Bowie County's Bounty of Bostons
January 14, 2009
page 3 of 4 pages
I imagine a town that wandered around so much must have been a source of some consternation for those early settlers along the trail now covered over by highway 8. Consider the the case of a unsuspecting settler husband, beyond the outskirts of any town. Having been sent on the errand by his wife, he straddled his mule to go to Boston for some beans, but when he got to the place where the town was – just yesterday – he discovered it had moved.
Imagine the settler straggling back to his log cabin, well after dark, and when he slips down off the mule, there’s his wife standing at the door, in her gingham apron, her hands on her hips.
“Hiram,” she says, “where the ding-dong have you been? The cows need milking, the hogs need slopping, and there's a skunk stuck in the chimney. I sent you to Boston for one little bag of beans before noon and you don’t come back until after supper!”
Hiram trudges into the cabin and tosses the beans on the table. “Honest Injun, Cora, the dang town moved -- again. I had to chase it another four miles up the trail.”
Hiram slumps in the horsehide chair beside Cora’s spindle and sighs, “I just wish that Mr. Boston would light someplace—and stay lit.”
Now, consider further how these towns may have propagated due to the traveling itch of this Mr. Boston. If each of those locations managed to take root from the town sign he planted, albeit planted only briefly, and they each eventually sprouted into a town of its own, the roving Boston might rightfully be considered a sort of Johnny Appleseed for towns with Boston in the name.
Because of him, Bostons abounded. It was “here a Boston, there a Boston, everywhere a Boston”. And, when all the little Bostons began to blossom, there were so many of them, it became necessary afterwards, to add the qualifiers “Old” and “New” to the original and the latest, respectively, so people could refer to the particular Boston they were talking about.
If for no other reason, it probably became necessary to clarify the specific Bostons in order to provide a defense to protect pioneer husbands.
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