[move down Green Street to Warren Square]
Warren Square is part of the area that was the estate and summer house of a prominent Roxbury resident, Dr. John Warren. We are at the back side of the estate, the house [image on this stop) was actually located out on Centre Street - where there is a 3 story brick building next to the Southern JP Health Center now.
The Warrens were an illustrious family. The family’s main home was in downtown Roxbury (on what is today Warren Street). The older brother, Dr. Joseph Warren was a Revolutionary War luminary who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Dr. Joseph Warren was appointed a general in the fledgling Continental Army after being the spymaster for the Sons of Liberty. He was a very prominent individual as famous in the colonies as George Washington. Along with Samuel Adams he led revolutionary activities in Massachusetts (while Sam was the spinmeister, Warren was the mastermind). He developed the system of Committees of Correspondence and chaired the Committee on Safety. He helped write the Suffolk Resolves, which contributed to the ideas included in the Declaration of Independence. In the third wave of the Battle of Bunker Hill, when the British finally overran Bunker Hill, Warren was shot and killed. He was buried where he died in a mass grave with all those who had fallen. Later his body was identified (by Paul Revere, who had done his dental work) and reburied in downtown Boston. Then he was finally reburied at Forest Hills Cemetery where the whole Warren family is interred in the area known as Mount Warren. Warren is celebrated as “a most migratory corpse.”
John Warren followed in the footsteps of his older brother and became a doctor. Dr. John Warren was one of the three doctors who founded the Harvard Medical School in 1782. Dr. John Warren died here in JP in his summer house in 1815. His son, Dr. John Collins Warren, became a surgeon and was a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. John Collins Warren was also famous because he participated in the first successful (public) demonstration of ether as an anesthetic during surgery There have been generations of Dr. Warrens affiliated with Mass General Hospital.
Roxbury (JP was part of that town in the Warren’s era) was famous for being a horticultural and farming center. There were many prominent gentlemen farmers, including Joseph Warren II (father of Joseph and John) who developed the Roxbury Russet (also known as the Warren Russet) apple. The first apple cultivar created in North America. The Warrens were avid gardeners and we are standing where they did some of that growing. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society had Roxbury horticulturalists among its founding members, including some Warrens.