Dorchester Heights
Dorchester Heights and Nook's Hill commanded Boston from the south as effectually as did Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill on the north. In early March of 1776, Continental troops managed to move heavy cannons to the top of Dorchester Heights in silence by wrapping straw around the wheels to fortify the location. When the British realized what had happened, they knew they could no longer hold the capital. The lowly Continental Army forced the British to evacuate Boston. Today
Perkins Elementary School celebrates Evacuation Day to commemorate this event, which also happens to fall on St. Patrick's Day.
The
Dorchester Heights Monument is located at
Thomas Park in South Boston, and despite the name is not to be confused with the city of Dorchester. In 1804, developers eyed the Heights as a source of raw material for the expanding city. During the second half of the nineteenth century the hills of South Boston underwent the same excavation that lowered Mount Vernon and Pemberton and Beacon Hills, the "tri-mountains" of the Boston peninsula. In 1898, the General Court of Massachusetts commissioned a monument to stand on Telegraph Hill, the remaining hill of the Heights. Designed by the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns, the white marble Georgian revival tower commemorates the 1776 victory.
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