Publications (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE VERY BEGINNINGS OF BOSTON A Paper Read Before The Bostonian Society, Council Chamber, Old State House, November 20, 1917, By REV. FREDERICK B. ALLEN iBOUT a year after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Captain Myles Standish sailed with a party of ten and two savages as they called the Indians, northward to visit the Massachusetts tribe of Indians on Mystic River. On their way they must have passed between East Boston on the right and Boston on the left. It is interesting to know that Captain John Smith, the explorer Champlain and Captain Myles Standish must all have looked at the hills of Boston before they were trodden by the foot of white man. Let us study as far as is possible the original appearance of this peninsula. Its area was then very much smaller than at present. It was less than one thousand acres,while now the same portion of Boston contains about eighteen hundred acres. Its outline was far more irregular than now, being broken up into many points and deep coves. Let us first study the outline of the shore between dry land and the water or marshes. If we follow the western shore line northward, it would run from Boston Neck to Park Square; then inside of Charles Street along what is now the parade ground, crossing Beacon Street about 200 feet from Charles Street, and so on all the way inside of Charles Street until nearly to Cambridge Street. The projection here was called Blackstone's Point. Next, there was quite a cove running inland and out again to Barton's Point not far from the foot of Leveret Street. The name Barton, confirmed by the present street of that name near by, was taken from a man who established a ferry across Charles River to Cambridge. From Barton's Point the shore line turns suddenly to the southeast and runs a...