No island is shown at the weare, but two are shown much farther down the stream.
Some thirty-five persons acquired rights in this tract and are named on the plan.
Charlestown anticipated the modern parkway at that early date by reserving, possibly some along the Mystic, but certainly several rods bordering on ‘Wenotime river.’
On the other side was the wooded slope of Walnuttree hill (now College hill) where Governor Winthrop, lost in the forest, spent a lonely October night a few years earlier, and sought the friendly shelter of the vacant wigwam of Wonoquahan, the Sagamore.
The year before the footway was established, the college at New-towne, the earliest to be established, was begun, and the following year (1640) its first president, the Rev. Henry Dunster assumed its charge, coming hither from Boston, where he had for a short time lived. A few years later he became the owner of about one-half of the ‘linefeilde,’ which was conveyed to him by deed of twenty inhabitants of Charlestown. In their deed they style it Wenatomie, alias Menatomie field, and its eastern boundary ‘Menatomie brooke.’
Seventeen of them made acknowledgment in 1646, and three ‘on 2nd of 10th month’ (i.e., December), 1654, and all before Increase Nowell, one of the few men then styled Mister.
Jno. Fownell, the Charlestown miller, ‘sould’ thirteen acres, ‘wch I recovued by law from the estate of George Cooke Coronell, for the educacion of his daughter.’
Robert Long, the tavern-keeper of Charlestown, was the first grantor named. His portion was sixteen acres
