Beacon Hill

Beacon Hill was among the first settled parts of Boston. In 1625, Reverend William Blaxton, a refugee from a failed colony, settled there alone, and five years later he invited some of the recently arrived Puritans in Massachusetts Bay to share the peninsula because of its excellent springs. By 1634, hundreds of Puritans had taken most of Blaxton’s land, leaving him only 50 acres, much of which he sold to the growing town for Boston Common, where residents pastured livestock, punished transgressors, and held public assemblies. That same year, Governor John Winthrop ordered a beacon placed atop the tallest peak of the original Trimount, giving Beacon Hill its name and intending it to warn of hostile ships, especially those of King Charles I of England. After the American Revolution, Beacon Hill became central to Boston’s rapid growth as the hilltop was carted away for fill, a new State House replaced John Hancock’s estate, wealthy insiders bought land for house lots, gracious townhouses rose along new streets, and Boston Common became a park. The area also became a meeting point for Boston’s major historic routes: the Freedom Trail passes the Massachusetts State House on its way to landmarks of the American Revolution, and the Black Heritage Trail leads to the west side of Beacon Hill, where a thriving nineteenth-century African-American community aided fugitive slaves and supported abolitionist work.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States