r \ 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW ENGLAND mSTORIC, 
 
 GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY'S HOUS^. 
 
 I 
 By tlic Rev. Edmund F. Slafter, A.M. 
 
 [From the Preface to the Hon. Chinles H. Bell's Dedication Discourse, Boston, 1871.] 
 
 wr" -"~~^»==^^"='^^=* _">.^ ^'^^^ rf">HE house is situated on an eligi- 
 
 X ble site in Somerset Street, north- 
 east of the Capitol, on the declivity of 
 Beacon hill. Its location is near the 
 valuable library of the Boston Athenas- 
 uni, the State Library at the State 
 House, the Record Office for deeds and 
 wills of Suffolk county, and the City 
 Hall. It was erected in 1805 for a 
 dwelling-house, and was so used until 
 it was purchased by the Society on the 
 rith of March, 1870. It is construct- 
 ed of brick, strongly built, four stories 
 in height by the original arrangement 
 of flats, having a front of twenty-nine 
 feet and five or six inches, and a depth 
 of foity-two feet and a fraction over, 
 with an extension in the rear of about 
 twenty-one or two by a little over thir- 
 teen feet. The front is faced with a 
 composition known as " concrete stone "; 
 ~«~^:is^i^*=- Msscu^mctuiisaMe it is uiade in blocks, and resembles a 
 
 grayish sandstone, while the heavy caps of the windows and doors, and 
 other tiimmings, are of sandstone from Nova Scotia. Over the entrance is 
 inscribed : — 
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 HISTORIC, GENEALOGICAL 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 There are three rooms on the first floor : the one in front is occupied at 
 present as a reception-room, where members of the Society may meet for 
 consultation and general conversation;* in the rear of this is the Directors' 
 Room, where they hold their monthly meetings and where the officers pre- 
 pare their correspondence. It is furnished with desks, cases and drawers 
 for their convenience. These two rooms have white marble fire-places, 
 with grates for open fires. The extension, nineteen and a half by eleven 
 feet in the clear, is constructed into a Fire-proof Room. It has double 
 walls of brick ; the floor and ceiling are also of brick and cement arched 
 upon iron girders of great strength, capable of resisting falling walls or 
 timbers in case of fire. It is furnished with slielves and a hundred and 
 twenty-one drawers for receiving the rare books and manuscripts belonginir 
 to the Society. 
 
 * Tliis room is now sliclved and used entirely for pamphlets. — Editor, 
 
x<. E. Hist. aeni. 3-^ 
 
 040 4jS""™ 
 
 On the secofwi floor there are :ilso tliroo rooms: one over the entrance 
 hall, and another oyer the Fire-proof Room, both used for the reception 
 and arrangement 06 books and pamphlets; the third has an area of forty 
 by twenty feet, ii\v\ contains that part of the library which is in most con- 
 stant use. The e.itire walls are lined with glazed cases of black walnut, 
 in whicii the books are protected from dust. It is furnished with tables and 
 desks for the convenience of tho .e who may resort to the library for his- 
 torical investigation. This room is known as the Library. 
 
 The third and fourth stories of the original structure are thrown into one, 
 and the whole area is occupied as a hall for the public meetings of the So- 
 ciety. It is agreeably lighted from the roof and by windows in front and 
 in the rear. A gallery, approached by an iron stairway, extends around 
 the entire hall. The walls above the gallery are line(i throughout with 
 shelves, which are filled with books less frequently called for. A dais rises 
 at the east end of the hall, which is occupied on public occasions by the 
 president and other officers of the Society, and tlu; readers of historical 
 papers. The cellar is dry and commodious for storage, and contains a large 
 furnace from which heat is conveyed to every part of the building. All the 
 rooms throughout the house are furnished with gas-fixtures and chandeliers, 
 by which abundant light is furnished whenever it is needed for reading or 
 writing. The cost of the property, including the reconstruction of the 
 house and its adaptation to the purposes of the Society, has been over 
 
 FOKTY-THREK THOUSAND DOLLAKS. 
 
 [An elaborate and carefully jirepared history of the Society's estate, in 
 Somerset street, from the first settlement of P.oston to the present time, by 
 the Rev. Mr. Slafter, will be found in the appendix to his " Quarter Cen- 
 tury Discourse," delivered before the society on the 18th of March, 1870, 
 pages 43 to 47. 
 
 The Society's House is on the west side of Somerset street, midway 
 between Ashburton place and Allston street, and is numbered eighteen. 
 In the adjoining house, the late Rear-Admiral Charles H. Davis, U.S.N. 
 [ante, xxxi. 340) was born, the two houses having been built in 1805, by his 
 father, the Hon. Daniel Davis, solicitor general of the commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts. Nearly opposite, on the east side of the street, stands the 
 house in which the Hon. James Lloyd entertained Lafayette as his guest in 
 1825. It is now a public house known as the " Somerset." A short distance 
 north, on the east side of the street and numbered 37, is a house in which 
 Daniel Webster at one time resided. On the same street, not far distant 
 to the south, will be found the editice erected, and, till within a few years 
 occupied, by the First Baptist Church ; and the Congregational House, in 
 which Tlie Congregationalist and The lAlerary World are published, and the 
 Congregational Library and various societies are located. Other objects of 
 interest in this vicinity are noticed in Drake's " Old Landmarks of Boston," 
 pp. 362-6.— Editor.] 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 0404184 % 
 
 Hollinger 
 pH S3