The History of My Land

During the last few years, I have learned so much about our collective histories in North America that I had previously never been exposed to. On some zoom calls lately, there has been recognition of the land where the host is coming from. As a history teacher, I know that I am standing on what once was land used by peoples of whose history I am largely ignorant.

I typed “Learn the history of the land you are on” into my favorite search engine and this app popped up. I entered my address and I found:

Yay! There’s so much information available but the intersection of so much information is overwhelming and will be difficult to parse with reliability. So I’m going to work backward. I know who owns the land I currently occupy. My mortgage company is Cross Country Mortgage, a small brokerage LLC. They sold my loan to Ginnie Mae. According to their website, they are a self-financing, wholly owned U.S. Government corporation within HUD. So… taxpayers?

According to Massachusetts land records the first deed on this parcel of land was in 1988. That’s really recent for this area but confirms what older neighbors remember. Here’s the lot according to a survey in 1927

I’ve tracked the land back to 1914 when it was bundled in a large lot called Whiting Woods. It’s going to take more tools than I have right now to continue going backwards.