Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1915-07-09


Inn Il ton" The publishers are Little.
Brown & Co.
We three-a visiting Englishmen, the
Artist and Antiquary, says Mr.. Bacon. The Artist
and AntiQuary the gossiping guides; the
Englishment the guided The Englishman would
do Old Boston exclusively. He had done" the
blend of the Old and New, and now would bark
back to the Old and review 1t in leisurely strols
among its landmarks He had asked the Artist
and Antquary to pilot him companionably, and
they would meet his wishes, and gladly for the
personal conducting of a stranger saturated
with Old Boston lore as he appeared to be
could not be other than agreeable.
Beyond the few measured historic memorials,
the landmarks he especially would seek
many of them long ago annihilated in those re-
peated marches of progress of improvement
common to all growing cities, faced in the
llanifold markings over of the topography of the
Old Town, than which other in Christencom
has undergone 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 repro
duce yet remaining bits of the Old jumbled with
the New.
Properly our initial rambe was within the mar
row bounds of the beginnings of the Puritan cap
ital the metropolis of the wilderness" hanging
the harbors edge Of the little ''pear-shaped,"
behilled peninsula, for which the founders those
"welleducated polite persons of good estate"
London for its model The Lincolnshire borough
the Ethan was to~be it's prototype only in
name. The founders would have their capital
town be to New England in its humble way what
London was to Old England So Boston was
builded likeness in miniature to London.
This London look and Old England aspect, we
remarked, remained to and through the Revolu-
ton; and in shadowy way remains today, our
guest would see. 1t was indeed natural family
likeness, for, the record shows, Boston from
the beginning the central point OF the most
thoroughly English community in the New World.
There no infusion Of a foreign element OF
consequence until the end of the colony period
and the close of the seventeenth century. Then
the French Huguenots had begun to appear and
ningle with the native Puritans But while early
in the province period this element became suff1-
cient in numbers to set up church Of its own
and to bring about some softening Of the old
austerities of the Puritan town life, 1t did not
impair the English stamp. These French Hugue-
nots easily assimilated in the community which
welcomed them, and in time these competent
artisans and merchants, the Bowdoins. the
Faneuils Chardons, Sigourneys, Reveres, Moli-
neuxes Greenleafs, became almost as 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 dur
Ing the latter half of the seventeenth and the
early eighteenth centuries; by the floating
population of various nationalities naturally
u
the chief in the colonies from the outset These
foaters coming and going merely lent variety
and picturesqueness-or brought temporary trou-
ble-to the sober streets Up to the Revolution
the population remained homogeneous, with the
dominating influences distinctivey of English
lineage When with the Revolution the English
yoke was thrown of and the Customers tore
down every emblem of royalty and every sign OF
a Tory and burned them in huge bonfire In
front of the old statehouse and afterward re-
named King street state" and Queen street
Court" they could not blot out its English mark
And well into the nineteenth century, when in
1922 Boston emerged from town to city, the
population was still 'ssinguarly homogeneous;
it came to cityhood slowly and somewhat re-
luctantly after repeated attempts, the first early
in the colony period. Edmund Quincy in his
Fascinating life of his Suished father, Josiah
Quincy, writing of the municipality in 1923 dur
ing Josiah Quincys first administration as mayor
he was the city's second mayor-observes: The
great Irish and German emigration had not then
set in The city was eminently English in Its
character and appearance. and probably no town
of its size in England had population or sucn
unmixed English descent as the Boston of that
day. 1t was Anglis ipsis ANCHOR more English
than the English themselves. The inhabitants OF
New England at that time were descended. with
scarcely any admxture of foreign blood, from the
Puritan emigration of the seventeenth century
AS the founders and settlers brought with them
all their beloved old home characteristics and
would transplant them, was possible, In their
new home so we find their earliest crooked
little streets" with old London names. So the
earlier social Iife grim though it was with its
Puritanical tinge is seen to have been old English
In q smaller and narrower way.