|
History of Boston, Massachusetts
Boston was made a city in 1822, and John Phillips, father of Wendell
Phillips, was elected the first mayor. The first city government was organized
on the 1st of May that year.
Among American cities Boston holds a unique position. It is today at once the
most famous of the few historic cities of the republic and in the best sense
the most progressive. In no other city of our bounding country is there such a
peculiar blending of the old and the new, the ancient and the modern, as here
in Boston. In its business quarters are well-preserved landmarks of the
colonial, the provincial, and the revolutionary periods cheek by jowl with the
most modern structures of this age of progress. Sterling citizens successfully
maintain conservative business methods, while enterprises of the greatest
importance and magnitude in distant parts of the country, as well as within
the city's boundaries, are fostered and advanced by Boston merchants and
Boston capitalists. Possessing the genius and sagacity of the merchants of the
earlier Boston who won the famous sobriquet of " solid," the men of the Boston
of Today also display the characteristics which are found in the best type of
the enterprising American of these times. While Boston men have developed from
the compact little commercial town of fifty years ago the substantial modern
metropolis, Boston capital has built great Western cities and established
great Western railways, developing the resources of the country and opening up
its incalculable agricultural and mineral wealth.
For many years after the settlement, the North End, the earliest "court end"
of the town, was the greater part of Boston proper. The original Boston
consisted of a "pear-shaped peninsula" about two miles long, and one mile wide
at its broadest part, broken by little creeks and coves and diversified by
three hills. The loftiest of these reduced into our present Beacon hill was
described by the early chroniclers as "a high mountaine with three little
hills on the top of it." And it was this formation of the highest hill that
suggested the name "Trimontaine," first given the place by the settlers at
Charlestown, and which Winthrop's men changed to "Boston " when they moved
across the river, in October, 1630, and established the new town. Until after
the Revolution the topographical features of the town were not greatly
changed. Towards the close of the last century, in 1754, Shurtleff relates,
the North End, which had then " begun to lose its former prestige and gave
unquestionable evidence of decay and unpopularity," contained about 680
dwelling-houses and tenements and 6 meeting-houses; " New Boston," or that
portion we now call the " Old West End," including Beacon hill, about 170
dwelling-houses and tenements; and the South End, then extending from the
"Mill bridge " in Hanover street, over the old canal, to the fortifications on
" the Neck," near Dover street, about 1,250 dwelling-houses, 10
meeting-houses, all the public buildings, and the principal shops and
warehouses. " Some of the mansion-houses of this part," says Shurtleff,
writing twenty years ago, " would now be considered magnificent; and the
Common, although perhaps not so artistically laid out, with paths and malls as
now, was as delightful a training-ground and public walk as at the present
time." No streets had then been constructed west of Pleasant street and the
Common.
Early in the present century, in 1803, Charles street was laid out; the next
year Dorchester Neck and Point, the territory forming the greater part of what
is now South Boston, were annexed to Boston; twenty years later, when the town
had become a city, came the great improvements of the elder Quincy, the second
mayor, whose administration covered six terms, from 1823 to 1829. These
included the building of the Quincy Markethouse, officially termed the Faneuil
Hall, to the confusion of citizens as well as strangers; the opening of six
new streets and the enlargement of a seventh; and the acquisition of flats,
docks, and wharf rights to the extent of 142,000 square feet; "all this," says
Quincy's Municipal History, "accomplished in the centre of a populous city not
only without any tax, debt, or burden upon its pecuniary resources, but with
large permanent additions to its real and productive property." Next, in 1830,
the development of the newer South End, south of Dover street to the Roxbury
line, was begun, though not systematically pursued until about twenty years
later; in 1833 the upbuilding of " Noddie's Island," before that time a "
barren waste," we are told, but none the less a picturesque spot and a
favorite with fishing-parties, was energetically started, when its name was
changed to " East Boston; " in 1857 the great " Back Bay Improvement," the
result of which is the beautiful " New West End " of today, began; at the same
time the " marsh at the bottom of the Common," over which there had been
controversy for years, was formally set apart for the Public Garden, and soon
after systematic plans for its development made; in 1867 the city of Roxbury
was annexed to Boston by popular vote (becoming officially connected in
January, 1868), in 1869 the town of Dorchester (officially joined in January,
1870), and in 1873 the city of Charlestown and the towns of Brighton and West
Roxbury (officially, in January, 1874); and after the great fire of November,
1872, which burned over sixty-five acres in the heart of the business quarter
and destroyed property valued at $75,000,000, immense street improvements were
made through the widening and straightening of old thoroughfares and the
opening of new ones, and a more substantial and more modern business quarter,
architecturally finer in some respects than any similar quarter in any other
American city, was built up.
By the reclamation of the broad, oozy salt marshes, the estuaries, coverts,
and bays once stretching wide on its southern and northern borders, the
original 783 acres upon which Boston town was settled was expanded to 1,829
acres of solid land, and by annexation from time to time 21,878 acres were
added, 2 making the present (1892) total 23,707 acres, or 37.04 square miles.
Where the area was the narrowest it is now the widest, and in place of the
compact little town of a hundred years ago on its "pear-shaped peninsula" less
than two miles in its extreme length and its greatest breadth only a little
more than one, is the greater Boston of Today, extending from north to south
eleven miles and spreading nine miles from east to west.
Table of Contents:
By Way Of Introduction
Boston's Business Interests
Trade Centres
Railroads
Some Noteworthy Buildings
The New West End
The South End
North And Old West Ends
The Common And The Garden
The Theatres
The Clubs
The Outlying Districts
Biographical Sketches And Portraits (300 pages)
Read the Book - Free
Download the Book ( 42 MB PDF ) -
Free
Biography of William Lincoln
Lincoln, William, was born in Falmouth, Mass., March 8, 1808. He was
educated at the Derby Academy in Hingham, and graduated fully fitted for
college in 182 1, when only thirteen years of age. He did not go to
college, however, but coming to Boston, went into Deacon James Boring's
printing-office, where he learned to set up type and work the "Rammage"
hand-press, used in those days. After serving a year here he went West, to
Caledonia, N.Y., and took a position in John Butterfield's store there. In
1826 he returned to Boston and went into Joshua Sears' store. In 1829,
then twenty-one years of age, he entered the commission business on his
own account, dealing in Nantucket and New Bedford oil, and building up an
extensive and active trade. In 1837 he sold out to his brother, Henry
Lincoln, and joining Major John Fairfield at Central wharf, established
the New Orleans packet-line, which soon became the principal packet-line
of Boston, and did a large business for years. When the gold fever broke
out in California, in 1849, Mr. Lincoln left this firm and again joined
his brother Henry in India street, establishing lines of packets to
California and Australia. He built and sailed twenty ships and barks,
retaining the managing interests in all of them. But finally, this
business proving somewhat disastrous, he returned to the oil business. Now
came the oil discoveries and petroleum wells, and Mr. Lincoln was the
second man to go into the manufacture of coal oil in this country, forming
a partnership with William D. Philbrick, establishing an agency in
Titusville, and building a refinery in East Boston. After the dissolution
of this firm, Mr. Lincoln built a large manufactory in East Cambridge. The
business required the equipment of a line of schooners to ply between
Philadelphia and Boston for the transportation of the petroleum. In 1872
the factory was destroyed by fire, and then Mr. Lincoln and his son,
William E., entered the real-estate business, in which they have continued
ever since, handling a large amount of Brookline property. Mr. Lincoln has
been a resident of Brookline for the past thirty-nine years, and for
seventeen years was a member of the board of assessors of the town, during
most of that time its chairman. He was the first man to suggest the
widening of Beacon street, and he has been personally interested in many
of the improvements in Brookline and vicinity. His Boston office is at No.
43 Devonshire street. Mr. Lincoln was married in Boston, in 1838, to Miss
Mary M., daughter of David Francis, of the famous book-firm of Monroe &
Francis, and has four sons: the eldest, David F., is professor in the
college at Geneva; the second, William E., is with Mr. Lincoln in the
real-estate business; the third, Rev. James Otis, is an Episcopal
clergyman in Kansas; and the fourth, Walter Lincoln, is in the insurance
business in Boston.
|