The approach to the New England metropolis, especially by way of the
harbor, is fine. The city rises gradually ridge above ridge, until the
centre culminates in Beacon Hill, surmounted by the bright gilded dome
and lantern-top of the Massachusetts State House. From all sides the
land, with its varied surfaces of hill and vale, slopes down towards
the water courses, leading into the deep indentation of Boston Harbor.
The pear-shaped peninsula, forming the original town, was the Indian
Shawmut, or the "sweet waters," a name reproduced in many ways in the
modern city. William Blackstone, the recluse Anglican clergyman of
London who could not get on there with the "Lords Bishops" and
emigrated, was the first white inhabitant of Shawmut, coming in 1623.
Governor John Winthrop, of the Massachusetts colony, who came out in
1630 to Salem, removed to Shawmut the same year with Thomas Dudley
and a number of Puritans, crossing over from Charlestown in a search
for good water, which led them to select this place, which, from its
three hills, they called the Tri-mountain, since shortened into
Tremont. Blackstone, having lived there in solitude for several years,
soon tired of having such near neighbors, and in 1634 he sold out the
whole town site to them for about $150, and being disgusted with these
"Lords Brethren," as he had previously been with the "Lords Bishops,"
avoided controversy by going farther into the wilderness. Winthrop and
Dudley had come originally from Boston in England, and making this the
capital of the Massachusetts colony, they gave it that name. The
English Boston in Lincolnshire grew around the monastery of the Saxon
St. Botolph, established in the seventh century, and hence its name of
Botolph's Town, which has been condensed into Boston. Some years ago
the English Bostonians presented a Gothic window from the ruins of old
St. Botolph's to Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston. When this
Massachusetts colony was originally established, one of Winthrop's
depressed companions, writing home, described Shawmut as "a hideous
wilderness possessed by barbarous Indians, very cold, sickly, rocky,
barren, unfit for culture, and like to keep the people miserable." Yet
the settlement grew, and, as an early historian says, "Philadelphia
was a forest and New York was an insignificant village long after its
rival, Boston, had become a great commercial town." In 1663 an
English visitor, describing the place, wrote that "the buildings are
handsome, joining one to the other, as in London, with many large
streets, most of them paved with pebble-stones. In the high street
toward the Common there are faire houses, some of stone." The young
colony encouraged commerce and became possessed of many ships, the
earliest built at Boston being the bark "Blessing of the Bay" of
thirty tons, a noted vessel belonging to Governor Winthrop, and
considered a wonder in her time. The first solid wharf was built in
1673. It was Governor Winthrop who put into one of his official
messages this chunk of wisdom: "The best part of a community is always
the least, and of that part the wiser are still less." Anterior to the
Revolution, Boston was the largest and most important American city,
then having twenty-five thousand inhabitants.
Boston Harbor covers about seventy-five square miles, having various
arms, such as South Boston Bay and Dorchester Bay, and the estuaries
of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers, which enlarge the
landing-spaces. The outer harbor has great natural beauty, increased
by the improvements and adornments of buildings, the water surface
gradually narrowing towards the city, and dotted with craggy,
undulating islands, having long stretches of bordering beaches,
interspersed with jutting cliffs, broad and bold promontories, and
both low and lofty shores. The adjacent coasts are lined with
villages that gradually merge into the suburbs of the great city. In
this spacious harbor there are at least fifty large and small islands,
and most of these, which were bare in Winthrop's day, are now crowned
with forts, lighthouses, almshouses, hospitals and other civic
institutions, several being most striking edifices, giving a pleasing
variety to the scene. The splendid guiding beacon for the harbor
entrance stands upon Little Brewster or Lighthouse Island, at the
northern edge of Nantasket Roads. This is Boston Light, elevated about
one hundred feet, a revolving light visible sixteen miles. George's
Island, near the entrance and commanding the approach from the sea,
has upon it the chief defensive work of the harbor, Fort Warren, about
two miles west of Boston Light. Farther in, and near the city, off
South Boston, is Castle Island, with Fort Independence, the successor
of the earliest Boston fort, the "Castle," built by Winthrop in 1634.
Opposite and about one mile northward is Governor's Island, containing
Fort Winthrop. This island was originally the "Governor's garden," and
Winthrop paid a yearly rent of two bushels of apples for it. These
forts are nearly all constructed of Quincy granite, but none has seen
actual warfare. Long Island spreads its high crags across the harbor,
outside of the inner forts, and has a lighthouse on its northern end,
while to the eastward is a low, rocky islet, bearing as a warning to
the mariner a curious stone monument, known as Nix's Mate. It was
here the colonists used to hang the pirates caught on the New England
coasts. Upon Deer and Rainsford Islands are hospitals and
reformatories, and upon Thompson's Island, which is fantastically
shaped like an unfledged chicken, is an asylum and farm-school for
indigent boys. Spectacle, Half Moon and Apple Islands received their
names from their shapes.
At the inward, western extremity of the harbor is the pear-shaped
Shawmut peninsula of Boston, having water ways almost all around it.
Upon the one side is South Boston and upon the other Charlestown, the
comparatively narrow intervening water courses of Fort Point Channel
and Charles River being in parts nearly roofed over with bridges, that
grudgingly open their draws to let through the vessels laden with
lumber and coal. To the northeast, upon another peninsula, which
formerly was an island, is East Boston, having Chelsea beyond to the
northward. Towards the west, across the broadened estuary of Charles
River, is Cambridge, this part of the estuary known as the Back Bay
having been largely encroached upon to create more land for the
crowded and spreading city. To the southward are Roxbury and
Dorchester, and to the westward Brookline, Brighton and Somerville.
Upon the Shawmut peninsula, the original city of Boston covered only
seven hundred and eighty-three acres, but by the reclamations this has
been more than doubled. It absorbed Dorchester Neck to enlarge South
Boston; took in Noddle's Island for East Boston; and annexed about all
the other suburbs, so that the city now covers forty-three square
miles. The hills have been partly levelled and the whole face of the
ancient town altered, these improvements and the great changes wrought
by fires obliterating the older narrow and crooked streets, having
thus wrought a complete transformation. The alignments of the colonial
maps can now hardly be recognized, and scarcely a vestige, beyond the
three old burying-grounds and a few buildings, remains of primitive
Boston. When the first settlers coming from Charlestown saw Shawmut or
the Tri-mountain, it seemed to chiefly consist of the three high hills
which they called Copp's, Beacon and Fort Hills, the highest of these,
the Beacon, being itself a sort of tri-mountain, having three
well-developed surmounting little peaks. These, however, were
afterwards cut down, although the massive elevation of Beacon Hill,
whereon the colonists burnt their signal-fires, remains the crowning
glory of the peninsula.