13 Chestnut St
Boston, MA, USA

Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe House

The Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe House is a historic rowhouse at 13 Chestnut Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974 for its association with the social reform couple, Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Gridley Howe. The Howes lived in the house, which was likely designed by renowned Boston architect Charles Bulfinch, from 1863 to 1866. It has served as the temporary official residence of the British Consul General to New England since 2016.

Description and history
The building is a four-story brick row house, one of three adjoining "Swan Houses" built by Hepzibah Swan, a wealthy widow, between 1804 and 1805 for her daughters. They are now accepted to have been designed by the noteworthy architect Charles Bulfinch, although documentary evidence supporting this notion is lacking, and the attribution has been attended with controversy. The house has a Georgian recessed doorway, windows recessed in arches on the first floor, and wrought iron railings on the second-floor windows.

Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–1876) was a medical doctor and an early champion of support for the physically handicapped. He was a founder and the first head (for 44 years) of what is now called the Perkins School for the Blind. In 1843 he married Julia Ward (1819–1910), the daughter of a wealthy New York City banker. The two were influential forces in the social reform movements of the mid-to-late 19th century, working to advance the causes of the abolition of slavery, including actively heading the Boston Vigilance Committee, which assisted fugitive slaves in the 1850s. Julia Ward Howe became nationally famous after writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while visiting Washington, D. C. not long after moving into this house. She was a supporter and organizer of reform movements which long outlived her, notably those that supported women's suffrage.

The Howes lived for many years after their marriage at "Green Peace", a house which no longer stands, in South Boston. Thereafter they lived at a number of Boston addresses, of which this is the most significant. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It is a private residence and is not open to the public.

National Register of Historic Places - Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe House

Statement of Significance:

When he married Julia Ward in 1843, Samuel Gridley Howe had "already achieved an international reputation as a great humanitarian" for his leadership in a variety of reform movements, but especially "for his pioneer efforts in educating the blind and the deaf-blind." Horace Mann had declared, for instance, that he would rather have built up Howe's Perkins Institution for the Blind "than have written Hamlet." Though only 23 years old and 19 years Samuel's junior, Julia Ward Howe quickly immersed herself in an enormous variety of reform causes. Most important, perhaps, was the key role she and her husband played in Boston Abolitionist circles for nearly 2 decades. During the years immediately after attainment of that goal, 1863-1866, the Howes resided at No. 13 Chestnut Street. This is historically the most significant of the extant houses in which they lived; it is also of considerable architectural significance, being one of the Bulfinch "Swan houses," and much the least altered of the three.

It was in 1863, the year the Howes moved to Chestnut Street, that Julia wrote her enormously popular "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and in 1865 that Samuel assumed leadership of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, the first institution of its kind in America, where he established precedents widely accepted for decades thereafter. He continued to head the Perkins Institution until shortly before his death--a tenure of 44 years--and his other reform and humanitarian interests were probably unequalled in scope. Robert Bremner, the authority on American philanthropy, has aptly characterized him as "a latter-day Benjamin Rush.”

Samuel died in 1876, but Julia carried on in his tradition for more than 35 years longer, the Nestor of female reformers in America. She was particularly active in the suffrage, peace, and prison reform movements, and frequently addressed groups such as the Boston Radical Club, which met for years in her one-time home at No. 13 Chestnut Street. The influence of both Howes persisted long after they had passed on—through the many organizations upon which they had impressed their spirit—and a joint biography published in 1911, the year after Julia's death, bears what may be the most appropriate of titles: Two Noble Lives.

Blacks that she told Frederick Douglass, "I cannot see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to women as to the Negro." In later years, she took considerable pride in having "had the honor of pleading for the slave when he was a slave."

After moving from Green Peace (which is now demolished), the Howes lived in various Boston homes, the most significant of those extant being No. 13 Chestnut, their residence between 1863 and 1866. During these years, Samuel continued to direct the Perkins Institution—as he did for 44 years, until very shortly before his death in 1876. As for Julia, just after moving to No, 13 Chestnut she made a trip to Washington with her husband, who was pursuing an investigation for the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission. One night, while staying at an army encampment but unable to sleep, she composed a poem set to the rolling cadence of "John Brown's Body." She called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and it subsequently brought down upon her a shower of honors, public and private, that "have seldom been equaled in the career of any other American woman."

More significant in terms of long-range impact were the enormous variety of causes the couple took up during the period they resided on Chestnut. Samuel served on the Sanitary Commission, supported his friend Mann in his fight for adequate public schools, promoted the oral method of teaching the deaf, made significant innovations as director of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth, stood beside Dorothea Dix in her campaign for humanitarian care of the insane, spoke out for prison reform as a partisan of the "Pennsylvania System," and, beginning in 1865, headed the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, the pioneer institution of its kind in America. Precedents Howe established were adhered to until well into the 20th century.

Samuel Gridley Howe, says Dr. F. H. Hedge, "was never the hero of his own tale." Nonetheless, he was a humanitarian of great importance, especially for his work with the handicapped. Robert H. Bremner has nicely characterized Howe as "a latter-day Benjamin Rush in the multiplicity of his interests, in his love of liberty, aptitude for controversy, and unquenchable optimism." Though a man of "international reputation" in his own time,6 his popular repute was subsequently overshadowed by that of his wife—an injustice perhaps, though she too was a reformer of major significance. There is only a small proportion of poetic license in Margarita S. Gerry's contention that during the last third of the 19th century "No movement or cause' in which women were interested, from suffrage, to pure milk for babies, could be launched without her."

Julia was a truly phenomenal organizer, becoming the first president of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, a pivotal figure in the American Woman's Suffrage Association, and first president of the American Branch of the Woman's International Peace Association. She presented countless lectures on reform--to the Massachusetts General Court, to the School of Philosophy at Concord, to the Boston Radical Club--the successor to the Transcendental Club, which for many years met in the Howes' former home at No. 13 Chestnut. Page Smith points out that through the 1890s and even past the turn of the century, reform-minded women of Boston looked for their leadership to "the now ancient but still charming Julia Ward Howe."

Julia died in 1910 at 92, but as is the case with her husband, her influence continued in "the operation of the organizations which she was instrumental in founding and impressing with her spirit." A joint biography published in 1911, while quite evidently a work of filial pietism, bears perhaps the most apt of all possible titles: Two Noble Lives.