17th Century Archives

Before Boston: Early Englishmen on the Bay (episode 360)

Before John Winthrop’s Puritan Arbella fleet made landfall in 1630 and set the standard narrative of Massachusetts Bay, a rowdy and disparate cast of English traders, eccentric recluses, and ill-fated opportunists was already carving out a precarious presence around Boston Harbor. In the decade before the Puritans named the colony they laid claim to “Massachusetts Bay,” the shores of the Bay were shaped by European fishing fleets, catastrophic epidemics that devastated indigenous communities, and early, mostly-failed attempts at permanent English habitation. From the ill-fated commercial colony at Wessagussett to Thomas Morton’s egalitarian “consociates” at Merrymount, these early experiments tested the bounds of survival, trade, and diplomacy on the Shawmut peninsula.

In this episode, we step back before the founding date on the city seal to explore the forgotten decades of pre-Puritan English settlement. We will trace how early figures like Samuel Maverick at Winnisimmet and William Blaxton at Shawmut established their lonely outposts, navigate the tangled land claims created by competing charters, and examine the grim realities of early European impact on the region’s indigenous nations.

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Warning Out in early New England, with Jonathan Beecher Field (episode 359)

In this episode, Clemson professor Jonathan Beecher Field helps us explore the history of poor support in early New England and the surprising practice known as “warning out.” In the 17th- and 18th-century, Boston and other New England towns tied public relief strictly to legal inhabitancy, a status similar to the modern concept of birthright citizenship, but on a hyperlocal level. Those without established local ties or the financial capital to post a cash bond were routinely “warned out,” given two weeks to leave, and escorted beyond town borders to prevent them from becoming a financial burden on the town and its residents.

The conversation draws parallels between early colonial policies and modern approaches to poverty, examining how historical residency restrictions rhyme with contemporary anti-homeless architecture, municipal sweeps, and broader debates over who deserves social support. From the systemic exclusion of Black and Indigenous residents to the way early New Englanders decided who was deserving of poor support and who deserved to be warned out, Professor Field’s research reveals how early New England town structures and Calvinist mindsets mirrored and continue to shape our modern attitudes toward poverty, displacement, and public responsibility.

Continue reading Warning Out in early New England, with Jonathan Beecher Field (episode 359)

Boston’s 17th Century Interstate System (episode 352)

America’s first “interstate” highway was built to link Boston to New York City. The 17th century Boston Post Road is often overlooked in the city’s early history, but it marked the earliest and one of the most ambitious attempts to knit the fragmented English colonies of North America into a single, cohesive entity. From Boston’s first post office, which accepted only overseas letters, to the post riders who braved “mountainous passages” and roaring rivers, this primitive road network was the original interstate, forged not just for convenience, but for the survival of the British colonial project.

In this episode, we’ll explore how the Boston Post Road evolved from an indigenous trade route into the King’s best highway, a crucial artery for colonial and early federal correspondence. We’ll trace the routes of the upper Post Road through the wilderness of Central Massachusetts and Connecticut and the coastal lower Post Road that shaped the roads and transportation networks of modern New England. Along the way, we’ll uncover the stories of the people who marked the miles, from wealthy landowners like Paul Dudley, to determined travelers like Madam Sarah Kemble Knight, to George Washington, who arrived in Boston for his first official visit as President along the Post Road.

Continue reading Boston’s 17th Century Interstate System (episode 352)

John Winthrop and the First Sinful Fork in America (episode 328)

Instead of the 250th anniversary of an event from the American Revolution in Boston, we’re rewinding the clock 392 years to the spring of 1633, when the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony was given the first fork in America. We’re going to explore why forks were unknown in Boston at that time, and indeed why they were unfamiliar in England until just a few years before. We’ll talk about why it took Boston over 100 years to fully embrace the idea of eating food with a fork, including changes to 17th century table manners and the belief that the fork was an inherently sinful utensil.

Continue reading John Winthrop and the First Sinful Fork in America (episode 328)

Eclipse Fever (episode 298)

Eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the earth during the daytime, briefly blocking the light of the sun from the face of the earth. Over the past few years, observers in the US have been treated to every flavor of solar eclipse: a partial in 2021 when part of the sun’s disc remains unobscured; a total eclipse in 2017, when viewers in the narrow path of totality experienced daytime darkness, and an annular eclipse just last fall, when a ring of fire hung in the cold, bright sky. In honor of the April 2024 total eclipse, I’m sharing a clip that cohost emerita Nikki and I recorded within the first year of this podcast about some of the earliest experiences of eclipses here in Boston, most notably in 1780 and 1806. I’ll also share a clip about an unrelated phenomenon that darkened the skies over Boston for a second time in 1780, then again in 1881, 1950, and several times in the past 5 years. This was no eclipse however, but rather a much more terrestrial effect.

Continue reading Eclipse Fever (episode 298)

Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved, with Helen Gelinas (episode 296)

I’m pleased to share a recent talk called “Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved” that was part of the Congregational Library and Archive’s Valentines Day celebration. Helen Gelinas spoke about Cotton Mather and the women he was closest to: his three wives, his daughters, and his sisters, as well as his lifelong mission to understand the biblical Eve, the prototype for all women in his universe. Helen examined who he was behind closed doors, as a husband and father, and she challenged us to reconsider our assumptions that Cotton Mather would have been a tyrant over his wife and a strong disciplinarian who ruled his children with a rod. She also shared the surprising insight that between wives, Cotton Mather was one of Boston’s most eligible widowers, who was pursued aggressively by suitors.

Continue reading Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved, with Helen Gelinas (episode 296)

A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire, with Professor Adrian Chastain Weimer (episode 295)

In this episode, I’m joined by Professor Adrian Chastain Weimer, author of the recent book A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire. The book focuses on the period just after King Charles II returned the Stuarts to the English throne, during which he when he sought revenge against Boston Puritans for their perceived role in the execution of his father. Decades before the absolute rule of Edmund Andros, the crown sent four royal commissioners to Boston with secret orders that would upend every facet of public life, from voting to worship to the code of laws. Our conversation explores how the colonists defended their liberty within the constitutional system of colonial Massachusetts under restoration rule.

Continue reading A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire, with Professor Adrian Chastain Weimer (episode 295)

Water for Boston, Part 1 (episode 292)

This is the first of a three-part history of Boston’s water supply. First up is the early history of water in Boston, from its reliance on natural springs to the construction of the first aqueduct. We’ll compare today’s pure, plentiful drinking water to the challenges that early Bostonians faced in obtaining clean water. First, we’ll look at natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns in early Boston, but as the city grew, these sources became increasingly scarce and polluted. Then we’ll talk about new technologies at the turn of the 19th century, such as drilled artesian wells and the Boston Aqueduct, which brought water from Jamaica Pond into the city. However, these new technologies were controlled by private companies, only providing water to the wealthiest Bostonians, leaving most residents desperate for a new, public source of water in the mid-19th century. Later episodes will explore the near-miracle that introducing a public water supply from the Cochituate reservoir represented and the engineering marvel of our modern Quabbin reservoir.

Continue reading Water for Boston, Part 1 (episode 292)

Granite, Glass, and the Construction of King’s Chapel (episode 279)

This week’s story ties one of modern Boston’s iconic Freedom Trail sites to the earliest days of English settlement in the Shawmut Peninsula. It’s a story that ties the first Puritan to die in Boston to the hated Royal governor Edmund Andros, and it ties some of the earliest non-English immigrants in Boston to Ben Franklin and Abigail Adams through the invention of two local industries. King’s Chapel is beloved in Boston today, but it was seen as an unwelcome invasion when it was first proposed in 1686. In this week’s show, we’ll look at how Boston found room for an unwanted church, how the church was reinvented three times, and how it launched local glassmaking and founded the granite industry in Quincy. We’ll also see where you can still find the last traces of the original, wooden King’s Chapel hiding inside the walls of a more modern church, but not here in Boston.

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Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands, with Dr Pavla Šimková (episode 239)

The new book Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands explores how the city of Boston has transformed the islands on its doorstep time and time again, as the city’s needs shifted over the centuries. From a valuable site for farming, to a dumping ground for all of Boston’s problems, to a wilderness of history and romance, to an urban park, these many transformations reflect a changing city. Author Dr. Pavla Šimková joins us this week to discuss how Boston initially embraced the islands, later turned its back on the Harbor, and more recently has embraced them both again. You’ll hear us argue about the 1960s plan to hold a bicentennial expo on the harbor and the role of storyteller Edward Rowe Snow in promoting the Harbor Islands to a new generation, and you’ll hear us agree about the beauty and importance of this urban asset.

Continue reading Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands, with Dr Pavla Šimková (episode 239)