19-93 Purchase Street
Adriana C.
A 50 Year History
19th century Boston experienced an industrial boom that reshaped the city in a way it had never seen before. The production, importation, and exportation of goods was rapidly increasing, immigration was peaking, and Boston was becoming transformed. However, in 1872, the Great Boston Fire gave pause to a main area of the city known as the Financial District. As a result, this section of the city, especially the Southern Financial District, was reorganized and regulated to fit the new needs. As a business owner or person at this time, you had to be aware of the trends to keep yourself afloat. Who better to look to than Joshua Montgomery Sears, one of the wealthiest men of the later 19th century in Boston, who attained his fortune through real estate and business related endeavors during this tumultuous period. To learn more about his success, and the overall developments of Purchase Street and the Southern Financial District in Boston from roughly 1875-1930, keep scrolling.
Parcel Location
19-93 Purchase Street falls right in between the triangular outline on this map, which is formed by High Street to the upper right, Oliver Street on the left, and Atlantic Avenue as the base. Joshua Montgomery Sears's property sits to the bottom left of the triangle above Atlantic Avenue. The maps that will be referenced throughout this website all correspond to this location from different time periods.
1895 Map of Purchase Street
The Sears Family - Joshua Montgomery Sears
The Sears family was a very prominent and aristocratic family in Boston. Most notably of their accomplishments pertains the acquisition of real estate and commercial business developments. On the Purchase Street parcel is a plot of land owned by Joshua Montgomery Sears, which hosts many different commercial opportunities throughout the decades. J. M. Sears is the son of Phoebe Sears and Joshua Sears, and his father was a successful East India merchant, ship owner and capitalist. His was born in Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA on December 25, 1854 and died in Southborough, MA on June 2, 1905. His closest friends referred to him as Monty. He graduated from Yale University in 1877 and studied in Berlin shortly after. He devoted his studies to business and property management, thus applying his education to his everyday career pursuits. Overtime, Monty developed and expanded the real estate once handed down to him by his father, and eventually became owner to a great deal of valuable property throughout the city of Boston. In addition to his real estate pursuits, Monty served as director of the Old Colony Railroad, director of the Second National Bank of Boston, Treasurer of the Children’s Hospital of Boston, and a member of the Royal Agricultural Society of London.
Aside from the business aspects of his life, Monty and his wife, Sarah Sears, enjoyed a very luxurious and philanthropic life. Their winter residence was in Boston, but they had a very lucrative and valuable farm estate of about fifteen hundred acres in Southborough, MA. They often spent summers abroad but also had a cottage in Bar Harbor, Maine where they spent much time yachting. The pair was very religious and involved themselves with religious affairs. Monty established and endowed the West End Workingmen’s Club of Boston and co-organized the starting of a temperance organization called the Poplar Street Club in Boston, to counteract the influence of saloons among poorer classes. He was involved with the architectural development of Holy Trinity Parish in Marlborough in 1887, of which his benefactions were largely private and personal to him, as this was a matter close to his heart. Lastly, he paid for college tuitions of promising young men and women interested in obtaining an education in art and music, as these were big passions of his. In fact, Monty was known for having tasteful interests in art and literature, so much that he established personal relations with artists whose work he admired. Inspired so heavily by the arts and literature, especially from his time abroad, Monty purchased Ernst Curtius', a German archaeologist and historian, entire historical and archeological library for the library at Yale University, roughly consisting of 3,500 volumes and pamphlets.
The property owned by the Sears family was widespread throughout Boston and the surrounding suburban areas of the city, but most importantly for the purposes of this site is the plot of property owned by Monty on Purchase Street. As is indicated by the available maps on Atlascope, Monty owned a plot on Purchase Street from roughly 1874-1930 and hosted a series of different commercial and storage opportunities, the most prominent being a sugar refinery and a warehouse.
19th Cenutry Developments
The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston's Central Business District
David Ward
David Ward's text The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston's Central Business District is a fabulous source of information regarding all industrial and economic advancements of Boston during the 19th century. He specifically focuses on the Financial District, and explains the developments of the area in response to major events such as the Great Boston Fire in 1872, and the progressive demands regarding Boston as mercantile city. One of the most striking pieces of information that is offered from this text are the series of maps that emphasize the changes of the Financial District overtime in the 19th century, especially pertaining to commerce, mobility, trade, and more. Viewing these maps help visualize the expansion of the city of Boston, especially pertaining to the Southern Financial District and the commercialization of Purchase Street.
To access this essay, click here.
Monty's Business Endeavors
Commercialism - Oxnard Sugar Refinery and Other Goods
The earliest evidence of the Monty’s property ownership on Purchase Street can be seen on the 1874 map. This map shows Monty as the property owner, yet there is no indication of whether or not this property was a commercial or a residential space. However, if one looks to maps shortly after this time period, such as the 1882 map and the 1888 map, there is a common commercial placeholder that occupies this lot, The Oxnard Sugar Refinery. The refinery first becomes visible on the 1882 map, although there is reference to an additional property owner by the name of the Cooper (whom I assume owned a portion of the property/building space next to or around Monty’s plot). On the 1883 map, the plot that the sugar refinery lands on is clearly identified as belonging to Monty. The Oxnard Sugar Refinery is a very interesting commercial venture to consider during this time period.
The sugar refining industry was booming in the later half of the 19th century, especially in California by the Oxnard family. Specifically, the Oxnard Brothers, Henry T. and James G. Oxnard, had ample experience in the refining industry as their father, Thomas Oxnard, a French immigrant, established a refining factory in Louisiana after turning away from the prospect of developing a cotton business. The Oxnards developed a sugar refining empire all across cities in the United States, primarily looking to cities close to the coasts or bodies of water. It is seemingly no coincidence that this sugar refinery maintained their location in Boston during the 1880s, as this was a highly demanded product at the time. As is suggested on Figure 4 of the maps from David Ward's text, the location for the production and importation of dry goods was rapidly increasing in the direction of the Southern Financial District, including the Purchase Street parcel. To further confirm this point, if one looks closely on the same 1882 map, there is a series of other commercial stores that speak to the desire of dry, wholesale goods, such as curry shops, finishing leather drying rooms, wool and cotton stores, oils and candles, paper stock, ship stores, mechanical and chemical stores, and even a pickle factory!
Sugar refining was a very lucrative industry and began to establish an empire in California in the 1880s. Establishing a refinery for a short period of time in Boston is no surprise as it was a mercantile city that was seeking commercial opportunities as such. Therefore, a sugar refinery on a plot such as Purchase Street, given its location close to the water and freight trains, is a sound argument in the support of Monty Sears as a wise businessman responding to the demands of the city at the time. From what can be gathered from the maps, the Oxnard Sugar Refinery occupied Monty’s plot from roughly 1882 until some point in the 1890s.
Response to the 1872 Great Fire - Warehouses
1889 is the earliest map that illustrates the Fort Hill Warehouse on Purchase Street. The expansion of warehouse spaces directly corresponds to the increase in importation and exportation of dry goods in the city of Boston. The focus on warehouse development was especially heightened in conversations regarding the city’s remodeling, resulting from the Great Boston Fire of 1872. The city remodeling during this period focused heavily on street and building infrastructure – with an essential focus on the implementation of warehouses along the shore of the city. Seeing as this corresponds to a period flux of imported goods, storage alongside the wharves was highly demanded, especially down Atlantic Ave in the Southern Financial District. Specifically, the Fort Hill area, located right by the Purchase Street parcel, served greatly in assisting this task. David Ward writes,
“The fill derived from Fort Hill was used to remodel the old waterfront of Boston by the provision of a circumferential thoroughfare known as Atlantic Avenue around the southeastern margins of the business district. In 1873 Boston's "Great Fire" consumed the south side of the warehouse district, and all traces of the original residential function of the area were obscured. The civic authorities took advantage of the devastation to provide a new and wider pattern of streets and, with ironic belatedness, more capacious water pipes. The removal of Fort Hill and the construction of Atlantic Avenue partly improved the accessibility of the southern section of the warehouse district to the South Cove railroad terminals” (161).
He continues,
“The warehouse quarter, which was by far the largest segment of the central business district in 1875, continued to expand southwards during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The warehouse premises were, moreover, increasingly devoted to wholesale trade as workshop manufacturing activities moved to new quarters and as retailing assumed greater economic and locational autonomy. The expansion of local trade in dry goods and also in food and provisions necessitated a considerable enlargement in the accommodations for the central organization of regional distribution. In Boston the dimensions of this enlargement of the warehouse district were increased by the contemporary increase in the volume of the wool and leather trade which served a far larger market than that of Boston's immediate hinterland. The wool merchants had formerly conducted their trade to the north of State Street along the water- front near the market halls, but during and after the Civil War the wool trade increased and the merchants gradually occupied new and larger accommodations in that part of the warehouse district which lay adjacent to the financial section of the business district. The leather trade had previously been widely distributed throughout the North End, but with the increase in the volume of imports the leather merchants moved to new premises in that part of the warehouse district which fronted on Atlantic Avenue and the old waterfront south of State Street” (162).
The Fort Hill Storage Warehouse that sits on Monty's lot is diagonally across the Fort Hill wharf, among other wharfs, and right in front of the freight railways. As a businessman responding to the times, it is seemingly a smart and lucrative business decision of Monty to transition his property, presumably one that was already a large space as it served as a sugar refinery, into a storage warehouse for imported goods to be stored. During the period of time that the Fort Hill Storage Warehouse sits on Purchase Street, Monty passes away and the plot is transitioned to his wife Sarah Sears in 1912.
50 Years of Purchase Street
The Southern Financial District of Boston, particularly around Purchase Street, experienced rapid and significant changes over the span of 50 years in the later 19th and earlier 20th century. What began as a highly residential area of Boston developed into the financial and commercial headquarters of the city. It's location speaks to this point, as it is centrally located and runs along the eastern shore of the city, therefore accommodating for all forms of importation and exportation of goods - whether it be by ship, freight train, or transportation throughout the city. This location was essential for the commercialization of Boston to be a success - and this was only possible through the development of the streets that sit in this area and properties that line them.
Purchase Street in particular, as made it evident from the information above, sits at a prime location to execute what was needed during this time, and Joshua Montgomery Sears was the person to exemplify just that. A well rounded businessman, Monty demonstrated the conclusions made in the Ward essay. He responded to the demands of the time made necessary by the progressive nature of the city , and the response to a horrific fire that shook the city to its core. He leased his plot on Purchase Street for lucrative businesses, such as a sugar refinery, that further reflected the commercial spaces that neighbored him - specifically focusing on the distribution of dry goods. He also transitioned with the times and responded to the needs of warehouses along the shores to store goods that were imported to Boston. His legacy on this plot of land lasted for almost 50 years, and many can learn from his history about how to be a successful in a rapidly progressive mercantile city such as Boston.
Sources
Works Cited
The Sears Family – Joshua Montgomery Sears
Ancestry.com. Representative men of Massachusetts, 1890-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
Original data:Representative men of Massachusetts, 1890-1900 : the leaders in official, business and professional life of the commonwealth..
Everett, Mass.: Massachusetts Pub. Co., 1898, c1897.
Ancestry.com. Boston of to-day [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
Original data:Herndon, Richard.. Boston of to-day : a glance at its history and characteristics : with biographical sketches and portraits of many of
its professional and business men. Boston: Post Pub. Co., 1892
Images
Cronaca sovversiva. [volume] (Barre, Vt.), 19 Aug. 1905. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1904-05.pdf
"PASSED AWAY AT SOUTHBORO HOME: J. MONTGOMERY SEARS HAD BEEN ILL FOR MANY WEEKS. HE HEADED THE LIST OF THE HEAVY TAXPAYERS IN BOSTON." Boston Daily Globe (1872-1922), Jun 02 1905, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 8 May 2021 .
Sargent, John Singer (American, 1856-1925). Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears (Sarah Choate Sears). Accessed May 8, 2021. https://jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.12059282
19th Century Developments
Ward, David. "The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston's Central Business District." Economic Geography 42, no. 2 (1966): 152-71. Accessed April 12, 2021. doi:10.2307/141915.
^all images from this source
Commercialism – Oxnard Sugar Refinery and Other Goods
Ancestry.com. Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
Original data:Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: New England Historical Pub. Co., 1902.
Ancestry.com. The town officials of colonial Boston, 1634-1775 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005, Original data:Seybolt, Robert Francis,. The town officials of colonial Boston, 1634-1775. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939.
MAGNUSON, TORSTEN A. “HISTORY OF THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA.” Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, vol. 11, no. 1, 1918, pp. 68–79. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41168761. Accessed 8 May 2021.
Oxnard, Benjamin A., www.lagenweb.org/orleans/bios/NR/oxnardBenjA.html.
Ward, David. "The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston's Central Business District."
Images
Henry Oxnard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._Oxnard
(Map images referenced below)
Response to the 1873 Great Fire – Warehouse Expansion
Ward, David. "The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston's Central Business District." Economic Geography 42, no. 2 (1966): 152-71. Accessed April 12, 2021. doi:10.2307/141915.
Images
Aftermath of Fire of 1872: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Boston_Fire_of_1872#/media/File:Aftermath_of_Fire_of_1872_(14226456917).jpg
(Maps Referenced Below)
Maps
1874: Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins & Co., Atlas of the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts, 1874, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1882: New York: Sanborn Map & Publishing Co, Insurance Maps of Boston,1882, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1883: Philadelphia: Geo .W. and Walter S. Bromley., Atlas of the City of Boston, 1883, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1888: Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, Mass, 1888, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1895: Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, 1895, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1898: Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley and Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, Boston Proper, 1898, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library via Atlascope.
1912: Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, 1912, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library