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Home > Boston's Neighborhoods
> Roxbury
Learn more
about your ancestor's neighborhood through the timeline, find more information
in the Further Reading section, or use the links to experience life in
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Timeline
- 1630: September 28, The first Puritan settlers arrive in Roxbury,
led by William Pynchon (1589-1661), three weeks after the founding of
Boston. The town is originally called "Rocksberry." The town
is named after the unique rock outcroppings later called Roxbury puddinstone.
All the other Roxburys in the United States have their origin in Roxbury,
Massachusetts.
- 1632: The first meetinghouse and burial ground are constructed
in John Eliot Square. At this time, Washington, Roxbury, and Warren
Streets and Dudley Square are laid out.
- 1635: Reverend John Eliot (1604-1691) founds the Roxbury Latin
School that later moves to West Roxbury in 1922. The school is the first
preparatory school in the United States. Eliot is known as 'The Apostle
of the Indians' for his efforts to christianize the Native Americans.
- 1639: Roxbury is founded. It is connected to Boston by a thin
strip of land along Washington Street. Originally, the town includes
West Roxbury, Roslindale, Mission Hill, and Jamaica Plain. The town
is a farming and stone mining community in a strategic military position
since it guards the only route into Boston.
- 1720: The Warren House, childhood home to Dr. John Warren (1753-1815),
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Harvard, and his brother General
Joseph Warren (1741-1775), of the Battle of Bunker Hill, is built.
- 1746: The Roxbury Meetinghouse is constructed on Meeting House
or Tory Hill. This hill is later used by General George Washington to
drill troops during the Revolution.
- 1747: The Shirley-Eustis
House is built at 31 Shirley Street for William Shirley (1693-1771),
the English Royal Governor of Massachusetts and commander of British
forces in America. Later, Dr. William Eustis (1753-1825), a former student
of Dr. Joseph Warren, buys the house and lives there while he is Governor
of Massachusetts from 1823 to 1825. The house is designed by Peter Harrison
who also designs King's Chapel, Boston.
- 1750: The Dillaway-Thomas House is built at 183 Roxbury Street
as a parsonage for the First Church of John Eliot Square. Charles Knapp
Dillaway is the headmaster at the Roxbury Latin School when the first
Japanese students come to America.
- 1775: A fort is constructed on Roxbury Highlands during the
Revolution.
- 1800-1850: 1821: The Roxbury Universalist Church is founded
on Guild Row.
- 1828: Nahum Ward founds a candle making plant using horse tallow.
In 1857, his son Francis Jackson Ward (1830-1912), moves the plant and
horse graveyard to his family's land on Spectacle Island.
- 1832: Joseph Sampson Waterman founds what today is the oldest
funeral service business in Boston: J.S. Waterman & Sons-Eastman-Waring.
- 1836: A Greek Revival mansion is built for First Parish Church
deacon Alvah Kittredge Later, it is home to Nathaniel J. Bradlee and
today is the site of the Roxbury Action Program.
- 1839: Horse drawn streetcars provide service to Roxbury.
- 1840s:
The section of Roxbury along the Tidal Flats near the Shirley-Eustis
House becomes a center for poor Irish Immigrants living in shanties
along the flats. An anti-Irish Catholic riot leads to a the killing
of an Irish immigrant on Dudley Street. St. Patrick's Parish Church
is founded on the corner of Hampden and Dudley streets.
- 1848: Simon Willard (1753-1848), considered by some to be the
greatest clock maker in the United States dies. He is famous for tall
encased clocks called Roxbury cases. Also, Mayor Dearborn dedicates
Forest Hills Cemetery in the section of Roxbury by the same name. The
Cemetery is the second is the United States laid out to be a place to
walk and to contemplate nature. Over 150 years, it has become the final
resting place for a number of notable Americans including e.e. cummings,
Eugene O'Neil and Ruby Foo. The Cemetery has notable sculpture from
the late 19th century by William Chester French.
- 1851:
Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury form their own town, withdrawing from
the city of Roxbury.
- 1856: Louis Prang
(1824-1909), after fleeing Germany during the failed uprising of 1848,
introduces chromolithography which allows oil paintings to be reproduced.
In 1875, Prang prints the first Christmas card in the United States.
- 1857: Henry and Jacob Pfaff found the H & J Pfaff Brewing Company
on Pynchon Street (now Columbus Avenue). There, many German and later
Irish workers brew lager beer.
- 1867: Roxbury is annexed to Boston.
- 1869: Cochituate Stand Pipe is constructed on Fort Hill for
water storage. Fort Hill is the site of an impressive defensive fort
during the Siege of Boston in 1776. In 1895, Frederick Law Olmsted designs
a park around the structure which becomes an observation tower in 1906.
- 1871: The Hotel Dartmouth is built on Washington and Dudley
and today is a historic landmark.
- 1872: Aaron Davis William's house is built at 300 Walnut Avenue.
Today, it is the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.
- 1873: The Fellows Athenaeum is built on Millmont and Lambert
Streets. Captain Caleb Fellows (1771-1852) funds the 5,700 book library
in his will. Today, the library is part of the Dudley Street Branch
Library of the Boston Public Library.
- 1876: Andrew Jackson Houghton (1827-1901) founds the A.J. Houghton
Company which brews Vienna and Pavonia style beer on Station Street.
- 1877: Charles Follen Adams (1842-1918) publishes Leedle
Yawcob Strauss, a book of popular German stories written from his
home on Waverley Street.
- 1885: The city's largest park, Franklin Park (527 acres), is
built. It is designed by Frederick
Law Olmsted as the final link in his 2,000 acre Emerald Necklace.
The Franklin Park Zoo is a major component of the park.
- 1886: A flood swamps the town in three feet of water.
- 1888: All Souls' Unitarian Church is built on Warren and Elm
Hill Avenue. Today, it is home of the Charles Street African Methodist
Church (originally formed on Beacon Hill in 1833).
- 1891: The Roxbury Presbyterian Church is built on Warren and Waverley.
- 1894: The first Jewish temple in Roxbury, Agudas Achem (Intervale
Street Synagogue), is built.
- 1898: The Mishkan Tefila Temple is built.
- 1900: Saint Monica's, a house for elderly African-Americans,
moves into Rockledge, a building on Highland Street that once belonged
to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879).
- 1901: Saint Hugh's Church is built on Blue Hill Avenue.
- 1903:
Booker T. Washington comes to the Columbus Avenue African Methodist
Episcopal Zion church to address the Boston chapter of the National
Negro Business League. William Monroe Trotter disrupts the meeting seeing
Washington's strategy as too passive in the face attacks on African-Americans
in the South. It is a formative event in the development of the NAACP.
- 1906: The Adath Jeshuran Jewish temple is built on Blue Hill
Avenue.
- 1908: The Shaare Tefilo (Otisfield Street Synagogue) is constructed.
- 1909: Edward Everett
Hale (1822-1909), pastor of the South Congregational Church in Boston,
dies. The respected author and philanthropist lived at 39 Highland Street
in a Greek Revival mansion during his lifetime.
- 1913: The Beth Hamidrash Hagadol (Crawford Street Synagogue)
is built.
- 1915: Nusach Sfard (Lawrence Avenue Synagogue) is built.
- 1918: Louis Epstein is elected as the Rabbi of Beth Hamidrash
Hagadol, three years after the congregation forms the Crawford Street
Synagogue in Roxbury.
- 1920: Hebrew College is founded on 14 Crawford Street in Roxbury
by the Bureau of Jewish Education in Boston.
- 1923: The Swedish Lutheran Emmanuel (now Resurrection Lutheran)
Church is built on Warren Street.
- 1930s:
Malcolm Little, later Malcolm X, lives in his sister's house while a
teenager on Dale St.
- 1932: The Horace Mann School for the Deaf is built on Kearsage
Avenue and named for the man who brought the need for schools for the
deaf to the attention of the public. Today the building is home to the
Phillis Wheatley Middle School, named after the African-American slave
of John Wheatley. Phillis
Wheatley (c1753-1784) published a book of poems called Poems
on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773.
- 1940-1950s: African-Americans who live in "Lower Roxbury,"
a part of the South End, begin to move to Elm Hill "Sugar Hill" replacing
the Jewish community. Roxbury receives an influx of Southern African-Americans
during and after World War II who work in the new defense plants like
Raytheon in Newton.
- 1950:
Martin Luther King, Jr, while a theological student at Boston University
preaches at the 12th Baptist Church on Warren St.
- 1963-1969:
Roxbury is one of the neighborhoods targeted by the Boston Redevelopment
Authority for urban renewal. A number of new streets are built, including
Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.
- 1967:
After welfare protesters are removed by Police from the Grove Hall welfare
office, a riot begins and some of the stores in Grove Hall are burned.
Two nights of riots lead to a heavy police presence.
- 1969: The Trotter School on Humboldt Avenue is named after
William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934),
the first African-American Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard graduate, founder
of the Niagra Movement for African-American rights, and editor of African-American
newspaper The Guardian.
- 1973:
Roxbury Community College opens in the old Chevy Dealership in Grove
Hall. Later it moves to 424 Dudley Street and in 1988 moves into its
permanent home on Columbus Avenue.
- 1985:
Black Bostonians vote on a referendum to secede from Boston and to form
their own city, with Roxbury as a principal part of the new city. The
city would be called Mandela. It is voted down.
Further Reading
- Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. Roxbury. Images of America Series.
Dover, NH: Arcadia, 1997.
- Roxbury. The Boston 200 Neighborhood History Series. Boston:
Boston 200 Corporation, 1976.
Links
- Events
- Roxbury
Highlands Historical Society
- Roxbury
Historical Society
- Restaurants
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