Boston's early European settlers had first
called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains"—only traces
of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire,
England, from which several prominent colonists had come. The renaming, on September
7, 1630 (old style), was by Puritan colonists from England, who had moved over
from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement
was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the
Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow
isthmus. The
