Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
History
Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880
Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
Boston (Mass.) -- Description and travel; Boston (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Dr. Shurtleff, in his "Topographical and Historical Description of
Boston," enumerates five fields as follows, and speaks of them as
ungranted lands: "The land around Copps' Hill, was known as the Mylne
Field, or Mill Field; that around Fort Hill, the Fort Field; that at the
Neck, the Neck Field, or the Field towards Roxbury; that where Beacon Hill
Place now is, Centry Hill Field, and that west of Lynde Street, and north
of Cambridge, the New Mill Field, or the New Field." And to show that
these were not waste lands or pastures, the writer enumerates the various
pastures for cattle, besides the privileges at Muddy Brook and
Winnisimmet, as follows: "Besides the fields there were many pastures, so
called: Christopher Stanley's was at the North End, covering the region of
North Bennet Street, between Hanover and Salem Streets; Buttolph's was
south of Cambridge Street; Tucker's, in the neighborhood of Lyman Street;
Rowe's, east of Rowe Street; Wheeler's, where the southerly end of Chauncy
Street is; Atkinson's, where Atkinson Street was a few years ago, and
where Congress Street now is." And besides these he names Leverett's on
Leverett Street; Middlecott's on Bowdoin Street; another on Winter and
Tremont Streets, and, as he says, "a very large number of other great
lots."
And strange to say, in all this history, contemporary or modern, in only a
single instance, so far as we know, are these fields or any one of them
spoken of as a "cornfielde," and that is in the order of 1636, above
quoted. There is, however, one other reference to them made, in 1657, in
the body of instructions prepared for the selectmen to guide them in the
discharge of their duties: "Relying on your wisdom and care in seeking the
good of the town, we recommend that you cause to be executed all the
orders of the town which you have on the records," &c., "as found in the
printed laws under the titles Townships, Freeman, Highways, Small Causes,
Indians, Cornfields," &c., which would assuredly show that there were
cornfields in the town, distinct from pastures or waste lands, undoubtedly
laid out and divided among the people, as already indicated, for their
special cultivation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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