Urban Nature Walk: Mission Hill
Sep. 27th, 2007 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanThis Sunday I'll be leading an Urban Nature Walk up Mission Hill. This is a very meaningful event for me, because Mission Hill is the first neighborhood I lived in when I moved to Boston 20 years ago. It's where I became an urban person, and where I first developed an appreciation of urban nature. It was on Mission Hill that I had encounters with leopard slugs and Ailanthus trees that led me to make The Urban Pantheist zine, which eventually became this journal.
Behind the cut is a timeline of the history of Mission Hill, from European settlement to the 20th century. I like how the timeline dovetails with the one I wrote for the Stony Brook Reservation walk. I wish I knew a little more about what happened there before 1630 (how did the Natives use the hill?) and in prehistory (how did the hill come to be? most sources call it a drumlin, but it's a solid rock hill).
1630: Roxbury founded by Puritans; Hill is flanked by Muddy River and Stony Brook floodplains. Mainly low-lying areas are settled. 1
1600s-1700s: The Hill was utilized as space for orchards and farms. "Until the Revolution, Parker Hill supported farms and the large country estates of wealthy Boston families. The merchant John Parker occupied the summit." 4
"The McLaughlin Historic Orchard and Playground was once a farm owned by the Parker family in the 1700s. Peter Parker, whose name is synonymous with Spider-man, married Sarah Ruggles, whose family owned large areas of the land including most of what became known as Parker Hill, which later became Mission Hill. If only Parker had his name’s alter-ego’s strength; he was crushed to death by a barrel of his own apple cider." 3
By the mid-1840s, the Boston & Providence Railroad had a stop at Roxbury Crossing, followed a decade later by a horse-drawn bus line from downtown Boston. 4
The first brewery was established at the foot of Parker Hill in the 1820s. By the 1870s beer production was the main industry in Mission Hill, and many breweries lined the Stony Brook. 4
1867 Roxbury Annexed by Boston.
Late 1800's Quarry operates at Tremont and Huntington Streets, cutting Roxbury puddingstone, a unique form of the sedimentary rock conglomerate. Many local stone works are constructed of it.
1871-1878 Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (The Mission), constructed of Roxbury puddingstone, is built, to serve growing population of (mostly) German Catholic immigrants working in brewery industry.
1887 Electric Trolley service runs to Roxbury, further facilitating "suburban" expansion into Mission HIll and surrounding areas.
1906 Harvard Medical School moves to area between Muddy River and Mission Hill, followed by Wentworth in 1911 and Northeastern University in 1938.
online sources
1 Mission Hill: Class project from "The Once and Future City" Professor Anne Whiston Spirn Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003.
http://architecture.mit.edu/class/city/projects03/mission_hill/city.html
2 "Contending with Privileged Influx: Lessons from Boston's Mission HIll" senior thesis submitted to The Growth and Structure of Cities Department of Bryn Mawr College, 2003.
thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/10066/655/1/2004EltonJ.pdf
3 Boston Metro Mission Hill Summer Events Calendar
http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/article/2007/08/20/23/5900-72/index.xml
4 Mission Hill Main Streets: Neighborhood
http://www.missionhillmainstreets.org/neighborhood.html
By the way, my icon is a picture taken from Mission Hill with the skyline behind me.
It's good to be researching and planning a walk again. Life intrudes too much on my life.
On this day in 365 Urban Species: Beggarticks. (Don't worry, it's a plant--probably one you recognize, too.)
Behind the cut is a timeline of the history of Mission Hill, from European settlement to the 20th century. I like how the timeline dovetails with the one I wrote for the Stony Brook Reservation walk. I wish I knew a little more about what happened there before 1630 (how did the Natives use the hill?) and in prehistory (how did the hill come to be? most sources call it a drumlin, but it's a solid rock hill).
1630: Roxbury founded by Puritans; Hill is flanked by Muddy River and Stony Brook floodplains. Mainly low-lying areas are settled. 1
1600s-1700s: The Hill was utilized as space for orchards and farms. "Until the Revolution, Parker Hill supported farms and the large country estates of wealthy Boston families. The merchant John Parker occupied the summit." 4
"The McLaughlin Historic Orchard and Playground was once a farm owned by the Parker family in the 1700s. Peter Parker, whose name is synonymous with Spider-man, married Sarah Ruggles, whose family owned large areas of the land including most of what became known as Parker Hill, which later became Mission Hill. If only Parker had his name’s alter-ego’s strength; he was crushed to death by a barrel of his own apple cider." 3
By the mid-1840s, the Boston & Providence Railroad had a stop at Roxbury Crossing, followed a decade later by a horse-drawn bus line from downtown Boston. 4
The first brewery was established at the foot of Parker Hill in the 1820s. By the 1870s beer production was the main industry in Mission Hill, and many breweries lined the Stony Brook. 4
1867 Roxbury Annexed by Boston.
Late 1800's Quarry operates at Tremont and Huntington Streets, cutting Roxbury puddingstone, a unique form of the sedimentary rock conglomerate. Many local stone works are constructed of it.
1871-1878 Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (The Mission), constructed of Roxbury puddingstone, is built, to serve growing population of (mostly) German Catholic immigrants working in brewery industry.
1887 Electric Trolley service runs to Roxbury, further facilitating "suburban" expansion into Mission HIll and surrounding areas.
1906 Harvard Medical School moves to area between Muddy River and Mission Hill, followed by Wentworth in 1911 and Northeastern University in 1938.
online sources
1 Mission Hill: Class project from "The Once and Future City" Professor Anne Whiston Spirn Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003.
http://architecture.mit.edu/class/city/projects03/mission_hill/city.html
2 "Contending with Privileged Influx: Lessons from Boston's Mission HIll" senior thesis submitted to The Growth and Structure of Cities Department of Bryn Mawr College, 2003.
thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/10066/655/1/2004EltonJ.pdf
3 Boston Metro Mission Hill Summer Events Calendar
http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/article/2007/08/20/23/5900-72/index.xml
4 Mission Hill Main Streets: Neighborhood
http://www.missionhillmainstreets.org/neighborhood.html
By the way, my icon is a picture taken from Mission Hill with the skyline behind me.
It's good to be researching and planning a walk again. Life intrudes too much on my life.
On this day in 365 Urban Species: Beggarticks. (Don't worry, it's a plant--probably one you recognize, too.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 01:49 pm (UTC)I watched some construction that exposed tunnels between two factories at the foot of the hill. Some research revealed that it was a brining plant during prohibition. I have no proof, but I like to think the tunnels facilitated bootlegging.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 02:06 pm (UTC)One of the last holdouts was Haffenreffer, which had a brewery down in Jamaica Plain. Decades after they moved out, Sam Adams' brewery moved in. Click on the timelines link to see the Stony Brook timeline that talks about that some. Also the source of water for the breweries--the Stony Brook--was culverted and made into a sewer.