The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-07-10

G2 A| a. G% ZITG
and Milk streets, where is now the old South
Meeting house, and this was early called Corn
hill. Soon, however, a further advance was made
to Summer, this extension later being called
Marlborough street, in commemoration of the VIC
tory of Blenheim. In a few years a third street
was added, toward Essex and Boylston streets
named Newbury The sea then came up in the
Great cove from the harbor fairly close TO the
present square of State street, for high'Water
mark was at the present Kilby street on the
South side and Merchants row on the North side
The Great cove swept inside of these streets.
Merchants row followed the shore northward TO
a smaller cove, stretching from Where Is NO"
North Market street and the Quincy market (lne
first Mayor Quincy's monument and over the
site of Faneuil hall to Dock square, which De-
came the Town dock. Other pioneer highways
were the nucleus of the present fremont street,
originally running along the northeastern spurs
of the then broad-spreading Beacon nil ana pass
ing through the Common; Hanover street. at Hrst
a narrow lane. from what is now Scollay square,
and Ann. afterward North street, from DOCK
souare. both leading to the ferries by Copps MILL
where tradition says the Indians had their Terry
Court street was first Prison lane, from the Mar
ket place to the prison, a gruesome uuuseoh'
early set up, where now stands the modern CIy
Hall annex. In its day It harbored pirates anu
ouakers, and Hawthorne fancied it for the open
ing scenes of his Scarlet Letter. School street
took its name from the first schoolhouse and the
first school, whence sprang the Boston Lalh
school. which f~elicitates itself that it antedates
the university at Cambridge and "dandleu mar
ward college on its knee" Milk street, hrst fort
lane" was the first way to Fort hill on the narDor
front Summer street, first "Mylne lane LED TO
"Vidow Tuthilps Windmill" near where was
Church Green, up to which the water came
Cow lane now High street, led from Church
Green. or Mill lane, to the foot OF Fort hill. Essex
street was originally at its eastern END part Oh
the first cartway to the Neck and HoXpury, d
beach road that ran along the south shore OF the
south cove. another expansive indentation, ex-
tending from the harbor on the south side OF
Fort Hill to the Neck. Boylston street, originally
Frog lane and holding fast to this bucohc ap'
relation into the nineteenth century was a
swampy way running westward along the soutn
side of Boston Common toward the open Back bay
the back basin of the Charles-then flowing up
to a pebbly beach at the Commons western edge
and to the present Park square.
Here, then, on the levels about the Great cove,
in the form of a crescent, facing the sea and
backed by the three-peaked hill, the town was
established.
The first occupation was within the scant ter
ritory bounded, generally speaking, on the east
side by State street at the high-water line of
the Great cove; n%ortherly by Merchants row
around to near the site of Faneuil hall; north
westerly by Dock square and Hanover street;
westerly by the great hill and fremont street;
southerly by School and Milk streets; and Milk
street again to the water, then working up toward
the present Liberty square at the junction of
Kilby, water and Batterymarch streets. Soon,
however, the limits expanded, reaching southwark
to Summer street, and not long after to Essex
and Boylston streets; eastward, to the harbor
front at and around Fort hill; westward and
northwestward, about another broad cove-this
the North cove, later the Mill cove with busy
mills about it, an indentation on the north Of
Beacon hill by the widening of the Charles river
- "a -zo-4I --l &A-Artz- AI4 nnaAn -nuv Io-
market square; and northward, over the pc.
ninsula's north end, which early became the seat
of %gentility.
No further expansion of moment was made
through the colony period, and the extension was
slight during the Province period. Beacon hill,
except its slopes, remained till after the Revolu-
ton in it's primitive state, it's long western reach
a place of pastures over which the cows roamed,
and the barberry and the wild rose grew.
The foot of the Common on the margin of the
glinting Back bay was the towns west boundary
till after the Revolution and into the nineteenth
century. Till then the tide of the Back bay
flowed up the present Beacon street, some 200
feet above the present Charles street. The towns
southern limit, except a few houses toward the
Neck on the fourth link of the highway to Rox-
bury (called Orange street in honor of the house
or Orange), was still Essex and Boylston streets.
The one landway to the mainland, till after the
second decade of the nineteenth century, remained
the long, lean NECK 10 hoXDury. Inc only water
way, at the beginning of the town, was by means
of ships. boats, afterward by scows. No bridge
from Boston was built till the Revolution was two
years past.
So the 'storied town" remained, till the close
of the historic chapter, a little one, the builtup
territory of which could easily be covered in a
stroll of a day or two.
From its establishment as the capital Boston's
history was so interviewer with that of the Colony
that in England the Colony came early to be desig.
mated the "Bostoneers," and the charter which
the founders brought with them, and for the
retention of which the colonists we're in an
almost constant struggle, was termed the "Bos,
ton Charter"