Dorchester, Boston

“ Up to this time Dorchester was the largest town in the colony, but dissatisfaction arose with the location (Boston had a better one chiefly on account of the deeper water in its harbour) , and in 1635–1637 many of the original settlers removed to the valley of the Connecticut where they planted Windsor. New settlers, however, arrived at Dorchester and in 1639 that town established a school supported by a public tax; this was the first free school in America supported by direct taxation or assessment on the inhabitants of a town. ”

“ A walk, shaded by oak, elm, and maple trees, leads to the dwelling on a slight elevation, which commands an extended and beautiful view of Boston and the bay. We were received by the friendly owner in an extremely obliging and hospitable manner. We rode through a romantic part of the country to Dorchester, to visit General Sumner at his country seat, but did not find him at home. We then returned by another handsome road to Boston, and passed a large rope manufactory, the works of which were moved by steam. ”

“ The growing lad walked out to Dorchester every Saturday night to spend Sunday at home and attend divine service in the “Dorchester Old Meeting-House,” the same in which I first saw and heard Edward Everett Hale, over forty years later. The youth arose, in all weathers, before the sun on Monday morning in order to be at his place of business at seven o’clock. When he was sixteen, his employer removed to Richmond, Virginia, and took his favorite clerk with him. From Boston to the capital of the Old Dominion was then a fortnight’s journey by the quickest mode of travel. ”

“ Expulsion was the purpose of the rallying people.
General Gage fortified Boston Neck as early as 1774, and the First Continental Congress had promptly assured Massachusetts of its sympathy with her solemn protest against that act. It was also the intention of General Gage to fortify Dorchester Heights. Early in April, a British council of war, in which Clinton, Burgoyne, and Percy took part, unanimously advised the immediate occupation of Dorchester, as both indispensable to the protection of the shipping, and as assurance of access to the country for indispensable supplies. ”

“ A ridge, with an average height of about 100 ft. above the sea, extends through the district from N. to S. and commands delightful views of Boston Bay to the E. and of the Blue Hills to the S. There are many large private estates, with beautiful lawns, and Franklin Field and Franklin Park, one of the largest parks of the Boston park system, are in Dorchester. The Shawmut school for girls is in the district. ”

“ Before we start down the Old Coast Road it may be enlightening to get a bird's-eye glimpse of it actually as we have historically, and for such a glimpse there is no better place than on the topmost balcony of the Soldier's Monument on Dorchester Heights. The trip to Dorchester Heights, in South Boston, is, through whatever environs one approaches it, far from attractive. ”

“ The sea which surrounds Boston comes on both sides of it. It is well seatted, for the Body of the Towne lyeth on both sides a small Rivolet of water. There are many considerable ffarmes belonging to it, and by Farmeing is there most subsistance.
Dorchester.—Two miles near east from this Towne lyeth Dorchester, which claimes the third dignity as being ye third Towne setled by the English in the year 1630. They are a very industrious people, and have large bounds on wch are many gallant Farmes, by these bounds runes the Massachusets River. ”

“ Boston, at the present time, includes South Boston (formerly Dorchester) , East Boston (formerly Noddle’s Island) , Dorchester, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Charlestown, and within this territory there are now over 2,650 streets, squares, avenues, places, courts, &c., and 225 wharves, twenty-nine of which are in Charlestown District. Public halls in Boston, 119, and the number of these is increasing. ”

“ For eight years they remained the only successful colony in New England. Then came the memorable movement of Puritans out of Old England into New England, beginning with the little settlement at Salem, under John Endicott; expanding next year into the "Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay"; founding Dorchester, Roxbury, Charlestown, Watertown, and Boston, in 1630, and rapidly possessing and putting the stamp of the stern, strong Puritan character on the whole section of America which it planted with towns. ”

“ Dorchester was the residence of Captain Israel Stoughton, and Watertown the residence of Richard Brown and John Oldham, all three of whom had been under the ban of the orthodox Puritan church. At Watertown also had sprung up the first decided opposition to the aristocratic claim of the court of assistants to lay taxes on the people. As for Newtown (now Cambridge) , its inhabitants could not forget that, though selected in the first instance as the capital of the colony, it had afterwards been discarded for the town of Boston. ”

“ When the Institution for the Blind was moved to South Boston, Ward twelve was more highly esteemed as a place of residence than it is now. A peninsula connected with the mainland only by Dorchester Neck, it enjoys the full sweep of the famous Boston east wind. Hence it is cool in summer, and the extended shore gives opportunities for sea-bathing. One of the sad memories of my childhood is the booming of cannon fired in the hope of bringing to the surface the bodies of those who had been drowned while bathing. ”

“ Until the middle of the Nineteenth Century the population was still largely confined to the peninsula. After that period the population began to spread out into Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and of late years has turned to Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brighton. Boston proper contains now less than a third of the total population, business buildings crowding out dwellings. What was once the most fashionable quarter—the North End—has become the business section of the city, and is partly taken up with the dwellings of the poorer, largely immigrant people. ”

“ I feel disappointed. This day our militia are all returning without effecting any thing more than taking possession of Dorchester Hill. I hope it is wise and just, but, from all the muster and stir, I hoped and expected more important and decisive scenes. I would not have suffered all I have for two such hills.” The British soon afterwards evacuated Boston, and Massachusetts never again became the theatre of war.
In 1778, the fortitude of Mrs. Adams received a new trial. Her husband was appointed one of the commissioners at the court of France. The sea was covered with the enemy’s ships ”

“ In February liberal supplies of arms and ammunition reached him. There came also ten regiments of militia. Washington was now strong enough to take a step.
To the south of Boston city lie the Heights of Dorchester. If the Americans can seize and hold these heights, the English must quit Boston. The night of the 4th of March was fixed for the enterprise. A heavy fire of artillery occupied the attention of the enemy. By the light of an unclouded moon a strong working-party took their way to Dorchester Heights. ”

“ His antiquarian researches acquired him the name of Arch Druid.
1776. The Americans took possession of Dorchester heights, which were so far completed by day light as to excite the astonishment of the British, and render their position in Boston extremely hazardous. ”

“ So that it may be said, the city proper to-day stands consolidated on one side of the ancient neck with Roxbury and Dorchester, and on the other with Roxbury and Brookline. There still remain, however, a section of Charles River, forming a bay of itself, between Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, and a considerable portion of the South Bay between Roxbury and South Boston. Brookline—originally Muddy Brook—was formerly considered as belonging to Boston, and its lands were apportioned among the early settlers of the town for agricultural purposes and the keeping of cattle. ”

“ But when the news of his evil designs had first reached Boston the people of the infant colony showed no readiness to yield to intimidation. In their measures there was a decided smack of what was to be realized a hundred and forty years later. Orders were immediately issued for fortifying Castle Island in the harbour and the heights at Charlestown and Dorchester. Militia companies were put in training, and a beacon was set up on the highest hill in Boston, to give prompt notice to all the surrounding country of any approaching enemy. ”

“ ORDERED, That during the period January 1 to August 31, 1920, or during such portion thereof as the Dorchester High School is conducted on the two-platoon system, the head master of that school shall be paid at the rate of three hundred dollars ($300) per annum in addition to the regular salary of his rank. ”

“ No, modern Dorchester is not like that, and its chief features—the noble elm avenues, that struck the traveller by road into and out of the town with admiration—have had their exquisite nobility qualified by time and change. ”

“ It has been said that the Dorchester in the Wessex novels had no suburbs; the North Street ended abruptly in a mill by the river; the South Street came to an end in a cornfield—but these bounds have been leaped over in several places, and to-day the east, or Fordington side of the town (Mr. Hardy’s Durnover) alone remains unchanged ”

“ As the tourist must have a centre, a starting-off place for his various excursions, the visitor to the Hardy country cannot do better than make his headquarters at Dorchester, the Durnovaria of the Romans and the "Casterbridge" of the novels.
Alighting at either of the railway stations, for the town is well served by both the Great Western and the South Western Companies, the visitor who has learned that Dorchester occupies the site of an important town of the Romans will probably receive a shock at the prevailing note of modernity that confronts him on every side. ”

“ Attendant modern churches and chapels, and the Town Hall, with spires, act as satellites. To the right hand, rising bulky from the huddled mass of houses, is a grey building which but a little experience of touring in England identifies without need of inquiry as the gaol.
Dorchester, figuring as the “Casterbridge” of that mayor whose surprising history is set forth in that powerful story, bulks large in the whole series of Wessex novels—as how could it fail of doing, seeing that the novelist himself was born at Upper Bockhampton, only three miles away? ”

“ He and my mother saw, from Maumbury, about 1832, the Princess Victoria with her mother, passing in their carriage on the way to Weymouth. My brother, since 1880 Bishop in Mid-China, recalls the bringing into the town, in carts, about 1834, of loads of saplings sent to be planted along the London Road; and a noble avenue they made, which now, alas! is no more than a relic of itself.
I just remember the days of the stage coaches in Dorchester. I see the old Emerald still, and hear the bugle of the guard. In 1852 I travelled by coach to Dorchester from Bath. ”

“ It is said that he tore down the walls, but this, almost for certain, was not so; they were too massive to be wrecked without long labour, which the rovers would not care to spend; and there is large evidence for their existence far into the seventeenth century. However, Danish fire and sword must have left the town black and blood-stained within its ramparts. Half a century later, under the Confessor, Dorchester counted 172 houses; the number is recorded in Domesday Book (1085-6) as large, in contrast to the eighty-eight at the date of the survey. ”

“ Our American cousins, who make their pilgrimage to the Hardy country in ever-increasing numbers, may be glad to be reminded that it was in the environs of this Dorset Dorchester that John Lothrop Motley, the celebrated historian, made his English home, he having been born, curiously enough, in the younger Dorchester of Massachusetts. ”

“ Osric rose; put on his tunic over a coat of light chain mail; girded his sword to his side; put on a leathern cap, padded inside with steel, for in those days prudent men never travelled unarmed; then he bade Judith farewell, and started for Dorchester, making for the Synodune Hills, beyond which well-known landmarks Dorchester lay, and beneath the hills was a ford across the Thames. ”

“ All the incidents in Dorchester’s history seem insignificant beside the tremendous melodrama of the ‘Bloody Assize.’ The stranger has eyes and ears for little else than the story of that terrible time, and longs to see the Court where Jeffreys sat, mad with drink and disease, and sentenced the unhappy prisoners to floggings, slavery, or death. ”

“ Dorchester is surrounded by chalk uplands, and it is, no doubt, because there were few forests to clear that the entire neighbourhood is remarkable for its Roman and British remains. The trees around the town have fortunately been sedulously planted and preserved, and the avenues of sycamores and chestnuts on the site of the old rampart have somewhat of a Continental character. The well-defined remains of ancient camps are numerous on the slopes overlooking the Frome, Maiden Castle and the Roman amphitheatre being wonderfully perfect in their typical character. ”

“ A decade later Miss Burney (Mme. D’Arblay) gives a lively picture of Dorchester as she saw it when travelling in [Pg 151] the suite of George III. to Weymouth: “The city had so antique an air, I longed to investigate its old buildings. The houses have the most ancient appearance of any that are inhabited that I have happened to see; and inhabited they were indeed! There was an amazing quantity of indigenous residers—old women and young children,” who, as she shrewdly remarks, could not have come in from a distance, and so formed an index of population. ”