Constitution's Figure-Head carried in the War of 1812

Constitution hauled up on the Ways

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242

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INTRODUCTION.

Myles Standish. - William Blackstone. throp's Company. - Trimountain.

Shawmut. Settlement by WinBoston. Physical Features. -Area.

- Settlement by Indians. Character of first Buildings. First Location of the Settlers. Geographical Divisions. - Wood and Water. - Dress. Manners and Customs. - Slavery. Curious old Laws. Government of the Town. Allotment of Lands. - Intolerance of the Times. - The Pulpit a Means of Intelligence. - Accounts by various Writers. -Town Records. - General Growth and Progress. Population. Wards. Paving the Streets. — Lighting the Streets.—Supply of Water. — Enlargement of Boston. Communication with Mainland. - Ferries. Bridges. Coaches, public and private. — Railways.

A

N old Boston divine says, "It would be no unprofitable thing for you to pass over the several streets and call to mind who lived here so many years ago." We learn from the poet Gay how to prepare for our rambles through the town :

"How to walk clean by day, and safe by night ;

How jostling crowds with prudence to decline,
When to assert the wall and when resign."

To see or not to see is the problem presented to him who walks the streets of town or village. What to one is a heap of ruins or a blank wall may to another become the abode of the greatest of our ancestors or the key to a remote period. A mound of earth becomes a battlement; a graveyard, a collection of scattered pages whereon we read the history of the times.

Facts are proverbially dry, and we shall trouble the reader as little as possible with musty records or tedious chronology;