Property Owners

The 1882 Sanborn map of the Financial District reveals much about the physical appearance and material structure of the Central Street building. This particular parcel was constructed using brick and stone and stood five stories high. The building was divided into 27 individual properties which all share party walls. Most of these properties contained a different business each. Most maps including Bromley maps as well as maps from the Boston Surveyor’s Office show the split of the building, detailing each property and indicating the owner of each one. 

There was often no relationship between the property owners and the companies which utilized space in the Central Street building, other than landlord and renter. This is to say that the property owners existed solely as landlords using this property as a source of income. It appears that the property owners were mostly from wealthy families. In addition, many of the properties in the Central Street building were passed down generationally and often were included in trusts. For example, one owner was denoted as “N. Cushing Trustees” and another as “Hannah French Heirs”, indicating that property ownership was lucrative enough to include in trusts and to pass to heirs. 

One landlord named Josiah Wheelwright owned 126 Central Street, located at the very end of the building toward the Boston Harbor. 126 Central Street was utilized to manufacture and ship soaps during the time that Wheelwright owned the property. Wheelwright attended Harvard University where he played tennis competitively against Yale, Brown, and other ivy league institutions. After college, he continued to play doubles tennis competitively, traveling up and down the east coast to compete at various country clubs. 

Wheelwright owned this property personally from at least 1882 to 1890. In 1895, the owner’s name changes on the Bromley maps from “J. Wheelwright” to “Heirs of J. Wheelwright”, indicating that his property was passed down to his family after his death. Wheelwright’s story reflects the difference in lifestyle between those who acted as landlords at Central Street versus those who operated businesses and worked in this building. Wheelwright went from Harvard to country club hopping through his tennis career and made a passive income throughout his life as a result of owning property on Central Street.