Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere 789 acres (3.19 km2) in area, more than doubled in size due to land reclamation efforts that were a feature of the history of Boston throughout the 19th century.
Like much of the Massachusetts landscape, the peninsula was shaped by glacial erosion and moraine deposits left by retreating glaciers at the end of the last ice age. When Europeans arrived, Shawmut was thickly forested. The pre-settlement topography of the peninsula was marked by three hills: Copps Hill, in what is now the North End; Fort Hill, in today's Financial District; and the Trimountain, today's Beacon Hill district. Of the three hills, the Trimountain was by far the largest, a steep-sided mass with three summits. Its name was eventually shortened to Tremont. To the south was a narrow isthmus named Boston Neck that connected the peninsula to the mainland site of Roxbury, now a neighborhood of Boston.
The name is derived from Mashauwomuk, an Algonquian word of uncertain meaning. The first recorded use of "Shawmutt" to describe the peninsula occurs in 1630, by the lone settler William Blackstone, in an invitation to John Winthrop to move the site of Winthrop's colonial settlement to the peninsula from what is now Charlestown. The Charlestown peninsula lacked a source of fresh water, while the Shawmut peninsula had an "excellent spring" on the north side of what is now Beacon Hill.
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