It will hardly be realized at the present time that Boston, or the
peninsula which originally comprised the town, was ever occupied by
cornfields, or, as one may almost say, was a cornfield. If there were
cornfields, as we assume there were, the curious thing about them is, that
we know so little of them; for it can scarcely be said that they hold a
place in history. There are, in fact, no definite statements about them;
and a mystery seems to hang over them as to where they were, who owned
them, who cultivated them, and what was done with the harvest. Were they
private property or public property? We have not been able to find in
contemporary or subsequent history any account of the Boston cornfields
that will enable us with certainty to answer this question. The fair
inference from statements made, however, is, that they were to some extent
both public and private property. Perhaps the first allusion to them to be
found in any record is that in 1632,--and there could have been no corn
planted in Boston earlier than 1631, unless by Blackstone,--and this
allusion is in the name of "Corne Hill." In 1632, May 24, "it was agreed
to build a fort in that part of Boston called Corne Hill," meaning what
thereafter was called Fort Hill; and one historical writer, quoting the
record, says a fortification was begun on "_the_ corn hill;" and that was
probably the only Corn Hill at that time. The question naturally arises,
Why was it called Corn Hill? and the almost necessary answer to the
question is, Because it was where corn was grown.
There can be no doubt that it became necessary, as early as possible, for
the settlers to seek means for their future subsistence. The stock and
supply of provisions brought over were, no doubt, for a time and under
certain regulations, a common stock; and possibly some of Gov. Winthrop's
party had supplies of their own in addition thereto. But, at all events,
prudence and self-preservation required immediate attention to the
cultivation of the soil and the raising of corn and other grains.
In 1628 (1629), before the arrival of Gov. Winthrop and his company at
Charlestown, the place had been occupied by the Spragues, from Salem,
under the direction of Mr. Graves, an agent of the company; and one of the
first things they did was "to model and lay out the form of the town, with
streets about the hill," which was approved by Gov. Endicott. They next
"jointly agreed and concluded that each inhabitant have a two acre lot to
plant upon and all to fence in common." The same year Mr. Graves wrote to
England, "The increase of corne is here farre beyond expectation," showing
that it had been grown, and most probably in the common cornfield; for it
is afterwards said that Thomas Walford "lived on the south end of the
westermost hill of the East Field." Another vote was passed the next year,
1630,--probably before the arrival of Gov. Winthrop,--that each person
"dwelling within the neck, shall have two acres of land for a house plot,
and two acres for every male that is able to plant."
In the months of June and July, 1630, Gov. Winthrop and his party arrived
at Charlestown, after a passage by some of the ships of seventeen or
eighteen weeks, many of them sick of the scurvy. "The multitude set up
cottages, booths and tents about the Town Hill;" and it is said
"provisions were exceedingly wasted, and no supplies could now be expected
by planting; besides, there was miserable damage and spoil of provisions
at sea." Many of the party died,--some two hundred before December,--and
others started out for other locations; and finally in September, 1630, by
the invitation of Mr. Blackstone, the larger part of Gov. Winthrop's party
crossed the river to Boston. This year there was a scarcity of corn, as
will be seen by the following extract from Hutchinson's history:--
"In August, 1724, John Quttamug, a Nipmug Indian, came to Boston,
above 112 years of age. He affirmed that in 1630, upon a message that
the English were in want of corn, soon after their arrival, he went to
Boston with his father, and carried a bushel and a half of corn all
the way on his back; that there was only one cellar began in town, and
that somewhere near the _Common_."
Wood, in speaking of Boston in 1639, says, "This place hath very good
land, affording rich cornfields and fruitful gardens," which, no doubt,
were in existence years before he wrote his book. In 1635, it was voted,
"Each able man is allowed two acres, and each able youth one acre to
plant." Provision of some sort on the subject was no doubt made before
this time, and gradually reached the regulation here recorded. In 1633,
great scarcity of corn is mentioned by Winthrop, as he says, "By reason of
the spoil of our hogs, there being no acorns, yet the people lived well
with fish and the fruit of their gardens."
Almost as a natural consequence of what has now been said, in March, 1636,
we find that provision was made "for having sufficient fences to the
Cornfielde before the 14th of the next second month (April); that for
every defective rod then found, five shillings penalty;" and it was
further provided, "The field toward Rocksberry to be looked into by Jacob
Elyott and Jonathan Negoose; the Fort Hill, by James Penn and Richard
Gridley; the Mylne field, by John Button and Edward Bendall, and the New
Field by John Audley and Thomas Faireweather."
Thus it will be seen, if the rule adopted was carried out, that there were
four or more large cornfields in Boston, and that the principal work of
the people for a time was the raising of corn. At a later period parcels
of corn were occasionally presented or sent to the governor by the
Indians, who had their cornfields before the English people arrived. In
fact, it is recorded in the next month after the arrival of Winthrop, that
so much provision had been sold to the Indians for beaver, that food
became scarce; and in October, 1630, a vessel was sent to the
Narragansetts to trade, and brought home one hundred bushels of corn. In
May, 1631, corn in Boston was ten shillings a bushel, as probably much was
required for planting at this time. In August, 1633, a great scarcity of
corn was reported; and in November, the next year, a vessel arrived from
Narragansett with five hundred bushels of Indian corn. It is very clear
that corn was very early, and for some time, the great dependence of the
settlers.
In Plymouth Colony, in 1630, the salary of the messenger of the General
Court was thirty bushels of corn. In 1685, the secretary's wages was
fifteen pounds a year, payable in corn at two shillings per bushel. In
1690, "one third the Governor's salary ordered to be paid in money, the
rest in corne."
In 1637, April 16, "all the fences and gates to be made up. Sargeant
Hutchinson and Richard Gridley to look after the Fort Field; John Button,
James Everett and Isaac Grosse, in the Mill Field; Wm Colburn and Jacob
Elyott on the Field next Roxburie." Again, in 1640, March 30, "To look to
the fences: Richard Fairbanks and William Salter the field towards
Roxbury; Benj. Gillam and Edmd. Jacklyn, the Fort Field; Wm. Hudson and
Edward Bendall the New Field; Mr. Valentine Hill and John Button, the Mill
Field."
Dr. Shurtleff, in his "Topographical and Historical Description of
Boston," enumerates five fields as follows, and speaks of them as
ungranted lands: "The land around Copps' Hill, was known as the Mylne
Field, or Mill Field; that around Fort Hill, the Fort Field; that at the
Neck, the Neck Field, or the Field towards Roxbury; that where Beacon Hill
Place now is, Centry Hill Field, and that west of Lynde Street, and north
of Cambridge, the New Mill Field, or the New Field." And to show that
these were not waste lands or pastures, the writer enumerates the various
pastures for cattle, besides the privileges at Muddy Brook and
Winnisimmet, as follows: "Besides the fields there were many pastures, so
called: Christopher Stanley's was at the North End, covering the region of
North Bennet Street, between Hanover and Salem Streets; Buttolph's was
south of Cambridge Street; Tucker's, in the neighborhood of Lyman Street;
Rowe's, east of Rowe Street; Wheeler's, where the southerly end of Chauncy
Street is; Atkinson's, where Atkinson Street was a few years ago, and
where Congress Street now is." And besides these he names Leverett's on
Leverett Street; Middlecott's on Bowdoin Street; another on Winter and
Tremont Streets, and, as he says, "a very large number of other great
lots."
And strange to say, in all this history, contemporary or modern, in only a
single instance, so far as we know, are these fields or any one of them
spoken of as a "cornfielde," and that is in the order of 1636, above
quoted. There is, however, one other reference to them made, in 1657, in
the body of instructions prepared for the selectmen to guide them in the
discharge of their duties: "Relying on your wisdom and care in seeking the
good of the town, we recommend that you cause to be executed all the
orders of the town which you have on the records," &c., "as found in the
printed laws under the titles Townships, Freeman, Highways, Small Causes,
Indians, Cornfields," &c., which would assuredly show that there were
cornfields in the town, distinct from pastures or waste lands, undoubtedly
laid out and divided among the people, as already indicated, for their
special cultivation.
If, as we believe, the "fields" enumerated were cornfields, and cultivated
in the manner suggested,--at first one field, and year by year, as
necessity should require, a new field added,--there would naturally
become, among a people situated as they were, a necessity for a granary
for the storing and preservation of their crops. Consequently, in the
enumeration of public buildings in Boston at a later period, we find
mentioned "a public granary." The burying-ground on Tremont Street, known
as the Granary Burying-Ground, was laid out on land taken from the Common
in 1660, and, of course, took its name from the granary, which was built
soon after on what was afterwards Centry Street, and now Park Street.
Shurtleff says the land was first taken for the purpose, and "then, when
the need came, a building, eighty feet by thirty feet, for a public
granary, was erected, and subsequently, in 1737, removed to the corner,
its end fronting on the principal street (Tremont). It stood until 1809,
when it gave place to Park Street Church." So that, though latterly for
some years used for another purpose, the granary stood in Boston for more
than one hundred and forty years. It is described as a long wooden
building, and was calculated to hold twelve thousand bushels of corn.
In 1733, it would seem that corn or other grain continued to be grown in
Boston, as in October of that year it was determined to erect a granary at
the North End, "not to exceed L100" in cost. In the records of the
selectmen, it is called a meal-house, and John Jeffries, Esq., and Mr.
David Colson, two of the selectmen, were to contract for the work on a
piece of land near the North Mill, belonging to the town.
So that at what time the cultivation of corn ceased in Boston, it is
impossible to tell; but it would seem, from the necessity for a new
granary in 1733, that it must have continued for considerably more than a
hundred years after the settlement of the town.