Brighton is a dissolved municipality and current
neighborhood of
Boston,
Massachusetts,
United States, and is located in the northwest corner of the city. It is named after the town of
Brighton in the English city of
Brighton and Hove. For its first 160 years Brighton was part of
Cambridge and was known as “Little Cambridge." Throughout much of its early history it was a rural town with a significant commercial center at its east end. Brighton separated from Cambridge in 1807 after a bridge dispute and was later annexed to
Boston, in 1874. It is now a large community jointly with the adjacent neighborhood of
Allston. Its population is predominantly white and Asian, with smaller numbers of Latinos and African Americans.
History
In 1630, land comprising present-day
Allston-Brighton and
Newton was assigned to
Watertown. In 1634, the
Massachusetts Bay Colony transferred ownership of the south side of the
Charles River, including present-day Allston-Brighton and Newton, from Watertown to Newetowne, later renamed
Cambridge.
In 1646,
Reverend John Eliot established a “
Praying Indian” village on the present Newton-Brighton boundary, where resided local
native converted to Christianity. The first permanent English settlement came as settlers crossed the Charles River from Cambridge, establishing Little Cambridge, the area's...
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