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PART 1: BOSTON'S FIRST NEIGHBORHOOD
1640-1780
by
Guild Nichols
folks@NorthEndBoston.com
From
its earliest beginnings, the North End has been cut off
from Boston proper, at first topographically and then
socially and economically until only recently. In
Colonial days, it was known as the "Island of North
Boston", a narrow peninsula reaching out into the
harbor. It comprised a few grand estates, Christopher
Stanley's pasture, and Mylne field. Perched high on a
hill overlooking the adjacent Mill Pond was a wooden
windmill.
Graves at Copps
Hill Burying Ground
Surrounded on three sides by
water, the peninsula afforded promising commercial
opportunities. The neighborhood developed
at a rapid pace in the early 1700s. Cobblestone
streets were laid out, wharves and warehouses
constructed, stylish mansions built, and prosperous
merchants, tradesmen and shipbuilders set
up business there. By the 1750s, the North
End had become a hub of commercial, social
and intellectual activity. For Bostonians
of English descent, it was the fashionable
place to live.
The
three-story, 26-room Clarke-Frankland mansion
stood at the mouth of Prince Street and just
around the corner on Garden Court was Lt.
Governor Thomas Hutchinson's elegant home.
At the bottom of the Square was the tall brick
Pierce-Hichborn house with the more humble-looking
Revere residence nestled next door. At the
very top of North Square stood the original
North Church, known later as the Second Church
of Boston and as the "Church of the Mathers".
It was
from the pulpit of this church that Puritan
Pastor Increase Mather ministered over his
community with a stern hand. His 1689 book,
Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft
and Possessions, had helped fuel the witchcraft
hysteria that had seized nearby Salem. His
son Cotton, with whom he shared the ministry,
became so deeply involved in these Salem witch
trials that he earned lasting disfavor and
eventual opposition from the Puritans of the
period.
By the
early 1700s the religious hegemony of the
Puritan church had begun to wane. In 1721,
a new Anglican church named Christ Church
(and later called Old North Church) raised
its steeple 191 feet into the heavens above
the North End, a beacon to ships entering
Boston harbor for a century to come. Some
27 years later, a 15-year-old boy named Paul
Revere took up Sunday morning bell-ringing
duties in Christ Church for five English pennies
a month.
Revere was an
artist/patriot who later evolved into an artist/industrialist.
Born in the North End in 1735, he was the
second of 12 children and the eldest son of
Apollos Rivoire and Deborah Hichborn. He learned
the art of gold and silversmithing from his
father, taking over the family business at
age 19 when his father died. To supplement
family income, he also worked as a copper
plate engraver, producing business cards,
political cartoons and book plates.
His political
involvement with the American Revolutionary
cause developed through his membership in
the Masonic Lodge and his friendships with
James Otis and Dr. Joseph Warren. It was Warren
who instructed Revere on the eve of April
18th, 1775, to ride to Lexington and Concord
to warn the Patriot leaders of the approaching
British troops. After the British evacuation
of Boston in March 1776. Revere served as
a lieutenant colonel and commander of artillery
at Castle Island, but he saw little action.
With the close
of the American Revolution, nearly one-third
of Boston's population vacated the city for
England and the eastern provinces of Canada.
About the same time, the wealthiest North
End merchants began migrating to new residential
communities in the West End and on Beacon
Hill. Their large estates and mansions were
either sold and subdivided as rental properties
or torn down to make way for row housing.
Revere, himself,
moved out of his house on North Square to
Greenough Lane off Charter Street to a new
home with a harbor view. The rapid growth
of the shipping and mercantile trades were
to irrevocably reshape the neighborhood over
the course of the next half century - the
North End was on the cusp of change.
Click here
to go to the 2nd Part:
From Riches to Rags:
1780-1840...
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