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X> '3 ^)Z; \:^i^ m^\^ 'jii>- :x> >-^ V .5> ~ 5> : ^ > » :^»,■y 1 ^^^-=^ 73>. » » »■ :5> - :» ".. > o ^ >.v ri^-iD. 'ZD ►•"3>-^v^> yy ' DO 3» T^> Z^/ZZ>r-''iI5 ► ^i> " Ki,2> i> ^ >^^ ^ 3!^ Zj> -'~2l!] > :x> ^)- :>> D ' D > 1 f^M ^ ■ _!-- >II> -^'i:* ► .::>) .3 ^vi.i > X y>y * . ''''':£j^ 3^> "3~^ y> ':n \ >:>> ^ :fy'l> ' 1 • ^^i"^'^ 5- > 3 >> j-v*^.- ^ ^^ ZZ^' II!3i^'- ^ ^2^ .IX> - > >^>III3 m^ ^ '3_ ~^ > > ^ rx> 3 >_. t:x> O " '^^ ^ 3 ^ -^ 13^5 ,3 -3 n^E**-"' ■^3 33 II3fe.* 3>33: HJi^" 3S>_ II35'^> 3 3t 3^ ' 1^ > -€>^ jy Z > 3 ^^ 3 3::> >3^ >3 ^ ^■3H: 35>:> 3^ :) 3 >:> 3 ^ x:>>r>3»3J :>c»>Z> 33=' > ":)->Z>3^"52 \ SKETCH OF THE CITIES OP BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE, BY G. E. ELLIS. o>SSHmGl^ LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1875. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by LITTLE, BKOWN, AND COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Cambridge : Press of John Wilsoji and Son. SKETCHES CITIES OF BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE. Boston, in Suffolk County, the capital of tlie State of Massachusetts, and the second city in commerce, wealth, banking capital and valuation, in the United States of North America. It lies at the bottom of Massachusetts Bay, and is one of many pear-shaped peninsulas formerly attached to the mainland only by narrow marshy necks, which fringed the shores of the Bay. The Charles River, once more than double its present Avidth, divides it from the similar promontory of Charlestown (the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill), on the other side of Avhich the Mystic River, uniting.with the Charles, flows into the harbor. The latest de- termination gives the latitude of Boston, 42"" 2V 27.6'' north, and 5° 59' 18" east longitude from Washington, and Tl'^ 3' 30" west from Greenwich. When it is noon in Boston it is four o'clock forty- four minutes and fourteen seconds at Greenwich, and thirty-six minutes past eleven at Washington, which is distant by railroad four hundred and fifty miles. The Indian name of the peninsula was " Shaw- mut," meaning "living fountains." When Gov- ernor John Winth'rop, Avith liis company, came over from England with the king's charter, to establish a government under it in the Bay, they reached Charlestown, as a temporary settlement, on June 17, 1630. Looking across the Charles, the Indian Shawmut presented to the e^^e an elevation nearly in its centre, Avith three distinct summit peaks, the remnants of the only one of which now remaining constitute the present Beacon Hill, so called from its ancient use as a signal warning station. These triple summits led to the substitution of the name " Trimountaine," or '^ Tremont," as the English designation of the whole peninsula ; a favorite title perpetuated in the name of a central street, an hotel, a theatre, a bank, a lecture-hall, &c. A single lonely white man, the Rev. William Blax- ton, a clergyman of the English Church, Avas then living, Avith house, orchard, and garden, on the slope of the central hill, supposed to have come OA'er in 1G23, one of several isolated settlers on the promontories and islands of the Bay, called " the old planters." He invited Winthrop's company to cross the river and build their cabins on his side, because of the purer and more abundant Avater- springs. On the records of the company Ave read, that at a court held in Charlestown, Sept. IT (x.s.), IGoO, '' It is ordered that Trimountaine shall be called Boston." This lias consequently been tlie date assumed for the foundation of what is now the present city, and the second centennial of which was commemorated b}^ public civic services, an oration by Josiali Quincy, a former mayor, then President of Harvard University, and a poem by the banker-poet, Charles Sprague. It is not prob- able that the peninsula was occupied till a month later. Blaxton, not finding the new-comers con- genial associates, sold out his rights to them in 1634, and moved elsewdiere. It has often been said, and has been Avidely accepted, that Boston received its name in compliment to the second minister of its first church, the Rev. John Cotton, formerly vicar of St. Botolph's, borough of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. This was not the case. The Rev. John Wilson, of King's College, Cam- bridge, and of Sudbury, in Suffolk, England, came in Winthrop's company, and was first pastor of the church. Cotton did not arrive till Sept. 4, 1633, three years after the name Boston had been adopted. Undoubtedly the name was chosen in compliment to the much honored Mr. Isaac John- son, one of the foremost in the enterprise, who, with his wife, the Lady Arbella, daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, came with Winthrop in a vessel bearing her name. Johnson was from the English Boston, as were also his associates, Atherton Hough, wdio had been mayor of the borough, and Thomas Leverett, " Ruling Elder " of the cliurch, who hud been an alderman. Some graceful courtesies have been exchanged in recent years between the two cities. The English Boston sent over a copy of her charter, framed in wood from St. Botolph's Church, and this now hangs in the city hall of the Massachusetts capital ; and some descendants of John Cotton, with members of his American church, through one of their number, Edward Ev- erett, then American Minister near the Court of St. James, united in a generous subscription to restore a chapel in St. Botolph's, and to erect a monumental tablet in it to the revered teacher. The sea-girt peninsula seems to have attracted the choice of the colonists as a place of settlement, because of its facilities for commerce and for de- fence. Its aboriginal occupants had previously been devastated by a plague, leaving it vacant. Some fifty years afterwards the settlei'S satisfied the claims of an Indian sachem, representing that his grandfather had been its proprietor. Had these settlers contemplated the enormous outlay of labor, skill, and money, which their posterity w^ould have to expend upon the original site to make it habita- ble and commodious, they might have planted themselves elsewhere. There was neither wood nor meadow on the peninsula ; but it might be defended from Indians and wolves, and, as one early visitor vainly imagined, from '' moskitoes." The surface was very abrupt, irregular, hilly, and undalathig, deeply indented by coves, and sur- rounded by salt-marshes left oozy by the ebbing tides, and separating the shores from the river channels. The peninsula contained less than one thousand acres, and the narrow neck, which joined it to the main, was often swept by spray and water. The widening of Charles River near its mouth, gored deeply into the northern side of the penin- sula, almost dividing it, and the waters were soon turned to account for a mill-pond. This was filled up by earth from the hills in 1807, adding more than fifty acres to the territory. Another broad cove on the southern side was filled in 1837, add- ing seventy-seven acres more. The Back Bay, so called, and all the flats on both sides of the original neck, have since been reclaimed for the various uses of a public garden, and squares, streets, dwellings, churches, schools, hotels, manu- factories, &c., constituting, in fact, a new citv, with many costly and elegant structures, on what was originall}^ the narrowest and most disagreeable, but is now the fairest and widest, portion of the primitive site. But whole forests from the State of Maine, and vast quarries of granite, and hills of country gravel, have been put to service in fring- ing the water margins, constructing wharves, piers, and causeways, redeeming the flats, and furnishing piling and solid foundations for the stately edifices, 8 private houses, halls, churches, and railroad sta- tions, principally bet^yeen Charles River and the old Dorchester fiats. From the first settlement, however, the ownership and occupancy of land by the citizens were not confined to the soil of the peninsula. The land needed for grazing, farming, and wood, on neighljoring promontories and islands was soon placed under the jurisdiction of Boston, for its '' inlargement." Portions of territor}^ thus added, were from time to time severed, and have since been re-annexed. Noddle's Island, now East Boston, was " layd to Boston," in 1637. It then contained C60 acres, with several hundreds more of flats and marsh, since reclaimed. It has a wharf 1,000 feet in length, for the English and Canadian steamers. Dorchester Neck and Point, containing 560 acres, were annexed as South Bos- ton, in 1804, and the neighboring Washington Village in 1855. The city of Iloxbury was an- nexed in 1868 ; the town of Dorchester in 1870 ; the city of Charlestown, and the towns of Brighton and West Roxbury, in 1874. The nine hundred acres of the original peninsula have been doubled on its own area ; while the present area of the city's jurisdiction covers 22,472 acres. The Avhole length of the original peninsula, from Roxbur}^ line to Winnisimmet Ferry, Avas two miles and a little more than three quarters ; its greatest breadth was one mile and 189 yards. The reclaimed territory is 9 raised to a uniform level, sufBciently high to se- cure it against freshets, and is well drained. While the original site still preserves to a large extent its irregularity of surface, and its undulations, some of its former steep eminences have been reduced or wholly removed. The highest eminence in the old territory is about 110 feet above the sea level. This w^ork of levelling, grading, and reclaiming has been done at vast expense. But greater has been the expense of widening and straightening the narrow and crooked highways, streets, thor- oughfares, and lanes of the first settlers, which are traditionally said to have been made by the cattle on their way to and from their pastures. This, next to the water-works, has been the occa- sion of the most considerable increase of the debt incurred by the city, somewhat relieved by assess- ments for betterment on abutting proprietors. It is believed that there has been a larger outlay of labor, material, and mone3% in reducing, levelling, and reclaiming territory, and in straightening and "widening thoroughfares in Boston, than has been expended for the same purposes in all the other chief cities of the United States together. The broad watercourses around Boston are now spanned by causewa3"s and bridges. East Boston only, that the harbor may be opened to the navy-yard, being reached by a ferry. The first bridge over Charlea River, that to Charlestown, was opened in 1786 ; 10 the West Boston bridge, to Cambridge, in 1793 ; the Western Avenue, a solid causeway to Brook- line, 7,000 feet long, in 1821. Boston has now to maintain sixteen bridges. Most of the railroads also have their bridGfes. Six of the islands in Bos- ton Harbor are the property of the city, and three more of them have been ceded to the United States for fortifications. The harbor islands, including rocks and shoals, are very numerous, rendering the navigation through the two channels very difficult, and easily guarded. But the harbor, when reached, is very secure. It is nearly fourteen miles deep, and eight miles wide, giving nearly sixty square miles of anchorage. These islands were for the most part heavily wooded when first occupied, and some of them were profitably used for grazing and pasturage. Since they have been stripped of their primitive growth for fuel and building material, it has been found impracticable to reclothe them with trees, on account of the roughness of the sea-air. The washing of the soil from the bluffs of many of them, to the great injury of the harbor, has in- volved large expense in the erection of sea-walls. The first settlers constructed rude defences, fre- quentl}^ repaired and extended, on Castle Island, two and a quarter miles from Boston. More for- midable works were raised here by an English engineer in 1701-3. The United States govern- ment has constructed elaborate fortifications on 11 :his site, now called Fort Independence ; Avhich, ivitli Forts Winthrop and Warren, on neighboring slands, offer formidable harbor defences. The irst light-house was erected in the harbor, on Bea- ton Island, 8^ miles from the town, near the jrreat Brewster, in 1716. This was destroyed luring the Revolutionary War, re-erected in 1783, ieded to the United States in 1790, refitted in 1856 md 1860, with a tower 98 feet high, fog horn, bell, ^c, and is now called the Outer Light. An inner ight-house was established on Long Island Head, n 1819, refitted in 1855. On the long spit, at the vestern extremity of the Little Brewster, stands ihe Bug, or Spit Light, erected in 1856. It is remarkable, considering the leading and ;onspicuous character which has always attached ;o Boston from the first English settlement of the :ountry, that it should have remained for nearly ;wo centuries under the simple form and adminis- tration of a town government, the same as that of :he smallest interior hamlets. Such a government, 3y all the citizens assembled in " town meeting " :o dispose all their affairs, was, however, found ■avorable to the development and prosperity of the iommunity. Here was trained a homogeneous copulation under peculiar institutions. Wealth slowly but steadily increased, through the Avhale md cod fisheries, the fur-trade, the sale of lumber md pitch, and a commerce largely with the West 12 Indies and elsewhere, — tliougli mucli impeded by the restrictions of the English navigation laws. Heavy exactions and drawbacks were found in the Indian and in the French colonial wars. Here began opposition to the measures of the British ministry, for oppressing and taxing the Colonies. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765, was repealed in 1766. The Tea Act, passed in 1773, was defied by the emptying of three cargoes of tea into the harbor, December 16, of the same j^ear, by a party in the guise of " Mohawk Indians." The port w^as closed by a British fleet, June 1, 1774. The British army evacuated Boston March 17, 1776, after having been beleaguered in it nearly a year. The constitution of the State was adopted here in 1780, midway in the war. Boston received a city charter in 1822. Its government is composed of a mayor, 12 aldermen, and a common council of 72 members, three from each of its 24 wards, annually elected by the citi- zens. There are commissioners for fire, water, health, and various other departments. There is a board of 12 overseei*s of the poor, with a commo- dious central building, connected with 12 charita- ble organizations, with which the board acts in concert. The board holds charity trust funds amounting to 8-312,183 : it expended in 1874 8101,591, and relieved 304 beneficiaries on its trust funds, and 9,762 other persons. 13 Pop^dation^ Valuation^ ^-c. The population of Boston, in 1708, was about 12,000 ; in 1719, about 18,000 in 1780, about 23,000; in 1800, 25,000; in 1850, 139,000 ; and, with Roxbuiy and Dorchester, in 1873, was 308,875. Charlestown brought Avith it 32,040 ; West Roxbury, 10,361 ; and Briohton, 5,978. The total, in 1875, must be rising 360,000. The valuation of the city in May, 1875, was $554,200,150 of real estate, and $244,554,900 of personal property, — total, $798,755,050. The value of the corporate public property is $30,787,292. The net city debt is $27,294,208. The number of public paupers, including insane, is 689, of criminals, 1,495. There are 58 banks of deposit and discount in the city, the capital of which is $52,900,000, and the circulation $27,074,396. The number of savings-banks is 21, with deposits of $73,322,368.56. Of fire and marine insurance companies, stock and mutual, there are 30, with four new ones in formation, besides life insurance companies, and those against accidents and for specific forms of prop- erty. The annual sale of merchandise in the city is estimated at a thousand million dollars. Coyiwierce. Boston has commercial relations with every part of the globe. In 1874, the gold value of its foreign imports was $49,522,547 ; of its exports of foreign merchandise, $2,084,257 ; and of its domestic merchandise, in currency, 14 ^27,035,169. There anivecl 617 American ves- sels from foreign ports, with a tonnage of 234,587, and 6,324 men ; of foreign vessels from foreign ports, 1,849, with a tonnage of 484,448 and 18,486 men. There cleared for foreign ports, 598 Amer- ican vessels, with 254,347 tons, and 6,606 men; and 1,882 foreign vessels, Avith 472,911 tons, and 17,995 men. The total tonnage of Boston, regis- tered and enrolled, on Dec. 31, 1874, was 331,266. Its commerce is slowly recovering from the effects of the war of secession. Great Fires. The buildings of Boston having from the first been largely of wood, — the use of which material for that purpose is now under severe restrictions, — and closely compacted, the old town suffered from frequent and disastrous conflagra- tions, several of which were successively described as " The Great Fire." There had been ten of these disasters, severe under the then existing circumstances, before the year 1G98. In 1711, the town-house and a meeting-house, both of l)rick, and a hundred dwellings w^ere destroyed. In 1760, a conflagration consumed 349 dwellings, stores, and shops, and rendered more than 1,000 people homeless. But these and all subsequent ones were eclipsed in their devastation by the disaster of Nov. 9-10, 1872, in which hundreds of costly warehouses, filled with goods, with banks, offices, churches, &c., were destro3'ed, though all of brick 15 or granite, involving a loss of over eighty millions of dollars. It is an evidence of the energy and resources of the citizens, that in a little more than two years after the catastrophe, the whole " burnt district," with widened and improved thorough- fares, was covered with solid, substantial, and pala- tial edifices combining all the safeguards, improve- ments and conveniences of modern skill. At least as large an amount has been expended on this restoration as was lost in the ruin. The fire de- partment has been made more efficient under the control of three commissioners. There are now in the city 29 steam fire engines and a fire boat in the harbor ; 11 hook and ladder companies ; 16 horse hose companies, a protective depart- ment, an insurance brigade, with wagons, &c., an alarm telegraph, and a system of signal boxes. Water Sui^ply, Though the first white settlers were drawn to Boston by its pure and abundant springs, the want of water resources was long felt till efficient measures were taken for a supply. The southern portion of the town was supplied at the beginning of this century by an aqueduct from Jamaica Pond in Roxbury. The works already constructed and still in progress fully meet the present and prospective demands. The waters from Cochituate Lake and its tributaries, from twenty to thirty miles from the city, flow^ed into it by gravitation, October 25, IS-IS. The storage • 16 reservoirs and the works have cost up to May, 18 75, $10,786,739. The length of the conduit of brick is 14|- miles, and of supply pipes of iron 262J miles. The annexation of Charlestown brought with it the waters of ]\Iystic Lake, the works for which had cost $1,147,902, with one and a half miles of brick conduit, and 127 miles of pipe, pumping engines and reservoir. Til"- jmhlic schools of the city are organized and supervised under the statutes of the State which make provision for free education by some com- pulsory enactments, subject to such special regu- lations as may be enjoined by the legislature. The legislature of 1875, by an act (chapter 241), introduced a change in the composition and functions of the School Committee. Hencefor- ward this board is to consist of twenty-four mem- bers, chosen by the citizens on general ticket, to be disposed in three sections of eight members each. After the close of the first year from the first election, eight members are to retire, and eight new members are to be elected, to serve for three 3'ears, all without compensation.. The board is to elect and fix the compensation of a secretary, an auditing clerk, and other necessary subordinate officers, and also of a superintendent of schools, and a board of not more than six supervisors. The mayor is to be, ex officio, chairman of the General Board, to which no other member of the 17 citj government can belong, and wliich shall have the whole management of the schools, choosing and fixing the compensation of all teachers, jani- tors, &c., but needing the authority of the City Council, before incurring an expense exceeding $1,000 for the purchase of land, or the erection or alteration of a building. Boston has now 9 high- schools, 49 grammar-schools, 416 primary schools, 25 evening schools, and industrial, licensed minors', deaf-mute, and kindergarten schools ; total, 499. The number of teachers employed is 1,289 ; of scholars, is 53,391. Cost of maintenance for tlie year ending May 1, 1875, 11,724,373.61. In the old city there is a Latin, English high, girls' high and normal school ; and in each of the municipali- ties that have been annexed there is a high school, where classical education is furnished. The puhlic buildings of Boston are very numer- ous, embracing those of the United States govern- ment, the State, the county, and the city. Most of them have been built within a few years, and are substantial and commodious, but, owing to the constant expansion and growth of the city, each of them in turn becomes contracted and needs en- largement or a substitute. The buildings con- nected with each of the railroad stations have been reconstructed for extension three or four times. The largest group of edifices and works is that of the United States Navy Yard, with docks, manu- 18 factories, foundries, machine shops, ordnance stores, rope-walks, furnaces, casting pits, timber sheds, ordnance parks, ship-houses, &c. The half of a very elaborate and costly edifice, the corner-stone of which was laid by President Grant, is now com- pleted and in use for the United States Post-Office and Sub-treasury. The other half, now in progress, Avill accommodate the United States Courts. There is also a custom-house, with bonded warehouses, and the United States Court-House. The State House, for the business of the legis- lature of the commonwealth, was built in 1798, and has been recently greatly extended. It stands on the highest land in the city, — what remains of the old Trimountaine summits ; has a gilded dome, fountains and statues on its lawn, with statues, busts, paintings, and trophies within. The edifice looks nobly down upon the " Common," so dear to the citizens of Boston. This park came with the original purchase from Mr. Blaxton, and en- closes forty-eight acres, with malls all around it, a pond, a fountain, a soldiers' monument, a deer park, and about 1,300 trees. An act of the legis- lature of 1875 protects it from being encroached upon in any way by the municipal authorities without a vote of the majority of the citizens. To the State also belong a court-house, and some of the newly reclaimed territory on the South Bay. To the county of Suffolk belong a jail, and court- 19 houses, municipal and probate. The State Prison is in Charlestown District. To the city, besides the school-houses, — which bear the names of honored citizens for many gen- erations, and of ex-maj-ors, belong a large num- ber of structures and appliances. The okl State House, so called, built for the British authorities in 1712, — the oldest public building now standing in the city, Christ Church, dedicated in 1723, com- ing next to it ; Faneuil Hall, famous for its patri- otic oratory, originally the gift of Peter Faneuil in 1743, used for '•'- town meetings," and enlarged in 1806 ; extensive market houses ; the City Hall ; the Public Library ; bath houses ; engine houses and armories ; the Public Garden on the new ter- ritory, highly ornamented, enclosing more than 21 acres, with a pond : city stables, &c. Statues in public places : in bronze, a fine equestrian statue of Washington, and those of Dr. Franklin, — born in Boston, January 17, 1706, — of Daniel Webster, Horace Mann, and Edward Everett ; of marble or granite, Washington, Alex- ander Hamilton, Governor Andrew, Columbus, Ai'istides, soldiers in the war of secession, and the monument commemorating the introduction of the use of ether, as an anaesthetic, first applied in the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Boston is fringed with substantial Avharves on all its water margins, for the most part covered 20 with massive warehouses. Horse rail-roads, or tram-Ways, make easy connections within its own limits, and with the suburbs. Steam roads open communication with the whole continent, in every landward direction. Successive experiments have been tried with the various materials and methods for paving the streets, and constructing sidewalks. The streets of the town were first named in 1708. The first map of the town, that of Bonner, was made in 1722. Overseers of the poor were first chosen in 1G91. .The superintendent of lamps has charge of 7,664 gas, and 976 fluid burners. The cost of gas to the city, for 1874, was ^275,064.35. There are 17 police-station houses and lock-ups ; the expense of that department was $683,892.78; of the health department $446,877.08; of the fire department $671,511.13; of the City Hospital $111,198.31; of penal and pauper institutions, $405,903.40. The cost of street widenings and extensions from 1822 to 1874 was $21,739,983.13, and in 1873-74, $6,403,413.76, reduced by ^' betterments," $283,697.50: tax assessed in 1874, $9,022,187,17. The revenue of the city was $23,633,874,06. There had been in the town and original city, eleven burial-places. Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, five miles distjint, enclosing 125 acres, was put to use in 1831. There have been more than 19,000 inter- ments in it. Five other suburban cemeteries are 21 now provided, and interments in the city are pro- hibited. The Public Library^ as an institution of the cit}-, was fostered by an enterprise initiated by i\I. Yattemare, in securing a gift of books from the city of Paris, in 1848. Acts of the legishiture, renewed and extended from 1848 to 1857, aided by the efforts of individual citizens and meetings of committees, with free and conditional gifts of money and of books, kept the object steadily in view. In 1852, Mr. Joshua Bates, born in Massa- chusetts, then of the firm of the Messrs. Baring, of London, made a gift to the city for the purpose of a library, of 150,000, subsequently adding various donations of books. The main hall of the library building bears his name, in commemoration of his munificence. The present spacious and solid struct- ure, which, however, already needs a second en- largement, was inaugurated for its uses, on January 1, 1858, with an address by Edward Everett. It cost, with the land, 8365,000. Large donations of money and of private libraries have since accrued from living benefactors, and by bequests. The names of Ex-Mayor Bigelow, of Abbott Lawrence, and Jonathan Phillips deserve mention for their pecun- iary gifts; while the libraries of Theodoi-e Parker, Edward Everett, and George Ticknor, have fur- nished most valuable acquisitions. Here i3 depos- ited the Prince Library, belonging to the Old South 22 religious society. The unique and rich collection, known as the Barton Library, of 12,000 volumes, including the magnificent Shakespearian treasures, was obtained in 1873. The edifice has been once enlarged, with efforts to render it fire-proof, and additional ground has been purchased at a cost of $70,000. The expense of its maintenance and care, in 1874, was $135,000. There are employed in it 103 persons. The number of volumes is about 280,000, besides pamphlets, MSS., and val- uable collections of engravings, including the Tosti, so called. Branch libraries are estabUshed for the convenience of the citizens, in South and East Boston, Dorchester,Roxbury, Brighton, and Charles- town ; and a system of other local deliveries has been initiated. Of churches^ and places of worship, in Boston, there are 163 for Protestants, 26 for Roman Cath- olics, and 3 Jewish synagogues. The Roman Catholics have a cathedral which will seat more than 4,000. The Unitarians have the largest number of Protestant churches. There are 112 public halls, which serve very miscellaneous uses of worship, debate, lecturing, society meetings, and amusement. Literary, learned, scientific, benevolent, and se- cret societies, represented by their own edifices, halls, libraries, and collections, are very numerous, and well sustained. Among these may be men- 23 tionecl the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society ; the Boston Athenaeum, with a very extensive libraiy, paint- ings, and statuary ; the New England Historic Genealogical Society; the Masonic Temple; the Odd Fellows' Hall ; the Mechanics' Association ; the Mercantile Library Association ; the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology ; The Boston College, Roman Catholic ; the Boston University, Methodist ; Young Men's Christian Union ; Young Men's Christian Association, with a sectarian con- dition ; Young Women's Christian Association ; the Natural History Society ; the Horticultural Society ; the INIarine Society ; the Boston Library Society ; the Music Hall, with its great organ ; the Harvard IMedical School, and Warren Museum ; the State Library ; the Law Library ; the General Theological Library ; the Art Museum, &c. There are four theatres in the city : the Boston, the Globe, the Howard, and the Museum. Hospitals, asylums, and refuges, chiefly founded and sustained by private benevolence, and gener- ously administered, provide, for the most part gratuitously, for the various ills and maladies of humanity. Of these, besides the City Hospital, may be mentioned the Massachusetts General Hos- pital, with its branch for the insane, the McLean Asylum, in a suburb ; the Orphan Asylum ; the Perkins Institution for the Blind ; the Eye and 24 Ear Infirmary ; the Consumptives' Home ; tlie Carney Hospital ; the Homoeopathic Hospital ; the School for the Idiotic and Feeble-minded; the Ly- ing-in Hospital ; the Temporary, Washingtonian, and Appleton Homes ; Hospitals for Women, Chil- dren, and Inhmts ; Homes for Aged Men, for Aged Women, and for Colored Women, for Little Wanderers ; a Children's Mission ; House of the Angel Guardian : Commissioners of Foreign j\Iis- sions, &c. The city institutions for paupers, the insane, and criminals, are in South Boston and on Deer Ibland. Kinety years after the settlement of the town of Boston, Daniel Neal, of London, wrote a de- scription of it, returning from his visit. In this he says : '' The conversation in this town is as po- lite as in most of the cities and towns in England, many of their merchants having travelled into Europe ; and those that stay at home having the advantage of a free conversation with travellers; so that a gentleman from London would almost think himself at home at Boston^ when he observes the Numbers of People, tlieir Houses, their Furni- ture, their Tables, their Dress and Conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as tliat of the most considerable Tradesmen in London." Though in the succession of visitors from abroad, particularly from England, who have followed Mr. Neal, there have been a few who have found matter 25 for satire and depreciatory criticism in their accounts of Boston, of its citizens, their habits, &c., the great majority of its foreign guests, especially if their own manners and errands have recommended them, have written in a similar strain. They have found here much to learn and enjoy, and to remem- ber with pleasure. Cultivated Englishmen, par- ticularly those who have visited Boston in recent years, to obtain or to impart information, have found themselves at home here. The supposed conceit of its citizens over their own distinctive qualities or advantages, has led to some pleasant banter from at home and abroad, in characterizing the cit}^ as the "Athens of America," or, *' The Hub of the Universe." The develoj)ment, growth, and increased popu- lation of the city, imder the liberal social influences, and the changes of opinion and habit, which in no part of the wbrld are more marked and active than here, have, of course, wholly displaced the original homogeneousness of its people, and the peculiarly Puritan character of the tone and customs of life. Its large foreign population make, in traditions, habits, social relations, and religion, a nation within a nation. The unfamiliar names which appear on the signs of shops and dwellings ; the relaxed usages as regards the observance of Sunday, and the indulgence in amusements, lai'ge personal free- dom, &c., have made Boston, substantially, a cos- 26 mopolitan city. Those now living remember when a person who ventured to smoke a cigar or a pipe in the street would have fallen into the hands of a constable. When the travel in the streets is annually obstructed by an elaborate procession, mounted and on foot, on " St. Patrick's Day," and when a cardinal, with other officials from the court of Kome, comes hither to consecrate an archbishop in a cathedral, it is diflicult to recall the virgin promontory, and the English exiles, with which this article began. Cambridge, a city in the County of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts. It lies on Charles River, three miles N. W. of Boston, with which it is con- nected by two bridges, wdth long causeways, and by horse railroads, or tramways. It is the seat of Harvard University, the oldest, richest, and most thoroughly equipped literary institution in the United States. Connected with the University is an observatory, latitude 42"^ 22' 48" north, and Tl'^' 8' west longitude. Under the name of Newtown, a settlement was made on its territory, then much more extended than at present, by some of the first company of English colonists on Massachusetts Bay, in 1630. It was then proposed to make it the capital of the colony ; but the neighboring peninsula of Boston was found more convenient for commerce, and defence a2;'ainst the Indians. 27 The order of the colony court in 1636 having pro- vided for phmting a college at Newtown, its name was changed to Cambridge, in honor of the English University town, where some of the leading men of the colony had been educated. The first com- pany of settlers, bemg Mr. Hooker's church and congregation, moved to Connecticut in 1036, to find\etterfarm land. Their rights Avere purchased by another body of colonists, just arrived from England. The present site of the college halls was originally '^ fortified " by palisades, within which the settlers found protection at night for themselves and their cattle against a possible in- road of the savages. Here was set up the first imnting-press in the United States, and from it issued "john Eliot's translation of the Bible, for the Indians, into their own language. Under the title of "Cambridge Farms," the present town of Lexington, incorporated as such in 1712, was a part of the original town. ^ The town of Brighton, now annexed to the city of Boston, formerly South Cambridge, or Little Cam- bridge, was set off by its present name in 1807 ; andUie west part of the original settlement, known as Menotomy, was set off in the same year, as West Cambridge, now known as Arlington. Be- tween this place and Cambridge is North Cam- bridge ; and the districts of the city nearest to Bost^'on, by the two bridges, are called Cambridge- 28 port and East Cambridge. Cambridge was incor- porated as a city in 1846. It is for the most part level, with much marsh land near the river, por- tions of which are in process of being reclaimed. The cemetery of Mount Auburn is on the western border of the city. The population of Cambridge in 1874 was 50,337 ; the number of polls for voters, 11,983 ; of dwellings, 7,383. The valuation was : of per- sonal property, 817,532,971 ; of real, 149,043,700 ; total, $66,576,671. The net debt of the city, in- curred for water-works, streets, school-houses, and other improvements, is $3,792,135. The city ap- propriation for 1874 was $2,771,508. Total cost of the water-works, $1,399,396. The police de- partment, with 60 officers, cost $71,710 ; fire de- partment, $97,355 ; filling up low lands, $650,000. The average number of paupers, 129 ; net cost of their maintenance, $38,000. Cost of street light- ing, $20,157. The system of public schools is very complete and efficient, including a high-school, 7 grammar - schools, 18 primaries, and a training school, 183 teachers ; cost of maintenance, $260,187.47. Cambridge was the site of the camp of the first American army, at the outbreak of the War of the Revolution with Great Britain. From it went the detachment which intrenched on Bunker's Hill ; and here Washington took command of the army, July 3, 1775. 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