Streetcar service to Roxbury begins.

Operated by the Metropolitan Street Railway, the horse-drawn line runs from Boylston Market along Washington Street to Norfolk House in John Eliot Square. It is jokingly called the “Shawl Line” because it goes “over the Neck and back.” The line is extended to Egleston Square in 1858 and to Forest Hills (then Tollgate) in 1864. By 1859, the company owns 63 streetcars and 590 horses and has seven lines in service. By 1885 it owns 3,000 horses and 720 streetcars and operates lines throughout Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. The lines are converted to electric streetcars on September 2, 1890.