s to the south for pasturage and
for the overflow, whenever, as Cotton Mather said when the whole state
contained less than six thousand white inhabitants, "Massachusetts
should be like a hive overstocked with bees."

The first meeting-house in Dorchester, a very unpretentious structure of
logs and thatch, was completed in 1631, and no free-holder was allowed
to plant his domicile farther than the distance of half a mile from it,
without special permission of the fathers of the town. It stood near the
intersection of the present Pleasant and Cottage streets, and that
portion of the former highway between Cottage and Stoughton streets is
supposed to have been the first road laid out in the early settlement.
Shortly after, this road was extended to Five Corners in one direction,
and to the marsh, then called the Calf Pasture, in the other. The
present names of these extensions are Pond street and Crescent avenue.
From Five Corners a road was subsequently laid out running, north-east
to a point a little below the Captain William Clapp place, where there
was a gate which closed the entrance to Dorchester Neck, where the
cattle were pastured. It was on this street that Rev. Richard Mather,
the first minister of the town, Roger Williams, of Rhode Island fame,
and other distinguished citizens resided. The next undertaking in the
way of public improvements was the building of two important roads, one
leading to Penny Ferry, thus opening a highway of communication with the
sister Colony at Plymouth; the other leading to Roxbury, Brookline and
Cambridge.

In Josselyn's description of the town soon after its settlement may be
read:

"Six myles from Braintree lyeth Dorchester, a frontire Town, pleasantly
situated and of large extent into the maine land, well watered with two
small rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses, ...
accounted the greatest town heretofore in New England, but now giving
way to Boston."

Through what hardships and privations this infant freehold was
maintained can be understood by those only, who have read the records of
the colonial struggle against a sterile soil, a rigorous climate, grim
famine, hostile Indians, and a total lack of all the appliances and
comforts of civilization. The years 1631 and 1632 were a period of great
distress to the Dorchester farmers, on account of the failure of their
crops and supplies of provision, and Captain Clapp wrote concerning it: