Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston [1 ed.] 9780262534833, 9780262194945, 2003044509

Citation preview

Cover art: B. F. Nutting, Bird’s Eye View of Boston (Boston: B. B. Russell & Co., 1866). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department)

Nancy S. Seasholes is a historian and historical archaeologist. She is the author of Walking Tours of Boston’s Made Land (MIT Press), the companion to Gaining Ground. “A stunning compilation of material that documents over three centuries’ worth of ... changes. No previous study of Boston or any other North American city comes close to the detail its pages afford.” —Richard Longstreth, American Studies International “Gaining Ground will undoubtedly long serve as the authoritative source on the topic.” —Lawrence W. Kennedy, The New England Quarterly “Seasholes has provided a document that brings history alive.” —Civil Engineering “A book of great import. Gaining Ground makes clear that land-making is inextricably linked to Boston.” —Martin Zimmerman, Landscape Architecture

978-0-262-53483-3

90000 9 780262 534833

Gaining Ground

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu

Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. In Gaining Ground historian Nancy Seasholes gives us the first complete account of when, why, and how this land was created. The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; each chapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanent settlement to its present configuration. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeological investigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. A separate chapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basic method used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. The book is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relation to today’s streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress of landmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.

Nancy S. Seasholes

Gaining Ground A History of Landmaking in Boston Nancy S. Seasholes with a new foreword by Bud Ris

Gaining Ground A History of Landmaking in Boston with a new foreword by Bud Ris

Nancy S. Seasholes

G

A I N I N G

G

R O U N D

G A

H

G

A I N I N G I S T O R Y

O F

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A N D M A K I N G

I N

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R O U N D

O S T O N

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

© 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Adobe Garamond by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seasholes, Nancy S. Gaining Ground / Nancy S. Seasholes p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-19494-5 (hc : alk. paper)—978-0-262-53483-3 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Boston (Mass.)—History. 2. Boston (Mass.)—Historical geography. 3. Fills (Earthwork)—Massachusetts—Boston—History. 4. Landscape—Massachusetts— Boston—History. 5. City planning—Massachusetts—Boston—History. 6. Land use—Massachusetts—Boston—History. 7. Boston (Mass.)—Antiquities. I. Title. F73.3.S46 2003 911’.74461—dc21

2003044509

Frontispiece: Detail from A. E. Downs, Boston 1899 (Boston: George H. Walker and Co., 1899). (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

C

O N T E N T S

FOREWORD

BY

BUD RIS

ix

PREFACE

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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1

INTRODUCTION

2

LANDMAKING TECHNOLOGY

13

3

CENTRAL WATERFRONT

21

4

BULFINCH TRIANGLE

73

5

WEST END

107

6

BEACON HILL FLAT

135

7

BACK BAY

153

8

FENS, FENWAY,

9

SOUTH COVE

10

SOUTH BAY

11

SOUTH BOSTON

287

12

DORCHESTER

335

13

EAST BOSTON

355

14

CHARLESTOWN

385

1

SOUTH END

AND

AND

BAY STATE ROAD

211 237

AND

SOUTH END

257

AFTERWORD

419

APPENDIX 1: TABLE

OF

APPENDIX 2: NOTE

ON

MADE LAND SOURCES

IN

BOSTON

423 425

ABBREVIATIONS

445

NOTES

447

FIGURE REFERENCES INDEX

AND

CREDITS

503 517

FOREWORD When Nancy Seasholes first published Gaining Ground in 2003, few would have guessed that the line showing Boston’s shoreline as it was in 1630, which appears in many of the book’s illustrations, would gain new prominence fourteen years later. Today, as the potential impacts of climate change have become better understood, it has become virtually impossible to have a serious conversation about the future of Boston without thinking about how sea level rise might return much of the city to its original land form. Indeed, as Boston approaches its 400th birthday in 2030, a central question facing the city’s planners is not how much land have we gained, but how much will we lose? The scientific analysis conducted by the Boston Research Advisory Group (BRAG) for the Climate Ready Boston project, a project I helped to design and implement over the last year, concluded that Boston faces a significant challenge in the decades ahead. The BRAG team projects up to one-and-a-half feet of sea level rise by 2050, with three feet or more likely by the end of this century. (The tide gauge near the entrance to Fort Point Channel already shows that the level of the harbor has increased by nearly a foot over the last one hundred years.) The city’s problem is compounded by a variety of geographic and oceanographic factors that

will cause it to experience more sea level rise than the global average. (Sea level rise is caused by thermal expansion of the oceans, the melting of glaciers, and the melting of ice that covers Greenland and Antarctica.) But what makes Boston really vulnerable is that so much of the city is built on low lying, “made land.” As Ms. Seasholes describes so carefully in her chronicle of the private initiatives and public works projects that created the downtown waterfront, all of Back Bay, much of East Boston, and the area known today as the South Boston Seaport, much of Boston sits only a foot or two above high tide. That was all that was needed for profitable commercial enterprise and residential development at the time. And, of course, no one had any idea that human beings would, ultimately, disrupt the climate on a global scale. The vulnerability assessment conducted for the Climate Ready Boston project suggests that nearly 20,000 people and 2,000 buildings in Boston will be exposed to significant flooding around 2030 or soon thereafter. Later in the century, annual damages from flooding are projected to run close to $1 billion—most of that occurring on “made land.” Clearly, Boston faces a substantial challenge in the decades ahead.

Ironically, it was an environmental problem that provided one of the major incentives for land-making in Boston during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the need to address the cesspool-like conditions that existed on the tidal flats surrounding Boston where the city’s extensive underground drains had discharged wastes that were not flushed away by the tide. As you’ll see in the chapters of this book, addressing that problem motivated the filling of Back Bay, the Beacon Hill Flat, several areas on the central waterfront, and other locations where nature’s absorptive capacity had simply been overwhelmed. And here we are today, facing a different kind of environmental challenge in the very same parts of the city that were threatened by water pollution years ago. The defense against sea level rise will require a massive and sustained partnership between the public and private sectors, working together to reduce the emissions of the gases that cause climate change, make old buildings flood proof, set appropriate standards for new buildings, increase the resilience of critical infrastructure, and employ creative engineering solutions in places along the waterfront where flood pathways can be closed off or reduced. New studies are also just getting underway to determine whether a harbor-wide barrier might ultimately be needed—and whether such would even be feasible. As Boston embarks on this new challenge, we can take comfort in the rich history of private entrepreneurship and government leadership detailed by Ms. Seasholes. It was, after all, the “wharfing out” of the central waterfront, Charlestown, South Cove, and other areas for shipping and trade that drove the first land-making in Boston. The desire to use the tides to power mills led to the early filling of Back Bay, while railroad companies stimulated the expansion of South Boston, and the need for a major international airport drove the filling of East Boston. Many of these projects were quite speculative, or even foolish, and often gave way to management by public authorities such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the city of Boston, the Harbor Commission, or Massport. But, over time, it was the collaborative efforts of the private and public sectors that made Boston the fine city it is today—and can keep it that way for generations to come. Bud Ris

PREFACE Although this study of Boston’s topographical development has been impelled by my interest in the city’s history, it originally stemmed from an interest in its archaeology. This interest developed when I worked as a historical archaeologist in the 1980s and early 1990s for various archaeological consulting firms in New England. The work was part of the environmental review process and involved assessing the archaeological impact of state- and federally funded projects that would require what archaeologists refer to as “subsurface disturbance” or, in plain English, digging. The jobs tended to be large public works projects such as highways, sewage treatment plants, and gas pipelines, but sometimes were as small as assessing the area around a historic house before the installation of an underground drain or utilities. As project historian, I conducted historical research to determine the possible location of historical sites—sites from the period after European settlement for which there are written records as well as archaeological evidence—before any test pits were dug. (Prehistoric, or Native American, sites are generally located by predictive modeling.) Whenever I worked in Boston, however, a city where so much of the land is man-made, doing research seemed like reinventing the wheel, for each time it was necessary to determine

whether the project area was on original or made land and, if the latter, when it was filled, why, by whom, how, and with what. The one modern book on the subject, Walter Muir Whitehill’s Boston: A Topographical History, proved quite inadequate. So I began accumulating my own information about Boston’s topographical development. At the time, however, I was working on a dissertation on an entirely different topic (the trade networks for distributing imported consumer goods in eighteenth-century Massachusetts). And then one day my boss, who was also my academic advisor, said, “Why, when you’ve learned so much about it, aren’t you writing a dissertation on how Boston was filled in?” To which I replied, “Beats me,” and changed topics forthwith. The dissertation dealt with all the landmaking projects in Boston Proper, which I defined as the main part of the city from the harbor south to Massachusetts Avenue, in the period from 1630, when Boston was founded, to the end of the nineteenth century.1 This book, however, carries the story up to the end of the twentieth century and covers all sections of the city—not only the various parts of Boston Proper but also the Fenway and Bay State Road areas, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and Dorchester.

Boston’s topography has long been a source of fascination to observers of Boston. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries several “topographical and historical descriptions of Boston” were published. These studies cover buildings, places, events, and topographical features such as hills and harbor islands, but they do not, with one exception, discuss topographical changes in the city.2 More informative is the one modern full-length work on the topic, Whitehill’s Topographical History, first published in 1959, enlarged with the addition of one chapter in 1968, and enlarged again with two new chapters by Lawrence W. Kennedy in 2000.3 Whitehill’s book is engagingly written and has become the “bible” on landmaking in Boston. But it has some real shortcomings. First, Whitehill omits altogether whole sections of the city where landmaking has occurred, namely Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and Dorchester. Then, even for parts of the city he does consider, he skips many landmaking projects, including all those in the West End, the large project in the South End in the 1840s and 1850s that created the land now between Harrison Avenue and the Southeast Expressway ramps, and the part of the Back Bay south of Boylston and west of Fairfield Streets that was filled by the Boston Water Power Company. He also includes some standard misconceptions about Boston landmaking—for example, that Front Street was the first large nineteenth-century landmaking project (it was actually preceded by the India Wharf and Mount Vernon Proprietors projects; see chapters 3, 6, and 9); that the 1856 tripartite agreement opened the way for filling Back Bay (it was really the 1854 indentures; see chapter 7); and that Frederick Law Olmsted bent the alignment of Commonwealth Avenue at Massachusetts Avenue (it was actually done by the park commissioners; see chapter 8)—giving these erroneous ideas a credibility that has been difficult to correct. Finally, Whitehill focuses more on the architectural and sociological development of the made land than he does on the actual landmaking. This focus, while making his book entertaining and illuminating, offers relatively little information about how the filling was actually accomplished. This book, by contrast, focuses solely on the landmaking that has occurred in Boston. Aside from a brief “fast forward” at

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the end of each section to explain how the made land in that area is being used now (often different from the purpose for which it was created), this study does not deal with the architecture of the buildings erected on the made land or the social history of the areas filled. Instead, this study deals with the why and how of Boston’s landmaking. It examines the reasons for the various landmaking projects, the people who were involved, the political maneuvering that ensued, and even, in some cases, the scandals that occurred. It also explains how the filling was actually done and where the fill itself was obtained. Wherever possible, data recovered by recent archaeological investigations in Boston are also incorporated. Thus, by focusing just on landmaking and by examining in great detail all the landmaking projects that have been conducted in all sections of the city, this book presents the first comprehensive account of Boston’s topographical development. To cover so much territory and in such detail, this study has employed sources hitherto seldom applied to the subject of making land. First and foremost are historical maps of Boston. Fortunately, Boston has been mapped often and well. The resulting historical maps are a basic source of information about the city’s landmaking, because successive maps—provided they are accurate—graphically illustrate where land was added and when. Historical maps are a major source of data for this study and many details from them have been included so that readers can follow the developments being discussed in the text.4 Using historical maps as a primary source of data about landmaking put a premium on finding maps that are sufficiently accurate for this purpose. The Note on Sources (appendix 2) discusses the maps on which this study is based as well as those used to reconstruct the 1630 shoreline shown in figures 1.1, 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, and 14.1. Once the location and dates of filled areas had been identified on maps, historical research was conducted to learn more about how these areas were filled.5 In contrast to earlier studies of Boston’s landmaking, which are heavily based on antiquarian accounts, the key to understanding why and how land was made in Boston proved to be primary records of the entities that conducted the filling—annual reports of commissions, contracts of

corporations, minutes of town and city boards, and the like—and this study has employed such records extensively. These public and corporate records were supplemented with other types of primary sources—personal papers, contemporary accounts, and newspapers—and with some relevant secondary sources. (See the Note on Sources (appendix 2) for a more complete discussion of the written sources as well as the maps.) The result is a very detailed study of landmaking in Boston. It is organized geographically, with a separate chapter for each section of the city that contains made land, to help the reader locate information about an area of particular interest, although it is not a guidebook per se. Nor is it a conventional urban history, although land was made in Boston in response to various historical developments. The study began as an effort to see whether it was possible, by using new sources, to find out where, when, why, by whom, how, and with what all the made land in Boston was created—in short, to elucidate a subject that had hitherto been incompletely and inaccurately portrayed. It did prove possible to compile a complete account of landmaking in Boston and the resulting data can certainly be utilized for subsequent, more analytical, studies of this process. The study also turned out to be one of the few of landmaking anywhere (see the afterword). Before embarking on this study of Boston landmaking, a few words should be said about its scope and organization. The study covers all landmaking in Boston within the present boundaries of the mainland city. Although there is certainly also a great deal of made land in the cities and towns immediately adjacent to Boston, most notably on the Cambridge side of the Charles River, the study had to stop somewhere and the logical place was at the present limits of the city of Boston. Within this designated boundary there are also a few limits. The examination of landmaking along the Charles River extends upriver only as far as the Boston University Bridge, omitting filling that has occurred in the Allston and Brighton sections of the city. Similarly, the account of landmaking in Dorchester on the Neponset River goes only as far as the Neponset Bridge and does not include the filling further upstream. And despite the extensive amount of fill on some harbor

islands within the city limits, most notably Spectacle Island, this study examines landmaking only in the mainland part of the city. In addition, this study generally deals only with landmaking accomplished by “projects,” defined here as land made by organized entities—private or public corporations or public agencies such as the town, city, or state—as distinguished from filling done by individuals. Although much of Boston’s made land was created by projects, a great deal was also created by filling the docks, or slips, between Boston’s numerous wharves. Many of these wharves were built by private individuals, however, and tracing the landmaking that resulted would have required research at a level of detail beyond the scope of this study. So it was decided to focus on land made by projects rather than by individuals. That is why, for example, there is not a chapter on the North End, for most of the made land in that section of the city was created by wharf building. For the same reason, with a few exceptions, there is no discussion of landmaking north of Causeway Street between the Charlestown Bridge and the Fleet Center; on the west side of the Fort Point Channel between Rowe’s Wharf and South Station; on the north shore of Charlestown between Mystic Wharf and Ryan Playground and then north of the Alford Street Bridge; on the Marginal, Border, and Condor Street waterfronts in East Boston; and in much detail about the Commercial Point and Port Norfolk sections of Dorchester. Following an introductory chapter, the second chapter examines the techniques used to make land, and then each subsequent chapter covers a different section of the city. The ordering of these chapters is geographical as well as partly chronological. The first of these chapters examines landmaking in the Town Cove, the large cove on the harbor side of the original Shawmut Peninsula where the central waterfront is now located (see figure 1.1), because that was where the earliest landmaking took place. The following chapters then move geographically around the north and west sides of the peninsula, examining successively the landmaking in the Mill Cove, the large cove originally between the North and West Ends; around the West End promontory; at the foot of Beacon Hill; in the eastern portion of Back Bay, the huge bay on the west side of

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Boston Neck that was once part of the Charles River estuary; and in the western portion of Back Bay between Gravelly Point, now the Massachusetts Avenue area, and what is now Kenmore Square and then upriver as far as the Boston University Bridge. The discussion then returns to the east side of the Shawmut Peninsula and the chapters proceed southward, considering landmaking in South Cove, the large cove once on the east side of the Neck; South Bay, the tidal body of water once between the Neck and South Boston; South Boston; and along the long shoreline of Dorchester. The last chapters move north to discuss landmaking in the sections of Boston across the harbor from the main part of the city—East Boston and Charlestown, the latter out of place chronologically since landmaking began there almost as early as it did on the Shawmut Peninsula. Within each chapter the organization is basically chronological. The intent is to trace how land was made in that section of the city from the time of its first permanent settlement to the present. In most parts of the city this can be done by discussing the various landmaking projects in the order in which they occurred. But in some large sections, such as South Boston, Dorchester, East Boston, and Charlestown, landmaking was going on in different places at the same time. So in these chapters, all the landmaking that took place in one area is discussed before moving on to another area, even though this sometimes means backtracking in time. In one section of the city in one time period—the central waterfront in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the same areas were filled by successive projects at different times. In this instance, therefore, in order to preserve the historical “story line,” the chapter follows the overall chronological development of the central waterfront, “revisiting” some areas several times. In another case, the three successive landmaking projects that created the present Esplanade took place in four different geographical areas examined in this study. In this instance, all three projects are discussed in each of the four chapters, although the major discussion of a given project is in the chapter about the area most affected. The story of Boston’s landmaking is complex, as the following pages demonstrate. But from whatever perspective one

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approaches this subject—as a resident wanting to know more about how one’s neighborhood was filled; as a tourist curious about all the made land in Boston; as a historian of Boston seeking more information about the landmaking than has hitherto been available; or as an archaeologist or engineer wanting to know how a given area was filled and with what—it is an intriguing story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study would not have been possible without the help of many, to whom I owe a great deal of thanks. At the many archives and libraries at which I worked they include David Cobb, Joseph Garver, and other members of the staff of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard University; Sean Fisher, the Archivist for the Metropolitan District Commission; the staff of Historical Collections at Baker Library, Harvard Business School; Peter Drummey and the staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society, particularly Virginia Smith and Aimée Bligh (both since retired, which really dates this project); Lorna Conden and various staff members of the library at the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; Phil Bergen, then Doug Southard, and now Nancy Richard and Anne Vosikas at the library of The Bostonian Society; Sally Pierce and Catharina Slautterback of the Print Department at the Boston Athenaeum; Phil Hunt and Steve Carlson at the Boston National Historical Park; many at the Boston Public Library including Aaron Schmidt and Karen Shaft of the Print Department, Roberta Zonghi and other members of the Rare Books Department, the staff of the Microtext Department, Mary Frances O’Brien, former Curator of the Social Sciences Department, John Dorsey of the Research Library Office, and

Glen Stout, who prepared the original finding aid for the Boston City Records and has long since left the library; Dave Nathan, John McColgan, and Kristen Swett at the Boston City Archives in Hyde Park; Brenda Howitson and Mary Micarelli (both since retired), then Mary Bicknell and Karen Adler Abramson, and now Betsy Lowenstein and Christine Gebhard of Special Collections at the State Library of Massachusetts; Maxine Trost, Michael Comeau and other staff members at the Massachusetts State Archives; Elizabeth Mock of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Massachusetts at Boston; Henry Gwiazda and other members of the staff of the Cartographic and Architectural Division of the National Archives at College Park, College Park, Maryland; Lisa Tuite and Richard Pennington of the Boston Globe library with its wonderful clipping file; Nancy McKeon Paul and others at The Engineering Center; Mary Ellen McCarthy and Danila Terpanjian, now or formerly at Littauer Library, Harvard University; the staff of Houghton Library at Harvard University; the staff of the American Antiquarian Society; the staff of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum; staff members at the Waterways Division, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; Joe Doyle and other staff members

at Boston Parks and Recreation headquarters; Al Baika and staff members at the Survey Section of the Boston Department of Public Works; Alan Schwartz at the Boston Housing Authority; and the staff of the Massachusets Port Authority (Massport) library. And although their use is more self-service than dependent on specific staff members, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the wonderful resources of Widener and other Harvard University libraries, without which this study would have been very difficult to complete. I also owe thanks to many colleagues and friends. Some brought various pieces of information to my attention, among them Rick Detwiller, who told me about the City Surveyor’s collection of plans; Sarah Elkind, who discovered the wonderful collection of city and state documents formerly at Littauer Library at Harvard and now unfortunately moved to the Harvard Depository; and John Booras, who knows of many unusual aerial photographs. For information about twentieth-century projects, which ironically was often harder to track down than data on nineteenth-century projects, particularly those conducted by utilities and state agencies, I am indebted to Dennis Kaye of Massport, Beverly Munn of Keyspan (formerly Boston Gas), and Mike Monahan of NStar (formerly Boston Edison). I also wish to thank Bill Newman for reading and making corrections to the chapter on Back Bay; Will Holton for sharing his research on the sociology of the Back Bay project; Charles Bahne for answering endless questions about “T” history; Karl Haglund for reviewing and correcting sections on the Esplanade; Jim Lambrechts for similarly reviewing, correcting, and sharing his knowledge about falling groundwater and rotting foundation piles; Anne Eliza Lewis and Ed Bell of the Massachusetts Historical Commission; Tom Kane for so graciously allowing me to reproduce his recent bird’s-eye view of Boston; Norman Leventhal for permitting me to use several illustrations from Mapping Boston; Herb Heidt and Eliza McClennen of MapWorks; Martin von Wyss of the Boston Redevelopment Authority; Lolly Robinson for downloading and creating the 1995 aerial photographs; Kathy Poole for kindly sending a scan of a photograph that had been misplaced in Boston;

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Florence Trefethen, who is much cleverer than I, for the wonderful title; Suzanne Owen for her valiant attempts to translate the elusive haure; and Harold McWilliams and Rick Elia, my former advisor and boss at Boston University, whose idea this study was in the first place, for reading and commenting on various parts of the manuscript. For the production of the book itself, I would like to thank Eva and Gabor Demjen of Black & White, Inc., Robert Zinck and Stephen Sylvester of Harvard Imaging Services, and Michael Hamilton of Boston University for their careful photography of many of the illustrations. I also appreciate the expertise of the MIT Press, particularly of Larry Cohen for his astute editorial comments, Ellen Faran for her skillful project management, Michael Sims for copy editing and myriad other contributions, Yasuyo Iguchi for the beautiful book design, and Mary Reilly for scanning and labeling the maps. Finally, I owe special thanks to my son Brian both for his moral support and for his perceptive and helpful comments on the manuscript, many of which presaged, almost verbatim, those later made by Larry Cohen.

N 0

1/2 Mile Hog Island

ST

BO

ST

ON

Noddles Island

Charlestown

EA

EAST CAMBRIDGE

MILL COVE

WEST WEST END COVE BEACON HILL

rles Cha

er

Riv

Shawmut Peninsula OLD SOUTH END

NORTH END

TOWN COVE

Bird Is.

FORT HILL

Apple Is. Governors Is.

WINDMILL PT.

SOUTH COVE

Gravelly Pt. Back Bay NECK

Castle Is.

South Bay South Boston (DORCHESTER NECK)

Spectacle Is.

CALF P AS T

E UR

1995 water

SAVIN HILL

Area filled after 1630 1630 land

MOON IS. COMMERCIAL POINT SQUANTUM

1995 shoreline with no historic changes shown

NECK

PORT NORFOLK

1630–1995

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 1.1 1630

AND

1995

SHORELINES OF

B OSTON

When Boston was established in 1630, it was only a small peninsula, called Shawmut by the Native Americans, connected to the mainland by a narrow neck. On one side of the Neck lay the back bay of the Charles River, divided into two unequal parts by Gravelly Point, and on the other was South Bay. Charlestown and South Boston were also peninsulas, what became East Boston was two large islands and three small ones, and a series of promontories punctuated the Dorchester shore. The 1630 shoreline of the Shawmut Peninsula is based on a reconstruction devised in 1852 by Ellis S. Chesbrough on the basis of maps discussed in the Note on Sources (appendix 2). The 1630 shorelines of western Back Bay, South Bay, South Boston, Dorchester, East Boston, and Charlestown are based on maps discussed in the captions for figures 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, and 14.1. The 1630 shoreline of Cambridge is not based on as careful research as the Boston shorelines.

1 At 5:15 A.M. on December 18, 1986, the residents of a townhouse on Otis Place, on the Beacon Hill Flat in Boston, were suddenly awakened by a loud rumbling and the house shaking. On inspecting the house, they found many fresh cracks in the walls and ceilings and the exterior doors jammed shut, their locks out of line. In fact, in order to get out, the residents had to pry open a basement door with a crowbar. Had this damage been caused by an earthquake, as the residents originally thought? No—only their house was affected, although the next-door neighbors had also been awakened by the loud rumbling. Structural engineers soon ascertained that the house had sunk several inches. But why had it sunk so precipitously? Because the tops of the wooden foundation pilings supporting it had rotted. The house was built on fill and, like most nineteenth-century masonry houses in filled areas of Boston, was set on a foundation of wood pilings driven through the fill. Wood pilings are preserved if they remain submerged in water, but the groundwater level had been dropping on Otis Place in the mid-1980s, exposing the tops of the foundation piles to air and thus making them susceptible to rot. In this case, although the owners had no idea their house might have rotted foundation piles, they did know it was built on fill.1 But most

people are unaware that the Beacon Hill Flat and many other parts of Boston are filled. The Quincy Market area, the Bulfinch Triangle, and the airport, for example, were also once under water. Like many areas of Boston, they are “made land,” created by filling in the tidal flats and marshes that once surrounded the city—a process that can be termed landmaking. Many call this process land filling or land reclamation. But neither term is correct. Landfill not only evokes images of garbage dumps but can also mean fill added on top of existing land. And since in Boston it was water that was filled, not land, landfilling is actually an oxymoron. Land reclamation is not an accurate term either, for land in Boston was made by actual filling, not by diking, pumping, and draining to reclaim it from the sea. So landmaking, a term coined by archaeologists, has been chosen as the appropriate term for this study because it describes what really occurred in Boston—making land by filling areas of water. The extensive landmaking in Boston has transformed what were originally several small peninsulas and islands into the city we know today (figure 1.1). This filling has created an enormous amount of made land, as figure 1.1 illustrates—about 5,250 acres2 along the shore of the city between the Boston University Bridge in Allston and the Neponset Bridge in Dorchester as well as in East Boston and Charlestown.3 What proportion of Boston is made land depends, however, on how it is calculated. If one compares the amount of made land with the total area of Boston, which, excluding the harbor islands, is forty-seven square miles or about thirty thousand acres, then about one-sixth of the city is on fill (see appendix 1). But included in the city boundaries are many inland areas, such as Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury, that have no made land at all. The proportion of made land is thus obviously much higher in sections of the city that have been filled. The original Boston peninsula of 487 acres is now surrounded by about 500 acres of made land (see figure 1.1) and has thus been doubled in size.4 Other sections of the city have also been substantially enlarged. Charlestown has also been almost doubled by fill.5 In East Boston, filling for the airport, almost all of which is on made land, and for other projects has increased the

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area of that section of the city almost two and one-half times.6 And made land has enlarged South Boston almost threefold.7 Boston probably has more made land than any other city in North America.8 The reasons are both geological and historical. Boston lies in a down-faulted geological depression called the Boston Basin. When the glaciers that covered the Boston area during the Ice Age began to recede about fourteen thousand years ago, they left a deep deposit of clay, known as Boston Blue Clay, in the basin. Rising above the clay were many smooth-sloped, elliptically shaped hills composed of glacial till and gravel, called drumlins. Because so much ocean water was frozen into the ice sheet, the sea level ten thousand years ago was much lower than it is now— Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard were attached to what is now the mainland as were the Boston Harbor islands. But as the ice melted the sea rose, reaching its present level about two thousand years ago and leaving a thick layer of muddy silt on top of the clay.9 When the first European settlers arrived in the Boston area in the early seventeenth century, the land they found was what had not been inundated by the rising ocean—a series of islands in the harbor, most of them drumlins, and several peninsulas extending into the harbor from the mainland. These peninsulas were also surmounted by drumlins and were surrounded by large expanses of shallow tidal flats, that is, areas covered with water at high tide but exposed mud flats at low, and marshes, that is, low-lying areas usually above high tide but interlaced with tidal creeks. Boston was established on one of these peninsulas in 1630. Called Shawmut by the Native Americans of the region, the peninsula was shaped like a three-lobed leaf, the “lobes” composed of promontories topped by drumlins and separated by deep coves of tidal flats and the “stem” a narrow neck that connected the peninsula to the mainland (see figure 1.1). Although small areas of tidal flats were filled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this constricted peninsula generally sufficed for the town of Boston for almost two hundred years. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the town was starting to grow rapidly and needed more land. Expanding to the mainland was not even considered at the time—the town’s maritime economy was concentrated on the

wharves on the Boston peninsula and most of the surrounding areas were separated from Boston by rivers or the harbor, were parts of other towns, or did not have harbors comparable to Boston’s. Attempts to provide more residential land by annexing an adjacent peninsula (South Boston) and developing the town’s land south of the Neck (the present South End) were not successful because not many people moved there. So the solution adopted by Bostonians at the beginning of the nineteenth century was simply to make more land by filling in the tidal flats surrounding the peninsula, a process that continued throughout the nineteenth century and almost to the end of the twentieth. Boston’s enormous amount of made land thus resulted both from its original location on a small, confined landform that the town did not want to abandon when it began to grow rapidly and the fact that this landform was surrounded by large areas of shallow water that could easily be filled. But where did early-nineteenth-century Bostonians get the idea that they could create huge amounts of new land by filling in tidal flats? The areas filled were so large—one of the very first nineteenth-century projects made forty-three acres of new land—that some have assumed it must have been accomplished by a process of reclaiming land from the sea10 as had been done in Holland and in the Fens in England. Contemporary accounts make it clear, however, that land in Boston was not created by reclamation. Instead, a retaining structure was built on the tidal flats around the perimeter of the area to be filled and then fill—often gravel, dirt, or dredged material—was simply dumped on the landward side until the level of fill was above the level of high tide. This relatively simple method, which was used from the beginning of the nineteenth century onward, was of course possible because the areas being filled were shallow tidal flats and seems to have been based on the method used at that time to construct wharves. So, the answer is that Bostonians made land using techniques of wharf construction with which they were already familiar. The existence of vast surrounding areas of shallow tidal flats and the use of wharf construction techniques for fill-retaining structures may explain how so much land could be made in

Boston, but the reasons why this land was made are related to various developments in Boston’s history. Many of the landmaking projects discussed in this book are shown on the timeline in figure 1.2, which indicates not only when and where filling took place but also points out some of the historical developments that shaped landmaking in Boston. Boston was established in 1630 by a group of English religious separatists—the Puritans—who soon realized that maritime trade was important for the colony’s survival. By 1650 the town was carrying on a flourishing commerce with Spain, Portugal, the wine islands—Madeira, the Azores, and the Canaries—and the West Indies.11 The new shipping industry created a demand for wharves and other maritime facilities. Wharf building was encouraged by the passage in 1641 of Massachusetts’s unique riparian law, which gave shoreline property owners rights down to the low tide line or 100 rods (1,650 feet) from the high tide line, whichever was closest to shore,12 and soon the shore of the cove facing the harbor was lined with wharves (see chapter 3). As wharves were extended out further over the flats, the docks, or slips, between them were often filled in, creating new land—a process known as wharfing out. Wharfing out was responsible for most of the land made in Boston in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The crowning achievement of this initial period of landmaking by wharfing out was the construction in 1711–1715 of Long Wharf, Boston’s first wharf that extended beyond the tidal flats to deep water, enabling ships to load and unload directly onto it without the need for shallow-draft lighters to ferry cargoes across the flats (see chapter 3). A long period of economic stagnation commenced about 1740, but Boston’s economy finally began to revive in 1790 with the inauguration of the town’s trade with China. This trade was enormously profitable for participating merchants and created a need for new land, both for new commercial facilities and for residential use, because many people were attracted to the newly prosperous town and the population of Boston almost doubled between 1790 and 1810.13 The result was a proliferation of landmaking projects in the first decade of the nineteenth century (see

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NOT TO SCALE

1630

1700

1790

1800

1810

1820

Wharfing out

India Wharf

Long Wharf Barricado South Battery

1840

1850

1860

Quincy Market

Enclosed docks filled

CENTRAL WATERFRONT

1830

Central Wharf Commercial/Fulton Custom House Steets

Docks Filled

Pond filled

Dammed BULFINCH TRIANGLE

Boston & Lowell land

Almshouse North Allen Street

WEST END

West of Brighton Street Charles Street Jail

Charles Street BEACON HILL FLAT

“Gore”

Ropewalks

Charles Street Mill Dam

BACK BAY

Seawall and filling

Public Garden Bay Village Tremont Street, Castle Square Boston Water Power Company Railroads

Wharfing out SOUTH COVE

Front Street

Neck

South Cove Corporation

Albany Street

Front Street

SOUTH BAY

South Bay Lands East side

Seawall

SOUTH BOSTON

City Institutions

Boston Wharf Company Wharf

Cyrus Alger

DORCHESTER

Maverick Square Meridian Street Chelsea Street

EAST BOSTON

Wharfing out on Harbor, Prison Point Bay, and Mystic River waterfronts CHARLESTOWN

Prison Point

Mill dam Battery

Town Dock filled Towpath

Grand Junction Railroad Basin seawall

Railroad filling

Navy Yard

FIGURE 1.2 T IMELINE

OF L ANDMAKING IN

B OSTON

The timeline is divided horizontally into different sections of the city, listed in the lefthand column, and vertically into different decades, enumerated across the top. By reading across, one can see all the landmaking that has taken place in a

given area of Boston, starting with the earliest project and proceeding chronologically up through the one that produced the present shoreline. By reading down, one can see what parts of the city were being filled at the same time.

1870

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Atlantic Avenue

Boston & Maine land New Charles River Dam

MGH flats Charlesbank

Back Bay Project

Charles River Dam

Charlesbank widened

Boston Embankment

Esplanade widened

Storrow Drive

Esplanade widened

Storrow Drive

Boston Embankment

Riverway Back Bay Fens

Charlesbank widened (Storrow Drive)

Fenway area Bay State Road

Albany Street

South Station

Southampton Street

Roxbury Central Wharf Company

Southeast Expressway Roxbury Canal

NY, NH, & Hartford land

Wharfing out on west shore (Fort Point Channel and South Bay) and north shore including Reserved Channel South Boston (Commonwealth) Flats Project Marine Park

Day Boulevard

U.S. Navy

Wharfing out at Commercial Point Main Drainage Bay State Gas Company Morrissey Boulevard McConnell Park Savin Hill Bay

Dump at Columbia Point Columbia Point Housing Boston College High Tenean Beach

Wharfing out on Harbor and Chelsea Creek waterfronts East Boston Flats (airport) Basin Neptune Road Parkway Lands Wood Island Park

Subaru Pier

Moakley Park

Airport

UMass/Boston JFK Library Victory Road Park

Airport

Constitution Beach

Noyes Playground north of Addison Street Belle Isle Inlet

Hoosac Docks Prison Point Bay Mystic Wharf Ryan Playground Navy Yard

Navy Yard

Navy Yard

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figure 1.2). The India Wharf and Broad/India Streets projects created a new deepwater wharf and commercial land on the central waterfront (see chapter 3); the Mount Vernon Proprietors made the land on which Charles Street runs at the base of Beacon Hill as part of a residential development on the west part of the hill (see chapter 6); the Boston Mill Corporation began to fill the Mill Pond for house lots (see chapter 4); the Front Street Corporation filled what is now Harrison Avenue between Beach and East Berkeley Streets as part of the agreement annexing South Boston as a new residential area (see chapter 9); and the South Boston Association did some filling around the shore of South Boston in preparation for their development of that section of the town (see chapter 11). The introduction of railroads in the 1830s also precipitated a great deal of landmaking in Boston (see figure 1.2). The new railroads needed space in the city for their depots and in many cases obtained it by making new land. In the very first decade of the railroad era, the Boston & Lowell filled a large area north of Causeway Street for its depots (see chapter 4), South Cove was filled to create land for the depots of the Boston & Worcester (see chapter 9), the Boston & Providence filled an area in Back Bay for its depots (see chapter 7), and the Charlestown Wharf Company created new land on Charlestown’s southwest waterfront for the tracks of the Charlestown Branch Railroad (see chapter 14). Filling waterfront areas to create land for railroad tracks and facilities continued in the following decades as more railroads entered Boston (see figure 1.2), presumably because waterfronts were not only logical routes but also the only available spaces in what was becoming an increasingly built-up city. In the 1840s the Fitchburg and the Boston & Maine Railroads filled in more of Charlestown’s southwest waterfront (see chapter 14), and the Grand Junction Railroad began filling a large area on the harbor side of East Boston (see chapter 13). In the 1850s the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad was constructed on pile bridges across South Bay and the South Boston Flats, the former bridge replaced by a filled embankment in the 1860s (see chapters 10 and 11). And in the 1860s the Old Colony Railroad created more land on

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the east side of South Bay in order to move its tracks closer to the water (see chapter 10). Several mid-nineteenth-century developments had profound effects on landmaking in Boston. One of these was the great wave of Irish immigration that began in the mid-1840s when tens of thousands of Irish-born, fleeing the potato famine in Ireland, began pouring into Boston. Although no new land was made especially to accommodate these new residents, with the possible exception of what came to be known as the New York Streets area of South Cove (see chapter 9), the Irish nevertheless had a large effect on landmaking. For the city’s response to this influx was to encourage Yankees, who were valued both as tax payers and as voters who could counter the Irish, to remain within the city rather than move to nearby suburbs, such as Roxbury, that were then being developed. The city thus initiated or supported two major mid-nineteenth-century landmaking projects that were explicitly intended to create residential land for upper-middle-class Yankees—the South Bay Lands project (see chapter 10) and the Back Bay project (see chapter 7 and figure 1.2). Another development in the mid-nineteenth century that greatly affected landmaking grew out of Bostonians’ concern that the city was losing trade to New York. Although the basic problem was that New England lacked a bulk export product and thus as a port Boston was always dependent on imports, in the mid-nineteenth century the problem was identified as the harbor itself (see chapter 11). This problem was perceived as twofold: the harbor’s reduction in size because of filling and wharfing out and its deterioration owing to shoaling of the shipping channels and erosion of the harbor islands. Several solutions were pursued. What were called harbor commissioners lines were established in the 1830s to limit how far wharves and fill could extend into the harbor. They were augmented and modified many times in subsequent decades, eventually determining the location of the present shoreline. To address harbor deterioration, a special federal commission of engineers and hydrographers recommended in 1866 that a seawall be built around the entire South Boston Flats to direct the force, or scour, of the ebb tide into the shipping channels in order to main-

tain them. Thus, the huge South Boston Flats project (see figure 1.2) began not as a commercial development, as one might have thought, but rather as a harbor improvement (see chapter 11). The federal commission also recommended that any filling of tidelands be compensated for by dredging elsewhere or by a payment, the basis of today’s Chapter 91 permitting process. Concern about loss of trade to New York was also the reason for the Atlantic Avenue project (see figure 1.2), which filled a street across the central waterfront in the late 1860s and early 1870s for a railroad track that would connect the depots serving railroads entering Boston from the south with those serving lines entering from the north in order to facilitate the transshipment of goods through Boston and enable the city to compete more effectively with New York (see chapter 3). A third mid-nineteenth-century development that affected landmaking was increasing pollution from wastewater disposal. The problem was not new. Boston had an extensive system of underground drains that dated back as far as the seventeenth century. Called sewers even though they carried only storm and household wastewater rather than sanitary wastes, Boston’s drains emptied at the nearest shoreline and for that reason were also often termed “common shores.” These early drains were privately owned, but after 1701 the town regulated the digging up of streets to lay or repair drains and also apportioned the costs among the users.14 Emissions from underground drains polluted the shallow waters into which they emptied. The part of the Town Dock that remained open after 1729, polluted not only by refuse but also by an underground sewer that drained into it, was described by contemporaries as a “very stinking puddle” and “nauseous & offensive” (see chapter 3).15 This malodorous body of water was also considered a real threat to health, for at that time it was thought that diseases were caused by bad odors—characterized as the “putrid exhalations” or “miasmas” from rotting animal and vegetable matter—a belief sometimes called the miasmatic theory of disease.16 The polluted Town Dock was eventually dealt with as were almost all polluted shallow waters in Boston—the offending flats were covered with fill, making new land in the process.

Pollution from wastewater disposal continued to be a problem in the early nineteenth century. In 1804 the abutters of the Mill Pond, listing the sources of the foul odors emanating from the pond, cited “a great number of common sewers” and “the unwholesome draining of a number of sugar-houses and the fetid returns of several distilleries and breweries.”17 They also claimed that more than ninety privies drained into the pond. In this period human wastes were disposed into privies and cesspools and, although privy vaults were supposed to be cleaned out periodically, they sometimes overflowed or seeped into the surrounding ground or, as in the case of the Mill Pond, into nearby bodies of water. Pollution from an underground drain was also one reason for undertaking the Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market project near the Town Dock in the mid-1820s. A major sewer emptied into the head of the remaining part of the Town Dock and, with the addition of refuse generated by oyster boats moored there, had turned the dock into a “receptacle for every species of filth.”18 And it was undoubtedly a sewer draining into the Mill Creek that caused it to become such a “dangerous & intolerable nuisance,” “greatly alarm[ing]” nearby residents in 1829 and 1830.19 In these and other similar cases, the problem was solved by covering the polluted water with fill (see chapters 3 and 4). In the forty years after filling the Mill Creek was completed in 1833, changes to Boston’s system of underground drainage affected the amount of sewage being discharged onto the surrounding flats. When Boston became a city in 1822, it had assumed responsibility for the underground drains. In 1833 the city passed an ordinance permitting liquids, although not solids, from privy vaults to drain into the sewers, and in 1834, to help flush out the sewers, permitted roof downspouts to be connected to them.20 Thus Boston had a de facto sewerage system earlier than other American cities, where the first municipal sewerage systems were not constructed until the 1850s.21 Permitting sewage in Boston’s underground drains meant that greater amounts of sewage were discharged onto the flats surrounding the city, most notably in Back Bay, which by mid-century was described as a “great cesspool.”22 To eliminate the pollution in Back Bay, two

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solutions were pursued—filling the polluted flats (the usual Boston fix) and changing the system of drainage (see chapter 7). The changes made to the drainage system were influenced by the work of Edwin Chadwick in England, who had concluded that disease was related to poor drainage and found that water flowing through an egg-shaped pipe would also remove the solid wastes in the pipe, thus introducing what came to be termed water-carriage sewerage. His ideas were soon applied in Boston when an eggshaped sewer was built the length of Tremont Street in the South End in 1850–1851, intercepting the sewers that had formerly discharged into Back Bay and conveying the sewage into South Bay instead. The original plans called for flushing out the sewer periodically with water from the full basin or from Boston’s new public water system, completed in 1848, but by the time the sewer was built the availability of running water had increased water consumption—and thus the amount of water in the sewers—so much that special flushing was not necessary.23 The introduction of piped-in water not only increased water consumption but also made it possible to employ a new technology for disposing human wastes—the water closet, or flush toilet, first patented in the United States in 1833 but not generally adopted until running water was introduced.24 Water closets further increased water usage and, consequently, the amount of raw sewage discharged on Boston’s shorelines where, instead of being flushed away by the outgoing tide, much was brought back by the incoming tide and lay festering on the flats at low tide. This increase in the amount of sewage being discharged onto the flats was reflected in the increasing number of landmaking projects undertaken in Boston in the second half of the nineteenth century to eliminate pollution (see figure 1.2). In addition to Back Bay, polluted flats were filled at the foot of Beacon Hill (see chapter 6), in front of Massachusetts General Hospital (see chapter 5), and in Prison Point Bay in Charlestown (see chapter 14). In South Bay, the city, anticipating that sewage draining onto the flats would detract from the South End’s appeal as a residential area, filled the flats and extended the sewers out to deeper water in advance of residential development (see chapter 10). In the case of

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the Atlantic Avenue project, filling the polluted docks on the central waterfront was not the project’s major impetus but was certainly cited as one of its benefits (see chapter 3). And the Back Bay Fens project, which created the first park in Boston’s new public park system, was undertaken not to create a recreational area but to deal with the sewage that had been carried into the full basin by Stony Brook and the Muddy River. In this case, the basin was not filled but instead was converted into a holding basin for storm overflows from the Stony Brook sewer (see chapter 8). By the 1870s the sewage putrefying on the flats surrounding the city and the noxious odors emanating from the sewers, which were still thought to cause disease, were being blamed for Boston’s high death rate. The result was a new sewerage system, soon known as the Main Drainage, built between 1878 and 1884. New sewers were constructed around the perimeter of the city, intercepting the old ones so that they no longer discharged onto the shores. The intercepting sewers carried the sewage into a new main sewer, which conveyed it to a pumping station where the sewage was raised high enough to flow by gravity through an outfall sewer to reservoirs on Moon Island where, still untreated, the raw sewage was released into the ocean at ebb tide (see figure 1.2 and chapter 12). Issues of public health were also related to another historical development that produced a great deal of made land in Boston— the public park movement and the establishment of the Boston park system. The park movement in the United States began in the mid-nineteenth century as a response to increasing urbanization and to the sanitary reform movement, which coupled the old miasmatic theory of disease—by then sometimes called the filth theory because diseases were thought to be caused by dirt and dampness as well as by odors—with concerns about urbanization. Sanitarians worked to eliminate places that were overcrowded, dark, and damp and that contained organic wastes by introducing sunlight, fresh air, dry land, and pure water—and parks were seen as one solution.25 Parks were also to be “for the people,” that is, public, and were intended as large “pleasure grounds” where city dwellers could escape from the perceived evils of the city into a country setting.26 The first public parks in American cities were

established in the late 1850s and early 1860s—Central Park in New York was started in 1857, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia in 1859, and Druid Hill in Baltimore in 1860—and had an immediate effect on Boston, for the improvements made to the Public Garden in 1859–1860 were intended as Boston’s answer to Central Park. But in the late 1860s Bostonians began to agitate for another public park and an 1870 act authorized the city to acquire land for more parks.27 The 1870 act did not receive the requisite approval from Boston voters, however, and, delayed in part by the city’s recovery from the devastating fire of November 1872, the park issue was not reopened until 1874. This time city voters approved an act that set up a commission to establish and run public parks, and in 1876 the commissioners recommended a comprehensive system of seven parks in the inner city and four in outlying areas, the latter connected by parkways.28 Boston was still in the grip of a five-year nation-wide depression that had followed the panic of 1873, however, and in 1877 the City Council approved only one of these parks—the Back Bay Fens. But this first park was an opening wedge and finally, in 1881 after the depression had ended, the city appropriated funds for six more parks.29 The park commissioners had tried to locate a park in each section of the city. The centerpiece “pleasure ground” in the Boston system—Franklin Park—was on existing land, so did not necessitate any filling. But some parts of the city did not have enough remaining open land, so in those sections parks were placed on the shore—locations that were also valued, in the days before air conditioning, for their cooling breezes. These shoreline parks invariably had to be filled in order to make them viable. Parks in the original system that required filling included Charlesbank in the West End (see chapter 5), Marine Park in South Boston (see chapter 11), and Wood Island Park in East Boston (see chapter 13). The Back Bay Fens was not on the shore but needed extensive filling nonetheless to convert the full basin of Back Bay into a sewage holding basin (see chapter 8 and figure 1.2). In the 1890s Boston began creating a “second wave” of parks, most of them in sections of the city without an original park

and most of them playgrounds. The playground movement stemmed from some of the same concerns as the original park movement—playgrounds were intended to improve the lives of the urban poor, particularly children, but through organized activities meant to improve their morals rather than through unstructured recreation meant to improve their health.30 Some of these playgrounds, like some of the original parks, were on the shore and needed to be filled. Examples are Charlestown (now Ryan) Playground and Charlestown Heights (now Doherty Playground; see chapter 14 and figure 1.2). In addition to a number of parks, the 1876 plan for the Boston park system had also included a series of parkways to connect these parks. These parkways were built during the next three decades (see figure 1.2), creating what later came to be called the Emerald Necklace as well as two parkways no longer considered part of it—Columbia Road (originally Dorchesterway) in Dorchester and Day Boulevard (originally the Strandway) in South Boston (see chapter 11). Some of these parkways required extensive filling, notably Riverway (see chapter 8), Day Boulevard (see chapter 11), and Neptune Road in East Boston (see chapter 13), the latter the parkway that once connected Wood Island Park to the rest of East Boston. In the late nineteenth century, a number of landmaking projects were prompted by Bostonians’ renewed concern about loss of shipping relative to New York and major European ports. Although the basic problem continued to be lack of a bulk export product, in this period it was identified as a lack of modern port facilities, particularly large publicly owned wharves served by railroads. The solutions seemed apparent. The harbor commissioners rushed to construct Commonwealth Pier (now the World Trade Center), although it then lay virtually unused for a decade, and also built Fish Pier for the Boston fishing industry, which had previously been based at T Wharf. The commissioners’ successors, the Directors of the Port of Boston, finally erected the existing head house and other structures on Commonwealth Pier in 1912–1913 and then pursued other port improvements—in 1915 they began filling for the huge dry dock in South Boston next to the present

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Boston Design Center building, although an earlier study had said such a dry dock was unnecessary (see chapter 11). And also in 1915, after thirty-five years of discussions and proposals, the directors began filling the East Boston Flats for a shipping terminal, a project that was soon taken over by the airport (see chapter 13 and figure 1.2). In the twentieth century much of the landmaking in Boston was conducted for the same reasons as in the nineteenth century— dealing with pollution from wastewater disposal, creating new public parks, and providing transportation facilities. The Main Drainage had not solved all Boston’s sewerage problems, for, like the sewerage systems built in other large U.S. cities at the time, it was a combined system, that is, the sewers carried both human waste and surface runoff. During large storms these combined sewers often overflowed, discharging storm water mixed with sewage. So some bodies of water in Boston continued to be polluted by sewage. By the 1890s the polluted flats along the Charles River, which was still a tidal estuary, had become a source of concern. The solution finally adopted was a dam (see figure 1.2)— now the site of the Museum of Science—that maintained the river at a constant level, keeping the offensive flats always covered with water and converting the Charles River Basin from salt water to fresh (see chapter 5). Pollution in South Bay became an issue in the teens, although filling was not recommended at that time because the wharves along its west and south shores were deemed commercially important. The bay was a stinking eyesore, however, so in 1920 when the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad requested permission to fill most of it, the harbor commissioners readily agreed. A narrow channel called the Roxbury Canal was left open along the west shore to serve the wharves there—a channel that, despite its notorious pollution and location right behind Boston City Hospital, was not completely filled until the mid1960s (see chapter 10 and figure 1.2). Land also continued to be made in the twentieth century to create public parks. As part of the Charles River Dam project, a narrow park, later known as the Esplanade, was filled along the Boston side of the river. The Esplanade was then widened twice—

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once in the early 1930s and again in the early 1950s (see chapters 6, 7, and 8 and figure 1.2). Playgrounds and beaches also continued to be created by filling (see figure 1.2)—Savin Hill (now McConnell Park) and Tenean Beaches in Dorchester (see chapter 12), Columbus (now Moakley) Park and Carson Beach in South Boston (see chapter 11), and Orient Heights (now Noyes) Playground and Constitution Beach in East Boston (see chapter 13). And in one case, an area filled illegally was converted into what is now Victory Road Park in Dorchester (see chapter 12). Twentieth-century landmaking projects also continued to create land for transportation facilities. The New York, New Haven & Hartford used the land it created in South Bay in the early 1920s as rail yards (see chapter 10) and, in the late 1920s, the Boston & Maine filled behind North Station so that its passengers could disembark onto solid ground instead of trestles (see chapter 4 and figure 1.2). The introduction of the automobile did not immediately precipitate much landmaking since cars could operate on existing streets, but higher-speed, more direct roads were proposed as early as the first decade of the twentieth century and one that was eventually built—Old Colony Parkway (now Morrissey Boulevard)—required some filling along the Dorchester shoreline (see chapter 12 and figure 1.2). Perhaps the most celebrated Boston highway project involving landmaking was Storrow Drive. This highway was omitted when the Esplanade was widened in the 1930s because Mrs. Storrow opposed a road along the river and her $1 million gift was needed to finance part of the project, but the drive was included in the state’s 1948 Master Highway Plan and built in 1950–1951. Ironically named Storrow Memorial Drive, it was constructed on the part of the Esplanade filled during the construction of the Charles River Dam and, to compensate for the land taken, some filling was done along the river, creating a series of connected islands and lagoons (see chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 and figure 1.2). But it was another twentieth-century transportation innovation—the airplane—that led to the largest landmaking project in Boston. After World War I had stimulated the development of aviation, Boston sought to establish a landing field. Ironically, the site

finally chosen was one being filled in East Boston for a shipping terminal and for many years the airport was considered only a temporary occupant of the land. One reason for selecting the site was its room for expansion, a quality that has proved to be one of the airport’s greatest assets. The airport was filled in various episodes (see figure 1.2)—from 1915 to 1923 by the state as a shipping terminal, in 1930–1931 by the city after it had acquired control of the airport, in 1943–1947 by the state to accommodate the larger planes and increase in air travel that developed during World War II, and in the 1960s and early 1970s by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) to extend the runways for jet planes (see chapter 13). The historical developments mentioned here are not the only ones that shaped landmaking in Boston. But wharfing out, the China trade, introduction of railroads, Irish immigration, midnineteenth-century harbor improvements, pollution from wastewater disposal, public parks, late-nineteenth-century port development, and twentieth-century transportation innovations were the most important reasons for the filling done in Boston and are themes that recur throughout this study.

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FIGURE 2.1 1882

PHOTOGRAPH OF DREDGING THE

B ACK B AY F ENS

LANDMAKING TECHNOLOGY

2

The land created in Boston from the nineteenth century onward was made, as explained in chapter 1, by a simple technique—a structure was built around the perimeter of an area to be filled and then fill was simply dumped inside it until the level of fill was above the level of high tide. Although this basic method of making land remained unchanged, some of its components—the perimeter structures, the foundations on which they were set, the methods used to excavate, transport, and deposit the fill, and even the fill itself—did evolve in response to a variety of factors. These changes are mentioned in the subsequent chapters, but only in relation to the projects on which they occurred. So this chapter pulls together data from the following ones to present a more systematic discussion of the evolution of the fill-retaining structures, types of fill, and methods of excavating, transporting, and depositing fill that were used to make land in Boston. F ILL -R ETAINING S TRUCTURES

Structures built to retain fill evolved from relatively simple ones in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to quite complex stone seawalls in the nineteenth and then back to simpler bulkheads and dikes in the twentieth. Evidence exists that some of the seventeenth-

and eighteenth-century fill-retaining structures were, like their nineteenth-century counterparts, derived from methods used to construct wharves at that time. A 1993 archaeological excavation in the former Mill Pond unearthed an early-eighteenth-century fill-retaining structure composed of layers of crisscrossed timbers laid down on the bottom of the pond and then covered with fill— a technique similar to that used to construct the crib and cobb wharves of that era. Such a simple structure was evidently adequate to hold fill in the relatively placid water of the Mill Pond, which had been dammed off from the Charles River and presumably had little wave action. Along the Neck, however, where the water was rougher, the structures built in the eighteenth century to hold fill were either low stone seawalls or wood bulkheads—sturdier than the unjoined crisscrossed timbers in the Mill Pond and precursors of structures that would be more generally used in the nineteenth century. In the early nineteenth century stone seawalls soon became the predominant type of fill-retaining structure. These seawalls were evidently also based on methods of wharf construction, for by this time wharves were no longer wooden cribs, as they had been in the eighteenth century, but instead were solid structures with stone perimeter walls. Stone seawalls, which were generally used to retain fill in areas of open water, were constructed of unmortared cut granite blocks, usually laid in regular courses. At least one face was invariably battered, that is, wider at the base than at the top, undoubtedly to increase stability. The walls were also strengthened by being ballasted—supported by small stones banked up against the inner face. These features enabled seawalls to be relatively high—those built in 1818–1821 to form the Mill Dam, for example, measured fifteen feet vertically (see figure 7.5). Sometimes these early seawalls were finished with timber caps—squared timbers placed on top of the wall and secured by being attached to vertical posts driven along the face of the wall. And, at least along the canal through the Mill Pond, the walls were supported by “land ties”—horizontal timbers attached to vertical posts in front of the wall and then extended back into it—an arrangement designed to keep the walls from slumping forward.

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These early-nineteenth-century stone seawalls were set on quite simple foundations. If the bottom was clay, the wall was often built directly on the clay or in a trench excavated into it. On most tidal flats, however, a layer of silt covered the clay, and in these areas stone seawalls were built on foundations called platforms. Platforms were grids, sometimes called grillages, of alternating layers of lengthwise and crosswise squared timbers (see figure 7.6). They were usually only several layers high, but in some places, such as those built in 1815 at the deepwater end of Central Wharf, they were as high as seventeen feet. In this case, the lower layers of the platforms were wider than the upper in order to help stabilize the structure—in other words, the platform foundation was battered—and its inner side, like that of the seawalls, was ballasted with small stones. In a few instances, older types of fill-retaining structures continued to be employed in the early nineteenth century. Wood bulkheads, sometimes called abutments, were constructed, for example, in the Mill Pond in the late eighteenth century, north of Cambridge Street in 1799, and at the foot of Mount Vernon in 1803. At the foot of Mount Vernon, where these bulkheads had to be strong enough to withstand wave action in the Charles River estuary, they were built of timber and planks attached to driven piles. In the Mill Pond, however, which was protected by a dam, the bulkhead was composed of squared timbers simply stacked up against, but not attached to, vertical posts (see figure 4.12). Mud dikes were used in Back Bay, which, like the Mill Pond, was protected by a dam. Actually, the dike built in the receiving basin in the 1820s was to keep water out of flats being filled rather than to retain fill on them, and dikes were constructed in the 1830s to form the Public Garden and Tremont Street probably because they were less expensive than other structures. And in one location— the Navy Yard—the structure built in 1801–1802 to form one timber dock was a cobb wharf, which was not only a real throwback to earlier centuries but also not very effective, as it leaked. Beginning about 1830 construction of stone seawalls in Boston began to change. As these walls were built higher and their bases consequently wider, owing to the battered cross sections,

they were increasingly set on foundations of timber piles driven into the underlying clay rather than on platforms, or grillages. Piles probably became the preferred foundation because they provided a firmer base than platforms—platforms could shift position on the bottom whereas piles remained anchored where they were driven. The use of pile foundations was, like the stone seawalls themselves, also probably derived from techniques used in wharf construction, for in the nineteenth century buildings erected on the fill contained within a wharf ’s perimeter walls were set on foundations of timber piles. The piles for a seawall foundation were usually placed in a trench excavated down to clay. After the piles were driven, the tops were cut off below the low water mark to prevent decay, for wet wood rots if exposed to air but is preserved if kept always immersed. The spaces between the tops of the piles were usually filled with small stones, and timber stringers were then attached across the tops to serve as the base for the seawall (see figure 14.16). Sometimes, as in the first dry dock at the Navy Yard in the 1820s and the seawall at Charlesbank in the 1880s, a thick plank floor was spiked on top of the stringers to provide a solid base for the wall. Construction of the walls themselves also changed in the mid-nineteenth century. Sometimes binders—single stones that extended all the way through the wall—were required, undoubtedly to increase stability (see figure 10.6). Some walls were topped with granite caps, or coping, a finish probably derived from the earlier timber caps. In places where the walls were intended to serve as the edges of docks as well as fill-retaining structures, such as in South Bay and on the South Boston Flats, what were called platforms (actually wooden pile wharves) were often built in front of the walls (see figure 11.18). Platforms were intended to provide enough space for the bottom of the channel to slope down from the face of the wall, where it was the same level as the top of the foundation piles in order to keep them covered as protection against marine borer worms, to a depth sufficient for ships. By the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the structures built to retain fill were changing more radically. Stone seawalls were still being constructed, usually on a

foundation of timber piles topped by a thick plank surface (see figures 11.17 and 14.16). Some seawalls, however, such as the 1870s “heavy” wall around today’s Fan Pier (see figure 11.19), the section of the wall along the Reserved Channel built in 1902, and Dry Dock 2 (1899–1906) at the Navy Yard, were set on stone foundations—broken granite, concrete and field stones, or just concrete. And cement began to be used in the walls themselves. The granite blocks in the “heavy” seawall on the South Boston Flats were set in cement, those in the 1880s wall at Charlesbank were mortared, and those in the 1880s seawall at the end of the pier over the outfall sewer at the Calf Pasture were mortared and backed by concrete. In addition, some walls, such as those built in 1906–1908 along the Boston Embankment and in 1899 around the Fitchburg Slip in Charlestown, were entirely of concrete. In the latter two cases, the construction techniques were also a departure from the recent past—the walls of the Fitchburg Slip were set on timber cribbing, possibly similar to the platforms used earlier in the century, rather than on piles, and the walls along the embankment were constructed at the same time the embankment itself was being filled rather than prior to it. But perhaps the most radical change in the late nineteenth century was the reintroduction of an earlier type of fill-retaining structure—the wood bulkhead. Wood bulkheads were first employed again in the 1870s on the South Boston Flats and soon were used on many other projects as well. These bulkheads were built more substantially than they had been earlier in the century. Those on the South Boston Flats, for example, had thick vertical posts driven deep into the bottom. The posts were supported by diagonal braces called spurshores and later also by stringers bolted across them. The planks attached to the back of the posts were thick, capped by timbers, and sometimes secured with vertical battens. Although these bulkheads were not inexpensive to build, they were certainly less costly than seawalls, and that is probably why, despite their proclivity to decay and damage, wood bulkheads soon replaced stone seawalls as the most prevalent type of fill-retaining structure used in Boston, especially when vast areas were to be filled, such as on the South Boston and East Boston Flats.

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In addition to bulkheads, other simpler and less expensive structures also began to be employed in the twentieth century, some of them reminiscent of structures used in the early nineteenth century. A clay dike, somewhat like the mud dikes of the 1820s and 1830s, was constructed in 1917 to hold the fill for Columbus (now Moakley) Park in South Boston. Later in the twentieth century dikes were commonly faced with riprap—large stones or chunks of concrete—presumably to keep them from eroding. Riprapped dikes were built, for example, in the 1960s for filling at the airport and at what became Victory Road Park in Dorchester, and in the early 1970s between Piers 2 and 4 in South Boston. And dikes composed entirely of rock were constructed in the 1960s to hold fill both on the Bird Island Flats at the airport and at the dock between Piers 1 and 2 in South Boston and were used again in the 1980s at Subaru Pier. In the middle of the twentieth century, steel sheet piling, which could be regarded as the twentieth-century equivalent of wood bulkheads, began to be employed as a fill-retaining structure. An early form of sheet piling had been used to construct a cofferdam during the building of South Station in 1897–1899. Later, in the 1940s the navy used steel sheet piling to hold fill at the north end of the Navy Yard and at the quadrilateral quay in South Boston, and in the 1960s sheet piling was employed at Victory Road Park. In sum, then, over a period of three hundred years the structures built to hold fill on Boston landmaking projects evolved from the timber cribbing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the ubiquitous stone seawalls and occasional wood bulkheads and mud dikes of the nineteenth century and then, in the late nineteenth century, back to wood bulkheads and, in the twentieth, to riprap-faced dikes and steel sheet piling—an evolution apparently driven by considerations of both engineering and expense. T YPES

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The type of fill used to make land in Boston also went through a similar evolution, although one determined not as much by engineering and cost considerations as by theories of disease. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the colonists’ beliefs about

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disease were a combination of contagionist and anticontagionist theories. On one hand, people thought that smallpox was contagious and tried to contain it by means of quarantines. On the other hand, people also believed that diseases were caused by bad odors from rotting organic matter—the miasmatic theory of disease. Given the latter belief, it is surprising that trash was often used as fill. Yet archaeological evidence indicates that both the Town and Scottow’s Docks were filled with whole cartloads of refuse, probably collected from nearby taverns, craft shops, and households and then dumped into the docks. Perhaps the trash was topped with clean dirt to prevent any “loathsome smells.” By the early nineteenth century, however, when the town was contemplating filling the Mill Pond, ideas about acceptable fill had changed. The miasmatic theory of disease had even more credence since quarantine had failed to contain a recent outbreak of yellow fever. Trash was thus no longer an acceptable fill but gravel and dirt, which were thought to be devoid of organic matter, were. Many of the contracts for filling the Mill Pond therefore specified that the fill be “clean gravel or earth.” Despite the preference for gravel, however, other types of fill were also employed on occasion, probably because they were convenient or inexpensive. Mud excavated from tidal flats or marshes was used, for example, to fill various sites, including Central Wharf in 1815 and the east side of the Mill Pond in the 1820s. Even “street sweepings and trash,” the former undoubtedly containing horse manure, were used as fill on the flats west of Charles Street in the first decades of the century and, briefly, in the Mill Pond despite their clear contravention of current standards of acceptability. In the period from about 1830 to the end of the nineteenth century, “clean gravel” continued to be the preferred type of fill. Areas filled with gravel were considered more desirable than areas filled with other materials. When plans were being made in the 1850s to fill Back Bay, for example, which was intended as an upper-middle-class residential district, it was emphasized that the fill would be gravel rather than the salt mud that had been used to fill South Cove in the 1830s and 1840s. Gravel was also originally specified for the South Bay Lands, another project intended to create land for middle-class residences (see chapter 10).

Other kinds of fill were also used, however. Another acceptable type was what was often called cellar dirt, that is, earth excavated during construction of new buildings. It was considered to be relatively free of organic matter and could often be obtained free of charge. Mud from tidal flats and trash continued to be used, too. The former was probably also considered relatively free of organic matter, although its dampness was considered a source of disease. Mud fill came to be associated with lower-class districts. An 1849 report attributed the “disagreeable and unwholesome effluvia” in the South Cove and Harrison Avenue (formerly Front Street) areas to the fact that they had been filled with “marsh mud” that had not settled properly before houses and sewers were built (see chapter 9).1 The 1849 cholera epidemic was thought to have originated and been most virulent in areas filled with “dock mud”—the streets at the base of Fort Hill that had been filled during the Broad/India Streets project (see chapter 3).2 And trash was used to fill such places as the Church and Suffolk Street Districts in the 1820s and 1830s, MGH flats in the 1860s, Mystic Wharf in the late 1800s, and Charlestown (now Ryan) Playground in the 1890s probably because it was the cheapest fill available. Some new types of fill were introduced in the nineteenth century. One, often referred to as household ashes, was actually coal ashes. Coal came into common use about 1840 as the fuel for cooking and heating, and the city soon began collecting ashes, much as it collects trash today. Needing a place to dispose them, the city used the ashes as fill on many of its landmaking projects. Household ashes, however, sometimes attracted scavengers seeking usable objects that had been discarded into the fire but not incinerated, as depicted in Winslow’s Homer’s famous 1859 engraving of scavengers in Back Bay (see figure 7.24). Concern about scavengers was also the reason for prohibiting ashes as fill on the South Bay Lands project in 1858. Another new type of fill introduced in the nineteenth century was material dredged from the bottom of the harbor or rivers. Dredged fill, as distinguished from mud excavated from tidal flats, was first used on the South Boston Flats, which in 1868 were required to be filled with dredgings in order to deepen the ship-

ping channel at the same time the flats were being filled. Dredged material was used again in the 1870s to fill the space between the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation’s seawall and the Mill Dam, and then subsequently on many Boston projects. Dredgings were a convenient form of fill, particularly for large scale projects, and continued to be commonly used until the middle of the twentieth century when they became less popular, probably because it took so long for such material to settle. The major transformation in types of fill during the twentieth century, however, was brought about by a transformation in theories of disease. In the United States, the old miasmatic or filth theory of disease was finally replaced by the germ theory in the early 1880s,3 although it took somewhat longer for this new contagionist theory to be popularly accepted.4 But once people no longer believed that diseases were caused by bad odors and filth, “clean” fill was not necessary and trash once again became acceptable. The transition was not immediate—gravel, dirt, dredgings, and coal ashes continued to be used for many years to fill numerous sites. But trash, which had never been entirely abandoned as fill, began to be employed with increasing frequency, culminating in the ultimate trash-filled area of made land—a huge trash dump at Columbia Point where Boston College High, UMass/Boston, the Massachusetts State Archives, the Kennedy Library, Harbor Point Apartments, and the Bayside Expo Center are now located. Construction debris also became an acceptable form of fill, although some permits for filling prohibited the inclusion of wood or other organic materials. In conclusion, then, like the structures built to hold fill though for different reasons, the types of fill considered acceptable in Boston went through an evolution that has come full circle—from the trash of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the “clean” fill of the nineteenth and back to trash in the twentieth. M ETHODS

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The techniques used to excavate, transport, and deposit fill, on the other hand, have followed a more linear progression, one determined by changes in technology. Not much is known about how

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fill was excavated and transported in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One can surmise, however, from the way fill was deposited at the Town and Scottow’s Docks, that it was transported in carts or large containers and then dumped into the docks. On the other hand, it is clear that at the beginning of the nineteenth century gravel fill was dug by hand with picks and shovels and transported to areas being filled in horse-drawn tip carts (see figures 4.9 and 4.10). A singular innovation was employed on the Mount Vernon project in 1805—a small pulley-operated incline railroad on wooden tracks, reportedly the first railroad in the United States, carried fill down the hill to the flats below. On this project as well as at the Almshouse Wharf in 1801–1803 and Front Street in 1804–1805, tidal mud dug from nearby flats was transported by scows. Similarly, in 1811 lighters ferried the stones used to build the walls of the canal through the Mill Pond. Thus, in the first decades of Boston’s major landmaking, fill was dug and transported by hand and horsepower. Many of these same methods of excavating and depositing fill remained in use into the early twentieth century. On many sites fill continued to be dug with hand shovels and carried by horse-drawn tip carts or, in the case of dredged material, by scows. There were some variations, however. When the Boston & Lowell Railroad filled the area north of Causeway Street in 1835, for example, the fill was transported in narrow ox-drawn wagons that dumped from the side. But many nineteenth-century landmaking projects employed new technology. Perhaps the most dramatic innovation was the use of railroads to haul fill. Trains first hauled fill not on the Back Bay project in the 1850s, as is commonly thought, but on the South Cove project in the 1830s—the very first Boston & Worcester locomotive to enter South Cove, in June 1836, came pulling a string of cars loaded with gravel from Brighton. And railroads hauled gravel fill on the South Bay Lands project in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Railroads then became the standard means of transporting gravel and dirt fill on most large landmaking projects—Back Bay from the late 1850s through the 1880s, Church and Suffolk Street Districts in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and

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the Back Bay Fens in the 1880s and 1890s. On the South Boston Flats, in the 1870s and 1880s a small locomotive operating on raised trestles pulled cars carrying dredged material from the place where scows dumped the dredgings to the area being filled. And on the Atlantic Avenue project, in the early 1870s small handoperated railroad cars on movable tracks, reminiscent of these used at the beginning of the century on the Mount Vernon project, carried fill from Fort Hill down to the docks. In addition to railroads, Boston landmaking was transformed in the nineteenth century by other types of steam-powered equipment. Perhaps the most celebrated was the “steam excavator,” or steam shovel. Invented by William Otis of Philadelphia, the steam shovel was strengthened and improved by John Souther of Boston, who is sometimes credited with its invention. Steam shovels were first used in the late 1850s to dig gravel in Needham for Back Bay and were used again in the early 1870s by Souther to cut down Fort Hill (see figures 7.21, 7.22, and 3.38). Souther himself invented a steam-powered scoop dredge that was used in the 1850s on the South Bay Lands project, a dredge reportedly so successful that it enabled contractor William Evans to make a huge profit on that project. Other steam-powered equipment used in the 1850s in South Bay included a “hoisting apparatus” that lifted dredged material out of the scows and deposited it on the flats and a machine that pulled piles. Some of the greatest technological changes occurred in dredging equipment. A steam-powered dredge was used not only in the 1850s on the South Bay Lands project but also in the 1870s to fill behind the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation’s seawall in Back Bay, although it is not clear what these dredges looked like nor how they operated. More is known about the clamshell dredge used on the South Boston Flats in the 1870s and 1880s. This dredge lifted excavated material, which had been dumped by scows in front of the seawalls, over the walls and onto sloping platforms behind them from where it slid down to the flats. When the area near the wall had been filled, the clamshell dredge then loaded the dredgings into the railroad cars that were pulled by small locomotives running on trestles, as described above. In the Back Bay Fens

dredging was first done by what was called a “wire rope excavator” pulled by horses. But because the bottom was too soft for the horses to work effectively, a steam dredge was built and put into operation in 1882. A park department photograph shows that this dredge was essentially a floating version of the steam shovel (see figure 2.1), and it was probably the same type of dredge that was used in the 1880s to fill the Bay State Road area. A major innovation was the introduction of hydraulic dredges. They were first used in the late 1880s to fill the Cambridge side of the river and then in the early 1890s to fill the South Boston Flats and the Bay State Road area. Hydraulic dredges were initially imported from other cities. The first hydraulic dredge on the South Boston Flats was operated by a San Francisco company. It was described as a scow with a large steampowered rotary pump that sucked up material loosened from the bottom along with a large quantity of water and forced both through pipes supported by pontoons to the area being filled. The solid material then settled and the water drained off through sluices. The hydraulic dredge used to fill the Bay State Road area was probably the Schmidt dredge that had been brought from Washington, D.C., in 1888 to work on the Cambridge flats. In 1890 it moved to the Boston side of the river, where it was operated by a Massachusetts company. The dredge reportedly sucked material up from the river bottom, so it evidently functioned similarly to the hydraulic dredge in South Boston. Another system of depositing dredged materials, introduced in the early 1890s on the South Boston Flats, combined both conventional and hydraulic methods. After scows had brought dredgings to what was called a receiving station, a clamshell dredge placed them in a hopper. Then water ejected from steam-powered pumps forced the dredged material through a pipe to the area being filled. The new methods developed in the nineteenth century to excavate, transport, and deposit fill continued to be applied in the twentieth with very little change. On some projects, such as the filling behind North Station by the Boston & Maine in the 1920s, fill was still dug by steam shovels and hauled by rail. On many oth-

ers, fill continued to be dredged. Dredged fill was either deposited directly onto the flats, as at the Boston Embankment in 1906–1909 (see figures 7.37 and 7.39); dredged conventionally and deposited hydraulically, as on the East Boston Flats in the teens and twenties; or dredged and deposited hydraulically, as during the widening of the Esplanade in the early 1930s, the construction of Storrow Drive in 1950–1951 (see figure 8.17), and the expansion of the airport in the 1940s. The dredges themselves apparently changed very little, however, for the dredge used on the Storrow Drive project in the 1950s appears very similar to the dredge used by the park department in the 1880s (see figures 8.8 and 8.16). Perhaps the only twentieth-century innovation was the mode of transporting fill on land. The introduction of the automobile spelled the demise of the horse-drawn tip carts that had been the hallmark of Boston landmaking for so long, and by the middle of the twentieth century fill was being hauled to projects such as Storrow Drive and the Bird Island Flats by the modern equivalent—the dump truck. So, like fill-retaining structures and types of fill, methods of excavating, transporting, and depositing fill evolved over time, although in a linear rather than circular progression that was driven by technological change, for the huge diesel power shovels, dredges, and dump trucks of the late twentieth century were certainly a far cry from the hand wielded picks, shovels, and horse-drawn tip carts of the nineteenth. All these components of landmaking technology—fill retaining structures, types of fill, and methods of excavating, transporting and depositing fill—and their modifications over time were employed to make the land in Boston that will be discussed in the following chapters.

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The shoreline of the Town Cove originally ran next to what is today North Street, across the area now occupied by the Central Artery, through the site of the present parking garage next to Quincy Market, then west to the far side of Congress Street encompassing the site of Faneuil Hall (not visible behind the 60 State Street building), down Merchant’s Row to State Street, through the site of the present 75 State Street building to Liberty Square (not visible behind the 1 Post Office Square building), then up Hawes Street as far as Congress and back down Water Street to Liberty Square. A narrow marshy arm extended across the top of what is now Post Office Square. From Liberty Square the shoreline ran down Batterymarch and Broad Street to Atlantic Avenue opposite the Rowe’s Wharf building. The reconstructed 1630 shoreline shown here is based on the map in figure appendix 2.4.

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In September 1630, when the main group of Massachusetts Bay Company colonists under John Winthrop moved from Charlestown to the Shawmut Peninsula where they established the town of Boston, they built their houses around the large cove that is variously called the Great Cove, East Cove, or, as it will be here, the Town Cove (see figure 1.1), which was on the east side of the peninsula, facing the harbor. It is thus not surprising that the first landmaking in Boston took place along the shore of this cove, which, as one can see when the shoreline of the cove in 1630 is superimposed on a 1992 bird’s-eye view of Boston (figure 3.1), originally encompassed what is now Boston’s central waterfront. Soon after Boston was settled, waterfront owners began building wharves out from the shore of the Town Cove. Wharfing out may have begun as early as 16341 and was certainly promoted by the enactment in 1641 of what is sometimes called the Colonial Ordinance—the law described in chapter 1 that gave shoreline property holders ownership of the flats down to the low tide mark. Actual permission to build wharves was required from the town, however, and after 1643 statements such as, “Thomas Clarke . . . hath liberty to wharfe before his proprietye,”2 appear regularly in the town records.

Edward Johnson, who about 1650 wrote a book entitled Wonder-Working Providence in order to attract more English settlers, described Boston as a town “crowded on the Sea-bankes and wharfed out with great industry and cost.”3 The wharves constructed in the Town Cove by about that time are shown on a detail from a map reconstructed for 1648 by Samuel C. Clough (figure 3.2). Clough was an early-twentieth-century draftsman and cartographer who, as a hobby, mapped property holdings in early Boston, producing reconstructed maps that are a valuable source of information about seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Boston (see appendix 2). (Note that the streets shown on Clough’s plan are in the same locations as their modern successors. Although it is accepted wisdom that Boston’s winding streets follow old cow paths, the streets actually follow old Indian trails or were laid out around topographical features or as the route from one place to another—“Street from the Great Draw Bridge to the Meeting House” or “Street from Dock to Mill,” for example. Boston’s street plan may seem confusing because it is the only one in the center of a large American city that is not a grid,4 but the streets wind because they were routes taken by people, not cows.) Wharfing out was the major form of landmaking in Boston in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued to be important in the nineteenth century, but most of the wharves were built by individuals and, as explained in the preface, this book focuses on land made in Boston by projects, that is, by organized entities. E NCLOSED D OCKS (TOWN , O LIVER ’ S ,

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S COTTOW ’ S ) C REATED

One of the first areas where land was made by an organized group was along the shore of the town landing place at the head of the Town Cove—the area now around Faneuil Hall (see figure 3.1). As early as 1633 the shore of the town landing place had apparently been filled in and squared off to make it easier for boats to tie up and unload,5 and most of the subsequent improvements to the town landing place, which soon became known as the Town Dock, were made by groups of proprietors, or shareholders. The town used grants to proprietors as a means of acquiring public facilities

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at private expense, for, in return for the grant and any profits, the proprietors were usually required to make improvements for public use—somewhat like the linkage payments of today whereby developers, in return for development rights, make payments for public benefits such as affordable housing and job-training. At the Town Dock, for example, a group of fourteen proprietors had built a wharf, crane, and warehouse by 1638, and in January 1639 the town granted them one hundred acres in Braintree to help defray the expenses of repairing and maintaining the structures.6 In March 1639 Edward Bendall acquired a half interest in the wharf, crane, and warehouse and, a few months later, another half interest in a large lighter—a barge used for loading and unloading ships in the harbor—that served the dock,7 and for many years thereafter the Town Dock was known as Bendall’s Dock or Cove. (Note that until the present century the term dock meant the water in an enclosed basin or a slip between wharves, not a structure at which vessels loaded or unloaded.) In 1641 the town granted all of Bendall’s Cove to Valentine Hill, a merchant, and his associates. In return for one hundred pounds, the proprietors received the right for nine years to build wharves and warehouses and to charge wharfage, a fee for the use of a wharf, and tunnage, a charge per ton on cargo, and within two years were to build a wharf and clear a “creek” (channel) so that a lighter of twenty tons could load or unload on an ordinary tide.8 By 1648, as indicated on Clough’s map of that year, the proprietors had filled along both sides and at the head of Bendall’s Cove (see figure 3.2). The town evidently wanted to continue the arrangement with the proprietors, for in 1649 the grant was extended for eighty years retroactive to 1646, that is, until 1726.9 The improvements made to the Town Dock in the 1640s soon led to the enclosure of the dock, that is, completely surrounding the dock with land. Enclosed docks, which by their nature were shallow, provided protection for the relatively small shallow-draft ships of the seventeenth century and were in demand by Boston’s growing shipping industry, which by 1650 was already carrying on a thriving trade with many foreign ports. Clough’s reconstructed map of the Town Dock ca. 1650 shows that a cross

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CK) N DO (TOW

(STATE

ST

SI T DO E OF CK OL I

VE

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ET

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R’

S

DRAWBRIDGE

N

FIGURE 3.2 T OWN C OVE

IN

1648

AS RECONSTRUCTED BY

S AMUEL C. C LO UGH

Clough’s map shows the amount of wharfing out that had taken place by 1648, the filling at the head of the Town (Bendall’s) Cove, the marshy inlet south of it that became Oliver’s Dock, and the Mill Creek and the drawbridge over it on North Street.

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making did not occur there until the dock was later filled in. Unlike the Town and Oliver’s Docks, however, Scottow’s Dock was created by an individual rather than by an organized group but is included here because it was an important enclosed dock in seventeenth-century Boston and because useful information about the site was found by an archaeological investigation. In 1652 Joshua Scottow, a merchant, bought from William Franklin a half interest in both the Mill Creek, a waterway that had been dug in 1643 across the neck between the Town and Mill Coves in order to power some tide mills (see chapter 4), and in the drawbridge over the creek on Conduit (now North) Street (see figure 3.2).

(NO

wall had been built on either side of the entrance (figure 3.3). By 1673 both sides of the dock had been filled in and the entrance narrowed to such an extent that the town gave the proprietors permission to build a bridge across the mouth of the dock that would “not be prejudicial to any vessel nor hazardous to children.”10 The resulting bridge, on a site today approximately at the west end of North Market Street, was known as the swing bridge, for it pivoted open so that ships could enter and leave the dock. The enclosed Town Dock and the swing bridge are clearly depicted on Clough’s reconstructed map of Boston in 1676 (figure 3.4), which also shows the street intersection just above the dock that became the eponymous Dock Square (where the words “street to” appear on the map). Dock Square now exists in name only but was once the area now under Congress Street next to Samuel Adams Park at the west end of Faneuil Hall. Another enclosed dock in early Boston resulted from a request by some townsmen in 1643 that a “creek” be dug in the marshy part of the Town Cove south of Bendall’s Dock in order to provide another “harbor” (see figures 3.1 and 3.2). In May 1643 the town meeting (a scheduled gathering of all the town’s voters) agreed to this request, and, pending approval of the selectmen (the elected executives who ran the town government), authorized five men, including Governor John Winthrop and merchant Valentine Hill, to begin the work.11 This project eventually created, in the area now just west of Liberty Square between Water and Hawes Streets, what came to be known as Oliver’s Dock. It was named after Peter Oliver, who acquired most of the surrounding area in the 1650s and 1660s. A subsidiary dock, located in the marshy arm of the Town Cove that is now the part of Post Office Square between Water and Milk Streets, was known as Atkinson’s Dock (see figures 3.1 and 3.4). What is now Kilby Street crossed the mouth of Oliver’s Dock and by 1676 vessels entered the dock through a draw bridge on this street, labeled “lesser draw bridge” on Clough’s reconstructed map of that year (see figure 3.4). A third enclosed dock created in the mid-seventeenth century was Scottow’s Dock. Like Oliver’s Dock, Scottow’s Dock was originally formed by excavation rather than by filling, and land-

(DOCK)

DR

FIGURE 3.3 C LOUGH ’ S RECONSTRUCTED 1640–1650

MAP OF

T OW N

AN D

S COT TOW ’ S D OCK

AREAS ,

This map shows the cross wall that had been extended on either side of the mouth of the Town Dock, almost enclosing it, and the division between Franklin and Scottow of the cove that became Scottow’s Dock.

(H AN OV ER ST RE ET )

(UNION)

(N TH

T)

OR

TREE TE S (STA

SCOTTOW’S DOCK

)

TOWN DOCK SWING BRIDGE

ST .)

Y

LE

SS

ER

DR

AW

BR

ID

GE

BA T TE RY

M AR CH RLE

TT’S

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ARF

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FIGURE 3.4 T OWN C OVE

IN

SCA

ILK

ILB

ST.)

(M

(K

TER (WA

ATKINSON’S DOCK

ST .)

OLIVER’S DOCK

1676

AS RECONSTRUCTED BY

S AMUEL C. C LO UGH

By 1676 the Town Dock had been completely enclosed and a swing bridge built across its mouth, Oliver’s Dock had been created and a “lesser draw bridge” built across its mouth on Kilby Street (“Lane to Fort Hill”), Scottow’s Dock had been excavated, and the Sconce or South Battery built at the base of Fort Hill.

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The deed indicates that the Mill Creek was deep enough to permit the passage of fairly large vessels, for it refers to “all boats, shallops, pinnaces, barks, ships, sloops, and vessels whatsoever coming under or through said bridge or stream.”12 In 1653 Franklin also sold Scottow a half interest in a cove on the west side of the Mill Creek, as shown on Clough’s reconstructed map of the area for ca. 1650 (see figure 3.3), and in the next year Scottow proceeded to dig out the cove and make it into a dock area.13 Ships approached Scottow’s Dock, as it came to be known, from the Town Cove side and entered the Mill Creek through the drawbridge. In the third quarter of the seventeenth century wharves and warehouses were built around Scottow’s Dock and by 1676, as suggested on Clough’s reconstructed map of that date, it was an important dock area in Boston (see figure 3.4). Yet by the late twentieth century this once prominent topographical feature had been completely forgotten and was only rediscovered through the historical research conducted for an archaeological project.14 The archaeological investigation of Scottow’s Dock took place in 1981 when the Bostonian Hotel was being constructed at the corner of North and Blackstone Streets, and the site is often referred to as the Bostonian Hotel Site. The Bostonian Hotel is on the Blackstone Block, the block now bounded by Blackstone, North, Union, and Hanover Streets where the Union Oyster House and the weekend pushcart market are now located (see figure 3.1). There had long been some question about whether the southeast part of the block was originally tidal flats or whether it was a marsh, and the archaeological investigation showed that that part of the block—the part now occupied by the Bostonian Hotel and Creek Square, where Scottow’s Dock was located—was originally a marsh. The investigation also found evidence that townspeople began to fill in the marshy areas near North Street at an early date, for an area near present North Street and Scott (originally Scottow’s) Alley had been built up beginning in the mid-seventeenth century with several layers of fill, one layer of which was primarily charcoal and may have been debris from a fire that occurred in the area in 1679.15

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The archaeologists also found remains of a wharf on the west side of what was once Scottow’s Dock (see figure 3.3). In the report on the Bostonian Hotel Site this wharf is identified as a part of Scottow’s Dock,16 although this identification reflects the current confusion between the terms dock and wharf, for the structure should more accurately be called a part of Scottow’s Wharf or, if it was on the side of the dock that belonged to Franklin (see figure 3.3), of Franklin’s Wharf. The wharf was probably built in the mid-seventeenth century and was what is called a cobb wharf, that is, constructed of layers of logs built up log-cabin style and the interior filled with rocks. S EVENTEENTH -C ENTURY F ORTIFICATIONS (S OUTH B ATTERY

AND THE

B ARRICADO )

In addition to the filling that was done in the seventeenth century to enclose the Town Dock and to fill in the marsh between Scottow’s Dock and what is now North Street, land was also made in Boston for several fortifications. Providing adequate defenses for the town was an important consideration in the colonial period when Boston, as a major port and an English colony, always feared an attack by one of England’s enemies—in the 1630s and 1640s from the French and later in the seventeenth century from the Dutch. Although fortifications were built on hills and islands—a fort was erected on the eponymous Fort Hill as early as 1632 and another on the also eponymous Castle Island, at the entrance to the harbor, in 163417—gun batteries on the shore were also an important seventeenth- and eighteenth-century form of defense and flats were filled to create new land on which to construct them. One of these seventeenth-century shoreline batteries was the South Battery, or Sconce (a small detached fort), at the base of Fort Hill at the south tip of the Town Cove—later the site of Rowe’s Wharf. (Another shoreline battery, the North Battery, was built on the northeast point of the North End at what is now Battery Wharf, but since it was not in the Town Cove it has not been included in this discussion.) In June 1665, the General Court (the

KING (S T. TATE) S

Y ST.) HANT

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EET

)

E

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(BR

SED LO

OA

D

PROPO

ST

RE

ET

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ET NG WH ARF

200'

BARRICADO

FIGURE 3.5 1708

PL AN OF THE

B ARRICADO

AND PROPOSED

L ONG W HARF

This plan clearly shows and labels the segment of the Barricado owned by each proprietor, the gaps left in the Barricado for access to the Town Cove, the two hundred feet of flats inside the Barricado granted to the proprietors, and the circular line beyond which wharves on shore were not supposed to extend (although by 1708 three apparently had). The plan also shows the projected line

of Long Wharf, which was an extension of King (State) Street and intersected the Barricado between the south and middle gaps. The plan is reproduced here with the original bottom at the top so that it would be aligned similarly to other maps of the Town Cove (see figures 3.2 and 3.4), which is why the cartouche in the upper-right-hand corner is upside down. C

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Massachusetts legislature) ordered that the batteries in Boston be completed because war with the Dutch was imminent. The Sconce was evidently finished by May 1666 when an inspection committee of the General Court reported: “we entred a well contriued fort . . . it is spacious wthin, that the trauerse of one gunne will not hinder the others course; and for defence, the foundation is of stone, & well banked wth earth for dulling the shott & hindering execution; . . . we apprehend it to be the compleatest worke of that kind which hitherto hath been erected in this country.”18 The Sconce and the land made for it are shown on Clough’s 1676 map (see figure 3.4). Another fortification that involved landmaking was begun in the 1670s during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. In September 1673 the selectmen were asked to consider erecting a wall, or wharf, on the tidal flats across the mouth of the Town Cove in order to protect the town from fire ships (old ships set ablaze and then set drifting toward an enemy’s ships and wharves). At a town meeting on September 5, 1673, the residents refused to undertake such a project at public expense but authorized the selectmen to find some other means of carrying it out. On September 10 the selectmen proposed that “a wall or wharfe of wood & stone” be erected from the Sconce to Captain Scarlett’s wharf in the North End (see figure 3.4), a length of twenty-two hundred feet. They specified that the barrier should be twenty-two feet wide at the base and at least six feet high, to be increased soon to a height “as shall be judged convenient for a brest worke to play Guns on,” a height they presumed to be about fourteen or fifteen feet, and should be “20 foote broad at ye topp.” The selectmen proposed that this structure be built by private citizens in segments of at least twenty feet and that, in return for their work, each proprietor be granted a two hundred-foot width of flats on the landward side of his section of the wall and permission to build wharves and warehouses on these flats.19 The Barricado, or outwharves, as it was called, was to have occasional gaps so that ships could get to the wharves in the Town Cove and, probably to compensate for the inconvenience, the owners of these wharves were allowed to extend them out to a circular line drawn approximately three hundred feet from the shore.

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The Barricado was approximately on the line of old Atlantic Avenue—the walk that is now next to the water in front of Waterfront Park and the waterside street between Long Wharf, the aquarium, and Harbor Towers—and the circular line was on the east side of today’s Chatham Row—the short street that runs between State and Chatham Streets behind the South Market building (see figure 3.1). Forty-one subscribers promised to build sections of the Barricado ranging in length from 20 to 150 feet. Although the original specifications said that the Barricado was to be constructed of wood and stone, most of it was apparently built with insubstantial materials for, when Central Wharf was constructed in 1816 over remains of a part of the Barricado, it was later reported that “branches of trees . . . with the bark still entire, were thrown up from the bottom of the original structure, with the stones in connection with which they had been sunk one hundred and forty years before.”20 And branches, stones, and timbers were not all that was used to build the Barricado. A 1712 deposition by an owner of a section of the Barricado that was later partly covered by Long Wharf related that the builder of his section had “brought the hull of an old vessel or ship and broke her up, with which in part he built up our said part” and that pieces of the ship could still be seen in 1712.21 Although the Barricado was not completed in time for the war with Holland, it was reportedly “almost finished” in 1681.22 The whole project is shown on a plan drawn by Jacob Sheafe in 1708 (figure 3.5). Boston’s fortifications were again a concern during Queen Anne’s War between England and France (1702–1713), when the shoreline batteries were enlarged. A recently discovered plan shows the additions made ca. 1705 to the South Battery (figure 3.6).23 These additions did not solve all the problems at the Sconce, however, for repairs needed to the gun platforms and batteries are mentioned in the town records in 1706 and again in 1709.24 Queen Anne’s War also precipitated attempts to repair the Barricado. The Barricado had not been a success. It was never used for defense and, probably because of its insubstantial construction, soon fell into disrepair. In 1702 the selectmen requested the

MADE LAND F

SCONCE

WALL

FORT HILL

FORT

CLIFFS

E A WH

A

S RVE

A B BATTERY

proprietors of the outwharves to meet with them about repair of the wharves25 and in 1708 the General Court ordered the selectmen to have a survey made—the result was Sheafe’s plan (see figure 3.5)—and to ascertain what was necessary to get the wall repaired.26 In November 1709 the selectmen recommended penalties for proprietors who refused to make repairs, including the forfeiture of their rights in three years.27 The proprietors objected, claiming that the main reason the Barricado was “so soon brought to Ruine” was that at night vessels helped themselves to ballast from the wall and “the consequence was that after so much of the stones were so taken away ye sd wharfes could no longer be defended from the force and violence of storms.”28 The deterioration of the Barricado was a major impetus for the next significant project on the waterfront—the construction of Long Wharf.

SCONCE

L ONG W HARF

BA RR AD

D

IC

B

O

FIGURE 3.6 1705

PL AN OF THE

S OUTH B AT TERY

This plan shows the additions to the South Battery made about 1705. A long battery was built along the shore (“A” on the plan) in front of the Sconce (“B”), which was then serving as a powder magazine. (The site of the new battery is in front of the present Rowe’s Wharf building.) A cross section drawn through the Sconce on line AB, shows the amount of land created for the new battery. This cross section is illustrated in the upper-right-hand corner of the plan near the fort. Moving from A, which is at the right, to B, which is at the left, one can see the descending slope of Fort Hill, the Sconce, the flat area of newly made land, and the wall of the new battery. The main plan also depicts the Barricado (“D”), the wharves at the base of Fort Hill (“E”), the steep cliffs of Fort Hill, and the fort (“F”) on its summit, now the location of the International Place building at the corner of High and Oliver Streets.

A long wharf that would extend from King (now State) Street out to the Barricado was first proposed to the town in 1707 by a resident as a means of encouraging trade.29 In November 1709 the selectmen recommended such a wharf, arguing that it would also encourage improvements to the outwharves by making it easier to reach the middle section (see figure 3.5). Just a month later, Captain Oliver Noyes and Daniel Oliver, two of the selectmen, and four associates proposed to a town meeting that they build the long wharf. In addition to facilitating access to the Barricado, the wharf would extend to deep water and enable ships to load and unload directly from or onto it without using lighters. In return for permission from the town, Noyes and his associates also proposed that the wharf meet several conditions and that its end be left free so the town could install guns.30 A committee appointed by the town reported in March 1710 that they approved the proposal primarily because it was a means of having the outwharves repaired and guns placed to protect the harbor. The committee also stipulated that King Street should remain forever open for its full breadth as far as the circular line (at the present intersection of

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FIGURE 3.7 D ETAIL

F RO M

1722

MAP OF

B OSTON

BY

C APTAIN J OHN B O N N ER

Bonner’s map shows Long Wharf extending out to deep water beyond the Barricado (“Old Wharfe”) on the outer line of tidal flats. Two of the warehouses built on the flats behind the Barricado are also visible in the section between Long and Clark’s Wharves. The maps also shows the unlabeled Scottow’s Dock off the Mill Creek, the new wharf built into the Town Dock from its southwest corner in 1711, and the two parts of Oliver’s Dock, separated by the drawbridge on Kilby Street. 30

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Chatham Row and State Street and the reason State Street narrows at that point), and on May 13, 1710, the town signed the agreement.31 The construction of what came to be called Long Wharf started in 1711 and was definitely completed by 1715.32 A wharf is not usually considered a form of landmaking, but since, as explained in chapter 1, the techniques used to construct wharves were often the same as those used to make land and since the existence of wharves often led to filling in the docks between them, some wharves, such as Long Wharf, whose construction is well documented or was accomplished by projects, are included in this study. Originally called Boston Pier, the finished wharf extended seaward 1,5621/2 feet from the circular line (that is, from present Chatham Row) to a T-shaped structure at the end or, with the additional 401/2-foot T, a total of 1,603 feet33—about a third of a mile into the harbor. The prominence of this wharf can be seen on a 1722 map of Boston drawn by a Captain John Bonner (figure 3.7), which also suggests that the Barricado, labeled “Old Wharfe,” was still in disrepair. The records of the Long Wharf proprietors unfortunately do not contain much information about how their wharf was constructed, but a recent archaeological investigation found evidence indicating that it may have been a crib wharf, that is, built up of timbers in log-cabin fashion.34 It has been claimed that debris from a fire in 1711 was used as filling between the cribs,35 but these accounts have not been substantiated. Whatever its method of construction, Long Wharf was an immediate success. In his 1720 book, Daniel Neal, a visitor to Boston, wrote, “At the Bottom of the Bay is a noble Peer, 1800 or 2000 Foot long, with a Row of Ware-houses on the North Side, for the Use of Merchants, the Peer runs so far into the Bay, that Ships of the greatest Burthen may unlade without the Help of Boats or Liters.”36 Another plan drawn by John Bonner, this one of the waterfront in 1714, just after Long Wharf was completed, shows Long Wharf with the warehouses lining its north side and a crane at the end (figure 3.8).

FLAT S

CHANNEL

FLAT S

FIGURE 3.8 1714 MAP OF B OSTON J OHN B O N N ER

WHARVES FROM

L O N G W HARF

TO

W INDMILL P OINT

BY

This sketch map by Bonner shows Long Wharf lined with warehouses and with a crane at its end, Oliver’s Dock and the bridge across its mouth, the Barricado, and the new South Battery constructed ca. 1705 (cf. figure 3.6). The shaded areas are tidal flats and the channel between them is the approximate location of today’s Fort Point Channel.

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EH

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E NCLOSED D OCKS (S COTTOW ’ S , O LIVER ’ S ,

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TOWN ) PARTIALLY F ILLED

In 1720, at the time Long Wharf was built, Boston was the leading town in North America and dominated both the coastal and the overseas trade of the colonies. The construction of Long Wharf reflected the importance of this maritime trade, for by the beginning of the eighteenth century ships were larger and of deeper draft than in the seventeenth and required longer, deepwater wharves. Conversely, the shallow, enclosed docks of the seventeenth century could not accommodate the larger new ships and, with their usefulness decreased, many of these docks were partially filled in during the early eighteenth century. Scottow’s Dock is a case in point. In 1680 Scottow had sold a half interest in his “little dock” to John Ballentine37 and the dock was thereafter often known as “Ballentine’s Dock.” By 1706 much of the north side of the dock had apparently been filled in, making it much narrower that it had been in 1676 (see figure 3.4).38 The 1981 archaeological investigation discovered evidence of this filling of Scottow’s Dock in the early eighteenth century. On the west side of the dock site the archaeologists found a layer of dark brown soil containing many artifacts that began about six feet below the present street level and extended down another six feet in some places. The soil was composed of animal and vegetable matter, the artifacts dated from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and some artifacts, such as broken dishes and clay smoking pipes, were found in dense concentrations—all suggesting that this area had been filled rapidly in the early eighteenth century, probably with whole cartloads of refuse that were simply dumped into the dock.39 The evidence of filling was supported by an analysis of the plant pollen, which indicated that the area became drier and more stable between the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries.40 In short, the archaeological data confirmed that much of Scottow’s Dock was filled in the early eighteenth century and added new information about how this filling was accomplished. Scottow’s Dock became less important at the beginning of the eighteenth century not only because it was partially filled but also because the town decided, in 1711, that the drawbridge over the

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Mill Creek was not safe and should be replaced by a fixed bridge41 even though this would make Scottow’s/Ballentine’s Dock inaccessible to vessels with masts. The town anticipated that Ballentine might sue but, although the fixed bridge was constructed in 1712, Ballentine did not object until 1725, and a town committee finally ruled in 1729 that the fixed bridge could remain.42 Although deeds indicate that some wharves at Scottow’s Dock remained active well into the eighteenth century,43 the truncation of the dock and its inaccessibility to masted vessels after the early eighteenth century accounts for the fact that, although shown on Bonner’s 1722 map, it was not labeled and was thus eventually forgotten (see figure 3.7). Part of Oliver’s Dock was also filled in the early eighteenth century. Atkinson’s Dock, the southern subsidiary of Oliver’s Dock (see figure 3.4), was evidently filled in sometime between 1678, when it was mentioned in the town records, and 1707 when the town staked out a “highway” on the south side of the land “formerly known as Atkinson’s Dock.”44 The filling of Oliver’s Dock itself was probably precipitated by the replacement of the drawbridge across its entrance with a fixed bridge. As with the drawbridge near Scottow’s Dock, questions also arose about the safety of the drawbridge at Oliver’s Dock. In April 1709 the selectmen noted that this bridge was dangerous and should be taken down, and in March 1710 they reported to the town meeting that “it’s Absolutely Necessary that a Sufficient firm Bridg fitt for Horse & cart be forth with made over the Creek in Mackrell Lane [now Kilby Street],” adding that if the owners of the property above the bridge wanted to make it a drawbridge “so as to let Vessells in and out,” they had to do so at their own expense and assume all liability.45 The owners apparently did not want to accept this responsibility, for in April 1710 the selectmen hired someone to make a “substantial fast bridge” over the creek.46 The closing of Oliver’s Dock to large vessels ca. 1710 was probably why the abutters on the part of the dock above (west of ) the bridge had filled up most of the dock with earth by 1725 and intended to fill it completely. But because this would cut off both the natural stream and the sewer that drained into the dock, flooding nearby cellars and encroaching on the town’s rights, in 1725

the selectmen decided to stop the filling,47 and a small part of the dock west of Kilby Street was left open. The two parts of Oliver’s Dock, divided by the bridge on Kilby Street, are shown on the 1722 Bonner map (see figure 3.7). The Town Dock was also partially filled, in several stages, during the early eighteenth century. The first filling episode involved the construction of a wharf. In 1711 the selectmen decided to repair the town’s wharf at the Town Dock and to extend it not more than fourteen feet on the north corner and ten feet on the south. This extension was apparently finished by March 1712 when the selectmen appointed two men “to take care of securing the new piece of wharf laid down at ye Dock.”48 The new wharf, extending into the Town Dock from the southwest corner, can be clearly seen in a comparison of Bonner’s map of 1722 with Clough’s reconstructed map of 1676 (see figures 3.7 and 3.4). At the same time the wharf was extended, the selectmen were taking measures to combat the gradual filling up the remainder of the dock. In June 1711 they voted that “no one may hereafter throw dirt or trash into the Town Dock,” and in September 1712 hired the wharfinger— the wharf manager—to “carry away out of ye Dock so much mudd as he can for ye moneth” at ten shillings per boat load.49 More extensive filling of the Town Dock took place in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. In 1726 the eighty-year lease of the original proprietors expired and a number of buildings and wharves reverted to the town. Most of these properties were run-down and the town began to consider proposals for repairing or improving them. On July 1, 1728, a town committee recommended that the town’s wharf in the Town Dock be extended east to the mouth of the dock so that the whole south part of the existing dock could be filled up and a range of low shops built on the new land.50 This proposal was apparently enacted very shortly, because in February 1729 the town began leasing the new shops built on the recently filled part of the dock,51 evidence that the entire south side of the dock had been filled in the seven-month period between July 1728 and February 1729. The filled-in area at the Town Dock is shown on a 1733 update of the Bonner map (figure 3.10) and on a 1738 plan of the Town Dock area (figure 3.9).

No sooner had the town filled in part of the Town Dock than it became involved in legal suits with owners of former wharves on the south side of the dock in the area labeled “Platform” on the 1738 plan (see figure 3.9). These suits dragged on during most of the 1730s52 and were originally decided against the town in both the lower and higher courts. The town appealed to the governor and to the Privy Council in England, however, and eventually established the right to all the made land at the

SWING BRIDGE

PS ALL SHO ER EIGHT SMLINGS CORN TO BIL

PLATFORM LOCATION OF FANEUIL HALL

FIGURE 3.9 1738

PL AN OF THE

T OWN D OCK

This is an 1854 copy of a copy made in 1817 of a 1738 plan of the Town Dock. The plan depicts the Town Dock as L-shaped, in contrast to the trapezoidal configuration shown on the 1733 map (see figure 3.10). Both plans, however, show the swing bridge at the mouth of the dock, the rounded corner just inside it, and two arms at the upper end of the dock. On this plan the new range of low shops is labeled “eight small shops to Billing’s Corner.” The future location of Faneuil Hall has been marked, showing that it is on the part of the dock filled in 1728–1729.

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Town Dock.53 In 1733 the lawyer for one defendant reportedly said he thought the town had brought suit in order to add the former private wharf area to the town’s market place. He may have been correct, for in 1734 a town committee recommended that the newly made land at the Town Dock be the location of a public market.54 The proposal to build a market on the new land at the Town Dock precipitated other problems. Residents of Boston had long opposed such markets because they feared “forestalling,” the practice by traders of buying up goods before they reached the market stalls, enabling them to charge higher prices. Nonetheless, in April 1734, because “the inhabitants of this town labour under many hardships and difficulties for want of an open public market under

good regulation,” the town meeting approved three market places— one in the North End, one in the South End, and one at the Town Dock—with many rules to prevent price setting.55 The markets were not a success, however. Within three years all had closed and the one on the Town Dock had been pulled down by a mob. (The site of the former market is shown on the 1738 plan, labeled “Market Place” [see figure 3.9]). Then, in 1740, merchant Peter Faneuil offered to build a new marketplace at his own expense, again to be located on the recently filled area at the Town Dock. The town narrowly accepted his offer by a vote of 367 to 360, and Faneuil Hall was then constructed, opening in 1742. The new Faneuil Hall is clearly visible on the 1743 update of the Bonner map, where it is proudly identified in the legend as “a hadsom [sic]

TOWN DOCK

TOW

CK

N DO

RECENT FILL FANEUIL HALL

ISLAND WHARF

N

N

FIGURE 3.10 D ETAIL

F RO M

FIGURE 3.11

1733

UPDATE OF

B ONNER M AP

Published by William Price, this update of the Bonner map shows the area of the Town Dock filled in 1728–1729 (cf. figure 3.7).

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1743

UPDATE OF

B O N N E R M AP

This update of the Bonner map, also published by William Price, shows the newly built Faneuil Hall (“T”) on the part of the Town Dock filled in 1728–1729 (see figure 3.10). This map also shows that since the publication of the original Bonner map in 1722 (see figure 3.7), part of the Barricado had been attached to Long Wharf, where it would become the original part of T Wharf, and part was an “island wharf ” near Clark’s Wharf.

large brick building Worthy of the Generous Founder Peter Faneuil Esq. who in the Year 1742 Gave it to the Town for the use of a Market” (figure 3.11). Evidence of the 1728–1729 filling of the Town Dock was found by an archaeological investigation conducted in the basement of Faneuil Hall in 1990 in connection with National Park Service plans to install a subsurface drain and an elevator in the building. As indicated in figure 3.9, which shows the location of Faneuil Hall plotted on the 1738 map of the Town Dock, the entire building, including the 1805 Bulfinch addition on the north side, which doubled its width, was built on the section of the Town Dock filled in 1728–1729. The archaeological excavation found that the fill under the entire structure contained artifacts that generally predated 1730 and were sometimes in dense concentrations of shoe leather and mixed items like broken dishes, smoking pipes, wine glasses and bottles, and animal bones. These artifacts and the way they were deposited suggested that the fill had been collected from nearby craft establishments, taverns, and households and then dumped into the dock,56 much in the way similar trash had been used to fill part of Scottow’s Dock a few decades earlier. E IGHTEENTH -C ENTURY F ORTIFICATIONS (S OUTH B ATTERY

AND THE

B ARRICADO )

By the time Faneuil Hall was finished in 1742, Boston was in a period of economic stagnation. The population, which had peaked at 17,000 in 1740, began to decline and Boston no longer dominated colonial shipping or shipbuilding. In addition, as the major port closest to Canada, which was a French possession until 1763, Boston was more affected by the mid-century colonial wars between England and France than other North American cities. On top of these difficulties, Boston experienced a currency crisis in the 1740s. In the face of these problems, it is not surprising that little landmaking occurred in Boston in the mid-eighteenth century and what little took place was primarily for fortifications. Repairs and alterations to the South Battery and the Sconce had been discussed many times in the early eighteenth century, but

apparently were not made.57 When war threatened in 1734 the town proposed several measures to bolster its defenses, including a new fortification near the South Battery. The new battery was to be constructed two hundred feet east of the South Battery on the flats on the east side of what became the Fort Point Channel (see figure 3.8), a location chosen not only for its strategic importance but also because the bottom there was firm enough to support a stone foundation whereas that closer inshore was too soft.58 An undated plan that shows a battery in that location (figure 3.12) was probably drawn in 1734 in accordance with the town’s specifications.59 This battery on the flats was apparently not built, however, for in the early 1740s, when war again threatened and concern about the town’s defenses resurfaced, there are many references in the town records to the deplorable state of the South Battery and the many pieces of cannon lying around, but no mention of a battery on the flats.60 In 1742 the governor gave permission for the guns at the South Battery to be put in order, and in May a town committee reported that it had mounted nineteen guns on carriages, which, lacking platforms, were placed on the ground at the old battery, and had raised seven more guns “out of the rubbish” and placed them on skids north of the Sconce.61 In 1742 the General Court renewed the proposal for a twenty-gun battery on the flats east of the South Battery. The specifications were similar to those of 1734, so the plan in figure 3.12 could have been drawn in conjunction with the 1742 rather than the 1734 proposal.62 This second proposed battery on the flats was apparently not built either, but it was probably the explanation for the somewhat similar fortification shown on the 1743 update of William Burgis’s southeast view of Boston, a view known to depict some structures proposed but not built (figure 3.13). Although the town appropriated money for the battery on the flats in 1742, 1743, and 1744, in 1744 it was still discussing whether to go ahead with the project and evidently never did.63 Instead, that year the town repaired the Sconce “by carrying up the stone & brick wall which was decayed and broken down, new covering & shingling the house, [and] making new windows, doors, & floors.”64

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CO M M

SCONCE

UN IC I AT ON W HA RF

OLD BATTERY

COLLOND WHARF

NEW

TE BAT

RY

PARKMAN

FIGURE 3.12 C A . 1734

OR CA .

1742

PL AN FOR

S OUTH B AT TE RY

This plan shows a proposed addition to the South Battery (“The Old Battery”), to be constructed on the flats two hundred feet east of it (see figure 3.8). The addition was to be a 300- by 60-foot crib wharf with a breastwork for twenty guns (the plan actually shows twenty-seven gun ports facing outward), a 378by 20-foot wharf to communicate between the old South Battery and the new battery with a gap left open for the channel, and four guns at the head of the new wharf to protect the line of communication. The identification of Collond and Parkman Wharves is not clear; they are not shown on the 1733 or 1743 Price maps or mentioned in descriptions of the proposed project.

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Then in 1746 the town made another proposal for a new battery at South Battery. This time the new battery was to be on the shore approximately in the location of the existing one. It was again to have twenty guns, to be 264 feet long, and to be constructed either of timber as a cobb wharf or of stone as a wall 10 feet thick and 11 feet high.65 The stone wall was apparently chosen and this time the battery was evidently built. The result was the structure with battered stone walls, that is, wider at the base than at the top, that appears on the left-hand side of a well-known engraving of the South Battery (figure 3.14). In conjunction with the building of the new battery, the space between it and the Sconce (see figures 3.6 and 3.12) was filled in 1746 with dirt from the top of Fort Hill in order to create a glacis (a gently sloping bank of earth) around the Sconce.66 So, in spite of several proposals in the 1730s and 1740s that would have resulted in extensive landmaking at South Battery, the plan finally adopted in 1746 did not create much more land than had been made in 1705. The Barricado appears in the 1743 view as no. 24 (see figure 3.13) looking like a line of sharks’ fins extending across the harbor on either side of Long Wharf. The construction of Long Wharf had not resulted in repairs being made to the Barricado as the town had hoped, perhaps because the only part of the outwharves made more accessible by Long Wharf was the short section between the middle and south “gapps,” as is clear from the 1708 plan (see figure 3.5). In 1728 a town committee appointed to inspect the “ruinous condition” of the outwharves reported that they were “notoriously neglected” and renewed the proposal that each subscriber be given three years to rebuild his section or else forfeit his rights.67 The town apparently never acted on this report68 and the Barricado continued to deteriorate. The 1743 view indicates that by that date only one “island wharf,” or section of the Barricado, remained (near Clark’s Wharf, no. 36, in the North End) and that the section abutting the north side of Long Wharf had become a wharf itself—the beginning of what eventually became T Wharf (see figure 3.13). Both these remaining parts of the Barricado are also shown on the 1743 update of the Bonner map (see figure 3.11).

FIGURE 3.13 D ETAIL F ROM 1743 B OSTON

UPDATE OF

W ILLIAM B URGIS ’ S S OUTH E AST V IEW

OF

The addition to the South Battery (no. 7) illustrated on this view was apparently never built. (A “mole” is defined as a massive breakwater, usually of stone.) The remains of the Barricado (no. 24) can be seen extending across the Town Cove, attached to Long Wharf, and as an “island wharf ” near Clark’s Wharf (no. 36; cf. figure 3.11).

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FIGURE 3.14 M ID - EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY ENGRAVING OF

S OUTH B AT T ERY

The South Battery rebuilt in the 1740s with battered stone walls is shown at the left. The ship propped up on timbers just to the right of the battery in both this and the 1743 view (see figure 3.13) is probably in the shipyard that was next to the battery (see figure 3.7). The engraving also shows the fort at the top of Fort Hill.

E NCLOSED D OCKS (TOWN , S COTTOW ’ S ,

AND

O LIVER ’ S ) F ILLED I N

In the years before the Revolution, Boston continued to be in a period of economic stasis and was increasingly preoccupied with the constitutional issues and unrest that preceded the war. The war itself seriously disrupted the town’s development. Many people fled during the British occupation of the town and when the British troops and the Tories evacuated in March 1776 they left Boston with many badly damaged buildings and a population of only 2719.69 Recovery after the war was slow; the loss of trade with the West Indies and the flooding of the market with English goods caused severe depressions, and commerce was not completely restored until the opening of Boston’s China trade in the 1790s. The landmaking in Boston at the end of the eighteenth century was done to fill in the enclosed docks that had been created in the seventeenth century. These docks not only were no longer useful for shipping but also, because their constricted entrances prevented their being flushed out by the tide, had become what in earlier centuries were termed “nuisances”—obnoxious smells,

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sights, or obstructions. The Town Dock, for example, had been a subject of complaints for years. In 1744 a visitor described it as “a little inlett of water” with “a wooden draw bridge that turns upon hinges that small vessels may pass and lye above it. In low tides this inlett is a very stinking puddle.”70 In 1757 a memorial to the town meeting said that the Town Dock “is become very nauseous & offensive to all inhabitants that live near, & to the Merchants and others who have warehouses on the dock, and obliged to do their business in them; and as the keeping of said dock open is not the least benefit (that your Memorialists know of ) to any inhabitants, but if fill’d up will remove the disagreeable stench arising from it” requested that it be filled.71 Other petitions to fill the dock cited the need for better access to the Faneuil Hall market from Union and Ann (North) Streets and for more space around the market itself.72 The town government vacillated about whether the town had the right to fill the Town Dock. It was finally decided that it did, but a 1761 proposal to fill the dock was defeated because the abutters would not agree.73 In 1770, in response to another petition asking that the dock be filled, the town appointed a committee to inquire into the town’s title to the dock but this committee delayed its report for years.74 Finally, in February 1775, a different committee reported that the town did have the right to fill the dock and should do so soon,75 but before action could be taken the Revolution had begun and the issue was put off until after the war. The 1775 recommendation was finally revived in 1783 when a committee concluded that the dock should be filled as far as the swing bridge.76 The work was apparently completed by May 1784 when the town accounts included a payment £702.12.4 for “filling up the Dock.”77 A 1784 plan shows how carts, panniers, horses, and “woman & lemmon sellers” were to be located on the newly made land on the north side of Faneuil Hall,78 and the railings installed for these vendors are depicted in a 1789 view of the building from that side (figure 3.15). Scottow’s Dock was also completely filled at the end of the eighteenth century. Because it was not a public facility, the filling is not mentioned in the town records, but deeds indicate that as late as 1788 the dock was open for “landing wood or any goods or

merchandize.”79 The dock is not shown on a 1796 plan of Boston (figure 3.16), however, so it had probably been filled in by that date, and deeds for the sale of land in the area in the 1790s make no mention of wharves.80 A late-eighteenth-century fill date was corroborated by the 1981 archaeological investigation, which found that the artifacts in the fill at the mouth of Scottow’s Dock dated to the late eighteenth century.81 Oliver’s Dock, too, was completely filled in at the very end of the eighteenth century. Like the Town Dock, the question of the town’s ownership and filling of Oliver’s Dock had arisen before the Revolution but was not nearly as protracted. In 1754, after a long series of legal actions against the abutters, three arbitrators awarded the town a strip about fifteen feet wide near the dock and in May 1755 the town meeting empowered the selectmen to

FIGURE 3.15 1789

ENGRAVING OF

F ANEUIL H ALL

This view shows Faneuil Hall shortly after the remaining part of the Town Dock on its north side was filled in. Railings were erected on the newly made land so that market vendors could tie up their horses. This view shows Faneuil Hall as it was before the 1805 Bulfinch additions doubled both its width and height.

decide how far and with what Oliver’s Dock should be filled.82 This filling, which was probably in the part of the dock between today’s Water and Hawes Streets west of Kilby Street and Liberty Square, apparently took place, although it is not indicated on maps of the time. The section of Oliver’s Dock east of Kilby Street in the area that today is between the back of the 75 State Street building and Water Street was not filled until the end of the century. In December 1798 a town committee requested that the selectmen “have the dock called Oliver’s Dock filled up as soon as may be in such manner as shall be for the safety and interest of the town for the distance of about 150 feet from the head.”83 It then transpired that the owners of the wharves on the dock considered it their private property, so the town made an agreement with them whereby the owners would fill the dock and construct a sewer through it and the town would give up its rights.84 The filling apparently took place a little after 1800, for Oliver’s Dock is shown on an 1800 map of Boston (almost identical to the 1796 map shown in figure 3.16) but not on the 1803 map in figure 3.17.85 Remains associated with Oliver’s Dock turned up periodically during the nineteenth century and were reported in antiquarian accounts. In 1817 antiquarian historian Charles Shaw said that when the foundation was being dug in the first decade of the nineteenth century for Joy’s buildings, which were on the northwest corner of what are now Congress and Water Streets across from the present Post Office building, “the remains of the hull of an old vessel, or large boat, with fragments of canvas, tarred rope, etc. were dug up.” Shaw also reported that “some years ago” a man had entered a sewer near the corner of Federal and Franklin Streets “and groped his way under ground, til he came out at Oliver’s dock,” apparently following the course of the creek that flowed in the marshy southern arm of the Town Cove (see figures 3.1 and 3.2).86 (The other creek that drained into the dock was fed by the spring in Spring Lane, which was reportedly the source of the water that bubbled up in 1869 when the foundation for the predecessor of the present post office building was dug.87) Nathaniel Shurtleff, the author of a nineteenth-century topographical

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16

SHO 30

RELIN

E

N

SITE OF SCOTTOW’S DOCK

FIGURE 3.16 D ETAIL FROM 1796 P L AN O SGOOD C AR L E TO N

BY OLIVER

’S DOC

K

OF

B OSTON 1630

W I TH

SHORELINE ADDED

This plan, which appeared in the 1796 Boston Directory, shows the recently filled area north of Faneuil Hall (labeled “Market”) and does not depict Scottow’s Dock, suggesting the latter had also been completely filled by that date. The section of Oliver’s Dock east of Kilby Street had not yet been filled, however. “Minot’s T” was an east-west running wharf added to the part of the Barricado attached to Long Wharf— the beginning of T Wharf. The 1630 shoreline has been added to indicate the amount of land made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, much of it by wharfing out.

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description of Boston, reported that in December 1864, while workers were trying to waterproof some cellars in Kilby Street, they found “remains of the old timbers and buttresses of [Oliver’s] dock, and perhaps of the bridge.”88 An archaeological investigation in 1987 in connection with the construction of the 75 State Street building at the corner of State and Kilby Streets found some remains of Poole’s Wharf, which was on the north side of Oliver’s Dock (see figure 3.7),89 but no new information about the creation or filling of Oliver’s Dock. By the end of the eighteenth century some land had been made around the shore of the Town Cove, as described in the foregoing discussion. Just how much made land can been seen in figure 3.16, where the 1630 shoreline of the cove is plotted on a 1796 map of Boston. Most of this land had been created by wharfing out, although some had, as discussed above, resulted from filling tidal flats for fortifications or from filling in enclosed docks. By and large, however, the land on the original Shawmut Peninsula had sufficed for Boston for almost two hundred years. About 1790, however, Boston began to grow rapidly as a result of the economic revival stimulated by the China trade. This trade was three-cornered—New England ships sailed around Cape Horn to the northwest coast of North America where they traded goods such as copper, nails, iron tools, and clothing to the Native Americans for sea otter pelts. The furs were then taken to China and exchanged for tea, porcelains, and silks, which were brought back to New England. The China trade brought huge profits to Boston merchants90 and created a demand for new commercial facilities. I NDIA W HARF

The first of these new commercial facilities on the central waterfront was the famous India Wharf development. Unlike the landmaking projects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which were small-scale and usually undertaken by the town or as the

result of a grant from the town, the India Wharf project was, like many of the other early-nineteenth-century landmaking projects, a large-scale speculative venture undertaken by a group of investors. The prime mover behind the India Wharf project was Uriah Cotting, a self-made man who initiated many of the early-nineteenth-century projects in Boston and who was reportedly extremely successful at persuading others to invest in them.91 In contrast, Cotting’s original partners in the India Wharf project, Francis Cabot Lowell and Henry Jackson, were brothers-in-law from old families of Newburyport merchants.92 The India Wharf project was the first of Cotting’s many ventures. Its purpose was to create elegant “modern” commercial facilities—a broad deepwater wharf and blocks of brick warehouses—on the waterfront south of Long Wharf. The plan for the first part of the India Wharf project called for a new wharf with a block of thirty-two stores (storehouses) at the base of Fort Hill, a wedge-shaped block of nine stores immediately south, and a block of ten stores immediately west and extending north of what was then Battery March and soon became Broad Street (figure 3.19). This last block of stores, which was constructed partly on what had been Wendell’s Wharf and partly on newly made land as can be seen in a comparison of 1803 and 1805 maps (figures 3.17 and 3.18), was built in 1803 as was the wharf itself. A contract that Cotting, Lowell, and Jackson made on March 8, 1803, with a John Newcomb and William Baxter of Quincy specifies how the wharf was to be constructed. Newcomb and Baxter were: to find a good & sufficient quantity of proper & fitt stone for a wharf or sea wall. And in a good & workmanlike manner . . . at Wendell’s Wharf so-called will & substantially build or erect a strong & uniform stone wall for a Wharf five feet wide or thick at the trench, or bottom—three feet at the Top—& of such height & length as Sd Lowell Cotting & Jackson may direct. . . . And further the sd Newcomb & Baxter engage & agree to provide & deliver good clean upland stone ballast fitt for filling or backing of the wharf

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wall . . . It is agreed . . . that sd Lowell, Cotting & Jackson are to dig the trenches at their own expense and . . . promise to pay Newcomb & Baxter. . . the sum of one thousand Dllrs in hand, & when the work may be one half done the sum of one thousand Dllrs more and in ten days after the whole work is completed and the contract complied with . . . the balance in full. The work is to be completed July 1.93 This contract indicates that India Wharf was to be constructed in a manner that became typical of nineteenth-century Boston landmaking projects: with a stone wall having a battered cross section around the perimeter of the area to be filled, the wall set in a

trench that was probably excavated in the tidal flats at low tide, and the completed wall supported by small “ballast” stones banked against its inner side. The first payment of $1,000 to Newcomb and Baxter was made on March 9, 1803,94 and on March 24, 1803, the proprietors sold the first store in the block of ten. The agreement of sale stated that the stores were to be built “as by a plan drawn by Charles Bulfinch, Esq. now in possession of said Cotting, Lowell & Jackson.”95 Charles Bulfinch was not only Boston’s leading architect at the time and involved in some of the speculative landmaking projects as a designer and, in one case, as an investor, but he was also the chairman of the Board of Selectmen from 1799 to

N

FORM

ER OL

IVER’S

N

DOCK

M

FIGURE 3.17 D ETAIL

F RO M

•

1803 P L AN

C

. ST

FIGURE 3.18 OF

B OSTON

BY

O SGOOD C ARLETON

Carleton’s 1803 plan shows, in comparison with his 1796 plan (see figure 3.16), that Oliver’s Dock had been filled in the interim. The plan also shows the area south of Long Wharf as it was just before the commencement of the India Wharf/Broad Street project.

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ILK

H A P T E R

3

D ETAIL

FROM

1805 P L AN

OF

B OSTON

BY

O SGOOD C ARLETON

This plan shows, in comparison with the 1803 plan (see figure 3.17), India Wharf and Broad Street built on land made by filling in the former wharves and docks.

T. ES US HO OM

ST .

ST

BR

EA

D

CU

EL

LS

T.

INDIA WHA

RF

N

0S

TO

W

RIE

S

HA

RF

ST .

W

BL

OC

KO

F1

BLOCK OF

9 BLOCK OF STO R

FIGURE 3.19 C A . 1810

PL AN OF

I NDIA W HARF /B ROAD S TREET

PROJECT

This plan of the India Wharf and Broad Street projects shows the long block of thirty-two stores built on India Wharf itself, the wedge-shaped block of nine stores south of it, and the block of ten stores immediately west. The plan also shows the new Broad and India Streets, the new streets—Wharf, Bread (now Franklin), Custom House, and Well—laid out between them, and some of the buildings constructed on the made land.

32 STORIE

S

IES

1817 and thus the town’s chief executive officer. The March 1803 sales agreement for India Wharf gave detailed specifications for the buildings, which were to be of brick, four stories high, with stonewalled cellars. Construction must have started soon, for the Reverend William Bentley of Salem, Massachusetts, an occasional visitor to Boston and a writer of voluminous diaries, recorded on May 24, 1803, “The new Wharf near Battery March is begun.”96 The second payment of $1,000 to Baxter and Newcomb, to be made when the wharf was half finished, was recorded on June 3, 1803, and a third payment of $500 was made on October 1. The

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final payment was not made until February 2, 1804, and was for $1,600 plus $117.60 for an additional stone wall.97 The record thus indicates that the first block of stores and most of the wharf itself were completed by early 1804. On May 1, 1804, Jackson, Cotting, and Lowell divided the profits, each getting $9,000,98 and then Jackson apparently sold his share to the other two partners, for that same day Cotting and Lowell sold one-fourth interests in India Wharf each to Harrison Gray Otis and James Lloyd, Jr. Harrison Gray Otis was involved with many of Boston’s early-nineteenth-century landmaking or land development projects. He was a lawyer rather than a merchant, like most of the others in these ventures, a Federalist, and a politician, having served in the U.S. Congress and since 1802 in the Massachusetts legislature.99 The other new India Wharf proprietor, James Lloyd, Jr., was, like most of his colleagues, a merchant and a politician. He, too, was a member of the Massachusetts legislature and later a U.S. Senator.100 Work on India Wharf continued during the summer of 1804, but the next major part of the project, the construction of the main block of thirty-two stores on the wharf itself, did not begin until that fall. The contracts made at that time suggest that the building was set on timber piles driven inside the stone perimeter wall after the spaces between the piles had been filled101—the method that would be used to construct the Central Wharf building about a decade later. The contract for filling does not, however, specify what material was used to fill the wharf. On April 15, 1805, the proprietors signed three identical contracts with masons and bricklayers for the thirty-two stores in the main India Wharf building which, not surprisingly, were to be “erected nearly in conformity with a plan drawn by Charles Bulfinch Esquire.”102 A contract with the carpenters had been drawn up in January 1805,103 and on May 24 a contract similar to those of April 15 was made for the masonry work on the wedgeshaped block of nine stores (see figure 3.19).104 The construction of the block of thirty-two stores seemed to be proceeding well until the proprietors received an ominous communication, dated September 13, 1805: “Gentlemen we are of Opinion that the Walls

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Under Your Stores are Not Sufeicent [sic] to Support them.”105 The note was signed by four men, one of them a bricklayer. It was apparently too late in the season to take any action that year, but the warning was undoubtedly the reason for a number of new contracts made in the spring of 1806 in which the proprietors arranged to have the outside and partition walls taken down and rebuilt later, the foundation walls reconstructed, and the cellar walls rebuilt.106 Meanwhile, the wedge-shaped block of nine stores, whose foundation walls were apparently sound, was finished and on April 1, 1806, the four proprietors divided those stores.107 Work continued on the main India Wharf building throughout 1806, and by 1807 it was sufficiently completed so that the proprietors could begin selling the stores.108 In spite of all the problems and delays encountered in constructing India Wharf, it was an immediate success. On May 13, 1807, Charles Jackson, a brother of Henry, who had died in 1806, wrote to his brother-inlaw Francis Cabot Lowell: “The Broadstreet [India] Wharf is crowded with vessels and goods. It is impossible to keep people off—they insist upon landing their hogsheads of rum and sugar in the midst of mud from the cellars and rocks for building.”109 B ROAD

AND

I NDIA S TREETS

While India Wharf was being constructed, Cotting had begun a related landmaking project in the same vicinity. The first part of this project was the creation of a wide new street, appropriately named Broad Street, south of Long Wharf, connecting State Street with what was then Battery March Street, the latter named because soldiers had formerly marched down it to the South Battery (see figure 3.7). Before the Broad Street project began, the area south of Long Wharf was, in the words of a contemporary observer, “occupied by a few zigzag wharves and ordinary buildings,”110 and Battery March was so narrow that bowsprits of vessels in the shipyard near the bend extended almost all the way across the street (see figure 3.17).111 In 1804 Cotting and his associates began buying up waterfront property in this area so that they could lay out a street over

the wharves, and in 1805 the Broad Street Association was incorporated. The proprietors listed in the February 11, 1805, act of incorporation included James Lloyd, Jr., and Francis Cabot Lowell, Cotting’s colleagues in the India Wharf project, and merchants who owned the “Ship Yard, wharves and flats” in the area to be developed.112 Harrison Gray Otis was not one of the original proprietors but had apparently joined the venture by June 1805, when he represented it in a request to the selectmen for help in obtaining the necessary property.113 On June 26, 1805, the selectmen approved the proprietors’ plan for a street sixty to seventy feet wide from Battery March to Milk Street and seventy feet wide from Milk to State and ordered that the new street be staked out.114 It is shown on an 1805 map (see figure 3.18). Records of the Broad Street Association suggest that filling for Broad Street began in the summer of 1805, the same time that the main block of stores on India Wharf was being constructed. Unfortunately, the Broad Street records do not contain construction contracts such as those cited above for India Wharf, so it is not clear exactly how the area from State to the bend in Battery March was filled. It is reasonable to assume, however, that since this filling was conducted immediately after that at India Wharf and by many of the same proprietors, that it was done the same way, that is, a stone seawall built along the outer perimeter and the area inside filled. By the fall of 1805 enough of Broad Street had been completed so that buildings could be constructed, as evidenced by an agreement Harrison Gray Otis made in September 1805 with stone masons for the work on “stores Number five and six which said Otis intends to erect in broadstreet . . . agreeably to a plan thereof taken by Charles Bulfinch, Esquire.”115 By May 1806, the filling and construction prompted the Reverend William Bentley to write in his diary: “The great improvements of Broad Street have destroyed all resemblance of the former appearance.”116 After the completion of Broad Street from State to Battery March, a second street was constructed along the water parallel to Broad Street. This second street connected Long and India Wharves and was appropriately named India Street. Filling of the area between Broad and India Streets was definitely underway in

May 1806 when the proprietors of Long Wharf protested to the selectmen that part of the new street went beyond the limits of the circular line, the boundary set in 1673 as part of the Barricado project (see above). The selectmen agreed and directed Bulfinch, their chairman, to convey the decision to the Broad Street Association, for which he was the chief architect.117 Harrison Gray Otis wrote an eloquent defense for the association, arguing, among other points, “Can it then be pretended that filling up a filthy dock in the manner proposed by the Association is an injury?”118 and the town records contain nothing more on the subject. The filling of India Street continued into 1807—the period when the India Wharf building was being finished—and is shown still incomplete on an 1807 map (figure 3.20). The Broad Street Association records do not indicate how the India Street area was filled either, but a seawall was undoubtedly built on the seaward side

N

FIGURE 3.20 D ETAIL

FROM

1807 P L AN

OF

B OSTON

The 1807 plan shows the still-incomplete India Street being built on made land along the waterfront parallel to Broad Street.

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of India Street. An advertisement in October 1807 for the sale of lots on the new land between Broad and India Streets pointed out that the lots were on “four new spacious streets intersecting the premises, one of which is nearly sixty feet in width and is the contemplated site of an elegant public building.”119 A plan of the Broad Street/India Wharf development drawn before 1810 clearly shows the four streets, which were, from east to west, Wharf, Bread (later Wall and now Franklin), and Custom House Streets intersected by Well Street (see figure 3.19). (The adjoining section of Battery March had been renamed Broad Street by this time.) The “elegant public building” was a brick U.S. custom house erected in 1810 on the sixty-foot wide Custom House Street.120 The plan also indicates that India Street did not extend all the way to Long Wharf. Instead, according to the reminiscences of James Hale, who grew up in the neighborhood in the early 1800s, there was a wooden bridge about four feet wide between Long Wharf and India Street.121 Although the land between Broad and India Streets was apparently filled by the Broad Street Association, the lots on it became the property of the Proprietors of India Wharf, who were finally incorporated on March 3, 1808.122 On April 1, 1808, the four proprietors—Cotting, Otis, Lowell, and Lloyd—signed an indenture dividing all the lots between Broad and India Streets in the area from the west side of Custom House Street to a passage behind the original block of ten stores (see figure 3.19). This indenture also gave the specifications of the buildings that were to be erected on these lots, and the “four stories in height . . . the windows [to] have Caps . . . [and] the belts [stringcourses] and caps to be of marble or stone”123 certainly describes the ca. 1808 buildings that still survive at 64, 68–70, and 72 Broad Street near Custom House Street and at 102 Broad Street at the corner of Wharf Street. (A few other original buildings from the Broad Street/India Street development also still exist: 160 Milk Street at the corner of India Street and 3 and 5 Broad Street near State Street, the latter perhaps some of the buildings erected by Harrison Gray Otis in 1805. The long India Wharf building with its thirty-two stores was demolished in several stages and is now the site of Harbor Towers.)

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The development of the blocks between Broad and India Streets marked the end of the landmaking associated with the India Wharf and Broad Street projects. The new land created by both projects is clearly visible on Hales’s map of 1814 (figure 3.21). These projects not only created new land and commercial facilities for Boston but were also very profitable for their shareholders: an accounting of the Broad Street Association on March 9, 1807, indicates that the entire amount expended to that date was $211,168.60, the entire amount received was $328,460.95, and thus the net profit was $117,292.35 or fiftyfive percent.124 It may have been profits like these that provoked hostility in the Republican press toward the wealthy Federalist speculators and their projects. In fact, the very word project had a certain opprobrium, as illustrated by a column that appeared in the Independent Chronicle, a Republican newspaper, during the 1804 controversy about building a bridge to South Boston (see chapter 9). The speculators’ plans, said the author, “may properly come under the new fangled appellation of a ‘project.’ A kind of contrivance which depends on an adroit manoeuver, and by a magical management, may produce a considerable profit to the projectors. The term ‘project’ is of late coinage, and means a contrivance.”125 So, although the speculative projects of Otis, Cotting, and their associates may ultimately have benefited the town as well as themselves, they were not initially approved by all. C ENTRAL W HARF

In the next decade another major wharf was constructed in the central waterfront area, this one called Central Wharf. In the period after the construction of India Wharf, Boston’s shipping suffered as a result of the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812, but after commerce resumed in 1815 old commercial ties were revived and new ones established. This expanded trade created a need for more wharves, and Central Wharf, which was begun in 1815, was intended as another wharf that would extend to deep water and be comparable in length to Long Wharf.

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The Central Wharf project was another of Uriah Cotting’s many ventures and, according to him, “grew out of the remnants of the Broad-street association,”126 although it was actually organized by Ebenezer Francis, another prominent merchant. On behalf of the wharf corporation, Francis acquired the flats on which the wharf was to be built, and on April 18, 1815, he divided the property among the original proprietors of what was called the Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation. Of the total 400 shares, Cotting acquired 25 percent; Harrison Gray Otis 22.5 percent; James Lloyd, Jr., 20 percent; Francis C. Lowell 16.5 percent; David Hinckley, another merchant, 6.25 percent; Israel Thorndike, a prominent merchant and father of one of Otis’s sonsin-law, 2.5 percent; and Francis kept 7.25 percent for himself.127 Central Wharf was to be located between Long and India Wharves, an area in which, as shown on Hales’s map of 1814, there was an “island wharf,” a remnant of the seventeenth-century Barricado (see figure 3.21). According to the reminiscences of a Boston resident who was a schoolboy in 1813, the island wharves were “built of cob-work filled in with stone, on which were sheds for the storage of lime, plaster and grindstones; these structures were only approachable by boats.”128 Central Wharf was built over this island wharf (see figure 3.23) and, as described earlier in this chapter, remains of the Barricado were found during construction. The construction of Central Wharf is unusually well documented because in January 1820 the trustees of the Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation directed their clerk, William Blaney, to write a statement “relative to the building of Central Wharf from the time it commenced until it was completed, with a particular reference to the materials used, and the manner it was built.”129 Blaney found this charge “required great research and labor” and did not submit his report until April 1823.130 “The labor [of building Central Wharf ] commenced about the 17th of April 1815,” he wrote, “by driving piles of about 12 inches square upon the boundary lines of the wharf.” He then went on to describe how the foundation for the perimeter seawall was made by digging a trench two to four feet deep in the flats

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down to the low-water mark and then laying in it “platforms” constructed of alternating layers of lengthwise and crosswise timbers. The platforms were six feet wide and twelve to eighteen inches high on the flats, but in deeper water they were built higher and also wider at the base until at the southeast corner of the wharf— the deepest point—the platforms were seventeen feet high and thirty feet wide. These highest sections of platforms were supported by large quantities of ballast stones banked against their inner side. Interestingly, Blaney does not describe the construction of the stone seawall that was built on top of this platform foundation, but such a wall was certainly built.131 Blaney then described filling the interior of the wharf and building the stores, or warehouses, on it. The interior was filled with sod and marsh mud, which, he said, was “a great mistake” because, although “it filled up the wharf very fast at first, . . . the compression & settling has been for a long time continual, tedious & great, and is apparent to every observer. It is however thought that it will eventually become solid & secure.” Then piles to support the wharf buildings were driven into this fill. According to Blaney, “The work now assumed a character worthy of its importance. Every branch progressed with astonishing rapidity. Altho driving the piles required great care & attention, yet by the number of driving machines and the exertions of the workmen, the stone masons were enabled to commence laying the Cellar walls the first season [1815] before the Winter set in.”132 The method used to construct the foundation of the cellars was the same as the one that would be used a decade later to construct the foundation of the dry dock at the Charlestown Navy Yard (see chapter 14) and later for foundations of stone seawalls elsewhere in Boston (see below and chapters 5, 6, 7, and 10). After the seven thousand piles that formed the foundation were “drove as long as they could be moved,” the tops of the piles were encircled with iron hoops and cut off all at the same level. Then a timber cap, in this case two pine timbers three feet wide and from twenty to twenty-two inches thick, was trunneled (fastened with treenails, or long wood pegs) to the tops of the piles to form the surface on which brick cellar floors were laid. The cellars were

intended to be waterproof but, in case of heavy rains or high tides, four drains were provided at intervals in the wharf buildings.133 Blaney’s description of the construction of the cellars in the Central Wharf buildings is different from the evidence found by archaeologists during an investigation of Central Wharf in 1988. Under a brick floor, the archaeologists found seven-to-eight-inch timbers set about two feet apart running lengthwise along the wharf and, under them, three-inch-thick foot-wide planks, also running lengthwise along the wharf.134 These findings are at variance with yet a third description of the Central Wharf cellars, which comes from an unlikely source: a newspaper article written in 1966 when the wharf was being demolished to make way for the present New England Aquarium. The author of the article, who, if not an engineer, was an astute observer of construction techniques, said that each cellar had two floors with a three-to-four-inch space between them so that if any water did get into the building it could be pumped out before it reached the upper floor. To keep the floors from being buoyed up by the tide, they were held down by fourteen-inch beams set into square holes cut in the “granite bulkheads” (probably the stone seawalls surrounding the wharf ) and similar beams were placed under the lower floors to support the weight of the buildings.135 These three descriptions of the construction of the basements in the Central Wharf building are quite different: in 1823 Blaney said that the floors were set on timbers twenty to twentytwo inches thick, the archaeologists found a floor placed on seven-to-eight-inch timbers set on three-inch-thick planks, and an observer at the time of demolition said the floor was double with a three-to-four-inch space between the two layers. How can these discrepancies be explained? Assuming the 1966 description was accurate, the archaeological excavation may have been conducted in a store whose double floor had been altered, and the 1823 specifications either may not have been followed or have been altered later. After the cellar floors and walls were finished, construction continued rapidly according to Blaney: “About the 1st of July 1816 the Bricklayers began to lay the side walls, which were completed,

and the roofs covered before the first day of January following [1817] & on or before the first day of April following [1817] the stores were all occupied.”136 The building of Central Wharf was considered a great achievement and a handsome addition to the Boston waterfront. As Shubael Bell, a deputy sheriff of Suffolk County (Boston) and senior warden of Christ Church, wrote in 1817: In the course of the last year, Central Wharf, and the extensive range of Stores which it supports was begun and compleated [sic]. The completion of this undertaking, unparalleled in commercial History is a proof of the enterprize [sic], the wealth, and persevering Industry of Bostonians. The number of Stores are fifty four, and the length of the tier nearly thirteen hundred feet, of four Stories. . . . The Buildings are supported on piles, and have waterproof cellars. The wharf is already lined with vessels and crowded with business.137 The long Central Wharf building has been drastically truncated by subsequent developments on the waterfront. First it was cut in two when Atlantic Avenue was built across the waterfront about 1870, then the western part was cut apart again for the construction of the Central Artery in the 1950s, the entire portion east of Atlantic Avenue was destroyed for the aquarium in the 1960s, and the section between Atlantic Avenue and the artery was demolished for the relocation of Atlantic Avenue in the early 1970s. The westernmost nine of the original fifty-four brick stores still survive, however, between Milk and Central Streets next to the Grain Exchange building (see figure 3.1). By the 1820s Boston was becoming more of a city than a town, if density of settlement can be considered an indicator of this distinction. In the decade from 1820 to 1830 the population grew from 43,298 to 61,392—an increase of 41.8 percent—and the effects were noted in an 1824 city report: “Our buildings are more compact. The open grounds and gardens . . . are now appropriated to house lots; and in many old streets nearly twice as many houses are erected as were ten years ago. The new parts of the City are built with great economy of room.”138

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As if to underscore the transformation from a town to a city, in 1822 Boston changed its form of government. The old town meeting system was becoming unworkable with a population of more than forty thousand and over seven thousand voters; no hall was large enough to contain the numbers that might have turned out for a controversial issue and it would have been impossible to hold a reasonable discussion under such circumstances in any case. Most of the time, however, town meetings were extremely poorly attended and operated without a system of fiscal responsibility; taxes were set and approved by the same boards that expended the funds. Many of these weaknesses had been apparent for some time. Attempts to change the form of government had begun as far back as 1784 but it was not until 1822 that the voters finally approved the switch from a town to a city government, the latter composed of a mayor and eight aldermen, roughly the equivalent of the selectmen, chosen at large and a Common Council of forty-eight—four members elected by each of the twelve wards—that functioned somewhat as had the town meeting.139 The Board of Aldermen and Common Council together were known as the City Council. Although both the number of aldermen and the power of the mayor were later altered several times, the basic structure remained the same throughout the nineteenth century.140 The first one-year term for mayor was filled by a compromise candidate, and in 1823 Josiah Quincy, a lapsed Federalist and a former candidate of the Middling Interest party, was elected the second mayor of Boston, a position to which he was reelected through 1828. Quincy was from an old Boston family, had been a U.S. Representative from 1805 to 1813 and then a state senator and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and, in contrast to the first mayor, was determined to take an activist role and to be the strong executive envisioned by the city charter. Quincy plunged immediately into a series of reforms and public works projects, which he describes without due modesty in his Municipal History,141 a detailed account of city government in the 1820s.

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FANEUIL H ALL ( NOW Q UINCY ) M ARKET

Quincy’s most grandiose scheme during his mayoralty and the one that brought him the most acclaim and criticism was the rebuilding and enlargement of the market area near Faneuil Hall, resulting in what was then called the Faneuil Hall Market project and is now better known as Quincy Market. At the beginning of the 1820s the market area was as depicted on Hales’s 1814 map (see figure 3.21) and was extremely crowded and inadequate as a central market place. There was not sufficient shelter for the fish and vegetable dealers nor enough space around Faneuil Hall for the farmers who came in from the country on market days. The latter were thus often forced to sell their produce to other vendors, so forestalling, the practice that had been so objectionable in the eighteenth century, had become common. The market area was further constricted by the remaining part of the Town Dock, which extended almost to Faneuil Hall and had become a nuisance—the outlet of the main city sewer was at the head of the dock as were two old hulks on which oysters were sold. Nearby wharves and buildings were ramshackle and run-down and, in addition, there was inadequate access to the market from the North End—Roebuck Passage, the route most frequently used (see figure 3.21), was narrow and dangerous and a child had recently been killed there.142 An extension of the market had been considered even before Quincy became mayor, but no progress was made until Quincy decided to make the project the centerpiece of his administration.143 The plan was to build a seawall on the east side of what is now Commercial Street at the east end of the market buildings, fill the docks between the wall and Faneuil Hall, and erect a long central market building flanked by two blocks of stores on the made land (figure 3.22). In 1823 and the first half of 1824 Quincy primarily directed his efforts to obtaining agreements from the owners of property in the area between Ann (now North) Street and the street leading to Bray’s, formerly Greene’s, Wharf (see figures 3.21 and 3.22), the area to which the project was originally limited. Almost all owners agreed to sell to the city except for some

heirs of the Nathan Spear estate, which, since their property was right in the middle of the project, meant changing the plan of aligning the center of the new market house with the center of Faneuil Hall to one of aligning their north walls (see figure 3.22). Quincy details the many obstacles he had to overcome: convincing members of the City Council who had serious reservations about a project that would create a large city debt, asking the legislature for the right to take property by eminent domain, and holding an open meeting of all inhabitants. This meeting was held on January 16, 1824, and despite opposition to the “mammoth project of the Mayor,” fears that it would create a large debt, and the idea that such projects were better undertaken by individuals than corporations, the project was approved by a large majority.144 In the summer of 1824 the original plans were altered when the end of the Mill Creek was turned eastward, thus permitting the market area to extend further north (see figure 3.22).145 Actual construction apparently began about July 15, 1824, when the Common Council appropriated twenty thousand dollars for

building “a good and sufficient abutment or wall” on the east line of what became Commercial Street (see figure 3.22) and for filling up the docks and flats.146 In contrast to many of the privately financed projects there are, unfortunately, no records about how the seawall was constructed or the area filled. The Faneuil Hall Market project was given real encouragement by the sale on September 29, 1824, of lots for the stores in the North Market building, which were to be built by private owners in accordance with city plans. The success of these sales FIGURE 3.22 1823

PL AN OF PROPOSED

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This plan of the proposed Faneuil Hall Market project is overlaid on a plan of the existing wharves in the market area (see figure 3.21). Commercial Street was to be constructed across the east end of the Town Dock area and then the docks between the old wharves filled to make land on which Quincy Market and the North and South Market buildings would be erected. The plan also shows City Wharf, which was later built on the seaward side of Commercial Street.

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made the project more popular and enabled Quincy to expand it south to Butler’s Row (see figure 3.22), the boundary he had wanted in the first place. This southern extension of the project permitted South Market Street to be widened from the 80 feet originally planned to 102 feet (see figure 3.22) and precipitated a protest from the owners of the stores in the North Market building, whose street had been narrowed to 65 feet when the north wall of the new market building was aligned with the north wall of Faneuil Hall. In January 1825, after considering various ways to equalize the widths of North and South Market Streets, the City Council proposed that the owners in the North Market building should pay to move and entirely rebuild the already completed cellar of the central market building, now called Quincy Market, in order to make it coincide with the center of Faneuil Hall. Almost needless to say, the owners declined and the central building was left in its original location, explaining why today South Market Street is so much wider than North. The store lots for the South Market building were sold on March 31, 1825, the cornerstone for what is now Quincy Market was laid on April 27, 1825, and the latter opened for business on August 26, 1826.147 When it was finished, the Faneuil Hall Market project had filled several acres of docks and flats on which had been built a long central market house of granite, now called Quincy Market, designed by architect Alexander Parris in Greek Revival style. The central building was flanked by the North and South Market buildings, blocks of storehouses also designed by Parris and built of brick with granite facades. Around the new buildings were six new streets: Clinton, North Market, South Market, Chatham, Commercial, and the extension of Merchants Row (see figure 3.22). The completed buildings and streets are shown on an 1826 map of the city as well as in an 1827 view (figures 3.23 and 3.24). Throughout the course of the Faneuil Hall Market project, there had been much criticism of its expense, a subject Quincy addressed in his final report on November 20, 1826. The tone of this report is quite defensive, and even as late as 1851, when he was writing his Municipal History, Quincy was still trying to justify the

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This map shows the recently constructed Central Wharf, the completed Faneuil Hall Market project with its three market buildings, the end of the Mill Creek turned east next to the North Market building, and the projected Commercial and Fulton Streets extending from the market area across the flats to the North End. The map also shows T Wharf extended and the north side of Long Wharf widened, both of which occurred in the 1820s.

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This 1827 view, drawn from the place where Marketplace Center now stands, shows, from left to right, South Market, Quincy Market with Faneuil Hall behind it, and North Market.

cost of the project.148 Dissatisfaction with the size of the city debt was the issue that finally removed Quincy from office. In December 1828, after twice failing to receive a majority of the votes cast, Quincy resigned as a candidate for mayor and was succeeded by his political enemy Harrison Gray Otis.149 The market building erected in the 1820s became the center of Boston’s market district and continued to function as a market for almost 150 years—as late as the early 1970s there were still a few meat, produce, and cheese sellers in the dimly lit building, by then known as Quincy Market after its founder. In the 1970s, however, after the wholesale markets had been moved out of the downtown area, the old buildings were renovated and reopened with much fanfare on August 26, 1976, their sesquicentennial. The revitalized Quincy Market area has become a tourist mecca and a model for similar projects in other cities; in keeping with its original function, the Quincy Market building is still devoted to the sale of food.

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Even before the Faneuil Hall Market project was completed, the city authorized a related project. The filling in of the market area and the creation of Commercial Street across the east end of the market buildings made it logical to consider extending Commercial Street to the North End and filling in the intervening wharves and docks, somewhat as Broad and India Streets had been created south of the market area earlier in the century. In April 1826 a resident submitted a petition to the City Council asking for “a wide commodious street” from North Market Street “along the sea board” to Lynn Street, and in June, after several committee reports, the city appropriated twenty thousand dollars for making Marginal (now Commercial) Street from the east end of the new market house to Lewis’s Wharf (see figure 3.23).150 Again, city records do not specify how the street was to be constructed or the filling accomplished other than that “a strong and permanent sea wall” was to be erected on its southeast side. The new street was to be built by the owners of the flats it would cross, who had been incorporated as the Mercantile Wharf Company in June 1826, and, in return for the twenty thousand dollars, they were also to build a “Second Street” (now Fulton) from Clinton to Richmond Street.151 Both of the proposed streets are shown on an 1826 map (see figure 3.23). Although the appropriation was approved in 1826, city records suggest that construction did not begin until late 1827 or early 1828: Marginal and Second Streets were still being referred to as “proposed” streets in October 1827 and the proprietors of the Barricado submitted a memorial opposing the building of the seawall for Marginal (Commercial) Street in February 1828.152 The construction of Marginal Street was clearly underway in early 1829 when the Mercantile Wharf Company requested an additional appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars for finishing it,153 and the street was apparently completed by August 1830 when three thousand dollars was appropriated for its paving.154 The new streets are shown on an 1829 map of Boston (figure 3.25). Rows of fourstory brick commercial buildings with distinctive granite posts and

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lintels at the street level were soon built along the new Commercial and Fulton Streets where, although now residences, they remain a remarkably well preserved example of 1830s Boston commercial architecture.

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The map shows the completed Commercial and Fulton Streets, the new City Wharf, the widened south side of Long Wharf, and the recently filled section of the Mill Creek between the harbor and Ann (now North) Street (cf. figure 3.23).

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A second landmaking project that resulted from the Faneuil Hall Market project was the construction of a city-owned wharf on the water side of Commercial Street opposite the new market buildings. In the fall of 1828 the city was urged to sell the wharf and dockage rights in this area as a means of reducing the city debt, but a City Council committee reported that because of its location at the head of five important commercial streets—Clinton, North Market, South Market, Chatham, and Commercial—and as the only space into which the market could later be extended, these rights should not be sold and instead the area should be filled by the city.155 The city therefore decided to appropriate twenty thousand dollars for filling up the wharf rights and for the necessary “stone walls, platforms, caps, ballast, earth and gravel,”156 an indication that the wharf was constructed in the manner customary of that era, that is, with perimeter stone walls set on timber platform foundations, the seawalls capped with timbers, backed with ballast stones, and the interior filled with earth and gravel. The city authorized filling on January 12, 1829, and it was finished by October 12 of that year;157 the new City Wharf is shown on an 1829 map (see figure 3.25). M ILL C REEK

A third spin-off of the Faneuil Hall Market project was the filling in of the Mill Creek. In the 1820s the Mill Creek was composed both of the original creek that extended from the harbor to the original shoreline of the Mill Pond north of Hanover Street (see chapter 4) and a section from that point to the intersection of Cross and Charlestown (now North Washington) Streets that had

been constructed in the 1810s as part of the canal through the Mill Pond (see chapter 4 and figure 3.23). In 1824 the eastern end of the Mill Creek was turned to permit an expansion of the Faneuil Hall Market project (see above), and by 1827 protests were beginning to be made about the condition of the creek. On June 18, 1827, for example, the abutters submitted a petition complaining that the creek had been narrowed, altered, and obstructed.158 So, in 1828 the City Council began to consider filling the Mill Creek, deciding in September to fill the section between Marginal (now Commercial) and Ann (now North) Streets, which ran behind the North Market building and through the area now occupied by the parking garage next to it (see figures 3.1 and 3.23).159 Once the southern part of the Mill Creek had been filled in, attention turned to the northern part—the section between Ann (North) and Cross Streets, which was on the line of today’s Blackstone Street (see figures 3.25 and 3.1). On June 3, 1829, Mayor Harrison Gray Otis sent a message to the City Council requesting that the creek be filled because it would soon become a “dangerous & intolerable nuisance.”160 Filling of the segment between Ann (North) and Hanover Streets—now the part of Blackstone Street occupied by pushcarts during the weekend market—was nearing completion on July 19, 1830, when Otis sent another message saying that residents were “greatly alarmed” by the state of the section north of it between Hanover and Cross Streets, which “requires to be filled up more than ever.”161 In spite of this warning and an order early in 1831 to finish filling the Mill Creek, the filling was apparently not done, because in early 1833 the commissioners of health reported that “an offensive and dangerous nuisance exists in the Mill Creek and . . . said Creek is very offensive and requires immediate attention.”162 The filling between Hanover and Cross Streets was then finally completed and in late 1833 Blackstone Street was laid out over the former Mill Creek as can be seen in a comparison of 1838 and 1829 maps (figures 3.26 and 3.25).

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The map shows the site of the Custom House on the newly made land at the head of the dock between Long and Central Wharves. It also shows that since 1829 (see figure 3.25) T Wharf had been extended further east, the head of Long Wharf enlarged, wharves for packets boats built in front of Commercial Street, and the present Commercial and Lewis Wharves constructed in the North End.

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In the 1830s Boston’s maritime commerce was at its height. Boston ships brought hides from California and South America for the growing Massachusetts shoe industry; cotton from the South for New England and British textile mills; wool from Australia and South America; tea from China (although this trade became increasingly centered in New York); coffee from Brazil; fruits, wine, and olive oil from the Mediterranean; and hemp and iron from the Baltic; they also took ice to the South, the Caribbean, and India. To deal with this increased trade, the federal government decided in the 1830s to replace the custom house built in 1810 on Custom House Street (see above) with a larger one, resulting in the next landmaking project in the central waterfront area. The new custom house was to be built on newly made land between Long and Central Wharves, and in 1837 the Long and Central Wharf corporations sold the U.S. government an area at the head of the dock between them for the site of the new building.163 The federal government then filled it in, shortening the remaining dock between the wharves. An undated plan shows a seawall built at the head of the shortened dock and another wall around the foundation of the new custom house itself (figure 3.27), so the land was undoubtedly made by building a seawall at its outer extent and then filling on the shoreward side. This filling was apparently completed by 1838, for an 1838 map is the first to show the dock between Long and Central Wharves shortened and the Custom House on the made land (see figures 3.26 and 3.25). The Custom House itself, which was reportedly set on three thousand piles,164 was originally a two-story granite Greek Revival building designed by architect Ammi B. Young (the present tower was not added until 1913–1915). The original building appears in a ca. 1850 photograph, which also shows activity around the head of the dock in front of the Custom House (figure 3.28).

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This plan by R. H. Eddy (see also figures 13.3 and 13.4) shows the new seawall built at the end of the dock between Long and Central Wharves as well as the “boxing” and “enclosing wall” constructed around the site of the Custom House to keep out the tide. The plan also shows how the sewer that currently discharged into the head of the dock was going to be extended, once that part of the dock was filled, to discharge into the remaining open part of the dock.

FIGURE 3.28 C A . 1850

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

C USTOM H OUSE

The Custom House was originally a two-story Greek Revival building with a dome (the tower was added in 1913–1915 as Boston’s first skyscraper). At the left is visible the bowsprit of a ship in the dock in front of the building (see figures 3.26 and 3.27), showing how close to the water the Custom House was once located.

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FIGURE 3.29 D ETAIL BY

FROM

I. S L AT T E R

1852 M AP OF B OSTON AN D B. C ALL AN

This detail from a map depicting all the structures in Boston shows the central waterfront and Fort Hill areas as they existed in 1852. Note that T Wharf had been extended further east since the 1830s (cf. figure 3.26).

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of the remaining dock between Long and Central Wharves in front of the Custom House was sold and filled so that the State Street Block could be erected on the made land (see figures 3.29 and 3.30). Gridley Bryant was again the architect, and according to him, the “filling and seawalling” were carried out by the Long and Central Wharf corporations between the fall of 1856 and spring of 1857,165 but there is no indication in these corporations’ records as to how this filling was actually done. The major portions of the Mercantile Wharf Buildings and the State Street Block still stand, although the west end of the former was chopped off when Cross Street was widened in 1933 and the latter was first cut apart by the Central Artery in the 1950s and then lost its east end when Atlantic Avenue was relocated in the early 1970s. ATLANTIC AVENUE

FIGURE 3.30 D ETAIL

FROM

1857

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows that since 1852 (cf. figure 3.29) the heads of the docks in front of Commercial Street, the dock between City and Long Wharves, and half of the dock between Long and Central Wharves had been filled in. D OCKS F ILLED

IN THE

1850 S

By the 1850s the docks between the old wharves on the central waterfront were too narrow for the larger ships then being built. One result was that some of these docks were filled in during that decade. For example, in 1852 the city sold City Wharf and in 1853 the dock between City and Long Wharves was filled and a commercial building erected on the new land (figures 3.29 and 3.30). A few years later, the heads of the packet wharves in front of Commercial Street, which were owned by the Mercantile Wharf Company, were filled in and the Mercantile Wharf Buildings constructed on the made land in 1856. The building, designed by architect Gridley J. Fox Bryant, is the handsome five-story granite edifice that is now across from Waterfront Park. Also in 1856, half

AND

F ORT H ILL

The central waterfront shown in an 1866 bird’s-eye view (figure 3.31) would soon be transformed by the last major landmaking project in that area—the filling in and creation of Atlantic Avenue—which took place in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The Atlantic Avenue project actually began as a spin-off from what could be called a landmoving project—the cutting down of Fort Hill. Fort Hill was the large drumlin that rose steeply to a height of about eighty feet above sea level south and west of Broad Street (see figure 3.29). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a fort on top of the hill, hence its name, but the fort was taken down at the end of the eighteenth century and replaced with a landscaped circle that was called a square—typical of the Boston penchant for designating all spaces squares regardless of their shape. In the early nineteenth century Fort Hill became a fashionable residential section and the home of many wealthy merchants. But in the 1820s and 1830s the merchants moved away to newly fashionable residential areas such as Beacon Hill and some of their large houses were acquired first by institutions such as the Boston Athenaeum and what became the Perkins School for the Blind and then later by absentee landlords.166 The latter, anticipating that the encroaching business district would lead to an increase in land values, had no

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FIGURE 3.31 D ETAIL

FROM

1866

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

Many of the changes that had taken place on the central waterfront by the 1860s can be seen on this detail from an 1866 bird’s-eye view. Moving from right to left one can see India Wharf; Central Wharf; the Custom House and the State Street Block on made land in part of the dock formerly between Central and Long Wharves; then, further inland in the area once the Town Dock, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, and the North and South Market buildings; Long and T Wharves in front of them; the Mercantile Wharf Buildings at the head of the dock between T and Commercial Wharves; and, finally, Commercial and Lewis Wharves.

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incentive to improve the buildings, rented them at low rates, and let them deteriorate. Into this declining area poured many Irish immigrants in the 1840s. Attracted by the low rents and the proximity of Fort Hill to the docks and to places of employment—an important consideration in the days before the horse railroads provided inexpensive public transportation—the newcomers converted former mansions and warehouses into tenements, built ramshackle buildings on every available inch of open space, and tunneled habitations into the hill.167 The result of this crowding was miserable living conditions graphically described in an 1849 city report.168 The report focused on Half-Moon Place, a cul-de-sac off Broad Street whose entrance still remains as Wendell Street (see figure 3.29). Here privies overflowed, drains and privies on upper levels of the hill emptied down on lower areas, buildings were jammed together with little possibility of ventilation, and cellar dwellings, which extended back deep into the hill, had no ventilation at all.169 Given such appalling conditions it is not surprising that Fort Hill was a center of the cholera epidemic of 1849: of the 707 cases in Boston, about 200 occurred on Fort Hill, more than twice as many as in the North End, the other main locus of infection.170 The way in which cholera is transmitted was still unknown at this time. It was thought that excesses and intemperance, such as overwork and eating highly spiced food, predisposed one to the disease as much as did living in unsanitary conditions, but despite the erroneous notions, all agreed that filth and poor drainage were causative factors. Cholera also was associated with made land, probably because it had been observed that the disease occurred more frequently in areas with inadequate sewerage. The city report on the 1849 cholera epidemic said, for example, that the disease “made its first attack and spent its force in those localities which were nearest to the level of the sea and in fact rescued from it by filling up with dock mud,” and even as late as 1869, when the cause of cholera had been explained, it was believed to occur primarily in areas that had been filled.171 Efforts to remove Fort Hill and thus, presumably, eliminate a locus of cholera began in the 1850s. In 1854 a group of business-

men were chartered as the Fort Hill Corporation in order to “dig down and lower the grade of said Hill” in the area bounded by Milk, Pearl, and Broad Streets (see figure 3.29).172 Fort Hill was immediately south of the central business district, and the corporation’s ostensible, although not clearly stated, motive was to remove the hill to permit an expansion of the district, thus increasing the city’s tax base.173 But the group’s hidden agenda was evidently also to initiate Boston’s first slum clearance project. Although cholera was never explicitly cited as a justification for cutting down Fort Hill and the hill had not been the center of the 1854 cholera epidemic,174 contemporaries clearly regarded the area as a health hazard. Writing in 1870 while the hill was being cut down, Shurtleff said that in addition to giving “much valuable room to the business part of the city,” the Fort Hill project was to “remove many of the noted places of filth and sickness which are now found in its immediate neighborhood,” and an 1880 account said the project had been undertaken for “sanitary reasons” as well as for commercial purposes.175 The Fort Hill project may also have been undertaken as an anti-Irish measure, for 1854 was the year the Native American, or Know-Nothing, party—an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic organization—swept Massachusetts elections.176 The Fort Hill Corporation chartered in 1854 never achieved its objective, however. In 1855 the corporation applied to the legislature for permission to build a bridge and a street over the Fort Point Channel,177 presumably to facilitate the disposal of dirt from the hill, but the necessary act was never passed. Then in 1857, with the threeyear deadline of their charter about to expire, the corporation petitioned the legislature for a four-year extension and received it, but allowed this charter to expire in 1861. The whole idea then seems to have been dropped until December 1864 when a new group of Fort Hill property owners petitioned to be incorporated as the Fort Hill Corporation “for the purpose of reducing the grade of Fort Hill.”178 The legislature passed the required act on May 17, 1865, but in the meantime the city had preempted the Fort Hill project.179 The city’s plan was to cut a street through Fort Hill from Milk to Broad Street (now Atlantic Avenue) on the line of then-existing Oliver Street, Washington Square, and Belmont Street—today’s

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Oliver Street (see figure 3.29). According to a contemporary account, the Fort Hill property owners had reportedly formed their 1865 corporation to counter the city’s project, which had been approved by the legislature just several week earlier on April 27, 1865,180 because the property owners felt cutting just one street through the hill was unrealistic and that eventually the whole hill would have to be taken down.181 It is difficult, however, to reconcile this view with the fact that the owners’ corporation had been under discussion since the previous December.182 In any event, the course of the Fort Hill project was henceforth in the hands of the city. The city’s Oliver Street project, as it was at first called, was to be financed by a betterments assessment on the abutters. Although many protested, the City Council approved the project in September 1865 and advertised for proposals for removing the excavated earth.183 The proposals were received in early October, but after some discussion the city rejected them all and ordered the committee in charge to sell the earth “at public auction or dispose [of it] in such other manner as they may deem expedient.”184 The city had already begun to remove the necessary buildings when one of the abutters obtained an injunction, and the whole project was put on hold for almost a year until the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 1866 that the city did have the right to take private property in order to widen Oliver Street.185 A loan of one hundred thousand dollars for the Oliver Street project was approved in September 1866 and the actual work of cutting through Fort Hill began on October 15, 1866.186 Cutting Oliver Street through the hill was a formidable project. Fort Hill was very steep and in order to reduce the slope of the street to less than 2.5 feet per 100 feet as required by the 1865 act, Oliver Street had to be cut down 24.2 feet at Wendell Street, 36.2 feet at the west corner of Washington Square, and 43.6 feet at the south corner of the square (see figure 3.29).187 Some idea of the depth of the cut can be obtained from a photograph taken about 1867 from just west of High Street looking east on Oliver and Belmont Streets (labeled “Lane Place” on the 1852 map) toward the fivestory Sailors Home on the northeast corner of Belmont and Purchase Streets (figures 3.32 and 3.29). Another photograph of

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the same view but probably taken from the footbridge shows the depth of the cut along Belmont Street, which is today’s Oliver Street east of High (figure 3.33). In August 1867 an additional appropriation of $150,000 was made for the project and most of the work was reportedly completed by the end of that year.188 By early 1868, when seventy-two thousand dollars was appropriated for the project and used for paving Oliver Street, laying curbstones, and building sidewalks and sewers,189 it was clear that the Fort Hill property owners had been correct and that the project could not stop just with cutting through one street. In the words of an 1869 report: [There is] no escape by the city from the completion of these improvements. They have, whether wisely or not, been commenced. The grading of Oliver street has separated the hill into two parts. The depth of the cut has so sloped the grade of the banks as to render the property at some distance from the line of streets unsafe. The height of surrounding estates prevents any building being created on the new grade of Oliver street, so that until the whole hill is graded, improvements must be at a stand still.190 But the problem with continuing to cut down Fort Hill was that there was no place to put the earth—it could not be taken to concurrent landmaking projects for it had a high clay content, which precluded its use in the Church Street District (see chapter 7), where good drainage was needed, and it was excluded by law as fill for the South Boston Flats (see chapter 11), which were required to be filled with material dredged from the harbor.191 So in 1868 the Fort Hill project ground to a halt.192 At this juncture the city found a solution in a landmaking project—the building of Atlantic Avenue across the wharves of the central waterfront from Rowe’s Wharf at the foot of Fort Hill to Lewis Wharf in the North End (figure 3.34). During the 1860s Boston was concerned about its decline as a commercial center, especially in comparison with New York.193 One problem was the lack of a rail connection between the depots that served railroads entering the city from the south, located near present South Station,

FIGURE 3.32 C A . 1867

PHOTOGRAPH LOOKING DOWN

FIGURE 3.33 O LIVER S TREET

FROM

H IGH S TREET

C A . 1867

PHOTOGRAPH LOOKING DOWN

O LIVER S TREET

The vantage point from which this photograph was taken is today on Oliver Street just across from International Place and the plaza where people lunch at open-air tables in the summer. The photograph shows the depth of the cut in Washington Square (see figure 3.29) and the footbridge that had been built in October 1867 across Oliver Street from High Street to Washington Square at the request of the School Committee so that pupils and teachers from the south side of the hill (on the right) could cross the excavation to the schools, which were located on Washington Square (on the left; see figure 3.29).

This photograph was probably taken from the footbridge shown in figure 3.32. Both photographs show the Sailors Home on the northeast corner of Belmont (Oliver) and Purchase Streets and the wooden bridge spanning the cut on what is presumably Purchase Street (see figure 3.29).

and those for railroads entering from the north, near present North Station, which made it difficult to ship freight through Boston. The proposed solution was to lay railway tracks on city streets between the two depot areas. It was originally intended that the tracks in the central waterfront area run on India and Commercial Streets, but a new “Marginal Street,” soon named Atlantic Avenue, across the docks would obviously shorten the route (see figure 3.34). In June 1867 the legislature passed an act authorizing the city to lay out such a street over the wharves and docks from Lewis to Rowe’s

Wharf,194 but the City Council did not discuss the plan until November 30, 1868. Among the arguments then presented in favor of such a street were that it would relieve crowding on other streets, help the railroads, and provide a place to put the earth from Fort Hill.195 The owners of the docks and wharves that would be so drastically truncated did protest but were disregarded, and the city approved the order to build Atlantic Avenue and the appropriation for it in mid-December 1868,196 opening the way for both the Atlantic Avenue and the Fort Hill projects to proceed.

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FIGURE 3.34 D ETAIL

1870

CITY SURVEYOR ’ S MAP OF

B OSTON

N RA OR IL THE DE R PO N TS

This map shows the projected Atlantic Avenue to be built across the wharves and docks of the central waterfront so that railroad tracks could connect the depots serving railroads entering from the south— which were in the Kneeland Street area—with depots of railroads entering from the north—which were on Causeway Street.

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FIGURE 3.35 1868

PL AN OF PROPOSED

M ARGINAL S TREET (ATL ANTIC AVENUE )

This plan shows in detail the docks that would be truncated and the wharf buildings demolished for Atlantic Avenue.

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FIGURE 3.36 D ETAIL

FROM

1870

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

This view shows Atlantic Avenue being constructed across the dock between T (right) and Commercial (left) Wharves. One can see the horse-drawn tip carts that brought the dirt from Fort Hill, a causeway built out from the Mercantile Wharf area, and the mound of dirt deposited. Other developments are much the same as on the 1866 bird’s-eye (cf. figure 3.31).

The first part of the Atlantic Avenue project involved building a seawall on the east side of the projected street where it crossed the docks between wharves (figure 3.35). The wall was begun in the spring of 1869.197 The section of the wall between Rowe’s and India Wharves was built directly on clay (see figure 3.35), but the rest of the seawall was built on the type of foundation that by the 1830s had replaced the timber platforms used at the beginning of the century. This newer foundation was of timber piles that were first driven into a trench dredged down to the level of hard clay, then cut off at the low water mark, and finally surrounded with coarse gravel 66

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and small stones.198 Dredging mud to excavate the trench between India and Central Wharves reportedly began on March 11, 1869, the first pile was driven on April 6, and the first stone of the wall laid on April 9.199 Then, in May, the harbor commissioners, who had had to approve the plans for the seawall, found that the contractor was not digging the trenches or filling in around the piles correctly. All work was stopped on the section of wall between T and Commercial Wharves (see figure 3.35) and not resumed until October after the commissioners had hired an inspector for the project.200 The entire wall was competed in June 1870.201 Interestingly, although Atlantic Avenue is almost exactly on the line of the seventeenth-century Barricado, no remains of the latter were reported found during construction of the seawall for the former. In the 1970s Atlantic Avenue itself was moved westward, but the line of the original street—though not much of the seawall— remains along the water in front of Waterfront (Christopher Columbus) Park and between Long Wharf and the aquarium and between the latter and Harbor Towers (see figure 3.1).

While the seawall was being built, the Fort Hill project had resumed and Atlantic Avenue itself was filled. The city approved the cutting down of the rest of Fort Hill and an appropriation of $1.5 million for the project in July 1869, and by September so many houses had been demolished in preparation for excavation and so many residents had moved away, many of them to South Boston, that the city decided to close the two primary and one grammar schools that had formerly served the Fort Hill district.202 Sometime before the end of the year the city made a contract with a B. N. Farren to cut down the area between Purchase and Wendell Streets, that is, the crest of the hill (see figure 3.29), and to take the dirt to Atlantic Avenue.203 An act of March 1869 had authorized the use of railway tracks on city streets in order to transport earth from Fort Hill to Atlantic Avenue, and Farren, who did use such a railway in 1871, may also have done so in 1870.204 Farren also used horsedrawn carts, which dumped the fill in high mounds at certain specified points behind the seawall on Atlantic Avenue from where it was later leveled.205 A detail from an 1870 bird’s-eye view shows carts going out on a causeway and depositing dirt on a mound in the area between Commercial and T Wharves and Atlantic Avenue being built across this section (figure 3.36). The filling of Atlantic Avenue was to have been completed by September 1, 1870, but was actually finished on October 12 of that year.206 The Atlantic Avenue project involved not only building the street across the docks between the wharves but also smashing through the wharf buildings that were in the line of the new street (see figure 3.35). No account of this demolition has been located but a well-known photograph shows what was about to occur. This photograph is of the India Wharf building taken from Central Wharf. It shows Atlantic Avenue, with a fence on top, completed across the dock between these two wharves (figure 3.37). It seems probable that this photograph was taken in 1870 to record the India Wharf building just before its central section was demolished in order to permit the extension of Atlantic Avenue to Rowe’s Wharf (see figure 3.35).

While Atlantic Avenue was being constructed the work of filling the docks on its landward side had begun. The filling of these docks had been one of the objectives of the Atlantic Avenue project, for the sewers that drained into them had created nuisances that were to be abated by filling the docks and extending the sewers to deep water.207 (See figure 3.27 for a ca. 1837 plan of the sewers that drained into the dock between Long and Central Wharves.) An April 1869 act authorized the city to fill the docks with earth from Fort Hill,208 but the first contract was not made until early 1870. This contract, for filling the small dock at the end of the State Street Block (see figure 3.35), was with Timothy

FIGURE 3.37 C A . 1870

PHOTOGRAPH OF

I NDIA W HARF

BUILDING

This photograph was taken from Central Wharf, looking across the dock between the two wharves (see figure 3.35). Atlantic Avenue, bounded by a fence, has already been built across the dock and one can see the mast of a boat moored in the remaining dock on the seaward side of the new street. This photograph was probably taken to record the India Wharf building before its center section was demolished to permit the completion of Atlantic Avenue.

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Hannon, a contractor who in 1867 had failed to finish his contract for cutting down Oliver Street.209 On May 4, 1870, the city made a second contract for filling the docks, this one with John Souther, a South Boston inventor and manufacturer of steam-powered equipment. Souther was instrumental in many of the landmaking projects in Boston. He invented a steam dredge used in South Bay (see chapter 10) and improved the “steam excavators” (steam shovels), which had been invented by William Smith Otis of Philadelphia,210 that were used on Back Bay (see chapter 7) and Fort Hill; and his New England Dredging Company filled in many acres on the South Boston Flats (see chapter 11) and along the Charles River (see chapter 8).211 The 1870 contract with Souther for the Atlantic Avenue project was for filling the dock between India and Central Wharves (see figure 3.35).212 Souther used his steam shovels to dig the dirt on Fort Hill and had many problems for, contrary to the contract, the city had not removed all the building materials or emptied the privies. Thus, in some places Souther’s shovels encountered three to five feet of bricks, laths, and mortar; foundation stones so large that they tipped over the railroad cars when being loaded; projecting floor joists that prevented the shovels from swinging; and vaults still filled with night soil.213 Like Farren, Souther transported the fill from the hill to the docks by railway (figure 3.38). He ran a track straight to the dock and then dumped the cars sideways, contrary to the wishes of the assistant city engineer, who was afraid this method would force the mud in the dock up over the other side and wanted Souther to build a track across the dock instead.214 A third contract for filling the docks was made at the end of 1870, this one to fill the docks between Long and Commercial Wharves (see figure 3.35). This part of the project had been delayed until Farren finished building Atlantic Avenue so that the new street could be used for transporting fill. Advertisements for proposals were thus not placed until about the first of October. When the bids were opened it was found that both Farren and Martin Hayes, who advertised himself as a dealer in lumber as well as in “brick, stone, sand, lime, cement, etc.,” had bid the same

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amount and, since neither would change his bid, the contract was split between them.215 Farren and Hayes began work in late 1870, so in early 1871, except when activity was suspended because of deep snow, three contractors—Souther, Farren, and Hayes—were engaged in cutting down the hill and filling the docks. The progress of the Fort Hill project can be seen in a photograph, probably taken in 1870 or 1871 (figure 3.39), especially when compared with photographs taken from the same location ca. 1867 (see figures 3.32 and 3.33). Meanwhile, the arrangements for cutting down Fort Hill and filling the docks had become more complicated. Farren transported most of the dirt to the waterfront in railroad cars that ran on Purchase Street and across Rowe’s Wharf to Atlantic Avenue. He made a subcontract with the firm of Bonner and Sutherland, who had cut down Oliver Street in 1867, to haul the rest in horsedrawn carts.216 In October 1870 the city had made another contract with Souther to take fill from Fort Hill to the Suffolk Street District, now the Mass Pike Towers/Castle Square areas on either side of the turnpike, where the ground level was being raised (see chapter 7). Souther’s start on this contract was delayed, so in February 1871, about the time he was finishing filling the dock between India and Central Wharves, he hired Hayes to cart some of the earth to Suffolk Street.217 In May, Hayes, under this contract with Souther, also hired Bonner and Sutherland, who by that time had finished filling the docks for Farren.218 Then in July a major scandal was exposed. It transpired that all during the winter when Hayes and Bonner and Sutherland were supposed to have been filling the docks between Long and Commercial Wharves, they were actually selling a great deal of the dirt to ships for ballast. They had thus been paid twice for the same earth—once by the city, who thought it was going into the Atlantic Avenue docks, and again by the ship owners who actually received it. Hayes had continued to sell dirt for ballast when he was working for Souther on the Suffolk Street contract; as one alderman later remarked, “[A] large portion [of the dirt] had been carried everywhere [except] where it was wanted.”219 More frauds had been perpetrated by Bonner and Sutherland in May when they had

FIGURE 3.38 C A . 1870

PHOTOGRAPH OF

F ORT H ILL

Taken at an unidentified part of Fort Hill, this photograph shows one of Souther’s steam excavators in the middle distance. Fill was loaded into small hand-operated railway cars that ran on movable tracks (at right) down to the docks, reminiscent of the railway that hauled fill down Mount Vernon in the first decade of the century (see chapter 6). Note that horse-drawn tip carts were also still being used to haul fill.

FIGURE 3.39 C A . 1870

PHOTOGRAPH LOOKING DOWN

O LIVER S TREET

This photograph was taken from about the same vantage points as the 1867 photographs (see figures 3.32 and 3.33) and, in comparison with them, shows how much of Fort Hill had been excavated in the interim: the cut is much wider, the banks are lower, and the bridge across the cut on Purchase Street has been taken down.

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been hired by Hayes to work for Souther. Instead of taking the earth to the Suffolk Street District, a large quantity had been hauled instead to South Boston to fill the Boston Wharf Company wharf (see chapter 11). The scandal was complicated by the fact that one of the accused, Dennis Bonner, was not only a member of the Common Council but was also on the committee investigating the city engineer’s office, which was also implicated in the frauds.220 Extensive hearings were conducted in the fall of 1871 but aside from implicating Hayes, Bonner and Sutherland, and McConnell, the assistant city engineer, who by that time had been dismissed, it was impossible to establish how much dirt for which the city had paid to be hauled to the Atlantic Avenue docks had actually been taken elsewhere.221 Souther and Farren were exonerated, although Souther’s conduct was questioned, for, when he accused McConnell of having favored Hayes when measuring the amount of fill put into the docks, it turned out that Souther had offered McConnell two hundred dollars for being allowed to fill the India–Central Wharf dock as he wished. McConnell clearly regarded the offer as a bribe. Souther steadfastly denied it, claiming he had made the offer because McConnell “had accommodated him in the manner of the fill . . . and that was all there was about it.”222 The matter was finally dropped, but the city did eventually reimburse Hayes for the amount it had originally deducted for dirt he had sold as ballast.223 Regardless of whether Souther was guilty of bribery, the city continued to contract with him for the removal of Fort Hill. In March 1871, before the scandal broke, the city had made a new contract with Souther to cut down all the rest of Fort Hill and take the earth to the city’s flats in South Boston opposite the Insane Hospital and House of Corrections, which were north of First Street between M and O Streets (see chapter 11).224 The city changed this contract in September to allow Souther to take the earth from Fort Hill “to any locality.”225 In February 1872 an additional $325,000 was appropriated for the Fort Hill project and by July 31, 1872, after a total of 547,628 cubic yards of earth had been removed, the hill was finally completely cut down.226

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The land made or removed during the Atlantic Avenue and Fort Hill projects was quickly put to the uses originally intended. Tracks of the Union Freight Railroad were laid on Atlantic Avenue in 1872 and remained there until the railroad stopped operating in 1970. Buildings were erected on the made land in the former docks, most notably the Flour and Grain Exchange building, built in 1890–1893, whose triangular shape was determined by the shape of the former dock between India and Central Wharves (see figures 3.35 and 3.1). Some of the newly leveled land on Fort Hill was in the area burned during the great fire of November 9, 1872, but, like the rest of the burnt district, it was quickly rebuilt and did become part of the business district. In the twentieth century the original summit of the hill was marked by a landscaped oval that, in the 1950s when the area was encircled by an exit ramp of the Central Artery, was replaced by a parking garage. In the late 1980s International Place was built on the area once covered by Fort Hill. It is now difficult to conceive that the tower closest to Oliver and High Streets is on the site of the summit of a steep hill that was originally more than forty feet higher than the present ground level.227 The filling in of Atlantic Avenue extended the shoreline of the central waterfront out to its present line (see figures 3.34 and 3.1). The changes that have occurred since have primarily involved alterations to existing wharves and streets rather than the creation of new land. In 1901 an elevated railroad was built on Atlantic Avenue and remained until it was taken down in 1942. Much more dramatic, however, was the construction in the 1950s of the Central Artery across the whole central waterfront, obliterating many streets and buildings, truncating others, and cutting the waterfront off from the rest of the city. Then in the 1960s most of Central Wharf was taken down for the construction of the New England Aquarium, and in the early 1970s Atlantic Avenue was relocated further west, spelling the demise of most of the State Street Block and Central Wharf buildings. Also in the early 1970s Harbor Towers was built on the site of India Wharf, the last surviving part of the India Wharf Building having been demolished

in 1962 to make a parking lot.228 The relocation of Atlantic Avenue enabled the creation of Waterfront (now Christopher Columbus) Park in 1976 as part of Boston’s observance of the nation’s bicentennial. The transformation of the central waterfront continued when the Long Wharf Marriott was built over Long and T Wharves in the early 1980s and the Boston Harbor Hotel and Rowe’s Wharf buildings erected in the area of the former Rowe’s Wharf in the late 1980s. Still to come are the changes that will occur once the “Big Dig” is completed and the elevated Central Artery removed. All these reconfigurations of the central waterfront have taken place on land that was created by filling in the Town Cove—the center of Boston’s economy for the first two and a half centuries of its existence—for commercial uses.

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FIGURE 4.1 1992

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF THE

M I LL C OVE

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The shoreline of the Mill Pond originally ran along what is now Endicott Street and then between North Margin and Salem Streets in the North End, crossed the area now occupied by the Central Artery, then ran approximately on the lines of today’s Sudbury and Bowker Streets, went through the area now occupied by the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse and the State Service Center building, and finally went through the northeast side of what is now Charles River Park. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on a reconstruction made in 1852 and reproduced in 1895 by Charles C. Perkins on Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2). This bird’s-eye view, drawn in 1992, does not show the changes that have occurred in this area since that time—the Boston Garden and Analex building were demolished in 1998, the Registry of Motor Vehicles building was demolished in 2001, and the Fleet Center (1995), Edward W. Brooke Courthouse (1999), and Zakim/Bunker Hill Bridge (2002) have been constructed.

The area once known as the Mill Pond was originally a large cove near the head of the Shawmut Peninsula bounded by the North End and West End promontories (see figure 1.1). When the 1630 shoreline of this cove is plotted on a 1992 bird’s-eye view of Boston (figure 4.1), it is evident that what was once the cove now includes a part of the North End, the Government Center parking garage in Haymarket Square, the Bulfinch Triangle (the area between Merrimac and North Washington Streets), and the land north of Causeway Street where, among other buildings, are the Fleet Center (opened in 1995 so not shown on the 1992 bird’s-eye but behind the site of the former Boston Garden) and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. M ILL P OND

The cove between the North and West Ends became a mill pond soon after Boston was founded in 1630. In July 1643 the town granted the entire cove to a group of proprietors, or shareholders, on condition that within three years they build one or more grist mills and “maynteyne the same for ever.”1 It was assumed that the proprietors would dam off the cove in order to power the mills, so

they were also required to make a ten-foot gate through the dam so that boats could enter the cove. As explained in chapter 3, in Boston’s early years, linkage-type grants were often made in order to get public works built at private expense—the Town Dock was an example. In the case of the mill pond, in return for building the mills and for providing a way for boats to enter the pond, the proprietors received three hundred acres in the nearby town of Braintree, a sixty-foot corridor through the marsh between the Mill and Town Coves for a mill stream, the right to dig the mill stream across highways (streets) provided that the proprietors maintain bridges safe “for horse and cart,” a monopoly on public mills unless the town required more, and free labor procured by the town through “perswasion” so that the project could be completed speedily.2 The free labor may have been difficult to procure or the proprietors may have encountered other difficulties, for in November 1643 the selectmen noted that if the proprietors did not build the mills their only penalty was the loss of the cove and that if they abandoned the work in process they could sell the timber and other materials.3 The proprietors did complete the project, however, and the results are shown on Samuel Clough’s reconstructed map for 1648 (figure 4.2). The proprietors built dams from the ends of a natural causeway that already existed across the mouth of the cove in order to close off the cove completely, which then became known as the Mill Pond, and dug a mill creek through the neck between the Mill and Town Coves. Water entered the Mill Pond at high tide from the Charles River through the floodgates in

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Clough’s map shows the dam that created the Mill Pond and the tide mills it powered on the north and south side of the Mill Pond (the ten-foot gate through the dam is not shown). He also shows another dam and mill partway along the Mill Creek, perhaps based on a ruling by the town on February 26, 1649, that neighbors on the Mill Creek could remove the crosswork over the creek that hindered the passage of boats (B.R.C. 2: 94) and Clough’s conclusion that this “crosswork” was a mill dam (see figure 3.3).

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the causeway and from the Town Cove through the Mill Creek, as it came to be called. At ebb tide water flowed back out of the Mill Pond, powering tide mills that were near the present bend in Endicott Street and other mills at the mouth of the Mill Creek. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some land was made around the shore of the Mill Pond, as suggested by a 1796 map on which the 1630 shoreline has been plotted (figure 4.3). This land was probably made by private wharfing out rather than by projects and is thus outside the scope of this study. A recent archaeological investigation in the former Mill Pond, however, found evidence of this early landmaking and, since it is the only known example of early-eighteenth-century landmaking in Boston, the results are worth discussing here. The archaeological investigation took place at what was appropriately named the Mill Pond Site, which was on the southern shore of the pond near the Mill Creek (see figure 4.3). There the archaeologists found that in the early eighteenth century four layers of crisscrossed timbers were laid in the mud on the bottom of the Mill Pond and then dirt dumped on top of them, filling up the spaces between the timbers and creating a land surface above the level of high tide.4 Although this timber structure was called a “wharffe” in relevant property deeds,5 it was probably not a wharf in the conventional sense, for the archaeologists also found that the water at the end of it would have been only two to three feet deep,6 so ships could not have docked there. Instead, the structure was probably a wharf in an old sense of the term, meaning a “bank” or “shore,” and was actually built to retain fill in order to make new land.7 If this is the case, then it means that land was made in the eighteenth century as it was in the nineteenth, that is, by employing the techniques used to construct wharves, the difference being that in the eighteenth century wharves were constructed of timbers built up log-cabin style whereas in the nineteenth they were enclosed by stone seawalls (see chapter 3). Other changes in the Mill Pond during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concerned the mills that the proprietors were required to build and maintain. By 1670 they had erected four grist mills, two at the southern edge of the pond on the Mill

MILL POND SITE

FIGURE 4.3 D ETAIL

FROM

1796 P L AN OF B OSTON BY O SGOOD C ARLETON M ILL P OND ADDED

WITH

1630

SHORELINE OF THE

The relatively small amount of land created in the Mill Pond during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is shown by the difference between the 1630 and 1796 shorelines. This map also shows the location of the North and South Mills, the floodgates at the west end of the dam, and the Mill Pond Site investigated archaeologically in 1993.

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Creek, a location later called South Mills, and two on the northeast side at the mill dam, a location that came to be known as Center Haven and later North Mills, and were about to add a third mill at the latter site (see figure 4.3).8 By 1706 they had built a fulling mill at the west end of the mill dam, and evidently added two more grist mills at Center Haven in the early 1750s.9 The proprietors apparently did not maintain the mills very well in the mid-eighteenth century, however. A 1769 town committee found that for many years the South Mills had been “useless and wholly unimproved” and recently “entirely demolished” and that the North Mills were in such “wretched condition” that most grain was ground outside Boston. The town claimed that, by letting the mills deteriorate so badly, the proprietors had forfeited their grant and moved to reclaim the property. But by March 1770 the proprietors had built a new mill at South Mills, so the town dropped the suit.10 After the Revolution, a chocolate mill was added to the mill complex at North Mills. Such mills were a hazard, however, for they involved roasting the cocoa beans as well as grinding them. It was thus perhaps not surprising that on December 25, 1782, a fire destroyed all the North Mills. They were quickly replaced, however, by a grist mill, saw mill, and brick chocolate mill and, with the exception of the saw mill, these mills were still operating at North Mills at the end of the eighteenth century as was the one grist mill at South Mills, remains of which were found in 1999 during “Big Dig” construction.11 The mills were not very productive, however, so in 1800 the miller, who by that time owned more than half the shares in the mills, sold them to a new group of owners headed by one John Peck. The new proprietors proceeded to shut the floodgates of the former fulling mill at the west end of the dam and, with incoming tides no longer rushing along the west side of the pond, filth and debris began to accumulate. The problem was exacerbated because the former proprietors had stopped occasionally plowing the Mill Creek to deepen it and removing manure from the bottom of the pond, and, as a result, both the pond and the creek had become very shallow.12 The shallowness of the Mill Pond at this time was verified by another archaeological finding at the Mill Pond Site—

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a small late-eighteenth-century wharf that extended out from the shore, presumably to reach water deep enough for small boats.13 Yet another problem was that people disposed of dead animals by throwing them into the Mill Pond. Concerned about the implications for health, in March 1798 a town committee considered measures to prevent this practice and asked the selectmen to examine whether the proprietors had the right to shut the west floodgates.14 The new proprietors’ major interest was apparently in selling land made by filling the Mill Pond as a speculative venture rather than in maintaining the mills. Boston was growing rapidly at this time and the town needed more land, a fact noted in 1801 by a town committee that remarked on “the prosperous and flourishing state of the town and the increasing scarcity and demand for vacant land for building lots.”15 But in the fall of 1803, after the Mill Pond proprietors had announced plans to sell lots on the edge of the pond and to lay out streets across it, the selectmen forbade them to proceed, claiming that the town owned the flats within the pond.16 In December 1803, however, a lawyer offered the opinion that the proprietors owned the cove and could erect houses on it and make other improvements as long as they observed the condition of maintaining a grist mill. So in early January 1804 the selectmen asked Peck to submit his proposals for filling up and selling the Mill Pond.17 A town meeting on February 29, called to consider a petition from the abutters of the Mill Pond asking that the pond be filled, referred the question to a committee that was to report in March. A few columns on the Mill Pond issue had appeared in the newspapers before the February 29 meeting,18 but many more were printed in March before the subject was taken up again, with articles on both sides of the issue being published in both Federalist and Republican papers. Initially, most of the commentators opposed filling the Mill Pond. They argued that because of the annexation of Dorchester Point (now South Boston) on March 6, the town did not need any additional land but there was a need for the tide mills to grind meal both for the town’s poor and for residents of inland towns whose water mills were not adequately

powered in dry summers. They also claimed that the filth that had accumulated in the pond would be removed if the floodgates on the west side were again opened.19 The most telling arguments, however, and the ones that became decisive in the Mill Pond controversy, were those about health, which were informed by the miasmatic theory of disease that prevailed during most of the nineteenth century. The miasmatic theory not only held that diseases were caused by bad odors (see chapter 1), but also, as a corollary, that pure air, or “salubrious [healthful] breezes” as they were often called, was important for maintaining health.20 The importance of breezes coming across a body of water, which, in the days before air conditioning, were also valued for their cooling effect, was such that some opponents of filling the Mill Pond could argue “the unobstructed refreshing breezes, wafted from the surface of this Pond in Summer, are very essential to the continuance of [the health of the abutters],”21 even though those breezes were wafting across a body of water that all agreed was filthy and polluted. Beliefs about disease also led to a strong prejudice against made land, for such land was thought to be composed of filth and therefore a source of disease. Opponents of filling the Mill Pond unfailingly observed that the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, and Boston had all originated in areas of made land, not realizing, of course, that the source of disease was not the content of the fill but rather the mosquitoes that bred in those damp and low-lying areas.22 Those who favored filling the Mill Pond also used health as their major argument. The original petition from the abutters claimed the pond was a . . . capacious receptacle and reservoir of all the filth and putrescent substances of a considerable portion of said town; above ninety privies are emited [sic] into said Pond; a great number of common sewers [drains] flow into it; the unwholesome draining of a number of sugar-houses, and the fetid returns of several distilleries and breweries are emptied into the same;—the margin of the Pond is at all times

covered with the putrid bodies of dogs, cats, and other animals; . . . the exhalation [from the pond is] the most offensive and unhealthy ever emitted from any nuisance within the remembrance of your petitioners. The solution, they said, was to fill up the pond “in a proper manner and with suitable materials.”23 Various town physicians agreed, certifying that the health of the town would be served by filling the Mill Pond and that the neighborhood of the pond was a locus of fevers and diseases caused by “the effluvia wafted from the pond.”24 On March 22 the committee on filling the Mill Pond submitted a report in favor of filling, and on March 28 the town meeting convened to consider the report and the original petition of the abutters.25 Despite the attention given to the issue in the press, however, the meeting was apparently not well attended and the subject was deferred to the May meeting.26 At the town meeting on May 10 there was a long debate on the Mill Pond question, several very close votes, and finally a decision to discuss the question again at another meeting on May 14.27 In the few days between the two town meetings there was a flurry of newspaper columns on the Mill Pond issue, almost all in favor of filling. The health question seemed to be settled but a new benefit was now introduced. In the words of one column: The MECHANIC interest consider this as their own cause. The filling up this pond with gravel, and covering 43 acres with houses, will give employment to thousands for years. The call upon the Truckmen, the Labourers, the Carpenters, and Masons will be so great that every man who chooses can have a House Lot in the center of the Town, and pay for it in his way. House rents and taxes will be reduced, and so will the price of every material for building. The plan of filling up this Pond may not only be the cause of health but the CAUSE OF THE MECHANICS, and every man who opposes without better reasons than the hope of getting a good fat fee out of the town by bringing on a law suit, will be considered as an enemy to the Middling Interests and the poorer classes of the people.28

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This appeal to the working class may have been a stratagem to win votes, but it also made the Mill Pond the first landmaking project specifically intended to create residential land for the middle and lower class. At the town meeting on May 14 another long debate ensued, and this time the motion to fill the Mill Pond passed by a considerable majority. A committee was then appointed to reach an agreement with the proprietors,29 who had been incorporated as the Boston Mill Corporation (BMC) on March 9, 1804.30 The ostensible reason for incorporation, stated in both the corporate records and in the act itself, was to facilitate management of the mills, but the act also authorized the corporation to hold real estate and was clearly written in anticipation of filling the Mill Pond.31 The town committee did not report for seven months. Its report, published as a broadside on January 15, 1805, made a number of recommendations, among them that the mills be discontinued, that the made land be owned jointly by the town and the proprietors, and that the town receive half of the proceeds from sales.32 The terms were not only different from those proposed by the corporation, but apparently a majority of the committee had not even seen the report until it was published.33 Not surprisingly, this report provoked a storm of criticism. John Peck, the agent of the BMC, wrote the moderator of the town meeting that the corporation could not accept the report because the expense of filling made it unreasonable to give the town joint ownership and half the profits. He added, “If the enterprize [sic] be successful, the advantage to the Town will be incalculable; . . . if not successful the Town will have lost nothing.”34 Critical columns also appeared in the newspapers, including a scathing review in the Gazette, which accused the committee of inattention to and lack of knowledge about the subject.35 The proponents of filling also published statements about the condition of the pond, such as the following: I JOHN HARVEY living in the windmill walk bounding on the Mill-Creek near to the South mill gates, hereby certify, That last year, and many years preceding, my family have been much incommoded by the stench arising from the putrid

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substances which daily are thrown into the Mill-Pond near my house; so much so, as to be obliged to close my windows in the hottest season; the families in this part of the town, and butchers, are in the habit of throwing into the Pond all their putrid meat, filth, vegetables and dead animals, such as cats, dogs, and horses, which at the hazard of my health I have been obliged to tow away, to preserve that of my family.36 Nevertheless, when the town meeting finally considered the Mill Pond question on February 7, 1805, they rejected a proposal that the town receive one-tenth instead of one half the property and approved the original report by a “great Majority.”37 Since the proprietors had announced in advance that they would not accept the conditions of the town report, this was tantamount to killing the Mill Pond project for the time being. In 1806, however, a different project was proposed for the Mill Pond. On March 11 a group of Charlestown and Boston residents was incorporated as the Pond Street Corporation to build a new street across the pond from the Charles River (now Charlestown) Bridge to Middle (now Hanover) Street, presumably to make it easier to get from Charlestown to the center of Boston. The act of incorporation specified that the street was to be sixty feet wide (later changed to forty-five feet), to be made of solid earth or gravel, to have a stone facing on the southwest side (the side fronting the main body of the Mill Pond), a timber facing on the more protected northeast side, and to be completed by July 1, 1807.38 Pond (now Endicott) Street was laid out in May 1806 and was apparently under construction by August when the selectmen recommended that two sluices be made in the street to prevent the accumulation of filth on its east side.39 Pond Street, labeled “Mill Pond St.,” is shown on an 1807 map (figure 4.4). The issue of filling the Mill Pond was finally resolved in 1807. In the spring of that year the proprietors petitioned the town to waive the condition of the original grant, that is, that the mills must be maintained forever, and to permit them to fill up the Mill Pond. This petition was discussed at the May 14 town meeting and, after a long debate, was referred to a committee.40 The

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B OSTON

This map shows Pond (now Endicott) Street (labeled “Mill Pond Street”), which was built across the Mill Pond in 1806–1809, and some of the places filled in the early years of the Mill Pond project.

committee report, submitted on May 25, concluded that the pond should be filled for “the health . . . accommodation, and enlargement” of the town; because the mills had ceased to be important; the condition of the original grant should be waived if the proprietors met a number of new conditions; and the town should receive one-fifth of the net profits if the proprietors paved the new streets or one-fourth if they did not.41 After another long debate at the June 8 town meeting, the report was not approved but instead two days later a committee was appointed to negotiate a contract with the BMC.42 The period between the appointment of the committee on June 10 and their report to the town meeting on August 3 occasioned another round of newspaper articles. Several of these, even at this late date, still opposed filling and used many of the same arguments that had been employed in 1804: the town had adequate “firm sound land” (the recent development of Beacon Hill and acquisition of South Boston were cited specifically) which was far preferable to building in a “mud hole”; filling the Mill Pond would deprive the town of “our cheering westerly breeze,” which would instead blow over “a great dead level of fetid surface, impregnated with the fumes of all the vaults [privies] and common sewers”; the project was too expensive for the proprietors to finish so the burden would fall on the purchasers; the mills were still useful; and “our beautiful hills” would be taken “to fill this immense bason [sic].”43 The last point was a new one and an indication of the source of fill that was being considered. The proponents countered, also with many of their former arguments: the health of the town would benefit; the addition of more taxable land would lead to a reduction of taxes; and the project would both create residential land for mechanics and employ them, the latter important in case the current acrimony over the Chesapeake affair led to a war with Great Britain and put them out of work.44 On August 3 the town meeting finally approved “by a vast majority” a contract that the committee had concluded with the BMC on July 24. This contract specified that the town would relinquish its right to the Mill Pond on twelve conditions, among them that the Mill Creek be continued at its present width to the Charles

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River; that the pond be filled with materials approved by the selectmen; that streets be laid out and built according to a plan approved by the selectmen; that the filling be completed in twenty years at the expense of the proprietors; and that the town receive one-eighth of the filled land and one-half of any land that had not been “filled up or boxed so as to exclude the water” within twenty years.45 The July 24, 1807, agreement between the town and the BMC opened the way for filling the Mill Pond. On September 30, 1807, Peck met with the selectmen to display a plan of the proposed streets to be laid out and “a general conversation ensued on the mode to be preferred in filling the pond.” Unfortunately, there is no record of what modes of filling were considered, but the BMC was authorized to fill Cross Street as far as Pond Street and to begin filling the west side of the pond at the foot of Cole Lane (now Portland Street), Pitts Lane, Gooch Lane, and a “passage by Mr. Tidd’s Distill-house” (on Stillhouse Square) (see figure 4.4).46 Filling the Mill Pond evidently began in 1807. The first contract for filling that exists in the BMC records was not for the sections authorized in September 1807, however, but rather for an area on the east side of the pond. The BMC signed this contract on December 2, 1807, with John Whitney, a Boston carter. The contract specified that before July 1, 1808, Whitney was to fill three streets “with clean gravel or earth,” one of the earliest specifications of clean fill and clearly intended to combat the view that made land was composed of filth and was therefore unhealthy. One street was to begin at the north end of the pond near Prince Street and to run parallel to Pond Street, creating the present North Margin Street, and the other two streets were to be at right angles, running from the new street to Pond Street—the present Cooper and Stillman Streets (figure 4.5). Whitney was to supply the gravel and earth for the streets and to make them forty feet wide on top with a three-foot allowance on each side for slope and to be of “a sufficient height” above the high water mark “after due allowance has been made for the settling or sinking of the earth.”47 This description suggests that Whitney made these streets by just mounding up fill rather than by building stone or wood facings, as had been done for Pond Street. The payment for this and some

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other early contracts was in kind rather than in cash. Half of Whitney’s pay, for example, was to be land on what became Stillman Street, which Whitney agreed to fill himself and, within three years, to build a four-story brick building on it.48 Much of the town’s discussion of the Mill Pond project in 1808 concerned the plan of streets that were to be laid out across the pond.49 In February a committee of three selectmen, including Bulfinch, who was chairman of the board (see chapter 3), was designated to make a plan of streets and market square, and in April Bulfinch presented a plan that was accepted by the whole Board of Selectmen (see figure 4.5).50 Bulfinch’s plan imposed a symmetrical grid of streets on the Mill Pond: a street parallel to Pond Street (now North Washington Street) on the east side of the pond was matched by a similar diagonal (now Merrimac Street) on the west side, forming a large inverted triangle and giving rise to the name “Bulfinch Triangle” that is now applied to this area. A market was to be located at the apex of the triangle and a street built across the pond at the base of the triangle (Causeway Street), replacing the old irregular causeway. A canal down the center of the triangle met the requirement of continuing the Mill Creek to the Charles River. On July 20, 1808, the town and the BMC signed an agreement regarding the location of these streets and other features in the Mill Pond.51 This agreement was added to that of July 24, 1807, which had specified the conditions for filling the pond, and the two agreements guided the subsequent course of the project. While the street plan was being devised, filling of the Mill Pond was continuing. Whitehill described landmaking in Boston as a process of “cutting down the hills to fill in the coves,”52 and nowhere is this more true than of the Mill Pond. Much of the fill in the early years of the project was evidently obtained by cutting away the part of Copp’s Hill in the North End west of Snowhill Street (see figure 4.4), which explains why there is now a retaining wall on the east side of that street next to the burying ground. The cutting down of Copp’s Hill had begun in 1806 in order to fill the seaward side of Lynn (now Commercial) Street,53 but on July 20, 1808, the residents on Snowhill Street complained to the selectmen about the

FIGURE 4.5 1808 ALMSHOUSE WHARF

PL AN OF STREETS IN THE

P OND

BY

M ILL

C HARLES B ULFINCH

As a member of a committee of selectmen appointed to draw up a plan of streets for the Mill Pond when it was filled, Bulfinch drew up this triangular street plan, giving rise to the term “Bulfinch Triangle” now applied to the area (see figure 4.1). Bulfinch’s plan also shows the old causeway across the Mill Pond and the Almshouse Wharf that had just been built north of it (see chapter 5). OLD (WEST) FLOODGATES CAUSEWAY ST.

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FIGURE 4.6 1811

DRAWING OF

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D ERNE S TREET

This drawing shows the original summit of Beacon Hill, the monument erected on it in 1790, and, at the left, the northeast corner that had recently been dug away. The steps still remain, but the top of the hill has been cut down and the monument reerected somewhat east (left) of the location shown here. Note the cupola of the State House visible in the right background behind the crest of the hill.

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condition of the street “in consequence of great quantities of Earth being carted through it lately to fill the Mill Pond.”54 And it is probably because Copp’s Hill was on the east side of the pond that filling began on that side. A list of six early contracts for filling the Mill Pond in the handwriting of Harrison Gray Otis, who was acting as the lawyer for the BMC, all specify areas on the east side, and an 1809 plan of the Mill Pond shows the area between the shore and Pond Street (see figure 4.5) already divided into lots.55 Pond Street itself was finally finished in 1809, two years after the date specified in the act of incorporation. On September 30 of that year Reverend William Bentley of Salem, an inveterate diarist and occasional visitor to Boston, wrote, “I passed through Boston for the first time over the new road raising in the Mill Pond.”56 During these years the BMC also started filling the west side of the pond. In 1809 and 1810 the BMC made several contracts with John Whitney to fill slightly more than two and a half acres in the area between the “old floodgates” through the causeway and Gooch and Pitts Lanes and about a third of an acre near Portland Street (see figure 4.5). All these contracts specified that the fill was to be as high as the piers next to the wall on the west side of Pond Street, to be “clean earth or gravel,” and to be supplied by Whitney himself.57 The 1809 and 1810 contracts with Whitney thus indicate that in two years he created almost four acres of land with earth or gravel he supplied himself and raise the obvious question as to where Whitney obtained such a large amount of fill. Evidence indicates that most of it came from Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill was the middle, and highest, peak of the Trimountain (now remembered as “Tremont”), a long glacial moraine with three separate summits that covered the area now known as Beacon Hill. A drawing made in 1811 from Temple Street near the intersection with Derne Street shows that the summit of Beacon Hill was unusually steep and almost as high as the cupola of the State House behind it (figure 4.6). An antiquarian historian once calculated that this summit, which was in the area now covered by the rear wing of the State House, was about sixty feet higher than the present elevation of the site.58

In 1811 the summit was marked by a columnar monument topped with an eagle (see figure 4.6), which commemorated the Revolution and had been erected in 1790 at the behest of Charles Bulfinch to replace the beacon that had stood on the site since the seventeenth century. The monument stood in the center of a lot six rods (ninety-nine feet) square that belonged to the town. The heirs of John Hancock owned the land surrounding this lot, and in the early years of the nineteenth century they wanted to cut down the hill, presumably so they could sell the fill. The town prevented them from encroaching on its lot in 1807, but in 1810, when the Hancock heirs were employing “a number of Persons in digging and carting away their land on Beacon Hill,” the town found that “a large portion of the north east corner of the [town’s] land had caved away” and that the Hancocks had dug away about fifteen feet at the southwest corner.59 The caving in of the northeast corner is clearly shown in one of the drawings of Beacon Hill made in 1811. This drawing, a view from Bowdoin Street, shows not only the caved in section and the monument but also a house perched dangerously close to the excavation (figure 4.7). A recent photograph taken from about the same spot again indicates how much of Beacon Hill has since been cut down (figure 4.8). Then, in 1811, the town decided to sell its lot on Beacon Hill to help defray a large debt. On June 19 the sale was advertised: “Public Sales of Land: Lot of Land on Beacon Hill upon which the

FIGURE 4.7 1811

DRAWING OF

B EACON H ILL

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In this drawing one can clearly see the caved in section of Beacon Hill and Mr. Thurston’s house, which later had to be taken down, perched perilously close to the excavation with the cupola of the State House visible behind it. FIGURE 4.8 1994 PHOTOGRAPH S TREET

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B OWDOIN

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Monument now stands, containing ten thousand square feet,” and the lot was soon sold to none other than the Hancock heirs.60 The buyers then proceeded with their plans to remove the top of Beacon Hill, as shown in several of the 1811 drawings. The first, and perhaps the most famous, shows the back of the State House (figure 4.9) and was made from a vantage point between Hancock and Temple Streets now covered by the rear extension of the State House. This drawing shows men cutting down the hill with pick axes and shovels and gives a very good idea of the horse-drawn tip carts that were used to haul fill for many nineteenth-century landmaking projects. Another view, this one from the top of Mt. Vernon Street looking at the area now covered by the rear wing of the State House, also shows the horse-drawn tip carts and men cutting down the hill with hand tools and illustrates the large extent of the project (figure 4.10). The monument was taken down in 1811 when the summit was being dug away61 and the present monument behind the State House, which is a reproduction erected in 1898, is neither on the site of the original summit, as can be seen on a comparison of one of the 1811 drawings and a recent photograph (see figures 4.7 and 4.8), nor as high as the summit once was. Although there is no record actually documenting that Whitney obtained his fill from Beacon Hill, all accounts agree that the huge amounts of earth and gravel dug from Beacon Hill were carted down to the Mill Pond. On May 4, 1811, for example, Uriah Cotting wrote to Francis C. Lowell, “Beacon Hill is moving very fast into the Mill Pond.”62 But even as late as 1810 some fill was still coming from Copp’s Hill, for on November 21, 1810, residents of Snowhill Street complained to the selectmen that the street was almost impassable “in consequence of the great use made of it in carting gravel from Copp’s Hill the present season.”63 While Copp’s and Beacon Hills were being cut down to fill the east and west sides of the Mill Pond, construction began of the canal for the required extension of the Mill Creek through the pond. On November 21, 1809, the BMC made a contract with Ralph Richardson, a Charlestown housewright, to supply men and materials to build the stone walls that were to bound either side of the canal. Like most stone seawalls of the time, the canal walls were

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FIGURE 4.9 1811

DRAWING OF

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This drawing shows the back of the State House and was made from a point between Hancock and Temple Streets that is now covered by the rear wing of the State House. (The steeple of the Park Street Church, completed in 1810, is visible just to the left of the State House.) The drawing shows how Beacon Hill was cut down with hand tools and the dirt hauled down to the Mill Pond in horse-drawn tip carts.

to have a battered cross section, that is, to be wider at the base than at the top, and to be set on a foundation of timber “platforms” composed of alternating lengthwise and crosswise timbers (see chapter 3).64 The walls were to be twenty feet apart from the south shore of the pond as far as the north line of Market Street and then forty feet apart from that point to the causeway (see figure 4.5). The entire canal was to be one thousand feet long, to be completed by December 1, 1810, and Richardson was to be paid a total of ten thousand dollars of which over six thousand was to be in made

land east of Pond Street.65 The canal was under construction in May 1810 when the selectmen examined the wall at the south end and decided that in the future all walls of the canal “should be laid on solid clay bottom”66 rather than on platforms. Richardson apparently built only two hundred feet of wall at the south end of the canal, so on May 11, 1811, the BMC made a contract with Bryant and Jonathan Newcomb of Braintree to finish the remainder. The Newcombs were to build an eight hundred-foot wall on either side of the canal, and, in keeping with the selectmen’s 1810 ruling, were to lay the walls in trenches on a natural foundation of clay or, where there was no clay, on timber platforms.67 They were to complete their work by December 1 and the BMC was to dig out a canal four feet deep and sixty feet wide (an increase over the forty-foot width specified in the 1809 contract), prepare the foundation, and keep open a passage in the causeway so the Newcombs’ boats could enter the pond.68 Presumably in anticipation of the last condition, on May 1, 1811, the BMC directors notified the selectmen that it was “necessary to make an opening immediately through the Causeway for the purpose of admitting lighters with stone, to build the walls of the Canal.”69 Work on the canal progressed quickly, for on September 11, 1811, the indefatigable Bentley recorded in his diary, “I passed the Mill Causeway & the Canal which is to continue through the former mill pond to [the] Charles river. The stone work is about half finished.”70 In spite of this progress, the Newcombs evidently did not complete the canal in 1811, for on August 3, 1812, the BMC made another contract with them. This one specified that they were to build the wall on the south (actually west) side of the canal beginning at the end of the wall they had built in 1811 and extend it to the wall adjoining the South Mills (presumably the one built by Richardson in 1810), thus completing the whole wall on the west side of the canal from the causeway to the South Mills (see figure 4.5).71 This contract was supplemented by another one the BMC made two days later, on August 5, 1812, with William Ryly and Richard Daly, laborers, to dig mud out of both the canal and the trenches for the walls, putting the mud on the flats west of the

FIGURE 4.10 1811

DRAWING OF

B EACON H ILL

FROM THE TOP OF

M T. V ERNON S TREET

This drawing was made from the top of Mt. Vernon Street looking at the area that is now covered by the rear wing of the State House. Mr. Thurston’s house on Bowdoin Street (see figure 4.7) is visible on the other side of the hill. Like figure 4.9, this drawing shows how the hill was cut down with hand tools, the horse-drawn tip carts that hauled the dirt, and the extent of the excavation.

canal and completing the work before December 1.72 The last stage of building the canal was to top the stone wall with a timber cap, a common method of finishing stone seawalls in the early nineteenth century, and on May 5, 1813, the BMC made a contract for the cap with Ebenezer Robbins, a Boston housewright.73 While the canal was being constructed, the BMC was contracting for another seawall in the Mill Pond, this one along the north line of what became Causeway Street. The new seawall would replace the old causeway (see figure 4.5), a relatively insubstantial structure built of ballast stones, upright stakes, mud, and

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timbers and planks.74 The first part of the new seawall was called a wharf, perhaps because, as explained in chapter 2, these seawalls were constructed in the same way as were wharves at that time. On October 6, 1812, the BMC signed a contract with the Newcombs, who were then working on the west wall of the canal, to build a two hundred-foot-long stone “wharf ” next to the wharf at the west floodgates (see figure 4.5).75 Once they completed the wall, the Newcombs were to support it with the method used throughout the nineteenth century, namely, by banking small stones against the inner side. In this case, the contract specified that the Newcombs were to “throw behind the wall” three hundred tons of “upland ballast” (small stones from upland areas), or four hundred tons if necessary. They were also to “throw” two hundred tons of upland ballast behind the walls of the canal and complete both projects by December 15.76 The wall on the future Causeway Street was apparently not completed on time, however, for in 1813 the BMC made at least three additional contracts for more ballast stones for it.77 Construction was clearly still underway on September 1, 1813, when the selectmen appointed a committee to “inspect the wall of the canal in the Mill Pond & also the wall now building outside of the Causeway:—the same having been represented by some persons as insufficient.”78 The BMC did not make the final contract for the wall until December 14, 1813, when it contracted with the Newcombs to build the rest of the stone wall on the north side of Causeway Street from the “wharf ” they had already built to the southwest side of the canal.79 The canal walls and the seawall along Causeway Street west of the canal, the latter originally called the Mill Pond Wharf,80 were apparently finished by 1815. In May of that year a BMC committee reported that, despite the amount of ballast stones dumped behind these walls, the wall on the west side of the canal had settled considerably and the canal was thus “exposed to the sea,” the wall on the east side had not settled, and there were only a few feet of fill behind the wall on the “River side” (the seawall on Causeway Street) and this last wall was being damaged by the tide. To remedy these defects the committee recommended that “wood-

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en capstens” (timber caps) be installed on the west canal wall to raise it and that the space between the seawall and the old causeway (see figure 4.5) be filled immediately, the latter action to strengthen the wall and permit a street to be built on it.81 While various contractors constructed the canal and Causeway Street walls, filling of the pond was proceeding. In the years from 1810 to 1813 most of the filling was in the areas west of Merrimac Street on the west side of the pond and east of Pond (now Endicott) Street on the east side (see figure 4.5).82 In 1811 the selectmen questioned whether some of the new streets, particularly Merrimac, had been filled to a sufficient height, and in 1812 and 1813 many loads of gravel were dumped on Merrimac Street to raise it above the level of high tide and to the level of Pond Street.83 On February 15, 1813, the omnipresent Reverend Bentley wrote, “I passed over for the first time the new street from the west side of the Mill pond [Merrimac Street].”84 By July 28, 1813, the town’s surveyor reported that approximately six and two-thirds acres had been filled in several areas including the triangle between Lancaster and Merrimac Streets, from Todd’s distill house near the west floodgates to Union Street on the west side of the pond, and from Cooper Street to the Mill Creek on the east side.85 These areas, although not the newly made land, are shown on a detail from an 1814 map of Boston (figure 4.11). By 1815 part of the land originally designated as a marketplace—the triangle bounded by Merrimac, Market, and Canal Streets (see figure 4.11)—was also filled and the town leased it to be farmed with the privilege of landing “wood, lumber, and other merchandise” from the canal.86 The 1814 map also shows a double line around the shore of the Mill Pond in about the same location as the shoreline in 1796 before filling began (see figures 4.11 and 4.3). Interestingly, remains of a double bulkhead have recently been found on exactly this line—by archaeologists in 1993 at the Mill Pond Site (figure 4.12) and in 1999 during “Big Dig” construction near the site of South Mills (see figure 4.11). In both cases, the two walls of the bulkhead were constructed of large squared timbers stacked on top of each other (see figure 4.12), although near South Mills the front (pond) face was covered with vertical planks.87 The bulkhead was

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Hales’s map was the first to show every structure in Boston. This detail of the Mill Pond shows the double line around the shore of the pond that may indicate a double bulkhead like the ones found archaeologically at the Mill Pond

Site and near South Mills. Although the map does not show what parts of the Mill Pond had actually been filled by 1814, it does show the streets that had been laid out, the canal through the center of the pond, and the Mill Creek.

FIGURE 4.12 1993

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DOUBLE BULKHEAD FOUND IN THE

M ILL P O N D

This photo, taken by artificial lighting visible in the foreground, shows the bulkhead found by archaeologists at the Mill Pond Site in 1993. The bulkhead was constructed of stacked up timbers held in place by vertical posts, the space between the two timber walls eventually filling with dirt. The archaeologists cut the top courses of timbers just to the left of the left-hand vertical post to facilitate investigation of the space between the timber walls.

probably built by the town in order to demarcate the boundaries of the Mill Pond, for in 1770 when the town dropped its suit against the proprietors for not maintaining the mills (see above), it was decided to “renew the boundaries of the town’s grants to the proprietors . . . by erecting some permanent monuments.”88 The discovery of the bulkhead was important, for it not only explained the segmented line around the Mill Pond that appears on so many maps (see figures 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.11, and 4.14, for example) but also is the only extant example in Boston of a late-eighteenth-century bulkhead.

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The canal through the middle of the pond was one of the early successes of the Mill Pond project. This canal was considered an extension of the Middlesex Canal, which terminated in Charlestown and had been built in 1794–1803 to provide a shipping route between the Boston area and the Merrimack River. From Boston Harbor boats went north through the Mill Pond into the Charles River and then to the Almshouse Wharf in the West End (see figure 4.5 and chapter 5) from where they were drawn across the river on a system of buoyed cables89 to the canal entrance near present Sullivan Square (see chapter 14). From that point they could travel all the way to the Merrimack River and, via other canals, into New Hampshire.90 Contemporary observers realized the importance of this route. Bentley wrote on June 13, 1815, “The Middlesex Canal begins already to prove its value to Boston & Stores are opened at each end of it.” And Shubael Bell, whose 1817 letter is quoted in chapter 3, noted in the same letter, “The Mill Creek or Canal is continued through (what was the Mill pond) to the old Causeway and connects the waters of the Charles River with the harbour. Great quantities of Merchandize [sic] and Country produce are transported on the Middlesex Canal, of which the Creek may be considered a part, to & from the Metropolis. . . . The Middlesex Canal opens a communication with the interior of this state, and has been productive of much good.”91 Interestingly, Bell and Charles Shaw, an antiquarian historian, both wrote in 1817 that by then most of the Mill Pond was already filled,92 even though evidence from the BMC records suggests that, at best, only the western half was. Shaw also noted that “a number of handsome buildings are erected on the made ground,” which must have been a reference to new land near the edges of the original pond, for a reconstructed drawing of the Mill Pond in the late 1820s shows the center still devoid of any permanent structures (figure 4.13).93 Shaw concluded his remarks on the Mill Pond by saying that, when it was completely filled, “this dull and disgusting expanse of stagnant water, the receptacle of filth and seat of putrefaction, will afford a pleasant and healthy residence to one sixteenth of the population of the town.”94 Not everyone viewed the results of the Mill Pond project so positively, however. Bell wrote in 1817:

FIGURE 4.13 V IEW

OF THE

M ILL P OND

IN

1828

This drawing, probably made in 1895, shows the Mill Pond as the author of the accompanying article remembered it in 1828. The view looks across the Mill Pond on Traverse Street with Haymarket Square at the left and Causeway Street at the right. The drawbridge on Causeway Street is open and the masts of ships passing through the canal are visible.

“You would look in vain for that commanding eminence, Beacon Hill, once the pride of Bostonians. Its venerable head has bowed before the spirit of improvement (so called).”95 Filling of the west side of the Mill Pond was completed in the early 1820s. The fill still apparently came from Beacon Hill, as indicated by a contract made on June 30, 1821, with John Whitney, which specified that Whitney “should carry all the gravel he can obtain from the [North?] Bank in Pinckney Street into the Mill Pond & drop the same. . . . Sd Whitney is to deliver one hundred loads every fair making day & sd loads are to contain twenty-five bushels each.”96 By 1823 much of the new land was ready to be sold and on June 19 and September 15, 1823, the BMC held auctions for it.97

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The results of the 1823 auctions were disappointing, however, and, with the expiration of the twenty-year deadline approaching on July 1, 1827, the BMC told the City Council in November 1823 that it would not fill up any more of the Mill Pond and wanted either to sell or buy the remaining rights to the unfilled portion.98 In April 1824 the BMC wrote the city that the expense of making the land west of the canal had been so great that it would not agree to a similar expense for completing the part still under water, which was evidently the large area bounded by Pond and Cross Streets, the canal, and the line of Causeway Street (see figure 4.11). To make this part marketable would necessitate “heavy expenditures” for replacing the east wall of the canal, widening the canal “to prevent its being a nuisance and to render it convenient for navigation,” and extending Causeway Street from the canal to Pond Street (see figure 4.11). The BMC went on to say that these improvements and filling up the east half of the pond, although expensive, would increase the value of the part already filled, of which the city owned one-eighth. It proposed that the city cede its claim to one-eighth of the unfilled part and in return the BMC would widen the canal, replace the wall, extend Causeway Street, and “fill up the land east of the Canal as fast as the same can be done.” The BMC concluded by asking, “What is the value of the City’s contingent interest in this Mudhole filled with water?”99 Negotiations between the BMC and the city continued for much of the rest of 1824. The BMC was not exaggerating about the expense. An 1824 city report said that the cost of filling the Mill Pond had amounted to $135.64 per share but the value of the land sold was only $129.25 per share.100 An agreement between the BMC and the city, reached in October, called for the BMC to widen the canal to sixty feet and replace the east wall “which is now in ruins,” to fill up the east half of the area designated as a “Market” within one year (see figure 4.11), to secure permanently the west side of Pond Street “from the inroads daily making upon it by the water,” and to finish filling up the Mill Pond by July 1, 1828. In return, the city would give up its right to one-eighth of the land east of the canal, the equivalent of about an acre excluding the market area.101

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This agreement opened the way for further progress on the Mill Pond. On November 1, 1824, the BMC made a contract with Patrick Daily and Richard Day of Boston to dig a trench one to two hundred feet long for the platforms of a seawall to be built by Bryant Newcomb on the west side of the Mill Pond, presumably for the east canal wall that was to be replaced.102 Two days later, the BMC made another contract for the wall, this one with John Flanagan and Owen McCabe of Boston, who were to back up and ballast the wall with stones from the old causeway, placing the ballast behind the wall and sloping it outward from top to bottom.103 On November 4 the BMC made an agreement about Causeway Street, a subject that had been omitted from the agreement with the city. In this agreement, the proprietors of the Charles River (now Charlestown) Bridge agreed to pay the BMC ten thousand dollars in return for the BMC’s building a seawall from the north end of the canal to Pond Street and filling Causeway and Charlestown (now North Washington) Streets, presumably because completing these streets would encourage people to use their toll bridge. Consequently, on November 10 the city laid out Causeway Street from Canal Street to the north end of Pond Street and Charlestown (now North Washington) Street from Cross Street to the same point (figure 4.14).104 Further work in the vicinity of Causeway Street as well as on the canal was spelled out in a contract with Hugh and James Cummiskey, unfortunately undated but probably made in 1825. Hugh Cummiskey seems to have been a major contractor for landmoving operations in the Boston area at the time—his company cut down hills and filled low spots at the Charlestown Navy Yard in the mid-to-late-1820s105 and in 1833 he would cut down a hill and fill a marsh in East Boston, where he would also be a shareholder in the East Boston Company (see chapter 13). The 1825 contract with the BMC specified that the Cummiskeys were to fill with “suitable earth” the space between the seawall being built by the BMC on the line of Causeway Street and the old causeway, a space that is clearly indicated on an 1825 map (see figure 4.14). They were also to fill some of the flats within (south of ) the old causeway on the east side of a wall “now begun and intended to be

CHARLES

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FIGURE 4.14 M ILL P OND

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This map shows the location of Causeway Street, laid out in the 1820s, in relation to the old causeway.

built” on the east side of the canal. This filling was to be accomplished with scows and the Cummiskeys were to “dig and transport the earth or mud necessary for this purpose from such flats, marshes and other places” that the BMC specified. So it seems that, in an effort to fill the entire eastern half of the Bulfinch Triangle in less than four years, the BMC had to supplement the “clean earth or gravel” used earlier with mud from the river flats. The contract with the Cummiskeys went on to describe the work to be done on the eastern wall of the canal, the wall that had apparently been started by Daily and Day. The Cummiskeys were to widen the canal twenty feet on the east side and to dig a trench for the platforms and wall on that side. All the mud and earth dug out of the canal or the trench was to be “thrown in or deposited” on the east side of the canal wall inside the old causeway and was specifically proscribed from being used to fill the space between the old causeway and the new seawall.106 An archaeological investigation in 1988 near Causeway Street in the block between Haverhill and Beverly Streets provided an interesting insight on the filling done by the Cummiskeys in 1825. Digging in an area that had once been between Causeway Street and the original causeway (see figure 4.14), the archaeologists found many layers of Mill Pond fill. Some of these fill layers were full of artifacts such as nineteenth-century broken dishes and bottles and presumably came from Beacon Hill while other layers were almost devoid of artifacts and probably came from mud flats outside the causeway.107 As the archaeological findings suggested, much of the fill used on the east side of the Mill Pond still came from Beacon Hill, although in the mid-1820s this fill was no longer dug from the summit of the hill but instead from streets and house lots that were being cut down to facilitate residential development. Some contracts for fill from Beacon Hill were very specific about the benefits that would accrue to both sides. A March 25, 1825, memorandum of agreement between the BMC and Augustus Peabody regarding the latter’s land next to the State House, for example, stated that Peabody wanted to sell the land for building lots but “in order to make the same fit for building it will be

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necessary to reduce the surface of the same by digging and carrying away a certain portion of the soil.” The BMC could take away this soil “which they want for the purpose of filling up the Mill Pond” and could dig away “as much as shall be reasonable and sufficient to enable the owner of each lot to lay the foundation of his house and dig his well and also so much dirt from each cellar to be laid out by the owner as can be brought out by carts by digging a passageway into the same.”108 Almost all of these contracts specified that the work was to be completed by April 1, 1825. An agreement with a John Hoppin on January 5, 1825, for example, stated that from that date until April 1 Hoppin was to keep three teams constantly removing earth from the lands of J. Thorndike and the Hancock heirs in Belknap (now Joy) Street.109 Although the BMC records contain no contracts for filling after 1825, work on the Mill Pond continued after that date. The canal was nearing completion in June 1826 when the Board of Aldermen ruled that basins should be provided in the canal to prevent damage to boats receiving and carrying street dirt,110 a ruling that indicates that street sweepings were also being used as fill. This practice ended in October, however, when the aldermen ruled that the sweepings could no longer be deposited on the city’s lot near the canal.111 In November 1826 the BMC reported that the canal as well as Causeway and Charlestown (now North Washington) Streets were finished,112 and in December the city surveyor reported that both streets had been filled “with good solid earth and mud from the flats” to a sufficient height but would require “repairs with gravel” before they could be paved.113 Almost a year later, however, the city and the BMC were still disputing whether the BMC had satisfactorily completed the terms of the 1824 agreement. The city claimed that the streets were not ready for paving and that the canal walls had not been made according to the 1807 and 1808 agreements and should be taken down and relaid unless the BMC would agree to purchase the entire canal.114 It is not clear how this disagreement was resolved, but the BMC evidently did finish filling the Mill Pond by the July 1, 1828, deadline. The completion of the Mill Pond project did not result in the land originally envisioned by its proponents. A view of the Mill

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Pond looking west across along Traverse Street, dated 1828 although probably a later reconstruction, indicates that in 1828 the area was still very much a mudhole filled with water (see figure 4.13). An article accompanying this view said that in 1827 the Mill Pond was still covered with “various little ponds and puddles,” that only Traverse and Causeway Streets were finished and other streets were still “in embryo,” and that there were only four or five small stables or houses on the new land. This article also indicated that the fill was laden with pieces of metal such as nails and hinges and described finding an embedded wheelbarrow full of old iron.115 The made land in the Mill Pond never developed as a residential area for the mechanic class, either. Although some houses were initially built on the new land, especially near the southeastern edge of the former pond, the area soon became industrial and commercial. In 1845 a railroad replaced the canal down the center of the triangle, and the north side of Causeway Street, which was filled in 1835 by a project discussed below as well as by wharfing out, was soon lined with the depots of all the railroads that entered Boston from the north (see figure 4.17). In the 1880s five- and sixstory brick furniture factories and warehouses replaced most of the original buildings, and in the first decade of the twentieth century an elevated railway was built down the center of the triangle over the site of the surface railroad. The Bulfinch Triangle was further divided when the elevated Central Artery was constructed through it in the 1950s (see figure 4.1), and today the land that was created by the Mill Pond project is now primarily a commercial area of nineteenth-century brick buildings. B OSTON & L OWELL R AILROAD

The next major landmaking project in the Mill Pond was related to a major technological innovation of the 1830s—the introduction of railroads. Railroads were becoming a viable form of transportation by the late 1820s. Inspired by the example of the Granite Railway, a horse-drawn railroad built in 1826 to bring granite for the Bunker Hill Monument from a quarry in Quincy to a tributary of the

Neponset River (from where it was shipped by barge to Charlestown), the Massachusetts legislature conducted surveys in the late 1820s for other horse-drawn railways from Boston to destinations such as the Hudson River and Providence.116 Bostonians were anxious that such a railroad be established in order to maintain the city’s position vis-à-vis New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities that had already chartered railroads, but in 1829 the legislature was still dragging its feet about chartering railroads in Massachusetts.117 In February 1829 an open meeting of all voters in the city approved a resolution asking that the state construct one railroad to the Hudson and another to Providence and a second resolution asking that private financing be permitted if the state would not undertake the project.118 The whole issue changed dramatically in late 1829, however, when the success of George Stephenson’s “Rocket” locomotive in England opened the way for steam-powered railroads, and in 1830 the legislature was besieged with petitions for the incorporation of private railroad companies. The first to be chartered was the Boston & Lowell in 1830, followed in 1831 by the Boston & Worcester and the Boston & Providence.119 It was understood that the Boston & Lowell would enter the city from the north over the Charles River, but exactly where had to be determined. In August 1831 the railroad asked that a city committee be appointed to negotiate with them about possible grants of land and facilities.120 The request was submitted by the railroad’s agent, Patrick Tracy Jackson, brother of Henry Jackson (see chapter 3) and one of the original organizers of the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. On October 7, 1831, the city committee recommended that the city sell the railroad the rights to the flats next to the jail on Leverett Street on the condition that the railroad enter the city west of the Warren Bridge and locate its principal depot in the city.121 The area of flats north of Causeway Street between the jail and the Warren Bridge is shown on an 1829 map of the city (figure 4.15). The Boston & Lowell did not fill in these flats until 1835. Their plan was to cut down Pemberton Hill, the easternmost peak of the Trimountain and now the site of the former Suffolk County Courthouse and Center Plaza, and use the gravel for fill. In 1835

Pemberton Hill occupied the area between Tremont and Somerset Streets (see figure 4.15), and covered about four acres, two and a half of which was the estate of Gardiner Greene, a wealthy merchant who had been one of the South Boston speculators (see chapter 9). The Greene mansion house was located near Tremont Street and around and behind it rose a series of celebrated gardens.122 There were also several other large houses on the east side of the hill and a few on Somerset Street. When Gardiner Greene died in 1832 his estate was appraised at $142,000 and in 1835 it was purchased for $160,000 by Patrick Tracy Jackson, who also bought the other estates on the hill.123 To cut down the hill and haul the gravel to the flats north of Causeway Street, Jackson hired Asa Sheldon, a teamster from Wilmington, Massachusetts, who had already worked for the Boston & Lowell for several years laying rails and doing stonework. Sheldon published an autobiography in 1862, and much of the information about this project comes from his account. In Sheldon’s inimitable words: In the spring of 1835, I received a letter from Jackson, desiring me to come to Boston, stating that he had a week’s work for me to do. When there, he informed me that he wished me to ascertain what it would cost to move Pemberton Hill into salt water, north side of Causeway street. After probing the hill in several places and walking over the ground as fast as an ox team would walk, to ascertain how many times they could go in a day, the result of my investigations was that it could be done for 25 cents per yard. He then told me he was agent for a company and expected to buy the Hill, but the bargain was not concluded upon, but it would be in a few days; and further, said he, “I shall want you to do it by the day, for I don’t expect to get any body to do it by the job quick enough, for it must be done in six months. If you should do the work, would you do it with oxen or with horses?” “I shall do it with oxen.” “Give me your reasons why you should do it with oxen?” B

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This map shows the area north of Causeway Street between the jails on Leverett Street and the Warren Bridge that would soon be filled by the Boston & Lowell Railroad.

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This map shows the area north of Causeway Street filled by Asa Sheldon in 1835 and Pemberton Hill from which he got the fill.

“The job is short, and when done the oxen can be driven to Brighton and sold at a fair price, while horses would eat out half their bodies before we could make sale of them. And another reason, it does not cost so much to harness twelve oxen as it does one horse.”124

boarding house for himself and the Yankee workers; the Irish had to provide their own boarding.127 Sheldon employed housekeepers and cooks for the boarding house. He also hired two blacksmiths, who set up a temporary shop, and built three barns for the oxen.128 Sheldon’s account continues:

Sheldon got the job at twenty-eight cents per cubic yard, made a verbal contract with Jackson, and began to cut down the hill on May 5, 1835. He still had to obtain a sufficient number of oxen and, according to his account, placed the following advertisement: Wanted—Twenty yoke of the best working oxen, at Pemberton Hill, Boston, for which a fair price will be paid in cash. None but those that can travel on pavements need be offered.125 Ox yokes were purchased from a yoke master in North Andover and two men were sent out to buy secondhand carts and wagons, although, as Sheldon said, We soon found from experience that long and narrow wagons run the best. What may be called sloven bodies were used with a sideboard so fixed that it could be quickly started with two iron bars, and the entire load slide off in about a minute, on an average. One man would drive two yoke of oxen with a wagon and two yards of gravel, while it took two men and two yoke of oxen to carry the same amount in carts. To satisfy the curious, we had one of the wagon loads weighed on the hay scales, weight over seven tons.126 So, contrary to current practice, Sheldon used long, narrow wagons that dumped from the side rather than the more common horse-drawn tip carts that dumped from the rear (see figure 4.9). By June Sheldon’s work force was complete. He had 126 oxen—63 teams—and employed about 250 men: 60 Yankees, of whom 40 were teamsters, and 190 Irish, all of whom were shovelers. Sheldon bought the house north of the Greene mansion to use as a

As the work was a novel job, many spectators were attracted to the scene of operations. They were of all grades, from the highest to the lowest, among them many country teamsters, whip in hand. To hear the observations, I one day ascended with the throng on the back side of the hill, in my usual disguise [a teamster’s blue and white striped smock], and took my stand by the smartest looking man in the foremost rank, which was then several courses deep, when he thus addressed me, “This is a tremendous piece of work.” “It looks to me to be so,” I answered. “I understand that the man who has taken this job, has agreed to do it in six months; do you know if it is so?” “I understand he has,” was my answer. “Then he is a fool, let him be who he will. He can’t do it in three years, if he employs all the men and teams he can work on it.”129 The work was not without problems, however, as the following newspaper item indicates: ACCIDENT. Three

of the Irish laborers engaged upon the land of the late Gardiner Greene were partially buried up yesterday morning by the falling of an embankment. They, however, succeeded in disengaging themselves from their uncomfortable situation without having received any serious injury.130

Another problem was the dust churned up by the teams passing through the streets. After consulting with the mayor, Sheldon agreed to pay $1.50 a day for sprinkling the streets with water.131 Sometime in June or July, Jackson asked Sheldon if he could complete the job in five months instead of six. Sheldon said he

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would for a bonus of one thousand dollars, to which Jackson agreed and added, “Now Sheldon, you may work as hard as you please, but don’t kill yourself. This job has been the least trouble to me of any job of such magnitude I ever had anything to do with.”132 Sheldon did complete the work by the new deadline, noting: “The commencement of this monster job was in May. The first shovel full of dirt was thrown out on the morning of May 5, between 7 and 8 o’clock; and the last shovel full on Oct. 5, between 7 and 8 o’clock in the morning.”133 Sheldon attributed the acceleration of the schedule to Jackson’s desire to put the houselots that had been laid out on the leveled hill, later named Pemberton Square, on the market as soon as possible because a depression was anticipated. The lots were auctioned on October 6—just one day after Sheldon had finished—but did not bring high prices and Jackson did not recover the four hundred thousand dollars he estimated had been spent on land and expenses for the project.134 After the completion of the work, the amount of gravel that Sheldon had moved had to be estimated by the project’s engineer so that Sheldon could be paid by the cubic yard. The engineer, S. P. Fuller, delayed the estimate for a number of weeks and finally reported that 118,000 cubic yards had been deposited on the flats north of Causeway Street, far less than the 200,000 cubic yards Jackson had predicted, which would have given Sheldon a profit of nineteen thousand dollars. Another engineer, George M. Dexter, was then hired and his estimate resulted in a total profit of twenty-seven hundred dollars of which Sheldon got seventeen hundred dollars for his five month’s hard work.135 The new land that Sheldon created and the Boston & Lowell depot on it are shown on an 1835 map (figure 4.16. Because the railroad had opened in June 1835 before filling the depot area was completed, the trains originally stopped in East Cambridge on the other side of the river). According to Sheldon’s account, eight acres had been filled with gravel that was 14 feet deep, Pemberton Hill had been reduced 65 feet 10 inches, and all this had been accomplished in five months by sixty-three ox teams, each hauling fourteen loads a day.136 More land was created in 1836 when Sheldon returned to Boston to dig cellars for the new houses on Pemberton Square and hauled the gravel to the same area north of Causeway Street.137 96

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M IDDLESEX C ANAL

In the 1840s the canal that had been left open down the center of the former Mill Pond was filled in to make land for a railroad, a graphic demonstration of the way one form of transportation was being replaced by another. In 1845 the Boston & Maine Railroad opened, entering Boston on a route that crossed the Charles River and then went down through the former Mill Pond between Canal and Haverhill Streets to a passenger depot in Haymarket Square (figure 4.17). This route was virtually on top of the canal that had been built in the 1810s (see figure 4.16), so during the summer of 1844 the canal was filled in to create land for the railroad.138 There is no record of the source or method of filling, but an interesting drawing published in 1895 (figure 4.18) purports to depict Canal Street in 1835. The drawing is almost certainly a later reconstruction, however. Not only does it show the railroad, which was not built until 1845, but it also shows Canal Street lined with buildings that did not exist at the time (see figure 4.17). Nonetheless, the drawing does give a good idea of how the Middlesex Canal was set below street level on its course through the former Mill Pond. Remains of these canal walls were found when the elevated railway, now the MBTA Green Line, was being constructed in 1908 on the site of the former canal (figure 4.19). R AILROAD L AND

Railroads were also the reason for the landmaking projects that took place during the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth north of Causeway Street in the area between the Warren and the Canal, or Craigie’s, Bridges. (The Warren Bridge was where the new Charles River Dam is now located and the Canal, or Craigie’s, Bridge was on the site of the first Charles River Dam; see figures 4.17 and 4.1. The made land north of Causeway Street in the area between the Warren and Charlestown Bridges was the result of private wharfing out rather than of projects and is thus not included in this study.) The railroads that entered Boston from the north—the Boston & Lowell (1835) and Boston & Maine

FIGURE 4.17 M ILL P OND AREA ON 1852 MAP B OSTON BY I. S L AT T E R AN D B. C ALL AN

OF

By 1852 the Boston & Maine Railroad had entered Boston over the Charles River, laying tracks to its passenger depot down the middle of the former Mill Pond on land made by filling in the Middlesex Canal. The Fitchburg Railroad had also built a bridge across the Charles and a depot on Causeway Street. The Boston & Lowell Railroad had straightened the shoreline of the land it had made in 1835 (cf. figure 4.16).

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FIGURE 4.18 R ECONSTRUCTED

DRAWING OF THE

M IDDLESEX C ANAL

This drawing, probably made in 1895, is a view from Haymarket Square up Canal Street toward Causeway Street. It purports to show the area in 1835, but the railroad did not exist then nor did most of the buildings. It does, however, indicate that the Middlesex Canal was set below the level of the street. The buildings, although apocryphal, are in a style appropriate to the period for, with their four stories and post-and-lintel construction on the ground floor, they are very similar to the blocks of commercial buildings constructed in the 1830s and still standing on Commercial and Fulton Streets in the North End (see chapter 3).

FIGURE 4.19 1908

M IDDLESEX C ANAL WALLS FOUND DURING CONSTRUC B OSTON E LEVATE D R AILROAD ( PRESENT MBTA G REEN L INE )

PHOTOGRAPH OF

TION OF

Taken April 24, 1908, during construction of what is now the MBTA Green Line from Haymarket to North Station, this photo shows a wall of the Middlesex Canal built through the Mill Pond in the 1810s and 1820s. Note the timber cap on the wall and the vertical posts driven in front of it—just as specified in the contracts.

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(1845)—were joined in 1845 by the Fitchburg Railroad and in 1854, after its route was moved from East Boston, by the Eastern Railroad (figure 4.20). All these railroads crossed the Charles River to depots near Causeway Street. This concentration of railroads in the Causeway Street area resulted in some additional landmaking.

& ON ST BO MAINE RR .

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R. LOWELL R

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FIGURE 4.20 D ETAIL

F ROM

1857

MAP OF

B OSTON

By 1857 the Boston & Maine and the Fitchburg Railroads had filled long fingers of land for their tracks across the Charles River and the Eastern Railroad had added its depot to the line of railroad depots on Causeway Street.

By 1852, for example, the Boston & Lowell had filled in and straightened the shoreline of the land created by Asa Sheldon in 1835 and the Fitchburg had made land just east of the Warren Bridge for its depot (see figures 4.16 and 4.17). And by the late 1850s the latter line had filled a tongue of land projecting from the Charlestown shore and the Boston & Maine had extended an island that it had created in the 1840s into a parallel strip of made land (see figures 4.17 and 4.20). The veritable network of bridges then spanning this relatively short section of the river are clearly shown in an 1866 bird’s-eye view (figure 4.21). By the late 1860s there was real concern about the degree to which these railroad bridges obstructed both the navigation and the flow of the river, so in 1869 the legislature passed acts requiring the railroads to widen the draws (the movable part of a drawbridge) in their bridges.139 The result may have improved the channel but did not reduce the number of bridges, as can be seen on an 1877 bird’s-eye view of Boston from Charlestown (figure 4.22), which depicts the same bridges as the 1866 bird’s-eye but from a different perspective. This proliferation of bridges continued to be a concern.140 By the early 1890s the railroad bridges were said to “fairly roof the river.”141 The situation was not improved when, in 1893, the Boston & Maine, which by then had absorbed most of the other railroads, opened a huge new Union Station on the future site of North Station. This new Union Station resulted in the building of even more tracks across the river, as can be seen on an 1899 bird’seye view of the area (figure 4.23). Despite recommendations that the railroad bridges be removed or rebuilt,142 the bridges remained and no more landmaking occurred north of Causeway Street for years—an aerial photograph of the area in 1925 shows it looking quite similar to the way it had in 1899 (figures 4.24 and 4.23). In 1928, however, the Boston & Maine replaced Union Station with North Station and received permission to fill in a large area of flats behind the station so that passengers in the rear cars of trains could disembark on solid ground instead of on trestles. The landmaking project, which also involved filling large areas on the Cambridge and Charlestown

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FIGURE 4.21 D ETAIL

F RO M

1866

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

This bird’s-eye gives a good picture of the number of bridges that spanned the Charles River north of the Bulfinch Triangle in the later nineteenth century. In the foreground is the Canal, or Craigie’s Bridge, which ran from the West End in Boston to East Cambridge, then the Boston & Lowell Railroad freight bridge, the Boston & Lowell passenger/Eastern Railroad bridge, the Boston & Maine Railroad bridge, the Fitchburg Railroad bridge, the Warren Bridge, and finally the Charles River Bridge. (Note that the dock that had existed between the Boston & Maine and the Lowell/Eastern tracks in the 1850s had been filled [see figure 4.20]).

FIGURE 4.22 D ETAIL

F ROM

1877

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

This is a slightly later view and from a different perspective of the same bridges shown in figure 4.21. Looking across the Charles River toward Boston, the bridges are, from right to left, Canal or Craigie’s, Boston & Lowell freight, Boston & Lowell passenger/Eastern, Boston & Maine, Fitchburg, Warren, and Charles River.

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FIGURE 4.23 D ETAIL OF

FROM

1899

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW

B OSTON

Another graphic view of the many bridges across the Charles north of the Bulfinch Triangle. This view is from the opposite direction as the 1877 view (see figure 4.22) so the bridges are in opposite order. From the right they are: the Charles River, Warren, Fitchburg Railroad, three of the Boston & Maine Railroad (which by then had taken over the Eastern and Boston & Lowell lines), and Canal or Craigie’s. The view also shows the new Union Station, which the Boston & Maine had built on Causeway Street in 1893.

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FIGURE 4.24 1925 AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH C HARLES

OF

B ULFINCH T RIANGLE

AND BRIDGES ACROSS

THE

This 1925 aerial photograph shows the bridges across the Charles much as they appeared in the 1899 bird’s-eye view (see figure 4.23). The Canal, or Craigie’s, Bridge had been replaced by the L-shaped first Charles River Dam, however.

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side of the river, began in 1927 and continued for several years. Seawalls were built on both sides of the river—part of the wall on the Boston side was constructed of granite blocks from the old Gothic-style Fitchburg station on Causeway Street (see figures 4.22, 4.23, and 4.24)—and the areas behind the walls were then filled. Much of the fill came from Asylum Hill in Somerville—the site of McLean Hospital until 1895 and now an industrial park northeast of the McGrath Highway near the Cambridge line— where it was dug by steam shovels and brought to the sites by rail. Fill also came from grading and ballasting projects on other parts of the Boston & Maine system and from recently demolished buildings in Boston including Union Station; the Fitchburg station, which was replaced by the Analex building next to North Station, both demolished in 1998 as part of the Central Artery project; the old Post Office in Post Office Square; and the building at the corner of Federal and High Streets that was replaced by the United Shoe Machinery building. The fill was described as containing huge blocks of granite, pieces of steel, whole walls, debris and dirt, and “every conceivable kind of building material.”143 The new land created on the Boston side of the river is clearly visible in an aerial photograph taken about 1933, especially in contrast with the 1925 aerial photo (figures 4.25 and 4.24). The land created by the Boston & Maine in the late 1920s, which is where the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital is now located, was the last large landmaking project in the area north of Causeway Street. A small amount of land was created next to the former Warren Bridge when the Central Artery was built in the 1950s and a little more when the new Charles River Dam was constructed on the site of that bridge in the mid-1970s. (Most of the latter was added on the Charlestown side of the river and is discussed in the chapter on that section of the city [see chapter 14]). Looking again, however, at the 1992 bird’s-eye view of the former Mill Pond area on which the 1630 shoreline has been plotted (see figure 4.1), one can appreciate the amount of made land in this area, land created by filling in one of the large coves that indented the Shawmut Peninsula in the early nineteenth century for residential use and after that for railroads.

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FIGURE 4.25 C A . 1933

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF AREA NORTH OF

C AUSEWAY S TREET

This ca. 1933 photograph shows the area that the Boston & Maine had recently filled on the river behind the new North Station, which in 1928 had replaced the former Union Station (see figures 4.23 and 4.24). To the east of North Station is the Analex building on the site of the former Fitchburg Railroad depot (see figures 4.23 and 4.24) and to the west is the Hotel Manger on the site now occupied by the O’Neill Federal Building (see figure 4.1). The photo also shows the new Department of Public Works building on Nashua Street, later the Registry of Motor Vehicles, which opened in 1933 and was demolished in 2001.

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WEST END

FIGURE 5.1 1992

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

W EST E ND

W I TH

1630

SHORELINE

The 1630 shoreline of the West End ran approximately along present North Anderson Street, through the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) area, and through Charles River Park. Thus, a large part of MGH, the Charles Street Jail, Storrow Drive, Charlesbank park, and much of Charles River Park are on made land. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on a reconstruction made in 1852 and reproduced in 1895 by Charles C. Perkins on Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2).

The West End is the section of the city that now lies between Cambridge Street and Lomasney Way (the street that runs next to Charles River Park under the elevated MBTA Green Line tracks) and extends from Staniford Street to the river (figure 5.1). The term “West End” is also sometimes used to refer to the neighborhood of densely packed tenements that once occupied the same area but was demolished in the late 1950s as part of a controversial urban renewal project and was then replaced with the towers of Charles River Park whose “if you lived here . . . you’d be home now” signs are a familiar landmark on Storrow Drive. The urban renewal project not only destroyed the neighborhood but also obliterated the former street plan, which makes it difficult to locate former landmaking projects in relation to present landmarks. So, in order to provide some points of reference for the ensuing discussion, a pre-1958 street plan of the West End has been overlaid on a 1992 bird’s-eye view of the area (figure 5.2). The West End is one of Boston’s “forgotten areas,” at least in terms of knowledge about its landmaking. Surprising as it may seem, about half of the present West End is made land, as is evident when the 1630 shoreline of the West End is plotted on a recent bird’s-eye view of the area (see figure 5.1).1 The made land

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was created by filling in the West Cove and around the West End promontory of the original Shawmut Peninsula (see figure 1.1), a promontory that was apparently originally relatively flat except for several low hills in the vicinity of former Poplar and North Allen Streets (see figure 5.2.)2 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the West End was what urban geographers might call an “urban fringe area”—a section on the outskirts of a city where objectionable or undesirable industries and institutions are located. In 1722, for example, there was a copper works at the end of the former Poplar Street, now the site of the building at Zero and One Emerson Place in Charles River Park (see figures 5.1 and 5.2). In the eighteenth century the West End was also the location of several ropewalks—long, narrow buildings where rope was made by workers “walking” backward while twisting fibers into a length of cordage. The rope was waterproofed with hot tar, which made wooden ropewalks highly flammable structures and is undoubtedly why they were usually located away from populated areas. There were also a few shipyards on the northeast shore of the West End in the eighteenth century. None of these activities required new land, however, and very little land was added to the West End during this period, as can be seen when the 1630 shoreline is plotted on an 1800 map of the area (figure 5.3). But that situation changed at the beginning of the nineteenth century when more people began to move into the West End, creating a need for more land.

FIGURE 5.2 1992

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

W EST E ND

WITH OVERL AY OF PRE -1958 STREETS

Here the same bird’s-eye as in figure 5.1 is overlaid with a plan of West End streets before 1958, when they were obliterated by an urban renewal project, to help relate landmaking projects to present landmarks.

A LMSHOUSE

The first nineteenth-century landmaking project in the West End reflected the neighborhood’s old role as a fringe area, however, for it created land for an almshouse. An almshouse, or poorhouse, was a town-run institution to house destitute inhabitants who had no other means of support. In the eighteenth century the Boston almshouse was at the corner of what are now Beacon and Park Streets across from both the Common and the site of the present State House. In 1790 a town committee appointed to “consider the state of the almshouse” reported that it was “too near the center of town” and seriously overcrowded—there were no separate quarters for the sick and the air in the yard was “noxious” because so many privies were jammed into the small space.3 In 1795 another committee recommended that an entirely new almshouse be built “in some suitable place” and that a such a site was available on Leverett Street in the West End.4 The committee did not explain what made the lot “suitable”—perhaps it was its distance from the town center or perhaps its price, which was presumably low in view of the fact that some of the lot was submerged tidal flats. The project was then delayed several years while the town tried to come up with the forty to fifty thousand dollars estimated needed for the building and the landmaking. Finally, because the old almshouse was in such a “ruinous state,” the town agreed in 1799 to borrow the twenty thousand dollars still required and the project at last got under way.5 In order to construct the new almshouse, the town squared off the site on Leverett Street by creating new land, as can be seen in a comparison of 1800 and 1803 maps of the area (figures 5.3 and 5.4). Town records refer to a “sea wall and other arrangements of the ground” at the new almshouse,6 so the land was probably made in the manner customary at the time—a stone seawall was built around the perimeter and then fill dumped inside it until the level of fill was above the level of high tide. (The land made for the almshouse is today the Martha Road/Amy Court section of Charles River Park [see figures 5.1 and 5.2].) The new almshouse was then built on the made land. It was an imposing brick edifice

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FIGURE 5.3 W EST E N D

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FIGURE 5.4 O SGOOD C ARLETON ’ S 1800 P L AN

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WITH

1630

SHORELINE ADDED

The difference between the 1630 and 1800 shorelines indicates the relatively small amount of land, most of it made by “wharfing out,” that was added to the West End in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The map also shows the site of the new almshouse.

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This map shows the land that had recently been made for the almshouse (“9”), Copper Street, and by a bulkhead north of Cambridge Street.

designed by architect Charles Bulfinch and apparently finished by December 3, 1800, when the town’s Overseers of the Poor met there.7 After the almshouse was completed, the town filled in the area east and north of the building to make a town wharf.8 The Almshouse Wharf was evidently finished by 1804, when it was mentioned in a newspaper article, and is clearly shown on Hales’s 1814 map of Boston (figure 5.5).9 At the time the town built the new almshouse, the West End was becoming a more important section of Boston largely because of the opening in 1793 of the West Boston Bridge on the site of the present Longfellow Bridge. The West Boston Bridge was only the second bridge connecting the Boston peninsula and the mainland. (The first, the Charles River Bridge, had been built in 1785–1786 to Charlestown on the site of the present Charlestown Bridge.) The West Boston Bridge was financed by Cambridge interests and crossed to the West End because that was the section of Boston closest to Cambridge (see figure 1.1). The bridge increased traffic through the West End, especially on Cambridge Street, the street that led to the bridge, and brought new residents and more trade. Bowdoin Square (now along Cambridge Street between New Chardon and Sudbury Streets) became a fashionable residential area—the first Harrison Gray Otis house was built in 1796 on Cambridge Street at the corner of Lynde Street, and Old West Church was erected across from it in 1806. In 1810 the West End even acquired its own market, the Parkman Market at the corner of what are now Cambridge and North Grove Streets (see figure 5.5). C OPPER (B RIGHTON )

AND

B RIDGE (N ORTH A NDERSON ) S TREETS

The increasing settlement of the West End resulted in some new land. A comparison of 1800 and 1803 maps of the area indicates that by the latter year a new street had been laid out along the shore south of Leverett Street (see figures 5.3 and 5.4). Named Copper Street in an obvious reference to the early-eighteenth-century copper works, this new street was later renamed Brighton Street and ran across what is now the northwest part of Charles River Park (see figure 5.2). Most of Copper Street was probably on

land created before 1800, as indicated by a map of that date on which the 1630 shoreline has been plotted (see figure 5.3). But some of the street was also on newly created land, for in 1805, when the selectmen gave residents of Copper Street permission to dig up the new street in order to lay a sewer, they allowed them to build a wooden drain instead of a brick one because of the difficulty of getting a solid foundation for brick in the “new made land.”10 In the same period, new land was also created north of the West Boston Bridge. In 1799 the selectmen authorized the proprietors (shareholders) of the West Boston Bridge and Jeremiah Allen, the owner of the adjacent flats, to build a “head Wharff or Abutment” adjoining the bridge at the intersection of Cambridge and Grove Streets (see figure 5.3).11 This abutment was probably a wood bulkhead similar to the one constructed in the late eighteenth century on the shore of the Mill Pond (see chapter 4). By 1803 Allen had built the abutment on the line of later North Grove Street, the shoreward side had been filled in, and the town had laid out what is now North Anderson Street on the new land (see figure 5.4). E XTENSION

OF

C OPPER (B RIGHTON )

AND

N ORTH A LLEN S TREETS

In 1809 a second bridge was built between the West End and Cambridge. This was Craigie’s, or the Canal, Bridge, which ran from Leverett Street in the West End to Lechmere’s Point, or East Cambridge, on the site of what is now the first Charles River Dam (see figures 5.5 and 5.2). The bridge project had been organized by Andrew Craigie, whose scheme to develop Lechmere’s Point had aroused a great deal of opposition, particularly from the proprietors of the West Boston Bridge, who thought a new bridge would reduce the use of—and the tolls on—their bridge. Although there had also been a great deal of controversy about where the Cambridge end of the bridge should be located, it had always been intended that the Boston end would be on Leverett Street in the West End, undoubtedly because it was closest to East Cambridge (see figure 1.1). The new bridge brought even more traffic to the West End but also created problems, because there was no direct route

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FIGURE 5.5 W EST E ND ON H AL ES ’ S 1814 B OSTON

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Hales’s map shows the Almshouse Wharf, Craigie’s Bridge, the extension of Bridge (now North Anderson) and Copper Streets to North Allen Street, wharves extended parallel to Cambridge Street from the area filled ca. 1799, and the Parkman Market built in 1810 on this land.

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through the West End between the two bridges. So, in 1811 West End residents asked that at least one street be created through their neighborhood to connect Cambridge and Leverett Streets, the streets that led to the bridges. The town proposed that a “head wall,” presumably a seawall, be built at the foot of North Allen Street, the area between this wall and the shore filled, and the hill on North Allen Street at the head of Bridge (now North Anderson) Street cut down.12 Leveling the hill and making the land would enable both Copper Street, which had already been extended in 1810 by further filling behind an abutment, and Bridge Street to be extended to North Allen Street, thus providing a route across the West End (see figures 5.4 and 5.5). The town appropriated $225 toward the $1,275 cost of the landmaking project, but $700 was paid for by the Lechmere Point Corporation, which was then developing East Cambridge, and the remaining $350 was evidently raised by residents of the West End.13

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Landmaking in Boston was often undertaken with a real lack of foresight about possible future uses of an area, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the West End, where the “improvement” made by one landmaking project was frequently removed by the next. The first such instance occurred in 1817 when the trustees of the new Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) decided to locate the hospital on North Allen Street in the West End. The hospital had been chartered in 1811, and in 1813 the trustees had begun looking for a site for the new institution while trying to raise the requisite funds. From the beginning, the site committee wanted a location near the almshouse in the West End and, after considering various sites, including one on made land at the foot of the Common and another in Roxbury, chose the one on North Allen Street. There was a problem, however, because the recently extended Bridge Street ran right through the site, so the decision was contingent on obtaining permission to discontinue the part of the street that had been built just five years earlier.14 The selectmen at first agreed to discontinue Bridge Street and instead to extend

FIGURE 5.6 W EST E ND

ON

1826

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the new MGH situated at the head of the discontinued Bridge Street, the recently extended Blossom Street (cf. figure 5.5), the streets laid out over the site of the former almshouse, and the new courthouse and jails on Leverett Street.

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Blossom Street to North Allen Street in order to preserve the route across the West End. But the Lechmere Point Corporation objected, and eventually the hospital trustees had to reimburse the corporation for the seven hundred dollars it had contributed in 1812 to the extension of Bridge Street. The hospital trustees also had to agree that Blossom Street should remain “forever open,”15 and so it still is (see figure 5.1). The first MGH building, designed by Bulfinch and now known as the “Bulfinch Pavilion,” was begun in 1818 and opened in 1821.16 The Bulfinch Pavilion itself was on original land (see figure 5.1), but the hospital apparently filled some flats on the river, as can be seen in a comparison of 1814 and 1826 maps of the area (figures 5.5 and 5.6). The 1826 map also shows the discontinued Bridge Street and the extended Blossom Street, which had required over three hundred loads of dirt fill.17 Other recent changes in the West End are also shown on the 1826 map (see figure 5.6). In 1822 the city built a new city courthouse on Leverett Street flanked by new city and county jails that opened in 1823.18 And the city had laid out three new streets— Barton, Vernon, and Minot—in the area of the former almshouse. The almshouse, another example of a West End project that was soon superseded by another, was sold in March 1825 after its function had been transferred, amid great controversy, to the House of Industry in South Boston (see chapter 11) and the building in the West End then demolished.19 W EST

OF

B RIGHTON S TREET

More landmaking took place in the West End in the 1830s and 1840s. The land created north of Causeway Street by the Boston & Lowell Railroad in 1835 (see chapter 4 and figure 4.16) permitted the laying out of Lowell Street (figure 5.7), which is now Lomasney Way and the northeast boundary of the West End (see figures 5.1 and 5.2). Most of the filling in the West End during the 1830s and 1840s, however, took place west of Brighton (formerly Copper) Street, now the northwest section of Charles River Park (see figure 5.2), as the West End was increasingly developed and

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more land needed. City records do not mention any publicly sponsored landmaking projects in this area at that time, so private interests probably did most of the filling. An example is an agreement of December 28, 1835, between the city and the proprietors (owners) of land near Brighton Street that allowed the city to build a sewer extending 460 feet west of Brighton Street toward the sea (river) and the proprietors to fill up and build a street over it.20 The street, shown as the Charles River Wharf on an 1838 map (see figure 5.7), became Livingston and later part of Chambers Street (see figures 5.8 and 5.2). In 1841, after Auburn Street had been created on made land as the next street northwest of Brighton Street, residents of the area petitioned the city to extend the new street to Leverett Street. By 1844 enough additional land had been made so that the city could lay out North Charles Street.21 The new Livingston, Auburn, and North Charles Streets are all shown on an 1846 map of Boston (figure 5.8). C HARLES S TREET J AIL

The appearance of the West End riverfront in the mid-nineteenth century is shown in an 1850 bird’s-eye view and an 1853 photograph (figures 5.9 and 5.10). The photograph indicates that the flats west of the Bulfinch Pavilion sloped down to the river, so the seawall that is now at this end of the building and is visible in a pit behind the White Building at MGH (the tall building with rounded wings at the head of Fruit Street—see figure 5.1) had not yet been built in 1853.22 An 1852 map (figure 5.11), which depicts a curving shoreline west of the Bulfinch Pavilion, also suggests that this seawall, which runs parallel to the end of the building, had not been built by that date. The 1852 map does show that a large area of flats south of the medical school had just been filled to create land for a new Suffolk County Jail (see figure 5.11; cf. figure 5.8). The former county jail on Leverett Street had proved unsatisfactory almost from the moment it opened in 1823 because its design made it impossible to provide heat to the cells in the winter, a condition unacceptable to the authorities as well as to the prisoners. Since

LIV

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. CHARLES ST

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FIGURE 5.7 W EST E ND

ON

FIGURE 5.8 1838 D IRECTORY

MAP

This map shows the newly laid out Lowell Street (now Lomasney Way) on land made by the Boston & Lowell Railroad and the recently filled area northwest of Brighton Street

W EST E ND

ON

1846

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the new Livingston, Auburn, and North Charles Streets on made land northwest of Brighton Street.

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FIGURE 5.9 W EST E ND

ON

1850

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW

In this detail, the West Boston Bridge is in the foreground and the Canal, or Craigie’s, Bridge in the background. Between them, the Bulfinch Pavilion at the MGH faces the smaller building of Harvard Medical School. The latter building had been constructed in 1847 on land that had evidently just been created, since it is not shown on the 1846 map (see figure 5.8). The medical school building was the scene of a famous murder in 1849 probably committed by Professor John Webster who, angry with the way Dr. George Parkman was pursuing him to repay a debt, killed Parkman and dropped his dismembered remains into a privy.

FIGURE 5.10 1853 PHOTOGRAPH OF M ASSACHUSET TS G ENERAL H OSPITAL H ARVARD M EDICAL S CHOOL

AND

This 1853 photograph shows the medical school and the Bulfinch Pavilion from the river at low tide when the tidal flats under the wooden buildings on the river side of the medical school were exposed.

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1834 the city, which also comprises the county, had argued about whether to remodel or replace the jail and, if the latter, whether to locate the new one on Leverett Street, in South Boston, or in some other place. Building a new jail on Leverett Street was the solution generally favored until 1848, when some began to advocate a site at the corner of Cambridge and North Grove Streets. In comparison with the Leverett Street site, the site on Cambridge Street was credited with many advantages: it was exposed to breezes and had good drainage (the Leverett Street site was described as a “pit hole that . . . could never be well ventilated”); was about the same distance from the county courthouse, then on Court Street; was cheaper because much of it was tidal flats; would give the city valuable wharf and dock property; would enable the city, after the area was filled, to extend Charles Street between the West Boston and Craigie’s Bridges (see figure 5.8); and, in contrast to a South Boston site, was in the city proper.23 The arguments for the Cambridge Street site prevailed and in 1848 the city bought the requisite land and flats, over a third of them acquired, ironically, from Dr. George Parkman, a physician and real estate investor, just the year before he was murdered, probably by Dr. John Webster, in the Harvard Medical School building shown across from MGH in figures 5.9 and 5.10.24 Construction of the new jail began in December 1848 when piles were driven for the foundation of the granite seawall that would enclose the north and west sides of the site (see figure 5.11). The city contracted with one Luther Munn to build this wall and to fill the interior with dirt and mud, and Munn completed the landmaking in 1849. The granite cruciform Suffolk County Jail, often called the Charles Street Jail, was then built on the made land. Designed by Louis Dwight and Gridley J. F. Bryant, it opened in late 1851 (see figure 5.11).25 The Charles Street Jail remained in use for well over a hundred years until it was finally replaced in 1990 with the new Nashua Street Jail. The old sinister-looking dark granite building loomed for a decade at the corner of Cambridge and Charles Streets, but most of the longest arm has now been demolished to make way for a new MGH building and the rest of the former jail will, in an ironic twist, be converted into an upscale hotel.

N ORTH C HARLES S TREET

AND

MGH F LATS

Just as the city had anticipated, the land created for the new jail opened the possibility of extending North Charles Street all the way across the West End between Cambridge and Leverett Streets (see figure 5.11). The city drew up a plan for the street in 1854, originally intending to build a seawall across the intervening flats, which were owned by MGH, and fill the flats behind the wall with coal ashes to create the street. (As explained in chapter 2, after coal came into general use for heating and cooking about 1840, the city instituted regular collection of household ashes—much as trash is collected today—and, needing a place to dispose them, sometimes used ashes as fill.) The city appropriated funds for the North Charles Street seawall in October 1855 but MGH refused to permit its construction, undoubtedly because it would have obstructed the hospital’s flats, so in 1856 the city decided to build a pile bridge across the flats instead.26 Construction of the bridge apparently started in 1857 and was finished by 1858 (figure 5.12). Like the ill-fated Bridge Street, the North Charles Street Bridge did not exist long, for no sooner had it been erected than the MGH trustees decided to fill their flats after all, probably because the bridge prevented the tide from flushing out the flats effectively and they had become a nuisance. In 1859 the state authorized MGH to build a seawall outside the line of the bridge and fill the flats, the hospital trustees apparently arranged to have the city do the landmaking, and in December the city contracted for the seawall.27 The wall was evidently built in early 1860 and then the city began to fill the flats with trash. Not all went smoothly, however, for later that year the MGH board protested that the fill had created a new nuisance, and in April 1863 the city ordered its superintendent of health to fill underneath the east sidewalk of the North Charles Street Bridge in order to stop a nuisance caused by water flowing over the “house dirt” being dumped on the flats.28 Filling the MGH flats obviously made the bridge constructed across them just five years earlier superfluous, so in May 1863 the City Council ordered that the bridge be taken down and

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FIGURE 5.11

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W EST E ND ON 1852 MAP OF B OSTON BY I. S L AT TER AN D B. C ALL AN

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CHARLES ST.

T.

WEST BOST

ON BRIDGE

This map shows the land recently made for the Suffolk County (Charles Street) Jail and the new section of Charles Street in front of it. It also shows the Bulfinch Pavilion at MGH, a curving shorline west of it, and the recently constructed Harvard Medical School building across from it on the river’s edge.

FIGURE 5.12 1858

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

W EST E ND

In this photograph, taken in 1858 from the dome of the State House, one can see the Charles Street Jail looming next to the river and the North Charles Street Bridge extending along the waterfront toward the Harvard Medical School and Bulfinch Pavilion.

North Charles Street filled solid.29 The bridge was apparently still standing in December, however, when the Board of Aldermen again ordered that it be removed by sections as fast as the space under it could be filled with city ashes and that, when the fill had been “traveled over and become sufficiently settled,” the street be repaved with the cobblestones from the bridge.30 This time compliance seems to have been prompt, for in March 1864 the city authorized the superintendent of streets to sell the timber and iron from the structure.31 Filling the MGH flats was not completed as quickly, however. An 1866 bird’s-eye view shows the work still in progress, but an 1870 bird’s-eye of the same area indicates that by then filling was finished (figures 5.13 and 5.14).

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FIGURE 5.13 W EST E ND

ON

1866

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

This view shows filling of the MGH flats still in progress—horse-drawn wagons are bringing dirt and pilings, the latter for the foundations of new buildings. The view also shows various West End landmarks: Cambridge Street at the right, the new North Charles Street extending across the foreground, the Charles Street Jail, the Harvard Medical School and Bulfinch Pavilion buildings behind the made land, and Allen and Poplar Streets at the left.

FIGURE 5.14 W EST E ND

ON

1870

BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

In this view, filling of the MGH flats has been completed and some new buildings erected on the made land. In addition to many of the same landmarks shown in the 1866 view (see figure 5.13), this view shows the seawall that had been built across the MGH flats and two openings in this wall for docks.

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As was the fate of many West End landmaking projects, the seawall built to extend North Charles Street was soon obliterated by another project. This new project created land for a park—one of those first proposed in 1876 as part of Boston’s new park system and finally approved in 1881 (see chapter 1). Initially called the Charles River Embankment, it was originally conceived as a narrow park along the river to be formed by building a seawall and filling in the riverbank from Leverett Street in the West End to the Cottage Farm (now Boston University) Bridge, creating about 36.5 acres of new land.32 In 1879, however, the city park commissioners recommended that the Charles River Embankment be scaled down to just six acres between Leverett and Cambridge Streets in the West End. The park was intended to serve the working-class population who lived in the densely packed four- and five-story tenements that were then rapidly replacing the West End’s single family houses and who, in the words of the park com-

missioners, “are necessarily confined to these sections throughout the year, and must chiefly find their recreation in the immediate vicinity of their homes.”33 The park department’s plan, drawn up in 1880, called for the construction of a seawall two hundred feet west of and parallel to Charles Street from Leverett Street to the bend in Charles Street and then in a straight line to Cambridge Street (figure 5.15). The area behind this wall, including the 1860 seawall built for North Charles Street, was then to be filled.34 An 1881 act authorized the park commissioners to construct the new wall and fill the enclosed flats, specifying that the work was to be completed in five years.35 Work on the Charles River Embankment began during 1883 when one of the docks—presumably the northernmost one, which was owned by the city (see figure 5.15)—was filled with dirt from the West Side Interceptor sewer then being dug on Charles Street (see chapter 12) and from building excavations. The next year some of the structures on the site were removed (see figure 5.15).36 Construction of the seawall began in March 1885.37 Contrary to

FIGURE 5.15 P ARK D EPARTMENT ’ S 1880 (C HARLESBANK )

PL AN FOR

C HARLES R IVER E MBANKMENT

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customary practice, the granite blocks were mortared rather than dry-laid, perhaps because the wall was built in an area that was covered with water even at low tide.38 By the end of 1885 almost three-quarters of the wall and about a third of its coping had been completed. With the five-year deadline due to expire on March 16, 1886, however, the state granted the project a one-year extension and the wall was completed in October 1886.39 A photograph of the new seawall was included in the park commissioners’ 1886 report (figure 5.16). Interestingly, despite subsequent landmaking outside this seawall, part of this original Charlesbank seawall was not covered over and is still visible south of the fill next to the lock

FIGURE 5.16 1886 PHOTOGRAPH (C HARLESBANK )

OF NEW SEAWALL FOR

C HARLES R IVER E MBANKMENT

This 1886 park department photograph was taken from the Canal Bridge of the newly completed seawall at Charlesbank. The rounded protrusion at the right was a viewing point at the bend in the wall (see figure 5.17). The Charles Street Jail looms in the background (see figure 5.15).

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FIGURE 5.17 1892

PL AN FOR

C HARLESBANK

BY

F REDERICK L. O LMSTED

Olmsted’s plan for Charlesbank included a promenade along the river, several boat landings, a men’s and boy’s outdoor gymnasium at the north end, a landscaped embankment in the middle to screen the promenade from the city, and women’s and children’s recreational areas at the south end.

and north of the fill on which the MDC swimming pool is located (see figure 5.1). As the 1886 photograph of the seawall indicates, however, the rest of the park was far from finished (see figure 5.16). First the area between the new seawall and Charles Street had to be filled, creating a park of 9.6 acres.40 This filling, putting loam on the surface, and grading it was completed in 1888 according to a plan prepared by Frederick Law Olmsted (figure 5.17), the consulting landscape architect for the Boston parks. Olmsted’s plan included a promenade along the river screened from the city by a planted embankment, exercise spaces for women and girls at the south

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end, and an outdoor gymnasium for men and boys at the north (see figures 5.17, 5.18, and 5.23).41 The recreational facilities at Charlesbank, as the park soon came to be called, were innovative—the outdoor gymnasiums were the first in the country to be operated free of charge; the “sand courts,” or sand boxes, installed for children were also some of the first in the nation; and trained instructors conducted exercise classes for women and children.42 The park was very popular with residents of the West End, many of whom were recent Jewish immigrants; a photograph taken in 1901 shows children playing on the raised central embankment (see figure 5.18).

FIGURE 5.18 1901

PHOTOGRAPH OF CHILDREN PL AYING AT

C HARLESBANK

This 1901 photograph shows the height of the central embankment in Charlesbank, at the right the promenade along the river, and the use of the park by West End residents. W

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Charlesbank’s success prompted proposals for more parks on the river. In 1891 the legislature authorized the city to extend the embankment first to Chestnut Street and then, in 1893, all the way to the Fens, although neither plan was implemented at the time.43 Of more immediate impact was an 1891 proposal by the mayor to transform the entire Charles River Basin into a water park by damming the river as had been done in Hamburg, Germany, to create the Alster Basin, whose banks were landscaped and developed as a recreational area.44 The idea was not new. The Inner Alster in Hamburg had been specifically cited in an 1859 proposal to keep part of Back Bay an open basin rather than fill it (see chapter 7), and in the 1870s Charles Davenport, a Cambridge manufacturer, had made a number of proposals, clearly inspired by the Alster Basin, to develop a river basin and an esplanade.45 The state appointed a commission in 1891 to consider how the whole Charles River Basin could be improved.46 The issue was not so much the creation of a water park as it was the condition of the river itself, for Boston’s ten-foot tidal fall left many flats exposed at low tide (figures 5.19 and 5.20) and, after years of being at the receiving end of sewers discharging raw sewage from surrounding areas, these flats were malodorous and disgusting looking at low tide. The 1892 commission rejected the idea of a dam but the problem remained, so in 1893 the state established a joint board composed of the state Board of Health and the newly created Metropolitan Park Commission to prepare plans for the improvement of the Charles River.47 The joint board considered two plans. The first, dredging the flats to below the level of low tide and continuing the embankment wall to the end of the river’s estuary in Watertown so that the flats would always be covered with water, the board rejected as too expensive. The second, building a dam to maintain the river at a constant high level that would always cover the flats, the board recommended along with many references to and illustrations of the Alster Basin. The board suggested that the dam be located just above Craigie’s Bridge and that it maintain water in the basin at

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grade eight, or 8 feet above mean low water (2.2 feet below mean high water), a level chosen to keep the ground water in Back Bay high enough to cover the piles on which buildings were constructed so the piles would not rot but low enough to prevent cellars and railroad yards in Back Bay from flooding. The sewage problem was expected to be solved by the Boston Main Drainage system, completed in 1884 (see chapter 12), and the Metropolitan Sewerage System, then under construction.48 The joint board’s proposals might have been approved had not the board also recommended that the embankment north of Beacon Street be widened, another row of houses be built between Beacon Street and the river, and the proceeds from the sale of these house lots be used to finance the dam.49 The board justified this recommendation with photographs showing that the existing houses on Beacon Street had their backs to the river view and that between these houses and the river was a “poorly kept alleyway [Back Street] behind a line of unsightly sheds and stables” (see figures 5.19 and 5.20).50 This proposal provoked a storm of protest from Beacon Street residents. They allied with Boston’s commercial interests, who feared the dam would hurt the harbor by cutting off the tidal flow from the river, thus reducing the “scouring” action of the ebb tide, which at the time was thought to be the force that kept open harbor’s shipping channels (see chapter 11). The joint board’s report was referred to the state Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners for review but, without adequate funds for an investigation, the commissioners equivocated: they could not say whether a dam would improve the sanitary condition of the river or what effect it might have on the harbor.51 This was tantamount to defeat and the project was then dropped for seven years. The idea of a dam and water park did not die, however. Between 1892 and 1902 the cities of Boston and Cambridge acquired most of the riverfront for public use, and in 1901, led by financier James J. Storrow, over seven thousand people petitioned the legislature in favor of the project. As a result, the state appointed a committee to consider the “feasibility and desirability” of a dam.52

FIGURE 5.19 1894

PHOTOGRAPH OF SEAWALL BEHIND

FIGURE 5.20 B ACK S TREET

AT LOW TIDE

1894

PHOTOGRAPH OF SEAWALL BEHIND

B ACK S TREET

AT HIGH TIDE

This photograph, taken from the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge looking east, shows the flats in the Charles River exposed at low tide. The seawall was built in the 1860s as part of the filling of Back Bay (see chapter 7). Behind it runs Back Street on which were located one-story stables associated with the houses that fronted on Beacon Street. The seawall, Back Street, and many of the stable buildings still exist, but the river area in the foreground is now the location of Storrow Drive.

This photograph, taken from the same vantage point as the one in figure 5.19, graphically illustrates the ten-foot difference between high and low tide in Boston.

The new committee on the Charles River Dam investigated the question between 1901 and 1903. The committee tried to address all the objections raised by the opponents. It concluded, for example, that replacing the salt water in the river basin with fresh would not be harmful: fresh water actually disposed sewage better than salt and the existing salt water basin did not cool air temperature in adjacent areas, as had often been argued. The committee also finally vanquished the theory of tidal scour that had so influenced the management of Boston Harbor during the nineteenth century (see chapter 11). The committee determined that this theory was “wholly erroneous,” because the shipping channels

were actually maintained by dredging rather than by tidal scour, so a dam would not harm the harbor. And John R. Freeman, the committee’s chief engineer, found—and graphically described— that sewage still entered the Charles River Basin at a number of places.53 As a result of these findings, the committee recommended that a dam with a lock be built, preferably at Craigie’s Bridge, to maintain a fresh water basin at a level between grades eight and nine; marginal conduits, or sewers, be constructed along both Boston and Cambridge shores to carry sewage out beyond the dam, the Boston Marginal Conduit conveying effluent from the new Stony Brook conduit as well as storm overflow from the city’s

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FIGURE 5.21 1904

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF PROPOSED

C HARLES R IVER D AM

This view shows the planned Charles River Dam project. In the foreground is the dam, on the site of Craigie’s Bridge, with a roadway on top and a triangular one hundred foot-wide park behind it. To the left of the park is the lock through the dam and the existing Charlesbank park. In the middle distance is the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge, then under construction, and beyond it on the Boston (left-hand) side is the new embankment that would be created by filling. This view was a watercolor painted for the Charles River Basin Commission by Walter P. R. Pember, photographed by Luther H. Shattuck, the commission photographer, and exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (“It Will Be One of the World’s Finest Pleasure Basins,” Boston Globe, 11 June 1904).

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combined sewers; and an embankment be constructed on the Boston side, three hundred feet wide west of Brimmer Street and one hundred feet wide north of Beacon Street.54 These recommendations were embodied in a 1903 act that authorized the construction of the dam and a lock, the embankment, and the marginal conduits, and established a commission to run the project.55 The dam was to have a roadway on it, replacing Craigie’s Bridge, and the commissioners soon decided that the dam would also include a park of about seven acres on the up-river side, permitting the upstream wall of the dam itself to be lower than it could otherwise have been (figure 5.21).56 The park was originally planned to be triangular (see figure 5.21), but by the time construction of the dam began in 1905, the present L-shaped configuration had been determined (figure 5.22).57 The dam was a complicated project that involved building cofferdams, a lock, and a temporary wooden dam to shut off the river so that the permanent dam could be completed. When the gates of the “shutoff ” dam were closed in October 1908, they created a basin with a constant water level and the commissioners exulted, “All the offensive mud flats between Craigie Bridge and Watertown Dam have been effectually hidden from sight and smell.”58 The permanent dam and park were then filled in,59 leaving open channels for the lock on the Boston side and sluice gates on the Cambridge side, and, by the time the entire project was completed in 1910, creating the L-shaped park next to the viaduct that carried elevated trains to Lechmere (see figure 5.22; see also figure 4.24). This park is now the site of the Museum of Science (see figure 5.1), which was built in various phases beginning in 1951, and the sluice gates in the dam are now covered by the museum’s parking garage, built in 1972. While the dam was being built, the marginal conduits and the embankment on the Boston side were constructed (see chapters 6 and 7). The first section of the Boston Marginal Conduit was built through Charlesbank in 1905–1906 by digging a large trench the length of the park, again disrupting a recently completed landmaking project, this time the park created in the 1880s (figure 5.24). The excavation encountered “old seawalls,

bulkheads, and rock fills” from the 1860 seawall (see figure 5.15), obstructions that caused delays, especially near Cambridge Street.60 Construction through the women’s gymnasium at the south end of the park was done during the fall to avoid the period of high use in summer, but the park commissioners nonetheless complained that the work “has sorely interfered with the comfort and convenience of those using this recreation ground.”61 This end of the park was also disrupted by the construction of the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge during the years from 1900 to 1907.62 The north end of the park where the men and boys’ outdoor gymnasium was located was discommoded by work on the dam itself, but after the shut-off dam was completed in 1908 the park finally returned almost to normal (figure 5.23).63 W IDENING C HARLESBANK

IN THE

1930 S

Despite the intentions of its proponents, the Charles River Basin did not originally become the water park they had envisioned. Winds sweeping across the basin created waves that bounced off the stone seawalls along the embankment, producing a chop too dangerous for small boats and rowing shells. After many years of complaints, in the early 1930s the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) finally widened and extended what had become known as the Esplanade and provided new recreational facilities (see chapter 6). In a concurrent project, the section of Charles Street next to Charlesbank park was widened. To compensate for the land taken, the MDC added fill to the south part of Charlesbank, increasing the size of the park from 9.6 to 15.4 acres (see figures 6.11 and 7.45) and, in order to reduce the chop on the river, sloped the new land down to the water’s edge instead of ending it with a seawall.64 The changes obliterated Olmsted’s original plan for the park, removing the promenade along the river, replacing the women’s and children’s play areas at the south end with a track and baseball diamonds, and planning a swimming pool next to the dam where the men’s gymnasium had once been located (see figures 5.17 and 6.11).

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FIGURE 5.22 1913

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PHOTOGRAPH OF

C HARLES R IVER D AM

This photograph shows the first L-shaped Charles River Dam and the park created on its surface—now the location of the Museum of Science—and the lock channel. The gatehouse at the right still exists immediately adjacent to Storrow Drive as does the elevated train viaduct next to the Msgr. O’Brien Highway.

FIGURE 5.23 1910

PHOTOGRAPH OF

C HARLES R IVER D AM

AND

C HARLESBANK

Taken June 30, 1910, from the tower in the building at the far right in figure 5.22, this photograph shows the part of the dam on the Boston side of the lock and, next to it, the men and boys’ gymnasium at Charlesbank. Beyond the gymnasium one can see the raised central berm in Charlesbank and, in the distance, the recently completed Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge.

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FIGURE 5.24 1905 PHOTOGRAPH C HARLESBANK

OF EXCAVATING

B OSTON M ARGINAL C ONDUIT

THROUGH

Taken July 8, 1905, this photograph shows how much the excavation for the Boston Marginal Conduit (sewer) through Charlesbank disrupted the park. Note the child sitting on the embankment watching.

S TORROW D RIVE

The last landmaking project in the West End occurred when Storrow Drive was constructed in 1950–1951 (see chapter 6) and more land was added to Charlesbank in compensation. Building a highway along the Esplanade, first proposed by a state commission in 1929, was very controversial. The 1929 plan had been dropped after Beacon Street residents mounted a violent protest, but was revived in 1948 by the state Master Highway Plan and protests then began anew. When the state legislature was considering the

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Esplanade highway bill, for example, the senator from the West End argued: “In the name of decency, please leave this park [Charlesbank] alone for the sake of our underprivileged children.” In spite of such pleas, however, the legislature finally approved the project in the spring of 1949.65 The construction of Storrow Drive necessitated widening Charles Street next to Charlesbank and taking additional land from the park in the vicinity of the knot of ramps that now entwine the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary parking lot (see figure 5.1). To compensate for these takings, 5.1 more acres of fill were added to the south part of the park (see figure 6.13). The fill arrived at the rate of ninety truckloads a day and this traffic combined with the ramp construction completely disrupted the park for several years. The project also used materials recycled from an earlier landmaking project, for the newly filled area at the south end of Charlesbank was faced with granite blocks taken from a seawall built in the 1860s along the river south of the Longfellow Bridge (see chapter 6).66 The MDC prepared elaborate plans for new recreational facilities at Charlesbank (see figure 6.13),67 but perhaps because plans were already afoot to demolish the West End neighborhood as an urban renewal project, built only an outdoor swimming pool and some tennis courts and softball fields. Today Charlesbank is cut off by a fence along Storrow Drive and the once-popular park now seems rather desolate and underutilized. The additional filling at the south end of Charlesbank in the early 1950s was the last of the landmaking projects in the West End, creating the present shoreline (see figure 5.1). These projects had made land for a variety of purposes: asylums (an almshouse, a hospital, and a jail), residential use, to eliminate pollution, a public park, a dam, and finally to enlarge the park several times—projects undertaken with a notable lack of planning and foresight since often a given project obliterated the results of the one that immediately preceded it.

1630 SHORELI NE

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PHILLIPS ST.

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RG SQ.

LOUISBU

SHORELINE OF BOSTON EMBANKMENT

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BEACON HILL FL AT

Like all other parts of the Boston shoreline, the area along the Charles River at the base of Beacon Hill—the land that today lies between Cambridge Street/Longfellow Bridge on the north and Beacon Street on the south and is known as the Beacon Hill Flat— is made land (figure 6.1). This area was originally tidal mud flats in the Charles River estuary that lay at the foot of the steep bluff marking the end of Beacon Hill and, north of what is now Phillips Street, along the shore of the West Cove (see figures 1.1 and 6.1).1 M OUNT V ERNON P ROPRIETORS

FIGURE 6.1 1992

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

B EACON H ILL

W ITH

1630

SHORELINE

In 1630 the shoreline at the foot of Beacon Hill ran between what are now Charles and West Cedar Streets and then, at about today’s Phillips Street, turned sharply east as far as present Anderson Street, forming one side of the West Cove. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on a reconstruction made in 1852 by Ellis H. Chesbrough and reproduced in 1895 by Charles C. Perkins on Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2).

Filling some of the flats at the base of Beacon Hill was one of the first large-scale landmaking projects in the early nineteenth century.2 This project was sponsored by a group called the Mount Vernon Proprietors, who organized in 1794 to develop a residential area on the southwestern part of the Trimountain, the long glacial moraine with three separate peaks now known as Beacon Hill. The original Mount Vernon Proprietors included Harrison Gray Otis, who would soon also be involved in the India Wharf/Broad Street and Mill Pond projects (see chapters 3 and 4), and Jonathan Mason, who, like Otis, was a lawyer and a politician—at the time

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the Mount Vernon Proprietors were organized Mason was, for example, a member of the Massachusetts legislature.3 Both Otis and Mason held 30 percent interests in the Mount Vernon project. Charles Bulfinch, the architect and selectman, originally held 20 percent of the shares (see chapters 3, 4, and 5), but he was not associated with the project for long. The other two original proprietors, William Scollay, who was a selectman with Bulfinch from 1792 to 1795, and Joseph Woodward, a merchant who had held various town offices, each had a 10 percent share and were also involved in the project for only a short time. At the time the Mount Vernon project began, the western peak of the Trimountain was commonly called “Mount Whoredom” in reference to a red light district on its north slope. The proprietors changed the name to “Mount Vernon” as one more suitable for a residential area. Otis was a member of the committee selecting a site for the new State House, which was placed on the south side of Beacon Hill only a few blocks from the Mount Vernon area, and it has been said that he used his inside information about the projected site of the State House to buy up land on Beacon Hill for his speculative project while it was still inexpensive.4 The committee to select a site for the new State House was not appointed until February 1795, however, and both Otis and Bulfinch later testified that the Mount Vernon Proprietors were organized in 1794.5 It is probably true that Otis, because of his advance information, realized that land values on Beacon Hill would soon increase, and Bulfinch and Scollay, who were selectmen at the time, probably did too—as Bulfinch later testified, “We did not want the speculation to be known”6—but the case is not as clear-cut as is usually presented. The land purchased by the Mount Vernon Proprietors was that now bounded approximately by Beacon, Walnut, Mt. Vernon (formerly Olive), Joy (formerly Belknap), and Pinckney Streets, and the river (figures 6.2 and 6.1). The southeastern part of this property had been owned by John Singleton Copley, the famous portrait painter, who had left Boston at the time of the Revolution and was then living in England. The proprietors, negotiating through Copley’s agent Samuel Cabot (not through Gardiner

FIGURE 6.2 B EACON H ILL

ON

O SGOOD C ARLETON ’ S 1803 P L AN

OF

B OSTON

The land developed by the Mount Vernon Proprietors was bounded by the river and Beacon, Walnut, Mt. Vernon (formerly Olive), Joy (formerly Belknap), and Pinckney Streets, very near the newly completed State House. The new part of Charles Street, which was to be filled in order to make a connection between Pleasant Street in the Old South End and the West Boston Bridge, is shown as “A Street proposed to the Bridge.”

Greene, as Whitehill states7), made an agreement in June 1795 to purchase the Copley land.8 But, as Bulfinch later put it, “Mr. Copley thought his agent had sold the land for less than its value and refused to execute the deed.”9 The resulting suits continued until the late 1830s. The courts eventually upheld the claims of the Mount Vernon Proprietors and the legal depositions made in their behalf, which are preserved both in the deeds and in the Otis Papers, provide a wealth of information about the project and its implementation. At the time of the proprietors’ purchase, the summit of Mount Vernon was located between present Mt. Vernon and Pinckney Streets, a little east of what is now Louisburg Square, and was about fifty or sixty feet higher than today.10 The hill sloped down abruptly toward Beacon Street and also toward the river, ending at a steep bank above the latter. The shoreline was east of present-day Charles Street (see figure 6.1); one deponent in 1839 stated firmly that it was 101 feet east of the present bend in the street.11 The proprietors planned to grade down “Mount Hoardam,” as their surveyor called it on a 1796 plan,12 to make residential lots and to use the resulting excavate for filling the flats at the base of the hill in order to create a new street. They announced their plans in a 1796 newspaper advertisement: FOR SALE

Divers House Lots, in Copley’s and Allen’s Pastures so called. The public are invited to turn their attention to these lands, which afford the best situation in town. The Proprietors intend to lay out handsome, convenient, and capacious Streets, one of which will probably be extended by the water side so as to form a direct communication from the South-end to West-Boston Bridge, and connected at right angles with Beacon-street, which runs in front of the new State-House. The varied fall of the Lands is adapted to the circumstances of those who wish merely for genteel and airy situations, and of those who would unite to these advantages the eminence of Boarding Houses and accommodations for business. Their proximity to the new State House, renders it

convenient for those who are desirous of accommodating Members of the General Court—and certain improvements are contemplated on the flats, which by avoiding the bridges, are expected to command a great part of the intercourse that is now carried on with Watertown, and render them convenient for Lumber-Merchants, Boat-builders, and other Tradesmen.13 In this ad the proprietors seemed to be covering all bases: while appealing to the well-to-do they also were not excluding the possibility of boarding houses and businesses. The new waterside street that was to communicate between the Old South End, the area south of the Common that included Pleasant Street (of which only a vestigial part now remains as Broadway in Bay Village), and the West Boston Bridge was what became Charles Street. The “improvements . . . on the flats” was an allusion to a wharf that was to be built into the Charles River west of Charles Street so that goods shipped from Watertown upriver could be landed there instead of having to negotiate the draws of the West Boston (now Longfellow) and Charles River (now Charlestown) Bridges in order to reach wharves in the harbor. Most of these areas are clearly shown on an 1803 map of Boston (see figure 6.2). It was several years after the 1796 advertisement, however, before the proprietors began to cut down Mount Vernon and to make Charles Street. One reason for the delay may have been changes in the proprietors themselves. In 1796 Bulfinch went bankrupt as a result of his financial involvement in his Tontine Crescent building on Franklin Place, and in January 1797 he sold his 20 percent share in the Mount Vernon project to Benjamin Joy,14 a former consul to India and owner of a house at the corner of Beacon and Joy Streets. Scollay and Woodward also soon sold their 10 percent interests. Their shares were acquired by the trustees of Hepzibah C. Swan, whose husband, James, lived in Paris and had made a fortune in France. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, when the first phase of the Mount Vernon project was underway, the proprietors were thus Otis and Mason, each with a 30 percent interest, and Joy and Mrs. Swan, each with

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20 percent, but all advertisements and public notices were signed only by Otis, Mason, and Joy. On May 28, 1798, Mason wrote to Otis, who was in Philadelphia serving in Congress, “We are contracting to pull down Copley Hill, or to speak with mere chasteness, Mount Whoredom. If you should not in the future resort to it with the same pleasure, you may possibly with more profit.”15 Mason went on to discuss negotiations with the contractors, implying that the Mount Vernon project began in 1798, but actually only the streets—Olive (now Mt. Vernon), Chestnut, and Walnut—were laid out in 1799.16 All three new streets and the proposed Pinckney Street are shown on an 1803 map (see figure 6.2). The major work on Mount Vernon did not begin until 1803.17 In that year the proprietors hired Timothy Hunt and Silas Whitney, who began to dig down the north part of the Mount Vernon property using “a great many men.”18 The dirt was carried down the hill by teams and hand carts and was used to fill up the flats at the base. One witness recollected: “The teams came down the hill [and] when they got to the bottom they turned off at right angles & upset their loads.”19 Problems soon arose, however, because there was no structure to retain the fill. Hunt’s overseer remembered, “We complained that the water washed away the earth & the abutment was ordered to be made.”20 The abutment was, in Otis’s words, “a heavy Sea Wall of piles.”21 It extended from Beacon almost to May (now Revere) Street and was built by a Moses Gardner. The project’s surveyor recalled that “piles were driven in deep water from South to North and a substantial abutment of timber and plank was extended toward West Boston Bridge.”22 This abutment sounds somewhat similar to the lateeighteenth-century timber bulkhead that archaeologists recently found at two places in the Mill Pond—along the former shore in 1993 and near South Mills in 1999—and is discussed in chapter 4 (see figure 4.12).23 The fill held in place by the abutment at the foot of Mount Vernon was not only gravel hauled down from the hill but also mud dug from the river flats outside the abutment and brought in by scows. According to Otis, the depth of the fill placed on the flats ranged from six to fourteen feet.24

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By the spring of 1804 the project was in full swing. Reverend William Bentley of Salem, the inveterate diarist, recorded on May 1 the labour bestowed upon the great hill near which the late powder house has been erected, & which touched the shore of the Charles, is beyond any example in our country. The side of that hill above 30 feet in height is already taken away as far as its greatest height & a new soil provided below of considerable extent. This is a place which promises to be beautiful & is already enriched by elegant buildings.25 The most famous innovation of the Mount Vernon project was a railway built to carry gravel down from the southwest side of the hill to the southern section of the flats. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, a nineteenth-century conveyancer (title searcher) who wrote a series of newspaper articles based on his research, claimed that it was the first railroad in the United States and a recent study has confirmed that it was.26 The proprietors had apparently always contemplated using some kind of earth-moving machinery on Mount Vernon, for in the Otis Papers is a 1793 broadside for “Carne’s Patent Machine for Removing Earth,” which describes and illustrates a machine used for digging canals in England composed of two rotary borers attached to an overhead cable.27 It is not clear just when the proprietors decided to employ a railroad on Mount Vernon, nor who built and operated it. Some say it was run by Silas Whitney, a deposition refers to it as “Mr. Sargent’s rail road,” and the financial accounts of the Mount Vernon proprietors from January 1804 through February 1806 indicate that by far the largest payment—$28,048.60 compared to second and third largest payments of $6,753.10 and $5,029.95—was to Timothy Hunt, suggesting that perhaps he ran the railroad.28 Since there are no contemporary accounts of the railroad, most of the information about it comes from the depositions. Construction probably started in 1804 and the railroad was “in full operation” by early 1805. One observer said the railroad ran in a southwesterly direction from the top of the hill. It struck Cedar St. a little to the south of Mount Vernon Street and

struck Charles Street on the east side. . . . It was used with a large pulley at the top fastened to each set of cars—and one set of cars went up, while the other went down—both being attached together. There were branch rails at the top and the bottom. . . . At the top they led to various parts of the hill, & those at the bottom [to] the places they wanted to fill up.29

REVERE ST.

BEACON HILL RR. ER RM FO

INE REL SHO T. S S RLE

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The approximate location of the railroad is indicated on an 1805 map (figure 6.3). This first railroad was the subject of much public interest. An observer recalled: “It was considered a great undertaking, the greatest at the time in Massachusetts,” and another stated, “These operations were so remarkable as to attract great numbers of persons to see them.”30 Otis is reported to have said that the railroad “excited as much attention as Bonaparte’s road over the Alps.”31 By the fall of 1805 enough of the flats at the foot of Mount Vernon had been filled in so that Charles Street was almost finished and the proprietors could place the following advertisement:

MAY ST.

HOUSE LOTS

The new and spacious street, which is intended to lead directly from Pleasant-street to West-Boston Bridge, by the bottom of the Common, being nearly completed, those individuals or Companies, who are desirous of possessing cheap and eligible House Lots, are invited to visit it, and judge for themselves of its advantages. It is 55 feet wide, and in the ensuing season will be joined to West-Boston Bridge, and thus forming the principal and only direct communication between that Bridge and the South End.32 The ad went on to describe the lots and, interestingly, given the intention of marketing lots on the hill to upper classes, pitched this ad for lots on Charles Street to “industrious mechanics” who “will find the distance from the centre of the Town no more than a healthy and convenient walk.” Charles Street and the newly made land at the foot of Beacon Hill are shown on an 1805 map of Boston (see figure 6.3).

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FIGURE 6.3 B EACON H ILL

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C OMMON

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By 1805 the Mount Vernon Proprietors had filled in the flats at the base of Beacon Hill and the town had filled a small area at the foot of the Common (see chapter 7) so that Charles Street could be extended in a straight line toward the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge. The former shoreline has been enhanced (see figure 6.2). The location of the railroad that carried fill from the top of the hill near Pinckney Street down to the bottom at Charles Street is also indicated. B

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FIGURE 6.4 B EACON H ILL

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In 1807 the flats north of the Mount Vernon Proprietors’ land were filled so that Charles Street could be continued to the West Boston (Longfellow) Bridge. The bend in the street between Olive (now Mt. Vernon) and Pinckney Streets was probably made to reduce the amount of flats that had to be filled near the bridge (see figure 6.3). The map also shows the Charles Street Meetinghouse, which was built about 1807 on the newly made land.

C HARLES S TREET

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M AY (R EVERE )

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C AMBRIDGE S TREETS

Filling the flats to create the section of Charles Street north of the Mount Vernon Proprietors’ land—the part between Pinckney and Cambridge Streets—was done between 1805 and 1807 as a spinoff of the Mount Vernon project. Bulfinch had bought these flats, or “water lots” as he referred to them, just after the West Boston Bridge opened in 1793.33 While the Mount Vernon Proprietors were filling their flats at the foot of Mount Vernon, Bulfinch continued their abutment across his lots and, with the proprietors’ permission, had his flats filled with earth taken from the northern part of their land.34 The proprietors of the bridge filled the section of flats next to and underneath the West Boston Bridge, which is shown on the 1803 map (see figure 6.2), in 1807 with “earth and gravel.”35 Charles Street was probably bent, as it is now between Mt. Vernon and Pinckney Streets (see figure 6.1), in order to reduce the area of flats near the bridge that needed to be filled— had Charles Street been continued in the straight line shown on the 1805 map (see figure 6.3), it would have cut off a large area of flats between the street and the shore that then would have had to be filled. The completed Charles Street on newly made land between Beacon and Cambridge Streets is shown on an 1814 map (figure 6.4).

town initially refused, wanting to wait until the dam was completed, but, when it was, did grant permission in 1821.37 The proprietors then built a stone seawall and wood abutment on the west side of the area they intended to fill. This area was bounded on the west by a line starting on the dam west of what is now Brimmer Street and extending at a sixty-five-degree angle through the present intersection of Chestnut and Brimmer Streets, on the north by a line between and parallel to present Lime and Mt. Vernon Streets, on the east by River Street, and on the south by the Mill Dam itself (now Beacon Street; figures 6.5 and 6.1).38 Part of the

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After the land was created for Charles Street and the strip west of it that extended about as far as today’s River Street (see figures 6.1 and 6.4), for many years townspeople were allowed to dump trash and other debris on the adjoining flats in the river.36 In 1818–1821 the southern end of this area was defined when the Mill Dam was built on the line of Beacon Street across the entire Back Bay from Charles Street to what is now Kenmore Square (see chapter 7). Construction of the Mill Dam facilitated filling the flats north of it. In 1818, while the dam was being built, Harrison Gray Otis, on behalf of the Mount Vernon Proprietors, asked the town for permission to fill a “gore” of flats adjoining the Mill Dam. The

MILL DAM

FIGURE 6.5 B EACON H ILL

ON

1826

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the eastern part of the Mill Dam that had been built across Back Bay in 1818–1821 on the line of present Beacon Street and the “gore” just north of it—now the Brimmer Street area—filled by the Mount Vernon Proprietors in the 1820s.

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area enclosed was already filled with the trash that had been dumped there for years but the proprietors filled the rest. Although an 1827 legal notice said that the area was by then “filled up,” it was actually still not finished in 1828 when the proprietors divided the made land. The agreement of division referred to sharing the expense of filling behind the seawall “with dirt” and completing this filling within twelve months.39 The newly made “gore” of land, which was actually a trapezoid, is today the part of the Beacon Hill Flat that extends from River Street to west of Brimmer Street and from Beacon Street to north of Lime Street (see figure 6.1).

WE

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)

(REVE

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In the 1830s and 1840s, private interests rather than projects filled more of the Beacon Hill Flat. In 1835 Jarvis Braman built a public bathhouse and swimming school at the foot of Chestnut Street next to the Mount Vernon Proprietors’ “gore,”40 and for many years Braman’s Baths was a fixture in this location. In the 1840s some wharves were extended into the river on the west side of Charles Street and are shown on an 1850 bird’s-eye view of the area (see figure 7.16). 1850 S

AND

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CHARLES STREET MEETINGHOUSE

1860 S S EAWALL

The next landmaking project on the Charles River flats was the building of a seawall in the 1850s and 1860s between what are now Cambridge and Back Streets and the filling of the flats behind it. An 1850 state act required the owners of wharves and flats between the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge and the Mill Dam, that is, between the present Longfellow Bridge and Back Street, to build such a wall on the harbor commissioners’ line41— the line that defined how far wharves could extend out from shore. The same act also moved the commissioners’ line on the Beacon Hill Flat further out into the river, and the seawall was intended to compensate for this extension by improving the flow of the river.42 By 1852 the owners had built the wall and filled the intervening flats as far south as Southack (now Phillips) Street (figure 6.6), and by 1857 they had completed the seawall and filling up to Revere (formerly May) Street.43 142

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MILL DAM

FIGURE 6.6 B EACON H ILL F L AT

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1852 M AP

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The map shows the seawall built on the commissioners’ line in the early 1850s from Cambridge Street to about the line of Southack (now Phillips) Street, the wharves built west of Charles Street in the 1840s, the Charles Street Meetinghouse still on the water’s edge, and Braman’s Baths, which had been built next to the “gore” in 1835.

LL

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SEA WA

Meanwhile concern had grown about a nuisance on the flats at the foot of Mt. Vernon Street caused by a sewer outlet in that location. (As explained in chapter 1, until the late nineteenth century Boston sewers discharged raw sewage at the nearest shoreline from where it was supposed to be carried away by the tide.) In late 1858 the city decided that the only way to abate this nuisance was to continue the seawall to the Mill Dam, extend the sewer out beyond the wall, and fill up the intervening flats.44 Because the owners of the wharves and flats had not complied with the requirements of the 1850 act—an 1860 map suggests that by that date the seawall or bulkhead and the filling only extended about as far south as Pinckney Street (figure 6.7)—an 1860 act stipulated that if these owners did not build their sections of the seawall within two years they would forfeit all rights to their flats.45 And in 1861 the city, which also owned a portion of the flats, agreed to construct its section of the wall.46 At first only a seawall or a bulkhead was constructed and the flats behind it not filled. In 1865, however, the city superintendent of health reported that the seawall had indirectly caused another nuisance because it prevented the enclosed flats from being flushed out at high tide, and another report that year commented on the “intolerable and sickening odor” coming from these flats.47 To remedy the problem the city ordered that the flats be filled with “ashes or such other materials” in order to remove the “stench arising from [them].”48 An 1866 bird’s-eye view of the area shows the extent of the project by that date (figure 6.8). In 1866, however, it was found that building the seawall and bulkhead had exacerbated yet another nuisance—the tendency of sewage to collect in the angle between the seawall west of Charles Street and the one north of Back Street. This nuisance was the product both of a natural sandbar on the east side of the channel in the flats, which blocked the flow of water at ebb tide, and of the outlets of several large sewers in this area.49 In April 1866 the city ordered that the filling of the flats inside the wall be expedited as much as possible50 and the legislature soon authorized the city to build a new seawall in a curve between Revere and Berkeley Streets and to fill the flats between the two walls.51 After

FIGURE 6.7 B EACON H ILL F L AT

ON

1860

MAP OF

B OSTON

By 1860 the seawall on the commissioners’ line and filling of the Beacon Hill Flat had been completed about as far south as Pinckney Street.

holding several meetings with the shoreline owners in front of whose property the proposed curved wall would be built, the city decided, however, not to construct it and instead to abate the nuisance by dredging the sewage out of the angle between the walls.52 An 1870 bird’s-eye view shows the stone seawall west of Charles Street finished and joining the one north of Back Street at an angle rather than a curve and the flats inside the wall completely filled (figure 6.9).

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FIGURE 6.8 D ETAIL

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BIRD ’ S - EY E VI EW OF

B OSTON

This view shows the seawall extending across the Beacon Hill Flat from Cambridge Street at the left to Braman’s Baths at the right. An area of new fill extends onto the flats west of the Charles Street Meetinghouse.

Several other abortive projects for filling parts of the Charles River basin and the flats at the foot of Beacon Hill were also considered in this period. In the late 1860s a legislative bill proposed that a large part of the river be filled between the West Boston Bridge and the cross dam (which intersected the Mill Dam between present Hereford Street and Massachusetts Avenue), leaving open only a relatively narrow channel. The proposal provoked a storm of opposition and many of the arguments against the project were either reminiscent of those used in the past—made land was unhealthy and would obstruct ventilation from the river (the old “salubrious breezes” argument, this time the river basin being championed as one of the “lungs of the city”)—or foreshadowed an argument that would be used twenty-five years later against the Charles River Dam—filling would injure the harbor by reducing

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the scouring force of the ebb tide (see chapters 5 and 11).53 The plan for filling such a large area was soon dropped but in the next decade several proposals were made to fill a narrow strip along the river to create a park or esplanade (see chapter 5).54 Nothing came of these proposals, either, and for many years the seawall built in the 1850s and 1860s, which was on the east side of present David Mugar Way (formerly Embankment Road; see figure 6.1), defined the extent of made land on the Beacon Hill Flat. The area filled in the 1820s for the “gore” and in the 1850s and 1860s behind the seawall on the Beacon Hill Flat, particularly the area bounded by former Embankment Road (now David Mugar Way), Beacon, River, and Pinckney Streets (see figure 6.1), has been the locus of one of the major problems in filled areas of Boston—dropping groundwater levels and consequent rotting of wood foundation piles. Many of the buildings constructed in the nineteenth century on made land in Boston are supported by wood pilings driven through the fill and the underlying layer of peat and silt into the crust of the Boston Blue Clay or, where present, a layer of glacial outwash sand overlying the clay (see chapter 1).55 Wood pilings are sufficient foundations for these buildings provided the

FIGURE 6.9 D ETAIL

FROM

1870

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

B OSTON

By 1870 the seawall across the Beacon Hill Flat had been completed, meeting the seawall behind Back Street, visible at the right, at an angle. The flats behind the seawall had also been completely filled—note how much further inland the Charles Street Meetinghouse is in this view than in the 1866 (see figure 6.8).

piles are always submerged in groundwater, for wood is preserved by water but rots if exposed to air. When the pilings were driven for the buildings on the Beacon Hill Flat, their tops were cut off six or seven feet above mean low water56—referred to in Boston engineering terms as elevation, or grade, six or seven—which at the time was thought adequate to keep the piles always submerged. In the twentieth century, however, conditions on the Beacon Hill Flat changed. The groundwater level, which had been about elevation eight after the area was filled,57 began dropping, causing the tops of the foundation piles under a number of houses to rot

and the houses to settle. The dropping water table was apparently caused both by a sewer under Charles Street that blocks groundwater flowing down Beacon Hill from reaching the Beacon Hill Flat and by groundwater from the flat leaking into the sewers on Pinckney and Mt. Vernon Streets, especially where these sewers passed through the seawall.58 Between 1927 and the early 1980s decaying pilings were found under thirty-two houses on the Beacon Hill Flat of which seventeen had to be underpinned—an expensive and arduous repair that involves excavating by hand underneath a house to expose the rotted pilings, cutting them off below groundwater level, replacing them with steel posts, and then encasing the posts in concrete.59 In 1984 large cracks began to appear in the walls of houses on the water (west) side of Brimmer Street between Mt. Vernon and Pinckney Streets (see figure 6.1). The problem also eventually affected houses on nearby Otis Place, such as the one described in chapter 1 that dropped so precipitously one night in 1986.

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Engineers found that groundwater levels under the Brimmer Street houses had fallen as low as elevation two, causing the tops of the foundation piles to rot as much as one to three feet.60 All nineteen houses on the water side of Brimmer Street eventually had to be underpinned at a cost of $130,000 to $300,000 per house.61 But there was a mystery. The water side of Brimmer Street previously had a high water table and just seven years earlier the wood pilings under houses there had been sound and free of rot. Why had groundwater levels in this area been high for so many years and then dropped so suddenly? The answer was finally traced to the operation of the Boston Marginal Conduit—the large sewer that was built under the Boston Embankment (now Esplanade) in 1907–1908 (see below) during construction of the first Charles River Dam (see chapter 5) and is now under Storrow Drive. This conduit originally discharged into tidewater below the dam. At high tide, water would flow back into the conduit and, consequently, also back into the feeder sewers on Pinckney and Mt. Vernon Streets and out through the cracks in these sewers into the ground on the water (west) side of Brimmer Street, recharging the groundwater there twice a day. But when the new Charles River Dam was built in the 1970s, the Boston Marginal Conduit was rerouted to a pumping station that kept the conduit and the feeder sewers essentially empty. The result was that the groundwater leaking into the Pinckney and Mt. Vernon Street sewers rapidly lowered the water table on the water side of Brimmer Street, exposing the tops of the foundation piles under the houses there and causing these piles to rot.62 In response to damage in the Brimmer Street area, the Boston Groundwater Trust was established in 1986 to monitor and report on the level of groundwater in observation wells that had been installed in the 1930s by a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program to track groundwater levels. Wells had been installed not only in the Brimmer Street area but also in Back Bay, the South End, the Fenway, and Chinatown—other sections of Boston that have had problems with falling groundwater and rotting foundations piles (see chapters 7, 8, and 9). Only about 150 wells remain, however, of the approximately 1300 wells originally installed, and

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engineers estimate that several hundred more are needed to track groundwater levels adequately. In 2002 low water levels were reported in some wells on the Beacon Hill Flat, so rotting foundation piles may continue to be a problem in that area.63 B OSTON E MBANKMENT

The esplanade along the river that was discussed in the 1870s (see above) finally became a reality in the first decade of the twentieth century as part of the Charles River Dam project (see chapter 5). The 1903 act that authorized the dam also authorized the construction of a seawall and the filling of a narrow park or embankment along the Boston side of the river from Charlesbank in the West End to Charlesgate East at the Fenway (extended to Charlesgate West in 1906) and specified that the section of the park between the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge and Back Street, that is, the part at the foot of Beacon Hill, be up to three hundred feet wide (figure 6.10).64 Contrary to previous landmaking projects where a structure to retain fill was built along the outer perimeter of an area to be filled before the fill was deposited, the filling of this embankment and construction of the seawall proceeded simultaneously. Filling the section between the Cambridge Bridge and Back Street began in 1906,65 and most of the piles for the foundation of the seawall were driven in 1907. In another departure from past practice, all of the seawall, except for its coping, was constructed of concrete rather than of granite blocks, and most of this wall was also completed in 1907.66 In addition, the project involved building a large conduit, or sewer—the Boston Marginal Conduit—along the river, a task that required excavating a deep trench in the newly deposited fill, driving piles to support the sewer, and constructing the huge concrete sewer itself.67 The Boston Marginal Conduit, seawall, and filling were all essentially completed in 1908, the same year that the shut-off dam created the new Charles River Basin (see chapter 5), but, as the commissioners in charge of the project noted, “an attractive shore on the Boston side of the lower Basin was still lacking.”68 The attractive shore was soon provided. By the

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time the Charles River Dam project was completed on June 30, 1910, it had created a park of about twenty-five acres, known as the Boston Embankment, with a walk along the river and, in the section from the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge to Back Street, a roadway, called Embankment Road (now David Mugar Way), between the buildings at the foot of Beacon Hill and the newly made land (see figure 6.10). Although the embankment has since been widened, the shoreline of the original embankment still exists at Commissioners Landing, just north of the Union Boat Club boathouse (see figure 6.1).

BACK ST.

FIGURE 6.10 1906

PL AN FOR THE

B OSTON E MBANKMENT

This plan shows the narrow park on the Boston side of the Charles River that was to be filled as part of the Charles River Dam project. The park was to be up to three hundred feet wide between the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge and Back Street and one hundred feet wide between Berkeley Street and Charlesgate West.

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Although the embankment soon became a popular promenade, the Charles River Basin, created by the dam and intended as a water park, did not at first fulfill its promise as a recreational area. No sooner had this fresh water basin been formed than its deficiencies became apparent: the water was too rough in a stiff breeze for small boats and the section of the embankment in front of Back Bay was too narrow for boathouses. As a solution, a 1911 board on metropolitan improvements turned to an idea that had first been proposed in 1907 by the Boston Society of Architects— creating an island in the middle of the basin. The objectives of the original proposal were primarily aesthetic—the architects considered the basin an “empty, vague, and uninteresting” expanse of water and thought such an island would provide a visual focus as well as land for buildings and a mid-point for additional bridges across the river.69 The 1911 proposal, however, which was supported by related proposals from architects and landscape architects, focused on recreational aspects of an island: it would provide sites for boathouses and sheltered waterways for canoeing in summer and skating in winter. The island was also promoted as a midpoint for the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge, which needed to be reconstructed, and a possible site for MIT, which had outgrown its original location in Back Bay and had not yet definitely decided to move to Cambridge.70 The island was never built, but concern continued about the lack of recreational use of the basin and finally in 1928, after years of agitation, the state appointed a commission to “investigate the means and methods of making the Charles River Basin more safe, suitable, and attractive for recreation and civic welfare purposes.”71 The commission’s report, submitted in early 1929, proposed almost doubling the width on the Boston side of the river of what had come to be known as the Esplanade and also widening Charlesbank park. In addition, the Boston Esplanade was to be continued from Charlesgate West to the Cottage Farm (now Boston University) Bridge, increasing the area of the entire Esplanade from twenty-five to forty-four acres. To alleviate the

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problem of rough water in the basin, which was exacerbated by waves bouncing off the seawalls that formed the shore of the Esplanade (see figure 7.44), the shores of the new Esplanade and the addition to Charlesbank were to be irregular and to slope down to the water’s edge. Recreational facilities were also to be added: a lagoon for canoeing and skating was to be built north of Beacon Street, the Esplanade planted with trees and shrubs, and a swimming pool planned at Charlesbank park (figure 6.11). Some of these improvements were to be financed by a one million dollar gift from Mrs. James J. Storrow in memory of her husband, who had been instrumental in the formation of the 1901 committee that had finally approved the construction of the Charles River Dam and the creation of the Charles River Basin in the first place (see chapter 5).72 But in addition to the recreational improvements, the commission also recommended that a highway be built on the Esplanade from the Longfellow to the Cottage Farm (now Boston University) Bridge.73 This proposal provoked an immediate protest from Beacon Street residents, reminiscent of their protest against the dam in 1894 (see chapter 5). This time Beacon Street residents charged that the parkway would be a “speedway” and, snobbishly, that the enlarged park would draw crowds like those at the Frog Pond or Revere Beach.74 Objections intensified when hearings on the report opened in early March 1929 and arguments centered on the embankment highway and on the cost of the project.75 Lobbying groups were formed on both sides of the issue and finally, in late March, after Mrs. Storrow indicated her support of a group dedicated to protecting the Boston side of the basin from “invasion by automobile traffic,” the chairman of the commission backed down and, in order to preserve her gift, agreed to eliminate the highway.76 Plans were changed several times before the project was ready to proceed in 1931, but eventually the section of the Esplanade between the Longfellow Bridge and Back Street was widened about 155 feet, covering most of the 1906–1908 seawall with fill (see figure 6.11).77 As the 1929 report had recommended, the fill was sloped down to the water’s edge rather than ending at a sea-

FIGURE 6.11

wall. An orchestral shell with a “music lawn” in front of it was erected at the south end and, north of it, two curved dikes were created to provide a haven for small boats (the present “Make Way for Ducklings” islands near today’s Community Boating facility; figure 6.12). These dikes, the project’s landscape architect observed, would also allow the crews of swamped shells to land and empty their boats “without shocking the people on shore because of their scanty attire.”78 The entire Esplanade was renamed the Storrow Memorial Embankment in honor of James J. Storrow

1931

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C HARLESBANK

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E SPL ANADE

This plan shows the changes made to Charlesbank and the Esplanade in the early 1930s. The south end of Charlesbank was widened to compensate for widening Charles Street next to the park and a swimming pool was planned in place of the gymnasium at the north end. In the Beacon Hill section of the Esplanade, curved islands were filled opposite the Union Boat Club to provide a haven for small boats and a music shell was constructed at the south end. In the Back Bay section, the width was doubled and a lagoon was created between Exeter and Fairfield Streets. Between Charlesgate West and the Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridge, a new 155-feet-wide Esplanade was filled.

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S TORROW D RIVE

FIGURE 6.12 1934

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

E SPL ANADE

This photograph shows the changes made in the early 1930s to the section of the Esplanade between the Longfellow Bridge (foreground) and Back Street. The width was almost doubled, a haven for small boats created by filling two curved dikes (the “Make Way for Ducklings” islands), and a concert shell built on newly made land at the south end. The shoreline and the 1906–1908 seawall of the Boston Embankment remained in the cove opposite the curved dikes (cf. figure 6.10).

and by 1935, when the landscaping was completed, concerts were being held in the new steel and wood shell, and interest in rowing and sailing on the basin had revived, the Charles River Basin had finally become the water park that had been envisioned since the 1870s.79

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The traffic-free Esplanade created in the 1930s did not exist very long, however. Omitting the highway from the project meant that local traffic between the Longfellow and Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridges had to use Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street, and by the end of World War II this route had become part of Boston’s much-maligned “traffic mess.” In addition, a better route was needed between the western suburbs, the Boylston Street area, and points south. A 1946 act authorized the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), which operated the Esplanade, to prepare plans for a highway along the river and such a road was also included in the state’s 1948 Master Highway Plan.80 A bill to construct a highway on the Esplanade was introduced in the state legislature in 1949 and immediately provoked strong opposition. One representative claimed, “Mr. and Mrs. Storrow would turn over in their graves if they knew their gift to the people was being turned into a high-speed highway where children will be killed.” But after several acrimonious debates and some extraordinary parliamentary machinations, the bill was rammed through the legislature.81 The act stipulated that most of the highway was to be below the grade of the Esplanade, that new land was to be created by filling to replace that taken for the highway, and, as a final irony, that because it would be on the Storrow Memorial Embankment, the new road was to be called the James J. Storrow Memorial Drive.82 Twenty-two acres of fill were to be added to the Esplanade of which 11.1 new acres were to be in the area between the Longfellow and Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridges. Most of the filling was done west of Berkeley Street (see chapters 7 and 8), but in the section between the Longfellow Bridge and Back Street more lawn space and a “concert lagoon” were created near the Hatch Shell (figures 6.13 and 6.1). In order to preserve seating at the shell, a tunnel was constructed for the inbound lanes of Storrow Drive from Dartmouth to Mt. Vernon Streets, necessitating the relocation of the Boston Marginal Conduit built in 1906–1908. During this relocation, the seawall built in the 1850s and 1860s was uncovered

and a small section near the Storrow Drive exit at Arlington Street dismantled. The large granite blocks from this wall were then used to edge the newly filled area of the Charlesbank playground (see chapter 5), where they are still in place.83 The land that was made while Storrow Drive was being built was the last of the landmaking projects along the Charles in the area between Cambridge and Back Streets, projects that had created residential land in the nineteenth century and parkland in the twentieth.

FIGURE 6.13 1949

PL AN FOR CHANGES TO THE

E SPL ANADE

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C HARLESBANK

This plan shows the proposed additions to the Esplanade and Charlesbank in the early 1950s to compensate for the land taken for the construction of Storrow Drive. At Charlesbank, more fill would be added to the south end. In the section of the Esplanade at the foot of Beacon Hill, filling would create a “concert lagoon” next to the Hatch Shell (see figures 6.11 and 6.1). In the section fronting Back Bay, the drive was to be located on the land created in 1907–1909 and a chain of new islands were to be filled on either side of the 1930s lagoon. Between Charlesgate West and the Boston University Bridge, more fill was to be added with an undulating shoreline.

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FIGURE 7.1 2001

STREET MAP WITH

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When the 1630 shoreline of the back bay of the Charles River is plotted on a modern street map, it shows that the east part of the original bay included not only the area now regarded as Back Bay—from Arlington Street to Massachusettts Avenue between the river and Boylston Street—but also the Public Garden, parts of Bay Village, and the South End. Also shown is the boundary set in 1827 between the flats of the city and those of the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (later the Boston Water Power Company [BWP]). This map was computer-generated by overlaying a digitized reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline of Boston (see figure 1.1) on a modern computerized street map. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation—the east side is based on a reconstruction made in 1852 and reproduced in 1895 by Charles C. Perkins on Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2); the west side is based on the map in figure 8.2.

7

Today “Back Bay” usually refers to the area from Arlington Street to Massachusetts Avenue between Boylston Street and the Charles River. But originally the back bay of the Charles River—probably so-named because it was a bay in the Charles River estuary on the back side of Boston Neck—reached inland as far as Washington Street, included much of what is now known as the South End, and even extended west almost to today’s Kenmore Square (see figures 7.1, 8.1, and 1.1). This large bay, originally about 737.5 acres in extent,1 was a vast expanse of tidal flats interlaced with navigable creeks.2 It was divided into two unequal parts by a marshy, diamond-shaped promontory called Gravelly Point that was in the vicinity of today’s Massachusetts Avenue (see figures 7.1 and 1.1). At the base of Gravelly Point a small stream known as Smelt Brook drained into the larger, eastern portion of the bay approximately where Gainsborough/Camden Streets and the MBTA Orange Line/Amtrak tracks now intersect (see figure 7.1). Most of this eastern part of Back Bay, which was originally about 568.2 acres,3 was surrounded by low-lying areas although a small hump, called Fox Hill, rose about twenty feet above the eastern shore at the foot of what became the Common. Back Bay was filled in over a period of about 150 years by a number of landmaking projects. This

chapter will discuss those projects that created the land in the eastern part, that is, between what is now the Common and Massachusetts Avenue (see figure 7.1), and the following chapter will examine the projects that filled in the part west of Massachusetts Avenue. ROPEWALKS

Many people know that Back Bay was filled, but the common perception is that filling began in the 1850s with the large state project that filled in most of the bay. Actually, the landmaking began much earlier. The first landmaking project in the eastern part of Back Bay occurred at the end of the eighteenth century and was the result of a disaster. On July 30, 1794, the seven ropewalks on Fort Hill were destroyed by a fire that also consumed ninety-six buildings.4 Ropewalks, as explained in chapter 5, were highly flammable structures and the town moved quickly to relocate them in a less densely settled area. On August 12 the town appointed a committee to survey the marsh at the bottom of the Common and land on the Neck as possible new locations.5 By August 28 the committee was considering only the site at the foot of the Common,6 and on September 1, 1794, the town granted the owners of the ropewalks a three hundred-foot width of marsh and flats, including Fox Hill, at the bottom of the Common. The proprietors of the ropewalks were required to build a seawall on the west side of their grant, undoubtedly with the intention that they would then fill the area between the wall and the shore. This they proceeded to do, creating land that is now part of the Public Garden and is shown on a 1796 plan of Boston (figure 7.2).7 C HARLES S TREET

The next landmaking project in Back Bay took place in the first decade of the nineteenth century and was related to the Mount Vernon Proprietors’ creation of Charles Street at the foot of Beacon Hill (see chapter 6). An 1803 map on which Charles Street is shown as “A Street proposed to the Bridge” (see figure 6.2) indi-

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FIGURE 7.2 D ETAIL

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The land created in 1794 at the foot of the Common for the ropewalks is shown on this 1796 map.

cates that, in order to make the street straight, not only did the Mount Vernon Proprietors have to fill in the foot of Mount Vernon but the town also had to fill a small wedge of the Common just south of Beacon Street. The town originally tried to finance the project with private rather than public money. Charles Bulfinch, the noted architect and chairman of the Board of

Selectmen, had formed the Association for Town Improvement in 1801 to raise money by private subscription for town improvements.8 In 1803 he raised about twenty-four hundred dollars from the association for the filling of the town’s part of Charles Street and arranged for its construction. Bulfinch hired Silas Whitney, who was then employed cutting down the north part of the Mount Vernon Proprietors’ land on Beacon Hill (see chapter 6), and his two sons, Silas Whitney, Jr., and John Whitney, the latter presumably the same John Whitney who worked on the Mill Pond project (see chapter 4), to cart gravel to the new street. The Whitneys obtained the gravel from people who owned lots on Mount Vernon north of the proprietors’ property and who, Bulfinch said, were glad to have the gravel taken because it was “a hilly part of their land.”9 The area at the foot of the Common proved to be so boggy, however, that, as Bulfinch later reported, it “consume[d] a vast deal more gravel than was expected” and the “gravel continued to settle although planks were put down to prevent it.” The subscription money was soon used up and the Whitneys needed more gravel. The town agreed to complete the project but objected to digging down the small hills at the bottom of the Common because it would spoil the beauty of that area and to taking earth from Fox Hill because it would reduce a barrier against high tides. Bulfinch then asked the Mount Vernon Proprietors for permission to take gravel from their land. They consented and in 1803 and 1804, at the same time that the land for Charles Street north of Beacon Street was being created, a section of Charles Street at the foot of the Common was also being filled with gravel from Mount Vernon.10 The completed Charles Street at the bottom of the Common as well as at the foot of Mount Vernon is shown on an 1805 map (see figure 6.3). The filling done at the foot of the Common in 1803–1804 was apparently not sufficient, however, because in 1807 the selectmen decided that a ten-foot width of Charles Street next to the ropewalks had to be raised “to shut out the high tides” and, contrary to their earlier ruling, voted that earth from the Common could be used for the purpose.11 In 1812 the town raised this part

of Charles Street again to provide further security against the tides as well as space for a six-foot-wide footwalk next to the street. A row of timbers was placed on either side of the walk and the space between them filled with gravel.12 Geologist Clifford Kaye found evidence of the early-nineteenth-century filling at the bottom of the Common when he monitored the excavation for the underground parking garage on the Common in the early 1960s. Along the west side of excavation, near Charles Street, Kaye noted a bottom layer of fresh water peat, then a thick layer of sediment on top of which was a “board walk,” probably the planks put down in 1803. This was topped with what Kaye termed “1790–1800 soil fill (from Fox Hill),” almost certainly the gravel from Mount Vernon and dirt from the Common deposited in 1803–1812. Next was a layer Kaye labeled “circa 1815–1840 red cinder fill,” probably coal ashes which, as explained in chapters 1 and 5, were commonly used as fill after about 1840, and finally a layer of “late 19th century soil fill.”13 M ILL D AM

The next major project that affected landmaking in Back Bay was the construction, between 1818 and 1821, of what was called the Mill Dam. This project did not actually create much land but did produce a structure that ultimately led to the filling of the whole Back Bay. At the outset, however, filling Back Bay was not the object nor was it even contemplated. The Mill Dam project was masterminded by Uriah Cotting, the initiator of many early-nineteenthcentury speculative ventures (see chapter 3). The dam was originally intended to power mills for the town and was, in some respects, a spin-off of the Mill Pond project (see chapter 4), for, according to the organizers, Boston needed new mills because of its increase in population and the “removal of the ancient Mills in Boston”14—the “ancient mills” of course being those formerly in the Mill Pond. In early June 1813, Isaac P. Davis, a proprietor of a ropewalk at the foot of the Common as well as one of Cotting’s associates in the Sea Street venture (see chapter 9), and “145 others,” including Cotting, petitioned the legislature to be incorporated as the Boston

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and Roxbury Mill Corporation. Their plan, as described in the petition, was to construct one dam from the intersection of Charles and Beacon Streets to Gravelly Point, then in Roxbury (approximately the present intersection of Commonwealth and Massachusetts Avenues), making Back Bay into a “full Basin,” and another dam from Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) to South Boston, making South Bay into an “empty Basin” (figure 7.3). Tidal water would flow from the full to the empty basin through raceways on the Neck, powering mills there. In order to defray the expense of the project, they proposed that a toll road connecting with the Worcester Turnpike (now Route 9) be built on top of the first dam. The advantages of such a plan, the petition concluded, would be to give Boston more mill sites than any other seaport in the United States.15 The proposal received official approval. In October 1813 a report of a town meeting committee enumerated the advantages to the town of having permanent mills, citing the retention of capital, new sources of employment, and the increase in the value of the town’s property that “in a few years [would] be covered with the habitations of useful and industrious citizens,” the last undoubtedly a reference to development of the Neck rather than to filling of Back Bay. The town meeting accepted this report almost unanimously.16 Similarly, a report of a state legislative committee, submitted in 1814, focused on the advantages that would accrue to the town from the resulting water power and the mills. The report claimed that the project could employ as many as ten thousand workers and eight million dollars in capital; give Boston an edge over New York and Philadelphia, whose factories were dependent on steam power; manufacture articles cheaper than they could be purchased from Europe; and employ many who at that time emigrated to work in factories outside New England.17 Not everyone supported the Mill Dam project, however. Although there were very few commentaries on the project in the newspapers, in part because the papers in 1813 and 1814 were preoccupied with the progress of the War of 1812, the following column, signed “Beacon Street,” did appear on June 10, 1814, the day after the House, with only fifty of five hundred members present, had passed the act of incorporation:

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CITIZENS OF BOSTON,

Have you ever visited the Mall [on the Common], have you inhaled the Western breeze, fragrant with perfume, refreshing every sense and invigorating every nerve? What think you of converting the beautiful sheet of water which skirts the Common into an empty mud-bason [sic], reeking with filth, abhorrent to the smell and disgusting to the eye? By every god of sea, lake or fountain, it is incredible. . . . At least, let some survey be actually made, by which you may calculate consequences—give not yourselves up blindfold to the stench, filth and disease, which this measure promises.18

The writer, employing the old argument of salubrious breezes (see chapter 4), almost certainly did not realize how prophetic his remarks were and they apparently had little impact, since four days later the governor approved the act of incorporation. The act establishing the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (B&RMC) described a project that was somewhat different from that presented in the original petition. Uriah Cotting was named as one of the chief proprietors along with Isaac P. Davis and William Brown, the latter a merchant and a proprietor of the Front Street Corporation (see chapter 9). The dam across Back Bay was to go from Charles and Beacon Streets to Sewall’s Point in Brookline (now Kenmore Square) rather than to Gravelly Point (see figure 7.3). The dam across South Bay was to be south of the South Boston Bridge, which was on the site of present East Berkeley and West Fourth Streets, and, in a reversal of the original plan, South Bay was to be the full basin and Back Bay the empty. The act permitted the corporation to build a third dam from Gravelly Point to the dam across Back Bay and to cut raceways across the Neck from the full to the empty basin (see figure 7.3). As originally proposed, the corporation was also to build a road (present Brookline Avenue) from the end of the Mill Dam in Brookline to connect with the end of the Worcester Turnpike (Route 9 in Brookline Village) and in return was allowed to charge a toll for the Mill Dam road (present Beacon Street from Charles Street to Kenmore Square) on condition that mills be established

in five years, that is, by January 1, 1820. And, in what appeared to be a concession to the “salubrious breeze” argument, the Board of Health could require that the flats in the empty basin (Back Bay) always be kept covered with water.19 The actual construction of the Mill Dam did not begin for another three and a half years. In January 1818, just prior to a public offering of shares in the corporation, Uriah Cotting issued a pamphlet saying the delay had been caused by the War of 1812 and the need to obtain accurate information and calculations. He went on to extol the advantages of the project, using some of the same arguments made in the state and town committee reports. After proposing a centralized milling and distribution system and, in the same vein, a central flour mill, bakery, rolling and slitting mill, and nail manufactory, all enhanced by the fact that the tide provided “perpetual power,” Cotting ended with a grandiose plan for eighty-

one mills including six grist mills, eight flour mills, six saw mills, two mills for grinding plaster of paris, sixteen cotton mills of five thousand spindles each, eight woolen mills, twelve rolling and slitting mills of various types, four nail works, two trip hammers, four anchor works, etc. “If the public do not have all these improvements,” he concluded, “it will not be the fault of URIAH COTTING.”20 A rejoinder was published a few days later. It was written by Benjamin Austin, a lawyer who had been a member of the town committee that approved the Mill Dam project in 1813 but as far back as 1804 had opposed the South Boston speculators’ attempt to ram their proposal through town meeting (see chapter 9). Austin said his remarks were “friendly suggestions” that were “offered with no other intention than to bring this subject fairly before the public,” but even if fair, his comments were certainly not friendly. The profits of Cotting’s speculative projects went to FIGURE 7.3 D ETAIL FROM B ENJAMIN D EARBORN ’ S 1814 PL AN

FOR

PROPOSED TIDE MILLS

SEWALL’S PT. BACK BAY

ON T

ST .

GRAVELLY POINT

BOSTON

FR AQUEDUCT

SOUTH

SOUTH BAY

This plan shows a variation of the original proposal for the Mill Dam project, which called for building dams across both Back Bay and South Bay. Here the dam across Back Bay goes to Sewall’s Point rather than to Gravelly Point, as initially proposed.

the speculators themselves, Austin charged, while their purchasers actually lost. Cotting’s plan for grain and flour mills would give the “projectors” a monopoly of the bread supply. As for Cotting’s vision of eighty-one mills, Austin observed that the mills would generate a great deal of noise and, tongue in cheek, commented, “How agreeably must this be to the inhabitants on Mount Vernon, Beacon, and Common [present Tremont], and other parts (not forgetting the Legislature while in session) within the sonorous reverberations of the trip hammers, etc.” He continued in the same vein: “The immense SMOKES arising from anchor works, . . . nails, forge-hammers, and various other purposes, will serve to give a salubrious flavor to the MALL in our morning and evening promenades. A fresh westerly breeze will carry this dense body of sea-coal smoke over the Common and Common-street.” Besides, Austin observed, the vast number of mills Cotting proposed had no relation to a project that was ostensibly intended simply to provide the means of grinding meal. In conclusion, Austin stated he was “unwilling to have the public mind inflated with a SPECULATIVE PROJECT, which may lead many worthy citizens into expectations they may never realize.”21 Austin’s remarks, which reflected the Republicans’ prejudice against speculative ventures (see chapter 3), were also prophetic, at least about how unprofitable the Mill Dam project would be. His reservations notwithstanding, however, when the shares of the B&RMC were put on sale, they were all snapped up in one day.22 Work on the Mill Dam began in 1818.23 Cotting died in 1819, before the project was completed, and engineer Loammi Baldwin II, who would soon design the first dry dock at the Charlestown Navy Yard (see chapter 14), became the next agent although the work itself was supervised by someone else.24 The dam was to be built according to the specifications in Cotting’s 1818 pamphlet: two stone seawalls were to be constructed fifty feet apart—the width of the road—each wall five feet wide on top and finished to provide a walkway. Four “substantial iron fences” were to be placed on either side of the two walks, “the space between [the walls] filled up with mud and crowned with gravel,” and ballast stones banked against the outer sides of the walls to keep them

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from twisting or bulging.25 The stone actually used for the walls reportedly came from Roxbury and Weymouth and the fill for the interior from the Back Bay flats and, for a small section near Charles Street, from Beacon Hill.26 A request from Loammi Baldwin to the selectmen in June 1820 for gravel from Fox Hill suggests, however, that the fill near Charles Street also, or perhaps instead, came from the foot of the Common.27 The dam was not finished by January 1, 1820, as required in the act of incorporation, so the town extended the date to January 1, 1822.28 A nineteenth-century historian states that by the fall of 1820 the dam was sufficiently completed so that the water from the river could be closed off. The flats in the receiving basin then dried out and the resulting clouds of dust became such an annoyance that in 1821 sluice ways were made in the dam so the flats could again be covered with water.29 The road on the Mill Dam, known as Western Avenue, was officially opened on July 2, 1821, with pomp and circumstance. To the accompaniment of an artillery salute, a parade led by a band and followed by General William H. Sumner as Chief Marshall, other officials, and more than a hundred people in carriages went a short way over the dam. On their return, Sumner delivered a speech in which he compared Boston in the days when it was connected to the mainland by only the Neck to a closed hand. Referring to the bridges that had since been built, Sumner rhapsodized, “It [the hand] is now open and well spread—Charlestown, Cambridge [West Boston], South Boston, and Craigie’s Bridges have each added a finger and lastly our enterprising citizens have joined the firm and substantial thumb on which we now ride.”30 The completed Mill Dam project was different from that proposed in the act of incorporation, since only the dam across Back Bay was actually built. (The dam to South Boston was never constructed and in 1833 the legislature revoked the right to build it.)31 Surveyor John G. Hales, in response to “the great public interest excited in that gigantic undertaking the Mill Dam, just finished,” added a plan of the project (figure 7.4) to his Survey of Boston and Its Vicinity published in 1821. According to Hales, the “Great Dam” (on the line of present Beacon Street), “composed of

FIGURE 7.4 H AL ES ’ S 1821

PL AN OF THE

M I LL D AM

PROJECT

Hales’s plan illustrated how the Mill Dam functioned. At “b” on the main dam were five pairs of flood gates that closed at an obtuse angle pointing into the river; they were to prevent water from entering the receiving basin, which would thus be empty at high tide except for the water entering from the full basin. At “d” were six watertight sluices, which were to open every tide when the water in the river was higher than that in the full basin and close at high tide, thus keep-

ing the water in the full basin at about the high tide level. The mills were to be located on Gravelly Point along the lines “g.g.g.” and sluice ways were to be cut from the full basin at “h.h.h.” Once water had been used to power the mills it would flow into the raceway, then into the receiving basin, and then out the floodgates to the river. Hales also pointed out the two new roads from Sewall’s Point (now Kenmore Square): Brighton Road (now Commonwealth Avenue) and Punch Bowl Road (now Brookline Avenue) as well as the road from the cross dam to Roxbury (now Hemenway/Parker Street).

FIGURE 7.5 R ECONSTRUCTED

CROSS SECTION OF THE

M ILL D AM

This reconstructed cross section of the Mill Dam shows the battered stone walls, that is, wider at the bottom than top, set on timber platforms, forming the two sides of the dam. The walls were ballasted (supported) with small stones banked up against their inner sides rather than the outer sides, as Cotting had originally specified, and the space between the walls was filled with mud and sand. Western Avenue, now Beacon Street, ran along the top of the dam.

solid materials and made water tight,” was three or four feet above the high tide mark, fifty feet wide, and a mile and a half long. The cross dam (“Short Dam” on figure 7.4) from Gravelly Point to the main dam (on the line of present Hemenway Street, intersecting the Mill Dam between present Hereford Street and Massachusetts Avenue) was also waterproof and divided Back Bay into a full basin thought to be about one hundred acres and a receiving basin of about five hundred acres. 32 In the years since the construction of the Mill Dam, remains of the structure have periodically been found during various construction projects. In 1878, when the West Side Interceptor sewer was being built under Beacon Street between Charles and Hereford Streets, workmen encountered remains of the flood gates in the receiving basin east of Exeter Street and found a long timber sluiceway or bulkhead west of these gates.33 They unearthed the Mill Dam itself several feet below surface just south of Beacon

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at Hereford Street.34 An engineer later wrote that twenty-two sections of Mill Dam walls, ranging in thickness from five to twelve feet, were uncovered during construction of the West Side Interceptor.35 Remains of the Mill Dam were also found about 1880 during construction of new sluices at the outlet of the Back Bay Fens into the Charles (see chapter 8).36 A reconstructed cross section of the Mill Dam drawn in 1986 on the basis of the 1880 description is shown in figure 7.5. And in 1937 remains of the cross dam were unearthed when the Commonwealth Avenue underpass was being constructed under Massachusetts Avenue. The walls of the cross dam were found to be built of granite and, like the Mill Dam, about fifty feet apart and set on timber platforms.37 An engineer had some of the timbers from the platforms removed and reconstructed on the surface, providing a visible example of how these platforms were constructed (figure 7.6).

FIGURE 7.6 1937

PHOTOGRAPH OF TIMBER PL ATFORM FROM THE CROSS DAM

Remains of the cross dam were found in 1937 during construction of the Commonwealth Avenue underpass at Massachusetts Avenue. Some of the timbers that had formed the platform foundations of the walls were removed and reconstructed on the ground, showing how these platforms were built of crisscrossed timbers held together with wooden trunnels, or pegs.

“ROPEWALK L ANDS ” ( NOW P UBLIC G ARDEN )

Soon after the Mill Dam was finished more land was made in Back Bay south of the dam. Some of this landmaking was precipitated by the fate of the ropewalks that had been relocated to made land at the foot of the Common in 1794 after they had burned on Fort Hill (see above). The new ropewalks burned again in 1806, however, and then again in 1819. After the latter disaster, the inherent danger of ropewalks next to the Common was apparent, for by 1814 the area near them was relatively densely settled (figure 7.7). In 1822, therefore, the proprietors of the ropewalks offered to sell their land to the city—the land that they had been given free in 1794—and in 1824 the price was finally set at fiftyfive thousand dollars.38 Once the city acquired the “ropewalk lands,” as they were called, a controversy erupted as to how they should be used—some wanted them sold and developed as a residential area, others thought the land and flats should become part of the Common.39 A city committee objected to residential development on made land, claiming that the filling itself would be very expensive, the projected brick houses would not sell (“foundations on made land are insecure, . . . the walls of buildings are liable to crack, [and] the nature of a made soil renders it peculiarly insalubrious”), and the city would lose money. The committee also cited the health advantages of keeping the area open: “There is over the open space . . . a constant current of fresh air, which . . . comes . . . into the noxious atmosphere of a crowded population, diluting the force of disease . . .” When a city-wide referendum on the issue was held in December 1824, the voters decided that the city should not sell the upland and flats west of Charles Street and that the Common should remain forever open and free of buildings.40 Although the idea of building on the upland and flats west of Charles Street (now the Public Garden) had been rejected, the city was left with the question of what to do with this area. In 1825 a Common Council committee, appointed to consider whether the area should be enclosed by a seawall and filled, recommended that posts be placed instead to mark the west and south boundaries

FIGURE 7.7 D ETAIL

OF AREA NEAR THE

C OMMON

FROM

H ALES ’ S 1814

MAP OF

B OSTON

Hales’s map shows the land that had been made for the ropewalks in 1794 at the foot of the Common and that by 1814 the area south of the Common had become quite built up.

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(approximately present Arlington and Boylston Streets).41 This committee also found that along Charles Street there were “great quantities of rubbish of various kinds and in many places considerable bodies of stagnant water.”42 The existence of rubbish is not too surprising considering that since at least 1799 the area at the bottom of the Common had been a free dump for dirt, street sweepings, and other trash, although after 1816 the rubbish was supposed to have been put into trenches, covered with gravel, and no “filth” left on the surface.43 To remedy the problem, the 1825 committee recommended grading the west side of Charles Street, using some of the “considerable” earth still remaining on Fox Hill to make a “smooth and neat surface” descending to the river.44 C HURCH S TREET D ISTRICT (B AY V ILLAGE )

The most extensive landmaking in Back Bay in the 1820s took place south of Boylston Street. In 1825 the Common Council appointed a committee to consider how the city’s flats on the west side of the Neck, which were southwest of Bridge (now East Berkeley) Street (figure 7.8), could be improved and sold.45 The committee recommended that the city should not incur the expense of improving the flats at that time because there were still a great deal of available Neck Lands—the land between Dedham Street and the Roxbury line that the town had laid out in 1801 but that had not developed very quickly (see figure 7.8 and chapter 10).46 On the other hand, the committee noted, there was a large area of privately owned flats between Bridge and what is now Boylston Street (see figure 7.8), whose owners wanted to have the water of Back Bay cut off by a dike in order to facilitate the filling and development of their flats. The dike, however, needed to be built across the city’s flats as well as their own. The committee recommended that the city build such a dike, and in November 1825 the City Council ordered that a dike be built from Baldwin’s Mill, which had been erected earlier in 1825 at the outlet of Smelt Brook into the receiving basin (now the intersection of Camden/Gainsborough Streets and the MBTA Orange Line/Amtrak tracks), in a direct line to Fayette Street (see figure 7.8).47

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Construction of the dike apparently began early in 1826 and was carried out by Michael Donnelly, a laborer from Roxbury.48 According to a later report, Donnelly was building the dike “with great diligence and success” until he was hampered by a “flood of tide water” let into the receiving basin through the gates in the Mill Dam. The chairman of the committee supervising the work encouraged Donnelly to continue, however, so he “accordingly applied himself with great zeal to finish the undertaking and had nearly overcome the obstacle placed in his way when a final stop was put to the work by an order of the committee.” Donnelly then found he had overspent his $1,000 contract by $557 and asked the city for compensation. The city, however, ruled that Donnelly was at fault for not having requested additional payments before proceeding but, because the work was “very faithfully done,” agreed to pay him $350 more.49 Unfortunately, none of these records indicate exactly how, when, or where the dike was constructed. Since Donnelly first applied for an additional $500 in January 1827, it can be inferred that most of the dike was built in 1826.50 The dike was probably built on the line between Baldwin’s Mill and Fayette Street as specified, although it is not shown on any contemporary maps. And it did not mark the extent of the city’s later filling in Back Bay, which was instead determined by the boundary set in 1827 between city and B&RMC flats (see below). The dike had been requested by owners in what became known as the Church Street District and is now called Bay Village—the area south of the Public Garden originally bounded by Boylston, Arlington, Tremont, and Pleasant Streets and now remaining only as the small section south of Stuart Street bounded by Arlington, Tremont, and the vestigial section of Pleasant, now Broadway (figures 7.9 and 7.10). The eastern part of the Church Street District was on original land (see figure 7.9), but filling by the individual owners of the flats, which began in the 1820s, progressed westward and by 1835 extended west of Church Street (see figures 7.9 and 7.10).51 The building of the dike between Baldwin’s Mill and Fayette Street not only led to the creation of new land, it also created new

N

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FIGURE 7.8 B ACK B AY

ON

1826

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows Back Bay in the mid-1820s with the Mill Dam, on the line of present Beacon Street, closing it off from the rest of the Charles River. The city owned flats southwest of Bridge (later Dover, now East Berkeley) Street and also

the land on the Neck, now the South End, and the flats west of the Common. The flats between Bridge and Boylston Streets were privately owned. The dike built by the city in 1826, which is not shown, ran from Baldwin’s Mill to Fayette Street.

0 163

FIGURE 7.9

E IN EL OR SH

D ETAIL

FROM 1992 BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW B OSTON SHOWING THE C HURCH S TREET ( N OW B AY V I L L AG E ) AND S UFFOLK S TREET ( NOW C ASTLE S QUARE AND M ASS P IKE T OWERS ) D ISTRICTS , THE 1630 SHORELINE , AND AREAS OF

FILL E D B Y

PARK PLAZA HOTEL

T.

CE S DEN

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ARLIN

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T.

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1855

As this view illustrates, most of the Church and Suffolk Street Districts were on made land. The solid line indicates the 1630 shoreline, the dotted line indicates the area filled by 1835, the dashed line the area filled by 1849, and the dashed and dotted line the filling done by 1855 (see figures 7.10 and 7.17).

BOYLSTON ST.

VI PRO

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STATE HOUSE

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. T ST

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FIGURE 7.10 B ACK B AY

ON

1835

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the two railroad tracks that were built across Back Bay in the 1830s—the Boston & Worcester, with depots in South Cove, and the Boston & Providence, with a depot near the present intersection of Church and Stuart

Streets (see figure 7.9). The tracks crossed about where the Back Bay station is now located. The map also shows the boundary between the city’s territory and the flats of the BWP (formerly B&RMC), which was probably the location of the dike the city built in order to extend Tremont Street. B

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FIGURE 7.11 D ETAIL

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FROM

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MAP OF

B OSTON

AND VICINIT Y BY

J OHN G. H ALES

This map shows the routes of the Boston & Worcester Railroad, now the commuter rail next to the Mass Pike, and the Boston & Providence, now Amtrak. The two railroads crossed in Back Bay en route to their respective depots.

problems with the B&RMC, which, not surprisingly, thought the dike encroached on the receiving basin and in December 1825 submitted a memorial to the city opposing it. The issue was finally resolved by agreements of December 1826 and February 1827 that set the boundary between the B&RMC on one hand and the city and the owners of the flats on the south and east sides of the receiving basin on the other. This boundary line ran south from the Mill Dam on essentially the line of today’s Arlington Street as far as present Herald Street, then ran just west of what is now Tremont Street to the middle of Tremont opposite Milford Street, and then ran west to Camden Street at a point a little north of present Columbus Avenue (see figures 7.1, 7.9, and 7.10). These agreements also gave the city and the owners of the flats the right to extend drains and sewers into the basin and to dig mud from the basin to use for filling the flats.52 R AILROADS

The construction of railroads in Boston in the 1830s (see chapter 4) resulted in more landmaking in Back Bay, although, as with the Mill Dam, the structures built for the railroads did not create as much new land as they did impediments that eventually led to filling Back Bay. As discussed in chapter 4, the first three railroads chartered to serve Boston were the Boston & Lowell in 1830 and

the Boston & Worcester and Boston & Providence in 1831.53 Once the railroads were incorporated, the routes on which they would enter Boston had to be determined. It was clear that the Boston & Lowell would enter the city from the north over the Charles River, but the entrance routes for the railroad from the west—the Boston & Worcester—and that from the south—the Boston & Providence—were not as obvious. Their acts of incorporation permitted any location that was “expedient” and both railroads eventually decided it was “expedient” to build their tracks across the receiving basin in Back Bay, as shown on an 1835 map (see figure 7.10). This decision meant that the tracks of the Boston & Worcester, which were on the line of the present commuter rail that parallels the Massachusetts Turnpike (figure 7.11), crossed those of the Boston & Providence, which were on the line of today’s Amtrak tracks (see figure 7.11), a crossing that was approximately at the location of the present Back Bay station. The railroads built embankments to carry their tracks across the receiving basin and these embankments of course obstructed the flow of water in the basin. Some idea of the extent of this obstruction can be gleaned from an engraving made in the late 1830s of a view toward Boston along the Boston & Providence tracks (figure 7.12). The height of the embankments as well as the shallowness of that part of the receiving basin is clearly visible. FIGURE 7.12 1839 ENGRAVING B ACK B AY

OF TRAINS CROSS -

ING

This engraving was drawn looking down the Boston & Providence tracks toward the far side of Back Bay and the State House on Beacon Hill (see figure 7.10). A Boston & Worcester train is departing on the left. The engraving shows the height of the embankments on which the tracks were located, obstructing the flow of water in Back Bay.

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Even before the railroads were finished, the obstruction of the receiving basin prompted vigorous protests from the Boston Water Power Company (BWP), the corporation that then operated the mills. The BWP had been incorporated in 1824 with the right to purchase the water power created by the Mill Dam and in 1832 had made an agreement with the B&RMC whereby the BWP acquired the mills and all the land south of the Mill Dam and the B&RMC retained the roads and the property north of the dam.54 In response to the railroad construction, the BWP charged that in 1833 the Boston & Worcester had changed its route from one north of the Mill Dam authorized by an 1832 act55 to the one across the receiving basin after being paid a bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars by the South Cove Corporation. In return for this payment, the

FIGURE 7.13 1837

PRINT OF THE

B OSTON & P ROVIDENCE

DEPOT

At the right the Boston & Providence tracks curve into the depot at the head of the Church Street District (see figure 7.10). At the far left is the newly filled area that would become the Public Garden.

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Boston & Worcester had allegedly agreed to locate its railroad terminal in South Cove, which was then being filled by the South Cove Corporation (see chapter 9).56 The BWP brought suit against both railroads, claiming that the legislature could not impair its prior grant to the B&RMC, and asked for injunctions to stop railroad construction. The injunctions were not granted and the cases dragged on for years. Finally, in 1839 the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state did have the right to let the Boston & Worcester build across the receiving basin,57 a good example of how priorities changed with the times—the legislature had been quick to grant privileges for water-powered mills when they were in vogue and equally as quick to put the interest of the mills aside in favor of the railroads when the latter came into demand.

Meanwhile, the first railroads had opened. The Boston & Worcester began service between Boston and Newton in May 1834 and expanded service further westward during the remainder of the year. The line was completed to Worcester in June 1835 and formally opened on July 4, almost simultaneously with the opening of the Boston & Providence on June 11 and the Boston & Lowell on June 27, 1835.58 The depots of all three railroads were in areas that had been filled just for that purpose. The Boston & Lowell depot would be on newly made land north of Causeway Street (see chapter 4), and the Boston & Worcester depot, which was originally on Washington Street, was soon moved to the recently filled South Cove (see chapter 9). The Boston & Providence depot was on made land in Back Bay originally near the present intersection of Stuart and Church Streets across from the Park Plaza Hotel (see figures 7.9 and 7.10). This Boston & Providence depot can be seen on the right-hand side of an 1837 print drawn looking down the tracks as they approach the shore of Back Bay (figure 7.13).

long history of proposals to fill the flats going back to that of July 1825 (see above), which had not been carried out because of doubts about the wisdom of filling without also building a dike. Efforts to find a solution that would be less expensive than filling up to the level of Charles Street finally resulted in the approval, in March 1830, of a plan to build a dike, fill the flats gradually and slope the land down to the water, plant the made land with trees and grass, and build walks on it.61 Construction of the dike evidently began soon afterward and was followed by filling. In June 1832 the City Council authorized the mayor to contract for up to six thousand loads of earth to fill the area west of Charles Street, and in 1833 made an additional appropriation for “the gradual reclaiming and improvement” of the flats at the bottom of the Common.62 Most of the area was apparently filled by 1837, the year that it was first leased to Horace Gray for use as a Public Garden (see figure 7.13).63 T REMONT S TREET

AND

S UFFOLK S TREET D ISTRICT ( NOW C ASTLE

P UBLIC G ARDEN

S QUARE /M ASS P IKE TOWERS )

Another landmaking project in Back Bay in the 1830s filled in the area that is now the Public Garden. After the 1825 proposal to fill the ropewalk lands was rejected and the boundary dispute with the B&RMC was resolved in 1826 and 1827 (see above), other abortive proposals were made in the 1820s to fill the city’s flats west of Charles Street. In 1827, for example, a committee of the Common Council reported that the estimated expense of twenty thousand dollars for building a seawall and filling the flats now the Public Garden was “a sum much greater than the object to be obtained is worth,” so that project was dropped.59 The issue was revived in 1828 and 1829 but again not approved.60 Finally, in early 1830 a joint committee of the City Council reported that the twenty-three acres west of Charles Street “now lie in a state unsightly and unprofitable to the City, alternately overflowed in part and exposed to the exhalation of the sun; a state discreditable to the City and, as this committee believe, offensive to the feelings and wishes of the greater proportion of its Inhabitants.” The committee reviewed the

In addition to what are now the Public Garden and Bay Village, the city- and privately owned part of Back Bay south of what is now Herald Street was also filled in the 1830s. In 1829, the city, trying to increase the sale of the Neck Lands, decided to improve access to them by extending Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) on the east side of the Neck (see chapter 10) and Tremont Street on the west side.64 The extension of Tremont Street necessitated building a dike and filling the flats along the edge of the receiving basin, as can be seen in a comparison of 1826 and 1835 maps (see figures 7.8 and 7.10). The dike was probably built on the boundary line that had been set in 1827 between the flats of the B&RMC (owned by the BWP after 1832) and those of the city and private owners (see figure 7.10). This line ran, as explained above, just west of Tremont Street and then, from the middle of Tremont opposite Milford Street near today’s Cyclorama, across the southern part of the blocks now between Tremont and Warren or Columbus Avenues (see figures 7.1 and 7.9). The city reportedly filled Tremont Street

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itself and the flats inside the dike with mud dug from the flats and marshes in the receiving basin, Tremont Street for a time apparently resembling a railway embankment made of mud.65 Because the water in the receiving basin was kept very low—only 3 feet above mean low water66 (mean high water in Boston is 10.23 feet)—so that water from the mill raceways could always flow into the basin, the surrounding flats did not have to be filled very high and yet sewers could still drain into the receiving basin. Tremont and the cross streets were evidently filled above the level of high tide, but the house lots were not—a later report described them as low-lying areas enclosed by embanked streets.67 Contemporary records indicate that filling of the Tremont Street area continued through at least the first half of the 1830s. In October 1834 the City Council directed the city superintendent of public lands to erect a fence on each side of the “new part of Tremont Street,” and an 1836 letter from the BWP to the city concerned the workmen who were filling flats and erecting dikes adjacent to Tremont Street.68 Building the dike to extend Tremont Street also made it possible for the private owners of the flats between the Church Street District and the city’s flats, which began at Dover (now East Berkeley) Street, to fill their territory. This filling, reportedly done with mud, trash, street sweepings, and garbage,69 created what was called the Suffolk Street District—the area originally bounded by Tremont, Pleasant, Washington, and Dover (now East Berkeley) Streets that is now the Mass Pike Towers area north of the Massachusetts Turnpike and Castle Square area south of it (see figures 7.10 and 7.9). The Suffolk Street District was named after the street running through it (now Shawmut Avenue), which had been laid out in 1801 as part of the plan for the Neck Lands (see figure 10.2). This district as well as the other parts of Back Bay that had been filled by the late 1830s are shown in figures 7.9 and 7.10. B OSTON WATER P OWER C OMPANY F LATS

Not all of the land created in Back Bay by the late 1830s is shown in figures 7.9 and 7.10—some of it had been made illegally by filling flats belonging to the BWP without the corporation’s permis-

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sion. In July 1835, for example, a surveyor reported to the BWP that at the west end of South Cedar (now Winchester) Street in the Church Street District (now Bay Village; see figure 7.9) “earth has been filled in upon the said land in the said receiving basin and buildings have been erected upon part of said earth so filled in as to make a solid obstruction to the flowage of the water over a portion of the flats.” The surveyor estimated that about eleven hundred square feet had already been filled and preparations were being made to do more.70 In an 1836 suit in the Supreme Judicial Court, the BWP complained that various individuals had built up “divers embankments and mounds of earth” in the receiving basin and in 1837 considered notifying all abutters that the court had decided building such embankments was illegal.71 The BWP was more concerned, however, about the mills that it operated. An 1852 map of Back Bay indicates that even by that late date the only mills on Gravelly Point and the cross dam were the City Mills—the flour mills that had been the original impetus for the Mill Dam project and were located near the intersection of the cross and main dams—a ropewalk, and an iron foundry (figure 7.14). By the mid-1840s it was apparent that the mill project was, in the words of a later report, a “substantial failure.”72 The tidal water power was not sufficient to run anything approaching the eighty-one mills envisioned by Uriah Cotting, and the B&RMC claimed that in thirty years it had spent $2.8 million but had only been able to pay dividends of less than onetenth that amount.73 All seemed to agree that a much more profitable use of the flats in the receiving basin would be to fill them and sell the land for building lots. It was probably with this end in mind that in August 1846 the BWP settled a dispute with the Boston & Worcester Railroad about ownership of some flats in the receiving basin by giving the flats to the railroad in return for which the railroad was to fill 266,000 square feet, or about six acres, of other flats belonging to the BWP.74 There is no record of how this filling was accomplished, but it was later stated that the fill was mud topped with ten or fifteen feet of gravel.75 According to a report of the president of the BWP to the stockholders, filling the six acres was completed by

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April 1848,76 and the new land, which abutted the Suffolk Street and part of the Church Street Districts, is indicated on figure 7.9. The BWP then went on to fill adjacent areas, at first employing William Evans who was working at the same time on filling South Bay (see chapter 10). BWP papers indicate that in 1849 Evans filled 44,310 square feet, or just over an acre.77 In January 1850 the BWP contracted with Martin Lennon and William Dalrymple of Charlestown to fill an additional 500,000 square feet, or almost 11.5 acres. This area was to be filled with “good gravel and upland earth” to the height of the Boston & Worcester rails (six feet above mean low water, or grade six) and was to be finished within seventeen months. By August 1, 1851, Dalrymple and Lennon had filled 507,625 square feet—about 11.6 acres— and the newly created land, which is now the part of the South End just west of Tremont Street in the area between the Massachusetts Turnpike and Dartmouth Street, is shown on an 1852 map (see figures 7.14 and 7.9).78 This filling done in the 1840s and early 1850s by the Boston & Worcester and BWP amounted to 18.6 acres. All the filling done in the 1820s and 1830s for the Public Garden, by residents of the Church and Suffolk Street Districts, and by the city west of present East Berkeley Street (see figure 7.14) had made another 150.1 acres. These projects, as well as the 2.4 acres filled by 1855 by the Boston & Providence (see figures 7.14 and 7.17), had thus created a total of 171.1 acres of made land in the receiving basin, reducing its size about a third from the original 568.2 acres to 397.1 acres in the mid-1850s.79 B ACK B AY P ROJECT

The BWP’s filling of the flats west of Tremont Street exacerbated an already serious problem of drainage in the Back Bay. In midnineteenth-century Boston wastewater and sewage were carried off by a system of drains, called sewers, that emptied at the nearest shoreline.80 In the case of all the land northwest of Washington Street and bordering on Back Bay, the sewers drained into the receiving basin. The BWP’s filling along the shore of the basin

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obstructed the outlets of some sewers, especially those in the vicinity of Dover (now East Berkeley) Street (see figure 7.14).81 Far more serious, however, was the problem created by raw sewage draining into Back Bay. In 1849 a city committee reported: Back Bay at this hour is nothing less than a great cesspool, into which is daily deposited all the filth of a large and constantly increasing population. . . . A greenish scum, many yards wide, stretches along the shores of the basin as far as the western Avenue [Mill Dam], whilst the surface of the water beyond is seen bubbling like a cauldron with the noxious gases that are exploding from the corrupting mass below.82 The report, reflecting the current belief that diseases were caused by miasmas from decaying animal and vegetable matter (see chapter 1), emphasized the danger that Back Bay posed to public health: Daily accumulations of decaying and offensive animal and vegetable substances . . . if not abated . . . must, within a short period, reach a point of malignity that shall create and propagate disease of a general and fatal character. . . . Every west wind sends its pestilential exhalations across the entire City.83 Two solutions were adopted to deal with the problem of Back Bay. The first was to improve the drainage of the surrounding area. Prompted by the influential 1842 Chadwick Report on the sanitary condition of the working class in Britain, which attributed the presence of dangerous miasmas to inadequate drainage,84 during the 1850s and 1860s the city extended sewers in the South End and later Back Bay into South Bay or out beyond the Mill Dam so that they no longer discharged into the receiving basin. The other solution was to fill in Back Bay, covering the sewage on the flats. Most thought this solution was desirable, but, in order to carry it out, the rights of the various owners of the Back Bay flats

had to be resolved. These owners were the BWP, which had the right to keep the flats covered with water; the state, which by law owned the flats below the low water line; the B&RMC, which possessed the flats up to two hundred feet north of the Mill Dam; and various private owners, particularly in the vicinity of Gravelly Point. The city of Boston, however, did not own any flats in Back Bay. A series of state commissions investigated the issue and made recommendations. All favored filling Back Bay. A commission appointed in 1848 by the legislature to consider the state’s rights to the flats in Boston harbor and whether any of them should be filled reported in January 1850, for example, that because the Mill Dam had cut off the Back Bay flats they are lost for every valuable purpose to the harbor, and may be filled and made into dry land without public injury,—and in that use, their value is very great. . . . The time has already come when the value of the land is far greater than the easement of the water right and [because] the grantees of the latter [the BWP and B&RMC] desire to change their interest in them . . . a proper settlement would seem to require a compromise on equitable terms between the State, and the Water Power Company, and any other parties who may . . . have rights there.85 A commission appointed in 1850 to ascertain the rights of the various claimants to Back Bay and to make recommendations about the “improvement” of the flats86 similarly concluded in 1852 that the receiving basin could be filled. This commission made nine recommendations about how the project should be implemented, among them that the fill should be “clean gravel” and that the basin “should be so filled up and laid into building lots, streets, squares, and ponds, as to secure upon the premises a healthy and thrifty population and business, and . . . forever to prevent this territory from becoming the abode of filth and disease.”87 The recommendation of “clean gravel,” which was ultimately required in Back Bay, reflected the disfavor with which salt

mud, which had been used to fill South Cove and South Bay (see chapters 9 and 10), was then viewed. The report that had so vividly described the “greenish scum” and bubbles of “noxious gases” in Back Bay had, for example, also criticized the filling of South Cove and the “unwholesome effluvia” that emanated from the mud fill.88 Another report had claimed that Boston’s 1849 cholera epidemic had originated in areas filled with mud, and an 1853 city report stated, “If the improvements [in Back Bay] are consummated, a putrid and worthless marsh will be changed to solid and wholesome dry land, not by filling it, as too often has been done in former instances by mud from the neighboring flats, but by clean gravel.”89 The 1850 commission on Back Bay also recommended the appointment of yet another set of commissioners to determine the rights of claimants to flats above the riparian line, the line that divided the state’s flats from those of private owners (set by law at the low water line or 1,650 feet from the high water line, whichever was closest to shore—see chapter 1) and to devise a plan for filling the flats.90 The Commissioners on Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, as they were called, met in 1852 and heard all claimants including David Sears, a wealthy owner of a large areas of flats off Gravelly Point who wanted a lake of at least twenty-five acres included in the plans for filling Back Bay.91 The commissioners eventually rejected his proposal and by May 1853 had arrived at agreements with the BWP and B&RMC, which were formalized in indentures signed June 9, 1854.92 The indenture with the B&RMC stipulated that the state would release to the corporation all the flats two hundred feet north of the Mill Dam. As far back as 1822 the B&RMC had been authorized to widen the main dam from fifty to one hundred feet to permit the building of wharves, storehouses, and other buildings on the dam, a width increased to two hundred feet in 1824,93 and by the early 1850s various parcels north of the dam had been filled and built on (see figure 7.14). At the Boston end, in the mid1840s the B&RMC had constructed a seawall two hundred feet north of the dam about as far as present-day Clarendon Street and had filled the intervening flats with mud.94 Then, about 1850,

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some important B&RMC shareholders had bought lots and built eight brick houses on this new land north of the Mill Dam (figures 7.15 and 7.16).95 In return for the 1854 grant of flats north of the dam, the B&RMC was to continue the seawall to the Brookline shore (now Kenmore Square) and fill the intervening flats according to plans of the state. The B&RMC was also to release its rights both to all territory south of the Mill Dam and to charging tolls on the mill dam road (now Beacon Street) after May 1, 1863.96 In the June 9, 1854, indenture between the state and the BWP, the BWP released its right to flow water over the flats so that they could be filled instead. In return, the BWP received half of the state’s flats below the riparian line, about 102 acres in the receiving basin south of the line of future Providence Street and east of the line of Exeter Street plus an additional parcel bounded by the Mill Dam (Beacon Street), the cross dam, the future Commonwealth Avenue, and a line between what is now Fairfield

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and Exeter Streets (figure 7.17). The BWP was to fill up the unfilled part of its territory—a total of 300.1 acres—and to construct streets and sewers according to a plan and a schedule developed by the state.97 The plan and schedule for the streets, which were originally named according to an almost incomprehensible system of letters and Roman numerals based on the width of the streets and order in which they were laid out but today defies understanding without a map (see figure 7.17), was soon changed, necessitating another indenture, which was signed on September 26, 1854. In this agreement the BWP was to complete Avenue I (Berkeley Street) from Tremont Street to Avenue II (Boylston Street) and the continuation of Boylston Street from the Public Garden to Berkeley Street within two years and in return was to receive the land now bounded approximately by Boylston, Berkeley, Providence, and Arlington Streets (see figure 7.17).98 These agreements with the BWP reduced the state’s part of Back Bay to about one hundred acres bounded on the north by the Mill Dam (Beacon Street), on the west by a line between what became Fairfield and Exeter Streets, on the south by the line of Providence Street between Exeter and Berkeley and of Boylston Street between Berkeley and Arlington, and on the east by the later Arlington Street (figures 7.17 and 7.18).99 The gridded street plan, which now characterizes the part of Back Bay filled by the state, had thus been determined by 1854 and the long east-west streets—Boylston, Newbury, Commonwealth, Marlborough, and Beacon—named by 1857 (see figure 7.18). Naming of the alphabetically ordered cross streets from Arlington to Hereford did not begin until 1859, however, when Arlington and Berkeley were designated.100 The September 26, 1854, indenture between the BWP and the state opened the way for the BWP to begin filling its section of Back Bay. In January 1855 the BWP advertised for proposals to fill Avenues I and II (Berkeley and Boylston Streets) and all the rest of its property east of the future Exeter Street (see figure 7.17).101 In March, W. S. Whitwell, the BWP agent, reported that the BWP had decided to confine the filling to the areas south of the Worcester Railroad and north of the Providence Railroad tracks

(see figure 7.17). He recommended awarding the contract for the southern area to Messrs. Hannon and Clear, in whose “ability . . . to perform the work they propose for I have great confidence. They have 50 horses & carts of their own and would probably put on 50 or 75 more,” and the contract for the northern area to Daniel Cram and Company, who were well recommended. Whitwell urged that Myers and Company, the next lowest bidder, not be accepted because their bid was contingent on obtaining permission from the city to run a horse railroad track from South Boston across the city. But although one contract was awarded to Hannon and Clear, the other was given to Dalrymple and Lennon, the partners who had filled BWP territory west of Tremont Street in 1850 (see above and figure 7.14).102 Work on filling the new areas began in May 1855.103 Although BWP records do not indicate the source of fill or method of filling, Whitwell’s comments on the bids imply the fill was brought to the site in horse-drawn tip carts and may have come from South Boston. Because Back Bay was already dammed off from the main part of the river by the Mill Dam, it was not necessary to build a fill-retaining structure around the perimeter of the area being filled, as was done in most Boston landmaking projects. Even dikes such as those constructed in the 1820s and 1830s (see above) were apparently no longer deemed necessary. Instead, most of Back Bay was filled by simply dumping fill at the shoreline and then working out toward the middle of the bay. By the fall of 1855 the BWP was $150,000 in debt and needed an additional $150,000 to continue the filling, an amount that the directors decided to raise by auctioning almost seventeen acres of made or partially made land in the blocks now bounded by Tremont Street, Chandler Street, Berkeley Street, Appleton Street, Clarendon Street, Warren Avenue, Dartmouth Street, and Montgomery Street and the block bounded by Boylston, Berkeley, Providence, and Arlington Streets104—most of it in the area that the BWP had begun to fill in 1850 (see figures 7.9 and 7.17). The directors hoped that the 740,520 square feet would sell for an average of $.60 per square foot, thus yielding $444,312, but, when the auction was held in September, only 427,688 square feet were

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This plan, obviously based on the 1852 plan of Back Bay (see figure 7.14), shows the 1854 division of flats in the receiving basin between the state and BWP. The state’s part is indicated in white and without streets; the rest belonged to the BWP. The plan also shows the proposed streets (and their present names) to be laid out once Back Bay was filled, the area filled by the BWP in the late 1840s and early 1850s, and the filling done in 1852–1855 by the Boston & Providence.

actually sold at an average of $.3735 per square foot, thus realizing only $159,750.105 Although the directors acknowledged that this amount did not equal the cost of filling, they determined to proceed, arguing with confidence if not foresight that “the low prices of the lots sold offer great advantages for building, which is likely to extend in a direction that will improve our other property. The low prices are, in truth, no criterion of what may be expected for land to be filled hereafter, when rows of houses shall have been erected on what we have sold.”106 While the BWP continued filling the southeastern part of its lands in 1856, the state was finally effecting an agreement with the city. Although Boston did not own any territory in Back Bay—in fact, until 1859 most of Back Bay was in the then separate city of Roxbury (see figure 7.17)—Boston did have the right, according to the 1827 agreement with the B&RMC (see above), to lay drains into the receiving basin and to dig mud from the flats and certainly had a vested interest in the streets and sewers that were going to be constructed on the new land that would probably become part of its city. The state did not want to release much of Back Bay to

Boston, however, for it doubted the city’s ability to manage it in the public interest. The Commissioners on Boston Harbor and the Back Bay said in 1855, for example, “We cannot admit that any grant of land [to Boston] is . . . expedient or that the city can prudently be clothed with the power of establishing a generous system of streets or an efficient system of drainage for that vast area. The city has used, and now uses, the Back Bay as a cesspool.”107 Although the state did not want to give Boston control of Back Bay, it was necessary to have the city’s cooperation in the project so, beginning in 1853, the state made various proposals to the city. In accordance with the agreement between the state, the BWP, and B&RMC in May 1853, on three separate occasions the state offered the city flats between the Public Garden and the future Berkeley Street on condition that the city fill the area, keep it “forever open,” and construct parts of Berkeley and Boylston Streets (see figure 7.17). The city rejected all the offers and countered with proposals that it be given all the flats between the Public Garden and the future Exeter Street and allowed to build houses on a strip now part of the Public Garden.108

FIGURE 7.18 1857 B AY

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An 1854 agreement with the BWP reduced the state’s part of Back Bay to about one hundred acres between Arlington and a line between Exeter and Fairfield Streets from Beacon to Providence/Boylston Streets. This plan also shows the new width of Commonwealth Avenue, which had been increased in 1857 from 120 to 200 feet (see figure 7.17), and the block on the south side of Beacon Street between Arlington and Berkeley that was sold to Goddard and Lawrence in 1857. Note the park at Beacon and Exeter, which was later dropped from the plan.

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The city’s cupidity in the negotiations about Back Bay was noted by contemporary observers—a newspaper commented in 1858, for example, on “the insane course of the city authorities, who displayed an ignorance and want of tact and wisdom on this subject that entitles them to perpetual remembrance” (a play on Cotting’s claim that the mills would provide “perpetual power”)— and by later authors.109 These dealings between the state and the city took place in a period when the sale of the Public Garden for building lots had often been considered by the City Council— such proposals were made in 1842, 1843, 1849, 1850, and 1853.110 An 1881 account claimed that although the city said it wanted to sell the Public Garden to raise funds, the real explanation was that many members of the City Council were mechanics “who saw a chance for good building-jobs in case the land was sold.”111 If this were actually the case, it may explain why the city was so rapacious in its demands for Back Bay land. The state did not make a settlement with the city until 112 1856. It is not entirely clear what finally prompted the city to be reasonable other than, as the legislative committee that achieved the settlement claimed in their report, a great deal of effort on that committee’s part.113 Certainly one consideration was the city’s need for more residential land, a need that in turn created pressure to arrive at an agreement so that the Back Bay project could begin. Several contemporary reports expressed this need for more residences. In 1856 the commissioners in charge of the Back Bay project wrote, “The great demand for dwelling-houses in the city of Boston renders the present a favorable time to commence the filling up and sale of those lands.”114 And in 1857 a state legislative committee reported: There is . . . a palpable lack of room for dwelling-houses in and near the city of Boston. Stores are usurping the streets formerly occupied by mansions,—rents are enormously high,—and it is becoming a serious problem where the people whose business draws them to the metropolis of New England and the capital of the State, shall be accommodated. The Commonwealth’s lands in the Back Bay are situated in precisely the most eligible location for dwelling-houses.

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The conversion of a waste of water into a magnificent system of streets and squares, with dwelling-houses for a numerous population, is a transformation dictated by the soundest statesmanship and the wisest political economy.115 Concern about providing housing for the business interests, which was also expressed in the 1850s in relation to the South Bay Lands project (see chapter 10), was a thinly veiled reference to the hidden agenda of these projects—creating attractive residential areas so that upper-middle-class Yankees, who were valued as both voters and taxpayers, would remain in the city to counteract the Irish immigrants pouring into Boston at the time.116 The eventual agreement was a tripartite one between the state, the city, and the BWP, signed on December 11, 1856.117 Most of it concerned the system of sewers that was to be constructed across Back Bay. In order to resolve the issues with the city, the state gave the city a piece of land to be added to the Public Garden so that the western boundary of the garden would be perpendicular to the Mill Dam instead of at an angle (see figure 7.17). A new street (Arlington Street) was to be laid out on this new western boundary and the state and the city were each to fill and build half of it. In addition, the city removed a restriction against building on the land west of the Public Garden that was part of the 1827 agreement with the B&RMC (see above).118 The state also negotiated several agreements in 1856 solely with the BWP. One changed the required height of fill. Instead of all land being filled as high as the Mill Dam, which was sixteen feet above mean low water, or grade sixteen, as originally required, the 1856 agreement specified that only the streets had to be filled that high and the building lots had only to be filled to five feet below the Mill Dam, or grade eleven—the level of the cellar floors of the buildings that would be erected on them.119 A second agreement, signed in December, changed the street plan. It had been intended from the first that the central east-west avenue through Back Bay—what is now Commonwealth Avenue and was then called Avenue V—would be wider than the other streets; on the 1855 plan it was 120 feet wide (see figure 7.17). In

1856, however, the state decided to increase the width of this central avenue to 200 feet, which, with the required 20-foot setback for houses on either side, made a total width of 240 feet (see figure 7.18). By creating a grand French-style boulevard, the state hoped to attract upper-middle-class residents: We believed that a substantial increase of this width would give to the plan a feature of great magnificence, not existing elsewhere in this country. We were convinced that this feature would make the territory attractive and desirable as a place of residence to an extent which, in the first place, would enhance the prices of the land and facilitate sales; and in the second place, would confer a lasting and permanent benefit upon the public by providing a broad and ornamental avenue connecting the Common and public garden in Boston with the picturesque and pleasing suburban territory.120 It was agreed that about one hundred feet in the center would be devoted to an ornamental walk, as it still is. In return for agreeing to construct this widened Avenue V across its part of Back Bay, the state gave the BWP its territory in the full basin, an area of about twelve acres on the west side of the cross dam (see figure 7.17).121 The December 1856 agreement between the state and the BWP also gave either party the right to construct a railroad on Avenue V (Commonwealth Avenue) from what is now Kenmore Square to the eastern edge of the state’s land, that is, Arlington Street, “for the purpose of bringing in earth and gravel and materials for filling the lands of said Commonwealth and said company.”122 Building a railroad to haul the fill for Back Bay had been contemplated since at least 1855, when a legislative resolve authorized the construction of a single or double track railway “to transport such materials . . . for the purpose of filling up the lands and flats,”123 an idea that may have been inspired by the South Bay Lands project, where a railroad had been employed for transporting fill since the late 1840s (see chapter 10). In any case, the use of a railroad in the Back Bay project was anticipated as early as the mid-1850s, several years before such a railroad was actually built.

The 1856 agreements with the BWP do not seem to have affected the corporation’s conduct of the project immediately, at least as reflected in BWP records of filling. Throughout 1857 the BWP continued to employ the firms of Hannon and Clear and Dalrymple and Lennon to fill the southeast and east sections of their territory. By October 1857 most of the area southeast of a stepped line on what became Dartmouth Street, Warren Avenue, Clarendon Street, Appleton Street, and Berkeley Street (see figure 7.17) had evidently been filled. The contract with Hannon and Clear for filling ended in September 1857 and that with Dalrymple and Lennon for making streets on January 1, 1858.124 Meanwhile the state had been trying to start its part of the Back Bay project. In 1856 the state advertised for proposals for filling but, because it was not authorized to spend any money, had to barter unfilled flats as payment. The committee in charge did find a “responsible party” willing to fill a large area but only if given an area of flats equal to those he filled.125 In 1857 the legislature finally authorized the commissioners to spend up to half the proceeds of sales of land to pay for the filling of Back Bay. In order to finance the initial filling, the state sold the entire block along the south side of Beacon Street between Arlington and Berkeley for $70,000, of which $17,500 was in cash, to William W. Goddard and T. Bigelow Lawrence, the owners of the two westernmost brick houses built about 1850 on the north side of the Mill Dam (see above and figures 7.15, 7.16, 7.17, and 7.18).126 Even before the deed with Goddard and Lawrence was signed on August 10, 1857,127 the commissioners had made a contract for filling on July 18 with George Odiorne, presumably the “responsible party” with whom they had been negotiating in 1856 and himself a Back Bay commissioner in 1855. The contract called for filling “with good and solid earth and clean gravel” 250,000 square feet, or 5.7 acres, along Arlington Street to a height of four feet below the level of the Mill Dam, or grade twelve (a change from the 1856 agreement with the BWP, which had required filling to five feet below the Mill Dam, or grade eleven. This ensured that basements of Back Bay houses would be above the level of high tide, which in Boston is grade 10.2.) The filling was to

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progress at the rate of 12,000 cubic yards per month unless Odiorne also contracted to fill Goddard and Lawrence’s Flats, in which case this rate was to be reduced.128 Odiorne did not carry out this contract, however. In December 1857 he assigned a similar large contract that he had made with the BWP to “N. C. Munson and George Goss of Baltimore,” and on March 24, 1858, Goss and Munson also applied to fill the state’s part of Back Bay and were assigned Odiorne’s 1857 contract for this work.129 Not much is known about George Goss and Norman C. Munson, the latter the major contractor for the Back Bay project. Munson was born at Hinesburg, Vermont, in 1820; according to an 1859 newspaper article, he and Goss had “performed many railroad contracts,” but none as large as the Back Bay project. Munson had worked primarily on railroads in New England and had been in Baltimore only a year before coming to Boston with Goss in 1858.130 Goss and Munson began work on Back Bay about the middle of May 1858.131 The appearance of Back Bay at the beginning of the project is shown in two photographs taken from the dome of the State House in the summer of 1858 and joined here as a panorama (figures 7.19 and 7.20). Behind the Common and Public Garden the right-hand photograph shows the Mill Dam extending toward what was then the Brookline shore and the lefthand photograph shows the Boston & Providence and Boston & Worcester Railroad tracks crossing in Back Bay. Both photographs show how shallow the water was in some parts of the receiving basin. A survey made for the commissioners in 1856 had found, for example, that the surface of the water between Avenue I (Berkeley Street) and the Public Garden was 20.15 feet below the Mill Dam.132 In the summer of 1858, having completed the Odiorne contract with the state and having, according to an 1858 account, “acquired the skill and courage to embark on . . . [an] enlarged undertaking,”133 Goss and Munson made new agreements with the state. In the first, they bought 260,000 square feet—about six acres—of flats in four parcels, three on Arlington Street including the site of the Arlington Street Church and one at the west corner of Beacon and Berkeley across from Goddard and Lawrence’s

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land, for which they were to pay by filling the four parcels and adjacent land. By October they had already filled 71,568 square feet—over an acre and a half.134 In the second contract Goss and Munson agreed to fill all the state’s land east of Clarendon Street.135 Goss and Munson filled these large areas with gravel brought from the suburbs by rail—a method that is often thought to have been pioneered in Back Bay but actually was first used in filling South Cove in the 1830s (see chapter 9) and was further developed in filling South Bay in the 1840s and 1850s (see chapter 10). Goss and Munson’s source of gravel was nine miles away in Needham in the area just west of the Charles River that today is on both sides of Route 128 near the Highland Avenue exit—an area bounded by Kendrick Street, Gould Street/Hunting Road, Central Avenue, and the river.136 Most of the fill material was obtained from kame terraces and eskers—long, narrow ridges of sand and gravel that had been deposited by streams flowing beneath the glaciers that had once covered the area.137 Some of this land was owned by the New York & Boston Railroad but was mortgaged; Goss and Munson agreed to pay off the mortgage and in return received the right to all the sand and gravel. They used the railroad’s tracks to haul the fill as far as Brookline and from there built a special track to Back Bay. By 1859 they had invested $150,000 in the project, including six miles of railroad track and a machine shop where all their repairs were made.138 An innovation of the Back Bay project was that steam excavators (shovels) dug the gravel in Needham. The machines were operated by Oliver Chapman, who was married to the widow of their inventor, William Otis, but the shovels had been strengthened by John Souther, whose steam shovels would later be used to cut down Fort Hill (see chapter 3).139 Fortunately for later students of the project, the operation was recorded, probably in September 1858, both by an artist from Ballou’s Pictorial (figure 7.21) and by a photographer (figure 7.22). These illustrations, as well as a lengthy description published in the Boston Daily Traveller in April 1859 and recent scholarly research, permit a reconstruction of the process.140 Two steam shovels were used to excavate fill (see

FIGURE 7.19 1858

PHOTOGRAPH OF

FIGURE 7.20 B ACK B AY

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S TATE H OUSE

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PHOTOGRAPH OF

M ILL D AM

AND

B ACK B AY

FROM THE

S TAT E H OUSE

This panorama is composed of two photographs joined at the center. They were taken from the dome of the State House—a favorite vantage point in the nineteenth century. In this photograph one can see the tracks of the Boston & Providence and Boston & Worcester crossing in Back Bay and, at the south end of the bay, the buildings along Shawmut Avenue and Washington Street.

This photograph was taken looking west along the Mill Dam, now Beacon Street, toward the hills of Brookline. In the middle distance the cross dam extends from Gravelly Point to the main dam; the two white buildings are the tide-powered flour mills. Closer to Boston are the exposed flats of Back Bay, a line of trees on what became Arlington Street, the rather barren Public Garden crossed by a few paths, and then, on the nearer side of a row of larger trees, the Common.

figures 7.21 and 7.22). They had 25 horsepower engines but, according to the Traveller, were so geared “as to greatly augment their power.”141 When a gravel train arrived at the Needham site it was switched off the main New York & Boston Railroad track, which ran east-west through the eskers, onto one of the spur tracks, which were laid out northwest-southeast parallel to the eskers.142 The train, generally thirty-five cars long, was then divided into two sections, each of which was attached to a locomotive,

which pulled it past one of the steam shovels (see figures 7.21 and 7.22). “Two shovels-full fill a car,” the Traveller reported, “the operation being very much like that of a dredging machine. As a shovel is elevated from the pit, it is turned toward the car, and when directly over it the bottom is opened, and thus the gravel is deposited [see figures 7.21 and 7.22]. The time occupied in loading an entire train of thirty-five cars is about ten minutes. The excavators do the work of two hundred men.”143

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FIGURE 7.21 1858

ENGRAVING OF LOADING GRAVEL IN

N EEDHAM

This engraving, which was published in Ballou’s Pictorial in October 1858, shows a gravel train being loaded in Needham by one of Souther’s “steam excavators” (shovels). The presence of ladies suggests the drawing was made on a day of VIP or public visit to the site.

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FIGURE 7.22 1858

PHOTOGRAPH OF STEAM SHOVEL

LOADING GRAVEL TRAIN IN

N EEDHAM

This photograph, which may have been taken the same day that the drawing in figure 7.21 was made, shows a gravel train being pulled past a steam shovel, which swiveled from the gravel esker to the train, filling each car with just two shovelfuls.

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The loaded train then departed for Back Bay. The route of the New York & Boston Railroad followed the present Penn Central freight tracks that are parallel to Needham Street in Newton and then the tracks of the Riverside branch of the MBTA Green Line from Newton Highlands to Brookline Village. From there Goss and Munson had built a special track that ran parallel to the Brookline Branch Railroad (now the section of the MBTA Riverside branch between Brookline Village and Kenmore) and then parallel to the Boston & Worcester Railroad (now the commuter rail next to the Massachusetts Turnpike) until it reached the location of the present Back Bay station. Goss and Munson’s track then swung northeast to the fill area.144 At the fill site, a ca. 1860 photograph indicates that the train was switched onto one of three parallel spurs placed two to three hundred feet apart (figure 7.23). Ten cars were emptied at a time, dumping fill in mounds on both sides of the spur from where it was then moved and leveled by horse-drawn scoops, scrapers, and carts. As the filling progressed the tracks were moved westward to new areas.145 The Traveller article was explicit about the speed at which the filling was accomplished: One hundred and forty-five dirt cars with eighty men, including engineers, brakemen and all, are employed night and day in loading and transporting the gravel over the road. The trains . . . make, in the daytime, sixteen trips, and in the night time, nine or ten, or twenty-five in twenty-four hours. Three trains are continually on the road during the day, and one arrives at the Back Bay every forty-five minutes. . . . It is believed that the excavation and filling in are going on at a more rapid rate than has ever been known in the history of any similar contract in the country. The contractors make, in the Back Bay, on an average, about twenty-five hundred cubic yards [solid measurement] or forty-five hundred superficial [square] feet [surface measurement] per day. This is equal to nearly two house lots. About fourteen acres of land have been made already.146

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FIGURE 7.23 C A . 1860

PHOTOGRAPH OF GRAVEL TRAIN IN

B ACK B AY

This photograph shows a gravel train about to dump its load in Back Bay. The tower was probably a shears—a hoisting apparatus. In the foreground is the Public Garden bordered by the trees along Arlington Street.

At the same time that the filling operation was adding to Boston it was detracting from Needham. As early as 1859 the Traveller commented: “During the year the contractors have been at work, there have been taken out of the hills of Needham about three hundred thousand yards of gravel. Some of the sand-hills which have been levelled [sic] were fifty feet high, and the plain which has been made by the machines in excavating is about twelve acres in extent.”147 The effect of excavating the eskers was visible for years. In 1912 an antiquarian historian of Needham commented, “Hundred of acres were transformed into a desert by the removal of this soil, to a depth of many feet, and for 25 years the land was practically of no value.”148 Today, however, most of the area is landscaped office parks and not nearly as bleak.

Goss and Munson were the contractors not only for the state but also, as mentioned above, for the BWP. In October 1857, when the BWP’s contracts with Hannon and Clear and Dalrymple and Lennon were ending, the BWP had also made a contract with George Odiorne, this one to fill almost one hundred acres of its territory south of the Providence Railroad tracks and G Street as well as another area bounded by Avenue IV (Exeter Street), the line of Providence Street, Avenue I (Berkeley Street), and D (Stuart) Street (see figure 7.17). The contract had specified that the fill “shall be clean earth or gravel. Ashes, street sweepings or house dirt shall not be used” and that Odiorne could lay out railroad tracks for transporting fill.149 Odiorne had never done any of this filling, however, because, as mentioned above, on December 1, 1857, he had assigned the contract to Goss and Munson.150 Goss and Munson apparently never did any filling under the BWP’s contract with Odiorne either, for BWP records do not show any increase in the amount of made land from 1857 to 1859.151 In 1859, however, the BWP made two new contracts with Goss and Munson. The first called for filling essentially the same one hundred acres as had the 1857 contract with Odiorne and to complete it in eight years.152 The second contract was for filling the area between Arlington and Berkeley Streets from Boylston to F Street (see figure 7.17).153 While the state and BWP were arranging to have most of their land filled by Goss and Munson, the state and the city were again having a disagreement about the Back Bay project. In June 1858 the city decided to fill the strip of flats next to the Public Garden that it had acquired as part of the 1856 tripartite agreement (see above) with “clean ashes and dirt.”154 In September, however, the state urged the city to fill its half of Arlington Street by hiring Goss and Munson because they would be “less expensive, more expeditious and [without] the present objection to the character of the material used as filling by the City.”155 But after getting a bid from Goss and Munson, the city dismissed it as “inexpedient” because it was more than twice the cost of city ashes, and arranged to have most of the ashes it collected dumped into the strip next to the Public Garden. 156

The use of household ashes to fill the city’s part of Back Bay is undoubtedly the explanation of the famous engraving by Winslow Homer that appeared in Ballou’s Pictorial in May 1859 (figure 7.24), an illustration that otherwise would be difficult to understand if the fill were clean gravel. The magazine said he made the drawing in one of “those places where rubbish is used in filling in,”157 and it appears he drew it from the Public Garden looking up at Arlington Street. (This Homer engraving of Back Bay scavengers was certainly the basis for one of the important incidents in the novel Back Bay—some scavengers shooting Abigail Pratt Bentley’s coachman, her former lover, when he was trying to help her recover the Revere tea set. But the incident could not have taken place where described. Not only was the Easterly Channel, where the tea

FIGURE 7.24 1859

ENGRAVING BY

W INSLOW H OMER

OF SCAVENGERS IN

B ACK B AY

This famous Homer engraving was published in Ballou’s Pictorial in May 1859 and undoubtedly shows the strip between the Public Garden and Arlington Street, which was being filled at that time and was the only part of Back Bay filled with household ashes and trash rather than with “clean gravel.” The view is from the Public Garden looking up at Arlington Street on which there is a horse-drawn tip cart. The smoke stack of a gravel train in Back Bay can be seen in front of the horse. The buildings at the right are on Western Avenue (the Mill Dam, now Beacon Street), which, lined with trees, recedes into the distance.

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set purportedly lay, not under the place where the incident is supposed to have occurred—in front of present New Old South Church at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets [see figures 7.1 and 7.14]—but also that part of Back Bay was not filled with trash so would not have attracted scavengers.158) The major dispute between the state and the city in 1859, however, was not about the city’s use of ashes as fill but rather about the city’s projected use of the strip next to the Public Garden. In his inaugural address in January 1859, Mayor Lincoln claimed the city had the right to erect buildings on this strip.159 The state reacted to his proposal with alarm, believing that the city might erect buildings of an “inferior character” that would lower the value of the state’s land.160 The legislature responded by passing an act that stipulated no buildings were to be erected between Arlington and Charles Streets except for horticultural purposes or a city hall; in other words, it ensured that the Public Garden would remain forever open. The act also changed the boundary between Boston and Roxbury from a line between Arlington and Berkeley Streets (see figure 7.17) to a line between later Gloucester and Hereford Streets (see figure 7.25) so that henceforth most of Back Bay would be in Boston rather than in Roxbury. For years the Commissioners on the Back Bay had recommended annexing the entire area to one city or the other, preferably Boston,161 but Roxbury had resisted the state’s claims, the case had gone to the state Supreme Judicial Court, and had only been decided in favor of the state in July 1858.162 The act had to be approved by voters of Boston and, when the vote was held on April 25, 1859, it was overwhelmingly accepted 6,287 to 99.163 Thus the Public Garden was freed from the threat of development and most of Back Bay became part of Boston rather than Roxbury (the boundary became a moot issue when Boston annexed Roxbury in 1868). While the state was resolving the final disputes with the city, the state continued filling its part of Back Bay—in fact, more fill was deposited in 1859 than would be in any other year of the entire project.164 The annual report of the Back Bay commissioners in October 1859 predicted that within a few days all the land

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bounded by Arlington, Beacon, Berkeley, and Boylston Streets— almost one million square feet, or about twenty-three acres— would be filled. The commissioners were apologetic that the “loose character of the material necessarily used in filling and the exposed condition of the territory” sometime resulted in clouds of dust but felt that dust was preferable to the “pestilential exhalations” that had previously wafted from Back Bay.165 And the new land was selling. In 1859, 61,755 square feet was sold at prices ranging from $3.00 per square foot at the corner of Commonwealth and Arlington to $1.50 per square foot on Newbury and Marlborough Streets166—more than the $1.166 per square foot paid by Goss and Munson (see n. 134) and far more than the average of $.3735 per square foot received by the BWP for the sale of its land in 1855 (see above). The state’s part of the Back Bay project thus seemed off to an auspicious start. The BWP was also continuing to fill its flats. In April 1860 the BWP signed a new contract for filling to replace the one made with Goss and Munson in 1859 (see above). The 1860 contract was with Munson alone, Goss having left the partnership and assigned his interest to Munson. The contract called for filling the same area as had the 1859 and 1857 contracts, that is, about one hundred acres south of the Providence Railroad tracks and G Street as well as the blocks bounded by Berkeley, Providence, Exeter, and Stuart Streets (see figure 7.17). There were some changes, however. The eight-year completion date was dropped and instead the filling was to proceed at the rate of at least five hundred thousand square feet a year, about 11.5 acres, or at least ten thousand car loads per month. The method of payment was also changed: instead of receiving two-fifths of all land filled, as in 1859, Munson was to be paid $.325 for each cubic yard filled with “clean earth, sand, or gravel” until five hundred thousand square feet had been filled. Then the BWP could decide whether to make subsequent payments in cash or land. If the former, the rate was to increase to $.35 per cubic yard but the additional $.025 was to be kept in a reserved fund. If the latter, Munson had to return all cash payments with interest and the BWP could withhold two-fifths of the land until the whole job was completed.167

The amount of land filled by 1861 is shown in a reconstructed map for that year and also plotted on a 1992 bird’s-eye view (figures 7.25 and 7.26). The extent of Back Bay filled by 1861 covers part of what is probably Boston’s most famous archaeological site—the Boylston Street Fishweir. The fishweir—a network of vertical stakes with horizontal branches laid against or woven through them—has usually been conceived as one large structure. Recent research, however, suggests that it is several different weirs constructed over the period from 5,300 to 3,700 years ago when the sea level was lower than it is now. The fishweirs were built by Native Americans living in the area at the time presumably to trap fish and may underlie much of present Back Bay.168 A fishweir was first discovered in 1913 during the construction of the subway under Boylston Street—hence its name—and weirs have since been uncovered and investigated archaeologically at several sites between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets: in 1939 during construction of the New England Mutual Life Building; in 1946 during construction of the first John Hancock Building; in 1957 during construction of the former IBM Building at Clarendon and Boylston Streets, now the site of 500 Boylston; and in 1986–1988 during construction of the 500 Boylston Street and 222 Berkeley Street buildings (see figure 7.26).169 Filling Back Bay in the nineteenth century did not harm the fishweirs—in fact, the eighteen feet of fill dumped on top of the sixteen feet of silt that already covered the weirs170 actually protects those archeological sites from disturbance except by modern construction projects that excavate deeper than thirty-four feet. In the early 1860s several proposals and changes of plans affected the course of the Back Bay project. The idea of having an open body of water in Back Bay, which had first been introduced in 1849 by David Sears (see above), was revived in 1858 by lawyer George H. Snelling. Using old arguments about the beneficial effects of salubrious breezes (see chapter 4), Snelling urged the creation of a basin like the Inner Alster in Hamburg, Germany, an idea that was eventually realized in the early twentieth century when the Charles River Basin was formed (see chapters 5 and 6).171 In 1861 the state legislature directed the Back Bay commis-

sioners, who joined the Commissioners on Public Lands in April of that year, to negotiate with the BWP and the private owners of flats between the state’s territory and the cross dam about creating an open basin in Back Bay, but the latter two parties would not contribute to its expense and the idea was dropped.172 Meanwhile, in 1860 the city had become concerned about how city streets were going to mesh with those in Back Bay, which were to be filled to a different grade—grade eighteen in Back Bay as of an agreement in May 1859 compared with grade sixteen of Tremont Street—and on a different plan from those of the South End (see figure 7.17).173 The eventual solution was to extend two new diagonals through the BWP’s territory in Back Bay parallel to and on either side of the Boston & Providence tracks—Columbus Avenue on the south starting at Park Square and extending to the South End and Huntington Avenue on the north beginning at the intersection of Boylston and Clarendon Streets and continuing into Roxbury. All the streets northwest of Tremont from Camden to Pembroke were then to be extended to Columbus Avenue (see figure 7.1). (It had already been agreed that Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, and what became Dartmouth Streets would cross the tracks on bridges, so the blocks between these streets on BWP land had been laid out on essentially the same grid as the state’s land. But west of Dartmouth Street the tracks cut off direct communication between what are now Back Bay and the South End; see figure 7.1). The plan for Columbus and Huntington Avenues as well as a new agreement about the sewers through Back Bay was confirmed in a second tripartite indenture between the state, city, and BWP signed December 31, 1864.174 The new agreement also required the BWP to contribute the block where the Copley Plaza Hotel is now located as the site for an Institute of Fine Arts. This donation by the BWP was similar to one made by the state in 1861 setting aside the block bounded by Berkeley, Boylston, Clarendon, and Newbury Streets for the buildings of the newly incorporated Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Boston Society of Natural History.175 (The MIT building, built in 1864 facing Boylston Street in the center of the block, was demolished in 1939 to make way for the New

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FIGURE 7.25 R ECONSTRUCTED

MAP OF

B ACK B AY

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1861

By 1861 the state had filled its flats from Arlington Street to an irregular line west of Clarendon Street, and the BWP’s “New Filled Land” extended from Boylston to about Stuart Street between Arlington and Clarendon and to about Berkeley south of what is now Columbus Avenue (see figures 7.17 and 7.26). In addition the BWP had filled a tongue of land extending south from the Boston & Worcester tracks on approximately the line of Dartmouth Street presumably so that a spur track for gravel trains could be laid on it.

England Mutual Life Building, the place where part of the Boylston Street Fishweir was found during construction. The Museum of Natural History building, built in 1862 and for many years occupied by Bonwit Teller and now by Louis of Boston, still stands facing Berkeley Street [see figure 7.26]). While these various plans were being negotiated, filling of Back Bay continued. BWP records indicate that, in addition to the large-scale filling done by Munson during the 1860s, smaller-scale contractors were also employed to fill by more traditional methods. Most of this filling was near Warren Avenue next to sections already filled (see figures 7.25 and 7.26),176 probably because these

MILL DAM WHARF DANFORTH’S STORE

BOSTON-

ROXBURY LINE

SLUICE GATES

. DARTMOU T H ST

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FIGURE 7.26 A REA

OF

B ACK B AY FILLED BY 1861 1992 BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW

INDICATED ON

The amount of Back Bay filled by 1861 has been marked on this modern bird’seye view (see figure 7.25).

LOUIS OF BOSTON ENG NEW BLDG 222 LIFE BERKELEY

ON

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500 BOYLSTON ART

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shallow areas could be filled easily with dirt brought by horsedrawn tip carts in contrast to areas of deeper water, which were filled with car loads of gravel dumped from Munson’s trains. Not all the BWP’s filling met with success. John L. Gardner, a merchant and future father-in-law of art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, had helped the company in 1855 after the disappointing sale of BWP land (see above) by buying a large of amount of additional land, but later complained that the BWP had not constructed streets or filled lots as required.177 In 1861, therefore, the BWP finally agreed to fill to grade ten his “wet lots” on Warren Avenue between Berkeley and Dartmouth and on Montgomery Street between Clarendon and Dartmouth (see figures 7.25 and 7.26).178 And in 1863 Nathan Matthews, the president of the BWP, received the following tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless heartfelt letter from residents on Appleton and Clarendon Streets: Boston May 19, 1863 Dear Sir: In view of the approaching warm weather and the season in which mosquitoes “et hoc genus omne” most do congregate, we the residents and owners of buildings in Appleton and Clarendon Streets do respectfully but most earnestly call your attention to the condition of the lands (now unoccupied except by frogs, pollywogs and other insects) fronting on Appleton Street. Possibly in the multiplicity of your duties it may not have occurred to you that the droves of mosquitoes which are generated in the stagnant water now covering this land constitute a nuisance, which is scarcely less tolerable to the residents of houses in that vicinity than were the plagues of Egypt to that much abused King Pharaoh but . . . in this case, unlike that of old, the afflicted are not guilty of any known wrong but the pestilence is visited upon them on account of the shortcomings of others. We view with alarm the already immense flocks of these nefarious insects about to fatten upon our wives and innocent

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babes—mercy is not one of their attributes—innocent childhood is bathed in blood—defenseless woman is made to feel the fangs of the tormentor—and our nights and much needed rest is utterly destroyed by this fearful visitation. Are we then to submit patiently and endure these evils simply because the Boston Water Power Co. fail to perform their duty? Must our maidens and handmaidens and wives and children be tortured and bled, perhaps carried off or eaten up without any redress? We think not! We believe not! We are assured that it cannot be! that common humanity will cry out against it, and we do most earnestly urge upon you to see to it at once, immediately and without delay, that this stagnant water is removed and these evils averted. . . . Very Res’py Yours (31 signatures)179 It is not clear what action, if any, the BWP took in response. In May 1863 the BWP made a contract with Munson to fill the northern part of its land, that is, the area bounded by Beacon Street, the cross dam, Commonwealth Avenue, and the line between Exeter and Fairfield Streets that divided the BWP and state lands (see figures 7.17 and 7.18). As in earlier contracts with Munson, the fill was to be “clean earth or gravel or sand” and the house lots were to be filled to grade twelve and the streets to grade eighteen. Half the filling was to be completed by October 1, 1864, and the rest by October 1, 1865, and Munson was to be paid $.40 per cubic yard, an increase over the $.325 per cubic yard of the 1860 contract. Actually, all Munson’s rates were changing. In January 1864 he notified the BWP that because of rising prices for railroad equipment and for labor, presumably due to the Civil War, he had to raise his price for filling and noted that he had already stopped running one-third of his trains in order to reduce costs,180 belying the notion that the gravel trains ran day and night for forty years. (The trains reportedly only operated on an aroundthe-clock schedule until 1863).181

By 1866 the BWP had filled 1,333,484 square feet (30.6 and the corporation then offered lots for sale on Dartmouth Place, Appleton and Chandler Streets, and on both sides of Columbus Avenue about as far as present Massachusetts Avenue.183 And by 1869 the BWP was ready to deed the streets in those areas to the city, although some still needed additional filling and grading.184 While the BWP was filling its section of Back Bay in the 1860s, the state was also proceeding with its part of the project. In 1861 the state made a new contract with Munson to fill the rest of its territory. As in the 1858 contract, Munson would be paid $.40 per cubic yard for filling up to grade twelve, $.42 per cubic yard above that, and $.01 per square foot for leveling and grading,185 considerably more than the $.325 per cubic yard he was receiving from the BWP under his 1860 contract with them, although the reason for this difference is not clear. In 1863, however, Munson increased his rates for the state, as he would with the BWP in 1864, because of “the enormous advance in prices” especially of labor, again presumably because of the Civil War. In the state’s case the rate went from $.40 to $.46 per cubic yard for filling up to grade twelve and $.42 to $.50 per cubic yard for filling above that level.186 Filling of the state’s flats progressed from east to west and by 1865 most were filled. In recognition of that fact as well as that by then there were over 1,100,000 square feet of land filled and unsold for which the demand was limited, the commissioners reported in 1865 that they “have not deemed it expedient to prosecute the work during the present year with the same energy which marked the progress of the work in previous years,”187 confirming the reduction in speed of filling noted above. The state’s filling of the flats south of the Mill Dam during the 1860s was matched by the B&RMC’s filling of its flats north of it. As explained above, the 1854 indenture with the state required the B&RMC to extend the seawall it had started building two hundred feet north of the Mill Dam all the way across both the receiving and full basins to Brookline and to fill the intervening flats (see figure 7.14). In the late 1850s and early 1860s the acres)182

B&RMC made a number of contracts to do this filling as far as the cross dam, and these contracts indicate both the progress and the method of the landmaking. In December 1859, for example, the B&RMC signed an agreement with Timothy Corcoran and John Lynch from East Boston to fill 250 feet of flats with mud topped by at least four feet of “clean gravel or earth” starting 682 feet west of Berkeley Street and then extending west between the Mill Dam and the existing

FIGURE 7.27 2002

PHOTOGRAPH OF SEAWALL ON NORTH SIDE OF

B ACK S TREET

This recent photograph shows the seawall built by the B&RMC along the river in the 1860s. After the seawall was constructed, the area between it and the Mill Dam (Beacon Street) was filled and Back Street, where the cars are parked, was laid out on the new land next to and at about the same level as the wall (see also figures 5.19 and 5.20). The wall is visible today from Storrow Drive, which is on land created in the first decade of the twentieth century (see below).

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seawall—presumably to fill the curved area shown on 1850s maps (see figures 7.14, 7.15, and 7.17). Corcoran and Lynch were also to build another 250 feet of seawall according to specifications typical for seawalls of that era—the wall was to be constructed of dry-laid granite blocks set on a foundation of wood pilings, which had replaced the timber platforms of earlier in the century, to have a battered cross section (wider at the bottom than top) with the outer face finished and the inner one supported by ballast stones, and to be capped, in this case with granite header stones.188 This seawall is now the one on the north side of Back Street that is visible next to Storrow Drive (figure 7.27). Corcoran and Lynch apparently completed their contract by July 1, 1860, as required, for in June 1860 the B&RMC contracted with Lewis Broad of Natick and Robert Rhoades of Neponset to fill the next 500 feet, beginning 304 feet west of Clarendon Street, and to build an additional 450 feet of seawall (see figure 7.25), a contract that led to difficulties when Broad sold out to Rhoades and the latter demanded more time to complete the work. Rhoades apparently obtained some of his fill from Brookline uplands, since in December 1860 he was reported to be “digging away at the old Revolutionary fort at Sewall’s Point.”189 The delays on the Rhoades contract were presumably the reason the B&RMC did not start the next section until 1862. In July of that year they made an agreement with Dalrymple and Lennon, contractors who had filled some of the BWP territory (see above), to fill the last two hundred feet remaining east of the sluice gates (see figure 7.25) and to build another two hundred feet of seawall. This time the top layer of gravel fill had to be only three feet thick except next to the seawall, where a strip thirty-two feet wide was to be filled entirely with gravel, presumably to help support the wall.190 After making an agreement with the state at the end of 1862 that permitted the construction of the seawall across the sluice gates, the B&RMC was ready in early 1863 to contract for the final section—about 1,750 feet from the east end of the Mill Dam Wharf, located just west of the sluice gates, to Danforth’s store on

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the cross dam (see figure 7.25). This time the B&RMC made different contracts for driving the piles, building various sections of the wall, and doing the filling, some with firms that had worked on other landmaking projects in the city. The contracts for driving piles, for example, were awarded to Boynton Brothers of Providence, who had built the seawall for North Charles Street in the West End (see chapter 5), and to Ross and Lord of Ipswich, who had rebuilt one of Evans’s collapsed wharves in South Bay (see chapter 10). And, perhaps not surprisingly, the entire contract for filling was awarded to Norman Munson, who was then also filling the state’s and BWP’s flats in Back Bay (see above), with the result that this last section of B&RMC flats was filled entirely with gravel rather than with mud topped with gravel.191 A number of historical photographs and views illustrate the filling done in Back Bay in the 1860s. A photograph taken sometime between 1863 and 1869 shows the land created by the B&RMC north of the Mill Dam, now Beacon Street, which runs between the two rows of brick buildings in the middle distance (figure 7.28). A photograph taken about 1866 from the cupola of the State House shows this made land on the north side of the Mill Dam from the opposite direction as well as the rest of the land created in Back Bay by that date (figure 7.29) and makes an interesting comparison with the 1858 photo of the same view (see figure 7.20). A ca. 1869 photograph (figure 7.30) is a continuation to the left of the ca. 1866 photograph (see figure 7.29) and shows that by 1869 new buildings in Back Bay extended almost to Clarendon Street. It is also an interesting contrast with the 1858 photo of approximately the same view (see figure 7.19). Other views of some of the same subjects from a different perspective are shown in 1866 and 1870 bird’s-eye views (figures 7.31 and 7.32). Financing for the state’s part of the Back Bay project came from half the proceeds of sales of land, as mentioned earlier, and it was the success of these sales that ensured the success of the project. In 1860 the state required that all Back Bay land be sold at public auctions,192 probably on the assumption that this method would obtain the highest price, and, although in some years, particularly from 1864 through 1868, not as much land was sold as

FIGURE 7.28 1863–1869 PHOTOGRAPH THE M ILL D AM

OF

B&RMC

SEAWALL AND NEW L AND NORTH OF

This photograph was taken sometime between 1863, when the building now on the northeast corner of Beacon and Dartmouth Streets—visible in the middle distance on the left—was built, and 1869, when the building this side of it on the northwest corner—not in the photograph—was constructed. The people at the left are on the seawall built by the B&RMC; in the foreground is the newly made land behind the seawall, which, at the time the photograph was taken, extended far west of Dartmouth Street (see figures 7.25 and 7.33). At the right are the old frame buildings that were present in the early 1850s on the south side of the Mill Dam near the cross dam (see figures 7.14 and 7.17); the washing hanging on the line suggests they were still inhabited when the photograph was taken.

in others, the amount received from sales each year almost always exceeded that spent on filling.193 By 1869 the state had sold $2.8 million worth of land and paid a total of $1.5 million for filling— a profit of almost one hundred percent.194 From the beginning it had been recognized that the state’s part of the project was in the most desirable part of Back Bay, and the state’s land continued to command a higher price than BWP land—in 1863, for example, it sold from $1.90 to $2.90 per square foot in comparison with BWP land which, between 1863 and 1866, was only valued at $.70 to $1.00 per square foot.195 Perhaps one reason for this disparity in prices was that when fill was placed on areas where sewage had been draining, as was the case with many of the BWP flats, the result, in the words of an 1865 report, was that “the weight of the gravel displaces in advance the mud which has been for years saturating with the drainage from the South End, and throws it above the water in a huge mass, to swelter in the sun and disseminate its filthy exhalation in whatever direction the winds may carry it.”196 The state’s land, most of

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FIGURE 7.29 C A . 1866 PHOTOGRAPH OF M ILL D AM B ACK B AY FROM THE S TATE H OUSE

AND

This photograph was taken from the dome of the State House of the same view as one of the 1858 photographs (see figure 7.20). By the mid1860s buildings were being erected on Back Bay fill in the block between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets. And the seawall and filling north of the Mill Dam extended beyond Dartmouth Street (see figure 7.28). Although this photograph has sometimes been dated as late as ca. 1875, it is more accurately dated ca. 1866 by the absence of what is now known as First Church on the corner of Berkeley and Marlborough Streets, which was constructed in 1867–1868.

FIGURE 7.30 C A . 1869 PHOTO GRAPH S TATE H OUSE

OF

B ACK B AY

FROM THE

This photograph was taken from the same vantage point and of about the same view as the 1858 photograph in figure 7.19. By the late 1860s Back Bay had been built up to about Clarendon Street. One can identify, moving from right to left, the steeple of present First Church at the corner of Berkeley and Marlborough Streets, completed in 1868, the expanse of Commonwealth Avenue, the steeple of the Church of the Covenant (1866) at the corner of Berkeley and Newbury Streets, the MIT building (1864) behind the Museum of Natural History (1862), and the Arlington Street Church (1860) at the corner of Arlington and Boylston. The photograph can be dated by the presence of the huge Peace Jubilee Coliseum, built in 1869 in what is now Copley Square.

FIGURE 7.31 B ACK B AY B OSTON

FROM

1866

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

This view shows the buildings constructed on the new land between Arlington and Clarendon Streets from the opposite direction as the photographs in figures 7.29 and 7.30. In the block between Berkeley and Clarendon one can see the Museum of Natural History, now Louis of Boston, and the first MIT building, the latter now replaced by the New England Mutual Life Insurance building. Bridges on Berkeley Street span both the Boston & Providence and Boston & Worcester tracks, Columbus Avenue has been laid out south of the Providence tracks, and between this avenue and the tracks preparations are being made to erect new buildings. FIGURE 7.32 B ACK B AY B OSTON

FROM

1870

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

This view, drawn from about the same vantage point as the 1866 bird’s-eye view in figure 7.31, shows many of the same identifiable buildings as the ca. 1869 photograph (see figure 7.30)—First Church, Church of the Covenant, MIT building, Museum of Natural History, Arlington Street Church— from the opposite direction. In the foreground piles are being driven as the foundations of new buildings.

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which was far from areas where sewage had drained, was not as subject to this problem. Another reason for the success of the state’s part of the Back Bay project was the conscious effort to develop the made land as an upper-middle-class residential area. The state commissioners not only decided early on to devote a great deal of potentially saleable land to a mall on Commonwealth Avenue (see above) but also prohibited lots from being used for “mechanical or manufacturing purposes” (“mercantile” use was also prohibited on Commonwealth Avenue) and originally banned horse railroads on Beacon, Marlborough, and Newbury Streets.197 After 1863 deeds to the land included use and other restrictions—buildings had to be at least three stories high, set back from the street a prescribed distance, without frontal projections of more than five feet (not a prejudice against bow fronts, such as those on South End houses, but in order to preserve a uniform setback), and with a service alley at the rear. Stables were originally prohibited, but eventually were countenanced if for private use. Enforcing these provisions was the responsibility of the Back Bay, later public lands, and then land commissioners. But after 1879, when the land and harbor commissioners were combined into one board, the harbor commissioners, ironically, had to devote considerable attention to Back Bay houses as well as to the harbor.198 The commissioners also tried to sell lots to what they deemed the “right sort.” They told a legislative committee investigating sales of lots sold privately in 1860 before auctions were mandated that the sale of two lots on the north side of Commonwealth Avenue in May 1860 for $1.75 per square foot instead of for the going price of $2.00 per square foot was justified because such sales were on “condition that responsible and eligible parties would build houses for their own occupation and so induce others to follow their example: the result justifies the expectation and now some of the finest residences in the city are being erected on the territory.”199 (It is ironic that these lots, which the commissioners thought were sold at too low a price, became the site of two houses built in 1861 and converted in 1998 into four condominiums that then sold for three million dollars per unit.200)

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A reconstructed map of Back Bay in 1871 indicates the amount of filling completed by that date (figure 7.33). Most of the state’s part of the project, which was bounded on the west by a line between Exeter and Fairfield Streets and on the south by Providence Street (see figure 7.18), was finished. During the first years of the decade the state did not attempt to fill the small remaining area because the adjoining BWP flats were not yet filled and Munson did not start on them until 1872.201 In 1874, however, the commissioners reported that the state’s filling was “nearly completed” and in 1876 that it was finally all finished.202 This completion of filling in 1876 marked the end of the state’s part of landmaking in Back Bay. Land sales continued until 1886, however, and the state’s land continued to be very profitable. Even with the suspension of sales from March 1872 until May 1879 because of a financial depression, by 1886 the state had received over $5 million for its made land in contrast to $1.6 million expended for filling it, giving the state a profit of almost 400 percent on the Back Bay project.203 The B&RMC also completed its filling in the eastern part of Back Bay in the early 1870s. In May 1872 the corporation signed an agreement with one William Woolley of East Boston to fill the flats from Gloucester Street to the cross dam in the space between the Mill Dam and the seawall (see figure 7.33) with mud or gravel brought to the site in scows that had been filled by Woolley’s “dredging machine.” This machine was apparently an early version of the steam dredges that would later be used in the Fens and along Bay State Road (see chapter 8) and on the South Boston Flats (see chapter 11). Dredged material was comparable in price to gravel brought by Munson’s trains. Woolley was to be paid the equivalent of $.50 per cubic yard—about the same as the $.49 per cubic yard Munson received under his 1863 contract with the B&RMC (see above)—and was to complete his contract in forty days, which he apparently did.204 During the final decades of the project, however, almost all the filling in Back Bay east of what is now Massachusetts Avenue was conducted by the BWP (see figure 7.33). In the 1870s the BWP, which had never been on a very sound financial footing, had severe

financial problems occasioned, at least in part, by the fact that Nathan Matthews, the president of the BWP from 1860 to 1869, had acquired large amounts of BWP land at lower than market prices.205 It may have been to offset these losses that in the 1870s the BWP, while continuing to sell individual lots of filled land, also sold large tracts of unfilled flats and agreed to fill them for the buyer. One such agreement was made in December 1871 when almost forty acres bounded by the Boston & Providence Railroad (now Southwest Corridor Park), Camden Street, the line of Huntington Avenue, and the Boston & Albany (formerly Boston & Worcester) Railroad (now the Massachusetts Turnpike) were sold to the trustees of what became known as the Huntington Avenue Lands (see figure 7.33).206 As part of the deed, the BWP agreed to fill the land to grade twelve and the streets to grade eighteen by July 1872.207 The

BWP made a similar agreement in March 1872 when it sold the flats between Boylston and Newbury Streets west of Exeter Street (see figure 7.33) to the trustees of what was later known as the Boylston Street Lands and agreed to fill them by March 1874.208 FIGURE 7.33 R ECONSTRUCTED

MAP OF

B ACK B AY

IN

1871

This map shows that by 1871 most of the state’s flats in Back Bay had been filled but there were still large areas of unfilled BWP flats north of the Boston & Albany tracks (formerly the Boston & Worcester, now the Mass Pike) and between these tracks and those of the Boston & Providence (now Southwest Corridor Park in the South End). The map also shows the two diagonal streets that had been laid out in the 1860s on either side of the Providence tracks— Columbus Avenue had been filled and completed but much of Huntington Avenue was still unfilled.

PROVIDENCE ST.

N&

STO

BO

P

ER

NC

IDE

V RO

R.

ES CH W. PK.

EN

MD

T ER

CA ST.

Meanwhile, in 1871 the city had contracted with Munson to fill three thoroughfares to grade eighteen: Commonwealth Avenue from Exeter Street to the proposed West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue), the length of Huntington Avenue from Boylston to Camden (now Gainsborough) Street, and West Chester Park (Massachusetts Avenue) from the Providence Railroad to Beacon Street (see figures 7.33 and 8.12). Munson was to complete the work in two years and to receive three hundred thousand dollars. In 1872, however, he assigned the receipts from the city contract to the BWP because he evidently owed the corporation money, and the BWP then became responsible for this filling.209 With such large commitments, it is not surprising that the BWP encountered difficulties. Despite the fact that Munson was again hauling about as much gravel as he had for the state in 1859, this time from sources other than Needham using both the Boston & Providence and Boston & Albany Railroads,210 the BWP did not complete any of the three contracts—with the city, with the trustees of the Huntington Avenue Lands, or with the trustees of the Boylston Street Lands—on time. The BWP claimed that part of the problem was their dispute with Matthews who, contrary to his agreement with the corporation, had not paid the amounts due on the land the BWP had mortgaged in order to finance the filling.211 The city streets were finally completed in 1875, however, as were the Huntington Avenue Lands.212 The latter area, which was ready for sale in 1879, became known as the St. Botolph District after the street that was laid out between Huntington Avenue and the Providence Railroad (see figure 8.12). Meanwhile, in 1874 the BWP had made a contract with Munson to fill the Boylston Street Lands213 and in subsequent years Munson worked on filling this area as well as the one just south of the Boston & Albany tracks (see figure 8.12).214 A reconstructed map of Back Bay in 1882 suggests that the BWP had entirely finished filling its territory by that date (see figure 8.12). Actually, as late as 1883 the BWP was still making contracts for filling the area south of the Boston & Albany tracks between West Chester Park (Massachusetts Avenue) and Dalton

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Street215 and did not finish filling east of Massachusetts Avenue until later in the decade. A photograph of Back Bay taken in the 1880s (figure 7.34) shows the extent of development by that time and makes an interesting comparison with earlier photographs of the same view (see figures 7.19, 7.20, 7.29, and 7.30). The final photograph in this series was taken in 1898 after the Harvard Bridge had been completed in 1891 across the Charles River Basin connecting West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) in Boston with what is now Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge (figure 7.35). By this time the BWP had finished filling the area between Massachusetts Avenue and Dalton Street, thus completing, a little more than thirty years after the state-directed project had begun, the filling of the eastern part of Back Bay, creating the areas now known as Back Bay, the Prudential Center, St. Botolph District, and a large part of the South End. In the twentieth century the land made by the Back Bay project has been subject to the same problem as the made land on the Beacon Hill Flat—dropping groundwater levels and rotting wood foundation piles (see chapter 6). As explained in chapter 6, many of the buildings constructed in the nineteenth century on made land in Boston are supported by wood pilings driven through the fill. These pilings are preserved so long as they are always submerged in groundwater, for water protects the cellulose in wood cells from the fungi and bacteria that cause wood to rot if exposed to air.216 Because the groundwater level in Back Bay was about elevation eight after it was filled, the tops of foundation piles were typically cut off at about elevation (grade) five, which was presumably low enough to ensure that they would always remain submerged.217 In the twentieth century, however, groundwater levels in some areas of Back Bay began dropping. The water table can be lowered by leaks into sewers and drains, subway and train tunnels, highway underpasses, or basements; by pumping from sumps; or by temporarily dewatering construction sites.218 The significant effect of the dropping water table became apparent in 1929 when observers noticed serious cracks in the Boston Public Library and that its stone entrance platform on Dartmouth Street had settled.

FIGURE 7.34 1880 S AND

PHOTOGRAPH OF

B ACK B AY

B EACON S TREET S TATE H OUSE

FROM THE

This photograph was taken from the dome of the State House looking down Beacon Street (formerly Western Avenue on the Mill Dam) and out over Back Bay, the same view shown in 1858 and 1860s photographs (see figures 7.19, 7.20, 7.29, and 7.30). By the early 1880s buildings in Back Bay extended almost to West Chester Park (Massachusetts Avenue) and there were new identifiable churches (see figure 7.30)—the square tower of First Baptist (“Church of the Holy Bean Blowers”), completed in 1872 at the corner of Clarendon and Commonwealth; to its left the tall tower of New Old South (1875) at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston; and the large Trinity Church (1877) in Copley Square.

FIGURE 7.35 1898 PHOTOGRAPH S TATE H OUSE

OF

B ACK B AY

FROM

THE

The final photograph in the series taken from the dome of the State House looking down Beacon Street—the former Mill Dam (see figures 7.20, 7.29, and 7.34)—was taken after the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge had been completed across the river in 1891, linking West Chester Park in Boston with Harvard Bridge Avenue in Cambridge (both renamed Massachusetts Avenue in 1894). Note that since the 1880s (see figure 7.34) a large apartment building had replaced nearby houses on Beacon Street and all of Back Bay had been filled in.

Investigation found that the groundwater level around the library had dropped to about elevation four and that the tops of about one-third of the library’s foundation pilings were completely rotted or badly damaged. The rotted piles then had to be cut off and the building underpinned at great expense. In this case, the low water table was traced to leaks into a sewer under St. James Avenue.219 The problem was not confined just to the area near the library. In 1921 a building on Appleton Street had been underpinned because of rotted foundation piles, and rotted pilings were found in 1933 under a building at the corner of Hereford and Beacon Streets.220 More serious, about 1980 four apartment buildings on Belvidere Street across from the Sheraton Hotel—on former Gravelly Point (see figure 7.1)—had to be torn down because the owner could not afford the cost of repairing the structural damage caused by rotted foundation piles. And the Christian Science Mother Church, also on former Gravelly Point (see figure 7.1), has had to be underpinned.221 Problems with low groundwater and rotting foundation piles have continued. In April 2002 the Boston Globe reported that a house on Holyoke Street in the South End recently had to be underpinned because of rotted foundation piles, marking the spread of the problem to a new area in former Back Bay. In this case, the lowered water table was alleged to have been caused by groundwater leaking into the MBTA Orange Line tunnel, which runs under Southwest Corridor Park at the northwest end of Holyoke Street (see figure 7.1).222 Data from a number of the observation wells installed to track groundwater levels (see chapter 6) show that the water table is “dangerously low” in sections of the South End and Back Bay. The extent of the damage in the South End is not yet known, but, if many streets are affected, hundreds of houses could have rotted pilings and, at an estimated cost of $150,000 to $200,000 to underpin a single house, the total damage could be many millions of dollars.223

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C HURCH S TREET

AND

S UFFOLK S TREET D ISTRICTS R AISED

While the state and the BWP were filling the main part of Back Bay in the 1860s and 1870s, two unusual landmaking projects were conducted in parts of Back Bay filled earlier in the century. Instead of filling tidal flats, as did most landmaking projects, these two projects actually added more fill on top of areas that had already been filled. The two areas in question were the Church Street District (now Bay Village) and the Suffolk Street District (now Castle Square/Mass Pike Towers; see figure 7.9). The eastern edges of both districts were on original land (see figure 7.9) but, as explained above, the western sections had been filled in the 1820s and 1830s by private individuals at a time when the water in the receiving basin was maintained at grade 3, making it possible to fill the surrounding areas to a level below high tide (grade 10.2) and yet still have the sewers serving the houses built on the fill able to drain into the basin. As a result, much of both districts was at very low grades: in the Church Street District the west end of Fayette Street was only grade 5.1, the west end of Knox Street was grade 5.6, and the west end of Piedmont Street grade 4.8 (see figure 7.9). Streets in the Suffolk Street District were as low as grade 6.6.224 The problem of drainage in these districts had been exacerbated by the introduction of piped-in water in 1848 and the resulting use of water closets, both of which greatly increased the amount of wastewater in the sewers (see chapter 1)— a point noted by contemporary observers as well as by later historians.225 When the BWP filled the flats west of the Suffolk Street District in the 1840s and west of the Church Street District both in that decade and in the early 1860s (see above), sewage began to back up into cellars of the houses on low-lying streets. The problem was more critical in the Church Street District and in the early 1860s several solutions were proposed: fill up the cellars and abandon them, drain the district by pumping, or raise the ground level by additional filling. Surprising as it may seem today, the city decided in 1863 that the only effective remedy was to raise the grade of the entire district.226

After trying to get the BWP to share some of the expense, the city finally accepted complete financial responsibility for the project, which involved jacking up and underpinning the buildings, filling the cellars, backyards, and vacant lots to grade twelve and the streets to grade eighteen, and then returning the buildings to their owners.227 Work on the Church Street project began in July 1868. Gravel fill was brought by railroad, and, after raising 296 brick buildings as much as fourteen feet and 56 wood buildings as much as seventeen feet (figure 7.36), the project was virtually completed by October 1869, more quickly than anticipated and also at less cost.228 The city approved a similar project in the Suffolk Street District in July 1870 and work on raising the buildings began in

FIGURE 7.36 1868

PHOTOGRAPH OF

C HURCH S TREET D ISTRICT

This photograph vividly illustrates how high buildings in the Church Street District (now Bay Village) were jacked up on timbers before fill was placed underneath them, thus raising the ground level.

October.229 Some of the fill for the Suffolk Street project came from Fort Hill (see chapter 3), and was part of the scandal that occurred on the latter project. Filling of the Suffolk Street District was completed in 1872, and although the project was much more extensive than the Church Street—248,344 cubic yards of fill were deposited in the Suffolk Street area as compared with 156,960 cubic yards in the Church Street and over six hundred buildings were raised in the former area—the Suffolk Street project was also completed at less expense than the original estimate.230 Thus the present Bay Village and Castle Square/Mass Pike Towers areas are on land that was filled twice—once in the 1820s and 1830s by private owners and again in the late 1860s and early 1870s by the city.231 The low-lying parts of the present South End were not quite as low as the Church and Suffolk Street Districts, however, so the city did not similarly raise the South End. These low sections of the South End were in the vicinity of Tremont Street, the area the city had filled in the 1830s (see figure 7.10). The section of the South End filled by the BWP in the 1860s, on the other hand, was part of the Back Bay project and so had to conform to the state’s requirements for filling Back Bay, that is, house lots had to be filled to at least elevation twelve, which was sometimes as much as four or five feet higher than house lots filled earlier by the city. This difference in levels of fill is clearly visible today on some South End streets that are intersected by the line once dividing city and BWP territories, which ran from the middle of Tremont opposite Milford Street to the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Northampton Street (see figure 7.1).232 In the late nineteenth century, in the parts of the South End not filled above the level of high tide, the combined sewers, that is, sewers that carried both sanitary wastes and surface runoffs (see chapter 1), could handle both sewage and storm runoff only at low tide or even from short storms at high tide, but they could not discharge when a prolonged heavy rain coincided with a high tide. In those cases, storm water mixed with sewage backed up into cellars, backyards, and alleys. The intercepting sewer built down Albany Street in 1884 as part of the Main Drainage system (see chapter 1) alleviated but did not solve the flooding. Finally, in 1915 the city

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built a pumping station on Union Park Street to pump effluent from the sewers serving the low-lying parts of the South End at times when those sewers—usually when they were surcharged with storm water at high tide—could not drain by gravity.233 For many years the Union Park Pumping Station seemed to have solved the problem of flooding in the South End. In the 1980s, however, South End residents in the Tremont Street area again began to report sewage backing up into their houses. In addition, there was widespread and serious flooding in the South End during major storms on June 13, 1998, and September 10, 1999, which also caused flooding, though not necessarily sewer overflows, elsewhere in the Boston area. Finally, in 1999 the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, with strong support from a committee of South End residents whose houses had flooded, hired an engineering firm to study and solve the problem. The engineers found that much of the flooding had been caused by malfunctions of the pumping station, by sewage from other parts of the city entering the South End sewerage system during storms, and by overflows from the intercepting sewers that serve that district.234 The engineers made many improvements to the South End sewerage system and, with the pumping station under new management, the South End weathered the heavy rainfall on March 22, 2001, with no flooding whatsoever and now has better protection against floods than it has had for many years. B OSTON E MBANKMENT

The last filling of Back Bay east of Massachusetts Avenue created the land north of Back Street where Storrow Drive and the Esplanade are now located. This landmaking occurred, as explained in chapters 5 and 6, in three stages. The first stage took place in the first decade of the twentieth century when the first Charles River Dam was being built. As part of this project, a narrow park originally called the Boston Embankment was created on the Boston side of the river. In the section between Berkeley Street and Charlesgate West, that is, the section behind Back Bay, this park was made by filling a one hundred-foot-wide embankment

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north of the seawall that the B&RMC had built in the 1860s and 1870s (see above and figure 6.10). Work on this section of the embankment began in 1907. Contrary to previous practice where a fill-retaining structure was built before filling began, most of the area was filled—with material dredged from the river as well as with dirt brought by carts—at the same time a concrete retaining wall was built along the river at the outer edge of the embankment (figures 7.37 and 7.39). The wall itself, apparently constructed in 1908, was set on the customary pile foundation and finished with a granite coping. Work was delayed by plans to construct a subway under the embankment, which were later dropped, but by 1909 the park was sufficiently ready to be topped with loam brought by scows from Squantum.235 The resulting embankment, completed except for the landscaping, is shown in two 1910 photographs, one taken from Beacon Street (figure 7.38) and the other looking downriver from the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge (figure 7.40). The narrow embankment is also clearly shown in a 1919 photograph looking upriver from Embankment Road (now David Mugar Way; figure 7.42) and in a 1923 aerial photo looking east from about Kenmore Square (figure 7.44). W IDENING

THE

E SPLANADE

IN THE

1930 S

Neither the new embankment nor the Charles River Basin that was formed by the dam provided the recreational facilities originally envisioned, as explained in chapter 6. Wind-driven waves bouncing off the seawall created a chop that made the basin too rough for small boats and the section of the embankment along Back Bay was too narrow for boathouses. Finally, in 1929 a state commission recommended widening what had come to be known as the Esplanade to remedy some of the deficiencies (see chapter 6). In the section behind Back Bay, plans called for widening the Esplanade about 115 feet—doubling its width—and, between Exeter and Fairfield Streets, building a dike 240 feet from shore to form a lagoon for skating and canoeing (see figure 6.11).236 The contract for filling was signed in October 1931 and work began late that year. Most of the fill was sucked from the bottom of

FIGURE 7.37 C A . 1907

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EMBANKMENT

Taken from 204 Beacon Street (between Clarendon and Dartmouth) with a lens that gives the shore a pronounced curve, this photo shows the embankment under construction, probably in 1907. In the river one can see dredges, a scow, and a pile driver, and, on the newly filled embankment, pilings that would be driven for the foundation of the bordering seawall. In the right distance is the just-completed Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge. The blotches are on the original negative.

FIGURE 7.38 C A . 1910

PHOTO OF THE EMBANKMENT

Taken from the same vantage point as the photo in figure 7.37, this photo shows people enjoying the promenade along the completed embankment. The lack of landscaping suggests the photo was taken about 1910.

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FIGURE 7.39 1908

PHOTOGRAPH OF CONSTRUCTING THE EMBANKMENT

Taken October 10, 1908, looking downriver from the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge, this photograph shows how the embankment was filled at the same time the concrete seawall, at left, was being built. The construction down the middle of the embankment was for the Boston Marginal Conduit (sewer). Note the 1860s seawall visible at the right.

FIGURE 7.40 1910

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EMBANKMENT FROM THE

H ARVARD B RIDGE

Taken in 1910 from the same vantage point as the photo in figure 7.39, this photograph shows the embankment filled in 1907–1909 in front of Back Bay. What is now Back Street is at the right—note that the fill was as high as the top of the seawall built by the B&RMC in the 1860s and 1870s, covering it from sight (cf. figure 7.39). Because the Harvard Bridge was too low to permit the shoreline of the embankment to continue in a straight line to Charlesgate, its western terminus, the shoreline was indented under the bridge (see also figure 7.44).

FIGURE 7.41 1934

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

E SPL ANADE

FROM THE

H ARVARD B RIDGE

Taken January 10, 1934, slightly to the left of the photos in figures 7.39 and 7.40, this photo shows the amount of land added to the Esplanade in the 1930s and the shore sloped down to the water’s edge rather than being bordered by a stone seawall. The new lagoon between Exeter and Fairfield Streets is visible in the distance.

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FIGURE 7.42 1919

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EMBANKMENT FROM

E MBANKMENT R OAD

This photograph, taken looking upriver from a building on Embankment Road (now David Mugar Way), shows the narrow embankment from the opposite direction as the photograph in figure 7.40. On the other side of the river note the dome of the Main Building at MIT, which was completed in 1916.

FIGURE 7.43 J ULY 1935 PHOTOGRAPH OF E MBANKMENT R OAD

THE

E SPL ANADE

FROM

Taken from the same vantage point and of almost the same view as the 1919 photograph in figure 7.42, the two make an interesting comparison. The original promenade along the river shown in the 1919 photograph is the middle road in this one, clearly illustrating the amount added to the Esplanade in the 1930s. The new lagoon is visible in the distance. The cars are on Back Street, which still runs next to the seawall constructed in the 1860s and 1870s.

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the river by a huge hydraulic dredge and then pumped through as much as a half mile of pipe to the locations being filled. A newspaper article graphically described the “thick, fierce column of water and mud and rattling gravel spouting from [the] shore-end” of the pipe, and in the summer of 1932 Beacon Street and Bay State Road residents made many complaints about the noise of the dredging operation and the smell of the material being deposited.237 In order to alleviate the rough water in the basin caused by waves bouncing off the original seawall, the new fill was sloped down to the water’s edge rather than being ended with a wall (figure 7.41). Most of the project was finished by 1934. The results are shown in an aerial photograph taken that year (figure 7.45) from about the same vantage point as the 1923 aerial in figure 7.44, which makes an interesting comparison, and in a photo taken in 1935 from Embankment Road (now David Mugar Way) looking down Back Street toward the Harvard Bridge (figure 7.43), the same vantage point as the 1919 photo in figure 7.42, again providing an interesting comparison.

The plans for the new land were based on ones drawn up years before by landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff, which were reportedly “dug out of the files” for the new project.239 These plans called for a chain of islands to be created by depositing fill on both sides of the lagoon created in the 1930s between Exeter and Fairfield Streets, making a series of sheltered waterways for small boats as well as a “concert lagoon” near the Hatch Shell (see figure 6.13). The islands were filled in 1950–1951 with dirt trucked in from the suburbs and, although those between the 1930s lagoon and the Harvard Bridge were never made, the rest were constructed essentially as planned (figures 7.46 and 6.13). The act authorizing Storrow Drive also required that between Clarendon and Hereford Streets the drive be depressed to at least one and a half feet above the level of the river, that is, below the level of the Esplanade.240 When that area was excavated, the seawall built by the B&RMC in the 1860s and 1870s but covered by fill during construction of the embankment in 1907–1909 was revealed, which is why today it can be seen next to Storrow Drive (see figure 7.27).

S TORROW D RIVE

The additions to the Esplanade in the 1930s had been made only by omitting one recommended part of the project—a highway along the river from the Longfellow to the Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridge. The proposed highway had provoked tremendous protest, and after Mrs. James J. Storrow, who was financing some of the recreational improvements with a gift of one million dollars, supported a group opposed to the roadway, it was dropped from the plans (see chapter 6). After World War II, however, the highway proposal was revived as a means of dealing with Boston’s traffic problems and, in spite of enormous opposition, was finally rammed through the legislature. Ironically named the James J. Storrow Memorial Drive because it was on the Storrow Memorial Embankment that had been named in the 1930s in honor of Mrs. Storrow’s gift, the highway was to be on the part of the Esplanade filled in 1907–1909 and, to compensate for the land taken, additional land was to be created along the river.238

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Filling the islands north of Storrow Drive was the last landmaking in the eastern part of Back Bay. Although most of the land in this part of Back Bay was made by the well-known mid-nineteenthcentury project that created the present Back Bay district, that project had been preceded by a number of others that had already filled in almost one-third of the original bay to make land for industries (ropewalks and tide mills), railroads, streets, a public park, and residential areas and was followed by the projects that made the land now occupied by Storrow Drive and the Esplanade.

FIGURE 7.44 1923

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

B ACK B AY

AND THE

C HARLES R IVER B ASIN

This photograph shows the narrow embankment filled in 1907–1909 along the river in front of Back Bay. The original embankment ended at Charlesgate West, so the houses on Bay State Road west of that point—at the lower left— were at the water’s edge. In the distance one can see the wider section of the

embankment filled on the Beacon Hill Flat, the Cambridge (now Longfellow) Bridge, and, beyond it, the straight line of the seawall at the edge of Charlesbank park. In the foreground is the Back Bay Fens with the Beacon entrance—the area between Charlesgate West and East—essentially as Olmsted designed it (see figure 8.6). B

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FIGURE 7.45 1934

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

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C HARLES R IVER B ASIN

Taken July 10, 1934, from about the same point as the 1923 aerial in figure 7.44, this photo shows the changes made to the Esplanade in the early 1930s— the width doubled, a lagoon constructed between Fairfield and Exeter Streets, 208

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two curved dikes filled opposite the Union Boat Club to create a haven for small boats, and, beyond the Longfellow Bridge, the southern part of Charlesbank widened.

FIGURE 7.46 1983

AERIAL OF THE

C HARLES R I VER B ASIN

Taken somewhat higher than but from a similar vantage point as the 1923 aerial in figure 7.44 and the 1934 in figure 7.45, this 1983 aerial completes the series. The photo shows the additions made to the Esplanade and to the southern end of Charlesbank in the early 1950s. In the background one can also see

changes on the South Boston waterfront—fill between Fan Pier and Pier 4, filling of Subaru Pier, which was taking place at that time—and the huge amount of fill added to the airport since 1934 (cf. figure 7.45). B

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FIGURE 8.1 2001

STREET MAP WITH

OF WESTERN

1630

SHORELINE

B ACK B AY

As this computer-generated map indicates, in 1630 much of the present Fens/Fenway/ Bay State Road area was marshy and interlaced by streams, particularly by Stony Brook and the Muddy River. The map was produced by overlaying a digitized reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline (see figure 1.1) on a computerized modern street map. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on the maps in figures 8.2 and 8.3.

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UNIVERSI TY

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CHARLES RIVER

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What is now known as Back Bay was actually only a small part of the original back bay of the Charles River estuary, a huge cove on the western side of the Shawmut Peninsula that included part of the present South End and extended as far west as what is now Kenmore Square (see figure 1.1). The original Back Bay was divided into two unequal parts by a marshy peninsula, known as Gravelly Point, in the area of present Massachusetts Avenue (figures 8.1 and 7.1). The eastern section of Back Bay was filled in by a number of projects that are discussed in chapter 7. This chapter will examine how the western section was filled to make the land west of Massachusetts Avenue that now comprises the Back Bay Fens, Fenway, Audubon Circle/Kenmore, and Bay State Road areas. The western part of Back Bay was originally about 169.3 acres of tidal flats that lay between Gravelly Point on the east and Sewell’s Point (now Kenmore Square) on the west, and about 140 acres of marshes north of what is now Longwood Avenue (see figure 8.1).1 Two major streams drained into this part of Back Bay: the Muddy River, which now runs next to Riverway and through the Back Bay Fens, and Stony Brook, which is now in underground culverts but once flowed down the valley of the present

Southwest Corridor as far as Roxbury Crossing (at Tremont Street). From there Stony Brook meandered through the areas now occupied by Madison Park High School and Wentworth Institute, entering Back Bay next to the present site of the Museum of Fine Arts (see figure 8.1). Not much filling was done in the western part of Back Bay until the late nineteenth century, although some projects in the first half of the century filled in small areas or affected future landmaking. A reconstructed map of Back Bay in 1814 shows a tide mill that had been built on Stony Brook where it was crossed by a road that later became Parker Street—near the present intersection

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SM

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FIGURE 8.2 R ECONSTRUCTED

MAP OF

B ACK B AY

IN

1814

This reconstructed map shows tide mills on Stony Brook where what is now Parker Street crossed it, Stedman’s Cove at the base of the west side of Gravelly Point, and Smelt Brook entering Back Bay at the base of the east side of Gravelly Point. The map was reconstructed in 1881 by the engineering firm Fuller and Whitney on the basis of several historical maps (see Figure References and Credits).

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FIGURE 8.3 1903

MAP OF ORIGINAL SHORELINE AND WATERWAYS IN WESTERN

B ACK B AY

IN REL ATION TO PRESENT STREETS

This map, drawn in connection with a study of pollution in the Fens, is an excellent guide to the location of the original waterways and mills in the Fens area in relation to present streets.

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of Parker and Ward Streets (figures 8.2 and 8.3). Greater changes occurred when the Mill Dam was constructed across Back Bay in 1818–1821 (see chapter 7). The dam was fifty feet wide with a roadway on top—today’s Beacon Street—and extended across both the eastern and western sections of the bay. It was intersected by another fifty-foot wide dam that ran from the tip of Gravelly Point (about the present intersection of Massachusetts and Commonwealth Avenues) to a point now on Beacon Street between Massachusetts Avenue and Hereford Street (see figures 8.1 and 8.3). This cross dam divided Back Bay into a “full basin” (the western section) where water entered at high tide, flowed through raceways cut in Gravelly Point to power mills there, then into the “receiving basin” (the eastern section), and finally back out into the river (figure 8.4). As part of the Mill Dam project, a road (now Brookline Avenue) was built from the western end of the dam at Sewall’s Point (Kenmore Square) to the beginning of the Worcester Turnpike (now Route 9) in Brookline Village, presumably crossing the intervening marshes on a filled causeway. Parker Street was extended north across the marshes, also presumably on a causeway, to the cross dam (now Hemenway Street) on Gravelly Point. Many of these changes can be seen on a reconstructed map of Back Bay in 1836 (see figures 8.3 and 8.4). The 1836 map also shows some other alterations that had been made in the western part of Back Bay. By 1825 canal had been dug across Gravelly Point from Stedmans Cove in the western part of the bay (see figure 8.2) to and beyond Smelt Brook, the stream that flowed into the eastern part of the bay at the base of Gravelly Point (see figures 8.3 and 8.4). The canal, presumably intended to provide more water to power Baldwin’s Mill, which had been constructed on Smelt Brook in 1825 (see chapter 7), was on the line of later Camden and Gainsborough Streets (see figure 7.1) and had a dike along its northeastern side (see figures 8.4 and 8.3). And a little filling had been done when the Boston & Worcester Railroad was constructed across the full basin in the early 1830s (see chapter 7), although most of the track across this basin was on a 970-foot long bridge known as the “Dizzy Bridge” because of its lack of railings and widely spaced timbers (see figure 8.4).2

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MILL DAM .)

SD

“DIZ

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BALDWIN’S MILL

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CAM

SITE OF MISSION CHURCH

DIK

.. .. . . .. . . .. .. . . . . .. . .. .

. ST

S M ELT BRO OK

E RK PA

ST.

FIGURE 8.4 R ECONSTRUCTED

MAP OF

B ACK B AY

IN

1836

This map shows the Mill Dam on the line of present Beacon Street, the cross dam on the line of present Hemenway Street, the Boston & Worcester tracks on a causeway and bridge across the full basin, and the canal, bounded on its east side by a dike, from Stedman’s Cove on the line of Gainsborough/Camden Streets. Like the map in figure 8.2, this one was reconstructed from historical maps by the firm of Fuller and Whitney (see Figure References and Credits).

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The first major landmaking project in the western section of Back Bay began in the late 1870s to create what was originally called Back Bay Park and is now known as the Back Bay Fens. The Back Bay Park was approved by the City Council in 1877 as the very first in a proposed system of public parks in Boston (see chapter 1). The park had finally won approval not because it would serve recreational needs but rather because it would deal with a sanitary problem, for the sewage carried into the full basin by Stony Brook and the Muddy River had turned the basin into what one engineer described as “the filthiest marsh and mud flats to be found anywhere in Massachusetts. . . ; a body of water so foul that even clams and eels cannot live in it, and that no one will go within half a mile of in summer unless from necessity, so great is the stench arising therefrom.”3 The park commissioners had originally proposed a Back Bay Park in the shape of a narrow parallelogram, but the location of the 106.115 acres that the commissioners were able to purchase in 1877 and 1878 determined the park’s present configuration (figure 8.5).4 Because the park was intended to serve as a storage basin for storm overflows from Stony Brook, the city engineer originally planned to create a reservoir by excavating the marshes between the park’s east and west boundaries and lining the slopes with granite blocks. The design of the park was limited on one hand by the location of the roads around its borders, now the Fenway and Park Drive, which were placed to suit the wishes of the former owners of the marshes in return for having sold their land to the city at a low price.5 On the other hand, the park’s design was simplified by an 1877 agreement between the state and the Boston Water Power Company (BWP), the corporation that was filling the full basin (see chapter 7), to bend Commonwealth Avenue northward at West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) so that Commonwealth would not have to cross the Boston & Albany tracks (formerly the Boston & Worcestor and now the commuter rail next to the Massachusetts Turnpike) and instead would join the existing intersection of Beacon Street, Brookline, and Brighton

(now Commonwealth) Avenues at what is now Kenmore Square (see figure 8.5).6 An 1877 plan of Back Bay Park published by the park department shows the area of the prospective park and the surrounding areas that were to be filled in (see figure 8.5). The plan indicates that not only had the basic configuration of the park and its bordering roadways already been determined, but so had the location of what were termed the “entrances”—the landscaped accesses to the park from Beacon and Boylston Streets and from Westland, Huntington, and Brookline Avenues (see figure 8.5). As the plan suggests, a great deal of filling was necessary to transform the marshes of the full basin into this park. In March 1878 the park department began to fill what was called the Boylston entrance, the area now the part of Boylston Street between Hemenway (formerly Parker) Street and the Fens. Soon afterward filling began at three of the other entrances: the Longwood entrance, the area now extending from the Fens to Brookline Avenue between Park Drive and the Fenway; the Westland entrance, the area now between Hemenway Street and the Fens at Westland Avenue; and what was originally called the Parker Hill entrance, the area now the small park at Evans Way next to the Gardner Museum, which once extended from the Fens all the way to Huntington Avenue (see figure 8.1). In 1878 the department also began to fill the section of the perimeter road, now called the Fenway, between the Boylston and Westland entrances (see figure 8.5).7 Even while proceeding with their own plans for filling the park, in early 1878 the park commissioners held a design competition for a plan for the Back Bay Park. After awarding the five hundred dollar prize in June to a Hermann Grundel, the commissioners decided that his plan did not adequately address the problems posed by the site and instead called in the well-known landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to be their professional advisor and to draw up a plan.8 Olmsted had occasionally been a consultant to the commissioners in 1875 and 1876 when they were choosing the parks for the Boston system, but his formal association with the Boston parks did not begin until his 1878 contract to design Back Bay Park.9

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N TO IGH BR E AV .

LONGW ENTRANOOD CE

BROOKLINE AVE.

ON

AC

BE

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(PARK

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(FEN

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NE

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ST.

HUNTINGTON AVE .

FIGURE 8.5 1877

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PARK DEPARTMENT PL AN FOR

B ACK B AY P ARK

By 1877 the configuration of the Back Bay Fens, its surrounding roadways, and the entrances to the park (see figure 8.6) had already been largely determined by the location of the flats the park commissioners had been able to purchase. The shaded areas are those that had to be filled (cf. figure 8.1).

Olmsted’s submitted his plan for Back Bay Park (figure 8.6) at the end of 1879 with a long accompanying report. The overall configuration of the park and entrances was the same as the park department’s 1877 plan (see figure 8.5) but Olmsted’s treatment of the basin was quite different. He proposed that the park’s function as a storage basin for storm overflows from Stony Brook be met not by building a steep-sided reservoir, as the city engineer had planned, but by creating a salt marsh. A dam was to be built at the outlet into the Charles River, which was still a tidal estuary, to maintain the level of salt water in Back Bay Park at grade eight, that is, eight feet above mean low water and slightly below the mean high water level of grade ten, thus keeping the “fetid mudbanks” from being exposed at low tide—the same solution later proposed for the Charles River itself (see chapter 5). The two sources of fresh water and of pollution—the Muddy River and Stony Brook—were to be diverted to the Charles in covered conduits. The low banks along the winding waterway in the park were to be planted with “sedgy” salt marsh vegetation that could withstand inundations of salt water during unusually high tides and of brackish water during Stony Brook floods (see figure 8.6). Parklike features—drives, walkways, and a bridle path bordering the waterway—were to be provided, but since the main objective of the project was sanitary rather than recreational, Olmsted urged that it no longer be termed a park.10 Olmsted’s plan used some of the natural waterways in the area but also called for a great deal of filling (see figure 8.3). Work on Olmsted’s plan began in 1880 at the Beacon entrance, the area now between Charlesgate East and Charlesgate West from the Fens to the river. This entrance was to contain the outlet of the waterway that would run through the park as well as the entrance drive, which was to curve from Commonwealth Avenue up over the Boston & Albany tracks and join the curve of Boylston Street (see figure 8.6). Filling of the Beacon entrance began under a contract made on April 29 with the Boston & Albany to bring gravel fill from towns outside Boston. Work also began in 1880 on the bridge to carry Boylston Street over the waterway. Olmsted designed the Boylston Street Bridge to be espe-

cially high and wide in order to frame a picturesque and enticing view of the Fens from Commonwealth Avenue—a view that now is obstructed by the turnpike and can only be appreciated from the obscurity of Ipswich Street (figure 8.7). In January 1880 the park commissioners made a contract with the Boston & Albany to fill the site of the bridge and in September signed a contract for laying its foundations.11 While Olmsted was preparing his plan for Back Bay Park in 1879 and work on it was beginning in 1880, the park department continued filling the park, especially the roads around the perimeter.12 Construction also began in 1880 on the new underground conduit to carry the normal flow of Stony Brook directly to the Charles.13 This conduit, a new gatehouse on the Fens (moved a short distance in 1905 to its present location opposite the Forsyth Institute),14 and the short connector between the new Stony Brook conduit and the old one, which had discharged into Back Bay just beyond present Hemenway Street (see figure 8.3), were completed in July 1882, finally ending pollution of the full basin.15 Progress on the Back Bay Park project can be traced quite accurately using the park commissioners’ annual reports and the monthly maps and descriptions of filling issued in some years by the firm of Fuller and Whitney, engineers for western Back Bay. In the early 1880s work focused on the Beacon entrance: building the four bridges that were needed to carry the various roadways and the railroad tracks over the waterway and the one to carry the entrance road over the Boston & Albany tracks (see figure 8.6; the abutments of the last bridge, which is no longer standing, were constructed of stones from the Beacon Hill reservoir, which was being dismantled at the time), filling the area with gravel brought by the Boston & Albany under various contracts, and dredging the bottom of the waterway to grade zero (mean low water) to increase its capacity as a storage basin. Dredging was at first done with a wire-rope machine excavator pulled by teams of horses, but the bottom was too soft for teams to work effectively so a steam dredge was built and put into operation in April 1882 when dredging began south of the Boylston Street Bridge in the main part of the Fens (figure 8.8). In 1883 a tugboat was added to pull the scows

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BO & AL BA NY

BOYLSTON STREET BRIDGE

BO

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ST

ON

ST .

VE. D A

AN

STL

WE

FIGURE 8.6 1879 O LMSTED

PL AN FOR

B ACK B AY F ENS

Olmsted’s initial plan for the Back Bay Fens followed the configuration already determined by the park commissioners (see figure 8.5) but treated the basin as a landscaped waterway rather than as a storage reservoir. A note under the title reads, “Figures [on the roads] show intended elevations of surface about mean

low water of Charles River. Water is represented as intended to be maintained under ordinary conditions, at an elevation of eight feet about the same datum. During freshets and extraordinary tides, it would rise and spread over all the sedgy ground.” The park eventually built followed this plan quite closely (see figure 8.1).

RI

VE

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FIGURE 8.7 2002

PHOTOGRAPH OF

B OYLSTON S TREET B RIDGE

FROM

I PSWICH S TREET

The view of the Fens under the Boylston Street Bridge, which Olmsted had designed to entice visitors into the park, can now be seen only from obscure Ipswich Street and is further diminished by the phragmites growing in the Fens.

accompanying the dredge, and the gravel and mud taken from the bottom of the basin were used to build up its shores.16 Other work accomplished during the early 1880s included both the east and west boundary roads—the present Fenway and Park Drive—which continued to be filled by the Boston & Albany with gravel reportedly brought from Weston and Wellesley. In 1882, for example, the gravel used to fill the section of the Fenway between the Beacon and Boylston entrances came from the Boston & Albany’s gravel bank at Riverside and from just west of one of the stations in Newton.17 In some places the displacement caused by the weight of the gravel on the roads forced up the level of the adjoining marshes. This occurred at the former “Island Marsh” near the Longwood entrance (see figures 8.2 and 8.3) where logs of a 1795 aqueduct were exposed. The aqueduct had been built to convey water from Jamaica Pond to Boston (its route is shown on the 1814 plan in figure 7.3). Fuller and Whitney reported in 1883 that it was constructed of two log pipes with two-inch bore holes and was “in an excellent state of preservation.”18 In 1882–1883 the city constructed a conduit to carry both the normal and the storm flow of the Muddy River from what is now the intersection of Brookline Avenue and the Fenway directly to the Charles via Brookline Avenue and Deerfield Street, similar to the conduit constructed a few years earlier to carry Stony Brook directly to the Charles (see figure 8.3). The Muddy River conduit seemed ill-fated—after only a year of operation almost half a mile was damaged in 1884 when a different city department constructed another sewer right next to it.19 Olmsted’s plans also called for covering the fill with topsoil so the park could be landscaped. In November 1883, after years of discussion, the Boston & Albany hauled loam excavated from a Boston Water Board reservoir in Ashland, Massachusetts, to Boston for use in Back Bay.20 The first loads of this loam were used to grade the Beacon entrance and the shore between Park Drive and the waterway in the Fens, and in 1884 the railroad tracks already on the perimeter roads were extended entirely around the park to facilitate delivery to all sections.21

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FIGURE 8.8 1882

PHOTOGRAPH OF DREDGING THE

B ACK B AY F ENS

The dredge used in the Back Bay Fens was typical of those employed in many late-nineteenth-century landmaking projects. Dredged material was loaded into a scow, which then delivered it to the area being filled.

A map published by the park department in December 1885 shows the progress of the project to that date (figure 8.9). In addition to the filling and excavating shown on the plan, most of the roads themselves had been filled to the proper grade though were otherwise unfinished, and the Boston & Albany tracks, which had been in the park since 1879 to facilitate the delivery of gravel, had been removed.22 Despite these accomplishments, there was dissatisfaction with the slow rate of progress and the BWP, which owned much of the land surrounding the Fens, filed a suit to compel the city to complete the project, arguing that although the BWP had been assessed betterments and paid higher taxes on its land, the city’s appropriations for the park were not sufficient to finish the work for another ten years.23 The suit pointed up the difficulty of trying to create a park system at a time when both city taxes and

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the debt limit were low, and in 1886 the state legislature authorized the city to finance the parks by issuing bonds.24 In the late 1880s work on the park, which in 1888 at Olmsted’s behest was finally renamed the Back Bay Fens—meaning a low-lying area wholly or partially covered with water—focused on completing the section east of the Longwood entrance (see figure 8.9).25 The work involved dredging the channel, grading the marshes, filling and surfacing the roads, and loaming and planting the banks. The park commissioners still made contracts with the Boston & Albany to supply the gravel needed for filling Agassiz Road and Park (formerly Audubon) Drive, but obtained loam from a city construction company, presumably from sites in the city, and from the excavation at the Huntington entrance of a canal, called the Commissioners’ Channel, to carry the discharge from a new Stony Brook overflow conduit into the Fens (see figure 8.3). The bridge over the waterway on Agassiz Road, another original structure that still remains, was built in 1887–1888, and by 1890 most of the dredging and filling was finished as far as the Longwood entrance, leaving only the roads and planting in that section to be completed.26 In 1890 work began on excavating the waterway in the Longwood entrance, filling that entrance and what was then called the Tremont entrance, formerly known as the Parker Hill entrance and now the park at Evans Way, and constructing what was known as the Fens Bridge on the roadway that now connects Park Drive and Avenue Louis Pasteur (see figure 8.6). The Boston & Albany continued to supply the gravel fill, although the final filling, in 1893, on the east side of the Tremont entrance was with dirt “purchased from various parties.”27 All work on the Back Bay Fens was finally finished in 1894. No sooner was the Back Bay Fens completed, however, than problems began to occur. By 1895 the fill had settled to such an extent at the bridge over the Boston & Albany on the Beacon entrance road and at the drive and walks next to the Fens Bridge at the east end of the Longwood entrance that both these areas had to be raised.28 And by the turn of the century complaints were being made that, because the layer of loam topsoil was too thin and the underlying gravel fill too porous to support the growth of large

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This plan shows the work completed on the Back Bay Fens by the end of 1885. Most of the waterway had been excavated to grade zero. The large area shaded with horizontal lines north of Agassiz Road—the road that crosses the Fens near Westland Avenue—had been filled to about grade eight with muck dredged from the marsh and channel. The areas near Boylston Street and south of Agassiz Road shaded with checked lines were marsh meadow that had been cut down to grade eight by removing the sod, excavating the underlying mud, and replacing the sod. The areas along what are now Park Drive and the Fenway and in the Beacon entrance shaded with vertical or diamond-patterned lines were either ready for planting or had been planted. F

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trees and bushes, the landscape was not the verdant, fenny one Olmsted had envisioned but instead “bleak and wind-swept.”29 More serious were the sewage problems. The Fens functioned fairly well as a storage basin for Stony Brook overflows, as Olmsted had planned, only until 1897. In that year the normal— and heavily polluted—flow of Stony Brook was diverted along with the storm overflows into the Commissioners’ Channel, the large sewer that had been built in the late 1880s to handle Stony Brook floods, thus carrying the entire Stony Brook flow into the Fens at the Huntington entrance (see figure 8.3). The situation was exacerbated by several breaks in the Stony Brook sewer in 1897 and 1900, during which all the sewage generated by the ninety thousand people in the Stony Brook valley flowed into the Fens.30 The results were immediate and noticeable. The park commissioners’ reports began to comment on the “foul condition” of the water in the Fens basin and the “perceptible” odor in the surrounding area. The city dredged out some of the objectionable deposits in 1898 but it was clear that the solution would be to construct new conduits to carry Stony Brook and its overflow directly to the Charles, bypassing the Fens altogether.31 Such a plan was included in the Charles River Dam project (see below and chapter 5), and in 1903–1905 a new Stony Brook conduit was constructed from the Huntington entrance to Charlesgate East, where it was to connect with the Boston Marginal Conduit soon to be built under the newly filled embankment along the river (see below).32 A new Stony Brook gatehouse was constructed on the Fens, next to and matching the one built in 1882 (see above), and another— the Fens gatehouse—in 1909 on the embankment over the connection between the two sewerage systems. The latter was intended to “lend dignity to the surroundings,” and certainly was in a different setting then (figure 8.10) than at present, where it is all but entwined by the ramps of the Charlesgate interchange of Storrow Drive (figure 8.11).33 Once Stony Brook had been completely diverted from the Fens, there was no reason to keep open the Commissioners’ Canal between Huntington Avenue and the Fens waterway, so it was filled, creating what is now Forsyth Way next to the Museum of Fine Arts (see figure 8.1).

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FIGURE 8.10 1909

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EMBANKMENT FROM

C HARLESGATE W EST

Taken November 5, 1909, this photo shows the end of the Boston Embankment at Charlesgate West (see also figure 7.44). In the center is the footbridge over the outlet of the Fens waterway. In the middle distance is the Fens gatehouse at the connection between the Stony Brook conduit constructed in 1903–1905 on the Fens and the Boston Marginal Conduit constructed in 1907–1909 along the embankment, the same gatehouse that is today almost obscured by the ramps of the Bowker Overpass (see figure 8.11). In the background is the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge.

The Charles River Dam project produced other modifications in the Fens as well. Since the Fens no longer functioned as a storage basin for Stony Brook overflows, there was no need to retain the low marshes bordering the waterway. Furthermore, since the dam had transformed not only the Charles River Basin but also the Fens waterway into a body of fresh water without tidal fluctuations, areas bordering the latter could be planted with grass. In addition, there was pressure to make the Fens more useable by the public. In 1904, even before the dam was started, filling began of the waterway at the south end of the Fens near Park Drive and

FIGURE 8.11 C A . 1966

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This photo shows how widening Commonwealth Avenue in the 1920s and, more significantly, the construction of the Bowker Overpass in the 1960s obliterated Olmsted’s design for the Beacon entrance to the Back Bay Fens (see figures 8.6 and 7.44). It also illustrates how widening the Esplanade in the early

1930s and again in the 1950s left the Fens gatehouse and the footbridge over the Fens waterway, both once on the river’s edge (see figure 8.10), stranded inland entwined in a maze of highway ramps.

the Fens Bridge in order to create a playground, the location of the present Roberto Clemente Field. Filling of this area continued for many years despite the objections of Olmsted’s firm, which felt that it was “extravagant and unwise” to put such “ugly playgrounds” in the Fens meadows and a “savage waste” of a park that had been created, at an enormous cost, to be a beautiful landscape. This playground area was filled with materials that could be obtained free of charge—household ashes, dirt from building sites, and, eventually, material excavated during construction of the subway down Boylston Street (now the MBTA Green Line)—and changed the position of the waterway from the west side of the Fens, as planned by Olmsted, to its present location on the east side (see figures 8.1 and 8.6).34 Another area of the Fens was filled in 1910–1911 when ten acres of marsh near the Boylston Street Bridge were covered with dirt from the excavation for the Beacon Hill tunnel and the new Park Street station of the Cambridge (now the MBTA Red Line) subway, creating what was originally a recreational area and is now the victory garden.35 And between 1931 and 1933 the rose garden was created on a recently filled area opposite the Museum of Fine Arts. Subsequent changes have further destroyed Olmsted’s plan. In the 1920s new bridges were built across the waterway at the Beacon entrance to carry a widened Commonwealth Avenue, and in the mid-1960s this entrance was all but obliterated by the Bowker Overpass, built on land made in the 1950s for the construction of Storrow Drive, connecting the drive and the Fens (see figure 8.11). In addition, the original railroad bridge over the Fens waterway was also demolished in the 1960s during construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike extension. F ENWAY

Creation of the Back Bay Fens in the 1880s and 1890s encouraged development of surrounding areas, and while the park was being filled so were other areas that had also once been in the vicinity of the full basin (see figures 8.1 and 8.3), making the land now in the Fenway area. The records kept by the Fuller and Whitney engi-

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neering firm make it possible to trace the progress of this filling in some detail. The following discussion will examine the filling geographically, starting with the area now north of the turnpike between Kenmore Square and Charlesgate and then moving clockwise around the Fens. When construction of the Beacon entrance began in 1880 (see above), so did filling of the flats on either side of it. In March 1880 the city, the BWP, and the Beacon Street Land Association— the owners of the area now bounded by Charlesgate West (once the Beacon entrance), Beacon Street, Brookline Avenue, and the turnpike (formerly the Boston & Albany tracks) including Kenmore Square (figures 8.1 and 8.12)—made an agreement to fill the area jointly and to apportion the cost. According to the advertisement for proposals for fill, the city’s land— Commonwealth Avenue and the Beacon entrance—comprised about 61 percent of the total area, the BWP’s about 23 percent, and the association’s about 16 percent.36 The group accepted the bid from the Boston & Albany and made a contract with the railroad on April 29, 1880, to supply “all the good clean earth, sand, or gravel” required to fill the area. This was the same contract under which the Boston & Albany also began to fill the Beacon entrance (see above), the gravel apparently brought from Weston and Auburndale.37 The next year a similar agreement was made for filling the flats on the east side of the Beacon entrance, the area now bounded by Charlesgate East (then the Beacon entrance), Beacon Street, Massachusetts Avenue (formerly West Chester Park), and the turnpike (once the Boston & Albany tracks; see figures 8.1 and 8.12). A contract was again made with the Boston & Albany, this time specifying that the fill, except for “rock and clay,” was to come from a gravel pit recently bought from the South Framingham Savings Bank at a location not specified.38 Filling of this area then continued throughout the 1880s and into the 1890s.39 South of the Boston & Albany tracks (now the turnpike) the area from the tracks to Westland Avenue between present Massachusetts Avenue and the Fens was also filled in the 1880s and 1890s. The western part of the block now between Boylston

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By the early 1880s Back Bay east of Gravelly Point had been almost completely filled in, West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) had been built across the former Gravelly Point, Huntington Avenue extended as far as Parker/Hemenway Street, and Columbus Avenue constructed to beyond Camden Street. Although not indicated on the map, filling continued in the area between West Chester Park (Massachusetts Avenue) and Dalton Street until the late 1880s. In the western part of Back Bay, the Back Bay Fens was being constructed and most of the surrounding marshes had not yet been filled.

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and Ipswich Streets where the Fenmore apartments are located was once just west of Gravelly Point (see figure 8.1). The private owners of this area filled it in 1884 with household ashes and then, after they made a contract with the Boston & Albany in March 1885, also with gravel.40 The city filled the section of Boylston Street between Massachusetts Avenue and the Fens where Berklee College of Music and the Massachusetts Historical Society are now located in 1885 with dirt brought to the site in carts.41 The area between Parker (now Hemenway) Street and the Fens included a canal on the west side of Parker Street that had been dug by the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation to help power the mills formerly on Gravelly Point (see figures 7.14, 8.3, and 8.12), a canal that the BWP filled in as far as Westland Avenue in early 1885.42 Although the area between Hemenway (formerly Parker) Street and Massachusetts Avenue was part of the original Gravelly Point (see figure 8.3), it nonetheless was marshy and needed some filling. In October 1885, for example, teams were engaged in filling an old mill raceway that was approximately where Stoneholm Street is today (see figures 8.1, 8.3, and 8.12).43 South of Westland Avenue a great deal of filling was done in the Symphony Road/Gainsborough Street area. This area was particularly swampy because it was the location not only of Stedmans Cove in the full basin (see figures 8.1 and 8.2) but also of the canal that had once been dug across Gravelly Point on the line of later Camden (now Gainsborough) Street to Baldwin’s Mill, which was approximately where the bridge at the foot of Gainsborough and Camden Streets crosses the Amtrak/MBTA Orange Line tracks (see above and figures 7.1, 8.3, and 8.4). In June 1883 a contract was made to fill a large area on the southwest side of the canal extending from Parker (now Hemenway) Street all the way across Huntington Avenue to the railroad tracks, an area that now includes the land south of Huntington where Jordan Hall is located and north of it where St. Stephen Street runs (see figure 8.1).44 The area between the canal and Westland Avenue was filled in the summer of 1885 (see figure 8.12), and by October of that year teams were filling a new street, an extension of what was then Batavia Street and is now Symphony Road, across this section

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(figure 8.13).45 Filling of the area south of Westland Avenue continued in the late 1880s and into the 1890s.46 Huntington Avenue was extended in 1883 from the Huntington entrance to the Fens—now Forsyth Way next to the Museum of Fine Arts—as far as Longwood Avenue (see figures 8.1, 8.12, and 8.13). Filling began in March near Longwood Avenue “with carts,” implying that the fill was dirt, but in April the BWP made a contract with the Boston & Albany. The railroad built a trestle for gravel trains across Stony Brook between what are now Ruggles and St. Alphonsus Streets (see figure 8.1) and began to fill near the Huntington entrance to the Fens, now Forsyth Way. Filling by “steam cars,” that is, railroad cars, continued throughout the summer and by the end of September Huntington was completed as far as Longwood (see figure 8.13).47 The newly completed Huntington Avenue can be seen extending straight across the marshes in the full basin at the foot of Mission Hill in a photograph taken about 1884 from the tower of the Mission Church (figure 8.14). The extension of Huntington Avenue spawned some landmaking in nearby areas, particularly in the large block west of Parker Street between Ruggles and Ward Streets where Stony Brook once flowed and Wentworth Institute and the Ward Street Headworks are now located (see figure 8.1). Filling the area near Ward Street began in June 1883 with dirt that was carted in.48 In January 1885 the BWP contracted with the Boston & Albany to fill the large marsh between Parker Street and the Fens—now the sites of Wentworth Institute and the Museum of Fine Arts (see figure 8.1)—and an old canal along Parker Street, which had been dug in connection with the tide mill once near the intersection of Parker and Ward Streets (see above and figure 8.4). The old tide mill had closed in the early nineteenth century and in 1834 a ropewalk operated by Sewall and Day Cordage Company had been established parallel to Parker Street on the canal (see figure 8.12).49 In June 1885 the company contested the BWP’s right to fill the area, claiming the ropewalk still owned the riparian rights. The city solicitor ruled, however, that the flats were below the low water mark and thus belonged to the BWP, and the Boston & Albany

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This map shows the almost completed Back Bay Fens and the surrounding waterways that were still unfilled. The dotted line indicates the 1630 shoreline.

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FIGURE 8.14 C A . 1884 FROM THE

PHOTOGRAPH OF WESTERN

B ACK B AY

M ISSION C HURCH

Taken from the tower of the Mission Church, this photograph shows one of the breweries in the Stony Brook valley in the foreground and, behind it, the newly filled Huntington Avenue stretching across the Back Bay marshes. In the left background is the Back Bay Fens with the Tremont entrance and the Fenway road visible behind Huntington Avenue and the Boylston Street Bridge near the river; in the right background Gainsborough Street crosses Huntington near a stack behind which can be seen the tower of New Old South Church at Copley Square. In order to help “read” this photograph, the location of the Mission Church is indicated on the 1888 plan of Back Bay in figure 8.13 and, for comparison, on the 1836 plan of the same area in figure 8.4.

proceeded to fill most of the area with material excavated in Auburndale from a new rail line it was building between Riverside and Newton Highlands (now the MBTA Green Line between those points).50 Filling in the Ward Street area was still taking place in 1888 and continued into the 1890s.51 In the Longwood Avenue area, the large parcel labeled “650” on the 1888 map (see figure 8.13), where Vanderbilt Hall of Harvard Medical School is now located, was filled in 1885. In June of that year the estate of Ebenezer Francis, a wealthy early-nineteenth-century merchant (see chapter 3) who had owned many acres of Back Bay flats, made a contract with the Boston & Albany to fill these seven acres of marsh. The railroad’s tracks on the perimeter roads of the Back Bay Fens were about to be removed (see above), however, so an agreement was made to lay a track from the Brookline Branch Railroad (now the Riverside branch of the MBTA Green Line) at Miner Street across the areas now occupied by the former Sears building, Emmanuel College, and Beth Israel Hospital to the Longwood Avenue site (see figure 8.1). The fill was

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sand excavated from the same cut near Newton Lower Falls that supplied sand to fill the marshes where the Museum of Fine Arts and Wentworth Institute are now located (see above) and the work proceeded very quickly—filling began on August 5 and the trains stopped running on September 9.52 The west side of the Fens, the area between the Fens and Brookline Avenue where Fenway Park is now located, was once a series of marshes and were not filled until the 1890s (see figures 8.1 and 8.13). In 1893 after many years of discussion and pressure from the major owners of the marshes, the city finally extended Boylston Street from the Fens to Brookline Avenue (see figure 8.1). Filling of the street began in 1894 and was completed by April 1895.53 The construction of Boylston Street resulted in other landmaking in this area: filling of the adjoining marshes was “in progress” in 1895, Peterborough Street was filled by the Boston & Albany with gravel in 1896–1897, Queensberry Street was similarly filled in 1897–1898, and Lansdowne Street was filled with city ashes in 1898 (see figure 8.1).54 This new land created on the

west side of the Fens south of the Boston & Albany tracks (now the turnpike) adjoined the land created in 1880 north of the tracks (see above and figure 8.1) and completed the landmaking in the Fenway area. The newly made land in the Fenway area was soon occupied by Classical Revival-style apartment buildings, many of which are still standing. Many institutions also moved to the new land in the Fenway area—among them, the Massachusetts Historical Society (1899), Simmons College (1904), Museum of Fine Arts (1909), and, on the former Gravelly Point, Symphony Hall (1900), Horticultural Hall (1900), New England Conservatory of Music (1902), and the Christian Science Mother Church (1894). In 1903 Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Venetian palace, built to house her art collection and now the Gardner Museum, was also completed on recently made land on the Fenway. Parts of the Fenway area filled in the late nineteenth century have been subject to the same problem of dropping groundwater levels and rotting wood foundation piles that has also beset parts of the Beacon Hill Flat, Back Bay, and the South End (see chapters 6 and 7). The problem has so far occurred on Hemenway Street south of Westland Avenue (see figure 8.1)—in the late 1980s Northeastern University had to underpin two buildings there, in 1995 two buildings were torn down because their foundation piles had rotted, and in April 2002 the Boston Globe reported that one building on the street had a cracked foundation and a tilting wall and another rotting foundation piles.55 Not surprisingly, the observation wells installed to monitor groundwater levels (see chapter 6) show a low water table along Hemenway Street, so the problem may continue.56 R IVERWAY

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In addition to the land made in the Back Bay Fens and Fenway areas, filling was also done along what are now the Riverway, between Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street on the west side of Park Drive between Riverway and Montfort Street, and between that section of Park Drive and Kenmore Square (see figure 8.1). The land created along the Riverway was part of what Olmsted

called the “Muddy River Improvement.” Olmsted’s 1879 plan for the Back Bay Park had called for diverting the Muddy River from the Fens by carrying it directly to the Charles in an underground conduit (see above). In 1880, however, he suggested that, instead of also channeling the section upriver from the Fens into an underground conduit and then filling its valley, as would be done with Stony Brook, the Muddy River be left open and maintained at a constant level between artificially constructed banks on which there would be a scenic parkway connecting the Fens with Jamaica Pond.57 The park commissioners accepted the plan and both Boston and Brookline (the town on the west side of the river) soon began to acquire the land necessary for the parkway. Although the park department built the conduit to carry the Muddy River from Brookline Avenue and the Fens to the Charles in 1882–1883 (see above) and constructed the gate house at Brookline Avenue to regulate the flow to and from the Charles the next year, work on the parkway itself did not begin until 1890.58 In that year the city approved an additional appropriation for land, and the boundary between Boston and Brookline was changed so that, even after the Muddy River was widened and straightened in accordance with Olmsted’s plan, the boundary would still be in the middle of the river. Most of the filling was done on what was then the Brookline side of the river but is now part of Boston. In June 1890 Brookline contracted with the Boston & Albany to fill the section from St. Mary’s Street to Aspinwall Avenue, and by December the railroad had filled this area with gravel to a level three and a half feet below that of the proposed roadway. The remainder was to be filled up with peat and loam excavated from the river, but this material proved to be of poor quality and of an insufficient amount, so in 1891 Boston and Brookline contracted with the Boston & Albany to deliver loam excavated from a Boston Water Board storage basin in Ashland, Massachusetts— an arrangement similar to the one made in 1883 to acquire loam for the Back Bay Fens (see above). In 1892 the section of the parkway from Brookline Avenue to Huntington Avenue was renamed the Riverway—the name it still bears more than a hundred years later (see figure 8.1)—and the filling on the Brookline side was

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completed. The Riverway itself, which was on the Boston side of the river, opened in 1893.59 The parkland along the Riverway was connected to that in the Longwood entrance to the Fens (see figure 8.1), linking the two and forming part of what came to be called the Emerald Necklace. In 1954, however, the city sold a section of the park next to Brookline Avenue to Sears Roebuck for use as a parking lot. This lot became the famous “missing link” in the Emerald Necklace until a 1997 agreement returned it to the city to be restored as a park. Although areas north of the Riverway and between the Riverway and Kenmore Square appear to be solid land on maps that show the original shoreline (see figure 8.1, for example), these areas were actually marshy and required filling, much of which was done in the late 1880s and 1890s. In 1887, when plans were made to widen Beacon Street between Cleveland Circle and Audubon Circle—the latter the present intersection of Beacon Street and Park Drive—Beacon Street abutters near Audubon Circle gave the city a one hundred-foot wide strip from Audubon Circle to the railroad tracks (now the Riverside branch of the MBTA Green Line) so that Beacon Street could be connected to the Fens by a parkway, now Park Drive (see figure 8.1).60 In 1891 the city contracted with the Boston & Albany to fill with gravel the area west of what is now Park Drive as far as St. Mary’s Street (see figure 8.1), filling that was completed in 1892. In 1893 the city built an iron bridge over the railroad tracks and contracted for additional filling of Park Drive itself, which was completed in 1894.61 Meanwhile, areas closer to what is now Kenmore Square had been filled. In 1883 the Boston & Albany had begun to fill the area between its tracks (now the turnpike) and those of the Brookline Branch Railroad (now the Riverside branch of the MBTA Green Line).62 More filling was done between the latter tracks and Beacon Street as well as on the north side of Beacon Street in the area of present Mountfort and Arundel Streets in 1887. Landmaking continued in the 1890s when Miner Street was filled and constructed in 1893–1894 (see figure 8.1).63

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In addition to the filling that was done to make the Back Bay Fens and surrounding areas, land was also made west of the original Gravelly Point along the Charles River. An 1854 agreement gave the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (B&RMC) responsibility for filling north of the Mill Dam, now Beacon Street, as far as Sewall’s Point, now Kenmore Square (see chapter 7), but the corporation did not start filling west of the cross dam until 1881, when the Beacon entrance of the Back Bay Fens was being filled (see above).64 That year the B&RMC apparently requested a proposal from the Boston & Albany, which was then engaged in filling the park, but the railroad replied that the amount of work on the park contract would preclude its starting to fill the B&RMC’s flats until September. In June, therefore, the B&RMC made a contract with the New England Dredging Company, which was owned by John Souther of steam shovel fame (see chapters 3 and 7), to fill its flats with “good clean gravel” dredged from the river. This last specification may have been in response to a reprimand the B&RMC had received in May from the city Board of Health, ordering the corporation to desist filling its flats east of West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) with material that was “offensive to the smell.” The New England Dredging Company, which used steam dredges similar to the one that would soon operate in the Fens (see above and figure 8.8), was to fill to grade twelve or thirteen the flats between a line 150 feet west of Hereford Street, approximately the location of the cross dam up to which the B&RMC had filled in the 1860s (see chapter 7), and the western boundary of the B&RMC flats, now Deerfield Street (see figures 8.1 and 8.12). The company was to be paid $.40 per cubic yard of fill, about the same price as the fill hauled by railroad used elsewhere in Back Bay (see chapter 7).65 The seawall to retain the fill, built along the harbor line established in 1872 and then down the west side of Deerfield Street,66 was apparently started in April 1881, shortly before filling began. The wall was constructed of Rockport granite as well as of

stones recycled from the old Mill Dam. Because the mud on the river bottom west of the cross dam was so soft and deep, in some places the bottom nine feet of the wall were set in a trench dredged to that depth, the entire wall then being twenty-three rather than fourteen feet high, in contrast to the fourteen-foot-high wall on a pile foundation that had been built east of the cross dam in the 1860s (see chapter 7).67 By 1883 the New England Dredging Company was filling the area between what is now Charlesgate West and Deerfield Street (see figure 8.1), dredging the gravel fill from a bank in the river opposite the Beacon entrance (now Charlesgate). Scows carried the gravel from the dredge to the site and carts then distributed it on the newly made land. In August, having depleted the gravel bank near the Beacon entrance, the dredge moved to a new location off Clarendon Street. The filling included the east end of a marshy island just off the shore of what is now Commonwealth Avenue and the inlet it formed at the foot of Deerfield Street (see figure 8.12).68 This marsh had once been part of the mainland with a stream at either end (see figure 8.2), but sometime before 1836 a channel had been cut parallel to Brighton (now Commonwealth) Avenue, forming the island (see figures 8.3 and 8.4).69 The B&RMC’s seawall and filling were “very nearly” completed in 1883, although corporation records indicate that some filling was done in 1884 and the wall was not finished until 1886.70 In 1887 the B&RMC filled and graded the streets on the new land in accordance with a plan that had been drawn up by the harbor commissioners in 1885, the B&RMC having agreed to fill the streets to grade fourteen and the rest of the land to grade thirteen. The B&RMC again awarded the contract to the New England Dredging Company and this time, instead of using scows, the dredged material was dumped close to the outside face of the seawall and then lifted over it at high tide by another dredge. Despite complaints about the amount of shell and mud in the gravel, the work was apparently completed that fall, creating what are now Raleigh and Deerfield Streets and the sections of Back Street and Bay State Road between Charlesgate West and Deerfield Street (see figure 8.13).71

In 1887 the owners of the marsh and flats that extended from the west line of the B&RMC’s property at Deerfield Street almost to what is now the Boston University Bridge prevailed on the city to widen what had been Brighton Avenue (and had just been renamed Commonwealth Avenue), donating the additional land needed in return for a tax abatement. During the widening, what was described on an accompanying plan as an “old canal” of the B&RMC—the channel between Commonwealth Avenue and the island—was filled in with dredged material also supplied by owners of the flats, rejoining the island with the mainland (see figures 8.3 and 8.13).72 Widening Commonwealth Avenue was part of the owners’ plan to develop their territory north of it as a residential area, and in 1890, led by brothers Charles Francis Adams, Jr., soon to be chairman of the Metropolitan Park Commission, and John Quincy Adams II of the presidential Adams family, they were incorporated as the Riverbank Improvement Company.73 Even before the Riverbank Improvement Company was formed the owners had begun to fill their own sections of the flats. In 1889 the Adams brothers, who owned the section now between Deerfield and Sherborn Streets (see figure 8.1), had contracted for a seawall on the harbor line and filling of the area enclosed with material dredged from the river. That same year, the owners of the flats in the section now between Granby Street and University Road (see figure 8.1), the latter the street that now connects Commonwealth Avenue and Storrow Drive just east of the Boston University Bridge, contracted with the firm of Boynton Brothers to build a seawall and fill their flats. By the end of the year, this wall and a bulkhead connecting its west end to the shore had been built and some of the flats filled. Since much of the Adamses’ property included the former marshy island (see figures 8.1 and 8.13) and thus did not require a great deal of fill, some of the fill dredged outside their wall was used to ballast the wall built by Boynton Brothers and some to fill Commonwealth Avenue.74 Once the Riverbank Improvement Company had been incorporated, the directors made plans to fill the intervening segment between what are now Sherborn and Granby Streets (see figure 8.1).

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In June 1890 the stockholders approved a bid from F. A. Rowe for building the seawall and in August the directors awarded the contract for filling to the Massachusetts Dredging Company.75 By the end of 1890, the entire seawall from Deerfield Street to the company’s property line near the bridge was finished, the former Adams property between Deerfield and Sherborn Streets entirely filled, and the remainder of the company’s flats almost completed.76 Most of the filling was finished in 1891, the year the directors decided that Bay State Road would be continued across their newly made land as would a twenty-foot-wide passageway along the river next to the seawall, now called Back Street.77 The seawall next to Back Street that was built by the Riverbank Improvement shareholders in the early 1890s is the one now next to and visible from Storrow Drive west of Charlesgate (figure 8.15). In 1892 the

company sold the first building lot—on the northwest corner of Deerfield Street and Bay State Road—and in 1894 put the lots on either side of Bay State from Deerfield to Granby Street on the market despite the fact that parts of Sherborn Street and Bay State Road were still not completely filled.78 The blocks along Bay State Road were soon lined with Colonial Revival rowhouses that conformed to deed restrictions reminiscent of those in Back Bay (see chapter 7)—buildings could only be dwellings or outbuildings, constructed of brick, stone, or iron, set back twenty feet from the street, and with bowfronts that projected no more than five feet.79 Many of these townhouses were acquired by Boston University in the years following its move to the Charles River campus after World War II, and they now serve as dormitories and administrative offices. FIGURE 8.15 2003

1890 S B ACK S TREET

PHOTOGRAPH OF

NORTH OF

S E AWAL L

Seen from Storrow Drive near Boston University’s Hillel House, this seawall was built by the Riverbank Improvement Company in the 1890s. West of this point the seawall is covered by a grassy bank known as the “B.U. Beach.”

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B OSTON E MBANKMENT

Filling of the Bay State Road area virtually completed the landmaking south of Back Street between the original Gravelly Point, now Massachusetts Avenue, and the Boston University Bridge, the western limit of this study.80 The remaining landmaking west of the original Gravelly Point created the land along the river north of Back Street. The first of these additional landmaking projects took place when the Charles River Dam was constructed during the first decade of the twentieth century, a project that is discussed more fully in chapter 5. Part of the dam project involved filling a narrow embankment one hundred feet wide north of Back Street as far as Charlesgate West, so actually only a small segment of it was west of Massachusetts Avenue. The construction of the segment between Charlesgate East and West was somewhat more complicated than that of the embankment east of it for, in addition to building a seawall, the Boston Marginal Conduit, and filling as in other parts of the embankment (see chapters 6 and 7), the Charlesgate section also included construction of the Fens gatehouse over the connection between the Stony Brook and the Boston Marginal Conduits (see above) and of a footbridge over the outlet of the Fens waterway (see figure 8.10). Most of this section was constructed in 1908 and, for reasons that are not clear, fill dredged hydraulically from the river bottom was specifically prohibited, even though such fill had been permitted on other sections of the embankment and material dredged by the conventional method was allowed in the Charlesgate section. In 1909 the made land in the Charlesgate section was surfaced with loam and appeared as shown in a photograph taken that year (see figure 8.10)81 as well as in a 1923 aerial photo (see figure 7.44). W IDENING

THE

E SPLANADE

IN THE

1930 S

Although the embankment and the Charles River Basin had been envisioned as recreational areas when they were created in the first decade of the twentieth century, waves bouncing off the stone seawalls created too much chop for small boats and the section of the

embankment along Back Bay was too narrow to accommodate boathouses. Finally, after years of protest, in 1929 a commission recommended that the defects be remedied by widening what by then was called the Esplanade and sloping its shore down to the river rather than ending it with a seawall (see chapter 6). The project was to be financed in part by a one million dollar gift from Mrs. James J. Storrow. The plans also called for extending the Esplanade from Charlesgate West to the Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridge. This was to be accomplished by filling a 155foot-wide strip north of Back Street, as shown on a 1931 plan (see figure 6.11).82 Much of this filling was done in 1932 with material pumped from the river bottom by a huge hydraulic dredge, prompting complaints from Bay State Road residents about the continuous “crackling and hissing” noise and objectionable smell of river bottom mud. The section of the Esplanade from Granby Street to the Cottage Farm Bridge was filled with dirt excavated from what is now the MBTA Green Line subway then being built in Kenmore Square and along Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street.83 S TORROW D RIVE

The creation of the Esplanade between Charlesgate West and what is now the Boston University Bridge in the 1930s was accomplished, as explained in chapters 6 and 7, by omitting a highway along the river that had been part of the original plans. After World War II, however, the highway proposal was revived and, despite strong opposition, finally approved in 1949. The new highway, ironically named James J. Storrow Memorial Drive despite the fact that Mrs. Storrow had opposed it in 1929, was constructed in 1950–1951. In order to compensate for land taken for the drive, an equivalent amount of land was to be created by filling in along the river. In the section between the Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) and Boston University Bridges, plans called for filling 5.6 acres with an undulating rather than straight shoreline (see figure 6.13).84 Although much of the fill for this area was dirt hauled in from the suburbs by dump trucks, some was

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also material excavated from the river bottom by a dredge that looked remarkably similar to the one that had worked in the Fens seventy years earlier (figure 8.16, cf. figure 8.8). As in the 1930s, the dredged material was pumped through a long pipe supported by pontoons to the place of deposit on the shore (figure 8.17). West of Charlesgate, Storrow Drive was built on the part of the Esplanade filled in the 1930s and, in order to reduce its impact, was required to be depressed to at least a foot and a half above the river level.85 This involved cutting down the Esplanade next to Back Street, revealing more of the seawall built by the Riverbank Improvement Company in the 1890s (see figure 8.15).

FIGURE 8.16 1951

PHOTOGRAPH OF DREDGE

“S CROD ”

This dredge used in filling the Esplanade in the 1950s looked remarkably similar to that used in the Fens in the 1880s (see figure 8.8).

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Widening the Esplanade next to Storrow Drive was the final landmaking project in the area between Massachusetts Avenue and the Boston University Bridge. Major filling in this area did not begin until the 1870s, quite late by Boston standards but a reflection of the area’s location then on the outskirts of the city. This first large landmaking project, undertaken to solve a sewage problem and creating a public park in the process, precipitated filling of the nearby marshes to create residential land and, in one case, a parkway to connect the park to others. Final filling in this area, conducted in three stages, created the last segment of the Esplanade along the river.

FIGURE 8.17 1951

PHOTOGRAPH OF PIPE CARRYING HYDRAULICALLY DREDGED MATERIAL

Taken July 31, 1951, from Charlesgate East looking upriver, this photograph shows the Fens gatehouse in the foreground, the new fill along the shore, and, in the river, the pipe through which hydraulically dredged material was pumped, similar to the method that had been used to fill the Esplanade in the 1930s. Note that the Fens gatehouse and footbridge are still on the river’s edge, as they were when the embankment was first filled (see figure 8.10). The additional fill now between these structures and the river (see figure 8.11) was added in the mid-1950s when Storrow Drive was widened.

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ER AVENUE BRIDGE

R ST.

TYLE

HUDS

RD

HERALD BLDG.

E. BE RKEL EY S T. ST. ON S T.

ER

EL

ST

NN

CHINATOWN ST.

ST.

AVE .

LINC OLN

BEAC H

ST.

CHA

DO RCH EST

HA RVA TUFTS

DORCHEST

ISON AVE.

HARR

D ST.

TON ST.

R OXFO

WASHIN G

1630 SHORELIN E EA

LEATHER DISTRICT

ST .

9

SOUTH COVE

South Cove was originally the large cove on the east side of the Shawmut Peninsula that was bounded by the Neck on the west and Windmill Point and the Old South End on the north (see figure 1.1). What were once the tidal flats of South Cove is now the land bounded approximately by East/Tufts/Beach Streets on the north, Washington Street on the west, East Berkeley Street on the south, and the Fort Point Channel on the east, a large area that includes the Leather District, part of Chinatown, the maze of ramps at the Massachusetts Turnpike/expressway interchange, and, south of the turnpike, the Boston Herald building and its surrounding area (figure 9.1). FIGURE 9.1 1992

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

E IGHTEENTH S OUTH C OVE

WITH

1630

CENTURY

SHORELINE

South Cove was originally bounded by Windmill Point, approximately at the present intersection of East Street and Atlantic Avenue, and by the Neck, on which Washington Street ran. Filling the cove created the land now occupied by the Leather District, Chinatown, the ramps of the turnpike/expressway interchange, and, south of the turnpike, the Boston Herald building and its vicinity. The bird’s-eye view ends just short of the East Berkeley/West Fourth Street Bridge—the southern boundary of South Cove. The 1630 shoreline is a reconstruction taken from the map in figure 9.2.

Filling of South Cove began in the first decade of the eighteenth century as an outgrowth of concern about erosion of the Neck. The Neck was only fifty to one hundred feet wide in places and sometimes awash in storms and at exceptionally high tides so, not surprisingly, townspeople were concerned about preserving their only land link with the mainland. That is why in 1708 the town granted all the land on the Neck between what is now Herald

Street and a fortification that had been built across the Neck at what is now East Berkeley Street to a group of proprietors on the condition that they would “secure [the land] and keep off the sea.”1 The owners evidently first erected wooden barriers along the Neck—referred to in 1735 as “wharves”—and then, about 1760, two- and three-foot-high stone walls that were subsequently referred to as dams.2 The proprietors apparently also filled the area between these barriers and the original Neck, creating a small amount of new land.3 By the end of the eighteenth century some new land had also been created by “wharfing out” along the shores of South Cove (figure 9.2).

1795 SHORELINE

1630 SHORELINE

F RONT S TREET

HERALD ST.

E. BERKELEY ST.

N

The first major landmaking project in South Cove took place in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It actually originated not as a landmaking project at all but instead from the question of whether to annex Dorchester Neck, now South Boston, to Boston and to build a bridge connecting the two. Like Boston, Dorchester Neck was a peninsula, separated from Boston by South Bay (figure 9.3). In order to get to Dorchester Neck from Boston Proper at the beginning of the nineteenth century one had to travel south on Washington Street as far as present-day Dudley Street before going east and then north around South Bay (see figure 9.3). A bridge across South Cove would obviously make the route much shorter. As early as 1795 some townsmen proposed building a dike or causeway across the flats to Dorchester Neck, and in early 1803 both the town meeting and the state legislature considered a petition for a bridge from the Old South End—the Windmill Point area—to Dorchester Point (Neck).4 But at the time only about ten families lived on Dorchester Neck and the proposed bridge may have seemed unnecessary.

1780S SEAW ALL

FIGURE 9.2 S OUTH C OVE

ON

1895

MAP SHOWING

1630

AND

1795

SHORELINES

On this map the 1630 shoreline is shown with a solid line and the 1795 shoreline with a dashed line. The difference between the two represents the land made in South Cove in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most of it by wharfing out.

FORT POINT

WINDMILL POINT

OUTLET CHA NNE L

SOUTH COVE

DORCHESTER NECK (SOUTH BOSTON)

S T.

)

OLD FORTIFICATION

B R.

RY (DU DL EY S

T.)

(EA S

DO

R C H ESTER B ROOK

(WAS HIN GTO N DYKE

. ST

ST.) ON

R

BU

ER

( B O ST

PINE IS.

OX

D OR

SOUTH BAY

ST C HE

OTTAGE ST.) TC

FIGURE 9.3 D ETAIL

F ROM

1777 P ELHAM

MAP OF

B OSTON

AND ENVIRONS

On this Revolutionary War–era map, South Cove is clearly visible on the east side of Boston Neck as is South Bay between the Neck and the South Boston peninsula. The road from Boston to South Boston followed present Washington Street to Dudley Street, East Cottage Street, and then Boston Street to the South Boston peninsula. The lines radiating out from the Boston and other peninsulas represent cannon fire from gun emplacements.

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The population of Boston was increasing rapidly in 1803, however, and the town needed more land. Landmaking projects such as that on Mount Vernon were barely underway and the Mill Pond project had not even been proposed (see chapters 6 and 4), so the already-existing land on Dorchester Neck seemed a likely residential area. Thus, in the summer of 1803 a group of speculators quietly began buying up land on Dorchester Neck. These speculators included none other than Harrison Gray Otis and Jonathan Mason—two of the Mount Vernon Proprietors (see chapter 6). Their associates in the Dorchester Neck enterprise were William Tudor, a merchant, and Gardiner Greene, one of Boston’s wealthiest merchants, whose second wife was the daughter of artist John Singleton Copley. Greene had lived in Demerara (now Georgetown, Guyana), perhaps giving rise to the speculators’ original cover story that the land was for a wealthy gentleman from the West Indies.5 The originator and agent of the project was Joseph Woodward, another of the original Mount Vernon Proprietors, who at the time was living in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, but moved to South Boston in 1804.6 By the end of 1803 the speculators, under the names of Greene and Tudor, had acquired about 148 of the 600 or so acres on Dorchester Neck.7 Then, on December 27, 1803, they and the residents of Dorchester Neck submitted a memorial to the selectmen asking that Dorchester Neck be annexed to Boston on condition that a connecting bridge be built.8 This request unleashed what an observer later called “one of the most violent oppositions that has ever occurred upon a Town question.”9 The issue was that if a bridge were built to Dorchester Neck on the most direct route from Boston—from South Street, which was near Windmill Point, to the north shore of Dorchester Neck—it would cut off the wharves in South Cove (see figure 9.3). In the first half of January 1804 the controversy raged in virtually every issue of the town’s major papers in articles with titles such as “Bridge or No Bridge? That’s the Question.”10 And, as with the Mill Pond issue, which was being debated in the press at just the same time (see chapter 4), initially both Federalist and Republican papers published articles on both sides of the controversy.

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On one side the speculators, Dorchester Neck residents, and many townspeople argued that Boston needed to be enlarged, house lots on Dorchester Neck would be less expensive than those in the present town, the area would be a suitable residence for both merchants and mechanics and would keep the latter from moving to other towns, and a new route would be opened into Boston from the south. The opposition was led by what were termed the “Wharfowners at the South End,” the men who owned the wharves fronting on South Cove. They argued that their commercial interests would be hurt because the draw in the center of the bridge would be difficult for ships to navigate; that, given the amount of shipping in the South End, the draw would be open so often that the new road would be impeded; that there were still many houselots available in Boston; that development of Dorchester Neck would reduce the value of the town’s land south of the Neck (now part of the South End), which the town was trying to sell; and that it was wrong to sacrifice the interests of nine hundred citizens of Boston for the benefit of ten families and a small group of speculators. In reply, the speculators claimed that, because the South Cove wharves were the most suitable ones in the town for heavy goods and shallow-draft coastal vessels, the South End’s lumber business would not be hurt by the bridge. The speculators also sweetened their proposal by offering to pay for half the bridge or to give the town twenty-five thousand dollars. Feelings were running very high by the time a special town meeting convened on January 16 to consider the questions of annexing Dorchester Neck and building a bridge from South Street. After two days of heated debate, the meeting defeated a motion by the wharfowners to commit the issue to a committee for further consideration and passed a motion by Tudor in favor of annexation. The meeting then approved a motion by Otis that a committee consider the conditions under which annexation would take place and where the bridge would be located.11 Many criticisms were voiced in the Republican Independent Chronicle about the conduct at the town meeting of the specula-

tors, all of whom were Federalists, particularly about their being a “phalanx of lawyers [who dominated] those who were not in the habit of speaking in public.”12 Tudor was especially criticized for having the arrogance to move his own proposal be accepted and for characterizing the motion to commit the issue to a committee as “insidious,” when such committees were standard procedure. In the future, predicted the Chronicle, “a few chattering lawyers in combination with men who are able to monopolize every dollar in the banks, will henceforth generate project after project . . . and under a pretended act of generosity will eventually bear down every opposition to their plans.”13 The report of the town committee, submitted at the end of January, recommended that the bridge be built from South Street.14 When the town meeting convened on January 30, the debate became so acrimonious that it was impossible to proceed, and, when the meeting resumed the following day, it was unanimously decided that the question of the bridge should be left entirely to the state legislature.15 A committee of both houses of the legislature held four days of hearings on the petitions for annexation and for a bridge from South Street and on a remonstrance from the South Enders opposing the latter. Again the Chronicle criticized the conduct of the speculators, saying Otis and Mason—the former the Speaker of the House and the latter a senator—interfered improperly; accusing the proponents of the bridge of laughing and talking when the opponents spoke and of bringing ladies, “dear little souls,” into the galleries in support of their cause; and directing particular sarcasm at the “immaculate agent from Tewksbury [Woodward],” perhaps because of his infamous temper.16 On February 14, the committee reported in favor of a bridge from South Street and of annexing Dorchester Neck because both “would greatly conduce to the future prosperity of the town of Boston by opening a new and useful avenue to the town, by enlarging its boundaries, increasing its population, and giving full scope to its commercial enterprise.”17 In return, the bridge proprietors were to provide a boat and two men to assist ships through the draw and to pay a South End committee eleven hundred dollars a year.

At this point events took an unexpected turn. The South Enders, realizing that a bridge was inevitable and wanting it to be in the location least harmful to them, proposed that it be built not from South Street but rather from Orange (now Washington) Street near the old fortification, that is, from Boston Neck to Dorchester Neck on the line of what are now East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets (see figure 9.3). To meet the objection that the route between Boston and Dorchester Neck via this bridge would be much longer than that via a bridge from South Street, the South Enders proposed improving access to the bridge by building a new street parallel to Orange (Washington) Street from Rainsford’s Lane (now the part of Harrison Avenue between Beach and Essex Streets) to the bridge—creating what is now Harrison Avenue between Beach and East Berkeley Streets (figure 9.4). The South Enders made this proposal on the presumption that no other bridge would be built to Dorchester Neck north of the one from Orange Street, and the speculators probably agreed to it because they saw it as the easiest way to obtain the bridge they needed in order to make good on their investment.18 So, without consulting the town or the Dorchester Neck residents, the speculators and the South Enders signed a compromise on February 18, 1804. The agreement stipulated that the speculators would secure legislative acts annexing Dorchester Point [Neck] and enabling them to build a bridge from Orange Street and that the South Enders would make a street from Rainsford’s Lane to the bridge. The street was to be 50 feet wide, be located 350 feet from Orange Street, have a “good and sufficient” stone facing on the seaward side, and be completed by November 1, 1805. Missing from the compromise, however, was any guarantee that the bridge from Orange Street would be the only bridge to Dorchester Neck.19 The bills proceeded quickly through the Legislature and on March 6, 1804, the three relevant acts were passed: one to annex the northeast part of Dorchester, a second to incorporate twentynine owners of land and flats on the west shore of South Cove as the Front Street Corporation to build a street from Rainsford’s Lane to the bridge, and a third to incorporate William Tudor,

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CH’S

SEA ST.

SOUTH ST.

RAINSFORD

. BEACH ST

WHA

RF

ORA

NGE

ST.

MAD

E

FRON T ST.

LAN

D

FRON T ST.

PROPOSED BRIDGE

(E. BE

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UT

HB

OS

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GE

FIGURE 9.4 S OUTH C OVE

FIGURE 9.5

ON

1805 C ARLETON

MAP OF

B OSTON

S OUTH C OVE

ON

1807

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) built over wharves and flats of South Cove from the end of Rainsford’s Lane at Beach Street to the South Boston Bridge (now East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets). The map also shows the proposed bridge to South Boston from South Street.

This map shows the new land created by filling the flats between the former wharves and the new Front Street (now Harrison Avenue; see figure 9.4). The map also shows the new wharf extended south from Sea Street.

Gardiner Greene, Jonathan Mason, and Harrison Gray Otis as the Proprietors of the South Boston Bridge to build the bridge.20 Thus, what began as a question of annexing more territory to Boston and building a bridge to it resulted in a landmaking project—the building of Front Street.21 Work began almost immediately on Front Street and the bridge. On March 16 the bridge proprietors advertised for timber

and planks “for the erecting of a Bridge from Dorchester Point to the south part of Boston,” requesting the respondees to contact Jonathan Mason, and on March 24 the Front Street Corporation advertised for “stones, to be laid in a workmanlike manner on the East side of a New Street to be built at the South End of Boston” as well as for ballast stones and timber piles.22 Construction of the wall on the east side of the street began in May 1804 and, after it

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was built, the fifty-foot wide street was filled in with mud taken from the flats outside the wall and brought in by scows.23 The Front Street and South Boston Bridge projects both proceeded apace. On August 31, 1804, the Reverend William Bentley of Salem made a visit to Boston and wrote in his diary, “The Bridge frames from Boston to Dorchester were nearly finished & most of them fixed in the bed of the River.”24 The bridge, 1,551 feet long, opened October 1, 1805, amid much fanfare. The construction of Front Street itself was also completed in October 1805 and both the new street and bridge are shown on an 1805 map (see figure 9.4).25 The next part of the Front Street project was the filling of the flats between the new street and the old shoreline, which was done by the individual owners of these flats. This process was clearly still underway in March 1806 when the legislature passed a supplementary act authorizing the Front Street Corporation to erect a fence along the side of the street for the safety of pedestrians and carriages, stipulating that the fence could be removed when “the flatts adjoining shall be filled up.”26 There was some difference of opinion about just how much “filling up” was involved: the Front Street Corporation indicated in February 1805, while the filling of the street was in process, that the fill was fourteen feet deep, but the opposition claimed in January 1806, after the street was finished, that the fill was ten feet deep.27 All agreed, however, that the Front Street project resulted in a total of twelve new acres, of which nine had been flats between the new street and the former shore. The new land between Orange (now Washington) and Front (now Harrison Avenue) Streets is shown on an 1807 map (figure 9.5).28 The building of Front Street and of the South Boston Bridge did not end the controversy about a bridge to South Boston, as Dorchester Neck was called after it was annexed. On March 16, 1804, just after the Front Street Corporation and the Proprietors of the South Boston Bridge had been incorporated, the South Boston residents issued a statement disavowing the compromise, saying that they had petitioned for annexation on “a strong expectation, if not on the express condition” of a bridge from South

Street and were “mortified” to find that those they had thought were their allies had, without consulting them, agreed to the bridge from Orange Street.29 This was followed in May by a petition to the legislature for a bridge on the shortest route from Boston Proper to South Boston.30 The question was carried over to early 1805 and again the issue became extremely acrimonious. A petition of the South Boston landowners requesting a town meeting to consider a bridge from South Street was signed by William Tudor, partly to mollify the South Boston faction and partly because the speculators knew a South Street bridge was more advantageous to their interests.31 Tudor’s action brought cries of betrayal from the Front Street Corporation, who claimed that their agreement with the speculators precluded any bridge north of the one from Boston Neck.32 To support their position, the corporation issued a pamphlet reproducing many of the relevant documents but not the essential compromise, which, of course, did not guarantee that the bridge from the Neck would be the only one to South Boston.33 Both Tudor and Otis defended themselves in print, both claiming that they made the compromise because they were, in Otis’s words, “harassed by the perseverance and violence of the opposition” of the South Enders and that the compromise did not prohibit a bridge from South Street.34 The town meeting approved the petition for a South Street bridge35 and the proposed bridge is shown on an 1805 map (see figure 9.4), but the legislature did not act and so the question of a bridge from South Street was renewed in 1806. This time its supporters published a pamphlet, reportedly written by Otis or Tudor,36 but, although the petition for a South Street bridge was approved by the Senate, it was not by the House and so the matter was dropped until the next petition was introduced. Thus began an almost yearly cycle of introducing and eventually dismissing petitions for a bridge from South, or later Sea, Street. S EA S TREET

Meanwhile, several landmaking projects extended Sea Street, at the eastern edge of Windmill Point. On February 16, 1804, just

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when the compromise about the bridge from Boston Neck was being negotiated between the speculators and the South Enders, Uriah Cotting, Francis C. Lowell, James Lloyd, Jr., soon to be partners on the India Wharf project (see chapter 3), and Isaac P. Davis, a proprietor of a ropewalk at the foot of the Common (see chapter 7) and a collaborator with Cotting on several projects, acquired the area at the foot of Sea Street near Hatch’s Wharf on Windmill Point (see figure 9.4).37 In 1807 the Proprietors of Wheeler’s Point, as the point was then called and the enterprise so named, laid out an extension of Sea Street, which was actually a cobb wharf of which the top four feet were solid earth and stone,38 and this extension is shown on an 1807 map (see figure 9.5). Sea Street was extended again in 1810 or 1811. The extension of this wharf area did not please everyone, however, as Cotting described in a May 4, 1811, letter to Lowell: After I had made the sale at Wheeler’s Point to [Jonathan] Mason [on September 3, 1810], the Proprietors built out Sea Street three hundred feet; the fourth hundred feet was placed opposite Baxter’s Wharf [on Front Street] & stood three days. On the third evening (which was Saturday) about seventy men armed with crow bars axes etc. assembled & cut the said fourth hundred feet of wharf to pieces & set the timber adrift. They then sued us for the other three hundred feet, which they declared was a nuisance. We were tried, cleared, and our right completely established. We sued them for a riot, but they were acquitted. At the head of the mob of 70 men were Daniel Baxter, Joel Smith, & Jubez Ellis [owners of wharves on Front Street].39 The South Enders were obviously still concerned, as they had been during the controversy over a bridge from South Street, about their wharves being cut off by a street extended from the north side of South Cove. The extended Sea Street as well as Baxter’s, Ellis’s, and Smith’s wharves are all shown on Hales’s map of 1814 (figure 9.6), which also indicates that the end of Sea Street was opposite Baxter’s Wharf, so by then the last hundred feet may have been rebuilt.

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F REE B RIDGE

The 1811 riot stopped the extension of Sea Street but not agitation for a bridge, which surfaced again in the early 1820s when the population of South Boston had grown. In 1824 the residents of that section petitioned the city for a more direct bridge, and, according to Mayor Josiah Quincy, “all the bitter animosities and apprehensions were renewed.”40 At issue was not only whether to provide a shorter and toll-free alternative to the existing bridge— the same issue being raised at the same time by proposals for the Warren Bridge to Charlestown (see chapter 14)—but also whether to build a bridge that would make the wharves in South Cove less accessible. In 1825 the state legislature authorized the city to build a free bridge from either Sea or South Street to South Boston, but the city dragged its feet, so finally, in 1826, the legislature authorized a private corporation of South Boston interests to build the bridge instead. The bridge still needed city approval, however, and the city was reluctant to give it because of opposition from South End wharf owners and from proprietors of the old South Boston Bridge. Eventually, in early 1827 the city authorized the Boston Free Bridge Corporation to build a bridge from Sea Street according to specifications the city approved. The corporation constructed a bridge connecting with the Dorchester Turnpike (now Dorchester Avenue in South Boston) and in approximately the same location as the present Dorchester Avenue Bridge (figures 9.7 and 9.1). When it neared completion in 1828, however, the South Cove wharf owners again raised objections. The city finally accepted the structure in October 1828 only after a board of arbiters ruled that the bridge was in the city’s interest and the Free Bridge Corporation agreed to pay the city to finish it.41 S OUTH C OVE C ORPORATION

The opening of the Free Bridge to South Boston made it more difficult for vessels to reach the wharves in South Cove, just as the South Enders had once predicted it would. The South Cove interests evidently then decided it would be more profitable to fill the

FIGURE 9.6 S OUTH C OVE B OSTON

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This map shows the extension of Sea Street made in 1810 or 1811, almost blocking the wharves of Ellis, Baxter, and Smith, who led the protest against it.

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cove and develop it than to keep it open for shipping. So, in January 1833 a group of lawyers, merchants, and businessmen formed the South Cove Corporation for the express purpose of filling the flats between Sea (the Free Bridge) and Front Streets in order to provide land for the terminals of the railroads then being built to Boston from Worcester and Providence.42 To encourage the railroads to locate in South Cove, the corporation was authorized to give them a bonus of money and/or land.43 The Boston & Providence soon decided to locate its depot elsewhere, but the Boston & Worcester accepted. In April 1833 the South Cove Corporation paid the railroad a bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars and agreed to sell it land in South Cove for merchandise [freight] and passenger depots.44 In April 1833 this land did not exist, however, and had to be created by filling. The South Cove Corporation had originally planned to purchase and fill the entire seventy-seven acres of wharves and flats bounded by Front, Essex, and Sea Streets and the South Boston Bridge (see figure 9.7), but even before the project began the corporation decided not to undertake so much and to fill only about as far south as Orange (now Herald) Street (see figure 9.8).45 Filling of South Cove began in May 1833. To obtain fill the corporation had purchased eighteen acres of marsh about a mile away at the south end of South Bay (see figure 9.3) and a three-acre gravel hill in Roxbury, also on South Bay. Scows brought the mud and gravel to South Cove. The corporation cut a six-hundred-foot canal to the gravel hill in 1833 so that the scows could reach it, and cleared all the marsh around the hill in 1834 so that a number of scows could load at the same time.46 Each scow was numbered and had an assigned place of loading,47 an arrangement that apparently facilitated accounting as well as the work. Corporation records list the names of scow operators and, of the seventy-five persons paid for delivering scow loads of mud and gravel between 1837 and 1839, at least three-quarters had Irish surnames.48 Once in South Cove, laborers used wheelbarrows and horse carts to unload fill from the scows and transport it to the areas being filled. The mud was used as underlying fill—one annual

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report extolled the advantages of salt mud fill over earth, saying that piles could more easily be driven through mud and cellars dug into mud did not need additional waterproofing—and the gravel was used for finishing the surface and constructing streets.49 According to corporation records, the fill was thirteen feet deep.50 In 1836 and 1837 the corporation purchased an additional 571/2 acres of upland, marsh, and flats at the south end of South Bay.51 In addition to the mud and gravel from South Bay, some of the fill was “cellar earth”—presumably dirt obtained from excavations for cellars of new buildings—which was brought to South Cove in carts and some was gravel brought from Brighton by railroad beginning June 30, 1836, when the very first Boston & Worcester engine to enter South Cove came pulling a train of gravel cars.52 At the outset of the project the South Cove Corporation decided to keep the wharves on Front Street temporarily open to shipping, so they created a channel to these wharves, which were protected by a timber framework filled with marsh sods.53 This channel is shown on an 1835 map (figure 9.8), but a more accurate picture is provided by an 1837 harbor commissioners’ plan of South Cove (figure 9.9), which indicates that a basin had been left open on the south side of the channel. The corporation had planned to build a drawbridge on Lincoln Street, down which the railroad ran (see figure 9.8), at the point where the tracks crossed the channel leading to the Front Street wharves. But the Boston & Worcester wanted a fixed bridge instead and, since such a bridge would prevent masted vessels from reaching Front Street, in 1836 the corporation decided to fill in the Front Street wharves after all.54 Besides filling up the cove, the South Cove project also called for building a stone seawall and constructing a uniform line of wharves along what became the Fort Point Channel, the outlet of South Bay that flowed between Boston Proper and South Boston (see figure 9.3). The channel took its name from the point at the base of the eponymous Fort Hill, which had had a fort on its summit during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (In the 1840s and early 1850s, however, the channel was sometimes erroneously called the Four or Fore Point Channel, a mistake also occasionally repeated on maps.55) The wharves on the channel were to be

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This map shows the new Free Bridge to South Boston from Sea Street, cutting off the wharves in South Cove.

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This map shows, rather schematically, the amount of South Cove filled by 1835, the channel left open to the wharves on Front Street, and the new wharves built in South Cove opposite the area in South Boston filled by Cyrus Alger, defining the Fort Point Channel.

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This map shows the part of South Cove not yet filled, the channel leading to the wharves on Front Street, and the new wharves on the Fort Point Channel.

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formed by seawall seven feet wide at the base, three feet at the top, and fourteen feet high.56 An 1835 map suggests that four wharves had been built on the channel by that date (see figure 9.8), although the more accurate 1837 plan indicates that by then only two such wharves had been built (see figure 9.9) and the annual report for 1836 says that three were actually finished by that year.57 The wharves built by the South Cove Corporation in the 1830s as well as those extended from the east side of the Free Bridge began to define the west side of the Fort Point Channel just as the filling conducted by Cyrus Alger in South Boston (see chapter 11) was beginning to define the east side (see figure 9.8). Filling of most of South Cove north of Orange (now Herald) Street was completed in November 1839. The extent of the area filled, much of which is now covered by the ramps at the end of the Massachusetts Turnpike (see figure 9.1), is shown fairly accurately on an 1838 map (figure 9.10). According to the South Cove Corporation’s annual report, fifty-six acres had been created, most of it with mud and gravel from South Bay supplemented by a small amount of cellar earth and an even smaller amount of gravel from Brighton. In addition a seawall 380 feet long had been constructed on the Fort Point Channel with six new wharves projecting into the channel from this wall (see figure 9.10).58 The South Cove project accomplished its objective of making new land for railroads. After the arrival of the first gravel train in June 1836, the first Boston & Worcestor passenger train entered the cove on November 7, 1836. The tracks went around a curve and then up Lincoln Street to a passenger depot on the north side of Eliot (now Kneeland) Street and the freight depot was located further south near Oak Street (see figure 9.11). The project was not a financial success, however. In spite of early optimistic predictions about the amount of business that would be attracted to South Cove because of the proximity of wharves and the railroad, the project was hard hit by the financial panic of 1837. A planned public sale of land was not held and in November 1838 the corporation sold lots to its own shareholders in order to reduce its debt.59 By the time filling was completed in 1839 the economy had improved somewhat. Houses were being built on the newly

made land and the corporation’s agent wrote optimistically, “The population of this city is every year becoming more and more crowded within its territorial limits. . . . The demand, therefore, for land seems likely to be one of the most pressing in our community. Nature has limited the supply within the City proper. I think therefore we can have no reason to doubt that our lands, in tolerable times, will find a good market.”60 Although the South Cove Corporation had announced that it had completed filling in 1839,61 some parts of South Cove north of Orange (now Herald) Street were still open water and it filled these in the 1840s. In his report for 1840, the agent stated that the dock at the end of Harvard Street and the long dock that extended north as far as Beach Street (see figure 9.10) had been filled that year with mud and gravel brought from South Bay in scows and with “cellar-earth” brought in carts and that South Street had been constructed over the area of the long dock.62 Not all of this dock was apparently filled in 1840, however, for in 1842 the mayor declared it a nuisance that was damaging to the health of the city and recommended that it be filled.63 The proprietors of the dock refused to do so, however, so the city made an agreement with the South Cove Corporation by which the corporation was to fill the foot of the dock with mud brought by scows and the city the head of the dock with “dry dirt” and ashes brought by carts. The corporation began their section in October 1842 and had completed it by December but the city did not finish its part until 1843. In all, filling the dock created almost 1.5 acres of new land.64 In 1843 the corporation filled the flats north of Harvard Street on the west side of the Free Bridge, adding another 0.4 acre of new land for the railroad (see figures 9.11 and 9.10).65 The last part of South Cove remaining open north of Orange (now Herald) Street, an inlet between Sea and South Streets, was filled sometime between 1846 and 1852 (figures 9.12 and 9.11). Meanwhile, the South Cove Corporation had begun filling the area south of Orange (now Herald) Street in order to create land to sell for residential use. In 1843 the corporation removed the three northernmost wharves east of Front Street in the area between Orange Street and the South Boston Bridge and filled the flats, cre-

ating about 3.7 acres of new land. The three new streets laid out on the new land were named Erie, Oneida, and Oswego after New York State towns in order to commemorate the opening of the Western Railroad from Worcester to Albany in 1842 (see figures 9.10 and 9.11).66 These new streets ran between Albany Street, which had been extended south, and Harrison Avenue, the former Front Street, which had been renamed in April 1841 after the death of President William Henry Harrison. In the next year or so the wharves as far south as the former Cobb’s Wharf were also filled in and three more streets—Genesee, Rochester, and Troy—were laid out (see figures 9.10 and 9.11), giving rise to the name “New York Streets” for the area bounded by Orange (now Herald), Albany, Troy (now Traveler) Streets, and Harrison Avenue (see figure 9.12). One unintended consequence of filling South Cove was the enlargement of South Bay. All the mud and gravel excavated from the south end of South Bay to fill South Cove completely altered the configuration of South Bay, as can be seen in a comparison of 1777 and 1845 plans of the bay (see figures 9.3 and 10.5). Although the 1777 plan is not nearly as accurate as the one drawn in 1845, it is clear that by the latter date the southeast shoreline extended much further south, the result of having been dug away to obtain mud to fill South Cove. (The altered shoreline is shown in figure 10.1.) This enlargement of South Bay is usually cited as seventy-five acres,67 probably because the South Cove Corporation had purchased that amount of upland, marsh, and flats at the south end of the bay (see above). A recent computer analysis, however, calculated that South Bay was actually enlarged by 61.6 acres.68 The intended consequence of filling South Cove—creating land for railroad and residential use—did, however, come to pass much as the South Cove Corporation had anticipated, at least for a time. In 1845 the Old Colony Railroad entered Boston on a route from the south, locating its depots in South Cove along with those of the Boston & Worcester (see figure 9.11), and thereafter the land east of Albany Street was primarily used by railroads. The made land west of Albany Street was soon covered with brick tenements that were then occupied by successive waves of immigrant groups—originally by Yankees, by the late 1850s predominantly by

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This map shows, again rather schematically, the amount of South Cove filled by 1838 as well as the open docks at the foot of Harvard and south of Beach Streets.

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This map shows the remaining parts of South Cove still not filled by 1846—an inlet west of the Free Bridge and the wharves south of Troy (now Traveler) Street. It also shows the streets named for New York State towns laid out on the recently filled area between Harrison Avenue and Albany Street and the tracks of the Old Colony Railroad built across the Fort Point Channel to a depot on Kneeland (former Eliot) Street.

FIGURE 9.12 SE A

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By 1852 all of South Cove had been filled except for the wharves south of Troy (now Traveler) Street.

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Irish, who had probably been attracted by jobs in the nearby rail yards, beginning in the 1880s by eastern European Jews and Italians, and by 1900 by Armenians. By 1890 a Chinese community had been established in the northernmost part of South Cove on the block north of Beach Street between Harrison Avenue and Oxford Street (see figure 9.1). The Chinese had probably located there because of the area’s low rents and proximity to a railroad station, a common pattern of American Chinatowns that was reinforced when a section of the Atlantic Avenue elevated train line (see chapter 3) opened on Harrison Avenue in 1901, further depressing rents. Until 1935 Chinatown was located north of Kneeland Street. The “el” was taken down in 1942, however, and the Armenians south of Kneeland Street began to move away. At the same time, Chinese restaurants and other businesses were prospering during World War II and restrictions on Chinese immigration were reduced in 1944, permitting a great increase in the number of women and families from China. As a result, Chinatown began to expand south of Kneeland Street into the area that it occupies today.69 South Cove was eventually transformed by drastic changes in the 1950s and 1960s. Some buildings were removed when the Central Artery and Southeast Expressway were constructed in the 1950s, the entire New York Streets area was demolished in 1957 as an urban renewal project and the Boston Herald building erected on the cleared land, and all the buildings east of Hudson Street and many of the rail yards were replaced by ramps when the Massachusetts Turnpike was extended in 1964. Today almost the only remaining vestiges of the South Cove project are the curve of the tracks (now located further east than in the nineteenth century) from the turnpike corridor into the South Station area and some remaining Greek Revival buildings on Harvard, Hudson, and Tyler Streets, particularly on Hudson south of Harvard where the houses face the retaining wall of the expressway (see figure 9.1). In recent decades South Cove has been subject to falling groundwater levels and rotting wood foundations piles just as have parts of the Beacon Hill Flat, Back Bay, the South End, and the Fenway (see chapter 6, 7, and 8). The most dramatic problem

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occurred in the late 1980s when four buildings in Chinatown at the north end of Hudson Street suffered such severe structural damage, reportedly caused by rotted foundation piles, that they had to be razed. And just prior to that, a city Inspectional Services Department survey had found that 90 percent of 160 buildings on three Chinatown streets had damage that may have been caused by rotting piles.70 The Boston Globe reported in April 2002 that the water table is low in some of the observation wells that have been installed in South Cove to monitor groundwater levels (see chapter 6),71 so rotting foundation piles may continue to be a problem in South Cove as they are in other areas. A LBANY S TREET

Filling of the last piece of South Cove that remained open north of the South Boston Bridge—the part between present East Berkeley and Traveler (formerly Troy) Streets (see figure 9.12)— occurred in the 1860s as part of the extension of Albany Street and is discussed in chapter 10 along with the rest of that project. S OUTH S TATION

The final landmaking project in the South Cove area was the construction in 1897–1899 of South Station, which, although not technically in South Cove (see figure 9.1), is nonetheless related to developments in that area. At the end of the nineteenth century the eight separate railroad terminals in Boston were consolidated into two union stations, one serving the railroads that entered the city from the north and the other the lines entering from the south. The north Union Station was built on Causeway Street in 1893 by the Boston & Maine Railroad, which by then had taken over the Boston & Lowell and the Fitchburg and would soon also absorb the Eastern (see chapter 4). The railroads entering the city from the south were being similarly taken over by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, which by early 1896 controlled the Old Colony, Boston & Providence, and New England Railroads.

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This chart shows the South Station area as it was just before the terminal was built. The tracks of the New England Railroad curved from South Boston across the Fort Point Channel to a depot on Summer Street and those of the Boston & Albany Railroad still curved up Lincoln Street to depots on Kneeland Street.

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The construction of South Station in 1897–1899 over the former wharves south of Summer Street changed the street and rail patterns in the area. Atlantic Avenue was widened and extended next to the station, Dorchester Avenue was rerouted next to the Fort Point Channel, the curve of the Boston & Albany tracks was relocated further east, and the curve of the discontinued New York, New Haven, and Hartford tracks in South Boston was preserved in the curve of Melcher Street.

The actual impetus for a new southern terminal was an agreement made by the New England Railroad in January 1896 to discontinue its tracks west of A Street in South Boston, which meant that the railroad could no longer cross the Fort Point Channel to its terminal on Summer Street and would have to find a new one (figure 9.13). The question was whether a new union station would be built just for the New England and the Old Colony or for all the lines entering the city from the south. At the city’s urging, the New York, New Haven & Hartford agreed to cooperate with the Boston & Albany (the successor to the Boston & Worcester), the other major line entering from the south, to devise plans for a union terminal for all the southern lines. After rejecting a site on Kneeland Street because there was not enough land between the street and the Fort Point Channel, the railroads proposed that the new terminal be located on the Fort Point Channel between Summer Street extended to the channel and the Broadway Bridge (see figure 9.13). The plans called for discontinuing the part of Federal Street that crossed the site between the end of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge and what is now Dewey Square (see figure 9.13) and relocating it next to the channel, creating what is now Dorchester Avenue next to the South Postal Annex (see figure 9.1). The plans also called for widening a then-insignificant street on the west side of the site and extending it to Summer Street, creating what is now the section of Atlantic Avenue between Summer and Kneeland Streets (figures 9.14 and 9.1). The city was to construct the streets, and the railroads, incorporated in 1896 as the Boston Terminal Company, were to build the station.72 The new terminal was to be built over all the old wharves between Summer Street and the Dorchester Avenue Bridge (see figure 9.13), an area of land that had been made by wharfing out. The project involved constructing a twenty-four hundred-foot seawall along the Fort Point Channel.73 Then the station building—the present South Station—was built at the corner of Summer Street and Atlantic Avenue (see figure 9.14). The station had tracks on two levels, those on the lower level intended for electric commuter trains. Because the floor of this level was about four feet below mean high tide, a cofferdam was constructed around the three sides

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of the building that were on made land. The cofferdam consisted of two parallel rows of sheet piling driven six feet apart into the underlying blue clay and the area between them filled with clay. When the cofferdam was completed, the old fill that existed between the cofferdam and the seawall, most of which was coal ashes and trash, was dug out and that area also filled with clay.74 The new South Station, which opened in 1899, changed the street patterns in that area of the city and also some rail routes. Because the new union terminal included a station for the Boston & Providence, which the New York, New Haven & Hartford had acquired in 1893, that railroad closed the old station in Park Square and discontinued the tracks east of Dartmouth Street, the point where they had crossed the Boston & Albany tracks. Henceforth, the New York, New Haven & Hartford (now Amtrak) tracks east of Dartmouth Street followed the route of the Boston & Albany (now the commuter rail) to South Station. And to meet the continuing demand for a station that was convenient to Back Bay, a new station—on the site of the present Back Bay Station—was built at Dartmouth Street. The fill behind South Station was altered when the Parcel Post (now South Postal Annex) building was built along the Fort Point Channel on Dorchester Avenue in the mid-1930s. To construct this building, Dorchester Avenue had to be raised about 4.5 feet and the height of the seawall increased by this amount. The project involved removing the stone seawalls and piles of the old wharves, which had been left in place when South Station was originally built, and adding more fill.75 The filling done for the building of South Station in 1897–1899 and the additional fill added to this area in the 1930s was the last landmaking in South Cove. Although a small amount of the cove had been filled in the late eighteenth century to combat erosion along the Neck and in the early nineteenth century to create a new street, most of the cove was filled in the 1830s and 1840s to make land for railroads.

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SHORELINES

South Bay, which officially began at what are now East Berkeley and West Fourth Streets (formerly the South Boston Bridge), originally covered the area approximately bounded by Harrison Avenue and Albany Street on the west, Southampton Street on the south, and Dorchester Avenue on the east. The southeastern part of the bay was enlarged in the 1830s when mud was excavated from tidal flats there to fill South Cove. On this computer-generated map, the solid line represents a reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline and the dashed line the shoreline in 1845 (see figure 10.5). The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on the maps in figures 10.5 and 10.8, the latter reproduced in greater detail on Charles C. Perkins, Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2). The colonial Boston/Roxbury boundary is based on the description on Osgood Carleton’s 1795 survey of Boston (see Krieger and Cobb with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999], 187): “From a stone standing on the easterly side of Washington Street, thence S 43º E 45 rods 23 links, then N 60º E 60 rods, then N 811/2º E 8 rods to a creek, the middle of which is the line to its mouth at Gallows Cove. Again, from said stone N 42º W 35 rods 7 links to a creek, the middle of which is the line to its mouth.” A rod is 16.5 feet, a link is .04 rods. This boundary is also shown in figure 10.2.

10

The term “South Bay” conjures up images of a commercial landscape: the Boston Flower Exchange, trucking terminals, the incinerator with the three tall brick stacks that used to dominate the skyline when heading south on the Southeast Expressway, and the Fortress warehouse encircled with its inflatable chain and padlock. More precisely, South Bay is the area that extends from East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets south to between Southampton Street and Massachusetts Avenue and lies roughly between Harrison Avenue/Albany Street on the west and Dorchester Avenue on the east (figure 10.1). Part of the present South End was thus once part of South Bay, a bay that was originally tidal, the counterpart on the east side of the Neck of Back Bay on the west (see figure 1.1). There are other similarities between South Bay and Back Bay. Both had several streams draining into them— Roxbury Brook and Dorchester Brook in the case of South Bay (see figure 9.3)—and both were filled in by a number of different projects conducted over many years. Unlike Back Bay, however, the filling of South Bay continued well into the twentieth century.

E IGHTEENTH -C ENTURY F ILLING

ALONG THE

N ECK

Filling of South Bay began in the late eighteenth century along the Neck, which was Boston’s only land link with the mainland. The Neck was low-lying and quite narrow, and throughout most of the century Bostonians had been concerned about its erosion. Before the Revolution most efforts to protect the Neck had been focused on the area north of the fortification that had been built across the narrowest part at what is now East Berkeley Street (see chapter 9), although by 1775 a “dyke” had been built through the marsh south of the fortification on approximately the line of present Harrison Avenue (see figure 9.3). The construction of this dike had not involved any landmaking, however, and landmaking south of the fortification, which marked the beginning of South Bay, did not begin until after the Revolution. In 1785 in response to a request from residents that measures be taken “to prevent the Inroads of the Sea on each side of the Neck for the safety of Passengers passing & repassing the same,” a town committee recommended that a stone seawall be built on the east side of the Neck from the fortification to a point fourteen hundred feet south (approximately from what is now East Berkeley to Rollins Street; see figure 9.2). On the west, or Back Bay, side of the Neck where an earlier wall was in a “very disjointed & tottering State,” the committee recommended that a “range of Stronge Pickets,” presumably meaning timber pilings, be erected eighteen inches from the wall and the space between the wall and the piles be filled with small stones. Necessary as these improvements were, the town could not afford to make them, so the committee also recommended that the flats on either side of the Neck be granted to people who would build and maintain the barriers. The pickets were to be completed by November 1, 1785, and the wall by November 1, 1786. In addition, sunken parts of the road were to be filled by the town with at least one thousand cart loads of gravel.1 The town completed its part of the project in 1786, but although the grantees of the fourteen hundred feet of flats on the Neck did build the seawall on the east side and a wall instead of pickets on the west side, disputes with the town arose repeatedly

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about their failure to keep these barriers repaired.2 Only a small amount of land was actually made in South Bay as a result of the seawall on the east side of the Neck, as can be seen on an 1895 map that shows both the 1630 and the 1795 shorelines (see figure 9.2). E XTENSION

OF

F RONT S TREET

The next landmaking in South Bay was occasioned by the town and then the city’s efforts to develop what were called the Neck Lands—the land south of the Neck that is now the part of the South End between West Dedham Street/Msgr. Reynolds Way/Malden Street on the north and, on the south, Kendall Street and a line south of Thorndike Street and east of Harrison Avenue, which marked the former Roxbury line (see figure 10.1). In 1801 the town decided to lay out and lease its land south of the Neck. The resulting street plan (figure 10.2) is often attributed to architect Charles Bulfinch and, as one of the selectmen who devised it, the street grid and what was originally called Columbia Square and are now Franklin and Blackstone Squares may be his design.3 In any event, the town decided in 1805 to sell rather than lease the lots.4 People did not rush to buy the Neck Lands, however. In 1811, for example, the town noted that “there is at present no demand” for the forty to fifty acres of town land south of the Neck and an 1814 map of the area showed that only a few lots next to Washington Street had been built on (see figure 10.2).5 One reason the Neck Lands were slow to develop was that for many years there was only one road—Washington Street— connecting them with the main part of the city (figure 10.3). In 1804–1805 when Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) was being constructed north of the South Boston Bridge (now East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets; see chapter 9), it was suggested that Front Street also be extended south of the bridge. Such a proposal was made in 1806 and the town approved it in 1809, but it did not carry out the project at the time, perhaps because the estimated cost was fifty thousand dollars.6 The proposal was revived again in 1826, and in 1829 the city finally decided to extend two new streets to the Neck Lands—Tremont Street on the west side of

FIGURE 10.2 S OUTH E ND

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In 1801 the Boston selectmen laid out a grid of streets on what were called the Neck Lands—now part of the South End. Some parts of this plan still survive— every other cross street from Dedham to Lenox; Shawmut Avenue, then called Suffolk Street, parallel to Washington; St. George Street, originally part of Norfolk Street, between East Brookline and East Concord Streets; and Columbia Square, which is now Franklin and Blackstone Squares. The new streets were supposed to encourage settlement of the area but by 1814, as this map shows, there were only a few houses along Washington Street. The BostonRoxbury line is the same as the one plotted in figure 10.1.

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Washington Street (see chapter 7) and Front Street on the east side—in order to create better access to these lands and thus encourage sales.7 The first part of Front Street to be built was on existing land in the Neck Lands, that is, south of Savoy Street (see figure 10.1). Although on original land, the area was marshy, as evidenced by the existence of the eighteenth-century dike (see figure 9.3). In 1830 the City Council appointed a committee to draw up plans for an abutment, or bulkhead, of piles and planks to be built on the east side of the dike in order to make it substantial enough to become the east side of the planned street, and a few weeks later appropriated two thousand dollars for raising and widening the dike itself.8 The section of Front Street south of Savoy Street was built between 1831 and 1833 and can be seen in a comparison of 1835 and 1826 maps of the area (figures 10.4 and 10.3).9 Even before this section of Front Street was finished, a citizen petitioned to have the section between Savoy Street and the South Boston Bridge built, and in 1835 the city approved this addition.10 To construct the new section of Front Street it was necessary to fill in about five acres of flats (see figure 10.1), including the site of the seawall that had been built in the 1780s. This section of Front Street did not open until 1836, although it is shown on the 1835 map (see figure 10.4).11

FIGURE 10.3 S OUTH E N D

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In 1826 the shoreline on the South Bay side of the Neck Lands (now the South End) was virtually the same as in 1814 (see figure 10.2) and only Washington Street connected this area with the main part of the city. FIGURE 10.4 S OUTH E N D

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An 1835 map shows the new section of Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) between Savoy Street and the South Boston Bridge (now East Berkeley Street) and the triangular section of flats that were about to be filled (cf. figures 10.3 and 10.1).

No sooner had Front Street been completed than problems began to occur with the dike and abutment that had been built to protect the east side of the street. In 1837 the Common Council, after receiving a petition complaining that the abutment was in “ruinous condition,” ordered the superintendent of public lands to have the dike put in a “good and substantial state of repair.”12 These repairs either were not made or were not made very well, since in the fall of 1840 the council was informed that high tides had made breaches through both the abutment and dike.13 Then, in May 1843, the city’s Committee on Public Lands recommended that a seawall be built to protect the Neck Lands, but the Board of Aldermen favored a dike and the issue was apparently not resolved.14 S OUTH B AY L ANDS

Major filling of South Bay began in 1845 with the initiation of the South Bay Lands project, a project that eventually filled in the section of the South End now between Harrison Avenue and the Southeast Expressway from Malden to East Brookline Street and the section between Albany Street and the expressway ramps from East Brookline Street to Massachusetts Avenue (see figure 10.1).15 The South Bay Lands project was related to the city’s policy, begun in the late 1840s when Irish immigrants were pouring into Boston, of trying to keep middle-class Yankees, who were valued as both taxpayers and voters, from moving to the suburbs by providing attractive residential areas within the city. In the words of an 1852 city report the true interest of the City requires that every proper inducement should be offered to incline our citizens to remain within our limits. . . . While our foreign population is rapidly augmenting, our native population is in a greater ratio diminishing. The great influx of foreigners is changing entirely the character of various portions of the City. . . . Many citizens of Boston are erecting houses in the neighboring cities and villages, and increasing the taxable property in

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these places from the profits of business transacted within our limits.16 Most parts of the existing city were by then built up, however, and the only area available for new residential development was the city’s lands in the New South End—the former Neck Lands—so in the 1840s the city prepared this district for sale by grading streets and building sewers,17 laying out residential squares in the 1850s. East of Harrison Avenue (formerly Front Street), however, the New South End was bounded by the marshes and tidal flats of South Bay. Anticipating that the sewers from the South End emptying onto those marshes and flats would create a nuisance, the city decided to build a seawall and fill the area, extending the sewers out to deeper water beyond the seawall.18 The South Bay Lands project thus began in July 1845 when the city Committee on Public Lands was asked to consider the “expediency” of building a seawall from Urann’s Wharf, located east of Harrison Avenue between East Canton and East Dedham Streets, to the Roxbury line (south of present Massachusetts Avenue). The seawall was to be parallel to and about eight hundred feet from Harrison Avenue, putting the wall slightly inland from the harbor commissioners’ line shown on an 1845 plan of South Bay (figure 10.5).19 In October 1845 the committee reported that such a wall was advisable, arguing that the wall would protect the area east of Washington Street from damage in the case of a southeast storm with high tides; enclose thirty or forty acres of flats that could be filled and sold as a source of income for the city; enable more streets to be built connecting Boston and Roxbury; and provide space for wharves—“a species of property much wanted, caused by the many improvements made around the city within a few years past.”20 As a result of the committee’s report, the city appropriated fifteen thousand dollars for the project21 and made a contract on December 31, 1845, with one Shubael Bills of Roxbury to build the seawall 950 feet from Harrison Avenue. The contract was accompanied with a drawing by architect Alexander Parris illustrating the specifications for the wall (figure 10.6).22 Bills was to be

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paid eight dollars per running foot and was to complete the wall by November 1, 1846.23 In the words of a later city report, this contract “inaugurated the South Bay improvement with sanguine hopes, not only of sanitary and protective advantages to the territory already reclaimed and to some extent sold, but also as a financial measure to replenish an exhausted treasury,”24 hopes that, as things transpired, were not to be realized. Just before the seawall project was proposed in the summer of 1845, the city had made another contract concerning South Bay, this one for a wharf to be built immediately south of Urann’s Wharf (see figure 10.5). The contract was with a William Evans, who proved to be one of the most litigious and difficult contractors with whom the city dealt in mid-century. The wharf to be built by Evans was to have a north wall of stone and be filled solid except for an area of 5,250 square feet, which was to be filled with piles that were to support buildings of the city stables. The wharf was to be completed by October 1, 1845, and may have been, for the City Stables are shown on an 1852 map (figure 10.7).25 True to his later form, however, in 1846 Evans submitted a petition asking to be compensated for his “loss and damage” on the wharf contract, but the question was settled by arbitration and the petition was withdrawn.26 Meanwhile, the Committee on Public Lands was planning an expansion of the South Bay Lands project. In May 1846 the committee purchased about 5.4 additional acres of marsh in South Bay and began to negotiate with Shubael Bills about rescinding his contract for the seawall.27 Bills had already built about 2,550 feet of the wall at the south end of the project, although on the harbor commissioners’ line rather than parallel to Harrison Avenue as specified in the contract (see figure 10.5).28 In June, Bills agreed to rescind the rest of the contract in return for three thousand dollars, and in the same month the committee purchased Urann’s Wharf, giving the city ownership of all the land and flats bounded by Malden Street, Harrison Avenue, Chester Street (now Massachusetts Avenue), and the commissioners’ line in South Bay—the area that became the South Bay Lands project (see figures 10.5 and 10.1).29 The committee intended to fill this area in

FIGURE 10.5 1845

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This very accurate plan of South Bay was surveyed in 1845, although not published until 1850. Note that the southeastern shore of the bay extends much further south than on the 1777 map (see figures 9.3 and 10.1) because of the marshes excavated in the 1830 to provide fill for South Cove, increasing the size of South Bay by about sixty acres (see below and chapter 9).

FIGURE 10.6 1845 PL AN BY A LEXANDER P ARRIS S HUBAEL B ILLS

FOR SEAWALL TO BE BUILT IN

S OUTH B AY

BY

This plan was for the type of stone seawall that in the nineteenth century was typically built around the outer edge of landmaking projects in order to retain the fill. In this case, the wall was to be battered more on the outer face than the inner, to be about thirteen feet high, and to have periodic “binder” stones, or stones that extended all the way through the wall. The squiggly line at the back of the wall represents ballast, or small stones, banked up against it for support.

order to, in the words of their 1846 report, “furnish space for homes for the thousands who are leaving our limits for adjoining towns and at the same time create a fund that would in time liquidate the City Debt.”30 In preparation for this filling, at the end of 1846 the committee purchased a farm on the Providence Railroad line in the Readville section of what was then Dedham and is now Hyde Park so that gravel fill from the property could be brought to the project by train.31 The Committee on Public Lands made its intentions about the South Bay Lands project clearer in a report submitted to the

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City Council in February 1847, which predicted that the city’s land and flats south of the Neck would “at no very distant day [be] covered with a dense population” but first must be “filled up, graded and prepared.” The committee anticipated that the project could be financed by leasing lumber wharves, shops, and planing mills along the shore of South Bay and by the eventual sale of the made land. They also thought that this filling of the city flats south of Malden Street would lead the private owners of the flats between Malden Street and the South Boston Bridge to fill that area “thereby adding greatly to the beauty and convenience, and at the same time increasing the taxable property of the City.” For all these reasons, the committee recommended starting the project that year and thought it could “most economically and conveniently” be accomplished by laying a track from the Providence Railroad to the South End.32 As a result of this report, the mayor applied to the state legislature for permission to build such a railroad, the city authorized seventy-five thousand dollars for the project, and the aldermen ordered that a suitable engineer be employed to prepare plans and specifications for filling.33 The legislature passed the act authorizing the railroad in April 184734 and in July the city advertised for proposals for filling and grading the South End. The proposals were opened on August 1. They ranged from a high of $.52 per cubic yard to a low of $.28, the low bid having been submitted by William Evans.35 The city made a contract with Evans on November 2, 1847, but based it on the assumption that Evans could make an agreement with the

FIGURE 10.7 D ETAIL

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B. C ALL AN

This map shows the city stables east of Harrison Avenue between East Canton and East Brookline Streets, which had been built on land made by William Evans in 1845. The maps also shows the railroad track and bridge Evans built from the Old Colony line in South Boston across South Bay to haul fill to the South Bay Lands project and the six docks to be built at the north end of the project. These docks had not yet been constructed, however, nor had as large an area been filled as the map indicates (see figure 10.8).

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Providence Railroad for transporting gravel and, when he could not—the Providence already had enough business and was not interested—canceled the contract and replaced it with a new one.36 In the new contract gravel was to be hauled by the Old Colony Railroad, a line that had opened in 1845 from Plymouth to Boston and entered the city through South Boston (see figure 10.5). Evans made an agreement with the Old Colony to obtain gravel from their Mount Hope Farm in Quincy and to construct a branch railroad across South Bay, a plan that necessitated an act of the legislature authorizing a bridge across the bay. This act was passed on March 3, 1848, and on April 17, 1848, the city signed the new contract with Evans.37 The 1848 contract with Evans was for filling 2,940,000 square feet or about 67.4 acres of marsh and flats in South Bay. The contract specified that Evans build the remaining 869 feet of the seawall from the point where Bills had stopped to Malden Street. Like other seawalls of the period, the wall was to be of granite, set on a foundation of timber piles surrounded by stones, have a battered cross section, and be ballasted at the back with small stones banked against it. A dike of dock mud was also to be built behind both the Bills and the new sections of the wall to help exclude tide water from the land to be made inside the wall. In addition, Evans was to build about twenty-two hundred feet of railroad from the Old Colony line in South Boston across South Bay to a terminus in the project area somewhere between Brookline and Malden Streets (see figure 10.7). The railroad bridge across South Bay was to be constructed as specified in the legislative act, which also required that Evans excavate the shipping channels in South Bay by October 1, 1848—a requirement clearly intended to mitigate the city of Roxbury’s opposition to the bridge because it obstructed vessels serving wharves on the Roxbury Canal (see figure 10.7).38 The gravel brought by the railroad was to be from a designated section of the Mount Hope Farm in Quincy and was to be used not only to fill the South Bay flats but also to build the railroad embankments and to grade Tremont and Chester (now Massachusetts Avenue) Streets. Gravel was to be taken to the last locations by horse cars or carts but not by steam

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locomotion, and Evans was also to deposit gravel for city use at specified points on Harrison Avenue.39 Evans was to build the railroad and seawall and supply all materials at his own expense and in return was to be paid $.28 for each cubic yard of seawall, masonry, gravel, or mud. Ninety percent of the amount due Evans was to be paid monthly and the remaining 10 percent was to be withheld until the completion of the project. At the end of five years the city would have the right to acquire the bridge across South Bay for the value of its materials.40 This contract, which the Committee on Public Lands characterized as of “the simplest character, Mr. Evans agreeing to furnish everything and be paid in full a fixed price per square,”41 almost immediately led to controversy between Evans and the city. First, Evans did not want to be restricted to gravel from the designated area of the Mount Hope Farm and eventually the contract was altered to permit him to bring gravel from any location.42 Then Evans failed to excavate the channel leading to the Roxbury Canal by October 1, 1848, and in May 1849 the city threatened to withhold payments until he did so.43 The most serious dispute, however, concerned an alteration in the project made shortly before the new contract was signed. This change called for building six docks at the north end of the project area as shown on an 1852 map (see figure 10.7), a change that reduced the amount of filling to be done on the deepest part of the flats and thus reduced the amount Evans could earn.44 Evans responded by claiming about $110,000 in damages against the city. The city claimed about $54,000 in return, and the question was eventually decided by arbitrators, who ruled in May 1852 that Evans was entitled to recover about $11,000.45 In 1852, however, the South Bay Lands project was far from finished and had not been as profitable as anticipated. In June 1851 the Committee on Public Lands had reported that about twenty-two acres, or only about one-third of the project, had been filled,46 somewhat less than the filled area shown on an 1852 plan (figure 10.8). And in April 1851 the committee had reported that although in the five years since the project began the city had received a total of about $351,000 for the sale and rent of land in

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The gray shading represents all the made land that existed in 1852. On the west side of South Bay this land included the filling done in the 1830s for the extension of Front Street (now Harrison Avenue), the wharves east of it, and the area being filled by the South Bay Lands project. On the east side of South Bay, filling had been done immediately south of the South Boston Bridge and south of the Old Colony tracks.

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South Bay, it had also spent about $346,000 for filling and land purchases and thus had only realized a profit of about $5,000.47 The expense and incompleteness of the project were of particular concern because it was expected that Evans’s contract would terminate on February 1, 1853, when the five-year charter of the bridge across South Bay expired. In January 1853, therefore, the Committee on Public Lands appointed three commissioners to investigate the Evans contract and the condition of the South Bay Lands.48 The three commissioners were the city solicitor, one of the arbitrators who had made the award to Evans in 1852, and the engineer on the South Bay Lands project—hardly “disinterested” persons, as they described themselves in their report.49 Their report, submitted in May 1853, continued to predict that the South Bay Lands project would be profitable for the city and recommended that a new contract be made with Evans because he had the experience and equipment and “would be likely to execute any contract which he would now make with less risk of failure, and in a shorter period of time, than any person not already experienced in this description of work.”50 And so, although by this time it should have been clear that this conclusion was not warranted, the city accepted this recommendation from a committee disposed in Evans’s favor and continued to contract with him for filling South Bay. It was over a year, however, before the city made another contract with Evans. Soon after the commissioners submitted their report, the Committee on Public Lands wrote in June 1853 that because 52.2 acres in South Bay had already been filled to fourteen feet above the low water mark at a cost of about $228,000 of which $191,000 had been paid to Evans, it was important that a new contract soon be made to finish the project.51 Nevertheless, a Board of Public Land Commissioners established in April 1853 to manage the city’s lands dragged its feet during most of 1853 and 1854 about making a new contract with Evans,52 claiming that Evans demanded an exorbitant sum to settle a dispute still in arbitration and expressing doubts about the wisdom of completing the whole project in the near future and on the scale contemplated.

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The commissioners recommended that the city ascertain whether wharves in the proposed locations would be stable and whether there would be a demand for them.53 Sensible though these recommendations may have been, the City Council was anxious to resolve the dispute with Evans and finish the South Bay Lands project and, having finally lost patience with these commissioners, in late 1854 appointed a joint special committee to negotiate a contract.54 Fearing that arbitrators would find the 1848 contract still in force and thus hold the city liable for damages to Evans due to stopping the work and letting the railroad bridge decay, the committee made a settlement with Evans and, on December 30, 1854, signed a new contract with him. This contract incorporated several changes in the project. First, the outer line of the project was to be parallel to Harrison Avenue instead of on the harbor commissioners’ line, as had been the case earlier, and thus the docks were to be of equal instead of the graduated lengths shown on an 1852 map (figures 10.9 and 10.7). Second, the wharves were no longer to be completely enclosed by stone walls and filled solid as in previous plans. Instead, only the first one hundred feet were to be enclosed by walls and the outer fifty feet were to be wood platforms set on piles. A bulkhead of piles and timbers was to be constructed from the southernmost dock at Brookline Street to the Roxbury Canal, and the entire project area bounded by Malden Street, Harrison Avenue, Chester Street (now Massachusetts Avenue), and the outer line of the project (see figure 10.8) was to be filled with “salt mud or earth” to fourteen feet above mean low water and to be covered with at least two feet of “clean gravel” except on the wharf platforms where the gravel was to be only one foot deep. Evans was to supply all materials, and this time compensation was to be based on the type of work: $5.50 for each pile driven as a wall foundation, $2.50 for each cubic foot of wall, $.50 per square foot of platform, $5.00 per linear foot of pile bulkhead, and $.42 per cubic yard of fill whether gravel, salt mud, or earth. In addition, the city was to pay Evans five thousand dollars for the railway bridge and the ten percent still due from the 1848 contract. The work was to be completed by January 1, 1858.55

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And so, in good faith, the city embarked on a second contract with William Evans for completing the South Bay Lands project. Past experience with Evans had taught the city something, however, for on January 15, 1855, the city authorized the joint special committee to superintend the work and have measurements and estimates made in order to ascertain the amount due Evans, “and to see that the said contract is fully and faithfully carried out, in every respect.”56 This authorization was renewed in November 1855, again in January 1856, and in subsequent years through 1859.57 Despite their efforts to ensure adherence to the contract, the joint special committee on South Bay subsequently made several major changes in the plans. The first was to dispense with the wood platforms and to extend the solid wharves enclosed by stone walls all the way out to the commissioners’ line. This change had disastrous consequences, for in April 1856 both a wall and Evans’s “steam hoisting apparatus” fell over into a dock.58 It is not clear when Evans had begun to use steam-powered machinery on the South Bay Lands project, but in addition to the hoisting apparatus, he also used a steam-powered scoop dredge invented specifically for the South Bay Lands project by John Souther, whose steam shovels were later used on the Back Bay and Fort Hill projects (see chapters 3 and 7). Before the introduction of Souther’s steam-powered dredge, Evans had floated scows onto the mud flats at high tide and loaded them by hand at low tide at a cost of $1.00 per cubic yard. Souther’s invention of the steam dredge reportedly enabled Evans to make a profit of six hundred thousand dollars on the South Bay contract.59 The “steam hoisting apparatus” that fell into the dock was one that lifted one to two cubic yards of mud in an iron box and then dropped the mud from a height several feet above the wall to a place just behind it, a practice that probably caused the collapse.60 The toppling of the wall resulted in another change in the plans. It was decided to abandon stone walls around the wharves and instead to construct a straight stone wall eighty feet inland from the front line of the wharves from Malden Street to the southernmost dock at Brookline Street and to make the wharves them-

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selves eighty-foot-long platforms extending outward from the wall (see figure 10.9).61 This wall was to be substantially larger than the Bills wall of 1845 (see figure 10.6)—thirteen rather than eight feet wide at the base, and four rather than three feet wide at the top. Where the wall crossed the heads of the docks its top was to be sixteen feet above mean low water, but where it supported the wharf platforms the top was to be only twelve feet above low water, allowing for the platforms to be covered with two feet of gravel and mud from tidal flats. The city specified elaborate measures to provide a firm foundation for the wall in the “treacherous,” almost liquid, mud that extended far below the low water line in South Bay and had acted as a “launchway” for the earlier wall, sliding it out toward the channel.62 The new wall was to be set in a trench forty-five feet wide excavated down to the level of clay into which piles were to be driven and then surrounded with gravel. Many of these changes in the walls and platforms were included in a variation of the 1854 Evans contract that was signed on June 9, 1856.63 The Committee on South Bay Lands, as it came to be called, then “determined to push ahead the work . . . as fast as possible”64 and attempted to supervise the Evans contracts as authorized by the City Council, but the minutes of their meetings from 1856 to 1859 show increasingly futile efforts to control their headstrong and litigious contractor. The committee hired a superintendent specifically for the South Bay Lands project, the city engineer made monthly estimates of Evans’s work, and the committee members themselves even took weekly turns supervising the work, evoking images of untrained City Council members trundling daily down to South Bay. All these efforts were to little avail, however, for Evans constantly failed to carry out or disputed the terms of the contract. In June 1857, for example, Evans went so far as to argue that the city owed money to the estate of the man who had supplied stone for the wall built under the 1848 contract and had to be reminded that this contract was no longer valid and that under the 1854 contract he, Evans, had expressly waived all claims.65 The minutes of the Committee on South Bay Lands also indicate that the project was being conducted somewhat differently than it had been under the 1848 contract. The railroad bridge

across South Bay was dismantled and, since gravel could no longer be brought by rail from Quincy, dirt and gravel were instead brought by horse carts from South Boston across the South Boston Bridge and mud and gravel by scows from the southern part of South Bay in Dorchester (see figure 10.8).66 Household ashes were also sometimes used as fill along Harrison Avenue in 1856 and again for a short period in 1858 until the practice was stopped because a great deal of “solid material” in the ashes was being removed by children,67 probably similar to the scavenging of artifacts from the ash fill at the Public Garden during the same period (see figure 7.24). But steam-powered machinery continued to be used on the South Bay Lands project. In addition to the dredge there are also references to a “steam apparatus” for pulling piles.68 By 1858 relations between the committee and Evans had become quite acrimonious. In May Evans requested seven thousand dollars of the 10 percent that had been withheld until completion to which the committee replied that they intended to carry out the contract literally and would not pay any part of the 10 percent until the entire job was finished.69 The next day Evans appeared in person before the committee and stated that until the project was completed he had the power to lease any South Bay land for his own benefit and would do so unless the committee paid him the money he wanted.70 Matters reached a crisis in early September, as described in the following exchange: August 26, 1858 To Mr. Wm. Evans, Sir: The wharves in the South Bay Lands, constructed by you, under your contract with the City of Boston, dated December 30, 1854, and the supplemental contract, dated June 9, 1856, have not been built in accordance with your contract, and are already falling without any weight being placed upon them. These wharves must be immediately repaired to save them from entire loss and you are hereby notified to put said wharves in the condition required by

your said contracts. If you neglect to do so immediately the City will proceed to do so at your expense, and hold you responsible for all damages resulting from the failure to fulfill your said contract in this respect. Samuel D. Crane Chairman of the Committee upon the South Bay Lands71 Boston August 28th 1858 To the Committee of the South Bay Lands. Gentlemen: Your communication of the 26th is before me and I would most respectfully say it has been carefully considered and to me it does not seem to be true. The wharves you mention done by me under my contracts were done by a plan drawn by the City Engineer, and are built in accordance with the same, and under the especial supervision of the City’s superintendent of the work and if the City wishes them made in a more stronger way, it is a right they have by the contract by paying for same. Yours most respectfully, Wm. Evans72 Boston Daily Evening Transcript, Monday, September 6, 1858: DESTRUCTION OF CITY PROPERTY.

A wharf belonging to the city, recently built, at the foot of Malden Street, South End, gave way during the storm Saturday night, the spikes having been too weak, or too few in number. The wharf was some 100 feet in length to 70 in width. The damage is about $5000. It is probable that it was imperfectly built; in which case the loss will fall upon the contractor, a Mr. Evans.

The failure of one wharf and imminent collapse of others plunged the committee into a new imbroglio with Evans. The city wanted Evans to rebuild and repair the wharves at his own

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expense, but he refused to do so without additional compensation.73 Finally, after the city solicitor had ruled that the city had the right to reconstruct the wharves and Evans did not, the city advertised for proposals for rebuilding Wharf No. 3, the one that had collapsed, and repairing Wharf No. 1, the northernmost wharf (see figure 10.9).74 The proposals for Wharf No. 3 were opened on March 10, 1859. They ranged from a high of $1.20 per foot to a low of $.88, the low bid having been submitted by none other than Evans.75 The fact that it was only $.01 less than the next bid suggests collusion of some sort, a conclusion that is given credence by the committee’s discovery in late January that Evans had had access to and had frequently consulted the committee’s records.76 The committee eventually decided to award the contract to Ross and Lord, the next lowest bidder, but not before Evans claimed he had the right to build the wharf for a pro rata price, forcing the committee to get another opinion from the city solicitor.77 Meanwhile, the proposals for repairing Wharf No. 1 were opened on March 24. They ranged from $.29 per foot to $.23 and this time Evans was the lowest bidder by $.05 and so was awarded the contract for repairing his own deficient work.78 By this juncture the City Council had again become very concerned about the South Bay Lands project and in mid-April 1859 ordered that a joint special committee be appointed “to inquire into the actions and doings of the South Bay Committee and . . . also what action is deemed advisable for the City Council to take under the contract with Mr. Evans.”79 The special committee’s report, submitted in July 1859, recommended that in order to finish the South Bay Lands project the existing contracts with Evans be terminated and a new contract made with him to build a seawall and refit the platform south of the Brookline Street dock, repair and strengthen some of the wharves, and complete the “large amount” of filling still not done, all for a fixed price of $210,000. In addition, the committee recommended that three commissioners be appointed to supervise Evans’s work under the new contract.80 The result of these recommendations was yet another contract with Evans, this one signed August 9, 1859. As recommended, the contract called for replacing the bulkhead south of the

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Brookline Street dock with a 1,875-foot seawall extending from the Brookline Street dock to the Roxbury Canal (see figures 10.8 and 10.9). The contract also called for repairing a seven-hundredfoot wharf platform that had been built south of the Brookline Street dock, filling the entire area south of the Brookline Street dock and an unfilled area near Malden Street with salt mud, covering the mud fill with at least two feet of “clean gravel or other good, hard, solid earth,” and repairing Wharves Nos. 5 and 6. The city was to pay Evans the 10 percent withheld from the 1854 and 1856 contracts, a sum amounting to about $48,000, plus an additional $9,600 and in return Evans was to discharge all claims under those contracts. For the 1859 contract Evans was to be paid a total of $210,000, again receiving 90 percent of each monthly estimate with 10 percent withheld until the entire project was finished. The work was to be started on or before September 1, 1859, and to be completed in two years, that is, by September 1, 1861.81 After some indecision, the City Council followed the special committee’s recommendation and chose three commissioners to supervise the Evans contract.82 The commissioners took office on November 10, 1859, and, not surprisingly, almost immediately found that “the sea-wall thus far constructed by Mr. Evans under the present contract is not fully as good as that wall referred to in the specifications—either in materials or workmanship.” The most serious problem was that gravel had been used as ballast in some places instead of the Roxbury puddingstone or granite blocks specified in the contract.83 The commissioners tried to resolve the ballast issue with Evans but in January 1860 wrote the City Council, “we have reason now to despair—Mr. Evans having definitely declined to rectify what we have condemned (as at variance with the contract) and ordered to be reconstructed,”84 whereupon the city appointed a committee to investigate the matter. This committee held hearings on January 31 and February 17, 1860. Testimony was taken from Evans, the city engineer, various superintendents and engineers of the South Bay Lands project, members of the now-defunct South Bay Committee, and the commissioners. After a great deal of buck-passing, the participants agreed that one four-hundred-foot section of the wall had been

ballasted only with gravel. Evans refused to remove this gravel, however, saying he would dig out only fifty feet of it, and with that the hearings closed.85 (The impasse was evidently removed when Evans wrote a letter on February 27 agreeing that the use of gravel as ballast was contrary to the contract, and the City Council expressed hope that “the work will proceed.”86) The commissioners’ inability to supervise Evans led to the demise of the commission. Although a proposal to abolish it was not enacted, the two original commissioners resigned in January 1861 and supervision of the Evans contract was then assigned to the Board of Public Land Commissioners.87 On September 19, 1861, the board reported that although the Evans contract had expired on September 1, the filling of South Bay was still not completed and probably would not be before the end of the year.88 It was more than a year later, however, when the South Bay Lands project was finally brought to a close. On November 10, 1862, the Board of Public Land Commissioners reported that Evans had petitioned for his final payment because he had completed the work. The board had held “many meetings,” exercised “the most careful consideration,” consulted with the city engineer, and had finally decided to pay Evans after deducting for two feet of gravel and “South Boston earth” still not filled in on Malden Street.89 And so, with the payment to Evans of $27,452.92 on November 20, 1862,90 the South Bay Lands project finally ended almost seventeen years after it had begun and over fourteen years after the first contract with Evans had been signed. And what had the South Bay Lands project accomplished— besides enriching William Evans? About sixty-seven acres of new land had been created, most of it between Malden and East Brookline Streets east of Harrison Avenue (see figures 10.8 and 10.1), and new wharves had been constructed along South Bay. These wharves and the new land subsequently developed somewhat differently than the city had envisioned, however. Although the wharves north of East Brookline Street were soon leased to private interests, the area south of East Brookline Street between Albany Street and the channel behind it became the location of many city departments—paving, internal health, sewer, and water.

And the land between Albany Street and Harrison Avenue became occupied primarily by institutions such as the Boston City Hospital rather than by residences. The end of the South Bay Lands project was not the end of the city’s dealings with William Evans, however. In addition to contracting with him in 1859 for the extension of Albany Street (see below) and in the early 1860s for widening East Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) and Albany and Springfield Streets, Evans precipitated a controversy that had nothing to do with landmaking but is further evidence that his conduct on the South Bay Lands project was not atypical. In May 1861, shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, Evans offered the city the use, rentfree, of the “large and commodious” house—actually a six-story office building—he had recently built at 175 Tremont Street91 across from the Common (the site now, ironically, of the Ritz Carlton Residences). The city accepted the offer and used the building as a receiving center for donations for soldiers. It was not long, however, before Evans’s seemingly generous offer began to have a familiar ring. In December 1861 he applied for a tax abatement on the grounds that the building was being used by the city, and although the abatement was granted for 1861, in 1862 the city chose to pay expenses instead.92 Then, in 1863 after the committee for soldiers’ relief had moved elsewhere and Evans House, as it was called, had been returned to its owner, Evans presented the city with a bill of $2,988.41 for repairs of which $1,375.00, or almost 50 percent, was interest.93 The city offered Evans $1,000 but he declined and, true to form, continued to petition the city for the money he thought was owed him.94 Finally, in 1867 Evans accepted $1,000 for repairs to Evans House,95 and, undoubtedly to the city’s great relief, his name disappears from the city records. The story of the South Bay Lands project and the Evans contracts certainly makes one wonder why the city continued to make contract after contract with him when he had proved so unreliable and litigious. The answer is clearly more complex than that suggested by the 1853 commissioners in their report, that is, that Evans was uniquely qualified because of his experience and the amount of equipment he had acquired for the project.96 Obviously

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one reason for the repeated contracts was that Evans’s never-ending claims for damages under a given contract were so exorbitant that the city was all but obliged to make a new contract with him in order to settle the claims against the previous one. Another explanation is that there may have been collusion or favoritism on the part of some city officials, a possibility strongly suggested by Evans’s low bids in 1859 for the repair and rebuilding of the collapsed wharves. Certainly a major reason the city continued to contract with Evans was the argument, often cited in reports, that so much had already been expended on the South Bay Lands project the city could not afford to loose its investment and should finish the project as expeditiously as possible.97 The project was also fueled by the city’s optimistic belief that there was a demand for new land in the South End and that this land would sell once it had been filled. This belief stemmed from the “hidden agenda” of the South Bay Lands project, namely, the creation of an attractive residential area that would keep middle-class Yankees— euphemistically called the “business class”—in the city.98 One of the clearest statements of this view was enunciated in the 1854 annual report of the Board of Public Land Commissioners: The southern section of the City, the region of the Public Lands, must become the residence of a large portion of the business men of the City. There is no other so eligible location for this class of our citizens. The business of the City is rapidly growing; the railroads have quadrupled its commerce; . . . This increase of business will require an increased population of the business classes; and a large amount of this population will demand accommodation within the City. Business is driving the habitations of the City farther and farther from the centre of its principal operations. Street after street sees its houses demolished, and stores and other business establishments rise in their places. West Boston is full; the only outlet within the “Old Peninsula” is to the south; . . . Many people of the [business] class have been seeking places in the country, and many of them seek favorable opportunities to reestablish

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themselves in the City. . . . The importance to Boston . . . of retaining within its territorial limits as large a portion as possible of its active, intelligent and public spirited business men, cannot be too highly appreciated.99 And so, for a variety of reasons, the city made contract after contract with William Evans and eventually he did complete the South Bay Lands project. E XTENSION

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Even when the South Bay Lands were finally filled, however, there was still a gap of unfilled flats between Malden Street, the northern limit of the city’s land, and Troy (now Traveler) Street, the southern end of the area the South Cove Corporation had filled in the 1840s (see chapter 9 and figure 10.9). This unfilled gap was filled in the 1860s during what was termed the “extension of Albany Street” project. Albany Street had been laid out from what is now Beach Street as far as what is now Herald Street during the South Cove project in the 1830s and extended to what is now Traveler Street when the New York Streets area was filled in the 1840s. Another section of Albany Street had been laid out on the land made by the South Bay Lands project and it was clearly intended that Albany Street be extended across the open area of flats between the two areas (see figure 10.9). But the intervening flats were privately owned. In 1858, however, the owners of the section of flats between the South Boston Bridge and Malden Street offered to grant them to the city if the city would construct Albany Street.100 But although the city engineer was asked to estimate the cost of such a project, the owners’ offer expired before the city acted upon it, so the project was deferred until the next year. In 1859, the city approved the Albany Street project in May, advertised for proposals in July, appropriated $84,800 for the project on December 9, and on December 13 awarded a contract for $84,848 to none other than William Evans & Son.101 Giving the contract to Evans in spite of the problems he had caused on the South Bay Lands project and after the city engineer had explicitly

stated in 1858 that “many parties would be willing to make a contract at the present time for this work [building Albany Street] at prices much less than those now paid for the work on South Bay”102 suggests again that Evans obtained city contracts through collusion. Work on the extension of Albany Street did not actually begin until 1861. The initial plans called for building a seawall along the eastward side of the projected street and constructing just the street itself, leaving the intervening flats open (figure 10.10). The seawall was to be constructed according to the method that had proved effective in the mud of South Bay, that is, the wall set in a trench on a foundation of piles driven down to hard clay and their tops surrounded by ballast stones. For a time the project progressed quite rapidly. By July 1861 the seawall extended far north of Malden Street and dredging for the trench was almost completed. But then it was found that the foundation wall of the Dover Street (South Boston) Bridge was bulging outward and might be further damaged by the vibrations from driving the piles for Albany Street.103 This problem or perhaps others apparently delayed the project, for in late 1863, in response to a petition asking that the section of Albany Street south of Dover Street be completed, the committee in charge replied that work was advancing “as fast as it is practicable.”104 The section between Dover (now East Berkeley) and Malden Streets was not finished until 1864.105 Predictably, the city committee then became involved in a hassle with Evans over the amount due him and finally agreed to add $10,100 to the original appropriation.106 An 1866 bird’s-eye view shows the section of the new Albany Street just south of the Dover Street Bridge and the open flats between the street and the shore (figure 10.11). The remaining unfinished part of Albany Street was the small section between the Dover Street Bridge (now East Berkeley Street) and Troy (now Traveler) Street (see figure 10.10), which is actually in South Cove (see chapter 9) but is considered here along with the rest of the Albany Street project. This section of Albany Street was laid out in December 1865 but was apparently not built until late l866, for in September 1866 the Board of Aldermen ruled that because the street was “very much needed for public

travel, it is desirable that it should be built and opened before next spring” and ordered that a contract be made for a stone seawall and construction of the street.107 Once the street was built, the city agreed to fill the intervening flats to grade twelve, that is, twelve feet above mean low water, as a settlement with the owners of the docks and wharves that had been cut off (see figure 10.10).108 Some of the fill used in this area was dirt from Fort Hill (see chapter 3) and the filling was completed by 1868.109 The final part of the Albany Street project was filling the flats south of the Dover Street Bridge between the new street and the shore, which had been left open when that section of Albany Street was constructed in the early 1860s. In December 1867 the city purchased some of these flats, arguing that they would be a good investment and could be filled inexpensively with city ashes and material from Fort Hill, and in January 1868 ordered that they be filled with ashes collected in the South End.110 Filling was in process in 1868, as can be seen on a map of that year (figure 10.12) and was completed by 1870, as shown on a bird’s-eye view of that year (figure 10.13). E AST S IDE

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While the west side of South Bay was being filled in to make the extension of Front Street, the South Bay Lands, and Albany Street, some filling was also being done on the east side of the bay. By about 1850 some land had been created just south of the South Boston Bridge (later Dover and now West Fourth Street) and also south of the place where the Old Colony Railroad crossed the Dorchester Turnpike, the latter to create land for the wrought iron works of Cyrus Alger, who also operated a major South Boston iron foundry on made land just north of the South Boston Bridge (see figures 10.5 and 10.7 and chapter 11). In the mid-1860s when the Old Colony Railroad relocated its tracks closer to the shore (see figures 10.9 and 10.10), a great deal more filling was done south of the Dover Street Bridge to provide land for the railroad’s roundhouse and shops (see figure 10.12). In the same period, wharves were extended out from the southern end of the area filled for

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Albany Street between Troy (now Traveler) Street in South Cove and Malden Street in the South End was originally constructed by building a seawall and filling a street next to it, leaving the flats between the street and the shore unfilled. This map also shows the 1630 shoreline, clearly indicating the amount of land made by the South Bay Lands project, and the new location of the Old Colony Railroad tracks, which had necessitated making new land. FIGURE 10.11 D ETAIL

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In this bird’s-eye one can see the Dover (South Boston, now West Fourth) Street Bridge, the newly filled Albany Street extending south from it, and the unfilled flats between the street and the shore.

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In 1868 the flats between the newly constructed section of Albany Street and the shore were being filled, as this map indicates. On the east side of South Bay the map shows the Old Colony Railroad’s roundhouse and repair shops built on made land near the recently relocated tracks, the land made for the Norway Iron Works, and the embankment filled for the Boston, Hartford, and Erie tracks. FIGURE 10.13 D ETAIL

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By 1870, as this bird’s-eye view indicates, the flats between the new Albany Street and the shore had been filled (cf. 1866 bird’s-eye in figure 10.11).

Alger’s wrought iron works (see figure 10.10), creating an area of made land occupied in 1868 by the Norway Iron Works (see figure 10.12). This last filling, when added to the acreage of the area filled just south of the bridge, amounted to a total of 23.9 acres of made land on the east side of South Bay.111 And the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad filled an additional 3.7 acres in South Bay in the mid1860s when it replaced the pile bridge on which its tracks crossed the bay with a solid embankment (see figure 10.12).112 Although approximately one hundred acres of flats had been filled on the west and east sides of South Bay by the late 1860s, the bay was almost as large then as it had been in 1830.113 This seeming contradiction was explained by the fact that in the 1830s the South Cove Corporation had dug out about sixty acres of marsh and flats at the south end of the bay in order to obtain mud for fill, thus increasing the size of the bay by that amount (see figure 10.1 and chapter 9).114 By 1845 the south end of South Bay extended well south of present Southampton Street, and Pine Island, which had been surrounded by marsh in 1777, had become a point surrounded on two sides by water (see figures 9.3 and 10.5). Dorchester Brook remained an open stream on the east side of the bay, but Roxbury Brook had long since become part of the Roxbury Canal, which a group of Roxbury residents had dug in 1795 from about the site of present-day Dudley Station to a point just east of the burying ground at Eustis and Washington Streets.115 From there the canal, which was used to shorten the trip to Boston, followed Roxbury Brook to South Bay. Most of the canal had been filled in the 1820s, but a section east of Harrison Avenue remained open and fed into the channel on the west side of the South Bay (see figure 10.5). By the late 1860s, however, there was some question about whether South Bay should remain an open body of water. The issue was whether Boston’s growth would be best served by preserving all the water capacity of the harbor for shipping or by filling in parts of the harbor to create land for the growing city. The debate, which raged in mid-century, sometimes focused on South Bay, and opinions varied. In 1850, for example, a state commis-

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sion appointed to consider whether any of the state’s flats in the harbor should be filled, stated, in reference to the South Bay Lands project, that the city was being irresponsible “in filling up South Bay after every board of commissioners has reported that such a course would be ruinous to certain portions of the harbor.”116 Similarly, in 1864 the U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor, who were investigating what measures would prevent further deterioration of the harbor (see chapter 11), recommended that South Bay and the Fort Point Channel not be filled in order to connect South Boston with the rest of the city, as had been suggested, because doing so would destroy a valuable commercial waterfront and remove a body of water thought important for maintaining the harbor’s shipping channels.117 The U.S. commissioners also felt that the Boston, Hartford & Erie’s plan to construct a causeway across South Bay (see above) would “lead to pernicious results” because it would reduce the flow of water, and hence the scour, in the Fort Point Channel.118 The view in favor of filling was influenced by the fact that by 1870 South Bay had become a sanitary nuisance because of all the sewage that drained into it from surrounding areas. That year, for example, a legislative committee recommended filling the entire bay in order to eliminate the nuisance and developing the resulting land as a working class residential area. This committee was a proponent of the view that Boston’s growth was dependent on obtaining more land by filling in as many flats and tidal areas as were needed,119 a view soon countered by the state harbor commissioners, who had to approve any filling. The harbor commissioners claimed that it was important to keep South Bay open to navigation, because the wharves along the west side handled large quantities of bulk goods such as lumber, coal, and building materials. The commissioners went on to argue against landmaking in general, saying that Boston’s prosperity depended on preserving the facilities on the waterfront rather than filling it in, for filling only placed former waterfront properties further inland.120 The harbor commissioners’ view prevailed, at least with respect to South Bay, and South Bay was not completely filled in for almost another hundred years.

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Despite the harbor commissioners’ opinion, some filling was done in the vicinity of South Bay in the 1870s. In 1874 the city raised the grade of what was called the Northampton Street District—the area now in the South End/Lower Roxbury bounded by Washington, Eustis, Albany, and Northampton Streets—just as it had raised the grade of the Church and Suffolk Street Districts a few years earlier (see chapter 7). Although most of the Northampton Street District had not originally been tidal flats (see figure 10.1), the land was marshy and so low-lying that sewers could not drain at high tide. In 1873 the city ordered the level of cellars, back yards, and vacant lots in the Northampton Street District be raised to grade twelve, and most of the necessary filling was done between July and December 1874.121 The city raised some houses, as it had in the Church and Suffolk Street Districts, and then laid out several new streets on the newly raised land.122 Also in the mid-1870s the city built Swett (now Southampton) Street across South Bay in order to provide a direct route between Roxbury and South Boston (see figure 11.20). The project involved filling the marsh at the west end of the street, a causeway across the open part of the bay, and an embankment to raise the height of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad bridge so that Swett Street could pass underneath it (see figure 11.20).123 And in the late 1870s the section of the Roxbury Canal between Harrison Avenue and Albany Street was filled in (see figures 10.12 and 11.20).124 None of these projects filled in much of South Bay, however, for in 1896 there was almost as much open water in the bay as in 1880 (figures 10.14 and 11.20). This open water lay in four quite unequal sections: a relatively large area south of Swett (now Southampton) Street east of the embankment for the tracks of what was by then the New York & New England Railroad; a much smaller area south of Swett Street west of the tracks; an area north of Swett Street between the tracks and the South Boston shore; and a large area north of Swett Street west of the tracks that included

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In 1896 South Bay was divided into four sections by the north-south line of the New York & New England Railroad tracks and the east-west line of Swett (now Southampton) Street.

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the wharves along Albany Street and most of the navigable water in South Bay (see figure 10.14). ROXBURY C ENTRAL W HARF C OMPANY W HARVES

Although proposals to fill South Bay had occasionally been revived, by 1890 it was clear, as the harbor commissioners stated in their report for that year, that “commerce in the bay, and especially along the [western] channel, is now of too much importance to admit of the serious consideration of such a scheme.” The commissioners suggested that instead the channel be deepened and the dredged material used to fill parts of the bay that were no longer navigable.125 Consequently, in 1891 the harbor lines—the lines beyond which no wharves could extend or filling take place—were changed to permit filling south of a line approximately opposite East Brookline Street (see figure 10.14). The harbor commissioners then licensed the Roxbury Central Wharf Company to fill about forty-three acres of flats north of Southampton Street.126 The company did not immediately pursue the project, however, perhaps because at that time there was little interest in new wharves in South Bay. In the late 1890s, however, the demand for wharves in South Bay increased when ten wharves on the Fort Point Channel were filled in to make land for the new South Station (see chapter 9). The lumber and coal merchants who had been displaced wanted to relocate in South Bay, where the wharves could not only handle these heavy bulky goods but were also close to the neighborhoods where they were used. So in 1897 the Roxbury Central Wharf Company applied for another license to fill its flats north of Southampton Street and to build three wharves there.127 The project was delayed by disputes about rights to the flats, but finally in 1902–1903 the state dredged the channels along Albany Street and at the south end of the bay and deposited the excavated material on the flats belonging to the Roxbury Central Wharf Company and the South Bay Wharf and Terminal Company, the latter formed in 1901 to develop terminal facilities at the south end of the bay. In 1902 the harbor com-

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missioners licensed the two companies to fill these flats and build wharves and docks, and by 1904 they had completed three wharves.128 In 1907 the Roxbury Central Wharf Company extended the channel in front of the wharves in order to permit the construction of a fourth wharf and dumped the dredged material on the unfilled flats between their property and the railroad tracks.129 A 1911 chart shows the new wharves as well as the streets that had been laid out on the new land: South Bay Avenue and Atkinson, Topeka, Cummings, and Moore Streets (figure 10.15). Filling flats north of Southampton Street had not solved the sanitary problem in the rest of the bay, however, and in 1914 the state set up a board to investigate the “Nuisance Now Existing in South Bay.” The completion of Boston’s Main Drainage sewerage system in 1884 had somewhat alleviated the problem (see chapter 12). But this system was only designed to carry sewage under normal conditions, and during storms, when the sewers were filled to capacity with storm water and sewage, the overflow still drained into South Bay. In addition to sewage, the 1914 board found that the east side of the bay was becoming choked with trash: the southeast section bounded by Southampton Street, the railroad tracks, and Massachusetts Avenue (see figure 10.15) was used as a city dump and the ebb tide carried trash to the flats on the north side of Southampton Street; a channel north of Southampton Street on the east side of the bay was a dumping ground for “ashes, waste paper, tin cans and [other] rubbish”; and the part next to the Fort Point Channel was “offensive to the eye at all seasons and malodorous to the nose in warm weather.” Nevertheless, the 1914 board waffled: although they agreed that South Bay was an odoriferous eyesore, they said the problem could be handled by the city Public Works Department (whose commissioner was a member of the board), and although they cited the advantages of filling South Bay, they said it was still a commercially important waterway. So in the end, this board did not recommend any action at all.130

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FIGURE 10.16 CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

By 1911 the area north of Southampton Street west of the tracks had been filled, new wharves constructed, and new streets laid out on the made land. The channel behind Albany Street had been deepened and a channel dredged in front of the wharves at the south end of the bay (cf. figure 10.14).

S OUTH B AY

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CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

In 1921 the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad received permission to fill most of South Bay for railroad yards and, as this chart suggests, promptly filled all the flats east of its tracks (cf. figure 10.15).

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NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD LAND

Perhaps because this attempt to fill South Bay had failed, in 1920 when the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (the successor of the New York & New England) needed more land for railroad yards and found that the only available area was South Bay, the harbor lines in the bay were promptly changed in 1921 to permit all of the bay to be filled except for the channel on the west side and, at the south end, one wharf and a basin so ships could turn.131 Filling began immediately, reportedly with city ashes and trash, and continued throughout the 1920s.132 A 1921 chart suggests that by that date almost all of the area east of the tracks both north and south of Southampton Street except for Dorchester Brook had already been filled (figure 10.16). And by 1929 the railroad had filled almost all its land east of the turning basin and channel that ran along Albany Street, except for Dorchester Brook and about nine acres that could not be completed without the expense of building a seawall to retain the fill and prevent it from washing into the channel (figure 10.17).133 R EMAINDER

OF

S OUTH B AY

AND

ROXBURY C ANAL

While much of South Bay was being filled to create land for the New York, New Haven & Hartford, interest revived in filling the remainder of the bay as well as part of the Fort Point Channel, the riverlike outlet of the bay that had been gradually defined during the nineteenth century by filling on both its Boston and South Boston sides (see chapters 9 and 11 and figure 10.17). Beginning in 1926, a series of state reports recommended filling all of South Bay and the Fort Point Channel south of the Dorchester Avenue Bridge.134 One reason cited for filling the bay was its sanitary condition, which was described in graphic terms that were very similar to, or perhaps even based on, those describing Back Bay just before it was filled in the mid-nineteenth century (see chapter 7). A 1929 report said, for example, that the water in South Bay was “badly discolored,” especially toward Massachusetts Avenue, where “occasional masses of floating sludge [are] usually present. . . . Gas

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bubbles [rise] abundantly from the bottom . . . [and] the odor in the immediate neighborhood of the channel [is] offensive, especially in the Roxbury Canal and in the Dorchester Brook estuary.”135 Filling part of the Fort Point Channel would also allow four of the drawbridges across it—the Dorchester Avenue, Old Colony, Broadway, and Dover (now West Fourth) Street (see figure 10.17)—to become fixed bridges, thus eliminating traffic delays and maintenance expenses. The 1929 and other reports claimed that the few lumber and coal wharves still operating in South Bay could be relocated and that the made land would increase land values of surrounding areas and could be used by the railroads, for industrial development, and/or for a new thoroughfare. In short, all the reports favored the project. The reports recommended that the water flowing out of South Bay be channeled into a conduit and discharged into the harbor at Calf Pasture (now Columbia) Point, a location changed to the Fort Point Channel north of Dorchester Avenue after it was objected that the discharge would pollute swimming beaches.136 But despite the fact that the legislature moved harbor lines in 1929 to permit filling of all the waterways south of Dorchester Avenue, nothing was done, reportedly because the benefits of the project did not seem to justify the estimated cost of $4.8 million.137 The project was revived after World War II, however, because by the late 1940s the situation had changed: the South Bay/Fort Point Channel waterway was hardly used and instead automobile traffic was choking Boston. In 1948 the metropolitan Master Highway Plan proposed construction of a Southeast Expressway across South Bay and Dorchester, and in 1950 the Port FIGURE 10.17 1934

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

B OSTON

FROM THE SOUTH

Taken July 10, 1934, this aerial shows the amount of South Bay the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad had filled by 1929—only Dorchester Brook, the channel and turning basin serving the remaining wharves, and the Roxbury Canal remained open. This aerial also clearly shows the piers on the South Boston Flats—Fan Pier, Pier 2 (now joined to Fan Pier), Pier 4, Commonwealth Pier (now the World Trade Center), and Fish Pier.

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FIGURE 10.18 1950 S

PHOTOGRAPH OF

R OXBURY C ANAL

BEHIND

B OSTON C IT Y H OSPITAL

This photograph, probably taken in the 1950s judging from the style of the automobiles, shows Massachusetts Avenue running diagonally across the lower right corner and Albany Street extending parallel to the Roxbury Canal. The photo graphically illustrates how close the very polluted Roxbury Canal was to Boston City Hospital and other buildings on Albany Street in the South End.

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of Boston Authority, a successor of the harbor commissioners, recommended filling all of South Bay and the Fort Point Channel, channeling their flow into a conduit that would discharge north of Northern Avenue and using the made land for a surface expressway rather than the proposed elevated one and for a new wholesale produce market.138 The Southeast Expressway was built across South Bay between 1956 and 1959,139 and in the process the turning basin at the south end of the bay was filled in. In 1957 the city constructed a huge incinerator north of South Bay Avenue in the area once occupied by wharves. But although a 1954 act had declared all of South Bay and the Fort Point Channel south of Dorchester Avenue non-navigable140 and an earth embankment had been built across the entire channel at West Fourth Street, South Bay still remained open north of Malden Street and so did the Roxbury Canal north of Massachusetts Avenue (figures 10.18 and 10.19). A commission formed in 1958 to investigate filling the rest of South Bay found conditions even worse than those thirty years earlier: building the expressway over part of the bay had pushed up bottom mud, which, saturated with sewage, decaying organic matter, and fuel oil, emanated “foul odors that permeate the atmosphere for a mile or more. . . . The very appearance of the tidal stream at any stage of the tide, but particularly at low tide when the flats are exposed, is revolting.” The commission concluded that South Bay was an “open cesspool,” the very same term that had been used to describe Back Bay more than a century before (see chapter 7), a situation considered particularly reprehensible because of the proximity of Boston City Hospital (see figure 10.18). Putting its recommendations in capital letters for emphasis, the commission urged that South Bay be filled “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”141 In spite of the urgency, however, these recommendations were not carried out for another five years. Finally, in 1964–1965 the state contracted to have a conduit built to carry the Roxbury Canal into the Fort Point Channel north of the West Fourth Street Bridge. Once constructed, the conduit was covered with fill, so, when the contract was completed in June 1967,142 South Bay was at last entirely filled in.

South Bay had originally been, as stated at the outset, the counterpart on the east side of the Neck of Back Bay on the west, and for a time landmaking in the two bays had preceded somewhat similarly—land was made in both bays for streets to provide better access to what is now the South End and for middle-class residential districts. But then the development of the two bays diverged—the land made for residential use in South Bay was

actually occupied by institutions, industries, and commercial interests and most of the remainder of the bay was filled for commercial and railroad use. Some of this landmaking, however, was precipitated by the need to cover dangerously polluted flats, just as in Back Bay. But landmaking in South Bay continued much longer—whereas all of Back Bay was filled by the mid-1890s, the last open channel in South Bay was not filled until the mid-1960s.

FIGURE 10.19 1957

PL AN OF

S OUTH B AY

AND

R OXBURY C ANAL

This plan from a 1959 report shows how much of South Bay and the Roxbury Canal were still open in the late 1950s.

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SOUTH BOSTON

FIGURE 11.1 1630

SHORELINE OF

S OUTH B OSTON

ON A

2001

STREET MAP

On the north side of South Boston the 1630 shoreline ran roughly along what is now West Second Street between Dorchester Avenue and B Street, between West First and West Second Streets from B to Dorchester Street, and north of West First Street between Dorchester Street and Farragut Road. On the east side of South Boston the 1630 shoreline was a little east of what is now Farragut Road, on the south side north of Day Boulevard and Columbia Road, and on the west side approximately along Dorchester Avenue. This computer-generated map was made by overlaying a digitized reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline on a computerized street map. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation—the north shore is based on the chart shown in figure 11.6 and the south shore on “Earliest Known Shore Line of Boston Harbor as compiled from plans of Henry Pelham 1775 [sic, 1777], A.S. Wadsworth 1817, John G. Hale 1818 [sic, Hales 1819], U.S. Coast Survey 1847” (Waterways Division, [Massachusetts] Department of Environmental Protection, Boston). The map here also includes the southwestern boundary of South Boston when it was annexed by Boston in 1804.

11 South Boston, or “Southie” as it is familiarly known, may not seem like a poster neighborhood for “filled-in Boston,” but, after East Boston with the airport, South Boston is actually the section of the city with the next largest amount of made land. Filled areas include all the land in the South Boston Waterfront, that is, the land that extends almost a mile north of West Second Street to Fan Pier and stretches from there all the way out to the end of Marine Industrial Park; most of the land between the Reserved Channel and the line of East First Street/Day Boulevard, including that connecting the once separate Castle Island to the mainland; Marine Park at the eastern end of South Boston; the south shore and Day Boulevard; and Moakley (formerly Columbus) Park (see figure 1.1 and figure 11.1). All this filling has added about 1,012.7 acres to South Boston, considerably exceeding the total of 737.5 acres created in Back Bay.1 South Boston was originally a peninsula of 579.3 acres that was part of the separate town of Dorchester and known as Dorchester Neck.2 For a long time it was sparsely settled—at the turn of the nineteenth century, for example, only about ten families lived there. In 1803, however, when Boston was growing rapidly and needed more land for its burgeoning population (see

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Some new land was added to South Boston soon after it was annexed to the town. In 1805 the original speculators—Harrison Gray Otis, Jonathan Mason, William Tudor, and Gardiner Greene—joined with two others to form the South Boston Association in order to develop their real estate. Among other powers, the corporation received the right to “build walls to protect the [land] from the Sea”4 and, apparently to facilitate construction of a more direct bridge to Boston, soon built a seawall around the northwestern tip of South Boston. This seawall, which can be clearly seen on an 1806 map (see figure 11.2), ran along the north side of what became West First Street (the western end of which is now Gillette Park) from B Street to the Dorchester and Milton Turnpike (now Dorchester Avenue) and along the west side of what is now Foundry Street from the turnpike to a point south of West Fourth Street (see figure 11.1). By February 1806 the association had spent forty-six thousand dollars for the “sea wall & levelling”

SEA ST.

ST.

chapter 1), a group of speculators began buying up land on Dorchester Neck. They planned to have Dorchester Neck annexed to Boston, build a bridge to connect it with the main part of the town, and then sell their land at great profit. This project precipitated a heated controversy (discussed in chapter 9), and in 1804 resulted in the annexation of Dorchester Neck, which was promptly renamed South Boston, the building of a bridge on the site of what is now West Fourth Street, and the construction and filling, in South Cove, of Front Street, now Harrison Avenue (figure 11.2). The annexation act authorized the selectmen to lay out streets in South Boston and in 1805 they did so. The street grid was determined by the location of existing Dorchester Street (see figure 9.3) and the creation, near its north end, of a new street— Broadway—extending at two different angles, each probably aligned with the existing shoreline. Numbered streets were then laid out parallel to the two parts of Broadway and lettered streets perpendicular to them—the same system still in place today (see figure 11.1).3

FIGURE 11.2 D ETAIL

FROM

O SGOOD C ARLETON ’ S 1806 P L AN

OF

B OSTON

This map shows the bridge built in 1804 from the Neck to South Boston on the line of present West Fourth Street, the new Front Street (now Harrison Avenue) built in 1804–1806 from about present Beach Street to the bridge, and the proposed location of a more direct bridge from South Street on Windmill Point. The map also clearly shows the seawall the South Boston Association built in 1806 along West First and Foundry Streets in South Boston.

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(SOUTH) BOSTON WHARF CO. WHARF NPI TUR

Despite the developers’ efforts, however, South Boston did not grow as fast as they had anticipated—the population increased only from approximately sixty in 1804 to about two thousand in 1825.6 But by the early 1820s there were enough people in South Boston to reopen consideration of a more direct and toll-free bridge to Boston (see chapter 9). Ultimately, in 1825 the legislature, again over intense opposition from South Cove wharf owners, authorized the city to build a free bridge from Wheeler’s (formerly Windmill) Point in Boston to South Boston, the same location advocated earlier in the century (see figure 11.2). The city refused, however, and eventually in 1827 a corporation of South Boston interests constructed the bridge, with the reluctant acquiescence of the city, between Sea Street in Boston and Turnpike Street (now Dorchester Avenue) in South Boston, approximately the location of today’s Dorchester Avenue Bridge. The Free Bridge opened, still amid great controversy, in 1828 and soon brought an influx of settlers—the population of South Boston rose to about 5600 in 1835 and 10,000 in 1845.7

flats west of Foundry Street as well as the triangle bounded by Foundry Street, West Fourth Street, and the turnpike.8 By 1835 he had created a large triangle of new land west of Foundry Street, labeled “Alger’s Furnace” on an 1835 map (see figure 9.8) and “South Boston Iron Co.” on an 1837 plan (see figure 9.9), and by 1839 had built several wharves between this new land and the South Boston Bridge (figure 11.3). In 1845 when the Old Colony Railroad was being built, Alger sold part of the garden behind his house and other land north of West Fourth Street to the railroad for their right-of-way (figure 11.4), even though not all of the triangle bounded by the

C YRUS A LGER

One manifestation of the growth of South Boston was the land added to it by Cyrus Alger, an iron manufacturer. Alger had been born in southeastern Massachusetts, learned the iron foundry business from his father, and came to South Boston in 1809, first starting a small foundry with a partner on Second Street and then his own on West Fourth Street. In 1816 Alger purchased almost all of the South Boston Association’s land west of the turnpike (now Dorchester Avenue) including the flats on the west side of the Foundry Street seawall. After incorporating the South Boston Iron Company in 1827, he repaired the seawall and began to fill the

ALGER’S SOUTH BOSTON CO.

FIRST ST.

FOUNDRY ST.

and estimated that forty thousand dollars more was need “to complete filling up & sea wall.”5 The association evidently did finish the seawall and the filling between the wall and the original shoreline along West Second Street, but not the filling east of the wall that ran along Foundry Street.

N

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FIGURE 11.3 D ETAIL

FROM

1839

HARBOR COMMISSIONERS ’ PL AN

By 1839 Cyrus Alger had added more land and wharves to the made land west of Foundry Street and the (South) Boston Wharf Company had begun to build its huge wharf north of the First Street seawall.

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This map shows the original route of the Old Colony Railroad (1845) through South Boston; the foundries and railroad works located on the made land west of Iron (Foundry) Street; and, on the north shore, the huge Boston Wharf Company wharf, wharfing out by many industries, and the city institutions with the seawall and land made in the 1830s.

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Cyrus Alger was not the only manufacturer to locate on the South Boston waterfront. As early as 1811, when a Boston glass company erected a glass house at B and Second Streets, various industries—glass works, kerosene and oil refineries, foundries, and the like—built their factories along the shore north of Second Street and many also extended wharves and filled flats in front of their property as shown on an 1852 map (see figure 11.4).10 One source of landmaking on the north shore, however, was the result of city rather than of individual efforts. In the 1820s Boston moved a number of institutions to South Boston—the House of Industry, which replaced the West End almshouse built in 1799–1800 (see chapter 5) and was intended as a place where the poor would work or farm in order to help defray the city’s cost of maintaining them; the House of Correction in order to separate petty criminals and the dissolute from the poor; and the Institution for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders—what we would now call a reformatory—which was originally located in one wing of the House of Correction. The South Boston site, about fifty acres extending from what became East Fourth Street north to the shore approximately between L Street and a line halfway between N and O Streets (see figure 11.4), had been chosen because it was suitable for farming. (Deer Island had been rejected because the soil was poor and, then a separate island, it was relatively inaccessible, and sites south of the Neck, now in the

ON O. ST F C BO HAR RF W HA W

Dorchester Turnpike (now Dorchester Avenue), West Fourth and Foundry (then called Iron) Streets was yet completely filled.9 By 1852 almost all the flats between Foundry Street and the harbor line had been filled and were occupied by various foundries and machine shops including Alger’s, which at the time was the largest foundry in the United States (see figure 11.4). Filling of this area, as well as the flats just east of the Free Bridge, was completed in the late 1850s and defined the east side of the Fort Point Channel just as the filling of South Cove on the Boston side had defined the west side (figure 11.5; see chapter 9).

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FIGURE 11.5 D ETAIL

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MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the filling east of the Free (Federal Street, now Dorchester Avenue) Bridge that occurred in the 1850s (see figure 11.4), creating a dock that remained open until the early 1960s between this fill and the Boston Wharf Company wharf. The map also shows the completed filling west of Foundry (Iron) Street and north of the Dover Street (South Boston) Bridge. Also depicted is the crossing of the Old Colony and the Boston, Hartford & Erie (New York Central in 1859) Railroad tracks on the shore of South Bay (see figure 11.11).

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South End, were also dismissed because they were tidal flats that would have to be filled.) The move to remote South Boston was resisted, however. The sheriff at first refused to transfer petty criminals to South Boston from the temporary House of Correction in the jail on Leverett Street because supervision was easier in the city proper, and most of the poor from the West End almshouse were transferred only after the city closed it in April 1825.11 In the 1830s the city built a separate House of Reformation near Fourth Street and an Insane Hospital on the shoreward side of the Houses of Industry and Correction.12 In order to lay claim to the flats in front of its property, in 1834 the city constructed a four-hundred-foot-long seawall between the wharves there and filled the enclosed flats, creating about 1.4 acres of new land (see figure 11.4).13 Thus by the late 1830s the city had moved most of its asylums from the city proper to South Boston and made some new land on the site. By the 1850s, however, the status of the city’s institutions in South Boston had changed. In 1847 a typhus epidemic (often called “ship fever”) among arriving Irish immigrants had overwhelmed the facilities at the House of Industry, so the city had set up a temporary hospital on Deer Island. After the epidemic abated in 1848, the city decided to move the almshouse permanently to Deer Island and erected a new building there in 1849–1851. In 1853 the residents of the House of Industry at South Boston were moved to the new almshouse and the former institution closed.14 Meanwhile, the city had decided to extend Broadway eastward, which necessitated cutting through the hill behind the House of Reformation (figure 11.6). The dirt from the excavation was dumped on the flats north of the city institutions and the seawall extended, making new land.15 No longer needing all its original land in South Boston, in 1854 the city sold the entire area south of First Street.16 For a time the plan was to move juvenile offenders from the House of Reformation to the recently vacated House of Industry buildings, but in 1855 the city decided to relocate the House of Reformation entirely on Deer Island.17 This left only the House of Correction and the Insane Hospital on about fifteen acres north of First Street between L and a line halfway between N and O Streets (see figure 11.4). 292

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The major landmaking on the north shore of South Boston in the mid-nineteenth century, however, was not wharfing out by privately owned industries or the development of city asylums but rather the construction of a huge wharf north of the First Street seawall by the Boston Wharf Company. Incorporated in 1836, the company soon purchased the South Boston Association’s flats in this area, built a twelve-foot high seawall around some of the projected wharf area, and began to fill it with dirt from Nook’s Hill, which was in the vicinity of what are now West Third and B Streets.18 The company planned to construct a wharf with two huge arms, each having a number of smaller wharves separated by docks, and by 1839 it had filled a considerable portion, creating some of the land where the Gillette Company is now located (see figure 11.3). The area on which the Boston Wharf Company was constructing its wharf was known as the South Boston Flats, a vast expanse of mud covered with luxuriant sea grass interlaced with navigable muddy brooks called guzzles, which extended almost a mile north of First Street (see figure 11.6).19 Although the Boston Wharf Company’s wharf was accessible to ships from the Fort Point Channel on the west, the company also wanted to extend the wharf further north toward the deep water in the harbor. By 1845 the company had built the wharf out the 1,650 feet from the original high water mark (see figure 11.6) permitted by Massachusetts law, and then petitioned the legislature for authorization to extend it another six hundred feet. After some dispute about whether the existing wharf crossed a guzzle and obstructed navigation in it, the legislature passed an act with the proviso that the wharf not be built over a creek or channel. The company had already begun to construct the seawall for the new section of the wharf when, claiming that the wharf did cross a creek or channel, an injunction stopped all work in January 1846.20 The amount of Boston Wharf completed by 1847 is shown on a chart of that date (see figure 11.6). Progress on the Boston Wharf Company wharf did not resume until the 1850s when the wharf began to be viewed as an

GUZZLE

TH

FOR TP OIN

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TC HA NN EL

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BOS TON F L AT

GUZZ LE

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BOSTON WHARF CO. WHARF

LINE 1650 FEET FROM HIGH WATER M ARK

FIRS

T S T.

L I NE

OF O RIGI NA L

HI GH

ER AT W RK MA

BROADWAY

HOUSE OF REFORMATION

FIGURE 11.6 B OT TOM

HALF OF

1847

CHART OF

B OSTON I NNER H ARBOR

This was the first chart of Boston Harbor prepared by the U.S. Coast Survey, which was noted for producing very accurate charts with detailed topographical information, as evidenced here in the rendition of Governor’s and Castle Islands and the east part of the South Boston peninsula. This chart also shows the original high water mark, or shoreline, of South Boston, the line 1,650 feet seaward

from it, the guzzles, or navigable brooks, on the west side of the South Boston Flats, and the amount of the Boston Wharf Company wharf built by 1847. In the latter structure, one can clearly see the new seawall extending beyond the dotted line that indicates the 1,650-foot limit into a “guzzle” in the flats. Also visible are the areas still unfilled in both arms of the wharf. At the east end of South Boston, the chart clearly shows the city institutions and the hill behind the House of Reformation that had to be cut down in order to extend Broadway.

LIN

E

B

LINE OF LOW WATER AT SPRING TIDES

LIN

EA

BOSTON WHARF CO. WHARF

LOW WATER AT COMMON TIDES

FIGURE 11.7 C A . 1851

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MAP OF

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This map was based on the 1847 U.S. Coast Survey chart (see figure 11.6) but included some additional information—the low water marks at ordinary and spring tides and the line indicating the limits permitted for filling (line A) and structures (line B).

improvement rather than an injury to the harbor. In 1852 the legislature authorized the company to extend the wharf 700 feet beyond the 1,650-foot limit and in 1855 all the way to the harbor commissioners’ line “B,” approximately as far as today’s Northern Avenue and almost to the end of the South Boston Flats (figure 11.7).21 The company then resumed filling with results that can be seen on an 1863 map (figure 11.8). The head of the wharf that was unfinished in 1847 (see figure 11.6) had been widened and completed and then, since the guzzle still had to remain open, a bridge had been built over it to connect the original wharf with a new Lshaped section that extended almost to today’s Summer Street.22 The 1863 map also shows other developments that had occurred in the vicinity of the Boston Wharf Company wharf since 1847 (see figure 11.8). Perhaps most notable were the tracks of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad, which had been built in 1854–1855 on a long pile bridge that swung out over the South Boston Flats before curving across the Fort Point Channel to a depot near present South Station. (The tracks crossed South Boston in a deep cut excavated between A and B Streets, a right of way now occupied by the new Haul Road leading to the Ted Williams Tunnel. An 1855 engraving from Ballou’s Pictorial [figure 11.11] shows the cut for the tracks being excavated under the Old Colony Railroad tracks on the edge of South Bay [see figure 11.5] as well as the mile-long pile bridge on which the Boston, Hartford & Erie crossed South Bay.) The 1863 map also shows the Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge, which had been constructed in 1855 across the Fort Point Channel in order to provide a direct connection between the Boston Wharf Company wharf and the main part of the city (see figure 11.8).23 (The bridge stood until it was taken down in 1909, having become more an obstruction than an improvement. Its former location can still be seen, however, in the seawall on the west side of the Fort Point Channel. The Boston Wharf Company seawall on the east side of the channel south of the bridge was taken down in 1996 by the “Big Dig” to create a basin for casting sections for the new tunnel under the channel, but will be rebuilt.) Other contemporary views of these developments include an 1858 photograph taken from the dome of the

State House looking down Park Street with the Park Street Church in the foreground, which shows the curve of the Boston, Hartford & Erie tracks in the background (figure 11.9), and an 1866 bird’seye view, which clearly shows the tracks, the wharf, and the Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge all in the same configuration as on the 1863 map (figures 11.10 and 11.8). During the years when the Boston Wharf Company was extending its wharf on the South Boston Flats, concern had been growing about the condition of Boston Harbor itself. This concern was actually a manifestation of the growing realization that Boston was losing shipping to New York. It is conventional wisdom that the opening of the Erie Canal, which facilitated the movement of produce from western states to New York City, precipitated the decline of the port of Boston. But this is too simplistic a view. The canal was, after all, soon supplemented and eventually displaced by railroads and Boston was also connected by rail with the West. The real problem was that New England had no large bulk export product and so, as a port, Boston was always dependent on imports. Boston’s location as the furthest east of the major ports did not help either, for western shippers preferred to send products to ports that were closer rather than pay the extra freight charges to Boston, and these charges were not compensated by the fact that Boston was a day’s sail closer to Europe. Boston’s excess of imports over exports was occasionally noted in the mid-nineteenth century,24 but the loss of shipping was usually attributed to problems of Boston Harbor. Contemporaries focused on two main problems: the reduction in the size of the harbor as the result of extending wharves and filling tidal flats and the deterioration in the quality of the harbor caused by shoaling of the shipping channels and erosion of the harbor islands. Concern that wharves were encroaching on the shipping channels had been expressed as far back as the 1830s. As a result, in 1835 the state appointed a commission to make a survey of the harbor and to set lines beyond which wharves could not extend. The commission’s report, submitted in 1837, defined such a line around part of Boston Proper and was the first of many such

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N

PR OP

OS ED AL AW SE L

BO S

ORD & ERIE RR.

ARF WH CO.

RTF HA

RF

N TO

MT. WASHINGTON AVE. BRIDGE

BO

STO

NW

HA

BRIDGE

FIGURE 11.8 1863

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PL AN OF

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the extent of the Boston Wharf Company wharf by 1863 (cf. figure 11.6), the Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge connecting the wharf and the main part of the city across the Fort Point Channel, the tracks of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad, and the original line for the seawall proposed by the U.S. commissioners.

FIGURE 11.9 1858

PHOTOGRAPH LOOKING SOUTHWEST FROM THE DOME OF THE

S TATE

H OUSE

Taken from a favorite nineteenth-century vantage point, this photograph looks down Park Street toward the Park Street Church. In the distance the tracks of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad curve over the South Boston Flats.

FIGURE 11.10 D ETAIL

FROM

1866

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

B OSTON

This bird’s-eye shows approximately the same development of South Boston as the 1863 map (see figure 11.8)—the tracks of the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad built out over the South Boston Flats, the Boston Wharf Company wharf extended as far as the tracks and connected to the main part of the city by the Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge, and the wharfing out by various industries on the north shore of South Boston.

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FIGURE 11.11 1855 ENGRAVING OF O LD C OLONY R AILROAD H ARTFORD & E RIE R AILROAD

AND CUT FOR

B OSTON ,

This engraving, drawn looking southwest from the point where the Old Colony and Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad tracks crossed on the South Boston shore of South Bay (see figure 11.5), shows the cut for the new Boston, Hartford & Erie, now the location of the Haul Road, being made under the tracks of the Old Colony. On the right an Old Colony locomotive is steaming south. The bridge on which the new railroad crossed South Bay extends off into the distance.

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mid-nineteenth-century commissions that set harbor lines.25 Not everyone agreed with the establishment of harbor commissioners’ lines, however. Shore owners, in particular, objected in cases where the lines were drawn across flats they considered their property according to Massachusetts law and many built wharves beyond the lines. Finally, in the early 1850s, the state decided to settle the issue and chose as a test case a small piece of wharf built beyond the line by a “well-known and highly-respected citizen,” who was none other than Cyrus Alger. The case of Commonwealth v. Alger was decided in 1853 in favor of the state,26 and the continued existence of harbor lines, which were set by the federal government after 1888, affected many subsequent developments in the harbor. Concern about the size of the harbor also focused on the many acres of tidal flats that had been filled in to make new land. Some people argued that Boston’s growth was dependent on such filling in order to create space for commercial facilities to serve the city’s ever increasing population. As the 1840 harbor commissioners’ report put it: “How is such a vastly augmented number of inhabitants to be accommodated . . . except by extending [houses] over the surrounding highlands . . . and reclaiming . . . the shoaler portions of the adjacent harbor.”27 Others felt, however, that Boston’s prosperity was so dependent on shipping that the harbor should not be reduced by filling. In the words of the 1850 harbor commissioners’ report: “We regard the demand for water as greater than that for land. . . . We believe that the growing commerce of the city will, within fifty years, require the utmost capacity of the harbor; and that nothing should be filled which is capable, by excavation, of being converted . . . into wet docks or roadsteads.”28 The argument about whether to fill or not to fill raged in the midnineteenth century with no clear resolution. A second problem was that the harbor itself seemed to be deteriorating. As early as the 1820s concerns had been raised about erosion of the harbor islands, which protected the harbor, owing both to action of the sea and to the common practice of taking sand and gravel from them for ships’ ballast. Seawalls were built on some islands and the U.S. government was prevailed on to buy and maintain several others, but erosion continued into mid-century.29

At the same time, surveys of the harbor in 1835 and 1847 as well as mariners’ observations indicated that shoals were forming in the shipping channels. The accepted theory at the time was that the channels were kept open by the scour, or force, of the ebb tide, and people questioned the effect that filling had on the scouring process. In the case of the Boston Wharf Company wharf, for example, some argued that this structure on the east side of the Fort Point Channel confined the water in the channel and thus increased the scour while others claimed that the wharf cut off water coming from the South Boston Flats and therefore decreased the scour.30 Although the solutions to Boston’s harbor problems were not clear, it was apparent that more information was needed. Knowing that the U.S. government had made studies of other East Coast and Gulf Coast harbors, in 1856 and 1858 the state legislature requested that a scientific survey be made of Boston Harbor, but nothing happened until the city added its voice— and an appropriation—in 1859. Three very eminent commissioners were duly appointed and began their work in the spring of 1860.31 At the outset, the U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor intended to make a survey of the harbor to determine what changes had occurred since earlier surveys, investigate the causes of these changes, and make recommendations to prevent further deterioration. But the study proved to be more complex than anticipated. First, it soon became clear that a more detailed survey was needed than the one originally planned. Then, the nation became embroiled in the Civil War and, although the commissioners never alluded to it in their reports, the war certainly made many demands on their time and delayed the Boston study. Requests from the city and state for special studies on areas such as Mystic Pond and South Bay caused further delays. And the commission itself underwent some changes: the leading member, General Totten, died in 1864 and Professor Bache, head of the U.S. Coast Survey, was too ill to work on the final report. In the end, the U.S. commissioners issued ten reports on various topics and did not finish their work until 1866.32

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Early in their study the U.S. commissioners noted that the Fort Point Channel had actually been deepened by the scour created by the Boston Wharf Company’s wharf and suggested extending a wall around all of the South Boston Flats in order to increase the scour in the main shipping channel. Although the commissioners originally thought the area enclosed by the wall should be excavated, they soon agreed, apparently at the suggestion of Boston business interests, that it could be filled.33 As their study of Boston Harbor progressed, the commissioners, who had initially been particularly concerned about the condition of the harbor islands, became increasingly focused on plans for the “occupation,” or filling, of the South Boston Flats and eventually devoted all or part of several reports to the subject.34 And so the South Boston Flats project, which ultimately became one of the largest landmaking projects ever conducted in Boston, began not as a commercial development but rather as a harbor improvement. S OUTH B OSTON F LATS P ROJECT

In 1863 the U.S. commissioners published a plan showing a “first approximation” for the line of the proposed seawall around the South Boston Flats, which was to be along the line of scour (see figure 11.8). By 1866, however, when the state Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats issued a revised plan for the South Boston Flats, this line had been somewhat modified by rounding off the acute angle at the junction of the Fort Point and main ship channels (figure 11.12).35 Even at this early date, the 1866 plan not only defined the limit of the eventual landmaking project but also included other features that were later incorporated. There were docks in the seawall around the flats, for example, the U.S. commissioners having said such docks would be permissible if they were located at least two hundred yards from the curve (a specification not followed on the 1866 plan).36 A “Reserved Channel” was included to provide access to deep water for the owners of the flats on the north shore of South Boston, who had declined to participate in the landmaking project.37 The division of the area to be filled into Sections I,

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II, and III was simply to make the enormous project more manageable, and the U.S. commissioners had designated Slate Ledge the boundary of the first section in 1864.38 Eastern Avenue, or some street connecting the north shore of South Boston with the main part of the city, had been under discussion since the 1840s.39 The street had originally been proposed as a causeway over the flats, but when the state decided to fill the flats the street was seen as an important connection between the newly made land and the rest of the city. The 1866 plan also shows at least one feature that was not eventually constructed—the extended wharves on the west side of the Fort Point Channel. The U.S. commissioners had originally proposed a new wharf line on the Boston side in order to improve the flow of the ebb tide, or scour, in the Fort Point Channel (see figure 11.8).40 Since the curve of the Boston wharf line was to match that of the seawall around the flats, the 1866 change in the curve of the seawall necessitated a similar change in the Boston wharf line (see figure 11.12). The initiation of the South Boston Flats project finally prompted the creation of a permanent harbor commission, a move that had been urged for many years by various temporary harbor commissions as well as by the U.S. commissioners.41 The state Board of Harbor Commissioners was established in 1866 and given jurisdiction over all the harbors and flats in the state except Back Bay as well as authorized to implement the 1866 plan for filling the South Boston Flats.42 But, as the commissioners were soon to discover, there were many possible pitfalls between devising plans and actually filling the flats. One of the first problems the new harbor commissioners had to resolve was that of compensation. The U.S. commissioners had been adamant that for every cubic yard of tide water in the harbor displaced by fill an equal amount should be dredged out of some other place in the harbor to compensate for the reduction of tidal capacity, and such compensation was made a legal requirement by the same act that created the state Board of Harbor Commissioners. (The act also required that the harbor commissioners approve any plans for building over tide waters, establishing the permitting process that is still in effect under Chapter 91).43 The U.S.

STATE (SLATE) LEDGE

EA

ST

ER N

AV E

.

FIGURE 11.12 1866

PL AN FOR THE

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

In 1866 the plan for the “occupation,” or filling, of the South Boston Flats included a new curve of the seawall around the flats and of the wharf line on the opposite side of the Fort Point Channel (see figure 11.8), docks in these walls, a Reserved Channel, and a street (Eastern Avenue, now Congress and Summer Streets) connecting the north shore of South Boston with the main part of the city. S

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commissioners had recommended that compensation for filling the South Boston Flats be achieved by dredging in Mystic Pond, the Mystic River, Chelsea Creek, and, if necessary, the Charles River. The state commissioners very soon determined, however, that this “compensation in kind” was impractical and that filling the South Boston Flats could be compensated for by dredging the main channel outside the seawall and using the dredged material to fill the flats, and the legislature passed an act to this effect in 1868. (Filling or building over tidal flats elsewhere in the harbor was to be compensated for by payment into a special fund at the rate of $.375 for each cubic yard displaced.)44 The 1868 act also gave the harbor commissioners sole authority to contract for the South Boston Flats project and within a few months the board had made four important contracts. One was with the Boston Wharf Company, which received most of the flats between the old commissioners lines A and B (see figure 11.7) on condition that it build the requisite seawall along the Fort Point Channel (figure 11.13). Another contract was for building what was termed a “light” seawall along the Fort Point Channel, and a third was for a “heavy” seawall around the curve at the mouth of the channel and along the outer line of the flats. (The curve of the wall had been changed yet again, this time in 1867 in order to enlarge the area to be filled on the South Boston side and reduce the distance wharves had to be extended on the Boston side [see figure 11.12]. The curve on the 1868 plan in figure 11.13 is the one finally adopted and is the line of today’s Fan Pier.) And finally the board had made a contract with Norman Munson, the contractor then filling Back Bay (see chapter 7), to fill the state’s flats west of the line of B Street, an area of over one hundred acres (see figure 11.13).45 But getting the project started was not so easy. First, in late 1868 the state rejected the contract with Munson because he wanted almost three-fourths of the made land as payment. And canceling this contract meant also canceling the other three.46 Then the Boston Wharf Company, without giving the commissioners any warning, sold all its property on the South Boston Flats to the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad. One result of the ensuing

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financial and legal convolutions was that in 1869 the Boston, Hartford & Erie agreed to purchase the twenty-five acres of flats at the junction of the Fort Point and main channels, an area that eventually became known as the “25-acre lot” (figure 11.15). In the meantime, the Boston & Albany Railroad, with the intention of expanding from East Boston into South Boston, agreed in late 1869 to buy and fill fifty acres of flats next to the Boston, Hartford & Erie property (see figure 11.15). In addition, in 1870 the state bought the flats of shore owners between B and E Streets so that the Reserved Channel could stop at E Street and all of Section I could be filled (see figure 11.15).47 “A great scheme has been inaugurated,” the commissioners exulted.48 And for a short time some progress was made. In 1869 the Boston, Hartford & Erie built a wood bulkhead along the line dividing its flats from those of the Boston & Albany. The bulkhead, which had a wing extending half way to the Fort Point Channel on the line formerly between Boston Wharf Company and Commonwealth property (see figure 11.15), was intended to retain fill, and during the year the railroad deposited about 30,000 cubic yards of dredged material. The railroad also constructed a section of the light seawall along the Fort Point Channel and filled some of the former Boston Wharf Company flats south of commissioners line A with gravel (see figure 11.15). An 1870 map shows the amount filled in this last area, though not the bulkheads or seawalls (figure 11.14). In 1870 the Boston & Albany also began to fill its flats with material dredged from its docks in East Boston.49 And then, just as it seemed that the South Boston Flats project was finally getting underway, in late 1870 the Boston, Hartford & Erie went bankrupt and all work came to an abrupt halt. It took three years to get the project back on track. In 1871 the Boston Wharf Company and the Commonwealth foreclosed the mortgages they had given the Boston, Hartford & Erie, thereby regaining their territory on the South Boston Flats. The Boston Wharf Company then began “energetically” filling its flats south of commissioners line A with dirt from Fort Hill (see figure 11.14), dirt that was probably illegally brought to South Boston instead of

AR EA D BE O TO T L A

CO

R W ED W GE AT D E R TO 2

M

M

IS

SI

ON

ER

’S

3F T.

LIN

EB

CO

MM

ISS

ION

ER ’S

LIN

B

ST .

EA

FIGURE 11.13 1868

PL AN FOR

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the additional flats given to the Boston Wharf Company and the new curve of the seawall (see figure 11.12) at the mouth of the Fort Point Channel, forming today’s Fan Pier. Note that commissioners lines A and B are mistakenly reversed—the southern line was really A and the northern line B (see figure 11.7).

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N

A

BOSTON HARTFORD & ERIE RR.

LINE

FIGURE 11.14 D ETAIL

F RO M

1870

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows more accurately than the 1873 plan (see figure 11.15) the amount filled by the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad next to its tracks.

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to the Atlantic Avenue docks during the scandal described in chapter 3. In addition, a great deal of debris from the Boston fire of November 1872 was reportedly also used to fill the Boston Wharf Company flats. The harbor commissioners decided that the state should build the seawall around the 25-acre parcel at the junction of the Fort Point and main channels and fill it. But the Boston Wharf Company would not start work on the parcel immediately south without a guarantee that the city would make the new land accessible by extending Eastern Avenue and building a bridge over the Fort Point Channel (see figure 11.15). There was a long delay while the harbor commissioners negotiated an agreement with the city about Eastern and Northern Avenues and resolved an eleventh-hour demand by the Boston & Albany that it be permitted to lay railroad tracks across the new streets. Finally, as the board announced with “great satisfaction,” an agreement was signed in June 1873.50 The four-part agreement signed on June 24, 1873, between the Board of Harbor Commissioners, the Boston & Albany Railroad, the Boston Wharf Company, and the city of Boston affected the course of the South Boston Flats project for many years to come. For its part, the board agreed to build the seawalls around and to fill the 25-acre parcel at the junction of the Fort Point and main channels. The parcel was to be filled to grade sixteen, or sixteen feet above mean low water, the fill up to grade thirteen to be obtained by dredging to twenty-three feet below mean low water a designated area of the main ship channel (see figures 11.13 and 11.15) and the last three feet to be of gravel. The Boston & Albany and the Boston Wharf Company similarly agreed to fill and build the seawalls around their parcels. (Note on figure 11.15 that most of the latter company’s flats south of commissioners line A had been filled by 1873 except for a dock left open in the 1850s on the site of the guzzle.) The city agreed to build a bridge over the Fort Point Channel on the line of Northern Avenue once both the state’s 25-acre and the Boston & Albany’s parcels were filled and, within eighteen months of the agreement, a bridge on the line of Eastern Avenue, which had been realigned parallel to the South Boston street grid and became Congress

A R E A TO B

WATER E DREDGED TO 23 FT. AT LOW

50-ACRE LOT 25-ACRE LOT NORTHERN

’S LINE B

COMMISSIONER

EASTERN AVE.

E ST.

B ST.

LINE A

12-ACRE LOT

COM

NER’S MISSIO

AVE.

FLATS PURCHASED BY COMMONWEALTH

FIGURE 11.15 1873

PL AN FOR

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the “25-acre lot” at the mouth of the Fort Point Channel, the fifty acres east of it to be filled by the Boston & Albany Railroad, and the privately owned flats between B and E Streets that the state had purchased in 1870 so that the Reserved Channel could stop at E Street. By 1873 the Boston Wharf Company had filled most of its flats south of commissioners line A except for a dock on the site of the former guzzle (see figure 11.6), and Eastern Avenue had been realigned parallel to the South Boston street grid and became Congress Street.

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VY EA

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L AL W

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DOCK WALL

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SEA HEAVY

DOCK WALL

Street (see figure 11.15). The Boston & Albany received the right to lay tracks across Eastern and Northern Avenues but not across B Street, an arrangement that necessitated a slight exchange of territory between the railroad and the state.51 The harbor commissioners promptly advertised for proposals for the work on the 25-acre lot and awarded the contract to the same firms that had received the abortive 1868 contracts for the seawalls. Finally, on October 14, 1873, work began on the South Boston Flats project.52 The project was unusually well documented and the surviving plans and descriptions give a good idea of how landmaking was accomplished at the time. What had been termed a “light” seawall since 1869, when plans for it were first published, was built along the Fort Point Channel and around the inner sides of the docks that had been added in 1874 on the state and Boston & Albany parcels (figure 11.16). At the top of this wall was a notch, or offset (figure 11.17), to support platforms along its face. The platforms were built to provide enough space for the harbor bottom to slope from the level of the top of the foundation piles, which had to be kept covered in order to protect them from marine borers, to a depth adequate for ships (figure 11.18). What was called a “heavy” seawall (figure 11.19) was built around the curve at the mouth of the Fort Point Channel and between the two docks next to flats where the water would be dredged to twentythree feet deep below mean low water (see figure 11.15). Submarine divers constructed the foundations for these walls and also placed the granite blocks, which were brought from a quarry at Cape Ann by sloop and lowered into the water by steam derricks on deck, up to the low water line.53 Meanwhile, filling the area inside the seawalls had been proceeding. At first, scows dumped the clay dredged from the harbor directly onto the flats being filled. But once the level of fill became higher than loaded scows could float at high water, the technology changed. Scows then dumped the dredged clay in front of the walls and from there it was lifted over the walls by a clamshell dredge, dumped on sloping platforms placed on the ballast behind the walls, and then slid down to the flats. When the area near the walls had been filled, the clamshell dredge dumped the clay into

FIGURE 11.16 1876

PL AN OF

25- ACRE

LOT ON

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the location of the “light” seawalls built in 1873–1874 on the east side of the Fort Point Channel, in 1875–1876 around the inner walls of Dock 1, and in 1874–1875 on the west and south sides of Dock 2. It also shows where the “heavy” seawalls were built in 1874–1876 around the curve of the 25-acre lot, now Fan Pier, and in 1876–1877 between Docks 1 and 2. The plan indicates that by 1876 much of the 25-acre lot had been filled to grade ten (ten feet above mean low water) and most of the rest to grade five.

FIGURE 11.17 1873

PL AN FOR

“ LIGHT ”

SEAWALLS ON THE

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

The seawalls along the Fort Point Channel and the inner sides of the docks were to be set in a trench excavated two feet below mean low water and on a foundation of piles, shown in plan at the bottom, driven two and a half feet apart. The walls themselves were to be of granite, eighteen feet high, and have a battered face with a notch at the top to support a platform (see figure 11.18). The backs of the walls were to be ballasted (supported) with oyster shells, and the trench and the spaces between the piles were also to be filled with shells.

MEAN HIGH WATER BALLAST

SEAWALL

MEAN LOW WATER

OTTO

OR B HARB

M

PILES

FIGURE 11.18 1875

PL AN FOR PL ATFORMS ON

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the platforms to be constructed along the outer faces of the “light” seawalls (see figure 11.17) in order to bridge the area between the wall, which was supported by piles that had to be covered to protect them from marine borers, and water deep enough for ships to dock. The inner edge of the platform rested on the notch in the top of the wall (see figure 11.17) and the platform itself was supported by piles.

SEAWALL

PLAN OF PILES

PLATFORM

BALLAST

PILES

HA

RB

OR

BO TT OM

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FIGURE 11.19 1873

PL AN FOR

“ HEAVY ”

SEAWALLS ON THE

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

The wall along the curve of what is now Fan Pier was to be set on a broad foundation of broken stones that began twenty-three feet below mean low water. The wall itself, built of large granite blocks, began eleven feet below mean low water, was twenty-seven feet high, battered on both faces, and ballasted at the back with gravel and oyster shells.

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small railroad cars that ran on tracks set on pile trestles and were pulled by a light locomotive to various locations on the flats. Work advanced quickly and by the end of 1876 a large part of the state’s flats had been filled to grade ten (see figure 11.16). Gravel for the final three feet of fill was brought nine miles by rail from Readville (now in Hyde Park).54 Filling of the Boston Wharf Company’s adjoining parcel, also twenty-five acres (see figure 11.15), proceeded at the same time with material obtained by dredging the Fort Point Channel to a least twelve feet below mean low water, as required by the 1873 agreement, and from the “cheapest sources available”—apparently dredgings from docks and other places in the harbor.55 (The building that collapsed in 1995 at 303 Congress Street—on Boston Wharf Company property next to the Fort Point Channel just south of the Congress Street Bridge—did so not because of the consistency of this fill but because a chemical reaction between the fill or the water in the channel and the concrete piles supporting the building had turned the piles to “soft paste.”56) The state’s 25-acre lot was finally completed on January 17, 1878,57 and the resulting lobster claw–shaped piece of made land—the location today of Fan Pier and the Moakley federal courthouse as well as of the brick buildings south of them—is clearly shown on an 1880 map of Boston (figure 11.20) and graphically depicted in the foreground of a bird’s-eye view from the same year (figure 11.21).58 Even before the state had finished filling the 25-acre lot at the junction of the Fort Point and main channels, questions had been raised about how the resulting land would be used. In 1875 a legislative committee strongly recommended that the made land on the flats should be devoted to railroad terminals, docks, and wharves and that the property should be handled by a “competent commission.”59 The last was a slap at the harbor commissioners, who, it was felt, viewed the project primarily as a harbor improvement and were only incidentally concerned with developing the land.60 The result was that between 1875 and 1879 direction of the South Boston Flats project was divided between the harbor commission and boards responsible for the land—first the Agents for the Commonwealth Flats and then the Board of Land

Commissioners. (This division was abandoned in 1879 when the harbor and land commissions were combined into one board.) It was thus the land commissioners who noted with dismay in 1878 that the state’s 25-acre lot at the junction of the Fort Point and main channels, filled by the harbor commissioners at a cost of about $760,000, could be reached only by water. Although the city had built the Congress Street Bridge across the Fort Point Channel in 1874–1875,61 as required by the 1873 agreement, there was no access to this bridge across Boston Wharf Company property and the city had not built the Northern Avenue bridge because the Boston & Albany had not completed filling its parcel (see figures 11.20 and 11.15). The land commissioners’ response was to rent the 25-acre lot to the New York & New England Railroad, the successor to the Boston, Hartford & Erie, an action taken both because the land was to be devoted to railroad purposes and because it could only be accessed by rail. The railroad proceeded to build a two-thousand-foot railroad bridge from its curving track out over the water to the 25-acre parcel and began constructing buildings there (see figures 11.20 and 11.21).62 The less-than-satisfactory result of filling the 25-acre lot did not, however, deter the land commissioners or the new Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners from plunging ahead with the South Boston Flats project. In 1880 the state sold the 25-acre lot for one million dollars and also sold what became known as the 12acre lot—the area south of Eastern Avenue (Congress Street) bounded on the west by Boston Wharf Company land, on the east by the extension of B Street, and on the south by the line dividing the state’s flats from those of the shore owners (see figures 11.20 and 11.15)—for about one hundred thousand dollars to the New York & New England, which was to fill the 12-acre lot by 1883 with material dredged from the harbor. In addition to these two lots, the New York & New England also acquired the rights to, and obligation to fill, the Boston & Albany’s flats, which had become known as the 50-acre lot (see figures 11.20 and 11.15).63 The state, meanwhile, was starting to fill the flats east of the 50-acre lot. In August 1880 the commissioners contracted with

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25ACRE LOT

12

-A

CR R E L AI OT L BR ID GE 50 -A CR E

LO

T

CO ST NG . B RE RID SS GE

E. THIRD ST. BROADWAY COMMISSIONERS LINE

SWE

TT

(SOU

Q ST.

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I ST.

COL UM B ST. IA

FIVE CORNERS

DORCHESTER

AVE.

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ON S

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FIGURE 11.20 D ETAIL

F RO M

1880

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the lobster claw–shaped area that had been filled on the South Boston Flats by 1878 and the rail bridge built north of its curving track by the New York & New England Railroad in order to provide access to the 25-acre lot. It also shows Pier 3, although it actually was never built (see figure 11.22). In addition, the map shows the filling by private owners along the north shore

of South Boston and the east and south shorelines of South Boston before any filling was done to create Marine Park and the Strandway (now Day Boulevard). In South Bay, the map shows Swett (now Southampton) Street, which had been built across the bay in the 1870s to provide a direct route between Roxbury and South Boston.

FIGURE 11.21 D ETAIL

FROM

1880

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

B OSTON

In the foreground of this bird’s-eye view is the recently filled lobster claw–shaped land on the South Boston flats. A train is steaming south on the New York & New England Railroad tracks, apparently having crossed the Fort Point Channel from its depot in Boston and then swung past a semicircular roundhouse. Another train is traveling south on the two-thousand-foot-long trestle bridge the railroad had built to obtain access to the 25-acre lot at the north end of the project (now Fan Pier). One can also see the recently completed Congress Street Bridge across the Fort Point Channel and, further south, the Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge. The buildings at the eastern end of the latter bridge belonged to the Boston Wharf Company; the tall building further south to the Standard Sugar Refinery. The bird’s-eye view suggests that part of the Boston Wharf Company property was not yet completely filled.

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one Thomas Potter to dredge three hundred thousand cubic yards from the harbor and place them on this area by the end of 188264 and in 1881 they decided to pursue the filling of the flats east of B Street as fast as possible. That year the commissioners made a contract with the New England Dredging Company, John Souther’s firm (see chapter 8), to fill the area south of Eastern Avenue (Congress Street) between B Street and a line one hundred feet east of D Street as well as a large area east of that being filled by Potter (figure 11.22).65 Bulkheads to retain fill were built on the north and east sides of the New England Dredging Company area and north of what became Cypher Street. The bulkhead on the northernmost line, which had a gap so that scows could enter, was set back thirteen hundred feet from the harbor line to allow for later construction of docks and piers (see figure 11.22). These wood bulkheads, which were originally intended to be temporary, instead became the standard structures for retaining fill on the South Boston Flats and were thus a significant departure from the earlier nineteenth-century practice of building stone seawalls around the perimeter of an area to be filled.66 South of the southern bulkhead, the U.S. government and private parties were dumping material dredged from the harbor, and by 1882 so much fill had accumulated on these flats that the commissioners made a second contract with the New England Dredging Company to receive this material and deposit it in this area (see figure 11.22).67 Filling was done by the same method as on the 25-acre lot, that is, after scows dumped the dredged material at receiving stations, it was hoisted into small railroad cars, pulled by locomotives on tramways to the dumping areas, and then leveled. A great deal of filling was done in 1882 and 1883 on the areas of both New England Dredging Company contracts, the area of the Potter contract, and a small area near First Street where the city was dumping household ashes and other refuse (see figure 11.22). The total area of these four sections was 99.46 acres and, not surprisingly, they eventually became known collectively as the 100-acre lot. By the end of 1884, seventy-five acres of this lot had been filled to grade thir-

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teen, in 1886 and 1887 sewers were constructed under C Street and the cross streets, and in 1888 filling of the 100-acre lot was completed.68 The New York & New England Railroad had meanwhile procrastinated about filling the 12- and 50-acre lots. The railroad had not filled the former lot by 1883, as required, and, although it did do some filling on both lots in 1885, it was not with material dredged from the harbor, as was also required.69 (Filling the 50acre lot included a pier added to the plans in 1882. This pier was designated, and still is, Pier 4—Pier 1 being what is now Fan Pier, Pier 2 the one between the docks built by the state and the Boston & Albany in the 1870s, and Pier 3 projected but not built—see figure 11.22. The delineation of these piers is no longer as clear as it was in 1883, however, because the dock between Piers 1 and 2 was filled in 1969 and part of the dock between Piers 2 and 4 filled in 1971, both by Anthony Athanas, who then owned the land and still operates the well-known seafood restaurant on Pier 4 [see figure 11.32]).70 The railroad finally filled both the 12- and 50-acre lots with gravel, ashes, and refuse and, at least in 1886, delivered dredged material to one of the state’s receiving stations as compensation.71 Filling of the 12-acre lot to grade thirteen was finished in 1888 and in 1889 the railroad agreed to complete the filling of the 50-acre lot.72 Even before the 100-acre lot was completed, the commissioners had forged ahead with filling the area east of it. To do so, they first had to resolve the question of the Reserved Channel. As mentioned earlier, this channel had been included in the initial plan for the South Boston Flats project in order to give owners of property on South Boston’s north shore access to deep water. The state legislature removed the channel from the plan in 1877, however, because it potentially interfered with railroad development, but restored it in 1886 on recommendation of the harbor and land commissioners. A deed between the state and shore owners in 1887 made it a permanent feature.73 The commissioners then lost no time in arranging for one seawall to be built across the west end of the Reserved Channel at E Street and another wall parallel to and three hundred feet north of the channel, the latter location

FIGURE 11.22

N

PIER 4

PROPOSED PIER 3

25-ACRE LOT

PIER 2

PIER 1

D ETAIL FROM 1883 B OSTON H ARBOR

GAP

50-ACRE LOT BULKHEAD

EASTER

12-ACR

E LOT

BULKH

EAD

N AVE.

100-ACRE LOT

D ST.

C ST.

B ST.

BULKHEA D

(CYPHER

ST.)

FIRST ST .

PL AN OF

This plan shows the 25-acre, 50acre, and 12-acre lots owned by the New York & New England Railroad; the site of the neverbuilt Pier 3 and the location of Pier 4, which was constructed by the railroad in the 1880s; and the areas east of B Street that became the 100-acre lot then being filled by Potter, the New England Dredging Company, and the city.

chosen with the idea that wharves would be extended from the wall to the channel (figure 11.23).74 Meanwhile, in 1887 and 1888 a large amount of material dredged from the harbor by the U.S. government and private parties had been dumped on the flats east of the 100-acre lot, filling forty-four acres to about grade three.75 To keep this fill from washing away, the commissioners made a contract in 1889 to enclose this area with bulkheads, one on the north joining the bulkhead on the north side of the 100-acre lot and one on the east joining the seawall north of the Reserved Channel (see figure 11.23). The area thus enclosed was called, with the commissioners’ usual penchant for naming parcels by their acreage, the 75-acre lot, later amended to the 70-acre lot.76 Because most of the 70-acre lot had already been filled too high for scows to operate, the commissioners made a contract in 1889 with the New England Dredging Company to “receive, store, elevate, deposit, and level” on the lot any material dredged from the harbor.77 Although the contract does not indicate how this fill was to be deposited, it was probably again by small trains running on tramways, especially since the same contractor had just used this method to fill the 100-acre lot. Some of the dredged material handled under this contract came from the Reserved Channel, which the state began to deepen and widen in 1889, and most of the fill was deposited near Congress Street, which the state was anxious to finish so that it could be joined to L Street and provide a direct connection between the main part of the city and South Boston via the South Boston Flats (see figure 11.23).78 (The L Street Bridge across the Reserved Channel was built in 1892.) Part of the 70-acre lot was still low enough, however, to permit dumping from scows, so two gaps for scows were left in the east bulkhead and not closed until late 1892.79 Filling of the 70-acre lot continued into the 1890s and employed some new technologies. In 1892 the commissioners made a contract with the San Francisco Bridge Company to dredge the Reserved Channel and to receive material dredged from a channel in the harbor by the U.S. government, using the dredged material to fill the area between D and E Streets south of Congress

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Street and an area north of Congress Street (see figure 11.23). The San Francisco Bridge Company used a hydraulic dredge, which was actually a steam-powered rotary pump mounted on a scow. It sucked up material loosened from the bottom and forced it and a large quantity of water through pipes supported by pontoons to the place of discharge on the flats. The solid matter then settled and the water drained off through sluices.80 (This hydraulic dredge was probably similar to the one employed at about the same time to fill the Bay State Road area—see chapter 8.) The commissioners were initially enthusiastic about the low price and speed of this method but later bemoaned the frequent delays when pumps were broken by the many small boulders in the fill.81 The Eastern Dredging Company used another hydraulic method of depositing fill in an 1892 contract to fill the northeast corner of the 70-acre lot. A clamshell dredge dug the dredged material, which turned out to be mostly sand with some stones and clay, out of the scows at the receiving station and placed it in a hopper on the wharf. It was then forced by pumped water through pipes to the places of deposit.82 The commissioners made the final contract for filling the 70-acre lot in 1894 with the New England Dredging Company, which, having adopted the new technology, used a hydraulic dredge. They completed the work in 1895 but, as the commissioners noted, although the hydraulic method deposited fill very evenly and thus needed little grading, it also resulted in land that took a long time to settle and to become useable.83 The completion of the 70-acre lot coincided with rising concern about Boston’s waterfront facilities. As with concerns expressed about the harbor earlier in the century, concerns about port facilities sprang from the awareness that Boston’s shipping was declining relative to that of New York and major European ports. Although again the basic problem was Boston’s lack of a bulk export product, at the turn of the twentieth century the problem was identified as a lack of modern docks and wharves, especially ones under public ownership.84 In 1897 a special state board established to investigate the “wants of the port of Boston for an improved system of docks and wharves and terminal facilities”

BULKHEAD

70 – AC RE

L (SUMMER) ST. BRIDGE

L

AL AW

F

YO

CIT

ON

ST

N

ISO

BO

ST

E.

G

. ST

RIN

. ST

FIR

O

RR

LO

. ST

D ST.

HA

N

SEAWA LL

SE

M . ST

B ST.

GE OR GE LEY W LA

100 – ACRE

ESS ST.

E ST.

WALWO RTH MFG. C O.

CONGR

LOT

LOT

BULKHEAD

L . ST

FIGURE 11.23 1894

PL AN OF

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the location of the 70-acre lot, although the plan is somewhat misleading, for it indicates that north of Congress Street all the area east of B Street was part of the 70-acre lot, whereas it is clear from earlier descriptions and maps, such as the one in figure 11.22, that the area up to a line 100 feet east of D Street was included in the 100-acre lot, indicated on the 1894 plan by a jog in the northernmost bulkhead. The plan also shows the L (now Summer) Street Bridge across the Reserved Channel, built in 1892 to provide a connection across the South Boston Flats between the main part of the city and South Boston; the landmaking by private owners on the north shore of South Boston south of the Reserved Channel (cf. figure 11.20); and the newly filled Marine Park at the east end of South Boston.

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recommended that a “model” dock with “every modern appliance” be built on the South Boston Flats. The board also recommended that the project be directed by the Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners with increased powers, hardly surprising given that two of the three members of the special board were also harbor and land commissioners.85 The commissioners lost no time starting the new pier, which was soon called Commonwealth Pier and is now the World Trade Center. They determined that the best location for the pier was east of and parallel to Pier 4 and in November 1897 made a contract for its construction, which was based explicitly on lessons learned during construction of Piers 1, 2, and 4. The plans for Commonwealth Pier called for a stone seawall around the perimeter and the interior filled with material dredged from the foundation trenches and the adjacent docks, the perimeter seawall to be on a pile foundation similar to that of the “light” seawalls along the Fort Point Channel and at the end of the Reserved Channel (see figure 11.17).86 Construction of Commonwealth Pier began in December 1897 and by 1899 the seawall and most of the filling were completed, creating a pier 300 feet wide and 1,150 feet long and adding about eight acres of made land to the South Boston Flats. Although the contract had prohibited the use of fill “mixed with a large volume of water,” clearly a reaction to problems encountered with hydraulic dredging, the fill dredged by conventional methods from the west dock was nonetheless unusually liquid and, after it had settled, had to be covered with dirt from construction sites and eventually with gravel.87 In 1901 a fifty-foot-wide platform was completed around the entire pier in order to cover the slope of the harbor bottom from the base of the wall to the depth of the dock. The platform made Commonwealth Pier four hundred feet wide and twelve hundred feet long with an area of eleven acres—the largest pier on the East Coast at that time (figure 11.24).88 While Commonwealth Pier was being constructed, filling of the South Boston Flats had resumed. After the completion of the 70-acre lot in 1895, surplus dredged material was dumped on the flats east of it (see figure 11.23). By 1900 this material extended so

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far from the bulkhead that the commissioners decided to build a new bulkhead on the north side of this area in order to enclose the fill. This bulkhead was completed in 1901, the stone seawall on the north side of the Reserved Channel was extended along the south side of the new area in 1902, and a bulkhead to enclose the east side of what became known as the 26-acre lot was built in 1903 (see figure 11.24).89 In 1902 the commissioners made two contracts to have the 26-acre lot filled with material dredged from the harbor. At first scows brought the fill to the site but in 1903, when the level of fill became too high for scows to operate, the fill was deposited hydraulically. Filling of the 26-acre lot was completed in 1904.90 Meanwhile, the commissioners had actually sold or leased some of the made land in the 100-acre, 70-acre, and 26-acre lots. Buyers had not flocked to acquire land on the South Boston Flats as they had in Back Bay, the other large state landmaking project, but then the South Boston Flats had never been intended as a desirable residential area. The commissioners had sold the first parcel in the 100-acre lot in 1887 to an iron works company just as the filling of the entire lot was being completed (see figure 11.23).91 And by 1903 they had also sold several other parcels, particularly in the area south of Congress/Summer Street, and had lent three blocks to the city for a playground (see figure 11.24). But of more interest in terms of landmaking were several parcels near the boundary between the 70-acre and the 26-acre lots. The first, on the eastern edge of the 70-acre lot, a coal company had leased in 1896 on condition that the state build a four-hundredfoot wharf beyond the north bulkhead and dredge a channel to it. The company then erected up-to-date facilities for receiving coal shipments, which, as the commissioners noted, “relieve the location from its former appearance of remoteness and isolation.”92 Another coal company leased the parcel next to it in 1900 and the Boston Molasses Company leased the one immediately east, on the 26-acre lot, in 1902, both with the stipulation that the state would build wharves and dredge the channel. The state also built a wharf on the Reserved Channel on a parcel leased in 1899 to another coal company (see figure 11.24).93 The commissioners seemed to

COMMONWEALTH PIER

NORTHERN AVE.

BULKHEAD BULKHEAD 26-ACRE LOT L

AL AW

BRIDGE

SE

SUMMER

AL CO

CO

. GE OR Y GE WLE LA

PLAYGRO U

ND

N ISO IC NG ED CTR ATI N E EL UMI NY ILL MPA CO

FIGURE 11.24 1903

PL AN OF

S OUTH B OSTON F L ATS

This plan shows the recently built Commonwealth Pier; the 26-acre lot immediately east of the 70-acre lot (see figure 11.23); the parcels at the junction of the two lots that had been leased to coal and molasses companies and the wharves built for them; the parcels sold near Summer Street and the playground between C and D Streets; the new Summer Street and bridge across the Fort Point Channel; and Northern Avenue, which had finally been laid out in 1903.

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have had no compunctions about providing these facilities—the cost was covered by the annual rent and the made land was being used. (And while the state was taking tentative steps to develop its land, the Boston Wharf Company had changed its business from storing imported sugar and molasses to real estate and had begun to erect large brick warehouses on its land west of the tracks [see figure 11.23]. After the opening of the Summer Street Bridge in 1900, wool merchants soon occupied these still-extant buildings and the area became known as the Wool District.94) Despite the state commissioners’ success in selling or leasing some of their newly made land, they were not as successful in finding occupants for Commonwealth Pier, which they had built so precipitously and so sanguinely between 1897 and 1901. For years after the pier’s completion it languished bare of structures and virtually unused except by a few cargo ships. By 1908, for example, it had earned only about $13,000 in wharfage fees in comparison with the more than $380,000 spent on its construction.95 The commissioners blamed the lack of use on the city’s failure to construct Northern Avenue and the connecting bridge over the Fort Point Channel, as required by the 1873 agreement, which left Commonwealth Pier almost inaccessible from the main part of the city.96 After years of struggling to get the street and bridge built, a 1903 state act finally laid out Northern Avenue (see figure 11.24). Construction was then delayed until the commissioners agreed to compensate the New England Railroad and its lessee the New York, New Haven & Hartford—the successors of the New York & New England—for the land taken and the secretary of war had given the necessary approval for a bridge across the Fort Point Channel. Work on the Northern Avenue Bridge finally began in 1905, it opened in 1908, and Northern Avenue itself, which involved the construction of seawalls across the heads of docks 1, 2, and 3, was completed in 1909 (see figure 11.24).97 The opening of Northern Avenue did not immediately lead to increased use of Commonwealth Pier, however, and in the meantime the whole question of the development of Commonwealth Pier and of the South Boston Flats in general had been caught up in the City Beautiful movement. This movement,

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which flourished in the first decade of the twentieth century, was, as its name implies, concerned with the beautification of American cities but in Boston also focused on municipal facilities—railroads and terminals, streets and highways, and the port. A 1907 study by the Boston Society of Architects, for example, recommended extending mile-long piers from the south shore of South Boston almost to Thompson’s Island.98 Although this suggestion was wholly impractical, the study did lead to the creation of a commission to investigate the improvement of public works in the metropolitan district, particularly highways, traffic and transportation, and docks and terminals.99 This commission submitted a very general report in 1909 and recommended that yet another commission be appointed to formulate specific plans.100 This second commission, the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements, recommended in 1911 that “sufficient money” be appropriated for the construction of new piers on the South Boston Flats when it was “reasonably certain” such piers could be rented, and the legislature soon appropriated one million dollars.101 Meanwhile, the harbor and land commissioners had proceeded to develop the flats on their own. In 1909 they began to negotiate with members of Boston’s fishing industry, which was then based at T Wharf, about leasing Commonwealth Pier to the fishing fleet. The commissioners finally decided instead, however, to use the million dollar appropriation to construct a new pier for the Boston Fish Market Corporation. This new pier was to be located just east of Commonwealth Pier, was also to be twelve hundred feet long but only three hundred feet wide, and is, of course, present Fish Pier. According to the agreement with the corporation, by 1913 the state was to build a filled pier enclosed by a stone seawall and the corporation was to construct the buildings on it.102 Construction of Fish Pier began in late 1910 and was actually completed in 1913 (figure 11.25). And in 1910 the commissioners had also finally found a full-time tenant for Commonwealth Pier, leasing both the pier and some land south of it to the Old Colony Railroad.103 At this point, however, “popular excitement” about port development resulted in the creation of a new board responsible

for port facilities—the five-member Directors of the Port of Boston, whom the legislature instructed to devise plans for the “comprehensive development” of the harbor and authorized to spend nine million dollars.104 The directors plunged into their task with fervor. They decided that Commonwealth Pier offered the quickest and least expensive way of fulfilling their charge to provide “adequate piers capable of accommodating the largest vessels.”105 They therefore canceled the lease with the Old Colony and made plans to improve the pier by deepening the docks on either side, erecting the present imposing head house as well as two-story sheds to accommodate both freight and passengers, laying railroad tracks on the pier, and building a viaduct to connect the second-story passenger area directly with Summer Street, an idea first proposed in 1911 by the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements. The directors also leased the western half of the pier to the Hamburg-American Line for passenger ships that were to start service in May 1913.106 Work began on Commonwealth Pier in late 1912 and was sufficiently completed for the first Hamburg-American Line steamship to dock there on May 31, 1913.107 Then, in 1914 public concern about the “extravagance and waste” of the projects undertaken by the original five directors resulted in their replacement by a three full-time new directors.108 In their first report, the new directors were extremely critical of the Commonwealth Pier improvements, which had cost three times as much as the original bid.109 In addition, the agreement with the Hamburg-American Line had become inoperative with the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.110 Despite their outrage about Commonwealth Pier, however, the new directors did embrace another extravagant project initiated by the original directors—the construction of a huge dry dock on the South Boston Flats. The subject of a new dry dock had been under discussion for years. In 1904, for example, the harbor and land commissioners had investigated the question and concluded that a large dry dock in Boston was not a necessity but rather like a “convenience” in a “perfectly appointed household . . . the lack of which would in all but extreme occasions pass unnoticed” and thus

recommended against building one.111 Although in 1911 the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements agreed with this recommendation, the legislative act creating the Directors of the Port of Boston required them to submit plans and cost estimates for a dry dock.112 In a report on the subject, the original directors took the opposite view from the harbor and land commissioners, arguing that a large dry dock would definitely attract shipping to Boston and therefore should be built.113 In all fairness to the directors, there is evidence that the U.S. Navy encouraged them to build the dry dock, for the new dry dock completed at the Charlestown Navy Yard in 1906 had been made obsolete that very same year by the launching of the British HMS Dreadnought, which ushered in a new class of battleships too large not only for that dock but also for all the navy’s existing dry docks (see chapter 14).114 The original directors had then proceeded to implement the dry dock project. Borings made on the South Boston Flats indicated there was a ledge outcropping just northeast of the 26-acre lot, so it was decided to locate the dry dock there. Plans were drawn up for a 1,200-foot long dry dock, which would make it the largest dry dock in the world, far surpassing the longest existing dock on the East Coast—an 804-foot dock at Newport News, Virginia—and even the 1,020-foot docks in Glasgow and Liverpool. In preparation for the project, the directors made a contract in 1913 for about two miles of wood bulkheads to enclose the dry dock site (see figure 11.25). The area inside the bulkheads was to be filled with material dredged from the east end of the Reserved Channel, which had been relocated and straightened because the dry dock would cover the angled temporary channel (see figures 11.24 and 11.25). Most of the filling, which began in June 1914, was done hydraulically, but, in order to strengthen the bulkheads, some fill was excavated by scoop dredge and deposited by scows outside the structures. And finally, on June 22, 1914, just a week before they were removed from office, the original directors awarded the contract for the construction of the dry dock, which was to be of concrete with granite-faced walls.115 Given their criticisms of the Commonwealth Pier improvements, the new directors were surprisingly enthusiastic about the

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FIGURE 11.25

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CHANNEL

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This chart shows Fish Pier, which had been built in 1913; the site of the dry dock; and the new line of the Reserved Channel. The site south of the Reserved Channel formerly occupied by the House of Corrections (shown here as “Work House”) had by 1916 been sold to the Boston Elevated Railway Company, which had filled it out to the line of the channel (see figure 11.26).

FIGURE 11.26 S OUTH B OSTON ON 1921 B OSTON H ARBOR

N

NO

RT

This chart shows the extension of Northern Avenue almost to the dry dock, the newly made land between the dry dock and the Reserved Channel on which the army had constructed a long building, and the area on the south side of the Reserved Channel filled by the Boston Elevated Railway Company and being filled to connect Castle Island to the mainland. The plan also shows the newly filled Columbia [sic] Park on the west shore of Old Harbor.

HE

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dry dock project. They agreed with the original directors that having such a facility would encourage large ships to come to Boston for repairs.116 Dredging the eastern end of the Reserved Channel and filling inside the bulkheads was completed in August 1915, creating thirty-five acres of new land. More land was made when Northern Avenue was extended from Fish Pier to the dry dock site by building about a thousand feet of bulkhead north of the projected street and filling the area enclosed with dirt from construction sites (figures 11.25 and 11.26).117 Work on the dry dock itself was not begun until October 1915, however. Water was being pumped out of the site prior to actual construction when, on July 25, 1916, the cofferdam broke, bringing the project to a temporary halt.118 Just at this juncture responsibility for the dry dock project as well as for the entire port passed to a new board. The division of authority between the Directors of the Port of Boston and the Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners, the latter since 1911 responsible only for harbors and not port facilities, had not lasted much longer than the division between the harbor commissioners and the land commissioners in the 1870s, for on August 3, 1916, the former two boards were consolidated as the Commission on Waterways and Public Lands.119 The new commissioners were very critical of the directors’ management of the dry dock project, much as the second board of directors had been about the original directors’ handling of Commonwealth Pier, the new commissioners complaining particularly about the project’s expense.120 In spite of the commissioners’ criticisms, the dry dock project did proceed, although there were serious delays caused by the problems with the cofferdam and also with dredging. Pouring concrete for the dock itself and placing the granite facing finally began in 1917, and the entire dock with its pumps, sluice gates, and other related equipment was substantially completed by June 1919.121 In 1917 the navy had arranged to use the dry dock and in 1920 purchased it outright for more than it had cost to build, so, for once, what had originally seemed an ill-advised landmaking project concluded without great financial loss.122 The 1,170-footlong dry dock is still one of the largest dry docks on the East Coast.

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When the Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground off Martha’s Vineyard in August 1992, for example, the South Boston dry dock was one of only five on the East Coast large enough to handle the huge ocean liner and the only one free at the time, so that was where the QE2 was taken for temporary repairs.123 The final part of the South Boston Flats project was also precipitated by landmaking for federal use, though with a different twist. In early 1918 the U.S. government bought a strip of made land on the north side of the Reserved Channel that had been filled as part of the dry dock project (see figure 11.25). The government planned to use the site as an army supply base from which to ship war matérial to Europe during World War I, did some additional filling, and erected the long building now the Boston Design Center on the made land (figures 11.25, 11.26, and 11.27). The government’s payment of $1.3 million covered what it had actually cost to fill the area, so again the commissioners had disposed of some made land without a loss. As part of the agreement with the state, the federal government deepened the Reserved Channel, dumping all the dredged material on the flats on the south side of the channel between City Point, which had been developed as Marine Park in the late nineteenth century (see below), and Castle Island. In 1918 the state built a bulkhead to contain this fill, originally planning to end it fifteen hundred feet short of Castle Island but then, over the protests of the City Planning Board, which thought that joining Castle Island to the mainland would detract from its recreational and esthetic assets as well as hinder the commercial development planned for the made land, extended the bulkhead all the way to the island (see figure 11.26). The amount dredged from the Reserved Channel filled less than half the area enclosed, so the remainder was filled with material dredged hydraulically from Pleasure Bay in Marine Park.124 Filling continued into the 1920s—by 1925 filling had been completed up to a line perpendicular to the north bulkhead at the bend and by 1934 the remaining triangle had been filled in (see figure 11.27). This filling on the south side of the Reserved Channel, which connected Castle Island with the mainland and created most of the land

FIGURE 11.27 1934

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Taken July 10, 1934, this aerial photo clearly shows many early-twentieth-century landmaking projects in South Boston: the piers on the north shore including the three small wharves built ca. 1900 for coal and molasses companies; the long building (now the Boston Design Center) north of the Reserved Channel built by the army in 1918; the power plants built by the Boston Elevated Railway Company and Boston Electric Light Company on made land south of the Reserved Channel; filling on the south side of the Reserved Channel to connect Castle Island to the mainland and a section of what is now Day Boulevard extended along the south shore of this newly made land; the Strandway (now

Day Boulevard) constructed on made land along South Boston’s south shore; Columbus Park and Carson Beach filled in 1917–1919 and the Strandway (now Day Boulevard) then extended along that shore. At the bottom of the photo one can see the north side of the Calf Pasture and, in comparison with figures 12.8 and 12.9, the amount of filling since 1923 of the marsh near the pumping station and of the flats south of the bulkhead forming Columbus Park. In the background, the distinctive L-shaped configuration of the airport in the 1930s (see figure 13.16) stretches out on the East Boston Flats toward Governors Island.

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where the Conley container terminal is now located, finally completed the South Boston Flats project—more than fifty years after it had begun and after the creation of about six hundred acres of new land.125 S OUTH S IDE

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R ESERVED C HANNEL

One part of the South Boston Flats that was not filled as part of the state’s project were the flats between the original north shore of South Boston and the south side of the Reserved Channel from E Street east to what is now Farragut Road (see figure 11.1). As explained earlier, the owners of these flats had declined to participate in the state project, so what was called the Reserved Channel had been left open in order to give them access to deep water. While the state was filling the flats north of the channel, the owners of the flats south of it, most of whom operated industries such as gas works, iron works, and ship yards, gradually extended their wharves, creating new land (see figures 11.20 and 11.23). At the turn of the twentieth century, the area on the Reserved Channel east of L Street, much of which had once been occupied by city institutions (see above), became a locus of electrical power plants. The city had sold its land and flats between L and M Streets—the site of the former House of Industry (see figure 11.4)—in 1877 to Harrison Loring, who operated a ship yard there until 1897. In 1898 the Boston Electric Light Company acquired this area and that same year built a power plant that is still standing (see figures 11.23 and 11.24).126 The city’s land between M and a line halfway between N and O Streets continued to be the site of the House of Correction until 1902. Then, after many years of complaints from South Boston residents, who did not like having a prison in their midst, and from authorities about the “old and dilapidated buildings” that were “unfit places for human beings to live,” the city finally moved all the inmates to Deer Island and closed the South Boston institution.127 In 1903 the city sold the land to George Lawley, a noted yacht builder, whose boatyard was on the adjoining parcel. The Lawleys expanded onto the former city property (see figures 11.23 and 11.24) but,

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when they moved their boatyard to Port Norfolk in Dorchester in 1910 (see chapter 12), the former city land was sold to the Boston Elevated Railway Company. The latter company erected a power plant on the site in 1911—a plant that stood until 2003—and by 1914 had filled the middle portion of the flats out to the line of the Reserved Channel (see figure 11.26).128 M ARINE PARK

AND

C ASTLE I SLAND

While the South Boston Flats were being filled, land was also being made at the east end of the South Boston peninsula, a location known as City Point. The landmaking at City Point was for a public park, one of a system of public parks established in Boston in the late nineteenth century (see chapter 1). An 1876 proposal for the first eleven parks in the city had included one in South Boston at City Point but, because of reluctance to finance a park system, the city did not approve this park until the end of 1881.129 The 1876 proposal was for a park south of East Third Street and east of Q Street (now Farragut Road) including the flats out to the commissioners’ line, which were to be filled and would have created a rectangular protuberance at the end of South Boston (see figure 11.20).130 But by the time the city had acquired the land east of Q Street in 1883, it was clear that the addition of Castle Island, which lay over half a mile offshore and belonged to the U.S. government, would enhance the park. The city therefore petitioned the federal government for the use of Castle Island, and it was incorporated into the first plan for the park drawn up in 1883 by Frederick Law Olmsted, the consulting landscape architect for the Boston park system (figure 11.28).131 Olmsted’s plan also included several other features that became part of the park, particularly the curved shoreline and pier at the southeast corner, enclosing what he called Pleasure Bay. Work on the park, which the park commissioners soon named Marine Park, began in 1883 when the park department removed the existing buildings and filled in low spots and cellar holes. By 1887 the department had constructed a temporary wood pier extending southeast from the shore and started a permanent

FIGURE 11.28 1883 O LMSTED

PL AN FOR

M ARINE P ARK

Olmsted’s preliminary plan for Marine Park included several features that were incorporated into the actual park: filling east of Q Street (now Farragut Road), a connection between Castle Island and the park, and a curved pier forming the south side of Pleasure Bay.

iron pier beyond the end of the wood one to enclose the south part of Pleasure Bay, and, not surprising in the days before air conditioning, the park had become enormously popular on hot summer days—a park officer estimated as many as forty thousand people there on some July and August Sundays.132 Filling the flats south of Broadway in accordance with Olmsted’s plan began in 1889 and those north of Broadway in 1890 (see figures 11.20 and 11.28). The department built a bulkhead to retain fill north of East First Street on the line of Q Street (the northern boundary of the park had been extended to the then Reserved Channel in 1889 [see figure 11.23]) and filled both areas with material dredged from Pleasure Bay. It also constructed three salt water ponds for an aquarium in the northern section, and, after an 1890 act of Congress finally authorized the use of Castle Island, built a wooden footbridge to connect the filled area on the mainland with the island.133 All these changes can be seen in a comparison of the park area on 1880 and 1894 maps (see figures 11.20 and 11.23). Subsequent alterations to the park included filling the area between the shore and the landward end of the iron pier—the area formerly covered by the wood pier—in 1894–1895 and filling in the salt water aquarium ponds with dirt from construction sites in 1907–1911. An elaborate half-timbered head house modeled on the German pavilion at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago was built at the head of the former wood pier in 1894–1895 and a tile-roofed aquarium building erected near the site of the former aquarium ponds in 1911–1912.134 The U.S. government repossessed Castle Island during the Spanish-American War and used it again during World War I but returned it promptly when these conflicts were over. And in 1908 the federal government finally turned over the fort on the island (see figure 11.6)—Fort Independence—to the park department, which then opened it to the public.135 When most of the section of the South Boston Flats between the mainland and Castle Island was filled in the 1920s (see above and figures 11.27 and 11.1) it was finally possible to implement Olmsted’s original plan of joining the two areas with a roadway, and what is now part of Day Boulevard was constructed on the made land in 1931–1932 (see figure 11.27).136

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The U.S. government used Castle Island again during World War II, again returning it to the park department after the war and finally deeding it to the state in 1962. The iron bridge on the south side of Pleasure Bay, which had been destroyed during the 1938 hurricane, was replaced by a causeway, and in 1959 a dike was filled to connect Castle Island and the Head Island, thereby completely enclosing Pleasure Bay (see figure 11.32).137 Today Marine Park appears much as it did when it first opened although there is no head house, a recent wall and railing separate the beach from the rest of the park, and the huge cranes at the Conley container terminal just north of the park certainly provide a different backdrop from that of the 1890s. T HE S TRANDWAY

The south shore of the original South Boston peninsula was also filled as part of the development of the Boston park system, in this case to construct a parkway. The idea of linking the Boston parks with parkways had been included in the original proposals for the system138 and Olmsted adopted the concept. He designed what is now called the Emerald Necklace as a chain of parks connected by parkways—the Back Bay Fens bordered by the Fenway is linked by Riverway and Jamaicaway to Jamaica Pond, which in turn is linked by the Arborway to the Arboretum and Franklin Park. One end of this chain is extended by the link from the Fens via Commonwealth Avenue to the Public Garden and Common, but the weak link, in Olmsted’s time as well as the present, is at the other end between Franklin Park in Dorchester and Marine Park in South Boston. To serve as the link between Franklin and Marine Parks the park commissioners originally recommended widening the existing Columbia and Boston Streets from Franklin Park to Dorchester Avenue (see figure 11.20) and then constructing a new parkway along the south shore of South Boston to Marine Park.139 In 1890, therefore, the commissioners purchased 145 acres of land and flats for this parkway along the South Boston shore from Atlantic (now Covington) Street near Burnham’s Wharf to Q

Street (now Farragut Road) at Marine Park (see figure 11.20).140 But by 1892 they had decided to end the widening of Columbia Street (now Road) at Five Corners (now Edward Everett Square) and to construct a new parkway from that point to the parkway along the South Boston shore. The commissioners thus purchased an additional fifty-seven acres of land and flats at the head of the bay between South Boston and what is now Columbia Point, then known as Old Harbor (figure 11.29). The new parkways were then given official names: Dorchesterway was what is now the part of Columbia Road from Edward Everett Square to Kosciusko Circle and the Strandway was what is now Day Boulevard.141 Filling and grading Dorchesterway between Five Corners (Edward Everett Square) and the Old Colony Railroad (now the MBTA Red Line) began in 1893, but work on the Strandway did not start until 1896 when the commissioners made contracts to build a seawall and fill the cove between O Street and Marine Park and to fill between I and O Streets (see figure 11.29).142 In 1897, however, the route of the Strandway changed. The tracks of the Old Colony Railroad were going to be moved west from their original location on what is now Old Colony Avenue to their present location next to the Southeast Expressway. It thus seemed more expedient as well as less expensive to build the Strandway along the former railway roadbed rather than over many acres of flats that would have to be filled in the area that is now Moakley (formerly Columbus) Park. Filling the Strandway between Atlantic (now Covington) and I Streets and filling Columbia Road, as Dorchesterway had already been renamed, between Mercer and Mt. Vernon Streets began in 1898 (see figure 11.29).143 Although it had always been assumed that the Strandway would be filled with material dredged hydraulically from Old Harbor, both the Strandway and Columbia Road were apparently filled with dirt brought by carts from construction sites including that of South Boston High School, which was being built at the time, as well as with some household ashes.144 In 1901 the park commissioners acquired the section of the Strandway between Mercer and Atlantic (now Covington) Streets—1,175 feet omitted from earlier land takings—and filling

began (see figure 11.29). But not all of this new section was needed for the parkway so the remainder was developed as a playground. Filling of the Strandway and Columbia Road was completed in 1903 and the new parkways opened in 1905, at last linking Marine Park to the other parks in the system.145 The newly constructed Columbia Road and Strandway can be clearly seen on a 1911 chart (figure 11.30). A comparison of this chart with one for 1896 and with a map showing the original shoreline (see figures 11.29 and 11.1) indicates the amount of land that had been created for these two parkways. In addition, the 1911 chart shows the area filled in 1894–1895 at Marine Park between the shore and the beginning of the iron pier (which for some reason was omitted from the 1896 chart) and the eleven-acre playground in the northwest corner of Old Harbor that had been filled after 1901 with trash and dirt from construction sites (see figures 11.29 and 11.30).146 The Strandway remains a prominent feature in South Boston (see figure 11.27) though not under that name, for in July 1950 it was renamed William J. Day Boulevard in honor of a well-known South Boston municipal judge who had died earlier that year.147 M OAKLEY ( FORMERLY C OLUMBUS ) PARK

In 1912 the eleven-acre playground in the northwest corner of Old Harbor that had been created when the Strandway was built was enlarged when an old dump in the vicinity was leveled.148 The major change in this area, however, began in 1916 when the park department decided to fill in the flats it had purchased at the head of Old Harbor in 1892 (see above), evidently because by then these flats had become “obnoxious.”149 The work, which was done by the city Public Works Department, involved building a 1,522foot wood bulkhead out from the north shore of what is now Columbia Point, banking many tons of stone against the end of it to prevent fill from escaping, dredging a basin at the west end of Old Harbor, using the dredged clay to build a curved dike between the bulkhead and the Strandway, and pumping the softer dredged material behind the dike in order to fill the flats (see figures 11.30,

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FIGURE 11.29 S OUTH B OSTON

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This chart shows the section of the new Dorchesterway (now Columbia Road) constructed between Five Corners (now Edward Everett Square) and Dorchester Avenue (cf. figure 11.20) and the south shore of South Boston before it was filled to create the Strandway (now Day Boulevard; see figure 11.30).

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CHART OF

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This chart shows Columbia Road, curving from Edward Everett Square across the Old Colony tracks to Old Harbor and then running north on the former site of the tracks (see figure 11.29). It also shows the completed Strandway, now Columbia Road and Day Boulevard, along the South Boston shore and a newly filled playground at the northwest corner of Old Harbor. Also depicted is the filling done in 1894–1895 at the south end of Marine Park. S

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11.26, 11.27, and 12.8). The filling was carried out in 1917–1919 and resulted in fifty-six acres of new land, the front of which was covered with two to three feet of sand to form a beach and the back with loam to extend the playground.150 The area, named Columbus Park in 1917, languished undeveloped for several years, but after construction of a large bathhouse in 1922–1923 at what is now Carson Beach, the park was considered a “tremendous benefit” because of its proximity to the city center.151 By 1923 the Strandway had been constructed along the shore of the made land between the beach and park in about the same place where Columbia Road had originally been planned (see figure 12.9), finally creating the parkway envisioned by the commissioners in the 1890s. Columbus Park was renamed the J. Joseph Moakley Park in 2001 in honor of the recently deceased U.S. Congressman from South Boston.

and 13.19), and in 1943 also began to fill a large area east of E Street at the end of the Reserved Channel, creating an area of made land known as the E Street Annex. The navy also added more land north of Castle Island in 1942 by building a bulkhead parallel to and east of the one built in 1918 (see above) and filling the intervening flats.154 The amount of land added to South Boston by the navy in during World War II can be seen in a comparison of 1952 and 1934 aerial photographs (see figures 11.31 and 11.27). In the 1950s and 1960s, when work at the Navy Yard began to be curtailed (see chapter 14), the navy no longer needed its South Boston property. So in 1958 the navy sold its land on the Reserved Channel between I and L Streets, which it called the K Street Annex, and in 1969 transferred the E Street Annex to the Massachusetts Port Authority.155 S UBARU P IER

S OUTH B OSTON A NNEX

After the creation of Columbus (Moakley) Park, the next major landmaking in South Boston was done by the U.S. Navy during World War II. The navy’s purchase in 1920 of the huge dry dock the state had constructed on the South Boston Flats (see above) added this facility to the navy’s shipyard in Charlestown (see chapter 14) and formed the nucleus of what became known as the Navy Yard’s South Boston Annex. Few changes were made to the annex during the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1939, with World War II threatening in Europe, the navy decided to concentrate shipbuilding in Charlestown and ship repairing at South Boston.152 To provide the necessary facilities at the latter location, in April 1940 the navy began removing the two remaining wood piers that the state had built at the turn of the century near the junction of the 70and 26-acre lots (see above). The navy then constructed a threehundred-foot pier in their place and filled a quadrilateral quay north of the dry dock (figure 11.31), completing these projects in December 1941.153 After the United States entered the war, the navy constructed another dry dock and four one-thousand-foot piers west of the quay between 1941 and 1943 (see figures 11.31

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The most recent landmaking in South Boston, as well on the city mainland,156 was the filling in the 1980s of what was once known as Subaru Pier, the area on the South Boston Flats where the navy had constructed four one-thousand-foot piers during World War II (see above and figure 11.31). After the closing of the Boston (Charlestown) Naval Shipyard in 1974 (see chapter 14), the state acquired the navy’s remaining property in South Boston. In the early 1980s the Massachusetts Port Authority, created in 1956 as the successor to the various commissions and authorities responsible for the port, leased the area east of the 1940s dry dock and, in FIGURE 11.31 1952

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

S OUTH B OSTON

This photograph shows the filling done in South Boston by the navy during World War II—the dry dock, four piers, and quadrilateral quay on the harbor; additional land north of Castle Island; and the E Street Annex at the west end of the Reserved Channel. Note the number of ships docked at the piers; a clearer view of these piers and other projects on the South Boston Flats is shown in figure 13.19. Note also, in comparison with figure 12.10, the amount of filling at Columbia Point between 1951 and 1952. The photograph is called a “mosaic”— composed of many separate shots, each with its own index number.

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order to develop it as a new maritime facility in South Boston, decided to fill in the piers. Massport, as it is familiarly called, demolished the piers, built a dike of crushed stone around the perimeter of the area, and filled the interior with dirt excavated during an extension of the MBTA Red Line (figure 11.32).157 Massport soon leased the made land to Subaru, which used it as a parking lot for newly imported cars, and it became known as Subaru Pier. But Subaru Pier was short-lived, for the “Big Dig”— the huge project constructing a new tunnel across the harbor and putting the elevated Central Artery underground—took the new made land. It became the site of a vent building for the tunnel, which runs underneath it, and of a dump for excavated dirt awaiting shipment to Spectacle Island in the harbor.

vicinity of what was renamed the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in 2002. A residential district is to be developed on the Boston Wharf Company land to the south and an enormous convention center is being built on the section of the former 100-acre lot (see above) west of D Street. The section of the flats east of Commonwealth Pier (the World Trade Center)—the section that includes the original 70-acre and 26-acre lots, Fish Pier, the two navy dry docks, Subaru Pier, and the commercial land on both sides of the Reserved Channel—is designated Marine Industrial Park and will continue to be devoted to maritime industries. Thus, almost one hundred years after its creation, the land on the South Boston Flats may finally become the bustling district the harbor commissioners once envisioned.

The 33.1 acres filled to create Subaru Pier were the last of the 649.6 acres filled on the South Boston Flats and the 1012.7 acres filled in South Boston as a whole.158 Soon after the Central Artery project appropriated Subaru Pier, plans were at last made to develop the land created by the South Boston Flats project. The land that had been created with so much enthusiasm by the harbor commissioners almost a century earlier had not been used for shipping terminals as they had intended. For many years what were called the Commonwealth Flats had languished, occupied only by Boston Wharf Company buildings and railroad yards on the west and by a few industries and the navy installation and army base on the east (see figures 11.27 and 10.17). Most of the made land lay virtually unused and, with the demise of the railroads in the later twentieth century, was transformed into vast parking lots. At the very end of the twentieth century, however, the city announced plans for developing this wasteland as the South Boston Waterfront. In 1998 a new federal courthouse opened on Fan Pier, the original 25-acre parcel (see above) nicknamed after the pattern of railroad tracks once on it (see figure 11.23), and so did a new hotel at the base of Commonwealth Pier (now the World Trade Center). New office buildings are now being constructed near the latter and a mix of offices, hotels, and condos as well as a new Institute of Contemporary Art are planned for the

FIGURE 11.32

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1995

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This 1995 aerial photo shows, in comparison with the 1952 aerial (see figure 11.31), the landmaking in South Boston in the intervening years—filling the dock between the former Boston Wharf Company property and the Dorchester Avenue Bridge; filling the dock between Fan Pier and Pier 2 and part of the dock between the latter and Pier 4; creating Subaru Pier on the site of the former navy piers; additional filling on the south side of the Reserved Channel; and completely enclosing Pleasure Bay with a dike. The line running across the bottom of Pleasure Bay is the result of different exposure of the photographs from which this aerial was composed.

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STREET MAP

On this computer-generated map, a digitized reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline has been overlaid on a recent computerized street map of Dorchester. The map clearly shows the amount of fill added to the original four promontories on the Dorchester shore—the Calf Pasture (now Columbia Point), Savin Hill, Commercial Point, and Port Norfolk—as well as at the head of and across the mouth of Savin Hill Bay, to create Victory Road Park, and in Tenean Creek. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on the maps in figure 12.2 and 12.3, Des Barres’s 1781 chart of Boston Harbor, and the 1857 U.S. Coast Survey chart of Boston Harbor (see Note on Sources, appendix 2).

DORCHESTER

12 The long shoreline of Boston between South Boston and Quincy all lies in the Dorchester section of the city and, like the other Boston shorelines, is composed entirely of made land. The filling was done either to create land for the two highways that now snake along the shore—Morrissey Boulevard and the Southeast Expressway—or to add land to the promontories that extend into Dorchester Bay—Columbia Point (the location of the University of Massachusetts’s Boston campus and the Kennedy Library), Savin Hill, Commercial Point (the site of the multicolored gas tank), and Port Norfolk (figure 12.1). There has also been filling in Dorchester along the Neponset River but, as explained in the preface, this study extends only as far as the Neponset Bridge, so the following discussion focuses on the land made along the Dorchester coast. Until 1870 Dorchester was a separate town that was even older than Boston, for the Dorchester Associates, a group of Puritans loosely affiliated with the Massachusetts Bay Company, established Dorchester in June 1630, a few months before Boston was founded that September. The Dorchester Associates first landed on the south side of the Savin Hill peninsula, which they called Rock

Hill, erected a fort on the summit, and started a settlement there. Other settlements were soon established in different parts of Dorchester: near what is now Edward Everett Square where the first meetinghouse was located and the oldest house in Boston— the Blake House built in 1648—still stands near its original location; on Meetinghouse Hill where the meetinghouse was moved in 1670; at Lower Mills where an early grist mill was built on the Neponset River; and at other locales; and Dorchester thus became a collection of small villages. C OMMERCIAL P OINT

IN THE

N INETEENTH C ENTURY

Not much land was added to Dorchester until the nineteenth century. By that time Dorchester was noted for its mills and manufactories. The first area on the shore to be developed—and the first landmaking—was at Commercial Point, now the location of the gas tank. A salt works was established on the point in 1802, and in 1808 a bridge was built on the line of present Freeport Street across the mouth of Tenean Creek, which then separated the area adjacent to Commercial Point from the rest of Dorchester, in order to provide a direct connection between the point and southern Dorchester (figure 12.2). The proprietors of the bridge also built a wharf and store (warehouse) at the southeastern tip of the point and began trading with the East Indies. (One Dorchester historian claims the name Tenean originated in this era as a corruption of the Pacific island “Tinian.” Another antiquarian historian of Dorchester thinks that Tenean is an Indian name.) The trading venture failed in 1813, however, and the wharf and buildings were then abandoned until the early 1830s, when a short-lived whaling operation acquired and rehabilitated them.1 The development of Commercial Point, and of the rest of Dorchester, was hastened by the opening in 1845 of the Old Colony Railroad, which ran along the Dorchester shore on its route from Plymouth to Boston. An 1850 map of Dorchester shows the railroad as well as the made land and wharf on the south side of Commercial Point, which was then being used by a lumber and coal company. The map also shows wharves that had been extended into Dorchester Bay north

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of the point from Freeport Street, which was once next to the shore (see figure 12.2). In the years just before the Civil War, a chocolate factory was built on the south side of Commercial Point and an iron foundry on the north. In 1872, however, the Boston Gas Light Company bought the latter property and began to build gas holders and other structures on the point, resulting in the removal, in the 1880s, of most of the other buildings as a safety precaution.2 The gas company also added land to the northeast tip of the point, some of which is shown on an 1880 map (figure 12.3).3 The Boston Gas Company has remained the major occupant of Commercial Point and has periodically added more land to accommodate its gas tanks. After the company converted from manufactured coal gas to natural gas in the 1950s, it built two new tanks in 1967 and 1969 to hold liquefied natural gas (LNG), and in 1971 artist Corita Kent painted a rainbow design on one of them. When this tank was removed in 1992, the rainbow was repainted on the remaining tank and is a well-known landmark on the Dorchester shore.4 M AIN D RAINAGE S EWERAGE W ORKS

The first major landmaking project in Dorchester took place not at Commercial Point, however, but at the Calf Pasture, now Columbia Point, the marshy promontory north of Savin Hill (see figures 12.1 and 12.2) where, as its name implies, Dorchester residents had once pastured calves. Probably because it was so marshy, the Calf Pasture was still uninhabited at the beginning of the 1870s but soon became the site of a major installation for the new sewerage system Boston constructed in the late 1870s and early 1880s.5 The immediate impetus for the new sewerage system was a growing concern in Boston during the early 1870s about the city’s high death rate. The city’s sewer system seemed to be the culprit for, at a time when it was thought that diseases were caused by bad odors, particularly by sewer gas, and by filth (see chapter 1),6 Boston’s old sewer system was certainly a source of both. The sewers discharged raw sewage at the nearest shore from where it was

CA

LF

PA

ST

UR

supposed to be flushed away at high tide, but actually much of it was brought back by the incoming tide and lay exposed on the flats at low tide. About seventy of these sewage outlets ringed the city, emitting obnoxious smells—on summer evenings the entire West and South Ends were reportedly permeated by a distinct odor of sewage.7 The large amount of made land exacerbated the problem. Many of the filled areas were so low that sewers could not drain at high tide, and, as a result, sewage accumulated in the sewers and sewer gas backed up into houses. In 1875 the mayor appointed a commission of experts (one of whom, Ellis S. Chesbrough, had been Boston’s first city engineer in 1851–1855 and had since gained fame as the engineer of Chicago’s sewerage system) to devise a new plan for Boston’s sewage. The commissioners recommended in 1876 that a system of intercepting sewers be built around the margins of the city to receive the sewage from the existing sewers. The intercepting sewers would, in turn, empty into main sewers, which would carry the sewage to pumping stations where it would be raised about thirty feet and then flow by gravity into outfall sewers. The latter would convey the sewage to reservoirs located far from habitation where, still untreated, the raw sewage would be discharged into the ocean during the first two or three hours of the ebb tide. The recommended point of discharge for the part of the city north of the Charles River was Shirley Gut, the channel that then existed between Point Shirley in Winthrop and Deer Island, and, for the part of the city south of the Charles, the north end of Moon Island.8

E

OLD

COL ON Y R R.

IN HILL SAV

F O EP RE

RT ST.

COMMERCIAL POINT

BARQUE WARWICK COVE

TEN EA FREE

PO R

E EK

T ST .

N

CR

FIGURE 12.2 D ETAIL

FROM

1850 M AP

OF

D ORCHESTER

This map shows the bridge built in 1808 across the mouth of Tenean Creek between Commercial Point and the marshes south of it. It also shows the recently constructed Old Colony Railroad snaking along the Dorchester shoreline, the wharves on the southeast side of Port Norfolk, and wharves on the south and northeast sides of Commercial Point. Barque Warwick Cove separates Commercial Point from what is now Clam Point, Tenean Creek separates the latter area from the rest of Dorchester, and the Calf Pasture (now Columbia Point) is still an uninhabited marsh.

PORT NORFOLK

N

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O R C H E S T E R

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MT. V

ERNO

Y RR.

N ST.

OLON OLD C

PUMPING STATION

CALF PASTURE

N

FIGURE 12.3 D ETAIL

F RO M

1880

MAP OF

B OSTON

This map shows the long pier, dock, and wharf filled at the end of the Calf Pasture for the Main Drainage sewerage works and the filling done at the northeast tip of Commercial Point by the Boston Gas Light Company.

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Subsequent committees soon decided that the south part of the system should be built first. Both Commercial Point and Old Harbor Point at the end of the Calf Pasture were considered as possible locations for the pumping station and the beginning of the outfall sewer. The Calf Pasture was finally chosen because construction would cost less, even though it would involve building a mile-and-a-third-long tunnel through bedrock under the harbor between Old Harbor Point and Squantum Neck (see figure 1.1).9 Work on the Old Harbor pumping station began in 1879. As part of the project, facilities were provided for coal ships to dock at the end of the original Calf Pasture—a dock was dredged, stone seawalls constructed, and a wharf built in front of one seawall.10 More landmaking occurred when a long pier was built out from the original shoreline to support and protect the sewer running from the pumping station to the shaft that descended 160 feet to the tunnel that would carry sewage to Squantum Neck.11 (From Squantum a causeway, which still exists, was built to carry the sewer to Moon Island.) An 1880 map shows this long pier as well as the dock and its adjacent seawalls (see figure 12.3). A horseshoeshaped brick gatehouse, constructed at the end of the pier over the opening of the shaft, still survives near the shore on the harbor side of the road leading to the Kennedy Library. The massive dark gray granite pumping station with its crenellated towers, designed by George Albert Clough, the city architect, and reportedly built with blocks from the Beacon Hill Reservoir, which was then being dismantled, also still looms between the library and the UMass/Boston campus. (The original facade of the building, which faced Mt. Vernon Street rather than toward the present road, is inscribed “B.I.S.” and “1883,” presumably for Boston Improved Sewerage, as the new system was originally called, and the building’s date of completion.) As part of the sewer project, Mt. Vernon Street was extended from the Old Colony Railroad, now the MBTA Red Line, tracks to the pumping station (see figure 12.3). To make this street, which ran on top of the sewer line, the marsh was filled with gravel to grade 16.5, or 16.5 feet above mean low water. The Main Drainage, as the new sewerage system came to be called, went into operation on January 1, 1884.12

The Calf Pasture Pumping Station remained Boston’s major sewerage pumping station until 1968, when sewage was instead sent to a new plant at Deer Island. The building at the Calf Pasture was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 and has recently been acquired by the University of Massachusetts, which plans to renovate it as a marine environmental center. B AY S TATE G AS C OMPANY BAY STATE GAS CO.

The Main Drainage works at the Calf Pasture were soon joined by the gasholders and buildings of the Bay State Gas Company, a competitor of the Boston Gas Light Company. In 1886 the harbor commissioners authororized Bay State Gas to build a solid wharf on the southeast end of the Calf Pasture. The company built a wood bulkhead and filled the enclosed area to grade five with mud excavated from the flats, creating about eleven acres of new land and squaring off the end of the point.13 The amount filled can be seen in a comparison of an 1896 map with the one for 1880 (figures 12.4 and 12.3), and for many years thereafter, as a 1923 aerial photograph shows, the eastern end of the Calf Pasture was occupied only by the sewage works and the gas tanks of what became, in 1905, the Boston Consolidated Gas Company (figure 12.9).14 C OMMERCIAL P OINT AND

AND

P ORT N ORFOLK

IN THE

N

L ATE N INETEENTH

E ARLY T WENTIETH C ENTURIES

More land was also added to Commercial Point in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most of it by private owners but some also by public or corporate projects. Between 1904 and 1909 the state dredged a channel to the wharves on the north side of Freeport Street and created an anchorage basin between Commercial Point and Savin Hill so that large yachts did not have to anchor in the shipping channel (figure 12.5). At least some of the material dredged during this project was dumped on the flats of the Boston Consolidated Gas Company at both Commercial Point and the Calf Pasture.15 And by 1917 the section of Tenean

PORT NORFOLK

FIGURE 12.4 D ORCHESTER

ON

1896

CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

This chart shows the area filled at the end of the Calf Pasture by the Bay State Gas Company, at the end of Commercial Point by the Boston Consolidated Gas Company, and at the north tip of Port Norfolk by the Putnam Nail Company.

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C OL U M B I A R O

A

MT . VE

RN

ON ST.

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SP RIN SAVIN HILL GD ALE S T.

SAVIN HILL BEACH

ANCHORAGE BASIN

SAVIN HILL BAY FR EE PO R

TS T.

CL AM PO

T.

KS

IN T

R PA

BARQUE WARWICK COVE

RD

AN

.

TE NE

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YT VICTO R EN

.

EA N

.

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PORT NORFOLK

FIGURE 12.5 D ORCHESTER

ON

FIGURE 12.6 1907

CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

This chart shows the channel being dredged to the Freeport Street wharves, the anchorage being created north of Commercial Point, and the area being developed as Savin Hill Beach. Note that the gas works at the end of the Calf Pasture are still labeled “Bay State Gas Co.” even though that company had become part of Boston Consolidated Gas in 1905.

D ORCHESTER

ON

1917

CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

This chart shows most of Tenean Creek filled in, a wharf and piers extended from the north tip of Port Norfolk by Lawley’s shipyard, and the area filled at the west end of Savin Hill Bay as an addition to Savin Hill Beach (now McConnell Park). The shading in the anchorage basin north of Commercial Point, the channel to the Freeport Street wharves, and the Neponset River channel denotes that those areas belonged to the state.

Creek from Victory Road north to Park Street on the west side of the railroad tracks had been filled in (figures 12.5 and 12.6). Land was also added during this period to Port Norfolk— the southernmost promontory on the Dorchester shoreline (see figures 12.1 and 12.2). Port Norfolk was not settled until after the opening of the Old Colony Railroad in 1845. The 1850 map shows the houses that had been built by that date and land that had been made for wharves on the southeast shore (see figure 12.2). More land was added to this area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the Albert T. Stearns Lumber Company (see figure 12.4).16 Land was also made in this same period at the north tip of Port Norfolk, first by the Putnam Nail Company, a leading manufacturer of horseshoe nails, and then by George Lawley and Son Corporation, noted for building beautiful racing yachts, after they relocated their boatyard from the Reserved Channel in South Boston in 1910 (see chapter 11 and figure 12.6).17

ate a beach (see figure 12.5). This beach became increasingly popular and finally in 1908 the commissioners had the salt marsh behind the dike filled with material dredged hydraulically from Dorchester Bay in order to form a playground and had sand put on the existing gravel beach.19 The original Savin Hill Beach was enlarged when the park department acquired an additional 1.5 acres of land and 12.6 acres of flats in 1913 and 1914, and in 1916 began building a seawall around the outer perimeter of these flats and filling them. The project was finished in 1918, resulting in the new land shown on a 1917 chart (see figure 12.6).20 The enlarged park was renamed in 1919 for Captain Joseph W. McConnell, the highest ranking officer from Dorchester killed in World War I.21 This land added in the teens is no longer part of the park, however, for the Dorchester Yacht Club now occupies the shore and the Southeast Expressway traverses the filled area between the tracks and the remaining part of McConnell Park (see figures 12.1 and 12.13).

S AVIN H ILL B EACH (M C C ONNELL PARK )

T ENEAN B EACH

While filling was being done at Commercial Point and Port Norfolk, land was also being made at the base of Savin Hill—the original Rock Hill, which had been renamed in 1822 for the savin, or red cedar, trees that grew on it—at almost the same spot where the Dorchester Associates had first landed in 1630 (see above). The early-twentieth-century landmaking at Savin Hill was part of the movement to establish public parks in Boston. After the city’s main park system had been started in the late 1870s and 1880s (see chapters 1, 5, 8, 11, and 13), a “second wave” of parks was initiated when playgrounds were established in various parts of the city, and the Savin Hill park was one of these.18 In 1899 the park commissioners acquired 6.9 acres of land and 11.7 acres of flats south of Springdale Street on the south side of Savin Hill—the area that is now McConnell Park. The next year the commissioners had a dike constructed across the flats as far west as the railroad tracks (the Southeast Expressway, which now runs between the park and the tracks, did not exist then, of course) in order to cre-

At about the same time the park department was enlarging Savin Hill Beach, it was also creating another beach in Dorchester—the present Tenean Beach. In 1914 and 1915 the department purchased 8.7 acres of marsh on the shore opposite Port Norfolk, named it Tenean Beach, built a bathhouse, and in 1918 regraded and put sand on the surface of what had become a popular swimming spot.22 In 1928 the department added another 7.4 acres to this beach north of the original purchase and in 1932 about 4 acres south of it. The department planned to fill the latter area with ashes and material dredged from Pine Neck Creek—the inlet between Tenean Beach and Port Norfolk—thus increasing the area of Tenean Beach to about 20 acres (figure 12.7). In the 1950s construction of the Southeast Expressway had a severe impact on Tenean Beach, apparently on the part added to the beach in the 1920s (see below and figures 12.7 and 12.13), but the beach has been rehabilitated and today is a rather impressive stretch of sand and, at low tide, exposed mud flats.

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O LD C OLONY PARKWAY (M ORRISSEY B OULEVARD ) N

CO

LU M BIA R D

.

MT . VE RN ON ST.

CALF

PASTURE

PATTEN’S COVE

FOX POINT OLD

C OL O NY PKW Y ALIBU BEA C H

M

SAVIN HILL BAY FR EE PO

RT

ST .

COMMERCIAL POINT

D.

R RY

TO

VIC

W

NE

TEN N

N VE HA

EA

EW

,N

RK

YO B

EA

&

CH

OR TF

R HA D

FIGURE 12.7 D ORCHESTER

ON

1934

CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

This chart show the 1920s filling at Tenean Beach (cf. figure 12.6) and the filling for the Old Colony Parkway (now Morrissey Boulevard) across the Calf Pasture, Patten’s Cove, and Savin Hill Bay.

In addition to the land created for beaches and added to the Calf Pasture, Commercial Point, and Port Norfolk, considerable landmaking was done in Dorchester in the early twentieth century for the construction of what was originally called Old Colony Parkway and is now Morrissey Boulevard. Old Colony Parkway, presumably so-named because much of the route first suggested followed the line of the former Old Colony Railroad, was intended as an automobile road between the end of Columbia Road (now at Kosciusko Circle near the JFK/UMass MBTA Red Line station) and the Neponset Bridge and was first proposed in 1906 in the early years of the automobile.23 The road soon became one of the many highways advocated by the City Beautiful movement and the resulting commissions on metropolitan improvements (see chapter 11).24 Old Colony Parkway was to be constructed by the Metropolitan Park Commission, which had been formed in 1893 to acquire parks for the entire metropolitan district and soon also become involved in constructing parkways to connect these parks—called reservations—and to meet public demand for better roadways. Old Colony Parkway, for example, was to connect with Quincy Shore Drive in Quincy and to serve as a major route to the South Shore.25 The route originally proposed for Old Colony Parkway was almost the same as that now followed by the Southeast Expressway from Columbia Road along the west side of Savin Hill to the point where the expressway crosses Morrissey Boulevard near Freeport Street (see figure 12.1). From that point south the proposed route was essentially the same as the present Morrissey Boulevard. In 1914, however, the Metropolitan Park Commission changed the proposed route of Old Colony Boulevard north of Freeport Street to the east side of Savin Hill. The purported advantages of the new route were that it was the shortest, would not interfere with commercial development, was on the cheapest land, and provided harbor views.26 Actually this route is not much shorter than the one on the west side of Savin Hill, apparently cut off commercial development of the wharves on the north side of Freeport Street,

required a great deal of filling in the Calf Pasture and in Dorchester Bay between Savin Hill and Commercial Point (see figure 12.7), and obstructed the harbor views of Savin Hill residents. Nevertheless, despite opposition from many Dorchester groups, the Metropolitan Park Commission acquired the land for this route in 1915, thus commencing the project.27 During the early years of the Old Colony Parkway project, attention focused on replacing the bridge across the Neponset, which was unsafe. Bids for a concrete bridge kept being rejected as too high, so a temporary wooden bridge was constructed in 1918 and a contract for a permanent bridge was not made until 1922.28 Meanwhile, filling had begun in 1917 on the section of the parkway near the Neponset Bridge, primarily with coal ashes and rubbish from Dorchester. In 1918 filling continued in this area, at the north end of the parkway near Columbia Road, and near Commercial Point both in Tenean Creek and in Barque Warwick Cove—the inlet separating Commercial Point from Clam Point (the section of Dorchester between Commercial Point and the railroad tracks) named for the British ship that had run aground there in colonial times and whose hull was visible for many years thereafter (see figure 12.6). This filling was suspended for most of 1920 but, in response to complaints about stagnant water near the intersection of Columbia Road and Mt. Vernon Street, resumed at the end of that year in the Calf Pasture.29 In 1922, ten years after Old Colony Parkway had been authorized, the legislature asked for an investigation of the “expediency” and cost of completing the project.30 By that time a dispute had erupted between the state Department of Public Works, which wanted the parkway to run directly from Savin Hill to Squantum in order to avoid congestion at the Neponset Bridge, and the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), which had succeeded the Metropolitan Park Commission in December 1919. The MDC eventually prevailed with the route adopted in 1914, partly on the grounds that it would lead to industrial development of the Calf Pasture.31 The contract for constructing the southern part of the Old Colony Parkway between Freeport Street and Quincy Shore Drive was signed in 1923, and both the Neponset

Bridge and that section of the parkway were completed and opened in 1924 (see figure 12.7).32 While the MDC was constructing the south part of the parkway and bridge, filling had continued in the Calf Pasture on the section of the parkway between Columbia Road and Fox Point, the southeastern tip of Savin Hill where the Savin Hill Yacht Club is located today (see figure 12.7). The fill continued to be whatever could be acquired cheaply—coal ashes, trash, and dirt from construction sites—and by 1925 most of this section had been filled to sub-grade (figure 12.8). In 1925 construction began on other components of the north section of the parkway: a bridge over Mt. Vernon Street at the north end, a bridge across Patten’s Cove next to Savin Hill, and the fill and bridge needed to span the mouth of Savin Hill Bay. The last involved filling two arms, one extending south about fifteen hundred feet from the Savin Hill shore and the other north about nine hundred feet from Commercial Point, and building a drawbridge to span the gap. In contrast to the ashes and trash that had been used to fill the area north of Fox Point and across the Calf Pasture, the fill across the mouth of Savin Hill Bay was to be material dredged from Dorchester Bay. This dredging began in 1925 and was completed in 1926, depositing about 1.5 million cubic yards of material at a cost of over one million dollars. Work on the drawbridge connecting the two filled arms began in 1927 and was finally completed in the fall of 1928, which, along with a bridge built in 1926–1927 south of Commercial Point for the New York, New Haven & Hartford tracks, enabled the entire Old Colony Parkway to open in 1928 (see figure 12.7).33 Even before Old Colony Parkway was completed, it seemed that the two filled arms that narrowed the mouth of Savin Hill Bay (see figure 12.7) might have some unintended consequences, for in 1928 the state appointed a special commission to determine whether this fill contributed to pollution of the bay. The commission found that Savin Hill Bay was indeed polluted and identified three major causes: raw sewage discharged during storms from overflow sewers on the west side of the railroad tracks and carried by a culvert into the bay (see figure 12.7); the shallow flats in the

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FIGURE 12.8 1923

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

C ALF P ASTURE

AND

S OUTH B OSTON

Taken November 11, 1923, just to the left of the photo in figure 12.9, this aerial photo shows filling for Old Colony Parkway extending south of the rotary now Kosciusko Circle and Mt. Vernon Street extending across the marsh at the west end of the Calf Pasture. North of Mt. Vernon Street is the large warehouse built by the American Radiator Company in 1920, and at the far right are buildings of C.A. Borden & Sons boatyard, which are also visible in figure 12.9.

One can also see the bulkhead built to form the south boundary of Columbus (now Moakley) Park in South Boston and the filling done behind it to make the park and what is now Carson Beach (see chapter 11). Note that the Strandway, now Day Boulevard, has already been laid out along the shore of this newly made land.

FIGURE 12.9 1923

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

C ALF P ASTURE

FROM THE SOUTH

Taken November 11, 1923, this photograph, which shows the gas tanks as well as the Main Drainage pumping station and the still-extant building at the end of the long pier, also shows virtually the same configuration of the Calf Pasture as the 1896 chart (see figure 12.4), indicating that almost no filling had been done during the intervening years. Most of the area north of Mt. Vernon Street was still an unfilled marsh, although the buildings of C.A. Borden & Sons boatyard are visible at the far left.

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bay, which could not be adequately flushed out at high tide; and drainage from a dump in the marsh west of the tracks that flowed through a culvert into the bay. The filling for Old Colony Parkway was not a direct source of pollution but did obstruct the flushing action of the tide. The commission proposed that a new sewer be built to carry the discharge from the overflow sewers out beyond Savin Hill Bay, that the bay be deepened by dredging, and that the marsh on the west side of the tracks be filled.34 Of these three solutions, the one soon carried out was the sewer, which was started in 1929 and apparently completed in 1931.35 Once the new sewer was finished, removing the major source of pollution of Savin Hill Bay, interest grew in developing additional beaches on the arm of fill that extended south from Savin Hill. The MDC had intentionally made this arm wider than was necessary for the parkway with the idea that it might later be developed as a park, but in 1932 it still remained an unimproved expanse of dredged gravel and sand.36 Work on the new beaches was finally authorized in 1935 and 1936. Although the MDC did no additional filling, it put sand on what came to be known as Malibu Beach on the west side of the arm (see figure 12.7), built a bathhouse, and constructed a parking lot.37 Old Colony Parkway itself soon became the main artery from Boston to the South Shore and Cape Cod, as had been intended. In the 1930s, however, it was only a two-lane highway choked with traffic, especially during morning and evening rush hours, and it needed constant repairs because the fill on which it was constructed kept settling.38 The MDC finally widened he southern section in the 1940s and the entire parkway in the 1950s,39 renaming it the William T. Morrissey Boulevard in 1951 in memory of the recently deceased chairman of the MDC. S OUTHEAST E XPRESSWAY

Morrissey Boulevard was superseded as the main route from Boston to the South Shore in the 1950s by a major highway built along the Dorchester shore—the Southeast Expressway. The expressway,

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specified in the 1948 Master Highway Plan as one of the new radial highways that would serve the city, was constructed between 1955 and 1959. Between Columbia Road and Commercial Point the expressway follows the route originally planned for Old Colony Parkway (now Morrissey Boulevard; see above and figure 12.1), a route that necessitated some filling along the shore of Savin Hill Bay.40 South of Commercial Point, the expressway is also along the shore between the point and Tenean Beach (see figure 12.1), and that area, too, was filled for the highway.41 B OSTON C OLLEGE H IGH S CHOOL

Most of the new land added to Dorchester since the 1930s, however, has been at the Calf Pasture, now Columbia Point. Some filling was done at the tip of the Calf Pasture in the 1880s, as discussed above, to create land for facilities of the Main Drainage sewerage system and for tanks of the Bay State (later Boston Consolidated) Gas Company (see figure 12.4). And more filling was done at the west end of the Calf Pasture between 1918 and 1925 for Old Colony Parkway (see figure 12.8). The real transformation of the Calf Pasture, however, came when it began to be used as a trash dump. South of Mt. Vernon Street, also called Mile Road, this dumping began about 1934,42 and by the early 1950s what was known as the Coleman Dump had added many acres, as can be seen in a comparison of this area on a 1934 chart with 1951 and 1952 aerial photographs (figures 12.7, 12.10, and 11.31). This newly made land was cheap and attracted some new occupants. In 1948 Boston College High School, which had outgrown its old quarters off Harrison Avenue in the South End, bought about seventy acres of land and flats on Old Colony Parkway in the Calf Pasture. The school chose the site because it was near public transportation (what was then the Columbia and is now the JFK/UMass station on the MBTA Red Line) and could be easily reached by utilities and construction equipment. The first building, constructed in 1949–1950, was set on concrete caissons sunk down through the trash and a layer of peat to the underlying

FIGURE 12.10 1951

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE

C ALF P ASTURE

By April 20, 1951, when this photograph was taken, the gas tanks had been removed from the east end of the Calf Pasture and a great deal of land had been created south of the long pier by dumping trash (cf. figure 12.7). The rows of buildings north of Mt. Vernon Street were barracks and Quonset huts built in 1942 to house Italian prisoners of war and then converted into public housing.

The land on which they were located, now the site of the Bayside Exposition Center, is just south of the bulkhead that defined the southern limit of Columbus (now Moakley) Park (see chapter 11 and figures 11.27 and 12.8). Note the additional filling east of this area since 1934 (see figure 11.27) and the American Radiator building still standing right next to the housing. On the south side of the Calf Pasture the first building of Boston College High School can be seen on Morrissey Boulevard near the edge of the fill.

blue clay.43 This building appears in solitary splendor next to Morrissey Boulevard in a 1951 aerial photograph of the Calf Pasture (see figure 12.10). Its setting, described as a desolate moonscape, was also precarious—exceptionally high tides came within five feet of the building and peat fires sometimes burned in the dump right behind it.44 Additional buildings were added in the 1950s, one of them south of the original building on land created by filling in part of Savin Hill Cove. Rocks blasted during construction of a new sewerage tunnel from the Ward Street Headworks in Roxbury to Deer Island were used as the foundation for this fill and the fill itself was material excavated during construction of the Central Artery tunnel under Dewey Square.45 Despite the school’s efforts to provide a solid foundation for its buildings, however, the former dump site caused problems—land rose and fell and buildings settled and cracked.46 In addition to the land made by Boston College High School, the MDC did more filling near Morrissey Boulevard in the mid-1950s, creating the present “bump” of land east of Savin Hill (see figure 12.13).47 C OLUMBIA P OINT H OUSING P ROJECT

Boston College High was soon joined at the Calf Pasture by the buildings of the Columbia Point development. In 1950 the Boston Housing Authority decided to locate a huge new public housing project at the Calf Pasture, presumably because the land was cheap, although the agency later publicly touted the site’s proximity to public transportation (the same Columbia, now JFK/UMass, MBTA station that had also attracted Boston College High) and to South Boston beaches and parks.48 The site was on the north side of Mt. Vernon Street near the Main Drainage pumping station on made land that, like land on the south side of Mt. Vernon Street, had been filled with trash (see figures 12.9, 11.27, and 12.10 for successive views of this area in 1923, 1934, and 1951).49 The Boston Housing Authority did some additional filling to straighten the shoreline (figure 11.31) and began construction in 1951.50 It is not clear why the Housing Authority

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FIGURE 12.11 C A . 1968

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

C OLUMBIA P OINT

FROM THE EAST

This photograph shows the Columbia Point housing development and the filling done for it (cf. figure 12.10), the Main Drainage pumping station and the gatehouse at the end of the former long pier (cf. figure 12.9), the filled area to the left (south) of the former pier soon to be occupied by UMass/Boston, and the lagoon to the right (north) of the pier that would become the site of the Kennedy Library.

decided to name the project Columbia Point—presumably they thought “Calf Pasture” was not an appealing designation and may have taken the new name either from the T station or from the veterans’ housing project already on the peninsula (see below). Whatever the reason, the new appellation permanently changed the name of the Calf Pasture to Columbia Point. The high-rise buildings of the Columbia Point development opened in 1954. At first the project formed a cohesive neighborhood, but in the late 1960s and 1970s it became beset with problems that also plagued high-rise public housing elsewhere, and in 1987–1988 the original buildings were replaced with the lower-rise apartments of the present Harbor Point development.51 B AYSIDE E XPOSITION C ENTER L AND

The land west of the Columbia Point development was soon developed, too, partly in response to the housing project. Much of this land, which was just south of the bulkhead that defined the southern edge of Columbus (now Moakley) Park (see chapter 11), had also been filled as a trash dump, in this case beginning as far back as 1925, and by industries such as the American Radiator Company, which built a warehouse on the site in the 1920 (see figures 12.8, 11.27, and 12.10 for successive views of this area in 1923, 1934, and 1951).52 During World War II rows of wood army barracks called Camp McKay were erected on the made land and used to house Italian prisoners of war. In 1946 these buildings were converted to a public housing project known as Columbia Village (see figure 12.10).53 Then, in the late 1950s when the Southeast Expressway was being constructed, it was proposed that this land at Columbia Point be developed as an industrial park. The land was extended out to the present shoreline in 1963 by building a stone bulkhead and filling the intervening flats (see figure 12.13),54 but, instead of an industrial park, a shopping mall was built on it to serve residents of the housing project. Bayside Mall opened in 1966 but was not a success; by1973 twenty-two of the twenty-eight stores had failed because of shoplifting, vandalism, and inadequate patronage and

the remaining few closed in the late 1970s.55 Finally, in 1982 a group of investors acquired the site with plans to erect a trade show and exposition center; the resulting Bayside Exposition Center opened in 1983.56 UM ASS /B OSTON

In the early 1970s the made land at Columbia Point attracted another major occupant in addition to Boston College High and Columbia Point housing—the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. In 1964 the university decided to open a Boston branch of its main campus at Amherst, and in 1965 it set up temporary quarters in a building near Park Square while it searched for a permanent Boston site. Many locations were considered including ones near Copley Square and North Station, but finally in November 1968, over the strong protests of students and faculty who favored a site in the core city, the trustees decided to locate the new campus at Columbia Point.57 This site had been chosen because it was large and mostly owned by the city, had a low assessed value so the city would not lose much when the land became tax exempt, and could be easily reached by car and by shuttle from the Columbia (now JFK/UMass) MBTA station.58 The specific site chosen was at the tip of Columbia Point, south of the long pier built in the 1880s over the sewer that ran from the pumping station to the gatehouse (see above). The area had been owned by the Boston Gas Company and for many years used as a dump by the Coleman Disposal Company, which had eventually extended the made land, filled with a thirty-foot depth of trash, as far as the end of the pier (see figures 12.9 and 12.11).59 After years of protests by residents of the Columbia Point housing project, the dump had finally closed in 1963.60 Before construction of the university began, the fill was stabilized and a granite bulkhead constructed around the perimeter, straightening the shoreline and adding a little more land (figure 12.12). Construction began in 1970 and UMass/Boston, as it is familiarly called, opened for classes in January 1974.61

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FIGURE 12.12 1977

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

C OLUMBIA P OINT

This photograph shows the filling and squaring of the shoreline for UMass/Boston, and the Kennedy Library being constructed on the site of the former lagoon.

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UMass/Boston was joined by another high-profile neighbor when the John F. Kennedy Library Corporation decided in late 1975 to build the library at Columbia Point. The library had been slated for Harvard Square, but after a decade-long controversy fueled by Cambridge opposition to the library’s museum and the traffic it would generate, a delay in acquiring the designated MBTA car yards site, and rising construction costs, the corporation had abandoned the Harvard location in February 1975. Other institutions had immediately stepped forward with offers of sites. The corpo-

ration’s choice of a spectacular waterfront site at Columbia Point, which appealed to the Kennedy family because the president had loved the sea, was considered a tribute to UMass president Robert Wood and Dorchester residents, who had lobbied hard for it.62 The site was at the northeast tip of the point in an area that had been a lagoon since the mid-1950s (see figure 12.11), when the city built a dike around the perimeter and then began filling the interior with ashes from the city’s newly constructed incinerator in South Bay (see chapter 10).63 This filling came to an abrupt halt in 1962, however, when the lagoon-dump was closed after a six-year-old girl from the housing project was killed on Mt. Vernon Street by a truck en route to the dump.64 Most of the rest of the lagoon was filled in during the early 1970s with material excavated during construction of UMass and the remainder was filled in 1977 while the library was being constructed (see figure 12.12).65 The library, designed by I. M. Pei, was dedicated in October 1979 by President Carter.

V ICTORY ROAD PARK

a rock and gravel dike faced with riprap as well as a steel sheet piling bulkhead around the remainder of the site. Instead of building this enclosure, however, Troy immediately began dumping building demolition debris into the center of the site. This rubble contained large timbers and was thus also in violation of the permit, which specified that the fill be “earth and rock free of wood or organic materials.” Furthermore, Troy failed to pay the fees required for filling tidewaters (see chapter 11). As a result of all these violations, in October 1969 the state ordered Troy to stop filling, in 1970 revoked his permit, and in 1972 ordered him to remove the fill. Troy, who had continued dumping fill on the site in spite of the court order and by 1972 had created about twelve acres of land, claimed he did not have the money to remove the fill and the dispute dragged on for years. (During this time Troy was removed from office in 1973 primarily because of his irregular court practices, but his illegal landmaking and defiance of the court orders were contributing factors.) Finally, in 1982 Troy’s daughter gave the part already filled to the MDC, subsequently donating the rest of the twenty-three-acre site in 1985. The Department of Environmental Protection then removed the toxic wastes from the fill and the MDC developed the made land into a park, which opened as Victory Road Park in 1988.66 The park today is a rather desolate series of grassy mounds punctuated by a few trees, although it has good views of the gas tank and yacht club at Commercial Point to the north, across the Neponset estuary to Squantum, and of Tenean Beach to the south.

One area of recent fill in Dorchester is not at Columbia Point—the appendage next to the Southeast Expressway just south of Commercial Point that is now called Victory Road Park (see figure 12.13). This odd little piece of made land actually began as an illegal landfill. In 1967 Judge Jerome P. Troy, chief justice of the Dorchester District Court, received a permit to fill this twentythree-acre area, hoping to turn the made land into a marina and resort hotel complex. His permit required that, before starting to fill, he build an enclosure to contain the fill by extending the culvert near Victory Road that drained the area west of it and by building

The filling of Victory Road Park and for the Kennedy Library were the last landmaking projects in Dorchester, creating the present shoreline (see figure 12.13). The variety of reasons for which land was made in this section of the city—wharfing out, major public works including a sewerage plant and a highway, public parks, trash dumps, public housing, and major educational and cultural institutions—reflects that for many years Dorchester was a separate town with its own industries and the Calf Pasture (now Columbia Point) was an urban fringe area whose inexpensive land eventually attracted educational and cultural institutions that have raised its status.

The newest institution at Columbia Point—the Massachusetts State Archives building—opened in 1985 on a site near the end and just south of the long outfall sewer that had once run from the pumping station to the building over the tunnel shaft (figure 12.13). This site had been filled as part of the Coleman Dump (see figure 12.11) so no additional filling was necessary.

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FIGURE 12.13 1995

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

D ORCHESTER

This recent aerial photograph shows the present shoreline of Dorchester, which includes the made land at Columbia Point, the “bump” of land east of Savin Hill filled by the MDC in the 1950s, the filling across the mouth of Savin Hill Bay for Morrissey Boulevard, the Southeast Expressway running across what was once part of McConnell Park at the head of Savin Hill Bay, Commercial Point, Victory Road Park just south of it, Tenean Beach, and Port Norfolk. The lines across Savin Hill Bay and south of Victory Road Park denote one of the photographs from which this aerial was composed.

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FIGURE 13.1 1630

SHORELINE OF

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ON

2001

STREET MAP

This computer-generated map, created by overlying a digitized reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline (see figure 1.1) on a computerized street map of East Boston, shows the five islands on and over which east Boston is built—Noddles, Breed’s, Apple, Governors, and Bird. The dashed and dotted line at the right indicates that part of the airport was built on flats belonging to the town of Winthrop. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on an 1852 reconstruction by E. S. Chesbrough, the 1857 U.S. Coast Survey chart of Boston Harbor, and the 1896 chart in figure 13.11 (see Note on Sources, appendix 2).

13 East Boston is the section of the city that includes the airport and, consequently, is the section that has the largest amount of made land—1,767.3 acres, to be exact, of which 1,413.1 is the airport.1 Present East Boston was created by filling around or over what were once five islands in Boston Harbor: Noddles, Hog (later Breed’s), Bird, Governors, and Apple (see figure 1.1). Of these, Noddles Island was the one on which East Boston originally developed, Breed’s is the location of today’s Orient Heights, and Bird, Governors, and Apple are buried beneath the fill of the airport. Noddles Island, which was presumably named for William Noddle, an early Boston settler who drowned in 1632 but evidently never lived on or owned the island, was originally about 660 acres and composed of several drumlins separated by marshes (figures 13.1 and 13.2).2 Two drumlins were at the southern end of the island—the one on the southeastern promontory came to be known as Camp Hill because of a military encampment there in 1711 during Queen Anne’s War and is now Jeffries Point, and the other was Smith Hill, now leveled to form Maverick Square. These two drumlins were separated by a marsh and an inlet that may have extended across the entire southeastern promontory. Two more drumlins were on another promontory to the northeast,

I S LE BELLE

once known as Wood Island and now swallowed up by the airport. Between these two promontories and the large drumlin on the northwest side of the island, later known as Eagle Hill, was a large marsh. Uplands extended northeast of Eagle Hill to what is now Addison Street and from there a marsh reached to the end of the island at what is now Trident Street (see figures 13.1 and 13.2). Noddles Island was virtually uninhabited until the 1830s. From 1633 to 1650 it was the residence of Samuel Maverick, who, as an Episcopalian in Congregationalist Boston, was a maverick although apparently not the original referent of the term, who instead was another Samuel Maverick, an 1840s Texan who did not brand his calves.3 In 1670 Colonel Samuel Shrimpton acquired Noddles Island and members of the Shrimpton family then owned it for the next 160 years. In the early nineteenth century, Noddles Island was a favorite fishing spot and, according to a contemporary account, the beach was sometimes dotted with the fires of picnickers cooking their catch. A tenant farmer, whose house was on Smith Hill, raised hay to ship to the South and supplied ships with livestock. A contemporary observer remembered the “fine herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and scores of horses . . . feeding along the green valleys and up the hill-sides.”4

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FIGURE 13.2 D ETAIL O F E AST B OSTON D ES B ARRES

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CHART OF

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BY

J. F. W.

Noted for its accuracy (see Note on Sources, appendix 2), this eighteenth-century chart clearly shows the islands that became East Boston and the various drumlins and marshes on them.

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This bucolic existence came to an end in 1833 when General William Hyslop Sumner, a Shrimpton descendent, formed the East Boston Company to develop the island as a speculative venture.5 This objective was in keeping with the temper of a time when railroads were being built, South Cove was being filled (see chapter 9), and industrial development was valued more than the preservation of open spaces. Sumner envisioned the island as a residence and summer resort for upper-middle-class Bostonians and also as a locus of industry. To the first end, the company laid out grids of straight and wide streets over the whole island—in deliberate contrast to the narrow and twisting streets of Boston—and sold house lots, especially in what was called Section 1 and was soon named Jeffries Point after an early resident, an area touted for its beautiful views and cooling breezes (figure 13.3).

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FIGURE 13.3 1837

PL AN OF

E AST B OSTON

BY

R. H. E DDY

This map shows the street plan devised by the East Boston Company, which still determines the East Boston street layout, as well as other early developments—the large wharf west of Hotel (now Maverick) Square, early bridges across Chelsea Creek and the inlet between Noddles and Breed’s Island, and the Eastern Railroad running along what became Bremen Street.

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In order to construct streets over marshes and to encourage industrial development of the shore, the East Boston Company also soon began landmaking operations. In 1833 Smith Hill, originally about thirty-five feet high, was cut down completely and used to fill the marsh between Smith and Camp Hills and to construct Lewis Street and a ferry wharf south of Maverick Square. The work was contracted to an H. Cummiskey, perhaps the same Hugh Cummiskey who in the late 1820s had filled the east side of the Mill Pond and leveled some hills at the Charlestown Navy Yard (see chapters 4 and 14),6 and Patrick McManus, both shareholders in the East Boston Company. The wharf itself, which was constructed like others of that period with a granite seawall around the perimeter and the interior filled with earth as well as with mud excavated from the adjacent docks, took three years to complete and added over eight acres of land to the waterfront (see figure 13.3).7 Other early landmaking by the East Boston Company included Meridian Street, which was built in 1834 across the marsh between Maverick Square and Eagle Hill in order to connect the two locales and eventually to connect with a bridge to Chelsea, although this bridge was not actually built until 1856 (see figure 13.3).8 A direct route from Maverick Square to the mainland was provided in 1834, however, when Chelsea Street was constructed across the large marsh south of Eagle Hill to connect with a free bridge built across Chelsea Creek (see figure 13.3). (This route was enhanced the next year when a road—now Eastern Avenue in Chelsea—was extended from the end of the bridge to the Salem Turnpike—present Broadway in Chelsea and Revere.9) More of the marsh south of Eagle Hill was filled when the Eastern Railroad, which the East Boston Company had persuaded to enter Boston through East Boston and then ferry passengers and freight across the harbor to the main part of the city, opened in 1838 with tracks along Bremen Street, just one block south of Chelsea Street (see figure 13.3). Evidently also in 1838 the East Boston Company extended Saratoga Street across the inlet between Noddles and Breed’s Islands in order to connect them. The bridge was actually a solid dam, creating a pond between it and the Eastern Railroad

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bridge to the west (see figure 13.3).10 And in 1849–1850 the section of Prescott Street that still exists on airport property was built across the marsh between Chelsea Street and West (actually southwest) Wood Island (figures 13.1 and 13.4).11 But most of the landmaking in the early years of East Boston’s development was done by private interests, as is apparent from an 1851 map of East Boston (see figure 13.4). Thirty-three acres of land, for example, were added to the waterfront of Jeffries Point for the wharves of the Grand Junction Railroad, a line that was intended to bring freight from several different railroads to the deep water wharves in East Boston—today the location of Piers Park.12 Filling also occurred on the water side of Border Street, the locus of East Boston’s shipbuilding industry (see figures 13.3 and 13.4). (Donald McKay’s famous clipper ships, for instance, were built in his shipyard located on Border Street between White and Eutaw Streets.) Skilled Canadian craftsmen and Irish laborers flocked to East Boston to work in the shipyards and other industries that lined the waterfront, and the population of the island, which had numbered only eight in 1833—the first year of development—ballooned to over fifteen thousand by 1855.13 But the effect of the depression that followed the panic of 1857 and the collapse of the wooden-shipbuilding industry after the Civil War considerably slowed East Boston’s growth during the next two decades. T HE B ASIN

As early as the 1840s the East Boston Company became interested in filling the large area of flats between Jeffries Point and Wood Island—an area called the Basin (see figure 13.3). But before this filling could begin, the company had to find a source of fresh water for the house lots it intended to lay out on the resulting land.14 This obstacle was removed in 1850 when East Boston was connected to the new Boston city water supply from Lake Cochituate. (Cochituate water was stored in a reservoir built on top of Eagle Hill in the block where East Boston High School is now located [see figure 13.4].) So in 1850 the East Boston Company contracted to

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FIGURE 13.4 1851

MAP OF

E AST B OSTON

BY

R. H. E DDY

This map shows the development of East Boston since 1837 (see figure 13.3)— the construction of the Grand Junction wharves on the Marginal Street waterfront, other wharfing out on the Marginal and Border Street waterfronts, the seawall across the Basin, and the reservoir on Eagle Hill. E

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FIGURE 13.5 1880

MAP OF

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Drawn about the same time as the bird’s-eye in figure 13.6, this map shows many of the same developments—the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad extending across the Basin just west of the seawall and the extent to which the Boston & Albany (formerly Eastern) tracks cut the Basin off from the rest of East Boston.

have a seawall built from Jeffries Point to West Wood Island, enclosing about ninety-five acres of the flats.15 This seawall was on the line of Lamson and Front Streets, the latter once one block east of the former (see figure 13.4), areas now covered by the airport entrance and exit roads and the East Boston stadium (see figure 360

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BOSTON, REVERE BEACH & LYNN RR.

13.1). In 1859 the company made a contract for filling all the flats enclosed by the seawall as well as the marsh between the Wood Island promontory and the railroad tracks—a total of about 119 acres (figure 13.5). But because of the depression in the late 1850s, neither the East Boston Company nor the East Boston Improvement Company, a corporation formed in 1860 to buy the Basin flats and fill them, had yet started to fill the flats in 1861.16 And it would be many years before these flats were filled. In the meantime, one significant change in the Basin occurred in 1875 when the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad was built across it. This was a narrow gauge line whose passengers were brought across Boston Harbor by ferry and boarded the train at a dock on Marginal Street. From there the train

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went through a tunnel under Jeffries Point and then crossed the flats on a bridge on the line of Lamson Street, one block west of the seawall (see figure 13.5). An 1879 bird’s-eye view of East Boston shows the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn trestle crossing the still-unfilled Basin. The view also gives a good idea of the waterfront development along Marginal and Border Streets and the dense settlement on Jeffries Point, Eagle Hill, and elsewhere west of the former Eastern Railroad, which by then was operated by the Boston & Albany (figure 13.6).

FIGURE 13.6 1879

BIRD ’ S - EYE VIEW OF

E AST B OSTON

This bird’s-eye shows the tracks of the recently constructed Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad extending across the Basin and the amount of development in East Boston by 1879.

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About 1885 the population of East Boston, which was then about thirty thousand, began to increase rapidly again. The source of this growth was another flood of immigrants—not Irish this time, as in the earlier period, but eastern European Jews. Jewish immigrants originally settled on Jeffries Point and then later in the area of Porter and Chelsea Streets. By 1905 the East Boston Jewish community was reportedly the largest in New England.17 About that year large numbers of Italians also began to settle in East Boston, first transplants from the North End and then immigrants directly from Italy. The Jews began to move out to Chelsea, Roxbury, and Dorchester, but the Italians continued to arrive and by 1915 the population of East Boston had grown to over sixtytwo thousand.18 This burgeoning population was probably one reason that in the 1890s the East Boston Company renewed efforts to fill the Basin. The company’s directors realized that the Basin flats would be a convenient place on which to dump material dredged from other parts of the harbor and that an arrangement to receive such dredgings would be a win-win situation for the company—the flats would be filled and the company paid for receiving the fill. So in 1893 the East Boston Company contracted to have one of the dredging companies deposit dredged material onto the long narrow strip between the seawall and the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad (see figure 13.5), an agreement that seems to have continued until at least 1896.19 Filling the flats in the main part of the Basin on the west side of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks was deterred by the existence of the Boston & Albany tracks along Bremen Street, which were at street level and not only dangerous to cross but also formed, in the words of one report, a veritable “Chinese wall” separating an area that could be filled from the rest of East Boston (see figure 13.5).20 Nonetheless, filling the main part of the Basin was apparently begun in the 1890s by the Maverick Land Company, which owned 70 of the 120 acres that the East Boston Improvement Company had bought from the East Boston Company in the 1860s. And after the East Boston Company acquired the whole Basin in the late 1890s, it, too, continued to

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fill these flats.21 When the city park department took the land north of Maverick Street bounded by Frankfort, Gove, and Cottage Streets in 1902 and 1903 for what became the Cottage Street Playground (figure 13.7), the East Boston Company then began filling the adjoining flats bounded by future Orleans, Gove, Cottage, and Porter Streets. The fill was probably rubbish and coal ashes collected by the city. In 1908 the city even began to pay for the “privilege” of dumping such trash on the East Boston Company’s flats. Filling progressed rapidly and by 1913 the East Boston Company had sold this newly made land, and in some places tenements—inexpensively constructed apartment buildings—had been erected on it.22 The East Boston Company apparently continued to fill the Basin flats after that date—a 1917 chart shows the area up to Porter Street filled almost as far east as the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks (figure 13.8). Filling then apparently slowed, for a 1923 photograph indicates that fill in the central part of the Basin still did not extend much beyond Porter Street (figure 13.9). W OOD I SLAND PARK

Even before filling the Basin flats began in the 1890s, some filling had occurred on Wood Island, the promontory forming the north side of the Basin (see figure 13.5). This filling was done in order to make a public park for East Boston. Such a park had first been proposed by the Boston park commissioners in 1876 as one of eleven parks to be developed in different sections of the city, but funds for the East Boston park were not appropriated until 1881 (see chapters 1, 5, 8, and 11).23 The original proposal was for a park on West Wood Island (really the southwestern drumlin), but the parallelogram-shaped 19.6 acres of land and 57.7 acres of flats the park commissioners actually purchased from the East Boston Company in 1882 was on East Wood Island (actually the northeastern part of the promontory) (see figures 13.2 and 13.3).24 Nonetheless, the description of West Wood Island in 1876 as “a bare, unimproved hill, used as a pasture, surrounded at its base by marsh and flats” probably

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FIGURE 13.7 1911

MAP OF

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This map shows the Cottage Street Playground, Wood Island Park with Neptune Road leading to it, the parkway lands, the Maverick Mills building on made land next to Addison Street, Orient Heights (now Noyes) Playground, and the sections of the East Boston Flats taken by the state in 1898 and 1913.

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FIGURE 13.8 E AST B OSTON ON 1917 B OSTON H ARBOR

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This chart shows the extent of filling in the Basin, the dumping ground in the Governors Island Channel, the configuration of the bulkhead on the south side of the East Boston Flats project, and the filling behind it. The shading of the latter area of fill indicates it belonged to the state.

FIGURE 13.9 1923

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE AIRPORT AND

E AST B OSTON

Taken November 11, 1923, this photograph shows the first bulkhead to retain fill on the state’s project, which extended east from Jeffries Point (at left) on the line of Maverick Street and then, after a jog south, continued on the line of Sumner Street (see figure 13.8). The original runways of the airport, which was accessed from both Maverick and Porter Streets (cf. figure 13.8), were in a T configuration with the head of the T placed just short of the existing edge of fill, which then flowed out eastward. In 1923 fill did not yet extend as far as the

north bulkhead, also visible in the photo. West of the airport one can see the 1850s seawall, with the gap left in it, extending across the Basin; behind it the tracks of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad on which a train is crossing the Basin; and the amount of the Basin that had been filled by 1923. North of the Basin are Wood Island Park with its central playing field and, on the west side of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks, the parkway lands (cf. figure 13.10). North of Wood Island Park is the still unfilled cove between the park and the Harborview section of East Boston. E

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applied to East Wood Island as well.25 The challenge was to turn this bare hill into an inviting park. The plans for what the park department renamed Wood Island Park in 1883 called for building Neptune Road as a parkway from Bennington Street across the flats to the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad in order to connect the park with the rest of East Boston. Filling for Neptune Road was done in 1884 and 1885 (see figures 13.5 and 13.7). Fill was supplied by both a private contractor and the Boston & Maine Railroad; although the sources were not specified, at least the fill brought by rail presumably came from outside East Boston.26 Work on the rest of the park did not begin until 1889. The plan drawn up in 1884 by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect for the Boston park system, had called for grading a large oval playing field and filling some of the flats with dirt obtained from cutting down the hill on the site.27 But it turned out that the subsoil of the hill was so hard it was more economical to bring in fill from other locations by rail, so it was decided to retain the hill and plant it with trees. Then, in 1891 the plans were completely changed. Filling the extent of flats necessary to make the park would be so expensive that it seemed more sensible to increase the size of the park by acquiring West Wood Island and the intervening marsh instead (see figures 13.2 and 13.3). The park department purchased the additional area from the East Boston Company, doubling the size of the park from 23.6 acres (the original 19.6 plus the 4 acres filled for the parkway) to 45.6 acres.28 In the early 1890s the department filled and graded the marsh between East and West Wood Islands for an oval gymnasium and large rectangular playing field, and similarly filled and graded the perimeter of the park for a drive (figures 13.7 and 13.10).29 They obtained fill for the latter area both by excavating the uplands and dredging the flats in the park but ultimately did not construct the drive, instead planting the area with trees. The trees in the park eventually flourished, providing “pleasant shade” on the slopes that had once been “bare and wind-swept.”30 But filling the salt marsh between East and West Wood Islands was not as successful. A 1910 report by the Olmsted firm noted that in places

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the shallow layer of fill had settled and, because a drain had failed, there were deposits of salt on the surface.31 Nonetheless, in the first decade of the twentieth century Wood Island Park had become a popular recreational area for residents of East Boston, especially for tennis, baseball, and cricket in the summer and skating on the flooded gymnasium in the winter. T HE PARKWAY L ANDS

After Neptune Road was filled in the mid-1880s to create the parkway leading to Wood Island Park, the East Boston Company decided in 1887 to fill what they called the parkway lands—the marsh at the west end of the Wood Island promontory that extended from the park west to Frankfort Street in the area between Neptune Road and Prescott Street—the same marsh that the company had contracted to fill in 1859 but then had not done so (see above and figure 13.7). The fill came primarily from two sites on the north side of Eagle Hill—the north side of the reservoir, which the city wanted graded down to the same slope as the other sides, and an embankment on Falcon Street (see figure 13.7). Some of the fill was also apparently coal ashes and dirt brought from other locations in Boston. By 1893, forty acres of parkway lands had been filled, the house lots to grade twelve, or twelve feet above mean low water, and the streets to grade eighteen, and the East Boston Company was optimistic about selling these lots in what they considered a desirable residential area. The city, however, refused to accept the new streets because the area did not have sewers and for over fifteen years much of the newly made land languished unsold. In the meantime, the East Boston Company began to fill the marshes on the north side of Neptune Road and on the south side along Orleans Street using coal ashes collected by the city (see figure 13.7). In the first decade of the twentieth century the city finally built sewers in the parkway area and by 1913 the East Boston Company had sold all the filled land. The parkway lands did not develop quickly, however. A 1925 photograph of Wood Island Park shows some tenements near Neptune Road and a large factory south of Prescott Street but the rest of the made land still barren and undeveloped (see figure 13.10).32

B REED ’ S (H OG ) I SLAND

FIGURE 13.10 1925

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

W OOD I SL AND P ARK

AND PARKWAY L ANDS

This photograph shows Wood Island Park as it was constructed in the 1890s with a large central playing field, a field house, and an oval track behind it. Behind the park at the right is Neptune Road bordered by tenements and to the left are the parkway lands, still relatively undeveloped except for a large factory on Prescott Street. Behind the tracks of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad one can see, at the left, unfilled flats in the Basin and, at the right, in the large cove between the parkway lands and the Harborview section (cf. figure 13.12).

While the Basin, Wood Island, and the parkway lands on the original Noddles Island were being filled and developed, similar developments were taking place on the island immediately north, which was variously known as Hog, Susanna, Belle Isle, and finally Breed’s, the last after its early-nineteenth-century owner. This island was originally about 527.2 acres,33 making it somewhat smaller than Noddles. Breed’s Island was composed of a large high drumlin, today’s Orient Heights, with some uplands—the present Bayswater section—to the south, and a large marsh—now the Belle Isle Marsh and part of Suffolk Downs—extending north to the Belle Isle Inlet, which delineated the northern edge of the island (see figures 13.1 and 13.2). Like Noddles, Breed’s Island had had very few owners until a land development company acquired it, in this case the Boston Land Company in 1871. The Boston Land Company planned to develop the south shore of Breed’s Island—what is now the Bayswater section—as a shipping port and the rest of the island as a residential area. They soon dropped the first objective but encouraged the building of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn in 1875 so that the area would be served by a passenger railroad.34 Residential development did not proceed as fast as the company had anticipated, but by 1890 the company had sold some lots and houses on what they had named Orient Heights.35 In the early 1890s the Boston Land Company filled in Bayswater Street and other parts of the Bayswater section as the result of correcting a nuisance. Sewage discharging on the flats between Noddles and Breed’s Islands southeast of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks had created such a stench at low tide that, as the newspapers were quick to point out, the surrounding area was unfit for residences. The Boston Land Company responded immediately, getting permission to build a dike from the shore of Breed’s Island to the shore of the former Noddles in order to keep the flats covered with water at all times. The company also received permission to dredge a channel for small boats from the area of the dike to the existing channel and to use the material

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excavated to fill flats and low areas in Bayswater along what are now Bayswater and St. Edward Streets and St. Andrew Road. Filling was completed in 1892 and the changes are shown on an 1896 chart (figure 13.11).36 The Boston Land Company also filled various other parts of Breed’s Island in the 1890s. The company wanted to fill in the Belle Isle Inlet, for example, so that it could develop the marsh north of Orient Heights, and received permission from the state to do so. But the U.S. government would not allow the inlet to be closed, so in order to start filling the marsh the company had to resort to building dikes along the banks of the inlet, beginning in 1896 with one northeast of Bayswater. Between 1896 and 1898 the company also filled the lowlands between Bennington Street and the south side of Orient Heights in the vicinity of Bennington and Breed Streets and Ashley Avenue (see figure 13.11). And in the mid-1890s the company cut down the top of Orient Heights (not enough, however, to destroy the still spectacular views) and sold the resulting sand and gravel for fill, though not necessarily for use in East Boston.37 Thus by 1900 the Boston Land Company had created some land at the foot of Orient Heights and in the Bayswater section of the former Breed’s Island. The remaining landmaking on this island, however, would be done by other parties, for in 1911 the Boston Land Company sold all its real estate to the East Boston Company.38 In 1909, just before the Boston Land Company ended its existence as a land development company, it had sold 8.3 acres of marsh and flats to the city of Boston to be developed as a playground for the Orient Heights area. The site was between Saratoga and Boardman Streets on the flats at the foot of Orient Heights, a large part of which was, as the park department noted, “under water” (see figure 13.7). The park department began to fill and grade the area in 1910 and by the end of 1912 had prepared five acres.39 More filling was done in the mid-1920s, apparently with dirt from Eagle Hill. Although this later filling did not increase the land area of the park—in 1925 renamed the John H. L. Noyes Playground—beyond the 5.24 acres filled earlier, it did reportedly make it “the best football field in Boston.”40 A ca. 1930 aerial pho-

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tograph shows the filled rectangle of Noyes Playground at the junction of Saratoga and Boardman Streets next to the remaining open water between Breed’s and Noddles Islands (figure 13.12). Noyes Playground is no longer the best football field in Boston, but it remains a flat open space at the foot of Orient Heights with baseball diamonds, a basketball court, and a tot lot. The north side of Breed’s Island was not joined to the Revere mainland until the 1930s when the west half of the Belle Isle Inlet was filled in.41 Suffolk Downs Race Track was then built on that part of the former marsh, which straddles the Boston-Revere line (see figures 13.1 and 13.20). The eastern part of the marsh, at the northeastern tip of Breed’s Island, was for a time the site of the Suffolk Downs Drive-In Theatre. Then, in 1975 the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) acquired the marsh and opened it in 1986 as the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation.42 Today it is a beautiful salt marsh, so remote that it is hard to believe it is within the boundaries of a major city. N ORTH

OF

A DDISON S TREET

While the flats at the southwestern foot of Orient Heights were being filled in the early twentieth century, the East Boston Company was also finally filling the marsh at the north end of the original Noddles Island (see figure 13.11). In 1912 the company formed the East Boston Terminal Railroad Company ostensibly to haul gravel from Orient Heights and from the hill in the Bayswater section of Breed’s Island in order to fill low-lying areas of the East Boston Company’s territory. The resulting land was to be developed as “factory sections,” one of which was to be the large unfilled area between Noddles and Breed’s Islands that was bounded by Addison and Saratoga Streets on Noddles Island, Boardman Street at the foot of Orient Heights, and the railroad tracks (see figure 13.7). Although it is not clear how much fill was actually transported by the East Boston Terminal Railroad, the East Boston Company also made a contract to have large quantities of city trash and coal ashes dumped in these sections for a period of ten years. Filling apparently began immediately and by 1919 the entire

FIGURE 13.11

ST.

TON

DIKE

D

N STO

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ST.

ING NN

R THU

ISON

EY AVE

ED W AR

ADD

HL

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AS

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E AST B OSTON H ARBOR

CHANNEL

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EW

RD

.

RS

T.

1896

CHART OF

B OSTON

This chart shows the dike built in the 1890s between the former Breed’s and Noddles Islands south of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks, the areas filled in the 1890s at the foot of Orient Heights and in the Bayswater section, and the original marsh at the north end of Noddles Island. It also shows the various components of the East Boston Flats—the Noddles, Apple, Governors, and Bird Island Flats.

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FIGURE 13.12 C A . 1930 AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH N ODDLES ( RIGHT ) I SL ANDS

OF AREA BET WEEN

B REED ’ S ( LEFT )

AND

In this photograph, looking from Chelsea Creek toward the harbor with the former Noddles Island on the right and Breed’s on the left, one can see the filled rectangle of Noyes (formerly Orient Heights) Playground on the shore of the latter, the large Maverick Mills building on Addison Street on the former (cf. 37

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figure 13.7), and some open water still in the inlet between the two islands. This photograph also clearly shows that the back side of Orient Heights was not yet developed, the cove between Wood Island Park and Harborview not yet filled, and the bulkhead on the north side of the airport fill not yet extended to meet the other arm of the L. The photo was probably taken to record the airship “Los Angeles,” in the center, flying over the city.

area north of Addison Street had been filled except for an inlet that remained open for some years (figures 13.13 and 13.12).43 The development of the made land as a factory section was evidently not very successful, however, for a ca. 1930 aerial photograph shows only the large Maverick Mills building, which had been built on Addison Street before 1911 (see figures 13.12 and 13.7). The inlet between the former Noddles and Breed’s Islands was eventually filled later in the 1930s, finally completely joining the two islands.44 E AST B OSTON F LATS —P ORT D EVELOPMENT

All the landmaking in East Boston on the original Noddles and Breed’s Islands discussed thus far, however, pales in comparison with the amount of land that has been created on what were once called the East Boston Flats—the huge expanse of tidal flats stretching east from Jeffries Point and the Basin (see figure 13.11). Several natural channels cut through this vast area of flats, dividing it into subsections—the Noddles Island Flats, which extended east of the Basin; the Bird Island Flats, which were in the area of what had been a low island on which salt marsh hay was gathered in the seventeenth century but had eroded to a gravel shoal visible only at low water by the end of the eighteenth century; the Governors Island Flats, which surrounded and extended east of an island, composed of a drumlin and a lower-lying area, that the U.S. government had acquired in 1808 and on which it soon erected a fort (see figure 11.6); and the Apple Island Flats, which were around an island, presumably named for its shape, composed of a hill and used in the late nineteenth century by the city of Boston as a source of gravel.45 Interest in developing the East Boston Flats grew out of the late-nineteenth-century concern, discussed in chapter 11, about Boston’s declining importance as a port relative to New York and many European ports. Although the underlying reason was Boston’s lack of a bulk export product and consequent dependence on imports, at the turn of the twentieth century the cause was identified as a lack of publicly owned modern docks and wharves served by railroads.

An 1893 report by the city surveying department argued that the nineteen hundred acres of flats lying southeast of East Boston were the most suitable area of the city for the development of the port facilities that would be necessary if Boston were to regain its position as a major port. This idea was not new. In 1881 the state harbor and land commissioners had proposed a massive port development along the East Boston as well as South Boston and Winthrop waterfronts, but the project was not pursued at that time.46 In 1894, however, the year after the surveying department report, the East Boston Company took up the theme in a pamphlet entitled Conditions of Commercial Success: What Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Hamburg and New York Have Done and Are Doing; What Boston Can and Should Do. Not surprisingly, the East Boston Company thought that what Boston could and should do was to construct a series of large piers and docks on the Noddles Island Flats, which the company claimed. But the East Boston Company’s proposal backfired. The interest generated by the surveying department report, the company’s pamphlet, and other sources—among them the 1894 report of a city committee on docks and wharves, which recommended a huge development in East Boston of piers, dry docks, grain elevators, and railroads extending across the Basin and Wood Island (and would have obliterated the recently constructed Wood Island Park)—resulted in the appointment in 1895 of a state board to investigate what wharves and terminal facilities were needed.47 The board strongly favored public ownership of the waterfront and recommended that the state acquire part of the Noddles Island Flats and the flats north of Wood Island, both claimed by the East Boston Company, for a large port development. As a result, in 1898 the state took by eminent domain 57.4 acres of Noddles Island Flats in a 1,500-foot-wide strip extending from the tip of Jeffries Point to the Wood Island Flats (see figure 13.7).48 The East Boston Company, claiming that the 1633 grant of Noddles Island to Samuel Maverick included all the flats to the low water line instead of only the flats within 1,650 feet of the high water line, as was the case everywhere else in the state, sued to recover its flats and the case dragged on for years.49 Finally in 1909 the courts

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FIGURE 13.13 E AST B OSTON

ON

1921

CHART OF

B OSTON H ARBOR

In comparison with a 1917 chart (see figure 13.8), this chart shows the extension of the port project on the East Boston Flats to include the dumping ground in the Governors Island Channel. The L-shaped configuration of the

bulkheads on the north side of the project was determined by the plans for a central anchorage basin (see figure 13.14). The 1921 chart also indicates that since 1917 the flats between Maverick Street and the port project had been filled. The marsh north of Addison Street (see figure 13.7) had also been filled, leaving open an inlet (cf. figure 13.12).

decided in favor of the state, so, ironically, the East Boston Company’s original interest in port development ultimately resulted in its losing almost all its tidal flats.50 By the time the state’s ownership of the Noddles Island Flats was settled in 1909, there was even more interest in using them for a major port development because of the City Beautiful movement and the resulting commissions on metropolitan improvements (see chapter 11). In 1909 the first of these commissions strongly recommended the East Boston Flats as the best location for new railroad and shipping terminals and its experts suggested two alternative plans—one, a series of wharves and docks projecting from the filled Noddles Island Flats and the other, a vast system of docks, wharves, and warehouses covering about as much area as the present airport.51 This commission also recommended that yet another commission be appointed to devise plans for the suggested improvements, and this second commission, in its final report in 1911, recommended the implementation of a 1910 act authorizing the harbor and land commissioners to start developing the East Boston Flats when “there is evidence of a demand for additional piers and docks.” The harbor and land commissioners were all set to begin building bulkheads and start filling, but just at this juncture responsibility for port development was taken away from them and given to the newly appointed Directors of the Port of Boston.52 The directors of the port had been established in response to agitation from business leaders for more intensive port development and from the public for a major passenger port and had been authorized to spend nine million dollars on port improvements (see chapter 11). In 1912 they appropriated a third of this amount for securing access to the state’s part of the Noddles Island Flats and constructing a rail and shipping terminal on them, and began to draw up plans. And in 1913 they purchased the old Eastern Railroad wharf on the East Boston waterfront just north of the Grand Junction wharves, planning to construct a modern pier on the site. The directors also began negotiating with the East Boston Company about buying the company’s flats that lay between the flats the state had taken in 1898 and the seawall east of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn tracks (see figure 13.7). The two sides could

not agree on a price, however, and when the East Boston Company tried to recover the flats taken in 1898, claiming it would develop them as a port, in 1913 the state simply took the land and flats it wanted—fifty-nine acres bounded by Maverick Street, the seawall, the Wood Island Flats, and the flats taken in 1898 (see figure 13.7).53 But then the original directors of the port were deposed. Complaints about their extravagance and waste (they had not only purchased the Eastern Railroad wharf in East Boston at an inflated price but had also paid three times more than the original contract for improvements to Commonwealth Pier in South Boston) led to their replacement in August 1914 with a new board (see chapter 11). The new directors did not approve the contract their predecessors had made for a new pier on the site of the Eastern Railroad wharf because they felt the lack of demand for such a pier did not justify the expense, but they did pursue the port development on the East Boston Flats.54 Although, as they noted, there were already at least thirty-five “elaborately worked out schemes” for these flats, the directors submitted their own plan in 1915 (figure 13.14). It was not very different from many of the previous ones, having two long arms of fill lined with piers and warehouses extending out over Governors Island and from the Wood Island promontory (again obliterating the park, which was supposed to be relocated). The directors quickly got the harbor lines—the lines that defined how far into the harbor piers and fill could extend—changed to permit filling of the area, arranged to have fill dumped on it, and in November 1915 signed a contract for the construction of a bulkhead to retain the fill.55 So, after thirty-five years of discussion and proposals, the development of the East Boston Flats finally got under way. The method used to make land on the East Boston Flats was essentially the same as that being employed at the time to fill the South Boston Flats (see chapter 11)—a timber bulkhead was constructed to retain dredged fill that was deposited hydraulically. The bulkhead in East Boston was twenty-two hundred feet long and extended east from Jeffries Point on the line of Maverick Street before making a jog south and continuing further east on the line of Sumner Street (see figures 13.8 and 13.9).56 The bulkhead was

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FIGURE 13.14 1915

PL AN FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE

E AST B OSTON

WATERFRONT

This plan, published by the Directors of the Port of Boston, shows the intended port development—two long arms of fill lined with docks and warehouses were to extend out over Governors and Wood Islands, obliterating the park on the latter. The eventual filling was around the projected location of the central anchorage basin, the reason for the L-shaped configuration of the airport in the 1930s (see figures 13.15 and 13.16).

supported by ten-foot-wide dikes of dredged material that had been deposited on either side. At first, permits were given to dredging companies to dump in East Boston material from different projects in the harbor, including the dry dock then being built in South Boston (see chapter 11). This practice was supplanted in 1916 by a contract with one company to handle all the dredged material. This company established what was called a “rehandling plant” or “receiving station,” a place where dredged material was dumped and then pumped hydraulically onto the flats. By the end of 1916 about twenty acres had been filled to grade sixteen.57

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In addition to filling the area north of the bulkhead, the directors recognized that there was another area within the new harbor lines where dredged material could also be dumped, ending the expensive and wasteful practice of towing material dredged from the harbor out to sea and dumping it there. The directors thus decided in 1915 that the deep water north of Governors Island in what was then called the Governors Island Channel should be made a dumping ground for material dredged in the harbor (see figures 13.11 and 13.8). And in 1916 a charge was even imposed for the privilege of dumping harbor dredgings in East Boston rather than towing them to sea.58 These arrangements for filling the East Boston Flats north of the bulkhead and in the dumping ground north of Governors Island continued in 1916 despite the fact that in August of that year the Directors of the Port of Boston were replaced by yet another board. This new board was the Commission on Waterways and Public Lands, formed by combining the functions of the directors, who since 1911 had been responsible for Boston Harbor, and of the harbor and land commissioners, who since the same date had been in charge of harbors elsewhere in the state (see chapter 11). The new commissioners continued the landmaking on the East Boston Flats begun by their predecessors, and by 1917 about fortyseven acres had been created behind the bulkhead and in two arms of fill, one that extended to the seawall and the other toward Wood Island (see figure 13.8). Fill also continued to be deposited in the dumping ground north of Governors Island. Most of the fill was dredged clay that contained some silt and gravel but some was also ships’ ballast and coal ashes and even, in one instance, a cargo of spoiled fruit, and, in another, water-damaged lime.59 But beginning in late 1917 the rate of filling slowed. The dredges were needed for other projects in the harbor, including the construction of a naval shipyard at Squantum, and most of the dredged material went to South Boston to fill an area on the south side of the Reserved Channel between Marine Park and Castle Island (see chapter 11). Nonetheless, in 1919 a contract was made to extend the bulkhead off Jeffries Point another sixteen hundred feet east and in 1921 to build twenty-five hundred feet of bulk-

head on the north side of the area being filled in order to keep the fill from washing onto the flats of Wood Island Park. Yet another contract was made in 1921 to extend nineteen hundred feet of bulkhead along the west and south sides of the central anchorage basin in the original port development plan (see figure 13.14), making the area being filled L-shaped.60 These developments are shown on a 1921 chart, which also indicates that by that date the flats between Maverick Street and the arm of fill extending to the seawall had been filled (see figures 13.13 and 13.8). By 1921, however, there had been yet another change of command in the project, for in 1919 the Commission on Waterways and Public Lands was abolished and its function transferred to a division of the new state Department of Public Works.61 In 1921 the public works commissioners had extended the bulkheads on the East Boston Flats as described above, made a contract for filling the area enclosed by the new bulkheads, had almost completed dredging the first new dock, were about to begin dredging the central anchorage basin in the port development, and were making plans to provide rail connections to the new terminals.62 It seemed as if the long-awaited port development was finally going to become a reality. But then events took an unexpected turn. E AST B OSTON F LATS —A IRPORT

At the end of World War I, returning pilots, the city Chamber of Commerce, and the federal government all began to agitate for an airplane landing field in Boston to serve the various needs of the incipient air mail service, commercial and military aviation, and recreational fliers. After an exhaustive study by an engineer in the city Public Works Department of fifteen possible sites, including the East Boston Flats then being filled, the City Planning Board decided in September 1919 that the “most suitable and available” location was what is now Moakley (formerly Columbus) Park and Carson Beach in South Boston. Unlikely as this site now seems, it met most of the federal government’s specifications for a landing field: easily accessible from the center of the city, served by public utilities, free of nearby obstructions, and large enough for eighteen

hundred-foot runways (a far cry from the ten thousand-foot runways at the present airport). The area was earmarked for a public park, however, so was dropped as a potential airport.63 The question of a Boston airport was not revived until 1921. Then, the Chamber of Commerce, anxious to establish air mail service for Boston, initiated another site search and this time came up with two possibilities—the area being filled in South Boston between Marine Park and Castle Island (see chapter 11) and the area being filled on the East Boston Flats for a port development. The South Boston site was slated for industrial development, however, so the East Boston site was chosen by default. It, too, met most of the federal requirements: near the city center, in an uncongested area suitable for sea as well as land planes, and last but certainly proved not least, room for expansion. Locating the airport on these flats was originally not meant to replace the port development but simply to occupy the made land until the port project was ready to proceed. A bill introduced in January 1922, authorizing the state to construct a landing field and the federal government to lease it in return for erecting hangers, met stiff opposition but finally passed in May 1922 with the proviso that if the bids exceeded the thirtyfive thousand dollar appropriation, the balance would be obtained from other sources. The Chamber of Commerce soon raised these additional funds, and grading and surfacing the runways, originally laid out in a T-configuration (see figure 13.9), began immediately. The first plane landed on June 5, 1923, and the airport officially opened a few months later on September 8.64 When the airport opened it was on about 134 acres that the state had filled since 1915, made land that extended only just beyond the north-south runway that formed the top of the T and not even to the bulkhead on the north side of the state’s project (see figures 13.9 and 13.13).65 The state stopped filling the East Boston Flats in December 1923, having created a total of about 150 acres of land, and did no more filling during the 1920s despite the increasing importance of the airport—air mail service was inaugurated in 1926, the first passenger service in 1927, and regularly scheduled passenger service in 1929.66 In 1928 a commission appointed to consider the state’s aviation policy determined

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that the “development of aviation facilities is not a proper function of the Commonwealth,” a finding undoubtedly influenced by the state’s having spent a net total of $2.4 million on filling the East Boston Flats although the real beneficiary was the city of Boston.67 Not ready to concede that the made land might permanently become an airport instead of reverting someday to the still-projected port development, the commission recommended that the airport be leased to the city for twenty years.68 The lease from the state to the city was executed on August 10, 1928, and the city immediately embarked on a series of improvements: grading and surfacing the field, extending the runways, moving old hangers and building new ones, and erecting an administration building.69 In July 1930 the city leased an additional ninety-seven acres of flats east of the airport—most of the areas labeled “E” and “F” on a

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1927 plan (figure 13.15)—and began filling these flats as well as those still unfilled between the existing airport and the north bulkhead (“D” on the 1927 plan) with material dredged hydraulically from the harbor, creating about 140 acres of new land by 1932 (figures 13.15 and 13.16).70 By the late 1930s the growing importance of aviation made the state change its tune about operation of the airport. In 1938 another state commission on aviation policy recommended, in FIGURE 13.15 1927

PL AN OF THE AIRPORT

This plan shows the area already filled for the airport (“C” and surrounding the T-shaped runway) as well as the areas partly or not yet filled (“D, E, and F”). Note the two “ears” of fill extending toward Governors Island along the bulkheads—a distinguishing feature of the airport in the 1930s (see figure 13.16).

contrast to the one ten years earlier, that airports should be operated by the state and federal governments.71 But the 1928 lease to the city required that when this lease was terminated, the city must be reimbursed for the cost of its major improvements to the airport, and the state initially declined to pay. While the issue was pending, in 1939 the state did relinquish its right-of-way for railroad tracks along the airport’s southwest edge, thus finally abandoning the idea of a port development. The financial issue was not settled until 1941 when the city transferred the airport to the state and received about one million dollars in return. The transfer also included Governors Island, which the city had leased from the federal government in 1936 with permission to grade it down, Apple Island and its flats, and some of the flats near Wood Island Park (see figures 13.13 and 13.16).72 The state soon built a dike between Governors Island and the southeastern bulkhead of the airport and trucked dirt, obtained from cutting down the island, across the dike to fill remaining low places in the airport (see figure 13.16).73 Major expansion began in 1943 when the legislature, over the opposition of some who questioned whether the airport was too close to the city and too subject to fog, appropriated $4.75 million for airport improvements. The bill also changed the name of what had hitherto been called Commonwealth Airport to the General Edward Lawrence Logan Airport, soon known as Logan International Airport.74 Logan (1875–1939), a South Boston native, had served in the Spanish-American War, commanded the 101st Infantry Regiment in the Yankee Division during World War I, and been appointed a lieutenant general in the Massachusetts National Guard in 1928. He was a judge in the South Boston Municipal Court from 1914 until his death and had reportedly never even been in an airplane. His wife was interested in aviation, however, and suggested naming the airport for her husband as a memorial to him, which is why a major American airport is named for a virtual unknown with no ties to aviation.75 The expansion plans called for filling several thousand acres extending from the existing airport out over Governors and Apple Islands and across the flats between East Boston and Winthrop in

order to construct one five-thousand- and three seven-thousand-foot runways. The first contract for filling was signed in December 1943 and work on pumping fill hydraulically from the bottom of the harbor began in February 1944.76 Hydraulic filling continued until early 1946 and then the fill was covered with sand from Revere, the runways were paved, and the shoulders filled, the latter with dirt obtained by leveling Apple and Governors Islands, dramatically increasing the size of the airport (figures 13.17 and 13.16).77 Fill from Governors Island was also used to extend the runway that ran from that island toward Orient Heights (see figure 13.17) and to fill a hanger area. And granite blocks from Fort Winthrop, the fort formerly on the Governors Island, were used as riprap at the ends of the two runways that terminated nearby.78 There was initially concern about whether the hydraulic fill, most of which was chunks of Boston Blue Clay, would be stable enough to support the weight of planes, and by the time runway paving began in 1946 the fill had settled almost two feet, as predicted. Settling was expected to cease by the late 1940s, but the fill was actually still settling in the early 1960s, causing dips and cracks in the runways.79 In addition to the huge amount of land created on the East Boston Flats, the airport also acquired two other areas of flats in East Boston in the 1940s. In 1944 the state took by eminent domain land and flats in what had been known as the Basin (see above). Although not much filling had occurred in the Basin in the 1920s and early 1930s (see figures 13.9 and 11.27), it had been almost filled in by the time the airport acquired it (see figure 13.16) and by 1952 the airport’s entrance and exit roads had been laid out on the made land (figure 13.18). And in 1945 the state purchased about 360 acres of flats on the north side of Wood Island from the Boston Port Development Company, which had acquired them after the East Boston Company went out of existence in 1928.80 These flats were in the cove between Wood Island and the Harborview section across which ran the tracks of the Boston, Revere Beach, & Lynn Railroad. Called Quahog Pond by Harborview residents,81 this cove remained unfilled in the 1920s and 1930s (see figures 13.9, 13.12, and 13.16), although most of it had been filled by 1952 (see figure 13.18).82

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FIGURE 13.16

FIGURE 13.17

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1947

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE AIRPORT

This photogaph shows the extent of the airport filled by 1931. The L-shape was to accommodate the central anchorage basin of the proposed port development (see figure 13.14). The two “ears” extending toward Governors Island were actually bulkheads (see figure 13.15).

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A IRPORT

Taken ten years after the photograph in figure 13.16 from the same altitude and perpective, this photograph dramatically illustrates the vast amount of fill added to the airport in 1943–1946, covering both Govenors and Apple Islands and extending almost to Orient Heights and Winthrop.

FIGURE 13.18 1952

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

E AST B OSTON

This photograph shows more clearly than the 1947 photograph in figure 13.17 the huge amount of filling that had occurred at the airport in the 1940s. By 1952 the airport’s entrance and exit roads had been built over the former Basin. The photo also shows the newly created Constitution Beach between the former

Noddles and Breeds Islands. Note also that the western part of the Belle Isle Inlet had been filled in (cf. figure 13.11) and Suffolk Downs racetrack constructed on some of the made land. This photograph is a composite made up of many separate photographs all taken the same day, each with its own index number. E

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In 1948 management of the airport was taken over by the newly created State Airport Management Board and then in 1959 by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), the latter created in 1956 originally to investigate what additional facilities were needed to develop and improve commerce.83 The airport that Massport acquired had one ten-thousand- and three seven-thousand-foot runways and one terminal building serving all airlines. Massport soon began an expansion program, constructing new terminal buildings and a control tower and increasing the airport’s land area.84 In the mid-1960s, Massport made plans to create another ten-thousand-foot runway by filling the flats at the west end of the seven-thousand-foot runway that ran from the former Apple Island toward Wood Island Park and then extending the runway over the park, thus obliterating it (see figure 13.18). The demise of Wood Island Park, which had been renamed World War Memorial Park after World War I, had been foreseen for more than two decades. The military had used the park during World War II but returned it to the city in 1947.85 By then it was already clear, however, that the airport would soon swallow it up, for in 1945, when the airport was expanding so dramatically, a legislative act authorized the state and city to exchange any city-owned lands needed by the airport (meaning East Boston parks) for new city recreational areas that were to be acquired and constructed by the state.86 In 1946 the state planning board had recommended that the two parks earmarked for airport use—Amerena Playground on Porter Street, itself a replacement in 1925 for the Cottage Street Playground (see above), which had been given to the school department, and World War Memorial (Wood Island) Park—be replaced with a recreational area and stadium constructed between the airport’s entrance and exit roads and with a beach made by filling the shore between the Harborview and Bayswater sections of East Boston (see below).87 Construction of the replacement parks began in 1949, and in 1954 the exchange was finalized when the state transferred what are now the East Boston stadium and Constitution Beach to the city in return for Amerena and World War Memorial (Wood Island) parks. The latter park had actually been put in the custody of the MDC in 1953 until requested by

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the state “for airport purposes,” and this soon occurred, for in 1958 the State Airport Management Board took possession of World War Memorial (aka Wood Island) Park.88 Although seriously impacted by the airport, Wood Island Park had remained beloved by East Boston residents, and Massport’s plans in the 1960s to cover it over with a runway precipitated protests from the MDC and East Boston legislators. The legislature finally approved the runway extension in December 1966, however, and the project began the next year. The license for filling specified that a dike be built along the north side of the area to be filled before fill was dumped into the area it enclosed.89 A 1969 aerial photograph shows filling completed over the flats of the former park (figure 13.19), the same year that Massport, in order to extend the project into the Neptune Road area, provoked further outrage from East Boston residents when it bulldozed houses and trees on the road without warning one April morning.90 Meanwhile, Massport had begun to fill the Bird Island Flats adjacent to the airport’s southwest shore (see figures 13.13, 13.18, and 13.19). These flats were the only remaining area available for substantial airport expansion and Massport had received a license to fill them in 1963, intending to use the made land for fuel storage, hangers, and air cargo facilities. Massport had done only a little filling at that time, however, and did not begin full-scale filling until 1968.91 The license for the project specified the same procedure as earlier ones, that is, constructing a stone dike around the perimeter before filling the area enclosed. This time, however, the dike was to be composed of quarry stone and the fill to be “only earth and rock,” an obvious attempt to avoid the earlier problems with hydraulic fill.92 The project sparked a demonstration by East Boston residents in 1968 when, protesting the more than six hundred dump trucks that rumbled down Maverick Street each day hauling stones to the Bird Island Flats, a group of mothers staged a sit-in and the trucks were soon rerouted through airport property.93 Construction of the dike was completed in 1971 and filling of the enclosed flats in 1973 (figures 13.20 and 13.19). Although Massport had had many plans for expansion onto the flats, the new land lay almost vacant for a number of years—the two adjacent

FIGURE 13.19 1969

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE AIRPORT

This photograph shows, in comparison with one taken in 1952 (see figure 13.18), filling that had occurred in the interim—Wood Island Park had been incorporated into the airport and filling of the Bird Island Flats was just beginning. The photograph also provides a very clear view of the developments on the South Boston Flats across the harbor from East Boston. Moving from west (right)

to east (left), one can see Fan Pier, Pier 2, Pier 4, Commonwealth Pier (now the World Trade Center), Fish Pier, the dry dock built during World War II, the four one-thousand-foot piers, the quadrilateral quay, the huge dry dock built in 1915–1919, and the long building on the north side of the Reserved Channel built by the army in 1918 and now the Boston Design Center (see chapter 11).

runways were not immediately extended onto the made land and construction of the present office/air freight complex did not begin until 1981. The proposed new runway that in recent years has generated so much controversy would, however, run southeast-northwest along the outer edge of the land made by filling the Bird Island Flats (see figure 13.20).94 Filling the Bird Island Flats was the last large-scale landmaking at the airport. A 1995 aerial photograph (see figure 13.20) shows, especially in comparison with one taken in 1937 (see figure 13.16), the vast extent of the made land, which now covers 1,629.3 acres, 1,413.1 acres of it in East Boston—by far the largest landmaking project in Boston (see appendix 1).95 C ONSTITUTION (O RIENT H EIGHTS ) B EACH

One area of made land on the east shore of East Boston is not part of the airport although is a spin-off of it—the beach created by the state in the early 1950s as a replacement for Wood Island Park (see above). The site the state planning board chose for the beach in 1946 (see above) was on the waterfront between Wordsworth Street in the Harborview section and Thurston Street in the Bayswater section, and it thus incorporated the dike that had been built in the 1890s between Breed’s and Noddles Islands (see above and figure 13.13).96 The state placed a small amount of fill on the site of the proposed beach in 1947 but major work did not begin until after the legislature authorized the two new recreation areas in 1949 (see above).97 Between December 1949 and May 1951 the state filled 34.1 acres with hydraulically dredged material and gravel, creating what was soon named Orient Heights Beach (see figure 13.18). The made land was then covered with sand and the beach opened in 1952. In accordance with the original agreement, the state transferred the beach to the city in August 1954, but the very same day the city returned it to the state to become part of the MDC park system, where it is now known as Constitution Beach.98 Today, Constitution Beach is a long, wide, handsome expanse of sand, although the air is permeated with the smell of jet fuel from planes taking off directly across from it.

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H ARBORVIEW

Another area of made land on the east shore of East Boston that is not part of the airport is in the Harborview section—the neighborhood east of Bennington Street between Moore and Wordsworth Streets (see figures 13.13 and 13.12). For much of the twentieth century two industries were located on the Harborview shore—the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company, which manufactured ships’ masts, and Brooks Shipyard. In 1966 Pigeon Spar received a license to create new land on either side of a basin in front of its property with material dredged from the basin and by 1969 had filled almost as far as the present shoreline (see figures 13.19 and 13.20). The mast works burned down about 1970 and the filling was apparently completed later.99 Harborview remains a residential area with a good view of the water—and of the airport. In conclusion, landmaking in East Boston was similar to that elsewhere in the city—but with a twist. Begun in the 1830s, relatively late for Boston, filling in East Boston originally created land for residential use, commercial developments, and public parks—just as in other parts of the city. But then the filling in the early twentieth century for a port development on the East Boston Flats, which was reminiscent of the filling for a port development on the South Boston Flats, was co-opted for an airport, with unforeseen results. The airport became increasingly important, the port development was finally abandoned, and, with vast areas of tidal flats available, filling proceeded almost unchecked, with the result that East Boston now has far more made land than any other part of the city.

FIGURE 13.20 1995

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF

E AST B OSTON

This recent aerial photograph graphically illustrates the amount of made land in East Boston—the original Noddles and Breed’s Islands can be identified from their street grids and are in striking contrast to the vast expanse filled for the airport. Note, in comparison with figure 13.19, the present configuration of the Bird Island Flats. The lines that intersect on the east side of the airport indicate the separate photographs from which this aerial is composed.

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FIGURE 14.1 1630

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STREET MAP

As this map indicates, the 1630 shoreline of Charlestown ran from the Neck (now Sullivan Square) along what is now Medford Street, through the Navy Yard, along Water Street with an inlet just east of the end of present Warren Street, and then near Rutherford Avenue to Sullivan Square. The 1630 shoreline is an approximation based on the 1775 map of Charlestown in figure 14.2, the 1818 map in figure 14.3, and the 1823 map of the Navy Yard in figure 14.14.

14 Charlestown, the section of Boston that is surmounted by the Bunker Hill Monument and has “Old Ironsides” docked at its feet, was a separate town and then city until 1874. Charlestown is even older than Boston, for it was established a year earlier. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company settlement at Salem sent a group to bolster the company’s claim to the area around Boston Bay.1 This group established a settlement on a peninsula in what became Boston Harbor just north of the peninsula on which Boston would be founded a year later (see figure 1.1). The former peninsula was called Mishawum by the Native Americans living in a village in the area that today is the part of Bunker Hill Community College just north of the Prison Point (Gilmore) Bridge, but the English colonists named it Charles Towne after their king. Like other peninsulas in the harbor, Charlestown was composed of a series of hills, which were soon given English names. On the relatively low southwest side along the Charles River in the vicinity of present City Square was what came to be known as Town or Windmill Hill (figures 14.1 and 14.2). Near the settlement of Native Americans, who were decimated by a smallpox epidemic in the winter of 1633–1634, was a hill later known as School Hill. In the center of the peninsula was what was called

FIGURE 14.2 1775 MAP OF C HARLESTOWN BY L IEUTENANT P AGE AN D C APTAIN M ONTRESOR

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This map gives a good idea of the original topography of Charlestown—the hills and shoreline—as well as of the modifications made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the mill dam, wharfing out near Town Hill, and the enclosed Town Dock. The plan records troop emplacements at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, which was actually fought on Breed’s Hill. Note that the names of these hills have been reversed on this map, probably part of the same confusion that led to the erroneous name of the battle.

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Breed’s Hill, at the northeast tip at the confluence of the Charles and Mystic Rivers was Moulton’s Hill, and stretched along the Mystic River on the peninsula’s northeast side was Bunker’s Hill. The peninsula was joined to the mainland by a narrow neck in the vicinity of today’s Sullivan Square. A town was laid out in 1629 around Town Hill by an experienced engineer who had been sent with the colonists for that very purpose. The next year, when the main body of Massachusetts Bay Company colonists under John Winthrop arrived from England, they initially settled at Charlestown. But in that summer of 1630 disease broke out, many colonists died, and so small groups broke off to establish settlements elsewhere, including one led by Winthrop and the other company officers, who moved across the Charles River to the Shawmut Peninsula and founded a town they named Boston (see chapter 3). Charlestown was left with about thirty male inhabitants and their families and servants.2 As a seaport town, Charlestown’s development in the seventeenth century was somewhat similar to Boston’s. Shipping soon became important, wharves were extended out from the shore at the base of Town Hill, and by 1640 some townspeople were working in maritime occupations such as cooping, ropemaking, and anchor smithing.3 (Others made their livelihood by farming, for Charlestown’s original boundaries extended far inland beyond the neck, encompassing land that later became parts of many other towns including present-day Somerville, which did not separate from Charlestown until 1842. This chapter, however, will focus on the area “within the neck”—the peninsula that became modern-day Charlestown.) Archaeologists have recently found evidence of Charlestown’s early wharves. In 1982 and again in 1986 during the archaeological excavations that preceded the Central Artery project, archaeologists located wharf timbers about nine feet below ground immediately behind the former YMCA building on City Square—a wharf that must have been in the vicinity of Harris’s Wharf shown on an 1818 map of Charlestown (figure 14.3).4 Archaeologists also found evidence of early wharves on the southeastern waterfront, which will be discussed below.

Another early development in Charlestown that paralleled Boston’s was the building of a shoreline battery (see chapter 3). In 1634 the General Court (the Massachusetts legislature) ordered Charlestown to build such a battery, and one was duly constructed on the southeast shore near where Swett’s wharf was located in the nineteenth century (see figure 14.8). The battery fell into disrepair, however, and in 1690 the selectmen ordered it be restored. Although all the guns were reportedly not replaced until 1696, a 1693 map shows a “battery of 11 pieces of cannon” (figure 14.4).5 A third similar development in the two towns was that Charlestown also built a tide-powered grist mill. Charlestown’s mill, apparently erected in 1645,6 was located near the neck on the southwest shore of the peninsula (see figure 14.2), the mill pond formed by damming the head of the bay that lay between the Charlestown peninsula and what later became Somerville. The mill dam is also shown on a 1693 map of Boston and Charlestown (see figure 14.4), which indicates it powered two mills. This map, although cartographically inaccurate, is nonetheless a useful source of information about some features. One can see, for example, the Barricado with its documented gaps extending across the Town Cove in Boston (see chapter 3) as well as early developments in Charlestown. D RY D OCK

One early development that was unique to Charlestown was the construction in 1677–1678 of a dry dock—the first in North America. The Massachusetts legislature had long wanted such a facility because, as they said in 1667, “Through the want of a convenient dry docke for taking in of shipps & vessells for repayring vnder water, seuerall shipps & vessells haue miscarried, & more suffered great damage.” To encourage the construction of a dry dock large enough for ships of three hundred tons (about one hundred feet long), in 1667 the legislature offered a fifteen-year monopoly for building one in either Boston or Charlestown and in 1668 extended the promise of exclusive rights to twenty-one years.7 Finally, in 1677 a group from Charlestown formed to build

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MAP OF

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This map shows Charlestown as it was in the early nineteenth century: the wharves on the southwestern and southeastern waterfronts, the continuation of the Salem Turnpike (now Chelsea Street) from the bridge to Henley Street, the Town Dock with three arms at its head, City Square, the Navy Yard, the state

prison and made land at Prison Point, the Middlesex Canal off the mill pond, and the bridges that connected Charlestown and other parts of the Boston area—the Charles River Bridge to Boston, the Malden Bridge to Malden (now Everett), the Chelsea Bridge to Chelsea, and the Prison Point Bridge to East Cambridge and Boston. Note the almshouse north of Bunker Hill Street under the double “L” of “Hill.”

such a dry dock, bought a lot for it in a marshy inlet on the southeastern waterfront (see figure 14.1), and proceeded to construct the dock.8 Seventeenth-century British dry docks were excavated wood-lined troughs with dams and gates at the lower end to keep water out at high tide.9 It is not clear, however, whether the Charlestown dry dock was constructed in this manner. In 1986–1987 archaeologists found remains of the northeastern side of the dry dock, which was located in the center arm of what later became the Town Dock (see figure 14.2). This northeast side was constructed of timbers that ran along the length of the dock and were intersected by shorter timber cross ties, two of which extended far back into the surrounding land, perhaps to give better support to the dry dock wall.10 But no remains were found of the dock’s interior or harbor end, so it is not certain how the entire dry dock was built. It was apparently a substantial structure, however, for in 1679, to compensate for the “great charge” they had incurred in constructing the dry dock, the owners asked the legislature to extend their monopoly to thirty years.11 The dry dock is also shown on the 1693 map, where it appears as a diamond-shaped inlet and is described in the key as a “dry dock or dry haure for building vessels” (see figure 14.4).12 Although probably no land was made when the dry dock was constructed, the area excavated for it later had to be filled in, much as enclosed docks in Boston such as Scottow’s and Oliver’s were first excavated and then later filled (see chapter 3).

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Although quite inaccurate, this late-seventeenth-century map by King Louis XIV’s hydrographer still shows many important features. In Charlestown these include the mill dam and two mills (“a”), the diamond-shaped drydock (“e”), and a shoreline battery (“f ”).

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TOWN D OCK

The part of the inlet southeast of the dry dock became known as Wapping Dock, presumably after the well-known dock in London,13 and later as the Town Dock—a town-owned public dock. In contrast to the Town Dock in Boston, which was a natural cove that was later enclosed (see chapter 3), the Town Dock in Charlestown was a creek-fed marsh that had to be excavated in order for vessels to use it—more similar to Oliver’s Dock in Boston (see chapter 3). It is not clear, however, just when this excavation in Charlestown took place. In 1673 the town voted to build a bridge “over the creek called Wapping Dock,”14 implying that the dock existed by that date. This bridge was constructed on what became Water Street across the mouth of the dock and was, like the bridge at the Town Dock in Boston, a swing bridge that pivoted to open. In the eighteenth century, Charlestown continued to be an important port and, like Boston, became a major entrepôt for imported goods. The importance of shipping was reflected in the enlargement and regularization of the Town Dock and the addition, on either side of the slip that had been the dry dock, of two more slips extending inland from the end of the main dock (see figure 14.2). (The wharves between these slips were privately owned and the town landing place was on the southeast side of the dock.15) Eighteenth-century prosperity in Charlestown came to an abrupt end on June 17, 1775, when, during the Battle of Bunker Hill (actually fought on Breed’s Hill), British guns firing across the river from Boston set Charlestown on fire and completely destroyed it—over five hundred buildings burned and two thousand people were displaced.16 (The area burned is shown with gray stippling on the map in figure 14.2.) Recovery was gradual and the town was rebuilt on somewhat the same plan that had existed before the fire, as can be seen in a comparison of 1818 and 1775 maps of Charlestown (see figures 14.3 and 14.2). Some new streets were added, however, particularly ones leading to the bridges that were soon built across the rivers that separated Charlestown from other parts of the Boston

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area. The very first bridge connecting Boston with the mainland was built in 1785–1786 across the Charles River to Charlestown. Called the Charles River Bridge, it was on the site of the present Charlestown Bridge and replaced the ferry that had operated at that location since 1631 (see figure 14.3). In 1787 a bridge to Malden (now Everett) on the line of the present Alford Street Bridge replaced the “Penny Ferry,” which had crossed the Mystic from Charlestown Neck since 1640 (see figure 14.3). And in 1803 a bridge on the site of today’s Tobin Bridge was built across the Mystic to Chelsea to carry the Salem Turnpike (now Broadway in Chelsea and Revere) north from Charlestown. In Charlestown, the turnpike (later Chelsea Street) was then laid out from the bridge to Henley Street (see figure 14.3) and, sometime between 1818 and 1822, was extended to what is now City Square (figure 14.5). This extension of Chelsea Street went directly across the left, or southwestern, arm of the Town Dock (see figure 14.3) and, as a result, this arm of the dock was filled in by 1822.17 This filling of part of the Town Dock might indicate that the dock was not used much in the early nineteenth century. But archaeologists have unearthed evidence to the contrary. An archaeological investigation in 1981–1982 found that in the early nineteenth century a granite seawall was built just northwest of Water Street along the southwest side of the mouth of the Town Dock and a wood wharf rebuilt opposite it on the northeast side of the dock entrance (see figure 14.3).18 A more FIGURE 14.5 1848

MAP OF

C HARLESTOWN

Surveyed by order of the new Charlestown City Council, this map shows the changes in Charlestown since 1818 (see figure 14.3): the extension of Chelsea Street to City Square, Gray Street on the site of the former Town Dock, Canal Street on made land next to the mill pond, the Warren Bridge, the tracks of the Fitchburg Railroad and newly made land on the southwestern waterfront, and the quay walls and made land at the Navy Yard. The map also shows the navigable channel that separated the sperm whale–shaped area of flats in the Mystic River from the Charlestown peninsula. Note the section of Charlestown on the north side of the Mystic. The old almshouse was north of Bunker Hill Street between Elm and Pearl Streets—approximately where the “W” appears on the map.

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extensive archaeological excavation in 1986–1987 found that the northeast side of the wharf between the two remaining arms of the dock (see figure 14.3) and a wharf northwest of what became Chelsea Street were also rebuilt in the early nineteenth century. Interestingly, these wharves were constructed not in the old manner with timbers stacked log-cabin style but instead with solid timber faces supported by posts—similar to the bulkheads of that period found in the Mill Pond (see chapter 4) and built at the foot of Beacon Hill (see chapter 6). The wharves in the Town Dock were probably rebuilt to serve a large rum distillery located on the northeast side of the dock in the early nineteenth century.19 In any event, the early-nineteenth-century improvements at the mouth of the dock and to the wharves within it indicate that the Town Dock was still in active use at the time. By the early 1830s, however, the Town Dock had reportedly become “obstructed” and a “nuisance.”20 In 1832 the town meeting directed the selectmen either to repair the swing bridge or fill in the dock and in May 1835 voted that the dock should definitely be filled in.21 A committee appointed to carry out the project was delayed by a disastrous fire on August 28, 1835, which destroyed the entire area between Charlestown (now City) Square and the Town Dock (see figure 14.3). As part of the recovery, the town decided to widen old streets and lay out new ones in the burned area, and on September 16, 1835, it voted to fill the whole Town Dock northwest of Water Street, giving the made land to the abutters provided they opened a new street between Water and Chelsea Streets.22 The Town Dock was apparently filled in by the fall of 1836 when lots on the made land were auctioned,23 and Gray Street was then laid out over the site of the former dock (see figure 14.5). E ARLY-N INETEENTH -C ENTURY D EVELOPMENTS

ON THE

S OUTHWESTERN WATERFRONT

At the time the Town Dock was filled in, Charlestown was still an important port and remained so throughout the nineteenth century. But development of the waterfront and hence the landmak-

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ing on it was not always done by interests directly associated with Charlestown, and nowhere was this more apparent than on the southwestern side of the peninsula. Development of the southwestern waterfront by non-Charlestown interests began in 1800 when the state of Massachusetts decided to locate the new state prison in Charlestown24 and purchased about five acres of land and flats on the point where the Native American village had once been located. The state then evidently squared off and filled in the southwestern part of what soon became known as Prison Point (see figures 14.2 and 14.3) and in 1804–1805 constructed a prison building designed by architect Charles Bulfinch.25 The granite for the building was brought from Chelmsford, Massachusetts, on the recently completed Middlesex Canal,26 which terminated in Charlestown. This canal, constructed between 1794 and 1803 and one of the earliest in the country, was intended to provide a shipping route between the Boston area and the Merrimack River. (It was later extended to Boston Harbor by means of a cable on which boats could be pulled across the Charles River from Charlestown to the Almshouse Wharf in the West End.27 From there boats could travel down the section of the canal built across Boston’s Mill Pond [see chapter 4] and through the old Mill Creek to the harbor.) In Charlestown the southern terminus of the canal was at the mill dam. In 1803 the Middlesex Canal Corporation bought the entire Charlestown mill property and constructed a floating tow path along the northeastern side of the mill pond from the dam to the beginning of the canal proper near the neck (see figure 14.3). Then in 1826 the company filled in the northeastern side of the pond so that the tow path could be on solid land and Canal Street (now the section of Rutherford Avenue between Sullivan Square and Middlesex Street) was laid out on the made land (see figures 14.5 and 14.1).28 Other changes on the southwestern waterfront that eventually resulted in landmaking included the construction, in the early nineteenth century, of two more bridges to Charlestown. The first of these was the Prison Point Bridge, which was actually an arm off of Craigie’s, or the Canal, Bridge (see figure 14.3), which had been built in 1808–1809 to connect the new community at Lechmere Point

(East Cambridge) with the West End of Boston (see chapter 5). (This rather odd arrangement of a bridge off another bridge is preserved in the present right-angle intersection, near the Museum of Science, of the Gilmore Bridge, which is on the site of the former Prison Point Bridge, and the Msgr. O’Brien Highway, which is on the route once covered by the Canal Bridge). Given all the fanfare with which most of the early Boston bridges opened, even the most basic facts about the Prison Point Bridge—who built it, when, and why—have remained surprisingly obscure.29 The project apparently originated in 1806 when a group of Charlestown residents was incorporated to build a dam between Lechmere Point and Charlestown in order to power some tide mills.30 The group had originally proposed that the Charlestown end of the dam be located near Harris’s Wharf (near the Charles River Bridge, see figure 14.3), but after many Charlestown shoreline owners protested that such a dam would cut off their wharves and flats, the group relocated the Charlestown end of the proposed dam at Prison Point and was consequently incorporated as the Prison Point Dam Corporation.31 The dam was not built immediately, however, and the corporation evidently had financial difficulties, for in January 1810 it petitioned the legislature for permission to sell the shares of those proprietors who had not paid their assessments.32 These shares were apparently acquired by proprietors of the Lechmere Point Corporation, which had been formed in 1808 to develop what is now East Cambridge, because in 1811 the Lechmere corporation began to discuss building a dam from Lechmere Point to Prison Point. And in 1812, when the Prison Point Dam Corporation petitioned for an amendment of its charter, the petition was submitted by shareholder William Payne, who was also the treasurer of the Lechmere Point Corporation.33 The legislature passed the amendment in 1814 and, among other provisions, gave the Prison Point Dam Corporation three hundred feet of flats between Lechmere and Prison Points and the right to build a road from the dam to Main Street in Charlestown.34 In 1814 the Lechmere Point Corporation began to make plans for building the dam between Lechmere and Prison Points.35 That summer it assumed all the shares of the Prison Point Dam

Corporation and arranged that the proprietors of the Canal Bridge Corporation (one-third of whose shares it held, by law) could cross to Charlestown on the dam for free provided that the proprietors of the Lechmere Point and Prison Point Dam Corporations could use the section of the bridge between Lechmere Point and the dam without charge.36 Although this arrangement suggests that a dam was still contemplated, it also indicates that the Cambridge end of the dam was to be at the Canal Bridge, where the Prison Point Bridge was finally built, rather than at Lechmere Point, as originally authorized (see figure 14.3). It is not clear why the Lechmere Point and Prison Point Dam Corporations decided to build a bridge instead of a dam. Perhaps it was because the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal, some of whom were also proprietors of the Lechmere Point Corporation and had originally supported the dam because they were going to benefit from its mills, had come to oppose it because they had decided that new mills would not compensate for the expenses they had incurred.37 In any event, it is clear that the bridge was under construction in June 1815 when the directors of the state prison at Prison Point complained that the bridge might interfere with state property and the “safe keeping of convicts.”38 A legislative committee found, however, that the same acts that had authorized a dam with a road on it also permitted a bridge, so the bridge, which in June 1815 was already constructed “nearly across the water,” was probably soon completed. It certainly was finished by May 1816 when the inveterate Salem diarist Reverend William Bentley recorded that he saw the “new Bridge from the Penitentiary in Charlestown to the Craigge [sic] Bridge.”39 The Prison Point Bridge thus began as a dam proposed by Charlestown interests but was completed as a bridge by East Cambridge interests in order to connect Cambridge and Charlestown. More controversial was the Warren Bridge, which was built in 1828 across the Charles River very close to the Charles River Bridge (see figure 14.5). (The Warren Bridge project was similar to the Free Bridge to South Boston, which opened the same year [see chapter 11], in that both provided alternatives to existing toll bridges, but the Free Bridge was on a more direct route to South

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Boston while the Warren Bridge almost duplicated the route of the existing bridge.) In 1823 a group from Charlestown had proposed building a free bridge between their town and Boston so that pedestrians could avoid the toll charged on the Charles River Bridge.40 The proprietors of the latter bridge had already objected to the two other bridges built across the Charles from Boston since theirs in 1786—the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge (1793) and the Canal (Craigie’s) Bridge (1809; now the first Charles River Dam). But those bridges went to Cambridge whereas the proposed bridge would be on essentially the same route and serve the same traffic as did theirs (see figure 14.5).41 Despite the impassioned opposition of the proprietors of the Charles River Bridge, however, the legislature finally approved the Warren Bridge in early 1828 and the bridge was built that same year.42 The controversy did not end there; the proprietors of the Charles River Bridge then sued those of the Warren Bridge but, in a famous case, lost in both 1828 and 1829 in the state Supreme Judicial Court and, after appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, lost again in 1837.43 C HARLESTOWN W HARF C OMPANY /C HARLESTOWN B RANCH R AILROAD /F ITCHBURG R AILROAD

The major landmaking on Charlestown’s southwestern waterfront in the first half of the nineteenth century, however, was not done to make land for prisons, canal tow paths, or bridges but rather to make land for railroads. The accident of Charlestown’s location, placing it just across the Charles River northwest of Boston, meant that many of the railroads entering the city from the north built their tracks across Charlestown and filled in its waterfront to make land either for railroad facilities or, later, for shipping terminals. This use of the waterfront began in 1836 when the Charlestown Wharf Company was incorporated to develop the part of the Charlestown waterfront that lay between the Prison Point Bridge and the Navy Yard. The plan was tied to a new railroad, the Charlestown Branch Railroad, which the company soon incorporated to provide a connection between the recently completed Boston & Lowell Railroad and the deepwater wharves on the

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Charlestown waterfront northeast of the Charles River Bridge (see figure 14.5). The railroad built a spur from the Boston & Lowell line in what is now Somerville and a bridge across the bay to Prison Point. The wharf company then created new land for the tracks along the Charlestown waterfront by constructing a seawall between the Prison Point and Warren Bridges and filling the flats behind it, burying most of the old wharves in that area. The tracks and Front Street were then laid out on this new land (see figures 14.3 and 14.5).44 In 1843 the new land that the Charlestown Wharf Company had made as well as the tracks of the Charlestown Branch Railroad were acquired by another new railroad, the Fitchburg, which had been chartered in 1842 and was one of the many railroads that entered Boston from the north. The Fitchburg then proceeded to add to the made land between the Prison Point and Warren Bridges, creating about fifteen additional acres through a combination of filling and of building several acres of pile wharves covered with mud and gravel, further burying the old wharves in that area (see figure 14.5).45 This filling was completed in 1848, the same year the Fitchburg received permission to move its passenger depot to Boston. The railroad then built a complex of freight depots, an engine house, and other service structures on its made land in Charlestown (figures 14.6 and 14.7).46 P RISON P OINT B AY

The Fitchburg was not the only railroad with tracks across Charlestown. In 1845, the same year that the Fitchburg was completed, the Boston & Maine entered Boston on a route that also crossed Prison Point. The railroad then soon filled in an island just south of the point for an engine house and other structures (see figures 14.5, 14.6, and 14.7). And in 1854 the Eastern Railroad, after moving its passenger route from East Boston so that it would no longer have to ferry its passengers across the harbor (see chapter 13), opened a route that entered the city from the north on tracks built across the tip of Prison Point, parallel to those of the Boston & Maine (figure 14.8).

FIGURE 14.6 D ETAIL

F ROM

1848

PANORAMIC VIEW BY

R. P. M ALLORY

This bird’s-eye view shows many of the developments on Charlestown’s southwestern waterfront. Moving from right (west) to left (east), one can see the Boston & Maine and Fitchburg Railroad bridges crossing Prison Point Bay to Prison Point, the state prison, the Prison Point Bridge, the island filled for the Boston & Maine engine house and other facilities, the Fitchburg Railroad engine house on the shore, and finally the Warren and Charles River Bridges (cf. figures 14.5 and 14.7).

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MI DD L

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FIGURE 14.7 C HARLESTOWN

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MAP OF

B OSTON

Like the bird’s-eye view in figure 14.6, this map shows the Boston & Maine and Fitchburg Railroad facilities on made land on Charlestown’s southwest waterfront.

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All these railroads crossed Prison Point Bay, the tidal inlet between Charlestown and Somerville north of the Fitchburg tracks, and were probably the reason proposals began to be made in the late 1860s to fill the bay—the railroad bridges evidently obstructed the tidal flow and were turning the bay into a nuisance (see figure 14.8). And with the Middlesex Canal no longer in operation, there was no reason to keep the bay open. Like most other canals of its era, the Middlesex had succumbed to competition from railroads, in this case from the Boston & Lowell, which had opened in 1835 on almost exactly the same route as the canal. An attempt in 1844 to sell water from the canal to Boston for its water supply had failed, and in 1850 the proprietors voted to liquidate their assets. By 1852 the corporation had sold most of the canal’s property and in 1860 it was finally dissolved.47 The section of the canal in Charlestown, which was near the neck (see figures 14.5 and 14.7), was apparently filled in during the 1850s, for it no longer appears on maps after that decade. The actual filling of Prison Point Bay began after 1868 when the state legislature authorized Charlestown, which had adopted a city form of government in 1847, to fill in all of the bay north of the Boston & Maine tracks (see figure 14.8).48 Charlestown considered filling both these flats and the old mill pond with dirt from Bunker Hill, which they were proposing to cut down at that time much as Fort Hill in Boston was then being leveled (see chapter 3). The city did not undertake this massive project, however, and by the early 1870s it had filled only an extension of Canal Street (renamed Rutherford Avenue) from the mill dam to the shore behind Prison Point, leaving the flats on the shoreward side open. But since the new street cut off shoreline properties from access to deep water and prevented the enclosed flats from being flushed out by the tide, the owners of those flats then proceeded to fill them in (figures 14.8 and 14.9).49 Then, in 1874 the Eastern Railroad constructed a new freight bridge across Prison Point Bay north of the Boston & Maine tracks (see figures 14.8 and 14.9) and began illegally filling the flats between the bridge and Rutherford Avenue. Although the railroad received a permit to continue this filling, it apparently did

not do so, for an 1881 act authorized the Boston Board of Health—which was responsible for Charlestown after Boston annexed it in 1874—to have the Prison Point Bay flats filled either by their various owners or by the city “for the preservation of the public health.” The act required the filling to be completed in two years, that is, by May 1883, but although it had clearly not been done by November 1882, the filling was apparently completed soon afterward, since the area is shown filled on an 1886 map (figure 14.10).50 The newly made land in Prison Point Bay soon became a vast freight yard for the Boston & Maine (see figure 14.11), which acquired the Eastern Railroad in 1884. In the second half of the twentieth century the use of this made land changed, however. The state prison buildings were demolished in 1957,51 and in 1971 that site and the southern part of the freight yards were developed as the campus of Bunker Hill Community College. The northern part of the former rail yards, near the H. P. Hood plant, is now occupied by a recycling center and other light industries. (The area south of I-93 now occupied by Boston Sand and Gravel, which appears to be in Charlestown, is actually in Cambridge [see figure 14.1] and was also filled in the late nineteenth century.) M YSTIC W HARF

While land was being made on Charlestown’s southwestern waterfront, a major landmaking project was underway on the Mystic River on the north side of the peninsula. Some land had already been created along the Mystic by 1848, most of it by wharfing out near Moulton’s Point (see figure 14.5). But the existence near the shore of a navigable channel (see figure 14.5), which, by law, could not be filled, blocked more landmaking in this area. To overcome this obstacle the shore owners took a novel approach. About 1850 they petitioned the state legislature along with the city of Charlestown and the shoreline owners west of Elm Street, whose flats were not blocked by a channel, for permission to fill about one hundred acres of flats in the river (see figure 14.5). Their plan was to create an access to the flats near Elm Street and

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SW

ETT

’S W

F.

PRISON POINT BAY

.

R RG R HBU

FIT

FITC

CHB

URG

BOS TO

N&

MAIN

RR.

EAST

E RR .

ERN

RR.

FIGURE 14.8 1868 D IRECTORY

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MAP OF

C HARLESTOWN

This map shows developments in Charlestown since 1852 (see figure 14.7), which included the Eastern Railroad tracks built parallel to those of the Boston & Maine across Prison Point Bay and Prison Point.

RU

THE

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AVE .(

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TER

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FIGURE 14.9 1879

MAP OF

C HARLESTOWN

This map shows, in comparison with an 1868 map (see figure 14.8), the amount of filling in Prison Point Bay during that interval: former Canal Street (renamed Rutherford Avenue) had been extended from the Mill Dam to Prison Point and the flats between the street and the shore filled. Some of the flats

between Rutherford Avenue and the new Eastern Railroad freight bridge had also been filled. The map also shows the narrow strip of the Mystic Wharf that had been completed and the wharves between the Charles River Bridge and the Navy Yard just before they were developed by the Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company. The inset map in the upper lefthand corner shows the almshouse property on the north side of the Mystic.

N

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. ST ER AT KS W C O CD

A

OS

HO

FIGURE 14.10 1886

MAP OF

C HARLESTOWN

By 1886 all of Prison Point Bay had been filled (cf. figures 14.8 and 14.9). Part of the Mystic Wharf had been completed, its configuration somewhat reminiscent of a predatory sea monster, and the Hoosac Docks and wharves had been rebuilt. The shaded area shows the boundaries of Charlestown. 400

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then fill the flats north and east of that point for the benefit of all the shore owners on the Mystic.52 The petition was submitted at a time when the legislature was making other large grants of flats, such as that to the Boston Wharf Company in South Boston, but also at a time when many people were concerned that filling was harmful to Boston Harbor (see chapter 11). Despite strong opposition from the latter side, however, in 1852 the state legislature finally granted permission to fill the flats in Charlestown and the owners were incorporated as the Mystic River Corporation to develop them.53 The act of incorporation authorized the Mystic River Corporation to build a seawall around and to fill the flats bounded by the line of Elm Street, the north channel of the river, a curved line on the east side of the Chelsea Bridge down to the south channel along the Charlestown shore—now called the Little Mystic Channel—and then back along the north side of this channel to Elm Street (see figure 14.5).54 The corporation was supposed to fill the flats to eight feet above mean low water with mud excavated from both channels of the river, thus improving navigation in return for the grant of the flats.55 Work on the project apparently did not begin until 1859, however, when the corporation started constructing a twenty-foot-high seawall along the north side of the Little Mystic Channel, beginning at the end outside the bridge, and filled several acres of flats behind it.56 In that same year, the state also authorized the corporation to build a dock in the curved part of the seawall east of the Chelsea Bridge57 and it evidently did so. The Mystic River Corporation then seems to have done very little work on the project for several decades. In the early 1870s the Boston & Lowell Railroad built a track from Somerville across Charlestown Neck and along the Mystic waterfront to the existing strip of made land in order to serve the prospective wharf. But by the early 1880s the only areas that had been filled were this strip, the area on the east side of the Chelsea Bridge—the part most accessible to ships—and a small section on the west side of the bridge (see figure 14.9). The Mystic River Corporation wanted to develop their flats as a shipping terminal

and even formed a new corporation, the Ocean Terminal Railroad Dock and Elevator Company, to do so. This company was not successful, however, and progress on filling the flats only began when the Mystic River Corporation leased a large part of its territory to the Boston & Lowell in 1883. In the next few years the railroad completed the seawall along the north side of the Little Mystic Channel and began to fill the flats behind it with dredged material to 14.5 feet above mean low water instead of to 8 feet as had been specified in the original grant (see figure 14.10).58 Then, in 1886 the Boston & Lowell purchased all the Mystic River Corporation’s property but the next year was taken over by the Boston & Maine Railroad,59 so the latter railroad carried on the subsequent development of what came to be known as the Mystic Wharf. The Boston & Maine pursued the project vigorously. In 1888 it completed the seawall on the north side of the property along the main channel of the Mystic and around a new dock created in this wall west of the Chelsea Bridge. The railroad also began to fill the enclosed area to 14.5 feet above mean low water with material dredged from the river and, in the area between the Chelsea Bridge and the new dock, with ashes and trash. The following year the Boston & Maine completed a timber bulkhead on the line of Elm Street to enclose the west side of the property, leaving open a gap for scows bringing dredged fill. By 1891 the railroad had filled 85.5 of what was ultimately an 86.43-acre area and by the following year had virtually completed the project, creating a new piece of made land whose configuration was reminiscent of the lobster claw–shaped section first filled on the South Boston Flats (figures 14.11 and 11.20).60 The Boston & Maine built timber platforms around the seawalls of the Mystic Wharf to enable ships to dock, laid a network of tracks on the made land, and built a large grain elevator, freight warehouses, and coal elevators, creating one of the major shipping terminals in the harbor. Today, only the section east of what is now the Tobin Bridge is still called Mystic Wharf. The remainder is known as the Moran terminal and, after Subaru Pier in South Boston was taken by the “Big Dig” (see chapter 11), is now the Boston terminal for imported cars.

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FIGURE 14.11 C HARLESTOWN OF

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CHART

This chart shows the Boston & Maine Railroad yards on made land in the former Prison Point Bay, the recently completed Mystic Wharf, the new configuration of the Hoosac Docks, and the filling taking place at the former mill pond at Charlestown (now Ryan) Playground. Note the almshouse on the north side of the Mystic.

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While railroad companies were filling in Prison Point Bay and creating the Mystic Wharf in the late nineteenth century, some land was also being made for a railroad and shipping terminal on Charlestown’s southeastern waterfront. This development was precipitated by the long-delayed opening, in 1875, of the Hoosac Tunnel under Hoosac Mountain in the Berkshires, providing a direct rail route between Boston and the West. To handle the increased shipments of grain and other western products that came through the tunnel, the Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company was incorporated in 1879 to develop a shipping terminal on the Charlestown wharves that lay between the Charles River Bridge and the Navy Yard (see figure 14.9). The act of incorporation authorized the company to extend the wharves beyond the existing harbor line, a power that, the harbor commissioners noted, was only justified by the “extraordinary commercial need,” since these wharves were at the narrowest point of the entrance to the Charles River.61 The commissioners did change the harbor line, however, and in 1881–1882 the Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company rebuilt and extended the wharves and erected a huge brick grain elevator on Water Street (see figure 14.10).62 The real beneficiary of the Hoosac Tunnel and the related development on the Charlestown waterfront was the Fitchburg Railroad, which controlled the tracks between the tunnel and Boston and, as a result of the increased traffic, was transformed in the years between 1880 and 1900 from a regional railroad to a major long distance freight carrier. The Fitchburg acquired a large interest in the Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company in the early 1880s and in 1887 purchased it outright.63 The railroad then proceeded to widen two of the wharves by filling in the docks between them (see figures 14.10 and 14.11). Although most of the wharf area was on piles, some of it was filled solid, creating new land.64 The final development occurred in 1899 when the Fitchburg created a huge new slip 160 feet wide and 570 feet long at the northern end of its property next to the Navy

Yard (figure 14.12). The slip actually encroached on Navy Yard territory and objections were raised about private use of federal property, but the project benefited both parties. The navy had wanted a new coaling station and had planned to construct one right next to the Fitchburg and the railroad had wanted to expand onto navy property, so Congress had finally permitted the expansion provided the Fitchburg build the required seawalls and dredge and maintain the slip and the navy be entitled to use it.65 The Fitchburg Slip soon became the dock for the Constitution (“Old Ironsides”), as it is today. P UBLIC PARKS —C HARLESTOWN (RYAN ) P LAYGROUND

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C HARLESTOWN H EIGHTS (D OHERTY P LAYGROUND )

Some waterfront areas filled in Charlestown at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth created land for public parks, just as in Boston Proper and in South Boston, East Boston, and Dorchester (see chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13). When the Boston park commissioners had first proposed a system of public parks in 1876, they had not included a park in Charlestown, which had been annexed to the city just two years earlier, because, as they explained, Charlestown had “no unoccupied land of sufficient area and appropriate character.”66 But during the 1880s when parks were being constructed in other parts of the city, Charlestown residents repeatedly petitioned for their own recreational areas and in 1889 the park commissioners finally agreed to establish at least one.67 After considering a number of sites, in 1891 the commissioners purchased two—the first, named Charlestown (now Ryan) Playground, was a tannery near the neck (today’s Sullivan Square) that, when combined with the adjacent Tuft’s mill pond, amounted to about fourteen acres. The other, called Charlestown Heights (now Doherty Playground), was a four-acre estate on the side of Bunker Hill (see figure 14.11), a parcel that may still have been available because it is very precipitous.68 Charlestown Heights originally required only grading and landscaping, but it was years before Charlestown Playground was

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FIGURE 14.12 C HARLESTOWN OF

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This chart shows the large Fitchburg Slip between the railroad’s property and the Navy Yard, the newly filled Charlestown (now Ryan) Playground, Dewey Beach, and the almshouse property on the north side of the Mystic. The shading indicates land owned or leased by the Boston & Maine Railroad.

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ready for use. Soon after the acquisition of the latter, most of the tannery buildings were taken down and the tanning vats filled in, but the major work involved filling in the mill pond that covered most of the park area. This filling began in 1891 with fill that the park department obtained free of charge—rubbish and coal ashes collected by the city, dirt dumped by private individuals, and, in 1892, dirt from grading Charlestown Heights—and by 1896 the northwest side of the mill pond had been filled in (see figure 14.11). It was undoubtedly the department’s decision to use free fill that explained why the filling of Charlestown Playground dragged on for so many years—not until 1900 was the made land ready for a layer of loam and planting of trees and even then filling was still continuing along the park’s outer edges. Filling of Charlestown Playground was evidently finally completed in 1905 (see figure 14.12) and by that time trees had been planted and fences erected along Alford and Main Streets, an outdoor gymnasium was being constructed at the Main Street end, and the park had become a very popular place for ball games in the summer and skating in the winter.69 The park continued to be known as Charlestown Playground until 1942 when it was renamed the John J. Ryan, Jr., Playground for a Charlestown navy seaman killed when his destroyer, the Reuben James, was torpedoed in October 1941.70 Today the park consists of a rather remote set of baseball diamonds on the river behind the Schrafft’s Building. Some landmaking also occurred at Charlestown Heights. Originally the plan was to have swimming facilities at Charlestown Playground and, once that park was finished, to fill in the flats north of Charlestown Heights to create a beach at that park, too. But in 1895 a company dredging the Mystic and Malden Rivers asked permission to dump the dredged material on the flats in front of Charlestown Heights. The park commissioners agreed and obtained a permit from the harbor commissioners; by 1898 the flats had been filled and covered with sand, creating a triangular beach that eventually came to be called Dewey Beach (see figure 14.12).71 Charlestown Heights was also renamed in 1942, in this case the Ensign John J. Doherty, Jr., Playground for a Charlestown navy pilot killed during a World War II bombing raid in the

Pacific.72 In the 1950s the park department decided that Dewey Beach was “no longer needed,” presumably because the Mystic had become too polluted for swimming, so the beach was sold in 1957 to the American Sugar Refinery Company, which proceeded to fill in the remainder of the flats and erect a new plant on the made land.73 Today, Doherty Playground remains much as it was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted with a shady park at the top on Bunker Hill Street; a middle section with basketball courts, a swimming pool, and a tot lot instead of the original lawn; and a steep lower section with a boulder-lined path and stone steps going down to Medford Street. N ORTH S IDE

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One part of present Charlestown is not contiguous with the original peninsula. This is a small slice of land on the north side of the Mystic River along Alford Street (see figure 14.1). The north side of the Mystic was originally part of Charlestown, but in 1649 the farmers on the “Mistick side” requested to be set off as a separate town, probably because, as in other early divisions of Massachusetts towns, the residents did not want to have to travel so far to church every Sunday. The separation was effected and what was named Malden became an independent town in 1649. (The part across from Charlestown, now Everett, separated from Malden in 1870, but the bridge between Everett and Charlestown continued to be called the Malden Bridge.) When Malden was set off from Charlestown in the seventeenth century, Charlestown retained two farms on the north side of the Mystic.75 Soon after Charlestown adopted a city form of government in the spring of 1847, it decided to purchase a forty-five acre farm on the north side of the Mystic as the location for a new almshouse—a town-run institution to house the poor—and to sell the existing almshouse property on Bunker Hill, Elm, and Medford Streets (see figures 14.3 and 14.5).76 The reasons for this decision are not clear, although presumably Charlestown wanted a place that the poor could farm to help defray the cost of their upkeep and there was not sufficient land on the Charlestown

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peninsula. Part of the farm purchased was actually in Malden and the state legislature had to grant permission for it to be incorporated into Charlestown.77 In early 1849 the city contracted to build the new almshouse, and the building, designed by J. D. Towle, opened later that year.78 The Charlestown almshouse closed in 1911 because the city had sold the land on which it stood (see figure 14.12) to the Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy).79 The railway, which opened its line from Sullivan Square in Charlestown to Everett in 1919, had planned to erect a structure for the elevated tracks on the former almshouse property but actually used the land as a place to scrap old streetcars. It built a track called the Scrap Rail from its Everett repair shops, just north of the Charlestown parcel, down to the river on Charlestown land. Old streetcars would be run down the track, doused with gasoline, and set on fire to destroy the burnable parts; the metal would be salvaged, and then whatever remained was presumably dumped into the river, eventually making new land. Between 1924 and 1944 BERy received a series of permits for this filling, and the plans accompanying these permits as well as a plan of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA—the successor of BERy and predecessor of the MBTA) enable one to trace the successive lines of fill. (The permits, incidentally, only specify the type of fill-retaining dikes that were to be built and say nothing about the fill itself.) The shoreline had reached its present extent by 1951 (see figure 14.1), probably because the MTA discontinued burning old street cars in the late 1950s and was thus no longer filling this area.80 N AVY Y ARD

One area of made land in Charlestown was not filled to create land for railroads, shipping terminals, public parks, or scrap yards. Instead, this area on Charlestown’s southeast waterfront was filled as part of a naval shipyard—a place where U.S. Navy ships were repaired or constructed. The Navy Yard in Charlestown dates back almost as far as the U.S. Navy itself, which was founded in 1794 when Congress authorized six frigates built to protect American

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shipping. One of these frigates, the Constitution (later known as “Old Ironsides”), was built in Boston at a private shipyard in the North End and launched in 1797. Then, in 1798 when the United States became involved in an undeclared naval war with France, Congress created a Navy Department and in 1799 appropriated funds for building more ships, two dry docks, and purchasing timber. The new secretary of the navy thought that this time the ships should be built in navy rather than in private shipyards. After the navy had considered a number of sites for a navy yard in New England, President Adams decided in May 1800 that it should be located at Moulton’s Point in Charlestown, establishing what for many years was, and now is again, called the Charlestown Navy Yard.81 By early 1801 the navy had purchased approximately 351/2 acres of pasture and marsh on Charlestown’s southeastern shore in a swath extending from near the Town Dock to Moulton’s Point (see figures 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3).82 The navy added land to this small site for a variety of reasons. One was the construction of timber docks—enclosures on the waterfront where shipbuilding timber could be stored in seawater—because in the early nineteenth century it was thought that salt water hardened wood and destroyed harmful acids in it. Although the original construction of timber docks did not create new land, their eventual filling did, much as land was made in Charlestown and Boston when enclosed docks were excavated in the seventeenth century and then later filled (see above and chapter 3). The navy created the first timber dock at the Navy Yard in 1801–1802 to hold the timber that had been acquired for building one of the new ships authorized in 1799 and was being moved from the private shipyard in Boston where it had been stored to Charlestown. The dock was a cobb wharf one thousand feet long, twenty feet wide, and eleven feet high enclosing a creek and marsh on the yard’s southeast waterfront and forming a basin (figures 14.13, 14.2, and 14.3).83 Since this wharf had to be relatively water-tight to keep water in at low tide, it is curious that it was of cobb construction—built of timbers stacked log-cabin style and the interior filled with stones84—rather than one of the more impervious wharf types like the stone seawalls or wood bulkheads

FIGURE 14.13 R ECONSTRUCTED IN

“MUSOLE RIDGE, DRY AT LOW WATER”

CREEK

TIMBER DOCK H I G H T I DE

COBB

WHAR

MARK

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This reconstructed plan, and the others that follow, were probably prepared by the National Park Service after it acquired the Charlestown Navy Yard in 1976. This plan shows the timber dock built in 1801–1802 on the site of a marsh (see figure 14.2).

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being built in Boston during that period (see chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 11). Not surprisingly, the cobb wharf evidently began to leak almost as soon as it was finished.85 The navy made other land at the Navy Yard for wharves and shiphouses—the latter the huge wooden structures, erected to shelter workmen during inclement weather, in which ships were built.86 During the War of 1812 the navy built both a pile wharf with a stone facing and a slip in which to construct ships in 1813 at the south end of the yard, filled in the area surrounding them, and built the first shiphouse over this slip (figures 14.14, 14.13, and 14.3).87 (Note that in this discussion of the Navy Yard the cardinal points are the same as those used for the rest of Charlestown—the end of the Navy Yard on the Mystic is considered north, the end on the Fitchburg Slip south, the side facing the harbor east, and the side on Chelsea Street west. Since the Navy Yard is actually oriented northeast/southwest, however, the navy defines the cardinal points ninety degrees differently—Chelsea

Street is north, the Mystic east, the harbor south, and the Fitchburg Slip west.) The navy made more land for construction slips and shiphouses in the 1820s, reflecting the fact that Congress, impressed with the success of the navy in the War of 1812, had decided to finance its “gradual increase” in peacetime.88 The sites chosen for the new building slips and shiphouses were at the north end of the yard, and by 1826 the navy had constructed two shiphouses there (figures 14.15 and 14.14).89 In the 1820s the navy also built new timber docks to store the timber it was acquiring for the ships to be constructed in the new shiphouses. Two were at the south end of the yard and one was at the north end. 90 And in 1828 it filled in the easternmost tip of the flats to make land for a battery from which ceremonial salutes were fired (see figure 14.15).91 In addition, land was made at the Navy Yard in the 1820s for one of the dry docks Congress had authorized in 1799 (see above). The dry dock project was promoted by Loammi Baldwin II

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CREE K

MUSOL E

CREEK

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TRENCH CUT TO FILL NEW RD.

SHOP

PILE WHARF

K DOC PINE BER TIM YELLOW FOR

BLACKSMITH’S

RF

WHA

SHIPHOUSE NO. 1

FIGURE 14.14 1823

PL AN OF THE

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From a history of the Boston Navy Yard written in 1874 by Commodore George H. Preble, this map shows the filling done by 1823 for shiphouses at the south and north ends of the yard as well as new timber docks constructed at both ends of the yard (cf. figure 14.13).

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NEW

E SHIPHOUS NO. 2

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AT L OW WATER

FIGURE 14.15 R ECONSTRUCTED IN

E

TIMBER DOCK CAUSEWAY

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TIMBER DOCK QU AY

OLD ARMY WHARF

US SHIPHO

BLACKSMITH SHOP

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Y) ALL DAR Y W OUN QUA UTH B (SO

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MAST TIMBER DOCK ALL Y W L QUA AL W Y QUA

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The shading on this reconstructed map shows the land made between 1823 and 1834 (cf. figure 14.14) for a second shiphouse at the north end of the yard, the dry dock at the south end, a timber shed at the north end, and a saluting battery behind the quay wall built along the outer line of tidal flats (see figure 14.13).

SHIPHOUSE W AL L

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(1780–1838), a Massachusetts civil engineer who had advocated dry docks as early as 1804, studied such docks in Europe in 1823, and, on his return, begun submitting reports and plans for dry docks to the secretary of the navy.92 In 1827 Congress appropriated funds for two navy dry docks, one south and one north of the Potomac River.93 The navy decided that the northern dock would be at Charlestown, the southern one at Norfolk, and in March 1827 appointed Baldwin the engineer for both.94 The site chosen for the Charlestown dry dock was at the south end of the yard just north of the 1813 wharf in the area occupied by the new timber dock, a site that obviously had to be filled in (see figures 14.14 and 14.15). Work began on July 10, 1827, and after the required cofferdam was sufficiently completed in the spring of 1828, excavation began for the dock’s foundation, which was formed by driving 4,037 piles approximately 3 feet apart into an area on the flats that was 341 feet long and 100 feet wide (the dock itself was to be 305 feet long). When this foundation was

completed in 1829, a timber floor was laid on it and then the granite walls of the dock were built up in steps from this floor.95 The granite came from Quincy and was transported on the Granite Railway, a horse-drawn railroad built in 1826 to carry granite for the Bunker Hill Monument, then under construction. The railway ran from the Quincy quarry to a tributary of the Neponset River, and from there the granite was shipped by barge to Charlestown.96 Two of Baldwin’s innovations at the dry dock were the use of steam-powered pumps to remove water from the dock and a caisson to seal its entrance. The caisson, a hollow, vessel-shaped gate, fitted into grooves in the sides and bottom of the entrance and was installed by filling it with water and sinking it in place and removed by pumping the water out and floating it away.97 The dry dock opened on June 24, 1833, when the Constitution, whose longplanned overhaul had been delayed so that she could inaugurate the dock, entered amidst much ceremony.98 It may have been for this inauguration that the dates of the dock’s commencement and

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completion were chiseled into the granite at the head of the dock, where they remain visible today.99 This first granite dry dock, built 170 years ago, has been enlarged several times and is today the only dry dock at the Navy Yard still in use. More landmaking at the Navy Yard was the result of a longrange plan for each navy yard mandated by Congress in 1827 and issued for Charlestown on August 11, 1828.100 One of the improvements specified on the Charlestown plan was a stone seawall, or quay as it was called, to be built along the outer edge of the flats surrounding the yard, the area enclosed to be either filled or used for timber docks. The quay walls were built in various sections. At the north end of the yard they enclosed a dock for mast timber, an area filled to make land for a timber shed, and the flats surrounding the “musole ridge, dry at low water” that had once projected from the tip of Moulton’s Point (see figure 14.14), creating the configuration specified on the master plan and shown on an 1848 map of Charlestown (see figure 14.5).101 An 1832 drawing for the wall around the eastern tip of the flats shows that it was built on a foundation of timber piles driven into the river bottom, the exposed tops of the piles surrounded by small stones (figure 14.16).102 These quay walls built in the 1830s marked the extent of made land in the Navy Yard for many years and still mark it between present Piers 5, 6, and 7, and also between Piers 8 and 10 (Pier 9 was recently removed; see figure 14.23). Although the original walls have been replaced in the former location, they still exist between Piers 8 and 10. By the late 1840s landmaking had altered the appearance of the Navy Yard from that of twenty-five years earlier (see figures 14.5 and 14.14). The stone quay wall extended around much of the waterfront, enclosing large timber docks at the north end and in the center of the yard. The cobb wharf built in 1802 to form the first timber dock (see above) had been removed in 1824 and some of its timbers and ballast stones used in building the quay wall between the two northernmost shiphouses, the last built in 1841–1842. A causeway built in 1826 across the flats south of the blacksmith ship had become a pile footbridge across the timber dock between the blacksmith shop and the dry dock. The dry dock

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and its related buildings were on made land as were the three huge shiphouses on the north side of the yard.103 New wharves had also been extended in front of the shiphouses. And worthy of note although not a landmaking project, the yard’s famous quartermile-long ropewalk had been built in 1835–1837 along the western boundary wall and for many years its steam-powered machines produced all the navy’s cordage.104 (The ropewalk, vacant since it was closed in 1971, was damaged by fire in May 2002.) In the 1850s the navy made land for a large steam engineering complex, part of the Pierce administration’s modernization of the Charlestown Navy Yard so that it could service the new large steam-powered ships that the navy was finally building.105 (The steam engineering building is now the large residential complex next to Shipyard Park and Flagship Wharf; see figure 14.23.) The steam engineering building was built in 1856–1859 on the waterfront near the center of the yard, a site that necessitated filling in the northern part of the timber dock (figures 14.5 and 14.18).106 Once the steam engineering building was under construction, more filling took place in 1856–1857 when a stone wall was built between the shop complex and the remaining part of the timber dock.107 Meanwhile, stone walls had also been built on the west and south sides of the timber dock and an area behind the latter wall filled in.108 The steam engineering building appears in the center of a panoramic photograph of the Navy Yard waterfront taken in the 1870s (figure 14.17). Other landmaking and changes also occurred on the waterfront during these years.109 One of the projects was lengthening the dry dock from 305 to 370 feet in 1858–1860, reportedly by moving the head of the dock 65 feet inland,110 although a comparison of reconstructed and actual plans shows the length that was added at the seaward end (figures 14.18 and 14.19). Because hard clay underlay the extension, no foundation piles were driven this time and instead the stones were laid directly on the clay.111 Another structure enlarged was the southernmost shiphouse on the north side of the yard, which was extended in 1854 to accommodate a large steam-powered, screw-driven frigate that was to be built at Charlestown. This ship, named the Merrimack, was launched with great celebration on June 14, 1855.112

FIGURE 14.16 1832

PL AN AND ELEVATION FOR QUAY WALL

This plan for the quay wall around the eastern tip of the flats at the Navy Yard (see figure 14.15) shows how not only this wall but many other nineteenth-century stone seawalls in Boston were built. The section at the upper left indicates that the foundation was wood pilings driven into the underlying clay, the tops cut off at the low water line, and then surrounded with small stones. The wall itself was set on stringers attached across the tops of the piles. Most seawalls were battered, that is, wider at the base than at the top. This wall has one battered and one stepped face. The elevation at the top shows that the wall was to be ten courses high including the coping. The plan view at the bottom indicates the placement of stones in each course.

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FIGURE 14.17

DRY DOCK

STONE WALL

1874

1875

PHOTOGRAPH OF

B OSTON N AVY Y ARD

Taken as two separate photos, this panorama shows, from left (south) to right (north), Building 24 (the granite building now on the water side of the Constitution Museum; see figure 14.23); the dry dock pump house (now the Constitution Museum) and its chimney; the Bunker Hill Monument; Building 36 (the granite building now on 1st Avenue just north of Dry Dock 2); the large steam engineering building with its distinctive arched windows (the chimney has since been taken down); and the three huge shiphouses at the north end of the yard (demolished about 1900).

MACHINE SHOP TIMBER DOCK

FIGURE 14.18

TIMBER DOCK

STONE WALL

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STONE WALL

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1860

The shading on this plan is supposed to show land made between 1850 and 1860. It includes the part of the central timber dock filled in to create land for the steam engineering building, the large U-shaped building (cf. figure 14.15), and the whaft built in 1849 between the dry dock and the timber dock. It does not, however, show other landmaking in this period: the enlargement of the dry dock in 1858–1860 (see figure 14.19), the filling in the late 1850s around the new south and west walls of the timber dock, or the partial filling of the mast dock that had been done by 1860.

BUILDING 5

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ORI

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FORMER TIMBER DOCK MACHINE SHOP

SALUTING BATTERY

FIGURE 14.19 1898

PL AN OF THE

B OSTON N AVY Y ARD

This plan is a good example of the beautifully drafted plans of the Navy Yard issued annually in the late nineteenth century. In comparison with the 1860 plan (see figure 14.18), it shows the lengthened dry dock, the new southern boundary of the yard, and filling of part of the central timber dock and of the mast dock at the north end of the yard.

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During the Civil War the Charlestown Navy Yard constructed, outfitted, and repaired more ships than it had at any earlier period in its history or would again until World War I. This increased activity revealed that the yard needed more dock and wharfage space, but the only addition was the purchase in 1862 of the wharf just south of the yard, acquired mainly because it was so close to the yard’s boundary.113 Acquisition of the wharf moved the boundary of the Navy Yard further south (see figure 14.19; the original boundary is marked by the angled wall of Building 5, which abutted the first property line.) Some land was also made during this period when the navy began to fill in the timber docks, because certain types of timber were no longer stored wet. The mast dock at the north end of the yard was completely filled during the war, and in 1866 filling began of the large timber dock south of the machine shop. A line of fill was extended from the west side of the dock to the quay wall, dividing the dock in two, filling was begun on either side of this embankment on the line of the bridge across the dock, and some filling was done on the west side of the dock, resulting in the configuration shown on the 1898 plan in figure 14.19.114 By 1869 all the landmaking at the Charlestown Navy Yard over the years had reportedly increased it to 83.5 acres, more than double its original size of 351/2 acres and virtually the same size of the yard at the end of its existence in 1974.115 Some subsequent landmaking did take place, however, at what became called the Boston Navy Yard after Charlestown was annexed to Boston in 1874.116 The Navy Yard was almost closed in the 1880s but, in addition to being the navy’s sole producer of anchors and chain117 as well as of rope, began to repair ships again in the 1890s and was an active repair facility during the SpanishAmerican War, undoubtedly one of the reasons the navy chose it as the site for one of the four new navy dry docks Congress authorized in 1898.118 Designated as Dry Dock 2, this second dry dock in Charlestown was constructed in 1899–1906 in the south side of the central timber dock, a project that necessitated filling in that part of the timber dock and some of the river flats (figures 14.20 and 14.19).119 Seven hundred fifty feet long and intended to be

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large enough to service battleships built in the 1890s, Dry Dock 2 became an outmoded facility in 1906, the very year it opened, when the British launched the HMS Dreadnought, ushering in a new, much larger class of battleship.120 And in 1899 the wharf purchased in 1862 was torn down to make room for what came to be known as the Fitchburg Slip—the huge new slip constructed by the Fitchburg Railroad to be used jointly by the railroad and the navy (see above) where the Constitution is now docked.121 During World War I the Navy Yard was busier than ever before and some new land was created. Filling the old timber dock on the north side of the yard, which had begun in the first decade of the century, was completed by 1918 and an oil tank erected on the made land (figures 14.20 and 14.21).122 The Navy Yard also acquired facilities elsewhere in the Boston area during and just after the war, the most important being the huge 1,170-foot-long dry dock in South Boston built by the state of Massachusetts in 1917–1919 (see chapter 11), which the navy purchased in 1920, establishing the yard’s South Boston Annex.123 World War II was the high point of the yard’s career, for during the war the yard built over three hundred ships—primarily landing craft, destroyer escorts, and destroyers—and employed over fifty thousand people. Some new land was made when a third dry dock, 518 feet long and designated Dry Dock 5, was constructed in 1942 at the north end of the yard (figure 14.22).124 While the new dry dock was being built, sheet piling was driven at the north end of the yard along the harbor line. The enclosed flats were then filled—the last major landmaking at the Navy Yard—changing the shoreline of this area from its former trapezoidal configuration to the present triangular one (see figures 14.22 and 14.21).125 After World War II the Boston Naval Shipyard, as it was then called as the result of a 1945 naval reorganization, remained active during the 1950s and 1960s, but, in comparison with other navy yards, such as Norfolk, Virginia, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Boston’s site was small and congested, its buildings old, and its dry docks too small for many newer ships. Furthermore, after the Eisenhower administration had begun the policy of having more

FIGURE 14.20 R ECONSTRUCTED TIMBER DOCK

PL AN OF THE

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DRY DOCK 2

LIP

RG S

HBU FITC

The shading on this plan shows the land made for Dry Dock 2 by filling most of the central timber dock and some flats in the river (though not as much of the latter as the plan indicates [see figure 14.21]). It also shows the newly created Fitchburg Slip (cf. figure 14.19).

N

FIGURE 14.21 R ECONSTRUCTED 1919

PL AN OF THE

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FIGURE 14.22 R ECONSTRUCTED IN

PL AN OF THE

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1950

The shading on this plan shows the filling done between 1940 and 1950 for Dry Dock 5, at the north end of the yard, and elsewhere on the waterfront, creating the present shoreline (see figure 14.23). DRY DOCK 5

PIER 10

PIER 9

PIER 8

PIER 7

PIER 3

PIER 2

PIER 1

PIER 6

PIER 5

PIER 4

naval work done by the private sector, even its ropewalk and anchor chain forge were no longer so important.126 A few improvements were made in the 1950s including rebuilding Pier 7 (figures 14.22 and 14.23),127 and the yard was spared in a 1964 closing of navy yards. But when the cost of the Vietnam War necessitated more base closings and reduction of the fleet, Boston’s ropewalk and anchor forge were shut down in 1971 and, in 1973, the entire yard ordered closed.128 The Boston Naval Shipyard was formally disestablished on July 1, 1974. In the early 1970s, when the closing of the Navy Yard was imminent, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) began developing plans for the site, which had been declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The National Park Service acquired the southern part of the yard—the section with the oldest buildings and the slip where the Constitution is docked—by 1976 in time for the nation’s bicentennial. The remainder of the yard was divided into three additional sections for conveyance to the BRA,

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which was completed in 1978—the Historic Monument Area, which was intended for office use; the Public Park parcel; and the New Development Area, which was slated for residential development (see figure 14.23). The Navy Yard has since developed much as planned—in the Historic Monument Area buildings were rehabilitated under guidelines that preserved their exterior appearance and then leased as offices and research space; in the Public Park parcel the World War II buildings built on the former baseball diamonds were demolished and the site developed as Shipyard Park (see figures 14.21, 14.22, and 14.23); and in the New Development Area old buildings were converted and new ones erected to create many handsome waterfront residences. Today the Navy Yard bustles with a mix of tourists, office workers, and residents, and the waterfront is punctuated by the arrivals and departures of the water shuttle to downtown and by the occasional docking of a navy ship—a vivid reminder of the area’s maritime past.

FIGURE 14.23 2001

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This recent plan shows the boundaries of the areas into which the Navy Yard is now divided— National Park Service, Historic Monument, Public Park, and New Development—as well as some of the important features at the yard.

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N EW C HARLES R IVER D AM

The most recent landmaking project in Charlestown began just as the Navy Yard was being closed. This project was the construction in 1974–1978 of the new Charles River Dam to replace the first dam, built in 1905–1908 on the site of the Canal Bridge, creating the Charles River Basin (see chapter 5). The new dam was occasioned by a hurricane in August 1955 that caused severe flooding. The first Charles River Dam had not been designed for flood control and when the torrential rains of the 1955 hurricane filled the basin four and a half feet above normal, the water could not flow out through the dam fast enough and at high tide could not flow at all. As a result, surrounding areas flooded, particularly some low-lying parts of Cambridge, causing millions of dollars in damage. The proposed solution was to install pumps at the dam to speed the flow of water, but, since there was not room for a pumping station on the old dam, a search was made for a site for a new dam. The site eventually selected was that of the old Warren Bridge between Charlestown and the main part of the city, which was no longer in use, having been replaced by the new Central Artery bridge across the Charles in 1954 and then burned in 1962.129 Removal of the bridge began in 1972 and construction of the dam in 1974, the latter completed just in time to handle the record high tide that accompanied the blizzard of February 1978.130 The new Charles River Dam actually did not result in much new land—only a small area between the Charlestown and former Warren Bridges was filled, creating what is now called Paul Revere Park (see figure 14.1)—but the dam did move the foot of the Charles River Basin down river about half a mile. The small amount of land made in connection with the new Charles River Dam was the most recent land added to Charlestown. Landmaking in Charlestown had been undertaken in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for many of the same reasons as on the Shawmut Peninsula—wharfing out, a shoreline battery, to power tide mills, and to excavate an enclosed dock that was later filled. In the nineteenth century, however, the reasons for

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making land in the two places diverged. Charlestown’s location immediately north of Boston and on a deepwater part of the harbor meant that most of the filling there created land for railroads entering Boston from the north or for large wharves served by railroads, although some land was also made for public parks, as in Boston. One reason for landmaking in Charlestown was unique to that section, however—the development of a U.S. naval shipyard.

AFTERWORD At the end of the twentieth century Boston’s landmass bore no resemblance to the small peninsula and islands on which the town had been founded almost four hundred years earlier (see figure 1.1)—a transformation that had been wrought by filling thousands of acres of tidal flats that once surrounded Boston, much of this filling done by the many landmaking projects discussed in the preceding chapters. The vast amount of land made by all this filling raises some questions, however. What, for example, are the implications for the city that so much of it is built on fill? And why does Boston have so much made land in comparison with other waterfront cities? Not surprisingly, the fill has created some problems for the present city. Several of these problems have already been discussed in the chapters about those sections of the city where they have occurred. Falling groundwater levels and rotting foundation piles—the problem so graphically illustrated by the story in chapter 1 of the sinking house on Otis Place—has affected buildings on the Beacon Hill Flat, in Back Bay and the South End, in the Fenway area, and in South Cove. And because observation wells installed to monitor groundwater levels show low groundwater in these areas, the problem is likely to continue. A second problem—

flooding of areas not originally filled above the high tide—has been a serious concern in the South End. Although recent measures have almost ended flooding in the South End, at least for the time being, this flooding is a good example of how filling done in the nineteenth century still affects the present city. A third problem, which could affect any part of the city built on fill, is the possibility of increased damage in the event of an earthquake. This would seem to be an unlikely problem for Boston. After all, earthquakes are typically associated with the West Coast. But Boston is actually in a region of moderate earthquake hazard, one that has as many geological faults as California.1 Boston was damaged by earthquakes in 1638, 1663, 1727, and 1755. The last, which caused the most damage—chimneys and gables fell, walls cracked, and wells went dry—was centered near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, as was the 1727 quake, and that area has been identified as the one where the most damaging quakes to Boston would occur.2 The hazard posed to Boston by earthquakes is magnified because much of the city is constructed on fill, which, since it is unconsolidated and hence not very stable, increases the intensity of an earthquake. The greatest damage in Boston from the 1755

earthquake, for example, occurred in filled areas along the shore of the harbor. Today an earthquake of similar magnitude would cause slight to moderate damage to well-built structures on original land but considerable damage and partial collapse of comparable structures on fill. Maps showing the stability of the ground in Boston indicate, not surprisingly, that the most unstable areas are those that have been filled—Back Bay, the former Mill Pond, the former Town Cove, South Cove, South Bay, the South Boston Waterfront, and the Basin in East Boston.3 The existing earthquake hazard of fill is further increased by the possibility that the fill might liquefy in a quake. Liquefaction, as it is termed, can occur in soil where the groundwater level is near the surface or where the soil is otherwise saturated—conditions that obtain in the filled areas of Boston—for an earthquake can cause soil particles to become suspended in the water and behave as if they were liquid. Liquefaction occurred in Scituate and Pembroke during the 1727 earthquake—water and sand were thrown out of openings in the earth—and is also a possibility in filled areas of Boston during a strong quake.4 The large areas of fill in Boston also raise questions about why the city has so much made land and how the amount of man-made land in Boston compares with that in other cities. Boston’s huge quantity of fill was explained in chapter 1 as the result of the city’s original location on a small peninsula surrounded by shallow tidal flats, which were easy to fill, and on which the town had become so entrenched by the time it needed more land that making land seemed a more logical solution than expanding to the mainland. But do these explanations—presence of shallow waters and/or location on a constricted landform—also apply to other cities? The answer is not clear because, although landmaking is a very common phenomenon—virtually every major city on an ocean coast, sizeable lake, or large river has some made land along its waterfront—there are very few scholarly studies of landmaking itself.5 The evidence that does exist is conflicting. There are certainly cities that have or once had extensive areas of shallow water and now have a great deal of made land—San Francisco6 and

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Hong Kong are two good examples. (It is not clear from a recent dramatic National Geographic color map showing periods of fill in Tokyo Bay from the sixteenth through the twentieth century whether the bay had extensive shallow tidal flats, although that is implied in the accompanying article.7) And, conversely, there are cities without surrounding areas of shallow water that have relatively little fill. Seattle, for example, has only a thin strip of made land along the shore of Elliott Bay, which is quite deep, except at the southern end where the Duwamish River meandered into a delta of shallow tidal flats that were later filled to create an island for shipping facilities.8 On the other hand, there are cities without surrounding shallow waters yet with a great deal of fill. Manhattan, for example, has several thousand acres of fill9 despite the fact that it is encircled by fast-flowing rivers rather than by shallow tidal flats. Similarly, Toronto, located on one of the Great Lakes and therefore subject to substantial wave action, has about three thousand acres of made land along its lakefront,10 although some of this fill is in a bay protected by a peninsula and an island. And Chicago, on another Great Lake, has more than three thousand acres of made land along a lakefront that also has large waves and no natural barriers. In fact, the filling in Chicago was accomplished only by constructing massive stepped stone and timber “cribs” to retain the fill.11 Conflicting evidence also exists for the second hypothesis— that cities originally located on constricted landforms have large amounts of made land. Charleston, South Carolina, for example, was established on a small peninsula surrounded by tidal flats and has a great deal of fill. But Vancouver, British Columbia, which was likewise founded on a small peninsula, does not, perhaps because most of the peninsula is surrounded by deep water. What does seem clear is that in order to answer questions about comparative amounts of fill in various cities as well as about other issues related to making land, more studies are needed of the phenomenon of landmaking. The reasons for the current paucity of such studies are not entirely evident—historical geographers, urban historians, and others who study cities with made land have

generally been more interested in how this land has been used than in how and why it was created in the first place. Yet, as this study has shown, understanding Boston’s landmaking is useful to many, among them engineers erecting structures on fill, developers concerned about toxic wastes or groundwater levels, archaeologists conducting excavations in the city, real estate lawyers handling Chapter 91 cases, historians and others studying the evolution of Boston, residents interested in their own neighborhoods, and tourists curious about the Boston’s vaunted filling projects. There are, however, a number of issues that still need to be addressed, such as the politics underlying many of the projects, differences between publicly and privately financed landmaking, and the environmental implications of filling. It is hoped, therefore, that this book will serve as a useful resource for future studies.

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APPENDIX 1 TABLE

OF

M ADE L AND

IN

B OSTON ( IN

ACRES ) 1

O RIGINAL 2

A REA

M ADE

O RIGINAL B OSTON 3

Shawmut Peninsula Neck Lands Smelt Brook7 Total area of original Boston

487.0 4 230.56

*499.95 *9.0

717.58

B ACK B AY

Entire bay9 Receiving basin (east Back Bay)10 Receiving basin filled by 185511 Commonwealth’s part of Back Bay project12 Boston Water Power Company’s part of Back Bay project13 Total Back Bay project14 Full basin (west Back Bay)15 Esplanade from Concert Lagoon to Charlesgate West Esplanade from Charlesgate West to B.U. Bridge

*737.5 568.2 171.1 97.0 300.1 397.1 169.3 *57.8 *53.7

S OUTH B AY

Original16 Enlargement in 1830s17

*291.0 *61.6

S OUTH B OSTON

Dorchester Neck18 South Boston Flats project north of Reserved Channel19 Subaru Pier 20 South Boston Flats project south of Reserved Channel21 Other made land on north side of South Boston22 South side of South Boston23 Total made land in South Boston24

579.3 *544.9 33.1 *104.7 *200.0 *163.1 1012.7

D ORCHESTER

Shoreline 25

*342.1

E AST B OSTON

Noddles Island Breed’s Island Governors Island Apple Island Bird Island Total original land in East Boston Airport made land in East Boston26 Airport made land in Winthrop27 Total made land at airport Other made land in East Boston Total made land in East Boston

666.2 527.2 73.6 10.0 3.4 1280.4 *1413.1 216.2 1629.3 *354.2 1767.3

C HARLESTOWN

Original28 Made land29 TOTAL

MADE LAND IN

TOTAL

AREA OF

454.4 B OSTON 30

B OSTON 31

*413.0 5245.6 30,080.0

APPENDIX 2: NOTE

ON

SOURCES

To make such a comprehensive study of made land in Boston has required the use of a number of different sources, many of them never before applied to the subject of landmaking. The following discussion comments on some that were particularly useful, most of them primary sources—public records, corporate records, personal papers, contemporary accounts, and newspapers. The discussion also addresses some of the relevant secondary sources, including archaeological reports, as well as the maps used to illustrate this study. P UBLIC R ECORDS

Among the most important sources for this study of Boston landmaking were public records, such as the annual reports of commissions that conducted various landmaking projects, Boston town and city records, and state legislative records. Commission Reports Of the commission reports, one of the most useful were the published annual reports of the state commission that, beginning in 1866, issued the licenses for filling and was also responsible for filling the South Boston (Commonwealth) and East Boston Flats: the Annual Reports of the Board of Harbor Commissioners (1866–1878) and its successors—the Annual Reports of the Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners (1879–1911), Reports of the Directors of the Port of Boston (1912–1915), and the Annual Reports of the Commission on Waterways and Public Lands (1916–1919). (Useful background about the establishment of the harbor commission and the origin of the South Boston Flats project can be found in the ten Reports of the U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor [1860–1866], which are published in the City Documents series.)

The annual reports of the harbor commissions were first published in the House Documents series and then, beginning in 1877, in the Public Documents series and also as separate volumes. Written in an era when annual reports were mandated—and produced— these reports often read like a serial, since the same topics are frequently addressed from year to year. The reports were often accompanied by maps, many of which are now in various Boston archives. After 1919, when the function of the harbor commissioners was taken over by the waterways division of the state Department of Public Works, and particularly after 1922, when the long narratives were abandoned in favor of a more perfunctory annual report, these reports become less useful. After 1939 the Annual Reports of the Department of Public Works were no longer even published and are only available as bound typescripts at the State Library. The Annual Reports of the Port of Boston Authority— the agency that issued the licenses for filling between 1945 and 1954—are also perfunctory and do not contain much information about landmaking projects. The result of having long informative reports written in the nineteenth century but brief or no reports after about 1920 is that, as is the case with many Boston landmaking projects, it is often easier to find out why and how land was made in the nineteenth century than in the twentieth. Other commissions that conducted landmaking projects include the Boston park commissioners and park department (1876–present), the Commissioners on Back Bay (1852–1861 and continued as Commissioners on Public Lands), the Charles River Basin Commission (1903–1910), and the Metropolitan District Commission (1919–present). The Annual Reports of the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Parks, published both separately and in the City Documents series, are not as detailed as those of the harbor commissioners but still contain enough information,

particularly in the city engineer’s reports in the appendices, to trace the landmaking done in various parks. The manuscript minutes of the park commissioners’ meetings, however, which are incomplete and kept in the office of the executive secretary of the Boston Parks Commission at Parks and Recreation Department headquarters, have relatively little information about landmaking, and the same is true of the property files at the same location. The Annual Reports of the Commissioners on the Back Bay and Annual Reports of the Commissioners on Public Lands, published first in the Senate Documents and then in the Public Documents series, were helpful in tracing progress on the state’s part of the project. The manuscript minutes of their meetings, kept at the State Archives, were less so because they usually record only the names of the persons with whom the commissioners met or the topics discussed but not the content of the discussion. The Annual Reports of the Charles River Basin Commission, published in the Public Documents series and as separate volumes, contain a detailed account of the first Charles River Dam project. These were supplemented by manuscript records of the commission, kept at the State Archives, particularly the construction contracts and the construction photographs. Useful background about the project can be found in the reports, most published as separate volumes, of the various commissions that studied the proposed dam in the 1890s and early 1900s: First Report of the Charles River Improvement Commission, House No. 197 (1892); Report of the Joint Board . . . upon the Improvement of Charles River . . ., House No. 775 (1894); Charles River Dam: Evidence and Arguments . . . (Boston: State Printers, 1894); Report of the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903); and Evidence and Arguments before the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903). The Annual Reports of the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), published in the Public Documents series, are marginally useful, since they date from the era of perfunctory reports and were discontinued after 1947. The MDC Archivist, however, located a great deal of helpful information in the offices of the commission

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secretary, general counsel, and engineering division as well as many useful photographs. (The material on Old Colony [Morrissey] Boulevard and the related dredging of Savin Hill Bay has since been transferred to the State Archives.) Most of the information about the construction of Storrow Drive is based on construction photographs in the MDC collection at the State Archives, for only one construction contract has thus far been located and it does not contain specifications of methods and fill as do the contracts for the first Charles River Dam. Boston Records Public records of Boston are divided between those from 1630 to 1822, when Boston had a town meeting government, and those after 1822, when Boston changed to a city form of government. Many of the Boston town records were conveniently published as Reports of the Record Commissioners or, later by the Registry Department, as Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, a series of thirty-nine volumes issued between 1876 and 1909. (The original manuscripts are in the Rare Books Department of the Boston Public Library.) These volumes are indexed and available both in the City Documents series and as separate volumes. The most useful for this study were volumes 2, 8, 11–18, 26, 31, 33, 35, and 37–39, which contain minutes of the town meetings from 1630 to 1822 and of the Board of Selectmen from 1701 to 1822. Also useful were volume 5, a collection of articles on the history of various properties published in 1855 in the Boston Daily Transcript under the name “Gleaner,” a pseudonym of Nathaniel I. Bowditch, and volume 10, a collection of miscellaneous papers. (Other volumes contain Boston tax, property, and vital records and records of Charlestown, Dorchester, and Roxbury.) Other useful town records include the published reports of committees on issues such as the Mill Pond and Mill Dam. Of the city records, the records of the City Council, composed of a Board of Aldermen and a Common Council, were the key to understanding many of the landmaking projects conducted by the city in the nineteenth century. The minutes of City Council meetings between 1822 and 1868 are available only in manuscript

volumes, now at the City Archives. There are two sets of both these manuscript Aldermen and Common Council minutes—smaller books in which the minutes were evidently originally recorded and large, indexed, leather-bound volumes into which the minutes were apparently copied in the 1880s. In 1868 the city contracted with the Boston Evening Transcript to publish the proceedings of the Board of Aldermen and Common Council; reprints were bound and published annually as Reports of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston. These published proceedings contain almost verbatim transcripts of Board of Aldermen and Common Council meetings and are therefore much more complete than the manuscript minutes. The annual proceedings are indexed beginning in 1873 and there is a cumulative index for the years 1868–1880. The City Council proceedings continued to be published by newspapers, usually the Evening Transcript but in some years by the Traveller or by the Daily Advertiser, until 1906; since then they have been published by the city itself. In some instances the manuscript records of the City Council are supplemented by manuscript records of City Council committees, also at the City Archives. Some of these committee records are in large, indexed annual volumes entitled Record of Committees, which for some years contain very illuminating records and others nothing beyond what is already in the City Council minutes. More useful are the separate booklets devoted to specific committees such as those on Back Bay, Church Street District, City Institutions, South Bay, and Fort Hill. The records of the last two committees, in particular, provided many insights and useful information about those projects and the scandals associated with them. A more comprehensive collection of committee reports as well as annual reports of all city departments are published in the City Documents series. Begun in 1834, by the 1850s this series had become quite extensive. The reports for each year are numbered and bound, usually in several volumes, each with a list at the front of the reports in that volume. A very useful guide is the Index to the City Documents, 1834 to 1909, published by the city in 1910. The City Documents were invaluable for this study, for they

often provided the only indication of the motivations underlying a landmaking project as well as detailed information about its course. And occasionally a conscientious committee chairman would feel impelled or be ordered to summarize the entire history of a project, providing a serendipitous resource for the later researcher—Alderman Bonney’s 1857 report on South Bay (City Document No. 82 [1857]) and the 1880 collection of documents on the public park issue (City Document No. 125 [1880]) are two outstanding examples. State Records The public records of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that were most useful were publications in the House, Senate, and Public Documents series. The House and Senate Documents contain, in addition to some early commission reports noted above, reports of legislative committees as well as petitions, proposed acts and resolves, and the like. Of these, committee reports often had important information about landmaking. House and Senate Documents are numbered and published annually but are not indexed, so the best means of locating useful documents were references in other sources. An incomplete guide is Adelaide R. Hasse, Index of Economic Material in Documents of the States of the United States: Massachusetts, 1789–1904 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1908). In 1857 Massachusetts instituted the Public Documents series. Comprised primarily of annual reports of state commissions, this series includes many of the important sources for this study (see discussion of commissions above). Like the House and Senate Documents, Public Documents are numbered and published annually, usually in several volumes. It is far easier to locate relevant Public Documents, however, for the annual reports of a given agency have the same number every year and each volume has a list at the front of the reports in that volume. In addition to the House, Senate, and Public Documents series, the published Acts and Resolves of the state legislature were a useful source for information such as the year a given corporation was formed and the names of its incorporators as well as of the

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actual wording of relevant acts and resolves. In addition, the manuscript records at the State Archives known as Passed Acts (“Bill Packets”) and Unpassed House and Senate Legislation, which contain original petitions and other communications about specific bills, were very useful in identifying the participants and issues associated with some projects. Licenses for Filling For landmaking projects for which no other information could be located, answers were often found in the state-issued licenses for filling. These licenses, which date from 1866 when they were first required, are now kept at the waterways division of the Department of Environmental Protection. Each license, which often specifies the fill-retaining structure and type of fill to be used, is accompanied by a plan. Licenses are numbered sequentially by the agency that granted them (see discussion of harbor commissions above), and until 1922 the licenses issued each year are listed in the annual report of the granting agency. At present there are three computer-printout indexes—one organized by waterway, one by licensee, and one by license number—but it is often difficult to locate the license for a given area. Plans are being made, however, for a new finding system based on GIS positioning. C ORPORATE R ECORDS

Another important source for this study were the records of the corporations that conducted many of the landmaking projects in Boston. Of these, the papers of the Boston Water Power Company, the corporation that filled most of Back Bay, were particularly helpful. This collection, housed in Historical Collections at Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, is voluminous and contains many financial records in addition to the records used in this study. Also included in the collection are monthly plans and reports of the firm of Fuller and Whitney regarding the filling of the Back Bay Fens and Fenway areas between 1883 and 1888. Other corporate records about filling Back Bay are those of the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, which built the Mill

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Dam and filled the area between Beacon and Back Streets, and the Riverbank Improvement Company, which filled the Bay State Road area. The papers of both corporations, the former at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the latter also at the Massachusetts Historical Society in the Adams Office Papers and at the Boston Athenaeum, consist of minutes of directors meetings and records of contracts and other information relevant to filling. Both these collections provided invaluable information about their respective projects. The records of the Boston Mill Corporation, which filled the Mill Pond, were also very useful. Located in Historical Collections at Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, these papers contain many contracts for filling, which made it possible to trace the course of the Mill Pond project for the first time. For the South Cove Corporation, which filled South Cove, the most useful records were the published annual reports, which contain their agent’s reports describing the filling done in a given year. During the first few years of the project the manuscript minutes of the directors’ meetings, located at The Bostonian Society, contain the same agent’s reports that appear in the published reports, but soon these minutes become just a record of directors elected and topics discussed. More useful for a study of landmaking are the South Cove Papers in Historical Collections at Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, which contain records of scow loads of fill. Other useful corporate records are those of the Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation and of Long Wharf. The former, in Historical Collections at Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, serendipitously includes a detailed contemporary description and drawings of the construction of the original wharf. The Long Wharf papers, an extensive collection in the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, have information about later modifications of the wharf but not its original construction. In some cases, information about a corporation’s landmaking was found in its published annual reports. This was true not only of the South Cove Corporation (see above) but also of the

Fitchburg Railroad Company, which filled large areas on Charlestown’s southwestern and southeastern waterfronts; the East Boston Company, which filled the Basin in East Boston; and the Boston Land Company, which developed Orient Heights. P ERSONAL PAPERS

Information about some landmaking projects was found in the personal papers of major participants in these projects. The Harrison Gray Otis papers at both the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) have invaluable information about the Mount Vernon Proprietors, India Wharf, Broad Street, and Front Street projects and, to a lesser extent, landmaking conducted by the South Boston Association and the Boston Mill Corporation. The Otis papers at SPNEA contain many useful depositions about the Mount Vernon project, depositions that are also recorded in Suffolk (County) Deeds. The Francis Cabot Lowell papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society contain construction contracts and other useful information about the India Wharf and Broad Street projects. “Titles” in the Nathaniel I. Bowditch Collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society are the manuscript records of title searches conducted by Nathaniel I. Bowditch, a nineteenth-century real estate conveyancer. Based on Bowditch’s research at Suffolk Deeds and often illustrated with his reproductions of plans in the deeds, these records are a convenient source of information about many properties on the original Boston peninsula. C ONTEMPORARY A CCOUNTS

Accounts by contemporary observers or participants provided insights about the appearance of Boston at various periods, verifications of the dates at which certain projects occurred, commentary on associated issues, or descriptions of the projects themselves. Some of the most useful were, in approximate chronological order: William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the

East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), the voluminous diary of a Salem minister who made frequent trips to Boston in the early nineteenth century. Although the published edition is reportedly inaccurate,1 it sufficed for brief descriptions and dates of landmaking projects in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The pamphlets published by the opposing sides of the South Boston Bridge controversy—Collection of Facts and Documents Relative to the Project of a Bridge from South Street in Boston to Dorchester Neck, and the Annexation of That Peninsula to the Town of Boston (Boston: E. Lincoln, 1805) by the Front Street Corporation and Considerations on the Public Expediency of a Bridge from One Part of Boston to the Other (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1806) by the supporters of a bridge from South Street—were very useful sources of information about the Front Street project. Shubael Bell, “An Account of the Town of Boston Written in 1817,” Bostonian Society Publications, 2d ser., 3 (1919): 7–65, is a long letter from a Boston resident that describes many contemporary landmaking projects. Uriah Cotting presents arguments in favor of the Mill Dam project in his Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (Boston: N.p., [1818]); Benjamin Austin argues against it in Remarks on a Late Proposition from the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, Addressed to the Candid Perusal of the Citizens and Projectors (Boston: T. Rowe, 1818). E. W. Howe describes the construction of the Mill Dam itself in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers (September 1879 to June 1881), 87. Asa Sheldon, Yankee Drover: Being the Unpretending Life of Asa Sheldon, Farmer, Trader, and Working Man, 1788–1870 (1862; reprint, Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1988), is the inimitable biography of the ox drover who filled the Boston & Lowell land north of Causeway Street in 1835. William Whiting’s The Destruction of Boston Harbor: Argument before the Committee of the Legislature, April 17, 1851, against an application for Leave to Fill up Flats in Mystic River; Now Reprinted by the Remonstrants against a Similar Application to the Present Legislature by the City of Charlestown and Others (Boston: J. M. Hewes & Co., 1852) is a good example of mid-nineteenth-century arguments, also found in public records (see above), against filling. Useful

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information about the Back Bay Fens Project was found in E. W. Howe’s description (Proceedings, 126–133) of conditions in the western part of Back Bay and plans for the park and John R. Freeman’s discussion of the Fens, “Concerning the Fens Basin and Its Pollution” in Report of the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903), appendix 3, 188–217. N EWSPAPERS

The columns and items that appeared in the Columbian Centinel, New-England Palladium, and Independent Chronicle from 1803 to 1808 about filling the Mill Pond and building a bridge to South Boston were the keys to understanding the issues underlying these projects. Newspaper obituaries were a useful source of biographical information, their use facilitated by various obituary indexes : a published one to the Boston Evening Transcript for the years 1875–1930, one to the same newspaper for 1930–1941 compiled by the Boston Public Library, and one to the Boston Globe and Boston Herald from 1953 to the present, also compiled by the Boston Public Library. The latter two are in the Microtexts Department at the main library. More extensive use of newspapers was constrained by the lack of a complete index to any Boston newspaper until the mid- or late twentieth century (the Christian Science Monitor’s index begins in 1949; the Boston Globe’s on-line index in 1980 and printed index in 1983). There are, however, selective indexes to Boston newspapers before those dates (compiled by the State Library from 1893 to 1932 and since 1962 and by the Boston Public Library at the turn of the twentieth century) and clipping files maintained by the Globe, Herald (which also has the old Record-American clipping file), Christian Science Monitor, and former Herald-Traveler (the latter at Mugar Library at Boston University). This study made profitable use of the Globe’s excellent clipping file, which is available to scholars.

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S ECONDARY S OURCES

Although primary works were the major source of information for this study, some secondary sources were also used. The following survey, divided between works covering all Boston and those about specific areas, considers some of the most important. General Works The standard work on Boston’s topographical development is Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), which is discussed in the preface. The book by Lawrence W. Kennedy, coauthor of the third edition of Whitehill—Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992)—is touted on the jacket as a sequel to Whitehill but is really a history of planning, with emphasis on the twentieth century, rather than of landmaking. Kennedy does, however, include a series of maps, albeit not entirely accurate ones, showing the amount of filled-in land in successive periods. A useful recent work is Alex Krieger and David Cobb with Amy Turner, eds., Mapping Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), a beautiful collection of historical maps of Boston. Many of the maps used to illustrate the present volume are reproduced in Mapping Boston in color and in their entirety. The book also includes essays on topics related to the maps and shorter vignettes on selected historical topics. This author’s chapter, “Gaining Ground: Boston’s Topographical Development in Maps,” is a convenient summary of the material in this present work. Nancy S. Seasholes, Landmaking and the Process of Urbanization: The Boston Landmaking Projects, 1630s–1888 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1994) is the dissertation on which this book is based. But it only covers Boston landmaking through the end of the nineteenth century and in Boston Proper, that is, the area from the harbor south to Massachusetts Avenue, and thereby omits the Fenway and Bay State Road areas, South Boston, Dorchester, East Boston, and Charlestown.

Edward Stanwood’s chapter, “Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1880–1881), 4: 25–68, covers many of the nineteenth-century landmaking projects. It is, however, the source of some of the misconceptions about them, including that it was the 1856, rather than the 1854, tripartite agreement that opened the way for filling Back Bay. Mention should also be made of two works that, although not about landmaking, were important sources of information for this study. The first, Cynthia Zaitzevsky’s Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982) is an exceptionally well written, accurately researched, and handsomely illustrated work that deals with many of the early Boston parks. And Ronald Dale Karr’s The Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History (Pepperell, Mass.: Branch Line Press, 1995) is an invaluable guide to Boston’s numerous railroads and their endless changes of name. Specific Areas In addition to the secondary works covering all of Boston discussed above, some studies of specific areas were also particularly useful. In the same geographical order as the chapters in this book, they include:

Central waterfront: Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The Beginnings of India Wharf,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1962): 17–24. Based primarily on the Francis Cabot Lowell papers, this article focuses on the buildings erected on India Wharf and cites many of the same contracts quoted in this book. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852) is written by the mayor of Boston from 1823 to 1829 and based on City Council records as well as his own recollections. This work is an excellent, though biased, source of information about the Faneuil Hall Market and other projects that occurred during Quincy’s administration, such

as moving the public institutions to South Boston, building a new jail on Leverett Street, etc. For studies about Scottow’s, Town, and Oliver’s Docks and Long and Central Wharves see Archaeological Reports (below). West End: Nancy S. Seasholes, “Gaining Ground: Landmaking in Boston’s West End,” Old-Time New England 77, no. 266 (1999): 23–45 covers approximately the same material as chapter 5 of this book and explicitly presents the methodology underlying this work, that is, first using historical maps to identify and date areas of made land and then conducting research to find out why and how these areas were filled. Beacon Hill Flat: Allen Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925) is based on primary sources and provided useful information about the Mount Vernon Proprietors project. Frederick C. Gamst, “The Context and Significance of America’s First Railroad, on Boston’s Beacon Hill,” Technology and Culture 33, no. 1 (1992): 66–100 is a study of the incline railroad that transported fill on that project. Back Bay: James L. Bruce’s “Filling in the Backbay and the Charles River Development,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1940): 25–38 is based on some of the same published city and state documents used in this book, although they are not referenced. Bruce also covers the landmaking projects in the Mill Pond and north of Causeway Street, the West Cove, the Beacon Hill Flat, and the Charles River embankment. The oft-used map, “The Filled-In Areas of Boston,” was first published as an illustration for this article. Wilbur W. Davis, “The History of Boston As Disclosed in the Digging of the Commonwealth Avenue Underpass and Other Traffic Tunnels,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1938): 29–40 discusses the construction of the cross dam. Harl P. Aldrich, Jr., “Back Bay Boston, Part 1,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 57, no. 1 (1970): 1–33 has a summary of all the landmaking projects in Back Bay as well as a useful collection of maps. Harl P. Aldrich, Jr., and James R. Lambrechts, “Back Bay Boston, Part II:

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Groundwater Levels,” Civil Engineering Practice: Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE 1, no. 2 (1986): 31–64 includes reconstructed drawings of the Mill Dam and the Back Street seawall. Will Holton and William Newman of Northeastern University are currently doing research on the engineering and sociology of the Back Bay project. South Cove: The South Cove Corporation’s “History of Harrison Avenue, Formerly Called Front Street,” in Report of the Board of Directors of the South Cove Corporation, to the Stockholders, together with the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Annual Reports of Their Agent and the Treasurer’s Balance Sheet, 19–24 (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1844) has useful information about the Front Street project and is the origin of the erroneous statement that Front Street was the first major landmaking project. South Boston: Edward S. Philbrick, the engineer for the South Boston Flats project, discusses the construction of the seawalls and filling done in the 1870s in “The Improvement of the South Boston Flats,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 7 (1878): 17–52. Information about the filling done by the navy in the 1940s is in N. T. Dana, “History of the Boston Navy Yard”; box 314, A-12, 1945; Commandant’s General (“Central”) Correspondence Files, 1925–1963, Entry 40; Records of Naval Districts and Shore Establishments, RG 181; National Archives-New England Region, Waltham, Mass. Charlestown: Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of Charlestown, Massachusetts (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1845) is based on primary sources and is therefore more reliable than the other antiquarian histories of Charlestown. For the Charlestown Navy Yard there is, in contrast to most other parts of Boston, a plethora of information, the result of the yard’s having been designated a National Historical Site and having thus received a great deal of scholarly attention from the National Park Service. The Park Service’s voluminous multi-volume history of the Navy Yard—Edwin C. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard,

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1800–1842: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, Historic Resource Study, 2 vols. (Boston: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1984); Frederick R. Black and Edwin C. Bearss, “The Charlestown Navy Yard, 1842–1890” (Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Boston, 1993); and Frederick R. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1890–1973, Cultural Resources Management Study no. 20, 2 vols. (Boston: Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1988)—is certainly not about landmaking per se, but the sections in each volume on physical improvements of the yard contain sufficient information to trace the landmaking done at the site. These histories of the yard were supplemented by the Park Service’s study of Dry Dock 1—Mary Jane Brady and Christopher J. Foster, “Dry Dock I, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts: Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data” (Denver Service Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Denver, 1982)—and of Piers 1 and 2—Mary Jane Brady and Merrill Ann Wilson, Pier 1 and 2, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston National Historic[al] Park, Massachusetts: Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data Section, vol. 1, Historical Background (Denver: Denver Service Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior, 1982). Also useful were the Park Service’s well written guide to the park—National Park Service, Division of Publications, Charlestown Navy Yard: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, National Park Handbook 152 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1995)—and Bettina A. Norton’s The Boston Naval Shipyard, 1800–1974 (Boston: The Bostonian Society, 1975), which has useful historical maps and drawings. Norton is based to some extent on George Henry Preble’s history of the Navy Yard, of which there is a microfilm copy at the Park Service’s Cultural Resources Office at the Navy Yard and a shorted version published as “The Navy, and the Charlestown Navy Yard” in Winsor’s Memorial History, 3: 331–368.

Archaeological Reports A subtheme of this work is the use of evidence from recent archaeological investigations in Boston. The reports from which this evidence came are listed here by area, following the same geographical order as the chapters in this book:

Central waterfront: For Scottow’s Dock—James W. Bradley et al., Archaeology of the Bostonian Hotel Site, Occasional Publications in Archaeology and History #2 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1983). Nancy S. Seasholes’s chapter in that report, “Documentary History of the Bostonian Hotel Site,” recounts historical evidence for the existence of Scottow’s Dock. Gerald K. Kelso and Mary C. Beaudry, “Pollen Analysis and Urban Land Use: The Environs of Scottow’s Dock in 17th, 18th, and Early 19th Century Boston,” Historical Archaeology 24, no. 1 (1990): 61–81 analyzes changing environmental conditions in that area. For the Town Dock—Michael L. Alterman and Richard M. Affleck, “Archaeological Investigations at the Former Town Dock and Faneuil Hall, Boston National Historic Park, Boston, Massachusetts,” Final Report (Cultural Resource Group, Louis Berger & Associates, East Orange, N.J., 1999). For Oliver’s Dock—Michael Roberts et al., “The Archaeology and Site History of 75 State Street” (Timelines Inc., Groton, Mass., 1989). For Long and Central Wharves—Ricardo J. Elia, David B. Landon, and Nancy S. Seasholes, “Phase II Archaeological Investigations of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project in Boston, Massachusetts,” 2 vols. (Office of Public Archaeology, Boston University, Boston, 1989) and Beth Anne Bower et al., Long Wharf: Archaeological Testing of Parcel D-10, Occasional Publications in Archaeology and History #3 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1984). Mill Pond: Nancy S. Seasholes, “Filling Boston’s Mill Pond,” Historical Archaeology 32, no. 3 (1998): 121–136 uses evidence from Charles D. Cheek and Joseph Balicki, “Archaeological Data Recovery: The Mill Pond Site (BOS-HA-14), Boston, Massachusetts,” prepared for Timelines, Inc., and the Central

Artery/Tunnel Project (John Milner Associates, Inc., West Chester, Pa., 2000) and Elia, Landon, and Seasholes, “Phase II of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project.” Back Bay: The classic studies of the Boylston Street Fishweir are Frederick Johnson et al., The Boylston Street Fishweir: A Study of the Archaeology, Biology, and Geology of a Site on Boylston Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts (Andover, Mass.: Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology 2 [1940]) and Frederick Johnson, ed., The Boylston Street Fishweir II: A Study of the Geology, Paleobotany, and Biology of a Site on Stuart Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts, vol. 4, no. 1 (Andover, Mass.: Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, 1949). A recent investigation of the fishweirs is reported in Elena B. Décima and Dena F. Dincauze, “The Boston Back Bay Fish Weirs,” in Hidden Dimensions: The Cultural Significance of Wetland Archaeology, ed. Kathryn Bernick (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 57–72. Charlestown: Steven R. Pendery, Anne Booth, and John Cheney, “Results and Recommendations for Phase II Testing, Central Artery Reconstruction Project, Charlestown, Massachusetts” (Institute for Conservation Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1981); Steven R. Pendery et al., “Phase II Archaeological Site Examination of the Project Area for the Central Artery, North Area, Charlestown, Massachusetts” (Institute for Conservation Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1982); Joan Gallagher et al., “Parker-Harris Pottery Site, Central Artery North Reconstruction Project, Archaeological Data Recovery, Charlestown, Massachusetts,” vol. 3 (Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I., 1992); Joan Gallagher et al., “Town Dock Wharves/Dry Dock Site; Town Dock Pottery Site, Central Artery North Reconstruction Project, Archaeological Data Recovery, Charlestown, Massachusetts,” vol. 4A (Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I., 1994).

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As explained in the preface, historical maps of Boston were a major source of information for this study. Often such maps were used to identify where and when filling took place before conducting any other research about this landmaking. Employing maps in this manner made it important to find maps that are relatively accurate. The basic guide to historical maps of Boston is the city Engineering Department’s List of Maps of Boston Published between 1600 and 1903 (Boston: City Printers, 1903). Descriptions of many of the maps used in this study can be found in Krieger and Cobb, Mapping Boston. Also useful are the lists of historical maps compiled by Justin Winsor in his Memorial History, 2: xlix–lv; 3: i–xii and by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff with additional notes by William H. Whitmore in the former’s Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3d ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 91–105, xiii–xvi. 1630 Shoreline Determining the location of the shoreline of Boston in 1630 before any filling took place is essential to any study of Boston landmaking, for the area of subsequent fill is measured in relation to this original shoreline. But because no seventeenth-century map shows this shoreline with sufficient accuracy, its location must be reconstructed. The reconstruction of the original shoreline that appears in figures 1.1 and 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, and 14.1 was generated by computer using data from several historical maps. Chief among them was Ellis S. Chesbrough’s Map of Boston Harbor Showing Commissioners Lines, Wharves, &c. Prepared by order of the Harbor Committee of the City Council of 1852 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1852), which shows his reconstruction of the original shoreline (see figure 10.8 for a detail). In 1852, a city committee investigating whether filling harmed the shipping channels in the harbor asked Chesbrough, the city engineer, to prepare a map showing both the commissioners lines, which marked the limit to which wharves and fill could extend, and the original high water line. Chesbrough later wrote that he had diffi-

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culty determining the latter because in many places, particularly at the foot of the Common, the original shore was relatively flat, resulting in a large difference between the ordinary high tide line and the line of unusually high tides. Chesbrough said his map was based on Abel Bowen’s reconstruction of the original shoreline on his Map of Boston in 1824 (figure appendix 2.1) published in Snow’s History of Boston (1825); the maps in Frothingham’s Siege of Boston (1849), that is, Boston with Its Environs in 1775 & 1776 (figure appendix 2.2), Page’s A Plan of the Town of Boston with the Intrenchments &c. of His Majesty’s Forces in 1775 (figure appendix 2.3), and Page and Montresor’s A Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill (see figure 14.2); as well as unspecified maps by Osgood Carleton and Stephen P. Fuller. In addition, in order to determine the high water line along the flat, western shore of the city, Chesbrough used information from title searches by E. S. Rand, a real estate conveyancer.2 Because Chesbrough was so explicit about the maps he did consult, it is interesting to note what maps he did not use. Boston with Its Environs in 1775 & 1776 had been engraved especially for Frothingham’s history, evidently based on an earlier map with a similar title. The earlier map was based, as were almost all Revolutionary-era maps of Boston, on the very accurate chart of Boston Harbor surveyed in 1769 as part of a British survey of the North American coast and published in 1775, 1780, and 1781 by J. F. W. Des Barres in Chart of the Coast and Harbours of New England from Surveys taken by Sam.l Holland Esq.r Surv.r Gen.l of Lands for the Northern District of North America . . . composed and published by Command of the Government for the use of the Royal Navy of Great Britain by J. F. W. Des Barres Esq.r . . ., a publication known as the Atlantic Neptune (see figure 13.2 for a detail). Chesbrough refers to the Des Barres map in his report,3 but perhaps did not recognize its superiority. Equally surprising is that Chesbrough evidently did not utilize an original shoreline of the Town Cove that had been reconstructed as recently as 1846 by surveyor George R. Baldwin on his “Plan of Part of the City and Harbor of Boston showing lines of high and low water, determined from recent soundings, abstracts

of deeds, plans, and other sources. Done under an order of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. February 1846” (figure appendix 2.4). Baldwin had been appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court to make a plan of the cove showing the original high and low water lines in order to settle a dispute about ownership of some flats (in the area on his map labeled “Benj. Wheeler’s Estate”; see figure appendix 2.4).4 Baldwin’s reconstruction of the Town Cove shoreline is very similar to Chesbrough’s, although there is no evidence the latter was based on the former. And both are quite similar to the shoreline later reconstructed by Samuel C. Clough (see below) on the basis of deed research (see figure 3.2). A variation of the Chesbrough shoreline soon began to be reproduced on other maps. This shoreline differed from Chesbrough’s original in several respects: it ran behind the site of the present Millennium Bostonian Hotel on the Blackstone Block rather than through the site of the present parking garage behind the North Market Building; it wove back and forth across Kilby Street instead of going through the site of the present building at 75 State Street; and it had a different configuration of the marshy inlet west of Liberty Square (see figures appendix 2.4, appendix 2.5, and 3.1).

FIGURE APPENDIX 2.1 1824

MAP OF

B OSTON

BY

A B EL B OWEN ,

SHOWING ORIGINAL SHORELINE

Published in Caleb Snow’s History of Boston (1825), this map, with its reconstructed 1630 shoreline of Boston, was one of those Chesbrough used to make his reconstruction of the original shoreline (see figure 10.8).

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FIGURE APPENDIX 2.2 B OSTON

WITH

I TS E NVIRONS

IN

1775 & 1776

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Most of the maps on which the variation of the Chesbrough shoreline soon appeared were published by the city or state. They included: W.H. Bradley, Map of Part of Boston Harbor and Its Tributaries Compiled from the Manuscript Maps of the U.S. Coast Survey (Boston: L.H. Bradford’s Lithography, 1854); the maps prepared by the city engineer’s or surveyor’s department in the 1860s and 1870 (see below); Massachusetts State Board of Health, Health Districts of the City of Boston in Second Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, Pub. Doc. No. 37 (1871); the 1880 Boston Map Company map (see below), which was also used as the background for Justin Winsor’s Boston Old and New (Winsor, Memorial History, 1: frontispiece); City of Boston, Main Drainage. Plan Showing Main, Intercepting & Outfall Sewers and Old Sewer Outlets in Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1888), Pl. V; and George H. Walker, Map of Boston Proper (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1894). Finally, in 1895 Charles C. Perkins, the city surveyor, plotted the variation of the Chesbrough reconstruction of the 1630 shoreline, as well as 1795 and 1850 shorelines, on an 1895 street map (see below and figure appendix 2.5), and, probably because this format made it easy to locate the 1630 shoreline in relation to existing streets, the variation of the Chesbrough reconstruction became the standard one. In this study, the variation of Chesbrough’s shoreline has been used for figure 1.1 but Baldwin’s is the one shown on the bird’s-eye view of the Town Cove in figure 3.1. Seventeenth Century The one contemporary seventeenth-century map used in this study—Franquelin’s 1693 Carte de la Ville, Baye, et Environs de Baston (see figure 14.4)—was selected not for its accuracy but because it is the only available depiction of seventeenth-century topographical developments in Charlestown. Seventeenth-century maps of Boston are generally too inaccurate to be reliable indicators of made land, so for that century this study has used maps reconstructed by Samuel C. Clough

FIGURE APPENDIX 2.3 P AGE ’ S 1775

MAP OF

B OSTON

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B J. WHEELE EN ESTATE R’S

FIGURE APPENDIX 2.4 1846

PL AN OF CENTRAL WATERFRONT BY

G EORGE B ALDWIN

Drawn by order of the Supreme Judicial Court in order to settle ownership of some flats, Baldwin reconstructed the original high and low water lines in the central waterfront area as well as the location of the Barricado.

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FIGURE APPENDIX 2.5 D ETAIL OF CENTRAL WATERFRONT FROM P ERKINS ’ S P L AN OF B O S TO N P R O PER S HOWING C HANGES IN S TREET AND W H A R F L INES

On this 1895 map, Perkins showed several earlier shorelines: a 1630 shoreline (heavy line), which was the variation of Chesbrough’s reconstruction; 1795 (dashed line), based on Carleton’s maps (see figure 3.16); and 1850 (small dashed line).

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(1873–1949). Clough studied civil engineering, was a draftsman for the Boston Edison Company, and a surveyor and cartographer who, as he later explained, about 1900 became interested in trying to reconstruct a map of property holdings in early Boston.5 Clough spent years doing research in Suffolk Deeds and other primary sources, eventually producing many maps that are now at the Massachusetts Historical Society. These include two nine-by-fivefeet 100-scale maps of Boston in 1648 and 1676; 100-scale maps of some sections of the town in 1633; a book of maps, most 50scale, for all parts of Boston in 1798; some 50-scale atlas plates for the same year; many maps, such as a series on the Town Dock from 1643 to 1681, for various parts of the town and for various years in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and a card file and notebooks summarizing his research in the Suffolk Deeds. Clough’s reconstructed maps are more accurate and based on more thorough research than the many other reconstructed maps of seventeenth-century Boston, and that is why they have been used in this study (see figures 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 4.2). Eighteenth Century Boston is fortunate to have a series of eighteenth-century maps all based on the same original, which makes it relatively easy to trace changes over time. The first map in this series, The Town of Boston in New England (Boston: Francis Dewing, 1722), was drawn by Captain John Bonner (1643–1726; see figure 3.7 for a detail). Bonner was a mariner and consequently included more detail of waterfront than inland features, a helpful bias for a study of landmaking. After Bonner’s death, the plate of his map was acquired by publisher William Price, who issued updates entitled A New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America With the many Additionall [sic] Buildings & New Streets to the Year ____) in 1732, 1733, 1739, 1743, 1760, and 1769 (see figures 3.9 and 3.11).6 When Boston was the theater of the Revolutionary War in 1775 and 1776, numerous maps were produced of the town and its surroundings. Many of these maps were, as explained above, based on the map of Boston Harbor surveyed by the British in

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1769 and published by J. F. W. Des Barres beginning in 1775 (see figure 13.2 for a detail).7 An example of these Revolutionary Warera maps is the beautiful plan drawn by Henry Pelham, a half brother of artist John Singleton Copley—A Plan of Boston in New England with its Environs, including Milton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brooklin [sic], Cambridge, Medford, Charlestown, Parts of Malden and Chelsea With the Military Works Constructed in These Places in the Years 1775 and 1776 (London, 1777)—a detail of which is shown in figure 9.3.8 Nineteenth Century Entire town/city: In contrast to the paucity of seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century maps, there is a plethora of nineteenthcentury maps of Boston. The problem thus becomes less one of finding suitable maps than one of selecting the best maps from among many. The nineteenth-century maps used in this study were usually selected both for their accuracy and their availability in a series, which, as mentioned above in the case of the Bonner/Price maps, facilitates the tracing of changes from one map to the next. The series of maps used to illustrate landmaking in the first decade of the nineteenth century were surveyed by Osgood Carleton (1742–1816), a leading Boston cartographer. Carleton actually surveyed the first map in the series, A Plan of Boston from actual Survey, in 1795, a few years before the beginning of the century. It was published in 1796 by John West in the Boston Directory, an alphabetical list of all the town’s inhabitants with addresses and occupations that always included a map as a guide to the streets cited in the addresses. Carleton’s map was then updated and published in the directories for the next decade.9 Details from several of the Carleton Directory maps have been used in this study (see figures 3.16, 3.17, 3.18, 4.3, 5.4, 6.2, 6.3, 7.2, and 9.4) supplemented by details from two larger but similar maps surveyed by Carleton and published in 1800 and 1806—A Plan of Boston from actual Surveys by Osgood Carleton with Corrections, Additions, & Improvements, 1800 and A New Plan of Boston Drawn from the best Authorities with the latest

Improvements, Additions & Corrections (Boston: William Norman, 1806) (see figures 5.3 and 11.2). The 1806 map includes South Boston, using information from surveys by Mather Withington (see figure 11.2). In 1807 William Norman, Carleton’s collaborator, reissued Carleton’s Directory map as Plan of Boston (see figures 3.20, 4.4, and 9.5), and in 1809, Edward Cotton, the then publisher of the Directory, had Carleton’s map reengraved. Known as the Cotton map and titled Plan of Boston, this map was updated and published as the Directory map through 1827 (see figure 4.14). The Cotton version of the Carleton map is quite schematic, however, so for a more accurate map of Boston in the teens this study has relied heavily on the 1814 map by John G. Hales (1785–1832)—Map of Boston in the State of Massachusetts (see figures 3.21, 4.11, 5.5, 6.4, 7.7, 9.6, and 10.2). Hales was one of the most prolific cartographers of his day and his 1814 map was the first to show all the buildings in the town. Hales used different shadings to indicate whether a building was constructed of wood or of masonry—often showing a row of similar buildings as one— and to indicate the churches, taverns, and schools. Hales also showed property lines, and this information coupled with that about buildings makes his map an important source of information about Federal-period Boston.10 In 1823 Hales surveyed a smaller-scale map of Boston and parts of the adjacent towns. This map was first published as Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridgeport; From actual Survey, with corrections by surveyor Stephen P. Fuller, in 1826 by William B. Annin, George G. Smith, and J. V. N. Throop and was then updated and published by Smith alone as Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge in 1835, 1846, 1851, and 1855–60.11 More accurate than other contemporary maps, details from many of the Smith maps have been used often in this study (see figures 3.23, 3.30, 4.16, 4.20, 5.6, 5.8, 6.5, 6.7, 7.8, 7.10, 9.8, 9.11, 10.3, 10.4, 10.9, and 11.5). For the ten-year gaps between the Smith maps of 1826, 1835, and 1846, cartographic information for this study was obtained from another series—the maps in directories published

by Charles Stimpson Jr. The first map in the series was engraved by Hazen Morse in 1828 and was published, with updates, as Plan of the City of Boston (or some variation) in the Directory through 1838 (see figures 3.25, 4.15, and 9.7). In 1838, Morse and J. W. Tuttle engraved a new map, entitled Boston. 1838, for Stimpson’s Directory (see figures 3.26, 5.7, and 9.10). Since Directory maps are generally more schematic and therefore less accurate than the Smith maps, the former were used only when necessary. Two exceptional maps of Boston showing every building in the city were published in 1852—the first such maps since the 1814 Hales (see above). One is by I. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston Massts (New York: M. Dripps and Boston: L.N. Ide, 1852); the other by Henry McIntyre, Map of the City of Boston and Immediate Neighborhood (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852). Although the Slatter and Callan map is generally more accurate and has been used extensively in this study (see figures 3.29, 4.17, 5.11, 6.6, 7.15, 9.12, and 10.7), the McIntyre map includes East Boston, Charlestown, part of Cambridge, Roxbury, and South Boston, making it a valuable source of information about these areas (see figures 11.4 and 14.7) as well as about central Boston.12 The Smith series of maps, which were published annually in the 1850s in the city’s Municipal Register, were discontinued after the 1860 edition. That year the City Council decided to have a new 500-scale map of the city prepared by the city engineer’s office.13 This map was then issued annually, with updates, from 1861 to 1868 (except in 1865) under the name of the city engineer—James Slade (1861–1863) titled, for example, Plan of Boston, Corrected under the direction of . . . Committee on Printing, James Slade, City Engineer [1862] and N. Henry Crafts (1864–1868) titled, for example, Plan of Boston, with Additions and Corrections made by N. Henry Crafts, City Engineer. 1868. In 1868 the map was enlarged to include Roxbury, which had been annexed to the city that year. In 1869 responsibility for the map shifted to the office of the city surveyor, Thomas W. Davis, and the map was published under Davis’s name that year and in 1870, when as Plan of Boston, with Additions and Corrections made under direction of Thomas W. Davis, City Surveyor, it was enlarged again

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to accommodate the annexation of Dorchester. With its large scale, annual updates, and inclusion, after 1863, of the variation of Chesbrough’s 1630 shoreline (see above), the city engineer’s/surveyor’s map is generally an accurate source of information for a study of landmaking (see figures 3.34, 10.10, 10.12, and 11.14). No edition of the city surveyor’s map was published in 1871, and in November 1872 both the lithographic stone and the engraved copper plate for the map were destroyed in Boston’s Great Fire. As a consequence, no maps in this series were issued in the 1870s, and the maps of Boston published by commercial firms during that decade are not very accurate. In 1880, however, two young men working in the city surveyor’s office, George F. Loring and Irwin C. Cromack, compiled a new 500-scale map of the city, formed the Boston Map Company, and published it as Plan Showing the principal portion of Boston from the latest authorities. The Boston Map Company map covers even more area than the 1870 city surveyor’s, also includes the Chesbrough 1630 shoreline, and is an especially useful source of cartographic information (see figures 11.20 and 12.3).14 For the last two decades of the nineteenth century there is a real dearth of accurate maps of Boston. The Directory maps published by Sampson, Davenport and Company beginning in 1868 are too schematic to be much help for a study of landmaking. The series of fire insurance atlases published beginning in 1867 by Daniel A. Sanborn and then by the Sanborn Map Company and the real estate atlases published in 1874 by G. M. Hopkins and Company and, beginning in 1883, by George W. Bromley are excellent sources of information about individual buildings. But their very large scale, often fifty feet to the inch, and focus on structures rather than the shoreline makes them less useful for tracing landmaking. In 1895, as explained above, Charles C. Perkins, the city surveyor, compiled Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (Boston: George H. Walker & Co., 1895), a map that showed not only the 1895 shoreline and streets but also the 1630 shoreline taken from Chesbrough’s map (see above), the 1795 shoreline taken from Carleton’s maps (see above), and the 1850 shoreline taken, sur-

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prisingly, not from the Slatter and Callan or McIntyre maps but rather from surveys by A. Andrews, who was apparently a surveyor for the city water commission. The Perkins map is obviously an important reference for studies of landmaking and has been used several times in this study (see figures 9.2 and appendix 2.5). Specific areas: In addition to nineteenth-century maps showing all of Boston, information was also obtained from maps of specific areas. The genesis of most of these area maps is apparent either from the discussion in the relevant chapter or from the cartobibliographic information in the Figure References and Credits section, but some maps merit further comment. There are manuscript versions of the published Bulfinch map of the Mill Pond—A Plan of the Mill Pond in Boston with the Parts adjacent Exhibiting the Streets, Canal, and Market. Adopted by the Selectmen and Mill Corporation, 1808 (see figure 4.5)—in the City Surveyor’s Office Plans at the survey section of the city Department of Public Works in South Boston15 and a large manuscript copy—“Copy of Plan of the Mill Pond in Boston”—by Osgood Carleton and William Taylor in Special Collections of the State Library of Massachusetts. The details of South Cove shown in figures 9.9 (B. F. Perham, Plan of the Harbor of Boston. From surveys made under the direction of Commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 5, 1835 [Boston: Moore’s Lith., 1837]) and 11.3 (G. P. Worcester, “Copy of a Plan of the Harbour of Boston from Surveys made under the direction of Commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 5, 1835, showing the additional wharves &c. since the year 1835, also Harbour line recommend by Commissioners in 1839”) are from 1837 and 1839 surveys made in order to set harbor lines, which limited how far wharves could extend into the harbor and were one of the midnineteenth-century responses to concern that Boston Harbor was deteriorating (see chapter 11). Larger scale, manuscript versions of the 1837 survey are in Special Collections of the State Library of Massachusetts. The survey of South Bay in figure 10.5—Copy of a Plan of South Bay from Surveys made under the direction of James

Hayward & Ezra Lincoln, Jr., commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 22, 1845, showing commissioners lines &c. recommended by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissioners appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851)—was also made out of concern about the harbor, in this case to determine how much of South Bay could be filled or enlarged and, if the former, to set harbor lines.16 The 1847 map of South Boston in figure 11.6—Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston, Executed by the U.S. Coast Survey for the Commissioners Appointed by a Resolve of the Legislature passed April 16, 1846 (Boston: J. Bufford’s Lithography, 1847)—is by the U.S. Coast Survey, which had been established in 1807 to survey the coasts of the United States. The 1847 plan was the first Coast Survey chart of Boston Harbor and had been made at the request of and partly paid for by a state commission investigating whether the South Boston Flats could be filled.17 The 1847 chart became the basis for subsequent maps of the South Boston Flats, among them a plan published in 1851 in the same report and by the same commissioners as the plan of South Bay (see above), for these commissioners had also been authorized to set harbor lines on the South Boston Flats.18 This published 1851 plan of the South Boston Flats is the basis of the untitled ca. 1851 manuscript plan of the flats shown in figure 11.7. In 1861 the U.S. commissioners studying Boston Harbor (see chapter 11) had a new plan made of the South Boston Flats.19 Originally used to plot the force of the scour on the flats, this map became the base map for subsequent maps of the South Boston Flats issued by the U.S. commissioners, such as the one in figure 11.8—A First Approximation to a Line of Seawall on South Boston Flats by U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor, 1863 in Sixth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 53 (1863)—and by the state harbor commissioners between 1864 and 1873. These latter plans, generally with a title beginning Plan of the occupation [filling] of flats owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor . . . (see figures 11.12, 11.13, and 11.15), were first published with the reports of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats in the

Commonwealth20 and then, after the Board of Harbor Commissioners was created in 1866, with its annual reports.21 In 1894 the harbor and land commissioners began issuing a new, larger scale plan of the South Boston Flats. The 1894 edition is shown in figure 11.23—Plan of South Boston Flats showing Present Condition and Sketch of Proposed Docks to accompany annual report of Harbor and Land Commissioners, December 1894. Subsequent editions were issued in 1896, 1903 (see figure 11.24), and 1910 and all were published in the respective annual reports of the commissioners.22 Maps of East Boston entitled Plan of East Boston showing the land and water lots sold and unsold; also all Buildings and other Improvements were drafted in 1834, 1837, 1844, and 1851—the early years of its development—by R. H. Eddy, a prominent Boston engineer (see figures 13.3 and 13.4). Sub-maps of East Boston, apparently based on the 1851 Eddy map, then began to be included on maps of the entire city, such as the Smith, city engineer’s, and city surveyor’s maps (see discussion of nineteenth-century maps of the entire city, above). The 1880 map of East Boston shown in figure 13.5—Plan of East Boston, 1880—was one of a series of maps of the outlying districts of Boston issued by the city surveyor’s office in 1879 and 1880 (see also figure 14.9). For Charlestown, the only maps between the 1848 Felton & Parker and Barker, Plan of the City of Charlestown made by order of the City Council from actual survey, 1848 (Boston: J.H. Bufford’s Lith., 1848) (see figure 14.5) and the 1879 city surveyor’s map, Plan of Charlestown compiled under the direction of Thomas W. Davis, City Surveyor (Boston: Bufford’s, 1879) (see figure 14.9) are in the Charlestown Directory. The Directory maps are reductions of the Felton & Parker and Barker map; one edition of this Directory map was produced in 1854 and another in 1860 (see figure 14.8). In contrast to the rest of Charlestown, there is a wealth of maps of the Navy Yard, the result of its having been mapped regularly by the navy. The reconstructed maps of the Navy Yard in 1812, 1834, 1860, 1901, 1919, and 1950 (see figures 14.13, 14.15, 14.18, 14.20, 14.21, and 14.22) are based on tracings made by Edwin C. Bearss, the author of the first two volumes in the

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National Park Service’s voluminous history of the Navy Yard (see above), and then drafted, with the made land indicated, by the Park Service. In 1856 the Navy Yard began to issue a series of yearly plans to accompany its annual report to the navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks. The plans issued in the nineteenth century were rather clean line drawings with the buildings shaded; an example is the “Plan of the U.S. Navy Yard, Boston, Mass., Bureau of Yards and Docks, U.S. Navy Dept., Washington, D.C., July 16, 1898,” in figure 14.19. A new series of annual plans, begun in 1905, shows all the railroad tracks in the yard as well as the buildings and, although not as attractive as the nineteenth-century series, remained in use for the rest of the yard’s existence. Twentieth Century Twentieth-century maps of Boston are generally not drawn as beautifully or with the same attention to detail as nineteenth-century maps of the city. Ironically, some of the most accurate twentieth-century plans of Boston are technically not maps at all but rather U.S. government coastal charts. The fact that these charts are meticulously drawn with attention to changes in the shoreline and were updated frequently makes them very useful for a study of landmaking—hence their frequent appearance in this study. The particular charts used here were issued by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (C & GS), established in 1878 as the successor to the Coast Survey (see above), and are from a series on Boston Harbor inaugurated in 1896 at a scale of 1:20,000 (earlier charts of Boston Harbor had been, with the exception of the 1847 chart discussed above, at a scale of 1:40,000). This new series was designated Chart no. 246 and was originally titled Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, and then just Boston Harbor. Chart no. 246 continued to be issued into the 1960s, though only charts from 1896 to 1934 have been used in this work (see figures 9.13, 9.14, 10.14, 10.15, 10.16, 11.25, 11.26, 11.29, 11.30, 12.4, 12.5, 12.6, 12.7, 12.8, 13.8, 13.11, 13.13, 14.11, 14.12). For the second half of the twentieth century this study has used cartographic evidence from a source even more accurate than C & GS charts—aerial photographs. Such photographs are, of

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course, an exact record of the city at the time they were taken, whereas even C & GS charts occasionally do not show developments taking place at the time. The most useful aerial photographs for documenting landmaking are those taken from a straight vertical rather than an oblique angle. The earliest of these vertical aerials is an amazing mosaic photograph taken by the army, probably in the late teens.23 Another series of vertical aerials of Boston was taken in December 1938 by the U.S. Geological Survey; these photographs are now at the National Archives in Washington.24 A similar series of vertical aerial photographs of Boston was taken in April 1951 by Fairchild Aerial Survey and are in the Massachusetts State Archives25 and another in October 1952 by the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (see figures 11.31 and 13.18), which are at the National Archives.26 By the 1960s vertical aerial photographs were taken more frequently: Aerial Photos International in Norwood, Massachusetts, has vertical aerials of Boston dating from the early 1960s and the Boston Redevelopment Authority has a mosaic aerial photo taken April 11, 1965. Vertical aerials of Boston continue to be taken regularly; this study has used a series taken by MassGIS in 1995 (see figures 11.32, 12.13, and 13.20).

ABBREVIATIONS

Acts A.R. B&RMC BERy BLC BMC BPC BPD B.R.C. BWP CBB City Doc. CPB CPL CRBC DEP DPB DPW EBC FCL H & LC HC HGO/MHS HGO/SPNEA

[Massachusetts] Acts of the General Court Annual Report Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation Boston Elevated Railway Company Boston Land Company Boston Mill Corporation Boston Park Commissioners Boston Park Department Boston Record Commissioners Boston Water Power Company Commissioners on Back Bay [Boston] City Documents [Boston] City Planning Board Commissioners on Public Lands Charles River Basin Commission [Massachusetts] Department of Environmental Protection Directors of the Port of Boston [Massachusetts] Department of Public Works East Boston Company Francis Cabot Lowell Papers [Massachusetts] (Board of ) Harbor and Land Commissioners [Massachusetts] (Board of ) Harbor Commissioners Harrison Gray Otis Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society Harrison Gray Otis Papers, Society for

House LC Massport M.D. MDC MGH MPC NPS PBA Pub. Doc. PWD Resolves RG RIC S.D. Senate W & PL Waterways

the Preservation of New England Antiquities [Massachusetts] House Documents [Massachusetts] (Board of ) Land Commissioners Massachusetts Port Authority Middlesex [County, Massachusetts] Deeds Metropolitan District Commission Massachusetts General Hospital Metropolitan Park Commission National Park Service Port of Boston Authority [Massachusetts] Public Documents [Boston] Public Works Department [Massachusetts] Resolves of the General Court Record Group Riverbank Improvement Company Suffolk [County, Massachusetts] Deeds [Massachusetts] Senate Documents [Massachusetts] (Commission on) Waterways and Public Lands Division of Wetlands and Waterways [of DEP]

NOTES

P REFACE 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

Nancy Stein Seasholes, Landmaking and the Process of Urbanization: The Boston Landmaking Projects, 1630s–1888 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1994). Thomas Pemberton, “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 1794,” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 3 (1794): 241–304; Charles Shaw, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston: Oliver Spear, 1817); Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1870; rev. ed. 1871; 3d ed. 1890). Only Shaw notes areas of made land. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.) For reproductions of complete maps, see Alex Krieger and David Cobb with Amy Turner, eds., Mapping Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999). For a discussion that explicitly traces Boston’s landmaking in relation to historical maps, see Nancy S. Seasholes, “Gaining Ground: Boston’s Topographical Development in Maps,” in ibid., 118–145. This methodology is implicit in this work, but is usually presented in reverse, that is, first a project is discussed and then the reader directed to illustrating maps. For a more explicit presentation of the underlying methodology, see Nancy S. Seasholes, “Gaining Ground: Landmaking in Boston’s West End,” Old-Time New England 77, no. 266 (1999): 23–45.

5.

C HAPTER O NE 6. 1.

2. 3.

4.

Morris Simon to Mary M. Branch, Brewer & Lord, 23 December 1986; Rene Muquier, Rene Muquier Associates, Inc., to Morris Simon, 20 January 1987; Josephine Simon, telephone conversation with author, 15 January 2003. See “Table of Made Land in Boston” in appendix 1. This acreage would be greater if it included the made land on the Boston side of the Charles above the B.U. Bridge and of the Neponset above the Neponset Bridge but, as explained in the preface, the area encompassed by this study ends at these two bridges. The original area of Boston is traditionally cited as 783 acres (see, for example, Boston [Mass.], City of, Documents of the City of Boston for the

7.

8.

Year 1893 [Boston: City Printers, 1894], No. 36, 19 [hereafter cited as City Doc.]). A recent computer analysis found, however, that the area of the original peninsula north of East Berkeley Street—once the location of the gateway to the town at the narrowest part of the Neck—was 487 acres (see appendix 1). Interestingly, this is exactly the same acreage given for the peninsula on a ca. 1900 map that has a reconstruction of the original shoreline (“Plan of Boston with Acreage,” [ca. 1900], Print Department, Boston Public Library, Boston). The 783 acres must thus have included the part of original Boston south of the Neck, once known as the Neck Lands and now part of the South End (see chapter 10 and figures 10.2 and 10.1). The recent computer analysis found the area of the Neck Lands to be 230.5 acres, which, when added to the 487 acres of the Shawmut Peninsula, amounts to 717.5 acres, closer to but still not quite the traditional 783 acres. In any event, the computer analysis also ascertained that, around the original peninsula between a line drawn across the Esplanade just south of the Concert Lagoon and then on Beacon Street and the line of East Berkeley Street, the made land, excluding Back Bay, is 499.9 acres (see figures 1.1, 6.1, and 9.1)—in other words, virtually the same as the acreage of the original peninsula, hence doubling its size (see appendix 1). The recent computer analysis found that, within the present city boundaries, the original part of Charlestown was 454.4 acres and the made land 413.0 acres, so Charlestown has been almost doubled in size (see figure 14.1 and appendix 1). The recent computer analysis found that the area of the original five islands that comprised East Boston (see figure 1.1) was 1,280.4 acres, the made land (including the airport) was 1,767.3 acres, and thus the present area of East Boston is 3,047.7 acres (see appendix 1). The area of the original South Boston peninsula, with a southwest boundary on a line running between Mercer Street extended to the 1630 shoreline and the intersection of B Street and the 1630 shoreline (see figures 11.1 and 11.4), was computed to be 579.3 acres, all the made land in South Boston to be 1,012.7 acres, and thus the present area of that section of the city, using the original boundary of South Boston, to be 1,592.0 acres (see appendix 1). The city and county of San Francisco may have almost as much fill as Boston, but the one complete study of filling San Francisco does not

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9.

10.

11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20.

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include the total area of fill (Gerald Robert Dow, “Bay Fill in San Francisco: A History of Change,” master’s thesis, California State University, San Francisco, 1973). David Woodhouse et al., “Geology of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America,” Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists 28, no. 4 (1991): 409, 418–423. For example, Michael P. Conzen and George K. Lewis, Boston: A Geographical Portrait (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1976), 9. Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 75–86. In every other state except Maine, which was part of Massachusetts until 1820, private property rights end at the high water mark. The Massachusetts law is worded: “in all creeks, coves, and other places about and upon salt water where the sea ebbs and flows, the proprietor of the land adjoining shall have propriety to the low water mark where the sea doth not ebb above one hundred rods and not more wheresoever it ebbs further” (The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660 with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also the Body of Liberties of 1641 [Boston: N.p., 1889], 170). From 17,880 in 1790 to 32,896 in 1810 (City Doc. No. 104 [1886], 4–5). Boston Record Commisioners, A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Records from 1700 to 1728, vol. 8 (Boston: City Printers, 1883), 20–21 (hereafter cited as B.R.C.); Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1888), 13–14. Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744, ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 111; B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Town Records, 1742 to 1757, vol. 14 (Boston: City Printers, 1885), 305. John B. Blake, Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630–1822 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 99–100. (Boston) New-England Palladium, 23 March 1804. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 75. Minutes, 3 June 1829, 19 July 1830, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council). Minutes, 5 September 1833, Council; Minutes, 7 October 1833, 19 August 1822, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen,

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21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen). The 1833 ordinance was in relation to nuisances, sources of filth, and causes of sickness, and was probably in response to the cholera epidemic of the preceding year. For discussions of sewerage systems in American cities, see Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1996), 7–14, 103–207; Jon A. Peterson, “The Impact of Sanitary Reform upon American Urban Planning, 1840–1890,” in Introduction to Planning History in the United States, ed. Donald A. Krueckeberg (New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1983), 13–23. First published in Journal of Social History 13 (1979): 83–103; Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 39–41, 90–99. City Doc. No. 36 (1849), 3. City Doc. No. 48 (1849); City Doc. No. 14 (1850); City Doc. No. 154 (1868). Tarr, Ultimate Sink, 115. Peterson, “Sanitary Reform,” 13–14, 27–29. David Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 59–66; Galen Cranz, The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982), 5–59. Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year 1870, Chap. 283 (hereafter cited as “Acts” or “Resolves”). Acts of 1875, Chap. 185; City Doc. No. 42 (1876). City Doc. No. 93 (1881), 8; Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Parks for the City of Boston, for the Year 1881, City Doc. No. 16 (1882), 6 (hereafter cited as A.R. BPC). For a more complete discussion of the establishment of the Boston park system, see Nancy S. Seasholes, Landmaking and the Process of Urbanization: The Boston Landmaking Projects, 1630s–1888 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1994), 462–470, and Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 34–46. Mona Domosh in Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century New York & Boston (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) claims that the original Boston park system “shows the . . . control of the [sic] Boston’s established elite over the city’s use of space” (p. 148). She ignores, however, the fact that the original board of elite park commissioners was replaced in 1885, before much park construction had begun, by a new board appointed by Mayor Hugh O’Brien, Boston’s first Irish mayor. Olmsted originally had

negative feelings about the new board, which had an Irish member, but found their policies did not differ much from their predecessors’ (Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 67). 30. Cranz, Park Design, 61–99; Dominick Cavallo, Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 1–12; Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 242–251.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

C HAPTER T WO 1. 2. 3.

4.

City Doc. No. 36 (1849), 6–7. City Doc. No. 66 (1849), 8. The classic article on American acceptance of the germ theory is Phyllis Allen Richmond, “American Attitudes toward the Germ Theory of Disease (1860–1880),” Journal of the History of Medicine 9 (1954): 428–454. Richmond argues that American physicians were slow to adopt the germ theory because their discussion of it in the 1870s was unscientific and they did not attempt to prove or disprove the theory experimentally. Nancy Tomes refutes this view in “American Attitudes toward the Germ Theory of Disease: Phyllis Allen Richmond Revisited,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 52 (1997): 17–50, arguing that European discussion of the theory in the 1870s was also confused and that the American debate prepared the way for acceptance of the theory, which, both authors agree, occurred in the 1880s on the basis of evidence from Robert Koch’s experiments. Charles V. Chapin, “The End of the Filth Theory of Disease,” Popular Science Monthly 60 (1902): 234–239.

C HAPTER T HREE 1. 2.

3. 4.

Justin Winsor, ed., Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 1: xxii. B.R.C., Second Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Town Records from 1630 to 1660 and the Book of Possessions, vol. 2 (Boston: City Printers, 1877), 76. Edward Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Savior in New England (1654; reprint, Andover, Mass.: Warren F. Draper, 1867), 43. Michael P. Conzen, “Town-Plan Analysis in an American Setting: Cadastral Processes in Boston and Omaha, 1630–1930,” in The Built Form of Western Cities: Essays for M. R. G. Conzen on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. T. R. Slater (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), 148.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

Samuel C. Clough, “Map of Boston, 1633,” pl. II, Clough Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Thomas Lechford, Note-Book Kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq., Lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638, to July 29, 1641 (Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson and Son, 1885), 69–70; B.R.C., 2: 37. Lechford, Note-Book, 71–74. B.R.C., 2: 63–64. Ibid., 94. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Records from 1660 to 1701, vol. 7 (Boston: City Printers, 1881), 74–75. B.R.C., 2: 73. Deed from Franklin to Scottow, 31 January 1651/2, 1: 173, Suffolk [County, Massachusetts] Deeds, Registry of Deeds, Edward W. Brooke Courthouse, Boston (hereafter cited as S.D.). Deed from Franklin to Scottow, 4 April 1653, 1: 297, S.D.; Arbitration of dispute between Franklin and Scottow, 8 February 1653/4, 2: 158, S.D. Nancy S. Seasholes, “Documentary History of the Bostonian Hotel Site,” in James W. Bradley et al., Archaeology of the Bostonian Hotel Site, Occasional Publications in Archaeology and History #2 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1983), 58–59. Bradley et al., Bostonian Hotel Site, 25. Ibid., 77. William J. Reid, Castle Island and Fort Independence (Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1995), 8. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (1854; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968), 4, pt. 2: 164, 298 (hereafter cited as Mass. Records). B.R.C., 7: 82. B.R.C., Fifth Report of the Record Commissioners [“Gleaner” articles], vol. 5 (Boston: City Printers, 1880), 12. Deposition by Seth Perry, 26 September 1712, 26: 247, S.D. Mass. Records, 5: 310–311. I am greatly indebted to Frederic C. Detwiller for bringing to my attention this plan, which was found by Abbott Lowell Cummings in the British Public Records Office. B.R.C., 8: 40, 62. Ibid., 29. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing Miscellaneous Papers, vol. 10 (Boston: City Printers, 1886), 154. Ibid., 154–155.

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28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

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Ibid., 153. Ibid., 152. B.R.C., 8: 63, 66. Ibid., 66; Agreement of Proprietors of Long Wharf, 7 April 1715, 32: 172, S.D. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Records of Boston Selectmen, 1701 to 1715, vol. 11 (Boston: City Printers, 1884), 107, 117, 120, 130, 135; Agreement of Proprietors of Long Wharf, 7 April 1715, 32: 172. S.D. Agreement of Proprietors of Long Wharf, 7 April 1715, 32: 172, S.D. Beth Anne Bower et al., Long Wharf: Archaeological Testing of Parcel D–10, Occasional Publications in Archaeology and History #3 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1984), 42. For example, Nathaniel Dearborn, Boston Notions; Being an Authentic and Concise Account of “That Village,” from 1630 to 1847 (Boston: Nathaniel Dearborn, 1848), 105. Daniel Neal, The History of New-England . . . To which is added The Present State of New-England (London: J. Clark, R. Ford, R. Cruttenden, 1720), 587. Deed from Scottow to Ballentine, 27 June 1680, 12: 94, S.D. Samuel C. Clough, “Map Showing Creek Sq. & Vicinity, 1706,” in “Ownership of Certain Land In Boston,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 25 (1922): betw. 44–45. Bradley et al., Bostonian Hotel Site, 11, 13, 17. Gerald K. Kelso and Mary C. Beaudry, “Pollen Analysis and Urban Land Use: The Environs of Scottow’s Dock in 17th, 18th, and Early 19th Century Boston,” Historical Archaeology 24, no. 1 (1990): 61–81. B.R.C., 8: 79. Ibid., 91, 192, 208. For example, Deed of Ballentine’s administrator to Coffin, 25 May 1734, 54: 139, S.D.; Deed of Whitwell to Power, 3 August 1786, 158: 160, S.D. B.R.C., 7: 119, 122; 11: 63. B.R.C., 11: 87; 8: 68. B.R.C., 11: 105. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Records of Boston Selectmen, 1716 to 1736, vol. 13 (Boston: City Printers, 1885), 136. B.R.C., 11: 136, 149, 159. Ibid., 136, 172. B.R.C., 8: 225. B.R.C., 13: 193. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Records from 1729 to 1742, vol. 12 (Boston: City

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53. 54. 55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74.

Printers, 1885), 15, 23, 40, 45–46, 61, 94, 105, 131, 184, 203, 304, 305; 13: 240, 248, 267, 269, 293; A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Records of Boston Selectmen, 1736 to 1742, vol. 15 (Boston: City Printers, 1886), 53, 63, 83, 86, 88, 89, 97, 99, 103, 126, 131, 134, 153, 158, 164–165, 166, 171. B.R.C., 15: 164–165, 171; Walter K. Watkins, “The Site of Faneuil Hall,” Bostonian Society Publications 7 (1910): 137. Watkins, “Faneuil Hall,” 136; B.R.C., 12: 65. B.R.C., 12: 80–82. Michael L. Alterman and Richard M. Affleck, “Archaeological Investigations at the Former Town Dock and Faneuil Hall, Boston National Historic Park, Boston, Massachusetts,” Final Report (Cultural Resource Group, Louis Berger & Associates, East Orange, N.J., 1999), 1: i, V-1-27, XI-4-6. B.R.C., 8: 166, 167; 13: 37, 45, 60–61, 71, 79, 105, 119. B.R.C., 12: 63–65, 77–79. Ibid., 63–64; I am indebted to Frederic C. Detwiller for bringing this plan to my attention. Ibid., 254, 256, 271, 287. Ibid., 292–293, 297. The 1742 proposal was for a battery with its north end 400 feet east of the Sconce and south end 280 feet east, 280 feet long by 40 feet wide, and perhaps with a wharf connecting it to the Sconce (ibid., 297, 300). Ibid., 301–302; B.R.C., 14: 43. B.R.C., 14: 43–44. Ibid., 91–92. Ibid., 101; B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Selectmen’s Minutes from 1742/3 to 1753, vol. 17 (Boston: City Printers, 1887), 137, 140. B.R.C., 8: 220–221. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Town Records, 1758 to 1769, vol. 16 (Boston: City Printers, 1886), 99–101. City Doc. No. 104 (1886), 4–5. Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744, ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 111. B.R.C., 14: 305. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Town Records, 1770 through 1777, vol. 18 (Boston: City Printers, 1887), 35, 158. B.R.C., 14: 306, 309; 16: 58, 64–65. B.R.C., 18: 35, 37–38, 68, 74.

75. Ibid., 158, 212. 76. B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Town Records, 1778 to 1783, vol. 26 (Boston: City Printers, 1895), 301. 77. B.R.C., A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Boston Town Records, 1784 to 1796, vol. 31 (Boston: City Printers, 1903), 31. 78. “Plan of Boston Market Showing Places for 56 Carts, 120 ‘Paniards,’ 120 horses, etc.,” no. 3049, p. 31, vol. 49, Third Series, Maps and Plans, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. 79. Deed of Mackay to Power, 1 June 1788, 163: 227, S.D. 80. For example, Deed of Dawes to May, 24 June 1798, 190: 51, S.D. 81. Bradley et al., Bostonian Hotel Site, 33. 82. B.R.C., 14: 251–254, 276. 83. B.R.C., A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Boston Town Records, 1796 to 1813, vol. 35 (Boston: City Printers, 1905), 56. 84. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, Titles, Nathaniel I. Bowditch Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 9: 321. 85. The 1800 map is: Osgood Carleton, A New Plan of Boston From Actual Surveys by Osgood Carleton (1800; reprint, Boston: George B. Foster, 1878). 86. Caleb Snow, History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts, from Its Origins to the Present Period; with Some Account of the Environs, 2d ed. (Boston: Abel Bowen, 1828), 110; Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), figure 32; Charles Shaw, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston: Oliver Spear, 1817), 61, 62. 87. Edwin L. Bynner, “Topography and Landmarks of the Colonial Period,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 1: 523 n. 1. 88. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3d ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 114. 89. Michael Roberts et al., “The Archaeology and Site History of 75 State Street” (Timelines Inc., Groton, Mass., 1989), figure III-8. 90. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783–1860 (1921; reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979), 46–78. 91. B.R.C., 5: 53; Shubael Bell, “An Account of the Town of Boston Written in 1817,” Bostonian Society Publications, 2d ser., 3 (1919): 44, 64; William Tudor, Letters on the Eastern States (Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1821), 359; Cotting obituary, (Boston) New-England Palladium, 14 May 1819. 92. A. N. Marquis Co., Who Was Who in America: Historical Volume, 1607–1896 (Chicago: A.N. Marquis Co., 1963), s.v. “Lowell, Francis

93. 94.

95. 96.

97. 98. 99.

100. 101.

102.

Cabot.” Lowell later became famous for unlocking the secrets of English power looms and was a founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company in Waltham, Massachusetts, whose mills were the model for the large textile manufacturing development in Lowell, Massachusetts, named for Francis C., who died in 1817 at age 42. Box 3: folder 11, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (hereafter cited as FCL). India Wharf Account, reel 3, Harrison Gray Otis Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (hereafter cited as HGO/MHS); also in box 4: folder 2, FCL. Agreement of Cotting, Lowell, and Jackson with Francis and Charles Bradbury, box 3: folder 11, FCL. William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), 3: 24. India Wharf Account, reel 3, HGO/MHS; also in box 4: folder 2, FCL. India Wharf Account, reel 3, HGO/MHS; also in box 4: folder 4, FCL. Marquis, Who Was Who, s.v. “Otis, Harrison Gray”; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Life and Letters of Harrison Gary Otis, Federalist, 1765–1848, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 1: 8, 28, 49, 58, 215, 236. Marquis, Who Was Who, s.v. “Lloyd, James, Jr.” The first extant contract for this work, signed October 24, 1804, was with Blake and Dix of Boston for the delivery of “Four hundred and fifty sticks of best merchantable Pine Timber, each stick to be twenty-three feet and three inches long, also eighteen inches one way, and sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen inches the other way, to be hewed to a square edge, and both ends to be of a bigness” (Agreement of Lloyd with Blake and Dix, box 4: folder 7, FCL). On November 24, 1804, a contract was made to fill the spaces between the piles. This contract was with one Martin Doyle, who was to “fill up to the highest caps of the wharf on each side, the space between the most western range of posts across India Wharf near the end thereof—and the range of posts to the eastward opposite to the range first mentioned, being the same space which the subscriber [Doyle] has already begun to fill up—To keep constantly at work on the same and completely to fill up the said space as soon as possible” (Agreement of Cotting with Martin Doyle, ibid.). On February 9, 1805, the proprietors made another contract for timber, this time for 150 pilings, 12 inches square and an average of 35 feet long (Agreement of Lloyd with Lee and Spofford, box 4: folder 13, FCL). Agreements with Drayton and Hobart, Taylor and Willson, Samuel Hayden, box 4: folder 13, FCL.

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103. Agreement of Lowell with Thomas Whitmarsh, Seth Nason, Joseph Eaton, India Wharf File, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston. 104. Agreement of Proprietors of India Wharf with Jonathan Harrington, box 4: folder 14, FCL. 105. Nath. Heath, David Hewes, John Vinton, Benajah Brigham to Proprietors of India Wharf, box 5: folder 3, FCL. 106. Agreement of Proprietors of India Wharf with Seth Taylor and Thaddeus Wilson, 3 March 1806 (box 5: folder 7, FCL); Agreement of Proprietors of India Wharf with John Newcomb and John White, 10 March 1806 (ibid.); Agreement of Proprietors of India Wharf with John Newcomb and John White, 9 April 1806 (box 5: folder 8, FCL). 107. Indenture between Otis, Lowell, Lloyd, Cotting, box 5: folder 8, FCL. 108. Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The Beginnings of India Wharf,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1962): 23. 109. Jackson to Lowell, 13 May 1807, box 5: folder 12, FCL. 110. Bell, “Boston in 1817,” 30. 111. James W. Hale, Old Boston Town, Early in this Century; By an 1801-er (New York: Geo. F. Nesbitt & Co., [1883]), 11. 112. Acts of 1804, Chap. 50. The other owners were Benjamin Bussey, Rufus Greene Amory, Joshua Loring, John I. [sic; should be Foster] Loring, and Samuel D. Harris. 113. B.R.C., A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Minutes of the Selectmen’s Meetings, 1799 to, and Including, 1810, vol. 33 (Boston: City Printers, 1904), 267. 114. Ibid., 270. 115. Agreement of Otis with Hayden, September 1805, reel 3, HGO/MHS. 116. Bentley, Diary, 3: 229. 117. B.R.C., 33: 299–300. 118. Otis to [Boston Selectmen], 1806, reel 4, HGO/MHS. 119. Palladium, 28 October 1807. 120. Samuel Adams Drake, Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston (1906; reprint, Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1971), 106. 121. Bowditch, Titles, 29: 271; Hale, Boston by an 1801-er, 12. 122. Acts of 1808, Chap. 78. 123. Addendum: folder 1, Broad St./India St., Harrison Gray Otis Papers, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston (hereafter cited as HGO/SPNEA). 124. Schedules of notes and debts due to Broadstreet Association, reel 4, HGO/MHS. 125. (Boston) Independent Chronicle, 16 February 1804. 126. [Uriah Cotting], Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (Boston: N.p., [1818]), 4.

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127. Ebenezer Francis to Otis et al., 18 April 1815, 246: 139, S.D.; Francis, Otis et al., to Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation, 19 April 1815, 246: 146, S.D. 128. John T. Prince, “Boston in 1813, Reminiscences of an Old School-Boy,” Bostonian Society Publications 3 (1906): 95. 129. William Blaney to president and trustees of the Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, 26 April 1823, I-A–1, Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation Papers, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston. 130. Ibid. 131. Ibid. 132. Ibid. 133. Ibid. 134. Ricardo J. Elia, David B. Landon, and Nancy S. Seasholes, “Phase II Archaeological Investigations of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project in Boston, Massachusetts,” 2 vols. (Office of Public Archaeology, Boston University, Boston, 1989), 1: 62–64, figure 6.7. 135. “Central Wharf Built Solidly,” Boston Herald, 17 July 1966. 136. Blaney to president and trustees of the Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, 26 April 1823, I-A-1, Central Wharf Papers. 137. Bell, “Boston in 1817,” 31. 138. City Doc. No. 104 (1886), 4–5; [Boston, City of ], Report of the Committee . . . to Make Sale of the Upland and Flats, Lying West of Charles Street (Boston: N.p., 1824), 15. 139. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 23–33. 140. James M. Bugbee, “Boston under the Mayors, 1822–1880,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 3: 260–261. 141. Quincy, Municipal History. 142. Ibid., 75–76; Hale, Boston by an 1801-er, 14–15. 143. Minutes, 19 August 1822, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen); Quincy, Municipal History, 76. Matthew H. Crocker argues that Quincy was motivated by his desire to curry favor with truckmen— those who ferried goods around Boston on two-wheeled carts—who did not have adequate space in the old market (The Magic of the Many: Josiah Quincy and the Rise of Mass Politics in Boston, 1800–1830 [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999], 139. 144. Quincy, Municipal History, 77–87, 124–125. 145. Ibid., 125–129. 146. Minutes, 15 July 1824, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council).

147. Quincy, Municipal History, 129–137, 201. For the politics of the Faneuil Hall Market project, see Crocker, Magic of the Many, 139–143. 148. Minutes, 20 November 1826, Council; Quincy, Municipal History, 202–203 n. 1. 149. Quincy, Municipal History, 257–258. 150. Minutes, 20 April 1826, 26 April 1826, 1 May 1826, 15 May 1826, 22 May 1826, Council. 151. Acts of 1826, Chap. 13; Minutes, 6 June 1826, Council. 152. Minutes, 3 October 1827, 25 February 1828, Council. 153. Minutes, 12 January 1829, Council. 154. Minutes, 9 August 1830, Council. 155. Quincy, Municipal History, 243. 156. Minutes, 13 October 1828, Council. 157. Minutes, 12 January 1829, 12 October 1829, Council; Quincy, Municipal History, 289–290. 158. Minutes, 18 June, 1827, Council. 159. Minutes, 3 March 1828, 17 March 1828, 22 September 1828, 6 October 1828, Council. 160. Minutes, 3 June 1829, Council. 161. Minutes, 19 July 1830, Council. 162. Minutes, 3 January 1833, Council. 163. Directors Records, 29 March 1837, 24 July 1837, 2 September 1837, 14 September 1837, Long Wharf Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. 164. John Harris, Historic Walks in Old Boston (Chester, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, 1982), 214. 165. Gridley J. Bryant, “Architect’s Circular,” in Catalogue and Terms and Conditions of Sale of Lots of Land, Situated between Long and Central Wharves, in the City of Boston, Belonging to the Long Wharf Corporation and the Central Wharf Corporation, to be Sold by Public Auction, on Wednesday, June 3d, 1857 (Boston: Eastburn’s Press, 1857), 10. 166. Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 117–118. 167. Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (1941; reprint, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979), 93–94, 101, 105–106. 168. City Doc. No. 66 (1849), 166–175. 169. Ibid., 167–173. 170. Ibid., 177–179. 171. Ibid., 8; City Doc. No. 21 (1866); George Rosen, A History of Public Health (New York: MD Publications, 1958), 285–287; Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); City Doc. No. 128 (1869), 188, 212, 220, 235.

172. Acts of 1854, Chap. 407; Minutes, 30 January 1854, 4 April 1854, 8 May 1854, 6 June 1854, Aldermen; Minutes, 11 May 1854, 8 June 1854, Council. 173. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 169; Edward Stanwood, “Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 46. 174. City Doc. No. 14 (1861), 13–24; City Doc. No. 21 (1866), 37–41. 175. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 169; Stanwood, “Topography of Last Hundred Years,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 46. 176. The mayor of Boston from 1854 to 1856, Dr. Jerome V. Smith, was also a member of the Know-Nothing party. Smith had first come to Boston in May 1822 on the day the very first mayor was being sworn in. Hearing that a mare was to be inaugurated in Faneuil Hall, Smith went to witness the ceremony and, although disappointed not to see a horse honored, left with the conviction that he himself would one day hold that office (Bugbee, “Mayors,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 259 and n.). 177. Minutes, 19 March 1855, Aldermen; Minutes, 22 March 1855, Council. 178. Acts of 1857, Chap. 86; Minutes, 12 February 1857, 8 June 1857, 29 June 1857, 5 December 1864, Aldermen; Minutes, 25 June 1857, 8 December 1864, Council. 179. Acts of 1865, Chap. 278. 180. Acts of 1865, Chap. 159. 181. [Charlestown, Mass.], Report of the Commissioners Appointed by the City Government of 1870 on the Reduction of Bunker Hill and the Filling of the Mill Pond and Mystic River Flats (Boston: Noyes & Poole, 1871), 27. 182. Minutes, 8 December 1864, Council; Minutes, 5 December 1864, Aldermen. 183. Minutes, 31 July 1865, 21 August 1865, 4 September 1865, 11 September 1865, 19 September 1865, Aldermen. 184. Minutes, 10 October 1865, 2 October 1865, 5 October 1865, 9 October 1865, Aldermen. 185. Boston [Mass.], Reports of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston (Boston: Boston Evening Transcript), 1869: 157 (hereafter cited as City Council Proceedings); City Doc. No. 90 (1866). 186. Minutes, 3 September 1866, Aldermen; Bugbee, “Mayors,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 3: 272. 187. Plan of Fort Hill Showing Improvements as Proposed by the Committee on Laying Out and Widening Streets (Boston: A. Meisel, 1866). 188. Minutes, 5 August 1867, 19 August 1867, Aldermen; Minutes, 22 August 1867, Council; City Council Proceedings, 1869: 157. 189. Minutes, 24 February 1868, Aldermen; City Council Proceedings, 1869: 171–172. 190. City Council Proceedings, 1869: 158.

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191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200.

201.

202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209.

210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221.

454

City Doc. No. 128 (1868), 6. City Council Proceedings, 1869: 158. City Doc. No. 128 (1868), 14. Acts of 1867, Chap. 324. City Doc. No. 128 (1868), 13. City Council Proceedings, 1868: 88, 90. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 119; City Council Proceedings, 1869: 340; 1871: 26. City Doc. No. 20 (1870), 5. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 119–120. Massachusetts, Commonwealth of, Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners, January 1870 in Documents Printed by Order of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during the Session of the General Court A.D. 1870 (Boston: State Printers, 1870), No. 55, 26–27 (hereafter cited as A.R., HC, House). City Council Proceedings, 1871: 26. One section of the wall was eighteen feet high and another fifteen; the whole wall had a battered cross section fourteen feet wide at the base and four feet at the top, and was ballasted on the seaward side with broken stones “rammed thoroughly” against it (City Doc. No. 20 [1870], 7, 5). City Council Proceedings 1869: 177, 210. Ibid., 340. Acts of 1869, Chap. 56; City Doc. No. 89 (1871), 83. City Doc. No. 20 (1870), 5. City Council Proceedings, 1869: 340; 1870: 365. City Doc. No. 128 (1868), 13. Acts of 1869, Chap. 181. City Doc. No. 89 (1871), 97–98; Minutes, 25 January 1872, Special Committee on Fort Hill Improvement, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Fort Hill Committee). Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 152. Souther obituary, Boston Evening Transcript, 13 September 1911, 28. Minutes, 11 April 1873, Fort Hill Committee. Ibid. City Doc. No. 89 (1871), 50–51. Ibid., 98–99, 113. Ibid., 114–115, 83, vi–vii, 160; City Council Proceedings, 1869: 157. City Doc. No. 89 (1871), ix; Minutes, 16 February 1871, Fort Hill Committee. City Doc. No. 89 (1871), xi, 135, 161. City Council Proceedings, 1871: 230. Ibid., 231. City Doc. No. 89 (1871), passim.

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222. Minutes, 22 May 1873, Fort Hill Committee; City Doc. No. 89 (1871), 51, 134. 223. Minutes, 28 December 1871, 20 June 1874, Fort Hill Committee. 224. Minutes, 6 March 1871, 31 July 1871, Fort Hill Committee. 225. Minutes, 25 September 1871, Fort Hill Committee. 226. City Council Proceedings, 1871: 41; Minutes, 3 February 1872, 20 August 1872, Fort Hill Committee; Bugbee, “Mayors,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 3: 272. 227. Plan of Fort Hill. 228. Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 88 and n. 49. C HAPTER F OUR 1. 2. 3. 4.

B.R.C., 2: 74. Ibid., 74–75. Ibid., 76–77. Charles D. Cheek and Joseph Balicki, “Archaeological Data Recovery: The Mill Pond Site (BOS-HA-14), Boston, Massachusetts,” prepared for Timelines, Inc., and the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (John Milner Associates, Inc., West Chester, Pa., 2000), 98. 5. Deed from Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England to John Eustis, 11 January 1709/10, 29: 200, S.D.; Indenture between John Eustis and Andrew Belcher et al., 25 May 1715, 29: 203, S.D.; Deed from John Eustis to William Maycock, 30 January 1723/4, 37: 171, S.D.; Deed from William Maycock to Dorothy Frizell, 2 August 1727, 41: 110, S.D. 6. Cheek and Balicki, “Mill Pond Site,” 109. 7. Nancy S. Seasholes, “Filling Boston’s Mill Pond,” Historical Archaeology 32, no. 3 (1998): 124–127. 8. Deeds from James Oliver to William Taylor, 20 August 1670, 15 December 1670, 7: 53, 63, S.D. 9. Indenture between Thomas and Hannah Davis and Elisha Cooke, 26 February 1705/6, 22: 463, S.D.; Deed from William Cooper to William Browne, 17 August 1751, 80: 54, S.D.; Deed from Josiah Wolcott to William Paine, 7 May 1755, 87: 36, S.D. 10. B.R.C., 16: 279–282, 294–295; 18: 11, 49. 11. Annie Haven Thwing, The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, 1630–1822 (Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1920), 27; B.R.C., 31: 79–80; Deed from William Hunt to John White, 12 February 1787, 159: 232, S.D.; B.R.C., A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Statistics of the United States’ Direct Tax of 1798, as Assessed on Boston and the Names of the Inhabitants of Boston in 1790, as Collected for the First National Census, vol. 22 (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 4–5;

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

Stephen A. Mrozowski et al., “Archaeological Data Recovery of the South Mills and Mill Creek, Contingency Plan Implementation, Contract Area C15A1, Central Artery/Tunnel Project, Boston, Massachusetts” (Center for Cultural and Environmental History, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, forthcoming). Deed from Samuel Welsh to John Peck, 17 November 1800, 196: 105, S.D.; (Boston) New-England Palladium, 27 March 1804. Cheek and Balicki, “Mill Pond Site,” 129, 135; Seasholes, “Mill Pond,” 130. B.R.C., 35: 35, 37. (Boston) Columbian Centinel, 14 March 1801. Carole Shammas has noted this density of settlement in early Federal period American cities, which she attributes to the subdivision of houselots as a means of reducing the cost of housing for less affluent migrants from the country (“The Space Problem in Early United States Cities,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 57, no. 3 [2000]: 505–542). B.R.C., 33: 209. (Boston) Independent Chronicle, 7 February 1805; B.R.C., 33: 214. Centinel, 15 February 1804, 25 February 1804. Palladium, 13 March 1804, 23 March 1804; Chronicle, 15 March 1804. John B. Blake, Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630–1822 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 99–100. Chronicle, 15 March 1804. Palladium, 13 March 1804, 23 March 1804. Ibid., 23 March 1804. Chronicle, 26 March 1804. Centinel, 24 March 1804; Chronicle, 26 March 1804; Palladium, 27 March 1804. B.R.C., 35: 164. B.R.C., 35: 169; Palladium, 11 May 1804. Centinel, 12 May 1804. B.R.C., 35: 169. Acts of 1803, Chap. 145. Palladium, 10 April 1804; Petition to legislature, 12 January 1804, vols. 6 and 7: folder 1, Boston Mill Corporation Papers, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston (hereafter cited as BMC). [Boston, Town of ], Report of the Committee upon the Mill Pond (Boston: Gilbert & Dean, 1805). Centinel, 2 February 1805. Chronicle, 7 February 1805. Palladium, 25 January 1805; Centinel, 30 January 1805; Boston Gazette, 31 January 1805.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

Centinel, 2 February 1805. B.R.C., 35: 174; Palladium, 8 February 1805. Acts of 1805, Chap. 89. B.R.C., 33: 301, 309. B.R.C., 35: 215. [Boston, Town of ], Report of the Committee relative to the filling up the Mill Pond (Boston: Oliver & Munroe, 1807). B.R.C., 35: 216, 217–218; 33: 339. Palladium, 7 July 1807, 31 July 1807. Centinel, 1 August 1807. B.R.C., 35: 223–225. B.R.C., 33: 353. Agreement between BMC and John Whitney, 2 December 1807, vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. Ibid. B.R.C., 33: 361. Ibid., 365, 371. Ibid., 379. Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 73. Caleb Snow, History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts, from Its Origins to the Present Period; with Some Account of the Environs, 2d ed. (Boston: Abel Bowen, 1828), 326. B.R.C., 33: 378. List of Contracts which have been made for filling up Mill pond, n.d., box 2: Uncataloged, HGO/SPNEA; William Taylor and Osgood Carleton, “Copy of a Plan of the Mill Pond in Boston,” Special Collections, State Library of Massachusetts, Boston. B.R.C., 33: 409; William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), 3: 461. Agreements between BMC and John Whitney, 20 August 1809, 1 March 1810, 15 October 1810, vols. 8 and 9: folder 3, BMC. Allen Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), 29, 33–41. B.R.C., 33: 349–350, 457, 462–463. Centinel, 19 June 1811; Deed from Town of Boston to John Hancock and Samuel Spears, 6 August, 1811, 238: 177, S.D. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3d ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 180. Box 6: folder 13, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

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63. B.R.C., 33: 458. 64. Richardson’s contract specified that the walls were to be “of sufficient stone on a sufficient foundation of timbering,” five feet thick at the bottom, three feet at the top, four feet on the diagonal, and were to be capped with square timbers one foot high secured by piers driven every eight feet (vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC). 65. Ibid. 66. B.R.C., 33: 435. 67. The walls were to be 5 feet thick at the bottom and 3 feet at the top—the same dimensions as in 1809—but this time 8 instead of 3.9 feet high. One-third of the stones were to be binders, that is, stones sufficiently long to extend through the whole wall (vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC). 68. Ibid. 69. B.R.C., A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Minutes of the Selectmen’s Meetings, 1811 to 1817, and Part of 1818, vol. 38 (Boston: City Printers, 1908), 15. 70. Bentley, Diary, 4: 48. 71. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. The work was to be completed by December 1 and the building specifications were very similar to those in the 1811 contract except that the new wall was to be four instead of five feet thick at the base. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. Robbins’s contract specified that he was to cap the southwest wall of the canal with three pine timbers not exceeding three feet (in height) secured in front with “spikes” and “land ties” placed not more than seven feet apart. The “spikes” were apparently upright timbers that were to be driven into “mud cills” [sic] and the “land ties” were timbers that were attached to the uprights and extended back into the wall to keep it from slumping forward. If necessary, Robbins was also authorized to cap the northeast wall of the canal adjoining the South Mills in the same manner. 74. Deposition of Jonas Welch, 29 July 1826, 303: 215, S.D. 75. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. The wall of the new “wharf ” was to be laid in a trench one foot deep, or deeper if necessary for a safe foundation, to be built of stones the size of those in the canal walls, again to be five feet thick at the bottom and three at the top, and, including the timber cap, to be as high as the existing wharf. 76. Ibid. 77. Agreements between BMC and: Solomon Clap and William Mead, 7 May 1813; Bryant Newcomb, 20 May 1813; John Spear, 22 May 1813, ibid. 78. B.R.C., 38: 99. 79. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. 80. Plan of Mill Pond Wharf, July 17, 1826, by Stephen P. Fuller, 303: end, S.D.

456

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8 4 – 9 0

81. Report of Committee on Condition of Corporation’s Affairs, May 1815, vols. 6 and 7: folder 13, BMC. 82. B.R.C., 38: 39, 97–98. Although an antiquarian account reported that the ship on which British prisoners were kept during the War of 1812 was moored in the Mill Pond (James W. Hale, Old Boston Town, Early in this Century; By an 1801-er [New York: Geo. F. Nesbitt & Co., (1883)], 38), thus implying that the area west of Pond Street was not only open water but deep enough for ships, another account makes it clear that this ship was at a wharf outside the causeway (Deposition of Joshua Butters, 15 July 1826, 303: 181, S.D.). 83. B.R.C.. 38: 41, 42–43, 80, 81, 82; Agreement between BMC and Ephraim Whitney, 28 July 1812, vols. 8 and 9: folder 3, BMC. 84. Bentley, Diary, 4: 152. 85. B.R.C., 38: 97–98. 86. Agreement between BMC and Ebenezer Smith, 1 May 1815, vols. 6 and 7: folder 9, BMC. 87. Cheek and Balicki, “Mill Pond Site,” 117, 125–129; Mrozowski et al., “South Mills.” 88. B.R.C., 18: 49. 89. “Plan of buoys and warps,” n.d., box 32; folder 40, Middlesex Canal Corporation Records, Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Mass. I am indebted to David Dettinger for this plan. 90. Christopher Roberts, The Middlesex Canal, 1793–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), 134. 91. Bentley, Diary, 4: 335; Shubael Bell, “An Account of the Town of Boston Written in 1817,” Bostonian Society Publications, 2d ser., 3 (1919): 36. 92. Bell, “Boston in 1817,” 36; Charles Shaw, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston: Oliver Spear, 1817), 58. 93. Several accounts mention long blocks of stores built in 1817 on Market Street (Snow, History of Boston, 328; Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, ed. Barbara Miller Solomon [1821; Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969], 363n). These stores were not on Market Street in the Mill Pond, however, but rather on a Market Street that ran between Tremont and Washington Streets and is now part of City Hall Plaza. 94. Shaw, Topographical Description, 59. 95. Bell, “Boston in 1817,” 22. 96. Vols. 8 and 9: folder 3, BMC. 97. Deeds, Vol. 4: Deeds folder, BMC. 98. Minutes, 17 November 1823, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council).

99. BMC to City Authorities, April 1824, vols. 8 and 9: folder 4, BMC. 100. [Boston, City of ], Report of the Committee . . . to Make Sale of the Upland and Flats, Lying West of Charles Street (Boston: N.p., 1824), 11. 101. Minutes, 4 October 1824, Council. 102. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. 103. Ibid. 104. Agreement between BMC and Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge, 4 November 1824, ibid.; Minutes, 10 November 1824, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen). 105. Edwin C. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1800–1842: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, Historic Resource Study, 2 vols. (Boston: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1984), 469–471, 595–596. 106. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. 107. Ricardo J. Elia, David B. Landon, and Nancy S. Seasholes, “Phase II Archaeological Investigations of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project in Boston, Massachusetts,” 2 vols. (Office of Public Archaeology, Boston University, Boston, 1989), 1: 13, 14, figures 3.6–3.8, table 3.1. 108. Vols. 6 and 7: folder 6, BMC. 109. Ibid. 110. Minutes, 12 June 1826, Aldermen. 111. Minutes, 30 October 1826, Alderman. 112. Minutes, 6 November 1826, Alderman. 113. Minutes, 4 December 1826, Alderman. 114. Minutes, 3 October 1827, Council. 115. James C. Johnson, “The New Land: The Site of the Old Mill Pond in 1827,” Bostonian 2 (1895): 73, 75. 116. Massachusetts Board of Internal Improvements, Report on the Practicability and Expediency of a Rail-Road from Boston to the Hudson River and from Boston to Providence . . . to which are annexed the Reports of the Engineers (Boston: Boston Daily Advertiser, 1829). 117. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The Canal and Railroad Enterprise of Boston,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 4: 119–126. 118. Minutes, 16 February 1829, Council; Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 295–296. 119. Acts of 1830, Chap. 4; Acts of 1831, Chaps. 72, 56; Adams, “Railroad,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 125–129. 120. Minutes, 4 August 1831, Council. 121. Minutes, 7 October 1831, Council.

122. Martha Babcock Amory, “The Gardiner Greene Mansion on Pemberton Hill,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1924): 25–27. 123. Francis Cabot Lowell, “A History of the Gardiner Greene Estate,” in A History of the Gardiner Greene Estate on Cotton Hill, now Pemberton Square, Boston, ed. Winthrop S. Scudder (Boston: Bostonian Society, 1916), 19. 124. Asa Sheldon, Yankee Drover: Being the Unpretending Life of Asa Sheldon, Farmer, Trader, and Working Man, 1788–1870 (1862; reprint, Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1988), 85. 125. Ibid., 115. 126. Ibid., 95. 127. Ibid., 94. 128. Ibid., 94–95, 97, 92. 129. Ibid., 89. 130. (Boston) Daily Atlas, 4 June 1835. 131. Sheldon, Yankee Drover, 96. 132. Ibid. 133. Ibid. 134. Ibid., 96–97; B.R.C., 5: 69. 135. Sheldon, Yankee Drover, 99–100. 136. Ibid., 87, 90. 137. Ibid., 104. 138. [Massachusetts] Superior Court, Suffolk County Civil, January 1862, Hiram Whitman et al. v. Boston and Maine Railroad, no. 86 (Suffolk Superior Civil Clerk’s Office, Boston). 139. Second A.R. HC, January 1868, House No. 10 (1868), 19–20; Acts of 1869, Chaps. 272, 291, 311, 343, 352. 140. For example, Fourth A.R. HC, January 1870, House No. 55 (1870), 16–20, 106–109; Fifth A.R. HC, January 1871, House No. 53 (1871), 12–15; [Massachusetts, Commonwealth of ], Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during the Session of the General Court A.D. 1871 (Boston: State Printers, 1871), No. 193 (hereafter cited as Senate); Sixth A.R. HC, January 1872, House No. 56 (1872), 28–30, 35–38, 40–47, 70–72; Ninth A.R. HC, January 1875, House No. 61 (1875), 13–14; Massachusetts, Commonwealth of, Annual Report of the Harbor and Land Commissioners for the Year 1880 in Public Documents of Massachusetts: Being the Annual Reports of Various Officers and Institutions for the Year 1880 (Boston: State Printers, 1881), No. 11, 40–43 (hereafter cited as H & LC, Pub. Doc.); A.R. H & LC for 1882, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1883), 8–18; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 13–20; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 11–13; A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1891), 9–11, 63–66; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1894), 9–12.

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141. First Report of the Charles River Improvement Commission, House No. 197 (1892), 9. 142. For example, House No. 924 (1893), 1; A.R. H & LC for 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1910), 5–6. 143. “Terminal Project Adding 56 Acres of Land to Boston,” Boston Business 21, no. 2 (1930): 8, 32; Frank C. Shepherd, “Recent Terminal Improvements of the Boston & Maine Railroad,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 17, no. 1 (1930): 16–19. C HAPTER F IVE There is some disagreement about where the shoreline of West Cove was actually located in 1630. Some authorities feel it extended inland as far as former North Russell Street (see figure 5.2; Caleb Snow, History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts, from Its Origins to the Present Period; with Some Account of the Environs, 2d ed. [Boston: Abel Bowen, 1828], frontispiece, see figure appendix 2.1; Justin Winsor, ed., Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols. [Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881], 1: frontispiece; Frederick Johnson et al., The Boylston Street Fishweir: A Study of the Archaeology, Biology, and Geology of a Site on Boylston Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts [Andover, Mass.: Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology 2 (1940)], figure 1; Clifford A. Kaye, The Geology and Early History of the Boston Area of Massachusetts: A Bicentennial Approach, Geological Survey Bulletin 1476 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976], figure 6; Beth Anne Bower et al., “Archaeological and Historic Resources Report” in “Preliminary Design and Environmental Studies, Bowdoin/Charles Connector Project,” vol. 3 [Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, Boston, 1987], figure 20). Others, however, think the original shoreline was about where indicated on figure 5.1, a reconstruction made by Ellis S. Chesbrough in 1852, as discussed in the Note on Sources (appendix 2). 2. These hills were the location of some ropewalks in the eighteenth century and were apparently cut down in the first decade of the nineteenth (B.R.C., 33: 333, 338, 342). 3. B.R.C., 31: 239. 4. Ibid., 398. 5. B.R.C., 35: 25, 46, 48–49, 65–67. 6. Ibid., 65. 7. Snow, History of Boston, 324. 8. The Almshouse Wharf was filled primarily with gravel and also with five to eight hundred scow-loads of mud dug from the flats outside the causeway (Deposition of John S. Perkins, 24 July 1826, 303: 203–204, S.D). 9. (Boston) New-England Palladium, 11 May 1804. 10. B.R.C., 33: 260.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

1.

458

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9 9 – 1 1 7

19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

28.

Ibid., 45. B.R.C., 38: 46–47. Ibid., 44, 56, 258; 33: 449. N. I. Bowditch, A History of the Massachusetts General Hospital, 2d ed. (1872; reprint, New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1972), 17–18, 22, 23, 27–28, 29 (hereafter cited as History of MGH). B.R.C., 38: 239–240, 241, 244, 258, 259–260, 265–267. Bowditch, History of MGH, 38, 55. B.R.C., 38: 284, 286. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 40; Harold Kirker, The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), 381 n. 2. Quincy, Municipal History, 35–40, 46–54, 88–96, 138–147. Minutes, 4 June 1844, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen). Minutes, 12 April 1841, 9 December 1844, Aldermen. The seawall was discovered in the 1930s when the White Building was under construction. The hospital decided to leave part of the wall exposed, but it could not be viewed easily until the main corridor behind the White Building was recently reconstructed with windows overlooking the pit. City Doc. No. 61 (1851), 19–20. Accounts of the Parkman murder can be found in George Bemis, Report of the Case of John W. Webster (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850); Robert Sullivan, The Disappearance of Dr. Parkman (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971); and Helen Thomson, Murder at Harvard (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971). A fanciful version is in Simon Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). City Doc. No. 61 (1851), 21–22, 25–26, 36–37. Minutes, 2 October 1854, 30 July 1855, 6 August 1855, 22 October 1855, 6 November 1856, Aldermen; Bowditch, History of MGH, 514; City Doc. No. 63 (1856). Bowditch, History of MGH, 536; Acts of 1859, Chap. 147. In late 1859 the city advertised for proposals for building the seawall. Twelve bids were received in December 1859 and the contract was awarded to Jesse Boynton of Providence (Minutes, 4 November 1859, 28 November 1859, 10 December 1859, 12 December 1859, 14 December 1859, 19 December 1859, Committee on Sea wall west of General Hospital, Record of Committees, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass.). Bowditch, History of MGH, 552; City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 22; Minutes, 23 April 1863, Aldermen.

29. Minutes, 4 May 1863, Aldermen; Minutes, 14 May 1863, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council). 30. Minutes, 21 December 1863, Aldermen. 31. Minutes, 14 March 1864, Aldermen; Minutes, 17 March 1864, Council. 32. City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 15–18; A.R. H & LC for 1880, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1881), 44. 33. Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 15 (1880), 18. 34. Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 31. 35. Acts of 1881, Chap. 92. 36. Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 16; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 23. 37. City Doc. No. 107 (1885), 1. 38. A.R. H & LC for 1880, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1881), 21; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 31. The foundation of the wall was a plank platform on top of piles that had been driven into the underlying clay and then surrounded with gravel up to the level of the platform. The wall itself was almost 13 feet high and had a battered cross section 7.67 feet wide at the base and 4.6 feet wide at the top. The wall was topped with a granite coping five feet wide and was backed with granite ballast stones taken from the 1860 seawall (Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 [1887], 22). 39. City Doc. No. 107 (1885); Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 22, 35; Acts of 1886, Chap. 65; Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 (1887), 10. 40. Most of the fill was gravel dredged from the river above the West Boston Bridge. Some was also dirt excavated from various construction sites in the city, including that for new (now old) Suffolk County Courthouse then being built in Pemberton Square, and coal ashes collected by the city (Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 [1887], 10–11, 22; Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 [1888], 58); House No. 1050 (1929), 7. 41. Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 (1887), 11–12; Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 (1888), 11; Fourteenth A.R. BPC for 1888, City Doc. No. 72 (1889), 12, 29. 42. Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 97–98. 43. Acts of 1891, Chap. 344; Acts of 1893, Chap. 435. 44. City Doc. No. 1 (1891), 16. 45. George H. Snelling, “[Remarks on a Memorial in favor of modifying the plan of building in the Back Bay printed in Senate No. 186 (1859) and supporting letters],” (Boston, City Printers, 1860), frontispiece, 43–44,

46. 47. 48.

49.

50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62.

49–51; for example, Charles Davenport, New Boston and Charles River Bay (Boston: J. Bufford’s Sons, [1879]); Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 41, figure 26; Karl Haglund, Inventing the Charles River (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 88, figure 3.28. Acts of 1891, Chap. 390. House No. 197 (1892), 10–11; House No. 924 (1893), 1–2; Acts of 1893, Chap. 475. Report of the Joint Board Consisting of the Metropolitan Park Commission and the State Board of Health upon the Improvement of Charles River, House No. 775 (1894), x–xiv, xx–xxi, 9–12, 20, 25–28. Ibid., xvii; John R. Freeman, “Some Problems of the Charles River Dam,” Boston’s Charles River Basin: An Engineering Landmark, Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE 67, no. 4 (1981): 214. Improvement of Charles River, House No. 775 (1894), viii, xvi. Resolves of 1894, Chap. 85; A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1895), 4–22; Charles River Dam: Evidence and Arguments before the Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners and Report Thereon (Boston: State Printers, 1894), ix, xix–xx; Freeman, “Charles River Dam,” 214–216. Evidence and Arguments before the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903), 497–500; Freeman, “Charles River Dam,” 216–217; Resolves of 1901, Chap. 105. Freeman, “Charles River Dam,” 222–225. Report of the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903), 7–8, 14–25, 27–30. Acts of 1903, Chap. 465. Second Annual Report of the Charles River Basin Commission, October 1, 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1905), 16 (hereafter cited as CRBC). Robert E. Barrett, “A Résumé of the Charles River Basin Project,” Harvard Engineering Journal 5, no. 4 (1907): 152, figure 8. Sixth A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1909), 3. Most of the fill was material dredged from the river, the Cambridge canals, and the harbor; some was also dirt from excavation sites in Cambridge (Seventh A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 71 [1910], 40). Third A.R. CRBC, October 1, 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1906), 35. Ibid.; Thirty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 11. Ever since the U.S. Arsenal had been moved from the Navy Yard in Charlestown to Watertown in 1819, the war department had required that all intervening bridges on the Charles be built with draws. So it took an act of Congress and approval by the secretary of war for this bridge to be built as a fixed rather than as a drawbridge, thus closing the Charles

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63. 64.

65.

66.

67.

River above it to large or masted ships (A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1901], 26–27; Haglund, Charles River, 18–19, 168–170). Thirty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1908, 9; Thirty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1909, 9. House No. 1050 (1929), 7, 23. Fill came from the reconstruction of Charles Street and from excavation for a pedestrian underpass at the intersection of Charles and Cambridge Streets in connection with the construction of what is now the Charles/MGH station of the MBTA Red Line (“Charles River Basin to Be the World’s Most Beautiful Water Park With Completion of Huge Development Project Now Well Under Way,” Boston Herald, 30 August 1931; “Charles Street Station Under Construction,” Boston Elevated Railway Co-Operation 10, no. 8 [1931]: 123, 125). Acts of 1946, Chap. 572; Charles A. Maguire and Associates, Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area (Boston: N.p., 1948), 62; “Revolt Beats Esplanade Highway,” Boston Globe, 13 April 1949; Acts of 1949, Chap. 272. The seawall between the Longfellow Bridge and Back Street was demolished for the construction of a tunnel for the inbound lanes of Storrow Drive between Dartmouth and Mt. Vernon Streets (“Construction of Huge Charlesbank Recreation Center Progressing,” Globe, 28 May 1950). Ibid.; “New Play Areas Assured in Basin,” Herald, 21 August 1949.

2.

460

The high granite wall at the end of Bellingham Court off Revere Street might suggest that the shore of the cove was south of Phillips Street (see figure 6.1). The wall, however, is probably not a seawall but rather a retaining wall for the house at the end of Bellingham Court, which, because of the slope of the hill, is at a much higher level than the houses behind it on Primus Avenue off Phillips Street (see figure 6.1). The filling of Front Street (now Harrison Avenue; see chapter 9) is often cited as the first systematic nineteenth-century landmaking project (see, for example, Edward Stanwood, “Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. [Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881], 4: 31; Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000], 77; Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992], 35). It was actually preceded by filling in 1799–1800 for the almshouse (see chapter 5) and in 1803 for India Wharf (see chapter 3) and of the Beacon Hill Flat. See chapter 9, n. 21 for the genesis of this misinterpretation of the Front Street project.

•

4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

C HAPTER S IX 1.

3.

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1 2 9 – 1 3 8

15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

John Sears, “Jonathan Mason (II), 1756–1831” (Paper delivered at the Nichols House Museum, Boston, January 1992). Samuel Eliot Morison, The Life and Letters of Harrison Gary Otis, Federalist, 1765–1848, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 1: 43; Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 60. B.R.C., 31: 383; Deposition of Charles Bulfinch, 14 November 1836, 387: 257, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA; Otis Statement, box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Deposition of Charles Bulfinch, 27 December 1839, 436: 134, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 60. Bulfinch Deposition, 14 November 1836, 387: 257, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA; Otis Statement, box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Bulfinch Deposition, 14 November 1836, 387: 258, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Allen Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), 79. Deposition of Abner House, 27 December 1839, 436: 139, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA. “Plan of three pieces of land . . . in Boston on Mount Hoardam . . . belonging to Jonathan Mason Esq. & others . . . by Mather Withington, April 27th, 1796,” 192: 198, S.D. (Boston) Columbian Centinel, 3 August 1796. Bulfinch Deposition, 14 November 1836, 387: 258, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Reel 2, HGO/MHS. Otis’s biographer, Samuel Eliot Morison, mistakenly attributed this remark to Otis (Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765–1848: The Urbane Federalist [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969], 219), but an examination of the Otis papers establishes that it was Mason who wrote the comment, not Otis. Otis Statement, box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Ibid. Deposition of Joseph Moncrieff, 3 October 1836, 387: 250, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA. House Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 138, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA. Deposition of Thomas Leach, 7 December 1837, 413: 132, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA. Otis Statement, box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Deposition of William Taylor, 1 January 1836, 387: 173, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15a, HGO/SPNEA. The bulkhead in the Mill Pond was composed of two parallel walls of timbers stacked up against vertical piles but, except for crossties between the

24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31. 32. 33.

34.

two walls, not otherwise attached. The bulkhead on the Charles River flats, however, was constructed of planks attached to deeply driven piles. The difference between the two was probably one of location: the Mill Pond bulkhead was in shallow water that was already protected by the Mill Dam and therefore did not need to be very substantial whereas the bulkhead on the Charles River flats was in deeper water and had to be strong enough to withstand wave action. House Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 138, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA; Otis Statement, box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), 3: 83–84. B.R.C., 5: 163; Frederick C. Gamst, “The Context and Significance of America’s First Railroad, on Boston’s Beacon Hill,” Technology and Culture 33, no. 1 (1992): 66, 96. Addendum: folder 2, HGO/SPNEA. For example, Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 62; Deposition of Charles Cushing, 10 November 1836, 387: 267, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA; Proprietors of Mount Vernon to Benjamin Joy, 10 April 1806, reel 4, HGO/MHS. House Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 139, 145, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA. On the basis of this description and information about contemporary railroads in England, it has been inferred that the Mount Vernon railroad operated on wooden tracks held together with cheap wooden crossties. The branch rails, or spurs, at the top and bottom of the incline were moved to new areas of excavation or dumping whenever necessary. At the top, full cars were hand-braked down the spurs to the head of the incline and empty cars were pulled back up by horses. At the bottom, or where the spurs were on level ground, the cars were moved by horse power (Gamst, “Railroad on Beacon Hill,” 93–95). House Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 141, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA; Taylor Deposition, 1 January 1836, 387: 173, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15a, HGO/SPNEA. Chamberlain, Beacon Hill, 80. (Boston) New-England Palladium, 15 November 1805. Bulfinch Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 133, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA; Bulfinch Deposition, 14 November 1836, 387: 260, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. Leach Deposition, 7 December 1837, 413: 132, S.D., also in box 1: folder 15, HGO/SPNEA; Bulfinch Deposition, 14 November 1836, 387: 259, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA; Bulfinch Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 135, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA.

35. B.R.C., 33: 346. 36. City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 22. 37. B.R.C., 38: 296; A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Minutes of the Selectmen’s Meetings from September 1, 1818, to April 24, 1822, vol. 39 (Boston: City Printers, 1909), 170, 191. 38. Petition of Harrison Gray Otis, Jonathan Mason, and Benjamin Joy, Boston Commercial Gazette, 12 March 1827; Plan, 25 April 1828, 330: end., S.D. 39. Petition, Commercial Gazette, 12 March 1827; Agreement between Jonathan Mason, Benjamin Joy, Harrison Gray Otis, and William Sullivan, 25 April 1828, 330: 276, S.D. 40. James L. Bruce, “Filling in of the Backbay and the Charles River Development,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1940): 35–36. 41. Acts of 1850, Chap. 317. 42. Senate No. 119 (1850), 6. 43. Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1857). The fill was reportedly household ashes and other trash (City Doc. No. 36 [1894], 22; City Doc. No. 128 [1869], 241). 44. Minutes, 15 November 1858, 6 December 1858, 27 December 1858, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen). 45. Acts of 1860, Chap. 137. 46. Minutes, 15 May 1861, 20 May 1861, Aldermen. 47. Minutes, 17 July 1865, Aldermen; City Doc. No. 73 (1865), 5. 48. Minutes, 10 November 1865, Aldermen. 49. City Doc. No. 111 (1866), 3. 50. Minutes, 23 April 1866, 30 April 1866, Aldermen. 51. Acts of 1866, Chap. 247. 52. City Doc. No. 111 (1866); Minutes, 31 May 1868, 31 August 1868, 21 September 1868, Aldermen. 53. City Doc. No. 128 (1869); House No. 240 (1870), 30–55. 54. Seventh A.R. HC, January 1873, House No. 65 (1873), 31, 35, 90–94; Second Annual Report of the Board of Land Commissioners for the Year 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1879), 13–14 (hereafter cited as LC); A.R. H & LC for 1880, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1881), 19–25. 55. David Woodhouse et al., “Geology of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America,” Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists 28, no. 4 (1991): 430, figure 31. 56. James R. Lambrechts, Vice President, Haley & Aldrich, facsimile to author, 22 June 2002. 57. Lambrechts, e-mail to author, 19 August 2002. 58. James R. Lambrechts, “Investigating the Cause of Rotted Wood Piles”

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1 3 8 – 1 4 5

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461

59.

60.

61. 62. 63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

71.

72.

462

(paper presented at the 2d Forensic Engineering Congress, American Society of Civil Engineers, San Juan, P.R., 2000), 5–6. Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., “Report on Groundwater Observation Wells” (Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., Boston, Mass., April 1990), 16; Lambrechts, “Rotted Wood Piles,” 2, figure 2. Harl P. Aldrich, Jr., and James R. Lambrechts, “Back Bay Boston, Part II: Groundwater Levels,” Civil Engineering Practice: Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE 1, no. 2 (1986): 60. Lambrechts, “Rotted Wood Piles,” 3. Ibid., 6, 8–10. Stone and Webster, “Groundwater Observation Wells,” 11, 3; Gareth Cook, “That sinking feeling: Low ground water levels blamed for faulty foundations,” Boston Globe, 19 April 2002. Acts of 1903, Chap. 465; Acts of 1906, Chap. 402. Fourth A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1906), 55–56. In this section, some of the fill was material dredged from the river but most of it, according to the contract specifications, was to be “ordinary earth” containing less than ten percent organic matter, about one-sixth to be sand and gravel from the dam excavation or other public projects, and about one-fourteenth to be “clean earth” with no ashes or organic matter (Contract no. 44, Contracts for Construction of the Charles River Dam, EN4.09/1065x, Charles River Basin Commission, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston). Fifth A. R. CRBC, December 1, 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1908), 4, 28. Ibid., 27–28; Sixth A. R. CRBC, December 1, 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1909), opp. 8, 56. Seventh A. R. CRBC, December 1, 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1910), 3. Boston Society of Architects, Report Made to the Boston Society of Architects by Its Committee on Municipal Improvement (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1907), 11–14. Final Report of the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements (Boston: State Printers, 1911), also House No. 1550 (1911), 26–28, 95–103; Robert P. Bellows, “Developing the Basin: An Island for Recreation and Boating Purposes,” New Boston 2, no. 6 (1911): 199–203; Arthur A. Shurtleff, “The Development of the Charles River Basin,” New Boston 2, no. 7 (1911): 246–248. James W. Rollins et al., In the Matter of House No. 454: The Charles River Basin as a Water Park and Playground (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1928); Eugene C. Hultman, “The Charles River Basin,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1940): 44; Resolves of 1928, Chap. 16. House No. 1050 (1929), 6–7, 11, 16–17, 18–19; “Commission Reports $4,250,000 Charles River Basin Plan,” Boston Herald, 6 January 1929.

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73. House No. 1050 (1929), 8–10. 74. “Beacon St. Cold to Basin Plan,” “Commission Plan for Basin Scored,” Herald, 8 January 1929. 75. “Fight Begins on $4,855,000 Basin Project,” Boston Evening Transcript, 6 March 1929; “Basin Protest Aimed Only at Highway,” Transcript, 7 March 1929; “Predicts Basin Plan Cost Will Be $12,994,000,” Herald, 8 March 1929. 76. “To Draft New Basin Bill, Cutting Out Speedways,” Herald, 20 March 1929; “Highways Out of Basin Plan,” Herald, 22 March 1929; Acts of 1929, Chap. 371. 77. “Conflict Over Charles River Basin Plan,” Transcript, 20 January 1931; Acts of 1931, Chap. 179; Annual Report of the Metropolitan District Commission for the Year 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1931): 5, 8 (hereafter cited as MDC). Although most of the new Esplanade was filled with material dredged hydraulically from the river, the fill added south of the Longfellow Bridge as far as Pinckney Street as well as to Charlesbank came from various excavations in the vicinity (A.R. MDC for 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 [1931], 9; “Charles River Development Filling Nearing Completion,” Herald, 2 October 1932). 78. A.R. MDC for 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1931), 8; “How Charles River Basin Will Look in Two Years,” Globe, 15 May 1932; “Charles River Basin to Be the World’s Most Beautiful Water Park With Completion of Huge Development Project Now Under Way,” Herald, 30 August 1931; “What Hub’s Ugly Duckling Will Look Like When Mud’s Off,” Boston Post, 4 September 1932. 79. A.R. MDC for 1935, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1935): 4–5. 80. Acts of 1946, Chap. 572; Charles A. Maguire and Associates, Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area (Boston: N.p., 1948), 62. 81. “Revolt Beats Esplanade Highway,” Globe, 13 April 1949; “Democrats Reverse Vote on Esplanade,” Globe, 14 April 1949; “Esplanade Road Only Starter,” Globe, 15 April 1949; “Embankment Road Approved by House in Stormy Session,” Globe, 29 April 1949. 82. Acts of 1949, Chap. 262. 83. “Construction of Huge Charlesbank Recreation Center Progressing,” Globe, 28 May 1950. C HAPTER S EVEN 1.

Computed in 2002 from the digitized maps in figures 7.1 and 8.1 (enlargements of the map in figure 1.1 overlaid on a 2001 street map) by MapWorks. This acreage of Back Bay is of the area south of Beacon Street. Interestingly, the 737.5 acres figured by computer is almost the same as the acreage traditionally cited for Back Bay, which is 742 acres, 3 quarters,

2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

31 rods (549 acres, 1 quarter, 5 rods for the receiving basin and 193 acres, 2 quarters, 26 rods for the full basin; Senate No. 45 [1852], 28; City Doc. No. 25[1861], 11). A square rod is .00625 acres, so 31 rods is .19 acres. Unfortunately the definition of a “quarter” is not included in tables of weights and measures; perhaps it means a quarter of an acre, in which case the traditional acreage of the entire Back Bay would be 742.94 acres, very close to the 743 acres cited in an 1866 city report (City Doc. No. 97 [1866], 11). Deposition of John H. Wheeler, 26 February 1839, 436: 70–76, S.D. Computed in 2002 from the map in figure 7.1 by MapWorks. This acreage applies to the area bounded by the 1630 shoreline, Beacon Street (the Mill Dam), and the line of Hemenway Street (the cross dam). Thomas Pemberton, “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 1794,” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 3 (1794): 272. B.R.C., 31: 367–368. Ibid., 368. Ibid., 369–371. The seawall was probably built of stone, as were most seawalls of that time, and the area filled by dumping dirt inside the wall until the fill was above the level of high tide—the time-tested method of making land in Boston. Harold Kirker and James Kirker, “Charles Bulfinch: Architect as Administrator,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 22, no. 1 (1963): 34. Deposition of Charles Bulfinch, 27 December 1839, 436: 131–132, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA; B.R.C., 33: 188. Bulfinch Deposition, 27 December 1839, 436: 131–132, S.D., also in box 1: folder 16, HGO/SPNEA. B.R.C., 33: 355. B.R.C., 38: 61. Mary Beaudry and Tamara Blosser, “Filling in Round Pond: Refuse Disposal in Post-Revolutionary Boston,” Northeast Historical Archaeology 10 (1981): figures 3 and 4. (Boston) Columbian Centinel, 9 June 1813. Ibid. [Boston, Town of ], Report on the petition of Isaac P. Davis and others, for liberty to build a Mill Dam and Turnpike road from the bottom of Beacon street, and for other mill improvements [Boston: N.p., 1813]; B.R.C., 35: 340–341, 345–350. [Uriah Cotting], Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (Boston: N.p., [1818]), 22–24. Boston Daily Advertiser, 10 June 1814. Acts of 1814, Chap. 39.

20. Cotting, Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, 1–6, 8–14, 16, 17, 20. 21. [Benjamin Austin], Remarks on a Late Proposition from the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, Addressed to the Candid Perusal of the Citizens and Projectors (Boston: T. Rowe, 1818), 1–5, 8, 9, 11–12. 22. Caleb Snow, History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts, from Its Origins to the Present Period; with Some Account of the Environs, 2d ed. (Boston: Abel Bowen, 1828), 320. 23. Town records refer in July 1818 to the mill dam “now being built” (B.R.C., 38: 296). 24. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3d ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 424. 25. Cotting, Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, 6. 26. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 424. 27. B.R.C., 39: 157. 28. B.R.C., A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston Containing Boston Town Records, 1814 to 1822, vol. 37 (Boston: City Printers, 1906), 138, 144–145. 29. Shurtleff, Topographical Description, 424. 30. Advertiser, 3 July 1821. 31. Acts of 1833, Chap. 120. 32. John G. Hales, Survey of Boston and Its Vicinity; . . . with a Short Topographical Sketch of the Country (Boston: Ezra Lincoln, 1821), iv, 24–25. Hales’s estimates were quite close to reality: a recent computer analysis found that the full basin was 169.3 acres and the receiving basin 568.2 acres (computed in 2002 by MapWorks; see appendix 1). 33. The flood gates were described as four granite walls, each about four feet wide, set perpendicular to the dam about fifteen to twenty feet apart with wooden gates between them (“Improved Sewerage,” Boston Herald, 18 August 1878). Also cited in J. Cooper Wamsley, “The Boston Main Drainage: Even Sewers Have Their Place” (paper on file at Department of Archaeology, Boston University, Boston), appendix I. 34. The Mill Dam walls, reportedly seven-and-a-half feet wide, extended down fifteen to eighteen feet (“Improved Sewerage,” Herald, 18 August 1878). 35. Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1888), 55. 36. The walls of the dam were found to be fifty feet apart, as planned, built of dry-laid Roxbury puddingstone, and to have a battered cross section six feet wide at the base, three feet at the top, and fifteen feet high. They were set on foundations of timber platforms having a bottom course of twelveby-twelve-inch timbers running lengthwise under the walls, the next course of nine-by-nine-inch timbers set crosswise, and a third course— only under the north wall, which was in deeper water—again of length-

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1 5 3 – 1 6 0

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463

37.

38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

464

wise twelve-by-twelve timbers. The walls were ballasted, or supported, with stones banked against the inner rather than the outer side, contrary to what Cotting had specified. The space between the walls was filled with 8.5 feet of mud, 5 feet of sand, and topped with 1.5 to 2 feet of road materials (E. W. Howe, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers [September 1879 to June 1881]: 87; also quoted in Harl P. Aldrich, “Back Bay Boston, Part I,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 57, no. 1 [1970]: 13–14). Wilbur W. Davis, “The History of Boston as Disclosed in the Digging of the Commonwealth Avenue Underpass and Other Traffic Tunnels,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1938): 29–30. The timbers were twelve and fourteen inches square and were fastened together with treenails. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 114–115; Minutes, 16 January 1823, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen); Minutes, 24 March 1823, 24 November 1823, 26 January 1824, 31 May 1824, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council); Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 98. Quincy, Municipal History, 115; Minutes, 12 July 1824, Council. [Boston, City of ], Report of the Committee . . . to Make Sale of the Upland and Flats, Lying West of Charles Street (Boston: N.p., 1824), 4–11, 14, 20–21; Quincy, Municipal History, 116. Minutes, 30 May 1825, 11 July 1825, Council. Minutes, 11 July 1825, Council. B.R.C., 33: 8; 38: 184; City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 22. Minutes, 11 July 1825, Council. Ibid. B.R.C., 35: 108, 184–185. Minutes, 31 January 1825, Aldermen; Minutes, 11 April 1825, 25 August 1825, 14 November 1825, Council. Minutes, 5 January 1826, Aldermen. Minutes, 7 May 1827, Aldermen. Minutes, 29 January 1827, Council. Mary Van Meter, Bay Village, or the Church-Street District (Boston: The Bostonian Society, 1970), 3. Minutes, 12 December 1825, 17 July 1826, Council; Indenture between City of Boston and Edward Tuckerman et al., 26 December 1826, 315: 278, S.D.; Indenture between City of Boston and Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, 15 February 1827, 315: 284, S.D.; City Doc. No. 18 (1850), 20–24.

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1 6 0 – 1 7 0

53. Acts of 1830, Chap. 4; Acts of 1831, Chaps. 56, 72; Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The Canal and Railroad Enterprise of Boston,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 4: 125–129. 54. Acts of 1824, Chap. 26; Indenture between Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation and Boston Water Power Company, 28 May 1832, 360: 262, S.D. 55. Acts of 1832, Chap. 153. 56. Boston Water Power Company, Report of the Directors of the Boston Water Power Company (N.p: N.p., [1834]), 20, 26. 57. BWP v. Boston & Worcester Railroad, 5 November 1839, case 10: Boston & Worcester Railroad 1832–1859, Miscellaneous, Boston Water Power Company Papers, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston (hereafter cited as BWP). 58. Adams, “Railroad,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 127–129. 59. Minutes, 1 February 1827, 31 December 1827, Council. 60. Minutes, 8 April 1828, 8 June 1829, 27 July 1829, 7 September 1829, 28 September 1829, Council. 61. Minutes, 18 March 1830, Aldermen. 62. Minutes, 20 June 1832, Aldermen; 15 August 1833, Council. 63. Minutes, 19 October 1837, Council. 64. South Cove Corporation, “History of Harrison Avenue, Formerly Called Front Street,” in Report of the Board of Directors of the South Cove Corporation, to the Stockholders, together with the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Annual Reports of Their Agent and the Treasurer’s Balance Sheet (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1844), 22. 65. Boston [Mass.], Reports of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston (Boston: Boston Evening Transcript), 1875: 181 (hereafter cited as City Council Proceedings); City Doc. No. 128 (1869), 227. 66. City Doc. No. 81 (1863), 38–39. 67. City Doc. No. 154 (1868), 3–4. 68. Minutes, 16 October 1834, Council; BWP to Mayor Samuel G. Armstrong, 13 April 1836, case 6: Letters Sent 1833–1886, BWP. 69. City Doc. No. 128 (1869), 228. 70. Report of Stephen P. Fuller, surveyor, 21 July 1835, case 4: New Lands, BWP. 71. BWP v. City of Boston, 1[?] Nov. 1836, case 4: City of Boston, BWP; Letter from C. S. L.[?], 21 July 1837, case 6: Letters Received 1837–1872, BWP. 72. Senate No. 45 (1852), 19. 73. Senate No. 62 (1855), 19. 74. Senate No. 45 (1852), 11–12. 75. City Doc. No. 128 (1869), 234.

76. 24 April 1848, case 1: Reports 1823–1868, BWP. 77. To William Evans, 1849, case 7: Bills, New Lands Filling 1849–1883, BWP; To William Evans, 22 September 1849, case 4: Back Bay Lands, S. P. Fuller’s certificates of filling, BWP. 78. Agreement between BWP and Dalrymple and Lennon, 26 January 1850, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP; Report to President and Directors of BWP, 26 January [June?] 1850, case 1: Reports 1823–1868, BWP; S. P. Fuller’s certificates of filling, case 4: Back Bay Lands 1852–1872, BWP. 79. The acreages filled by the 1830s and by the Boston & Providence were computed in 2002 by MapWorks. 80. In most large cities, before the installation of municipal sewerage systems human wastes were disposed of by what was termed the cesspool–privy vault system (see, for example, Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective [Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1996], 113–114, 180–184). Boston was an exception, however, for, as explained in chapter 1, in 1833 an ordinance passed in response to the 1832 cholera epidemic permitted privy vaults to be connected to existing underground drains (Minutes, 5 September 1833, Council; Minutes, 7 October, 1833, Aldermen). 81. City Doc. No. 14 (1850), 7. 82. City Doc. No. 36 (1849), 3, 4. 83. Ibid., 2–3. 84. George Rosen, A History of Public Health (New York: MD Publications, 1958), 211, 215, 288. 85. Senate No. 3 (1850), 45, 46. 86. Resolves of 1850, Chap. 111. 87. Senate No. 45 (1852), 15–17. 88. City Doc. No. 36 (1849), 6–7. 89. City Doc. No. 66 (1849), 8; City Do. No. 63 (1853), 7. 90. Resolves of 1852, Chap. 79. 91. Senate No. 45 (1852), 3, 13–14, 35–41; Second Report of the Commissioners on Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, March 1854, Senate No. 62 (1855), 15–19, 27–29, 35, 39–45 (hereafter cited as CBB). 92. Senate No. 62 (1855), 5–12; Third Report of CBB, February 1855, Senate No. 62 (1855), 51–55, 62–72. 93. Acts of 1822, Chap. 34; Resolves of 1824, February 11. 94. Agreement between B&RMC and William Henesey, 20 March 1845, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (hereafter cited as B&RMC). 95. Bainbridge Bunting, Houses of Boston’s Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840–1917 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), 53, 402. These houses were at numbers 92–99 Beacon

96. 97.

98. 99. 100.

101. 102.

103. 104. 105.

106. 107. 108.

109.

Street. Numbers 97–99 were demolished to make room for Embankment Road (see chapter 6), numbers 92 and 95–96 have been replaced with newer buildings, but the original numbers 93–94 remain near Arlington Street across from the Public Garden.. Third Report of CBB, Senate No. 62 (1855), 51–56. Ibid., 62–72; Report of Directors, 20 March 1854, case 1: Reports 1823–1863, BWP. The acreage of BWP territory was figured by subtracting the 97.0 acres of state territory (see n. 99 below) from the total 397.1 acres remaining unfilled in the receiving basin in 1855 (see p. 172 above and appendix 1). Third Report of CBB, Senate No. 62 (1855), 76–80. The state’s area of Back Bay was computed to be 97.0 acres by MapWorks in 2001; it is cited as 103 acres in Senate No. 62 (1855), 72. What is now Dartmouth Street was originally called Dedham Street because it was supposed to be a continuation of Dedham Street in the South End. When it became clear that there was no connection between the two streets, the one in Back Bay was changed to Dartmouth in September 1865. Exeter Street was named in March 1866 (Minutes, 1 March 1859, 20 September 1865, 8 March 1866, Records of the Commissioners on Back Bay, EN3.04/638x, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston (hereafter cited as Back Bay Commissioners). Notice to Contractors, 1855[?], case 4: New Lands, BWP. Whitwell to president and directors of BWP, 16 March 1855, case 4: Back Bay Lands 1852–1872, BWP; Jno. B. Henck’s certifications of filling, case 4: New Lands, Estimates 1847–1890, BWP. Whitwell’s capitalization corrected from original. Jno. B. Henck’s certifications of filling, case 4: New Lands, Estimates 1847–1890, BWP. Whitwell and Henck, Plan of House Lots & Other Lands, Offered for Sale by the Boston Water Power Company (Boston: L. H. Bradford & Co., 1855). Boston Water Power Company, Report of the Directors of the Boston WaterPower Company to Its Stockholders (Boston: Dutton & Wentworth, 1855), 4–5. Ibid., 14–15. Third Report of CBB, Senate No. 62 (1855), 103. Ibid., 11–12, 85, 86, 88; City Doc. No. 63 (1853), 5–10; City Doc. No. 15 (1854), 4–6; City Doc. No. 124 (1854), 12–17. For a more complete discussion of the negotiations between the state and the city, see Nancy Stein Seasholes, Landmaking and the Process of Urbanization: The Boston Landmaking Projects, 1630s–1888 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1994), 362–366. Boston Evening Transcript, 28 April 1858; Edward Stanwood, “Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years,” in Winsor,

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1 7 2 – 1 7 8

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110.

111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

117.

118. 119.

120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

125. 126. 127. 128.

129.

466

Memorial History, 4: 36; Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 151. Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 145; Minutes, 11 October 1849, 17 January 1850, 11 July 1850, 13 October 1853, 20 October 1853, 17 November 1853, Council; City Doc. No. 18 (1850). Stanwood, “Topography of Last Hundred Years,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 36. Resolves of 1856, Chap. 76. Senate No. 17 (1857), 7–8. Fourth A.R. CBB, Senate No. 16 (1856), 2. Senate No. 17 (1857), 4. Will Holton, “Social Motivations in Urban Planning: Comparing Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Boston,” (paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Pittsburgh, Penn., 1992). The tripartite agreement of December 1856 has often been cited as the one that opened the way for filling of Back Bay (Stanwood, “Topography of Last Hundred Years,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 37; Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 151; Bunting, Houses of Back Bay, 364–365; Aldrich, “Back Bay I,” 15). Actually, however, as explained above, it was the 1854 agreements that enabled the project to proceed, and the BWP had already started filling its flats by the time the 1856 agreement was made. Fourth A.R. CBB, Senate No. 16 (1856), 1; Senate No. 17 (1857), 9–10, 30–39. Senate No. 17 (1857), 5–7, 22–25. Some sources mistakenly cite the height of the Mill Dam as grade seventeen (e.g., Bunting, Houses of Back Bay, 367). Senate No. 17 (1857), 13. Ibid., 12–15. Ibid., 41. Resolves of 1855, Chap. 60. Agreement between BWP and George Odiorne, 7 October 1857, case 5: Maps, BWP; Report to president and directors of BWP, 12 February 1858, case 1: Reports 1823–1863, BWP. Senate No. 17 (1857), 17. Resolves of 1857, Chap. 70; Sixth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 29 (1857), 2–3; Bunting, Houses of Back Bay, 402. Sixth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 29 (1857), 3. Odiorne was to be paid $.40 per cubic yard of gravel delivered and $.01 additional per square foot for leveling the surface and was to fill an additional 750,000 square feet, or 17.2 acres, when the state had sufficient funds (House No. 33 [1862], 2–3). Ibid., 5; Minutes, 24 March 1858, Back Bay Commissioners; Odiorne

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1 7 8 – 1 8 5

130.

131.

132. 133. 134. 135.

136.

137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148.

149.

assignment, 1 December 1857, case 5: Maps, BWP. Bunting mistakenly says the contract with Goss and Munson was made in 1856 (Houses of Back Bay, 367). Boston Daily Traveller, 18 April 1859; Myron A. Munson, The Munson Record, vol. 2 (New Haven, Conn.: The Munson Association, 1895), 932–933; Munson obituary, Transcript, 18 May 1885. Traveller, 18 April 1859. Bunting says filling began in September 1857 but does not cite his source (Houses of Back Bay, 33, 365). His incorrect date is then cited by other authors (e.g., Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982], 10, 13). Fifth A.R. CBB, Senate No. 17 (1857), 51. Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 15 (2 October 1858): 209. Ibid.; Seventh A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1858), 2. The price of the 260,000 square feet was $1.166 per square foot or $305,000 in all. Goss and Munson were to be paid $.40 per cubic yard of fill up to the level of four feet below the Mill Dam (grade twelve) and $.42 per cubic yard above that level. Filling was to be done at the rate of at least 25,000 cubic yards per month up to the value of $320,000 and after that on condition that the state sell enough land to pay for the filling (House No. 33 [1862]: 5–6). Will Holton and William Newman, “What’s So Big about the Big Dig?” (draft paper on file at Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston), 3. William Newman, Department of Geology, Northeastern University, Boston, personal communication. Traveller, 18 April 1859. John F. Souther, “John Souther,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 2. See also the 1858 photograph of Souther’s steam shovels in Needham reproduced in Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 153. Traveller, 18 April 1859. Holton and Newman, “Big Dig,” 4. Traveller, 18 April 1859. Ballou’s 15 (2 October 1858): 209; Holton and Newman, “Big Dig,” 5. Holton and Newman, “Big Dig,” 5. Traveller, 18 April 1859. Ibid. George Kuhn Clarke, History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711–1911 (Cambridge, Mass.: Privately printed at the University Press, 1912), 422, quoted in Holton and Newman, “Big Dig,” 4. Agreement between BWP and George Odiorne, 7 October 1857, case 5: Maps, BWP.

150. Odiorne assignment, 1 December 1857, case 5: Maps, BWP. 151. Made Land, case 5: Inventories 1857–1869, BWP. 152. Articles of Agreement between Goss and Munson and BWP, 1859, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP. 153. Contract with Goss and Munson, 1 October 1859, case 5: Maps, BWP. 154. Minutes, 14 June 1858, Joint Special Committee on the Back Bay Improvements, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Back Bay Committee). 155. Seventh A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1858), 3; Minutes, 24 September 1858, Back Bay Committee. 156. Minutes, 9 November 1858, 15 December 1858, Back Bay Committee. 157. Ballou’s 16 (21 May 1859): 328. 158. William Martin, Back Bay (New York: Warner Books, 1979), 339–349. 159. City Doc. No. 42 (1859), 4. 160. House No. 234 (1859), 4. 161. See, for example, Second Report of CBB, March 1854, Senate No. 62 (1855), 24. 162. Decision of the Supreme Judicial Court in the Case of the Commonwealth versus the City of Roxbury and the Town of West Roxbury, Affecting the Title to Seventy Acres of Lands in the Back Bay (Reprinted by Boston Daily Advertiser, 20 July 1858). 163. House No. 281 (1859): 8. 164. Eighth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1859), 10; Ninth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 18 (1860), 5; First Annual Report of the Commissioners on Public Lands, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1861), 2 (hereafter A.R. CPL); Eleventh A.R. CPL in Continuation, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1862), 2; Twelfth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 14 (1863), 5; Thirteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1864), 4; Fourteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1865), 5; Fifteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1866), 1; Sixteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1867); Seventeenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1868); Eighteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1869); Nineteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1870); Twentieth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1871); Twenty-First A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1872); Twenty-Second A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1873); Twenty-Third A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1874); Twenty-Fourth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1875); TwentyFifth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1876). This information is also presented in tabular form in Seasholes, Boston Landmaking Projects, 400, 456. 165. Eighth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1859), 9–10. Blowing dust continued to be a problem in 1860. That year the commissioners ordered one entire train to haul loam rather than gravel and arranged to have the loam spread, sprinkled with water, and planted with grass (Minutes, 7 March 1860, 16 April 1860, 25 April 1860, 30 April 1860, Back Bay Commissioners).

166. Eighth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1859), 2, 10–11. 167. Agreement between Norman C. Munson and BWP, 10 April 1860, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP. 168. Frederick Johnson et al., The Boylston Street Fishweir: A Study of the Archaeology, Biology, and Geology of a Site on Boylston Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts (Andover, Mass.: Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology 2 [1942]); Frederick Johnson, ed., The Boylston Street Fishweir II: A Study of the Geology, Paleobotany, and Biology of a Site on Stuart Street in the Back Bay District of Boston, Massachusetts (Andover, Mass.: Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, 1949); Clifford A. Kaye and Elso S. Barghoorn, “Late Quaternary Sea-Level Change and Crustal Rise at Boston, Massachusetts, with Notes on the Autocompaction of Peat,” Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 75 (1964): 74, 76; Elena B. Décima and Dena F. Dincauze, “The Boston Back Bay Fish Weirs,” in Hidden Dimensions: The Cultural Significance of Wetland Archaeology, ed. Kathryn Bernick (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 157–172; Douglas S. Byers, “The Eastern Archaic: Some Problems and Hypotheses,” American Antiquity 24, no. 3 (1959): 242. 169. Johnson et al., Boylston Street Fishweir; Peter S. Rosen et al., “Holocene Evolution of Boston Inner Harbor, Massachusetts,” Journal of Coastal Research 9, no. 2 (1993): 363–377. 170. Johnson et al., Boylston Street Fishweir, figure 2. 171. George H. Snelling, “[Remarks on a Memorial in favor of modifying the plan of building in the Back Bay printed in Senate No. 186 (1859) and supporting letters],” (Boston, City Printers, 1860), frontispiece, iv, 4, 9, 43–44, 49–51; Senate No. 186 (1859). 172. House No. 239 (1861), 1–5; Resolves of 1861, Chap. 87; First A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1861), 1; Eleventh A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1862), 3. 173. City Doc. No. 50 (1860), 3–6. 174. City Doc. No. 25 (1861), 4–8; City Doc. No. 81 (1863), 20–27; City Doc. No. 99 (1864), 3–7; City Doc. No. 40 (1865); Fourteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1865), 4. 175. Acts of 1861, Chap. 183. 176. Agreement between Martin Hayes and BWP, 1 March 1860, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP; To Martin Hayes, 12 April 1861, 27 June 1861, 20 December 1861, 8 March 1862, case 7: Bills, New Lands Filling 1849–1883, BWP; Jno. B. Henck’s certifications of filling, 31 January 1861, 12 February 1862, case 4: New Lands, Estimates 1847–1890, BWP; 7 January 1863, case 4: New Lands, BWP; To J. Lynch, 7 January 1862, case 8: Bills 1861–1862, BWP; October 1862–October 1863, case 8: Bills 1862–1863, BWP.

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1 8 5 – 1 8 8

•

467

177. Boston Water Power Company, Report (1855), 12; Statement by John L. Gardner, May 1859, case 5: Statements 1832–1888, BWP. 178. Agreement between J. L. Gardner and BWP, 1 September 1861, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP. 179. Case 6: Letters Received 1862–1865, BWP. 180. Agreement between N. C. Munson and BWP, 1 May 1863, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP; N. C. Munson to BWP, 1 January 1864, case 6: Letters Received 1862–1865, BWP. 181. Ronald Dale Karr, The Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History (Pepperell, Mass.: Branch Line Press, 1995), 289. 182. Made Land, 1866, case 5: Inventories 1857–1869, BWP. 183. J. F. Fuller, Plan of Lands Belonging to the Boston Water Power Co. (Boston: A. Meisel, 1866). 184. 27 September 1869, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP. 185. House No. 33 (1862), 8–10. 186. Twelfth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 14 (1863), 6; Minutes, 14 February 1863, Back Bay Commissioners. 187. Fourteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1865), 3. 188. Minutes, 1 December 1859, [Directors] Records, November 10, 1857, to January 16, 1869, B&RMC; Agreement between Corcoran and Lynch and B&RMC, 13 December 1859, Papers, box 3 (1835–1860), B&RMC. More specifically, the contract required that the piles for this seawall be at least ten inches in diameter, set five in a row across the width of the wall, two feet on center along its length, and sawed off at the low water line. Each granite block in the bottom course was to be set on at least three piles and each course was to have a five-to-six-foot-long header every six feet. The wall was to be ten feet wide at the base, four feet at the top, fifteen to sixteen feet high, and ballasted with small stones. These specifications were slightly different from those the state had approved in 1857: a seawall of the same quality as the existing one, that is, at least 9 feet wide at the base, 31/2 feet at the top, well ballasted, and set on piles where needed (Fifth A.R. CBB, Senate No. 17 [1857], 49). And both these specifications are different from those in a reconstructed drawing of the wall actually built, which appears to be about 8 feet wide at the base and 131/3 feet high. This drawing appeared in a 1986 article and was based on a drawing of the wall made in 1910 when the Boston Embankment was filled (Harl P. Aldrich, Jr., and James R. Lambrechts, “Back Bay Boston, Part II: Groundwater Levels,” Civil Engineering Practice: Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE 1, no. 2 [1986]: figure 6). 189. Contract with Broad and Rhoades, 2 June 1860, Papers, box 3 (1835–1860), B&RMC; Broad to B&RMC, 28 July 1860, ibid.; Agreement between Timothy Corcoran and John Lynch and B&RMC,

468

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1 9 0 – 1 9 2

10 September 1860, ibid.; Rhoades to B&RMC, 8 November 1860, ibid.; Agreement between Rhoades and B&RMC, 9 November 1860, ibid.; Rhoades to B&RMC, 15 February 1861, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), BWP; Rhoades to B&RMC, 16 February 1861, ibid.; Agreement between Rhoades and B&RMC, 26 February 1861, ibid.; Rhoades to B&RMC, 4 June 1861, ibid.; Minutes, 17 April 1860, Records, November 10, 1857, to January 16, 1869, B&RMC; Minutes, 1 June 1860, ibid.; Minutes, 11 December 1860, ibid.; Minutes, 19 December 1860, ibid.; Minutes, 15 February 1861, ibid. 190. Advertisement, 7 July 1862, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), B&RMC; Proposals, 12 July 1862, ibid.; Agreement between Willard Dalrymple and Martin Lennon and B&RMC, 24 July 1862, ibid.; Minutes, 7 July 1862, Records, November 10, 1857, to January 16, 1869, B&RMC; Minutes, 14 July 1862, ibid. 191. Agreement between Jesse and Lyman Boynton and B&RMC, 1 February 1863, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), B&RMC; Agreement between Peter B. Meade and B&RMC, 2 February 1863, ibid.; Proposals, 4 March 1863, ibid.; Agreement between Ezra Eames and John Stimson et al. and B&RMC, 5 March 1863, ibid.; Agreement between Charles Thomas Derry and B&RMC, 20 March 1863, ibid.; Agreement between Joseph Ross and George A. Lord and B&RMC, 20 March 1863, ibid.; Agreement between Norman C. Munson and B&RMC, 28 April 1863, ibid.; Indenture between the state and B&RMC, 29 December 1862, Records, November 10, 1857, to January 16, 1869, B&RMC; Minutes, 20 February 1863, ibid.; Minutes, 18 March 1863, ibid. The specifications for the seawall between the sluice gates and the cross dam were slightly different from the earlier ones: it was to be 14 to 141/2 feet high instead of 15 to 16 feet, the headers in the bottom course placed every 10 to 12 instead of 6 feet, and the split header caps were to be at least 4 feet long and 6 inches thick. Prices had also changed since the initial contracts. Boynton Bros. was to be paid $5.375 per pile for each pile furnished, driven, and cut off between the east and west ends of the Mill Dam Wharf, which seems astronomical in comparison with the $1.85 per pile paid Corcoran and Lynch in 1859 or what was paid to Ross & Lord for the piles west of the Mill Dam Wharf—$2.95 per pile for the first 250 feet, $1.82 per pile for the next 250 feet, and $1.62 per pile for the last 200 feet. Perhaps it was exceptionally difficult to drive piles opposite the wharf. Prices for the seawall had remained about the same ($.0796 and $.083 per cubic foot in 1863 contracts in comparison with $.0767 in 1859) but Munson was to be paid $.49 per cubic yard of fill in comparison with the $.40 per cubic yard he was then receiving from the BWP and the $.46 and $.50 per cubic yard from the state (see above). 192. Ninth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 18 (1860), 3.

193. Eighth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 12 (1859), 2, 10; Ninth A.R. CBB, Pub. Doc. No. 18 (1860), 1, 5, 8; First A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1861), 2; Eleventh A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1862), 2, 5; Twelfth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 14 (1863), 4, 5; Thirteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1864), 3, 4; Fourteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 13 (1865), 3, 7; Fifteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1866), 1, 2; Sixteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1867), 2; Seventeenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1868), 1; Eighteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1869), 2. 194. Eighteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1869), 2. 195. See, for example, Senate No. 17 (1857), 2; Twelfth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 14 (1863), 3; Made Land, 1863–1866, case 5: Inventories 1857–1869, BWP. 196. City Doc. No. 73 (1865), 6. 197. Minutes, 27 November 1858, 19 May 1859, Back Bay Commissioners. 198. A.R. H & LC for 1883, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1884), 5–22; A.R. H & LC for 1885, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1886), 10–47. 199. Minutes, 23 January 1861, Back Bay Commissioners; House No. 62 (1861), 1–9. Domosh in Invented Cities argues that the elite controlled the development of Back Bay in order to create a residential enclave for themselves. The evidence does not support her interpretation, however. It was always intended that the Back Bay project be run by the state rather than by private interests, contrary to what Domosh claims, because the state was a major owner of the flats. Although the Back Bay commissioners did at first sell some lots to members of the elite, in 1860 the state required that all Back Bay land be sold at public auction. Thereafter, lots in Back Bay were sold to whoever could pay for them. Silas Lapham, a member of the nouveau riche who built in house in Back Bay in the 1870s, may have been a fictional character but was certainly based on fact (William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884]). Domosh eventually acknowledges that land sales in Back Bay were speculative and manipulated by the “city’s parvenus” after 1860 (Mona Domosh, Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in NineteenthCentury New York & Boston [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996], 125)—almost from the project’s start—but does not modify her theory of elite control accordingly. A more plausible interpretation and one supported by contemporaneous statements is the one presented in this study, that is, that Back Bay was designed to appeal to the upper middle class, who were valued as both taxpayers and voters, so that they would remain in the city to counter the influence of the Irish. 200. Bunting, Houses of Back Bay, 421; Robert Campbell, “Polishing the Past,” Boston Globe, 19 March 1998. 201. Nineteenth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1870), 2; Twentieth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1871), 2; Twenty-First A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1872), 2.

202. Twenty-Third A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1874), 1; Twenty-Fifth A.R. CPL, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1876), 1. 203. A.R. H & LC for 1886, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1887), 6, 7. 204. Agreement between Woolley and B&RMC, 20 May 1872, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), B&RMC. 205. BWP v. Matthews, case 4: Nathan Matthews 1862–1877, BWP. 206. Franklin Haven et al., A Statement in regard to the Huntington Avenue Lands, in the City of Boston (Boston: N.p., 1879), 4. 207. Deed from Boston Water Power Company to Franklin Haven, Alexander H. Rice, and James B. Thayer, 14 December 1871, 1083: 139, S.D. 208. Agreement between G. T. W. Braman, Henry D. Hyde, Frank W. Andrews, trustees and BWP, 27 October 1874, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP; Agreement between Boston Water Power Company and Grenville T. W. Braman, Henry D. Hyde, and Frank W. Andrews, 1 March 1872, 1095: 30, S.D. 209. City Doc. No. 83 (1871), 3–4; N. C. Munson to BWP, 8 September 1872, case 6: Letters Received 1866–1888, BWP. 210. February–May 1872, case 5: Reports of cars of gravel 1873–1874, BWP; To N. C. Munson, 1 May 1873, case 4: N.C. Munson Accounts 1873–1880, BWP. 211. Declaration, 1 June 1875, case 4: Nathan Matthews, 1862–1877, BWP. 212. City Doc. No. 90 (1874), 4; City Doc. No. 100 (1875), 4–5; Haven et al., Huntington Avenue Lands, 5. 213. Fuller & Whitney estimates, 1 August 1874, case 4: New Lands Estimates 1847–1890, BWP. 214. Fuller & Whitney estimates, 30 July 1874, 29 April 1875, 29 July 1875, 3 January 1876, 7 January 1876, ibid. 215. Fuller & Whitney certificates for filling, 19 July 1883, 6 November 1883, ibid.; Agreement between Boston & Albany Railroad and trustees of BWP, 31 December 1883, case 1: Agreements 1834–1880, BWP; Agreement between Boston & Albany Railroad and trustees of BWP, 31 December 1883, case 10: Boston & Albany Railroad 1880–1883, Miscellaneous, BWP. 216. Brad Pokorny, “Boston down under: Stabilizing water table is key to ‘mooring’ imperiled townhouses,” Globe, 19 August 1985. 217. Aldrich and Lambrechts, “Back Bay II,” 38. 218. Ibid., 35. 219. Ibid., 53–54; James R. Lambrechts, “Investigating the Cause of Rotted Wood Piles” (paper presented at the 2d Forensic Engineering Congress, American Society of Civil Engineers, San Juan, P.R., 2000), 2. 220. Aldrich and Lambrechts, “Back Bay II,” 60. 221. Barbara Brown, “Church moves to renovate apartments,” Boston Ledger, 6 March 1980; Galen Gilbert, “City moves to plug watertable drain,”

N

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1 9 3 – 2 0 0

•

469

222.

223. 224. 225. 226. 227.

228. 229. 230.

231. 232.

233.

234.

470

Fenway News, July 1986; Galen Gilbert, Trustee, Boston Groundwater Trust, telephone conversation with author, 20 August 2002. Gareth Cook, “That sinking feeling: Low ground water levels blamed for faulty foundations,” Globe, 19 April 2002; James R. Lambrechts, Vice President, Haley & Aldrich, facsimile to author, 22 June 2002. Cook, “Sinking feeling”; Lambrechts, e-mail to author, 19 August 2002. City Doc. No. 81 (1863), 37; City Doc. No. 109 (1868), 4. City Doc. No. 154 (1868), 4; Tarr, Ultimate Sink, 114–115, 182–184. City Doc. No. 81 (1863), 37–40. Acts of 1866, Chap. 229; City Doc. No. 72 (1866), 4–5; City Doc. No. 117 (1866), 3; Acts of 1867, Chaps. 308, 353; City Doc. No. 41 (1868), 7–10; City Doc. No. 125 (1869), 4. City Council Proceedings, 1869: 157; 1868: 53; 1869: 183; City Doc. No. 95 (1869), 5, 6, 8; City Doc. No. 125 (1870), 6. Acts of 1868, Chap. 277; City Doc. No. 124 (1870), 3, 4. City Doc. No. 133 (1872), 3; James M. Bugbee, “Boston under the Mayors, 1822–1880,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 3: 275; City Doc. No. 136 (1873), 8. For a more complete discussion of the Church and Suffolk Street Districts projects, see Seasholes, Boston Landmaking Projects, 408–411, 441–445. The differences in elevation can be seen, for example, between 94–96 Pembroke Street, 162–164 and 161–163 West Brookline Street, and 23–25 and 24–26 Rutland Square. The line that divided city and BWP territories was a diagonal and is still apparent in the occasional triangular or trapezoidal lots that occur in the South End, evidenced by anomalies such as the acute angle of the side and front walls at 161 West Brookline Street; the angled south wall of 139 Worcester Street, which is two bays wide in the front and three at the back; and the angled north wall of 218 West Springfield Street, which is three bays wide in front and four at back. This diagonal line can also be traced on real estate atlas maps—see, for example, George W. Bromley and Walter S. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Boston Proper (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., 1898), pls. 25, 28. Edgar S. Dorr, “The South End Sewer System of Boston,” Journal of Boston Society of Civil Engineers 2, no. 10 (1915): 355–372. A pumping station had not been economically feasible when it was proposed in the 1860s for the Church Street District (see above), because at that time pumps would have been steam-powered and, in order to be ready to operate during a storm, would have had to have been kept fired and manned at all times. The introduction of electricity had made pumps a viable solution, however, for they could be turned on when needed with just the flick of a switch. Boston Water and Sewer Commission, “South End Facilities Plan,” Final Report (Camp Dresser & McKee, Cambridge, Mass., April 2001), 1: ES–2–3.

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235. Fifth A.R. CRBC, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1908), 4, 29; Sixth A.R. CRBC, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1909), 7–8, 39; Twenty-Ninth A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 133; Thirtieth A.R. H & LC for 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1909), 49; Seventh A.R. CRBC, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1910), 16, 67. 236. A.R. MDC for 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1931), 8. 237. “Putting the River Bottom on Top,” Globe, 21 February 1932; “Charles River Development Filling Nearing Completion,” Herald, 2 October 1932. 238. Acts of 1949, Chap. 262. 239. “22 Acres of Land to Be ‘Made’ on Charles River for Play Areas,” Globe, 21 August 1949; Sidney N. Shurcliff, “Current Work in Progress: Boston’s Proposed Development on the Charles River,” Landscape Architecture 40, no. 1 (1949): 21. 240. Acts of 1949, Chap. 262. C HAPTER E IGHT 1.

2.

3.

4.

The acreage of the flats was computed in 2002 from the map in figure 7.1 by MapWorks. The acreage is that of the full basin—the area bounded on the north by Beacon Street (the Mill Dam), on the east by the line of Hemenway Street (the cross dam) and Gravelly Point, and on the south and west by the 1630 shoreline. The 169.3 acres is surprisingly close to the 160 acres cited as the area of the full basin by engineer E. W. Howe in an 1881 article, which is also the source for the 140 acres of marshes (E. W. Howe, “The Back Bay Park, Boston,” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers [September 1879 to June 1881]: 127). The other traditional acreage of the full basin is not as close—193 acres, 2 quarters, 26 rods or 193.66 acres (assuming “quarter” means a quarter of an acre and that, since a square rod is .00625 acres, 26 rods is .16 acres). This acreage came from a plan by surveyor S. P. Fuller that was based on original surveys made between 1822 and 1836 (Senate No. 45 [1852], 28; City Doc. No. 25 [1861], 11). Wilbur W. Davis, “The History of Boston as Disclosed in the Digging of the Commonwealth Avenue Underpass and Other Traffic Tunnels,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1938): 35. Howe, “Back Bay Park,” 127; also quoted in John R. Freeman, “Concerning the Fens Basin and Its Pollution,” Report of the Committee on Charles River Dam Appointed under Resolves of 1901, Chapter 105 (Boston: State Printers, 1903), appendix 3, 193–194. See also “Report of Olmsted Brothers,” in Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 51–55; City Doc. No. 105 (1874), 8–9; City Doc. No. 125 (1880), 156–157. Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 53; City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 19; City Doc. No. 104 (1877), 4–6; Third A.R. BPC for

1877, City Doc. No. 16 (1878), 2; Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 46, 54. 5. Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 53, 55. 6. City Doc. No. 104 (1877), 4–5. The decision to change the direction of Commonwealth Avenue is usually attributed to Frederick Law Olmsted (see, for example, Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000], 181; Bainbridge Bunting, Houses of Boston’s Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840–1917 [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967], 384; Nancy Lurie Salzman, Buildings and Builders: An Architectural History of Boston University [Boston: Boston University, 1985], 7–8). It is clear from the historical record, however, that the agreement was made in 1877 before Olmsted began to work on the Back Bay Park (see also Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 110 and n. 2). 7. City Doc. No. 56 (1878), 3; Fourth A.R. BPC for 1878, City Doc. No. 15 (1879), 5–6. About half the total amount of fill used was dirt obtained from Parker (now Mission) Hill and “other sources.” Dirt was the major component of the fill at the Parker Hill, Longwood, and Boylston entrances. The rest of the fill was household ashes collected by the city. Ashes were used primarily at the Westland entrance and, to a lesser extent, at the Longwood and Boylston entrances. 8. Fourth A.R. BPC for 1878, City Doc. No. 15 (1879), 6; Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 47, 54. 9. Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 43–44. 10. Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 15 (1880), 6–15; Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 53–55. 11. Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 15 (1880), 14–15; Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 49; Sixth A.R. BPC for 1880, City Doc No. 12 (1881), 6–7. 12. In June 1879 the park department had made a contract with the Boston & Albany Railroad to supply gravel, which was used to construct what is now Park Drive. The eastern road, now the Fenway, continued to be filled with city ashes, and what is now the southern end of the Fenway near the Gardner Museum was filled with dirt from Parker (now Mission) Hill (Fuller & Whitney, “Copy of a plan by Fuller & Whitney, C.E., January 1, 1884, marked: City of Boston. Back Bay Park. Plan of filling done before Dec. 27, 1879,” blueprint, Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass.). A small amount of filling was also done at the four entrances that had been started in 1878 and at a fifth: what was then called the Huntington entrance and is now Forsyth Way near the Museum of Fine Arts (Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 15 [1880], 5–6).

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

More filling was done in 1880 at most of these areas. What is now Park Drive continued to be filled with gravel by the Boston & Albany under their 1879 contract. Until July 30 what is now the Fenway continued to be filled with city ashes delivered by the health department, and after June 3, when a contract was signed with the Boston & Albany, the section of the drive from the tracks (now the turnpike) to the Huntington entrance was filled with gravel. Most of the Huntington entrance itself was filled with dirt brought by the sewer department from various sewer excavations in the city (Sixth A.R. BPC for 1880, City Doc. No. 12 [1881], 6–7). Sixth A.R. BPC for 1880, City Doc. No. 12 (1881), 7, 12; Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 197. Zaitzevsky, Olmsted, 167–168. Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 193, 197. Seventh A.R. BPC for 1881, City Doc. No. 16 (1882), 9–11; Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 10 (1883), 7–10; Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 11–13; Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 195–196. Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 195; Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), 7. Fuller & Whitney, “The Back Bay Park Lands Record: A Schedule and Plan Issued on the First of Each Month Showing Recorded Deeds Located by Numbered Lots on the Plan. Also Progress in Filling Operations and Street and Lot Improvements during the Preceding Month, Commencing Jan. 1, 1883,” June 1883, HL-2, BWP. Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), 12; Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 14–15; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 28–29; Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 202–203. Boston [Mass.], Reports of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston (Boston: Boston Evening Transcript), 1878: 386, 514–516, 698; 1879: 459–460, 488–489, 700; Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 20 (1880), 24; Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), 11; Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 11–12. Seventh A.R. BPC for 1881, City Doc. No. 16 (1882), 8–11; Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), 7–12; Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 11–15; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 27–29. Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 11, 32–34; Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” August 1885, HL-3, BWP; Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 195. Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 12. Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 (1887), 9–10. Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 (1888), 47–48. Ibid., 51–55; Fourteenth A.R. BPC for 1888, City Doc. No. 72 (1889), 25–26; Fifteenth A.R. BPC for 1889, City Doc. No. 15 (1890), 35–36.

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27. Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 71. 28. Sixteenth A.R. BPC for 1890, 20, 22–23, 51–52; Seventeenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1892, 25–26, 65–69; Annual Report of the [Boston] Park Department for the Year 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 17, 27–28, 33–34 (hereafter cited as BPD); Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 34, 71–72; Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 44, 78–79; Twenty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1896, 73. 29. Twenty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 13; A.R. BPD for 1900, City Doc. No. 27 (1901), 6; Twenty-Seventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 12; Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 11; Twenty-Ninth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1904, 11. 30. Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 194, 201, 203–207; Annual Report of the [Boston] Street Department for the Year 1901–1902, City Doc. No. 40 (1902), 223–225 (hereafter cited as A.R. Street Department). 31. A.R. Street Department for 1901–1902, City Doc. No. 40 (1902), 224–25; Twenty-Third A. R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1898, 5, 15–16; Twenty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 13, 23–34; A.R. BPD for 1900, City Doc. No. 27 (1901), 6–7, 17–18; Twenty-Seventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 5, 12; Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 6–7, 11, 21–22; Twenty-Ninth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1904, 11; Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 205. 32. A.R. Street Department for 1903, City Doc. No. 40 (1904), 111; Thirtieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1905, 6–7, 9; Thirty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 6. The new sewerage arrangements diverted sewage from the Fens but not from the newly formed Charles River Basin owing to the fact that the Boston Marginal Conduit was made smaller than originally planned, probably to reduce the sewage discharged into the harbor below the dam, so it filled quickly even in small storms, leaving the excess polluted overflow to drain into the Charles Basin—a problem that had been foreseen by the head of the sewer department and by the dam commission (A.R. Street Department for 1905, City Doc. No. 40 [1906], 86–91; Sixth A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 71 [1909], 35–36). 33. Seventh A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1910), 13–14. 34. Thirtieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1905, 9; Thirty-First A. R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 11; Thirty-Second A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1907, 8–9; Thirty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1908, 8; Thirty-Fourth A. R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1909, 8; Thirty-Sixth A. R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 58–59; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1912, City Doc. No. 24 (1912), 8.

472

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35. Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 5, 16; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1912, City Doc. No. 24 (1912), 8. 36. Sixth A.R. BPC for 1880, City Doc. No. 12 (1881), 7; Undated newspaper advertisement for “Proposals,” case 10: Boston & Albany 1880–1883, Miscellaneous, BWP. 37. 13 May 1880, 1 September 1880, case 6: Letters Received 1866–1888, BWP. 38. 27 April 1881, case 1: Agreements 1823–1888, BWP; 28 April 1881, case 10: Boston & Albany 1880–1883, Miscellaneous, BWP. 39. In March 1883, for example, the west end of Newbury Street was filled with gravel dumped by trains, by June 1885 the section of that street next to West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) had been filled with dirt from carts, and fill was still being deposited on Newbury Street in 1887 (Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” March 1883, HL-2; June 1885, HL-3; July 1887, HL-4, BWP). In spite of all this filling of Newbury Street, however, the area east of Charlesgate was apparently still not completely filled in 1890, for in that year the BWP had an estimate made of the amount needed to fill to grade twelve the western section of the “marsh and flats” between Commonwealth Avenue and the Boston & Albany tracks (16 July 1890, case 4: New Lands Estimates, 1847–1890, BWP). And even as late as 1894 a little filling was still being done on Newbury Street (A.R. Street Department for 1894, City Doc. No. 34 [1895], 225). 40. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” January–March 1885, HL-3, BWP. 41. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” April–June 1885, HL-3, BWP. 42. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” January–February 1885, HL-3, BWP; 22 January 1885, case 4: New Lands Estimates 1847–1890, BWP. More filling occurred in this area in 1899 when an alley was constructed between Hemenway Street and the Fenway (A.R. Street Department for 1899, City Doc. No. 38 [1900], 47). 43. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” October 1885, HL-3, BWP. More filling was done on the former Gravelly Point in the 1890s. When Norway Street (see figure 8.1) and a now-discontinued street once perpendicular to it were constructed in 1896, for example, they were filled with dirt from construction sites (A.R. Street Department for 1896, City Doc. No. 29 [1897], 79, 283, 469). 44. In August carts were filling the section south of Huntington and by September were filling north of it (Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” June, August–November 1883, HL-2, BWP). The latter area was still being filled in the spring of 1885, and in the fall of that year what is now St. Stephen Street, then called Falmouth Street, was constructed across the new land (Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” March–June, October–November 1885, HL-3, BWP).

45. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” July–August, October 1885, HL3, BWP. 46. In the spring of 1887 fill was deposited on the section of St. Botolph Street that runs between Massachusetts Avenue and Gainsborough Street, which had once been in the receiving basin near Baldwin’s Mill (see figure 8.3; Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” March–April 1887, HL4, BWP). Batavia Street (Symphony Road) was still being filled in 1893, Hemenway Street was filled in 1894, and in 1898 the end of St. Stephen Street near Forsyth Street was filled and many loads of household ashes were dumped near Gainsborough Street (A.R Street Department for 1893, City Doc. No. 34 [1894], 14, 65–66, 259; A.R. Street Department for 1894, City Doc. No. 34 [1895], 226; A.R. Street Department for 1898, City Doc. No. 35 [1899], 53, 139). 47. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” March–July, September 1883, HL-2, BWP. 48. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” June 1883, HL-2, BWP. 49. Boston Landmarks Commission, “Sewall & Day Cordage Mills” (Boston Landmarks Commission, Boston, 1995), 15–16. 50. Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 192; Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” January, June 1885, HL-3, BWP. The section of the marsh on both sides of Huntington at Vancouver Street (see figure 8.1) was still being filled in the spring of 1885 and in May of that year filling also began on the south side of Huntington at Ward Street and continued throughout the rest of the year (Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” February–August, October–December 1885, HL-3, BWP). 51. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” January–February, July, September–October 1888, HL-5, BWP. City ashes were dumped on the Sewall and Day property near Parker and Ward Streets throughout the 1890s, for example, and in 1896 when Vancouver Street was extended north of Huntington to Ruggles (now Louis Prang) Street and Ruggles was extended from Parker Street to the Fens (see figure 8.1), both were filled with dirt from construction sites (A.R. Street Department for 1891, City Doc. No. 36 [1892], 306; A.R. Street Department for 1894, City Doc. No. 34 [1895], 240; A.R. Street Department for 1896, City Doc. No. 29 [1897], 79, 267, 282, 283, 297, 469; A.R. Street Department for 1898, City Doc. No. 35 [1899], 139; A.R. Street Department for 1899, City Doc. No. 38 [1900], 130). 52. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” June–August, October 1885, HL3, BWP. 53. Annual Report of the [Boston] Street Laying Out Department for the Year 1894, City Doc. No. 35 (1895), 18; A.R. Street Department for 1894, City Doc. No. 34 (1895), 19, 60, 223; A.R. Street Department for 1895, City Doc. No. 29 (1896), 270; A.R. Street Department for 1896, City Doc. No. 29 (1897), 466–467.

54. Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 44; A.R. Street Department for 1896, City Doc. No. 29 (1897), 79, 267, 469; A.R. Street Department for 1897, City Doc. No. 34 (1898), 373–374; A.R. Street Department for 1898, City Doc. No. 35 (1899), 139. 55. Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., “Report on Groundwater Observation Wells” (Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., Boston, Mass., April 1990), 16; Katherine Hawkins, “Groundwater Levels May Mean Trouble,” Back Bay Courant, 16 October 2000; Gareth Cook, “That sinking feeling: Low ground water levels blamed for faulty foundations,” Boston Globe, 19 April 2002. 56. Cook, “Sinking feeling.” 57. Sixth A.R. BPC for 1880, City Doc. No. 12 (1881), 13–17. 58. Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 15; Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 7 (1886), 16. 59. Fifteenth A.R. BPC for 1889, City Doc. No. 15 (1890), 15–16; Sixteenth A.R. BPC for 1890, 21, 24–26, 47, 53; Seventeenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1892, 26–27, 31, 69–71; A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 17–18, 20, 23, 28, 34–35; Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 35–37, 72–73; Brookline, Town of, Town Records and Reports of the Town Officers of Brookline, Massachusetts, for the Year Ending January 31, 1890 (Brookline: Chronicle Press, 1890), 257–273 (hereafter cited as Brookline Town Records); Brookline Town Records for Year Ending January 31, 1891, 277–282; Brookline Town Records for Year Ending January 31, 1892, 305–313. 60. Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 (1888), 17. 61. Seventeenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1892, 27, 31, 70; A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 17, 35; Nineteenth A. R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 36, 48, 72; Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 45, 79. 62. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” April 1883, HL-2, BWP. 63. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” March–June, October 1887, HL4, BWP; A.R. Street Department for 1893, City Doc. No. 34 (1894), 14, 15, 260–261; A.R. Street Department for 1894, City Doc. No. 34 (1895), 59. 64. A.R. H & LC for 1881, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1882), 45. 65. Boston & Albany to B&RMC, 28 January 1881, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), B&MRC; [Boston] Board of Health to B&RMC, 17 May 1881, ibid.; Boston & Albany to B&RMC, 22 June 1881, ibid.; Agreement between New England Dredging Co. and B&RMC, 28 June 1881, ibid. 66. Seventh A.R. HC, January 1873, House No. 65 (1873), 31–34. 67. C.T. Derry & Co. to B&RMC, 1 February 1881, Papers, box 4 (1861–1882), B&RMC; C.T. Derry & Co. to B&RMC, 2 January 1882, ibid.; B&RMC to Parker, 27 January 1882, ibid.; B&RMC to Parker, 28

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68. 69. 70.

71.

72.

73. 74.

75.

474

January 1882, ibid.; B&RMC to Rockport Granite Co., 11 March 1882, ibid.; Rockport Granite Co. to B&RMC, 14 March 1882, ibid.; Pigeon Hill Granite Co. to B&RMC, 3 April 1882, ibid.; C.T. Derry & Co. to B&RMC, 17 August 1882, ibid.; C.T. Derry to B&RMC, ? Dec. 1882, ibid. Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” April–December 1883, HL-2, BWP. Sketch of the Brighton Branch of the Mill Dam from the Main Dam to Smelt Brook, n.d., Papers, box 3 (1835–1860), B&RMC. Account for 1883, 28 January 1884, papers, box 5 (1883–1900), B&RMC; Account for 1884, 26 January 1885, ibid.; C.T. Derry to B&RMC, 14 December 1886, ibid. In 1884 the fill was apparently dredged from an area just above what is now the Longfellow Bridge (A.R. H & LC for 1884, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1885], 18). A.R. H & LC for 1884, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1885), 14, 60–61; Request for proposals, 2 June 1887, Papers, box 5 (1883–1900), B&RMC; Agreement between New England Dredging Co. and B&RMC, 20 July 1887, ibid.; William H. Whitney to B&RMC, 16 August 1887, ibid.; William H. Whitney to B&RMC, 25 August 1887, ibid.; John Souther to B&RMC, 3 September 1887, ibid.; Minutes, 1 June 1885, 17 July 1885, 22 July 1885, 16 September 1885, 20 January 1886, 31 May 1887, [Directors] Records, March 14, 1885 to January 28, 1895, B&RMC; Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” August-November 1887, HL-4, BWP; A.R. H & LC for 1885, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1886), 62. Trustees of Ebenezer Francis’s will to City of Boston, 1804: 61, 64, S.D.; Riverbank Improvement Company, William H. Whitney, Plan copied September 23, 1889, Adams Office Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 17. Acts of 1890, Chap. 109. A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 17; Minutes, 8 May 1891, Directors Records, Riverbank Improvement Company Papers, Boston Athenaeum, Boston (hereafter cited as RIC). Minutes, 24 June 1890, Stockholders Records, RIC; Minutes, 29 August 1890, 10 September 1890, Directors Records, RIC. Whitehill and Kennedy, Topographical History, 182 and n. 17, says that the dredge used on this project was a new hydraulic type that sucked material up from the river bottom. A Schmidt hydraulic dredge had been shipped from Washington, D.C., in late 1888 for use on the Cambridge side of the river (Fuller & Whitney, “Back Bay Record,” October, December 1888, HL-5, BWP), but, according to Whitehill, the Cambridge river bottom was too hard for the machine to operate effectively so Adams persuaded the dredging company to move across to the Boston shore and work for the Riverbank Improvement Company. Whitehill goes on to say that the dredge performed well in the soft mud on the Boston side, though

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76. 77. 78.

79. 80.

81.

82. 83.

84.

85.

protests about the stench produced when dredging the sewage at the outlet of the Muddy River conduit at the foot of Deerfield Street almost stopped the work. Then, just as the filling was completed, the dredge burned up. Whitehill’s story is intriguing but unfortunately there is no evidence for it in the source he cites, the RIC Directors Records. Perhaps the Massachusetts Dredging Company worked on the Adams flats before the RIC was incorporated and Whitehill heard the account from John Adams, a son of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., for it was John Adams who lent the RIC records to Whitehill. A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1891), 12. A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 44; Minutes, 1 September 1891, Directors Records, RIC. Minutes, 3 June 1892, Stockholders Records, RIC; Minutes, 26 January 1892, 3 June 1892, 10 January 1894, 13 April 1894, 29 May 1894, Directors Records, RIC. Minutes, 3 June 1892, Stockholders Records, RIC; Deed from Riverbank Improvement Co. to Francis C. Welch, 8 June 1892, 2064: 633, S.D. A small amount of filling was done in 1899–1900 between Charlesgate East and West when the dam that had been built in the early 1880s at the outlet of the Fens into the Charles on Beacon Street was replaced with a dam on Back Street. As part of the project, the seawall along Back Street was extended across this area and some of the space between Beacon and Back Streets filled (Freeman, “Fens Basin,” 195, 213; A.R. H & LC for 1898, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1899], 64; Twenty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 13, 23; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1901], 27; A.R. BPD for 1900, City Doc. No. 27 [1901], 17; TwentySeventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 5). Sixth A.R CRBC, December 1, 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1909), 7, 41–42; Seventh A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1910), 16, 67–68; Contract no. 81, Contracts for Construction of the Charles River Dam, EN4.09/1065x, Charles River Basin Commission, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. A.R. MDC for 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1931): 8. Ibid., 9; “Charles River Basin to Be the World’s Most Beautiful Water Park With Completion of Huge Development Project Now Under Way,” Boston Herald, 30 August 1931; “Charles River Development Filling Nearing Completion,” Herald, 2 October 1932. Acts of 1949, Chap. 263; “22 Acres of Land to be ‘Made’ on Charles River for Play Areas,” Globe, 21 August 1949; “New Play Areas Assured on Basin, Herald, 21 August 1949; Sidney N. Shurcliff, “Current Work in Progress: Boston’s Proposed Development on the Charles River,” Landscape Architecture 40, no. 1 (1949): 21. Acts of 1949, Chap. 263.

C HAPTER N INE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

B.R.C., 5: 27; 8: 47–48. B.R.C., 13: 274; 16: 47–48, 208; 18: 138; 19: 109, 113. B.R.C., 14: 306. B.R.C., 31: 412; 35: 138. [Front Street Corporation], Collection of Facts and Documents Relative to the Project of a Bridge from South Street in Boston to Dorchester Neck, and the Annexation of That Peninsula to the Town of Boston (Boston: E. Lincoln, 1805), 4–6. Thomas C. Simonds, History of South Boston (1857; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1974), 246–247, 248. [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 15–16. The traditional figure for the area of Dorchester Neck is 600 acres (ibid., 15), which is very close to the 579.3 acres recently calculated by computer (see chapter 10, n. 2 for an explanation of this calculation). Ibid., 7–9; (Boston) Columbian Centinel, 31 December 1803; (Boston) New-England Palladium, 6 January 1804. Palladium, 1 February 1805. Centinel, 31 December 1803, 4 January 1804, 7 January 1804, 11 January 1804, 14 January 1804; Palladium, 3 January 1804, 6 January 1804, 13 January 1804; (Boston) Independent Chronicle, 9 January 1804, 12 January 1804, 16 January 1804. B.R.C., 35: 156–157; Centinel, 18 January 1804. Chronicle, 6 February 1804. Ibid., 24 January 1804. [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 12–13; Palladium, 27 January 1804; Centinel, 28 January 1804. B.R.C., 35: 157–158; [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 13–14; Palladium, 31 January 1804; Centinel, 1 February 1804. Chronicle, 16 February 1804, 1 March 1804; Simonds, South Boston, 244. [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 26; Anonymous, Considerations on the Public Expediency of a Bridge from One Part of Boston to the Other (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1806), 27. [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 51–52; Chronicle, 20 February 1804. Agreement between Jonathan Mason and Harrison Gray Otis with William Brown, Arnold Wells, Josiah Knapp, and Benjamin Goddard, reel 3, HGO/MHS; Centinel, 6 February 1805; Anonymous, Considerations, 29–30. Acts of 1803, Chaps. 111, 114, 113; Palladium, 9 March 1804, 13 March 1804. The Front Street project has often been presented as the first nineteenthcentury landmaking project, while actually the almshouse, India Wharf,

22.

23. 24.

25.

and Mount Vernon projects preceded it (see chapters 3, 5, and 6). The erroneous view of the Front Street project probably stems from the statement in an 1844 report of the corporation that eventually filled all of South Cove that Front Street was “the first great work of enlarging the peninsula by united action, in filling up the adjoining flats” (South Cove Corporation, “History of Harrison Avenue, Formerly Called Front Street,” in Report of the Board of Directors of the South Cove Corporation, to the Stockholders, together with the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Annual Reports of Their Agent and the Treasurer’s Balance Sheet [Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1844], 21–22). The 1844 statement was reiterated in 1881 by Edward Stanwood, author of the chapter on recent topographical development in Winsor’s Memorial History, who said, “The first systematic and co-operative enterprise having in view the enlargement of the limits of Boston by making new land, was the Front Street improvement” (“Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. [Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881], 4: 31). Stanwood was, in turn, quoted verbatim by both Whitehill (Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000], 77) and Lawrence W. Kennedy (Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992], 35) and was probably the basis for Bunting’s characterization of the Front Street project as the first of the “filling operations” (Bainbridge Bunting, Houses of Boston’s Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840–1917 [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967], 32). The entire texts of the ads read: “Timber and Plank Wanted—Any person or person desirous of supplying the White Oak and Pine Timber, with Plank, sufficient for the erecting of a Bridge from Dorchester Point to the south part of Boston, are requested to call, with the terms, upon Jonathan Mason” (Palladium, 30 March 1804); “Wanted on Contract—One thousand perch [1 perch = 16.5 x 1.5 x 1 foot] of stones, to be laid in a workmanlike manner on the east side of a New Street to be built at the South End of Boston, and a quantity of ballast stones for backing the same. Also, 100 tons [1 ton timber = 50 cubic feet hewn timber] of White Pine timber, the sticks to be from 20 to 45 feet in length, straight and of an equal bigness at each end, to be hewn to an edge, and not less than 12 nor more than 14 inches square” (Centinel, 24 March 1804). South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 21. William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), 3: 108. South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 21.

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26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

476

Acts of 1805, Chap. 92. [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 56; Anonymous, Considerations, 31. South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 21. Centinel, 28 March 1804; Anonymous, Considerations, 30–31. Palladium, 8 June 1804; [Front Street Corporation], Facts, 47–48. Palladium, 1 February 1805. Centinel, 6 February 1805; Chronicle, 7 February 1805; Boston Gazette, 7 February 1805. [Front Street Corporation], Facts. Centinel, 2 February 1805; Palladium, 1 February 1805. B.R.C., 35: 174. Anonymous, Considerations; Card Catalogue, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Nathaniel I. Bowditch, Titles, Nathaniel I. Bowditch Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 5: 276, 285–286. Ibid., 286; Minutes, 21 February 1825, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council). Box 6: folder 13, Francis Cabot Lowell Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Capitalization has been corrected from original. Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 247. Ibid., 247–250; Abel Bowen, Picture of Boston, 3d ed. (Boston: Otis, Broaders and Co., 1838), 87–88; Report of the Special Committee and Report of the Joint Committee on the Subject of the Free Bridge; with the Accompanying Documents (Boston: True and Green, 1826); Minutes, 27 March 1826, 6 June 1826, 25 September 1826, 2 October 1826, 23 October 1826, 6 November 1826, 15 November 1826, 20 November 1826, 8 January 1827, 1 February 1827, 19 February 1827, 26 February 1827, 18 June 1827, 24 April 1828, 2 May 1828, 9 June 1828, 16 June 1828, 7 July 1828, 14 July 1828, 6 August 1828, 6 October 1828, 13 October 1828, Council. Acts of 1833, Chap. 17. Ibid. South Cove Corporation, First Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the South Cove Corporation, to the Stockholders, Submitting the Report of Their Agent, and the Treasurer’s Account (Boston: Tuttle and Weeks, 1835), 5 (hereafter cited as A. R. South Cove Corporation). Ibid., 6–8. Ibid., 9–10. Agent’s report of October 10, 1833, South Cove Records, The Bostonian Society, Boston (hereafter cited as South Cove Records).

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48. Account Book 1837–1845, South Cove Corporation Papers, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston. 49. South Cove Corporation, Second A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1835), 4–5; South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1837), 13. 50. Minutes, 8 March 1833, South Cove Records. 51. South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R South Cove Corporation., 11; South Cove Corporation, Fifth A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1838), 6. 52. South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R. South Cove Corporation, 5, 7; South Cove Corporation, Seventh A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1840), 7. 53. South Cove Corporation, First A.R. South Cove Corporation, 7. 54. South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R. South Cove Corporation, 8. 55. See, for example, Senate No. 8 (1840), 4; Senate No. 86 (1845), 2; House No. 58 (1845), 3; Senate No. 64 (1846), 4; Senate No. 119 (1850), 8. 56. Minutes, 8 March 1833, South Cove Records. 57. South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R. South Cove Corporation, 14. 58. South Cove Corporation, Seventh A.R South Cove Corporation, 7–8. 59. South Cove Corporation, Fourth A.R. South Cove Corporation, 7, 14; South Cove Corporation, Fifth A.R. South Cove Corporation, 9; South Cove Corporation, Sixth A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1839), 7–11. 60. South Cove Corporation, Seventh A.R South Cove Corporation, 11–12. 61. Ibid., 5. 62. South Cove Corporation, Eighth A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1841), 5–6. 63. Minutes, 8 September 1842, Council. 64. South Cove Corporation, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh A.R. South Cove Corporation (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1844), 8, 13. 65. Ibid., 11. 66. Ibid., 10. 67. House No. 76 (1868), 83. 68. Computed in 2002 by MapWorks (see appendix 1). 69. Rhoads Murphey, “Boston’s Chinatown,” Economic Geography 28, no. 3 (1952): 245–249, 251, 255; Arthur Krim, “Chinatown—South Cove, Comprehensive Survey Project,” Final Survey Report (Boston Landmarks Commission, Boston, 1997), 29–32. 70. Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., “Report on Groundwater Observation Wells” (Stone and Webster Civil and Transportation Services, Inc., Boston, Mass., April 1990), 16; Ralph Ranalli, “On Hudson Street, ‘it’s like disease,’” article posted on Boston Groundwater Trust website, ; Jack

71. 72. 73.

74. 75.

Meyers, “Water-table woes,” article posted on Boston Groundwater Trust website, . Gareth Cook, “That sinking feeling: Low ground water levels blamed for faulty foundations,” Boston Globe, 19 April 2002. City Doc. No. 73 (1896), 1–5; Acts of 1896, Chap. 516. This seawall was set on a foundation of piles driven about forty-five feet until they reached an underlying layer of glacial till. The upper portions of the piles were then surrounded with gravel ballast and the tops capped with a platform composed of three courses of eight-inch-thick timbers, which was constructed on land and then floated out, sunk into place, and bolted onto the piles. The wall built on this foundation was of dry-laid granite blocks with a battered cross section, that is, wider at the base than at the top, the back supported with riprap of granite chips, stones, and spalls (“The New Southern Terminal Station, Boston,” Engineering Record 39, no. 5 [1898]: 91, figure 1). Ibid. Edward F. McGee, “Interesting Sidelights on the Construction of the Parcel Post Building Foundations,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 22, no. 1 (1935): 45, 47.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

C HAPTER T EN 1.

B.R.C., 31: 59, 65–67. The seawall was to be constructed with a battered cross section—31/2 feet wide at the base and 21/2 feet at the top—and to be 5 feet high of which 2 feet were to be set below ground. 2. B.R.C., 27: 97, 102, 165, 166, 212, 250; 31: 105; 33: 61, 64, 71, 73–74; 35: 13–14, 16. 3. B.R.C., 35: 101, 104, 105, 108. 4. Ibid., 184–185. 5. Ibid., 286. 6. B.R.C., 33: 293; 35: 256–257, 267–268. 7. Minutes, 20 February 1826, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council); South Cove Corporation, “History of Harrison Avenue, Formerly Called Front Street,” in Report of the Board of Directors of the South Cove Corporation, to the Stockholders, together with the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Annual Reports of Their Agent and the Treasurer’s Balance Sheet (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1844), 22. 8. Minutes, 3 May 1830, 17 May 1830, Council. 9. South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 22. 10. Minutes, 4 October 1832, Council; South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 22. 11. South Cove Corporation, “Harrison Avenue,” 22–23.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

Minutes, 18 May 1837, 25 May 1837, Council. Minutes, 5 November 1840, Council. Minutes, 11 May 1843, 25 May 1843, 8 June 1843, Council. For a more complete discussion of the South Bay Lands project, see Nancy Stein Seasholes, Landmaking and the Process of Urbanization: The Boston Landmaking Projects, 1630s–1888 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1994), 306–342. City Doc. No. 11 (1852), 3. City Doc. No. 45 (1849), 2–3. Senate No. 119 (1850), 5. Minutes, 10 July 1845, Council; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 5. City Doc. No. 35 (1845), 3–5; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 5–6. Minutes, 2 October 1845, 9 October 1845, Council. The wall was to be eight feet thick at the base and three feet at the top, to be built of split granite blocks fourteen to eighteen inches high of which one-fifth were to be binder stones that would extend all the way through the wall, and to have a cap or coping of stones that were three feet wide, fourteen inches thick, and at least eight feet long joined to the adjacent coping stones with iron cramps. The wall was to be placed on a “solid and substantial” foundation of Bill’s choice. If of piles, however, they were to be in three lengthwise rows not more than three feet apart. The tops of the piles were to be at the low water line and they were to be capped with timber stringers eighteen inches square. The back of the wall was to be ballasted with stones sloping out at a 45-degree angle, as shown in the drawing (see figure 10.6; City Doc. No. 82 [1857], 7, 57–59). Ibid. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 4. Minutes, 12 March 1846, 2 July 1846, 9 July 1846, Council; Minutes, 13 July 1846, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen); City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 8. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 8–9; Minutes, 28 May 1846, Council. City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 10; Minutes, 3 February 1848, 8 June 1848, Council. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 9–10; Minutes, 4 June 1846, 11 June 1846, Council; Minutes, 15 June 1846, Aldermen. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 21. Minutes, 12 November 1846, Council; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 10–11. It is commonly thought that a railroad was first used to haul gravel fill on the Back Bay project in the late 1850s. Actually, gravel fill was first hauled by railroad on the South Cove project in the 1830s (see chapter 9) and, as will be discussed in this chapter, was again on the South Bay Lands project in the late 1840s, ten years before the Back Bay project.

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32. City Doc. No. 10 (1847), 2–3; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 11–12. 33. City Doc. No. 10 (1847), 4; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 12–13; Minutes, 18 February 1847, 4 March 1847, Council. 34. Acts of 1847, Chap. 250. 35. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 14–15. 36. Ibid., 15–18; City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 9–12; Minutes, 28 October 1847, 9 March 1848, Council. 37. Acts of 1848, Chap. 37; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 17–19; City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 11–13; Minutes, 7 April 1848, Council. 38. Acts of 1848, Chap. 37; Senate No. 119 (1850), 5. 39. Even parts of the South End on original land needed filling, especially after November 1850 when the Board of Aldermen ordered that all streets be at least fifteen feet above mean low water. By 1850 the city was filling Chester and Worcester Squares, Springfield and Northampton Streets, and between Washington Street and Harrison Avenue on original land and Union Park Street and Square and Waltham, Dedham, and Tremont Streets on made land (City Doc. No. 47 [1851], 3–6). 40. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 61–67. 41. City Doc. No. 46 (1848), 2. 42. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 20, 24–25; Minutes, 19 October 1848, 15 March 1849, Council. 43. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 24–25. 44. City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 12–13, 22–23. 45. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 68–74. 46. City Doc. No. 47 (1851), 6; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 29. 47. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 28–29. 48. Minutes, 20 January 1853, Council. 49. City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 4; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 35, 78. 50. Minutes, 5 May 1853, 17 May 1853, Council; City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 5, 25; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 79, 93–94. 51. City Doc. No. 44 (1853), 3–4, 6–7. 52. City Doc. No. 13 (1853), 6–7; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 36–46, 95–99; City Doc. No. 49 (1854), 2–4; Minutes, 3 March 1853, 17 March 1853, 14 April 1853, 2 June 1853, 16 June 1853, 18 May 1854, Council. 53. Minutes, 2 November 1854, 9 November 1854, Council; City Doc. No. 77 (1854), 2–7; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 46–47, 100–104. 54. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 47. 55. Ibid., 108–111. 56. Ibid., 51; Minutes, 18 January 1855, Council. 57. Minutes, 1 November 1855, 7 January 1856, 8 January 1857, 7 January 1858, 3 January 1859, Council; City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 51–52. 58. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 52; Minutes, n.d. [probably April 1856], Committee on South Bay, 1856–1859, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as South Bay Committee).

478

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2 6 4 – 2 7 3

59. John F. Souther, “John Souther,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 2. 60. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 52. 61. Minutes, 7 May 1856, South Bay Committee. 62. This mud, which was described as having the consistency of “newly-made soap,” caused problems again in 1878 when the East Side Interceptor sewer was being dug in Albany Street, so much so that the contractor lost money and finally abandoned the job (“Improved Sewerage,” Boston Herald, 18 August 1878). 63. City Doc. No. 82 (1857), 52–55, 112–114. 64. City Doc. No. 47 (1858), 13. 65. Minutes, 8 June 1857, South Bay Committee. 66. Minutes, 11 September 1856, 1 October 1856, 14 April. 1857, 4 May 1857, 1 July 1858, South Bay Committee; City Doc. No. 47 (1858), 13. 67. Minutes, 21 April 1856, 28 August 1856, 11 March 1858, 17 June 1858, South Bay Committee. 68. Minutes, 18 March 1858, 8 April 1858, 25 September 1858, South Bay Committee. 69. Minutes, 27 May 1858, South Bay Committee. 70. Minutes, 28 May 1858, South Bay Committee. 71. Minutes, 26 August 1858, South Bay Committee. 72. Minutes, 1 September 1858, South Bay Committee. 73. Minutes, 4 November 1858, 18 November 1858, 26 November 1858, South Bay Committee. 74. Minutes, 13 January 1859, 27 January 1859, 24 February 1859, 10 March 1859, South Bay Committee; Minutes, 27 January 1859, Council. 75. Minutes, 10 March 1859, South Bay Committee. 76. Minutes, 27 January 1859, South Bay Committee. 77. Minutes, 17 March 1859, 24 March 1859, 31 March 1859, 14 April 1859, South Bay Committee. 78. Minutes, 24 March 1859, South Bay Committee. 79. Minutes, 21 April 1859, Council; City Doc. No. 47 (1859), 3. 80. City Doc. No. 47 (1859), 4–6. 81. City Doc. No. 51 (1859), 5–13. 82. Minutes, 29 September 1859, 6 October 1859, 13 October 1859, 20 October 1859, 27 October 1859, Council; Minutes, 20 October 1859, 31 October 1859, Records of South Bay Commissioners, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as South Bay Commissioners). 83. Minutes, 10 November 1859, 25 November 1859, South Bay Commissioners. 84. Minutes, 14 January 1860, South Bay Committee 85. Minutes, 31 January 1860, 17 February 1860, Committee on South Bay Investigation, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass.

86. Minutes, 8 March 1860, Council. 87. Minutes, 19 April 1860, 27 September 1860, 3 January 1861, 28 February 1861, Council; Minutes, 16 May 1860, Abolition of South Bay Commission, Record of Committees, 1860, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. 88. Minutes, 19 September 1861, Council. 89. City Doc. No. 78 (1862), 5–7. 90. Minutes, 20 November 1862, Council. 91. Minutes, 2 May 1861, Council. 92. Minutes, 12 December 1861, 2 January 1862, 4 December 1862, Council. 93. Minutes, 12 February 1863, 19 March 1863, 10 December 1863, Council. 94. Minutes, 10 December 1863, 15 December 1864, Council. 95. Minutes, 11 July 1867, 27 July 1867, Council. 96. City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 25. 97. See, for example, City Doc. No. 35 (1853), 5; City Doc. No. 44 (1853), 6; City Doc. No. 49 (1854), 2. 98. For a discussion of this motive in relation to the Back Bay project, see Will Holton, “Social Motivations in Urban Planning: Comparing Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Boston,” (paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Pittsburgh, Penn., 1992). 99. City Doc. No. 121 (1854), 11–12. 100. City Doc. No. 43 (1858). 101. Minutes, 19 May 1859, Council; Minutes, 1 July 1859, 27 July 1859, 24 September 1859, 13 December 1859, Albany Street Extension, Record of Committees, 1859, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass.; Minutes, 12 December 1864, Aldermen. 102. City Doc. No. 48 (1858), 6. 103. Minutes, 29 July 1861, Aldermen. 104. Minutes, 9 November 1862, Aldermen. 105. Minutes, 12 December 1864, Aldermen. 106. Minutes, 12 December 1864, 19 December 1864, Aldermen. 107. Minutes, 3 September 1866, 10 September 1866, Aldermen. 108. Minutes, 6 November 1866, Aldermen. 109. Minutes, 5 August 1867, Aldermen. 110. Minutes, 18 November 1867, 2 December 1867, 27 January 1868, Aldermen. 111. House No. 76 (1868), 83. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 114. As explained in chapter 9, the enlargement of South Bay by the South Cove Corporation is traditionally cited as about 75 acres (ibid; Senate No. 64 [1846], 3), but a recent computer analysis found it was actually 61.6 acres (computed in 2002 by MapWorks).

115. Francis S. Drake, “Roxbury in the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 3: 573. 116. Senate No. 3 (1850), 46. 117. Seventh Report of United States Commissioners on Boston Harbor, 1864, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), 27–29 (hereafter cited as U.S. Commissioners). At the time it was believed that the shipping channels were kept open by the scour, or force, of the ebb tide. 118. Ibid., 11, 105. 119. House No. 240 (1870), 4–5, 44, 64–70. 120. Sixth A.R. HC, House No. 56 (1872), 13–27. 121. The city contracted with one Phineas E. Gay to supply and deposit the gravel fill (City Doc. No. 25 [1875], 4–5). 122. Ibid., 3–11; City Doc. No. 136 (1873), 10–11. 123. City Doc. No. 84 (1874); City Doc. No. 107 (1874); Ninth A.R. HC, January 1875, House No. 61 (1875), 31; City Doc. No. 35 (1875). 124. Eleventh A.R. HC, January 1877, House No. 25 (1877), 25. More filling was done along the canal in the early 1880s (First A.R. H & LC for 1879, Pub. Doc. No. 11[1880] 27; A.R. H & LC for 1883, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1884], 38; A.R. H & LC for 1884, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1885], 24). 125. A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1891), 15. 126. Acts of 1891, Chap. 309; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 45, 54. 127. A.R. H & LC for 1896, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1897), 17–18; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1898), 20, 58. 128. Acts of 1898, Chap. 278; A.R. H & LC for 1898, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1899), 12–13, 76–79; Acts of 1899, Chap. 470; A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 19–20, 103–106; Acts of 1901, Chap. 484; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 23, 67; A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 18–19. 129. A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 26; A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 15; A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1907), 15; A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 63, 132, 137. 130. House No. 1635 (1915), 6–10, 12, 14. 131. Annual Report of the [Massachusetts] Department of Public Works for the Year Ending November 20, 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1922), 161–162 (hereafter cited as A.R. DPW); Acts of 1921, Chap. 137. 132. A.R. DPW for 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1922), 162; House No. 1130 (1926), 95; Thirteenth Annual Report of the [Boston] City Planning Board for the Year Ending December 31, 1926, City Doc. No. 10 (1927), 92 (hereafter cited as A.R. CPB); House No. 122 (1927), 2–3; House No. 1010 (1929), 63. 133. House No. 1010 (1929), 18, 23, 63.

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134. House No. 1130 (1926), 93–98, 104–105; Thirteenth A.R. CPB for Year Ending December 31, 1926, City Doc. No. 10 (1927), 90–102; House No. 1010 (1929); House No. 190 (1930); House No. 1290 (1931). 135. House No. 1010 (1929), 9, 35–36. 136. House No. 1130 (1926), 97; House No. 1010 (1929), 10–11, 12, 46; House No. 190 (1930), 13; House No. 1290 (1931), 11, 16–21. 137. Acts of 1929, Chap. 278; House No. 1290 (1931), 36; Thomas Worcester, Inc., A Study for the Development of Fort Point Channel, South Bay and Adjacent Areas (N.p.: Port of Boston Authority, 1950), 3, 8, 9, 43. 138. Charles A. Maguire and Associates, Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area (Boston: N.p., 1948), 51–52, exhibit 2; Worcester, Fort Point Channel and South Bay. 139. Forty-Third A.R. CPB for Year Ending December 31, 1956, City Doc. No. 8 (1957), 5; “Turning Point,” special section, Boston Globe, 30 October 1994, 7. 140. Acts of 1954, Chap. 638. 141. Senate No. 498 (1959), 6–7, 8, 15. 142. A.R. DPW, July 1, 1964–June 30, 1965, Section E, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript); A.R. DPW, July 1, 1967–June 30, 1968, Section E, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript).

7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

C HAPTER E LEVEN 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

480

South Boston acreage computed in 2002 from the digitized map in figure 11.1 by MapWorks. For Back Bay acreage, see appendix 1. The original area of South Boston was cited in 1893 as 795 acres (City Doc. No. 36 [1894], 19) and in 1805 as 600 acres ([Front Street Corporation], Collection of Facts and Documents Relative to the Project of a Bridge from South Street in Boston to Dorchester Neck, and the Annexation of That Peninsula to the Town of Boston [Boston: E. Lincoln, 1805], 15). The latter is based the original boundary of Dorchester Neck and that is why it is much closer to the 579.3 calculated by computer, which uses an approximation of the same boundary—a line between the northern part of Mercer Street extended to the 1630 shoreline and the intersection of B Street and the 1630 shoreline (see figures 11.1 and 11.4; computed in 2002 from the data in figure 11.1 by MapWorks). Acts of 1803, Chap. 111; B.R.C., 33: 255–257. Acts of 1805, Chap. 9. Statement of expenses incurred by those interested in bridge from South Street, 3 February 1806, reel 4, HGO/MHS. City Doc. No. 104 (1886), 4–5.

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2 8 2 – 2 9 5

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Thomas C. Simonds, History of South Boston (1857; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1974), 89–99; Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 247–250; City Doc. No. 104 (1886), 4–5. Acts of 1827, Chap. 57; Deed from South Boston Association to Cyrus Alger, 19 November 1816, 253: 79, S.D.; Simonds, South Boston, 251–254. Simonds, South Boston, 254; Deed from Cyrus Alger to Old Colony Railroad Corporation, 1 January 1845, 538: 227, S.D. A recent archaeological excavation found remains of the earliest glassworks but did not extend far enough north to find remains of the seawall along First Street (Leith Smith, Barbara Donohue, and Martin Dudek, “Emergency Archaeological Data Recovery of the South Boston Flint Glass Works and the American Glass Company [formerly Reported as Crown Glass Works],” Contingency Plan Implementation, Contos Property, Parcel 60-CS–1, Central Artery/Tunnel Project, Boston, Massachusetts [Timelines, Inc., Littleton, Mass., 2000], figure I-3). B.R.C., 35: 113–115, 351–354; 37: 183–198, 241–251, 267–273; Quincy, Municipal History, 34–40, 46–54, 88–96, 102–109, 138–147. City Doc. No. 78 (1854), 23–25. Minutes, 31 October 1833, 4 December 1834, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Council); Minutes, 22 June 1835, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Mayor and Aldermen, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Aldermen). City Doc. No. 25 (1849), 8–9; City Doc. No. 70 (1851), 4–7; City Doc. No. 106 (1872), 4; Minutes, 17 July 1853, Committee on Institutions at South Boston and on Deer Island, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass. (hereafter cited as Committee on Institutions). City Doc. No. 32 (1849), 3–4; City Doc. No. 45 (1849), 4; Minutes, 1 May 1851, 22 July 1851, Committee on Institutions. City Doc. No. 30 (1854), 3–4. Minutes, 27 August 1855, Aldermen. Boston Wharf Company, One Hundred Years of the Boston Wharf Company (Boston: Boston Wharf Co., 1936), 4–5. Ibid., 4; Fourth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 62 (1861), 5; Tenth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 50 (1866), 31. House No. 58 (1845); Acts of 1845, Chap. 239; House No. 73 (1846); Boston Wharf Company, One Hundred Years, 6–7. House No. 95 (1850): Senate No. 44 (1852); Acts of 1852, Chap. 171; House No. 53 (1855); House No. 196 (1855); House No. 208 (1855); Acts of 1855, Chap. 455; Boston Wharf Company, One Hundred Years, 7.

22. This guzzle remained open, becoming a dock in the Boston Wharf Company property (see figure 11.22) that was not filled until 1916 (see figures 11.25 and 11.26). The license for filling specified a wooden bulkhead across the opening on the channel to hold in the fill. The opening is now filled with riprap. (License no. 188, Directors of the Port of Boston to Boston Wharf Company, May 10, 1916, Division of Wetlands and Waterways, [Massachusetts] Department of Environmental Protection, Boston [hereafter cited as Waterways, DEP]). 23. Acts of 1853, Chap. 255; Acts of 1855, Chap. 424. 24. See, for example, Senate No. 3 (1850), 59–60. 25. Senate No. 47 (1837); Senate No. 8 (1840); Senate No. 64 (1846); Senate No. 25 (1847); Senate No. 53 (1849); Senate No. 3 (1850); House No. 106 (1851); Senate No. 63 (1855). 26. Senate No. 109 (1853); City Doc. No. 60 (1853), 56–61; Senate No. 63 (1855), 11–12, 13–15. 27. Senate No. 8 (1840), 14. 28. Senate No. 3 (1850), 29, 35–36. 29. City Doc. No. 60 (1853), 9–11. 30. See, for example, Senate No. 25 (1847), 4–5; Senate No. 3 (1850), 19–21; Senate No. 119 (1850), 10–16, 22–27. 31. The commissioners were Gen. Joseph G. Totten, chief engineer of the United States; Prof. A. D. Bache, superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey; and Comdr. Charles H. Davis, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and hydrographer of the 1847 U.S. Coast Survey of Boston Harbor (see figure 11.6). Senate No. 63 (1855), 29–30; Resolves of 1856, Chap. 22; Resolves of 1858, Chap. 28; City Doc. No. 64 (1859); Preliminary Report of [U.S.] Commissioners, City Doc. No. 37 (1860); Second Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 125 (1864), 8–9; A.R. HC for 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 33 (1879), 14. 32. Preliminary Report of [U.S.] Commissioners, City Doc. No. 37 (1860); City Doc. No. 88 (1860); Second Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 97 (1860), 3–7; Special Report of U.S. Commissioners on the Relation of Mystic Pond and River to Boston Harbor, City Doc. No. 12 (1861); Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), 3–4; Tenth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 50 (1866), 96. 33. Second Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 97 (1860), 16; Fourth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 62 (1861), 11–12; Fifth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 35 (1863), 6, 12–13, 17, 41–45. 34. Sixth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 53 (1863); Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864); Tenth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 50 (1866), 87–93.

35. Senate No. 11 (1866), 7–9. Plans issued by the Commissioners on Harbors and Flats in 1864 had incorporated the original U.S. commissioners’ line: Senate No. 125 (1864), 22, Plan A for the Occupation of the South Boston Flats, Plan B of the First Section for the Occupation of the South Boston Flats. 36. Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), 14–18. 37. Second Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 125 (1864), 16–17; Fourth Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 11 (1866), 8–9. 38. Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), 19. Slate Ledge was actually misnamed, as the commissioners had pointed out in 1861, since it was nothing more than some underlying stones. The commissioners compounded the misnomer in 1863 by referring to the site as “State Ledge,” an error that was repeated on several subsequent plans and reports (Fourth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 62 [1861], 5–6; Fourth Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 11 (1866), 8; figure 11.8 above). 39. Senate No. 140 (1849); House No. 106 (1851), 11–12; Acts of 1852, Chap. 148; City Doc. No. 58 (1861); City Doc. No. 73 (1861); City Doc. No. 60 (1862); City Doc. No. 82 (1862); City Doc. No. 92 (1862); City Doc. No. 98 (1862). 40. Sixth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 53 (1863), 14–15. 41. Senate No. 119 (1850), 7; Senate No. 45 (1852), 20–21; Senate No. 63 (1855), 31–32; Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), iv, 38; Second Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 125 (1864), 19–20; Fourth Report of the Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, Senate No. 11 (1866), 5–7. 42. Acts of 1866, Chap. 149; Resolves of 1866, Chap. 81. 43. Fourth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 62 (1861), 17; Fifth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 35 (1863), 42, 44–45; Seventh Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 33 (1864), 21–27; Ninth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 28 (1865); Tenth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 50 (1866), 43–48, 84–87; Acts of 1866, Chap. 149, Sect. 4. 44. Second A.R. HC, House No. 10 (1868), 13–15; House No. 76 (1868), 31–35, 55–73; Acts of 1868, Chap. 326; Third A.R. HC, House No. 13 (1869), 3–11. 45. Second A.R. HC, House No. 10 (1868), 8–9; Acts of 1867, Chap. 354; Third A.R. HC, House No. 13 (1869), 11–14. 46. Third A.R. HC, House No. 13 (1869), 14–15. 47. Fourth A.R. HC, House No. 55 (1870), 3–16, 42–105; Fifth A.R. HC, House No. 53 (1871), 3–5, 10–12. 48. Fourth A.R. HC, House No. 55 (1870), 14.

N

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T O

P A G E S

2 9 5 – 3 0 2

•

481

49. Ibid., 11; Fifth A.R. HC, House No. 53 (1871), 5–6, 9–10; City Doc. No. 93 (1872), 16. 50. Boston Wharf Company, One Hundred Years, 5; Fifth A.R. HC, House No. 53 (1871), 6–9; Sixth A.R HC, House No. 56 (1872), 3–13; Seventh A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1873), 3–29; City Doc. No. 75 (1872); City Doc. No. 93 (1872); City Doc. No. 103 (1872); Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1874), 3, 48. 51. City Doc. No. 71 (1873); Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1874), 3–10, 48–60. 52. Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1874), 10–12. 53. The “light” seawalls were set in trenches excavated two feet below mean low water and on foundations of piles at least ten inches in diameter driven twenty to thirty feet into the bottom. The spaces between the piles were filled with stone chips or oyster shells and the piles were topped with two three-inch-thick planks laid at right angles to each other. The walls themselves were constructed of granite rubble with enough headers to ensure stability. They were eighteen feet high and, with a battered cross section, nine feet wide at the bottom, five feet at the top. The “heavy” seawall at the mouth of the Fort Point Channel was set in a trench forty-five feet wide excavated to twenty-three feet below mean low water. The submarine divers constructed a foundation of broken quarry stones in the trench using crowbars to place large stones first and then filling the spaces with smaller ones, sloping the foundation from forty-five feet wide at the base to eighteen feet wide at eleven feet below mean low water. The wall constructed on this foundation was of granite blocks each two feet high, at least eighteen inches wide, and between four and ten feet long. From the top of the foundation to one foot below mean low water the divers placed the blocks in alternating courses of headers and stretchers and from that point to the top of the coping at sixteen feet above mean low water the blocks were laid in cement with headers and stretchers in each course. The entire wall, with a batter of two inches per foot on both faces, was fourteen feet wide at the base, five feet at the top, and twenty-seven feet high. About eighteen feet of the back of the wall was ballasted with gravel dredged from harbor islands and the remainder with oyster shells. The heavy seawall between the two docks was, for various reasons, built without the high foundation of broken stones. Instead, this wall was built on a four-foot foundation of carefully leveled small stones set in a trench excavated to twenty-seven feet below mean low water. The granite blocks were then placed by divers from twenty-three feet below mean low water up to the line of low water and laid in cement from that point to the top of the coping. This wall, built with a batter on only the front face, was eighteen feet wide at the base, five feet at the top, and thirty-nine feet

482

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T O

P A G E S

3 0 2 – 3 1 2

54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62. 63.

64.

high (Fourth A.R. HC, House No. 55 [1870], 9, plan; Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 [1874], 61–63; Ninth A.R. HC, House No. 61 [1875], 4–5, 31, 39–40; Tenth A.R. HC, House No. 75 [1876], 45, 49–50; Eleventh A.R. HC, House No. 25 (1877), 33; Edward S. Philbrick, “The Improvement of the South Boston Flats,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 7 [1878]: 21–23, 24–28, 29–30, 31, 38, pl. XII). Ninth A.R. HC, House No. 61 (1875), 4, 39; Tenth A.R. HC, House No. 75 (1876), 46–47; Philbrick, “South Boston Flats,” 40–41. Tenth A.R. HC, House No. 75 (1876), 5. Robert Campbell, “303 Congress’ pile of problems,” Boston Globe, 8 December 1995. Second A R. LC for 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1879), 4, 35; House No. 21 (1878), 3. The long dock at the base of the lobster claw and elbow of the Fort Point Channel remained open for almost a hundred years, for it was not filled until the early 1960s by the Gillette Company, which then occupied the former Boston Wharf Company property immediately east of it (License no. 4398, DPW to Gillette Company, December 19, 1960, Waterways, DEP). See also Acts of 1960, Chap. 799. House No. 100 (1875), 7, 47–48. Senate No. 16 (1877), 10. Ninth A.R. HC, House No. 61 (1875), 30; A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1895), 23; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1898), 9. Second A.R. LC for 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1879), 4–7, 10–11. A.R. H & LC for 1882, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1883), 66–68; Twenty-Ninth A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 18. The state’s dispute with the Boston & Albany, whose failure to fill the 50-acre lot meant that the Northern Avenue Bridge had not been built, had been partially resolved in 1878 when the railroad paid the state $330,000 in lieu of filling, but was not finally settled until 1882 when the railroad paid the state an additional $100,000 (Senate No. 16 [1877], 8–9, 38–42; First A.R. LC for 1877, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1878], 6; House No. 21 [1878]; Second A.R. LC for 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1879], 3, 36–39; First A.R. H & LC for 1879, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1880], 4–7; A.R. H & LC for 1882, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1883], 5–6, 55–66). A.R. H & LC for 1880, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1881), 4, 50–55. As in the case of the 12-acre lot, some fill had already been deposited east of the 50-acre lot during the 1870s. In 1876 a wood bulkhead had been built approximately on the line of the proposed Northern Avenue to retain dredged material obtained either free of charge or at low prices. In addition, ships had been ordered in 1877 to dump their coal ashes and slag on this area, and by 1878 it was estimated that about seventeen acres had been filled

65. 66.

67. 68.

69. 70.

71.

72. 73.

74.

to grade one (Eleventh A.R. HC, House No. 25 [1877], 5; Senate No. 16 [1877], 25–27, plan; First A.R. LC for 1877, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1878], 5–6; A.R. HC for 1877, Pub. Doc. No. 33 [1878], 28; Second A.R. LC for 1878, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1879], 8, 22–23). A.R. H & LC for 1881, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1882), 3–5, 51–53. Ibid., 5, 49–50, 53. The bulkhead around the area filled by the New England Dredging Company was constructed of spruce piles at least ten inches in diameter placed six feet apart and driven ten feet into the bottom. Each pile was supported by two diagonal braces, called spurshores, one joined to the piling at grade four and the other at grade twelve. Threeinch-thick planks were attached to the back of the piles from the surface of the flats up to grade thirteen, and the top of the bulkhead was capped with six- by twelve-inch timbers (ibid., 54–55; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1889], 6). A.R. H & LC for 1882, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1883), 3–4, 69–72. A.R. H & LC for 1883, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1884), 24–26; A.R. H & LC for 1884, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1885), 7; A.R. H & LC for 1886, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1887), 10–11; A.R. H & LC for 1887, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1888), 6–7; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 5. A.R. H & LC for 1883, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1884), 24; A.R. H & LC for 1885, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1886), 48–49, 89–90. A.R. H & LC for 1882, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1883), 60; License no. 5554, DPW to Anthony’s Pier Four, Inc., May 28, 1969, Waterways, DEP; License no. 5882, DPW to Anthony’s Pier Four, Inc., April 21, 1971, Waterways, DEP. In the twentieth century the docks were filled differently from the way the surrounding piers had been filled in the nineteenth. Instead of the earlier stone seawalls, in the 1960s and 1970s dikes of rock fill faced with riprap were constructed across the outer perimeters and then the docks filled with earth and rock devoid of timbers or other organic material, in contrast to the dredged fill required in the nineteenth century. A.R. H & LC for 1886, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1887), 10; A.R. H & LC for 1887, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1888), 6; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 7. A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 7; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 5–6, 58–59. A.R. H & LC for 1885, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1886), 49–51; A.R. H & LC for 1886, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1887), 11; A.R. H & LC for 1887, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1888), 8–9, 43–45; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 8–9. A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 9–10, 57–62. The specifications for these walls were essentially the same as those for the “light” seawalls constructed in the 1870s along the Fort Point Channel and inside

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

the docks (see above and figure 11.17). Braces were added to the foundation piles of the wall at the end of the Reserved Channel, however, and the wall north of the Reserved Channel was not set on a pile foundation but rather directly on the clay bottom and had additional ballast at the back (ibid., 57–62). A.R. H & LC for 1887, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1888), 6; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 6. A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 7, 63–66. The specifications for these bulkheads were very similar to those for the bulkheads built around the 100-acre lot in 1881 (see above) except that the bulkheads around the 70-acre lot were more substantially built—the piles were driven at least twelve rather than ten feet into the underlying clay, the planking extended several feet into the bottom and was secured with battens, and stringers were bolted to the front of the piles (ibid., 63–64). Ibid., 7–8, 67–70. Ibid., 8–10, 71–73; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 41–42. A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 8; A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1893), 10, 63–66. A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1893), 8–9, 53–57. Ibid., 9; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 40; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1894), 5. A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1893), 9–10, 58–62; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1894), 5. Not all of the fill used on the 100-acre and 70-acre lots was material dredged from the harbor. When the bulkhead on the north side of the 100-acre lot was repaired in 1889 and then replaced in 1891 after being damaged during a storm, dirt from construction projects in the city, which was brought to the flats free of charge, was used to fill next to the new bulkhead. This type of fill as well as coal ashes and other refuse was also used on the 70-acre lot, particularly along the extension of E Street and near the north bulkhead, and to fill places on the 100-acre lot that had settled below grade thirteen, especially the Walworth lot and along both sides of Congress Street (see figure 11.23) (A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1890], 7; A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1891], 7; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1892], 38; A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1893], 10, 11; A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1895], 23; A.R. H & LC for 1895, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1896], 5). A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1895), 22–23, 71–75; A.R. H & LC for 1895, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1896), 4–5. For many years thereafter, low places on both the 70- and 100-acre lots were filled with dirt from construction projects, ashes, street sweepings, and other refuse (A.R. H & LC for 1896, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1897], 4; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub.

N

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T O

P A G E S

3 1 2 – 3 1 4

•

483

84.

85. 86.

87.

88.

89.

484

Doc. No. 11 [1898], 5; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1901], 18; A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1902], 12; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1903], 18; Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1905], 14–15, 66–68; Twenty-Seventh A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1906], 74–77; Twenty-Eighth A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1907], 12, 66–68). City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 12–17, 34–41; East Boston Company, Conditions of Commercial Success: What Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Hamburg, and New York Have Done and Are Doing; What Boston Can and Should Do (Boston: East Boston Co., 1894); City Doc. No. 176 (1894); House No. 255 (1895); House No. 345 (1895); House No. 496 (1895); Acts of 1895, Chap. 291. Report of the State Board on Docks and Terminal Facilities (Boston: State Printers, 1897), 83–84, 89–90, 125. A.R. H & LC for 1898, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1899), 8; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1898), 7, 82–84. The main difference between the seawall around Commonwealth Pier and the earlier state-built seawalls on the South Boston Flats was that foundation of the former was more substantially constructed. The trench for the foundation of Commonwealth Pier was, for example, excavated thirty rather than two or three feet below mean low water; the foundation piles were driven at least thirty-five rather than twenty-three feet below mean low water and at least fifteen rather than twelve feet into clay; and the piles were capped with six-by-twelve-inch timbers before being covered with three-inch planks. The base of the stone seawall then constructed on top of this foundation was at about the level of mean low water (A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1898], 82–85; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1889], 57–58; Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 [1874], 61–62). A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1898), 8, 85; A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 6–7; A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1902), 12–13. A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 7, 77–85; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1901), 15; A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1902), 12. A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1901), 17–18; A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1902), 15–16; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 18; A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 14. Construction contracts are not included in the harbor and land commissioners’ reports after 1899, so it is not clear exactly how these structures were built. The reports cited above indicate, however, that at least the north bulkhead was constructed more substantially than previous ones with oak rather than spruce piles, four-inch rather than three-

•

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T O

P A G E S

3 1 4 – 3 1 8

90.

91. 92. 93.

94. 95.

96.

inch planks, stringers of southern pine rather than spruce, and the exterior reinforced with broken stones. The seawall was set on a foundation of concrete as well as piles. A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 8–9, 18–19, A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 8, 14; Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 14. A.R. H & LC for 1887, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1888), 8; Twenty-Ninth A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 19. A.R. H & LC for 1896, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1897), 8, 71–82; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1898), 5–7. A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 6, 100–102; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1901), 4, 91–94; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 17–18. Boston Wharf Company, One Hundred Years, 9–18. A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 20; A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 15; Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 15; Twenty-Seventh A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 13; Twenty-Eighth A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1907), 13; Twenty-Ninth A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 6–7. Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 15; Twenty-Seventh A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 13. Access to the made land on the South Boston Flats had been a problem since the beginning of the project. Construction of the Congress Street Bridge in 1874–1875 and extension of that street across the flats had not facilitated travel as anticipated, originally because there was no access across Boston Wharf Company property and later because the New York & New England Railroad had exercised its right to lay tracks across the street, making it all but impassable. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had complained in 1889, for example, about how dangerous the street was for horses. For years thereafter the commissioners criticized the condition of Congress Street, at first advocating a bridge across the tracks and then finally agreeing that the street should remain at grade and be discontinued across the railroad’s land and that a new bridge and elevated street be built to replace it. This new street was Summer Street and both the elevated section across South Boston and the bridge over the Fort Point Channel were completed in December 1900. But although Summer Street made it easier to reach the made land south of it, the filled areas north of it were still virtually inaccessible (see figure 11.24). Thus, even before Summer Street and Commonwealth Pier were completed, the city was being urged to abide by the 1873 agreement and to construct Northern Avenue and the bridge (A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1889], 7–8; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11

97.

98.

99. 100. 101.

102.

[1890], 9–10; A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1891], 8; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1892], 41; A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1893], 3–4, 11; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1894], 6; A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1895], 23–24; A.R. H & LC for 1895, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1896], 5–6; A.R. H & LC for 1896, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1897], 4–5, 6–8; Docks and Terminal Facilities, 91, 125; A.R. H & LC for 1897, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1898], 9–12, 103–21; A.R. H & LC for 1898, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1899], 6–7, 9–11; A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1900], 8–10; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1901], 14, 18–21). A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1902), 14–15; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 20–22; Acts of 1903, Chap. 381; A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 16; Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 16–26; Twenty-Seventh A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 13; Twenty-Eighth A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1907), 13–14; Twenty-Ninth A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 8–10, 124; Thirtieth A.R. H & LC for 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1909), 7, 45; Thirty-First A.R. H & LC for 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1910), 9–10. Boston Society of Architects, Report Made to the Boston Society of Architects by Its Committee on Municipal Improvement (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1907), 1, 23–28. Resolves of 1907, Chap. 108. Commission on Metropolitan Improvements, Public Improvements for the Metropolitan District (Boston: State Printers, 1909), 28, 161–167. Senate No. 27 (1910), 4–5; Acts of 1910, Chap. 586; Final Report of the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements (Boston: State Printers, 1911), also House No. 1550 (1911), 13, 19–23. Thirty-Second A.R. H & LC for 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1911), 6–10; Thirty-Third A.R. H & LC for 1911, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1912), 20–21. The seawall around Fish Pier was constructed on a foundation of granite quarry chips like the heavy seawall built at the end of Pier 2 in 1876–1877 rather than on a pile foundation like Commonwealth Pier. The specifications for the seawalls at Fish Pier and at Pier 2 were quite similar: the foundation trench at Fish Pier was excavated twenty-eight feet below mean low water while that at Pier 2 was twenty-seven feet; the base of the seawall at Fish Pier, which had a slight batter on the front face as well as on the back, was twenty-seven feet wide while the base of the wall at Pier 2, which was battered only at the back, was eighteen feet wide; the wall at Fish Pier was four feet wide at the top while that at Pier 2 was five feet wide; and the wall at Fish Pier was forty-one feet high compared with that at Pier 2, which was thirty-nine feet high. The state was also required to extend Northern Avenue to Fish Pier, which was done by building a 645-foot “light” seawall, that is, a granite seawall built on a pile founda-

103.

104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114.

115.

116. 117.

118.

tion, along the north side of the street and filling the intervening area (Thirty-Second A.R. H & LC for 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 11 [1911], 8–9; Philbrick, “South Boston Flats,” pl. XII). Thirty-Second A.R. H & LC for 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1911), 6, 9, 66–69; Thirty-Third A.R. H & LC for 1911, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1912), 82–83; Report of the Directors of the Port of Boston, Year Ending November 30, 1912, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1913), 7, 23 (hereafter cited as DPB); DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 9–10, 47; DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 37, 146; DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1916), 23–24, 44–45. DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 31, 72; Acts of 1911, Chap. 748. Acts of 1911, Chap. 748. DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 6, 7–8, 24–32; Senate No. 27 (1910), 5. DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 7–8, 48–53. Acts of 1914, Chap. 712; Supplementary Report of the Directors of the Port of Boston to the General Court, March 31, 1915 (Boston: State Printers, 1915), 3. DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 20–21, 29. Ibid., 8–9, 17–26, 27–28, 108–111. Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 77–116; Resolves of 1904, Chap. 103. Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements, also House No. 1550 (1911), 23–25; Acts of 1911, Chap. 748. House No. 896 (1912). Frederick R. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1890–1973, Cultural Resources Management Study no. 20, 2 vols. (Boston: Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1988), 205. Resolves of 1911, Chap. 90; House No. 896 (1912), 2–3; DPB for 1912, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1913), 12, 33, 37; DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 10–11, 43, 54–56; DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 41–42, 90, 115–117. Some of the fill was also dredged from places in the harbor other than the Reserved Channel. DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 9, 39–41; DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 10. First Annual Report of the Commission on Waterways and Public Lands for the Year 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 34 (hereafter cited as A.R. W & PL); Second A.R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 25, 72. DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1916), 14–15, 19–20, 45–46; Special Acts of 1915, Chap. 335; First A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 30–31.

N

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119. First A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 3. 120. Ibid., 15–16; Second A.R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 7–8. 121. The cofferdam was constructed of material dredged from the Mystic River and from Wollaston Beach, while the dry dock and other sites on the South Boston Flats were filled with cinders, ashes, and material from construction sites. DPB for 1912, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1913), 12; DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 90–92; DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94, 72–74; First A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 118–122; Second A.R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 21–22; Third A.R. W & PL for 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1919), 6–8, 57; Fourth A.R. W & PL for 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1920), 7–10. 122. First A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 16; Second A.R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 7; Third A.R. W & PL for 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1919), 6; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1920, Relating to the Division of Waterways and Public Lands (Boston: State Printers, 1922), 8–9; Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 379–380. 123. “Dry Dock Readied for Look at Ship,” Globe, 11 August 1992; “Perils of the Not-So-Deep,” editorial, Globe, 11 August 1992; Bob Hohler, “QE2’s Cloud Has Silver Lining for Ship Workers,” Globe, 12 August 1992; Bob Hohler, “Repair Work: Long Welcome,” Globe, 16 August 1992. 124. Third A.R. W & PL for 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1919), 10–11; Fifth A.R. CPB for Year Ending January 31, 1919, City Doc. No. 10 (1919), 27; Fourth A. R. W & PL for 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1920), 12–13; Sixth A.R. CPB for Year Ending January 31, 1920, City Doc. No. 10 (1920), 13–19. 125. The area calculated by computer for the land made by the South Boston Flats project is 649.6 acres (computed in 2002 by MapWorks; see appendix 1), although this acreage includes some areas filled after the end of the project in the 1930s—the quadrilateral quay, 1940s dry dock, and northeast side of the connection to Castle Island filled by the navy during World War II, and Subaru Pier filled in the 1980s, the latter calculated to be 33.1 acres (see figures 11.26, 11.31, and 11.32). So 600 acres seems a reasonable figure for the area filled by the project itself. This figure is in marked contrast to the 1000 acres that is often cited as the size of the current South Boston Waterfront (see, for example, Anthony Flint and Geeta Anand, “City plan hotel, retail development for waterfront,” Globe, 24 November 1997), but that area includes 200 acres of made land on the north side of South Boston outside the South Boston Flats project (see appendix 1). The area of the South Boston Waterfront is thus actually 849.6 acres. 126. Deed from city of Boston to Harrison Loring, 4 January 1877, 1360: 114, S.D.; Deed from Laurence Minot to Boston Electric Light Company, 10

486

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127. 128.

129.

130. 131. 132.

133.

134.

135.

136.

January 1898, 2497: 553, S.D. In 1902 Boston Electric Light merged with the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. The latter company expanded the original plant in 1904, built a new one in 1920, and in the mid-1960s, having changed its name in 1937 to Boston Edison, built the huge plant now on the Reserved Channel (Michael Monahan, Director of Media Relations, Boston Edison, telephone conversation with author, 13 April 2000). City Doc. No. 106 (1872); City Doc. No. 119 (1902), 2; City Doc. No. 150 (1902), 2. Deed from city of Boston to George Lawley and Son Corporation, 24 February 1903, 2882: 49, S.D.; Deed from R. Elmer Townsend to Boston Elevated Railway Company, 16 December 1909, 3416: 595, S.D. City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 24–25; Seventh A.R. BPC for 1881, City Doc. No. 16 (1882), 19–20. See chapter 1 for a more extensive discussion of the origin of the Boston park system. City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 24–25. Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 24–25. Ibid., 15; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 20, 30–31; Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 21, 35; Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 (1887), 13; Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 (1888), 11, 22–23, 57, 59–61. Acts of 1885, Chap. 360; Acts of 1889, Chap. 438; Fifteenth A.R. BPC for 1889, City Doc. No. 15 (1890), 12, 39; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 33; Sixteenth A.R. BPC for 1890, 20, 37–39, 43–44, 57; A.R. H & LC for 1890, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1891), 24; Seventeenth A.R. BPC for 1891, 28, 74; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 55; A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 19, 31, 38–39; Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 44–45, 83. Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1985, 57, 90; TwentyFirst A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1896, 79; Twenty-Seventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 15; Thirty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1908, 10; Thirty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1909, 10; Thirty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1910, 13–14; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1912, City Doc. No. 24 (1912), 2; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1913, City Doc. No. 24 (1913), 2, 8. Twenty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1899, 4; TwentyFifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 18; Thirty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 6; Thirty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1909, 9–10; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1920, City Doc. No. 22 (1920), 9. A.R. BPD for 1927, City Doc. No. 19 (1928), 5; William J. Reid, Castle Island and Fort Independence (Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1995), 139.

137. Reid, Castle Island, 139, 150–152, 155, 156. 138. City Doc. No. 105 (1874), 12; City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 5, 11–12, 31–33. 139. Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 23–24; Twelfth A.R. BPC for 1886, City Doc. No. 24 (1887), 17; Thirteenth A.R. BPC for 1887, City Doc. No. 14 (1888), 18–19. 140. Sixteenth A.R. BPC for 1890, 24–25. 141. A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 22–23. 142. Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 43, 48, 78; Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 56, 61, 89; A.R. BPD for 1896, City Doc. No. 22 (1897), 55. 143. Acts of 1897, Chap. 394; Twenty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 1, 1898, 38; A.R. Street Department for 1898, City Doc. No. 35 (1899), 9, 53, 106, 243–244. 144. Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 89; A.R. BPD for 1896, City Doc. No. 22 (1897), 55; A.R. Street Department for 1896, City Doc. No. 29 (1897), 297; A.R. Street Department for 1897, City Doc. No. 34 (1898), 221; A.R. Street Department for 1899, City Doc. No. 38 (1900), 285; Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 13. 145. Twenty-Seventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 6, 15, 29; Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 13, 23; A.R. Street Department for 1902, City Doc. No. 40 (1903), 155; Twenty-Ninth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1904, 7, 13; Thirtieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1905, 11; Thirty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 12–13. 146. Thirty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1908, 21; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1913, City Doc. No. 24 (1913), 11; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1923, City Doc. No. 19 (1923), 5; A.R BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1924, City Doc. No. 19 (1924), 6; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1925, City Doc. No. 20 (1925), 6. 147. Acts of 1950, Chap. 693; William J. Day obituary, Globe, 31 May 1950. 148. A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1913, City Doc. No. 24 (1913), 11. 149. Annual Report of the [Boston] Public Works Department for the Year 1918, City Doc. No. 26 (1919), 89 (hereafter cited as A.R. PWD). 150. Ibid., 87–89; A.R. PWD for 1917, City Doc. No. 26 (1918), 27. 151. “Columbus Park, South Boston,” Property files, Parks and Recreation Department, Boston; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1921, City Doc. No. 19 (1921), 3; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1923, City Doc. No. 19 (1923), 5; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1924, City Doc. No. 19 (1924), 6; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1925, City Doc. No. 20 (1925), 6. 152. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 535.

153. N. T. Dana, “History of the Boston Navy Yard,” 3, box 314, A-12, 1945, Commandant’s General (“Central”) Correspondence Files, 1925–1963, Entry 40, Records of Naval Districts and Shore Establishments, RG 181, National Archives-New England Region, Waltham, Mass. The quay was constructed by building a sheet piling bulkhead along the harbor, an earth dike between that bulkhead and the existing timber bulkhead, and then filling the area enclosed (License no. 2170, DPW to United States Navy Department, March 27, 1940, Waterways, DEP). 154. Dana, “Boston Navy Yard,” 4, 7, 9; Second Annual Report of the Massachusetts Port Authority, April 1, 1960 (hereafter cited as A.R. Massport). 155. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 746. The dock at the end of H Street had been filled in 1914 by the city when it extended East First Street westward to join West First Street (see figures 11.25 and 11.26; License no. 98, DPB to City of Boston, August 21, 1914, Waterways, DEP). The area on the Reserved Channel west of Summer Street—the former K Street Annex—was filled out to the line of the channel in the early 1960s by its then owners (see figures 11.31 and 11.32; License no. 4636, DPW to Boston Edison Company, November 13, 1962, Waterways, DEP; License no. 4332, DPW to William T. King and Henry W. Newbegin, Trustees, September 17, 1963, Waterways, DEP). 156. Spectacle Island, a city-owned island in the harbor, was filled more recently than Subaru Pier. 157. Haley & Aldrich, “Final Geotechnical Engineering Report, Central Artery (I-93)/Tunnel (I-90) Project, Design Sections D004A and D024A, Boston, Massachusetts,” File no. 10360-72 (Haley & Aldrich, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 22–23; Dennis Kaye, Deputy Port Director, Operations, Massachusetts Port Authority, telephone conversation with author, 25 September 1998. 158. All acreages computed in 2002 from the information in figure 11.1 by MapWorks (see appendix 1). The area of Subaru Pier is sometimes given as 50 acres (Dennis Kaye, Massport, telephone conversation with author, 25 September 1998). C HAPTER T WELVE 1.

2.

Peter H. Stott, A History and Guide to the Restoration of Dorchester Shores, Cultural Resource Management Study Series No. 5 (Boston: Metropolitan District Commission, 1989), 12–15. Ibid., 15; Suzanne Keating, Illuminations: The History of the Boston Gas Company (Boston: The Boston Gas Co., 1999), 6, 10; Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Images of America: Dorchester (Dover, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 1995), 80–81.

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3 2 6 – 3 3 6

•

487

3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

488

License no. 192, H & LC to Boston Gas Light Co., November 19, 1873, Waterways, DEP; License no. 205, H & LC to Boston Gas Light Co., March 25, 1874, Waterways, DEP; License (no number), H & LC to Boston Gas Light Co., August 19, 1874, Waterways, DEP. Keating, Illuminations, 28–30, 32. Boston’s Main Drainage sewerage system was typical of many built in large American cities during this period—a water carriage system with combined (human and storm wastes in the same pipe) rather than separated sewers (see Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective [Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1996], 11–12, 116–120, 184–190). An 1876 report listed the “filth diseases” as typhoid, diarrhea, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and perhaps spinal meningitis and certain forms of pneumonia (City Doc. No. 66 [1876], 3). City Doc. No. 66 (1876), 2–3; City Doc. No. 70 (1877), 6; Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1888), 19. City Doc. No. 3 (1876), 17–24; City Doc. No. 70 (1877), 5–6. For a discussion of the politics involved in the adoption of the Main Drainage system, see Sarah S. Elkind, Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland (Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas, 1998), 55–57. City Doc. No. 66 (1876), 11; City Doc. No. 70 (1877), 11–14. City Doc. No. 33 (1880), 44–45. The pier at Old Harbor Point was constructed of gravel, most of which was dredged from the harbor, faced on either side with stones. The end of the pier was finished with a stone seawall of mortared cut granite blocks backed by concrete and set on a pile foundation (Clarke, Main Drainage, 68–69). Ibid., 59, 67, 99, 175, 179–180, pls. X, XVIII, XIX; Richard Heath, “Calf Pasture: The Elastic Peninsula” (Waterways, DEP, Boston, 1992, photocopy), 4; City Doc. No. 33 (1880), 45. A.R. H & LC for 1886, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1887), 16; License no. 918, H & LC to Bay State Gas Co., March 11, 1886, Waterways, DEP; Heath, “Calf Pasture,” 5. Keating, Illuminations, 17. A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 10–11; A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 12, 67; A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 11; A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1907), 9–10; A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 64–65, 131, 132; A.R. H & LC for 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1909), 13–14; A.R. H & LC for 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1910), 23–24.

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16. License no. 854, H & LC to A.T. Stearns Lumber Co., February 12, 1885, Waterways, DEP; Licenses nos. 2944 and 2945, H & LC to Albert T. Stearns, April 6, 1906, Waterways, DEP. 17. Stott, Dorchester Shores, 7–8; License no. 900, H & LC to Putnam Nail Co., November 12, 1885, Waterways, DEP. 18. Twenty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 4. 19. Ibid.; A.R. BPD for 1900, City Doc. No. 27 (1901), 11; Thirty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1909, 16–17. 20. A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1914, City Doc. No. 22 (1914), 4, 29; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1918, City Doc. No. 22 (1918), 2, 67; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1919, City Doc. No. 22 (1919), 5, 71–72, 78; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1920, City Doc. No. 22 (1920), 7. 21. Minutes, 18 July 1919, Board of Parks Commissioners Records, Parks and Recreation Department, Boston. 22. A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1916, City Doc. No. 22 (1916), 35; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1919, City Doc. No. 22 (1919), 4; Eighteenth A.R. CPB for 1931, City Doc. No. 9 (1932), 16. 23. Notes of Public Hearing on Old Colony Boulevard, 1 November 1922, Joint Commission on Old Colony Boulevard, CO87/2258x, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, 7. 24. Boston Society of Architects, Report Made to the Boston Society of Architects by Its Committee on Municipal Improvement (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1907), 19; Commission on Metropolitan Improvements, Public Improvements for the Metropolitan District (Boston: State Printers, 1909), 43; Final Report of the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements (Boston: State Printers, 1911), also House No. 1550 (1911), 29–30. 25. Resolves of 1908, Chap. 141; [Annual] Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, January 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1909), 91–110 (hereafter A.R. MPC); A.R. MPC, December 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1914), 12–13. 26. Old Colony Parkway, Facts which Determined the Location Indicated by the Plans and Taking made by the Metropolitan Park Commission, Attachment to letter from William B. de las Casas to James M. Curley, 31 March 1914, Special Commission on Unsanitary Conditions in Savin Hill Bay and on Dredging of Commercial Point Channel, CO88/2259x, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston; also published in House No. 1131 (1923), 14. 27. “Seek Boulevard to the Beaches,” Boston Globe, 1 April 1914; A.R. MPC, December 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1916), 24. 28. A.R. MPC, January 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1909), 92–93; A.R. MPC, December 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1918), 9–10, 37–39; A.R. MPC, December 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1919), 8–9, 33–34; A.R. MDC for

29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

1920, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1921), 37; A.R. MDC for 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1922), 14, 21–22; Fourth A.R. MDC, 1923, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1924), 10. A.R. MPC, December 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1918), 37; A.R. MPC, December 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1919), 34; Second A.R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 67; Metropolitan Park Commission, “Plan Showing Proposed Filling in Tenean & Barque Warwick Creeks, Boston,” April 18, 1917 (Plan Department, Metropolitan District Commission, Boston); A.R. MPC, December 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1920), 24; A.R. MDC for the Year 1920, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1921), 38; A.R. MDC for 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1922), 22. Not all of Barque Warwick Creek was filled at this time (see figure 12.6); the 4.5 acres in the triangle formed by the parkway, Freeport Street, and Victory Road (see figure 12.7) were only filled in 1949 (Metropolitan District Commission, “Plan Showing Area to be filled bounded by Old Colony Parkway—Freeport St.,—Victory Rd.,” January 12, 1949 [Plan Department, Metropolitan District Commission, Boston]); License no. 114, Port of Boston Authority to MDC, March 22, 1949, Waterways, DEP (hereafter cited as PBA). Resolves of 1922, Chap. 35. House No. 1131 (1923); Notes of Hearing on Old Colony Boulevard, 10, 13. Acts of 1923, Chap. 365; Fourth A.R. MDC, 1923, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1924), 10–11; Fifth A.R. MDC, 1924, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1925), 10. Fifth A.R. MDC, 1924, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1925), 10; A.R. MDC for 1925, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1926), 7–8, 10; A.R. MDC for 1926, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1927), 9–10; A.R. MDC for 1927, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1928), 2, 4, 5, 68–69; A.R. MDC for 1928, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1929), 2, 3, 7, 66–67; House No. 185 (1929), 4. House No. 185 (1928). A.R. PWD for 1929, City Doc. No. 24 (1930), 4, 127; A.R. PWD for 1930, City Doc. No. 24 (1931), 127. Resolves of 1932, Chap. 12; A.R. MDC for 1932, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1933), 4, 9; House No. 5 (1933). Acts of 1935, Chap. 422; Acts of 1936, Chap. 147; A.R. MDC for 1935, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1936), 6–7; A.R. MDC for 1936, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1937), 3, 60–61; A.R. MDC for 1937, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1938), 3, 15, 20, 64–65. A.R. MDC for 1936, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1937), 18; A.R. MDC for 1937, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1938), 24; House No. 44 (1938), 3–4. A.R. MDC for 1940–June 30, 1947, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1948), 75, table 3. Charles A. Maguire and Associates, Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area (Boston: N.p., 1948), 51-52; Record Plan 4627, sheet

41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

58.

24, Plans and Records Section, Massachusetts Highway Department, Boston. Record Plan 4545, sheets 15 and 16, Plans and Records Section, Massachusetts Highway Department, Boston. Deed from Mary E. Day to Samuel J. Tomasello, 10 August 1934, 5469: 319, S.D.; License no. 31, PBA to Mary E. Day, Walter J. Meadows, and Willard Welsh, October 23, 1947, Waterways, DEP. David J. Loftus, Boston College High School, 1863–1983 (Boston: Addison C. Getchell & Son, 1984), 99–100. Loftus, Boston College High, 121. Ibid., 123, 125. Ibid., 121, 126. License no. 3841, DPW to MDC, April 23, 1956, Waterways, DEP. Boston Housing Authority, “Your Home Bulletin—March 1955” (Boston Housing Authority Archives, Boston, mimeographed). License no. 1960, DPW to Mary E. Day, May 17, 1938, Waterways, DEP; License no. 2729, DPW to Boston Edison Co., January 16, 1945, Waterways, DEP. License no. 185, PBA to Boston Housing Authority, November 23, 1951, Waterways, DEP. Jane Roessner, A Decent Place to Live: From Columbia Point to Harbor Point (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000). License no. 611, DPW to Willard Welsh Realty Co., November 12, 1925, Waterways, DEP; License no. 4263, DPW to Coleman Disposal Company, November 30, 1959, Waterways, DEP; License no. 1959, DPW to American Radiator Co., May 17, 1938, Waterways, DEP; Aerial Photograph, GS-F, Frame 8–09 [Suffolk Co., Mass., December 15, 1938], Can 2947, Records of the Topographic Division, Records of the United States Geological Service (USGS), RG 57, National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md.; Heath, “Calf Pasture,” 7. Roessner, Decent Place to Live, 5. Heath, “Calf Pasture,” 7; License no. 4741, DPW to Family City Development Corporation, October 8, 1963, Waterways, DEP. Roessner, Decent Place to Live, 121; “Business leaves, fear lingers at Bayside Mall,” Globe, 9 July 1972; “Postal center proposed for Bayside Mall,” Globe, 15 February 1975. “Plans for Bayside,” Boston Herald, 9 July 1982; Heath, “Calf Pasture,” 7. John Whittaker, Selecting a Permanent Site and Planning an Urban Campus for the University of Massachusetts-Boston, 1964–1973: A Case Study of the Impact of State and Local Politics on Policy Formation and Planning for an Urban Public University (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1989). Ibid., 178; Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay Associates, “Columbia Point Site,” Memorandum for Trustees of the University of Massachusetts, October

N

O T E S

T O

P A G E S

3 4 3 – 3 4 9

•

489

59.

60. 61. 62.

63.

64. 65.

66.

14, 1968, UMB A23–1, box 2, University of Massachusetts at Boston Archives, Boston. License no. 1648, DPW to Boston Consolidated Gas Co., January 29, 1935, Waterways, DEP; License no. 30, PBA to Boston Consolidated Gas Co., May 20, 1947, Waterways, DEP; License no. 220, PBA to Boston Consolidated Gas Co., December 11, 1952, Waterways, DEP; Memorandum from J.A. Wakefield, Chas. T. Main, Inc. to File, 17 December 1969, UMB A23–1, box 2, University of Massachusetts at Boston Archives, Boston. Roessner, Decent Place to Live, 64, 107. Heath, “Calf Pasture,” 7. Robert J. Rosenthal, “UMass offers campus sites for Kennedy library,” Globe, 11 February 1975; Robert J. Rosenthal, “UMass-Boston gets JFK complex,” Globe, 24 November 1975; John Kifner, “Campus in Boston, Not Harvard, Will Be Site of Kennedy Library,” New York Times, 25 November 1975; Nick King, “The Winners: Dorchester smiles,” Globe, 25 November 1975. License no. 3696, DPW to Boston PWD, February 14, 1955, Waterways, DEP; License no. 4388, DPW to Boston PWD, November 21, 1960, Waterways, DEP. Roessner, Decent Place to Live, 63, 107. Whittaker, Selecting a Site, 193; License no. 311, Department of Environmental Quality Engineering to John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, University of Massachusetts, and United States of America, May 5, 1977, Waterways, DEP. License no. 5298, DPW to Rockland Realty and Investment Trust, September 13, 1967, Waterways, DEP; Acts of 1970, Chap. 846; Attorney General v. Bernice Baldwin & another, trustees, 361 Mass. 199; Robert L. Turner, “Troy Balking at Plan for a Landfill Park,” Globe, Sunday, 30 August 1981; Wendy Fox, “State Says It’s about to Get Shore Land in Troy Case,” Globe, 30 March 1982; Sean Fisher, MDC Archivist, letter to author, 16 December 1998.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN 1. 2.

3.

490

Computed in 2002 by MapWorks. The total would be even greater if the 216.2 acres of the airport in Winthrop were included (see appendix 1). The figure traditionally cited for the area of Noddles Island is 660 or 650 acres (William Hyslop Sumner, History of East Boston, with Biographical Sketches of Its Early Proprietors and an appendix [Boston: J. E. Tilton Co., 1858]), 45–46, 449; City Doc. No. 36 [1894], 19), which is amazingly close to the 666.2 acres recently calculated by computer (see appendix 1). Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “maverick.”

•

N

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T O

P A G E S

3 4 9 – 3 6 2

22.

23. 24.

Sumner, East Boston, 41, 42. Sumner originally called it the North Boston Company, but the name was changed to East Boston so that North Boston could be reserved for Charlestown when that town was annexed to the city (ibid., 449). Edwin C. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1800–1842: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, Historic Resource Study, 2 vols. (Boston: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1984), 469–471, 595–596. Sumner, East Boston, 442, 456, 458–459, 677–678. Ibid., 477, 576–578. Ibid., 571–573. Ibid., 519, 541. Annual Report . . . of the East Boston Company (Boston: n. p., 1850), 1 (hereafter A.R. EBC). The Grand Junction wharves were made by constructing a seawall six hundred feet from Marginal Street and then filling the intervening area with dirt brought from Chelsea by rail (Sumner, East Boston, 632). Ibid., 468, 763–764. A. R. EBC (1850), 2. A.R. EBC (1851), 5. Sumner, East Boston, 534; A.R. EBC (1858), 3–4, 7; A.R. EBC (1859), 10–12; Letter to the Stockholders of the East Boston Company in Regard to the Future Management of Their Property (Cambridge, Mass.: Welch, Bigelow, and Co., 1860), 5–6; A.R. EBC (1861), 4; Acts of 1860, Chap. 6. Marian Scott Moffett, “The Physical Development of East Boston” (master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973), 57. Ibid., 56–58. A.R. EBC (1891), 3; A.R. EBC (1893), 4; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1894), 15–16, 63–64; A.R. EBC (1894), 4, 16–17; A.R. EBC (1895), 10; A.R. EBC (1896), 15. City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 35. Ibid.; A.R. H & LC for 1893, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1894), 63–64; Reply of the Boston Land Company to the Opponents of Its Charter in the Massachusetts Legislature (Boston: J. E. Farwell & Co., 1872), 10; A.R. EBC (1899), 4; A.R. EBC (1900), 9, 13. Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 5; A.R. EBC (1905), 4; A.R. EBC (1906), 4; A.R. EBC (1908), 3–4; A.R. EBC (1909), 3; A.R. EBC (1913), 4. Second A.R. BPC, City Doc. No. 42 (1876); Seventh A.R. BPC for 1881, City Doc. No. 16 (1882), 14, 16, 18–20. Second A.R. BPC, City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 25–26; Eighth A.R. BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), 27.

25. Second A.R. BPC, City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 26. 26. Ninth A.R. BPC for 1883, City Doc. No. 9 (1884), 25; Tenth A.R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 6, 20–22, 31; Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), 7, 21, 35–36. 27. Tenth A. R. BPC for 1884, City Doc. No. 7 (1885), 21–22. 28. Fifteenth A.R. BPC for 1889, City Doc. No. 15 (1890), 12, 28, 39; Seventeenth A.R. BPC for 1891, 28, 36, 75. 29. A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 19, 39; Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 45, 84; Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 58, 91; Twenty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1898, 16–17. 30. Thirty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1906, 12. 31. Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 90. 32. A.R. EBC (1893), 3–4; City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 34; A.R. EBC (1894), 3–4; A.R. EBC (1904), 5; A.R. EBC (1905), 5; A.R. EBC (1906), 4; A.R. EBC (1908), 4; A.R. EBC (1913), 4, 6. 33. Computed in 2002 by MapWorks. Given the virtual agreement between the computer and traditional acreages of Noddles Island (see n. 2 above), it is interesting that there is such a large discrepancy between the acreage traditionally cited for Breed’s Island, which is 785 acres (Reply of Boston Land Company, 13; City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 19, 39), and the 527.2 acres calculated by computer. 34. Eleventh A.R. HC, House No. 25 (1877), 7–8; Acts of 1877, Chap. 225; Reply of Boston Land Company, 12; [Boston Land Company], Boston Land Company (Hyde Park, Mass.: Norfolk County Gazette, 1873), 8. 35. Report of the Boston Land Company, December 31, 1890 (Boston: n. p., n.d.), 6 (hereafter A.R. BLC). 36. A.R. BLC (1891), 3–4, 6; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 55; A.R. BLC (1892), 6. Historical records indicate that the area enclosed by the dike, which is now the section of Constitution Beach between Thurston and Trident Streets, was not filled until 1919–1920 when the small boat channel was being dredged again and the excavated material was deposited inside the dike (Fourth A.R. W & PL for 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 118 [1920], 17–18; A.R. DPW for 1920, 14). The area is shown already filled on a 1907 chart, however, the discrepancy probably explained by the fact that some fill had been deposited inside the dike by 1907 and more was added in 1919–1920.) 37. A R. BLC (1894), 6; A.R. BLC (1895); A.R. H & LC for 1895, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1896), 35; A.R. BLC (1896); A.R. BLC (1898). 38. A.R. BLC (1911); A.R. EBC (1913), 4. 39. A.R. BLC (1909), 3; Thirty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1910, 7, 34; A.R. BLC (1910); Thirty-Sixth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1911, 23; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1912, City

40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

45.

46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

Doc. No. 24 (1912), 2; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1913, City Doc. No. 24 (1913), 12. A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1924, City Doc. No. 19 (1924), 3; A.R. BPD for 1925, City Doc. No. 20 (1926), 3; A.R. BPD for 1926, City Doc. No. 20 (1927), 5; A.R. BPD for 1928, City Doc. No. 19 (1929), 10. License no. 1400, DPW to Belle Isle Reclamation District, April 5, 1932, Waterways, DEP; License no. 1491, DPW to Belle Isle Reclamation District, May 31, 1933, Waterways, DEP. Sean M. Fisher, Metropolitan District Commission Archivist, letter to author, 16 December 1998. A.R. EBC (1913), 12–13. Aerial Photograph, GS-F, Frame 8–142 [Suffolk Co., Mass., December 15, 1938], Can 2948, Records of the Topographic Division, Records of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), RG 57, National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md. Thomas Pemberton, “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 1794,” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 3 (1794): 295; Moffett, “East Boston,” 17. City Doc. No. 36 (1894), 34–38; A.R. H & LC for 1881, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1882), 13–16. City Doc. No. 176 (1894); Acts of 1895, Chap. 291; A.R. EBC (1895), 3–6; Report of the State Board on Docks and Terminal Facilities (Boston: State Printers, 1897), 6–8. Docks and Terminal Facilities, 84–87, 122–123; Acts of 1897, Chap. 486; A.R. EBC (1898), 3; A.R. H & LC for 1898, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1899), 14–15, 80–85; House No. 183 (1928), 18. A.R. EBC (1894), 3–4; Nathan Matthews, Jr., East Boston Company: Brief for the Petitioner before the Master; In the [Massachusetts] Court of Land Registration, Title no. 416 (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1904); A.R. EBC (1899) 3–4; A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 10–12; A.R. EBC (1900), 6–7; A.R. H & LC for 1900, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1901), 21; A.R. EBC (1901), 3; A.R. H & LC for 1901, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1902), 17–18; A.R. EBC (1902), 4; A.R. H & LC for 1902, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1903), 22–23; A.R. EBC (1903), 10; A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), 17–18; A.R. EBC (1904), 6–7; Twenty-Sixth A.R. H & LC for 1904, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1905), 26; A.R. EBC (1905), 5–6; TwentySeventh A.R. H & LC for 1905, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1906), 14; A.R. EBC (1906), 7–9; Twenty-Eighth A.R. H & LC for 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1907), 14; Twenty-Ninth A. R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 5–6; A.R. EBC (1908), 6–7; Thirtieth A.R. H & LC for 1908, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1909), 5–6; A.R. EBC (1909), 3. Thirty-First A.R. H & LC for 1909, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1910), 7–8; Thirty-Third A.R. H & LC for 1911, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1912), 23–30.

N

O T E S

T O

P A G E S

3 6 6 – 3 7 3

•

491

51. Commission on Metropolitan Improvements, Public Improvements for the Metropolitan District (Boston: State Printers, 1909), 25, pl. III, 164 (Plan A), 165 (Plan B). 52. Ibid., 28; Resolves of 1909, Chap. 113; Acts of 1910, Chap. 648; Final Report of the Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements (Boston: State Printers, 1911), House No. 1550 (1911), 17–18; Thirty-Second A.R. H & LC for 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1911), 15–17; Thirty-Third A.R. H & LC for 1911, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1912), 30–35. 53. DPB for Year Ending November 30, 1912, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1913), 6–7, 37; A.R. EBC (1913), 7–12; DPB for 1913, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1914), 11–13, 59–60. 54. DPB for 1914, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1915), 11–12, 33, 42–43, 49–50, 124–126. A new wooden pier on the site of the old Eastern Railroad wharf, called Commonwealth Pier No. 1, was not built until 1918–1919 by the successors of the directors, the Commissioners of Waterways and Public Lands (Third A.R. W & PL for 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 118 [1919], 15; Fourth A.R. W & PL for 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 118 [1920], 15–16). 55. Supplementary Report of the Directors of the Port of Boston to the General Court, March 31, 1915 , 35–39, plan; DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1916), 16–17, 40–41, 47, 65. 56. The bulkhead was constructed of oak piles to which were fastened yellow pine planks coated with “dead oil of coal tar.” The top of the plank wall was sixteen feet above mean low water and was protected by a heavy board (DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94 [1916], 48). 57. Ibid., 41, 47–48, 65–66, 74, 75; First A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 16–17, 38–39, 118, 119, 146–147. 58. DPB for 1915, Pub. Doc. No. 94 (1916), 65, 73, 74, 75; A.R. W & PL for 1916, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1917), 38–39, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122. 59. Second A. R. W & PL for 1917, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1918), 8–9, 25–26, 72, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86. 60. Third A. R. W & PL for 1918, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1919), 14–15, 57, 88–91; Fourth A.R. W & PL for 1919, Pub. Doc. No. 118 (1920), 14–15, 47, 49, 50, 84–87, 90–91; A.R. DPW for 1920, 11, 42, 43, 44, 72–75; A.R. DPW for 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1922), 162–163, 204–207. 61. A.R. DPW for 1920, 3–6. 62. A.R. DPW for 1921, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1922), 163–164, 204–207. 63. Sixth A.R. CPB for Year Ending January 31, 1930, City Doc. No. 10 (1920), 3–8; “The Relation of an Airplane Landing Field to the Port of Boston,” Current Affairs 12, no. 30 (5 December 1921), 12. 64. “Relation of Airport Landing Field,” 12, 47, 51; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1922, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1922), 100–101; R. C. Moffet, “Boston Airport,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 9, no. 10 (1922): 303–308; “Boston Airport Opened,” Current Affairs 14, no. 8 (17 September 1923), 5, 6, 32.

492

•

N

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T O

P A G E S

3 7 3 – 3 7 7

65. House No. 183 (1928), plan (reproduced in figure 13.15). 66. A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1924, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1924), 64; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1925, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1925), 55; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1926, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1926), 59; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1927, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1927), 70–71; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1928, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1928), 68; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1929, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1929), 66; “A Traveler’s Guide to the Modernized Logan Airport,” Advertising Supplement to the Boston Globe (Fall 1998); Boston Tercentenary Committee, Fifty Years of Boston: A Memorial Volume Issued in Commemoration of the Tercentenary of 1930 (Boston: Subcommittee on Memorial History of the Boston Tercentenary Committee, 1932), 298. 67. House No. 183 (1928), 16, 18. 68. Ibid., 12–14. 69. A.R. BPD for 1928, City Doc. No. 19 (1929), 13–14; A.R. BPD for 1929, City Doc. No. 19 (1930), 11–12; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1929, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1929), 66; William P. Long, “Development of the Boston Airport,” American City 48 (April 1933), 52–53. 70. License no. 1217, DPW to City of Boston, October 14, 1930, Waterways, DEP; License no. 1361, DPW to City of Boston, October 20, 1931, Waterways, DEP; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1930, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1930), 85; A.R. BPD for 1930, City Doc. No. 19 (1931), 7; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1931), 86; A.R. BPD for 1931, City Doc. No. 19 (1932), 7; A.R. DPW for Year Ending November 30, 1932, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (1932), 81; A.R. BPD for 1932, City Doc. No. 19 (1933), 8; Long, “Boston Airport,” 53. 71. Senate No. 102 (1938), 9. 72. Senate No. 480 (1939), 11–12; Acts of 1941, Chap. 695; A.R. DPW for the 19 Months Ending June 30, 1943, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 107; House No. 1540 (1937), 19–23. 73. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Boston Port Authority for the Year Ending December 31, 1942, City Doc. No. 37 (1943), 20; A.R. DPW for the 19 Months Ending June 30, 1943, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 98. 74. Acts of 1943, Chap. 528. Massport’s history of the airport claims it was officially renamed Logan in 1956, but legislation, annual reports of the Department of Public Works, and contemporary accounts make it clear that the name was changed in 1943 (Massachusetts Port Authority, “History of Boston-Logan International Airport” [Public Information Department, Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston, typescript]).

75. “Ask the Globe,” Boston Globe, 13 December 1987, 16 February 1998; William J. Reid, Castle Island and Fort Independence (Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1995), 147. 76. “Three 7000-foot Runways, One of 5000 Feet for Logan Airport,” Boston Business 34, no. 10 (October 1943), 7; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1944, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 89, 91. 77. By 1949, filling had increased the airport from about 380 acres in the late 1930s to about 1100 acres (A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1949, Pub. Doc. No. 54 [State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript], 2). 78. A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1946, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 94, 96; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1947, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), n. p.; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1948, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 4, 7; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1949, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 3. 79. A. Casagrande, “Soil Mechanics in the Design and Construction of the Logan Airport,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 36, no. 2 (1949): 192–221; Second A.R. Massport (1960); A.R. Massport (1963). 80. A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1945, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 93; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1946, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), 93; Moffett, “East Boston,” 85n. 81. Boston 200 Corporation, East Boston [Boston: Boston 200 Corporation, 1976], 22. 82. Boston Redevelopment Authority, Index to Aerial Photography, City of Boston, Massachusetts, April 11, 1965, scale 1: 12,00; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, “Suffolk County, Massachusetts [aerial photograph],” 1970). 83. House No. 2575 (1956), 114; Acts of 1956, Chap. 465; Second A.R. Massport (1960). 84. For example, the flats in the angle between the two runways near former Apple Island (see figures 13.16 and 13.17) were filled and squared off in 1960 and 1961 (License no. 4286, DPW to Massport, March 21, 1960, Waterways, DEP; License no. 4421, DPW to Massport, March 6, 1961, Waterways, DEP; see figures 13.18 and 13.19). 85. “World War Memorial Park, East Boston,” Property files, Boston Parks and Recreation Department, Boston. 86. Acts of 1945, Chap. 383, sec. 3. 87. A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1924, City Doc. No. 19 (1924), 3; House No. 1604 (1946). 88. Acts of 1949, Chap. 431; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1950, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), “East

89.

90. 91.

92.

93. 94. 95.

96. 97. 98.

Boston”; Resolves of 1954, Chap. 45; Acts of 1954, Chap. 626; “World War Memorial Park, East Boston,” Property files, Boston Parks and Recreation Department, Boston; Acts of 1953, Chap. 528; Metropolitan District Commission Taking no. 1296, Series I, General Counsel’s Office, Metropolitan District Commission, Boston. Acts of 1966, Chap. 733; A.R. Massport (1965); A.R. Massport (1966); A.R. Massport (1967); A.R. Massport (1968); License no. 5204, DPW to Massport, February 21, 1967, Waterways, DEP. The dike was to be composed of “clean, coarse granular fill” with no organic matter, the top of the dike to be sixteen feet above mean low water and twenty feet wide, and the sides battered. Boston 200 Corporation, East Boston, 20–21. License no. 4707, DPW to Massport, September 10, 1963, Waterways, DEP. Massport’s history of the airport says the Bird Island Flats were filled between 1964 and 1973, dates apparently taken from the 1976 and 1981 Massport Annual Reports. A perusal of all Massport Annual Reports, however, as well as of the licenses issued by the Department of Public Works and of aerial photographs (see figure 13.19, for example) suggests the chronology presented here, that is, a little filling was done in the early 1960s but the major part of the project did not commence until 1968 (Massachusetts Port Authority, “History of Boston-Logan International Airport”). License no. 5443, DPW to Massport, October 9, 1968, Waterways, DEP. In this instance the underlying silt was to be removed before construction of the dike, the top of which was to be nineteen feet above mean low water, fifteen feet wide, and with battered sides. Boston 200 Corporation, East Boston, 10–11. A.R. Massport (1970); A.R. Massport (1972); A.R. Massport (1973); A.R. Massport (1976); A.R. Massport (1981). Note that part of the flats filled to make the airport are in Winthrop (see figure 13.1). The Winthrop section comprises 216.2 acres, so the amount of land made for the airport in East Boston is the remaining 1413.1 acres (see appendix 1). House No. 1604 (1946). A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1947, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), n. p.; Acts of 1949, Chap. 431. A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1950, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), “East Boston”; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1951, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), “East Boston”; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1952, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), “East Boston”; Acts of 1954, Chap. 626; A.R. DPW for Year Ending June 30, 1955, Pub. Doc. No. 54 (State Library of Massachusetts, Boston, typescript), “East Boston.”

N

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T O

P A G E S

3 7 7 – 3 8 2

•

493

99. License no. 5138, DPW to Pigeon Hollow Spar Co., October 11, 1966, Waterways, DEP; Boston 200 Corporation, East Boston, 21. C HAPTER F OURTEEN 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

494

Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of Charlestown, Massachusetts (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1845), 11–18. Although some have regarded the first settlers at Charlestown as an advance party for the main group of Massachusetts Bay colonists under John Winthrop, Frothingham’s account, which is based on primary documents, makes it clear that the original Charlestown settlers, while members of the Massachusetts Bay Company, were separate from Winthrop’s group. Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop’s Boston: A Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630–1649 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1972), 23–29; Frothingham, History of Charlestown, 20–21, 24, 59. Frothingham, History of Charlestown, 103. Steven R. Pendery et al., “Phase II Archaeological Site Examination of the Project Area for the Central Artery, North Area, Charlestown, Massachusetts” (Institute for Conservation Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 154, figure 6.25; Joan Gallagher et al., “Parker-Harris Pottery Site, Central Artery North Reconstruction Project, Archaeological Data Recovery, Charlestown, Massachusetts,” vol. 3 (Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I., 1992), 48–50, figures 4-1, 4-9, 5-1. George Henry Preble, “History of the Boston Navy Yard, 1797–1874” (National Archives Microcopy no. 118), 41–42; Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library, RG 45; Charlestown Naval Yard, Boston. Frothingham, History of Charlestown, 103 and n. 3, 115. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (1854; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968), 4, pt. 2: 346, 367–368 (hereafter cited as Mass. Records). Joan Gallagher et al., “Town Dock Wharves/Dry Dock Site; Town Dock Pottery Site, Central Artery North Reconstruction Project, Archaeological Data Recovery, Charlestown, Massachusetts,” vol. 4A (Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I., 1994), 33–35. Ibid., 129–132. Ibid., 55, 71–72. Mass. Records, 5: 230. Haure is an archaic French word meaning “ewe,” which does not make much sense in this context. Steven R. Pendery, Anne Booth, and John Cheney, “Results and Recommendations for Phase II Testing, Central Artery Reconstruction

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3 8 2 – 3 9 3

14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

Project, Charlestown, Massachusetts” (Institute for Conservation Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 74. Frothingham, History of Charlestown, 177. Gallagher et al., “Town Dock Wharves/Dry Dock Site,” 133. James F. Hunnewell, A Century of Town Life: A History of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1775–1887 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1888), 12–13. Deed from John Hurd and John Skinner to Town of Charlestown, July 31, 1822, 243: 317–18, Middlesex [County, Massachusetts] Deeds, Registry of Deeds, Middlesex County Courthouse, Cambridge, Mass. (hereafter cited as M.D.); “Plan of Lots in the Burnt District in Charlestown to be Sold at Auction. Oct. 25th 1836,” Plan Book 1-A: plan 23, M.D. Pendery et al., “Phase II Examination,” 87. Gallagher et al., “Town Dock Wharves/Dry Dock Site,” 55, 70, 77, 106, 108, 134–135, 145–148, 156. Pendery et al., “Phase II Examination,” 41. Minutes, 2 April 1832, 4 May 1835, reel 199, Charlestown Town Records, Boston Public Library, Boston. Minutes, 16 September 1835, ibid. “Plan of Lots in the Burnt District in Charlestown to be Sold at Auction. Oct. 25th 1836.” Plan Book 1-A: plan 23, M.D. Resolves of 1799, Chap. 68. Hunnewell, History of Charlestown, 84. Harold Kirker, The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), 213. Mary Stetson Clarke, The Old Middlesex Canal (Easton, Penn.: Center for Canal History and Technology, 1974), 103; “Plan of buoys and warps,” n.d., box 32, folder 40, Middlesex Canal Corporation Records, Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Mass. I am indebted to David Dettinger for bringing this plan to my attention. Clarke, Middlesex Canal, 103; Christopher Roberts, The Middlesex Canal, 1793–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), 113. The date the bridge opened, for example, has been variously cited by antiquarian historians as 1809, 1815, and 1820 (Timothy T. Sawyer, Old Charlestown: Historical, Biographical, Reminiscent [Boston: West Co., 1902], 70; Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630–1877, 2 vols. [Boston: H. O. Houghton and Co., 1877], 1: 200; Hunnewell, History of Charlestown, 20n). I am indebted to Susan Maycock for initial information about the Prison Point Dam Corporation (Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Cambridge Historical

31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41.

42.

Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988], 20, 28) and for directing me to the Passed Acts collection at the Massachusetts State Archives, which held some keys to the problem. Acts of 1806, Chap. 6; Acts of 1806, Chap. 4 [sic], Passed Acts (“Bill Packets”), SC1/229, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. #4028, 1810, Senate Unpassed Legislation, SC1/231, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. Minutes, 28 January 1811, 12 July 1811, 10 December 1811, Lechmere Point Corporation Records, 1809–1822, Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston; Acts of 1814, Chap. 200, Passed Acts, SC1/229. Acts of 1814, Chap. 200. Minutes, 30 [?] March 1814, 18 April 1814, Lechmere Point Corporation Records. Minutes, 9 August 1814, 20 August 1814, ibid.; Acts of 1807, Chap. 88. Acts of 1806, Chap. 6; Acts of 1806, Chap. 4 [sic], Acts of 1814, Chap. 200, Passed Acts, SC1/229. #7899, 1815, House Unpassed Legislation, SC1/230, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. #5028, 1815, Senate Unpassed Legislation, SC1/231; William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), 4: 390. Review of the Case of the Free Bridge between Boston and Charlestown . . . (Boston: Dutton & Wentworth, 1827), 2. Building the bridges across the Charles had set off a chain of payments to compensate for infringements of property rights. When the Charles River Bridge was built in 1785–1786 the proprietors had been required to pay £200 a year to Harvard College, which since 1640 had received the tolls from the ferry formerly on the site (Acts of 1794, Chap. 53; The Proprietors of Charles River Bridge vs. The Proprietors of the Warren Bridge [Boston: Samuel Condon, 1829(?)], 56–59, 134). Similarly, when the West Boston Bridge was built in 1793, its proprietors had to assume the annual payment to Harvard to compensate the proprietors of the Charles River Bridge for the loss of toll revenue; in addition, the existence of the latter corporation was extended from forty to seventy years (Acts of 1792, Chap. 21). And when the Canal Bridge was built in 1809, its proprietors had to pay those of the West Boston Bridge $333.33 a year for loss of tolls and the existence of the latter corporation was also extended from forty to seventy years (Acts of 1807, Chap. 88). Review of Free Bridge; Reasons, Principally of a Public Nature, against a New Bridge from Charlestown to Boston (Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1825); Acts of 1828, Chap. 127.

43. Charles River Bridge vs. Warren Bridge; Henry Herbert Edes, “Charlestown in the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 3: 555 n. 4. 44. Acts of 1836, Chaps. 119, 187; Report Accepted by the Charlestown Wharf Company, June 5, 1838 (Boston: John H. Eastburn, 1838); Report of the Committee appointed by the Stockholders of the Charlestown Wharf Company at the Last Annual Meeting, July 5, 1839 (Boston: Sleeper, Dix & Rogers, 1839). 45. Second Annual Report of the Fitchburg Rail-road Company, [1844] (hereafter A.R.); Third A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1845; A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1846; A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1847. 46. A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1848; A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1850; A.R. Fitchburg R.R., 1853. 47. Roberts, Middlesex Canal, 183–187; Clarke, Middlesex Canal, 125–130. 48. Acts of 1868, Chap. 253. 49. [Charlestown, Mass.], Report of the Commissioners Appointed by the City Government of 1870 on the Reduction of Bunker Hill and the Filling of the Mill Pond and Mystic River Flats (Boston: Noyes & Poole, 1871), 15–20; Seventh A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1873), 61, 63; Eighth A.R. HC, House No. 65 (1874), 38; Ninth A.R. HC, House No. 61 (1875), 29, 33; Tenth A.R. HC, House No. 75 (1876), 10–11, 40, 41; Eleventh A.R. HC, House No. 25 (1877), 26. 50. A.R. HC for 1877, Pub. Doc. No. 33 (1878), 9–14, 41–42, 48; License no. 207, HC to Eastern Railroad Corporation, April 8, 1874, Waterways, DEP; License no. 391, HC to Eastern Railroad Corporation, September 5, 1877, Waterways, DEP, Acts of 1881, Chap. 238; City Doc. No. 135 (1882); City Doc. No. 143 (1882); Acts of 1867, Chap. 335. 51. Kirker, Architecture of Bulfinch, 211, 213. 52. Charter & By-Laws of the Mystic River Co. together with the Directors Reports for 1858–59 and a Table Showing the Original Proprietors’ Interests (Charlestown: William H. DeCosta, 1859), 27–28. 53. Senate No. 3 (1850), 42–43; Senate No. 119 (1850), 6; William Whiting, The Destruction of Boston Harbor: Argument before the Committee of the Legislature, April 17, 1851, against an application for Leave to Fill up Flats in Mystic River; Now Reprinted by the Remonstrants against a Similar Application to the Present Legislature by the City of Charlestown and Others (Boston: J. M. Hewes & Co., 1852); Acts of 1852, Chap. 105. 54. Acts of 1852, Chap. 105; Acts of 1853, Chap. 7. 55. Acts of 1852, Chap. 105; Acts of 1855, Chap. 481; Senate No. 63 (1855), 21–28. 56. Mystic River Co., 27. 57. Acts of 1859, Chap. 19. 58. A.R. H & LC for 1883, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1884), 43–44; A.R. H & LC for 1884, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1885), 12–14.

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59. Deed from Mystic River Corporation to Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation, 16 August 1886, 1784: 340, S.D.; Acts of 1887, Chap. 278. 60. A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 30–31, 35; A.R. H & LC for 1889, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1890), 22–23, 27; A.R. H & LC for 1891, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1892), 44–45; A.R. H & LC for 1892, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1893), 19–20; A.R. H & LC for 1907, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1908), 23. Although most of the material dredged from the Mystic was needed to fill the flats there, some of it was also used to fill the South Boston Flats (see chapter 11). 61. Acts of 1879, Chap. 277; First A.R. H & LC for 1879, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1880), 16–17. 62. Paul O. Weinbaum, Hoosac Docks: Foreign Trade Terminal. A Special History Study for Boston National Historical Park, Cultural Resource Management Study no. 11 (Boston: North Atlantic Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1985), 39; A.R. H & LC for 1881, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1882), 43, 44. 63. Weinbaum, Hoosac Docks, 40, 34. 64. Ibid., 59; A.R. H & LC for 1888, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1889), 36. 65. Mary Jane Brady and Merrill Ann Wilson, Pier 1 and 2, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston National Historic[al] Park, Massachusetts: Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data Section, vol. 1, Historical Background (Denver: Denver Service Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior, 1982), 20–22; Weinbaum, Hoosac Docks, 42; A.R. H & LC for 1899, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1900), 17–18. These seawalls were not constructed of stone as had been the custom up to that time, but instead were of poured concrete on a foundation of timber cribbing. 66. City Doc. No. 42 (1876), 1–6, 10–11. 67. Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 101; Fifteenth A.R. BPC for 1889, City Doc. No. 15 (1890), 29. 68. Sixteenth A.R. BPC for 1890, 45; Seventeenth A.R. BPC for 1891, 32–33. 69. Seventeenth A.R. BPC for 1891, 29, 77; A.R. BPD for 1892, City Doc. No. 25 (1893), 19, 40; Nineteenth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1894, 47, 85; Twentieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1895, 60, 92; Twenty-First A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1896, 82; A.R. BPD for 1896, City Doc. No. 22 (1897), 57; Twenty-Third A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1898, 25; Twenty-Fourth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1899, 27; Twenty-Fifth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1900, 20; A.R. BPD for 1900, City Doc. No. 27 (1901), 12; TwentySeventh A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1902, 19; Twenty-Eighth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1903, 15–16; Twenty-Ninth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1904, 16; Thirtieth A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1905, 14.

496

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70. “Sullivan-Sq. Playground as Memorial to J.J. Ryan, Jr.” Boston Globe, 10 April 1942. 71. Minutes, 10 June 1895, 27 June 1895, 8 July 1895, Board of Parks Commissioners Records, Parks and Recreation Department, Boston.; A.R. H & LC for 1895, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1896), 37; A.R. BPD for 1896, City Doc. No. 22 (1897), 36–37; A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1898, 25; A.R. BPC for Year Ending January 31, 1899, 16, 27; A.R. BPD for Year Ending January 31, 1914, City Doc. No. 22 (1914), 3, 7, 30. 72. Michael Kenney, “A Smaller Olmsted Jewel,” Globe, 9 June 1999. 73. “Dewey Beach, Charlestown,” Property files, Boston Parks and Recreation Department, Boston. 74. I am greatly indebted to Charles Bahne for bringing this anomalous section of Charlestown to my attention and for giving me so much information about it. 75. Frothingham, History of Charlestown, 120–121. 76. Minutes, 25 October 1847, 15 November 1847, Charlestown [Mass.], Common Council Records, Rare Books Department, Boston Public Library, Boston. 77. Minutes, 25 October 1847, 10 January 1848, ibid. 78. Minutes, 22 December 1848, 5 February 1949, 9 July 1849, ibid.; City Doc. No. 17 (1912), 4. 79. City Doc. No. 18 (1911), 4; City Doc. No. 17 (1912), 4. 80. Charles Bahne, telephone conversation with author, 10 July 2000; License no. 450, DPW to BERy, July 24, 1924, Waterways, DEP; License no. 1718, DPW to BERy, September 10, 1935, Waterways, DEP; License no. 2411, DPW to BERy, October 1, 1941, Waterways, DEP; License no. 2663, DPW to BERy, June 20, 1944, Waterways, DEP; Metropolitan Transit Authority, “Charlestown Yard and Everett Shops,” Roll 11040–1, Blackline copy, Private collection. 81. The yard was actually not officially named the Charlestown Navy Yard until 1974, although that had almost always been its unofficial name (Stephen P. Carlson, “Historical Overview, Charlestown Navy Yard,” Draft report [Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Boston, 2001], n. 3). Five other navy yards were established about the same time as Charlestown—Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Brooklyn, New York; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk, Virginia. Edwin C. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1800–1842: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, Historic Resource Study, 2 vols. (Boston: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1984), 1–15; National Park Service, Division of Publications, Charlestown Navy Yard: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts, National Park Handbook 152 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1995), 9, 15–16 (hereafter cited as NPS).

82. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 15–24; Deed from Aaron Putnam to United States of America, August 28, 1800, 137: 208, M.D.; Deed from William Calder to United States of America, August 29, 1800, 137: 209, M.D.; Deed from Richard Boylston to United States of America, August 29, 1800, 137: 211, M.D.; Petition of Aaron Putnam, Agent to United States, and Proceedings, September 18–October 20, 1800, 141: 31–37, M.D.; Deed from Catherine Henley to United States of America, October 2, 1800, 141: 51, M.D.; Deed from John Larkin to United States of America, December 2, 1800, 141: 52, M.D.; Deed from John Harris to United States of America, February 6, 1801, 141: 48, M.D.; Deed from Ebenezer Breed to Aaron Putnam, Agent to United States of America, February 21, 1801, 141: 38–39, M.D.; Deed from Ebenezer Breed to United States of America, February 24, 1801, 141: 39–41, M.D.; Proceedings on Petition of Aaron Putnam, Agent to United States, March 13, 1801, 141: 41–48, M.D.; Deed from Aaron Putnam to United States of America, April 3, 1801, M.D. 83. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 32, 34, 42. 84. Ibid., 34 n. 63, 102–193, 228; Andrea J. Heintzelman, “Colonial Wharf Construction: Uncovering the Untold Past,” The Log of Mystic Seaport 37, no. 4 (1986): 126. 85. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 47. 86. Shiphouses had to be large enough to cover the hulls, although not the masts, which were added after launching, of ships at least as large as the Constitution. The first shiphouse was 210 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 50 feet high; its replacement was 225 feet long, 87 feet wide, and 56 feet high, and subsequent shiphouses were even larger (ibid., 131, 261, 361). A nineteenth-century historian of the Navy Yard claims that shiphouses were first proposed by the commandant of the Charlestown Navy Yard (Adm. George Henry Preble, “The Navy, and the Charlestown Navy Yard,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 3: 344), but a recent historian says the idea originated in 1813 at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, navy yard (Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 131–133). 87. Ibid., 126; NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 11–13. 88. NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 16–17; Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 254–255. 89. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 360–363, 431–435. The shiphouses were south of a wharf built by the army before 1818 and rebuilt and extended by the navy in 1822–1823 (see figures 14.3 and 14.14; ibid., 364).Some of the fill for the shiphouse sites was gravel obtained from leveling what was described as a two-acre knoll and was probably Moulton’s Hill (ibid., 337). And in 1821 the navy built a new road just east of the marsh and creek in the center of the yard, filling the road, according to the 1823 plan, with material from a trench cut parallel to it (see figures 14.14 and 14.13).

90. The first new timber dock at the south end of the yard was constructed in 1819 for yellow pine between the first shiphouse and the yard’s southern boundary; the second was constructed in 1821 for white oak by driving piles between the 1813 wharf and the cobb wharf that formed the old timber dock (see figure 14.14; ibid., 367–369). The new timber dock at the north end of the yard was formed in 1822–1823 when a causeway was built between the blacksmith shop on a spit projecting out into the flats and the shiphouse at that end of the yard (see figure 14.14; ibid. 363). Some of this dock was filled in 1825, however, when land was created for another shiphouse (see figure 14.15). 91. Ibid., 599. 92. Mary Jane Brady and Christopher J. Foster, “Dry Dock I, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts: Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data,” (Denver Service Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Denver, 1982), 4–5, 34, 45. 93. Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789–1845, 4 (1850): 243 (hereafter cited as Stats. at Large of USA, 1789–1845). 94. Brady and Foster, “Dry Dock I,” 5–6, 45, 46. 95. Ibid., 7, 10, 11, 12, 47. The pile foundation was similar to foundations that would soon be built under stone seawalls at the Navy Yard and in Boston (see below and chapters 2, 3, 7, and 10). After the piles for the dry dock foundation were driven, they were cut off at the same height, the spaces between them filled with stones, and sand washed between the stones to fill all the interstices. Then timbers were laid across and attached to the piles and the two-foot spaces between the timbers filled with mortared bricks. Finally, a floor of three-inch pine planks was spiked to the timbers (ibid., 12–13). 96. Ibid., 9–10, 46, 53–55, 59; Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The Canal and Railroad Enterprise of Boston,” in Winsor, Memorial History, 4: 116–120. 97. Brady and Foster, “Dry Dock I,” 7, 9–11, 46; NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 40–41. 98. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 556–562, 665–669. One of the myths associated with “Old Ironsides” is that she was slated for demolition in 1830 and was saved by the public outcry following the publication of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous poem beginning “Ay, tear her tattered ensign down.” Bearss, however, says Holmes’s poem was the result of a misunderstanding, for the navy had not recommended the ship be broken up and sold after an 1829 survey had found her unseaworthy (ibid., 559). 99. This inscription reads, “Commenced 10th July 1827. John Q. Adams, President of the United States. Samuel L. Shepard, Secretary of the Navy. Authorized by the Nineteenth Congress. Opened 24th June 1833.

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100. 101.

102.

103. 104. 105.

106.

107. 108.

498

Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Navy. Loammi Baldwin, Engineer.” Stats. at Large of USA, 1789–1845, 4 (1850): 243; Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 506–507. Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 592, 593, 928–929. In 1832–1833 sections of the wall were constructed from the dry dock around the tip of the flats to the first shiphouse on the north side of the yard and from that shiphouse to the next one. The area behind the wall between the two shiphouses was then filled (see figure 14.15; Commandant’s clerk to John Rodgers, President, Board of Navy Commissioners, 1 August 1833; vol. 93, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1831–1833; Board of Navy Commissioners, Letters Received from Commandants, Entry 220; Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library, RG 45; National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Jesse D. Elliott, Commandant, Charlestown Navy Yard to Rodgers, 1 October 1833, vol. 93, Entry 220, RG 45, National Archives, Washington, D.C. This part of the quay wall began at a new wharf built in 1831 at the northern approach to the dry dock. This wharf was constructed in a manner typical of pile wharves at that time— piles were driven eight feet apart, capped with timbers on which a timber deck was laid, and the deck then covered with two feet of dirt retained by a timber cap around the edge of the wharf. Additional piles were driven around the wharf to serve as fenders, and girders were bolted to the supporting piles for additional strength [Brady and Foster, “Dry Dock I,” 8; Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 601]). Two more sections of the quay wall were constructed in 1833, one at the southernmost end of the yard and the other on the north side of the yard between the northernmost shiphouse and a yet-unbuilt shiphouse specified on the master plan in the area of the old army wharf (see figure 14.15). Bearss, Charlestown Navy Yard, 720, 949, 939-940. Ibid., 724–740, 950–969. Frederick R. Black and Edwin C. Bearss, “The Charlestown Navy Yard, 1842–1890” (Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Boston, 1993), 89; NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 31, 34. This filling had actually begun in 1849 when a quay wall was constructed southeast of the shiphouses, a section of wall apparently not completed earlier, and the area behind it filled and covered with gravel (Black and Bearss, “Charlestown Navy Yard,” 76, 78, 80). Since this filling preceded plans for the machine shop, which were formulated in 1853, it was probably done because the master plan called for filling in that area. Ibid., 112–113, 119. Ibid., 91, 96, 119, 126.

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109. In 1849 the quay wall north of the northernmost shiphouse was completed and filling began of the mast dock—the smaller section of the northern timber dock (see figure 14.18; ibid., 48, 51). To provide more wharf space near the dry dock, a new wharf was built in 1849 in the angle between the wharf formerly on the north side of the dry dock and the timber dock (see figures 14.5 and 14.18; ibid., 49, 52). 110. Brady and Foster, “Dry Dock I,” 23. 111. Ibid., 23–24. 112. Black and Bearss, “Charlestown Navy Yard,” 89, 91, 106–108; NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 29–33, 35. The Merrimack was involved in one of the lesser-known ironies of the Civil War. At the beginning of the war the Merrimack was in the Norfolk navy yard and, scuttled and burned by retreating Union forces but intact below the waterline, was captured by the Confederacy. Southern engineers then converted the ship by covering the hull with iron and building a rooflike iron structure on top. Renamed the Virginia, the ironclad made its debut on March 8, 1862, the day before its famous battle with the Union ironclad Monitor, and the first Union ship it rammed and sank was the Cumberland—a frigate that had been built in the very same shiphouse at the Charlestown Navy Yard. 113. Black and Bearss, “Charlestown Navy Yard,” 193, 174–175. This wharf had been extended in 1859–1860 by its private owners, forcing the navy to change the moorings of some ships. The wharf had then been purchased in 1861 for $62,125 by new owners, who erected a frame coal house that towered ten feet above the fourteen-foot Navy Yard wall and also piled coal against the wall, compelling the navy to brick up the windows in the abutting building. The new owners then offered to sell the wharf to the navy, and did—for $123,000. 114. Ibid., 194, 195, 297. 115. Ibid., 197. The acreage was increased by some filling in the early twentieth century and during World War II, but decreased by excavations for dry docks and shipbuilding ways. When the yard was closed in 1973, the amount of “hard” land, as the navy termed it, was 85.24 acres (“Map of Boston Naval Shipyard, Boston, Mass., showing conditions on January 1, 1973,” plan 399–155, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston). 116. Bettina A. Norton, The Boston Naval Shipyard, 1800–1974 (Boston: The Bostonian Society, 1975), 2n. 117. After the Washington, D.C., navy yard was closed in 1883, the equipment for manufacturing anchors and chain was transferred to the Boston yard (Frederick R. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 1890–1973, Cultural Resources Management Study no. 20, 2 vols. [Boston: Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1988], 20–21). 118. Ibid., 121, 139–140.

119. This timber dock had been used as a dump for coal ashes and trash in the 1870s and was being gradually filled in, but after the yard’s chief of construction began to advocate its conversion into a wet dock—a dock with water kept in at low tide so ships could remain afloat—filling was suspended in 1878, and for many years thereafter the site was promoted as a wet dock (Black and Bearss, “Charlestown Navy Yard,” 296–298, 301, 302; Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 45, 55, 139). Dry Dock 2 was constructed differently from the one built in the 1830s. Instead of a foundation of timber pilings (see above), the foundation of the new dock was thirteen feet of concrete and rubble, some of it granite blocks from the old quay wall. In addition, the floor of the new dock was a six- to eight-footthick layer of granite blocks instead of timber planks (Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 199–200). 120. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 163, 204. 121. Ibid., 142–144, 206–208. Two of the three huge wooden shiphouses that had dominated the north part of the yard for so many years had been torn down during the modernization of the yard in the 1890s, the old wooden ship that had sat in one of them for sixty years having met an ignominious end in 1884–1885 when its timbers were cut into four-foot lengths and auctioned for firewood. The last of the shiphouses—the one in which the Merrimack and the Cumberland had been built—was demolished by 1906 (ibid., 53, 823; Black and Bearss, “Charlestown Navy Yard,” 374–375). 122. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 336, Chart no. 3. 123. Ibid., 373–382. 124. Dry Docks 3 and 4 were at the South Boston Annex—Dry Dock 3 was the 1,170-foot dock built in 1917–1919 and Dry Dock 4 the dock built in 1941–1943 (see chapter 11). 125. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 533–534. 126. In 1926 the Boston Navy Yard had developed an improved type of anchor chain, called dielock chain, and by World War II made most of the anchor chain for the navy’s ships. In the 1960s the Boston yard was still the sole manufacturer of the huge chain used by aircraft carriers. The ropewalk had almost been closed in 1955 during the Eisenhower privatization but, when commercial suppliers could not meet the demand of the Vietnam War, had increased production in the 1960s (ibid., 65, 435–438, 501–503, 812, 744–745; NPS, Charlestown Navy Yard, 60–61). 127. Black, Charlestown Navy Yard, 678. 128. Ibid., 729–731, 750–752, 801–814. 129. “Warren-Av. Bridge Closed Permanently to Surface Traffic,” Globe, 27 November 1954; “Fiery Warren Av. Bridge Dynamited,” Globe, 25 May 1962. 130. Max Hall, The Charles: The People’s River (Boston: David R. Godine, 1986), 67–74; K. Peter Devenis, “The Proposed Charles River Project,”

Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section, ASCE 64, no. 4 (1974): 167, 171–173. A FTERWORD 1.

2. 3.

4. 5.

David Woodhouse et al., “Geology of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America,” Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists 28, no. 4 (1991): 441, 442. Ibid., 444–450, 454–458, 462. Ibid., 443, 450, 463–464, figures 47, 48; John E. Ebel and Kathleen A. Hart, “Observational Evidence for Amplification of Earthquake Ground Motions in Boston and Vicinity,” Civil Engineering Practice: Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 16, no. 2 (2001): figures 4–6. Woodhouse et al., “Geology of Boston,” 446, 463. Most studies that mention landmaking are studies of waterfront development rather than of actual filling. The following examples of works that deal with landmaking in North American cities are arranged geographically from east to west and, within each region, from north to south. For the East Coast, Matthew Hatvany mentions filling marshes along the St. Lawrence and St. Charles Rivers to make land for port facilities, industries, and a highway in Quebec in his “L’expansion urbaine,” in Atlas historique de Québec: Québec ville et capitale, eds. Serge Courville and Robert Garon (Sainte-Foy, Québec: Les Presses du l’Université Laval, 2001), 265–268; Michael Holleran’s “Filling the Providence Cove: Image in the Evolution of Urban Form,” Rhode Island History 48, no. 3 (1990): 65–85, one of the few studies of landmaking itself, focuses on the reasons the cove was filled; Holleran’s “The Providence Waterfront: A Topographical History,” unpublished appendix to William D. Warner, Architects and Planners, The Providence Waterfront, 1636–2000: The Providence Waterfront Study (Providence, R.I.: Providence Foundation, 1985) traces the filling done on Providence’s waterfront; Ann L. Buttenwieser’s Manhattan Water-Bound (New York: New York University Press, 1987), a study of waterfront development with emphasis on areas filled, includes a table of land made in Manhattan from 1686 to 1984 and many relevant maps; Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall summarize the information about landmaking in lower Manhattan found during a number of archaeological projects, particularly evidence of landmaking techniques, in Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 224–239; Sherry H. Olson’s Baltimore: The Building of an American City (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980) covers filling on that city’s waterfront; Alan Lessoff, The Nation and Its City: Politics, “Corruption,” and Progress in Washington, D.C., 1861–1902 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University

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Press, 1994), 173–176 briefly discusses and illustrates the landmaking that has occurred on the Potomac Flats in Washington, D.C. In the Great Lakes and Mississippi region, Wayne C. Reeves, “Visions for the Metropolitan Toronto Waterfront, I: Toward Comprehensive Planning, 1852–1935,” Major Report no. 27 (Center for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, 1992), 3–28, 44–47, 63–97 is a waterfront study that mentions the major landmaking projects on the Toronto lakefront; Thomas McIlwraith’s “Digging Out and Filling In: Making Land on the Toronto Waterfront in the 1850s,” Urban History Review 20, no. 1 (1991): 15–33, again one of the few studies of landmaking itself, discusses one of these Toronto projects, focusing on the reasons it was undertaken and the sources of fill; Michael J. Chrzastowski’s “The Building, Deterioration and Proposed Rebuilding of the Chicago Lakefront,” Shore and Beach 59, no. 2 (1991): 2–10 is a good, brief account of the landmaking that has occurred in Chicago; Lois Wille’s Forever Open, Clear and Free: The Historic Struggle for Chicago’s Lakefront (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1972) is a waterfront study that mentions the major filling episodes along Chicago’s lakefront; Craig E. Colton’s “Chicago Waste Lands: Refuse Disposal and Urban Growth, 1840–1990,” Journal of Historical Geography 20, no. 2 (1994): 124–142 is a study of the disposal of Chicago’s solid waste, some of which was used to fill the lakefront (pp. 126–128); Richard Campanella’s Time and Place in New Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Co., 2002), 57–58, 62–66, a lavishly illustrated historical geography, discusses the addition to New Orleans of new land, both manmade and natural accretions. On the West Coast, the filling in Vancouver, B.C., of part of False Creek and to create Granville Island is covered in Robert K. Burkinshaw, False Creek: History, Images, and Research Sources, Occasional Paper no. 2 (Vancouver: City of Vancouver Archives, 1984), 30–35, 38, 48–51, 55; Matthew W. Klingle in “Urban by Nature: An Environmental History of Seattle, 1880–1970” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 2001) discusses the filling in Elliott Bay as part of his study of the manipulation of Seattle’s natural environment; Gerald Robert Dow’s “Bay Fill in San Francisco: A History of Change” (master’s thesis, California State University, San Francisco, 1973) is a complete study of landmaking in San Francisco with an excellent series of maps drafted by the author; Nancy Olmsted, Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco’s Mission Bay (San Francisco: Mission Creek Conservancy, 1986) and William Crittenden Sharpsteen, “Vanished Waters of Southeastern San Francisco: Notes on Mission Bay and the Marshes and Creeks of the Potreros and the Bernal Rancho,” California Historical Society Quarterly 21, no. 2 (1941), published on , both cover filling in one part of San Francisco. Dow, “Bay Fill.”

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Tracy Dahlby, “Tokyo Bay,” National Geographic 202, no. 4 (October 2002): 41, 42. 8. “Historical Changes of Shoreline and Wetland at Duwamish River and Elliott Bay,” in G. C. Bortelson, M. J. Chrzastowski, and A. K. Helgerson, Historical Changes of Shoreline and Wetland at Eleven Major Deltas in the Puget Sound Region, Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1980), sheet 7. I am indebted to Rebecca Williams for bringing this map to my attention. 9. Buttenwieser, Manhattan, 28–30, says published sources document 1,399.85 acres of made land on Manhattan, most of it on the lower half of the island, but she estimates the total on the entire island is 2,227.1 acres. 10. David Crombie, “Regeneration: Toronto’s Waterfront and the Sustainable City: Final Report” (Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront, Toronto, 1992), 152. 11. Chrzastowski, “Chicago Lakefront,” 5. A PPENDIX 1

1.

All acreages computed in 2002 by MapWorks. Asterisks denote figures added to make total. 2. Denotes original land. Original area of flats is included in the MADE land column. 3. Excluding harbor islands. 4. North of gateway to town, now line of East Berkeley Street. 5. The area around the original peninsula bounded on the southwest by a line across the Esplanade just south of the Concert Lagoon and then on Beacon Street and on the southeast by the line of East Berkeley Street (see figures 1.1, 6.1, and 9.1)—in other words, excluding Back Bay. 6. See figure 10.1 for delineation and definition of this boundary. 7. See figures 7.1, 8.2, and 8.3. 8. The traditional figure for the area of original Boston is 783 acres. 9. Area bounded by Beacon Street from 1630 shoreline east of Charles Street to Kenmore Square and then the 1630 shoreline including that of Gravelly Point (see figures 7.1 and 8.1). Equals east (receiving basin) plus west (full basin) Back Bay. 10. Bounded by Beacon Street (Mill Dam) on the north, line of Hemenway Street (cross dam) on the west, and 1630 shoreline on the west, south, and east (see figure 7.1). 11. See figures 7.14 and 7.17. 12. Bounded by Arlington and Beacon Streets, a line between Exeter and Fairfield Streets, the line of Providence Street from Exeter to Berkeley Street, and Boylston Street from Berkeley to Arlington Street (see figure 7.18).

13. The remaining part of the receiving basin not filled by 1855, that is, excluding the state’s territory. 14. Equals the area of the receiving basin not filled by 1855 or the sum of the Commonwealth’s and the BWP’s parts of the project. 15. Bounded by Beacon Street (Mill Dam) on the north, line of Hemenway Street (cross dam) on the east, and 1630 shoreline on the east, south, and west (see figure 8.1). 16. Bounded by East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets and 1630 shoreline (see figure 10.1). 17. See figure 10.1. 18. Bounded by 1630 shoreline and line between Mercer Street extended to 1630 shoreline and intersection of B Street and 1630 shoreline (see figure 11.1). 19. Bounded by east line of Fort Point Channel extended south to West First Street, West First and E Streets, north line of Reserved Channel extended to E Street, and present shoreline (see figure 11.1). Note that this boundary includes areas filled after the end of the South Boston Flats project in the mid-1930s: the quadrilateral quay, Subaru Pier, dry dock west of the latter, and additional fill on the northeast side of the connector to Castle Island (see figures 11.1, 11.26, 11.31, and 11.32). 20. See figures 11.1, 11.31, and 11.32. 21. Bounded on north by present shoreline, on west by line of Farragut Road extended to Reserved Channel, on south by north end of Marine Park, present shoreline, and north end of Castle Island (see figure 11.1). 22. Excluding land defined in n. 19 above, includes the land made by Cyrus Alger west of Foundry Street, by wharfing out between the 1630 shoreline and West First Street, by the navy between E Street and the Reserved Channel, and by utilities and various other owners on the south side of the Reserved Channel from Pappas Way to line of Farragut Road extended (see figure 11.1 and chapter 11). 23. Bounded by present South Boston/Dorchester line (bulkhead between Moakley Park and Columbia Point), present shoreline, south tip of Castle Island, north end of Marine Park, and 1630 shoreline (see figure 11.1). 24. Equals the sum of the land made by the South Boston Flats project both north and south of the Reserved Channel, other made land on the north side of South Boston, and made land on the south side of South Boston. 25. Between 1630 and present shorelines from South Boston/Dorchester line to Neponset Bridge (see figure 12.1). 26. Bounded by present shoreline, Maverick Street, 1630 shoreline, line of Geneva Street extended to airport entrance road, entrance road to 1630 shoreline, 1630 shoreline to northeast tip of Wood Island, present shoreline to Harborview, minus areas of Governors, Apple, and Bird Islands (see figure 13.1).

27. See figure 13.1. 28. Original Charlestown peninsula, area beyond the neck bounded by 1630 shoreline and city line, area on north side of Mystic River bounded by city line and 1630 shoreline (see figure 14.1). 29. Bounded by 1630 shoreline, present shoreline, and city line. Includes made land on north side of Mystic River (see figure 14.1). 30. Sum of acreages with asterisks (*). Excludes made land on Charles River above B.U. Bridge and on Neponset River above Neponset Bridge. 31. Source: BRA. Refers to mainland Boston only; excludes harbor islands. A PPENDIX 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 351. City Doc. No. 60 (1853), 46–47. Ibid., 46. Wheeler v. Stone, 1 Cushing 313 (1848). Samuel C. Clough, “Topography of Boston, 1648,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 21 (1919): 251–252; “I Had Done Something for Boston,” M.H.S. Miscellany, no. 51 (1992): 3. For reproductions of the entire 1722 Bonner and 1743 Price maps—the ones used in this study—see Alex Krieger and David Cobb with Amy Turner, eds., Mapping Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 175, 179; for reproductions of both these maps as well as of the 1733 Price map, which is also used, see John W. Reps, “Boston by Bostonians: Views of the Colonial City by its Artists, Cartographers, Engravers, and Publishers,” in Boston Prints and Printmakers, 1670–1775 (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1973), 4–5, 22–23, 26–27. For a reproduction of the entire Des Barres map, see Krieger and Cobb with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston, 107. For reproductions of the entire Pelham map, see ibid., 185; Justin Winsor, ed., Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1880–1881), 3: betw. vi–vii; and Reps, “Boston by Bostonians,” 53. For a reproduction of the entire 1796 Carleton map, see Krieger and Cobb with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston, 189. For a reproduction of the entire 1814 Hales map, see ibid., 191. For reproductions of the entire 1826, 1835, 1846, and 1855 Smith maps, see ibid., 193, 197, 123, and 205. For reproductions of the entire Slatter and Callan and McIntyre maps, see ibid., 203, 230. Minutes, 14 June 1860, Boston [Mass.], Records of the Common Council, Boston City Archives, Hyde Park, Mass.. For a reproduction of the entire Boston Map Company map, see Krieger and Cobb with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston, 213. N

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15. Vol. 1, n.p.; vol. 2, p. 19. 16. Senate No. 64 (1846), House No. 106 (1851). 17. Senate No. 25 (1847), Senate No. 63 (1847), Senate No. 28 (1858). For a reproduction of the entire 1847 U.S. Coast Survey plan see Krieger and Cobb with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston, 113. 18. Copy of part of a Plan of Inner Harbor of Boston showing commissioners lines proposed by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissioners appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850, House No. 106 (1851). 19. Diagram A. The resultants of Scouring Forces of the Currents in the Vicinity of South Boston Flats from observations made for the U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor by the party of H. Mitchell, U.S.C.S., Fourth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 62 (1861). 20. Senate No. 125 (1864), Senate No. 11 (1866). 21. House No. 20 (1867), House No. 10 (1868), House No. 13 (1869), House No. 55 (1870), House No. 53 (1871), House No. 56 (1872), House No. 65 (1873), House No. 65 (1874). 22. A.R. H & LC for 1894, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1895), A.R. H & LC for 1896, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1897), A.R. H & LC for 1903, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1904), Thirty-Second A.R. H & LC for 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 11 (1911). 23. The date is suggested by the amount of fill in three areas being filled or about to be filled in the late teens—Columbus (now Moakley) Park in South Boston, the East Boston Flats, and South Bay. The title of the photograph indicates that it is a mosaic of photos taken in one flight at an altitude of 10,000 feet. The photo is the frontispiece in U.S. Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors and U.S. Shipping Board, The Port of Boston, Massachusetts, Revised 1929, Port Series no. 2 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1930). I am indebted to John Booras for bringing this photograph to my attention. 24. GS-F, [Suffolk Co., Mass., December 15, 1938], Cans 2947 and 2948; Records of the Topographic Division, Records of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), RG 57; National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md. 25. Aerial Photographic Map of City of Boston, Mass., April 20, 1951, Aerial Survey Mapping Photographs, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. 26. Aerial photographic index, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, October 20, 1952; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Production and Marketing Administration; Records of the Stabilization and Conservation Service, RG 145; National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md.

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FIGURE REFERENCES

AND

CREDITS

F I G U R E 1 . 1 From Alex Kreiger and David Cobb with Amy Turner, eds.,

Mapping Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 16; revised and corrected in 2002 by MapWorks; additional labels and corrections in 2003. (Map courtesy of Norman B. Leventhal and the Mapping Boston Foundation) F I G U R E 1 . 2 “Timeline of Boston’s Land Making,” in Kreiger and Cobb

with Turner, eds., Mapping Boston, 240–241; revised 2003. (Courtesy of Norman B. Leventhal and the Mapping Boston Foundation) F I G U R E 2 . 1 1882 photograph of dredging Back Bay Fens in Eighth A.R.

BPC for 1882, City Doc. No. 20 (1883), opp. 12. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library) F I G U R E 3 . 1 From Birds-Eye Boston: An Axonometric Rendering of the City As It Appears in 1992 (Boston: Olde South Publishing Company, 1992), with 1630 shoreline and some labels added. (Courtesy of Kane Maps) F I G U R E 3 . 2 From Samuel C. Clough, “Map of the Town of Boston 1648,” Clough Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society) F I G U R E 3 . 3 From Samuel C. Clough, Map Showing the Great Cove & Vicinity 1640–1650 in “Ownership of Certain Land in Boston,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 25 (1922): betw. 44–45, with labels added. F I G U R E 3 . 4 From Samuel C. Clough, “Map of the Town of Boston in 1676,” Clough Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society) F I G U R E 3 . 5 “This draught was taken by Order of the Selectmen for the Town of Boston A.D. 1708 by Jacob Sheafe—Copied by John Leach 1755,” No. 914, Blueprints folders, Long Wharf Papers, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., with labels added. (Courtesy of The Peabody Essex Museum, © 2001) F I G U R E 3 . 6 [J. Redknap], “The South Battery in the Town of Boston in

the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in America. Latitude 42–25,” CO 700/MASSACHUSETTS BAY 8, British Public Record Office, London, with labels added. (Courtesy Public Record Office)

F I G U R E 3 . 7 From Capt. John Bonner, The Town of Boston in New England (1722; reprint, Boston: George G. Smith, 1835), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 3 . 8 From Capt. John Bonner, [Manuscript plan of Long Wharf

and other wharves in Boston, Boston, 1714], Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society) F I G U R E 3 . 9 James Blake, “A plan of the Town Dock, formerly called Bendall’s Dock, in Boston, with the Buildings round & flats before it. Taken by me, James Blake, Surveyor, August 26th, 1738.” “Copied from an Old Plan in the possession of Charles Shaw, Esq., 1817 by N. G. Snelling. Copy of Snelling’s copy by Francis Jackson, Sept. 1854, for the Genealogical Society.” Rare Books Department, Boston Public Library, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 3 . 1 0 From William Price, A New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America With the many Additionall [sic] Buildings & New Streets to the Year 1733 (Boston: William Price, 1733), with labels added. (Courtesy of The John Carter Brown Library at Brown University) F I G U R E 3 . 1 1 From William Price, A New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America With the many Additionall [sic] Buildings & New Streets to the Year 1743 (Boston: William Price, 1743), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 3 . 1 2 [South Battery, ca. 1734 or ca. 1743,] vol. 2, p. 10, City

Surveyor’s Office Plans, Survey Section, Boston Department of Public Works, Boston, with labels added. F I G U R E 3 . 1 3 From William Burgis, A South East View of ye Great Town of

Boston in New England in America (Boston: William Price, 1743). (Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society) F I G U R E 3 . 1 4 South Battery, engraving from a mid 18th c. certificate enlisting a montross, or undergunner, at the South Battery, negative #354, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 3 . 1 5 Faneuil Hall, 1789 from Massachusetts Magazine (facsimile, Robinson Engraving Co., 1888), neg. #93653, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

F I G U R E 3 . 2 5 From Hazen Morse, Plan of the City of Boston in Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1829), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

F I G U R E 3 . 1 6 From Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston from actual Survey

F I G U R E 3 . 2 6 From [Hazen] Morse and [J. W.] Tuttle, Boston. 1838 in

in Boston Directory (Boston: John West, 1796), with 1630 shoreline and labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1838), with label added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department)

F I G U R E 3 . 1 7 From Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston from actual Survey

in Boston Directory (Boston: John West, 1803), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 3 . 1 8 From Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston from actual Survey

in Boston Directory (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1805), with label added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 3 . 1 9 [Plan of India Wharf/Broad Street project, ca. 1810], nega-

tive #7638-B, Harrison Gray Otis Papers, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) F I G U R E 3 . 2 0 From William Norman, Plan of Boston in Boston Directory

(Boston: Edward Cotton, 1807), with label added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 3 . 2 1 From John G. Hales, Map of Boston in the State of Massachusetts (Boston 1814; blackline copy, Boston Redevelopment Authority of reproduction, Boston: Photo-Electric Engraving Co., 1894 of reprint, Boston: A William & Co., 1879), with labels added. F I G U R E 3 . 2 2 Stephen P. Fuller, [Plan of proposed Faneuil Hall Market

F I G U R E 3 . 2 7 R. H. Eddy, “Sketch of the proposed extension of the sewers at the foot of State & Central streets, October 6, 1837,” vol. 13, p. 26, City Surveyor’s Office Plans, Survey Section, Boston Department of Public Works, Boston, with labels added. F I G U R E 3 . 2 8 ca. 1850 photograph of the Custom House, negative #5968,

The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 3 . 2 9 From I. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston

Massts (New York: M. Dripps and Boston: L.N. Ide, 1852), with labels added. (Boston Athenaeum) F I G U R E 3 . 3 0 From George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1857), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 3 . 3 1 From B. F. Nutting, Bird’s Eye View of Boston (Boston: B. B.

Russell & Co., 1866). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department).

project, 1823], in Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 74. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department)

F I G U R E 3 . 3 2 ca. 1867 photograph of Oliver Street, negative # 1434, The

F I G U R E 3 . 2 3 From William B. Annin, George G. Smith, and J. V. N.

Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

Throop, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridgeport; From actual Survey [by John G. Hales, 1823] with Corrections by S.P. Fuller, Surveyor (Boston: Annin, Smith & Throop, 1826), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library ) F I G U R E 3 . 2 4 John Andrews, East View of Faneuil Hall Market (Boston:

Abel Bowen and John Andrews, 1827), negative #04317, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

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Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 3 . 3 3 ca. 1867 photograph of Oliver Street, negative #6239, The

F I G U R E 3 . 3 4 From Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Boston, with Additions and

Corrections made under direction of Thomas W. Davis, City Surveyor (Boston: A Meisel, 1870), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 3 . 3 5 Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Proposed Marginal Street from

Broad Street at Rowes Wharf to Commercial Street at Eastern Avenue Showing Adjacent Streets and Wharves, November 16, 1868, City Doc. No. 128 (1868). (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society)

F I G U R E 3 . 3 6 From F. Fuchs, View of Boston, July 4th, 1870 (Philadelphia:

F I G U R E 4 . 1 0 J.F. Smith, Beacon Hill, from Mt. Vernon St., near the head of

John Weik, 1871). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department)

Hancock St. (1811 pencil and watercolor sketch; chromolithograph by J. H. Bufford, Boston: Smith, Knight & Tappan, 1857), negative #07134, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

F I G U R E 3 . 3 7 ca. 1870 photograph of India Wharf, negative #4693, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 4 . 1 1 See figure 3.21, with labels added.

F I G U R E 3 . 3 8 ca. 1870 photograph of Fort Hill, negative #4649, The

F I G U R E 4 . 1 2 1993 photograph of double bulkhead found in the Mill

Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

Pond. (Nancy S. Seasholes)

F I G U R E 3 . 3 9 ca. 1870 photograph of Oliver Street, negative #170, Society

for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 4 . 1 See figure 3.1, with 1630 shoreline and labels added. F I G U R E 4 . 2 See figure 3.2, with labels added. F I G U R E 4 . 3 See figure 3.16, with 1630 shoreline and labels added.

F I G U R E 4 . 1 3 View of the New Land in 1828 in James C. Johnson, “The New Land: The Site of the Old Mill Pond in 1827,” Bostonian 2 (1895): 72–76, negative #6244, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 4 . 1 4 From Edward Cotton, Plan of Boston in Boston Directory (Boston: John H. A. Frost and Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1825), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 4 . 1 5 See figure 3.25, with labels added.

F I G U R E 4 . 4 See figure 3.20, with labels added. F I G U R E 4 . 5 Charles Bulfinch, A Plan of the Mill Pond in Boston with the

Parts adjacent Exhibiting the Streets, Canal, and Market. Adopted by the Selectmen and Mill Corporation, 1808, with labels added. (Boston Athenaeum) F I G U R E 4 . 6 J. R. Smith, Beacon Hill from Derne Street (1811 pencil and watercolor sketch; chromolithograph by J. H. Bufford, Boston: Smith, Knight & Tappan, 1857), negative #07130, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 4 . 7 J. R. Smith, Beacon Hill, with Mr. Thurston’s House, from

Bowdoin Street (1811 pencil and watercolor sketch; chromolithograph by J. H. Bufford, Boston: Smith, Knight & Tappan, 1857), negative #07132, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

F I G U R E 4 . 1 6 From George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1835), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 4 . 1 7 See figure 3.29, with labels added. 4 . 1 8 “Haymarket Square and Neighborhood, about 1835: Copied from a Sketch in the Public Library of the City of Boston,” Boston Public Library, Bulletin 13 (January 1895), negative #1404, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) FIGURE

F I G U R E 4 . 1 9 1908 photograph of Middlesex Canal walls, neg. 2899B,

F0082.3, Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) Collection, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities)

F I G U R E 4 . 8 1994 photograph of State House and monument from Bowdoin Street. (Nancy S. Seasholes)

F I G U R E 4 . 2 0 See figure 3.30, with labels added.

F I G U R E 4 . 9 J.F. Smith, Beacon Hill, from the present site of the reservoir

F I G U R E 4 . 2 1 See figure 3.31.

between Hancock & Temple Sts. (1811 pencil and watercolor sketch; chromolithograph by J. H. Bufford, Boston: Smith, Knight & Tappan, 1857). (Boston Athenaeum)

F I G U R E 4 . 2 2 From John Bachmann, Boston: Bird’s Eye View from the

North (Boston: L. Prang & Co., 1877). (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

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F I G U R E 4 . 2 3 From A. E. Downs, Boston 1899 (Boston: George H. Walker & Co., 1899). (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 4 . 2 4 1925 aerial photograph of Bulfinch Triangle, negative #53639, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 4 . 2 5 ca. 1933 aerial photograph of area north of Causeway Street,

negative #29696, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 5 . 1 See figure 3.1, with labels added.

F I G U R E 5 . 1 5 Boston Park Department, Charles River Embankment, Section A, 1880 in Fifth A.R. BPC for 1879, City Doc. No. 15 (1880). (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 5 . 1 6 1886 photograph of Charles River Embankment [Charlesbank], negative #06153, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 5 . 1 7 Frederick L. Olmsted, Plan of Charlesbank, 1892. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, Mass.) F I G U R E 5 . 1 8 1901 photograph of Charlesbank. (Courtesy of the National

F I G U R E 5 . 2 See figure 3.1.

Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, Mass.)

F I G U R E 5 . 3 From Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston from actual Surveys

F I G U R E 5 . 4 See figure 3.17, with labels added.

F I G U R E 5 . 1 9 1894 photograph “View at Low Tide in Rear of Beacon Street from Harvard Bridge,” in Report of the Joint Board Consisting of the Metropolitan Park Commission and the State Board of Health upon the Improvement of Charles River, House No. 775 (1894), betw. 28–29. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston)

F I G U R E 5 . 5 See figure 3.21, with labels added.

F I G U R E 5 . 2 0 1894 photograph “View at High Tide in Rear of Beacon

by Osgood Carleton with Corrections, Additions, & Improvements, 1800 (1800; reprint, Boston: George B. Foster, 1878), with 1630 shoreline and labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

Street from Harvard Bridge,” in Report of the Joint Board Consisting of the Metropolitan Park Commission and the State Board of Health upon the Improvement of Charles River, House No. 775 (1894), betw. 28–29. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston)

F I G U R E 5 . 6 See figure 3.23, with labels added. F I G U R E 5 . 7 See figure 3.26, with label added. F I G U R E 5 . 8 From George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1846), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 5 . 2 1 Robert E. Barrett, “A Resumé of the Charles River Basin Project,” Harvard Engineering Journal 5, no. 4 (1907): frontispiece.

F I G U R E 5 . 9 From John Bachmann, Bird’s Eye View of Boston (New York:

Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Mass. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston)

John Bachmann, 1850). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 5 . 1 0 1853 photograph of Massachusetts General Hospital, Special Collections, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School. (Courtesy of The Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine) F I G U R E 5 . 1 1 See figure 3.29, with labels added. F I G U R E 5 . 1 2 1858 photograph of West End, negative #4196, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 5 . 1 3 See figure 3.31.

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5 . 2 3 June 30, 1910, photograph by Luther H. Shattuck of Charles River Dam and Charlesbank, Charles River Basin Commission Construction Photographs, No. 969, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy of Massachusetts Archives)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 5 . 2 4 July 8,1905, photograph by Luther H. Shattuck of excavating the Boston Marginal Conduit through Charlesbank, Charles River Basin Commission Construction Photographs, No. 133, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy of Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 6 . 1 See figure 3.1, with 1630 shoreline and labels added. F I G U R E 6 . 2 See figure 3.17, with labels added.

F I G U R E 5 . 1 4 See figure 3.36.

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F I G U R E 5 . 2 2 1913 photograph of Charles River Dam, negative #7914,

F I G U R E 6 . 3 See figure 3.18, with labels added.

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F I G U R E 6 . 4 See figure 3.21, with labels added.

F I G U R E 7 . 4 Hales 1821 plan of the Mill Dam in John G. Hales, Survey of

F I G U R E 6 . 5 See figure 3.23, with labels added.

Boston and Its Vicinity; . . . with a Short Topographical Sketch of the Country (Boston: Ezra Lincoln, 1821), 24–25.

F I G U R E 6 . 6 See figure 3.29, with labels added. F I G U R E 6 . 7 From George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of

Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston, George G. Smith, 1860), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library) F I G U R E 6 . 8 See figure 3.31. F I G U R E 6 . 9 See figure 3.36.

F I G U R E 7 . 5 Reconstructed cross section of the Mill Dam in Harl P. Aldrich, Jr. and James R. Lambrechts, “Back Bay Boston, Part II: Groundwater Levels,” Civil Engineering Practice: Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE 1, no. 2 (1986): Fig. 5. (Reproduced by permission from the Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. © 1986 by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers)

F I G U R E 6 . 1 0 1906 plan of Boston Embankment, drawn by Guy Lowell, Landscape Architect for the CRBC, Fourth A.R. CRBC, December 1, 1906, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1907. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston)

F I G U R E 7 . 6 1937 photograph of timber platform foundation of cross dam in Wilbur W. Davis, “The History of Boston as Disclosed in the Digging of the Commonwealth Avenue Underpass and Other Traffic Tunnels,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1938): betw. 30–31, negative #5870, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 6 . 1 1 Arthur A. Shurcliff, Charles River Basin: General Plan, June

F I G U R E 7 . 7 See figure 3.21.

1931 in A.R. MDC for 1931, Pub. Doc. No. 48 (1931). (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston)

F I G U R E 7 . 8 See figure 3.23, with labels added. F I G U R E 7 . 9 See figure 3.1, with 1630, 1835, 1849, and 1855 shorelines

FIGURE

6 . 1 2 1934 photograph by Frederic S. Tobey. (Courtesy

and labels added.

Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston) F I G U R E 7 . 1 0 See figure 4.16, with labels added. FIGURE

6 . 1 3 Arthur A. Shurcliff and Sidney N. Shurcliff, Storrow

Memorial Embankment: Plan of Additions and Changes under the Requirements of Chapter 262, Acts of 1949, August 1949 in Sidney N. Shurcliff, “Boston’s Proposed Development on the Charles River,” Landscape Architecture 40, no. 1 (1949): 20. (By permission of Landscape Architecture magazine)

F I G U R E 7 . 1 1 From John G. Hales, Map of Boston and Its Vicinity from Actual Survey, with Corrections in 1833 (1833; Reprint, Ithaca, N.Y.: Historic Urban Plans, 1972), with labels added. (Courtesy of Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, N.Y.)

7 . 1 2001 street map of Back Bay with 1630 shoreline (© MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks)

F I G U R E 7 . 1 2 1839 engraving of railroad tracks crossing in Back Bay in J.W. Barber, Historical Collections . . . Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Massachusetts (Worcester, Mass.: Dorr, Rowland & Co., 1839), frontispiece, negative #382, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 7 . 2 See figure 3.16, with label added. F I G U R E 7 . 3 From Benjamin Dearborn, Plan of those parts of Boston and its Vicinity with the Waters and Flats adjacent, which are immediately or remotely connected with the contemplated design of erecting Perpetual Tide Mills. This Vast Design, in the Wide Range of its Utility, will undoubtedly exceed any Undertaking hitherto accomplished in this Quarter of the World (Boston: Benjamin Dearborn, 1814). Accompanying note: “Printed and coloured Typographically by Benjamin Dearborn in his new constructed Letter-Press. This plan is probably the First Ever Printed in a similar manner, as the common Printing Press cannot be thus applied,” negative #2029, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 7 . 1 3 Robert Sturn, Park Square in 1837 (Boston: Charles F. Goodspeed, 1902), negative #6245, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 7 . 1 4 Henry F. Conant, “Plan of Back Bay and Vicinity. Prepared from Surveys made under the direction of Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissioners appointed under a resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts passed May 3rd, 1850. March 11, 1852,” with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

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F I G U R E 7 . 1 5 See figure 3.29.

F I G U R E 7 . 2 9 ca. 1866 photograph of Mill Dam and Back Bay, negative #5047, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 7 . 1 6 See figure 5.9. F I G U R E 7 . 1 7 Whitwell & Henck, Plan of Lands belonging to the Boston

Water Power Company. Boston, 1855 (Boston: L. H. Bradford & Co., 1855), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) Figure 7.18 Plan of Lands Belonging to the Commonwealth. 1857 in Senate No. 17 (1857), with labels added.

F I G U R E 7 . 3 0 ca. 1869 photograph of Back Bay, negative #62004, Print

Department, Boston Public Library, Boston. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 7 . 3 1 See figure 3.31. F I G U R E 7 . 3 2 See figure 3.36.

F I G U R E 7 . 1 9 1858 photograph of railroad tracks crossing in Back Bay.

F I G U R E 7 . 3 3 Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1871 (Boston: Fuller and

(Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

Whitney, 1881). Reconstructed from J. F. Fuller plans and Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Boston with Additions and Corrections, 1870 (Boston: A. Meisel, 1870), negative #5372, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 7 . 2 0 1858 photograph of Mill Dam and Back Bay, negative

#96899, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 7 . 2 1 “Loading Gravel Cars for the Back Bay, Boston” in Ballou’s

Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion 15 (October 1858): 209. F I G U R E 7 . 2 2 1858 photograph of loading gravel train in Needham, neg-

ative #15757-B, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) F I G U R E 7 . 2 3 Detail from ca. 1860 photograph of gravel train in Back Bay,

negative #4908, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 7 . 2 4 Winslow Homer, engraving of scavengers in Back Bay in

Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion 16 (May 1859): 328. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 7 . 2 5 Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1861 (Boston: Fuller and

Whitney, 1881). Reconstructed from J. F. Fuller plans and James Slade, Plan of Boston, prepared under the direction of . . . Committee on Printing (Boston: J.H. Daniels, 1861), negative #4675, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 7 . 2 6 See figure 3.1, with 1861 shoreline and labels added. F I G U R E 7 . 2 7 2002 photograph of seawall behind Back Street. (Nancy S.

Seasholes) FIGURE

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F I G U R E 7 . 3 5 1898 photograph of Back Bay, negative #93651, Print

Department, Boston Public Library, Boston. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 7 . 3 6 1868 photograph of Church Street District, negative #84500, Print Department, Boston Public Library, Boston. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 7 . 3 7 ca. 1907 photograph of embankment from M. H. Jewell’s house at 204 Beacon Street, negative #12960-A, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) F I G U R E 7 . 3 8 ca. 1910 photograph of embankment from M. H. Jewell’s house at 204 Beacon Street, negative #12964-A, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston. (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) F I G U R E 7 . 3 9 October 10, 1908, photograph of embankment by Luther H. Shattuck, Charles River Basin Commission Construction Photographs, No. 654, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 7 . 4 0 1910 photograph of embankment in Final Report of CRBC,

7 . 2 8 1863–1869 photograph of B&RMC seawall. (Boston

Athenaeum)

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F I G U R E 7 . 3 4 1880s photograph of Beacon Street and Back Bay, negative #93272, Print Department, Boston Public Library, Boston. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

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June 30, 1910, Pub. Doc. No. 71 (1910), opp. 26. (Courtesy of Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston)

F I G U R E 7 . 4 1 January 10, 1934, photograph of Esplanade, Metropolitan District Commission, Parks Engineering Photographs, No. 0649. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston) 7 . 4 2 1919 photograph of embankment, Metropolitan Park Commission, Engineering Department Photographs, No. 1993, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts State Archives)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 7 . 4 3 July 1935 photograph of Esplanade. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston) F I G U R E 7 . 4 4 November 11, 1923, aerial photograph of Back Bay and

Charles River Basin by Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, negative #6240, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 7 . 4 5 July 10, 1934, aerial photograph of Back Bay and Charles River Basin by Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., negative #4099, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 7 . 4 6 1983 aerial photograph of Boston by Alex MacLean. (©

Alex S. MacLean/Landslides) F I G U R E 8 . 1 - 2001 street map of Fens/Fenway/Bay State Road areas with

1630 shoreline (© MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks) F I G U R E 8 . 2 Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1814 (Boston: Fuller and

Whitney, 1881). Reconstructed from Henry Pelham, A Plan of Boston in New England with its Environs (London, 1777); John G. Hales, Map of Boston in the State of Massachusetts (Boston, 1814); John G. Hales, Map of Boston and Its Vicinity from Actual Survey (Boston: John G. Hales and Philadelphia: J. Melish, 1819); and 1819 plans by Stephen P. Fuller, negative #4673, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 8 . 3 Relation of the Fens Basin to the Former Tide Mill Ponds, 1903,

with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 8 . 4 Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1836 (Boston: Fuller and

Whitney, 1881). Reconstructed from plans by Stephen P. Fuller; George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1835); and G.W. Boynton, Plan of Boston with parts of adjacent towns (Boston: Boston Bewick Co., 1835), negative #4674, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 8 . 5 From Boston Park Department, Back Bay Park, 1877, case 3 (Maps of Back Bay Park, 1877), Boston Water Power Co. Collection, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, with labels added. (Courtesy of Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School) F I G U R E 8 . 6 Frederick L. Olmsted, Proposed Improvement of Back Bay, with

labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, Mass.) F I G U R E 8 . 7 2002 photograph of Boylston Street Bridge from Ipswich

Street. (Nancy S. Seasholes) F I G U R E 8 . 8 See figure 2.1. F I G U R E 8 . 9 William Jackson, City Engineer, Improvement of Back Bay showing Progress of Portions of Work to Dec. 31, 1885, in Eleventh A.R. BPC for 1885, City Doc. No. 26 (1886), with labels added. F I G U R E 8 . 1 0 November 5, 1909, photograph of embankment by Luther

H. Shattuck, Charles River Basin Commission Construction Photographs, No. 799, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 8 . 1 1 late 1960s aerial photograph of Bowker Overpass by New England Survey Service. (Courtesy Metropolitan District Commission Archives, Boston) F I G U R E 8 . 1 2 Fuller and Whitney, Plan of Back Bay showing Improvements

on Streets and Estates from Latest Surveys, July 1, 1882 (Boston: Fuller and Whitney, 1882), negative #6250a, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 8 . 1 3 William H. Whitney, Plan of Back Bay showing Improvements on Streets and Estates from Latest Surveys (Boston: William H. Whitney, 1888), negative #6247, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 8 . 1 4 ca. 1884 photograph of Back Bay from Mission Church. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 8 . 1 5 2003 photograph of seawall north of Back Street. (Nancy S.

Seasholes) F I G U R E 8 . 1 6 July 12, 1951, photograph of dredge “Scrod,” Metropolitan

District Commission, Parks Engineering Photographs, Storrow Drive, No. 1636, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 8 . 1 7 July 31, 1951, photograph of hydraulic dredging pipe,

Metropolitan District Commission, Parks Engineering Photographs, Storrow Drive, No. 1802, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F

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F I G U R E 9 . 1 See figure 3.1, with 1630 shoreline and labels added. F I G U R E 9 . 2 From Charles C. Perkins, Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines, 1795 to 1895 (Boston: George H. Walker & Co., 1895), blackline copy, Boston Redevelopment Authority, with labels added. F I G U R E 9 . 3 From Henry Pelham, A Plan of Boston in New England with its

Environs, including Milton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brooklin [sic], Cambridge, Medford, Charlestown, Parts of Malden and Chelsea With the Military Works Constructed in These Places in the Years 1775 and 1776 (London, 1777), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 1 0 . 2 From John G. Hales, Map of Boston in the State of Massachusetts (Boston, 1814; reproduction, Boston: Photo-Electro Engraving Co., [1894] of reprint, Boston: A Williams and Co., 1879), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 0 . 3 See figure 3.23, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 0 . 4 See figure 4.16, with labels added.

F I G U R E 9 . 6 See figure 3.21, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 0 . 5 - Copy of a Plan of South Bay from Surveys made under the direction of James Hayward & Ezra Lincoln, Jr., commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 22, 1845, showing commissioners lines &c. recommended by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissioners appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

F I G U R E 9 . 7 From Hazen Morse, Plan of the City of Boston in Boston

F I G U R E 1 0 . 6 Alexander Parris, drawing for seawall to be built by Shubael

Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, Jr., 1832), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

Bills, Dec. 29th, 1845, in City Doc. No. 82 (1857).

F I G U R E 9 . 4 See figure 3.18, with labels added. F I G U R E 9 . 5 See figure 3.20, with labels added.

F I G U R E 9 . 8 See figure 4.16, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 0 . 7 See figure 3.29, with labels added.

made under the direction of Commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 5, 1835 (Boston: Moore’s Lith, 1837), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

F I G U R E 1 0 . 8 From E. S. Chesbrough, Map of Boston Harbor Showing Commissioners Lines, Wharves, &c. Prepared by order of the Harbor Committee of the City Council of 1852 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1852), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 9 . 1 0 See figure 3.26, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 0 . 9 See figure 3.30, with labels added.

F I G U R E 9 . 1 1 See figure 5.8, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 0 From N. Henry Crafts, Plan of Boston Corrected under the direction of . . . Committee on Printing . . . 1866 (Boston: A Meisel, 1866), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 9 . 9 From B. F. Perham, Plan of the Harbor of Boston. From surveys

F I G U R E 9 . 1 2 See figure 3.29, with labels added. F I G U R E 9 . 1 3 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor,

Massachusetts, Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1896), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 9 . 1 4 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor,

Massachusetts, Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1901), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 2001 street map of South Bay with 1630 shoreline (©

MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Mapworks)

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F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 1 See figure 3.31. F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 2 From N. Henry Crafts, Plan of Boston, with Additions and

Corrections made by N. Henry Crafts, City Engineer. 1868 (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1868), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 3 See figure 3.36. F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 4 See figure 9.13, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 5 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor,

Massachusetts, Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1911), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 6 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor,

Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1921), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 7 July 10, 1934, aerial photograph of South Bay by Fairchild

Aerial Surveys, Inc., negative #4691, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 8 1950s photograph of Roxbury Canal, negative #6246, The

Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 1 0 . 1 9 General Area Plan in Senate No. 498 (1959), Pl. 1. F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 2001 street plan of South Boston with 1630 shoreline (©

MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 From Osgood Carleton, A New Plan of Boston Drawn from the best Authorities with the latest Improvements, Additions & Corrections (Boston: William Norman, 1806), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 1 . 3 From G. P. Worcester, “Copy of a Plan of the Harbour of Boston from Surveys made under the direction of Commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 5, 1835, showing the additional wharves &c. since the year 1835, also Harbour line recommend by Commissioners in 1839,” with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 4 From Henry McIntyre, Map of the City of Boston and Immediate Neighborhood (Boston and Philadelphia: H. McIntyre, 1852), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 1 . 5 From George G. Smith, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1859), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 1 . 6 From U.S. Coast Survey, Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston, Executed by the U.S. Coast Survey for the Commissioners Appointed by a Resolve of

the Legislature passed April 16, 1846 (Boston: J. Bufford’s Lithography, 1847), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 1 . 7 [Fort Point Channel], [N.p., n.d.], with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 8 A First Approximation to a Line of Seawall on South Boston Flats by U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor, 1863 in Sixth Report of U.S. Commissioners, City Doc. No. 53 (1863), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library) 1 1 . 9 1858 photograph from State House. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 0 See figure 3.31. F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 1 “Excavations for the New Air Line Railroad,” Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion 8 (1855): 45. F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 2 Plan for the occupation of Flats Owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor. Approved and Adopted by the General Court, May 18th, 1866, with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 3 Plan for the occupation of Flats Owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor. Approved and Adopted by the General Court by Chap. 81 of the Resolves of 1866 and modified according to Chap. 354 of the Acts of 1867 and Chap. 326 of the Acts of 1868, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 4 See figure 3.34, with labels added. 1 1 . 1 5 Plan for the occupation of Flats Owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor. Approved and Adopted by the General Court by Chap. 81 of the Resolves of 1866 and modified according to Chap. 354 of Acts of 1867 and Chap. 326 of the Acts of 1868 with the Streets and Avenues Provided for in the Indenture of Four Parts, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) FIGURE

F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 6 From Plan of South Boston Flats Showing Location of Sea Walls and Area of Excavations and Filling. 1876, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 7 Section of Light Seawall on the easterly side of Fort Point

Channel, South Boston Flats, no. 2381, p. 11, v. 65, Third Series, Maps and Plans, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives)

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F I G U R E 1 1 . 1 8 From Dock on the Flats of the Commonwealth, no. 2800, p.

F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 9 See figure 9.13, with labels added.

18, v. 46, Third Series, Maps and Plans, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives)

F I G U R E 1 1 . 3 0 See figure 10.15, with labels added.

FIGURE

1 1 . 1 9 Section of Heavy Seawall inclosing South Boston Flats.

Alternative Plan, no. 2381, p. 4, v. 67, Third Series, Maps and Plans, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 0 From Boston Map Co., Plan Showing the principal portion

of Boston from the latest authorities (Boston: Boston Map Co., 1880), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 1 From H. H. Rowley & Co., View of Boston Massachusetts

1880 (Hartford, Conn.: H. H. Rowley & Co., 1880). (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 2 From Plan of Part of Boston Harbor Showing Improvements

Made In Its Channels by the United States and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To Accompany Report of Harbor & Land Commissioners for the Year 1883, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 3 Plan of South Boston Flats showing Present Condition and

Sketch of Proposed Docks to accompany annual report of Harbor and Land Commissioners, December 1894, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 4 Plan of South Boston Flats showing present condition and

sketch of Proposed Docks and Streets to accompany annual report of Harbor and Land Commissioners, December 1903, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 5 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor,

Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1916), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 6 See figure 10.16, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 7 July 10, 1934, aerial photograph of South Boston by

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., negative #4692, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 1 1 . 2 8 Frederick L. Olmsted, Preliminary Study of a Plan for a Pleasure Bay between Dorchester Point and Castle Island, December 1883. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, Mass.)

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F I G U R E 1 1 . 3 1 From Aerial Photographic Index, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, October 20, 1952, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Production and Marketing Administration, Records of the Stabilization and Conservation Service, RG 145, National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md. 1 1 . 3 2 1995 aerial photograph of South Boston, Mass GIS Orthophotos 241898, 241894, 237894, 237898, http://ortho.mit.edu. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information [MassGIS] and the MIT Digital Orthophoto Project)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 1 2 . 1 2001 street map of Dorchester with 1630 shoreline (© MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks) F I G U R E 1 2 . 2 From Elbridge Whiting, Map of Dorchester Mass. for S. Dwight Eaton (Old Colony Railroad Depot, Boston), 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1850), with labels added. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 2 . 3 See figure 11.20, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 2 . 4 See figure 9.13, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 2 . 5 From Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Board of Harbor

and Land Commissioners, Plan Accompanying Report for Year 1907 on U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1904), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 2 . 6 From Boston Harbor: Location of the Principal Improvements Completed and in Progress Made by the United States, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of Boston. Commission on Waterways and Public Lands of Massachusetts, 1917 on U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1915), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 2 . 7 From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart

no. 246 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1934), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 2 . 8 November 11, 1923, aerial photograph of the Calf Pasture and South Boston by Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, negative #6241, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 1 2 . 9 November 11, 1923, aerial photograph of the Calf Pasture by Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, negative #6040, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 1 3 . 5 Thomas W. Davis, Plan of East Boston, 1880 (Boston: 1880), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 1 2 . 1 0 April 20, 1951, aerial photograph of the Calf Pasture by

F I G U R E 1 3 . 6 O. H. Bailey, View of East Boston, Mass. 1879 (Boston: O.

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., Aerial Photographic Map of City of Boston, Mass., sheets 5 and 6, Aerial Survey Mapping Photographs, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives)

H. Bailey & Co., 1879), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

of Archives and Special Collections, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts at Boston)

F I G U R E 1 3 . 7 Frank L. Tibbetts, Plan showing Location of the Property of the East Boston Company in East Boston and Vicinity, 1911 (Boston: East Boston Company, 1911), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

F I G U R E 1 2 . 1 2 1977 aerial photograph of Columbia Point (Courtesy of

F I G U R E 1 3 . 8 See figure 12.6, with labels added.

F I G U R E 1 2 . 1 1 ca. 1968 aerial photograph of Columbia Point. (Courtesy

Archives and Special Collections, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts at Boston) 1 2 . 1 3 1995 aerial photograph of Dorchester, MassGIS Orthophotos 241894, 241890, 237890, 237894, http://ortho.mit.edu. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information [MassGIS] and the MIT Digital Orthophoto Project)

FIGURE

F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 2001 street map of East Boston with 1630 shoreline (© MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks) F I G U R E 1 3 . 2 From J. F. W. Des Barres, Boston Harbor in Charts of the

Coast and Harbours of New England, from the surveys taken by Samuel Holland Esq.r Surv.r Gen.l of Lands for the Northern District of North America and Geo.e Sproule, Cha.s Blascowitz, Jam.s Grant and Tho.s Wheeler his Assistants, pursuant to orders from the Right Hon.ble the Lords Commds.rs for Trade & Plantations together with severall usefull additional Surveys, Soundings, Views &c taken by various Officers on the Spot, composed and published by Command of the Government for the use of the Royal Navy of Great Britain by J. F. W. Des Barres Esq.r, Surveyor of the Coasts and Harbours of North America (1781), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 3 . 3 From R. H. Eddy, Plan of East Boston showing the land and

water lots sold and unsold; also all Buildings and other Improvements, 1837 (Boston: T. Moore’s Lithography, 1837), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 3 . 4 From R. H. Eddy, Plan of East Boston showing the land and water lots sold and unsold,; also all Buildings and other Improvements, May 1st, 1851 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

F I G U R E 1 3 . 9 November 11, 1923, aerial photograph of airport by Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, negative #6242, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 0 1925 aerial photograph of Wood Island Park by Fairchild Aerial Survey, Inc., negative #06812, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 1 See figure 9.13, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 2 ca. 1930 aerial photograph of area between Breed’s and

Noddle’s Islands by Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., negative #93652, Print Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 3 See figure 10.16, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 4 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Directors of the Port of

Boston, Study for Development of Boston Harbor, 1915 in Supplementary Report of the Directors of the Port of Boston to the General Court, March 31, 1915 (Boston: State Printers, 1915). F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 5 Commonwealth Development, East Boston: Areas of Lands

Occupied and Unoccupied in Vicinity of Aircraft Landing Field in House No. 183 (1928). F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 6 From A. Casagrande, “Soil Mechanics in the Design and Construction of the Logan Airport,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 36, no. 2 (1949): Fig. 1A. (Reproduced by permission from the Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. © 1949 by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers)

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F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 7 From A. Casagrande, “Soil Mechanics in the Design and Construction of the Logan Airport,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 36, no. 2 (1949): Fig. 1B. (Reproduced by permission from the Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. © 1949 by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers) F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 8 See figure 11.31

Monument, engraved by James Smillie (Boston: Redding and Co., 1848). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Department) F I G U R E 1 4 . 7 See figure 11.4, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 4 . 8 City of Charlestown, 1868 (Boston: Sampson, Davenport &

F I G U R E 1 3 . 1 9 1969 aerial photograph of airport, negative #23071, Print

Department, Boston Public Library. (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department) FIGURE

F I G U R E 1 4 . 6 From R. P. Mallory, A Panoramic View from Bunker Hill

1 3 . 2 0 1995 aerial photograph of East Boston, MassGIS

Orthophotos 241902, 241898, 245898, 245902, http://ortho.mit.edu. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information [MassGIS] and the MIT Digital Orthophoto Project) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 2001 street map of Charlestown with 1630 shoreline (©

MapWorks 2002), and labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and MapWorks) F I G U R E 1 4 . 2 Lieut. Page and Capt. Montresor, A Plan of the Action at

Bunkers Hill on the 17th of June 1775. Between His Majesty’s Troops under the Command of Major General Howe and the Rebel Forces. By Lieut. Page of the Engineers, who acted as Aide de Camp to General Howe in that Action. N.B. The Ground Plan is From an Actual Survey by Capt. Montresor in Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849), betw. 132–133, with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 4 . 3 Peter Tufts, Jr., Plan of Charlestown Peninsula in the State of

Co., 1868), no. 2819, p. 12, v. 47, Third Series, Maps and Plans, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy Massachusetts Archives) F I G U R E 1 4 . 9 Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Charlestown compiled under the direction of Thomas W. Davis, City Surveyor (Boston: Bufford’s, 1879), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 0 From George W. Bromley, Map of the City of Boston and

Vicinity (Boston, 1886), with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 1 See figure 9.13, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 2 See figure 12.5, with labels added. F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 3 “1812” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 4 U.S. Navy Yard Boston. 1823 in George Henry Preble,

“History of the Boston Navy Yard, 1797–1874,” (National Archives Microcopy No. 118), Pl. III; Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library, RG 45; Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston)

Massachusetts, From Actual Survey, 1818 (Boston: Annin & Smith, 1818), negative #1559, The Bostonian Society, Boston, with labels added. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House)

F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 5 “1834” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

F I G U R E 1 4 . 4 Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, Carte de la Ville, Baye, et Environs de Baston, 1693, with labels added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 6 Zachery Green, “Plan Elevation and Section of Quay

F I G U R E 1 4 . 5 From Felton & Parker and Ebenezer Barker, Plan of the City of Charlestown made by order of the City Council from actual survey, 1848 (Boston: J.H. Bufford’s Lith., 1848), with labels added. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library)

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(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) Wall,” Item 449-2, catalog no. BOSTS 13466, Architectural Drawing Collection, Boston National Historical Park. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 7 1874 or 1875 photographs of Boston Navy Yard, catalog no. BOSTS 8639, Boston Naval Shipyard Collection, Boston National Historical Park. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston)

F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 8 “1860” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 1 9 “Plan of the U.S. Navy Yard, Boston, Mass., Bureau of

Yards and Docks, U.S. Navy Dept., Washington, D.C., July 16, 1898,” Item 130-3-3; Records of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, RG 71; National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md., with labels added. F I G U R E 1 4 . 2 0 “1901” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 2 1 “1919” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 2 2 “1950” reconstructed plan of Charlestown Navy Yard

(blackline copy), with labels added. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, Boston) F I G U R E 1 4 . 2 3 2001 plan of Charlestown Navy Yard, with labels added. (Courtesy of the Boston Redevelopment Authority) F I G U R E A P P E N D I X 2 . 1 Abel Bowen, Map of Boston in 1824 in Caleb Snow, History of Boston, the Metropolis of Massachusetts, from Its Origins to the Present Period; with Some Account of the Environs (Boston: Abel Bowen, 1825), opp. 56. F I G U R E A P P E N D I X 2 . 2 Boston with Its Environs in 1775 & 1776 in Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849), 91. (With permission of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library) F I G U R E A P P E N D I X 2 . 3 Lieut. Page, A Plan of the Town of Boston with the Intrenchments &c. of His Majesty’s Forces in 1775 from the Observation of Lieut. Page of His Majesty’s Corps of Engineers and from the Plans of other Gentlemen in Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849), frontispiece, negative #1638, The Bostonian Society, Boston. (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society/Old State House) A P P E N D I X 2 . 4 George R. Baldwin, “Plan of Part of the City and Harbor of Boston showing lines of high and low water, determined from recent soundings, abstracts of deeds, plans, and other sources. Done under an order of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. February 1846,” with label added. (Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts)

FIGURE

FIGURE

APPENDIX

2 . 5 See figure 9.2, with 1630 shoreline enhanced. F

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INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. abutment. See bulkheads, construction of Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 231 Adams, John (President), 406 Adams, John Quincy II, 231 Addison Street, filling north of, 5, 356, 363, 368, 369, 371, 372 Agassiz Bridge. See Back Bay Fens project, bridges Agassiz Road. See Back Bay Fens project, roads Agents for the Commonwealth Flats, 309 airport (Logan), 375–382 filled, 5, 11, 380n. 84 Bird Island Flats, 16, 19, 380, 380nn. 91, 92; 381, 382, 383 1915–1923, 375, 376 (see also East Boston Flats project) 1930–1931, 376, 378 1943–1946, 19, 377, 378, 379 over Wood Island Park, 380, 380n. 89, 381 L-shaped configuration, 323, 370, 372, 374, 376, 378 made land, acreage of, 355, 355n. 1, 377n. 77, 382, 423 name, 377 and port project, 375, 376, 377 roads, entrance and exit, 360, 377, 379 runways, 365, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383 site selection, 375 Winthrop section, 354 acreage of, 355n. 1, 382n. 95, 423 mentioned, 356

Albany Street extension of, 4–5, 252, 269, 274–275, 276, 277 Evans, William, and, 273, 274–275 seawall and filling, 275 in South Cove, 249 wharves (see South Bay, wharves in) Alford Street Bridge. See Malden Bridge Alger, Cyrus and commissioners’ lines, 299 filling west of Foundry Street, 4, 247, 248, 248, 289, 289, 290, 291, 291 wrought iron works, 275, 278 almshouse (Boston), 109, 110, 113 moved to South Boston, 113, 114, 291, 292 almshouse (Charlestown), 388, 391, 399, 402, 404, 405–406 almshouse project (Boston), 4, 109, 110, 111 seawall and filling, 109 Almshouse Wharf, 18, 81, 88, 111, 112, 392 filled, 111, 111n. 8 Alster Basin (Hamburg, Germany), 126, 187 Amerena Playground, 380 American Radiator Company, 344, 347, 349 American Sugar Refinery Company, 405 Analex building, 73, 104, 104 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 26, 28 Apple Island, 355, 371, 377, 378 Appleton Street, 190, 200 aquarium at Marine Park, 326

New England, 49, 70 aqueduct, Jamaica Pond, 157, 219 archaeological investigations. See under specific locations archaeology, historical, and environmental review, ix Arlington Street, 178, 181, 185, 185 Arlington Street Church, 194, 195 Association for Town Improvements, 155 Athanas, Anthony, 312 Atkinson’s Dock, 24, 32 Atkinson Street (South Bay), 280 Atlantic Avenue, 28, 70 elevated railway, 70, 252 and South Station project, 253, 254 Atlantic Avenue project, 5, 18, 49, 62–68, 64, 65, 66, 70 origin of, 7, 8, 62–63 seawall and filling, 66, 66n. 201, 66, 67–68 Audubon Circle area filled, 230 Austin, Benjamin, 157–158 Bache, Prof. A. D., 299, 299n. 31 Back Bay, full basin (western), 213 acreage of, 153n. 1, 160, 160n. 32, 211, 211n. 1, 423 pollution of, 8, 215, 217 railroad across, 166, 213, 214 1630 shoreline of, 210 Back Bay, original, xii, 1, 153 acreage, 153, 153n. 1, 287, 423 South Bay, comparison with, 257, 285 Back Bay, receiving basin (eastern), 163, 165, 213 acreage of 1855, 172, 423

original, 153, 153n. 1, 160, 160n. 32, 172, 423 dust, blowing, 158 mills in, 159, 170, 171, 181 pollution of, 7, 8, 172, 282, 284 railroads across, 165, 166, 167–169 1630 shoreline of, 152, 164, 171, 227 water level in, 170, 200 Back Bay Fens changes to, 222, 223, 224 problems in, 220, 222 Back Bay Fens project, 5, 9, 215–220, 221 and Boston park system, first park of, 9, 215 bridges, 217, 220 Boylston Street Bridge, 217, 219 conduits, 217 Muddy River, 219, 229 Stony Brook, 217, 220 configuration of, 215, 216 dredges, 12, 19, 196, 217, 220 entrances, 207, 215, 216 filling of, 215, 215n. 7, 217, 217n. 12, 220 fill, 215n. 7, 217, 217n. 12, 219, 220, 221 loaming, 219, 220 name, 220 plans for, 215, 216, 217, 221 Olmsted’s, 215, 217, 218, 219, 223, 224 purpose, 8, 215, 217, 222 railroad, to haul fill, 18, 217, 217n. 12, 219, 220 roads, 215, 216 filling of, 215, 217, 217n. 12, 219, 220

waterway, dredging of, 217, 220, 220, 221 Back Bay (Martin), 185 Back Bay Park. See Back Bay Fens project Back Bay project, 4–5, 172–198 city, agreements with, 177–178, 185–186 1856 tripartite, x, 178, 178n. 117 1864 tripartite, 187 commissions, preliminary, 173 dredge, use of, 18, 196 and dust, blowing, 186, 186n. 165 1854 indentures, x with B&RMC, 173–174, 191 with BWP, 174–175 fill, grade (elevation) of, 178, 179, 187, 190, 197 fill, type of, 16, 17, 18, 173, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, 185, 190, 191, 192, 196, 198 filling by B&RMC, 191–192, 193, 196 by BWP, 175, 177, 179, 185, 186, 188, 190–191, 196–198 by city, 185 progress of, 181, 188, 189, 191, 194, 196, 197, 199, 225 rate of, 184, 186, 190, 191, 198 by state, 179–180, 186, 191, 196 institutions, cultural, 187–188 lake, proposals for, 173, 187 objectives of, 6, 7–8, 172–173, 178, 179, 196 railroad, to haul fill, 18, 179, 180–184, 182, 183, 184, 198 rates, contractors, 180nn. 128, 135; 186, 190, 191, 192n. 191, 196 restrictions, building and use, 196 sales, land BWP, 175–176, 186, 190, 191, 193 state, 180, 180n. 134, 186, 192–193, 196 seawall (B&RMC), 17, 18, 127, 191, 192, 192nn. 188, 191; 193, 202, 204, 206

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steam shovels, use of, 18, 68, 180–183, 182, 183, 270 streets, 175, 175n. 100, 176, 177, 178–179, 187, 196 territory BWP, x, 174–175, 175n. 97, 176, 179, 423 city, 173, 177, 178 state, 175, 175n. 99, 176, 177, 196, 423 Back Bay Station, 254 Back Street, 126, 127, 191, 192, 204, 205, 231, 232 Baldwin, Loammi II and dry dock 1 (Charlestown), 158, 407 and Mill Dam, 158 Baldwin’s Mill, 162, 163, 213, 213, 226 ballast (of walls) explained, 14, 42, 48, 54, 86, 90, 158, 160n. 36, 160, 264, 266, 307, 308 mentioned, 123n. 38, 192, 192n. 188, 242, 306n. 53, 214n. 74 Ballentine, John, 32 Ballou’s Pictorial Companion, 180, 182, 185, 295 Barque Warwick Cove, 337, 343 Barricado, 27, 30, 31, 48, 53, 387 constructed, 4, 28 disrepair, 28–29, 31, 34, 36, 37 Basin (East Boston) and airport, 377 filling, 5, 362, 364, 365, 367 seawall, 4, 359, 360, 365 Batavia Street. See Symphony Road batter (of walls), defined, 14, 36, 38, 84, 160, 160n. 36, 160, 192, 254n. 73, 264, 306n. 53, 307, 308, 318n. 102, 411, 411 mentioned, 42, 123n. 38, 266 battery, shoreline Charlestown, 4, 387, 389 North Battery, 26

South Battery, 4, 26, 28 (see also South Battery) Batterymarch (Battery March), 44, 46 Baxter, Daniel, 244 Baxter, William, 41, 42, 43 Baxter’s Wharf, 244, 245 Bayside Exposition Center, 349 Bayside Mall, 349 Bay State Gas Company filling, 5, 339, 339, 340, 345, 346 bulkhead, 339 Bay State Road, 207, 231, 232 residents’ complaints (1930s), 206, 233 Bay State Road area filled, 5 between cross dam and Deerfield Street (B&RMC), 230–231 dredges, 19, 68, 230, 231 fill, grade (elevation) of, 230, 231 rates, contractor’s, 230 seawall, 230–231 between Deerfield Street and University Road (RIC), 231–232 seawall and filling, 231–232, 232 dredges, 232n. 75, 314 restrictions, deed, 232 Bayswater section (East Boston) filled, 367, 369 Bay Village. See Church Street District Beacon Hill, 59, 79, 82, 83 fill for Mill Pond, 82–84, 84, 85, 85, 88, 91–92 Beacon Hill Flat seawall and filling (1850s and 1860s), 4–5, 8, 142–143, 142, 143, 144, 145 stones reused at Charlesbank, 132, 150–151 1630 shoreline of, 134 wharves (1840s), 142, 174 Beacon Hill monument, 82, 83, 83, 84, 84 Beacon Hill reservoir, 217, 338 Beacon Street, 160, 174, 199. See also Mill Dam, roadway on; Western Avenue

residents’ protests, 126, 148, 206 Beacon Street Land Association, 224 Bell, Shubael, 49, 88, 89 Belle Isle Inlet filled, 5, 368, 379 Belle Isle Marsh Reservation, 368 Belvidere Street, 200 Bendall, Edward, 22 Bendall’s Dock (Cove). See Town Dock (Boston) Bentley, Rev. William on Broad/India Streets project, 45 on India Wharf project, 43 on Mill Pond project, 82, 85, 86, 88 on Mount Vernon project, 138 on Prison Point Bridge, 393 on South Boston Bridge, 243 Berklee College of Music, 226 “Big Dig,” 71, 76, 86, 104, 295, 332, 401 Bills, Shubael, 262, 264, 266 binder (stone), 15, 85n. 67, 264 Bird Island, 355, 371 Blackstone Block, filling near North Street, 26 Blackstone Street, 55 Blake and Dix, 44n. 101 Blake House, 336 Blaney, William, 48, 49 blizzard of 1978, 418 Blossom Street, 113, 114 Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners (Massachusetts), 126, 196, 231, 280, 339, 403, 405 and East Boston Flats project, 371, 373 and South Boston Flats project, 309, 312, 314, 316, 318, 319, 332 terminated, 322, 374 Board of Harbor Commissioners (Massachusetts), 66, 278, 279, 300, 302, 304, 306, 309, 322 Board of Land Commissioners (Massachusetts), 196, 309, 322 Board of Public Land Commissioners (Boston), 268, 273

board on docks and terminal facilities (1897), 314, 371 Bonner, Capt. John, 31, 32, 33, 34–35, 36, 440 Bonner, Dennis, 70 Bonner and Sutherland, 68, 70 Borden, C. A., & Sons boatyard, 344, 345 Boston, acreage of made land, 2, 2n. 3, 423 of mainland city, 2, 423 of Shawmut Peninsula, 2, 2n. 4, 423 Boston, geology, 2 Boston, government, structure of city, 50 town, 24, 50 Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad. See also New York & New England Railroad route in South Boston, 291, 295, 298 South Bay, bridge and fill, 6, 277, 278, 295, 298 South Boston Flats, bridge over, 6, 295, 296, 297 and South Boston Flats project, 302, 304 Boston, history of city government adopted, 50 founded 1630, ix, 1, 2, 3, 21, 387 economic decline, eighteenth-century, 35, 38 growth early-nineteenth-century, 2–3, 49, 76, 161, 240, 287 mid-nineteenth century, 178, 249, 262, 274 immigration (see immigrants) residential policy, mid-nineteenthcentury, 6, 178, 261–262, 274 trade China, 3, 38, 41 early-eighteenth-century, 32 effect of Embargo of 1807 and War of 1812, 46 1830s, 56

loss of, nineteenth-century, 6, 7, 9, 62–63, 295, 314, 371 port facilities, late-nineteenth-century, 9, 314, 316, 371 resumed 1815, 46 seventeenth-century, 3, 22 Boston, population, 3, 35, 38, 49 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad, 360–361, 360, 361, 365, 367 Boston, topographical histories of, x, 39, 41, 430–431 Boston & Albany Railroad, 215. See also Boston & Worcester Railroad in East Boston, 302, 360, 361, 362 hauled fill for Audubon Circle area, 230 Back Bay Fens project, 217, 217n. 12, 219, 220 Back Bay project, 198 Fenway area, 224, 226, 228 Riverway, 229 and South Boston Flats project, 302, 304, 305, 306, 309 and South Station project, 253, 254 Boston & Lowell Railroad Boston & Maine acquired, 252 bridges across Charles River, 97, 100, 101 and Charlestown Branch Railroad, 394 chartered, 93, 167 filling north of Causeway Street, 4, 6, 18, 92, 93–96, 94, 97, 99, 114, 115 and Mystic Wharf, 401 route same as Middlesex Canal, 397 Boston & Maine Railroad bridges across Charles River, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103 Charlestown freight yard, 397, 402 consolidation of railroads, 252, 397 depots in Haymarket Square, 96, 97, 101 North Station, 99, 104 Union Station, 99, 102, 252

filling in Charlestown, 6, 99, 394, 395, 396 of Middlesex Canal, 96, 97 Mystic Wharf, and seawall, 401 north of Causeway Street, 5, 10, 19, 99, 104 Neptune Road, hauled fill for, 366 across Prison Point Bay, 395, 398 property (1907), 404 Boston & Providence Railroad across Back Bay, 4, 165, 166, 167, 167, 181 chartered, 93, 167 depot in Back Bay, 168, 254 filling for, 6, 164, 169, 171, 176 New York, New Haven & Hartford acquired, 252, 254 and South Bay Lands project, 264, 266 Boston & Roxbury Mill Corporation (B&RMC) and Back Bay project (see Back Bay project) incorporated, 156 and Mill Dam project, 156–160 and mills, 170, 226 seawall and filling, cross dam to Deerfield Street (see Bay State Road area) seawall and filling north of Mill Dam 1840s, 171, 173–174, 174 1859–1872 (see Back Bay project, seawall) Boston & Worcester Railroad across Back Bay, 4, 165, 166, 167, 167, 181, 213, 214 chartered, 93, 167 filled BWP flats, 170 and South Cove project, 6, 168, 169, 246, 248 Boston: A Topographical History (Whitehill), ix, x Boston Basin, 2 Boston Blue Clay, 2, 144, 254, 346, 377

Boston Board of Health, 397 Boston Board of (Park) Commissioners mentioned, 9, 122, 123, 129, 215, 217, 222, 324, 326, 327, 330, 341, 403, 405 Boston Chamber of Commerce, 375 Boston City Hospital, 10, 284 Boston City Planning Board, 322, 375 Boston College High School, 5, 346, 347, 348, 349 Boston Common Parking Garage, 155 Boston Consolidated Gas Company, 339, 339, 340, 349 Boston convention center, 332 Boston Design Center building, 10, 322, 323, 381 Boston Electric Light Company, 323, 324, 324n. 126 Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy) Charlestown, filling at, 406 South Boston, filling at, 320, 321, 323, 324 Boston Embankment filled, 129 behind Back Bay, 5, 10, 19, 147, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207 seawall and fill, 15, 202, 204 behind Beacon Hill Flat, 5, 10, 19, 128, 146–147, 147, 207 seawall and fill, 15, 146, 146n. 65 at Charlesgate, 222, 233 Fens gatehouse (see Fens gatehouse) seawall and fill, 15, 233 Boston Fish Market Corporation, 318 Boston Free Bridge Corporation, 244 Boston Gas Light Company, 336, 338, 339 Boston Gazette, 78 Boston Globe, 200, 229, 252 Boston Groundwater Trust, 146 Boston Harbor mid-nineteenth-century concern about, 6, 295, 299, 401 Boston Harbor Hotel, 71 Boston Herald building, 237, 252

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519

Bostonian Hotel Site. See Scottow’s Dock, archaeological investigation Boston Improved Sewerage. See Main Drainage sewerage works Boston Land Company, 367, 368 Boston Marginal Conduit, 127, 129, 146, 150, 204, 222, 222n. 32, 233 Boston Mill Corporation (BMC), 6, 78, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86, 89 Boston Molasses Company, 316 Boston Naval Shipyard. See Charlestown Navy Yard Boston Navy Yard. See Charlestown Navy Yard Boston Neck. See Neck, Boston Boston park commission. See Boston Board of (Park) Commissioners Boston park department, 19, 122, 215, 217, 220, 326, 327, 341, 362, 366, 368, 405 Boston park system. See also specific parks origin, 8–9, 324, 341, 403 original parks, 9, 122, 215, 324, 362 playgrounds, 9, 341 Boston parkways. See also specific parkways origin, 9, 326 Boston Port Development Company, 377 Boston Proper, defined, ix Boston Public Works Department, 280, 327, 375 Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), 416 Boston Sand and Gravel, 397 Boston Society of Architects, 148, 318 Boston Society of Natural History, 187 Boston Surveying Department, 371 Boston Terminal Company, 254 Boston University, 232 Boston University (B.U.) Bridge, as limit of study, xi, xii, 2 Boston Water and Sewer Commission, 202

520

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Boston Water Board, 219, 229 Boston Water Power Company (BWP) and Back Bay Fens project, 220 filling, Back Bay full basin, 215, 224, 226 receiving basin (1846–1851), 4, 164, 170–172, 171, 176 receiving basin (1855–1880s) (see Back Bay project, filling) financial problems (1870s), 197–198 incorporated, 168 mills, 170 (see also Back Bay, receiving basin, mills in) suit against railroads, 168 Boston Wharf Company incorporated, 292 real estate business, 318, 332 seawall on Fort Point Channel, 295, 302 and South Boston Flats project, 302, 303, 304, 305, 309, 311 wharf, 4–5, 70, 290, 292, 293, 295, 296, 297, 299, 300 mentioned, 401 boundary Boston-Roxbury on Boston Neck, 2n. 4, 256, 257, 258, 259 in receiving basin, 171, 186 city-BWP/B&RMC, 152, 162, 165, 167, 169, 201, 201n. 232 Bowditch, Nathaniel I., 138 Bowdoin Square, 111 Bowker Overpass, 223, 224 “boxing” (waterproofing), 56 Boylston Street Bridge. See Back Bay Fens project, bridges Boylston Street extended, 228 Boylston Street Fishweir, 187, 188 Boylston Street Lands, 197 Boynton, Jesse, 117n. 27 Boynton Brothers, 192, 192n. 191, 231 Braintree, Massachusetts, 22, 74 Braman, Jarvis, 142 Braman’s Baths, 142, 142, 144

Breed’s Hill, 386, 387, 390 Breed’s Island acreage of, 367, 367n. 33, 423 Noddles Island, joined to (see Noddles Island) topography of, 367 Bridge (North Anderson) Street, 111, 112, 113–114, 113 bridges. See specific bridges; drawbridges; swing bridges Brighton Street. See also Copper Street filling west of, 4, 114, 115 Brimmer Street, west side of, 145 Broad, Lewis, 192 Broad/India Streets project, 6, 42, 43, 44–46, 45, 47 filling, 17, 45 mentioned, 53 Broad Street, 43, 45, 46, 47 Broad Street Association, 45, 46, 48 Broadway Bridge, 282 Brookline Avenue, 156, 157, 159, 166, 213 Brookline Branch Railroad, 184, 228 Brooks Shipyard, 382 Brown, William, 156 Bryant, Gridley J. Fox, 59, 117 Building 5 (Navy Yard), 413, 414 Bulfinch, Charles and almshouse, 111 and Association for Town Improvements, 154–155 and Beacon Hill monument, 83 and Charles Street, 141 and Faneuil Hall addition, 35, 39 and India Wharf buildings, 42, 44, 45 and MGH (“Bulfinch Pavilion”), 114 and Mill Pond street plan (“Bulfinch Triangle”), 80, 81 and Mount Vernon Proprietors project, 136, 137 and Neck Lands street plan, 258 as a selectman, 42, 45, 80, 81, 258 and state prison, Charlestown, 392 Bulfinch Pavilion, 114, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121

Bulfinch Triangle, 92, 102, 103 defined, 73, 81 origin of, 80, 81 bulkheads (abutments), construction of late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century, 14, 86, 88, 138, 138n. 23 late-nineteenth-century, 15, 312, 312n. 66, 314n. 76, 316n. 89, 373n. 56 locations of (see under specific projects) Bunker Hill, 386, 387, 403 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 386, 390 Bunker Hill Community College, 385, 397 Bunker Hill Monument, 385, 409 Burgis, William, 35 Calf Pasture, 282, 323, 336. See also specific projects dumps at, 5, 17, 346, 347, 348, 348, 349 Calf Pasture Pumping Station. See Main Drainage sewerage works, pumping station Cambridge (Longfellow) Bridge, 128, 129, 131, 203, 207 Camden/Gainsborough Streets, 162, 213 Camp Hill, 355, 358 Camp McKay, 349 canal, 226 on Camden/Gainsborough Streets, 213 on Gravelly Point, 213, 226 Middlesex (see Middlesex Canal) through Mill Pond (see Mill Pond project) on Parker Street, 226 Canal Bridge. See Craigie’s Bridge Canal Bridge Corporation, 393 Canal Street (Charlestown) filled, 391, 392, 397, 399 Cape Ann, Massachusetts, 419 caps, timber, of seawalls, 14, 54, 84n. 64, 85, 85n. 73, 86, 98, 312n. 66 Carson Beach. See Columbus Park

Carter, Jimmy, 351 Castle Island connected to mainland, 322, 323, 326 fort on, 26, 326 and Marine Park, 324, 326 World War II filling, 330, 331 Castle Square. See Suffolk Street District causeway, across Mill Pond. See Mill Pond, causeway Causeway Street, 80, 85, 90, 92 depots on, 92, 99 Union Station on, 252 wharfing out, north of, xi, 92, 96 Center Haven. See North Mills Central Artery, construction of, 49, 59, 70, 71, 92, 252, 348, 414 Central Wharf, 52, 60, 66, 68, 70 adjoining docks filled, 55, 56, 59, 59, 68 archaeological investigation, 49 Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation, 48 Central Wharf buildings, 44, 49 Central Wharf project, 4, 14, 16, 28, 46, 48–49 seawall foundation and filling, 48 Chadwick, Edwin, 8 Chadwick Report, 172 Chapman, Oliver, 180 Chapter 91 (of Massachusetts statutes), 7, 300, 351, 421 Charlesbank park, 122–125, 125, 128, 131 Boston Marginal Conduit through, 129, 132 constructed, 5, 9 seawall and filling, 15, 122–123, 122, 123n. 38, 123, 124, 124n. 40 Olmsted plan for, 124, 124, 129 recreational facilities, 124, 129, 131, 132, 148 widened in 1930s, 5, 129, 129n. 64, 148, 149, 208

widened in 1950s, 5, 132, 151, 209 stones from Beacon Hill Flat seawall, 132, 150–151 Charles River Basin created, 10, 126–129, 146, 418 island proposed, 148 problems of, 129, 148, 202, 233 proposals for filling, nineteenthcentury, 144 Charles River Basin Commission, 128, 129, 146 Charles River Bridge, 100, 101, 102, 103, 388, 395 first bridge across Charles, 111, 390 and Mill Pond, 78, 90 and subsequent bridges, 394, 394n. 41 Charles River Dam first (1905–1910), 5, 126–129, 128, 130, 131, 146, 202, 222, 233 construction and filling, 129, 129n. 59 Museum of Science on, 10, 129, 130 proposals and arguments (1891–1903), 126–129 on site of Craigie’s Bridge, 96, 103, 111, 128, 393, 418 new (1974–1978), 5, 146, 418 constructed, 418 on site of Warren Bridge, 96, 104 Charles River Embankment. See Charlesbank Charles River Park, 107 Charles Street. See also North Charles Street filled Beacon–Revere Streets, 4, 6, 136, 137–140, 139 next to Common, 4, 136, 139, 154–155 Revere–Cambridge Streets, 140, 141 across West End (see North Charles Street; MGH flats) widened 1930s, 129 1950s, 132

Charles Street, west of, trash fill, 16, 141, 142, 162 Charles Street Meetinghouse, 140, 142, 144, 145, 174 Charles Street (Suffolk County) Jail, 4, 114, 117, 118, 119, 123 seawall and filling, 117 Charleston, South Carolina, 420 Charlestown acreage made land 2, 2n. 5, 423 original, 2, 2n. 5, 423 city government adopted, 397, 405 history, early, 385, 387, 390 north side of Mystic, 391, 405 1630 shoreline, 384 topography of, 385 wharfing out, xi, 4–5, 386, 387, 388, 397 archaeological investigation, 387 Charlestown Branch Railroad, 6, 394 Charlestown Heights (Doherty Playground), 403. See also Dewey Beach renamed, 405 Charlestown Navy Yard, 4–5, 388, 406–417, 406n. 81, 407, 408, 409, 412, 413, 415, 416, 417 acreage of, 406, 414, 414n. 115 cardinal points, 407 closed, 330, 416, 418 dry docks 1 (1827–1833), 15, 48, 407, 409–410, 409n. 95, 410n. 99 2 (1899–1906), 15, 319, 414, 414n. 119, 415 5 (1942), 414 filling, other, 16, 90, 358, 407n. 89, 414, 416 Fitchburg Slip, 403, 414 quay walls, 391, 410, 410nn. 101, 102; 411 ropewalk, 410, 416, 416n. 126 shiphouses, 407, 407nn. 86, 90; 408, 410, 412, 414n. 121

South Boston Annex (see South Boston Annex) timber docks created, 14, 406, 407, 407n. 90, 407, 408, 410 filled, 407n. 90, 410nn. 106, 109; 410, 412, 413, 414, 414n. 119, 415, 416 Charlestown (Ryan) Playground filled, 5, 9, 17, 402, 403, 404, 405 renamed, 405 Charlestown Street. See North Washington Street Charlestown Wharf Company, 6, 394 seawall and filling, 394 Chatham Row, 28, 31 Chelsea Bridge (Charlestown), 388, 390 Chelsea Street (Charlestown), 388, 390, 391 Chelsea Street (East Boston) filled, 4, 358 Chesapeake affair, 79 Chesbrough, Ellis S., 1, 135, 337, 355, 434–437 Chicago, Illinois, 420 Chinatown (Boston), 252 China trade. See Boston, history of, trade cholera, 1849 epidemic in Boston, 17, 61, 173 Christian Science Mother Church, 200, 229 Christopher Columbus Park. See Waterfront Park Chronicle. See Independent Chronicle Church of the Covenant, 194, 195 Church Street District (Bay Village) filled (1820s–1830s), 4, 14, 17, 18, 162, 164, 165 grade (elevation) of, 200 filled (1868–1869), 18, 62, 200–201 grade (elevation) of, 201 circular line, 27, 28, 29, 31, 45 City Beautiful movement, 318, 342, 373 city institutions. See institutions, city

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City Point, 324 City Wharf, 51, 54, 59 City Wharf project seawall and filling, 54 Civil War, 190, 191, 273, 299, 336, 358, 414 Clam Point, 343 Clough, George Albert, 338 Clough, Samuel C., 22, 24, 26, 28, 33, 74, 437, 440 Cochituate, Lake, 358 cofferdams Dry Dock 1, 409 Dry Dock 3, 322, 322n. 121 first Charles River Dam, 129 South Station, 16, 254 Coleman Dump, 346, 349, 351 Colonial Ordinance. See law, riparian, Massachusetts. Columbia Point. See also Calf Pasture; specific projects filling 1951–1952, 331, 347 Columbia Point housing project, 5, 348–349, 348, 349 Columbia Road, 9, 327 filled, 327, 328, 329 Columbia Village, 347, 349 Columbus Avenue, 187, 195 filled, 197, 225 Columbus Park (South Boston), 5, 10, 321, 323, 327, 330, 344, 347, 375 bulkhead, dike, and filling, 16, 327, 330, 349 renamed, 330 Commercial/Fulton Streets project, 4, 52, 53–54, 54 seawall, 53 Commercial Point early-nineteenth-century development, 336, 337 gas company filling, 336, 338, 339, 339 gas tank, 336, 351 wharfing out, xi, 4–5

522

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mentioned, 338 Commercial Street, 51, 59 Commercial Wharf, 55, 60, 66 commissioners, South Bay. See South Bay commissioners Commissioners’ Channel, 220, 222 commissioners’ (harbor) lines lines A and B (South Boston), 294, 295, 302, 303, 304, 304, 305 origin and definition, 6, 142, 280, 295, 299, 373 mentioned, 262, 270, 282, 324, 403 Commissioners on Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, 173, 177 Commissioners on Public Lands (Massachusetts), 187, 196 Commissioners on the Back Bay, 178, 179, 180, 186, 187, 196 Commissioners on the Harbors and Flats, 300 Commission on Metropolitan Improvements, 318, 342, 373 Commission on Waterways and Public Lands (Massachusetts), 322, 374, 375 Committee on Public Lands (Boston), 261, 262, 264, 266, 268 Committee on South Bay Lands. See South Bay Lands, Committee on Commonwealth Avenue alignment changed, x, 215, 215n. 6 filled, 198 widened and filled (west of Kenmore), 231 width, original, 176, 177, 178–179, 196 Commonwealth Flats East Boston. See East Boston Flats South Boston. See South Boston Flats Commonwealth Pier, 317, 318, 381 constructed, 9, 316 seawall and filling, 316, 316n. 86 improvements, 319, 373 World Trade Center, 332 Commonwealth v. Alger, 299

compensation (for tide water displaced), 7, 300, 302 Conditions of Commercial Success (East Boston Company), 371 Congress Street, 318n. 96 Congress Street Bridge, 304, 309, 311, 318n. 96 Conley container terminal, 324, 326 Constitution Beach, 382, 386n. 36 filled, 5, 10, 379, 382 origin of project, 380, 382 Constitution (“Old Ironsides”), 385, 403, 406, 407n. 86, 409, 409n. 98, 414, 416 coping (of seawalls), 15, 123, 123n. 38, 146, 202, 192, 264n. 22 Copley, John Singleton, 136, 137, 240 Copper Street (Brighton Street) filling for, 110, 111 extended, 112 bulkhead and filling, 113 (see also North Allen Street, extension of ) copper works (West End), 109, 111 Copp’s Hill, 80, 82, 84 Corcoran and Lynch, 191, 192n. 191 corporate records. See sources Cottage Street Playground, 362, 363, 380 Cotting, Uriah, 84 and Broad/India Streets project, 44, 45 and Central Wharf project, 48 and India Wharf project, 41, 42, 44, 46 and Mill Dam project, 155, 156, 157, 158, 160, 170 and Wheeler’s Point (Sea Street) project, 155, 244 courthouses on Court Street, 117 Edward W. Brooke (Suffolk County), 73 John Joseph Moakley United States, 309, 332 on Leverett Street, 113,114

cove between Wood Island and Harborview, 365, 367, 370, 377 Craigie, Andrew, 111 Craigie’s Bridge, 100, 101, 102, 112, 116 and Charles River Bridge, 393 constructed, 111 and Prison Point Bridge, 392 site of first Charles River Dam, 96, 103, 393, 418 Creek Square, 26 cross dam, 159, 160, 181, 191, 196, 213, 214 intersection with mill dam, 152, 160, 210, 213, 213 Cross Street, 59 Cummings Street (South Bay), 280 Cummiskey, Hugh, 90, 358 Cummiskey, James, 90 Custom House, U.S. (Boston) 1810, 46, 56 1837–1847, 4, 55, 56, 57, 60, 66 seawall and filling, 56 1913–1915 tower, 56, 57 Daily, Patrick, 90 Daily Traveller (Boston), 180, 181, 184 Dalrymple and Lennon, 172, 175, 179, 185, 192 Daly, Richard, 85 Danforth’s store (on Mill Dam), 192 Davenport, Charles, 126 Davis, Comdr. Charles H., 299n. 31 Davis, Isaac P., 155, 156, 244 Day, Richard, 90 Day, William J., Boulevard. See Strandway Deerfield Street filled, 231 Deer Island, 291, 292, 339 Department of Environmental Protection, 351 Department of Parks (Boston). See Boston park department Department of Public Works (Massachusetts), 343, 375

Des Barres, J. F. W., 335, 440 Dewey Beach filled, 9, 404, 405 Directors of the Port of Boston, 9, 319, 322, 373, 374 disease, theories of, 16 filth, 8, 17, 336, 336n. 6 germ, 17 miasmatic, 7, 8, 16, 17, 77, 172 “Dizzy” Bridge, 213 docks on central waterfront, filled, 59, 67–68, 70 defined, xi, 22, 26 enclosed, Boston, 41 created, 22–26 filled completely, 4, 38–39 filled partially, 4, 32–35 at South Boston, filled, 16, 209, 291, 309n. 58, 312, 312n. 70, 330n. 155, 333 timber (see Charlestown Navy Yard) Dock Square, 24 Doherty, Ens. John J., Jr., 405 Doherty Playground. See Charlestown Heights Donnelly, Michael, 162 Dorchester early development, 335–336 made land, acreage of, 423 1630 shoreline, 334 Dorchester Associates, 335, 341 Dorchester Avenue, and South Station project, 253, 254 Dorchester Avenue Bridge, 244, 282, 333. See also Free Bridge Dorchester Brook, 257, 282 Dorchester Neck (South Boston), 238, 240, 241, 243, 287 Dorchester Turnpike (Dorchester Avenue), 244 Dorchesterway. See Columbia Road Dorchester Yacht Club, 341 Dover Street (South Boston) Bridge, 275, 282 Doyle, Martin, 44n. 101

drains. See sewers drawbridges across Charles River, 99, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103 (see also specific bridges) across Fort Point Channel, 282 (see also specific bridges) on Kilby Street, 24, 25, 31, 32, 33 on North (Ann) Street, 23,24, 24, 26, 32 across Savin Hill Bay, 343 Dreadnought, HMS, 319, 414 dredges. See fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing drumlin, 2, 59, 355, 356, 356, 367 dry docks, 414n. 124 Charlestown, seventeenth-century, 387, 389, 389 archaeological investigation of, 389 1 (see Charlestown Navy Yard) 2 (see Charlestown Navy Yard) 3 (see South Boston Annex) 4 (see South Boston Annex) 5 (see Charlestown Navy Yard) Duwamish River, 420 Dwight, Louis, 117 Eagle Hill, 356, 361 fill from, 366, 368 reservoir, 358, 359, 360, 366 earthquakes, 419–420 East Berkeley Street site of fortification and gate, 2n. 4, 238, 258 East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets South Bay, boundary of, 257, 258 South Boston Bridge on, 241, 242, 252 South Cove, boundary of, 237 East Boston. See also Breed’s Island, Noddles Island; specific areas acreage made land 2, 2n. 6, 287, 355, 355n. 1, 423 original, 2, 2n. 6, 423

population, 358, 362 1630 shoreline of, 354 wharfing out, xi, 4–5, 358, 359, 361 East Boston Company, 90, 356, 356n. 5, 358, 360, 362, 366, 368, 373 Conditions of Commercial Success, 371 East Boston ferry wharf seawall and filling, 357, 358, 360 East Boston Flats, 369, 371 East Boston Flats project, 5, 10, 11, 371–375, 376 bulkheads, 15, 364, 365, 370, 372, 373, 373n. 56, 374 filling of dumping ground, Governors Island Channel, 364, 372, 374 with hydraulic dredgings, 19, 373, 374 other, 374 Noddles Island Flats taken by state in 1898, 363, 371, 373 in 1913, 363, 373 plan, 374 East Boston Improvement Company, 360, 362 East Boston stadium, 360, 380 East Boston Terminal Company, 368 East Cove. See Town Cove Eastern Avenue (Congress Street), 300, 301, 304, 305, 306 Eastern Dredging Company, 314 Eastern Railroad Boston & Maine acquired, 252, 397 bridge across Charles River, 100, 101 depot on Causeway Street, 99 in East Boston, 357, 358, 394 across Prison Point Bay, 394, 397, 398, 399 Eastern Railroad wharf, 373, 373n. 54 elevation. See grade Eliot Street. See Kneeland Street Elliott Bay, 420 Ellis, Jubez, 244 Ellis’s Wharf, 244, 245 Elm Street (Charlestown), 397, 401

Emerald Necklace, 9, 230, 326 Endicott Street, 75. See also Pond Street English Civil War, 3 Erie Canal, 295 Esplanade. See also Boston Embankment acreage of, 423 landmaking projects on, xii 1930s project, 5, 10, 19, 129, 148–150, 149, 208 Back Bay section, 5, 148, 149, 202, 204, 205, 206, 208 Beacon Hill Flat section, 5, 148–150, 149, 150, 208 Charlesgate-B.U. Bridge section, 148, 149, 233 dredges, 204, 233 fill, 148n. 77, 202, 204, 233 1950s project, 5, 10, 19, 150–151, 151, 209 Back Bay section, 5, 151, 206, 209 Beacon Hill Flat section, 150–151, 151, 209 Charlesgate-B.U. Bridge section, 151, 233–234, 234, 235 dredges, 234, 235 fill, 206, 233–234 E Street Annex, 330, 331 Evans, William, 18, 172, 262, 264, 266, 268, 270–274, 275 Evans Way (Parker Hill entrance, Tremont entrance), 215 Faneuil, Peter, 34 Faneuil Hall, 33, 34, 34, 35, 39, 51, 51, 53, 53, 60, 66 archaeological investigation (see Town Dock) 1805 Bulfinch addition, 35, 39 market, 38, 39, 40, 47, 50 Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market project, 4, 7, 47, 50–53, 51, 52, 53, 55 seawall and filling, 50, 51 Fan Pier, 15, 283, 302, 303, 306, 309, 332, 381. See also South Boston Flats project, 25-acre lot

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Farran, B. N., 67, 68, 70 faults, geological, 419 Federal Street, 254 Fens Bridge. See Back Bay Fens project, bridges Fens gatehouse, 222, 222, 223, 233, 235 Fenway. See Back Bay Fens project, roads Fenway area, filling of, 5 Charlesgate, west of, 224 Charlesgate, east of, 224, 224n. 39 between Fens and Brookline Avenue, 228–229 fill, 224, 226, 228 Huntington Avenue extended, 226, 228 institutions, cultural, 229 in Longwood area, 228 Parker Street, west of, 226, 228, 228nn. 50, 51 railroad, to haul fill, 224, 226, 228 between Westland Avenue and Orange Line/Amtrak tracks, 226, 226nn. 44, 46 between Westland Avenue and turnpike, 224, 226, 226nn. 42, 43 fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing, 17–19 dredges clamshell, 18, 19, 306 horse-drawn, 19, 217 hydraulic, 19, 206, 233, 234, 235, 341 Schmidt, 19, 232n. 75 scoop, 18, 270 steam-powered, 12, 18–19, 68, 196, 203, 217, 220, 230, 231 twentieth century, 19, 234 hand equipment, 18, 84, 84, 85, 246 railroads, 18, 19, 69, 182, 183, 184 (see also specific projects) scows, 12, 19, 203 steam shovels, 18, 19, 69, 182, 183 (see also specific projects)

524

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steam-powered equipment, 18, 19 tip carts, horse-drawn, 18, 19, 69, 84, 85, 185 trucks, dump, 19 wagons, ox-drawn, 18, 95 fill, types of, 16–17. See also specific projects ashes, coal (household), 17, 117, 155 clay, 254 construction debris, 17, 104 dirt, 16 dirt, cellar, 17, 246 dredgings, 17, 18, 19 fire debris, 26, 31, 304 gravel, 16, 80 mud, salt, 16, 17, 18, 48, 173 sand, 160n. 36, 228 street sweepings, 16 trash eighteenth century, 16 nineteenth century, 16, 17 twentieth century, 17 filling, mid-nineteenth-century debate on (Boston). See landmaking fill-retaining structures, 13–16. See also bulkheads; seawalls dikes clay, 16, 327 dirt, 330n. 153 gravel, 380n. 89 mud, 14, 162, 169, 170, 266 riprapped, 16, 312n. 70, 351 rock, 16, 312n. 70, 332, 380, 380n. 92 sheet piling, steel, 16, 254, 330n. 153, 351, 414 timbers, crisscrossed, 14, 75 wharf construction techniques, 3, 14, 15, 75, 86 filth theory of disease. See disease, theories of fires, Boston 1679, 26 1711, 31 1872 (November 9), 9, 70, 304

First and Second Church, 194, 195 First Baptist Church (Back Bay), 199 Fish Pier, 9, 320, 381 seawall and filling, 318, 318n. 102 fishweirs, Back Bay. See Boylston Street Fishweir Fitchburg Railroad. See also Charlestown Branch Railroad; Charlestown Wharf Company Boston & Maine acquired, 252 bridge across Charles, 97, 100, 101, 102 depot on Causeway Street, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 394 filling in Charlestown, 6, 99, 391, 394, 395, 396 north of Causeway Street, 97, 99 and Fitchburg Slip (see Fitchburg Slip) and Hoosac Docks, 403 across Prison Point Bay, 395 Fitchburg Slip, 403, 404, 414 seawall, 15, 403, 403n. 65 Flanagan, John, 90 flats, tidal, defined, 2 footbridge, Oliver Street. See Oliver Street footbridge Fore Point Channel. See Fort Point Channel forestalling, 34, 50 Forsyth Way, 217n. 12, 222, 226 Fort Hill, 58 fort on, 26, 29, 38, 59, 246 nineteenth-century occupation, 59, 61 proposals to remove, 61 Fort Hill Corporation, 61 Fort Hill project, 18, 59, 61–62, 63, 67–70, 69, 397 dirt, use of, 67–68, 275 origin of, 61 railway on, 67, 68, 69 scandal, 68, 70, 304 steam shovel, use of, 68, 180, 270 fortifications, 41 eighteenth-century, 35–36

on Neck, 238, 241, 258 seventeenth-century, 26–29 Fort Point Channel, 31, 35, 246 defined by filling, 247, 248, 248, 291 fill, proposals to, 282 wharfing out, xi, 254 Fort Winthrop, 377 Four Point Channel. See Fort Point Channel Fox Hill, 153, 154, 155, 162 Francis, Ebenezer, 48, 228 Franklin, William, 24, 26 Free Bridge, 244, 247, 289, 393 filling east of, 291 Freeman, John R., 127 Front Street (Charlestown) filled, 394 Front Street Corporation, 6, 156, 241, 242, 243 Front Street (Harrison Avenue) extended (1830s), 4, 169, 258, 260, 261, 267 bulkhead and filling, 261 Front Street project (Boston), x, 4, 6, 18, 135n. 2, 238–243, 242n. 21, 242, 288, 288 acreage of, 243 proposals and arguments, 238, 240–241, 288 seawall and filling, 241, 242, 242n. 22, 243 full basin. See Back Bay, full basin Fuller and Whitney, 212, 214, 217, 219, 224 Fulton/Commercial Streets project. See Commercial/Fulton Streets project Fulton Street, 54 Gainsborough Street, 226. See also Camden/Gainsborough Streets Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 190, 229 Gardner, John L., 190 Gardner, Moses, 138 Gardner Museum, 215, 229 Gazette. See Boston Gazette

germ theory of disease. See disease, theories of Gilmore Bridge, 393 Goddard, William W., 179 “gore” filled, 4, 141–142, 141 seawall and filling, 141, 142 Goss, George, 180, 184, 185, 186 Governors Island, 355, 371, 377, 378 Governors Island Channel. See East Boston Flats project, dumping ground grade (elevation), 126, 145, 217. See also specific areas Grain Exchange building, 49, 70 Grand Junction Railroad seawall and filling, 4, 6, 358, 358n. 12, 359 Granite Railway, 92, 409 Gravelly Point, 200, 229 defined, xii, 1, 153, 211 mill raceways on, 225, 226 Gray, Horace, 169 Gray Street, 391, 392 Great Cove. See Town Cove Greene, Gardiner, 93, 137, 240, 242, 288 grillage. See foundations, seawall groundwater levels falling, 1, 144–146, 198, 200, 229, 252, 419 wells, observation, 146, 200, 229, 252, 419 Grundel, Hermann, 215 guzzle, 292, 293, 295, 295n. 22, 304, 305 Hale, James, 46 Hales, John G., 46, 48, 50, 111, 244, 441 Survey of Boston and Its Vicinity, 158 Half-Moon Place, 61 Hamburg-American Line, 319 Hancock, John, heirs, 83, 84, 92 Hannon, Timothy, 68 Hannon and Clear, 175, 179, 185

harbor and land commissioners. See Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners harbor commissioners. See Board of Harbor Commissioners harbor commissions, pre-1860, 246, 295, 299, 300 harbor lines. See commissioners’ lines Harbor Point, 349 Harbor Towers, 46, 70 Harborview, filling at, 382 Harrison Avenue. See also Front Street; Rainsford’s Lane named, 249 Harvard (Massachusetts Avenue) Bridge, 148, 198, 199, 204, 222 Harvard Medical School building, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121 Haul Road, 295, 298 Hayes, Martin, 68, 70 Haymarket Square, 89, 96, 97, 98 Hemenway Street (cross dam, Parker Street), 159, 160, 213, 214, 229 high tide, mean. See tidal fall, Boston Hill, Valentine, 22, 24 Hinckley, David, 48 Historic Monument Area (Navy Yard), 416, 417 Hog Island. See Breed’s Island Holyoke Street, 200 Homer, Winslow, 185 Hong Kong, 420 Hoosac Docks filled, 5, 400, 402 Hoosac Tunnel, 403 Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company, 399, 403 Hoppin, John, 92 Horticultural Hall, 229 House of Correction. See institutions, city House of Industry. See institutions, city House of Reformation. See institutions, city Hunt, Timothy, 138 Huntington Avenue, 187

filled, 197, 198, 225, 226 Huntington Avenue Lands, 197, 198

“Island Marsh,” 212, 213, 219 “island wharf,” 30, 34, 36, 37, 47, 48

immigrants, Boston Irish and Boston’s residential policy, 6, 178, 261–262 and East Boston shipbuilding, 358 and Fort Hill, 61 ship fever (1840s), 292 and South Cove filling, 246 Italian, in East Boston, 362 Jewish in East Boston, 362 in West End, 124 incinerator, South Bay. See South Bay incinerator Independent Chronicle, 46, 240, 241 India Street, 43, 45, 47 India Street project. See Broad/India Streets project India Wharf, 60, 66, 70 India Wharf, Proprietors of, 46 India Wharf buildings, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 67 India Wharf project, x, 4, 41–44, 43, 46, 47, 244 seawall and filling, 41–42, 44n. 101 Insane Hospital. See institutions, city Institute of Fine Arts, 187 institutions, city, at South Boston, 290, 291–292, 293 House of Correction, 290, 291, 292, 320 moved to Deer Island, 324 House of Industry, 290, 292 almshouse moved to, 114, 291 land sold, 324 moved to Deer Island, 292 House of Reformation, 290, 292, 293 moved to Deer Island, 292 Insane Hospital, 290, 292 seawall and filling, 4, 70, 290, 292 International Place, 29, 63, 70 Ipswich Street, 217, 219, 226

Jackson, Charles, 44 Jackson, Henry, 41, 42, 44, 93 Jackson, Patrick Tracy, 93, 95, 96 jails Charles Street (see Charles Street Jail) on Leverett Street, 93, 94, 113, 114, 292 Nashua Street (Suffolk County), 117 Jeffries Point, 355, 356, 361 John F. Kennedy Library, 5, 338, 348, 350–351, 350 John F. Kennedy Library Corporation, 350 Johnson, Edward, 22 Joint Board on Improvement of Charles River, 126 Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements, 148, 318, 319, 342, 373 joint special committee on South Bay. See South Bay Lands, Committee on Jordan Hall, 226 Joy, Benjamin, 137, 138 Joy’s buildings, 39 Kaye, Clifford, 155 Kennedy, John F., Library. See John F. Kennedy Library Kennedy, Lawrence W., x Kent, Corita, 336 King Street. See State Street Kneeland Street depots on, 248, 249, 251 K Street Annex, 330 land, made, 2 acreage in Boston, 2, 2nn. 2, 3; 423 (see also specific areas) association with disease, 61, 77, 80, 144, 161, 173 explanation for, Boston, 3, 420

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landfilling (landfills), 2 landmaking defined, 2 method in Boston, 3, 13, 109, 146, 154n. 7 mid-nineteenth-century debate on (Boston), 278, 299, 401 studies of, 420–421, 420n. 5 and wharf construction techniques (see fill-retaining structures) land reclamation, 2, 3 land ties, 14, 85n. 73 Lansdowne Street filled, 228 law, riparian, Massachusetts, 3, 3n. 12, 21, 173, 292, 299, 371 Lawley, George, shipyard at Port Norfolk, 340, 341 at South Boston, 315, 317, 324 Lawrence, T. Bigelow, 179 Lechmere Point Corporation, 113, 114, 393 Lechmere’s Point, 111, 392 Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, 73 Lewis Street (East Boston) filled, 358 Lewis Wharf, 55, 60, 66 liquefaction, 420 Little Mystic Channel, 391, 397, 401 Lloyd, James, Jr. and Broad/India Street project, 45 and Central Wharf project, 48 and India Wharf project, 44, 46 and Wheeler’s Point (Sea Street) project, 244 Logan, Gen. Edward Lawrence, 377 Logan, Gen. Edward L., International Airport. See airport Lomasney Way. See Lowell Street Longfellow Bridge, 111. See also West Boston Bridge; Cambridge Bridge Long Wharf, 29, 30, 31, 31, 37, 55, 60, 66 archaeological investigation, 31 constructed, 3, 4, 27, 28, 29, 31 docks, adjoining, filled, 55, 56, 59, 68

526

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widened, 52, 54 Long Wharf Marriott, 71 Loring, Harrison, 324 low tide, mean. See tidal fall, Boston Lowell, Francis Cabot, 41n. 92, 84 and Broad/India Streets project, 45 and Central Wharf project, 48 and India Wharf project 41, 42, 44, 46 and Wheeler’s Point (Sea Street) project, 244 Lowell Street, 114, 115 L Street Bridge, 314, 315 Main Drainage sewerage works, 336–339 constructed, 5, 338, 338, 345, 346 origin, 8, 336–337 plan, 8, 337 (see also sewers, intercepting) pier, 338, 338n. 11, 345, 348, 349 pumping station, 337, 338, 339, 345, 348, 348 seawalls, 15, 338, 338n. 11 in twentieth century, 10, 280 mentioned, 126 Malden, set off from Charlestown, 405 Malden Bridge, 388, 390, 405 Malibu Beach, 346 Mallory, R. P., 395 Manhattan Island, 420, 420n. 9 maps, historical. See sources Marine Industrial Park, 332 Marine Park, 324–326 changes, 326 constructed, 5, 9, 315, 324, 326, 327, 329 filling, 324, 326 plans, 324, 325 Marketplace Center, 53 markets, public, 34, 50, 53 marshes, salt, defined, 2 Mason, Jonathan and Mount Vernon Proprietors, 135, 136, 137, 138 and South Boston Association, 288

and South Boston Bridge, 240, 241, 242 and Wheeler’s Point (Sea Street) project, 244 Massachusetts Avenue, 198, 199. See also West Chester Park Massachusetts Bay Company, 21, 335, 385, 385n. 1, 387 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. See MBTA Massachusetts Dredging Company, 232 Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), 113, 116 construction of, 113–114 flats filled, 4–5, 8, 17, 117, 119, 120, 121 (see also North Charles Street) seawall, 114, 114n. 22 Massachusetts Historical Society, 226, 229 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 148, 187, 194, 195, 205 Massachusetts Port Authority, 11, 330, 380 Massachusetts State Archives building, 351 Massachusetts Turnpike extension, 224, 252 Mass Pike Towers. See Suffolk Street District Massport. See Massachusetts Port Authority Master Highway Plan (1948), 10, 132, 150, 282, 346 Matthews, Nathan, 190, 197 Maverick, Samuel, 356, 371 Maverick Land Company, 362 Maverick Mills, 363, 370, 371 Maverick Square filled, 4, 355, 358 MBTA, 406 Green Line, 96, 184, 224, 228, 230, 233 Orange Line, 162, 226, 406 Red Line, 224, 327, 338 McCabe, Owen, 90 McConnell, Capt. Joseph W., 341

McConnell, Walter F., 70 McConnell Park. See Savin Hill Beach McKay, Donald, 358 McManus, Patrick, 358 Melcher Street, 253 Mercantile Wharf Buildings, 59, 60, 66 Mercantile Wharf Company, 53, 59 Meridian Street filled, 4, 358 Merrimack, 410, 410n. 112, 414n. 121 Merrimac Street, 86 Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), 129, 150, 343, 345, 348, 351, 368, 380, 382 metropolitan improvements. See Commission on Metropolitan Improvements; Joint Board on Metropolitan Improvements Metropolitan Park Commission, 126, 231, 342, 343 Metropolitan Sewerage System, 126 Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), 406 miasmatic theory of disease. See disease, theories of Middlesex Canal in Charlestown, 88, 388, 392, 393, 397 in Mill Pond, 88, 98, 392 filled, 96, 97 Middlesex Canal Corporation, 392 Mill Cove (Boston) defined, xi–xii, 73 1630 shoreline of, 72, 73, 75 Mill Creek, 23, 24, 30, 74, 75, 81, 392 created, 24, 74 filled, 7, 54, 54–55 through Mill Pond, 79, 80 turned (1824), 51, 52, 55 Mill Dam (Back Bay) photographs of, 181, 194, 199 roadway on (Beacon Street), 156, 158, 159, 160, 166, 213, 214 Mill Dam project (Back Bay), 4, 141, 155–160, 157, 213. See also cross dam

description of, 158–160, 159 and Mill Pond project, 155 proposals and arguments, 156–158 remains found, 160 seawalls and fill, 14, 158, 160, 160nn. 34, 36; 160 mill dams. See also Mill Dam project Charlestown, 4, 386, 387, 389, 392 Mill Pond, 4, 74 Mill Dam Wharf, 192 Mill Pond (Boston), 54, 74, 75, 81, 89 acreage of, 77 archaeological investigations, 75, 76, 86, 88, 91, 138 bulkhead in, 14, 86, 87, 88, 88, 138n. 23, 392 causeway, old, 74, 80, 81, 85, 86, 90, 91 created, 73–75 floodgates, 74, 75, 76, 77 made land, eighteenth-century, 14, 75 mills in, 74, 75–76, 75 pollution of, 7, 76, 77, 78, 79, 88 mill pond (Charlestown), 387, 388 Mill Pond project (Boston), 4, 6, 76–92, 240 canal, 55, 80, 87, 88, 92, 96, 98 fill from Beacon Hill, 82–84, 89, 91–92 from Copp’s Hill, 80, 82, 84 filling east of canal, 90–92, 358 east of Pond (Endicott) Street, 80, 82, 86 west of canal, 89 west of Merrimac Street, 82, 86 marketplace, 86, 90 proposals and arguments (1803–1807), 76–80 seawalls for canal, 14, 18, 84–85, 84n. 64, 85nn. 67, 71, 73; 86, 90, 91, 98 on Causeway Street, 85–86, 86n. 75, 90

street plan, 80, 81 Mill Pond Site, 75, 87. See also Mill Pond, archaeological investigations Mill Pond Wharf, 86 mills, tide. See also Back Bay, receiving basin; Mill Pond in Charlestown, 387, 389 on Smelt Brook (see Baldwin’s Mill) on Stony Brook, 212, 212, 226 Miner Street, 228 Mishawum, 385 Mission Church, 226, 228 Moakley, J. Joseph, Park. See Columbus Park Moakley, John Joseph, United States Courthouse. See courthouses Moon Island, 8, 337, 338 Moore Street (South Bay), 280 Moran terminal, 401 Morrissey, William T., Boulevard. See Old Colony Parkway Moulton’s Hill, 386, 387, 407n. 89 Moulton’s Point, 406 Mount Hope Farm (Quincy), 266 Mount Vernon topography of, 135, 137 Mount Vernon Proprietors project, x, 6, 14, 18, 69, 135–139, 136, 139, 140, 240 and “gore,” 141, 142 (see also “gore”) bulkhead and filling, 14, 138–139, 138n. 23, 141 railway, 138–139, 139n. 29 Mount Whoredom (Mount Vernon), 136, 137 Mt. Vernon Street (Dorchester), 338, 344 Mt. Washington Avenue Bridge, 295, 296, 297, 311 Muddy River, 8, 211, 215 “Muddy River Improvement.” See Riverway filled Municipal History of . . . Boston (Quincy), 50, 53 Munn, Luther, 117

Munson, Norman C. and Back Bay project, 180, 180nn. 129, 135; 184, 185, 186, 190, 191, 196, 198 and B&RMC filling, 192, 192n. 191 and South Bay Flats project, 302 Museum of Fine Arts, 226, 228, 229 Museum of Natural History, 188, 194, 195 Museum of Science, 10, 129 Mystic Pond, 299 Mystic River Corporation. See Mystic Wharf filled Mystic Wharf filled, 5, 17, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402 by Boston & Lowell, 401 by Boston & Maine, 401 by Mystic River Corporation, 397 seawalls, bulkhead, and filling, 401, 401n. 60 National Park Service, 407, 416, 417 Navy Yard. See Charlestown Navy Yard navy yards, other, 406n. 81, 407n. 86, 414n. 117 Norfolk, Virginia, 406n. 81, 409, 410n. 112, 414 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 414 Neal, Daniel, 31 Neck, Boston connector to mainland, 1, 2, 158 eighteenth century filling, 4, 14, 237–238, 258 bulkheads, 238, 261 dike, 258, 261 seawalls, 14, 238, 258, 261 fortification on, 238, 241, 258 mentioned, xii, 153, 237 Neck Lands, efforts to develop, 3, 162, 169, 240, 258, 259, 262 acreage of, 2n. 4, 423 Needham, Massachusetts, 18, 180, 182, 183, 184 Neponset Bridge, 343 as limit of study, xi, 2, 335

Neptune Road and airport, 380 filled, 5, 9, 363, 366, 367 Newcomb, Bryant, 85, 86, 90 Newcomb, John, 41, 42, 43 Newcomb, Jonathan, 85, 86 New Development Area (Navy Yard), 416, 417 New England Conservatory of Music, 229 New England Dredging Company, 68, 230, 231, 312, 313, 314 New England Mutual Life Building, 187, 188, 195 New England Railroad, 253, 254, 318. See also New York & New England Railroad New York, New Haven & Hartford acquired, 252 newspapers, Boston. See also sources early nineteenth-century, 46, 76, 77, 78, 240 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and Boston & Providence facilities, 254 consolidation of railroads, 252 South Bay filling, 5, 10, 281, 282, 283 and South Boston Flats project, 318 New York & Boston Railroad, 180, 181, 184 New York & New England Railroad, 279, 282, 309. See also Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad and South Boston Flats project, 309, 310, 311, 312, 318n. 96 New York Streets, 6, 249, 252, 274 Noddle, William, 355 Noddles Island acreage of, 355, 355n. 2, 423 Breed’s Island, joined to dike, 367, 368n. 36, 369, 382 inlet filled, 370, 371, 372 development, early, 356, 358

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bridges, 357, 358 pre-1833, 356 street plan, 356, 357 topography of, 355–356, 356 Nook’s Hill, 292 North Allen Street, extension of, 4, 112, 113 seawall and filling, 113 Northampton Street District raised, 279 North Anderson Street. See Bridge Street North Charles Street, 114, 115, 118. See also Charles Street, widened bridge, 117, 119 filled, 119, 120, 121 (see also Massachusetts General Hospital, flats filled) seawall, 117, 121, 122, 122, 129 North End, wharfing out, xi Northern Avenue, 304, 306, 317, 318, 318n. 96, 321 constructed seawall, 318 extended (1913) seawall and filling, 318n. 102 (1916) bulkhead and filling, 322 Northern Avenue Bridge, 304, 309, 317, 318, 318n. 96 North Market building, 50, 51, 51, 52, 53, 53, 60, 66 North Market Street, 52 North Mills, 75, 76 North Station, 10, 19, 99, 104 North Washington Street, 90, 92 Norway Iron Works, 277, 278 Noyes, Capt. Oliver, 29 Noyes, John H. L., 368 Noyes Playground. See Orient Heights Playground O’Brien, Msgr., Highway, 130, 393 Ocean Terminal Railroad Dock and Elevator Company, 401 Odiorne, George, 179, 185

528

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Old Colony Avenue, 327 Old Colony Parkway, 5, 10, 342–343, 342, 344, 346 construction and filling, 343, 346 renamed, 346 widened, 346 Old Colony Railroad, 266 and Commonwealth Pier, 318 Dorchester, route in, 327, 336, 337, 341, 342 New York, New Haven & Hartford acquired, 252 South Bay, filling in, 6, 275, 276, 277 and South Bay Lands project, 264, 266 South Boston, route in, 289, 290, 291, 295, 298 South Cove depot, 249, 250, 251 Old Colony Railroad Bridge (Fort Point Channel), 282 Old Harbor, 327 Old Harbor Point (Calf Pasture), 338 “Old Ironsides.” See Constitution Old South Church, New (Back Bay), 199 Old South End. See South End, Old Old West Church, 111 Oliver, Daniel, 29 Oliver, Peter, 24 Oliver’s Dock, 25, 30, 31 archaeological investigation, 41 created, 24 filled early eighteenth century, 32–33 ca. 1800, 39, 40, 42 remains found, 39, 41 mentioned, 389, 390 Oliver Street, 61, 62, 63, 68, 69 Oliver Street footbridge, 62, 63 Olmsted, Frederick Law and Back Bay Fens, 207, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224 and Charlesbank, 124, 124, 129 and Commonwealth Avenue realignment, x, 215n. 6

and Emerald Necklace, 326 and Marine Park, 324, 326 and Muddy River Improvement (Riverway), 229 and Wood Island Park, 366 Olmsted firm, 224, 366 Orange (Herald) Street, 246, 248, 249 Orange (Washington) Street, 241, 243 Orient Heights, 367, 370 base filled, 368, 369 top cut down, 368 Orient Heights Beach. See Constitution Beach Orient Heights (Noyes) Playground filled, 5, 10, 363, 368, 370 renamed, 368 Otis, Harrison Gray and Broad/India Streets project, 45, 135 and Central Wharf project, 48 and “gore,” 141 house, first, 111 and India Wharf project, 44, 46, 135 mayor, 53, 55 and Mill Pond project, 82, 135 and Mount Vernon Proprietors project, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139 Otis Papers, 137, 138 and South Boston Association, 288 and South Boston Bridge, 240, 241, 242, 243 Otis, William Smith, 18, 68, 180 Otis Place, 1, 145 outwharves. See Barricado packet wharves, 55, 59 panic, financial of 1837, 248 of 1857, 358, 360 of 1873, 9 papers, personal. See sources park commissioners, Boston. See Boston Board of (Park) Commissioners Park Drive (near Audubon Circle), 230. See also Back Bay Fens project, roads

Parker Street, 213, 226 Parkman, George, 116, 117 Parkman Market, 111, 112 park movement, public, 8–9 parks, Boston. See under specific parks parkway lands (East Boston), 363, 365, 366, 367 filled, 5, 366 parkways, Boston. See Boston parkways; specific parkways Parris, Alexander, 52, 262, 264 Patten’s Cove, 343 Paul Revere Park, 418 Peabody, Augustus, 91 Peck, John, 76, 78, 80 Pei, I. M., 351 Pemberton Hill, 93, 94, 96 Pemberton Square, 96 Pembroke Street, 201n. 232 Perkins, Charles C., 73, 107, 135, 153, 257, 442 Peterborough Street filled, 228 Piers Park, 358 Pigeon Hollow Spar Company, 382 pilings, building foundation, 1, 126, 144, 195, 198, 262 at Central Wharf, 48 at City Stables, 262 for Dry Dock 1 (Charlestown), 15, 409, 409n. 95 at India Wharf, 44, 44n. 101 rotted, 1, 144–146, 200, 229, 252, 419 pilings, seawall foundation. See seawall foundations Pine Island, 278 Pine Neck Creek, 341 Plan of Boston Proper Showing Changes in Street and Wharf Lines (Perkins), 73, 107, 135, 153, 257, 442 platforms (pile wharves), 15 at Mystic Wharf, 401 in South Bay, 15, 268, 270, 272 on South Boston Flats, 15, 306, 307, 316

platforms (seawall foundations). See seawall foundations playground movement, 9 Pleasure Bay, 324, 325, 326, 333 Pond Street filled, 78, 79, 82 Pond Street Corporation, 78 Poole’s Wharf, 41 port facilities, Boston, late nineteenthcentury. See Boston, history of, trade Port Norfolk industries, 339, 340, 341 wharfing out, 337, 341 Port of Boston Authority, 284 Post Office Square, 104 Potter, Thomas, 312, 313 Preble, George H., 408 Prescott Street filled, 358 Price, William, 34–35, 36, 440 Prison Point Bay filled, 5, 8, 397, 399, 400 pollution, 8, 397 Prison Point Bridge, 388, 392–393, 395 Prison Point Dam Corporation, 393 Prison Point filled, 4, 388, 392 projects, landmaking defined, xi, 22 hostility toward, early-nineteenth-century, 46, 158, 241 Public Garden, 169, 181, 184, 194, 195, 199 1859 act, 186 filled, 4, 14, 169, 185, 185 proposals for (1840s and 1850s), 178 and “ropewalk lands,” 154, 161–162 mentioned, 9 Public Park parcel (Navy Yard), 416, 417 public records. See sources Putnam Nail Company, 339, 341 Quahog Pond. See cove between Wood Island and Harborview Queen Anne’s War, 28, 355

Queen Elizabeth 2, 322 Queensberry Street filled, 228 Quincy, Josiah (1772–1864), 50, 51, 52, 53 Quincy Market building, 50, 51, 51, 52, 53, 53, 53, 60, 66 Quincy Market project. See Faneuil Hall Market project railroads. See also specific railroads depots (see also specific railroads; specific stations) on Causeway Street, 62, 92 near Kneeland Street, 62, 248, 250, 251 to haul fill (see fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing; specific projects) introduction of, 6, 92–93 from north, 62, 96, 99, 167, 394, 418 from south, 62, 252 Rainsford’s Lane (Harrison Avenue), 241 Raleigh Street filled, 231 Randolph Street, 258 receiving basin. See Back Bay, receiving basin Registry of Motor Vehicles building, 73, 104 Reserved Channel, 314, 326 alignment changed, 319, 320 created, 300, 301, 302, 305, 312, 324 north side filled, 15, 312, 314, 314n. 74, 315, 316, 316n. 89, 320, 321, 322, 323, 332 south side filled (see also South Boston Annex, World War II filling) by private owners, 315, 317, 320, 321, 323, 324, 330n. 155, 332, 333, 341 by South Boston Flats project, 322, 323, 324, 374 Reuben James, 405 Revere, city of, 368

Revolutionary War, 38, 39, 76, 83, 136, 258 Richardson, Ralph, 84, 85 riprap. See fill-retaining structures, dikes, riprapped Riverbank Improvement Company, 231 Riverway filled, 5, 9, 229–230 fill, 229 railroad, use of, 229 Rhoades, Robert, 192 Robbins, Ebenezer, 85 Roberto Clemente Field, 224 Rock Hill, 335–336, 341 Roebuck Passage, 50 “ropewalk lands,” 161–162 ropewalks, 109, 154 next to Common, 4, 154, 154, 161, 161 seawall and filling, 154 on Fort Hill, 154 at Navy Yard (see Charlestown Navy Yard) on Stony Brook (Parker Street), 226 in West End, 109 rose garden (Fens), 224 Ross and Lord, 192, 192n. 191, 272 Rowe, F. A., 232 Rowe’s Wharf, 26 Rowe’s Wharf building, 29, 71 Roxbury Brook, 257, 278 Roxbury Canal, 283, 284, 285 created, 278 filled 1820s, 278 1870s, 279 1960s, 5, 10, 284–285 pollution in, 282, 284 and South Bay Lands project, 266 Roxbury Central Wharf Company filling, 5, 280, 281 Rutland Square, 201n. 232 Ryan, John J., Jr., 405 Ryan Playground. See Charlestown Playground Ryly, William, 85

Salem Turnpike, 358, 388, 390 “salubrious breezes,” 77, 144, 156, 157, 161, 187 San Francisco, California, 2n. 8, 420 San Francisco Bridge Company, 19, 314 sanitary reform movement, 8 Sargent, Mr. (Mount Vernon railroad), 138 Savin Hill Bay pollution in, 343, 346 Southeast Expressway, filling for, 346 Savin Hill Beach, 346 enlarged, 5, 10, 340, 341 seawall and filling, 341 original filling, 5, 340, 341 renamed, 341 Savin Hill Cove, 348 School Hill, 385, 386 Scollay, William, 136, 137 Sconce. See South Battery Scottow, Joshua, 24, 26, 32 Scottow’s Dock, 24, 25, 30 archaeological investigation, 26, 32, 39 created 24–26 filled early eighteenth century, 16, 18, 32 end eighteenth century, 38–39, 40 mentioned, 389 scour (of ebb tide), 6, 144, 278 and Charles River Dam, first, 126, 127 and South Boston Flats project, 299, 300 scows. See fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing Scrap Rail, 406 Sears, David, 173, 187 Sea Street bridge from, 244, 289 extended, 155, 242, 243–244, 245 Seattle, Washington, 420 seawalls, 98, 123, 127, 160, 191, 193, 204, 232, 264, 307, 308, 411

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concrete, 15, 146, 202, 403n. 65 locations of (see specific projects) mortared, 15, 123, 338n. 11 stone, construction of, 14–15, 42, 54, 66n. 201, 84n. 64, 85nn. 67, 73; 86n. 75, 123n. 38, 160n. 36, 192nn. 188, 191; 254n. 73, 262n. 22, 264, 306n. 53, 318n. 102, 411 seawall foundations clay, 66, 85, 314n. 74, 410 concrete, 15, 316n. 89 pilings, 15, 48, 66, 123n. 38, 192n. 188, 254n. 73, 262n. 22, 270, 275, 306n. 53, 307, 307, 314n. 74, 316n. 86, 410, 411 platforms, 14, 48, 84, 160nn. 36, 37; 160 stone, 15, 308, 318n. 102, 306n. 53 trench, 42, 48, 66, 231, 275, 306n. 53, 307, 316n. 86, 318n. 102 75 State Street building, 39 archaeological investigation (see Oliver’s Dock) Sewall and Day Cordage Company, 226 Sewall’s Point, 156, 157, 159, 192 sewerage system, Boston. See also Main Drainage sewerage works pre-1884, 7, 8, 143, 172, 172n. 80, 336–337 sewerage systems, other cities, 7, 10, 172n. 80, 336n. 5 sewers, Boston. See also Back Bay Fens project, conduits; Boston Marginal Conduit; Commissioners’ Channel; Stony Brook Conduit intercepting, 8, 337 (see also Main Drainage sewerage works) Albany Street Interceptor, 201 East Side Interceptor, 201, 270n. 62 West Side Interceptor, 122, 160 locations, general, 129, 167, 175, 177, 178, 187, 262 locations, specific, 7–8, 32, 39, 50,

530

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56, 62, 67, 77, 79, 111, 114, 126, 143, 145, 170, 172, 200, 201, 202, 219, 279, 280, 312, 338, 343, 346, 349, 366 sewers, combined, 10, 201, 336n. 5 Shattuck, Luther H., 128 Shaw, Charles, 39, 88 Shawmut Peninsula acreage made land, 2, 2n. 4, 423 original, 2, 2n. 4, 423 topography, original, xi–xii, 1, 2, 109, mentioned, 21, 41, 73, 387, 418 Sheafe, Jacob, 28, 29 Sheldon, Asa, 93–96, 99 ship, fire, 28 shipping, Boston. See Boston, history of, trade Shipyard Park, 416 Shrimpton, Col. Samuel, 356 Shrimpton family, 356 Shurcliff, Arthur A., 206 Shurtleff, Nathaniel, 39, 41, 61 Simmons College, 229 1630 shoreline, reconstruction of, 1, 20, 73, 107, 135, 153, 210, 237, 257, 287, 334, 355, 385, 434–437 Slate Ledge, 300, 300n. 38 Smelt Brook, 153, 162, 212, 213 Smith, Joel, 244 Smith Hill, 355, 356, 358 Smith’s Wharf, 244, 245 Snelling, George H., 187 Snowhill Street, 80, 84 sources archaeological reports, 433 contemporary accounts, xi, 429–430 corporate records, xi, 428–429 maps, xi, 434–444 newspapers, xi, 430 personal papers, xi, 429 public records, x–xi, 425–428 secondary sources, 430–432 Southampton Street. See Swett Street

South Battery, 25, 31, 36, 37, 37, 38, 44 additions ca. 1705, 28, 29, 31 built 1660s, 4, 26, 28 mid-eighteenth century alterations, 35–36, 35n. 62, 38 South Bay acreage of, 423 Back Bay, comparison with, 257, 285 channels in, 266, 273, 278, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284 defined, xii, 1, 257 enlarged, 1830s, 249, 256, 257, 263, 263, 278 acreage of, 249, 263, 278, 278n. 114, 423 filling (see also specific projects) east side, 4, 267, 275, 276, 277, 278 proposals for, 278, 280, 282, 284 pollution in, 10, 278, 280, 282 shorelines of 1630, 256, 258, 276 1795, 239 1845, 256 wharves in, 273, 278, 280, 281, 282, 283 mentioned, 299 South Bay Avenue, 280, 284 South Bay commissioners, 268, 272, 273 South Bay incinerator, 257, 284, 351 South Bay Lands, Committee on, 268, 270, 272 South Bay Lands project, x, 4, 261–274, 267 acreage of, 273 boundaries of, 261, 262, 268 bridge, railroad, 266, 271 docks, 265, 266, 268, 269 Evans, William and, 264, 266, 268, 270–273 fill, 16, 17, 266, 268, 271, 272 objectives of, 6, 8, 261–262, 264, 274 railroad, to haul fill, 18, 179, 180, 264, 264n. 31, 265, 266 rates, contractors, 262, 266, 268

sale of land, 266, 268 seawall, 262, 262n. 22, 264, 266, 270, 272 steam-powered equipment, 18, 270, 271 dredge, scoop, 18, 68, 270 wharves collapsed, 192, 271–272 platforms, 15, 268, 270 stone, 268, 270 South Bay Wharf and Terminal Company, 280 South Boston acreage made land 2, 2n. 7, 287, 324, 324n. 125, 332, 423 original, 2, 2n. 7, 240, 240n. 7, 287, 287n. 2, 423 annexed, 3, 6, 76, 79, 238, 240–241, 288 boundary of, 1804, 286 growth, early nineteenth-century, 244, 289 north shore, industries on, 290, 291, 291n. 10, 297, 310, 324 1630 shoreline, 286, 293 street plan, 288 wharfing out, 4–5, 290, 291, 297 South Boston Annex, 330, 332 Dry Dock 3, 9–10, 319, 319n. 115, 320, 321, 322, 322n. 121, 330, 332, 374, 381, 414 construction, 319, 322 World War II filling, 5, 16, 330, 330n. 153, 331, 381 Dry Dock 4, 330, 331, 332, 381 South Boston army base, 322, 323, 332 South Boston Association seawall, 4, 6, 288–289, 288 South Boston Bridge constructed, 242–243, 242, 288, 288 proposals, alternative, 238, 240–241, 243, 244, 288, 289 South Boston Bridge, Proprietors of, 241–242, 243

South Boston Flats, 292, 299 South Boston Flats project, 5, 300–324 acreage of, 324, 324n. 125, 332, 423 bulkheads, 15, 302, 312, 312n. 66, 314, 314n. 76, 316, 316n. 89, 319, 322 docks, 300, 301, 306, 306 (see also docks, at South Boston, filled) dry dock (see South Boston Annex) 50-acre lot, 302, 305, 309, 309n. 63, 312, 313 fill dredged, 17, 302, 304, 306, 309, 312, 314, 316, 319, 322, 401n. 60 other, 304, 312, 312n. 70, 314nn. 82, 83; 322n. 121 filling with dredges, 18, 68, 196, 306, 319 with hydraulic dredges, 19, 314, 316, 319, 322 with railroad, 18, 309, 312, 314 land use, 309, 316, 332 100-acre lot, 312, 312n. 64, 313, 314nn. 82, 83; 315, 316, 332 origin of, 6–7, 300 piers, 283, 323 Commonwealth Pier (see Commonwealth Pier) Fish Pier (see Fish Pier) Pier 1 (Fan Pier), 16, 312, 313, 333 Pier 2, 16, 312, 313, 333, 381 Pier 3, 310, 312, 313 Pier 4, 16, 312, 313, 333, 381 plans for, 296, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305 platforms, 15, 306, 307, 316 railroad, to haul gravel, 309 Reserved Channel (see Reserved Channel) seawalls at, 15, 296, 302, 304, 306, 306n. 53, 306, 307, 308, 316, 318 70-acre lot, 314, 314nn. 82, 83; 315, 316, 332

streets (see under specific streets) 12-acre lot, 309, 312, 313 25-acre lot (Fan Pier), 302, 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 311, 313 railroad bridge to, 309, 310, 311 26-acre lot, 316, 317, 332 wharves for lessees, 316, 317, 323 mentioned, 62 South Boston Iron Company, 289 South Boston Waterfront, 324n. 125, 332 South Cove defined, xii, 237 development of, midnineteenth–twentieth century, 249, 252 shorelines of 1630, 236, 238 1795, 238 wharfing out, 4–5, 238, 238 South Cove Corporation, 246, 248, 249 South Cove Corporation project, 4, 6, 168, 246–250, 247, 248, 250, 251, 356 acreage of, 248, 249 and Boston & Worcester Railroad, 246, 248 fill, 16, 17, 246, 248, 249 filling, 246, 248, 249 New York Streets, 249, 250 objectives, 246, 248, 249 railroad, to haul fill, 18, 180, 246, 248 seawall, 246, 248 wharves Fort Point Channel, 246, 247, 248, 248, 250, 251 Front Street, 246, 247, 248 South Cove wharfowners. See South End, Old, wharfowners in Southeast Expressway, constructed, 5 in Dorchester, 341, 342, 346, 349 in South Bay, 282, 284, 285 mentioned, 252 South End, Old, 136, 137, 237

wharfowners in, 240, 241, 244, 289 South End, Tremont Street area of grades (elevations) of, 201, 201n. 232 filled, 170 flooding of, 201–202, 419 Souther, John, 18, 68, 70, 180, 230, 270, 312 South Market building, 50, 51, 52, 53, 53, 60, 66 South Market Street, 52 South Mills, 75, 76, 85, 86, 87 South Postal Annex area, filling of, 254 seawall, 254 South Station project, 5, 16, 252–254, 253 seawall and filling, 254, 254n. 73 wharves filled, 253, 254, 280 South Street, 240, 241, 243 filled, 249 Spanish-American War, 326, 377, 414 Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, 73, 104 Spectacle Island, 330n. 156, 332 spurshores, 15, 312n. 66 Squantum Neck, 338, 374 State Airport Management Board, 380 State House, 83, 84, 136 site of, 136, 137 State (King) Street, 27, 29, 31 State Ledge. See Slate Ledge state prison (Charlestown), 388, 392, 393, 395, 397 State Street Block, 59, 60, 66 seawall and filling, 59 St. Botolph District. See Huntington Avenue Lands steam shovels. See fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing; specific projects Stearns, Albert T., Lumber Company, 341 Stedman’s Cove, 212, 213, 226 Stephenson, George, 93 Stoneholm Street, 226 Stony Brook, 8, 211, 215

Stony Brook conduit, 127, 222, 233. See also Back Bay Fens project, conduits Stony Brook gatehouse, 217, 222 Storrow, Helen Osborne, 10, 148, 150, 206, 233 Storrow, James J., 126, 149, 150 Storrow (James J., Memorial) Drive, 127, 130. See also Esplanade, 1950s project name, 150, 206, 233 proposed (1929), 148, 206, 233 seawall, next to, 191, 192, 206, 232, 232, 234 Storrow Memorial Embankment, 149, 150, 206 Strandway, 326–327 on Carson Beach, 323, 344 on connector to Castle Island, 323, 326 filled, 5, 9, 327, 329 plans, 326–327 renamed, 327 streets, Boston. See under street names winding, 22 St. Stephen Street, 226 Subaru Pier, 5, 16, 209, 324n. 125, 330, 332, 333, 401 acreage of, 332, 332n. 158, 423 Suffolk Downs Drive-In Theatre, 368 Suffolk Downs Race Track, 368, 379 Suffolk Street District (Castle Square/Mass Pike Towers) filled (1820s–1830s), 4, 17, 18, 164, 170 grade (elevation) of, 200 filled (1870–1872), 18, 68, 70, 201 name, 170 Summer Street, 317, 318n. 96, 319 Summer Street Bridge, 317, 318, 318n. 96 Sumner, Gen. William H., 158, 356 Survey of Boston and Its Vicinity (Hales), 158 Swan, Hepzibah C., 137, 138

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531

Swett Street, filled, 5, 279 swing bridges Boston, 24, 25, 33, 38 Charlestown, 390, 392 Symphony Hall, 229 Symphony Road (Batavia Street), 226 Ted Williams Tunnel, 295 Tenean Beach, 351 filled, 5, 10, 341, 342 and Southeast Expressway, 346 Tenean Creek bridge over, 336, 337 filled, 339, 340, 341 Thorndike, Israel, 48 303 Congress Street, 309 tidal fall, Boston, 126, 127, 170, 180, 200 tide mills. See mills, tide; Back Bay, receiving basin; Mill Pond timber docks. See Charlestown Navy Yard tip carts, horse-drawn. See fill, excavating, transporting, and depositing toilets, flush. See water closets Tokyo Bay, 420 Topeka Street (South Bay), 280 topographical histories of Boston. See Boston, topographical histories of Toronto, Ontario, 420 Totten, Gen. Joseph G., 299, 299n. 31 Towle, J. D., 406 Town Cove, 23, 25, 27, 28, 71 location, xi, 21 1630 shoreline, 20, 40, 41 wharfing out, 4, 21, 22, 23, 25, 40, 41 Town Dock, Boston, 23, 24, 25, 33, 34 archaeological investigation of, 35 created, 22–24, 26 in early nineteenth century, 47, 50, 51, 51 filled 1728–1729, 16, 18, 33, 34 filled 1784, 38, 39 pollution of, 7, 38, 50

532

•

I

N D E X

mentioned, 390 town dock, Charlestown, 386, 388, 389 archaeological investigation of, 390, 392 created, 390 filled, 4, 390, 392 Town Hill, 385, 386, 387 town meeting, Boston, 24, 50 trade, Boston. See Boston, history of trade, China. See Boston, history of, trade Traveler Street. See Troy Street treenails, 48, 160 Tremont Street area of South End (see South End) filled 1830s, 4, 14, 169–170, 258 grade (elevation) of, 187 Trimountain, 82, 93, 135. See also Beacon Hill Trinity Church (Back Bay), 199 Troy, Jerome P., 351 Troy (Traveler) Street, 251 trunnels. See treenails Tudor, William, 240, 241, 243, 288 Tuft’s mill pond, 403, 405 T Wharf, 34, 36, 37, 40, 52, 55, 58, 60, 66, 71 UMass/Boston, 5, 338, 339, 348, 349, 350 underpinning (building), 145, 146, 200, 201, 229 Union Freight Railroad, 70 Union Park Pumping Station, 202, 202n. 233 Union Station, 102, 103 built 1893, 99, 252 replaced by North Station, 104 University of Massachusetts at Boston. See UMass/Boston Urann’s Wharf, 262 U.S. Coast Survey, 293, 299, 335, 355 U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor, 6–7, 278, 299, 300, 301 U.S. Navy

at Charlestown (see Charlestown Navy Yard) founded, 406 at South Boston (see South Boston Annex) Vancouver, British Columbia, 420 Vanderbilt Hall (Harvard Medical School), 228 victory garden (Fens), 224 Victory Road Park filled, 5, 10, 16, 351 Wapping Dock, 390 war, undeclared, with France, 406 Ward Street, 213, 226 Ward Street Headworks, 226, 348 War of 1812, 46, 156, 157, 407 Warren Bridge, 94, 100, 101, 102, 103, 391, 395 built, 393–394 discontinued, 414 Free Bridge, concurrent with, 244, 393 new Charles River Dam, site of, 96, 104, 414 mentioned, 93 wars, English-French, mid-eighteenthcentury, 35 Washington Square, 59, 61, 62, 63 Washington Street, only land access, 258, 260 water closets, effect on sewerage system, 8, 200 Waterfront (Christopher Columbus) Park, 70–71 water system, Boston, 8, 200, 358 Webster, John W., 116, 117 wells, observation. See groundwater levels Wendell’s Wharf, 41, 42 Wentworth Institute, 226, 228 West Boston Bridge, 116, 141, 394 constructed, 111 effect on West End, 111

filling north of, 110, 111, 112 opposition to Craigie’s Bridge, 111, 394n. 41 West Brookline Street, 201n. 232 West Chester Park, 198, 199, 225 West Cove, 109, 135 1630 shoreline of, 106, 107n. 1, 110, 134, 135n. 1 West End Cambridge Street, north of bulkhead and fill, 14, 111 early development of, 109, 110, 111 pre-1958 street plan, 107, 108, 109 1630 shoreline, 106, 107, 109, 110 topography, 109, 109n. 2, 113 urban renewal project, 107, 132 wharfing out, 110 Western Avenue (Beacon Street), 158, 160 West Fourth/East Berkeley Streets. See East Berkeley/West Fourth Streets West Fourth Street (site of South Boston Bridge), 288 wharf, definitions of bank, 75 bulkhead, 238 seawall, 86 wharf construction techniques. See fillretaining structures wharfing out, xi, 3, 4–5, 22. See also specific areas wharves, types bulkhead-like, 392 crib, 14, 31 cobb, 14, 26, 244, 406 pile, 410n. 101 (see also platforms [pile wharves]) stone, 14, 262, 268, 270, 358 Wheeler’s Point. See Sea Street Whitehill, Walter Muir Boston: A Topographical History, ix, x, 80 Whitney, John, 80, 82, 89, 155 Whitney, Silas, 138, 155 Whitney, Silas, Jr., 155

Whitwell, W. S., 175 Windmill Point, 237, 288. See also Sea Street Winthrop, John, 21, 24, 387 Winthrop, town of. See airport, Winthrop section Wonder-Working Providence (Johnson), 22 Wood, Robert, 351 Wood Island, 356, 362 East, 362, 366 West, 358, 362, 366 Wood Island Park, 362, 363, 365, 366, 367 and airport, 380, 382 constructed, 5, 9, 362, 366 and East Boston Flats project, 371, 373 plan for, 366 Woodward, Joseph, 136, 137, 240, 241 Wool District, 318 Woolley, William, 196 World Trade Center. See Commonwealth Pier World War Memorial Park. See Wood Island Park World War I, 10, 319, 322, 326, 341, 375, 377, 380, 414 World War II, 11, 150, 206, 232, 233, 252, 282, 326, 330, 349, 380, 414, 416 Young, Ammi B., 56 Zakim Bridge. See Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge

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533