Officially, The Freedom Trail begins at the Visitor Information Center in front of Parkman Plaza. Once we start our walk from the Visitor Center, we can choose to follow the red trail directly to the State House, the second official landmark of The Freedom Trail, or we can walk around the Boston Common and see that it has lots to offer. The Boston Common, by virtue of its long history, is an “outdoor stage upon which each generation has enacted the passing dramas of civic life. Upon this stage, each century provides its particular scenes…”[1]
When John Winthrop bought the fifty acres of land from Blaxton, he bought shrub land, a lightly wooded area with probably only a few trees of notable size with the legendary Great Elm among them. On one side, the original sea line, which the course of Charles Street roughly follows, and the Back Bay marshes on the other. Early descriptions of the Common give the account of four separate hills and three ponds, of which only one hill, Flagstaff, and one pond, Frog, are still recognizable.[2]
Nonetheless, although altered by use, the Common is roughly the same configuration as it was when Winthrop purchased the land from Blaxton. “It survives as a relic of an ancient landscape –all that is left of the rural aspect of seventeen-century Boston.”[3]
Early
on, some people thought to sell the Common in plots, but the town responded by
ordering that “…henceforce there shalbe noe land granted eyther for housplott or
garden to any person out of the open ground or Common Field…”.[4]
Furthermore, in 1646, “noe common marish and Pastur Ground shall hereafter bye
gifte or sayle, exchange, or otherwise, be counted unto property without
consent of ye major part of ye inhabitants of ye town”.[5]
Additionally, in 1822, a city charter was created to protect the Common from sale or
encroachment.
The Common was protected by law from being broken up, but not from becoming the Town Dump. Neighbors commonly used the land as an area of disposal, where unwanted items were laid to rest. The damage to the Common was such
that in 1652 a law was passed “making it a criminal offense to treat the Common
as an abattoir waste pile.”[6] In fact, “the
official order enacted in 1652 forbade using the Common as a dumping ground for
“entrails of beasts or fowls, or garbage or carrion, or dead dogs or cats, or
any other dead beast or stinking thing.” [7]
Through
the years, Bostonians have taken steps to improve the landscape at the Common.
John Hancock, for example, planted a row of elms on Beacon Street opposite his
house in 1780 with the last of the elms surviving until 1975.[8]
The Mall with a double row of trees was created along Treemont Street for
afternoon promenades.
Cows
and sheep had the honor to graze on such historical soil until 1830. It is said
that one of the last people to graze his cows on the Common; under strict
orders from his mother, was Ralph Waldo Emerson.[9]
Today, the lonely Charles Street Gate, stands as a remembrance of the five gates that once marked the main entrances to the Boston Common.
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