tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post115016327559003454..comments2024-03-14T13:25:20.613-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: "Outside the Textbook" and beyond Mount WhoredomUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-1153540948789511842006-07-21T23:02:00.000-05:002006-07-21T23:02:00.000-05:00As an addendum, I just found the phrase "Mount Who...As an addendum, I just found the phrase "Mount Whoredom" used in an essay published in the 17 Nov 1788 <I>Herald of Freedom, and Federal Advertiser</I>, published in Boston. The rather opaque essay about treasure-hunting describes pre-Revolutionary times. While this doesn't prove the term was in use before the war, it shows that Bostonians didn't discard it with the departure of the British military.<BR/><BR/>The euphemistic "Mount Horam" label appears in the 26 Jan 1824 <I>Boston Commercial Gazette</I> in one of a series of "Recollections of a Bostonian" signing himself "Senex." That was the original term for Mount Vernon, the writer claimed. If so, it had escaped notice of every newspaper and broadside and map that have been indexed.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-1153538845118566522006-07-21T22:27:00.000-05:002006-07-21T22:27:00.000-05:00It's a good question, in that the name "Mount Whor...It's a good question, in that the name "Mount Whoredom" didn't appear on the few Boston maps before 1775. But that hill didn't appear on the maps, either, under any name. The British military engineers did a better job of mapping topographical features as well as being the first to apply the "Mount Whoredom" label on paper. <BR/><BR/>I believe "Mount Whoredom" was a popular but unofficial term for that part of west Boston before the British army occupation. New England army commanders used the term in their recommendations to Washington, as shown in the <I>Papers of Nathanael Greene</I>. I've never read a complaint from locals about the British unfairly applying that name to part of the Boston landscape. None of the British officers who used the label claimed that it was a witty coinage of one of their colleagues. And that area west of Boston Common was known before the war for its houses of ill repute.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-1153536549415489782006-07-21T21:49:00.000-05:002006-07-21T21:49:00.000-05:00"Mount Whoredom" was a name attached to the place ..."Mount Whoredom" was a name attached to the place by the occupying British. David McCullough wrote in <I>1776</I>: "For their part, the British had assigned an experienced cartographer, Lieutenant Richard Williams, who, with the help of a small crew, moved his surveyor's transit and brass chains from one vantage point to the next, taking and recording careful sightings. The result was a beautifully delineated, hand-colored map showing 'the True Situation of His Majesty's Army and also those of the Rebels.' All fortifications were clearly marked, all landmarks neatly labeled, including 'Mount Whoredom,' Boston's red-light district. Lieutenant Williams had been appalled to find prostitution so in evidence in what was supposedly a center of Puritanism -- 'There's perhaps no town of its size could turn out more whores than this could,' he noted in his journal -- and accuracy demanded that this, too, be shown on the map." (p. 27)<BR/><BR/>My question is this: Was that the name Bostonians used prior to the British occupation?Ed Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10056539160596825210noreply@blogger.com