Dorchester, Massachusetts
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 the
English county of
Dorset, from which
Puritans emigrated.
Neighborhoods within Dorchester include Adams Village, Ashmont Hill, Cedar Grove, 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 (which is also
Route 3 and
U.S. Route 1) runs north-south through Dorchester between
Quincy, Massachusetts and downtown Boston, providing access to the eastern edge of Dorchester at Columbia Road, Morrissey Boulevard (northbound only), Neponset Circle (southbound only), and Granite Avenue (with additional southbound on-ramps at Freeport Street and from Morrissey Blvd at Neponset). Several other state routes traverse the neighborhood (e.g.,
Route 203, Gallivan Boulevard and Morton Street, and
Route 28, Blue Hill Avenue (so named because it leads out of the city to the
Blue Hills Reservation). The
Neponset River separates Dorchester from Quincy and
Milton. The "Dorchester Turnpike" (now "Dot Ave") stretches from Fort Point Channel (now in
Southie) to Lower Mills, and once boasted a horse-drawn trolley.
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 town 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,
Boston College High School and the
University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus.
In
1695, a party was dispatched to found the town of
Dorchester, South Carolina, which would last barely a half-century before being abandoned.
America's first chocolate factory opened in Dorchester, in
1765, and the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory operated there until 1965. Dorchester (in a part of what is now 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 -- a
streetcar suburb. The mother and grandparents of
John F. Kennedy lived in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood while
John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was mayor of Boston.
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.
Punk band the
Street Dogs named a song after the neighborhood, entitled "In Defense of Dorchester."
*
James Blake House*
Captain Lemuel Clap House*
William Clapp House*
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum*
University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus*
Boston College High School*
Neponset River State Reservation*
The Boston Globe newspaper facility
*
Franklin Park Zoo*
The Erie Pub*
Samuel Turell Armstrong, born in Dorchester,
Governor of Massachusetts*
*
Battle of Dorchester Heights in DotNews*
Dorchester Historical Society*
Colonel Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club*
Uphams Corner Charter School*
Caritas Carney Hospital
