F 73.67 W3M17 1 ^vV)-':-.,'^,^/';./;^^*':-:^. :, We have issued this little book at this time to mark another era in the history of our business. We hope that^ aside from the personal references contained^ it will prove of interest and value from an historical viewpoint. MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY June, IQ18. '^^ SOME OLD SITES i^ ON AN '^ OLD THOROUGHFARE And an Account of Some Early Residents Thereon ^mm%mm^^ PRINTED FOR MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY m BOSTON r Copyright, 1918 BY Macullar Parker Company rj{' 15 ii ^//,'A />/>/^/>y/ •^y/zYY'//'. iii)>yi¥i'L Business Card of the old Washington Cofee House The heading to page $ is from an engraving published in "Gleasons Pictorial' and shows a portion of the east side of Washington Street from Franklin Street south in i8^j Research Work by Walter K. Watkims arranged and printed by direction of walton advertising & printing co. boston, mass. 3.fo7 ^ ^mmm foreword m^. rj a previous history of Washington Street pubhshed by us, facts were presented concerning that section of the great thoroughfare between School and Milk, Summer and \\'inter Streets where the house of Macullar Parker has been located for more than half a century. Washington Street undoubtedly is the most notable and probably the longest highway in New England. Beginning as little more than a blazed trail, it has from century to century wound its irregular way until it has reached beyond Massachusetts borders into Rhode Island without changing its name. It has the distinction of being the first road laid out in the Massachusetts Colony, and, according to an order of June, 1636, it was begun as a footpath which led over the Neck to Roxbury. The order which concerns this^ famous "High Waye towards Roxburie" in the year 1636 is to the effect that "there shall be a sufficient footway from William Coleburne's field-end into Samuel Wyeborne's field-end next Roxbury, by the surveyors of highways before the last of the 5th month." This order shows that there were surveyors of highways in the Colony at this early date. Early Washington Street is supposed to have extended from the corner of Dover Street to the northerly Roxbury line, which was the south end of Boston Neck. The early road laid out towards Roxbury was on the easterly side of the present Washington Street, very near the beach, the road starting from near Beach Street. We count it a privilege to tell the tale of these early days and to place a permanent record of them in the hands of readers of history. The house of Macullar Parker has gathered these interesting facts concerning the former title-holders of the sites it has occupied on Washington Street, and has recalled various associations connected with former residents. As we have read the records of these early days, it seems but a short while ago that the Market Place existed and in the Puritan households were enacted the stirring scenes of the Revolution, while the stage coaches accompanied by the crack of drivers' whips and baying hounds drove up to the Washington Coffee House and the old Marlborough Hotel that travellers might be re- freshed. So we bring them back — those days — in which "mine host" plays no small part, and in which industry and trade contribute a valuable furtherance not only to the history of the Street but also to its development. 3 |i1 MMM '|il Mn '|i|i M I MM 'I M i|i lMM il M MMiinilMMMMilM'IMMiinMMM'IMM'|llMMl|'l'|l|'l'l'l'|i|i|i|MM'ri'l'|llMi|'IMMi|'l'|i|i|i|l|l|'|i|i|M'|i|'l'l'r ii f ''"^ ^'■■"""^ £^' ' t XSa R*: t!* ' ^^ ■'••f Si" ^-V '•}»' w ' riii.. # A »» «^ f !n- i^=: ''^ ;!:; ^ £ ~:-^3K!-r. ,^i| ' ,a| t,,. ... • lii ! • x: ^frv :.-:.;■: BREcEeK .l.M. Mililil.l.l,l,lililil,lilililil.lili M,l,M,M,l,M,NM,l,l,l,l,M,lililil.liMilil,lililililil,l.l ililihlihlili .lilil.lilililililililililililiM m^ SOME OLD SITES ON AN OLD '^ THOROUGHFARE THE HIGH ROAD AND THE MARKET PLACE V^!^HE business life and social activities of early Boston centred ^^^ about the Market Place near the site of the present Old State House. In less than two years after the order was issued for the establishment of a Market Place, the "High Road to Roxbury" — now Washington Street — was laid out. The first settlers located along the harbor front at the North End and Bendall's Cove, later known as the Town Dock. As business increased about the Alarket Place, home- steads were granted inland, following closely the line of Washington Street which passed the Market Place, the Governor's Spring, and the Watering Place at Bedford Street — on over the Neck to the mainland. The market was at first kept open on Thursdays, when a public lecture was held. A tavern — the first to appear in Boston — was opened by Samuel Cole, and John Coggan opened the first shop of merchandise. Within ten years from the laying out of the "High Road to Roxbury," the lots along it were granted on both sides of the way as far south as Boylston Street. Running east from the main street was a lane leading to a windmill near Fort Hill. This road was known as Mill Lane and is the Summer Street of to-day. The Market Place, as time went on, came to be the gathering-ground of the colonists. The life of the community centred there, and as the outlying districts became populated the country people were wont to ride "into town" to do their trading and to learn the news. There is an old legend — the truth of which has never been vouched for, but which is nevertheless interesting and has been repeated over many 5 The First Market Place The ''High Road to Roxbury ^^ An Old Legend which SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE a cup of steaming cider — which concerns the rural swain who rode into the Market Place, with his best girl mounted behind him on a sub- A Hogshead stantial horse. Prancing up to a stoop on which was a hogshead of ^■^ '^ ^^ molasses, he called out to his companion, "Now, Sally, you jump off and I'll go put up the horse and come arter you!" Sally did jump, depositing her solid weight on the head of the hogshead — which gave way and propelled her into syrupy depths. Farther and farther she sank, to Jonathan's dismay. Suddenly he turned and dashed with frantic gallops up Washington Street, muttering as he went, "I'll be dod durned if I pay for that ere molasses." Sally struggled in the meantime from her close but sweet imprisonment in the hogshead at the Market Place. EARLY TRADES-PEOPLE OF BOSTON The First It is a curious fact that the first settler on the site of the stores of Settler on the Macullar Parker was a tailor by the name of Richard Hogg. His Stores of story and a half thatched cottage of wood was no greater contrast to Macullar the present buildings than was his trade compared to the volume of Parker business transacted to-day. The clothes of those early citizens were modest in cut and hue, and were worn to the extent of their usefulness Hogg sells rather than being changed by the fashion of the day. Whether success his Business qj- failure in his trade was the cause of the change, Hogg disposed of j^IIqj. his house and business in half a dozen years to John Lake — also a tailor. Early A great number of the early trades-people of Boston came of the Trades- older and prominent families of England. Edward, a brother of of Boston J°^^ Lake, was Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, England, and Advocate-General for Ireland. He was also made a baronet. Another brother, Thomas, whose grandson succeeded him to the baronetcy in 171 1, was a prominent merchant of Boston. A Saddler In 1648 the tailor's shop was replaced by that of another trade, and occupies Thomas Wiborne, a saddler, of a prominent Kentish family, began business there. Wiborne came from the same locality as did Governor Hinckley of the Plymouth Colony. In the rear of the saddler's shop were several other workers of leather: Henry Rust, glover; John Barry, tanner; John Marion, shoemaker; John Gilbert, tanner; Nathaniel Bishop, currier. There was a lane at the rear of Wiborne's house, about two hundred or more feet back from Washington Street, SITES 011 an OLD THOROUGHFARE 7 extending from Milk to Summer Streets. From these workers of leather at different periods the lane was known as Wiborne's, Gilbert's, and Bishop's Lane. It is now Hawley Street. Thomas Wiborne's son mortgaged his house and garden in 1685 to The Estate Simon Lynda, a prosperous merchant, formerly of London and Holland, passes to Lynde died in 1687, leaving a good estate to his children. Of his j j^^ property, the Wiborne house came to Samuel Lynde, a son, as part of his share. Samuel Lynde married Mary Ballard, daughter of Jarvis Ballard, and to them was born a daughter, Mary, who married John \ alentine, a lawyer. Mr. Lynde in 1709 gave to Mary and her husband the Wiborne The Wiborne estate. It had a frontage of fifty-five feet on Marlborough Street, "o^-f*? as that part of Washington Street had already been named, in honor of the great Duke of Marlborough. Other parts of Washington Street were then known as Orange, Newbury, and Cornhill. JOHN VALENTINE'S HOUSE AND SUCCESSORS The year following his marriage, John Valentine built on Marl- Valentine borough Street a brick house with a front of about forty-seven feet ^^^'^f ^ ' • • Bftck Hoxisc and a depth of twenty-six feet. In the rear was a wooden addition for a kitchen. The old house of the first settlers — of timber and The Settlers' about eighteen feet square — Valentine removed to the lower part of House , . , J ^1111 removed to his orchard, on the back lane. Valentine's V^alentine prospered. He was prominent in civil affairs, a notary Orchard public, and Advocate-General for the Crown for Northern New England. He acted as attorney in many prominent cases in the early part of the eighteenth century. As the years went on, a nervous breakdown seemed imminent, and, suffering from melancholia, John \'alentine hung himself with his sash in an upper chamber of his house in 1724. Soon after her father's death, Elizabeth Valentine married Joseph Joseph Gooch, a lawyer. His wife's wealth, as well as his own, gave Gooch ^^?^^, "'f"-^ • 1 ,1,11, -n -1 •••r> L Elizabeth an idea that he should have a more iniiuential position in Boston than y^igj^i-iyig his fellow-townsmen were willing to concede. He therefore changed his residence to Braintree, where he succeeded in being elected a representative to the General Court. His ambition was not satisfied ■ with this, and he aimed to be made colonel of the Suffolk Regiment of the militia. Influence was brought to bear on Governor Shirley, SITES on a?i OLD THOROUGHFARE and the colonel of the regiment, John Quincy, was dismissed and Gooch appointed in his place. The officers, indignant at the dismissal of Quincy and also at Gooch's very apparent avarice, refused to serve under Gooch, and after a two years' term the people of Braintree elected another representative. So indignant was Colonel Gooch, he removed to Milton. The Valentine property went to Mrs. Joseph Gooch and to her Valentine brother, Thomas Valentine, who married Elizabeth, daughter of "'''^P^J^y James Gooch — a half brother of Col. Joseph Gooch. By a partition jj/^j. Joseph of 1 741, the house in Marlborough Street went to Joseph Gooch and Gooch his wife. It had various tenants. About 1730, Abel Kiggell occupied half of the house. He married a daughter of Ensign Edward Breck. Kiggell died in 1742, and his widow married in 1749 Col. Joseph Buckminster of Framingham. While Kiggell rented the house, the shop was occupied by William Rallue (or Rillow). John Gooch, son of Col. Joseph and Elizabeth Gooch, was born in 1737, and was married in 1770, shortly after his father's death, to Sarah Weaver of Milton. They occupied the Valentine house pre- vious to the Revolution. During the Revolution, John Gooch saw John Gooch active service as a captain of the iQth Continental Infantry, and ■^^''^'^■f "M^^ Revolution he served as assistant deputy quartermaster general, and he was also a Commissary of the Forage and had the rank of major. Major John died in 1784 — fourteen years after the death of his ambitious father. Adam Colson in 1780 obtained possession of the northerly portion of the house. Colson was by trade a leather dresser. John Colson, his father, had his apprentices plant the Paddock elms on Tremont Street, in front of the Granary Burying-ground, in the first half of the eighteenth century. The son, Adam, was an active patriot, a Adam member of St. Andrew's Lodge, which met at the Green Dragon. Golson, Adam was also a member of the Long Room Club, which met over Franklin's printing-office in Queen (now Court) Street. On the night of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, it was young Colson who shouted from the gallery of the Old South Meeting-house: "Boston Harbor a teapot to-night!" Colson, after buying the house in 1782, petitioned to have a license Colson to keep a tavern, as the location was favorable for the entertainm.ent P'^^'^^ohj to of the General Court and others from the country. After the Revo- favem lution he kept a shop in the house, leaving on his death in 1798 a SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE II large stock of goods for his widow, Christian (or Christiana) Colson. While the name of Marlborough Street was given in 1708 to that part of Washington Street now between School and Summer Streets, the name of Washington Street had been conferred on the part TO -BE SOLD, By Adam Collfon, ju this fon can could temper OD was hoc, never wa» fritd, •s of the lainl > id can't be denied, to do ; ', in Ills time At the Sij;n of the Buck and G*.uvr, in J\IjJ-liutOuglr-Stre:rt, No. JC. A Good iiflmtment o^ErigUpGoods, ■^ ^ and the U;ft tf UW^u's cluth Shoes fi Shppcrs; Men ik. VYomen'» Oloves as ufu^i — He h.'S alfo larbule, a rery genteel Chariot, ftroug and hanJlon-w;, with a good pair of Bay KrtRsSs, an tjcellent fecond h«nd Chaift and tiuikey, in complere order ;— Alfo, one doubU and one lin^Je Horfe Sleigh. — As Jie iiitcu>ls to Jeave the I'uwa, in about ci£ht or nine Week!«. g^ TL'ft -wLo are Jifp-fi^J to PurcLjfe, fo.iU bitvi: a lijrgain. I jV. B. Any Petfon difptJed to purchafe the afpin, no kiudrcd U ' "'"■^'^* ""^ Carriages, paying Jialf th.c Money j down, may have Credit for one year, for the remainder, giving ftcurjty for the fame. His HOUSE will be to Let, and it is In very good Repair, an excellent good Stand Td' Bufinefs, a gof>d Well of Water, never Jels than 13 feet of water in the dryeft time, a handfomc paved Yard,& a goodG^u-dcn. ho will) Bo(!in, .Sef,t_. 18. l-iQ3 on, but 'Ai!l I'ow n leave to A great . Engiifli, aiiu facSurcdbyhiru Cloaks, &c. Alfo, atVcfiifu, fuitahle foi MufFs and Tip the neweft Caihion, I'lr which he wiH warr reduced ready Moi £^ He is happy i preference has be< bulincfs — to merit ; tinguifhed patronage dcavour. — All ordc ledged. I extending from Dover Street to near the Roxbury line less than a decade before the death of Adam Colson. The change occurred when the nation's first President visited Boston in 1789, though his name was not given to the whole thoroughfare until 1824, when Cornhill, Marlborough, Newbury, and Orange Streets "became one in name as well as in fact." The house and shop of Adam Colson in 1798 was a three-story brick building covering 1,332 square feet, and the land in the rear amounted to about i2,cxDO square feet. On Bishop's Alley was a two-story wooden house covering 1,674 square feet. Christian (or Christiana) Colson carried on her husband's business for six years and then married John Baker, a widower of Dorchester. She w^as Mrs. John Baker the third. Her business career having given place to domestic 12 SITES on a7i OLD THOROUGHFARE Capt. Benjamin and John Homans — Booksellers Advertise- ment by James Murphy Ralph Waldo Emerson lives ill Bishop's Jllev felicity, the shop was occupied from 1804 to 1806 by Capt. Benjamin and John Homans — booksellers. The former won some distinction in Government service, having in 181 1 been appointed Secretary of the State of Massachusetts and in 1813 chief clerk of the Navy Depart- ment at Washington. In 1823 Captain Homans was appointed Naval Storekeeper at Portsmouth, but this new post was his for a very short time, as he died at Georgetown, D.C., in December of that year. The Homans were succeeded as tenants by James Murphy, who continued there until 1823. After the War of 1812-1815, the shop did an active business, as will be seen from Mr. Murphy's advertisement: "Cheap Goods — No. 50 Marlboro St. bv James Murphy. A variety of English and French Goods, which will be sold at about peace prices. "Also a large assortment of elegant Looking Glasses, Britannia Tea Pots, silver Table and Tea Spoons. "Gold Necklaces, together with a quantity of other goods. — To be Let — a Brick House. "Also — two apartments in a back Store suitable for a mechanic" {Columbian Centinel, 8 Feb. 181 5). Mr. Murphy had married in 1803 Betsey, sister of David Colson Moseley, children of Unite Moseley and Eliza, sister of Adam Colson. In 1822 the dry goods shop of Jacob Myers was at 50 Marlborough Street, and the next year Edward Callender sold fancy goods there, and Thomas Bicknell, a shoe dealer, appears to have set up business in the shop. In the rear of Mrs. Baker's lot a house fronted on Bishop's Alley, and a part of it was a livery stable for the first quarter of the last century, the business being carried on by Andrew Morton — hackman. THE PHILOSOPHER IN BISHOP'S ALLEY In the house connected with it, during that period, were many tenants, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived there in 1823, shortly after his graduation from Harvard. The previous year he had assisted his brother William in a school for young ladies which had been established at their mother's house on Williams (now Mathews) Street in Boston. "I was nineteen," recalled Emerson, "had grown up without sisters, and in my solitary and secluded way of living, had no acquaintance with girls. I still recall my terrors at entering the school; my timidities at French, the infirmaties of my cheek, and SITES on mi OLD THOROUGHFARE 13 my occasional admiration of some of my pupils. ... I was at the very time already writing every night in my chamber my first thoughts on morals and the beautiful laws of compensation and of individual genius, which to observe and illustrate have given sweetness to many years of my life." "Better tug at the oar," he wrote towards the close of a school year, "dig the mine, or saw wood; better sow hemp or hang with it, than sow the seeds of instruction." While teaching Emerson lived in Bishop's Alley, studying, observing, writing, a part of the Boston world — but not of it; content in seclusion to listen to the great preachers of the day. He brushed shoulders with those who frequented thriving Marlborough Street, and midnight found him poring over his books, or inscribing the philosophy which has guided thousands. OCCUPANTS OF 50 ^ff 51 MARLBOROUGH STREET Mrs. Baker's husband died in 1818, and thereafter she resided in different parts of the town, at one time with the family of Benjamin Bussey on Summer Street. In 1825 — the year after Marlborough Saniuel Street became a part of Washington Street and 50 Marlborough (the Sumner the site of the present store of Macullar Parker Company) became 194 ^" ^"^" Washington Street — Samuel Sumner occupied the premises. His JVashington family had been identified with the crockery and glassware trade for Street three-quarters of a century in Boston. With Mr. Sumner were his sons, Stephen Salisbury and William Russell Sumner, and they occu- pied the store for ten years. The shop at 192 Washington Street in 1836 was occupied by a furnishing warehouse conducted by Ferdinand Herman, who sold tin and wooden ware. Previously he had been a maker of willow carriages on Water and Brattle Streets. Mrs. Christian Baker, after surviving her husband, Adam Colson, Death of forty-two years, died on the second day of December, 1840, at the Mrs. Baker age of ninety-seven years. She left to David Moseley $1,000 and the Disposition estate on Washington Street which had belonged to the Colsons for of the more than a century. Bequests were also made to the children of Property James and Elizabeth Murphy. The Union Church (Essex Street), Amherst College, and the American Tract Society received vSi,ooo each, and the American Bible Society was given $2,000. Two of Mrs. Baker's nieces, Elizabeth and Eleanor Raynes of York, Me., 14 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE were left ^i,ooo each. The residue of the estate went to the Ameri- can Board of Foreign Missions and the American Education Society. A view of 194 Washington Street as it appeared for twenty years — between 1843 and 1863 — is shown in an engraving pubHshed in 1853 in Gleasoti's Pictorial* This view also shows the three-story brick building adjoining on the south, numbered 196. This was formerly 51 Marlborough Street and occupied the north half of the site where now stands the building numbered 400 Washington Street. It was built later than the Valentine house erected in 1710. At that time there was a five-foot passageway on the south separating it from the estate of John Marion, cordwainer, which existed until a decade or two before the Great Fire of 1872. The building at 51 Marlborough Street was disposed of by the Gooch heirs and came into the possession of Hannah, wife of Henry Sargent. The shop was occupied by various tenants: McFarlane, jeweller, in 1800; Thomas Brewer, crockery; Dommett & Fairbanks, harness works; Miss Fish, milliner, in 1815; Mrs. Turner's Toy Shop, 1820-25; Augustus Peverelly, confectioner, 1830; and Amos Webster's Coffee House in 1840 over the shop of J. Quincy Blake, fancy goods and jewelry. The Colson- Mrs. Sargent died in 1841, and that year her husband purchased Baker Estate the adjoining property on the north — the Colson-Baker estate — from purchased ^^^ American Board of Foreign Missions and American Education by ii€7iT\ Sargent Society. Daniel Sargent, father of Henry, was a merchant largely interested in the fish trade. Henry, born in Gloucester in 1770, was one of six sons all of whom attained a considerable degree of prominence in Boston. The one best known is Lucius Manlius Sargent, writer. Henry was gifted as an artist, and one of his first attempts was a landscape on the walls of a summer-house in his father's garden on Atkinson (now Congress) Street, Boston. When very young he made a copy of Copley's "Watson and the Shark," which Trumbull, when in Boston in 1790, praised with other work of the young artist. Sargent went to London in 1793, where he had the advice of both West and Copley. Sargent's Art did not lure Henry Sargent so far that he forgot his country. Military ^nd there remain records of his military interests. As early as 1799 he became an orderly sergeant of the Boston Light Infantry, of which his brother Daniel was captain. A commission was oflfered him in the regular army under Alexander Hamilton, who was commander-in- •See Heading to Page 5. Interests SITES on a7i OLD THOROUGHFARE 15 chief. Sargent's term was as short as that of Hamilton's. In 1805 he was first lieutenant of the Boston Light Infantry and in 1808 he was promoted to the captaincy. In the defence of Boston in 1814 his company worked at Fort Strong at East Boston to prepare it for the expected attack of the enemy, and it was at this time that Captain Sargent was made an aid to Governor Strong with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. As a military man he was involved in the Elliott-Austin duel at Serves as Providence, acting as second to young James H. Elliott, son of Gen. Second in Simon Elliott, who had been traduced in the Chrofiicle by William Austin. Mr. Austin had as his second Charles Pinckney Sumner, father of Charles Sumner. Throughout his service in the army Lieutenant-Colonel Sargent retained his interest in painting and engaged on a work of some magnitude. AN ACCOUNT OF HENRY SARGENT'S PAINTINGS Rev. William Bentley of Salem in his diary writes under the date of Oct. 7, 1803 : "Mr. Emerson [Rev. William, father of Ralph Waldo, then minister of the First Church in Boston, and conducting the Monthly Anthology] politely waited upon me to the new Catholic Church, called Church of the Holy Cross. . . . The altarpiece, by ^„ Altar- Mr. Sargent, is one of the largest works undertaken in our country, piece by It has undoubtedly great merit in such circumstances, but the rising Sargent breast and knees did not agree with my ideas of anatomy, as stretching 'Cathedral in death, especially in a violent one, is proverbial and as when the in Boston breast rises with expiring breath and extremities recedes." The Centinel of Oct. i, 1803, in describing the church, states it is Sargent's adorned with a very excellent picture of the Crucifixion from the Portraits pencil of Mr. Henry Sargent. What the artist's works were between 1805 and 1815 can only be conjectured. He painted the portrait of Peter Faneuil in Faneuil Hall, copied after the one by Copley. His portrait of Gen. Richard Devens, who died at the age of eighty-six years in Charlestown in 1807, is one of Sargent's finest efforts. This portrait is hung in the public reading-rooms in Charlestown. Richard Devens was the son of a Charlestown cooper, born in 1 72 1. In 1757 he was an ensign in the expedition of that year against the French. When the signal appeared in Christ Church tower the night before the battle of Concord and Lexington, Devens, a member of the Com- l6 SITES 071 an OLD THOROUGHFARE mittee of Safety, despatched a messenger with the intelligence of a British expedition to Arlington and Lexington. He was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress 1774- 1775 and on many important committees. In 1776 he was commissary-general for the State and served during the war. He became a highly prosperous merchant and at his death in 1807, at the age of eighty-six, he left an estate valued at about $120,000, a part of which was bestowed in charity. His portrait by Sargent was bequeathed to the Charles- town Library by Miss Charlotte Harris, his granddaughter, a liberal benefactor. Other subjects of Sargent's work were Gen. Henry Knox, who died in Thomaston, Me., in 1806; Rev. John Clark of the First Church, Boston, and Rev. Jeremy Belknap, both of whom died in 1798; Rev. Jedediah Morse of Charlestown and his wife, parents of Samuel F. B. Morse, were also painted by Sargent. The artist's best work is considered to be that of his son, John Turner Sargent, painted about 1823, when the boy was ten years old. " The A lengthy advertisement appeared in the Columbian Centinel, Landing of March 4, 1815, stating that the celebrated painting "The Landing of 'V Ih^^^' ^^^ Pilgrim Fathers," painted by H. Sargent, Esq., was being exhibited exhibited on near the corner of Walnut and Beacon Streets, a location in the rear Beacon Hil! of some unfinished buildings owned by Uriah Cotting on the north side of Walnut Street. Admittance was twenty-five cents and season tickets were one dollar. The canvas contained upwards of two hundred square feet and had between thirty and forty life-sized figures. The point of time chosen for the picture was soon after the landing in 1620, when Samoset came up boldly and alone, saying, "Welcome, Englishmen!" The advertisement contained a eulogy on the Pilgrim Fathers and a request for the patronage of the public. By May, 18 15, it was advertised that the painting would probably be sent to New York. Isaiah Thomas in his diary under the 25th of May said he "went to view Sargent's painting of the Landing of the forefathers," and he said that it was exhibited in the great hall of the Exchange Cofi^ee The House. After its first exhibition in Boston it is said to have been Picture exhibited about the country and that the rolling and unrolling of the gt'^en ^^j^ygg cracked and completely ruined the painting. Some years later Society the artist repainted the picture and gave it to the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth (Dec. 22, 1824). It was then described as thirteen by sixteen feet, with seventeen people represented in it, and its value SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE Picturr was placed at ^3,000. The painiing still hangs in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth and is one of the attractions of the town. Another Bentley wrote in his diary, Nov. 13, 1817: "The picture of the Sargent entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, by Sargent, had not the effect of the Landing of the Forefathers. The eyes of Jesus not on things around him, too many devotional postures for common joys and too many positions of rest and altar attitudes being besides general confusion from many objects not characterized properly." The size of this painting was eighteen by fifteen feet and an engraving was made on copper by J. R. Penniman which appeared in the Analectic Magazine for January, 1818. Henry Sargent's residence was at 10 Franklin Place, now Franklin Street. He is said to have had a studio at i School Street, and in 1820 he had a room which he used for a studio in the Colson-Baker house, where probably he painted the canvas known as "The Dinner Party." In the Centinel of May 26, 1821, the following advertisement appeared: "The Dinner Party." "The New Picture painted by Col. Henry Sargent. Is open for public view at Mr. D. L. Brown's room No. 12 Cornhill square adjoining his Academy every day from 9 in the morning till 5 in the evening. Admittance 25 cents." Residence of the Artist Colonel Sargent elected a Me7nber of the American Academy of Fine Arts The exhibition was to close Sept. 8, 1821, after which the picture was removed to New York. On Dec. 17, 1821, it was again on exhibition. The experience in New York and Philadelphia proved the convenience of exhibiting by illumination, and the painting was ready for view every day except Sunday and in the evenings until nine o'clock. Colonel Sargent's exhibit of the picture in various cities was followed by his election as a member to the American Academy of Fine Arts. Other pictures painted by him were: "The Starved Apothecary," "The Tailor's News," and "The Tea Party." ARMS of THE MERCHANT- TAYLO, ^RS^l ^LONDON incI5°l [ji n iiiiiiii n i M i nMnMmMM iiiiiiiiiiiii m iiiiiiii'iii M i M ii nM inBTi'^jI w si ^ ^ ^ r. cc •■k O ■=• u. .^ Z x V D :: - > r - .; ' f ' . > :-» -■ < t — ^, Z CI i Q ~ --.'■ t Z -■ u < :'-^ > r .'■^ ' ^ ::., - !'--i v:j d: ^ ■■ ^ '- < 5 :>T 22 SITES 011 an OLD THOROUGHFARE ANOTHER NOTABLE FAMILY OCCUPIES THE OLD PREMISES The famous Colson-Baker estate at 192 Washington Street besides being associated with Colonel Sargent was occupied by an equally famous family — the Warrens. Among the descendants of John Warren who settled in Watertown in 1 631 was Josiah Warren, a captain of artillery in the Revolution, living at Brighton. His son was Capt. Joseph Warren, a carpenter, who was also sexton of the church and maker of coffins. Joseph in 1797 married Sally Brown, and among their children were George W., John A., Alfred B., and James L. L. F. Warren. In 1827 the last-named opened a dry goods store at 117 Washington Street, nearly opposite the head of Water Street. He removed in 1834 to 85 Washington Street at the corner of Court Avenue near the head of State Street. Later, his brothers joining him in business, the firm became George W. Warren & Com- pany. J. L. L. F. Warren was also interested in horticulture and carried on the Nonantum Vale Gardens at Brighton from 1820 until 1845, where he received many visitors, among them noted men of that period. Mr. Warren travelled in Europe, delivering temperance lectures, and he also appeared on the American platform. He was one of those who went to California in '49, where he resided until quite aged. George George Washington Warren carried on a successful business at Washington g^ Washington Street up to 1843 when he removed to 192 Washington rV QTven . . . . removes to Street. It was at this time that the front of that building was changed IQ2 and the windows of the two upper floors enlarged and lengthened. H ashington ^,j[j._ Warren was the pioneer in Boston of the one-price cash system, and also of the employment of women clerks. With the crash of 1857 he failed, and the following year he was the company in the firm of William B. Barry & Company, and later became a buyer for Jordan Marsh Company which succeeded to the business. G. W. Warren later became superintendent for the agency of the New York Life Insurance Company and he was also interested in banking with Asa P. Potter. John A. Warren, who died about 1895, was also a salesman in the store of Jordan, Marsh & Company. G W. WARREN a CO, DEALtRS >.H DRY GOODS N?192 WASHINGTON ST. THE SITE OCCUPIED BY MACULLAR, WILLIAMS &. PARKER IN i860, AS IT APPEARED IN 1852 24 SITES 071 an OLD THOROUGHFARE THACHEK.SHAW 8: CO out i,roOS THE OLD MORTON BLOCK IN 1852 Site occupied by Macullar, IVilliams ^ Company in 18^4 Macullar, Williams iJ Company removes fro m Worcester to North Street, Boston EARLY DAYS OF AN OLD CONSERVATIVE FIRM In a shop — No. 35 — on the right-hand side of North Street going from Union Street was located in 1852 the firm of Macullar, Williams & Company. Addison Macullar, who in 1849 with George B. Williams and C. R. Moules opened in W^orcester a store for the sale of ready- made clothing at retail, was the founder. In 1854 the firm moved to 47 Milk Street — the present corner of Milk and Devonshire Streets ■ — and below Morton Place (now Arch Street) on the north side of Milk. During the financial panic of 1857, in order to dispose of their surplus stock of clothing, the firm moved to the Old Washington Coffee House building at 158 Washington Street. The old Coffee House had an interesting history. In the last decade of the eighteenth century it was run as a boarding-house and then stood at what was 37 Marlborough Street. It figured prominently in Boston's annals in the early years of the nineteenth century, when it was known as the Indian Queen Tavern, and was the stage house, or starting-point for the Groton and Leominster stages. About 1820 its name was changed to the Washington Coffee House and from it started a num- ber of stage routes. Among the stages which took on and left pas- sengers at this place were those which ran to South Boston, Bridge- SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 25 water, Randolph, Foxboro, Sharon, Medfield, Medway, Mendon, Woonsocket, Easton, Stoughton, and Taunton. Here, too, was the rendezvous of the Manufacturers Line of Providence Stages. It ceased to be a stage house in 1855. Macullar, Williams & Company in i860 removed to 192 Washington Street, and it was also in that year that Mr. Charles W. Parker became a member of the firm. The site, as has already been stated, had been occupied by George W. Warren & Company for the dry goods business. A large five-foot passageway, already mentioned, disappeared when 400 Washington Street front was built in 1864. Its site was about the centre of 400 Washington Street, where the store occupied by Macullar Parker Company now is. South of this in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the estate of the Marion family. In 1 741 Joseph Marion conveyed the property to John Erving, a wealthy merchant, who had a pronounced habit of acquiring other people's real estate through mortgages held by him. The property was extensive, and included five houses, four shops, a stable, yards and gardens, occupied by ten tenants. The most northerly of the houses was of wood, three stories high, and was occupied by numerous tenants during the last half of the eighteenth century. In 1792 it passed from the possession of the heirs of William, son of John Erving, to William Leach. The house had a frontage of nineteen feet on Marlborough Street, but its depth was about ninety feet. On the lower floor Leach had his saddler's shop. He lived on the floors above. Samuel Swett, a merchant, bought the property from Leach in 1805, and the same year he conveyed it to John Osborn who had begun his career as a painter on the site of the Crown Cofi"ee House on Long Wharf. Later Osborn became a prosperous merchant, taking up his residence in the Harrison Gray Otis house — now the headquarters of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities on Lynde Street. On his death Osborn left the Leach house to his daughter, Elizabeth, wife of Alexander Mactier of New York. Her trustee sold the house to Henry Sargent in 1842 at the same time he bought the Colson-Baker house. This gave him the ownership of the sites of the two buildings which have been occupied by Macullar Parker Company. The tenants of 198 Washington Street during the first half of the last century were numerous and varied. After Mr. Sargent bought The firm of Macullar, Williams i^ Company, at IQ2 Washington Street SITES 071 an OLD THOROUGHFARE 27 the property the wooden house was replaced by a brick structure, shown in the engraving of 1853. The store was occupied by John Fletcher, a tea merchant, whose business was absorbed by Redding & Company in 1847. George W. Redding and A. Williams, who had a book-store and a depot for Redding's Russia Salve at 8 State Street, carried on this tea business. At their store was Ar Show, a Chinaman, the first Chinaman to live in Boston. Above the tea-store was Mooney's hair-dressing rooms, and on the top floor John C. Haskell, a manufacturer, was established. Redding & Company w'ere succeeded at 198 Washington Street by Thomas Whytal, tea dealer, and Ar Show established himself at 21 Union Street. After the death of Henry Sargent the property at 196 and 198 Washington Street — a part of his estate — was ofi"ered for sale and purchased by the trustees of the Estate of Joshua Sears, who erected thereon a store building for Macullar, Williams & Parker. This building was destroyed in the Great Fire of Nov. 9, 1872 — a fire which broke out on Saturday night— just a year after the conflagration in Chicago. A historian tells the story — and it is a strange one — of a man, unknown in his day, who had informed himself concerning the material composing the roofs of the attractive stores in which the fire originated, and who wrote a letter of warning to one of the daily papers saying that if fire got among the buildings they would be devoured like so much chafi^. In condemning the Mansard roofs, he predicted that "when that dozen lumber yards on the roofs is once full of fire the devouring element will be taken, not in little sparks only, but by cords, into and upon every building within half a mile. Every window on the line of the gale will be beaten in by fiery brands to every place where there is wood for fire to catch upon, and fires will soon be rushing from fifty of those windows or roaring from the exposed wood. Such a fire (and it will surely occur) will stop just where there is no wood to burn. The earnest men of the fire depart- ment will be inefficient. There will come the story so lately told of Chicago: 'Awful conflagration! Boston in ruins! Thousands of homes in the burned portion of the city in ashes!'" This conflagration predicted did come — much to Boston's sorrow — and the story is frequently repeated. A horse epidemic had broken out, which crippled the use of engines, leaving men to draw them instead of beasts of burden. The flames raged for hours, sweeping the east side of Washington Street from Summer to Milk, and leaving only the white Henry Sargent once Owner of the Site Ar Show Boston's First Chinaman Buildiyig of Macullar, IF il Hams & Parker destroyed by the Great Fire of 18 J2 Prophecy concerning the Fire 28 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE marble fagade of iVlacullar, Williams & Parker's building standing. The Old South Meeting-house was injured but not destroyed. The present building occupied by Macullar Parker Company was erected after the fire, and its plan is practically the same as the one destroyed, with various improvements added. No. 398 Washington Street (formerly 192), the building adjoining, was vacated when the firm of Palmers & Batchelders retired from business, and this was annexed by Macullar, Parker & Company and a new department opened there. Macullar, Parker & Company purchased the Joshua M. Sears Estate in 1893. It is now owned by the Business Real Estate Trust of Boston. Numbered 200 Washington Street before the Great Fire of 1872, the site became 400 when Washington Street was extended to Haymarket Square. This concludes the review of the residents and changes in the locality where has been conducted for more than half a century the business of Macullar Parker Company. The site of the present building furnishes an excellent example of the changes Washington Street has undergone from the days of the first settler, through nearly three centuries of town and city life, to the present time. m CHRONOLOGY M JS49 Business established by Addison Macullar in Worcester, Mass. 1852 Mr. George B. Williams, a former clerk with Mr. Macullar, is taken into the firm, and Macullar, Williams & Company formed. A store is opened in Boston at 35 and 37 Ann (now North) Street, for the manufacture and sale of clothing at wholesale. 1854 The firm moved to 47 Milk Street. J857 In order to dispose of their surplus stock the firm took temporarily the Old Washington CoflFee House building at 158 Washington Street. This was the first large clothing stock to be exhibited on Washington Street. i860 The company removes to 192 Washington Street, the store formerly occupied by George W. Warren & Company. Mr. Charles W. Parker, for some years associated with the firm "as boy, book-keeper, and salesman," was admitted to the firm, the name being changed to Macullar, Williams &: Parker. 1864 Removed to new building at 200 Washington Street, erected for the company by the Joshua Sears Estate. This building was burned in the Great Fire of 1872. 33 Washington Street was occupied during the rebuilding. 1884 The adjoining store, 192-198 (now 392-398), was annexed. This is the site of the old Warren store previously occupied in i860. 1895 The business was incorporated as Macullar Parker Company. 1918 At the expiration of leases of the two stores the business was consolidated in 400 Washington Street, some 6,000 square feet being added by connecting the Hawley Street and Washington Street buildings at each of the five floors. MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY 19 I 8 James L. Wessox, President and Treasurer Hatherly Foster, Assistant Trcasnrer Ross Parker, ]'ice President Herman Parker, Clerk 30 3 1205 02528 6020 W3 rni^ THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. \CILITY III Series 9482