The first meeting-house in Dorchester, a very unpretentious structure of logs and thatch, was completed in 1631, and no free-holder was allowed to plant his domicile farther than the distance of half a mile from it, without special permission of the fathers of the town. It stood near the intersection of the present Pleasant and Cottage streets, and that portion of the former highway between Cottage and Stoughton streets is supposed to have been the first road laid out in the early settlement. Shortly after, this road was extended to Five Corners in one direction, and to the marsh, then called the Calf Pasture, in the other. The present names of these extensions are Pond street and Crescent avenue. From Five Corners a road was subsequently laid out running, north-east to a point a little below the Captain William Clapp place, where there was a gate which closed the entrance to Dorchester Neck, where the cattle were pastured. It was on this street that Rev. Richard Mather, the first minister of the town, Roger Williams, of Rhode Island fame, and other distinguished citizens resided. The next undertaking in the way of public improvements was the building of two important roads, one leading to Penny Ferry, thus opening a highway of communication with the sister Colony at Plymouth; the other leading to Roxbury, Brookline and Cambridge. In Josselyn's description of the town soon after its settlement may be read: "Six myles from Braintree lyeth Dorchester, a frontire Town, pleasantly situated and of large extent into the maine land, well watered with two small rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses, ... accounted the greatest town heretofore in New England, but now giving way to Boston." Through what hardships and privations this infant freehold was maintained can be understood by those only, who have read the records of the colonial struggle against a sterile soil, a rigorous climate, grim famine, hostile Indians, and a total lack of all the appliances and comforts of civilization. The years 1631 and 1632 were a period of great distress to the Dorchester farmers, on account of the failure of their crops and supplies of provision, and Captain Clapp wrote concerning it: "Oh! y'e Hunger that many suffered and saw no hope in an Eye of Reason to be Supplied, only by Clams & Muscles, and Fish; and _Bread_ was very Scarce, that sometimes y'e very Crusts of my Fathers Table would have been very sweete vnto me; And when I could have _Meal & Water & Salt_, boyled together, it was so good, who could wish better. And it was not accounted a strange thing in those Days to Drink Water, and to eat _Samp_ or _Homine_ without Butter or Milk. Indeed it would have been a very strange thing to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton, or Veal, tho' it was not long before there was Roast _Goat_."