Excerpt from Report of the Commissioners Appointed by the City Councils of the Cities of Roxbury and Boston, Respectively, on the Union of the Two Cities Under One Municipal Government

The Town of Roxbury, including within its limits what is now the City of Roxbury, and also what is now the Town 01 West Roxbury, continued for a period of more than two hun dred and thirty years from its origin, without any material change in its boundaries, or in its government.

In the year 1846 the City Charter was granted, and was accepted by the people. The territory of the City of Roxbury, which at the time of the acceptance of the City Charter was large, was greatly reduced by an act of the Legislature passed in the year 1851, incorporating the Town of West Roxbury.

Between the years 1840 and 1850 the population iof Roxbury increased from about 9000 to more than A large portion of this increase was upon that portion of the territory which is within the present city limits. The people of the westerly part of Roxbury, while they were seeking to Obtain their act of incorporation as a town, gave as reasons for the separation, that the population of the easterly section had become comparatively dense, and would continue to rapidly increase, that the people were fast becoming assimilated to the people of Boston, that the wants of the easterly section and the pursuits of its inhabitants were like those of Boston, and unlike theirs, - that Boston, by dense population and compact building, was fast pressing on the easterly borders of Roxbury, and would, of necessity, soon comprehend and include within its municipal limits all of that territory which now remains to the City of Roxbury, that the westerly section retained to a great extent its agricultural character, and could be better managed and controlled under a town government. They, therefore, asked that the relations which had so long existed between the two sections might be severed, and that they might be permitted tb return to the form of government from which they were taken by the acceptance of the City Charter.

The Legislature recognized the force of these reasons, and passed the act incorporating the Town of West Roxbury. The question of the annexation of Roxbury to Boston then became the subject of discussion. In the year 1852 it became the subject of a very lengthy and elaborate enquiry, before a Legislative committee, who came to the conclusion that al though Boston would at some future period include Roxbury, and other adjoining territory, the exigency for such a measure had not then arrived. Since that period the subject has been presented to committees of the Legislature three times, viz.: in the years 1859, 1860 and 1865, in all Of which the committees reported in favor of annexation.

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