"When many most Godly and Religious People that Dissented from y'e way of worship then Established by Law in y'e Realm of England, in y'e Reign of King Charles y'e first, being denied y'e free exercise of Religion after y'e manner they professed according to y'e light of God's Word and their own consciences, did under y'e Incouragment of a Charter Granted by y'e S'd King, Charles, in y'e Fourth Year of his Reign, A.D. 1628, Remoue themselues & their Families into y'e Colony of y'e Massachusetts Bay in New England, that they might Worship God according to y'e light of their own Consciences, without any burthensome Impositions, which was y'e very motive & cause of their coming; Then it was, that the First Inhabitants of Dorchester came ouer, and were y'e first Company or Church Society that arriued here, next y'e Town of Salem who was one year before them." Nonconformity, then, was the "very motive and cause" which settled Dorchester, the oldest town but one in Puritan New England, and planted there a sturdy yeomanry to whom freedom of conscience was more than home and dearer than life. Nor was this "vast extent of wilderness" to which they succeeded by right of purchase from the heirs of Chickatabat any such narrow area as that of the same name, recently annexed to the city of Boston. It extended from what is now the northern limit of South Boston to within a hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line, thus giving the township a length of about thirty-five miles "as y'e road goethe." The late Ellis Ames, of Canton, a competent authority, says the town "was formerly bounded by Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, Wrentham, Taunton, Bridgewater and Braintree," so that its history is the history of a large part of the towns in Norfolk county and a portion of Bristol. The manner in which the original territory has been gradually reduced is thus told by Mr. Ames: "Milton was set off in 1662; part of Wrentham, in 1724: Stoughton, in 1726; Sharon, in 1765; Foxborough, in 1778; Canton, in 1797; strips were also set off to Dedham, probably, in 1739; and before the whole was annexed, portions of the northern part of the town were set off to Boston, at two several times: in 1804 and in 1855." Since that date another portion has been severed to make the northern quarter of Hyde Park. Honorable John Daggett, the historian of Attleborough, which was then a part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, says there was a dispute concerning the boundary between Dorchester and that town, which was finally settled by a conference of delegates, held at the house of one of his ancestors.