Boston annexed five neighbor towns between 1867 and 1873 [fact]
Between 1867 and 1873, Boston hungrily gobbled up Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton, Charlestown, and West Roxbury -thereby, like some science fiction monster, growing larger in a very short time and with very little effort (Lane, 1967).
Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 325