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Excerpts
from "Historical Allston-Brighton" by William Marchione, President
of the Brighton
Historical Society.
Brighton
has a long and distinguished history. Along with neighboring
Allston, Brighton was established in the late 17th century
and was known as “Little Cambridge” for its first
160 years of existence. Before the American Revolution, Little
Cambridge was a prosperous farming community of fewer than
300 residents. Its inhabitants included such distinguished
figures as Nathaniel Cunningham, Benjamin Faneui,l and Charles
Anthrop. All three maintained elaborate country estates in
the 1740 to 1745 period.
The
establishment in 1775 of a cattle market to supply the Continental
Army, then headquartered across the Charles River in Harvard
Square, was a key event in the history of this community.
The cattle trade experienced rapid growth in the post-war
period. By 1790, the Winships were the biggest meat packers
in Massachusetts.
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The
Brighton Cattle Market,
photo courtesy of the Brighton
Allston Historical Society
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Cattle
Fair/Wilson Hotel on Washington Street in Brighton Center
between Leicester and Market Streets. An 1865 celebration
marking the end of the Civil War, photo courtesy of the
Brighton Allston Historical Society
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In
1807, the residents of Little Cambridge won legislative
approval for a separation from Cambridge, choosing the name
Brighton for the new corporate entity. In the decades that
followed, Brighton became a commercial center of the first
magnitude. In 1819, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting
Agriculture established its exhibition hall and fair grounds
on Agricultural Hill in Brighton. In 1820, the horticulture
industry came to the area, and by the 1840s, Brighton was
one of the most important horticultural and market gardening
centers in the Boston area. A huge hotel - the Cattle Fair
- was constructed on the north side of Brighton Center in
1832. The Boston and Worcester Railroad stopped in the town
beginning in 1834.
With
the growth of Boston in the 1850 to 1875 period, Brighton's
landowners saw great opportunities for profit making in
residential development. The groundwork for the transformation
of Brighton into a streetcar suburb was laid in the 1870s
and 1880s. The town's leaders convinced the people that
annexation to Boston would foster desirable growth, and
in 1874, Brighton was absorbed into the City of Boston,
thereby losing political self-determination.
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introduction of electric powered streetcars in 1889 spurred
suburban development. Allston-Brighton’s population grew
tremendously in the next half a century, rising from 6,000 in
1875 to 47,000 in 1925. Turn-of-the century Allston-Brighton
contained many prestigious neighborhoods. |
The
Brighton Avenue T in 1920 (Washington & Market Streets),
photo courtesy of the
Brighton Allston Historical Society
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