Names, of course, of some kind or other, local, personal, or traditionary, must have been very early used in the settlement, to designate places, paths, and business, as well as persons and things, and most of these have been preserved and remembered. In Drake's collection of local names there are nearly one thousand, including the names of islands, wharves, streets, taverns, &c., and of these only about twenty are mentioned by date prior to 1700, though many of them must have been in use long before that time. In the collection of names made by the city government in 1879, there are about eighteen hundred, not including islands, wharves, or taverns. The earliest dates attached to any of the names is that of the Anchor Tavern, 1661, and of the Alms House on Sentry or Park Street, 1662. In the naming of streets, as in the laying of them out, there appears to have been neither rule, system, or order; but in both matters the action depended upon local circumstances, or some public or personal influence. It is believed that the first movement in laying out the road over the Neck to Roxbury, what is now a portion of Washington Street, was in June, 1636, as follows:-- "It is agreed that there shall be a sufficient foot-way from William Coleburne's field-end unto Samuel Wylebore's field-end next Roxbury, by the surveyors of highways before the last of the next 5th month" (July, 1636). From this it appears that there were at this early period surveyors of highways, and that highways, to some extent, were foot-ways. The foot-way in this case, to be laid out in one month, extended as supposed, from the corner of Boylston Street to the northerly line of Castle Street, that being the northerly end of Boston Neck; and the road or way laid out after this time to Roxbury, was on the easterly side of the present Washington Street, all the way near or on the sea-beach, and probably started from near Beach Street. The next order that we have in relation to the streets, is under date of 1636, 4th, 8 mo., which would be Oct. 4, 1636, and is as follows:-- "At a meeting of the overseers," it was ordered, that "from this day there shall be no house at all be built neare unto any streetes or laynes therein, but with the consent of the overseers, for the avoyding disorderly building to the inconvenience of streetes and laynes and for the more comely and commodious ordering of them, upon the forfeiture of such sume as the overseers shall see fitting." Soon after this, liberty was granted to Deacon Eliot "to set out his barn six or eight feet into the street, at the direction of Colonel Colbron." On the 17th of the same month, October, 1636, a street and lane were laid out, but names were not given to them in the record.