On the south side of Franklin street, until about 1800, known as Barrell’s pasture, extending from the Catholic Alley, now Devonshire street, up to Hawley street, there was a single block called the Tontine block, such as we ought to see more of in Boston today. It was designed by Charles Bulfinch, and contained sixteen dwelling houses, with a front curved to correspond to the curve of the street, and built with a palace front, two houses at each end projecting about six feet, and the centre carried up higher than the rest of the building, and built over three arches, a central arch for a street called Arch street to pass through, and one smaller arch on each side over the Arch street sidewalks. A door under the arch led up to the old Boston Library, which is still in existence with a home in Boylston Place. The block was built on the Tontine plan, with a certain number of owners, the property descending to the survivors. After some years its tontine feature was abandoned and the property divided among the survivors.

All through my boyhood, Franklin, Federal, Atkinson, now called Congress, Pearl, High, Purchase, South, Lincoln, Summer, Arch, Winter, Tremont, West, Bedford, Chauncy, Boylston, Essex and Kingston streets, Otis Place, Winthrop Place and Fort Hill were occupied by dwelling houses. Fort Hill, which rose about twenty-five or thirty feet above Pearl street, was cut down in 1865, and High street extended across it. Pemberton hill, the residence of Gardner Greene, was cut down in 1835 to its present level, and Pemberton Square laid out for houses. The estate covered by Pemberton hill was a famous historic estate. It was occupied by Sir Harry Vane in 1636, by Rev. John Cotton and his son Seaborn, John Hull, Wm. Vassall, Madame Hayley, the society leader in Boston, Jonathan Mason, and Gardner Green. The house of Mr. Green, which was taken down in 1835, was built by Mr. Vassall in 1760. When the hill was levelled, a rare tree called the Gingko, brought from China, was removed to the Common, slips from which are now standing on the grounds of Jason W. Mixter and B. F. Mellor in Plymouth.

When the city government decided to remove the hill Patrick T. Jackson, in behalf of the city, made a contract with Asa G. Sheldon of Wilmington to perform the work and fill the flats north of Causeway street. Mr. Sheldon moved the Gingko tree to a spot on the Common near the Beacon street mall on a stone dray drawn by oxen, driven by Waterman Brown of Woburn.

Washington street, once called the Neck, was until 1786 the only way in and out of Boston. South Boston, then a part of Dorchester, could only be reached by the way of Roxbury; and Cambridge could not be reached except by ferry, only by going through Roxbury and Brookline. The Charles River Bridge Company was incorporated March 9, 1785, and built the old Charlestown bridge, which was opened June 17, 1786. This bridge furnished a new and convenient route to Cambridge. The West Boston Bridge Company was incorporated March 9, 1792, and built the bridge extending from Cambridge street, which was opened November 23, 1793. These two bridges continued as toll bridges until January 30, 1858. Dorchester Neck, now known as South Boston, was annexed to Boston, March 6, 1804, then having only ten families, and on the same date the South Bridge Co. was incorporated. The Dover street bridge was built by that company, and opened Oct. 1, 1805, and was sold to the city April 19, 1832, and made free, tolls having been charged up to that time. Canal bridge now Craigie’s Bridge, a toll bridge, leading to East Cambridge, was built by a company incorporated Feb. 27, 1807, and after its purchase by the state, was made free January 30, 1858. On the 14th of June, 1814, Isaac P. Davis, Uriah Cotting and Wm. Brown, and their associates, were incorporated as the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, who built the mill dam leading from Beacon street to Brookline, over which a road was opened July 2, 1821. This was a toll road, and during my college life the toll gate was located a little east of Arlington street, and tolls were collected until it was laid out as a highway, Dec. 7, 1868. The Boston Free Bridge Corporation was incorporated March 4, 1826, and built the South Boston Bridge, which crossed Fort Point Channel at Sea street, and was bought by the city September 16, 1828, and called Federal street bridge. The Warren Bridge Corporation was incorporated March 11, 1828, and opened Dec. 25, in that year. It was assumed by the state in 1833, and made free in 1858.

Between the toll gate on the Mill Dam and Brookline there were no houses, and what is now called the Back Bay extended from the Mill Dam to Washington street. In this connection the statement may be interesting that in 1830 the pasturage of cows on the Common was for the first time forbidden by a city ordinance.

When I was ten years old, my great uncle, Isaac P. Davis, who was born in 1771, and who as one of the corporators of the Mill Dam, was familiar with that neighborhood, took me one day down to the corner of Boylston street and Charles street, and said to me, William, here was the original bank of Charles River, and on this spot the British embarked for Charlestown on the morning of the battle of Bunker Hill. I was also told by one of the building committee of Trinity church, that in driving piles to support the foundation, the bed of an old channel was found where hard bottom could not be reached, and the expedient was adopted of clearing away the earth between the piles several feet down and filling the space with cement, thus holding them from the top instead of supporting them at the bottom. On this foundation, containing either five thousand piles at a cost of $7 each, or seven thousand at a cost of $5, I have forgotten which, the structure stands without a crack, to show any settling. If an X ray could penetrate the sub-surface of the Back Bay, it would disclose thousands of piles with a composite between, of old hats, bonnets, shoes, hoop skirts and tomato cans on which stand the domiciles of wealth and fashion. Perhaps, however, such a foundation is as genuine and real as that on which stands fashion itself. In my youth the South Bay, east of Washington street, was open to the harbor through Fort Point channel, only obstructed by the Dover street, and the old South Boston bridges. At that time the yards of the houses in Purchase street extended to the water, and Atlantic Avenue, north of Dewey Square, was built along the harbor margin. Thus within my recollection, there have been added between the Mill Dam and Washington street, Boylston street, Huntington, Columbus, Atlantic, Shawmut and Harrison avenues, all built where once was water, and adding more than eight hundred acres of made land to the old peninsula of Boston, which contained only six hundred and ninety. Until 1852 the Commonwealth owned 2,453,730 square feet of land in the Back Bay, which in that year it began to have filled with the view of selling it. At that time it was estimated that the land was worth, less the cost of filling, $906,516.00. The conservatism of this estimate is shown by the fact that in 1872 $3,551,514 had been received from sales, or $2,044,294 taking out the cost of filling, and 500,000 square feet remained unsold, valued at $750,000, leaving a profit to the Commonwealth of $1,887,178. In view of the probably speedy and profitable sales of this land, the question came up in the legislature of 1859, when I was a member of the Senate, whether it would not be well to devote a part of the proceeds of these sales to educational purposes, and petitions were presented looking to this end, which were referred to the committee on education, of which I was chairman. After several hearings I drew up a report at the request of the committee, and after I submitted it to the legislature, the daily papers paid it the unusual compliment of printing it in full. Resolves accompanied the report, giving $100,000 to the Museum of Natural History and Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, fifty thousand dollars to Tufts college, and $25,000 each to Amherst and Williams colleges, and the Wilbraham academy, and in addition a substantial amount to enlarge the school fund of the state. Against some opposition the Resolves were passed by both branches of the legislature, and it has always been a source of satisfaction to me that I was in some degree instrumental in prosecuting to a successful issue a measure so plainly conducive to the best interests of the state.

One of the most striking changes in Boston within my time, has been the change in the location of meeting houses from those localities where they were once marked features, to the newer parts of the city. While many of the meeting houses which stood sixty years ago in Purchase street, Summer street, Hollis street, Cambridge street, Chambers street and Hanover street, have been abandoned, and others in Federal street, Franklin street, Summer street, Washington street and Essex street have been replaced by new, no less than twenty-five have been built in sections which in 1840 were covered by water. Thus the money changers, instead of being driven out of the temple, have driven the temples away from the haunts of trade.

In recalling these recollections of Boston, to which I have merely glanced, it seems to me that I have witnessed its growth from youth to age. There are other evidences of its growth than those to which I have alluded. I was told many years ago by Edwin Rice, a resident in East Boston, which now contains a population of thirty thousand, that when he settled there its population did not exceed a hundred. I recall sitting one calm summer afternoon nearly seventy years ago on the grassy bank of Noddles Island, as East Boston was called, now covered with a dense population, and listening to the roar of the city across the harbor. I do not remember to have heard it before or since. The experience was an interesting one. There was no single distinguishable sound, but the rattle of wheels on the pavement, the footfall of horses on the bridges, the hammer on the anvil, the drum of a passing band, the cries of street venders, and, perhaps the rustle of trees and the voices of boys at play, all mingled in a continuous rumble of a busy, populous city. It has been stated that during the battle of Waterloo the people of Brussels heard neither the rattle of musketry, nor the booming of cannon, but both were combined in an unbroken roar of the battle field. In recalling that summer afternoon at East Boston, I have thought that the voices of the past, not the voice of this man or that, performing his part in the drama of life, but the voices of all good and great men who have lived and died need time and distance to be blended as a harmonious whole in the grand symphony of civilization.

In 1832 the whole of East Boston, containing 663 acres of upland and marsh with the flats contiguous thereto and one house, was bought by Wm. H. Sumner, Stephen White, Francis J. Oliver and others for about $80,000, and the East Boston corporation was soon after formed. From that time it rapidly grew, attracting a large population, and becoming a hive of industry. Before the civil war two hundred and thirty or more vessels had been built on its shores, with a measurement of more than two hundred thousand tons. Ship builders were drawn there from the shallow waters of Duxbury, the North river and other places, among whom the chief were Samuel Hall, Donald McKay, Daniel D. Kelly, A. & G. T. Sampson, Jackson & Ewell, Paul Curtis, Jarvis Pratt, Brown, Bates & Delano, Robert E. Jackson, Andrew Burnham, Brown & Lovell, Hugh R. McKay, G. & T. Boole, Wm. Hall, Pratt & Osgood, Samuel Hall, Jr., Joseph Burke, Wm. Kelly, Otis Tufts, Burkett & Tyler, C. F. & H. D. Gardiner; E. & H. O. Briggs. There Donald McKay built the fleet of ships which made his name famous. The following is, I believe, a correct list of his vessels:

Anglo Saxon,894tonsStar of Empire,1635tons
Ocean Monarch,1301tonsRomance of the Seas,1500tons
Washington Irving,751tonsChallenger,1400tons
New World,1404tonsLightning,2083tons
Moses,700tonsGreat Republic,4556tons
Anglo American,704tonsChampion of the Seas,2447tons
Az,700tonsJames Baines,2526tons
Jenny Lind,533tonsCommodore Perry,1964tons
Plymouth Rock,960tonsSanta Claus,1256tons
Helicon,400tonsBenin,692tons
Reindeer,800tonsBlanche Moore,1787tons
Parliament,998tonsJapan,1964tons
Moses Wheeler,900tonsAdriatic,1327tons
Antarctic,1116tonsMastiff,1030tons
Daniel Webster,1187tonsZephyr,1184tons
Staghound,1534tonsDefender,1413tons
Flying Cloud,1782tonsDonald McKay,2594tons
Staffordshire,1817tonsAbbott Lawrence,1497tons
North American,1469tonsAmos Lawrence,1396tons
Sovereign of the Seas,2421tonsMinnehaha,1695tons
Westward Ho,1650tonsHarry Hill,568tons
Bald Eagle,1704tonsBaltic,1720tons
Empress of the Seas,2200tonsL Z,897tons