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BULFINCH, CHARLES (1763-1844)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 772 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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See also:

BULFINCH, See also:CHARLES (1763-1844) , See also:American architect, was See also:born in See also:Boston, See also:Massachusetts, on the 8th of See also:August 1763, the son of See also:Thomas Bulfinch, a prominent and wealthy physician. He was educated at the Boston Latin school and at Harvard, where he. graduated in 1781, and after several years of travel and study in See also:Europe, settled in 1787 in Boston, where he was the first to practise as a professional architect. Among his See also:early See also:Works were the old Federal See also:Street See also:theatre (1793), the first See also:play See also:house in New See also:England, and the " new " See also:State House (1798). For more than twenty-five years he was the most active architect in Boston, and at the same See also:time took a leading See also:part in the public See also:life of the See also:city. As chairman of the See also:board of selectmen for twenty-one years (1797-1818), an important position which made him practically See also:chief See also:magistrate, he exerted a strong See also:influence in modernizing Boston; in providing for new systems of drainage and street-See also:lighting, in reorganizing the See also:police and See also:fire departments, and in straightening and widening the streets. He was one of the promoters in 1787 of the voyage of the See also:ship " See also:Columbia," which under command of See also:Captain See also:Robert See also:Gray (1755-1806) was the first to carry the American See also:flag See also:round the See also:world. In 1818 Bulfinch succeeded B. H. See also:Latrobe (1 764-1820) as architect of the See also:National Capitol at See also:Washington. He completed the unfinished wings and central portion, constructing the rotunda from plans of his own after suggestions of his predecessor, and designed the new western approach and See also:portico. In 183o he returned to Boston, where he died on the 15th of See also:April 1844. Bulfinch's See also:work was marked by sincerity, simplicity, refinement of See also:taste and an entire freedom from affectation, and it greatly influenced American See also:architecture in the early formative See also:period.

His son, See also:

Stephen See also:Greenleaf Bulfinch (18og-1870), was a well-known Unitarian clergyman and author. See The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch (Boston, 1896), edited by his See also:grand-daughter, and The Architects of ,the American Capitol," by See also:James Q. See also:Howard, in The See also:International See also:Review, vol.' i. (New See also:York, 1874).

End of Article: BULFINCH, CHARLES (1763-1844)

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