as a garden, and a garden-house was erected upon it. Mr. Shrimpton dying in July, 1666, devised the estate to his daughter Abigail, with three hundred pounds to build a house with. The daughter married Mr. Zachariah Bourne, and they dying, the property passed into the possession of their two daughters, who resided in Westminster, England, and who, on the third of April, 1707, conveyed the estate to Mr. Thomas Crease, an apothecary, together with its buildings and edifices, the same probably erected by Mrs. Bourne in compliance with the provision of her father's will.
On the third of October, 1711, at the great fire which destroyed the old meeting-house and the Town House, these buildings were burnt to the ground, and soon afterwards the old brick building, now standing at
676
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
the corner, was erected by Mr. Crease. Mr. Crease, on the first of July, 1727, sold the estate to Mr. Pe- ter Luce and Mr. Nicholas Davis, for twelve hundred pounds, and these purchasers divided the land, setting off to Mr. Davis, on the third of the following March, a portion measuring twenty-eight feet on Cornhill (as the street was then called), and ninety-one feet on School street, together with the "dwelling-houses thereon standing." The easterly and southerly boundaries of the estate have remained the same since this date, and the northerly and westerly (which were more extensive than their opposites), have been somewhat modified by sales, until the whole lot has been reduced to its present dimensions.
Mr. Davis, who was styled a merchant, having a son Anthony, who, on the nineteenth of July, 1730, was about to marry Elizabeth Adams of Dorchester, the eldest daughter of Mr. William Adams of Barbadoes, recently deceased, pledged the estate in trust to Mr. William Barwick for the benefit of Anthony and Eliz- abeth; and Barwick, on the sixth of September, 1751, gave power to Francis Brinley, Esq., to convey the estate to Anthony Davis, the beneficiary. Two years after this, on the thirtieth of October, 1753, the old man Nicholas Davis, who at the time resided with his son Anthony, released all his right in the estate to him, and the trusteeship was annulled on the sixteenth of November of the same year, Anthony and his wife, like dutiful children, having reconveyed on the thirty- first of October, to their father Nicholas, a life estate in the same.
In this condition the old corner remained until the fifth of January, 1755, when Anthony and his wife sold
1
1
1
1 1
1
677
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
the estate to Messrs. James Boutineau and Nathaniel Bethune, executors of the will of Thomas Palmer, - who died about the year 1751, - for the benefit of Thomas and Eliakim Palmer, two minor children of the testator. By this purchase the estate again became the property of descendants of the Hutchinson family; for Abigail, the wife of Thomas Palmer, the elder, was the daughter of Richard Hutchinson, who owned the garden-lot from 1639 to 1658, and grandmother to the two young Palmers for whose benefit it was bought in January, 1755. The oldest Thomas Palmer, a man of considerable importance in his day, married Abigail Hutchinson, on the twenty-ninth of January, 1696-7, and died in October, 1740, leaving two sons, Eliakim and Thomas, and a daughter Sarah, the wife of Mr. Job Lewis; of these, Eliakim, born 22 March, 1707-8, graduated at Harvard college in 1727, and died in London, 17 May, 1749; and Thomas, born 2 December, 1711, married Mary Mackintosh about the year 1740, and died before January, 1752, being absent in England. Thomas Palmer, the third of the name, born in Boston, on the seventh of August, 1743, also graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1761, and was the owner of the corner store, which, on the eighteenth of October, 1784, he sold to Mr. Edward Sohier and his wife Susanna (Brimmer) for sixteen hundred pounds. From Sohier it passed to Elizabeth, the widow of Mr. Henderson Inches, and from her on the first of January, 1795, to Mr. Herman Brimmer. Since this time it has remained in the Brimmer and Inches families. The last named Thomas Palmer was a loyalist, and passed the latter part of his life at Berkeley square in London, where he died on the eleventh of July, 1820.
678
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
The present building must, from all that can be learned, have been erected about the year 1712, by Mr. Thomas Crease, an apothecary; and, in all probability, was used as a dwelling-house with a small shop on the Cornhill side, from a very early period after it was built. In 1789, when the first Boston directory was published by John Norman, it was occupied by Mr. Herman Brimmer, merchant, and Mr. John Jackson, broker, and was then known as No. 76 Cornhill, No. 1 of the same street being nearly opposite. Mr. Brimmer's nearest neighbor on the same side of the street was Mr. John Cunningham, Jr., broker, at 75; and the next, running north, were Mr. Samuel Hill, engraver, at 74; Mr. Bartholomew Kneeland, shopkeeper, at 73; Mr. Nathaniel Balch, the noted hatter, at 72; Mr. William Davis, shopkeeper, at 71; and Mr. Oliver Brewster, also a shopkeeper, at 70.
Here Herman Brimmer, a bachelor, dwelt as late as the year 1800 (he died on the sixth of October, 1800, aged sixty-one), although Messrs. Samuel M. and Minot Thayer kept a shop there as early as 1796, and until 1816. After this, in 1817, the front part of the building was used as an apothecary shop by Dr. Samuel Clarke, the father of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, -the old corner having reverted to its original purpose. While Mr. Clarke kept store in the front room, he occupied for a part of the time the whole of the building as a dwelling- house, the entrance being through a gateway and yard on School street, the front door being in a portion of the house that run back from the main building. In 1824, the name of Cornhill was changed to Washington street, and the old store was variously numbered until it took No. 135; and here Mr. Clarke remained keeping
!
!
!
1
1
679
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
shop until 1828, when he was succeeded by the booksel- lers who have added so much to its notoriety.
After Dr. Clarke left the premises the building was much changed; Messrs. Carter (Richard B.) & Hendee (Charles J.) used the front room as a book-store in 1828, and Mr. Isaac R. Butts moved his printing-office from Wilson's Lane to the chambers soon afterwards. Carter & Hendee continued in the store, part of the time with Mr. Edwin Babcock as partner, until 1833, when they removed to 131 up stairs, and were succeeded by Messrs. Allen (John) & Ticknor (William D.) in 1833 to 1837. From this time the Old Corner Book- store was in the occupancy of Mr. William D. Ticknor, alone until 1844, and subsequently of himself and part- ners, Messrs. John Reed, Jr., and James T. Fields, until the fall of 1865, when, the senior partner having died, the new firm of Ticknor (Howard M.) & Fields (James T.) removed to a new store purposely fitted up for them in Tremont street, and Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co. took possession of the famous premises, removing from their old place of business on the opposite side of the street. Messrs. Dutton & Co. were succeeded in the old store by Messrs. Alexander Williams & Co., on the first of September, 1869.
The original building was constructed of brick, and was two stories in height, the roof having a double pitch towards Cornhill (Washington street) and backwards, with two attic windows on the easterly side. From the main building projected backwards the portion of the house that originally served the residents for family purposes. In front of this last-mentioned part, and extending on School street westerly from the old building, is another portion of somewhat modern con-
680
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
struction, which has accommodated within its walls many tenants of very various occupations.
Great interest has been expressed in regard to the preservation of this old specimen of the first recon- struction of the buildings of the ancient Cornhill, after the destruction of the old tenements and shops in 1711; and it is to be hoped that the Old Brimmer Mansion will be allowed to remain, for many years to come, standing in its present form, with its quaint appearance and the well-known designation -"The Old Corner Book- store."
I 1
CHAPTER LVII.
THE TRIANGULAR WAREHOUSE.
Irregular Shape of the Peninsula . . . The Great Cove and its Creeks . . . Ben- dall's, or Town Dock ... Original Possessions near the Great Cove . .. Bellingham's Marsh . . . Swing, or Turning Bridge. . . Roebuck Passage . . . Swingbridge street ... Conduit street ... The site of the Old Triangular Warehouse ·· · Bounds of Bellingham's Marsh in 1643 . . . The Marsh sold to John Shaw, Joshua Scottow, and James Everill . . . Afterwards the Posses- sion of Richard Wharton . . . Mr. Wharton's Wives . . . The Original Build- ings on the lot destroyed by fire in 1679 . . . Triangular Warehouse built about 1680, by Mr. Wharton .. . Description of the building . .. Decease of Mr. Wharton in 1690 . . . Warehouse sold to John Borland in 1701 . .. Ancient Description of the Estate ... Death of Mrs. Wharton, in 1712 . . . The Borlands, owners of the estate until 1784 . . . Released to Samuel Wallis in 1784 ... Conveyed to Charles Miller, Jr., in 1793 . . . Sold by Miller to the City in 1824 ... Warehouse taken down in 1824 . . . Exact Position of the Site of the Old Warehouse ... Uses of the Building . .. Incorrect Traditions about the erection of the building.
IN the early days of Boston, the peninsular part of the town was very irregular in form, its four sides being indented with variously shaped coves. These have been frequently alluded to in these chapters, as being among the distinguishing features of the place in the olden time. The cove on the easterly side, generally known as the Great Cove, because its shore made a large sweep landward from the North Battery to the Sconce (or South Battery), was much the most impor- tant for the purposes of the townsmen; and the land upon its border was, therefore, very early granted to the inhabitants for house-lots and gardens, that were also
86
682
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
improved for wharves and docks for maritime purposes. From its northerly side a natural creek led to the North Cove, which, soon after the settlement, was converted into a mill-pond, and the creek widened and walled with stone, and its name changed from "Mill Creek" to " the Canal." From its southerly side another creek extended some considerable distance into the land, divi- ding at Liberty square, and sending one of its branches towards Franklin street, and another to the foot of Spring lane. At Kilby street, near Hawes street, a bridge was early erected either as "Oliver's Bridge" or as "the bridge over Mackerill Lane." Between the mouths of these two large creeks was a third, which extended as far inland as Dock square, and became, soon after the settlement of the town, the principal dock for vessels. This was known at first as Bendall's Dock, and subsequently as the Town Dock.
The chief mercantile business of the town was transacted near this dock, although the small trading and hucksters' shops were generally in the "highway," and scattered throughout the streets pretty generally. The cove lots were granted to the principal men of the town; and the following persons had their meersteads bordering upon it, in the following order, commencing at the north: Thomas Clarke, Thomas Joy, Isaac Culli- more, Christopher Stanley, Bartholomew Pasmore, John Gallop, Matthew Chaffin, Sampson Shore, John Hill, John Milom, George Foxcroft, Edward Bendall, Valen- tine Hill, William Davis, Isaac Grosse, David Sellick, James Oliver, and Edward Tyng.
A little to the northwest of the dock was a large marsh that extended as far as Union street. A part of this was known to the early settlers as Bellingham's
1
1
[
1
1
:
1
1
i
i
683
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Marsh, and a more considerable piece was the "Common Marsh." Just west of the cove a street was laid out, - the Merchants row of the present day; and this con- nected, by a bridge over the dock (the old swing bridge anciently called the turning bridge), with a narrow lane, long known as Swing Bridge street, and quite famous in the early part of the present century as the "Roe- buck Passage," which led to Ann street, now North street, and first known as Conduit street, and sometimes anciently as the Fore street.
Bounded on one side by the last-named passage, there used to stand one of the most noted of the ancient landmarks of Boston, the Triangular Warehouse; and it is the purpose of this chapter to give a short descrip- tion of the venerable building, as in former days it was considered one of the greatest architectural curiosities of the town. A few words about its ancient site will not be uninteresting in connection with the description of the queer old structure. The land on which it stood was, as early as town grants were made, in the posses- sion of Richard Bellingham, the noted magistrate of the olden time, whose marriage with Penelope Pelham caused so much trouble to the wise law-makers of New England.
Mr. Bellingham's Marsh is described in the Book of Possessions as a "piece of Marsh bounded with John Hills & the Highway on the west, the Common Marsh on the north, John Lowe on the east, Henry Symons, John Hills & the cove on the south." A portion of this came into the possession of John Shaw, and Mr. Bel- lingham sold the remainder in equal parts to Joshua Scottow and Christopher Lawson on the fourth of June, 1644. Mr. Shaw conveyed his portion to James Everill
684
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
on the twenty-fifth of October, 1648; and Mr. Everill sold it to Joshua Scottow on the thirtieth of May, 1650. The lot of marsh conveyed by Mr. Everill to Joshua Scottow was of a triangular shape; and upon one angle of it was subsequently erected the old warehouse.
In course of conveyancing, the estate in question passed into the possession of Richard Wharton, a gentleman of considerable importance and distinction in the last half of the seventeenth century. Mr. Wharton was a merchant, and at one time was owner of many estates in Boston and a large tract of half a million of acres at Pegypscot. Something may be inferred of his social position from the fact that his three wives were daughters of the most important men in New England. About 1659 he married Bethia, the daughter of William Tyng, one of the wealthiest men in the colony; after her decease he married, in 1672, Sarah, daughter of Rev. John Higginson, of Salem; and after her death, which occurred on the eighth of May, 1676, he married for his third, Martha, daughter of the second John Winthrop, the Governor of Connecticut Colony.
The great fire of 1679 destroyed the old buildings in the neighborhood of the dock, and among others the warehouse belonging to Mr. Wharton. Consequently he rebuilt it, about the year 1680, of bricks with slated roof, according to the new requirements. The construc- tion of the building was somewhat singular. It was built in a triangular form, according to the shape of the lot, with hexagonal towers at the angles surmounted with pyramids, topped off with stone balls, one of which has been preserved by Samuel Leeds, Esq., of South Boston. The roof of the centre part of the building was also of the same form, and similarly topped off with
---- -- -
--
1
------
--
685
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
a massive wooden ball. The whole structure was two stories in height, although each of the towers had three stories. The lower story was constructed with arches, and a singularly arched cellar was below the building. The warehouse was surrounded with streets, or passage- ways, the main one laid out very early, and the others in the years 1683 and 1685. Water was supplied to the estate from the old conduit situated between Elm and North streets.
The attic story was extremely high in its centre, and was very roughly left by the builder. In the olden time it was used almost entirely for storage purposes; but in later years the tenants made it subserve more active purposes, employing its extensive floor as a sail loft. When first built, this part of the old warehouse was reached through a scuttle by a ladder.
Wharton died in 1690, reduced in circumstances; and his warehouse was sold to John Borland by the admin- istrator of his estate, Ephraim Savage, Esq., by a deed of conveyance, dated the twenty-seventh of March, 1701, under a license of the Superior Court of Judicature, granted on the twenty-sixth of October, 1697. This deed describes the size and form of the building as fol- lows: the grantor "doth fully, freely, clearly and abso- lutely give, grant, bargain, sell, alien, enfeoff, release, con- vey and confirm unto the said John Borland, and to his heirs and assignees forever, all that Triangular Brick warehouse, having three turrets covered with slate in ye three angles or extream parts thereof, situate, standing and being near unto the mouth or entrance of the Town Dock, heretofore called Bendall's Dock, in Boston aforesaid, with the land, cellars, and all and every the rooms, divisions and apartments both below and above.
686
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
within the walls and under the main roof of the said building, and under the slate and roofes, which said warehouse was part and parcel of the estate left by the before named Richard Wharton, and is now in the tenure and occupation of the said John Borland and of. Grove Hirst, Ellis Callender, and John Soames, being bounded on the Westerly and North Easterly sides with highways, measuring on the said Westerly side forty- two foot or thereabouts, more or less, and on the said North-easterly side forty-seven foot ten inches or there- abouts more or less, and bounded on the southerly side with the wharf before the said warehouse, and measures on that side forty foot or thereabouts more or less, each angle or corner of said warehouse being eight foot wide, together also with the said wharf lying before the ware- house aforesaid, between that and the mouth or entrance into the said town dock, and all rights," etc.
The above deed to Mr. Borland reserved to Martha, the widow of Mr. Wharton, her right of dower or thirds in the estate. She died on the twenty-sixth of Septem- ber, 1712, and Mr. Borland's title to the estate became perfect. Mr. Borland was an Englishman, who came to this country at the close of the seventeenth century, probably from Glasford in North Britain, where his brother Francis, a clergyman, resided. He married Sarah, the daughter of Andrew Neal, a noted tavern- keeper in Boston, and died on the thirtieth of March, 1727, aged sixty-eight years; Sarah his widow, born on the first of April, 1665, died in Boston, on the nineteenth of November, 1727, nearly eight months after her hus- band. By Mr. Borland's will all his property fell to his only son Francis, who married, at Salem, Jane, the daugh- ter of John Lindall, sometime of Boston, but later of
1
1 ! ---
1 1 1
687
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Salem, on the twenty-second of September, 1726. Mr. Francis Borland died, after a lingering sickness, on the sixteenth of September, 1763; and the warehouse fell to his son John, who was born on the fifth of September, 1728, and married Anna Vassall of Charlestown on the twentieth of February, 1749. Mr. John Borland died, in consequence of an accident, at the commencement of the Revolutionary War, and the triangular warehouse became vested in his son John Lindall Borland, who, being a loyalist, left the United States, and became a lieutenant-colonel in the British army. He died on the sixteenth of November, 1825, having by deed, dated on the first of September, 1784, released all his title in the estate to Samuel Wallis, of Boston. Mr. Wallis sold the warehouse on the first of October, 1793, to Charles Miller, Jr., who, then a resident of New York, sold it on the twelfth of May, 1824, to the city of Boston. About this time the old building was taken down to make room for the improvements near Faneuil Hall, and for the erection of buildings on North Market street. The exact position of the warehouse was at the present corner of North Market street and Merchants row, the site of it extending some distance into both of these streets.
In its earlier and more palmy days this singularly constructed building was used for mercantile purposes only. But as time wore on, and it became old and out of repair, it was put to various purposes; one part was used for an iron store, another for a junk shop, and the attic sometimes for a store-room, and sometimes for a sail-loft. Novel writers assign to it other purposes, and Cooper, in Lionel Lincoln, describes it as the resi- dence of one of his characters.
688
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
Some traditions have asserted that the strange build- ing was erected by London merchants; in this they were correct only so far, that it was erected by a Boston merchant, who had formerly been in business in England. Mr. Wharton owned the estate when the original wooden building was standing upon it that was destroyed by fire. He also owned it when it had upon it the warehouse. It is a fair inference, that, being an enterprising merchant, he built his own warehouse. Its peculiar form will never be forgotten by those who were accustomed to visit its apartments on business, in the days when Boston was under town government.
With this old edifice, and those described in the preceding chapters, disappeared from sight the most remarkable of the private buildings erected in Boston during its first seventy years. A few similar relics of the olden time, though of less note, remain, but hardly in any other condition than that of ancient material, the forms and all the peculiarities of their original con- struction having been sacrificed by the demands of progress. Even at the present time of writing (1870), the improvements of streets and thoroughfares, espe- cially of Hanover, Devonshire, and Eliot streets, and the removal of the whole of the old fort hill, have made vast devastation with the old dwelling-houses of the fathers. The highways have been widened, straightened and extended; and many of the places which were formerly so familiar to Bostonians, and which possessed so many pleasant associations of the past, have been laid bare of their buildings, which have necessarily been removed, so that these sites now form a portion of the principal ave- nues of the city, and are constantly traversed by persons unconscious of the important and interesting events of
689
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
the past which have been thereon enacted. The taking down of the old triangular warehouse was for one of the first of the great improvements of Boston after the adoption of the city charter. To this the citizens are indebted for the Quincy Market and the neighboring broad streets which have proved to be so advantageous to their business. When the new avenue, which is now approaching completion, shall be finished, a large amount of territory will be added to the most valuable part of the city, for business purposes, and the laying out and constructing of Atlantic Avenue will be one of the most noted of the numerous public improvements of the city.
87
أ
!
-
1
1
r
INDEX.
1
INDEX.
Abbott, J. G., 361. Aberginians, tribe of Indians north of Charles River, 17.
Adams, Rev. Amos, 275; Elizabeth, 676; John, 495; Samuel, 172, 225, 380, 381, 409, 412, 605; William, 676.
Adams street, 115.
Addington, Isaac, 193.
Ahaton, William, Indian, 511.
Alford, John, 178.
Alger, Cyrus, 425.
Allen, Hannah, 226 : James, 226, 236; Jeremiah, 513, 597; John, 679; Martha, 237; William W., 648.
Allerton, Isaac, one of the May Flower Pil. grims, agent for the Plymouth Colony, 435, 564. Allerton, Point, a promontory in Boston Har- bor, 8, 435.
Almon's Map, 95.
Almon's Remembrancer, 95.
Almshouse, on Centry street, 211, 309, 310; on Barton's Point, 107, 310 ; on Deer Island, 470. American Atlas, 94.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.