The Secret History of Boston

[LMNO]

Just outside of Boston is a little parcel of land called Jamaica Plain.  It has a small-to-medium pond there called, naturally, Jamaica Pond.  The various rumors and legends about its name can be found in almost any Boston historical book, so we won't get into that.

You should, however, take a look at a map of the area.  Technically, Jamaica Plain is part of Boston.  But you'd never know it by looking.  Downtown has several arms snaking out West, broad avenues leading directly into the heart of the city.  But look.  Look again.  Tremont/Columbus? Veers left and shoots into Dorchester.  Huntington?  Hooks right into Brookline.  Between Jamaica Pond and Boston, there's a twisting maze of old streets, a collection of arcane footpaths and one-way streets protecting NIMBY-style neighborhoods from traffic.  You could dismiss these as a lack of urban planning, but I'd advise you to look further.

If you look at a map from 1630-1640, you can see some direct routes from the pond to downtown.  Makes sense that You'd want the city to have easy access to one of the larger sources of fresh water in the area.  But jump to 1772, and there it is.  The main routes avoiding the pond have already been established, and the entwined intricacies of streets and lanes have been laid down.  And note that those streets are firmly in place, more so than the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Mattapan, or Chestnut Hill.  So why the change?

Maybe looking at the streets themselves would be helpful.  Get a blow up of the section bounded by the Arborway/Jamaicaway, Heath Street, and Washington.  Now orient it so Centre St is more or less straight left-to-right.  Look what happens when you start at Parley Ave, and trace it around Parley Vale and then around Robinwood Lane?  See anything odd?  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for that spur coming off Robinwood.  Unless you complete the circuit to Rockview.  That, my friends, is clearly the sigil for the demon Bael.  It's unmistakable.  From there, you can find others in close proximity: Myrtle Street to Burroughs via Eliot is Naberius.  Lamartine, through Glenvale Terrace to the corner of Spring Park and Burr is Cimerus.  The whole Revere/Elm/Sedgwick clusterfuck is a tight grouping of Agares, Eligos, Marax, and Halphas.

There is, however, one clear, straight line on the entire map.  Start at the pond, find Green Street.  Now follow its unbreaking, clear path.  And when you trace that arrow-straight road, you find yourself at... Forest Hills Cemetary.


More to come

[The Good Reverend Roger]

*eagerly awaits more*

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Hell yes

[Don Coyote]

and now I'm even more terrified of the East coast.

[P3nT4gR4m]

LMNO - Like Lovecraft, but with twice as many initials and no surname

[The Good Reverend Roger]

LMNO - Like Lovecraft, but with twice as many initials and no surname

Well, giving a surname to Bostonians is sort of like naming a lamb.  It only leads to heartbreak in the spring.

[Eater of Clowns]

So this is what you were referring to in the Marrowman thread.  Excellent, I'm glad it came to you.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Niiiice

[Suu]

I always knew there was something seriously off whenever I would go through the JP. 

[LMNO]

Several excavations have uncovered evidence that Boston has been inhabited since about 5000 BCE.  Curiously, while much evidence has been found of human habitation on the peninsula of Boston, curiously few habitats are found near Jamaica Pond.  Instead, there has been evidence of great fires obviously staged, and not naturally occurring around the pond.  When the Puritans arrived in 1633, the immediately began scouring for resources, and thought they found it in abundance near the pond.  However, the Wampanoag rebuffed their attempts to establish any sort of outpost near it.  As found in Willaim Smythe's personal records from 1675:

"Moƒt diƒtreƒƒing iƒ the ƒavageƒ refuƒal to allow uƒ acceƒƒ to freƒh water in the vicinity of the pond to the Weƒt. They have ƒome ƒtrange ƒuperƒtition regarding the land ƒurrounding it, aƒ well aƒ the pond itƒelf.  Unleƒƒ they relent, I'm afraid our Govenor will take very ƒtrict meaƒureƒ regarding their behaviour."

The resulting conflict became widely known as "King Philips' War", aka "Metacomet's War", where over 3,000 Native Americans were killed, and approximately 600 colonists.  The fighting raged all over the New England colonies, but there was a peculiarly strong resistance right outside of Boston.  A significant amount of casualties were accrued during fierce night time raids, where under the cover of darkness the Native warriors apparently went berserk, attacking both friends and foes in the most horrible of ways.  After hours of terrible howling and screaming, the morning sun would bring new horrors; severed limbs, eviscerated torsos, odd chunks of missing flesh from legs, shoulders, chests.  Some of the injuries were explained as post-mortem, caused by wild animals... But there were whispers of savagery unheard of in these Northern climates.  Cannibalism.  And worse.

Even when Metacom's forces had been defeated, the settlers still experienced periodic night raids that terrorized the farms and residences that had developed around the pond.  The militias were unable to catch the raiding warriors: Their tracks were usually obliterated by large gouges in the soft earth, and what trail they could follow inevitably led to the water's edge, and were lost beneath the dark, peaceful ripples.

The bodies that were left were taken down Green Street, and given a proper burial.  New land was eventually appropriated to accommodate the steady volume.



More to come

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Loving it!

[Suu]

And very true!

[Eater of Clowns]

New Bedford, Part I

If you want to learn the truth of an area, you ask the historians.  Every little town has them, especially in New England, and they'll give you the truth of the dates and the names, the truth of the people.  You'll learn a lot of you ask one, but you won't learn the story.  If you want to learn the story, you ask the children.

In New Bedford and nearby, if you ask them about the Acushnet River they'll all say the same thing.  You shouldn't go swimming in it.  Don't eat the fish.  They'll tell you it's because the mills in the area dumped chemicals into it years back.  That much is true, but that much you can learn from the Take Notice signs along the river's banks. 

You shouldn't go swimming in it.  Don't eat the fish.  That goes back before those mills.

The first explorers landed in the area in 1602.  The leader of the expedition, Bartholomew Gosnold, traveled down the coast from Maine to Massachusetts.  He named Cape Cod and he named Martha's Vineyard.  He stopped at Cuttyhunk and, upon exploring the nearby land around the Acushnet River, abruptly went home.  Gosnold sought to return to the New World – to Jamestown, Virginia, a wish he was granted.  He did not return to New England.

It took fifty years after the land around the Acushnet River was first explored to finally settle it.  Plenty long for a generation to have come and gone and forgotten why it was left alone the first time.  The Wampanoags were old enough to know it in their bones to leave the river be, but the settlers took the superstitions of their elders and the local savages to mean little.

Acushnet was misinterpreted by the settlers when the land was dubiously purchased from Massasoit.  They thought the word cushnea referred to the river's name.  In fact, it was a specification meaning "as far as the waters."  The tract of land settled would become New Bedford and its surrounding towns.

If the settlers could, if they knew to ask the story of the land from the Wampanoag children, they would discover cushnea was a warning as well.  As far as the waters.  No further.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well, guys, this is CREEPY AS FUCK.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm really liking this. I'll see if I can come up with some more. I might use Brook Farm if I can come up with something.

ETA: 6th attempt to post. Fucking internet.