Boston Armory

The armory was to be a strong signal to the population that the National Guard was available to enforce civil peace and they sought to build in the Back Bay area. Thos location provided a commanding view of the state house, which hearkens back to the function of the Cadets as the Governor’s escort and now still under the control of the governor as a unit of the National Guard.

The Veteran Association of the First Corps of Cadets was founded by LTC Thomas Edmands, who had served in the American Civil War and who took command of the First Corps in 1873. Military enthusiasm waned after the Civil War, but LTC Edmands kept the spirit of patriotism alive in Boston. he increased membership by recruiting another generation of businessmen while emphasizing both the ceremonial and martial importance of the FCC, which actually received this unit name under his command in 1874. LTC Edmands founded the Veterans Association to raise funds for an armory and drill hall for the FCC, which had been moving about the city from space to space, from taverns to the Boston common to Faneuil Hall, to gather and drill. Today’s VAFCC and FCC are still dedicated to fund raising to support the Families of the troops during their deployment on active duty.

As the age of armory construction in post-civil war America arrived, the Veteran’s Association sought to join other large cities and build their own medieval style armory in the city of Boston.

The Veterans Association needed to raise the $687,000 (apx $16,000,00 today) for the armory. Half of the funds were raised through private donations from wealthy Bostonians and the half was from the profits of cadet musicals.

Many of the new cadets recruited by LTC Edmands had attended Harvard University and had participated in the Hasty Pudding Club which gave them experience performing. They performed a variety of different shows, and a FCC member Robert Barnet wrote and produced a series of musicals that proved to be wildly popular with Boston’s avid theater goers.

With a bankroll of over $16 million dollars, the architect William Gibbons Preston, who was also a member of the FCC, created quite a fortress, with its six-story head house, a 200 foot long drill hall, and its many unique details: triple doors to protect against mob attacks, a drawbridge, windows with iron shutters, and a flag to fly over its crenellated roofline at the corner of Columbus and Arlington (the castle formally Smith and Wollensky Steakhouse) with a flagpole held by a stone griffin with wings outspread.

The castle remained in the ownership of the VAFCC until 1968, when the building was sold because the VAFCC could not pay for the modernizing repair work needed to maintain the castle. the VAFCC purchased a five-story brownstone on Commonwealth Avenue with its profits from the sale, where it presently houses the museum of the FCC.