Cultural Landscape Report for Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston

SITE HISTORY 1. 1630-1800
Figure 1.3: 1775 map showing Bunker Hill (A), Breeds Hill (B), Town Hill (C), and Moultons Hill (top right). The “Country Road,”
later Main Street, extends from the Neck, southeast to Town Hill. The “Crooked Lane,” later Bow Street, encircles Town Hill.
Three lanes extended east from Town Hill to Moultons Point, that later became the “Lane to Brickyards” (later Chelsea Street),
Wapping Street, and Battery (Water) Street. Meeting (Henley) Street is not shown. The government later established the yard
along the shoreline below Moulton’s Hill, east of Breeds Hill, encompassing what was once a pasture and marsh (American
Memory, The Library of Congress National Digital Library, http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/gmpage.html).
WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
By the Revolutionary era, Charlestown’s prosperous seaport was hampered only by British rule and taxation. In
June of 1774, the British-imposed Boston Port Bill effectively shut down Charlestown, suspending maritime trade,
precipitating economic decline, and spurring Charlestown delegates to bear an active part in patriotic councils. On
18 April 1775, Paul Revere landed along the Charlestown shore, at a point now at the western end of the yard, and
began his ride to Lexington to bring news of British General Gage’s dispatch of troops to destroy the rebel stores in
Concord. The next day, Charlestown was the scene of intense excitement and confusion as the British Regulars
retreated to the peninsula and occupied Bunker Hill. Many of the town’s 3,000 inhabitants fled after Gage notified
the Charlestown selectmen that he would order his ships in Boston Harbor to fire on the town if American troops
entered the peninsula. The population further dwindled to less than 200 after a general order on 6 May 1775
prohibited all traffic through Boston. American troops began to fortify Breed’s Hill on the eve of 17 June 1775. At
dawn, Gage kept his word, ordering British artillery on Copp’s Hill in Boston to open fire on Charlestown. By midafternoon,
nearly 3,000 British troops marched from two landing sites at Moultons Point toward the American
redoubt, and the Battle of Bunker Hill ensued. Charlestown burned in a great fire, ignited in part by the shells
thrown from Boston (Figure 1.4). The British Annual Register later reported the town’s fate:
Charlestown was large, handsome, and well built, both in respect to its public and private edifices; it contained about four
hundred houses, and had the greatest trade of any port in the province, except Boston…It is now in ruins. 14
14
Frothingham, 334, 344, 368.
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