Boston was settled by some of the earliest homemakers to come to the American shores. About the year 1634, John Winthrop being Governor of Massachusetts Colony, the settlers upon the shores of the Bay purchased of William Blackstone, the hermit who lived on the sunny slope of one of the three hills which bordered the Bay, his estate "lying within the said Neck called Boston," every inhabitant agreeing to pay six shillings, "none less and some more." This sum was collected and paid to Mr. Blackstone, "to his full satisfaction for his whole right, reserving only about six acres on the point commonly called Blackstone's Point, on part whereof his then dwelling house stood." Two views present Boston harbor as it appeared nearly two centuries after the original purchase, sketches made from the heights of Dorchester and Chelsea. In them may be seen the Bay and shores in a very primitive condition. In the Chelsea view is the bridge which connected that township with the main city, spanning "the River that renders their attendance on Town-Meetings very difficult," as the preamble of the Act of Separation of Chelsea from Boston in the year 1737 reads, adding, "and whereas they have a long time since erected a Meeting House in that District." Sailing craft rest upon the water, and in the distance may be dimly discerned the three hills (now but a memory) which gave the settlement its original name, Tri-Mountain, an echo of which lingers still in "Tremont" Street. Above the summit of the center hill, named Beacon, soars the dome of the new State House, while the spires of numerous churches tower above the housetops. A group of early Bostonians occupy the foreground of the picture, gowned in the fashion of the early nineteenth century, a style of dress which prevails in all of the old-china prints.
Early Boston fringed the harbor, the western limit of the city until after the Revolution being the foot of the Common on the margin of the Back Bay; Boylston Street was "Frog Pond" well into the nineteenth century; and, until after the Revolutionary War, the western reach of Beacon Hill was but a place of pasture for cows, whereon the barberry and the wild rose grew at will. In early nineteenth-century years, Boston numbered between fifty and eighty thousand inhabitants and was a city eminently English in character and appearance, although after independence had been declared an attempt had been made to efface the hated British stamp by changing the names of some of the streets—King and Queen, for instance, to State and Court. But symbols over shop doors still reflected London, taverns bore the signs of famous London inns, and even to this day some obscure court or alley may be found clinging to its first London-flavored name.
Unique among the features of American cities is Boston Common, a spacious park in the heart of the business and shopping district. The Common was a portion of the estate purchased of William Blackstone, laid out for use, old chronicles record, as "a training field and the feeding of cattle." The chronicle also states that all persons admitted to inhabit Boston were "to have equal rights of Commonage, others not unless they inherit it." It was further ordered that but seventy "milch kine" might be kept on the Common, but that "Elder Oliver's horse may go there," and that a fine be imposed for any cow or horse except the seventy "if found upon ye Neck." A delightful letter written by an English visitor to Boston in the year 1740 gives a picture not only of the Common, but also of the habits and customs of early Bostonians. He says: "For their domestic amusement, every afternoon after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence adjourn to one another's houses to spend the evening—those that are not disposed to attend the evening lectures, which they may do, if they please, six nights in seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green Common adjoining to the southwest side of the Town. It is near half a mile over, with two rows of young trees planted opposite to each other, with a fine footway between in imitation of St. James's Park; and part of the bay of the sea which encircles the Town, taking its course along the northwest side of the Common—by which it is bounded on the one side, and by the country on the other—forms a beautiful canal in view of the walk."
Upon the Common, in Colonial times, the British troops set up camps and reviewed, the uneven surface of the ground where they dug their cellars and pitched their tents being still visible at the time the present sketch of the Common was made, probably about the year 1820. Upon the Common, for two hundred and fifty years, the famous Liberty Elm stood, from whose limbs, old records say, witches were tortured, Quakers hung, and, in Revolutionary times, the effigy of a hated Britsh officer sometimes dangled. Upon the Common, on the eve of April 16, 1775, the British troops assembled before marching upon Lexington and Concord; here, upon June 17 of the same year, the redcoats gathered before setting out to quell the rebellion at Bunker Hill; and later, upon this same ground, the Revolution ended and independence declared, the British army paraded under General Howe before leaving the city forever.
The "feeding of cattle" upon the Common continued long after Boston became a populous city, and as late as the year 1830 (when laws were enacted to put an end to the practice) the tinkling of cow bells and the lowing of cattle, as the animals made their way to and from the pasture ground, were pleasant and homely sounds to be heard about its hills and dales. The illustration presents several of the early Boston cows contentedly dozing in the shade of the trees, the winding paths which they have worn being, it is claimed, the original tracings of certain streets—a saying which reached the ears of the English potters and inspired the memorial of a Liverpool pitcher inscribed, "Success to the Crooked but Interesting Town of Boston."
A number of interesting details of the Common and its neighborhood as it appeared a century ago may be studied in the platter decoration—the fence which was put up in 1820 to inclose Beacon Mall; the tree-bordered Mall itself along which equestrians are pictured as passing; and the newly erected mansions facing the Common upon Park and Beacon streets. Park Street had been laid out in 1802 as a dignified approach to the new State House, the street itself as well as the mansions which lined it being designed by Bulfinch, the architect of the State House and the greatest early exponent of the classic revival in American architecture. Beacon Street was originally known as "the lane which led to the Almshouse," the public home for the poor being situated upon the corner of the present Park and Beacon streets. By the side of the Almshouse stood the Bridewell and the Workhouse, and where Park Street Church stands was the city granary. These buildings had all been removed at the time the present sketch was made, the homes of Boston's Fathers occupying their sites. The house immediately at the right of the State House in the illustration was the home of Joseph Coolidge, the tall one below it, at the corner of Park and Beacon streets, being the Thomas Amory mansion which was built on the site of the old gambrel-roofed Almshouse. In later years the Amory house was divided into four dwellings, the Hon. George Ticknor home being the part which faced the Common; in 1825 the entire mansion was rented for the use of General Lafayette and his suite. The last house at the right was for many years the home of Governor Christopher Gore, and below this stood the dwelling of Josiah Quincy, Jr. At the extreme left of the platter sketch may be seen the home of the Hon. John Phillips, father of Wendell Phillips and first mayor of Boston. By its side stands the home of Dr. John Joy, and, overtopping this, the Thomas Perkins mansion. At the left of the State House may be seen the Hancock mansion, a separate picture of which is also presented, but this view is of peculiar interest as showing the wooden wing which was added for the purpose of furnishing a more spacious apartment for the balls and receptions for which the mansion became famous.
Several of these old time Bostonians lie to-day in the burial plot in the Common before their doors.
With the passing of the years, Romance has also added its touch to the old Common, many a courtship having been carried on while strolling through its shady paths— "Whom does Arabella walk with now?" was in olden times a significant question in circles of gossiping friends or in anxious deliberations of family counsels. To-day, at the entrance to the Long Mall which starts at Beacon Street Mall and runs across the Common's length to Tremont and Boylston streets, one may read the sign "Oliver Wendell Holmes Path," a title given it from the following pretty story of the Autocrat's proposal to the schoolmistress: "We called it the long path and were fond of it. I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. At last I got out the question, 'Will you take the long path with me?' 'Certainly,' said the schoolmistress, 'with much pleasure.' 'Think,' I said, 'before you answer; if you take the long path with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!' The schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had struck her. One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by, 'Pray, sit down,' I said. 'No, no,' she answered softly, 'I will walk the long path with you.' " Reduced to-day to about fifty acres, the old Common is regarded with something akin to reverence by the older generation of Bostonians, and, although from time to time encroachments have been made upon its territory, public opinion may be counted upon to rise in indignation at any suggestion of radical interference with its quiet and dignified acres.
The most important building facing the Common is the State House, once a favorite subject for the decoration of Staffordshire dinner-sets, and later, as Dr. Holmes declared, the "hub of the entire solar system." The State House was designed by Bulfinch on classic lines and in a style of elegance heretofore unknown in the city, its columned facade and gilded dome always distinguishing it and ranging it even at the present day among the splendid buildings of the United States. The State House was erected upon a portion of Governor Hancock's pasture lot, purchased in 1795, upon the Fourth of July of the same year, Samuel Adams laying the corner-stone and dedicating the pile forever to the "cause of liberty and the rights of man." Until quite recent years, the summit of Beacon Hill ran up behind the State House and was about even with the base of the dome; the hill has since been graded down about 80 feet and the material used for filling in the low lands of Back Bay. The gilded dome was long visible far out in the harbor and was a glorified descendant of that tiny beacon which, in primitive times, hung from a pole upon this spot and, like its prototype in the little Boston town of Old England, guided incoming mariners to port. After having been several times enlarged, Boston State House is perhaps Boston's most interesting structure, sheltering numerous relics of its historic past.
Facing Beacon Street, "the sunny street that holds the sifted few," as Dr. Holmes dubbed the aristocratic thoroughfare, for many years stood the Hancock mansion, a dwelling which acquired such wide-spread fame that it was made the subject of a separate design for china decoration. Built in the year 1737 by Thomas Hancock, to this home came Dorothy Quincy as the bride of his nephew, Governor John Hancock, and here for many years she reigned as first lady of the State. The house was a substantial structure, the dormer windows giving a broad view of the city and of the harbor. A low stone wall protected the grounds from the street, and guests passed through the gate up the paved walk and the stone steps into the broad entrance hall. At the right of the hall was the drawing room furnished in bird's-eye maple covered with rich damask, and beyond was the spacious dining room in which Governor Hancock gave his famous banquets—one of them being a breakfast to the French Admiral d'Estaing at the time his ship was anchored in the harbor. Gossip whispers that the French Admiral brought along so many of his officers and men to the breakfast that Mistress Dorothy's wits were hard pressed to find food enough to go around, and she was obliged to send the cooks out to borrow cakes of her friends and to milk the cows on the Common. At the left of the hall was the family drawing room, its walls covered with crimson paper, from it an exit leading to a formal garden. The Hancock House was pillaged by British soldiers at the time of Lexington fight, when orders came from England to hang the "Proscribed Patriots," John Hancock and his friend Samuel Adams—orders which failed of execution, however, but which inspired the decoration of a set of Liverpool pitchers (described in another chapter), as well as the following lines of a British rhymster:
As for their King, John Hancock,
And Adams, if they're taken,
Their heads for signs shall hang up high
Upon that Hill called Beacon.
The Lawrence mansion, a view of which with the top of the spire of Park Street church visible above its roof is here presented, was a near neighbor of the celebrated Amory mansion on Park Street. It was occupied by the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, of the firm of distinguished merchants "A. & A. Lawrence," who in 1849 was minister of the United States to the Court of St. James. The house is now, on the authority of an old Bostonian, No. 8 Park Street, the home of the Union Club.
The Suffolk County Court House, a view of which is one of the interesting souvenirs of the Boston of the Fathers to be found printed upon tableware in the rich deep blues of Staffordshire manufacture, was erected in the year 1810 from a design by the architect Bulfinch. It was an interesting structure, with an octagonal center flanked by two wings. Until the year 1862, the building served as City Hall as well as Court House, in that year having been demolished to make room for a City Hall of more modern construction.
Among the church edifices of early Boston pictured upon pottery, one searches in vain for the historic Old South and Old North which played such active parts in driving the English from America, the artists for some reason having overlooked them in their quest for American views. King's Chapel, the "perfectly felicitous" Park Street church, and Christ church are also missing, two church buildings only having been reproduced for china decoration—Saint Paul's and the New South or Octagon Church. Saint Paul's church, now the Episcopal Cathedral, is to-day, like its namesake in New York, hemmed about with tall modern structures which serve to dwarf its modest proportions. Saint Paul's dates from the year 1819, it being the fourth Episcopal church to be built in Boston. The congregation of the old church, wishing a new and impressive edifice, erected this handsome Grecian-like temple of stone which Phillips Brooks pronounced "a triumph of architectural beauty and of fitness for the church's service." The architects were Alexander Parris and Solomon Willard, the last named being also the architect of the Bunker Hill Monument which is presented in another chapter. In their design they gave full expression to the Revival of Greek thought which at the time was beginning to make itself felt in the architecture of the country, Willard himself carving the Ionic capitals. The original plan called for a bas-relief in the pediment somewhat after the idea of the pediment sculptures of the Parthenon, representing Paul preaching at Athens; but the funds proved insufficient, and the temporary stone was destined to become a permanent fixture. Underneath the church were several tombs, one of which being for a time the resting place of the body of General Warren who fell at Bunker Hill.
The series of old china illustrations now conducts the historian of early Boston to Church Green in Summer Street, a plot of ground in the south end of the city, the original petition for a grant of which for the purpose of erecting a church thereon declaring, that it was "by its situation and name no doubt intended by our forefathers for that purpose." The original edifice was erected in 1717, Mr. Wadsworth of the Old South and Dr. Cotton Mather of the Old North preaching the dedicatory sermons. The church was called the New South Meeting House to distinguish it from the Old South, and was considered the handsomest edifice in Boston. The representation here given is of the structure rebuilt in 1814, its octagonal form a marked departure from the customary at that period, whence it received its popular name, "Octagon Church," printed upon the back of the pieces of pottery which illustrate it. The design was one of Bulfinch's and the material was granite, a tall slender spire and a portico supported by Doric columns being characteristic features. At the time the Octagon Church was built an uninterrupted view of the harbor might have been had from its door, but sixty years later the city had reached such proportions that the edifice was demolished and its site occupied by business blocks. A curious style of carriage, with postilion in attendance, is an interesting detail of the composition, while in the background appear the homes of two of Boston's Fathers, Nathaniel Goddard and James H. Foster.
A view of the Massachusetts General Hospital was naturally selected by the English artists in search of decoration for their pottery, for it was one of Boston's most imposing foundations, its architect being the famous Charles Bulfinch. The Hospital building was erected in the year 1821, was 168 feet long and 54 feet wide, built of granite and adorned with an Ionic columned portico; the large wings were added in 1846. It is on record that within these walls ether was first used in a surgical operation of magnitude. The foundation was the recipient of large endowments, among them the notable bequest of John McLean, which made possible the purchase of other buildings for the use of insane patients, one of these buildings, known as the McLean Hospital, being the subject of a separate illustration.
The Insane Hospital was originally the home of Joseph Barrell, a wealthy merchant, and was also designed by Bulfinch. The estate, which was noted for its beautiful gardens, was purchased in 1818 for the Massachusetts General Hospital Corporation, at which time the wings were added and other changes made in order to fit it for a home for the insane.
Of especial interest to the collector of Staffordshire pottery is the specimen entitled, Mitchell & Freeman's China and Glass Warehouse, Chatham St., Boston, Massachusetts. Here is pictured a building which stood from 1828-32, a commodious warehouse of the early type situated not far from the wharf. Within its walls no doubt some of the historic blue pottery was received and stored upon its arrival from England, to be distributed later on among the homes of our New England ancestors. At the curb may be observed several boxes or bales, and workmen about to carry them into the building, and upon the opposite side of the street stands another large block of warehouses. Looking down the street in the direction of the harbor, one may see evidences of the extensive foreign and coast trade in which Boston for many years took the lead over other American cities. The tall masts and spars of brigs and schooners, the view dating from a period before steamboats were in common use, bespeak one of the sources of the city's pride a century and less ago—its waterfront stretching from north to south, indented and built up with spacious docks and numerous wharves than which no port on the Atlantic could boast of better, and flanked with fine warehouses. For many years a wealth of commerce was carried on between Boston and the principal ports of Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, the West Indies and the West Coast.
The city Almshouse originally stood in Park Street at the corner of Beacon, as has already been stated. This building was burned, and in the year 1800 the "New Almshouse" was erected at the river bank near the site of the old Lowell depot, where it stood, as it appears in the illustration, until 1825, when the ground was needed for the laying out of new streets. The structure was quite ornate, being fashioned of brick, 270 feet long, with commodious wings, arched windows and an ornamental pediment; on either gable stood a carved figure of ancient origin.
In the picture of the Athenaeum building one looks upon the meeting place of an association of Boston Fathers of literary taste, who about the year 1810 established a small library and reading room. In twelve years the library had grown to ten thousand volumes, and the association removed to the larger quarters of this house. The collection of books made by the Athenaeum society was the nucleus of the magnificent Boston Public Library of to-day, one of the most notable institutions of which the United States can boast. In the present Athenaeum building, is preserved a plate like the one here shown, accompanied with the following explanatory note: "This building stood in Pearl Street and one half was given by Mr. James Perkins, the other half bought of Mr. Cochran in 1822, and the whole occupied by the Athenaeum until 1849."
Did the Boston Fathers of the struggling, stormy years of Republic-building find time to yield to the allurements of the beautiful seashores which lay so near their door ? That they did so is proven by two views of the still popular resort of Nahant with which at least two Staffordshire potters decorated sets of blue tableware. In the view here reproduced, the famous inn at Nahant occupies the center of the sketch, with the rugged rocks in the foreground presenting much the same appearance that they do at the present day. The inn was built of stone, surrounded with wooden verandas and had 100 rooms; it was the first hotel to be erected at that point. Shooting and fishing and dining upon sea foods were, a century ago, the same as to-day, the attractions of Nahant, the well-to-do inhabitants of Boston driving out in their stylish turnouts, one of which, a cabriolet with horses tandem, is presented in the picture; poorer folk patronized the little steamer called the Eagle, which may be discerned in the distance, and which once a day plied to and fro between the city and Nahant.
In the strange, wilderness country of America, the sight of the imposing Halls of Harvard College must have aroused in the minds of the foreign artists an interest second only to that inspired by the natural beauties of the Niagara cataract. And too, the sight must have bespoken to them the quality of those pioneer settlers who, before every other consideration, planned so well for the instruction of youth. Nearly a dozen different views of Harvard were secured and reproduced in various colors, some sketches presenting the entire campus surrounded with its famous Halls, others one Hall alone.
The first settlers of New England, at a time before adequate provision had been made for food, shelter or civil government, recognized the importance of higher education and began at once the founding of a University. In 1636, the Governor of the Colony pledged £400 for the undertaking; the following year, the site was chosen at Newtown, the name of the suburb soon afterwards being changed to Cambridge, not only to tell whence the settlers came, but, as has been aptly said, in order to indicate "the high destiny to which they intended the institution should aspire." In 1638, John Harvard with his gift of about £800, together with his library of 320 volumes, toward the endowment of the college, made the project a certainty—the foundation, in gratitude, receiving his name. The avowed object of Harvard was the training of young men for the ministry, one of the first rules for students enjoining that they "lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning"—a rule in perfect accord with the principles which led the Puritans to America. Next to religious training was placed the classical, for those days marked the beginning of the period in this country, now almost disappeared, in which a person without a classical training "might be ashamed to count himself a scholar." In 1642 and succeeding years, the following conditions for admission to Harvard were in force: "Whoever shall be able to read Cicero or any other such like classical authors at sight and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose, suo ut aiunt Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue: Let him then and not before be capable of admission into the college." It is not to be wondered, therefore, that as early as 1719, a Londoner making the grand tour of America recorded in a book of his impressions of the country the following lines concerning Boston: "It appears that Humanity and the Knowledge of Letters flourish more here than in all the other English Plantations put together; for in the City of New York there is but one Bookseller's Shop, and in the Plantations of Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, Barbadoes, and the Islands, none at all."
At the present time, after the lapse of over three centuries, it is interesting to read the regulations governing the conduct of freshmen toward the members of that first college community in America. A freshman was not allowed to wear his hat in the college yard, "unless it rains, hails or snows, provided he be on foot and have not both hands full"; he must not have it on in a senior's chamber, or in his own, if a senior be there; he must go on errands for seniors, graduates or under graduates. All students were admonished to honor their parents, the magistrates, tutors, elders, by being silent in their presence except when called upon to speak; to salute them with a bow and stand uncovered. They were also forbidden to speak upon the college grounds in any language but Latin, and must not, until invested with the first degree, be addressed by the surname. Imagination fails to picture any marked display of exuberance of spirits under the restraint of the Latin tongue!
Flogging was an authorized mode of punishment in earliest times, the president in the beginning personally attending to it; later on, it was administered by the prison-keeper at Cambridge in the college library, in the presence of all who cared to be present. Prayer was offered by the president, after which the prison-keeper "attended to the performance of his part of the work;" the "solemn exercise" then closed with prayer, after which the chastised was required to sit alone uncovered at meals as long as the president and fellows should order. In the years succeeding, plum cake, dancing, swearing, punch, flip, lying, stealing, playing at sleeping at public worship or prayers, and similar irregularities crept in and caused such trouble that a committee reported the college "in a weak and declining state;" whereupon a more rigid set of rules came in force, in keeping with the changing conditions of society.
Harvard was from the first of its inception so generously sustained with gifts and endowments that at the time the drawings for pottery decoration were executed the College boasted an imposing array of Halls, some of them the gifts of or memorials to individuals—Harvard, University, Hollis, Holworthy, Stoughton, etc.— in striking contrast to the lone building which, until the year 1857, was the home of Columbia in New York. An interesting view of old University Hall is in the author's collection—a six-inch plate printed in deep rich blue and framed in the acorn and oak leaf border of the Stevenson potteries. The mark upon the back of the plate, within a flowered scroll, is incorrectly printed, "Scudder's Museum." (See Frontispiece to this chapter.)
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