English settlers established the town of Dorchester in 1630; it extended all the way to Rhode Island. The Ashmont Hill area remained farmland until the mid-1800s; a farmhouse on the site of the present Codman Square library was occupied by General Henry Knox in 1784, and later on Daniel Webster lived there for a time.

By 1850 the Honorable John Welles had acquired a large tract that included Ashmont Hill; in 1872, two years after Dorchester was annexed to Boston, his grandson and heir, George Derby Welles, had a subdivision plan drawn up for “Welles Hill,” which included Alban, Ocean, Welles, Roslin, Harley and Walton streets. Other streets in the neighborhood were added soon thereafter. As in other parts of Dorchester, development on Ashmont Hill was spurred by the construction of the Old Colony Railroad, with a station in Peabody Square, and then by the expansion of streetcar lines to downtown Boston.

From the 1870s until World War I, affluent businessmen, lawyers, physicians, educators, architects, and artists built houses here. Since then, successive generations of residents, from all heritages and all walks of life, have made their homes in the exceptional dwellings these earlier residents left as their legacy.

Notable Residents

Ashmont Hill residents over the years have been as distinguished and varied as the houses. Important architects including Edwin J. Lewis and Harrison Atwood designed many of the houses; Atwood designed his own on Alban Street.

American Impressionist Edmund Tarbell, photographer Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (whose brothers invented the Stanley Steamer), and painter Frank Shapleigh all lived here, as did Boston educator Jeremiah Burke.

Boston Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald and his family occupied a mansion at Welles and Harley Street (which burned in 1938), from which his daughter Rose was married to one Joseph Kennedy.