inclosed the territory of the town. His name
is perpetuated in the street of that name bounding
the Massachusetts General Hospital grounds. Somerset
Street was laid out through it. The Congregational
House, Jacob Sleeper Hall, and Boston University Building,
which occupies the former site of the First Baptist
Church, under the pastorship of the Reverend Rollin
H. Neale, stand upon it. Next comes Governor
James Bowdoin’s two-acre pasture, extending from
the last-named street to Mount Vernon Street, and
northerly to Allston Street; the upper part of Bowdoin
Street and Ashburton Place were laid out through it;
the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, formerly Freeman-place
Chapel, built by the Second Church, under the pastoral
care of the Reverend Chandler Robbins, and afterwards
occupied by the First Presbyterian Church, the Church
of the Disciples, the Brattle-square Church, the Old
South Church, and the First Reformed Episcopal Church;
so that the entire theological gamut has resounded
from its walls; the Swedenborgian Church, over which
the Reverend Thomas Worcester presided for a long
series of years, also stands upon it. Having
reached the summit of the hill, we come abreast of
the five-and-a-half-acre pasture of Governor John
Hancock, the first signer of the immortal Declaration
of American Independence, extending from Mount Vernon
Street to Joy Street, and northerly to Derne Street,
embracing the Capitol lot, and also the reservoir lot,
for which last two he paid, in 1752, the modest sum
of eleven hundred dollars! It is now worth a
thousand times as much. For the remainder of his
possessions in that vicinity he paid nine hundred
dollars more. The upper part of Mount Vernon
Street, the upper part of Hancock Street, and Derne
Street, were laid out through it. Then, descending
the hill, comes Benjamin Joy’s two-acre pasture,
extending from Joy Street to Walnut Street, and extending
northerly to Pinckney Street; forty-seven dwelling-houses
now standing upon it. Mr. Joy paid two thousand
dollars for it. At the time of its purchase he
was desirous of getting a house in the country, as
being more healthy than a town-residence, and he selected
this localty as “being country enough for him.”
The upper part of Joy Street was laid out through
it. Now follows the valuable twenty-acre pasture
of John Singleton Copley, the eminent historical painter,
one of whose productions (Charles the First demanding
in the House of Commons the arrest of the five impeached
members) is now in the art-room of the Public Library.
It extended for a third of a mile on Beacon Street,
from Walnut Street to Beaver Street, and northerly
to Pinckney Street, which he purchased in lots at
prices ranging from fifty to seventy dollars per acre.
Walnut, Spruce, a part of Charles, River, Brimmer,
Branch Avenue, Byron Avenue, Lime, and Chestnut Streets,
Louisburg Square, the lower parts of Mount Vernon
and Pinckney Streets, and the southerly part of West
Cedar Street, have been laid out through it. Copley