e Disciples, the
Brattle-square Church, the Old South Church, and the First Reformed
Episcopal Church; so that the entire theological gamut has resounded
from its walls; the Swedenborgian Church, over which the Reverend Thomas
Worcester presided for a long series of years, also stands upon it.
Having reached the summit of the hill, we come abreast of the
five-and-a-half-acre pasture of Governor John Hancock, the first signer
of the immortal Declaration of American Independence, extending from
Mount Vernon Street to Joy Street, and northerly to Derne Street,
embracing the Capitol lot, and also the reservoir lot, for which last
two he paid, in 1752, the modest sum of eleven hundred dollars! It is
now worth a thousand times as much. For the remainder of his possessions
in that vicinity he paid nine hundred dollars more. The upper part of
Mount Vernon Street, the upper part of Hancock Street, and Derne Street,
were laid out through it. Then, descending the hill, comes Benjamin
Joy's two-acre pasture, extending from Joy Street to Walnut Street, and
extending northerly to Pinckney Street; forty-seven dwelling-houses now
standing upon it. Mr. Joy paid two thousand dollars for it. At the time
of its purchase he was desirous of getting a house in the country, as
being more healthy than a town-residence, and he selected this localty
as "being country enough for him." The upper part of Joy Street was laid
out through it. Now follows the valuable twenty-acre pasture of John
Singleton Copley, the eminent historical painter, one of whose
productions (Charles the First demanding in the House of Commons the
arrest of the five impeached members) is now in the art-room of the
Public Library. It extended for a third of a mile on Beacon Street, from
Walnut Street to Beaver Street, and northerly to Pinckney Street, which
he purchased in lots at prices ranging from fifty to seventy dollars per
acre. Walnut, Spruce, a part of Charles, River, Brimmer, Branch Avenue,
Byron Avenue, Lime, and Chestnut Streets, Louisburg Square, the lower
parts of Mount Vernon and Pinckney Streets, and the southerly part of
West Cedar Street, have been laid out through it. Copley left Boston, in
1774, for England, and never returned to his native land. He wrote to
his agent in Boston, Gardner Greene (whose mansion subsequently stood
upon the enclosure in Pemberton Square, surrounded by a garden of two
and a quarter acres, for which he paid thirty-three thousand doll