claimed that the newer systems of the Western States are in some degree
surpassing it. The Normal Art School of the State is in Boston; and the
city has its own Normal School for common-school teachers. The free
lectures of the Lowell Institute are a source of instruction to large
numbers every season; and there are schools and classes in various
directions, maintained from the same foundation. The great collections
of the Boston Society of Natural History are open to the public; and the
Bostonian Society has been unwearied in its efforts to preserve and
exhibit all memorials of local history. The Massachusetts Historical
Society includes among its possessions the remarkable private library of
Thomas Dowse, which was regarded as one of the wonders of Cambridge
fifty years ago, and it possesses also the invaluable manuscript
collections brought together by Francis Parkman when preparing his great
series of histories. The New England Historic-Genealogical Society has a
vast and varied store of materials in the way of local and genealogical
annals; and the Loyal Legion has a library and museum of war memorials.
[Illustration: CHARLES SUMNER.]
For many years there has been in Boston a strong interest in physical
education--an interest which has passed through various phases, but is
now manifested in such strong institutions as the Athletic Club and the
Country Club--the latter for rural recreation. There is at Charlesbank,
beside the Charles River, a public open-air gymnasium which attracts a
large constituency; and there is, what is especially desirable, a class
for women and children, with private grounds and buildings. It is under
most efficient supervision, and is accomplishing great good. There are
some ten playgrounds kept open at unused schoolhouses during the summer
vacations, these being fitted up with swings, sand-pens, and sometimes
flower-beds, and properly superintended. A great system of parks has now
been planned, and partly established, around Boston, the largest of
these being Franklin Park, near Egleston Square; while the system
includes also the Arnold Arboretum, the grounds around Chestnut Hill
Reservoir and Jamaica Pond, with a Marine Park at South Boston. Most of
these are easily accessible by steam or electric cars, which are now
reached from the heart of the city, in many cases through subways, and
will soon be supplemented or superseded, on the more important routes,
by elevated roads. The steam railways of the city are also to have their
stations combined into a Northern and a Southern Union Station, of which
the former is already in use and the latter in process of construction.
This paper is not designed to be a catalogue of the public institutions
and philanthropies of Boston, but aims merely to suggest a few of the
characteristic forms which such activities have taken. Nor is it written
with the desire to praise Boston above her sisters among American
cities; for it is a characteristic of American society that, in spite
of the outward uniformity attributed to the nation, each city has
nevertheless its own characteristics; and each may often learn from the
others. This is simply one of a series of papers, each with a specific
subject and each confined to its own theme. The inns, the theatres, the
club-houses of a city, strangers are likely to discover for themselves;
but there are further objects of interest not always so accessible. For
want of a friendly guide, they may miss what would most interest them.
It is now nearly two hundred years since an English traveller named
Edward Ward thus described the Boston of 1699:
[Illustration: Copyright by H. G. Smith, Boston, 1893.
PHILLIPS BROOKS.]
“On the southwest side of Massachusetts Bay is Boston, whose name
is taken from a town in Lincolnshire, and is the metropolis of all
New England. The houses in some parts joyn, as in London. The
buildings, like their women, being neat and handsome. And their
streets, like the hearts of the male inhabitants, being paved with
pebble.”
The leadership of Boston in a thousand works of charity and kindness,
during these two centuries, has completely refuted the hasty censure of
this roving Englishman; and it is to be hoped that the Boston of the
future, like the Boston of the past, will do its fair share in the
development of that ampler American civilization of which all present
achievements suggest only the promise and the dawn.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
REVOLUTIONARY BOSTON
“Then and there American Independence was born.”
BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE
The American Revolution began in Boston. Different dates are set for the
beginning. John Adams says of Otis’s speech in 1761 in the Council
Chamber of the Old State House, “Then and there American Independence
was born.” The visitor to Boston should go, very early in his visit,
into the Old State House; and when he stands in the Council Chamber he
will remember that as distinguished a person as John Adams fixed that
place as the birthplace of independence.
But one does not understand the history of the opening of the great
struggle without going back a whole generation. It was in 1745 that
Governor William Shirley addressed the Massachusetts General Court in a
secret session. He brought before them a plan which he had for the
conquest of Louisburg in the next spring, before it could be re-inforced
from France. The General Court (which means the general assembly of
Massachusetts) at first doubted the possibility of success of so bold an
attempt; but eventually Shirley persuaded them to undertake it. The
Province of New Hampshire and that of Connecticut co-operated, and their
army of provincials, with some assistance from Warren of the English
navy, took Louisbourg, which capitulated on the 17th of June, 1745.
Observe that the 17th of June is St. Botolph’s day; and that he is the
godfather of Boston.
When Louis XV. was told that this handful of provincials had taken the
Gibraltar of America, he was very angry. In the next spring, the spring
of 1746, with a promptness and secrecy which make us respect the
administration of the French navy, a squadron of more than forty ships
of war, and transports sufficient to bring an army of three thousand
men, was fitted out in France and despatched to America, with the
definite and acknowledged purpose of wiping Boston from the face of the
earth:
[Illustration: FANEUIL HALL IN THE 18TH CENTURY.]
“For this Admiral D’Anville
Had sworn by cross and crown
To ravage with fire and steel
Our helpless Boston town.”
[Illustration: GOVERNOR THOMAS HUTCHINSON.
AFTER A PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
ONCE THE PROPERTY OF JONATHAN MAYHEW.]
It was a disgrace to the military and naval organizations of England at
the same time, that they had so little information there on the
subject.
They found out at last that this immense French fleet had sailed or was
sailing. I think that it was the strongest expedition ever sent from
Europe to America between Columbus’s time and our own. Some blundering
attempts to meet it were made by the English Admiralty. But their
admiral had to make the lame excuse that seven times he tried to go to
sea and seven times he was driven back by gales. Whatever the gales
were, they did not stop D’Anville and his Armada, and poor Boston, which
was to be destroyed, our dear little “town of hen-coops,” clustering
around the mill-pond, knew as little of the fate prepared for it as the
British Admiralty. It was not until the month of September, 1746, that a
fishing-boat from the Banks, crowding all sail, came into Boston and
reported to Governor Shirley that her men had seen the largest fleet of
the largest vessels which they had ever seen in their lives, and that
these were French vessels. Shirley at once called his Council together
and “summoned the train bands of the Province.” The Council sank ships
laden with stones in the channels of the harbor. Hasty fortifications
were built upon the islands, and Shirley mounted upon them such guns as
he could bring together. The “train bands” of the Province promptly
obeyed the call, and for the next two months near seven thousand
soldiers were encamped on Boston Common, ready for any movement which
the descent of D’Anville might require. Cautious, wise, and strong
beyond any of his successors in his office, Shirley put his hand upon
the throttle of the newspapers. D’Anville should not learn, nor should
anybody learn, that he had an army in Boston or that he knew his danger.
And so you may read the modest files of the Boston papers of that day
and you shall find no reference to these military movements of which
every man and woman and child in Boston was thinking. It is not till his
young wife dies that, by some accident in an editorial room, the
confession slips into print that the train bands of the Province
accompanied her body to its grave.
It was the only military duty which was required of that army of six
thousand four hundred. The people of the times would have told you,
every man and woman of them, that the Lord of Hosts had other methods
for defending Boston.
What happened, or, if you please, what
[Illustration: THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION.
BUILT IN 1729.]
transpired, was this: Among his other preparations for his enemy,
Shirley proclaimed a solemn Fast Day, in which the people should meet in
all their meeting-houses and seek the help of the Almighty, and they did
so. Thomas Prince, of the Old South Meeting-house, tells us what
happened there. In the morning, a crowded congregation joined in prayer,
and Prince told them of their danger and exhorted them to their duty. In
the afternoon the assembly met again. As Prince led them in their
prayer, what seemed a hurricane from the southwest struck the
meeting-house. A generation after, men remembered how the steeple above
them shook in the gale, and Prince went on, calmly, in his address to
the God who rides on the whirlwind:
“We do not presume to advise, O Lord, but if Thy Providence requires
that this tempest shall sweep the invaders from the sea, we shall be
content.”
And this was precisely what happened: This southwest gale tore down the
Bay. This side Cape Sable, just off Grand Manan, it found D’Anville’s
squadron in its magnificent array. It drove ship against ship. It
capsized and sank some of the noblest vessels. It tore the masts out of
others. It discouraged their crews and their officers. All that was left
of this gallant squadron (which was to burn our “hen-coops” here) took
refuge in Halifax Bay or crept back under jury-masts to France. In the
harbor of Chebucto, as they called Halifax, the wrecks of the fleet were
repaired as best they might be. D’Anville and his first officer both
died, one as a suicide, and the other from the disgrace of the
discomfiture. It is said in Nova Scotia that you may see some of the
ships now, if you will look down at the right place in the clear sea,
off Cape Sable. A miserable handful of the vessels straggled back to
France at the opening of the winter.
The colonists of New England had thus learned two lessons, one in 1745,
and one in 1746. In 1745 they had learned that without any assistance
from their own king they could storm and take the strongest fortress in
America. In 1746 they learned that the anger of the strongest prince in
Europe was powerless against them. Those who believed in the immediate
providence of God thought that He stretched out His arm in their
defense. Those who did not, thought that in the general providence of
God, a people who were three thousand miles away from the greatest
sovereign of the world might safely defy his wrath. Curiously enough, in
the next year, 1747, the people of Boston had an opportunity to learn a
third lesson by measuring strength with their own sovereign.
In that year Admiral Knowles, in command of the English
squadron,--rather a favorite till then, I fancy, with the people
here,--happened to want seamen. He availed himself of that bit of
unwritten law which held in England till within my own memory, by
impressing seamen from the docks. A memorial of the General Court says
that the English government had carried this matter so far that, as they
believed, three thousand Americans were at that time in the service of
the British navy, having been unwillingly impressed there. But Knowles
carried it farther yet. He took on board his fleet some hundreds of
ship-carpenters, mechanics, and laboring men; and Boston broke out into
a blaze of excitement and fury. There followed the first of the series
of proceedings which, with various modifications, lasted for thirty
years, until General Howe withdrew the British fleet and army from
[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE.]
Boston. It was a combination of riots and town-meetings, the
town-meetings expressing seriously what the rioters did not express so
well, the rioters giving a certain emphasis, such as was understood in
England, as to the intention of the town-meetings of Boston. We have the
most amusing details of this affair in a very valuable and interesting
history just published by Mr. John Noble. The rioters seized Knowles’s
officers whom they found in the town, and shut them up for hostages.
Knowles declared that he would bombard the town. But what with the
General Court and the town-meetings and the magistrates and the rest, he
was soothed down, the people gave up their hostages, and he gave up the
men whom he had seized. Boston had measured forces in this affair with
King George. Both were satisfied with the result; and, if I may so
speak, this first tussle ended in a tie.
Here were three trials of strength in three years. And the Boston people
learned in each of them the elements of their real power. When, nearly
twenty years after, Otis made his eloquent protest against the Writs of
Assistance, he did not succeed. The Court
[Illustration: James Otis]
decided that the Province must permit the officers to make the searches
in private houses which the Crown asked. But there was a point gained,
in the confession that the Crown must ask, and thinking men took note of
that confession.
“Sam” Adams, as he was always affectionately called, had graduated at
Harvard College in 1740. There is no direct evidence known to me, but
without it I believe that almost from that time Sam Adams was the
inspiring genius of one or more private clubs in which the young men of
Boston were trained in the fundamental principles of independence. On
the other side it may be said that from the moment when Quebec fell the
home government of England did everything that can be conceived of to
disgust and alienate the people of Boston. The disgust showed itself now
in grumbling, now in physical violence. In the midst of it all there was
one quiet leader behind the scenes. Sam Adams had the confidence of the
gentry and of the people both. When he wanted a grave and dignified
expression of opinion he had a town-meeting called, and then this
town-meeting heard speeches and passed resolutions of such dignity and
[Illustration: Samuel Adams]
gravity as were worthy of any senate in the world. On the other hand, if
Sam Adams needed to give emphasis to such resolution, the mob of Boston
appeared in her streets, did what he wanted it to do, and stopped when
he wanted it to stop. It is fair to say that George III.’s ministers
lost their heads in their rage against the riots of Boston. The Boston
Port Bill, the maddest and most useless act of vengeance, was aimed at
the Boston mob; and yet in the thirty years between Louisbourg and
Lexington this riotous mob of Boston never drew a drop of human blood in
all its excesses. And this, though once and again the soldiers and
sailors of England killed one and another of the people.
Now to follow along step by step the visible memorials of the war, I
advise you to go to Roxbury through Washington Street by one of the
Belt-line cars. The very name, Washington Street, should remind you that
Washington rode in in triumph by this highway on the 17th of March,
1776, the day when General Howe and the English troops evacuated the
town. Let the car drop you at the Providence railway crossing in Roxbury
and take another car to
[Illustration: THE BOSTON MASSACRE.]
Brookline; or go on foot. All this time you have been on the track of
the English general, Lord Percy, who was sent out with his column to
reinforce Colonel Smith, who had charge of the earlier column sent
against Concord, on the day of the battle of Lexington. You can, if you
choose, on your wheel or on your feet, go into Cambridge with this
column; but take care not to cross Charles River by the first bridge,
but by that where the students’ boat-houses are, on the road which
becomes Boylston Street as you enter Cambridge. You may then go on to
Lexington and Concord.
On another day, start from Cambridge at the Law School. This stands on
the very site of the old parsonage--General Ward’s headquarters. The
evening before the battle of Bunker Hill, Prescott’s division was formed
in parade here and joined in prayer with the minister of Cambridge
before they marched to Bunker Hill. Anybody will show you Kirkland
Street, which is the name now given to the beginning of “Milk Row,” the
road over which they crossed to Charlestown. If you are afraid to walk,
take your wheel. Two miles, more or less, will bring you eastward to
Charlestown Neck. Then turn to your right
[Illustration: LANDING OF BRITISH TROOPS AT BOSTON, 1768.]
and walk to Bunker Hill Monument, which you can hardly fail to see.
It is quite worth while to ascend the monument. It gives you an
excellent chance to obey Dr. Arnold’s rule and study the topography on
the spot. You cannot fail to see the United States Navy Yard just at
your feet. Here Howe’s forces gathered for the attack on Prescott’s
works on the day of the battle. And to the shore they retired after they
were flung back in the first two unsuccessful attacks.
In the mad attack on Prescott’s works, General Gage lost, in killed and
wounded, one quarter of his little army. What was left became the
half-starved garrison of Boston. I say “mad attack,” because Gage had
only to order a gunboat to close the retreat of the American force, and
he could have starved it into surrender. But such delay was unworthy of
the dignity of English generals, or, as they then called themselves,
“British” generals. It is to be remembered that this use of the word
“British,” now much laughed at, was the fashionable habit of those
times.
The date of the battle was June 17, 1775. Oddly enough, this had long
been the saint’s day of St. Botolph, the East Anglian saint
[Illustration: BOSTON, and its _ENVIRONS_ in 1775.]
for whom Boston in England was named. It seems probable, however, that
this odd coincidence was never noticed for a hundred years. Since the
majority of the people of Boston and Charlestown have been Catholics, it
has attracted attention.
From that date to March 17, 1776, the date just now alluded to, Boston
and the English army were blockaded by the American troops. They had
gathered on the day after Lexington, commanded at first by Artemas Ward,
the commander of the militia of Massachusetts, and afterwards by
Washington, with Ward as his first major-general. The English retained
their hold on Charlestown, but once and again the Americans attacked
their forces there. They never marched out beyond Boston Neck or
Charlestown Neck.
On the south, their most advanced works were where are now two little
parks, Blackstone Square and Franklin Square, on the west and east sides
of Washington Street, respectively. They had a square redoubt on the
Common, where is now a monument to the heroes of the Civil War. A little
eastward of this was a hill called Fox Hill, which was dug away to make
the Charles Street of to-day. Farther west, where the ground is now
covered with buildings, were two or three redoubts, generally called
forts, by which they meant to prevent the landing of the Americans.
At that time Beacon Hill was much higher than it is now. Exactly on the
point now marked by a monument, a monument was erected after the
Revolution, in commemoration of the events of the year when it began.
The present monument--completed lately--is an exact imitation of the
first, but that this is of stone, and that was of brick. This has the
old inscriptions.
Washington drove out the English by erecting the strong works on what
was then called Dorchester Heights, which we now call South Boston. The
places where most of these works existed are marked by inscriptions.
Independence Square is on the site of one of them.
The careful traveller may go out to Roxbury, follow up Highland Street
and turn to the right, and he will find an interesting memorial of one
of the strong works built by General Ward. From this point, north and
east, each of the towns preserves some relic of the same kind. In
Cambridge one is marked
[Illustration: THE FROG POND ON THE COMMON AS IT NOW APPEARS.]
by a public square, on which the national flag is generally floating.
At the North End of Boston, where is now, and was then, the graveyard of
Copp’s Hill, the English threw up some batteries. These are now
obliterated, but the point is interesting in Revolutionary history,
because it was from this height that Gage and Burgoyne saw their men
flung back by the withering fire of Bunker Hill.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CAMBRIDGE
BY SAMUEL A. ELIOT
“There is no place like it, no, not even for taxes.”
_Lowell’s Letters_, ii., 102.
The early history of New England seems to many minds dry and unromantic.
No mist of distance softens the harsh outlines, no mirage of tradition
lifts events or characters into picturesque beauty, and there seems a
poverty of sentiment. The transplanting of a people breaks the
successions and associations of history. No memories of Crusader and
Conqueror stir the imagination. Instead of the glitter of chivalry we
have but the sombre homespun of Puritan peasants. Instead of the castles
and cathedrals on which time has laid a hand of benediction we have but
the rude log meeting-house and schoolhouse. Instead of Christmas
merriment the voice of our past brings to us only the noise of axe and
hammer, or the dreary droning of Psalms. It seems bleak, and destitute
of poetic inspiration; at once plebeian and prosaic.
But I cannot help feeling that if we look beneath the uncouth exterior
we shall find in New England history much idealism, much that can
inspire noble daring and feed the springs of romance. Out of the hard
soil of the Puritan thought, out of the sterile rocks of the New England
conscience, spring flowers of poetry. This story of the planting of
Cambridge has--if I might linger on it--a wealth of dramatic interest,
not indeed in its antiquity,--it is but a story of yesterday,--but in
the human associations that belong to it and the patriotic memories it
stirs. The Cambridge dust is eloquent of the long procession of saints
and sages, scholars and poets, whose works and words have made the
renown of the place. First the Puritan chiefs of Massachusetts; then the
early scholars of the budding commonwealth; then the Tory gentry who
made the town in the days before the Revolution the centre of a lavish
hospitality, and who maintained a happy social life of which the
memories still linger in the beautiful homes which they left behind
them; then the patriot
[Illustration: HARVARD COLLEGE GATE.]
army surging about Boston in the exciting year of the siege, with the
inspiring traditions of what Washington and Warren and Knox and Greene
and the rest did and said; and finally the later associations of our
great scholars and men of letters, chief of whom we rank Lowell and
Holmes and Longfellow, whose lives were rooted deep in the Cambridge
soil and whose dust there endears the sod.