Boston of to-day; a glance at its history and characteristics. With biographical sketches and portraits of many of its professional and business men

Front matter

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Table Of Contents

I. BY WAV OF INTRODUCTION:

A Glance at the History of Boston — Its Development from

THE Little Commercial Town to the Great Modern City . i

II. Boston's Business Interests

'IRADE AMI LU:\111ERCE A HALF-CENTURV AGO AND NOW.

T^HERE are few men in active business life in the ^ Boston of To-day who can recall at all clearly the general outlines even of the Boston of half a century ago, and fewer still who can trace in detail the various and remarkable changes which have transformed the bustling little town of that time into the great city of to-day. In 1840 the three initial railroads, the Lowell, the Providence, and the Worcester, had been in operation but five years, up to which time the Middlesex Canal to tide-water at Clinton street, the "wonder of its day," ' had flourished, and the chief system of internal communication had consisted of numerous lines of stage-coaches and baggage-wagons, employing some thousands of fine horses. The first Cunard steamship had appeared in the harbor, and regular Atlantic steamship service had just begun. East Boston, which as late as 1833 had but one dwelling, had only recently been laid out in lots by the East Boston Company, chartered in that year ; South Boston had less than five thousand inhabitants, distantly removed, save by tollbridges, from Boston proper ; and the narrow peninsula on which Boston was crowded was reached from the neighboring places by only one free road, that over Roxbury Neck.

Of the aspect of the town at the beginning of the period from 1830 to 1840 a graphic picture was given in the interesting report of Edward J. Howard, secretary of the old Board of Trade for the year 1880, marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the town. The area of the city had not been materially enlarged for a hundred years. Harrison avenue was then known as Front street (the name of Harrison was given it in 1841 in honor of General Harrison), and from Beach street to the old South Boston bridge was lined with wharves, where cargoes of wood, grain, and other commodities were landed and sold. There were but five houses between what is now Dover street and the Roxbury line. Lands east and west of Washington street, and a portion of the Common, were utilized for the pasturing of cows ; what is now Causeway street was an irregular and unbroken highway. On Beacon hill were the residences of the

In traffic in 1S03. It extended from Chelmsford, now I.owcll, and water Oir north as Concord, N.H. It con-

BOSTON OF TO-DAY.

newer aristocracy — along Beacon street, between the State House and Charles street, Hancock avenue, Louisburg square, Mt. Vernon, Walnut, Chestnut, Pinckney, Hancock, Temple, Bowdoin, and Somerset streets, on the western and southern slopes of the hill; the older aristocracy still clinging to their stately dwellings on Tremont, Winter, Summer, Franklin, Atkinson (now Congress), Federal, High, and Purchase streets, Otis place, and even Washington square on Fort hill, which was described in a weekly newspaper of the time as " a very princely quarter." Dock square was then the business centre of the town, the principal mercantile streets being Court, Cornhill, Washington, HaiiDxcr, Tiiion, State, North and South Market streets, Men hants row, Chatham, Blackstone, Commercial, India, Broad, Central, Doane, Water, Congress, Kilby, and Milk streets, and Liberty square.

The hotels were few and primitive, with the single exception of the Exchange Coffee House, at the corner of State and Congress streets, built on the site of the greater and grander one burned on the night of the 3d of November, 18 18,' where business men gathered on all public occasions ; but solid comfort and good cheer were ever to be found within their hospitable walls. The Eastern Stage House in Ann (now North) street, with its porte cochere, was the most venerable. Then there were the Earles' Coffee House on Hanover street, where the American House now is, through whose arched portals the Albany stage started once a week ; the Lamb Tavern on Washington street, where.the Adams House now stands, and the Lion next, its site now covered by the Bijou Theatre ; the old Marlboro, on Washington, between Winter and Bromfield streets.

ginal Exchange Coffee

More th.iii $51.1.000 were from the ground lioor t< the rooms of tlie hotel, change, but it w.i- not i:

with its painted sign of " St. George and the Dragon ; " the Bromfield House on Bromfield street ; the Mansion House and the Commercial Coffee House on Milk street ; the Bite Tavern on Faneuil Hall square ; and the old Hancock Tavern near by on Corn court.

It was between the years 1820 and 1840 that the town enjoyed its greatest prosperity in foreign and domestic commerce, leading all its rivals in the extent and richness of its trade. Then great fortunes were made by the merchants and shippers engaged especially in the China and East India trade, the spacious and secure harbor sparkled with shipping from the great ports of the world, and the wharves were crowded with vessels discharging and receiving cargoes. The principal wharves, lined with substantial warehouses, Long, Central, and India, were owned by corporations ; and so extensive were the shipping interests at the port during this period and for some years after, that wharf property was the most remunerative real-estate pro])erty in Boston, several wharves netting an annual income of from §20,000 to $60,000.

The old methods of doing business contrasted strangely with those of to-day, for the merchant had his counting-room in his warehouse and personally superintended the sale of his goods, with the quality and value of which he was supposed to be most familiar. Merchandise brokers were scarcely known then, for with their conservative ideas the solid men of the Boston of that time held fast to the secrets of their trade. Their counting-rooms bore no trace of the showiness and splendor which mark the business offices of the merchants of to-day. There were no carpets, steam heat, bric-a-brac, luxuriously upholstered chairs and rolltop desks in those old-time counting-rooms, nothing but the severely plain furniture and fittings required for the actual transaction of business. " And yet," says Howard, " there was a mercantile aristocracy in those days. . . . We had merchant princes then. There were Perkins, Lyman, the Appletons, the Grays, the Lawrences, the Cunninghams, the Joys, Boardmans, Bryant, and Sturgis, the Hoopers, and a host from MarbWhe&d, Salem, Gloucester, and Newburyport, who came to the front with their names and their checks when difficulties shadowed the metropolis."

Provincial as were the old methods, the fame of her merchants extended far beyond the narrow limits of the Boston of that day, and their transactions covered a wide field. In 1830, Boston having absorbed the commerce which up to that time she had shared with Salem, Beverly, Marblehead,

BOSTON OF r()-I)A\'

Gloucester, and N ewburyport, had become the commercial capital of New England in fact as well as name ; and as the foreign commerce at that time was mainly limited to New England, her supremacy as a commercial power was unquestioned. " Then, with the development of our domestic manufactures during the decade 1830-1840," says Howard, "we emphatically impressed the markets of the world and successfully competed with England even within her own dominions, as we did a score of years later with our clipper ships when we nearly controlled the freighting commerce of the world." In was in 1844, four years after the establishment of the Cunard line, that Enoch Train started his line of famous packet-ships between Boston and Liverpool to meet the demands of the increasing trade between the two ports, and to supply the freight service which could not be furnished by the steamships then designed chiefly for passengers and mail service. Several of the finest ships of the line, remarkable for their excellent sailing qualities, were built at East Boston, and it speedily eclipsed the celebrated New York lines, which heretofore had monopolized the business.

Then began the building of the magnificent fleet of Boston freighting ships employed in the Southern, South American, and West Indian trade, and in that of California after the discovery of gold; "a fleet that for twenty years," says Howard, "challenged the admiration and competition of the commercial world." Great ship-building yards were established in East Boston and South Boston, notably those of Donald McKay, Daniel D. Kelley, and E. and H. O. Briggs, and many of the finest and speediest ships ever built were launched from them. During this decade, from 1840 to 1850, "the coast of .Africa trade and that of the Western Islands centred here. We had by far the largest trade between .America and Russia. . . . We monopolized the trade with Manila, the coast of Sumatra, Bombay and Calcutta, Valparaiso and Buenos .Ayres, and had only Baltimore as a competitor for the Rio trade. . . . Boston at this time had a large trade direct with Holland and the south of F^urope. The salt trade with St. Ubes anu Cadiz was very large, but the Mediterranean and Straits trade was the most important of our European commerce. The arrivals from Bordeaux, Marseilles, Trieste, Messina, Palermo, Malaga, and Smyrna were the largest in number next to those of the West Indies, from foreign ports. . . . Except, perhaps, for one or two months in the year, it was almost impossible to find an unoccupied berth at any of the wharves from Charlestown bridge to Fort hill, and in busy months the vessels would lie three deep at the dock, while in the stream there were hundreds awaiting a berth to discharge at."

Then came the great changes wrought by the rapid development of railroad systems in the West (largely through Boston capital) as well as in the East ; the supplanting of sailing-vessels by steam ; the shifting of leading commission houses, and later much of the foreign trade, from Boston to New York, which had been quicker to recognize the newer ficilities for transportation and to adopt them ; and finally the Civil War. With the development of the new systems of transportation newer business methods, in place of those which served so well the merchants of the earlier periods, were demanded ; greater and broader enterprise. After a season of painful hesitation the situation was grasped, and the business abilities of Boston merchants and capitalists were again displayed in various directions. As a result, in course of time all branches of trade expanded, and the area of the city proper was extended to meet the demand for larger accommodation within the business quarters. During the decade from i860 to 1870 the costly Hoosac Tunnel," into the building of which the State was drawn, was pushed towards completion, early in the next decade opening up a new avenue to the West ; the consolidation of the Boston & Worcester and the western railroads (in 1867) into the present Boston & Albany^ directly aff"ected the interests of the city and increased its foreign exports ; and the revival two years later of the Grand Junction Railroad, with its docks at East Boston, — chartered in 1847, opened in 185 1, the year of the great Railroad Jubilee,^ and originally intended to connect the railroad lines centring in the city, — proved another valuable addition to the facilities of the city for the transaction of its trade and commerce. New steamship lines, foreign and coastwise, were also established and terminal facilities improved. The levelling of Fort hilP (begun in 1869), and the

' See chapter on Railroads.

2 See chapter on Railroads.

3 To celebrate the opening of railroad communication between Boston, the Canadas, and the West, and the establishment of steam. ship lines to Liverpool. It continued through three days, — the 17th, iSth, and iqth of September, 1851. It was attended by Lord Elgin, then the governor-general of Canada, and his suite, President Fillmore and members of his Cabinet, and other men of distinction in Canada as well as the United Suites. There were receptions, parades, trades processions, a grand dinner under a pavilion on the paradeground and Charles.street mall of the Common, and a brilliant night illumin.ation of the city.

< The second of the three "great hills" of Boston, originally about eighty feet in height, with rugged bluffs on its north and east sides, .and easy slopes on the town side. Here the tirst fortifications wercv erected by the colonists, hence its name. Here in April, 16S9, Sir Edmund Andros, " governor of New England," sought shelter from the incensed colonists whose rights he had usurped, and forced to

BOSTON OF TO-DAY.

building of Atlantic and Eastern avenues along the water-front, an enterprise that was at first much opposed, changed materially that section of the city, and furnished one of the finest commercial thoroughfares, in the country.

The marked impetus to the business of Boston given by all these enterprises and changes was sharply checked by the disastrous fire of 1872, and the long period of business depression which the country at large suffered from 1873 to 1877. The "Great Fire of 1872," — as the event of the night of Saturday the 9th of November that year is to be known in our local history, — which burned over about 65 acres in the heart of the business quarter comprising 30 streets, swept through the great wholesale domestic and foreign dry-goods district, that of the wool trade, of the hides, leather, and shoe, of the ready-made clothing, and of the hardware ; burned out 960 firms, a third of this number in the dry-goods trade alone; destroyed 776 buildings, including several of the finest business blocks in the city, and the picturesque old stone church of Trinity on Summer-street ; and caused a property loss conservatively estimated at $75,000,000. This was one of the most trying periods of the commercial history of Boston. During the depression there was an almost unprecedented shrinkage in values ; money was scarce, rates of interest ranged exceptionally high. It was a severe test, but it was bravely met. Within a year the "Burnt District " was largely rebuilt with finer, safer, and more substantial structures than those which had been swept away, and great street improvements in the quarter were advanced — • Washington, Summer, Congress, Federal, Milk, Hawley, .Arch, and Water streets were widened ; Arch was also extended ; Pearl, Franklin, and Oliver were extended ; and Post-office square was laid out ; the city expending in the entire undertaking more than three and a quarter millions. With the revival of business succeeding the long depression, a period of great prosperity and development began. New life was given to the organizations of merchants. The Shoe and Leather Exchange, reorganized and strengthened, established itself in new rooms on Bedford street. In 1879 the Furniture Exchange was established and brought into direct communication with furniture exchanges of other cities. With the

The hill ivas used for i iitinn. Its slopes were e summit surrounded by trees ^ small square surrounded by j the hill.

n a circular plot of ground on t own as Independence square, arehouses now marks the site rapid advancement of building operations the Master Builders' Association, now established in its own building. No. 164 Devonshire street, was formed ; and the Mechanics' Exchange was enlarged and extended. In 1885 the great Chamber of Commerce was organized by the union of the Commercial and Produce Exchanges ; and at the same time the Fruit and Produce Exchange, with quarters in the Quincy Market-house. In 1890 the Real Estate Exchange was organized. Other organizations which have grown in strength and importance in recent years are the Coal Exchange, with quarters at No. 70 Kilby street ; the New Englainl Metal .\ssociation. No. no North street ; the ()il Tr.ulc Association, No. 149 Broad street ; the Druggists' Association, No. 307 Washington street ; the Earthenware Association, No. 5 1 Federal street ; the Paper Trade Association, No. II Otis street; the Stationers' Association, No. 122 State street; the Fish Bureau, No. 3 Long wharf; the Wholesale Grocers' Association, No. 200 State street ; the Board of Fire Underwriters, No. 55 Kilby street. Meanwhile the number of clubs of merchants increased; and the Merchants' Association, representing different lines of trade, with its committees on arbitration, on transportation, on debts and debtors, and to investigate failures, was formed from members of many leading firms. While in some branches of business Boston has lost through natural and unavoidable causes the supremacy it once had, in others — such as the wool, in which its trade exceeds that of any other city, the leather, boot and shoe, clothing and clothing manufiicture, furniture, metal and metallic goods, machines and machinery, produce, food preparations, and printing and publishing — it still leads and is likely to maintain its position. The number of manufacturing and mechanical establishments in the city, shown by the latest State census, that of 1885, was 5,199, the total amount of capital invested in them, $73,346,258, and the value of the goods made and work done, $144,376,206 ; since that time the growth and expansion has been steady, and the figures of to-day must show a very marked increase. The combined cost of the new buildings erected in 1891 was $10,568,800, which has been exceeded but twice, in 1873 and 1874, the years immediately following the Great Fire.

The total value of imports at the port of Boston in 1891 was about $70,000,000, and of exports, $81,- 400,000. The ocean steamship lines now running regularly are the Cunard, the Leyland, and the ^^'arren, to Liverpool ; the Anchor and the Furness, to London ; the Anchor and the Allan, to Glasgow ; the Wilson, to Hull ; and the White Star, to Antwerjj.

BOSTON OF TO-DAY.

III. Trade Centres

RETAIL, WHOLESALE, AND EINAXCLAL QUAKIERS, PAST AXD PRESENT.

ONE result of the " Great Fire of 1S72," and of the growth of the various branches of trade during the prosperous period succeeding the business depression of 1873-7, was a shifting of business centres. A generation ago the dry-goods merchants, both wholesale and retail, were mostly established in the lower part of Washington street, Tremont row, Court and Hanover streets. Boston was at one time the chief dry-goods market of the country, and as the mills grew in number more territory was required, and the wholesale trade moved into large granite stores on Milk, Kilby, and Atkinson (that part of the present Congress street south of Milk) streets, and Liberty square. Subsequently Pearl street was occupied until it was crowded out by the leather trade ; and then its present quarters on Devonshire, Summer, and Franklin streets, Winthrop square, Chauncy, Kingston, and Bedford streets, were established.

The retail dry-goods trade for many years centred on Hanover street when that thoroughfare was nearest the residential parts of the town. Then it worked southward, until to-day it extends from Scollay square to Boylston street, the greater establishments occupying choice positions on Washington, Winter, and neighboring streets. With other retail shops it has invaded the quarters long reserved for the best dwellings, — Tremont street facing the Common, Beacon street at one end and Boylston street at another. The popular retail shopping district now embraces, besides Washington and Tremont streets between the points above named. Park, Winter, and parts of Summer streets, Tem]5le place and West street, and is pushing down Boylston street into the sacred precincts of the Back Bay district, cutting into the fine sweep of comfortable dwellings on the slope of Beacon hill opposite the Common, and crowding residences from Beacon street opposite the Public Garden.

The ready-made clothing trade, an immense industry to-day, is the outgrowth through various stages of sailors' outfitting establishments. Originally it was confined to the North End, but when John Simmons, of Quincy Market hall, and George W. Simmons, we are told, first advanced the character of the trade to a mercantile standard, it followed the dry-goods trade, and is now established in the quarter which that in part occupies.

The shoe and leather industry, for which Boston has been from the beginning the market centre, began to assume large proportions as far back as 1830. For many years the American House, built in 1835, was the headquarters of the trade, and Fulton street was the business centre. In 1 849 the trade began to move southward into Pearl street, then mainly occupied by wholesale dry-goods houses ; and within a short time this section became its new centre. Then block after block of dwelHngs on High street were levelled to make room for warehouses. After the fire of 1872, which wiped out the district, it was rebuilt, and for several years the trade continued to cling to it. Then a tendency towards Summer street about and beyond old "Church green" was taken; and later the trade spread into Lincoln and South streets, where a number of fine building blocks have been in recent years erected. This section, which is now the centre of the trade, is within easy reach of four large railroad lines, and near by is the Shoe and Leather Exchange, where trade reports are regularly bulletined during business hours, established in one of a group of buildings remarkable for their solidity and architectural finish.

The great wool trade is to-day mostly concentrated on Federal, Pearl, and High streets ; the paper trade, which has developed extensively during the past forty years, on Federal street and its vicinity ; in the same neighborhood, principally on Federal and Franklin streets, is the crockery trade, which miports large quantities of goods for inland distribution ; on Milk street and its vicinity the wholesale drug trade ; and on Fort Hill square and its neighborhood the iron trade and the hardware trade, which before the fire of 1872 was confined chiefly to Dock square (now lost in Adams square) and its vicinity.

The wholesale grocery, fish, salt, and the flour and grain interests still hold fast to their old quarter, including Commercial, India, Broad, and adjacent streets near the water-front ; the produce trade is mainly on South Market, Chatham, and Commercial streets ; the headquarters of the provision trade are in Commerce street and the streets about Faneuil- Hall Market ; the jobbing foreign fruit trade is on Merchants row, Chatham, and South Market streets and their neighborhood ; and the great tea, coffee, and sugar interests are on Broad street and its immediate vicinity.

The financial centre, as in the early days, is still State street, although the banks are scattered over the business sections of the city. But within the compact territory bounded by State, Washington,

RICHARDS BUILDING.

BOSTON OF TO-DAY.

Milk, and Broad streets, or its immediate neighborhood, the greater number of leading banks are found ; and the private banking-houses, the trust companies, the safety- vaults, the offices of the stockbrokers, the insurance agencies, the real-estate brokers and agents, the financial offices of the great Western railroad companies which are established here in Boston, and the Stock Exchange.

IV. Railroads

DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT LINES CEN'IKING IN BOSTON THE STREET-CAR SYSTEM.

THE great railroad industry which in the past two decades has assumed such vast proportions and has accomplished so much in the development of the country and its resources, vastly increasing its prosperity and binding sections together, had its origin here in Boston. It seems almost incredible that within the memory of men yet in active life, there was not a single railroad in all the United States, and that all means of transportation for both passengers and freight were by the stage-coach, baggage-wagon, the packet-ship, the coaster, or the canal-boat. New York City and Albany were distant from Boston by a three days' journey, and the trip was attended by much discomfort and not a little danger.

The project of establishing a canal from Boston westward through the State to the Connecticut river and thence to the Hudson, to overcome the effect of the canal enterprises of New York which in the twenties were drawing trade, both domestic and export, in that direction and away from this port, had long been talked of, and in 1825 a State commission was established to ascertain the practicability of making such a canal. This commission made a voluminous report the following year, presenting the results of surveys and estimates of cost, but no action was taken ; and the same year the idea of the railroad was substituted for that of the canal, one result of the enterprise of Gridley Bryant, aided by the financial support and public spirit of Col. T. H. Perkins, both Boston men. This was the construction and opening of the " Granite Railway " for the purpose of conveying granite from the Quincy quarries to the water. Although this pioneer railroad, the first built in the country, was, with its branches, but four miles long, constructed in a primitive fashion, and operated by horse-power, it was the germ from which the perfected systems sprung. Petitions from Boston now appeared in the Legislature for surveys on the part of the State for a railway to the Hudson, and with much hesitation were finally granted. But although surveys were speedily begun, it was not until after four years of discussion that anything practical was accomplished. Two entire routes were surveyed, one, the southern, following nearly the line of the present Boston & Albany, and the other much the same route as the present Fitchburg Railroad. The commissioners reporting upon them invariably proposed a railroad operated only by animal-power, the final report, that of 1829, recommending a double-track line, the space between the rails to be graded for a horsepath. At length, in 1830, petitions for the incorporation of private railroad companies were filed in the Legislature, and that year the first charter was granted, that of the Boston & Lowell ; and the next year the Boston & Worcester and the Boston & Providence were chartered. Thus the State happily was kept out of the railroad business into which it had been in danger of drifting.

Of the great systems now centring in Boston, the Boston cr' Albany is entitled to first mention, as it includes the line first opened. The charter of the Boston & Worcester became law on June 23, 1 83 1 . The corporation was empowered to construct a railroad in or near Boston and thence to any part of Worcester. The capital stock was 10,000 shares, at par value of Sioo each. On the 1st of May, 1832, the corporation was formally organized. The length of the road according to surveys was about 43^^ miles, and the estimated cost, including equipment (the road-bed to be graded for a double track), was $883,000. On the 15th of March, 1833, the directors of the Worcester line were individually incorporated as the Western Railroad Corporation, with authority to locate and construct a railroad from the Worcester terminus to the Connecticut river in Springfield, and thence across the river to the western boundary of the State in a direction towards the Hudson. The capital stock was to consist of not less than 10,000 or more than 20,000 shares of $100 par value. Thus from the first the Boston & Worcester controlled the charter of the Western. In the meantime the New York Legislature incorporated the Castleton & West Stockbridge Railroad Company to construct a road from Castleton, N.Y., nine miles below Albany, to the State line at West Stockbridge. Two years later the name was changed to the Albany & West Stockbridge, with authority to extend the line to Greenbush, across the Hudson iOSTON OF TO-DAV.

STATION OF BOSTON & MAINE RAILROAD — WESTERN DIVISION.

from Albany. In May, 1834, the Boston & Worcester was partially opened for travel (to Newton only), the cars drawn by English-built locomotives, thus having the distinction of being the first steam railroad operated in New England. The line was completed to Worcester on the 4th of July the following year, and the event was duly celebrated on the 6th with a dinner and speeches. The road was constructed by engineers who had never seen any of the English roads, and many original devices were followed. Not only were the earlier locomotives imported from England, but the men to run them. American locomotive works, however, were soon established, and during the very first year of the operation of the Worcester road an American-made locomotive was placed upon its tracks and performed efficient ser\'ice. In 1841, on the 4th of October, the Western road was completed from Worcester to the New York line, the Connecticut-river bridge having been finished on July 4th; and on the 21st of December following the connecting link in New York to .Albany was completed, and on that day trains were run, thus opening a direct rail line from Boston to Albany. This important event was commemorated in March, 1842, by a meeting of the executive officers of the States of Massachusetts and New York and other prominent men at the Town Hall in .Springfield. At the banquet notable speeches were made, and one toast, which has gone into history, was that offered by General Root, of New York, who gave : " The happy union of the sturgeon and the codfish ; may their joyous nuptials efface the melancholy recollection of the departure of the Connecticut-river salmon." The Boston & Worcester and the AVestern railroads were operated as two distinct corporations until 1869, when they were consolidated under the present title of the Boston & Albany Railroad Company. This corporation now owns and operates 375.70 miles of track, and also the Grand Junction Railroad and its finely equipped wharves at East Boston, thus securing a deep-water connection. It has here a substantial grain elevator with a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels, and another in the city proper, on Chandler and