PRESENTED BY

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PUBLIC DOCUMENT .... .... Xo. 48,

REPORT

OF THE

Board of Metropolitan Park

Commissioners.

January, ISOtt.

BOSTON :
WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS,

18 Post Office Square.
1894.

?>2,U)1T

CommanlDcahlj nf |H;iS5;icIjusetts.

Office of Metropolitax Park Commission,

111 AND 112 Ames Buildixg, Bostox, Dec. 15, 1893.

To the Honorable Senate and House of Bepresentatives in General Court

assembled.

The Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, appointed
under tlie provisions of chapter 407 of the Acts of 1893, present
the following report : —

The members of the Board were appointed on the 8th of
July, and the Board organized immediately thereafter, upon
the 17th of July. On the 29th of July H. S. Carruth was
appointed secretary. His report for the portion of the year
which has since elapsed is herewith submitted.

In the report of the temporary Board of Metropolitan Park
Commissioners submitted to the Legislature of 1893 (House
Document No. 150) a scheme of public reservations within
what was then referred to, and has since been incorporated, as
the Metropolitan District w^as set forth in detail. In accordance
with the recommendations contained in that report an act for
the appointment of a permanent Board of Metropolitan Park
Commissioners was reported and passed practically in the form
in which it was drafted by the Commission.

Under these circumstances there would appear to be at this
time no especial occasion for any elaborate report setting forth
the purposes of the Commission, or a scheme of public reserva-
tions within the Metropolitan District. It is the understanding
of the Commissioners that they were appointed to carry into
effect the recommendations made a year as^o. The scheme of
reservations included in those recommendations was set forth
in the elaborate reports of the consulting landscape architect,

4 METROPOLITAX PARKS. [Jan.

Mr. Eliot, and the secretary of the temporary Board, Mr.
Sylvester Baxter. It seems unnecessary now to repeat what
was then sufficiently said.

Acting upon this view of the purpose of the Legislature in
creating the present Board, the Commissioners, as soon as cir-
cumstances warranted their so doing, proceeded to carry out
the plans and recommendations of the previous Board. In
view of the character of the work to be done and the engineer-
ing and legal proceedings involved, the progress made has
necessarilv been slow. It will be remembered that in the
report of 1893 the Commissioners called attention to the fact
that the scheme proposed involved two classes of acquisition :
one exemplified in the case of the Middlesex Fells and the
Blue Hill forest, where it was possible to proceed with com-
parative rapidity ; the other, exemplified in the cases of the
Revere and Xantasket beaches and the Charles River basin,
involvins: elaborate enirineerinof plans and difficult questions of
law. In the cases of this class the expense would necessarily
be large, as well as difficult to estimate in advance, and progress
correspondingly slow.

Even the acquisition of the ^Middlesex Fells and the Blue
Hill region has necessitated careful surveys, which could be
made under favorable circumstances onlv durinof the colder
season when the trees are stripped of leaves. Those surveys
have been in steady progress, and, as will appear from the
accompanying report of the secretary, all the steps requisite
to the acquisition of both of these reservations either have
been taken or will be taken at an early day. Together they
will include an area of not less than 4,850 acres — 950 in
the case of the Middlesex Fells, and 3,900 in the case of the
Blue Hills ; and it should also be borne in mind in regard to
the former reservation that the water boards of Maiden, Mel-
rose and Medford and the town of Stoneham own within and
adjacent to this area about 1,600 acres additional, which will
practically increase the reservation within Middlesex Fells to
2,550 acres.

The group of trees in Belmont and Watertown commonly
known as the Waverly Oaks, but more properly the Beaver
Brook Oaks, has been acquired. The Commissioners were en-
abled in this case to act with greater quickness owing to the lim-

1894.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 48. 5

ited size as well as simple character of the taking ; and their
action was greatly facilitated by the liberality of the widow of the
late Elisha Atkins of Belmont, and her son, the present Edwin
F. Atkins, who contributed the large sum of $12,500, more
than half its entire cost, towards the preservation of this most
interesting locality, thus setting a precedent which it is hoped
and believed wealthy residents in other localities will not be
slow to follow.

Steps have also been taken towards acquiring on the Revere
Beach certain holdings of a preliminary character. These it
is proposed to follow by other takings as rapidly as the com-
plicated nature of the problem in that case will permit.

No steps have as yet been taken towards the acquisition of
Nantasket Beach or its adjuncts.

Under these circumstances, the work thus far done having
of necessity been mainly of a preliminary nature, the Com-
missioners do not consider it necessary now to submit any
detailed report, or to make further recommendations, or to
ask for increased powers, or that additional funds should be
put at their disposal. It has seemed to them desirable to
proceed slowly and in a sure, conservative manner, rather than
to endeavor to make a large and, possibly, a more or less
deceptive showing of work already done. Evidence is abun-
dant that the idea of adequate public reservations has taken
firm possession of the popular mind ; and especially is this the
case among the inhabitants of the Metropolitan District. In
this respect the magnificent Boston park system has done a
great educational work. That this idea will grow steadily, and
now calls for no nervous action or emphatic utterance from
them, the members of this Board are well satisfied. They
further think that the means already placed at their disposal
by the action of the last Legislature will suffice to ensure
during the coming year the carrying out in its larger and more
general aspects of the scheme submitted a year ago. The details
of that scheme can then be considered and provision made for
them. Accordingly, with the coming spring, the Commissioners
hope to open to the public at least two large reservations, one
in the ^Middlesex Fells and one in the Blue Hill region. When
the inhabitants of the Metropolitan District once appreciate the
advantage and enjoyment to be derived from those reservations,

6 METROPOLITAX PARKS. [Jan.

the Commissioners feel little apprehension lest additional power
and the means requisite to carry the entire scheme into early
effect will not readily be given them.

It is possible, however, that the proceedings now being taken
may have so far developed before the adjournment of the
present Legislature that the Commissioners will desire to
submit a supplementary report. This will be a matter for
the landscape architects of the Board to decide upon. Their
reports, rather than the formal official reports of the Board or
of its secretar}^ shall, it is proposed, hereafter set forth in a
continuous series, illustrated by maps, diagrams and plates,
the gradual development of the great and beneficent scheme
they have conceived. Of this series the admirable report of
Mr. Charles Eliot, submitted a year ago, will constitute the
initial number, and it is upon the lines set forth in that report
the Commissioners are now working; to that report, therefore,
the Legislature is referred for information. Should further
developments in the immediate future call for it, a second
report of the series will be forthcoming before summer.

Full detailed information as to the course otherwise pursued
by the Board will be found in the accompanying reports of its
secretary and of the landscape architects.

All of which is respectfulh^ submitted.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
PHILIP A. CHASE.
WILLIAM B. DE LAS CASAS.
ABRAHAM L. RICHARDS.
WM. CHASE.

1894. J PUBLIC DOCUMENT — Xo. 48.

EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY.

Hon. Chakles Francis Adams, Chairman, Metropolitan Park Commissio?i.

Sir : — In submitting my first report as the secretary of
the Commission it seems proper to rehearse very briefly the
facts connected with my term of office. Appointed on the
twenty-ninth day of July hist, I assumed the duties of this
position on the lirst day of August, thus making only a little
more than four months as the time to be covered by this report.

The first matter of importance was the organization of the
office, the development of the system for the conduct of its
business and the arrangement of the duties of its subordinates,
as well as the selection of permanent offices. This was quickly
efiected. The necessary subordinates were chosen under the
civil service rules and suitable offices were selected in the Ames
Building. The question of the employment of civil engineers
and surveyors for the determination of the boundary lines of
the several proposed reservations was at once taken up and, so
far as was practicable, the services of local surveyors were
eno^ac'ed. This was done in order that the Commission mio-ht
avail itself of the advantages of the familiarity with local and
property boundaries which, in most cases, these local sur-
veyors possessed.

The work was pushed with the utmost rapidity, and while
in some cases obstacles were encountered which caused un-
looked-for delays, yet substantial results have been accom-
plished.

On November 3 the work of surveying and determining the
boundaries of the south section of the Beaver Brook Reserva-
tion had been completed and the Board passed the necessary
act of taking, followed on the 1st of December by the taking
of the north section, which together comprise the Beaver
Brook Reservation, with an area of 58.61 acres.

8 METROPOLITAN PARKS. [Jan.

On December 12 the first and most important of the four
sections of the Blue Hills Reservation, containing 9321^ acres,
was taken, and the work of preparation for the taking of the
three remaining sections is practically completed.

The Middlesex Fells has presented many more difficulties to
be overcome than has been the case in the Blue Hills or at the
Beaver Brook Reservation. The existence of the large popu-
lation upon at least three sides of the proposed reservation
has rendered the decision as to where the boundary line should
be run very difficult and requiring great care and judgment in
its determination. The wish not to intrude upon desirable
buildino^ land of the cities and towns surroundinoj this wild
tract, at the same time so shaping the taking that it shall be
in harmony with the purposes for which it is to be established,
has led to the runnino^ of several alternative lines, and the
final determination of the boundary having now practically
been completed, the taking can be made at an early date.

At Revere Beach have been encountered the greatest ob-
stacles with which the Commission will have to deal in any of
the localities in which it is intended to establish open spaces.
The condition of this beach, rapidly growing more serious
with every year, is such at the present time as to render
impossible the immediate acquiring of the beach itself in its
entirety. A plan has been made and will shortly be submitted
which comprehends within its lines about one-third of the entire
length of the beach. This is based upon and is a part of a gen-
eral scheme which eventually will include the entire beach from
the existing pier at Crescent Beach to and including the Point
of Pines. Just how much more can be taken in the near future
and where the ultimate limits of the reservation will be placed
are questions for future determination, and largely depend
upon the measure of co-operation which is extended to the
Commission by the land-owners upon the beach.

Complete preliminary plans have been made of the Stony
Brook Reservation, previously known by the name of Muddy
Pond Woods, and little more remains to be done than the
preparation of the necessary plans for record and the passing
of the papers of taking. No difficulty appears to present
itself in connection with this reservation which should delay
beyond a few weeks its completion.

1894.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 48. 9

In connection with several of these reservations it will be
necessary to provide proper means of ingress and egress by
further takings, small in extent and inexpensive in character.
That the expenditure of money which has been made and is to
be made shall be of the largest possible ])enetit and use to the
people of the Metropolitan District it is necessary that means
should be taken to acquaint the public with the easiest and
most expeditious means of reaching these various reservations
from the different parts of the district. It is my intention, if
it should meet with the approval of your honorable Board, to
prepare and issue for public use and guidance a brief pamphlet
upon each of the reservations, containing maps, showing the
means of access and the main paths wdiich traverse the larger
reservations.

In spite of the fact that tlie Blue Hills and the Middlesex
Fells, especially the former, have been for years visited by
those who have by accident acquired a knowledge of their
beauties, the people at large have but small knowledge of the
charming spots of natural beauty possessed by these two
remarkable tracts of land.

The larger part of the land necessary for these principal
reservations havinsf either been taken or about to be taken,
the question which becomes the important one during the
ensuins: year is as to their management and care. It is very
important that these beautiful spots shall be made readily
accessible to the public ; that while for several years yet to
come no road building or other expensive work need to be
undertaken, it is very desirable — in fact, it is absolutely
necessary, if proper security is to be had against the terrible
devastation of forest tires — that a reasonable amount should
be expended in the very near future in the cleaning up of the
woods themselves. This is particularly necessary in the Blue
Hills Reservation, but applies also, with less force, to the
Middlesex Fells and Stony Brook Reservations. In these
forests, which have never received any attention, there exists
upon the ground an immense amount of fallen wood in various
stages of decay. It is this material which affords the fuel
which causes the terrilic heat in the forest fires. The quick
burning of leaves in the autumn of the year seldom does much
serious injury, but in the spring of the year, when the high

10 METKOPOLITAX PARKS. [Jan.

winds of March have dried the surface of the ground, these
sticks and fallen trees, overlying each other in the best pos-
sible manner to cause quick-spreading fires, have done and will
continue to do, unless immediately checked by proper precau-
tions, irreparable damage to the woods.

Illustrating this point, I would respectfully call attention to
the tremendous damage done by the forest fire in the Blue
Hills Reservation so short a time ao-o as the sprinof of 1893.
Hundreds of acres of valuable and beautiful woodlands were
utterly ruined, necessitatino^ their beins: cut to the ground,
leaving scarcely a single tree where one short year ago existed
a beautiful forest.

Even more dangerous than the state of affairs which I have
just outlined as causing destructive fires in most of these
woods, is the condition brought about by these same forest
fires. The death of the trees by the forest fire may not be
immediate. A year or perhaps two years may ensue before
the trees finally give up the unequal struggle and die. They
remain standing, their limbs largely intact, presenting every
opportunity for another and still more disastrous fire. It is
absolutely indispensable that these areas of dead trees should
be removed at as early a date as is possible, and that also the
ground under the woods now living, as yet unvisited in recent
years by severe forest fires, should be put in such a condition as
to reduce to the minimum the dans^er of future conflao:rations.

I would respectfully suggest that your honorable Board au-
thorize the expenditure of an amount necessary to remove from
the reservations this imminent danger of fire. The employment
of men now idle would at this time be opportune and the means
of preventing the destruction of property to an amount many
times the sum required to accomplish it. This would be work
not made for the occasion, but necessary, and in its doing not
only would the public receive the full equivalent of the money
spent, but, as I have before stated, it would be the means of
preventing serious losses in the future.

With the cleaning of the woods and the providing of proper
means of ingress and egress, the opening of the disused wood
roads, rendering them availal)le to pedestrians and equestrians,
the occasional repairing of existing boundary fences, and the
erection of new fences upon the boundaries of the reservations

1894.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — Xo. 48. 11

where at present none exist, little remains that is absolutely
necessary to be done at the present time. It may safely be
left to the future to determine when it shall be desirable to
supplement the already existing roads by more substantially
constructed carnage roads, and it will be far better to wait
until the topographical surveys shall determine the proper
location of such roads.

Respectfully submitted,

H. S. CARRUTH,

Secretary.

12

METROPOLITAN PARKS.

[Jan.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
Receipts and Expenditures from Aug. 1, 1893, to Jan. 1, 1894.

Appropriation,

Office Exj^enses, Salaries^ etc.

flO,000 00

Expenditures.

Salaries,
Office fittings,
Rent of office,
Stationery, .
Plans surveying, .
Landscape architects, .
Legal services, .
Sylvester Baxter, services,
Telephone, .
Carriage hire.
Maps and books.
Tools, etc., .
Contingent expenses, .

$1,296 67

185

07

585

52

269

41

4,407

99

1,500

00

525

00

200

00

95

45

85

50

41

00

116

44

289

41

9,597 46

Balance of apiDroprialion, .

$402 54

1894.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 48. 13

REPORT OF THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS.

Hon. C. F. Adams, Chairinian of the Metropolitan Park Commission.

Dear Sir: — In a professional report addressed in 1892 to
the preliminary or advisory Metropolitan Park Commission,
Mr. Eliot (who has since become a member of our firm) re-
viewed the hills, streams and coasts of the neio^hborhood of
Boston and sketched in colors, on a map, the areas which it
seemed to him should be reserved for public use through
metropolitan as distinguished from municipal action. No
attempt was made to define the exact boundaries of any of the
reservations proposed. At the time of writing it was not
decided that an executive Metropolitan Park Commission would
ever be established.

Your Commission having been created and organized, you
asked us to give our attention to the definite demarcation of
five of the reservations proposed in Mr. Eliot's report, namely,
the reservations at the Blue Hills, Middlesex Fells, Muddy
Pond Woods (or Stony Brook), Revere Beach and Beaver
Brook. You directed us to prepare projects for boundaries
which would show alternative or maximum and minimum limits,
wherever possible, in order that a choice might be open to
your Board when the estimates of the probable cost of the
lands to be taken should be compiled by you. Six parties
of surveyors were placed at our service by your direction,
and during the months of September, October and November
we gave much time, in conjunction with the surveyors, to the
careful study of the problem put before us. On Dec. 15, 1893,
we sent to your office the last of a series of eight surveyors'
maps, drawn to a scale of two hundred feet to an inch, upon
which we had indicated by a continuous green line what
seemed to us to be the most desirable boundary for each of the

14 METROPOLITAN PARKS. [Jan.

proposed reservations. By a broken green line we also indi-
cated such possible alternative positions for the several boun-
daries as seemed worthy of consideration. In accompanying
reports we explained the proposed boundaries in detail.

In accordance with j^our request, we now submit the follow-
ing memoranda of the general principles upon which we
have worked in determining the lines lately submitted to you,
as just described : —

First. The boundaries of the proposed reservations should,
if possible, be established so as to include all lands belonging
to the same topographical unit and exhibiting the type of
scenery characteristic of each reservation. Obviously, a pub-
lic domain is not well bounded if it includes only half a hill,
half a pond or half a glen. Neither is it well bounded unless
it includes such contiguous lands as form the essential frame-
work of the hill scenery, the pond scenery, the glen scenery,
or whatever other type of scenery it is desired to preserve.
For example, it is desirable to include in the Blue Hills Reser-
vation all the hills of the hio^h rano^e down to the base of their
steep slopes. Similarly, it is desirable to include in the Stony
Brook Reservation all the uplands which enclose the glen or
valley of that stream. To city men it is most refreshing to
find themselves in what appears to be a wilderness of indefi-
nite extent. This impression cannot be enjoyed unless the
boundary of a valley reservation is established beyond the
summits of the enclosing hills.

Second. The boundaries of the proposed reservations
should be, if possible, established upon public streets or roads,
or upon lines drawn where roads may ultimately be built upon
good grades.

The reasons for this principle are many. It is obvious that
the back fences of private lands cannot make a handsome
boundary for a public domain of any description. It is obvious
that private lands abutting directly upon public lands will be
much more liable to trespass than they would be if a public
roadway separated the two. Private land in the position de-
scribed is a nuisance to the public, while the public is likely to
be a nuisance to its owner. Speaking generally, the policing
and the general administration of a public reservation is greatly
facilitated when the boundary is a road. Still more impor-

1894.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 48. 15

tant is the consideration that if the private lands which adjoin
the reservation are provided with a road frontage which looks
upon the public domain they will eventually be greatly in-
creased in attractiveness and value.

These two principles taken together explain most of the
possible boundary lines submitted for your examination. Where
existing streets meet the requirement of the first principle, they
have been adopted as the boundary, as, for example, at Wash-
ington Street, Melrose, and Blue Hill Street, Canton. Where
it has been necessary to devise new roads to serve as boun-
daries, this has been done, with due respect to the first principle,
with due resfard for gn-ades and curves, and with care to exclude
improved lands, and lands which will ultimately become
especially suitable for building sites.

It remains to mention three classes of exceptions to the
principle of the existing or proposed road boundary.

In some places it has proved necessary, for the sake of
economy, to exclude from the reservations, by arbitrary lines,
improved lands which would have been included under our first
principle had they not been occupied by buildings : as, for
example, at two places on Washington Street in Melrose, and
a^ain at Summit Street in Maiden.

In some places the reverse operation has proved desirable,
and tracts of wild land which w^ould have been excluded under
our second principle have been included in the reservation by
arbitrary lines, because some subordinate yet still important
element of the scenery of the reservation could by so doing
be preserved : as, for example, along the north side of the
valley of Furnace Brook in the Quincy section of the Blue
Hills Reservation, where there has been included the face of a
ridge which is in view from the w^hole basin of the brook,
althouofh the road must here be within the reservation in the
valley of the brook. Houghton's Pond has been shown as
included in the Blue Hills Reservation for the same reason.
It is not an essential part of the hill scenery, but it is an
exceedinglv valuable addition thereto.

In some places, after a road boundary had been studied and
mapped, the line was found to lie in such relations to adjacent
or parallel township boundaries that rather than leave parts of
townships isolated from the main body it was deemed best to

16 METROPOLITAN PARKS. [Jan. '94.

adopt the township boundary as the boundary of the reserva-
tion. It was in this way, for example, that the township
boundary which divides Quincy from Randolph and Braintree
came to be sugofested as the southern boundary of the Blue
Hills Reservation. Another variety of this exceptional kind
of boundary is illustrated in several places about the Fells,
where arbitrary lines have been drawn so as to connect the new
reservation with pre-existing watershed reservations without
leaving wedges or islands of private lands between the two.

The total length of alternative lines thus studied, mapped
and described by us for your consideration is about thirty
miles.

Yours respectfully,

OLMSTED, OLMSTED & ELIOT.

/