BROOKLINE HISTORY: Dr. William Aspinwall House, Aspinwall Hill

This house stood on Winthrop Road near its intersection with Gardner Road for nearly 100 years. It was built by Dr. William Aspinwall in 1803 and was the first house on what became known as Aspinwall Hill. It had views of Boston, the Charles River, and nearby towns, though it was said there were only six other Brookline houses visible from the front of the house when it was built. Dr. Aspinwall’s youngest daughter, Susanna, married the merchant and future abolitionist leader Lewis Tappan in 1813. Their house, later the Blake house, was built just down the hill from here.

William Aspinwall was born in Brookline in 1743. He graduated from Harvard in 1764 and studied medicine in Connecticut and in Philadelphia before beginning his medical practice in his hometown. The doctor was known to ride as much as 40 miles in a day visiting patients in and around Brookline. He was one of the Brookline men who marched west and fought British troops as they retreated from Lexington and Concord in April 1775. He was put in charge of a hospital in Jamaica Plain during the Revolutionary War and later ran a hospital for smallpox victims in Brookline.

A portrait of the doctor, painted by Gilbert Stuart, is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Dr. Aspinwall died at home in 1823. The house remained in the family until 1892 and was torn down in December 1900.

Photo and description provided by the Brookline Historical Society and the Public Library of Brookline. For more Brookline history, visit http://brooklinehistoricalsociety.org and https://www.brooklinelibrary.org/what-we-have/local-history/