Names, of course, of some kind or other, local, personal, or traditionary,
must have been very early used in the settlement, to designate places,
paths, and business, as well as persons and things, and most of these have
been preserved and remembered. In Drake's collection of local names there
are nearly one thousand, including the names of islands, wharves, streets,
taverns, &c., and of these only about twenty are mentioned by date prior
to 1700, though many of them must have been in use long before that time.
In the collection of names made by the city government in 1879, there are
about eighteen hundred, not including islands, wharves, or taverns. The
earliest dates attached to any of the names is that of the Anchor Tavern,
1661, and of the Alms House on Sentry or Park Street, 1662.
In the naming of streets, as in the laying of them out, there appears to
have been neither rule, system, or order; but in both matters the action
depended upon local circumstances, or some public or personal influence.
It is believed that the first movement in laying out the road over the
Neck to Roxbury, what is now a portion of Washington Street, was in June,
1636, as follows:--
"It is agreed that there shall be a sufficient foot-way from William
Coleburne's field-end unto Samuel Wylebore's field-end next Roxbury,
by the surveyors of highways before the last of the next 5th month"
(July, 1636).
From this it appears that there were at this early period surveyors of
highways, and that highways, to some extent, were foot-ways. The foot-way
in this case, to be laid out in one month, extended as supposed, from the
corner of Boylston Street to the northerly line of Castle Street, that
being the northerly end of Boston Neck; and the road or way laid out after
this time to Roxbury, was on the easterly side of the present Washington
Street, all the way near or on the sea-beach, and probably started from
near Beach Street.
The next order that we have in relation to the streets, is under date of
1636, 4th, 8 mo., which would be Oct. 4, 1636, and is as follows:--
"At a meeting of the overseers," it was ordered, that "from this day
there shall be no house at all be built neare unto any streetes or
laynes therein, but with the consent of the overseers, for the
avoyding disorderly building to the inconvenience of streetes and
laynes and for the more comely and commodious ordering of them, upon
the forfeiture of such sume as the overseers shall see fitting."
Soon after this, liberty was granted to Deacon Eliot "to set out his barn
six or eight feet into the street, at the direction of Colonel Colbron."
On the 17th of the same month, October, 1636, a street and lane were laid
out, but names were not given to them in the record.
In May, 1708, "at a meeting of the selectmen," a broad highway was laid
out from the old fortifications at the Neck, near the present Dover
Street, to Deacon Eliot's house (near Eliot Street), and called Orange
Street, and money was appropriated for paving it, "provided the abuttors
would pave each side of the street." A hundred years after this time, the
road over Boston Neck to Roxbury, from Waltham Street to Roxbury line,
was very wide, and paved only in the middle portion, so that the travel
for years was chiefly on the sides of the street.
In naming the streets, as we have said, there were local, personal, and
national considerations. As an illustration of the latter influence, King
and Queen Streets, two of the most important streets of the town, are well
remembered. Possibly before these the Puritan names of Endicott, Winthrop,
Eliot, Leverett, and others, may have been used. The names of
revolutionary patriots were subsequently applied to streets, as Hancock,
Adams, Warren, Franklin; and these were followed by national names, as
Union, Congress, and Federal. There was also a class of local names, as
North, South, Middle, Canal, School, Exchange, Water, Tremont, Beacon,
Margin, Back, Bridge, Pond, High, and Broad, applied at different times.
Then there were Orange, Elm, Chestnut, Walnut, Pine, Cherry, &c.,
followed, it may be, by Sun and Moon, Summer, Winter, and Spring. Latterly
the names of towns in the State have been applied to the streets of the
city; among the earliest of these are Salem, Lynn, Cambridge, Brighton;
and after these, Arlington, Berkley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, and many
others.