“Beacon Hill has become home to all, the famous and the ordinary,’’ says Moying Li-Marcus, a longtime resident and author of “Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood.’’ She says the vibrancy of the hill constantly surprises her out-of-town friends. “They expect to see a rather static, historical ‘museum.’ Instead, they experience a living, breathing, dynamic neighborhood steeped with history.’’
Beacon Hill was highly desired property even in 1625, when William Blackstone, Boston’s first European settler, built his humble cottage near its pure springs. When the Puritans found Charlestown to be without clean water, Blackstone extended a welcoming hand to John Winthrop and his flock, a scene depicted by the Founders Monument on Boston Common.
The reclusive Blackstone probably regretted his hospitable act as Winthrop’s “city upon a hill’’ burgeoned amid the springs. A stone plaque affixed to 50 Beacon St., marking the approximate location of Blackstone’s dwelling, states that “the place of his seclusion became the seat of a great city.’’ By 1635 the hermit had left for the solitude of Rhode Island.
The Puritans erected the hill’s eponymous beacon, which could warn neighboring towns of enemy attack, at the summit now crowned by the Bulfinch Column in Ashburton Park, adjacent to the State House. The pillar commemorates the Revolution, and the slate tablets around the base detail the key events on the journey to independence. Beacon Hill may seem plenty steep to those trudging up its slopes, but the eagle perched atop the column is at the approximate height of the original summit before part of it was dug away in the early 1800s to fill the area around North Station.
Around the same time, the Mount Vernon Proprietors were constructing elegant homes on John Singleton Copley’s old cow pasture. The south slope of Beacon Hill soon became the fashionable precinct for proper Bostonians, and Louisburg Square - with its magnificent Greek Revival townhouses and private park - is the most prestigious address of them all.
