Sisters of St. Joseph | Boston, MA
Land-history research for the property at these locations in Newton, MA:
55 Walnut Park
71 Walnut Park
European Contact
The Doctrine of Discovery at the Sisters of St. Joseph Parcels
“The World,” Lienart Hol based on the writings of Ptolemy (1482)
“The First Thanksgiving 1621,” by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1932)
Portrait of King James I, by John de Critz (1605)
Settler Colonization
“New” Lands
Favor.
“We in our Judgment are persuaded and satisfied that the appointed Time is come in which Almighty God in his great Goodness and Bounty towards Us and our People, hath thought fit and determined, that those large and goodly Territories, deserted as it were by their natural Inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such of our Subjects and People as heretofore have and hereafter shall by his Mercy and Favor[.]”
The Charter of New England, King James I (Nov. 3, 1620)
Portrait of King Charles I by Anthony van Dyck (1636)
Obedience.
“Our said People, Inhabitants there, may be so religiously, peaceable, and civilly governed, as their good Life and orderly Conversation, may win and incite the Natives of Country, to the KnowIedge and Obedience of the only true God and Savior of Mankind, and the Christian Faith, which in our Royal Intention, and the Adventurers free Profession, is the principal End of this Plantation.”
The Charter of Massachusetts Bay, King Charles (March 4, 1629)
Portrait of John Winthrop by unknown artist (c. 1600)
Delight.
“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to folow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God….. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his one people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways…. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘the Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we shall be as a city upon a hill.”
“City upon a hill,” by John Winthrop (1630)
“Thomas Morton of Merrymount arrested by Captain Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony,” by C. J. Perret (1910)
Humanity.
“I have found the Massachusetts Indian more full of humanity than the Christians.”
“The New English Canaan,” by Thomas Morton (1633)
Current Law
Land Becomes Property
Primary Sources
& Markups
“Map of the Town of Newton Mass” by E. F. Woodward and W. F. Ward (1831)
“View of Newton, Mass.” By O.H. Bailey & Co. Publishers (1878)
Curated Resource List for the Sisters of St. Joseph
There’s more
For Indigenous perspectives on U.S. history:
For an Indigenous perspective on erasure:
Read Jean M. O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England (University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
Read Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2023)
Read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2023)
“The South part of New-England, as it is Planted this yeare, 1634,” by William Wood in New Englands Prospect (1634)
For discussion of Thomas Morton’s alternate colonial vision for the continent:
Listen to the Throughline podcast’s The Lord of Misrule (NPR Dec. 7, 2023)