The earliest settlement of Europeans at Shawmut was begun in August, 1630, and was at first called Tri-mountain, on account of the three summits then crowning one of the high hills overlooking the harbor, and which, now known as Beacon Hill, bears the imposing State House. On the 7th September, the settlement being then considerably advanced, it was resolved that it should be called Boston, in memory of the city of that name in Lincolnshire, from which many of its inhabitants had come. To complete the early history of Boston, we must add that its site, with all the surrounding country, was claimed by a certain Blackstone, an Englishman, who had long before settled near a “fountain of sweet waters,” which in those days bubbled up somewhere on the present Common. His title as original occupier was considered to be superseded by the royal grant to the Pilgrims, but in many accounts of the matter we find it recorded that in 1635 John Blackstone received £35 for the relinquishment of his “right.” Illustration: (‡ Roger Williams) The foundation of Boston was succeeded by that of many other now famous towns of Massachusetts, and, ten years after the arrival of Conant at Salem, 21,000 emigrants are said to have settled in New England, one and all being Puritans, most of whom had been driven from their homes in their native land by the intolerance of the Government. Among those Puritans, however, were many who were unable to conform to the rigid practices or subscribe to the stern tenets of the Massachusetts churches, and to this fact was due the foundation of the first settlement in the neighboring state of Rhode Island. In 1631, a certain “godly minister,” named Roger Williams, arrived at Boston with his wife, Mary, and, finding the congregation there not entirely to his taste, he repaired to the older community of Salem, and for some little time acted there as assistant preacher, winning much love from the people by his earnest zeal and loving sympathy, but shortly becoming involved in serious trouble with the elders of the church on account of his heretical opinions.