Page 49 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Boston

BEA C ON HILL AND WEST END  47

6 Beacon Street
Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Boston Brahmins
Map 1 B4.  Park Street.
In 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes (see p32) wrote that Boston’s
wealthy merchant class of the time constituted a Brahmin caste, Beacon Street is lined with
a “harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristo cracy” with “their houses urban mansions facing Boston
by Bulfinch, their monopoly on Beacon Street, Common. The 1808 William
their ancestral portraits and Chinese por- Hickling Prescott House at
celains, humanitarianism, Unitarian faith No. 55, designed by Asher
in the march of the mind, Yankee Benjamin, offers tours of rooms
shrewdness, and New England decorated in Federal, Victorian,
exclusiveness.” So keenly did he skewer and Colonial Revival styles.
the social class that the term has The American Meteorological
persisted. In casual usage today, a Society occupies No. 45, which
Brahmin is someone with an old family was built as Harrison Gray Otis’s
name, whose finances derive largely last and finest house, with
from trust funds, and whose politics 11 bedrooms and an elliptical
blend conservatism with noblesse oblige room behind the front parlor
toward those less fortunate. Boston’s where the walls and doors are
Brahmins founded most of the hospitals, curved. The elite Somerset
performing arts bodies and museums of Oliver Wendell Holmes Club stands at Nos. 42–43
the greater metropolitan area. (1809–94) Beacon Street. In the 1920s to
1940s, Irish Catholic mayor
James Michael Curley would
hospitable, Nichols was, among lead election night victory
other things, a self-styled land- marches to the State House,
scape designer who traveled pausing at the Somerset to
extensively around the world taunt the Boston Brahmins
to write about gardens. within. The Parkman House
at No. 33 is now a city-owned
5 Hepzibah Swan meeting center. It was the
home of Dr. George Parkman,
Houses who was murdered by Harvard
professor and fellow socialite
13, 15 & 17 Chestnut St. Map 1 B4.
 Park Street. Closed to the public. Dr. John Webster in 1849.
Drawing room of the Bulfinch-designed Boston society was torn apart
Nichols House Museum The only woman who was when Webster was sentenced
ever a member of the Mount to be hanged.
4 Nichols House Vernon Proprietors (see p46),
Museum Mrs. Swan had these houses P William Hickling Prescott House
built by Bulfinch as wedding Open May–Sep: noon–4pm Wed &
55 Mount Vernon St. Map 1 B4. presents for her daughters Sat. & ^ 8
Tel (617) 227-6993.  Park Street. in 1806, 1807 and 1814.
Open Apr–Oct: 11am–4pm Tue–Sat; Some of the most
Nov–Mar: 11am–4pm Thu–Sat. & ^
8 ∑ nicholshousemuseum.org elegant and distin-
guished houses on
The Nichols House Museum Chestnut Street, they
was designed by Charles are backed by Bulfinch-
Bulfinch in 1804 and offers a designed stables that
rare glimpse into the tradi tion- face onto Mount
bound lifestyle of Beacon Hill. Vernon Street. The
Modernized in 1830 by the deeds restrict the
addition of a Greek Revival height of the stables
portico, the house is never- to 13 ft (4 m) so that
theless a superb example of her daughters would
Bulfinch’s domestic architec- still have a view over
ture. It also offers an insight Mount Vernon Street.
into the life of a true Beacon In 1863–65, No. 13
Hill character. Rose Standish was home to Dr.
Nichols moved into the house Samuel Gridley Howe,
aged 13 when her father pur- abolitionist and edu-
chased it in 1885. She left it as cational pioneer who,
a museum in her will in 1960. in 1833, founded the
A woman ahead of her time, first school for the Elegant Federal-style houses on Beacon
strong-willed and famously blind in the U.S. Street, overlooking Boston Common

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