Merchants Row in Boston, Massachusetts, is a short street extending from State Street to Faneuil Hall Square in the Financial District. Since the 17th century, it has been a place of commercial activity. It sits close to Long Wharf and Dock Square, hubs of shipping and trade through the 19th century. Portions of the street were formerly known as Swing-Bridge Lane, Fish Lane, and Roebuck Passage. [1]
"On the west side of Merchants' Row, about midway from State Street to Faneuil Hall, was the first house of entertainment in Boston. It was kept by Samuel Cole in 1634." [2]
In the 18th century, "many of Boston's best-connected importers set up shop" on Merchants Row. [3] Andrew Faneuil (uncle of Peter Faneuil) owned a warehouse there around 1732;." [2] and in the 1730s merchant Charles Apthorp had a "prime storefront location." [3] [4]
Slave trading took place on Merchants Row, as it did elsewhere in the town. [3] For example, in 1731 Charles Apthorp advertised "a parcel of likely negroes of both sexes, just imported in the sloop Speedwell, William Dickinson master, lying and the upper end of the Long Wharffe ... to be sold by Charles Apthorp at his warehouse in Merchants Row." [5]
The Golden Ball Tavern stood on Merchants Row; proprietors included John Marston (c. 1752-1775). [6] [7] [8] The Admiral Vernon Tavern stood at the corner of King Street. [9]
From 1700 through 1824, a building known as the "triangular warehouse" dominated the street. Nathaniel Dearborn speculates it was built "probably by Dutch tea merchants, as they had been in the habit of supplying the inhabitants with teas, at a less price since 1660, than could be afforded by the London East India Company, as most of the teas from Holland were smuggled into this market." The warehouse was "taken down in 1824, to make room for the City Market improvements." [10]
Around 1774, businesses on Merchants Row included: factor James Anderson; and merchant James Perkins. [11] Around 1789: auctioneers Adams & Molineux; hatter Joseph Eaton; hatter and furrier Russel Sturges; hair-dresser Abraham Haywood; the inn at the "sign of the Golden-ball"; grocer Daniel Oliver; and merchants Samuel Bradford, John Erving Jr., Charles Miller, Samuel Parkman, William Phillips, James Tisdale, William White, Peter Wainwright, Ebenezer Wild, and Daniel Wild. [12] Samuel Sumner kept a crockery shop at the corner of State Street (c. 1798-1805), in the building formerly occupied by the Admiral Vernon Tavern. [13] [14]
Future founder of the Old Farmer's Almanac, Robert Bailey Thomas, studied with mathematician Osgood Carleton in 1792, "in an unfinished building in Merchant's Row." [15]
"The narrow entrance from State-street into Merchants' Row, must, we think, be widened. ... On certain business days the jam is intolerable." [16]
Around the 1830s Charles Savage Homer, hardware seller (and father of Winslow Homer) "conducted his affairs in various stores near Dock Square and Merchants' Row." [17] Boston mayor Samuel C. Cobb was also in the shipping trade, and around 1873 worked from Merchants Row. [18] He "engaged principally in the Sicily trade, and with the Cape de Verde Islands, and ... Senegal and Gambia." [19]
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with a cultivated New England or Mid-Atlantic dialect and accent, Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional British American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists are typically considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins. They are considered White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).
Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first American-born professional architect to practice.
Faneuil Hall is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1742, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. It is now part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty," though the building and location have ties to slavery.
60 State Street is a modern skyscraper on historic State Street in the Government Center neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Completed in 1977, it is Boston's 19th tallest building, standing 509 feet tall, and housing 38 floors.
The Boston National Historical Park is an association of sites that showcase Boston's role in the American Revolution and other parts of history. It was designated a national park on October 1, 1974. Seven of the eight sites are connected by the Freedom Trail, a walking tour of downtown Boston. All eight properties are National Historic Landmarks.
John Rowe (1715–1787) was a property developer and merchant in 18th century Boston, Massachusetts. As a merchant, John Rowe's most famous cargo was the tea that played a starring role in the Boston Tea Party. As a developer, his name is remembered to this day in the name of Rowes Wharf, a modern development in downtown Boston on the site of his original wharf.
Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton was an American poet.
The Bostonian Society was a non-profit organization that was founded in 1881 for the purpose of preventing the Old State House from being "moved brick by brick" from Boston, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois. Determined to save the historic building that was the site of the Boston Massacre and the place for the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence in Massachusetts, a group of citizens banded together formed "Boston's first successful historic preservation movement". The Bostonian Society no longer exists. On January 1, 2020, the Bostonian Society merged with the Old South Association in Boston to form Revolutionary Spaces.
The Concert Hall (1752–1869) was a performance and meeting space in Boston, Massachusetts, located at Hanover Street and Queen Street. Meetings, dinners, concerts, and other cultural events took place in the hall.
The Boston Marine Society is a charitable organization in Boston, Massachusetts, formed "to 'make navigation more safe' and to relieve members and their families in poverty or other 'adverse accidents in life.'" Membership generally consists of current and former ship captains. The society provides financial support to members and their families in times of need; and also actively advises on maritime navigational safety such as the placement of lighthouses and buoys, and selection of Boston Harbor pilots.
The New England Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, was established at 76 Court Street by Ethan A. Greenwood, Peter B. Bazin, John Dwight and Samuel Jackson. It featured displays of fine art, natural history specimens, wax figures, and other curiosities. Bands of musicians typically performed there during public hours.
Dock Square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, is a public square adjacent to Faneuil Hall, bounded by Congress Street, North Street, and the steps of the 60 State Street office tower. Its name derives from its original (17th-century) location at the waterfront. From the 1630s through the early 19th century, it served boats in the Boston Harbor as "the common landing place, at Bendell's Cove," later called Town Dock. "Around the dock was transacted the chief mercantile business of the town." After the waterfront was filled in during the early 19th century, Dock Square continued as a center of commerce for some years. The addition in the 1960s of Government Center changed the scale and character of the square from a hub of city life, to a place one merely passes through. As of the 1950s the square has become largely a tourist spot, with the Freedom Trail running through it. John Winthrop, coming from Salem where he landed as a Puritan from England, ended up "setting up a dock at the head of the cove, and here began the town of Boston, which soon was recognized as the political and economic center of the [Massachusetts Bay] colony.
Charles Apthorp was an English-born merchant and slave trader in Boston, Massachusetts. Apthorp managed his import business from Merchants Row, and "in his day he was called the richest man in Boston." He also served in the employ of the British government for various schemes it attempted to implement in North America.
North Street in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts extends from Congress Street to Commercial Street. It runs past Dock Square, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and North Square. It was first named in 1852, and consists of segments of streets formerly named Ann, Fish, Ship, Drawbridge, and Conduit Streets.
Joseph Barrell (1739–1804) was a merchant in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. During the American Revolution, he owned ships commissioned as privateers, such as the Vengeance, ca.1779. In 1792, Barrell was "elected to the board" of Massachusetts branch of the newly established Bank of the United States, along with "George Cabot, Jonathan Mason Jr., ... and Fisher Ames."
Francis Jackson (1789–1861) was an abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts. He was president of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society for many years, was also president of the New England Anti-Slavery Conventions, and vice president of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was also affiliated with the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Boston Vigilance Committee. He worked for the South Cove Corporation, filling in land in Boston's South End in the 1830s.
Cornhill was a street in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, located on the site of the current City Hall Plaza in Government Center. It was named in 1829; previously it was known as Market Street (1807–1828). In its time, it comprised a busy part of the city near Brattle Street, Court Street and Scollay Square. In the 19th century, it was the home of many bookstores and publishing companies. As of 1969, Cornhill exists as 144 feet along the edge of City Hall Plaza.
Thomas Melvill or Thomas Melville was a merchant, member of the Sons of Liberty, participant in the Boston Tea Party, a major in the American Revolutionary War, a longtime fireman in the Boston Fire Department, state legislator, and paternal grandfather of writer Herman Melville.
Samuel Cole was an early settler of Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arriving with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. He was an innkeeper and confectioner, and in 1634 established the first house of entertainment in the colony, called Cole's Inn and referenced by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his play John Endicott as the Three Mariners.
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