Less than a century ago, land on Beacon Hill was as cheap as public documents. Ministers are enjoined not to be worldly minded, and not to be given to filthy lucre. But the Reverend James Allen would furnish an excellent pattern for a modern real-estate speculator. In addition to his pasture on the south side of Cambridge Street, he had also a twenty-acre pasture on the north side of that street, between Chambers Street and Charles River, extending to Poplar Street, for which he paid one hundred and forty pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to four hundred and sixty-seven dollars, equal to twenty-three dollars per acre. He was thus the proprietor of all the territory from Pinckney Street to Poplar Street, between Joy Street and Chambers Street on the east, and Grove Street and Charles River on the west; for which he paid the magnificent sum of nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars! It was called "Allen's Farm." The Capitol lot, containing ninety-five thousand square feet, was bought by the town of Boston of John Hancock (who, though a devoted patriot to the American cause, yet in all his business transactions had an eye to profit), for the sum of thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars; only _twenty_ times as much as he gave for it! The town afterward conveyed it to the Commonwealth for five shillings, upon condition that it should be used for a Capitol. In 1846, the city of Boston paid one hundred and forty-five thousand one hundred and seven dollars for the reservoir lot containing thirty-seven thousand four hundred and eighty-eight square feet. In 1633, the town granted to William Blackstone fifty acres of land wherever he might select. He accordingly selected upon the south-westerly slope of Beacon Hill, which included the Common. Being afterward compelled by the town to fence in his vacant land, he conveyed back to the town, for thirty pounds, all but the six-acre lot at the corner of Beacon and Spruce Streets, and extending westerly to Charles River, and northerly to Pinckney Street, where he lived until 1635, when he removed to Rhode Island, and founded the town which bears his name.