text by Gregory A. Tisher, fall 2004
While the lumber industry was still king in Burlington during the 1877-1890 period, Charles Hayward's Burlington Manufacturing Company marble firm would arguably play a longer lasting role in shaping the city's fifth ward, today's South End. After assuming control of the Burlington Manufacturing Company in the mid 1870s, Hayward acquired a large area of land between Kilburn Street on the north, Pine Street on the west, Howard Street on the south, and St. Paul Street on the east. By 1883 he had laid out numerous new lots in this area --- along already existing lower Howard Street and two new streets, Hayward Street and Marble Avenue --- for construction of the modest type of structure known late 19th century contemporaries recognized as "worker housing" [1].
Burlington's city directories show that workers did live in this new "Hayward's Plan" development along Howard, Hayward, and Marble. Many had French-Canadian last names and most were employees of the city's lumber companies --- Bronsons, Weston, Dunham & Company; Shepard & Morse Lumber Company; Skillings, Whitney & Barnes Lumber Company --- as well as Burlington Cotton Mills and Hayward's Burlington Manufacturing Company. These new mid 1880s "worker houses" joined with similar 1870s modest structures seen on Howard Street (92, 96, 102, and 112) in the 1877 Bird's Eye map of Burlington [2] to form a small but growing neighborhood.
Affluence in Burlington has historically followed the land grade, with industry and lower incomes near the waterfront and the mansions up on the "Hill". This was true of South Union Street during the 1880s. Professionals with money to hire the skills of Burlington-based architect A.B. Fisher built houses along the long suburban stretch of South Union from Spruce to Howard. These were not the mansions further up the hill, but these Queen Anne structures were nonetheless fine ways for the owners impress.
South Union south of Spruce was also the site of street improvements during the 1880s. The City of Burlington installed a sewer down South Union from Main Street to Howard in 1878 [3], and put in a gravel walk in place of the former planked sidewalk in 1882 [4], and laid water pipe down South Union from Spruce to Howard in 1885 [5]. Records indicate that 1885 was a particularly busy year, as it also saw the City macadamize, curb, grade, and gutter South Union Street from halfway between Adams and Spruce south to Howard, and install five foot flagging from halfway between Adams and Spruce to halfway between Spruce and Howard [6]. The City improved other streets in the South End --- e.g., the 1890 Hopkins map of Burlington [7] shows sewer along Spruce and extending down St. Paul Street to Marble Avenue --- but not nearly to the extent that it did to South Union Street.
St. Paul and Spruce streets occupied a middle position between working class Hayward, Howard, and Marble and bourgeois South Union Street. Here one found factory employees as well as teamsters, masons, dressmakers, and even a Democratic Party politician. Despite the close correspondence between St. Paul Street's 1890 address numbers and today's, the artistic rendering of the 1877 Bird's Eye map of Burlington [8] makes comparison between 1877 and 1890 especially difficult for St. Paul Street. This is also true for Spruce Street, between St. Paul and South Union. Unfortunately, the Sanborn Map Company did not produce any late 19th century fire insurance maps for these areas.
It is possible, therefore, that some structures constructed between 1877 and 1890 and still surviving today are missing from the following pages. In particular, 417, 441, 451, 512-514, and 522 St. Paul Street as well as 3-5, 63, and 77 Spruce Street leave lingering doubts. They certainly weren't there in 1869 [9] and were there in 1890 [10], but when they were built within those twenty-one years is hard to say. The 1877 Bird's Eye map [11] and Burlington city directory research don't suggest easy answers.
Explore Burlington's South End, 1877-1890, in more detail ...