Shamut, a word that sounds through history like a belll

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Roxbury and Dorchester and their part in NE History

Roxbury and Dorchester have historic landmarks, from the beginnings of the occupation by the Puritans.

 

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Our Town Formed the Foundation for a Nation: One of Dorchester’s Great Historians Recounts Dorchester’s Early Days and Contribution

When Captain Squebb of the Mary and John unloaded his 140 passengers at Hull, in 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its second group of settlers, the first being Salem about six months before. These jettisoned people made their way by fishing boats to Savin Hill Bay to begin their colony on the land called Mattapan (Metapan) by the Native Americans of the area, but destined to be called Dorchester at the home base of those Puritan adventurers. Inspired by the Reverend John White, they chose to cross the Atlantic and make a new beginning in this new land where they would name their community Dorchester in honor of the pastor, John White who sponsored them and helped them prepare for their new life in a new area which they referred to as “God’s Plantation in the Wilderness.”

Towns are as old as human history, but the democratic form of government which had its beginnings in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was something new in the world. Roger Ludlow, who served as Deputy Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Winthrop, was the man who instituted what has come to be known as the New England Town Meeting on October 8, 1633 - the most democratic process of government known to history. The ancient Greeks exercised the process of democracy, where the word originated, but only one person out of 10 was qualified to vote in the Old World.

Industries in the Town of Dorchester, Massachusetts were notable from its beginnings. Agriculture and fishing began with the arrival of the first settlers. A corn mill, powered by the waterfall in the lower Neponset River, was the first power mill in New England. The first of Dorchester’s three clay pits was opened, and building bricks were made from it in the early years of the colony. Downtown Boston was built from bricks molded and fired near one of Dorchester’s three clay pits.

http://www.dotnews.com/2015/our-town-formed-foundation-nation-one-dorchester-s-great-historians-re

 

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I miss Chicago brick.

 

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English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Company established a group of six villages, including Boston on the Shawmut Peninsula. Three miles south of Boston along the only land route to the peninsula, they founded Roxbury. The original boundaries of the town included the neighborhoods of Mission Hill, West Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain as well as present-day Roxbury.

Roxbury had many resources the colonists were looking for: open farmland, timber and stone for building, and the Stony Brook for water power. Additionally, its location on the only road to Boston gave the town an advantage in transportation and trade and a stategic military position. Roxbury was defined by its rocky hills, drumlins left by a prehistoric glacier. In the area of Roxbury Highlands are many outcroppings of native Roxbury puddingstone, a kind of composite rock used over the centuries in buildings throughout the Boston area.

The town center was located at John Eliot Square, where the first meetinghouse was built in 1632, with its burying ground nearby at the corner of Eustis and Washington streets. Other landmarks form early Roxbury are the three milestones that still mark Centre Street in Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and West Roxbury, recording the distance to downtown Boston. An 18th-century marker, known as the parting stone, is still embedded at the fork of Roxbury and Centre streeets, pointing the ways to Brookline and Dedham.

http://roxburycrossinghistoricaltrust.org/roxbury-massachusetts/a-brief-history-of-roxbury/

By 1670 the physical appearance of Cambridge had changed considerably and was taking on the form it would keep for the next two and one-half centuries. Several public buildings had been erected: a meetinghouse in 1650, a schoolhouse in 1669, a parsonage in 1670 and a new hall for Harvard College (1672-77). Among the civic improvements made were the "Great Bridge" across the Charles River. Built in 1660-62 at Boylston Street, it provided access to Boston via Roxbury.

Got Roxbury puddingstone ? Yes!

http://www.livingplaces.com/MA/Middlesex_County/Cambridge_City.html

Within Roxbury’s 16 square miles, families had lots of growing room. Families were large – 5, 7, 9, 11 children. For the most part, it was the descendants (typically the grandchildren) of these early Puritans who started the Second Parish Church in 1712, and their descendants who became the silver donors.

What makes the donation of silver so remarkable is that silver was real money – it was the only universally accepted medium of exchange in the colonies. The decision to reserve a substantial amount of this precious and highly useful metal for an essentially ceremonial purpose can be taken as a measure of the strength of the donor’s commitment to the sacrament. The wide-spread use of silver communion vessels, with donors’ engraved names, was not only a remembrance of the donor but also a tangible sign that suggests the donor’s likely devotion to the sacrament. [And for those who were small farmers, the silver vessel may have been their only silver object.]

1774, the church was gifted its silver baptismal basin by John Mory.

This was the last gift of silver to the church before the Revolution. It would be another 30 years before the church acquired its next piece of silver – the sixth and final tankard.

April 1775, Roxbury mustered three companies of Minute Men (150 men) who were sent to Lexington. Families of the silver donors of the 1760s were represented among the Minute Men and served in the Continental Army.


1806, the sixth and final tankard was bequeathed by Samuel Cookson

"I saw our 13 pieces of silver in spring 2008, when we went to the MFA to have the silver appraised. I read the engravings of who had gifted it and when, and scanned through the massive catalog of the 1911 MFA exhibit of colonial church silver."

http://www.tparkerchurch.org/about/our-history/silver-stories/

"The silver is stored at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts."