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    Jamaica Plain
    Jamaica Plain
    Jamaica Plain
    Ebook199 pages40 minutes

    Jamaica Plain

    By Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

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    About this ebook

    Regardless of how the name came to be, many agree that Jamaica Plain is one of the loveliest areas of New England.


    Stories abound as to how Jamaica Plain derived its name; some trace it to the flow of rum shipments to the port of Boston following Oliver Cromwell's seizure of Jamaica in 1660, but whatever the true origin of the name, the area has a rich and colorful history that flows from its rural, pastoral beginnings in the 17th century and into the 21st. Jamaica Plain today is one of Boston's great suburban neighborhoods, but it has not always been connected to the city. Jamaica Plain first became a part of Roxbury, and later West Roxbury, and served as a summer playground for influential Bostonians before becoming part of Boston in 1874. The neighborhood's beauty has been protected by such visionaries as Benjamin Bussey, who bequeathed his estate to Harvard College for what is now the Arnold Arboretum, and Henry A.S. Dearborn, the former mayor of Roxbury who established the Forest Hills Cemetery. Today, the neighborhood is a bustling suburban spot that has preserved its natural beauty and resources.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 29, 2004
    ISBN9781439615539
    Jamaica Plain
    Author

    Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

    Anthony Mitchell Sammarco is a noted historian and author of over sixty books on Boston, its neighborhoods and surrounding cities and towns. He lectures widely on the history and development of his native city.

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      Book preview

      Jamaica Plain - Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

      BPL.)

      Introduction

      Jamaica Plain is today a neighborhood of Boston, but prior to the mid-nineteenth century, it was a part of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and was often referred to as the Jamaica End or Pond Plain area of the town. The issue of the naming of Jamaica Plain is a somewhat ambiguous one, but many credit the derivation to the fact that merchants who lived in the town made their money in Jamaica Rum and consequently had something to do with the name. Asked how they preferred their rum, the merchants are reputed to have replied "Jamaica, plain. That makes for a good story, but the most probable reason the area was named Jamaica Plain was the fact that Oliver Cromwell had seized the island of Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655 and that its rum, sugar, and other products had already found their way to the adjacent port of Boston. Further, the flatness of the land surrounding the pond was referred to as a plain, and the name had evolved by the late 1660s as recorded in the Minutes of the Roxbury Town Records, which states that Hugh Thomas conveyed property for the benefit of a school for the people at the Jamaica end of the town of Roxbury."

      One traveled man who knew this country well in the early nineteenth century said that Jamaica Plain is the Eden of America. However, regardless of how its name evolved, Jamaica Plain is one of the loveliest spots in New England. It abounds in springs and brooks, and its soil, light and gravelly, is easily cultivated. The area remained primarily farmland for the first two centuries after Massachusetts Bay was settled by the Puritans in 1630, but by the early nineteenth century, Jamaica Plain was an attractive area where elegant country seats are delightfully situated on the banks of the lake and elsewhere, and the Plain is dotted with the tasteful cottages of business men, who retire every evening from their avocations in the city to this charming spot.

      Reverend John Eliot, pastor of the Roxbury Meeting House, had bequeathed a75-acre tract of land in 1689 that was to support the school in the area. Now known as the Eliot School on Eliot Street, the bequest stipulated that the school open its doors to all children, white, black, and Native American.

      Incorporated in 1804, today the school offers such courses as sewing, woodworking, upholstery, and gold leafing for all, regardless of their background, in compliance to Eliot’s bequest.

      By the nineteenth century, Jamaica Plain was no longer a country town with wealthy summer residents, such as Governors Sir Francis Bernard and John Hancock, who kept summer houses near Jamaica Pond, but was a greatly changed area. In 1826, the first hourly omnibuses ran from Jamaica Plain to Boston, at a fare of 25¢. The Boston and Providence Railroad line was put through Jamaica Plain in 1834 and spurred the development of the farms and estates. An early development was Glenvale Park, the area laid out in 1848 as Chestnut and Lamartine Streets. William Hyslop Sumner, whose estate was on Sumner Hill, developed the former Greenough estate in the 1850s, with new streets such as Carolina and Greenough Avenues, and Elm, Roanoke, Revere, and Sedgwick Streets. Sumner was the son of Governor Increase Sumner and was the developer in 1833 of East Boston, which was inherited through his mother and acquired the remaining portion from relatives. As a land developer, he was without peer, and his own mansion was on the crest of Roanoke Street, within sight of the railroad tracks, a location that at that time connoted progress, not blight. The railroad had depots, which are perpetuated by the present Stony Brook and Green Street Stations on the Orange Line located on the same sites as the original depots. After the Civil War, horse-drawn streetcars were extended along Washington and Centre Streets, and this transportation led to the influx of new residents who were instrumental in the development of Jamaica Plain as a Streetcar Suburb of Boston.

      After West Roxbury, which included the present neighborhoods of West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain, separated from the City of Roxbury in 1851, the area of Centre and South Streets became the new town’s center. West Roxbury Town Hall, later known as Curtis Hall, was built in 1868 as the center of town government. In 1871, on a triangular park opposite the town hall at the junction

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