{{Short description|Mixed-use Boston area}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} thumb|right|Pemberton Square, Boston, 1875 '''Pemberton Square''' (est. 1835) in the Government Center area of Boston, Massachusetts, was developed by P.T. Jackson in the 1830s as an architecturally uniform mixed-use enclave surrounding a small park. In the mid-19th century both private residences and businesses dwelt there. The construction in 1885 of the massive John Adams Courthouse changed the scale and character of the square, as did the Center Plaza building in the 1960s.
==History==
===1835–1885=== In the mid-1830s land on Cotton Hill (also called Pemberton Hill) between Tremont Street and Somerset Street was developed as '''Phillips Place''', "laid out on the estates late of the heirs of Messrs. [Jonathan] Phillips, [[Gardiner Greene|[Gardiner] Greene]], and [James] Lloyd."<ref>''Boston Almanac''. 1838; p.63.</ref><ref>Jonathan Phillips, Gardiner Greene, each with houses on Tremont in 1832. Cf. ''Boston Directory''. 1832.</ref><ref>James Lloyd, with house on Somerset in 1823. Cf. Boston Directory. 1823</ref><ref>In the 17th century John Cotton and Henry Vane built houses on the land that later became Pemberton Square; later tenants included John Hull and Samuel Sewall. Cf. Edwin M. Bacon. ''Boston: a guide book'', 2nd ed. Ginn and Company, 1922; p.20.</ref> "After Greene's death in 1832, Patrick Tracy Jackson ... purchased the property. Jackson ... cut down the top of Pemberton Hill in order to create a desirable residential area halfway down the slope, at the point where the mansion had stood. This massive grading operation took only 5 months and was completed in October of 1835."<ref name="goodman">{{Citation |publisher=University Press of New England |isbn=978-1-58465-298-4 |title=The Garden Squares of Boston |url=https://archive.org/details/gardensquaresofb00pheb |author=Phebe S. Goodman |date=2003 |oclc=52631231 |id=1584652985 }}</ref> The fill was used to reclaim the North Cove, which became the Bullfinch Triangle neighborhood of streets.
[[File:Bell at the Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf, Boston, from the Library of Congress. 00837v.jpg|thumb|left|Boston School for the Deaf; Alexander Graham Bell, seated on top step with Dexter King, Ira Allen; three steps down are teachers Annie M. Bond, Sarah Fuller, Ellen L. Barton, Mary H. True, students seated on steps and standing on sidewalk, Pemberton Square, 1871]]
"Jackson sponsored a design competition for developing his property. ... Alexander Wadsworth, a local civil engineer and surveyor and one of 47 entrants, won the $500 prize."<ref name="goodman" /> "In 1836, Jackson commissioned George Minot Dexter (1802–1872) to design the houses for Pemberton Square and all the accompanying ironwork (stair railings, fences for the small front yards, and the fence with lampposts for the central garden). ... The buildings would be consistent in style and ornamentation."<ref name="goodman" />
In 1838 the city named the site "Pemberton Square." Somewhat confusedly, the area later known as Scollay Square was first called "Pemberton Square" in February 1838; the city changed the name to "Scollay Square" in June 1838, to accommodate the newly developed area across the street on Pemberton Hill. The two squares sat very near one another, with Pemberton set back from Scollay, and accessed by a short connecting street.
"The dwellings built in it were fine, indeed elegant for their time, and for many years it was the residence of some of the most substantial citizens. ... Architects, lawyers, and other professional men were among the first to establish their offices in it; then other business worked in, and a number of city and state offices, notably the headquarters of the board of police commissioners."<ref name="bacon">{{Citation |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Co. |location=Boston |last=Bacon |first=Edwin M. |author-link=Edwin Munroe Bacon |title=Bacon's Dictionary of Boston |date=1886|ol=7066965M }}</ref> "In the middle of the square [was] an enclosed green, with a few trees, which ... was a pleasant bit of nature for the eye of the city man to rest upon."<ref name="bacon" /> During the city's Water Celebration in 1848, "the cavalcade [passed] up Park, down Beacon and Somerset Street, to Pemberton Square."<ref>Water celebration, Boston, October 25, 1848. Exercises at the fountain. ''American Broadsides and Ephemera'', Series 1, no. 7232</ref>
thumb|right|Suffolk County Courthouse (now called John Adams Courthouse), built 1885 (photo 2008)
===1885–present=== "In 1885 the square was selected as the site for a new court house, the building of which had been agitated for years."<ref name="bacon" /> "Houses on the west side ... were razed in 1885 to make way for the Suffolk County Courthouse. ... The garden was also eliminated at that time"<ref name="goodman" /> By 1895, "some of the old swell-front houses remain, used as public and law offices."<ref name="king-how" />
Since the 1960s, Pemberton Square has become part of the complex of overscale buildings known as Government Center.<ref>Charles W. Millard. The New Boston: Government Center. The Hudson Review, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 1968-1969), pp. 687-692.</ref> "A few of the square's original dwellings on the east side survived until the autumn of 1969, when they, along with 2 more recent office buildings, were demolished and replaced by Center Plaza, a very long office building. The form of Center Plaza mirrores the entire crescent-shaped span of the original houses on the east side of the square, but the square itself no longer exists."<ref name="goodman" />
==Tenants== Notable residents of Pemberton Square in the 19th century included: thumb|100px|right|Louis P. Rogers, architect, 19th century [[File:Cyrus Edwin Dallin - carte de visite.jpg|thumb|100px|right|Cyrus Dallin, sculptor of Paul Revere]] * American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=pngUAAAAYAAJ Missionary Herald]. 1872</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CgGbYuZkWcMC Memorial volume of the first fifty years of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions]. 1862</ref> * American Colonization Society<ref name="dir-1873">Boston Directory. 1873</ref> * American Social Science Association * Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory, and Dramatic Art, later Emerson College * Boston Police Department * Boston School for Deaf-Mutes,<ref>Boston Directory. 1871, 1873</ref> later the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing * Boston Society of Architects<ref>{{Citation |publisher = University of Massachusetts Press |isbn = 1558495274 |location = Amherst |title = Lost Boston |url = https://archive.org/details/lostboston0000kayj |author = Jane Holtz Kay |date = 2006 |id = 1558495274 |author-link = Jane Holtz Kay }}</ref> * Boston University's "executive building, Jacob Sleeper Hall"<ref name="king-how">{{Citation |publisher = M. King |location = Boston |title = King's How to see Boston |date = 1895 }}</ref> * Cummings and Sears, architects * Cyrus Dallin, sculptor<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 10, 2023 |title=Pemberton Square Social Law Library Boston |url=https://www.socialaw.com/about/history/courthouse-renovation/history-of-the-courthouse/pemberton-square |access-date=October 10, 2023 |website=SocialLaw.com}}</ref> * Forest Hills Cemetery office<ref name="almanac-1894">Boston almanac and business directory. 1894</ref> * Gridley James Fox Bryant and Louis P. Rogers, architects<ref name="dir-1873" /> * Edward Clarke Cabot, architect<ref name="dir-1873" /> * George Barrell Emerson<ref>Boston Directory. 1848</ref> * Lee & Follen, landscape architects (Francis L. Lee and Charles Follen)<ref name="dir-1868">Boston Directory. 1868</ref> * Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children<ref name="almanac-1894" /> * Mount Auburn Cemetery office<ref name="dir-1873" /> * John Plumbe, daguerreotypist * Henry Vaughan (architect) * Ware & Van Brunt, architects<ref name="dir-1868" /> * Wesley Webber, painter <ref name="WhiteMountain">{{cite web |title=Wesley Webber (1839-1914) |url=https://www.whitemountainart.com/about-3/artists/wesley-webber-1839-1914/ |website=White Mountain Art & Artists |access-date=May 7, 2026}}</ref>
==Images== <gallery mode=packed heights="140px"> Image:1838 TremontRow map Tallis Boston BPLM8774.png|Detail of 1838 map of Boston, showing Pemberton Square Image:1841 Plumbe PembertonSq Boston BarreGazette Sept3 detail.png|Detail of advertisement for Plumbe's daguerreotypes, in "the spacious hall over the Whig Reading Room, Pemberton Square," 1841 Image:Scollay's building--street view, by John B. Heywood.jpg|Scollay Square, looking up to Pemberton Square, Boston, c. 1860s Image:Lee PembertonSq BostonDirectory 1868.png|Advertisement for Lee & Follen, landscape architects, 1868 Image:1895 ScollaySquare Boston BPL 12913.png|Map of Pemberton Square, Court St. and vicinity. Boston, 1895. Image:1897 PembertonSq ScollaySq Boston July15 Harvard.png|Corner near Scollay Square and Pemberton Square, Boston, 1897 Image:PembertonSq ca1920 Boston.png|Pemberton Sq.; Adams courthouse (at left), c. 1920 Image:2005 Government Center Boston.jpg|Center Plaza building at Pemberton Square, looking across Tremont St. from City Hall Plaza, 2005<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.centerplazaboston.com |title=1-2-3 Center Plaza |accessdate=May 2, 2010 }}</ref> Image:2009 Government Center Boston 3602648694 .jpg|Center Plaza building (at right), 2009 Image:2009 Government Center Boston 3601834297.jpg|Adams courthouse (at right), 2009 </gallery>
==See also== * Gardiner Greene, former owner of land on Pemberton's Hill, later developed as Pemberton Square * Massachusetts Appeals Court, housed in Suffolk County Courthouse * Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, housed in Suffolk County Courthouse * Social Law Library, housed in Suffolk County Courthouse * Suffolk County Courthouse, built 1893
==References== {{reflist|2}}
==Further reading== * "Cotton Hill" 1855, in City of Boston. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MVMMAAAAYAAJ 5th report of the record commissioners], rev. ed. 1880. * {{Citation |date = 1963 |author = One Center Plaza. |title = Preliminary specifications: One Center Plaza, Government Center, Boston, Massachusetts |ol = 23326859M}}
==External links== {{commons category|Pemberton Square}} * Flickr. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/12157608@N07/3526627723/ Photo of old police headquarters], Pemberton Sq., 19th century * MIT. Photos, 1950s: ** [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3421546604/ Scollay Square], looking down from Pemberton Square, 1956. ** [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3420798759/ Scollay Square Looking up Pemberton Square], From Court Street and Tremont Street, Suffolk Savings Bank ** [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3420849851/ Scollay Square] Pemberton Square, Old Courthouse and Side of Scollay Square Theatre ** [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3421565500/ Scollay Square From Pemberton Square] Looking Across to Cornhill Street ** [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3420850057/ Scollay Square Pemberton Square], Old and New Courthouses and Barristers Hall * Flickr. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/loojie/233826645/ Photo], 2006 * Flickr. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/rnolan1087/2090547254/ Photo of Center Plaza], at former site of Pemberton Sq., 2007 * Flickr. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/djmatt/3902014929/ Photo], 2009
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Category:Squares in Boston Category:1835 establishments in Massachusetts Category:History of Boston Category:Government Center, Boston