History
Historic Prospect Hill's castle and park overlook Union Square and points south and west and provide outstanding panoramic views. Because of its location and height, the hill, dominating the road from Charlestown, had great strategic importance in the Revolutionary War and became known as the "Citadel". The castle, dating back to 1902, is a monument commemorating the fortifications atop the hill during that war. A tablet inside reads: "This tablet is erected in memory of the soldiers of the Revolution and of the Civil War who encamped on Prospect Hill and of the banners under which they valiantly fought." It is said by some that George Washington first raised an early version of the U.S. Flag, called the Grand Union Flag, on Prospect Hill, on January 1, 1776. Others, however, claim evidence the flag was flown earlier. Somerville is one of several locales claiming to have hosted the flag's first raising.
In its early years, Somerville was an agricultural suburb, supplying the growing urban area surrounding Boston. Union Square, originally known as Milk Row, was a busy sales point for these products. In the 1800s, rail access through Boynton Yards and the Union Square passenger stop served the meat packing and manufacturing district, which included a slaughterhouse, brickyard, and glass shop. Later the rail yards became an industrial area.
Read more about this topic: Union Square (Somerville)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)