Holy Bible were among his early gifts to the church. The second gift of a Bible, the one now in use in the church, was made by his son, William Hurd, in memory of his father, in 1843. Joseph Hurd was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, from Charlestown, in 1814.

The old Joseph Hurd mansion still maintains its position on Main Street, nearly opposite the entrance to Winthrop Street. Elevated a few feet above the sidewalk and roadway, it stands proudly up, a fine specimen of the best class of houses in the olden time. Everything else in its vicinity has changed. It is no longer a neighborhood of Hurds, or of friends having the same interests and bound together by ties of consanguinity or long intimacy. The other old mansions we have referred to, the residences of these friends, have been converted into tenement-houses and stores, or torn down to make room for modern buildings used for the same purpose. The quiet comfort, the contentment and enjoyment of family life in the past, is no longer there. In its place is the restlessness and confusion of the life of to-day. But there stands the old mansion, with the same green lawn in front of it, the same terraced garden running up to the old Town Hill, the same noble horse-chestnut and maple trees stretching higher and higher up towards the sky, as inviting as ever to the birds on their return in springtime. An air of comfort and consequence is yet about the place, and the present occupants are descendants of the old family who have uninterruptedly occupied it from the time it was built, almost a century ago. The land was formerly a part of the property of Thomas Flucker, a Tory who fled to the Provinces. The com

monwealth confiscated his estate, and sold this part of it to Joseph Hurd in 1785. The house was built about ten years afterwards.

William Hurd, one of the sons of Joseph, was for a little while, as we have before stated, a member of the firm of Skinner & Hurd, but he retired from business

when quite a young man. He continued to live in the house formerly occupied by his father, until his death, March 21, 1872, when he was ninety-one years old. He was the last survivor of the founders of Harvard Church, a quiet gentleman of good intellectual taste and charitable impulses. Judge Francis W. Hurd is one of his sons, and the wives of Honorable James Dana, one of the mayors of Charlestown, and of Alexander Wheeler, of the distinguished law-firm of Hutchins & Wheeler, Boston, were his daughters. His other children are still the occupants of the old house, and they, with George A. Skinner and his sister, Mrs. J. Bowers Thompson, are the only remaining representatives in town of the once numerous Hurd family.

DECEMBER 22, 1888.

XXIII

Matthew Rice

A Memorial Tribute.

B

UT few persons who have lived in Charlestown have left a record so excellent in all respects as

the late Matthew Rice. Looked at from any point of view it is clean and satisfactory. A kind and intelligent man, honest in thought and deed, all the valuable qualities that go to make up a thoroughly good citizen were combined in his character and ran through his whole life. No man has ever been more generally respected in town, and assent to this high estimate of his character will be as general, I am sure. But Mr. Rice was an abler, stronger man than is generally known, and the community in which he lived did not always in times past appreciate fully the value of his services. He was a modest man, whose aim was higher than popular applause. What was before him was accuracy, completeness, thoroughness, in whatever he had to do, and his thought and perseverance were ever equal to success. He filled many important positions requiring superior intelligence and great industry, and his completed works always praised him. He was a constant attendant on the Sunday services at church, for many years in the Universalist Society, with whose early history he was fully acquainted, and afterwards in the Unitarian. Both

these societies will cherish his memory and miss his presence, for he kept his interest in both, and no one was ever more welcome than he at any of their gatherings. Here, and in his home, always a sacred place, — and in faithful attention to business, he found his chief enjoyment and filled out the successful life we would have remembered.

Matthew Rice was born in Boston, at the North End, January 14, 1802. He came to Charlestown in 1808 and attended public school in the old school-house on Town Hill, when Masters Gleason, Fuller, and Dodge were the teachers. He afterwards attended the academy on Cordis Street, then under the charge of Mr. Brown. He then made a foreign voyage with his father, who was a shipmaster. After returning home, he was apprenticed on the 27th of September, 1817, to Caleb Pierce, who was master-joiner at the Navy Yard, Charlestown, and he was also employed on repairs of vessels belonging to William Gray when that eminent merchant occupied and used the Charlestown wharves for much of his extensive business. Upon attaining the age of twenty years, young Rice was acting-quartermaster in the joiners' department at the Navy Yard. Soon after becoming of age he was appointed foreman under Mr. Pierce in that department, and he had charge of framing and finishing some of the largest buildings at that station, including the ropewalk, two ship-houses, three timber-sheds, dwelling-houses, and other buildings. He was also engaged in finishing off a large number of vessels built and repaired at the yard, including the old frigate Constitution, the first vessel occupying the new dry dock. His term of service in the joiners' department was nineteen years.

In April, 1836, he was appointed inspector of timber, serving the government in that capacity eighteen years. Soon after leaving the yard in 1854, he was appointed master-builder of the Charles River Bridge and of the repairs on Warren Bridge, being employed there nearly four years. About that time he served in the City Council of Charlestown, and was also chosen on the board of assessors, but this office he was too much engaged to accept. For some two or three years after leaving the bridges, and at other intervals when not engaged on public works, he was employed in measuring and inspecting timber for vessels built in Medford, Chelsea, East Boston, and other places. He also inspected timber for foreign governments, and was engaged a good deal in measuring the storage capacity of various classes of vessels, making estimates, and so forth.

He was one of the first members of the Mystic Water Board, elected in 1862, and to that board, consisting of Edward Lawrence, Matthew Rice, and George H. Jacobs, the credit of the successful and economical construction of the Charlestown Water Works is fairly due. He remained on the board between two and three years. In 1870 and 1871 he was employed by the City of Charlestown in laying out the line for and superintending the laying of a thirty-inch supply-pipe from the reservoir in Medford to the junction of Main and Cambridge streets in Charlestown. On April 18, 1873, he was appointed commissioner on the part of Charlestown for the care and maintenance of the Charles River and Warren bridges, holding the office until July 13, 1874, when the care of the same passed into the hands of the