Boston, Massachusetts

“ The golden calf they worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the Atlantic; and the almighty dollar sinks into something comparatively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better gods.
Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect, as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make them. ”

“ The population of Boston is about eighty thousand, and it has probably more people of leisure in it (that is, out of business and living on their own means) than even Philadelphia; taking into the estimate the difference between the populations. They are more learned and scientific here than at New York, though not more so than at Philadelphia; but they are more English than in any other city in America. The Massachusetts people are very fond of comparing their country with that of England. The scenery is not unlike; but it is not like England in its high state of cultivation. ”

“ In 1822 Boston became a city. Thus for nearly two centuries it preserved intact its old “town” government, disposing of all its affairs in the “town-meeting” of its citizens. Excellent political training such a government unquestionably offered; but it became unworkable as disparities of social condition increased, as the number of legal voters (above 7000 in 1822) became greater, and as the population ceased to be homogeneous in blood. All the citizens did not assemble; on the contrary ordinary business seldom drew out more than a hundred voters, and often a mere handful. ”

“ The capital of Massachusetts, the chief town of New England, Boston is one of the oldest and most interesting cities of the United States. Whether considered from the point of view of its educational and charitable institutions, its trade, manufactures and public buildings, its influence upon the intellectual life and literary culture of the nation, or its historic part as an inspirational center of political liberty and social reform, its record and position command attention. ”

“ If ever that much talked-of conflict between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to quit the realms of fancy for those of fact, Boston, at least, will rest as safe from the destructive engines of British iron-clads as the city of Omaha on the Missouri River. It was only natural that the Massachusetts man should have been in a fever of excitement at finding himself once more within sight of home; and for once human nature exhibited the unusual spectacle of rejoicing over the falsity of its own predictions. ”

“ But during his absence it appeared Boston had awakened to the fact that in its midst had resided a real live artist of prominence from the other side, and nothing had been done to overcome his prejudices, and show him that, after all, the real intellectual centre of the world was not London, but the capital of Massachusetts. ”

“ The population, which was almost stationary through much of the century, was about 20,000 in the years immediately before the War of Independence. At this time Boston was the most flourishing town of North America. It built ships as cheaply as any place in the world, it carried goods for other colonies, it traded—often evading British laws—with Europe, Guinea, Madagascar and above all with the West Indies. ”

“ Every hour brings us from distant quarters of the Union the expression of mortification at the late events in Massachusetts, and at the behavior of Boston. The tameness was indeed shocking. Boston, of whose fame for spirit and character we have all been so proud; Boston, whose citizens, intelligent people in England told me they could always distinguish by their culture among Americans; the Boston of the American Revolution, which figures so proudly in John Adams’s Diary, which the whole country has been reading ”

“ The mass of the people in Massachusetts who think at all, are indignant; but so far as I can learn, the men who control the politics of Boston, or who have controlled them until the last week, feel no considerable interest in the matter. In New York, men of great property and high standing came together and protested against this iniquity. New York has been, for once, and in one particular, morally in advance of Boston. ”

“ Among the marks of the second half of the 17th century was growing material prosperity, and there were those who thought their fellows unduly willing to relax church tests of fellowship when good trade was in question. There was an unpleasant Englishman who declared in 1699 that he found “Money Their God, and Large Possessions the only Heaven they Covet.” Prices were low, foreign commerce was already large, business thriving; wealth gave social status; the official British class lent a lustre to society; and Boston “town” was drawing society from the “country.” ”

“ With the exception of a few Revolu­tionary statesmen and elderly clergymen, a political essayist like Ames, and lawyers like Samuel Dexter and Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts could show little that warranted a reputation for genius; and, in truth, the intellectual prominence of Boston began as the conservative system died out, starting with the younger Buckminster several years after the century opened.
The city was still poorer in science. Excepting the medical profession, which represented nearly all scientific activity, hardly a man in Boston got his living either by science or art. ”

“ The foundation of Boston was succeeded by that of many other now famous towns of Massachusetts, and, ten years after the arrival of Conant at Salem, 21,000 emigrants are said to have settled in New England, one and all being Puritans, most of whom had been driven from their homes in their native land by the intolerance of the Government. Among those Puritans, however, were many who were unable to conform to the rigid practices or subscribe to the stern tenets of the Massachusetts churches, and to this fact was due the foundation of the first settlement in the neighboring state of Rhode Island. ”

“ Until the middle of the Nineteenth Century the population was still largely confined to the peninsula. After that period the population began to spread out into Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and of late years has turned to Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brighton. Boston proper contains now less than a third of the total population, business buildings crowding out dwellings. What was once the most fashionable quarter—the North End—has become the business section of the city, and is partly taken up with the dwellings of the poorer, largely immigrant people. ”

“ Boston, in 1830 had but the poor population of 61,392, nearly all born on her soil, few of them dirty or beggared. Once, fifty years ago, all through Massachusetts were clean, decent, white-housed towns, such as Worcester, and Springfield, and Northampton, and Concord, and Salem, and Newburyport, centres of small but most cultivated and earnest social life.
Then small farms were cultivated by families of New England birth, out of whom came able men and handsome women. Children lived with parents, and did not tyrannize them. ”

“ The Boston you see around you today is the capital city of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with a population, in its Greater Boston area, of 2,307,897, and it covers 1022.6 square miles. The town was settled over three hundred years ago by a God-loving people of rugged character, industry and vision. ”

“ For several years it was uncertain whether Cambridge, Charlestown or Boston should be the capital of the colony, but in 1632 the General Court agreed “by general consent, that Boston is the fittest place for public meetings of any place in the Bay.” It rapidly became the wealthiest and most populous. Throughout the 17th century its history is so largely that of Massachusetts generally that they are inseparable. ”

“ Boston is far more sober, at least in appearance, than other large cities of America, but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two thirds of the poverty, three fourths of the crime of this city would end at once, and an amount of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts without law? ”

“ But this form of pure democracy was in various cases long since inevitably abandoned: by Boston reluctantly in 1822, and subsequently by many other townships or cities, as growing population made action in town meeting unbearably cumbersome. In modern times state activity has encroached on the cities. Especially has the commonwealth undertaken certain noteworthy enterprises as the agent of the several municipalities in the immediate vicinity of Boston, constituting what is known as the Metropolitan District ”

“ At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century Boston was the largest and most important town in America, and its citizens took a leading part in the expression of public opinion in the conflict of the colonies with Great Britain. The impressment of seamen by the home Government in 1747 caused several riots, and the spirit of independence increased till the Stamp Act in 1765, and later the revenue acts, incited riots, which led to the quartering of two British regiments in Boston. ”

“ The growth of Massachusetts had been largely in the interior, Boston having made less progress than many other cities. People were moving from Massachusetts to other colonies. Many were moving through Boston but not staying there. Politically and culturally important, the Hub of the Universe stagnated industrially until the beginning of the manufacturing era. ”

“ We have said that Massachusetts was the extension of Boston; it is in more ways than in the beauty of residences and the uses of wealth; not the least worthy of notice is the conformity of country with the city in the delicacy of the female mind, and the extent of refined female education, among classes which might in other parts of the country, have escaped the meliorating influences of early discipline in manners, morals, and graces ”

“ The City of Boston, [360] which was argued before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1849, in which Charles Sumner was counsel for the plaintiff, the court gives the following interesting information: “The colored population of Boston constitute less than one sixty-second part of the entire population of the city. For half a century, separate schools have been kept in Boston for colored children, and the primary school for colored children in Belknap street was established in 1820, and has been kept there ever since. ”

“ His constitution was, however, too vigorous, his animal spirits too buoyant for scholarship alone to mark his schoolboy days. He led the sports of the playground and was the leader on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder plot. Boston was a pleasant place to dwell in, broad stretches of tree or turf, sloping pastures, and blooming gardens, surrounded the abodes of the wealthy. ”

“ Six of the companies come from stations outside of Boston,—Brockton, Cambridge, Chelsea, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton being represented. Even more truly than the Boston companies these organizations offer advantages of the greatest value; each is the pride of its own home city; each ranks amongst the leading social bodies in its community ”

“ Parks. The Common, a most characteristic feature of Boston, esteemed by the people as few other public parks are, because of its intimate connection with the history of the city, was set off in 1634 as a training-field and common ground, and has since been carefully preserved for public use. Its 48 acres are crossed by paths shaded by grand old elms, while toward the centre, near where the ‘Great Elm’ stood until blown down in 1876, is the Soldiers' Monument, erected in memory of the men of Boston who “died for their country.” ”

“ The modern city has about 590 miles of streets, of which all but 95 miles are paved—the greater part with macadam, granite, Belgian blocks, and gravel. In the new sections they are handsomelv laid out. Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue, the latter 240 feet wide and one of the finest boulevards in America, with other streets of the Back Bay region, are representative of the beauty of Boston's residential avenues. Washington and Tremont streets are the headquarters of the retail trade, and State Street is the important financial centre—the Wall Street of Boston. ”

“ The history of New England, and especially of Massachusetts, is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous lies and hypocrisies. The ducking-stool and whipping post, as well as numerous other devices of torture, were the favorite English methods for American purification.
Boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of Puritanism as the "Bloody Town." It rivaled Salem, even, in her cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. ”

“ The Adams connection was singularly small in Boston, but the family of Brooks was singularly large and even brilliant, and almost wholly of clerical New England stock. One might have sought long in much larger and older societies for three brothers-in-law more distinguished or more scholarly than Edward Everett, Dr. Frothingham, and Mr. Adams. One might have sought equally long for seven brothers-in-law more unlike. No doubt they all bore more or less the stamp of Boston, or at least of Massachusetts Bay, but the shades of difference amounted to contrasts. ”