Local city information for Winthrop, MA

The Town of Winthrop is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although known as a town, Winthrop adopted a home rule charter in 2005 with a council-manager form of government and is considered a city under Massachusetts law. The population of Winthrop was 18,303 at the 2000 census. Standing on Winthrop's edge one can see the city of Boston and Deer Island.

The town was first settled in 1635. It was officially incorporated in 1852 and named Winthrop after Deane Winthrop, the son of the first Governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, and is one of the four municipalities in Suffolk County (the others are the cities of Boston, Revere, and Chelsea). It is located on a peninsula, at the beginning of the North Shore, with seven miles of shoreline that provides views of the ocean to the east and of the Boston skyline to the west.

Originally part of an area called Winnesimmet by the Native Americans, the peninsula was annexed by Boston in 1632 and within five years became the grazing area for farm animals of the rapidly growing Boston colony. In 1637 it was divided into 15 parcels of land that were given by Governor Winthrop to prominent men in Boston with the stipulation that each must erect a building on his land within two years. Few, if any, of these men ever lived here, but their farms prospered. One of these early houses, built initially during the first half of the 1600s, and rebuilt in 1675, was the home of Governor Winthrop’s youngest son, Deane Winthrop, who lived there until his death in 1703. This house is still standing and is maintained, for public viewing, by the Winthrop Improvement and Historical Association.

In 1739, what is now Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop withdrew from Boston due to governmental control disputes and became the Town of Chelsea. Again the desire for more local control resulted in Revere and Winthrop seceding from Chelsea in 1846 to become North Chelsea. Shortly thereafter, in 1852, Winthrop was incorporated as a town in its own right with a Board of Selectmen and Town Meeting form of government. In 1920, Winthrop was the second town in the Commonwealth to apply for and receive a Charter for a Representative Town Meeting, which continued to 2006.

In 2006, a new Town Charter, establishing a city form of government, was passed in a special election. The Board of Selectmen and Town Meeting were abolished, and legislative powers were vested in an elected Town Council. Executive power, largely ceremonial, resides in the Council President, who is popularly elected. An appointed Town Manager serves as the head of administrative services.

On July 26, 2007, the Winthrop Sun Transcript reported that a movement was beginning to abolish the Town Council and return to a Representative Town Meeting. The multi-step process to reverse the changes made by the 2006 charter is quite complex, so it remains to be seen what form of government Winthrop will have going forward.

Deer Island, though within the city limits of Boston, is located in Winthrop Bay. It ceased to be an island in the 1930s when Shirley Gut, which separated it from Winthrop, was filled in. The island has a sordid past as an internment camp for Native Americans during King Philip's War, a quarantine station where many immigrants died, and the site of a county jail. Today the island is home to the mammoth Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant, which provides sewage treatment for the Boston area.

Winthrop includes Snake Island in Boston Harbor as well as a portion of Logan Airport.

Winthrop has a weekly newspaper, the Winthrop Sun Transcript, which reports local news, current events, happenings, and concerns.

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