I-History The first English immigrant to settle in Boston was the Reverend William Blackstone. He came by himself in 1629, to a peninsula by a stream, called by the local Algonquin inhabitants, Shawmet. A year later, John Winthrop and his Puritan settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arrived to the north in Salem. Finding Salem less than desirable for a settlement, Blackstone invited Winthrop to visit Shawmut.

On September 17, 1630, Winthrop decided to make Shawmut a permanent settlement and renamed it Boston, after his hometown in Lincolnshire England.

Citizenship in Massachusetts was restricted to church members until 1664. Dissidents like Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams were banished. Over the next two centuries Boston developed as a center for Puritan life. Early on, Boston began to emerge as an intellectual and educational center with the arrival of noted theologians and statesmen, and the founding of Boston Latin School and Harvard University. The first printing press in the colonies was built in Cambridge by Stephen Daye in 1639. With its excellent harbor, Boston became the leading commercial center in the colonies. Colonial Boston was a world leader in shipbuilding and the primary port of North America.

During the late 18th century, Boston was the location of several major events during the American Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Several early battles of the American Revolution, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, occurred within the city and surrounding areas.

The Civil War was a profitable time for Boston manufacturers, with the production of weapons, shoes, blankets, and other materials for the troops. Boston also played a role as a leading voice of the abolitionist movement.

With the outbreak of War II, factories were retooled for the war effort, and people went back to work on the production lines. Again Boston was a major arms