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The history of Dedham, Massachusetts, began with the first settlers' arrival in 1635. The Puritans who built the village on what the Indians called Tiot incorporated the plantation in 1636. They devised a form of government in which almost every freeman could participate and eventually chose selectmen to run the affairs of the town. They then formed a church and nearly every family had at least one member. The early residents of town built the first American canal, the first tax supported public school, run by Ralph Wheelock, and Jonathan Fairbanks built what is today the oldest woodframe house in North America. Dedham is one of the few towns founded during the colonial era that has preserved extensive records of its earliest years. ==Tiot== In 1635 there were rumors in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that a war with the local Indians was impending and a fear arose that the few, small, coastal communities that existed were in danger of attack. This, in addition to the belief that the few towns that did exist were too close together, prompted the Massachusetts General Court to establish two new inland communities. The towns of Dedham and Concord, Massachusetts were thus established to relieve the growing population pressure and to place communities between the larger, more established coastal towns and the Indians further west.〔 The grant from the colony gave them over "two hundred square miles of virgin wilderness, complete with lakes, hills, forests, meadows, Indians, and a seemingly endless supply of rocks and wolves."〔 Aside from "several score Indians, who were quickly persuaded to relinquish their claims for a small sum, the area was free of human habitation." The original grant stretched from the border of Boston to the Rhode Island border. Dedham was settled in the summer of 1636 by "about thirty families excised from the broad ranks of the English middle classes" traveling up the Charles River from Roxbury and Watertown traveling in rough canoes carved from felled trees. These original settlers, including Edward Alleyne, John Everard, John Gay and John Ellis "paddled up the narrow, deeply flowing stream impatiently turning curve after curve around Nonantum until, emerging from the tall forest into the open, they saw in the sunset glow a golden river twisting back and forth through broad, rich meadows." In search of the best land available to them they continued on but
They first landed where the river makes its 'great bend,' near what is today Ames Street, and close by the Dedham Community House and the (Allin Congregational Church ) in Dedham Square. The Algonquians living in the area called the place Tiot.〔 Tiot, which means "land surrounded by water," was later used to describe the village of South Dedham, today the separate town of Norwood.〔 In "its first years, the town was more than a place to live; it was a spiritual community." Many of the other yeomen settling the new Dedham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony came from Suffolk, in eastern England. This group included elders Nathan Aldis, George Barber, Henry Brock, Eleazor Lusher, Samuel Morse, Robert Ware, John Thurston, Francis and Henry Chickering and Anthony, Corneileus and Joshua Fisher.〔 Of towns founded during the colonial era, Dedham is one of the few towns "that has preserved extensive records of its earliest years." They have been described as "very full and perfect."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1635–1792」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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