Dorchester is the largest neighborhood within the City of Boston located within Suffolk County, Massachusetts. It is now a large and diverse working class community, and is still a center of Irish-American immigration. It is named after the town of Dorchester in England, from which Puritans emigrated.
Neighborhoods within Dorchester include Adams Village, Ashmont Hill, Clam Point, Codman Square, Columbia Point, Edward Everett Square, Fields Corner, Four Corners, Franklin Field, Franklin Hill, Grove Hall, Jones Hill, Lower Mills, Meeting House Hill, Neponset, Popes Hill, Port Norfolk, Savin Hill, and Uphams Corner.
The eastern areas of Dorchester are primarily ethnic white, Irish and Vietnamese, while the western half of the neighborhood is the center of Boston's African-American and Cape Verdean community.
The neighborhood is served by five stations on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Red Line (MBTA) rapid transit service, five stations on the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line commuter rail lines, and various bus routes. Interstate 93 runs north-south through Dorchester between Quincy, Massachusetts and downtown Boston. The Neponset River separates Dorchester from Quincy and Milton.
In the summer of 1614, Captain John Smith of Virginia fame, entered Boston Harbor and landed a boat with eight men on the Dorchester shore, at what was then a narrow peninsula known as Mattapan or Mattahunts, and today is known as South Boston. The city was founded at what is now the intersection of Columbia Road and Massachusetts Avenue in 1630. Columbia Point is home to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and the University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus.
America's first chocolate factory opened in Dorchester, in 1765, and the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory operated there until 1965. Dorchester (in a part now known as South Boston) was also the site of the Battle of Dorchester Heights in 1776, which eventually resulted in the British evacuating Boston. Dorchester was annexed by Boston in pieces, beginning in 1804 and completed in 1870.
In Victorian times, Dorchester became a popular country retreat for Boston elite, and developed into a bedroom community, easily accessible to the city. The mother and grandparents of John F. Kennedy lived in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood while John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was mayor of Boston and Rose Fitzgerald (Kennedy) attended the Girls Latin School in Codman Square.
The oldest home in the City of Boston, the James Blake House, built in 1648, is located in Richardson Square, a few blocks from the Dorchester Historical Society.
Last updated: 08-01-2005 17:49:05
