Brookline, Massachusetts

“ Boutwell, and was born in Brookline, Mass., in what is now the old part of the Country Club house, January 28, 1818. He comes from old and respected Massachusetts stock, being a lineal descendant of James Boutwell, who was admitted a freeman in Lynn in 1638, and of John Marshall, who came to Boston in the ship Hopewell in 1634. The family has always represented the sterling qualities of typical New Englanders. ”

“ Brookline has long been regarded as a model city suburb. It is connected with [v.04 p.0647] Boston Common by boulevards of the Metropolitan Park System. The first settlement was probably made about 1635, and it was called Muddy River until 1705, when it was created a township under the name of Brookline. Up to 1793 it belonged to Suffolk county, of which Boston is a part, and since that time it has belonged to Norfolk county; but Boston has in its growth almost surrounded it, and because of its great wealth there has been a long struggle for and against its merger in Boston. ”

“ So that it may be said, the city proper to-day stands consolidated on one side of the ancient neck with Roxbury and Dorchester, and on the other with Roxbury and Brookline. There still remain, however, a section of Charles River, forming a bay of itself, between Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, and a considerable portion of the South Bay between Roxbury and South Boston. Brookline—originally Muddy Brook—was formerly considered as belonging to Boston, and its lands were apportioned among the early settlers of the town for agricultural purposes and the keeping of cattle. ”

“ Commonwealth Avenue is famous for its width and costly homes, and Brookline, the finest part of the city, is said to have more wealth and beauty to the square foot than any other city in the United States. The roads around Boston are fine and besides the interesting buildings, lovely parks, and historic spots, one is constantly catching glimpses of the blue harbor. ”

“ The Shawmut Church, like the Mount Vernon, the Pine Street, and others, had to pass through experiences which make a familiar story to those who know Philadelphia, New York, and London. The work of the old city churches had been to train up and graduate sons and daughters with noble Christian principles and character, to build up the waste places and the newer societies. Like bees, the new swarms out from the old hives were called to gather fresh honey.
The exodus from rural New England and from Canada enlarged Boston, and caused the building up and amazing development of Brookline. ”

“ But the lips had closed sternly, and Lady Moreham, seemingly quite forgetful of her young auditors, was gazing far away. Faith ventured, at length, to jog her consciousness.
"You asked me, once, a good deal about Brookline—were you there too?"
The lady nodded, then turned and looked at her with a quizzical glance.
"Ah, child, never be so curious to hear a sad story! Every one has griefs enough to bear without appropriating other people's. Yes, we did live in Brookline for several happy years—my husband and I. Our home was the porter's lodge of one of those fine places you used to admire. ”

“ He had begun to deal in suburban real estate in the vicinity of Boston, and had picked Brookline as especially fitted for development. It was a section much favored as a place of residence by Boston business men, and as a first step in the development of his holdings Whitney built, chiefly at his own expense, a magnificent boulevard from the town to Boston. Over this the men who had offices in the city were accustomed to drive daily, just as to-day they go in their automobiles. ”

“ In the local history of the town of Brooklyn, Conn., occurs this passage: "In the year 1703, Richard Ames purchased 3,000 acres of land lying in the south part of Pomfret, where the village of Brooklyn now stands, which he divided into five lots and deeded to his sons. Directly north of this was situated a tract of land owned by Mr. John Blackwell, comprising 5,750 acres, which was willed to his son John, and afterward sold to Governor Belcher of Massachusetts, who divided it into farms and sold them to different individuals, among whom was General Israel Putnam. ”

“ The Punch Bowl Tavern was built in 1729 by John Ellis, and stood in Brookline, about two hundred feet west from the boundary line between Roxbury and Brookline, upon the present site of Brookline gas-works, on the south-west corner of Washington street and Brookline avenue. ”

“ Chief industries: stock raising, coal, iron, glass, and silk.
County seat, Brookville, laid out in 1830; population 3272. Hunts Point, now Carrier’s addition of Brookville, was once an Indian village. Main Street runs east and west. Pickering Street crosses at right angles. Courthouse, at the corner of Main and Pickering Streets; Renaissance, brick; contains portraits. The Brookville Park Association is making great civic improvements; a park of ten acres is in the center of the town and a fine new park building or auditorium is being erected ”

“ The most impressive part of the spectacle was the defunct giantess, whose wide-spreading draperies and head-gear, as Brooks came down with a well-studied crash, took up so much of the floor that the rest of us had no room left to die in dignity. The piece was so much of a success that we performed it again at the house of Theodore Lyman, in Brookline,—and still again, at Chickering Hall in Boston.
Though Brooks could frolic upon occasion, his mood in his student days was prevailingly grave, and as he matured, warmed, and deepened into earnest religious conviction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Worcester, nestling among the hills along the Blackstone River, the second city in Massachusetts, the heart of the Commonwealth, has a population of about 85,000.
Shut in by its wall of hills, it seemed, as I first came into it, something like a little miniature world in itself. It possesses some share of all the good we know. Nature, that "comely mother," has laid her caressing hand upon it. Art has made many a beautiful structure to adorn its streets. Commerce smiles upon it. While its wonderful manufactures seem to form a great living, throbbing heart for the city. ”

“ They have superseded the aristocratic commencements of Carolina and of New York, the High-Church party in Virginia, the theocracy in Massachusetts, and the monarchy throughout America; they have given laws to one quarter of the globe, and, dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of every democratic struggle in Europe.”
Boston, with all her glories, has none of which she is more proud, than the fact that within her borders Phillips Brooks was born{11} and labored most of his life. ”

“ The most powerful instrument in the conversion of Brook Farm was Mr. Albert Brisbane. He had studied the system [of Fourier] in France, and made it his business to introduce it here. ... In March, 1845, the Brook Farm Phalanx was incorporated by the Legislature of Massachusetts. The Constitution breathes a spirit of hope which is pathetic at this distance of time. ... The publication of the Constitution was followed in the summer by 'The Harbinger,' which became the leading journal of Fourierism in the country. The first number appeared on June 14th. ... ”

“ Present, Machiel Hanssen, Cornelis Sebringh, and Hendrick Vechten, Esquires, Justices.—Resolved, by the major part of the freeholders of the said towne of Brookland, that every man that has now a right, lott, or lotts laid out in the quondam Common and undivided lands of Brookland aforesaid, shall forever free liberty have for egress and regress to his said lotts for fetching off wood or otherwise, over all or any of the said lott or lotts of the said freeholders in the lands aforesaid. ”

“ Auspiciously dawned the settlement of Brookfield, which now bid fair to become early populated by a religious, intelligent and industrious people. But the spirit of speculation came also. The same year that Stephen Hoxie and Capt. Brown came in, Michael Myers, Jedediah Sanger and John I. Morgan, purchased all the unsold lands of Brookfield, together with Sangerfield. ”

“ Loyal to Brooklyn have been Grout, Swanstrom and Littleton, and thus inspired, has Brooklyn proved loyal to herself and faithful to her traditions.
"Brooklyn is a gigantic borough. She is three times as large as Buffalo, the home of the Pan-American Exposition. She is twice as large as St. Louis, the home of the present Exposition. Brooklyn territorially is large enough and properly adapted to hold a population of 7,000,000, and still remain less congested than the present borough of Manhattan. Brooklyn is devoid of many of the characteristics that mark other great cities. ”

“ The Patentees and freeholders of this town sold unto Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the neck of land called Red Hook, containing by estimation 50 acres; which they state in their deed “was formerly given and granted to the town of Broocklyn, in the year 1657, by Governor Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor then at that time, and since confirmed by the English Governors, Governor Nicolls, and Governor Dongan.” ”

“ George Allen, who in the same year offered to a meeting in Worcester, the most famous resolution of the whole ante-bellum period. Catching the spirit of his brother's words, he said: "Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains and spurns all bribes; that Massachusetts now, and will ever go, for free soil and free men, for free lips and a free press, for a free land and a free world." This was a good key-note, and when, six years later, in 1854 a slave-catcher came to this same city of Worcester, the citizens proved that they could raise the tune most readily ”

“ Colonel Browne was esteemed among the most opulent and benevolent individuals of that province prior to the Revolution; and so great was his popularity that the gubernatorial chair of Massachusetts was offered him by the "committee of safety," as an inducement for him to remain and join the "sons of liberty." But he felt it a duty to adhere to government; even at the expense of his great landed estate, both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the latter comprising fourteen valuable farms, all of which were afterwards confiscated. ”

“ The sons of J. Howard Brokenshire were always welcome guests among their Boston kin, on whom they shed a pleasant luster of metropolitan glory. While the Brews and Borrodailes prided themselves on what they called their Boston provinciality and didn't believe to be provinciality at all, they enjoyed the New York connection.
"Hello, Hugh! Glad to see you. Come in. Sit down. Looking older than when I saw you last. Growing a mustache. Not married yet? Sit down and tell us all about it. What can I do for you? Sit down." ”

“ All the public and private grants of towns, corporations, and individuals referred to the main stream as the Charles, and to this brook as Jack's Pasture Brook, or Mill Brook.
The people of Massachusetts made the same distinction between a river and a brook, one of its tributaries, that all the other members of the human family had made from the creation of the world down to that period. We say, therefore, that the words of the charter admit of but one construction, and never have received a different construction. ”

“ Barlow, who as Miss Penniman was once a famous Brookline beauty of lively and attractive disposition. In the strongest and most repellant character of the novel, Hollingsworth, Hawthorne seems to have incorporated something of the fierce earnestness of Brownson and the pathetic zeal of Ripley. And those who best know Brook Farm are able to find in the book reflections of other well-known members of the community. For the actual life of the place, however, readers cannot do better than peruse Lindsay Swift's recent delightful work, [Pg 302] "Brook Farm, Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors." ”

“ Brookfield was during the greater part of his life a hard-working servant of the public, and his friends could only obtain his delightful company in the rare and scanty intervals of school-inspecting—a profession of which not even the leisure is leisurely. ”

“ Terwilliger Dehon remarried, and, for the second time, a very pretty woman; such men always do. The Burlington Quincys have also been married; and Tom Leigh has come to stay at Brookline for this season; and Mrs. Eastman’s reign is ended; but Fides is an honored [142] inmate of the Brookline house. And if you drive by there, some summer afternoon, you will note once more about the windows those frilled and pleated things that denote the presence of a woman’s hand.
THE END.
BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743-745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
Mary Adams. ”

“ During that time she has been a dependent borough within the great city of New York. Many thought that when that transition took place Brooklyn would lose her old-time spirit, her pride would be humbled and she would sink into the slough of despair, but we are here to-day to make known to these United States that Brooklyn's old-time courage is as high, her spirit is as heavily charged with municipal energy and her pride is the same pride as of old.
"Brooklyn is a peculiar community. She differs from all others. The wits have long fed upon her. ”