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Showing posts from June, 2021

The Boston Common: Parkman Plaza

  As the stone located in front of the Visitor Information Center reads, Parkman Plaza was dedicated to a man named George F. Parkman who was born in 1823 and died September 16, 1908. But who was George F. Parkman?  George Francis Parkman, a member of the Boston Brahmins, never married.  He didn't have any children and his only sister, also childless, died in 1885. Therefore, upon his death, George F. Parkman left nearly all of his estate to the City of Boston, making it one of the largest bequests ever made to the city, a  $5 million fund for the maintenance and improvement of the Boston Common and other public parks. Even though he was a Brahmin and lived a comfortable life, George Francis was a recluse and rarely left the family home at 33 Beacon Street, one of the streets surrounding the Common. George’s mother and sister also lived in reclusion after the horrible death of their father, George Parkman Sr., who was gruesomely killed and...

Boston Common: History

    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 pon...