Brookline Motor Tour--Part 2
Jun. 20th, 2010 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea689. Zion Research Library
I interrupt this motor tour to bring you: turkeys. Wild turkeys, right there on the streets of Brookline. They’re actually a major problem. They rove in these huge packs and terrorize people. And they totally freak me out. They remind me of Dementors. They’re all gray and skulking and scary-looking, and they sneak up on you. You’re just going about your business, here within a city, safe from having to look at wildlife, and you turn around and bam. There’s a wild turkey standing right next to you, staring at you, with its beady little eyes.
Meanwhile, back on the motor tour, here’s the best photograph we could get of the Zion Research Library. The library is “a non-sectarian institution for the study of the Bible and church history.” It sits in a 60-room mansion that used to be located in Bay City, Michigan, and was moved here “stone by stone.” I don’t know what the obsession is with people in Brookline moving houses from other locations bit by bit. It seems like this would be prohibitively expensive. Anyway, the place still seems to be the Zion Research Library, but it’s surrounded by a fence and there’s a security guard sitting at a gate keeping people (and possibly wild turkeys) out. At arctacuda’s prompting, I asked the security guard if we could go into the driveway just to take pictures and then leave again (arctacuda thinks that I have all this magical flirting power. I don’t). And he said that no pictures of the building were allowed. Which seems sketchy to me. So who knows what these people are up to.
10. Davis-Cabot-Goddard Home
Okay, here’s where things got a bit confusing. The book says this place was also known as Green Hill. You’ll see why this is confusing in just a bit.
I went running through the rain for this photograph. We couldn’t park near the house, the roads were too narrow, so I had to dash up a hill to get it. And then, on my way back, a car went by and drenched me. I mean, when I got back to the car, I looked like I’d just jumped into a pond. Arctacuda laughed very hard.
This house was at the number that we were told to go to, but I’m still not entirely sure it’s the right house. The book doesn’t really tell us much about why this house is important to see. Granted, it’s very pretty, but Brookline is honestly full of homes that look like this. The book gives us an odd little personal tour of the house, and I wonder if he knew the person who lived here or something. He tells us that one of the chimneys says “Greenhill 1730,” so I assume that’s when it was built? And also where its name came from? Although this house does not look nearly so old to me. The first-floor windows are supposed to be ten feet high. I feel like I’m too far away from the house to accurately judge that. The book then goes babbling about the living room wallpaper. In case you want to know, the design is called Les Rives du Bosphore, and it was made in Paris sometime between 1816 and 1829. The book then goes on to say that there is a rear wing that was added on at a later date, whose floors are three feet lower than those in the original house.
If I had to guess, I think the Davis-Cabot-Goddard House is this one:
Doesn’t that seem like it fits the description better? But there are two problems. One is that this house is not the address the book gives for the Davis-Cabot-Goddard Home. Now this could have changed between 1937 and now, but the whole thing was further complicated by the fact that the house above could be:
11. Green Hill
Yes, Green Hill. Which we were just told was the alternative name of sight #10. To make matters even worse, the alternative name of Green Hill, sight #11? The Goddard House. I give up. I have no idea which house is which, and we couldn’t find any candidate for #11 other than the second house above, so I fear that the history of these houses is now lost in the sands of time.
Anyway, Green Hill was built in 1732 for Nehemiah Davis, which makes it one of the oldest houses in Brookline, although it has been renovated and added onto frequently in the intervening centuries. On the grounds is “a cone-shaped pudding-stone boulder set in an alcove of young evergreens, with a bronze tablet to Hannah Seaver Goddard and her husband John Goddard, loyal patriot and wagonmaster-general during the Revolution.” In the barn that used to be on Green Hill’s grounds, John Goddard stored military supplies that he drove out to Concord in 1775 as part of the Minuteman’s armament effort.
12. Country Club
Now was the time for getting ridiculously lost. I couldn’t even figure things out on my map. I don’t know if it’s because Brookline has developed so much since 1937, or the fact that the weather was truly awful, or the fact that night was falling, but we got completely turned around at this point. It was worth it, though, to see this:
Brookline is a strange and fascinating little place.
Eventually, we did find the Country Club, although this is the closest we came to it. In 1937, admission was by invitation only. Founded in 1882, it is claimed to be the oldest in the United States. The dining room is decorated by murals of hunting scenes, painted by Karl Yens.
The book speaks of the Country Club’s hundred acres being “enclosed by a high wooden beanpole fence.” Look! Still enclosed! “Here are perpetuated the ancient sport of curling and various turf sports, as well as the more modern horse-racing, steeple-chase, and golf.”
13. Municipal Golf Course
Trust me, this is it. All the book says of it is that it “is one of the finest public courses in the vicinity of Boston.” Also, it is “available to transients” for a small fee.
14. Longwood Cricket Club
Due credit to arctacuda for this photo, because it was full-on nighttime at this point. I’d driven by this place many times, but I’d never realized it’s a cricket club. Who knew, right?
15. Site of the Zabdiel Boylston House
Okay, this is the best we could do for this one. We think it’s somewhere around here, the book was extremely non-specific. Anyway, somewhere near here in 1736 lived Dr. Zabdiel Boylston. Dr. Boylston was the first American physician to inoculate for smallpox, in 1721, when he inoculated his son and two slaves, despite the fact that the general public was against it. The survival of Dr. Boylston’s son and two slaves helped sway public opinion, increase smallpox inoculations, “and smallpox finally ceased to be a scourge.”
And with that, night fell upon us and we went home and watched “1776.”
The end.
I interrupt this motor tour to bring you: turkeys. Wild turkeys, right there on the streets of Brookline. They’re actually a major problem. They rove in these huge packs and terrorize people. And they totally freak me out. They remind me of Dementors. They’re all gray and skulking and scary-looking, and they sneak up on you. You’re just going about your business, here within a city, safe from having to look at wildlife, and you turn around and bam. There’s a wild turkey standing right next to you, staring at you, with its beady little eyes.
Meanwhile, back on the motor tour, here’s the best photograph we could get of the Zion Research Library. The library is “a non-sectarian institution for the study of the Bible and church history.” It sits in a 60-room mansion that used to be located in Bay City, Michigan, and was moved here “stone by stone.” I don’t know what the obsession is with people in Brookline moving houses from other locations bit by bit. It seems like this would be prohibitively expensive. Anyway, the place still seems to be the Zion Research Library, but it’s surrounded by a fence and there’s a security guard sitting at a gate keeping people (and possibly wild turkeys) out. At arctacuda’s prompting, I asked the security guard if we could go into the driveway just to take pictures and then leave again (arctacuda thinks that I have all this magical flirting power. I don’t). And he said that no pictures of the building were allowed. Which seems sketchy to me. So who knows what these people are up to.
10. Davis-Cabot-Goddard Home
Okay, here’s where things got a bit confusing. The book says this place was also known as Green Hill. You’ll see why this is confusing in just a bit.
I went running through the rain for this photograph. We couldn’t park near the house, the roads were too narrow, so I had to dash up a hill to get it. And then, on my way back, a car went by and drenched me. I mean, when I got back to the car, I looked like I’d just jumped into a pond. Arctacuda laughed very hard.
This house was at the number that we were told to go to, but I’m still not entirely sure it’s the right house. The book doesn’t really tell us much about why this house is important to see. Granted, it’s very pretty, but Brookline is honestly full of homes that look like this. The book gives us an odd little personal tour of the house, and I wonder if he knew the person who lived here or something. He tells us that one of the chimneys says “Greenhill 1730,” so I assume that’s when it was built? And also where its name came from? Although this house does not look nearly so old to me. The first-floor windows are supposed to be ten feet high. I feel like I’m too far away from the house to accurately judge that. The book then goes babbling about the living room wallpaper. In case you want to know, the design is called Les Rives du Bosphore, and it was made in Paris sometime between 1816 and 1829. The book then goes on to say that there is a rear wing that was added on at a later date, whose floors are three feet lower than those in the original house.
If I had to guess, I think the Davis-Cabot-Goddard House is this one:
Doesn’t that seem like it fits the description better? But there are two problems. One is that this house is not the address the book gives for the Davis-Cabot-Goddard Home. Now this could have changed between 1937 and now, but the whole thing was further complicated by the fact that the house above could be:
11. Green Hill
Yes, Green Hill. Which we were just told was the alternative name of sight #10. To make matters even worse, the alternative name of Green Hill, sight #11? The Goddard House. I give up. I have no idea which house is which, and we couldn’t find any candidate for #11 other than the second house above, so I fear that the history of these houses is now lost in the sands of time.
Anyway, Green Hill was built in 1732 for Nehemiah Davis, which makes it one of the oldest houses in Brookline, although it has been renovated and added onto frequently in the intervening centuries. On the grounds is “a cone-shaped pudding-stone boulder set in an alcove of young evergreens, with a bronze tablet to Hannah Seaver Goddard and her husband John Goddard, loyal patriot and wagonmaster-general during the Revolution.” In the barn that used to be on Green Hill’s grounds, John Goddard stored military supplies that he drove out to Concord in 1775 as part of the Minuteman’s armament effort.
12. Country Club
Now was the time for getting ridiculously lost. I couldn’t even figure things out on my map. I don’t know if it’s because Brookline has developed so much since 1937, or the fact that the weather was truly awful, or the fact that night was falling, but we got completely turned around at this point. It was worth it, though, to see this:
Brookline is a strange and fascinating little place.
Eventually, we did find the Country Club, although this is the closest we came to it. In 1937, admission was by invitation only. Founded in 1882, it is claimed to be the oldest in the United States. The dining room is decorated by murals of hunting scenes, painted by Karl Yens.
The book speaks of the Country Club’s hundred acres being “enclosed by a high wooden beanpole fence.” Look! Still enclosed! “Here are perpetuated the ancient sport of curling and various turf sports, as well as the more modern horse-racing, steeple-chase, and golf.”
13. Municipal Golf Course
Trust me, this is it. All the book says of it is that it “is one of the finest public courses in the vicinity of Boston.” Also, it is “available to transients” for a small fee.
14. Longwood Cricket Club
Due credit to arctacuda for this photo, because it was full-on nighttime at this point. I’d driven by this place many times, but I’d never realized it’s a cricket club. Who knew, right?
15. Site of the Zabdiel Boylston House
Okay, this is the best we could do for this one. We think it’s somewhere around here, the book was extremely non-specific. Anyway, somewhere near here in 1736 lived Dr. Zabdiel Boylston. Dr. Boylston was the first American physician to inoculate for smallpox, in 1721, when he inoculated his son and two slaves, despite the fact that the general public was against it. The survival of Dr. Boylston’s son and two slaves helped sway public opinion, increase smallpox inoculations, “and smallpox finally ceased to be a scourge.”
And with that, night fell upon us and we went home and watched “1776.”
The end.
