Meetinghouse Hill

Meeting House Hill
Samuel Curtis (1785-1876)
Roxbury, Massachusetts, ca. 1799
Oil on canvas
Gift of Miss Mary E. Haven 

In this painting of Meeting House Hill in Roxbury, Massachusetts, artist Samuel Curtis depicted a scene of peaceful urban life. More than twenty years earlier, during the Siege of Boston, the Continental Army occupied this same hill to prevent British supplies from crossing Boston Neck. Their defensive earthworks, fortifications made from dirt, are visible to the right of the church steeple and along the horizon on the far left. The meeting house in the center of the view took heavy cannon fire during the Siege and was rebuilt in 1804, only a few years after the completion of this painting.