CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY I854-I9I9 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Date Due ■■-r mtA ^ jj 'iinJ m3^u \iHS&j.i?>' Beacon Stbeet Mall aboxit 1850 At this period the finest residences of Boston clustered around Beacon Hill. From Charles Street, this aristocratic region stretched up Beacon Street to the State House, and through some of the side streets. Many of the houses were separate, with gardens and grounds about them, and some of them were built in blocks. If I remember aright. Park Street had a row of houses bmlt close together at that time. Beacon 35 Days and Ways in Old Boston Street was truthfully described by Holmes as "the sunny street that holds the sifted few," and young men and maidens in good society carried on their courtships while walking aroimd the Common or down the long path or on the mill-dam. "Whom does Arabella walk with now?" was a question occasionally heard in careful circles of maiden aunts. The Charles River with its accompanying marshes and low lands came up to Charles Street. Boats came and went freely along the river before all that region of marsh land had been filled in and transformed into what we call the Back Bay, a name which is sometimes puzzling to strangers who do not understand whether we are referring to land or water. Boston's first mayor, the father of Wendell Philhps, lived in this old locality around Beacon Hill, in a house which is still standing at the corner of Chestnut and Walnut Streets. I can remember when the summit of Beacon Hill ran up behind the State House and was about even with the base of the dome; but this hill was afterwards graded down about eighty feet, bringing it to its present level, and the material used for filling in the low lands. The year 1847 was a notable year in Cambridge, for in that year. Professor Louis Agassiz came among us. Several charac- teristic anecdotes are told about 36 Louis AaAssiz In Boston and Cambridge this lovable and inspiring man andteacher.Ci His wife called out to him in horror one evening, on opening her closet door, "Louis! there is a snake in my shoe!" and there came back the agonized cry, "Leezie, Leezie, where are the other five?" It was in 1847, also, that Dr. 0. W. Holmes, a native of whom Cambridge is always proud, be- Oliveb Wendell Holmes came professor in the Harvard Medical School. Longfellow and Lowell were married and living in their respective Cambridge homes at this time. And "Sweet Auburn," a quiet rural spot, which in previous years had been a favorite and refresh- ing resort for Cambridge and Boston people, had been transformed into Mount Auburn cemetery. At that time, according to my early school- 37 Days and Ways in Old Boston mate, Lowell, there were living old people in the region of Copp's Hill who thought that the United States had made a mistake in parting from Great Britain. The advent of new peoples with foreign speech and customs has swept aside many old traditions and transformed whole regions. But for us, who survive and who have seen the great transformations, there is still a lingering interest in the old landmarks and old memories which are but faintly recalled in these scattered reminis- cences. 38 RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BOSTON From a Conversation with a Boston Lady op the Period Li my childliood I lived on Pearl Street. My home in those early days was a delightful old house with a large garden at the rear, which had been given to my father and mother at the time of their marriage. It fronted on Pearl Street, looking toward Oliver Street, but the garden extended back to Atkinson Street, a thoroughfare which I beheve has long since vanished in the process of transforming that part of the city into the wholesale business district of Boston. In the early forties Pearl Street was a delightful residence section, a region of fine old houses with a succession of beautiful gardens, for which, indeed, it was famous. I might almost say that my child- hood was spent in a garden, for the custom of leaving the city during all or part of the summer months had not yet seized upon us. Although, to be sure, a few persons or famihes more restless than others, or envying friends who had travelled, sought the mountains or shore for a protracted absence of perhaps one week, these were rare exceptions, at least until after 1844, and so we were wont, as a matter of course, to remain at home the year around. Thus, in the summer months much of the recreation and enjoyment 39 Days and Ways in Old Boston of the people of Boston were derived from the generous gardens which at that period were characteristic of nearly all of the better residence sections of the city. In those days Pearl Street, strange as it may now seem, was a delightful place of residence in summer. It was near the water front and received the cooling breezes of the bay. The blue waters of the harbor were visible but a few steps from my home, and it was only necessary to cross High Street (which as a child I did with much trepidation) to quickly reach the shore. There was considerable business transacted along the Boston wharves, at the period to which I refer, for the city at that period possessed an extensive foreign and coast trade, but there was Uttle outward evidence of these in noise and bustle. Here and there appeared the tall masts and spars of brigs and schooners, and there were many white sails off shore, but steam- boats had not yet come into general use for commercial purposes, and life along the water front was subdued, quiet and dehberate. The wharves and mansions of Portsmouth, N. H., as they appear today, seem to me to resemble in some respects the Boston of 1840. My childhood in the old mansion on Pearl Street and life in the great garden are all delightful recollections. Many years later, while in Chelten- ham, England, I called at the house of a friend residing in that city, and my surprise may be im- agiued when I suddenly observed as I stood upon the 40 Recollections of Old Boston steps that the house was almost an exact counter- part of my old home upon Pearl Street in Boston. The school which I attended was near our house; a plain little school house it was, without adornment, except for the hollyhocks which in this season blossomed beside it. Before long the encroachments of business began to be apparent, however, and though the old residents bitterly opposed the change, by the late forties warehouses intruded where gardens and old homes had been, and Pearl Street was speedily appropriated by the expanding business interests of the city. I was bom in Boston, but John Quincy Adams (who died in 1848) and my father's aunts resided in Quincy. I recollect clearly, even though I was a very small child, driving to the Quincy home for a Sunday visit to these relatives. We Uved in those days in very simple fashion. All dresses were made in the household; the stuffs were bought in the shops, which were located principally on Washington Street. I recollect that my mother made most of her purchases at Mr. Daniel's store. Sewing women came to the houses, and worked as seamstresses do today, but these women not only made the dresses for the women and girls of the household, but a tail- oress came also, who made the coats and trousers for the boys. That was long before the era of ready made clothing for either sex. The dresses of that period, however, were generally very simple and required not more than a day and a half to make. Those for example which were 41 Days and Ways in Old Boston worn everyday were merely skirts "fulled on to the waist." One good dress of silk or satin or damask "for best" (which usually lasted for many years) and a very meagre wardrobe of gowns for daily use was all that the better class of women expected, or often possessed, in the Boston of the thirties and forties. The furs we wore when we went visiting or sleighing, came, as I recall it, principally from France. I remember well a set of sable which as a young woman I possessed, and which I know came from that country. In extremely cold weather the men wore skin caps, of beaver and other furs, and coats of buffalo skins. In my youth, and indeed until after the Civil War, nearly all our feminine needs were supplied by importations from abroad. Hosiery and dress goods other than calicoes and ginghams, — such goods, I mean, as poplins and silks — came from England, Ireland and France. Russian linens were especially fine, and as some of my family were engaged in foreign trade we were favored in securing goods of this kind. I recall that my mother had been presented at her marriage with a very beautiful set of household linen, made in Russia, in which was woven the American Eagle. While the war was in progress much discussion occurred over the extensive use by Northern women of English and foreign goods, to which much opposition was shown, and it was said that we Americans should patronize home industries. 42 b ■ I Recollections of Old Boston One day I met on the Common James L. Little, who was the manager of the Lawrence Mills. " If you want us to buy American dress goods," I said, "you must make stufiFs suitable for our use. You cannot expect New England women to wear calicoes and prints in winter." "That is true," he replied, "but we are too busy with the manufacture of prints to make any other kind of goods." At that period our manufacturers were far behind the needs of the nation, and I presume in some clajses of goods the same condition exists today. At this distance even to the few who remain to personally recall it, the decade from 1840 to 1850 looks dim and remote. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, in his recently published "Memories," summed up most efifectively the change which was impending at that period: "The year 1850 stood on the edge of a new time, but the old time was still visible from it, still indeed prevailed about it. The men and women of the elder time with the old feelings and habits were still numerous and for the most part quite unconscious that their world was slip- ping away from them. Hence, the atmosphere of our old stone house, and indeed of Boston itself was still an eighteenth century atmosphere, if we accept Sir Walter Besant's statement that the eighteenth century ended in 1837. But at all events it was entirely diflPerent from anything to be found today. Thus it happened that the 43 Days and Ways in Old Boston year 1850 came at the dawn of the new time now plainly recognized, but the meaning and scope of which are as yet little understood, and the result of which can only be darkly guessed, because the past has but a dim light to throw on the untried paths ahead." 44 THE OLD BOSTON WATER FRONT* 1840-1850 Bt Prank H. Forbes The newer and greater Boston that is to be dawns upon my vision. There are broad avenues and boulevards, terraces, parks, Charlesgates East and Charlesgates West, the Acropolis on Mars Hill reproduced on Beacon Hill. I can see huge and stately docks of stone and steel and brick on the North shore and on the South shore, and a fleet of ocean steam Leviathans, their sombre smokestacks outlining the horizon. But you will pardon an old man of three score and ten if he fondly turns back to another picture — inexpressibly dearer to him from old associations — the picture of the older, lesser Boston, with its crooked streets and narrow ways, the Common and the Frog Pond. In one respect at least the older Boston sur- passed the Boston of today. The pride of the city more than half a century ago was its water front stretching from north to south, indented and built up with spacious docks and wharves, with a forest of masts and spars, and a wealth of snowy canvas such as no other city in the Union could boast of. In the forties Boston, so far as the extent and variety of its commerce was concerned, had no *An unpublished address delivered before the Bostonian Society. 45 Days and Ways in Old Boston equal among the cities of the United States, There was no quarter of the civilized or uncivil- ized globe in which the enterprise, energy, and pluck of a Boston merchant and a Boston ship- master did not find an entrance, or from which a wealth of commerce did not return. Cooper, the novelist, whose works were never regarded as the standard of truth, attempted to elevate New York at the expense of Boston; but facts tell another story. For more than twenty years. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, as well as other business centers, depended largely upon Boston for the products of far-ofif countries. With many of the leading ports in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, the West India Islands and the West Coast, Boston fairly had the monopoly of trade. The decade, from 1844 to 1854, wit- nessed the culmination of old Boston's prosperity as the leader in foreign trade. The long stretch of improved water front, with its spacious wharves and docks, was the natural outcome of the commercial enterprise of the Boston of this period. In these the pride of the city was fully justified as well as in the fine ware- houses which flanked them. No port from the capes of Florida to Casco Bay could boast of such wharves and docks. Before the filling of South Cove, the wharf and dock property represented fully one-fifth of the areas of old Boston. From what is now Dover Street bridge on the south, to Charlestown bridge on the north, was an unbroken water front available for wharf and dock purposes. 46 Days and Ways in Old Boston In this paper, however, I shall consider only such wharves as were in use for commercial purposes. Upon the south, the first wharf, as I recall it, was Wales Wharf, leading off from Sea Street, with its quaint and venerable looking block of stone warehouses. This was the property of T. B. Wales & Co., then, and for years, one of the lead- ing firms in Boston, having foreign connections, as well as large ship owners. This wharf was exclusively used by them. Next was Russia Wharf, famous sixty years ago and owned by the Inches. This wharf was largely utilized for foreign trade. Liverpool and Fort Hill Wharves were next. The latter for years was the terminal point for vessels from the British Provinces. Next north was Arch Wharf. This was largely devoted to the West India trade and trade with the Provinces. It had some notable occupants in its day, such as Chas. Cole, Thos. Tremlett, Sheafe and Melledge. Foster's Wharf, or Wharves, came next; there were two of them, north and south. I am not certain whether this property was incorporated or whether it was individual. This wharf, or rather these wharves, did the largest business under the occupancy of John H. Pearson & Co. They were large ship owners, and had an extensive foreign trade, particularly with Europe. Pearson had a long lease. He started a line of packets for Philadelphia, and later one for New Orleans. The latter line was composed of four ships, con- sidered large at that period, built at Medford, 4,8 The Old Boston Water Front expressly for packet service, the Norfolk, Suffolk, Middlesex and Essex. Neither line was successful. Pearson's lease terminated September 30, 1845, when he took a ten-years lease of Long Wharf. The last large ships that loaded there were the Lochinvar for New Orleans, and the Michigan for Mobile. Pearson did not make a fortune out of his lease, and the property had no particular distinction after that till it came into the posses- sion of the present holders. Parties who knew Foster's wharf in 1844 would hardly recognize it as it is in 1894. Rowe's Wharf has a very interesting history in the past, and is the only large wharf south of Union Street that has not been shorn of its proportions by the improvement consequent upon the laying out of Atlantic Avenue. The same old block of stores is still standing. It was a corporation when I first knew it, and probably for years before, the principal stockholders, as well as occupants, being the Richardsons and Cunninghams, large importers of fruit and other products from the south of Europe. The Cun- ninghams owned the one-time famous mail packet, the big Harbinger, running between Fayal and Boston. She was for years one of the features of the wharf. Rowe's Wharf did a large transient business, and its management was very popular with ship owners and ship masters. In 1848 Allen & Weltch took a long lease of this wharf, and transferred their lines of southern packets thence from Commercial Wharf. During their 4 49 Days and Ways in Old Boston tenure the wharf did an immense and profitable business. Next comes India Wharf, incorporated ninety years ago, the first in order going north of the grand old wharves of Boston. The East India business was largely represented by the occu- pants of the respective stores. As I remember them in the middle forties, there were the Austins, the Parkmans, the Lymans, and the Wiggles- worths. The West India trade was represented by Benjamin Burgess & Sons, Philo S. Shelton, Atkins & Freeman, Homer & Sprague. Other foreign trades were represented by Boardman & Pope. Gardner & Co., John L. Gardner, Michael Simpson, Winsor Fay, R. B. Storer, N. F. Cun- ningham & Co., at one time the leading cotton merchants of Boston, were there for years. Not the least importiant occupant was old Sam Prince, the sail-maker. The wharfage income mainly accrued from the occupants of stores, but the wharf did a large transient business. Its annual income from all sources was not much less than $40,000. The east side of India Street, from India Wharf, was practically a wharf for its entire length. Here were to be found regular packets between Boston and New York, Hartford, New London, Fairhaven, New Bedford and Nantucket. The berth adjoining India Wharf was generally occu- pied by large vessels belonging to John L. Gard- ner. The last of these that I remember was the brig Pleiades, and associated with her is the fact £0 The Old Boston Water Front that she was sold at auction by Thos. W. Sears, the most accomplished auctioneer of his day in Boston; and this was the last sale he ever made. Another fact was that the Pleiades brought the last full cargo to Boston of pepper and cockroaches. The Central Wharf and Wet Dock Co. was chartered in 1815. For a great many reasons Central Wharf was the most conspicuous and the most attractive of all the old Boston wharves. In the first place it had the largest continuous block of warehouses in the country. Its docks on the north and south side were continuous from India Street to the channel. Then it had the most varied commerce. Its merchants, and their ships and cargoes represented the trade and prod- ucts of every quarter of the globe. Let me give the names of some of them — names now almost forgotten, but the very sound of which recalls the grand old era of Boston's commerce, when we did our own importing direct, and under the old flag — Perkins & Co., Mark Healey, Samuel C. Gray, Atkinson & Rollins, Whitney, Benj. Bangs, Bryant & Stiu:gis, Curtis & Stevenson, Eager, Kahler, Ray & Wheeler, the Foster's, Wm. P. Weld & Co., Wainwright & Tappan, Stanton, Fiske & Nichols, Joshua Blake, Barnard, Adams & Co., Wm. Worthington & Co., J. V. Bacon, Chandler, Howard & Co., Joseph Ballisted, Zacariah Jellison, Isaac Williamson, Herbert C» Hooper, Hill & Chamberlain, Fiske & Rice, H. &. R. Williams, Greeley & Guild. The Mediter- ranean trade was a prominent feature, and there 51 Days and Ways in Old Boston was scarcely a day in the year that a vessel from one or more of the Mediterranean ports was not discharging. The Mediterranean fleet itself was conspicuous, comprising some of the finest clip- pers afloat, like the Nautilus, the Martha Wash- ington, the Emma Isadora, and the Griffin. The fruit season was a very interesting one, particularly to the boys on Wednesday and Satur- day afternoons. Two-thirds of the length on the south side would be represented by alternate cargoes of oranges and lemons, figs and raisins. Central Wharf had two features, permanent the year around; huge piles of brimstone on the south side, and dyewoods on the north. Long Wharf had no particular features except the old salt stores, and the Hingham Station Packet, which was the landing place for old Commodore Sturgis, of revenue cutter fame, and the point of arrival and departure of the Custom House boarding oflBcers, under old Kettel, and the news boat in command of Clive. Long Wharf was the terminal of lines of packets to Richmond and New York, and also of AUand & Troy's Phila- delphia packets. That was in the days of Elihu Reed, Bangs, Rice & Thaxter, and Williams. Long Wharf was a favorite wharf for excursions and fishing parties, and from which the Mam- moth Cod Association, one hundred strong, de- parted on their annual trips. Under the management of old Elijah Loring it had a sort of sleepy existence. In 1845, however, it took a new start when John H. Pearson took a 52 The Old Boston Water Front ten-years lease at $50,000 a year, and the United States erected the first block of bonded ware- houses. The price paid was regarded as enor- mous, but Pearson was glad to renew the lease at its expiration, and during his fifteen-years tenure it was undoubtedly the best paying wharf property in Boston. Brimmer's T was a sort of leg set off from Long Wharf, but a noted wharf fifty and more years ago. In the early thirties Martin Brimmer erected a block of granite stores at the upper end. This block was occupied by Brimmer, Sprague, Soule & Co., Bramhall & Howe, and Sims and Eaton, with Lombard's sail loft over- head. Fifty years ago T Wharf was the noted fish wharf of Boston, with old Joe Locke of savory memory as its presiding genius. As you entered from Long Wharf, on the left was the largest estabhshment for packing diy fish in Boston. T Wharf was the center of a large trade with the British Provinces, and was the grand depot for grindstones. T Wharf is entitled to the credit of being the first wharf in Boston proper for the departure of ocean steamers. The first New York outside line, with the steamer Onfario, started from here; then the Philadelphia line with the Kensing- ton, then the Halifax Une, then the Metropolitan New York line, and then the Savannah line. Commercial Street, from Long Wharf to Com- mercial Wharf, hke India Street, was, on the east side, practically a wharf, and about the busiest locality in Boston. First there was City Wharf, the outcome of the genius of the older 5S Days and Ways in Old Boston Quincy, and a part of the original Market scheme. Then came Mercantile Wharf, the Baltimore, Philadelphia and Eastern packet piers. In 1832 City Wharf was leased for a period of twenty years to a syndicate of whom Wm. B. Reynolds was the head; later the lease was transferred to the Market Bank, who held it till the property was sold by the city in 1852. The stores were in- cluded in the lease. At one time I had from Josiah Stickney, late president of the bank, the amount of the lease and the net iacome above its earnings to the bank. At any rate it was im- mensely profitable for the bank. The sale of this property at public auction in Fanueil Hall, in 1852, was long remembered. Mercantile Wharf and the adjoining piers, at the period of which I speak, was under lease to Horace Scudder & Co. The packet lines to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington represented fully a hundred sail of vessels, barques, brigs and schooners, and a large portion of this fleet centered in this locality. The sailing days were Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on these days, especially during what was known as the packet season. Commercial Street was almost impassable. Commercial Street was practically the center of the grain trade, and there were always to be found fifteen or twenty vessels dis- charging their cargoes. The entrance from the harbor to the upper north side of Long Wharf to City Wharf, Mercantile Wharf and the piers was between 54 The Old Boston Water Front Commercial and T Wharves, through a series of channels having very much the appearance of the canals of Venice. I think the entering and departing of this great fleet was one of the most exciting and interesting sights one ever beheld. This was before the days of steam tugs, when vessels of any description, from a ship to a sloop, used to beat in and out the harbor, and yet I have seen a whole fleet pass in through the dock between Commercial Wharf and T wharf, under fuU sail, and not let go a halyard till the berth at pier or wharf was reached. Granite Wharf, or Commercial, was the first of the new North End structures, and far exceeded anything of the kind in Boston for its impos- ing massiveness. The old wharves were largely depleted of tenants to furnish occupants. The East India trade, the South American trade. Coast of Africa, Cape of Good Hope, Mediter- ranean, North of Europe, the West India Islands, and the Spanish main were represented by such firms as Bryant & Sturgis, Robert G. Shaw & Co., Daniel C. Bacon, Henry Oxhard, Enoch Train & Co., B. C. Clarke & Co., Wm. Perkins, Bates & Thaxton, Barnard, Adams & Co., Beccomb, Bartlett & Co., Hunnewell & Pierce, the Nicker- son's, P. & S. Sprague, Ezra Weston, and so on. It was a high-toned wharf in those days, and if a fishing smack, or a lobster boat stuck its nose into the dock, it would have been fired out instanter. But it was some years later that the climax of wharf building was reached. A syndicate headed 55 Days and Ways in Old Boston by Robert G. Shaw, John Brown, and Ammi C. Lombard, in the middle thirties, purchased the old Lewis, Spear and Hancock Wharves, and started the enterprise of building the new Lewis Wharf, It was at that period of wildest speculation through- out the country, and of course the enterprise was in advance of the times. The three parties I have named sunk nearly $50,000 each in the under- taking. But when completed, it stood forth as the crowning glory of commercial Boston. The docks and wharf were spacious, but far beyond these was the magnificent block of solid granite warehouses, that far surpassed anything of the kind in the United States, if not in the world. It soon attracted immigration from the older wharves; some of the wealthiest of Boston mer- chants took possession, bringing with them their large fleet of magnificent ships — Benjamin Bangs, then at the head of the Valparaiso trade, John Brown & Co., William Appleton & Co., then in the China and East India trade, Enoch Train & Co., who possibly contemplated his line of Liverpool packets, Sampson & Tappan, Lombard & Whitman, Isaac Winslow & Sons, Ammi C. Lombard & Co., Fairfield, Lincoln & Co., John L. Gardner. Lewis Wharf reached its greatness during the decades 1840-1860. It was during the first decade that Train established his Liverpool line, composed of the finest ships that ever entered or sailed from the port of Boston. In the second decade Glidden & Williams started their famous 66 The Old Boston Water Front line of clippers from San Francisco. Lewis Wbarf was my first love — the Alma Mater from which I graduated, if not with high honors, with a full repertoire of interesting memories. No old Ro- man ever answered his hail with "Civis Rom- anus sum" more proudly than I did when I said "I am from Lewis Wharf." North from Lems were the old Eastern Rail- road Wharf, Sargent's Wharf, May's Wharf or Union Wharf, Lincoln's Wharf, the old Marine railway, a distinctive feature of Boston's com- merce. Battery Wharf, Constitution, Aspinwall's, Fiske's, Comer's, Ripley's, Grey's, Bartlett's, South and North Wharves, Clapp's Wharf, Brown's Wharf and Vinal's. All these wharves were important features in the commerce of Bos- ton during the period to which I allude. The wharves gave character to the merchants, and the merchants gave character to the wharves. Fifty years ago the average citizen, clerk, schoolboy and laborer could distinguish the mer- chant who did business on the wharf from any other class. He would come down in the morning, stop at the post office when it was in this building, obtain letters, then adjourn to TopliflP's Reading Room in the basement. Later on, after the Ex- change was built, go to the post office there, then to the News Room overhead, or to the Insurance Offices, and digest them. Then go down State Street in line, turning through Merchants Row and Chatham Row or Commercial Street, to the North-End wharves, or through Kilby, Broad fi7 Days and Ways in Old Boston and India Streets, to the South-End wharves, and at noon return by the same ways to high 'Change on State Street. The merchant's counting room and warehouse then were where his ships came in, and he personally supervised their loading and unloading. Fifty years ago a boy or clerk in an up-town store regarded it as a great privilege to be sent down to a wharf with a message, and he made the most of his time. Our wharves then were in every truth water parks for the people, and contained no end of object lessons. On pleasant Sundays whole fam- ilies resorted thither. On holidays or special gala occasions, they were immensely attractive; each vied with the other. Every description of craft, from a sloop to a full rigged ship, was rich in the display of canvas and bunting. It was a picture that at this date can be more easily imag- ined than described. The "wharfingers" were men of no mean standing with the merchants and ship owners. They bore the same relative position to wharf corporations that today general managers bear to railroad corporations. Maccey of Howe's, Brown of India, Blaney of Central, Loring of Long, Parker of City, Hersey of Commercial, Davison of Lewis, Pierce of Union, Homer of Battery, Elwell of Constitution, Wilder of Comey's, Redding of Brown's, were autocrats in their way, and from their decision there was no appeal. The first break in our continuous water front 58 The Old Boston Water Front was in the thirties, when the dock between Cen- tral and Long was taken for the Custom House. The next, in the fifties, when City Wharf was sold, and when the Mercantile Wharf block and the State Street block were built. The last was in the sixties, when Atlantic Avenue was con- structed. Then, and forever, departed the tradi- tional glory of the old wharves of Boston. 59 THE OLD ROSEWOOD DESK By Matjd Howe Elliott There never was so beautiful, so wonderful a writing desk in the world as my mother's old rosewood secretary. It has four wide deep drawers in the lower part and one secret hiding- place. When you wish to write, you unlock and let down the front or "flap," faced with faded blue velvet — ^then you catch your breath — ^the sight of that marvellous interior, with its myste- rious suggestions of romance, thrills you still after years of familiarity. First, there is the mirror at the back, where you can see your face, where she saw her face when it was young, without a line of care, her alabaster forehead, red-gold hair, eyes like beryls, just as you can see them today in Joseph Ames' portrait of her. The desk, lined with pale yellow satinwood, has curving ornaments and small, neatly turned knobs of dark rosewood. It has fascinating secret drawers, that smell faintly of dried rose-leaves and lavender; in one of these I found a packet of time-stained papers. The first — a mere scrap of cream-colored parchment — set my heart beat- ing, put my imagination to work, for it tells a story of old Boston. The writing is crabbed, the ink pale bronze, the spelling quaint: 61 Days and Ways in Old Boston July — Mrs. Ward to E. Weld dett for horses and shay. To Boston five times and horse ones to blue hill $7. 19 th. Had the horse alone but did not use it (no charge) 22d To Boston 1.50 24 To the neck 1.25 5 chickens at 2 shillings apiece 1.66 Ditto hen and chickens 5.50 Received payment in full Ebenezer Weld. "Nothing but an old bill," you say? Yes, something more, the clew to a bit of family history. It tells us that in the pleasant summer weather of this year without a date my beautiful young grandmother, Mrs. Ward, came on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Cutler, who lived in the old colonial house in Jamaica Plain where Mr. George Wheelwright, Jr., now lives; that these two gay and lovely ladies drove to Boston, to the "neck," to "blue hill." I warrant they took whatever pleasure was "coming to them," in the same joyous spirit of thankfulness for life that marks those of their descendants, of whom we say "he" or "she" is a Cutler. Perhaps there was room in Ebenezer's shay for Mrs. Ward's little dajughter Julia, to whom this rosewood desk be onged. If Ebenezer had been as exact as he was honest — I thank him now for not having charged for the horse the day it was "had" and not "sued" — if he had dated his bill properly, we might fix the year of my mother's first visit to Boston, and determine whether or no the earliest of her many 62 The Old Rosewood Desk jaunts to the city was made with mother and grandmother in Ebenezer's shay. I am sure it was of the same genus as the One-Hoss Shay, painted yellow, lined with blue broadcloth, swung low and roomy between two vast wheels. What visions this old bill evokes! The flush of those past pleasures whose price it records glows rosy through the dusky years. I am glad Grandmother Ward paid for those chickens, whether they were roasted, baked in a pie or added to Great-grandmother Cutler's hen-roost. Grand- mother Cutler had to practice economy; it was only fitting that when her daughter, who had married a rich New York banker, came to stay she should "stand treat" for the outings and the poultry Ebenezer furnished. As I lay the scrap of yellowed paper back in its shallow drawer, I look up at the portrait of Grandmother Ward over the chimneypiece, oppo- site the rosewood desk, and put the question we ask of each old portrait that we love: "You liked your life?" The brown eyes answer with their sweet half- distant smile: "Yes, I liked it all!" She died at twenty-seven, having borne seven children; six of them lived to grow up. The little Julia, though only five at the time of her mother's death, carried through fife the happiest memories of her and remembered, oh! how faithfully, all her Kttle lessons in behavior. The next document in the bundle of old papers 63 Days and Ways in Old Boston is a letter from Grandmother Cutler, written in a clear strong hand on a double sheet, folded and sealed with a red wafer, addressed to the care of Samuel Ward, New York; it has neither envelope, express nor post mark. The letter was sent by a friend, for this was before the days of stamps, when postage was a heavy item. Jamaica Plain, Tuesday afternoon. My dear Daughter, I send you this notice, by wayiof relieving your mind from your generally kind anxiety respecting me. I am tolerably well for me — but oh, the weather, the weather! When will it be settled again? I have been out of the house but once since the day I entered it. I have sent Mr. Ward, by the desire of the parson, Mr. M. L.'s address before the "Temperance Society," which I cannot but think through the interest he takes in it calculated to please him. I have read every word of it and am delighted with the performance. It is such a march of intellect — and bears down so forcibly and fully all before it — that I think it well calculated to be of extensive benefit to all mankind, and only wish there were copies sufficient to be distributed through the nation. Also as Mr. Ward will not probably bear the sound or sight of a Demijon in his house, I should be glad of the loan of one, as we have a fine parcel of "Mazard Cherries," to make it full of cherry bounce to send to McAllister and, indeed, I should like to send my friend Mr. Bullock another. I am going to send this down this evening by Mr. Chrismas to take tomorrow morning and hope my messenger will bring me a line in return from you. Love to all the dear chicks, believing me ever your affec- tionate and fond Mother. Love to the Doc, He must read L's address as he loves genius. 64 The Old Rosewood Desk Oh, Grandmother Cutler, Grandmother Cutler, dear daughter of Eve! At the moment you are sending a temperance tract to your sober son-in- law, Mr. Ward, in New York, you are plotting to get hold of one of his demijons to send "cherry bounce" to your jovial son-in-law McAllister of Savannah. Were you too that rara avis, the per- fect mother-in-law? It looks like it! There's a good deal in heredity after all. Your most dis- tinguished descendant, the granddaughter who kept your faded letter all her long life, was well loved by her sons-in-law too. The phrase, so-and-so "is a Cutler," has be- come classic through use to four generations, so it must stand. From some of the letters in the old desk, however, it looks as if the term were a misnomer. That joie de vivre, that dancing of the blood it implies never came from the phleg- matic Dutch Cutlers, whose first ancestor in this country, John de Mesmekir of Holland, translated his name into English. No, that temperament, "the family champagne," came from Grand- mother Cutler, in whose veins ran French Hugue- not blood. She was Mitchell, a Virginian belle, niece of General Francis Marion "(the Swamp- fox of the Revolution)." General Washington once crossed a ballroom to speak with her, and. Colonel Perkins — the Colonel Perkins of Boston — ^in talking of her to my mother said: "I remember your grandmother Cutler as a fascinating widow with a lovely voice." She was married at fourteen to Colonel Heme 6 6£ Days and Ways in Old Boston and the tradition of her grief at parting with her dolls on her wedding morning still survives. Later she married Benjamia Cutler, Sheriff Cutler of Massachusetts, who died when she was still young, leaving her a great family of children and little else besides. Another tradition cHngs to her memory, vouched for by Colonel Perkins. "At parties the Governor always gave his arm to Mrs. Cutler and took her in to supper, for though she was a widow and not rich, she was tr^s grande dame and much respected." After Grandmother Ward's death in 1824, grandfather often brought his little flock of moth- erless children to see their Grandmother Cutler. My mother always remembered a certain visit when they stayed at the Tremont House, at that time the most fashionable hotel in Boston. It was a massive building of grey granite, with vast stone columns in the Greco-American style, that stood where S. S. Pierce's shop now stands, at the corner of Tremont and Beacon Streets. The children's tutor, Mr. Joseph Cogswell, later the first libra- rian of the Astor Library, was of the party. The company at the Tremont House proved so gay, the table so rich, that Grandfather — a Puritan of the Puritans — fled from it in terror, taking his little people to the Mt. Washington House in South Boston. Dr. Cogswell and the young folks missed the goodies and the frivolities of the Tremont House, though they enjoyed the flne view and the splendid air of the Mt. Washington House, which stood on the high part of the peninsula 66 The Old Rosewood Desk that ends m City Pomt. At that time this prom- ised to become the aristocratic quarter of Boston. Its natural advantages still make the Back Bay seem a poor place in comparison; even the Charles River Basin and the Fenway can not make up for that glorious outlook over Boston Bay and Harbor. Another bill dated Paris, 1844, made out to Mme, Wowe for various embroidered muslin caps and dresses! Who says there is no romance in ancient receipts? If the rosewood desk held nothing but its old bills, I could construct from them its owner's intimate history. This French bill is for the layette of her first child, bom in Rome in 1844; it is on crackly blue paper, written in a pointed French hand, and bears the revenue stamp for that year when Louis Philippe was on the throne of France. My father and mother were married in April, 1843, and after spending a year and a half in Europe they returned to Boston in the autumn of 1844. She found many changes in her adopted city. The Mt. Washington House, a failure as a hotel,, had now become the Perkins Institution for the Blind. My father. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder and director of the Institution, had fitted up a suite of rooms looking seaward. This now became my mother's first home in Boston. In those days the only public conveyance between South Boston and the city was an omnibus, that ran once in two hours. My mother adopted my father's mottoe, "Obstacles are things to over- 67 Days and Ways in Old Boston come," and with characteristic energy set herself to overcome the obstacle of distance. She was determined to have for herself and for her family all that was best worth having in Boston, in spite of living at arm's length from it. For her the three great goods that city life coidd give were good preaching, good music, good society. I can just remember the old green omnibus; in winter the floor was covered with straw to keep the passengers' feet from freezing, in summer with woven hemp mats made by the pupils at our Institution. It was chiefly in pursuit of the aforesaid good things that my mother made her endless trips to Boston in the old green 'bus, "but though on pleasure she was bent she had a frugal mind," and she found time to do a deal of family shopping besides. It was a matter of pride to us that it was never necessary for her "to take a sample " with her. She could " match " the most deUcate shade of silk, twist or trimming by memory perfectly. In her diary we find de- lightful httle memoranda of things bought. At the foot of a page describing a lecture of Emerson's, tucked in, very small, on the last line, come the items: "Buttons for Flossie fourteen cents. White gloves two dollars. Trimming tor Laura twenty-four cents. Rose for Julia twenty-five cents." While she never to my knowledge copied these items Luto any separate book of expenses, they 68 The Old Rosewood Desk occur regularly; how they served her seems ob- scure. At the time when she was deeply absorbed in the study of German philosophy, page after page of the diary is devoted to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Logik, then faithfully added at the bottom of the sheet: "two bananas for Juha and Flossie twelve cents." At that time we only had the fat red bananas; they were cheap at six cents apiece and often cost ten. The fruit trade was then in the hands of the Irish. The old apple women still sat on the Com- mon in their brave blue Kerry hoods and cloaks, their baskets of fruit and nuts beside them. In winter one sat at the head, the other at the foot of the "long coast"; in summer they moved to the shade of the elms on the Mall. They were powerful rivals to Marm Horn, whose neat httle shop on Charles Street, between Chestnut and Mt. Vernon, provided the best pickled limes in Boston; her black molasses candy at a penny a stick remains unique in the history of confec- tionery. "The Rovers of Boston," the earhest association I ever joined, were divided in their views on the question, "Where can the weekly five-cent allowance best be spent?" Governor Andrew's daughter stood out for Marm Horn's shop. I was loyal to a certain old apple woman. She was a terrific figure; when business was slack, she smoked a short black pipe; her voice was so gruff that I was secretly afraid of her. Her eyes were sharp and merry, however; her wrinkled cheeks were rosy as her apples, and 69 Days and Ways in Old Boston there was something bold and free about the old dame that won my allegiance, though her fruit was usually dusty and sometimes- stale. In the spring, when the weather was warm, the Rovers grew adventiu-ous and hiked out to Mrs. Hankey's shop in Jamaica Plain, in search of the cocoanut cakes that made her name famous to many gen- erations of girls and boys. Mrs. Maloney was more enterprising and a good deal younger than the old apple women. She wheeled her fruit about the streets in a little cart and I remember my mother used to arrange her morning walk to meet Mrs. Maloney and buy the day's supply of oranges from her. But all this was much later, in the sixties, when we were living at 19 Boylston Place. At that time my mother herself did the marketing at the old Boylston market, that stood at the corner of Washington and Boylston Streets. It was a source of grief to her and to many housekeepers when this excellent market Was done away with. While she was always too profoundly concerned with moral questions to think very deeply of material ones, there ran through the web of her character an odd little business thread, just to remind us that after all she was not only child of the muses but a banker's daughter. She never to my knowledge destroyed a receipt or a business paper; she drew her own cheques and kept her own bank account till the end of her life. In the early days at South Boston, she always went on Sunday to hear Theodore Parker preach 70 The Old Rosewood Desk at the Melodeon. On one occasion the sermon was so long that she lost the omnibus that should have brought her home in time for Sunday dinner. As she entered the dining-room and found the family cross and hungry at dinner's delay (for no one would have thought of sitting down with- out her), she cried out, gaily forestalling all possible reproof: "Let no one find fault, I have heard the great- est thing I shall ever hear!" Parker had again "wielded the hammer of Thor," spoken in his most impassioned style of Daniel Webster and the rendition of the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns. It was a veritable hand- ing round of the fiery cross; the ardent souls among the congregation went forth, each kindled accord- ing to his nature by the great preacher's zeal. In her "Reminiscences" my mother describes a meeting at the time of the attempted rendition of the fugitive slave, Shadrach. "It was on this occa- sion," she writes, "that I first saw Colonel Higgin- son, who was then known as the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, pastor of a rehgious so- ciety in Worcester. The part assigned to him was 71 Theodobs Pabker Days and Ways in Old Boston to read portions of the Scripture appropriate to the day. This he did with excellent efPect." Though the date of this meeting is not men- tioned, it must have been in the early fifties. For more than half a century, my mother and Colonel Higginson met frequently on the platform at public gatherings. They became comrades in arms in the holy wars of Progress and Emancipa- tion. They had many traits in common, the most vital perhaps being a profound sense of the greater importance of public matters as compared to private affairs. Both were of that sm 11 and gallant company who build the fortunes of the State. Both fought for the Union, the Colonel with the sword, my mother with the pen. The last meeting of the two old comrades was at my mother's ninety-first birthday reception. They sat side by side, sharing the honors due them as almost the last of the great army of leaders " God sent us for our need" in the troublous time of darkness and doubt. "Music went with me, fairy flute and viol. The utterance of fancies half expressed." In these two lines of her poem, the "Voyage," my mother records her lifelong delight in music. In an "omnium gatherum" drawer of the old rosewood desk two "documents" lay side by side that at first seem to have little to do with each other; on second thoughts they prove to be links in the same long chain of pleasure. The first is a narrow slip of ancient paper cut from the 72 The Old Rosewood Desk journal of Auntie Francis, Grandmother Ward's sister, who brought up her motherless children. " Juha began music with Mr. Boocock Tuesday, October 30th, 1831." So this was the beginning of all that joy in music! No, for in 1831 she was twelve years old and by that time she was well advanced in music. Her first master was an irritable Frenchman, of whom she stood in such awe that she could remem- ber little that he taught. Her musical educa- tion really began with Mr. Boocock, always grate- fully remembered for having taught her to appreciate the works of Beethoven, Handel and Mozart. From the first she worked hard at her music and remained a good musician all her life. The "children's hour" always found her at the piano, singing for us the merry student songs her brother Sam brought home with him from the University of Heidelberg. As the children grew up and wandered abroad in search of new experi- ences, she was sometimes left alone in the precious twilight hour. How often I have come home at dusk to hear her dear voice ringing out true and clear in the cadences of the florid Italian operas of her youth, or throbbing with the romantic passionate melancholy of her own songs. Certain of these I could never hear without tears; one filled me with a strange, unbridled terror, a sonnet of Shakespeare's set to music of her own composi- tion. 73 Days and Ways in Old Boston "Not a flower, not a flower sweet. On my black coffin let there be strewn; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. "A thousand thousand sighs to save. Lay me, O, where Sad true love ne'er find my grave. To weep there." On her catching sight of the terrified child, the melancholy song came to an end, the quick glanc- ing hands struck the rollicking notes of Lanni- gan's Ball that set the Uttle girl dancing and chased away the dread shadow of mortality. The document found with the extract from Auntie Francis' journal is a member's ticket for the Handel and Haydn Society. One of the greatest pleasures of my mother's middle life was singing in the chorus of the Handel and Haydn. I remember her joy when my brother Henry Marion was old enough to join the society. The rehearsals were held on Sunday evening at half past seven; there used to be a great scramble to have supper early and get our two choristers ofip in time to their rehearsals at Bumstead Hall. They studied, under that splendid leonine old leader, Carl Zerrahn, the great choruses of the Messiah, Ehjah, the Creation, Israel in Egypt, Judas Maccabaeus and Bach's Passion Music. My brother, who had a fine baritone voice, used to sing some of the arias to our mother's accom- paniment. I can hear now the stirring notes of the great passage, "His voice is like a hammer 74 The Old Rosewood Desk that breaketh the rock," ring through the house, see her sitting at the old Chickering grand, her son standing at her side ! Mr. John SuUivan Dwight was one of the famihars at our house. My mother deeply sym- pathized with all his endless labor for the cause of good music in Boston. He was the chief moving force in the old Harvard Musical Concerts, fore- runners of the grander but not more enjoyable Symphony Concerts of today. They were given in the Boston Music Hall on Thursday afternoons. We had our seats with Mr. Dwight in the front row of the lower balcony, where it was thought the music was heard best. The placing of the great organ in the Music Hall was a momentous event. I remember going to a concert while the work of putting up the organ was still incomplete, and the tremendous impression made by the colossi, the great brown carved wood caryatids that held up the fagade of the organ, and the faces of the muses painted on the golden pipes. The other day at the ruined temple of Herakles, in Sicily, I was reminded of these wooden giants by the twin giants of stone that he in fallen state upon the ground. The German wood-carver had seen Magna Grecia, drawn his inspiration from the unfailing source of Greek art. One more treasure, kept these many years in the old writing desk! An ivory tessera with the head of Sophocles and the date of the performance of Antigone by the Saturday Morning Club. Well I remember her pleasure, her pride in the unique 75 Days and Ways in Old Boston and beautiful production ! The maidens who took the younger parts are matrons now, the young matrons are grandmothers; but to her they always remained her "Sat. Mom. Club" girls, the loving and loyal members of the Girls' Club she founded thirty-five years ago. " What sense shall never know. Soul shall remember; Roses beneath the snow, June in November." ADVERTISING IN BOSTON, 1847-1914 By Robert Lincoln O'Brien, Editor of the Boston Herald If one were to pick up a newspaper of 64 years ago, the first thing with which one would be impressed would be the great preponderance of advertising over news matter. The Boston Her- ald, the Boston Bee, the Boston Transcript and the Boston Courier were all four-page newspapers in 1847. They were, contrary to the prevalent impression today, composed of about three- fourths advertising. Indeed, the newspaper then carried little else. A three-month old story of a Mexican War battle, a verbatim account of one of Charles Sumner's speeches, and some items of local interest, perhaps four or five columns in all, comprised the day's news. The second page of the paper was the news page; all of the first and last pages, and usually most of the third, were solid masses of small advertisements. The second and third pages were considered the most desirable, commanding double the price of the outside pages. The better class of shops followed highly dig- nified and apparently well-defined forms. The Bee in 1847, for example, carried this advertise- ment: "Persons desirous of purchasing any goods at Auction Prices may do so by calling at 77 Days and Ways in Old Boston 123 Court St., near Bowdoin Sq." This adver- tisement is typical in its bareness. The adver- tisers occupying the most space in those days, and in truth for nearly a half century afterwards, were the manufacturers of patent medicines. Their stamping-ground was usually on the first page, so that the first thing which greeted the reader's eye, on glancing at his newspaper, were long eulogies on the remarkable qualities of "Schenck's Pulmonic Syrup," "Buchan's Hun- garian Balsam of Life," "Dr. Warren's Sarsa- parilla. Tomato and Wild Cherry," and hordes of others of a similar nature. Much advertising was inserted into the news columns in such form that the reader coidd not recognize it as such until he had read well into it. The Boston Courier, in 1847, besides an account of General Scott's advance on Vera Cruz, and in precisely the same kind of type, under the head- ing "Gourand's Lectures on Chemistry," set forth this information: "Another wonderful effect of chemical combination may thus be illustrated. Mix in a glass equal quantities of a saturated solution of Carbonate of Potash and a saturated solution of Muriate of Lime. Stir the mixture and it will instantly become a solid. When chemistry can produce such wonders, it is not at all surprising that Gourand's Italian Medicated Soap should be invested with the power of remov- ing Pimples, Tan, Freckles, etc." This attempt of advertisers to confuse the reader was aided by playing with the headings. 78 Advertising in 1847-1914 When some event was given special prominence in the news, the advertisers used the same heading. For example, on January 2, 1863, the Boston Herald printed Lincoln's Emancipation Pro- clamation under the word, in large type, "Pro- clamation." On the same and the adjacent page, a dozen advertisements appeared under "Pro- clamation" set up in precisely the same way. The lack of classification of the newspaper advertisements in 1847 presents the amusing side of the subject. All the Boston dailies at that period had columns with headings "To Let," "Auctions," and "Board and Rooms." But regardless of fitness, the majority were lumped together, apparently in the order in which they had been received. On opening at random the files of an 1847 newspaper the following adver- tisements appear printed in order in the same column: — "To let in Temple St. a three story brick house"; "Bear's Oil at 12| cents a bottle"; "S. L. Bedel would inform her friends that she will this day open at 154 Washington St. an elegant assortment of Ornaments for the head, beautiful Marabout Feathers, delicate Willows, and pretty Wreaths of Fruit and Flowers." This carelessness of classification was noticeable, although to a constantly less extent, for many years after 1847. In the Herald in 1863 a pro- bate notice appears between a "Poultry Raffle at 18 Camden St.," and a sale of "Harness Leather." The changes in the character of the adver- tising in the years subsequent to 1847 were few. 79 Days and Ways in Old Boston Newspapers at the end of the Civil War had approximately the same appearance as twenty years before. The only noteworthy change in this period was that the "wants ads" had become very well classified. About 1870 the leading news of the day began to be printed on the first page, and the more objectionable of the adver- tisements relegated to less conspicuous quarters. By the middle seventies, the character of the advertising begins to change rapidly. Firm names which are now recognized as standard, such as R. H. Stearns & Co., Jordan Marsh & Co., and Shepard, Norwell & Co., begin to appear. Stores of this class were beginning to advertise on an increasingly large scale. Often they would use a half, or even a whole column, a small adver- tisement from 1914 standards, but a great increase over the six lines of three decades before. Coin- cident with this improvement in the quality of advertising in the Boston newspapers came a very marked diminution in the proportion of advertising to news matter. This tendency was due to the increase in the size of the newspapers. About 1890, for the first time, advertisements began to occupy over a single column in width. The greatest advertisers were still the patent medicine manufacturers. Manufacturers of es- tablished lines of merchandise began to advertise extensively. It was not until well after 1890, however, that the big stores of Boston began to recognize the advantage of continual advertising. Once the movement was started, dry goods adver- 80 Advertising in 1847-1914 tisements grew rapidly, both in frequency and size. In 1894 one of the Boston stores published in the Herald an advertisement a whole page wide and a half page deep for a week at a time. By the end of the century the department stores had grown to be the largest class of advertisers. The greatest change of all in advertising, how- ever, came with the turn of the century. Whole page advertisements appeared with frequency. Great improvement in illustrating methods made it possible to insert half-tone cuts in advertise- ments. Huge financial announcements came, in step with the consolidations of the first years of the new century. Industrial expansion was accompanied by advertising expansion. As stores doubled their size, they doubled their advertise- ments. And for all, advertising has proved, more truly than it ever was of speculation or com- petition, "the hfe of trade." 81 \, ? %iT^- BOSTON AS A SHOPPING CITY By Heloise E. Hebsey Civilized woman shops as naturally as she breathes. The Indian squaw grasps without discrimination whatever she can get, and delights in beads or blankets, hats or shoes with a complete disregard of the adaptability of each to her need. The first symptom of advance in the scale of living may be seen when she begins to choose and select, — ^to weigh advantage against price, to compare color and fabric, and to match both to her com- plexion and figure. The clerk on one side of the counter and the customer on the other write the history of society in the nations, whether the sale takes place in an Eastern bazaar with its dark- skinned merchant, its heavy perfumes, its long- drawn-out bargaining, and its final transfer of rich silk or precious stone, or whether it is made in the well-ordered, brilliantly lighted, highly organized American store, with its army of clerks trained to forestall the customer's desire, its mechanical devices to save the customer's time and strength, and its beguiling display to develop and to tempt the customer's taste. The truth is that shopping is the vast barometer of social evolution. How far has the community climbed on the mountain path of progress? How many stages since barbarism was left behind? 83 Days and Ways in Old Boston How long before the nation shall instinctively choose the best, — sunshine and oxygen as against gloom and bad air, — durable and tasteful fabrics as against showy, shoddy ones? The market and the shop have the answers to these questions. The methods of shopping mark the passage of the years in the history of a town as sharply as the rings on an oak tree mark its age. Each community develops its peculiar type of buying and selling for the needs of the individual and the family. In Constantinople the merchant carries his silks and velvets to the private apartments of his rich customer. In Paris, every lure to eye and touch is brought to bear to induce the cus- tomer to cross the threshold of the fascinating shop. One may travel over the face of the earth a,nd observe in close detail the methods by which the seller of various cities makes traffic with the buyer, and works out the genius of his town and his time in his business and to his profit. If the shopman is a true Bostonian, for example, nine chances out of ten he knows his Robert Browning, or at least his wife is a member of the Browning Society; so quoting to himself Browning's immor- tal line, "Life's business being just the terrible choice," he sets about making that choice easy rather than difficult, — Chappy rather than tire- some. Boston will do it in its own way, — as different from the ways of other cities as her -winding streets and her innocent Frog Pond are different from Philadelphia's prim parallels or London's tragic Serpentine. 84 Boston as a Shopping City From the point of view of the woman who buys, modern cities are divided into two great classes. Paris and New York are types of one class; London and Vienna and Moscow and Boston are types of the other. The Paris shop is made like the spider's web, — ^to catch the unwary fly of any race or color or plumpness. The window in the Rue de la Pabc is dressed to attract the American or English woman, or the Parisian or Russian; and the trim demoiselle who serves the customer has an impersonal mastery of her business which impresses all alike, even if it is a bit chilling in its perfection. Not even your inability to speak her language melts her heart. She can sell you gloves and necklaces, — veritable imitation you may be sure, with a fine detachment, whether you are from Kansas or from Devonshire or from "the Provinces." So in New York— the Fifth Avenue clerk or the Seventh Avenue clerk is sublimely indifferent to your local habitation and your name. You may go to a famous confec- tioner ten times a year for five and twenty years, and the slender, black-robed woman who fills your modest order will write your address without a glimmer of a hint that she has ever heard it before. Whatever you are to her, you are not Yourself! Perhaps she condescends to recognize the Choicest of Her Choice, — but you need not aspire to join that charmed circle. So much for New York and Paris. Boston and London are otherwise. The shopper in those cities expects and finds a personal recognition and 85 Days and Ways in Old Boston a friendly interest which would wander about in Paris like a cat in a strange garret. The advan- tages of a huge, impersonal city are many; but the wise woman will not despise the delights of a small community, — half village, half city, — where name and taste and purse of everybody are known to everybody else. In fact, when these more intimate relations are once established and enjoyed, they are prized as one prizes the con- veniences of home. It would be easy to enumer- ate a score of these personal satisfactions which come pleasantly to the surface of Boston shopping. For example, it is said that a certain man in a certain Boston shop knows the size of stocking worn by twice four hundred Boston women, any one of whom would feel it a definite personal slight for him to ask her the number of her hose or her address. A certain Boston florist hurries home from a short vacation on hearing of the death of a prominent man, "because it would be more trying for the family to order from a clerk the flowers for the funeral!" Not a woman experienced in Boston shopping but remembers with admiration the famous "Amanda," — whose strong face and gaunt figure were "features" of the store of R. H. Stearns for a generation. She knew the pattern of ginghams and muslins that had graced the South Shore and the North Shore for forty years. Her memory of marriages and intermarriages and cousinships and even of family disagreements made her a perfect "Social Register" for the newcomer to Boston's inner circle. Boston as a Shopping City One might easily make a collection of illustra- tions of the way in which customer and clerk ia Boston take the personal relation as a matter of course, as much to be counted on as a business guaranty of goods or a prompt payment of bills. A customer at the small wares counter at one of the large stores heard one morning as she was selecting her needles and pins a queer noise beneath the counter. "What is that?" she asked; "it sounds like a small and lonesome kitten ! " " It is a kitten," rephed the clerk; "Miss Johnson brought it in an hour ago and asked me to take care of it for her irntU afternoon. It cries unless I hold it all the time!" So she nestled the tiny cat up to her neck, as if the care of it was a perfectly natural and agreeable part of the day's work! This personal relation between buyer and seller is the very climax of the art of shopping as prac- ticed by the dealers of London. Huge as is the business of the city, the old firms have never outgrown their early habit of regarding a patron as a valuable, personal asset. A stray American in the bookstore of Bernard Quaritch, — famous among the booksellers of the world, — was amused and amazed to hear an English customer suggest that the clerk should put a corner of Cheshire cheese into the budget of books which were to go to the "shooting box" in Scotland. The clerk seemed to regard the Cheshire cheese with the same friendly attention which he bestowed on the mixture of new novels and constitutional law which his customer ordered. 87 Days and Ways in Old Boston Emphasis on the personal relation between buyer and seller is nowhere more noticeable than in Boston, and nowhere in Boston more recognized by everybody concerned than at the sixty-seven- year-old establishment of R. H. Stearns and Company. At the close of the Christmas holi- days of 1911 the firm issued a letter of cordial thanks to its employees for their hearty co- operation in the effort to make the best holiday business of their history. The phrases of the letter were full of real feeling, and one saw that customers and employees and partners were alike included in the general glow of satisfaction. Next door to Steams' famous corner stands old St. Paul's Church. It is in keeping with the traditions of the parish and its long career of helpfulness, and equally in keeping with the tradition of the firm for good neighborliness, that the church should recently have sent a letter to every person employed by its neighbor offering its help to each and every one of them in any way in which a church can serve. Intellectual and spiritual needs are recognized by both great institutions as being as imperative as the needs of the body. Church and store may work together. The doctor and the trained nurse make their rounds of the busy aisles of the shop, and priest and organist and choir boy and sexton give the welcome of religion to the worker who has also the claim of the Christian neighbor. By such means do gracious human activities grow and spread. From one point of view modern life appears like a vast machine, the wheels of which are made 88 Boston as a Shopping City of helpless human beings. Competition, the division of labor, the complete separation of the product from the person who produces it, — all these great economic facts which have come to pass since our grandmothers shopped seem to have conspired to take out of buying and selling all recognition of the person of buyer and seller and maker. But in the shop and in society there is working slowly and steadily another force, counteracting the tendency to make men and women into machines, and divorce their work from their welfare. This force goes by many names. One day it is called Socialism, another day it is called Human Brotherhood, another day it is called fantastically an "Uplift Move- ment." The names are only masquerades to conceal a shy reluctance on the part of men and woinen to speak the old-fashioned phrase of Christian Love. There are many evils in modern business life, and in modern society as related to business. But there is also a growing passion in the hearts of good folk to ameliorate those evils. There must be great factories where the workers are numbered by hundreds and are classed as "hands." But there are also employers to whom every pair of hands represents a living, toiling, hoping person. There are huge shops where the long procession of employees and customers moves through the aisles with no more personal recogni- tion than as if they were so many mechanical toys; whole cities where the struggle for the newest kind of freedom has scarcely begun. In 89 Days and Ways in Old Boston other cities it is well advanced, — the freedom of the community where modern civilization joins hands with brotherly love, and makes life worth living for all sorts and conditions of men. Boston has never been so greedy of gain as some cities. She has never been so much in a hurry as others. Her shops have grown large and tempt- ing, but they have never lost the air of those days when everybody in the town knew everybody else, and they all met at one or another of the historic "corners" in a sort of natural friendliness. Clerks and customers and owners and errand boys knew each other's names, and respected each other's work, and regarded each other's needs. Today the wisest of the merchants of Boston are taking that old friendliness and cherishing and invigorating it as a substantial part of their business. Recognition on both sides of the counter is counted as an asset by the firm and a privilege by the customer. In fact, it gives to Boston its distinctive character as a shopping city. "Do you know the name of every clerk in this store?" asked a New York woman of her Boston hostess in the midst of a morning of shopping. "No," was the reply; "but I wish I did, for most of them know my name and more- over they know what I like!" Perhaps this personal touch makes the stranger within our gates a little more strange than she likes to be, but to the Native Born it makes Boston the pleasant- est shopping city in the world. 90 AN HISTORIC CORNER TREMONT STREET AND TEMPLE PLACE Bt Walter K. Watkins Of the Bostonian Society One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories of old New England is prefaced by a chapter which in effect describes the evolution from a wilderness to civilization: first the silence and sohtude of the forest; then the Indian, stealing by, bent upon war or the chase; then the explorer, the hunter and the smoke of the settler's cabin and finally, after a couple of centuries of slow development, orderly towns and cities and dense population. With much the same thought one may con- template a number of historic localities in Boston, and shutting out the eager, insistent present — the tall buildings and hurrying throngs, the electric cars, automobiles and drays — step back into the twilight and the silence of the past, and picture the successive steps of settlement. The present comer of Tremont Street and Temple Place possesses much historic interest. One must grope backward in time almost three hundred years to find this particular acre of ground unoccupied by men, and for most of that long period it has been the center of the city's activities and growth. By the middle of the 17th century it was a half cleared pasture, and here a little later was built the home of one of the 91 Days and Ways in Old Boston first bom in the colony. From this house we can imagine the outlook over a southward strag- gling path, rough and but half broken, along the Common, a mere bit of partially reclaimed marsh set aside as pasturage for the cows of the settle- ment while over all broods the silence of the unbroken, unexplored continent. Precarious in the extreme was the foothold of white settlements which only at Manhattan and a few other places broke the monotony of the wild shore line between Boston and Jamestown. Both of these centers of European civiliza- tion, however, were more remote and shadowy to each other than Ispahan or Cape Town to the Americans of the twentieth century. As the decades passed, the house at Tremont Street near what is now Temple Place, slowly became a venerable mansion about which clus- tered the home memories of birth and marriage and death. Owner succeeded owner, and unhke the usual American community iu which all the local events, hke incidents in a moving picture, are jumbled into an abnormally short space of time, the period of the colonial home at Tre- mont Street and Temple Place was long and deliberate, and stretched far into a second cen- tury. It suggests the age of Boston compared with most American cities, that our retrospect from the present to the days of the Revolution covers a shorter period than that other and earlier period spanned by the old House of Usher, from the date of its erection in 1684 to its final removal in 1830. 92 An Historic Corner There are, indeed, few houses in the United States at the present time more venerable than was the Usher mansion when finally torn down. In the following pages the history of this man- sion and the site upon which it stood is traced in some detail. In the Days of the Settlement In the month of June, 1630, Governor Win- throp's Uttle fleet threaded its way between the green wooded islands of the harbor of Boston and passed the Mary and John anchored off Nan- tasket. The newcomers were saluted from Sam- uel Maverick's palisaded house at Winnisimmet, and the Spragues welcomed them to the shores of the Mystic. On the south slope of the west hill of that crown of peaks which gave the name of Trimount to the settlement, dwelt William Blackstone in a thatched house flanked by a ruder garden. After a score of years let us ascend the Beacon Hill, the center of the crown, and view the growth of the town of Boston. Houses fringe the water front from Merry's Point at the North End to Fort Point at Fort Hill. They are thickly clustered about the Town Cove, which indented the shore to the present Adams Square. On the High Street to the water (now State Street) were the homes of the town fathers and on the High or Fore Street to Roxbury, now Washington Street, were the houses of prosperous tradesmen, their shops on 93 Days and Ways in Old Boston the ground floor and their dwellings above, as is the custom still in Old England. These houses on the highway to Roxbury were each surrounded by the goodly part of an acre of garden with orchards in the rear. On the west side of this street, south of Winter Street, these orchards extended back to a fringe of pastures which skirted the "Common land" on the east. One of these pastures, an acre and a half, was between the site of St. Paul's Church and West Street. In it grazed the cattle of Henry Webb, a prosperous merchant, who dwelt opposite the Market Place, now the Old State House site. In poor grazing seasons a pasture which he owned on Fort Hill also gave forage to his cattle. His warehouse faced the Town Dock and his vessels unloading at his wharf lay where a century later Faneuil Hall was erected. Back of his house, which stood on the corner of what is now State and Devonshire Streets, lived William Parsons, a carpenter and "sley- maker." Parsons was destined to help make history as one of the "Fifth Monarchy" men who ran a bloody riot in London Streets in 1661, but he did not meet the fate of his leader that other Boston man, Thomas Venner, who was hung, drawn and quartered, for Parsons slipped away in the crowd and fled back to New England. There, when well advanced in years, and known as "Old Will Parsons," he sold drinks in front of his house. It was to him that Webb sold his pasture but by 1646 Parsons had disposed of the land to Richard Carter, also a carpenter. 94, An Historic Corner Carter lived not far away on the High Street to Roxbury, south of West Street, and on the site of what became later the "Lamb Tavern" and is now covered by the Adams House. His wife was evidently an advanced woman, or suffra- gette of the period, as she was admonished twice for seditious words. She survived her husband and married John Hunt of Charlestown. A daughter, Mary, for a second husband espoused a neighbor, Joseph Cowell, who lived on the south corner of West and Washington Streets. From his residence there West Street was early known as Cowell's Lane, and down the lane to the pas- tm-e he led the horses that he rode as messenger for the Colony to Hartford and New York. In 1680 Mrs. Hunt and her daughter Mrs. Cowell, sold the pasture to Hezekiah Usher Junior. Hezekiah Usher, Senior, was the first bookseller of the colony. He lived on the north side of the Market Place and his warehouse in the rear faced the Town Dock. He died in 1676, leaving a goodly fortune and two sons to quarrel over it and evoke the aid of the law. Six months after his father's death Hezekiah Usher married Bridget, the widow of Dr. Leonard Hoar, Presi- dent of Harvard College. Mrs. Usher's parents were Lord John Lisle, who was assassinated at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1664, and Lady Alicia Lisle, beheaded at Winchester, England, in 1685. After a few years of married life, spent in tne house he erected in 1684 in Carter's pasture. Usher developed such eccentricities that in 1687 Mrs. 95 a Eh S An Historic Corner Usher and her daughter, by her previous mar- riage, left Usher and sailed for England, the husband weeping bitterly. Left alone, Usher was discontented and unhappy. In May, 1688, he leased his house to John West, secretary to Andros, the new governor of the colony. West had come to New York in 1678, became the town clerk and married the daughter of Thomas Rudyard, Ueutenant governor of New Jersey. It was shortly after the arrival of West in Boston, in June, 1688, at the Usher house, that Andros had his stormy interview with Judge Sewall in regard to occupying the Old South Meeting House as a place of worship. Soon afterward Andros was confined in the Fort and West in the common prison, until they were sent back to England in February, 1689. Two years later, in 1691, West died in his lodgings in St. Martins, Ludgate parish, London. In a few years his widow again married, having obtained for West's services grants of lands at Barnegat and elsewhere in New Jersey. For a third hus- band she married Andrew Hamilton, speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Her daughter mar- ried Chief Justice Allen and her grand-daughter was the wife of the son of Richard Penn, last proprietary governor of Pennsylvania. When West vacated the Usher house it was rented to Waitstill Winthrop, grandson of the first governor. Winthrop was a prominent citizen of Boston, a judge, councilor, and of high rank in the militia. In 1692 his house was briUiant 7 97 Waitstill Wintheop An Historic Corner with illumination when the province govern- ment began mider the new charter In Septem- ber of the same year, it was the scene of stately festivities when his daughter, Anne, was married to Major John Richards. Here also Winthrop conferred with his townsmen in regard to that epidemic of witchcraft which convulsed New England in 1692. The owner of the house, Heze- kiah Usher, with his many eccentricities, did not escape suspicion, and was accused by Susanna Sheldon of Salem. She declared that he stuck pins into her, but his brother and Winthrop pre- vented prosecution. In the winter of 1696-7 while Usher was on a journey, he feU from his horse in the town of Maiden and was taken to the tavern of Isaac Hill in an injured condition, where he became worse, mentally and physically. His brother was made his guardian and in April, 1697, he was removed to Lynn, where he died in July. Usher's body was brought to Boston and placed in his father's tomb in the King's Chapel Burial Ground. Passers-by can readily read the inscription on the tomb located next the "old Registry Building."^ His will clearly shows his disordered mind and in it he bitterly denounces his wife. Mrs. Usher had attempted to obtain the family home before her husband's death, upon the authority of a deed of gift given at the time of marriage. An effort to eject Winthrop the tenant was unsuccessful, but upon Usher's death Mr. Winthrop moved; but suits were brought 99 o « O a g C a •-^, ^ An Historic Corner by Judge Sewall as Mrs. Usher's attorney against the executor and tenant for possession. Mrs. Usher was successful in the lower and higher courts and the case was appealed by Usher's executor to the Privy Council in England. Their confir- mation of Mrs. Usher's right was received in 1700 and she came into possession of the house. Judge Sewall presented to his client a cord of wood from Muddy River (as Brookline was then called), to start housekeeping. Mrs. Usher held possession of the house till 1714. Her death occurred in 1725. In the Days of the Province In 1714 Mrs. Usher sold the mansion to Francis Wainwright of Ipswich. His father. Colonel John, left him considerable wealth. He also inherited through his mother, a niece of Rev. John Norton, lands in Ipswich granted that min- ister. Coming to Boston, Wainwright married a daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley. His busi- ness ventures, however, were unsuccessful, and he mortgaged the Usher house together with other properties. The mortgage upon the former was not paid; he was sued in 1720 for possession, and transferred the Usher house to Deacon Jonathan Williams, a wine cooper. Wainwright was never prominent in town affairs in Boston. He did hold the oflBce of constable, but his only official act, it it could be so termed, was a failure to warn a town meeting in 1713, and for this he was censured with his fellow con- stables, equally guilty. He died in 1722 and his 101 Days and Ways in Old Boston widow married again, as was the custom in those days. The new proprietor of the Usher house, Deacon Wilhams, had married, as his second wife, Re- becca, the widow of James Townsend, wine mer- chant. With her he took her worldly goods, which were on sale in the wine shop of her late husband on Cornhill (now Washington Street) and known as the sign of "The Black Boy and Butt." Williams' residence was in Savage's Court oflE Cornhill, which later took the name of Williams Court. This name it still retains with its alias of Pie Alley. Williams also owned a block of three houses on Portland Street, then Cold Lane. The mansion house of Usher now secured a tenant of more note in the person of Rev. Roger Price of King's Chapel. Of an ancient Welsh family which had settled in Buckinghamshire, he was educated for the church. After his course at Oxford he went as a chaplain on the coast of Guinea. There he was captured by pirates, and on his release went to St. Anne's, Jamaica, as chaplain. Both experiences contributed to ill health and he returned to England. His health not improving, he accepted a position in Boston, arriving in 1729. He first lodged with Peter Feust or Feuart, a Dutchman, on Marlboro now Washington Street. His relations with Rev. Henry Harris and Rev. Thomas Harward, suc- cessively the rectors of King's Chapel,, were not the most pleasant. At last, in 1733, he decided 102 Bridal Gown worn by Miss Elizabeth Bull as the Bride of Rev. Roger Price, the Rector of King's Chapel, who Came in 1735 to Live in the Usher House AT the Corner of what is now Tremont Street and Temple Place. An Historic Corner to return to England and even engaged passage. Contrary winds, however, delayed departure, and while waiting to sail he attended Trinity Church and saw Miss Elizabeth Bull. All thoughts of departure were driven from his mind; he secured presentation to the young lady and assiduously paid her court. Miss Bull was regarded as one of the beauties of that period. She was the grand- child of old Sergeant Bull, who kept the "Bull Tavern " by the waterside at the foot of Summer Street, the "Seven Star Lane" of those days. After a lengthy courtship they were married in 1735 and went to reside in the Usher house. We can imagine the dainty bride clothed in the finely embroidered wedding gown, which with the linen of her young children is still preserved and is now in the Collections of the Bostonian Society. Meanwhile, Deacon Williams was gathered to his fathers, and once more the spirit of litigation, seemingly framed into the very timbers of the house by its first owner, again appeared. Con- troversy over the partition of the deacon's estate brought the matter before the Superior Court of Judicature and on an appeal to the Governor and Council, the property was sold in 1742 to Mr. Stephen Greenleaf. In a few years Mr. Roger Price and family removed to Hopkinton, where he established a church and Mr. Greenleaf became the occupant of the mansion as well as its owner. 103 Sht^biff Stephen Gkebnleaf An Historic Corner The Revoltjtionakt Period Stephen Greenleaf was born in Newbury in 1704. Inheriting wealth, he married in 1731 and came to reside in Boston. In 1757 he was ap- pointed sheriflE of Suffolk County. In August fol- lowing Greerdeaf 's appointment, Thomas Pownall arrived as governor of the province and in the next year Thomas Hutchinson became Ueutenant-gov- ernor. In September (1758), General Lord Am- herst arrived in Boston and his troops encamped on the Common near the old Usher mansion on their way to Lake George. The same year saw Pownall depart for South Carolina, and the sheriff early in August headed a detachment of the gov- ernor's troop of guards and rode to Wrentham to welcome the new governor, Francis Bernard, and act as his escort to Boston. In December, 1758, Greenleaf, from the bal- cony of the Town House, proclaimed the new King, George the Third, and a few days later assisted in the funeral ceremonies for the late King. Soon began the oppression of the colony through acts of the crown officers, more especially those of the revenue and customs. Because of his official position Greenleaf became an actor in the scenes and incidents resulting from the opposi- tion of Otis and his friends to the writs of assist- ance. Upon an August day in 1765 word was brought him that Bute and Oliver (the stamp officer) were hanging in effigy from the Liberty 106 An Historic Corner Tree. Hastening to the scene he was prevented from removing the figures, but was assiu-ed they would be taken down. This was done in the evening and they were burnt on the Common. Hutchinson and the sheriff hearing reports of Oliver's treatment by the mob, wended their way to the latter's house in Milk Street, but were obUged themselves to take safety in flight. These demonstrations, caused by the Stamp Act, were of a different nature when repeated in May, 1766, upon its repeal. Greenleaf, from the win- dows of his house, saw the erection on the Com- mon of a pyramid, illuminated by 280 lamps. His neighbor, John Hancock, upon the other side of the Common, treated his fellow townsmen to Madeira wine, and the Sons of Liberty set off fireworks in front of the work-house on what is now Park Street and entertained their friends within with refreshments of a liquid nature. This, however, was but a lull in the storm. In March, 1768, the sheriff again received word that the Liberty Tree had borne fresh fruit and that Paxton and Williams, customs officers, were hanging from the boughs. Before the sheriff's arrival, however, the effigies were removed. Li September, 1766, Greenleaf had assisted the customs officers in their attempt to search the house of Daniel Malcolm, the patriot, on Fleet Street, but they were prevented in their purpose by a great gathering of the people. In June, 1768, the customs officers again met with opposi- tion for seizure of the sloop Liberty. This vessel, 107 An Historic Corner which had Iain at the wharf of its owner, John Hancock, for a month and had been used to store oil and tar, was seized, as its contents had not been entered for export. The crowd after han- dling the officers roughly dragged a boat of the "Collector" up what is now Washington Street to the Liberty Tree opposite Frog Lane (Boylston Street) . It was then taken to the Common, where Greenleaf and other onlookers watched it ascend in smoke and flame. News of the affair reached England. Rumors of troops to be sent to the town from the mother country became current. One noon the sheriff, casting his eye across the Common, noticed the beacon on Beacon Hill was prepared to be lighted. Hastily climbing the slope he quietly removed the signal which was to announce the arrival of the troops. They came in September and with bayonets fixed and colors flying, marched to the Common. Barracks were needed for them and the Manufactury House, where Hamilton Place now extends, was selected. It had been leased to Elisha Brown, a weaver, and he objected to vacating. The law was evoked and the sheriff and Hutchinson attempted to get possession. A weaver leaving through a cellar window one noon was pushed aside by Greenleaf who entered and soldiers were posted in the cellar. Brown held the fort in the upper stories, and successfully, for the soldiers were withdrawn in a few weeks. It was in 1768 that the sheriff was told by Harri- son Gray, the province treasurer, as he handed 109 I 'ffl*'^-"^ '■(51' ■^ iii o O K o An Historic Corner him an execution against Samuel Adams, that he knew his duty and if he failed he would be accountable. But the sheriff as well as his fellow townsmen, patriots and loyalists, were lenient in serving a distress warrant on Adams, in his unfortunate position as tax collector, and amicably settled with him his accounts. At the trial of the soldiers for the Boston Mas- sacre, Greenleaf performed his official duties as sheriff as he had done previously when Robinson and others were charged with the assault on James Otis. He presented himself at Faneuil Hall while the reports of the tea importers were read and ordered the town's people to disperse. These were all in the line of his official duties, and though after the evacuation of Boston, in April, 1776, his arrest was ordered, like many other loyaHsts and office-holders under the crown, he was left in possession of his property. In 1765 he had been licensed as an inn-holder and during the siege he had many British officers billeted in his house. One morning in 1795 Samuel Adams, then governor, who lived just back of Greenleaf on Winter Street, was told that the "old sheriff" was dead. He had died at the ripe age of ninety- one and many recalled the austere but kindly man who had displayed considerable tact during the stormy days before the Revolution. A granddaughter who lived with him in his declining years married Charles Buffinch, the architect. The State House on Beacon Hill was one of Bulfinch's buildings. The beginning of 111 Days and Ways in Old Boston its erection the "old sheriff" viewed from the windows of the Usher house. A French Ventubb A daughter of Sheriff Greenleaf married Chief Justice Martin Howard of North Carolina and she with the other executors of her father, sold the house and gardens in 1796. It came into possession of Mrs. Hepsibah (Clark) Swan, wife of James Swan, who was born in Scotland in 1754. He came to Boston as a youth and was employed with Henry Knox in the book shop of Nicholas Bowes in Cornhill. He first came into notice in 1772 by writing a pamphlet against the slave trade. When hostilities commenced after the "Tea Party," of which he was a member, he was an assistant in the treasury oflBce of the province and secretary to the Board of War. He was the companion of Joseph Warren, as a volunteer, at Bunker Hill, but fortunately es- caped from the field with the loss of his coat and a broken gun. In May, 1776, he was commissioned a captain in Crafts' Artillery and in Novem- ber made a major and served in the Continental service. In 1788 he was deputy adjutant general of militia. From 1779 to 1781 he was part owner in the pri- vateer Boston and ships Leighton and Prosper and brigantine Nancy. These ventures en- 112 Chablss Bulfinch •T^ C^ I I O Days and Ways in Old Boston abled him to purchase the estate of the loyalist Nathaniel Hatch, son of Col. Estes Hatch, in Dorchester. In 1784 Swan bought Burnt Coast Island, Lincoln County, Me. This he paid for with depreciated Continental currency, a shrewd condition inserted in the resolve of the General Court. The financial conditions of the new republic were unfavorable to Swan's ventures and he left Boston in January 1788. His most pressing cred- itor was Patrick Jeffries, against whose treatment he expressed himself most bitterly. He went to Havre and Rouen in France, where he investig- ated French manufactures. On his arrival in France he advanced the interests of the States and in 1790 published in French six letters ad- dressed to Lafayette on the causes of the opposi- tion to commerce between France and the States. In 1790 Swan attempted to negotiate a loan of $2,000,000 for the States from some citizens in Genoa. As an American whose country was a refuge he assisted many royalist refugees to Amer- ica and also shipped the household effects of others. As many of these people were unfortu- nate enough to lose their lives, a Boston wit of the last century observed "The guillotine took their heads and Swan took their trunks." After the horrors of the Revolution, Mrs. Swan joined her husband in his house in the Rue Croix de Petit Champs, and in 1793 he was able to say that he had paid his debts and re-established his ancient fortune and would return, — ^which he 114 ""> if I 4 I 6 o Days and Ways in Old Boston did in 1794. In the following year he visited Philadelphia with a project to go to Spain in an official capacity. About this time he became possessed of 25,000 acres in Hardin County, Kentucky, and in 1796 he purchased the Greenleaf estate and placed it in his wife's name and also some lots bought at auction from the town, a part of the site of the future Colonnade Row. At this time his finances again became involved and he sailed in 1797 to France, once more to recoup his fortunes. He was not as successful as during the days of the French Revolution, for ten years later, in 1808, Swan was arrested for a debt due, unjustly as he claimed, to Jean Claud Picquet, a Paris merchant. He was imprisoned for this debt in St. Pelagic prison and stayed there until the Revolution in 1830 opened his prison door. He did not long survive his liber- ation and died the 18th of March, 1831. Swan's wife had died at their Dorchester house in 1825. Her death invited an attempt by the French cred- itor to secure payment of Swan's debt to him. The original creditor died before Mrs. Swan and in 1825 his son Anthonie Furcy Picquet came to Boston and applied for letters of adminis- tration on the estate of his father who had died in Paris. His property disclosed were 18 Bills of Exchange, drawn by Freytag on James Swan, for 521,646 francs, and accepted by Swan in 1811. This in 1825 with interest amounted to $97,808. The Probate Court not granting administration, Picquet went to the General Court and got a 116 An Historic Corner resolve in his favor. The case then went to the Supreme Court and suits were brought in the United States Circuit Court, Meanwhile during the slow course of the law, Picquet became a resident of Boston and acted as the French com- mercial agent and later as vice-consul. Swan died while the suits were pending. In his will he left a provisional legacy to the city of Boston to be invested in real estate and farms in the vicinity of Boston until a fund of $100,000 was formed. With this an "Orphan Academy" was to be built. But unfortunately for Boston, his estate was in- solvent as the Picquet claim was allowed in the courts and debts proved to the amounts of $127,- 000 and $5,473.34. The Swan assets permitted a payment of but 8.0625 cents on a dollar, and on the 25th of July, 1836, Picquet asked for the amount due to transmit to his brother Cyril Simon, Baron Picquet in Paris. Thus ended the career of the most litigious of the possessors of the Usher house. Washington Gardens Swan's own name does not appear in the Boston directory of 1809 as living on Common Street (now Tremont), as he had taken up his enforced residence in St. Pelagie the previous year, but the house and grounds were occupied by the Swan family or remained vacant, till 1813. The next year it was the home of John P. Whitwell. Mr. Whitwell previously resided on Pond Street now Bedford Street. He was an apothecary and 117 , i.t ■■«Sl(| V J)' H5&V? :-,j' [ rent or Ftf f ihi* Coinnioii- t-rtificate from \ here audi |j tr- prC3J.ihi.ll by lincteetith d»y KROOK.S. \ Tfit 19. v^yf f eury the O^vrr- ixt* ih\s n»ijcc, ajK-rt as h'' nuy Pij.pU'-iliyii I'f :!:e af »ii.| 'lumb per- nt wr (fuaniim rr ■ of btanl «iil in- I ilutnS pcn^ti, al ' lli« Stifc of Con- aid csfwns', or part ./ej few this fJummoii- ' hereinafi-r merit, omd re be ann'iilly appropn- ra^'.irv of tIil* Cmntn'-n- four tJi'miari'l do'I-r*, t... '■-t nt hoari' and iru'ni'ioii dumb pcr»on» a' thr Aayl'im f.iiwevr ciccrdin^, (or c»c!' irn i-if !»o ti'indre-I i!'-IIaiy|i«r .r a tpfn tin ^j'.l: itidividuaLnot lur ; '»r» nr )..r incti lens tiine ai •■ and (;','i',cil rru) JU'I;,''' eipe- >d if a p»-. iitrr linnthcr tlmn twenty Plian fvrlY m-'ll a|i[ilv. f'lr sf-ireaaid U..>u«i.dd..lbT,,:;,;i be rjiiinl.- L ng tJi*:-?! m «^i:>l prtjfj',rU')nt, ; and lt Lumber »'jai f.ir'y fcluil -'pply, B e(.t,:U-'l al.all be d' ■ (ff.ated .•.-ul.prnc rrhol '", or •ilio bh;4ll hsve ' 111 all I,. AMPHJTHKATJlE, Mr. umI M™. PARKEU't Fint Appearance. (O'Hie Public are rcapecifully informed, itiat. Mr PinsKft, Ballei Waaler, and Mra. PtiiKKu, i'rincipal Uancer.of the .Vris-Tork Theatre, whose perfonnances there have been so highly c:tiolIed, are eng.*ged at the .'inpluiheuire fob 4 fkw mchts onit, and \*ill appear on Monday Eveoing next. Cj' I'bc Xlatiapcr, for ihc ^ntm/ tccommb- d.tiioiiofthe PuHur, bas embellished a pirt eft ho Cii^B vith clrgarvt ?;etrties, uid con- I'l-cttd v^iih that pajt ot ibc bouse. fi»e of the lower BoxEii. fhcse aeats am nr^ant In jrcomrtunlate a proportion of respectable I.ndics and (ientlemm, who may prefer tin fii to ll;e first Uoxea. Viaces for thcae muy be lakcn blngly or for Familes at 75 cts. 1J- "it-ikTi are hkcwlse pirliliofied off for Pri.y\e '.f CoUur, at 50 cenla each. f)^ MOVDAV K-VK-ffNG, JriT I?. Will bf pmcniid. lor ihi" flrtt tim« in Bo*lon, a Ntw Ballet. ^alli^ DONMJ> OF DUNDKE: O- r^. ..[IIGIILWD LADS \ND LJSStta. Gtrt up iinrti-r ilir imimJiale dirfntittn 'li fmaU t"l1>. In iho euunu or ihc BbIIci, A Favorite Scoicit soi-k. - by Mrs. Parker- _-Ai»o.- A *aricty «jf Sicoich Dawcxs. Slrmbpevi knd the Iteal Highland Fling, kfrcT ih« llallei-. aOSO". A?*l> RF.i-I lATlOKS. D; Mr. Cnwrd. M^. Jont.. ai.d Mr*. Wheatl*y. forticii-an in imall bill*. After wl.ich. 1 be much ■dniii-i;d Shawl Dance. By Mri. PARKER. Atwr iSe Dhnee. . .1 t'>nccf 0/" ►'oca/ ««'' Intf'-umeJital Miuic. i'arti.inan in atuatl UHi. ttn -fc^^ » t.M.cl...lo w,(h a HewIUillef, nt»cr per- lormcd bcrr called Tilt -^lA t UK : Or-.-CUPin'S RBXnRAT. 0«t OB OBrtM .h^ .|,rr..m..orMr.P.rk«. and » l«r. (onord -i 'he Se* Wi.k lliKUrB upward, uf twr'Mv liiout iluniiir lilt lit leuiun. fiorian, Mr, Puilf^r [ l',.nily, Mr3. Parker. OtiK-r c!iar*ctcn ii< I'lin'l bitli. fitiii-oinirkeul iht piece, A variety ol K;^gii"i- '»"d iJ'tcy DmccB. Tb« 0»«rluwi to cuaitiieiice at « o'cloctt July 17 At If .A nrvt \ of « b>od bies, t*«d.-, ' Picture*, 1 Forics, :iaJ K ^ Also, at 1 1 o ^ Qlufca, ol utn ^ For t^orb, ' A peat vaneiy oi L TUtn-~, 4-4 .iQil t^4 t^aaiL ^ book auhi cobwt-b ^lU'ti. bttc Oiuntie?, KijLmius. banticb. ■"•hectiup, 4 4 s ab.>it yeJiow .SaukaiJ. \( At FrivaU !»a/e— Ului kiuf. euli'.ie.! to dcbtu Ciap«^. blautf auJ colo lijjhl tJewiLjSiik, Ju»a Handk'la, bird tye Hj UuibreiU Srttu, Lhiua C Valuable Sule - Oq WlUM-WA' ir.i«ly F'jt.MMU.Vtoiicboi ol Auiilomy and Tbysi .. .>KV in HiiiyoouB .nuarc, Edmburg. NorLh- Hn'am will il-liver In- Aiituuinal cou.se of In.l.aclloii*';.-! th«:4bM»o bmncht^. inCoiicord, ..r ihi, Lfi-inbin;: "f AupTU-' " '•>«.«'.'- ) Sc/.':olurc-iWii' Of!t»tj«-r. ih:** Will b« So) 201 caaei (being BDd CJtArt-S, ir J Urowo. .OL-Ca- J U c«:>td bin. < ^ 4 do. ^H 4 flu. ^^H 40 da. .^^^1 li do. ^^^H 10 do jfl^^^H 9 d' l^^^^H 2i d- j^^^^^l 10 d. ^^^^^1 If do. ^^^^^^1 1 do. ^^^^H 3.i do. ^^^^1 iti iio. 1 ^^^^H 14 dj '"^l 2 do. d. w ii ^0 coioi ^H 3 do. 7-4 a m i do. M .1 MUO pitces short \ ii;UiJ do b.ua do 1 4 ca^ea cloth- ] equal lu 1 2 ca- e. whit. 1 Ihe * ^..ve ( Irom C'j Diuu, ai J one, UjeorUen M liuiu .l>i^ tow jfl to iNi^ mark- £| • couce U, 1 ^Hl Announcement of the Washington Gardens (From The Centinel, July 17, 1819) An Historic Corner his shop was then located at 48 Newbury, now Washington, Street. There one could get Dr. Church's celebrated Cough Drops, likewise his much esteemed Pectoral Pills; and there, also, could be obtained a century ago, June, 1811, for the first time, "Ballstown and Soda Water." " The proprietors with much trouble and expense have erected an entire new apparatus by means of which they flatter themselves they have succeeded in preparing a beverage equal in strength and pungency to the boasted soda water of London or New York." After two years' occupancy, Mr. Whitwell removed his residence to Summer Street. The next tenant was John H. Schaffer, an auctioneer, who decided to devote the house and grounds to purposes of entertainment. On the 22nd of June, 1815, the "Washington Gardens" were opened. Mr. Hewitt was made the director. Soon after the name of "Vauxhall" was added. One advertisement announced: "the concerts have been monstrously attended and fashionably resorted to and all the arrangements found neat, elegant and orderly, the music excellent." Later in the summer variegated lamps were hung in the foliage of the garden, and fireworks were displayed. These last were given by David from the Tivoli Gardens, Paris, "the projector of the grand display on the Champ de mars." The summers of 1816 and 1817 saw similar attrac- tions at the "Gardens." In May, 1817, gas lights (which had been introduced in Boston in 1815) were installed there. 119 Days and Ways in Old Boston On the 9th of December, 1818, William Sullivan, agent of Swan, executed a lease for ten years to Shaffer at an annual rental of $1500 for the house and gardens. Shaffer was also given the privilege to erect any buildings. In 1818 for the first time the theatre seats in the gardens were covered with an awning. In the summer of 1819 Shaffer erected a new brick amphitheatre at a cost of $4,000. The work was done under the super- vision of Gridley Bryant, a builder and engineer. Later, in 1824, Bryant designed the United States Bank, with its granite pillars 24 feet long. He was also noted for his inventions. These, how- ever, invited much Utigation and he died a poor man. A typical advertisement of the Washington Gardens at that period was the following: AMPHITHEATRE Washington Gardens "The public are respectfully informed that the Amphitheatre will be opened on Friday evening, July 2nd, with an appropriate address under the immediate direction of Mr. Bernard. The entertainments on the first night will consist of recitations, songs and dances. The house will be finished in a, style of neatness superior to anything of the kind on this continent. The whole of the scenery, painting and decorations designed and executed by Mr. Wor- rell. The stage is very handsome and commodious. The circle is floored and provided with settees after the Paris fashion; the boxes will be handsomely fitted up and the whole building properly ventilated. Mr. Bernard, Mrs. Wheatley, and Mr. Batterton of 120 An Historic Corner great celebrity from the London theatres will recite and sing. Mr. Jones and others are engaged to form the dances, and in the course of the summer much novelty of talent, and many new pieces will be brought forward with every care, attention and decoration to render them worthy of public patron- age."— (Ceniinei, SO June, 1819.) The old Usher house was used during the winter season of 1819-20 for the entertainment of parties, societies and the clubs of that period. Wines, liquors and such luxuries as the markets of those days afforded, were advertised. A few gentlemen boarders were accommodated and the stable on the premises gave the same care as the livery stables of the town. The amphitheatre was to be let for any respectable exhibition. In the previous summer there had appeared "Pepin with a company of equestrians and elegant horses after an absence from the metropolis of twelve years." Amateurs were in evidence in those days as now, and the young men of the Philo- Dramatic Society, of which J. F. Buckingham was president and John Brook treasurer, performed Coleman's "Heir at Law" in July, 1820. At this perform- ance the settees in the front circle were reserved for the Governor and his staff. The Selectmen were also guests on the same occasion. This summer Mr. Brunei had his "philosophical Exhibition, and Enchanted Lady placed in a box disappearing to a nearby pedestal." Dr. Preston with his exhilarating Nitrous Oxide 121 Days and Ways in Old Boston Gas appeared in October as the following hand- bill advertised. "Bostonians are channed with various feats At John H. Shaffer's splendid Garden treats. Where West is manager and justly draws A host of auditors and great applause, By showing Yeoman riding upside down. Where Godean proved the wonder of the town. Where X X X X is retailed by the single glass. And Doctor Preston gave his Oxide Gas." In the summer of 1820, on the estate north of the "Gardens," was erected St. Paul's Church. Shaffer erected in the northwest corner of his Gardens a workshop 40 x 14. This he leased to Solomon Willard, the architect of the church and of Bunker Hill Monument. The next year a similar structure was built 30 x 17 and leased to Henry Ayling, a turner or wood-worker. In August, 1821, Guille made balloon ascensions from the " Gardens, " landing with a parachute. It was also in this month, on the eighth, that the West Point Cadets formed a part of the audience. They were encamped on the Common between the Tremont Street Mall and the "Old Elm." On the 11th "on the Ancient military square" on the Common in front of the State House they were presented a stand of colors by the inhabitants. In June, 1822, appeared a new announcement of the Gardens as the "City Theatre." Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Reed from the New York Theatre, Miss Turner from New Orleans, and Miss Johnson from New York, appeared during 122 An Historic Corner the summer, till September, when the Boston Theatre on Federal Street reopened. The prices were, for the saloon seventy-five cents, boxes fifty cents, and pit twenty-five cents. In 1825, in honor of Lafayette's visit, his figure was displayed in a transparency placed at the south part of the Gardens. Five large stars also faced to the north. Perhaps among those present some recalled that the owner of the Gar- dens was still confined in his French prison. A performance this season concluded with "Optical Allusions or Robertson's Phantasma- goria." In those days "Venelli and Lemon, Ice Creams and Fruits" could be obtained during the performances, especially after the fireworks or while witnessing the "Grand Indian War Dance" as performed by a company of Oneida Indians in October, 1828. During the last few years of Schaffer's lease the amphitheatre was mainly devoted to equestrian performances. In the summer, fireworks were the great attraction. In 1828 there befell to Schaffer the fate of previous owners and tenants and he in turn took part in the drama of the law. In January he had contracted to pay a theatre license of $1,000 and gave bonds for $5,000. He found this a hardship and paid $25 weekly when the theatre was open. During 16 weeks he paid in $400. The city sued him for the balance and won a verdict in the Superior Court. Schaffer appealed to the Supreme Court, where the verdict was aflBrmed and Schaffer retired from the Gardens 123 Thb Masonic Temple, Tkemont Stbeet and Temple Place, about 1878 An Historic Corner as his lease was soon to expire. He again became an auctioneer and died in a few years. Feeemasonrt and the Law Through a gate about seventy-five feet from the site of St. Paul's Church on Common Street (now Tremont), in 1800, one passed into a lane running just back of the Usher house. This was known as "Tumagain Alley" as there was then no outlet into Newbury, now Washington, Street. An entrance to the Washington Gardens in 1826 from Newbury Street was known as Washington Court. In 1830, just before Swan's death, the estate was cut up into ten lots. Tradition states that the Usher mansion was removed to South Boston and in whole or part became the "Fire Department Hotel" kept by Reed Taft and known later as the "City Point Hotel." The es- tate contained an acre and forty perches or square rods, nearly fifty-five thousand square feet. A century ago the value of the entire tract was $15,000. At the present time the valuation of this site is from $150 to $200 per square foot, or approximately $9,000,000. October 14th, 1830, the north corner of the Gardens was the scene of an event important to the Ma- sonic fraternity. The corner stone of the Masonic Temple was laid on that day by Joseph Jenkins, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge 125 Amos Bbonbon Alcott UJIJWB - frjf" •"I; -¥ " s - » ^j. -^/ »^ — I w 'g, temj;**?*-,,/' ,— -silt -iBEgrei P^eSI Iti^E'iS? P4 a An Historic Corner of Massachusetts. Mr. Jenkins was a carpenter and builder by trade, and in 1820 had built in New Orleans the Custom House, a great part of the woodwork of which he had prepared in his workshop in Boston and shipped by water. The erection of the Masonic Temple led to a change of name for Turnagain Alley; it became Temple Covurt and later Temple Place. For a week, in 1865, it was known as Autumn Street, and in the summer of 1869, for two months, it was called Avon Street. The exterior of the "Temple" needs no descrip- tion; it has been pictured in many views during the past seventy-five years. In the basement or first story was a chapel and two school rooms; in the second story a lecture room seating 1,000 persons. In the third story were two halls seat- ing 400 and 200. In the top story was Mason's Hall, a drawing room and rooms accommodating different lodges. The cost of this building of "rubble granite" was about $50,000, including the cost of the land. This building is of especial interest because it was iden- tified with Emerson and Alcott. In 1834 Amos Bronson Alcott established a school room in 7 Masonic Temple. His first as- sistant, Elizabeth Peabody, has in her "Record of a School " given the story of the new departure in Boston's 127 Masgabet Fuller (Marchionbbs Obsoli) Days and Ways in Old Boston school system by Alcott's educational venture. Later, in 1836, Margaret Fuller (afterwards Mar- chioness Ossoli) assisted in French and Latin as a teacher. In 1838 the scholars left abruptly. This re- Ralph Waldo Emebson suited from an incident which indicates the anti- slavery agitation then existing inBoston. Alcott admitted to his school that year a colored girl; this caused the withdrawal of all his pupils, except his own daughters, and the school closed in 1839. 138 Richard H. Stearns An Historic Corner It was in the Masonic Temple, in 1837, that Emerson gave his course of lectures on history, art, science, literature, politics, and religion. To this famous course, the Lowell Institute Lectures (founded in 1839), succeeded. Later the Swiss Bell Ringers gave their concerts in the Temple. Jttdgs John Lowell On October 7th, 1858, the Masonic Temple was sold to the Federal Government for a court house. The court moved from Bowdoin Square, where its sessions had been held for two years in the old Parkman mansion. Nathan Clifford presided over the Circuit Court. 9 129 Days and Ways in Old Boston He was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Federal District Court was presided over by Peleg Sprague, who was succeeded by John Lowell who was appointed by President Lincoln on the 11th of March, 1865. The old Masonic Temple was destined to ex- perience one more radical change. After its original use for nearly thirty years and the follow- ing period of almost thirty years as the seat of the United States Court, the Federal Government in 1885 sold the building at auction. It was bought by the estate of the late William F. Weld, the trustees having already effected plans for remodeling the building and having executed a contract with R. H. Stearns & Company to lease the property it secured. The remodeled building was occupied by the new tenant in the summer of 1886 and contiaued as their place of business until 1908, when it was completely torn down and the present modern building erected and occupied in the fall of the following year. The business of R. H. Stearns and Company was founded in 1847 by Richard H. Stearns, who was born in Ashburnham, Mass., December 25, 1824. Soon after his birth, his parents removed to New Ipswich, N. H. Left an orphan at the age of seven, he was taken to Lincoln, Mass., and brought up by his uncle. His educa- tion was secured in district schools, and from attending for one year Phillips Academy, An- dover, after which for a time he taught school. He once remarked that he began to earn his 130 Tremont Street and Temple Place, 1914 (Present store of R. H. Stearns and Company) An Historic Corner own living at the age of seven; meaning, doubt- less, that even in childhood he was compelled to make full return in labor upon the farm for board and clothing. His first business experience was selling from house to house on Beacon HiU, a load of potatoes which he had brought from Lincoln to Boston in an ox team. In 1846 he moved to Boston and found em- ployment in the store of C. C. Burr. A little more than a year later he began business for himself, opening a small store under the old Adams House on Washington Street. This was the obscure begixmiug of the present successful business, in which the founder took a vital in- terest until his death in his 85th year. At that time Hon. John D. Long, formerly governor of Massachusetts, who had known and esteemed Mr. Stearns for many years, thus summed up the qualities and achievements of his friend: His lecord as a citizen, public and private, commands universal respect. His private life was such, abounding in charity and good influence so exemplary of the virtues of true citizenship, that it was in itself a public life. I knew him in the legislature of 1875, in social and civic relations, and in his business as a leading merchant of Boston. There was no walk in which his steps were not taken in honor, truth and righteousness. It is an interesting fact that, although this business has occupied five different buildings dur- ing its existence of 67 years, all were located within two and one half blocks of the present store. This stabiUty of location in the retail trade seems isi Days and Ways in Old Boston to be more marked in Boston than in any other city in the United States. Some years since, when the building of the subway under Tremont Street, and the consequent removal of street cars from the surface was under consideration, Mr. Stearns sought the opinion of a well-known builder as to the probable efiFect on retail trade in the vicinity, who made this reply: "We cannot move the center of Boston. It was made by the Lord, and fixed for all time." In these pages there have now been traced some of the changes since the founding of Boston which have occurred on and about the small tract of land which today forms the corner of Tremont Street and Temple Place. From that far-away period when it was bounded by a cow path and when the house of Usher faced on a winding country road from which led "Tumagain Alley, " we have come at length to the active business district of a great city, thronged daily by thou- sands of its own citizens and those of its populous suburbs. If the shadowy forms of Hezekiah Usher and Waitstill Winthrop could rise from the goodly company of Puritans beneath the sod and visit the Boston of today, the headstones in King's Chapel Burying Ground would alone offer a suggestion of their town and time. 132 OLD BOSTON BANEB And Their Relation to Local and National Development* Capital tends to accumulate in old and pros- perous communities. Early in the history of the North American Colonies, New York, Philadel- phia and Boston, because of advantageous loca- tion and strong and resourceful citizenship, be- came the leading commimities in population and wealth. Hence these three historic seaboard cities which were indeed the only cities worthy to be so called at the close of the Revolution, be- came at once the nation's financial centers. This supremacy they have steadily maintained during more than a century of the nation's unparalleled growth. Laboring each in its own way, Boston, New York and Philadelphia together have fin- anced the development of American resources. Banks and Banking in Old Boston Each decade in the swift moving industrial life of the republic has brought marked changes, and some of those which have affected or developed the policies of the financial institutions of Boston are of especial interest, as they clearly reflect the progress of state and nation. Boston may be said always to have been a prosperous community. In early Colonial days *Froin information supplied by Francis K. Hart. Vice Chairman of the Boaid of Directors of the Old Colony Trust Company. 133 Days and Ways in Old Boston there were, it is true, periods of discouragement but by the close of the Revolution foreign trade had brought success to many Boston merchants. The establishment of banks followed the accum- ulation of capital. There were two in 1794. The first local institution was the Massachusetts Bank which began business July 5, 1784, with a capital of $300,000, and in 1792 the Union Bank was established. In 1819 there were seven banks in Boston with a capital of $7,300,000; in 1825 nineteen, with a capital of $10,300,000. The cautious and conservative policies which characterized the management of the early banks, seem to have been impressed upon later gener- ations of bankers and the record of Boston banking makes it plain that those institutions which have earned the confidence of the community have sel- dom betrayed it. In consequence, each genera^ tion of bankers has stood for that which was best in its time, such as the prompt redemption of unreliable currency with a minimum of expense to the holders; the resumption of specie payments, and opposition to all forms of inflation. In 1847 there were twenty-six banks in Boston (thirteen of which had been chartered at least twenty-five years) with a total capitalization of approximately $21,000,000, and all of which were paying dividends ranging from six to ten per cent. Three years later the number of banks had increased to thirty, having total resources of $42,718,431. For possibly a little more than a century the ISl State Street and the Merchants National Bank, 1914 Old Boston Banks accumulated capital of the citizens of Boston has amoimted to an impressive total. Within that period it has found employment in three dis- tinct ways — in local development, in national de- velopment and in industrial development. In a broad sense there are also three distinct periods to these investment policies. Local Uses of Capital Prior to 1850, no demands were made to finance distant enterprises. Boston, like other cities at that period, was more or less isolated. It was interested in itself and in its near neighbors, but when judged by our present standards, the city had very limited intercourse with other parts of the country. The early citizens of the city were men of clear vision who had faith in their com- munity. In consequence, Boston capital found an outlet in local enterprises. They invested their savings in Boston docks, buildings and bridges. They built highways, reclaimed marshes and cut down Beacon HiU. The close of the decade from 1840 to 1850, which marked the beginning of the end of Bos- ton's early foreign trade, marked also the close of the period of investment in distinctly local enter- prises. New uses for money had begun to appear, especially the railroad, which was to become a factor of supreme importance in the affairs of the city, state and nation, and likewise a mighty con- sumer of capital. Moreover, though naturally built first in the old settled communities, railroads 186 Days and Ways in Old Boston had even greater reason for existence as arteries to the frontier. Thus it came about that with the resumption of national development after the Civil War, the call came to Boston for financial assistance in distant railway construction. This marked the beginning of the second general policy in connection with the employment of capital. Railway Building Unhke the whalers and the clipper ships of an earlier day, of which traditions alone remain, the great railway enterprises which Boston bankers and merchants brought into being during the period from 1850 to 1890 are today a colossal monument to the courage of their promoters. These men supplied the funds which built rail- roads to the prairie states across the Rocky Moun- tains through the Northwest, even to the Pacific and into Mexico. It was Boston capital that made possible the Union Pacific, the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fe, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Oregon railroads, Flint & Pere Mar- quette, Mexican Central, and many others. With sagacity and vision greater and clearer than even their fathers possessed, the men of Boston laid rails through the wilderness and opened the great West. Clearly this was a distinct period. Like the education of a son who later becomes strong, the West justified the investment even though profits were not always at once assured. Boston had opened the gates to an empire. Marvelous has 136 ilf: U£ UK r^ [fi [LMI ,,m t^ ^ ta ta 1^1 i rft ui La [^ rp [uil '.|u-kii.'i^UB Lk. ua la i^l'-jj,! -'•■•'•'-■ rp. UH rfL rai|Si t--LU. l U- LU U» li^ Bh ~ '■W^lktrlt i^ la 1^ w'jK '^suUs'i^r^ us IS r^ tt'i » us La r|t taiLjI^i .jLj-Jsfi^ r^ la i:h a'r' Vi- H" H" LP PPj, i-^ f^ 'IFS lJu i*a,'| Sgr^ff*; r^ f^ i^ [Jm\ i rfl Ul IJ= LB 1^ [UPI ^1^1 tS U S tS [^ ^^\r|t r^ L», ufe r«p llye Kg^v;afl;^aa;^?-^ Old Boston Banks been the growth of the enterprises so courage- ously financed. Yet the appeal of the West to construct railroads was merely the call of a new country for aid. This was obviously a temporary requirement. Struggling roads which at first often terminated at frontier settlements have now become colossal transcontinental systems, no longer requiring the aid or even the counsel of the financial parents. Meantime the third great use for the accum- ulated resources of the banks of Boston was fast developing. The new requirement afforded a permanent and normal outlet for a vast aggregate of capital. Industrial Expansion A grave situation had been developing in New England. By its activity in constructing railways to the prairies and the Pacific coast, Boston had materially hastened the collapse, for a time at least, of New England agriculture by the competition of the more fertile western prairies. Undismayed, however. New England turned to manufacturing, and with justice demanded the assistance of Boston capital. From 1850 to 1914 agriculture in the six New England states has in some respects made no progress whatever. Farms are substantially the same in number in 1914 as they were half a century ago. This is equally true of the number of persons employed on them. Cultivated acres have decreased and while the total products of 137 Days and Ways in Old Boston farms have about doubled in value, this is princi- pally due to higher prices. In manufacturing, however, the change has been so extraordinary that it becomes difficult to comprehend. In 1850 there were 183,000 men and 115,000 women em- ployed in all industries in the six New England states, receiving about seventy-two milhon dol- lars in wages. Capital invested in manufactures amounted to $160,000,000 and annual products were valued at $275,000,000. From 1850 to 1910 population in New England increased two and a half times, but the number of persons engaged solely in manufactures quad- rupled. They received nearly six hundred mil- lions of dollars in wages. The capital invested amounted to two and a half billions of dollars, and products were valued annually at a little over two and a half billions of dollars. The magnitude of industrial growth and the changed relationship of capital to value of product suggest the permanent opportunity and duty that came to the bankers of Boston after the great task of financing the railways of the West was approaching completion. It was the call of their own blood. Iimumerable new industrial enterprises located in all parts of New England sought for capital. Even more insistent were the well-established enterprises which were enter- ing upon a policy of expansion. Some industrial concerns now represent greater investment than did many of the western railroads at their beginning. Creation and expansion, however, in a sense 138 Massachusetts Bank in ISOO First National Bank in 1914 (Successor of the Massachusetts Bank) Old Boston Banks would resemble the western railroad situation, and afford but temporary use for capital. There was another more urgent and recurrent use. Upkeep of costly plants, high wages and increased cost of materials together with enormous pur- chases of raw material demand constantly more capital to conduct prosperous enterprises, and here the comparison between the figures of 1850 and those of 1910 tell the story: In 1850 for each $1000 of capital invested in manufactures in New England, there were products valued at $1,720. In 1910 each dollar invested was merely equivalent to the same amount in value of prod- ucts. This change of proportion means that if goods could have been produced as cheaply in 1910 as in 1850, the same value of products could have been seciu-ed with one billion dollars less capital. The early uses of Boston capital here traced were obviously a part of the great scheme of development. The third and later use may be considered as the natural and permanent outlet for a generous share of the resources of a great and prosperous community. The Banks of Boston in 1914 From the two banks of 1794 the number in Boston had increased in 1914 to sixty-two, divided between sixteen national banks, twenty- four trust companies, and twenty-two savings banks. The resources of the national banks has aggregated $372,000,000 and of the trust com- 139 Days and Ways in Old Boston panics $265,000,000, while deposits in the savings banks amounted to $280,000,000, the total resources of these three classes of Boston banks reaching the huge total of $917,000,000. Several of the more important banks of Boston were numbered in the group of strong institutions chartered in the first third of the last century, although in some instances consolidation has altered the early names. The present First National Bank is the succes- sor of the pioneer bank of Boston, the Massa- chusetts, chartered in 1784. This historic insti- tution was merged with the First National Bank in 1903. In 1847 the capital was $800,000, sur- plus and deposits $411,000. In 1914 the capital had increased to $5,000,000 and the surplus and deposits to $90,000,000. Something of the city's growth and wealth is suggested by these figures. The National Union Bank is the oldest of all Boston banks in the sense of un- broken existence under the same name. Established in 1792, it began business in a private residence on State Street. As tenant or owner it has occupied the same site ever since, a continuous resi- dence of one hundred and twenty-two years, — the pres- ent building being erected in 1826. FtaSTCHARTCR SIONED JUNE SS, 1793. BY ^ 140 UttS^iSeSilfJiif-A' f*!i»:Jf^ii^.HiSc^- Old Boston Banks In 1793, six months after its establishment, the directors declared the first dividend (4 per cent.) and semi-annual dividends have been de- clared from that date to the present time, without interruption. In this record the bank is unique among American financial institutions. In 1847 its capital was $800,000, and its surplus and de- posits were $1,402,194. In 1914 the capital and surplus were $2,000,000 and the total resources $12,723,265. The Merchants National Bank was established as a state bank in 1831. It occupied the old United States Bank building on State Street and the present Merchants Bank building is located on the same site. In 1847 the total resources were $6,820,000, which had grown in,1914 to the generous figure of $46,000,000. Largest of all Boston national banks, the Shawmut has attained that position in part through successful management and in part by consolidation. It was estab- lished as a state bank in 1837. The paid up capital in 1847 was $500,000, and total resources amounted to $1,212,729. In 1914 capital and surplus amounted to $15,000,000 and total resources exceeded $116,000,000. Among the trust companies, a form of bank- ing enterprise which has now become very im- portant, the Old Colony leads in magnitude 141 Days and Ways in Old Boston of resources and influence. This great institution was established in 1890, and in 1914, with two branches and ten distinct departments, it reported resources of over $100,000,000. This review of the development of bank- ing and investment, especially since 1847, would not be complete without reference to manifesta- tions of the early investment tendencies of the fathers among the Boston financiers of today. Inheritance of property naturally brings with it conservatism. The skill and daring with which the founder of a fortune risked his all and won may not be inherited by his sons and grandsons, and whether it is or not, new conditions and lack of the necessity for aggressive action all result in lessened initiative and increased caution. Naturally in Boston, which has large inherited wealth, these conditions are plainly obs erd. Usually they tend to make a community non- progressive, to dishearten the active and ambi- tious, and to drive such men to more congenial communities, but fortimately for Boston the old aggressive spirit of the pioneer appears in these later generations, as though a racial instinct were manifesting itself. The whalers and the foreign trade have vanished, but the United Fruit Com- pany, a venture in an untried field, was launched by Boston interests and with its fleets and plan- tations has made a great commercial success. The researches of a famous Harvard scientist suggested that copper mines offered a vast and profitable field. The Calumet and Hecla and Court Street Showing Old Colony Trust Company Old Boston Banks many other great copper mines developed by Boston capital secured for the city preeminence as the financial center of the copper industry. Boston and New England financed and developed the telephone and later in partnership with New York bore a large part of the burden of es- tablishing all over the United States this colossal and supremely necessary enterprise. Finally, groups of Boston capitalists have in- vested great sums of distant industrial or pubUe service development. Working through banking interests, but particularly through enterprises organized and conducted for the purpose, they have aided new cities and states to obtain inter- urban electric railway service and light and power facilities. Stone and Webster, the principal Bos- ton firm in this field, have become nation-wide in their operations. They have been the me- dium for the investment of more than one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and have developed inter-urban electric railways and light and power companies, along Puget Sound (in particular about BeUingham and between Everett, Seattle and Tacoma) ; along the Gulf of Mexico from Houston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida; elsewhere in Texas; in Nevada, Michigan, Georgia; in many older states in the East and the Middle West, and even as far as Cape Breton and Porto Rico. In all, this firm has organized and started on prosperous careers sixty-seven corporations, each of which is proving of the utmost value and im- portance to the community it serves. Together 143 Days and Ways in Old Boston they represent a capitalization of more than $186,000,000. Thus the farsighted policies of old Boston for the application of capital to development still persist. Some of the leaders in advancing these present-day projects are descendants of the old- time merchants who owned the clipper ships of the fifties, or financed the western railways, and so a generous share of the capital and the profits of the Boston of the earlier periods is still at work today aiding at many distant points the national de- velopment. True to the traditional policy of Boston, these chaius of widely scattered enterprises have not been mere promotions or schemes of corporate consolidation, but have created public utilities of incalculable importance. A century and a third have now elapsed since the beginning of the republic. Upon every page of national development appears the evidence of the courage and aid of the three cities with which the United States began her career as a nation. Of these three, Boston, in proportion to population, can claim fairly to have surpassed the others in the great achievement of nation building. lU % Sll