Black Heritage Trail – Page 2 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

86 Pinckney Street, Boston (1840)

by Dan/March 26, 2009March 26, 2009/Boston, Federal, Houses

John J. Smith was born a free black in Richmond, VA and later moved to Boston, where he became a barber. His shop, on the corner of Howard and Bulfinch Streets, was a center of abolitionist activity and abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner could frequently be found there. Smith’s wife, Georgiana, was active in the effort to integrate Boston’s public schools. During the Civil War, Smith recruited for the Fifth Cavalry, an all black unit. After the War, Smith served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Smith, who died in 1906, lived at 86 Pinckney Street in Boston (built in 1840) from 1878 to 1893. The house is a stop on the Black Heritage Trail.

Middleton-Glapion House (1790)

by Dan/March 24, 2009September 17, 2016/Boston, Federal, Houses

The oldest surviving house built by African-Americans on Boston’s Beacon Hill is the Middleton-Glapion House at 5-7 Pinckney Street. It is also the oldest standing private residence on Beacon Hill. The house has two street numbers because it was originally home to two bachelor friends: George Middleton was a black liveryman and a veteran of the Revolutionary War, who had led the all black company called the Bucks of America; Louis Glapion was a French mulatto barber, who used his half of the house for his work. The property was purchased by the two men in 1786 and a house was first assessed in 1791. The original house was one story. Today it has two stories, but the first floor matches the earliest descriptions. The house is on the Black Heritage Trail.

Phillips School (1824)

by Dan/October 7, 2008September 17, 2016/Boston, Federal, Schools

The former school building, built in 1824 at the corner of Pinckney and Anderson Streets in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, originally served as the Boston English High School. In 1844, it became the Phillips Grammar School, named for John Phillips, Boston’s first mayor. It became the first integrated school in Boston in 1855. In 1861, the Phillips School moved to a larger building and was renamed the Wendell Phillips School. The old building was then used by the Sharp School, a public school. In the 1980s, the building was adapted to house condominiums. Today, it is on the Black Heritage Trail.

Charles Street Meeting House (1804)

by Dan/July 29, 2008/Boston, Churches, Federal

Designed by Asher Benjamin in 1804, the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood began as the Third Baptist Church of Boston (it was built on reclaimed land near the Charles River where baptisms could be performed). In the 1830s, abolitionist members, led by Timothy Gilbert, challenged the church’s segregationist seating arrangements and went on to found the integrated Tremont Temple Baptist Church. In the years before the Civil War, the church became a center of abolitionism, with many notable speakers addressing audiences there, including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. From 1876 to 1939, the building was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1920, the church was moved ten feet west to accommodate the widening of Charles Street. With the departure of the African-American community from the north slope of Beacon Hill, it served as an Albanian Orthodox Church and lastly a Unitarian Universalist Church to 1979. In the 1980s, the Charles Street Meeting House was converted to secular use as offices. The building is on the Black Heritage Trail.