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Historic Boston |
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"Boston is what I would like the whole United States to be."
Charles Dickens
Legend
1. Bunker Hill
"...the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends," wrote Abigail Adams to her husband John on June 18, 1775. A day earlier the organized and deadly colonials had dealt a blow to the British atop Breed's Hill, the actual site of the battle. British General Clinton later wrote: "A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America."
2. Old North Church
"One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,"
Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860
On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes took off by horse from Cambridge to spread the alarm. Two lanterns hung in the steeple had warned them that the British would cross the Charles River by boat and march to Lexington to arrest colonial radicals John Hancock and Samuel Adams.
3. Paul Revere House
"LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere"
Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860
Best known for his finely crafted silver, Paul Revere also started the first successful copper rolling mill in America. His mill supplied Robert Fulton with copper sheeting for the boilers powering his steamships. Revere also cast church bells, including the one that still sings in King's Chapel: "the sweetest bell we ever made."
In my print, you'll find Paul Revere hammering a silver bowl. Four of his sixteen children play near the house he lived in for 30 years. His horse, nose deep in a bucket of oats, readies for the moonlit ride made famous by Longfellow.
However, Paul Revere didn't really own a horse at the time. He was rowed across the Charles River to Cambridge and borrowed a horse, perhaps named 'Brown Beauty,' for his ride to Lexington and Concord. Between the two towns, Revere was intercepted by a British patrol which released him after questioning. They confiscated the horse.
4. Steamship State O' Maine
Built in 1882, the 241-foot side-wheeler State O' Maine was designed for service on the open sea. For years she ferried passengers of the International Steamship Company from Boston downeast to Portland, Maine, and St. John, New Brunswick.
Here she navigates the islands of Boston Harbor, passing Georges Island where Fort Warren protected the city during the Civil War. Boston Light, America's first lighthouse (1716), stands guard on Little Brewster Island. A cannon was placed there in 1719 to warn sailors in the fog. The lighthouse was destroyed by the British in 1776 and rebuilt in 1783 by order of John Hancock.
5. Faneuil Hall
Peter Faneuil, a prosperous Boston merchant, built this hall in 1742 as a gift to the town. He intended it as a place for public meetings and a downtown market for produce and livestock.
In the years before the American Revolution, Faneuil Hall, named 'The Cradle of Liberty' by John Adams, rang with impassioned protests against British taxation. Abolitionists, temperance advocates, and suffragists also gave voice here to the important issues of their day. This hall has well served its founding purpose.
The original building was designed by John Smibert and was rebuilt in 1762 after destruction by fire. In 1805 the architect Charles Bulfinch, who had just completed the new State House, enlarged it substantially. The one remaining original element of Faneuil Hall is the grasshopper weathervane which had been modeled after the one on London's Royal Exchange. Did his jumps mimic the stock market?
6. Quincy Market
In the early 19th century, a rapidly growing Boston required a larger marketplace than Faneuil Hall could provide. Quincy Market, designed in the Greco-Doric style, was built next door in 1826. The 535-foot long granite structure was named after Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston from 1823-1828.
I love including friends and family in my paintings. Next to Quincy Market, my brother, a landscape architect, sells flowers from the back of his green horse-drawn wagon.
7. Steamship Twilight
Seeking summer fun, Bostonians in the 19th century frequently traveled south by boat past the beacon at Nix's Mate then Bumpkin Island to Nantasket Beach. As the grand Victorian, Hotel Nantasket, advertised at the time: "Embarking on one of the Boston & Hingham Company's Steamers, which leave Rowe's Wharf, Boston, every hour, a pleasant voyage of sixty minutes in the harbor, giving passengers views of the islands and lighthouses which make the trip a continuous delight, brings you to Nantasket Beach." After arrival, visitors could ride the roller coaster, enjoy "Bathing, Bowling, Billiards, Rifle and Pistol Shooting" or a concert by The Boston Cadet Band.
8. USS Constitution
Launched October 1797, the frigate Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship in the world and the symbolic flagship of the U. S. fleet. She served against the Barbary pirates and in the War of 1812 where she defeated four British war ships. Cannonballs were said to have bounced off her 21-inch thick oak hull, thus earning her the nickname 'Old Ironsides.' In 1830, Oliver Wendell Holmes helped save the old ship from the scrapyard. His poem Old Ironsides rallied public interest in preserving her.
"Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky"
9. The brig Beaver, Boston Tea Party ship
In 1773, the brig Beaver and two other ships sailed from Nantucket to London, their holds full of whale oil. The East India Company sent them back to Boston Harbor laden with chests of tea, a staple of colonial life.
However, the Crown had imposed a tea tax that the colonists refused to pay. They were outraged to be taxed by a government in which they had no representation. On December 16, 1773 a mass meeting at the Old South Meetinghouse resolved that the tax would not be paid and the tea 'refused.' That night 200 men, mock Indians with faces blackened by coal dust, stealthily boarded the three ships at Griffin's Wharf, split open the chests with tomahawks and tossed the tea into the harbor. Not surprisingly, King George III was dropped from the guest list for future tea parties in Boston!
Near the ship Beaver and two centuries later, my sister and I sail into the scene in our family's red boat. It's also outside the window in my print Sweet Dreams and is a catboat like those of the Rainbow Fleet shown in Nantucket Island.
10. Old State House
Built in 1713 to house the offices of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Old State House is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. The Merchant's Exchange was on the ground floor with the chambers of both the colonial legislature and the Royal Governor one floor above.
In my print, townspeople gather below the Old Statehouse balcony awaiting the first reading in Boston of the Declaration of Independence on July 18, 1776. Later that day the unicorn and lion, symbols of British royalty, were torn from the facade and burned. During an historical restoration a century later, replicas were installed on the building's corners.
Near the Old State House is a ring of cobblestone commemorating The Boston Massacre. On a cold night in March of 1770, tension between Bostonians and British soldiers erupted in violence. Five colonists died. Paul Revere distributed his printed illustration of the event to reinforce anti-British public opinion. However, John Adams, barrister and later, second President of the United States, successfully defended the accused British soldiers. He argued that this was a riot, not a political demonstration.
11. First public school and Franklin statue
Schoolgirls play hopscotch while a boy shows off his pet frog at the site of Boston Latin School, the first public school in America, appropriately located on School Street. The school, founded April 23, 1635 by the Town of Boston, educated five signers of the Declaration of Independence: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Treat Paine, and William Hooper. Surveying the site is an 1856 statue of Benjamin Franklin: the great inventor, diplomat and scientist who is only one of Boston's many stars.
12. King's Chapel
Organized as an Anglican congregation in 1686, King's Chapel was originally a small wooden meeting house. It was built on the public burying ground because local landowners refused to sell property for a non-Puritan house of worship. Buried here is Elizabeth Pain who may have inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's character, Hester Prynne, in The Scarlet Letter.
By 1754, a new, larger building of Quincy granite was built at the site. However, for lack of funds, a steeple was never constructed. The English bell hung in the chapel in 1772 later cracked and was recast by Paul Revere in 1816.
In 1776, the largely Loyalist congregation was forced to flee to England and Nova Scotia when British forces withdrew from Boston.
13. Park Street Church
The Park Street Church from 1809 is on 'Brimstone Corner.' The name refers both to the fiery sermons delivered here and the gunpowder, made partly of sulfur or brimstone, stored beneath the church during the War of 1812. In 1829, this church hosted abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison for his first public anti-slavery speech. Two years later, "My Country 'Tis of Thee" was sung for the first time by the children's choir. Perhaps their voices are heard by my cousin and her new husband smiling for the camera on the front steps.
Behind the church is the Granary Burying Ground, so named because the town grain was stored where the church now stands. Patriots John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Robert Treat Paine and James Otis are buried here, as are Benjamin Franklin's father and mother, who was born on Nantucket Island.
14. The State House
On a symbolic July 4th in 1795 Governor Samuel Adams and Paul Revere laid the cornerstone for Boston's spacious new State House. Designed by Charles Bulfinch, the elegant edifice was situated on Beacon Hill facing the Common on land that was once John Hancock's cow pasture.
The dome, originally shingled in wood, was sheathed in copper by Paul Revere in 1802, and gilded in 1874. In the Great Hall hangs the carved wooden Sacred Cod, first mounted in the Old State House to represent the wealth early settlers had discovered in Massachusetts Bay waters.
15. Beacon Hill and Louisburg Square
Captains of schooners and square-riggers would search for the lighted beacon on Boston's highest hill, knowing safe harbor was ahead. But from 1857 to 1894 Beacon Hill lost height as dirt was removed to fill in the swamps of the Back Bay.
At the heart of Beacon Hill is Louisburg Square, a small London-style park established in 1826 and collectively owned by the adjoining property holders. The large Greek-revival style houses have been home to well-known New Englanders, among them writer Louisa May Alcott.
The brick bow-fronts of this lovely square inspired quite a few of my folk art paintings. Walking by the square one early morning, I imagined it a century earlier as the milk wagon arrived. That vision animated my painting Pure Milk and Cream which can be seen in the Painting Gallery at this site. Just up the hill in a tiny walk-up apartment with a bird's eye view of the city, I also painted Historic Boston.
16. Trinity Church
The Great Fire in November of 1872 destroyed most of Boston's downtown, including the original Gothic-style Trinity Church. However, two years earlier Trinity's congregation had decided to build a new church anyway. In January of 1872 they bought a large parcel of land in the newly filled Back Bay, and in June hired Henry Robson Richardson as the architect.
The thirty-two year-old Richardson was born in Louisiana and educated at Harvard and L'Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He remained in France during the Civil War and in 1865 moved to Staten Island where his neighbor was landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, a future collaborator.
In designing Trinity Church, Richardson forged a personal style that became his signature: 'Richardsonian Romanesque.' The abstraction of strong geometric forms and massive volumes is balanced by an intimacy of surface detail, texture and color. Ornamental motifs inspired by eleventh century French churches play over stonework. Interior space is vast and dramatic, bejeweled with stained glass windows by John LaFarge, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.
In the print, if you squint you'll see my friend and former Duxbury classmate, Brian Jones, conducting his choir inside Trinity Church.
17. The Public Garden
Established in 1837, the Public Garden was the first public botanical garden in the country. Like the rest of Back Bay, it had been a salt marsh until filled in with dirt removed from the three original hills of Boston: Beacon, Mt. Vernon and Pemberton. George Meacham won a public competition in 1859 for the design of the 24 acre site and was awarded a one hundred dollar prize.
In 1875 the city of Boston hired Frederick Law Olmstead to design a public park system. He created the Emerald Necklace, a 7-mile string of greenery which begins at the Common and includes the Public Garden, Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Back Bay Fens, Olmstead Park, Jamaica Park, Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park.
I take special pride in the fact that my grandfather devoted twenty-six years to helping preserve the Emerald Necklace. In honor of his work on the Park Commission, the main path of the Public Garden which crosses the suspension bridge is named 'Haffenreffer Walk.'
As a child, the highlight of a trip into Boston was always a ride on the swan boats in the Public Garden. The first of these foot-propelled paddle wheel boats was built by Robert Paget in 1877. He covered the bicycle mechanism with a swan inspired by Wagner's opera Lohengrin. This Arthurian legend tells of a knight ferried across the river on a boat drawn by a swan.
In my print, at the top of the Public Garden you'll find the bronze ducks that honor those in Robert McCloskey's children's tale, Make Way For Ducklings. My niece is handed a popsicle at the ice cream truck bearing her name while a cousin and her kids feed ducks on the pond. I stand at my easel painting a passing swan boat. Art and life become one!
18. The Boston Common
One of the oldest public parks in the country, the Common was purchased by the colony of Massachusetts in 1634 for militia training and cattle grazing. A darker side to its history is that until 1817, the Common was a site of public hangings. In April of 1775, British troops, refused lodging by locals, camped on the Common before their raid on Lexington and Concord: the beginning of the American Revolution.
Shown in my print is the posting tree where Bostonians would gather to read local notices. Nearby a fellow preaches from his overturned soapbox, a reference to the rights of public assembly and free speech written into the fabric of Boston. On a lighter note, my nephew nudges his boat across the Frog Pond, cousins tug at their kite strings and nearby a childhood girlfriend of mine plays shortstop. Watch out! One day I may paint you in too.
19. Old Corner Bookstore
Built as an apothecary shop and residence in 1712, this building became known as the Old Corner Bookstore when Ticknor and Fields Publishing House occupied it from 1832 to 1865. The literary hub of Boston, such noted writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dickens gathered here to exchange ideas.
20. Old South Meetinghouse
This church was established in 1729 as a Puritan meeting house. Because it was the largest building in pre-Revolution Boston, colonists gathered here to debate issues that would shape the country's history.
On December 16, 1773, several thousand angry colonists crowded into the meetinghouse, demanding a solution to the tea tax crisis. Frustrated by the town of Boston's refusal to send the ships with their tea back to England, a group led by Samuel Adams raided them at Griffin's Wharf. The tea steeped in the harbor and Adams got in very hot water!
During the Revolution, vengeful British soldiers chopped up the pews for firewood and used the meetinghouse as a riding school. It was restored after the war.
The Great Fire of 1872 destroyed most of downtown Boston. However, the Old South Meetinghouse was saved from total destruction by a citizens' bucket brigade. Three years later the congregation moved to the new Venetian Gothic 'Old South' church at Copley Square. The original Meetinghouse was rescued again in 1877, this time from demolition, by a group which included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Julia Ward Howe, who believed in its historical importance.
On a nearby street in my print, I've painted my sisters' names above the millinery and yardage shops. In front of the meetinghouse, my childhood friend Evelyn and I sit on the brick steps, trading secrets, her collie Tippy at our feet.
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