Dorchester: Meeting House Hill

Meetinghouse Hill, Fields Corner, to Clam Point

The Meeting House Hill neighborhood of Dorchester began to expand markedly after 1678, when the First Church moved to the hill from the Pleasant Street area. The first publicly funded school in colonial America was already located there, simply known as “the school.” The current Mather School is the descendant. Meeting House Hill would grow to become the center of religious and educational activities for the town. Soon after the establishment of the church and the school, the Turk’s Head Tavern opened on Bowdoin Street. Consequently, the area evolved into a social center as well. In 1840, the opening of Lyceum Hall next to the church cemented the neighborhood as the cultural center of the town. 

Meeting House Hill is located very close to the Dorchester shore at an intersection called Glover’s Corner, an area where early commercial and industrial activity served the community. In the 1630s, John Glover had started one of the first tanneries in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the site. Business and trade activity spread southward along the coast to Commercial Point. Later, with the introduction of the railroad in the 1840s, commercial enterprises spread inland to Fields Corner. A residential neighborhood called Harrison Square or Clam Point developed between Commercial Point and Fields Corner.

Notable women from these historic neighborhoods pursued activities outside their homes in the fields of literature, medicine, music, education, social work, and sports.