History
The Blue Hills were so named by early European explorers who, while sailing along the coastline, noticed the bluish hue on the slopes when viewed from a distance. The blueish color comes from the presence of Riebeckite in the stone
More than ten thousand years before the Europeans arrived, Native Americans made their home in the hills. The natives referred to themselves as Massachusett, or "people of the great hills". The Commonwealth of Massachusetts derives its name from this Native American name.
In 1893, the Metropolitan Parks Commission purchased the lands of Blue Hills Reservation as one of the first areas set aside for public recreation. Today, the reservation is rich in both archaeological and historic resources.
Thirteen listings on the National Register of Historic Places tell the fascinating tales of Native Americans, explorers, farmers, quarry workers and inventors.
Read more about this topic: Blue Hills Reservation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)