Hey, there! Log in / Register
Something different about this Entering Boston sign
By adamg on Thu, 07/02/2015 - 7:13pm
Most of the time, when you enter Boston, the signs say "Est. 1630." But when you enter Charlestown on Broadway from Everett, the signs say "Inc. 1822," which, while not inaccurate, since they refer to when Boston was incorporated as a city, just seem kind of odd.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
They used to be mismatched
I think it said 1630 on one side of the street and 1635 on the other side (see here). You can tell the "1822" is covering up something else.
Good find!
I like that they just painted "1822" over the 1635. I can imagine that DPW meeting:
"Hey, Earl, did you finish that sign on Broadway?"
"Yep. Entering Boston, with the incorporation date."
"The incorporation date?! You mean the established date, right?"
"Um...no? I wrote 'Inc.'"
"Oh. Well you at least got it right, I hope. Incorporated 1822, not in the 1630's. Remember when we had to let Johnson go because of that mix-up?"
"Um...yep. Totally. Oh, hang on, be right back, I got a...um...urgent call from my...nephew."
(and where did 1635 even come from? Wasn't Boston founded in 1630?)
Would you rather they
replace the entire sign panel instead just to change a date? BTW, current MassDOT policy for these signs is to generally use the incorporation date, not the established date, for a community.
As for the dates themselves, the 'official' list of established and incorporated dates for cities and towns is maintained by the Office of the Secretary of State, and can be accessed here. http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cisctlist/ctlistalph.htm
Lastly, most of these signs (like the ones on Everett Avenue) are fabricated and installed by private contractors, not the state. Often, the information for the signs is provided by the city or town. Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that a city or town worker could not know the exact date their community was established (i.e., 1635 sounds right), and give the contractor wrong information.
Frankly, at the end of the day, the exact date a town or city was established or incorporated is totally meaningless information to road users, who simply want to know where the boundary between communities is.
That's a cool link roadman,
That's a cool link roadman, for kicks I dropped the table into a spreadsheet and sorted by "date settled", oldest twenty are:
Kingston 1620
Plymouth* 1620
GLOUCESTER 1623
Rockport 1623
CHELSEA 1624
Duxbury 1624
Hull 1624
BOSTON* 1625
QUINCY 1625
BEVERLY 1626
PEABODY 1626
SALEM* 1626
LYNN 1629
Manchester-by-the-Sea 1629
Marblehead 1629
MELROSE 1629
Swampscott 1629
Arlington 1630
Brighton 1630
CAMBRIDGE* 1630
You missed several cities and towns incorporated in 1630!
I know you took the first 20, and got three communities at the top of the alphabet, but your truncation missed a bunch: Canton, Everett, Medford, Nahant, Revere, Sandwich, Saugus, Scituate, Somerville, Watertown and Weymouth were also in 1630!
That isn't counting Charlestown, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and Roxbury, too.
I bring it up mostly to note how many communities were created in that single year. It makes me wonder what the big push was.
Everett wasn't founded in 1630
I have an 1856 map of Middlesex County that doesn't have Everett on it at all. It was still part of Malden then.
Even if 1635 sounds right
There was another sign with 1630 on it literally right across the street. (You can see this by panning to the left in my google maps link above). Apparently now they both just say 1822.
The Commonwealth was incorporated in 1629?
The Secretary's got that wrong, I think. What was incorporated in 1629 was the colony or Province of Massachusetts Bay. The Commonwealth was surely not incorporated before the adoption of John Adams's constitution of 1780, no?
April 23, 1635
April 23, 1635
Boston Latin School, Founded
Governor Winthrop's legal dodge.
The Puritans were able to secure a land charter from Charles I in 1629. The physical document at that time was in England. But they noticed the omission of a clause. The document failed to specify a location for the stockholders meeting.
The Winthrop party anchored in Salem in June of 1630 and the physical document was with them. And the stockholders were all on board. This suggests the 1630 convention of origin is tied to that event.
A Commonwealth by attorneys for attorneys with the rest of us serving as bystanders ever since.
Boston City Seals with slightly variant seascapes/harborscapes !
[city seal]
BOSTONIA.
CONDITA A.D.
1630
SICUT PATRIBUS SIT DEUS NOBIS.
CIVITATIS REGIMINE DONATA A.D.1822.
[Bostonia Condita AD. 1630.
Boston Founded in the Year of Our Lord 1630.
Sicut Patribus, Sit Deus Nobis.
God Be with Us as He Was with Our Fathers.
1 Kings VIII 57
Civitatis Regimine Donata AD. 1822.
City Status Granted by the Authority of the State in the Year of Our Lord 1822.]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_of_Boston.svg
http://www.cityofboston.gov/visitors/about/cityseal.asp
Compare Boston City Seals with slightly variant seascapes/harborscapes !
https://www.google.com/search?q=boston+city+seal&tbm=isch
Not the City seal
That looks like the State seal.
Correct
The "bookleaf" town line signs (as MassDOT calls them) use the state seal.
By Y Abraham. It’s no Confederate flag, but our banner is still
By Yvonne Abraham
It’s no Confederate flag, but our banner is still pretty awful
https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/3b6ave/by_yvonne_abraham...
Entering Boston Signs
There is one of those signs on the Truman Parkway on the Hyde Park Milton line that has no Inc. date on it. It's just the lazy sign makers that work for the state that do not put the correct date on the signs. Just another piece of history that is not followed and should be correctly posted on all City and Town signs across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
t
See my comment above
re: totally meaningless information
Totally awesome information
I love those signs. It's a mini history lesson at every town line. It's local flavor. Think about it, we are having a whole discussion here about whether the date of founding (1630, which is what should be there) of the date of incorporation as a city (1822) should be on the sign.
But sure, if we had things your way, we'd have generic green signs like they have on the highways everywhere. BORING!
The Est. vs. Inc.
The Est. vs. Inc. inconsistency seems to be all over the state: Plenty of examples.
They even have
They even have inconsistencies on the same sign! At 724 Broadway Malden MA 02148 there is an "entering" sign.
Side A: Entering Malden Est. 1649
Side B: Entering Melrose Inc. 1850
Wuht.
How is that inconsistent?
Malden and Melrose are different municipalities.
One side has a city
One side has a city incorporation date, and the other side has a town founding date.
How many signs say "Thomas M
How many signs say
"Thomas M Menino, Mayor""Martin J Walsh, Mayor".