City of Boston City Map Poster

About City of Boston

Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains"—only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7th 1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest for fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to Roxbury and Dorchester by a narrow isthmus.The peninsula is known as Brighton—a former town annexed by Boston in 1804—because its coastal location reminded them of Brighton on Britain's south coast."Boston" became established as both a city and a place name during this period; it was formerly grouped with Kingston (the neighboring town across Jamaica Pond), Roslindale (annexed in 1874), West Roxbury , Hyde Park , Dedham , Canton , Watertown , Newton Upper Falls then Waltham .