DORCHESTER, a residential and manufacturing district of Massachusetts, U.S.A., a separate town until 187o, be tween the Neponset river on the south and South Boston and Boston proper on the north. A ridge, with an average height of about ioo f t. above the sea, extends through the district from north to south and commands delightful views of Boston Bay to the east and of the Blue Hills to the south. Franklin Field and Franklin park, one of the larger parks of the Boston park sys tem, are in Dorchester. The Shawmut school for girls is in the district. Among the landmarks are the Barnard Capen house, built in the fourth decade of the 17th century and now probably the second oldest house in New England; and the James Blake house (1648), now the home of the Dorchester Historical Society, which has a library and a museum. Not far away is the old Dor chester burying ground, which dates from 1634; it has many curi ous epitaphs, and contains the graves of Barnard Capen, who died in 1638 (probably the oldest marked grave in the United States) ; of William Stoughton (1631-1701 ), chief justice of the court which tried the Salem "witches" in 1692, and founder of the original Stoughton Hall, Harvard; and of Richard Mather.
Dorchester was founded by about 14o colonists from Dorset shire, England, with whom the movement for planting the colony in Massachusetts Bay was begun under the leadership of Rev. John White. They organized as a church while at Plymouth, England, in March 163o, then embarked in the ship "Mary and John," arrived in Boston bay two weeks before Governor Win throp with the rest of the fleet, and in June selected Savin Hill as the site for their settlement. At the time the place was known as Mattapanock, but they named it Dorchester. In Oct. 1633, a town Government was organized, and the example was followed by the neighbouring settlements; this seems to have been the beginning of the town-meeting form of government in America. Up to this time Dorchester was the largest town in the colony, but dissatis faction arose with the location (Boston had a better one chiefly on account of the deeper water in its harbour), and in many of the original settlers removed to the valley of the Con necticut where they founded Windsor. New settlers, however, arrived at Dorchester and in 1639 that town established a school supported by a public tax; this was the first free school in Amer ica supported by direct taxation or assessment on the inhabitants of a town. It was the fortification of Dorchester Heights, under orders from Gen. Washington, on the night of March 4-5, 1776, that forced the British to evacuate Boston.
See W. D. Orcutt, Good Old Dorchester (Cambridge, 1893) ; and The Dorchester Book (Boston, 1899).