Charles Elist, (1859-97) Landrage Architect for I.V. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS CENTENNIAL REPRINT SERIES CHARLES ELIOT Editors: Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, National Park Service, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Historic Landscape Initiative, Washington, D.C. Catherine Howett, ASLA, School of Environmental Design, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia Marion Pressley, FASLA, Pressley Associates, Cambridge, Massachusetts wild David C. Streatfield, Royal Institute for British Architects, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington n.5 Charles W. Eliot ASLA CENTENNIAL REPRINT SERIES Country Life: A Handbook of Agriculture and Book of Landscape Gardening (1866) California for Robert Morris Copeland Introduction by Keith N. Morgan Landscape Architecture 08 Applied to the Wants of the West (1873) H.W.S. Cleveland Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1902) Charles W. Eliot The Art of Landscape Architecture (1915) Samuel Parsons Jr. law Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening (1915) Wilhelm Miller Landscape Gardening (1920) Ossian Cole Simonds 23-4g The Spirit of the Garden (1923) Martha Brookes Hutcheson Book of Landscape Gardening (1926) Frank Waugh UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS New Towns for Old (1927) John Nolen Landscape for Living (1950) 2hit AMHERST IN ASSOCIATION WITH Garrett Eckho LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE HISTORY AMHERST The series is underwritten by funding from the Viburnum Foundation. Tis hlon W.H.(ed.) American Landscape Architecture 1989. Charles Eliot 52 53 CHARLES ELIOT E. Lynn Miller Summer scientific expeditions to Mt. Desert Island off the coast of Maine sparked Charles Eliot's early interest in en- vironmental management. Later, Eliot would become architecture. known for his natural-systems approach to landscape Eliot (1859-97) was born in Cambridge, Mass., where his father was president of Harvard University. On gradua- tion from Harvard in 1882, he pursued special horticultural courses at Bussey Institute to prepare himself for the pro- fession of landscape architecture. In 1883 he became an ap- Charles Eliot, 1896. (Penn State prentice for Frederick Law Olmsted and Company, where University) he worked on designs for Franklin Park (1884), the Arnold Arboretum (1885) and the Fens (1883) in Boston and Belle Isle Park (1884) in Detroit. On Ölmsted's advice, Eliot traveled to Europe in 1885 to observe natural scenery as well as the landscape designs of Capability Brown, Hum- phry Repton, Joseph Paxton and Prince Pückler-Muskau. ments Eliot's Returning of travel European diaries landscapes visual century. assess- provide one of the best in the late 19th to Boston in 1886, Eliot opened his own office and was immediately involved with work of considerable importance not only in the Boston area but also through- out the East. Noteworthy are White Park (1888) in Con- Creek cord, N.H., Park, Youngstown in (1891), called Mill Gorge now Youngstown, Ohio, and the plan (1890) for a new town in Salt Lake City. In addition to his practice, Eliot became a regular con- tributor of professional articles to Garden and Forest Maga- zine. In February 1890 he wrote a landmark article entitled "Waverly Oaks" to defend a stand of virgin trees in Bel- mont, Mass. He made a plea for preservation of the oaks and outlined a strategy for conserving other areas of scenic beauty in the same way that the Boston Public Library held Newburyport Commons, New- buryport, Mass. (E. Lynn Miller) White Park, Concord, N.H., one American Landscape Architecture Charles Eliot 55 ooks and the Museum of Fine Arts pictures. The Waverly role in the partnership. The firm was appointed landscape Oaks article resulted in an 1890 conference held at the architect for the Boston Metropolitan Park Commission. Massachusetts Institute of Technology on preservation of In 1896 Eliot prepared a study, Vegetation and Forest Scen- cenic beauty and the enactment of state legislation creat- ery for the Reservation, setting forth his concept of "land- ng the Trustees of Public Reservations in 1891 - the first scape forestry" for rehabilitating the reservations to be in- organization in the world established to "acquire, hold, cluded in the metropolitan park system. In preparing this protect and administer, for the benefit of the public, beauti- seminal work, Eliot developed a methodology that moved ul and historical places." Within two years, Eliot's con- the profession of landscape architecture from the era of in- cept was used to establish Britain's National Trust. Eliot's tuitive design to a scientific, natural-systems approach. work with the Trustees of Public Reservations led to legis- Eliot died in 1897 at the threshold of a brilliant career. ation in 1893 creating the Boston Metropolitan Park Sys- His death was an irreparable loss to the field of landscape tem, one of the first such systems in the world. architecture and the American environmental movement. Following the untimely death of their partner Henry Although eulogies proclaimed Eliot as the father of the Bos- Sargent Codman, Frederick Law Olmsted and John Charles ton Metropolitan Park System, the most fitting memorial Olmsted pleaded with Eliot to join their firm. In March to his greatness as a landscape architect came in 1900 1893 Eliot agreed, and the name was changed to Olmsted, when the first university course of professional training in Olmsted and Eliot. Within a few months, because of the el- landscape architecture was established at Harvard. der Olmsted's failing health, Eliot assumed the leadership Charles River, a tidal estuary and one of the key elements in Eliot's plan BOSTON, 1892 for Boston's Metropolitan Park System. (E. Lynn Miller) BOSTON, 1902 amount Open spaces of surrounding the Boston area in 1892 compared to The scape Architect} Trustees of Public Reservations. (Eliot, Charles Eliot, Eliot's Land- with the land devoted to open space increased because of 1902. work 392 ELIOT been vilified in the Romanian press; after his "rehabil- Old Man and the Bureaucrats (novella, 1979), and Youth with- itation" in 1967 he refused all appeals to return be out Youth and Other Novellas (1988). honored. His nostalgia for his homeland is evident, Two excellent and complementary bibliographies of works however, in all his postwar works of fiction and in his by and about Eliade appeared in 1980 but are now woefully journal and autobiography. out of date: Douglas Allen and Dennis Doeing, Mircea Eliade, an Annotated Bibliography, and Mircea Handoca, While Eliade's scholarly writings have been widely Mircea Eliade, Contributii biobibliografice (in Romanian). read in America, his novels and shorter literary works On Eliade's life, see his Autobiography (2 vols., 1981, remain largely unknown outside Europe. Those pub- 1988), his Journal (4 vols., 1977-1990), and his important lished in English have not enjoyed large sales. French, volume of interviews Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with German, and Italian translations of nearly all his fic- Claude-Henri Roquet (1982). His early life and thought are tion exist and have received much favorable commen- covered in detail in Mac Línscott Ricketts, Mircea Eliade: tary. In 1978-1979 he was a serious contender for the The Romanian Roots 1907-1945 (1988). Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in Chicago. Significant critical studies of Eliade's thought include Guilford Dudley III, Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade and His Eliade's impact on religious studies has been vast Critics (1977); Douglas Allen, Structure and Creativity in Re- but is difficult to measure. He did not create a ligion: Hermeneutics in Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology and "school," although most of his former students can be New Directions (1978); Adrian Marino, L'Herméneutique de identified by their insistence on the "irreducibility" of Mircea Fliade (1981); Mircea Handoca, Mircea Eliade, citeva religion and their penchant for seeing common pat- ipostaze ale unei personalitati proteice (1992); and David Cave, terns (or "archetypes") in religious and cultural phe- Mixcea Eliade's Vision for a New Humanism (1993). nomena everywhere. Eliade taught his students to be MAC LINSCOTT RICKETTS "hermeneuts," always searching for "meanings" in the religious phenomena, and he urged them to write oeu- ELIOT, Charles (1 Nov. 1859-25 Mar. 1897), landscape vres as well as erudite, scientific tomes. Eliade be- architect, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the lieved the study of the history of religions could bring son of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard about a "new humanism," an intellectual awakening University, and Ellen Derby Peabody. He was born comparable to the Renaissance, but this time evoked into a family of notable Massachusetts outdoorsmen, by the rediscovery of archaic and non-Christian relig- including great-grandfather Theodore Lyman of Wal- ions. His books, though often dealing with arcane sub- tham, grandfather Samuel A. Eliot, planter of the jects, were always written with the nonspecialist read- Norton Woods of Cambridge, and great-uncle Hersey er in view. He was highly gratified when writers and Derby and great-grandfather John Derby, earliest artists took notice of his works. His influence in cer- members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. tain beaux-arts circles, especially those related to liter- For two periods, one while his father continued his ed- ature, graphic and/drama, continues to be strong. ucation in Europe and then during his mother's ill- He believed in the reality of the "spiritual" or the ness, the family lived in rural England and Switzer- "sacred," which, however, he declined to define. He land. Eliot began school in Europe but returned to said that the central theme in all his writings was the Cambridge in 1869. He received a classical early edu- paradox of the sacred camouflaged in the profane. cation that prepared him for entrance to Harvard Col- More than a scholar, Eliade was a man with a message lege. Though his school work was periodically inter- for- "moderns"-a/ message he concealed under the rupted by incapacitating headaches and fevers, Eliot cover of erudition but presented more openly in his consistently pursued his enjoyment of the outdoors, fiction, much of which is in the fantastic genre. sailing and camping during summers spent at Mt. Desert Island, Maine. At age seventeen he was study- A huge collection of Eliade's papers-including manu- ing drawing with Charles H. Moore and completing scripts of published and unpublished works, correspon- his own informal surveys of the environs of the "Met- dence, and more than 6,000 pages of his private journal ropolitan District" of Boston. By the time he entered (1942-1986)-1 kept in the Special Collections section of the Harvard, Eliot had traveled extensively on the east Regenstein Library, University of Chicago. Another large ar- chive of his papers, from early youth, India, and the 1930s, is coast of the United States. Eliot's favorite hobby was privately held in Bucharest, Romania, at the residence of to ride into the countryside by coach and return by Mircea Handoca. Most of the articles Eliade published in Ro- foot, taking down copious topographical and environ- mania are in periodicals available, with difficulty, only in Ro- mental observations. His was the first such documen- mania, although collections of some of these have been re- tation of much of the greater Boston area. printed in book form since the 1989 revolution. All his early In 1882 Eliot graduated from Harvard and chose his books have been reprinted, and most of them are available in profession of landscape architecture, hearing of Fred- French /German, and Italian translations. erick Law Olmsted's work with the Boston Depart- Eliade's major works, besides those mentioned above, in ment of Parks. That fall he enrolled in the Bussey the order of their appearance in English translations, are The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954), Birth and Rebirth (1958), Institution of the Department of Agriculture and Hor- Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958), Yoga: Immortality ticulture at Harvard and accepted an apprenticeship and Freedom (1958), The Sacred and the Profane (1959), Myth with Olmsted. During this time he contributed to Reality (1963), Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy work on the creation of Franklin Park and the Fens in (1964), The Quest (methodological essays, 1969), Zalmoxis, Boston, Belle Isle Park of Detroit, and the Lawrence- the Vanishing God (1972), Australian Religions (1973), The ville School in New Jersey. He felt that for a landscape ELIOT 393 with- architect, the observation of many kinds of scenery scape requires, more than most works of men, conti- was indispensable. To this end he completed his pro- nuity of management. Its perfecting is a slow process" orks fessional preparations during 1885-1886 by observing (p. 254). fully public parks and gardens, private country seats, nurs- Eliot's most effective work was realized in the devel- ircea loca, eries, and public collections of trees and plants in opment of the Boston Fens within the Metropolitan Great Britain and the rest of Europe. On his return to Park System of Boston. In 1893 Eliot joined the land- 981, the United States, Eliot opened his own office in De- scape design firm of his former teacher to become a tant cember 1886 as a landscape architect. On his Europe- junior partner with Frederick Law Olmsted. In a part- with an tour Eliot had met Mary Yale Pitkin of Phil- nership recognized for its agile creativity, he and Olm- are adelphia. They married in 1888, and they had four sted strung two "emerald necklaces" of water and pub- ade: daughters. lic spaces about the shoulders of Boston. They defined Eliot's personal and professional commitments were the boundaries of a new territory for Boston and dis- lude rooted in his concern and alarm that the United States tinguished themselves by providing aesthetic and His Re- was well on its way to becoming a predominantly ur- functional solutions to the challenges of a rapidly ex- and ban land. His work was inspired by a fervent commit- panding population. Their plan for Boston was three- e de ment to the development of adequate public parks for fold: first, to make an engineering solution the OC- teva all major cities. Eliot was influential in the develop= casion for creating a needed municipal open space; ave, ment of Acadia National Park and the recreational second, to link annexed communities to the historical qualities of Mt. Desert Island. He was a contributing municipal center; and finally, to provide a variety of TTS writer for various publications including the Boston recreational opportunities. The completed plan stands Transcript (1887). Other of his professional landscape as a monument to the planning genius and style of the ape designs are present in New England, including Har- romantic movement in landscape gardening in the the vard Yard plantings (1887), the residential develop- United States. ard ment of his own familial property, the Norton Estate To finally form the Boston Fens, Eliot utilized the orn in Cambridge (1887-1888), the Longfellow Memorial bolder-strewn former wastelands to create open spac- en, at Harvard, the Newburyport Common (1889) and the es: "We find that the rock-hills, the stream banks, and /al- Hazard Estate, Oakwoods, in Peace Dale, Rhode Is- the bay and the seashores are the available and the val- the land (1888), and the plans for Morton Park, Newport, uable sites for public open spaces; available because sey Rhode Island (1889). He commemorated the dignity they present both the grandest and the fairest scenery est and harmony that he valued in landscape architecture to be found within the district" (Report Upon the Op- ty. in a series of articles on country estates he knew well, portunities, p. 12). With Olmsted's backing, Eliot ac- ed- "Old American County Seats," featuring Clermont, quired 9,342 acres of land and water, including Beaver ill- Montgomery Place, and Hyde Park in New York and Brook, Middlesex Fells, Revere Beach, the Blue Hills, er- Cushing-Payson Place, Lyman Place, and Gore Place Cambridge's Fresh Pond Park, and the Charles and to in Massachusetts, for Garden and Forest Magazine Mystic River areas for public use. lu- (1888). Out of the specific contributions of Olmsted and El- ol- In 1890 Eliot recommended that the Appalachian iot was born the discipline of landscape architecture. er- Mountain Club incorporate a unique private institu- The task given to this new profession was the integra- iot tion to be known as the Trustees of Public Reserva- tion of humane values with artificial, technical im- CS, tions, for which he became the first secretary. Sylves- provements. In the case of Boston, Eliot and Olmsted It. ter Baxter reported in the American Monthly Review of addressed these improvements to the challenging y- Reviews (Jan. 1901) that their assignment was to func- problem of ever-increasing pollution load. The ageless ng tion "like that of the trustees of a public art museum, value of Eliot's initiatives to create public space, direct et- standing ready to undertake the care of such precious urban development, and tend the natural environment ed things as may be placed in its charge" (Baxter, p. 42). as a national treasure places him as a cornerstone in ist They also pioneered the acquisition and maintenance landscape architectural and environmental American as of beautiful and meaningful historic land and build- history. by ings, preceding the British National Trust, which Eliet died of meningitis in Brookline, Massachu- n- called on the trustees for a contributing member for setts, after ten years of professional life. The Harvard n- their provisional council. School of Design honored his memory by establishing The Appalachian Mountain Club had expressed in- the Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship in 1915 and the is terest in bringing about a metropolis, "Greater Bos- Charles Eliot Professorship of Landscape Architecture d- ton," with parks to extend southward from the Lynn in 1955. t- Woods to the Blue Hills. At Eliot's initiative, in 1891 y the park commissioners of Greater Boston created the Eliot's papers, including photos and manuscripts, are in actual Metropolitan Park System. The Metropolitan the Harvard School of Design Library. Eliot's writings in- r- clude "Landscape Gardening in its Relationship to Architec- p Park Commission was approved in 1892. By 1920 the ture," Transactions of the Boston Society of Architects, 1891 :O administration of parks, the entire water supply, and (1892); and A Report Upon the Opportunities for Public Open n sewage disposal was managed by this commission. El- Space in the Metropolitan District of Boston (1893). Charles iot and Olmsted asserted in Olmsted's publication William Eliot, Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1903), is an e "Parks, Parkways, and Pleasure Grounds" that "land- important source for personal and professional information American National Poragraphy 7 (1999) 394 ELIOT OUP and includes copies of correspondence, early maps and asked Eliot to write faculty resolutions. During this sketches, written and assembled by his father. See also Syl- period Eliot also developed an appreciation for re- vester Baxter, "A Trust to Protect Nature's Beauty," Ameri- search, collaborating on several publications with a can Monthly Review of Reviews 23 i, 1901, on Eliot's integral friend and fellow chemist, Frank Storer. In October role in the organization of The Trustees of Public Reserva- tions; Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Theodora Kimball, 1858 Eliot married Ellen Derby Peabody. They had Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscape Architect. 1822-1903. For- four sons, two of whom died in infancy. ty Years of Landscape Architecture, Being the Professional Pa- In 1863, at the end of his five-year appointment as pers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1970), on his work and assistant professor, Eliot did not receive the promotion involvement with Olmsted; Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., to full professor that he had hoped for. The university "Parks, Parkways and Pleasure Grounds," Engineering Maga- was unable to support two professors at the Lawrence sine, 2 May 1895, p. 254, and Public Parks (1902), on the Scientific School, and Eliot refused to allow the uni- philosophy of public space that they shared; and City of Bos- versity to raise money from his relatives, insisting that ton, 1878 Park Commissioners Report, Document no. 15 his merit rather than his family should determine his (1880), p. 7, on resolving the pollution problem in Back Bay by creating public space. appointment. Declining a commission as a lieutenant DELTA R. LIGHTNER colonel in the northern armies for the Civil War, Eliot went to Europe to further his studies. Although his fa- ther had lost much of his money in the financial panic ELIOT, Charles William (20 Mar. 1834-22 Aug. 1926), of 1857 and the salaries of Harvard professors were not educator and university president, was born in Bos- enough to finance such trips, he was able to make the ton, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Eliot, Harvard journey because a previous investment had become University treasurer, and Mary Lyman. He was raised quite lucrative. in a combination of rigorous schooling, first at a dame Eliot was as interested in studying educational insti- school (where instructors offered courses on subjects tutions in Western Europe as he was in furthering his such as modern languages in their homes) and then at chemistry education. While in Paris he examined such Boston Latin School, and the liberal religiosity of Uni- characteristics as French scholarship and the variety of tarianism. French institutions of higher learning, yet he was most Eliot began his college studies at Harvard in 1849 at interested in those institutions that prepared students the age of fifteen. His family had a long tradition at for occupations that used scientific methods. He then Harvard; his father was a Harvard graduate and the went to Marburg, Germany, to study chemistry, university treasurer and had published a history of the where he also learned a great deal about the German university. His grandfather had endowed a Harvard university. He became convinced that students in the professorship, his uncles had been Harvard profes- United States were too young for the freedoms availa- sors, and two of his classmates were cousins. He was ble in German universities and that faculty members not an especially social person, having resolved at an in the United States needed to spend less time on in- early age to be disciplined and not let a birthmark that troductory courses SO that they could develop their re- covered the right side of his face and twisted his lip search and assist advanced students. inhibit his success. While an undergraduate, he took Shortly before he left Europe, Eliot received a gen- advantage of Harvard's partial elective system as well erous offer to head a textile company in Massachu- as laboratory and field courses in chemistry and min- setts, an offer he declined because he preferred to stay eralogy. His work with Josiah Parsons Cooke, a self- in education. Although he was unable to secure anoth- taught chemist, was a major influence in Eliot's con- er teaching position at Harvard, the president of the ception that university education should emphasize newly opened Massachusetts Institute of Technology the scientific method. In addition to his academic offered Eliot a professorship of chemistry. He accept- work, Eliot pursued a physical education, with special ed that offer in 1865, proving again his teaching quali- attention to rowing. When Eliot graduated from Har- ties and an emphasis on scientific method as practiced vard in 1853, he was second in a class of eighty-eight in the laboratory. He also became involved in a cur- students. riculum debate, favoring a year of general education In 1854 Eliot accepted the position of tutor in math- for all students. He again exhibited considerable ad- ematics at Harvard, and in 1858 he became an assis- ministrative skills, ranging from establishing student tant professor of mathematics and chemistry, even- fees as a safeguard against lost books and laboratory tually moving to the university's Lawrence Scientific equipment to addressing student discipline problems. School. Students and fellow professors recognized his Although no longer at Harvard, Eliot maintained an strengths in teaching, including his use of clinical active interest in the affairs of the institution. He was methods and interest in written rather than oral exami- interested in the university's reform activities, as out- nations. Nevertheless, his major strengths lay in the lined in President Hill's annual report of 1868. The re- area of administration, and even at his young age he port reaffirmed the elective system and suggested that performed a wide range of duties that would later be professional schools and graduate students needed ad- those of several administrators. Harvard of the 1850s ditional attention. In addition, Harvard was experi- was small enough, however, that one person could do encing reform in its governance; in 1865 the Massa- all those tasks; in essence Eliot operated as the assis- chusetts legislature ended its election of the University tant to President James Walker, who at times even Board of Overseers, and alumni assumed that respon- 104 FEBRUARY 19, 1890.] Garden and Forest. 85 GARDEN AND FOREST. society for that year the other short account of the trees which has appeared coupled with a timely suggestion for PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY their preservation. This suggestion we desire to repeat and enforce; and THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. that the public may know the beauty of these trees OFFICE TRIBUNE BUILDING, New YORK and of the spot where they grow, we reproduce on page 91 a view taken by Dr. W. H. Rollins, of Boston, showing Conducted by Professor C. S. SARGENT. a portion of the group. ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER 'AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N.Y. The age which these trees have attained and the vicissi- tudes they have survived entitle them to respect, and the NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 18go. people of Massachusetts might wisely secure their preser- vation through the purchase. and dedication to public use TABLE OF CONTENTS. of the land on which they stand PAGE The age of these old Oaks can only be surmised. One EDITORIAL ARTICLES -The Waverly Oake. (Illustrated.)-Forest Fires 83 famous naturalist is said to have declared that the smallest The Coast of Maine Charles Eliot. 86 ENTOMOLOGICAL:-A Enemy to the Egyptian Lotus. (Illustrated.) of them had existed through more than a thousand years. Professor Fohn B. Smith. 88 It is probable that this statement is greatly exaggerated. New OR LITTLE KNOWN -Gladiolus Turicensis. (Illustrated.) 88 The largest tree in the group girths seventeen feet three FOREIGN CORRESPONDERCE:-B Letter Dr. Udo Dammer. 88 inches at three and a half feet from the ground. The CULTURAL DEPARTMENT:-Fern Notes. W. H. Taplin. 9° Protection Against the Striped Cucumber Bectle. (Illustrated.) principal tree in our illustration is smaller, with a girth of Professor E S. Goff 90 Orchid Notes Goldring: W. 93 only thirteen feet four inches, measured at the same dis- Brussele Sprouts W. H. Bull. 92 tance from the ground. An actual examination of the wood Doronicum Harper Crewe.-Seed-Sowing John Thorps. 92 Lachenalia Nelsoni E. O. Orpet. 93 of this tree shows that it has increased three inches in Christmas Roses T.D.H. 93 diameter during the last twenty-four years. Had it made THE FOREST :-The Need of a Forest Policy in Pennsylvania, Professor W. A. Buckkout the same rate of growth during the whole period of its exist- 93 CORRMAPONDENCE:-A Trees in Cálifornia W. S. Lyon. 94 ence, it would have been 408 years old, and the largest Action of Root-hairs Professor F. T. Rothrock. 94 tree in the group would be, with the same rate of increase, Kalanchoe carnea John Thorpe. 94 RECENT PUBLICATIONS 508 years old. It is probable that they are both younger 94 EXHIBITIONS 95 than these estimates make them. They may have MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES 95 grown less rapidly for several years at the beginning of NOTES 96 their life, but there must have been a number of years, ILLUSTRATIONS :--Botis nelumbialis; larva, Fig. 18 88 Botis nelumbialis; moth, Fig. 19 88 probably several hundred, when they increased more rap- Gladiolus Turicensis, Fig. 20 80 idly in diameter than they have during the last quarter of The Waverly Oaks or A Simple Plant Protector, Fig. 21 gz a century. The appearance of the trees justifies this sup- position. They are still healthy, and are growing with con- The Waverly Oaks siderable vigor; but there can be no doubt that their period of most rapid development has passed, or THER EM is in Belmont, one of the suburbs of Boston, that, while they may continue, with proper care, to live formerly a part of the ancient town of Water- and increase slowly for centuries perhaps, they will grow town, a group of Oaks which has come to be known in less rapidly now than they did one or two hundred years recent years as the Waverly Oaks, from the village near ago. But after making all due allowance for differences which they stand. These Waverly Oaks are, all things in the rate of growth at different periods in the existence considered, the most interesting trees in eastern Massachu- of these trees, it is safe to surmise that the youngest of setts, and although there are larger Oaks in New England them had attained to some size before the Pilgrims landed and in the Middle States, a group containing so many large on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and that the oldest trees is not often seen now ywhere in eastern America. was at that time a tree of some size. There are in this group twenty-three large Oaks and one The ponderous lateral branches of these trees, reaching large Elm growing on an area of two or three acres. The out in every direction, shows that they grew up in the Oaks are all White Oaks, with the exception of a single open ground, which must have been cleared four or five Swamp White Oak. They occupy mainly the slopes of a hundred years ago, if, indeed, the dry and gravelly soil terminal moraine, along the base of which flows Beaver ever produced any other forest growth contemporaneously Brook, the "Sweet Beaver, child of forest still," sung by with these Oaks. Lowell. The Waverly Oaks are well known to all Boston- The Waverly Oaks grow within a few hundred yards of ians interested in nature, and strangers not infrequently the station at Waverly, on the Boston & Fitchburg Railroad, make the pilgrimage to Belmont to look upon these ven- on a piece of ground directly opposite the property of the erable products of Massachusetts soil. It is strange, there- trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, occupied fore, that so little has ever been printed about these trees. by the country home of that institution. The whole region Emerson, the historian of the trees of Massachusetts, makes no reference to them. Piper, who wrote of the trees of Messre. L. L. Dame and Henry Brooks, of West Medford, who are engaged in pre- paring for publication an account of some of the most remarkable Elms and other America, and who lived not very far away, in Malden, trees of Massachusetts, obligingly send the following measurement of the largest of the Wayerly Oaks, which stands on a steep slope: At five feet from the lower seems to have overlooked them, and traveled all the way side, twenty-one feet six inches ; at five fect from the upper side, sixteen feet six to Stowe to find his typical New England White Oak. Brown, inches, There is a difference of several feet in the height of the ground at the upper and at the lower sides of this tree, and our measurement of sev- another Massachusetts man who published books about enteen feet three inches, taken at three feet and a half from the ground on the trees, passed them by without a word. The poets and lower side, is perhaps as correct as any measurement can be made. Other meas. urements of Massachusetts White Oaks sent us by Messrs. Dame and Brooks are philosophers of Cambridge and Concord, who doubtless seventeen feet eight inches for the Oak Bernardston; twenty- four feet five inches often passed by Beaver Brook, make no mention of its for the Oak at Boyleston; fifteen feet ten and half inches for the Avery Oak at Ded. ham; fourteen feet one inch for the Elliott Oak at Natick; and thirteen feet seven great trees, which first appear in apparently, in 1881, inches for the Topsfield Oak. These measurements are all made at five feet from the ground. A White Oak recently cut on the estate of Peter C. Brooks, Esq., of in Harper's Magazine, where Mr. F. H. Underwood, writing West Medford, Massachusetts. measured at eight feet from t ground eight feet of James Russell Lowell, speaks of them on page 262 as ten inches, and had approximately 200 layers of annual growth, as counted by Dame and Brooks. the only group of aboriginal trees standing on the Mas- Mr. John Robinson, in bis account of the Woody Plants of Essex County, Mas. sachusetts coast" statement to which some exceptions sachusetts," gives the following measurement of White Oaks: The Topsfield Oak, in 1875, had a circumference one foot from the ground of nineteen feet seven might be taken. The Committee on Grounds of the Mas- inches the same trunk measured sixtéen feet eleven inches at three feet-from the ground, and twelve feet eleven inches at five feet from the ground. Two White sachusetts Horticultural Society visited the Waverly Oaks Oaks on the Burleigh Farm, in Danvers, measured respectively nineteen feet and on the 28th of June, 1884, and the chairman, Mr. J. G. Bar- seventeen feet ten Inches, both measurements being made at the ground, the first measuring thirteen feet six inches at six feet from the ground and the second ker, joined to its report printed in the transactions of the twelve feet at five feet from the ground. 86 Garden and Forest. [FEBRUARY 19, 1890. is undergoing rapid development, and houses are spring- is 61°. No such coolness is to be found along the thousand ing up on every side. The establishment of a small public miles of monotonous sand beach which front the Atlantic park at this place, which need not exceed three or four south. of the Gulf of Maine; and though the coolness of the acres in extent to accomplish this object, would protect the waters of the gulf precludes most persons from sea bathing, this freshness of the air will always.be an irresistible attraction trees from the dangers which now threaten them, and to many thousands of dwellers in hot cities. Again, in con- would make a valuable and interesting public resort within trast with the southern sea-beaches, the scenery of the Maine walking or driving distance of the homes of a very large coast is exceedingly interesting and refreshing. The mere number of people. map of it is most attractive. Beginning at Piscataqua River, a deep estuary whose swift tides flow through an archipelago Mr. J. G. Lemmon, the accomplished botanist of the of rocks and small islands, the shore is at first made up of low California State Board of Forestry, discusses the problem ledges forming ragged points, connected by sand or pebble of forest fires in the seventh bulletin issued by that board. beaches, where farmers gather rock-weed after storms. Sea- he says, "a common observation that forests are ward lies a group of dangerous rocks, the Isles of Shoals. Beyond the tortuous outlet of York River and the Short and usually bordered by a fringe of saplings and these by Long Sands of York, Cape Neddick and Bald Head lift high points and patches of seedlings all apparently flourishing rocks toward the sea, and behind them rises Agamenticus finely and promising a material enlargement of the forest Hill, a conspicuous blue landmark sometimes visible from area; and scarce an instance is known where an edge of Cape Ann, in Massachusetts. Low and sandy coasts succeed, a forest is dying off by the natural course of events. The fronting the old towns of Wells and Kennebunk. Cape Por- question arises, is this a normal attribute of forest-growth, poise follows, a confused mass of rocky islets, salt marshes or of forest-development? Did they always thus try to and tidal flats; then more long and short beaches, a lagoon called Biddeford Pool, the mouth of Saco River barred by its expand, or has some change occurred to them or their en- washings from the White Hills, more beaches, and so to Cape vironment that now enables them to increase their peri- Elizabeth, a broad wedge of rock pushed out to sea as if to phery? The answer to the problem is contained in the mark the entrance to the land-locked harbor of Portland. two English words-Indian fires. The Indian desired Thus far the coast is sufficiently rich in varied scenery-in open prairies and intervals for his game, that the latter might shores now high, now low, now wooded and now bare, now find better forage thereon, and also that he might the bet- gentle and now rough; first thrust seaward in rocky capes, ter mark them for his arrows. With the retirement of the then swept inland in curving beaches, and now and again Indian and the suspension of the annual forest and prairie- broken by the outlets of small rivers. Cape Elizabeth ends this scenery, and introduces the voyager to a type still more fires, the forests freely expand, and it is well known that intricate, picturesque and distinctive. Casco Bay, with its young forests are covering large areas of the eastern many branches running inland and its peninsulas and islands United States, and it is believed that the great diluvian stretching seaward, is the first of a succession of bays, thor- plains of the central west and of the Pacific slope might in "oughifares" and "reaches" which line the coast almost all time be covered with trees, if the practice of modern agri- the rest of the way to Quoddy. The ragged edge of the main- culturists did not serve to prevent their growth, desirable land becomes lost behind a maze of rock-bound islands, and or otherwise. More than all the destructive processes of appears but seldom where the surf can strike it. The salt water penetrates in deep and narrow channels into the very the lumbermen, and the close grazing of the flocks and woods, ebbs and flows in hundreds of frequented and unfre- herds of the stock raiser, is the ruin of the fire fiend; and quented harbors, and enters into countless hidden nooks and against him the blazing forests, the menaced settlements coves and narrows. Sand beaches become rare, and great and the ruined inhabitants of California appeal to citizens and small sea walls of worn stones or pebbles take their generally and legislatures especially for instant and ade- place. Islands, islets, and ledges both dry and sunken, are quate protection." It is by fires, as Mr. Lemmon points strewn on every hand. The tides flow among them with in- out, that "young seedlings are destroyed utterly, and usu- creasing force, and the fog wraps them from sight more and ally the saplings are killed off, not consumed, while on a more frequently as the Bay of Fundy is approached. Great cliffs are rare until Grand Manan is reached, and high hills section of country from which the whole tree-growths come down to the sea only by Peuobscot Bay and at Mount have been removed after a fire, weeds and brambles will Desert; but, on the other hand, the variety of lesser topo- not come in until many years after. And how shall the cry- graphic forms is very great. In Casco Bay, for instance, the ing evil of forest fires be stopped, where is the remedy, rocks trend north-east and south-west, and all the crowded and who shall apply it?" islands run out into reefs in these directions. Penobscot Mr. Lemmon is not the first thoughtful observer to Bay presents wide stretches of open water divided by well massed islands, but still preserves a fine breadth of effect: ask these questions. The answer, perhaps, is wise legis- and these islands differ greatly in form and character, accord- lation, but legislation will be usèless unless it rests on ing as they are built of hard and glaciated granite or public sentiment; and public sentiment in this country will of altered stratified rocks. The border bay of Passama- not save the forests until the popular mind is more highly quoddy is distinguished by fine headlands, which terminate educated it is to-day upon all subjects relating to the islands, generally lower than the heads. In like manner the forests and their value to the nation. sounds and fiord-like rivers differ much from each other. For instance, the Kennebec River is extremely narrow, and The Coast of Maine. many bold knobs of rock turn it this way and that; but the neighboring Sheepscot is fully three miles broad at its mouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia, and this noble width contracts but slowly; while the Penobscot the broad entrance of the Gulf of Maine is two hundred above the Narrows takes on such a gentle appearance as to be miles wide, and it is one hundred miles from each of these hardly recognizable as a river of eastern Maine, the general capes to the corresponding ends of the coast of Maine at Kit- pect of this part of the coast being distinctly wild and untamable. tery and Quoddy. Thus Maine squarely faces the wide open- Doubtless the raggedness of the rocky shore is the first ing between the capes, while to the east and west, beyond cause of the almost forbidding aspect of the region, but the her limits, stretch two great offshoots of the gulf, the bays changed character of the sea-coast woods is a second cause. of Fundy and of Massachusetts. The latter and lesser bay Beyond Cape Elizabeth, if capes and islands are wooded at all, presents a south shore built mostly of sands and gravels in it is with the dark, stiff cresting of Spruce, Fir or Pine, fringed beaches and bluffs, and a north shore of bold and enduring perhaps with Birch and Mountain Ash. Near Kittery fine rocks, both already overgrown with seaside hotels and cot- Elms and even Hickories may be seen on the open shore, but tages. The Bay of Fundy, on the other hand, is little resorted there is a gradual dying out of many familiar species as the ofor pleasure. Its shores in many parts are grandly high and coast is traversed eastward. Thus Holly and Inkberry, bold; but its waters are moved by such rushing tides, and its together with Prickly Ash, Flowering Dogwood and Sassafras, coasts are so frequently wrapt in cold fogs, that it will doubt- are not seen near the sea north of Massachusetts Bay. White less remain comparatively an unfrequented region. Cedar, after following the coast all the way from the Gulf of Along the coast of Maine, stretched for two hundred miles Mexico, dies out near Kittery. York River is said to see the last from bay to bay, scenery and climate change from the Massa- Buttonwoods, Saco River the last Chestnuts, and the Kenne- chusetts to the Fundy type. At Boston the average tempera- bec the last Tupelos and Hickories. Conversely, this coast ture of July is 70° at Eastport, at the farther end of Maine, it has its many forerunners of the flora of the far north. While FEBRUARY 19, 1890.] Garden and Forest. 87 the White Pine is met with all along shore north of New Jersey, booming land company has hastily divided and sold its rough the Red Pine first appears by Massachusetts Bay and the Gray ledges in rectangular lots, whose lines bear no relation to the Pine by Mt. Desert. The Arbor-vitae is first met with near forms of the ground, so that houses cannot be well placed. the Kennebec. The Balsam Fir and the Black and White The squalid aspect of the public parts of these settlements, the Spruces show themselves on no coasts south of Cape Ann, and shabby plank walks and the unkempt roadways, are other do not abound until Cape Elizabeth is passed. It is the black- causes of reproach. The houses themselves, if cheap, are too ness of these dwarf coniferous woods which, with the desola- often vulgarly ornamented, and if costly, are generally absurdly tion of the surf-beaten ledges and the frequent coming of the pretentious. Even the government, which has lately been re- fog, impresses the traveler with the fact that this is a really building many of the light-house keepers' dwellings, has sub- wild and sub-arctic shore, where strange red-men's names stituted for the simple, low and entirely fitting structures of a for islands, capes and rivers-names such as Medomak, Mus- former generation, a thin-walled and small-chimneyed type of congus, Pemaquid, Megunticook, Eggemoggin, Moosabec and house, such as is common in the suburbs of our cities. One Schoodic-seem altogether fitting. of these perched on a sea cliff is an abomination, and might The human story of the coast of Maine is almost as pictur- well have illustrated the mournful remark of a recent writer in esque and varied as its scenery. This coast was first fre- the Atlantic Monthly, who pointed out that American indiffer- quented by stray French fishing vessels, and first scientifically ence to beauty cannot be caused by the newness of our civ- explored by Samuel de Champlain, whose narrative of his ilization, for when this was still newer we built both more adventures is still delightful reading. Fruitless attempts at. appropriately and picturesquely than we commonly do now. settlement followed, led by French knights at Saint Croix, by Again, in the treatment of the ground about their houses, English cavaliers at Sagadahock and by French Jesuits at Mt. the millionaires of Bar Harbor are quite as apt to err as are the Desert: all of them years in advance of the English Colony of humbler cottagers of Squirrel Island. Smooth lawns, made of New Plymouth. Then followed a long period of fishing and imported soil, and kept green only by continual watering; fur- fur trading, during which Maine belonged to neither New nish a means of displaying wealth, but they cannot be fit- France nor New England, and a genuine border warfare was tingly united with scenery which is characterized by rough the result. Two rival Frenchmen also fought and besieged ledges and scrubby woods. On this rough coast level grass each other in truly feudal fashion at Penobscot and Saint John. will please when it is joined to a house and enclosed by walls. Again, while the long French and Indian wars lasted, this In the open ground it can hardly ever be in keeping. Similarly coast saw more fighting. The older settlements west of Cape incongruous are flower-beds scattered over rocky and uneven Elizabeth were sacked several times, and even the English ground, set between the trunks of Pitch Pines, or perched on stronghold at Pemaquid was captured but the forest allies of the tops of whaleback ledges; and yet such things are com- the French Baron Saint Castin were beaten in the end. The mon sights at Bar Harbor. numerous French names for points on the eastern coast bear The real danger of the present situation is that this annual witness to the long French occupation; as for instance, Grand flood of humanity, with its permanent structures for shelter, and Petit Manan, Bois Bubert, Monts Déserts and Isle au may so completely overflow and occupy the limited stretch Hault, and Burnt Coat, apparently English, but really a mis- of coast which it invades, as to rob it of that flavor of wildness translation of the French Cote Brule. and remoteness which hitherto has hung about it, and which No Englishmen settled beyond Penobscot until after the in great measure constitutes its refreshing charm. A surf- capture of Quebec; and when they did, they, as Yankees, had beaten headland may be crowned by a lighthouse tower with- to take part in still more fighting in the wars of the Revolution out losing its dignity and impressiveness, but it cannot be and of 1812. The settlers first fished and hunted, then cut hay dotted with frail cottages without suffering a woeful fall. A on the salt marshes and timber in the great woods, and in lonely fiord shut in by dark woods, where the fog lingers in later years took to ship building, and later still to stone quarry- wreaths, as it comes and goes, loses its charm whenever even ing and ice harvesting, and, near Rockland, to lime burning. one bank is stripped naked, and streets of buildings are sub- These works are still the business of the coast. Even hunt- stituted for the Spruces and Pines. A few rich men, realizing ing is carried on at certain seasons in the eastern counties, this danger, have surrounded themselves with considerable where deer are still numerous. All the large Pine and Spruce tracts of land solely with the intention of preserving the of the shore woods have been cut; but Bangor still sends natural aspect; and at least one hotel company, by buying down Penobscot Bay a fleet of lumber schooners every time almost the whole of the wild island of Campobello, has saved the wind blows from the north; and as for fishing, fleets for the patrons of its houses a large region of unspoiled of more than two hundred graceful vessels may often be seen scenery. The readers ofGARDEN AND FOREST stand in need of in port together waiting the end of a storm. no argument to prove the importance to human happiness of It was about 1860 that what may be called the discovery of that refreshing antidote to city life which fine natural scenery the picturesqueness and the summer-time healthfulness of the supplies, nor is it necessary to remind them that love of beauty coast of Maine took place. Only the beaches of the western and of art must surely die if it be cut at its roots by destroying quarter of the shore were at first occupied by hotels; but when or vulgarizing the beauty of nature. Men cannot love art well the poor hamlet of Bar Harbor leaped into fame through the until they love what she mirrors better," says Mr. Ruskin. resort to it of a few well known landscape painters, it became The United States have but this one short stretch of Atlantic evident that the whole coast was destined to be a much fre- sea-coast where a pleasant summer climate and real pictur- quented summer resort. At present, York, Kennebunkport, esqueness of scenery are to be found together. Can nothing Biddeford Pool and Old Orchard Beach, together with the be done to preserve for the use and enjoyment of the great Casco Islands, Booth Bay, Camden, Mt. Desert and Campo- unorganized body of the common people some fine parts, at bello, are a few of the more populous neighborhoods but least, of this sea-side wilderness of Maine? It would seem as summer hotels are now scattered all along the shore, and if the mere self-interest of hotel proprietors and land-owners colonies of summer villas of all grades of costliness occupy would have accomplished much more in this direction than many of the more accessible capes and islands. Thus there it yet has. If, for instance, East Point near York, or Dice's are many cottages at York, and the islands near Portland are Head at Castine, or Great Head near Bar Harbor, should be fairly covered with cheap structures. Squirrel Island in Booth fenced off as private property, all the other property-owners Bay is another nest of small houses, and Bar Harbor is sum- of the neighborhood would have to subtract something from mer city surrounded by. multitude of very costly and elabo- the value of their estates. And, conversely, if these or other rate wooden palaces. The finest parts of the coast are already like points of vantage, or any of the ancient border forts, were controlled by land companies and speculators, while the preserved to public uses by local associations or by the com- natives' minds are inflamed by the high prices which the once monwealth, every estate and every form of property in the worthless shore lands are now supposed to command. neighborhood would gain in value. Public-spirited men would The spectacle of thousands upon thousands of people able doubtless give to, such associations rights of way, and even to spend annually several weeks or months of summer in lands occasionally, and the raising of money for the purchase healthful life by the sea-shore is very American and very of favorite points might not prove to be so difficult as at pleasant, and the impartial observer can find but two points first it seems. The present year should see, all up and down about it which are in any considerable degree discouraging or the shore, the beginning of a movement in the direction here dangerous. The lamentable feature of the situation is the indicated. In many parts of the coast it is full time decisive small amount of thought and attention given to considerations action was taken, and if the State of Maine should by suitable of appropriateness and beauty by the builders and inhabitants legislation encourage the formation of associations for the of the summer cotonies of the coast. Indifference in these purpose of preserving chosen parts of her coast scenery, matters works ill results everywhere, but nowhere is lack of she would not only do herself honor, but would secure for the taste quite so conspicuous as on the sea-shore. Both corpora- future an important element in her material presperity tions and individuals are guilty on this head. More than one Boston. Charles Eliot. ne Nineteentn Century in Print: Periodicais Page 2 of 3 3/5/1890 See also Eliot response. 117-118 MARCH 5, 1890.j Garden and Forest. 109 GARDEN AND FOREST. the land is no longer useful for his purpose, he is eager to sell it to the state. Another Adirondack Park scheme is PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY conceived, according to the statement of one of its pro- jectors, primarily for the diversion of a few, and not for the THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. health and happiness of the many. There can be no ques- OFFICE TRISON New YORK tion that if there was an active association of all the men in the state who have an intelligent and unselfish interest Conducted by Professor c. S. SANGERY in preserving what is left of the North Woods--an associa- ENTERED AM RECORD-CLASS WATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT YORK. N. Y lion with means to employ salaried agents to devote their time to these questions and give the proper direction to NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5+ 1890. public opinion-the future of the Adirondacks would be more hopeful. As the case now is, reputable newspapers have TABLE OF CONTENTS. been betrayed into advocating measures which mean ruin PAGE for the forest and robbery for the state. If sagacious men EDITORIAL Articles:-Wasted Effort in to Store the Waverly OnloanTThe Bursting of this Walnut Grove Data rog were paid to look after the interests of the forests, in Albany The Art of Himorical Steelers. XVIII-3 Mahame and elsewhere, just as other interests are cared for by trusts tans In Persin Mrs. StAnder Holiday Notes in Southern France and Northern Italy,-HII and business unions of one sort or another, persons who George Ni. halson. ⑉ really desire to protect the forests could be warned, at FORRIGH Letter H. n intern. *** Hyperleum Kalmainum (With figure) least, against advocating measures which have been framed *** New OR LITTLE KNOWN PLANTS:-A Giant African Aloe, di (filux. to defeat the very object which they pretend to promote. trated. IS Harron sea Now, it is very true that we have no guarantee that forest Cattleya Inbiata Wixrecewiczli, Autumn-Flowering R. A. holfs. 114 CULTURAL DEPARTMENT The Watermelon Robert # Harris, M.D. sit associations will act wisely. They may fall under injudi- Reinwardtins N. Barker. ste cious management; they may try to accomplish impossi- Orchard Experiences.-1 H. Hashins, M.D. 126 Seed Harper Crewe J. N. Count. BLO bilities or to secure even pernicious legislation. But, after COr: Uses nind Claims of Forestry Associations all, they must be judged as other human agencies are Chur. € Benney the A Gardener's Problem (Illustrated) W. ssy judged, and if wise men are dissatisfied with their admin- The Waren't Oake. Charlee that OF istration the true remedy is to secure a better executive force. Orchids In Brooklyn Dismarch 118 Certain it is that the approved modern way of carrying PERSONDCAL LITRESTURE 118 NOTES 120 on any reform is through men who are employed to devote Knimienum, Fig. exg themselves to the business systematically and exclusively; Giant African Aloe. A, Buinerii. Flys 115 to use all legitimate means of instruction and influence Diagram showing Nepenthes DOES through the press, and at the Capitol; to watch over the Wasted Effort in Forest-Reform. forests, if forest-reform is their object, with an interest as vigilant, at least, as that which is exercised by those who I N a letter which will be found on another page of this are organizing plans for their destruction. It is true that a issue, Mr. Bioney states that much effort toward forest- half dozen wealthy men might unite to employ such agents; reform has been wasted, By this he means that if the desul. but the natural way, even for such men, is to work through tory, volunteer work of all persons who have attempted io larger associations, adding their liberal contributions to the their own individual way to put some check upon the useless mites of those who can afford to give no more. destruction of forests had been organized and concentrated, The state organizations are doing much indispensable much more would have been accomplished than has been work, but we wish especially to state here our belief gained up to the present It's true also that organization that the National Forestry Association is worthy of the only makes work effective, but what is of still greater im- confidence and support of those who are concerned about portance, it offers opportunity for work to many willing per> the foresis of the country. It has a definite object in view, sons who otherwise could find nothing to do. the present which is to secure the appointment of a property equipped time there are several bills before Congress, each of which Commission to examine the government forests and report is honestly intended to protect and preserve the forests on the best method to preserve and utilize them, insisting, the public domain. Senator Sherman, for example, has meanwhile, that all forest-land shall be withdrawn from offered one which calls for a commission, consisting of sale and entry until such method is adopted. This object the Chief Engineer of the Army, the Chief Signal Officer, ought to commend itself to all thoughtful Americans, and the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the therefore, in our opinion, a large increase in the member- Smithsonian Institute, to assume a certain control over ship of the Association is in every way desirable, both as a the public forests, and Senator Hale has introduced another means for raising funds and for the influence which comes measure similar to the one advocated two years ago by from the power of numbers. Aid extended to this Associa- the Forestry Congress. Mr. Dunnell has charge of 11 third, tion will not be effort wasted. of which we have before spoken. There is little doubt that if the authors of all these bills and the forces which Mr. Charles Eliot suggests in another column the forma- are behind them should unite upon some common policy, lion of associations for the purpose of holding and protect- the chances of success would be much greater than are the ing for the public benefit pieces of ground like that covered chances for either measure now. by the Waverly Oakay of special beauty or of special The efforts of the men who show an interest in the interest. Such an association, as we pointed out last year, Adirondack forests are even more divided and scattering. exists already in the town of Cassanovia, in this state, and The Forest Commission has certain bills of its own to pass, the beautiful falls of the Chittenango are preserved by its The Governor writes a special message recommending a efforts in all their wild picturesqueness. Spots of unusual State Park, which project is condemned by the committee natural beauty, or of real historical interest, may still be to whom it is referred. The Speaker of the House presents found near many of our cities, and there can be no doubt another bill for an Adirondack Park, and certain physicians that such places should be preserved for the people who of this city have organized still another scheme for a sani- seem destined, in ever increasing numbers, to throng tarium, which they propose to push forward without regard American cities. The work of securing these bits of scen- to any other interesis. Unfortinately there is a suspicion ery, as well as open spaces or play-grounds in what is still that more than one of these schemes is only patriotic on its the country, but which sooner or later will be covered face, and the appearance of public spirit is only a disguise over with bricks and mortar, cannot be undertaken too to conceal selfish purposes. It is rumored that behind one SOOD or pushed too energetically. Such pieces of ground large park scheme stands a great iron-master, who has can often be secured now with a comparatively small out- stripped the timber from thousands of acres, and now that lay in money, and the necessary authority for holding http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage 5/13/2009 ne Nineteentn Century in Print: Page L OI 3 110 Garden and Forest. [MARCH $, 18go. them can doubtless be obtained from other state govern- was carried westward over half the ancient empire of Rome ments as it has from that of this state. Contributions of and eastward much farther than the Roman had ever gone. There was no united kingdom of Persia for centuries after money would flow into the treasury of such an association the first Mahometan inroad. But this fact only served to in- as soon as people became convinced that it was man- crease the splendor of the land at large, each district having aged judiciously and for the best interests of the public, its lordly ruler and flourishing under his lavish hand. When and the only real difficulty in carrying out Mr. Eliot's ex- we speak of Bagdad in the time of Haroun-al-Raschíd, when cellent suggestion will be found in securing persons of the we read of it in the *Arabian Nights" or the poems of Per- necessary attainments for such work with the leisure sian singers, we think of a city of gardens, shadowy with requisite for the organization and management of such Cypress, Poplar and Plane, plashing with innumerable foun- a trust. Good men and women for such work are difficult tains and rivulets, sweet with a thousand odors, brilliant with to find always, and the most filling have generally their a myriad flowers by day and a million twinkling by night. Bagdad without its gardens, or Damascus or Shiraz, hands more than full with public and private duties. or Ispahan, would be like Rome without its hills Venice without its waves. We have occasionally suggested that perhaps the pro- The western Asiatic, with his strong feeling for architectural jectors of immense storage reservoirs for purposes of irri- beauty, never made the mistake of surrounding stately build- gation neglected to take into account the danger which ings with grounds of a purely "natural character. His threatened life and property from these grent volumes of urban gardens, as we can be sure even from the fanciful descriptions in the Arabian Nights," and/as will be shown imprisoned water, The reply to these cautions has always when we speak of the gardens of the Arabs in Europe, were been that the problem was a simple one to engineers who formal in arrangement, with marble walks and benches, regu- understood the physical conditions in the arid regions, lar avenues, and a multitude of fountains and pavilions. and that American skill could be trusted with the construc- Shade and coolness were the things he cared for most, and lion of the needed dams, which could be made absolutely the odor of flowers was as much prized as their beauty. But safe. The bursting of the great Walnut Grove reservoir in the semi-poetic, semi-fantastic cast of/the west Asiatic mind Arizona, however, seems to justify all the warnings that leads it to appreciate picturesqueness and variety as well as have been sounded. This work has been spoken of as a symmetry; and wheneverit been inspired by romantic land- scape forms, has reproduced their charm appropriate situa- masterpiece of engineering skill, It has been illustrated in tions. A. mediaval writer, Abu Ishak Ibrahim, called El the press as one of the wonders of the country, and was Istachri, in his Book of the Roads of the Countries' (which pronounced perfectly able to withstand any possible treats of the whole of Islam, but especially of Persis), tells of pressure from floods. And yet it gave way at the very five thousand country-houses or/** castles," some standing in first serious onset of the waters. The horrors of Johns- the neighborhood of towns, but some deep in the mountains. town were not repeated simply because there were not so Half a dozen centuries make as little change, very often, in the tastes and customs of oriental as does half St century in many people in the track of the torrent. It is a misfortune those of occidental nations. Modern Persia is but the degen- that Major Powell is less zealous to protect the natural erate child of mediaval Persia and thus, when later on we reservoirs furnished by the mountain forests than he is to shall read of the aspect of the Persian country home of construct artificial ones, which certainly are less safe, to-day, we shall realize that in mediaval years 0 romantic and which may be less effective than he imagines. wildness, carefully simulated by art, distinguished its grounds when the natural character of the landscape permitted. The planting of shade-trees along streets and highways was The Art of Gardening-An Historical Sketch. sedulously practiced in mediaval Persia. Teheran was called XVIII.-The Mahometans in Persia. the city of Planes," from its embowered streets, and the Plane was everywhere the favorite tree for such purposes. I H AVING glanced at India as it was before the advent of its What we call Saracenic architecture was born under the Mahometan conquerors, we may now turn back to Mahometan rulers of Persia, and was based on ancient Persian Persia, where these conquerors were to learn their skill in the elements. So, too, was the gardening art that accom- art of gardening. Persia is exceptionally interesting to the panied it as it spread to the Atlantic and the Ganges. student of history in any of its branches because it has often There were no such masters of the art of gardening as the refreshed its power under the rule of a new dynasty or a new Mahometan shahs and khalifs during the whole thousand race. From the time of Cyrus to our own, whatever the years which divided the eclipse of classic architecture from name and the faith of its rulers, the individuality of Persin has its renaissande in modern Italy. While Gothic architecture never been wiped out, and national tastes have persisted and was so splendidly developing in the north, gardening art, as have influenced both the East and the West. In the sixth cen- we have seen, scarcely there deserved the name. But the tury of our cra not even Justinian's capital on the Bosphorus two arts flourished hand and hand in the Mahometan south, was more splendid than Clesiphon. the capital of the Sassanid and, indeed, the work of the mediaval Mahometan gardener sovereigns of Persia, and their love for pleasure-grounds em- has, in some respects, never been surpassed. Is it not in- balmed in anecdotes that are repeated in every school history. teresting to know that in this case, as in the case of ancient Poetical and religious writings still more clearly reflect the Athens and Rome, the first impulse, the first teaching, came national passion for gardens, St. John pictures a purely from Persia 78 architectural paradise as the home of the Christian All along/ north const of Africa and over many of the blessed. But the seventh heaven reserved for the follow- southern shores of Europe the Mahometan conquerors grad- ers of Zoreaster, as described by writers of the Sassanid ually spread, at first destroying like very Goths, but soon period, was to be a garden with paths of polished gold, filled repairing/the relies of ancient beauty which they found, or with flowers and fruits and odors and with pleasure-houses creating/ beauty on newly chosen sites. In the fourth of diamond and pearl and one special spot is de- century, as has been told, Belisarius found the Vandals scribed at length. Here, in white and golden robes, on luxuriating in a thousand villas and gardens in those parts thrones of gold and silver, will sit the genii of water, of fire of Africa where at first the Phoenician settlers and then the and of plants, and with them the souls of governors and off- cials, who have not failed in good works, who have dug foun- Jaegen In his und Gaerten," compares the influence upon tains and canals, built aqueducts, established inns and resting- national culture exerted by these local capitala to that exerted by the many minall courts of Germany during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But places for weary wanderers, laid out gardens for the pleasure should be remembered that in the middle ages there were no other countries of the poor, and not impiously hewn down trees and plants where science and art similarly fostered. "Their splendid palaces, " says who have guarded the sacred fire and followed the religion of Hallam, History of the Middle Agex," of the khalifa Bagdad, *their numerous guards, their treasures of gold and silver, the populousness and wealth of their Zoroaster. cities, Earmed a striking contrast to the rudeness and paventy of the weatern Into the Muxurious and intellectual land of Persía broke nations in the same age, In their court, learning. which the first Mosterns had despised as unwarlike, or rejected as profane, was held in honor.** the rude conquering, proselytizing Arab shortly after the death of Mahomet in the seventh century. Here, for the first 1 Benjamin Persia and the Persiana. Colonel Yule, in the notes to his edi. tion of Marco Polo's "Travels," gives an Interesting account of some famous time, he came in contact with a highly developed civilization. Plane-free in Perala: and the Venetian adrensurer's own story of the Old Man Here he quickly absorbed its lessons, and, gradually amalga- of the Mountain and his "paradise" well illustrates the mational delight in gar- dent. mating with the native Persian, developed the arts and sci- The Inborn oriental love for gondens showa, of course, in Mahomet's own ences which he found in bud and hence all he had learned descriptions of panadise; but although the Imagination of the Arab bad been fired by the achievements of others, his artiside instincia found but slight chance *Just, "Goschichte des alter Pendens." to express themselves until fare came under Persian influences http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collld=gardfor&fileName=v0000003i0000106.db 5/13/2009 Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals Page 2 of 3 I32 Garden and Forest. 4/1/1896 [NUMBER 423. to have flowed in midsummer at least twenty-five miles address on the "Forest Interests of New Jersey by Mrs. lower than it does at present, being now dry almost to its Edward D. McCarthy, of Plainfield, who explained in a source, ,500 feet above the sea-level. Living springs once clear way the different forest conditions which pre- abounded on the ranches in the White River valley, which vail among the mountains in the northern part of the now all run dry in midsummer. There is hope for those state, in the Pine plains of the south and on the shift- who desire the preservation of the Sierra forests in the fact ing sands of the seashore, together with descriptions that the valley rancher detests the sheep-herder, whom he of the special beauties and uses of the woods of each regards as a foreigner and a parasite, who intends to return region; and then gave convincing reasons for the adoption sooner or later to France, or Portugal or Ireland, carrying of a conservative forest policy in each. The history of with him his gains pilfered through sheep-raising on land the steady growth of sentiment in favor of good forestry not his own. throughout the country was graphically sketched, and then The condition of the woods on the reservation was often practical ways were pointed out in which women could such as to cause Professor Dudley the greatest concern. reinforce the propaganda. Work was suggested through Fires some time in the past have swept over a large part of schools, libraries and public discussions : by offering prixes it; not an old Sequoîa has escaped fire, and most of the to school children, and having in every district exhibits of Pines and Firs bear evidences of the ravages of the flames. maps and photographs illustrating the results of wanton In the region south of Nelson's Fork of the Tule River the forest destruction and scientific forest management by number of overripe or decayed Fir-trees is enormous, joining forestry associations as clubs and classes by taking and these trees, dying apparently from old age, in falling up a systematic study of the forest in its economical aspect, are carrying down young trees and furnishing the best pos- and, more than all, by the cultivation of a sympathetic love sible material for destructive forest fires. Professor Dudley of trees and of natural beauty and order out of which will was everywhere reminded of the lamentable contrast be- grow village improvement societies with forestry commit- tween America and Germany. The latter has forest schools tees and the like. There is no doubt that Mrs. McCarthy and trained foresters, who cull out the ripe timber, remove was justified in estatement that if the women of New Jer- and sell it for the Government. In America, whose forests sey took hold of this matter in earnest, within a year a are unexcelled in variety, beauty or value, we have no State Forest Commission would e-organized, a radical and efficient system for preventing their destruction by fire, practical fire policy would be so enforced throughout the no schools for training a class of men to husband and de- state as to save the remnants of our forests, and courses velop the enormous forest resources of which we are the of instruction would be founded which would teach us to spendthrift heirs. value them and use them aright." As a relief from this gloomy picture it is pleasant to learn In connection with this address, and illustrating it, was from the testimony of ranchers and hunters that last sum- an admirable exhibition in an adjoining chamber. This mer there were probably not more than a third as many consisted of a series of maps, showing the forest reserva- sheep in the Sierra Reservation as had invaded it the pre- tions in the west and the forest area of New Jersey large vious year, a decrease accounted for by the presence of the photographic views of the Palisades, in which nature and United States soldiers in the adjacent Yosemite National nature's defacement were contrasted ; views to show Park, which had alarmed sheep-herders and scattered their the desolation wrought in various parts of the country by flocks. criminally careless methods of lumbering; pictures of the In concluding his address Professor Dudley called the expensive engineering work in southern France, made attention of the club to the fact that there are still large necessary by stripping the mountains of their forest cover. tracts of Redwood-trees standing in the coast-range region Besides these, pictures of noteworthy trees and attractive of California, and urged the establishment by the Govern- landscapes and the instructive leaf charts of Grace Anna ment on unsurveyed lands of a Redwood reservation. Lewis were disposed in an artistic way about the walls, while This should be done, and done speedily, as we have more on the tables were pamphlets on tree-planting, forestry and than once insisted. The Redwood is only inferior in size village improvement, sample copies of penodicals devoted and interest to the Sierra Sequoia. Its value as a timber- to forestry, a sheet for the registration of names of all who tree and its accessibility doom it to destruction, and if the wished to enroll themselves as taking an interest in the demand for Redwood lumber increases in the future as it subject, and a circular for distribution containing a brief has in the past, another generation will see the destruction list of book relating to forestry, village improvement and of these peerless forests. The Redwood grows only on the rural life. The arrangement of this exhibit was so effec- California coast-ranges, and unless the Government will live that it seemed a pity that it must be transient, and the create a Redwood reservation, as it has a Sequoia reserva- suggestion that every library and schoolroom should have tion, the majestic trees which have been growing for two something of this kind as a general help in the education or three millenniums will be swept away forever. of public sentiment was felt by all who saw it. We commend a careful study of this number of the Sierra Club's bulletin to all who are interested in the national for- ests and in the welfare of California. The address of the What Would be Fair Must First be Fit. Secretary, Mr. Elliott McAllister, from whom probably copies can be obtained, is Academy of Sciences Building, CONSTANTLY increasing number of Americans are San Francisco. A desirons of securing some measure of beauty in the surroundings of their every-day lives. These people are IT is an unpleasant truth that, in spite of all that has been not content with things as they are. They want more and written and said on the necessity of forest protection in this more of pleasantness in and around their own houses and country, the great mass of people still need to be instructed about their village, town or city as well. on this point, and since no comprehensive and efficient To these earnest and inquiring people come a numerous forest policy can even be devised without a more culti- company of writers and would-be missionaries, who, how- vated public sentiment, and since the best of laws would ever, preach strangely differing gospels. First to appear fail to be enforced without the quickening of the public are the gentlemanly agents of the commercial nursery- conscience, every effort to arouse interest and disseminate men. These bring many books of pictures of more or less knowledge on the general subject of forests, their uses lovely and rare plants, shrubs and trees, and say, "Look, and their management, is an occasion for gratitude as well you can make your surroundings beautiful if you will plant as encouragement. We, therefore, commend, as an exam- some of these interesting and lovely things. You ought to ple to similar bodies, the action of the New Jersey State screen that ugly fence with Roses, scatter "specimen orna- Federation of Women's Clubs at its recent meeting in Tren- mentals' about your grounds and put a bed of Cannas ton. A prominent place in the programme was given to an before your door." Next come the more pretentious http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collld=gardfor&fileName=v0000009i0000423.db&r 7/1/2008 e Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals Page 2 of 3 APRIL I, 1896.] Garden and Forest. 133 landscape-gardeners, who prescribe curves for paths and the scenery of Italy, England and the valleys of New other approaches being more natural than straight England what each is to-day lines, and then propose plantations to fit or account for the wrought with a sad sincerity- These gentry talk much about Nature and affect Themselves from God they could not free, to consider formal treatment of ground and planting They builded better than they knew, The conscious (earth) to beauty grew. of profanation. They are of many schools, for some will urge the planting of Purple Beeches, Blue Spruces and all In New England, for example, the hard-worked men of manner of exoties, while others say, You will do well to the last century cleared and smoothed the intervales, left use few but wild native shrubs. What can be lovelier than fringes of trees along the streams and hanging woods on this wayside group of Red Cedar, Bayberry and Wild the steep hillsides, gathered their simple houses into vil- Rose?" Thirdly, come the modern American architects, lages and planted Elms beside them, for use, advantage whose technical training has been acquired the Parisian and convenience" merely, and yet beauty is the result. Ecole des Beaux Arts. These hold up their hands in holy Truly, horror at the landscape-gandeners of all schools, and say to this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather; the inquiring public, "Let us show you how wrong these But the art itself is nature. men are! What you really need to make your surround- The moral to be taken to heart by the sophisticated and ings beautiful are straight avenues, terraces and balus- self-conscious seekers after beauty in our present day is trades, a rampe douce at your door and a sun-dial in an obvious. Success in achieving the beautiful is to be hoped old-fashioned garden. for only when we bow to the law of nature and follow in This is no fanciful picture of the strange conflict of mod- the appointed way. Special purpose is the root, and fitness em doctrine concerning beauty in the surroundings of daily for purpose the main stem. of the plant of which beauty is life. It is no wonder that the inquiring public is bewil- the flower. As William Wyndham wrote to Humphrey dered. Controversial papers and books are continually Repton, lands should be laid out solely with a view to appearing. Bad language is employed by all parties, but their uses and enjoyment in real life. Conformity to these the modern architects appear to be decidedly the most purposes is the one foundation of their true beauty." skilled in its use. Such adjectives as asinine, silly and Thus, the right planning of the arrangement of lands for ridiculous are not uncommon in the writings of Messrs. private country-seats or suburban houses, for public squares, Blomfield, Thomas and Seddings, who, however, are playgrounds or parks, for villages or for cities, is not a English and not American controversialists. question of the gardenesque" or the picturesqua the How absurd all this quarreling seems when once a artificial the natural, the symmetrical, or the moment can be obtained for sober reflection. Is beauty, unsymmetrical." Whoever, regardless of circumstances, as a matter of fact, often won by following shifting fads or insists upon any particular style or mode of arranging land fashions, by heaping up decorations, by gathering archi- and its accompanying landscape, is most certainly a quack. tectural or botanical specimens, however remarkable or He has overlooked the important basal fact that, although even lovely? On the contrary, it is by wrong-headed beauty nevertheless all that would attempts to win beauty in these impossible ways that the be fair must first be fit. True art is expressive before it is ignorant rich and their imitators so often succeed in put- beautiful; at its highest it is still the adornment of a service. ting pretentious ugliness in place of simple loveliness and The modern practitioners of renaissance architecture charm ; witness the greater part of Newport and many need especially to be reminded that they have not a another once pleasing region now sophisticated and de- monopoly of the lovely. Symmetry is beautiful, but so, stroyed. also, is the unsymmetrical relation of the parts to a whole Little or no thought being given to the fundamental in Nature." Since all natural landscape, save that of the arrangement of lands and buildings for convenience and plains and the oceans, is unsymmetrical, it follows that beauty, an attempt is often made to retrieve the situation humanized landscape is also generally and fittingly infor- by adding decorations, such as statues, fountains and mal. Such landscape properly becomes symmetrical or bridges, or, more generally, a selection from the marvelous formal only occasionally and for good reasons. The roads products of modern nursery gardens. In those rarer cases of a hilly park rightly curve to avoid obstacles or to secure where some real attention is devoted to the all-important easy grades but a particular spot within that park, fundamental arrangement, the design is apt to be strictly intended for the gathering place of crowded audiences at limited by the supposed requirements of the particular style band concerts, is rightly graded evenly and symmetrically of treatment which may be selected. The picturesque, and shaded by trees set in rows. Again, the fields and the gardenesque and the formal styles are soberly dis- woods of a country-seat and rightly disposed picturesquely, cussed; but selection is apt to be made according to fancy while those outdoor halls and rooms of the mansion called merely, and the results, as in the first-mentioned class of the terrace and the flower-garden are just as rightly treated cases, are generally amusing or striking rather than beau- formally and decoratively. The naturalists are justified in tiful. A house scene filled with irrationally curved paths thinking formal work often impertinent and out of place. is seldom lovelier than one which is decked with a collec- The formalists and the decorators are justified so long as tion of contrasting specimens. A private country house their work is rooted in usefulness and adaptation to purpose. approached by an unnecessary triple avenue and fitted Each has its proper situation and good taste will make with steps and terraces broad enough for a state capitol is fashion subservient to good sense," wrote Humphrey Rep- equally amusing in its way, ton. It is to be hoped that our quarreling faddists may The cause of the failure to attain to beauty in these and take to heart this saying, and may turn themselves to the all similar cases is doubtless the same; it is (is it not?) the advancement of Repton's real and much needed art of common lack of rationality at the foundation. arranging land, vegetation, buildings and the resultant How is it that so much of the natural scenery of the landscape for the use and delight of men. world is beautiful and that so many myriad kinds of living things are lovely? The fact may not be explicable, but Brookline. Mass. Charles Eliot. is one of the commonplaces of science that the form which every vital product takes has been shaped for it by natural Salt and Sugar in Washingtonia filamentosa. selection through a million ages, with a view to its use, RECENTLY while examining this Palm for fannin. I advantage or convenience, and that beauty has resulted was by the sweet and salt taste of the from that evolution." fresh tissue. Less than one per cent. of tannin was found, How is it that much of the humanized landscape of the but, as the specimen contained 68.97 per cent. of moisture, world is lovely? Is not the same natural law at work here this raised the amount of tannin to 2.73 per cent. when cal- also? The generations who by their arduous labor made culated for absolutely dry substance. The quantity is too http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=gardfor&fileName=v0000009i0000423.db& 7/1/2008 Mag. Sept. 196. THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN RESERVATIONS. By Charles Eliot. A GREAT work has been quietly cordingly the whole problem was laid accomplished in the neighbor- before the legislature of 1891 by a hood of Boston during the last committee appointed at a meeting of two years, and a sketch of it may per- the local park commissions, aided by haps encourage the people of other representatives from the Trustees of American neighborhoods to go and Public Reservations, the Appalachian do likewise. Mountain Club and other organiza- Surrounding Boston and forming tions, and by numerous and influential with Boston the so-called metropol- petitions from all parts of the dis- itan district lie thirty-seven separate trict. A preliminary or inquiring and independent municipalities, com- Commission was the result. This prising twelve "cities" and twenty- Commission, headed by Charles five "towns," all of which lie either Francis Adams as chairman, exam- wholly or partly within the sweep of ined the district in detail, discussed a radius of eleven. miles from the State the problem with the local authori- 127 House. The population of this group ties, became thoroughly convinced of towns and cities is about one mil- of the need of prompt cooperative ac- lion of people, and the total of taxed tion, and SO reported to the succeed- Su property about one thousand millions ing legislature; whereupon an acti was of dollars. passed establishing a permanent In 1892 the central city of Boston Metropolitan Park Commiss on, already possessed and had in part de- which act was signed by the governor, desurry veloped a costly series of public June 3. 1893. squares and parks within her own The accompanying outline map boundaries, sixteen of the surround- illustrates the distribution and the ing municipalities had secured one or area of the open spaces acquired for more local recreation grounds, and the public by this Commission down some of these communities had ac- to December I, 1895, the date of the quired still other lands for the sake last annual report to the General of preserving the purity of public Court. In the very centre of the dis- water supplies. Nevertheless it was trict the Commission has taken pos- evident to all observing citizens that session of several miles of the marshy a great body of new population was banks of the estuary of Charles spreading throughout the district River. (See No. 5' on the accompany- much more rapidly than the local ing map). Most of the remaining park commissions and water commis- frontage on this obnoxious tidal sions were acquiring public open stream is controlled by the Cambridge spaces, and that if any considerable Park Commission and certain semi- islands of green country or fringes of public institutions; so that the metro- sea or river shore were to be saved politan district is now in a position to from the flood of buildings and made make for itself, whenever it may SO accessible to the people, it could only desire, a river park which, with its be by means of some new and central bordering drives, will extend six miles authority raised above the need of west from the State House. The regarding local municipal boundaries broad Basin, surrounded as it will be and endowed by the people with the by handsome promenades, is destined necessary powers and money. Ac- to become the central "court of honor" 117 II8 THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN RESERVATIONS of the metropolitan district; while, by paratively small but costly Stony building a dam which shall exclude Brook Reservation (No. 3' on map), the tides, the pleasing scenery of the while in the northern region there has fresh water river, with all its delight- been secured the broad domain of the ful opportunities for boating and Middlesex Fells (No. 9' on map). skating, may be brought down stream The narrow and deep valley of Stony to the central basin itself. Brook, with Bellevue Hill at its head, North-northeast of the State undoubtedly presents the most strik- House, and between eight and eleven ingly picturesque landscapes to be miles distant, Lynn Woods Reserva- found in the region between Dedham tion, containing some 2,000 acres (No. and the Basin, and the new reservation I on map), had been acquired by the will make a valuable addition to the city of Lynn some years before the already long chain of the Boston and establishment of the Metropolitan Brookline parks. The Fells, on the Park Commission. Lying in the cor- other hand, include the most inter- responding southerly direction from esting scenery to be found between the State House and exactly the same Woburn, Wakefield and Boston, number of miles distant are found the scenery compounded of hills, rocks highest hills of the whole neighbor- and waters, and well worthy of being hood of Boston-hills whose broken preserved in a single reservation to sky line is the chief ornament of every answer for the northern suburbs the prospect from the towers of the great purposes of Jamaica Park, Franklin city, from the other hills about it, Park, the Arboret and Bellevue and from the bay and the sea. Among Hill combined in one area. these loftiest hills of the district there Westward again two additional but is extremely little land adapted to small areas yet remain to be men- house-lots, but there is abundant in- tioned, each of which preserves scen- teresting scenery and opportunity for ery of remarkable beauty. Beaver the gradual development of even Brook Reservation (No. 6' on map) greater impressiveness and beauty. contains a waterfall and a group of Here the new Commission has ac- the largest oak trees in Massachusetts quired the Blue Hills Reservation (the Waverley oaks), and lies just five five miles in length (No. I' on miles distant from the nearest corner map). of the Fells.* Hemlock Gorge Res- Between the Lynn Woods and the ervation (No. 4' on map) preserves a Charles River Reservation and be- series of beautiful pictures formed by tween the Blue Hills and the same the passage of Charles River between central domain lie many square miles high and rocky banks, and lies just of more or less densely settled but five miles distant from the nearest cor- rapidly growing suburbs. When the ner of the new reservation at Stony Metropolitan Commission was cre- Brook. Thus, if the Lynn domain ated the southern section of these sub- may be counted as a metropolitan res- urbs already possessed several hun- ervation (and it ought to be made one dred acres of public open space in of the series), the distribution of the Leverett Park, Jamaica Park, the seven new inland open spaces thus Arboretum and Franklin Park, while far mentioned is remarkably symmet- the corresponding northern suburbs rical. The only part of the metropol- controlled few public grounds,-in itan district not yet provided with a deed almost none. Accordingly the fairly accessible and large public Metropolitan Commission has ac- open space is the extreme western quired in the southern region the com- part (see map); and it SO happens that there is found in this very region a See the illustrated article on "The Blue Hills of Milton," in the August number of the New England See article, Round About the Waverley Oaks," in the Magazine, the first of a series of illustrated articles to be April, 1896, number of the New England Magazine.- devoted to the Boston Park System.-Editor: Editor. MAIN AVENUES OPENED PARKWAYS OPENED BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES. BY METROPOLITAN COMMISSION LYNNFIELD READING WAKEFIELD/ SAUGUS STONEHAM LYNN II WOBUR MELROSE RAHANI WINGLESTE MATDEN 10 9 REVENE OMEDFORD LEXINGTON 8 EVERETT ARLING TON CHELSEA SOMERVILLED WINTHROR BEL MONT East Charlestown Boston WALTHAM 6 18 CAMBRIDGE 5 STATE HOUSE WATERTOWN Brighton 8 (South Boston NEWTON WESTON 9 Roxbur BROOKE INC 1009 4. 03 WELLESLEY Roxbury HINGHAM NEEDHAM we HYDE PARK WEYMONTH 3 QUINCY 2 MILTON o DEDHAM I BRAINTREE CANTON RANDOLPHA 1 OPEN SPACES CONTROLLED 2 OPEN SPACES SECURED BY BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES. ? $ , $ METROPOLITAN COMMISSION. SCALE or MILES 46 THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN DISTRICT. Key to figures on the map. OPEN SPACES CONTROLLED BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES. I Lynn Woods, Lynn. II Franklin Park, Boston. 2 Broadway Park, Somerville. I2 Franklin Field, Boston. 3 Charles River Parkway, Cambridge. 13 Arnold Arboretum. Boston. 4 Fresh Pond Reservoir, Cambridge. 14 West Roxbury Parkway, Boston. 5 Prospect Hill, Waltham. I5 Merrymount Park, Quincy. 6 Riverside Park, Newton. 16 Strandway, Boston. 7 Chestnut Hill Reservoir, Boston. 17 Marine Park, Boston. 8 Back Bay Fens, Boston. 18 Wood Island Park, Boston. 9 Leverett Park, Boston. 19 Public Garden, Boston. IO Jamaica Park, Boston. 20 Common, Boston. OPEN SPACES SECURED BY METROPOLITAN PARK COMMISSION. I' Blue Hills Reservation. 7' Mystic Valley Parkway. 2' Blue Hills Parkway. 8' Middlesex Fells Parkway. 3. Stony Brook Reservation. 9' Middlesex Fells Reservation. 4 Hemlock Gorge Reservation. IO' Revere Beach Reservation. 5 Charles River Reservation. II' King's Beach Reservation. 6' Beaver Brook Reservation. 119 120 THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN RESERVATIONS reach of Charles River about four ing interest at the rate of 31/2 per cent miles long, already much resorted to have thus far been authorized to the for pleasure boating, which presents amount of $2,300,000, and the total the opportunity for the making of a sum to be collected from the district reservation as different from the Blue annually is found to be $111,253.99. Hills in its character and its modes of The first quinquennial apportionment use as the Blue Hills are different requires Boston to pay 50 per cent of from the seashore. this annual requirement, or $55,- It is upon the ocean shore that the 627.00 per year, while the other Metropolitan. Commission has secured thirty-six cities and towns are called the costliest and perhaps the most val- upon for varying amounts ranging uable reservation of all. Revere from Cambridge's 68/ 10 per cent ($7,- Beach (No. IO' on map) is a curve of 600.50 per year) to Dover's four thou- sand three miles in length, fronting sandths of I per cent ($48.92 per the open sea. Upon the crest of the year). The validity and constitution- beach a railroad was budt years ago, ality of this ingenious financial sys- and along this line and even between tem has recently been affirmed by the it and the sea a town-like mass of Supreme Court on appeal. It should cheap buildings has been placed. be added that the law provides for the The railroad is to be removed to a annual collection from the cooperat- location a little farther inland, a drive- ing towns and cities of the cost of way is to be built in its stead, and maintenance of the several reserva- every existing structure between this tions, and it is probable that the total driveway and the water removed. sum required for this purpose will This beach lies between the five and soon equal that required to meet the eight mile circles from the State charges on the bonds. Whatever House, and it is reached in twenty the total amount may be, it is to be minutes from the heart of the city. assessed in accordance with the quin- The wisdom of buying it for the use quennial apportionment; but down to and at the cost of the Metropolitan the present time the Commonwealth district cannot be questioned. has itself paid the general and main- What is the nature of the executive tenance expenses of the Commission, and financial machinery by which the legislature having appropriated these remarkable results have been $10,000, $20,000 and $38,943 in the achieved in so short a time? The years 1893, 1894 and 1895 respect- Commission consists of five gentle- lively. men who serve the community with- The following condensed state- out pay. The Governor of the Com- ments concerning the work of the monwealth, acting for the metropol- Commission have been compiled itan district, appoints one new mem- from the three successive annual re- ber every year, the term of service ports of the Board: being five years. The General Court of the Commonwealth, acting for the The Commission was originally composed as follows metropolitan district, authorizes from time to time the sale of bonds by the Charles Francis Adams, Chairman, State Treasurer, who is directed to Quincy William B. de las Casas, Malden; Philip A. Chase, Lynn; Abraham L. Rich- collect annually the amount of the in- ards, Watertown; James Jeffery Roche, Bos- terest and the sinking fund charges ton. William L. Chase, of Brookline, suc- from the towns and cities of the met- ceeded James Jeffery Roche, resigned, but ropolitan district in accordance with died in July, 1895, and was succeeded by an apportionment newly made every Edwin B. Haskell of Newton. Augustus Hemenway of Canton has also been - five years by a special commission ap- pointed in place of Charles Francis Adams, pointed by the Supreme Court. resigned. William B. de las Casas is Chair- Bonds running forty years and bear- man of the present Board. The commission THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN RESERVATIONS. I2I meets every week and sits from two until cuted for the Commission by surveyors em- six o'clock; its members also make frequent ployed under a contract. The engineering excursions to the scenes of their labors. department is at present principally occupied Executive Department. - Secretary, H. S. in supervising the construction of certain Carruth, July, 1893, to January I, 1896. parkways not previously mentioned (Nos. John Woodbury, January I, 1896, to date.- 2', 7' and 8' on map), money for which to The secretary is the salaried executive officer the amount of $500,000 was placed at the of the Commission, and all departments disposal of the Metropolitan Park Commis- report through him. He is the general man- sion by an Act of 1894, which in this case ager of the work of the Commission and divided the financial burden evenly between arranges for the financial settlements with the Commonwealth and the metropolitan the owners of the lands acquired. The total district. number of acres thus far taken for reserva- Construction Department. - Wilfred tions is 6,822, embracing lands belonging to Rackemann, General Superintendent. - 603 claimants for damages. At the date of About twenty miles of old woods-roads in the last report 367 of these claims, repre- the forest reservations have been made usable senting 5,156 acres, had been adjusted at by pleasure carriages, and many additional prices ranging all the way from forty dollars miles have been made practicable for horse- an acre to one dollar per square foot. So back riders. The whole area of the inland far there have been very few cases of litiga- reservations has been cleared of the wood- tion. It is pleasant to note that six persons choppers' slashings, the fire-killed trees, and have presented lands to the Commission. all the dangerous, because dead and dry, tin- The sum of the threeannual appropriations of der with which the lands were found heaped. the General Court ($68,943) has been ex- About one hundred men have been employed pended by the executive department for during three winters in this last mentioned office rent, salaries, traveling, repairs, tools, safeguarding work. Several buildings have etc., and for the pay of the keepers or police also been torn down, fences built and odd of the reservations (about $20,000 to date). jobs of all sorts done. Law Department.-I Messrs. Balch and The drafts on the sum of the loans ($2,- Rackemann, attorneys and conveyancers, 300,000) may, accordingly, be classified thus : have from the first drafted the legal papers required for the taking of lands by eminent Payments for lands (to date of last report) $940,739 77 domain and for other purposes. They have Counsel and conveyancers' fees and ex- penses 52,199 79 represented the Commission in such suits as Landscape architects' fees and expenses 7,147 78 have been brought by landowners who have Engineering expenses (including cost of topo- been unable to come to terms with the secre- graphical surveys, $17,012.90) 31,857 57 Labor and supervision thereof 146,402 60 tary or the Commission. They have also Miscellaneous expenditures 16,303 90 prosecuted a few violators of the ordinances Total $1,194,651 4I governing the reservations. The principal work of this department has, however, been It is estimated that the whole of the bal- the searching of the titles to the lands of the ance of the loans ($1,105,348.59), and pos- reservations in order to make sure that sibly more, will be required to meet the only rightful claims are paid. This tedious remaining claims of land-owners, the cost of task has been accomplished by employing a moving the Revere Beach Railroad, and a large force of skilled assistants. few other minor but necessary works. Landscape Architects' Department. Messrs. Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot have from the first advised with the Commission Every rural as well as every as to the choice of lands for the reservations, crowded district of the United States as to the boundaries of each reservation. and possesses at least a few exceptionally as to all questions relating to the appearance interesting scenes, the enclosure or or scenery of the lands acquired. More than destruction of which for private thirty miles of boundaries have been studied and re-studied in detail. pleasure or gain would impoverish Engineering gDepartment.-Engineer, Wil- the life of the people. Very often liam T. Pierce.-Wit a varying number of these strongly characterized scenes assistants the engineer prepares the plans of are framed by lands or strips of land takings," land maps to accompany filed which, like the Blue Hills, the banks deeds, projects for necessary works here and of the Charles, and Revere Beach, are there in the reservations, and so on. Dur- either almost unproductive or else are ing the first year or two different engineers were engaged in different places for special put by their private owners to by no works. Topographical surveys of the Fells means their highest use. In many and Blue Hills Reservations have been exe- districts now is the time when these I22 THE HERBS OF LONG AGO. financially profitless summits, cañons, money are required promptly or be- crags, ravines and strips of ground cause the power of eminent domain along the seashores, lake shores, must be invoked, the methods of the rivers and brooks ought to be pre- Massachusetts Metropolitan Park served as natural pictures, and put to Commission may be profitably fol- use as public recreation grounds. To lowed on either a humbler or a enable benevolent citizens or bodies grander scale. The establishment and of voluntary subscribers to achieve the successful working of this Com- the permanent preservation of such mission proves that at least one great scenes, Massachusetts has created a and complex American democracy is board of trustees, known as the alive to the usefulness of the beautiful Trustees of Public Reservations, who and the value of public open space; are empowered to nold Tree of all also that this democracy is capable of taxes such lands and money as may cooperation and of foresight, ready to be given into their keeping-an in- tax itself severely for an end which it stitution which ought to be found in believes in, and able to secure as ex- every state. In special regions, how- ecutors of its expressed but undefined ever, where the establishment of such desires commissioners capable of a board of trustees would be ineffect- realizing these desires in a remarkably ual, either because large sums of comprehensive and equitable manner. THE HERBS OF LONG AGO. By Minna Irving. I T stands upon a wooded hill Among the murmuring leaves,- An ancient house with shingle roof, And mosses on its leaves. Around its weather-beaten door The running roses blow, And all the narrow yard is sweet With herbs of long ago. In dewy borders edged with box The poppy shakes its seeds, The silver sage and lavender. Are struggling with the weeds; And in the dusk a withered form Goes softly to and fro, Still seeking with a trembling hand The herbs of long ago. 3/1/2016 Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). - Harvard University HOLLIS+ MENU Guest My Research My Account / Renew Sign in Research Guides Feedback Help Everything HOLLIS Articles Advanced Search New Search Search Browse HOLLIS by. Limit to: All items keywords Y anywhere Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Locations & Availability Details Send to Title: Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). Links Author / Creator: Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. HOLLIS Classic record Finding aids: Card catalog available in repository. WorldCat record Description: ca. 54 linear ft. History note: Landscape architect. Educated at Harvard College (A.B. 1882). Eliot was instrumental in the development of the Boston Metropolitan Park system. Later, his ideas set the pattem for most American metropolitan parks. In 1892, Eliot was hired as landscape architect by the new Metropolitan Park Commission, which he had been instrumental in creating. In following years, the state legislature established a permanent commission, and implemented Eliot's recommendations for the development of a regional open space system. Before his death in 1897, Eliot had completed plans for the Charles River Basin, which came into existence after the dam was built in 1910, Summary: Contains office records, diaries, sketches, ca. 500 photographs, some correspondence, pamphlets, and books, including a manuscript for an unpublished work of Eliot's. Language: English; French; German Cite As: Charles Eliot Collection. Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Notes: Gifts of Mary Pitkin Eliot, 1921; Charles W. Eliot, 1923; and Charles W. Eliot, II, 1940. Subject: Eliot, Charles, -- 1859-1897.; Olmsted, Frederick Law, -- 1822-1903.; Massachusetts. -- Metropolitan Park Commission; Harvard University - Alumni and alumnae.; Trustees of Public Reservations (Mass.); Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot.; Landscape architecture -- Massachusetts.; Parks -- Massachusetts.; Parks -- Massachusetts -- Boston. Keyword: Occupation: Landscape architects. Form / Genre: Photoprints HOLLIS Number: 000603293 Creation Date: 1741 Permalink: http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/000603293/catalog Source: HVD ALEPH Locations & Availability Not available at Harvard? Try Borrow Direct for books, see Get It for article requests via Interlibrary Loan, or suggest a purchase. © 2014 President and Fellows of Harvard College Harvard University Powered by ExLibris Primo © 2014 http://hollis.harvard.edu/primo_library/libweb/action/dIDisplay.do?vid=HVD&search_scope=default_scope&docid=HVD_ALEPH000603293&fn=permalink 1/1 3/1/2016 Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). - Harvard University HOLLIS+ MENU Guest My Research My Account / Renew Sign in Research Guides Feedback Help Everything HOLLIS Articles Advanced Search New Search Search Browse HOLLIS by Limit to: All items keywords anywhere Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Locations & Availability Details Send to Loeb Design Special Collections Rare [At Harvard Depository (not on site at GSD). Consult Special Collections Librarian ] Note: At Harvard Depository (not on site at GSD). Consult Special Collections Librarian Not available at Harvard? Try Borrow Direct for books, see Get It for article requests via Interlibrary Loan, or suggest a purchase. © 2014 President and Fellows of Harvard College Harvard University Powered by ExLibris Primo © 2014 tp://hollis.harvard.edu/primo_library/libweb/action/dIDisplay.do?vid=HVD&search_scope=default_scope&docld=HVD_ALEPH000603293&fn=permalin 1/1 READ ME: Charles Eliot Collection at Loeb Library/Harvard Accessed by Cathleen O'Connell Sept 23, 2015 Trustees highlights 20 plus boxes - unprocessed so no formal finding aid is available. Working with librarian at Loeb she pulled 3 boxes that she thought would have personal material (only 2 did). Unprocessed collection - unofficial finding aid: Box 1 - reviewed Box 2 - clippings - not pulled Box 3 - reviewed Other boxes - she said are periodicals Box 21 - Journals -pulled & reviewed but not personal BOX 1: ELIOT MISC MSS (Box)_Contains: -glass negs -1897 Report on the forest scenery of the Metropolitan reservations (1897) (mdc) -folder of sketches Researcher note: sketches of Lyman, Gore, no Trustees properties that I saw -alphabetical notebook of plants Journal Summary 1882-1893 Researcher note: Summary for to 1890, 1891 don't mention Trustees - mostly the coming and going of relatives Standard Diary 1890 DIARY ENTRY IMAGE Cover of 1890 Diary & inside cover CEColl_1_NotTTOR, CEColl_2_NotTTOR Feb 22 1890: In eve. Writing letter for G, and F. CEColl_3_NotTTOR Feb 24 1890 Sent typewritten copy of letter to G. and F. CEColl_4_NotTTOR March 10 1890 - Transcript reprint of letter in G. & F. CEColl_5_NotTTOR May 3, 1890 All Preservation business [names seem CEColl_8_NotTTOR like Trustees names?] May 24 - whole of past week given to Preservation CEColl_9_NotTTOR Standard Diary 1891 DIARY ENTRY IMAGE Cover of 1891 Diary CEColl_6_NotTTOR January 19 1891 Discussion of legislation in roadside CEColl_7_NotTTOR trees, roadside advertising & trustees of public reservations with Spelman, [and other names] January 31, 1891 Meeting of Preservation Committee. CEColl_10_NotTTOR 14 pres. March 6 - Mailing of circulars to all who had CEColl_11_NotTTOR expressed decided interest to invite them to the hearing March 9 - Preparation for hearing March 10 - Hearing on petition of H.P. Walcott & [?] at State house before Senate Committee on the Judiciary June 22 1891 First Meeting of "Trustees" CEColl_12_NotTTOR June 26 1891 Meeting of Trustees June 30 1891 Standing Committee meeting at CEColl_13_NotTTOR Wigglesworths July 31 1891 Proof of Trustees - Circular - & ByLaws. CEColl_14_NotTTOR Trustees Seal ordered printed on stationary. Design from Moore, redrafting my own. August 8, 1891 Circulars to correspondents. General CEColl_15_NotTTOR circ. to Trustees & writers of letters and committee men. By-Laws to Trustees. Call for subscriptions to Harrison fund to selected names August 19 Clearing up Trustee business September 19 1891 "Virginia Wood" scheme discussed. CEColl_16_NotTTOR Trustees Trip to Dickinsons. Standard Diary 1892, 1893 Researcher note: not reviewed Scrapbooks (2) containing European Scenes, magazine clippings of pictures of European years? sites 1930's accession photograph log Typewritten Log of European trip journal Florida Journal (1874) Letters Volume 1 1888-1892 Researcher note: [alpha for A/B missing] No drafts of Waverly letter in jan/feb Letters Volume 2 1892-1897 Researcher note: Baxter not listed in alpha summary at top. Various sketches for clients Charles Eliot Journals 1884, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896 Researcher note: 5 smaller sized journals (which are stored in Rare Book room) super small, more expense oriented than larger 1890s journals reviewed above Charles Eliot Box 3 - Mss Sketch Books Large book of European properties sketches (dated 1913?) Other folders including: FOLDER: CE Materials ...used somewhat but not to be printed 1887 - Boston Evening Transcript Sat June 28 1890 IMAGE: CEColl_17_NotTTOR Trustees letter dated Aug 1 1892 [Note: this is also in TTOR Eliot Scrapbook] IMAGE: CEColl_18_NotTTOR Trustees Survey form dated Dec 1 1892 IMAGE: CEColl_19_NotTTOR Letters to MPC regarding boundaries of parks: [TOPOPGRAPHY] 2 page letter regarding Beaver Brook dated 13 Nov 1893 IMAGE: CEColl 20 NotTTOR, CEColl 21 NotTTOR 6 page letter regarding Blue Hills dated 24 Nov 1893 [TOPOGRAPHY] IMAGE: CEColl 22 NotTTOR - CEColl 27 NotTTOR 31 May 1895 - 10 page essay (speech?) about mission of Trustees. Was this a speech? No context provided in Collection. Very eloquent and poetic. Was this published somewhere? IMAGES: CEColl_28_NotTTOR - CEColl_32_NotTTOR FOLDER: CE Correspondence 1890 Letter to Mr. Baxter Dec 12 1890 Proposing book and asking Mr. Baxter to write Chapter 9 Researcher note: asked to look for Baxter correspondence IMAGE: CEColl_33_NotTTOR FOLDER: CE Correspondence 1891 Researcher note: Letter to Mr. Brewster Jan 91 -proposing a book and suggesting that second chapter contain Topography and that W.M. Davis is going to write it. IMAGE: CEColl 34 NotTTOR [Researcher note: not reviewed but unofficial finding aid lists this book in Box 17, so it was in his library: A Manual of Topographic Methods by Henry Gannett, Wash, Govt Printing Office, 1893]. Addt'l correspondence folders dated through 1897 Charles Eliot Box 21 - Journals & Published journals & magazines - not personal Garden and Forest and "Landscape Art" Ethan Carr L aura Wood Roper notes in her 1973 biog- indeed, numerous professions trace their early raphy of Frederick Law Olmsted that the development in part to the influence of Garden 1890s were years of "staggering reverses" and Forest. But landscape architecture, which for the profession of landscape architecture. Pio- aspired to combine planning and design on neers such as Frederick Law Olmsted and many scales, enjoyed a special status in the H. W. S. Cleveland retired from practice, while magazine and influenced its editorial structure. the untimely deaths of Henry S. Codman and Landscape architecture was not limited to the Charles Eliot diminished the next generation. "planting of flower-beds and of ornamental But it was also during this period that a body of shrubs," the Garden and Forest editors asserted theory and technical expertise was developed in 1897, but was a "broad and catholic art as and became the basis for training landscape useful in the preservation of the Yosemite Val- architects. What had been a practice, in other ley or the scenery of Niagara as it is in planning words, matured into a profession. And much of a pastoral park or the grounds about a country this transition is documented in the pages of house. 114 Descriptions like these summarized Garden and Forest. not only the ambitions of landscape architects, Garden and Forest, published from 1888 but also the editorial goals of Garden and For- through 1897, benefited from an extraordinary est. It was the emphasis on landscape architec- group of editors and contributors who saw it ture, Stiles felt, that distinguished Garden and as their best forum for shaping the profession Forest from "any other garden paper. 115 Stiles of landscape architecture. Correspondents and Sargent published articles on horticulture included (besides Olmsted, Cleveland, Eliot, and "country place" design alongside calls for and Codman) Beatrix Jones (later Farrand), the "Preservation of Natural Scenery" from sub- Samuel B. Parsons, Charles H. Lowrie, Frank A. urban Boston to the Sierra Nevada.6 In the edi- Waugh, O. C. Simonds, Warren H. Manning, torial tradition of Loudon and Downing, readers Harold A. Caparn, Wilhelm Miller, J. C. were urged to expand the aesthetic sensibilities Olmsted-all leading practitioners of the day. developed in their own gardens and to become Eliot and Codman described European land- advocates for better management of the larger scapes seen during the travels that had been landscape, especially of public parks and forests. part of their apprenticeship. Others discussed If the practice of landscape architecture specific aspects of technique and practice, for offered conceptual unity to Garden and Forest, example, "The Treatment of Slopes and Banks" the magazine in turn helped define the emerging (J. C. Olmsted), "Park Construction" (Cleve- theory of the profession. This was largely due land), and "The Garden in Relation to the to the contributions of the art historian and House" (Farrand).2 The editors Charles Sprague critic Mariana Griswold (Mrs. Schuyler) Van Sargent and William A. Stiles published descrip- Rensselaer, who contributed a total of almost 50 tions of showcase projects including the Boston articles beginning with a seven-part series on Metropolitan Parks, the World's Columbian "Landscape Gardening" in 1888. Already an Exposition in Chicago, and Biltmore, as well as established art critic, Van Rensselaer became plans of smaller but typical residences and gar- intrigued with landscape architecture through dens.³ In an era before a professional organiza- her friendship with the elder Olmsted. In her tion or academic instruction existed in the field Garden and Forest articles, she set out to define of landscape architecture, Garden and Forest landscape architecture as "landscape art," took on aspects of both. which, after architecture, sculpture, and paint- The magazine did all this, of course, while ing, constituted the "fourth art" of design. To also promoting scientific forestry, botany, horti- Olmsted's great satisfaction, she helped estab- culture, city planning, and scenic preservation; lish the professional status of landscape archi- Amnddia 60, 3 6 Arnoldia 60/3 A VIEW IN CENTRAL PARK. THE view on this page 1S taken from a point in the Ramble in the Central Park of this city, looking southward, and including a portion of the Ter- race. Of course, it 1S much more than a picture of the Terrace, but it clearly shows how much this bit of architecture adds to the composition. The distant horizon line of trees has an attractiveness of its own. Nearer by are the upper Terrace lines contrasting with the masses of foliage above them. Below these are the open arches with deeper shadows, then the lower lines of the Terrace, the lake shore and the passage of water separating more distinctly the extreme distance from the middle distance. All these, with the lines of the shrubbery about the little lawn, mark the successive planes of the composition and help to bring out the gradations of light and shadow. In the Park the observer would enjoy in addition the ever varying tints of the sky which would also be reflected in the water, while he could look up to and into the leafy framework in the foreground forever without exhausting its interest. The illustration is a good example of what can be accomplished by framing in a distant object with foliage, SO as to make a complete and consistent picture, and there is no rea- son why such planting as it shows should be confined to public parks. Many a lawn could be made the foreground of a picture quite as attractive, and it could be graded and planted so as to emphasize the interest and increase the pictorial effect of some important object, natural or artificial, and trees could be disposed about it so as to concentrate the attention which would otherwise be distracted by surrounding objects. [Garden and Forest 1 (1888): 30] "Landscape Art" 7 tects by defining their practice as a fine art, ral" or the "formal" styles in garden design.¹³ unlike the craft or trade of gardening. "Landscape art" encompassed both spheres, Continuing this essentially Reptonian dis- which is why it offered a unique means for course, Van Rensselaer distinguished landscape improving a broad range of public and private art from the other fine arts by observing that it environments, from vacation villas to city plans "uses the same materials as nature herself."9 and from municipal parks to national reserva- The landscape gardener (her preferred term) tions. Landscape art was necessary in all these "takes from nature not only his models but his designs because without it they could never materials and his methods." This "partnership achieve the unity inherent in great artistic with Nature" might seem to limit the artist's compositions. The "true artist" planned opportunity for self expression, a necessary landscapes-from gardens to entire cities-by quality of true art. But like the painter or the first analyzing and recognizing the "characteris- sculptor, the landscape gardener observes nature tic and salient aspects of the place," in order to and "re-unites her scattered excellences" in "work in harmony with them instead of coming artistic compositions that express the whole- into conflict with nature.' ness and unity that nature possesses but rarely Garden and Forest was dedicated to advanc- reveals in a single place or view. Nature always ing landscape design as a compositional "art," provides "vitality, light, atmosphere," she inspired by the greater composition and unity of concluded, and especially "what no other artist "nature" and intended to integrate human soci- ever gets-perfection in details." But "composi- ety into the larger, natural environment. Land- tion is the chief thing in art and the land- scape architecture was seen as the profession scape gardener's compositions are and must be that would supply the necessary artists. But his own. "10 landscape art was not for art's sake alone. In an Van Rensselaer's contributions in Garden and editorial reflecting the sentiments of the elder Forest made her a foremost landscape theorist of Olmsted (as was often the case), Sargent and her day, and her ideas would be taught to genera- Stiles state that "true art is not the servant of tions of American landscape architects. If some temporary fashion, but something that is many of her discussions of nature and art would to endure, and must, therefore, have a perma- not seem out of place in the late eighteenth cen- nent basis in the necessities and aspirations of tury, to a remarkable degree they also antici- human life. "115 pated some of today's debates in the fields of Among contemporary landscape projects, landscape design and planning. Van Rensselaer therefore, none received more attention in the deplored the naive tendency to assume that pages of Garden and Forest than the Metropoli- rural scenery was "natural," for example, when tan Park Commission's system of suburban it was usually the (often unintended) product of parks around Boston. Charles Eliot, who first generations of cultivation and management. proposed the system in an 1890 letter to Garden Nature and art were rarely mutually exclusive and Forest, was praised as an example of the in the landscape. Sargent and Stiles adopted this "true artist" needed to successfully direct such theme and criticized the excessive veneration a project. But the deaths of both Eliot and of what was assumed to be natural or "wild" Stiles in 1897, followed soon by the demise of because it had led to the neglect of "that part of Garden and Forest, marked the end of one era the landscape which 1S necessarily not wild- and the beginning of another. Within three the landscape of our daily lives-the humanized years, landscape architects had established their scenery of the earth." In words that resonate own professional organization, the American today, they regretted the tendency of people to Society of Landscape Architects (1899), and travel "in search of the picturesque while what instituted the first academic program in the might be the picturesqueness of their own field, at Harvard University (1900). The profes- neighborhood is unperceived or destroyed."12 sion flourished, bolstered by a growing market Throughout the pages of Garden and Forest, for "country place" residential design. Whether simplistic distinctions between what is Garden and Forest's ideals of "landscape art" "nature" and what is "art" were condemned, as survived as well in the new century, however, is were dogmatic preferences for either the "natu- an open question. 8 Arnoldia 60/3 Endnotes THE FIELD OF LANDSCAPE-ART. 1 Laura Wood Roper, FLO A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns W E are constantly asked whether the profes- Hopkins University Press, 1973), 475. sion of landscape-gardening offers a promis- 2 Garden and Forest (hereafter, GerF) 1 (1888): ing field for young men who are looking for some 267, 326-327; 3 (1890): 129; 4 (1891). 184; 10 calling in life which will be useful and remunera- 1897): 132. tive. We have always felt obliged to reply that there 3 Go)F 1 (1888): 508; 6 (1893): 361-362; 8 is comparatively small demand for the counsel of (1895): 481-482. landscape-gardeners in this country The preva- 4 Goof 10 (1897): 192. lent idea is that his work is chiefly ornamental and 5 Quoted in Roper, FLO, 404. that his province is to do about the same thing for 6 See GOF (1889): 133; 3 (1890): 257; 7 (1894). 1; 10 (1897): 222. the surroundings of a house that the decorative artist does for its interior when he selects the furni- 7 The articles, as well as at least one GOOF editorial written by Van Rensselaer (6 {1893}: ture, rugs and hangings and decided upon color- 119-120), became the basis for her book, Art schemes and the like. That is, after an architect has Out-of-Doors Hints on Good Taste in built a house, it is considered proper to call in a Gardening (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893). In 1889, Van Rensselaer began a landscape-gardener to plant some ornamental trees series of GOOF articles on garden history. and shrubs about it and lay out paths and flower- 8 GelF 1 (1888): 2. beds in order to beautify the grounds In fact, the 9 The late 18th-century British landscape beauty of the scene, which includes both the house gardener Humphry Repton (who coined the and the grounds, should grow up from the general term "landscape gardener") was a figure of design and framework of the house and grounds as a considerable interest to American landscape architects in the 1880s. When J. C. Olmsted, place where all the varied necessities of the family Eliot, and others began to meet as an in the way of health and happiness and home life are informal professional society at that time, the first things considered. they named their group the "Repton Club." All this means that a landscape-gardener ought to Norman T. Newton, Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape Architecture be much more than a mere decorative planter. The (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), successful designing of public parks or of private 386. Also see Humphry Repton, The Art grounds for daily occupation means first of all the of Landscape Gardening, ed. John Nolen study of human wants-the necessities of men and (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1907). women and children of various circumstances and 10 GOF 1 (1888): 2, 14-15, 27, 38. conditions. A good artist must be primarily a man of 11 Art Out-of-Doors was republished in 1925, sound judgment and he should have a cultivated and many of Van Rensselaer's ideas were assimilated into Henry V. Hubbard and mind, wide sympathies and catholic tastes. Reading Theodora Kimball's standard textbook, An and travel and scholarship can do for the designer in Introduction to the Study of Landscape landscape all that they can accomplish for the archi- Design (1917; rev. ed., New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929). tect. A man may be able to mass a shrubbery effec- 12 tively or arrange a border of herbaceous plants with GOOF 6 (1893) : 531. skill and yet not have a particle of that profounder 13 See GelF 1 (1888): 51-52, 481; 7 (1894): 261- 262, 341-342; 10 (1897): 191-192. art which was seen in the grouping of the great 14 Ge)F 6 (1893): 531. buildings at the Columbian Exposition, and the 15 GOOF 9 (1896): 171; see Roper, FLO, 435. planning of that Court of Honor which was the 16 See GOOF 3 (1890): 85-86; 3 (1890): 109, 117- crowning artistic success of Mr. Olmsted's life. This 118; 7 (1893): 191. view of the case contemplates an ideal that is rarely attained, and it is because the work of real artists in Ethan Carr 1S a landscape architect with the this line is rarely seen and still more rarely appreci- National Park Service and the author of ated that the very existence of such an art is practi- Wilderness by Design (University of Nebraska cally ignored or denied. Press), which received the American Society of Landscape Architects' honor award in 1998. [Editorial. Garden and Forest 10 (1897): 161] NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR OLMSTED PARKS WORKBOOK Series, Volume 1 BIOGRAPHY Revere Beach, Revere, Massachusetts, ca. 1897 Charles Eliot 1859-1897 HELD IN TRUST: Charles Eliot's Vision for the New England Landscape by Keith N. Morgan NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR OLMSTED PARKS WORKBOOK Series, Volume 1 BIOGRAPHY Charles Eliot 1859-1897 HELD IN TRUST: Charles Eliot's Vision for the New England Landscape by Keith N. Morgan The contributions of Charles Eliot (1859-1897) to the American pro- fessions of landscape architecture and regional planning were applauded by his contemporaries and have been passingly acknowledged by the current genera- tion of environmental historians. 1 His reputation rests on two key accomplish- ments. First, Charles Eliot (Fig. 1) played the seminal role in the establishment of Massachusetts' Trustees of Public Reservations in 1891 which became a model for subsequent conservation and historic preservation organizations here and abroad.² Second, Eliot led the conceptualization and implementation of the Boston Metropolitan Park System from 1892 on, one of the most signifi- cant early developments in the history of regional planning in the United States.3 Even Eliot's mentor, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., writing to his two sons and Eliot in 1893 stated: nothing else compares in importance to us with the Boston work, meaning the Metropolitan quite equally with the city work. The two together will be the most important work of our profession now in hand anywhere in the world. In your probable life-time, Muddy River, Blue Hills, the Fells, Waverley Oaks, Charles River, the Beaches will be points to date from in the history of American Landscape Architecture, as much as Central Park. They will be the opening of new chapters in the art.4 Of the list of landmark projects for the new generation, only Muddy River was not a commission that Eliot instigated and controlled. To appreciate fully the significance, context, and novelty of Eliot's accomplishments, we must compare and contrast the ideals and achievements Fig. 1. Photograph of Charles Eliot, ca. of Eliot with those of F. L. Olmsted, Sr. We need to explore Eliot's personal 1895. experience and education and the Boston/Cambridge social, political, econom- ic and cultural environment from which he emerged and in which he func- Courtesy of Mr. Alexander Goriansky tioned so successfully. The differences between Olmsted and Eliot can be seen in both the language that they used to describe their work and the goals that they held for public landscapes. Olmsted talked about green country parks, parkways and pastoral retreats in which the modern city dweller could restore his spirit through the passive contemplation of nature.5 Eliot discussed reservations, trusteeships and rural landscape preservation that would provide the appropri- ate setting for active communing with nature. In his major urban parks, Olmsted sought to create a visual and physical ideal through the radical and artificial reshaping of the character of the site (Figs. 2 & 3); he held an abstract, intellectual concept of what each park should look like.6 Eliot, however, worked by a process of elimination and by management of resources chosen for their inherent landscape quality (Figs. 4 & 5). The Olmsted park is a land- scape of creation and development; the Eliot landscape is one of choice and improvement. Such broad characterizations of the work of these two men must 1, 2 NAOP WORKBOOK be modified in reference to certain activities-for example, Olmsted's pivotal role in landscape preservation at Yosemite and Niagara Falls, or Eliot's natural- ized reclamation of the industrialized banks of the Charles River. Nevertheless, the distinctions remain valid and instructive. The process of investigating Eliot's background begins with the envi- ronment from which he emerged. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 1, 1859, Eliot was the first of two sons born to Charles W. Eliot, then an assistant professor of mathematics and chemistry at Harvard College, and to Ellen Derby Peabody Eliot.7 On both sides of the family Eliot's ances- tors had included political, social and financial leaders of the Commonwealth since the seventeenth century. Eliot was born with the benefit of privilege and the burden of responsibility clearly imprinted on his life. The most important Fig. 2. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., Muddy early events of his childhood, both of which occurred in 1869, were the death River Improvement, Boston and Brookline, of his mother, which contributed to the shyness and self-doubt that he worked Massachusetts, construction photograph in hard to overcome throughout his life, and the election of his father as the presi- Longwood section, ca. 1892. dent of Harvard University. His father's four decade presidency represents the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National acknowledged emergence of modern higher education at Harvard and for the Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts nation at large. 8 President Eliot organized his faculty into a series of depart- ments, schools and colleges and instituted a liberal curriculum in which the student assumed the major responsibility for the direction of his studies through elective courses. Young Charles entered Harvard in 1879 as many of these changes were being implemented. The same dynamism and breadth of vision that President Eliot showed in his analysis and transformation of Harvard College would be seen later in his son's study and organization of landscape and recreational needs for the entire Boston metropolitan region. While the intellectual community of Harvard College and Cambridge during Charles' undergraduate years was certainly influential, it was the student's activities beyond the university that were more revealing of his future interests. Most significant during these years were the summers the Eliot family spent in Maine at their house near Bar Harbor, sailing along the jagged coast line, and investigating the natural environment of the region During the summers of his final two years at Harvard, Charles Eliot organized and lead a small band of classmates for camping and scientific exploration on Mt. Desert in Maine. Named the Champlain Society, this group of friends, and especially Charles, enjoyed the vigorous life in the woods or on the family boat, just as the tramps through the Connecticut countryside had been so formative in young Olmsted's adolescence in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. One Fig. 3. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., Muddy need only remember that Charles and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who shared an River Improvement, Boston and Brookline, enthusiasm for rugged outdoor life, were contemporaries and spent two years Massachusetts, photograph of Longwood sec- at Harvard together.9 President Eliot reinforced the belief in physical activity tion, ca. 1902. and knowledge of the wilderness, emphasizing this experience as a way of National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National counteracting his older son's melancholic withdrawal. Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts The education of Charles Eliot, however, really began after Harvard. The summers in Maine and his frequent hiking excursions out from Boston in all directions convinced Charles to enter the field of landscape architecture. Since no academic curriculum in landscape design would be established in the United States until after his death, Charles invented his own course of graduate studies. He took advantage of the various offerings at Harvard, especially the Bussey Institute, where he pursued botany and horticulture for most of one year, Through the family network that would remain an essential professional asset, Charles was introduced to Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., by his uncle, the architect Robert Swain Peabody. In April, 1883, Eliot entered the Olmsted office as an apprentice. His mentor had recently established a home and studio at 99 Warren Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. There Charles spent two use- ful years. He benefitted from direct observation of Olmsted's ideas and work- ing method, and rapidly became involved with major office projects, including the Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park and Marine Park, all key elements in the BIOGRAPHY: Charles Eliot 3 Boston municipal park system. 10 The office included John Charles Olmsted, already a partner and office manager, and eventually Henry Sargent Codman, an Eliot contemporary who benefitted from a comparable network of family connections, the most important being his uncle, Charles Sprague Sargent, Director of the Arnold Arboretum. The son of the leading educational theorist of the period, Charles Eliot with his father's help, then developed a plan for his self-education as a landscape architect. After two years with Olmsted, Eliot returned to the Bussey Institute to complete his brief course of study and then embarked upon a year- and-a-half tour of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and of Europe, which lasted from the fall of 1885 to the end of 1886. During the year in Europe, he read the available landscape literature in English, French and German, met many of the leading landscape designers of the period, and visited private gardens, public parks and natural areas from Fig. 4. Charles Eliot, Tree-clogged notch, England to Italy to Russia. He achieved a first-hand knowledge of working Middlesex Fells, Malden and Melrose, practices, plant materials, and design philosophy that was unequalled by any Massachusetts, drawing by Arthur A. Shurcliff, 1897. American at that time. While abroad, he wrote to his family and to Olmsted describing the people he met and places he visited, which led Olmsted to real- National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National ize Eliot's exceptional gifts as a landscape critic. Olmsted wrote enthusiastically Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts to his former apprentice: "You ought to make it part of your scheme to write for the public, a little at a time, if you please, but methodically, systematically. It is a part of your professional duty to do so."12 Olmsted also attempted to lure Eliot back from Europe to rejoin the office and assist in the designs for Stanford University. With gratitude but determination, Eliot chose to com- plete his personal curriculum of European study and to open his own office after his return. 13 While abroad, Eliot was most taken with the English work, quite logically for a student of Olmsted, but he also admired what he saw in Germany, especially the large landscape park of Prince Hermann Ludwig von Pückler at Muskau. Eliot was impressed by Pückler's desire to improve all ele- ments of the environment, from the pleasure grounds surrounding the schloss to the agricultural districts, and even to the industrial zones of the estate. Prince Pückler's writings and the estate at Muskau, which Eliot visited, are clearly the intellectual model for the comprehensive schemes Eliot envisioned for the Boston Basin and New England at large. 14 Upon his return in late 1886, Eliot set himself up in offices in the Fig. 5. Charles Eliot, Opening of view in Amory Ticknor house at 9 Park Street, which had been the residence of his notch of Middlesex Fells, Malden and mother's ancestors. During the next two years, he undertook a series of projects Melrose, Massachusetts, drawing by Arthur A. that demonstrate, on a limited scale, the problems he would address in Boston. Shurcliff, 1897. Representative of these early commissions are his plans for White Park, a gift to the Town of Concord, New Hampshire, and the Longfellow Park and National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Memorial Garden in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both designs project the Eliot Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts landscape philosophy and the importance of the cultural and historical envi- ronment to which they relate. In an article that he wrote for Garden and Forest in 1890, he described the White Park (Fig. 6) and its importance: Every city of the new West may have its carpet bed "park" if it SO wishes, but Concord proposes to seize her opportunity to provide for her citizens and their posterity something very much more valu- able. She will set aside and preserve, for the enjoyment of all orderly townspeople, a typical, strikingly beautiful and very easily accessible bit of New England landscape. Would that every American city and town might thus save for its citizens some characteristic portion of its neighboring country. We should then possess public spaces which would exhibit something more refreshing than a monotony of clipped grass and scattered flower beds.15 Eliot's opposition to the popular practice of carpet-bedding with annuals in urban parks is insignificant here in comparison with his concern for the preser- 4 2kg NAOP WORKBOOK GENERAL PLAN OF WHITE PARK CONCORD N.H. Fig. 6. Charles Eliot, Plan of White Park, Concord, New Hampshire, 1890. [Charles W. Eliot], Charles Eliot. Landscape Architect. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1902. vation of a "strikingly beautiful bit of New England landscape." Smaller in scale but richer in associations was the scheme that Eliot devised in June 1887, as a park memorial (Fig. 7) to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, stretching from the Longfellow house on Brattle Street in Cambridge to the Charles River. Through a series of distinct landscape units, Eliot maintained a visual and historical link between the John Vassall house, (the Georgian mansion where Longfellow had lived), the Charles River, and, ultimately, to the Longfellow marshes across the River-all part of the historical definition of the property. Across Brattle Street from the house, Eliot laid out a greensward like a narrow Common, which connected to a lower and more nat- uralized area on the level of the flood plain of the River, now the site of a mon- ument sculpted by Daniel Chester French. Eliot, of course, would have known "Old Poems," as the Harvard undergraduates called Longfellow, and conceived a design redolent with the Colonial Revival spirit that Longfellow's poetry had helped to inspire. While his family's connections helped to launch Charles Eliot's career in a more rapid and successful manner than others might have enjoyed, those same personal associations endowed these designs with a distinct sense of the local landscape and New England culture. During these early years, Eliot also began to explain his ideas and to admonish the excesses of his contemporaries in lucid articles for Garden and Forest, and other popular and professional periodicals. With titles like, "The Suburbs in March," or "Beautiful Villages," these essays sought to interpret goals and techniques of the landscape architect to a wide audience. 16 Most interesting among these articles is a series of descriptions of major American country houses from the eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, three Fig. 7. Charles Eliot, Preliminary Study of in the Boston area and three along the Hudson River, which must represent Grounds of Longfellow Memorial one of the earliest American efforts at writing landscape history. Representative Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1887. of these essays is one on The Vale (Fig. 8), the Lyman Family estate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Eliot, who was also a descendant of the Lymans, Eleanor M. McPeck, Keith N. Morgan and Cynthia carefully analyzes the evolution of the houses, its gardens and agricultural dis- Zaitzevsky, eds., Olmsted in Massachusetts: The Public tricts. It is in his introduction to the initial article in the series, however, that Legacy. A Pilot Project for a National Inventory. Brookline: Massachusetts Association for Olmsted Parks, he states his true purpose in undertaking these essays: 1983. The rising tide of population has swallowed up the handsome estab- BIOGRAPHY: Charles Eliot 5 1. ENTRANCE CARRIAGE TURN 3. KITCHEN COURT A STABLE 3. GREENHOUSE 6. GARBEAERS COTTAGE 7. PARM BARM & PARM STABLE and Fig. 8. Charles Eliot, Plan of The Vale, the 9. FARM MOUSE OCER-PARK. IQ ROOT HOUSE Lyman estate, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1889. PUBLIC ROAD GRASS-LAMOR HOME PASTURE Charles Elior, "The Vale," Garden and Forest 2 (March, 1889). lishments of Tories and Patriots alike. Boston and her surrounding sister cities grow continually. Farm after farm, and garden after gar- den are invaded by streets, sewers and waterpipes, owners being fair- ly compelled to sell lands which are taxed more and more heavily. Before destruction overtakes the few old seats now remaining, it will be well to make some sort of record of their character and beauty.17 In all these articles there seem to be common threads of importance. Eliot is concerned with the documentation of the estates and, therefore, with the preservation of the cultural content of these sites. Although never fully stated, Eliot was probably also concerned about the regional cultural traditions that these houses represent. There is no indication in Eliot's own writings that these articles or designs like the Longfellow Memorial Garden were intended as rein- forcement for the beleaguered Yankee establishment and as lessons for the Americanization of the burgeoning Boston immigrant population. He was, how- ever, certainly concerned about improving the conditions for the urban poor through his designs for the Boston metropolitan park system, and his father, who became a zealous advocate for park building, clearly saw the Americanization process as one of the major benefits of these democratic spaces. 18 The ideas that Eliot evolved during his period of study abroad and demonstrated in his early designs and writings were crystallized into the most mature and far-reaching proposal in an article for Garden and Forest in February, 1890, entitled, "The Waverley Oaks, A Plan for their Preservation for the People. "19 Here Eliot was dealing with a site that possessed all the value and potential that he considered most important. The Waverley Oaks was a stand of aboriginal trees overlooking a series of ponds and the stream of the Beaver Brook on the border of Belmont and Waltham, Massachusetts. The stream had first been dammed in the late seventeenth century for saw-milling and continued to be used for various light industrial purposes into the nine- teenth century. 20 The ponds and falls had been celebrated in the poetry of James Russell Lowell. The site was the residence of the landscape architect Robert Morris Copeland, whose important 1859 treatise, Country Life, includ- ed the view of the stream and mill wheel from the title page.21 Winslow Homer, when he lived in Belmont during the 1860s, had painted the Oaks (Fig. 9). The Waverley Oaks, therefore, possessed that overlay of cultural assoc- iation with a unique natural resource that Eliot emphasized in his vision for landscape preservation. The Waverley Oaks, and Eliot's concern for their preservation, raise the important, although often denied, issue of the relationship of landscape 6 2 NAOP WORKBOOK painting to landscape architecture. In the third quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury, Boston adopted a strong cultural alliance to contemporary Paris, seen especially in the monumental boulevard of Commonwealth Avenue and the mansard-roofed houses that lined it and adjacent streets in the new Back Bay district of the city.22 Within those houses, many of Boston's leading citizens ornamented their walls with the genre-landscape paintings of the Barbizon group of French artists and the Americans who were inspired by their work. Eliot, as a member of the city's cultural aristocracy, was reared in this environ- ment of Francophilia. The landscapes he sought to preserve, and indeed his image of the New England landscape, were conditioned by this Barbizon vision.23 The Boston artists flocked to the Waverley Oaks (Fig. 10) to find the same kind of primeval forest environment that the Barbizon painters depicted. The type of woodland Eliot sought to preserve contrasts with the kinds of landscapes that Olmsted sought to create. A gentle undulating variation of ground form and light and shadow, still water and rounded planting groups characterize the seventeenth century idealized landscapes of Nicolas Poussin or Claude Le Loraine. These landscape paintings speak of much the same gentle pastoral recreation that Olmsted desired for his passive, restorative spaces. By contrast, Eliot sought to preserve the characteristic and the unique New England landscape-both the unspoiled environment and the landscape that showed man's interaction with his surroundings. Like the canvases of William Morris Hunt, the leader of Boston painters' and patrons' fascination with the Fig. 9. Winslow Homer, Waverley Oaks, 1864. Barbizon image, Eliot's landscapes expressed the primeval conditions of the Courtesy of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, New England countryside and the settings of everyday life. Switzerland. What Eliot proposed in his essay on the Waverley Oaks was a compre- hensive concept of preservation: Within ten miles of the State House there still remain several bits of scenery which possess uncommon beauty and more than usual refresh- ing power. Moreover, each of these scenes is, in its way, characteristic of the primitive wilderness of New England, of which indeed, they are sur- viving fragments [He then proceeds to suggest the establishment of a state commission to oversee metropolitan landscape planning, but sug- gests that:] This end might better be attained by an incorporated associ- ation, composed of citizens of all the Boston towns, and empowered by the state to hold small and well-distributed parcels of land free from taxes, just as the Public Library holds books and the Art Museum pic- tures.2 24 As has been fully documented by several scholars, Eliot moved rapidly from this concept to enlisting the assistance of key supporters like Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Sprague Sargent, to utilizing the base of the Appalachian Mountain Club to launch a state-wide meeting of leading citizens, to the writ- ing and passage of an act by the state legislature establishing the Trustees of Public Reservations. Now known simply as the Trustees of Reservations, this private-sector, not-for-profit organization continues to acquire and maintain lands significant for their natural beauty, unique resources and cultural associa- tions throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. With comparable speed, Eliot turned from the private-sector base of the Trustees to a campaign in 1893 for the creation of the Boston Metropolitan Park Commission by state legislation. In both of these efforts, Eliot displayed his exceptional ability to identify broad problems and develop appropriate, sophisticated and novel solutions, and to mount impressive public education and lobbying campaigns that ensured success. When one contrasts Eliot's effi- ciency and prowess in these schemes with the decades of agonizing frustration that Olmsted endured in his dealings with public officials, one sees again impor- tant distinctions between these two men and their periods. Before discussing the actual program and progress of the Boston Metropolitan Park Commission, however, it is necessary to sketch briefly the context for these events. BIOGRAPHY: Charles Eliot 2 7 The ideal of metropolitan landscape planning was not new to Boston or to Eliot. As early as 1844, in attempting to deal with the Charles River and Back Bay development for Boston, Cambridge and Brookline, a unified park- like development had been proposed. In the early discussions of a park sys- tem for Boston, from 1869 onward, proposals for metropolitan planning con- sistently emerged, such as the schemes of Robert Morris Copeland and his engineering partner, George Wadsworth. Metropolitan landscape planning for Boston, however, did not succeed until the 1890s. Also important in the discussion of Eliot's metropolitan planning ideal is the concurrent history of the conservation movement during the 1880s. The 1885 action of the New York State Legislature in setting aside thousands of acres of the Adirondack Forest as safe watershed district for New York City was preceded on a smaller scale by a comparable act in Lynn, Massachusetts, north of Boston in 1882. 26 The Lynn town fathers and private individuals raised $70,000 for the acquisition of the Lynn Woods, a rugged, forested district that had originally been designated as commonland in the seventeenth century Fig. 10. Charles Eliot, Photograph of the because it was unsuitable for farming. 27 This large forest, which extended into Oaks at Beaverbrook Reservation, Waltham, two adjacent communities, was preserved for both the water quality of its Massachusetts, ca. 1891. reservoirs and as recreation grounds for the factory workers in Lynn, the City of Shoes. National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Key to understanding the reason for the creation of a metropolitan Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts. park system in Boston at this time is the rate of urban expansion-through both rapid population growth and annexation of surrounding communities.28 By the 1890s, the rings of urban/suburban development that pushed north, south and west from Boston were served by an elaborate transportation net- work of railroad, streetcar and subway lines. Through this expanding web of transportation, all levels of society theoretically had access to the entire system of metropolitan parks. Eliot was committed to creating a uniform geographical distribution of park types for all levels of society. After a rapid yet intensive survey of available land within a ten mile radius of the Massachusetts state house, Eliot devised a comprehensive system of parklands for the metropolitan district. These included: 1) ocean-front beaches; 2) harbor islands and beaches; 3) tidal estuaries of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset rivers, emptying into Boston Harbor; 4) woodland reservations from the scale of the fifty-eight acres for Beaver Brook, the reservation contain- ing the Waverley Oaks-which was the first property acquired by the new commission-to immense reserves of thousands of acres, such as the Blue Hills to the south and the Middlesex Fells to the north. The fifth component of this scheme was the playgrounds and urban squares that were deemed the responsi- bility of individual communities, not the metropolitan commission. Characteristic of Eliot's achievements was his transformation of Revere Beach, an unregulated district that was overrun by railroad lines, industrial uses, and shanty-like residences. Eliot possessed both the vision to see the redeemed value of this beach and the power to attack the problem. He and the Metropolitan Park Commission systematically moved the railroad back from the beach and acquired property to permit a uniform public use of the site, enhanced by bathing and eating pavilions and a promenade on the high ground (Fig. 11). While the changes were perhaps more drastic and obvious at Revere Beach than in the other reservations, Eliot demonstrated an ability to set specific goals and achieve them quickly. Conducted under a separate authority but clearly related to the master metropolitan park plans was the municipal park system that Eliot devised for the City of Cambridge. The largest and most important component of this system was the riverfront park designed to stretch from the West Boston Bridge (now the Longfellow Bridge) at the mouth of the Charles River all the way up to the Mount Auburn Cemetery property on the Watertown border. The improvements of the Cambridge side of the Charles River that he accom- plished through this commission he hoped to complete on the Boston side through the Metropolitan Park Commission. Eliot's work with both the Cambridge and Metropolitan park commis- sions displayed his ability to function in a political arena that was changing as rapidly as was the profession of landscape architecture during Eliot's career. In many phases of public activity, the late 1880s and the 1890s were a period of centralization of power and introduction of modern administrative methods. The drive to scientific management seen in municipal administrative reform at this time was the result of comparable, earlier development in business man- agement. 29 The ascendancy of the centralized corporate capitalist system became a model for the large-scale analysis of needs and scientific management of resources that may be seen in municipal reform, in the academic restructur- ing that Eliot's father had implemented, and ultimately even in the compre- hensive, regional landscape preservation program that he himself devised. While Eliot was not always in sympathy with the bottom-line mentality of Fig. 11. Charles Eliot, Revere Beach, Revere, some businessmen on the commissions with which he worked, he understood Massachusetts, ca. 1897. their concerns and seems to have appropriated some of their methods for his system of regional planning. National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, Massachusetts. Despite the advantages of vision, intellect, social position and indefati- gable energy, Eliot did not succeed in all his efforts to establish a regional park system for the Greater Boston Basin. In fact, it was the same isolationist myopia (the unwillingness of one community to cooperate with another, which Eliot had attempted to overcome with the metropolitan park system) that provided his major defeat. In 1892, the year before the passage of the Metropolitan Park Commission Act, Eliot was appointed to the Special Commission on the Improvement of the Charles River Basin. Those who know Boston today perhaps do not realize how relatively recently the Charles River was dammed, converting it from the brackish mix of fresh and salt water alternating with broad expanses of mud flats to a uniform fresh water park. The creation of this central waterpark was Eliot's greatest unrealized dream. It was precisely the political and social power structure that had supported so much of his grand landscape plan that ensured the defeat of the Charles River damming and park development during Eliot's lifetime. Indeed, strong opposi- tion to the development of the Charles River Basin as a park came from the wealthy and powerful property owners along Boston's Beacon Street who feared they would lose their waterview through new development opportuni- ties facing the River or would find their backyards overrun by the immigrant working classes coming to the Charles for recreation. Nevertheless, Eliot's vision for the Charles River Basin, the sources for his ideas, and the methods used to convince his fellow Bostonians provide fur- ther insights into his landscape planning scheme for the entire region. While Boston foresaw no place to develop a "Central Park" comparable to that of New York City, the embankment and improvement of the Charles River Basin had been a dream from the mid-century onward. In the 1890s, Eliot exercised his considerable talents as a writer, publicist and lobbyist to persuade the City of Boston to cooperate in a master plan for the improvement of the Charles River. In his 1892 report for the Charles River Commission he made convinc- ing descriptions of the civic pride, sanitation, recreation, and real estate devel- opment that would surely emerge from the cleaning of the River and the improvement of the riverbanks. In addition to the objections of the Beacon Street residents, there was an assumption that the tidal flow of the Charles acted as scourer for Boston Harbor, a myth that the most sophisticated scienti- fic reports found hard to negate. But Eliot introduced in his report pho- tographs and descriptions of the Alster Basin in Hamburg, Germany (Fig. 12) which ultimately became the model for the development of the Boston side of the Charles River shoreline by Charles Eliot's protege Arthur Shurcliff in the 1920s and 1930s. 30 BIOGRAPHY: Charles Eliot 9 Charles Eliot died of meningitis in the spring of 1897. In 1893, he had been convinced to join in the establishment of a new firm under the name of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot. He had constantly assumed a larger percentage of the responsibilities of the Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot office while continu- ing his heavy commitment to the Cambridge Park Commission and the Metropolitan Park Commission. One of Eliot's final accomplishments is really an icon for all his efforts. In his last year, he directed a team of engineers, botanists and landscape architects in an exhaustive survey of the resources of the Metropolitan Park System and in the formulation of guidelines for the management and enhancement of these reservations. Published posthumously in 1898 for the Metropolitan Park Commission, Vegetation and Scenery in the Metropolitan Reservations of Boston is the clearest summary of Eliot's method of comprehensive analysis and organization on which to base planning for the Fig. 12. The Alster Basin, Hamburg, open space and recreation needs of a region. 31 Perhaps overwhelmed by the sci- Germany, ca 1892. entific and bureaucratic format of this publication is the underlying goal of Eliot's life, the reservation of those unspoiled elements of the New England Report of the Charles River Basin Commission. Boston, 1902. landscape and his visionary plan for their preservation for the people. In summary, Eliot's ideals and accomplishments can be understood in three ways. I) He articulated in both his writings and his projects the need for and the methods to ensure the preservation of rural and wilderness areas that possess resources of natural and cultural significance and that can be actively experienced as an antidote to the emotional and mental pressures of modern urban life. 2) His work is a definite reflection of reformist goals of turn-of-the-cen- tury Americans, especially Bostonians, and represents the same striv- ing for clear order based on thorough knowledge, and the centraliza- tion of power in the hands of enlightened professionals, that can be seen in American business, governmental and educational reform during his brief lifetime. 3) Finally, Eliot's vision for the New England landscape is a fascinating personal amalgam of Olmstedian inheritance, English and German landscape theory, the Barbizon School of landscape painting, a sensi- tivity to the character of the New England cultural landscape, and the enthusiastic outdoorsman, among other threads, while it retains a comprehensiveness and logic as timely and instructive as it was a cen- tury ago. In a chapter entitled "Growth Invincible" from his 1906 book, The Future in America, H. G. Wells contrasts recent visits to New York and Boston: If possible it is more impressive, even, than the crowded largeness of New York, to trace the serene preparation Boston has made through this (Metropolitan Park) Commission to be widely and easily vast. New York's humanity has a curious air of being carried along upon a wave of irresistible prosperity, but Boston confesses design. I suppose no city in all the world has ever produced SO complete and ample a forecast of its own future as this commission's plan of Boston. 32 What Wells saw around Boston was representative of what Eliot had envisioned. Although it was not as consciously designed a landscape as other contemporary park making, Eliot's ideas clearly "confess design" and attempt to forecast a future not only for Boston but for the region as well. 10 NAOP WORKBOOK FOOTNOTES 1. The most important basis for information on Eliot is the biography published by his father: [Charles W. Eliot], Charles Eliot. Landscape Architect... (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1902). A more recent summary of Eliot's life and work is found in Norman T. Newton, Design on the Land. The Development of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 318-336. See also, E. Lynn Miller, "Charles Eliot" in William H. Tishler, ed., American Landscape Architecture: People and Places (Washington: The Preservation Press, 1989). 2. Eliot's conception of a private board of trustees established to accept or acquire real proper- ty of natural, scenic or historic significance was a clear precedent for the establishment of the National Trust in Great Britain in 1895 and ultimately for our own National Trust in 1949. 3. Surprisingly, historians of American urban and regional planning have not understood Eliot's influence as clearly as landscape historians. For example, compare Cynthia Zaitzevsky's attention to Eliot in her excellent monograph, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982; especially chapter 3, "The Boston Park Movement") with The American Planner. Biographies and Recollections, edited by Donald A. Krueckeberg (New York and London: Methuen, 1983). Even given Krueckeberg's larger spectrum, he only briefly notes Eliot's partnership with Frederick Law Olmsted and John Charles Olmsted, his influence as a career model for the influential John Nolen, and his relationship to his nephew, Charles W. Eliot, II, landscape architect and regional planner. 4. Letter, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., to his partners (John Charles Olmsted, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Charles Eliot), Biltmore, North Carolina, October 28, 1893, Frederick Law Olmsted Collection, Manuscript Division- Library of Congress, Washington, DC (hereinafter referred to as the Olmsted Collection). 5. For a concise description of Olmsted's landscape philosophy, see: Charles E. Beveridge, "Frederick Law Olmsted's Theory of Landscape Design," 19th Century 3, no. 2 (Summer, 1977), 38-43. 6. The modern literature on Olmsted's work as a landscape architect is large and growing. The most reliable biography is by Laura Woods Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). Useful for illustrations and plans of Olmsted landscapes is Julius Gy. Fabos, Gordon T. Milde and V Michael Weinmayr, Frederick Law Olmsted. Sr.. Founder of Landscape Architecture in America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968). For Eliot's designs, see: Eliot, Charles Eliot, passim. 7. Biographical information on Eliot's parents and ancestors can be found in either the biog- raphy by his father or Henry James, Charles W. Eliot. President of Harvard University. 1869-1909 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1930), passim. 8. Analysis of Charles W. Eliot's contributions as an educator and public figure can be found in Hugh Hawkins, Between Harvard and America. The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972). 9. Several biographies of Roosevelt stress and document the importance of camping and hunt- ing expeditions for the future president, including David McCullough's Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981) which also includes a relevant and useful chapter on Harvard in the later 1870's. BIOGRAPHY: Charles Eliot 2 11 10. For a discussion of Olmsted's projects during this period and Eliot's involvement, see: Zaitzevsky, Olmsted and the Boston Park System, passim. and 131-132. 11. Newton, Design on the Land, provides initial information on many of these younger mem- bers of the Olmsted office, especially in his chapter on the founding of the American Society of Landscape Architects. 12. Letter, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., to Charles Eliot, October ,1886, Olmsted Collection. Earlier in this letter, Olmsted wrote: I know that you will feel more than most men what you owe to your pro- fession- that is to "the cause." I mean beyond the zealous pursuit of it. In one way I wish to give you my opinion, derived from reading your letters chiefly, that you are able to serve it better than any living English writing man Perhaps better than any other man now writing. The letters between Olmsted and Eliot during the years that the latter was abroad show the strong affection and respect that these men shared for each other. Some of these letters are partially reproduced in chapters 4-10 of Charles W. Eliot's biography of his son. 13. This effort to entice Eliot back to Brookline to assist on the Stanford designs is document- ed in a three-way correspondence between Olmsted, Charles Eliot and President Eliot from June 8-27, 1886, Olmsted Collection, Library of Congress. 14. Eliot read Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Puckler-Muskau's Andeutungen uber Landschaftsgartnerei, verbunken mit der Beschreibung ihrer praktischen Anwendung in Muskau (Stuttgart: Hallberger's Verlagshandlung, 1834) during his time in England and wrote "Muskau- A German Country Park" for Garden and Forest 4 (January 28, 1891), 38-39. 15. Charles Eliot, "White Park, Concord, New Hampshire," Garden and Forest 3 (August 13, 1890), 390, reprinted in Eliot, Charles Eliot, 230-233. 16. Garden and Forest. A Journal of Horticulture. Landscape Gardening and Forestry, to which Eliot-was a frequent contributor, was "conducted" in Boston by Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum. Ironically, its decade existence corresponds almost exact- ly to the period of Eliot's professional career. The magazine unfortunately ceased publica- tion after its editor, William Augustus Stiles, died in October, 1897. For this crucial decade in the development of the profession of landscape architecture, however, Garden and Forest is a singularly important measure of the ideas and ideals of the emerging profession. 17. Charles Eliot, "The Gore Place," Garden and Forest 2 (February 20, 1889), 86. 18. Charles W. Eliot wrote profusely on the importance of liberty to a democracy and the importance of individual accomplishment. One of the few areas in which he saw the need for collective action was in park making. His biography of his son is only one indication of the central importance he gave to the park movement in Boston and nationally. Following his son's death, he was instrumental in introducing a graduate curriculum in landscape architecture at Harvard, asking Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Arthur Shurcliff, two Eliot proteges to direct the program. 19. Charles Eliot, "The Waverley Oaks," Garden and Forest 3 (March, 5, 1890) 117-118; reprinted in Eliot, Charles Eliot, 316-318. 20. For further information on the development of the Beaverbrook Reservation and on the use of the property from the seventeenth century onward, see: Eleanor McPeck, Keith Morgan and Cynthia Zaitzevsky, eds., Olmsted in Massachusetts: The Public Legacy, A Report of the Inventory Committee of the Massachusetts Association for Olmsted Parks '12 2kc NAOP WORKBOOK (Brookline: Massachusetts Association for Olmsted Parks, 1983), 1-7. 21. Robert Morris Copeland, Country Life: A Handbook of Agriculture. Horticulture and Landscape Gardening (Boston: Jewett, 1859). Before moving to Belmont, Copeland lived in Lexington and practiced landscape gardening. In 1855, he formed a partnership with Horace William Shaler Cleveland in Boston offering services in "landscape architecture and ornamental gardening." Copeland & Cleveland were unsuccessful entrants in the 1857 competition for the design of Central Park in New York City, and their partnership seems to have dissolved around the time of the Civil War. Cleveland subsequently served as the landscape architect for the South Park Commission in Chicago and for the Minneapolis Park Commission. Relatively little is known about Copeland's subsequent work. 22. Bainbridge Bunting, Houses of Boston's Back Bay. An Architectural History 1840-1917 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), chapter 5, discusses the influence of contemporary French culture on Boston architecture and culture. 23. For an analysis of the Barbizon fascination among Boston collectors, see: Carol Troyen, The Boston Tradition. American Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston (New York: American Federation of the Arts, 1980), 21-27. 24. Eliot, "Waverley Oaks," 318. 25. The development of the Cambridge side of the Charles River basin has been documented by Therese Alduino, "Parks, Politics and City Planning. The Design of the Cambridge River Front, 1893-1909," unpublished senior thesis, Fine Arts Department, Harvard University, 1984, passim. 26. Frank Graham, Jr. Man's Dominion. The Story of Conservation in America (New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1971). See also: Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). 27. Sylvester Baxter, Lynn's Public Forest. A Hand-book Guide to the Great Woods Park in Lynn (Boston: Author's Mutual Publishing Company, 1891). 28. Although he focuses on the process of suburban growth in only Dorchester, Roxbury and West Roxbury, Sam Bass Warner, Jr., provides a method for analysis of this development in Streetcar Suburb. The Process of Growth in Boston (1870-1900) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). 29. Municipal reform and the professionalization of the civil servant has been chronicled by Jon C. Teaford in The Unheralded Triumph. City Government in America 1870-1900 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). Teaford discusses the contributions of Olmsted, Cleveland and Eliot in his chapter 9, "Creating a Humane and Ordered Environment." 30. In June, 1930, Arthur Shurtleff had his named changed legally to Arthur Shurcliff. The second spelling has been used throughout this article for consistency. 31. Charles Eliot, Vegetation and Scenery in the Metropolitan Reservations of Boston. A Forestry Report Written by Charles Eliot and Presented to the Metropolitan Park Commission. February 15. 1897 by Olmsted. Olmsted & Eliot (Boston, New York and London: Lamson, Wolffe and Company 1898. 32. H. G. Wells, The Future in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1906), 49. I thank my former colleague, Cecelia Tichi for bringing this discussion to my attention. TIME IS RIPE. Boston Daily; Oct 5, 1891; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Boston Globe (1872 1901) pg. taken the first step in the appointment of 10/5/1891 TIME IS RIPE. commission, towards recuring such land. But the following cities and towns have done absolutely nothing. Their population. valuation and rate of taxation is given in bhow their relative importance in those and tow which have done -ome- thing "Greater" Boston Should Extend Its Parks. Breathing Places Demanded for 1:10 10.00 $20,794,779 $17.60 People. 12119 WIT trop 124 INCREASE 11,003 7,640,550 14:0 afford 11,070 17 00 Wal. field 1,412 1600 Which atter 4.461 4667.055 17 70 Other Large Cities Way Arlington. 5,100 15.20 J'am ib 2.1.18 11 60 Watertown 7,073 7,237,000 1420 Walthron 18707 1,210,714 1400 Ahead of Us. Hyde Pitch 10 193 7,470,112 1510 18.00 sur impacott ii, 150,000 10 141 Naham holl 4,503,611 630 Most of the cities and towns without Mr. Eliot's Plan and What It parks are located in what might be termed the field and tree district. in contradistinc- tion to Boston But they are all growing. Would Have Done. and every year one or more hundred acres are swallowed by the enlarging municipali- ties. It is on this very matter that Mr. Eliot wrote the letter to which n reference is Natural Advantages Make Great made in the beginning of this article. In that letter he suggests that the Legislature of next year should create one general Things Possible. board of commissioners endowed with power to take lands for park purposes in any of the municipalities which compose "greater" Boston. Ho writes: These cities and towns pos- When a Parisian tires of asphalt and pay- EC33 1,000,000 inhabitants and more than ing stones and bricks: when ne, instead, $1.000.000,000 worth of taxed property. longs for fields and wouds, he has but to The whole district needs to reservo at once numerous small plots of land for squares turn his face from the haunts of business 10 and breathing places. and for country be greeted by the open portals of armed parks not the Blue Hills only. but the Fells Vincennes or fashionable Loulogne. and some other wild lands as well. These needed reservations will never be secured He can yip his classt in the shade of the unless the several municipalities will units trees of Meudon. inhale his cigaretto 'mid for the purpose. the glories of Napoleonic St. Cloud. or "Let the next Legislature frame an act dream of the glories of departed royalty at naming a metrovolitan park commission quaint Vermilles. and giving it power to take lands regardless of town and city boundaries. Let the act As near to him as is the river side to us is provide money for the purchase of lands by the Inmous forest of St. Germain. so larro means of a State loan, to be ropaid in 50 that the combined acroage of Cambridge. years by the interested towns. Then Jet the act provide that it shall take effect and the Somervillo, Belmont and Arlington does commission come into existence only when not much more than oqual it; n forest re- a majorny of tho VOLOS cast at special elec- Downed ns an inheritance from royalty. the tions held in these municipalities shall be king's hunting ground, now the people's 'yes' vote: A tax lovied on a growing thousand mil- pleasure ground. lions at the rate of one-tenth of n mill on n For these health spots in or about hustling. dollar. would in 50 years yield more than lifo-destroying Paris the Fronchmen are in- enough to pay off: loan of $5,000,000 spant debted to their kings. in the purchase of lands today. Across the channel is London. winch has Five Millions Would Today given up to breathing places acres, hold buy sites for at least 50 squares, averaging against all encroachments of business and five acros together with 10,000 acres of wild as valuable as gold. lands, distributed between the Folls, the When n Londoner wearies of the stilfo for Blue fills and other quarters. another tenth life daily enacted about him Victorin Park, of a mill on overy dollar would provide or Regents Park, or llydo Park, or Battersee $100,000 a year for maintenance. Thus Park are for his recreation. ensily can 'groater' Boston BLVD, if she will, If the day 19 all his OWN, for n small faro her reputation as the most beautiful and he can ride for 10 uniles on the wonderful enlightened oity in America." Thance, smoke pipo mid the botanical In explaining his ideas, Mr. Eliot said to collections of Kow, have n mug nt Bashey, THE GLORE man that he has had in mind and loiter in the picturegallery nt Hampton for years his notions on metropolitization court. The many cities and towns included within the proposed boundaries were each trying. If lie would n greater country have, 15 in their own way. to obtain park lands. but miles riding on the West Side brings him were getting along in that undertaking very to the 13,000 acres of Windsor's great park, slowly. Those park lands already acquired once the sporting ground of William the were all very well in their way, but were not what they should be to be in accord Conqueror: eight miles ride on tho East with what the future promises to the neigh. Side brings him to the 6000 acros of Epping borhood of Boston. forest. The acreage of park land is not in any As in France, so in England. All the parks way sufficient. There is already R popula- that the ucopic are thanktul for are tion of 1.000,000 residing in the group of municipalities adjacent to Boston. and that Due to Coyalty's Passion number is going to be much increased. for hunting. When we ask why the towns embraced in How does Boston compare with these this district do not succeed in obtaining park lands faster than they do. and why great citios? they do not obtain the spots most remark- Mr. Charles Eliot, 50 State st., has three able for their scenery, we find that majs, which in this connection are of the it is largely because under the greatest interest. They show the park sy3- park act the towns can only take for parks land within their respective limits. More- items of the three cities, the parks being over. few towns are willing to take for representeú on the maps in green. parks lands lying anywhere near their Boston is 10 the others in the sire and limits. because they fear that the neighbor- number of these green spots as a drop of Ing town will enjoy the park more than ink would bott n heavy splatter. they who pay for it. These mans are the result in part of n It appears, therefore, that the present courso of investigations which Mr. Eliot method will not suilice to obtain for this has been making as to what may be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. have been clearly sot forth .in a letter. the publication of which excited much favor- body capable of taking lands for parks with- nible comment. out regard to town boundaries can so obtain "Greator" Boston now has its only exist- the desirable lands. This is the reason of the desiro expressed in several anarters for once on paper. a general park commission. endowed with So it was with the present Boston before power to take land for parks within the the city broadened and included Dorchester, limits of the towns surrounding Boston. To Charlestown, Roxbury and Jamnica Pinku. "Greater" Boston must be! do this would be comparatively easy now; in the years to come it will become more Municipalities either grow or decay. and more difficult. With us there are no indications of the latter. make the stem "Greater" Boston means many changes, in the world. There is n commission ap- and from many changes strange things Harpen. pointed. upon which Gov. Russell honored Public squares. ino with n place, to devise some scheme for Public parks. improving the Charles river from Charles Public grounds. town bridge to the head of tide water in Those are the lungs of thickly-sottled Watertown. The schemo already in the communities. and the necessary spaces should be reserved at once, while they can public mind includes handsomo driveways be lind nt first price. along both banks of our only maiestic river. We have got the Blue Hills of Milton, Land in "Greater Boston" the highest lands on the Atlantic coast from will not be so chonp as in lesser Boston. Maine to Mexico. North of the city are the St. Germain, Windsor, Epping, Vincennes. Middlesex Fells. offering wilderness effects. Leading from the city in every direction St. Cloud and the other delightful pleasure are the valleys of salt and fresh water grounds would be wellnight an impossibil. streams. which are certain to, be ocoupied fty If tho purchase of them were to be in disagreeable and unhealthful ways if not begun today. taken for park purposes, Then there is the grandeur ot the ocean on the east. So much has been said and written of Mr. Sylvester Baxter, in writing of Mr. Boston's park system that the inference is Eliot's proposed system. said: very natural that in comparison with other Under metropolitan management n chain cities it, to use n very forcible term, IS "not of pleasure grounds might at a compar- in 11. While Boston has not done much to atively slight (expense, be laid out around boast of, still the fact romains that it is the city to the northward and westward. two-thirds boasting. Somo of the smaller forming a continuous communication from parks of other cities are each large enough Lynu bench around to a connection with to include within their boundaries our the southern? system, the whole forming, whole park system and yet have several together with the present system, one of the acres to spare. grandest park systems in the world. How big n follow will this Boston of the The general line of this system might be future be. and how largo a pair of lungs formed upon the basis of the range of hills will his health require extending from Lynn around to Newton. It's a positivo prediction that there will with n generally southerly aspect, and resido within its confines n million and a presenting unsurpassed sites for pleasant half of people. dwelling places. These hills are mostly Mr. Eliot realizes that what could be woodland. and wherever the grand park- done with hundreds of thousands of dollars way that should follow this course with n today would be impossible with as anany series of most enchanting and varied pros- millions n few years hence. So it is desirn- peets. oncountered an area blo to acquire the land now to provido for the health and happiness of the people. Suitable for n Recreation Ground. 'Greater' Boston will comprise all the the nature of the landscape is usually such cities and towns lying within a radius of 10 that it could most appropriately be treated miles from the State House. Very few of the municipalities included in "grenter' in a simple. attractivo and very inexpensive Boston have done anything in the way of manner. similar to that adopted for the providing parks. Lynn woods. Malden has voted to ncquire land for park "The colebrated region of the Middlesex purposes, but is delaying to awnit the ap- pointment of park commissioners. Fells would thus be included 113 the metro- Why this is as it is, has not been generally politan park system, and the long and earn- explained. estly sought means for reserving this wild Melroso is all right. and beautiful area for public use would in The town has Sewall's woods, a thickly this way be presented. As this territory wooded area of between 10 and 20 acres. contains three important sources of water Given some attention. Sewall's woods would supply-Spot pond and the two great reser- soon provide a delightful retreat. voirs constructed by the town of Winches- Bear Hill, at Sioneham, could with a ter-its preservation in a natural state be- small expenditure be saved for a reserva- comos doubly important. tion. "Other important features of the metro- Woburn Fools so Proud politan park system would naturally be of Rumford park that of course it's to be located around Mystic pond in Medford, expected that its park system will be en- Winchester and Arlington Spy pond and larged soine day. the Menotomy hills in Arlington, also in the picturesquo woodland surroundings of Wealthy Nowton is not doing ns well as Woburn, and of Waltham at Prospect from the character of the residents the city Last, and of very great importance would might be expected to do. This is part ex- como the mountain-like Blue hill range in plained by the town still being encircled by Milton. Although the greatest elevations trees and fields. But how long will this be in eastern Massachusetts, wild in character so? Only a few years more, In all proba- and commanding views of the const and in- bility. land countries so wide reaching and Then there is wealthy Brookline. Its peo- variedly beautiful that, were they 1000 pie are of the same character as those of miles away instead of within 10 miles of Newton. But Brookline beheves in parks. Boston's City Hall, they would be famous The more they have, the better they like it. and resorted to by tourists. The Blue hills and so its park commissioners are spending are fanuliar, except distance, to but lats of money in reclaiming and beautifying surprisingly minute fraction of the popula- the marshes and unused lands on the line tion of Boston. of the Brookline brauch of the Boston & It IS not generally known that tho Blue Albany railrond. Hmls form the highest land near the ocean Milton is noted for its handsome privato on the eutire Atlantic coast of the United grounds, and it is possibly because of those States between Mt. Agamenticus in south- many handsome grounds that its board of orn Maine and the mouth of the Rio park commissioners has dono nothing as Grande. The character of the Blue lulls IS yet towards securing lands for park pur- such that, with the organization of the metropolitan park commission they would po-us. Quancy may boast that it has been and form the most suitable location for n great still IS the home of statesmen. but it can also public forest. to boadmunistered ou the same boast that the piece of land which was taken practical and scientifici principles as the for park purposes has never been improved. city forest of Zurich in Switzerland-the Lynn seems fully aware that Dr. Nature Sibl Wold-and those of other European should be provided with a good residing municipalities. becoming a source of viace to be at hand always to care for the revenue to the city treasury as well ns of city's health. So 2500 acres of woods and récreation to the people who here would delly. hills and valleys. pastures and streams find the same health-giving mountain air have been saved from the iuroads of busi- nt the city's doors that many go hundreds new and shoemaking enterprises. There of miles to enjoy. IS fame for the Lynn park commissioners With the Blue hills made a feature of in the improvement of this noble public the metropolitan park system frequent and forest the largest municipal public plensure rapid means of transit thither would he ground in the United States outside of provided, and with the establishment for Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. In the eutertainment, including a model sanita- iorests rocky heights are numerous, rium. they would become a popular resort from which an excellent VIEW of H brond, for thousands, and afford an invaluable wild landscape can be had. Everything source of health and pleasure to many who that enters into natural beauty there could devote neither the time nor the abounds-sea woods, ponds, boulders. clifis, monov required for distant mountain jour- ravines. It is penctrated by roads and foot- noys. paths and is only 15 munnes ride by horse cars from the city. Cambridge has begau its park work by laying out n driveway around Fresh pond, Small as is the beginning made by the towns enumorated above. it is Way in Advance, of what has been dono by a majority of the towns and cities Included within the limits of "greater" Boston. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2/2/93 BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT. THURSDAY. F METROPOLITAN PARKS. joined thereto by a bridge. the right tn estate xratam: the noble rangu of the Blan Hilla. Itah which already exists. The FA plantations of trees, both deciduous and Them bills are the most craspicuods eleva 68 evergreen. that mark this island. Aid tions in this part of Maniachunotis. An exam. The Commission's Report to the to greatly to 119 beauty and attractivation, ination shows that it would be famible. at ty Legislature. Apple Island. off East Boston. and Bumpkin 1. moderate expense. in form a reservation here step on land, in Hingham Bay. are also mentioned as that ahonld include practic tbentire ranza F in desirable places. While almost uninhabited the southerly riope. The great fault of the hav. from & landscape streets st They Want to Make a Loan of $1,000,000 from its nearness in Bostoil and the cheapness point or view, lies in the barran aspect of its 18 of its land. is liable to abuse, as instanced in sinn in -Middlesex Fells and the Blue Hills Islands and shorey. unrelleved. except in rare ly the various nuisances In the shape of piegerian instances. by any trees, or even shrubbery Should be Purchased Immediately-Harbor that have been established throughout the ir These islands and shores were formerly will wood". which have proved a source of great eth, in and Inland Scenery Both Considered in a clothed with woods, which were cut away in 10 vexation to the people of Quincr. An element the colonial days The subject of the restora who General Scheme. of abiding value. in reservation of this char. in tion of this trun-covering⑇O far ns practicable actor. with its pure, mountain-like air. each as get ou n and advisable, was considered in a most in- may be breathed several handred feet above 10 structive and interesting way in an annual pe. the sea level. "The life history of humanity has proved y port of the Boston Park Commissioners. in In the management of inland water the man. kiss is nothing more clearly than that crowded popu. which Mr. Olmated. the famous landscape ar- it ner in which Wakefield has developed the lations, if they would live health and happi. chitect. points to the remarkable Q4A made of Prov: beautima of Lake Quannapowitt with its border - ness, must have space for air, for light. for exer- Boston Bay for recreative purposes, showing ink park is greatly extrailed or other beautiful ter as a that, with the possible exception of Vanice, the d cise. for reat. and for the enjoyment of that watersin the region in question the report cites break! people of no other city in the world have made Jamaica Pond, Freah Pond is Cambridge. peaceful beanty of nature which. because it in such good UAA of their harbor. otherwise than r Chestnut Hill reservoir. Sloice and Flax Ponda the opposite of the noisy ugllness of towns, is commercial, as those of Boston have long been in Lynn. L and Swain's Ponds in Meirrise. Win the 1u 1. 60 wonderfully refreshing to the tired ROULS of accus(hmed to (10. This report the secretary wr and Wedge Ponda in Winchester. Spy Pond 9 heartily approves. townspeople Experience keeps n dnar school. in Arlington, Hammond's Pond in Newton and did n :- South and North Shores. Horn Pond In Woburn. Mr. but fools will learn in no other.' said Benjamin f Treating of the South Shore, the promontory This occupation of the bighways by street Franklin. Shall Franklin's birth place play railways and heavy traffic. and the fact that gashe. f the fool's part?" The Board of Metropoll. of Squantum 14 highly praised and n suggestion women and children can no lonzer drive with I tan Park Commissioner has marlo its first made that in connection with a aewerage out danger over mors of the roads in the paleb. report to the Legislature This 14 one tem a causeway might lin made across Dorches borthood of Boaton RY they could un in within n : few years, leads Mr. Baxter to advocate a law W 1 of the warnings in its official pamphlet ter Bay from Calf Pasture. This causeway similar to the Illinois boalerard law. This prix could form a st attractive feature of the Boa- paias t The report is handsomely illustrated, with vides that heavy teaming may be kept off ces. ton park system. by carrying a parkway con. r tain ALTHACS by obtaining the consent of a ms. with upward of thirty half-tone reproductions of nected with the Boxton parkways that are de- jority of the abutters. 8 photographs of the principal landscape features signed to connect with the Marine Park by way sugar of the shore of the old harbor across in Squan- A Need of Boulevards. in the Metropolitan District There are some tuni, to a connection with the proposed Ominey views s howing the bad effects of unconsidered While the southern portion of the metro Télegraph Hill in Hall and Nantasket Am: real estate development and private occupancy Beach are named as valuable points and in a politan system seems reasonably well provided Bi: of picturesque places. All the aketchen are more remote period sections of the water fronts with good roads, when we turn to the region Ame: direct reproductions. One two views of the of Hingham. Wevinouth and Braintree. north of the Charles, we find a deplorable The action of Winthrop is RIVAIL as 2 deficiency in respect to pleasant and conven- still Thames and Brighton. England,are also shown, type of a short-nighted policy. Salt water lies 10118 means of connection between the sabarban have and there is A frontispiece by Roas Turner. on three sides of the town. and it has a striking. ly varied and extensive shore. Bold uplands communities and the city proper. There is at Cock The commissioners' own report opens the command magnificent views of sea and land present absolutely no such connection. unlean volume. It calls attention to the excellent re- in all directions. and between are many please we may except the approach. by the way of ports of their secretary, Mr. Sylvester Baxter. ant sites for dwellings. Yet the uplands have, some of the less frequented streets in Cam want and their landscape artist. Mr. Samuel Eliot, of for the most part, been NO occupied as nearly in bridge, from Harvard Square and the region beyond to the wealwar-1 and northward and teamic which they say they are attractive, and have destroy their utility for the community as whole, And the abore front has alan been occu. Harvard Bridge The two bridges across the let much to recommend them. Tho projects out. pied chiefly to the temporary Advantage of the Charles River to Charlestown, and the Che:sea tion limed in these documents can best engage here. private few and the parmanent detriment of Malden and Middlesex indice ACCOR the Mystic, together with the approaches br way of M alter the attention of the perinanent commis- the public many. The residents of thom nessis. borhoods may eventually be permanently Medford, form practically the only direct route the U. sioners. The scheme proposed cannot be car- shut out from ACCENS to the shore. and from to the city proper from any portion of the ried out in its entirety at once; nor, in the opin- metropolitin district between Lynn and sarri ion of the commissioners. would it I'n their present invaluable prompeds over the either wise or economical to hurry it water. Much of the Winthrop shore alone by Winchester This is today the most life's Winthrop Head and Grover Cliff '9 practically rapidly growing section of the district, The present board would therefore reat satin. free in the public as it now stands. a fortunate and it hardly need to mali that IS 18 Mad with submitting A Keneral plan, and pro- circumstance. detrimental, both in the interesta of Boston IC viding the machinery for deliberately entering on the work of carrying that plan out in such Ravere. as the nearent ocean-side pleasure wall An of those northerly communities. which ground for a population numbering half A Include noine of the mom attractive natural was as may hereafter be found most expedient and practical, did not recontobservation satisfy million-that 14 for the north-eartern part of feature. in the surroundines. thus to be cus of from pleasant incans of approach The and them that. in MONIA respects, any further delay the Metropolitan system-should be taken in may involve more irreparable injury and great hand to make its beach what 14 capable of gente: preasure drive down the Mustic Valiey. becoming for the great public. A seaside drive joining the Ch-iser Britige at the Narm Hospit I lv increase future expense In the opinion of 1/1A commissioners, immediate action in desira. and promenade extending from the Boston tal grounds. would go far towards providing connection that easily neight be made xi the one of the attractive approxches needed is hin towards securing the Middlesex Fells and southerly end of the beach. alone 81) the Point section. Some more assecable war. however. The the Bine Hills Forest, and they accordingly of Pines and thence across the mouth of the of greating across Charlestown would Wb recommend for passage a bill to the following Sancus River.in connection with the large in de devised. Possibly the privilege of drive. purport: urban population of Ivvn. inside of the Navy Yari wall, inp light The Bill Advorted by the Commission. Lvnn's enlighted policy in securing an orean traffic. might ha secured from the National To That a board of five commissioners, without alde tarrare and the Lvnn Wixxia 19 commend (Government Than there would only remain od. This great woodland recervation of more the ahort nection letween the Narr Yard and salaries, appointed by the Hovemner be estab- than two thousand acres serves the pursume of the heart of the city to no taken care of, and this listed with jurisdiction over the cities of Hos. a rrand public pleasure ground. Incidentally to might in accomplished per some such Repart- of the street traffic of Boston according w THEA ton. Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett. Lynn. Mal. the protection of the water supply of the city, requirements for heary commercial teaming Picay den. Medford. Newson, Quincy. Somerville. and formishes a talling example of what can be Waltham and Webnre, and the to wnn of Ar. easily and economically accomplished in with and light vehicles. as 1.89 been discussod by she lington. Pelmont. Braintran. Brookline, Canton. partn of the metropolitan district. supplier Rapid Commission most vainable recreation ground. of character new or parkway. connecting the in 4 11:, Dedham, Hingham. Hall. Hvdle Park, Malrose, Minillesex Felis with the CILY imper. either by I'icay Milton. Nabant, Needham Revere, Saugus, that CALL be unaintained at the minimum of "I taking advantament of or laying Stoneliam, Swampacott Wakefield, Water. perion. A I's Swampscott. adjacen: in the Ivon board out. for agreas extens acrose unoccupied lan town, Wellmar Western Weymouth, Win. new thorouchfare. would be very 1050 lan cheater and Wanthrop: [11 acquire. maintain dary, is a line stretch of beach at present lar." Some way of crossing Somerville loan. and make available to the inhabitants open ly occupled by 11411 housen and other unaightly spaces for and recreation: that theom constructions. A project 10 under considers and Cambridge to the Harvant Bridge and the Sh commissioner< may 199110 acript for $1,000,000. tion in Swampacott for require 11 for public Back section of Billion. an weil an the in 1.0 taken annual payments it propor- purposes. Ivon Bearli and Little Nahant grand to the City's main part system anything tion to be suttle by communication appointed Beach, briwnell the promotitory of Little Nn. beroud, could probably in devised in this con- He Such an approach to the CITY would fain valu each nvo years by the Supreme Court, Boston, han and 1110 main peninsula, balonk to the of to communities like Mai however. to DAY fifty per cent of the cost for town of Nabant. Themes two have the exomptional advantum of progressive donlin diff. Malrime. Halford. Stoneham Wincheaser the first five years. That tim expenses of maintainence I'm limited ulter the first ahore lines. the miller beacher bordering Boaton Woburn and while be joiniox It can make with n parkway down the Mystic Valley. hears the year to $20,000 par annum: that the bay and Lynn harber. han 1.0011 suggested. 18 would also be of ans. promise towns and cities be allowed to aurrender Inland Siten Worthy of virn to Everell, Chelsea and the communities York 11r: their parks to the commission that certain pro Turning inland there are mentioned In the bryond Still another important pleasure route visions has made for trust funds and ot her minor mishe I'm devised. connecting Man Braton by W: detailm. valley of the Sauxns River Pranker's Pond. and the way of Won.1 Orient Haishie and course It Mr. Sylventor Planter in his report in the com "Appleton's Public (where, according to tradi. Beachmont with Korem Beach. and thus Kiv. sign the missioners of tion, in the curlv days of the colony Major An ing A approach to Lron, Swampools near. and Shasituation, itm CRISSY limedia Ho notes pinton addressed the people from the summit Nahant and other communities along 120 North Globe. danger of desert of cliff, denouncing the tyranny of Shore of houxan townx and CITIMS five allowed to nurrender AA has annuaries, 11 would of ans who Inland 411mm Worthy of Prearivation view to and the reimmunition Their parks to the comm sales that certain jien a round visions be made for trust funda and other minor Turning inland their APP in the will unrehar IMINIPIANT pleasist mute rayer valley of the Sanga River Pranker's Paint, nfi in devical commerity part Kretan 117 details. Wini Orient Hairhs- and in whint Mr. Selvestor Haxter in his report to the com 'Apolotion's Pulpu Onhere, 11. will with Kavara Heart, and this SIT missingeral of d times in the paris days " the restory Major Air 1118 r beautiful to Lann, the situation, CALLERS and limads 11n tintee don't thedanger of the beconding avast desupt pleton Address the prople sprints the with 11 smhaul and other communities along ins North ( in much photo of bonser. Pactorian 4111 winter. hpreading 0717 of the 11.9 tyraner if Androal l'awdsohorn Hill in Christis mis You on smaller Plargrounds and overwhelmiss the natural features of the landscape. as lines of sand dunes. advancing new Hill in The of ansalian open aparon for loral a 11 you from tiver Hmgshore, overwhalm and obilitarate The shorra of the Myallr River are liable in Lon. the world and fille With four the occupancy of in understation characters which or "treathing aposs," Lainz mora might maki 14M aiream a kizai for of local 11 hardly expension that 1. ation other CITIGE and 1057114 of the Hiair are each itele clearly defined activity is wall M4 initial all. the aurrounding community Mailford, 111 timey about in provided for 19 the same manne 1 :! titles, *n that each can lie entelly lais to look our fact. han has sery in property for general of metropolitan HIA is for 11 in all the varias concerns that this owner to the situlation of hariver by the luintlik and other parka. the various of which APA of 2 ps, make up the wanta of H modern community. in Wolmin and T1,A moment in the antire community Boaton hm if v 30 On this continuet. murals. New York is the only vilate other metropolitan ACCEPTATION of population beauty of the distant views makes the Mvailr latam number of their small osen *Daced C a very interestine mtream. It parents the How than any other city in this coantry, with sha What presents diffenities anywhere near those t " Eng- of the chain of ponds and with exception of Washington But erail bern rep. aucountered by Boston. not- handwater in Woburn and Informada through tain sections APA not provided for ai all, and A stranger Invoice over the country living itiful Horn Pund. in that city, Winter and Walk these are macsirine that stand meet in and of within ten rewerve miles of the Bominn City F. ponds and the Albiania Riter 111 CHIP? each accommndasinns: BA, for instance, the 1, but Hall would time the population comprised , within a considerable Nagument of the southerly down to the Martin lakes Triputsries of the North End and the South Care. peak- half of this region provided with extensive in. Myatic are broke from Spr Pond. in In view of the tenderery to build as the mailly Arlington and Fresh Pond in Caintridge, and anthrica with tenainable and in canca them I cilities for public mill air recreation: "Hill no. lever nitralit draised yotem of parks. parkways and the Malden River. OF bise as 11 consequently to limn value LA perpon!:ve known in its portion. from states it la with pleasore that 11,9 corressry are houlevards, mubilic wardens and playgrounds. , A print Poul in Stoneham and Vollor.1 and HII notes atendency us the "Larrara' sty' of build. their forming continuous chalus of vieasure ground, extensively adorted in bir OF sprinkiail liberally over the territory. Pon't in Melrose. Probably the most unpertant rains, feature of the lower Mystic River country. 34 o' the new Premior airani wineward. and a: He Throughout the past of the great urban Area, ecop. with few executions he would SPH almost othering great Imtential:, for recreative par. other extreme idea followed by the Conser. lies poss. 19 the region of upland and march alive Building Company of Boston. which. on nothing of the kind. He would behalf miles and miles of thickly nettled territory. with ated mostly with the limite of Everett, an the pertangular int been by Harrison are practically not is square yard of public ground. of which the Van Vourhes farm forms the more net. Lenox Pred and Naterm's streats But consoleuous feature has tould a aubatantia; lick of 374,41 stublem 1% also larkely ONA of sanitation. - are 7/n National Government was all extensive central BIRM of chiy by one lumdres having thin wider RCODA of promoting the is a cal and moral health of the community reservation of beautiful landscape character 100: The apartments apy mos! conveniency.y arranged and are to modera:s prices. Preferable (i) R suburban development of this davoted in the 1100 of iia naval as marina from An pitals on the border of the Myati in Chelsea. while the used! for Diny fash. kind would seem a concentration upon com. pact areas covered with directings such 29 It 1M preside that the consent of the Govern wrongd and garden purposes for the tananus. ment might be obtained in the use of an I'n 1 : such circumstances the avila attention modern science and art can devise, surrounding explamade along the Mver spons of this lairt upon a dense population appear is be very that : all a small squares or large court-yards that would supply playgrounds combined with pleasant tory, in which cau the pleasure stound beyond ouithly overcome. In this connection 18 is is at would be accessible 10 the people of Cheises gotted that the manicipality might ename its gardens However, the movement of popula- rites tion suburbanwards can be maste all that 19 and East Boston. ownership of them ODAN stares, thereby raising land claimed for 11 by providing in time Middlesex Fells. urden of taxation from the owner for the fireater amount of laud required that breathing spaces. Darks and playzrou.ds. One of the most celebrated tracia under con. The loral pleasure ground are matters of plete In it tidel aspect. the park treatment would sideration is the wild, rocky and worldand more purely local concern. and the function of c sernithe simplest, cheapext and most effective short region known as the Middlesex Fells, situated Metropolitan Parks Commission would thare method of dealing with the prevention of pol- a fore more properly be advisory. TRATION the ldly Jution of streams and the water supply. in the cities of Medford and Malden and the e separate communities in act for themarizes his Local jealmeres and the drafts upon local towns of Melrose. Stoneham and Winchester. under the incentive which such legislation 9. for resources through rapid growth are other Im- palments to n proper dealing with this quea- Population is now dipassing against borders would give It might therefore, be recom. mended that, wherever any cities and towas in man tion. The facilities for the building of low. sociosely that the problem may well be termed ! urgent. and it is made the more .. by the fart the metropolitan district desire to establish 3 able priced houses in the suburban districts have caused these various communities to fill up that the cheapness of land in various portions local open spaces for planground purposes. they C: in a has induced a tendency to occupy it with a cor- be permitted to exceed their date itroits br she rapidly with & population composed of persous, M and respondingly cheap class of buildings. Impor- amount of the bonded indebtadoran necessary for the innas part, in very moderate circum to that end. and that the bond, luned con. I me. stances. Therefore, in many of these suburban tant features of this region are Spot Pond and the two beautiful reservoirs that supply Win- stitute a special lien upon the lands thus ac- one cities and towns the increase in valuation has cheater. These cities and town have. for the quired. A provision onght to be artized tha: the not been at all coinmensurata with Increase t: ery of population. The anburban communities protection and increase of their water supplies, said sites and plans for construction shall be by the Metropolitan Parks Commis. c :- Life find themse.v obilized to incur great expendi- taken a large portion of the territory. In addi- age turns for the erection of new schoolhouse, for tion. the town of Stoneham has recently taken sion. In order to make this opportunity avalia I 4 Bear Hill. the highest eminence in the Fells, hin to the people of the Commonweal ID F ioro the laying-one of new streets and building of sidewalka. for the extension of water supply together with neighboring land, for park pur general. outside of the metropolitan district, O ver poses And bordering the Ravine Road. in 1/10 the same provision should apply to all cities of service, for she construction of sewers, etc. All I an eastward of Spot Pond, the beautiful tract of the Commonwealth substituting the trustees these appear absolutely necessary. s woodland called "the Virginia wood" has lately of public reservation, for the Metropolttan ari- A Plan for the Future been presented to the trustees of publicreserva- Parks Commission, the former acting as rd. 1: the tions. Through these various instrumental: visors to the governor and Council in the 5. the With a loan of one million dollars. together ties, therefore, something like sixlmen hundred matter a his with what may be looked for in the way of acres of land and water in the Fells have be- Mr. Charles Ellot, the landscape architecs. F local cooperation and of private beneficence, come public property, Pine Bank, is another has submitted & charmingly written report aki- a "a the most important landscape features that park in the neighborhood of the Felis. which is published in the same pamphlet It is I: :c bis The Waverley Oaks of Belmont,forming what rather more general-than Mr. Baxter and desis have been under consideration throughout the with a summurary of the physical and historical 1 is ore is regarded by the best authorities the finest to metropolitan district could be permanently group of those trees in New England. with geography of the metropolitan district a study reserved for the benefit of the public. Those Clematis Brook near by, and Prospect Hill in of the way in which the pocultar COOKIAPHY of E. a oly features, in brief, may be specified as follows: Waltham, are points which have met the sucre- the metropolitan district ought to govern the he's 1. least one of the important islands of the tary's observation. selection of the sites of public open spaces and 16'4 bay that still remain as private property A review of the opportunities which still pre- K 2. Permanent rights for the public in the Charles and Neponset Rivers. ment themselves for creating new open spaces rue shore at Revere Beach. , The question of the proper treatment of the in accordance with the governing considers. m 3. The Snake Creek Valley, lying on the Charles River 80 as best to serve the Interests tions just laid down. borders of Chelven and Revere. of the entire community is a problem of the The appendix contains the draft of A bill 4. A sufficient amount of territory in the establishing & permanent Park Commission Middlesex Felts region. lying within the limits greatest importance, involving matters both of and defining its powers and the district for 10 om of Malden, Medford, Melrose. Stoneham and recreation and of grave sanitary import. The which it shall act: this is recommended for DRE 1 er, Winchester, to make one large public foreat pollution of the stream and the consequent sage by the present commissioners: & bill simi- as on, reservation in that most important and desir- danger of malaria, aside from the recreative lar to the Illinois boulevard law: bill to ens. able locality, in connection with what has bio municipalities to borrow beyond the debt 18, value of the river, are cited as reasons to bring on already been Hot 2part by the various neighbor- into the park system. Asin the case of the limit to establish playgrounds. and . bill w 51. of on ing communities for water supply and recrea- great Improvement with which Boston began encourage building tenements around open he live parposes. Its new park system (Stony Brook), it appears courts. DIN 5. A reservation near the Mystic River, in that the cheapest and most efficient way to the the neighborhood of the creek known as Island remedy the evils complained of 14 to adapt the 1/2. End River in Everett and Chelsea, including stream to a utilization for recreative purposes PHILLIPS BROOKS. nd marsh land and upland, capable of becoming of in the best possible way. Land has been cheap great importance for recreative purposes to oned in consequence of the nuisances arising (The Burial at Mount Auburn ) both of those cities, an well as to Boaton, whose from the river, and therefore it has been occu- Charlandown district lies close Ht hand. pled in many places by various industrial 08 For the Transcript.) 6. The wild tract lying within the limits of tablishments, drawn thither not because of the of the West Roxbury District of Boston and the convenience of water transportation, but in This fragile vase of senz, filled with our tears, m Limin of livile Park, known as "its Muddy consequence of the low prices rb which local In for thy grave. Our hearts lie baried and Pond woods. tions could be obtained. Froin Boxton to 7. The Bine Hills range in Milton, Quincy. there; 50 71 Waterstown all sorts of ugly outbuildings, by Canton and Braintree. with adjacent wild And we would follow thee, know we but ar the shanties. rubbiah heaps. etc., distigure the set and lon lands and lake country to the southward, as a ballka. where, is: w er, mountain-like public forest. There are now as public or memi-public hold- And flee this gathering cloud of kloomy years. an, . From is consideration of assessed valuations use n 8. ines on the river, Charlesbank, the develop- Kra all :he in the various portions of the metropolitan din. ments of the Charles River Embankment Com- For we are far from home: how shall we keep too us: trict,it 18 fair to extimate that will be possible pany on both sides of the Harvard Bridge, In Cambridge, the Longfellow Memorial Ms. The way. how know the Dath. unshepherded? fla 47 to secure there various features for a total wr amount which will leave a large sum to be There is no adswer. Brothers, he is dead. x Anburn Cemetery, the "Boldiern' Field" of Har- he ag applied to other important purposes thus have vard University, the Watertown Arsenal Or our strong nood would stir him from his pr. orly been mentioned, such na the securing of land grounds. Ms. Feake Cemetery and the pumping die aleep. and rights along the Charles River, which in WPP grounds ni Waltham,and some sections In West JA will Kuard that stroain forever arainst the Roxbury and near Newton Lower Falls. One Then. chosen youth,strength of the land, arise! dankers arising from the pollution to which is of the most beautiful landscape features in the neighborhood of Boston. and something uniqua Like voicelons figures on an antique urn. Tus is now subjected. and also to pursue a similar Shapiro Library Vegetation and Scenery In the METROPOLITAN RESERVATIONS of Boston A Forestry Report written by Charles Eliot 11 And Presented to the Metropolitan Park Commission, February 15, 1897 By Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot, Landscape Architects VT CRESCIT Lamson, Wolffe and Company Boston, New York, and London MDCCCXCVIII RETURN BOOK TO: Shapiro Library PREFACE. This paper on the Metropolitan Reservations was the last report written by Charles Eliot. The original manuscript, with its maps and numerous photographic illustrations, is at once a record of the condition of the reservations in 1896 as regards their vegetation, and a treatise on the methods of controlling and changing the vegetation in the interest of the scenery. As a record it is not possible to reproduce it in printed form, but as a treatise it can be adequately, though not completely, presented in print, and as such it deserves wide reading for the principles set forth have wide application. This pamphlet has been published with the approval of the Metropolitan Park Commission, and the ex- Donse of publication has been met by one of the Commissioners. F. L. & J. C. OLMSTED, Landscape Architects. BOOKLINE, Mass., 18th November, 1897. 23 pp. of text. 58 photos and illustration st property landscape features. - 3 peoperty liaps (fold out). Thus the only changeful and changeable element in the general as well as the local landscape of the domains in question is the vegetation- which clothes the surface everywhere, excepting only such bare areas as consist of naked rock or water. Much of the most striking scenery of the world is almost or quite devoid of verdure; but here in New England we cannot get rid of verdure, even if we would. Bulrushes insist upon crowding every undrained hollow, bearberry carpets barren rocks, and a great variety of vigorous trees and shrubs have had to be continually and forcibly prevented from re-occupying such parts of the slopes between the rocks and the swamps as men have laboriously cleared at different times for the purpose of raising food crops or grass for the feeding of cattle. The original forests disappeared long ago. Where once stood towering pines, there are to-day perhaps thickets of scrub oak, and where great hemlocks shaded damp, mossy cliffs, there may now be sun-baked ledges with clumps of sweet fern in their clefts. While seedlings have been pushing their way into the clearings at every opportunity, fire and the axe have made great changes in the vegetation of the wilder woodlands during the last two hundred years and all these changes have necessarily had their effect on the scenery. The present investigation is not, however, an historical or even a scientific inquiry. Its purpose is simply to record the present condition of the verdure of the reservations, to note the effect in the landscape of the several predominant types of vegetation, and to inquire into the origins of these various types only so far as may be necessary to determine how best to encourage, control, or discourage the existing growth, with a view to the enrichment of that treasure of scenery which the reservations have been created to secure and preserve. THE METHODS PURSUED. For the purpose of making a record of the present condition of the vegetation, sun prints from the original tracings of the topographical maps of the several reservations were carried into the field, together with ordinary catalogue cards. The maps used were drawn to the scale of one hundred feet to an inch and showed roads, paths, stone walls, conspicuous rocks and large trees, in addition to contour lines indicating every difference of 8 2/13/2015 Olmsted, John Charles (1852-1920), Papers, 1860ca.-1920: An Inventory. 2-15-15 HARVARD SEARCH & FIND HOLLIS+ HOLLIS CLASSIC JOURNALS DATABASES LIBRARY OASIS FOOD ferees cl Online Archival Search Questions or comments Copyright Statement OASIS Search Correspondence. Information System C001-COL4, C015-CO2t, Full Finding Aid Summary: Context Bring main window to front Easy print view Help Download a Olmsted, John Charles (1852-1920), Papers, 1860ca.-1920: An Inventory. 10 folders Our [Dercictant : ID. Record re C. Socot + Table of Contents Olmsted, John Charles (1852- Pactner in 1890's. Expand All Collapse All 1920), Papers, 1860ca.-1920: An A000 series D/ Descriptive Summary Processing Information: Inventory. Re FLO, Lr. Acquisition Information March Conditions on Use and Access FLOTS response Biography Special Collections, Frances Loeb Library, Harvard Design School to news of Scope and Content Arrangement VE EI TaSI death of c.cliet Container List D001-D003 Personal Names Index Corporate Names Index B076-B084 Conference Names Index C 2004 The President and Fellows of Harvard College Titles Index LC Topical Headings Index Descriptive Summary Geographec Nover Index Geographic Names Index Keveg Pack Genre / Form Index Repository: Special Collections, Frances Loeb Library, B084 AAT Terms Index Harvard Design School Title: Papers of John Charles Olmsted. 1860 ca.-1920. Creator: Olmsted, John Charles, 1852-1920. Quantity: 36 linear feet Processing Information: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu//oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&uniqueld=des00007 1/1 The Autobiography of Warren H. Manning (Copied from the original manuscript by Warren H. Manning) James : LALH web site 2/7/15 "Anthropophy" lv Table of Contents CHAPTER I. Family Background. (Prior to 1860) CHAPTER II. Childhood. (November 7, 1860 - Sept. 24, 1866) CHAPTER III. Schooldays. (Sept. 24, 1866 - June 30, 1879) CHAPTER IV. Apprenticeship. (July 1, 1879 - January, 1888) CHAPTER V. Olmsted Office Employment. (Jan. 1888 - Dec. 1895) CHAPTER VI. Early Professional Practice. (Jan. 1, 1896 - June, 1901) CHAPTER VII. The Work of J. Woodward Manning and Warren H. Manning. (June 15, 1901 - December, 1904) CHAPTER VIII. Growth of Practice at Boston. (Jan. 1, 1905 - Oct. 1915) CHAPTER IX. Billerica. (Oct. 1915 - Sept. 1923) CHAPTER X. Cambridge Expansion. (Sept. 1923 - Dec. 1928) CHAPTER XI. Cambridge. (Jan. 1, 1929 - Nov. 30, 1934) CHAPTER XII. The Past two years, the present, and the future. APPRENTICE DAYS my talk was "very good and delivered well." Since then, although I have never been a ready or eloquent speaker, I have been able to hold my audiences. On March 6, 1884, I gave an address on "The Improvement of Small City and House Lots," before the Rhode Island Society for Domestic Industry, to an audience of about 200 who all stayed to the end. This led to my being called in as a judge in landscape and horticulture exhibits at the Rhode Island State Fair for the years 1895-6-7. About 1887, Elisha Wright, of Medford, who was known as "the Father of Life Insurance" became interested in the acquirement of Middlesex Fells as a public reservation. I represented the Middlesex Institute on a committee, of which Mr. Wright, Professor C.S. Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum, and the Mayor of Medford were members, at a meeting in the Massachusetts Horticultural Society rooms. Mr. Wright was enthusiastic over a promise of some land and some money to purchase land. An arrangement was made for a public meeting to be held at the Fells, at which Governor Long was the speaker. A part of the program was a visit to Cheese Rock, the high summit in Stoneham. On the way up, I saw Dr. Wright, an old white- haired man, in the top of a Cedar tree to which he was attaching an American Flag on a pole, with Wilson Flag, the writer and naturalist, giving him instructions from the ground. Mr. Wright died before his dream was realized; but the movement which he started led to the far-reaching conception of Charles Eliot, of Olmsted. Olmsted, and Eliot, who with his powerful persuasiveness secured legislation that led to the establishment of the Metropolitan Park Commission and its park systems. In this, he supplemented the important work of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and his son, John Olmsted, on the 39, OLMSTED OFFICE EMPLOYMENT On the way to the Olmsted office, from the Cypress Street horse car line of that day, were the Kennedy and the Bowditch estates, with fine old trees, an ancient cemetery well above the road, and a church with tree and moss-covered ledge background. The Brookline Reservoir with fine estates about it, having distinctive landscape values that were designed in part by the Olmsted office, was nearby. The Arnold Arboretum was not far away. It can be seen that such opportunities offered me an unusual chance to gain a knowledge and appreciation of landscape and plant values. In the office of Mr. Olmsted, I was associated with his son, John C. Olmsted, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., Henry S. Codman, Charles Eliot and other aids who have since made their place in important professional activities. This association gave me an unrivalled opportunity to gain a far-reaching knowledge of the highest ideals and the best practice developments of landscape in its broadest phases. A member of the firm for whom I had the highest admiration was John C. Olmsted, with whom I traveled on many projects. He was quiet, thoughtful, and most efficient in gaining a full knowledge of all planning projects, and in seeing that they were well planned, recorded, and issued. Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. entered upon his career about the time that I started out for myself. Mr. Eliot's death in early manhood was one of the greatest losses that has ever come to the landscape profession. His planning conceptions were nation wide, yes, world wide. His ability to secure the support of the public and the legislature was made very evident in his Boston Metropolitan Park work. He would have had like results in National Planning, in which his namesake Charles Eliot II is now so active and efficient. It is fortunate that his father President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard College, 40 OLMSTED OFFICE EMPLOYMENT was able to record his son's work in his "Life of Charles Eliot." Mr. Eliot recommended to me that I adopt the term landscape designer, as the term landscape architect made it appear that the profession was secondary to architecture. President Eliot had me make a plan for his home grounds on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Mass. One of his stipulations was that he did not wish a high screening plantation along the roadside as it was part of his pleasure to see the public passing by. Another great loss to the landscape profession was the early death of Mr. Henry Sargent Codman of the Olmsted firm. He was a man of high culture, who was in love with his work. His resourcefulness in an emergency was shown in Chicago, when Mr. F. L. Olmsted came to us from a meeting of the World Fair Commissioners with the story that they wanted to include in the fair grounds Jackson Park, the Midway, the Driving Park, and SO many other areas that Mr. Olmsted had told them it was not a feasible proposition; but they were very insistent, as they wanted this Fair to be the biggest event of its kind. Mr. Codman said, "I will figure up the length and the cost of the fence around this area," which he did at once. These figures brought the promoters down to earth and led them to accept the land and water areas which Mr. Olmsted had recommended. The greatest privilege of my life work was the opportunity to travel with Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and to aid him in gaining a knowledge of project requirements and conditions and in formulating plans. He was always a cheerful and congenial companion and extremely thoughtful of other. I recall one of our visits to an estate in Newport, Rhode Island, with the owners. Mr. Olmsted usually carried a lunch with him on such trips; and on this occasion he insisted on sharing this with the driver of our vehicle who had not brought any. He always had a pat and a pleasant word for all friendly four-footers. Coastal Maine and Charles Eliot As we gear up for the 2016 centennial of Acadia National Park, it is worthwhile to recall that this is the 125th anniversary of a publication that provided the vision for this cherished landscape. Horticulturist Charles S. Sargent, a cousin of George B. Dorr, not only established Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, he published the serial Garden and Forest which provided from 1888 to 1897 a botanical forum for the emerging profession of landscape design. On February 19, 1890, Sargent published therein two brief articles by thirty-year-old landscape architect Charles Eliot that profoundly influenced the course of the emerging conservation movement. "The Waverly Oaks" provided the impetus for the 1891 establishment of the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations while "The Coast of Maine" challenged the State of Maine to utilize legislation to form associations to preserve "chosen parts of her coastal scenery [to] secure for the future an important element in her material prosperity." More to the point, "when the poor hamlet of Bar Harbor leaped into fame through the resort to it of a few well known landscape painters, it became evident that the whole coast was destined to be a much frequented summer resort." Eleven years after publication of "The Coast of Maine," the author's father, Harvard University president Charles William Eliot invited village residents to Seal Harbor to realize on this island-through formation of the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations-his deceased son's goal. The State of Maine had failed to act but a Massachusetts transplant who resided in Northeast Harbor for the last twenty years had not. Even with the splendors of Acadia National Park now fully protected, residents remain sensitive to Eliot's forewarnings about how "this annual flood of humanity" threatens this island "of that flavor of wildness and remoteness." This tension between popularity and conservation challenges residents, village officials, and park management. One measure of the success of the centennial celebrations of 2016 should be action on Innovative proposals to mitigate this tension first articulated by Frederick Law Olmsted's partner, Charles Eliot. Ronald H. Epp Lebanon, PA October 10, 2015 Ebrechlin@mdislander.com LILIZUZI Alinity Connect rate Goriansky Printout RONALD EPP 2/2/2021 11:42 AM Yale Goriansky To Raney Bench Bill Horner Blind copy Maureen Fournier Hi Raney, I just received an email from Alison Bassett, Archive and Research Center Manager for The Trustees, informing me that an Eliot relative, Yale Gorianski, had just donated to the ARC a small scrapbook "that Charles Eliot created that seems to contain articles mostly about Mt. Desert Island, beginning in 1881 and going to 1887--35 pages of articles." She asks whether I have seen it for I met with Alex in his Northeast Harbor home three years ago when he showed me five different Eliot diary-like journals, two concerned with his European visits to gardens. I advised him to consider donating these to Harvard, the Trustees, or any repository where they might be conserved and promoted for at the present time none were documented in the public record. I bring this to your attention because the pandemic limits the ARC in processing this donation and I am also limited in visiting the ARC. You may be aware of this issue. You might pass this email along to Catherine Schmitt. Please let me know when it would be convenient to reach you by phone to discuss another donation matter. Best, Ron Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 7 Peachtree Terrace Farmington, CT 06032 717-272-0801 eppster2@comcast.net https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/v=7.10.3-14.20201208.035425/print.html?print_1612284201930 1/1 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - List of Records Page 1 of 2 7 Help IMERICO Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TAS Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options RESULTS LIST: FULL CATALOG Records 1 - 20 of 24 Select All I Deselect All Print/Save/Send Create Subset Add to List View List Last Browse Modify Search Previous Eliot, Charles, 1791-1813. Authors, All Current Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897 Next Eliot, Charles Buckingham, 1894- Results for Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897; Sorted by: Year, then Author To change sort order, click on column heading. Jump to # Previous Page Next Page # Author Title Year Format 1 Eliot, Charles William, 1834- Charles Eliot : landscape architect, a lover of nature and of his kind, 1902 BK 1926. who trained himself for 2 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Vegetation and scenery in the metropolitan reservations of Boston; a 1898 BK forestry report written by 3 Shurcliff, Arthur A. (Arthur Notebooks, 1897-1902. 1897 BK Asahel), 1870-1957. 4 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. A report upon the opportunities for public open spaces in the 1893 BK metropolitan district of Boston, M 5 Massachusetts. Metropolitan Map of the metropolitan district of Boston, Massachusetts : showing 1893 MP Park Commission. the existing public reservat 6 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Plan for the subdivision of the Taylor Estate, Brookline, Mass. / 1892 MP 7 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. [Plan of property at corner of Milton St. and Blue Hill Ave., Milton, 1892 MP Mass. / 8 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Notes on landscape. [MS.] 1891 BK 9 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Notes on landscape. [MS.] 1891 BK 10 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Charles Eliot's charges clear of expenses. [MS notebook] 1889 BK 11 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Charles Eliot's charges clear of expenses. [MS notebook] 1889 BK 12 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Preliminary study for grounds of Longfellow Memorial Assocn., 1887 MP Cambridge / 13 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Papers of Charles Eliot, 1741-1933 (inclusive), 1880-1897 (bulk). 1741 MX 14 Autograph file, E, 1564-1961. 1564 BK 15 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Plant list. [MS. notebook] AAAA BK 16 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. IMS. plans: garden for Henry S. Hunnewell, Wellesley, Mass.; Norton AAAA BK Estate, Cambridge, Mass.; OI http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/G8U9BF6EKQSF1QQR7BXALP8GDKMKJ47YM42SQN1GJU6T8... 12/21/2004 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - List of Records Page 2 of 2 17 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Personal diaries. [MSS.] AAAA BK 18 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Sketches. AAAA BK 19 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. [MS. notebook containing an alphabetic index of plants.] AAAA BK 20 Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Letterbooks, 1888-1897. MSS. AAAA BK Previous Page Next Page Select All I Deselect All Print/Save/Send Create Subset Add to List View List Last Browse Modify Search SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear About the HOLLIS Catalog HARVARD LIBRARIES HOME OTHER CATALOGS E-RESOURCES CONDUCTING RESEARCH LIBRARY INFORMATION HARVARD HOME Copyright © 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/G8U9BF6EKQSF1QQR7BXALP8GDKMKJ47YM42SQN1GJU6T8.. 12/21/2004 Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect A RESEARCH GUIDE Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts Shurcliff, Arthur Asahel, 1870-. Notebooks: Guide. Page 1 of 2 MS Am 1424 Shurcliff, Arthur Asahel, 1870-. Notebooks: Guide. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library VE TAS SHARYARD Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 C 2002 The President and Fellows of Harvard College Descriptive Summary Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University Call No.: MS Am 1424 Creator: Shurcliff, Arthur Asahel, 1870-. Title: Notebooks, Date(s): 1897-1902. Quantity: 4 V. in 1 case (.14 linear ft.) Abstract: Logbooks and writings of the American landscape architect Arthur Asahel Shurcliff. Acquisition Information: *55M-161 Gift of Arthur A. Shurcliff Esq.; 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts; received: 1956 Feb. Historical Note Shurcliff was a landscape architect who, with Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., founded the landscape architecture program at Harvard University. Arrangement Arranged chronologically. Scope and Content Autograph manuscript on Charles Eliot's remarks on landscape architecture, together with three logbooks of trips taken in the U.S. and abroad. http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/xslTransform;jsessionid=3ED9951BA9BDCEA... 10/11/2007 Chebacco - 17 (2016). Eliot, Borderlands, and Historiography By Paige Melin Introduction Charles Eliot, son of the influential Charles W. Eliot, is perhaps best known as a landscape architect, and for good reason. He was an apprentice to Frederick Law Olmsted, whose illustrious list of public parks and design projects included the first and oldest public park system in the United States, in Buffalo, NY. Eliot eventually shared a firm with Olmsted but accomplished a great deal on his own, including design of the Metropolitan Parks system of Greater Boston and Cushing Island, Maine. Eliot is also well known as the leader of the Champlain Society, the company of Harvard undergraduates whose explorations of Mount Desert Island from 1880 to 1894 ultimately led to the founding of a national park. However, to call Eliot a landscape architect or a visionary conservationist is to miss yet another part of his identity, for Eliot was also a historiographer. We see this in his unpublished "Notes on the History of the Eastern Coasts of Maine and the Island of Mt. Desert in Particular," wherein he meticulously documented a history of this area by selecting, editing, and compiling vast amounts of source materials to tell a certain kind of story about these coasts and the interactions of their early European inhabitants. This manuscript, kept in storage boxes and largely inaccessible for the past 130 years, is currently being digitized and transcribed by me and Mount Desert Island Historical Society volunteers. The manuscript will eventually be made available publicly on mdihistory.org and mainememory. net. This article highlights just one example of the many exciting historical documents now accessible to scholars in the digital age. Drawing on extensive excerpts from his manuscript, presented here for the first time for public examination, this article provides an initial, tentative understanding of Eliot as historiographer through an examination of his "Note VI: The English Explorers," in which he explored the borderlands between early French fur traders and fisherman, early British explorers, and Native Americans This article was written thanks to the support of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society. Many thanks to Tim Garrity, whose guidance and advice were invaluable. 1-95. THE CAMBRIDGE TRIBUNI CHARLES ELIOT Tarsity related When after years Charles lavied to write accounts Attractive Volume Commemorating of - of the finest American colle try wate for the weekly publication the Life and Services of the Late called Gaiden out of the Son of President Ellot, "Far the dear - who died is J W Marshea, bright prime. from the father. writingly expressive dedication to the Irk is drawing and sketch His newly published volume Charles Bll- grandmodium Watchmaker life at Landarape Architect. The book. which is published and by Housting Miami & Co., and may be har some Inherit. found at Sever's bookstore. is of as imitated this Rebit Charles sorbing Interest. President Ellot's old mother both Optician. penett bruth or off prematurely by Grath on March 23, 1897, was lover of na and mother net Charles drawing REPAIRING OF leader age. ture and trained himself for NEW pro: Charley is making little visit Watches. females. which be practiced suppliy and ust new. Mammia grandmother Pen worrefully. The large number of body) ilerates herself (to him) They Clocks, drawings made by the late Mr. Ellet, paint from the same picture pattern, write letters at the same time." Jewelry and H. Peabody.) (From by aunt Arian Optical Goods. His childbood was different.ru that of most American children, in that be had speat nearly years In Europe before be was ten years old. From the 1328 Massachusetts Ave. middle of 1863 to the middle of 1855 bis father and mother and their two COR. HOLYOKK STREET little boys were in Europe for the pro- fessional Improvement of his father; and the family were again in Europe from Jure 1867. to June, 1868. one count of the 111-health of his mother During these two periods Charles NEW many of the most interesting cities. and much of the most beautifi scenery In clous Influence on the two little boys. Europe. He spent the The of 1268 was spent In oreanmen In Switzerland of an Brookline that of 1889 at Chestnut other in rural England: and be played Hill: that of 1870 on Pond street, in Regent's Park, Bt. James's Park, and Jamaica Plain Wherever the family Hyde Park London. DE the Champe lived. Charles roamed the country Elyneca In Paris, in the Boboli Gardens roundabout, and learnt It by heart, at Florence, along the Philosopher's Path in Heidelberg. on the Pincian Dr. Hale on Jared Sparks. HIII at Rome, and the Hawtes Plantes at Pax. The whole family enjoyed via Dr. Edward Everett Hale's "Mem- ories Hundred Years, now run. CHARLES ELIOT. of animals: so that the ning in the Outlook is one of the (Courtery of Houghton, Midita a Co.) boys because acquainted with the princi pal scological gardens Europe, and fascinating at that distinguished -ound In them storeg of deligic author's réminiscent writings. in last this foreign residence and travel or the Outlook, Dr. Hale and the numerous extracts from his and published writings Charles showed good sense of locally speaks with whom he has been and from bia LO that are brought together in this book ty, decided fondness for maya, and make clear and emphatle to the read- great enjoyment His! moth count Jared nometime preal- dest Harvard the Interest er's mind how diligently and compe- er the keenest enjoyment In trarel Ing tently the subject of this memorial pur and Charles from childhood felt the same pleasurable excitement in change college. Mr. Sparks sued his work. One of the most eating chapters in the book is the very of acene, and in the sight of natural was appointed of history. beauty. In 1855, the age of nineteen think the first professor of his first. In which are traced those taheri Ellen Derby Peabody spent a week at tary any college. and 1 laure that entered into Charles Ellot's Niagara Palls in company with some hare heard It said that time there nature and Impelled him. from early childhood. to the great work which older friends, and this is the way in was no.such professorship in England. man. be look up and effectively fol which the described her enjoyment or The Sparks professorship was named lawed The Tribune counts Itself for It: am to happy. and am enjoying It for certain Mr. Fisher. and am tumate in being able to present here NO very, very afraid first service to the rease that cannot writing on on tell you about help of consists its rration of this very interesting chapter with I don't believe anybody ever enjoyed memory. Ours was which the books opene; Charles EHot's Inheritances. anything more in the world. Thirty claim which heard Sparks's lectures. Most entertaining they were one afterwards, her son, Charles, Charles Ellot was born in Cambridge, at of wrote thus had glany of the surviving Hamachusetta on the of November in his father from had actors of the generation before his own 1865 His father was Charles William Irien spending month along the R At moment any one who wants to Klint at that time assistant professor viera: have never been quite to read American history of those times of mathematic in Harvard College: happy have been this past month will do well talgo to Cambridge to his mother was Ellen Derby (Perbody) I have been simply revelling 1u the get, In some proper way. permission to Ellot. daughter of Ephraim Peabody beauty of this fair land. think my read the Sparks manuscripts. A key will minister of King's Chapel Boston inadequate journal must have In It be given is him to Bluebeard's 11845-18461 and Mary Jame (Derby) signa of my great pleasure: and wife. Then will be directed to an Prabody. His father come from line HOW that am come to the city of all elegant mallogany marcophagua made of Boston Ellets who for several gives others where are works at man which eled, think. after the tomb of Sciple. eratious had been serviceable and InBu partake or the loveliness of nature.- Let him bravely open this tomb and ential people. and OR the maternal side my heart is more than full and 1 am read. After four or five weeks of much from line of Lymans, who in three transgantly happy." joy. win know more of some of the generations had lived at His mother's delight in beautiful beroes the Revolution than any one Northamptes. Mass, York, Maine, and man their dhl screery found expression in ber letters Waltham Mon. and bad been uncial whenever she was away from home. Sparks employed a good many and surrenful in life. On his another's Thus In June 1958. when just ordergraduatra in copy) for him. I side. his grandfather Peabody (Bow Twenty-two, she paid visit. with her was one or them. but knew them doin College A.H. 1827). son of elster to some friends of her all. at their that be gave blacksmith at Wilton was man father mother, who lived at It the golden rule for young authors: of keep Insight. lofts character. and vington o the Hudera and this lik. Read your proof before you send your much poetie feeling: while his gradid description of the places "We arrived manuscript to the printer." By this be mother was # Salem Derby at time at beautiful place just in time to by must glorious sun- for mistake what you Let your manascript be in per- when that family had required lb world. white commerce wealth consid- vet. The river and the bills were all and that you yourself shall enable in thank days the first quarter lighted up with glowing colors. and satisfied when you are yourself in type. of be Élasteenth century His father birds loging their loudent and mother. and all four of his grand very pretty stone house with plazzie young authors know that this parents were carefully educated per and pointed windows, and since rillinb rule involves the great. art of making and KROCKE his programors were Ing about 11, and trees all around, yourself agreeable to editors. several men who had been rich in their and garden filled with FORM and tainly is beautiful views or the river nto generation. able to support asiderable Harvard Summer School. retain and to Kire their chil- in every direction could well dren every advantaire. wish for. It Hands very high mit Nearly every section of the United It is altogether probable that Charles and la mestled in amount the trees coally States was répresented in the anthering Ellet's tastes for out-of-deor nature and ster there of teachers and students who met last, it certainly happy art were In part Imherited. for - of family is here. Saturday in University hall at the open his advertise manifested in their day morning waked would . Huch Ing of the Harvard summer school dispositions and likings in which his not undertake to describe to you all the The preliminary work of registration were akin. Among the trusters of the beautier we saw from our window Such air. and such sky! The ception of the university as a krent speedily and the c/m Society for Promotise Agriculture. a public-pirited body - white sails glancing in the fresh new work-shop was galued by the onlocker. tablished in 1793. appears his great light. the river lying to will and calmi, There evidently large number grandfather. Thoodare Teman, his and the Pallendes lighted up far down of teachers amount the hundreds who great-uncle, George W. Lyman, and his the above with morning sunshine!! registered The majority were wamen. (From: letter written by Ellen Derby whose presence insurance RD Ellas Hacket Derby: while among the earliest mmm Peabody to Charles Ellot, la whom perfance to the college balls bers of the Maneachusetta Hortlen the had become engaged two menths But Birikink than the tural society. which was Founded in before.) ente the of women in Harvard's pres- white-haired 1829 appear R Herroy Derby, of Sa in March, 1869. his mother filed at figure. Intre his grandmother Peabody's stacle, stooped. of Proteinion Shale whose nightly the age of thirty-three and soon after and Jeha Derby, her father Throdure his father was cheern president of kindly blue eyes and gental minner itt up whatever place Lyman his great-uncip_and Bannel At Harvard University. In September kine Elint, bla grandfather. Threate 1869, Charles returned to Cambridge Dean Shaler. more than any one else Lyman. of Waltham, created one of the with his father and Jounger brother that SUCCESS of the Harvard sim bandsos country seats in New Eng and the President's House on Quincy mer school is disn He is still the last: E.C. Hereey Derby introduced and street was thereafter his home whill of the action and yet finds tried various breeds of eattle. sheep 189% From June, 1967, to September time to direct many searcher with and swine, and different kinds of crope 1869, grandmother Probody and August that almost Indikite kiddness that char bedges, trees and shrube truis foreign household with the acterizes the Harvard profeisor of se ology. parts on his beautiful estate at exercised strong and pre and Samuel A. Ellot was one of the first He and Secretary Love directed eltizens or Boston to bufld a house at each student and registration and other the areside (Nahant) for summer occu- Peculiar prelliminary details were Nailly ar pation. In 1526 this name Ellot rapped The first meetings in all Charles's standfather planted the except those In surveying and greater part of what has stare been known in Cambridge as the Norten To Itself shopwerk. the various Woods Samuel A. Ellot's sinter Cach In what it is and what It does erine having married Professor An pleton chapel daily at 2.45. It is Ap Morning prayers will be held M drews Norton. her father provided taining the best blood-purifying. Powneed that the Police in Phillips an handsome residence for the newly fear alterative and tonic substances and Brooks may be used on ried pair. and her brother Samuel, who days social purposes. The Randall week had Just returned from * European effecting the most radical and per- dining hall *In be need by many stu dental during the summer tour wak allowed to improve both the manent oures of all humors and all house and the grounds More than thirty years afterwards be druptions, relleving weak, tired, have been made ab that those attending the Number school can passed summer with bit family in languid feelings, and building up this sister's house and wrote as follows house and the tenas courts, and enjoy the advantages of the Weld boat the whole system is true only of to her about the result of his afforts: eval executions to the points of historic sev. "Being here has remissed me of the Hood's Sarsaparilla ranged. Interest in this vicialty have been an part had In making at residence for you; and the vision of old have No other medicine nots like it) An Interesting series of lectures on freating the wrong way. and with its no has done to awkward hard comforties look. has be definered on the following dates at activities will such substantial good, no columbia wp to me strongly several these his restored health lecture room: stare 1 have been here: and this le Tendencies cost. England is hard to receilent how If and to look Dr. M. E. Sad- without the these of the street of education strete which are - beautiful with garden fall of apple trees (of 12. which I and some still without place which cent acreen on the north and was visions of improvement have been PEOPLE AND PLACES state Department of Conservation and "held in trust," and those who preserved, because he felt that a public authority Recreation). Eliot's too-brief life rendered improved, and used the scenery were would be more effective in countering his ideas for protected spaces and the therefore "trustees" of that heritage. It the encroachment on open space in the public's access to them all the more is important to understand that he also rapidly urbanizing districts around urgent; his voice for the citizenry of the referred to park users as "trustees." He Boston. Commonwealth remains a clarion call, was convinced that "ordinary people," as The Metropolitan Park Commission as clear today as 116 years ago. trustees, had the potential to appreciate became the focus of Eliot's final years, Eliot envisioned a new type of and the right to expect the merits of although he remained loyal to the public landscape and a stronger bond public reservations. fledgling Trustees as well. A century between people and the land. He dis- In 1892 in a letter to the chairman later, The Trustees' links to Boston are cussed reservations, trusteeships, and of the nascent Metropolitan Park being reforged. In affiliating with Boston rural landscape preservation that would Commission, Eliot envisioned an array Natural Areas Network - the city's provide settings for active enjoyment of of landscapes and coastscapes, all for the most energetic advocate for land nature. It was Eliot, in fact, who used the public benefit: "(1) Spaces on the ocean improvement and protection - The word "reservation" often in his articles front. (2) As much as possible the shore Trustees are coming full circle, embracing and lectures. He realized the term "park" and islands of the Bay. (3) The courses Eliot's Boston from where his visions had a specific and limited meaning, SO of the larger tidal estuaries. (4) Two of people and land first flowed more Eliot chose different words "reserva- or three large areas of wild forest on than 100 years ago. tions" and "scenery" - to distinguish the outer rim of the inhabited area. (5) his ideas from common assumptions. Numerous small squares in the midst of Keith N. Morgan, who wrote the introduction He had three basic goals: to preserve dense populations." Having established to the 1999 reprint of Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect, is Professor of Art History at Boston scenery, make it accessible, and improve The Trustees, he moved swiftly to create University and former president of the Society it. Reservations, Eliot believed, should be the Metropolitan Park Commission of Architectural Historians. 6 The earth is common ground and.. gradually the idea is taking form that the land must be held in safe keeping, that one generation is to some extent responsible to the next. - CHARLES ELIOT, FOUNDER, THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS 9 A woodlands necklace The first section of the Bay Circuit Trail, an agement, which helped purchase land in the mid- innovative conservation and recreation proposal, 1980s to be included in the circuit, has been hob- was dedicated Saturday in Boxford. This 61-year- bled by budget cuts and a lack of high-level sup- old idea, still fresh today, deserves the strong sup- port for the concept. The department asked the port of private conservation groups and state gov- National Park Service for help last year when it ernment during the next decade. became clear the state role would diminish. In 1929, architect Charles Eliot-and the private Private groups have also been slow to get be- Trustees of Reservations pressed for the creation hind the project, although the Appalachian Moun- of the trail, which would run through protected tain Club has expressed an interest. The AMC ex- open space from Plum Island to Kingston. perience in preserving amd maintaining trails in The Depression and World War II intervened, the White Mountains would be put to good use on but the idea lived on despite the development the Bay Circuit. boom that transformed the towns 30 miles from Tracy hopes the informal Bay Circuit Alliance Boston after the opening of Route 128 and Inter- will take up work in behalf of the trail after the state 495. The trail would run for 120 miles be- Park Service bows out. Its goal is to have the cir- tween these two superhighways. cuit in place by 2000. During the boom years, many of these commu- The 1990s are an appropriate time to complete nities safeguarded forest and riverfront land, and the trail. The aging of the baby-boom generation these protected areas form the skeleton of the has made walking, instead of jogging or aerobics, trail. the exercise of choice for thousands of people who The section that was dedicated is a 12-mile live near its path. linking of a wildlife sanctuary and state forest in The recession has stabilized the value of land Boxford with other state forests in Georgetown along. the trial and reduced the pressure for devel- and Ipswich. The trail concludes at Willowdale Mill opment. There will be no better time to purchase in Hamilton, owned by the private Essex County additional land before the economy rebounds. Greenbelt Association. When development booms again, the Bay Cir- The trail received a boost when the National cuit will be a unifying symbol of the need to pre- Park Service decided to help with the planning. serve woodlands in the belt of towns around Bos- Charles Tracy, a landscape architect for the Park ton that are no longer rural but not quite subur- Service, has been working with groups along the ban. route to specify land to be saved from development Tracy and two other hikers trekked the Bay and to build an alliance of conservation and recrea- Circuit last June, after a send-off from Charles El- tion advocates. iot, still hale at 90. "The places we -hiked were just "It's catching on," he said. "The Boxford group beautiful," Tracy said. "And roads [in the way] getting folks interested in Topsfield, Middleton aren't going to be our main problem; it's getting Georgetown. Andover, too - that'll be the next communities organized to plan the trail." section to be dedicated." In the late 19th century, the creation of the The Park Service can do only preliminary work Emerald Necklace in Boston, from Boston Com- dh the Bay Circuit. It lacks funds to buy land or do mon to Franklin Park, guaranteed that a magnifi- the long-term planning needed if the trail is to be cent stretch of green space would continuously re- connected through all 50 communities. fresh the city. Since there is more contiguous green space In the late 20th century, state government and north of the city, this section of the trail is easy to private groups have the opportunity to create a lay out. Work on the southern section, between semicircle of green over a far wider area. They Abington and Duxbury, will be much harder. should grasp the opportunity to enrich the lives of " The state Department of Environmental Man- people in eastern Massachusetts for generations. Sanctuary V. 20, 9 May / June 1981. Poul Mass. Audutron Soc, Di PUBLIC RESRRVATIONS upon MYSTIC RIVER SCALES 1888. e mark L. Premack Space, Air, and Light Charles Eliot and Boston's Metropolitan Park System "Friends at home, I charge you to spare. preserve, and cherish some acres of land, had set aside only 115 acres as public open portion of your primitive forest. Horace Greeley, 1851 space: 48 acres purchased from William Blaxton in 1634, Boston Common: the 28-acre Public Garden, established This summer, if you bicycle, stroll, sail, or paddle along by Horace Grey on fill in 1838: and a few scattered small SIC. the Charles or attend an esplanade concert; if you climb the parks. SP. Blue Hills or swim at Nantasket, Revere, or Wollaston In 1869 the citizens of Boston petitioned the mayor and beaches; if you feed the ducks at Beaver Brook or watch city council for the creation of parks in the city. Every year birds at Fowl Meadows or the Neponset Marshes; or if you the public support grew until the politicians were forced to jog along the Mystic River or the beach in Winthrop or visit act in 1876, when the Boston park system was begun under any of the Trustees of Reservations sixty-seven properties, the direction of Frederick Law Olmsted, a pioneer land- you will be enjoying the legacy of Charles Eliot. scape architect fresh from Central Park In 1859, when Eliot was born, Boston's population was Within another twenty-five years, the population of the 1895 nearly 300,000 souls, an increase of almost a thousand fold Boston area had grown to nearly a million inhabitants, as in fifty years. Fleeing the potato famine, waves of poverty- French-Canadians, Portugese, Italians, Greeks. Poles. and stricken Irish immigrants swept into the city. Horse traffic Syrians followed the Irish, pushing earlier immigrants and filled the city's narrow streets. Wood heat was being Yankees out into the suburbs. Of thirty-five cities and displaced by Pennsylvania coal, but only remnants remain- towns in the region, only Boston had developed parks, and ed of the virgin forest that had once mantled the region. the only other public Tands suitable for public recreation Cities and towns poured their raw sewage directly into the were the causeway leading out to Nahant and the Lynn Charles, creating an awful stench when the tide went out. Woods, which had been preserved to protect a municipal Malaria and tuberculosis reached plague proportions in the water supply Into this breach stepped young Charles Eliot rambling tenements. And the clamor of the citizens of with visionary plans for protecting the region's forests, Boston for public parks had not even yet begun. rivers, and beaches and preserving scenic natural areas all The youths who had listened to Emerson and read around the state for the public good. Thoreau were slowly maturing. Such outdoor sports as sail- Eliot sprang from a long line of Boston patricians. His ing, bicycling, baseball, and lawn tennis were beginning to father was Charles W. Eliot, professor of math and chemis- become popular, and the Puritan prohibitions against re- try at Harvard. His grandfather was mayor of Boston and creational fishing were fading. Appreciation for the flora his great- and great-great-grandfathers were among the and fauna of the region was growing. founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and the At the same time, the pressures of a rapidly expanding Massachusetts Society for the Promoting of Agriculture. population were laying down houses and factories on every Eliot's mother, Ellen Derby Peabody Eliot, was the available parcel of land. The city of Boston, with 22,288 daughter of Ephraim Peabody, minister of King's Chapel, 3 Note. Infrequently, those who revelin the gloces of ANP not pay attention to origins, especially its deepest social roots. and Mary Jane Derby Peabody of the great and wealthy Blue Hills Reservation Derbys of Salem. The Derbys also were active in the Massachusetts Horticulture Society. Eliot spent his first four years in Cambridge, but when his father was denied an expected promotion, the family went to Europe, where they would spend three of the next seven years. While in Europe, the family visited parks and botanical gardens wherever they went. Summers back in Massachusetts were usually spent at the country estates of family members in Brookline, Chestnut Hill, and Jamaica Plain. Because Eliot was sickly as a child, his father, following the wisdom of the day, urged his son to spend time out- doors. In 1871, when the family permanently settled in Cambridge after Charles W. Eliot was appointed president of Harvard, Eliot began to dream of designing public parks. With his friend George Agassiz, whose father and grand- father founded American natural history, he conceived the idea of laying out Norton Woods, the largest undeveloped tract in Cambridge, as a botanical garden. Both boys were aware of Asa Gray's idea of a tree museum, and so they mapped out the area with a compass and a length of rope, specifying types of vegetation on their map. Back home, before the Boston parks were even begun, Eliot would make sketches of imaginary towns which always included public lands or public reservations. By 1875 Eliot had discovered his favorite pastime as a teenager, cross-country walking. With a friend or two, he would ride one of the seventy horse or steam trollies to a ter- minal and then walk five or ten miles through woods and fields to another trolley connection. No topographical maps existed yet, so Eliot created his own. He took notes on the flora and fauna and the geology of the region. Having learned to draw from his mother, he sketched the land- scape scenery. In this manner, he explored every nook and cranny from Lynn to Quincy. After graduating from Harvard in 1882, Eliot could not decide upon a profession until his uncle, architect Robert S. Peabody, told him about a new neighbor of his in Brook- The Fulls at Beaver Brook Reservation line, Frederick Law Olmsted, and about the infant science of landscape architecture. Eliot knew at once that this pro- fession would suit him. Since no formal course of study in ing samples. At Olmsted's suggestion, Eliot spent a year in landscape architecture was available in America, in the fall Europe visiting parks and gardens. He visited all the major Eliot enrolled at the Bussey Institution, Harvard's depart- parks in England and the continent and as far east as St. ment of agriculture and horticulture. In the spring, Eliot Petersburg, Russia. On rainy days, he would study land- was introduced to Olmsted and a week later became Olm- scape painting in museums or read works on landscape gar- sted's apprentice. dening at libraries. Whenever possible, he met with the Olmsted was in the midst of the design and construction designers and superintendents of public parks to discuss the of the Boston park system as well as numerous public and layout and practical administration of these properties. private projects around the country. Eliot became his most Upon his return to Boston and his marriage to Jane Yale valuable assistant, traveling with Olmsted, working on Pitkin, Eliot opened his first office, at the corner of Beacon plans, dealing with public officials and contractors, and in- and Park streets. He worked mostly on the design of private volving himself in all the details of Olmsted's massive and estates at this time, but in 1887 he laid out Longfellow Park creative undertakings. He also had the opportunity to visit between Brattle Street and the Charles. many of Olmsted's parks in other cities. In 1888 Eliot wrote Open Spaces for Urban Populations, After working for Olmsted for two years, Eliot felt he had reflecting his growing concern with the lack of outdoor learned as much as he could in Olmsted's office and so ter- recreational space open to the public. While the Europeans minated his apprenticeship in April 1885 with Olmsted's had preserved large tracts of land in the midst of their blessing. For the next two months, he helped Olmsted with highly developed continent, Americans, because of their the design and Charles Sprague Sargent with the planting vast wilderness, had preserved little. Eliot felt a genuine of the new Arnold Arboretum. On other days, he would sympathy for the poor and working classes who constituted wander the hills or the upper reaches of the Charles collect- the vast majority of the population of Boston and were 4 Beaver Brook Reservation to work on the project. The council provided the committee with fifty dollars to do a mailing to influential and concern- ed citizens and agreed to sponsor a meeting for the public to discuss Eliot's idea. In the name of the AMC, and with Mann's assistance, Eliot sent out two thousand invitations for a meeting to be held on May 24, 1890. Two months later, the meeting was held at the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, which was then on TOR Boylston Street in Boston. Presiding over the meeting was the president of the State Senate, Henry H. Sprague. In ad- dition to Mann, Eliot, and Sargent, the speakers included such notables as the Honorable Leverett Saltonstall, Pro- fessor Charles Eliot Norton, Judge William Shurtleff, and Frederick Law Olmsted. Over four hundred letters of sup- port were received, and those from Governor Brackett, Oliver Wendell Holmes, historian Francis Parkman, and John Boyle O'Reilly, editor of the Catholic daily, The Pilot, were read aloud. A committee was formed, chaired by Dr. Henry Walcott, chairman of the State Board of Health, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Metropolitan Water and Sewer Commission, to study the issue of regional parks and the protection of sites of rare natural beauty. In May 1891 a group of these concerned citizens organ- ized themselves into the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations, the first conservation land trust in the world. They incorporated and received their charter directly from the legislature. Senator George F. Hoar, a student at Thoreau's Concord Academy was elected president. Judge William S. Shurtleff, son of the mayor of Boston and historian, was elected vice-president. Other members of the governing committee were Philip A. Chase, President of the Lynn Institution for Savings, Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, director of Arnold Arboretum, George Wig- glesworth, president of the Amoskeag Company, and Massachusetts General Hospital, and Charles Eliot. At Eliot's request, the Trustees called a meeting in December to discuss the need for a regional park plan. Every town in the region was represented by park commis- Spot Pond. Middlesex Fells Reservation sioners or committeemen or other conservation-minded citizens. Along with several leaders from the local business unable to afford a country or seaside estate or even the cost community, they gathered in the office of General Francis of a carriage ride out of the city. Between Gloucester and A. Walker, a Boston park commissioner. Everyone agreed Plymouth, the only beaches open to the public were that prompt action was necessary to ensure the survival of the Nahant causeway and the new but small Marine the region's natural and scenic heritage. They were all too Park at Castle Island. The only major outdoor park for over aware that the finest areas of the state, its rivers, beaches, a million people was the new Franklin Park. And the only and woodlands "were in private hands, often to their natural area open to the public was the Lynn Woods. destruction or the exclusion of the public." A committee When Waverly Oaks, Lowell's Beaver Brook, was in was formed, and it and a committee from the Trustees danger of development in 1890, Eliot responded with a made an appeal to the legislature for the creation of a highly original concept for its preservation. In an article regional park system. written for Garden and Forest magazine, he proposed "an Within a month, the legislature had established a Joint incorporated association composed of citizens from all the Committee on Public Reservations "to investigate the mat- Boston area towns, and empowered by the state to hold ter of public parks." The committee, with Eliot as advisor, small and well-distributed parcels of land, free of taxes, just met several times and held a public hearing. Committee as the public library holds books and the art museum holds members felt the rising tide of public opinion but knew that pictures - for the use and enjoyment of the public." the funding and expertise needed was beyond the limited Eliot wrote letters describing his proposal to Charles resources of the individual communities. Realizing that a Sprague Sargent, director of Arnold Arboretum, and beach or a park in one community would be used by George C. Mann, president of the Appalachian Mountain residents from adjacent communities, they proposed a Club. At a meeting of the AMC council, of which Eliot was regional approach to the issue. They were aware that only a a member, Mann and Eliot were appointed to a committee regional authority could decide the best method of cost- 5 sharing and land distribution in a way that would overcome Besides parks, the commission recommended creating local jealousies. "breathing spots" in the most densely populated areas and By April 1892, the committee had Eliot draft an act playgrounds for children. Also recommended were creating a Metropolitan Park Commission based on the parkways, linking the major parks to each other, the model of the Metropolitan Sewage Commission. Included centers of population, and the Boston park system. These in the metropolitan area would be cities from Boston and parkways were to be laid out with an eye for scenic beauty Cambridge, north to Swampscott, west to Waltham, and and to protect the parks from undue highway noise and south to Weymouth. bustle. Lanes divided by tree plantings would provide Two months later, enabling legislation passed, officially separate avenues for carriages, horseback riders, foot traf- creating the Metropolitan Park Commission. With Eliot's fic, and promenaders. Commercial carts and wagons would help, fellow Cantabridgian and Harvard graduate Governor be excluded. Russell selected able and energetic commissioners. Chair- The commission urged speedy action on its proposal man of the commission was Charles Francis Adams, Jr., because land values were constantly rising and each month president of the Union Pacific Railroad. The other two that passed meant an increase in the appropriation commissioners were Philip A. Chase and William B. de las necessary for a project that now seemed inevitable. As Casas, a lawyer. Eliot was appointed landscape architect for Elizur Wright had said so prophetically in 1869, "if Boston the commission. makes a park only for the moment a larger Boston will Under Eliot's knowledgeable guidance, the commission soon have to make another." Sylvester Baxter, journalist roamed up and down the hills, watercourses, and beaches and secretary stated further that unless the legislature acted of the region, visiting every point of scenic, recreational without delay "this naturally beautiful region is in danger of and natural interest within an 11-mile radius of the State becoming a vast desert of houses, factories, and stores, House. The following January, the commission made its speading over and overwhelming the natural features of the report with recommendations to the legislature on the landscape relieved by hardly an oasis." overall prospects for the acquisition of land and the con- By early 1893, the Massachusetts legislature agreed with struction of the proposed regional park system. the reasoning. of the commission and immediately author- The Boston Metropolitan Park Report of 1893 was the ized the creation of a metropolitan park system. The com- most ambitious and farsighted proposal for public open mission was given power of eminent domain and a substan- space and parkland in the United States, if not the world. tial appropriation to begin the work of acquiring land and The report was a concrete plan to secure for the public constructing roads and facilities. and future generations, for outdoor recreation and Working as a full partner in the Olmsted firm, landscape sanitary improvement, the forests, ponds, rivers, and architect Charles Eliot began to carry out the actual execu- seacoast of the Boston region. The commission recommend- tion of his plan, a plan that had seemed a wild fantasy only ed the acquisition of Lynn, Revere, Nahant, Nantasket, a few years before. It was a great tragedy when Eliot sud- Winthrop, Wollaston and King's beaches, Snake Creek denly died of spinal meningitis in 1897, at only thirty-seven Valley between Revere and Chelsea, Blue Hills, Hemlock years of age and in the midst of his great triumph. By 1900 Gorge (Echo Bridge), Middlesex Fells Muddy Pond (Stony his plan was virtually completed. with a few exceptions and Brook), and Waverly Oaks, the waters and shores of the additions, preserving 9,177 acres of reservations, 13 miles Neponset, Charles, and Mystic Rivers, and the Boston har- of ocean frontage, 56 miles of riverbanks, and 7 parkways. bor islands and the shore of Boston Harbor. Of the thirty- Eliot's other creation, the Trustees of Reservations, the six communities in the proposed district, only three had "Museum of the Massachusetts Landscape," today is the made any. significant provision for parkland, and the only largest private conservation landholder in the state, protect- other major public open space in the state was the ing sixty-seven properties from Monumet Mountain in the Provincelands. Berkshires to Truro on Cape Cod, a total of 15,560 acres. The report made it clear that acquisition of all this land Eliot's dreams of a museum of the Massachusetts land- would require substantial appropriations, even with the scape and a metropolitan park system have both been many tracts that civic-minded property owners had agreed realized. We are the too-often-unconscious but nonetheless to donate. But the commission felt that the benefits of grateful recipients of the visionary humanism of Charles public ownership of the land far outweighed the cost of pur- Eliot, genius of the Massachusetts landscape. chase and construction. The proposed parks would make Mark L. Primack the Hub a more attractive place in which to live, provide an Mark L. Primack won the Audubon A award in 1980 for his work on dune alternative to the grog shops, increase the property value of buggy control on Cape Cod. He is presently working on a book on Charles the region as a whole (to every individual owner's benefit), Eliot. and provide outdoor recreation within reach of every neighborhood. Sanitary advantage would be gained with the protection of water supplies, such as Spot Pond, and by controlling river pollution. But most important, as Eliot declared, "for crowded populations to live in health and happiness, they must have space for air, for light, for exercise, for rest, and for the en- joyment of that peaceful beauty of nature which, because it is the opposite of the noisy ugliness of the town, is so refreshing to the tired souls of townspeople." 6 Javoad of Planning History 8,#4 (2009). Journal of Planning History Marginal Lands and Suburban 8(4) 308-329 © The Author(s) 2009 Reprints and permission: http://www. Nature: Open Space Planning sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1538513209351782 and the Case of the 1893 http://jph.sagepub.com SAGE Boston Metropolitan Parks Plan Steven T. Moga Abstract Soon after publication, the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Report came to be regarded as a model plan for American cities. Little known to the public today, it is frequently cited by landscape and planning historians as a testament to the vision of 'pioneer" landscape architect Charles Eliot and metropolitan planning advocate Sylvester Baxter. However, planning historians have overlooked key aspects of the plan and omitted significant details about the authors' redevelopment and planning goals. I argue that Eliot and Baxter viewed open space planning as a means of combating slums and establishing a regionwide land use template for future growth. Keywords metropolitan parks, open space, Greater Boston, Charles Eliot, Sylvester Baxter Charles Eliot and Sylvester Baxter combined detailed landscape analysis, conservationist principles, and naturalistic design aesthetics with a regional planning approach in the Boston Metropolitan Parks Report of 1893. Soon after publication, it came to be regarded as a model plan for cities and regions around the United States. Little known to the public today, it is frequently cited by landscape and plan- ning historians as a testament to "pioneer" landscape architect Eliot's unique vision and successful advocacy work. 1 However, historians have tended to overlook several key aspects of Eliot and Bax- ter's plan, notably the way in which it differed from other parks plans of the time and how it incorporated concerns about urban growth and spatial structure.2 2 Commonly characterized as an extension of nineteenth-century park planning ideals to the scale of the metropolis, the plan's contri- butions to the developing field of urban planning and its continuing relevance for planners interested in sustainable design have been obscured or forgotten As such, a new look at this old plan is in order. Rather than viewing Eliot and Baxter's work through the lens of the parks movement; analyze the plan in terms of city planning ideals. Spe- cifically, I'm interested in the way in which Baxter and Eliot articulated a vision of the spatial structure of the metropolis rooted in a deep understanding of its landscape characteristics. I argue that the intellectual basis for the plan and the conceptual framework put forth by Baxter and Eliot is best understood when one considers their collaborative effort and shared concerns. This article presents an alternative view of the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Report, drawing on primary I Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA see lostps Corresponding Author: Steven T. Moga, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, City Design and Development Group, Massachusetts Smith Institute of Technology, Room 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 college E-mail: moga@mit.edu 5/11/20 Amoldia 53, # (1993). Emerald Metropolis Karl Haglund One hundred years ago the founders of Boston's Metropolitan Park Commission realized a transcendentalist vision by reserving as public open space "the rock hills, the stream banks, and the bay and the sea shores" of the region. At the height of the Panic of 1893 Charles port addressed the urban environment, but not Francis Adams and his brother Henry "packed by focusing on the city center as Chicago's up our troubles and made for Chicago" to see White City had done. Nor did they advocate the World's Columbian Exposition. Like thou- taking control of suburban development- sands of others they were captivated and aston- street plans and public transportation as well ished by the fantastic ensemble of images they as parks-an approach that Olmsted and oth- saw there-neoclassical buildings, all perfectly ers had unsuccessfully urged in New York City white, arrayed according to Frederick Law in the 1870s. Looking instead to the margins Olmsted's site plan to display "the successful and the in-between spaces of the region, they grouping in harmonious relationships of vast envisioned an "Emerald Metropolis." More and magnificent structures." Employing the than a city in a park, more than a second Em- talents of America's best architects, the fair's erald Necklace, more, even, than a system of "White City" generated enormous enthusiasm parks, it was a visual definition of the region's for what soon came to be called the City Beau- structure that could be sustained, they were tiful movement.¹ convinced, even in the face of unimagined In his autobiography, Henry Adams puzzled growth. The Emerald Metropolis would help over the exhibits and the architecture of the Bostonians feel at home by preserving what exposition. Given that these extraordinary Eliot called "the rock-hills, the stream banks, white structures had been "artistically in- and the bay and the sea shores" of greater duced to pass the summer on the shore of Lake Boston-the natural edges, paths, and land- Michigan," the question was, did they seem at marks of the region. 2 home there? More than that, Adams wondered whether Americans were at home in the fair's The Idea Defined idealized New World city. But neither of the Eliot and Baxter moved to shape the region by Adamses, in their published works or private reserving as open space large tracts hitherto writings, connected what they saw in Chicago unbuildable but now on the verge of develop- with Charles' work as chairman of the Metro- ment; the shores of rivers and beaches still politan Park Commission in Boston. marshy or shabbily built up; and the most pic- In January 1893 the six-month-old park turesque remaining fragments of the aboriginal commission had published its report, written New England landscape. The natural features by Sylvester Baxter and Charles Eliot, the of the region should establish the armature for commission's secretary and landscape archi- urban development, not the existing haphaz- tect; Adams wrote the introduction. Their re- ard assemblage of streets, lots, railroads, and By the 1890s the Middlesex Fells was entirely surrounded by rapidly growing towns whose boundaries met in the middle of the woods. The towns had already begun to purchase land around the ponds to protect their water supply when the reservation was created in 1894, expanding the protection of the watershed. This view looks across Spot Pond toward Pickerel Rock. From Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, 1895. streetcar lines. Once set aside, these reserva- with another sort of open space. He looked out tions would forever enhance the city's fitness from the State House and saw, within a ten- for human habitation, joining unique and char- mile radius, many still-surviving remnants of acteristic landscapes to the placemaking the New England wilderness There were half power of the city's historic landmarks. The a dozen scenes of uncommon beauty, "well park commission's plan offered the citizenry of known to all lovers of nature near Boston Boston an opportunity to see the metropolis in in daily danger of utter destruction." He urged an entirely new way; the figure and ground of the immediate creation of an association to the region's topographical features would be hold "small and well-distributed parcels of transposed. land just as the Public Library holds books Baxter and Eliot had begun formulating and the Art Museum pictures-for the use and these ideas several years earliers In February enjoyment of the public." Generous men and 1890, Eliot responded to an editorial by women would bequeath these irreplaceable Charles Sprague Sargent in his new periodical properties to such a group, just as others Garden and Forest that since the cities and give works of art to the city's museums Eliot towns around Boston had failed to act, the pro- helped organize a standing committee of vision of "well-distributed open spaces" for twenty-five, which set to work in the spring of public squares and playgrounds would have to 1890. As an energetic member of the commit- wait for the establishment of a commission by tee, Baxter drew on his ties to newspaper edi- the legislature. Eliot, however, was concerned tors and writers across the state and to other 4 Emerald Metropolis veterans of the twenty-year-old campaign to Boston appeared, Eliot read it and proposed preserve the Middlesex Fells. The legislation that they work together to realize the metro- to create a privately endowed Trustees of Pub- politan park system. At their urging the newly lic Reservations was signed in May of 1891.3) organized Trustees of Public Reservations Though Eliot did not note the distinction in agreed to convene a meeting of park commis- his letter, the analogy with the art museum sioners from across Greater Boston in Decem- and the public library suggested two ap- ber 1891. After public hearings the following proaches to preserving open space, one private spring, a temporary Metropolitan Park Com- and the other public. Even before the campaign mission was authorized by the legislature in to organize the Trustees was completed, Eliot June 1892.5 and Baxter moved-first separately and then Baxter's concerns were the administrative jointly-to promote a public regional park au- inefficiencies and parochial jealousies of the thority. Eliot wrote a letter to his boyhood myriad cities and towns in the Boston basin, friend Governor William Russell in December and Eliot knew firsthand how the wariness of 1890, recommending that the State Board of town officials affected the development of pub- Health develop a plan for metropolitan reser- lic open space. From his extensive explorations vations. Three months later/Baxter wrote a on the region's fringes, he knew that town bound- series of articles in the Boston Herald about aries often bisected the most scenic areas, what he called "Greater Boston." He too especially along ponds and river valleys. It scanned the ten-mile view from the State would be senseless, he said, for one town to act House, but he described an image that was the without the other, but too often one city had very inverse of Eliot's fast-disappearing land- refused to spend money for fear that the adjoin- scapes. From that height he observed bil- ing city would enjoy what it had paid for. ² lowy sea of buildings stretching away in nearly So when the park commissioners planned a every direction, apparently without interrup- series of daytrips through the district in Sep- tion, as far as the feet of the chain of hills that tember and October of 1892, they invited city encircles the borders of the bay from Lynn officials and prominent residents of the towns around to Milton." The pattern of construc- to join them. The secretary's minutes recount tion paid little heed to town boundaries, and the itinerary of these ten excursions, which the limits of Boston covered only a fraction of took the commissioners and their guests the true city. The proper management of this throughout the metropolitan district. Several Greater Boston would be a regional commis- required transit by train, carriage, barge, and sion with authority over all the major public steam launch, all in the same day The places services-water supply, sewerage, fire, police, they visited were unfamiliar to most of the schools, highways, transit, parks.> Here members, and Baxter wrote later that the out- Baxter's perspective joined with Eliot's. all ings "were like voyages of discovery about these functions, Baxter reserved his lengthiest home." Again and again the minutes of these description for a chain of pleasure grounds ex- journeys underline the fascination with ob- tending (under regional administration) from taining grand and scenic views>On Milton Hill Lynn Beach and the Lynn Woods to the they found "one of the noblest prospects in the "mountain-like" Blue Hills range. Taken to- neighborhood of Boston." The outlook down gether with the recently completed parks in the valley of the Saugus River toward the the City of Boston, these large woodland reser- meadowland, the serpentine stream, and the vations would constitute one of the grandest uplands "formed a picture of exceptional park systems in the world. charm." The view from the twin summits of Olmsted urged Baxter to publish the Herald Prospect Hill in Waltham was "wide and glori- articles in book form, and soon after Greater ous." On their inspection tours the travelers Emerald Metropolis 5 DIAGRAM OF THE PUBLIC OPEN SPACES OF THE BOSTON METROPOLITAN DISTRICT IN 1899. LANELE IN - withous LEMENT AND RELATION Exam STATE HOUSE sugar - PM glass - OPEN SPACES HELD BY OPEN SPACES HOLD BY THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES METROPOLITAN COMMISSION or The park plan was bounded by the rock hills-the forest reservations laid out along the ring of hills that surround Boston about ten miles from the State House. The radial spokes of the park system were the three rivers-the Mystic, the Charles, and the Neponset. The beaches of the bay and seashores comprised the third element of the plan. Parks and parkways were proposed along the rivers, and parkways also linked Revere Beach with the Mystic River and the Middlesex Fells, the Charles River with Fresh Pond, Stony Brook with the Arnold Arboretum, and the Blue Hills with Franklin Park. By 1899, over nine thousand acres of reservations and parkways had been acquired. Cartography by Olmsted Brothers; from Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, 1899. 6 Emerald Metropolis Plans and Planners When Copeland moved to Vermont, his ideas for a metropolitan system were advanced by What we now know as the Emerald Necklace his former associate, the engineer Nathaniel Errist was conceived and executed as a single, unified Bowditch. In 1874 Bowditch published a work by Frederick Law Olmsted. By contrast, it metropolitan park plan that included many of is impossible to attribute the authorship of the Copeland's ideas and anticipated Eliot's pro- metropolitan park system to a single author posal of two decades later> For almost fifteen Except for relatively small parcels within the years Copeland had lived in a house along Beaver larger reservations-for example, Revere Beach Brook in Belmont, near the famous Waverly (1895) and the Charles River Esplanade (1936)- Oaks, an area he included in his metropolitan MPC lands have been largely untouched by "de- system. When the MPC was organized in 1893, sign. They represent the first metropolitan Beaver Brook was its first acquisition. application of the idea of "reserving" natural landmarks that began with Yellowstone, Sylvester Baxter Yosemite, and Niagara Falls Having determined that he could not afford to In the second half of the nineteenth century, attend the recently opened architecture school many people campaigned to preserve various of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology woodlands and undeveloped areas around Bos- (the first in America), Baxter went to work for ton-including the Lynn Woods, the Middlesex the Boston Daily Advertiser in 1871. It seems Fells, Beaver Brook, and the Blue Hills. Among likely that he would have read Bowditch's 1874 the park advocates who took a comprehensive, proposal for a metropolitan park system in the - metropolitan view, the most influential Advertiser. included Robert Morris Copeland, Sylvester From 1875 to 1877 Baxter studied at the uni- Baxter, and Charles Eliot. versities of Leipzig and Berlin and was Robert Morris Copeland (1830-1874) especially interested in German municipal A landscape gardener listed in Boston city directories from 1855 to 1872, Copeland pre- pared the plan for the village of Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard and wrote the popular book Country Life: A Handbook of Agriculture, Hor- ticulture, and Landscape Gardening. During the park debates of post-Civil War Boston, Copeland wrote a remarkable editorial propos- ing a system of parks as well as a grand circular boulevard around Boston that would follow the its encircling ring of hills; bridges and ferries across the harbor islands were to complete the loop. Copeland suggested that the surrounding towns "were now Boston," but their citizens "come here to earn money, and go home to en- joy it." It should be possible, he thought, to choose park improvements that would benefit Boston as well as the surrounding suburbs, but this task was beyond the means of individual Sylvester Baxter (above) and Charles cities and towns. He appears to have been the Eliot (facing page) Photographs by Elmer first to suggest a "metropolitan commission" as Chickening, ca. 1893, courtesy of MDC the vehicle for this parkmaking. Archives Emerald Metropolis 7 administration. On his return to Boston he be- education. The burden of family privilege and came involved with Elizur Wright in the cam- accomplishment heightened Charles' anxieties paign to preserve "Stone's Woods" in Malden, when as an upperclassman he realized he Medford, and Winchester. (He also promoted "could find no practical bent or ambition renaming the area "the Middlesex Fells.") In anywhere about me." At one point in his senior 1880 he wrote Olmsted, who had not yet moved year he came near to giving up his studies to Boston, about the Fells. entirely. Baxter's interests covered an extraordinary Not long after graduation a conversation range. In 1881 he joined an archeological expe- with his uncle Robert Peabody, an architect dition to investigate Zuñ1 ruins in the South- who lived near Frederick Law Olmsted in west, and the following year wrote an article Brookline, persuaded Eliot that he should be- about the visit of several Zuñi chiefs to Wash- come a landscape architect. Since there was ington and Boston, where the Zuñ1 conducted a then no recognized training for the field, he en- sunrise ceremony on the beach at Deer Island. tered Harvard's Bussey Institution, where the He also wrote several books of poetry as well as Department of Agriculture and Horticulture a history of Mexican architecture. His abiding was located. The following spring Eliot was in- interest, however, was his vision for Greater troduced by Peabody to Olmsted, who offered Boston.² him an apprenticeship. Within a week he had dropped out of his classes and taken his first inspection tour with Olmsted as a full-time employee of the firm. He soon discovered how well his extracurricular pursuits had prepared him for his profession-the childhood drawing lessons, the long hikes around Boston, the ado- lescent mapping of imaginary towns and real neighborhoods (like Norton's Woods in Cam- bridge), the college summers organizing a group of college friends to study the natural sciences on Mt. Desert Island. After an apprenticeship of two years, Eliot left for a year in Europe. On Olmsted's advice, he ignored the monuments of the "Grand Tour" in favor of public parks, botanical gardens, city streets, and landscape books in the British Museum. He returned with an extraordinary breadth of professional knowledge-from land- scape construction to styles and philosophies of design. By 1892, after five years of managing his Charles Eliot own office, he was well equipped for his part in Periods of elation and tranquility (especially the creation of the Metropolitan Park System.3 when he was away from Cambridge in nearby countryside or the wilds of Maine) alternated 1 Robert Morris Copeland, "The Park Question," with recurring episodes of self-doubt and de- Boston Daily Advertiser (December 2, 1869), 2. pression in Eliot's early life. His mother died 2 [Sylvester Baxter] "Sylvester Baxter," in James when he was nine. By the time he began his Phinney Baxter, The Baxter Family A Collection studies at Harvard, his father had been presi- of Genealogies (N.p. 1921), 94-102. dent of the college for ten years and was well on 3 [Charles W. Eliot] Charles Eliot, Landscape his way to Olympian status in American higher Architect (Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1901), 1-34. 8 Emerald Metropolis also noted unique and distinctive landscapes. streams, the islands, and the promontories,- They were deeply impressed with the remark- all may be made to harmonize in one grand able beauty of the landscape of the ancient panorama " The landscape gardener Robert Waverly Oaks in Belmont and with the need to Morris Copeland had published a plan in 1869 preserve them for the public.7 that encompassed not only the ring of hills The commissioners were able to see beyond from Lynn to Quincy, but a grand circuit that then-current conditions as well. The Charles linked the North Shore across harbor bridges River shore "was marred by industries merely and ferries to the southern beaches (though in search of cheap land" and made ugly by he believed the banks of the Charles would "squalid hovels, dump heaps and other nui- always be needed for wharves and docks). sances." Its banks were "inky black" with foul Copeland was probably the first to call specifi- sewage deposits, though they should be "a cally for a metropolitan commission to ex- popular pleasure ground." There were a "num- ecute this ambitious plan. Separate campaigns ber of ugly fish houses and an equally ugly had been forwarded for several of the large for- Hotel" on Nahant Beach, but it was nonethe- ests around Boston. Elizur Wright and others less one of the most beautiful sites on the Mas- had lobbied since the 1870s to create a "forest sachusetts coast. After their ten outings, all conservatory" at the Fells, and the Massachu- the members presented their views before the setts Horticultural Society in its reports had board, and then Baxter and Eliot drafted the urged the reservation of both the Fells and the report. 8 Waverly Oaks. A "water for the Charles River Basin had many advocates in the 1870s "Picturing" the Park System and 80s, among them Uriah Crocker and The rationale for the Metropolitan Park Sys- Charles Davenport. tem drew on a reservoir of ideas that dated The 1893 metropolitan scheme encompassed back more than a generation, ideas that had the rivers and the shores of Greater Boston in now gained widespread acceptance: spite of their then-degraded state. Eliot sketched The life history of humanity has proved noth- the symmetry of this plan near the end of his ing more clearly than that crowded popula- "Report of the Landscape Architect": tions, if they would live in health and happiness, As the ocean at Revere Beach was reached by a must have space for air, for light, for exercise, ten-mile drive from Winchester down the val- for rest, and for the enjoyment of that peaceful ley of the Mystic River, SO now the bay shore at beauty of nature which, because it IS the oppo- Squaw Rock is reached by a ten-mile drive from site of the noisy ugliness of towns, 1S so Dedham down the lovelier valley of the wonderfully refreshing to the tired souls of Neponset. Half-way between these northern townspeople. and southern riverways we find Charles River, leading, by another course of ten miles, from In Eliot's summation, these general prin- Waltham through the very centre of the metro- ciples gave strong support for the concept of politan district to the basin just west of the the park system The real genius of the 1893 State House. Nature appears to have placed report, though, was its integration and exten- these streams just where they can best serve sion of a series of earlier, less comprehensive the needs of the crowded populations gathering proposals for the Boston region) fast about them.1 In 1844 an eccentric Scot named Robert Here, as throughout the two men's writings, Gourlay, residing in Boston for two years for images were crucial to their visionary narra- the treatment of insomnia, had proposed "con- tives. During the report's preparation Eliot necting and exhibiting to the greatest advan- wrote to the commissioners that his "special tage those rare and beautiful features which work" for the park commission was "the pic- Nature has here thrown together" SO that "the turing by printed words, photographs, and Emerald Metropolis 9 The most visionary acts of the park commission were the schemes to reclaim the riverbanks and beaches, which were occupied by tenements and industry. The transformation of Revere Beach required the relocation of streets and railroads and the demolition of numerous shanties and saloons. Photograph by Nathaniel L. Stebbins. From Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, 1898 maps of those open spaces which are still ob- of the natural features of the region, Eliot be- tainable near Boston." The "details of the legal lieved, would "bring forth the facts in the machinery" could all be resolved once this case" and result in "the scientific selection of "picturing" aroused the necessary public sup- lands for public open space." Such "scientific port. 12 Like others before and since who have planning" would proceed from the greater to projected greater Boston into the future, the the lesser, recognizing that the larger spaces two men appealed to the visual as well as the could never be had if they were not acquired at moral imagination. the right time. The larger reservations would Eliot divided his report's twenty-five pages offer not only the "fresh air and play-room" of of "picturing" into three parts. First was a smaller spaces but also the "free pleasures of physical and historical geography of the parks the open world of which small spaces can give district, followed by a study of "the way in no hint." Executing these general principles which the peculiar geography of the metropoli- would require particular attention to the vi- tan district ought to govern the selection of the sual and functional logic of the reservations' sites of public open spaces." Finally, Eliot boundaries. Wherever possible the boundaries documented the opportunities still available should be established on public roads or on to acquire open space according to the prin- lines where roads would likely be built. And ciples he had outlined. 13 the commission should avoid taking "only half Those principles reflected widely expressed a hill, half a pond or half a glen," since frag- contemporary concerns for public order and ments of such landscape types would be less rational structure in American cities. A study satisfying as natural scenery. 14 The Park Commission was authorized to build parkways in 1894 to create jobs in a time of recession. Primarily intended for "pleasure vehicles," the parkways provided scenic access to the reservations. The Speedway, a departure from the scenic values of the park system, was built near Harvard's Soldiers Field, The tidal flats along the lower Charles offered the only place near Boston for a mile-long course uninterrupted by cross streets. From Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, 1902. Picturing the park system also meant citing contrast, the region north of the Charles River, appropriate administrative models. Though carved up into many small cities and towns, Eliot hinted at the possibilities for parkways, lacked not only extensive parks but clearly Baxter's "Report of the Secretary" addressed delineated routes to the center of Boston as the issue of public roads in a regional context well. and strongly advocated "Special Pleasure- In Baxter's view, the proper structure for ways" to link the metropolitan parks and res- "the peculiar political geography" of the region ervations. One precedent was the boulevards was not annexation, however; it was the Met- of Chicago, created by the Illinois boulevard ropolitan Sewerage Act of 1889. Baxter also act, which allowed the park commissioners to saw a fiscal precedent near at hand for the seek the consent of municipal authorities and Commission's plans to reclaim degraded natu- abutting landowners to connect parks with ral areas. Olmsted's recreative treatment of the such pleasure roads. Commonwealth Avenue, Back Bay Fens was clearly both "the cheapest the parkways of the Emerald Necklace, the and most effective" remedy.16 planned improvements to Blue Hill Avenue, and the proposed parkway from the Arnold Assembling the Reservations Arboretum to Stony Brook were cited as ex- The effort of "picturing" the metropolitan amples, made possible because the annexation parks in the report, aimed at Boston's "high- of several adjoining towns had given the City handed and liberal" Yankee aristocracy, was of Boston the necessary geographical range. By completely successful The "legal machinery" Emerald Metropolis 11 was passed by the legislature and signed by there was instead "a contemptible scavenger's Governor Russell, permanently establishing street, thirty feet wide, backing up against the the Metropolitan Park Commission on June 3, unmentionable parts of private houses. 1119 1893. Charles Dalton, the chairman of the Bos- No single reservation took more of Eliot's ton Park Commission, thought the report time than the Charles. Before and during his would be one of the most important contribu- tenure as consultant to the MPC, he served on tions to the literature of public parks ever several state commissions organized to study made. Charles Francis Adams observed to the the river's sanitary problems, and was also the board that "Our work is chiefly educational. landscape architect for the new (1893) Cam- We cannot expect to accomplish practical re- bridge Park Commission. Cambridge acted sults immediately, but to prepare the public to first, and at Eliot's direction the city acquired do something in these directions some years and began filling more than four miles of salt hence. "117 marsh, almost the entire length of the city's Eliot, however, had other intentions. He southern boundary Though Eliot hoped that moved with what now seems almost incom- some of the region's riverine marshes would be prehensible speed to map the reservation preserved, he told the MPC that the ten miles boundaries, and the Park Commission ac- of Charles River salt marsh below Watertown quired almost seven thousand acres of mostly "must sooner or later be made usable." Like open land in its first eighteen months. Its first many others, Eliot was persuaded that dam- taking, in 1893, was Beaver Brook, including ming the Charles near the harbor to create a the Waverly Oaks. Responding to the depres- water park would return annually increasing sion, the legislature authorized funding for the profits to the community. A separate MPC ap- development of parkways the next year. By propriation for land acquisition along the river | 1899, only six years after the park commission was passed in 1894, and over five hundred was established, the park system comprised acres were purchased during the next three eleven reservations and seven parkways, total- years. In spite of these extensive investments, ling over nine thousand acres. 18 the opposition-led by residents on the water LAt the heart of Eliot's vision for the derelict side of Beacon Street-successfully resisted spaces along the rivers and shores was the the construction of a dam until 1903. (The Charles River Basin, extending upstream from planade was completed in 1936.)20 the western slope of Beacon Hill. The basin, he predicted, would become the central "court of Reservations and Natural Scenery honor" of the metropolitan district Gourlay's For the forest lands, Eliot pressed vigorously to visionary drawings in 1844 had already imag- acquire as much of the identified reservations ined the basin as a single, designed space, but as possible, but he struggled in vain to educate in 1893, the river was still a noisome expanse the park board on the need for what he called of sewage-laden tidal flats, unfit for the central "general plans" for each reservation before role in any story of park design or civic fore- roads and structures were built. When the pace sightedness. The river's frontage was occupied of acquisition slowed in 1896, he organized a by two prisons, three coal-burning power project to classify the broad categories of veg- plants, and numerous shabby commercial and etation throughout the park system. Published industrial structures. Two large slaughter- in 1898, a year after Eliot's untimely death, houses, one near the harbor and the other Vegetation and Scenery is a detailed comple- downstream from Watertown Square, dumped ment to his planning principles outlined in the offal into the shallow waters. Even in the 1893 report Though in the earlier document elegant Back Bay, said Richard Henry Dana, he had advocated a "scientific" selection of where a public roadway should face the river, lands, the vegetation study would merely 12 Emerald Metropolis record the existing conditions in the reserva- might be "sacrilegious" to control or modify tions; it was neither "an historical or even a the existing verdure was nonsense. Even the scientific inquiry." six thousand acres of the Blue Hills, situated as Here we are left to puzzle over what Eliot it was on the rim of the metropolis, did not meant by "historical" and "scientific." Cer- constitute a wilderness-in fact, the vegeta- tainly the Vegetation report corroborated his tion was "really artificial in a high degree." earlier statements that both the beauty and Eliot's priorities for both the large and small ugliness of the existing vegetation were prima- reservations were clear: first, to safeguard the rily the work of men, "chopped over, or com- scenery of these natural areas before it was too pletely cleared, or pastured, or burnt over, time late; second, to make that scenery accessible and time again." While the reservations dif- to the public; and finally, to enrich and en- fered sharply from each other topographically, hance the beauty of the reservations. 44 recent human action had rendered the vegeta- Even if there should be sufficient public sup- tion of the woodlands very much alike and "re- port to accomplish the first and second of markably uninteresting." these tasks, could the enhancement of scenery Then why-apart from a few scattered natural ever be justified at public expense, when "or- and geologic oddities-had these forests been dinary people will never appreciate the differ- acquired? Natural reservations, Eliot had said, ence"? Eliot answered emphatically in the "were the cathedrals of the modern world," affirmative.Following Olmsted, he argued and the metropolitan reservations had been that in the presence of "unaccustomed beauty acquired as a "treasure of scenery." The beaches or grandeur," even the average person experi- and the river shores offered expansive water enced "sensations and emotions, the causes of views, but the scenery of the rock hills was which are unrecognized and even unknown." problematic. Only on the rocky summits and This principle, he thought, was the basis for in the swamps was the vegetation "natural." the public commitment to schools, libraries, The opportunity of the park system's stewards and art museums. It was well exemplified in was to "control, guide, and modify" the forest many already completed public parks, and in growth so that the reservations would be Eliot's mind it was the foundation for the met- "slowly but surely induced to present the ropolitan reservations. 25 greatest possible variety, interest, and beauty of the landscape." Eliot encouraged his protegé The Park System Acclaimed Arthur Shurcliff to sketch before-and-after The significance of the metropolitan parks was scenes in the reservations, and Shurcliff's widely acclaimed in Boston, in other American drawings were included in the printed report cities, and especially in Europe. In November to "picture" the enhancement of the landscape 1893, after Eliot and Olmsted's son John had through the judicious use of the axe. 23 became his partners, Olmsted wrote to them: Standing in the way of such landscape im- nothing else compares in importance to us provements, Eliot wrote, was a "small but in- with the Boston work, meaning the Metropoli- fluential body of refined persons" who opposed tan quite equally with the city work. The two these efforts to adapt parks and reservations to together will be the most important work of new requirements. He observed that these our profession now in hand anywhere in the world. people could live in a little bower and read In your probable life-time, Muddy River [part of the Emerald Necklace], Blue Thoreau with delight, but they could not un- Hills, the Fells, Waverly Oaks, Charles River, derstand a whole landscape. They "talk of 'let- the Beaches will be points to date from in the ting Nature alone' or 'keeping nature natural', history of American Landscape Architecture, as if such a thing were possible in a world as much as Central Park. They will be the which was made for man.' The idea that it opening of new chapters in the art. 26 The popularity of canoeing on the Charles River peaked during the two decades after the construction of Norumbega Park and the Riverside Recreation Grounds in Newton and Weston in the 1890s. More than four thousand canoes were said to be moored along the middle Charles. The regatta shown here was held at the Waltham Canoe Club about 1912. Just downstream of the canoe club IS the smokestack of the American Waltham Watch Company, and on the west side of the river 1S Mt. Feake Cemetery. Farther downstream, below the Watertown Dam, the riverbanks were lined with slaughterhouses, power plants, and other polluting industries, and boating was dominated by the colleges and the rowing clubs. Courtesy of the MDC Archives. The endeavor of "picturing" the parks did doubtless SO identified the park movement not end with the first report, nor was the audi- with Boston as to be almost totally ignorant ence limited to Bostonians. The metropolitan that anything of a similar nature has been un- park commissioners prepared a one-ton plaster dertaken elsewhere.''27 topographical model of the metropolitan area In 1910 the international competition for for the Paris Exposition of 1900 that was later the planning of Greater Berlin resulted in an exhibited at the Pan-American Exhibition in influential exhibition and a widely circulated Buffalo (1901), at the Louisiana Purchase Expo- two-volume catalog. A lavishly illustrated sition at St. Louis (1904), and at the Lewis and chapter on American park systems described Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland their significance as the basis for city plans and (1905) A 1905 article by the secretary of the their importance in relieving urban conges- City Parks Association on "The Development tion. Several pages were devoted to the Boston of Park Systems in American Cities" included city and metropolitan parks, with a full-page a lengthy description of the Boston metropoli- map of the metropolitan park system and pho- tan parks, and suggested that "readers have tographs of the Blue Hills and Revere Beach. 14 Emerald Metropolis The section of the exhibit on American parks the Metropolitan Park System represented its was later mounted separately in several Ger- evolutionary glory. "129 man cities. 28 The judgment of planners and civic officials The Fate of the Idea at the turn of the century has been echoed by In 1919, the Park Commission merged with modern urban historians. In their view, it was the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board to in America that "open space first emerged as a create the Metropolitan District Commission potential structural element for the entire (MDC). More than a dozen new parkways were city." The work of Baxter and Eliot has been constructed in the next decade. The passage of called "the most notable scheme of compre- open space bonds in the 1980s funded signifi- hensive metropolitan park planning" in the cant additions to the reservations, and today United States and "the first such organization the park system comprises more than 16,000 of land in the world." Closer to home, an elo- acres. After a hundred years' experience with quent study of the Back Bay Fens authenticates this regional pattern of open space, it is fair to the reservations' importance: "If Mount Au- ask what these reservations now mean in our burn Cemetery was the forerunner of the Fens, urban lives. Working double shifts for eight months, twenty-one people built this model under the direction of the "geographic sculptor" George Carroll Curtis. It took SIX months to make a wax model, then plaster casts were made in ten sections The finished model was almost eleven feet in diameter and weighed one ton Its handpainted surface was "planted" with 200,000 evergreen and deciduous trees and depicted 250 miles of railroads, 300 miles of streams, 2,750 miles of streets, and 157,000 dwellings. Even the Frog Pond on Boston Emerald Metropolis 15 The founders of the park system were prac- writings these park advocates knew well, de- tical enough to see that the water edges of clared that "in every landscape the point of rivers and shores could provide open space astonishment is the meeting of the sky and without taking large tracts off the tax rolls. the earth." The New England teacher Horace The city's ponds and rivers, as Eliot told the Mann put it more plainly: "Water is to the Cambridge park commissioners, offered "per- landscape what the eye is to the face. 1130 manently open spaces provided by nature A hundred years ago Eliot was convinced without cost"; capturing their edges for the that reservations of scenery had become the public opened "these now unused and inacces- cathedrals of the modern world. Are they now? sible spaces with their ample air, light, and The historian Sam Bass Warner has argued that outlook." But behind these matter-of-fact at the end of the twentieth century "we are statements was a transcendentalist vision of escaping a different city; we are in search of a the mystical power at the edges and margins of different Mother Nature." It is not just the the natural world. The human craving for land- highways everywhere, splitting the Blue scapes is most deeply realized where earth Hills and the Fells, and separating the Espla- connects with water and sky. Emerson, whose nade from its neighborhood. Across the Common and the bridge over the lake in the Public Garden were shown in scale. The model was exhibited first at the Paris Exposition of 1900, then at international expositions in Buffalo, St Louis, and Portland. For almost eighty years the model was displayed at Harvard University museums. In 1980 it was moved to the Boston Museum of Science, at the geographical center of the Metropolitan Park System. From G. C. Curtis, A Description of the Topographical Model of Metropolitan Boston, 1900. 16 Emerald Metropolis country "greenways" are created on former Eliot, "Report of the Landscape Architect," Report railroad beds, along canals, and in other once- of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners unimaginable "public open spaces," and (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1893), 91, cited below as MPC Report (1893). Olmsted is acclaimed as the "father of the 3 Charles Eliot, "The Waverly Oaks," Garden and greenways." Greenways, however, are no Forest (March 5, 1890), 117-18 Eliot first proposed longer peaceful byways for "restoring the tired that the association be called The Trustees of souls of townspeople." We now jog, sunbathe, Massachusetts Scenery." The name chosen, "The cycle, and skate in many reservations where, Trustees of Public Reservations," was the source of some confusion since the organization was privately until recently, such activities were forbidden. organized and funded In 1954 it became "The Scenic reserves for many people have become Trustees of Reservations." Its history 1S described in landscapes of speed and motion.³1 Gordon Abbott, Jr., Saving Special Places. A The incursion of structures, highways, and Centennial History of the Trustees of Reservations: Pioneer of the Land Trust Movement (Ipswich, MA: wheels of all kinds notwithstanding, the natu- Ipswich Press, 1993). ral landmarks of Greater Boston, drawn into 4 Charles Eliot to Governor William Russell, the public domain according to the park system's December 19, 1890, in [Charles W. Eliot] Charles visionary scheme, have shown surprising stead- Eliot, Landscape Architect (Boston: Houghton fastness. Perhaps the past hundred years have Mifflin, 1901), 356-57, hereafter cited as Charles Eliot. Sylvester Baxter, Greater Boston A Study for vindicated the definition of stewardship that a Federalized Metropolis Comprising the City of Baxter and Eliot propounded: first, secure open Boston and Surrounding Cities and Towns (Boston: spaces that reinforce the park system at every Philpott, 1891), 8 (reprinted from the Boston Herald). opportunity, even if they cannot be developed 5 Baxter's recollection that Eliot proposed a joint immediately (remembering the lesson of the effort to realize the park system 1S found in his "Wonderful Progress During the Past Seven Years of reclaimed rivers and shores-that it is never Work on the Great Metropolitan Park System," too late to acquire or recover public spaces); Boston Sunday Herald (May 20, 1900), 41; and in next, offer access for people without destroy- Baxter, "Greater Boston's Metropolitan Park ing what has been reserved; and then when the System," Boston Evening Transcript, Part Five (September 29, 1923), 1. means permit, improve the natural domain- 6 Eliot to Russell, quoted in Charles Eliot, 356. the hills, the rivers, and the shores-of the 7 Minutes of the temporary Metropolitan Park Emerald Metropolis. Commission, 1892. 8 Ibid. Notes 9 MPC Report (1893), 82 1 Jack Shepherd, The Adams Chronicles Four 10 Robert Fleming Gourlay, Plans for Beautifying New Generations of Greatness (Boston Little, Brown, York and For Enlarging and Improving the City of 1975), 424. Thomas S. Hines, Burnham of Chicago. Boston (Boston. Crocker & Brewster, 1844), 17; Architect and Planner (New York: Oxford University Robert Morris Copeland, "The Park Question," Press, 1974), quotes Daniel Burnham, the chief Boston Daily Advertiser (December 2, 1869), 2; architect of the Chicago Fair, on the color of the "The Waverly Oaks," Transactions of the buildings, 101; and Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard Massachusetts Horticultural Society for the Year professor of fine arts, on their arrangement, 115. 1884, Part II (Boston: Massachusetts Horticultural 2 Walter Creese unnecessarily simplifies the Metro- Society, 1884), 272-73. According to Baxter, painters politan Park System by mapping it as "Eliot's Emerald connected with the Boston Art Club had suggested Necklace" in "The Boston Fens," The Crowning of the that the club purchase the Waverly Oaks in the American Landscape: Eight Great Spaces and Their 1870s; "By Bicycle to the Waverly Oaks-II," Buildings (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Garden and Forest (August 17, 1892) 3(234): 387. 1985). Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Beginning in the 1870s, the Charles was frequently Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 340. For a compared with rivers in European cities, especially discussion of Olmsted and J. J. R. Croes' 1876-77 Hamburg's Alster Basin, which served in a general plans for the Bronx, see David Schuyler, The New way as the model for the development of the Urban Landscape The Redefinition of City Form in Esplanade in the 1930s. See City of Boston, City Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Document No 128 (1869), 7, 264 Hopkins University Press, 1986), 174-79. Charles 11 MPC Report (1893), 106. Baxter considered Eliot's Emerald Metropolis 17 "comprehensive reservation of the banks of the Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America: three rivers" unique in a system of park Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Knopf, 1992). development, see Baxter, "Wonderful Progress," 40. 25 MPC Report (1897), 51. 12 Charles Eliot, 383. 26 Olmsted to Partners (John Olmsted and Charles 13 MPC Report (1893), 82-110. Eliot), October 28 and November 1, 1893, Olmsted 14 MPC Report (1893), 83, 92; MPC Report (1894), 14. Papers, Library of Congress. As Keith Morgan has For a broad view of the period, see Robert Wiebe, The pointed out, all but the first of these parks were Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill & initiated and directed by Eliot; Keith Morgan, "Held Wang, 1967). In Trust; Charles Eliot's Vision for the New England 15 Baxter included a draft "General Parkway Law" in Landscape" (Bethesda, MD: National Association for his part of the report. MPC Report (1893), Appendix Olmsted Parks, 1991), 1. B, 62-66. 27 MPC Annual Report (1905), 30-31; Andrew Wright 16 MPC Report (1893), 3-19. Crawford, "The Development of Park Systems in 17 The characterization of Boston politics in this period American Cities," Annals of the American as "both high-handed and liberal" 1S from Martin Academy (1905), 223 Meyerson and Edward C. Banfield, Boston, The Job 28 Christiane Crasemann Collins, "A Visionary Ahead (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Discipline: Werner Hegemann and the Quest for 1966), 106; Dalton's comment 1S cited in Baxter, the Pragmatic Ideal," Center A Journal for "Wonderful Progress," 41. Architecture in America 5 (1989), 79-80 18 Two decades later, Adams was still startled by the 29 Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph. City speed of the Commission's progress: "Wholly Government in America, 1870-1900 (Baltimore: opposed to the policy of rapid growth and what I Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 256-257; could not but regard as premature development, I Creese, 168; Anthony Sutcliffe, Toward the Planned found myself powerless to check it. I was, in fact, City. Germany, Britain, the United States, and frightened at our success in the work we had to do." France, 1780-1914 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), By June 1895 Adams was "bored to death and fast 197; Creese, 183. getting cross" with week-to-week administrative 30 Eliot, Preliminary Report on the Location of Parks matters, and resigned from the board. Writing at the for Cambridge (October 16, 1893); quoted in Charles end of his life, however, he doubted "whether at any Eliot, 423-24. George H. Snelling, "Testimonials in period of my life, or in any way, I have done work Favor of the Modification of the Plan of Building on more useful or so permanent in character as the Back Bay Territory: April 2, 1860"; Ralph Waldo saving to the people of Massachusetts the Blue Hills Emerson, "Nature," in Brooks Atkinson, ed., The and the Middlesex Fells." Charles Francis Adams, Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Diary, June 10, 11, 1895/Charles Francis Adams, Waldo Emerson (NY: Random House, 1940), 410, 1835-1915, An Autobiography (Boston: Houghton Horace Mann 1S quoted in Creese, 192. Mifflin, 1916), 185: 31 Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot to the Metropolitan Park 19 Charles Eliot, The Boston Metropolitan Commission, June 22, 1896, quoted in Charles Eliot, Reservations," New England Magazine 15: 1 655; Sam Bass Warner, Jr., "Open Spaces," New (September 1896), 117-118. Richard Henry Dana, Republic 170 29 (March 23, 1974), 30; Noel Grove, letter to the editor, Boston Daily Advertiser, June "Greenways: Paths to the Future," National 13,1874. Geographic 177: 6 (June 1990), 93. 20 MPC Report (1897), 43. Acknowledgments 21 Charles Eliot, Vegetation and Scenery in the Metropolitan Reservations of Boston (Boston: Encouragement for this research was generously Lamson, Wolffe, 1898), 8 (hereafter cited as extended by the Metropolitan District Commission Vegetation and Scenery). and by Commissioner M. Ilyas Bhatti. Professor Keith 22 Vegetation and Scenery, 9; MPC Report (1895), 31. Morgan, Julia O'Brien, MDC Director of Planning, and Sean Fisher, MDC Archivist, offered insightful 23 Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot to the Metropolitan Park comments. Special thanks 1S expressed to Katie and Commission, June 22, 1896, quoted in Charles Eliot, Tony Strike. 655; Eliot, Vegetation and Scenery, 9, 22. 24 Charles Eliot, "The Necessity of Planning," Garden and Forest (August 26, 1896), 342; Arthur A. Karl Haglund is the project manager of the New Charles Shurcliff, "What Mr Eliot Said," 1897 ms. Houghton River Basin, the extension of the Charles River Library, Harvard University; Eliot, Vegetation and Reservation from the Esplanade to Boston Harbor. He Scenery, 9, 22, MPC Report (1895), 32. For the has written about historic architecture, urban design, cultural roots of urban landscape improvement, see and the landscapes of the American West. HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 1 7 Help VETICO Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TAS Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Print/Save/Send Add to List View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view I MARC Record 17 out of 24 Previous Record Next Record Author : Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897. Title : Personal diaries. [MSS.] Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Loeb Design i Special Collections CE NAB 205 EI4 Holdings Availability Location : Loeb Design I Microfilm Holdings Availability Location : Master Microforms i Film Mas C 1678 Holdings Availability Description : 6 V. Contents : 1. Summary, 1882-1893.--2. May, 1883-July, 1884.--3. 1890.--4. 1891.--5 1892.--6. 1893. Title : Personal diaries of office notes and records. HOLLIS Number : 003042689 Previous Record Next Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear About the HOLLIS Catalog HARVARD LIBRARIES HOME OTHER CATALOGS E-RESOURCES CONDUCTING RESEARCH LIBRARY INFORMATION HARVARD HOME Copyright © 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/G8U9BF6EKQSF1QQR7BXALP8GDKMKJ47YM42SQN1GJU6T8.. 12/21/2004 6/23/15 transpleterong 308-315. Journal of Planning History Marginal Lands and Suburban 8(4) 308-329 The Author(s) 2009 Reprints and permission: http://www. Nature: Open Space Planning sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1538513209351782 and the Case of the 1893 http://jph.sagepub.com SAGE Boston Metropolitan Parks Plan Steven T. Moga I Abstract Soon after publication, the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Report came to be regarded as a model plan for American cities. Little known to the public today, it is frequently cited by landscape and planning historians as a testament to the vision of "pioneer" landscape architect Charles Eliot and metropolitan planning advocate Sylvester Baxter. However, planning historians have overlooked key aspects of the plan and omitted significant details about the authors' redevelopment and planning goals. I argue that Eliot and Baxter viewed open space planning as a means of combating slums and establishing a regionwide land use template for future growth. Keywords metropolitan parks, open space, Greater Boston, Charles Eliot, Sylvester Baxter Charles Eliot and Sylvester Baxter combined detailed landscape analysis, conservationist principles, and naturalistic design aesthetics with a regional planning approach in the Boston Metropolitan Parks Report of 1893. Soon after publication, it came to be regarded as a model plan for cities and regions around the United States. Little known to the public today, it is frequently cited by landscape and plan- ning historians as a testament to "pioneer" landscape architect Eliot's unique vision and successful advocacy work. 1 However, historians have tended to overlook several key aspects of Eliot and Bax- ter's plan. notably the way in which it differed from other parks plans of the time and how it incorporated concerns about urban growth and spatial structure. 2 Commonly characterized as an extension of nineteenth-century park planning ideals to the scale of the metropolis, the plan's contri- butions to the developing field of urban planning and its continuing relevance for planners interested in sustainable design have been obscured or forgotten. As such, a new look at this old plan is in order. Rather than viewing Eliot and Baxter's work through the lens of the parks movement, I analyze the plan in terms of city planning ideals. Spe- cifically, I'm interested in the way in which Baxter and Eliot articulated a vision of the spatial structure of the metropolis rooted in a deep understanding of its landscape characteristics. I argue that the intellectual basis for the plan and the conceptual framework put forth by Baxter and Eliot is best understood when one considers their collaborative effort and shared concerns. This article presents an alternative view of the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Report, drawing on primary I Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Corresponding Author: Steven T. Moga, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, City Design and Development Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 10-485,1 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 E-mail: moga@mit.edu Downloaded from hitp://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 Moga 309 sources to argue that land use control and the authors' concern over the location and effects of J unregulated private development on the urban landscape were key factors in the plan's forma- tion, promulgation, and implementation. By reframing the plan, we can see its advantages better, as well as its biases, and potentially draw lessons relevant to our own time. This article is organized into six parts. It begins with historical background on the develop- ment of Boston's suburbs, including the multiple town and city incorporations, municipals splits, and annexations that occurred in the decades prior to the plan. Second, I describe how the plan was developed and how it differs from the parks plans of Frederick Law Olmsted. The third sec- tion details Eliot and Baxter's ideas about regional landscape planning as a "template" for future development. That is to say, while the plan may appear to concern only "parks," the authors had broader objectives in mind. The fourth and fifth sections deal with Eliot and Baxter's primary concerns in developing the plan: the possibility that the region might be transformed into one "continuous dense city" and the problems of private development, with Revere Beach as an example. I conclude with a discussion of the plan's lasting impact and its significance for plan- ners and planning historians today. Boston's Suburbs in Historical Perspective In the second half of the nineteenth century, with the emergence of "streetcar suburbs," the Boston area experienced a fundamental spatial transformation. "Greater Boston" emerged, an area with a population of approximately 888,000 people with only slightly more than half living in the City of Boston. Within this area were twelve cities and twenty-four towns, identified in Baxter and Eliot's report. Historian Sam Bass Warner explains how Boston was transformed: No period in Boston's history was more dynamic than the prosperous years of the second half of the nineteenth century. One of the most enduring of the many transformations of this era was the rearrangement of the physical form of the city itself. In fifty years it changed from a merchant city of two hundred thousand inhabitants to an industrial metrop- olis of over a million. In 1850 Boston was a tightly packed seaport; by 1900 it sprawled over a ten-mile radius and contained thirty-one cities and towns. 3 By the turn of the twentieth century, the combined population of only three of these newly developed areas, Dorchester, Roxbury, and West Roxbury (formerly independent municipalities annexed to Boston) exceeded the entire 1850 metropolitan total.4 Furthermore, as Binford has described, new residential land uses in the suburbs were overlaid on an earlier pattern of sporadic and dispersed development that included fringe artisanal and industrial uses. 5 It was only during the mid- to late nineteenth century that the suburbs became primarily residential. Real estate speculators converted agricultural or undeveloped land into new residential areas, eventually transforming place, suburban image, and municipal politics alike. In the 1893 metropolitan parks plan, Baxter described the suburbanization process as one of municipal disintegration and partial reintegration. As small villages, settlements, and "rustic farming hamlets" grew, and railway lines were laid down, several new towns were created, breaking off from existing municipalities. For example, Revere and Winthrop were created out of parts of Chelsea; Melrose, Stoncham, and Everett were carved out of Malden; and, Somer- ville, Woburn, and Winchester broke away from Charlestown. Baxter explained that reintegration had only been partial, with a few surrounding communities annexed to Boston, giving Boston its Downloaded from http://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 310 Journal of Planning History 8(4) Wakefield Stoncham Woburn Saugus Lynn Melrose Winchester Lexington Maiden Medford Nahant Revere Arlington Everett Belmont Chelsea Somerville Waltham Cambridge Chad hown Winthrop Watertown Atlantic Ocean Brighton mile radius Boston Proper Newton Rexbury Brookline 3 mile radius Darchester Needham West Roxbury 10 mile radius Hyde Dedham Park Milton Quincy Braintree Weymouth THE PEDESTRIAN CITY OF 1350 (2 mile radius) Boston Proper East Boston South Boston Cambridge Charlestown Roxhury THE PERIPHERAL TOWNS IN 1850 (3 mile radios) Brookline Cheisea Derchester Somerville THE NEW $UBURRS IN 1900 (10 mile radius) MAP 1. The pedestrian city of 1850 and the suburban metropolis of 1900. The metropolis of 1900 is that described by Sylvester Baxter, Greater Baston; A Study for a Federated Metropolis (Boston, 1891). See Table I for population distribution. Figure I. The Boston metropolitan area in 1850 and 1900 Source: Warner, Streetcar Suburbs. odd shape. As such, many of the landscape features Eliot observed either cut across municipal boundaries, were located within different municipalities over time, or both (Figure 1). Several months prior to the plan's creation, the Boston Globe reported on the park activities of Boston's surrounding municipalities, dividing them into two groups: "park cities and towns" versus "cities and towns without parks. ,6 Included in the list of "park cities and towns" were Boston, Malden, Lynn, and Cambridge. In the list of "cities and towns without parks" are Chelsea, Winthrop, Everett, Medford, Wakefield, Arlington, Watertown, Waltham, Hyde Park, Saugus, Swampscott, and Nahant. The Globe continued, Most of the cities and towns without parks are located in what might be termed the field and tree district, in contradistinction to Boston. But they are all growing and every year one Downloaded from http://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 Moga 311 or more hundred acres are swallowed by the enlarging municipalities. It is on this very matter that Mr. Eliot suggests that the Legislature of next year should create one general board of commissioners endowed with power to take lands for park purposes in any of the municipalities which compose "greater" Boston. 7 As he would later describe eloquently and succinctly in the 1893 report, Eliot believed that a detailed understanding of and appreciation for the natural features of the region, in Boston and "the field and tree district" as well as along waterways and seacoasts, could provide the basis for sound planning. Parks could follow riverways, low-lying development could be prevented, and hills could be reserved as forested retreats from the crowded city. Developing the Plan By 1893, park construction and open space provision had become a significant part of the physi- cal processes of city building in Boston. Although the Boston Common had colonial roots, most Boston open spaces did not. As the city metamorphosed under the forces of rapid urbanization and industrialization, various observers began to identify open spaces and playgrounds as rem- edies for urban problems, introducing a wide variety of park proposals. Robert F. Gourlay offered a plan featuring a designed Charles River landscape;8 8 H. W. S. Cleveland argued for a network of roads, avenues, and scenery rather than a large centrally located park; and Robert Morris Copeland and Uriel H. Crocker argued for a metropolitan system. Of course, the most well-known and prominent landscape designer of the era was Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted expressed his ideas about the relationships of parks and open spaces to city development in a now-famous address to the American Social Science Association at the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1870. In the speech, entitled "Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns," Olmsted developed a three-part rationale for parks based on public health, social cohe- sion, and democratic access. He also spoke directly to the influence of private real estate interests in reshaping the relationship between nature and the built environment under condi- tions of urban growth and expansion. It is practically certain that the Boston of today is the mere nucleus of the Boston that is to be. It is practically certain that it is to extend over many miles of country now thoroughly rural in character, in part of which farmers are not laying out roads with a view to shorten- ing the teaming distance between their woodlots and a railway station, being governed in their courses by old property lines, which were first run simply with reference to the equi- table division of heritages, and in other parts of which, perhaps, some wild speculators are having streets staked off from plans which they have formed with a rule and pencil in a broker's office, with a view, chiefly, to the impressions they would make when seen by other speculators on a lithographed map. 10 His observations certainly contributed to the growing awareness of the region's transformation. Olmsted had also completed numerous influential projects, including Central Park (1857- 1873), Niagara Falls (1879), and Boston's Emerald Necklace (1875-1892), by the time of the Boston Metropolitan Parks plan. His influence was widely felt, and cities and towns around Boston were no exception-creating their own parks commissions and boards, and building new parks. As Olmsted developed Boston's Emerald Necklace, parks proponents attracted more Downloaded from http://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 312 Journal of Planning History 8(4) support and the parks movement in Greater Boston continued to grow. In fact, by the 1890s, parks had become such a popular cause that it was claimed that few, if any, people truly opposed them. No man in his right mind can now be found who harbors [anti-park] opinions of this sort. The park questions with which public-spirited men now concern themselves are, how to secure enough land, how best to adapt it to public use, and how to maintain and administer it most effectively for that end. 11 Through publications such as Garden and Forest, and in Boston newspapers, enthusiasm for parks ran high. Olmsted's influence on the metropolitan parks plan was exercised in other ways as well, including through his personal and professional relationship with Charles Eliot. As a young man, Eliot worked as his apprentice; many years later, he joined Olmsted's sons as a partner under the firm's new name of Olmsted, Olmsted, & Eliot. In part because of the connections between the two men, the Boston metropolitan parks plan is often described as a physical exten- sion of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace to the metropolitan scale. Indeed, Olmsted himself stated SO in a letter to his partners in 1893: Nothing else compares in importance to us with the Boston work, meaning the Metropolitan quite equally with the city work. The two together will be the most important work in our pro- fession now in hand anywhere in the world. In your probable lifetime, Muddy River, Blue Hills, the Fells, Waverly Oaks, Charles River, the Beaches will be points to date from in the history of American Landscape Architecture, as much as Central Park. They will be the open- ing of new chapters in the art. 12 Indeed, the plan shared many attributes of the earlier park planning work: the focus on low- lying areas (which can be traced to the work on the Back Bay Fens), the appreciation for scenic beauty and the pastoral landscape, and the notion of a system of multiple, connecting, or linked parks. However, as Keith Morgan has pointed out, Baxter's contributions have often been over- looked and Eliot's language and approach differed considerably from Olmsted's. 13 Eliot envisioned a new type of public landscape and used a distinctive vocabulary to articulate a new set of objectives. Whereas Olmsted wrote about green country parks, parkways, and pastoral retreats as places in which modern city dwellers could find spiritual replenishment through passive contemplation of nature, Eliot discussed reservations, trusteeships, and rural landscape preservation that would provide settings for active enjoyment of nature. In contrast to Olmsted's retreat into a private contemplation of nature, Eliot compared scenery or land- scape to other advantages of urban culture, especially books and art. While Olmsted's parks were created through design, Eliot's reservations were products of choice, preservation, and improvement. 14 Furthermore, Eliot and Baxter's work differs in several key respects from Olmsted's Emerald Necklace: it greatly expanded the scale of landscape intervention, it introduced metropolitan governance as means of implementing its goals, and it confronted regional trends in land development emphasizing urban planning concerns in a new way (Figures 2 to 5). Eliot and Downloaded from http://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 Moga 315 Baxter took advantage of the public's new enthusiasm for parks to advance their plan. They built on that public goodwill to extend the notion of city parks into the realm of suburban natural areas with the intent of producing a comprehensive metropolitan system. They used a keen strategy for getting their own proposal sponsored, adopted, and implemented by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And until Eliot's tragic early death in 1897, they were heavily involved in its implementation: creating the first metropolitan park system in the United States. Eliot developed his ideas for metropolitan Boston based on an intensive study of the region's topographical, hydrological, and scenic landscape characteristics. In the 1880s and 1890s, Eliot explored on foot, often alone, the hilltops, streams, and ocean shores of the Boston area. 15 In contrast, Baxter, a journalist from Malden, a suburb north of Boston, brought a more theoretical, even utopian, perspective: he was a strong advocate for metropolitan governance and a follower of the idealistic movement inspired by Edward Bellamy's futuristic novel Looking Backward. Together they shared an interest in the physical characteristics of the expanding Boston region and the potential benefits of creating open spaces through state action. With the 1889 Metropolitan Sewerage Commission as precedent, and debates about other metropolitan initiatives under way, Eliot, Baxter, and their allies began the campaign for metro- politan parks in 1890. Eliot used his position at the Trustees of Public Reservations to organize the campaign; Baxter used his press contacts to promote it. In December 1891, Eliot and the Trustees of Public Reservations called together members of the suburban park commissions to consider petitioning the legislature to enact legislation. The group met at the office of the Boston Park Commission, where they named Eliot the group's secretary. By the end of 1891, several thousand people had signed the petitions. On March 11, 1892, Eliot attended a joint committee meeting at the legislature, four days later submitting a draft bill to the state Senate. The bill passed both houses of the legislature then was approved by the Governor on June 2, 1892. Baxter became Secretary, Eliot the consulting land- scape architect of a new Commission to investigate the question of the need for metropolitan open space. Just seven months later, on January 2, 1893, Baxter and Eliot submitted their reports to the Commission whereupon it was delivered to Legislature. Published by the Massachusetts state legislature, the plan consists of three main elements: a very brief report from the Commission, Baxter's report as Secretary, and Eliot's report as con- sulting landscape architect. Richly illustrated, the report includes numerous renderings, photographs, and maps. The plan recommended that a permanent Commission be established with the power to take lands through eminent domain. One million dollars in loan financing was budgeted for the program (Figure 6). Baxter and Eliot's report included detailed descriptions of some of the natural features of the region, but neither the plan nor the proposed legislation listed specific lots or parcels to be purchased. The future decisions of the Commission would deter- mine which specific lands with specific owners would be taken by eminent domain. A Template for Future Development In a region that was rapidly expanding in population and land area, Eliot and Baxter saw open space planning as a means of establishing a regionwide land use template, or as Haglund has termed it, an "armature." By undertaking a comprehensive process to identify land and waterways that could serve a public purpose, rather than remain in private hands, they extended "parks" planning into the realm of regional land use planning. In an era decades before the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of zoning, they identified state Downloaded from http://jph.sagepub.com at Ebsco Electronic Journals Service (EJS) on February 9, 2010 Canton Mass. Historical Society, Canton Bicentennial Book, Chapter 1 Page 9 of 30 meteorologist. During the infamous Blizzard of 1978, the Observatory recorded continual wind gusts in excess of 90 MPH. Winds of over twice this speed, 186 MPH, were recorded by the Observatory during the Hurricane of 1938. The Blue Hill Weather Observatory is truly the foremost landmark structure in the history of American weather forecasting. The Observatory and the Ski Area, are just two of the features of the the 8,000 acre Blue Hills Reservations, probably the single most important recreational resource in metropolitan Boston. The Reservation was laid out in 1892 by Charles Eliot, the famous landscape architect and partner with Frederick Law Olmsted. Eliot reconfigured the boundaries of the original Ponkapoag Plantation to include the thirteen peaks currently in the Reservation. The Reservation's use of its open space has since become a model for open land use planning worldwide. It is the oldest metropolitan park in the United States, growing from an original 6,000 acres to the present 8,000 acres and including over 500 miles of wooded trails. Hundreds of thousands of people have enjoyed the Reservation, including Pope John Paul II. In 1980, at the invitation of The Friends of the Blue Hills, the papal motorcade ascended to the summit of the Great Blue Hill As we proceed toward the intersection of Route 138 and Royal Street, Howard Johnson's comes into view. A landmark since 1937, this was one of the first franchises of this restaurant chain, started in Quincy during the 1920's. This particular "HoJo's" has been a popular meeting place through the years, despite a major fire which damaged much of the building. Franchise Associates bought the building, renovated it and updated the HoJo images. Today this restaurant serves as a training facility for HoJo personnel. Howard Johnson's and the cluster of gas stations known as Gasoline Alley owe their creation to the "old" Route 128. On Royal Street is a unique mix of residential, State Park land and businesses such as Instron, the Bank of Boston, and Boston Mutual, some of Canton's largest taxpayers. Instron, situated on the former Chase estate, is of particular note. They are recognized as a "model" company, having kept most of their 65 acre estate as open space. And for many years, the company operated a working farm, complete with livestock. The company served up their own produce in the cafeteria. The Trinity Episcopal Church anchors the corner of Route 138 and Blue Hill River Road on land donated by the late Martha Prowse in 1964. The church was dedicated in September 1969. The entrance to Prowse Farm, presently owned by Meditech, is a short distance down River Road on the right. For thousands of years, Indians farmed the broad plain on which the farm sits. They called this area Maswatusek or "Land by the Great Hill". This is the origin of the name Massachusetts. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/1496/book/bibook1.htm 8/20/2003