A PAPER READ TO THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY, COUNCIL CHAMBER, OLD STATE HOUSE, FEBRUARY 12, 1884, BY JOHN TUCKER PRINCE. PROPOSE to give a few reminiscences of our City as it appeared to a schoolboy seventy years ago. The great dram atist says "Old men forget, and some remember with advantage." Let me en deavor to do so, and recall my memories of that distant day. Seventy years ago carries us back to 1813, when I was a pupil in the old "West Writing School," in Chardon's Lane, now Chardon street, under the tuition of Masters Benjamin Holt in writing, and Joseph Mulliken in grammar. At that period there were but four Public Schools in Boston (besides the Latin School), and they were designated by their local position thus: The North, under "Johnny" Tileston, as the boys called him, Writing Master, and Ezekiel Little Grammar Master, was in Love Lane at the North End, now called Tileston street in compliment to that ancient and devoted teacher; the South, in Common street, under Master Thomas Payson Grammar Master, and Rufus Webb Writing Master, on a portion of the land now occupied by the Brimmer School and its yard; the Centre School, in charge of Jonathan Snelling Writing Master,* and John Haskell Grammar Master, occupying first a portion of the Latin School-house on School street, of which William Biglow was Master, and subsequently the new building on Mason street; and the West School, which I attended. Of all these venerable structures, but one alone remains, the last mentioned, and that has been ignominiously converted into a club stable. Seventy years ago! Even at that remote period Boston, though only a town, was like Tarsus of old, "no mean city," boasting as it did a population of upwards of 33,000. Sitting queen-like on her three hills, she looked down from her dome-capped capitol upon a harbor and bay unsurpassed for beauty and maritime facilities, and a surrounding series of suburbs rich in stately residences, and farms teeming with the fruits of the earth; her glance fell upon a homogeneous population, * Jonathan Snelling was long employed in the Boston schools as a Writing Master, having served in the Public Latin School in that capacity from 1830 until his death, which occurred January 31, 1847. |