MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES 10 1.- _ Final Report of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1961. 2.Perkins, Nina. The Blackstone Block: Its Development from the 17th to the 20th Centuries. Prepared for the Waterfront Project by the Mayor's Historic Conservation Commission. July, 1963. 3.Whitehill, Walter M.. Boston: A Topographical History. Second Ed. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass. 1968. 4.Windsor, J. ed. The Memorial History of Boston. James R. Osgood. 1880. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINA TES DEFINING A RECTANGLE LOCATING THE PROPERTY 0 DEFINING THE CENTER POINT OF A PROPERTY CORNER LATITUDE LONGITUDE?
R OF LESS THAN TEN ACRES LATITUDE LONGITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds NW ,0720» NE.: SE .X11 5142 21 40.23 71:1:03 25.36 SW APPROXIMATE ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY: LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTR LOUNDARIES STATE: CODE COUNTY CODE STATE: CODE COUNTY: STATE: CODE COUNTY: 121 STATE: CODE COUNTY: RECEIVED APR 5 1973 NATIONAL REGISTER CODE CODE CODE 6 FORM PREPARED BY NAME AND TITLE: Lucille C.
Sims, BRA, for Elizabeth Amadon, State Survey Director DATE Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET AND NUMBER: 40 Beacon Street CITY OR TOWN: Boston STATE LIAISON OFFICER CERTIFICATION 1 March 1973- STATE CODE 025 Massachusetts NATIONAL REGISTER YERIFICATION As the designated State Liaison Officer for the Na- tional Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluáted according to the critéria'and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.
The recommended level of significance of this nomination is: National : C State: X :: Local Name h t.kD anru Secretary of the Commonwealth and Title Chairman, mamisshn Massachusetts Historical I hereby certify that this property is included in the Nationa 1 Register,.) Rohertu Utle Chief, Oftice of Archeology and His toric Preservation Date 4/26/73 ATTEST: March 30, 1973 S)muegs Keepe Date Date Form, 10-300g Uuly 1969) 1 RECÊIVED APR UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER BostoReB NATBlackstone Block (Continuation Sheet) #1 (Number ett ehtries)0 Continued 05-27Union Street(3), a row of five buildings of two and three bays each was built at 15-27 Union Street about 1822. Three retain their Federal form and features.
They are four story brick buildings with gable roofs, flared granite lintels, small cornices over the tops of square windows on the top floor. No. 15 has six lights to a sash on the second and third floor windows; the top windows have single six light sashes. The windows of 17-19 and 21 Union have modern single light sashes. These buildings, which were built as combination shops and residences, have had their store fronts modernized. No's. 23 and 25-27 Union Street has been drastically "colonialized". multipaned windows and repointed brickwork. To the rear of this group of buildings facing Salt Lane and Scott Alley(4), are some curious brick buildings of common bond, whose openings have been bricked up for some time. Those on Salt Lane have been reduced from 3 1/2 stories to a flat roofed two stories. Two brick buildings on Scott Alley are each 3 stories plus pitched roof.
Connected to their four story counterparts on Union Street by low (one and two story) brick connectors, they are reminders of the time when a good many buildings faced the interior of the block. 20-22 North Street(5) (c1824) is the only remaining building on the street that displays Federal characteristics: two bay, four stories with standard fenestration pattern a gable roof set off by a modest patterned brick cornice. 37 Union Street(6) illustrates the elongated proportions of the Greek Revival style: only thirteen feet wide, the brick structure has two bays, three stories and a gable roof. Straight masonry lintels top the tall narrow windows. A similar Greek Revival building at 26 North Street has been reduced from 4 1/2 stories to 2. Starting about 1835, a number of larger, taller, purely commercial buildings were constructed.
These are brick, usually four stories with pitched or mansard roofs and regularly spaced windows (on the upper floors) with Brownstone lintels and six lights to a sash. The Blackstone Block(7) built in 1835, has been reduced from 4 stories plus mansard roof to three stories with a flat roof; some of its windows have been enlarged. The Wiggins Block(8) at 147-149 Hanover Street is four stories plus a mansard roof, and the Union Block(9) (1844) is four stories plus a combined hip and gable roof to fit the acute angle of its site. The brick buildings along Blackstone Street and 11 Marshall Street were probably similar in character to these buildings; most have lost two to three stories and retain little of their original character. All the buildings on Blackstone Street were in existence at the time that the 1873 Sanborn Atlas was published.
A more elaborate style can be found in a masonry fronted brick building built in 1861 at 31-35 Union Street(10). Its facade is decorated with European motifs such as an Italianate bracketed cornice and a French man- sard roof illustrating a more plastic treatment of the facade in which the wall surface through decorative articulation actually becomes a window frame. #38-44 North Street(11) originally 4 stories with mansard roof, now 2 stories, is the only remnant of granite faced buildings on the block.
DATE 12) 14 10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR STATE (Juy 1969) -NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Massachusetts RECEIVED NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES COUNTY Suffolk APR INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM 5 FOR NPS USE ONLY NATIBoston, Blackstone Bleck (Continuation Sheet) #2 ENTRYNUMBER REGISTEosumbeten APR entries) Sontinued LON The late 19th century saw even larger scale buildings built on North Street. #24 North Street(12) is a 6 story, 2 bay brick commercial ing aza 1or rha oor n building with a flat roof and arched corbel tables, designed by Peabody and Stearns and built in 1889. In 1899 #32 North, a 2 story (originally 6) 4 bay brick building designed by Mackay and Dunham, and #34-36 North Street, a 2 story, 2 bay structure designed by Charles B. Dunham were erected, both decorated with rather interesting Revival motifs.
The first three decades of the 20th century saw the erection of #14-22 Marshall Street (1916), a four story brick building with a flat roof and Chicago style windows designed by A. J. Carpenter; #18 North Street, a five story brick building designed by Gilbert Miles Ramsey in 1922 and extensively modernized recently with the enlargement of some windows and the addition of a glass penthouse for utilities; #1 Union Street, a four story brick building with flat roof designed by Shepard and Stearns in 1926; and #46-52 North Street, a 5-story brick building with flat roof by J. R. Worcester & Co. in 1928. Set into the wall of the "Blackstone Block" building, facing Public Alley 102 and the Ebenzer Hancock House is the "Boston Stone" (13).
As it is mounted one sees a rectangular stone slab incised with the date 1737, surmounted by a stone ball about 18 inches in diameter, most of which is for milestones. In 1835 the ball and slab were mounted as they appear today. 8. Continued The buildings within the block are a sampler of 18th, 19th, and twentieth century building types but, at the same time, display a cohesiveness in the universal use of brick (though some facades are stone) and in the modest scale of the buildings, both in regard to height and ground coverage. Though some buildings occupy lots which have been assembled from earlier smaller parcels, many of the buildings are oddly shaped, fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, to conform with the 17th century parcelization of the block. Both the eighteenth century houses have connections with the Revolu- tionary war.
From 1771 to 1775, The Massachusetts Spy was published by Isalah Thomas on the second floor of what is now the Union Oyster House but was Capen's Dry Goods Store at that time. Thomas had conceived the novel idea for a paper of tabloid size that would appeal to "mechanics and other classes of people who had not much time to spare from business." This everyman's newspaper soon became turbulently patriotic, and Thomas prudently removed his press to Worcester only a few days before the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Massachusetts Spy, with the subtitle "'American Oracle of Liberty," continued to be published at Worcester throughout the Revolution and for many years thereafter. The Ebenezer Hancock House is the only house owned by John Hancock remaining in Boston.
He inherited half of an earlier house from his uncle, Thomas Hancock, in 1754, and purchased the other half of the house in 1767. It is assumed that he had the present structure erected DATE 2 6 1973 Form 10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR (July 1969) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk Boston, Blackstone Block (Continuation Sheet) #3 FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER APR &8193 (Number all entries) 8. Continued shortly thereafter; for during the. Revolution the new house was occupied by his brother, Ebenezer, who may have also been its builder, as he was a mason and bricklayer. During the Revolution, Ebenezer was Paymaster General of the Eastern Department of the Continental Army, and it was to this house in Marshall Street that two million silver crowns were brought in August of 1778.
This money was a loan from King Louis XVI which had been negotiated in Paris by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, incidently, spent the better part of his boyhood just beyond the confines of the Blackstone Block. Josiah Franklin's Chandlery shop stood at the southwest corner of Union and Hanover Street, on a site now occupied by a widened Union Street. The block gains further significance by its proximity to Faneuil Hall (1742) and the Quincy Market complex (1825-26). fortunate to have this example of modest commercial buildings repre- senting a wide range of dates in close proximity with the larger and more impressive public market buildings. Further, the whole area serves as an interesting foil to the still larger and more monumental scale public and private buildings of Government Center.
DATE 12 131 14, App RECEiVED 5 1973 NATIONAL REGISTER 18 OIT T6 PROPERTY WORKING NUMBER TECH REVIEW Blactstone Block STATE Mass 45.23,2140 Photos 4 Maps CONTROL REVIEW1 'ontinuatior sheet are serored HISTORIAN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN 4-12 23 OK Accept-Amy 1/12/73 Khal upl=19-B3 4/18/73 ARCHEOLOGIST REVIEW UNIT CHIEF BRANCH CHIEF KEEPER National Register write-up Federal Register entry 6-5-73 Send-back Re-submit Entered APR 2 6 1973 BAStON, BLACKSTONE BhOcK (1) (MASSACHUSETTS NPS Number _ 4/26/73 Title: BlackstanE Block Dist. Loc. Suffals, mass. streetscapE sf BlActstoNE Rleck PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER MASSACHUSETTS, RA PHOTO 960 AKSONE BLOCK BOSTON, BLACKSTONE BLOCK NPS Number 4/26/73 Title:Bleckstone Bbck Dist._ LoC. Suffolt Moss.
AeriAl Viau af BlAcIEStaNE bloch PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER macher KFURTS ners MASSACHUSERTS, N, BLACKSTONE BLOK (3) NPS Number _4/26/73 Title:Blackstone Block Dist. Loc. Suffoll, MAss. Craols SqUArE PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER MASSACHUSETTS #PS Number 4/26/73 : t7a:Blockstonc Block Dist .C.
SuffolE, MAsS "Wiggins Bloct", ", osking sauth ON HANDEE PEOPERTY OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER BOSTON, BLACKSTONE Form 10-301 (July 1969) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PROPERTY MAP FORM (Type all entries - attach to or enclose with map) STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER APR 2 81373 un - NAME COMMON: AND/OR HISTORIC: LOCATION STREET AND NUM BER: Blackstone Block CITY OR TOWN: Boston STATE: Massachusetts CODE COUNTY: 025 MAP REFERENCE SOURCE: USGS 7.5' Series, Boston South Quadrangle SCALE: 1:24,000 DATE: 1967 REQUIREMENTS TO BE INCLUDED ON ALL MAPS 1. Property broundaries where required. 2. North arrow. 3. Latitude and longitude reference. Suffolk CODE 025 RECENED Va. 110N REGISTER OT BLACKSTONE BLOCK 1. Union Oyster House 2. Ebenezer Hancock House 3. 15-27 Union 4.
Salt Lane and Scott Alley buildings 5. 20-22 North Street 6. 39 Union Street 7. Blackstone Block 8. Wiggins Block 9. Union Block 10. 31-35 Union Street 11. 38-44 Union Street 12. 24 North Street 13. Boston Stone SCALE: 1:100 SSWAY NATIONAL 1973 REGISTER 31,117 V PARKING STREET COMMERCIAL STREET 1274 1112 1100 1100 o1100 12/194 m1200 MARKET w/226 1225 1201300 1300 1169 1482 27 281284 1254 1254 1254 CLINTON 1254 1254 1254 1254 1254 0 1425 GERALD PARKING PARKING PARKING ARTERY PARKING PARKING 12 88 86 4606 102100 346 491 102 6292 CREEK 2260 8ELE. 21/0191 9102 66120 BLACKSTONE PARKING SQ 3252 CRE SCOTT-ALLE NE HSYV 31 32,934 7325 610 3193 6286 25 2119 17 15 3 STREET DOC ST.
Form 10-301 (July 1969) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PROPERTY MAP FORM (Type all entries - attach to or enclose with map) STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER APR DATE 2 6 19/3 - NAME COMMON: Blackstone Block AND/OR HISTORIC: LOC AION STREET AND NUM BER: CITY OR TOWN: Boston STATE: Massachusetts CODE COUNTY: 025 Suffolk MAP REFERENCE SOURCE: Topographic & Planimetric Survey of the City SCALE: DATE: 1:100 1967 REQUIREMENTS TO BE INCLUDED ON ALL MAPS 1. Property broundaries where required. 2. North arrow. 3. Latitude and longitude reference. CODE 025 BOSTOCIVEH MATONAL RÉGISTER T6 F.Y.
1973 APPORTIONMENT WARRANT NOMINATION 12 (DUE 1 APRIL 1973) RECENED APR 5 1973 NATIONAL REGISTER IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THIS NOMINATION BY 1 MAY 73, PLEASE NOTIFY US AT ONCE INT: 3097-72 ENTRIES IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER STATE MASSACHUSETTS Date Entered APR 2 6 1973 Name BlackstoneBlock Location Boston Suffolk County Hon. Idward M. Kennea]so Notified Hon. Edverd W. Brooke Hon. John Hoakley Director, Northeast Region PHR State Ilistoric Preservation Officer Hon. John F.X. Davoren Secretary of the Conmonwea1th Chairnan, Massachueetts Historical Comniasion 40 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusette 02108 NRowland:1mp 5-4-73 - 11/21/2006 09:42 FAX 2022733237 NPS Cultural Resources J0: Robie Lange Controlled Correspondence Tasking Profile Control Number: 353142 Document Date: 08/18/2006 Received in DOI Date: 10/13/2006 Due Date:11/24/2006 From: Margaret J.
Cummings 115 Brook Stone Charleston Parke Cibolo, TX 78108 Subject Text: White House #560165. Constituent is concerned that Boston Stone has been forgotten. Can you replace the bronze plaque and re-dedicate it. Required surname: NA Action Office: Cultural Resources Signature: Associate Director 1ask: Please send a copy of tinal response to the Office of the Assistant Director, Business Services via fax #202-219-3972. Contact: Sherry Plownan, 202203(5651 @001/004 H34(2280) Ms. Margaret J. Cummings Jun 1lc206 115 Brook Stone NOV 2 8 2006 Charleston Parke aleee Cibolo, Texas 78108 1/28|06 Dear Ms. Cummings: Thank you for your recent letter to President Bush concerning the Boston Stone marker located in the Ma ttdsers rear façade of that city's Blackstone Block.
As Associate Director for Cultural Resources, and Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, I have been asked to reply to your letter. 1/28/2006 As you know, the Boston Stone is made up of a stone slab and a spherical stone ball that were originally used to grind pigments to produce paint in an earlier building possibly located on the site. Embedded in the alley-side wall when the current building was built in 1835, the marker was a zero- mile marker, which served as a central point from which distances were measured throughout the city. In recognition of the Blackstone Block's significance in state and local history, a historic district that includes the Boston Stone has been recognized as a city landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service.
Since the Federal government provides plaques only for designated National Historic Landmarks that are nationally significant, you may wish to contact either the Boston Landmarks Commission or the Massachusetts Historical Commission to determine if they would consider providing a replacement plaque for this element of the Blackstone Block Historic District. Similarly, if you believe the Boston Stone justifies individual state or local recognition beyond that of the larger historic district, you may wish to consult either of the commissions mentioned above. Finally, proposals for commemorative postal stamps are considered by the U.S. Postal Service's Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee. Their criteria for selection may be found at: www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm. Thankyou for your letter, and for your interest in preserving our Nation's heritage.
Sincerely, ¿Lsl Janet Snyder Matthews Janet Snyder Matthews, Ph.D Associate Director, Cultural Resources and Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places CC: Massachusetts/SHPO bcc: 2285 7256 Office of Congressional & Legislative Affairs Blackstone Block HD (NR file, Boston MA) Basic File Retained In 2280 FNP:RLange:OP:11-21-06:S:/nr-nhl/lange/BostonStone.Itr 1. 11/21/2006 09:42 FAX 2022733237 NPS Cultural Resources 20: Robie Lange Controlled Correspondence Tasking Profile Control Number: 353142 Document Date: 08/18/2006 Received in DOI Date: 10/13/2006 Due Date:11/24/2006 From: Margaret J. Cummings 115 Brook Stone Charleston Parke Cibolo, TX 78108 Subject Text: White House #560165. Constituent is concerned that Boston Stone has been forgotten. Can you replace the bronze plaque and re-dedicate it.
Required surname: NA Action Office: Cultural Resources Signature: Associate Director Lask: Pleasesend acopy of final respouse to the Office of the Assistant Director, Business Services via fax # 202-219-3972. Contact: Sherry Plowman 202-203/5651 4001/004 11/21/2006 09:42 FAX DR AVCASE 2022733237 WH NPS Cultural Resources 560165 DOI 56.0168 LSPS 4002/004 253142 August 18, 2006 The President Mr. George W. Bush The White House Washingion, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: The Bustun Stune has been forgolten. The original bronze plaque has been removed, lost and never replaved: neglected, shabby, silting in a bed of weeds and totally unacknowledged to and thus hd Beoa losti olaky foblitpsniteg et maver e nides Bositer orus s arkaodene al and recognized as, "The Oidest Restaurant in America" and just celcbrated it's birthday with The Boston Press.
Historioally, this simple Stone is extremely relevant. You ace, in Olde Boston, Thc Boston Stone measured distance. It was considered the actual center of the city, and all direations were given as, "15 miles, NE from The Boston Stone, etc. This measurement of distance and travel in a time gone bye needs the attention of our now, fast-paced country, so that we can remember and honor this travel icon. May I suggest three passible steps to bring The Boston Stone back from it's forgotten past? 1. Replace the bronze plaque. 2. Rededicate The Boston Stone at local and national levels. 3. Create a United States postal stamp in it's likeness (see photo). 000663 They say that, "One person can make a difference": Ihope that I can? With respect to you and the history of our nation, I am a former Bostonian and currant Texan, Margaret J.
Cummings 115 Brook Stone Charleston Parke Cibolo, TX 78108 cc: Mayor Thomas Menino, City of Boston Margert 3. Cesm Attachment: photo MJC/me EXECUTIYE SECRE TARIAT ICE OF 1HE 2006 OCT 13 AMI|:40 RECEIVED -. 11/21/2006 09:42 FAX 2022733237 NPS Cultural Resources @004/004 INSTRUCTIONS Form 10-300 (July 1969) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM PH0026565 STATE: Massachusetts COUNTY: Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER - (Type all entries - complete applicable sections): DATE .
APR : 2 6 1973 NAME COMMON: Blackstone Block AND/OR HISTORIC: kistonee joPis LOCATION Congressional District #9 STREET AND NUMBER: CITY OR TOWN: Area bound by Union, Hanover, Blackstonezand North Streets Boston STATE Massachusetts CODE COUNTY: : 025 Suffolk CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY OWNERSHIP STATUS (Check One) District Site Building Structure Object Public Private Both Public Acquisition: X In Process Being Considered Occupied Unoccupied X Preservation work in progress + CODE 025 ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC Yes: Restricted Unrestricted No PRESENT USE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Agricultural Government Commercial Industrial Educational Military Entertainment Museum Park Private Residence Religious Scientific L Transportation - Other (Specity) - Comments OWNER OF PROPERTY OWNER'S NAME: pub-lic and private STREET AND NUMBER: RCnEA 31 CITY OR TOWN: Boston LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION COURTHOUSE, REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC: Registry of Deeds STREET AND NUMBER: Suffolk County Courthouse CITY OR TOWN: Boston STATE: ITP Massachusetts APR CODE 023 Massachusetts NATIONAL REGISTER STATE Massachusetts Oil cobe 025 REPRESENTATIONIN EXISTINGSURVEYS TITLE OF SURVEY: Historic American Building Survey Mass.
-127,-128, -2-55, -2-55A DATE OF SURVEY: 1934, 1935, 1943 [X Federal - County - Local DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS: Library of, Congress STREET AND NUMBER: CITY OR TOWN: STATE: CODE Washington D.C. SIH ] DESCRIPTION (Check One) Excellent Good [X Fair X Deteriorated Ruins - Unexposed CONDITION (Check One) (Check One) X Altered X Unaltered - Moved X Original Site DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (if known) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE The area called the Blackstone Block contains 2.3 acres and is bounded by Union, Hanover, Blackstone and North Streets. It lies east of Boston's new City Hall and Government Center and north of previously registered Faneuil Hall - Quincy Market complex. i While the streets that bound the block have been widened to accommo- date modern traffic, the narrow alleys which meander through the block's interior date from the 17th and early 18th centuries.
These streets and alleys are lined with a curious blendingtge of buildings dating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The building known as the Union Oyster House(1).41-43 Union Street is the second building to occupy its plot. It was built between 1713, when the property line between 39 and 41 Union Street was adjusted, and 17y7 when the "newly built Brick Messuage or Tenement" was sold. Only the. facade is visible as it abuts neighboring buildings to the sides and rear. It is a five bay, 3 1/2 story brick building with a gambrel roof, dentil cornice, and windows with twelve lights in each sash. There are three dormer windows and shop windows on the ground floor level, all alterations of the original structure. The facade bends to fit the angle of Marshall Street to Union Street.
The Union Street facade is of Flemish bond with flat arches over the second floor windows and belt courses at the levels of the second floor. These features are missing from the Marshall Street facade, on which the bond has scattered headers in no definite pattern. Apparently, the brick work on the side of the building has been redone. No. 43 Union appears, from evidence in the attic, to be an addition to No. 41 made about a decade later. Very few of the interior features remain. The second floor fireplace appears to have been rebuilt, and it is reported by the owner that the bar conceals another fireplace. An original fireplace on the third floor, in the manager's office, isnot ordinarily seen bythe public. The building has been in continuous use as an oyster house since 1826. - Ebenezer Hancock House(2). 10 Marshall Street.
Though a brick "tenament" was built on the approximate site of the Ebenezer Hancock house prior to 1692, the present house, dating from between 1767 and the early Revolutionary period, is a handsome three story house of the Georgian style, with Flemish bond brick, a hipped roof, dentil cornice, flat arches over the second story windows, and brick belt courses. original windows on the first and second stories have twelve lights in each sash; the smaller third floor windows have eight lights in each sash. The left front corner of the L-shaped house is sliced off at an angle to conform with the property line. In 1929, a one story brick addition was built, filling in the space originally left vacant by the L-shape of the building, and at some point an open carport was added at the rear. The upper two floors haye retained their Georgian paneling and fireplaces.
remodeled for a store as early as 1796m RECEIVEL [continued] REGISTER C// iil! m INSTRUCTIO Form, V0-300g UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR (July 1969) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE RECEIVED NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk APR INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM 5 FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER BOstAPGIS NAT/Slagkstone Block (Continuation Sheet) #1 F(Number altontries) Continued 05-27 Union Street(3), a row of five buildings of two and three bays each was built at 15-27 Union Street about 1822. Three retain their Federal form and features. They are four story brick buildings with gable roofs, flared granite lintels, small cornices over the tops of square windows on the top floor. No. 15 has six lights to a sash on the na onges, il on ngre uite a eamstington snops and resiaences, nave nad their store fronts modernized. No's.
23 and 25-27 Union Street has been drastically "colonialized" The height has been reduced to 2 1/2 stories, under a gable roof, with multipaned windows and repointed brickwork. To the rear of this group of buildings facing Salt Lane and Scott Alley(4), are some curious brick buildings of common bond, whose openings have been bricked up for some time. Those on Salt Lane have been reduced from 3 1/2 stories to a flat roofed two stories. Two brick buildings on Scott Alley are each 3 stories plus pitched roof. Connected to their four story counterparts on Union Streetby low (one and two story) brick connectors, they are reminders of the time when a good many buildings faced the interior of the block.
20-22 North Street(5) (c1824) is the only remaining building on the street that displays Federal characteristics: two bay, four stories with standard fenestration pattern a gable roof set off by a modest patterned brick cornice. 37 Union Street(6) illustrates the elongated proportions of the Greek Revival style: only thirteen feet wide, the brick structure has two bays, three stories and a gable roof. top the tall narrow windows. Straight masonry lintels A similar Greek Revival building at 26 North Street has been reduced from 4 1/2 stories to 2. Starting about 1835, a number of larger, taller, purely commercial bulldings were constructed. These are brick, usually four storles with pitched or mansard roofs and regularly spaced windows (on the upper floors) with Brownstone lintels and six lights to a sash.
The Blackstone Block(7) built in 1835, has been reduced from 4 stories plus mansard roof to three stories with a flat roof; some of its windows have been enlarged. The Wiggins Block(8) at 147-149 Hanover Street is four stories plus a mansard roof, and the Union Block(9)(1844) is four stories plus a combined hip The brick buildings along Blackstone Street and 11 Marshall Street were probably similar in character to these buildings; most have lost two to three stories and retain little of their original character. All the buildings on Blackstone Street were in existence at the time that the 1873 Sanborn Atlas was published. A more elaborate style can be found in a masonry fronted brick building built in 1861 at 31-35 Union Street(10).
Its facade is decorated with European motifs such as an Italianate bracketed cornice and a French man- sard roof illustrating a more plastic treatment of the facade in which the wall surface through decorative articulation actually becomes a window frame. #38-44 North Street(11) originally 4 stories with mansard roof, now 2 stories, is the only remnant of granite faced buildings on the block. DATE 8 81973 3) 14.2643 orm 10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 1969) -NATIONAL PARK SERVICE RECENED NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES APR INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM NATI BOSk Blackstone Bleck: (Continuation Sheet) #2 REGIST (Aumbok allentries) STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER A oIl The late 19th century saw even larger scale buildings built on North Street.
#24 North Street(12) is a 6 story, 2 bay brick commercial building with a flat roof and arched corbel tables, designed by Peabody and Stearns and built in 1889. In 1899 #32 North, a 2 story (originally 6) 4 bay brick building designed by Mackay and Dunham, and #34-36 North Street, a 2 story, 2 bay structure designed by Charles B. Dunham were erected first deree ded wesh ofathe 2oth cerestyn gakevie trection of #14-22 Marshall Street (1916), a four story brick building with a flat roof and Chicago style windows designed by A. J.
Carpenter; #18 North Street, a five story brick building designed by Gilbert Miles Ramsey in 1922 and extensively modernized recently with the enlargement of some windows and the addition of a glass penthouse for utilities; #1 Union Street, a four story brick building with flat roof designed by Shepard and Stearns in 1926; and #46-52 North Street, a 5-story brick building with flat roof by J. R. Worcester & Co. in 1928. Set into the wall of the "Blackstone Block" building, facing Public Alley 102 and the Ebenzer Hancock House is the "Boston Stone"(13). As it is mounted one sees a rectangular stone slab incised with the date 1737, surmounted by a stone ball about 18 inches in diameter, most of which is sunk in the wall. The slab part was set up in Marshall Street in 1737 as the central marker from which distances from (or to) Boston were measured for milestones.
In 1835 the ball and slab were mounted as they appear Continued The buildings within the block are a sampler of 18th, 19th, and twentieth century building types but, at the same time, display a cohesiveness in the universal use of brick (though some facades are stone) and in the modest scale of the buildings, both in regard to height and ground coverage. Though some buildings occupy lots which have been assembled from earlier smaller parcels, many of the buildings are oddly shaped, fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, to conform with the 17th century parcelization of the block. Both the eighteenth century houses have connections with the Revolu- tionary war. From 1771 to 1775, The MassachusettsSpy was published by Isaiah Thomas on the second floor of what is now the Union Oyster House but was Capen's Dry Goods Store at that time.
-Thomas had conceived the novel idea for a paper of tabloid size that would appeal to "mechanics and other classes of people who had not much time to spare from business." This everyman's newspaper soon became turbulently patriotic, and Thomas prudently removed his press to Worcester only a few days before the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Massachusetts Spy, with the subtitle "American Oracle of Liberty," continued to be published at Worcester throughout the Revolution and for many years thereafter. The Ebenezer Hancock House is the only house owned by John Hancock remaining in Boston. He inherited half of an earlier house from his uncle, Thomas Hancock, in 1754, and purchased the other half of the in 1767.
It is assumed that he had the present structure erected DATE 2 61975 INS SICNIFISANCE PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) - Pre-Columbian| ) 16th Century 15th Century 17th Century XI 18th Century X 19th Century 'SPECIFIC DATE(S) (If Applicable and Known) AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Abor iginal Education - Prehistoric ] Engineering 3 - Historic ] Industry Agriculture ] Invention Architecture ] Landscape Art Architecture Commerce - Literature 12 Communications ]Military Conservation - Music Political Ralígion/Phi- fosoptie 97-1 culptu REGIST NATIONAleoter ºSocial/Humar= iargan Fianspocigijon 20th Century Urban Planning Other (Specify) x Urban Form TEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Although the Blackstone Block is now more than a half a mile from Boston Harbor, the block had its start as a bustling waterfront district.
It abuts the Town Cove which was where Dock Square and the Faneuil Hall- Quincy Market complex are now. The Town Cove was wharfed out in 1641, and until 1711, when Long Wharf was completed, it was the shipping center of the fledgling town, with goods for overseas and coastal trade being loaded, unloaded, bought, and sold. The block also abutted a tidal mill race on which there were a number of mills.In 1633, the North or Mill Cove was dammed for tidal water- power, and a small natural stream was extended to connect the Mill Cove the Town Cove, along the course of today's Blackstone Street. flow must have been reasonably rapid, since this was the only part of town where butchers were allowed to dispose of entrails. This same Blackstone Street today is largely occupied by meat packers and wholesale and retail meat dealers.
The early commercial and industrial importance of the block is further attested to by the location in the block of the central marker, or the zero milestone, from which distances were measured to and from This marker, called the Boston Stone, was set up in Marshall Street in 1737, making the block the hub of the Hub. The Boston Stone is actually an early mill for grinding pigments, imported from England in 1701 by a house painter named Thomas Child. lower slab is a trough though the trough is not visible, and the ball a grinder. Only the slab part of the mill was used as a marker in 1737; the ball part was found when the "Blackstone Block" building was under construction (1835) and the two parts mounted in the wall of the new building.
The same builder also preserved a wooden coat of arms of the London Guild of House Painters, also aformer possession of Thomas Child, and mounted it on the Hanover Street facade of the new building. The coat of armshas been removed,for safekeeping and protection from the weather, to the quarters of the Bostonian Society in the Old Statehouse. The most unique feature of the Blackstone Block is the survival of the 17th century street pattern in the interior of the block with narrow lanes, ranging down to the five foot width of Scott Alley. .This alley, incidently, does connect through to North Street but is roofed over with a door at the North Street entrance. Though there may be isolated in- stances in Boston of 17th century streets or alleys which retain their original conformation, the Blackstone Block is the only district where six such lanes survive.
[continued] Form 10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR (July 1969) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORICPLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM STATE Massachusetts COUNTY Suffolk FOR NPS USE ONLY Boston, Blackstone Block ENTRY NUMBER DATE (Continuation Sheet) #3 APR 2 B 1973 (Number all entries) 8. Continued shortly thereafter; for during the. Revolution the new house was occupied by his brother, Ebenezer, who may have also been its builder, as he was a mason and bricklayer. During the Revolution, Ebenezer was Paymaster General of the Eastern Department of the Continental Army, and it was to this house in Marshall Street that two million silver crowns were brought in August of 1778. This money was a loan from King Louis XVI which had been negotiated in Paris by Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin, incidently, spent the better part,of his boyhood just beyond the confines of the Blackstone Block. Josiah Franklin's Chandlery shop stood at the southwest corner of Union and Hanover Street, on a site now occupied by a widened Union Street. The block gains further significance by its proximity to Faneuil Hall (1742) and the Quincy Market complex (1825-26). It is certainly fortunate to have this example of modest commercial buildings repre- senting a wide range of dates in close proximity with the larger and more impressive public market buildings. Further, the whole area serves as an interesting foil to the still larger and more monumental scale public and private buildings of Government Center. 13 4 APp RECEVED 1973 NATIONAL REGISTER 10 MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES 1. - Final Report of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission. U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1961. 2.Perkins, Nina. The Blackstone Block: Its Development from the 17th to the Prepared for the Waterfront Project by the Mayor's Historic Conservation Commission. July, 1963. 3.Whitehill, Walter M.. Boston: A Topographical History. Second Ed. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 4. Windsor, J. ed. Cambridge, Mass. 1968. The Memorial History of Boston. James R. Osgood. 1880.
GEOGRAPHICAL DAT LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES DEFINING A RECTANGLE LOCATING THE PROPERTY CORNER LATITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds LONGITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds R LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES DEFINING THE CENTER POINT OF A PROPERTY OF LESS THAN TEN ACRES LATITUDE LONGI TUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds 0.7 31), NW NE -*II 1% 21 40.23 71:01:03 : 25.36 SW APPROXIMATE LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COONTE BOUNDARIES STATE: CODE COUNTY STATE: CODE COUNTY: STATE: CODE COUNTY: STATE: CODE COUNTY: RECEIVED APR 5 1973 NATIONAL REGISTER CODE CODE CODE CODE FORM PREPARED BY NAME AND TITLE: Lucille C.
Sims, BRA, for Elizabeth Amadon, State Survey Director ORGANIZATION DATE Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET AND NUMBER: 40 Beacon Street CITY OR TOWN: STATE Boston IMarch 1973 CODE 025 STATE LIAISON OFFICER CERTIFICATION Massachusetts NATIONAL REGISTER VERIFICATION As the designated State Liaison Officer for the Na- tional Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the Nationa1 Register and certify that it has been evaluáted according to the critériá and procedures set forth by the National Park Service. The recommended level of significance of this nomination is: National : O State: X Local : I hereby certify that this property is included in the National
Rohertu Chieh, Ottice of Archeotosy and toric Preservation Date 4/210/73 Name u410o Secretary of the Commonwealth and Chairman, Massachusetts Historical Title Commission ATTEST: Date March 30, 1973 Date National Rdeis 20 -
Block