286
THE GREEN BAG
time it recognized the interests of the Col lege and of the old bridge, by providing that "Whereas the erection of the Charles River Bridge was a work of hazard and public utility, and another bridge in the place pro posed for the West Boston bridge may diminish the emoluments of the Charles River Bridge, therefore for the encouragement of enterprize " an annuity of 300 (reduced by an Act passed in the same year to 200), pounds, should be paid to the College, and the rights and privileges of the Charles River Bridge and the annuity payable by it to the College should be extended from 40 to 70 years.1 The West Boston Bridge was opened November 23, 1793, Elbridge Gerry, who then resided in " Elmwood," being the first person allowed to go over it. It was described as a "magnificent structure"; and the Inde pendent Chronicle said, "for length, elegance and grandeur not exceeded by any in the United States, if in any part of the world." For many years these two toll bridges played an important part in the life of the community. The amount of money in vested in them was large. Many noted citizens of Boston and of Charlestown were involved in the enterprises. All residents of the towns and counties north of Boston were vitally interested in their mainte nance. By 1805 the traffic over the Charles River Bridge and its consequent income had so increased that the value of its shares had
risen to $1650. In 1814, Harvard College bought two shares at $2080 per share. Naturally the large profits accruing from tolls produced at last a feeling of unrest in the public, and cries of " grinding monopoly" were heard on all sides. Webster, in his argument in 1837, thus described the local conditions; "The history of the Warren Bridge began with a clamor about monopoly. It was asserted that the public had a right to break up the monopoly which was held by the Charles River Bridge Company; that they had a right to have a free bridge. Application was frequently made to the Legislature on those principles, and for that purpose, during five years without success, and the bill authorizing the bridge, when it was first passed by the Legislature, was rejected by the veto of the governor. When the charter was granted it passed by a very small majority, the Bos ton representatives voting against it;" : While the profits from the old bridge had undoubtedly been very large,1 those; who indulged in the outcry against this monopoly ignored other features of the situation, described later by Peter C. Brooks, in a letter to Josiah Quincy.
"I might instance the cost of your relative Lieutenant Governor Phillips' estate in Tremont Street, which cost, if I mistake not, $9500 in 1807, and has since been sold for about $80,000. I mention this to show the value of money when the bridge was built, and to do away the senseless clamor about the inordinate gain to the proprietors from being the owners of the stock. The same 1 Two other bridge charters were granted, affecting sum laid out in real estate over the city Cambridge and the College — one, the act of February 27, would have been in many instances quite as 1807, incorporated ^Christopher Gore and others, as profitable. All this nonsensical noise had Proprietors of the Canal Bridge, to build from the nothing on earth to do with the merits of the Northwest end of Leverett Street in Boston to the east question. And so as to income it was great, end of Lcchmere's Point (nov Craigie or East Cambridge after a few years, to those who held shares Bridge), payment to be made to the West Boston Bridge from the beginning; but to those who be of an annuity of $333.33, and the West Boston Bridge to come owners after 1805 — comprising abeut three-fourths of the 150 shares, it was not be continued a corporation for seventy years from com pletion of Canal Bridge, and to pay to the College an so good as 6 per cent, and more especially annuity of $666.66 during that term. The other was the if you consider that the principal was sinking Act of June 21, 1806, chartering the Proprietors of Prison Point Dam Corporation, under which, in 1815-16, a bridge was built from Cambridge to Charlestown.
1 The total tolls from June, 1786, to January, 1827, were $824,498, an average of $20,000 a year.
