Parkside: Jamaica Plain's "Little Concord"
One of Boston's hidden gems, Parkside, between Egleston Square and Forest Hills, was home to many leading 19th century reformers, philosophers, artists, architects, bohemians, and writers, including abolitionist George Robert Russell, who hosted John Brown of Harper's Valley Raid fame, and Ednah Dow Cheney. Ralph Waldo Emerson is commemorated in Parkside by Schoolmaster's Hill, the site of Emerson's schoolhouse, and the Margaret Fuller school was named after a pioneering feminist and Transcendentalist who once lived here. This tour highlights an area that once accommodated rural estates that were later subdivided, in many cases by the residents themselves, into picturesque streets laid out over the rugged Roxbury puddingstone-lined hills. House lots of varying sizes were built up with Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and shingle-style homes, many designed by leading Boston architects, including W. R. Emerson, W. G. Preston, E. M. Wheelwright, Rand and Taylor, and the important Roman Catholic Church architect, P. W. Ford.
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