Boston Common Archives - I am a Honey Bee

It’s funny that in almost 7 years here in Boston neither Price or I had really walked the Freedom Trail. Well, I had done portions on class outings but never a real outing to walk it. I mean, I walk by/on it every workday to get to my office from the T stop, but never count that. So we decided that we would make a point of doing it, along with other touristy things, this summer. It was also sooo annoying to be in class when a teacher would be shocked that I had never been to various local museums, gardens, cemetaries, and other landmarks. How am I supposed to see a new exhibit when you just assigned me 6 hours of homework for the week? Now we have a summer completely free of classes and school prep we are making the most of it here.

This past Saturday we stayed in Boston and took our turn at the Freedom Trail. I thought out recent trip to DC was hot and humid to sightseeing- well this was so much worse. We knew a storm was going to pass through in the afternoon, which made it soooo oppressive. So we did the trail pretty quickly, having seen some of the places already and trying to beat out the storm.

I was happy to reach the North End around (late) lunch time. We stopped in some place to split a calzone and salad. Of course lunch was not timed properly/long enough for the rain to start while we were there. No, it had to start about 3 minutes after we left. So we ran down the street with my teeny tiny umbrella into a local bar to wait out the rain. It came down in buckets, resulting in some pretty severe flash flooding in Somerville, a neighboring town. Visibility was reduced to 100 feet or so. Luckily* the rain passed within an hour and we were out again to finish the rest of the trail.

We walked over some bridge to head into Charlestown to see the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill Monument over there. In the end we decided to skip the monument since it is just a mini Washington Monument and we just saw that. One obelisk is like another. We got the last tour of ‘Old Ironsides’ which was nice since there was little wait time. So glad I was not a sailor on there since I learned that they got 1 gallon a water a day to do with water they wanted- which generally was drinking. Man on stinky, cramped boat.

*I’m having some pretty big issues with rain this year. First the flood in March and now this intense storm trampled my newly planted tomatoes and my flower squash. There goes half my veggies this summer. 🙁

Yesterday morning when I walked out of Park Street station a woman handed me a flyer about a demonstration and hearing about raw milk. I flipped it over and skimmed the flyer. Typically these flyers mean nothing to me since they are often regarding some weird causes, very religious with a focus on the end of the world, or for things occuring while I am at work. Well, hold the phone! There is going to be a dairy cow on the common from 9am-2pm. Holy hell I need to see the cow! So I planned on going during my lunch to see this magical cow.

They sang ‘ Oh Susanna’ to the cow

For one thing I have a childlike excitement when it comes to livestock. Chickens- to clucky and happy! Goats- aww look at their little horns! Cows- OMG they mooooo! Whenever Price and I go back to upstate NY I gleefully yell every time we drive past a field of cows cow. And we see a lot of cows. (How does he deal with me??) So I had to see this cow up close and personal.

And it was soo cool that there was cow on the Common. When Boston settled in 1625 it was a very different place than what it is looks like today. Boston was settled on Shawmut peninsula, a much smaller area than what is existing today (Boston filled in several areas to create more land, including the Back Bay neighborhood). William Blaxton was the first settler to the area, so in 1634 the other settlers in the ares purchased the land for Boston Common from him. The 44 acres parcel was purchased for 30 pounds by the community, each homeowner paid 6 shillings, from Blaxton. Originally it was known as “Common Land” because of it’s joint purchase and use for livestock grazing. Overtime the use for the land changed as the city changed; for example it was a Revolutionary War camp during the revolution. Glazing officially ended in 1830 when the land began to change its role into a park.