Soley Street

Soley Street was originally known as Henley’s Lane. It was set out in the 1790s, and originally had a much more crooked path than it has today- evidently its path was straightened out in the 1850s. A Soley’s Lane, located somewhere in this vicinity, was mentioned in the record dated November 14, 1782. The Soley name appears in the records of colonial times and the burial lot of the family is in the old burial ground on Phipps Street. The street was named after John Soley, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Massachusetts. He lived in an elegant mansion on the site of the Army and Navy YMCA at City Square (demolished, now site of Paul Revere Park). His son John Soley Junior was the first commander of the Massachusetts Naval brigade.

During the mid-1850s, the setting out of Monument Avenue through what had been High Street Court- a cul-de-sac once located between Soley and Pleasant Streets, necessitated the removal of the High Street Court houses. Numbers 6, 8 and 10 Soley Street may have been among these houses.