Old Charlestown

I

The Dexter Estate

Samuel Dexter - Giles Alexander- Nathan Bridge Hamilton Davidson Rhodes Lockwood.

HAVE read with interest the account of the dedication of the house recently purchased by Post Abraham Lincoln of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the selection of a part of the Samuel Dexter estate as a location for its headquarters. The location seems to me to be a good one. It is not only well adapted to the purposes of the association, but it has a history pleasant to dwell upon as the members sit around their camp-fires, using the past to make the present cheerful, interesting, and instructive.

I looked over the building a few days previous to the occasion referred to, and was somewhat astonished to find the comfortable and elegant old mansion transformed into a useful public building, with a modern audience-hall of fine proportions, tastefully fitted up, having an ample entrance-way, and a dining-hall equal to the comfortable seating of a hundred or more persons, or to the accom

17

modation of a very large company with a free and easy lunch. I missed the beautiful stairway in the front hall, which had been the admiration of all visitors to the old mansion. It was always very ornamental in the old arrangement of the house, but I suppose it could not be worked into the plans for the new, and so, except for a short time in the memory of a few of us, that attractive design is gone forever.

That very distinguished man, Samuel Dexter,* who was a member of both branches of the Congress of the United States, and Secretary of War and of the Treasury under President John Adams, and of whom, upon the occasion of his death, John Adams in writing to a friend declared, "I have lost the ablest friend I had on earth, in Mr. Dexter," lived for some years in Charlestown, in the house about which we are writing, which he had built on a tract of land purchased of J. Hay. In this house was born his son, Franklin Dexter, another distinguished man, of whom it has been said, "with his eminence as a lawyer he united great knowledge and skill in art, and high attainments in literature." Franklin Dexter was the father of another prominent man of the present time, F. Gordon Dexter, of Boston, to whom the public is indebted a good deal more than it knows for the erection of the fine statue of Colonel Prescott on the Monument grounds. When the package

* Samuel Dexter was in the Massachusetts Senate in 1792; in the Council in 1804-'05; in the Congress of the United States, 1793-'95 ; in the Senate of the United States, 1799-1800; he was Secretary of the Treasury, January 1 to March 3, 1801, and Secretary of War, 1800-1801. He was the first president of the first Temperance Society in Massachu

setts.

containing the statue was first opened after its arrival in this country, he made a visit to the wharf of the Hallowell Granite Company, where it was landed, and afterwards called with the writer at the old mansion in Green Street to look over the former residence of his ancestors, the birthplace of his father.

Samuel Dexter sold the estate to Giles Alexander in 1800, and it was his residence until 1814, when he sold it to Matthew Bridge, who died not long after. Neither Matthew Bridge nor his wife ever occupied this house, but their son, Nathan Bridge, resided there from 1814 till 1830, when he died. His daughter Susan spent her childhood and youth here, and was married to Dr. Charles T. Jackson, chemist, mineralogist, and geologist, of world-wide reputation. When the estate was offered at auction by Mr. Lockwood, a little more than a year ago, Mrs. Jackson was present, coming, as she said, to see what remained of her old home, to call up pleasant recollections of her girlhood days, when everything about her father's residence was in perfect order and delightful to look upon. And it was a beautiful place, for during the occupancy of Nathan Bridge it received its greatest care and the largest improvement was made. Mr. Bridge spared no expense to keep fully up to the times in the adornment of his grounds and the variety of his plants; and his garden was known to all lovers of horticulture as one of the very best kept and most interesting in the State. His love for it was such as to keep his skilled employees constantly active and ambitious to excel, and their success was known and acknowledged. His greenhouse, in the upper part of the garden, was small, but

he had a fine show of espalier fruit - trees (apricot, nectarine, and peach) on the brick walls on High Street, and on frames, arranged in various shapes, between the greenhouse and the wall. From the side door of the

house he looked out upon a circle of fir-trees, in the center of which was the tulip-tree still standing. Beyond this circle was a fruit-garden of standard trees — peach, dwarf apple, cherry, and pear. A seckel pear, one of these trees, was grafted from the original seckel, which was a native in Germantown, Philadelphia. This tree remained and bore much fine fruit in the garden of the late Edward Lawrence, after his purchase of a part of the estate on High Street for his residence.

Passing through the fruit garden, the entrance to the grove or shaded walk was reached, about in a line from the ell of the Hyde or Edwin Adams house, the front of which is on Cordis Street. This walk, on both sides of which were shade-trees of the finest and rarest varieties, extended all along the southeast side to the rear end of the Universalist Church, then at a right angle to the side of the church, and by the side of the church to the rear of the Stevens estate, which fronted on Main Street, along the line of that estate to Main Street, and from there along the Main and Green Street lines to the house. The large trees now standing in the lower part of the garden of Mr. Lawrence, in the court and garden in the rear of the Winthrop Church, and the horse-chestnuts on Green Street, made a part of this beautiful walk.

The stable was on the corner of Green and High Streets; and the area between it and the house was paved with cobble-stones. Near the stable, in the upper

part of the garden, early vegetables and plants for the flower-garden were started under fancy-shaped glass frames. Commencing at the gateway on Green Street, and all along the Green and Main Street lines to the Stevens estate, was a buckthorn hedge. After the hedge had grown high, the lower branches were cut off, and a close board fence was built against it, so that the branching top only was seen above the fence. The hedge was clipped several times during the season, and its true lines and level top were very effective. The center of the garden was a vineyard; and all varieties of hardy and half-hardy grapes were cultivated with great care and marked success. An educated and skilled gardener always had charge of the estate, but it was the personal oversight and fine taste of the owner that kept up the character of the garden. Mr. Bridge was a man of very extended knowledge and intelligence. He had spent much time abroad, and no doubt adopted what he had seen there in cultivating his grounds and ornamenting his estate.

Mr. Bridge was a merchant, having his place of business on Central Wharf, Boston. The firm was Nathan Bridge & Co., and the late John D. Bates was his partner. He and the late Adam W. Thaxter were both clerks with Mr. Bridge, and they afterwards constituted the well-known firm of John D. Bates & Co., which was a continuation of the business of the former house. An old Boston business man has told me that in his time Nathan Bridge was acknowledged to be the best-informed merchant in Boston. His acquaintance with eminent merchants was extensive, and he knew how to entertain elegantly. He was one of the original