The Dream City, Paul V. Galvin 
Digital History Collection
 
 
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  THE MASSACHUSETTS BUILDING-This reproduction of the ancient residence of the rich and patriotic John Hancock, on Beacon Hill, in Boston, was designed or restored by Peabody & Stearns, architects, of Boston, at a cost of $50,000. It was placed prominently on the avenue of commonwealths, in front of the Art Palace, well toward the lake. Before and beside it at a considerable distance, was a lattice-fence, well hidden with vines, and surrounding an area that was paved with stone. At each of its entrances there was a porch with upper veranda, and in front there was some semblance of architectural ambition in the way of Corinthian columns and pediment, but this grandeur disappeared on reaching the interior, where every room was low and little, with three stories, which were all no higher than the outside pediment. An observatory mounted the quaint structure, and on its flag-staff an aristocratic and golden cod-fish told which way the social wind blew in Boston. The rooms were filled with relics and autographs of great historic interest. The portrait of the great Samuel Adams had a justly honorable and conspicuous place, and antique paintings of all the Yankee Revolutionary Fathers had been generously loaned to the Exposition. Copies of charters by King Charles, great seals and their bezels, autographs of the Boston poets and authors, the desk of George Washington, colonial furniture, a fire-screen painted by John Hancock, a remnant of the wedding-dress of Mrs. Governor Bradford, and ancient books brought in the Mayflower or printed by the Puritans, made a large, interesting and historic museum.
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Digital History Collection
Page created: August 26, 1998