Dorchester

Massachusetts, United States

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Massachusetts Bay Colony

ministry of Mather

  • Richard Mather, mid-19th-century painting after a contemporary portrait, c. 1660–69; in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
    In Richard Mather

    …was elected “teacher” minister at Dorchester, Mass., and became locally celebrated as a preacher and formulator of Congregational creed and policy.

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town meeting

  • Map of Massachusetts
    In Massachusetts: Constitutional framework

    …first recorded meeting was in Dorchester in 1633, when citizens were summoned by the roll of a drum. A year later Charlestown organized the first board of selectmen, the emergence of such local government balancing the power of the colony’s executive. A county system was patterned after the English model,…

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