📓 The town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, is now part of the city of Boston. In 1880 the city fathers authorized the publication of some of the oldest records of the old town of Dorchester, spanning the period 1632-1686. This reprint of the oldest town records places thousands of persons in Dorchester during its first half-century of existence, and the reader can easily find them thanks to the detailed index at the back of the volume.