1629

The Company hires Kentish engineer Thomas Graves and sends him to Salem to prepare for the settlement of a larger expedition to come.  Graves leads a band of about 100 settlers to the Mishawum peninsula and directs the construction of the Great House and the laying out of the streets of a new town given the name, Charlestown, after the adjacent river and the reigning King, Charles l.

Thomas Graves builds a fort with “palisadoes and flankers” atop Fort Hill (now Town Hill) for protection from the Indians..

The Mishawum peninsula has three major hills: Bunker’s, Breed’s, and Moulton’s, plus two minor hillocks: Fort (later Town) Hill and School Hill (later site of the Phipps Street Burying Ground).

The territorial extent of Charlestown originally included  the area covered by these towns that were later set off: Malden, Medford, Melrose, Everett, Woburn, Burlington, Winchester, Wilmington, Stoneham, Somerville and parts of Cambridge, Reading and Wakefield.