a hotel, a theatre, a bank, a lecture-hall, &c. A single lonely white man, the Rev. William Blaxton, a clergyman of the English Church, was then living, with house, orchard, and garden on the slope of the central hill, supposed to have come over in 1623, one of several isolated settlers on the promontories and islands of the bay, called “the old planters.” He invited Winthrop's company to cross the river and build their cabins on his side, because of the purer and more abundant water-springs. On the records of the company we read, that at a court held in Charlestown, September 17 (n.s.), 1630, “It is ordered that Trimountaine shall be called Boston.” This has consequently been the date assumed for the foundation of what is now the present city, and the second centennial of which was commemorated by public civic services, an oration by Josiah Quincy, a former mayor, then president of Harvard University, and a poem by the banker-poet, Charles Sprague. It is not probable that the peninsula was occupied till a month later. Blaxton, not finding the new-comers congenial associates, sold out his rights to them in 1634, and moved elsewhere. It has often been said, and has been widely accepted, that Boston received its name in compliment to the second minister of its first
church, the Rev. John Cotton, formerly vicar of St Botolph's, borough of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. This was not the case. The Rev. John Wilson, of King's College, Cambridge, and of Sudbury, in Suffolk, England, came in Winthrop's company, and was first pastor of the church. Cotton did not arrive till September 4, 1633, three years after the name Boston had been adopted. Undoubtedly the name was chosen in compliment to the much honoured Mr Isaac Johnson, one of the foremost in the enterprise, who with his wife, the Lady Arbella, daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, came with Winthrop in a vessel bearing her name. Johnson was from the English Boston, as were also his associates, Atherton Hough, who had been mayor of the borough, and Thomas Leverett, “ruling elder” of the church, who had been an alderman.
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| Ground-Plan of the City of Boston. |
1. Massachusetts Hospital. 2. State House. 3. Athenæum. 4. Court-House. 5. Faneuil Hall. 6. City Hall. 7. Exchange. 8. Custom House. 9. Bunker's Hill Monument. 10. Insane Hospital. 11. House of Correction. 12. Telegraph Hill (Dorchester Heights) ··················· Low Water mark. – – – – – – 5 Fathom line.
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Some graceful courtesies have been exchanged in recent years between the two cities. The English Boston sent over a copy of her charter, framed in wood from St Botolph's church, and this now hangs in the city hall of the Massachusetts capital; and some descendants of John Cotton, with members of his American Church, through one of their number, Edward Everett, then American minister at the Court of St James's, united in a generous subscription to restore a chapel in St Botolph's, and to erect a monumental tablet in it to the revered teacher.
