BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AND SCHOOLHOUSE, 1847 (AT LEFT), CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS Courtesy of the Charlestown Branch Library. OLD-TIME d Quarterly e7MagaxineDevoted to the dncient Buildings,’ Household Furnbhings, Domestic A-ts, aanners and Customs, and &Minor dhtiquities of tile 3(ew England Teople

BULLETIN OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATIONOF NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES

Volume LX, No. 3 Januar--Marc/i I 970 Serial No. 219

Architectural Projects in the Greek Revival Style by Ammi Burnham Young

By LAWRENCE WODEHOUSE

HE architecture of Ammi Burn- Although Young’s Greek Revival de- ham Young can be divided into signs date from the 1830’s and 1840’s, T three rather indistinct phases, he also continued in the eclectic tradi- namely the Asher Benjamin craftsman- tion typical of architects in the era prior builder tradition, when Young “procured to formal school training in architecture. a few books” and was experimenting in His Gothic designs for Mount Auburn the realm of architecture; the Cemetery Chapel at Cambridge (Figs. I phase under the guidance of Alexander and 2) and his use of the Romanesque at Parris ;and the Italianate period with in- the Lowell Courthouse (1850) and the fluences from England, when Young was Bromfield Street Methodist Episcopal Supervising Architect to the Treasury Church, Boston (Fig. 3), illustrates this Department from 1852 to 1862. During trend. While practicing architecture in the first phase, Young designed Congre- Boston, he also designed bonded ware- gational meetinghouses, using Benja- houses on Commercial Street; a solid min’s The Country Builders’ Assistant block of buildings on State Street at the ( I 797) for inspiration; an Episcopal corner of Merchants’ Row; at least one church in the Gothic tradition ; college hundred housesin South End; a houseon and bank buildings in a utilitarian classical Washington Street and Franklin Square; mode; and in 1833, his first essayin the his own house at 48 Bowdoin Street, at Greek Revival style, the State Capitol at the corner of Ashburton Place; and a Montpelier, Vermont. Only four years schoolhouse at Charlestown (Frontis- later Young won a competition for the piece), all of which have been demol- Customhouse at Boston, Massachusetts. ished.l He moved to Boston, where he gained We are thus left with three extant “some little instruction” from Alexander buildings of Greek Revival design by Parris. Young, the Montpelier Statehouse, and

73 74 Old-Time New England

Customhouses at Boston, Massachusetts, similar massing, and both capped by a and Charleston, South Carolina. Other shallow dome; the original Montpelier projects include four designs for the dome was of wood, sheathed in copper Capitol in Washington and and painted to simulate veined marble, the design for an unidentified municipal but was an exterior feature with no in- building. His design for the Courthouse ternal space-use(Fig. 7). The total cost at Worcester, Massachusetts, completed of the Statehouse was $132,077.23 and in I 845 and demolishedin I 909 (Fig. 4)) the Boston Customhouse,$ I,o~~,o~o.oo. can be classified as Jeffersonian Roman Under the influence of Alexander Revival,* a style which Young continued Parris, Young developedthe idea of using to use as Supervising Architect to the single blocks of granite for the shafts of Treasury Department, and typified in the thirty-two Doric columns on the Boston Customhouse, Post Office and Court- Customhouse; twenty of these columns room at Cincinnati, Ohio of 1854. The cost $79,000. The Markethouse by Par- Customhouse at Galveston, Texas, was ris was “among the earliest examples of another variant of the Classical Revival monolithic” columns in Boston. This in- and has affinities to the Queen’s House, novation, used by Young on the Boston Greenwich, by Inigo Jones. Customhouse, and continued at Charles- Young used the Corinthian order on ton and on Robert Mills’ Treasury Build- his design for the extension of the Capitol ing in Washington, was to lead to at Washington, to retain a unity with the Young’s downfall in 1862. The expense Thorton-Latrobe facades (Fig. 5). He of this preference was exorbitant and also used the Corinthian order on the ex- Congressional appropriations were never terior of the Worcester Courthouse and adequate. On the Boston Customhouse the Charleston Customhouse and on the Young considered the “additional ex- interior of the Customhouse at Boston. pense . . . properly employed.” The exteriors of the Boston and Mont- The Boston Customhouse was author- pelier buildings were based upon the ized by the Twenty-Third Congress of Grecian Doric order of the Theseion at the United States in 1835 and $50,000 , although the Montpelier State- was appropriated for a building “to facili- house has the Ionic order on the interior; tate and secure the collection of revenue, the Ionic order was also used on the un- and for the convenience of the commer- identified municipal building (Fig. 6). cial community.“4 The Secretary of the The use of the orders in this arbitrary Treasury, Levi Woodbury, visited Bos- manner seemsto be’ a matter of Young’s ton on December 15 of that year and taste and seems to have little to do with found no suitable site which could be pur- his masonic affiliations and the associa- chased, and suggested an additional ap- tion of the three orders of architecture propriation of $IOO,OOO. Boston was with the symbolsof strength, wisdom and after all the secondcity in the Union, and beauty.’ provided “one fifth of the national reve- The Boston Customhouse (Cover) is nue and with promptness.” Imports more a logical development from the Mont- than doubled in the five years from I 830 pelier Statehouse both being cruciform to 1835 from $8,343,6x3 to $18,643,- in plan, constructed of granite, with a 800 and exports also increased.’ The

FIG. 6. UNIDENTIFIED MUNICIPAL BUILDING, DESIGNED BY AMMI B. YOUNG Courtesy of the American Institute of Architects. ArchitecturalProjects in the Greek Revival Style 83

Alfred Bult Mullett, did design the San Architecture in America says of the BOS- Francisco Branch Mint in that style in ton Customhouse: “In one senSe it is the 1870. most highly developed example of the Young was thus a competent follower Greek Revival style in Boston, . . . and of leading designers of many traditions most successful of . . . many attempts and styles, and one of the last of the made by Greek Revival architects to com- Greek Revivalists in the Latrobe tradi- bine a low Roman dome with a pedi- tion. Talbot Hamlin in his Greek Reviwal mented Greek Doric order.“l’

NOTES

1 American Architect and Building News, Young to the Honorable Samuel C. Crafts vol. 38, Nov. 19, 1898, p. 124. Reprint of (Samuel C. Crafts Papers, Wilbur Library, “A. B. Young, Architect of the Boston Custom University of Vermont), discovered by Mar- House,” by T. W. S. in the Boston Transcript. garet Muller. The author is indebted to T. S. T. W. S. was a student in the Boston office of Seymour-Bassett for this information. Samuel Young from 1849-1850. The Charlestown C. Crafts was appointed United States Senator High School was built to the north of the from Vermont from December 1842 to March Bunker Hill Monument during 1847 at a cost I 843 by Governor Paine to complete the unex- of $15,000. See Charlestown High School His- pired term of Judge Prentiss, who had resigned torical Sketches (Boston, I 88 I). The School from the Senate to accept the office of United was completely altered and extended in I 870 States District Court Judge. Crafts was also and was capped by a Mansard roof. thirteenth Governor of Vermont, I 828-183 I. 2 The 1842 meeting of the Worcester County Appropriations were made annually as general Commissioners appropriated $65,000 for a items of expenditure on “Building Custom- County Courthouse. It was completed in 1845 houses.” Specific amounts for the Boston Cus- at a cost of $IOO,OOO. Each of the six Corin- tomhouse included in the annual reports of the thian columns of the portico were monolithic, Secretary of the Treasury include $r30,000 in weighing nineteen tons and measuring 3’ 0” 18375 $150,000, 1838; $1~1,000, 1839. The in diameter and 25’ 0” in height. Quincy total sum including alterations amounted to granite was used in the construction. See $I,IOI,IIO in 1857. Charles Nutt, History of Worcester and Its “i For statistics on the building see The Bos- People (Worcester, 1919), pp. 387-389. ton Almanac, 1850, pp. 5 1-53. August I, I 847, 3 Alan Gowans has suggested that Thomas was a Sunday. No details of the opening cere- Jefferson used the Ionic Order for the Virginia monies appear in the Boston Post on the sub- State Capitol instead of the Corinthian Order sequent days. of the Maison Carree, Nimes, France, for rea- 8 “Architecture in the United States,” Nortlz sons of Freemasonry. See Alan Gowans, Images American Review (April x844), pp. 436-483. of American Living (Philadelphia and New 9 W. W. Wheildon, The New Custom House, York, 1964), pp. 250-251. Ammi B. Young Stsicturer on an Article in the North American was a Junior Warden of the Franklin Lodge Review for April 1844 entitled, “Architecture of Lebanon, N. H., from I 822, and was elected in America” (Boston, 1844), p. zo. to the St. Andrews Chapter of Royal Arch lo J. A. Schweinfurth, “Robert Swain Pea- Masons of Lebanon, N. H., in 1823. body-Tower Builder 1845-1917,” American 4A memorial by the Merchants of Boston Architect, vol. 130 (September 5, 1926), pp. dated December I 8, I 835, was made to the 18 I -I 9 I. N. A. Richards, “Rebuilding the Cus- Twenty-Fourth Congress, First Session. tom House at Boston, Massachusetts,” Archi- 5 “Boston Customhouse,” Report of Com- tectural Forum, vol. 30, no. 3 (March 1919), mittees, Serial 294, Rep. No. 448, Twenty- PP. 87-89. Fourth Congress, First Session, Committee of I1 The AIA Library has twenty-three draw- Ways and Means, March 2 I, I 836. ings by Young; fourteen of his four designs for 6 Letter dated December 22, 1842, from extending the United States Capitol, one sketch FIG. 7. LONGITUDINAL SECTION, VERMONT STATE CAPITOL, DESIGNED BY AMMI B. YOUNG, 1833 Courtesy of the American Institute of Architects. Architectural Projects in the Greek Revival Style 85 of the Boston Customhouse, one drawing of an in 1926, came into possessionof the drawings or unidentified municipal building, and nine of how they came into the possessionthe AIA Li- the Vermont State Capitol at Montpelier. All brary is unknown. drawings have an embossed stamp which reads I2 Talbot, Hamlin, Greek Revival Arc&- “Geo. W. Rapp, Architect and Supt. Cincin- tect~re in America (New York, t944), pp. nati, Ohio.” How George Rapp, partner in the 106-107. firm of Rapp and Rapp of Chicago, who died