ars! It was called
"Allen's Farm." The Capitol lot, containing ninety-five thousand square
feet, was bought by the town of Boston of John Hancock (who, though a
devoted patriot to the American cause, yet in all his business
transactions had an eye to profit), for the sum of thirteen thousand
three hundred and thirty-three dollars; only _twenty_ times as much as
he gave for it! The town afterward conveyed it to the Commonwealth for
five shillings, upon condition that it should be used for a Capitol. In
1846, the city of Boston paid one hundred and forty-five thousand one
hundred and seven dollars for the reservoir lot containing thirty-seven
thousand four hundred and eighty-eight square feet. In 1633, the town
granted to William Blackstone fifty acres of land wherever he might
select. He accordingly selected upon the south-westerly slope of Beacon
Hill, which included the Common. Being afterward compelled by the town
to fence in his vacant land, he conveyed back to the town, for thirty
pounds, all but the six-acre lot at the corner of Beacon and Spruce
Streets, and extending westerly to Charles River, and northerly to
Pinckney Street, where he lived until 1635, when he removed to Rhode
Island, and founded the town which bears his name.

It will thus be perceived that the portion of Beacon Hill, included
between Beacon Street, Beaver Street, Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Square,
Court Street, Tremont Row, and Tremont Street, containing about
seventy-three acres, was sold, less than a century ago, at prices
ranging from twenty-two to nine hundred dollars per acre, aggregating
less than thirty thousand dollars. It now comprises the ninth ward of
the city of Boston, and contains within its limits a real estate
valuation of sixteen millions of dollars. Its name and fame are
associated with important events and men prominent in American annals.
Upon its slopes have dwelt Josiah Quincy, of ante-Revolutionary fame,
and his son and namesake of civic fame; and also his grandson and
namesake, and Edmund, equally distinguished; Lemuel Shaw, Robert G.
Shaw, Daniel Webster, Abbott Lawrence, Samuel, Nathan, and William
Appleton, Samuel T. Armstrong, Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, J. Lothrop
Motley, William H. Prescott, Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, John C.
Warren, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Lyman Beecher, William E. Channing, and
Hosea Ballou. Lafayette made it his temporary home in 1824, and Kossuth
in 1852. During the present century, the laws of M