File:Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston (1900) (14595261228).jpg

Identifier: oldlandmarkshist00drak (find matches)
Title: Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Subjects: Historic buildings -- Massachusetts Boston Boston (Mass.) -- Description and travel
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown, and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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aration of the people, the more weare astonished at the hardihood with which a mere collectionof the yeomanry of the country, without any pretension to thename of an army, sat down before the gates of the town ofBoston, and compelled the haughty Britons to retire from herprofaned temples and ruined hearthstones. A strip of territory lying along the great avenue to the main-land still retains the appellation of The Xeck. Long maythe only battle-ground within our ancient limits preserve thename by which it was known to Winthrop and to Washington.All Boston proper was once styled The Xeck, in distinctionfrom iSToddles Island, Brookline, and other territory includedwithin the jurisdiction. The i)eninsula outgrowing her de-pendencies, the name attached itself to the narrow isthmusconnecting with the mainland. The Xeck may be said to have begun at Beach Street, wherewas its greatest breadth, diminishing to its narrowest point atDover Street, increasing gradually in width to the neighborhood
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THE NECK AND THE FORTIFICATIONS. 419 of Dedham Street, thence expanding in greater proportion tothe line at the present car stables nearly opposite ArnoldStreet. The Xeck, according to its designation in Revolution-ary tunes, was that part lying south of Dover Street. Captain Nathaniel Uring, in his account of his visit to Bos-ton in 1710, printed in London in 1726, says : — The Neck of Land betwixt the city and country is about fortyyards broad, and so low that the sprmg tides sometimes wash theroad, which might, with little charge, be made so strong as not to beforced, there being no way of commg at it by land but over thatNeck. Whether what constituted old Boston was at one time anisland, or was becoming one by the wasting forces of the ele-ments, is an interesting question for geologists. We know thatfor nearly a hundred and fifty years scarcely any change hadtaken place in the appearance of the Neck; but the action ofthe town authorities seems to indicate a fear that its existe

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