Sometimes called the Eden of America, Jamaica Plain has a rich and colorful history reaching back to pastoral roots in the seventeenth century. Some say the neighborhood was named during the heyday of rum shipments from Jamaica to Boston in the 1660s, following Cromwell's seizure of the Caribbean island. Later part of Roxbury and still later West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain was a summer playground for elite New Englanders before finally becoming part of Boston in 1874.