Beacon Hill

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.

Louisburg Square, Boston

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Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston, on July 5, 1930. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leon Abdalian Collection.

The scene in 2021:

 

Beacon Hill is one of the best-preserved neighborhoods in Boston, and it generally consists of narrow streets lined with brick rowhouses. However, the one exception to these narrow streets is here at Louisburg Square, a long, narrow park that extends from Mount Vernon Street to Pinckney Street. The square was laid out as part of development of Beacon Hill during the 1820s, and the houses around it were constructed in the 1830s and 1840s. Like most of the other houses in the neighborhood, they are generally three or four stories tall, and many have bow fronts, including a row of eight bow-fronted houses on the left side of the scene.

As for the park itself, it was one of a number of small urban parks that were laid out in Boston during this period. Some have been lost over time, including the Tontine Crescent on Franklin Street and Pemberton Square just to the east of Beacon Hill, but Louisburg Square has remained largely unchanged since the mid-19th century. The park is privately owned and maintained by the residents of the square, and in 1846 they added the cast iron fence around the perimeter of the park, followed by statues of Aristides the Just and Christopher Columbus in 1850. The square also briefly had a fountain, which was installed in 1850 but removed in 1856.

Over the years, Louisburg Square has had a number of prominent residents, particularly in the literary world. The house at 10 Louisburg Square—the second bow-fronted house from the left in this scene—was the final home of Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson Alcott. They lived here for several years in the 1880s, until their deaths two days apart in March 1888. Also in the 1880s, novelist William Dean Howells lived at Louisburg Square, first at number 16 in 1882, and then at number 4 from 1883 to 1884. One of the houses near the end of the street, at 20 Louisburg Square, was the home of author and banker Samuel Gray Ward, who was also one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1852, prominent Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind married her husband, Otto Goldschmidt, in this house. Much more recently, prominent Louisburg Square residents include former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry, who lives in the house on the right side at the far end of the street.

By the time the first photo was taken in 1930, the houses on Louisburg Square were already nearly a century old, yet not much had changed here in the intervening years, aside from the addition of automobiles on the streets around the square. Today, nearly a hundred more years have gone by, and still Louisburg Square has remained well-preserved. It is the centerpiece of the Beacon Hill neighborhood, and all of the houses in this scene are now part of the Beacon Hill Historic District, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark district in 1962.

61-63 Mount Vernon Street, Boston

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The houses at 61 and 63 Mount Vernon Street in Boston, on March 20, 1909. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The buildings in 2021:

These two photos were taken near the same spot as the ones in the previous post, and they show two rowhouses on Mount Vernon Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. This area was developed in the early 19th century, and these two lots were once part of a much larger property owned by Senator Jonathan Mason. After Mason and his wife Susan died in the 1830s, their mansion was demolished and the land was subdivided into smaller lots for new houses. Among the housed built here were the two in the first photo, at 61 and 63 Mount Vernon Street. Built around 1837, their design was typical for Beacon Hill homes of this period; they were brick, four stories in height, with a bowed front façade and three window bays.

The house on the left, at 63 Mount Vernon Street, was originally owned by merchant William Sawyer. Subsequent owners included William Mason, the son of Jonathan Mason, but the most prominent resident here was William Claflin, who lived here from around 1870 until his death in 1905. Claflin was a shoe manufacturer and politician who served as lieutenant governor from 1866 to 1869, and then as governor from 1869 to 1872. He was also involved in national politics, serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1868 to 1872, and he served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1877 to 1881. In addition to this, he was a major donor and namesake of Claflin University, a historically black university in South Carolina, which was established to educate recently-emancipated former slaves.

As for the house on the right, at 61 Mount Vernon Street, it was built around the same time as its neighbor, but it does not appear to have had any particularly prominent residents. According to the state’s MACRIS inventory form on this house, its original owner was Jonathan Phillips, but over the course of the 19th century its subsequent residents included William Minot, John C. Gray, and John C. Bancroft. The house was still standing when the first photo was taken in 1909, but it was demolished soon after. Its replacement, which is shown in the 2021 photo, was built in 1911, and it is of similar size and appearance to its predecessor, although with more Classical Revival-style features.

Today, the house at 63 Mount Vernon Street is still standing, although it has been altered since the first photo was taken, most significantly with the addition of a fifth floor. Overall, though, the house retains much of its historic exterior appearance, and even the newer house next door at 61 Mount Vernon Street fits in well with its surroundings, despite the different architectural details. Both houses are now part of the Beacon Hill Historic District, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark district in 1962.

Mount Vernon Street, Boston

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Looking west on Mount Vernon Street from near the corner of Walnut Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, around 1860. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

For more than two centuries, Beacon Hill has been one of the most desirable residential neighborhoods in Boston. During the colonial period, this area was primarily hilly pastureland on the outskirts of town, but in 1798 it became the site of the Massachusetts State House, which still stands at the southeastern corner of the neighborhood. Residential development soon followed, consisting largely of brick, Federal-style row houses. Over the years, many prominent people have lived here on Beacon Hill, and it remains a remarkably well-preserved early 19th century neighborhood.

These two photos show the view looking west on Mount Vernon Street from the corner of Walnut Street, near the crest of the hill. Nearly all of the buildings from the first photo are still standing more than 160 years later, with the exception of the one on the far right, which was demolished around 1905-1910 in order to build the current Tudor Revival-style building. Aside from this one, the other houses on the right side of the street in this scene all date back to the first half of the 19th century. The two closest to the foreground, just past the Tudor-style building, were both built in the 1830s, and the both feature a bowed front façade, which is a distinctive feature on many Beacon Hill homes.

On the left side of the street, the most distinctive houses are the two brownstone homes in the foreground at 40 and 42 Mount Vernon Street. These were among the first houses in the neighborhood to be built of brownstone rather than brick, and they were both designed by architect George Minot Dexter. Both were built for prosperous merchant Augustus Hemenway, who lived in the house at the corner, at 40 Mount Vernon Street. He was still living here when the first photo was taken around 1860, and both houses remained in his family until the early 20th century.

Just past these houses are three comparatively modest brick rowhouses, which were built around 1825, and further in the distance are three single-story buildings. These are probably the oldest buildings in this scene, dating back to 1804 when they were built as carriage houses for homes on nearby Chestnut Street. Despite their small size and humble origins, all three have survived to the present day, and have since been converted into residences.

Overall, with the exception of the present-day cars and paved roads, very little has changed in this scene since the first photo was taken. This is generally true throughout much of the neighborhood, and because of this level of preservation, Beacon Hill was designated as a National Historic Landmark district in 1962.

John Hancock House, Boston

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The John Hancock House on Beacon Street in Boston, around 1860. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2017:


This grand mansion was built in the mid-1730s for Thomas Hancock, a wealthy Boston merchant. At the time, Beacon Hill was on the outskirts of Boston, and this house was the westernmost one on Beacon Street. Here, Thomas and his wife Lydia created what amounted to a country estate, with gardens, orchards, and pastureland that extended up the southern slope of hill, and was directly across the street from Boston Common. Despite the pastoral setting, though, the was within easy walking distance of Boston’s wharves, where Hancock conducted his business. The house itself was built of granite, and was an outstanding example of Georgian architecture, complete with a balcony that offered sweeping views of Boston and the the surrounding harbor.

Thomas and Lydia had no children of their own, but in 1744 Thomas’s brother John died, and his seven-year-old son, also named John, moved to Boston and lived here in this house. After graduating from Boston Latin School in 1750 and Harvard College in 1754, John Hancock joined his uncle’s firm, eventually taking over the business after Thomas’s death in 1764. Along with the business, he also inherited his uncle’s estate here on Beacon Hill, and he went on to live here for the rest of his life.

John Hancock went on to become one of the most prominent Patriots in the years leading up to the American Revolution, and in 1774 he was elected as a Massachusetts delegate to the Second Continental Congress. From 1775 to 1777, he served as the President of the Continental Congress, and it was in this capacity in 1776 that he famously signed the Declaration of Independence. Following his time in Congress, he briefly served in the war as a major general in the Massachusetts militia, and in 1780 he was elected as the first governor of Massachusetts. Widely popular, he easily won re-election every year until 1785, when he resigned due to ill health.

Later in 1785, James Bowdoin was elected as his successor, but his two years as governor were marked by a failing economy and a poor response to Shays’ Rebellion in 1786-1787. As a result, Hancock ran against him in the 1787 election and won easily, and he went on to win re-election every year until his death in 1793. During this time, he pardoned those involved in Shays’ Rebellion, and he was also an influential proponent of the U.S. Constitution, which was narrowly ratified by the state in 1788, probably thanks to his support. In the absence of an official governor’s mansion, Hancock’s house served that purpose well, and he received a number of distinguished visitors here, including the Marquis de Lafayette in 1781 and George Washington in 1789.

By the time John Hancock died in 1793, this house was no longer at the outskirts of Boston, and Beacon Hill was in the process of being transformed into an exclusive neighborhood of elegant townhouses. Portions of the estate were steadily sold, including land to the east of the house, which became the site of the Massachusetts State House. Other parcels were sold for new homes, and by the early 19th century the house was surrounded by more modern homes. Hancock’s widow, Dorothy, had remarried in 1796, and she lived here in this house until 1816. The house remained in the family, though, with John Hancock’s nephew, also named John, owning the house until his death in 1859.

The first photo was taken sometime around the time when the younger John Hancock died, and it shows his granddaughter, Elizabeth Lowell Hancock Moriarty, standing on the second floor balcony. Despite being over a century old, the house still retained its stately elegance, and was recognized as an important landmark. There had been several different proposals for using the house, including the possibility of purchasing it as an official governor’s mansion. The family even offered the property to the state for the low price of $100,000, but many balked at the idea of such an expense, and the idea was dropped.

The property was finally sold in 1863, with the intention of redeveloping it with modern townhouses. The state was offered one last chance to move the house to a new location, but again there was significantly opposition to the $12,000 expense, and the historic house was ultimately demolished in the summer of 1863. Had it survived, the house would have become one of the city’s iconic Revolutionary War landmarks, on par with such places as the Old State House, the Paul Revere House, and Old North Church. Instead, though, its demolition did help to spur preservation movements for some of these other landmarks, including the Old South Meeting House, which survived similar redevelopment threats a decade later.

In 1865, two townhouses were built on the site of Hancock’s house. However, these houses did not last nearly as long as their predecessor, because in 1917 they were demolished to build a new wing of the Massachusetts State House. Since then, not much has changed. The 1798 state house, with its various additions over the years, remains in use as the state capitol building, and the surrounding Beacon Hill neighborhood is still home to many of Boston’s wealthy residents, nearly 300 years after Thomas Hancock first made his home here.

Third Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston

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The Third Harrison Gray Otis House, at 45 Beacon Street in Boston, around 1860. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library

The house in 2017:


Harrison Gray Otis was a lawyer and politician, and one of the most prominent residents of Boston at the turn of the 19th century. Born in 1765 as a member of the prominent Otis family, he was a young boy when his uncle James became one of the leading anti-British patriots in the years leading up to the American Revolution. After graduating from Harvard in 1783, Harrison subsequently opened his law practice in Boston, and in 1796 he was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. That same year, he was elected to Congress, and served two terms from 1797 to 1801.

Otis would go on to serve in the state legislature from 1802 to 1817, and was elected to a term in the U.S. Senate from 1817 to 1822. A few years later, he finished his political career by serving as mayor of Boston from 1829 to 1832. However, despite his extensive political career, his greatest legacy in Boston has probably been his three houses on Beacon Hill, all of which are still standing today as some of the finest examples of residential Federal architecture in the country.

All three of his houses were designed by Charles Bulfinch, one of the nation’s most prominent architects of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first house, completed in 1796, was built on Cambridge Street, but Otis only lived here for a few years before moving in 1800, to another new house on Mount Vernon Street, near the top of Beacon Hill. He did not live there for very long either, though, because his third house, seen here on Beacon Street, was completed in 1808.

When the house was completed, Beacon Hill was just starting to be developed as an upscale neighborhood for Boston’s elite, and Otis’s house occupied one of the most desirable spots, directly across from Boston Common. Although most of the houses here are townhouses, his was originally built as a freestanding home, with gardens to the right and behind it, and a driveway to the left. The house itself is considered to have been one of Charles Bulfinch’s finest works, and Otis was evidently satisfied with it, because he lived here until his death 40 years later in 1848.

Otis’s political career peaked during the time that he lived here, and this house saw several distinguished guests, including James Monroe, who stayed here during a visit to Boston in 1817, as well as Senator Henry Clay. With Beacon Hill becoming the city’s most desirable and exclusive neighborhood, though, property values rose to the point where Otis could no longer justifying having large gardens around his house. So, in 1831 he sold a 25-foot wide section of his garden to his neighbor, David Sears, who built an addition to his own house. This granite townhouse, which can be partially seen on the far right, was built for his daughter Anna and her husband William Amory, who was a prominent textile manufacturer. Two years later, Otis filled in the gap between the two houses by building 44 Beacon Street, directly adjacent to his own house, for his daughter Sophia and her husband, Andrew Ritchie.

By the time Harrison Gray Otis died in 1848, his formerly freestanding home had been mostly incorporated into the streetscape of Beacon Street. The only remnant of the gardens that once surrounded his home is the driveway on the left, which leads to a carriage house in the backyard. A rarity in Beacon Hill, this driveway is the only break in an otherwise continuous row of houses on Beacon Street between Walnut and Spruce Streets. When the first photo was taken about 12 years after his death, the house and its surroundings had already assumed its present-day appearance, and there is hardly any difference despite being taken over 150 years apart.

When the first photo was taken, the house was owned by brothers Samuel and Edward Austin, both of whom were merchants. Neither brother ever married, and after Samuel’s death, Edward continued to live here for many years, until his own death in 1898 at the age of 95. The property changed hands several more times in the first half of the 20th century, and by 1940 it was owned by the Boy Scouts, who used it as offices until 1954. Since 1958, it has been owned by the American Meteorological Society, and it is used as the organization’s headquarters. During this time, the interior was significantly renovated, but the exterior of the house has remained well-preserved, and it still stands as one of the finest homes in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.