Gray, Horace (Sr.) 1800-1873 5th Son of 'Billy' Gray Horace Gray: Father of the Boston Public Garden Page 1 of 3 BAHS Home History Neighborhoods Photo Collection IV Brighton CERTIFICATE Allston Historical Society This article by Allston-Brighton historian Dr. William P. Marchione appeared in the Allston-Brighton Tab or Boston Tab newspapers in the period from July 1998 to late 2001, and supplement information in his books The Bull in the Garden (1986) and Images of America: Allston-Brighton (1996). Dr. Marchione is the President of the Brighton-Allston Historical Society, Associate Professor of History at the Massachusetts Bay Community College, a member of the Boston Landmarks Commission, and the author of several books on Boston-area history, including the recently published, "The Charles: A River Transformed." These articles are copyrighted in the name of the author. Researchers should, however, feel free to quote from the material, with proper attribution. If you have questions about any of this material, contact Bill Marchione at 617-782-8483 or at wpmarchione@rcn.com Horace Gray: Father of the Boston Public Garden Horace Gray, the father of the Boston Public Garden, is a somewhat shadowy figure who deserves to be better known. A man of great vision and high public spirit, he was the prime mover and chief financial prop of the early effort to transform the swamp like western fringe of the Boston Common into the park that we today know as the Boston Public Garden. Gray was very fortunate in the circumstances of his birth and upbringing. Born in 1800, he was the fifth son of William Gray, "Old Billy" Gray, the wealthiest man in New England (some said in the entire country), owner of a fleet of more than sixty square-rigged vessels. The son of a Lynn master shoemaker, Horace's father made a fortune from privateering during the Revolution. After the war Billy Gray grew richer still trading with Russia and the East Indies. A man of unerring business judgment, he is said to have refused ever to be rushed. "I'll think on't" was his favorite expression. The senior Gray also pursued a highly successful political career, becoming one of the leaders of Massachusetts' Democratic Republican Party, the supporters of Thomas Jefferson, rising in the 1810 to 1812 period to the rank of Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. In 1809, "Old Billy" moved his family from Salem to an imposing mansion at 57 Summer Street, corner of Kingston Street in downtown Boston. According to historian Samuel Adams Drake, Summer Street, now in the heart of the city's commercial district, was in the early 19th century "the most beautiful avenue in the city. Magnificent trees then skirted its entire length, overarching the driveway with interlacing branches, SO that you walked or rode within a grove in a light softened by the leafy screen, and over the shadows of the big elms lying across the pavement." Horace Gray received an excellent education under private tutors, earning an M.A. from http://www.bahistory.org/HoraceGray.html 1/6/2011 Horace Gray: Father of the Boston Public Garden Page 2 of 3 Harvard in 1819. He then entered his father's mercantile house. Upon the elder Gray's death in 1825, Horace came into possession of the family's Summer Street mansion, which remained his home for the rest of his life. In 1827 Horace married Harriet Upham of Brookfield, Massachusetts. Their eldest child, Horace Gray, Junior (1828-1902), was to become one of the nation's leading jurists, attaining the rank first of Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and later, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Another son (from a second marriage), John Chipman Gray (1839-1915), became a leading legal scholar and longtime Story Professor of Law at Harvard. Though Horace Gray's achievements may seem less important at first glance than the financial successes of his father or the professional successes of his sons, in laying the groundwork for the establishment of the Boston Public Garden, and sustaining that fledgling institution through the first decade of its existence, this worthy gentleman had a profound impact upon the quality of life in our city for which all of us should be thankful. While active in business as a commission merchant (Horace Gray & Company with offices at 52 Broad Street), bank and insurance company directorships, and the iron business, Gray's deepest interest always lay in horticulture and landscape design. Here we have an early example of the shift of focus in many of Boston Brahmin families from a preoccupation with business and politics, to increasing concern with educational, cultural, and philanthropic ventures. The year 1837 marked a major turning point in Horace's life. First came his second marriage (his first wife had been lost in a shipwreck in 1834) to Sarah Russell Gardner, daughter of the great merchant Samuel Pickering Gardner. Sarah's younger brother Jack would later marry Isabella Stewart of New York, the famous "Mrs. Jack" of Fenway Court. The Gardners, who also lived on Summer Street, maintained one of the finest gardens in Boston. But the garden behind Horace Gray's mansion, which extended back along Kingston Street, was even more celebrated, its outstanding feature being a conservatory in which Horace raised prize camellias and other exotic plants. Eighteen thirty-seven also marked the inception of the Boston Public Garden. On September 25 Horace Gray and several other avid horticulturists petitioned the Boston City Council for permission to utilize the swampy twenty-four acre site at the western edge of the Boston Common for the creation of a botanic garden. On November 6 they were given permission, with the condition that no buildings be erected on the land apart from a greenhouse and toolhouse. Not until February 1, 1839, however, did Gray, George Darracott, Charles P. Curtis, and other interested parties formally incorporate as the "Proprietors of the Botanic Garden in Boston," with the right to hold and manage property worth up to $50,000, a substantial sum at that time. The transformation of this acreage into a handsome public park was fraught with difficulty, for it lay below street level and was subject to tidal flooding. First, a boardwalk was built from west to east from the Garden's entrance on Beacon Street, which was lined with ornamental plants and trees. The proprietors hired an English gardener, John Cadness, to oversee these and other plantings. http://www.bahistory.org/HoraceGray.html 1/6/2011 Horace Gray: Father of the Boston Public Garden Page 3 of 3 In addition, a former circus building that stood near the corner of Beacon and Charles Streets was leased and converted into a conservatory for exotic plants and birds. Gray is credited with having imported the first tulips into this country in the late 1830s to embellish the grounds of the conservatory. This building contained four galleries, each devoted to a different variety of plant. The Boston Public Garden soon became a great place of attraction for the people of Boston. Over the next nine years the primary financial support for this singular public amenity came out of the deep pockets of Horace Gray. Gray had in the meantime expanded his horticultural endeavors to the suburban town of Brighton, where he purchased a country estate of more than a hundred acres. Gray's Brighton horticultural venture was every bit as imaginative as his activities in the downtown. According to Wilder's The Horticulture of Boston and Vicinity, on Brighton's Nonantum Hill the wealthy Bostonian "erected the largest grapehouses known in the United States, in which were grown extensively numerous varieties of foreign grapes. For the testing of these under glass in cold houses, Gray erected a large curvilinear-roof house, two-hundred feet long by twenty-four wide. This was such a great success that he built two more of the same dimension." Horace Gray's horticultural ventures, both at the Public Garden and in Brighton ended abruptly in the 1847-48 period when he lost the bulk of his fortune as a result of faulty investments. Compounding his problems was the destruction by fire a short time later of the Public Garden's beautiful conservatory. Fortunately, Gray salvaged enough of his fortune to retain ownership of his Summer Street mansion with its splendid garden. Here the great horticulturists lived out the last quarter century of his life in gentlemanly retirement. At the time of Gray's death in 1873, scant note was taken of his passing in the city's press. His obituary in the Boston Herald, for example, identified him only as a former active merchant and the father the State Supreme Court judge, with no mention of his singular contribution to the beautification of Boston as the founder of the Public Garden. BAHS Home I History I Neighborhoods Photo Collection http://www.bahistory.org/HoraceGray.html 1/6/2011 Chandler History Page 1 of 3 BAHS Home I History Neighborhoods Photo Collection Brighton Allston Historical Society History of Chandler's Pond Chandler's Pond in Brighton lies in the so-called Nonantum Valley, which is enclosed by Nonantum Hill on the north and Waban Hill on the south. The pond is a man-made body of water, dating from 1855. It was excavated for ice-making purposes by local horticulturist and entrepreneur William C. Strong. In 1865 Strong created a second pond just west of Chandler's (also for ice-making), called Strong's Pond. While a tiny portion of Strong's Pond survives on the grounds of the Chestnut Hill Country club, Chandler's Pond is, for all practical purposes, the last survivor of nearly twenty ponds, which once dotted Allston-Brighton. Chandler's Pond is fed by Dana Brook, which flows out of Newton. After leaving the Nonantum Valley this watercourse meanders more than a mile in a generally northeastern direction, before emptying into the Charles River in the vicinity of the present Soldier's Field Road Extension. The portion of the brook situated north of Chandler's Pond now lies underground in conduits. The Nonantum Valley has a long and fascinating history. In October 1646, the Reverend John Eliot, who was known as the Apostle to the Indians, performed his first conversions of native-Americans to Christianity at the western end of the Nonantum Valley. The leader of the local natives at that time was the enterprising Waban, (called The Merchant by the white settlers), the man for whom Waban Hill was named. It was also at the western end of Nonantum Valley that the first Praying Indian community in British North America was established, and named Nonantum, which signified rejoicingî in the Algonquin language. In 1650 the Praying Indians of Nonantum relocated to Natick. A monument stands on the site of Nonantum Village, erected by the City of Newton in the mid-19th century. The land on which Chandler's Pond is situated was first owned by Richard Dana, progenitor of a family that produced many notable statesmen, writers, and reformers. The Dana family owned this land more or less continuously until the early 19th century. Their homestead which stood in nearby Oak Square, at the corner of Nonantum and Washington Streets, was destroyed by fire in the early 1870s. By 1837 the southerly portion of the Dana property had passed into the hands of Horace Gray, an influential Boston businessman and horticulturist, who played a leading role in establishing the Boston Public Garden. (Gray was also, incidentally, the father of a future Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court and U.S. Supreme Court Justice of the same name). The senior Gray build an imposing country house at the crest of Nonantum Hill, overlooking the valley in which Chandler's Pond would later be created. In the late 1850s George Greig, British Consul to Boston, occupied this house as a country residence. According to Wilder's, The Horticultural History of Boston and Vicinity, Gray erected on http://www.bahistory.org/ChandlerHist.html 7/13/2005 Chandler History Page 2 of 3 the grounds the largest grape houses known in the United States, in which were grown extensively numerous varieties of foreign grapes. For the test of these under glass in cold houses, Gray erected a large curvilinear-roof house, two hundred feet long by twenty-four wide. This was such a great success that he build two more of the same dimension. In 1848, however, Gray was forced by financial difficulties to sell his Brighton property. The purchaser was William C. Strong, who expanded the horticultural business there by laying jut additional vines and adding other plants. Strong also build an immense greenhouse for his Nonantum Valley Nurseries, in which Wilder noted, under one continuous roof of glass of 18,000 square feet, is an enclosure where plants are grown in the open ground; where immense quantities of rose and flowers are daily cut for the market.i By the mid-19th century, the Nonantum Hill area was one of the most important horticultural centers around Boston. Other local nurseries included those of John Kenrick at the Newton end of the valley (the oldest large-scale horticultural business in New England, dating from 1790), Joseph L.L. F. Warren's Nonantum Vale Gardens at Lake and Washington Streets, which attracted such distinguished visitors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, John D. Calhoun, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Cullen Bryant, and the nursery of Joseph Breck, Breck's Gardens, in Oak Square (on the site now occupied by the Oaks Square School). As previously noted, it was William C. Strong (successor to Horace Gray and Breck's son- in-law), and another Massachusetts Horticultural Society President in the period 1971 to 1874, who excavated Chandler's and Strong's Pond (on the site where the Chandler's Pond Apartments stand today). Strong first leased and then, in 1858, sold the more easterly of these ponds and its adjacent ice house to Malcolm Chandler, and experienced ice merchant who had previously owned and operated an ice cutting business at Hammond Pond in Newton. Chandler built an imposing Greek Revival style mansion for himself at 70 Lake overlooking the Pond, a building which still stands. http://www.bahistory.org/ChandlerHist.htm 7/13/2005 Chandler History Page 3 of 3 Chandler's Pond 1890 Strong continued ice-cutting on Strong's Pond until 1880. Once refrigeration was introduced, however, a fierce competition developed between the two local ice-dealers for the remaining business in natural ice. Following a destructive fire at Strong's ice-house in 1972, Chandler was arrested and charged with arson. However, he was eventually found innocent of the crime. Strong gradually sold off his Brighton property in the 1880s. Long interested in real estate development, he moved to Beacon Street in Newton's Auburndale section in 1875, where he proceeded to develop a new suburb which he called Waban. In 1880 Strong sold his Brighton ice-cutting interest to Jeremiah H. Downing. In 1895, the Chestnut Hill Country Club purchased the land on which Strong's or Downing's Pond was located. Chandler's Pond was acquired by Phineas B. Smith in 1883. When the Chandler family failed to meet the mortgage payments, Smith took possession. In 1912 the Chandler's Pond acreage passed into the hands of local contractor John H. Sullivan, who lived in a stucco mansion at the southwest corner of Undine Road and Lake Street, a structure designed by renowned architect Guy Lowell, whose distinguished works included Boston's Museum of Fine Arts on the Fenway. In the following year, Sullivan sold the Chandler's Pond acreage to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. The archdiocese sold the Chandler's Pond acreage to developer George W. Robertson in 1925, whereupon Robertson proceeded to subdivide the property into lots for residential development. House construction along the pond's northern shore (Kenrick Street) began in 1925. Lake Shore Road, on the southern edge of the Pond, was put through in the mid- twenties, and the first houses were constructed shortly thereafter. The city of Boson acquired the Chandler's Pond acreage from various owners in the late 1930's, some it in lieu of unpaid real estate taxes. In 1941, at the urging of City Councilor Maurice Sullivan, Boston established the Alice Gallagher Memorial Park on the southern western rim of the pond. The wife of long-time Boston City Councilor Edward Gallagher, Alice Gallagher had long been active in charitable work in the Allston-Brighton community. In creating Gallagher Park, the city provided the Allston-Brighton community with an outstanding visual amenity that its people have now enjoyed for over a half century. The Chandler's Pond watershed area is heavily developed and unless prompt measures are taken to dredge the pond and to reduce significantly the levels of phosphates and other pollutants that are entering it, the future for this beautiful body of water looks very grim indeed. In 1996, the pond's many neighbors and friend joint together, under the leadership of long-time Chandler's Pond advocate Genevieve Ferullo, to establish the Chandler's Pond Preservation Society. With support and cooperation of the community groups, such as the Luck Neighborhood Association and the Brighton-Allston Historical Society, the people of Allston-Brighton are working to save Chandler Pond for future generations to enjoy. BAHS Home History Neighborhoods Photo Collection http://www.bahistory.org/ChandlerHist.html 7/13/2005 4/14/2020 143 Beacon I Back Bay Houses Back Bay Houses Genealogies of Back Bay Houses 143 Beacon 143 Beacon is located on the south side of Beacon, between Arlington and Berkeley, with 141 Beacon Irregular lot: 20' on Beacon, 19' on to the east Alley 421, 112 East-West (2,191 sf) and 145 Beacon to the west. 143 Beacon was built ca. 1861, one of two contiguous houses (143-145 Beacon) built at the same time as a symmetrical pair, with 145 Beacon four feet wider than 143 Beacon. The 143 Beacon (2018) party wall between the two houses has a one foot jog to the east so that the frontage of 143 Beacon is 20 feet on Beacon and 19 feet on Alley 421. Both houses were built for shipping merchant and real estate investor John Lowell Gardner, along with the adjoining house at 147 Beacon (the entrance to was Street 1006 and renumbered 202 4/14/2020 143 Beacon I Back Bay Houses Berkeley). John L. Gardner and his wife, Catharine Elizabeth (Peabody) Gardner, lived at 7 Beacon, and would build a new home at 182 Beacon in the mid-1860s. The land on which 143-145 Beacon were built was part of a larger parcel John L. Gardner had purchased on September 15, 1859, from William W. Goddard and T. Bigelow Lawrence. That parcel included the land on the south side of Beacon running from Berkeley east 114 feet; John L. Gardner sold the land to the east, where 139-141 Beacon would be built, and retained the land to the west for 143- 145-147 Beacon. The parcel originally was part of a tract of land that William Goddard and T. Bigelow Lawrence had purchased from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on August 1, 1857, that included all of the land on the south side Beacon Street from Arlington to Berkeley. Click here for an index to the deeds for BEACON 143 Beacon, and click here for further information about the land on the south side of Beacon from Arlington to Berkeley, north of Alley 421. On September 3, 1860, John L. Gardner joined with land owners and builders of the houses under construction at 131-141 Beacon in a petition to the Board of Aldermen seeking permission to remove "the very objectionable Poplar trees in front of their premises." The petition was Plan of 143-145-147 Beacon showing granted by the Board. party wall detail; Suffolk County Deed Registry, Book 1663, p. 482 (17Dec1884) By 1863, 143 Beacon was the home of Matthias Ellis and his wife, Sarah Seymour (Forsyth) Ellis. They previously had lived in Europe, where their daughter, Marie Louise (Zaidee) Ellis, was born in December of 1862. He was an iron manufacturer and maker of stoves, parlor grates, registers, and similar items. They continued to live at 143 Beacon until about 1866, when they moved to New York City. 4/14/2020 143 Beacon I Back Bay Houses By 1867, 143 Beacon had become the home of John Lowell Gardner's brother-in- law and sister, Horace Gray and Sarah Russell (Gardner) Gray. They previously had lived on Summer Street at the corner of Kingston. Horace Gray was a shipping merchant and iron dealer. An ardent horticulturalist, in the late 1830s and 1840s he had been a principal moyer for creation of the Boston Public Garden. Living with the Grays at 143 Beacon were their sons, John Chipman Gray and Russell Gray, both lawyers. Also living with them were Elizabeth Chipman Gray and Harriet Gray, Horace Gray's daughters with his first wife, Harriet (Upham) Gray. His son by his first marriage, Horace Gray, Jrl, lived at 4 Mt, Vernon Place. He was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and, in 1884, was appointed a Justice of the US Supreme Court. John Chipman Gray married in June of 1873 to Anna Sophia Lyman Mason. After their marriage, they lived at 83 Marlborough. John L. Gardner died in July of 1884. In his will, he left 143-145 Beacon in trust for the benefit of the children of his deceased son, Joseph Peabody Gardner: Joseph Peabody Gardner, Jr., William Amory Gardner, and Augustus Peabody Gardner. Joseph Peabody Gardner, Jr., died in October of 1886, and on December 31, 1886, the trustees transferred 143-145 Beacon to William Amory Gardner and Augustus Peabody Gardner, they both having reached the age of 21. Sarah Gray continued to live at 143 Beacon with Elizabeth, Harriet, and Russell Gray. Russell Gray married in November of 1886 to Amy Heard. After their marriage, they lived at 39 Marlborough. By the late 1880s, Harriet Gray had moved to Wellesley Hills. She continued to live there in 1900, by which time she also maintained a Boston home at the Hotel Hamilton at 260 Clarendon. She continued to live there until the 1908-1909 winter season, when she moved to 178 Beacon. 4/14/2020 143 Beacon I Back Bay Houses Sarah Gray died in September of 1893. After her death, 143 Beacon became the home of her unmarried step- daughter, Elizabeth Chipman Gray. She continued to live there until her death in August of 1897. 143 Beacon was not listed in the 1898 and 1899 Blue Books. By the 1899-1900 winter season, 143 Beacon was the home of Mrs. Sarah Williams (Lothrop) King, the widow of iron and steel manufacturer George Parsons King. She previously had lived 143-145 Beacon (2018) at The Empire at 333 Commonwealth. She first leased the house from William A. Gardner and Augustus P. Gardner, and then on April 5, 1907, it was acquired by Henry Parsons King and William Stuart Spaulding, trustees under the will of George P. King. Henry P. King was George and Sarah King's son and William S. Spaulding was Henry P. King's brother-in-law,. Henry and Alice Ormond (Spaulding) King lived at 118 Beacon. Sarah King's unmarried daughter, Anne Lothrop King, lived with her until her death in February of 1910. Sarah King continued to live at 143 Beacon until her death in January of 1913. During the 1913-1914 winter season, 143 Beacon was the home of George Eddy Warren, a coal and oil distributor and shipper, and his wife, Frances Wightman (Knowles) Warren. They had lived at 118 Marlborough during the previous season, and by the 1914-1915 season had moved to a new home they had built at 148 Beacon. On May 29, 1914, 143 Beacon was acquired from the estates of George P. King Oak Square History Page 1 of 8 BAHS Home I AB Info Neighborhoods BAHS Oak Square History Prior to Allston-Brighton's first English settlement in 1647-49, the Oak Square area had been a Native American settlement. It was at Nonantum Hill in 1646 that Rev. John Elliot, New England's great Indian missionary, preached the Christian gospel to the tribe and their leader, Waban. The "praying village" of Nonantum became one of fourteen Christian Indian communities in New England. Elliot's ability to reach the Indians via his command of the Algonquian language, made English settlement of Allston -Brighton possible by the late 1640s. The grounds of the Our Lady of the Presentation School, at 634 Washington Street, for example, might yield significant sub service remains of Waban's Native American settlement. During the first half of the 19th century, Brighton was an important horticultural center, boasting three major nursery concerns that had national reputations. One of these nurseries, Joseph Breck's Gardens was situated at the northwest corner of Nonantum and Washington streets at Oak Square. Although little evidence remains of this important industry within the Oak Square/Hunnewell Hill area, physical links with other aspects of this area's history are still intact. Brighton's long commitment to public education is symbolized in the Oak Square School at Nonantum Street. Built in 1894 from designs provided by Edward March Wheelwright, this handsome Colonial Revival School was the focus of local preservationists efforts during the late 1970s to save the building; these efforts were successful and the school has been adapted for reuse as condominiums. Western Brighton's significant historical associations with late 19th and early 20th century Catholic institutions are symbolized by Our Lady of the Presentation Church, rectory and school at 680, 676 and 632 Washington Street. http://www.bahistory.org/OakSqHist.html 7/13/2005 Oak Square History Page 2 of 8 Oak Square and Washington St 1920 By the mid-17th century, Richard Champney owned a large tract on the north side of Oak Square. Emigrating from Lincolnshire, England in 1635, Champney was an important figure in early Cambridge, serving his community as Ruling Elder of the Cambridge Church, a position second only to the minister as a church leader. Champney's descendants owned land at Oak Square as late as the 1890s. The Queen Anne residence at 647 Washington Street was built on Champney family land C. 1890-1897 for Frederick C. Mosely, treasurer, 70 Kilby Street, Boston. Oak Square was a major cross road as early as the mid-17th century. Nonantum and Faneuil streets existed as a Native American trail long before English settlement. Prior to 1810, Nonantum Street was called Indian Lane. Formally set out in 1840 as Faneuil Street, this thoroughfare was called the New County Road as early as 1794. Originally called "the Great County Road" and "the Natick road", Washington Street was set out in 1657 to connect Brookline with Newton. It was paved for the first time and named Washington Street in 1840. Hunnewell Hill may have been named for the Francis Hunnewell family who owned extensive real estate throughout Allston-Brighton during the mid-to-late 19th century. The Francis Hunnewell Family lived at Cleveland Circle by the early 1870s. Variously called Bowen Hill, Lime Hill and Washington Hill during the 18th and the early 19th century, Hunnewell Hill was a sparsely populated place, distinguished mainly by colonial farms, orchards, Indian villages, and primitive roads. Native Americans were reportedly living in the area as late as the early 1800s. During the 18th century, the Matchett family of gentleman farmers had a great estate on Bowen Hill. Matchetts lived in the area until the 1850s. In 1795, the family of Daniel Bowen became major land owners on Bowen Hill. Daniel Bowen was the curator of the Columbian Museum of curiosities on Tremont Street in Boston. The Bowen estate is said to have encompassed a wax museum. Daniel Bowen was the uncle of the talented engraver Abel Bowen who delineated scenes of Boston for various books and magazines during the second quarter of the 19th century. The Bowens, together with http://www.bahistory.org/OakSqHist.html 7/13/2005 Oak Square History Page 3 of 8 Brighton Center's Rev. John Foster , Foster's novelist wife Hannah and Unitarian journal editor and peace activist Dr. Noah Worcester contributed to Brighton's reputation as a focus for art and literature in New England between C. 1790-1840. No structures survive to document the Federal period in the Oak square area. During the mid-19th century, Oak Square became an important center for Brighton's nurseries. As early as 1820, Joseph L.L.F. Warren established a horticultural firm a quarter of a mile west of Oak Square at the southwest corner of Lake and Washington streets. His nursery, Nonantum Vale Gardens, attracted such eminent visitors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Cullen Bryant. During the 1840s( Horace Gray founded an important horticultural establishment south of Oak Square on Nonantum Hill. He erected on his estate "the largest grape houses known in the United States in which were grown extensively numerous varieties of foreign grapes." Originally founded in 1836 at Washington and Allston Street in Allston Brighton, Joseph Breck's nursery was reestablished at the northwest corner of Nonantum and Washington streets at Oak Square in 1854. Breck was the author of an outstanding horticultural treatise, The Young Florist or Conversations on the Culture of Flowers and on Natural History. Breck came to Brighton from Lancaster, Massachusetts, having served as superintendent of the Horticultural Gardens there. As editor of the New England Farmer, he was a leading figure in national horticultural circles. Located at the southwest corner of Oak Square Breck's land encompassed a house, green houses and an orchard which was located on the site of the 1894 Oak Square School at 25 Nonantum Street Oak Square was also an early focus for education in Allston-Brighton. The first school in Allston -Brighton was established in 1722 at Brighton Center. As early as 1805, a private, "classical school for boys" was established by Jacob Knapp on Bowen Hill. The first Brighton School Committee was elected in 1820. Until 1840, however, there were only four schoolhouses in the town, including: the central school at Brighton Center founded in 1722, the eastern school, established in 1832, on Cambridge Street, near its intersection with Gordon Street, the northern school, built in 1534 on the site of the present Storrow School on Waverly Street and the Oak Square School. Constructed in 1825 on the green under the historic White Oak, the first Oak Square School or "the little red school house" was demolished in 1854 to accommodate the construction of the 1855 Oak Square School. During the early 1900s, this wooden, Italianate school building was moved from Oak Square to 16 Bigelow Street. At its new location, the old school was widened and a third floor was added without the loss of its original, bracketed roof and corner pilasters. The triangular school house lot in Oak Square became an ornamental park C. 1900-1909. The wooden Colonial Revival 1894 Oak Square School, was built on the southwest side of the square at 35 Nonantum Street. Built at a cost of $15,000.00, the original structure contained two rooms. By the 1970s, the Oak Square School was the city of Boston's last public school housed in a wooden building and was adapted for reuse as condominiums C. 1980.c. 1980. This school was designed by the important Boston http://www.bahistory.org/OakSqHist.html 7/13/2005