Bowdoin Streets, were laid out through it. The Independent Baptist Church, formerly under the pastorship of the Reverend Thomas Paul; the First Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1835 by the parish of Grace Church, under the rectorship of the Reverend Thomas M. Clark, now bishop of the diocese of Rhode Island ; the Mission Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, which was erected in 1830 by the congregation of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, just after the destruction of their edifice by fire, which stood at the southeast corner of Hanover and (new) Washington Streets, stand upon it. Next comes the four-acre pasture of Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Capitol at Washington, also of the Massachusetts Capitol, Faneuil Hall, and other public buildings, and for fourteen years chairman of the board of selectmen of the town of Boston, extending from Bowdoin Street to Bulfinch Street, and from Bowdoin Square to Ashburton Place, for which he paid two hundred pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to six hundred and sixty-seven dollars. Bulfinch Street and Bulfinch Place were laid out through it. The Revere House, for- merly the mansion of Kirk Boott, one of the founders of the city of Lowell; Bulfinch-place Church, which occupies the site of the Central Universalist Church, erected in 1822 by the congregation of the Reverend Paul Dean; and also Mount Vernon Church, erected in 1842 by the congregation over which the Reverend Edward N. Kirk presided, stand upon it. Then follows the two-acre pasture of Cyprian Southack, extending to Tremont Row easterly, and westerly to Somerset Street. Stoddard Street and Howard Street were laid out through it. The Howard Athenæum, formerly the site of Father Miller's Tabernacle, stands upon it. Then follows the one-and-a-half-acre pasture of the heirs of the Reverend John Cotton, second minister of the First Church, extending from Howard Street to Pemberton Square, which constitutes a large portion of that enclosure. And lastly, proceed- ing southerly, comes the four-acre pasture of William Phillips, extending from the southeasterly corner of Pemberton Square to the point of beginning, and enclosing the largest portion of that enclosure. The Hotel Pavilion, the Suffolk Savings Bank, and Houghton and Button's stores, stand upon it.
Less than a century ago Charles River flowed at high tide from the southeast corner of Cambridge Street and Anderson Street across intervening streets to Beacon Street, up which it flowed one hundred and forty-three feet easterly across Charles Street to No. 61. When Mr. John Bryant dug the cellar for that building he came to the natural beach, with its rounded pebbles, at the depth of three or four feet below the surface. It also flowed over the Public Garden, across the southern portion of the parade-ground, to the foot of the hill, upon which stands the Soldiers' Monument. A son of H. G. Otis was drowned, about seventy years ago, in a quagmire which existed at that spot. It also flowed across the westerly portion of Boylston Street and Tremont Street, and Shawmut Avenue, to the corner of Washington Street and Groton Street, where stood the fortifications during the American Revolution, across the Neck, which was only two hundred and fifty feet in width at that point, and thence to the boundary of Roxbury. A beach existed where now is Charles Street, and the lower part of Cambridge Street, on both sides, was a marsh.
Less than a century ago, land on
