This post is an except from a 1978 proposal by Dr. Shirley Zavin, Executive Director of Boston 350.
Historic Boston, Inc. has worked tirelessly over the years with developers on this parcel of land that includes the Nawn Factory, Eliot Burial Ground and Eustis Street Firehouse.
Located at the interaction of Washington and Eustis Streets in Roxbury, the John Eliot Burying Ground Historic District preserves many important chapters of Boston’s history.
Until 1786 and the building of the Charles River Bridge, Washington Street – then called Orange Street – was the only overland route from Boston to the mainland. In linking Roxbury and Boston, Washington street passed across the Neck, the narrow strip of not always dry land which lay between the two towns, much of the Neck and contiguous areas where the Neck broadened out to form the south mainland shore, consisted of marsh and mudflats penetrated by tidal inlets and streams.
Founded in 1630, Roxbury remained a relatively small settlement until after the Revolutionary War. Established in the same year, the Buying Ground lay then on the periphery of the town; the lands surrounding it were used primarily for pasturage. During the siege of Boston major fortifications were thrown up across Washington Street, just south of the Burying Ground; advanced positions were located near today’s Newcomb and Northampton Streets.
Roxbury suffered substantial damage by bombardment during the Siege; in addition, all pre-Revolutionary structures which lay to the north of the Burying Ground Redoubt were ordered destroyed by General Washington as a defensive measure. Following the war, Roxbury entered a period of growth and change, important aspects of which can be illustrated within the confines of the John Eliot Burying Ground Historic District.
The major components of the District include(d) the following: the John Eliot or Old Roxbury Burying Ground, the Jesse Doggett House and Tavern, the Josiah Cunningham house, the Roxbury Canal, the Eustis Street Firehouse, and the Owen Nawn factory.
Dr. Shirley Zavin from John Eliot Burying Ground Historic District Abstract circa 1978