OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, 355 



understand sufficiently to do, I understand the first thing to be done 

 was, if the rock was in a quarry, to blast out a portion of it by gun- 

 powder. By this process, fragments would come out in all sorts of 

 irregular forms, as by mere chance. The business of the workman then 

 was to take the pieces of more regular form, and reduce them to 

 smaller and more regular shapes, as wanted for building. This is 

 done by cutting a groove on a straight line with a hammer made with 

 a cutting edge like that of a common axe, then striking it with a very 

 heavy iron beetle on each side of the groove alternately, until it would 

 crack,- generally in the line of such groove. This would sometimes 

 split in a line nearly straight through, though it would often be irregu- 

 lar. In this mode, by dividing and subdividing, the pieces were 

 brought as nearly as practicable to the dimensions required ; and then 

 all the irregularities of surface must be removed by hard hewing with 

 very heavy instruments. 



In this state of the trade, although stone might be got out and 

 dressed and made suitable for building, yet few buildings were erected, 

 probably on account of the great expense. Some of our older inhabi- 

 tants may perhaps recollect the stone house at what is now the corner 

 of Tremont and Somerset Streets, long the hospitable mansion of Jere- 

 miah Allen, Esq., a former Sheriff of SuiFolk, and celebrated for the 

 number of good dinners given there. There was another granite 

 house on School Street next below the Chapel, owned by John Lowell, 

 Esq., who removed it and erected Barristers' Hall on the same site. 

 But by far the most conspicuous dwelling was the Hancock House, 

 still standing, built by Mr. Thomas Hancock. He was a native of 

 Braintree, became a wealthy merchant, and probably chose to gratify 

 his townsmen and himself by adopting, as the material for his sumptuous 

 dwelling, one of these staples of his native town, without much regard 

 to the cost. He was the uncle of John Hancock, and, dying without 

 children, gave the house to him. Governor Hancock had been erect- 

 ing a house for himself at the corner of Court and Tremont Streets, 

 but having received from his uncle a gift of the Hancock House, about 

 the time his own was ready for occupation, it is believed he never lived 

 in the one he built. 



One other granite building of the same period, the most important of 

 all, remains to be referred to, — the " King's Chapel." This was com- 

 menced in 1752 and finished about 1755 or 1756. It was built entirely 



