History of Boston

1740 Faneuil Hall, sketch by John Smybert

The 18th-century Old State House in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The history of Boston plays a central role in the American history. In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city, which quickly became the political, commercial, financial, religious, and educational center of the New England region. The American Revolution erupted in Boston, as the British retaliated harshly for the Boston Tea Party and the patriots fought back. They besieged the British in the city, with a famous battle at Bunker Hill and won the Siege of Boston, forcing the British to retreat. However, the British blockade of the port seriously damaged the economy, and the population fell by two thirds in the 1770s. The city recovered after 1800, becoming the transportation hub for the New England region with its network of railroads, and even more important, the intellectual, educational and medical center of the nation. Along with New York, Boston was the financial center of the United States in the 19th century, and was especially important in funding railroads nationwide. In the Civil War era, it was the base for many anti-slavery activities. In the 19th century the city was dominated by an elite known as the Boston Brahmins. They faced the political challenge coming from waves of Catholic immigrants. The Irish Catholics, typified by the Kennedy Family, wrested the political control of the city by 1900. The industrial foundation of the region, financed by Boston, reached its peak around 1950; thereafter thousands of textile mills and other factories were closed down. By the 21st century the city's economy had recovered and was centered on world-famous education, medicine, and high technology—notably biotechnology, while the many surrounding towns became highly attractive residential suburbs.

Prehistoric era

The Shawmut Peninsula was originally connected to the mainland to its south by a narrow isthmus, Boston Neck, and surrounded by Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. Several prehistoric Native American archaeological sites, including the Boylston Street Fishweir, excavated during construction of buildings and subways in the city, have shown that the peninsula was inhabited as early as 7,500 years before present.^[1]

Founding

Trimountaine was the original name given by European settlers to the peninsula that would later be incorporated as the city of Boston. The name was derived from the three prominent hills on the peninsula, two of which were leveled as the city was modernized. The third, Beacon Hill, remains to this day a prominent feature of the Boston cityscape.^[2]

In 1628, the Cambridge Agreement was signed in England among the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The agreement 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. In a famous sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," Winthrop described the new colony as "a City upon a Hill."

In June 1630, the Winthrop Fleet arrived in what would later be called Salem,^[3] which on account of lack of food, "pleased them not."^[4] They proceeded to Charlestown, which pleased them less, for lack of fresh water. The Puritans settled around the spring in what would become Boston.^[5]

Copp's Hill Burying Ground, founded 1659

Governor Winthrop announced the foundation of the City of Boston on September 17, with the place named after the town of Boston, in the English county of Lincolnshire, from which several prominent colonists emigrated.

Colonial era

Early colonists believed that Boston was a community with a special covenant with God, as captured in Winthrop's "City upon a Hill" metaphor. This influenced every facet of Boston life, and made it imperative that colonists legislate morality as well as enforce marriage, church attendance, education in the Word of God, and the persecution of sinners. These values molded an extremely stable and well-structured society in Boston. Puritan values of hard work, moral uprightness, and education remain a part of Boston's culture. The first school in America, Boston Latin School (1635), and the first college in America, Harvard College (1636), were founded shortly after Boston's European settlement.

Town officials in colonial Boston were chosen annually; positions^[6] included selectman, assay master, culler of staves, fence viewer, hayward, hogreeve,^[7] measurer of boards, pounder,^[8] sealer of leather, tithingman, viewer of bricks, water bailiff, and woodcorder.^[9]

Boston's Puritans looked askance at unorthodox religious ideas, and exiled or punished dissenters. Baptist minister Obadiah Holmes was imprisoned and publicly whipped in 1651 because of his religion and Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College during the 1640s-50s, was persecuted for espousing Baptist beliefs. By 1679, Boston Baptists were bold enough to open their own meetinghouse, which was promptly closed by colonial authorities. Expansion and innovation in practice and worship characterized the early Baptists despite the restrictions on their religious liberty.^[10] On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from proselytizing in the colony.

The Boston Post Road connected the city to New York and the major settlements in Central and Western Massachusetts. The lower route ran near present-day U.S. 1 via Providence, Rhode Island. The upper route, laid out in 1673, left via Boston Neck and followed present-day U.S. Route 20 until around Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. It continued through Worcester, Springfield, and New Haven, Connecticut.

From 1686 until 1689, Massachusetts and surrounding colonies were united. This larger province, known as the Dominion of New England, was governed by an appointee of the king James II, Sir Edmund Andros. Andros, who supported the Church of England in a largely-Puritan city, grew increasingly unpopular. On April 18, 1689, he was overthrown due to a brief revolt. The Dominion was not reestablished.

In 1755, Boston endured the largest earthquake ever to hit the Northeastern United States, (estimated at 6.0 to 6.3 on the Richter scale), called the Cape Ann Earthquake.^[11][12]

The first "Great Fire" of Boston destroyed 349 buildings on March 20, 1760.

Boston in rebellion

See also: American Revolution and American Revolutionary War

A map showing a British tactical evaluation of Boston in 1775.

By the 1770s Americans focused on their rights as Englishmen, especially the principle of "No Taxation without Representation," as articulated by James Otis, Samuel Adams and other Boston firebrands. Boston played the primary role in sparking both the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War. The Boston Massacre came on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers stationed fired into a rioting mob on King Street outside the British custom house, resulting in the deaths of five civilians and dramatically escalating tensions.^[13] Parliament, meanwhile, insisted on its right to tax the Americans and finally came up with a small tax on tea. Up and down the 13 colonies, Americans prevented merchants from selling the tea, but a shipment arrived in Boston Harbor. Local Sons of Liberty, disguised as Indians, dumped the tea in the harbor in the Boston Tea Party. The British government retaliated with a series of very harsh laws, they closed down the Port of Boston and stripped Massachusetts of its self-government. The other colonies rallied in solidarity behind Massachusetts, setting up the First Continental Congress, and arming and training their militia units. The British sent more troops to Boston, and made its commander General Thomas Gage the governor. When Gage discovered the Patriots had set up a shadow government based in the town of Concord, he sent troops to break it up. Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott made their famous midnight rides to alert the Minutemen in the surrounding towns, who fought the resulting Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. It was the first battle of the American Revolution. Militia units across New England rallied to the defense of Boston, and Congress sent in General George Washington to take command. The British were trapped in the city, and suffered very heavy losses in their victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill; Washington brought in artillery and forced the British out as the patriots took full control of Boston. The American victory on March 17, 1776, is celebrated as Evacuation Day. The city has preserved and celebrated its revolutionary past, from the harboring of the USS Constitution to the many famous sites along the Freedom Trail.

19th century

Economic and population growth

Historical populations
Census	Pop.		%±
1790	18,320		—
1800	24,937		36.1%
1810	33,787		35.5%
1820	43,298		28.1%
1830	61,392		41.8%
1840	93,383		52.1%
1850	136,881		46.6%
1860	177,840		29.9%
1870	250,526		40.9%
1880	362,839		44.8%
1890	448,477		23.6%
1900	560,892		25.1%
1910	670,585		19.6%
1920	748,060		11.6%
1930	781,188		4.4%
1940	770,816		−1.3%
1950	801,444		4.0%
1960	697,197		−13.0%
1970	641,071		−8.1%
1980	562,994		−12.2%
1990	574,283		2.0%
2000	589,141		2.6%
Source:[14]

Boston was transformed from a relatively small and economically stagnant town in 1780 to a bustling seaport and cosmopolitan center with a large and highly mobile population by 1800. It had become one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports, exporting products like rum, fish, salt and tobacco.^[15] The upheaval of the American Revolution, and the British naval blockade that shut down its economy, had caused a majority of the population to flee the city. From a base of 10,000 in 1780, the population approached 25,000 by 1800. The abolition of slavery in the state in 1783 gave blacks greater physical mobility, but their social mobility was slow.^[16]

Boston had the status of a town; it was chartered as a city in 1822.^[17] The second mayor was Josiah Quincy III, who undertook infrastructure improvements in roads and sewers, and organized the city's dock area around the newly erected Faneuil Hall Marketplace, popularly known as Quincy Market. By the mid-19th century Boston was one of the largest manufacturing centers in the nation, noted for its garment production, leather goods, and machinery industries. Manufacturing overtook international trade to dominate the local economy. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and allowed for a proliferation of mills and factories. The building of the Middlesex Canal extended this small river network to the larger Merrimack River and its mills, including the Lowell mills and mills on the Nashua River in New Hampshire. By the 1850s, an even denser network of railroads (see also List of railroad lines in Massachusetts) facilitated the region's industry and commerce. For example, in 1851, Eben Jordan and Benjamin L. Marsh opened the Jordan Marsh Department store in downtown Boston. Thirty years later William Filene opened his own department store across the street, called Filene's.

Several turnpikes were constructed between cities to aid transportation, especially of cattle and sheep to markets. A major east-west route, the Worcester Turnpike (now Massachusetts Route 9), was constructed in 1810. Others included the Newburyport Turnpike (now Route 1) and the Salem Lawrence Turnpike (now Route 114).

Brahmin elite

Boston's "Brahmin elite" developed a particular semi-aristocratic value system by the 1840s—cultivated, urbane, and dignified, he was the very essence of enlightened aristocracy.^[18][19] The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed suitable personal virtues and character traits. The term was coined in 1861 by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.^[20] The Brahmin had high expectations to meet: to cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against "avarice" and insisted upon "personal responsibility." Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges,^[21] and had their own way of talking. Heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belonged to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically, they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans.

A poem about Boston, attributed to various people, describes the city thus: "And here's to good old Boston / The land of the bean and the cod / Where Lowells talk only to Cabots / and Cabots talk only to God." While wealthy colonial families like the Lowells and Cabots (often called the Boston Brahmins) ruled the city, the 1840s brought waves of new immigrants from Europe. These included large numbers of Irish and Italians, giving the city a large Roman Catholic population.

Abolitionists

View of Boston from Dorchester Heights, 1841.

In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, an abolitionist newsletter, in Boston. It advocated "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves" in the United States, and established Boston as the center of the abolitionist movement. After the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Boston became a bastion of abolitionist thought. Attempts by slave-catchers to arrest fugitive slaves often proved futile, which included the notable case of Anthony Burns and Kevin McLaughlin. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Boston also became the hub of efforts to send anti-slavery New Englanders to settle in Kansas Territory through the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company.

Irish

Throughout the 19th century, Boston became a haven for Irish Catholic immigrants, especially following the potato famine of 1845-49. Even to the present day, Boston still commands the largest percentage of Irish-descended people of any city in the United States. Thanks to growing numbers, intense group loyalty, and block by block political organization, the Irish took political control of the city, leaving the Yankees in charge of finance, business and higher education. The Irish left their mark on the region in a number of ways: in still heavily Irish neighborhoods such as Charlestown and South Boston; in the name of the local basketball team, the Boston Celtics; in the dominant Irish-American political family, the Kennedys; in a large number of prominent local politicians, such as James Michael Curley; in the establishment of Catholic Boston College as a rival to Harvard; and in underworld figures such as James "Whitey" Bulger.

The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started at the corner of Summer Street and Kingston Street on November 9. In two days the conflagration destroyed about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of the city, including 776 buildings in the financial district, totaling $60 million in damage.

In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston.

Scollay Square, Boston, in the 1880s.

Map showing all ground in Boston occupied by buildings in 1880. From U.S. Census Bureau.

High culture

From the mid-to-late-19th century, Boston flourished culturally — it became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. Literary residents included, among many others, writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., James Russell Lowell, and Julia Ward Howe, as well as historians John Lothrop Motley, John Gorham Palfrey, George Bancroft, William Hickling Prescott, Francis Parkman, Henry Adams, James Ford Rhodes, Edward Channing and Samuel Eliot Morison. Also there were theologians and philosophers such as William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Baker Eddy. When Bret Harte visited Howells, he remarked that in Boston "it was impossible to fire a revolver without bringing down the author of a two-volume work." Boston had many great publishers and magazines, such as The Atlantic Monthly (founded 1857) and the publishers Little, Brown and Company, Houghton Mifflin, and Harvard University Press.^[22]

Higher education became increasingly important, not only at Harvard (based across the river in Cambridge) but at other institutions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) opened in the city in 1865. The first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opened in Boston on November 1, 1848. The Jesuits opened Boston College in 1863; Emerson College opened in 1880, and Simmons College for women in 1899.

To please a different audience, the first vaudeville theater opened on February 28, 1883, in Boston. The last one, the Old Howard in Scollay Square, which had evolved from opera to vaudeville to burlesque, closed in 1953.

Transportation

As the population increased rapidly, Boston-area streetcar lines facilitated the creation of a profusion of streetcar suburbs. Downtown congestion worsened, prompting the opening of the first subway in North America on September 1, 1897, the Tremont Street Subway. Between 1897 and 1912, subterranean rail links were built to Cambridge and East Boston, and elevated and underground lines expanded into other neighborhoods from downtown. Today, the regional passenger rail and bus network has been consolidated into the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Two union stations, North Station and South Station were constructed to consolidate downtown railroad terminals.

Censorship

From the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, the phrase "Banned in Boston" was used to describe a literary work, motion picture, or play prohibited from distribution or exhibition. During this time, Boston city officials took it upon themselves to "ban" anything that they found to be salacious, immoral, or offensive: theatrical shows were run out of town, books confiscated, and motion pictures were prevented from being shown—sometimes stopped in mid-showing after an official had "seen enough". The phrase "banned in Boston" came to suggest something sexy and lurid; some distributors advertised that their products had been banned in Boston, when in fact they had not.

20th century

Politics

In 1900 Julia Harrington Duff (1850–1932) became the first woman from the Irish Catholic community to be elected to the Boston School Committee. Extending her role as teacher and mother she became an ethnic spokesperson as she confronted the power of the Yankee Protestant men of the Public School Association. She worked to replace 37-year-old textbooks, to protect the claims of local Boston women for career opportunities in the school system, and to propose a degree-granting teachers college. In 1905, the 25 member committee was reduced to five, which blocked women's opportunities for direct participation in school policies.^[23]

Early decades

At the turn of the century, caught up in the automobile revolution, Boston was home to the Porter Motor Company,^[24] headquartered in the Tremont Building, 73 Tremont Street.^[25]

On January 15, 1919, the Boston Molasses Disaster occurred in the North End. Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured as an immense wave of molasses crushed and asphyxiated many of the victims to death. It took over six months to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes. Boston Harbor ran brown until summer.

During the summer of 1919, over 1100 members of the Boston Police Department went on strike. Boston fell prey to several riots as there were minimal law officers to maintain order in the city. Calvin Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts, garnered national fame for quelling violence by almost entirely replacing the police force. The 1919 Boston Police Strike would ultimately set precedent for police unionization across the country.

On August 23, 1927, Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sent to the electric chair after a seven-year trial in Boston. Their execution sparked riots in London, Paris and Germany, and helped to reinforce the image of Boston as a hotbed of intolerance and discipline.

Transportation and urban renewal

1955 Yellow Book plan for the Boston-area highway system.

The I-695 Inner Belt shown on this map was never built. I-95 is shown here approaching the urban core from the southwest, but it was never built beyond the outer loop shown on this map (which was built as Route 128 and which I-95 was later re-routed over).

In 1934, the Sumner Tunnel created the first direct road connection under Boston Harbor, between the North End and East Boston.

In May 1938, the first public housing project, Old Harbor Village was opened in South Boston.^[26]

By 1950, Boston was slumping. Few major buildings were being built anywhere in the city. Factories were closing and moving their operations south, where labor was cheaper. The assets Boston had—excellent banks, hospitals, universities and technical know-how—were minimal parts of the U.S. economy. To combat this downturn, Boston's politicians enacted urban renewal policies, which resulted in the demolition of several neighborhoods, including the old West End, a largely Jewish and Italian neighborhood, and Scollay Square. In their places went the Charles River Park apartment complex, additions to Massachusetts General Hospital, and Government Center. These projects displaced thousands, closed hundreds of businesses, and provoked a furious backlash, which in turn ensured the survival of many historic neighborhoods.

In 1948, William F. Callahan had published the Master Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston. Parts of the financial district, Chinatown, and the North End were demolished to make way for construction. By 1956, the northern part of the Central Artery had been constructed, but strong local opposition resulted in the southern downtown portion being built underground. The Dewey Square Tunnel connected downtown to the Southeast Expressway. In 1961, the Callahan Tunnel opened, paralleling the older Sumner Tunnel.

By 1965, the first Massachusetts Turnpike Extension was completed from Route 128 to near South Station. The proposed Inner Belt in Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, and Somerville was canceled due to public outcry. In 1971, public protest canceled the routing of I-95 into downtown Boston. Demolition had already begun along the Southwest Corridor, which was instead used to re-route the Orange Line and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

Boston's Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge is a result of the Big Dig.

In 2007, the Central Artery/Tunnel project was completed. Nicknamed the Big Dig, it had been planned and approved in the 1980s under Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. With construction beginning in 1991, the Big Dig moved the remainder of the Central Artery underground, widened the north-south highway, and created local bypasses to prevent east-west traffic from contributing to congestion. The Ted Williams Tunnel became the third highway tunnel to East Boston and Logan International Airport as part of the project. The Big Dig also produced the landmark Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, and will create over 70 acres (280,000 m²) of public parks in the heart of the city. The project as a whole has eased (but not eliminated) Boston's notorious traffic congestion; however, it is the most expensive construction project in United States history and the most expensive construction project in the world.^[27]

The city also saw other transportation projects, including improvement and expansion to its mass transit system, notably to its commuter rail system to southeastern Massachusetts and the development of a bus rapid transit (BRT) system dubbed "The Silver Line." The maritime Port of Boston and Logan International Airport were also developed.

World War II and later

On November 28, 1942, Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub was the site of the Cocoanut Grove fire, the deadliest nightclub fire in United States history, killing 492 people and injuring hundreds more.

During the war years, antisemitic violence escalated in Boston. Gangs largely composed of Irish Catholic youths desecrated Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, vandalized Jewish stores and homes, and physically assaulted Jews in the streets. The Boston police force, which was made up largely of Irish Catholics, seldom intervened.^[28]

In 1953, the Columbia Point public housing projects were completed on the Dorchester peninsula. There were 1,502 units in the development on 50 acres (200,000 m²) of land. In 1966, the Columbia Point Health Center opened and was the first community health center in the country.

Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, as many as thirteen single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in Boston by the infamous Boston Strangler. (The actual number remains in dispute.)

Aerial view of the Back Bay and Cambridge

In the 1970s, after years of economic downturn, Boston boomed again. Financial institutions were granted more latitude, more people began to play the market, and Boston became a leader in the mutual fund industry. Health care became more extensive and expensive, and hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Higher education also became more expensive, and universities such as Harvard, MIT, BU and Tufts attracted hordes of students to the Boston area; many stayed and became permanent residents. MIT graduates, in particular, founded many successful high-tech companies, which made Boston second only to Silicon Valley as a high-tech center.

In 1974, the city dealt with a crisis when a federal district court judge, W. Arthur Garrity, ordered desegregation busing to integrate the city's public schools. Racially-motivated violence erupted in several neighborhoods (many white parents resisted the busing plan). Public schools—particularly public high schools—became scenes of unrest and violence. Tension continued throughout the mid-1970s, reinforcing Boston's reputation for discrimination.

The Columbia Point housing complex deteriorated until only 350 families remained living there in 1988. In 1984, the city of Boston gave control of the complex to a private developer, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, who re-developed and re-vitalised the property into a residential mixed-income community called Harbor Point Apartments. It is a very significant example of revitalisation and re-development and was the first federal housing project to be converted to private, mixed-income housing in the USA. Harbor Point has won much acclaim for this transformation, including awards from the Urban Land Institute, the FIABCI Award for International Excellence, and the Rudy Bruner Award.^[29][30][31] It was used as a model for the federal HUD HOPE VI public housing program begun in 1992.^[32]

On March 18, 1990, the largest art theft in modern history occurred in Boston. Twelve paintings, collectively worth over $100 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by two thieves posing as police officers. As of 2010 these paintings have not been recovered.

21st century

Downtown Boston as seen from Cambridge

Recently, Boston has experienced a loss of regional institutions and traditions, which once gave it a very distinct social character, as it has become part of the northeastern megalopolis. Examples include: the acquisition of the Boston Globe by The New York Times; the loss of Boston-headquartered publishing houses (noted above); the acquisition of the century-old Jordan Marsh department store by Macy's; the increasing rarity of ice-cream shops using cone-shaped scoops; and the loss to mergers, failures, and acquisitions of once-prominent financial institutions such as Shawmut Bank, BayBank, Bank of New England, and Bank of Boston. In 2004, this trend continued as Charlotte-based Bank of America acquired FleetBoston Financial, and P&G has announced plans to acquire Gillette.

Despite these losses, Boston's ambiance remains unique among world cities and, in many ways, has improved in recent years—racial tensions have eased dramatically, city streets bustle with a vitality not seen since the 1920s, and once again Boston has become a hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas. Nevertheless, the city had to tackle gentrification issues and rising living expenses. According to Money Magazine, Boston is one of the world's 100 most expensive cities.^[33]

Boston was the host city of the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The city also found itself at the center of national attention in early 2004 during the controversy over same-sex marriages. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that such marriages cannot be banned under the state's constitution, opponents and supporters of such marriages converged on the Massachusetts State House as the state legislature voted on a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Much attention was focused on the city and the rest of Massachusetts when marriage licenses for same-sex couples were issued.

Also in 2004, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years and followed it up three years later with a 2007 victory.

Geographic expansion

1880 census map showing landfill and annexations up until that year.

The City of Boston has expanded in two ways - through landfill and through annexation of neighboring municipalities.

Between 1630 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by land reclamation, specifically by filling in marshes and mud flats and by filling gaps between wharves along the waterfront, a process Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves." The most intense reclamation efforts were in the 19th century. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Bulfinch Triangle (just south of today's North Station area). The present-day State House sits atop this shortened Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the areas now known as the South End, West End, Financial District, and Chinatown. After The Great Boston Fire of 1872, building rubble was used as landfill along the downtown waterfront.

The most dramatic reclamation project was the filling in of the Back Bay in the mid to late 19th century. Almost six hundred acres (240 hectares) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of the Boston Common were filled in with gravel brought in by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. Boston also grew by annexing the adjacent communities of East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, West Roxbury (including Jamaica Plain and Roslindale), South Boston, Brighton, Allston, Hyde Park, and Charlestown, some of which were also augmented by landfill reclamation.

Annexations and Landfill, 1804-1912. (some dates approximate, due to time lag between approval and completion.)

Timeline of annexations, secessions, and related developments (incomplete):

• 1705 - Hamlet of Muddy River split off to incorporate as Brookline
• 1804 - First part of Dorchester by act of the state legislature^[34]
• 1851 - West Roxbury (including Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) is split off from Roxbury as an independent municipality.
• 1855 - Washington Village, part of South Boston, by act of the state legislature^[34]
• 1868 - Roxbury
• 1870 - Last part of Dorchester
• 1873 - Brookline-Boston annexation debate of 1873 (Brookline was not annexed)
• 1874 - West Roxbury, including Jamaica Plain and Roslindale (approved by voters in 1873)^[34]
• 1874 - Town of Brighton (including Allston) (approved by voters in 1873)^[34]
• 1874 - Charlestown (approved by voters in 1873)^[34]
• 1912 - Hyde Park^[35]
• 1986 - Vote to create Mandela from parts of Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End passes locally but fails city-wide.

Timeline of land reclamation (incomplete):

• 1857 - Filling of the Back Bay begins
• 1882 - Present-day Back Bay fill complete
• 1890 - Charles River landfill reaches Kenmore Square, formerly the western end of the Back Bay mill pond
• 1900 - Back Bay Fens fill complete

• 

  Original Boston shoreline vs. 1903.

• 

  Boston in 1630 vs. 1880. The original area of the Shawmut Peninsula was substantially expanded by landfill

• 

  Boston in 1772 vs. 1880.

• 

  Greater Boston in 1850 (Middlesex Canal highlighted)

• 

  A larger view of Boston in 1888 (see also Colonial wide-area view, 1814 map, 1842 map, 1880 railroad map, 1903 map)

See also

• Timeline of Boston history
• List of newspapers in Massachusetts in the 18th-century: Boston
• Timeline of Boston history

Notes

1. ^ "Archaeology of the Central Artery Project: Highway to the Past". Commonwealth Museum – Massachusetts Historical Commission. 2007. http://www.sec.state.ma.us/mhc/mhcexh/exhidx.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-06. 
2. ^ "Boston Charter Day". Bostoncharterday.org. 2007. http://www.bostoncharterday.org/. Retrieved 2008-09-25. 
3. ^ "World Chronology - 1630". Answers.com. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/1630. 
4. ^ Weston, George F. Boston Ways: High, By & Folk, Beacon Press: Beacon Hill, Boston, p.11-15 (1957).
5. ^ Weston, George F.,
6. ^ Robert Francis Seybolt. The Town Officials of Colonial Boston, 1634–1775. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939
7. ^ Hogreeve: "chiefly in New England and south-eastern Canada: a person appointed to impound stray pigs, and to prevent or assess any damage caused by them;" cf. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2010
8. ^ Pounder: "a person whose occupation it is to pound cattle or other livestock;" cf. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2010
9. ^ Woodcorder: "a town official responsible for stacking cut wood for sale into standard ‘cords’ piles;" cf. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2010
10. ^ Milton P. Ryder, "Swimming Against the Current: The Strange Therapy of Persecution; The Price Paid for Religious Liberty by Some Early Massachusetts Baptists and the First Baptist Church of Boston," American Baptist Quarterly, March 2002, Vol. 21 Issue 1, pp 11-27
11. ^ The Massachusetts Historical Society. The Cape Ann Earthquake of November 1755 By John E. Ebel, Ph.D. Professor of Geophysics, Boston College
12. ^ USGS Historic Earthquakes
13. ^ Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (1970)
14. ^ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places Over 100,000, Ranked by July 1, 2009 Population: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009". U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2009-01.csv. 
15. ^ University Archives Colonial Boston
16. ^ Jacqueline Barbara Carr, "A Change 'as Remarkable as the Revolution Itself': Boston's Demographics, 1780-1800," New England Quarterly, Dec 2000, Vol. 73 Issue 4, pp 583-602
17. ^ US History.com, Cities, Boston, Massachusetts
18. ^ Ronald Story, Harvard and the Boston Upper Class: The Forging of an Aristocracy, 1800-1970 (1985).
19. ^ Paul Goodman, "Ethics and Enterprise: The Values of a Boston Elite, 1800-1860," American Quarterly, Sept 1966, Vol. 18 Issue 3, pp 437-451
20. ^ Holmes entitled the first chapter of his 1861 novel Elsie Venner "The Brahmin caste of New England"; he had long been writing about the group without using the term "Brahmin."
21. ^ Ronald Story, "Harvard Students, The Boston Elite, And The New England Preparatory System, 1800-1870," History of Education Quarterly, Fall 1975, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 281-298
22. ^ Van Wyck Brooks, The flowering of New England (1955)
23. ^ Polly Welts Kaufman, "Julia Harrington Duff: An Irish Woman Confronts the Boston Power Structure, 1900-1905," Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 1990 18(2): 113-137, 25p. Historic
24. ^ Stanleysteameronline.com
25. ^ Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925 (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950), p.13.
26. ^ Vale, Lawrence J., From the Puritans to the projects: public housing and public neighbors, Harvard University Press, 2000.
27. ^ Susan Moir (University of Massachusetts Lowell). "Big Dig". Electronic Library of Construction - Occupational Safety and Health (CDC). http://www.elcosh.org/docs/d0100/d000067/d000067.html. 
28. ^ Norwood, Stephen H. (2003). "Marauding Youth and the Christian Front: Antisemitic Violence in Boston and New York during World War II". American Jewish History 91. 
29. ^ Kamin, Blair. "Rethinking Public Housing", Blueprints magazine, Summer 1997, p.4, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C.
30. ^ Roessner, Jane. "A Decent Place to Live: From Columbia Point to Harbor Point", Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2000.
31. ^ "Boston War Zone Becomes Public Housing Dream", The New York Times, November 23, 1991.
32. ^ Cf. Roessner, p.293. "The HOPE VI housing program, inspired in part by the success of Harbor Point, was created by legislation passed by Congress in 1992."
33. ^ "World's most expensive cities." Money Magazine. Accessed June 30, 2005.
34. ^ ^{a b c d e} "New Boston and the Suburbs". Kellscraft Studio. 1999-2003. http://www.kellscraft.com/bostonillustrated/bostonillustrated07.html. 
35. ^ Lewis, Geoff; Avault, John; Vrabel, Jim (November 1999) (PDF), History of Boston's Economy, Growth and Transition 1970 - 1998, Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Redevelopment Authority, pp. 31, http://www.cityofboston.gov/bra/PDF/ResearchPublications//pdr529.pdf 

References

• Winsor, Justin (1881). Memorial History of Boston, Vol.1 [http://books.google.com/books?id=U0AOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:Memorial+intitle:History+intitle:of+intitle:Boston&num=50&cad=3_1 Vol.2 Vol.3. Vol.4.]. James R. Osgood Publisher.. http://books.google.com/books?id=1z8OAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:0jkSXQveT0SxV7GZV0DYhMn#PPR3,M1. 
• Snow, Caleb H. (1828). History of Boston. Abel Bowen. http://books.google.com/books?id=7eovZyvw7S8C&pg=PA9&dq=editions:0tsIsk90aiMeVh&cad=0_0#PPP13,M1. 
• Boston (1909). Records Relating to the Early History of Boston - Selectmen Minutes 1818-1822.. City of Boston. http://books.google.com/books?id=olMMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA98&dq=intitle:History+intitle:of+intitle:Boston&num=50#PPP5,M1. 
• Downst, Henry P. (1916). Random Notes of Boston. Humphrey Publishing. http://kellscraft.com/NotesBoston/NotesBostoncontentpage.html. 

• Bacon, Edwin M. (1886). Boston Illustrated. http://www.kellscraft.com/bostonillustrated/bostonillustratedcontent.html. 
• Cole, William I. (April 1898). "Boston's Pauper Institutions". The New England Magazine 24 (2). http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AFJ3026-0024-33. 
• Patricia Harris and David Lyon (1999). Boston. Oakland, California: Compass American Guides. ISBN 0-679-00284-7. 
• Howard Mumford Jones and Bessie Zaban Jones (1975). The Many Voices of Boston: A Historical Anthology 1630-1975. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-47282-4. 
• Langford, Jane Ellen (September 26, 1997). "Colonial Boston Unearthed". Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America. http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/boston/. 
• Seasholes, Nancy S. (2003). Gaining ground : a history of landmaking in Boston. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=GAHs1C9q1EsC&printsec=frontcover. 
• Shackleton, Robert (1916). The Book of Boston. http://www.kellscraft.com/BookofBoston/BookofBostoncontentpage.html. 
• Winsor, Justin, Jewett, C.F. (1880). The Memorial History of Boston Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880. http://www.helloboston.com/80_LocalBook.Cfm. 
• Historical 1842 map of Boston - "Boston" from Tanner, H.S. The American Traveller; or Guide Through the United States. Eighth Edition. New York, 1842.
• Dutton, E.P. Chart of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay with Map of Adjacent Country. Published 1867. A good map of roads and rail lines in and around Boston.
• Bacon, Edwin Monroe. The Book of Boston: Fifty Years' Recollections of the New England Metropolis. Published 1916, 534 pages.

Further reading

• Beatty, Jack. The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874-1958 (1992) online edition
• Blake, John B. Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630-1822 (Harvard UP, 1959).
• Carp, Benjamin L. Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (2010)
• Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (Oxford UP, 19940 online edition
• Formisano, Ronald P., Constance K. Burns, eds. Boston, 1700-1980: The Evolution of Urban Politics (Greenwood Press, 1984) online edition, the standard political history
• Handlin, Oscar. Boston's Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (1941)
• Kane, Paula M. Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920 (2001) online edition
• McCaughey, Robert A. Josiah Quincy 1772-1864: The Last Federalist (Harvard UP, 1974)
• Miller, John C. Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda (1936)
• O'Connor, Thomas H. The Boston Irish: A Political History (2007)
• Russell, Francis. A City in Terror--1919--: The Boston Police Strike (1975).
• Rutman, Darrett B. Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649 (U of North Carolina Press, 1965).
• Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell; Price, Michael, Boston's immigrants, 1840-1925, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 2000
• Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, Boston: A Century of Progress, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 1995
• Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 1997
• Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, Big Dig, Little Dig, Hidden Worlds: Boston, Common-Place, American Antiquarian Society, v.3, n.4, July 2003
• Vale, Lawrence J., "From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors" (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Press, 2000).
• Warden, Gerard B. Boston, 1689-1776 (1970), the standard history for the period
• Waters, John J. The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (1968)
• Whitehill, Walter Muir. Boston: A Topographical History, (2nd ed. Harvard UP, 1968), on geography and neighborhoods

Older titles

• Bacon, Edwin Munroe, and Edward, George, "Ellis Bacon's Dictionary of Boston", Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1886.
• Hartnell, Edward Mussey; McGlenen, Edward Webster; Skelton, Edward Oliver, Boston and its story, 1630-1915, City of Boston (Mass.), Printing Department, 1916.
• King, Moses, King's hand-book of Boston', Cambridge, Mass., M. King, 1878
• Quincy, Josiah, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston During Two Centuries from September 17, 1630 to September 17, 1830, Boston : Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1852.
• Snow, Caleb Hopkins, A History of Boston : The Metropolis of Massachusetts, Boston : Abel Bowen, 1828
• Winsor, Justin. ed. The Memorial History of Boston (4 vols. 1880-81), unusually rich details vol 1 online; vol 2 online

External links

• The Boston Historical Society
• City of Boston Archaeology Program and Lab - The City of Boston has a City Archaeologist on staff to oversee any lots of land to be developed for historical artifacts and significance, and to manage the archaeological remains located on public land in Boston, and also has a City Archaeology Program and an Archaeology Laboratory, Education and Curation Center.
• The Freedom House Photographs collection contains over 2,000 images of Roxbury people, places and events, 1950-1975 (Archives and Special Collections of the Northeastern University Libraries in Boston, MA).
• Vital Records of Boston.
• Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary D.Child