Today Charlestown is a largely residential neighborhood, with much housing near the waterfront, overlooking the Boston skyline. In the 21st century, Charlestown's diversity has expanded dramatically, along with growing rates of the very poor and very wealthy. A mix of yuppie and upper-middle-class gentrification has influenced much of the area, as it has in many of Boston's neighborhoods, but Charlestown still maintains a strong Irish-American population. Since the late 1980s, the neighborhood has changed dramatically because of its proximity to downtown and its colonial architecture. It has had a substantial Irish-American population since the migration of Irish people during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. With that, it also switched from Middlesex County, to which it had belonged since 1643, to Suffolk County. It was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.Ĭharlestown became a city in 1848 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874.
Charlestown was laid out in 1629 by engineer Thomas Graves, one of its earliest settlers, during the reign of Charles I of England. Also called Mishawum by the Massachusett, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic River and Boston Harbor waterways. Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States.
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