Architecture

Old Patent Office Building, Washington, DC (2)

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The south entrance to the Old Patent Office Building on F Street NW in Washington, DC, around 1900-1906. Photographed by William Henry Jackson; image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

As explained in the previous post, this building was constructed between 1836 and 1867 as the home of the Patent Office. The oldest section, which opened in 1840, is shown here in the foreground, and it can be distinguished from the rest of the building by its darker-colored sandstone exterior. It was designed by architect Robert Mills in the Greek Revival style, and the entrance here on F Street NW once had a large staircase leading up to the portico, as shown in the first photo.

This staircase was eventually removed in 1936 when the street was widened, but the rest of the building avoided possible demolition in the 1950s, when there had been a proposal to replace it with a parking lot. It was ultimately preserved, was designated as a National Historic Landmark, and it is now the home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

Old Patent Office Building, Washington, DC

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The Old Patent Office Building, seen from the corner of 7th Street NW and F Street NW in Washington, DC, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2021:

These two photos show the Old Patent Office Building, which was constructed in stages between 1836 and 1867. The building has a roughly rectangular footprint, with a courtyard in the center, and it occupies the entire block between F Street NW, G Street NW, 7th Street NW, and 9th Street NW. It was designed by prominent architect Robert Mills, with a Greek Revival style that was popular for public buildings of this era.

The oldest part of the building is the southern wing, shown here on F Street NW on the left side of the scene. It was completed in 1853, and it can be distinguished from the rest of the structure by the darker-colored sandstone exterior, in contrast to the lighter-colored marble of the later wings on the east and west. This wing originally had a large staircase at the main entrance, as shown in the first photo, but this was removed in 1936 when the street was widened.

The primary purpose for this building was to serve as a repository for models of new inventions, which had to be submitted as part of the patent process. However, the building also served a number of other roles in its early years, including as the home of the Department of the Interior from 1852 to 1917, as a hospital and barracks in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam in 1863, and as the site of Lincoln’s second inaugural ball in 1865.

The building suffered a major fire in 1877 that caused significant damage to the building and the loss of many patent models, but it was subsequently restored. The Patent Office remained here until 1932, and the building was subsequently occupied by the Civil Service Commission. It was threatened by demolition in the 1950s, but it was ultimately preserved and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1965. Since 1968, it has been the home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. With the exception of the stairs on the left side, the exterior has remained well-preserved throughout this time, and it stands as perhaps the finest example of Greek Revival architecture in Washington.

Edgar Allan Poe Birthplace, Boston

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The birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe at 62 Carver Street (modern-day Charles Street South) in Boston, around 1931-1932. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

Boston was the literary center of the country during the mid-19th century, and many of the leading writers of this period were born in Boston or the vicinity. Perhaps the most famous of these was Edgar Allan Poe, although ironically he spent only short periods of his life in Boston, and he tended to have a dim view of his native city and the literary luminaries who lived here.

This may have been, at least in part, because of a very different family situation. While most of the other prominent Boston writers came from affluent, respectable families, Poe’s parents had been actors, a profession that, in early 19th century Boston, was seen as a lowly, possibly immoral profession. Orphaned as a young child, Poe would go on to lead a rather nomadic life, frequently moving between different cities on the east coast and eventually culminating with his mysterious death in Baltimore at the age of 40.

Poe was the second child of David and Eliza Poe, who lived in Boston from the fall of 1806 until the spring of 1809. Although they were both actors, Eliza was evidently the more talented of the two. She had begun her acting career at the age of nine, and by fifteen she was married to fellow actor Charles Hopkins. However, he died three years later in 1805, and Eliza remarried to David Poe in April 1806. Compared to Eliza, David was relatively new to acting. He had been studying to become a lawyer, but in 1803, at the age of 19, he abandoned it for the stage. Contemporary accounts indicate that he did seem to have some natural talent, but he also suffered from debilitating stage fright, which often caused him to speak his lines too rapidly, or forget them altogether.

The Poes moved to Boston a few months after their marriage, and their first appearance here was on October 13, 1806 at the Federal Street Theatre, in the comedy Speed the Plough by Thomas Morton. By this point Eliza was about six months pregnant, but she did not let this slow her down. She continued to perform in a variety of plays until about two weeks until the birth of her first child, William Henry Poe, on January 30, 1807. David continued to act during this time, including several supporting roles in Shakespearean plays, such as Laertes in Hamlet and Malcolm in Macbeth. However, Eliza’s maternity leave was short, and she was back on stage within less than a month.

During their time in Boston, the Poes performed alongside some of the most prominent actors of the era, including Thomas Abthorpe Cooper and James Fennell. During Cooper’s visit to Boston in early 1808, the Poes had a variety of supporting roles in his Shakespearean performances. Among other roles, David was cast as Malcolm in Macbeth, and Eliza played Ophelia in Hamlet, with Cooper as Hamlet. David and Eliza also performed together alongside Cooper, appearing as the Duke of Albany and Cordelia, respectively, in King Lear.

However, despite their successes on the stage, the Poes evidently struggled financially. They had to sustain an busy schedule of performances in order to make ends meet, and in the spring of 1808 they were the subject of several benefit performances. As noted by Arthur Hobson Quinn in Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, these were special performances where the recipients would keep all of the profits, after the expenses from the performance were paid. The first benefit was held on March 21, with the Poes starring in The Virgin of the Sun. In advertising for the event, the Boston Commercial Gazette emphasized Eliza’s talents and work ethic, writing:

She has supported and maintained a course of characters, more numerous and arduous than can be paralleled on our boards, during any one season. Often she has been obliged to perform three characters on the same evening, and she has always been perfect in the text, and has well comprehended the intention of her author.

After reminding the readers of the many roles that she had preformed with such proficiency, the article concluded with:

We hope, therefore, that when the united recommendations of the talents of both Mr. & Mrs. Poe, are put up for public approbation, that the public will not only not discountenance virtuous industry and exertion to please, but will stretch forth the arm of encouragement to cheer, to support and to save.

However, with benefit performances such as this one, the intended recipients would earn the profits, but they would also be on the hook for making up the difference in the event that the proceeds did not cover the expenses. This was evidently the case for their March 21 performance, because a second benefit was subsequently scheduled for April 18. In advance of this, the Boston Democrat published an advertisement that noted:

[F]rom the great failure and severe losses sustained by their former attempts, they have been induced, by the persuasion of friends, to make a joint effort for public favor, in hopes of that sanction, influence, and liberal support, which has ever yet distinguished a Boston audience.

For this second benefit, they chose Friedrich von Schiller’s melodrama The Robbers, with David playing the role of Francis de Moor and Elizabeth playing Amelia. In organizing the benefit, they were assisted by their friends and fellow actors, Mr. and Mrs. Usher. The Poes and Ushers frequently performed together, and this would later lead to speculation about whether the Ushers were, many years later, the namesakes for one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories.

It does not seem clear whether or not this second benefit was more successful than the first one. However, another source of speculation for later biographers was the fact that their second son, Edgar, was born exactly nine months and one day after this performance.

Because of incomplete records, it is hard to determine how many different houses the Poes lived in during their time in Boston. Their only confirmed place of residence was the house shown in the first photo, at what would become 62 Carver Street. They were definitely living here in the spring of 1808, when David Poe was listed here on tax records. And, although it is impossible to say for certain, the house is the most likely candidate for having been the birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe, who was born on January 19, 1809. Various sources have, at times, proposed 33 Hollis Street as his birthplace, but this conclusion was based on a faulty interpretation of city records.

The brick, Federal-style rowhouse at 62 Carver Street was built sometime after 1801 by Henry Haviland, a stucco worker who also ran a boarding house here. Haviland was living here in 1808, and his tenants included the Poes, John Hildreth, actor Daniel Grover, and ropemakers Joshua Barrett and Moses Andrew.

As was the case with her first pregnancy, Eliza Poe continued her busy acting schedule until shortly before Edgar was born. On January 13, just six days before he was born, she was playing the role of a peasant in The Brazen Mask, and she was back on stage just three weeks after his birth, appearing as Rosamonda in Abaellino, the Great Bandit on February 10.

Poe’s childhood in Boston proved to be very short-lived, with he and his family departing at the end of the season. David’s final role in Boston appears to have been Laertes in Hamlet on April 21, with Eliza playing the role of his sister Ophelia. Eliza would continue to appear in plays over the next few weeks, before concluding her time in Boston as Miss Marchmont in False Delicacy on May 12. The Poes subsequently departed Boston, and they were performing in New York by early September.

Unfortunately, life did not get any easier for the Poes after leaving Boston. David received negative reviews from some of the New York critics, and his final performance was on October 18, in Grieving’s a Folly. He was supposed to appear in the same play again two nights later, but a different play had top be substituted at the last minute, with contemporary accounts citing Poe’s “sudden indisposition” as the reason. This was often a euphemism for intoxication, leading some to suggest that Edgar Allan Poe may have inherited his alcoholism from his father. Either way, it marked the end of David’s acting career.

Eliza continued to act, and in December 1810 she gave birth to her third child, Rosalie, whose paternity is sometimes questioned. Eliza died a year later, likely from tuberculosis, at the age of 24, and David appears to have died around the same time. The three children were then split up, with young Edgar ending up with John and Frances Allan in Richmond, Virginia.

Edgar Allan Poe would eventually return to Boston several times over the course of his life. In 1827, while in the army, he was stationed at Fort Independence on Castle Island. It was during this time that Poe published his first work, Tamerlane and Other Poems. This 40-page pamphlet was printed in Boston by Calvin F. S. Thomas, although Poe’s name did not appear on it. Instead, the title page only indicated that it was “by a Bostonian.” However, only 50 copies were printed, and it received little attention. Today, only 12 copies are known to survive, making it one of the rarest books in the history of American literature.

Poe returned to Boston again in October 1845. By this point, he was a well-established author, and the Boston Lyceum invited him to speak at the Odeon Theatre. Although renamed, this was the same theater where, nearly 40 years earlier, Poe’s parents had regularly performed during their three seasons in Boston. Poe drew a sell-out crowd for the event, with the expectation that he would be presenting a new poem. Instead, however, he recited one of his early, obscure poems, “Al Aaraaf.” Written when he was a teenager, this was his longest poem, and it was particularly difficult to understand. Many in Boston saw this performance as an insult to the city, and Poe’s later remarks did little to mollify Bostonians.

Despite having been born in Boston, Poe had little regard for the city. This was particular true for its literary figures, whom he generally saw as overly moralistic in their writings, and he often referred to Bostonians as “Frogpondians,” after the frog pond on Boston Common. In responding to criticism of the Lyceum event, Poe published an essay in the Broadway Journal on November 1. In it, he acknowledged that he was born in Boston, writing:

We like Boston. We were born there—and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact. The Bostonians are very well liked in their way. Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good. Their Common is no common thing—and the duck-pond might answer—if its answer could be heard for the frogs.

Poe would make at least one more notable visit to Boston, in the fall of 1848. It was a little less than two years since the death of his wife Virginia, and he was in love with a married woman, Nancy “Annie” Richmond. Apparently out of desperation, he attempted suicided by overdosing on laudanum while he was in Boston. He was unsuccessful, but he ultimately died less than a year later in Baltimore, under mysterious circumstances.

In the meantime, Poe’s birthplace here in Boston would outlive him by more than a century, although given his disdain for Boston it seems unlikely that he would have been particularly concerned about its fate. And, Bostonians seemed similarly apathetic about it. While the homes of Poe’s Boston-area contemporaries like Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Longfellow have been preserved as museums, this was not to be the case for Poe’s birthplace.

By the early 20th century, this house was widely recognized as having been Poe’s birthplace, and a photograph and short article even appeared in the Boston Globe in 1924. At the time, the house was one in a long row of three-story brick buildings on the east side of Carver Street. The house on the right side of it, at 64 Carver Street, was still standing at that point, but it was demolished by the early 1930s, as shown by the parking area on the right side of the first photo in this post.

As for Poe’s birthplace at 62 Carver Street, its appearance likely had not changed much by the time the first photo was taken in the early 1930s. And, for that matter, its use had not changed much in the intervening years either. As was the case when Poe’s parents lived here in the early 1800s, it was likewise being used as a boardinghouse when the 1930 census was conducted several years before the photo was taken. According to the census, the boardinghouse was run by Margaret Trauvetter, a 53-year-old widow who lived here with her brother and seven boarders, all of whom were either single or widowed men. Most had working-class jobs, including a sailor, two clerks, a janitor, a storekeeper, and a stableman.

The house would remain here for several more decades, but in 1959 it was acquired by Boston Edison, which operated the adjacent Carver Street Substation. The house was demolished soon after, in order to expand the parking area for the substation. Today, the site is still a parking area, hidden behind a tall chain link fence with a privacy screen and barbed wire.

Although Poe’s birthplace at 62 Carver Street is gone, the two adjacent houses to the left are still standing, although because of street realignments this is now Charles Street South, rather than Carver Street. These two houses are the last survivors of the many three-story brick houses that once stood on this block, but they were built sometime in the late 1800s, so they would not have been here when Poe was born. However, there might still be one surviving remnant of Poe’s birthplace. The brick wall on the right side of the building in the present-day scene is a party wall that it once shared with its long-demolished neighbor. Because this was a shared wall, and because 62 Carver Street was much older, it is entirely possible that this was the original north wall of Poe’s birthplace, dating back to when it was built in 1801.

Overall, because his short childhood in Boston, and likely because of the mutual hostility between Poe and his native city, his origins here in Boston are often overlooked. However, he is not entirely forgotten here. While there are no markers here at this site to indicate that it was his birthplace, Poe is memorialized by a statue a few blocks to the north of here, at the corner of Boylston Street and Charles Street South. Unveiled in 2014, it features Poe, accompanied by a raven, walking with a partially-open briefcase, with papers spilling out of it. It is located only a short walk away from the frog pond on the Common that he was so fond of mocking, although—perhaps fittingly—the statue shows him walking away from the Common, with his back turned to Beacon Hill, where many of Boston’s elite had lived during his lifetime.

Courtyard, Boston Public Library (2)

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The courtyard at the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building, in 1896. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

These two photos show the view of the Boston Public Library’s courtyard looking diagonally across from the southeast corner. As explained in more detail in the previous post, this courtyard was very briefly the home of Bacchante and Infant Faun, a bronze statue by sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies. Installed here in November 1896, the statue generated significant controversy, both for its nudity and for its apparent celebration of drunkenness. It was placed in storage after just two weeks, and it was subsequently transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of New York, where it remains to this day.

The first photo was taken sometime in 1896, probably prior to the installation of the statue. The library had been completed a year earlier, and this courtyard was one of its most distinctive architectural features. Charles Follen McKim, the building’s architect, had drawn inspiration for the courtyard from the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, and his design features arcaded walkways around three sides, with a balcony on the fourth side. He had also intended to place the statue in the pool in the center of the courtyard, and had presented it as a gift to the library, but he subsequently withdrew his gift in the wake of the controversy.

Today, more than 125 years after the first photo was taken, this scene remains much the same as it did when the library first opened. However, one noticeable difference is the center of the courtyard, which, in addition to the landscaping, now features a replica of the statue that had once caused so much controversy. In the 1990s, the library commissioned a replica of the original, and it was installed here in 1999.

Courtyard, Boston Public Library

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The courtyard at the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building, around 1909. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

The main branch of the Boston Public Library is one of the city’s great architectural landmarks, and one of its most distinctive features is this courtyard in the middle of the building. Architect Charles Follen McKim modeled it after the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, and has arcaded walkways on three sides, with a balcony on the fourth side and a pool and fountain in the center.

The library was completed in 1895, and the following year this fountain was very briefly the home of Bacchante and Infant Faun, a bronze sculpture by Frederick William MacMonnies. Cast in 1894, this statue features a nude reveler holding grapes above her head in her right hand, with a young child under her left arm. MacMonnies gave the statue to McKim as a gift, and he in turn presented it to the Boston Public Library for display here in the courtyard.

However, this decision sparked considerable controversy here in Boston, with critics objecting to both its gratuitous nudity and its apparent celebration of drunkenness. It was the subject of debate for several months leading up to its installation under the cover of darkness on the night of November 14, 1896. It was made available for public viewing two days later, with many praising its artistic merit while others denounced it as immoral.

Among the latter was the Reverend James Boyd Brady, pastor of the People’s Temple. Preaching his Sunday sermon the day before the statue was presented to the public, Brady decried it as “an infernal representation of strumpetry” and “a statue of smut and obscenity,” and declared that he would rather see a memorial to Benedict Arnold or John Wilkes Booth than “a memorial to the worst type of harlotry with which the earth was ever afflicted.” He was particularly concerned about the statue corrupting the morals of the youth, because “the innocent and the chaste will get their first intimations of vice” from this statue.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the months of controversy, the statue drew quite a crowd when it was finally put on public display on November 16. Reporting the next day, the Boston Globe noted that, at any given time, there was a crowd of around 200 people gathered here to view the statue. The newspaper went on to describe:

There were all sorts among the visitors, the connoisseur, or the man or woman whom everybody else thought must be a connoisseur because he or she presumed to compare the bronze woman’s curves with other nude celebrities, the clergyman looking possibly for a text, the stout woman with the lorgnette, the girl with her drawing materials who spends her days in front of De Chavanne’s and Abbey’s mural decorations, students of both sexes galore, down to the man who simply “knew a good shape” when he saw one.

Based on the Globe’s coverage, the opinion among the visitors seems to have been generally favorable. The article included several amusing anecdotes of reactions from various people, including one “very little man, not a connoisseur, but a practical thinker,” who did not understand what all the fuss was about. Knowing that one of the main objections was the portrayal of drunkenness, the man carefully studied the statue and concluded that the woman was not, in fact, intoxicated. He explained his reasoning:

Well, I don’t know nothing about her, but I tell you that she didn’t [get drunk]. Look at the way she’s standing. A woman couldn’t drink much wine and balance herself and the kid the way she’s doing, with her best foot up in the air. She’s all right, I tell you. I’ve seen ‘em.

The statue continued to draw crowds over the next two weeks, including one particularly busy Sunday afternoon on November 22, when an estimated ten thousand people came to see the statue between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. As was the case on the first day, many visitors saw the statue as harmless, with the Globe quoting one woman who observed that it was no worse than the artwork on display next door at the Museum of Fine Arts. The Globe even mentioned how there were mothers who brought young children to see the statue, despite the corrupting influence that some feared it would have.

These generally favorable reactions among visitors did little to mollify the statue’s critics, though. Reverend Brady continued to be particularly vocal in his opposition. Speaking a week after the statue went on display, he feared that “Many an innocent girl, in a giddy mood, will look upon it and decide that the way to enjoyment and admiration is to throw away morality.” He went on to direct his anger at the library’s trustees, declaring:

Listen, if there is any one here that represents these trustees and art commissioners! I charge them with treason, treason, treason! And no petty treason, but high treason—treason to purity and sobriety and virtue and Almighty God.

The statue ultimately remained here in the courtyard for just two weeks, before being removed for the winter. This was not done in response to the criticism, but instead to protect it from the weather. The intent was to reinstall it in the spring, but over the winter the opposition only intensified, and McKim eventually decided to withdraw his gift in April 1897. The statue remained in storage at the library for several more months, but McKim subsequently offered it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum accepted the gift, and the statue was moved out of Boston in June. For a time, it was located in the Great Hall, as shown in this earlier post, but it is now on display in the Engelhard Court, as shown in this 2023 photo:

In the meantime, the first photo here in this post was taken about 13 years after all of this controversy had been resolved, and it shows the courtyard looking diagonally across from the northwest corner. The pool is visible on the left side of the scene, but it has just a simple fountain in the space where the statue had very briefly stood in November 1896.

Today, more than a century after the first photo was taken, the courtyard of the Boston Public Library remains largely unchanged. It continues to be a quiet place to read and reflect in the midst of a busy city, while also serving as a venue for everything from musical performances to weddings. However, the one major difference between these two photos is the statue in the fountain, which is a replica of the Bacchante and Infant Faun statue that had generated so much controversy. By the early 1990s, the library had begun expressing interest in returning the statue to its original location here. The Metropolitan Museum of Art balked at this idea, so the library instead commissioned this replica, which was installed in 1999.

Phillips School, Boston

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The Phillips School at the corner of Pinckney and Anderson Streets in Boston, in 1860. Photo taken by Josiah Johnson Hawes. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The building in 2021:

A high school education is a near-ubiquitous experience for modern Americans, but this was not always the case. In the early years of the country’s history, secondary education was generally only available to white boys whose families had the inclination and financial ability to send them to a limited number of private academies. However, this concept began to change in the first half of the 19th century, when social reform helped lead to an increased access to education.

One of the first public high schools in the United States was the English High School in Boston, which opened in 1821. Unlike most of the earlier schools, which focused on preparing students for college, this school was intended more for middle class students, particularly those who were looking to become merchants and mechanics. The 1871 book Semi-Centennial History of The English High School provides an overview of the course of study at the school during its early years. In their first year, pupils studied:

Composition; Reading from the most approved authors; Exercises in criticism, comprising critical analyses of the language, grammar, and style of the best English authors, their errors and beauties; Declamation; Geography; Arithmetic continued; Algebra.

In their second year, they studied:

Composition; Reading; Exercises in criticism; Declamation; Algebra; Ancient and modern history and chronology; Logic; geometry; Plane Trigonometry, and its application to mensuration of heights and distances; Navigation; Surveying; Mensuration of superficies and solids; Forensic discussions.

And, in their third year, they studied:

Composition; Exercises in criticism; Declamation; Mathematics; Logic; History, particularly that of the United States; Natural Philosophy including Astronomy; Moral and Political Philosophy.

The school was housed at a temporary location for several years, but in 1824 it moved into this newly-constructed building at the corner of Pinckney and Anderson Streets on Beacon Hill. Although this neighborhood is predominantly residential, the school fit in well with its surroundings. Like the nearby rowhouses on Beacon Hill, the school was built of brick, and its design incorporated a blend of older Federal-style architecture with newer Greek Revival-style elements. It was formally dedicated at a ceremony on November 2, 1824, which was attended by a number of city dignitaries, including Mayor Josiah Quincy III and the Reverend John Pierpont, future maternal grandfather of financier J.P. Morgan. An article published in the November 13, 1824 issue of the Boston Recorder describes the event:

This new school house surpasses any other in the city for beauty and accommodations. Besides ample rooms below for ward meetings and other public purposes, the two higher stories contain accommodations for six hundred scholars, and the whole is warmed and ventilated by two furnaces. Its situation, on the most elevated spot in the city, commands a view of the heavens, which most admirably adapts it for astronomical pursuits, which constitute one of the important branches of instruction—and this alone would render it the most eligible location for the seminary. The handsome cupola on the summit is calculated to afford increased facilities for the same pursuit, and together with the commodious apartments below, furnishes, for the first time, sufficient space and accommodations for the preservation & employment of its fine collection of philosophical instruments.

The ceremony of the introduction of the Preceptor and pupils, by the Mayor and Aldermen and School Committee, attended by such parents and other citizens as chose to attend, was a most interesting scene. The Rev. Mr. Pierpont, of the School Committee, commenced by an appropriate and affecting prayer. The address by the Mayor to the pupils, a hundred and forty promising youths, fully explained to them the high privileges and most important advantages they enjoyed for education, the judicious and expensive patronage extended to the Seminary by the public—that in fact nothing was left undone to afford them every facility for their moral and intellectual improvement—and that if these superior advantages were not duly appreciated and improved by them, the fault must be acknowledged entirely their own. He explained to them the obvious and immediate advantages of their several studies for the advancement of their own personal pursuits, and for their improvement and elevation in their political relations as citizens.

The English High School remained at this location for the next 20 years. Enrollment fluctuated during this time, but was generally between 110 and 140 students in any given year. It dropped as low as 104 students in 1839, but by 1843 enrollment had risen to 170, the highest number while the English High School was in this building. However, graduation rates were low throughout this time. Of the 73 students who enrolled here in 1824, for example, only 13 subsequently graduated. Most years saw similar attrition rates, and the largest graduating class during this period was 24, out of 61 students who had entered in 1839.

The English High School relocated to a new building on Bedford Street in 1844, and the old building here on Beacon Hill became a grammar school. It was named the Phillips School, in honor of Boston’s first mayor, John Phillips, and it opened in the fall of 1844. However, just a few months later, on February 1, 1845, it was heavily damaged by a fire that started in a furnace flue in the basement. It was subsequently repaired, and by 1847 the school enrolled 369 boys.

The 1851 book Sketches of Boston, Past and Present includes a description of the school and its students:

The location of the district from which the school is gathered, is one of the most favorable in the city, as its pupils generally come from the first class families. While this fact is beneficial in many respects, it almost necessarily keeps the school “young,” as its pupils are early transferred to higher schools.

What this book’s description of the school did not include was the fact that it was exclusively for white students. At the time, Boston’s public schools were segregated, and black children who lived in the vicinity of Beacon Hill attended the Abiel Smith School, which still stands a few block away on Joy Street. However, change was already underway, beginning in 1848 when a black Boston resident, Benjamin Roberts, sued the city to allow his daughter to attend one of the white schools closer to their house, rather than the Smith School. He lost his lawsuit, and also lost the appeal, when the state’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld Boston’s segregated school system. Undeterred, Roberts then enlisted the help of the abolitionist community, both black and white, and successfully petitioned the state legislature to outlaw school segregation in Massachusetts. This law went into effect in 1855, and Massachusetts became the only state to ban school segregation in the 1800s, nearly a century before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education did the same at the national level.

Here on Beacon Hill, the Phillips School was among the first of Boston’s schools to be integrated, with 15 black students enrolling here for the first day of classes in the fall of 1855. This desegregation in Boston was celebrated by the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, which declared on September 7, 1855 that:

On Monday last, Boston ceased to be, for the first time in her history, contumaciously unjust and basely proscriptive in regard to equal school rights among her children, irrespective of complexions distinctions.

The newspaper then went on to provide an excerpt from the Evening Telegraph, which described the first day of integration:

The introduction of the colored youth into the schools, we are happy to say, was accomplished with general good feeling on the part of both teachers and white children. At the Phillips School, at the West End, one or two of the white boys were making a little merry sport at the colored pupils as they came up, but the principal, Mr. Hovey, stayed it at once by the quiet remark, ‘Is that your politeness to strangers?’ One enthusiastic white boy ran through Myrtle street, swinging his satchel, and crying out—’Hurrah! we are to have the darkies to-day, and I’m going to have one right side of me!’ . . . The appearance of the colored children in the heretofore by them unfrequented streets leading to the school houses created a ‘sensation’ among the neighbors, who filled the windows, probably in anticipation of trouble. So far as we can hear, there was none, however, in any part of the city.

The first photo was taken only a few years after integration, by prominent photographer Josiah Johnson Hawes. At this point it was still the Phillips School, but within a few years the school would relocate to a new building and would become the Wendell Phillips School, named in honor of the prominent abolitionist and son of the original namesake.

In the meantime, by the late 19th century the old building here in this scene had become a primary school, named the Sharp School. Among the teachers here at the Sharp School was Elizabeth N. Smith, who had been the first black teacher at an integrated school in Boston when she started her career at a different school in 1869. She eventually ended up teaching here at the Sharp School from 1894 until shortly before her death in 1899.

The Sharp School remained here until it closed in 1946, and the building was subsequently sold to the Boston School of Pharmacy. Then, in 1955 the building became the home of the Carnegie Institute, which focused on training medical professionals such as X-ray technicians, lab technicians, medical assistants, and medical secretaries. This school was still around as late as 1980, and was named the Carnegie Division of the Bay State Junior College. However, it appears to have closed soon after, because in 1983 this building was converted into condominiums, after more than 150 years of housing a wide variety of schools.

Today, over 160 years after Josiah Johnson Hawes took the first photo, the exterior of the building has remained well-preserved, despite many changes in use over the years. Its surroundings are also largely unchanged, with most of the early 19th century rowhouses still standing on the narrow streets of Beacon Hill. The old school building is significant not only for its role in the early history of public high school education in America, but also for its pioneering role in school desegregation. It is an important part of the Beacon Hill Historic District, and it is also a stop on the Black Heritage Trail, which highlights the history and landmarks of the free black community that prospered on Beacon Hill during the 19th century.