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]
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]
In
1836 the city decided to enclose the entire perimeter with iron fence in order
to convert the Common in to a pleasure ground. Accordingly, paths were
straightened and trees planted, malls were created or enhanced, and the frog pond was
turned in to a miniature lake. As generations come and go, and events shape specific times in history, all of these elements from different periods have joined to add and subtract something
from the Common, although it still keeps almost its original size. The iron fence first
commissioned to enclose the pleasure garden was removed and used during World War II. The beautiful fence that once girdled the pleasure ground converted into scrap
iron.[10]
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