Boston is a hidden gem, located near Thomasville and not far from Florida, with small but intact commercial and residential historic districts. It’s one of my favorite little towns in South Georgia.
According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination: The original settlement of Boston was located southeast of present day Thomasville and was little more than a stagecoach stop in 1826. In the late 1820s, the hamlet of Boston consisted of a few houses, a church, a mercantile, and a stagecoach stop. There are several differing accounts of how Boston was named. According to the Boston Edition, a 1906 article by Professor Axson Quarterman Moody, Principal of Boston Academy, the name “Boston” derives from the name “Botolph Town”, named for Saint Botolph, the noted 17th-century English educator. Other sources indicated that the town was named for Major Thomas M. Boston, a northern traveler who frequently visited Thomas County and the settlement of Boston by stagecoach in the early 1800s. A third account is that Joel Spencer and Eli Graves of Massachusetts named the town. Graves was one of the founding fathers of the Presbyterian Church at the original settlement location. The earliest settlers of Boston included the McLeods, McKinnons, McMillans, and the Mclntoshes, who reportedly came to the area in the late 1820s from South Carolina and before that, Scotland. There are three graves from the Mclntosh family located on the property that now includes Russell Dairy Farm on Sally Road (outside of district). Many believe that this is the site of the original settlement of Boston, however, maps of Thomas County from 1855 through 1865 show Boston in a different location and on an 1864 topographical map, the town is shown in two locations, neither of which appears to coincide with popular belief.
Regardless of the exact whereabouts of the original settlement, when the railroad tracks were laid in1860, city leaders made the decision to move the town. The new location was platted beginning in1860 and Boston was incorporated on October 24, 1870.
As with many historic settlements, we may never know the whole story, but Boston as it stands today has plenty of stories to tell.
Boston Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
