Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is also the location of the Massachusetts State House. The term "Beacon Hill" is used locally as a metonym to refer to the state government or the General Court itself, much like Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill does at the federal level.

A bastion of "Old Money" Boston Brahmins, Federal-style rowhouses, narrow streets and brick sidewalks run through the neighborhood, which is generally regarded as one of the more desirable and expensive in Boston. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood was 9,023.

Etymology

Like many similarly named areas, the neighborhood is named for the location of a former beacon atop the highest point in central Boston. The beacon was used to warn the residents of an invasion.

Geography Beacon Hill is bounded by Storrow Drive, and Cambridge, Bowdoin, Park and Beacon Streets. It is about 1/6 of a square mile in size, and situated along the riverfront of the Charles River Esplanade to the west, just north of Boston Common and the Boston Public Garden. The block bound by Beacon, Tremont and Park Streets is included as well. Beacon Hill has three sections: the south slope, the north slope and the "Flat of the Hill", which is a level neighborhood built on landfill, located west of Charles Street and between Beacon and Cambridge streets.

Located in the center of the Shawmut Peninsula, the area originally had three hills, Beacon Hill and two others nearby, Pemberton Hill and Mount Vernon, which were leveled for Beacon Hill's development. The name trimount later morphed into "Tremont", as in Tremont Street.

Between 1807 and 1832, Beacon Hill was reduced from 138 feet in elevation to 80 feet. The shoreline and bodies of water such as the Mill Pond had a "massive filling", increasing Boston's land mass by 150%. Charles Street was one of the new roads created from the project.

Before the hill was reduced substantially, Beacon Hill was located just behind the current site of Massachusetts State House.

Demographics According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood is 9,023. This reflects a slight (0.3% or 29 individuals) decrease from the 2000 Census. The racial/ethnic make-up of the neighborhood's population is as follows: 86.8% of the population is white, 2% black or African American, 4.1% Hispanic or Latino, 0.1% American Indian or Alaska Native, 5.3% Asian, 0.4% some other race/ethnicity, and 1.3% two or more races/ethnicities.

According to 2007–2011 American Community Survey estimates, of the 5,411 households in Beacon Hill, 27.3% were family households and 72.7 were non-family households (with 55.7% of those female householders). Of the 1,479 family households 81.6% were married couple families. 36.6% of married couple families were with related children under the age of 18 and 63.4% were with no related children under age 18. Other family types make up 18.4% of Beacon Hill's population, with 90.8% being female householders with no husband present and a majority of these households included children under 18 present.

Race + Beacon Hill/Financial District (02108) racial breakdown of population (2017) Race Percentage of 02108population Percentage ofMassachusettspopulation Percentage ofUnited Statespopulation ZIP code-to-statedifference ZIP code-to-USAdifference White 86.8% 81.3% 76.6% +5.5% +10.2% White (Non-Hispanic) 83.4% 72.1% 60.7% +11.3% +22.7% Black 5.2% 8.8% 13.4% –3.6% –8.2% Hispanic 4.3% 11.9% 18.1% –7.6% –13.8% Asian 4.2% 6.9% 5.8% –2.7% –1.6% Native Americans/Hawaiians 0.6% 0.6% 1.5% +0.0% –0.9% Two or more races 2.4% 2.4% 2.7% +0.0% –0.3%

+ Beacon Hill/West End (02114) racial breakdown of population (2017) Race Percentage of 02114population Percentage ofMassachusettspopulation Percentage ofUnited Statespopulation ZIP code-to-statedifference ZIP code-to-USAdifference White 79.2% 81.3% 76.6% –2.1% +2.6% White (Non-Hispanic) 73.6% 72.1% 60.7% +1.5% +12.9% Asian 11.3% 6.9% 5.8% +4.4% +5.5% Hispanic 9.3% 11.9% 18.1% –2.6% –8.8% Black 4.3% 8.8% 13.4% –4.5% –9.1% Native Americans/Hawaiians 0.0% 0.6% 1.5% –0.6% –1.5% Two or more races 2.5% 2.4% 2.7% +0.1% –0.2%

Ancestry According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, the largest ancestry groups in ZIP Codes 02108 and 02114 are:

Ancestry Percentage of02108population Percentage ofMassachusettspopulation Percentage ofUnited Statespopulation ZIP code-to-statedifference ZIP code-to-USAdifference Irish 17.51% 21.16% 10.39% –3.65% +7.12% English 15.49% 9.77% 7.67% +5.71% +7.95% Italian 13.34% 13.19% 5.39% +0.15% +7.95% German 8.47% 6.00% 14.40% +2.47% –5.93% Polish 5.78% 4.67% 2.93% +1.11% +2.85% American 5.11% 4.26% 6.89% +0.85% –1.78% French 3.68% 6.82% 2.56% –3.14% +1.12% Norwegian 2.40% 0.51% 1.40% +1.88% +1.00% Northern European 2.35% 0.11% 0.09% +2.24% +2.26% Arab 2.32% 1.10% 0.59% +1.22% +1.73% Chinese 1.93% 2.28% 1.24% –0.35% +0.69% Korean 1.93% 0.37% 0.45% +1.56% +1.48% Lithuanian 1.85% 0.70% 0.20% +1.15% +1.65% Scottish 1.85% 2.28% 1.71% –0.43% +0.14% Dutch 1.58% 0.62% 1.32% +0.96% +0.26% Egyptian 1.53% 0.09% 0.08% +1.44% +1.46% Swedish 1.51% 1.67% 1.23% –0.16% +0.28% Ukrainian 1.46% 0.37% 0.31% +1.08% +1.15% French Canadian 1.38% 3.91% 0.65% –2.52% +0.73% British 1.16% 0.48% 0.43% +0.68% +0.73% Welsh 1.01% 0.36% 0.57% +0.66% +0.45%

Ancestry Percentage of02114population Percentage ofMassachusettspopulation Percentage ofUnited Statespopulation ZIP code-to-statedifference ZIP code-to-USAdifference Irish 17.58% 21.16% 10.39% –3.58% +7.19% Italian 13.66% 13.19% 5.39% +0.47% +8.27% German 8.81% 6.00% 14.40% +2.80% –5.60% English 8.05% 9.77% 7.67% –1.73% +1.57% Chinese 5.27% 2.28% 1.24% +2.99% +4.03% Polish 4.50% 4.67% 2.93% –0.17% +1.57% Puerto Rican 4.11% 4.52% 1.66% –0.41% +2.86% French 4.10% 6.82% 2.56% –2.72% +1.54% Scottish 3.67% 2.28% 1.71% +1.39% +1.96% American 3.59% 4.26% 6.89% –0.67% –3.30% Russian 2.71% 1.65% 0.88% +1.06% +1.83% Asian Indian 2.48% 1.39% 1.09% +1.09% +1.39% French Canadian 2.18% 3.91% 0.65% –1.72% +1.53% Swedish 2.05% 1.67% 1.23% +0.39% +0.83% Norwegian 1.82% 0.51% 1.40% +1.31% +0.42% European 1.65% 1.08% 1.23% +0.56% +0.41% Arab 1.52% 1.10% 0.59% +0.42% +0.92% Turkish 1.07% 0.11% 0.07% +0.96% +1.00% Greek 1.06% 1.22% 0.40% –0.16% +0.66%

History

17th century

The first European settler was William Blaxton, also spelled Blackstone. In 1625 he built a house and orchard on Beacon Hill's south slope, roughly at the location of Beacon and Spruce street. The settlement was a "preformal arrangement". In 1630 Boston was settled by the Massachusetts Bay Company. The southwestern slope was used by the city for military drills and livestock grazing. In 1634 a signal beacon was established on the top of the hill. Sailors and British soldiers visited the north slope of Beacon Hill during the 17th and 18th centuries. As a result, it became an "undesirable" area for Boston residents. "Fringe activities" occurred on "Mount Whoredom", the backslope of Beacon Hill.

18th century Beacon Street was established in 1708 from a cow path to the Boston Common. John Singleton Copley owned land on the south slope for pasture for his cows and farmland.

In 1787 Charles Bulfinch designed the Massachusetts State House. Its construction was completed in 1798, replacing the Old State House in the center of Boston. The land, formerly belonging to John Hancock, was chosen because it was higher in elevation than the center of town.

The Mount Vernon Proprietors group was formed to develop the trimount area, The name trimount later morphed into "Tremont", as in Tremont Street. when by 1780 the city's neighborhoods could no longer meet the needs of the growing number of residents. Eighteen and a half or 19 acres of grassland west of the State House was purchased in 1795, most of it from John Singleton Copley. The Beacon Hill district's development began when Charles Bulfinch, an architect and planner, laid out the plan for the neighborhood. Four years later the hills were leveled, Mount Vernon Street was laid, and mansions were built along it. One of the first homes was the Harrison Gray Otis House on Cambridge Street.

19th century

Development Construction of homes began in earnest at the turn of the century, such as: freestanding mansions, symmetrical pairs of houses, and row houses. Between 1803 and 1805, the first row houses were built for Stephen Higginson.

In the 1830s, residential homes were built for wealthy people on Chestnut and Mt. Vernon Streets. Some affluent people moved, beginning in the 1870s, to Back Bay with its "French-inspired boulevards and mansard-roofed houses that were larger, lighter, and airier than the denser Beacon Hill."

In the early 19th century, there were "fringe activities" along the Back Bay waterfront, with ropewalks along Beacon and Charles Streets.

South slope The south slope "became the seat of Boston wealth and power." It was carefully planned for people who left densely populated areas, like the North End. The residents of opulent homes, called the Boston Brahmins, were described by Oliver Wendell Holmes as a "harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy". They had "houses by Charles Bulfinch, their monopoly on Beacon Street, their ancestral portraits and Chinese porcelains, humanitarianism, Unitarian faith in the march of the mind, Yankee shrewdness, and New England exclusiveness."

Literary salons and publishing houses were founded in the 19th century. "Great thinkers" lived in the neighborhood, including Daniel Webster, Henry Thoreau and Wendell Phillips.

Flat of the Hill Development began in the early 19th century. Single family homes often had stores on the first floor for retailers, carpenters and shoemakers. Today, many of the 19th century waterfront landmarks, such as the Charles Street Meeting House, are found far from the water due to the filling that has taken place since then.

North slope

The north slope was the home of African Americans, sailors and Eastern and Southern European immigrants. The area around Belknap Street (now Joy Street) in particular became home to more than 1,000 blacks beginning in the mid-1700s. While this community is often described as arising from domestic workers in the homes of white residents on the south slope of the Hill, property records indicate that the black community on the north slope was already well-established by 1805, before the filling-in of the south slope was completed, and so before that slope of Beacon Hill came to be considered an affluent area.Grover, Kathryn and Da Silva, Janine, "Historic Resource Study: Boston African American National Historic Site" , December 31, 2002.

Many blacks in the neighborhood attended church with the whites but did not have a vote in church affairs and sat in segregated seating. A Baptist congregation, built the African Meeting House in 1806 and by 1840 there were five black churches. The African Meeting House on Joy Street was a community center for members of the black elite. Frederick Douglass spoke there about abolition, and William Lloyd Garrison formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society at the Meeting House. It became a "hotbed and an important depot on the Underground Railroad."

Blacks and whites were largely united on the subject of abolition. Beacon Hill was one of the staunchest centers of the anti-slavery movement in the Antebellum era.

One of the earliest black Republican legislatorsObituary, "Chappelle Ends Notable Career", The Boston Herald, p. 14, February 28, 1904. in the United States was Julius Caesar Chappelle (1852–1904), who served as a legislator in Boston from 1883 to 1886 and whose district included the Beacon Hill area. Chappelle was a popular, well-liked politician and was covered by many of the black newspapers in the United States."Hon. Julius Caesar Chappelle", The Cleveland Gazette, front page, December 25, 1886.