Exploring the Neighborhood

by Ken Winston

Everyone knows that Land Boulevard was named for Edwin Land, famed Cantabrigian and inventor of the Polaroid camera.  But who was Binney Street named for?  The Cambridge Historical Society will tell you that Binney Street was named for Amos Binney.  But, over the years, there have been at least half a dozen men in Cambridge named Amos Binney.  So, some clarification is in order.

The Amos Binney we’re interested in lived from 1778 to 1833.  He was born in Hull (when it was still part of Suffolk County), the son of Amos Binney (1745 – 1782) and Mary Prentice (1751 – 1813) and brother to John Binney (1780 – 1838), merchant seaman and commander of the U.S. garrison in Wiscasset, Maine (then part of Massachusetts).

Agent Amos Binney

The Amos Binney of Binney Street was a descendent of Constance Hopkins, a passenger on the Mayflower, and became a merchant and local real estate developer.

Binney was also an agent of the U.S. Navy.  I can’t tell you exactly what an agent of the U.S. Navy did, but I know that our Amos Binney spent time provisioning ships in Boston ports with meat and drink.  For a literary view of the provisions sailing out of Boston harbor during those years, you can consult Herman Melville’s White Jacket and other writings.  In Melville’s depiction, the provisions were not (shall we say) very delectable.  But the official word from the Navy, at the time, is that they handled beef and pork purchases with the utmost care, giving specific instructions to their agents on how meat should be butchered, preserved, and packed.  All of this was spelled out in great detail in a circular distributed by Agent Amos Binney in 1812.

Still, we may not know the whole story.  Although Binney was a lieutenant colonel in the 1stMassachusetts Militia Regiment and served in the War of 1812, it appears that at one point he was court-martialed, along with two other Navy gentlemen.  Did it have to do with the provisions?  So far, it has been very difficult to find out what the charges brought against Binney were and whether the court-martial was successful.  After more research, I’ll let you know.

According to the Historical Commission, our Amos Binney was also the second largest shareholder in the Lechmere Point Corporation and a major property owner in East Cambridge.  (History buffs will be interested to know that British troops landed at Lechmere Point before marching to the battles of Concord and Lexington.)  Susan Maycock, an historian of East Cambridge, describes Amos Binney as “one of the more active speculators in East Cambridge property.”  Among his notable holdings was the Boston Porcelain & Glass Company, which he purchased in 1817 and soon transformed into the New England Glass Company.  By 1830, Binney owned forty-one houses in East Cambridge. 

Amos Binney’s connection to the Lechmere Point Corporation is also a subject for another newsletter.  But I want to mention that Richard Lechmere (1727 – 1814), like Binney, was a major real estate developer in his time and owned “nearly the whole of East Cambridge,” according to the Boston Globe.  He also owned a 13-acre estate on Brattle Street, which is where he built a house in 1762.  Brattle Street became known as Tory Row and provided Lechmere with the proper environment for expressing his antipathy to the upstart revolutionaries.  In 1774, he and his wife dispatched to Boston, and in 1776 they fled to England, via Nova Scotia.  Lechmere’s properties were confiscated and sold off, and he was officially banished from the new country.

The Binney family

In 1823, Amos Binney donated a parcel of land and funds to the Methodist Religious Society, which had established itself as the first congregation in East Cambridge.  Binney was a trustee of the Society, and two-thirds of the men in the congregation worked in the glass industry.  Binney’s donation was for the construction of a church and meetinghouse, called Ebenezer Chapel.  The cornerstone was laid in September 1823, and the building was dedicated a year later.  It faced Third Street, with a parsonage along Cambridge Street.  In 1829, Binney added two brick row houses to the site.

Something else we know is that our Amos Binney – shall we call him the famous Amos? – married Hannah Dolliver (1779 – 1847) of Marblehead in 1799.  They had 11 children, only five of whom survived to maturity.  Their son, Amos Binney (1803 – 1847) – have you been following the story? that’s the third Amos Binney so far – graduated from Brown University in 1821 and Harvard Medical School in 1826.  He married his cousin, Mary Ann Binney (1805 – 1884), in 1827 in Boston and was a founder – along with other self-trained naturalists – of the Boston Society of Natural History.  Dr. Binney served as president of the Society from 1843 to his death in 1847.

The Society of Natural History might be worth another entry in these explorations.  It was mainly devoted to collecting and displaying specimens and supporting publications.  But, curiously, funds for the Society dried up.  My sources do not indicate why this happened, but my guess is that it was because its members promoted the outdated Lamarckian theories of Harvard professor Louis Agassiz.  (Depending on Harvard professors for enlightenment is always a risky proposition.)  In 1946, the Society abandoned its interest in biological research and changed its name to the Boston Museum of Science, which is mainly devoted to public education.  At any rate, Binney’s interest in natural history resulted in the publication of “Terrestrial air-breathing mollusks of the United States and the adjacent territories of North America,” which is available at the Boston Athenaeum.  When you have time.

Dr. Amos Binney (1803 – 1847) married his cousin Mary Ann Binney (1805 – 1884) in 1827 in Boston.  We don’t know nearly enough about Dr. Amos Binney, but one thing we know, aside from his interest in mollusks, is that he traveled in the pre-Civil War South and wrote a travel journal.  (Unfortunately, neither the Boston Athenaeum nor the Cambridge Public Library has a copy.)  Perhaps more importantly, he is one of four men named Amos Binney buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and his burial tomb – a quite large “neo-classic, neo-Roman” monument by the prominent U.S. sculptor Thomas Crawford – is one of the most famous grave sites in the cemetery.  It was erected in 1850, and a picture – with front and rear views – is available on the cemetery’s webpage.  The site notes that “while Crawford’s aesthetic is apparent in the sculpture, it also bears the influence of Mary Ann Binney, whose sophisticated taste echoed her late husband’s.”  The monument was named an “American treasure” by the White House Millenium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

However, most of the men named Amos Binney buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery were not related to our famous Amos.

Another Amos Binney

After the death of Dr. Amos Binney, Mary Ann Binney married George Hayward (1791 - 1863), Harvard College class of 1809.  Hayward received his medical degree in 1812 at the University of Pennsylvania and held a professorship in Clinical Surgery at the Harvard Medical School.  He was one of the first surgeons to perform a major operation using general anesthesia; so, he was an ancestor to our own Fred Davis.

Amos Binney’s cousin (that is, cousin to the famous Amos of 1778 – 1833) was also named Amos Binney (1802 – 1878).  He was a Methodist Episcopal minister and a teacher at Wilbraham Academy in Wilbraham, MA.  The Reverend Binney was the son of Spencer and Mary (Jones) Binney of Hull and co-author of Binney’s Theological Compend (1875) and numerous religious commentaries.  According to the preface to the first edition, the Theological Compend is a “little volume of humble pretensions” aimed at countering the false doctrines then circulating throughout the society.  Perhaps it’s time for a new edition.

Although Dr. Amos Binney died at a fairly young age, his wife had already given birth to their son Amos Binney (1830 – 1880) – that’s the fifth Amos in this family history, if I’ve counted correctly – who was the chief paymaster of the US Army during the Civil War.  In 1856, he married Dr. Nancy E. Clark (1825 – 1901) in Boston.  She was the second female graduate of the medical school to practice in New England.  The family papers include a letter offering her a position as chair of midwifery at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania?  I assume she turned it down.

I must confess that, once I unearthed this information about Binney Street, I was a bit disappointed.  I was hoping that the street had been named for the entrepreneur and inventor Edwin Binney (1866 – 1934).  That’s because Edwin Binney had led, in a sense, a more colorful life.  Along with his cousin C. Harold Smith, Edwin co-founded Binney & Smith, which created the first dustless white blackboard chalk (that was in 1902, in New York City) and produced the first Crayola crayons (one year later).  The word “Crayola” means oily chalk.

One way to date yourself is to recall how many crayons were in your Crayola box.  The first box, in 1903, held eight crayons and cost 5 cents.  The 48-box arrived in 1949, the “classic” 64-box in 1958, and the 96-color Big Box in 1993.  Today, over two billion crayons are sold every year, all over the world.  But, of course, that has nothing to do with Amos Binney and the naming of Binney Street.

Sources:

[1] Matthew Brenckle, “Food and Drink in the U.S. Navy, 1794 to 1820,” a publication of the USS Constitution Museum, Boston (online)

[2] Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, revised edition (MIT Press, 1988)

[3] Janice O’Leary, “Familiar name comes under question,” Boston Globe, November 12, 2006

[4] The Binney Family Papers (1809 – 1894), Manuscripts Division, Clements Library, University of Michigan

[5] Website of the Cambridge Historical Commission, 831 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd floor

[6] E-mail correspondence with Sarah Burks, Preservation Planner, Cambridge Historical Commission