1860 Stone Promotional Real Estate Map of Hyde Park, Boston

'A Small Town in the City'

This is a rare 1860 Anson J. Stone real estate map of Hyde Park, now the southernmost neighborhood in Boston. It presents the area when it was rapidly developing as a suburban escape from crowded Boston, well-situated on two rail lines. Hyde Park was also notable at this time for its connections with the abolitionist movement and the post-Civil War civil rights movement.

A Closer Look

Oriented towards the southwest, the map covers the titular developments of Hyde Park and Fairmount on either side of the Neponset River (both now part of the neighborhood of Hyde Park but initially distinct real estate developments). Streets are labeled throughout, while the boundaries of properties are traced and lots numbered. The owners, and in some cases the acreage, of larger properties are noted. The area is divided into eight distinct groups of properties, listed below the title, which are owned by different individuals or entities, including the 'Real Estate and Building Co.' as well as the Fairmount Land Co. and the Hyde Park Co, which had pioneered the subdivision of what had recently been rural land. Interesting, while the Fairmount development follows a strict grid pattern, the Hyde Park development contains winding streets, some encircling a park situated in the center of a ring of properties. The planned extension of some roads in Fairmount is ghosted in, while pencil annotations appear at right in the Hyde Park section.

Historical Context

What is now the neighborhood of Hyde Park began as a wooded corner of Dorchester, which was then independent of Boston. Retired Boston businessman Henry Grew (who retains some property at bottom-right here) bought several hundred acres of land in the area in the late 1840s and moved there with his family. Soon afterward, a group called the Hyde Park Land Company purchased 200 acres of land and began building homes, as well as an unofficial stop on the Boston and Providence Railroad (the depot seen near center here, which today remains the location of a station on the MBTA's Franklin-Foxboro and Providence-Stoughton Lines). Then, in 1856, Alpheus Perley Blake organized the Fairmount Land Company and the Twenty Associates, which had already begun developing the adjacent area of Fairmount (at left here) across the Neponset River. The Hyde Park Land Company soon thereafter merged with the Fairmount Land Company, which facilitated rapid growth in the area and the establishment of a second railroad station ('depot' here), this one on the Boston and New York Central Railroad (referred to here simply as 'N. York Central') line, part of the New York and New England Railroad, the basis for today's Fairmount Station, also in the MBTA network. The combined developments, buoyed by additional investors noted here, grew to the point that additional railroad stations were added, and in 1868, the Town of Hyde Park was incorporated, a move opposed by Dedham, which lost a notable portion of its territory as a result. The town was part of Norfolk County, like neighboring Dedham and Milton, which remain today, but in 1912, it voted to join Boston, part of Suffolk County.

Although like most contemporary real estate projects, Hyde Park/Fairmount was originally pitched as a suburban retreat amid the woods, by the time Hyde Park was incorporated, it had also begun to attract industrial operations due to the availability of land situated near two major rail lines. From an early date, Hyde Park has also had a significant African-American population, resulting initially from the presence of well-known abolitionists (Sarah and Angelina Grimké, along with Angelina's husband, Theodore Dwight Weld) in the Antebellum Period, which made it welcoming to Black families. During the U.S. Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first Black regiment recruited in the North, its slightly later sister unit, the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and later the all-Black 5th Cavalry trained at Camp Meigs in the Readville section of Hyde Park (just beyond the scope of this map to the south). After the war, many veterans of these units came to settle in Hyde Park.

Among the prominent Black residents of Hyde Park was Archibald Grimké (1849 - 1930), a nephew of the Grimké sisters who was born into slavery, the son of a plantation owner (a brother of the Grimké sisters) and an enslaved woman. Archibald Grimké graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, followed by Harvard Law School, and was a prominent lawyer in Boston for many years, also serving as the U.S. Consul to the Dominican Republic in the mid-1890s and as a vice president of the national NAACP (this work caused him to leave Hyde Park, his home for most of his adult life, for Washington DC). His daughter, Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 - 1958) became a journalist, playwright, and poet. She was one of the first African-American women to have a play publicly performed, namely the 1916 play Rachel, which is now recognized as an important precursor to the Harlem Renaissance.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn ('reduced and compiled') by Anson J. Stone and printed by Charles H. Crosby in 1860. We are aware of only one other example of this map, heavily damaged and missing significant content, held by the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library.

Cartographers

Anson Joseph Stone (June 28, 1818 - March 30, 1887) was an accountant and prominent citizen active in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was born in Boston, but after his parents' deaths, he went to live with an uncle in Cambridge. He attended Phillips Academy Andover and became an accountant. Census records and directories also list him variously as a retailer, bookkeeper, treasurer, and clerk. Though one map is attributed to him, he seems to have had no formal training in surveying or cartographic methods. He was deeply involved in the Old Cambridge Baptist Church and had worked at the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which tried to help anti-slavery settlers move to Kansas in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Stone was regarded as among the most prominent citizens of Cambridge upon his death.   Further Details...

Charles H. Crosby (c. 1819 - 1896), often as C. H. Crosby or Chas. H. Crosby, was an engraver, lithographer, and printer based in Boston, Massachusetts. He initially went into business with Emery N. Moore (1816-1890) as 'Moore and Crosby' until the firm dissolved in 1856 and Crosby bean his own business, 'C. H. Crosby and Co.' Crosby printed a variety of paper products ranging widely in size (from business cards to large prints) and technique (both engraving and lithography). He was especially known for his use of oil-based paint that lent a rich coloration to prints.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Even toning. Some discoloration. A few old pencil marks. Stabilized on archival tissue.

References

OCLC 1037428536.