Myles Standish. - William Blackstone. - Shawmut.. Settlement by Winthrop's Company. - Trimountain. -Boston. - 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. largement of Boston. Communication with Mainland. - Ferries. Bridges. Coaches, public and private. - Railways.

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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;

but before we set out to explore and reconstruct, a brief glance at the material progress of Boston seems desirable.

For a hundred years Boston must be considered as little more than a sea-shore village, straggling up its thicket-grown hillsides. The Indian camp-fire, the axe of Blackstone, the mattock and spade of Winthrop's band, — each have their story and their lesson. We shall pass each period in rapid review.

Whether Myles Standish, "broad in the shoulders, deepchested, with muscles and sinews of iron," was the first white man who stood on the beach of the peninsula is a matter merely of conjecture. Certain it is that in 1621 this redoubtable Puritan soldier, with ten companions, sailed from Plymouth and landed somewhere in what is now Boston Bay. They crossed the bay, "which is very large, and hath at least fifty islands in it"; and, after exploring the shores, decided "that better harbors for shipping there cannot be than here." They landed, hobnobbed with Obbatinewat, lord of the soil, feasted upon lobsters and boiled codfish, and departed, leaving no visible traces for us to pursue. This expedition was undertaken to secure the friendship of the "Massachusetts" Indians, result fully accomplished by Standish.

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The Indians told the Englishmen that two large rivers flowed into the bay, of which, however, they saw but one. This circumstance, indefinite as it is, justifies the opinion that Standish's party landed at Shawmut, the Indian name for our peninsula. If they had landed at Charlestown and ascended the heights there, as is supposed by some writers, they could hardly have escaped seeing both the Mystic and Charles, while at Shawmut they would probably have seen only the latter river.

In William Blackstone, Episcopalian, we have the first white settler of the peninsula. The date of his settlement has been supposed to have been about 1626, although there is nothing conclusive on this point known to the writer. Here he was, however, in 1628, when we find him taxed by the Plymouth Colony twelve shillings, on account of the expenses incurred by the colony in the capture of Thomas Morton at Mount Wollaston.*

* Belknap's American Biography.

The place where Blackstone located his dwelling has given rise to much controversy, but can be fixed with some degree

of certainty. Like a sen

sible man, Blackstone chose the sunny southwest slope of Beacon Hill for his residence. The records show that in April, 1633, "it is agreed that William Blackstone shall have fifty acres set out for him near his house in Boston to enjoy forever." In the following year Blackstone sold the town all of his allotment except six acres, on part of

TRIMOUNTAIN.

which his house then stood; the sale also including all his right in and to the peninsula, a right thus, in some form, recognized by Winthrop and his associates. The price paid for the whole peninsula of Boston was £ 30, assessed upon the inhabitants of the town, some paying six shillings, and some more, according to their circumstances and condition.

The Charlestown records locate Blackstone as "dwelling on the other side of Charles River, alone, to a place by the Indians called Shawmut,* where he only had a cottage at a place not far off the place called Blackstone's Point"; this is also confirmed by Edward Johnson in 1630, in his "Wonder Working Providence." After the purchase by the town of Blackstone's forty-four acres, they laid out the "training field, which was ever since used for that purpose and the feeding of cattle.” This was the origin of Boston Common. Two landmarks existed to fix the site of Blackstone's house, namely, the orchard planted by him, the first in New England, and his spring. The orchard is represented on the early maps; is mentioned in 1765 as still bearing fruit; and is named in the deeds of sub

* Perhaps an abbreviation of "Mushauwomuk," as given in Grindal Rawson's "Confessions of Faith," printed in 1699. Probably meaning unclaimed land.