[Illustration: Decoration]
BOSTON:
MUNICIPAL PRINTING OFFICE.
1905.
This series of plans of the Town of Boston is the result of a great
amount of research, and presents in a most interesting manner the
growth of the Town from the first settlement to 1645.
The plan dated December 25, 1645, while in the main correct, does
not show all the transfers made during that year, as will be seen by
consulting Suffolk Deeds, Lib. 1, as noted in the introduction to the
Book of Possessions (Volume 2 of the Boston Records), the first 111
pages of which were written by William Aspinwall prior to the 10th
month, 1645.
The numbers on the plans follow the original pagination of the Book of
Possessions.
On the plan of 1630 the lot marked S should have been assigned to
Thomas Sharp.
These plans show the old peninsula of Boston; consequently the
allotments at the “field end next Roxbury” do not appear.
The New Field was located at the west part of the town in the angle
bounded by the present Cambridge street, and extending through Lynde
and Leverett streets to Haugh’s Point. The principal town landing was
at the head of the cove or dock, around which Valentine Hill’s highway
was laid out in 1641. Street names were not given until a later period,
though the present Washington street was known as the “High street, the
great street or highway to Roxbury.”
Other allotments were made at Rumney Marsh (Chelsea), Mt. Wollaston
(Quincy), and Muddy River (Brookline).
Ownership and transfers of many lots between the periods shown by the
plans are not noted.
E. W. MCGLENEN,
_City Registrar_.