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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/washingtonstreet1913baco 
 
asnincfion 
 Street 
 
 (J^\ cJaatw Miaav/v^ ^O/UCrvv^J 
 
 
 /~y/I History in JwarratWe 
 (-/--*■ Form of the Changes 
 cr lYEich this_y£hcient 
 Street has Undergone since 
 the Settlement of Boston. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1913 
 
 MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 F73;fc7 
 
 179649 
 
MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY, PRESENT LOCATION, 398 400 WASHINGTON STREET 
 
 F all the old streets of New England there is none 
 which can boast of a more notable history than 
 Washington Street, and no part of the present long 
 thoroughfare is more interesting in this respect than 
 the short section, or link, between School and Milk 
 Streets and Summer and Winter Streets, known 
 through Colony and Province days and till long 
 after the Revolution as Marlborough Street, of which this little book 
 especially treats. 
 
 The story of this street is the story of Boston's first thoroughfare 
 and begins with the beginnings of Boston. As the first " High Waye 
 towards Roxburie," then the only avenue to the mainland, composed 
 of the first twisting roads and paths struck out in succession through 
 
the length of the originally " pear-shaped " peninsula and over its 
 slender stem — the mile-long, tide-washed Neck, — this thoroughfare 
 was distinctively the first Boston Main Street. 
 
 At the outset the highway was but the germ of a thoroughfare ; 
 and for more than thirty years from the town's start it extended no 
 further than to the present Boylston Street line. Beyond that line, 
 or above Essex Street, there was during this time only a footpath 
 or rough cartway " towards Roxburie." And after further extension 
 was effected Boylston Street yet remained practically the thorough- 
 fare's terminus with respect to its occupation by shops, taverns, 
 dwellings, and mansion houses, throughout the Colony period and for 
 the greater part of the Province period. Beyond Boylston Street 
 there were few houses upon it and fewer shops till after the Revolu- 
 tion. Above Dover Street there were before the Revolution very 
 few inhabitants ; and so late as 1800 only one or two houses were 
 counted from the site of the present Cathedral of the Holy Cross to 
 Roxbury. 
 
 CORNER SPRING LANE AND WASHINGTON STREET IN 1870 
 
THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN COLONIAL DAYS, FROM AN OLD LITHOGRAPH 
 
THE OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1796 
 
 The first link, which was marked out with the town's initial street- 
 ways and lanes, comprises the bow between the present Adams Square 
 and School Street. This led from the Town Dock, at Dock Square, 
 around by the town's first central point, where were the "sawe- 
 pitte " for turning out the logs for the first houses, the first market- 
 place, the first stocks and whipping post, and later the first Town- 
 House, now marked by the Old State House ; and thence to the house- 
 lots and gardens of first settlers southward. The second link, shortly 
 added, extended from School to Summer Street, then " The Mylne 
 Street," or "Mill Lane," leading to "Widow Tuthill's Windmill" 
 (she the relict of Richard Tuttle, miller, succeeding to his business) 
 which stood near the point that became the " Church Green " of 
 after days, at the present junction of Summer and Bedford Streets. 
 The third link was an early extension to Boylston Street, at that time 
 11 Frogg Lane " running alongside the Common toward the Back Bay, 
 which then made up to the present Park Square. At the end of this 
 third link connection was made with the first path to Roxbury, a rough 
 beach road, which ran from near the Essex Street corner along the South 
 Cove beach. The South Cove then stretched westerly to within a 
 short distance of the present line of Washington Street near Essex 
 Street, and north of Beach Street, which originally was a beach ; and 
 here, turning southward, it ran parallel with the Washington- Street 
 line up to the line of the present Dover Street and beyond, a strip of 
 
THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH AS IT APPEARS TODAY 
 
WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM TEMPLE PLACE 
 
 land intervening between the water and road wide enough only to 
 provide a single houselot in depth. On the west side the Back Bay 
 turned toward the Washington Street line at about where Pleasant 
 Street enters, and swept close to this line at Dover Street. 
 
 These three links — from the Town Dock to Frog Lane — con- 
 stituted the thoroughfare till 1663 or 1664, when the further extension 
 beyond to Dover Street, or to the " Old Fortification," a little south 
 of Dover Street, at practically then the town's end, was laid out. The 
 " Old Fortification " was the remnant of a fort early built in place of 
 the first barrier erected at this point as a defence against any sudden 
 attack by Indians. It had two gates, one for teams, the other for foot 
 passers. Regular watches and wards were maintained here, and the 
 gates were closed at sundown. 
 
 Just outside the Fortification the Neck was at its narrowest. 
 At this point was the inner Roxbury Gate also early set up. The 
 outer Gate, " & Style next vnto Roxburie," was erected at the Rox- 
 bury line, marked now by a memorial stone in the thoroughfare. 
 Between the two Gates were upland and swamp, the latter flowed by the 
 tides. In early days the Neck was a perilous place, particularly in the 
 rough seasons. Winthrop relates under date of March, 1639, how, 
 "one of Roxbury" having sent to Boston "his servant maid for a 
 
CORNER WASHINGTON AND SUMMER STREETS LOOKING TOWARD THE COMMON 
 
 IN 1856 
 
barber chirurgeon to draw his tooth," maid and barber " lost their way 
 in their passage between, during a violent snowstorm," and how they 
 11 were not found until many days after, and then the maid was found 
 in one place, and the man in another both frozen to death." Nearly 
 half a century later Judge Sewall recorded in his inimitable Diary : 
 11 Novr. 26 [1685]. Mary an Indian, James's Squaw, was Frozen 
 to death upon the Neck near Roxbury Gate on Thorsday night Nov r 
 27th, '85, being fudled." 
 
 The connecting Neck roads were earliest maintained by individuals 
 having grants from the Neck Commons conditioned upon such main- 
 tenance ; or earlier paid for such service. The connecting highway 
 on the Roxbury side is recorded as laid out between the Boston line 
 and Roxbury Street in 1662. Before that it apparently was a rough 
 cartway. 
 
 Our thoroughfare was variously designated through the Colony 
 period, — " The High Waye towards Roxburie," " The High Street," 
 "The Broad Way," "The Town High Way to Roxbury," "The 
 Broad Street," "The Great Road Leading to Roxbury," — and its 
 several links were without official names till well into the second decade 
 of the Province period. In fact, none of the streets, lanes, or alleys 
 of the town, though generally informally named, bore official names 
 till the year 1708. Seven years earlier, September, 1701, the select- 
 
 CORNER OF WASHINGTON AND COURT STREETS, PRESENT SITE OF THE AMES BUILDING 
 
T¥Fli/l 
 
 Movsfctofiit.vt. 
 
 if 11 Griff f 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING TOWARD DOCK 
 
 1860 
 
 SQUARE ABOUT 
 
men were empowered by town-meeting vote to "assign and affix 
 Names unto the Severall streets & Lanes within this Town, so as they 
 shall judg meet and convenient," but the business was not completed 
 till that time. In the list then adopted and caused to be recorded in 
 the " Town Book," the thoroughfare's links are found thus defined 
 and designated, reckoned in order from the southward — at the Old 
 Fortification : 
 
 " The broad Street or Highway from y e Old Fortification on y e neck Leading 
 into y e Town as far as the Corner of ye Late Deacon Eliots House Orange Street. 
 
 ' ' The Street from y e corner of the House in y e Tenure of Cap* Turfrey nigb 
 Deacon Eliots Corner leading into Town by y e House of Sam 11 Sewall Esq r as far 
 as Doct Okes Corner Newbery Street. 
 
 " The Broad Street leading from Penemans Corner at y e head of Sumer Street 
 passing by ye South Meeting House to Haugh s Corner Marlborough Street. 
 
 " The Street from the Lower end of School Street Leading Norths as far as 
 Mr Clark the Pewterers Shop Corn Hill. 
 
 The " Late Deacon Eliots House " was on the south corner of 
 Boylston Street, " Frog Lane." He was Jacob Eliot, a founder of the 
 South Church, and a large land holder. His estate on this corner 
 comprised his house and large garden lot. This link had been laid 
 out through his " Field " which spread southward from the present 
 Eliot Street, and through " Coleburn's Field " which adjoined Eliot's, 
 and the south bound of which was at the north side of the present 
 Castle Street. " Coleburne " was Deacon William Coleborn, or 
 Colborn, a neighbor of Eliot's and also a townsman of consequence. 
 His house and garden were opposite Eliot's, on the north corner of 
 Frog Lane. The site of Eliot's house at a later day was occupied 
 by " Peggy Moore's " tavern, where the country farmers coming into 
 town with their garden truck and other farm products were wont to 
 stop. So sharp and keen was the countrymen's bartering here that 
 the place came to be dubbed " Shaving Corner." Peggy Moore's 
 successor was the more dignified Boylston Market, erected early in 
 the nineteenth century. This, one of Bulfinch's notable designs in 
 public buildings, and named for a generous member of the Boylston 
 family — Ward Nicholas Boylston, the giver of Boylston Hall to Har- 
 vard College, — survived till it had attained the distinction of a vene- 
 rated landmark, when it in turn succumbed to the destroyer, much 
 lamented by old Bostonians, and made way for the present business 
 block on this corner. The name of Orange selected for this link was, 
 obviously, in honor of the house of Orange. 
 
 The " House in y e Tenure of Cap 1 Turfrey " may have been at 
 about the corner of Essex Street. The " House of Sam 11 Sewall 
 Esq r " was where is now the Jordan Marsh Company's main store, 
 midway between Avon and Summer Streets. He was that rare 
 personage in Colonial history, Judge Samuel Sewall, of the " witch- 
 
WASHINGTON STREET, FROM WATER STREET TO THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN 1857 
 
craft " court that condemned the " witches " of Salem, and the 
 choicest of Boston diarists, whose Diary of intimate details of Boston 
 life between the years 1674 and 1729 is to Boston what Pepys' was to 
 London. In this house much of that Diary was written. 
 
 " Doct. Okes Corner " was the south corner of Summer Street. 
 " Doct. Okes " was Dr. Thomas Oakes, a brother of the Rev. Urian 
 Oakes, minister of Cambridge and president of Harvard College, 
 1631-81. He was a favorite practitioner, and Judge Sewall's family 
 physician, frequently mentioned in the Diary. He was also a man of 
 affairs. After the overthrow of Andros by the " bloodless revolu- 
 tion " of 1689, he was one of its two members which the General 
 Court sent to England as agents of the colony with Rev. Increase 
 Mather and Sir Henry Ashurst. 
 
 " Peneman's Corner at y e head of Sumer Street " was the north 
 corner. Summer Street appears to have been thus named at this 
 time. At least it was called " Seven Star Lane " in place of the Mill 
 Lane so late as 1704, for Sewall mentions it in his Diary at that time. 
 The present official Record of Streets sets it down as Seven Star 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM FRANKLIN STREET, IN 1872 
 
.***» 
 
 
 NEWSPAPER ROW, WASHINGTON STREET, IN 1870 
 
 Lane from 1758 to 1773. The name was taken from the Seven Star 
 Inn which stood on the upper corner of Bishop's Lane, now Hawley 
 Street, and was succeeded by the first Trinity Church erected in 1734- 
 35, which, in 1828, made way for the second Trinity — that massive 
 temple of rough-hewn granite and ponderous square front tower, 
 which went down in the " Great Fire of 1872," its broken tower and 
 partly crumbled walls presenting the most picturesque ruin of all in 
 that costly conflagration. The " Peneman " at the Street's head was 
 presumably James Peneman. In the Selectmen's Records, under 
 date of March 6th, 1710-11, and again March 19th, " Doct. James 
 Peneman " is named with others to be " Posted up as Tipplers." 
 The bibulous gentleman and the corner occupant may have been one 
 
FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON, SECOND LOCATION, ON SITE OF ROGERS BUILDING 
 
 and the same. A later record is more reputable: " [June 22, 1714]. 
 Liberty is granted to James Peneman to sett two posts in y e H. way 
 before his House to range w th M r Marions posts Seven foot north ward 
 of y e corner of his House." Mr. Marion was Deacon John Marion, 
 long a selectman. Penniman's Corner, Summer Street, is mentioned 
 in the Town Records in 1735, in the town's ward divisions. 
 
 " Y e South Meeting House" was the first South Church, the 
 11 little cedar meeting-house " erected in 1669-70 which the present 
 brick Old South succeeded in 1729-30. This was the church in which 
 Margaret Brewster, the Quaker, made that demonstration on a July 
 Sunday of 1677 which Sewall thus describes: "In Sermon Time a 
 Female Quaker slipt in covered with a Canvas Frock, having her 
 hair dishevelled and Loose, and powdered with Ashes resembling a 
 flaxen or white Periwigg, her face as black as Ink, being led by two 
 Quakers and followed by two more. It occasioned a great and very 
 amazing Uproar." And well it might. For Mistress Brewster thus 
 arrayed in the Biblical " sackcloth and ashes," delivered to the startled 
 congregation a solemn warning of the approach upon the town of a 
 great calamity " called the black pox," as a punishment for the per- 
 secution of the Quakers ; then slipt out with her companions as quietly 
 as she had entered. Subsequently the unhappy woman was sentenced 
 
RUINS OF THE FIRE OF 1872 AT THE CORNER OF SUMMER AND WASHINGTON STREETS 
 
for this offence to be " whipt at the carts tail up and down the town 
 with twenty lashes," and duly suffered the dreadful penalty. It was 
 this Puritan meetinghouse that in 1686 Andros ordered opened Sunday 
 forenoons to the first Episcopal Church which had been established 
 in the Town- House, the Colonial council having refused the use of 
 any of the meetinghouses ; and upon one occasion, when the Church 
 of England service extended into the afternoon reserved for the 
 regular orthodox congregation, Judge Sewall chronicled the " sad 
 sight " it was " to see how full the street was of people, gazing and 
 moving to and fro because they had not entrance into the church." 
 Here in 1688, on a winter's night, was performed the ceremonious 
 burial service over Lady Andros, the governor's American wife, of 
 which our diarist gives this vivid relation. " Friday, Feb. 10. 1687. 
 . . . Between 7. and 8. (Lychors illuminating the cloudy air) The 
 Corps was carried into the Herse drawn by Six Horses. The Souldiers 
 making a Guard from the Governor's House down the Prison Lane 
 [Court Street] to the South Meetinghouse, there taken out and carried 
 in at the western dore, and set in the Alley before the pulpit, with Six 
 Mourning Women by it. House made light with Candles and Torches. 
 Was a great noise and clamor to keep people out of the House, that 
 might not rush in too soon. ... It seems Mr. Ratcliff's Text was, 
 Cry, all flesh is Grass." It was here in 1697, five years after the Salem 
 witchcraft frenzy, at the service on the Fast Day of ' ' humiliation and 
 penitence " for what had been amiss in the Colony's acts in that tragedy, 
 that Judge Sewall humbly made his public declaration of contrition 
 for his share, as a judge, in the shame, standing up in his pew as his 
 11 bill," which he had slipped into the minister's hand, was read from 
 the pulpit, and "bowing when finished." And this was the little 
 meetinghouse in which, in January, 1705-06, on the day of his birth, 
 Benjamin Franklin was christened, the infant philosopher being brought 
 across from his birthplace, the humble tenement that stood opposite 
 the meetinghouse's side, and marked by the building No. 19 Milk 
 Street. 
 
 " Haugh s Corner" was the south corner of School Street: so 
 called from Atherton Hough, whose house and garden were first here. 
 He had been an alderman in old Boston in England and had come 
 out with the Rev. John Cotton. 
 
 The name of Marlborough was given this link in honor of the 
 great English soldier. 
 
 " The Lower end of School Street," was the north corner marked 
 by the Hutchinson lot, within which was first, from 1633 to 1637, the 
 home of Mistress Anne Hutchinson the central figure in the fierce 
 11 Antinomian Controversy," resulting in her banishment, " for 
 traducing the ministers and their ministry in the country," in holding 
 to the " covenant of faith " as against a " covenant of works," — and 
 
THE PULPIT OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN 1850 
 
WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM WATER STREET, IN 1850, FROM AN 
 
 ETCHING MADE AT THE TIME 
 
 the banishment of several others and the disarming and disfranchise- 
 ment of many more, of her adherents. " M r Clark the Pewter er " 
 is unknown to fame. His shop was presumably at the head of the 
 Town Dock. 
 
THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE, WASHINGTON AND SCHOOL STREETS, IN 1905 
 
 In the next publication of a list of streets, which was made in 
 the ' ' Vade Mecum in America, A Companion for Traders and Travel- 
 lers," issued in 1732, " Peneman's Corner " became " Bethune's 
 Corner"; and " M r Clark the Pewterer 5 Shop," " Colson's Stone 
 Store." Colson's stood fronting Dock Square. 
 
 No further list of streets was published till after the Revolution. 
 Then, in 1788, the selectmen issued a " Supplementary List," record- 
 ing the names of " some new streets and the alterations made subse- 
 quently to the Revolution in the name of old ones " ; and in this, with 
 the changes of King to State Street, Queen to Court, and so on, the 
 name of " Washington Street " makes its first appearance. It had 
 been given that year — July 4th quite fittingly — to the Neck part 
 of this thoroughfare : ' ' From Orange Street at the Fortification to 
 the Bounds of the Town at the Roxbury Line." The next year, 1789, 
 it was properly dedicated when President Washington, upon his 
 memorable visit to New England, made his stately entry into the town 
 over it — after having been held up at the Roxbury line in the chilling 
 
vS i 
 
 
 .y;: : Hfc. : -.-.fc:- K,. 
 
 LOOKING DOWN FROM MILK STREET, FROM WASHINGTON STREET AFTER THE GREAT 
 
 FIRE OF 1872 
 
 air (it was late October) such an unconscionable time by an alterca- 
 tion between the Boston selectmen and Sheriff Henderson, represent- 
 ing Governor Hancock, over the control of the escorting procession, 
 which ended with the sheriff's triumph only with his threat to " make 
 a hole " through some of the town's officers, that many in the waiting 
 crowd caught an influenza which local distemper long after was termed 
 " the Washington cold." 
 
 The other links of the thoroughfare retained their Colonial names 
 for thirty-five years longer. The next official list of streets issued in 
 1800 (no list appeared in the first Boston Directories issued respec- 
 tively in 1789 and 1796), a print of Benjamin Edes & Son, leading 
 printers of that day, showed these changes in the definition of the thor- 
 oughfare's bounds : 
 
 Orange Street — from "Deacon Brown's, where the Old Fortification stood, 
 to M r Morse's corner store head of Essex Street." 
 
 Newbury — " thence to Dr. Jarvis's Corner, at the turning to Trinity Church." 
 Marlborough — " to Brimmer's Corner at the bottom of School Street." 
 Cornhill — "to the Store of Mr. Tuckerman opposite Sam Elliot's." 
 
 From the latter point " round Faneuil Hall (including the late 
 
 Town Dock). & back by S. Brazer's corner to King's Tavern," were 
 
 the bounds of Dock and Market Squares. 
 
" Deacon Brown's" warehouse was where the William's Market 
 House long stood, and is now a theatre. It was called the " Green 
 Store " from the color adopted for its exterior. It was succeeded by 
 the " Green Stores " of John D. Williams which made way for the 
 William's Market. The British post was here at the time of the Siege. 
 The Old Fortification in this case was that which Gage had strength- 
 ened. " Dr. Jarvis's Corner" was presumably Dr. Charles Jarvis's. 
 In the Directory of 1789 " Jarvis buildings, Newbury Street " are 
 named. " Brimmer's Corner " was the old Hutchinson estate corner, 
 which Mr. Herman Brimmer had acquired in 1795, and was now 
 marked by the present building, dating from 1712, which later became 
 the famous " Old Corner Bookstore." 
 
 The old Colonial names were all finally discarded in 1824, and the 
 name of Washington applied to the whole thoroughfare within the 
 then Boston bounds. The next year it was given to the connecting 
 parts in Roxbury. In subsequent years connecting outward high- 
 ways received it, and the northern city end was extended, till ulti- 
 mately Washington Street became the cross-state thoroughfare of 
 today reaching from Haymarket Square through the length of Boston 
 and towns beyond to Providence in Rhode Island. 
 
 The aspect of the Colonial thoroughfare — the three links that 
 came to be Cornhill, Marlborough and Newbury Streets — may be 
 pictured with accuracy in detail practically from the beginning. 
 
 THE LAMB TAVERN, LOCATED ON THE PRESENT SITE OF THE ADAMS HOUSE 
 
CORNER HARVARD PLACE AND WASHINGTON STREET IN 1856 
 
 Starting from the Town Dock, we have, in the Cornhill link, 
 first, at the head of Dock Square, or about what is now the southeast 
 corner of Adams Square, " The King's Arms " tavern, which flourished 
 from 1650 or earlier into the Province period. At the turn of the 
 thoroughfare from Dock Square, on the west side : the house, garden, 
 and " close " of Captain William Tyng, brother of Edward Tyng, 
 both possessors of large estates. East side, opposite the foot of the 
 present Cornhill: the house, garden, and "housings," including two 
 shops, of Major Edward Gibbons. One of the shops was occupied 
 by Major Thomas Savage, tailor, he of Indian wars fame. Northwest 
 corner of Court Street, the Ames building site : house and yard of the 
 Rev. Henry Dunster, first president of Harvard College. He moved 
 early to Cambridge. North east corner of State Street : house and 
 shop of John Cogan. Cogan's was the first shop for merchandise 
 opened in the town — in 1634. Thus he was the earliest Boston mer- 
 chant, and this thoroughfare was the first shopping street. Cogan 
 was a man of consequence in the community. He had other shops, 
 and other estates. He married Governor Winthrop's widow — the 
 governor's fourth wife, — who survived him, thrice widowed, for she 
 
was a widow when married to the governor. West side : house and 
 garden of John Leverett, later " the military governor," who had served 
 in Cromwell's armies as a captain of horse through the whole Civil 
 War. East side: the marketstead, from 1630, till the erection of the 
 first Town and State House, in 1657-58. In course of time the Town 
 House became surrounded by booksellers' shops. Southeast corner 
 of State Street: house and garden of Major, after Captain, Robert 
 Keayne, tailor, and merchant, who became the richest man in the town 
 in his day ; most distinguished as a founder and the leading charter 
 member of the Honorable Artillery Company, as maker of the longest 
 will on record, and as provider for the first Town- House. Public 
 spirited as he was, he could not escape fine of the court and discipline 
 of the church on charges of taking exorbitant profits in the sale of foreign 
 commodities — "in some, above six-pence in the shilling profit, in 
 some, above eight-pence." In the next century Daniel Henchman's 
 bookstore long occupied this corner ; and here, in the employ of Hench- 
 man's successors, Wharton & Bowers, General Harry Knox began 
 his career as a booksellers' clerk. Early Knox set up his own estab- 
 lishment, the " New London Bookstore," on the same side of the thor- 
 oughfare, opposite Williams Court. West side, where is now Rogers 
 Building : the second meetinghouse, built in 1640, after the first one 
 was given up. At a later day, south of Court Avenue, " near the Old 
 Meetinghouse" was Nicholas Boone's bookshop from which in 1704 
 was published The Boston News Letter, the first newspaper in America 
 to be permanently established. Above the meetinghouse : house and 
 garden of Major-General Robert Sedgwick. Nearly opposite the head 
 of Water Street: Cole's " Ordinary," the first tavern in the town, 
 1634. Above, to the School Street corner: the Hutchinson house and 
 
 /A 
 
 PLAN OF BOSTON IN 1800, SHOWING MARLBOROUGH (NOW WASHINGTON) STREET 
 
OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1805, SHOWING SECOND LOCATION OF FIRST CHURCH, WHERE 
 THE ROGERS BUILDING NOW STANDS 
 
 garden lot. Again on the east side — - where the Globe Building 
 stands: house and garden of Richard Fairbanks; later, the "Blue 
 Anchor Tavern." Between north of Water Street and Spring Lane: 
 house and garden of Deacon Thomas Oliver. Spring Lane : the early 
 " Spring-gate," leading to the public spring and watering place. 
 
 All the structures of the Colony period which we have mentioned, 
 in this Cornhill link, dwellings, shops, taverns, the Town-House, the 
 Meetinghouse, disappeared in the second decade of the Province 
 period, wiped out by the " Great Fire of 1711," the eighth disastrous 
 visitation by fire that the town had suffered in its short history. Start- 
 ing early on an October evening near the Meetinghouse, in the back- 
 yard of a tenement on a court, among a heap of oakum and combustible 
 rubbish which a wretched old drunken oakum-picker had been over- 
 hauling with a light, it swept on a high wind both sides of Cornhill ; 
 and also spread over all the upper part of King Street, and through 
 Pudding Lane — Devonshire Street — between Water Street and 
 Spring Lane. Increase Mather found the cause of it in the wrath 
 of God at the profanation of the Sabbath by the generality. " Has 
 not God's Holy Day been Prophaned in New England? Have not 
 
CORNER WASHINGTON AND WATER STREETS, WHERE THE JOURNAL BUILDING NOW 
 
 STANDS 
 
Burdens been carried through the streets on the Sabbath Day? Have 
 not Bakers, Carpenters, and other Tradesmen been employed in Servile 
 Works on the Sabbath Day? " he queried in his sermon, " Burnings 
 Bewayled," the Sunday after. The town and the selectmen however, 
 instead of buttressing the Sunday laws more practically stiffened the 
 building regulations. Accordingly a better Cornhill arose. The 
 Meetinghouse was rebuilt in brick instead of wood ; so were the Town 
 and State House (to be burned again in 1747, and rebuilt in 1748 as 
 we see it, practically, today) ; and so were the best of the houses. 
 The " Old Corner Bookstore " of after years is supposed to have been 
 the first of these best houses erected. 
 
 In the Colonial Marlborough link, with the Atherton Haugh lot 
 marking the bound on the west side, we have, at the outset, the lot 
 of Governor Winthrop extending from Spring Lane to Milk Street as 
 the east side bound; and above these, on either side, the houses and 
 gardens of notables and artisans comfortably intermingled. In course 
 of time the modest mansion of the first governor of the Colony arose 
 on his lot (his second home, the first one having been on King-State 
 Street), and some four decades later, on the opposite side of the way, 
 the far grander mansion which became the official dwelling of the 
 royal governors of the Province; the two, in marked contrast, giving 
 a special distinction to this part of the link, which might well have 
 been termed " Governor's Row." 
 
 The Winthrop mansion became the South Church parsonage 
 with the erection of the first South Meetinghouse on the " Governor's 
 Green " at its side, in 1669. Here the Rev. Thomas Prince, among 
 its most distinguished occupants, wrote his "Annals"; and it was 
 from his library, bequeathed by him to the church, and stored in the 
 11 steeple chamber " of the present Old South at the time of the 
 Revolution, that the Bradford manuscript history of Plymouth Colony 
 was taken during the Siege, when the meetinghouse was used as a 
 riding school for Burgoyne's troopers, to be found a century after 
 in England and graciously restored to the State. The old mansion 
 remained, a treasured landmark, till the British soldiers pulled it 
 down in the winter of the Siege for firewood. 
 
 On the west side, at first, as recorded in the Town Book of Pos- 
 sessions, we have, next above the Atherton Haugh corner: the house 
 and garden of Francis Lyle, or Lysle, a barber-surgeon, skilful in his 
 trade ; and next above Lysle : the house and garden of Thomas Millard, 
 which later became the Province House estate. Millard died in 1669 
 and his home lot, encumbered, passed to Colonel Samuel Shrimpton, 
 then the largest landholder in the town ; and Shrimpton sold it to 
 Colonel Peter Sergeant who built the mansion that became the Province 
 House. Colonel Sergeant was an opulent London merchant who 
 came to Boston in 1667, and from that time till his death in 1714 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON STREET. THE BUILDING IN THE FOREGROUND 
 WAS REMOVED WHEN WASHINGTON STREET WAS CARRIED THROUGH TO 
 
 ADAMS SQUARE 
 
was a man of consequence in the town. He bought this ample lot 
 in 1676, then measuring eighty-six feet on the thoroughfare, nearly 
 opposite the head of Milk Street, two hundred and sixty feet northerly, 
 seventy-seven westerly, and two hundred and sixty-six southerly, 
 for the paltry sum of £350 — contrast this with the values of today! — 
 and forty years later, in 1715, the Province acquired from his heirs 
 the whole vastly improved estate, with the mansion-house then the 
 most remarkable in town, for £2300. As the Province House, it be- 
 came the " central scene of the chief pageantries, gaieties, and formali- 
 ties of the king's vice-regal court in Boston " ; and Hawthorne has 
 immortalized it in his fanciful " Legends." The present Province 
 Court and Province Street were originally ways to the stables and 
 rear grounds of the mansion when it became the Province House. 
 After the Revolution it became the Government House and as such 
 was the place of the sittings of the Governor and council for a while. 
 Then, given over to commercial uses, it fell in the social scale. At 
 length it was utilized for negro minstrelsy, first, in 1852, as ' Ordway 
 Hall " under the management of John P. Ordway, who in mature 
 life became a local physician of note, and afterward, as " Morris 
 Brothers, Pell, and Trowbridge's Opera House " of pleasant memories. 
 Finally it was swept away, all but its walls, by a fire in 1864. 
 
 Continuing on this side, we have, according to the Book of Pos- 
 sessions, next above the Millard lot: the house and garden of Thomas 
 Grubb, leather dresser. Next above Grubb, about on the line of the 
 present Bromfield Street : the larger estate of William Aspinwall, 
 notary public, and "recorder" after his return from banishment, 
 he being one of those banished as an adherent of Mistress Anne 
 Hutchinson. Subsequently, Edward Rawson, the Colonial secretary, 
 acquired a part of the Aspinwall lot, and his name was given to the 
 present Bromfield Street as " Rawson's Lane." It took on the name 
 of Bromfield from Edward Bromfield a leading merchant of the Province 
 period, after his death, in 1734, in his eighty-sixth year. Mr. Brom- 
 field had long been a resident on the lane, his mansion standing on 
 the south side, the site afterward occupied by the " Indian Queen 
 Tavern," and its successor, the " Bromfield House." 
 
 Again on the east side we have first on the upper corner of Milk 
 Street: Robert Reynolds, shoemaker. It was at the easterly end of 
 this lot that stood the tenement which Josiah Franklin occupied at 
 his first coming with his family about 1685, and was the eminent 
 Benjamin's birthplace. Later, dating from about 1673, a little south 
 of the present Transcript building: the " Blue Bell and Indian Queen 
 Tavern," built on both sides of a narrow passage here cut through 
 to Hawley Street. This was a famous inn through a long day extend- 
 ing into the nineteenth century. In early stage-coach times it was 
 the regular stopping place of various long-distance lines. About 1820 
 
THE EAST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM MILK STREET 
 
 IN 1856 
 
the ancient tavern was succeeded by the " Washington Coffee House," 
 which in the forties was made the terminus of the daily Dorchester 
 stages. The coffee house in turn disappeared in the fifties and its 
 site was occupied by Messrs. Macullar, Williams & Company. 
 
 West side again, the earlier occupants between Bromfield and 
 Winter Streets : Ephraim Pope, Edmund Dennis, Edward Jacklin> 
 glazier, after him, in 1646, Nicholas Busbie, worsted weaver, William 
 
 SAVING THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN THE GREAT FIRE OF 1872 
 
I.-- v J5 
 
 vffSiSt ** 
 
 
 
 
 THE PROVINCE HOUSE, ON THE WEST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET, PRESENT 
 
 SITE OF PROVINCE COURT 
 
 Townsend, and Richard Parker's widow, all with houses and gardens. 
 In the late eighteenth century, nearly opposite the present Franklin 
 Street head: the " Rising Sun" tavern, from which early in the nine- 
 teenth century evolved the Marlboro Hotel which remained long a 
 landmark. 
 
 The inconvenience of carrying on the lectures of Harvard Medical 
 School in Cambridge soon brought about the removal of the School 
 to Boston. In 1810 the Corporation and Overseers, at the request of 
 Drs. Warren and Dexter, who lived in Boston, and against the protest of 
 Dr. Waterhouse, who lived in Cambridge, voted that the lectures in 
 
anatomy and in surgery and in chemistry be delivered in Boston. 
 Accordingly a theatre with other rooms was provided by Dr. Warren 
 at 49 Marlborough Street (now 400 Washington Street) in Boston, in 
 the same building with the hall and library of the Massachusetts 
 Medical Society, and hither the instruction of the School was removed 
 
 The Colonial Newbury link was similarly marked at first by houses 
 and gardens with a few shops. In the Province period it became a 
 favorite place for taverns. Earliest of these was the " Lamb Tavern," 
 which stood where is now the Adams House. It was built about 
 1740, and displayed a large swing sign embellished with a painted 
 white lamb. It was made the starting point of the stage-coaches 
 of the first Boston and Providence line which began operations in 1767. 
 A little above, nearly opposite the head of Hayward Place, was the 
 " White Horse," with its sign of a white charger. Above, on the 
 opposite side: the "Liberty Tavern," close by the "Liberty Tree," 
 where is now Brigham's. Below the " Lamb," where is now Keith's 
 "Bijou" annex; the "Grand Turk," of later date, afterward the 
 " Lion," and still later the " Red Lion," which flourished till the 
 eighteen thirties when it was transformed into a theatre. 
 
 The mixture of Colonial houses, mansions, and shops bordering 
 both sides marked the Marlborough link through the eighteenth cen- 
 tury and into the nineteenth. The first Boston Directories, — 1789 
 and 1796, — listed here merchants, general shopkeepers, tailors, 
 leather breeches makers, apothecaries, booksellers and stationers, 
 bookbinders, leather dressers, brass founders, saddlers, pewterers, 
 
 sa s^w iggft win mmim AWlS 1 ft It 
 
 ml- "•"'Mil a\* 
 
 EAST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET IN 1860, FROM MACULLAR PARKER & COMPANY 
 
 BUILDING TO SUMMER STREET 
 
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 A-<rtf 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET, FROM SCHOOL TO STATE STREETS, IN 1850, SHOWING OLD 
 
 CORNER BOOKSTORE AT LEFT 
 
 crockery ware dealers, hardware dealers, goldsmiths and jewellers, 
 watch makers, upholsterers and lace manufacturers, mantua makers, 
 milliners, hair dressers, brush manufacturers, paper stainers, painters 
 and glaziers, masons, housewrights, blacksmiths, cordwainers, grocers, 
 bakers, wine stores, physicians, dentists, brokers, school mistresses. 
 Among the merchants are found such well-known names as John 
 and Thomas Amory, Samuel and Stephen Salisbury, Benjamin Vin- 
 cent. Among the booksellers : John Boyle, Joseph Nancrede, William 
 Spotswood, David West. Physicians : Dr. John Homans, and Dr. 
 Alexander Abercrombie Peters. Ebenezer Hancock, brother of John, 
 appears as " keeper of powder house." Among the residents: Ben- 
 jamin Hitchborn ; Capt. Eleazer Johnson, Amasa Penneman, and 
 Abiel Winship, merchants; John B. Sohier ; Caleb Hopkins, " gentle- 
 man " ; and Charles Bulfinch, the architect. 
 
 In 1800 corner estates were thus valued, as Mr. Walter Kendall 
 Watkins has quoted : South corner of School Street — fifteen hundred 
 and twelve square feet and a two-story wooden house, seven hundred 
 and twenty square feet, $4000 ; South corner of Bromfield Street — 
 twenty-seven hundred square feet, a brick house of two stories, twelve 
 hundred square feet, all at $2500 ; north corner of Winter Street — a 
 brick building of three stories and a wooden building, occupying a lot 
 of forty-nine hundred square feet, $4000 ; south corner of Winter 
 Street — a two-story brick building seven hundred and eighty square 
 feet, land nine hundred square feet, $2000 with the land ; south corner 
 
of Summer Street — fifty-nine hundred and forty square feet with a 
 wood and chaise house four hundred and fifty square feet on Summer 
 Street, $5000. 
 
 When in 1824 the Colonial names were finally dropped, and the 
 whole thoroughfare took on the name of Washington, the residences 
 had practically disappeared from this link and it had become dis- 
 tinctively a shopping quarter. Its aspect in the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century is faithfully depicted in the " Panoramic Views " which 
 we reproduce from " Gleason's Pictorial " of 1853. Here, thanks to 
 the honest if not artistic drawing of the delineator, we may readily 
 read the signs of all the establishments on either side of the way. 
 Picturesquely breaking the line of buildings just above Bromfield 
 Street observe the archway at the side of the Marlboro House. This 
 led to a paved court in which was the Marlboro Chapel at that time 
 occupied by the Lowell Institute. The Chapel had been built originally 
 from an L at the rear of the hotel, in the thirties, for the " First Free 
 Congregational Church " ; and after its abandonment for church uses 
 it became the rendezvous of the various ultra organizations which 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET AFTER THE GREAT FIRE OF 1872, SHOWING MACULLAR PARKER 
 
 & COMPANY BUILDING AT THE RIGHT 
 
THE ENTRANCE TO THE BOSTON THEATRE IN 1856 
 
 flourished in Boston in the thirties and forties — the "lean hungry 
 savage anti-everything " association, as was Dr. Holmes's phrase. 
 The Lowell Institute first occupied it in 1846, when it was renovated, 
 and here the Lowell Institute Lectures were regularly given till 1879, 
 when the Chapel disappeared. And here was the Lowell Institute's 
 free drawing-school from the life, established in 1850, and conducted 
 with rare genius by William Hollingsworth through its whole career 
 of more than a quarter of a century. On the east side, above the 
 opening of Franklin Street, in the establishment of " G. W. Warren 
 & Co., Importers, Jobbers, and Retailers," we have the forerunner 
 of the great dry goods " emporiums " of the modern day. This site 
 in the next decade was occupied by Macullar, Williams & Parker. 
 
 In the decade of 1860-70 marked changes were effected in the 
 architectural appearance of the link, and its valuation increased, with 
 the erection of larger, loftier, and more attractive buildings of modern 
 design, some of granite, some of iron, one of marble front, in place of 
 most of the plain old ones. Then the " Great Fire of 1872," making 
 Washington Street its west bound, swept off all on the east side from 
 Summer to Milk Street, leaving only a broken front wall here and there 
 standing in the midst of huge heaps of ruins. The great white marble 
 facade of the Macullar, Williams & Parker building alone withstood 
 the fury of the flames, and remained a monument of the devastation 
 here till its removal for the widening of this link of the thoroughfare. 
 The spread of the fire below Milk Street was checked by the blowing 
 
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 ' • I I I j' J I 
 
 JL'-i 3 d I l i 
 
 Li 1 1 II 1 1 
 
 THE ADAMS HOUSE IN 1856 
 
 up of the old building that had been long occupied by Messrs. Currier 
 & Trott on the south corner. The Old South Meetinghouse, while 
 saved, suffered blown-out windows and other slight hurts, from the 
 effect of the explosion across the way. 
 
 An exhibition of generosity and thoughtfulness on the part of the 
 hundreds of employees of Macullar, Williams & Parker was a note- 
 worthy incident of the disaster, among many, illustrating the fine 
 temper of the community, as well as the cordiality of the relations 
 existing between employer and employed in this house. The relation 
 is that of the Daily Advertiser of November 14: " It is the custom of 
 large tailoring establishments, and among them that of Macullar, 
 Williams & Parker, to make out their payrolls on Saturdays and pay 
 their employees on Mondays. Since the fire it was uniformly agreed 
 among the girls who were employed by this firm, partly in considera- 
 tion of past liberality toward them on the part of their employers, to 
 decline to accept their wages for last week's work, thinking that the 
 sum in the aggregate might be acceptable in consideration of their 
 heavy losses. On the other hand, the members of the firm, solicitous 
 for the welfare of those whose losses might be small but sufferings 
 great, told Miss Jennie Collins [the noble-hearted retired workwoman 
 
A SECTION OF WASHINGTON STREET, BETWEEN WATER AND STATE 
 
 STREETS, IN 1850 
 
then maintaining the helpful institution of her own founding — her 
 " Boffin's Bower," for working girls] to send to them any workgirls, 
 and particularly their own, who might be in need, and they would 
 provide for them. This statement is made to show the good feeling 
 existing between employers and employed, and to correct a possible 
 misconception of the case as stated in an afternoon paper." 
 
 The burned off side was speedily rebuilt finer, more substantial, 
 and safer than before. 
 
 MACULLAR, PARKER & COMPANY. 
 
 The house of Macullar, Parker & Company was founded in 1848 
 by Addison Macullar, who opened in the city of Worcester in that 
 year a small store (at a rental of $250) for the sale of ready-made 
 clothing at retail, under the style of A. Macullar & Company. 
 
 In 1852 George B. Williams, who had formerly been a fellow 
 clerk with Mr. Macullar, became associated with him in the business, 
 and the style of the firm was thereupon changed to Macullar, Williams 
 & Company. In 1852 the firm opened a house in Boston for the manu- 
 facture and sale of clothing at wholesale. The store occupied at that 
 time was Nos. 35 and 37 Ann, the present North, Street. In 1854 
 they moved to Milk Street, occupying the building then No. 47. 
 
 
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 THE EAST AND WEST SIDES OF WASHINGTON STREET, FROM MILK TO SUMMER 
 
 STREETS, IN 1852 
 
RUINS OF THE MACULLAR PARKER & COMPANY BUILDING AFTER THE GREAT FIRE 
 
 OF 1872 
 
WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM SCHOOL STREET, IN 1910 
 
 In November, 1857, during the great financial panic of that period, 
 they engaged temporarily the old Washington Coffee House building 
 on Washington Street for the purpose of disposing of their surplus 
 stock of clothing at retail. This was the first stock of clothing of any 
 extent that had ever been opened on Washington Street ; and the 
 immediate and large business which was developed induced the firm 
 to give up the wholesale business, and to settle permanently on Wash- 
 ington Street and cater exclusively to the best class of retail trade. 
 
 In 1860, the old quarters having become insufficient, a removal 
 was made to No. 192 Washington Street, the store which had previously 
 been occupied by George W. Warren & Company for the retail dry 
 goods business. At this time the style of the firm was changed to 
 Macullar, Williams & Parker, which remained unaltered for nineteen 
 years, Mr. Charles W. Parker who had been associated with the busi- 
 ness from its commencement as boy, bookkeeper and salesman, 
 being admitted to the firm and becoming the managing partner. 
 
JOY'S BUILDING, WASHINGTON STREET, NEAR COURT STREET, IN 1860 
 
In 1864, this store also having become too small for their growing 
 business, another removal was made to the building on the adjoining 
 premises, which had been erected for the firm by the trustees of the 
 Sears Estate. This was the edifice which was destroyed, with most 
 of its contents, in the Great Fire of November 9, 1872. The present 
 building was rebuilt upon substantially the same plan as the one 
 destroyed, but with some modifications and improvements. 
 
 In 1884 the adjoining building, No. 398, formerly 192, becoming 
 vacant by the retirement from business of Palmers & Batchelders, 
 was annexed to the main building and occupied by the custom tailoring 
 department for which, with the new department for the sale of Stetsor 
 Hats, it is occupied at the present time, 
 
 The departments of the business are Mens*, Youths', Boys' and 
 Juvenile clothing at retail. Mens' and Boys' Furnishing Goods, 
 Custom Tailoring for Men and Women, Stetson Hats, Wholesale 
 Woolens and Tailors' Trimmings. 
 
 The upper stories of both buildings are used for the cutting and 
 manufacturing of clothing and for the shrinking of fabrics by the 
 London Process. 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET FROM SUMMER STREET IN 1870 
 

 AVON PLACE, NOW AVON STREET, IN 1856. 
 
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