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MASSACHUSETTS
A GUIDE TO ITS PLACES AND PEOPLE
COPYRIGHT, 1937, BY GEORGE M. NUTTING, DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
. THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
CtK &ibet0it>e ftt rse
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION
WALKER. JOMHSON BUILDING
1734 NEW YORK AVENUE NW
WASHINGTON, D. C
HARRY L. HOPKINS
ADMINISTRATOR
Massachusetts s A Guide to Its Places and People is one of the
volumes in the American Guide Series, written by members of the
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration.
Designed primarily to give useful employment to needy unemployed
writers and research workers, this project has gradually
developed the ambitious objective of presenting to the American
people a portrait of America, its history, folklore, scenery,
cultural backgrounds, social and economic trends, and racial
factors. In one respect, at any rate, this undertaking is unique;
it represents a far-flung effort at cooperative research and
writing, drawing upon all the varied abilities of its personnel.
All the workers contribute according to their talents; the field
worker collects data in the field, the research worker burrows
in libraries, the art and literary critics cover material relevant
to their own specialties, architects describe notable historical
buildings and monuments; and the final editing of copy as it flows
in from all corners of a state is done by the more experienced
authors in the central offices. The ultimate product, whatever
its faults or merits, represents a blend of the work of the entire
personnel, aided by consultants, members of university faculties,
specialists, officers of learned societies, oldest residents, who
have volunteered their services everywhere most generously.
A great many books and brochures are being written for this series.
As they appear in increasing numbers we hope the American public
will come to appreciate more fully not only the unusual scope of
thi* undertaking, but also the devotion shown by the workers, from
the humblest field worker to the most accomplished editors engaged
in the final rewrite. The Federal Writers' Project, directed by
Henry G. Alsberg, is in the Division of Women's and Professional
Projects under Ellen S. Woodward, Assistant Administrator.
Harry L. Hopkins
Administrator
OOVEHNOB
Massachusetts; A Guide to Its Places and People
is the first major accomplishment of the Federal
Writers 1 Project for Massachusetts. More than
the conventional guide book, this volume attempts
to present the history and heritage of Massachu-
setts as well as Its numerous points of Interest
and the contemporary scene. Though designed to
portray Massachusetts to visitors. It Is also In-
tended, as It were, to present Massachusetts to
Massachusetts.
As Governor of the Commonwealth I am happy that
this valuable work Is being made available to the
citizens of Massachusetts and the nation.
Secretary of the Commonwealth
ONE MOMENT, PLEASE!
WHEN the Federal Writers' Project was set up in Massachusetts, and
the staff received its first instructions from the central office in Washing-
ton, the editors blithely embarked on a task of whose magnitude they
had little conception: the job of adequately describing the 316 towns and
39 cities of the Commonwealth, and of presenting, as concisely, accurately,
and simply as possible, the facts about the State, from its Architecture
to its Zoology, from the year ?oo,ooo,ooo B.C., when its geological history
began, to A.D., 1937 when its social history has by no means ended.
All over the Commonwealth, field workers began to interview local
historians, consult town records, talk with oldest inhabitants, tramp miles
of country roads. In district offices, research workers checked and re-
checked data against all available sources. Officials of State and local
governmental agencies were pressed into service ; volunteer consultants
geologists, architects, historians, anthropologists, travel experts, critics
read, criticized, and corrected copy. Photographers clicked cameras,
cartographers wrought maps, tour checkers clocked mileage.
In the State office, bulky parcels began to arrive. The mailman stag-
gered upstairs with piled envelopes of field copy, heavier each day.
Readers struggled desperately to keep up with incoming copy; typists
and copyreaders trod water in pools of manuscript. Batteries of steel
files became crammed; a hundred wooden file boxes hungered and were
fed. Meanwhile, a small administrative staff labored at the vital job of
keeping accounts straight and records accurate, and of seeing that each
worker received many of them for the first time in months his or
her weekly pay check.
Out of several millions of words there slowly grew a book nay, a
BOOK, some 650,000 words long. The editors, abandoning a momentarily
considered idea of publishing a volume of 2000 pages mounted on wheels
with a trailer attachment, sharpened a gross of blue pencils and attacked
the typescript to condense it to a portable size. Chapters became pages,
pages became paragraphs, paragraphs became sentences. Tempers wore
thin as cherished passages were cruelly blue-penciled, and editorial con-
ferences developed into pitched battles. But out of it all, writers of
One Moment, Please!
varied ability and training and of widely differing temperament, thrown
together on the common basis of need, shared a new experience an
adventure in co-operation.
Although comprehensive, this book is not an encyclopedia. Its purpose
is not to catalogue all the facts, but to present and preserve significant
facts. Designed to serve the needs of the tourist, this guide will be, it is
hoped, more than a manual for the casual traveler. Tours there are in
plenty, and thousands of points of interest are located and described.
But the adventurous-minded will discover herein other excursions, less
precisely marked, along highways of letters, history, art, and archi-
tecture.
In the midst of editing this book, the Federal Writers' Project of
Massachusetts compiled and edited other guides, brochures, bibliogra-
phies, etc., some of which have already been published, others of which
are still in preparation.
The editors are deeply obligated to many governmental agencies, Fed-
eral, State, and local, to commercial associations and travel agencies, to
historical societies, and to hundreds of individuals, for information and
assistance. They must content themselves, however, with brief and totally
inadequate acknowledgment to the State Planning Board, the State
Departments of Conservation and of Labor and Industries, to many local
planning boards, the New England Council, the New England Hotel
Association, the Boston and Albany, Boston and Maine-Central Ver-
mont, and New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroads, the Boston
Elevated Company, other transportation companies. Professor B. A.
Hooten, of the Department of Anthropology of Harvard University,
criticized the article ' First Americans'; Professor A. M. Schlesinger, of
the Department of History, Harvard, read 'Enough of Its History
to Explain Its People ' ; Professor Lawrence LaForge, of the Department
of Geology, Harvard, assisted in the preparation of 'Natural Setting,'
of which Professor David Potter, of the Department of Biology, Clark
University, reviewed the sections of flora and fauna. Professor Walter
Piston, of the Department of Music, Harvard, made suggestions for the
first section of the essay ' Music and the Theater'; and Mr. Leverett
Saltonstall contributed the major portion of the article 'Government.'
Miss Dorothy Adlow contributed the essay 'Art.' In addition, all the
above, as well as many others not named, were frequently consulted for
information and advice on matter lying within their several fields. The
American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the
One Moment, Please! xi
State Library, the Bostonian Society, the Boston Athenaeum, and numer-
ous local historical societies and libraries generously made their collec-
tions available to research workers. Selectmen, town clerks, librarians,
and others freely lent their aid.
The four-line stanza by Emily Dickinson in the article 'Literature'
is quoted by special permission from 'Poems of Emily Dickinson,' 1937,
edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leote Hampson: Little,
Brown and Company, Boston.
This volume was prepared under the editorial direction of Joseph
Gaer, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Guides and Chief Field
Supervisor of the Federal Writers' Project.
RAY ALLEN BILLINGTON, State Director
BERT TAMES LOEWENBERG )
> Assistant state Directors
MERLE COLBY J
CONTE NTS
FOREWORD Photostat
By Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Administrator, Works Pro-
gress Administration
FOREWORD Photostat
By Charles F. Hurley, Governor of Massachusetts, and
Frederic W. Cook, Secretary of the Commonwealth
ONE MOMENT, PLEASE! ix
GENERAL INFORMATION xxi
Railroads Accommodations
Highways Climate and Equipment
Bus Lines Information Bureaus
Airlines Recreation
Waterways Transportation
Traffic Regulations
CALENDAR OF EVENTS xxxii
MASSACHUSETTS: THE GENERAL
BACKGROUND
CLUES TO ITS CHARACTER 3
NATURAL SETTING 9
FIRST AMERICANS 18
ENOUGH OF ITS HISTORY TO EXPLAIN ITS PEOPLE 28
GOVERNMENT 56
LABOR 65
ARCHITECTURE 79
LITERATURE 89
LITERARY GROUPS AND MOVEMENTS 100
MUSIC AND THE THEATER I IO
ART 117
xiv Contents
II. MAIN STREET AND VILLAGE GREEN
(City and Town Descriptions and City Tours)
Amherst: An Adventure in Quietude 127
Arlington : History and Homes 130
Boston: The Hub of the Universe 135
Brockton: City of Shoes 176
Brookline: Opulent Comfort 179
Cambridge: University City 183
Chelsea: City of Transformations 205
Chicopee: The Future-Minded 208
Concord: Golden-Age Haven 210
Dedham: The Sober-Minded 217
Deerfield: A Beautiful Ghost 223
Everett: Industrial Half-Sister 227
Fall River: City of Falling Water 229
Fitchburg: The Farmer Goes to Town 232
Gloucester-Rockport (Cape Ann) : Mother Ann's Children 235
Haverhill: From Hardscrabble to Hats and Shoes 244
Holyoke: The Power of Water 248
Lawrence : Warp and Woof 250
Lexington: A Town of Heroic Past 255
Lowell: Company Founders and City Fathers 260
Lynn: Machine City 266
Maiden: Neighbor of Boston 270
Marblehead: Where Tradition Lingers 273
Medford: Rum, Ships, and Homes 279
New Bedford: Thar She Blows! 284
Newburyport: City of Captains' Houses 291
Newton: Commuter's Haven 295
Northampton: From Jonathan Edwards to Sophia Smith 301
Northfield : A Prophet with Honor 306
Norton: Typical New England 308
Contents xv
Pittsfield: Power-Source and Playground 310
Plymouth: The Colony's First 'Main Street' 319
Provincetown : Way Up Along 326
Quincy: Iron Ships and Great Men 335
Revere : A Beach Beside a City 341
Salem: New England's Treasure-House 343
Somerville: Traditions of Trade 353
South Hadley: Milk, Butter, and Ideas 356
Springfield: The Metropolis of Western Massachusetts 359
Taunton: Largest City for Its Size 367
Waltham: City of Five-Score Industries 370
Watertown: Cradle of the Town Meeting 374
Wellesley: Town of Schools and a College 379
Weymouth: Aggregate of Villages 382
Williamstown : Buckwheat, Barley, and Gentlemen 386
Woburn: Home of a Yankee Count 389
Worcester: Heart of the Commonwealth 392
III. HIGH ROADS AND LOW ROADS
(Mile-by-Mile Description of the State's Highways)
TOUR i From New Hampshire (Portsmouth) to Rhode
Island (Providence). US 1 407
1 A From Newburyport to Everett. State 1A 415
iB From Dedham to North Attleborough. State 1A 426
iC From Beverly to Uxbridge. State 62 and 126 430
iD From Boston to Milford. State 109 439
2 From Boston to New York (Troy). State 2 (Mo-
hawk Trail) 442
2A From New Hampshire (Peterboro) to Littleton.
State 119 460
2B From Orange to New Hampshire (Keene) . State 78 463
3 From Boston to New Hampshire (Concord) . US 3 464
4 From Boston to New York (Albany). US 20 468
xvi Contents
TOUR 4 A From Woronoco to Great Barrington. State 17 483
46 From Huntington to Hinsdale. Sky Line Trail 487
5 From Boston to New Hampshire (Salem). State 28 488
6 From Orleans to Rhode Island (Providence) . US 6 494
6 A From Orleans to Province town. US 6 502
7 From New Hampshire (Seabrook) to Worcester.
State 110 and State 70 507
7 A From Newburyport to Haverhill. State 125 516
8 From Boston to Pittsfield. State 9 518
8A From Williamsburg to Hinsdale. State 143 532
9 From Vermont (Stamford) to Connecticut (Salis-
bury). (Appalachian Foot Trail) 534
10 From Plymouth to Rhode Island (E. Provi-
dence). US 44 535
11 From New Hampshire (Fitzwilliam) to Connec-
ticut (Thompson). State 12 540
nA From Westminster to Worcester. State64,31,122A 545
1 2 From Provincetown to Williamstown (Capes to the
Berkshires Bridle Trail) 546
13 From New Hampshire (Rindge) to Connecticut
(Granby). US 202 547
14 From New Bedford-Martha's Vineyard-Nan -
tucket 554
15 From Vermont (Guilford) to Connecticut (Thomp-
son ville). US 5 563
i5A From New Hampshire (Hinsdale) to Bernardston.
State 10 567
156 From Adams to Springfield. State 116 568
i5C From Northampton to Westfield. State 10 571
i5D From West Springfield to Connecticut (Suffield).
State 5A 573
17 From Vermont (Pownal) to Connecticut (North
I Canaan). US 7 574
iyA From Pittsfield to Connecticut (Salibury). State
41 580
Contents xvii
176 From Lanesborough to Summit of Mt. Greylock
(Rockwell Rd.) 584
19 From Boston to Bourne. State 28 586
igA From Orleans to Bourne. State 28 591
21 From Vermont (Stamford) to Connecticut (Win-
sted). State 8 595
23 FromAthol to Rhode Island (Providence). State
32 and 122 600
23 A From Barre to Connecticut (Willimantic) . State
32 606
236 From Grafton to New Bedford. State 140 609
25 From Boston to Rhode Island (Tiverton). State
138 614
27 From Boston to Bourne. State 3 618
2yA From Quincy to Kingston. State 3A 621
276 From Weymouth to East Bridgewater. State 18 626
CHRONOLOGY 631
FIFTY BOOKS ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS 637
INDEX 639
ILLUSTRATIONS
HISTORICAL LANDMARKS
The'Arbella,' Salem*
John Alden House, Duxbury
Paul Revere House, Boston
Commodore's Quarters, U.S. Frigate
'Constitution'
Historic American Buildings Survey
Minuteman Statue, Concord*
INDUSTRY EARLY AND LATE
Fore River Shipyard, Quincy*
Shipyard, Essex
New England Council
Hoisting Sail
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Chains, Woods Hole Buoy Yard*
Old Mill, Sudbury*
' Charles W. Morgan,' New Bedford*
Seeding Clams
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
ARCHITECTURAL MILESTONES
Whipple House, Ipswich
Kitchen of John Ward House,
Haverhill
Essex Institute
Hartshorne House, Wakefield*
Hill of Churches, Truro*
Chestnut Street, Salem*
Assembly House, Salem*
Fierce-Nichols House, Salem
Essex Institute
Lee Mansion*
between 26 and 27
Old South Meeting House, Boston*
Leyden Street, Plymouth (first street
in Massachusetts*)
Old State House, Boston
John Quincy Adams House, Quincy
between 56 and 57
Cranberry Bog
Courtesy of George Gardner Barker
Sandwich Glass*
Nets Drying, Gloucester
Courtesy of F. J. Robinson
Herring Run, Wareham*
Weaving
Associated Industries of Massachusetts
Printing
between 86 and 87
Old State House (interior)*
House of the Seven Gables, Salem*
State House, Boston*
Holden Chapel, Harvard
Harvard Film Service
1 Connecticut Valley ' Doorway, Mis-
sion House, Stockbridge
Courtesy of Fletcher Steele
Public Library, Boston
Trinity Church, Boston
A FLASHBACK IN EARLY PRINTS
between 148 and 149
North Bridge, Concord, 1775!
Boston Common in 1768, showing
the Hancock House and the Old
Beaconf
The Old State House and the
'Bloody Massacre'f
The Old State House in 1801
The Old State House Fire, 1832!
The Old State House in 1876 with
Mansard Roof
Boston in 1743 from the Harborf
The City in 1848 from East Bostonf
Bird's-Eye View of Boston at about
Faneuil Hall and the Old Shorelinef
New State House and Bulfinch Bea-
conf
XX
Illustrations
LITERARY LANDMARKS
Elm wood (James Russell Lowell
House), Cambridge
Craigie-Longfellow House, Cam-
bridge
Custom House, Salem*
Emerson Room, Antiquarian House,
Concord
Concord Antiquarian Society
Wayside Inn, Sudbury*
MASSACHUSETTS: ONE OF THE
LEARNING
The Splash of a Drop of Milk
Associated Press
The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
New England Council
Harvard College from the Air
Institute of Geographical Exploration
Bulfinch Hall, Andover Academy
Smith College Quadrangles, North-
ampton
Cur tiss-W right Flying Service
between 210 and 211
Fruitlands, Harvard
Orchard House, Concord
House of the Seven Gables, Salem*
Arrowhead (Bush-Melville House),
Pittsfield
Historic American Buildings Survey
Thoreau's House, Concord
Emily Dickinson House, Amherst
WORLD'S CENTERS OF
between 304 and 305
Japanese Garden, Museum of Fine
Arts
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Court of the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum, Boston
Powers Studios
The Court, Fogg Art Museum, Cam-
bridge
The Esplanade Symphony Orchestra
under Fiedler
Boston Chamber of Commerce
The Little Red Schoolhouse, Sudbury*
OLD HOUSES AND OLD CHURCHES
between 462 and 463
Benjamin Abbot House, Andover
Historic American Buildings Survey
Parson Capen House, Topsfield
Old Ship Church, Hingham*
Cape Cod Cottage: John Ken-
rick House, Orleans*
Wooden Quoins, Winslow House,
Marshfield*
Munroe Tavern, Lexington*
Fairbanks House, Dedham
Old Church in Concord*
Sparrow House, Plymouth*
Governor Gore House, Waltham
BY ROAD, BY TRAIL, AND BY
Street in Marblehead
Boston from the Air
Harvard Buildings on the Charles,
Cambridge
Boston Chamber of Commerce
Windmill, Cape Cod*
Marblehead Harbor
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
CHANNEL between 524 and 525
Orleans*
Highland Light, North Truro*
Connecticut Valley, near Northampton
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Lexington Green*
Memorial Tower, top of Mount Grey-
lock
Courtesy of Arthur Palme
Illustrations marked * are by W. Lincoln High ton of the Works Progress
Administration; those marked f by courtesy of Goodspeed's BDok Shop,
Boston; all uncredited photographs are by the staff photographer of the
Federal Writers' Project of Massachusetts.
LARGE MAP OF MASSACHUSETTS Back Pocket
Reverse side: Large Map of Boston Winter Recreations Map
Summer Recreations Map
GENERAL INFORMATION
Railroads: Boston & Maine (B. & M.), Boston & Albany (B. & A.), New
York, New Haven & Hartford (N.Y., N.H. & H.), Central Vermont
(C.V.).
Highways: 101 State highways. 6 Federal highways, as follows: i, Fort
Kent, Maine, to Miami, Fla.; 3, Canada via Colebrook, N.H.; 5, Quebec
via Newport, Vt.; 6, Greely, Colo.; 7, Quebec via St. Albans, Vt.; 20,
Yellowstone Park. (For routes throughout State see folding map.)
Highway patrol to safeguard traffic and enforce traffic regulations.
Bus Lines: Intrastate: 155 lines connecting principal towns and cities.
Interstate: Boston & Maine Transportation Co. (Boston to Portland,
Me., Boston to White River Junction, Vt., Boston to Keene and Con-
cord, N.H.); New England Transportation Co. (Boston to Hartford,
Conn., Boston to Poughkeepsie, N.Y.); Berkshire Motor Coach Lines
(Boston to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., via Worcester, New Haven, and New
York City); Blue Line (Worcester to New York, via Springfield); Blue
Way Lines (Portland, Me., and Boston to New York, via Springfield and
Worcester); Eastern Greyhound Lines, Inc., of New England (Boston
and Portland, Boston and New York) ; Frontier Coach Lines (Boston and
Montreal) ; Greyhound Lines (national coverage) ; Interstate Busses Cor-
poration (Providence, R.I., to Schenectady, N.Y., via Springfield and
Pittsfield); I.R.T. Co., Inc. (Boston to Providence, R.I.); P.H.N. Lines,
Inc. (Boston and Norwich, Conn., via Worcester); Old Colony Coach
Lines, Inc. (Boston to Concord, N.H., Boston to Bar Harbor, Boston to
Montreal and Quebec) ; Short Line System (Springfield to Portland, New
York, Waterbury, Worcester, and Boston).
Airlines: Intrastate: Boston to Cape Cod and Nan tucket (summer serv-
ice). Interstate: American Airlines (Boston, Providence, Hartford, New
Haven and New York; Boston-Buffalo and all points west). Boston-
Maine-Central Vermont Airways (Portland, Augusta, Waterville, Ban-
gor, Bar Harbor during summer, Manchester, Concord, White River
Junction, Barre-Montpelier, Burlington).
Waterways: Regular service by steamship to New York and ports south
via Cape Cod Canal from Boston or Fall River. Many trans-Atlantic
liners call at Boston. Regular trips to Canada and the West Indies.
New England Steamship Co. (operated by N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.), New
Bedford to Martha's Vineyard [Dukes] and Nantucket. Cape Cod
Steamship Co. (Boston to Provincetown). (Summer service only by
both.)
xxii General Information
Traffic Regulations: Non-residents may operate motor-cars within the
State for 30 days without permit. Penalty for violation thereafter.
Speed: For State highways, regulations prescribe speed that is
' reasonable and proper ' : not to exceed 30 m. p. h. outside of a thickly
settled or business district. Within a thickly settled district or at any
place where operator's view of the road is obstructed, not in excess
of 20 m. p. h. Curves not to be negotiated in excess of 15 m. p. h.
Lights: ' Every automobile operated during the period from one
half an hour after sunset to one half an hour before sunrise shall dis-
play at least two white lights, or lights of yellow or amber tint, or if
parked within the limits of a way one white light nearer the center
of the way. And every motor vehicle shall display at least one red
light in the reverse direction. No spotlights to be used unless ap-
proved by the registrar of motor vehicles.'
Brakes: Brakes must be adequate to control the movement of
such vehicles, must conform to rules and regulations, and must be
in good working order.
Accommodations: State is well provided with hotel accommodations.
Accommodations in private houses are also available in nearly all towns:'
Tourist camps are located in all parts of the State. Municipal ordinances
require rigid enforcement of rules on sanitation and hygiene. Most of
these establishments are privately owned, but there is every evidence
of their being orderly and well regulated. As most of the camps are within
easy reach of trading centers, food supplies as well as emergency clothing
are quickly obtainable.
Climate and Equipment: State has variable climate with temperatures
ranging from the nineties in summer to sub-zero in winter. Visitors
should carry clothing such as sweater and topcoat for sudden changes in
summer, and in winter special heavy clothing for coasting, skiing, skating,
and other outdoor sports. In winter snow trains leave Boston regularly
for New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, destinations depending some-
what on the conditions of ice and snow.
Fires: ' No person shall set, maintain or increase a fire in the open air at
any time unless the ground is substantially covered with snow, except by
written permission . . . granted by the forest warden or chief of the fire
department in cities and towns ... or the fire commissioner. Persons
above the age of eighteen may set or maintain a fire for a reasonable pur-
pose upon sandy land, or upon salt marshes or sandy or rocky beaches
bordering on tide-water, if the fire is enclosed within rocks, metal or other
non-inflammable material.' Consult local fire warden.
Poisonous Plants and Reptiles: Poison ivy grows somewhat profusely in
certain sections, generally along stone walls and fences in pasture and
woodland, and occasionally along the seashore. Antidotes obtainable at
any drugstore. Rattlesnakes at times are seen in certain sections of the
Blue Hills in the eastern part of the State and in the Berkshires in the West.
General Information xxiii
Information Bureaus: The New England Council, Statler Building,
20 Providence Street, Boston; the various chambers of commerce, hotels,
and railroads are equipped to give information on travel, resorts, recrea-
tional opportunities, and road conditions.
RECREATION
Golf: Massachusetts had the first golf course in America, the Country Club
of Brookline, founded in 1882, and courses are well distributed through-
out the State. On Cape Cod, on the adjacent islands of Nantucket and
Martha's Vineyard, and in many other ocean-front cities and towns,
courses overlook the sea. The eastern and central portions of the State
provide numerous 'sporty' courses on rolling and varied terrain. The
courses of western Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills are set in the
midst of rugged hills and valleys. Distributed throughout the State are
approximately 215 courses, varying in size from six to thirty-six holes,
the majority of which are open to the general public. Tournaments and
special matches, both amateur and professional, are held during the
season on representative courses.
Tennis: Tennis courts are provided as part of the recreational develop-
ment of the Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth, and on certain
Metropolitan District Commission reservations. Many courts, available
for public use for a fee, at specified times, are under the administration of
colleges, private schools, and private organizations.
Yachting: The ^State's hundreds of miles of coastline offer splendid oppor-
tunities for yachting. Large fleets of yachts and boats annually dot
Massachusetts waters, engaging in races, regattas, and general cruising.
There are approximately 130 yacht and boat clubs, including motor-boat
and dory clubs distributed among the nine eastern and southern counties
of the State. In the central and western portion there are four such clubs,
the primary interest of which is motor or speed boating. Most yacht and
boat clubs are, of course, in Essex County on the North Shore, in Suffolk
County on the Central Shore, and in Barnstable County on the South
Shore. Essex and Barnstable County clubs serve primarily the non-
resident yachtsman; Suffolk County clubs serve the resident.
Beaches: The Commonwealth has more than one thousand miles of ocean
front. Many towns which have acquired and developed ocean beaches
have restricted the use to their own residents. There are now eight State-
owned ocean beaches, one administered by the Department of Conserva-
tion, one in charge of the Department of Public Works, and six controlled
by the Metropolitan District Commission.
Picnicking: The State forests, which have been expanded both in -size and
in facilities, offer convenient provisions for picnicking. Of the sixty-nine
State forests, approximately thirty-nine have one or more developed pic-
xxiv General Information
nic areas equipped with tables, benches, fireplaces, and sanitary facilities,
and often have additional facilities for camping, such as tent sites, trailer
sites, and cabins, as well as swimming facilities. In the remaining thirty
State forests, picnicking is allowed, but there are few facilities, and fires
are prohibited.
There are numerous other opportunities for picnicking in the two State
parks, eleven State reservations, eight semi-public reservations, and
fourteen reservations controlled by the Metropolitan District Commis-
sion, all of which permit picnicking in some form and provide some of the
necessary facilities, such as tables and benches. Opportunity for picnick-
ing is not limited to the State-provided facilities. Many cities and towns
have large parks or lakeside reservations where non-residents may picnic.
There are also many commercial picnic grounds, camp-grounds, and
beaches.
Fairs: In 1935, approximately twenty outstanding fairs were held through-
out the State, attracting some 750,000 people. More than fifty per cent
of the attendance was at the two major fairs the Brockton Fair and
the Eastern States Exposition.
Horse and Dog Races: Horse and dog racing, under the pari-mutuel system
of betting, has become increasingly popular. In 1935, the first year of
operation of horse and dog racing under the pari-mutuel system, four flat
running-horse tracks, four harness-horse tracks, and three dog tracks
were licensed.
Auto Races: Auto racing is engaged in primarily as amateur competition
and as a feature event at certain of the major fairs. For amateur competi-
tion for midget cars, two dirt tracks have been built, one at Wayland and
one at Marstons Mills on Cape Cod. On these tracks several races are
scheduled during the summer and early fall. All types of cars are used,
and the usual length is fifty miles. Professional and semi-professional
auto racing is limited to the major fairs.
Winter Sports: The State Department of Conservation, in co-operation
with the National Park Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps, has
extended the winter-sports facilities in the State forests and reservations,
and is still developing them. Climatic conditions and natural topography
make certain sections of the State ideal for extensive winter-sports devel-
opments. The Berkshire Hills area is the best-developed section, but new
trails have been constructed in the Wachusett region, more favorably
located in relation to principal centers of population than the Berkshires.
There are approximately seventy-five areas devoted to skiing, with many
miles of trails and acres of open slopes. Jumps are few in number, only
thirteen being available. Probably more than 75 per cent of the skiing
facilities are concentrated in the four western counties, the major portion
of these being in Berkshire County. On the Mount Wachusett State
Reservation, two new downhill trails have been developed or improved.
In the eastern part of the State are a few facilities: Mount Hood Memorial
Park, Melrose, the two trails on the Metropolitan District Commission's
General Information xxv
Blue Hills Reservation, and a few small municipal or private open slopes
and jumps. Many golf clubs allow the use of open slopes on the courses
for skiing. ' Snow trains ' leave Boston regularly in winter.
There are seventeen ski and outing clubs, most of which are in central and
western Massachusetts. The Western Massachusetts Winter Sports
Council is the largest combined organization actively promoting winter
sports in the State. The Berkshire Hills Conference also encourages
winter sports.
Practically every city and town in Massachusetts has sufficient water area
for skating. Several ponds or lakes on State reservations and forests are
kept cleared during the season.
Tobogganing has a few facilities, widely scattered over the State. On
most State reservation lands, no constructed chutes are necessary because
natural conditions, dependent on suitable snow cover, are sufficient. The
same is true for most municipal parks.
Snowshoeing is dependent on the quality and condition of snow. Since it
requires no special areas or trails, there are adequate opportunities for it
in every section of the State when there is snow. Existing foot trails or
minor back roads may be used.
Hiking: Perhaps the best-known hiking route is the Appalachian Trail
(see Tour 9), extending from the Connecticut boundary to the Vermont
line and forming a link in the route from Georgia to Maine. There is also
the Wachusett-Watatic Trail (see Tour nA), covering a distance of more
than twenty miles from the Mount Wachusett Reservation to a point
near the New Hampshire line, where it connects with the Wapack Trail.
The State forests and reservations provide a total of 225 miles of local
trails, constructed by the Department of Conservation in co-operation
with the National Park Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps dur-
ing the past four years. The Metropolitan District Commission has de-
veloped a number of trails on its reservations, particularly the Blue Hills
(see Tour 25) and Middlesex Fells (see Tour 5).
Several organizations are actively engaged in the promotion and con-
struction of foot trails, preparation of guide books, and the establishment
of trail shelters. Prominent among these are the Berkshire Chapter of
the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Connecticut Valley Trails Confer-
ence, the Massachusetts Forest and Park Association, the outing clubs
of colleges and preparatory schools, the American Youth Hostel, Inc., the
New England Trails Conference, and the Massachusetts Department of
Conservation.
Riding: Bridle trails in Massachusetts consist of several local municipal
units, some few miles developed on the State forests and reservations, a
few miles developed by the Metropolitan District Commission on their
reservations and parkways, and the Capes-to-the-Berkshires Trail (see
Tour 12), a through trail 450 miles in length. Throughout the State there
are many miles of old wood roads and minor back roads which serve as
xxvi General Information
bridle paths. Excluding these roads, there are more than 500 miles of
existing bridle trails in Massachusetts. Eighty-six riding academies and
many local outing clubs are distributed throughout the State. Many of
these are on or near the Capes-to-the-Berkshires Trail, and offer shelter to
horse and rider.
Bicycling: There are no bicycle trails as such in Massachusetts. The
American Youth Hostel, Inc., has laid out a bicycle loop trip through
New England, utilizing back roads and portions of the Capes-to-the-
Berkshires Trail.
Hunting: Hunting is permitted in 64 State forests, comprising more than
1 50,000 acres. In thirty of these forests, hunting is strictly regulated by
permit; and portions- of ten forests, comprising approximately 3200 acres,
are set aside for game preserves, on which no hunting is allowed. Public
lands available for public hunting (State forest lands) are widely dis-
tributed throughout the State, with the largest percentage, both in num-
ber and acreage, in the central and western portions. The Division of
Fisheries and Game carries on extensive stocking of covers, particularly
with quail, pheasants, hares, and rabbits. Game preserves, under a vari-
ety of classifications and organizations, are numerous. The State con-
tains 33 or more preserves, varying in size from 12 to 8600 acres, and
representing a total of approximately 21,300 acres. Included in the total
are the various State reservations, under the control of County and
Special Commissioners, which unless otherwise specified are closed to
hunting. There are four game farms, varying in size from 23 to 132 acres,
and comprising a total of 364 acres. All are under the direct control of
the Division of Fisheries and Game of the Department of Conservation,
20 Somerset St., Boston. For hunting license consult the Division, or the
local game warden.
Fishing: While a large part of the brook fishing is still in private unposted
land, more and more streams seem destined to be closed to the public
by individuals and private clubs. However, opportunity for public fishing
is fairly extensive. Under the General Laws of Massachusetts, the Di-
rector of the Division of Fisheries and Game is permitted to acquire, by
gift or lease, fishing rights and privileges in any brook or stream in the
Commonwealth, with rights of ingress and egress, unless it is a source of
or tributary to a public water supply. There are eleven such areas in the
State, comprising some eighty miles of stream. In addition to these
streams, the ponds of the State, with the exception of those used for water
supply, are public for the purpose of fishing, hunting, and boating. There
are 1302 such ponds, of which approximately two hundred are used for
water-supply purposes. Certain others are controlled either by the Divi-
sion of Fisheries and Game for breeding purposes, or by cities and towns.
For fishing license, consult the Division, 20 Somerset St., Boston, or the
local game warden.
For salt-water fishing no license is required. At most harbors, boats
and equipment are available to parties for deep-sea fishing. During the
General Information xxvii
summer deep-sea fishing excursion boats leave T Wharf, Boston (foot of
State Street) daily. Surf-casting is increasing in popularity, and equip-
ment and instruction are available at many resorts.
TRANSPORTATION
JOSIAH QUINCY in his Journal thus describes a trip from Boston to
New York in 1773: 'I set out from Boston in the line of stages of an en-
terprising Yankee, Pease by name, considered a method of transportation
of wonderful expedition. The journey to New York took up a week. . . .
We reached our resting place for the night, if no accident intervened,
at 10 o'clock, and after a frugal supper, went to bed with a notice that
we should be called at three, which generally proved to be half past two,
and then, whether it snowed or rained, the traveler must rise and make
ready . . . and proceed on his way over bad roads, sometimes getting out
to help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arriving
in New York after a week's hard traveling, wondering at the ease, as well
as the expedition with which our journey was effected.'
At the time that Josiah made his memorable journey, little progress in
transportation methods had been made since the founding of the Plym-
outh Colony. Though primitive forms of wheeled vehicles were used as
early as 1650, the colonists usually traveled on horseback, and few at-
tempts were made by them to improve the condition of the roads. Action
taken at early town meetings to compel able-bodied men to work on the
roads or pay tax money to hire substitutes did not suffice to keep the
roads in good condition. Road-building in the early days was simply
not considered an important undertaking. The first settlements were
made on the coast, and the colonists maintained communication largely
by water because it was more convenient for them.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more traveling by land
was done in the winter than during any other season of the year. Sleighs
drawn by oxen or horses were used on small streams and frozen rivers.
By the year 1683 a few private coaches began to appear in the larger
towns, like Boston and New York. The earliest were of three types: one
was patterned after the heavy two-horse family carriage used in England;
the others were better adapted to conditions in America, and drawn by
one horse. Road conditions did not permit their use outside the limits of
the towns.
Some of the wealthier inhabitants in the larger towns began to use
sedan chairs, but public opinion in the Colony decidedly frowned on the
use of such vehicles. Governor Winthrop had received a sedan chair as a
gift, but he did not dare to use it.
During the second half of the eighteenth century, stagecoach service
was established between a few of the larger communities along the New
England coasts, such as Boston and Providence.
xxviii General Information
The first stagecoaches were crude in form. They usually had four
wooden benches without any backs, seating a maximum of nine pas-
sengers. Baggage was placed either on the passengers' knees or under
their legs. The coach had a top usually made of some heavy woven
material, with leather curtains at the sides and rear. It had no springs,
and the traveler who had not to hobble when he arrived at his destination
was very fortunate and very rare.
The end of the Revolutionary War marked the opening of a new era.
People began at last to recognize the need of adequate transportation
facilities. New industries established in different sections of the State,
and expanding municipalities demanded better facilities for moving
people and freight overland.
The question was, however, who was to build the roads? The War had
impoverished the local communities and the State. Neither was finan-
cially able to undertake the construction of roads which demanded an
outlay of millions of dollars. Out of these difficulties grew a new method
of private financing and control, whereby the roads were built by private
companies incorporated under acts passed by the State Legislature.
These roads, called turnpikes, were constructed by private capital, pri-
vately owned, and operated for the revenue derived from the collection
of tolls.
Both the rates of toll and the number of gates that could be erected
were fixed in the charters granted to the various corporations. The gates
were erected at intervals of about ten miles, and rates had to be displayed
on large signs. Certain persons were exempt from paying toll: Any person
going to or from his usual place of public worship; any person passing
with his horses, team, or cattle to or from his farm, in connection with
work to be performed there; any person passing on military duty. If the
toll-gatherer were not present to receive the toll, the gate had to be left
open and everybody was permitted to pass without paying.
The opening of the turnpikes was followed by the establishment of
regular stagecoach lines between all sections of Massachusetts. In 1801,
one hundred and sixteen coaches arrived and departed from Boston each
week. There were twenty-six lines to as many different places. The run-
ning time to New York was then about forty hours, and some lines re-
duced the time between cities by traveling all night instead of stopping
at a tavern.
The improved type of stagecoach used between 1800 and 1840 was
built of wood and sole leather, and was shaped somewhat like a football.
It had no springs, but was swung on several thick strips of leather riveted
together and called thoroughbraces; the average coach seated nine pas-
sengers and was usually drawn by four horses. In these new coaches
strips of leather were nailed lengthwise to provide backs for the benches.
Meanwhile the top of the coach had assumed a flat shape, and, with the
installation of railings, baggage could be carried on the roof. The ' Con-
cord Coach,' first built in Concord, New Hampshire, about 1828, was
considered the acme of luxury. So highly were these coaches regarded by
the traveling public that the railroads used them mounted on railway
trucks, as their first passenger coaches.
General Information xxix
In the winter time, the stagecoach lines often placed their vehicles on
sled bodies instead of on wheels, and thus maintained their service with
but a small decrease in speed. On occasions when the coach was too
heavy to be drawn through the snow, its use was temporarily abandoned
in favor of small, open, boxlike conveyances, with the travelers exposed to
every inclemency of the weather.
Distances were commonly reckoned in miles intervening between
taverns, and not, as one would expect, between towns. Taverns were
the important landmarks of any journey. There the weary passengers
alighted to seek refreshment and stretch their cramped limbs while
assembled townsfolk pressed about them and questioned them eagerly
about the news from the outside world.
About 1800 a new and radically different method of transportation
was devised. This was the canal. The stagecoach was not adapted to
freight traffic. A number of surveys were made, but nothing was done.
Despite popular enthusiasm, only one large canal, the Middlesex, com-
pleted in 1808 and extending from the Merrimack River near Lowell to
the Charles River in Boston, was built in Massachusetts, and its period
of usefulness was very short. The rapid railroad development all over
the State from 1835 to 1850 solved the problem.
In spite of advantages which were obvious to the fo resign ted, Massa-
chusetts was slower than some other sections of the country in accepting
the new method of transportation. Just as the first coaches to appear on
the streets were severely censured, so were the first railroads. Puritanism
was always suspicious of anything that made for physical comfort.
Many people were sincerely convinced that the use of these iron highways
would lower the prevailing standards of morality.
During the building of the Western Railroad from Worcester to
Springfield in 1837, so much adverse criticism was directed against this
project that the owners of the road sent a letter to all the churches of the
State asking that sermons be preached on the beneficial moral effect of
railroads.
The first three important New England railroads were all completed
in 1835 in this State. They were the Boston and Lowell, the Boston and
Providence, and the Boston and Worcester.
The reaction of the people to the new method of transportation is
found in the newspapers of the day. In the issue of the Maine Farmer of
July 1 8, 1835, a newspaper published in Worcester, there is the following
comment concerning the trip between Boston and Worcester: 'The usual
passage is performed in two and a half or three hours, including stops
A few years ago, 14 miles an hour would have been considered rapid
traveling So great are the advantages gained, that already one of the
principal dealers here has offered to lay a side track from the road to his
own storehouse ... A person in business here informed me that he left
Worcester one day at 12 o'clock, arrived in Boston, had one and a quarter
hours to transact his business, returned by the four o'clock car, and ar-
rived here at seven o'clock in the evening thus traveling 88 miles in
eight and three quarter hours Some of the passenger cars on this
xxx General Information
road are very elegant, and will hold from twenty to thirty persons. The
motion of the cars upon the road is so easy that I saw a little child walking
from seat to seat, as if in a parlor.'
Parallel to the development of steam railroads was that of a similar
type of intercity transportation. The first street railway in Massachusetts
was built in Boston in 1836. Horse-car systems were replaced about 1890
by the use of electricity as a motive power. Then came the automobile,
and an entirely new and revolutionary method of transportation slowly
began to undermine both the street railways and the railroads, culminat-
ing in the employment of busses both for local and long-distance passenger
and freight service.
An integral part of the success of the new method was the development
of an improved highway system throughout the State. After the failure
in 1850 of most of the turnpikes, the roads had reverted to the control
of the cities and towns in which they were located. In 1893 the Legisla-
ture established the Massachusetts Highway Commission as the result
of an investigation which disclosed that the roads of the State were in a
deplorable condition. The Commission was authorized to take over, lay
out, and maintain roads, and to unite the more important cities by
trunk lines of large traffic capacity. The first State appropriation,
amounting to $300,000, was made in 1894. By 1916 a total of $11,767,000
had been spent. Obviously some portion of this gathering cost had to
be turned back in some way to those who benefited. The old turnpike
toll in a different form is paid by motorists of today. In 1925 the State
Legislature established the Highway Fund, whereby the proceeds of
motor- vehicle fees and fines and of the tax on gasoline are pledged to the
construction and maintenance of both State and local highways. During
the past twenty-five years the cost of new road construction in Massa-
chusetts has been approximately $105,000,000.
Today five types of transportation, all highly developed, are open to
the traveler in Massachusetts. The most expeditious is by air. Josiah
Quincy, who thought a week was a remarkably short time for the journey
from Boston to New York, would hardly have believed that a century
and a half later the traveler would board a plane at Boston and make a
happy landing at Newark Airport on the edge of New York City in
eighty-four minutes.
Besides Boston, thirty-six cities of Massachusetts have airplane landing
facilities, and seaplane landings can be made at Boston, Gloucester,
Squantum, and New Bedford. In 1937 recognized commercial air service
was provided by two large airlines, one of which connects Boston, via
New York and via Albany, with all the other important air routes of the
country, and the other of which reaches the cities of upper New England.
During the summer seaplanes fly between Boston, Provincetown, Hyan-
nis, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard.
Next in speed, but with certain superior elements of practicability,
come the railroads. At present three major lines serve Massachusetts
and link it with the south and southwest, the west, and the north; and
five others operate within the State.
General Information xxxi
Next in speed to the railroad but with more flexibility and usually at
less cost, passenger and freight service are given by bus and truck lines,
which cover the State with a fine network. Three main operators, con-
trolled by three railroads, and several lesser lines handle the long-distance
traffic, while about one hundred and sixty bus lines are engaged in intra-
state traffic.
The development of motor transportation has seriously curtailed the
operation of street railways, especially interurban and suburban lines.
The street railway mileage has been steadily decreasing since 1920.
Although the Boston Elevated Railway, the largest line in the State,
which serves the thickly settled Greater Boston district, has been able
to retain much of its suburban traffic through its tunnel lines, it also
operates an increasingly large number of motor coaches.
The private automobile began to be a factor in transportation following
the World War. In 1920, 223,112 automobiles were registered in Massa-
chusetts; the number has steadily increased, and the average during the
past few years has been near the 900,000 mark. For the automobile
traveler, as well as for bus and trucking companies, the interior road-
way system offers easy access to all important points. Four United
States highways (20, 3, i to the north, and i to the south) radiate from
Boston, besides a large number of other main roads. Routes i, 3, 202, 5,
and 7 are the major north and south arteries of the State; number 20 is the
main western line. The total highway mileage in 1935 was 18,802, in-
cluding 2400 miles of State highways. Inland water transportation is
negligible except that through the Cape Cod Canal, which considerably
reduces the time and increases the safety of the passage between Boston
and New York. Forty-one steamship lines give foreign service out of the
port of Boston, and twenty lines give domestic or coastwise service. A
steamship line operates daily between Fall River and New York ; another
plies between New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket via
Woods Hole, and summer steamers run from New Bedford to New York
and from Boston to Province town. Passenger service by steamship be-
tween Boston and Portland was discontinued about 1935. The Common-
wealth has several smaller ports besides Boston, the most important in
volume of traffic being Fall River, followed by New Bedford, Beverly,
Salem, and Lynn, in this order. Boston has the largest drydock on the
continent, constructed by the Commonwealth and later sold to the
United States Government.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Events are arranged first by frequency of occurrence (A nnual,
Seasonal, Bi-Annual), and next by date within cities, which
are grouped together.
ANNUAL
(nfd = no fixed date)
Jan. last Sat. Boston
Jan. 20 to Feb. Boston
19 (i day)
Jan. nfd Springfield
Jan. i Stoughton
Feb. ist wk Boston
Feb. ist Sat. Boston
Feb. nfd Boston
Feb. last 2 wks Boston
Feb. 21-22 Boston
Feb. 22 Boston
Feb. 22 Boston
Feb. ist & last Melrose
week-ends
March last wk Boston
March 17 South Boston
March ist 2 wks Worcester
April 19
April last wk
Boston
Boston
Knights of Columbus Track Meet, Boston
Garden, North Station.
Chinese New Year.
Springfield Art League, exhibit at Museum
of Fine Arts.
Old Stoughton Musical Society Concert,
Town Hall.
N.E. Sportsmen's and Boat Show, Me-
chanics Bldg., Huntington Ave.
Boston Athletic Association Games, Bos-
ton Garden, North Station.
Boston Society of Independent Artists,
no-jury exhibit, Boston Art Club, 150
Newbury St.
Boston Society of Water Color Painters,
exhibit, Vose Galleries, 559 Boylston St.
Eastern Dog Club Show, Mechanics Bldg.,
Huntington Ave.
International Music Festival, Symphony
Hall, Huntington Ave.
'Handshake ceremony/ State House.
Winter Carnivals on Mt. Hood Reserva-
tion sponsored by National Ski Assn.
Spring Flower Show, Massachusetts
Horticultural Society, Mechanics Build-
ing, Huntington Ave.
Evacuation Day. Ceremonies and Parade.
Spring Flower Show, Worcester Horti-
cultural Society, Horticultural Hall, 30
Elm St.
Patriots' Day. Celebration and Mara-
thon.
Pension Fund Concert of Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra, Symphony Hall,
Huntington Ave.
Calendar of Events
XXXlll
April
April
May
nfd
5
Lexington
Provincetown
Boston
May
ist wk
Boston
May
ist Sun.
Boston
May
ist wk
Boston
May
May Day
Boston
May
last 3 wks
Boston
May
nfd
Boston
May
ist wk
Boston
May
ist Sat.
Cambridge
May
3 Sundays
Gloucester
May
nfd
Ipswich
May
3d wk
Lawrence
May
May
6th Sun.
after Easter
mid-May
New Bedford
Wellesley
May
June
nfd
(2 days)
ist Mon.
Westford
Boston
June
mid-June
Boston
June
nfd i wk
Boston
June
19
Brookline
June 16-26 Cambridge
June 2d Tues. Cambridge
Revolutionary Pageant on Common.
Portuguese festival in honor of Santo
Christo.
Opening of Boston Symphony ' Pops'
concerts continuing to July 3, at Sym-
phony Hall, Huntington Ave.
National Music Week celebrated by Bos-
ton Public Schools.
Annual Concert of Boston Music School
Settlement, Jordan Hall, Huntington
Ave.
Ford Hall Forum Banquet, Ford Hall,
Ashburton Place.
Labor groups and others celebrate with
music and speeches on Common.
'Paradise of Blossoms/ Arnold Arbore-
tum.
American Unitarian Associations' Con-
vention, 'May Meetings.'
Tournament sponsored by National Guild
of Piano Teachers, Steinert Hall,
Boylston St.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Open House.
Portuguese Festival of Penticost at
Church of Our Lady of Good Voyage.
Rights for 'Alewife run' sold to highest
bidder.
Three Day Carnival sponsored by Inter-
national Institute. Fourteen or more
national groups appear in folk costumes
to re-enact native pageantry.
Portuguese religious celebration.
Wellesley College celebrates ' Float Night'
on Lake Waban.
Nashoba Apple Blossom Festival.
Installation of Officers and Drum Parade
of Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company, on Common.
Peony and Rose Show, Horticultural
Hall, Massachusetts Ave.
Boston National Home Show, Mechanics
Building, Huntington Ave.
Opening of State Singles Tennis Champ-
ionship Tournament, Longwood Cricket
Club.
Harvard Commencement exercises, Har-
vard Yard, Cambridge; Class Day at
Harvard Stadium, Brighton.
Alumni Reunion at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
XXXIV
Catena;
ir or Events
June
16
Charlestown
Bunker Hill Banquet, Armory, Bunker
Hill St.
June
J 7
Charlestown
Bunker Hill Day Celebration and Parade.
June
28 to July
Concord
Choral Programs by students of Concord
2 3
Summer School of Music, usually in
Unitarian Church.
June
near 15
Northampton
Gaily decorated floats on Paradise Pond,
stage for Smith College Glee Club Con-
cert, Class Day.
July
ist Sat.
Bridge water
Portuguese celebrate Holy Ghost Festival.
and Sun.
July
near ist
Dennis
Opening of two-month season of summer
stock company at Cape Playhouse.
July
Near ist
Boston
Esplanade concerts by members of Boston
to end of
Symphony Orchestra.
month
July
4-18
Wellesley
Wellesley College Summer Institute for
Social Progress, Wellesley College.
July
nfd
Gloucester
Italian religious festival, Old Fort section.
July
nfd to
Gloucester
North Shore Art Association, exhibits,
middle of
East Gloucester Sq.
Sept.
July
nfd to
Gloucester
Gloucester Society of Artists, exhibit of
middle of
members' work, near Hawthorne Inn.
Sept.
July
4 wks
Northfield
Conference of Ministers and Missionaries,
Northfield Seminary.
July
nfd
Provincetown
Beachcombers' Ball, costume affair, by
artists, writers and others.
July
4 to Labor
Provincetown
Art exhibits at galleries of Provincetown
Day
Art Association.
July
nfd
Rockport
North Shore Art Association opens three
months' exhibitions concurrent with
two months' showings of Rockport Art
Association.
Aug.
Falmouth
Sessions at Marine Biological Laboratory,
Woods Hole.
Aug.
Falmouth
Sessions at Oceanographic Institute,
Woods Hole.
Aug.
Falmouth
Sessions at United States Bureau of
Fisheries, Woods Hole.
Aug.
nfd
Beverly
Sam-Sam Carnival, midway, flower show
and fireworks.
Aug.
nfd
Boston
Mid-summer exhibition of Massachusetts
* **&
Horticultural Society, Horticultural
Hall, Massachusetts Ave.
Aug.
nfd
Boston
Products of Children's Gardens Exhibi-
A\_*j.
tion, Horticultural Hall, Massachusetts
Ave.
Aug.
23
Brookline
Beginning National Championship
* *-*o
Doubles and Mixed Doubles Tennis
Tournament, Longwood Cricket Club.
Calendar of Events
xxxv
Aug.
nfd
Gloucester
Gloucester Fishermen's Memorial Day
Services at the site of the Gloucester
Fisherman's Memorial.
Aug.
2d wk
Marblehead
Annual Cruise, Eastern Yacht Club.
Aug.
near 15
Marblehead
Marblehead Race Week, yachting.
Aug.
nfd
Marshfield
Marshfield Fair.
Aug.
10-28
Mattapoisett
Special events in connection with cruise
of New York and Eastern Yacht Clubs
in harbor.
Aug.
nfd
Provincetown
Art Association Ball, costume affair,
Town Hall.
Aug.
near 15
Rockport
Cape Ann-North Shore Music Festival,
(2 evgs)
Fort Park.
Aug.
3d wk
Rockport
Artists' Ball, Rockport Art Association.
Aug.
near 15
Stockbridge
Berkshire Symphonic Festival, three con-
certs by Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Sept.
2d wk
Boston
Late summer exhibition of Massachusetts
Horticultural Society, Horticultural
Hall, Massachusetts Ave.
Sept.
3d wk
Brockton
Brockton Fair, held annually since 1784.
Sept.
Fri. & Sat.
Middlefield
Middlefield Fair.
before
Labor Day
Sept.
3d wk
Springfield
Eastern States Exposition.
Sept.
Labor Day
Topsfield
Topsfield Fair, Tread well Farm.
week-end
Oct.
ist wk
Worcester
Worcester Music Festival, four concerts
including one oratorio.
Nov.
ist wk
Worcester
Worcester Horticultural Society, Chrys-
Dec.
Dec.
Dec.
Dec.
Dec.
Dec.
24 Boston
near 24 Boston
or Jan. Boston
21
last wk
Plymouth
Provincetown
Christmas Worcester
Sun.
anthemum Show, Horticultural Hall,
30 Elm St.
Christmas Eve Carol Singing on Beacon
Hill (principally in Louisburg Sq.).
'Open House' in many homes.
Handel's ' Messiah ' by Handel and Haydn
Society, Symphony Hall, Huntington
Ave.
National Winter Sports Exposition, in-
door skiing, skating, reproductions of
famous winter resorts, Boston Garden,
North Station.
Forefathers' Day, observance of landing
of Pilgrim Fathers.
Portuguese celebrate with open house,
oldtime parties and dances.
Handel's 'Messiah' by Worcester Ora-
torio Society, Memorial Auditorium.
XXXVI
Calendar of Events
SEASONAL
May June
June Sept.
Boston
Brookline
July 6 Aug. 10 Cambridge
Sept. i June Boston
Oct. Nov.
Oct. Nov.
Oct. May
Oct. April
Boston
Throughout
State
Cambridge
Boston
College Crew Races, Saturday afternoons,
Charles River.
Federal Music Project concerts, Tuesday
and Thursday evenings, Brookline
Shell, Dean Rd.
Free concerts, Tuesdays at 8.15 P.M.,
Longy School, 44 Church St.
Fenway Court Concerts, Sundays, 1-4
P.M., Isabella Stewart-Gardner Mu-
seum, Fenway.
Professional football games.
College football games.
Free concerts, Tuesdays at 8.15 P.M.,
Longy School, 44 Church St.
Boston Public Library Lectures and Con-
certs, Sundays at 3 P.M. and 8 P.M., and
Thursdays at 8 P.M., Lecture Hall,
Boston Public Library.
Community Church of Boston, Sundays
at 10.30 A.M., Symphony Hall, Hunting-
ton Ave.
Ford Hall Forum, Sundays at 8 P.M., Ash-
burton PL
Ford Hall Youth Forum, Mondays at
8 P.M., Ashburton PL
Old South Forum, Sundays at 3 P.M., Old
South Meeting House, Washington St.
Symphony Concerts, Saturday and Mon-
day evenings and Tuesday and Friday
afternoons, Symphony Hall, Hunting-
ton Ave.
BI-ANNUAL
Jan. i
June
Boston
(odd
years)
nfd (even years)
nfd (even years)
Inauguration of Governor, State House.
Democratic Convention.
Republican Convention.
i. MASSACHUSETTS: THE
GENERAL BACKGROUND
CLUES TO ITS CHARACTER
TO THE seeker of a clue to the character of Massachusetts people, the
rubric of the east wind may be useful. Time and again a salty breeze has
blown through this most conservative of commonwealths. It wafted the
first rebels to Cape Cod, dying down soon after. It burst forth again to
blow steadily through most of the eighteenth century, when victories
were won not only for political freedom but for education and religious
toleration. During the period of Federalism it abated, but by the i84o's
the faint whisper which had fanned the cheeks of mill girls in Lowell,
mechanics in Boston, and scholars in Cambridge and Concord was roaring
in a gale that shook the rafters of the nation. It blew fitfully throughout
the later nineteenth century, dying to a flat calm at the beginning of the
twentieth. From about 1909 to 1927 it let loose a window-rattling blast
or two before subsiding again.
Many symbols have been devised to explain the Bay Stater. He has
been pictured as a kind of dormant volcano, the red-hot lava from one
eruption hardening into a crater which impedes the next; as a river, with
two main currents of transcendental metaphysics and catchpenny op-
portunism running side by side; as an asocial discord consisting mainly
of overtones and undertones; as a petrified backbone, 'that unblossom-
ing stalk.' To these may be added the cartoonist's Bluenose, the de-
bunker's Puritan, the Gentleman with a Green Bag, Aunt Harriet with
her Boston Transcript, and the late unlamented Little Waldo of the
spectacles and painfully corrugated brow.
That so many symbols have been created for the State hints at the
complexity of its people. Any almanac or book of facts can inform the
clue-seeker that the population is roughly three-fifths native, one-eighth
from other states, and a quarter foreign-born or of mixed foreign-born
and native parentage; that half the land area consists of farms, yet only a
tiny proportion of the four and one- third million inhabitants are farmers;
that about half the residents are church members, of whom three-fifths
are Catholics; that an Indian boldly figures on the State seal, but only
874 residents today report themselves as descended from Massachusetts'
first families. Stumbling on the fact that the State has more public
libraries than any other save New York, and more volumes per capita
Massachusetts: The General Background
than any other, the seeker cries Aha! only to learn a few moments
later that Ohio, with one-third fewer library books, has at least as many
library readers. Told that no non-native resident ever feels at home for
his first twenty-five years, the seeker is surprised to discover that more
than a third of the State's residents were born outside its borders. At
long last he is likely to emerge from the almanac with the information
that citizens of the State live a little longer than the dromedary, rather
less than the ostrich, and for a much shorter span than the fresh- water
mussel; or that from the State came three Presidents, seven Secretaries
of the Navy, a host of cabinet officers, and the man who first went over
Horseshoe Falls in a rubber ball.
Clearly a symbol is necessary. Let it be, then, the east wind, and let
the east wind blow to these shores in the early i6oo's, not companies of
large-minded and open-handed gentlemen-adventurers, but small, close-
knit, compactly organized groups. 'God sifted a whole nation that he
might send choice grain over into this wilderness,' wrote William Stough-
ton in 1668, and this 'sober and judicial statement,' as Calvin Coolidge
called it, indicates how the first-comers viewed the rest of the world in
terms of themselves. The peculiar combination of individualism and
conformity which still marks the State was given divine sanction by the
theology brought by the first inhabitants. Calvinism, which had deposed
heaven's hierarchy of saints, increased the prestige of the individual; but
the doctrine of Providence, which taught that God's gifts must not be
used for selfish ends, permitted the individual to act only as the group
decreed. Individuals outside the group were feared and combated. Since
conformity breeds non-conformists, rebels appeared and split off from
the main group they in turn to conform and to breed rebellion.
With the expulsion of Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and their
followers, the inhabitants of the Bay Colony proved, at least to them-
selves, their right to be winnowed grain. Succeeding Roger Williams at
Salem in 1636, however, came an even more radical minister, Hugh Peter.
Master Hugh, a member of the first Harvard Board of Overseers, while
still in London had advocated State employment relief, slum clearance,
and prison reform. In the New World he proposed the wholesale abolition
of English law and the substitution therefor of a new concise legal code
understandable by the common people. Perhaps it was as well for the
peace of mind of the colonists that he returned to England, where un-
fortunately he got himself beheaded for his plain speaking. But the east
wind blew; the Church of England was granted toleration, and a wider
freedom of worship slowly followed. Yet worshipers still sat in their
Clues to Its Character
pews strictly according to rank; democracy was highly limited; and a
large section of the people, including indentured servants, women, and
the propertyless, remained disenfranchised for more than a century.
The gale of pamphleteering, musketeering, committee organizing,
speech-making, and political scribbling which blew throughout the
eighteenth century ceased abruptly late in the lygo's. A lone voice rose
but was unheard, that of William Manning, Billerica farmer. 'I see,'
wrote this Jeffersonian radical, painfully forming his letters, ' almost the
first blood that was shed in Concord fite and scores of men dead, dying
and wounded in the Cause of Libberty I believed then and still be-
liev it is a good cause which we aught to defend to the very last.' The
editor of the Independent Chronicle of Boston, to whom Manning sent his
appeal, was jailed on the Federalist charge of 'seditious libel.' Meanwhile
Daniel Shays and his lieutenant Luke Day had armed their cohorts of
impoverished farmers near Worcester, and had been dispersed by a
militia subsidized by Boston merchants. A new cloud big with wind, the
rising of which farmers such as Manning and Shays could not foresee,
was bulking in the sky: the young 'mechanick' class of the industrial
towns.
Against the background of the demands of the skilled mechanics and
factory operatives for popular education, legislative reform, and political
representation which characterized the 1840*8, rose transcendentalism, a
kind of neo-puritanism which symbolized, on the plane of ideas, the
conflict going on in the real world between the Colonial system of small
self-sufficient industry and the new mode of factory production. On the
social field transcendentalism had a single watchword: harmony. Not
through hatred, collision, the war of class against class, transcendentalists
insisted, could come social adjustment, but only through the reconciling
of interests. In this belief the Unitarians founded Brook Farm and the
Universalists Hopedale. Josiah Warren was holding his 'parlor conver-
sations' and opening his 'time stores,' in which goods were paid for in
scrip representing labor-time. Brisbane, aided by Horace Greeley, was
moving his paper The Phalanx to Brook Farm and renaming it The
Harbinger. It was a time of optimism, of revolt against tradition and
convention, of faith in the infinite perfectibility of the human race
and the particular perfectibility of the Yankee. It was the glorious
adolescence of the most precocious of the states.
Throughout the three hundred years of the State's history the east
wind blew steadily among its women, producing such champions of
women's rights as Mary Lyon, Mary Livermore, Lucy Stone, Susan
Massachusetts: The General Background
Anthony, Lydia Maria Child, and Margaret Fuller. The first attempt
of women to exercise the right of free assembly was made by Anne
Hutchinson, who after being tried on a joint charge of sedition and
heresy was banished from Boston in 1638. Mary Dyer, twice banished,
returned to Boston in 1660 to test the legality of the law which sentenced
to death Quakers who visited the colony after being expelled, and was
publicly hanged. An early rebel against the discrimination suffered by
women in industry was Louisa Morton Green, who refused to do man's
work at a spindle in a Dedham woolen mill unless she was paid man's
wages. Working fourteen hours a day for two dollars a week and board,
she found time to study to be a school teacher, and later became active
in the anti-slavery cause, industrial reform, and woman suffrage. An
early organizer of the Red Cross, and its first president, was Clara
Barton. In medicine, religion, astronomy, physics, education, and the
arts, scores of Massachusetts women battled for their sex. Phillis Wheat-
ley was one of a long line of Negro women of Massachusetts who con-
tributed to the State's literature, art, and social movements.
Nowhere has the east wind blown so vigorously in the State as through
the schools. The spirit of the famous Act of 1647, which required each
township of fifty families to have a primary school and each township
of one hundred families to establish a grammar school, remained in force
for two hundred years. An early governor of the State, James Sullivan,
urged its citizens to throw off ' the trammels they had forged for us ' -
they, of course, being the English and called for an American system of
general public education, remarking, 'Where the mass of people are
ignorant, poor and miserable, there is no public opinion excepting what
is the offspring of fear.' As late as 1834 the Association of Farmers,
Mechanics, and Other Workingmen demanded at its convention a better
quality of instruction in the public schools. Not until Horace Mann
fought his bitter battle as Secretary of the Board of Education did the
State acquire a decent system of graded schools, with properly qualified,
trained, and compensated teachers.
For more than two centuries the State has been predominantly in-
dustrial and commercial. As early as 1699 Edward Ward complained:
* The Inhabitants seem very Religious, showing many outward and visible
signs of an inward and Spiritual Grace: But tho' they wear in their Faces
the Innocence of Doves, you will find them in their Dealings as Subtile
as Serpents. Interest is their Faith, Money their God, and Large Pos-
sessions the only Heaven they covet.' Although the nineteenth century,
with its wind of liberalism, proved these strictures one-sided, it is worth
Clues to Its Character
recalling that the Massachusetts Bay Company was a joint stock com-
pany organized solely for profit, that the State early became a centre
for the accumulation of capital employed in the South and West, and
that the first corporation as the term is understood today arose in the
State.
The essentially urban character of the people is emphasized by the
fact that every citizen literally lives 'in town,' as the 316 towns and 39
cities comprise the total area of the State. At the town meetings, still
held in ninety- three per cent of corporate communities in New England,
qualified voters elect their selectmen, the chairman or moderator, and
administrative officers. Under pressure from large and mixed popula-
tions, certain towns still unwilling to adopt representative city govern-
ment have devised the ' limited town meeting/ attended by elected
delegates chosen by vote according to precinct. Although the town
meeting is supposed to favor the perpetuation of what has been
called 'a sort of untitled squirarchy,' its champions maintain that this
method of government at least keeps public officials under constant
public scrutiny.
In spite of the 'town' character of its political life, there are farmers
in the State 163,219 of them. Regardless of their low birth rate and
in the face of no growth of the farming population in the United States
as a whole, they are increasing. The value of their holdings is slowly
going up, and most of them own their farms. Here the Massachusetts
tendency to smallness is manifest, as the farms are of few acres and well
distributed, just as the State Forests are more numerous and smaller
than in any other state.
When Boston was Tory, rural Massachusetts was Whig. When Boston
was Federalist, rural Massachusetts was Republican and radical. Even
today a rural resident of the State when not a Republican is a different
breed of Democrat. The hinterland's distrust of the political power of
the metropolis is apparent in the fact that the Boston police force is under
the control not of the mayor but of a commissioner appointed by the
Governor who, although he no longer need be certified as 'a Christian
worth 1000,' receives a lower salary than the Mayor of Boston. But
the farmer, with all his political difference, partakes of the racial ad-
mixture and the turn of mind of other residents of the State. He, too, is
very likely to be a trader, though he may do most of his trading with
'summer people' visiting the Berkshires or. the Cape.
Making a campaign speech for Lincoln at Philadelphia in 1860, Charles
Francis Adams of Massachusetts, facing what he termed ' the most con-
8 Massachusetts: The General Background
servative city in America/ half apologized for coming from 'a more
excitable community.' The State has always been full of stimulating
cross-winds. Life within its borders has never been conditioned by the
slow swing of the seasons, the easy tilling of an abundant earth. Ma-
rooned on a rocky soil, Massachusetts men had to be ingenious to survive,
and they early became skilled at devising shrewd 'notions,' commercial
and intellectual. Used to dealing with people, they learned to think in
small and individual terms rather than in broad geographical concepts.
The ideal supposed in Europe to be the tenet of all Americans, that be-
cause a thing is bigger it is somehow better, was never adopted by
Massachusetts.
Skillful of hand, sharp at a bargain, stubborn of mind, the Bay Stater
possesses a character which with its mixture of shrewdness and idealism
is often labeled hypocrisy. He exhibits a strong tendency to conform
provided he thinks conformity is his own idea. But let conformity be
thrust upon him, and the east wind again begins to thrum ! The blowing
of that wind brought to the State much early social legislation: the child
labor law in 1836, a law legalizing trade unions in 1842, the first State
board of health, the first minimum wage law for women and children,
and the first State tuberculosis sanatorium. Against general opposition,
first use was made of inoculation and of ether as an anesthetic within the
State.
Massachusetts is parochial, yet it is never long out of the main cur-
rents of American life. It is a State of tradition, but part of its tradition
is its history of revolt. Its people are fiercely individualistic, yet they
have fierce group loyalties. It is noted for conservatism, yet it exports
not only shoes and textiles but rebels to all corners of the earth. Its
sons and daughters live in small houses, worship in small churches,
work in small factories, produce small things, and vote in small political
units, yet time and again their largeness of spirit has burst beyond State
borders.
NATURAL SETTING
THE land of Massachusetts is a product of millions of years of wearing
down and building up; erosion by water, wind, and ice; lifting of plains
and seashore; filling in of valleys and troughs; eruption of volcanoes;
intrusions of lava; and the invasion of continental glaciers. Rocks that
must have had their origin thousands of feet below the surface may be
found cropping out all over the State. Formations that once were simple
and deposited on level planes are now complex and metamorphic rocks,
warped, truncated, and steeply dipped the results of physical and
chemical changes that could have taken place only under extreme heat
and at times of terrestrial cataclysms. Everywhere is the evidence that
once-lofty mountains have been worn down to plain-level, and that one-
time deep valleys have been filled in and raised to great heights.
At the beginning of known geologic time, three mountain masses of
granitic rock, alternating with sea channels, extended northeast across
the State. Strata were deposited on the shore of the Champlain Channel
west of the Hoosac Mountain, in the narrow gulf which ran from Gaspe
Point to Worcester, and in the trough from Rhode Island to the Bay of
Fundy. Then came the period of the making of the Appalachian Moun-
tains, of which the Hoosac Mountain and its continuation in the Green
Mountains represented the axis. As a result of this cataclysm, the older
Paleozoic elastics were metamorphized limestone into marble, muds
and gravels into slate and schist, and some of the sandstone into quart-
zite.
This raising of surface was followed by a renewed activity of the streams
in wearing down the land masses. By the carboniferous era, the whole
State had been reduced to a peneplain, and coal measures had been
deposited in the Rhode Island-Nova Scotia basin, and in the Gaspe-
Worcester trough.
In the next geologic era, the rock formations of the Connecticut
Valley region had slipped down, and the sea had inundated the latter up
to the northern boundary of the State. This twenty-mile-wide estuary
gradually filled from the higher levels with materials that later were to
become the sandstones, shales, and conglomerates of the valley. But
during the formation of these rocks there occurred great outflows of lava,
io Massachusetts: The General Background
which covered in some places the older weak formation and, forming the
traprock, resisted erosion so that they stand today as the prominent
elevations of the valley.
All New England in a later period was reduced by erosion to a base-
level, with the southeastern margin of Massachusetts submerged under
a shallow sea. But by the end of this geologic era, the whole of the Ap-
palachian region was uplifted, and Massachusetts was raised to a plateau
of moderate elevation. The rivers again appeared to repeat the process
of erosion, and the dissected topography of the uplands of the State is
a present indication of that activity.
In recent geologic time, the continental ice-sheet, originating in the
Laurentian region, crept down over New England, advancing as far
south as Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Long Island. During its
advance, it picked up rocks which became embedded in the ice, and with
these it scraped the soil and ground the mountains. It dammed rivers
and changed courses, formed lakes, and deeply altered the character of
the land. Upon its retreat, it left behind a terminal moraine which made
and shaped Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. Over the
whole land it spread glacial debris of soil, rocks, and boulders.
The complex geologic history of Massachusetts has resulted in a
widely varied landscape patchwork. Within a small area, the State
offers a great variety of terrain rugged coasts, barren sand beaches,
wild mountains, green valleys, and upland plateaus.
The State as a whole, however, may be divided into four physiographic
types: coastal lowlands, interior lowlands, dissected uplands, and residuals
of ancient mountains.
The coastal lowlands spread out at Narragansett Bay, cutting through
the middle of Rhode Island and across Massachusetts to the New Hamp-
shire line near the Merrimack River. Thus they take in the eastern
part of the State, including the Cape Cod peninsula and the islands off
the mainland. The whole coastline of Massachusetts, with its rugged
mountainous shore and deep indentations, is evidence of an early sub-
mergence and a later uplift of the area. The submerged river mouths,
the many good harbors and bays of Boston, Buzzard, and Narragansett,
are prominent features of the topography of Massachusetts. Farther
inland, the effect of the lowering of the coastal plain is found in the falls
and rapids of the rivers.
In the northeastern section of this division the bed-rock is near the
surface, and rock-outcrops are found in many places. It is this out-
cropping along the coast that gives the North Shore of Massachusetts
Natural Setting 1 1
its rugged and picturesque character. This division is also characterized
by the many shallow troughs and basins that are eroded on the softer
rocks and enclosed by the higher lands of resistant formations. The two
largest and most important of these depressions are the Boston and
Narragansett Basins.
The most outstanding feature of the division is, without doubt, the
peninsula of Cape Cod, which extends for sixty-five miles in the form
of an arm bent upward at the elbow. This owes its origin to the glacier,
and was refashioned by the sea and wind. Near here are also many
islands of the same origin Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the
sixteen Elizabeth islands. The glacial outwash plains of Martha's Vine-
yard and Nantucket are now broad grassy heaths. The southern side
of the delta-like plain of Cape Cod has been cut along high cliffs by the
surf and waves. Here the plain is covered with a growth of pitch pine
and scrub oak. Much of the * forearm' of the Cape is a bleak grassy
country, while the outer end is a wild and desolate region with long
yellow beaches. Lacking land fit for farming, the Cape and Islands have
reared a distinctive type of hardy men who 'farm ' the sea.
In the interior of Massachusetts, there are two lowlands or valleys:
the Connecticut River Valley and the Berkshire Valley. Each of these
is enclosed by uplands. The Connecticut River Valley is a lens-shaped
trench extending from the northern boundary of the State to Long
Island Sound, and is drained throughout its length by the Connecticut
River. Its weak red sandstones give its soil a distinctive ruddy tint.
The landscape throughout the valley is dominated by curved wooded
ridges that run longitudinally and owe their origin to intrusive trap-
lava which resisted erosion after the weaker layers were worn away.
Some of these traprock elevations rise, in the southern part, high above
the valley, ranging from 954 feet to 1628 feet in Mounts Holyoke, Tom,
Toby, and Grace.
The Connecticut Valley, with its rich soil and mild climate, has be-
come a productive agricultural country, as well as the seat of many
prosperous and populous cities and towns. Its broad open meadows,
reddish soil, and tobacco and onion fields present an aspect somewhat
unusual in New England.
The Berkshire Valley, shut off by the Berkshire plateau in the east
and the Taconic Mountains in the west, is an isolated world of its own.
The northern part of the valley is watered by streams that cut through
the Taconics to the Hudson, and the southern part by the headwaters
of the Housatonic. From Pittsfield northward it is only six miles wide;
12 Massachusetts: The General Background
but southward it opens up into the meadowlands of Great Barrington,
Lenox, and Sheffield. The valley with its green meadows is largely
devoted to dairy farming, and lives a peaceful, isolated life.
The uplands of Massachusetts are two divisions separated by the Con-
necticut River, but joining north of the valley to form the great central
upland of northern New England.
The western uplands, or, as they are commonly known, the Berk-
shire Hills, are a continuation of the Vermont Green Mountains, deeply
dissected and composed of a number of ranges and small valleys. The
Taconic Range, on the extreme border of the State, attains its highest
elevation in Mount . Greylock at 3535 feet, and decreases to the south,
where Mount Washington in the southeastern corner of Massachusetts
rises 2624 feet. The Hoosac Range, farther east, varies in altitude from
1 200 to 1600 feet, with Spruce Hill at 2588 feet as its highest point.
In the Vermont Green Mountains, only the valleys are cultivated and
inhabited; but here in Massachusetts, farms and hamlets are found on
the tops of the elevations, often at high altitudes. This is the country
of the famous 'hill towns' of the Berkshires, which attract many visitors
during the summer to enjoy the health-giving atmosphere and surround-
ing scenic beauty. The best known of these hill towns are Florida and
Peru. East of these ranges, the uplands slope southeasterly toward the
Connecticut River Valley, and are deeply cut by such streams as the
Deerfield, Westfield, and Farmington Rivers. The most picturesque of
these rivers is the Deerfield, which has an impressive canyon-like valley
through the plateau.
The eastern uplands of Worcester County rise gradually from the
Connecticut River Valley eastward to an elevation of noo feet in the
middle of the State, then slope down toward the coast. This plateau
is an extension of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which cross
Massachusetts into Connecticut. The outstanding features of the plateau
are the monadnocks of Mount Wachusett and Mount Watatic, solitary
remnants of once lofty mountains.
In general, the topography of Massachusetts is a varied patchwork
of physiographic features, the eroded remnants of once high mountains,
leveled to a plateau which has been deeply dissected by streams, and
scraped and reformed by glaciers. It affords, from its indented and rocky
coast in the east to its lofty hills in the extreme west, a cross-section of
the Appalachian Mountain system in its old age, when it was covered
by the continental ice-sheet. Moreover, this varied topography has had
a great influence upon the lives and occupations of its people the
Natural Setting 13
fishermen of the coast, the urban dwellers of eastern cities, the industrial
workers along the waterways of the mill towns, the suburban farmers,
the large-scale planters of the Connecticut Valley, and the Berkshire
natives, still somewhat isolated and provincial.
FLORA
Massachusetts lies in an area characterized by a forest cover composed
mainly of trees which shed their leaves yearly about the time of approach-
ing winter. Nevertheless, within the State are to be found well-defined
areas with quite different floristic makeup. These subdivisions might
be called: the Cape Cod region; the area of the sea margin extending
from Cape Cod to the New Hampshire line; the upland region of Central
Massachusetts; and the rugged area of the Berkshires in the western part
of the State. To the above might also be added the tops of the two high-
est points of land within the State, Mount Greylock and Mount Wa-
chusett.
In the morainal and outwash area characterizing Cape Cod is found a
floristic composition similar in certain respects to that of southern New
Jersey, since the Cape is really the only close approach to coastal plain
within the State.
Northward along the seacoast are many plants which do not stray far
from the influence of the sea. Exceptions range from the low-growing
beach plants to the marsh grasses, sedges, and rushes.
By far the largest area of the State is included in the upland region,
which is covered by a typical northern deciduous forest of maples, birches,
beeches, oaks, with a scattering of pine and an occasional stand of hem-
lock and larch. The forest floor is covered with a host of low-growing
herbs varying according to their particular habitat. In the low marshy
spots will be found many early spring plants such as skunk cabbage,
American white hellebore, marsh marigold, white and blue violets; while
on the drier slopes grow the false spikenard, Solomon's-seal, Canada
mayflower, wild oats, and various trilliums. From early spring to late
fall there is a constant parade of gorgeous color with such striking plants
as rhodora, azalea, mountain laurel, shad, dogwood, viburnum, aug-
mented by innumerable herbaceous types. The ferns add materially to
the charm of the landscape, from the low, delicate maidenhair spleenwort
to the large, graceful osmundas.
14 Massachusetts: The General Background
The Berkshires offer still another scenic and floristic type, much more
rugged than the last, and to some much more beautiful. The forest is
still of the deciduous type, but with a ground cover differing in certain
respects, for here will be found plants more often associated with cooler
regions of the North.
Space does not permit mention of the great variety of plants growing
within the State, but there 'are available at least three collections of
mounted plants. The herbarium of the New England Botanical Club,
located at the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University, has an excellent
representative collection. The herbarium of the Hadwen Botanical Club,
located at Clark University in Worcester, specializes in the flora of
Worcester County, which is of the general upland region; while that at
Amherst College in Amherst contains plants of the western region. All
three of these herbaria are available to the genuinely interested person.
Harvard University also maintains the famous Arnold Arboretum where
trees and shrubs are appropriately planted and labeled.
FAUNA
The effigy of a codfish hanging since 1784 in the assembly room of the
State House on Beacon Hill, and the fact that early settlers used beaver
skins as currency, testify to the firmness with which the existence of early
Massachusetts men was rooted in the abundance of wild life. Fishing
has maintained its economic importance through three centuries, but
when in 1636 William Pynchon removed to the wilderness of Springfield
to trade in beaver, he signified the beginning of a process of extinction
of Massachusetts fauna halted only in recent years.
The forests preserve today a much narrower range of wild life. The
gray wolf and the black bear have been extirpated. The lynx, once com-
mon, only accidentally finds its way into the mountainous portions of
the State at long intervals. The beaver is gone. The northern Virginia
deer, almost driven out during the nineteenth century, has appeared in
larger numbers in late years, but is scarce. Of the larger forms of wild
life, only the fox holds its own. In spite of hunters, the red fox, cross fox,
and black fox are still commonly seen.
Of the family Leporidae, the eastern varying hare or white rabbit is
occasionally seen. The northern cottontail or gray rabbit is more un-
common. The family Muridae is represented by many varieties of mice
Natural Setting 15
and rats and by the muskrat. The skunk is very common in open wood-
lands and fields. There are two varieties of weasels: the little brown
weasel, often seen in stony places, and the New York weasel, which is
not very common and usually lives in the woods. The large brown mink is
sometimes found along the coast. Shrews and moles exist in numbers,
and several varieties of bat are common. Especially large is the family
of Rodentia, whose members are the northern gray squirrel and the
southern red squirrel, the chipmunk or ground squirrel, the woodchuck
or groundhog, the rare Canadian flying squirrel, and the more common
southern flying squirrel. A most remarkable creature, the one member
in the State of the family Zapodidae, is the Hudson Bay jumping mouse.
Whales, though no longer numerous, are sometimes sighted off the
coast or washed up on the beach. Many varieties of snakes are found, as
are lizards, tortoises, and toads, frogs, and salamanders.
The seacoast and secluded streams and ponds inland are the home of
a large variety of water, marsh, and shore birds, including the diving
birds, the grebe, the puflin, guillemot, murre, razor-billed auk, little auk,
and loon. The great northern loon and the red- throated loon visit the
State during part of the year.
The gulls and terns are the best-known members of the long-winged
swimmers. In this same class are the skuas and jaegers, virtually sea-
hawks, with powerful wings, beaks, and claws.
The tube-nosed swimmers, having tubular nostrils and exceptional
powers of flight, are represented by fulmars, shearwaters, and petrels.
The four-toed, fully-webbed, Totipolmate order of water birds includes
gannets, cormorants, and man-o'-war birds.
Among the better-known river ducks are the black, red-legged black,
baldpate, and wood ducks. Rarer varieties include the mallard, European
widgeon, golden teal, blue-winged teal, and American pintail. The sea
ducks are the canvasback scaup, lesser scaup, golden-eye, bufflehead,
old-squaw, eider, and scoter ducks, as well as the rare ring-necked and
harlequin varieties. The Canada and brant goose visit the State during
part of the year, though not in great numbers, and the whistling swan is
a rare migrant.
Of Herodiones are the great blue heron, little blue heron, green heron,
black-crowned night heron, bittern, and the rare least bittern. A few
examples of the order Paludicolae still remain, chiefly the sora and yellow
rail ; gallimulea and coots are rare, and the crane is merely an accidental
visitor.
The shore birds are waders differing from herons and marsh birds in
1 6 Massachusetts: The General Background
having a body rounded or slightly depressed rather than narrow and
compressed. Body and bill are small, and these birds build no regular
nest.
The ground-dwelling, scratching game birds are found in diminishing
numbers. Probably the ring-necked pheasant is the most common.
Bobwhites, which flourished locally when introduced and protected, are
now uncommon. The ruffed and Witlow grouse and the heath hen re-
main in only a few places. The domestic dove or pigeon is found in the
larger cities, less commonly in rural districts; and the mourning dove is
frequently seen.
Among the birds of prey are such accidental visitors as the turkey
vulture and the eagle. The hawk family has many members in the
State, as has the owl family.
The cuckoos and the belted kingfisher comprise an order by themselves.
Another order includes the woodpeckers. The Macrochire family, with
peculiar wing development and frail feet, has for members the whip-
poor-will, nighthawk, chimney swift, ruby-throated hummingbird, and
the very rare goatsucker.
The Passeres, or perching birds, are the largest of all orders. Of the
songless perching birds the tyrant flycatcher is typical. The songbirds
of the Passeres are very numerous, including the larks and starlings, the
blue jay, bobolink, cowbird, blackbird, meadowlark, oriole, rusty black-
bird, and grackle. Of the family Fringillidae, the largest family of perch-
ing songbirds, the most numerous group is the sparrow with twenty
varieties.
Fish caught in the lakes and rivers and along the coast of Massachu-
setts include alewives, bass, rockbass, bluefish, bonito, butterfish, carp,
catfish, cod, cunners, cusk, eels, flounders, haddock, hake, halibut, her-
ring, kingfish, mackerel, Spanish mackerel, perch, pickerel, pollock,
salmon, scup, shad, skate, smelt, sturgeon, swordfish, tautog, torn-cod,
trout, turbot, and weakfish. The State is well known for its shellfish:
clams, lobsters, oysters, scallops, and shrimp.
By a not unusual human phenomenon, as wild life has declined, in-
terest in natural history has increased. In the mid-nineteenth century
Agassiz laid the basis for a pre-eminence in the field of biology retained
by Massachusetts institutions to this day. Agassiz 's pioneer work in
classification was carried on by his son, and his students became foremost
scientists Jeffries Wyman, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Burt G.
Wilder, among others. The biological museum at Harvard bears Agas-
siz's name, and he founded the Marine Biological Institute at Woods
Natural Setting 17
Hole. The splendid theoretical and practical work being done by the
Massachusetts Bureau of Fisheries, the biological departments of Massa-
chusetts universities, the Boston Society of Natural History, the State
Department of Conservation may be properly said to owe much to the
pioneer labors of the Swiss-American scientist.
Massachusetts philosophers and naturalists from Thoreau to Dallas
Lore Sharp have drawn much of their inspiration from native wild life.
Artists, too, have turned to birds and animals for their subjects, notably
Frank W. Benson, the well-known painter and etcher of waterfowl, whose
work may be seen in many private galleries and in the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, as well as Charles Heil, whose studies of birds in water-
colors are exceptional.
Of the organizations which foster the study of nature in a broader sense,
the Boston Society of Natural History, founded in 1830, itself the out-
growth of the Linnaean Society dating back to 1814, is evidence of the
early interest in the subject. The Audubon Society, the Field and Forest
Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Green Mountain Club, and
numerous bird clubs throughout the State serve to center the interest of
nature-lovers today.
FIRST AMERICANS
THE remote ancestors of the Indian tribes in Massachusetts were a
hunting and fishing people without agriculture. They had learned to
fashion several varieties of stone implements, but did not use either
tobacco, pottery, or axes. These early people were probably related to
the Beothuk red Indians of Newfoundland, and burial places belonging
to their culture have been unearthed at Marblehead and near Fresh
Pond in Cambridge. Excavations at Grassy Island in Berkley on the
Taunton River indicate the presence of an ancient village, established
by the depth of the salt peat overlay as being at least one thousand years
old.
The Indians encountered by the first Europeans in Massachusetts
belonged to the Algonquin linguistic stock, and occupied the large area
ranging from the Maritime Provinces of Canada to the Gulf of Florida
and as far west as the Mississippi. The old Algonquins of Massachusetts
came from the west, gradually pushing the pre-Algonquin inhabitants
to the coast, where they were finally assimilated or wiped out. Favorite
camping places were the areas near the falls of the larger rivers, which
were later picked by the white men as sites for dams and factories.
Roger Williams has preserved the legend that a crow brought a grain
of corn in one ear and a bean in the other from the field of the great god
Kauntantouwit in the southwest. This fable assumes historical im-
portance in view of the fact that it was precisely the old Algonquins,
coming from the west and south, who introduced agriculture. They also
brought with them the art of pottery-making, although its forms were
restricted to tobacco pipes and cooking vessels. Many of the vessels had
pointed bases, made to be supported by hearthstones and not suspended
over the fire. Ornamentation consisted largely of lines and dots arranged
in zones or other patterns, one of the most persistent of which was a
zigzag design commonly found in pottery from the mound groups of the
Ohio region.
Like their white successors, the earliest Massachusetts Indians got
much of their food from the sea. Some of the tribes made desultory visits
to the salt water; others lived permanently near the shore. Clams,
quahogs, scallops, and oysters formed an important addition to their
First Americans 19
food supply, and the shells heaped up in the course of many years have
aided in preserving fragments of their pottery and the more perishable
implements used in their rude arts. An invasion of the Iroquois separated
the old Algonquin and later Algonquin cultures. Shell beads belong almost
invariably to the later Algonquin period. Pottery vessels shaped in globu-
lar form for suspension over the fire and terra cotta pipes of the later
Algonquins show Iroquois influence. The purple quahog shell wam-
pum and the white wampum were borrowed from the Dutch of Long
Island.
The occasional presence in early Indian graves of porcelain and glass
beads and of copper and brass ornaments emphasizes the fact that early
contact of Europeans with Massachusetts Indians did not begin at
Plymouth. In the year 1578, for example, no fewer than four hundred
European vessels were engaged in whaling and fishing along the New
England coast, and most of these traded with the Indians. The ' Skeleton
in Armor' found at Fall River in 1831 wore a brass breastplate about
fourteen inches long, and around his lower torso was a belt of brass tubes
closed together lengthwise. The fact that similar tubes arranged in like
manner had been found in Denmark made Longfellow believe that the
grave was that of a Norseman, and in this belief he wrote his poem. Later
examination showed that the skeleton was that of an Indian not ante-
dating 1650, and as no Indian could have manufactured brass, the
* armor ' was probably hammered from a brass kettle received in trade.
On Dighton Rock, a sandstone boulder, eleven feet high, on Assonet
Neck in Berkley, appear pecked incisions of questionable origin, some ap-
parently alphabetical and some pictorial. Certain authorities have read
among them a Latin record of a visit of the Portuguese Miguel Cortereal
some years after he and his ship disappeared from history on the rocky
coast of Newfoundland in 1502, supporting their case by recalling a local
Indian legend that strange men in a wooden house came up the river and
fought with the natives.
However vague pre-Colonial history of the Indians must remain, we
know that during the early Colonial period seven tribes inhabited
Massachusetts: the Massachusetts, the Wampanoags, the Nausets, the
Pennacooks, the Nipmucks, the Pocumtucs, and the Mohicans.
The Massachusetts dominated the territory enclosed in a circle drawn
through Boston and Charlestown harbors, Maiden, Nantucket, Hingham,
Weymouth, Braintree, and Dorchester. Before the arrival of the first
settlers the Massachusetts had reached the height of their importance.
The plague of 1616-17 wrecked their power, and by 1631 they numbered
2O Massachusetts: The General Background
only about five hundred. Ultimately they were gathered into the villages
of the Christianized or Praying Indians almost the last act of a tragic
drama.
The Wampanoags held sovereignty over the whole tract from Cape
Cod to Massachusetts Bay, with some control over the petty tribes of
the interior.
The Nausets, a friendly tribe who accepted the white man as a brother,
occupied Cape Cod and the adjacent islands under the dominion of the
Wampanoags. Most of them became Christianized before King Philip's
War. Nauset Light at Truro commemorates these gentle red men.
The Pennacooks, allied with the quarrelsome Abanaki of Maine who
continually raided the lands of the Massachusetts, originally inhabited
northern Massachusetts. At the close of King Philip's War in 1676 the
remnant of the Pennacooks migrated to Canada.
The Nipmucks roamed the eastern interior of Massachusetts from
Boston on the east to Bennington, Vermont, on the west. Concord, New
Hampshire, on the north, and Connecticut and Rhode Island on the
south bounded their territory, which centered in Worcester County.
The Pocumtucs, whose chief village was near the present town of
Deerfield, dominated all the Indians of the Connecticut Valley in Massa-
chusetts.
Like the Massachusetts, the Mohicans, popularly memorialized in
Cooper's novel, were decimated by the plague of 1616-17. This tribe
had originally ranged from New York into the upper portions of the
Housa tonic Valley. In 1664 their Council moved its fire from Albany to
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. From Stockbridge some of the Mohicans
migrated to the Susquehanna River, but the remnants of this picturesque
people were gathered into a mission at Stockbridge a forlorn hope for
perpetuation.
All these Indians were typical long-headed Algonquins, with smooth
skins, swarthy complexions, black hair and eyes, and high foreheads.
They had broad shoulders and brawny arms, but lean bellies, flat knees,
and small hands and feet. Their skins were redder and less coppery than
those of their western relations.
The men wore in winter a costume later adopted by white hunters
leggings, dressed buckskin shirts, breech clouts and moccasins, and
sometimes fur caps. In summer the breech clouts and moccasins formed
a complete costume. Women wore leggings and long gowns. Garments
were decorated with fringes and sometimes painted with simple designs.
Both sexes painted their faces. Tattooing was confined to the cheeks,
First Americans 21
upon which totemic figures were permanently placed by the insertion of
black pigment beneath the surface of the skin. The men plucked their
beards, and hair was dressed in various styles according to the sex, age,
and station of the individual.
The primary weapon was the wooden bow strung with moose sinew,
and wooden arrows tipped with stone or bone and carried in quivers of
otter skin. In warfare the usual offensive weapon was the tomahawk,
with bark shields serving to some extent for defense.
Communities were built on hunting and agriculture. The members of
the tribes or communities were the recognized proprietors of certain
hunting, fishing, and agricultural lands, held as a rule in common. The
winter villages were usually situated in warm, thickly wooded valleys
near a lake or river. The early spring was spent on the fishing grounds,
and when the planting season arrived the tribe moved to its summer
fields. Each family had its garden of corn, beans, pumpkins, squash,
artichokes, and tobacco, cultivated with hoes of stone, wood, or clam
shells and fertilized by herring and shad. Wild berries, roots, and nuts
furnished other sources of food, supplemented by fish and by the meat of
the larger mammals preserved by cutting in strips and smoke-drying.
The Indians divided themselves very strictly into three social classes:
those of royal blood, including the sachems, shamans, elders of the council,
and subordinate chiefs; commoners or freemen with rights to the tribal
lands; and 'outsiders' of alien blood, usually captives, with no tribal
rights. Descent was commonly reckoned through the female line, and the
office of head chief or sachem was hereditary. If tribes were large and
important they might be governed by several under-chiefs, and each
tribe had a council of elders of noble blood. The shamans or pow-wows
possessed great influence. They were partly seers, partly wizards, and
partly physicians. When, as occasionally happened, the offices of sachem
and shaman were combined, the person vested with this dual authority
held tremendous power.
Polygamy was fairly common, and divorce was approved and frequent,
the right being exercised as freely by women as by men. Justice was a
simple matter. If any tribesman was wronged, all related to him were
bound to see that proper restitution was made. Murder was avenged or
suitably punished by the kinsmen of the victim.
The Algonquins believed that Manitou, a supernatural power, was
inherent in all things. An evil power personified as Mattand was feared
and placated. Elaborate communal ceremonies celebrated the harvest,
and rituals concerned with sun, rainfall, and a plenitude of game were
22 Massachusetts: The General Background
performed religiously. In all these ceremonies, as in secular matters,
smoking had definite significance.
On a day in March, 1621, a flurry was created among the citizens of
Plymouth when a strange Indian suddenly appeared, quite alone, in the
middle of Leyden Street. He caused even greater excitement when, with
an air of grave friendliness, he spoke two words in English: 'Welcome,
Englishmen!' The stranger was Saihoset, a member of one of Massa-
chusetts' first families come to offer aid to these white aliens. He had
learned a few words of English from casual fishermen at Monhegan, and
he spoke them with unconscious drama, unaware that they spelled the
doom of his race. .
When the Pilgrims first arrived in the new country, they settled on
lands belonging to Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, whose favorite
residence was at Pokanoket (Mount Hope, Bristol, Rhode Island), a spot
which was to witness the death not only of his son Philip but of the hopes
of his race. On April i, 1621, on Strawberry Hill, Plymouth, Massasoit
in solemn council ratified the first treaty between Indian and white man.
The treaty, effected by the good offices of Samoset, was faithfully sup-
ported by Massasoit, and lasted the fifty-four years of his lifetime.
Massasoit was never converted to Christianity, but without his generous
help the settlement of Massachusetts would have been infinitely more
difficult and perhaps impossible.
Another Indian who gave the Pilgrims much practical aid in their
adjustment to the conditions of life in a wild country among savage
peoples was Squanto, who served as an interpreter. He was one of five
Indians carried to London in 1605 by Captain George Weymouth. In
1614 he was brought back to Cape Cod by John Smith, but in the same
year he again visited England this time with Captain Thomas Dernier.
Returning to America in 1619, he fell in with the Pilgrims at Plymouth.
He is supposed to have been the only Indian to escape the Patuxet
(Plymouth) plague.
Not all tribes, of course, were friendly to the first settlers. Before the
arrival of the Pilgrims the savage Pequot (destroyer) Indians had fought
their way through from the west and settled in what is now eastern Con-
necticut. In 1636 Boston joined the towns of Hartford, Wethersfield,
and Windsor in a concerted attack against the Pequots with the aid of
the Mohicans. The remnants of the tribe were sold to the Bermudans,
who purchased no bargain, as the Indians proved to be 'sullen and
treacherous.' They were poor laborers in the fields, but as whalers and
sailors they developed considerable skill and daring.
First Americans 23
One of the most determined foes of the white settlers was King Philip,
who believed that the continued encroachment of the white men must
end in the extermination of the red men, and that the colonists were
consciously working toward this end. The gradual extension of the
colonists for two generations brought about a condition in which Indian
and white land claims conflicted. Roger Williams had once in a letter to
Governor Bradford hotly protested the validity of the land titles of the
colonists. 'Why lay such stress,' he demanded, 'upon your patent from
King James? Tis but idle parchment. James has no more right to give
away or sell Massasoit's lands and cut and carve his country than Mas-
sasoit has to sell King James' kingdom or to send Indians to colonize
Warwickshire.' In addition, the colonists had gained presumption with
power, and insisted on administering justice to everybody. To the
Indians this not only seemed an unwarrantable interference with their
rights, but also made it difficult, if not impossible, for them to obtain fair
'hearings in the English courts.
Along with his belief that the Indian must drive out the intruder or be
exterminated, Philip had perhaps a personal reason for his hatred of the
whites a belief that his brother Wamsutta had been murdered. At all
events, he prepared for war secretly and with intelligence. Shortly before
the outbreak of hostilities in 1675 the Governor of Massachusetts sent
an ambassador to Philip asking him to pledge peace. Philip returned a
proud but not undiplomatic reply: 'Your governor is but a subject of
King Charles of England. I shall not treat with a subject. I shall treat
of peace only with the King, my brother. When he comes, I am ready.'
Philip undoubtedly intended a simultaneous movement of all the
tribes on the North Atlantic seaboard against the white men. An un-
expected event, however, precipitated war a year sooner than he had
intended and destroyed his plans: the treachery of Sassamon.
The latter, one of Philip's tribe, had been converted to Christianity,
had lived at Harvard College for a short time, and was a school teacher
in the Praying Town of Natick. He became Philip's secretary, and it
was he who imparted news of Philip's plans to the Governor at Plymouth.
Philip learned of the treachery, and Sassamon's body was found in
Assawompsett Pond in Middleborough. The implication was obvious,
and the English authorities promptly apprehended three of Philip's
tribesmen and brought them to trial.
In order to give a semblance of fairness to the trial, six Indians were
included on the jury. The concurrence of the six in a verdict of guilty
could reasonably be counted on. But the court took no chances. Before
24 Massachusetts: The General Background
the six Indians were empaneled, a legal jury of twelve good (white) men
and true had been drawn. In case of a 'bolt' by the Indians, a legal
conviction was still assured. The Indians were executed in June, 1675,
creating the overt act which forced Philip's hand. Before this event no
hostilities had been undertaken by Philip or his warriors against the
whites: now he immediately attacked Swansea.
Town after town fell before him. While the English forces were march-
ing in one direction, the Indians were burning and laying waste in an-
other. The Narragansetts had not yet heartily engaged in the campaign,
though there is no doubt that they stood pledged to it. In order to secure
their strong support, Philip went to their country. This tactical necessity,
forced upon him by the precipitation of war, turned out to be fatal. In
December an army of fifteen hundred English concentrated upon this
region where Philip was known to be. The whole Narragansett Nation
was trapped in an immense swamp at South Kingston, Rhode Island, and
Philip was overwhelmingly defeated.
This was the turning-point of the war. When success in Massachusetts
no longer attended Philip's cause, his southern allies began to desert him.
He was driven from place to place, losing more and more of his warriors.
His wife and son were captured and sold into slavery; his heart and cour-
age were broken. He took shelter at last in his ancient seat at Pokanoket,
but even here there was no longer any refuge. He was driven out and
slain by one of his own men, in vengeance, according to the English report,
for the life of a brother who had been shot by Philip.
A few miles south of Kingston, a stone shaft by the railroad track
marks the grave of the Narragansett Nation. The barrel of the gun with
which Philip was killed is now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, and its lock is
in the keeping of the Massachusetts Historical Society of Boston.
With the death of King Philip the power of the tribes of southern New
England was completely destroyed. The war dragged on for two years
more, until 1678. After Philip's rout, however, there was never any
doubt as to its outcome. During its course the Wampanoags and their
lesser allies, as well as the Narragansetts, were all but wiped out. The
few survivors fled northward or westward beyond the Hudson.
The extermination of the red men was not accomplished without dread-
ful casualties among the English. One in every ten of the five thousand
Englishmen of military age in the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies
is estimated to have been killed or captured. It was forty years before
the devastated frontiers were reoccupied.
Not only among the Indians were there idealists who, like Samoset
First Americans 25
and Massasoit, believed that there could be brotherhood between red
men and white. Such idealists existed also among the colonists. One of
the most active of these was John Eliot, the 'Apostle to the Indians.'
Eliot was a sincere evangelist and a man of tremendous industry. He
mastered the Algonquin language and translated the Bible into this
tongue so that his converts might read it for themselves. He believed
that before the Indians could be converted they must first be civilized,
and in that belief the famous Praying Towns were conceived.
In founding these centers of Christian education, Eliot associated with
himself Gookin, Mayhew, and other men of intelligence and altruism.
They established some thirty Praying Towns with schools and a teacher
in each. The first was at Natick in 1651. A set of by-laws was formulated
and an Indian named Waban was appointed justice of the peace. In the
following year another Praying Town was established at Concord, and
soon there were others sprinkled over the territory from Cape Cod to
Narragansett Bay. Eliot traveled from one to another, preaching, teach-
ing, and supervising. At first he was violently opposed by the local chiefs
and priests, who feared the undermining of their power, but behind
Eliot's gospel teachings loomed the heavy shadow of the English au-
thorities, and gradually opposition was emptied of force. By 1674 there
were eleven hundred converts in Massachusetts five hundred in
Plymouth and the rest in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Many of
these conversions were no doubt genuine, but whether they were due
more to religious conviction than to friendship for the white teachers is
problematical.
Eliot's plan embraced the possibility of higher education for his
proteges. The first brick building at Harvard College was erected for
Indian students, but they did not make use of it in numbers sufficient to
justify the building, and it was transformed into a printing shop. One
Indian, Caleb Cheeshahteamuck, was graduated from Harvard in the
class of 1665; at least three others studied at the college but did not
graduate.
The Indians on Cape Cod and the adjacent islands had been in large
part Christianized before the outbreak of King Philip's War. It is
probable that some of them left the Praying Towns to join Philip, as did
many from the Praying Towns around Boston.
It was the undeserved fate of the Christian Indians to be treated by
Philip as allies of the English and to be suspected by the English of
treacherous commerce with Philip. One of the blacker pages in the
history of the relations of the colonists and the Indians is the chronicle
26 Massachusetts : The General Background
of English treatment of the Christianized Naticks. Without overt act
on the part of the latter to justify any suspicion of their loyalty, they
were ordered to emigrate in the dead of winter. The Praying Town at
Wamesit (Tewksbury) was broken up, and its inhabitants driven out to
Long Island and Deer Island. The Indians suffered terribly in their con-
finement at such a season to an area where they had neither shelter nor
stores. After several weeks the General Court, yielding to adverse public
opinion, gave permission for their removal from the islands providing,
however, that this must be done without expense to the colony. Those
who had survived were taken to Cambridge, where a humane citizen,
Thomas Oliver, gave them refuge on his lands along the Charles River
until spring, when most of them returned to the ruins of their homes.
Ill, weakened by exposure and hunger, they were too feeble to maintain
many towns, and the remoter ones were abandoned.
This setback dealt a death blow to any further attempts to Christianize
the Indians. The ' Apostle to the Indians ' strove in vain. Six years after
the conclusion of King Philip's War, only four Praying Towns remained
out of some thirty thriving centers which John Eliot had established.
His life work had been undone.
The Indians at Natick, who at one time held all the town offices, were
gradually replaced by white men, and their land titles extinguished. At
various times and places Indian reservations were established. In 1861
there were reservations at Chappequiddick, Christiantown, Gay Head,
Herring Pond, Natick, and Ponkapog. But this restricted life was not
favorable to the red man. Mentally and physically, the Indians de-
generated with the taking on of the white men's vices.
Today there are only two places in Massachusetts where the Indians
have been able to preserve a semblance of their ethnic identity: Mashpee
and Gay Head. The former town, incorporated in 1871, comprises
Mashpee, South Mashpee, and a part of Wakeby. It has a public library,
a town hall, and two churches; one of the latter, the Indian Mission
Church, founded in 1684, is of interest to visitors. But the real sight in
Mashpee is the cranberry bogs, the principal support of the town, which
belong mostly to the white non-residents who employ the Indians as
pickers. In the season, bending their backs over the bog, can be seen the
half-breed descendants of the proud and friendly savages who once
roamed the windswept dunes of Cape Cod.
On the farthest tip of Martha's Vineyard, across Menemsha Pond,
rises a peninsula that ends in cliffs composed of strata of incredibly varie-
gated clays red, blue, orange, tan, and black alternating with a
HISTORICAL LANDMARKS
A GOOD many landmarks in the history of Massachusetts
are still standing. The pictures of some of these landmarks
are reproduced here: the house of John Alden, who was one
of the heroes of Longfellow's poem, 'Miles Standish'; the
Paul Revere House; the Old South Meeting-House; the Old
State House, which saw the Boston Massacre take place be-
neath the stately carvings of the Lion and the Unicorn which
adorn its roof".
Also included among the pictures are two ships, for the sea
has always been important in the making of Massachusetts.
First is the ' Arbella ' a reconstruction which floats on
the waters of the Salem Harbor not far from the spot where
the original vessel dropped anchor in 1630. And there is the
frigate l Constitution,' famous for its victories in the War of
1812, and the subject of Holmes's poem, 'Old Ironsides.'
THE ARBELLA, SALEM
JOHN ALDEN HOUSE, DUXBURY
PAUL REVERE HOUSE, BOSTON
COMMODORE'S QUARTERS, u.s. FRIGATE CONSTITU
nCETHAT
' HED THE TLOOD,
fP. FLA
BRET r <LED r
FARMER'
FIRED THE SHOT HEAKD
ROUND Tiff: WORLD.
THE MINUTEMAN STATUE, CONCORD
I
OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE, BOSTON
LEYDEN ST., PLYMOUTH, FIRST STREET IN MASSACHUSETTS
OLD STATE HOUSE, BOSTON
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS HOUSE, UiNCY
First Americans 27
dazzling white sandy substance. This is Gay Head. From these bright
clays the Indians, who have kept their racial stock more nearly pure here
than elsewhere, fashion small vases and jars which preserve the designs
and patterns inherited from remote ancestors. The sale of these souvenirs
by silent Indian children waiting by the roadside for the hordes of sum-
mer tourists is the last reminder of a primitive culture that could not
survive the rape of its free forests and wide lands.
ENOUGH OF ITS HISTORY
TO EXPLAIN ITS PEOPLE
MASSACHUSETTS (mas-sa-chu'sets) 190 miles long, 60 to 100 miles broad,
8266 square miles in area; bounded northerly by New Hampshire and Vermont,
westerly by New York, southerly by Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the At-
lantic, easterly by Massachusetts Bay and the Atlantic, lies between the
parallels of 41 10' and 42 53' north latitude and between 69 57' and 73
30' west latitude. Its name is a combination of three Algonquin words mean-
ing 'near the great mountain': adchu (mountain or hill), set (location near or in
the vicinity of), massu (great).
MASSACHUSETTS' history begins not with the landing of the Pilgrims
at Plymouth but when Martin Luther dramatically nailed his ninety-five
theses to the church door at Wittenberg. The Protestant Reformation
from which the religious dissension of the reign of Henry VIII may be
traced drove Pilgrim and Puritan to Massachusetts in quest of theological
freedom for themselves if not for other religious and social dissenters.
Before religious nonconformists became the first permanent settlers, the
coast of the Bay Colony had been well explored by hardy adventurers.
Leif, son of Eric the Red, may have touched Massachusetts with his
Norsemen in the year 1000; it is probable, too, that French and Spanish
fishermen cast their nets on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland in the
middle of the fifteenth century and that many of them touched Cape Cod,
lured by the fish from which the sickle-shaped promontory takes its name.
The first voyage definitely recorded was that of John Cabot, Venetian
navigator, whose exploration in 1497 and 1498 gave England her claim
to the region of North America. During the next century scattered ex-
plorers slowly added to Europe's meager knowledge of the region: John
Rut, a shipmaster of the English Royal Navy, Verrazzano under the
fleur de Us, Gomez under the flag of Spain, all sought a route to the fabled
riches of Zipangu and Cathay. Unsung fishermen, too, contented with the
less romantic cod of Massachusetts' shores, looked for shelter from the
North Atlantic's storms in the snug harbors of the coast.
Commercial enterprise and the search for exotic Eastern treasure
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 29
motivated these early voyages, and similar motives were responsible for
the first attempts to settle Massachusetts. The patent for the coloniza-
tion of southern New England which Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained
from Elizabeth in 1578, recognizing that permanent population must
precede trade, authorized the planting of an English community beyond
the seas. Sir Humphrey unfortunately died before this was accomplished;
returning from his first exploratory voyage, his frail ten- ton vessel was
^swamped by the huge waves of an Atlantic storm, and his seamen on
an accompanying ship had a last glimpse of their commander standing
on the af terdeck, waving a book and shouting, ' We are as near to heaven
by sea as by land.' Gilbert's patent descended to his half brother, Sir
Walter Raleigh, but England, bent on harrying Spain, was too much
concerned with the success of her marauding sea dogs to be interested in
colony planting. A few attempts at settlement followed, but they were
made in violation of the Raleigh patent. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold
explored Massachusetts Bay, christened Cape Cod, built a fort on the
island of Cuttyhunk in Buzzard's Bay, and finally returned to England
with his ships loaded with sassafras.
Raleigh's waning power ended with the death of Elizabeth, and James
I, the new Stuart monarch, assigned the land to a group of Plymouth
merchants and adventurers known as the Plymouth Company. Com-
merce and profits stimulated Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir John Popham,
and the other gentlemen who managed the destinies of this new company.
Learning of the richness of the New England coast from George Wey-
mouth, a private explorer, the Plymouth Company attempted to found
the colony of Sagadahoc on the Kennebec River in what is now Maine
(1607), at the time that the first permanent English colony was being
established in Virginia. This venture failed completely and the company
lapsed into inactivity, although lands were granted to a number of small
fishing and trading colonies that sprang up along the Massachusetts coast
in the early seventeenth century, inspired by John Smith's glowing ac-
counts of the region. One visionary explorer, licensed by the company,
devoted a season to gold-digging on Martha's Vineyard, but only ' spent
his victuall and returned with nothing.'
The lust for trade failed to entice a population sufficient to make
Massachusetts important, but where desire for gain failed the Reforma-
tion succeeded. Introduced to England by the oft- wedded Henry VIII,
it had barely taken root when his successor, Mary, returned the land to
Catholicism and sent Protestant leaders scurrying for their lives. Eliza-
beth attempted a compromise settlement that satisfied neither extreme
30 Massachusetts: The General Background
Catholics nor extreme Protestants, although the compromise laid the
basis for the Church of England. The Elizabethan settlement was par-
ticularly distasteful to Protestants who had fled from England during
the reign of 'Bloody Mary,' and had imbibed the radical teaching of
Luther and Calvin while sojourning on the Continent. It was from this
group that Massachusetts received its first wave of settlement.
First among these enthusiastic Protestants to reach the New World
were the Separatists or Pilgrims. They believed each congregation should'
be entirely independent of all other congregations, and the compromise
establishing the Church of England was particularly unacceptable to
them. A small band of these people had been driven by the uncongenial
atmosphere of their native Scrooby to seek a haven for their beliefs in
Holland early in the seventeenth century, but the industrialism of
Ley den displeased sons of English soil, who determined to turn instead
to the New World. After securing support from London financiers they
obtained a grant (1619) to settle on the James River in Virginia, and it
was for that point that the 'Mayflower' set sail in 1620. Storms drove
them off their course, however, and it was in Provincetown harbor that
the small ship cast anchor on a bleak November day. The appearance of
the countryside disturbed them: 'For sumer being done, all things stand
upon them with a weatherbeaten face; and ye whole countrie, full of
woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage heiw.' Disheartened
at the prospects, the Pilgrims spent some time looking for more hospitable
surroundings. Plymouth harbor was finally selected, and on the day
after Christmas, 1620, they began to erect their first common house for
themselves and their goods.
In founding their colony at Plymouth, the Pilgrims were on land to
which they had no right; they were, in a sense, beyond the pale of English
law which would have followed them had they reached their destination
in Virginia. To protect themselves until governmental control could be
made to include them, they drew up the 'Mayflower Compact' while
their ship was still anchored in Provincetown harbor. By this agreement,
based upon Calvinistic principles, all agreed to abide by the majority
will. A pattern of democracy was cast for this first Massachusetts colony
which served throughout the trying winter and allowed the colony to
enter upon a period of slow but steady growth. Within a comparatively
short time the London backers were paid in full and Plymouth became
economically sound and independent. In this the Pilgrims made their
greatest contribution: they demonstrated that a colony could be self-
supporting and encouraged others to attempt the experiment.
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 31
A number of small communities were founded along the Massachusetts
coast during the next decade. Nearly all were villages or posts dedicated
to fishing and trade, and all secured their grants from the Council for
New England, which had by this time taken over the claims of the Ply-
mouth Company. Most famous among these early settlements was one
sent out in 1622 by Thomas Weston, a London merchant who had aided
the Pilgrims, at Wessagusset, now Weymouth. When abandoned by
Weston, the post built by his men was taken over by Captain Robert
Gorges and became a dispersing point for isolated settlements. From this
point the militant churchman, Thomas Walford, commenced his trek to
Mishawum, now Charlestown; Samuel Maverick, a gentleman- trader,
established himself in what is now East Boston; the Reverend William
Blaxton (or Blackstone), a rebel Anglican clergyman, sought solitude in
what was later to be known as Beacon Hill; and David Thompson re-
moved to the island in Boston harbor that still bears his name. The re-
ligious-minded Pilgrims had little in common with most of these adven-
turers, but they objected particularly to the settlement of a group of in-
dentured servants led by Captain Thomas Wollaston and Thomas Morton
at Quincy in 1625. Morton and his fellows were jolly sportsmen, and while
they traded with the Indians they reserved time enough to frolic. * They
also set up a Maypole,' wrote the horrified Bradford, Governor of Ply-
mouth, 'drinking and dancing aboute in many days togeather, inviting
the Indian women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togeather like
so many fairies or furies.' These 'beastley practicses of the madd Bac-
chinalians' did not cease until the Pilgrims sent Miles Standish to cap-
ture the post and deport Morton to England. A fishing post under the
command of Roger Conant had also been established at Cape Ann in
1623 by an English trading concern called the Dorchester Company.
These villages were all small and could not, unaided, have expanded into
a united colony, but they gave Englishmen a foothold and an interest
which, when the time was ripe, attracted migration and laid the founda-
tions of the Commonwealth.
The later migration evolved from this insignificant Dorchester fishing
enterprise on Cape Ann. Conant's failure left many of his English backers
dissatisfied but still anxious to experiment in empire-building. The
Reverend John White, John Endicott, and John Humphrey were the
most restive spirits in this group. These men were Puritans who, unwilling
to separate from the Established Church, believed that the Church
might be purified from within; they hoped that a colony in America
would provide an opportunity for the free exercise of their beliefs and
32 Massachusetts: The General Background
would serve as a 'bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist.' The
Council for New England was respectfully petitioned for a grant of land,
which was approved in March, 1628. The petitioners were given control
of the territory between a point three miles south of the Charles River
and another three miles north of the Merrimack, running from sea to sea.
Armed with this grant, a shipload of settlers under Endicott set sail for
Salem in 1628, where Conant and his band had moved two years before.
Meanwhile royal sanction was sought and obtained, and in 1629 their
* dread sovereign ' issued a charter confirming the grant from the Council
of New England.
This royal act created the Massachusetts Bay Company, and it was
upon the basis of this charter that the democracy and expansion of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony developed. The colony was to be admin-
istered by two general courts; the first was to be made up of all the stock-
holders or freemen and was to hold quarterly sessions, at one of which
the members of the other court were to be selected in the form of a
governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants. The use of the term
'freemen' as a designation for members of the General Court laid the
basis for the representative system as it later emerged in Massachusetts.
Equally important was the failure of the charter to state that meetings
of the Court must be held in England. This made it possible for the
charter and the entire government of the colony to be transferred to
America.
Certain prominent Puritan leaders in England, notably John Winthrop,
recognized this vital fact. They perceived that if the charter was removed
to America the colony would virtually be free of English control and
could, therefore, become a Puritan commonwealth governed by Biblical
principles. Winthrop's arguments prevailed, and the company resolved
to move entirely to Massachusetts and to change from a trading company
with Puritan sympathies to a Puritan colony. In return, Winthrop
agreed to emigrate with his considerable group of followers. In March,
1630, they set out confidently, and with them went the charter. A new
type of English colony was automatically established, and Massachusetts
became a self-contained corporate colony markedly different from earlier
proprietary colonies like Virginia.
Salem, which had pleased Roger Conant, did not please Winthrop,
who had become the colony's first governor, and he moved first to
Charlestown and then to Boston, leaving the other communities as
towns to join those that grew up around Boston harbor. A period of
almost unprecedented growth followed, and by 1640 sixteen thousand
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 3.3
people had joined in the Great Migration to Massachusetts, for which
English religious and economic conditions were largely responsible. The
Puritans had joined forces with the Parliamentary Party, which opposed
James I and had lost. Charles I dissolved his third Parliament in 1629,
and entered upon an eleven-year period of personal rule designed partly
to stamp out dissent and entrench the Anglican Church. Puritan dis-
satisfaction was aggravated by economic distress, particularly in the
eastern and southeastern counties, the principal sources of emigration to
America. Puritan discontent was reflected in the number of settlements
Medford, Roxbury, Dorchester, Lynn, Cambridge which were
made on the Bay Company's land during the era of Jacobin dictator-
ship.
While the Massachusetts Bay charter contained intimations of de-
mocracy, growth was slow. The leaders of the colony planned a social
order in which individual freedom was to be sublimated to the will of
God as interpreted by His clergy. The Governor and his assistants de-
voted themselves to this end. They refused to summon a meeting of the
General Court until one hundred and nine freemen, insisting on their
charter right, demanded that this be done. So firmly did Winthrop and
his clerical allies believe that they alone were the proper interpreters of
the Divine will that they illegally vested nearly all governmental powers
within themselves before succumbing to this popular pressure by pro-
viding that only church members could sit in the General Court. This
occasioned a growing discontent which culminated in 1634, when the
freemen demanded to see the charter. The Governor dared not refuse,
and the indignant members of the General Court, realizing that their
rights had been infringed, hastily passed legislation which would vest
governmental authority for all time in their own hands.
Discontent bred of these struggles accelerated the settlement of
Massachusetts and the rest of New England. As long as the magistrates
could direct the course of this westward movement they approved, if
only for the reason that God's word was planted in the wilderness. Land
was granted freely to any group of town proprietors who were church
members, and tier upon tier of frontier towns were created as population
flowed westward from England through Boston. On the south shore were
founded Duxbury (1632), Scituate (1633), Hingham (1636), Barnstable
(1638), Yarmouth (1639), Marshfield (1640), and Eastham (1649); on
the broad fields of the north shore Saugus, later named Lynn (1631),
Ipswich (1634), Marblehead (1635), Newbury (1635), Rowley (1639),
and Salisbury (1640), while to the west Cambridge or Newtowne (1631),
34 Massachusetts: The General Background
Dedham (1636), Braintree (1640), Concord or Musketequid (1635), and
Sudbury (1639) steadily advanced the course of settlement.
While the peopling of Massachusetts continued, Boston was sending
out its inhabitants to settle other New England colonies. In 1635 the
Reverend Thomas Hooker's congregation at Cambridge, dissatisfied
with the ruling hand of John Cotton and other Boston clergy, and
moved by 'a strong bent of their spirits for change,' gave Connecticut its
first English inhabitants by founding Hartford. In the same year
Wethersfield and Windsor, Connecticut, were established by mass
migrations from Watertown and Dorchester, and in 1636 a group from
Roxbury laid out the first fields of Springfield. From Massachusetts
Bay, too, went Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, expelled for their
principles, to found Providence and Newport in Rhode Island; John
Wheelwright, likewise banished, made the weary journey to Exeter,
New Hampshire, to establish a more democratic church. The same
spirit of revolt against the established order that had sent Puritans to
America thus led to a dispersion of their numbers and ideas in the
wilderness.
The social, economic, and spiritual influences which have distinguished
Massachusetts from the other States were implanted in these towns.
Nature ordained small-scale agriculture as the basis of Colonial economic
life in Massachusetts. Rough, rocky soil made the clearing and cultiva-
tion of large plots of land impossible, and only interested labor could
make it reasonably productive. Slavery was tried during Colonial days,
but when found to be unprofitable was soon abandoned. The cold winters
of Massachusetts made a compact form of settlement imperative; homes
were clustered about a central green or common and the fields scattered
nearby. Even though this encouraged sociability, the Puritan farmer
preferred to utilize the long winter months in making furniture, harnesses,
and the many other things needed by his family that his meagre income
from the soil would not permit him to buy. Thus developed the fabled
New England jack-of-all-trades whose descendants were equipped to
take over mechanical tasks when mills began to invade Massachusetts
early in the nineteenth century.
Situated on the village common in the center of the towns was the
church. A closely knit settlement mitigated the influence of the frontier,
which might have arrested the formal observance of religion. Long
winter evenings afforded ample opportunity for introspection and made
the Puritans more righteous and godly than their English brethren. In
such society the minister became an outstanding figure; he was each
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 35
town's acknowledged leader and frequently, in addition, its lawyer,
doctor, and schoolmaster. His rule was not absolute, however, for each
community was governed by a town meeting, in which every church
member had an equal voice. This essentially democratic institution was
one of the most enduring contributions of Massachusetts, through which
its people received the training necessary to provide political leadership
in the Revolution.
These town meetings not only managed ordinary governmental func-
tions, but the life of each inhabitant was carefully regulated. Individual
liberty was sacrificed to detailed legislation regulating habits and social
conduct. Even dress was regarded as a legitimate field for official scrutiny.
These 'blue laws/ as they have since been called, represented a desire for
simplicity natural to a group that had rebelled against the ceremony of
the Established Church; they reflected, too, the realization that hard
work was necessary to conquer a wilderness. The shiftless were 'warned
out' of Massachusetts towns, holidays such as Christmas were forbidden,
Maypoles and similar frivolities were discouraged. There was work to
be done, and the town fathers were determined to see that no one shirked.
The Sabbath alone was exempted, not solely because of Biblical injunc-
tion but because a day of rest was required by hard-working colonizers.
The Church gave Massachusetts more than blue laws. It initiated,
among other things, the educational development of America. Puri-
tanism presupposed an intelligent clergy capable of interpreting Scrip-
ture, and literate worshipers who could understand the Bible and the long
sermons to which they were subjected. Schools, therefore, were essential
for the training of clergymen as well as their congregations. In 1636 the
General Court appropriated a sum of money to start the College of New-
towne or Cambridge, a college endowed by John Harvard with his books,
his money, and his name. Popular education, however, dates from 1647,
when a law requiring elementary schools in towns of fifty families and
secondary schools in those double that size or larger was enacted. Al-
though not free, these schools were open to all, and laid the foundation
of the American educational system.
Massachusetts was permitted to develop its peculiar social and religious
institutions because of the preoccupation of the mother country. From
the time of its founding until 1660 the colony was virtually independent
of England, then engrossed in civil war and the Cromwellian Protectorate.
The Puritan colonies were able in 1643 to form the New England Con-
federation as a bulwark of defense against the Indians and the Dutch of
New York. With the restoration of Charles II in 1660, however, Massa-
36 Massachusetts: The General Background
chusetts entered upon a new era which saw the Bible Commonwealth
gradually evolve into an orderly crown colony, similar to Virginia or
the other English outposts along the coast.
This change was possible partly because Puritan excesses had led to a
declining interest in religion in Massachusetts. In the i65o's, for example,
all of the forces of Puritanism were focused on a few troublesome
Quakers who had made their way into the colony. They were beaten and
banished, only to return in quest of martyrdom, with which the magis-
trates unwittingly provided them. Such willful persecution turned the
people against the clergy and magistrates who had for so long dominated
Massachusetts. The younger people who had not suffered for their
religion as had their parents and the rising secular commercial class
demanded a government less completely dominated by the Church.
They won their first victory in 1657 with the adoption of the Half Way
Covenant, which allowed baptized as well as converted church members
to exercise the franchise, but it was not until the overthrow of the
Massachusetts charter in 1684 that the Bible Commonwealth completely
vanished.
The withdrawal of the charter on which the Bay Colony had rested its
early governmental system was a natural result of the Stuart Restoration.
The tendency throughout the Empire after 1660 was toward tightening
imperial control and drawing the colonies closer together that they might
be useful to the mother country. This the Massachusetts leaders, un-
disciplined by twenty years of imperial inefficiency, resisted vigorously,
refusing to grant liberty of conscience or citizenship to members of the
Church of England, openly snubbing royal commissions or agents sent
to investigate conditions, and flagrantly violating the laws with which
Parliament was attempting to regulate the Empire's trade. Justly in-
dignant, the English Government began court proceedings against
Massachusetts that culminated in 1684 in a decree cancelling the Massa-
chusetts charter.
A new government known as the Dominion of New England was
provided for Massachusetts. This was an attempt to centralize all the
northern colonies so that royal control could be effected. Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine and later New
York and New Jersey were united into a single governmental unit under
the control of Sir Edmund Andros. Although an able administrator, he
immediately provoked colonial wrath by what were considered tyrannical
acts. For a time Massachusetts resisted his orders in every conceivable
way and the Reverend Increase Mather, President of Harvard College,
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 37
was sent to England to protest directly to James II. When the news of the
Glorious Revolution in England (1688) which toppled the last of the
Stuart monarchs from the throne and elevated William and Mary in their
stead reached the colony, the Puritans seized the opportunity to stage
their own revolt against Andros. The Dominion of New England was
overthrown, and a provisional government was set up until the will of the
new rulers could be learned.
Massachusetts hoped for a restoration of its old charter, but this was
not in conformity with the new Colonial policy. The new instrument of
government issued by William and Mary in 1691 created a royal colony
similar to Virginia or Maryland, established boundaries, and solidified
institutions in a form that was to endure until the Revolution. During its
period of independence Massachusetts had launched an imperialistic
policy of its own and had annexed Maine and New Hampshire; now
New Hampshire was taken away, but Massachusetts was given juris-
diction over Plymouth and the islands south of Cape Cod. The Governor
of the Bay Colony was henceforth to be appointed by the Crown, and the
old assistants became the Governor's Council, elected by the Assembly.
Two legislative houses (which had actually existed in Massachusetts
since 1644, when a dispute between the assistants and freemen over the
ownership of a stray sow drew them to separate chambers) were recog-
nized by the new charter. One of the most important provisions of the
new charter abolished church membership as a prerequisite for voting;
Massachusetts was to be a civil rather than a Bible Commonwealth.
The changed governmental structure embodied in the charter of 1691
initiated the forces which almost a century later were to lead Massa-
chusetts and the other colonies to the brink of revolt. Massachusetts
farmers, accustomed to virtual freedom since 1630, resented the inter-
ference of a governor appointed by the Crown. The charter gave the
Governor the right to veto laws passed by the Assembly, but this ad-
vantage was balanced by the Assembly's right to vote the Governor's
salary. Conflict between these two branches of government, one repre-
senting the Crown, the other representing the settlers, who were jealous
of what they had come to regard as then* rights, was continual after 1717.
England's efforts to control the trade of her increasingly rebellious colony
was the crux of the controversy.
The people of Massachusetts were peculiarly sensitive to commercial
regulation, for by the beginning of the eighteenth century they were
finding in the sea the riches which nature had denied them elsewhere.
Starting with scattered fishing ventures, their trade had become in-
38 Massachusetts: The General Background
creasingly profitable as Yankee shippers used the abundant harbors and
the plentiful supply of lumber for the construction of ships which scoured
the seven seas in search of profits. Massachusetts gradually emerged as
the carrier for America; her ships hauled the sugar of the West Indies and
the tobacco of Virginia to the mother country, and returned laden with
manufactured goods and luxuries for Colonial planter and merchant.
Engaged largely in trade, Massachusetts felt the effect of commercial
regulation more than any other colony. Under the restrictions of the
Restoration and the eighteenth century the market for many of the
essential products of Colonial enterprise was confined to England, and
the colonists were forbidden to secure their manufactured goods except
through the mother country. These laws did little harm to the staple-
producing colonies. Virginia could exchange her tobacco for the luxuries
available in England, and Barbadoes could do the same with her sugar.
But Massachusetts produced nothing that the mother country desired,
her fish competed with those of Britain's fleets, and her agricultural goods
found little market in a country still predominately rural. Yet the Bay
Colony's growing population needed the products of English mills and
factories, and Massachusetts in order to circumvent these commercial
restrictions developed the famous Triangular Trade. Sugar and mo-
lasses were brought from the West Indies in return for foodstuffs, lumber,
livestock, and codfish. Molasses was transformed into rum, which was
traded in Africa for slaves, who were then sold in the sugar-growing West
Indian islands to obtain the gold required for English luxuries. While
England had numerous possessions in the Caribbean region, the British
islands were not large enough to absorb so great a volume of trade. The
continued economic existence of the colony depended on an uninter-
rupted trade with French, Spanish, and Dutch sugar islands, a trade
made illegal by English commercial legislation.
Massachusetts did not feel the full weight of these burdensome laws for
some time. England made few attempts to enforce them, and smuggling
went on with the open connivance of royal governors and their agents,
many of the colony's great fortunes being founded in this illegal but
respectable trade. It was not until the close of the long series of wars
with France which filled much of the eighteenth century that the mother
country realized the full extent of commercial laxity. This conflict be-
tween the two great colonial powers, which lasted for more than half
a century, reached its culmination in the Seven Years' War (1756-63),
which was touched off in America and offered a true test of the colony's
loyalty to Crown and Empire. As in the previous contests, the Massa-
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 39
chusetts back country was subjected to a series of raids by French and
Indians who swept down the Champlain Valley from Canada. Eastern
shippers, impervious to barbarities on the frontier, blithely continued
their illicit traffic with the French sugar islands and with Canada. The
French armies were supplied by this means with the foodstuffs necessary
to ravage the Massachusetts hinterland. Enticed by the greater profits
of wartime, thrifty Yankee captains carried on this trade with the enemy
so extensively that England's superior navy was completely unable to
starve the French West Indian possessions into submission; in fact,
foodstuffs sold there more cheaply than in British islands. British officers
found it cheaper to import grain from England than to compete in
America's markets with traders who were anxious to sell to the enemy.
Massachusetts, along with the other colonies, refused to provide ade-
quately for its own defense or to bear what the home government con-
sidered a just share of the war's expenses.
This scandalous conduct convinced England that her whole Colonial
administration needed reform, but it was this reform which finally led to
America's successful struggle for independence. In that clash of mother
country and colony Massachusetts played a leading part, not only be-
cause a democratic tradition had been bred in her citizens for generations,
but also because she, more than any other colony, was adversely affected
by the new imperial policy. The first of these measures, the Sugar Act of
1764, made effective earlier prohibitions on trade with French or Spanish
possessions; the second, the Stamp Act enacted a year later, provided for
revenue stamps which were to be affixed to publications and to legal and
commercial papers. Through these two measures the Crown hoped to
raise a part of the revenue to maintain a body of troops in America neces-
sary for the protection of the colonists against Indian attack, made im-
minent in 1763 by the serious outbreak of border warfare known as
Pontiac's Rebellion.
These two measures actually did much harm to Massachusetts. The
Sugar Act practically ended the foreign trade on which the colony de-
pended for its currency supply, while the Stamp Act drained the little
money remaining away from Boston. Furthermore, Massachusetts was
undergoing the usual post-war depression, which magnified the effects of
the new acts. It is little wonder that Boston merchants, hurriedly re-
trenching, agreed to wear no more lace and ruffles or that Boston trades-
men were willing to appear only in American-made leather clothes. It is
easy to understand, too, why Sam Adams and the little group of political
leaders who gathered with him at the picturesque Boston tavern, the
40 Massachusetts: The General Background
Green Dragon, could stir up mobs which forced the resignation of the
Massachusetts stamp collector and despoiled the house of Lieutenant
Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Amidst this popular discontent a general
boycott of English goods, in which Boston merchants joined with those
of Philadelphia and New York, was easily accomplished, and it was this
boycott, seriously injuring British manufacturers, who were already
suffering from a depression similar to that being felt in America, that
caused the repeal of the Stamp Act and the revision of the Sugar Act
in 1766.
Peace, however, was not for long. In 1767 a series of revenue measures,
the Townshend Acts, which levied duties on paint, glass, tea, and other
products imported into the colonies, again stirred Massachusetts to a
fever of resentment. Boston shippers were particularly alarmed by re-
forms in the customs service that accompanied the Townshend Acts.
A Board of Customs Commissioners was placed in the Bay Colony, and
that threatened to bring to a complete end the little smuggling which was
carried on after the passage of the Sugar Act. Again merchants, those of
Boston this time taking the lead, protested by refusing to import English
goods; again mobs roamed the Boston streets, harrying before them luck-
less agents of the Crown. Mob rule reached its height when an angry
crowd tried to prevent a customs agent from collecting duty on a cargo
of wine that was about to be landed by John Hancock. The agent was,
as he expressed it, ' hoved down ' into the hold while the patriots gleefully
carried the wine ashore. Protests such as these, together with a shifting
point of view in England, finally led to the repeal of the Townshend Acts
in 1770, but they also led to the establishment of a garrison in Boston
that peace might be preserved in that turbulent city. The inevitable
clash between these soldiers and the overwrought citizenry of Boston
came on the night of March 5, 1770, when a mob that was taunting a
sentry at the customs house was fired upon, giving first blood to the
revolution not yet formally begun, and to history the 'Boston Massacre.'
For three years after the repeal of the Townshend Acts the controversy
subsided. Prosperity returned and people everywhere forgot the few
years of turbulence. They forgot that England still taxed their tea and
molasses, and Sam Adams worked in vain to stir up sentiment against
the mother country. Even John Adams, staunch patriot though he was,
drank tea at John Hancock's home, and hoped it had been smuggled from
Holland but did not take the pains to inquire.
This calm was broken in 1773 with the passage of the Tea Act, which
gave the East India Company a monopoly for the sale of that beverage
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 41
in the colonies and lowered the duty until it could no longer be smuggled
profitably. Shippers who had illegally imported tea in the past were
swept from business, as well as the merchants who handled its shipping
and sale. The Tea Act alarmed Colonial business classes, who, fearing
Parliament might create similar monopolies on other products in the
future, were driven once more into the hands of the radicals. Sam
Adams was in his glory. In a series of carefully planned meetings he
worked Boston sentiment to a new height, then, at the climax of a great
gathering in the Old South Meeting House, sent a group of disguised
laborers and tradesmen to dump the tea on three East India Company
ships into Boston Harbor.
The reaction both in England and America to this wanton destruction
of property was one of instant revulsion, particularly among the merchant
group that had aided the patriots in the past ; nevertheless a wise handling
of the situation would probably have quieted revolutionary agitation for
some time to come. Instead, the British Ministry blundered badly. A
series of Coercive Acts were hurriedly passed by Parliament closing the
Port of Boston to trade, altering the charter, revising the legal system,
and inflicting penalties on Massachusetts which were to be removed only
when restitution for the destroyed tea should be made. Most of the
Colonial merchants, even in Boston, were willing to take this step, but
the Coercive Acts had put the radicals in control again. Unable to secure
merchant co-operation in a boycott of England, they determined to
attempt united political action, and from Massachusetts and other
colonies a call for a Continental Congress was issued. The Boston Tea
Party gave the patriot forces of the Revolution the unity required for
success.
The Massachusetts Assembly chose its delegates to this first Congress
with the door of the legislative chamber locked, and with Governor
Thomas Gage vainly shouting through the keyhole that the legislature
was dissolved and could transact no further business. Under these con-
ditions, duplicated in other colonies, the delegates selected were naturally
of the radical wing, and the Continental Congress quickly showed their
domination. They endorsed the Suffolk Resolves and enforced a general
boycott of English goods. As yet the members had no thought of inde-
pendence ; it remained for further developments in Massachusetts to lead
them to the point where relations with the mother country could be
severed.
Tension had been high in the Bay Colony ever since the arrival of
General Thomas Gage, who had been sent with a large force of troops to
42 Massachusetts: The General Background
enforce the Coercive Acts. Clashes between the soldiers and patriots were
narrowly averted on several occasions during the fall and winter of 1774-
75, and only served to hurry the process by which the colonists were
arming themselves, drilling their militia, and forming groups of Minute-
men who were ready to swing into action against the British at a moment's
notice. On April 19, 1775, the opportunity came. General Gage had re-
solved to send a detachment of troops to Concord to overawe the country-
side by a show of British strength and to secure the supplies accumulated
there by the colonists. The march began on the night of April 18, but
the patriots were prepared for such a step and immediately dispatched
two riders to warn their countrymen. One rider, Paul Revere, was cap-
tured before he could reach Concord; the other, William Dawes, suc-
ceeded in spreading the alarm. Minutemen began gathering immediately.
A small group assembled on the village Green at Lexington, where they
were met by the larger British force. In the scuffle that followed a shot
was fired the shot heard round the world. The troops then marched
on to Concord, destroyed the stores, and returned to Boston, with a
rising countryside following their steps and keeping up a steady fire that
lasted until the last British soldier was safe in Boston.
The siege of Boston followed naturally, for the English had retreated
to the safety of that city and it was inevitable that the colonists should
decide to keep them there. The city then lay at the tip of a narrow
peninsula, so that this could be accomplished easily if all avenues to the
mainland were properly guarded. One such avenue lay across Boston
Neck; this was carefully watched by the army of twenty thousand men
authorized by the Assembly, and commanded first by General Artemus
Ward and after July 2 by George Washington. Another possible route
was across Charlestown Neck, and to protect this the Americans had to
fortify Bunker Hill. This was done on the night of June 16. Actually it
was Breed's Hill that was fortified rather than Bunker Hill, and it was
there that the famous battle was fought the following day. The poorly
prepared American forces were driven slowly backward, but acquitted
themselves well, and demonstrated for the first time that the colonists
could cope successfully with the supposedly invincible British arms.
After Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston became one of quiet waiting until
the spring of 1776. Not until cannon which Ethan Allen had captured
at Ticonderoga were sledded to Boston was it possible for Washington
to attack. These new arms, mounted on Nooks Hill, Dorchester Heights,
commanded the entire city, and immediately began to throw shot upon
the helpless British. Finally General Howe, now in command, recognized
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 43
the inevitable. On March 17 the evacuation of Boston took place and the
entire British army, together with many Tory citizens, sailed away to
Nova Scotia. Massachusetts had not only launched the military phase
of the Revolution, but had given the patriot cause its first major victory.
For the remainder of the war, the State was free of hostile troops.
Independence was inevitable after this first clash of rival arms, and
with the separation of colonies from mother country Massachusetts was
faced with the problem of erecting a new governmental structure that
would perpetuate ideals of liberty and freedom. The last General Court
held under the old provincial charter convened in 1774, and from that
time on Massachusetts was governed by a Provincial Congress that had
no legal basis for existence and was not representative. Objections
naturally arose, particularly in Berkshire County, where the independent
farmers refused to allow courts to sit until they had been given a govern-
ment in which they had a voice. A constitution to meet this demand was
drafted by the Provincial Congress in 1777-79 an d submitted to the
people for ratification the first state constitution to be tested by pop-
ular vote but that constitution contained few provisions for separation
of powers and no Bill of Rights, and was promptly rejected. Finally in
September, 1778, a popularly elected Constitutional Convention met in
Cambridge, and after due consideration accepted a frame of government
drawn up largely by John Adams. This was submitted to the people on
March 2, 1780, and ratified on June 7. Massachusetts was the last of the
States to adopt a written constitution, yet so wisely had its framers
labored that today the same instrument still governs the Commonwealth,
a record of which no other state can boast. Moreover, that constitution
of 1780, drawn up by a popularly elected convention and submitted to
the people for ratification, set a pattern that was to be followed in the
framing of the Federal Constitution.
In Massachusetts, as in the other States, the Revolutionary period was
one of social and economic as well as political upheaval. Many of the
great commercial and governmental leaders of the past became Tories
and followed the retreating British armies to Canada or England. In
their place a new aristocracy arose which drew its wealth, as in Colonial
days, from the sea. More and more, as their operations increased, were
the financial resources of the Commonwealth concentrated along the
coast, leaving the dissatisfied farmers of the interior struggling vainly
against the stubborn soil. This dissatisfaction was fanned to open
rebellion by the economic depression which swept over the newly created
United States after the war. In the hilly country around Worcester and
44 Massachusetts: The General Background
in the Berkshires the farmers began to demand legislative relief in the
form of paper money and stay laws which would prevent mortgage fore-
closures. These discontented elements united under the leadership of
Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary war veteran. In 1786 he and his dis-
heveled followers closed the courts of Worcester and threatened to cap-
ture Boston until an army, hastily formed by Governor Bowdoin and
financed by Boston merchants, quelled the uprising.
This show of popular discontent alarmed the propertied classes of
Massachusetts. They were now more disposed to support the growing
movement for a new constitution to displace the Articles of Confedera-
tion, which had proved so useless in fostering trade, stabilizing finance,
and protecting the interests of property. Actually, Massachusetts became
the sixth State to ratify the Federal Constitution, but this was accom-
plished only after much adroit manipulation. A majority of the ratifying
convention which assembled in Boston was opposed to the new form of
government, with the farmers of the interior hilly region, the Berkshires
and Maine, then still a part of Massachusetts, most outspoken in their
opposition. Conservative leaders finally won over John Hancock, who,
as was usual when he had an important decision to make, had retired to
his home with an attack of gout until he determined the direction of
popular sentiment. This was accomplished only by offering him the
governorship of the State and, if Virginia did not ratify and make
Washington eligible, their support for the presidency; but it was effective,
for Hancock was the idol of the lower classes, and his support made
ratification possible. In taking this step, however, Massachusetts sub-
mitted a series of proposed amendments to the Constitution; this practice
was followed by the remaining States, and from them grew the first
ten amendments to our national Constitution, the so-called Bill of
Rights.
With the inauguration of the new government under Washington,
Massachusetts entered on a period of prosperity and peace. While her
old trade routes within the British Empire were now closed to her, new
ones were soon discovered, particularly that immensely profitable trade
with China which thrived unchecked until iron steamships supplanted
American sailing vessels. In every other corner of the world, too, ships
of daring Yankee masters began to appear, seeking cargoes and fortunes
for themselves and their State. After 1793, with England and France
locked in the first of the series of wars that followed the French Revolu-
tion, Massachusetts took over a large share of the carrying trade formerly
monopolized by those powers. From every quarter new wealth was
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 45
flowing into the Commonwealth; the depression that had given birth to
Shays' Rebellion was now only a fast dimming memory.
This prosperity naturally shaped the political bent of the people, and
when the shuffle of political fortunes which had gone on through Wash-
ington's two administrations finally ended, Massachusetts was firmly
wedded to the principles of the Federalist Party. This conviction was
strengthened while John Adams, one of the Commonwealth's own sons,
was Chief Executive. Many in the State even supported the Alien and
Sedition Acts through which the Federalists sought to solidify national
power during the French Naval War of 1798. Jefferson's election in 1800
was looked upon as a major calamity; pious Massachusetts ladies con-
cealed their Bibles lest that Francophile atheist burn them, and conserva-
tive merchants and shipowners prepared for a disaster which they thought
certain. Instead, the State's prosperity continued to increase, and by
1804 Massachusetts was ready to desert the Federalist column for the
first time and support Jefferson's re-election.
Those who had taken this step soon were ready to admit their mistake,
for the tangled foreign policy of Jefferson's second administration bore
harder on Massachusetts than on any other State. The Embargo with
which the President attempted to combat French and English inter-
ference with American shipping led the Commonwealth once more into
the slough of depression. The wealth of Massachusetts still came from
the sea, and its people still protested against interference with their trade,
as they had when burdened by English Navigation Acts. Those protests,
voiced first by newspaper editors who spelled Embargo backward as 'O
Grab Me,' swelled to a final chorus of rebellion when Jefferson's successor,
Madison, responded to demands of the expansionist West and carried
the United States into the War of 1812 against England. For the three
years of that war the trade of the Commonwealth was at a standstill,
driven from the seas by the superior British navy; and for those three
years the people gave vent to their resentment in every conceivable
manner. Massachusetts refused to allow her militia to be used outside
the state borders, she gave only lukewarm financial support to the na-
tional cause, she held celebrations to cheer English victories over Napo-
leon, and she was instrumental in calling the Hartford Convention of 1814,
where delegates from the several New England States talked vaguely of
secession from the Union and nullification of the Constitution.
With the close of the war in 1815, Massachusetts entered a new phase
of her history. It was during this period that the basis for her later
industrial development was laid, and the commercial aristocracy which
46 Massachusetts : The General Background
had shaped her destinies for so long was successfully challenged for the
first time. American manufacturing began with Jefferson's Embargo,
which stopped the importation of manufactured goods from England;
it grew steadily during the war that followed, when the United States,
cut off from European sources, was forced to become self-supporting; and
it was given a permanent basis by the protective tariff of 1816, designed
to insure the infant industries which had developed between 1807 and
1815. At first this manufacturing was scattered through the Eastern
States, but as time passed it concentrated more and more in New England
and particularly in Massachusetts. There the Yankee farmers, long ac-
customed to the production of household goods, had a training in handi-
craft that equipped them to organize and manage the mills that dotted
the countryside. The many streams that coursed the State's valleys
furnished a plentiful supply of water-power. Labor could be secured as
in no other section of the Union, for thousands of Massachusetts farmers
were ready to abandon their unequal struggle with a stubborn soil and
drift into industrial employment. Hence the Commonwealth was able
to take full advantage of Francis Cabot Lowell's perfection of the first
power loom which, originally installed at a mill in Waltham in 1814,
revolutionized the textile industry and turned Lowell, Lawrence, Fall
River, and other towns into manufacturing centers. By the time of the
Civil War, Irish immigrants were flocking in to perform the labor in
these factories and Massachusetts was fast assuming the appearance of
a modern industrial state.
The rise of manufacturing coincided with a decline in agriculture. This
was partly due to the greater opportunity for profit available in the infant
industries; more responsible, however, was the growth of Western agri-
culture, with which the farmers of Massachusetts could not compete.
Western farm products penetrated Eastern markets as soon as the Ohio
Valley frontier was established, but it was only after 1825, when the
opening of the Erie Canal allowed the cheap and rapid movement of
Western products to the East, that the full impact of this new competition
was felt. Grain from the Ohio Valley could now undersell grain from the
Berkshires in the Boston markets, and Massachusetts' farmers were
faced with the alternative of going to the cities to become workers in the
growing factories or of migrating westward themselves. Many of them
chose the latter course, moving in a constant stream across New York
to settle the northern tier of the Old Northwest States. Rural decay in
Massachusetts began. Cultivated fields were allowed to return to a state
of nature, and abandoned farms alone remained as dreary reminders of
former prosperity.
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 47
The flow of Massachusetts population to the West was not without its
effect on the Commonwealth. Leaders of the State, alarmed at the exodus
of their sons, engaged in a bit of Puritan self-scrutiny to discover the
cause. They agreed that one expelling force was the antiquated govern-
mental and religious system still in use, and that only a reform in that
system could stem the exodus. Politically, this reforming spirit found
expression in the release of Maine and in a Constitutional Convention of
1820. This convention yielded to the demand of the people for a greater
voice in their own government by drafting ten amendments to the Con-
stitution providing for the incorporation of cities, the abolition of property
qualifications for voting, the removal of religious tests for office-holders,
and other much needed reforms. The religious expression of this social
change reached its culmination in 1833, when another constitutional
amendment was adopted completely separating the Church and State
and placing Congregationalism, hitherto favored by governmental sup-
port, on the same plane as other sects. The last vestiges of aristocratic
Puritanism were swept from the statute books, and the ideals of demo-
cracy were brought nearer reality.
The reforming spirit in Massachusetts was not stilled by these concrete
gains. Unitarianism, begun in America at King's Chapel (Boston) just
after Independence, was sweeping through the Commonwealth under
the fostering guidance of William Ellery Channing. Its refreshingly lib-
eral doctrines threatened to bury the Congregational Church under an
avalanche of popular disapproval, and only the valiant efforts of the
Reverend Horace Bushnell, who sought to reconcile the old Calvinistic
theology with the gentle humanitarianism of the new era, saved Con-
gregational power and influence. In Concord, Emerson, Thoreau, and a
whole school of disciples began to feel the first vague resentment against
the machine, and preached the cult of individualism and the doctrine of
the nobility of man in immortal verse and prose. Dorothea L. Dix
shocked the state of Massachusetts into providing the first decent care
for the insane before beginning her country-wide crusade in behalf of
these little understood unfortunates. Horace Mann agitated valiantly
and successfully in behalf of the revolutionary doctrine of universal
education, and through his efforts elevated Massachusetts to a position
of leadership in this important sphere. Total abstinence societies, formed
first in Boston in 1826, were spreading like wildfire through the State
and nation, beginning that organized movement that was to end in the
Eighteenth (and Twenty-First) Amendments. At Brook Farm, near
Boston, at Fruitlands, near Harvard, and elsewhere bewildered idealists
48 Massachusetts: The General Background
like Hawthorne, Alcott, and Margaret Fuller sought refuge from a chang-
ing world in the simple life and communism an experiment gently
but effectively satirized by Hawthorne in 'The Blithedale Romance.'
From this mad, shifting world emanated the crusade against slavery,
centered in Boston and New York State, where the revivalism of the
Reverend Charles G. Finney whipped his disciples into action against
'the peculiar institution' of the South. It was in Boston that William
Lloyd Garrison established his newspaper The Liberator in 1831, com-
mitted to the immediate emancipation of all humans held in bondage
and vitriolic in the abuse which it heaped on slaveholders. It was in
Boston that the New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1832,
which within a year became the American Anti-Slavery Society and
spread over the North, stirring sentiment everywhere in favor of uncom-
pensated emancipation. The movement that was to plunge the nation
into a civil war within two decades was launched in Massachusetts.
Garrison and his fellow reformers did not have an easy path to follow.
They were opposed by many milder men, led by William Ellery Chan-
ning, who favored legal and peaceful methods of freeing the slaves, and
by most of the respectable elements of society, who soon became alarmed
lest the agitation check the flow of cotton from the South, on which the
Massachusetts textile industry depended. Although Garrison's followers
were initially of little importance, the movement soon attracted such
men as John Quincy Adams, Wendell Phillips, and John Greenleaf
Whittier, and later included a large group of outstanding Massachusetts
men and women. These abolitionists strongly opposed the Fugitive Slave
Act, established 'Underground Railroad' stations to hurry escaping
slaves to freedom in Canada, and organized the New England Emigrant
Aid Company, through which Eli Thayer of Worcester vainly tried to
win Kansas for the North by peopling it with freedom-loving individuals
who would bar slavery from that territory.
The turbulence of those trying days was soon translated into Massa-
chusetts politics, where the reforming spirit was as clearly discernible as
in the idealism of Brook Farm or the fanaticism of Garrison. The Fed-
eralist Party had passed from existence by 1824, engulfed in a tide of
disapproval which followed its opposition to the War of 1812, and from
that time Massachusetts steadfastly supported either the Whig Party or
an independent candidate of its own. The reforming zeal of its people
was expressed first not against the slaveholders but against the foreigners,
for the i84o's and 1850*8 saw a steady stream of Irish immigrants pouring
into the Commonwealth until many of the larger cities were predomi-
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 49
nantly Celtic in composition. Alarmed by this alien invasion, Massa-
chusetts gave its vote in the state elections of 1854 and 1855 almost
solidly to the American or Know Nothing Party, which was pledged to
check immigration and combat the growing power of the Catholic Church.
By 1856, however, the Republican Party with its anti-slavery principles
invaded the Commonwealth, and the votes of Massachusetts went for its
candidate, John C. Fremont, and helped elect Abraham Lincoln to the
presidency in 1860.
Thus did Massachusetts, the birthplace of abolitionism, remain true
to its genius. Nor did this loyalty lessen when a panic of fear swept the
Southern States toward secession and plunged the nation into civil war.
When President Lincoln called the North to arms on April 15, 1861, the
first state to respond was Massachusetts, which within four days sent
fifteen hundred men to Fort Monroe. Massachusetts blood was also the
first to be shed in the Civil War when on April 19, 1861, just eighty-six
years to the day after the battles of Lexington and Concord, a mob
attacked the Sixth Regiment in Baltimore. The State was aroused, a
wave of patriotism in which factional differences were forgotten swept
Massachusetts, and support of the Union became the major issue. For
the four trying years of this sectional struggle the Bay State contributed
freely in men, money, and effort that the Union might be preserved.
Appomattox closed a chapter in American life, and the next scene in
the drama of American history was sketched against the background of
industrialism. With the acceleration of industry and the revolutions
which took place simultaneously in agriculture and mining, the medieval
period of America drew to a close.
The sea, upon which the fortunes of Massachusetts had been built, was
a factor of decreasing significance. Exports declined with monotonous
regularity, but imports continued to be a consideration of consequence;
for although Massachusetts did not serve as a distributor beyond the
confines of New England, her own industries required a growing volume
of raw materials. The great white sails which once cleared out of Salem
and New Bedford were never succeeded by the funnels of the steamship,
and only Boston remained a vital point in Massachusetts commerce.
Fishing alone continued to thrive, and although riches were still sought
in the traffic lanes of the Atlantic, a new economy had begun. Improved
methods of steel production and the development of the petroleum in-
dustry assured the success of the new industrialism, but it marked the
end, among other things, of the whalers. In 1869 the last whaler was
fitted out in New Bedford. The glamor of whaling boats like clipper
5O Massachusetts: The General Background
ships faded into history and legend, but a supply of fluid capital had been
created which poured into Western railroads as well as Massachusetts
industry.
The industrial evolution of Massachusetts is the economic history of
the United States in miniature. Manufacturing, like population, con-
tinued to be drawn by the magnetic attraction of the West, but in many
fields Massachusetts held undisputed pre-eminence until the end of the
century. More than one-third of all the woolens of the nation were
produced in this State, and in the eighties Fall River led the field in cotton
manufacture, Lawrence, Lowell, and New Bedford closely following.
Partly because of its climate New Bedford became famous for its fine
grade of cotton goods, while the northern New England mills developed
the heavier fabrics. By 1890 Lawrence had become the third most im-
portant city in America in the manufacture of woolens, and Lowell was
a close fourth.
The boot and shoe industry had already made considerable progress,
but as a result of technological advances in power manufacture the im-
portance of the industry increased tremendously. In 1866, for example,
Lynn possessed 220 factories whose annual output was $12,000,000,
while the State output was $53,000,000, increasing to $88,000,000 by
1870. In 1890 Lynn's industry alone was evaluated at $26,000,000, and
the extent to which the manufacture of boots and shoes was concentrated
in Massachusetts is evidenced by the fact that Brockton, Haverhill,
Marlborough, and Worcester were all leading shoe centers. Despite the
rivalry of New York and the Middle West, Massachusetts resisted serious
competition until 1900, by which date the State was producing almost
fifty per cent of the nation's output in this field.
Considerable success had been achieved in the manufacture of ma-
chinery, partly as a by-product of industrial eminence. Power looms to
feed its textile mills were locally produced. Shoe machinery was made at
an immense plant in Beverly and smaller ones at Boston and Waltham.
Paper mill machinery was constructed at Lowell, Pittsfield, Lawrence,
and Worcester. As competition developed at points nearer the source of
raw material, however, the metal industry underwent a radical change.
Lighter grades of machines, tools, and mechanical equipment were found
to be more profitable, and native Yankee ingenuity developed a fine skill
in their production.
Industry and the rise of cities attracted scores of workers who sought
peace and security in the New Canaan. The immigrant invasion which
resulted changed the social complexion of the State; sixty-six per cent
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 51
of all the white stock in Massachusetts contains a foreign strain. Before
the Civil War immigration was drawn largely from western Europe, but
beginning with the decade of the eighties the majority came from the
southern and eastern sections of the Continent, with the result that al-
most every racial group is represented in the population. The most rigid
type of immigration control was in effect up to 1849, and Massachusetts
contained a relatively small racial admixture ; today it has more foreigners
than any other State except New York. French-Canadians, Greeks,
Poles, Czechoslovakians, Russians, Finns, Letts, Lithuanians, and
Turks live side by side with the descendants of Bay Colony settlers. Many
new strands have been added to Anglo-Saxon culture. Slavic, Semitic,
and Celtic influences have permeated Massachusetts thought, enriching
folkways, enlivening speech, and giving a new perspective to graphic art,
music, and literature. The effect of immigration may also be traced in the
new direction of the labor movement, as well as in an increase of the Cath-
olic and Jewish religious groups.
The establishment of factories and the concentration of population
was paralleled by a growth in workers' organizations. Trade unions after
the Civil War grew from seventeen to forty-two in number, and in many
cases the State was the focal point of their growth. Organization of the
boot and shoe industry proceeded quickly, largely because labor and not
machinery was the important element. Organization of the textile in-
dustry was not so simple; here the lower skills demanded of the workers
retarded unionization. The National Cotton Mule Spinners were or-
ganized in 1889, but it was not until the United Textile Workers came
upon the scene in 1901 that any semblance of success was achieved.
American society was unprepared for such an economic revolution, social
relations were severely strained, and the latter nineteenth century was
marked by industrial strife. Illinois had its Haymarket, Pennsylvania
its Homestead, and Massachusetts its Lawrence (1912). To contem-
poraries it seemed as though the long-cherished ideals of American life
and institutions were disintegrating, but calmer reflection indicated that
this was merely another stage in the evolution of industrial society.
As a result of organized effort many gains accrued to labor and society
as a whole. A department of labor and industry was established (1912),
and legislation was adopted for the protection of health, the investigation
of industrial diseases, and the recognition of occupational hazards. Under
the new law (1933) a person might no longer be coerced into an agree-
ment not to join a union as a condition of employment. Massachusetts
law today requires that employers who advertise for labor during a strike
52 Massachusetts: The General Background
must state specifically that a state of strike exists. No woman or child
may be employed for more than forty-eight hours a week, and children
under fourteen are forbidden to work at all. Minors in the age group of
fourteen to sixteen years must complete the sixth grade of elementary
school, and may not work more than six days a week or eight hours a day.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the influx of immigration
and the growing development of industry brought about corresponding
changes in government. The New England town meeting, generally
economical, simple, and efficient, did not lend itself to this hurried ex-
pansion and was found inadequate to meet the problems of urban life.
A constitutional amendment of 1820 had given the General Court the
right to charter cities, and by 1885 there were twenty- three cities con-
taining sixty per cent of the population. The commission form of gov-
ernment, which places all phases of city government in the hands of five
persons, though tried, was never successful: Gloucester, Haverhill, Lynn,
Lawrence, and Salem all attempted it at one time or another.
Education experienced a revival after the Civil War. The rise of the
cities, now the dominant factor in American life, presented new problems
which it was hoped education would solve. The movement initiated by
Horace Mann in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century was com-
pleted, and the scope of the public school system expanded, largely by
the increase in the number of free public high schools. But it was in the
upper levels of education that the results of economic maturity were most
apparent. Wealth created by industrialism supplied the endowments
necessary for the establishment of new institutions. In an era notable for
the founding of colleges and universities throughout the country many
as a result of State aid fifteen were founded in Massachusetts (1863-
1927). In an era in which American education achieved international
recognition because of its great educators and administrators, Andrew
Dixon White of Cornell, James McCosh of Princeton, John Bascomb of
Wisconsin, Noah Porter of Yale, Massachusetts produced four: Charles
William Eliot of Harvard, Granville Stanley Hall of Clark, Francis A.
Walker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Alice Free-
man (Palmer) of Wellesley. The emancipation of women, quickened by
modern conditions, was furthered by opportunities for advanced study,
and the contribution of Massachusetts was distinguished. Wellesley
was founded in 1870, Smith College (Northampton) in 1871, Radcliffe
(Cambridge) in 1879, an d Simmons (Boston) in 1899. Facilities for
preparation in engineering and related subjects were provided by the
creation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston) and the
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 53
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester), both established in 1865.
Responding to the demands of urban conditions, seventy-five cities and
towns established industrial schools. Latterly educational facilities have
been developed to reach people outside the public school system and the
universities. Many of the larger trade unions offer a variety of courses
for workers and their families, and the University Extension Division of
the Department of Education has supplied an increasing number with
vocational, technical, and cultural training.
An important adjunct of the educational system in Massachusetts is
the library. Not only is there a free public library in every city and town
(since 1926), but the State has many important special libraries and col-
lections. There are few places with more varied materials for the study
of American history; bibliophiles and historians, as well as others less
fervent, make use of its varied treasures. The American Antiquarian
Society (Worcester), rich in newspapers, periodicals, and manuscripts,
is amply supplemented by the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston),
the Bostonian Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Essex Institute
(Salem), and the Boston Public Library, the last possessing a significant
assortment of Americana, including the private libraries of Thomas
Prince, John Adams, Theodore Parker, and Thomas Wentworth Hig-
ginson. In addition, the college and university libraries with their
specialized interests, seldom duplicated, make Massachusetts a State
with unusual opportunities for research and study.
Simultaneously with industrialism came a renewal of intellectual
speculation; science was stimulated by fresh winds of doctrine from
Europe and endowments of industrialists. Education and science were
electrified by the concept of development which coursed through America
in the period after the Civil War. Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, and Huxley
became symbols of scientific achievement here as well as abroad. Massa-
chusetts furnished one of the leading defenders of the disturbing views
of Darwin in the person of Asa Gray, Fisher Professor of Botany at
Harvard, and also its most eminent opponent, Louis Agassiz. Agassiz,
who taught geology and zoology at Harvard, stamped his personality
on every scientific movement, and like another Massachusetts man
Benjamin Franklin was the greatest popularizer of his time. The
doctrine of evolution initiated a scientific renaissance in which Massa-
chusetts shared. Modern research revived the colonial tradition of
scholarship currently typified by two distinguished scientists, James
Bryant Conant of Harvard and Karl Taylor Compton of the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology.
54 Massachusetts: The General Background
The industrial trend was not without its effect upon organized religion.
European scholarship and the rapid rise of urban communities con-
fronted the churches with a changing world, and in this critical period of
religious history Massachusetts played a significant role. Christian
Science, founded by Mary Baker Eddy (Lynn, 1867), provided a refuge
for many who were dissatisfied with conventional theological forms.
Another vital aspect was the development of social Christianity, which
was partly a reaction to an increasing absorption in practical affairs. A
declining interest in doctrinal matters was the inevitable consequence of
secularism, but social Christianity arose because industrialism presented
America with new complexities. The churches tempered this transition
stage by a revival of the social gospel emphasizing the intimate relation
between religion and life. All denominations awakened to the realization
that there was a real connection between slums and morals, and a growing
concern with systematic relief was manifested by the clergy. Reform
became the current text which was preached with eloquence by many
Massachusetts men Francis G. Peabody, Professor of Christian
Morals at Harvard Divinity School, Phillips Brooks of Trinity Church,
Minot Judson Savage of the Church of the Unity, Octavius Brooks
Frothingham and William Joseph Potter, leading Unitarian radicals -
who successfully emulated such national leaders as Washington Gladden,
Lyman Abbott, Josiah Strong, and Cardinal Gibbons. Emphasis on
sociology rather than cosmology was a reflection of the scientific temper,
which soon became universal, enlisting the efforts of those outside
Christianity, notably two Jewish leaders, Charles Fleischer and Solomon
Schindler, both rabbis at Temple Israel in Boston. In 1889 the Society
of Christian Socialists was founded in Boston for the purpose of awaken-
ing 'members of the Christian churches to the fact that the teachings of
Jesus Christ lead directly to some specific form or forms of Socialism.'
The development of Massachusetts may be divided into three major
periods: from its founding until the election of Thomas Jefferson to the
presidency; from 1800 to the Civil War; and from 1865 to the present.
The destinies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were moulded
by mighty forces, momentarily visible in Massachusetts, which during
the first period symbolized the development of the nation. Carver and
Bradford, Winthrop and Cotton, the Mathers, Samuel Sewall, and
Franklin belong to America; John and Samuel Adams, James Otis, Paul
Revere, and John Hancock were the patriots of the Revolution. During
the second period this situation slowly changed. Colonial radicals found
they had exchanged the interest of British imperialists for the interests of
Enough of Its History to Explain Its People 55
Federalist shipowners who, while flying a new flag, shared a like philo-
sophy. While the rest of America moved westward to cotton belt and
farmland, Massachusetts continued to devote herself to trade and de-
veloped a point of view peculiar to New England. A brief interlude of
nationalism followed the War of 1812, after which Massachusetts re-
verted to a spirit of sectionalism typified by the Hartford Convention
(1814), characteristic not only of New England but of the nation. Al-
though Federalism disappeared and industry took the place of commerce,
the National Republicans and later the Whigs gradually borrowed
Federalist doctrine to the end that Massachusetts and New England
might endure. The third period ushered in the economic revolution
which transformed the American scene. Currents of New England in-
dividualism still flow from Massachusetts, typified in recent years by such
men as Henry Cabot Lodge and Calvin Coolidge, but such currents are
simply tributaries to the main stream. Provincialisms have been dissi-
pated in the steam of locomotives and the blast of airplane propellers,
while iron and steel labor to bring forth a new nation.
GOVERNMENT
FOR three centuries Massachusetts has been carrying on an experiment
as old as human history: the effort of men to govern themselves. One
governmental form has succeeded another as each generation, with
population increasingly pressing and conditions of living continuously
changing, developed new solutions to its governmental problems.
The earliest form of government in Massachusetts was that of Plym-
outh Colony. Having no charter, the Pilgrims based their authority
upon a patent granted in 1621 to the Plymouth Company, and in 1636
definitely outlined the powers of their officials: the Governor was to be
elected annually by the people, and his assistants were to govern and to
act as a judiciary. Legislation, however, originated with the people, as
all freemen were admitted to the General Court, a condition which
existed until 1639, when, because of increased population and migration,
deputies were chosen.
The first Massachusetts Colonial charter was given by Charles I in
1628. Later he tried unsuccessfully to have it abrogated. The form of
government was different from that of Plymouth in that the first Gov-
ernor and assistants were appointed by the Crown. Matthew Craddock,
the first Governor, never came to America. Subsequent Governors,
however, were elected annually until James II appointed Joseph Dudley
in 1685. Sir Edmund Andros, Dudley's appointed successor, essayed to
be a vice-regal dictator and was promptly deposed. In the intercharter
period which followed, Simon Bradstreet headed the Colony.
The second, or Province Charter, a grant of King William and Queen
Mary, arrived in 1692. It brought Plymouth Colony, Maine, and a
portion of Nova Scotia under one jurisdiction. It was a far less liberal
charter than the first. The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and State
Secretary were appointed by the Crown. In 1726, King George sent over
an explanatory modifying charter which limited the Governor's authority
to adjourn the General Court, but made the election of the Speaker sub-
ject to the veto of the Governor. Control of money, bills, and the right
of electing the councillors curbed somewhat the Governor's immense
power. The last General Court held under the Provincial Charter was
in 1774.
INDUSTRY EARLY AND LATE
THE geography of Massachusetts is largely responsible for its
industry, for it combines water-power with good harborage.
Mills and the maritime trades consequently predominate.
Once established, the mills grew long after the need for local
water-power had disappeared. So, in the pictures that follow,
there is an old stone mill and a giant, modern weaving-room.
There is boat-building as it was done two hundred years ago
and still is done in Essex today. And also there is a picture
of the shipyards at Fore River with much modern equipment.
There are also pictures of fishermen and their varied crops,
cranberry bogs which need the level, sandy soil of the Cape,
clam beds, glass-making which was undertaken at Sandwich
where glass was made by a process now lost, and printing
which is not an inheritance from the geography of the State,
but a result of the solemn studiousness of Boston's earliest
settlers which left its mark in generously scattered colleges
and printing shops throughout the State.
FORE RIVER SHIPYARD, QUINCY
SHIPYARD, ESi
I
HOISTING SAIL
CHAINS
WOODS HOLE BUOY YARD
OLD MILL, SUDBURY
' CHARLES W. MORGAN/ NEW BEDFORD
SEEDING CLAMS
CRANBERRY
*iifr
MNDWICLGUSS
SANDWICH GLASS
NETS DRYING, GLOUCESTER
HERRING RUN, WAREI
m
7JH
AVING
PRINTING
Government 57
In the following period, before the State Constitution was accepted,
patriots and a Provincial Congress ran the affairs of State. James Bow-
doin and a Council were in charge. The government was the people's
own after June, 1774, but there was agitation, particularly from Berk-
shire County, to confirm this in a constitution. The General Court of
1777-78 drew up such an instrument making Massachusetts the first
State to submit a new constitution to the people, but it was rejected.
The citizens properly felt that such a momentous covenant should be
drawn by a body elected solely for that purpose and, moreover, the first
draft contained no bill of rights or separation of powers.
The people next voted in favor of a constitutional convention. It
convened at Cambridge in September, 1779. James Bowdoin was chosen
presiding officer. A sub-committee of prominent citizens eventually
turned over the task of drawing up the new instrument to John Adams,
indisputably the best-qualified man of his day. Adams, paying tribute
to the pioneer liberals, later said it was * Locke, Sidney, and Rousseau
and De Mabley reduced to practice.' The new Constitution was sub-
mitted March 2, 1780, and was ratified June 7. John Hancock was
elected Governor. Although Massachusetts had been the first of the
States to establish a government of its own, it was the last of the thirteen
Colonies to adopt a written constitution.
Massachusetts is today the only State in the Union still governed
under its original constitution. This has endured chiefly because of its
broad provisions and flexible character. It was the first such document
boldly to establish the principle of the separation of powers of the various
branches of government. It contains assurance of the protection of in-
alienable rights. Among its more important provisions were the right
of the Governor and Council or the Legislature to require opinions from
justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, the removal of judges by address,
and the inapplicability of martial laws to citizens except with the consent
of the Legislature.
There have been three constitutional conventions since 1779: in 1820,
1853, and 1917. More than seventy amendments have been made to the
Constitution, but the general plan of government it erected is still es-
sentially in operation. While power has been increasingly centralized in
the Chief Executive and the State Government, the Constitution is still
the bulwark of individual freedom and rights. As in the case of other
State constitutions, it is a more powerful instrument than the Federal
Constitution, because it has all powers not explicitly delegated to the
Federal Government, while the Federal Government enjoys only powers
specifically granted.
58 Massachusetts: The General Background
The town was the earliest unit of government. It was not for some
century and a half that there was a formal statute declaring the town
'a body politic and corporate,' capable of suing and being sued; yet it was
early in the history of the Colony that in practice the town became a
self-governing unit a miniature republic. The difficulties of travel,
the dangers of leaving frontier farms open to Indian pillage, and inveterate
distrust of arbitrary power acted jointly in favor of local independence.
The General Court at Boston among its first actions granted the scat-
tered infant towns incorporation and the right to make regulations, al-
though at first these were made to apply only to stray swine. Gradually
thereafter the townsmen assumed local authority.
In 1632 the Cambridge elders ruled that, under penalty of a fine,
every person must appear at the monthly town meeting within half
an hour of the sounding of the bell. Definite local officials began to ap-
pear. Dorchester was at first ruled by the clergy and magistrates. In
what is asserted to be the oldest self-rule document extant in the United
States, the Dorchester town meeting record of 1633, the citizens were
summoned by the rumble of a drum and twelve men acting as a ' steering
committee.' The next year, 1634, Charlestown organized the first Board
of Selectmen. This system, which provided a civil agency of government,
was promptly adopted by other towns. This spontaneous organization
of government within the towns, rather than any intention of the first
charter, in 1635 led the General Court, in recognition of an accomplished
fact, to make the first grant of local self-government in America. Given
at Newe Towne, March 3, it granted the towns the right to dispose of
common property, order civil affairs, and choose their own officers. By
1640, twenty town governments were in existence.
Expansion of the duties of the town officers and an increase in the
number of town officials followed. In 1642 the General Court directed
the 'chosen men' of each town to see to education, a humble act which
gave birth to the public school system in America. Ten years after, the
town of Cambridge vested the taxing power in their ' townsmen,' a
privilege exercised by the Selectmen of Dorchester since 1645. In ad-
dition to expanded duties for the Selectmen who were even directed
to remove oyster shells from the public highways so many duties were
heaped upon the town Constable among them taking charge of small-
pox funerals, levying fines, and catching Quakers that anyone declining
the job was assessed the sizable fine of 10. Until 1684 the officeholders
and town duties continued to grow. Gaugers, viewers of pipestaves,
cullers of brick, and measurers of salt appeared on the public rolls. Town
legislation multiplied.
Government 59
So vigorous was the growth of the towns that between the formal end
of the Colony and beginning of the Province, 1684-92, the town organiza-
tion and privileges were recognized. The efforts of Governor Andros to
tax tha towns, command public assemblies, and interfere with the town
meeting were no small factors in arousing the towns to depose him.
Convinced of the inalienability of their right of self-rule, the towns main-
tained it until the provincial charter from William and Mary arrived in
1691. When the new charter was found to be without a provision guaran-
teeing local self-government, the first act passed by the General Court
hastened to make that guaranty.
In the eighteenth century, growth of the towns was spasmodic because
of the unsettled times and perils of the frontier. Tax lists show 1 1 1 towns
in 1715; 156 in 1742; 161 in 1752; 199 in 1768; and 239 in 1780. At times
the frontier hazard was so acute that the General Court passed a law by
which persons abandoning a frontier town would forfeit their estates.
The same passion for self-rule, displayed at the time of Sir Edmund
Andros, prompted the towns to embrace the principles of the Revolution.
They voted to support the Declaration of Independence, provided sup-
plies and ammunition, and voted bounties to volunteers. The towns,
impelled by the ideals of the first settlers, were the backbone of the
revolt.
The Constitution of 1780, after one hundred and fifty years of doubt,
confirmed local autonomy. A General Act on towns, passed in 1786,
treated application of the principle at length. It named the officers to
be elected, the right to assess taxes, make by-laws, and punish offenders.
The people were guaranteed the right to place an article in a town war-
rant or even compel a Justice of the Peace to convoke a town meeting.
There were then about three hundred communities with about 400,000
population.
In 1820 a constitutional amendment gave the General Court the right
to charter cities. Two years later Boston, which had made five attempts
since 1784 to discard the town system, was incorporated. The genesis
of city government was in the chartered borough of Colonial times. New
York in 1686 had the first borough charter. It was modeled on the Eng-
lish Community corporation, with the Mayor and the Council or Alder-
men acting as opposing checks.
At first committees of the Council handled matters like public works
and water supply, but separate departments were finally created for such
purposes. Wherever a Mayor secured the veto power, the Council de-
clined in importance. Inefficiency in departments, laxity in enforcing
60 Massachusetts: The General Background
State laws, squandering of public funds, and poor policing led to increas-
ing State interference in the years preceding the Civil War. After the
Civil War, towns continued to shift to city government. In 1865 there
were 14 cities and in 1875 19, with more than fifty per cent of the popula-
tion. In 1885 there were 23 cities with sixty per cent of the popula-
tion.
As the tide of immigration rose, general optimism prevailed; and with
the population interested in business pursuits, public debts, inefficiency,
and the spoils system flourished. By the turn of the present century the
reform of city government was a major issue and, as a consequence,
many towns of increasing population were seeking to discover a modified
town system and avoid city organization with its maze of problems.
By a law passed in 1915, called the Optional Charter Law, the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, which has authority to grant or annul a city charter,
made four choices possible: Mayor and Council elected at-large; Mayor
and Council elected partially by wards and at-large; the Commission
form or City Manager form. In this State, the system of providing a
charter by special acts is followed, thus theoretically basing each charter
on the particular needs of the community.
However, the city form has not appealed to many large towns. In
1915 Brookline tried the limited or representative town meeting to
regulate its size. Any citizen may speak, but only duly elected citizens
may vote. Water town followed this example in 1919, Arlington in 1921,
and about twelve others up to the present date.
Although there is a belief that the traditional town meeting is to be
found only in small communities on the Cape or in the Berkshires, there
are still large communities which retain not only their town designation,
like Braintree, Plymouth, and Natick all over 12,000 in population
but also towns which, although larger than some cities, retain what has
been sometimes called the 'last refuge of pure democracy/ the unlimited
town meeting; among them is Framingham, a community of about 23,000.
The county system which developed in Massachusetts was at first
patterned after the English model familiar to the first settlers. Its or-
ganization here was chiefly for judicial purposes. In the West, as in the
English counties in Saxon days, the county has developed legislative
powers; but in the Bay State the towns and cities, some of whose officers
are today county commissioners, were too strong to permit it. The
first counties were organized in 1643 as Suffolk, Middlesex, Essex, and
Norfolk. By the time of the Revolution, 12 of the present 14 counties
were in existence. Franklin was organized in 1811 and Hampden, the
Government 61
last, in 1812. The early officers were appointed. After the Revolution,
most of them became elective.
Originally all malefactors were brought before the General Court at
Boston. This resulted in such congestions and delay that in 1635 the Gen-
eral Court established courts at Ipswich, Salem, Newtowne, and Boston
to handle all but capital cases. The General Court became a court of
appeal. As courts for various purposes developed, the General Court,
for convenience, located them in the four 'shires' organized in 1643.
Growth of the judicial and penal system from then on was rapid. In
1647 local magistrates were appointed for smaller cases. In 1655 each
county was ordered to establish a House of Correction. In 1685 came
the authority to probate wills and establish Chancery Courts for equity
cases. In 1699 the 'beadle' became the Sheriff, and as such was made
keeper of the House of Correction.
There were few changes in the Provincial period. Judges, sheriffs, and
justices were still appointed by the Governor and Council. In 1699 the
Inferior Courts for common pleas were established in each county (there
then being ten counties), and a Superior Court of Judicature was estab-
lished by the Province. The same year legislation making the Sheriff
general keeper of the jails was passed.
When the Commonwealth period began in 1780, the Superior Court
of Judicature became the Supreme Judicial Court. Two years later the
Inferior Courts became the Courts of Common Pleas, and in 1811 they
were succeeded by the Circuit Court of Common Pleas with a Chief
Justice and assistants, to be succeeded in 1859 by the Superior Courts.
The present Municipal Courts are successors of the old police courts or
courts of Justice of the Peace.
Although the courts, as organized in the counties, are creatures of the
General Court, they constitute one of the great trinity of independent
branches of our government. The independence of the courts is based
upon the Constitution, for it is within their power to void even legislation
when it is not consonant with constitutional provisions. Common law,
just as in Colonial times, is the basis of Massachusetts jurisprudence,
modified and developed, however, during the past three hundred years
in accordance with legislative enactments and judicial decisions.
The courts, when in session, are open to all citizens. There are two
chief divisions, for criminal and for civil business. Minor cases may be
disposed in the District Courts. Major matters are customarily con-
sidered in the Superior Courts, although litigants of even minor matters
have the right to carry their cases to the Superior bench. The Supreme
Judicial Court is the highest court of appeal in the Commonwealth.
62 Massachusetts: The General Background
In Massachusetts the Legislature is known as the General Court, al-
though it has long since created courts for the judicial affairs of the
State. Today the General Court is exclusively a lawmaking body. Bi-
cameral, it consists of a lower popular body, the House of Representatives,
over which the Speaker presides, and a smaller upper body, the State
Senate, over which the President presides.
The first General Court under the Constitution met in Boston October
25, 1780. The number of its members varied considerably. At times it
had more than 400. The establishment of Maine as a separate State
helped to reduce the number, but it was not until 1857 that a constitu-
tional amendment fixed it at the present membership of 240 for the
House and 40 for the Senate. The Acts of 1926, which established re-
presentative and senatorial districts, determined there should be one
Senator for every 103,000 persons and one Representative for every
17,000.
While most States have biennial sessions, Massachusetts retains
annual sessions. Under the right of free petition, any citizen of the
Commonwealth, by requesting either a Representative or Senator, may
introduce a petition to alter or abolish an old law, or establish a new one.
Although such petitions are pigeonholed in many States, in Massachusetts
a report has to be made on each one.
Similarly, if introduced in the Senate, such a petition is given a reading
in the Senate and is referred to the proper committee. Next it is printed
and a public hearing is given in order that both proponents and opponents
may be heard. The committee then reports on the petition. If the report
is favorable, the petition, now in the form of a bill, faces three readings
either in the Senate or House, depending on the officer who introduced it.
If it survives the third reading, there is then a vote to be engrossed. If
engrossed, it then goes to the other legislative body, and through the
same readings and engrossment. Differences between the branches may
be ironed out in a conference committee.
Theoretically the laws are supposed to be administered by the Gov-
ernor with the aid of his Council. In reality the Governor, having a dual
role because of his position as head of a political party, is the origin of
legislation. With this practice of inspiring legislation and with an enor-
mous amount of patronage under his control, the Governor's position is
no longer one merely of dignity and honor, but of constantly increasing
power.
Under the Colonial charter, all Governors save the first were elected
by the people for a one-year term. James II, before he was deposed,
Government 63
broke this procedure. Thereafter, under the charter of William and
Mary, the Governor was subject to appointment by the Crown. He
became vice-regal, a military figure with power to prorogue or dissolve
the General Court. Since 1780 the Governor has been elected at-large.
John Hancock, the first Constitutional Governor, was elected six terms.
A majority vote was required, resulting in 1855 ' m a change to a plurality
vote after the election had several times been forced into the General
Court for selection of the winner. Since 1917 the Governor's term has
been for two years instead of one.
The Governor is Commander-in- Chief of the State's Militia and
Naval forces. With advice of the Council he may prorogue the House
and Senate and appoint all judicial officers, may appoint and remove
State department heads, and exercises the power of pardon for every
verdict but impeachment.
Only Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts still have a Gov-
ernor's Council. The seven assistants of the Governor of Plymouth
Colony constitute the historical origin of the Council. The charter of
Charles I provided for the election of eighteen assistants. The charter
of William and Mary provided for the election of twenty-eight councillors.
The first draft of the State Constitution omitted them, but the instru-
ment of 1780 retained them, as did the Constitutional Convention of
1820, although their number was reduced to nine. These were elected
from the group of forty, who were elected jointly Senator-Councillor,
leaving a Senate of thirty-one members. It is an interesting fact that
many declined the councillorship, regarding the Senate seat as more
important.
In 1840 the thirteenth constitutional amendment was passed, providing
for the selection of the Councillors by the House and Senate from the
people-at-large. A committee of the Constitutional Convention of 1853
voted abolition of this measure, but the vote was rejected. Two years
later another amendment was passed providing for eight councillor
districts and direct election.
The Council has been attacked on the grounds that it is a dispensable
Colonial relic, that it makes impossible a concentration of responsibility,
that its pardon proceedings are secret, that its revision of sentences is
prejudicial to the courts, that its work could be performed by the Senate,
and on the grounds of economy. It has been defended as a check on the
power of the Governor, and for the reason that numerous duties now
performed by it would otherwise have to be delegated elsewhere.
In order to carry out the policies formulated by the Legislature, there
64 Massachusetts: The General Background
has developed and been placed under the supervision of the Governor a
number of State departments. These departments, with an ever- widening
scope in community activities, are distinct from such primary govern-
mental units as the departments of the Secretary of State, the State
Treasurer, and the Attorney-General.
With early industrialization came an increase in the number of public
welfare cases. Many of the towns and cities sought to evade their ob-
ligation toward these victims of the changing economy, with the result
that a State Board of Charity, forerunner of our present Department of
Public Welfare, was established by the Legislature.
Public health was another vital need which called for State interven-
tion. Boston in 1799 established its own Board of Health. In 1828
Salem, Marblehead, Plymouth, Charlestown, Lynn, and Cambridge had
similar boards. But in 1849, when there was a devastating epidemic of
cholera, these Boards of Health were not able to cope with the peril, with
the result that the State Board of Health was established.
In 1852 a law prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors was passed. Its
enforcement was extremely difficult. A special committee which in-
vestigated the situation in 1863 publicized the weaknesses of local en-
forcement. Two years later, despite the opposition of some localities,
the office of Constable of the Commonwealth was established. With his
deputies he was to regulate, not only the liquor shops, but also to suppress
gambling and vice. In 1875, when State prohibition of the sale of liquor
was repealed, the enforcement unit was reorganized into what is today
the Sta'te Police.
The development of the State Board of Education had similar small
beginnings. In 1826 each town was required to choose a school committee,
usually of five members, and give an annual report to the Secretary of
State. In 1834 a State School Fund was established from the sale of land
in Maine and from claims against the Federal Government. Three years
later the State Board of Education came into being.
Practically every phase of human activity came under supervision of
the State. New departments, some later consolidated, were organized:
in 1838, the State Banking Commission; in 1853, the Board of Agricul-
ture; in 1855, the Insurance Commission; in 1865, the Tax Commission;
in 1869, the Bureau of Labor Statistics; in 1870, the Corporation Com-
mission; in 1887, the first registration board. More recently, civil service,
elections, highways, bridges, and public metropolitan areas have come
under State supervision.
LABOR
BY 1830 the nearest geographical frontier had been pushed to about five
hundred miles west of Massachusetts. A new frontier, however, delineated
on no map, was arising the frontier of awakening labor. Frederick
Jackson Turner and a host of his disciples have told the story of the
Western frontier, and of the influence on the East of fresh currents of
democracy from the West. Quite as important, however, in its ultimate
effects is the story of the defense of democracy waged by these other
frontiersmen.
Hardly more than fifty years after they had won the Revolution, only
ten years after they had secured the vote, and seven years after the found-
ing of the first trade union in the State, Massachusetts workmen in 1830
raised a whole series of new demands. They asked for free public educa-
tion, for the abolition of monopolies, the end of imprisonment for debt,
the reform of the militia system, separation of religion and politics, sim-
plification of legal procedure, compulsory mandate for representatives,
and a graduated taxation of surplus property.
Through the panics of 1837 and 1857, the post-war depression of the
1870*5, the depression of 1884, the panics of 1893 and 1907, the post-war
depression of 1921, and the crisis beginning in 1929; in the face of depriva-
tion, discrimination, and armed force; with little support except from men
and women as poor as themselves, these pioneers were responsible for the
recognition by their State of the right to join a labor union, for the spread
of free education, for at least the partial freeing of women and children
from industrial slavery, and for the relaxation of laws that penalized a
man and his family for being poor. Most of these pioneers of Massachu-
setts democracy, like the majority of Western pioneers, remain anony-
mous, their names and deeds either lost altogether or buried in the files of
old newspapers, union journals, trade-union records, Labor Department
reports, ships' logs, and other obscure sources from which much of even so
brief an account as the present must be derived. A few outstanding names
emerge those of George McNeill, a weaver of Fall River, of Ira Steward,
a machinist of Boston, of the Lowell textile workers Sarah G. Bagley and
Lucy Larcom, the latter a poet and author of 'A New England Girlhood.'
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century shipping was among
66 Massachusetts: The General Background
the most important industries in Massachusetts, the principal seafaring
State of the nation. Conditions of labor on the ships were far from ideal.
Aboard whaling vessels, especially, seamen risked their lives for little pay.
To constant danger was added harsh discipline. Whaling vessels were
floating factories, and coopers and smiths were necessary to their opera-
tions. These skilled mechanics soon discovered that what was a strike
on land was mutiny afloat. The cooper of the New Bedford vessel 'Har-
vest' who 'said he would not work no more than day's work on shore'
promptly found himself in irons aboard a sloop-of-wai . When the crew
of the ' Midas ' refused to take the vessel out of Upsala shorthanded and
appealed to the United States Consul, they were replaced with natives,
one man was discharged, three were put in irons, and three others were
flogged.
No matter how successful a whaling voyage might be, the 'fo'mast'
hand rarely came off with anything to bank. His 'lay' in the voyage was
generally on the books, his profits were book profits. Against these were
charged all his purchases, during a voyage of from three to five years,
from the slop-chest aboard ship clothes, tobacco, boots, etc. at
prices several times the value attaching to these goods elsewhere. If he
had any surplus when he came ashore, the 'sailors' boarding-houses' and
the 'land sharks' soon took care of that. The only thing that was dis-
pensed free to the old New Bedford whalemen was a Bible. A well-known
owner of one of that city's whaling fleets once described the Bible as the
best cheap investment a shipowner could make.
Speculative overexpansion and inflation of credit were already becom-
ing familiar phenomena to the workmen of the i82o's. The hard winter
of 1828-29 brought widespread misery and unemployment. Those who
were employed labored long hours at low wages in Lowell, for instance,
the working-day in the mills varied from i \]/2 to 13^ hours, and the wages
from $i to $5 a week. Three thousand poor were annually imprisoned for
debt in Massachusetts. Fluctuating currency and compulsory militia
service penalized the workingmen. Many strikes were treated as illegal
affairs that merited jail sentences for the participants, and not until
1842, in the case of Commonwealth v. John Hunt, were the courts to
establish the precedent that a trade union in this instance the Boston
Journeymen Bootmakers' Society was something other than a criminal
conspiracy against the State.
In the face of such conditions the New England Association of Farm-
ers, Mechanics, and Other Workingmen was formed in 1830. At the first
public meeting of this group in Boston a political party, the Working
Labor 67
Men of Boston, was founded. Meetings of the party were held in North-
ampton, Dedham, and Dorchester. By the following spring, the move-
ment was spreading to the western part of the State.
Immigrant laborers first began to appear in any considerable numbers
in the 1830*3, when many Irish entered the port of Boston. 'Riots' -
sometimes spontaneous and unorganized strikes, sometimes the result of
indignation of other workers against new and cheap labor occurred.
Union organization in Massachusetts began among skilled workers
shipwrights, calkers, and journeymen in the building trades in the
i82o's. The early 'trades' union' was a confederation of organizations in
the same industry; what corresponded to the modern trade union was
called an 'association' or 'society,' and often had charitable and benefit
provisions for its members. A very early, if not the earliest, trade union in
Massachusetts was that of the shipwrights and calkers of Boston and
Charlestown, who in 1823 secured a State charter as the 'Columbian
Charitable Society of Shipwrights and Calkers.'
In 1825, six hundred Boston journeymen carpenters struck for the ten-
hour day, but the strike was lost by the threatened blacklisting of the
journeymen on the part of ' the gentlemen engaged in building.' During
the i83o's many strikes for the ten-hour day occurred among machinists,
leather finishers, and stonecutters, and among building trades workers.
Most of these strikes were defeated either by the importation of strike-
breakers from other localities or by threats on the part of the employers
to reduce wages upon a reduction of hours.
Strikes for higher wages also occurred in the period of 1830-40. On
New Year's Day, 1834, one thousand women shoebinders of Lynn who
worked at home at piece-rates formed a society, held several meetings and
street parades, and resolved they would take no work until the rates were
raised. The strike was defeated by the employers' action in sending the
work elsewhere. In February, 1834, 'a brief disturbance occurred at
Lowell among the female factory operatives on account of a reduction in
wages.' Laborers on the Providence Railroad in Marshfield struck for
higher wages in the same year, and the strike was suppressed by a com-
pany of militia. In 1837, sailors in Boston struck for an advance from $14
to $16 a month.
The panic of 1837 halted the labor movement for several years. Cotton
mills closed down, whale ships lay idle at the New Bedford wharves, shoe
manufacturing in Haverhill and other 'shoe towns' ceased almost com-
pletely.
In the i84o's a new ten-hour movement developed, encouraged by Presi-
68 Massachusetts: The General Background
dent Van Buren's order in 1840 that 'all public establishments will here-
after be regulated, as to working hours, by the ten-hour system.' A peti-
tion of Lowell women textile operatives in 1842 asked the legislature for
a law to prevent mill-owners from employing women more than ten hours
per day. The first convention of the New England Working Men's Asso-
ciation (later the Labor Reform League) dedicated to securing the ten-
hour day, met at Boston in 1844; and in 1845, under the leadership of
Sarah G. Bagley, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association was
founded for the same purpose. In response to this movement, a special
legislative committee began in 1845 the first State investigation of labor
conditions in the United States. It reported that hours for women in
Massachusetts industry averaged over twelve per day. 'The remedy/
said the committee, 'is not with us. We look for it in the progressive
improvement in art and science, in a higher appreciation of man's destiny,
in a less love for money,' etc. The legislative committees of 1846, 1850,
1852, 1855, 1866, and 1867 also failed to recommend a ten-hour law. How-
ever, by 1844, as the result of President Van Buren's regulation as applied
to the Charlestown Navy Yard and of effective organization among ship-
yard workers, the ten-hour day became general in most shipbuilding
establishments in the State.
In 1853, the House passed a bill limiting hours of women in industry.
But the Senate substituted for it an unenforceable bill. Not until 1874
was the first enforceable law limiting hours of work in factories placed
on the statute books in Massachusetts, and this applied only to women
and children.
In the i84o's immigration began again to rise. This period saw also the
growth of associative, co-operative, and communal movements in Massa-
chusetts. William H. Channing, George William Curtis, Henry James,
Sr., and George Ripley, among others, spread the co-operative gospel.
The humanitarians of the i84o's sought to supersede capitalism by de-
veloping alternative, and superior, forms of economic organization. The
wage-earners in capitalist enterprises, caught in the net of the wage
system, sought to improve their conditions within that system by strik-
ing. Methodical efforts of trade unions to investigate wages and conditions
and to better them on the basis of their findings, to make agreements with
their employers, and to enforce agreements with strikes, if necessary, dis-
sipated the last fogs of transcendentalism in the labor movement. Initia-
tion fees, dues, and fines were fixed, regular meeting-places rented, and
hiring-halls set up. Regulations limiting the number of apprentices and
protecting highly skilled workers were adopted, and the unions finally
Labor 69
and definitely expelled the few remaining employer-members from their
ranks.
As a result of Irish famine and German revolution, immigrants to the
State from 1845 to 1855 were averaging thirty thousand a year. With the
help, in many instances, of immigrants from Europe who were experienced
in workers' movements, many trade unions were organized. Few survived
the panic of 1857, with the exception of those in highly skilled trades with
a long tradition of militancy, such as the shipbuilders, or those which, in
danger of going under, affiliated to form national unions.
In the period 1859-79 local trade unions increased from seventeen to
forty-two, Massachusetts sharing with New York and Pennsylvania
sixty per cent of the total number of unions in the United States.
The first important strike in the shoe trade occurred in 1858-59 at Na-
tick, where six hundred shoe workers, after a fourteen weeks' struggle,
gained an increase in wages. One thousand shoemakers of Lynn formed a
union and struck in February, 1860. A hundred special police were ap-
pointed by the Lynn authorities, and a detachment of Boston police was
sent into the city. The strikers, announcing their peaceful intent, es-
corted the Boston police out of Lynn with jeers. The strike became gen-
eral throughout eastern Massachusetts, and was joined by women stitch-
ers, binders, and machine operators. Delegations from Marblehead,
Beverly, Salem, Danvers, and Woburn joined at Lynn on March 7, 1860,
in the largest labor demonstration ever held in Massachusetts up to that
time. Five thousand men and one thousand women paraded with over
one hundred banners and twenty-six American flags, enlivened by several
military and fire companies and five brass bands. Eventually, by import-
ing strikebreakers from Maine and New Hampshire, the factory owners
were able to end the strike.
The Order of the Knights of St. Crispin was founded by shoe workers
at Milwaukee in 1867 after a plan of Newell Daniels, formerly of Milford,
Massachusetts, and a Grand Lodge of that order was incorporated in
1870 in the State. In 1868 the 'Crispins' struck in Ashland to enforce the
discharge of non-union men. The employer secretly brought in one hun-
dred men from Maine, protected by State police. In North Adams man-
ufacturers imported men whom they forced to sign each month an agree-
ment not to join the Order. The men signed and joined the 'Crispins.'
Finding that supposedly 'loyal' workers were secretly joining the union,
and that imported labor was being met at the railroad station by union
men and warned against 'scabbing,' the factory owned by C. T. Sampson,
at North Adams, actually imported Chinese from California. The firm
7O Massachusetts: The General Background
of Stowe, Bills and Whitney, finding during a strike that workers refused
to respond to advertisements for men to replace the workers, set up a
school in 1875 an d trained raw youths to the trade, thus finally succeeding
in reopening the factory.
Largely through the demands of organized labor the first State Bureau
of Labor Statistics in the United States was formed in 1869, 'to collect
and publish statistical details relating to all departments of labor in the
Commonwealth, especially in its relations to the commercial, industrial,
social, educational and sanitary condition of the laboring classes, and to
the permanent prosperity of the productive industry of the Common-
wealth.'
In most trade unions, political discussion was not permitted at meetings.
Workingmen, however, were vitally interested in labor legislation, and
not only participated in but led many of the political movements of the
1870*5 and i88o's. Outside the trade unions were organized the Trades
Assemblies, where political and social questions were discussed. The
National Labor Union was created for this purpose in 1866, and continued
to function until 1874. In April, 1878, at a regular meeting of the Boston
Typographical Union, a motion was adopted to form a Central Union of
the Trades in Boston and the vicinity.
Labor also began to consider the larger question of the role of labor in
relation to production. Ira Steward, a machinist of Boston, developed
in the period of 1869-80 the theory that by a general eight-hour day and a
general increase of purchasing power the problems of capital and labor
could be solved. He set forth his ideas in a book which he left uncompleted
at his death in 1883. The manuscript was altered, added to, and com-
pleted by George Gunther, a weaver of Fall River, who brought it out un-
der the title of 'Wealth and Progress' in 1887. Later Gunther joined with
F. A. Sorge, for a time the representative of Karl Marx's International
Workingmen's Association hi America, and with J. P. McDonnell the
Fenian, to found the International Labor Union, which attempted to
organize unskilled workers.
George McNeil! also had a major part in labor's political movements of
this period. His father, John McNeill, had been associated with John
Greenleaf Whittier in the anti-slavery movement, and George himself
took part in the strike of 1852 in the woolen mills of Amesbury, which
was supported by WTiittier and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Black-
listed in the textile trade, George McNeill learned the trade of shoemaker.
He was secretary (1863-64) of the Grand Eight-Hour League, president
(1869-74) of the Boston Eight-Hour League, and president (1867-69) of the
Labor 71
Workingmen's Institute. He drafted the first program for the Knights of
Labor Assembly in 1874. At first he was associated with Wendell Phillips,
but the theories of the eight-hour reformers and of greenbackism were
mutually incompatible, and the association ended. Phillips and McNeill
were partly responsible for the establishment of the Massachusetts Bureau
of Labor Statistics in 1869, and McNeill was appointed the first assistant
chief of the bureau in that year, but was discharged in 1873 on account of
his labor activities. McNeill resigned from the Knights of Labor to join
the newly formed American Federation of Labor in 1886. He wrote a
number of books on labor problems.
Wendell Phillips was largely responsible for the Greenback Movement of
1870-80, which, partly socialist and partly anarchist in inspiration, was
an effort to displace bankers and middlemen from their key places in the
economy of production. Currency and bonds, according to the green-
backists, should be interchangeable. The basic economic theory common
to socialism, anarchism, and greenbackism was that capital was solely the
product of labor. This was no new doctrine, of course Adam Smith and
Ricardo had already voiced it, while Marx had employed it as a weapon.
Its newness lay in its use by workingmen's political movements in Amer-
ica. Greenbackism, popularly supposed to be a currency reform move-
ment, was more than that it aimed, by a new system of credit and by
universal suffrage, at complete industrial reorganization.
Besides Wendell Phillips, Josiah Warren, the first American anarchist,
Ezra Heywood, Warren's follower, William H. Channing, Albert Bris-
bane, and John Orvis of Brook Farm were among the middle-class re-
formers participating in the unions' political movements. The Independ-
ent Party was formed in 1870, and in three weeks workingmen, without
newspaper support, succeeded in electing twenty-one State representatives
and one State senator, polling a vote of 13,000 in the State.
For more than twenty years after 1880, Massachusetts workers devoted
themselves to 'pure and simple' trade unionism. In the period of 1881-
1900 there were 1802 recorded strikes and lockouts, Massachusetts rank-
ing fourth among the States in strikes and third in number of lockouts.
Nearly one-third of these disputes was in the shoe industry, the next
largest number being in the cotton goods industry and the building trades.
In 1911, a labor law reduced women's working hours to fifty-four per
week. In retaliation, manufacturers reduced wages proportionately, and
this act precipitated the great Lawrence strike of 1912.
According to a report of the United States Commissioner of Labor,
'the average amount actually received [in Lawrence] by the 21,922 em-
72 Massachusetts : The General Background
ployees, during a week late in 1911, in which the mills were running full
time, was $8.76.' Most of the workers were unorganized the United
Textile Workers had twenty-five hundred members, and the Industrial
Workers of the World a few hundred. After three days, however, nearly
all the unskilled and semi-skilled operatives in the city were out. Joseph
Ettor, a member of the General Executive Board of the I.W.W., came to
Lawrence and assumed leadership of the strike. On January 15, strikers
picketed in mass, and the Mayor requisitioned four out-of-town troops of
militia in addition to the four local companies. On January 16, the mills
were reopened with the protection of police and the militia, and picketers
were driven back at the point of the bayonet. William M. Wood, president
of the American Woolen Company, refused to meet with a strike com-
mittee. On January 19, the skilled operatives joined the strike. Next day
several sticks of dynamite were ' discovered ' in the strike district, seven
strikers were arrested, and four additional companies of militia were
brought in. Subsequently a leading business man was tried, convicted,
and fined five hundred dollars for 'planting' the dynamite; President
Wood was exonerated in court after failing to explain a payment to the
purchaser of the dynamite. On the day of a huge demonstration, Janu-
ary 29, a woman striker was killed, and the city council voted to turn the
town over to the commander of the militia, which was reinforced by the
addition of ten more companies of infantry and two of cavalry. Ettor
and Arture Giovanitti, editor of // Proletario, were accused of the murder,
and later acquitted. While Ettor was in jail, William ('Big Bill') Hay-
wood took command of the strike. One hundred and nineteen strikers'
children were sent to New York, where they were greeted by a crowd of
five thousand. Later ninety-two more children were sent out of harm's
way. When once more a new group of 'refugee' children was ready to
board the train, fifty police and two companies of militia clubbed their
parents and dragged children and parents to jail. After the organization
of the largest picket line ever seen in Massachusetts, comprising twenty
thousand workers, the strike was won, with wage increases, time-and-a-
quarter for overtime, and guarantees of no discrimination against union
members.
During the strike the relief committee had raised a large sum, appealing
in a circular for ' bread ' for the striking workers. The Attorney General
of the State contended that this money should be spent only for bread,
whereas portions of the fund had been used for legal expenses, transporta-
tion of children, contributions to the national organization, etc. He se-
cured a court order compelling the strikers to turn over $15,379.85 to the
Labor 73
court to be expended for 'charitable purposes,' with an accounting for
sums already paid out.
In August, 1919, the Boston Social Club, an organization of 1290 Bos-
ton police, voted to join the American Federation of Labor in a body.
The patrolmen complained that their wages had failed to keep pace with
the cost of living, that the police stations were unsanitary, and that they
worked overtime without compensation. Police Commissioner Edwin U.
Curtis issued an order on August n forbidding members of the police
force to 'join any organization outside the department except posts of the
G.A.R., Spanish War Veterans, and American Legion.' Despite this or-
der, on August 15 the Boston Social Club was chartered as the Police-
men's Union under the A.F. of L., and the Boston Central Labor Union,
representing eighty thousand organized workers, assured the new union of
its support. Commissioner Curtis preferred charges against eight police-
men; as sole judge, he passed on the validity of the ruling he had issued,
and, declining to hear counsel for the policemen in rebuttal, found the men
guilty. The Policemen's Union thereupon called a strike, to become ef-
fective at the hour of the evening roll call on September 9. Only thirty of
the four hundred and twenty patrolmen due at that roll call appeared.
A citizens' committee, appointed as an arbitrating body, stated that * the
Boston Policemen's Union should not affiliate or be connected with any
labor organization,' but urged that 'the present wages, hours, and work-
ing conditions require material adjustment.'
The striking patrolmen placed twenty pickets at each police station.
Mayor Peters called on ' all citizens to do their part to assist the authori-
ties in maintaining order,' and Governor Calvin Coolidge called out one
hundred State police. President Lowell of Harvard appealed to students
1 to prepare themselves for such services as the Governor may call upon
them to render.' Dean Greenough organized an 'emergency committee,'
and Coach Fisher was reported by the press as having declared, ' To hell
with football if men are needed.' ' Come back from your vacations, young
men,' a press release credited Professor Hall of the Physics Department of
Harvard with saying, ' there is sport and diversion for you right here in
Boston.'
Sympathetic citizens of Boston gathered around police stations to cheer
the strikers and boo patrolmen who remained on duty. Guardsmen opened
fire with rifles and a machine gun on a cheering crowd of sympathizers in
South Boston, killing two boys and wounding several bystanders, and in
Scollay Square, cavalry charged on a crowd, shot a woman and killed a
man. Metropolitan Park (State) policemen thereafter refused to go on
74 Massachusetts: The General Background
further strike duty, were suspended, and joined the union. The possibility
of a sympathetic general strike neared. Hoodlums began pouring into
Boston from outside towns, and President Mclnnis of the Policemen's
Union placed responsibility for rioting and looting with Commissioner
Curtis. Mayor Peters placed the blame on Governor Coolidge, and the
Governor offered an 'implied rebuke' of the Mayor. Volunteer police-
men were called out on the morning of September 1 i, by which time seven
persons had been killed and some sixty injured. E. B. McGill was shot
by guardsmen on Howard Street 'as he was merely passing by,' according
to the press; Henry Grote was killed as he played 'craps' opposite the
Armory in Jamaica Plain; and Richard D. Reemts, a striking patrolman,
was killed as he attempted to disarm two special policemen.
President Wilson denounced the strike, and next day Samuel Gompers,
president of the A.F. of L., ordered the strikers back to work. With the
support of the Federation lost, the policemen were beaten, and their
union voted on September 1 2 to return to work. Next day, according to
the press, there ' was no recurrence of disorder except for the killing of one
man and the wounding of a woman.' Corporal Newton of the National
Guard was reported as killing a youth of twenty-two named Coist as he
ran across Tremont Street. The street was crowded with people, and Mrs.
Mary Jacques was about to cross the street when she screamed and fell,
shot through the leg. The people on the street began to crowd around, but
the guardsmen pushed them back, shouting, according to the newspaper
accounts, ' Get back or you'll get the same thing 1 '
Gompers appealed to Governor Coolidge to reinstate the strikers, at
the same time completely disavowing the strike. Coolidge disclaimed the
power of reinstatement, and added that he was opposed to 'the public
safety again being placed in the hands of these same policemen.'
The Boston police strike has always been considered a decisive factor
in the career of Calvin Coolidge. In 1920, he was elected to the Vice-
Presidency, and, upon the death of Warren G. Harding, in 1923, became
President of the United States.
The shoe industry today is second only to textiles in the State both as
to value of output and in the number of workers employed. One of the
most recent of many bitter struggles for organization in the shoe industry
occurred in 1929, when the shoe workers of Lynn, Boston, Chelsea, and
Salem struck with the major demand for the recognition of their union,
the United Shoe Workers of America, as opposed to the Boot and Shoe
Workers' Union, an A.F. of L. affiliate, with which they were dissatis-
fied. The strike lasted more than six months, but was broken by the Boot
Labor 75
and Shoe Union, which imported men from Maine and New Hampshire.
During this strike many 'runaway shops' left Massachusetts and moved
to non-union centers in Maine and New Hampshire. The frequency with
which these shops have moved has earned them the title of 'factories on
wheels.' .
In the summer of 1933, a movement started in Brockton for the amalga-
mation of all the independent shoe unions into one national union. A
new amalgamated union, the United Shoe and Leather Workers' Union,
was formed; the Brockton Brotherhood, however, refused to enter. This
new union, which included about fifty thousand workers, suffered from
internal dissensions, to say nothing of wholesale factory removals. In
1933-34 there were twenty-one shoe factories in Boston, employing some
seven thousand workers; by 1935-36 there remained only four factories,
employing about two thousand. Weakened by these conditions, the mem-
bership of the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union had dwindled to
fifteen thousand in 1936. In 1937, a movement again developed for
amalgamation, this time as an affiliate of the Committee for Industrial
Organization. The United and the Protective voted overwhelmingly for
amalgamation; but the Brotherhood defeated the proposal by nine
hundred votes.
In the fishing industry the ancient ' share ' or ' lay ' system still governs
the pay of all hands except the skipper, cook, and engineer. The foremast
hand gets only his share of the i stock ' (proceeds of the voyage after deduc-
tion of expenses) in lieu of a fixed wage. Theoretically, this workman thus
becomes a partner in the venture. He has no property investment at
stake, nor is he liable for financial losses involved in a 'broken voyage.'
He does speculate, however, with his time, his labor, often with his health
and not infrequently with his life.
All the old methods of fishing trawling as the Gloucestermen prac-
tice it, trap or weir fishing, hand-lining and seining are skilled labor,
and most of the work aboard the mechanized beam trawlers also requires
specialized knowledge. Risk, though considerably reduced from the days
of sail, is still large, especially in the use of dories for trawling. No regular
working hours are possible, and in the course of the usual voyage, work
never really ceases. When the men are not fishing, they have their gear
to mend, they must work ship, they must prepare the bait for trawl lines
and bait their hooks, and they must gut, clean, and stow the fish, and un-
load it when it is sold.
Fish are sold, at the principal ports, through a fish exchange, similar to
any commodity exchange save for one feature : the buyer is not held to his
76 Massachusetts: The General Background
price, even after the deal is closed. Should a number of vessels bring in
full loads of fish immediately following such a sale, thus increasing supply
and driving the price lower, the buyer may refuse to accept such fish as
have not been taken out of the hold. Usually he offers a lower price; and
as he has taken the freshest fish those on top, hence caught last the
skipper generally makes a concession. The chief burden of this sort of
dealing falls, of course, upon the crew the 'partners' in the voyage.
The only chance such men have to make an unusually large ' stock ' is to tie
up at a wharf with a full hold when no other vessel has one. And the
chances against this are large. For these reasons, mainly, the fisherman
is almost invariably poor. On account of the share system, fishermen have
remained largely unorganized.
In 1920, a fish peddler, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and a shoe- worker, Nic-
cola Sacco, both members of the Galleani group of anarchists, were ar-
rested on the charge of murder and robbery in connection with the theft of
a $15,000 payroll. Despite their alibis, the highly circumstantial nature
of the evidence, and the commendations of previous employers, they were
ultimately both adjudged guilty. During the seven years that elapsed
between the murder and the execution of the sentence, protest demonstra-
tions were held throughout the world. President Lowell of Harvard, Pres-
ident Stratton of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Judge
Robert Grant were invited by Governor Fuller to weigh the evidence and
advise him. They upheld the finding of the court and Sacco and Vanzetti
were executed on August 23, 1927. It was widely believed that, although
legal forms were observed, the determining factor in the case from start
to finish was the affiliation of the two men with an unpopular minority
political group.
The Women's Trade Union League secured, in 1921, an extension of the
fifty-eight hour law for women to further industries. Employers of woman
labor in the textile industry were given power under the National Industrial
Recovery Act of 1933 to make codes of fair competition, and in that year
they secured the suspension of section 59 of chapter 149 of the General
Laws of Massachusetts which prohibited the employment of women in
textile mills after 6 P.M. This suspension was continued from year to year
after the collapse of the National Industrial Recovery Act.
Of the 122,389 workers in the textile mills of the State in 1937, forty per
cent were women. In the textile industry, women are a permanent labor
force. Most of them enter the mills at a very early age and remain there
for the greater part of their lives. Even marriage does not always take the
textile working girl out of the mill, for the earnings of her husband seldom
Labor 77
suffice to meet the family expenses. Weekly wages for women range from
$8 for ordinary workers to $27 for the most highly skilled spinners or
weavers. Since there are seasonal periods of unemployment, weekly
earnings over long periods naturally average considerably less. The
'speedup' and 'stretchout' systems, together with improvements in
machinery, have vastly increased the machine load per worker. Ten
years ago an operative commonly took care of a single loom, now he cares
for thirty or more. According to the May, 1937, issue of the Textile Worker
of New England, 'Within the past two months the textile mills, while
announcing a 10 per cent increase in wages, have actually increased the
work load of the operatives from 25 to 200 per cent.'
The same conditions and social philosophy that have permitted the
labor of women for long hours in industry have also permitted child-labor.
Edward Johnson, in ' Wonder- Working Providence' (1654), spoke of the
people of Rowley who ' caused their little ones to be very diligent in spin-
ning cotton wool,' and with the rise of the factory system children took
places beside their parents in the textile mills. An early memorandum by
the proprietor of a cotton mill in Lancaster records that in 1815 Dennis
Rier of Newburyport agreed to work with his family at the following
wages: Himself, $5 a week; a boy of sixteen, $2 a week; a boy of thirteen,
$1.50 a week; a girl of twelve, $1.25 a week; a boy of ten, 83 cents a week;
and a girl of eight, 75 cents a week. In 1825, according to the report of
that year by the Commissioner of Education, for children under sixteen
' the time of employment is generally twelve or thirteen hours each day,
excepting the Sabbath.' At Bridgewater children worked twelve hours
daily, and could not 'attend school and be employed.' In Duxbury chil-
dren under sixteen worked from 'sunrise to sunset.' This report dealt
with corporate establishments only in many others the conditions were
worse.
Hours of labor for children under twelve were limited to ten per day by
a law of 1842, and a law of 1858 stipulated that employed children must
have eighteen weeks' schooling each year. In 1913 was passed the first
enforceable eight-hour law for children in an important textile State.
In 1937, minors under fourteen could not work during the hours school
was in session, nor before 6.30 A.M. nor after 6 P.M. No boy under sixteen
could sell papers or 'exercise the trade of scavenger' after 9 P.M. or before
5 A.M. Minors might still be bound as apprentices or servants, although
above the age of fourteen only with the consent of the bound person.
Violations of child-labor laws are frequently reported. Uncontrolled
home work by women and children is also common.
78 Massachusetts: The General Background
According to the 1930 Census, there were 60,524 children from ten to
seventeen years of age gainfully employed in the State. Of this number
9824 were between the ages of ten and fifteen. In 1924, the United States
Congress accepted the so-called 'Child-Labor Amendment,' which is not
a child-labor law, but an act authorizing Congress to pass such laws. The
measure came up for ratification in Massachusetts in the same year.
A campaign against the amendment, led by the Massachusetts Associated
Industries, enlisted the aid of prominent citizens, including Cardinal
O'Connell, A. Lawrence Lowell, and others. The campaign for the
amendment was waged mainly by the State Federation of Labor and the
Massachusetts League of Women Voters. The referendum showed a ma-
jority against ratification of the amendment, and the General Court also
returned unfavorable votes on ratification in each year from 1933 to 1937.
At the 1937 legislative hearings on the amendment, the chairman abruptly
closed the proceedings, and his action was protested by the proponents
in a picket line before the State House, the first such since the Sacco-
Vanzetti case in 1927.
Several decisions of Massachusetts equity courts have had a bearing on
labor. In 1910, the courts handed down the important decision (Mariana
de Minico v. Daniel Craig) that it was within their jurisdiction to declare
whether or not a strike was ' legal ' ; and in the following year a strike for
the closed shop by the Boston Photo-Engravers' Union against all non-
union employers in Boston was enjoined as ' illegal.' Considered as illegal
in Massachusetts are picketing with banners (picketing without banners
is 'peaceful persuasion,' and legal), and sympathetic strikes. In 1937, a
law was passed making ' sit-down ' strikes illegal. Two important decisions
favorable to labor were that which upheld a law making blacklisting by
employers illegal (John Cornellier v. Haverhill Shoe Manufacturing As-
sociation, 1915), and the decision (Commonwealth v. Walter M. Libby)
upholding the constitutionality of a State law which makes it a criminal
offense for an employer, during a strike or lockout, to advertise for
employees without plainly and explicitly mentioning in the advertisement
that labor trouble exists.
ARCHITECTURE
FOR generations historians have been telling us that when the ' Mayflower '
dropped anchor off what is now Plymouth, our ancestors went ashore and
proceeded immediately to build log cabins. This would mean that, upon
the spur of the moment, these workmen invented a new type of building
a construction such as they had never seen in England, of a kind un-
known even to the Indians. A widely publicized painting illustrating this
fanciful theory pictures a double row of such log houses reaching up the
hillside of Leyden Street at Plymouth. Far from supporting this tradi-
tion, all accounts of day-by-day happenings following the settlement of
the coastal villages give ample proof that, so far as material and labor
permitted, the first settlers in New England reproduced the homes they
had left in Old England. The wooden versions of the English yeoman's
cottage were not the first to be built by the settlers. The exigency of
immediate shelter forced a direct retrogression to a type much earlier and
more primitive than those left behind. But as there were skilled artisans
and carpenters among the early settlers who were qualified by long ap-
prenticeships in England to construct permanent houses, there is no need
for giving more than a passing mention to the first temporary makeshift
structures. The common folk were first housed in conical huts constructed
of slanting poles covered with brush, reeds, and turf, sometimes with a low
wall of branches and wattle plastered with clay. These were the ' English
wigwams' referred to in chronicles, and were simply a transplantation of
a type then in use by charcoal-burners in England. Some of these tempo-
rary shelters were cellars built into the sides of banks, walled and roofed
with brush and sod. In Salem a * pioneer village' was built in 1930, and
reproductions of some of the early shelters and houses may be seen there.
Soon after landing, the colonists dug saw pits in the English manner
and began to produce boards in quantity suitable not only for the con-
struction of their own houses but for exportation as well. In the summer
of 1626, when the ship ' Fortune ' sailed from Plymouth, bound for England,
' clapboards and wainscott ' were listed as part of her lading. In the sum-
mer of 1623 Bradford mentions the building 'of great houses in pleasant
situations,' and later writes that 'they builte a forte with good timber.'
Isaac de Rasieres described the structure in 1627 as 'a large square house
80 Massachusetts: The General Background
made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak beams.' When the fort was
taken down at the close of King Philip's War in 1676, the timber was
given to William Harlow, who built the Harlow House, which is still stand-
ing in Plymouth.
The usual type of permanent dwelling-house was a two-story structure,
the second story overhanging, with two rooms upstairs and down, a small
entry, and a mammoth chimney between. Lean-tos were often added
later. The Fairbanks House in Dedham (1636), solidly framed of oak,
rejoices in an unadorned simplicity lost in later and more academic struc-
tures. The Boardman House in Saugus (1651) combines two character-
istic features of the medieval Colonial: the overhang and the original
innovation of the lean-to. The long, unbroken slope of its roof is well
suited to stream-line the cold north wind. Ornament occurs in the Parson
Capen House at Topsfield (1683), where heavy carved pendrils or drops
depending from the bottom of the jetty or overhang lend an Elizabethan
flavor. As the overhang, however, had been evolved in England for the
purpose of gaining additional floor area above the street line, in a new and
spacious country it dwindled and soon disappeared.
The earliest ecclesiastical architecture was similarly influenced by
English medievalism. The only church building of the seventeenth cen-
tury still standing in the State, the Old Ship Church in Hingham, was
erected by ship carpenters in 1681. Its roof, built in the form of a trun-
cated pyramid, is surmounted by a belfry and lookout station. This early
church, constructed to fulfill the simple needs of its congregation, is de-
void of frivolity or pretense. Here, as frequently elsewhere in early Massa-
chusetts architecture, deliberate indifference to any esthetic concept
resulted in an effect of restraint and dignity.
The first indications of a more studied architecture came at the opening
of the eighteenth century with the adoption of less steep roofs, the use of
sash windows instead of casements, and a growing tendency to employ a
uniform cornice with a hip roof. William Price, a Boston print-seller, de-
signed Christ Church (the Old North Church) in 1723, adorning its simple
front with a lofty wooden steeple reminiscent of Wren. A more imposing
structure, the Old South Church, erected seven years later from plans by
Robert Twelve, is in this same style, which strongly influenced ecclesiasti-
cal architecture in the colonies during the entire century. The architec-
tural ambitions of the builders were satisfied by the steeple, little effort
at further adornment being made beyond an occasional elaboration of the
eaves into a classical cornice.
Independent of architectural pomposities of the mainland, the fisher-
Architecture 81
men along the bended elbow of the State were erecting their huddled
little ' Cape Codders.' Built on flat surfaces of the dunes, these one-and-a-
half-story cottages with lean-tos hugged the earth for warmth over shal-
low unfinished cellars. Entrance to the cellar was provided by a trapdoor
inside the house or by an outside bulkhead, its ungainliness hidden by a
lilac or other flowering shrub. Since the first story was usually not over
seven feet high, the half story used as a storeroom and as sleeping quarters
for the children provided little headroom. The typical Cape Codder had
a shingle roof, a large central chimney, a clapboarded front, sometimes
painted, and unpainted shingled sides which the salt air weathered to a
dull silver. The windmill, with its shingled walls and skeleton-like vanes
silhouetted against the dunes, is peculiar to the Cape and Nantucket.
The floors were of pine, wide-cut, painted or ' spattered.' The doors ordi-
narily had six panels and opened with a thumb latch. The first-floor win-
dows had four 'lights' each, those in the upper floor but three. Smaller
windows, set irregularly in the walls, provided light for closets. The
parlor, more carefully finished than the kitchen, contained a 'chair rail,'
a narrow moulding running around the wall about two and a half feet
from the floor. So simple a cottage made up for its bareness by the bright
polish of its window-panes and the gleam of its scrubbed floor.
The 'half-a-cape,' a plain dwelling with a chimney at one end, derived
its name from the fact that its owner always hoped the day would come
when he could add the other half and convert his cottage into a proper
house with a central chimney. The ' salt-box ' the origin of the name no
longer so apparent now that salt comes in cardboard containers has a
northerly lean-to roof. The ' rainbow roof ' rises in a convex curve to the
ridgepole, with the appearance of an inverted boat's hull. The familiar
roomy gambrel roof is occasionally but not often seen on the Cape.
As the seaboard towns grew in wealth, and tools and materials were
more easily secured, builders began to indulge in the free classic details
of the Queen Anne and the Georgian styles. The result was Georgian
colonial, which had a profound influence upon American domestic archi-
tecture along the eastern seaboard. In New England, Georgian colonial
buildings were almost invariably harmonious; details in most instances
were delicate and refined; errors were apt to be on the side not of coarseness,
but of smallness and reserve. The first phase of New England Georgian
occupied the period between 1720-25 and 1740-45, of which the Royall
House (1723) in Medford and the Dummer Mansion in Byfield are fine
examples. The second phase, from 1745 to 1775-80, is exemplified in the
Lee Mansion in Marblehead. The transition from Georgian to classicism,
82 Massachusetts: The General Background
showing a strong Adam influence, was dominant in the last phase, and
included some of the best work of Bulfinch and Mclntire.
In the absence of professional architects in Massachusetts during the
eighteenth century, cultivated amateurs turned to the drafting board.
Sir Francis Bernard, for nine years Colonial Governor of Massachusetts,
designed Harvard Hall (1765) in Harvard Yard. Near-by Massachusetts
Hall had been erected in 1720 from designs prepared by John Leverett,
president of the college, and Benjamin Wadsworth, later president.
John Smibert, portrait-painter, drew the plans for Faneuil Hall (1742) in
Boston, later enlarged and modified by Bulfinch. Peter Harrison, a con-
temporary of Smibert, although he had no professional training, became
the most distinguished architect of the Colonial era. In 1 749 he designed
King's Chapel in Boston, in which the influence of Wren and his successor
Gibbs can be seen. The exterior is dour, but the interior, with its rich
sobriety, repose, and studied suavity of proportion, remains one of the
finest in existence. Harrison also designed Christ Church (1761) in Cam-
bridge.
The first professional architect of the Republic began his career as a
cultivated amateur. Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844), born of a well-to-do
family, made an architectural ' grand tour ' of Europe. As a gentleman of
means and taste he designed houses for his friends. He planned the State
House on Beacon Hill in Boston, the original red brick core of which,
known as the Bulfinch Front, stands sandwiched between two white
annexes.
Bulfinch went bankrupt in 1796, and fortunately for architecture made
extended use of his talent to earn his living. In his handling of detail and
ornament the influence of Adam and Chambers is obvious, but in the
sterner matters of plan and composition Bulfinch struck out in new direc-
tions, and his designs, characterized by slender proportions, a delicacy
well suited to execution in wood, tall pilasters of slight projection, light
cornices and balustrades, slender columns, shallow surface arches, and
fan-lights and side-lights with tenuous tracery, were a departure in line
and detail. Bulfinch had studied to good effect Chambers's fine new
Somerset House in London, as is apparent from a comparison of his first
sketches for the State House, submitted in 1787, with the facade of the
English structure containing the Navy Office. A volume which Bulfinch
purchased abroad, *Le Vignole Moderne' (Paris, 1785), contains some of
the motives used on the portico of the State House, as well as a good
dome. His work in directing the completion of the Federal Capitol Build-
ing in Washington after 1817, when at President Monroe's invitation he
Architecture 83
replaced Latrobe as architect of the Capitol, indicates that his fresh and
bold approach had become somewhat restrained.
The Elias Hasket Derby Mansion in Salem profited by the combined ef-
forts of Bulfinch and Mclntire. Derby was so situated economically that
he could demand the best talent available, so Bulfinch, who was considered
the best, was asked to submit designs, which he did. Dissatisfied, Derby
called in Mclntire, the local master, and he carried the job to completion.
He designed the house almost independently, but incorporated in it some
of the features by Bulfinch.
As chairman of the board of selectmen of Boston, Bulfinch had much
to do with turning the Common from a meadow into a park, and during
this period he drew the plans for the warehouses on Boston's India Wharf.
Other buildings of significance by Bulfinch remaining today in Massa-
chusetts are Faneuil Hall (addition and revision, 1805), the Harrison
Gray Otis House (1796), the Sears House (second Harrison Gray Otis
House, 1800), Wadsworth House (third Harrison Gray Otis House,
1807), Bulfinch Building, Massachusetts General Hospital (1818) all
in Boston; University Hall, Harvard (1813-15); New North Church
(1806) in Hingham; Lancaster Church (1810); Meeting House, Taunton;
Pearson Hall (1818) and Bulfinch Hall (1818) at Phillips Academy in
Andover.
As the depression of the i78o's was succeeded by better times, Yankee
vessels began to pour wealth into Boston, Salem, and other seaboard
towns. Port towns soon were clustered with the square white houses of
shipowners and sea captains, their roofs crowned with roof decks known
as 'captain's walks' or 'widow's walks,' originally lookout places for
scanning the harbor. Many of the builders of these houses had been ship
carpenters, taught by the exacting demands of their craft economy of line
and material. As a result their houses possessed a fluidity of line seen at
its best in the work of Mclntire.
The work of Samuel Mclntire (1757-1811), carver-architect and con-
temporary of Bulfinch, shows the influence of European masters, notably
Robert Adam. But Mclntire possessed too much native genius to be
content with servile adaptation. 'He borrowed, but he repaid with in-
terest.'
Mclntire houses, many of which still line Chestnut Street in Salem,
had little exterior grace. They were big, four-square, three stories high.
Like their mistresses, the captains' ladies, these Salem houses guarded
themselves from the world by a prim, even prudish exterior. Within,
however, was amiability, charm, and finely studied and eloquently exe-
84 Massachusetts : The General Background
cuted detail, apparent in the broad staircases with their carved balusters
and twisted newels, the wooden mantels enriched with figured ornament,
the raised paneled dadoes, and delicate cornices with dentils and modil-
lions. The exteriors were usually flanked with great pilasters or quoins,
surmounted with cornices of well-proportioned members, and the houses
were not infrequently enclosed with elaborate wooden fences.
Mclntire's last houses, built from 1805 to 1811, were of brick. The
use of this less pliable material and a growing classical influence gave his
later work a more austere character. Outstanding examples of his archi-
tecture are the Pierce- Johonnot-Nichols House (1782), Samuel Cook
House (1804), John Gardner House (1805), David P. Waters House
(1805), Dudley L. Pickman House (1810), all in Salem; the Elias H.
Derby House (1799), and 'Oak Hill' (1800) in Peabody. Three complete
Mclntire rooms from 'Oak Hill' have been installed in the American
Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Asher Benjamin, a contemporary of Mclntire, designed the Old West
Church (1806) and the Charles Street Church (1807) in Boston. Possessing
the native genius of neither Bulfinch nor Mclntire, Benjamin made an
important contribution to American architecture through his frequent
publications, from 'The Country Builder's Assistant' (1797) to 'The
Practical House Carpenter' (1830).
The Greek revival, started in the beginning of the nineteenth century
by Benjamin Henry Latrobe with his design for the Bank of Pennsylvania,
did not spread to New England until the second decade. Alexander
Parris and Solomon Willard, the planners of Bunker Hill Monument in
Charlestown (1825-42), were its chief exponents in Massachusetts, and
as such they designed Saint Paul's Cathedral (1820) in Boston. Later,
with Quincy Market (1825) in Boston and the Stone Temple in Quincy
(1828), Parris essayed other monuments to this revived style.
Long after the ebbing of the tide of Greek influence, one of the most
studied efforts in this style was built in Boston: the United States Custom
House (1847). Designed by Ammi B. Young and Isaiah Rogers, this
building was originally crowned with a dome. Later a tall shaft was
added, transforming it into Boston's first skyscraper and an apt tomb-
stone to the movement. The dome was not removed from the interior,
but the lower floors were allowed to hide it and form a shell about it.
Later examples of the Greek revival travestied the classic style rather
than copied it. It became common practice for the designers of com-
mercial buildings to make imitations of Greek porticoes and entries and
to attach them without discrimination to the facades of banks and
Architecture 85
markets. Allied to little in the Massachusetts tradition, the Greek revival
inevitably disintegrated.
After the Greek revival came experimentation in many directions.
Dwelling-houses took the form of Italian villas, or of mansard-roofed
boxes the shadows of English shadows. The result was a tedious
parade of mediocrity, punctuated here and there by an outstanding
atrocity. French influence fared somewhat better than English, and the
Athenaeum (1849), the Arlington Street Church, and the old Technology
building (now Rogers Hall) , all in Boston, were intelligent adaptations of
Renaissance motifs.
Up to the end of the Civil War no academic training of architects was
given in the State. In 1865, however, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology established the first American school for architects, in which
something like the organized teaching of the Ecole des Beaux Arts was
attempted, with William R. Ware as its first director.
The period immediately following the Civil War was infected by
Ruskin's fervent advocacy of medievalism and his sweeping condemna-
tion of Renaissance architecture as 'immoral.' Ruskinian or Victorian
Gothic, derived by an adoption of Italian Gothic detail and characterized
by a confusion of aims frequently accompanied by mediocrity of achieve-
ment, has its monument in Memorial Hall (1878) at Harvard, William R.
Ware, architect. Probably the most severely condemned of its contem-
poraries, 'Mem Hall' shows the laboring of an architect of taste and
scholarship fatally hampered by a pernicious style. Boston's Copley
Square, originally a swamp dear to none but duck-hunters, was filled in,
and architects cast about for suitable designs for its new buildings. The
Old South Church (1876) was designed by Cummings and Sears, who
had obviously saturated themselves with Ruskin. A no less apparent
study of the work of Sir Gilbert Scott, however, makes this building one
of the more bearable examples of the Ruskinian episode in the United
States. The old Museum of Fine Arts, devotedly Ruskinian (1876, no
longer standing), built from designs by John Sturgis, was the first struc-
ture in which domestic terra cotta was used.
Just across the square Henry Hobson Richardson was burying the
corpse of Victorian Gothic and raising a splendid structure, Trinity
Church (1872-78). The bold individuality of Trinity, the most important
example of 'Richardson Romanesque,' can be fully appreciated, even by
trained eyes, only after detailed study. Taking as its point of departure
the Romanesque of southern France, Trinity is characterized by its
strong, vigorous and picturesque masses of rock-faced stonework and its
86 Massachusetts: The General Background
rich and individual ornament. John LaFarge's windows and interior
decorations are in keeping with the richness of the exterior.
Richardson was the second American to study at the Ecole des Beaux
Arts and in Paris he worked for Labrouste, the architect of that extraordi-
nary building, the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve in Paris. Trinity
Church, considered Richardson's most important work, is antedated by
the First Baptist Church of Boston (formerly New Brattle Square
Church, 1874), a failure acoustically, but notable for its tower. When
Richardson designed the tower he sent for Bartholdi, a fellow student at
the Beaux Arts, to execute the heavy frieze. Bartholdi became so en-
grossed in his new surroundings that he was moved to design his ' Light
of Liberty,' eventually reproduced in New York Harbor. Other note-
worthy examples of Richardson's work in the State are Sever Hall at
Harvard, the Woburn and North Easton public libraries. The Crane
Memorial Library in Quincy is probably Richardson's finest.
The Richardsonian Romanesque was widely imitated, but seldom
worthily adapted. An excellent adaptation of this style to a commercial
purpose, however, is the Ames Building (1891), one of Boston's first tall
office buildings and the last to employ all masonry instead of steel con-
struction, designed by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, who carried on
Richardson's work.
The epochal achievement of the nineteenth century was the Albertian
Boston Public Library (1888-95). As his point of departure Charles
Follen McKim chose the bold, unbroken lines of Labrouste's Italian
Renaissance masterpiece, the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve in Paris.
But he fused with this influence the more robust character of Alberti's
San Francesco at Rimini. It is monumental, yet chaste in ornament.
Everything is calculated to produce a feeling of dignity and restraint,
and the whole effect is one of severity without coldness.
The Wilbur Theater (1913) in Boston was the first auditorium to be
designed with the help of a pioneer in the field of acoustics, Professor
Sabine of Harvard.
In Henry Adams, Massachusetts produced a scholar who sought in
medieval architecture a key to the present; in Ralph Adams Cram the
State possesses an architect who turns from the present to the medieval
past, notably in the All Saints' Church in Ashmont; Saint Stephen's,
Cohasset; First Unitarian, West Newton; All Saints' and the Church of
Our Saviour in Brookline.
Up to the time of the Chicago Exposition in 1893, when the steel
skeleton and the elevator had definitely severed architectural practice
ARCHITECTURAL MILESTONES
WHEN the settlers first came to America, they built some-
thing very like an English charcoal burner's hut. Reproduc-
tions of these early huts can be seen at the Pioneer Village in
Salem. Thereafter, as soon as the people were established,
they built houses as much like the familiar houses of Eliza-
bethan England as their materials permitted. Many of these
houses were afterward enlarged by the building of a * lean-to '
on the northern side which protected the house from the pre-
vailing northerly winds. The interiors were spacious and
agreeable.
Later, in the time of Mclntire and Bulfinch, the architecture
in Massachusetts reached a second peak. Chestnut Street in
Salem shows the houses of this period at their best. On the
same page with the picture of Chestnut Street is a picture of
the Hill of Churches in Truro. It is included for contrast, for
architecture in Massachusetts, like the people, reaches ex-
tremes of barrenness as well as beauty.
Besides Chestnut Street, two other Salem houses are shown,
and several interiors and a doorway; also an early example of
church architecture; Bulfinch's masterpiece, the State House;
and finally two later examples of Massachusetts architecture.
K C
WHIPPLE HOUSE, IPSWICH
5BS
1 I U
n
i
KITCHEN OF JOHN WARD HOUSE, HAVERHILL
IIARTSHORNE HOUSE, WAKEFIELD
HILL OF CHURCHES, TRURO
CHESTNUT ST., SALE]
ASSEMBLY HOUSE, SALEM
FIERCE-NICHOLS HOUSE, SALEM
-J
i,;
'
i
till!
II
LEE MANSION
OLD STATE HOUSE
HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES, SALEM
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON
IIOLDEN CHAPEL, HARVARD
*'
'CONNECTICUT VALLEY ' DOORWAY, MISSION HOUSE, STOCKBEIDGE
I
PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOSTON
TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON
Architecture 87
from tradition, Massachusetts held its place in the forefront of American
architecture. But since the birth of the modern movement, architecture
here seems to be dormant, almost oblivious of the changes taking place
elsewhere. The development of a more modern style here has been
prejudiced by conditions, and these for the most part have been largely
sociological. In the desperate effort to keep alive her inherited British
culture, Massachusetts has kept her architecture steeped in the confines
of tradition and precedent. Yet in spite of this seeming retrogression,
Massachusetts' influence upon modern architecture has been great.
This was not in the manner of recently constructed buildings, but in the
sporadic strokes of genius that formed the roots of the radical school.
Paradoxical though it may seem, the contemporary movement in
architecture began in Boston; in Richardson's audacious use of element-
ary masonry forms, gestation of modern architecture began. Not since
Wren has an architect left such a profound impress of his own personality,
both through his work and that of his successors. With few exceptions,
Richardson's successors were a parade of puppet kings wielding the
monarch's scepter. Their work was bold, unabashed, and ugly, and its
manifestations were not joyous; nonetheless it had promise. Of this
work Montgomery Schuyler wrote, 'It is more feasible to tame exuber-
ances than to create a soul under the ribs of death. The emancipation
of American architecture is thus ultimately more hopeful than if it were
put under academic bonds to keep peace.'
A healthily pregnant architecture such as this was being designed in
the office of Furness and Hewitt at Philadelphia when a young Bostonian
fresh from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and bound for the
Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris began work there. Louis Henry Sullivan
is the internationally recognized father of the radical school of archi-
tecture. On Richardson's foundation he laid the cornerstone of modern
architecture. He was the link between two great masters, Richardson
and Frank Lloyd Wright. It is not unreasonable to believe that Richard-
son saw before him in Boston too much tradition to overcome and that
this influenced him to go West to start the radical school. In Sullivan's
work we see the transition from Richardson's masonry to the lighter
and more supple forms of steel construction. Yet Sullivan is probably
more significant as Frank Lloyd Wright's Liebermeister than for his own
designs. Sullivan's best ideas found expression in Wright more con-
vincingly than in his own work. It was in Wright's architecture that the
transition from old to new was completed. From it the world movement
evolved.
88 Massachusetts: The General Background
Of contemporary work in Massachusetts there are few strictly modern
buildings of merit. More significant is her work in keeping alive the
traditional New England Georgian architecture. Prominent in this im-
portant phase of American architecture has been the work of Coolidge,
Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, with such superior designs as Lowell and
Dunster Houses at Harvard. The recently completed restoration at
Williamsburg, Virginia the largest project of this nature ever under-
taken in the country was done by Perry, Shaw and Hepburn, a
Boston firm. Recent buildings at Radcliffe College in Cambridge are
among other important works by the Boston architects. In these we
feel a strain of the Southern influence, absorbed by the designers, no
doubt, during their intimacy with this strain of Georgian at Williamsburg.
Strictly modern architecture in Massachusetts is negligible. The
Motor Mart Garage, in Boston, and Rindge Technical High School, in
Cambridge, by Ralph Harrington Deane are more truly functional than
others of the modern type. Boston has its share of mechanically good
structures, a few of which are even clothed in pseudo-modern shells.
Heading this group is the new Federal Building by Cram and Ferguson.
Credit, or blame according to one's taste is not wholly due to the
Boston firm, for its design was subjected to regimentation at the hands
of the Federal Architect's Office in Washington, as are designs for all
Federal Buildings. One is inclined to wonder, if the ardent medievalist
had been given a free hand to indulge his fancy, whether the resultant
structure would not have been more compatible with the functions
within.
Evidence that Boston architects have been able to lift themselves out
of their stultifying environment and do modern work elsewhere is seen
in the superior designs of the New York Hospital and Cornell Medical
School Building in New York, completed in 1932 by Coolidge, Shepley,
Bulfinch and Abbott. In this mammoth project, the Boston architects
demanded a frank and independent solution, with an inflexible insistence
upon adjustment of means to end. The result set a precedent in modern
hospital-design.
Thus the reactionary trend in Massachusetts architecture is attribut-
able not so much to poverty of thought on the part of its architects as
to a lack of fortunate opportunities and an intrenched conservatism on the
part of patrons.
LITERATURE
IT MUST have been with some astonishment, to put it mildly, that the
first settlers of Boston who of course actually, to begin with, had
planted themselves in Charlestown found Boston itself to be already
an English city, with a population of exactly one soul. This city, to be
precise, consisted of William Blackstone or Blaxton, B.A., a graduate of
Cambridge University, and one of the most curious and suggestive figures
in the whole early history of the colonization of America. A member of
the ill-starred Gorges expedition of 1625, Blackstone had spent two years
in Wessagussett, now Weymouth. It appears that he had cast in his lot
with Gorges not much more for reasons of Puritan conscience than be-
cause he simply wanted to be alone. At any rate, in what is now Boston,
in the year 1630, l William Blackstone, a solitary, bookish recluse, in his
thirty-fifth year, had a dwelling somewhere on the west slope of Beacon
Hill, not far from what are now Beacon and Spruce Streets, from which
he commanded the mouth of the Charles. Here he had lived ever since
his removal from Wessagussett, in 1625 or 1626, trading with the savages,
cultivating his garden, and watching the growth of some apple trees.'
Further, it is known that in 1634, reserving only six acres of land for
himself a parcel bounded roughly by Beacon, Charles, Mount Vernon,
and Spruce Streets he sold to the colonists the whole of Boston
peninsula, which he himself had previously bought from the Indians;
and 'being tired of the "lord brethren," as he had before his emigration
been wearied of the "lord bishops,'" he then removed himself to an
estate in Rhode Island, of which he was thus the first white inhabitant.
This estate to which he had presumably brought his books, as well
as seeds and cuttings from his garden he called Study Hill, and here
he was destined to spend the rest of his life. Just once did he reappear
in Boston, a good many years later, and then only for long enough to
acquire a wife. He took this lady off to the wilderness with him, and
Bostonians saw him no more.
It is an arresting and delightful figure, this young Cambridge graduate
with his books and his apple trees, his conscience, and his passionate
desire for privacy; and one cannot think of his perpetual centrifugal
retreat from civilization, whenever it managed to catch up with him,
9O Massachusetts: The General Background
without visualizing him as a symbol, or a charming figurehead, of the
individualism which was to be so striking a characteristic of New England
in the centuries to come. It was not that he was a misanthrope not in
the least. For it was at his own express invitation and because of his
real concern for their plight that the wretched half-starved settlers of
Charlestown were first brought across the river to the healthier slopes
and the better springs on his own land. No, he was simply the first
exemplar, the prototype of that profound individualism which has so
deeply marked the American character ever since, and of which Mass-
achusetts especially in the field of letters has been the most prodigal
and brilliant source.
Of that fact, surely, there can be little question. In any summary,
no matter how brief, of America's contribution to the world's literature,
Massachusetts would be seen to have contributed most, not only in
sheer quantity and quality, but and this is much more important
in that particular searching of the conscience and the soul, and of the
soul's relationship to the infinite, which has almost invariably been the
dominant feature of American literature at its best. Jonathan Edwards,
Benjamin Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell,
Melville, Holmes, Whittier, Emily Dickinson, Henry Adams, and the
brothers Henry and William James not to mention the historians
Parkman, Prescott, and Motley the mere recital of the names is
quite enough to prove that without the Massachusetts authors American
literature would amount to very little. It is a wonderful galaxy; and it
is no exaggeration to say that the only absentees from it who are of
comparable stature are Poe, Whitman, Mark Twain, and possibly
Howells and of these, Poe was himself at least a native of the State,
for he was born in Boston.
This amazing outburst fell almost wholly within the confines of the
nineteenth century; and in fact, within about a half of that, the years
from 1830 to 1880. But if the quality of it is even more astonishing than
the quantity and the range, what is more interesting, whether to the
historian of morals and customs or to the psychological student of the
origins and function of literature, is precisely the William Blackstone
motif, which, as was mentioned above, has so persistently given it its
character. New England individualism and that is tantamount, of
course, to saying Massachusetts individualism has often enough been
referred to, but one wonders whether it has ever been given quite its
due as the real mainspring of New England letters. One reason for this
has been the very widespread notion that it should simply be seen as
Literature 91
the natural obverse of the excessive Puritanism and Calvinism from
which it was in part a reaction; the individualists, in short, were nothing
but small boys who had managed to escape from a very strict school.
But this is a very superficial view of the individualist, and an equally
superficial view of the Puritan. It might be fruitful to consider whether
in point of fact the New England individualist was not just our old
friend the Puritan writ large; and conversely, whether also the Puritan
was not a good deal of an individualist.
The truth is, of course, that the two terms need not at all be mutually
exclusive, and that we are facing here one of those charming but mis-
leading over-simplifications with which the history books so constantly
regale us. It is so much easier, and so much more flattering to the nine-
teenth century and all its works, to ascribe everything, en bloc, to the
final overthrow of a sort of crippling Frankenstein monster, and to make
out Puritanism as one of the most diabolical repressive hypocrisies with
which a misguided mankind ever afflicted itself. Much can be said in
support of this point of view, and much has been said; and it would be
idle to deny that at its worst New England Puritanism became a dread-
ful thing; if the witch-hanging hysteria of the seventeenth century was
the most violent culmination of it, it brought also in its train other
forms of spiritual disaster which, if less conspicuous, were scarcely less
terrible. The free Protestantism which the Pilgrims had brought with
them from England had gradually hardened, under the influence of
John Cotton and his descendants the Mathers, into a theocracy. 'None
should be electors nor elected, . . . except such as were visible subjects of
our Lord Jesus Christ, personally confederated in our churches. In
those and many other ways, he propounded unto them an endeavor
after a theocracy, as near as might be, to that which was the glory of
Israel.' So remarks Cotton Mather of his grandfather, whose advice
had been asked as to a revision of the 'civil constitution' of the State.
But the fact is, that though the theocrats had their way a good deal,
they did not have it entirely: and this for the very simple reason that
the Protestantism of New England, as it had been based to begin with
on the passionate belief of the individual in his right to believe and
worship in his own way, still carried in itself these stubborn seeds of
freedom. Roger Williams, 'first rebel against the divine church-order
in the wilderness' (again to quote Cotton Mather), submitted to a charge
of heresy, and abandoned Salem, rather than surrender the tolerance
which had outraged the church fathers. Another William Blackstone,
he escaped to Rhode Island, and there wrote the first liberal document
92 Massachusetts: The General Background
in American history, 'The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of
Conscience, discussed in a Conference between Truth and Peace.' 'A
spiritual Crusoe, the most extreme and outcast soul in all America/
he was, like Blackstone, though for very different reasons, a direct fore-
bear of the great individualists of the nineteenth century. It is indeed
essential that we should bear in mind this passionate belief in the freedom
of conscience which underlay from the very beginning the foundations
of New England culture. Its defeats and obscurities at the hands of the
theocrats and zealots were at most only temporary; and there was never
a time, even in the darkest passages of Massachusetts history, when it
was not somewhere in evidence. It is as evident in Jonathan Edwards's
fierce conviction that the sacrament should be administered only to
those who had had a radical experience of conversion and who could
properly judge of this save the individual himself? as in the North-
ampton congregation which dismissed him, after twenty-three years, be-
cause it did not agree with him. And it is as evident again in the calm
fortitude with which Edwards accepted his exile, devoting the last six
years of his life to a mission among the Indians of Stockbridge the
years, incidentally, during which he somehow managed to write his
great philosophical treatise on the freedom of the will.
It was a period the years from 1620 until the end of the Revolu-
tion during which we must remember, in fact, that the congregation
never surrendered its power both to choose and to dismiss its minister:
it scrutinized his thought, and indeed his conduct, quite as closely as he
scrutinized theirs. He might be tyrannical in his pursuit of his particular
idea or ideal, but so, just as well, might they. Since God's grace was so
arbitrarily bestowed, might it not fall upon Smith and Jones? Smith
and Jones certainly thought so; and the result was a fierce co-operative
and communal search for absolute truth, with a powerful clergy some-
times leading, but almost as often led by a powerful Church. The
clergy might and did ally themselves and form a caste; but despite all
their efforts, the Church remained essentially democratic, and essentially
dictated even when most misguided by the original Puritan belief
in freedom of conscience.
Meanwhile, during this period of nearly two hundred years it is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that the liberal arts or anything even
remotely like a literature simply did not exist in Massachusetts; and
indeed it is difficult to conceive of their finding a place in a community
so passionately surrendered to religious and moral preoccupations. But
intellectual and spiritual and esthetic sinews were there, none the less;
Literature 93
the elements were ready; and it needed only the right catalyst, and the
right moment, to release them in forms which probably nobody could
have foreseen. The catalyst, or at any rate the most important of the
catalysts, was the gradual rise of Unitarianism during the latter half
of the eighteenth century, and then the phenomenal swiftness with
which, early in the nineteenth, it effected an almost complete social
conquest of Massachusetts. Here once more, but more clearly voiced
than ever, was the Puritan insistence on freedom of conscience; but along
with it also the revivifying force, almost impossible to gauge, of the
Unitarian discovery that man's nature was not inevitably evil and in-
evitably doomed, but actually perhaps contained in itself the seeds of
virtue. 'How mournfully the human mind may misrepresent the Deity/
wrote William Ellery Channing in 1809, in the course of a frontal assault
on Calvinism, and, 'We must start in religion from our own souls. In
these is the fountain of all divine truth. 7 What must have been the
effect of this all-liberating doctrine on the subtle-minded New Englander,
after his long winter of Calvinism? It was a blaze of sunlight, of course,
and such a warming and thawing and freeing of locked energies as from
this distance we perhaps cannot possibly conceive. And it was into this
sudden summer, this sudden blossoming of New England into something
almost like gaiety, with its wonderful discovery that virtue might go
hand in hand with happiness, that the group of children were born who
were destined to become the flower - and the end of Massachusetts
individualism. Prescott in 1796, Alcott in 1799, Emerson in 1803,
Hawthorne in 1804, Longfellow and Whittier in 1807, Holmes in 1809,
Motley in 1814, Dana in 1815, Thoreau in 1817, Melville in 1819, Emily
Dickinson in 1830 these great-grandchildren of the New England
genius were born by an inevitable conspiracy of time into just such an
air as they needed for their purpose. What had shaped them the
ghost of William Blackstone, the proud and frontier-seeking independence
of the Puritan conscience they would themselves turn and shape to
its final and beautiful mortal perfection.
The first quarter of the nineteenth century was for Massachusetts its
period of greatest prosperity nothing like it had been seen before, nothing
like it has been seen since. The shipping trade was at its height, Boston
and Salem had become great international ports, and in these and in
New Bedford, where the whale trade had become a thriving industry,
family fortunes were being founded almost overnight. Along miles of
Cape Cod roadside, almost every cottage or house contained a blue-
water sea captain, who knew St. Petersburg and Canton as well as he
94 Massachusetts: The General Background
knew India Wharf in Boston. Everybody began to travel, Massachusetts
had suddenly become cosmopolitan, and what for two centuries had been
a queerly isolated and in many respects an extraordinarily innocent
community on the way to nowhere, now began for the first time to feel
itself in very close contact with the rest of the world. A new and in-
finitely richer sense of background became the common property of the
people; the whole world was at Boston's door; new ideas were as common
and as exciting as the exotic spices brought from Java and China.
An immense advantage, this, for the young Emerson and the young
Hawthorne, who, if they were caught willy-nilly in the new liberalism
which was sweeping New England, were also caught in strange currents
of rumor and echo from abroad. From England, from France, from Ger-
many, came news of extraordinary developments in the literary world:
the great secondary wave of romanticism, which followed by a generation
the French Revolution, had begun to break in its thousand forms. What
Channing's bold religious teaching had begun, the riotous brilliance and
variety of the English romantic poets and the heady philosophy of Ger-
many, at its most metaphysical, were to complete. The New England
individualist who had first been a Puritan, and then a Unitarian, was
now to reach his logical end in the lovely transparent butterfly hues of
Transcendentalism .
When Emerson, who had been trained for the church and who preached
for three years at the Second Church in Boston, resigned his pastorate
in 1832 because he no longer believed in the communion and could not
bring himself to administer it even in the abbreviated form then in use
among the Unitarians remarking characteristically that he simply
' was not interested in it ' he was dedicating himself to the new wilder-
ness and the new freedom, exactly as Roger Williams had done before
him. Once more a frontier had been reached, but this one the most
perilous of all that frontier within man's consciousness where the
soul turns and looks fearlessly into itself, where the individual, like a
diver, plunges into his own depths to sound them, and in so doing believes
himself effectually to have sounded the world. Man, according to
Emerson, was to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, for his divinity was within
himself. He must trust his instincts and his intuitions absolutely, for these
were his direct communion with the Over-Soul, or God, with which he
was hi a sense identifiable. This direct knowledge of the divinity was not
through the senses not at all. It was a mode of apprehension that
transcended one's sensory knowledge of the phenomenal world and all
the experience of the senses, and it was this notion of a ' transcendental '
Literature 95
knowledge which gave its name to the little group which, after the pub-
lication of his first book 'Nature' in 1836, formed itself about Emerson
in Concord and Boston. * If the single man plant himself indomitably on
his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.'
'For solace, the perspective of your own infinite life' this was almost
or could easily be, the reductio ad absurdum of individualism, for it im-
plied a negation of all authority, whether religious or social, and the
complete autonomy of the individual soul.
Patently, this doctrine with its ancillary notions bore within itself the
seeds of an intellectual and Utopian anarchy; and it is interesting to
notice, in this connection, how very flimsy and impractical, how absurdly
and charmingly innocent, were such ideas of social awareness as this
group entertained. It is hardly an exaggeration, in fact, to say that they
were none of them concerned with society as such at all. The passionate
search for a moral and religious center, a significance, a meaning, had
led them steadily inward, never outward; and if they thought of the social
problem at all, it was only to wave it away with the sublime assurance
that, as man was essentially good, the social problem would quite nicely
take care of itself. If the relationship of the Ego to God was satisfactory,
then everything else would follow of course. The experiment at Brook
Farm and Bronson Alcott's lesser adventure in a Utopia at Fruitlands
were the natural, if humiliating, outcome of such beliefs, quite as much
as Thoreau's attempt at a formal secession from society. Even the sole
apparent exception to this indifference toward social problems, the anti-
slavery agitation, in which practically without exception the tran-
scendentalist joined, turns out on inspection to be not quite all that it
purports to be. For here again the problem was looked at from the point
of view, not of society, but of the individual; even the Negro should bow
to no authority save God's, which was the authority within himself.
Emerson's influence, nevertheless, in spite of a good deal of misunder-
standing, not to mention occasional downright derision, was immense
and profoundly fructifying, both on his own generation and on that
which followed. He was the real center of his time, and his mark is
everywhere. Thoreau's ' Walden,' both the experiment and the book, were
but the carrying into practice of Emersonian self-sufficiency; and if they
add a literary and speculative genius which is Thoreau's, the spirit of
Emerson is indelibly in them. Not least, either, in the very conspicuous
indifference, not to say contempt, for form. The method could hardly be
more wayward; it is as wayward as Emerson's, who admittedly when he
wanted an essay or a lecture just ransacked his copious notebooks, ex-
96 Massachusetts: The General Background
tracted a random selection of observations and gnomic sayings, and
strung them together on a theme as best he could. And it is as well to
observe in this connection that a comparative indifference to form was a
perhaps inevitable attribute of vatic individualism everything must
be spontaneous, a direct and uncontrolled uprush from the divine well of
the soul; one was merely a medium for the divine voice, and in conse-
quence there could not logically be any such thing as a compromise with
so external and strictly phenomenal an affair as form or style. Com-
munication yes, but only such as came naturally. Nor need one bother
overmuch with consistency.
This individualist attitude to form is noticeable everywhere in the
literature of the Massachusetts renaissance, as much in the work of the
conservative Boston and Cambridge group Longfellow, Holmes, and
Lowell as in that of the Concord radicals. To consider a poem or an
essay or a novel as a work of art, was this not to yield oneself to a kind
of outside authority, and to compromise or adulterate the pure necessity
and virtue of revelation? Revelation was the thing; and everything de-
pended on the swiftness with which one brought it up from the depths of
one's awareness, so that not a spark of the light should be lost. The
result was a kind of romantic mysticism which was at its most lucid in
Emerson, at its sunniest and serenest in Thoreau, at its profoundest in
Herman Melville, and at its most vapid and ridiculous in the orphic
sayings of Bronson Alcott. And the result also was a pervading looseness
and raggedness, a kind of rustic and innocent willfulness, whether in
prose or verse, in practically all the work of the Massachusetts galaxy.
It is evident in Emerson's crabbed and gnomic free verse and his home-
spun couplets quite as much as in his prose, where image follows image
and idea idea with little or no regard for nexus or pattern, to say nothing
of rhythm. It is evident again in that cryptic unintelligibility, the sibyl-
line phrase, which, if it has a meaning, sometimes guards it all too well
from the bewildered reader. The poor reader, indeed, was given no
quarter, he must simply shift for himself; and presumably it was Emer-
son's idea, as it was Alcott's and Thoreau's, that it was a sufficient privi-
lege for the reader that he thus overheard, as it were, the words of the
oracle at all. The words were the words of the divinity, and must not be
altered: all that was needed was that they should be received with an
understanding equally instinctive and divine.
The truth is, the glorification of the individual and of individualism
had reached such a pitch of egoism and self-absorption, accompanied by
such an entire indifference to the external world, that had they not been
Literature 97
geniuses, literary geniuses, none of these men would have escaped disaster.
Only a genius can be artless with impunity, and of all this wonderful
group only one was a genuine artist, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne
listened carefully to everything the others had to say, he was himself
something of a transcendentalist, he even stayed for a while at Brook
Farm; but he remained always a little detached, he was essentially both
in his life and in his work a moral and social observer; and it was this
carefully kept moral and esthetic distance which enabled him alone of
his group to understand the necessity for form and to achieve an indi-
vidual mastery of it. Alone, too, was Hawthorne in having a quite
definite social awareness, and in seeing precisely to what sort of bank-
ruptcy the doctrine of uncontrolled individualism might lead. Emerson
may not have realized it, but 'The Scarlet Letter' was, among other
things, a very grim comment on the doctrine of self-reliance; and 'The
Blithedale Romance ' as well.
If in this sense Hawthorne was the only commentator on transcendental
individualism, and the one analyst and chronicler of the final phases of
the evolution of the Puritan passion for freedom of conscience, he was
also the only link between the Concord group and the writer who carried
farthest and deepest that perilous frontier of mystic consciousness which
had always been the Puritan's fiercest concern: Herman Melville. 'Moby
Dick ' was dedicated to Hawthorne, and it was written while Hawthorne
and Melville were neighbors in Pittsfield. Without any question the
greatest book which has come out of New England, and one of the very
greatest works of prose fiction ever written in any language, it is also the
final and perfect finial to the Puritan's desperate three-century-long
struggle with the problem of evil. Hunted from consciousness into the
unconscious, and in effect beyond space and time, magnificently sub-
limated so that it becomes not one issue but all issues, a superb and al-
most unanalyzable matrix of universal symbolism, the white whale is
the Puritan's central dream of delight and terror, the all-hating and all-
loving, all-creating and all-destroying implacable god, whose magnetism
none can escape, and who must be faced and fought with on the frontier
of awareness with the last shred of one's moral courage and one's moral
despair. Man against God? Is the principle of things, at last, to be seen
as essentially evil? And redeemable only by war a outrance? Impossible,
at any rate, to surrender; one's freedom to feel toward it what one will,
whether hatred or love, must be preciously preserved. One must grapple
with it, and alone, and in darkness, no matter whether it lead to a death
throe or to an all-consuming love.
98 Massachusetts: The General Background
Melville, writing to Hawthorne about this extraordinary book, which
was destined for half a century to be considered just a good romance for
boys, likened himself to one who strips off the layers of consciousness as
one might strip off the layers of an onion, and added that he had come at
last to the central core. And indeed to all intents he had; when a year
later, at the age of thirty-three, he published 'Pierre,' he had really
finished his voyage. And he had carried William Blackstone with him to
such strange borderlands as that bold explorer of Rhode Island never
dreamed of. Perhaps it is worth noting that Melville himself denied
that ' Moby Dick ' had any allegorical intention if only to point out
that the denial can really have no meaning. * Mardi ' was quite obviously
allegorical; allegory and parable came almost instinctively to the hands
of a group so vitally concerned with moral and religious matters, and as
a 'form' it very likely seemed no more artificial or unusual to Hawthorne
or Melville than that, say, of a poem: it was something which played with
meaning and which gave out meanings on many different levels, and that
was the end of it.
And indeed 'Moby Dick' may be said to have been the great poem,
the epic of the Puritan civilization, and to have marked a turning-point
in its evolution, if not quite its end. There could not again be any such
violent imaginative projection of the problem; the problem itself was
beginning to dissipate and break up, to disappear in the dishevelment of
analysis: individualism was to turn outward again. It could receive in
the hands of Henry James a fine symphonic abstraction, or in the hands
of William James a bold social and scientific externalization and analysis,
but the creative poisons were all but drained from it. The worlds around
were changing, new winds of doctrine brought new seeds and spores, and
in 'The Education of Henry Adams' one has almost the spectacle of a
dead civilization performing an autopsy on itself. The note of retrospect,
the backward-looking eye this could have only one meaning, that the
Puritan struggle was at last, in all important senses, over. One genius
remained yet to be heard from, and this the most exquisitely character-
istic of all Emily Dickinson. In her life of hushed and mystic and
self-absorbed sequestration, no less than in her work, where we watch
the lonely soul alembicating itself that it may test its own essence,
we have the very mayflower of the Puritan passion for privacy and
freedom. How strict was that soul with itself, when there was none to
watch ! Was it not her own epitaph that she wrote or can we say
that it was an epitaph for a whole phase of the human soul in the
lines:
Literature 99
Lay this laurel on the one
Too intrinsic for renown.
Laurel! veil your deathless tree
Him you chasten, that is he!
This wonderful pride and immense strength in solitude which could give
up as worth nothing any notion of fame or acclaim if only its soul's
house be in order and its accounts straight with heaven perfectly
content, and serenely self-sufficient, so long as the windows which looked
on the Eternal were kept clear this was the final rededication of the
spirit of William Blackstone, who had come to Boston when it was still
a wilderness, was found there by the first settlers ' watching the growth
of some apple trees,' and moved on to another wilderness and another
privacy when the 'lord brethren,' his neighbors, came too close.
Emily Dickinson was the last of her line, the last of the great Massa-
chusetts frontiersmen; and with her it may be said that the literature of
Puritanism, as a purely local phenomenon, came to an end. Henceforth
its heirs were to be sought farther afield, dispersed inconspicuously, but
perhaps none the less indestructibly, in the consciousness of the country
at large. Amy Lowell had little of this temper in her; and if in the con-
temporary scene it has any ambassadors, they are Robert Frost and
T. S. Eliot. But the movement itself is complete and at an end.
LITERARY GROUPS AND
MOVEMENTS
THE tendency among writers to form groups around political, social, or
literary ideas began very early in Massachusetts. The voluminous re-
ligious tracts of the seventeenth century concealed, under a garb of godly
language, the warring concepts of two opposed groups the advocates
of theocracy and the champions of democracy. The theocrats were vic-
torious, and for nearly one hundred years the clergy dominated the press.
Not until the founding of the Hell Fire Club and the publication of the
first number of The New England C our ant by James Franklin in 1721 did
secular ideas have currency. In the exciting decade of 1760-70 a battle
of the books took place between two political factions, a battle which
enlisted Tories like Thomas Hutchinson on one side and revolutionaries
such as James Otis on the other.
Even those ardent individualists, the writers of the literary renaissance
of the i84o's, betrayed a decided affinity for the society of their peers, and
together they organized literary clubs, publishing ventures, and Utopias.
The informal group generally known as the Transcendental Club in-
cluded at one time or another Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, Amos
Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller,
Orestes Brownson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Charles T. Follen, William
H. Channing, and that complete mystic and arch-individualist, Jones
Very. An early literary magazine, The Monthly Anthology (1803-11), was
carried on as the organ of 'a society of gentlemen,' the Anthology Club
of Boston. The North American Review was established by a group which
had for its purpose the emancipation of American literature from sub-
servience to England. The Dial (1840-44), although proclaiming itself
'A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion,' was notable for
expressing, under the editorship of Margaret Fuller, the ideas of the
Transcendentalists, as The Harbinger (1845-49) expressed those of the
co-operativists. Such group expression was strongly characteristic of
early magazines: they were oriented, not as most magazines are today,
toward their readers or their advertisers, but toward their writers. Even
as late as the 1 850*5, Atlantic Monthly dinners ranked in importance with
Literary Groups and Movements 101
Atlantic pages, and younger writers outside New England bitterly accused
the magazine of being a kind of closed club. Hawthorne had founded the
'Potato Club,' a literary society, at Bowdoin while still an undergraduate.
Thoreau, so anti-social as to get himself jailed for non-payment of taxes,
may be said to have betrayed a certain longing for society when he re-
proached Emerson for not sharing his cell; and Whittier said flatly, 'I set
a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration
of 1833 than on the title-page of any book.'
After the Civil War, literature in Massachusetts for the first tune since
the eighteenth century was motivated and reinforced by scientific method
and invigorated by new political currents. Realism and the Anti-Poverty
Society made a simultaneous appearance, and reading Boston was di-
vided into those who admired William Dean Howells's novels and those
who despised them. Again, during the brief renaissance of 1912-16, cut
short by the war, Massachusetts poets revolved around a brilliant if not
fixed star, Amy Lowell.
Certain distinguished authors remained aloof from their fellow writers
notably Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. But with few excep-
tions it can be said that the history of literature in Massachusetts is the
history of its diverse and divergent literary groups and movements.
When the Puritans, who desired a theocratic hierarchy, arrived in
Massachusetts, they found the Plymouth congregation, a group of demo-
cratic dissenters, before them; and to their alarm the Salem church
shortly fell under this radical influence. In the resulting battle of words
the conservatives were represented by John Cotton; Nathaniel Ward,
author of 'The Simple Cobler of Aggawam' (1647); the ingenuous apos-
tle to the Indians, John Eliot; Samuel Sewall, the diarist; Cotton Mather,
harsh and dogmatic in religion, progressive in natural science and medi-
cine; and subtle-minded Increase Mather. The democrats counted fewer
but on the whole more trenchant writers: Hugh Peter, Nathaniel Morton,
Edward Johnson (author of ' Wonder- Working Providence,' 1654), Roger
Williams, John Wheelwright.
The first press to be set up in the new country was that of Stephen
Daye in Cambridge, under the control of clerical Harvard College. The
Daye press issued the 'Bay Psalm Book,' that monument to early print-
ing and bad rhyme, in 1640. Daye was succeeded by Samuel Green, who
printed John Eliot's Indian New Testament in 1661 and the entire Bible
in 1663. In 1669 Green issued Morton's 'New England's Memorial,'
noteworthy for having not only a printer but a publisher, ( H. Usher of
IO2 Massachusetts: The General Background
Boston,' the latter probably a bookseller, in the days when booksellers
combined the functions of importer and publisher. John Dunton, Scots
bookseller, remarked in 1686 that there were eight bookshops in 'Boston
village.' Not until 1675 was Boston's first press established, by John
Foster.
Not only theological tracts and sermons by Massachusetts writers
were published during the seventeenth century. Mary Rowlandson's
account of her captivity among the Indians, written in a vivid style
without literary pretense, appeared in a second edition in 1682 (no copy
of the first edition has survived). The anonymous * Relation,' descriptive
of Plymouth and its settlement, appeared in 1622; and two years later
was published Edward Winslow's 'Good News from New England,'
simply written, like a letter home describing the wonders of the new
country. William Bradford, governor from 1621 to 1657 save for five
years, wrote a 'History of Plymouth Plantation' in 1630-46, the manu-
script of which was lost for two hundred years, finally turning up to be
published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1856. But Captain
Nathaniel Morton had access to the manuscript, for he used much of it in
his 'New England's Memorial' (1669). Verse flourished no less than
prose: Peter Folger's satire, 'A Looking-Glass for the Times,' appeared
in 1677; Benjamin Tompson's 650-line epic on King Philip's War, 'New
England's Crisis,' in 1676; Anne Bradstreet's 'The Tenth Muse, Lately
Sprung up in America,' in London in 1650 and in Boston in 1678; and
Michael Wigglesworth's 'Day of Doom' (1662), an epic of the last judg-
ment, was widely read for a hundred years.
Many of the products of these first presses, as well as some priceless
manuscripts, were in the library of the Reverend Thomas Prince of Bos-
ton, which, stored in the tower of the Old South Church, was dispersed
and partly destroyed when British troops were quartered in the church
during the American Revolution. Among these manuscripts was William
Bradford's 'History of Plymouth Plantation.' Prince published in 1736
the first volume of his 'Chronological History of New England in the
Form of Annals,' which he unsuccessfully endeavored to continue in six-
penny serial parts. His careful use of sources makes him the first trust-
worthy American historian: 'I cite my vouchers to every passage,' he
said and did.
For almost one hundred years, before a Massachusetts printer dared
publish a book he had to secure what practically amounted to an im-
primatur; and if an author wrote a book with an heretical taint, he pub-
lished it, if at all, in England. This condition existed until the first quar-
Literary Groups and Movements 103
ter of the eighteenth century, when Benjamin Franklin's brother James
founded the lively New England C our ant (1721) with the aid of the Hell
Fire Club, hardly a clerical organization. Benjamin Franklin, while em-
ployed in his brother's printshop, contributed the satiric ' Silence Dog-
wood' papers to the C our ant, slipping the first of them anonymously
under the door. The Courant was a sort of American Spectator, differing
in its liveliness and its literary tone from the Boston Gazette, already estab-
lished in 1719. Two years after the Courant first appeared, Benjamin
went to Philadelphia, and his direct connection with Massachusetts
ended.
The editors of the Courant continually jeered at the dullness of its
contemporaries, their staleness, their lack of American news and political
comment. In self-defense, perhaps, The New England Weekly Journal
was founded by a more sober group. The Journal had something of the
liveliness of the Courant, but it was conservative in tone, and endeavored
to offset the damage to faith, morals, and politics being worked by the
Franklins' paper.
During the brave times of 1770-76 Isaiah Thomas published The
Massachusetts Spy, which pleaded the cause of revolution. This enter-
prising publisher, founder of the American Antiquarian Society, later
became the publisher of The Royal American Magazine (1774-75), chiefly
remembered for containing engravings by Paul Revere; The Worcester
Magazine (1786-88); and The Massachusetts Magazine (1789-96). Other
early Massachusetts magazines were The American Magazine and His-
torical Chronicle (1743-46) and The New England Magazine (1758-60).
During this period of political pamphleteering, every agitator was an
author and every author an agitator. James Otis the younger, advocate-
general, was the most brilliant of these; 'The Rights of the British Colo-
nies Asserted and Proved' (1764) and the 'Letter to a Noble Lord' (1765)
are perhaps the best known of his writings. Oxenbridge Thacher, John
Adams, and Josiah Quincy all produced political pamphlets, as did Noah
Webster, author of the dictionary and the blue-backed speller, who
proved to be as radical in politics as he was later to be in spelling. Samuel
Adams, with his Committees of Correspondence, his 'Massachusetts
Circular Letter' (1768), is the prototype of them all.
A new note among Colonial historians appeared with the publication
of the first volume of the * History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay '
in 1764. Its author, Thomas Hutchinson, was a descendant of Anne, and
as unpopular as the latter, though for different reasons. He was a mer-
chant, with conservative leanings, and the rising revolutionary temper of
104 Massachusetts: The General Background
the people made Bostonians actively mistrust him as a Tory. His history
was the first account of the Colony to be written without theological bias,
and notwithstanding its conservative tone, it displays a considerable
political sense. The Reverend William Gordon of Roxbury wrote a his-
tory of the Revolution in 1788; and Mercy Otis Warren, sister of James
Otis, produced a popular history of the same period in 1805. George
Richard Minot's 'History of the Insurrection in Massachusetts' (1788)
dealt with Shays's Rebellion of 1786, and Minot also continued Hutchin-
son's history.
The North American Review was founded in 1815. The short-lived
Pioneer, whose three issues included contributions by Poe and Haw-
thorne, was published in 1843 by James Russell Lowell, who became the
first editor of The Atlantic Monthly in 1857. With the establishing of The
North American Review and of two great publishing houses, Ticknor and
Company (1833), later Ticknor and Fields, the direct predecessors of
Hough ton Mifnin Company and of Little and Brown (1837), literature
in Massachusetts had a firm underpinning. In 1837, the year in which
Charles C. Little and James Brown put up their sign, William Lloyd
Garrison was publishing The Liberator (1831-65). 'Poems' by William
Cullen Bryant had appeared sixteen years before; Ralph Waldo Emerson
had recently moved to Concord and had just published 'The American
Scholar'; Whittier was an agent of the Anti-Slavery Society; R. H. Dana,
Jr., and Henry David Thoreau had just graduated from Harvard, where
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had begun to teach and James Russell
Lowell was an unruly undergraduate; Hawthorne was struggling at Con-
cord; Oliver Wendell Holmes had just begun to practice medicine; Pres-
cott was about to publish his 'Ferdinand and Isabella'; the Saturday
Club was eleven months old; Ticknor's Old Corner Bookstore was a liter-
ary gathering place; and Annie Fields's literary salon had not yet begun.
Until the first third of the nineteenth century, authorship was the
avocation of amateurs and gentlemen of means. As late as 1842 Chan-
ning remarked that Hawthorne was the only American who supported
himself by writing. Channing was mistaken, although not very much so.
Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) of Charlestown, America's first geographer,
had been one of the few writers in America to make writing pay, al-
though his school geographies and gazetteers scarcely rank as literature.
In 1790, Congress passed a law designed to protect literary property.
But in the absence of substantial publishing houses or magazines that
paid for contributions, and in view of the continual pirating of books by
English and American authors on both sides of the Atlantic, authorship
Literary Groups and Movements 105
was a poor enough business. Even after the great Boston magazines and
publishing houses were established, Bryant had to edit anthologies and a
newspaper; Whittier struggled desperately until the publication of
'Snow-Bound'; Mrs. Stowe made less than a living from her books until
the phenomenal success of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin'; and Prescott was the
first historian to achieve financial success from his writings. None of these
authors received any income from the European editions of their works.
It was not until writers organized in the American Copyright League
(1883) and publishers in the American Publishers' Copyright League
(1887) that international piracy was halted by the copyright agreement
of 1891.
Mrs. Fields tells the story of Dr. Holmes's indignant exclamation, one
morning when hearing the doorbell ring, that he was afraid it was 'the
man Emerson.' Holmes, driving the twin horses of medicine and essay-
writing, had learned to guard himself from intrusion. But it is significant
that most of the writers responsible for the New England renaissance of
the i84o's and i85o's not only called upon one another, but formed inter-
locking circles of friendship, and embarked together in publishing
schemes, in literary cenacles, and in such ventures as Fruitlands and the
Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education. Amos Bronson
Alcott, ostracized by proper folk for teaching young children in his school
the plain facts about birth and for refusing to dismiss a Negro pupil, was
stoutly defended by his fellow transcendentalists, who, tolerating his
orphic doings and sayings, yet recognized his progressive attempt to
bring modern educational methods to New England. One of the sources
of strength of the New England movement, in fact, was its awareness of
contemporary European culture. Emerson, for example, brought Car-
lyle, and through him German currents of thought, to American atten-
tion; Prescott and Motley made Spain and the Netherlands homegrounds
to Yankees; and Longfellow devotedly presented to his contemporaries
the best of European literature, from the Finnish saga through Dante to
Lamartine and Victor Hugo. In addition, established writers encouraged
younger writers. Two of many examples are familiar: Whittier's encour-
agement of a Lowell mill operative, Lucy Larcom, whose poetry is prop-
erly forgotten, but whose 'A New England Girlhood' survives as a valua-
ble social document; and Thomas Wentworth Higginson's careful foster-
ing, however inept, of Emily Dickinson's brittle genius.
With Richard Hildreth (1807-65) and his 'History of the United
States, 1492-1821,' nineteenth-century historical writing began. Hildreth
was followed by John Gorham Palfrey (1798-1881), one of the editors of
io6 Massachusetts: The General Background
the North American Review, who defended the old regime in his 'History
of New England.' George Bancroft (1800-91), an historian of enormous
patience and learning despite his bias, made careful use of sources now
available in the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded by Jeremy
Belknap, an historian of New Hampshire, in 1791. Jared Sparks (1789-
1866), also an editor of the North American Review, edited Franklin's and
Washington's writings, and inaugurated the 'American Biography Se-
ries.' In preparing Washington's letters for the press, Sparks altered them,
as he thought for the better, and the resulting hot discussion among
scholars as to the necessity for accurate textual presentation of docu-
ments probably had a wholesome effect on contemporary historical edit-
ing.
William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), published his 'Ferdinand and
Isabella' in 1838, his 'Conquest of Mexico' in 1843, and his 'Conquest of
Peru' in 1847; John Lothrop Motley (1814-77) made the United Nether-
lands his life study; and Francis Parkman (1823-93) concentrated on the
history of Colonial United States. With these three authors, American
historical writing came of age. Justin Winsor (1831-97), in his 'Narrative
and Critical History of America,' published 1886-89, was the first to offer
full bibliographical and source material to the reader of American history.
Francis Parkman and John Fiske (1842-1901) belonged to a youngei
generation, as did Charles Francis Adams's three sons, all historians
Charles Francis, Jr., Brooks, and the brilliant Henry.
Four bright philosophical planets had orbits which centered in Harvard
University. Two of these were Massachusetts men, William James (1842-
1910), psychologist and stylist, and Charles S. Pierce (1840-1914), a re-
markable scientific realist. Two others were not Yankees, but have come
to be identified with Massachusetts: Josiah Royce (1855-1916) and
George Santayana (b. 1863). Louis Agassiz (1807-73), nourished on
idealistic philosophy, remained during twenty-five professorial years at
Harvard the storm center of opposition to the shockingly novel ideas of
Darwin, and was accused by his skeptical European contemporaries of
trading his scientific birthright for a mess of Puritan pottage. His stu-
dents became evolutionists to a man.
After the Civil War and the economic depression which followed, a
different tone came into Massachusetts letters. The precursors of this
new spirit were perhaps Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,'
the poems of Whittier and of Lucy Larcom, and the novels and tales of
Herman Melville that powerful realist who warned himself of the fate
of those who 'fell into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished there.'
Literary Groups and Movements 107
Barrett Wendell, lecturing on literature at Harvard, and popularly sup-
posed to base his critical estimates on the family trees of authors rather
than on their writings, solemnly warned a generation of Harvard students
against 'democracy overpowering excellence.' Yet, despite Wendell, cur-
rents of the Populist movement, of industrial unrest, of new social doc-
trines, were flowing into Massachusetts.
In 1885 a shabby traveler emerged from the old Hoosac Station in
Boston and, clutching an imitation-leather valise, turned his face, brown
from the Dakota sun, toward the Common. This was Hamlin Garland,
come (like Ravignac to another city) to capture Boston, the cradle of
liberty, the home of literature. Alas, Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne
were dead, and the Reverend Doctor Cyrus Augustus Bartol, of the
old West Meeting House, remained the sole survivor of the Concord
school. Undaunted, young Garland sought out the literary giants of
the day. Holmes, Whittier, and Lowell were still living, but none of
these did he contrive to meet. Living on forty cents a day, battling the
cockroaches in his six-dollar-a-month room, he consoled himself with
reading 'Progress and Poverty,' 'at times experiencing a feeling that was
almost despair.'
Garland's ingenuous narrative, 'A Son of the Middle Border,' contains
many valuable indications of intellectual currents of the i88o's in Mas-
sachusetts. He soaked himself in the writings of the evolutionists
Darwin, Spencer, Fiske, Haeckel. In the reading-room of the Boston
Public Library the universe resolved itself into harmony and secular
order, as it had done a generation before for the European realists, as
it was doing for the new generation of American writers. Literature in
Massachusetts during the i88o's, for the first time since the eighteenth
century, was motivated by science and invigorated by political revolt.
This new temper was expressed directly and artlessly by Edward Bellamy
in 'Looking Backward,' which, published in 1888, had sold more than
370,000 copies by 1891; realistically by William Dean Howells; triply-
distilled in Henry James's cerebral novels.
Howells was a transplanted Bostonian, born in Ohio in 1837. 'The most
vital literary man in all America at this time,' Garland thought him,
adding that Boston was divided as to the worth of this American disciple
of Balzac, Zola, and Tolstoi. Howells turned the minds of his contem-
poraries from Europe back upon America, satirizing the worship of
European places and ideas so common among the middle class, indicating
in his novels that America was a land of new hopes a country with
a greater future than Europe. He cut through the sentimental treacle
io8 Massachusetts: The General Background
in which the 'golden age' was now immersed, turning Massachusetts
into the stream of the new realism which answered the readers' sudden
cry, 'Give us people and places as they are!' Half of Boston stood
aghast at this coarse new literature, but the other half applauded. The
West was coming East, and the old traditions were finally shattered
when in 1871 Howells became editor-in-chief of the organ of New Eng-
land Brahmanism, The Atlantic Monthly. Yet with all his democratic
ideas, Howells stood for careful art, and his own style was finished and
pure.
Realism brought forth regionalism which again Mrs. Stowe had
foreshadowed, in 'Poganuc People' and 'Old town Folks.' Her approach
was sentimental, however, while the regionalist's was scientific. Bred
in a generation which exalted scientific method, the regionalists applied
science in a special way. The novel was conceived of, though not always
consciously, as a scientific experiment, and an experiment to be scien-
tific must be controlled in all its particulars. Hence the deliberate
narrowness of range, the careful naturalism of style, the absence of
vagueness, fancy, or mysticism, the conscientious documentation. A
regionalist chooses a narrow geographical sector, as Henry James chose a
narrow stratum of society; he revives his memories of that sector, checks
his memories with facts, employs real characters rather than invented
ones, and never once allows his tale to stray from under the bell-glass.
Mary E. Wilkins (1852-1930), Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), and Alice
Brown (b. 1857), are representatives of this school in the novel, as James
Herne (1839-1901), the author of 'Shore Acres,' is its representative in
the drama. All of them were careful recorders of New England's decline.
The rather large body of persons who have always believed, in the face
of much evidence to the contrary, that virtue is inevitably rewarded
and that poverty can always be conquered, found an exponent in one
of Massachusetts' most widely read authors. Horatio Alger, Jr., born
in 1834, the son of a clergyman of Revere, was known throughout his
boyhood as 'holy Horatio.' After attending Harvard Divinity School
he spent a season in Paris, where he performed some naughty deed,
never divulged, for which he was sorry all his life. He never married.
In all, he produced some one hundred and nineteen boys' books, among
them 'Ragged Dick,' 'Luck and Pluck,' 'Tattered Tom,' 'From Canal
Boy to President,' 'From Farm Boy to Senator.' Like the heroes of
his books, he acquired riches; unlike them, he died in poverty.
The revolt against the genteel tradition, 1912-16, had its seeds in the
'muck-raking era.' Massachusetts furnished one muck-raker Thomas
Literary Groups and Movements 109
W. Lawson, who made and lost a fortune on the stock market, then
pilloried the market in ' Frenzied Finance' (1902). To the poetry renais-
sance which began in Chicago about 1912 Massachusetts contributed
several poets T. S. Eliot, S. Foster Damon, Conrad Aiken, Robert
Hillyer, among others who were at first encouraged by Amy Lowell
(1874-1925) and then satirized in 'A Critical Fable/ patterned after
her great-uncle James Russell Lowell's satire. Miss Lowell introduced
to young American poets the French symbolists and impressionists of
the i89o's along with the Imagists, and her free verse and polyphonic
prose forms had direct influence on many of them. The entire move-
ment of 1912-16, so promising in its inception, was fatally cut off by the
World War.
In 1937, literary prognosticators in Massachusetts were wetting their
fingers and testing the wind. Some faint signs of a literary revival were
evident in the air. Massachusetts writers again began to preoccupy
themselves with contemporary Massachusetts material an encourag-
ing sign. Impressive gains of organization among industrial workers
offered a hint of a new audience of hundreds of thousands. The New
England renaissance of the i84o's had coincided with an upsurge of
organization among workers, and in the social, economic, and political
ferment of that decade many writers of the 'golden age' were directly
concerned. The direction of the Massachusetts labor movement in 1937
was perhaps symptomatic of what might occur in literature not as
cause and effect, but as twin manifestations of the same forces. Critics
dared predict a new literary renaissance in New England unless war
again intervened to blast it at the roots.
MUSIC AND THE THEATER
WHEN one considers the early evolution of the fine arts in New England
and especially music and the drama it is essential to remember that
whereas in England Puritanism was never wholly without opposition,
in the New England Colonies it very early established a pseudo-theocracy
which in its fundamentals was to remain unshaken for nearly two hundred
years. With the Restoration, the opposition came back to power in
England, and with it the enormous release of energies which was to pro-
duce the second great period of English drama. In Massachusetts, on
the other hand, no such development was even remotely possible. When
Henry Vane failed of re-election as Governor in 1637 and returned to
England, defeated in his struggle with Winthrop and the town fathers for
a more liberal policy, it was really the end of any chances there might still
have been for a gentler and more humanistic New England culture. The
decision of the General Court in the same year l that none should be re-
ceived to inhabite within this Jurisdiction but such as should be allowed
by some of the magistrates ' which was tantamount to saying that
they could exclude or banish anyone whose customs or opinions they dis-
liked became exactly what it was intended to be : a drastically effective
social filter. The little Puritan community was henceforth to be on one
pattern, heresy was to be a crime, and liberalism was to go underground
for a hundred and fifty years.
Small wonder, therefore, that the Restoration could export little of its
brilliance and gaiety to a shore so inhospitable. Music, the theater
these reached the ears of the Bostonians only as rumors of dreadful un-
bridled license. In 1686, Increase Mather, stern upholder of the pro-
prieties and decorums, published a ' Testimony Against Profane and
Superstitious Customs,' in the course of which he bemoaned the fact that
there 'is much discourse now of beginning Stage Plays in New England/
He need not have worried; the 'much discourse' came to nothing; and
the drama, like music and dancing ' gynecandrial' dancing was their
wonderfully contemptuous word for dancing between the sexes re-
mained an alien and unknown quantity. The truth is, of course, that our
admirable forefathers knew nothing whatever about the arts, cared little
for them, and brought into the world children who 'had but an imperfect
Music and the Theater ill
idea of their bearing, and in their ignorance deemed the theater the abode
of a species of devil, who, if once allowed to exist, would speedily make
converts.' In such a situation, any liberalizing influences from without
had perforce to wait on the Puritans' gradual self-liberalization from
within; and the few early attempts to import stage plays into Massa-
chusetts even after the theater had begun to make headway in New
York, Philadelphia, and Providence served only to enforce the re-
strictions against them. Plays were occasionally given in the first half
of the eighteenth century, but only privately, and seldom; and perhaps
with a fear that they might, if indulged in too often, lead to the building
of a playhouse an outcome too terrible to think of.
It was probably some such consideration which led, in 1750, to the
passage of 'An Act to Prevent Stage Plays and Other Theatrical Enter-
tainments,' as likely to 'occasion great and unnecessary expense, and
discourage industry and frugality,' and as also tending to 'increase im-
morality, impiety, and a contempt for religion.' The occasion for this
was a performance of Otway's 'Orphan, or Unhappy Marriage' at a
coffee house in State Street, Boston, by two enterprising young English
actors, 'assisted by some volunteer comrades from the town.' The
General Court, fearing this might be the entering wedge, made the
provisions of the act extremely stringent. Twenty pounds was the fine
to be paid by anyone who let or permitted the use of his premises for
such a purpose. And any actor or spectator present 'where a greater
number of persons than twenty shall be assembled together ' was subject
to a fine of five pounds. The law was effective, and effectively enforced;
and on the whole it was supported by public sentiment. The more so,
perhaps, as it did not make strictly 'private' performances, or very un-
remunerative ones, absolutely impossible.
But the tide of public opinion was steadily if imperceptibly rising.
The more liberal elements in the community, and those whose business
took them occasionally to New York, where the theater was already well
established, pressed for the repeal of the act many times in the latter half
of the eighteenth century. Such an attempt failed in 1767; and more
daunting still was the resolve of the Continental Congress, in 1778, that
any officeholder under the United States who should be so neglectful of
his duties as to attend a play should at once lose his position. Despite
this, however, and despite the fact that in 1784 the an ti- theater act of
1750 was re-enacted in Massachusetts, the moment was at hand when
the law was simply to be allowed to become a dead letter. As a test case,
the New Exhibition Room a theater in everything but name was
112 Massachusetts: The General Background
opened in what is now Hawley Street, Boston, in 1792, with a performance
in the nature of a variety show. ' Monsieur Placide will dance a hornpipe
on a Tight-Rope, play the Violin in various attitudes, and jump over a
cane backwards and forwards.' This was followed by Garrick's 'Lethe/
and that by Otway's 'Venice Preserved,' which was announced, with the
customary bland hypocrisy of the times, as 'A Moral Lecture in Five
Parts.' And subsequent performances were given likewise billed as
'moral lectures' of 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Hamlet,' and 'Othello.'
Rhymed couplets, in the handbills, drove home the moral lessons, lest
they be missed: from the bill of 'Othello', for example:
Of jealousy, the being's bane,
Mark the small cause and the most dreaded pain.
With these performances, and with the consequent arrest and discharge
on a technicality of the manager, Joseph Harper, the real history
of the theater as such in Massachusetts may be said to have begun.
The worthy citizens of Boston were now well persuaded that the drama
was actually of great social benefit; and accordingly many of the most in-
fluential people took an active part in the financing, planning, and build-
ing with Bulfinch as architect of the Boston Theatre, which was
completed at the corner of Federal and Franklin Streets in 1794. They
must, presumably, have closed their eyes to such unedifying sights as
were billed at Mr. Bryant's Hall, a temporary theater during this period,
where one might see, for example, Mr. Manly ' balance his whole body on
the edge of a candlestick, pick up two pins with his eyes, and a dollar at
the same time with his mouth ' all the while, moreover, rolling like a
whale in the sea. Culture was to be the thing; and they pursued it with
characteristic zeal. Despite the bankruptcy of the Boston Theatre at
the end of its first season, a second theater, the Haymarket, was built a
year later; and until 1803, when the Haymarket was torn down, a lethal
competition made prosperity impossible for either.
And in fact it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the theater was
never destined, in Boston, to very great prosperity, and that in a sense
Boston has never been really a ' theater ' city. The Boston Theatre did
moderately well for a quarter of a century with a very fine stock
company to play around such visiting stars as Kean, Macready, Forrest,
and Junius Booth and later in the century, from 1860 to 1880, the
Boston Museum, in Tremont Street, maintained one of the finest stock
companies in the country. But the 'star' system, lamented as early as
1880 by William Clapp, one of the leading dramatic critics of the period,
Music and the Theater 113
was gradually to make Boston what it is today, a theatrical dependency
of New York. And attempts in the present century to run stock com-
panies in Boston, despite the temporary successes of John Craig and
Mary Young at the Castle Square, and of Leon Gordon, Edmund Clive,
and Henry Jewett, have invariably ended in failure. More interesting to
record, in an otherwise somewhat drab history, is the vigor of the Little
Theater movement in Massachusetts, with the famous Provincetown
Players and the People's Theater of Northampton conspicuous for their
contribution; and the very great influence of Professor George Pierce
Baker's '47 Workshop' on the American theater at large. Of Massachu-
setts playwrights, it is perhaps sufficient, if melancholy, to quote William
Clapp, who fifty years ago remarked that ' no Boston author has as yet
written a play which is likely to keep the stage.'
II
If music has fared better in Massachusetts and especially in the past
fifty years, when Boston has deservedly taken its place as one of the fore-
most musical centers of the world its early history in the State was
quite as humble as that of the drama, and if anything even more in-
conspicuous. Music had, and could have, no place in a strictly Puritan
community even its controversial value was less considerable than
that of the drama, for it was clearly less of a ' temptation.' Copies of
Henry Ainsworth's psalter, published in 1612, were aboard the ' May-
flower,' and the first book to be printed in America the 'Bay Psalm
Book' (Cambridge, 1640) was to go through eight editions before 1698;
but neither of these actually contained any music. The psalms were
sung by rote, to one of the five or six tunes then in use, the precentor
chanting the psalm line by line, the congregation echoing him a dreary
business at best. And this literally was all the music the Puritan
fathers knew.
So dreadful, however, did this rote-singing finally become that a move-
ment arose in the Church itself not without furious opposition to
introduce singing by note; and in 1698 the ninth edition of the 'Bay
Psalm Book ' contained thirteen tunes in two-part harmony the
'oldest existing music of American imprint.' A year later, 1699, the
Brattle Street Church voted unanimously 'that ye psalms in our public
Worship be sung without reading line by line.' In 1714 or 1715 appeared
what may be described as the first musical textbook to come out of
114 Massachusetts: The General Background
America ' A very plain and easy Introduction to the Art of Singing
Psalm Tunes: With the Cantus, or Trebles, of Twenty-eight Psalm Tunes
contrived in such a manner as that the Learner may attain the Skill of
Singing with the greatest Ease and Speed imaginable,' by the Reverend
John Tufts. This book was published in Boston; and ran through ten
editions by 1 744. It was the forerunner of other such instruction books,
and coincided with the formation of the first singing schools one such
is said to have existed as early as 1717.
Thus far, the psalm-singing was unaccompanied. But in 1714, when
the first pipe-organ in America was installed in King's Chapel, the
organist, Edward Enstone, just arrived from England, brought with him
a 'choice Collection, of Musickal Instruments, consisting of Flageolets,
Flutes, Hautboys, Bass- Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for Haut-
boys, Books of Instruction for all these Instruments, Books of ruled
paper.' Clearly, there was already a definite interest in instrumental
music, and it was not long before the first concerts began to be given
usually for the benefit of the poor. The first advertisement of a concert
in America seems to have been that in the Boston News-Letter, December
16-23, I 73 i: 'There will be a Concert of Music on sundry instruments
at Mr. Pelham's great Room, being the House of the late Doctor Noyes
near the Sun Tavern.' In 1732 the New England Weekly Journal ad-
vertised 'Conserts of Musick performed on sundry instruments at the
Concert Room in Wing's Lane near the Town Dock ' a room in the
George Tavern, in what is now Elm Street. In 1744 a vocal and instru-
mental concert was given in the newly built Faneuil Hall; and from this
time on concerts became frequent, and instrumental music began to take
a natural place in the home.
Perhaps the opening of the theaters, in the last decade of the eighteenth
century, did much to stimulate the public interest in music, and to im-
prove its taste at all events, it is not without significance that there
was on the program for the opening night of the Boston Theatre, Feb-
ruary 3, 1794, 'to precede the drawing up of the curtain,' a 'grand sym-
phony by Signer Haydn,' amongst other pieces. Here, too, the custom
was introduced of 'allowing the audience to call upon the orchestra for
such pieces of music as suited the popular taste,' a custom which pre-
vailed for many years. Obviously, the Puritan terror of music had at last
broken down, music was beginning to come out of the church, and all
that now was needed was organization a creative discipline and
direction.
For this, some of the spade-work had already been done by the gradual
Music and the Theater 115
formation and training of the church choirs, the founding of singing
schools, partly to the same end, and the development of musical societies.
Among the latter may be mentioned one of the earliest, still in existence,
the Stoughton Musical Society, 1786, founded by America's first native
composer, William Billings. Billings's 'New England Psalm Singer'
(1770), and subsequent collections, may be said to be the beginning of
American composition; and his spirited 'fuguing' style did much to free
church music from the everlasting Puritan drone.
But these were modest beginnings at best, and it was really with the
nineteenth century that things began to happen. In 1808 a group of
students at Harvard founded the Pierian Sodality, and with it 'an un-
broken chain of cause and effect' which was to lead, via the Harvard
Musical Association founded by graduates of the Pierian in 1837 to
the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This little society, for the encourage-
ment of instrumental music, may be said to have been of the profoundest
significance in the development of music, not only at Harvard, but
throughout the country. Two years later came a similar venture, though
not so lasting, when Gottlieb Graupner, music publisher and engraver,
ex-oboist in Haydn's Orchestra in London, formed a group of professional
musicians, together with a few amateurs, for weekly concerts of an in-
formal character. This, the Philharmonic Society, lasted till 1824, thus
overlapping the Handel and Haydn Society, 1815, in the founding of
which Graupner again had a hand.
With the Philharmonic Society playing the symphonies of Haydn and
Mozart, and the Handel and Haydn giving a performance of the whole
of Handel's 'Messiah' as early as 1818, progress was clearly being made;
but the discipline and training for precision-playing was to come a good
deal later. A further step in this direction came with the establishment
of the Boston Academy of Music, in 1833, by Lowell Mason. This ad-
mirable institution long since defunct gave free vocal instruction
to upwards of a thousand children, and five hundred adults, a year; and
in 1837 it succeeded in introducing music into the Boston public schools.
Its services to the teaching of music were inestimable, but perhaps even
more fraught with consequence was its decision, in 1840, under the
leadership of Samuel A. Eliot, its president, then Mayor of Boston, to
give up teaching and l to engage the best orchestra it can afford and give
classical instrumental concerts.' The immediate result was the first
hearing of Beethoven in Boston, the First and Fifth Symphonies being
performed by the Academy of Music Orchestra in its first season of eight
concerts. The orchestra was small twenty-five to forty and by no
n6 Massachusetts: The General Background
means perfect; but its seven-year existence made the coming of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra inevitable.
Other stages were to intervene the visits of the Germania Orchestra,
from 1848 to 1854; the foundation of the Harvard Musical Association
in 1837, and its seventeen years of symphony concerts, from 1865 onward,
under Carl Zerrahn; the popularization of chamber music by the Men-
delssohn Quintette Club but everything now tended obviously to the
obvious thing, the foundation of a Boston Symphony Orchestra. This,
finally made possible by the generosity and unflagging devotion of Henry
Lee Higginson, began in 1881 the career which was to make it for many
years the finest orchestra in the United States, and to make Boston
famous for its music. Its history, under such leaders as Nikisch, Gericke,
Muck, Rabaud, Monteux, and Serge Koussevitzky, is a story in itself,
beyond the scope of these pages; it must be sufficient to note that out of
it have come such notable institutions as the Kneisel Quartet, the Longy
Club and Longy School of Music, and the Flute-Players' Club, and that
as a great orchestra it continues to give Boston precisely the creative
focus for music that it needs.
It remains simply to note that in the New England Conservatory of
Music founded in 1867 by Doctor Eben Tourjee Massachusetts
possesses one of the most famous schools of music in the country, and that
in the field of musical composition the State stands almost alone. Among
those born in the State or resident there have been such composers as
George Chad wick, C. M. Loefifler, F. S. Converse, Arthur Foote, Edward
Burlingame Hill, Walter Piston, Carl Ruggles, Bainbridge Crist, and
Roger Sessions, to mention but a few. As a creative musical center,
Boston is today in many respects unrivaled.
ART
MASSACHUSETTS is rich in the substance of the arts. It has a good
tradition in handicraft; it was once the stronghold of eminent Colonial
portrait-painters; it counts among its residents renowned scholars in art
and discerning collectors. Within its boundaries are treasures of enviable
importance. The number of art museums is exceptional, and the State
is honeycombed with historic houses fitted with Colonial furnishings.
The early history of Massachusetts was virtually the history of art in
the United States, for many of the outstanding painters and sculptors
were either born in the State or had a foothold here. The people of Mas-
sachusetts in their enthusiasm or indifference, their Puritanism or limited
taste, are as responsible for the peculiarities of native art as the crafts-
men themselves.
In the ways in which scholarly research can enrich understanding of
the arts, Massachusetts is at an advantage. Museums are outwitting
each other in acquisition of rarities and in publication of researches.
While museums show increasing range of interest, each in its way has a
splendid collection or a department in which it excels. The Boston
Museum of Fine Arts is particularly notable for superb Far Eastern
treasure, while the Worcester Art Museum draws attention by its mag-
nificent mosaics of the Middle Ages. The Smith College Art Museum has
concentrated on modern French pictures, and at the Fogg Art Museum,
Harvard, there is an exceptional display of Italian primitives. The
Addison Gallery of American Art at Andover is one of the most important
specialized collections of American art in the land. The latter and the
Germanic Museum at Harvard show a marked interest in living art
through exhibition and purchase. Other museums specialize in the
historic, remaining comparatively indifferent to the problems of the
living artist.
Since its earliest days, Massachusetts has not been a particularly
hospitable environment for the living artist. Restraints of economic
necessity and puritanic bias prevented a free expression in the arts from
the very beginning. Colonial handicraft was directed toward articles of
household use, furniture, utensils, pewter, silver, textiles, and in some
solemn likenesses of early worthies. Based upon English prototypes, the
Ii8 Massachusetts: The General Background
articles were made to conform to local needs and, viewed today in the
historic houses or museums, they show good taste and adaptation of
materials. Puritanism was opposed in principle to art, and there was
not the impulse of native taste or the urgency of demand to propel the
imagination of artists. Years later, it was personal pride, luxurious in-
dulgence, a, forgivable conceit which prompted Americans to have their
portraits painted, revealing unmistakably their forceful characteristics
and newly acquired finery. It was a painting of form and feature, flounce
and frill, with rarely a sidelong glance at nature, or critical observation
of society. The early limners held forth with reserve, as artisans who
had branched from the more useful calling of coach or sign painting, and
some, in the well-known matter-of-fact manner, peddled their wares from
house to house. They carried portraits painted completely except for
the face, to be bargained for by the impending client.
The early portraits are flat and descriptive, lacking the lifelike char-
acter and subtle handling of European portraiture of the time; possessing,
on the other hand, the decorative beauty which to present-day taste is so
appealing in provincial art. Some most interesting early portraits are to
be seen in the Worcester Art Museum. On loan for many years has been
' Mrs. Freake and Baby Jane/ one of the handsomest and most touching
of seventeenth-century portraits. 'John Freake' is there too, an imposing
likeness in which particular attention has been paid to ornate costume.
Not far from the Worcester Art Museum, in the American Antiquarian
Society, are portrayals of Samuel and Increase and Cotton Mather (the
latter painted by Peter Pelham about 1695-1751). Portraiture de-
veloped in the eighteenth century into a specialty. John Smibert (1688-
1751) came from Scotland to Boston to paint, and incidentally designed
Faneuil Hall in Boston. Joseph Blackburn (flourished 1753-1763),
Robert Feke (about 1705-1750), Ralph Earle (flourished 1751-1761)
were among the early exponents, and their portrayals are on exhibition
at Harvard University and in the museums in Boston, Worcester, and
Andover. The art of portraiture attained a notable height in the canvases
of John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). In the opinion of many, Copley
executed his finest pictures here at home, before he departed in what
was to become a too common practice among Massachusetts artists
to England to live. There was something in the native environment, in
the types of personages he portrayed, in the limited tradition out of
which his style developed that proved salutary to Copley. In England
he lost individuality, acquired suaver traits. Colonial personalities,
humble, smug, forceful, are clearly characterized in the Copleys shown
throughout Massachusetts.
Art 1 19
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) settled in Boston, where he painted out-
standing Americans of the early republican days. The Athenaeum por-
traits of George and Martha Washington hang in the Boston Museum
among other portraits by Stuart, which differ from the Copleys in the
swift summary handling and the emphasis upon facial features and ex-
pression, with comparative indifference to costume. Portraits in smaller
dimension are scattered throughout the State. Besides its three hundred
painted portraits, Essex Institute in Salem possesses a fine collection of
silhouettes. Miniatures by Edward Greene Malbone (1777-1807) are in
the Worcester and Boston Museums. W T ax miniatures are displayed here
and there in historic collections.
During the same period the household arts surpassed by far the pictorial
arts. Cotton Mather had written that within a dozen years after the
granting of the charter to the Massachusetts Bay, Colony 'artificers to
the number of some thousands came to New England.' Among early
silversmiths of Boston were such notables as Robert Sanderson (1608-
1693), who instructed many in the art, Jeremiah Dummer (1645-1718),
John Coney (1655-1722), and, in the eighteenth century, the versatile
Paul Revere (1735-1818), who, in addition to tankards, punchbowls, and
candlesticks, made silver dental plates which he advertised as 'of real
Use in Speaking and Eating.' The first articles of furniture of artistic
significance to be made in the State were carved oak chests, which slowly
evolved into highboys and writing-desks. John Goddard (1723-1785),
who produced stately pieces in Santo Domingo mahogany, was born in
Massachusetts but practiced his craft in Rhode Island. As early as 1638
crude glass lamps and bottles were being manufactured in Peabody, but
Deming Jarves (1790-1868), head of the Boston and Sandwich glass
works, revolutionized the glass industry with his new methods of furnace
construction, his rediscovery of the method of manufacturing red lead,
and his inventions in color-mixing. The Decorative Arts Wing of the
Boston Museum has many interesting period rooms. The historic houses
throughout the State give evidence of excellent handiwork, indicating
the changes in taste from the early days of rigorous thrift to later luxury
and finesse. Objects of folk-interest samplers, coverlets, mourning
pictures, painted Bible pictures reveal imaginative qualities which
painters in a more formidable craft lacked.
The art of carving found a particularly touching expression in grave-
stones, which apparently deserved special attention in the solemn judg-
ment of Colonials. Such memorials are extant in burying grounds of
Deerfield, Salem, Concord, Boston, and towns on Cape Cod. They bear
120 Massachusetts: The General Background
indications of an authentic talent for carving in decorative borders,
sacred symbols, and ruminative epitaphs. It was an original and ap-
propriate manner of commemoration, with far more vitality in design and
feeling for the craft than was revealed in native plastic art of later
date.
The demand for portraiture continued in the early days of the Re-
public. Painters went abroad for study and stimulus. Massachusetts,
which had such a favorable atmosphere for the ripening of Copley's style,
could not hold its painters. They would wander afar, to London and
Paris, and they were not shrewd enough to ally themselves with the best
teachers, but contented themselves with the guidance of lesser lights.
Benjamin West (1728-1820) took young Americans under his wing.
Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), seeking instruction abroad, boasted of
having studied with Washington Allston (1779-1843), whose unfinished
masterpiece, ' Belshazzar's Feast,' is in the Boston Museum. Massachu-
setts artists were eager, but they lacked taste and tenacity. Abroad they
responded to the official and obvious, and when they painted compositions
they seemed to favor the literary and rhetorical. Morse gave up painting,
as there was no market, no recognition, and turned to inventing, where
his successes never consoled him for his failure as an artist. His 'Self
Portrait' hangs in the Addison Gallery in Andover. Chester Harding
(1792-1866) carried the portraiture tradition well into the nineteenth
century, when changes were taking place with the rapid growth of the
Republic and there were reverberations of political and industrial up-
heaval abroad.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Winslow Homer
(1836-1910) were both born in Massachusetts. There was little at home
to foster the talents of a painter. One escaped to the solace and enhance-
ment of European life; the other withdrew to solitude at Prout's Neck
on the coast of Maine. Whistler possessed skill and wit. He had far
better taste than most Americans, and his pictures are an odd mixture of
influences from Turner to Degas, from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Japa-
nese. Whistler did not follow his fellow countrymen to the academy;
not for him the sleek and photographic and artificial. He had a fine
decorative sense, and a taste for the diffuse and atmospheric. His etch-
ings give him rank with masters in that medium. Nevertheless he re-
mained a wanderer, lacked a mooring, and fell short of greatness as a
painter. Winslow Homer went abroad, but he did not stay for long. He
found water color a more responsive medium for his direct, decisive re-
action to the outdoors. He painted what he saw with the impact of the
Art 121
first fresh impression. It was straightforward, realistic portrayal, and it
marks him one of the first Massachusetts painters with a dynamic style.
Homer furnishes the moral to escaping artists. He helped to deliver the
artists of New England from a sense of inferiority, from the uncontro-
verted domination of foreign ideas which were not too well selected, not
too thoroughly assimilated. Homer has risen in esteem, especially in
recent years, for his peculiarly native qualities, and for the fact that he
found his vigorous style through self -disco very.
Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917), born in New Bedford, also painted
the sea, but his portrayal was veiled in poetry, shaded with mysticism,
softened with sentiment. Ryder also avoided the American scene, not as
Homer or Whistler had chosen to do, but by withdrawing into himself,
painting from personal resource, inner feeling. In Deerfield dwelt an-
other native artist who painted in a gentle sentiment, George Fuller
(1822-1884). Boston-born Abbott H. Thayer (1849-1921) lavished
tenderness upon his canvases of womanhood.
William Morris Hunt (1824-1879) exercised considerable influence
upon Bostonians through his great interest in the Barbizon school in
France, especially F. D. Millet. The atmosphere at home seemed un-
sympathetic to him, too, and he longed for what was lacking: an impetus
to paint. An entire gallery of his paintings is in the Boston Museum. His
pupil and friend, John La Farge (1835-1910), was commissioned by
Henry Richardson, architect, to paint murals in Trinity Church on
Copley Square. On the same square stands the Boston Public Library,
where murals cover the walls on the second and third floors. There is
one series by the French neo-classicist, Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898),
the illustrative 'Quest of the Holy Grail' series by Edwin Abbey (1852-
1911), and the elaborately wrought theological sequence by John Singer
Sargent (1856-1925), to some his greatest performance. The Boston
Public Library murals are very interesting and very provocative. All
three differ in treatment, color, effect; they also differ greatly from the
mural painting which has come rather suddenly into prominence in recent
years with emphasis on scenes in history, social forces, and daily life.
Sculptors of Massachusetts have worked under a handicap that is
more universal, for their special craft struggles to survive in a world
which seems to find no urgent need of it. That native Americans enjoyed
whittling and carving is apparent in their early houses, furniture, ship
figureheads, gravestones, weather-vanes, wild fowl decoys, scrimshaw
(there is an interesting collection in the Whaling Museum in New Bed-
ford) ; but when they applied their gift to the formal art of portraiture,
122 Massachusetts: The General Background
they showed little taste and insufficient vitality. Samuel Mclntire
(1757-1811) had a peculiar gift for carving portals and architectural
decorations with the wholesome application of craft to function. That
peculiar attribute of functionalism in style which is so often discussed
today is rooted in the craft of Massachusetts. The most classical example
is that of the Shaker workshops, which provided a variety of articles for
daily use, admonishing the maker to do the job as efficiently as possible,
with an eye to simplicity and usefulness.
Horatio Greenough (1805-1852) was one of the native sculptors who
went to Italy to assimilate neo-classical ideas. But such ideas could not
somehow be redirected with conviction by a native of Massachusetts.
The sculptors, like so many painters, possessed enthusiasm and eagerness,
but no commensurate creative imagination. Artistically they lacked
roots. There were sculptors like Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886), Har-
riet Hosmer (1830-1908), Thomas Ball (1819-1911), who did an eques-
trian statue of George Washington that stands in the Public Garden in
Boston. Many pieces are on view throughout the State, generally Ital-
ianate or official in character. Most native are the diminutive groups ex-
ecuted by John Rogers (1829-1904) of Salem, ingenuous portrayals of
everyday life of Americans and realistic scenes of the Civil War, a de-
scriptive sculpture, illustrating life in America, and true to life and
aspirations in Massachusetts. At Essex Institute there is a very large
collection of Rogers groups.
Counted among outstanding sculptures in Massachusetts are the
'Shaw Memorial,' a high relief in bronze by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
opposite the State House in Boston, and 'Dean Chapin' by the same
sculptor in Springfield. The 'Minuteman' in Concord and 'John Har-
vard' in Cambridge were executed by Daniel Chester French, who had
studied sculpture under a Boston teacher. Cyrus Dallin, sympathetic
portray er of the American Indian, is the sculptor of 'Appeal to the Great
Spirit,' which stands in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
In Massachusetts until recent years a conservatism has prevailed,
which resists stubbornly the experimental methods practiced in the
world of art. The arbiters of taste have clung to Victorianism, or have
released their energies in the study of art of remote times and remote
places. The State has avoided the rapids of the main stream of con-
temporary art, and has thus been safeguarded against the attendant risk
and deprived of the inevitable exhilaration. Exhibition places, such as
the Boston Art Club, the Copley Society, the Guild of Boston Artists,
have been rather inflexible, showing works of acceptable stamp, often
Art 123
capably wrought, depictions in a conventional or photographic manner,
softened renderings of Hals or Manet, with reminiscences of Munich,
Pre-Raphaelitism, and the French Academy. Pictures there are in
abundance of the pursuit of wild fowl, clippers at full sail, swelling surf,
flowers and fruits and bric-a-brac in a rose-gold ambience, the New Eng-
land countryside, woodland retreats, pools and freshets and marshlands,
and pleasant people. Boston has had its special style, its exponents.
Sargent set the pace in portraiture, brisk painting of texture, fleet, skillful
rendering of features. Among members of the Boston group may be
counted today Frank Benson, Edward Tarbell, Marian Sloane, Herman
D. Murphy, Laura Coombs Hills, John Lavalle, Margaret Fitzhugh
Browne.
Ideas are blowing across the boundaries. Resourceful and probing
performers have infused a new spirit into the atmosphere. Art schools are
altering their point of view; museums are enlivened by new and enter-
prising directors. During the summer American painters have gravitated
toward Provincetown and Gloucester, where the weather-beaten shacks
and fisheries and townsfolk and dunes and surf and old-fashioned gardens
provide choice subject matter. At Provincetown some talented artists
live throughout the winter, among whom are Karl Knaths, Oliver Chaffee,
Agnes Weinrich.
Among painters of the State, water color has been a popular medium.
Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Dodge Macknight are ad-
mired and emulated Homer for realism, Sargent for skilled grasp of
surface texture, Macknight for bold, translucent color. Macknight pro-
voked Bostonians to well-known vituperation when he sent his brightly
colored aquarelles from France in the 1890*5. The reaction paralleled
that of the French middle class at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1874
in Paris. There is a Bostonian water-color style based upon these fore-
bears, rarely, however, as powerful or as concentrated as the originals.
John Whorf is the most successful and most popular exponent of this
local inherited style. Other aquarellistes of more independent spirit
should be noted for peculiarly expressive handling of pigment, and for
some engaging theories which they have invented. Among them are
Carl Gordon Cutler, Harley Perkins, Katherine Sturgis, and Charles
Hopkinson. The latter is interesting as a sort of dual personality, for he
does able official portraits in a manner which is highly acceptable, then
turns to water color apparently as a release for his fancy, to indulge an
insatiable devotion to color, and to work out some tricky compositions.
The Boston Athenaeum, founded in 1807, initiated in the community
124 Massachusetts: The General Background
the policy of having annual exhibitions of pictures painted by local
artists, or borrowed from local collectors. An Athenaeum catalogue of
1831 lists with exceeding pride the 'Head of a Madonna' by Carlo Dolci.
Taste in Boston today runs to early rather than late Renaissance pictures.
In 1855 the Boston Art Club was organized with the purpose of promot-
ing social intercourse among artists and for the general advancement of art.
Today, there are many art centers and schools. There are clubs of hobby
artists; there is the Society of Independent Artists. There is furthermore
the energetic group of artists in the Federal Art Project. But the range
of interest in art is no longer a local matter. Some of our best craftsmen
are young and not yet known; some are newcomers to the State with
fresh points of view. The pace today is set by leadership elsewhere, in
sources which have been more harmonious with present-day tendencies.
Massachusetts is losing its peculiar qualifications, for better, for worse,
in the broadening scope of taste and of activity in cosmopolitan art
centers.
II. MAIN STREET AND
VILLAGE GREEN
Some cities and towns could not be conveniently described among the tours in
Section III because of the amount of historical matter and the number of
points of interest. For that reason, though appearing on the tours, they are
described here, as well as all municipalities of 35,000 population or over, all
seats of colleges, a number of historic shrines, and a few centers of varied
interest.
The altitude is usually that of the municipal center, sometimes, if the former
was not available, that of the railway station. Population is according to the
1935 State census. If you find a date of settlement twenty years earlier or
later than one given here, yours is probably right, too. The same dates
and data often dijfer in half-a-dozen reference books, and the Oldest In-
habitant's memory can rarely be trusted. When sources differed too widely to
be reconciled, the editors made a reasonable choice, or took refuge in such a
phrase as 'the mid-nineteenth century.'
Brief general information is listed at the beginning of each town: railroads,
inter-State bus service, piers and boat service, airports, accommodations, and
information centers. Local information centers, each happily situated, like
Anatole France 7 s dog, in the exact center of the universe, are equipped to
answer more specific questions.
A tour has been arranged for each city or town, starting at the municipal
center except where, as in Boston and Cambridge, some other starting point
was considered to be more convenient. Points of interest which are con-
centrated or easy to find are merely numbered and listed with street addresses;
otherwise driving directions are given. If the inordinate length of some of the
tours within towns or cities appals you (Pitts field's motor tour is over 30
miles long) , console yourself, as you halt on a country road to shoo a flock of
geese, that you are still 'in town,' as townships were abolished in Massachu-
setts by an Act of the General Court on August 23, 1775.
AMHERST.^w Adventure in Quietude
Town: Alt. 302, pop. 6473, sett. 1703, incorp. 1775.
Railroad Station: Main St., opposite Gray St., for Central Vermont R.R.
Accommodations: Four hotels and several tourist houses.
Information: Hotel Lord Jeffrey, Bottwood Ave., cor. Spring St.
AMHERST, on its pleasant valley plateau within a circle of hills, is a
dignified college town, the seat of two institutions of higher learning.
Its quiet dwellings, elm-shaded streets, and general air of academic calm
make it attractive and individual. It was named for Lord Jeffrey Am-
herst, a British general in the French and Indian War. The town was
originally a part of Hadley. Farming was the exclusive occupation of the
community for three quarters of a century.
Later its two streams furnished water-power for a diversity of small and
in general ephemeral industries. Shortly after the Revolution, a paper
factory made its appearance, followed by three others in the next seventy
years. About 1809, an abortive effort was made to spin yarn by machin-
ery. Twenty-eight years later, improved processes made it possible to
operate two woolen mills successfully. The fabrication of palmleaf hats
and the temporarily popular ' Shaker ' hoods for women marked the
high-spot of Amherst's mass-production. Miscellaneous items such as
sleds, baby-carriages, and rifles complete the catalogue of the town's
manufactured goods.
The agrarian skill of the inhabitants and the lusty health of their
cattle as shown in annual fairs attracted State-wide interest which
culminated, in 1864, in the founding of Massachusetts Agricultural
College, which later, with a broadened curriculum, became Massachusetts
State College. The college was established as a result of the Morrill
Land Grant Act of 1862, which allotted to Massachusetts the sum of
$208,464 realized from the sale of 360,000 acres of land granted by the
Federal Government. From a perpetual fund set up for the promotion
of education in agriculture and the 'mechanic arts,' one third was
to be given to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and two thirds
to the Agricultural College.
Today this institution possesses a perfectly equipped dairy farm known
as the Flint Laboratory, a model for the whole country, and an out-
standing entomological collection. Since. 1882 the State Agricultural
Experiment Station has been located on forty-eight acres of land leased
from the college.
More than forty years before the founding of the Agricultural College,
a purely academic institution had chosen Amherst as its site. Founded
128 Main Street and Village Green
in 1821, with the simple ideal of educating 'promising but needy youths
who wished to enter the Ministry/ Amherst College had an initial
enrollment of forty-seven pupils, with a teaching staff of two professors
.and the president. For many years emphasis was placed on missionary
work and Amherst sent many graduates to the home and foreign fields.
Shortly after 1830, the slavery question nearly split its academic ranks.
.Financial stringency threatened to complete the ruin, but by heroic
effort the college weathered this crisis and succeeded in establishing
itself on a firm basis. Liberal education instead of mere vocational
training has been the steadfast aim. Amherst was the first institution
in the land to adopt student-government.
It is one of the most noted of the smaller colleges for men in the United
States^ and its standards of plain living and high thinking are well
illustrated by the characters of two of its best-known graduates, Henry
Ward freecher and Calvin Coolidge. Noah Webster, Helen Hunt Jackson,
Emily Dickinson, Eugene Field, and Ray Stannard Baker ('David
Gray-son') all lived at one time or another in Amherst. Their presence
fostered a literary atmosphere very congenial to the college, enhanced
in later years by the addition of Robert Frost, the poet, to its faculty.
TOUR 3 m.
S.from Amherst Common on Pleasant St. (State 116).
i. The Amherst College Campus crowns an elm-shaded knoll at the center
of the town. The college buildings are of brick, stone, or wood, in a variety
of architectural modes reflecting its growth. Their grouping is spacious
.and dignified, and considerable beauty is achieved by wide lawns shaded
by ancient trees and outlined by barberry hedges.
College Hall (open), at the west end of the Common, resembles a New England
Colonial church, with yellow-painted brick walls, a white-pillared portico, and
a low octagonal belfry.
North aiid South College (private), are the oldest dormitories, resembling army
barracks, but much beloved by reason of tradition and long, honorable service.
Between these two dormitories stands the brick Johnson Chapel (open}, another
time-honored landmark, with three-story white-pillared portico and square white
belfry.
Morgan Library (open), next door to College Hall, is a gray-stone building now
an Art and Historical Museum. Exhibits include an exquisite Delia Robbia
Madonna from the study of Clyde Fitch, noted playwright, Class of 1886; Henry
Ward Beecher's Chair; Lord Jeffrey Amherst's Chair; and the immortal 'Sabrina,'
a semi-nude statue donated to the college in 1857 to adorn a fountain, and for
many years the prize of the Freshman and Sophomore battle. The trustees, at
length wearying of these Homeric contests, fastened Sabrina into the structural
walls of Morgan Library with such heavy masonry that only dynamite could now
dislodge her.
The Babbott Room (open), occupies the tower of The Octagon, a stucco building
on the campus. In this room Robert Frost talks informally to the students.
Amherst 129
The Natural Science Museum designed by McKim, Mead and White, houses the
biological and geological laboratories in a large building on the southern end of
the campus overlooking Hitchcock Field. In the Biological Museum is a large
collection of shells and a celebrated Audubon Collection of birds. The Geological
Museum contains minerals collected throughout Europe and America and a col-
lection of fossils and vertebrates. Adjoining is a large room containing the famous
Hitchcock ichthyological collection of fossil footprints.
2. The Helen Hunt Jackson House (private), 83 Pleasant St., a two-and-a-
half-story yellow frame dwelling with white pilasters and a gabled roof,
was the home of 'H. H.,' the pseudonym under which Mrs. Jackson wrote
* Ramona ' and other popular novels.
Retrace Pleasant St.; R. from Pleasant St. on Spring St. at the Common.
3 . The Lord Jeffrey Inn (open) , is a charming replica of a Colonial brick
tavern, white-painted, with 4o-paned windows on the lower story. It
houses the Plimpton Collection of French and Indian War prints, maps,
and autographed letters and papers of Jeffrey Amherst, George Washing-
ton, William Pitt, General Wolfe, George II and Louis XV.
L. from Spring St. on College Ave.; R. from College Ave. on Main St.
4. The Home of Emily Dickinson (not open for public inspection; those
interested in Emily Dickinson memorabilia may consult the collection next
door) stands above Main Street, behind a high evergreen hedge. It was
the first brick dwelling-house in Amherst, and was built about 1813 by
her grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, one of the chief founders of
Amherst College. Here was born in 1830, lived her life apart, and died in
1886, the poet and mystic who, after her death, was acclaimed as one of
the very few great American poets and one of the leading women poets
of all time. Her gradual withdrawal from the world, following a youthful
renunciation of love, became almost complete during her later years as
she devoted herself to a life of thought and the writing of the hundreds
of poems she was to leave to the world. With the exception of two or
three, none of these was published during her lifetime, it remaining for
her sister Lavinia, and then for her niece and heir, Martha Dickinson
Bianchi, to make her work available to the public. More than nine hun-
dred of her poems are now collected in one volume. Nothing relating to
the Dickinsons now remains in the old family mansion, but the Emily
Dickinson memorabilia are preserved at The Evergreens, the home of the
poet's only brother, the late William Austin Dickinson, just across the
lawn, which is now the home of her niece and biographer, where during
the summer months they may be seen by those especially interested in
Emily Dickinson's work.
Retrace on Main St.; straight ahead on Amity St.
5. Jones Library (open: summer, weekdays 9-6; winter, Tues., Thurs.,
Sat. afternoons and evenings. Sun. afternoons) is a gambrel-roofed field-
stone building recognized as one of the most luxurious small public
libraries in the United States. The interior is divided into twelve large
rooms and sixteen smaller ones in the manner of a private mansion. All
are paneled in Philippine white mahogany or walnut. Many have Oriental
130 Main Street and Village Green
rugs and comfortable chairs and divans; many are hung with valuable
paintings. In the Room of Amherst Authors are representative and exten-
sive editions of the works of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Eugene
Field, Helen Hunt Jackson, Noah Webster, and others.
6. The Strong House (open Tues. and Sat. 2-5; adm. free), corner of
Amity and North Prospect Sts., is a three-and-a-half-story gambrel-
roofed brownish frame dwelling of 1744, now the home of the Amherst
Historical Society. It is the oldest house in town, and was built by local
craftsmen of entirely hand-hewn timber and hand-wrought hardware.
Retrace Amity St.; L. from Amity on N. Pleasant St.
7. Massachusetts State College, fondly known as ' Aggie,' a contraction of
its former title of Massachusetts Agricultural School, occupies a large
open campus, on the edge of farming country. Its brick buildings, utili-
tarian rather than decorative, are grouped in a long semicircle, at the
center of which stands Goodell Library (open}, with high white Ionic
portico, giving access to 100,000 reference works.
The State College Science Museum in Fernald Hall, headquarters of the geology
and entomology departments, contains unusual specimens of insect life, and one
of the most interesting existing collections of insects injurious to cultivated plants
and trees. It was started early in the history of the college by Professor Fernald,
one of the first presidents and head of this department.
The Veterinary Science Museum is in the Veterinary Science Building on the
western side of the campus. It contains interesting specimens of abnormal animal
growth.
ARLINGTON. History and Homes
Town: Alt. 30, pop. 38,539, sett, about 1630, incorp. 1867.
Railroad Station: B. & M. R.R., Mystic and Mass. Ave.
Bus Station: Arlington Center for B. & M. Transportation Co., Champ lain
Coach Lines, and Frontier Coach Lines.
Accommodations: Boarding and rooming houses.
Information: Robbins Memorial (Town) Hall, Mass. Ave.
VICTIM of a series of industrial and agricultural frustrations, never
quite fulfilling its destiny as a producing center, Arlington is a residential
suburb.
The story of Arlington begins just after the Revolution. Industrial
development started with the establishment of William Whittemore and
Company (1799), card manufacturers, founded on the invention of Amos
Whittemore of a machine for the manufacture of cotton and wool cards.
Arlington 131
Prosperity was blighted in 1812 by the general wartime depression,
culminating in the sale of the Whittemore plant to a New York firm,
and Arlington lost its main industry. In 1827, after the expiration of the
original patents, card manufacturing was revived, but never regained its
vigor, and when the factory burned down in 1862, it was never rebuilt.
In 1832, James Schouler, a calico printer, moved from Lynn to Arlington.
Other lesser enterprises combined to give the town a sense of industrial
importance which temporarily seemed justified. By 1850 the Wood Ice
Tool Company and Gage, Hittinger and Company, ice-cutters who
shipped Spy Pond Ice to various parts of the world, were established.
Arlington's industrial importance was at its crest.
Agriculture developed parallel to industry, but was accompanied by far
less acclaim. Natural conditions and proximity to Boston markets made
truck gardening the chief gainful occupation, and by 1850 Arlington
produce became famous along the North Atlantic seaboard.
Just as industrial development reached a climax and then declined, so
did agriculture. Farms were broken up into house lots as the increasing
residential value of the land, coupled with proportionate increases in tax
assessments, made it unprofitable for market-gardening.
The early city fathers had been faced with such knotty problems as the
purchase of a town hearse, or the installation of a public bathtub 'for
the use of the inhabitants, but to be in the custody of the treasurer/
Their successors had to gird themselves for a different sort of task
a struggle against outside turnpike companies seeking franchises through
Arlington along routes considered inimical to the town. Hardly was the
battle won, and hardly were the roads established along routes agreeable
to all, when the victory crumbled to dust. Business men of Arlington
and Lexington built a railroad to Cambridge in 1846 and turnpikes lost
their significance. Horsecar lines (1859) and electric lines (1897) followed,
and Arlington developed into a residential suburb.
TOUR 6 m.
S. from Massachusetts Ave. into Pleasant St.
1. The Ancient Burying Ground is at the rear of the Unitarian Church.
Toward the farther side of the cemetery, close to the main path, is a
Monument over the graves of 12 Americans killed on the retreat from
Concord and Lexington, and buried 'without coffins, in the clothes they
had worn when they fell.'
2. Spy Pond was so christened, says tradition, when a company of white
men, seeking Fresh Pond to procure water, 'spied' this instead. It
acquired some reflected glory later on from the fact that old Mother
Batherick was digging dandelions on its bank on April 19, 1775, when six
British grenadiers came along, fleeing from the 'old men of Menotomy,'
ARLINGTON
TOUR
Arlington 133
as Arlington was originally (1637-1732) called. The brave old woman
took them off guard, captured them, and marched them to prison.
Retrace Pleasant St.; R. from Pleasant St. into Massachusetts Ave.
3. The Site of Cooper Tavern, corner of Medford St., Arlington Center, is
identified by a tablet. In the Tavern, two aged men, Jabez Wyman and
Jason Winship, sitting over their toddy, were killed on April 19, when the
Redcoats, rushing through the town, fired blindly through the windows.
4. The Site of the Black Horse Tavern is opposite Linwood St. Here the
Committee of Safety and Supplies of the Provincial Congress convened
on April 18, 1775. The following day a British searching party surprised
Vice-President Gerry and Colonels Leo and Orne, who escaped by making
a hasty exit and concealing themselves in a near-by field.
Retrace on Massachusetts Ave.; R.from Massachusetts Ave. on Medford St.;
L. from Medford St. into Mystic Valley Parkway.
5. The Mystic Lakes are popular as a resort for swimming and boating in
summer and skating and ice-boating in winter.
L. from the Parkway on Mystic St.
6. Russell Park is one of the recreational areas of Arlington. A tablet at
the rear of the school records the exploits and longevity of Samuel Whitte-
more, the hero who survived a bullet and a bayonet wound and very
nearly lived to see his hundredth birthday.
R. from Mystic St. into Massachusetts Ave.
7. A marker on the Green identifies the Site of the John Adams House
(1652), which served as a hospital for the Provincial soldiers during the
siege of Boston.
8. In front of the Unitarian Church (L) is a tablet which recalls the
Arlington Minutemen. It reads as follows: 'At this spot, April 19, 1775,
the old men of Menotomy captured a convoy of 18 men with supplies
on the way to join the British at Lexington.' When word came that
a British supply train was coming through with only a small guard, the
' old men ' made ready for its capture. Crouching behind a wall, they arose
as the British approached, covered them with leveled muskets, and forced
a surrender; the contents of the supply wagon were distributed to the
farmers.
ARLINGTON MAP INDEX
1. Ancient Burying Ground 9. Arlington Public Library
2. Spy Pond 10. Whittemore-Robbins Mansion
3. Site of Cooper Tavern n. Arlington Town Hall
4. Site of Black Horse Tavern 12. Jason Russell House
5. Mystic Lakes 13. Site of Deacon Joseph Adams
6. Russell Park House
7. Site of John Adams House 14. Benjamin Locke House
8. Minute Men Tablet
134 Main Street and Village Green
9. The Arlington Public Library (open weekdays 10-9), known as the
Robbins Memorial Library, erected in 1892 from the designs of Gay
6 Proctor, is constructed of Ohio limestone in Italian Renaissance style.
Engaged Corinthian columns support the arches over the windows. The
entrance is similar in style to the main door of the Cancellaria Palace in
Rome.
The Indian Hunter, by Cyrus E. Dallin (see below), stands in the park
between the library and the Town Hall.
10. The Whittemore-Robbins Mansion, behind the library, is a Federal
three-story building with a hip roof, a cupola or watch-tower, and four
chimneys.
n. The Town Hall designed by R. Clipston Sturgis and built about 1914,
is a contemporary adaptation of Colonial design. Two stories in height,
the 'great hall' is surrounded on three sides by administrative offices.
L. from Massachusetts Ave. on Jason St.
12. The Jason Russell House (open weekdays except Mon. 2-5, Apr. -Oct.),
7 Jason St., a wooden two-story dwelling with pitched roof and central
chimney, was built in 1680. A number of Minutemen, almost surrounded
by the British on that memorable April 19, dashed into it for cover. A few
who fled to the cellar were unharmed, but Jason Russell and 1 1 others who
hid upstairs were killed. The house was occupied by descendants of the
Russell family until 1890. It is now the headquarters of the Arlington
Historical Society.
Retrace Jason St.; L. from Jason St. on Massachusetts Ave.
13. A tablet at 840 Massachusetts Ave. identifies the Site of the Deacon
Joseph Adams House, from which British soldiers stole the communion
service of the First Parish during their retreat from Lexington and
Concord.
L. from Massachusetts Ave. on Appleton St.
14. The Benjamin Locke House (private), 21 Appleton St., was built
(1726) by a captain of the militia. When the British passed by, about
two o'clock on the morning of April 19, Captain Locke was awakened
and rushed out to arouse his neighbors. In a short time he was able
to muster 26 men. By the afternoon the band grew to 52, which, with
companies from surrounding towns, joined in harassing the rear of Percy's
retreating column.
15. St. Anne's Chapel (open), between Hillside and Claremont Aves., was
designed by Cram and Ferguson and completed in 1916. It is built in
Romanesque style, the interior and exterior being of local field-stone.
It is furnished with ancient ecclesiastical furniture, most of which came
from Spain and Italy.
L. from Appleton St. into Claremont Ave.; L. from Claremont Ave. into
Florence Ave.; R. from Florence Ave. into Cliff St.; R. from Cliff St. into
Oakland Ave.
Boston 135
1 6. The Home of Cyrus E. Dallin (private), 69 Oakland Ave., also serves
as the eminent sculptor's studio. Mr. Dallin (1861- ), a native of
Utah, is well known for his understanding portrayals of the American
Indian. Among his most noted works are i Appeal to the Great Spirit,'
which stands before the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and ' Medicine
Man,' in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.
L. from Oakland Ave. into Park Ave.
17. The Water Stand pipe (open to visitors each second Sun.) rises 50 feet
above the loftiest point on Arlington Heights, emphasizing the great
difference between the lowest and highest altitude of this town. From
a balcony near the top, Boston and the harbor are visible to the east; to
the west Mt. Monadnock and Mt. Wachusett are dim blue shapes on the
horizon.
B O S T O N . The Hub of the Universe
City: Alt. 8, pop. 781,188, sett. 1625, incorp. town 1630, city 1822.
Railroad Stations: North Station, 120 Causeway St., for B. & M. R.R., Rutland,
Central Vermont, and Canadian Pacific R.R.s.; South Station, Atlantic Ave.
corner of Summer St., for N.Y., N.H. & H. and B. & A. R.R.s.; Back Bay Sta-
tion, 145 Dartmouth St., for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.; Trinity Place Station,
Trinity Place and Dartmouth St., for B. & A. R.R.
Bus Stations: 8 Broadway for Berkshire Motor Coach Lines, Inc., and Victoria
Coach Line, Inc.; 2 Park Square for Blue Way Trail Ways, Inc., Granite Stages,
and Quaker Stages Co.; Hotel Brunswick, 520 Boylston St., for Gray Line Inc.
and Royal Blue Line, Inc.; 51 Scollay Square for Black Hawk Lines, Inc.; 36
Park Square for B. & M. Transportation Co. and New England Transportation
Co.; 222 Boylston St. for Greyhound Lines; 30 Boylston St. for I. R.R. Co., Inc.;
620 Atlantic Ave. for Rawding Lines, Inc.; 10 Park Square for Capitol Stages.
Piers: Commonwealth Pier No. 5, South Boston; B. & A. Docks, East Boston;
Pier 3 for Cunard-White Star Line; Pier 4 for Anchor and U.S. Lines; N.Y.,
N.H. & H. Piers, South Boston; Pier 2 for M.M.T. Co.; Hoosac Docks, Charles-
town; Pier 42 for Ocean S.S. Line and Pier 44 for Dollar Line; Mystic Docks,
Charlestown; Pier 46 for Furness-Withy Line; India Wharf and Central Wharf,
Atlantic Ave., Boston, for Eastern S.S. Co. ; Long Wharf, Atlantic Ave., Boston,
for United Fruit Co. and Cape Cod S.S. Co.
Airports: Boston Airport, East Boston, 2 m. from city; American Air Lines,
B. & M. Airways, Mayflower Line (Boston & Cape Cod, summers); taxi fare
85^, plus 15^f toll fare for East Boston Tunnel.
Accommodations: Thirteen large hotels and many small ones.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 80 Federal St.; New England
Council, Statler Bldg., 20 Providence St.
136 Main Street and Village Green
BOSTON during its three hundred-odd years of existence has become so
encrusted with legends that the true Boston of today is almost completely
obscured by them. According to time-honored tradition, this city is the
Hub of the Universe, its intellectual center, its cultural center, populated
by superior persons all of whom have at least one ancestor who came over
in the 'Mayflower' or the 'Arabella,' a closed society of 'Brahmins. '
Visitors arriving in Boston with such preconceived notions are likely to
have them confirmed for all time by the sight of a gentleman crossing the
Common carrying a green bag, or a lady emerging from the New England
Historical and Genealogical Society with her Transcript under her arm.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Boston has its share of intellec-
tuals, its share of culture, its share of 'old families'; it still plays its part
in world affairs and fills an important role in national politics. By no
means do all its citizens, however, live serenely on the waterside of
Beacon Street or the sunny side of Commonwealth Avenue, nor do they
all read the Atlantic Monthly, or spend their summers with relatives on the
North Shore and eternity with their ancestors in Mount Auburn Cem-
etery.
As for the legend of ethnic homogeneity, that is so much pernicious
twaddle. Boston has greatly changed from the city of which President
Timothy Dwight of Yale wrote in 1796: 'The Bostonians, almost without
an exception, are derived from one country and a single stock. They are
all descendants of Englishmen and, of course, are united by all the great
bonds of society language, religion, government, manners and interest.'
Today five minutes' walk from the State House will take the visitor to
any one of several sections of the city where English is a foreign language.
A social statistician has said that every third person whom you meet on
the street in Boston today is foreign-born and three out of every four are
of other than English descent. The old New England stock still largely
controls leading banks, numerous business enterprises, museums, hos-
pitals, and universities, but numerically it is insignificant. The con-
temporary scene is decidedly more cosmopolitan than Calvinistic. The
' New Canaan ' of the English founders is now a political new Canaan for
the Irish. Celt outnumbers Saxon.
The modern fable, however, that Boston is an 'Irish city' is no better
founded than the Puritan myth. The largest number of Boston's 229,356
foreign-born come from Canada (45,558). Three groups closely follow the
Canadians: the Irish Free State (43,932), Italy (36,274), and Russia,
chiefly Jews (31,359). Great Britain and Ireland have contributed
22,653, an d Poland, Norway and Denmark, Germany and Lithuania have
sent sizable quotas in the order named, with many Jews in the Polish and
German groups. There are also in Boston 20,574 Negroes.
Equally without foundation is the frequent impression that Boston is
still the old peninsula plus the Back Bay; bounded on the north by the
North Station, on the south by the South Station, on the east by the
Boston 137
Atlantic Avenue wharves, and on the west by Copley Square with an
extension along the Esplanade. This area, which the visitor usually
thinks of as 'Boston' contains, it is true, Boston Common, the Public
Garden, Beacon Hill and both State Houses, the old graveyards, the
waterfront, the market, the business district, the main shopping area, and
most of Boston's historic houses and shrines, but it shelters actually less
than one-sixth of Boston's residents. Outside its confines Beacon Street
and Commonwealth Avenue stretch along parallel to the Charles River to
the vast Brighton- Allston area (annexed in 1874) in whose modern hive
of apartment houses and small homes live Boston's professional and
clerical workers to the number of 67,000 a fair-sized city in itself.
East Boston, an island across Boston Harbor to the northeast, has been a
part of the city since 1636 and houses about 62,000 persons. South
Boston has a population of more than 55,000. Charlestown, north across
the inlet where the Charles River and Boston Harbor meet (annexed in
1874), contains the United States Navy Yard, Mystic Wharves, Bunker
Hill, and the residences of about 30,000 Bostonians. Roxbury (annexed
in 1868), West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain (annexed in 1874), and Dorchester
to the south (annexed in 1874) have a combined population of approxi-
mately 450,000, a large majority of them Boston's less well-paid workers.
Hyde Park has over 25,000 and 'The Islands' have 2663 inhabitants.
Bearing these facts in mind, it is a mistake for the visitor to think of
Boston in any single term. Boston is a composite. It is a composite of
Silas Lapham's Boston southerly Beacon Hill, the Charles River Em-
bankment, Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue, all of which
William Dean Ho wells knew so well and the Boston symbolized by
what was once Ward 8, the kingdom of Boss Martin Lomasney, densely
populated, scornfully ignorant of the proprieties of the prunes-and-prisms
school, but vigorously alive. It is the paradoxical city which has inspired
twenty novels of the Boston scene in the past twenty-five years. It is the
Boston of wide streets overarched by spreading elms, of crooked narrow
streets called * quaint,'' of magnificent parks, fine public buildings, hand-
some residences, and a general air of well-scrubbed propriety and gracious
leisure. It is the Boston where acres of ugly wooden tenement houses
line the drab streets; where ten dollars a month rents a three-room flat
in a wooden fire trap without heat, lighting, running water, or indoor
toilet; where along Mile End Road, on the dump, are the melancholy
shacks of men who can pay no rent at all. It is the Boston of the music-
lovers, centered about Symphony Hall, the Opera House, the New Eng-
land Conservatory of Music; the Boston of the art-lovers, centered about
the Museum of Fine Arts, the Gardner Museum, the Public Library; the
Boston of the well-to-do churches and the prosperous universities. It is
the Boston that produces eighteen per cent of the total goods manu-
factured in Massachusetts by the toil of fourteen per cent of the workers in
the State; the Boston of 2104 manufacturing establishments (1934),
representing a capital investment of $227,315,188 and a total value of
manufactured products to the amount of $332,176,950; the Boston en-
grossed in printing and publishing, clothing manufacture, sugar refining,
138 Main Street and Village Green
boots and shoes, bread and pastries, confectionery, cutlery, foundry and
machine-shop products, malt liquors and wholesale meat-packing.
Note: Because of space limitations, duplication of statement has had to be
minimized. For a complete picture, the historical account of Boston which
follows should be read in conjunction with the essays in Section I, Massa-
chusetts: The General Background.
Boston's first settler was William Blackstone, a recluse of scholarly and
probably misanthropic mental cast, formerly a clergyman of the Church
of England. He had built himself a hut on the western slope of what is
now Beacon Hill, planting his orchard on what later became Boston
Common. At that time the wilderness occupied the peninsula, which was
about one-third the size of the present Boston peninsula. Almost an
island, it jutted out into the bay, joined to the mainland by a long narrow
neck like the handle of a ladle. It was a mile wide at its widest, three
miles long, and the neck was so narrow and so low that at times it was
submerged by the ocean. Blackstone 's realm was bounded on the west
by a mud flat (the Back Bay) ; on the north by a deep cove (later dammed
off to make a mill pond) ; on the east by a small river which cut off the
North End and made an island of it, and by a deep cove (later known as
the 'Town Cove'); and on the south by another deep cove. Here the
disillusioned clergyman read his books, farmed a little, traded a bit with
the Indians, and breathed air uncontaminated by any other white man.
His idyllic solitude was rudely shattered after four or five years, however,
by the arrival of John Winthrop with a company of some eight hundred
souls who settled in what is now Charlestown, just across from his para-
dise. Their miseries were many. The water at Charlestown was brackish ;
and their settlement could not easily be defended against Indian raids.
Blackstone visited them and was melted by the spectacle of their plight.
He invited them to come across to his peninsula and the company eagerly
accepted his hospitality.
Thus in 1630 Boston actually began. Winthrop's settlers called it 'Tri-
mountain,' possibly because of three hills later known as Beacon Hill,
Copp's Hill, and Fort Hill (now razed), or possibly because of the three
mounded peaks of Beacon Hill (later shaved down) .
The first year acquainted the Englishmen and their families with the
rigors of the New England climate, and as it was too late to plant crops,
more than two hundred died of starvation and exposure. The following
spring a ship laden with provisions, long overdue, dropped anchor in the
bay, and famine was averted. The freshly tilled soil later yielded a good
crop and the Colony survived and grew.
Fisheries were established. Fir and lumber created an export market.
The foundation of trade and agriculture were early laid. Within four
years more than four thousand Englishmen had emigrated to Boston
and its vicinity. Twenty villages ramified out of the peninsula town to
form a definite Puritan Commonwealth.
Boston 139
The early Bostonians spent their days in labor from which the Sabbath
alone released them. Women, with spinning, weaving, and all the family
clothes to make, with large numbers of children to rear, had little time to
cultivate the amenities of social intercourse. Pioneer life was hard, drab,
and offered few comforts. Wood, for example, was the only source of fuel,
and as late as 1720 Cotton Mather complained, ' Tis dredful cold, my ink
glass in my stand is froze.'
Divines were preoccupied with dismal theological abstractions, but the
statute books reveal the fact that there were secular souls who displayed
a wholesome proclivity for life. 'Tobacco drinking' (smoking) tippling,
card-playing, dancing, and bowling identified the colonists with their
Elizabethan forbears, but caused the town fathers much alarm. Sunday
strolls or street kissing even when legitimate were subject to heavy
fine, and an attempt was made to legislate 'sweets' out of existence.
Christmas, reminiscent of 'popery,' was immediately placed under the
ban and the elders often boasted that none of the holidays of old England
survived the Atlantic passage.
A breach of these regulations resulted in punishment which was based
upon the theory that ridicule was more effective than the isolation of
imprisonment. Market squares were embellished by the erection of
punitive apparatus bilboes, stocks, pillories, and ducking stools.
Public floggings were common and offenders were often forced to display
on their persons the initial letter of the crime committed.
Offenses against Puritan theology were severely punished. Boston,
dedicated to Calvin, neither understood nor admired toleration. Quakers
and other non-conformists were ruthlessly persecuted and martyrdom
became a commonplace in the Puritan town. Roger Williams was ban-
ished for having 'broached and divulged diverse new and dangerous
opinions against the authority of the magistrates.' Mistress Anne Hutch-
inson, a 'heretic,' followed Roger Williams into banishment. Mary Dyer,
a Quaker, was hanged on old Boston Common in 1660; Mary Jones, Mary
Parsons, and Ann Hibbins were hanged as witches. The town fathers
were content to sacrifice freedom in their attempt to achieve unity. The
Reverend Nathaniel Ward, speaking for all good Puritans, remarked,
' All Familists, Anabaptists, and other Enthusiasts shall have free liberty
to keepe away from us.'
In spite of a narrow religious and moral outlook, her commerce insured
Boston's future greatness. Scarcely a year after the Puritans had invaded
the splendid isolation of Mr. Blackstone, Governor Winthrop launched
the 'Blessing of the Bay.' The Puritan 'Rebecca' sailed to Narragansett
and purchased corn from the Indians. Vessels called at the Bermudas
and returned to Boston with cargoes of oranges, limes, and the equally
exotic potato. They traveled up the Delaware in search of pelts. Fre-
quently they put in at New Amsterdam to traffic with Dutch burghers,
and twelve years after the founding (1642) ships laden with pipe staves
and other products tied up safely at English docks. Thus began the
140 Main Street and Village Green
maritime history of Massachusetts with Boston as its center. Shipbuild-
ing, fishing, whaling, industry and exchange made the Colony a bustling
outpost of imperial Britain.
From 1630 to about 1680, Great Britain was so absorbed in troubles at
home that, notwithstanding the Navigation Act of 1651, she gave little
attention to regulating the enterprise of her infant Colonies. In 1691
a royal governor was sent; in 1733 the Molasses Act was passed; but the
Colonial merchants had virtually free trade until 1764 when Grenville
began the vigorous enforcement of the mercantilistic measures. From
then on friction increased rapidly and the Colonies developed a burning
sense of grievance.
The American Revolution resulted from a series of bewildering subtleties,
but many dramatic episodes, seemingly reflecting the broad issues of the
controversy but actually telescoping them, took place in Boston's crooked
streets. The Boston Massacre (1770) on King Street (now State) occurred
in the shadow of the Old State House. News of the British advance on
Lexington and Concord was semaphored to Paul Revere by the glimmer
of a lamp which swung from the belfry of the Old North Church. The
rafters of Faneuil Hall rang with the impassioned oratory of the champions
of liberty. The Old South Meeting House was the point from which fifty
men disguised as Indians rushed to Griffin's Wharf where British mer-
chantmen rocked idly in the harbor, their holds crammed with East
Indian tea (1773). It was the Boston Tea Party which confronted the
British Cabinet with the choice of capitulation or force, replied to by the
Port Act, which marked the beginning of a policy of coercion and led
swiftly to open warfare. The battle of Bunker Hill in near-by Charles-
town was one of the early engagements of the war. Boston was regarded
by the British as a most important objective, and the failure of the siege
and the evacuation of the city by the Redcoats was the first serious blow
to Tory confidence.
Commerce suffered a temporary eclipse in the depression of the post-war
years, but the discovery of new trading possibilities in the Orient offered
an opportunity which enterprising Yankee merchants were quick to
perceive. The development of the China trade and the exploitation of
the Oregon coast rich in sea otters restored Boston to its former eminence.
Wealth poured into the coffers of merchants, traders, and shipmasters.
In 1780, 455 ships from every quarter of the globe docked in Boston
Harbor, while 1200 vessels engaged in coastwise traffic out of Boston.
During a single year (1791), seventy Yankee merchantmen cleared Boston
for Europe, the Indies, and Canton.
Boston's maritime prosperity was stimulated by the wars between Eng-
land and France which followed the accession of Napoleon. In 1807 the
shipping of Boston totaled 310,309 tons or more than one-third of the
mercantile marine of the United States. The Jefferson Embargo and the
War of 1812 seriously crippled the city's maritime development. Al-
though she recovered, and although the era of the clipper made Massa-
Boston 141
chusetts famous throughout the world, and although the 'Sovereign of
the Seas,' built by Donald McKay in East Boston (1852), was the envy
of the British Admiralty, the War of 1812 really marked the beginning of
the end of Boston's maritime supremacy. Thereafter manufacturing and
industry gradually supplanted commercial interests.
In 1822, Boston became a city; railroads were being built from 1830 on
and played an important part in urban development; the first horsecar
line, connecting Cambridge and Boston, was built in 1853. Between 1824
and 1858, the Boston peninsula was enlarged from 783 acres to 1801 acres
by cutting down the hills and filling in the Back Bay and the great coves
with the excavated gravel as a basis for reclamation. The Neck, which
William Blackstone could not always cross on foot because of the tide-
water, was raised and broadened, so that what was once the narrowest
part of Boston proper is now the widest.
During the era between the War of Independence and the Civil War,
Boston ideas underwent a parallel transformation from the provincial
to the urban. Stimulated by European currents of thought and the
philosophy of the frontier, Boston began to revolt against the theology of
Calvin, a revolt typical of the democratic spirit of the nineteenth century.
Unitarianism under the leadership of William Ellery Channing threatened
to dissolve the entire system of Puritan Congregationalism (1825). The
new doctrines were embraced by Harvard and the fashion of Boston, but
hardly had the rebellion subsided when new dissension broke out within
Unitarian ranks. Ralph Waldo Emerson shocked his parishioners of the
Second Church (1832) by tendering his resignation and retiring to Concord
to ponder the mysteries of Transcendentalism. Theodore Parker, another
Unitarian minister, immersed in German philosophy, Biblical criticism,
and evolutionary geology, began to preach a new variety of natural
religion which rejected conventional theological forms and banished the
supernatural.
Coinciding with the democratic movement and partly as a result of it,
a flurry of philanthropy and reform arose. John Lowell, Jr., bequeathed
a fortune to establish Lowell Institute (1839) in order to provide the
people of Boston with free lectures by 'foremost scholars and thinkers of
the English-speaking world.' This democratization of education was
supplemented by the creation of the Boston Public Library (1852).
Horace Mann devoted his reforming spirit to the development of formal
education. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe dedicated his efforts to the emanci-
pation of the deaf and blind. With the financial assistance of Thomas
H. Perkins, the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the
Blind (first located in South Boston, later removed to Watertown) was
founded, a unique institution for its day (1832). The first public surgical
operation which made use of ether as an anesthetic was performed (1846)
at the Massachusetts General Hospital. A controversy between the two
claimants of discovery, William Thomas Green Morton and Charles
T. Jackson (the claim of a country doctor in Georgia had not yet been
advanced), was temporarily settled by a tactful verdict of the French
142 Main Street and Village Green
Academy which awarded each claimant a similar amount, one for the
discovery of ether and the other for its application.
Nowhere was the reforming spirit more active than in the anti-slavery
movement. William Lloyd Garrison had no respect for the interests of
cotton, whether expounded by planters or manufacturers. He invaded
Boston and founded the Liberator (1831) and was rewarded in 1835 with
physical violence at the hands of a mob partly composed of Boston
gentility. The development of cotton manufacture in Lawrence and
Lowell was not without its effect on State Street and Beacon Hill. Re-
spectable elements of society thought best to refrain from emotional
language or harsh criticism after Southern statesmen began to ask perti-
nent questions concerning workers in Lowell and Lawrence mills. Garri-
son attacked the Constitution because it recognized slavery as legal, and
Boston patriots could hardly suffer so sacred a document to be disparaged;
but Garrison's fervor attracted Wendell Phillips, a brilliant orator whose
lineage was almost as old as Boston, and he became an equally zealous
advocate of the cause. Other converts were enlisted Channing, Parker,
Lowell, Longfellow, Dana and under the championship of such ultra-
respectable persons, the anti-slavery crusade gained ground rapidly.
Boston played a less important role in the Civil War than in events
preceding it. Unable to meet the prescribed quota of soldiers by voluntary
enlistment, the city fathers first employed the draft in 1863, precipitating
the Boston Draft Riots. The poorer classes, irritated when their rich
neighbors purchased immunity from compulsory service for the sum of
three hundred dollars, objected so strenuously that the militia was called
out to quell the disorders. Among the regiments which did march South
to uphold the honor of Boston, one of the most famous was commanded
by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, an abolitionist 'of gentle birth and breed-
ing. 3 Composed of Negroes, this regiment led the attack on Fort Wagner
where Colonel Shaw and nearly half of his followers fell.
Although some Bostonians had indicated a reluctance to support the
Northern cause during the war, the celebration of peace left little to be
desired. The moving spirit of the great Peace Jubilee held in June, 1869,
was Patrick S. Gilmore, an exuberant Irish bandmaster, whose grandiose
plans for this occasion made P. T. Barnum seem a novice by comparison.
A coliseum seating 30,000 people was erected near the site of the present
Copley Plaza Hotel housing an Angel of Peace, thirteen feet high, to-
gether with an extinguished torch of war, frescoes, doves and angels,
medallions, emblems and flags, as well as the largest bass drum in the
world, constructed for the occasion, and four organs that required relays
of twelve men to pump. Ten thousand choral singers combined with an
orchestra of 84 trombones, 83 tubas, 83 cornets, 75 drums, 330 strings, and
119 woodwinds, produced an awe-inspiring 'Niagara of harmony.' At
one stage of the celebration, a hundred members of the Fire Department,
clad in red shirts, blue pants, and white caps, suddenly appeared and beat
upon a hundred anvils in what was doubtless the loudest performance of
the Anvil Chorus from 'II Trovatore' ever given. President Ulysses S.
Boston H3
Grant, who attended, appeared unimpressed, and John S. D wight, fore-
most music critic of the day, fled to Nahant in order to escape the din.
This amazing exhibition reflected the American adoration of size as well
as the immaturity of the new wealth which the rise of industry was
bringing to Boston. The proud and graceful clippers that had sailed from
Boston Harbor had been displaced by smoke-belching steamships which
were largely of British ownership. Says Samuel Eliot Morison, in his
'Maritime History of Massachusetts':
The maritime history of Massachusetts . . . ends with the passing of the
clipper. 'Twas a glorious ending! Never, in these United States, has the
brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing
as the clipper ship. In her, the long-suppressed artistic impulse of a practi-
cal, hard-worked race burst into flower. The 'Flying Cloud' was our
Rheims, the 'Sovereign of the Seas' our Parthenon, the 'Lightning' our
Amiens; but they were monuments carved from snow. For a few brief
moments of time they flashed their splendor around the world, then dis-
appeared with the sudden completeness of the wild pigeon. One by one
they sailed out of Boston, to return no more. A tragic or mysterious end
was the final privilege of many, favored by the gods. Others, with lofty
rig cut down to cautious dimensions, with glistening decks and topsides
scarred and neglected, limped about the seas under foreign flags, like faded
beauties forced upon the street.
Money formerly invested in shipping now flowed into the mills and
factories that sprang up in large numbers in Boston and its suburbs. The
shoe and textile industries, which had boomed with the artificial demand
of wartime conditions, continued their advance under the stimulus of
capital released from maritime pursuits. Other manufacturing estab-
lishments followed the trail to Boston, and by the turn of the twentieth
century, the intellectual 'Hub of the Universe ' had become the industrial
hub of New England.
A new commerce grew from this new industry. It was neither so ro-
mantic nor so important as that of pre-Civil War days, but it sufficed
to establish Boston as one of the leading ports on the Atlantic seaboard.
Shipping became an adjunct of manufacturing plants; raw materials,
such as cotton and wool for textiles and leather for shoes, were brought
to the factories and the finished products carried to the remotest markets
of the world. In 1901 ships sailing out of Boston Harbor carried goods
valued at $143, 708,000, while imports in that year amounted to $80,000,000.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Bostonians could (and did) boast
of other things in addition to a thriving industry and commerce. Boston
had at least two much-touted claims to fame: John L. Sullivan, the great-
est fighter of his time, and the first passenger-car subway in America,
a two-mile stretch from Arlington and Boylston Streets to the North
Station. The last horsecar was discarded in 1910, and while bicycles,
drays, and carriages were still dashing along at the reckless speed of eight
or ten miles an hour, electric surface lines were being built in every
section of the city. An elevated railroad (begun in 1909) pushed into
144 Main Street and Village Green
the suburb of Forest Hills; downtown Boston was transformed by steel,
cut stone, and marble; the National Shawmut Bank, the buildings of
William Filene's Sons Co., and Jordan Marsh Company, all erected
shortly after 1907, set a pattern of utilitarian beauty which changed the
external character of the city.
The growth of industry was paralleled by the growing consciousness of
labor. One of the most spectacular strikes in the history of the labor
movement was the Boston police strike of 1919, based on the formal
complaint of an organization of 1290 Boston patrolmen, that their wages
had failed to keep pace with living costs, that the police stations were
unsanitary, and that they worked overtime without compensation.
A number of factors defeated the policemen and they voted to return
to work. Governor Coolidge, however, disclaimed the power to reinstate
the strikers, stating that he was opposed to 'the public safety again
being placed in the hands of these same policemen.' Mayor Peters
worked all during September 1 5 on a revised wage scale for the new
policemen.
Hardly had the excitement of the police strike subsided when Boston
became the storm center of another crisis, concerning the arrest, trial,
conviction, and execution of two obscure Italian laborers. The affair
dragged out over seven years and was debated in every civilized quarter
of the globe. The entire machinery of justice was smeared with suspicion
and petitions flooded the office of Governor Alvan T. Fuller in an effort
to stay the execution and obtain a new trial. The men were executed
in Boston on August 23, 1927. The authorities no doubt breathed easier
when the affair was safely over though, as it turned out, the affair was
far from over; Sacco and Vanzetti had become, for a new generation to
whom ' Haymarket ' was scarcely more than a word, the classic example
of the administering of justice to members of unpopular political mi-
norities.
For twenty years Boston, stimulated by an exposition ambitiously an-
nouncing as its goal, 'Boston 1915 the Finest City in the World,' had
been consciously building its physical self into a fine, clean, and beautiful
city. Shortly before the nation-wide depression overtook it, it became
obsessed also by a desire to put its spiritual house in order. Celestial
roundsmen under the aegis of the 'New England Watch and Ward
Society' inaugurated a virulent campaign against 'lewd and indecent'
books and plays. What is salacity? It was like the time-honored stickler :
How old is Ann? Other cities indulged in loud guffaws over the antics
of the Boston censors as the latter grew hotter and hotter and more and
more bothered over the perplexing problem. 'Banned in Boston' came
to be the novelist's and dramatist's dream of successful publicity ' a
natural ' in advertising. The greatest furore was occasioned by the refusal
of the authorities to permit the Boston production of Eugene O'Neill's
'Strange Interlude.' The producers promptly moved their company to
Quincy, where the play had a tremendous run, playing to audiences
packed with Boston residents.
Boston 145
The Sacco and Vanzetti case, with its echoes still reverberating, censor-
ship with all its trail of Rabelaisian mirth, the police strike, though it
made Calvin Coolidge Vice-President and subsequently President all
were temporarily forgotten in the great Tercentenary Celebration which
ushered in the third decade of the century. Even the cloud of the ap-
proaching depression, considerably larger already on the horizon than a
man's hand, cast no shadow on gala preparations.
The Boston Tercentenary Committee, in conjunction with State- wide
subcommittees, mapped out a gigantic program. The ceremonies, con-
ducted with considerable pomp, were formally opened by a * Great
Meeting' held on Boston Common, where the chief address was delivered
by the Right Honorable H. A. L. Fisher, Warden of New College, Oxford.
1 Little did the founders reckon,' said Professor Fisher in his oration,
1 that a time would come when ... in the fullness of years, their New
England would be followed by a New Ireland, a New Italy, a New
Germany, a New Poland, and a New Greece, all destined to be merged
into a great and harmonious Commonwealth.'
The story of the economic collapse, which followed hard upon the very
celebration itself, is better not written except where it may be dissected
and analyzed. Boston, for all its rigidity of pattern and form, continues
to be a paradox. In spite of the depression, which affected it with the
utmost seriousness, it is today still the metropolis of New England, the
commercial, financial, and industrial center of a densely populated area,
second to none in the diversity of its manufactures and the skill of its
labor. And in spite of censorship it is still a cultural center, maintained
so by the perennial optimism and courage of its artists, and the warm
support of a great body of art-loving citizens. And in spite of its un-
deniable intolerance, it is still the home of militant liberalism. Here
Unitarianism and Universalism make their home; here liberal education
waged a spectacular fight against the Teachers' Oath Bill; and Boston
liberals picketed the very State House one dramatic afternoon in cham-
pionship of the Child Labor Law. Boston is still the Boston of the Lowells,
the Lodges, the Cabots, but it is from newer stocks that it derives much
of its color, its hope, and its unquenchable vitality.
FOOT TOUR 1 (Back Bay and Beacon Hill) 3m.
W. from Clarendon St. on Boylston St.
Copley Square is more photographed than any other plaza in Boston,
owing to the stately architectural beauty of two sides of its triangular
green, which is now marred by the contrasting stretch of shops, banks,
and offices on its third side.
i. Trinity Church (Episcopal) (open daily] faces west on Copley Square.
At the time it was built, in 1877, American architecture had for twenty
146 Main Street and Village Green
years languished in an unprecedented state of decadence. To the per-
versions of the then prevalent Victorian Gothic the genius of Henry
Hobson Richardson vigorously superimposed, and with his Trinity
Church began the emancipation of American architecture.
The shape of the lot, triangular in form, bounded by three streets, made
impossible the usual long nave and dominant entrance front, and invited
the defiance of tradition. Richardson found in the Romanesque of south-
ern France a medium well suited to the problem. He turned also to the
nth-century work of the cities of Auvergne in central France where the
central tower was developed to such proportion as to become the main
portion of the structure. The resultant plan was compact and cruciform
with all its limbs nearly equal apse, nave, transepts, and chapel form-
ing the base of the tower obelisk. The massive tower is the dominant
feature of the design and the composition as a whole is a romantic and
picturesque mass studied for its effectiveness from all angles. For the
tower design, Richardson was inspired by the cathedral of Salamanca,
in Spain.
The architect early decided that Trinity should be a 'color church.'
The walls are of yellowish Dedham granite laid up in rock-faced ashler
with trim of reddish-brown Longmeadow freestone. Cut stone, in alter-
nating patterns of light and dark, decorates some of the walls. Through-
out, the building is animated by rich and powerful carvings, the best
of which are seen in the West Porch, a posthumous work completed in
1897, from Richardson's designs, by Evans and Tombs of Boston.
Richardson entrusted the decoration of the interior to John La Farge
under whose direction the great barrel vaults came to glow with some of
the fire of San Marco. The dominant color of the interior walls is red,
the great piers a dark bronze green with gilded capitals and bases. The
best of the windows were by Sir Edward Burne- Jones, executed by Wil-
liam Morris, John La Farge, and by Clayton and Bill of London. Trinity
stands as the masterpiece of the ' Richardsonian Romanesque' which
gave rise to a new though short-lived school, which nevertheless formed
the first milestone in the radical school of architecture of today.
Adjoining the church outside, on the Huntington Avenue side, is the
Saint-Gaudens statue of Phillips Brooks and Christ, still adversely
criticized in Boston. By optical illusion the placing of the pastor in front
of a slender figure of Christ, and on a lower level, suggests a short, stocky
man, whereas Phillips Brooks was six feet four inches tall, a fact which
undoubtedly added to his singularly magnetic personality. The union
of symbolism and realism is also regarded as unhappy by many critics.
Ninety-five thousand dollars had poured in in voluntary public contribu-
tions for this statue, and the disappointment of the donors was keen.
2. The Boston Public Library (open weekdays 9-10; Sun. 2-9; June 15-
Sept. 15, 9-9; closed holidays) faces east on Copley Square. The strong
tide of classicism that emanated from the Chicago Exposition of 1893
found its first important expression in this Albertian building finished in
Boston 147
1895 from plans by McKim, Mead and White. For inspiration, Charles
Follen McKim turned to the bold lines of Labrouste's Italian Renais-
sance masterpiece, the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve in Paris. Not
content, he fused with this influence, the more robust character of Al-
berti's San Francesco at Rimini. The interior court, one of the finest
features, is an almost servile adaptation of the Palazzo delta Cancelleria
in Rome.
Situated at the west end of Copley Square the ' great palace of books'
stands upon a granite platform elevated by six broad steps above the
level of the Square. The facade consists of thirteen deep raked arches,
separated by massive piers. The entrance or central motif is composed
of three lofty and deeply revealed arches, above which are exquisitely
sculptured panels by Saint-Gaudens illustrating the seals of the Library,
the City, and the Commonwealth.
The structure's salient function being to house one of the largest collec-
tions of books in the world, its plan shows a directness and general sim-
plicity of arrangement. The walls of the vestibule are of unpolished Ten-
nessee marble. The three doorways leading into the Entrance Hall are
copies from the Erechtheum at Athens. The double bronze doors, which
contain graceful, allegorical figures in low relief, were designed by Daniel
Chester French. The Entrance Hall itself, with its low mosaic-covered
vaults and arches supported by walls and massive square columns of
Iowa sandstone, is Roman in design. The walls of the Stair Hall are of
rich-veined yellow Siena marble and the steps of French Echaillon
marble lead to the Main Corridor. The upper walls of the stair hall are
divided into eight arched panels and within these spaces and on one wall
of the Main Corridor are symbolic murals by Puvis de Chavannes. Bates
Hall, the main reading-room, has a rich barrel vault with half domes at
the ends, and stretches the full breadth of the facade, 218 feet. Abbey's
large frieze, ' The Quest of the Holy Grail, ' occupies the upper portion of
the walls of the Delivery Room. On the upper or special libraries floor is a
corridor known as Sargent Hall and on its walls are Sargent's murals
depicting 'The Triumph of Religion.'
Besides its vast collection of volumes for circulation or reference, the
Boston Public Library houses special collections of particular significance.
Outstanding among these is the Sabbatier collection, an unusual assort-
ment of books dealing with Saint Francis of Assisi. Likewise important is
its remarkable newspaper collection, covering every city of importance
in the world. Of note also are the libraries of John Adams, Nathaniel
Bowditch, George Ticknor, and the Reverend Thomas Prince (which
includes the first book printed in the English Colonies of America the
'Bay Psalm Book'); a comprehensive assortment of manuscript letters
relating to the anti-slavery movement in the United States; Webster's
'Reply to Hayne,' in manuscript; Bentley's collection of accounting
books before 1900; the Lewissohn collection of Washingtoniana; and a
collection of Benjamin Franklin's books and engravings. The unique
Trent Defoe collection and the collection of incunabula are especially
noteworthy.
148 Main Street and Village Green
3. The Old South Church (Third), 645 Boylston St., corner of Dartmouth
St., built in 1875 from the plans of Cummings and Sears, is probably the
least distressing example of the Ruskinian or Victorian Gothic trend that
corrupted taste in the late nineteenth century. The campanile, which
soars to a height of 248 feet, was for many years the 'leaning tower of
Copley Square.' Built on filled ground and entirely of massive masonry
work, the tower sank out of plumb. When, in 1932, it was in danger of
toppling, it was removed, each stone catalogued and stored away. In
1937, steel skeleton anchored to deep-sunk piles chased the superficial
form and the original masonry followed its course. So now, the ' leaning
tower ' its spine once more erect serves as an effective companion
piece to the Library Building.
4. Boston University, 688 Boylston St., founded in 1869 by Lee Claflin,
Isaac Rich, and Jacob Sleeper, with its first department the Boston
Theological Seminary, has grown to be one of the largest universities in
the United States. Despite its name, it is not a city college, but is sup-
ported, like any other private institution, by endowments and tuition
fees. Its present student body numbers about fifteen thousand, re-
presenting every State and thirty-two foreign countries. The three found-
ers were religious men, but the noteworthy thing is that, although all
were Methodists, they showed themselves broader, more tolerant, and
more liberal than the founders of almost any other privately endowed
institution in the State; for from the very beginning they prescribed that
the University should never discriminate on denominational or sectarian
lines. To these liberal tendencies which still endure may be attributed the
rapid growth of the University.
Boston University is co-educational, with the exception of the College of
Practical Arts and Letters and the Sargent College of Physical Education,
which last was transferred to Boston University in 1929. Both are ex-
clusively for women.
The proposed site for a new building to house the entire University except
the Law and Medical Schools is on the banks of the Charles River where
Alexander Graham Bell, a professor at Boston University, will be signally
honored by a memorial tower 375 feet high.
In 1937 the University had no definite campus. The different schools were housed
in various parts of the city as follows:
College of Liberal Arts, 688 Boylston Street.
College of Business Administration, 525 Boylston Street.
College of Practical Arts and Letters, 27 Garrison Street.
College of Music, 178 Newbury Street.
Sargent College of Physical Education, 6 Everett Street, Cambridge, Mass.
School of Theology, 72 Mt. Vernon Street.
School of Law, n Ashburton Place.
School of Medicine, So East Concord Street.
School of Education, 84 Exeter Street.
School of Religions and Social Work, 28 Mt. Vernon Street.
Graduate School, 688 Boylston Street.
Retrace Boylston St.; L. from Boylston St. on Dartmouth St.
A FLASHBACK IN
EARLY PRINTS
FOR a flashback on the Massachusetts scene prior to photog-
raphy we are indebted to early artists, engravers, and
lithographers. The prints that follow afford a fair prospect of
old Boston that has all but disappeared, and make pictorial
historical events that we still celebrate. The Remick drawing
recalls the provision of 1643 by which Governor Winthrop set
the Common aside for a ' trayning field and pasture for cattell.'
The house beyond the fence on the top of the hill is the
Hancock Mansion; the wooden tower back of it is the old
beacon which for a century and a half surmounted the hill. In
the picture of forty years later, the Bulfinch State House
stands on the land where Hancock's cows grazed, while the old
beacon has been replaced by a monument.
As shown in the Bird's-Eye View of the city, a water-line still
existed in 1850 along Charles Street below the Common. Here
in 1775, before the extension of Beacon Street blocked the
way, the British soldiers boarded their boats and rowed
across to Cambridge on the eve of their battle in Concord.
Less than a century after the settlement of the Bay Colony, an
Englishman, describing the activity in Boston Harbor, said
the masts of the ships here ' made a kind of wood of trees.' The
city grew with its commerce, gradually encroaching on the
harbor as well as on the back bay. Water Street in Post
Office Square was the original shore-line. One of the prints
shows a dock just below Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall;
the market was built on made land in 1825.
The set of four prints of the Old State House reveals the
changes this building underwent and the variety of its
architectural expressions. Today the lion and the unicorn up-
hold their corners of the roof as they did in the Paul Revere
picture of 1770.
Engraving from one of America's earliest historical paintings, by Earle-in i
NORTH BRIDGE, CONCORD
BOSTON COMMON IN 1768, SHOWING THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND THE OLD BEAC
From a Renick water co
JL
*-M-
IE OLD STATE HOUSE AND THE 'BLOODY MASSACRE,' 1770
THE OLD STATE HOUSE IN l8oi, THE LION AND UNICORN REMOVED
OLD STATE HOUSE FIRE, 1832. Note new balconies and chimneys
OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1876 WITH MANSARD ROOF AttD ADVERTISEMEN'
UTHEAST VIEW OF BOSTON IN 174^, FROM THE HARBOR
THE CITY IN 1848, VIEWED FROM EAST BOSTON
Lithograph after the Price engrav
THE OLD BEACON ON BEACON HILL IS THE NINTH SPIRE FROM THE LEFT
THE NEW STATE HOUSE IS JUST RIGHT OF THE CENTER OF THE PICTU1
Lithograph by WhiteJ
*
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF BOSTON AROUND 1850
^ : "?^
HtfWtF I ~;^
" ^- . /-' A
"ilf ;' ;
tEFORE THE BACK BAY WAS FILLED IN
Lithograph by Sarony and Majt
Lithograph by Pendleton
ANEUIL HALL AND THE OLD SHORE LINE
NEW STATE HOUSE AND THE BULFINCH BEACON, ABOUT l8lO
Lithograph by Pendleton
Boston 149
5. The Boston Art Club Gallery (open to the public during exhibitions),
corner of Dartmouth and Newbury Sts., features exhibitions of con-
temporary painting and sculpture of New England artists.
L. from Dartmouth St. on Commonwealth Ave. (central gravel mall).
Commonwealth Ave., Marlborough St., and Beacon St., parallel thorough-
fares, are 'The Three Streets' of Boston impeccable residential ad-
dresses in their lower numbers.
6. The Statue of William Lloyd Garrison in the center of the walk, memo-
rialized (1886) the celebrated Abolitionist. The declaration inscribed
beneath his statue is dynamic: I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will
not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard. Yet the
seated figure by Olin L. Warner shows him as a kindly deacon. It was
James Russell Lowell who said :
There's Garrison, his features very-
Benign for an incendiary.
Retrace on Commonwealth Ave.
7. The First Baptist Church (formerly New Brattle Square Church),
corner of Clarendon St., designed by H. H. Richardson and built in 1870-
72, marks the beginning of the architect's professional maturity. The
exigencies of the corner site resulted in an asymmetrical composition,
with the entrance located on a side street and the tower placed on the
corner. The first Richardsonian work definitely Romanesque rather than
Victorian Gothic, its style is still far from true Romanesque and not typi-
cally ' Richardsonian Romanesque.' Once vacated because of its failure
acoustically, the church is notable mainly for its tower, with the heavy
frieze by Bartholdi, a fellow student of Richardson at the Ecole des Beaux
Arts. This frieze of trumpeting angels is responsible for the irreverent but
affectionate name: 'The Church of the Holy Beanblowers.' Bostonians
like their Beanblower tower so well that a group of them have purchased it
privately, so that it can never be torn down without their consent.
L. from Commonwealth Ave. on Berkeley St.
8. The First Church in Boston (Unitarian) (open daily 9-5, through Marl-
borough St. entrance, or on Sunday by main entrance on Berkeley St.) , corner
of Marlborough St., originally Congregational, was formed by Governor
Winthrop in 1630 as the first parish. A bronze Statue of Winthrop, by
R. S. Greenough, stands on the lawn at the side.
Retrace Berkeley St.; L. from Berkeley St. on the Commonwealth Ave. mall.
9. The Statue of Alexander Hamilton, is a nine-foot, full-length granite
carving by William Rimmer, a self-taught Boston sculptor and teacher of
Daniel Chester French. Rimmer had a theory, ahead of his time, of
working impressionistically without models. Though contemporary
criticism was violently adverse, the statue was admired by Hamilton's
own family for its graceful and somewhat aloof pose, characteristic of its
subject. Its ultra-modern qualities receive present-day recognition.
150 Main Street and Village Green
Straight ahead into the Public Garden; L. from entrance on first path within
the Garden.
10. The Public Garden, with its academically labeled trees of rare vari-
eties, its formal flower beds and its celebrated swan boats, has been a
treasured feature of Boston ever since it was laid out in the middle of the
nineteenth century on the 'made land' along the Charles. All the newer
fashionable residential district west of this point was once a broad
marshy tidal basin: this region is still called 'the Back Bay.'
11. The Ether Monument (1867), is not an artistic masterpiece, but none
commemorates a greater humanitarian achievement than ' the discovery
that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain, first proved to the
world at 1 the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, October, 1846.'
12. The George R. White Memorial Fountain, by Daniel Chester French,
is a tribute to a citizen who bequeathed a large fund to the city for use in
health education.
L. from the Public Garden path on Beacon St.; R. from Beacon St. on Em-
bankment Rd.
13. The Esplanade is a grassy promenade along the Charles River where
in an open shell summer evening concerts are given by members of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra.
R. on Chestnut St.
Beacon Hill is a conservative residential section where new buildings are
considered extremely regrettable, though occasionally necessary. The
correct building material is plain red brick.
This level end of Chestnut St. was once popularly known as Horse-
Chestnut St. because the stables of the wealthy householders of the Hill
were here. Some of these stables may still be seen, converted into
studios. Crossing Chestnut St. is Charles St., once the home of Boston's
literati, but now widened and lined with small markets and antique shops.
L. from Chestnut St. on Charles St.
14. Charles Street Church, at the corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon Sts.,
was built in 1807. The red-brick Federal structure with well-designed
facade and low cupola was designed by Asher Benjamin, who, as author
of 'The Country Builder's Assistant' and other preceptorial works on
architecture, propagated the mode set by Bulfinch and Mclntire.
Retrace on Charles St.; L. from Charles St. on Chestnut St.
15. Francis Parkman's House (private}, 50 Chestnut St., with its arched
recessed doorway, slate hip roof, and high flues, was built in 1824 and was
for many years the home of the noted historian.
1 6. The Home of Edwin Booth (private), 2gA Chestnut St., has a few of
the original purple window-panes once favored in this district, which sun
and time have transformed to a lilac hue, the despair of imitators. To
have a house with original purple panes is practically to have a patent of
Bostonian aristocracy. This house has the small, wrought-iron second-
Boston 151
story balconies introduced by Bulfinch and Benjamin. It is the only
house on the street with a main entrance at the side, facing a small lawn.
The arched Georgian doorway with Corinthian portico is beautiful, and
the entire house has a princely, brooding air suggestive of 'Hamlet/
Booth's most famous role.
17. The Home of Julia Ward Howe and later of John Singer Sargent
(private), 13 Chestnut St., is attributed to Bulfinch. It is a four-story
brick structure, with a delicate-columned Georgian doorway, ivory-color,
and second-story long windows with wrought-iron balconies. Such win-
dows indicate a second-story drawing room, a hallmark of fashion in
Boston. For many years this house was the meeting-place of the Radical
Club that succeeded the noted Transcendental Club.
L. from Chestnut St. on Walnut St.
18. The Ellery Sedgwick House (private), 14 Walnut St., the home of the
recently retired editor of the Atlantic Monthly, built in 1805, is the most
individualistic house on the Hill. It has three stories and gray-painted
brick ends, with black blinds, the south side wall being of wood painted
gray. On that side is a large tree-shaded garden, which, owing to the
slope of the Hill, is elevated high above the street and buttressed by a
base- wall of hand-hewn granite blocks.
R. from Walnut St. on Mt. Vernon St.
19. Thomas Bailey Aldrich's House (private), 59 Mt. Vernon St., is dis-
tinguished by its white marble portico and a white marble band between
the second and third stories.
20. The Home of Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (private), 57 Mt. Vernon St.,
is of a conservative elegance to be expected of the Civil War Ambassador
to England, son of John Quincy Adams, and father of the author of ' The
Education of Henry Adams.' Its four substantial stories face a trim lawn.
The white doorway has an unusual richly carved lintel. There are tall
second-story windows, the one over the door distinguished by a covered
balcony.
Retrace Mt. Vernon St.
21. The Sears House (Second Harrison Gray Otis House, 1800) (private),
85 Mt. Vernon St., is a good example of Bulfinch's domestic design, some-
what resembling his notable group on Franklin Crescent. The square
house with roof balustrade is excellently proportioned and has the typical
Bulfinch arched recesses surrounding the lower windows. The upper
stories are enlivened by four Corinthian pilasters. Although somewhat
altered, the architecture of this dignified Federal mansion remains im-
pressive.
R. from Mt. Vernon St. into Louisburg Square.
22. Louisburg Square, looking much like some square in London's May-
fair, is the epitome of Beacon Hill style. Noted residents have included
William Dean Howells, Louisa May Alcott and her father, Amos Bronson
Alcott, Jenny Lind, and Minnie Maddern Fiske. The houses, inhabited by
152 Main Street and Village Green
elderly and ultra-conservative families, are large three- or four-story
brick dwellings, mostly with bow-fronts and plain doorways, the whole in
synchronous monotone. The central green, enclosed by an iron fence
with no gate, belongs to the proprietors of the Square. The small statue
of Aristides the Just, at the south end, and that of Columbus at the north,
have been adopted affectionately by the residents through many years of
custom, but when their donor, Joseph lasigi, a wealthy Greek living at
No. 3, included also a fountain, it was hastily removed.
At Christmas each year the Square echoes with Christmas carols, sung
by trained voices usually selected from musical groups with sufficient
social prestige to be asked to contribute carolers. Bellringing and the
keeping of open house are additional features of the program.
R. from Louisburg Square on Pinckney St.
Pinckney St. was named for South Carolina's Charles Cotesworth Pinck-
ney, famous for his reply to Talleyrand: 'Millions for defense, but not
one cent for tribute.' The street is the border-line between wealth and
poverty and beyond it a less proud district slopes down the back of the
Hill.
L. from Pinckney St. on Joy St.; R. from Joy St. on Cambridge St.
23. The Harrison Gray Otis House (open, 10-5, fee 25 f), 141 Cambridge
St., built in 1795, has been since 1916 the headquarters of the Society for
the Preservation of New England Antiquities. The interior has not been
greatly altered, and the Society has restored the exterior to its former
beauty by replacing on the facade the semi-circular porch, Palladian
window, and third-story fan window that are the main decorative fea-
tures. This square hip-roofed mansion has an interior finished with
unusual refinement and delicacy. It is attributed to Bulfinch.
24. The Old West Church (West End Church) was built in 1806 from
designs by Asher Benjamin, architect-writer. Characteristic of his work,
it is of well-studied proportions, but more solid and masculine than the
work of his contemporaries, Bulfinch and Mclntire. Its facade, with
stepped gable and lofty tower, is capped by a square gilt-domed cupola.
The church has for some time been converted to the uses of a branch
library.
Retrace Cambridge St.; L. from Cambridge St. on Joy St.; R. from Joy St.
on Beacon St.
25. The Women's City Club (open by permission), 40 Beacon St., although
built in 1818, is believed to be a Bulfinch work. Today, beautifully pre-
served, it exemplifies the gracious tradition of Post-Colonial architecture.
Its beautiful spiral stairway is as fine as any in New England.
26. The Wadsworth House (Third Harrison Gray Otis House) (private},
45 Beacon St., built in 1807, reveals the influence of Bulfinch's sojourn
in France by his use of an oval drawing-room on the garden side and
perhaps also by his placing the entrance at ground level and the important
Boston 153
rooms on the story above. The facade shows a uniform range of five
windows, with a novel departure from Colonial precedent in the type of
enframement. The entrance, too, is unusually handled, a rectangular
portico with four columns coupled columns and coupled pilasters
behind being used as the door enframement. The house is a fine
example of an aristocratic city mansion of the Federal period.
Retrace Beacon St.
27. The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, facing the State House from the
edge of the Common, is a notable group statue in high relief, by Augustus
Saint-Gaudens. Colonel Shaw, his horse, and the Negro troopers are all
sculptured with remarkable sensitivity to the medium and the subject.
Charles F. McKim designed the frame, a wide pink granite exedra with
crouching eagles, Greek urns, and low benches, shadowed by two enor-
mous English elms.
28. The State House (open weekdays 9-5), with its golden dome, crowns
the Hill. Built in 1795, the 'Bulfinch Front' of the State House stands as
a monument to the architectural genius of Charles Bulfinch and as an ex-
pression of classicism in American design. Unhappily, this original portion
of the present State House is now sandwiched between huge, inept wings.
The 'Bulfinch Front' cannot be seen merely as a unit of the structure;
its quality sets it apart as a thing to be known and revered independent
of its setting. Bulfinch was the first professional architect of the Republic.
The State House was his greatest work. He spread across its front a
colossal portico; he topped it with a high and dominant gilded dome.
The Corinthian colonnade that surmounts the projecting arcade of the
first story, the arched windows with classical enframement, the pediment
that breaks the line of the dome, the sweep and lift of the dome itself,
contribute to the classicism vibrant in Bulfinch 's work, strongly in-
fluenced at this period by that of Sir William Chambers, an older London
contemporary.
The entrance hall contains portraits of the Massachusetts Governors.
Just beyond is a more imposing white marble hall with historical murals.
The Hall of Flags opening from this displays State regimental flags of the
Civil and World Wars. The stained-glass dome bears the seals of the
Thirteen Original States. In the Hall of Representatives (second floor
rear, left) hangs the Sacred Cod, the State emblem symbolizing a his-
toric basic industry.
At the front of the lower floor, a left turn down a passage leads to a
unique memorial very characteristic of Boston, always appreciative of
its 'dumb animal' friends, the Dog and Horse Tablet (in the through
corridor from the Hooker Statue to Mt. Vernon St.), a tribute to the
dogs and horses that served in the World War.
Traverse the corridor from Beacon St. to Mt. Vernon St., passing into the
greensward square behind the State House. Straight ahead on Ashburton
Place.
154 Main Street and Village Green
29. Ford Hall, which houses the Ford Hall Forum, 15 Ashburton Place,
in a tall office building, is a modern stronghold of Boston liberalism,
entrenched in the very shadow of the State House.
FOOT TOUR 2 (The Old City) 2m.
E. from Park St. on Beacon St.
30. The Boston Athen&um (open to scholars by guest card obtained at the
desk), is at lojhz Beacon St. The building (1847-49) was designed by
Edward C. Cabot a minor Renaissance gesture in the Palladian style
that seemed significant then. The Athenaeum, which contains one of
the most famous private libraries in the country, is a descendant of the
'Anthology Club' formed in 1807 by the father of. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Among its 200,000 volumes are rare collections of news on international
law, of State papers and historical documents, of books published in
the South during the Civil War, and most of George Washington's
private library.
Retrace Beacon St.; L. from Beacon St. on Park St.
31. The Park Street Church (Congregational), corner Tremont St., was
built in 1809 and was the only building designed by Peter Banner. It
bears little evidence of the Classic Revival felt in contemporaneous work;
it maintains closely the character of earlier work. An unusual feature
is the use of the semi-circular porches between the tower base and the
body of the main building. The tower proper is probably as fine as any
extant. The church originally housed a Trinitarian congregation formed
in protest to the spreading Unitarian movement. It stands on the site of
the Granary where the sails of the ' Constitution ' were made. This site
is known as 'Brimstone Corner,' because in the War of 1812 gunpowder
was stored in the basement. When Henry Ward Beecher, a believer in a
literal Hell, preached vigorous guest sermons there, the Unitarians slyly
said that the corner was well named.
L. from Park St. on Tremont St.
32. The Old Granary Burial Ground (open), hemmed in by business
blocks and Tremont St., contains the graves of three signers of the
Declaration of Independence (John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert
Treat Paine), Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, the parents of Benjamin
Franklin, the victims of the Boston Massacre, nine early Governors of
the State, and Mother Goose (a real person actually named Mary Goose).
33. Tremont Temple (Baptist), 82 Tremont St., stands on the site of an
earlier temple in which Jenny Lind sang (1850-52). Founded in 1839
because the Charles Street Church, then Baptist, decreed that any
member bringing a Negro into his pew would be expelled, it is one of
the most popular evangelical congregations in Greater Boston.
Boston 155
34. King's Chapel (Unitarian) (open daily 9-5), corner of School St.,
built in 1749, was designed by Peter Harrison, who had been a student
of Sir John Vanbrugh, a younger contemporary of Sir Christopher Wren.
It was from this intimacy with the mode set by Wren and his successor,
Gibbs, that the architecture of King's Chapel is derived. But the New-
port gentleman-architect possessed too much native genius for his design
to be a servile copy of the British masters. The bold and somewhat cold
masonry exterior is headed by a low, squat base intended to support a
tower which was never built. The interior, replete with aberrations
characteristic of its designer, is perhaps the finest Colonial church interior
extant. Its rich sobriety, its repose and studied suavity of proportion
proclaim it a work of genius. It ranks in historic fame with the Old
South Meeting House and the Old North Church, for King's Chapel is
both the first Episcopal church in New England and the first Unitarian
church in America; and its establishment in both faiths was accompanied
by storm. The present building was built in 1754 around a wooden build-
ing which was then dismantled.
35. King's Chapel Burial Ground (1630), adjoining the church, is the
oldest burial ground in Boston. Here lie Governor Winthrop, John
Cotton, and Mary Chilton Winslow.
Retrace Tremont St.; L. from Tremont St. on School St.
36. The Boston Public Latin School Tablet on the wall of the Parker
House marks the site of the first Public Latin School (1635) in America.
37. The Old Corner Bookstore Building (1712), at the corner of School
and Washington Sts., is an ancient three-and-a-half -story brick building
with gambrel roof. From 1828 to 1903, it housed the most famous book-
store in Boston, and at one time the offices of Ticknor and Fields, who
published the early works of all major New England poets. Through its
doors strolled Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes, as
well as Whittier, the latter rarely, for he was shy and confused by the roar
of nineteenth-century traffic.
R. from School St. on Washington St.
38. The Old South Meeting House (1729) (open daily, summer 9-5, winter
9^1; adm. 25), corner of Milk St., shared with Faneuil Hall the most
fervid and momentous oratory of Revolutionary days, and an Old South
meeting was always a danger signal to Burke and Pitt. It is still used
for public meetings of civic or social protest. The church building, de-
signed by Robert Twelve, has a simple mass with severely plain exterior
of brick laid in Flemish bond. The wooden steeple rising 180 feet is of
conventional design, more impressive than that of its predecessor, the
'Old North Church.' Its double row of arched windows is especially
effective in the interior, where interest centers in the great arched recess
above the altar. The Old South greatly influenced later ecclesiastical
design in the Colonies.
The interior with its gate-pews was restored after the British had used
it for a riding-school during the Siege; in 1876 the pews were again
156 Main Street and Village Green
removed when the building ceased to be used as a church. The only
remaining parts of the original building are the walls and their frame-
work, including the windows and doors, and the double tier of white
galleries, in the topmost of which sat Negro slaves. The high broad
white pulpit is a replica of the one which resounded to the voices of Otis,
Samuel Adams, Quincy, Warren, and Hancock. Here began the line of
march of the Boston Tea Party, and here General Warren, prevented by
the British from entering the pulpit by the stairs, climbed into it through
the window at the rear. The beautiful gilded Gallery Clock, surmounted
by a spread eagle bearing in his beak a double string of gilded balls, is a
reproduction of a famous pattern designed by Simon Willard, a Boston
clockmaker (1753-1848). The women of Massachusetts purchased and
thus saved this noted landmark from destruction in 1876, when it was
proposed to sell it, because of the great increase in value of the land.
The parish, formed in 1669 (Congregational), worships at the 'Old South
Third' in Copley Square.
L. from Washington St. on Milk St.; L. from Milk St. on Congress St.
39. The United States Post Office and Federal Office Building is a massive
new granite building in modern style designed by Cram and Ferguson.
It occupies the entire block between Devonshire, Congress, Water, and
Milk Sts. A tablet on the Milk St. frontage of the former Post-Office
block commemorates the fact that the great Boston fire of 1872, that
raged November 9-10, sweeping 60 acres and destroying $60,000,000
worth of property, was halted here.
L. from Congress St. on State St.
40. The Site of the Boston Massacre, 30 State St., is marked by a brass
arrow pointing into the street where a cobblestone circle indicates the
exact spot where the first patriots fell when fired upon by British soldiers.
41. The Old State House (open daily except Sun. and Holidays, 9-4.30;
Sat. 9-1), Washington and State Sts., built in 1713 on the site of its
predecessor, has been restored to its original robust appearance after
successive alterations. Its steeply pitched roof with stepped gables at
either end, its tower with gracefully telescoped members finished by a
fine cupola rising from the middle of the building, are enhanced by the
aloof position of the building. Upon the stepped gables, strangely enough
Dutch in derivation, ramp the British lion and unicorn. Classic details
in doors, windows, and cupola are a new note in this period. The famous
building, the identity of whose architect is a mystery, is markedly im-
portant as an influence upon the architecture of its time.
This was the State House of the British in the eighteenth century, until
the Revolution, and thereafter of the Commonwealth until the new State
House was ready in 1798. In 1881, it was proposed to demolish the Old
State House, because the land was valued at $1,500,000. At this junc-
ture, Chicago offered to transfer the building to Lincoln Park on Lake
Michigan and take care of it, paying all the expense of removal and
reassembly. The offer stung Boston so sharply that the City Fathers
Boston 157
agreed to stand the loss on the land in perpetuity, and never again to
threaten the building with removal or destruction.
Within, the spiral stairway is the best architectural feature, but is not
coeval with the original structure. The building is the headquarters of
the Bostonian Society and houses intimate historical relics and a fine
marine museum.
Straight ahead from State St. on Court St.
42. The Ames Building, corner of Washington St., Boston's first sky-
scraper, 13 stories high, was erected in 1891 from plans made by Shepley,
Rutan and Coolidge, successors of Richardson. It is among the rare
instances of skillful adaptation of the Richardson Romanesque to com-
mercial purposes.
43. The Site of the Franklin Printing Press is marked by a tablet on the
Franklin Ave. frontage of the building at No. 17 Court St. Here Ben-
jamin Franklin learned the printer's trade from his brother and composed
ballads that he later disparaged.
Retrace Court St.; L. from Court St. on Washington St.
44. The Site of Paul Revere* s Goldsmith Shop, 175 Washington St., is
marked by a bas-relief tablet. The patriot who rode to Lexington to
give his memorable alarm was a great artist in gold and silverware. Any
of his work now commands fabulous prices. Examples are at the Museum
of Fine Arts (see below).
R. from Washington St. into Dock Square.
45. Dock Square, so named because the docks of the present Atlantic
Ave. waterfront once extended here, is now the market district of Boston.
From earliest dawn till dusk it is in constant turmoil, with huge vans
unloading whole carcasses of meats, and crates of fruits and vegetables
piled over the sidewalks. The predominant human type is the market-
man, in soiled apron and inevitable straw hat, but many a humble shopper
is also here, bargain-hunting.
46. Faneuil (Fan'l) Hall (open daily 9-5, Sat. 9-12, closed Sun.) was
called the ' Cradle of Liberty ' because many important meetings of pro-
test were held here before the Revolution. It was the first Colonial
attempt at academic design, completed in 1742 from the plans of John
Smibert, the Colonial portrait-painter, and given by Peter Faneuil, a
Boston merchant. It contained a town hall above and a public market
below. The original structure, two stories and a half of brick, with open
arches below and a bell- tower above, was considered impressive and or-
nate. When fire destroyed the building in 1762, it was promptly rebuilt
on the original plan. In 1805, Charles Bulfinch added a third story and
doubled the original 40-foot width, but retained the original style of the
building. Its weathervane, a grasshopper, is the most noted steeple adorn-
ment in Boston, modeled by Shem Drowne of Hawthorne's story,
'Browne's Wooden Image.' The leading Faneuil historian says that
158 Main Street and Village Green
-Drowne chose a grasshopper because while chasing one as a small boy
he met the man who started him on the road to success. An American
consul once tested those claiming Boston citizenship by asking them what
is on top of Faneuil Hall. Its chief present treasure is G. P. A. Healy's
gigantic painting of 'Webster's Reply to Hayne.'
Faneuil Hall is protected by a charter against sale or leasing. It is never
rented, but is open to any group upon request of a required number of
citizens agreeing to abide by certain prescribed regulations. The lower
floor is occupied by market stalls handling all sorts of produce, a busy
and fascinating spectacle.
Two flights upstairs from the hall are the rooms (open weekdays 10-4,
Sat. 10-12) of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company, oldest
military organization "in America (1638), which still parades in Boston
on important occasions, dressed in elaborate historical uniforms.
47. Quincy Market (open), adjacent to Faneuil Hall and sometimes called
New Faneuil Hall, is architecturally a product of the Greek Revival,
designed in 1826 by Alexander Parris.
L. from Dock Square on Union St.
48. The Union Oyster House, 41 Union St., Boston's renowned sea-food
restaurant, has been situated for the past 1 10 years in this low, angular
three-story brick tavern with the small-paned windows, all of 200 years
old. The lower floor contains very old semi-private eating-booths, and a
small bar at which Daniel Webster used to drop in for a toddy on cold
days. Several other excellent restaurants in the vicinity are located in
less historic buildings.
R. from Union St. on Marshall St.
49. The Boston Stone is embedded in the back wall of the last building
on the right, just around the corner of the side alley. It is a granite
block (1737), surmounted by a spherical granite paint-grinder about the
size and shape of a cannon ball. The block and the ball constituted a
hand paint mill for Thomas Child from 1693 to 1706. The stone was
later used as the starting-point for the measurement of mileages from
Boston.
R. from Marshall St. on Hanover St.
Hanover St., now the main thoroughfare of the Italian North End, was
once favored by wealthy sea captains and leading patriots of the Revolu-
tion. The finest houses are gone, but here and there are old wooden
dwellings, flush with the street between cheap modern brick tenements,
Italian food stores, and clothing shops. The North End is one of the
most congested sections in any major American city.
R. from Hanover St. on Prince St.; R. from Prince St. into North Square.
50. Paul Revere' s House (open daily 10-4, adm. 25^), 19 North Square,
which was a century old when it became the home of the famous patriot
Boston 159
and silversmith, is the only 17th-century structure now standing in
downtown Boston. Claimed by some to have been built in 1660, there is
more proof that it stands on the plot once occupied by the Increase
Mather Parsonage that burned in the great fire of 1676, so it is likely that
it was built within the next year. During its long life it has undergone
many changes, but in 1908 it was rescued from the encroachments of
progress by the Paul Revere Memorial Association and restored to its
original condition. Characteristic of the medieval influence which domi-
nated all seventeenth-century architecture in Massachusetts, it has the
overhanging second story with ornamental drops or pendrils, the small
casements with diamond-shaped panes, and a simple floor plan with
massive end chimney.
The house has only four rooms and an attic, and contains some beautiful
old furniture and china (not much of it Revere's); two enormous fire-
places with brick ovens and ancient utensils; portions of wallpaper of
1750, depicting in block pattern the Church of Saint Mary le Bow in
London; and some of Revere's etchings and manuscript letters.
Retrace North Square; L. from North Square on Prince Si.; R. from Prince
St. on Salem St.
Salem Street, narrow at best, is so crowded with pushcarts laden with
fruits and vegetables that locomotion is difficult. Here is the heart of
the Italian quarter, noisy, garrulous, good-natured, and vital.
51. The Old North Church (Christ Church, Episcopal) (open daily 9-5;
voluntary contributions; Sun. services 10.45), 193 Salem St., had a belfry
known to every American child by Longfellow's lines: 'One if by land
and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore will be.' The eight melo-
dious bells in the tower are inscribed : ' We are the first ring of bells cast
for the British Empire in North America.'
The church was built in 1723. The design of this historic building was
made by William Price, a Boston print-seller and draftsman who, while
in London, made a study of Christopher Wren churches. During a
violent gale in 1804 the steeple was blown down, and in 1808 a new one,
built after a model by Charles Bulfinch, replaced the old. Although fol-
lowing closely the design of the original, the new tower was lowered in
height by 1 6 feet. The interior, although obviously the product of an
untrained man, is modeled after the designs by Wren. The galleries are
supported by square columns carried through to the roof. The pews
carry small brass plates inscribed with the names of eighteenth-century
merchant-prince owners. Some are still held by descendants; others
have become prized possessions of old Boston families.
160 Main Street and Village Green
FOOT TOUR 3 (Waterfront) 1.5 m.
S. from Salem St. on Charter St.; L. from Charter St. on Hanover St.; R.
from Hanover St. on Commercial St.
This tour covers the old waterfront, once the port for all ships, now
devoted to coastwise shipping and fishing boats. Vessels from European
ports now dock in East or South Boston.
52. Constitution Wharf, 409 Commercial St., at the foot of Hanover St.,
is occupied chiefly by a high brick warehouse which cuts off the harbor
view. A bas-relief tablet on the Commercial St. wall commemorates
the launching (1797) of the famous U.S. Frigate 'Constitution' ('Old
Ironsides') the Queen of the Navy, which made history in the War with
Tripoli and the War of 1812.
Straight ahead on Atlantic Ave., Commercial St. having slipped unobtru-
sively off to the right, after the manner of Boston streets.
Just beyond Lewis's Wharf, 32 Atlantic Ave., is the first delightful glimpse
of the actual waterfront, with freighters using the same slips as the
humble power-boats of small fishermen. Along the quays are marine
hardware shops and numerous lunchrooms for sailors. On the hottest
summer day, the air has a cool salty tang, becoming definitely fishy as
one passes the brief row of fish-markets.
53. T Wharf, 178 Atlantic Ave., is one of the most famous and picturesque
fishing piers in the country. The entrance, obscure and poorly marked,
is just beyond the huge brick warehouse of the Quincy Cold Storage
Plant. Suddenly the gaudy small trawlers of Italian and Portuguese
fishermen appear, outlined against the long, low yellow shed of the pier
- a shed with many small-paned windows, which give upon fish-
brokerages and small restaurants specializing in New England fish dinners.
This is the center of the 'Little man's fishing industry,' for the larger
boats go to the modern great Fish Pier at South Boston. Knots of
Latin fishermen are always gathered here mending nets, repairing buoys,
or baiting Unes, and animatedly discussing the weather, the catch, and
current prices.
54. Long Wharf (1710), 202 Atlantic Ave., was once a great deal longer,
beginning in fact up by the present Custom House which now soars in
the background. From here a century and a half ago the British em-
barked for home (March 17, 1776), and from here today hundreds of
summer tourists embark daily for Provincetown. In the late eighteenth
century, the wharf, then privately owned, was a center for fashionable
smugglers, said to have included Governor Hancock.
R. from Atlantic Ave. on State St.
55. The United States Custom House (open 9-5 daily}, (1847) designed
Boston 161
by Ammi B. Young and Isaiah Rogers, was among the last monuments
of the Greek Revival. A dome with which it was originally crowned
is concealed within the tall shaft of floors which in 1915 transformed the
building into a 5oo-foot skyscraper and a fitting mausoleum to the era
of Greek affectation. The tower shows a similarity to that of the Metro-
politan Building in New York, although on a much smaller scale. Peabody
and Stearns were the architects of the super-structure. A balcony near
the top offers a splendid panorama of Boston.
Retrace State St.; R. from State St. on Atlantic Ave.
56. India Wharf, which begins at 288 Atlantic Ave. and continues for
four piers, now serves the Eastern Steamship Lines. The ancient lofts
of the two middle piers were once occupied by riggers and sail makers.
57. Rowe's Wharf, 344 Atlantic Ave., a small but busy railroad terminal,
was the scene of the seizure and deposition of Governor Andros (1689).
The Nantasket steamer, which sails from here and offers a good view of
the harbor islands, is a Boston institution.
58. The Boston Tea Party (Dec. 16, 1773) took place at the northeast
corner of Atlantic Ave. and Pearl St., then Griffin's Wharf, when a group
of patriots disguised as Indians boarded British tea-ships and threw the
cargo overboard. A tablet on the Atlantic Ave. wall of the commercial
building now occupying the site gives the Boston version of the party.
FOOT TOUR 4 (Downtown] 2.5 m.
N.E. from Atlantic Ave., at South Station, on Federal St.
59. The Shoe Museum of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation (open
weekdays 9-5), 140 Federal St., exhibits 1500 pairs of shoes of all periods,
styles, and countries; Egyptian sandals dating back to 2000 B.C.; boots
worn by Henry IV of France; postilion boots weighing 12 pounds each;
Spanish shoes made especially to protect against snakebite. Pictures and
models illustrate the many stages and varied machinery involved today
in making a single pair of shoes.
Retrace on Federal St.; R. from Federal St. on High St.; R. from High
St. on Summer St.; straight ahead from Summer St. into Winter St.; L.
from Winter St. on Tremont St.
60. Saint Paul's Cathedral (1819-20), opposite the Common, the seat of
the Episcopal Bishops of Massachusetts, is Boston's earliest example of
the Greek Revival. The architects were Alexander Parris, who later
built the Quincy Market, and Solomon Willard. The Ionic capitals were
carved by Willard. The white interior is severely plain, with high stall-
like pews and no stained glass. Daniel Webster, a pewholder, was on the
building committee. The dome of the present chancel is a reproduction
of that in Saint Paul's, London.
1 62 Main Street and Village Green
61. Boston Common, part of a tract set aside by Governor Winthrop as
a cow pasture and training field, retains as paved walks the casual
paths worn by grazing cattle. Here stocks and pillory once stood, as
well as a pen where those who desecrated the Sabbath were imprisoned.
Several Quakers are thought to have been hanged and buried on the
Common. Both British and Massachusetts regiments were mustered on
it, and it is still used on occasion as a drill ground.
Free speech has always been a privilege on the Common. Group argu-
ments on social and economic problems are in daily progress around the
Grecian Parkman Bandstand and orators address the public along the
Charles Street Mall. The Frog Pond in the center is now a shallow arti-
ficial pool patronized during hot weather by little boys in various stages
of undress.
62. The Crispus Attucks Monument (set back on lawn) commemorates
the 'Boston Massacre' (1770), which John Adams and Daniel Webster
united in calling the origin of the Revolution. Crispus Attucks, a Negro,
was one of several persons killed when soldiers, taunted by a group of
excited citizens, fired on the crowd.
L. from Tremont St. into Boylston St.
63. The Liberty Tree Site, facing Boylston St. on Washington St., is
covered by a business block, bearing on its wall a carved tree commemo-
rating this Revolutionary landmark, scene of Stamp Act meetings and
frequent hangings in efiigy of well-known Tories.
L. from Boylston St., diagonally across Washington St. into Essex St.; R.
from Essex St. on Harrison Ave.; L. from Harrison Ave. on Beach St.
64. Chinatown begins at Harrison Ave. and Beach St. with a group of
small native shops, principally markets, the latter displaying in their
windows strings of strange-looking sausages and small wire hanging
baskets of ancient eggs. At the corner of Oxford St. (L) is the Chinese
Bulletin, a news sheet in native characters, posted daily.
R. from Beach St. on Hudson St.
Near-by is a district crowded with Chinese restaurants and Oriental
curio shops.
R. from Hudson St. on Kneeland St.
Kneeland Street is the center of the ready-made dress business of New
England. Wholesale houses and workshops crowd the district, and on
warm days the hum of hundreds of sewing machines can be heard through
the open windows.
Straight ahead on Stuart St.; L. from Stuart St. on Tremont St.
65. The Wilbur Theatre, built in 1913 from plans by Blackall, Clapp and
Whittemore, is an adaptation of late Georgian Colonial architecture. It
is one of the first auditoriums to be designed with scientific knowledge of
acoustics, Professor Sabine of Harvard, pioneer in the field, being the
consultant.
Boston 163
Retrace Tremont St.; L. from Tremont St. on Stuart St.; straight ahead into
Eliot St.; R. from Eliot St. through Park Sq.; L. from Park Sq. on Boylston
St.
66. Statues along Boylston Street Mall are: (i) Wendell Phillips, ' Cham-
pion of the Slave' (1811-84), done in bronze by Daniel Chester French;
(2) Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson's handsome young Thaddeus Kosciuszko
(1746-1817), the popular Polish patriot who served under Washington;
(3) Charles Sumner, one of the leading abolitionist senators, by Thomas
Ball.
67. Boylston Street Subway (1897), its streetcar entrance opposite the
Sumner statue, was the first transportation subway in the United States.
68. The William Ellery Channing Statue, by Herbert Adams, corner of
Boylston and Arlington Sts., is a tribute to a leader (1780-1842) of the
Unitarian movement in America.
69. The Natural History Museum (open weekdays 9-4.30; Sun. 1-4.30),
corner of Berkeley St., a Palladian structure of brick and brownstone,
houses collections of minerals and fauna of New England.
FOOT TOUR 5 (Fenway District) 2.5 m.
E. from Massachusetts Ave. on Huntingdon Ave.
70. The Christian Science Church (open Wed. and Fri. 10-5; services Sun.
morning and evening and Wed. evening) is The Mother Church. Christian
Science was discovered in 1866 by Mary Baker Eddy, who developed the
theme into a Christian Science textbook, 'Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures,' and published it in 1875. In 1879, she organized the
Church of Christ, Scientist, and reorganized it in 1892. The present
organization, including all its branches and activities, is the direct out-
growth of her work. The Publishing House across the street issues The
Christian Science Monitor, widely read throughout the English-speaking
world. A large terraced grass plot on Huntington Avenue, adorned with
shrubs and small trees, allows the buildings to be seen in perspective.
Two church structures in actual contact with each other are connected
by an interior passage. The smaller one of gray rough-faced granite with
a square granite tower, erected in 1894, is the first Christian Science
church building in Boston, though its congregation dates from 1879. The
main church (1904), in Italian Renaissance with a great central dome, is
of limestone, trimmed with granite below and with glazed white tiles
above. Its vast open nave, seating 5000 people, rises 108 feet from floor
to dome, with no support of pillars. The doors and pews are of San
Domingo mahogany, richly carved; the walls of limestone, with windows
of clear glass. The wide pulpit contains two lecterns, one for the First
Reader, a man, and one for the Second Reader, a woman.
164 Main Street and Village Green
The Publishing House (open daily, 9-11.30 and 1-4, guide service) occupies
a three-story limestone building, covering a city block and surmounted
by six additional stories in a recessed tower, capped by yellow tiles.
Beyond the white marble entrance hall is the Mapparium, unique in the
world, a spherical room, thirty feet in diameter, with walls of colored glass
depicting a world map. Passage through the room is by a glass bridge.
Throughout the building marble corridors lead from room to room
opulently paneled in rare woods, beautifully tiled or carpeted, hung with
Venetian blinds and tapestries. Even in the halls of the presses is spotless-
ness, quiet, and order.
Retrace on Huntingdon Ave. across Massachusetts Ave.
71. Symphony Hall, northwest corner of Massachusetts Ave., a low,
oblong, red-brick building trimmed with granite, is a subdued adapta-
tion of Renaissance forms designed by McKim, Mead and White (1900)
and admirably suited to its specific function. The concert hall, with two
balconies, seats 2500 persons. In a side room is the Casadesus Collection
of Ancient Musical Instruments (open during concert hours). The Boston
Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881, by Major Henry Lee Higginson,
is recognized as one of the finest in the country. In early summer a re-
duced orchestra gives a ten-week season of popular concerts, affection-
ately known to all Boston as 'the Pops.' For this series Symphony Hall
assumes a gala appearance with gay lattices adorning the stately walls
and the floor occupied by small square tables at which refreshments are
served.
72. The New England Conservatory of Music, at the corner of Gains-
borough St., occupies a three-story, square, flat-roofed building of gray
brick, trimmed with granite and marble. It is one of the oldest institu-
tions (1867) of its kind in America, as well as one of the best, offering
co-educational instruction in instrumental and vocal music, in composi-
tion and teaching. It has a distinguished faculty, and many of its 140,000
graduates have attained eminence.
Within the building, reached from the Gainsborough St. entrance, is
Jordan Hall, the leading recital hall in Boston, with perfect acoustics and
a seating capacity of 1000.
73. Northeastern University (incorporated 1916), 316 Huntington Ave.,
is a co-operative educational institution with a total enrollment (1937) of
5293. The student is enabled to combine classroom instruction with
supervised employment, effectively uniting theory and practice. Among
its professional branches the divisions of law and engineering are well
known.
74. The Boston Opera House (1906), corner of Opera Place, is a massive
brick building of somber Neo-Classic design. The front wall is plastered
with billboards advertising downtown theatrical attractions, except dur-
ing brief visiting engagements of operatic companies. On November 8,
Boston 165
1909, this building was the scene of the brilliant debut of the new Boston
Opera Company, founded and maintained at a heavy loss for three years
by Eben D. Jordan, a Boston merchant.
75. The Museum of Fine Arts (open daily except Mon., 9-5, winter 9-4,
Sun., 1-5; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July) occupies several
buildings. These, grouped by halls and loggias, are of granite, admirably
situated in a broad quadrangle on the open, sunny lawns of the Fenway.
The not-too-well-designed Neo-Classic buildings derive their impress
from the massiveness of the group. Directly in front of the entrance is
the ' Appeal to the Great Spirit,' Cyrus Dallin's renowned American
Indian on ponyback, his face lifted skyward, both arms outstretched in
supplication.
The largest showings of individual painters are of Millet, Copley, and
Stuart. The American Colonial silver is very fine, and includes many
examples of the work of Paul Revere. Equally memorable are the Colonial
interiors, consisting of entire rooms transferred from New England houses,
together with their original period furniture. Notable among these in the
American Wing are three complete rooms designed and executed by
Samuel Mclntire from his ' Oak Hill ' in Peabody.
The Dancing Bacchante, a copy of a statue by Frederick MacMonnies,
in the central courtyard, has a piquant past. A nude figure of a young
dancer, holding aloft in one arm an infant whom she tantalizes with
a bunch of grapes held high in the other hand, the original statue was
placed in the courtyard of the Public Library in 1895, where it roused a
storm of protest still clearly remembered by middle-aged citizens. Morals,
especially the morals of youth, were regarded as imperiled and a sugges-
tion was made in all seriousness that the sculptor be asked to clothe the
figure. The original young lady is now in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York.
76. Wentworth Institute (open Sept -May, 9^, except Sat. and Sun.; in
summer to shops and laboratories not in use), corner of Ruggles St., trains
young men in the mechanical arts. It occupies a wide, four-story yellow-
brick building trimmed with granite, set well back on a spacious lawn.
R. from Huntingdon Ave. on Longwood Ave.
77. The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, corner of Worthington St.,
was instituted in 1823, as an association of Boston pharmacists who
fostered the training of apprentices in apothecary shops.
78. The Angell Memorial (animal) Hospital (open 9-9 daily; Sunday and
holidays for emergency only), named for George T. Angell, founder and
first president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals and editor of Our Dumb A nimals, occupies a handsome three-
story brick and granite building at 180 Longwood Ave., opposite the
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.
79. The Harvard Medical School (1903-06), built entirely of white Ver-
1 66 Main Street and Village Green
mont marble, from designs by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, is of simple
classic design adapted from the Greek and made impressive by its formal
setting upon a terrace.
The Four Laboratory Buildings, set upon a lower level than the Administration
Building, are symmetrical in design. The Administration Building, approached by
broad steps leading up from the terrace to a gigantic Ionic portico is monumental
in character. On its ground floor is a great hall of design conforming to the classic
exterior, and a marble staircase rises on the axis of the building.
R. from Longwood Ave. on Avenue Louis Pasteur.
80. The Boston Public Latin School (1635) now occupies a three-story
brick building, three blocks deep, with granite Corinthian columns. It
is the oldest public Latin school still in existence.
L. from Avenue Louis Pasteur on Fenway.
81. Emmanuel College, 400 Fenway, a massive four-story brick and
granite edifice in English Collegiate Gothic, with a broad, square, open
bell-tower and wide lawns adorned with shrubbery, is a non-resident
Catholic institution for women, directed by the Sisters of Notre Dame de
Namur.
Retrace on Fenway.
82. Simmons College (for women), 300 Fenway, occupies a wide three-
story yellow-brick building dating from 1902. It was the first college for
women in the United States to recognize the desirability of giving stu-
dents such instruction as would fit them to earn an independent liveli-
hood. It offers courses in science, household economics, literary and
secretarial work, and is affiliated with schools of physical education and
store service. It has more than 1600 students.
83. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (' Mrs. Jack Gardner's Venetian
Palace') (open Tues., Thurs., Sat. 1CM, adm. 25^; Sun. 1-4, free, closed in
August), at junction of Fenway and Worthington St., built in 1902, is
a composite of fragments and materials from Venice and other parts of
Italy. Although Edward H. Sears, an architect, drew the plans, the
edifice is obviously the work of a collector indulging an unbridled fancy.
The Museum houses works of Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Cellini, and
many other old masters. Chamber-music concerts are given in the
romantic setting of the Tapestry Room (Tues., Thurs., Sat. at 2.45, Sun.
at 2, no extra fee) .
Mrs. John Lowell Gardner, known to Boston during her lifetime as ' Mrs.
Jack Gardner,' was the most picturesque figure in the social, art, and
music world of Boston in the Mauve Decade. The daughter of a wealthy
New York merchant with an artistic and musical flair, she was witty and
independent, flaunting social tradition, and gathering about herself
a salon of artists and musicians. Her shrewd acceptance of drawbacks in
her personal appearance, and her capitalization of her good points, is
somewhat cryptically embodied in the small portrait of her by Zorn,
representing her as flinging open her palace doors, her face a mysterious
Boston 167
vague blur without features, but her shapely arms and hands very
prominent, even reflected in the doors.
Straight ahead from the front of Gardner Museum.
84. The Back Bay Fens, commonly called The Fenway, are reclaimed
mud flats. This stretch of charming parkway, following the beautified
meanderings of a sluggish brook far from lovely in itself, gives a rustic
touch to the surrounding residential district and the art and educational
institutions. The Fens, with their bridle paths and motor roads, begin
a long strip of parkway winding through Brookline and Roxbury.
On the right is the Museum of Fine Arts (north front), and just beyond,
the marble walls of the Forsyth Denial Infirmary for Children.
85. The Boston Medical Library (open Mon. and Wed. 9.30-10; Tues.,
Thurs., FrL 9.30-6; Sat. 9.30-5), 8 Fenway, is a modern three-story
yellow-brick building trimmed with granite, built in 1901.
R. from Fenway on Boylston St.
86. The Massachusetts Historical Society (open weekdays 9-5; Sat. 9-1;
museum open Wed. 2-4), 1154 Boylston St., corner of Fenway, occupies
an incongruously modern bow-front granite and yellow-brick building.
Founded in 1791, the oldest historical society in the United States, it is
primarily a library, rich in early books, historical documents, newspapers,
manuscripts, and engravings. Of special interest are a suit of clothes
worn by Benjamin Franklin in Paris, of lilac poplin, with cuffs of pleated
lawn, Governor Winthrop's Bible, Shem Browne's Indian weathervane
from Province House, Peter Faneuil's mahogany wine chest, and a British
drum from Bunker Hill. Casually tucked away among these is the pen
with which Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
MOTOR TOUR 1 (South Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester) 23 m.
E. from South Station, Boston, on Summer St.
87. The Commonwealth Pier, built by the State just before the World
War, is a fine passenger and freight pier. Twelve hundred feet long and
400 feet wide, it provides berths for five 6oo-foot vessels at a time, and is
used by a number of transatlantic lines.
88. The Army Base (open by approval of Officer of the Day), corner of
Harbor St., comprises a 2ooo-foot pier and an 8-story concrete warehouse
1600 feet long. Built during the World War, it is the Army Quartermaster
depot for New England, and the second largest Army base in the United
States.
Straight ahead from Summer St. on L St.; L. from L St. on East Broadway.
The City Point Section of South Boston is traversed by East Broadway,
bordered by old bow-front brick residences reminiscent of the fashionable
1 68 Main Street and Village Green
forties. It has the finest situation, with respect to the harbor, of any
district of Boston, and one of the best beaches near the Metropolitan
Center.
89. The Boston Aquarium (open 10-5 daily), corner of Farragut Rd., is
a low stucco building with octagonal, red-tiled tower and a fish weather-
vane.
L. from East Broadway on Gardner Way.
90. Castle Island, so named by Governor Winthrop, who thought its
natural contours resembled a castle, is a peninsular headland park, its 20
rolling acres capped in the center by the solid stone walls of Fort In-
dependence (yard only open), erected in 1801 and abandoned about 1880.
When exposed fortifications were of service in warfare, this fort was of
great strategic value in the defense of Boston, for the harbor channel
passes within a stone's throw of its northern face.
In 1827, Edgar Allan Poe, at eighteen, enlisting under the 
