Editing Boston Common (section)

=== Early history ===
[[File:Boston, 1775bsmall1.png|thumb|Boston Common identified at the western edge of this 1775 [[British Army during the American Revolutionary War|British artillery]] survey of the city with [[Boston Neck]] visible at roughly at 7 o'clock.]]
[[File:USA-Granary Burying Ground0.jpg|thumb|[[Granary Burying Ground]] on Boston Common]]
[[William Blaxton]] was the first European owner of the land. He arrived in the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] as chaplain to the [[Robert Gorges]] expedition that landed in [[Weymouth, Massachusetts|Weymouth]] in 1623. Every other member of this colonization attempt returned to England before the winter of 1625. Blaxton migrated five miles north to the [[Shawmut Peninsula]], then a rocky bulge at the end of a swampy isthmus surrounded on all sides by mudflats. Blaxton lived entirely alone for five years on the peninsula that became Boston.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last1=Friends of the Public Garden and Common |last2=Moore |first2=Barbara W. |last3=Weesner |first3=Gail |last4=Lee |first4=Henry |last5=McIntyre |first5=A. McVoy |last6=Webster |first6=Larry |title=History of Boston Common |url=https://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/boston%20Common%20History%20&%20Map_tcm3-30691.pdf |access-date=19 October 2022 |website=City of Boston}}</ref>

In 1630, Blaxton wrote a decisive letter to the Puritan group led by [[Isaac Johnson (colonist)|Isaac Johnson]], whose colony of [[Charlestown, Boston|Charlestown]] was then failing from lack of fresh water. Blaxton advertised the excellent natural springs of the peninsula and invited Johnson's group to settle with him on it, which they did on September 7, 1630. Johnson died less than three weeks later and Blaxton negotiated a grant of 50 acres around his home on the western edge of the peninsula from Governor [[John Winthrop]]. This amounted to approximately 10 percent of the available land on the [[Shawmut Peninsula]] and stretched from Beacon Hill to Boylston Street.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Boston Common {{!}} The Freedom Trail |url=https://www.thefreedomtrail.org/trail-sites/boston-common |access-date=2022-10-19 |website=www.thefreedomtrail.org}}</ref>

One of Johnson's last official acts as the leader of the Charleston community was to name the new settlement across the river Boston after his original home in [[Boston, Lincolnshire|Lincolnshire]], England. He had immigrated to [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] with his wife Arbella and [[John Cotton (minister)|John Cotton]], grandfather of [[Cotton Mather]], during the [[Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640)|Puritan Migration]].

However, Blaxton quickly tired of his [[Puritans|Puritan]] neighbors and the difficulty of retaining such a large plot of land in a town that had grown to nearly 4,000 people by 1633. This led him to sell all but six of his 50 acres back to Winthrop in 1634 for £30 ($5,455 adjusted). The governor purchased the land through a one-time tax on residents amounting to 6 shillings (around $50 adjusted) per person. Those 44 acres became the town commons of Boston and today form the bulk of Boston Common.<ref name=":0" />

During the 1630s, the Common was used by many families as a cow pasture. This traditional use for a commons quickly ended when the large herds kept by affluent families led to overgrazing and the collapse of the Common as pastureland.<ref>{{cite book | author-link = James Loewen | last = Loewen | first = James | title = Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong | location = New York | publisher = [[The New Press]] | year = 1999 | page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780965003179/page/414 414] | isbn = 0-9650031-7-5 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780965003179/page/414 }}</ref> In 1646, grazing was limited to 70 cows at a time. The Common continued to host cows until they were formally banned in 1830 by Mayor [[Harrison Gray Otis (politician)|Harrison Gray Otis]].<ref>Lowen, James (1994) Planning the City Upon a Hill: Boston Since 1630University of Massachusetts Press (Boston) {{ISBN|0-87023-923-6}}, {{ISBN|978-0-87023-923-6}}, p. 53</ref><ref>[http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=10 Boston Common & Public Gardens - Great Public Spaces | Project for Public Spaces] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111108175844/http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=10|date=November 8, 2011}}. PPS. Retrieved on August 21, 2013.</ref>

The [[Granary Burying Ground]] located at the southern edge of the Common was established in 1660. Two years later, part of this land was separated from the Common, with the southwest portion used for public buildings—including a granary and jail—and the north portion dedicated to an almshouse (probably the first in the [[Thirteen Colonies]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Vale |first=Lawrence J. |title=From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0674025752 |place=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA]] |page=13}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Vale |first=Lawrence J. |title=From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0674025752 |place=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA]] |page=28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Shurtleff |first=Nathaniel Bradstreetl |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_UWkUAAAAYAAJ |title=A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston |publisher=Boston City Council |year=1871 |location=Boston |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_UWkUAAAAYAAJ/page/n224 211]}}</ref>

Boston Common took over from the gibbet outside the gate of [[Boston Neck]] as the town execution grounds and was used for public hangings until 1817. Most of these executions were carried out from the limb of a large oak, which was replaced with a gallows in 1769. Those executed included common criminals, military deserters, Indians, captured pirates, and religious dissidents. The most famous victims of the Common's era as an execution grounds were the group of [[Quakers]] known almost immediately after their deaths as the [[Boston martyrs|Boston Martyrs]]. The most famous of the Boston Martyrs was executed on  June 1, 1660. This was [[Mary Dyer]], who was hanged from the oak by the Puritan government of Boston for repeatedly defying a law that banned Quakers from the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]].<ref>Rogers, Horatio, 2009. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=L5_5yIgpa-YC&q=Among+the+most+pathetic+chapters+ Mary Dyer of Rhode Island: The Quaker Martyr That Was Hanged on Boston]'' pp.1–2. BiblioBazaar, LLC</ref><ref>J. Besse, ''A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers'', 1753, Vol. 2, pp. 203-05.</ref><ref>[[ODNB]] article by John C. Shields, 'Leddra, William (d. 1661)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16267], accessed August 16, 2009</ref><ref name=":2" />

[[File:1768 BostonCommon byChristianRemick.png|thumb|[[John Hancock]]'s house across from the Boston Common in 1768]]
The Common's status as a civic property led to its use as a public speaking grounds, frequently used by evangelists such as [[George Whitefield]].

On May 19, 1713, 200 citizens rioted on the Common in the [[Boston bread riot|Boston Bread Riot]] in reaction to a serious food shortage in the city. They later attacked the ships and warehouses of wealthy merchant [[Andrew Belcher (merchant, born 1706)|Andrew Belcher]] who was exporting grain to the [[British West Indies]] for higher profits. The lieutenant governor was shot during the riot.<ref>[[Howard Zinn|Zinn, Howard]]. ''[[A People's History of the United States]]''. New York: Perennial, 2003. p.51 {{ISBN|0-06-052837-0}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gaskell |first1=Philip |last2=Franklin |first2=Benjamin |last3=LeMay |first3=J. A. Leo |last4=Zall |first4=P. M. |date=October 1984 |title=The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: A Genetic Text |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3730147 |journal=The Modern Language Review |volume=79 |issue=4 |pages=908 |doi=10.2307/3730147 |jstor=3730147 |issn=0026-7937|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The Common was used as a military camp by the British before the [[American Revolutionary War]], and it was from the Common that they set off for the [[Battle of Lexington and Concord]].

[[File:Boston Common Public Garden 1890.jpg|thumb|An 1890 map of Boston Common and the adjacent public garden]]
[[File:Boston common aerial view.jpg|thumb|An Aerial view of Boston Common]]
Firework displays over Boston Common began as early as July 3, 1745 in celebration of the fall of Louisburg, followed by the celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act on May 19, 1766 and the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1777 when Son of Liberty "Colonel Crafts illuminated his park on the common" with fireworks, according to the Pennsylvania Evening Post of July 24, 1777. True park status seems to have emerged no later than 1830, when the grazing of cows was ended and renaming the Common as Washington Park was proposed. Renaming the bordering Sentry Street to Park Place (later called Park Street) in 1804<ref name="union">{{cite web|url=http://www.unionclub.org/history.html|title=A Brief History of the Union Club|publisher=The Union Club of Boston|access-date=October 4, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120401155612/http://www.unionclub.org/history.html|archive-date=April 1, 2012}}</ref> already acknowledged the reality. By 1836, an ornamental iron fence fully enclosed the Common and its five perimeter malls or recreational promenade. Tremont Mall was an imitation of [[St. James's Park]] in London and had been in place since 1728.