His eyes are as dark as the depths of space. His smile sheds rainbows. And, his coldness melts when he falls in love. He is John Quinn.

Charlestown, Boston.
In those days Boston was nothing but three hills...

Quinn mentions a place called Charlestown when he is talking about his days as a human. Claiming that Quinn grew up in Charlestown may not be entirely correct as L. J. Smith does not state that this is so. But, it is very probable that he did grow up there.

Whatever the case may be, I did some research on Charlestown. It is situated on a peninsula in Boston, the capital city of the state of Massachusetts, which is located on the east coast of the U. S. The map of Boston below shows Charlestown surrounded by the Charles and Mystic Rivers.

Some interesting correlations between Quinn and Charlestown:

Charlestown was settled in 1628. Because Quinn was born in 1621, this means his family would have moved to Charlestown from a previous residence. Because Quinn seems to have close ties with Boston in general, not just with Charlestown, I believe the Quinn family had probably always lived in the Boston area. This explains why it took Quinn centuries to return to Boston (not just Charlestown) after he became a vampire. I also got the impression that Quinn knew Boston like the back of his hand, which leads me to believe this more so.

I should also point out that in 1637, two years before Quinn was made a vampire in the Night World series, a man named John Harvard served the First Church of Charlestown. John Harvard is a prominent figure in Charlestown history and I strongly think L. J. Smith used John Harvard to name our Quinn. (We all know L. J. Smith does her research before writing her books.) John Harvard was also said to be a Puritan, which sounds a lot like the Quinn family.

A comparison of Boston then and now:

The following images demonstrate how Boston has changed from the time Quinn was human, to now.

The first image is of Charlestown in 1851; not quite the time when Quinn was human but it does demonstrate houses with thatched roofs. It was the only image I could find that resembled how Quinn described Boston. He said Boston back in the sixteen-hundreds consisted of hills, dense forest, clean beaches surrounded by salt meadows, and only a handful of houses with thatched roofs.

The second image is of Boston in 2002. This shows a bit of the Boston harbour that is mentioned in The Chosen. You can see the industrial buildings and almost imagine the warehouses that were featured in the book.

* When researching Charlestown and Boston, the following sites were used for information: Encarta Online, Charlestown Business Association, Harvard Magazine, and Stratford-upon-Avon. Images from the following sites were used here: Boston Maps, Erik Rauch, and Shonda L. Ranson.

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