CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION OF GRANITE AS A BUILDING STONE
INTO NEW ENGLAND


" T HE topography, the soils and other physical conditions of the region about Boston depend in a very intimate way upon the history of the district in which they lie," says Professor N S Shaler, S D.

The New England section of North America, viz., the districts cut off by the Hudson, Champlain and St. Lawrence valleys, is one of the most distinctly marked of all the geographical regions of the continent. In it we find a char- acter of surface decidedly contrasted with that of any other part of the United States. While in the other districts of this country the soil and the contour of the surface are characterized by a prevailing uniformity of conditions, in this New England region we have a variety and detail of physical features that find their parallel only in certain parts of Northern Europe, whence came the New England colonists. This peculiarly varied surface of New England depends upon certain combinations of geological events that hardly admit of a very brief description. The main elements of the history are, however, as follows:

The New England district has been more frequently and perhaps for a longer aggregate time above the level of the sea than any other part of the region south of the Great Lakes. This has permitted the errosive forces to wear away the unchanged later rocks, thereby exposing over its surface the deep lying metamorphic beds on whose masses the internal heat of the earth has exercised its diversifying effects. This irregular metamorphism brings about a great difference in the hardness of the rocks, causing them to wear down by the action of the weather at very different rates. Then the mountain building forces-those that throw out of their original horizontal positions into altitudes of the utmost variety-have worked upon this ground more than they have upon any other region east of the Cordilleros of North America. Again at successive times and especially just before the human period, and possibly during it's first stages in this country, the land was deeply buried beneath a sheet of ice. During the last glacial period, and perhaps frequently during the recurrent ice times, of which we find traces in the record of the rocks, the ice sheet for long periods overtopped the highest of our existing hills, and ground away the rock surface of the country as it crept towards the sea. During the first stage of the last ice period this ice sheet was certainly over two thousand feet thick in Eastern Massachusetts, and its front lay in the sea at least fifty miles to the east of Boston. At this time the glacial border stretched from New York to the far North, in an ice wall that lay far to the eastward of the present shore, hiding all traces of the land beneath its mass.

These successive ice sheets rested on a surface of rock already much varied by the metamorphism and dislocations to which it had been subjected. Owing to the fact that ice cuts more powerfully in the valleys than on the ridges, and more effectually on the soft than on the hard rocks, this ice sheet carved this surface into an amazing variety of valleys, pits and depressions. We get some idea of the variety of these rock carvings from the fretted nature of the seacoast over which the ice sheets rode. When the last ice sheet melted away it left on the surface it had worn a layer of rubbish often a hundred feet or more in depth. As its retreat was not a route, but was made in a measured way, it often built long, irregular walls of waste along the lines when its march was delayed.

When the ice wall left the present shore line, the land was depressed beneath the sea to a depth varying from about thirty feet along Long Island Sound to three or four hundred feet on the coast of Maine. The land slowly and by degrees recovered its position, but as it rose, the sea for a time invaded the shore, washing ever with its tides and waves the rubbish left by the ice sheet, stripping the low hills and heaping the waste into the valleys. While this work was going on the seas had not yet regained shore life, which had been driven away by the ice, and the forests had not yet recovered their power in the land, so the stratified deposits formed at this time contain no organic remains.

At the close of this period when the land had generally regained its old position in relation to the sea, there were several slight, irregular movements of the shore-local risings and sinkings, each of a few feet in height. The last of these were accomplished in Massachusetts not long before the advent of the European colonists. Some trace of their action is still felt on the coast to the northward. This brief synopsis of the varied geological history of New England will enable us to approach the similarly brief history of the Boston district.

Looking on a detailed map of Southeastern New England, the reader will observe that Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor forms a deep but rudely-shaped re-entrant angle on the coast. If the map is geologically colored, he will perceive that around this deep bay there is a fringe of gray slates and conglomerates or pudding stones. Further away, making a great horseshoe, one horn, of which is at Cape Ann, and the other at Cohasset, the curve at its bottom near the Blue Hills includes a mass of granite rocks. This peculiar order of the rocks which surround Boston is caused by the existence here of a deep structural mountain valley or synclinal, the central part of which is occupied by the harbor.

Long after the formation of the Green Mountains, at the time just after the laying down of the coal beds of the carboniferous age, this eastern part of New England, and probably a considerable region since regained by the sea, was thrown into mountain folds. These mountains have by the frequent visitations of glacial periods been worn down to their foundations, so that there is little in the way of their original reliefs to be traced. The Sharon and the Blue Hills are, however, the wasted remnants of a great articlinal or ridge that bordered the Boston valley on the south side. The Waltham, Stoneham and Cape Ann Bay granitic ridges made the mountain wall on its north side Narragansett Bay and Boston Harbor are cut in the softer rocks that were folded down between these mountain ridges. The larger part of the Merrimac valley is a mountain trough that has been similarly carved out, and there are others traceable still farther to the northward. This mountain trough is very deep beneath Boston. A boring made at the Gas Works to the depth of over sixteen hundred feet failed to penetrate through it.

Within the peninsula of Boston, the seat of the old town, these older rocks that were caught in the mountain folds do not come to the level of the sea. They are deeply covered by the waste of the glacial period. But in Roxbury, Dorchester, Somerville, Brookline, and many other adjacent towns they are extensively exposed. They consist principally of clay slates and conglomerates, a mingled series with a total thickness of from five to ten thousand feet. The slates are generally fine grained and flaglike in texture, their structure showing that they were laid down in a sea at some distance from the shore. The conglomerates were evidently laid down in the sea at points near the shore, and they are probably the pebble waste resulting from a glacial period that occurred in the Cambrian age, or at a time when the recorded organic history of the earth was at its very beginning.

After the first settlers came to Boston, in 1630, they probably found the land upon which the city now stands covered with an abundant supply of New England boulders, which were at once useful in the construction of building, just as they are now used in the country districts, but it seems probable that no ledge of rock was found in the old town. Opinions differ, however, as to this point, for Judge Sewall in his diary mentions getting out building stones from the Common as late as 1693. There was the wishing stone near the junction of Beacon Street mall, and the path leading to Joy Street, and we are told "the young folks of by-gone days used to walk nine times around this stone, and then standing or sitting upon it silently make their wishes.

That they began at once to use stone for houses is shown in the following record. "October 30, 1630, a stone house which the governor was erecting at Mystic was washed down to the ground in a violent storm, the walls being laid in clay instead of lime." Mud houses were, indeed, known in the early days of the town, but these were very few in number, and, of course, were only occupied by the poorest of the colonists, or, more correctly speaking, by their menials only. A few houses were built of stone and some of brick, but these were exceptions to the general rule until Boston had become over twenty years of age. About 1650, Johnson says of the city,". The buildings are beautiful and large, some fairly set forth with brick, tile, stone and slate."

There existed until 1864 a stone house built about that time (1650), which was early known as the "stone house of Ebenezer John Phillip," a worthy baker of the town, which stood on the east side of Cross Street, between North and Hanover Streets. It was built chiefly of the common rocks found in the native soil of the peninsula which were broken into various shapes and sizes and laid into place. The foundation walls were four feet thick; the walls above ground were two feet in thickness, and built entirely of small quarried stones unlike anything to be seen in that neighborhood, and which were probably brought as ballast from some part of Europe. They were laid in clay mortar throughout. The upper story, which was a later addition, was built of English brick, and laid in lime mortar, and some of the circular windows had also been filled with the same material, new doors and windows having been opened through the thick stone wall. The stones which formed its walls were removed to form the underpinning of a Methodist Church in Saratoga Street, East Boston.

But if there were various styles of architecture in the first buildings, the materials of which they were constructed were the same in all, save in a very few-heavy oaken frames, boarded over and covered with clapboards. Soon after the fire of 1679, buildings were of a new design. Wealth had increased and the Puritans began to pay more attention to the luxuries of life.

To make the houses fireproof they were coated with cement, small pebbles and broken glass. Brick houses, three stories in height, with arched window caps after the fashion of the day in London, came in vogue at the same time, especially in the more thickly settled portions of the town.

The style of laying bricks is a marking point denoting various periods of New England history. The first style was the old English bond, which consisted of courses of bricks laid lengthwise, alternating with others laying endwise. Then came the form which consisted of a row of bricks laid endwise after every seventh laid lengthwise. The Flemish bond style came after this, in which every row was laid with alternate bricks lengthwise and endwise so as to break joints neatly and preserve the bond. Then came the style in general use today, although one may find many of the old systems used by the architects of the present time. But it was a fact well known to architects at the beginning of the nineteenth century that there was much difficulty at that time in obtaining suitable material for the construction of public or private buildings, especially for the decorative parts.

The red Connecticut sand stone was shipped to Boston very early. In 1665 ordinances were passed in Portland, Conn., relating to the use of the stone by outsiders, which seems to have been used in Boston within the first hundred years. Thus the old Province House, erected in 1679, is described as having a flight of twenty massive red freestone steps. The freestone used in 1737, in the Hancock House, came from Middletown, Conn. In consequence of extensive fires, laws were passed in 1692 and 1699 concerning the construction of stone houses, that of 1692, decreeing "that henceforth no dwelling house in Boston shall be erected and set up except of stone and brick and covered with slate or tile." However, it was not enforced. The triangular building called the "Old Feather store" or the "Cocked Hat," which stood near North Market Street, and was built about this time, had three turrets covered with slate. Slate was used very early for roofing and was probably in part imported from Wales and in part obtained in Massachusetts. Professor Shaler says on this point:

"From the slates and conglomerates of the Cambridge and Roxbury series the first quarried stones of this colony were taken. The flagging slates at Quincy at the base of Squantum Neck were perhaps the first that were extensively quarried. A large number of old tombstones of this region were from these quarries. The next in use were the similar but less perfect slates of Cambridge and Somerville; and last to come into use were the conglomerates or "pudding stone" and granites that require much greater skill on the part of the quarryman to work them. At first the field boulders supplied the stone for underpinnings of houses and other wall work, so that the demand for gravestones was during all the first and for most of the second century of the town, the only demand that led to the exploration of the quarry rocks of this neighborhood. Indeed, we may say that the exploration of the exultant building and monumental stones so abundant here has been barely begun."

Not much thought had been given to the stone quarries until about 1800, when Jackson Field, Josiah Bemis, William Wood and William Packard first begun to open quarries for the purpose of carrying on the stone business. "They may be considered the first persons who established the stone business in a legitimate manner in the town," says Dr. W. S. Pattee in his History of Old Braintree and Quincy, "but it was in a very small way, as there was no great demand for large building stones, and if there had been they would not have been able to supply the material for the want of proper apparatus and machinery for lifting and hoisting large blocks of granite. The stone quarried at this time was principally for underpinnings, doorsteps, etc."

In the Massachusetts records there is a letter dated 1721, describing a visit to Hangman's Island in "Braintry" bay, and to Houghs Neck, near Squantum, and a return with a cargo of twenty tons of split slate, showing how extensively it was used even then. The use of stones for walls, steps and underpinning was constantly increasing.

The method of disposing of these stones and also preventing the exhaustion of these rough, coarse boulders for building purposes was the great topic and exciting question at the annual town meetings of Braintree. At length the inhabitants became somewhat alarmed that the drain created by the use of these boulders for building would not leave them enough to build a common stone wall, or construct a house cellar. To protect themselves from these inva- sions upon their property, they established the following rules:

"1715-Voted, That no person shall dig or carry off any stone on the said commons, or undivided lands upon any account whatever, without license from the committee hereafter named, upon penalty of the forfeiture of ten shillings for every and each carload so dug and carried away; one-quarter part to be to the said committee in full satisfaction for the use of the town. The instructions to the committee were as follows:

"First-That the committee shall give no license to any and every person to dig or carry away any stone from said land, to make sale or merchandise thereof, without the town's direction.

"Secondly-That the committee may and shall license to any and every person in the town for such a quantity of stone as he or they shall stand in need of for their own proper use in the town.

"Thirdly-That the committee shall or may seize all stone that they shall find dug or carted on and off said common lands, the digger or carter whereof is not known, and the same disposed of to the best advantage of the town, by sale or otherwise, deducting one- quarter part thereof to themselves, in full satisfaction as above said."

For years after the passing of this ordinance the same general complaint was made at the annual town meetings that it was impossible for the town to enforce the rules they had adopted. The inability to execute these regulations was probably caused to some extent by the more liberal views of its citizens who opposed it and who were not in harmony with those who advocated and sustained these rigid rules. They doubted the feasibility and justice of passing such onorous laws depriving them of the use of stone for common purposes, and at a meeting held in 1729-30 they were prompted to dissent from the action of the meeting. This dissatisfaction evidently was the cause of the town being obliged to sell the North and South Commons in 1762 and 1765.

At the meeting of 1729-30 it was voted that no person be allowed from henceforth to take stone for his own use from off the common for building, fencing, or the like, without first giving notice to a committee by the town appointed of his so doing and rendering a true account of their quantity and how he disposed of them. They voted that there be five persons of a committee, any three of which shall be a quorum, and but three paid.

"The following persons being then nominated to the committee were voted for singly, viz. Thomas White, Benjamin Luddin, Benjamin Neal, Joseph Crosby, and Ebenezer Thayer. To this twenty-three voters entered their dissent."

In 1859, Chief Justice Shaw read the following valuable and interesting paper before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"The discussions which have recently taken place respect ing the Hancock House have revived my recollection of the history of stone masonry and the use of granite as a building material in Boston and offers an occasion for stating what appears to me to have been an important discovery in the art of working granite within a comparatively brief period. It was said, I believe, of a man of antiquity, as one of his highest claims to the gratitude of his countrymen that he found the city of brick and left it of marble. We think that every one feeling just sentiments of pride for the beauty, permanency and grandeur of the city of his home, in the taste and utility of its public and private buildings must take a deep interest in knowing the value, cheapness and excellence of the building materials within its power for practical use. The vast number and magnificence of the granite buildings recently erected in the various parts of the city (Boston), increases the interest we naturally feel in knowing the steps which have led to this extension of the art by which granite is brought into use. My main object is to state a fact respecting it which I have never seen stated, which appears to me to be not generally known and which came to my knowledge under such circumstances as to command my belief.

"It is believed that although granite has been always abundant near Boston, it was not until some time in the early part of the last century that it was used as the building material of houses, but was used only for wharves, cellars and wells, where smooth and even walls were not required. It is believed that during the first century of the existence of Boston, when smooth building stone was required to be used with brick building, or for basements, corners, window frames or the like, freestone was used, being the red sandstone of the Connecticut River.

"King's Chapel was built of coarse boulders dug out of the ground and then split and hammered. The boulders were split up for this building, it is said, by heating the stone (by building a fire upon it), and then splitting it by letting heavy iron balls fall upon it. Of course, granite obtained in this way was very expensive and the process could best be applied only to boulders having a free side.

"When this work was finished it was the wonder of the country round. People coming from a distance made it an object to see and admire this great structure. The wonder was that stone enough could be found in the vicinity of Boston fit for the hammer to construct such an entire building. But it seemed to be universally concluded that enough more like it could not be found to build such another.

"At some time between the end of the first quarter and the middle of the eighteenth century, that is, now, a little more than one hundred years ago, the practice of stone hewing and hammering for the working of granite was first introduced into Massachusetts by German emigrants. It is understood that Brigadier-General Waldo brought a colony of German emigrants from their native country, a large number of whom settled at a place called German town, then in the town of Braintree, now Quincy. A large part of the colony proceeded under the care of General Waldo to Maine and settled in a new township then called Waldoborough, from which many settlers of German origin spread into other towns in Maine.

"The Germans who remained in Braintree introduced several branches of the mechanic arts, which had not before been in use in this country, among them stocking weaving, and the art of making glass and toys.

"But what is more material to my present purpose is that this class of German artisans first introduced into this country the practice of preparing hewn or hammered stone, wrought to a plain sur face, sufficiently straight and smooth to make a regular wall. The process as then practised by them and those who were instructed by them was understood to be extremely laborious, and, of course, expensive, as the expense depended wholly on the amount of labor required for preparing it. Without describing the process precisely, which I do not understand sufficiently to do, I understand the first thing to be done was if the rock was in a quarry to blast out a portion of it by gunpowder. By this process, fragment swould come out in all sorts of irregular forms, as by mere chance. The business of the workmen then was to take the pieces of more regular form and reduce them to smaller and more regular shapes, as wanted for building. This is done by cutting a groove on a straight line with a hammer made with a cutting edge like that of a common axe, then striking it with a very heavy beetle on each side of the groove alternately, until it would crack generally in the line of such groove. This would sometimes split in a line nearly straight, though it would often be irregular. In this way, by dividing and sub-dividing, the pieces were brought as nearly as practicable to the dimensions required, and then all the irregularities of surface must be removed by hard hewing with very heavy instruments.

"In this state of the trade, although stone might be gotten out and dressed and made suitable for building, yet few buildings were erected, probably on account of the great expense. Some of our older inhabitants may perhaps recollect the stone house at what is now the corner of Tremont and Somerset streets, long the hospitable mansion of Jeremiah Allen, Esq., a former sheriff of Suffolk, and celebrated for the number of good dinners given there. There was another granite house on School street next below King's Chapel, owned by John Lowell, Esq., who removed it and erected Barrister's Hall on the same site. But by far the most conspicuous dwelling was the Hancock House, still standing, built by Mr. Thomas Han cock. He was a native of Braintree, became a wealthy merchant, and probably chose to gratify his townsmen and himself by adopting as the material of his sumptuous dwelling one of these staples of his native town, without much regard to the cost. He was the uncle of John Hancock, and dying without children, gave the house to him. Governor Hancock had been erecting a house for himself at the corner of Court and Tremont streets, but having received from his uncle a gift of the Hancock House about the time his own was ready for occupation, it is believed he never lived in the one he built.

"It becomes a most interesting inquiry to learn to what this great change can be attributed. To call the attention of the public to this point is the sole purpose of this communication.

"I have always understood that the change was caused by the art of splitting granite with small wedges, which was unknown here until the time in question. This art, apparently not difficult or requiring any great skill, was yet of so great importance as to facilitate the working of granite and reduce the cost to such a degree as to render it comparatively cheap building material, regard being had to its strength, durability and beauty.

"The process, now so familiar, is a simple one, requiring no complicated apparatus, and no unusual skill or force when once known. But if, as it is supposed, it has produced these great changes, furnished the country with a most excellent building mate rial at a cheap rate, and has filled our city with the permanent and sumptuous structures which are everywhere rising to constitute one of its chief ornaments, it seems an object of laudable curiosity to ascertain its origin and introduction, to learn who invented or first practised it, or whether it was in use elsewhere, and brought here, and by whom.

"This brings me to my main purpose, a statement given by the late Governor Robbins of Milton, as to the origin of the art of splitting stone. I give it with all the names and particulars, in order that the statements may be verified or refuted, by showing another and different origin of the introduction of this art, or by showing some other mode in which it was invented or brought here from elsewhere.

"Prior to 1798, Castle Island, in Boston Harbor, now Fort Independence, was the prison of the State, where convicts were sent to be punished by confinement and hard labor. About that time the United States, in anticipation of hostilities with the French, were desirous of having possession of Castle Island, in order to erect thereon a strong fortification for the defence of Boston, and for that purpose urged on the commonwealth the necessity of having immediate possession of the island. The Commonwealth acceded and caused the prisoners to be removed, although the State Prison, at Charlestown, was not built or ready for their reception, nor was it so for some time after. This fixes the time when the State Prison was in the process of building. Governor Robbins of Milton was one of the first commissioners, and in this capacity put himself into communication with all the workers and dealers in stone and found their prices very uniform, though, as he thought, very high.

"The narrative I am about to state he made to me twenty years after I was then one of the agents for the public in erecting a stone building for the county and probably that was the occasion of my interview with him. It was this.

"Desirous of getting the stone for the prison on the best terms, and believing the prices high, though general, he thought much and conversed much on the subject. In that state of mind, and deeply interested in the subject of stone, he had occasion to pass through Salem in a chaise. In passing along a street he noticed a building apparently new, the basement story of which was stone. He stopped to look at it carefully. In doing so he perceived along the margin of each stone the marks of a tool at distances of six or seven inches apart. This was something new. He had never seen it on hewn stone. He immediately inquired for the owner and saw him and asked if he knew how and by what process these stones were got out and wrought. He said he did not, but referred him to the contractor who did most of that species of work in Salem, by the name of Galusha. As I took the name by the sound only, the orthography may be different, Galowcia or Galooshy. He then proceeded to find Mr. Galusha, and to ask him whether he got out these stones and by what process. He said he did not get them out himself, that they were obtained in Danvers, two or three miles distant, and were fur nished by a man named Tarbox. Upon asking for directions to find Mr. Tarbox, Governor Robbins was told that he was a very poor man, being in an obscure situation in Danvers, near the place where the stone was quarried Governor Robbins determined to pursue the inquiry, immediately proceeded to Danvers, and after consider able inquiry, he found Mr. Tarbox in a small house with a family, and with every appearance of poverty about him. After some little preliminary conversation, he asked Mr. Tarbox if he got out the stone in question, and if so, his method. He told him he had, and immediately proceeded to explain the process, and showed him his tools, his mode of drilling the holes and inserting and driving the small wedges as above described.

"Governor Robbins was at once struck with the idea that it was new and peculiar, and might be a very important invention Governor Robbins did not say that he asked whether it was an invention of his own, or whether he had learned it of anybody else. But as it was new to himself, I think he was impressed with the belief that it was the invention of Tarbox. It did not seem, however, that he had any exclusive or peculiar interest in the use of his art Governor Robbins then asked him if he would consent to go up to Quincy and work two or three months, and split stone in his mode, so that other workmen might practise it. He said it was impossible for him to leave home, that his family were dependent on him for their daily bread, and that he had no clothes suitable to go from home. Governor Robbins obviated all his objections by making provisions for the family during his absence, also engaged to give him two or three times the monthly wages usually paid the best stone cutters, and the man consented. Having made the necessary arrangements he took him to a clothing store in Salem, obtained him a suitable outfit, then took him into his chaise and brought him to Quincy. Governor Robbins added that he introduced Mr. Tarbox to several of the principal stone dealers, and that it was not three months before every stone cutter in Quincy could split stone with small wedges as well as Mr. Tarbox. Also that this improvement in the working of granite had in a very short time the effect to reduce the price to five-eighths of its former cost, that is, that the cost of the dimension stone wanted for the prison, which had before been $4 00, was afterwards reduced to $2 50, and other granite work in similar proportion.

"I have been thus particular in naming persons and stating cir- cumstances, in the hope that there is some person still alive, either at Salem or Quincy, who can throw light on the subject. It would be very extraordinary if an art of so much importance should be traced to a source so obscure as poor Mr. Tarbox, who seems to have been hardly conscious that he was doing anything extraordinary. It may be that this whole narrative rests on some mistake, and that a different origin for this art of working granite may be shown. If so, it is very desirable that it should be known to the public." In the face of these facts we must doubt the correctness of the following statement by Dr. Pattee in his "History of Quincy."

"One Sunday in 1803, the first experiment in splitting stone with wedges was made by Josiah Bemis, George Stearns and Michael Weld. It proved successful, and so elated were these gentlemen on this memorial Sunday that they adjourned to Newcomb's Hotel, where they partook of a sumptuous repast. The wedges used in this experiment were flat, differing from those in use at the present time. The stone cutters found it so troublesome to go to the center of the town to have their tools sharpened, that in 1804 they had the first blacksmith shop in the Commons near the quarry of the late Henry Wood."

Surely a man of the intelligence possessed by Governor Rollins and holding the position of commissioner for building the State Prison would know as to whether the wedge-splitting process was in use before he introduced Mr. Tarbox. Then there is the important fact that immediately after Tarbox had taught the Quincy stone cutters his method they all used it with the result that the cost of dressed granite blocks was greatly reduced. It is quite clear to my mind that Mr. Bemis and his associates had copied the process from Tarbox and had on the "memorial Sunday" successfully split their first block of granite.

In 1737, the old Hancock House, taken down during 1863, was built of Braintree boulders, squared and hammered with old free stone trimmings from Middletown, Connecticut, and it was slated (probably at some later date) with slate from Lancaster, Massachu setts. This building then was the first in New England, if not in the country, to be built of granite, and although a beautiful and dignified residence, it was not so imposing as King's Chapel, now standing on the corner of Tremont and School streets, which at the time it was built (1749-'54) was the greatest stone structure ever attempted in Boston, if not in the United States.

At a meeting of the committee for the rebuilding of King's Chapel (Peter Harrison of Rhode Island, architect), at the house of Mr. Barlow Trecothick, June 20, 1749, it was found that the committee being every day encouraged to inspect their plan, consulted about supplying themselves with stone, lime, etc, at the cheapest rate, and as the summer was now considerably advanced, agreed that the building should be begun with all convenient speed.

"Voted, unanimously, that Mr. B. Trecothick make an agree- ment with Mr. George Tilley tomorrow, to cart all the stones, sand, and other materials that shall be landed at his wharf to the spot where they are to be used, at the rate of sixteen shillings, old tenor [50 cents] per carload for such as are landed and carted from this time to the 20th of March next."

"Voted, That the committee meet Mr. Endicott & Co., at the schoolhouse tomorrow morning, and dispose of the old stones, bricks and iron work about it to them on the best terms they can, to be removed at the expense of the purchasers. Voted, also, That Dr. Gardiner be empowered to agree with the Roxbury men for as many cartloads of stone as are necessary for the foundation, on the best terms he can, not exceeding sixteen shillings, old tenor, per load."

It was also "Voted, That Dr. Gardiner, if he has opportunity or otherwise, some other of the committee, do agree with Mr. Hayward of Braintree for as many of the South Common stones as will be wanted this fall, at _40, old tenor, for a boatload of 24 tons of said stone delivered at such convenient wharf, at Boston, as the committee shall appoint.

"Voted, That Mr. Hunt shall get as many North Common stones as will be wanted this fall at _52 old tenor, for 22 tons, to be delivered at such convenient wharf in Boston as the committee shall appoint."

The agreement with the masons to build this famous old church is as follows.

"Boston, July 26, 1749.

"It is this day agreed between us, the subscribers and the committee for rebuilding King's Chapel, to lay the foundation of the said chapel, to the height of the first floor, in stone and mortar, to the thickness of four feet, all above ground to be square pointed without pinners, the faces hammered square, and to be performed in every respect in a workmanlike manner, for which we are to receive of the said committee at the rate of five pounds, old tenor, for each perch of one foot high, sixteen and one-half feet long, and four feet thick, as the said work goes on, and in case we make it appear to the said committee that we are sufferers by this agreement, we are to receive such further allowance as they shall think just.
Witness our hands.

DANIEL BELL,

GEORGE RAY

The foundation stone was laid August 11, 1749, when a large congregation, including Governor Shirley, was present. The governor gave the masons _20 (about $10 00) to drink his health then with his associates went into the Old South Meeting House for prayer.

The first King's Chapel was erected of wood in 1688, enlarged in 1710, and being found in 1741 in a state of considerable decay, was rebuilt in 1749 at a cost of over _25,000, old tenor (_100 sterling or about $500, was equal to _1000, old tenor).

The workmen proceeded with their labor but slowly Granite was not then the manageable material that it is now. In the meantime, the congregation continued in the old chapel, decayed and partially unroofed by a severe storm as it was, while the walls of the new structure were gradually rising around it.

An application was made to the "celebrated" Ralph Allen, Esq., of Prior Park, near Bath, England, for freestone from his quarries for the interior and ornamental part of the work. The stone was promised, but as it was found that the expense of working it would be greatly beyond the means of the church, the idea of using it was abandoned and wood was employed instead for the pillars and decorations.

In 1774, the old powder house that stood near what is now Pinckney street, was built of Braintree granite with walls seven feet thick and having a bomb-proof arch. It was surrounded by palisades and was estimated to contain, when full, a thousand barrels of powder. In 1793, a stone lighthouse was built on Lighthouse (or Beacon) Island.

The first full cornice known to have been worked of granite in this country was for the United States Bank, near the corner of State, and what is now Devonshire street. This cornice was executed of Concord granite at the State Prison.

Gradually granite came into use, and what was at that time considered a strongly- marked improvement in taste and in construction immediately followed the building of the Obelisk at Bunker Hill.

About this time marble began to be used for building, corre- sponding to the opening of the Berkshire, Massachusetts, marble quarries (1790). The State House at Boston, built 1795-'98, is described in old books as having keystones, imposts, etc, of white marble. Part of this came from Boynton's quarry in West Stockbridge, Berkshire County. The "new almshouse," erected in 1800, had marble trimmings, and the Exchange Coffee House, built in 1805-'08, had six large marble columns or pilasters upon a rustic basement, supporting an architrave, and a cornice of the same stone. The base of the building was of hammered granite and the basement of white marble. The old Custom House, built in 1810, also had marble trimmings.

Granite then began to be used extensively in Boston and was of two varieties white granite (the so-called Chelmsford), from Tyngsborough and Westford, near Lowell, Massachusetts, and, perhaps, some from Pelham, New Hampshire, and other places, quarried generally if not entirely for many years from loose boulders, and the dark Quincy granite, also mostly from boulders, but a little from ledges.

Thus in 1810, the old Court House (old City Hall on site of present City Hall) was built of white Chelmsford granite. In 1814 the New South Church (at the intersection of Summer and Bedford streets, known as Church Green), was built of the best Chelmsford granite. At about the same time what was known as the Congregational House (corner of Beacon and Somerset streets), was built, the old Parkman House in Bowdoin square, University Hall in Cambridge, and from 1818 to 1821, the main part of the Massachusetts General Hospital, with its several large granite columns, hammered at the State Prison-also was of Chelmsford stone-probably from boulders.

The completion of the Middlesex canal from Boston to Chelmsford (30 miles), in 1803, itself a great work, with sixteen locks of hewn granite, opened the way for the easy transportation of granite from the vicinity of Chelmsford, so that it could be delivered in the very streets of the city, and great quantities were landed at the State Prison, in Charlestown, and cut by the convicts. All, or nearly all, of this stone came from the surface boulders, as is stated, as late as 1820, and were split as at Quincy. In 1818, a church was built of this stone in Savannah, Georgia, for which purpose $25,000 worth was sold.

In 1818-'19 there was built of this material the first stone block in Boston, still standing in Brattle street, and forming originally a block of fourteen buildings, part of which now forms the old part of the Quincy House. Stores erected on Cornhill in 1817 were the first erected in the city on granite pillars, and in 1820 these were first substituted in brick buildings already standing. Some yellow sandstone from England was used in buildings on Cornhill in 1817.

The mill dam connecting Brookline with Roxbury, and built from 1818 to 1821, was considered one of the grandest constructions of the kind in the world. The sides of the dam were built of solid stone for 8000 feet in length, from three to eight feet thick and twelve to seventeen feet high, while the width between the walls varied from fifty to one hundred feet. The stone used was Roxbury pudding stone and stone from Weymouth.

In the 20's began in Boston what may be termed a Grecian age, when a sort of Greek revival was the object of the few architects working in the town. Not only churches, public buildings and stores, but even dwelling houses were fitted out with a portico of columns in the severest cast of doric.

The uses to which the building was devoted were not considered, it was the style, and never did an architectural fad so strongly possess the people as this, and perhaps no absurdity of fashion in architecture was ever more preposterous.

A few buildings erected in that period still survive and excite the curiosity of even the most casual observer. The old Merchants' Exchange, the Tremont House, the Revere House, the United States Court House on Tremont Street and Temple place, the Old Court House on Court Street, and the Granite Bank on State Street, are still fresh in the memory, but St. Paul's Church, Custom House, Faneuil Hall Market, Charlestown Navy Yard buildings, "Presi- dents' " or Stone Church, Quincy, Massachusetts General Hospital, Fitchburg Railroad Depot, Charles Street Jail, and many others are daily reminders of this "stone age."

Often, as in the case of the Old Court House, the portico was the only attempt at architecture in the whole building. Often, as in the case of many suburban houses, the great wooden columns three or four feet in diameter were backed by a front wall pierced by three stories of parlor and chamber windows.

Where the Merchants' Bank now stands at the corner of State and Devonshire streets, was formerly the pretentious structure of the United States Bank. It was erected in 1824, Solomon Willard being the architect and Gridley Bryant the master mason. The two fluted columns in the Merchants' Bank of today are relics of the ancient structure. These two columns were originally twenty-four feet high, including the cap, and four feet in diameter at the base, and were cut from a large boulder of granite in Westford, Massachusetts. When set in their present place they were reduced in size.

The Massachusetts General Hospital, at the west end of McLean street, was built in 1821. The main building is of Chelmsford granite hammered out and fitted for use by the convicts of the State Prison. In 1846 it was enlarged by the addition of two extension wings. Other additions and improvements have from time to time been made.

Under the great overhanging gable of the immense granite building used by the United States appraisers as a storehouse, and looking down upon the Custom House, there is a huge stone globe. It was cut about 1840 from one piece of Quincy granite, and during the fire which threatened to destroy the building several years ago, the firemen were in a constant state of alarm that the intense heat might crack the keystone supporting it and let the huge solid mass down upon them.

The name of Charles Bulfinch is one of the most honorable in the history of American architecture, and few, if any, in his profession has enjoyed the reputation in Boston and New England which he enjoyed in the beginning of the past century, and there have been few architects who have stood so prominently before the country at large. He was the son of Dr Thomas Bulfinch and was born in Boston in 1763. He was sent abroad to study and returned in 1786, and it is only a few years after this date that he is found in active practice as an architect.

Before his day there were but few public buildings that would attract the notice of a stranger. Architectural beauty was but little considered, mere adaptation to the purposes of the structure being all that the builder attempted. The Beacon Hill monument, the Franklin street crescent, and the new State House introduced a new era which Rogers, Willard, Parris, Bryant and Billings have perpetuated. The impress of Mr. Bulfinch's genius is seen not only in his native city, but in the capital of the nation, which was planned by him after the distruction of the original by the British General Ross. Besides other works he was architect of the State Prison, the old City Hall, the old Cathedral, Federal Street Church and Theatre, enlargement of Faneuil Hall, Massachusetts General Hospital, University Hall at Cambridge, State House, Augusta, Maine, besides numerous churches, theatres and private residences.

On April 25, 1825, the corner stone of the building generally called Quincy Market, but officially known as Faneuil Hall Market, was laid, the architect being Captain Alexander Parris. This corner stone was a large block of Chelmsford granite. The following is a description of the building. Market house, all of granite, length, 535 feet 6 inches, width, 50 feet, having a central building 74 feet 6 inches by 55 feet, with a portico on each end, the porticos consist of four granite columns, 3_ feet in diameter at the base, and 2 feet 10 inches at the top, each shaft is 20 feet 9 inches long, with a Doric capital. Some authorities say these massive columns were taken from a quarry in the town of Chelmsford and were brought to Boston through the Middlesex canal to its terminal at "Charlestown mill pond," thence across the river to the dam where now is Causeway street, and through its gates into the "Boston mill pond". From this they were taken by the old "mill creek," now covered by Blackstone street, to the Town Dock, near Faneuil Hall. The whole edifice is supported by a base of Quincy blue granite, 2 feet 10 inches in height, and covers a space of 27,000 square feet. The cost above the land was $150,000-probably very much less than a building of the same kind would cost today.

To carry this enterprise to com- pletion the city erected the building, laid out six new streets, enlarged a seventh, including 167,000 square feet of land, besides obtaining flats, docks and wharf rights to the extent of 142,000 square feet, without any debt or burden on Boston's pecuniary resources, but with large permanent additions to its real and productive property.

Captain Alexander Parris, who was equally able as an engineer, was a native of Pembrook, Massachusetts, where while working as a carpenter's apprentice he studied architecture. He went to Portland, Maine, and made several important buildings, and then worked a short time in Richmond, Virginia, but did not come to Boston until the close of the war with Great Britain, in 1815. He was a resident of Boston until his death, June 16, 1852.

Besides the Quincy Market, Captain Parris built the Marine Hospital at Chelsea, the Arsenal Building at Watertown, and was four years constructing engineer for the Charlestown Navy Yard, in which capacity he was charged with many positions outside that office, such as the construction of sea walls on the islands of Boston Harbor, and several lighthouses, beacons and breakwaters on the New England coast. In conjunction with Solomon Willard, architect of Bunker Hill monument, and Alpheus Carey, mason, he built Saint Paul's Church on Tremont street, which is regarded as their best work. The corner stone of this church was laid September 4, 1819, the parish being formed principally out of Trinity.

"This Grecian Temple," said Bishop Brooks, "seemed to the men who built it to be a triumph of architectural beauty and of fitness for the church service". It is built of fine gray granite, and is an imitation, so far as respects the architecture, of a Grecian model of the Ionic order. It presents to the street a simple Ionic hexastyle portico with six Ionic columns of freestone from Acquia creek and a pediment which it was intended to finish by a sculptured bas-relief representing Paul preaching at Athens. The requisite funds however, were wanting, and the rough blocks remain to this day to remind us of Willard's masterpiece.

The columns are 3 feet 5 inches in diameter and 32 feet high, laid in courses. The capitals were carved by Willard. The body of the church is about 112 feet long by 72 feet deep, and 40 feet high, from the platform to the top of the cornice. The building cost about $83,000.

The Boston Custom House is a massive granite structure built in the form of a Greek cross, the opposite ends and sides being alike. It was begun in 1837, and finished in 1847, at a cost of more than $1,000,000. The roof of the dome is also of granite. The exterior of the building is purely Grecian Doric-not a copy-but adapted to the exigencies and peculiarities of the structure, and consists of six columns on each side on a high flight of steps, and an order of engaged columns around the walls, twenty in number, on a high stylobate or basement, the order of engaged columns terminating with four ant_ at their intersection with their porticos. The columns are 5 feet 4 inches in diameter and 32 feet high, the shafts being in one piece, each weighing about 42 tons.

The production of these large granite columns was the work of a syndicate of the leading granite workers of Quincy. Many of the columns were transported from the Quincy quarries under the superintendence of Henry West, with a team of 55 yoke of oxen and 12 horses. On the interior of the building is a large rotunda, 63x59 feet in dimensions, and 62 feet high, in the Grecian Corinthian style. The ceiling is supported by 12 marble columns three feet in diameter and 29 feet high.

Ammi Burnham Young, architect of the Boston Custom House, was born at Lebanon, N. H., in 1798 or 1799. His father was Samuel Young, a somewhat noted builder of churches, court houses, and academy buildings in that part of the country. One of his earliest works, and in many respects his best, built in 1835, was the State House at Montpelier, Vermont. In 1838 his design for a new Custom House in Boston was accepted and the building completed in 1848, under his personal supervision. In 1850 he was a leading competitor for the enlargement of the capital at Washington, but was finally defeated by Mr. Walter of Philadelphia. As a sort of compensation, President Fillmore appointed him supervising architect of the Treasury Department, the first to fill that office, and he moved from Boston to Washington. He remained in office until he was removed by President Lincoln, about 1863. During his incumbency he drew the plans for a large number of public buildings, mostly in the West and South (post-offices, custom houses, court houses, etc), and superintended their erection. In Boston he built and lived in the house at the southeast corner of Bowdoin Street and Ashburton Place. He died at Washington in 1866 or 1867.

Gridley James Fox Bryant, son of the inventor of the first railway, was born in Boston in 1816, a year that was the coldest on record, in which there was frost every month of the year. He studied in the office of his father, and of Alexander Parris. He opened an architect's office at the corner of Court and Washington streets. His first achievement was the design for the Broadway Savings Bank, South Boston, which was built in the early 30's. A few years later he built the first fireproof building in Boston, the building that was for years occupied by the Registry of Deeds. He built the Charlestown State Prison and the Charles Street Jail, besides many other like institutions throughout New England, and later remodelled the State Capitol at Concord, New Hampshire. In 1853 he added a fireproof extension to the rear of the Massachusetts State House. When he had just passed his thirty-fifth birthday, Franklin street, Boston, was opened. He started to build up the street with granite buildings to be occupied for business purposes, he having already erected the Martin, Goddard, Milk and Old South Blocks on Milk street. His handiwork was seen in custom houses, government buildings, churches, schoolhouses and private residences all over the country. Some idea of his popularity as an architect may be had from the fact that he had 152 buildings destroyed in the Boston fire of 1872, of which he was commissioned to rebuild 110. He died in 1883.

Cook, Greenleaf & Metcalf built the front of the old Tremont House in Boston in 1827-28. Their apprentice, Charles Cushing, formed a partnership with Nathaniel Adams, and they did considerable work on the Bunker Hill monument. Among the buildings which they erected were the Lewis Wharf stores, Constitution Wharf stores, twenty stores on Commercial Street, fourteen on Fulton street, fourteen on Long Wharf, Dr Beecher's Church and Beebe's dry goods store, all or most of them being of granite.

The Pagoda Building which stands on the northern corner of State and Washington Streets, is in some respects one of the most artistic and picturesque bits of architecture in Boston, and was the forerunner of the skyscrapers of today. In fact, in its day it was regarded as a skyscraper, and back in the 40's was the highest building on Washington Street. In these days the building was regarded as a curiosity, and owing to its general outlines and double cornice, which suggested an Oriental pagoda, it was popularly known as the "pagoda building." It was erected in 1843 from designs by Snell & Gryerson, also architects of the old Music Hall. In this pagoda building is seen about the very first attempt in Boston to beautify the exterior of a building. It is of Quincy granite and is seven stories in height. The six upper stories were used for residential purposes, and the street floor for business, but the entire building now is used for business.

The old Fitchburg Railroad Depot in Boston was begun in 1847, but was not completed for several years. When finished it was looked upon as the most remarkable building, not only in Boston, but in the whole country. Excursion parties used to visit Boston just to see the structure that was the talk of the land. The solid blocks of granite that comprise its massive walls were quarried about ten miles above Fitchburg. The walls are two and a half feet in thickness. Its dimensions are 75x310 feet, and it cost about $500,000. Up to as late as 1875 the towers in the front of the building were open, and winding stairs wound around their interior to the large hall that for a long time extended the entire length of the second story. What was the original purpose of this hall does not seem to be definitely known. It was in this hall that Jenny Lind gave a concert during her first visit to the United States, it being the largest in the city. During the Civil War, or rather at the beginning of hostilities, this hall was used as a drilling place for recruits but was discontinued as the double quick drill shook the floor so that the building inspectors stopped it. The floor was supported from the roof.

These buildings may be mentioned as opening the great development in the construction of Quincy granite structures and as showing how that granite supplanted the Chelmsford. This is only true of Boston. Other cities like Concord, New Hampshire, and Montpelier, Vermont, were using granite in considerable quantities for building and monumental purposes early in the beginning of the nineteenth century, but their history will be found under the chapters devoted to their respective localities.

In 1842 there was much use of the Somerville diabase for base- ments of brick buildings, and of red sandstone for trimmings. About 1845 the red sandstone came in favor for fronts, and several churches, the Boston Athenaeum, etc., were soon erected of this stone. Rockport granite began to be used from the quarries about 1830, and was at first put into cellars for brick buildings and then for posts for North and South Market streets. The first building of hammered Rockport stone was that of Terice, How & Co., about 1846, and the Beacon Hill reservoir, a little later, was a very extensive undertaking.The Parker House, erected in 1854, was the first marble building in the city.

Concord granite was first used in columns in the Boston & Albany Depot. The Merchants' Bank Building was perhaps the first front (1856) of Concord granite. The Washington Building, which stood at the head of Franklin Street, is said to have been the first building of Nova Scotia freestone (1858). Within sixty years various other building stones have been introduced: the Roxbury puddingstone for churches, the different marbles and sandstones and the red granites.

The old City Hotel stage stables in Boston had round granite pillars which supported the high arches and through which so many famous four or six-in-hand had dashed out, was levelled in 1874. They seemed to stand there for an eternal monument of the old stages and their departed days, but they were thrust out of the way to make room for the giant march of material progress.

The style of the public buildings of Boston just after the close of the Civil War followed the lead of the French architects of the second Empire, whose works were illustrated with great minuteness in numberless published serials and monographs. The City Hall, Post Office, and old Horticultural Hall are imitations as close as the slenderer resources would allow, of that ambitious and grandiose style, of orders superimposed and heavily-loaded mansards, which reached its climax in the pavilions of the new Louvre.

To such a style, with columns and entablatures, granite, so much an object of local pride, was supposed to lend itself with peculiar fitness, on account of the facility with which large stones could be quarried, and the safety with which, by reason of its great strength, large openings could be spanned. "But," says Charles A Cummings, in the Memorial History of Boston, "our native gray granite, admirable for works of engineering or of architecture in which the chief expression desired is that of massiveness and strength, is one of the least admirable for any purpose of grace or luxury. Its color forbids any agreeable play of light and shade, and its texture scarcely admits of close-cut ornament except at great expense, and when all is done the ornament is without effect. The most striking example of the right use of granite is the Beacon Hill Reservoir, perhaps the noblest piece of architecture in the city, absolutely adapted to its purpose, and absolutely free from excess or effort or affectation-its cyclopean masonry unvexed by details and unbroken save by the single order of grand arches, of which the five on Derne street are almost Roman in their grand depth of shadow. The reservoir has stood for thirty-five years, and having been proved to be a useless portion of the system of water works is now being taken down. But in buildings erected for the ordinary uses of life, such repose as this is, of course, unattainable. The reasonableness of leaving granite without ornament, and with its wall face untooled was, however, at length generally recognized, and in many blocks of warehouses, notably those on Commercial Street and Long Wharf, in the jail for Suffolk County, on Charles Street, and various other less conspicuous instances, this stone was used with right judgment and excellent effect.

"During the period when brick was considered too common for use in fine buildings, the choice of materials at the command of the architects was practically limited to the granite of Quincy, Rockport, Concord, and other New England quarries, and the brown freestones of the Connecticut Valley or New Jersey. But about the time when building was commenced in the new lands of the Back Bay, other stones made their appearance, one after another, until the variety now within the architect's reach is quite bewildering. The white and the gray marble of Vermont and New York were followed by the light sandstones of New Brunswick and Ohio, and the red granite of the eastern coast."

The building of the Back Bay residences has been very extensively done with sandstone fronts, but of late years the larger public and semi-public buildings are built of granite, marble and other beautiful stones. The great fire in Boston in 1872 wiped out hundreds of stone buildings and blocks which had been erected during forty years in the business portion of the city. The buildings were very largely of granite from Quincy, Rockport, Concord, Hallowell and elsewhere, and in their place have sprung up buildings of lighter colored stone, Concord and Rockport granites, and a great proportion of buildings of the yellow sandstones of Ohio and the Provinces together with many of marble.

The National Census for 1880 gave the number of buildings in Boston made of granite as forty-five, and of those with granite fronts or sides as two hundred and sixty-seven, the larger number being constructed of Quincy granite. Of those buildings the principal ones have already been mentioned.

The following list embraces those buildings in the city constructed of granite from other quarries.
Cape Ann granite-The United States Post Office (1869-'82) is one of the finest granite buildings in the city. The stone was furished from Gloucester, the basement of darker stone from the Blood quarry and the superstructure from the "Old Pit" quarry. The superstructure of that part of the building first erected was taken essentially from one sheet in the quarry, the stone is syenite. The pavement on the floor is from Swanton, Vermont.

Concord granite

Cruffs Block is from Fitzwilliam.

Chelmsford granite (Westford, etc.)-Besides buildings already mentioned.


Hallowell granite


Other granites