“He told me that this place was the most sharping country ever I was in and that this little piddling trick was only the beginning of it and nothing to what I should experience if I stayed there but some weeks.”1Dr. Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744. edited with an… (read more)
Upper Boston Post Road Entry #2 (UBPR #2) “You will go through the counties of Suffolk and Worcester, taking a sketch of the country as you pass; It is not expected you should make out regular plans and surveys, but mark out the roads and distances from town to town, and also the situation and… (read more)
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people upon us.” John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity *** This is the second entry from my previous project, Walking the Post Road. I have been slowly transferring the entries over to this project for a… (read more)
“I have met but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of walking…” Henry David Thoreau, Walking *** This is the very first of the entries from my previous project, Walking the Post Road, which I have been slowly transferring over to this project for a number of… (read more)
Upper Boston Post Road Entry #1 (UBPR #1) “Main Street through Weston, Waltham, and Watertown to Mill Bridge over the Charles River was the Ancient Post Road, originally called the County Road, and later the Sudbury Road.” Stephen Jenkins, The Old Boston Post Road, (1913), p. 371. *** Watertown Square is less a square and… (read more)
“ I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” Theodore… (read more)
“In answer to the petition it was clearly voted…that the petitioners together with all such as dwell on the south side of the afores’d line who are willing to joyne with them, and do embody so as to maintain an able learned Orthodox minister amongst them, shall be freed from any charge to the minister… (read more)
“But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” Robert Frost from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” This is another of the entries from my previous project, Walking the Post Road, which I have transferred over to this project for two reasons…. (read more)
This is another of the entries from my previous project, Walking the Post Road, which I have transferred over to this project for two reasons. The first reason is that it is relevant to this project in that it is a ‘ramble’ about Boston. The second reason is that the previous project was done on… (read more)
Section 1: Mount Auburn Cemetery to Belmont Street intersection. 0.3 miles. Things change. Borders change. Had I undertaken the walk described in the previous entry, along Brattle Street to Mount Auburn Cemetery, in 1753 instead of in 2018, I would have entered Watertown as soon as I crossed Sparks Street in what is now Cambridge,… (read more)
