Savin Hill
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Savin Hill Historic District
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A view into the neighborhood from the park encompassing the top of Savin Hill
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| Location | Boston, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°18′33″N 71°3′1″W / 42.30917°N 71.05028°WCoordinates: 42°18′33″N 71°3′1″W / 42.30917°N 71.05028°W |
| Architect | multiple |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival, Gothic Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | |
| Added to NRHP | May 9, 2003 |
Savin Hill is a section of Dorchester, the largest neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Named after the geographic feature it covers and surrounds, Savin Hill is about one square mile in area, and has a population of about 15,000 people. Savin Hill Beach and Malibu Beach are nearby and are a resource for surrounding communities. Rail and bus routes give access to and from Savin Hill, especially the Savin Hill station.
It is the home of the Savin Hill Yacht Club which was founded in 1875 as the Savin Hill Beach Association but later changed its name in 1888. The club is located off Morrissey Boulevard, a main artery in the area.
The Neponset Indians, a part of the larger Massachusett tribe., spent their summers in Savin Hill for centuries before the arrival of Europeans.Captain John Smith of Virginia, the first English settler in America, visited Dorchester in 1614, and had commerce with the Neponset Indians.
Savin Hill was settled and founded in June 1630, just a few months before Boston was settled.
The first people arriving in the area were Puritans who came on the "Mary and John" from England. They had formerly settled further south on the coast, in the Hull area, before moving north to a hill overlooking a protected harbor, now called Dorchester Bay.
They landed in boats and built a settlement for approximately 140 people near what is today the intersection of Grampian Way and Savin Hill Avenue. Originally, the area was named Rock Hill.
By the 1780s, the name changed to Old Hill, a time when the United States was in its infancy.
The original boundary of Dorchester extended almost to the Rhode Island border. As time went on, settlements broke away and the geographical size of the town continued to shrink until 1870, when it disappeared on paper. In that year, the town of Dorchester was incorporated into the city of Boston, and the name became the designation of a neighborhood. By then, the rocky hill where the Puritans first settled had changed its name again, this time to Savin Hill.
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