Few of our American cities have retained their old family domiciles as long as the town of Boston, and they attest the opulence of many of its early inhabitants. However, they are fast disappearing; the large portions of ground that they occupy, surrounded with their gardens and lofty trees, having become too valuable to escape being converted to more profitable purposes. When I first knew Boston, the spacious domain of Gardiner Green extended along Pemberton Hill, far back of Somerset street, including garden, shrubbery, and pasture ground, from whence I was sometimes disturbed at night by the tinkling of a cow-bell, which seemed to me strange in the very heart of a large city. Near it, on Tremont street, stood, with its pilasters and tall windows, the mansion of Jonathan Philips, looking like the residence of an old English nobleman. It had a smooth green lawn in front, and an elevated terrace, which was ascended by a lofty flight of stone steps, bordered with vases of exotics; and among its fine shade trees was the beautiful mountain ash, with its clusters of light scarlet berries. It was built, and originally occupied, by Mr. Faneuil, uncle to the gentleman who bestowed the town-hall on Boston.
Next to the house of Governor Philips stood the residence of the talented and unfortunate Sir Harry Vane, who had come over with the early settlers, and afterwards been appointed governor of the province of Massachusetts. He returned to England during the protectorate of Cromwell; and after the restoration, was committed to the Tower for the republican principles he persisted in advocating. Charles the Second had him tried on a charge of high treason, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill—behaving on the scaffold with the utmost composure and dignity. He attempted to address the people, but the drums and trumpets were sounded to drown his voice. This house of Sir Harry Vane was near two centuries old. It was a large brick building, with a garden at the side. The antique back casements still retained the small diamond-shaped panes set in lead; but, when I saw the house, its front windows looked as if they had been modernized about a century ago.
On my last visit to Boston, about two years since, I found that all the above-mentioned old mansions had been demolished, and their places filled with rows of modern structures suited to the utilitarian spirit of the times. The old Coolidge house, in Bowdoin Square, was still standing in 1840. It also is a large brick building, the bricks much darkened and discolored with time and damp. The house is almost hidden by enormous old trees, which cast their impervious branches so close to the windows that I wondered how its inhabitants could possibly see to do anything, unless they burned lamps or candles all day long. The dense gloominess of shade that environed this mansion, reminded me of the commencement of one of Moore’s earliest poems.
“The darkness that hung upon Willemberg’s walls
Has long been remember’d with grief and dismay,
For years not a sunbeam had play’d in its halls,
And it seem’d as shut out from the regions of day.”
AUTUMN.
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