If this is legally public park, then why does the "trustee", the City of Boston, refuse to call it a park?
It all started with a memo written in 1985, by a staff attorney at Boston City Hall, Mark Sweeney. He came up with the idea that if they just stopped calling it "park" land and instead called it "trust" land, then they might get away with not having to follow the law which makes it more difficult to sell public parks.
But in that same year the same lawyer for the City of Boston argued that a land taking back in 1964 was invalid "under the doctrine of prior public use because the property was already held by Boston as parkland".
Clearly the lawyers for the City of Boston, over the years, have wanted to have their cake and eat it too. On the one hand saying this isn't public park land when they want to sell it, and the other hand saying it is public park land when others want to take it away from them.
What do other lawyers have to say about the City of Boston's legal theory?
Well, the City of Boston has gotten a lot of legal opinions over the years in their fruitless quest to sell our park. A more recent legal opinion solicited from one of the biggest law firms in Boston, Palmer & Dodge LLP, clearly states that this land "is covered by Article 97". And that the reason it is covered is that the will and expressed intent was for the land to be used for "park and playground purposes". And that "the City cannot use the Cummings Property for "other purposes" without obtaining approval for such use by a two-thirds vote of each branch of the legislature."Wasn't the land given specifically to just "poor children" from Boston to use?
No, the land was to be kept by the City of Boston in trust "To hold and keep the same forever open as a public pleasure ground, and to maintain and care for the same in a suitable manner in accordance with that purpose" That's it. There was never any restriction on the will that it only be used by City of Boston Residents or by any class of people.
I heard that Mary Cummings was just some spiteful old rich lady that didn't like the Town of Burlington and her only reason for donating the land to the City of Boston was that she wanted to deprive the town of property taxes.
Mary Cummings complained about her taxes in Burlington, that much is known. But if this played at all into her reasoning about who to designate as trustee to her estate, it was probably only a minor point.
More likely it followed from the fact that her farm was partially in two seperate towns and that she believed that the City of Boston would follow other Cities in the United States and incorporate the surrounding communities.
According, to an article which appeared on April 9 1930 in the Woburn Daily Times," The people who knew Mrs. Cummings stated that the offer and finally the bequest to the City of Boston was made by her with the belief that in the future the farm would be part of Greater Boston." (excerpt taken from the biography prepared for the City of Boston) This was a very reasonable assumption back in 1927, throughout the United States major metropolitan areas were growing by incorporating the surrounding communities. And in the Boston area, Hyde Park has most recently merged with the City of Boston leading reasonable people to believe that other surrounding towns would follow. The fact that Boston didn't merge with any more of its suburbs and therefore didn't come to encompass Mary Cummings Park is the historical anomoly.
