Charles Bulfinch

Charles Bulfinch (August 8, 1763 – April 15, 1844) was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first American-born professional architect to practice.
Life
Bulfinch split his career between his native Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., where he served as Commissioner of Public Building and built the intermediate United States Capitol rotunda and dome. His works are notable for their simplicity, balance, and good taste, and as the origin of a distinctive Federal style of classical domes, columns, and ornament that dominated early 19th-century American architecture.
Early life
Bulfinch was born in Boston to Thomas Bulfinch, a prominent physician, and his wife, Susan Apthorp, daughter of Charles Apthorp. At the age of 12, he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from this home on the Boston side of the Charles River.
He was educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard University, from which he graduated with an AB in 1781 and master's degree in 1784.
He then made a grand tour of Europe from 1785 to 1788, traveling to London, Paris, and the major cities of Italy. Bulfinch was greatly influenced by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. He was also influenced by the classical architecture in Italy and the neoclassical buildings of Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Adam, William Chambers, and others in the United Kingdom. Thomas Jefferson became something of a mentor to him in Europe, as he would later be to Robert Mills.
Upon his return to the United States in 1787, he became a promoter of the ship Columbia Rediviva's voyage around the world under command of Captain Robert Gray (1755–1806). It was the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe. In 1788, he married Hannah Apthorp, his first cousin. Their sons include Thomas Bulfinch (1796–1867), author of Bulfinch's Mythology, and Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch (1809–1870), Unitarian clergyman and author.
Career
Bulfinch's first building was the Hollis Street Church (1788). Among his other early works are a memorial column on Beacon Hill (1789), the first monument to the American Revolution; the Federal Street theater (1793); the "Tontine Crescent" (built 1793–1794, now demolished), fashioned in part after John Wood's Royal Crescent; the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut (1796); and the Massachusetts State House (1798). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1791.
Over the course of ten years, Bulfinch built a remarkable number of private dwellings in the Boston area, including Joseph Barrell's Pleasant Hill (1793), a series of three houses in Boston for Harrison Gray Otis (1796, 1800, 1806), and the John Phillips House (1804). He built several churches in Boston, of which New North (built 1802–1804) is the last standing.
Serving from 1791 to 1795 on Boston's board of selectmen, he resigned due to business pressures but returned in 1799. From 1799 to 1817, he was the chairman of Boston's board of selectmen continuously, and served as a paid police superintendent, improving the city's streets, drains, and lighting. Under his direction, both the infrastructure and civic center of Boston were transformed into a dignified, classical style. Bulfinch was responsible for the design of the Boston Common, the remodeling and enlargement of Faneuil Hall (1805), and the construction of India Wharf. In these Boston years, he also designed the Massachusetts State Prison (1803); Boylston Market (1810); University Hall for Harvard University (1813–1814); First Church of Christ, Unitarian in Lancaster, Massachusetts (1815–1817); and the Bulfinch Building, home of the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital (1818), its completion overseen by Alexander Parris, who was working in Bulfinch's office at the time the architect was summoned to Washington.
Despite this great activity and civic involvement, Bulfinch was insolvent several times starting in 1796, including at the start of his work on the statehouse, and was jailed for the month of July 1811 for debt (in a prison he had designed himself). There was no payment for his services as selectman, and he received only $1,400 for designing and overseeing the construction of the State House.
In the summer of 1817, Bulfinch's roles as selectman, designer, and public official coincided during a visit by President James Monroe. The two men were almost constantly in each other's company for the week-long visit, and a few months later (1818), Monroe appointed Bulfinch the successor to Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820) as Architect of the Capitol in Washington, DC (the Capitol Building had been partially burned by the British in 1814.) In this position, he was paid a salary of $2,500 per year plus expenses.
He was also a founding member of The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture (M.S.P.A.), one of the earliest agricultural societies in the United States. The Society was incorporated by an act of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on March 7, 1792.
As Commissioner of Public Building, Bulfinch completed the Capitol's wings and central portion, designed the western approach and portico, and constructed the Capitol's original low wooden dome to his own design (replaced by the present cast-iron dome completed in the mid-1860s). In 1829 Bulfinch completed the construction of the Capitol, 36 years after its cornerstone was laid. During his interval in Washington, Bulfinch also drew plans for the State House in Augusta, Maine (1829–1832), a Unitarian Church and prison in Washington, D.C.. In 1827, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary member. He returned to Boston in 1830, where he died on April 15, 1844, aged 80, and was buried in King's Chapel Burial Ground in Boston. His tomb was later moved to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1943, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Charles Bulfinch was launched. The ship was scrapped in 1971.
Designs
Designs marked with an asterisk (*) have been attributed to Bulfinch, though are not confirmed to have been designed by the architect
Second meeting house of the Hollis Street Church (1788), Boston, Massachusetts
Meeting House (1789- 1792), Taunton, Massachusetts
Bulfinch Church (1790-1793), Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Beacon Hill Memorial (1791), Boston, Massachusetts
Joseph Coolidge House (1792), Boston, Massachusetts
Federal Street Theatre (1793), Boston, Massachusetts
Tontine Crescent (1793-95), Boston, Massachusetts
First Harrison Gray Otis House (1795–96), Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts State House (1795–1798), Boston, Massachusetts
Old Connecticut State House (1796), Hartford, Connecticut
Dedham Community House (1798), Dedham, Massachusetts
Second Harrison Gray Otis House (1800–1802), Boston, Massachusetts
Holy Cross Church (1800-1803), Boston, Massachusetts
Worcester County Courthouse (1801-1803) Worcester, Massachusetts
St. Stephen's Church (1802-1804), Boston, Massachusetts
Amory–Ticknor House (1804), Boston, Massachusetts
Nichols House (1804), Boston, Massachusetts
51–57 Mount Vernon Street (1804), Boston, Massachusetts
Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe House* (1804-1805), Boston, Massachusetts
13-17 Chestnut Street (1804-1805), Boston, Massachusetts
Newburyport Superior Courthouse (1805), Newburyport, Massachusetts
Stoughton Hall, Harvard University (1805), Cambridge, Massachusetts
Third Harrison Gray Otis House (1806), Boston, Massachusetts
Faneuil Hall expansion (1806), Boston, Massachusetts
Quarters A, Brooklyn Navy Yard* (1805-1806), Brooklyn, New York
Second steeple of Old North Church* (1806), Boston, Massachusetts
India Wharf (1807), Boston, Massachusetts
87 Mount Vernon Street (1807), Boston, Massachusetts
Third meeting house of the Federal Street Church (1809), Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Bank (1809) Boston, Massachusetts
Boylston Market (1810), Boston, Massachusetts
Suffolk County Courthouse (1810), Boston, Massachusetts
Essex Bank (1811), Salem, Massachusetts
University Hall, Harvard University (1813–1815), Cambridge, Massachusetts
New South Church (1814), Boston, Massachusetts
Manufacturers & Mechanics Bank (1814-1815), Boston, Massachusetts
Middlesex County Courthouse (1814-1816), Cambridge, Massachusetts
First Church of Christ, Unitarian (1816), Lancaster, Massachusetts
Salem Town Hall (1816–17), Salem, Massachusetts
Chapel and library, Andover Theological Seminary (1817-1818), Andover, Massachusetts
Massachusetts General Hospital, Bulfinch Building (1818-1823), Boston, Massachusetts
United States Capitol alterations (1822-1823), Washington, D.C.
First Unitarian Church (1821-1822), Washington, D.C
The George Washington University, Columbian College (1821-1822), original building, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Capitol Gatehouses and Gateposts (1827), Washington, D.C.
Maine State House (1832), Augusta, Maine
Gallery of designs
References
Charles Bulfinch: Architect and Citizen, C. A. Place, Da Capo Press, 1968
The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch, Harold Kirker, Harvard University Press, 1998
The Bulfinch Building: State of the Art from the Start, R. Tomsho, Massachusetts General Hospital Magazine, 2011
Further reading
Ellen Susan Bulfinch. Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch, Architect. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York 1896
External links
Walking Tour of Charles Bulfinch's works on Beacon Hill
Digital archive of American architecture: Charles Bulfinch
Boston Public Library. Bulfinch, Charles (1763-1844) Architectural Collection
Architects of the United States Capitol
Harvard University alumni
Boston Latin School alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Architects from Boston
18th-century American architects
19th-century American architects
1763 births
1844 deaths
Federalist architects
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
People imprisoned for debt
Boston Board of Selectmen members