The first Greek-sounding name in an official Boston document (1668) (left) appears to be that of a Jane Grecian, daughter of Capt. Thomas Grecian and his wife Dorothy. In 1688  Capt. Grecian’s name also appears on  a Boston tax-payer list  (above).  S. G. Canoutas , a 1918 Boston lawyer, in his “Hellenism in America” surmised that  the first and last names of the members of this family indicated they were of Greek origin. I have been unable to prove or disprove his hypothesis.

Could this be the first Greek in Boston?

Emmanuel (Manny) Paraschos, Ph.D.

Professor and Graduate Program Director

Department of Journalism, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA USA

Emmanuel_Paraschos@Emerson.edu

During colonial times in the 1600s and 1700s, Greeks came to America and the Boston area sporadically and in small numbers. First were the captains and sailors, then those who came for educational reasons. There is a possibility that the first Greek immigrant might have been one Capt. Thomas Grecian or Gretian (see below).

One clear immigration pattern developed at the end of the 1820s as Greece was trying to recover from the independence war’s devastation. War orphans were brought to the New England area by philhellenes such as Massachusetts’ Samuel Gridley Howe,  Vermont’s Col. Jonathan Miller and other merchants or diplomats.

By the middle of the 19th century, the Boston area had fewer than 300 Greeks. The 1900 U.S. census (see chart below) showed that approximately 9000 Greeks lived in America at that time, about 2000 in New England, 1800 in Massachusetts, 1600 in the Boston area (U.S. Census, Vol. 1, Part 1, Tables 33, 34).

They came armed only with the faith that there was hope here, hope through employment and/or education. Some were brought here by philhellenes, and others were adopted by prominent Boston families. Some of the immigrants even changed their last names to those of the host families in gratitude. Finding those today would be extremely difficult.

The major immigration wave from Greece to America came at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th as Greece’s economy was struggling and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were taking their toll. But that story is better known and documented. This is about those brave young Greek men and women who came alone, survived and excelled in 19th century Boston.

The story of the Boston-area Greeks of the 20th century is well known. The lives of such  Greek Americans as athlete H. Agganis, state SJC chief justice Paul Liacos, maestro D. Mitropoulos, businessmen T. Pappas, J. Haseotes, G. and T. Demoulas, and J. Gikas, industrialists C. Maliotis, and C. Papoutsy, entrepreneur philanthropist G. Behrakis, former Massachusetts Gov.  M. Dukakis, the Natsios family of civil servants, astronomer M. Papayannis, the late Archbishop Iakovos, author N. Gage, and those countless top scientists in Boston-area hospitals, universities and laboratories are well documented. But we know little about those who preceded them.

This study is a tribute to them.  

“The N.E. historical and genealogical register” (above) shows that in 1691 a Colleta Grecian, daughter of Dorcas and granddaughter of Thomas Grecian, was baptized in

Mr. Willard’s church, which was the Old South Church.