THE OTHER BOSTON
Home of the bean and the cod,
meet the home of the Stump.
You two have a lot in common.
It's a clear autumn Saturday in Boston, perfect for strolling around,
soaking up some local color.
So I head downtown, where I discover a marker that commemorates the
English Puritans' founding of Mass-achusetts. Bypassing the bustling centuries-old
outdoor market, I walk a few blocks to the river. Seagulls and a salty
breeze hint at the sea, just to the east. Though the docks are quiet now,
with only a few boats in sight, Boston was once the country's most profitable
port.
In the South End, a renewal project is reclaiming attractive old buildings;
an arts center is comfortably housed in one. At a nearby museum, I learn
about the Pilgrim separatists who founded Plymouth in 1620 and the Puritans
who named the Shawmut peninsula "Boston." I read how Bostonians
opposed the king of England and supported an uprising against the throne.
I study a large map of Boston in 1850, before landfill proj-ects reconstructed
the Back Bay and the coves around the peninsula.
Back outside, I walk past Cheers and take quaint, narrow streets flanked
by old brick buildings to Boston's tallest tower. Its observation level
offers a spectacular view of downtown Boston, the river flowing to the
sea, the Fens, Boston College, Bunker's Hill. Finally, I explore a beautiful
gothic church ornamented with carved walnut decorations and nineteenth-century
stained glass.
Marveling at the richness of Boston's history and culture-and a little
tired-I head to a pub for a restorative pint of amber liquid.
The details of my sightseeing afternoon sound familiar to anyone who
knows Boston, Massachusetts. But I was actually more than 3,000 miles away-in
Boston, Lincolnshire, 120 miles north of London, near England's eastern
coast.
Boston, the Original-so proclaimed by its travel brochures-is a small
borough of about 50,000 people, surrounded by fertile farmlands. It's a
proud old town, known for its grand medieval church with a high tower and
a central marketplace that, every Wednesday and Saturday, teems with vendors.
"Boston" is an elided form of "Botolph's Town," a nod
to a seventh-century Catholic Saxon monk.
The original Boston contributed its name and about 10 percent of its
population to the Massachusetts settlement between 1630 and 1640. Even
so, a recent survey by Northeastern students found only about 25 percent
of Boston, Massachusetts, residents knew their city was named for an English
town, and fewer than 3 percent could report any specific details about
Boston, Lincolnshire.
It's time we got to know each other. Here are a few snapshots of your
English cousin.
Saint Botolph's Church
Boston is dominated by the majestic 272-foot-high gothic
tower of Saint Botolph's Church, the tallest in England. Residents call
Saint Botolph's "the Stump" (pronounced "stomp"), possibly
be-cause the tower looks like a fat tree trunk from a distance. The church's
cornerstone was laid in 1309, at the height of Boston's prosperity from
the wool trade. The tower was completed around 1520.
The classic gothic sanctuary is breathtaking, fully the size of a cathedral's.
Underneath the tower, a vaulted ceiling soars above the choir and the altar.
Large columns support sharply pointed gothic arches along either side of
the central section.
Beneath the misericords, the wooden seats in the choir stalls, medieval
carvings reflect the period's fancies and realities. A knight slaying a
dragon. A monkey playing a bagpipe shaped like a cat. Three schoolboys
holding a fourth for a schoolmaster's beating, the victim protecting his
rear with a book (my own favorite).
The handsome raised wooden pulpit was built in 1612 for John Cotton,
the popular Puritan vicar who preached in Saint Botolph's from 1612 to
1631, then went into hiding to escape persecution. In 1633, he migrated
to the other Boston, becoming its leading minister.
The church reveals additional links to New England. A plaque lists four
parishioners who became early Massachusetts governors-Thomas Dudley, Richard
Bellingham, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet. A large stained-glass
window honors America's first published poet, Anne Bradstreet, daughter
of Thomas Dudley and first wife of Simon Bradstreet.
The Marketplace
The large triangular marketplace lying just behind Saint Botolph's boasts
an even longer history. The great Boston fair, known to have been in existence
by 1125, was a major annual event.
Boston's location on the River Witham, which flows east to the North
Sea, made the town a major port. Catholic monasteries throughout the English
midlands maintained huge flocks of sheep. The wool the monks sent to Boston
could be shipped to ports in northern Europe, and valuable goods like wine,
pottery, spices, furs, and falcons were imported in return.
For nearly 300 years, the scale of Boston's trade was massive-occasionally
surpassing even London's-and brought the town great wealth. During the
sixteenth century, however, the river silted in, and trade turned westward
toward the New World, undercutting Boston's prosperity. But the open-air
public market stayed alive and still flourishes, with vendors selling produce,
clothing, books, collectibles, and other goods.
The Cultural District
Near the docks, the South End Cultural District is anchored by the Blackfriars
Arts Centre, located in a thirteenth-century stone dining hall within the
Dominican Friary. The center includes facilities for performing-arts classes
and a theater. Inside a restored riverside warehouse is the Sam Newsom
Music Center, operated by Boston College (a branch of Leicester University).
Other warehouses and buildings have been converted into attractive apartments,
drawing new residents downtown.
The Guildhall Museum, in a fifteenth-century brick building that served
as the town hall after Henry VIII granted Boston an independent charter
in 1545, displays artifacts from the town's past. Visitors may view the
cells that held two Pilgrim fathers-William Bradford and William Brewster-after
they were captured near Boston in 1607, seeking religious freedom in Holland.
(The separatists, who had no other connection to Boston, finally reached
Holland a year later, and in 1620 settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts.)
The museum's collection also includes an 1850 map of Boston, Massachusetts;
a photo of the Old State House in Massachusetts; and a 1930 proclamation
signed by mayor James Michael Curley.
Next door is the Fydell House, a 1726 mansion now owned by the Boston
Preservation Trust. In 1938, the U.S. ambassador to the Court of Saint
James, Joseph P. Kennedy, dedicated the house's American Room.
A Few More Snapshots
A men's clothing store called Cheers. Its logo once mimicked the lettering
on the sitcom pub's sign.
A tiny hamlet surrounded by farms, called Bunker's Hill.
The Pilgrims, the nickname of the Boston United Football Club, which
plays the game Americans know as soccer.
And, finally, the Fens-hundreds of square miles of what were once wetlands,
stretching southward to Cambridge. The table-flat terrain gives Boston
its renown for expansive skies and spectacular distant views of the Stump.
Centuries ago, the people of the Fens were an isolated lot, subsisting
on wildfowling and fishing, valuing independence and questioning authority.
Little wonder Boston joined the sixteenth-century Lincolnshire Rebellion,
opposing Henry VIII's seizure of monasteries, and supported Parliament's
opposition to the king during the English civil war of the 1640s. Little
wonder, too, many future leaders of the Virginia and Massachusetts colonies
grew up within sight of the Stump. In a real sense, the Freedom Trail begins
in Lincolnshire.
Between the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries, canal-like ditches
were dug to drain the Fens, creating a rich farming region in a climate
mild enough to allow two harvests a year.
The Historic Bostons' Partnership
Three years ago, I made my first, brief visit to Boston, Lincolnshire.
Having taught a course on the sociology of Boston, Massa-chusetts, since
1975, I was curious about its ancestor. The shared history I discovered
in Saint Botolph's and the Guildhall Museum-and the warmth I encountered
in the marketplace-drew me back for a two-week research visit the following
year.
Before my trip, I had written a letter to the Boston Globe, refuting
snide remarks a columnist had made about our ancestral town. I arrived
in Lincolnshire a minor celebrity, my photo in a local paper under the
headline "Boston's Defender Visits."
Many individuals and organizations graciously helped me gather information
on the town's history and tourism. Soon after I returned home, the Boston,
Lincolnshire, mayor came over to meet mayor Thomas Menino, to strengthen
relations between the two Bostons. Discussions during that visit led to
the formation of an organization called the Historic Bostons' Partnership,
with committees in place on both sides of the Atlantic.
Now the partnership is producing curricular materials, linking schools
via the Internet, and encouraging cultural exchanges, to promote knowledge
and understanding between two places with the same name-and a rich, intertwined
history.
Will Holton is an associate professor of sociology and the Massachusetts
committee chair of the Historic Bostons' Partnership. For more information
about the partnership or Boston, Lincolnshire, contact Holton by mail (501
Holmes, Boston, MA 02115) or e-mail <w.holton@nunet.neu.edu>.