of the first homes was the Harrison Gray Otis House on Cambridge Street. 19th century Development Construction of homes began in earnest at the turn of the century, such as: freestanding mansions, symmetrical pairs of houses, and row houses. Between 1803 and 1805, the first row houses were built for Stephen Higginson. In the 1830s, residential homes were built for wealthy people on Chestnut and Mt. Vernon Streets. Some affluent people moved, beginning in the 1870s, to Back Bay with its "French-inspired boulevards and mansard-roofed houses that were larger, lighter, and airier than the denser Beacon Hill." In the early 19th century, there were "fringe activities" along the Back Bay waterfront, with ropewalks along Beacon and Charles Streets. South slope The south slope "became the seat of Boston wealth and power." It was carefully planned for people who left densely populated areas, like the North End. The residents of opulent homes, called the Boston Brahmins, were described by Oliver Wendell Holmes as a "harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy". They had "houses by Charles Bulfinch, their monopoly on Beacon Street, their ancestral portraits and Chinese porcelains, humanitarianism, Unitarian faith in the march of the mind, Yankee shrewdness, and New England exclusiveness." Literary salons and publishing houses were founded in the 19th century. "Great thinkers" lived in the neighborhood, including Daniel Webster, Henry Thoreau and Wendell Phillips. Flat of the Hill Development began in the early 19th century. Single family homes often had stores on the first floor for retailers, carpenters and shoemakers. Today, many of the 19th century waterfront landmarks, such as the Charles Street Meeting House, are found far from the water due to the filling that has taken place since then. North slope The north slope was the home of African Americans, sailors and Eastern and Southern European immigrants. The area around Belknap Street (now Joy Street) in particular became home to more than 1,000 blacks beginning in the mid-1700s. While this community is often described as arising from domestic workers in the homes of white residents on the south slope of the Hill, property records indicate that the black community on the north slope was already well-established by 1805, before the filling-in of the south slope was completed, and so before that slope of Beacon Hill came to be considered an affluent area. Many blacks in the neighborhood attended church with the whites, but did not have a vote