64 HISTORY OF THE 



The city deterred all private purchasers by including 

 these forty acres in the park plan until their assessors 

 had I'educed the sworn valuation to about $00,000, in 

 evident conspiracy with their masters, the city of Bos- 

 ton, which not merely doomed the estate for a pai'k, but 

 voted to give only a price based on the valuation of 

 their own assessors. 



At last, when the three conspirators, or rather the 

 one robber, with its two conspiring hands, the assessors 

 and the park commissioners, saw the tide of value re- 

 turning, in spite of their falsest vahiation, the estate was 

 seized for less than half the sworn value of ten years 

 before, and this in the growing city of Boston, and in 

 one of its most growing wards. 



Does any one believe that this fine estate on the cor- 

 ner of Seaver street and Walnut avenue is worth 100,- 

 000 less than the valuation on which I was foj'ced to 

 pay taxes, ten years or more ago, $203,000? 



1 was oftered $400,000 for this estate then, which the 

 three conspirators, the city, the assessors and the park 

 commissioners, now seize for less than $100,000, a sum 

 that does not liquidate the mortgage debt to the bank in 

 l^ewburyport. 



That Messrs. Dalton, Lee and Gi'ay may enjoy the 

 reputation of being smart, sharp buyers, of saving a 

 shilling to each one of the citizens of Boston, they sad- 

 dle me, in my enfeebled old age, with a loss of iive or 

 six hundred thousand shillings! 



By corporate power, my land is doomed at a valua- 

 tion based on assessment; then assessed at much less 

 than half its value, and then taken by the paik commis- 



