Document · book

The Town of Roxbury: Its Memorable Persons and Places

Francis S. Drake, 1905. Roxbury before annexation, in the words of a man writing while people who remembered it as a town were still alive.

Document

Type

book

Author

Francis S. Drake

Publisher

Boston, Municipal printing office

Published, as stated

1905

Language

en

Media type

text/plain; charset=utf-8

Size

1094113 bytes

Preservation

preserved

Digest (SHA-256)

3036a124364e5f6f5d727fc37b921407ff80535276c70e6e63114becae1e707f

Text

Extracted text, as held. Quoted without alteration.

A i^- : '%0^^ 4j;S f&l ^1v THE TOW]^ OF EOXBUEY MEMORABLE PERSONS AND PLACES HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES, WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ITS OLD LANDMARKS AND NOTED PERSONAGES By FRANCIS sfi)BAKE BOSTON MUNICIPAL PRINTING OFFICE 1905 coprRiGHT : By Francis 8. Drake. A. D. 1878. JUN 18 1906 D. otO. [Document 93. — 1905.] «^v REGISTRY DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF BOSTON" RECOEDS RELATING TO THE EMLY HISTORY OF BOSTON {Formerly called Record Commissioners'' Beports) This volume, which is the thirty-fourth in the series formerly issued under the direction of the Record Commissioners, is reprinted from the original plates purchased from the estate of the late Francis S. Drake, and issued as one of the volumes relating to the early history of Boston. EDWARD W. McGLENEN, City Registrar, Old Court House, Boston. f^■i PREFACE. In the following pages the author's aim has been, while going over the old roads and pointing out their memorable localities, to present whatever of historical interest the annals of the town afford, and also to delineate the manners, customs, mode of life, and other characteristics of the men and women who lived and wrought here in former days, together with such visible memorials of them, their homes, their monuments, etc., as have escaped the ravages of time. In the performance of this task, every available source of information known to him has been drawn upon, and from aged persons, familiar with Roxbury as it was, much has been gleaned that would otherwise have been buried in oblivion. Though without a printing-press, Roxbury has led the van of independent thought, three of her most eminent citizens, by their protests against superstition, and their advocacy of political or religious reforms, having had their writings condemned to the flames by the colonial authorities. She is the mother of towns, as many as fifteen prosperous New England communities, including the flourishing cities of Springfield and Worcester, having been founded or largely settled by her citizens. She can fairly claim to be the banner town of the Revolutionary war, furnishing to it three companies of minute-men at Lexington, one of which was the first that was raised for the defence of American liberty, and having also given birth to three of the generals of the Revolutionary army. She played a prominent part in the siege of Boston, and was greatly injured both by friend and foe. No less than ten of the governors of Massachusetts have been natives or residents of Roxbury. But while this is a record of which she may be justly proud, it is yet iv PREFACE. little to her credit that one must look elsewhere than within her confines, for adequate mementos of John Eliot and Joseph Warren. In the nomenclature of her streets she has done well to remember her founder and principal citizens, but she owes it to herself to perpetuate in the same manner the no less deserving names of Denison, Parke, Bowles, Brewer, Craft, Lamb, Johnson, Bell, Mor- rill, Bugby, Payson, Graves, and Newell. Roxbury was appropriately so named from its most prominent natural characteristic; and no one who venerates its founders, or who cherishes a proper regard for the preservation of its historical or ancestral memories, should ever consent to substitute for it a name no more applicable to it than to many other localities now in- cluded within the city limits.

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Each answer is composed only from fields this record carries, and names the attestation for what it says. A question the record cannot answer from its own attested content is not asked here. Where a boundary is described as official it was promulgated by an authority with the power to draw it and is not amended by anything on the vernacular layer; where it is described as vernacular it is held by attestation alone and amends no official boundary.

Identity

Identifier

urn:lemay:boston:document:the-town-of-roxbury-its-memorable-persons-and-places

Canonical URL

https://boston.fyi/document/the-town-of-roxbury-its-memorable-persons-and-places

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https://boston.fyi/document/the-town-of-roxbury-its-memorable-persons-and-places.json

Version

1 · last changed 5 September 2026