Bunker and Breed's Hills from the Navy Yard, about 1823

Bunker and Breed's Hills from the Navy Yard, about 1823. In the foreground, the commandant's house of brick with two bold swells toward the garden and the harbor, was built in 1809 and to this day has been continuously occupied by the first officer at the yard. It has been the scene of many large receptions. The four large houses that show most clearly on the slopes of Breed's Hill were the homes (left to right) of George A. Kettell, Ebenezer Breed, Devens, and Nathan Tufts. The Devens mansion was built in 1804 by Elisha T. Holmes when he came to Charlestown from Kingston. It was next occupied by the father of Sen. William M. Evarts of New York. For some years it was used as a private school by Mrs. Burrow, and dancing classes were held there, to which certain select boys of the district were admitted. Ebenezer Breed was descended from some of the earliest settlers in Charlestown, including several shipmasters. His father was at one time town treasurer, and owned much of the land which was sold for the Navy Yard. Ebenezer built up an enormously successful merchant business with England, the Mediterranean and the East Indies. Across the driveway from his dwelling he had a greenhouse in which were grown grapes, peaches, apricots, and the most admired flowers of the day. Behind the house and stables, his orchard and extensive fields stretched away to Bunker Hill St. A pair of antelopes was kept in a enclosure not far from the house. The Nathan Tufts house had been built by Dr. Aaron Putnam, part of whose large garden had been taken when the land for the Navy Yard was purchased. Nathan Tufts was a man of wide business interests, including a lumber sharf and a tannery on the Mystic River side of the town, a millpond and grain mill at the Neck, and several farms outside the neck and in Medford, to which he rode on horseback frequently. On Sunday mornings, he drove to the Unitarian Church in what has been described as the "most stylish turn-out in the town."
Courtesy of Boston Public Library