Timeline
American Working Terrier Association (AWTA)
The English Bulldog, along with the English White Terrier, is one of the foundational dogs of the Boston Terrier line. The first dog considered to be in the Boston Line is Hooper’s Judge who was a English Bulldog/White Terrier mix.
First mentioned around 1500, English Bulldogs were originally light boned, muscular and athletic. They were used to pin a tethered bull to the ground by the nose while wagers were taken.
The now extinct English White Terrier, along with the English Bulldog, was one of the foundational dogs of the Boston Terrier. They were shown in England from about 1864 until 1894. Rawdon Briggs Lee, an English dog breeder and writer on dogs, describes the breed as:
“the most fragile and delicate of all our terriers…” but he “makes a nice house dog” although he “requires a considerable amount of cuddling and care.” Like many terriers of this era, the English White Terrier was mostly too large to be a working terrier. Strictly speaking, a terrier had to be small enough to fit into a badger’s or fox’s hole without touching the sides to allow airflow and avoid asphyxiation.
All Boston Terriers are always traced back to Judge. He is reputed to have been an exceptionally sweet and gentle dog.
Robert C. Hooper obtained Judge from William O’Brien who probably brought the dog over from Liverpool, England as many seamen and engineers did at that time. From all accounts, Hooper’s Judge was a straight mix between a English White Terrier and an English Bulldog and weighed in at about 32 lbs. He was a brindle with a white stripe on his face.
According to most sources, Judge had just ONE litter of ONE puppy with Burnett’s Gyp (Kate) who was a small dog (about 20 lbs) and pure white, like the English Terrier. This puppy was named, Eph.
The son of Eph and Kate and brother to Toby, Tom had many, many puppies with several females. He and his brother are considered to be the first real Boston terriers with the little screw tail first appearing through his line.
Notably, with Nellie, he had Mike. With Belle, he sired Ben.
Toby was the brother of Tom and both were sired by Eph. Tom is often referred to as the first true Boston terrier although the name came later. Both these Tom and Toby sired many litters.
Max was a direct descendant of Hooper’s Judge by Barnard’s Tom. According to Edward Axtell, in his 1909 book Max was a friendly dog who produced many progeny.
Max is described in Edward Axtell’s The Boston Terrier and All About It (originally published in 1910): “Max, a fairly good sized, beautiful dis-positioned dog that could almost talk, belonging to Dr. Hall, then a house doctor at the Eye and Ear Infirmary, Charles street. He was used, I am told, a great deal in the stud, and sired a great many more puppies than the doctor ever knew of.”
And yes, these small round-headed dogs were starting to look very different from the main Bull and Terrier group. The other breeders were not pleased at having these ‘strange’ looking dogs be represented as bull terriers. As a result, our sweet little American Bull Terriers were being routinely ignored at many of the bench shows, sometimes even kicked out or at the very least relegated to the far back rooms.
The criticism ranged from being too small (not a “man’s dog”) to looking too much like a terrier and not enough “bull”. But the American breeders really liked their good natured, smaller dogs with their big wide-set eyes. Although there was much disagreement within their ranks over the details (i.e., a screw tail or whip tail?) they all agreed that they were no longer a true bull terrier.
Instead of giving up though, the American fanciers decided to rename their dogs as a distinct breed from the bull terriers and they were renamed the Boston Terrier in 1891.
On July 3, 1894, the Boston Terrier Club filed documents of incorporation for the fee of $5.00. Signatures on the original document were:
Howard P. Rogers, President,
Walter C. Hook, Treasurer,
Dwight Baldwin, Secretary,
Joseph O. McMullen
Dr. J. Varnum, M.D. wrote “The Boston terrier; its history, points, breeding, rearing, training, and care, together with several instructive chapters on management and diseases of dogs from a common sense view” (phew! quite the title!). The 5th edition, 1927 has been digitized and is available online.
By 1915, Boston Terriers were the most popular breed in the U.S., remaining in the top ten most popular breeds until the 1960s and topping the list again in 1920 and 1930.
Boston University made the Boston Terrier their official mascot on November 15, 1922.
In 1979, the Boston Terrier was designated the official state dog of Massachusetts.