Neighbors led by the former top archivist for the city of Boston are looking to create a “history garden” inside an underused public park along Columbia Road near Edward Everett Square.
A recently published state-funded report produced for their project outlines concepts, including sculptures and interpretive signage, that would give visitors background information about Dorchester, which was an independent town from 1630 until its annexation to Boston in 1870.
The garden would be sited inside the existing Richardson Park, a green space that currently features a statue depicting Edward Everett, Dorchester’s most prominent 19th century statesman, who grew up nearby and served as governor of Massachusetts, United States senator, and US Secretary of State.
Above, John McColgan in front of the Edward Everett statue in Richardson Park. Seth Daniel photo
The park at the corner of Pond Street is adjacent to the James Blake House, the oldest dwelling in the city, which dates to 1650. And it is in close proximity to one of Dorchester’s most notable sculptures, a 12-foot, bronze representation of a pear, which recalls the area’s agricultural roots.
The state report was conducted by the Sasaki Design Group and paid for from $25,000 in funding set aside by state Sen. Sen. Nick Collins in last year’s budget.
A group called the Pear Square Collaborative and headed by Savin Hill’s John McColgan, the former archivist for the City of Boston, is driving the effort and hoping to gather more funds and partners to support an eventual installation.
The 72-page study, which was prepared over eight weeks last spring, outlines a process pathway that would start this year with community discussions and talks with city officials about what the project might include.
“The Dorchester Community History Garden project aspires to create a work that will instill citizens with a sense of community identity; generate public discourse; and serve the symbolic needs of the public sphere in which the art park will reside,” reads a section of the report.
“The art park may include harmoniously positioned features such as sculpture, amphitheatre, banners, interpretive signage among aesthetically ambient greenspace for public enjoyment and cultural edification.”
McColgan said he has discussed the concept with neighborhood groups, including the Dorchester Historical Society and the Columbia Savin Hill Civic Association, an organization that honored McColgan as one of three ‘Persons of the Year’ in 2025 for his historical preservation work.
“The idea of a community history garden in Edward Everett Square is an attempt to bring together a cultural asset that somehow manifests the history of all of Dorchester’s many communities,” he said during a visit to the site with The Reporter last month. “I don’t even know how many there are because it’s the most diverse neighborhood in the City of Boston, but we will find out
“If something like this could be done it would help people in these communities understand their history and help people understand the experiences of other communities as well,” he added. “Could this be the beginning to a path of empathy for all of us? It could be a history that empowers all the community.”
The report also outlines a visioning exercise to solicit stories from the past—including indigenous people, colonial residents, and the waves of immigrants who have come to Dorchester over the centuries.
The first goal, the report says, is to “identify a process by which the diverse history of the site and the neighborhood would be gathered and collated with the expertise necessary to do it in a thoughtful and inclusive manner.”
McColgan was a central actor in the last major push for public art and historic markers in Edward Everett Square more than 20 years ago, an effort that resulted in the pear statue installation in 2007. A sequence of 10 bollards installed around the statue in 2010 was also part of that effort.
“The pear sculpture and surrounding artworks – the bollards there – is something like we want to do here,” he said. “I look at that as a pre-cursor to what we want to do with the history garden.”
Edward Everett statue: From a turn-of-the-century postcard.
One immediate hurdle will be determining ownership of Richardson Park, which, McColgan and others say, was bequeathed to the city of Boston as a gift from a neighbor in 1895. The property appears in a list of city parks and playgrounds as “Richardson Square” in public documents in the 1980s. However, it is no longer listed on the city’s index of parks and playgrounds.
McColgan said he would like to see the year kick off with an appointed advisory committee that would be inclusive of every Dorchester community and have its members identify trusted advocates in every community.
While that is going on, he said, a campaign to fundraise and secure grant money would also be set up.
He has an early supporter in Sen. Collins, who called McColgan “a driving force behind the Pear Square Collaborative’s vision to enhance the quality of life around Edward Everett Square.
“His push for creative improvements that highlight our history would help make Richardson Park a more welcoming spot delivering real benefits to the neighborhood,” Collins said.
“These kinds of investments brighten up the area, strengthen community connections, and play a real role in improving public safety.”
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