Item 15: Etching of “The Old Curtis House,” unknown artist (removed to Black Box #1) , 1880 July 24

Item — Box: 21, Folder: 15

Staff Only

Etching of “The Old Curtis House,” unknown artist (removed to Black Box #1) , 1880 July 24

Dates

Created: 1880 July 24

Access:

All series and subseries within this collection are open for research, with the exception of a few files within the Academia series that are restricted. The Academia series contains financial and sensitive institutional records from Wilkes College, and financial report records from Princeton University that will remain restricted for 80 years upon creation.

Extent

1 items

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Type of Material:

Etching

Condition Note:

Okay.

Measurements:

12 ⅞ in. x 9 in. {backing}; 3 ¾ in. x 2 ¼ in. {newspaper clipping}; 6 ⅜ in. x 4 ⅝ in. {print}

Title:

The Old Curtis House

Description:

Etching of a tree in the foreground looming over the Old Curtis House. It was torn down around July 30, 1886 as per the accompanying newspaper clipping. Mentioned in the newspaper, John Winthrop was born January 12, 1587 or 1588 and was a English Puritan lawyer and a leading figure in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This was a second major settlement that followed the Plymouth Colony. In 1630, Winthrop lead a wave of English colonists and served as governor for 12 years. “His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies in addition to those of Massachusetts.” Also mentioned in the newspaper, born in 1604, John Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the Native Americans, of which the colonists called “Indians.” He was nicknamed “the apostle of the Indians” and was the founder of Roxbury Latin School in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1645. He eventually translated the Eliot Indian Bible into the Massachusett Indian Language in 1660. It produced more than two thousand copies.

Location:

The Old Curtis House, West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Transcription:

{No. 8. - The Old Curtis House. (Finished July 24 1880.) - Copper} Newspaper Clipping Transcript: THE OLD CURTIS HOUSE. An Ancient Landmark in Process of De- molition–Story of the Building The famous old Curtis mansion, near the Boyiston station of the Providence railroad at West Roxbury, was in-process of demolition yesterday. Probably no vestige of it is visible above the ground today. At noon yesterday a few upright main posts and cross beams were all that remained to greet the passing traveller. Rather it may be said that the expression of the old architecture that still stood was one of fare- well and not of greeting. But for nearly two centuries and a half it has bestowed morning, midday and evening salutations upon the travel- lers of the successive generations. It leaves no contemporary structure in that section of the suburbs and but few in New England. It must have been a familiar object on the original highway to John Winthrop and the apostle John Eliot and other worthies of the earliest time having occasion for official or other reasons to make journeys on horseback among the new plantations. Not unlikely some of the passengers of the Mayflower passed by it and may have stood within its portals. It has held its very own bravely down to a recent date, but the growth of the village of Boylston and the mod- ern laying out of streets forbade any attempt to further preserve it. But it was a creditable piece of carpentry and but few indeed of the neighboring modern smart-looking structures will be able to make so good report of them- selves when 250 years more shall have elapsed. Adv. 30/7/86