A Municipal History of the Town And City of Boston During Two Centuries

ct of Samuel Brown ? His Character?House of Industry erected ? Act of Incorporation of the City obtained and accepted ? John Phillips chosen Mayor. The defects and insufficiency of the Boston Almshouse became a subject of earnest complaint soon after Massachusetts attained the rant of an independent state. By a report of a committee of the town in the year 1790, it appears that it was destitute of a separate hospital or infirmary; that persons of every age and character were lodged under the same roof; the sick disturbed by the noise of the healthy; and the aged and infirm endangered and annoyed by the diseased and profligate. All attempts to change the locality of the institution were unsuccessful until the year 1801, when an almshouse was erected in Leverett Street, and that in Beacon Street discontinued and the land sold. The new building was of enlarged dimensions and accommodations, but its interior arrangements did not permit the separation of age and misfortune from vice and vagrancy. In 1802, one year after the removal of the almshouse to Leverett Street, the importance of erecting another building, for a house of correction, was forcibly urged on the town by a committee of the selectmen, of which Charles Bulfinch was chairman, accompanied by estimates of the probable cost. Its immediate erection was, however, postponed, on account of the pecuniary exigencies of the town. No further proceedings occurred until 1812, when the Overseers of the Poor themse...