Document · book

Historic Mansions and Highways around Boston

Samuel Adams Drake, 1899. Drake on the houses and roads of the towns around Boston, and a second attestor of the vernacular names of the same ground.

Document

Type

book

Author

Samuel Adams Drake

Publisher

Boston : Little, Brown

Published, as stated

1899

Language

en

Media type

text/plain; charset=utf-8

Size

1097136 bytes

Preservation

preserved

Digest (SHA-256)

6be98c8abf16ebb62b8c4b927cda7e3a5192b50119e8dd46c5d5c81b5558bc8c

Text

Extracted text, as held. Quoted without alteration.

Ol.l) WAVSnii Mlll.^ .SOiMKliVllJ.li. H Mansions and . ../s AROUND BOSTON. BEING ^ Kcin rnxb l^cbtsfti lEtittion OF "OLD LANDMARKS AND HISTORIC FIELDS OF MIDDLESEX." BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE. m;aj illluit.rjitfjns. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1899. 5oc. sci Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, By James R. Osgood and Company, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Copyright, 1899, By Little, Brown, and Company. Ail rights reserved. SSntbersitg ^tcss : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. TO THE READEE. " I stand by the old thought, the old thing, the old place, and the old friend. " — Lowell. I TAKE it that we, of this generation, can form Httle con- ception of the value which every visible token of our ancestors, however humble, will have for those who shall come after us. And that simple statement carries its own moral. In the broadest and most enlightened sense, we, of to-day, are but the passing custodians of all those visible and authentic memorials which Time and Progress have yet spared to us. They belong not to us, but to History. We can tear down, but who shall build up again 1 It was, in the main, this thought which first prompted the writing of this book. And it is true that, within compara- tively few years, something has been realized in that direction — thanks to the praiseworthy efforts of our patriotic societies ; but Old Father Time is a relentless iconoclast, even of our most cherished idols, and much more remains to be done if we are to stand fully acquitted of our obligations, not only to ourselves, but to what may mean so much to posterity. I have long been convinced that nothing so healthfully stimulates the study of history, especially to young people, as a visit to scenes made memorable by the lives of great men or the march of great events. Seeing is believing, the world over. Unless one is wholly wanting in imagination, it is hardly possible to visit such places without feeling something of the living presence of the actors themselves, or fail to carry away far more vivid and lasting impressions than could be received from the most graphic descriptions alone. At all events, there is a vast deal of satisfaction in being able to VI TO THE READER. say that we have stood on the very spot where our national life began. Since you and I, most kind reader, went over the ground together, covered in these pages, the changes, I had almost said the havoc, wrought on every side by the steady outreach- ing of a great and growing city have rendered a thorough revision of the whole work indispensable to a correct reading. To this end, every place mentioned therein has been revisited, in order that present conditions might be established. Atten- tion is especially called to the illustrations, which do not appear in earlier editions, but which form so attractive a feature of this present volume. In having so many places of the highest interest, situated at our own doors, so to speak, we are indeed a favored community, since at almost every corner one may turn some page of history. Every old house ■we shall visit is a voice speaking to us from out of the Past. At parting, I shall hope you may have no reason to regret our companionship. May, 1899 COITTEN^TS. CHAPTER I. THE GATEWAY OF OLD MIDDLESEX. Environs of Boston. — Charles Rive

Questions this record answers

Each answer is composed only from fields this record carries, and names the attestation for what it says. A question the record cannot answer from its own attested content is not asked here. Where a boundary is described as official it was promulgated by an authority with the power to draw it and is not amended by anything on the vernacular layer; where it is described as vernacular it is held by attestation alone and amends no official boundary.

Identity

Identifier

urn:lemay:boston:document:historic-mansions-and-highways-around-boston

Canonical URL

https://boston.fyi/document/historic-mansions-and-highways-around-boston

As JSON

https://boston.fyi/document/historic-mansions-and-highways-around-boston.json

Version

1 · last changed 5 September 2026