Robert E. Guarino - Beacon Street: Its Buildings and Residents

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Robert E. Guarino

All rights reserved

First published 2011

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.214.5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guarino, Robert E.

Beacon Street : its buildings and residents / Robert E. Guarino.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-124-6

1. Beacon Street (Boston, Mass.)--History. 2. Historic buildings--Massachusetts--Boston. 3. Architecture--Massachusetts--Boston--History. 4. Beacon Street (Boston, Mass.)--Buildings, structures, etc. 5. Boston (Mass.)--Buildings, structures, etc. 6. Beacon Street (Boston, Mass.)--Biography. 7. Boston (Mass.)--Biography. 8. Boston (Mass.)--History. I. Title.

F73.67.B43G83 2011

974.461--dc22

2011000062

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Gerry

CONTENTS

PREFACE

When I lived on Beacon Street between 1982 and 2003 and walked in the area, it was inevitable that on almost every excursion I would be stopped by a tourist or visitor and asked for directions to this place or that and often questioned about who lived in the particular building in front of which we had stopped. Only a few of the structures along the section of Beacon Street that runs beside Beacon Hill and its flats had tablets or signs indicating some prominent personage or an event that had happened there or near there, and I was often stumped and unable to give a response when queried about different addresses.

It was after ten years of living on Beacon Street and encountering these visitors that I decided to try to research the very structures with which I had become so familiar, starting with my own residence in an 1850s brownstone and brick building at 90 Beacon.

I decided to trace back the ownership of the buildings and the ownership of early structures that may have been at the same locations, as well as the ownership of the land on which the structures were built, all the way back to the original settlers of Boston and their rights to the original land.

At about the same time, I learned about the existence of insurance atlases that had been printed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and accurately displayed a footprint of every building along the street, as well as the names of the owners in the respective years of the atlases. This information, along with my desire to know who had owned and lived in the respective buildings, led me on a research project that I found more interesting the further back in history I went.

I discovered that the original ownership of the Shawmut Peninsula surely rested with the Native Americans who resided here probably for millennia and used the shores for fishing during the summer months. The people who lived in the area were of the Massachusett tribe, of Algonquin stock, when William Blackstone first came here in 1624.

The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with an understanding of the unique history of Beacon Street and its past and present residents and property owners, commencing with the initial possession of the land by Native Americans and followed by the English exploration of the area and eventual settlement by the first European, William Blackstone. The story continues until the 1950s, when changes to the buildings and homes essentially stopped, with the exception of One Beacon Street, an office building that was added in the 1970s.

While they were built primarily as single-family dwellings, sometimes referred to as dwelling houses, the use of the various homes changed throughout the succeeding decades. Also described herein are mansion houses, free-standing dwellings unattached to their neighbors; and row houses, single-family homes of similar, if not identical, design that were attached to others either in double, triple or larger form or sometimes as mirror images of the adjacent house.

After the population migration to the suburban lifestyle in the early twentieth century, many houses were sold to businesspeople, who changed the use to apartment houses, and many became rooming houses as well. It wasnt until the 1960s and 1970s that people started returning to the city, and the popularity of condominiums created the opportunity to live an affordable city life with home ownership.

Walking Beacon Street from Tremont to Arlington Streets gives people today a rare chance to see the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries come alive. The beautiful red brick town houses and Charles Bullfinchs splendid 1798 statehouse grace one of Americas most historic streets, which, along with the Boston Common and Public Garden, allows for rare panoramic views of the unique lineup of architecture.

The part of Beacon Street that I am writing about contains the area starting from present-day Tremont Street west over Beacon Hill, past the statehouse, down to Charles Street and on to the flat of the hill to where 99 Beacon Street once existed, approximately opposite the northern end of Arlington Street. This book is, in fact, a genealogy of the street that enables the reader, when observing todays buildings and landscape, to discover the history of each present-day address. Also referenced are now nonexistent addresses and their respective structures, along with chapters on groups or events that markedly influenced the scenes we see on Beacon Street today.

This book can be used as a visitors guide, accompanying one on a sort of travelers sojourn through time. It should also appeal to scholars and residents who are fascinated by the historical sights before them and have an interest in discovering their past.

Included are brief biographies of many of the notables who lived on the street and many photographs, engravings and maps relating to the addresses.

The introduction describes the reasons for the Massachusetts Bay Companys decision to settle in Boston and outlines how the town grew around the harbor and Blackstones residence. The subsequent chapters show the history of addresses, both no longer extant and still existing, and the progression of ownership of those sites and buildings.

Much of the material gathered here is from research done at the primary level at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds (SRD) and at the secondary level in many books and files, both written and illustrative, from various repositories, including, but not limited to, the Boston Athenaeum, Historic New England (SPNEA), the Bostonian Society, the John F. Kennedy Library and the Massachusetts Historical Society. The assistance of the staffs at these venerable institutions has been greatly appreciated. I also offer special thanks to Jack Leonard, without whose constant reviewing, correcting and encouragement this book would never have happened.

Many of the very early references to land ownership are derived from the Fifth Report of the Record of Commissioners printed in Boston in 1880. As described in the preface to that volume, written by William H. Whitmore and William S. Appleton, commissioners, the report contains a series of articles relating to the history of estates lying on or around Beacon Hill. These articles were contributed in 1855 to the