STATE STREET A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF A BOSTON WAY PRINTED FOR THE STATE STREET TRUST COMPAN Y M B O STO A SS . N , CO P YR IGHTE D 1 906 S TR E ET TR US T CO MPANY T HE ORNAME NTS ON AGES ONE T IRTY P , H NINE AND FORTY-TWO ARE RE PRODUCED FROM THE STONES MARKING THE SPOT IN STATE STREET WH E RE THE BOSTON MASSACRE O RRE D TH ORNAME NT CCU . E ON PAGE THIRTY-SI"IS A COPY OF THE TABLET ON T HE BUILDING OPPOSITE T HE MASSACRE WALTO N ADVE R TIS ING AND PR I NTING C OMPAN Y BO S TO N MAS S , . THE ORIGINALS OF THE CUTS USED IN THIS PAMPHLET AND MANY OTHER "UAINT AND IN T ERESTING PICTURES MAY BE SEEN ON THE WALLS OF THE MAIN OFFICE O F THE STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY AT 38 STATE STREET B OSTON , ’ o : ‘5 0 “ " s a \c 0 i O“ 0 c . O a g . a 0 . ° a 0 T W HE BEGINNING OF A AY . E street — B os on H is old , as old as t look I itself . If one would for its ori in b ack g , he must go to the days P i ’ before the ur tans of St . Botolph s town set foot upon the hills that run up from Boston Har v bor. E en then he is forced to fall upon con ecture j , and surmise that it may have been the trail which the Indians followed from their camps on Shawmut Hills to their fisheries in the . in bay William Blackstone , the only white — 1 630 habitant on Tri mountain previous to , may have trod the self-same trail on his way along the ridge, which was the principal spur from Century Hill down to the water . State Street , despite the uncertainty of its origin , has been from the very day of Boston ’s settlement Bos ’ hf ton s most important thoroug are . T h e street has wr itten itself large and per manently in the records of an ancient town and ’ on the page of a nation s history . When Eng STATE STREET lish ships brought English goods to Puritan in was homes the days of the first settlers , it the mart of trade and the seat of justice . Upon it lived the early settlers and the town ’s first mer s chants . Many scene of Provincial interest and Colonial importance had here their setting , and on its frosty pavement was spilled the first blood of - the Revolution . To day about it thr obs the n financial i terest of a great State , and to it are ever turning for help the industri al projects of a great nation . Y K EARL COLONIAL LANDMAR S . UR Puritan forbears were men of order — and system , men who believed in metes r find and bounds to eve yt hing . So we them early setting down their names and lands s i in the Book of Possession , and back to th s old record go many of the deeds of Boston . This was book a record of a survey, by order of the A 1 1 634 General Court , pril , , of the lands and . O n houses of the first inhabitants the old map , is five by nine feet , the earliest record of State Street . It appears a short , nameless way from ll and s the water up to the hi s , i dotted on either side with the houses of the fi rst settlers . 2 STATE STREET A t its head , where now the Old State House - A stands , was the first market place . nd so it 1 636 was that , as early as , when the lines of cer tain streets were fixed and had by popular con sent been named , State Street was known as Market Street . THE FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON . C RO SS the way from the market-place in L 1 632 ’ A , on the site since occupied by Brazer s i i “5 - Building, stood the first meeting house, later dignified as the First Church . It was a rude a but substanti l building, with walls of mud and . Rev. h thatched roof Its first pastor, the Jo n Wilson , lived on his farm , on the opposite side of Market Street ; and his colleague was the redoubt able John Cotton , formerly the pastor of old St . ’ E . Botolph s , Boston , ngland Services were held under the trees previous to its erection . The - 1 639 meeting house had become too small in , and in 1 640 a new one was erected on the site of the - late Joy Building . The second meeting house confia ration 1 71 1 was destroyed in the g of , the greatest of the eight great fires that Boston had then experienced , but was rebuilt . General Wash in ton g with all his troops , after the siege of Boston , 3 STATE STREET attended services at the First Church , and then adjourned to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern to re fresh the body . THE THE D AN A BIBLE , RO , D PRISONER . N those early days of rigid lives the Bible and I the rod were often inseparable . The whipping post and the stocks , therefore , stood on Market Street , almost in front of the door of the First Church ; and great was the impartiality with which justice , at least , was then dealt out . The first prisoner, for instance , of the stocks was the car enter E 1 639 p , dward Palmer, who built them in . The town fathers were incensed at his exorbitant ll bi for their construction , and they laid their a strong hands upon him , and he forthwith spent n hour as a prisoner of his own creation and as a for bidding example to like grasping merc“hants with f whom the early town may have been a flicted . Th ese instruments of punishment were, in later years , put on wheels , and were moved from place 1 801 to place . The stocks in were located near A n Change venue . Public whippi g was not inflicted 0 in Boston after 18 3 . Market Street was also the sacred way along 5 STATE STREET which the train band of our Puritan fathers marched and manoeuvred . The Provincial Governors were inaugurated in the Town House , and then , appearing in the famous window of the east balcony , received the cheers . A of the populace s the town grew , the streets slowly multiplied about this parent of Boston ’s f 3 1 708 thorough ares ; and finally , May , , the select men , determining that Market Street should have r i a wo thier name , ordered that the street lead ng m il includein wa es fro Cornh l , g the y on each side ” Town x s of the house e tending ea terly to the sea , “ ” l 1 784 should be ca led King Street . In , after the Revolution had severed all the regal ties of the Commonwealth , the name was changed to State Street . ' LD MAP AN O SOME STREETS , T AND HE FIRST MERCHANTS . VIEW early in the seventeenth centu ry shows the street paved with pebbl“es and Th r without sidewalks . e e were many ” r fai e shops , and over them lived the Boston mer c“hants . The first map upon which the name King Street ” appears was that of Captain John 1 722 Bonner, printed in by Francis Deming, and 6 STATE STREET sold by William Price over against ye Towne ” house . Here first appears also Long Wharf . The harbor previous to the building of Long 1710 Wharf in , which quadrupled King Street , flowed as far inland as Kilby Street on the south ’ and Merchants Row on the north . King Street was intercepted between Cornhill , now Washington Street , and the bay by Pudding Lane and Crooked Lane , now Devonshire Street . Crooked Lane ran Rev . through the farm of the John Wilson , pastor of . E the First Church Shrimpton Street , now xchange Place , took its name from an old Bostonian , as did ’ A A ’ Pierce s lley, now Change venue . Leverett s Lane, now Congress Street , took its name from Governor Leverett . Mackerel Lane , now Kilby Street, probably took its name from its proximity to the fish market . FROM WOOD TO BRICK AND STONE . S early as the middle of the eighteenth cen tury brick and stone had begun to replace AA wood , with which the town was origi“nally built . Upon State Street most of the early first citizens of Boston had their homes . On the - R Ke a ne south west corner lived Captain obert y , a STATE STREET m An leading erchant , founder of the cient and a A Honor ble rtillery Company , and also the r founde of the old Town House . The site of ’ his house later was that of Daniel Henchman s bookstore , where General Henry Knox served his apprenticeship . The first shop in Boston was opened by James Coggan on the north -west corner of the same street . He lived over his place of business , as did all the leading merchants of early Boston . The Rev . John ’ Wilson s home , too , was on Market Street , and just eas t of the old Exchange was the residence of Governor Leverett . The home of Richard Fairbanks , the first postmaster, stood not far from in the old Town House . The General Court 1 639 designated it as the place for all letters to be sent for delivery or forwarding over the seas .