Where In The World Is Benjanim Bussey(s house)?

Bromley, 1896 (BPL)







Benjamin Bussey was born in 1757. After serving as a soldier in the Revolutionary army, he settled down to the life as a Boston merchant. In time, he would use his wealth to invest in local industry, developing state of the art woolen mills on Mother Brook in the town of Dedham, where Bussey street still crosses a mill pond. As was common at the time, he retired from business and bought a farm from Eleazer Weld in Jamaica Plain, on the grounds of today's Arnold Arboretum. Over time, he added to his holdings, and Woodland Hills came to occupy over 300 acres of land. There, he occupied himself in scientific farming and landscape gardening. There were hay fields, barley, and fruit trees,including plums, apricots and cherries.

Of particular interest for this article is the house he built stood on the side of Weld Hill, what we now call Bussey Hill, in his honor. The house (which can be seen in the article linked below) was somewhere on the south side of the hill, and stood until it was demolished in the 1940s. So where was the house? The map above shows the buildings of the Bussey Institute, with one house and an outbuilding on Bussey Hill within the current Arboretum (see the red arrow). The picture of the front of the house in the Arnoldia article shows a driveway similar to that shown in the map, so I think we can be confidant that the map does show the original Bussey house.

The Arnoldia article linked below says that remnants of the Bussy outbuilding remained until the 1990: there is picture in the article showing a low wall section. I do remember some low walls in that part of the Arboretum, so I took a walk to see if I could find the location I remembered. I parked at the South street entrance to the Arboretum and walked up towards Bussey hill. After a bit of poking around, I came upon the site of the top two photos. A small foundation of about 23'x32' remains at the site, and matches the location shown on the map above. A massive European Beech tree overlooks the site - could it be a remnant of the Bussey estate? Down the exposed hill. the third photo above shows a row stones exposed in the turf. Based on the map view, these would perhaps have been at the front of the house, or perhaps part of the driveway.

The house in the Arnoldia photo seems to have a mansard roof, which would make it too late to be the original Bussey house. The house that was under construction in 1816 was decades before the craze for the French roof style that is still commonly seen in Jamaica Plain. Perhaps the house was modified over time. Or perhaps it's a different house altogether, and something has been lost from the story. In any case, something is still there, serving as a reminder for those who know what to look for. What could an archeological dig find at the site? There must be traces left in the ground of the lives lived at the old farm - the Welds and the Busseys both. I'd love to put a team of grad students on the job and see what we could find.



Source: Benjamin Bussey, Woodland Hills and the Origin of the Arnold Arboretum. Arnoldia, 64/1.

The Arboretum Mocker

If Jamaica Plain had its own Official Bird, it would certainly be the mockingbird, as embodied by the famous Arboretum Mocker. Between 1914 and 1920, this singularly talented bird amazed observers with its large repertoire of songs and calls. He resided, for the most part, in the area of the Arboretum around the three small ponds below the Bussey Institute building and near the Forest Hills entrance. Over the years of his residence at the Arboretum, he was seen to subsist primarily on pokeweed, juneberry, hop hornbeam, barberry, inkberry, highbush cranberry, Siberian crab apple and corktree. He apparently kept to himself, even during a year when a female mockingbird was seen regularly in the Arboretum nearby.

As for his claim to fame, this notable bird was heard by his faithful observers to imitate 39 bird songs, 50 bird calls, and the calls of both frog and cricket, for a total of 91 sounds imitated. Some of the species imitated only pass through the Boston area during migration, and normally don't sing while migrating. Others were birds that normally didn't live as far north as Boston, suggesting that he may have come from a more southern region.

The Arboretum Mocker made his way into the scientific literature of his day, and still gets mentions whenever notable mockingbird singers are discussed. In our days of molecular biology and DNA sequencing, the observations of amateur naturalists don't often make their way into publication, but we owe those curious and observant naturalists of the early 20th century a debt of gratitude for recording the exploits of Jamaica Plain's most famous bird.

Source: The Auk: Vol. XXXIX 1922

Bussey Institute - Part II

It took a while, but I'm finally getting back to this second and final entry on the Bussey Institute. The first entry - here - included an article written in 1899 extolling the virtues of the agricultural and horticultural program at the Institute. Just nine years later, the undergraduate program described in the Globe article was shut down, and the Institute was reorganized as a graduate school that would focus on scientific research.

The new research institute featured two men who would become leaders in the effort to understand the mechanisms of inheritance. William Castle worked with mammals and Edward Murray East with plants at a time when the nature of inheritance was still very much a mystery. The work of Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in the mid-1800s had done much to unlock the mystery, but it was not recognized at the time. It wasn't until the turn of the century that multiple researchers came upon the same results Mendel did, and proper genetic research could begin. Thus, the new Bussey graduate program was begun just as a new science took hold, with faculty and students capable of playing a major role in new discoveries. Among the students who came to the Bussey Institute in its early days (1912-1915) was Sewall Wright, who became, with Englishmen R.A. Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane, one of the founding fathers of population genetics as it applies to evolutionary biology. A later student, and one better known to the general public - though not for his Bussey work - was Alfred Kinsey (1916-1919), who made an exacting study of gall wasps for his Ph.D.

The actual work done by the Bussey faculty and students is beyond the scope of this site, and would no doubt sit unread if I bothered typing it up. Suffice it to say that the Bussey evolved from a quaint agricultural school to a modern research institute in the early 1900s. As such, it would probably have disappeared from sight for the residents of Jamaica Plain. News of work done at the Institute would be carried by scientific journals and institutional publications, not newspapers, and they would only be read by other scientists in the same field.

By 1936, the program was closed, and the staff transferred to Cambridge. During the 20th century, the state purchased Bussey land for vaccine production and diagnostic testing laboratories, and in 1963 the entire grounds were purchased from Harvard, ending their connection to the land. A new hulking monstrosity was built in 1969, and the main building of the Institute was torn down in the early 1970s. Today, the Institute is probably remembered in more detail by students of the history of science than it is by Jamaica Plain residents.

Sources: Records of the Bussey Institution, Kinsey biography, Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology, by William B. Provine.

Bussey Institute - Part I

This is the first of a two-part look at the Bussey Instutite. Benjamin Bussey died in 1835, leaving both money and land for an agricultural school that was to be associated with Harvard university. It wasn't until the early 1870s that his heir had left the land and Harvard was able to build the planned institution. Thirty years later, this article described the program in terms only a public relations weasel could love. Agriculture had already moved west, made possible by the railroads and by wondrously fertile soils found in the Midwest. Farming was already a dying business in Massachusetts, and the era of the gentleman's estate was passing as well. Land grant colleges had already been established throughout the country, and agricultural experiment stations created to work with them. By the time this article was written with such enthusiasm, the need for an agricultural school at Harvard was long past. Very soon, the program would be shut down, and replaced with a new biological research center, more in tune with the science of the time, and no longer tied to the agricultural history of New England or the wishes of Benjamin Bussey.

In a side note, I remeber the handsome old stone building, and a few sheep or goats that were kept on the property into the mid-late 1960s. And I remember when the state built the concrete monstrosity for the State Laboratory - that's where they did your Wasserman test to determine whether you were fit to get married. That bare concrete box, sitting above the green of the arboretum, is something that every architect - and government bureaucrat - in the country should get a slap for before they design or approve their first building.

This is a long article, and more college catalog than newspaper article in its details, but I figured than someone more interested in the institution itself than in Jamaica Plain history might get something out of reading through to the end.



Boston Daily Globe September 17, 1899

Harvard Making Farmers.

Remarkable Picturesque School Known as Bussey Institution and Its Interesting Work in Turning Out Practical Farmers, Landscape Gardeners and Architects, and in Instructing the Heirs to Great Estates How to Manage and Improve Their Beautiful Property - Notable Men Who Have Been Students and Workers on This Unusual Farm.


On ground adjoining the Arnold arboretum in Jamaica Plain, within a stone's throw of Forest Hills station of the railroad that runs beside the line of street cars, is an unusually picturesque building, of Victorian Gothic architecture that suggests nothing so much as a convent or a monastery. It breathes an atmosphere of cloistral calm and isolation, and thousands of persons who have ridden, or wheeled, or walked by this mysterious-looking pile have peopled its inner corridors and chambers with persons who have sought this remoteness and seclusion for purposes of meditation and prayer.

As a matter of fact even those who have learned that it is only the Bussey Institution imperfectly apprehend the character of the place and of those who visit it. It is simply the school building of that department of Harvard university which teaches young men how to be accomplished and expert farmers.

The Bussey institution, in other words, is the "Harvard university school of agriculture and horticulture," and it is named after the man who left a large estate to endow this department.

Few people who think of the great Cambridge place of learning ever associate with it the kind of work that is here carried out. The sort of scholar that Harvard turns out is pictured by the imagination as a man more intimately acquainted with book than earth worms and as a great authority on syntax than soils. But from this institution have gone forth in the nearly 30 years of its existence scholars who knew more about crops than cryptograms and could speak more confidently about plowing than about Plutarch. The students in this department of Harvard, unlike those in other departments, have been only anxious to be, and to be known, as genuine farmers.

It has been very successful, however, in securing students from among city bred men, many of them well-born and wealthy, who intend either to establish themselves on farms or to occupy country seats, or to become landscape gardeners. Some of its students even in the short period that the department has been in existence have achieved great distinction as practical farmers,horticulturists and landscape gardeners. It was in this school that Charles Eliot, son of Pres Eliot of the university, acquired the foundation of that learning and skill that made him one of the most successful and distinguished landscape architects in the country. Here, too, have studied the sons of Fredrick Law Olmsted, who have been able to continue the great business left by their father and Mr Eliot.

At least one professor in the university has been a student at the Bussey Institution, Robert T. Jackson, professor of paleontology.

Two men of wealth, sons of distinguished families, who have achieved much distinction in agriculture and horticulture are Gen Francis H. Appleton and Nathaniel Thayer Kidder. Gen Appleton, a Somerset club man, has been a successful practical farmer and has been president of the Massachusetts horticultural society and has added under his own direction to the beauty of the great Kidder estate in Milton. Both of these gentlemen were students of Harvard university school of agriculture.

Dr William H. Ruddick of South Boston is one of the well-known graduates of the institution. Like many other men, intending to enter a professional career, he chose a course in the agricultural school as a valuable adjunct to his other training.

Scattered throughout the commonwealth are prosperous farmers, some of them selectmen of their towns, who can say that they learned to be farmers at Harvard university.

The school has had students from Spain, Japan, Costa Rica, and other remote places. The Japanese and Costa Rican students took more than ordinary interest in the subjects that they studied. The Japanese students were able to satisfy their tremendous curiosity concerning American methods fo farming, so different in some ways from their own. The Costa Ricans were intensely interested because they were learning things about farming that would make their coffee and banana plantations, already extremely profitable, infinitely more valuable if conducted on the greatly improved plans which they had opportunity to study.

All these farmers - rich, poor, foreign and native - worked cheerfully side by side in that particularly democratic atmosphere that farming produces.

The degree that the school confers is not, of course, so valuable, financially, as some degrees that Harvard confers, but its value is increasing all the time. The students do not strive so earnestly for the mere degree, and many of them apparently care little for it. But they all thirst and hunger after knowledge, and that they acquire in abundance. While the school has been in active operation not much more than 25 years, it has turned out some scholars who, if they are not very famous now, are certain to be by and by. At least one former student is in the forestry department at Washington, another is close to the head of one of the greatest agricultural journals in the country, several are prosperous landscape gardeners and architects, and many are well-to-do teachers and professors, while the school has on its list of alumni several members of the richest and most conspicuous families in New England.

Gen Francis H.Appleton, by the way,enjoys the distinction of being the first regular student the school had.

It has been said before that this is a school for farmers and gardeners. It is exactly that, and the course of instruction with the methods of study are such as only persons who have a genuine farmer's love for the earth would care to undertake.

The theory and practice of farming is taught by an experienced practical farmer, who conducts a big farm of his own at Hingham, Mr Edmund Hersey. He is the superintendent of the Bussey farm of 200 acres, connected with the school, where practical demonstration is afforded of the use of fertilizers and farming tools and machines.

Instruction is given by lectures and recitations, and by practical exercises in the laboratories greenhouses and fields, every student being taught to make experiments, study specimens and observe for himself.

The aim of the teachers is to give the student a just idea of the principles upon which the arts of agriculture and horticulture depend; to teach him how to make intelligent use of the scientific literature which relates to these arts; and to enable him to put a proper estimate upon those kinds of evidence which are obtained by experiments and by the observation of natural objects. Examinations are held statedly to test the student's proficiency.

Mr Hersey lectures on such practical subject as the selection of farms for special purposes, soils best adapted to different crops, the location of farm buildings, the clearing land of rocks and stumps, the building of farm roads, the preparation and management of cranberry bogs, the selection of stock for farm purposes, with direction for breeding, the breeding and care of poultry, the construction of poultry houses, on how to compost manures and to save those waste materials of the farm which contain plant food, how to buy, mix and apply commercial fertilizers, and on the preparation of the soil for different crops, cultivation, harvesting and marketing of crops, fruit-growing and market gardening.

In the department of horticulture a graduate of the university, Mr Benj. M. Watson, lectures on the preparation of soils for horticultural and floricultural purposes, the management of plants, including methods of propagation, horticultural improvements, the methods of obtaining new varieties of vegetables, fruits and flowers, the arrangement and care of flower gardens, nurseries and orchards, the construction and care of greenhouses, plant cellars, pits, frames and hotbeds, the principles of landscape gardening, the value of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, for ornamental purposes. Practical greenhouse and garden work by the student supplements the lectures. Mr Watson is the son of a well-known nurseryman at Plymouth.

Students interested in the cultivation of trees and shrubs have the opportunity of seeing them grown in great variety and in large numbers for the Arnold arboretum, on grounds adjacent to the school.

In natural history, lectures are given by Mr E.W. Morse.The course is an introduction to the study of organic life. Plants and animals are contrasted. The cell and its significance, the different parts of living organisms and their uses, the physiology of plants and animals, the methods of recognizing weeds, grasses and other plants, and of destroying weeds, the structure and habit of insects, and the methods of combating those kinds which are injurious, the detection habits and prevention of smuts, rusts, blights and mildews, the relation of bacteria to dairying, the sanitation of farm buildings, heredity, variation and development, the domestication of plants and animals, and the derivation of improved varieties, cross-breeding and hybridizing and the influence of insects in fertilizing plants, are among the topics of study.

In agricultural chemistry, the dean of the school, Prof F.H. Storer, lectures on soil, air and water in their relations to the plant, the food of plants, manures, general and special, chemical principles of tillage, irrigation, systems of rotation and of special crops and farms, the food of animals, simple and mixed rations, the values of different kinds of fodders, of the means of determining fodder values, and of the methods of using fodders to the best advantage.

Laboratory instruction in chemical analysis is given to those students who wish it.

Instead of taking the full regular courses above described, which occupy the whole of the academic year, October to June, inclusive, short courses of instruction on a variety of subjects, included in the regular stated courses, may be selected by young men of ability and judgement who cannot afford to spare much time for advanced study. As examples of these short courses may be mentioned:

Lessons on market gardening and fruit growing, 10 weeks; lessons on the propagation of plants by seeds and cuttings, 8 weeks; lessons on budding and grafting, 2 weeks; lessons on pruning, 2 weeks; lessons on the principles of tillage, 5 weeks; lessons on artificial fertilizers, 8 weeks; lessons on farm manures and composts, 6 weeks; lessons on injurious insects, 6 weeks; lessons on injurious fungi and bacteria, including the management of milk, 6 weeks.

The regular exercises of the school are supplemented by excursions for studying farms, animals and dairies. Opportunity is found in this way to discuss the methods of managing milk farms and poultry farms, and to inspect recent improvements in the construction of farm buildings, and of buildings used for the preservation of meat, apples, pears, cranberries and other fruits. There are field lessons also for the better examination and comprehension of objects of agricultural natural history.

The farm connected with the school is devoted primarily to the production of hay, which is consumed on the farm by horses taken to board. Members of the school have constant opportunity to observe the methods of procedure by which the fertility of the fields is kept up. The instructor in agriculture explains the structure and operation of improved implements for preparing land for the growth of crops and for harvesting all kinds of farm products, and special effort are made to teach the student how to select tools and machines which are properly constructed and best adapted to do the desired work.

The regular fee is $150 a year, but for the special short courses, which are designed for hard-working farmers, a fee of only $8 is charged for 12 lessons in six weeks.

One of the picturesque scenes at the school is that of the class in horticulture, in the attire of farmers, working in the greenhouses on the grounds, grafting roots and leaves and propagating seeds.

It is to the scientific farmer such as this school produces that New England must look for the redemption of the abandoned farm. When the farmer who has done all that back-breaking effort can do to make the thankless soil of the worked-out farm produce something has failed, the scientific farmer, with his greater knowledge of chemistry and of the sciences that pertain to agriculture, steps in and forces the apparently barren field to yield a remunerative profit for his labor.

This, it is said, is what a school like Harvard's does for agriculture.

It enables the scientific student of agriculture actually to make two ears of corn grow where the farmer who has relied only on "elbow grease' has given up the task of trying to make even one grow, and this with less effort than the old system involved.

The secretary of agriculture has said that the sick fields of New England need doctors to administer to them the right kind of tonics, and that after proper treatment by skilled land physicians they will regain their lost health and fertility.

The medicine chest of this land doctor, such as Harvard's school produces, is filled with all kinds of fertilizers and recipes for diet and exercise that will be administered to the farms that are all run down, and are distinguished by that tired feeling, and in this medicine chest the agricultural sharps have great confidence.

Lilac Sunday - 1908

Lilacs at the Arnold Arboretum predate the institution itself. Benjamin Bussey planted lilacs on his estate, and he allowed people access to his property to enjoy it - quite unlike most property owners today. It seems to me that we should be talking about the Bussey Arboretum, but Arnold's money somehow trumped Bussey's land. At least we still have Bussey hill, brook and street. And we still have the lilacs.

Lilac Sunday is one of the institutions that all the residents of Jamaica Plain have been able to share through the years. Geography, church parishes and income all segregated the people of Jamaica Plain over the years, but all could share a trip to the Arboretum. The advantage of living in Jamaica Plain is that you don't actually have to go to see the lilacs on the traditional day. A ride down the Arborway would tell when the lilacs were blooming, and a trip on an off-day would avoid the crowds of "outsiders".




Boston Daily Globe May 25, 1908

Lilac Sunday At Arnold Arboretum. Beautiful Blooms of Many Colors and Tints Fill the Air With Their Fragrance.


In so section of greater Boston was yesterday's delightful weather enjoyed more fully than on the grounds of the Arnold Arboretum in West Roxbury.It was Lilac Sunday, and a lavish feast was spread for every lover of floral beauty. Everywhere throughout the great extent of the grounds was the charm of the rural. Every one of the thousands of trees, shrubs and plants seemed to rejoice in a renewal of life.

The special glory of the day and the place, however, was found in the flowering lilac bushes, of which there are hundreds upon hundreds, with almost as many varieties as there are bushes, and with each bush covered with the pleasure-affording blooms. The botanist can give the scientific name of each variety, but it would take an expert in colors to describe fittingly the many shades and hues of the fragrant flowers. No expert knowledge, however, is needed to enjoy the pleasures which the senses bestow.

In the clear green of the leafage, in the daintiness of the flower petals, in the vigor of the wood, in the general healthiness of the bushes and in the symmetry, this year's display is the peer of any that has preceded it.

Just now also, there are to be seen at the arboretum two double-crab trees of the order maius loensis, almost literally clothed in double rose pink blossoms. To enjoy a view of these is worth a day's journey.

Fire At The Arboretum

Richards, L.J. 1899 (copyright © 2000 by Cartography Associates)
David Rumsey Collection.




This is a bit of a puzzler. The old coachman's house of the old Bussey estate was part of the Arnold Arboretum at the time of this article. The article puts the house "under Hemlock hill." The map segment above shows a house and a shed at the edge of Hemlock hill along South street in the Arboretum. The map also locates the tunnel under the railroad tracks, so we know that the house was directly opposite the tunnel. The photo shows the site now. It's difficult to see, but there appears to be a cut in the hill right where the house and shed were, but unfortunately there is no evidence of any foundation. The site also seems smaller than the map would suggest, so it's hard for me to imagine the two buildings fitting into the cut in the hill. The site is also a good deal higher than South street, so it would have required a steep incline to get up to the shed/carriage house. Why would the put the building up that high above the road, when the ground closer to the South street gate was near street level?

The map brings up another question: why was the tunnel under the railroad tracks put in precisely that place? South street already passes under the tracks on the way to Roslindale, and the tunnel is quite small. The article has the firemen passing across a Muskrat village - did they go under the tracks at this tunnel? Where exactly was Muskrat village? A trip to the Arboretum headquarters may be in order.



Boston Daily Globe October 19, 1908


West Roxbury Firemen Put In Hard Day's Work Old Bussey House in Arnold Arboretum Destroyed - Jamaica Plain Barn Twice Afire - Two Brush Fires.


Fire, supposed to have been of incendiary origin, early yesterday morning destroyed the old Bussey house in the Arnold Arboretum, on South st, Forest Hills. The house is said to have been more than 150 years old.

It was situated under the famous "Hemlock hill," and in the lifetime of Benjamin Bussey, who deeded his large estate to Harvard university, was used as a coachman house. It was a 2 1/2 story pitch roof, wooden building and had not been used for a long time. There was an L and back of it a large shed, 60 by 18 feet, used as a storage place by the park department. It is said that the shed has been used as a lodging place by tramps.

The fire was discovered by patrolman Lorden at 1:55 and he sounded an alarm from box 528. Engine company 45 and ladder company 16 of Roslindale were first to reach the scene, by cutting across the meadow land on Washington st near "Muskrat village."

The fire had started in the large shed at the rear of the old house, but when the firemen reached the place it had communicated to the dwelling and was eating its way into the ancient building. Difficulty was found in getting water on the fire, for there was no water service in the street at that point and more than 1000 feet of hose had to be laid. It was a short fight when water was obtained.

The fire has left the shell of the house, which was constructed of hewed oak timbers. The shed contained an old steam boiler, many park seats and tools. All were destroyed. The loss is estimated at $1500.

[I snipped out the remaining West Roxbury fire stories]

Goldsmith vs. Boston

There is a mistake that many of us fall into. We assume that things as they are represent the natural way of things, and we resist any change. All of the current houses and businesses in Jamaica Plain were once new, and no doubt someone saw each one as an intrusion of the former open countryside they remembered from the past. In the same way, we see the Arnold Arboretum and assume that it was always there in some form. If we learn a little history, we may imagine the Bussey farm enclosed in the Arboretum fences. Actually, the Bussey property was just a part of what became today's Arboretum. The rest was taken by the city from surrounding landowners.

One such landowner was Benjamin Goldsmith (think Goldsmith street). He owned a parcel of land that ran from South street near Jamaica street to the Monument, along Centre street to a point across from Orchard street, and from there, parallel to Centre street and back to near the upper edge of Jamaica street again. In other words, all of the current Arboretum near the Headquarters building, and the yet-to-come Arborway, belonged to him. When the city gave him a less than satisfactory price for his land, he went to court.

The Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, Franklin Park, the Arborway, the railroad tracks; all of it included land taken by the government. Could the city do that now?


Boston Daily Globe May 29, 1885


For Land Taken.

Award of $35,000 Damages in Extending West Roxbury Park.


In the case of Goldsmith, petitioner, vs. the city of Boston for damages to an estate on Centre street, West Roxbury, which was taken by the park commissioners, December 30, 1882, for the purpose of extending the Arnold arboretum, the jury found for the petitioner yesterday morning in the sum of $35,000. The award of the park commissioners was between $12,000 and $13,000. Included in the verdict is interest since December 30, 1882. It is reported that before the trial the city solicitor recommended a compromise on the bases of $30,000 in full, but the committee on claims decided to send the case to jury. The quantity of land taken was about fifteen acres.