The Dark Side of Boston

On November 30, 1849, pieces of Dr. George Parkman were discovered in the basement of Dr. Webster's laboratory by Harvard Medical School janitor Ephraim Littlefield.

I was sitting in my library, my wife opposite, somewhere near nine o'clock, perhaps, when I heard the fire-bells and left the Dutch picture-books, which I was very busy with, and went to the north window. Nothing there. We see a good many fires in the northern hemisphere, which our windows command, and always look, when we hear an alarm, towards Charlestown, East Cambridge, Cambridge, and the towns beyond. Seeing nothing in that direction I went to the windows on Beacon Street, and looking out saw a column of light which I thought came from the neighborhood of the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets, where stands one of the finest edifices in Boston, the “Hotel Boylston,” put up by Charles Francis Adams. The fire looked so formidable, I went out thinking I would go to Commonwealth Avenue and get a clear view of it. As I went in that direction I soon found that I was approaching a great conflagration. There was no getting very near the fire; but that night and the next morning I saw it dissolve the great high buildings, which seemed to melt away in it.