Before colonization Boston Harbor was inhabited for thousands of years prior to
European colonization of the Americas, with some of the earliest human remains in the Boston area found on
Peddocks Island, dated to more than 4000 years before present. At the time of colonization,
Moswetuset Hummock on the peninsula of
Squantum was an important seat of the
Massachusett leader
Chickatawbut.
17th century now housed at the
Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston Since it was first described by Europeans by
John Smith in 1614, Boston Harbor has been an important port in American history. Boston Harbor was recognized by Europeans as one of the finest natural harbors in the world due to its depth and natural defense from the Atlantic as a result of the
many islands that dot the harbor. It was also favored due to its access to the
Charles River,
Neponset River, and
Mystic River, which made travel from the harbor deeper into
Massachusetts far easier. By 1660, almost all imports came to the greater Boston area and the New England coast through the waters of Boston Harbor. A rapid influx of people transformed Boston into an exploding city.
18th century Rear Admiral John Montagu, Boston, December 16, 1772 reports three frigates are stationed there to protect each of the harbour's three passages. On December 16, 1773, Boston Harbor was the site of the
Boston Tea Party, an iconic development in the
American Revolution.
19th century Through the 19th century, Boston Harbor underwent extensive construction and development, including the building of wharves, piers, and new filled land into the harbor. In the late 19th century, Boston citizens were advised not to swim in any portion of the harbor. Two of the first steam sewage stations were built, with one in East Boston and one later on Deer Island. With these mandates, the harbor was seeing small improvements, but raw sewage was still continuously pumped into the harbor.
20th century ,
Mystic, and
Neponset rivers, which each empty into Boston Harbor In 1919, the Metropolitan District Commission was created to oversee and regulate the quality of harbor water. However, not much improvement was seen and general public awareness of the poor quality of water was very low. In 1972, the
Clean Water Act was passed in order to help promote increased national water quality. Since the mid-1970s organizations within the Boston community have battled for a cleaner Boston Harbor. More recently, the harbor was the site of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Project. Failures at the Nut Island
sewage treatment plant in
Quincy and the companion
Deer Island plant adjacent to
Winthrop had far-reaching
environmental and political effects.
Fecal coliform bacteria levels forced frequent swimming prohibitions along the harbor beaches and the
Charles River for many years. In 1982,
Quincy, Massachusetts sued the
Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and the separate
Boston Water and Sewer Commission in 1982, charging that unchecked systemic pollution of the city's waterfront contributed to the problem. That suit was followed by one by
Conservation Law Foundation and finally by the
United States government, resulting in the landmark court-ordered cleanup of Boston Harbor. The lawsuits forced then-
Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis to propose separating the water and sewer treatment divisions from the MDC, resulting in the creation of the
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority in 1985. The slow progress of the cleanup became a key theme of the
1988 U.S. presidential election as
George H. W. Bush defeated Dukakis partly through campaign speeches casting doubt on the governor's environmental record, which Dukakis himself had claimed was better than that of Bush. The court-ordered cleanup continued throughout the next two decades and is still ongoing. Before the cleanup projects, the water's pollution gained notability in popular culture when
The Standells released their 1965 song, "
Dirty Water", which referred to the state of the
Charles River.
Neal Stephenson, who attended
Boston University from 1977 to 1981, based his second novel,
Zodiac, around pollution of Boston Harbor. Since the writing of the song, the water quality in both the harbor and the Charles River has significantly improved, and the projects have dramatically transformed Boston Harbor from one of the filthiest in the nation to one of the cleanest. Today, Boston Harbor is safe for fishing and for swimming nearly every day, though there are still beach closings after even small rainstorms, caused by bacteria-laden storm water and the occasional combined sewer overflow.
21st century In 2022, pieces of plastic transmission line used in rock explosives, known as explosive shock tubing, began washing up on coastal shores of
Cape Cod and
Rhode Island. This led to an investigation that was conducted by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it was suspected to have been related to a concluded Boston Harbor dredging project. The outcome was to seek to find methods to prevent future environmental impacts from reoccurring. ==Geography==