The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-01-10


l. that Boston boasts Of Twen-
teth century progress and i'm
provement has done but little to oblit-
crate its picturesque aspects, for which
antiauarians are duly thankful. One
OF them, Edward NJ. Bacon, has writ
ten book about 1t. He calls 1t Ram
bles Around Old Boston" The publish
ers are Little, Brown & Co.
We were three-a visiting English
man, the Artist, and Antiquary, says
Mr.. Bacon. The Artist and Antiquary
were the gossiping guides; the Eng
lishman the guided. The Englishman
would do" Old Boston exclusively. He
had done" the blend of Old and New,
and now would bark back to the Old
and review II in leisurely strolls among
it's landmarks. He had asked the Art
list and Ant!quary TO pilot him COM
panionab,y, and they would meet his
wishes, and gladly, for the personal
conducting OF a stranger so saturated
with Old Boston lore as he appeared
to be could not be other than agree
able.
Beyond the few treasured historic
memorials, the landmarks he especially
would seek were many of them long
ago annihiated in those repeated
marches of progress or Of Improvement
common to all growing cities, or effaced
in the manifold makings over of the
topography of the Old Town, than which
none other in ChWstendom has under
gone more. Still, If not the Identical
things, the sites Of select number of
them could be identified for him, and
their story or legend rehearsed, while
the Artists pencil would reproduce yet
remaining bits of the Old jumbled with
the New.
So we sauntered, we three, through
the crowded Old streets Of the modern
city, imaging the Old Town of the past
Properly our initial ramble was
within the narrow bounds of the be-
ginnings Of the Puritan capital, the
metropolis of the wilderness" hanging
on the harbor's edge OF the little pear
shaped" behilled peninsula, for which
the founders, those well educated, po-
lite persons of good estate took Old
Boston in England for its name and
London for it's model, The Lincoln
shire borough on the Withlm was to be
its prototype only in name. The found
ers would have their capital town be &c
New England in its humble way what
London was to Old England. So Bos-
ton was builded, a likeness in minia-
ture to London.
This London look and Old England
aspect, we remarked, remained to and
through the Revolution; and in a
shadowy way remains to-day, as ou
guest would see. 1t was indeed nat
ural family likeness, for, as the record
shows, Boston from the beginning was
the central point Of the most thoroughly
English community IN the New World
There was no infusion of a foreign cle-
ment of consequence until the end OF
the colony period and the close Of the
seventeenth century. Then the French
Huguenots had begun to appear ant
mingle with the native Puritans. But
while early in the province period this
element became sufficient in numbers tC
set up a church of its own and to bring
about some softening of the old austeri-
ties of the Puritan town life, it did not
impair the English stamp. These French
Huguenots easily assmlated in The
community. which welcomed them, anC
in time these competent artisans ant
merchants, the Eowdoins, the Faneulls
Chardons, Sigourneys, Reveres, Moli
neuxes, Greenleafs, became almost al
English, or American English, as the
rest. Nor was the stamp impaired by
the infusion Of Scotch and Irish into the
colony in increasing numbers durinl
the latter half of the seventeenth and
the early eighteenth centuries; nor by
the floating population of various ma
tlonalities naturally drawn to port OF
consequence, as Boston was, the chic