Labelling of ‘ Charles Bay’ (what we now know as ‘ Back Bay’)

The town of Weymouth is located the wrong side of the Fore River, closer to where Brantrey or Braintry (now Braintree) is located, but which is omitted from this map.

The marking of the ‘Pest House’ on Ransfords Island*, situated south east of Long Island in Boston Bay.  A 'Pest House' was a hospital or hostel used for persons afflicted with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, or smallpox. It would have been used for forcible quarantine, and was generally sited close to a cemetery or a waste pond for disposal of the dead or, in this case, on an island.

The omission of a number of locations and names which one might expect from a survey completed by these men, especially considering the attention given to the detail of relief.  It is likely that a good deal of information was excluded at the time of publication purely due to the haste with which the project was completed.

*Rainsford Island (now Rainsford) was formerly called ‘Hospital Island’ and is labelled as such on the Des Barres chart of 1775 depicting the ‘Harbour of Boston’ (see Heritage Charts A102 & A112), and the un-attributed 1769 ‘Chart of Boston Bay showing all of the islands, approaches and sand banks’ (se Heritage Charts A107).