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 Surrounding the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House, Beacon Hill is Boston’s most affluent neighbourhood and is steeped in history and prestige.
The cobbled gas lit streets and tall federal era terraces (or row houses) of Beacon Hill are home to around 10,000 people and represent one of the most expensive square miles of real estate in America. Beacon Hill is Boston’s Belgravia or Ballsbridge, its where Boston’s high society have lived including writers Louisa May Alcott and Silvia Plath, artist John Singleton Copley, architect Charles Bulfinch and patriots and statesmen such as John Hancock, William Prescott and Henry Cabot Lodge.
The area around Beacon Hill was originally owned by Boston’s first European settler; William Blaxton who came here in 1625. He later sold his land to the Puritans, whose leader John Winthrop wanted to build a ‘city upon a hill’ that could stand as a beacon of righteousness.
At the time Beacon Hill was very different to the socialite slope of today. The area was a rugged mass then known as the Trimount, because of it varied peaks. On the western reaches far away enough from the Puritan enclave, the last peak was known as Mount Whoredom for obvious reasons and the cattle pastures stretched into what is now Boston Common.
It wasn’t until the area was chosen as the site of the Charles Bulfinch’s State House in 1798, that it began to take on its more urbane character. The common became a gentle park, the Trimount was cut down to be used as landfill for the Back Bay , while around the State House bow-fronted townhouses were built to house luminaries such as Harrison Gray Otis, Rose Nichols and Daniel Parker, which stand today along Cambridge Street, Mount Vernon Street and Beacon Street.
The houses around Louisburg Square, between Pinckney and Mount Vernon, characterize the style of ‘the hill’ as the area became Boston’s most desirable location from the 19th Century. Around here houses boast decorative porches and flower boxes, while the streets are lit romantically by gas-light. Indeed they are permanently gas lit, after it was decided that it was cheaper to do so than to pay someone to turn each individual one on and off. This was way before the days of carbon footprint consciousness!
Also during the 19th century Beacon Hill became a focal point for the Abolitionist movement and was home to many of Boston’s free African Americans. Boston’s Black Heritage Trail takes in 14 historic sights including the oldest black church in the U.S. the African Meeting House on Smith Court and the Abiel Smith School on Joy Street, the country’s first grammar school for African Americans.
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