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How did the Nutt children get to and from school each day?

East Boston wharf

Ferry landing

Smith School, Belknap Street

For Black children

East Boston Ferry route

Nutt house, Saratoga and Prescott Streets

School house

For white children only

This cropped map from 1846 shows part of Boston. It visualizes the Nutt children’s neighborhood, and the path (walking, a ferry, and more walking) they would have had to take to get to and from school each day. In the lower right hand corner is East Boston. Icons show the Nutt family’s house; a nearby school that was open only to white children; and the wharf and ferry route to get from East Boston to the main part of the city. The schoolhouse in the upper lefthand corner is the Smith School on Belknap St. (today, 46 Joy St.), which was the school Black children, including Joshua, Peter and Archibald Nutt, attended. Many Black families wanted the Smith School to be shut down and the rest of Boston’s public schools to be open to Black children. In 1855, the MA legislature passed a law barring segregation in public schools.

Citation and link: Full map (Boston, 1846), zoom in and out: MHS Collections Online: A new & complete map of the City of Boston : with part of Charlestown, Cambridge and Roxbury (masshist.org)