Buildings

Thoreau House, Boston

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The Thoreau House on Prince Street, near Salem Street, probably in the 1890s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The location in 2014:

Although most commonly associated with Concord, some of Henry David Thoreau’s family was from Boston.  This house was in his family for several generations, starting with his great-great grandfather David Orrok in 1738.  After Thoreau’s grandfather died, ownership of the house was split among the eight children, including Henry David Thoreau’s father John Thoreau, although I don’t know that he or his children ever lived here.  In any case, the house, which was built in 1727, remained in the Thoreau family until 1881, and was demolished in 1896, a year before the completion of its present-day replacement, the Paul Revere School.

 

Galloupe House, Boston

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The Galloupe House on Hull Street in Boston, around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The site in 2014:

Supposedly, this house on Hull Street was General Gage’s headquarters during the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought just across the Charles River from here.  The accuracy of that is somewhat questionable, but regardless, this building was very old.  It was built around 1724, and was home to a succession of owners, including several members of the Galloupe family, hence the name.  It was demolished sometime around 1905-1910, and was replaced with the present-day buildings.

 

Edmund Hartt House, Boston

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The Edmund Hartt House on Hull Street in Boston, sometime in the 1800s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

Houses

The scene in 2014:

The house in the first photo was built sometime in the 1700s; I have seen three different accounts that give three different dates.  Regardless, it is best known as the home of Edmund Hartt, a shipbuilder whose yard constructed some of the US Navy’s first ships.  Most significantly, his yard was one of the six around the country chosen to build the first Congressional-authorized naval ships.  Completed in the late 1790s, five of the six ships are long gone, but Hartt’s work – the USS Constitution – is still around, just across the harbor from the place where his house once stood.  His house was probably demolished sometime in the first decade of the 20th century, but his gravesite can still be visited, directly across the street at Copps Hill Burying Ground.

 

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Boston (3)

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Another view from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End, around the 1880s or early 1890s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The cemetery in 2014:

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The house in the background is the Johnson-Singleton House, and was built in the mid 1700s.  Located on Charter Street, it and the surrounding buildings were demolished in the 1890s to create Copp’s Hill Terrace, a public park between Charter Street and Commercial Street.  Boston Harbor is in the background, but it is obscured by buildings in the first photo and trees in the present-day photo; the only hint of its presence is the tip of the masts of a sailing ship in the first photo.

John Tileston House, Boston

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The John Tileston House, located at the corner of Prince and Margaret Streets, around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2014:

A century before the first photo was taken, this house was the home of John Tileston, a teacher who taught writing at a nearby school from 1754 until 1819.  During this time, teaching writing did not mean he taught his students to compose essays; he literally taught them how to write elegant script – an important skill for aspiring businessmen in the days before typewriters and word processors.  Ever notice the quality of the penmanship on documents like the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence? It was teachers like Tileston who ensured that our nation’s founding documents weren’t written in chicken scratch.  Interestingly, though, Tileston did it all with a disabled hand.  His hand was severely burned in a fire as an infant, preventing him from doing most manual work but allowing him to teach instead.

His house stood long after his death, and in the first photo it had a first floor store that sold “Dry Fancy Goods,” as the sign above the door indicates.  The house didn’t last much longer than that, though.  Like many other colonial-era buildings in the North End, it was demolished to make way for new development in the first decade of the 20th century.

Mather-Eliot House, Boston

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The Mather-Eliot House on Hanover Street, near North Bennet Street in Boston’s North End, around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2014:

In his 1887 book, Rambles in Old Boston, New England, Edward Griffin Porter describes the house in the first photo as a “fragment of an ancient wooden dwelling, crowded almost out of sight by the larger brick buildings.”  The house at 342 Hanover Street was built in 1677 by noted Puritan minister Increase Mather, after his previous house was destroyed in the fire of 1676.  His son, Cotton Mather, grew up here, and later went on to be a prominent minister as well.  The Mathers only lived here for 11 years, but later on the house was owned by two other famous ministers, Andrew and John Eliot.  The house was still standing in 1899, but was demolished by 1908.  As seen in the 2014 photo, a 7-Eleven now occupies the first floor of the building that sits on the site now.  The building to the left of the Mather-Eliot House is long gone, but the one on the right, which was built in 1884, is still there.

Incidentally, after the fire of 1676 destroyed Increase Mather’s old house, a new house was built on the same site around 1680, and survives today – it is best known as the Paul Revere House.