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The first meeting-house in Dorchester, a very unpretentious structure of
logs and thatch, was completed in 1631, and no free-holder was allowed
to plant his domicile farther than the distance of half a mile from it,
without special permission of the fathers of the town. It stood near the
intersection of the present Pleasant and Cottage streets, and that
portion of the former highway between Cottage and Stoughton streets is
supposed to have been the first road laid out in the early settlement.
Shortly after, this road was extended to Five Corners in one direction,
and to the marsh, then called the Calf Pasture, in the other. The
present names of these extensions are Pond street and Crescent avenue.
From Five Corners a road was subsequently laid out running, north-east
to a point a little below the Captain William Clapp place, where there
was a gate which closed the entrance to Dorchester Neck, where the
cattle were pastured. It was on this street that Rev. Richard Mather,
the first minister of the town, Roger Williams, of Rhode Island fame,
and other distinguished citizens resided. The next undertaking in the
way of public improvements was the building of two important roads, one
leading to Penny Ferry, thus opening a highway of communication with the
sister Colony at Plymouth; the other leading to Roxbury, Brookline and
Cambridge.
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