obably, in 1739; and
before the whole was annexed, portions of the northern part of the town
were set off to Boston, at two several times: in 1804 and in 1855."
Since that date another portion has been severed to make the northern
quarter of Hyde Park. Honorable John Daggett, the historian of
Attleborough, which was then a part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, says
there was a dispute concerning the boundary between Dorchester and that
town, which was finally settled by a conference of delegates, held at
the house of one of his ancestors.

Why those "most Godly and Religious People" chose to settle where they
did rather than on the Charles river, as at first intended, Mr. Blake
proceeds to tell us in his annals. He says they made the voyage from
England to New England in a vessel of four hundred tons, commanded by
Captain Squeb, and that they had "preaching or expounding of the
Scriptures every day of their passage, performed by Ministers." Contrary
to their desires, the ship discharged them and their goods at Nantasket,
but they procured a boat in which part of the company rowed into Boston
harbor and up the Charles river, "until it became narrow and shallow,"
when they went ashore at a point in the present village of Watertown.
But after exploring the open lands about Boston, they finally made
choice of a neck of land "joyning to a place called by y'e Indians
Mattapan," because it formed a natural inclosure for the cattle they had
brought with them, and which, if turned into the open land, would be
liable to stray and be lost. This little circumstance fixed the original
settlement on the marsh now known as Dorchester Neck.

The honor of the name Dorchester appears to belong to Rev. John White,
minister of a town of the same name in the mother country, who planned
and encouraged the exodus to America. But the hardy little band of
exiles who received the title from old Cutshumaquin, the successor of
Chickatabat, little knew what their wild territory was destined to
become in the course of a hundred years. They were loyal subjects of the
English throne, building their log cabins and rude meeting-house on
Allen's Plain under protection of a charter from King Charles; there
they hoped to found a permanent town, where the worship of God should be
maintained in accordance with the dictates of the Puritan conscience,
without interference of churchman, Roman Catholic, Baptist, or Quaker.
There was room in the unexplored forest