But the most curious description of Boston, though it may hardly be called such, is that given by Edward Ward—a low, but ingenious and scandalous author, whose book cannot enter a decent presence—in his “Trip to New England.”[1] He says of “Boston and the Inhabitants,”—
“On the south-west side of Massachusetts Bay is Boston, whose name is taken from the Town in Lincolnshire, and is the Metropolis of all New England. The houses, in some parts, join as in London. The buildings, like their women, being neat and handsome. And their streets, like the hearts of the male inhabitants, are paved with pebble.
“In the chief or High Street there are stately edifices, some of which have cost the owners two or three thousand pounds the raising, which I think plainly proves two old adages true, viz., That a fool and his money is soon parted; and, Set a beggar on horseback he’ll ride to the devil; for the fathers of these men were tinkers and pedlars.
“To the glory of religion, and the credit of the town, there are four churches, built with clapboards and shingles, after the fashion of our meeting houses; which are supply’d by four ministers, to whom some, very justly, have applied these epithets, one a scholar, the second a gentleman, the third a dunce, and the fourth a clown.”
These extracts afford no idea of the scandalous character of the book, nor do even sentences like these: “The women, like the men, are excessive smokers.” “They smoke in bed, smoke as they knead their bread, smoke whilst they are cooking their victuals, smoke at prayers,” &c. “Eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping take up four parts in five of their time,” &c. “Rum, alias kill-devil, is as much ador’d by the American English, as a dram of brandy is by an old billingsgate,” &c. We can give our readers no further idea of the gross and indecent character of the whole volume, without offending in the way the author has done.
THE SOUTH COVE.
The South Cove extended from what is now Batterymarch Street to near the North Battery, at the foot of Fleet Street, curving inward as far as Kilby Street and near the old State House, with creeks extending towards Spring Lane, Milk and Federal Streets. Dearborn says, “Winthrop’s Marsh, afterwards called Oliver’s Dock, was near Kilby Street, and between the corner and Milk Street, a creek ran up to Spring Lane.” An aged citizen once said he remembered hearing Dr. Chauncy say that he had taken smelts in Milk Street; and a Mr. Marshall remembered that when a boy they were caught in Federal Street, near the meeting-house, (Dr. Channing’s). Another aged inhabitant is reported to have said, that, in the great storm of 1723, “we could sail in boats from the South Battery to the rise of ground in King Street,” near the old State House. Dock Square was at the head of a small cove, the tide rising nearly to the pump, which was formerly there, at the foot of Cornhill. The statue of Sam Adams, recently erected, is directly over the well in which the pump stood.
A narrow point or tongue of land projected into the cove between the Town Dock (then near Faneuil Hall) and Mill Creek, and upon this land stood the celebrated triangular warehouse,—a remarkable building for the time. It stood opposite the Swing Bridge, and a little north of the dock, measuring forty-one feet on Roebuck Passage (named after the tavern near it), and fifty feet on the back side. Near this place, in the small square formed by the junction of Ann, Union, and Elm Streets, was the Flat Conduit, so called. Ann Street was originally Conduit Street as far as Cross Street; and Union Street, in 1732, lead from the conduit to the Mill Pond.
Around the South Cove, as has been said, in the early time the chiefest part of the town was built; and from thence it gradually expanded along the shore to the south and to the west. John Josselyn, in 1638, visited Boston, and wrote a volume entitled “New England Rarities,” in which he says, “It was then rather a village than a town, there being not above twenty or thirty houses.”
THE NORTH COVE.