"
Since that date another portion has been severed to make the northern
quarter of Hyde Park. Honorable John Daggett, the historian of
Attleborough, which was then a part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, says
there was a dispute concerning the boundary between Dorchester and that
town, which was finally settled by a conference of delegates, held at
the house of one of his ancestors.
Why those "most Godly and Religious People" chose to settle where they
did rather than on the Charles river, as at first intended, Mr. Blake
proceeds to tell us in his annals. He says they made the voyage from
England to New England in a vessel of four hundred tons, commanded by
Captain Squeb, and that they had "preaching or expounding of the
Scriptures every day of their passage, performed by Ministers." Contrary
to their desires, the ship discharged them and their goods at Nantasket,
but they procured a boat in which part of the company rowed into Boston
harbor and up the Charles river, "until it became narrow and shallow,"
when they went ashore at a point in the present village of Watertown.
But after exploring the open lands about Boston, they finally made
choice of a neck of land "joyning to a place called by y'e Indians
Mattapan," because it formed a natural inclosure for the cattle they had
brought with them, and which, if turned into the open land, would be
liable to stray and be lost.
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