Peculiarities of American Cities

der its Branches.-Soldiers' Monument.-Fragmentary History.-Courtship on the Common.-Faneuil Hall and Market.-Old State House.-King's Chapel.-Brattle Square Church.-New

ortance is large; her ships float on many seas; and she rejoices now in the same uncompromising spirit of independence which controlled the actions of the celebrated "Tea Party" in t

in the Indian vocabulary a peninsula. Its second name, Tremount, took its rise from the three peaks of Beacon Hill, prominently seen from Charlestown by the fir

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the colony. Boston, as the centre of this colony, began from the first to assume the importance of the first city of New England. Its history belongs not only to itself, but to the country at large, as the pioneer city in the grand struggle for constitutional and political liberty. A large majority of the old landmarks which connected it with the stormy days of the past, and stood as monuments of its primeval history, are now obliterated by time and the steady march of improvements. The face of the

ntly demolished, the old State House, and Boston Common. The Common antedates nearly all other special features of the city, and is the pride of Bostonians. Here juvenile Boston comes in winter to enjoy the exciting exercise of "coasting," and woe to the unwary foot passenger who may chance to collide with the long sleds full of noisy boys which shoot like black streaks from the head of Beacon street Mall, down the diagonal length of the Common, to the junction of Boylston and Tremont streets. This winter (1874-5), owing to several unfortunate accidents to passers-by across the snowy roads of the coasters, elevated bridges have been erected, to meet the wants of the people without interfering with the rights of the boys. The Common was origina

rrival of the first settlers, and it seems not unlikely that the Indian Shawmutt smoked the pipe of peace under its pendent branches. In 1844 its height was given at seventy-two and a half feet-girth, one foot above the ground, twenty-two and a half feet. The storms of over two centuries have vented their fury upon it and destroyed its graceful outlines. But in its age and decrepitude it has been tenderly nursed

Old

efore the settlement of Boston, being full-grown in 1722. Exhibited marks of old age in 1

t agonies. Here, in 1740, Rev. George Whitfield preached his farewell sermon to an audience of thirty thousand people; and here, also, at an earlier date, old Matoonas, of the Nipmuck tribe, was shot to death by the dusky warriors of Sagamore John, on a charge of committing the first murder in Massachusetts Colony. An incident of still more romantic interest belongs to the history of the Old Elm. On July third, 1728, this spot was the scene of a mortal combat between two young men belonging to the upper circle of Boston

8, the water from Cochituate Lake was introduced through this pond, and in honor of the occasion a large procession marched through the principal streets of the city to the Common. Addresses, h

e Navy, the Departure for the War and the Return. At each of the four corners will be a statue, of heroic size, representing Peace, History, the Army, and the Navy. The die upon the plinth will also be richly sculptured, and upon it, surrounding the shaft in alto-relievo, will be four allegorical figures representing the North, South, East and West. The shaft is to be an elegant Doric column

he says, "for all that can bear arms to go out on a training day. I thought a pike was best for a young soldier, so I carried a pike; 'twas the first time I ever was in arms. Having come into the field, the Captain called us into line to go to prayer, and then prayed himself, and when the exercise

nd additional musical instrument was a clarionet, performed on by a tall, strapping fellow with but one eye, who headed the Ancient and Honorable a few strides." The first band of music used in Boston was in 1790, at the funeral of Colonel Joseph Jackson. Yearly, for a period of between t

Beacon Street Mall is perhaps the finest, being heavily shaded by thickly-set rows of American elms. A particular portion of this mall is d

turned his passion, but the young Autocrat, uncertain of his fate, rashly determined that if she said him "nay" to this most important question of his life, he would take passage in the next steamer bound for Liverpool, and never loo

nches leading from it in different directions. One of these runs down from opposite Joy street, southward,

ad of this path on that morning. I think I tried to speak twice without making myself di

he schoolmistress, '

now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!' The schoolmist

s was hard by, the one you may still see clos

softly, 'I will walk t

euil Hall for the purpose of protesting against this causeless desecration. The occasion of the meeting was a clique movement to have a street-car track run through the sacred ground. One

erty," was first built two stories high, forty feet wide, and one hundred feet in length. It was nearly destroyed by fire in 1761, and in 1805 it was enlarged to eighty feet in width and twenty feet greater elevation. "The Hall is never let for money," but is at the disposal of the people whenever a sufficient number of persons, complying with

e two Adamses, of General Warren and Commodore Preble, of Edward Everett and Governor Andrew, adorn other portions of the Hall. Nor are Washington and Lincoln forgotten. The pictured faces of these noble patriots of the past seem to shed a mysterious influence arou

r the corner-stone was laid, and in 1827 the building was completed. It is five hundred and thirty-five feet long, fifty feet wide, and

t only the market was built, but six new streets were opened and a seventh e

of the broom, between a fencing master just arrived from England and Goff, the regicide. This English fencer erected an elevated platform in front of the Town House and paraded, sword in hand, for three days, challenging all America for a trial of his skill. At this time three of the judges who signed the death warrant for beheading Charles the First, of England, had escaped to Boston, and were concealed by the people of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Their names were Goff, Whalley and Dixwell, for whom, dead or alive, Parliament offered one hundred pounds each. The fencing master made such a stir about his skill that Goff, hearing of it at his place of concealment in the woods of Hadley, came to Boston and confronted the wor

d with you, and have not attempted to hurt you, but if you come at

e either Goff, Whalley or the devil, for the

audits of the crowd, and the subdued

te House has been entirely remodeled, a

rs of Boston, is said to have here found his last resting place. John Winthrop, his son and grandson-all governors of Connecticut, lay in the same family tomb in this yard. Four pastors of the "First Church of Christ in Boston" are also buried here. The body of General Joseph Warren was placed in King's Chapel before it was re-interred at Cambridge, and "dust to dust" has be

t. Here Edward Everett preached to his listening flock, and here, on July thirtieth, 1871, Dr. S. K. Lothrop pronounced the last sermo

as torn down in 1772, and the next year rebuilt on the

non ball, fired from Cambridge, where the American army was then stationed, struck the church, and was afterwards built into the wall of the historic edifice, above the por

ive stone was drawn to its place by fifteen white horses, that being the number then of the States in the Union. Ex-Governor Samuel Adams delivered the address. The Legislature first convened in the new State House in January, 1798. In 1852 it was greatly enlarged, and in 1867 the interior was entirely remodeled. Chantry's statue of Washington, the statues of Webster and Mann, busts of Adams, Lincoln and Sumner, and that beautiful piece of art in marble, the full-length statue of Governor Andrew, in the Doric Hall-all attract the attention of the visitor. In this rotunda the

the extreme. Groups of statuary ornament the central projections of the building, and orders of pilasters, columns, entablatures and balustrades add to it their elegant finish. Its roof is an elaboration of the Louvre and Mansard styles, and the interior arrangement cannot be surpassed for beauty or convenience. It has three street fa?ades, from one of which a broad staircase leads to the four upper stor

, its high, square pews, and double tier of galleries. During the Revolution it was frequently used for public meetings, and Faneuil Hall assemblies adjourned to the Old South whenever the size of the crowd demanded it. Here the celebrated "Tea Party" held their meetings, and discussed the measures which resulted in consigning the British tea, together with the hated tax, to the bottom of Boston Harbor. Here Joseph Warren delivered his famous oration on the Boston Massacre, drawing tears from the eyes of even the Br

into existence, and on the same day was christened at the Old South. When he was ten years old, he worked with his father in a candle manufactory, on the corner of Union and Hanover streets, at th

per, in small pica. It was entitled "The Boston News Letter. Published, by authority, from Monday, April se

odiously accommodated; as the elegant buildings of the Transcript, Globe, Journal, H

e limits of so short a chapter, and only a glance at a

te, and is in the finest style of modern architecture. Here, under the arching roof of the French dome, the fire-alarm telegraph centres, and the sentinel who stands guard at this important point never leaves his post, night or day. The mysterious

nd is surrounded by thirty-two granite columns, a little over five feet in diameter. The site was reclaimed from the tide w

ncock, the victims of the Boston Massacre, the parents of Franklin, the first Mayor of Boston, and a long list of other names famed in their day and ours, lie buried within this ancient ground. Near by, between the Common and the Granary Cemetery, stands the celeb

ring five tracks, and has a span of one hundred and twenty-five feet. Its cost is somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred thousand dollars. The interior arrangement is quite novel in style. The waiting-rooms open out of an immense central apartment with a balcony re

ere King Kalakaua smoked his cigars in peace; the beneficent Public Library; the Boston Athen?um, home of art; the Boston Theatre, the new and elegant Globe Theatre, and the suburban limits, including Charlestown and famous Bunker Hill, Cambridge and Harvard University, Mt. Auburn, Dorchester Heights, Roxbury and East Boston, which was formerly known as Noddle's Island, and where now the Cunard line of steamers arrive and depart-all these tempt my pen to linger within their charmed lo