The Francis Parkman Memorial is hidden in plain sight, opposite the Brookline side of Jamaica Pond near the intersection of Francis Parkman Drive and Perkins street. Parkman was one of the first great historians of the United States, best known for The Oregon Trail and France and England in North America. He was born in Boston in 1823, and during the 1850s purchased land bordering Jamaica Pond for a summer home. The current memorial sits near the former site of his house.
Parkman suffered from poor health, but was remarkably active. He rowed a boat on the pond regularly, and visited the general store on Centre st. to talk with the locals about the issues of the day. In his later years, he raised and hybridized flowers, becoming a professor of horticulture at Harvard's Bussey Institute at the Arnold Arboretum. When he died in 1893, Parkman was one of America's great men of letters. The Francis Parkman grammar school on Walk Hill street, near Forest Hills, was named in his honor. His house - Sunnyside - was removed when Jamaica Plain Park was created by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Visiting the memorial requires a cautious crossing of Parkman Drive from the pond. read more