ABOUT

Brighton is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and is located in the northwest corner of the city.

History
In 1630, land comprising present-day Allston–Brighton and Newtonwas assigned to Watertown.In 1634, the Massachusetts Bay Colonytransferred ownership of the south side of the Charles River, including present-day Allston-Brighton and Newton, from Watertown to Newetowne, later renamed Cambridge. In 1646, Reverend John Eliotestablished a “Praying Indian” village on the present Newton-Brighton boundary, where resided local natives converted to Christianity. The first permanent English settlement came as settlers crossed the Charles River from Cambridge, establishing Little Cambridge, the area's name before 1807.Before the American Revolutionary War, Little Cambridge became a small, prosperous farming community with fewer than 300 residents. In 1820, the horticulture industry was introduced to the town. In October 1873, the Town of Brighton, in Middlesex County, voted to annex itself to the City of Boston in Suffolk County, and in January 1874 Brighton officially became a neighborhood of the City of Boston. Allston-Brighton’s population grew tremendously in the next half century, rising from 6,000 in 1875 to 47,000 by 1925.