[Instead of standing at the T stop, we recommend you cross Boylston Street to the park!]
The first documented English settlers to live in Jamaica Plain were Sarah and William Curtis who cleared land for a farm in 1639. They settled along the Stony Brook just around the corner on Lamartine Street (where Nate Smith House complex is standing today). There house stood into the twentieth century.
The history of JP was transformed in the nineteenth century by transportation. This change started with the arrival of the Boston & Providence Railroad in 1834. Within 5 years commuter service was established. The MBTA Orange Line is a reincarnation of that early service. And you are standing over it now. For those who could afford the railroad’s fees, here was a chance to build large homes and commute into the city. It was at this time that JP was called “the Eden of America.” In 1857 horse-drawn streetcars began running down Centre Street and later down Washington Street. JP evolved into a “streetcar suburb” with middle-class businessmen choosing to commute to Boston and settling their families in neighborhoods of modest homes along the routes of the streetcars.
These means of transportation fueled industry too. Tanneries, carriage-makers and breweries appeared along the Stony Brook and encouraged immigrant populations (notably German and Irish) to come to JP to settle and work. That’s the part of JP history we will be concentrating on this tour.