Founded in 1630 (contemporaneously with Boston), West Roxbury was originally part of the town of Roxbury and was mainly used as farmland. West Roxbury formed its own government in 1851 and was annexed by Boston in 1874. Bordered by Roslindale and Hyde Park, West Roxbury’s main thoroughfare is Centre Street, lined with local restaurants and commercial establishments. Today, the neighborhood’s tree-lined streets and mostly single family homes give it a suburban feel in an urban setting. Life in the neighborhood centers on political and civic activism as well as local parishes and youth athletic leagues. The community boasts a significant, but aging, proportion of persons of Irish decent as well as a smaller number of more recent Irish immigrants.
The neighborhood was home to an experimental utopian community called Brook Farm, which attracted notable writers like Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau.
Like its neighboring communities, West Roxbury's residential development grew with the construction of the West Roxbury branch of the Boston and Providence Railroad; the area grew further with the development of electric streetcars. West Roxbury, bordered by Roslindale and Hyde Park, is truly a suburban neighborhood within the City of Boston. West Roxbury's main thoroughfare is Centre Street, lined with local restaurants and commercial establishments.
Theodore Parker Church - Centre and Corey Sts.
The Theodore Parker Church features seven stained glass windows made by the Tiffany Studios between 1894 and 1927. The original church, designed in 1890 by A.W. Longfellow, is now a parish hall. Henry Seaver designed the current church in 1900. Theodore Parker (1810-1860), an advocate of progressive religious ideas, abolitionism and women's suffrage, was minister of this Unitarian congregation from 1837 to 1846.
Westerly Burying Ground - Centre St. at Lagrange St.
Westerly Burying Ground was established in 1683 to permit local burial of residents of Jamaica Plain and the western end of Roxbury. When West Roxbury reamined part of Roxbury, the town’s first burial place was today’s Eliot Burying Ground, near the present-day Dudley Square. This was a far distance to go for the inhabitants of West Roxbury and in 1683 the town selectmen voted to establish a local burying place, now known as Westerly Burying Ground. A conflict between the rural and more urbanized parts of the town led to the split of West Roxbury from Roxbury proper in 1851. West Roxbury became an official part of the City of Boston in 1874. Westerly Burying Ground served as this community’s burial place well into the nineteenth century. The oldest graves contain many of the town’s earliest and most prominent families. Eight Revolutionary War veterans and fifteen Civil War veterans are also interred here. The site is significant for its large collection of three centuries of funerary art. One-third of its extant gravestones date from the eighteenth century; almost half date from the nineteenth century and only about twenty bear twentieth-century dates. Another distinguishing feature of Westerly Burying Ground is the number of individual mound tombs found here. Mound tombs at other burying grounds are typically larger, built to contain a number of bodies. The oldest gravestone, from 1691, commemorates James and Merriam Draper, members of a prominent West Roxbury family. Headstones provide an historic record of three centuries of West Roxbury residents and also illustrate the skills of local stone carvers.
West Roxbury Library
In 1876 the Boston Public Library created a delivery station when it took over the collection of the West Roxbury Free Library. In 1896 it became a full branch of the Boston Public Library. In 1921-22 a new library building was built at the present site. In 1977 a devastating fire destroyed the neighboring West Roxbury Congregational Church and the land was deeded to the Trustees of the Boston Public Library for the purpose of an addition to the Branch building. On September 24, 1989 the new addition was opened to the public.