History of Boston: Early English Settlement and How the City Got Its Name
Boston is a unique American city with a rich history and a style somewhat reminiscent of European cities. The first Euro-American settlement in the immediate area of Boston was a short way across Boston Harbor at Charlestown. Boston's deep harbor and advantageous geographic position helped it to become the busiest port in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, eventually surpassing Plymouth and Salem.
The Shawmut Peninsula was originally connected to the mainland to its south by a narrow isthmus, Boston Neck, and surrounded by (using modern names) the waters of Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River.
In 1625, William Blackstone a former clergyman and sole settler remaining from a 1622 expedition on the Shawmut Peninsula became the "first Bostonian" (of European descent). At first, he lived alone on what is now Boston Common and Beacon Hill.
In 1628, the Cambridge Agreement, which was later regarded as a key founding document of the city of Boston, was signed in England among the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These were not Separatists like the Pilgrims, but chartered colonists. It established the colony as a self-governing entity, answerable only to the king. John Winthrop was its leader, and would become governor of the settlements in the New World.
John Winthrop, Leader of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are sometimes confused with the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony ten years earlier in what is today Bristol County, Plymouth County, and Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The two groups are historically distinct and differed in religious practice. The separate colonies were not united until the formation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.
In June 1630, the Winthrop Fleet arrived from England in what would later be called Salem, which on account of lack of food, "pleased them not." They proceeded to Charlestown, which for lack of fresh water pleased them less. Though they found their way to the mouth of the Charles River, their health had deteriorated so badly that at least 200 had died.
Meanwhile, William Blackstone, was living an isolated existence as a trapper on the Shawmut Peninsula. Word came to him from Indian friends of the difficulties his fellow countrymen were having. He sent a message to John Winthrop advising him that the Trimountain hills on his side of the river were far more suitable for settlement.
Modern reconstruction of “English Wigwam” and frameWinthrop, who had been at college with Blackstone (as unbelievable as that sounds), went to see him and it was this meeting in 1630 that really marked the foundation of the city of Boston. Within the next few weeks several small wooden houses were built by the migrants. The Puritans settled around the spring in what would become Boston. They gave Blackstone 50 acres (20.2 ha) and made him a member of First Church of Boston; Blackstone quickly sold the land back for 30 pounds and resettled in what is now known as the Blackstone Valley.
The Shawmut peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, and surrounded by the waters of Massachusetts Bay and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. Several prehistoric Native American archaeological sites excavated in the city have shown that the peninsula was inhabited as early as 5,000 BC.
Original Boston landmass compared to today
The three-hilled peninsula originally contained only about 783 acres, cut into by deep coves, estuaries, inlets, and creeks. It faced the harbor, at the west end of Massachusetts Bay, into which empty the Charles and Mystic rivers. It was pear-shaped, a little more than a mile wide at its broadest, and less than three miles long, the stem, or neck, connecting it with the mainland (at what became Roxbury) a mile in length, and so low and narrow that parts were not infrequently overflowed by the tides.
Boston's early European settlers first called the area Trimountaine( three maountains). Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor, John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity," popularly known as the "City on a Hill" sermon, which captured the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. Puritan ethics molded a stable and well-structured society in Boston.
The settlement of Trimountaine or Trimontaine (named after the peninsula's three hills) changed its name to "Boston" on September 7, 1630; the settlement of Shawmut also changed its name to "Boston", on September 16. Governor Winthrop announced the foundation of the City of Boston on September 17. At the suggestion of Thomas Dudley it was decided that the new settlement be called Boston after the town of Boston, in the English county of Lincolnshire, from which several prominent colonists emigrated. The Massachusetts Bay Colony planted many nearby settlements in 1630 and the years that followed.
Next month: Face off with the British and a major landfill project
