1890s Archives - Page 45 of 66

George Merriam House, Springfield, Mass

April 4, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The George Merriam House at 55 Chestnut Street in Springfield, around 1893. Image from Sketches of the old inhabitants and other citizens of old Springfield (1893).

The scene in 2015:

The house in the first photo was built in the mid-1820s, and was owned by several different members of the wealthy Dwight family, including Edmund Dwight and later his nephew, Jonathan Dwight III. By far the most significant resident of this house, though, was George Merriam, who purchased the house in 1848. George and his younger brother Charles moved to Springfield in 1831, and opened a publishing company, located at the Old Corner Bookstore at the corner of Main and State Streets. In 1843, they purchased the rights to publish Noah Webster’s dictionary, which soon became a success. Five years later, George moved into this house on Chestnut Street, which at the time was home to some of the city’s most prominent residents. His brother Charles lived in an equally elegant house on Howard Street, in the city’s South End.

George lived here until his death in 1880, and the house remained in the Merriam family until around the turn of the century. It was demolished by 1905, though, and property was divided into two house lots. The one on the right has since been demolished, but the one on the left, known as the Kilroy House, is still standing. Both lots are now owned by the Springfield Library and Museums Association, and the Kilroy House now serves as offices.

George Bancroft House, Springfield, Mass

September 15, 2017April 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The George Bancroft House at 49 Chestnut Street in Springfield, around 1893. Image from Sketches of the old inhabitants and other citizens of old Springfield (1893).

The scene in 2015:

The house in the first photo was built in 1836 by Jonathan Dwight, Jr., a prominent businessman and local politician. It was a gift to his daughter Sarah and her husband George Bancroft, who had moved from Northampton to Springfield a year earlier. However, Sarah died only a few months later at the age of 34, and in 1838 Bancroft left Springfield after being appointed Collector of Customs for the Port of Boston. He never returned to Springfield, but he went on to have a successful political career, serving as the Secretary of the Navy from 1845 to 1846 and as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1849. In addition, he was a noted historian who published an extensive 12-volume history of the United States, which was written over a 30-year period from 1834 to 1874.

After Bancroft left this house, it was sold to his brother-in-law, Jonathan Dwight III, who lived here until he moved to Newport, Rhode Island in 1850. He, in turn, sold it to another brother-in-law of his, George Bliss, who then gave it as a gift to his daughter Sarah and her husband George Walker. Like the previous George who lived in this house, George Walker was also a nationally significant figure. He served a number of diverse roles; aside from his law practice and several terms in the state legislature, he was also influential in the banking industry. From 1860 to 1864 he served as the Massachusetts Banking Commissioner, and later on he was the founder and president of the Third National Bank of Springfield. He also served as the vice president of Western Union and as the vice president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, and from 1880 to 1887 he added diplomacy to his resume, serving as the US Consul-General in Paris.

The third prominent owner of this house was William H. Haile, a politician who served as the city’s mayor in 1881, a state senator in 1882 and 1883, the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1890 to 1892, and he was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Governor in 1892. He had previously lived in a townhouse on nearby Mattoon Street, but he was living here on Chestnut Street by the early 1880s, and he remained here until his death in 1901.

The first photo was taken during Haile’s ownership, and it shows some of the alterations that had been made to the house over the years. It was originally built in the typical Greek Revival style that was common in Springfield during the 1830s, with two stories and a front gable roof. By the time the first photo was taken, though, the old roof had been replaced by a mansard roof and a third story, reflecting the Second Empire style that was popular in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1902, the house was purchased by George Walter Vincent Smith, the prominent art collector whose collection formed the basis of the art museum that now bears his name. He died in 1923, and at some point soon after his wife’s death in 1928, the house was demolished. It was replaced by a second art museum, the Art Deco style D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, which now stands on the site of the old house.

Old West Church, Boston

February 9, 2018March 19, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Old West Church on Cambridge Street in Boston, probably in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The church in 2015:

Old West Church was established in 1737, as one of Boston’s many Congregational churches. This particular building was built in 1806, and was designed by prominent early American architect Asher Benjamin. It is architecturally very similar to one of Benjamin’s earlier Boston churches, the Charles Street Meeting House, which is still standing on the opposite side of Beacon Hill from here. The church closed in 1892, but the historic building was saved from demolition and put to a new use as a branch library for the Boston Public Library. It was one of the few buildings to survive the urban renewal project of the 1950s that destroyed most of the West End, and after the library closed in 1960 it was purchased by the United Methodist Church. The interior was restored to its original appearance and reopened in 1964, and today it remains in use as a Methodist church.

Scollay Square, Boston

March 16, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Scollay Square, looking north from the corner of Tremont and Court Streets, sometime in the 1860s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

Scollay Square on August 26, 1897. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Scollay Square around 1942. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

The scene in 2015:

These four photos reveal the dramatic transformations that have occurred at Boston’s Scollay Square over the past 150 years. The square once included a long, narrow row of buildings in the middle, which appear on city maps as early as the 1720s. The construction date for the building in the first photo is unknown, but it was once at the southern end of this row, and in 1795 it was purchased by William Scollay, a real estate developer for whom the square would eventually be named. By the time the first photo was taken, all of the other buildings in the middle of the square had been demolished, and Scollay’s building was taken down soon after, around 1870.

The second photo shows a very different scene. Some of the buildings along the square are still standing, but the Scollay Building is gone, as are the horse-drawn trolleys from the first photo. Instead, they have been replaced by electric trolleys, like the one shown in the photo. However, these would not last long, at least not on the surface. The second photo was taken only about a week before the Tremont Street Subway opened, and the photo shows some of the construction activity as the workers prepared the Scollay Square station for its opening day on September 3. The station itself is not visible, but its ornate entrance can be seen in this post, which shows the scene from a slightly different angle.

Scollay Square had long been a major commercial center in the city, but by the time the third photo was taken in the 1940s, it had seen a dramatic decline. Many of the old buildings were still standing, but the businesses had become seedier. The 1942 photo shows a number of bars, liquor stores, cheap restaurants, and burlesque theaters, and the area was particularly popular among sailors on leave from the Boston Navy Yard and college students from the many nearby schools. One prominent hotel and theater in both the second and third photos was the Crawford House on the far right. It was built in 1865 and underwent several renovations, including one in 1926 that completely altered the front. The building burned in 1948, and all but the first two floors were demolished a few years later.

By the 1950s, the area was being targeted for urban renewal. Looking to replace the area with something more respectable, the Boston Redevelopment Authority demolished over a thousand buildings in the vicinity to build the Government Center complex, which includes the Center Plaza to the left, the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in the center, and the Boston City Hall, just out of view to the right. The old Scollay Square subway station was also extensively renovated and renamed Government Center. When the last photo was taken, the station was undergoing a another renovation, so if there is one thing that the second and fourth photos have in common, it is subway station construction.

Washington and Court Streets, Boston

February 9, 2018March 15, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The northwest corner of Washington and Court Streets in downtown Boston in 1891. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

Boston’s first skyscraper was the Ames Building, which was completed in 1893 and was the tallest building in the city aside from the steeple of the Central Congregational Church. The first photo was taken shortly before these buildings were demolished to make way for the Ames Building. One of them in the distance to the left appears to already be in the process of demolition, and several of the others feature reminders of their impending doom, including a sign on the corner that reads “Our entire stock to be sold at a sacrifice. Summer and winter underwear selling at half price.” Further down Washington Street to the right, another sign reads, “Building coming down. Carpets & furniture at your own price. No offer refused.”

The Ames Building was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, and its design reflects the older Romanesque Revival style, which was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, but had largely fallen out of fashion by the turn of the century. In other ways, though, the building represented a transition between the old and the new. Two major limits to early skyscrapers were stairs and structural support; buildings beyond a certain height were impractical because of the amount of climbing to reach the top and the thickness of the walls that would be necessary to support the weight of the upper floors. To solve the first problem, the 13-story Ames Building included modern elevator technology. However, while the 1880s saw the introduction of skyscrapers with a steel skeleton, the Ames Building was instead built with load-bearing masonry walls, which explains the thickness of the granite base. Today, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it still stands as the second tallest load-bearing masonry building in the world, after Chicago’s Monadnock Building.

First Church in Boston

March 4, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The First Church in Boston, at the corner of Berkeley and Marlborough Streets in Boston, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The church in 2015:

Boston’s First Church is among the oldest religious organizations in the United States, having been established in 1630 when John Winthrop and other early settlers first arrived in Boston. It became an influential congregation in New England, with leaders such as Charles Chauncy, who served as the pastor for 60 years from 1727 until his death in 1787. Theologically liberal, he opposed the Great Awakening revival that was led by one of his contemporaries, Jonathan Edwards of the church in Northampton. In part because of Chauncey’s influence, Unitarian theology began to take root in early 19th century Boston, and most of the city’s churches, including the First Church, shifted to Unitarianism.

The church had previously been located in downtown Boston, but by the 1860s many of Boston’s wealthier residents were moving west into the newly-filled Back Bay, and many of the long-established Protestant churches joined them, including the First Church. They moved into this Gothic style building at the corner of Berkeley and Marlborough Streets in 1868, and remained here for the next 100 years until it was gutted by a fire in 1968. The historic church had to be completely rebuilt, aside from the tower and the Berkeley Street facade, which had survived the fire and were incorporated into the new building.