Looking up Salem Street from the corner of Cooper Street, in Boston’s North End, before 1894. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.
The same scene in 2014:
The building in the first photo was known as the Wells Adams House, and according to late 19th century sources was built sometime in the late 1600s, probably around the same time as the Paul Revere House. Like many other historic colonial-era North End buildings, it was demolished in 1894, and the current building was probably built shortly after that. The only building that appears in both photos is the one on the far right; it was built in the 1840s, and is one of the few bow fronted houses that remains in the North End.
The name–Wells Adams–MAY refer to my fifth great-grandfather, Francis Wells, and his good friend, Samuel Adams. Both were politically active. Francis’s daughter, Elizabeth, was Sam’s second wife.
And Francis was friends with Paul Revere.