The Littleton Historical Society’s event last week drew a crowd of close to a hundred people to hear a presentation by Littleton resident Daniel Boudillion. His main topic of research concerned the numerous New England locales incorporating the word “Tophet” into their name, in particular eight Massachusetts swamps so named by the Puritans. Illustrating his remarks with slides, Boudillion began by noting that the word “Tophet” was peculiar to the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was chartered in 1629. The Puritan Bible of choice was the Geneva Bible, a translation that used the word Tophet to depict a...
