Mattapan Through Time

The name Mattapan originated with the Neponset Tribe of the Massachusett Indians, a tribe of the Massachusetts confederation of Native Americans. For well over 200 years, the area remained farms and undeveloped land until the Dorchester and Milton Branch of the Old Conly Railroad established a depot in Mattapan Square which allowed commuting to Boston. By the turn of the twentieth century, Mattapan saw the development of new streets laid out off Blue Hill Avenue and Norfolk Street which slowly become a solid, respectable suburb. Although predominantly Yankee in the late nineteenth century, within a decade or two, the area began to attract new residents with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. However, by the twentieth century, Blue Hill Avenue had many Jewish shops “with their Kosher signs and strange wares—pumpernickel bread, rollmops, poppyseed cakes, bagels, odd-looking fish and tripes and wrinkled sausage hanging on long skewers in the butcher shop windows.” In Mattapan Throu