Lost Charlestown: A Mansion and a Meetinghouse
Charlestown has the distinction of having been the residence of numerous prominent citizens over its almost 400 year history, including Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph and born at the corner of Main Street and Hathon Place on April 27, 1791. Samuel’s father Jedediah and his wife were temporarily living with Thomas Edes (1737-1792) and family, in the Edes’ late Georgian style mansion which had been built in 1780. It was one of the first homes to be built during the reconstruction period that followed the burning of Charlestown after the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Edes home was a handsome three-story, five bay hipped-roof frame home that stood on the current site of the TCB Bank. It was built on land that belonged to David Wood (1710-1797), father of Thomas Edes’ wife Mary Wood (1739-1818). Stylistically, the Edes home was remarkably like both the Hurd House and the Larkin House on Main Street.
Both the Edes family and the Wood family were early residents of Charlestown, arriving during the Great Migration of the 1600s. Like many early settlers, they returned during reconstruction. David Wood constructed his home at the other end of his land on the corner of Wood Street and Main Street. While the Edes home is no longer extant, the Wood home still stands. Built c.1790, it is a brick Federal-style residence that has been modified over the years, and at one time had a store front facing Main Street.
In 1629 King Charles granted the Massachusetts Bay Company a charter to establish a colony and commence trade in New England. In 1630 John Winthrop, the first governor, settled in Charlestown with a group of English colonists, some of whom eventually relocated across the Charles River to what became Boston. In Charlestown, worship was held in the ‘Great House’ located in what is now City Square Park. The Great House served as both a meeting house and as a home for Governor Winthrop. In 1632 the remaining Charlestown colonists signed a covenant formalizing the establishment of the First Church. A separate meeting house was built in 1636 and in 1637 John Harvard was briefly pastor. After almost a century and a half of worship the third meeting house, constructed in 1715, was burned following the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.
From 1777 until 1783, as the reconstruction of Charlestown began, an old British blockhouse accommodated worship, meeting and schooling. In 1783, a handsome frame meeting house was built on Town Hill on the site of the current Harvard Mall. Its steeple is said to have been designed by Charles Bulfinch. In1789, Samuel’s father, Jedediah Morse, a graduate of Yale College, became the second pastor of the new meeting house church. Jedediah, a Calvinist and supporter of the Federalist Party, was an ordained minister who served as pastor of the First Church of Charlestown for 30 years beginning in 1791, the same year Samuel was born. The parsonage had not yet been completed so the Morses were staying with the Edes family, who were friends and parishioners at First Church. Timothy Sawyer relates in his book Old Charlestown that Samuel was born in the second-floor parlor. Jedediah was additionally a noted cartographer and geographer, publishing the first geography textbook in America. His textbooks dominated the field during his lifetime.
Meeting houses of the colonial period were simple buildings, many clapboarded, and bore no resemblance to the ornately embellished cathedrals and sanctuaries of centuries past with their cruciform floorplans. The design was intentionally minimal, without naves, transepts, altars or stained glass. Meeting houses throughout New England are similar, beautiful in their simplicity, and like the First Church meeting house, they served as both worship and public meeting spaces for the community. In1803, First Church incorporated as The First Parish Church. The First Parish Meeting House was enlarged in 1804, adding footage to both sides. Sadly, it was torn down and replaced with a brick church built on the same site on Town Hill in 1834. In 1912, the First Parish merged with the Winthrop Church on Green Street. The brick church on Town Hill remained until it was torn down in 1934, 100 years after it was built.
In addition to the church, there was a parsonage, a small chapel, and a large garden that extended towards City Square to Robbins Tavern at the corner of Harvard Street. In 1816, the tavern was sold to the town so that the first Charlestown Town Hall could be built. In 1835-6, the adjacent parsonage land and garden were developed by the Parish Land Company. Known as Harvard Row, it comprises 7-23 Harvard Street. These nine three-story, three-bay brick Federal/Greek Revival townhouses stand today on the eastern side of Harvard Street.
Samuel Morse (1791-1872) was the first child of Pastor Jedediah Morse (1761-1826) and his wife Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese (1766-1828). Samuel attended Phillips Academy in Andover as well as Yale College, graduating in 1810. He studied religious philosophy, math, and science. He had a keen interest in painting and after completing his schooling, he went to Europe in 1811 to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He returned to the United States in 1815 and continued painting, receiving commissions in New England, New York and Charleston, South Carolina for the next decade. In 1825 he returned to New Haven where he had attended Yale. He traveled to Europe again in 1829 to further his studies. While having several critical successes as a painter, his career was generally disappointing to him. His political views, which included being anti-Catholic and anti-immigration as well as pro-slavery, possibly had a negative effect on his patronage and career. While proficient, he did not make a major impact on nineteenth century painting. He stopped painting in 1837 and dedicated the rest of his life to perfecting the electromagnetic telegraph for which he became famous.
The story of this invention is fascinating. While returning from his European studies in 1832 on the ship Sully, he engaged in conversation with fellow passenger Charles Thomas Jackson of Boston, who was experimenting with electromagnetism. Morse became interested and after studying Jackson’s work, Morse conceptualized the electromagnetic telegraph. This was a stroke of innovative genius.
He continued painting for the next several years to make a living, but he had become totally immersed in perfecting his invention. Others in England were working on a similar invention, but the shortcoming of their telegraph, as well as Morses concept of using ‘relays’ to extend the length of the telegraph ‘wire’ eventually led to Morse’s success. In 1837 he filed for a patent in Washington DC. In 1838, he publicly demonstrated the telegraph in Morristown NJ, along with two associates, Professor Leonard Gale and physicist Alfred Vail. The code used to transmit messages, now universally known as Morse Code, was developed by Morse and later improved upon by Vail.
Initially, the telegraph was limited to a two-mile range. After obtaining Congressional support in the amount of $30,000, a 38-mile wire was laid between Washington DC and Baltimore. That line officially opened in 1844. In 1845 the Magnetic Telegraph Company was formed, and by 1850, 12,000 miles of wire had been laid. By 1866 Western Union, formed in 1851, had laid 100,000 miles of wire in the United States. Not surprisingly, the burgeoning use of the telephone beginning in the 1870s contributed to the decline of telegraphy, although it continued to be used far into the 20th century. By the 1970s, the telegraph had become obsolete, but it was unquestionably the forerunner of modern digital communication. For additional images, go to NancyKueny.com | Blog
Sources: Digital Commonwealth, MACRIS, National Gallery, Old Charlestown by Timothy Sawyer, Wikipedia, Wolcott Cutler Collection BPL, Encyclopedia Britannica, A Century of Town Life by James Hunnewell, EH.net, Ancestry.com.