Alliance Advocates on Behalf of William Lloyd Garrison House in Roxbury

By Haley Wilcox

Framed by weathered stone retaining walls and boulders, the William Lloyd Garrison House, known as ‘Rockledge,’ sits atop a tree-filled slope. It is a surprisingly pastoral setting in the otherwise dense residential area of Roxbury Highlands. From its rambling surroundings to its crisp architectural detail, one can easily see that this house has a special story to tell.

Constructed in 1854, the Italianate structure was the home of William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent abolitionist and journalist, who campaigned tirelessly to end slavery in the United States. A co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Garrison founded and edited The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper that circulated from 1831 until slavery was abolished in 1865. The Liberator was unabashed in its insistence on the “immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves,” a principle that met with vigorous resistance in all parts of the country until the 1850s. In the South, state legislators mandated financial rewards for the identification of anyone who distributed the paper. In Boston, Garrison was nearly lynched by a mob in October of 1835, when he prepared to speak at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Prominent merchants teamed up with local hoodlums in a violent protest of the meeting. Garrison was dragged through the streets and was saved only by being thrown in jail. After slavery was abolished, Garrison retired to Rockledge for the remainder of his life.

The home is one of fewer than 2,500 National Historic Landmarks nationwide and has been listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, as well as on the Inventory of Historic Assets of the Commonwealth. It is a contributing structure to the Roxbury Highland Historic District, which was listed on the National Register in 1988 because of the area’s role in the Revolutionary War, its assortment of late eighteenth to early twentieth century buildings, and its significance as one of Boston’s first “Streetcar Suburbs.”

Despite the structure’s nationally recognized significance, the future of the Garrison House is uncertain. Up until this year, the Society of St. Margaret’s, an order of Episcopal nuns, owned the property, converting an old nursing home to a sprawling 35,000 square foot convent. As the order dwindled, however, the large building proved too difficult to maintain and the seventeen remaining nuns decided to relocate to a retreat center in Duxbury.

Bridge Boston, a new charter school, planned to purchase the grounds and adapt the site for the needs of approximately 400 students and teachers. This would have required a paved double bus entrance, a vehicular drop-off site, and walkways cut through the hilly grounds. In order to construct the bus lanes, heavy excavation of the front lawn, plus the demolition of the historic retaining wall, would have been necessary, which would have severely compromised the bucolic character of the surroundings. In addition, the school planned to construct a paved play ground on the property, further diminishing the existing natural landscape.

While the Alliance fully supports the objectives of Bridge Boston, the plans for renovation would have greatly altered this historic site. The Alliance urged the school to consider alternative plans that leave the historic landscape intact.

In early May 2011, Bridge Boston announced that the site would not accommodate their needs as a school and decided to rent space in Jamaica Plain, leaving the property up for sale. The Alliance hopes to work with community residents and the Society of St. Margaret’s to ensure that any future redevelopment plans will recognize the significance of the property and leave its rich historic character intact.