PARK
TICKETED:
NO
PARKING:
NO
RESTROOMS:
NO
The Dorchester Heights Monument, located at the center of Thomas Park, was completed in 1902 to designs by Boston architects Peabody and Stearns. It is 115 feet (35m) tall, built of Georgia white marble capped with octagonal cupola and weather vane, and is generally reminiscent of a church steeple in the Federal style. The monument is now operated by the National Park Service as part of Boston National Historical Park.
SITE FEATURES
On this site...
A syndicate of Dorsetshire fishermen organized an outport of fishing stages and flakes at Dorchester in 1623. Most of the early Dorchester settlers came from the English West Country, and some from Dorchester, Dorset, where the Rev. John White was chief proponent of a Puritan settlement in the Americas. The town was centered on the First Parish Church of Dorchester. It is now operated as the Unitarian-Universalist church on Meeting House Hill and is the oldest religious organization in present-day Boston. On October 8, 1633, the first Town Meeting in the United States was held in Dorchester.
OVERLOOK
EST. 1776
FORTIFICATION
BATTLEFIELD
March 4, 1776
The Fortification of Dorchester Heights was a decisive action early in the American Revolutionary War that precipitated the end of the siege of Boston and the withdrawal of British troops from that city.
The idea of bringing the cannons from Ticonderoga to the siege was raised by Colonel Henry Knox. Knox was eventually given the assignment to transport weapons from Ticonderoga to Cambridge. Knox went to Ticonderoga in November 1775, and, over the course of three winter months, moved 60 tons of cannons and other armaments by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledges, and manpower, along poor-quality roads, across two semi-frozen rivers, and through the forests and swamps of the sparsely inhabited Berkshires to the Boston area.
On March 4, 1776, troops from the Continental Army under George Washington's command occupied Dorchester Heights, a series of low hills with a commanding view of Boston and its harbor, and mounted powerful cannons there threatening the city and the Navy ships in the harbor. General William Howe, commander of the British forces occupying Boston, planned an attack to dislodge them. However, after a snowstorm prevented its execution, Howe withdrew instead. British forces, accompanied by Loyalists who had fled to the city during the siege, evacuated the city on March 17 and sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
HISTORIC PEOPLE
George Washington
Commander-in-Chief
Henry Knox
Major General