Charles River is charted and named.

The map produced by Capt. John Smith notes the presence of a river that the Native Americans call the Quineboquin (“twisting” or “winding”). Although the distance from the river’s mouth to its source is only 25 miles, its length is estimated at 69 miles. Smith later reputedly tells the young Prince of Wales (later King Charles I) to change the names of the features on the map to some “good English ones,” and the prince names the river after himself. Originally a tidal estuary two miles wide at high tide, the river’s width, and flow are finally regulated by a dam in 1910.*