"Hear sleaps that blessed oneWhoes lief God help us allTo live that so when tiem shall beThat we this world must liue,We ever may be happyWith blessed William Paddy."
"Hear sleaps that blessed oneWhoes lief God help us allTo live that so when tiem shall beThat we this world must liue,We ever may be happyWith blessed William Paddy."
"Hear sleaps that blessed one
Whoes lief God help us all
To live that so when tiem shall be
That we this world must liue,
We ever may be happy
With blessed William Paddy."
Adjoining this old-time region is the splendid CityHall, grandly rising beyond the graveyard, in Italian Renaissance, with an imposing louvre dome. In front, upon School Street, are statues of Benjamin Franklin and Josiah Quincy.
Various intricate streets and passages lead eastward from Tremont Street into Washington Street, these two chief business highways in a certain sense being parallel. Washington Street is the main thoroughfare of the city, having prominent theatres, newspaper offices, many of the largest stores and great office buildings, and it finally crosses over into the South End, being a wider and straighter street in this newer portion. Benjamin Franklin was born in a little old dwelling near Washington Street, where now stands a newspaper office. Alongside is the "Old South Church," the most famous church of Boston, but now an historical relic and museum of Revolutionary antiquities, the congregation having built themselves a magnificent temple, the "New Old South Church," upon Boylston Street, in the fashionable quarter of the Back Bay. This ancient church is a curious edifice of colonial style, built in 1729, when it replaced an earlier building. It has a tall spire and a clock, to which it is said more eyes are upturned than to any other dial in New England. The interior is square, with double galleries on the ends, and its original condition has been entirely restored. It is brimful of history, and was the colonial shrine of Boston, wherein were held the spiritedmeetings of the exciting days that hatched the Revolution. Within it were arranged the preliminaries leading to the march from its doors of the party of disguised men who went down to the Liverpool wharf and threw the tea overboard in December, 1773. Behind the pulpit is the famous window through which climbed Dr. Joseph Warren in 1775 to make the oration on the anniversary of the "Boston Massacre," that had so much to do with creating the high condition of feeling producing the final defiance of the British soldiery, culminating in the battle of Lexington. The British afterwards turned the building into a riding-school. Franklin was baptized in the original church, and here Whitefield preached. For nearly two centuries there was delivered, in this noted church, the annual "election sermon" before the Governor and Legislature. It was only by the greatest exertions that the venerable building was saved from the fire of 1872, which halted at its edge. It now belongs to a patriotic society, who maintain it as a precious historical relic.
Also fronting upon Washington Street is the "Old State House," an oblong and unpretending building at the head of State Street, dating from 1748, which was the headquarters of the Massachusetts Provincial Government. The "Boston Massacre," in March, 1770, originating in an encounter between a British sentry and the crowd, resulting in the troops firing upon the populace, occurred in the street on its easternside. Afterwards Samuel Adams, voicing the public indignation, made within the building, in an address to the Executive Council, his memorable and successful demand that the British soldiery should be removed outside the city. It has been restored as far as possible to its original condition, even the figures of the British "Lion and Unicorn," which had been taken down in Revolutionary days, having been replaced on the wings of the roof over the southern front. The upper rooms contain a valuable collection of relics and paintings, and much that is of interest in connection with early Boston history. Opposite are the tall Ames and Sears Buildings of modern construction, while State Street extends northeast through the financial district to the harbor, passing the massive granite dome-surmounted Custom House.
Dock Square is not far away, and Change Alley and other intricate passages lead over to the Boston "Cradle of Liberty," Faneuil Hall. Old Peter Faneuil, a Huguenot merchant, built it for a market and presented it to the city in 1742, but it was unfortunately burnt, being rebuilt in 1761. Within it were held the early town-meetings, and it is still the great place for popular assemblages. It was enlarged to its present size in 1805. This famous Hall is a plain rectangular building, seventy-six feet square inside, the lower floor a market, and the upper portion an assembly room. It is located, with surmounting cupola, in an open square, and when anything excitesthe public it is crowded with standing audiences, there being no seats. Across the end is a raised platform for the orators, behind which, on the wall, is Healy's large painting, representing the United States Senate listening to a speech by Daniel Webster, his noted oration in the South Carolina nullification days of 1832, when Webster was the champion of the Union. There are numerous historical portraits on the walls. The "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company," dating from 1638, occupy the floor above the Hall, while in front of it and extending towards the harbor is the spacious Quincy Market.
At the corner of Washington and School Streets is another ancient building, its quaint gambrels and gables recalling primitive architecture—the "Old Corner Book-store," long a favorite literary haunt. Northward, Washington Street extends to Haymarket Square, and beyond is Charlestown Street, passing by Copp's Hill, now reduced in size. Upon this hill is the oldest Boston church,—Christ Church in Salem Street,—dating from 1723, from whose steeple, on the eve of the battle of Lexington, in April, 1775, were displayed the lights giving warning of the movement of the British troops starting from Boston for Concord. These signals notified Paul Revere, across the Charles River, who made his famous midnight ride that roused the country. The silver-plate, service-books and Bible of the church were gifts from King George II., and in the adjacentburial-ground are the graves of the three noted Doctors Mather, who had so much to do with colonial affairs and history—Increase, Cotton and Samuel—the last dying in 1785. The great Boston fire of 1872, which ravaged the district east of Washington Street for two days, extended over fifty acres, and destroyed nearly eight hundred buildings. The section was quickly rebuilt, however, with much finer structures, and is now the chief wholesale business district of Boston. The elaborate Government Building, containing the Post-office and Courts, was erected, since the fire, of Cape Ann granite, at a cost of $7,500,000. In this district are enormous office-buildings, insurance-offices, banks, extensive blocks of stores, and the headquarters of the leading trades of New England, the boot and shoe, cotton and woollen, dry goods, paper and wool merchants, Boston being the greatest wool mart in the country. When Boston, having preserved Beacon Hill and reduced in size Copp's Hill, decided to remove the third eminence of the "Tri-mountain," Fort Hill, its earth and rocks were used to give better commercial facilities by filling in and grading the magnificent marginal highway fronting the harbor, Atlantic Avenue. In front of this broad street the wharves project many hundreds of feet, having rows of capacious storehouses in their centres, while on either side are wide docks for the shipping. Here is conducted an extensive traffic with all parts of the world, and tothese wharves come the yacht-like fishing-smacks to unload their catch of cod and mackerel, while there are piles of fish in the stores. Thus is realized the significance of the emblematic codfish hanging in the State House.
Faneuil Hall, Boston
Faneuil Hall, Boston
BOSTON DEVELOPMENT.
When the great Boston fire had been quenched, and an estimate was being formed of the enormous losses, the significant statement was made that "the best treasure of Boston cannot be burnt up. Her grand capital of culture and character, of science and skill, humanity and religion, is beyond the reach of flame. Sweep away every store and house, every school and church, and let the people with their history and habits remain, and they still have one of the richest and strongest cities on earth." This is the prominent characteristic of Boston public spirit. The people take the greatest pride in their city, its high rank and achievements, and the wealthy and energetic townsfolk are always alert to extend them. There are more libraries, schools, colleges, art and scientific collections, museums, conservatories of music and educational foundations in and near Boston than in any other American city. Magnificent structures, the homes of art, science and education, are scattered with prodigality all about. Next to the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library is the largest in America. Bostonians love the fine arts, and the many open spaces and public groundsare adorned with statues of eminent men and groups representing historical events. The people seem to be always studying and investigating, the women as well as the men pursuing the difficult paths of abstruse knowledge, so that armies of them, fully equipped, scatter over the country to impart the learning of the "Modern Athens" to less fortunate communities. There are many fine churches, especially in the newer parts of the West End, whither have removed into grand temples of modern artistic construction quite a number of the wealthy congregations of the older town. Boston is also full of clubs, in endless variety, formed for every conceivable purpose, and several of them very handsomely housed.
To get available room and facilitate business, the city has gathered the terminals of all the railways into two enormous stations on the northern and southern sides of the town, and for nearly a half century it has been filling-in the fens and lowlands to the westward, so that now this reclaimed West End is the fashionable section, containing the finest churches, hotels, and residences. Through this splendid district extends for over a mile the grand Commonwealth Avenue, two hundred and forty feet wide, its centre being a tree-embowered park adorned by statues of Alexander Hamilton, John Glover, William Lloyd Garrison, and Leif Ericson, and having on either side a magnificent boulevard. The bordering residencesare fronted by delicious gardens, and at regular intervals fine streets cross at right angles, their names arranged alphabetically, in proceeding westward, with the well-known English titles, Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, etc. Parallel to the Avenue are also laid out Boylston, Marlborough, Newbury and Beacon Streets through this favorite residential section. Proceeding out Boylston Street are passed the stately buildings of the Museum of Natural History, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with twelve hundred students, the leading institution of its kind in America. Beyond, at the intersection of Dartmouth Street, is Copley Square, displaying around it the finest architectural group in the city, five magnificent buildings, three of them churches. Trinity Episcopal Church, built on the northern side, in free Romanesque, is formed as a Latin cross, with a massive central tower, two hundred and ten feet high. It has elaborate interior decoration and fine windows. The Public Library, on the southern side, is in Roman Renaissance, two hundred and twenty-eight by two hundred and twenty-five feet, and sixty-eight feet high, erected at a cost of nearly $2,400,000. It contains eight hundred thousand volumes, and the interior is excellently adapted to its uses, being tastefully adorned. The Second Unitarian Church, on the northern side of the square, built in 1874, was the church of the three Mathers, and ofRalph Waldo Emerson. The Museum of Fine Arts, on the eastern side of the square, is constructed of red brick and terra-cotta, and contains extensive collections. The fifth building fronting the square is the "New Old South Church," in Italian Gothic, with a tower rising two hundred and forty-eight feet.
Beyond this fashionable district, the "Back Bay Fens" have been skillfully laid out in a series of boulevards and parks, making a chain extending several miles south and southwest through the suburbs, Franklin Park, covering nearly a square mile, being the chief. Here, on grounds with great natural adornments, in Roxbury, Brookline, and Brighton, is a region of much beauty. The surface is undulating, finely wooded, dotted with lakes, and displaying many costly suburban houses, in full glory of garden and foliage. This pleasant region spreads to Chestnut Hill, where the city has its great water reservoir, holding eight hundred million gallons, the favorite drive from Boston being to and around this reservoir, the route giving splendid views from the hilltop. Jamaica Pond and Jamaica Plain are near by, two of Boston's attractive cemeteries being beyond the latter, Mount Hope and Forest Hills. Here is also the famous Arnold Arboretum, the greatest institution of its kind, now part of the park system, and having a grand outlook from its central hill. In West Roxbury is the Martin Luther Orphan Home, which now occupies the noted "Brook Farm," wherea group of cultivated people, led by George Ripley, and including Hawthorne, Curtis, Dana, Channing, Thoreau, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, made their famous attempt to found a socialistic community in 1841, but found that it would not work. It was described as an experiment in "plain living and high thinking," the articles of association calling it the "Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education," for the establishment of an "agricultural, literary, and scientific school or college." Pupils were taken, and in its most successful period there were about one hundred and fifty persons in the community; "kitchen and table were in common; very little help was hired, but philosophers, clergymen and poets worked at the humblest tasks, milking cows, pitching manure, cleaning stables, etc., while cultivated women cooked, washed, ironed, and waited at table; all work, manual or intellectual, was credited to members at a uniform rate of ten cents an hour." Later, it became a Fourieristic "phalanstery," under the title of the "Brook Farm Phalanx;" then, in 1845, the chief building burnt down, and financial difficulties following, the experiment, which had excited world-wide comment, was abandoned in 1847.
NONATUM AND SUDBURY.
To the westward of Brighton is the extensive and wealthy suburban city of Newton, a favorite place of rural residence for Bostonians. Here rises, nearNewton Corner, the ancient Nonatum Hill, where the Apostle Eliot first preached to the Indians, the name being now classically modernized into Mount Ida. Eliot converted these Indians, who became the Christian tribe of Nonatum and formed their system of government after the plan set forth in the Book of Exodus, with rulers of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. For them the Bible was translated into the Indian language by Eliot and printed at Cambridge in 1663. They removed nearer to Charles River, where there were better soils, at Natick, their village consisting of three streets lined with little huts and gardens, a large circular fort, and a building for a church and school, at the same time having a rude bridge constructed over the river. Natick is now a busy shoemaking town, with about ten thousand people, and in South Natick is the old Indian cemetery and Eliot's Oak. To the northward of Natick is Cochituate Lake, the chief source of Boston's water supply, over three miles long, and having with tributary ponds nearly a thousand acres area when full of water in the spring. To the eastward of Natick is Wellesley, where the famous Wellesley Female College, with seven hundred students, has its spacious buildings located in a beautiful park. To the northward is the valley of Sudbury River, into which Lake Cochituate discharges, and here at Sudbury was the old colonial tavern which Longfellow has given renown in his "Tales of a Wayside Inn":
"One autumn night in Sudbury town,Across the meadows bare and brown,The windows of the wayside innGleamed red with firelight through the leavesOf woodbine hanging from the eavesTheir crimson curtains rent and thin."As ancient is this hostelrieAs any in the land may be.Built in the old Colonial day,When men lived in a grander way,With ampler hospitality.A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,Now somewhat fallen to decay,With weather stains upon the wall,And stairways worn, and crazy doors,And creaking and uneven floors,And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."A region of repose it seems,A place of slumber and of dreams,Remote among the wooded hills!"
"One autumn night in Sudbury town,Across the meadows bare and brown,The windows of the wayside innGleamed red with firelight through the leavesOf woodbine hanging from the eavesTheir crimson curtains rent and thin."As ancient is this hostelrieAs any in the land may be.Built in the old Colonial day,When men lived in a grander way,With ampler hospitality.A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,Now somewhat fallen to decay,With weather stains upon the wall,And stairways worn, and crazy doors,And creaking and uneven floors,And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."A region of repose it seems,A place of slumber and of dreams,Remote among the wooded hills!"
"One autumn night in Sudbury town,Across the meadows bare and brown,The windows of the wayside innGleamed red with firelight through the leavesOf woodbine hanging from the eavesTheir crimson curtains rent and thin.
"One autumn night in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with firelight through the leaves
Of woodbine hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
"As ancient is this hostelrieAs any in the land may be.Built in the old Colonial day,When men lived in a grander way,With ampler hospitality.A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,Now somewhat fallen to decay,With weather stains upon the wall,And stairways worn, and crazy doors,And creaking and uneven floors,And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.
"As ancient is this hostelrie
As any in the land may be.
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality.
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.
"A region of repose it seems,A place of slumber and of dreams,Remote among the wooded hills!"
"A region of repose it seems,
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills!"
Here Longfellow located his modern Canterbury tales by the landlord, the student, the theologian, the poet, the musician, and other sojourners, which have become interwoven so attractively with our better American literature.
CHARLESTOWN AND BUNKER HILL.
Across the Charles River, northward from the Shawmut peninsula of Boston, is Charlestown, one of the earliest settled suburbs, a large part of the river front being occupied by the Navy Yard, which covers a surface approximating a hundred acres.Here were built many famous vessels of the older navy, anterior to the change to steel construction, and the first Government dry-dock in the country was placed at this yard, which after the war of 1812 became one of the leading naval stations. Among the historical features of the yard has been the famous ship "Constitution," familiarly known as "Old Ironsides," which is again to be rebuilt for preservation. This noted ship, with others that achieved renown in the war of 1812, was kept at Charlestown, and all of them having rotted, the Navy Department in 1830 decided to destroy them so as to save further trouble, and an article announcing this appeared in a Boston newspaper. Little did the naval authorities, however, appreciate the sentimental love the country had for the old "Constitution." Two days after the newspaper announcement, Oliver Wendell Holmes, then twenty-one years of age, published his poem of "Old Ironsides," which caused such a sensation.
"Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!Long has it waved on high,And many an eye has danced to seeThat banner in the sky;Beneath it rung the battle's shout,And burst the cannon's roar;—The meteor of the ocean's airShall sweep the land no more."Her deck—once red with heroes' blood,Where knelt the vanquished foe,When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,And waves were white below—No more shall feel the victor's tread,Or know the conquered knee;—The harpies of the shore shall pluckThe eagle of the sea!"O, better that her shattered hulkShould sink beneath the wave;Her thunders shook the mighty deep,And there should be her grave:Nail to the mast her holy flag,Set every threadbare sail;And give her to the god of storms,The lightning and the gale!"
"Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!Long has it waved on high,And many an eye has danced to seeThat banner in the sky;Beneath it rung the battle's shout,And burst the cannon's roar;—The meteor of the ocean's airShall sweep the land no more."Her deck—once red with heroes' blood,Where knelt the vanquished foe,When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,And waves were white below—No more shall feel the victor's tread,Or know the conquered knee;—The harpies of the shore shall pluckThe eagle of the sea!"O, better that her shattered hulkShould sink beneath the wave;Her thunders shook the mighty deep,And there should be her grave:Nail to the mast her holy flag,Set every threadbare sail;And give her to the god of storms,The lightning and the gale!"
"Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!Long has it waved on high,And many an eye has danced to seeThat banner in the sky;Beneath it rung the battle's shout,And burst the cannon's roar;—The meteor of the ocean's airShall sweep the land no more.
"Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle's shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;—
The meteor of the ocean's air
Shall sweep the land no more.
"Her deck—once red with heroes' blood,Where knelt the vanquished foe,When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,And waves were white below—No more shall feel the victor's tread,Or know the conquered knee;—The harpies of the shore shall pluckThe eagle of the sea!
"Her deck—once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below—
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;—
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
"O, better that her shattered hulkShould sink beneath the wave;Her thunders shook the mighty deep,And there should be her grave:Nail to the mast her holy flag,Set every threadbare sail;And give her to the god of storms,The lightning and the gale!"
"O, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave:
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail;
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!"
These stirring lines of earnest protest touched the popular heart, there was an universal outburst of indignation, and the "Constitution" was saved. The old ship was rebuilt on her original lines, only a few timbers, including the keel, being retained, and the former allegorical figure-head was replaced by one modelled in the image of Andrew Jackson, then President of the United States. This change was sanctioned by the Secretary of the Navy, although Commodore Hull, who had charge of rebuilding the ship, protested against it. The reconstructed "Constitution" was launched in 1834, and anchored, with her figure-head, but a short distance from Charlestown bridge. Politics ran high at the time, and the change caused great controversy, particularly in and around Boston. One stormy night, Captain Samuel W. Dewey, then a hardy young sailor, managed without discovery to saw off Jackson's head, and carried it away. When the mutilationwas disclosed next day there was another great clamor, and so intense was the excitement that the utmost exertions were vainly made to find the man who did the daring deed. Dewey kept his secret for several weeks, but suddenly, under an unexplainable impulse, decided he would go to Washington and give the sawed-off head to President Jackson himself. He appeared before the Secretary of the Navy, and stating that he was the man who had removed the figure-head from the "Constitution," said he had brought it along to restore it, exhibiting the grim features tied up in a bandana handkerchief. The Secretary was indignant, and spoke of having him arrested, but Dewey said there was no statute that he had violated, and the Secretary, calming down finally, listened to the man's story of how he took away the head, and agreed to take it to President Jackson. He took the mutilated head over to the White House, exhibited it to Jackson, and repeated to him Dewey's story. When Jackson had heard the tale he burst out in loud laughter, and pointing at the head, said: "That is the most infernal graven image I ever saw. The fellow did perfectly right; you've got him, you say; well, give him a kick and my compliments, and tell him to saw it off again." Captain Dewey was afterwards called the "figure-head man," and was given a public dinner in Philadelphia on his return from Washington. He died at an advanced age, in 1899.
The crowning glory of Charlestown is the Bunker Hill Monument, marking the greatest historical event of Boston, the famous battle fought June 17, 1775, when the British stormed the Yankee redoubt on the hilltop north of Charles River, which was then open country, but long ago became surrounded by the buildings of the expanding city, excepting the small space of the battlefield, now reserved for a park around the monument. The granite shaft rises two hundred and twenty-one feet, upon the highest part of the eminence. The Provincial troops had assembled in large numbers north and west of Boston, mainly in Cambridge to the westward, and hearing that the British intended to occupy Bunker and Breed's Hills, in Charlestown, a force was sent under Colonel William Prescott, a veteran of the old French war, in the night, to fortify Bunker Hill. Upon crossing over, they hastily decided that it was better to occupy Breed's Hill, which, while part of the same ridge, was nearer Boston, and they constructed upon it a square redoubt. The British ships in Charles River discovered this at daylight, and began a cannonade; American reinforcements were sent from Cambridge; and in the afternoon General Gage attacked, his onslaught being three times repulsed with heavy slaughter, when, the Americans' ammunition being spent, they could only resist with clubbed muskets and stones, and had to retreat. Facing Boston, in front of the monument, the direction from whichthe attack came, is the bronze statue of Prescott, the broad-brimmed hat shading his earnest face, as, with deprecatory yet determined gesture, he uttered the memorable words of warning that resulted in such terrible punishment of the British storming column: "Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." The traces of the hastily constructed breastworks of the redoubt can be seen on the brow of the hill, and a stone shows where Dr. Joseph Warren fell, he being killed in the battle. He came to the fight as a volunteer, and had been made a General in the Provincial army. The top of the tall monument gives a splendid view in all directions over the harbor and suburbs of Boston, with traces of Mount Wachusett far to the westward, and on clear days a dim outline of the distant White Mountains. The corner-stone of the monument was laid by Lafayette on his American visit in 1825, and it was completed and dedicated in 1842, the oration on both occasions being delivered by Daniel Webster. One of his glowing passages thus tells the purpose of the monument:
"We come as Americans to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and to our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of thatevent to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from eternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here and be proud in the midst of its toil. We wish that in those days of disaster which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national powers are still strong."
CAMBRIDGE AND HARVARD.
Various long causeways over the wide expanse of Charles River where it spreads out to form the Back Bay, and passing in front of the newly filled-in West End, lead from Boston to the academic city of Cambridge. This populous city, best known from Harvard University, is beautifully situated on a plain, has important manufacturing industries, handsome public buildings, and a large number of elegant private residences in spacious grounds ornamented with fine old trees, shrubbery and flower-gardens. Cambridge was settled soon after Boston, as the "Newe Towne," in 1630. Its Common contains the venerable "Washington Elm," over three hundred years old, under which, after the battle of Bunker Hill, General Washington assumed command, July 3, 1775, of the American army besieging Boston. Opposite the southernend of the Common are old Christ Church, built of materials sent out from England, and the First Parish Church, with a Gothic steeple, having between them the burying-ground of the old town. Of these, Oliver Wendell Holmes has written:
"Like Sentinel and Nun they keepTheir vigil on the green;One seems to guard and one to weepThe dead that lie between."
"Like Sentinel and Nun they keepTheir vigil on the green;One seems to guard and one to weepThe dead that lie between."
"Like Sentinel and Nun they keep
Their vigil on the green;
One seems to guard and one to weep
The dead that lie between."
In the suburbs of Cambridge, adjoining Charles River, is Boston's chief place of interment, Mount Auburn Cemetery, a romantic enclosure of hill and vale, covering one hundred and twenty-five acres, with a grand development of tombs and landscape. The tower upon the summit of the Mount gives a beautiful outlook over the winding Charles River valley and the Brookline, Brighton and West Roxbury villa and park districts beyond, the distant view being closed by the charming Blue Hills of Milton. In this cemetery are interred many of the famous men of Massachusetts, including Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Everett, Sumner, Motley, Choate, Quincy, Agassiz and Prescott.
The great Cambridge institution, however, is Harvard University, the oldest, largest and wealthiest seat of learning in America. In 1636 the Massachusetts Legislature founded a school at the "Newe Towne," voting £400 for the purpose, and in 1638John Harvard, who had been for a short time a pastor in Charlestown, died at the age of thirty-one, and left to this school his library of two hundred and sixty volumes and half his estate, valued at about £800. Then the school was made a college and named Harvard, and the town was called Cambridge by the Legislature. The monument of the youthful patron is in Charlestown, and, cast in heroic bronze, he now sits in a capacious chair in front of the Harvard Memorial Hall. This great University far antedates its rival Yale at New Haven, for its first class was graduated in 1642, and in 1650 "The President and Fellows of Harvard College" were incorporated. In fact, Harvard was founded only ninety years later than the great College of English Cambridge—Emmanuel. John Harvard and Henry Dunster, who was the first President of Harvard, and several other prominent Boston colonists, had been students at Emmanuel, and thus from the older Puritan foundation came the younger, and it was natural to adopt for the town the name of the English University city. The first New England printing-press was set up in 1639 at Cambridge, and in the Riverside Press and the University Press of to-day it is succeeded by two renowned book-making establishments. Closely allied, in a scientific way, has also been at Cambridgeport for many years the works of Alvan Clark & Co., the noted makers of telescope lenses.
Harvard University has sent out many thousands of famous graduates, and Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell have been members of its faculty. It is liberally endowed, has ample grounds, and there are over sixty buildings devoted to the purposes of the University, the annual disbursements exceeding $1,000,000. Its government was formerly a strictly religious organization, most of the graduates becoming clergymen, but it was recently secularized so that no denominational religion is now insisted upon, and comparatively few graduates enter the pulpit. There are schools of law, medicine, dentistry, divinity, agriculture, the arts and sciences, all the learned professions being provided for, but everything is elective. In the various departments there are more than four thousand students, taught by about four hundred professors and instructors. It has some seven hundred acres of land, interest-bearing endowments exceeding $8,000,000, receives, besides, annual gifts sometimes reaching $400,000, and has a library of five hundred thousand volumes and almost as many pamphlets. Much attention is given outdoor sports and athletic training, Harvard having the finest gymnasium in the country, and an athletic field of twenty acres south of the river. Among the graduates have been two Presidents, John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams; also his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, William Ellery Channing, Edward Everett, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, William H.Prescott, Emerson, Holmes, Sumner, Lowell, Motley and Thoreau.
The University buildings are in the centre of the old city, enclosing two large quadrangles shaded by elms. Massachusetts Hall, the oldest building now standing, dates from 1720, Harvard Hall from 1766, and University Hall from 1815. The most elaborate modern building is the Memorial Hall, a splendid structure of brick and Nova Scotia stone, three hundred and ten feet long, having a cloister at one end and a massive tower at the other. This was erected in memory of the Harvard graduates who fell in the Civil War; and in the grand Vestibule which crosses the building like a transept, having a marble floor and rich vaulted ceiling of ash, and fine windows through which pours a mellowed light, there are tablets set in the arcaded sides bearing the names of the dead. Upon one side of this impressive Vestibule is the spacious Saunders Theatre, used for the commencements and public services, having as an adornment the statue of Josiah Quincy, a President of the College and long the Mayor of Boston. Upon the other side of the Vestibule is the college Great Hall, one hundred and sixty-four feet long and eighty feet high, with a splendid roof of open timber-work and magnificent windows. This is the refectory where a thousand students can dine, and in it centre the most hallowed memories of Harvard, portraits and busts of the distinguished graduates and benefactorsadorning it, with the great western window in the afternoon throwing a flood of rich sunlight over the scene. Harvard has been patterned much after the original Cambridge, thus adding to the English vogue of many things seen about Boston. When Charles Dilke visited America he wrote of Harvard, "Our English Universities have not about them the classic repose, the air of study, which belongs to Cambridge, Massachusetts; our Cambridge comes nearest to her daughter-town, but even the English Cambridge has a breathing street or two, and a weekly market-day, while Cambridge in New England is one great academic grove, buried in a philosophic calm, which our universities cannot rival as long as men resort to them for other purposes than work." The people at Boston told Dilke, when he was here, that they spoke "the English of Elizabeth," and they heartily congratulated him at the same time upon using what they said was "very good English for an Englishman."
Adjoining Cambridge Common is Radcliffe College, for women, named in honor of the English Lady Anne Radcliffe, afterwards Lady Moulson, the first woman giving a scholarship to Harvard (in 1640). Some four hundred women receive instruction here from Harvard professors, and the graduates are granted the college degrees. Near by, in Brattle Street, is the Craigie House, dating from 1759, which was Washington's headquarters in 1775-6, and later, fornearly a half century, was the home of Henry W. Longfellow, until he died in 1882. Longfellow was for twenty years Professor of Modern Languages in Harvard, being succeeded in 1854 by James Russell Lowell, whose home of Elmwood, an old colonial house, is farther out Brattle Street. Lowell was born in Cambridge in 1819, dying in 1891. Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge in 1809, and being a skillful physician as well as alitterateur, he was Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard from 1847 till 1882. He resided in Boston on Beacon Street, dying in 1894. Margaret Fuller, the noted transcendentalist, was born in Cambridge in 1810, and after writing several books, and achieving fame as a linguist and conversationalist, she went abroad, marrying the Marquis d'Ossoli in Rome, and returning to New York, they were both lost by shipwreck at Fire Island in 1850.
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD.
Following up the Charles River, about ten miles west of Boston is Waltham, with twenty-two thousand people, noted for the works of the American Waltham Watch Company, the largest in the world, producing nearly six hundred thousand watches and movements in a year. The extensive factory buildings spread along the river, and there are also large cotton mills. General Nathaniel P. Banks was a native of Waltham. To the northward and abouttwelve miles from Boston is the quiet village of Lexington, chiefly built on one long tree-shaded street, which terminates at its western end in a broad Green of about two acres, whereon a plain monument recalls the eight Revolutionary patriots killed there April 19, 1775. A handsome Memorial Hall of brick is built on the Green to commemorate the Lexington soldiers who fell in the Civil War. It also contains statues of John Hancock and Samuel Adams, and of the "Minute Man of 1775" and the "Volunteer of 1861."
The British commander in Boston, having learnt that the Massachusetts patriots had collected arms and military stores at Concord, about twenty miles northwest of Boston, on the night of April 18, 1775, despatched a force to destroy them, and incidentally to capture Hancock and Adams, who were at Lexington. The roads leading westward out of Boston were picketed to prevent news being carried of the expedition, but the signals from the old Christ Church on Copp's Hill enabled Paul Revere to start from Charlestown through Cambridge, and he made his rapid horseback ride, arriving by midnight at Lexington. The bells of the village churches rang out the alarm, signal-guns were fired, and messengers were sent in every direction to arouse the people. About five o'clock in the morning Major Pitcairn with six British companies arrived at Lexington, where the patriots, numbering about seventy, were drawn up in line on theGreen. Pitcairn rode forward and shouted "Disperse, ye rebels; throw down your arms and disperse!" They held their ground, and a volley was fired over their heads, when, not dispersing, a second volley was fired, killing eight and wounding ten men, the first blood shed in the American Revolution. The American commander, seeing resistance was useless, withdrew and dispersed his little band, some, as they retired, discharging their muskets at the British, three of the latter being wounded and Pitcairn's horse struck. Then the British made a rapid movement to Concord, and some of the military stores which had not been removed were found and destroyed. Meanwhile about four hundred Minute Men gathered near the North Bridge over Concord River, about a mile from the Common, and under orders they attacked and drove away the British infantry, who had been placed on guard there. As the morning advanced, the whole country became aroused, and armed patriots assembled from every direction, those of Lexington having rallied and placed themselves along the Concord road. The British commander was greatly alarmed and ordered a retreat. They marched back to Boston under a rattling fire, every house, barn and stone wall being picketed by patriot sharpshooters, so that the road was strewn with dead and dying British. Passing through Lexington, the British met reinforcements, but they were still pursued to Cambridge and Charlestown, the slaughter only ceasing when they had gotunder protection of the guns of the fleet. The British loss was about two hundred and seventy, and the Americans lost one hundred. In Concord the British graves and the battle monuments are on one side of the historic bridge, and on the other is a fine bronze statue of the "Minute Man." This Concord fight was the first organized attack made by the Americans upon the British in the Revolution, thus beginning the patriot rebellion against British rule, as the Minute Men were acting under authority of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, assembled in Concord, and protecting their military stores.
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world."
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world."
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."
Concord has about six thousand people, and is also famous for its literary history and associations. It is near the tranquil Concord River and the junction of the little Assabet and Sudbury Rivers, a pleasant tree-embowered quiet place of rural residence. Peter Bulkley, an English rector, who was oppressed by Archbishop Laud, fled to New England, and in 1636 buying of the Indians their domain of Musketaquid, founded the town and church of Concord, thus naming it because of its peaceful acquisition. In the nineteenth century it became noted as the home of some of the greatest men of letters in America. Near Concord bridge is an ancient gambrel-roofed housebuilt for Parson William Emerson in 1765, and from its windows he watched the fight. This is the "Old Manse" in which Ralph Waldo Emerson, himself once a clergyman, and descended from seven generations of clergymen, was born in 1803. Emerson was known as the "Sage of Concord," or, as Fredrika Bremer the novelist, who visited him there, described him, the "Sphinx in Concord," and was the head of the modern school of transcendental philosophy. He died in 1882. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived for awhile in the "Old Manse" at Concord, and there wrote his "Mosses from an Old Manse." The house was afterwards burnt. Hawthorne died in 1864. Both Emerson and Hawthorne are buried in the attractive little Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Emerson's grave being marked by a large block of pink quartz. Henry D. Thoreau, the eccentric but profound scholar and naturalist, in 1845 built himself a hut on the shores of the sequestered Walden Pond near Concord, leading the life of a recluse, raising a few vegetables, and now and then, to get a little money, doing some work as carpenter or surveyor. He was profoundly skilled in Oriental and classic literature, and was an ardent naturalist, delighting in making long pedestrian excursions to the forests, lakes and ocean shores of New England. He never voted, nor paid a tax, nor entered a church for worship, and of himself he said, "I am as unfit for any practical purpose as gossamer is for ship-timber."Emerson tells us that "Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields, hills and waters of his native town, that he made them known and interesting to all; he grew to be revered and admired by his townsmen, who had at first known him only as an oddity." Dying in 1862, he, too, is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. In the Orchard House in Concord lived the Alcotts, of whom Louisa M. Alcott, author ofLittle Women, is so widely known. Adjacent is the building used by the "Concord School of Philosophy," established in 1879 by A. Bronson Alcott. They also rest in the little Cemetery. Thus is Concord famed, and it has well been said of this historic old place that "it is dangerous to turn a corner suddenly for fear of running over some first-class saint, philosopher or sage."
THE MASSACHUSETTS NORTH SHORE.
The outer verge of Boston Harbor may be described as protected on the south by the long projection of Nantasket Beach, while on the northern side there comes out, as if to meet it, another curiously-formed peninsula, making the bluffs of Winthrop, and a strip beyond terminating in the rounded headland of Point Shirley. Deer Island, almost connected with the Point, stretches farther, and we were anciently told it was so called "because of the deare who often swim thither from the maine when they are chased by the wolves." All these places are popularresorts, and their odd formations assist in making the Boston surroundings picturesque. Some distance up the coast, and eleven miles from Boston, is the shoemaking city of Lynn, with seventy thousand people, the flourishing society of the "Knights of St. Crispin" ruling the shoemakers' "teams" and largely running the politics of the town. Most of the work is done by machinery, there being over two hundred factories, making more women's shoes than any other place in the country. The first colonists were brought by their pastor from Lynn-Regis, England, in 1629, and thus the town was named. It spreads broadly along the water-front, its attractive City Hall seen from afar, and many ornamental villas adorning the shore. Out beyond it, thrust into the sea, is the long, low and narrow sand-strip barely a hundred yards wide, leading for nearly four miles to Nahant. This is a most curious formation, the name meaning the "Lovers' Walk," a mass of rocks and soil at the outer end of the sand-strip covering nearly five hundred acres, and crowned with villas, the neat tower of a pretty white church rising on the highest part near the centre. The Bostonians have made Nahant, thus surrounded by the ocean, one of their most fashionable suburban sections, and it is popularly known as "Cold Roast Boston." This strange rocky promontory was originally bought from the Sagamore Poquanum for a suit of clothes, and it is now valued at over $10,000,000.Many are the poems written about this curious projection, and N. P. Willis says of it: "If you can imagine a buried Titan lying along the length of a continent, with one arm stretched out into the midst of the sea, the spot to which I would transport you, reader mine, would be, as it were, in the palm of the giant's hand." Invocations have been addressed to Nahant by Longfellow, Whittier and Mrs. Sigourney; there Longfellow wrote part ofHiawatha, Motley began hisDutch Republic, Prescott wrote his Spanish histories, and Agassiz composedBrazil.
The region beyond Lynn and Nahant is the famous Massachusetts "North Shore," stretching to the extremity of Cape Ann, a domain of villas and summer homes, pleasant sea-beaches, and brisk towns with interesting past history, now devoted largely to shoemaking and the fisheries. From Boston State House to the extremity of the Cape at Halibut Point, or the Land's End, is thirty-one miles, and Lucy Larcom thus attractively describes the route along the shore:
"You may ride in an hour or two, if you will,From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill,With the sea beside you all the way,Through pleasant places that skirt the bay;By Gloucester harbor and Beverley beach,Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach,Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wideMarshes laid bare to the drenching tide,With a glimpse of Saugus' spire in the west,And Malden Hills in their dreamy rest."
"You may ride in an hour or two, if you will,From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill,With the sea beside you all the way,Through pleasant places that skirt the bay;By Gloucester harbor and Beverley beach,Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach,Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wideMarshes laid bare to the drenching tide,With a glimpse of Saugus' spire in the west,And Malden Hills in their dreamy rest."
"You may ride in an hour or two, if you will,
From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill,
With the sea beside you all the way,
Through pleasant places that skirt the bay;
By Gloucester harbor and Beverley beach,
Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach,
Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wide
Marshes laid bare to the drenching tide,
With a glimpse of Saugus' spire in the west,
And Malden Hills in their dreamy rest."
Saugus, Lynn, Nahant, Swampscott, Salem and Marblehead were originally the Indian domains of Saugus, Naumkeag and Massabequash. Beyond Lynn, most of the coast has undergone a modern evolution from fishery stations to smart summer resorts; and here, around the swamps and marshes, abounding crags protrude, with many fine villas in another fashionable Boston suburb, Swampscott, as populous and almost as famous as Nahant, with huge hotels down by the seaside. Swampscott merges into Clifton, and then an uneven backbone of granite covering about six square miles is thrust into the ocean in the direction of Cape Ann, and is hedged about with rocky islets. On one side this granite peninsula forms Salem harbor, while on the other a miniature haven is made by a craggy appendage to the southeastward, attached to the main peninsula by a ligature of sand and shingle. The quaint old town of Marblehead occupies most of the surface, and the appendage is the modern yachtsmen's headquarters, Marblehead Neck. This is a very ancient place, dating back to the early seventeenth century, and was once pre-eminently nautical and the second port in Massachusetts; but the sailors and fishermen are missing, excepting those who man the summer yacht fleets, and the people, like so many other Massachusetts communities, have gone largely into shoemaking, the big shoe-factories being scattered about. The crooked narrow streets runin all directions among and over the rocks, which appear everywhere and have gained the mastery. When George Whitefield, the preacher, visited Marblehead, he gazed in astonishment upon these superabundant rocks, and asked, in surprise, "Where do they bury their dead?" Out on the headland is the superannuated little Fort Sewall, once protecting the port and commanding both harbors, and though the walls are decaying, it is preserved as a memento of the past. Fine villas are all about, and the numerous islands add picturesqueness to the sea-view. Elbridge Gerry, of "Gerrymander" fame, was a native of Marblehead, and its hardy sailors formed most of the crew of the old ship "Constitution" when she fought and captured the "Guerriere," and afterwards the "Cyane" and "Levant." Marblehead was also the scene of "Skipper Ireson's Ride," which Whittier has made historic: