Ere long this peninsula came to be thought the fittest site for the erection of a colonial capital, and the 17th of September, 1630, was formally set apart as the date of its settlement.[702] The spot was then called _Shawmut_,[703] and it was picturesquely seated on a surface which swelled into rising grounds of considerable height, which have since become famous as Copp’s hill, Fort hill, and Beacon hill.[704] Rome sits upon seven hills; Boston is a trimountain city. Why was it called Boston? Because Boston in England, a prominent town in Lincolnshire, some five score miles north of London, had played no inconsiderable part in the drama of this colonization, giving to the enterprise some of its chiefest pillars, among others, Dudley, and Bellingham, and Leverett, and Coddington.[705] The grateful Pilgrims thought that they owed the old English city a recognition and a tribute; so they gave to their capital the familiar name of _Boston_.[706] Shawmut had an occupant previous to its hasty adoption by the deserters from Cambridge. William Blackstone, who had come over with Endicott, found himself cramped even in sparsely-settled Salem; so he pushed on to Shawmut neck and became sole proprietor of the whole peninsula, which was afterwards bought of him. Here he lived ten years, and saw the foundations of society laid. He was an eccentric character; and though an ordained clergyman of the English church, he had Puritan proclivities. As he had been pinched at home by conformity laws, he had exiled himself that he might secure elbow-room for his sentiments. But he loved liberty so well that he never would unite with the New England church. “No, no,” he always replied, when solicited to do so, “I came from England because I did not like the lord-bishops; and I cannot join you, because I would not be under the lord brethren.”[707] The Pilgrims went to work in Boston with a will. Winter impended; a shelter must be provided against the December sleet and the chilly braw. But the task was hard; the _vis inertiæ_ of nature was to be overcome; and, without tools, carts, or experienced joiners, all hands began to realize that the carpenter was not inferior to the priest or the poet.[708] Some few grew discouraged. Of the seven hundred whom Winthrop brought out, ninety went back to England.[709] But this gap was soon closed by fresh arrivals. Quite a fleet lay moored in Massachusetts bay; from Beacon hill seventeen ships might have been counted, all of which came in 1630;[710] and these had disgorged some fifteen hundred earnest, devout emigrants, “the best” that Britain could produce.[711]