Where is Dorchester, Massachusetts, and when was it founded?
Dorchester is in present-day Boston. (It was annexed by Boston in 1869.) Dorchester was founded on June 6, 1630, by a colony of 140 persons who sailed from Plymouth, England, aboard the ship Mary & John. Dorchester was the first settlement in present-day Suffolk County (Boston’s county). Captain John Whipple lived in Dorchester before settling in Providence, R.I. Many of his children were born in Dorchester. The gravestone of Captain John Whipple’s wife, Sarah (in the North Burial Ground, Providence, R.I.), indicates that she was born in Dorchester in about 1624. (It reads: “She was born in Dorchester, in New England; and died in / Providence, Anno Dona, 1666 / aged about 42 years.”) According to Thayne Whipple, “there are numerous histories of the area that indicate European settlers there prior to 1630 and the official founding of the city. It is presumed that they left when the ‘chartered’ colonists came, but it will take a lot of work to really prove anything one way or the other.
Dorchester is in present-day Boston. (It was annexed by Boston in 1869.) Dorchester was founded on June 6, 1630, by a colony of 140 persons who sailed from Plymouth, England, aboard the ship Mary & John. Dorchester was the first settlement in present-day Suffolk County (Boston’s county). Captain John Whipple lived in Dorchester before settling in Providence, R.I. Many of his children were born in Dorchester. The gravestone of Captain John Whipple’s wife, Sarah (in the North Burial Ground, Providence, R.I.), indicates that she was born in Dorchester in about 1624. (It reads: “She was born in Dorchester, in New England; and died in / Providence, Anno Dona, 1666 / aged about 42 years.”) According to Thayne Whipple, “there are numerous histories of the area that indicate European settlers there prior to 1630 and the official founding of the city.
