Boston And Providence Columbus Av Depot – Park Square Bost 1890
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BOSTON AND PROVIDENCE RR
Richard Heath “History of Forest Hills” 2013
Excerpt:
The Boston and Providence RR:
"The Boston and Providence Railroad was incorporated on June 22, 1831. The 44
mile route from Boston to Providence began at present-day Park Square (originally
Pleasant and Broadway) straight across the Back Bay marshes to the upland at Pierpont
Village (Roxbury Crossing), where it hugged the foot of Parker Hill, crossed Stony
Brook at Hogg’s Bridge (Jackson Square) and continued on a straight right of way along
the brook valley through Tollgate to Readville. The tracks crossed the marshes on an
earth causeway supported by thick timbers stuck in the mud bottom.
Construction began in late 1832. The Boston and Providence Railroad (B+P R/R)
bought parcels of land for its right of way sixty-five feet wide and additional land as
required for stone and gravel. More than likely much of this gravel came from the slope
of Parker Hill along present-day Allegheny Street. On February 17,1833, for example,
Ebenezer Weld and Ebenezer Seaver sold three parcels of land at Tollgate 2,443 feet long
and sixty five feet wide (Norfolk deeds. Lib. 98, fol.163. and lib. 99, fol. 91). The Boston
and Providence Railroad opened for travel on July 11, 1835 a distance of 44 miles
between the two cities.
The B+P R/R was intended to serve long distance travelers. The only station
between Park Square and Readville (or Dedham Plain) was at Roxbury Crossing.
(Pierpont Village). Two stations were added in 1842: Jamaica Plain (at Green St) and
Tollgate. At first it was just an open air platform; in 1845 a waiting room was built
approximately opposite present-day Tower Street. The right of way was at grade with
timber planks only at the stations obviously requiring constant regrading at the
intersections, such as at Walnut Avenue. To avoid a grade crossing, the railroad built an
extension of Walk Hill Street to Tollgate station that later became part of Hyde Park
Avenue when that road was built from Cleary Square to Walk Hill Street in 1869.
At first one track, a second track was added to Roxbury Crossing in 1838-1839
and extended to Readville in 1845. The new track required more land and Jacob W.
Seaver sold two parcels of land to the B+P RR in 1850 (Norfolk deeds. March 11, 1850.
Lib 192. fol. 285). A third track was added for freight trains between Boston and Forest
Hills in 1873 and to Readville in 1874.
The first commuter train was a branch line built from Tollgate station to Dedham
Center that opened in 1849. It crossed Sawmill Brook over a plank bridge at South Street
before proceeding to present-day Roslindale and Dedham.
In 1873 the B+P RR increased its service through Roxbury and Jamaica Plain to
accommodate wider passenger use of the rails. Columbus Avenue was proposed to be
extended to Boston Common, which would take up the old station and a new terminal
was required at Park Square. Francis Minot Weldxviii was a director of the B+P RR and he
arranged for his son in law’s brother Robert S. Peabodyxix (who had opened a firm with
John Goddard Stearns in 1870) to design what would be an imposing Boston landmark
with a soaring clock tower 150 feet high. Built at a cost of 0,000 it covered five tracks
on Columbus Avenue at Park Square. (The Park Plaza Hotel is on the site today).
Passengers traveled in cars which were nothing more than omnibus carriages set
up on an metal spring platforms and iron wheels. Riders (presumably first class) traveled
inside the coach while the rest sat on a canvas-covered roof. The cars – as many as eight
in 1840 – were pulled by an engine that at first was only a boiler bolted to a thick
platform on heavy iron wheels. Engineers drove the locomotive sitting in an open console
at the rear.xx
Trains traveled at 23 miles per hour and the fare from Boston to Providence was
in 1837, reduced to .40 in 1840. The one way fare from Park Square to Tollgate.
(the railroad station took the name of the turnpike gate which it would soon replace) was
10c. A three month pass cost .25 from Tollgate to Park Square in 1849, a year before
Jacob W. Seaver moved to Tollgate.xxi
One illustrious passenger was President John Tyler who came to Boston for the
dedication of the Bunker Hill monument on June 17, 1843. As reported in the Bay State Democrat on June 14, 1843, “Citizens came out to greet the President at turnpike gate in
Jamaica Plain.” The procession, including fire engines, carriages and those on horseback,
escorted the President down the turnpike to the Norfolk House in Roxbury (hopefully the
turnpike rates were waived that day).xxii
The Boston + Providence Railroad paralleled the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike
through Jamaica Plain – in Forest Hills only a few yards separated the tollgate from the
railroad station; indeed, the railroad crossed over the turnpike. The turnpike could not
compete and it became a free public road from Dedham to Attleboro in 1843. The
Bartlett St., Roxbury to Dedham route through Tollgate remained profitable in large part
because it connected at Dedham with the Hartford stage that used the Hartford and
Dedham Turnpike (parts of that road is Hartford Street in Medfield and Dover today).
It was also a more direct route through Roxbury town center to the outlying district at
South Street. Nevertheless economics prevailed and the entire road became a free public
road in 1857. (In 1874 the entire turnpike through to Dedham and southerly past
Norwood was named Washington Street).
The railroad brought commerce. The 1859 Walling Map of Boston and Vicinity
shows three or the earliest stores in Forest Hills. Two were opposite the new station and a
third at the intersection of South and Walk Hill Streets (about where South Street meets
Washington Street today). These were probably built after Tollgate Station opened in
1845.xxiii
The railroad also brought manufacturing. Until late in the 20th century Forest
Hills south of the Arborway as far as Williams Street, was more industrial than many
realize: vestiges remain and more will be discussed later about this aspect of Forest Hills
history. Among the earliest industries were the Weld and Wellington marble works,
which carved and assembled cemetery monuments for Forest Hills Cemetery and Mt.
Hope. This was located about where the Arborway crosses Washington Street at the edge
of the Southwest corridor park, Down the street along Stony Brook was the Isaac Cary
tannery (where the middle gate is today at the MBTA busyard. Both manufacturing plants
are seen on the 1874 GW Hopkins Atlas of West Roxbury).
The end of the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike made it possible for private
enterprise to use the well-made highway for a third mode of transportation, the horsecar.
The development of fixed rails as a means of smoother and faster transportation
led logically to using it to improve the popular omnibus by putting the carriages on steel
wheels set on rails in public streets. The smooth surface of the parallel rails on which the
grooved wheels set allowed two horses to pull a larger carriage with more paying
passengers.
The Metropolitan Railroad was chartered to run between Roxbury and Boston on
May 21, 1853. In 1855 tracks were laid from Boylston Mkt. (Essex and Washington
Streets) across The Neck to Eliot Square and service was opened from Boston to Dudley
Square in September of 1856. In 1885 near the end of the horsecar era, the Metropolitan
had seventy- eight miles of track serving all of present day Boston.
Another line of horsecars through Forest Hills was authorized in June 1864 when
the Dedham and West Roxbury RR began laying a single track to connect Dedham to
Forest Hills and Egleston Square along the old turnpike; at Egleston Square it would
connect up with the Metropolitan, the largest horsecar line
