Otis House
North Slope of Beacon Hill
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the North Slope was home to small wooden houses which housed the working class families that often served wealthier families nearby. Although the North Slope was mixed racially, the highest percentage of African Americans in Boston lived here during the late eighteenth and into the nineteenth century. By the mid-late nineteenth century, the North Slope saw the construction of dense housing units for the waves of post-1880 European immigrants to Boston. Wooden houses were often torn down to make way for these four and five story brick “walk-ups.” By the end of the nineteenth century, the black community began to migrate from the West End to the South End and Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston.