Summary Of Boston Common By David Hackett Fisher

In this essay, David Hackett Fisher wrote about the famous Boston Common, located in Boston, Massachusetts. Simply put, the entire essay is, how he describes, “a story which becomes a sequence of stories, with highly articulated actors” (142) and it shows through his unique telling of the history of the Common.
Fisher begins his story with one of a man named William Blackston (Blaxton), who was the first owner of the land now known as the Boston Common. He was quite strange and refused to join the Puritans on many accounts until he moved away and sold his land to Boston. Afterwards the town was left to themselves to decide how the land would be divided or a lack thereof, but this unfortunately led to a series of conflicts. Both John Cotton

The line between different classes of people were being drawn, and it begun with a series of decrepit buildings on the common built for the lower class. Though some were useful to the entire population like the Granary (which was used to store food in times of need), most just added to the unsightly display of what was designated for the lowest class members. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Fisher tells the story of the conception of The Mall through the leadership of Thomas Handcock. The Mall was an extravagant display of several kinds of trees intended to beautify the Common for the upper class to enjoy. Though Fisher does mention middle class activities during this time, he disappointingly does not go into much depth into the topic. As shown through his extensive descriptions of both the upper and lower class, he clearly is not unaware of the existence of a middle class culture and thus the involvement of a more descriptive piece would make for a much more well-rounded

In particular, he mentions the appearance of the Sons of Liberty protesting, the burning of the officials of the Townshend Acts’ boat, and the occupancy of twelve British Regiments. The Common was also the location of celebratory events such as “a great festival for the new Federal Constitution[,]...the fall of the Bastille, and the end of the monarchy in France” (133). Despite many of these important events are glazed over in the essay, Fisher takes time to note Charles Bulfinch and the further beautifying of the Boston Common. In short, Bulfinch “transformed a shabby wood-built colonial town into a graceful city of brick and mortar” and further unified the public and private sectors of usage in the Common (134). Beloved by many, Bulfinch was indeed an important member of society in his acts for the common good, but Fisher again misses to capture the full picture by only skimming the surface in other interesting topics such as the political turmoil during the