60 Fun Facts About Massachusetts

The state's official name uses which word instead of 'State'?

Massachusetts is officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a term its 1780 constitution adopted for its republican connotation; Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia are the other three commonwealths.

What is Massachusetts' nickname, from the large bays that shape its coast?

Massachusetts is the Bay State, a nickname taken from Massachusetts Bay and the Massachusetts Bay Colony chartered in 1629; Rhode Island, not Massachusetts, is the Ocean State.

The state's name comes from an Indigenous people whose name is often translated as what?

The Massachusett people's name is usually rendered 'near the great hill', a reference to the Great Blue Hill on the Milton-Canton line south of Boston.

How many passengers did the Pilgrims' ship carry across the Atlantic in 1620?

The Mayflower carried 102 passengers, plus roughly 30 crew, when it sailed from Plymouth, England in September 1620; the Speedwell proved unseaworthy and was left behind.

Which Wampanoag chief signed a treaty with Plymouth Colony that helped ensure its survival?

Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, made a peace treaty with Plymouth in March 1621 that held for more than 50 years; Squanto acted as interpreter.

Boston was founded in 1630 on which peninsula?

The Puritans also called it Tremontaine, for its three hills, which is where Tremont Street gets its name.

In the Salem witch trials of 1692, how many people were executed by hanging?

Nineteen people were hanged at Proctor's Ledge in Salem between June and September 1692; Giles Corey died separately, pressed under stones for refusing to enter a plea.

The last convicted Salem 'witch', Elizabeth Johnson Jr., was formally exonerated in what year?

Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was formally exonerated in 2022, 329 years after her conviction, through a state-budget provision pushed by a North Andover middle-school civics class.

On what date did the Boston Tea Party take place?

On December 16, 1773, Sons of Liberty boarded three ships at Griffin's Wharf and dumped their tea into Boston Harbor in protest at the Tea Act Parliament had passed that May.

Roughly how many chests of tea were thrown into Boston Harbor?

Around 340 chests, 342 by the usual count, of East India Company tea, roughly 92,000 pounds, were emptied from the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver in about three hours.

Which 1775 battles fought in Massachusetts began the Revolutionary War?

The battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 opened the war when British troops marching from Boston to seize militia stores met colonial minutemen.

Massachusetts became which number state to ratify the US Constitution, in February 1788?

Massachusetts ratified on February 6, 1788 as the sixth state, by a narrow 187-168 vote that came with recommended amendments, a tactic later states copied.

What is the 1786-87 uprising that tried to seize the Connecticut Valley federal armory called?

It was led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays and influenced the Constitutional Convention.

Which state was part of Massachusetts until it separated in 1820?

Maine was the District of Maine within Massachusetts until 1820, when it entered the Union as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise.

Which Black Massachusetts regiment of the Civil War was depicted in the 1989 film Glory?

The 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the first Black regiments raised in the North, led the July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner that forms the climax of Glory.

In 2004 Massachusetts became the first US state to do what?

The change followed the Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge decision.

Which two US presidents named Adams were born in Massachusetts?

John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams were both born in Braintree, now Quincy; their birthplaces stand side by side in Adams National Historical Park.

What is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States?

It was named in 1639 for John Harvard, a Puritan clergyman who left it his library and £780.

Boston Latin, founded in 1635, holds what national distinction?

Boston Latin School, opened on April 23, 1635, is the oldest public school in the United States; the Mather School of 1639 is the oldest public elementary school.

Boston's Tremont Street line, opened in 1897, was the first what in the nation?

The Tremont Street Subway, opened September 1, 1897, was the first subway in the United States, built to pull streetcars off the congested street above.

In January 1919, a wave of what killed 21 people in Boston's North End?

The Great Molasses Flood of January 15, 1919 sent a wave of molasses through the North End at about 35 mph after a 50-foot tank holding 2.3 million gallons burst.

Boston's Back Bay neighbourhood was created how?

Gravel came by rail from Needham Heights and from levelling Boston's original three hills.

What was the nickname of Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project, completed in 2007?

The Big Dig, finished in 2007 at roughly $15 billion, buried the elevated Central Artery in a tunnel; the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway now runs along its old route.

Which sport was invented in western Massachusetts in 1891 by James Naismith?

Naismith invented basketball in December 1891 at the YMCA training school in Springfield, nailing a peach basket to a gym balcony to keep a class busy in winter.

Volleyball was invented in 1895 in which Massachusetts city?

William G. Morgan, director of the Holyoke YMCA, devised the game in 1895 as a gentler indoor game for older members and first called it 'mintonette'.

After their 2024 title, how many NBA championships had the Boston Celtics won?

The 2024 championship was the Celtics' 18th, then a league record and one more than the Lakers; eight of the titles came in a row from 1959 to 1966.

Which Celtics player-coach became the first African American head coach in a major US sport?

Bill Russell took over from Red Auerbach as player-coach in 1966, the first African American head coach in a major US league, and won titles in 1968 and 1969.

What is the name of the famous left-field wall at Fenway Park?

The Green Monster is Fenway Park's 37-foot left-field wall, painted green in 1947 and topped with seats since 2003; Duffy's Cliff was the earlier slope in front of it.

The lone red seat in Fenway's right-field bleachers marks what?

Ted Williams hit it in 1946.

New England's NFL team was founded in 1959 under what name?

The Boston Patriots were an AFL charter franchise, awarded to Billy Sullivan in November 1959; they became the New England Patriots on moving to Foxborough in 1971.

The Boston Marathon, first run in 1897, is traditionally held on which state holiday?

The Boston Marathon is run on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April, which commemorates the opening battles of the Revolution; the race starts in Hopkinton.

What is the highest point in Massachusetts?

Mount Greylock, 3,489 feet above sea level in the Berkshires, is the state's highest summit; Melville dedicated his 1852 novel Pierre to the mountain he saw from his Pittsfield farm.

Since 1914, most of Cape Cod has been separated from the mainland by what?

The Cape Cod Canal, opened in 1914 and widened by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1930s, cuts across the isthmus; the Sagamore and Bourne bridges carry road traffic over it.

Who coined the name Cape Cod in 1602?

Bartholomew Gosnold named Cape Cod in 1602 for the great numbers of codfish his crew caught off its shore; it is the ninth-oldest surviving English place-name in the United States.

Which two islands off Cape Cod does the Steamship Authority's ferry service link to the mainland?

Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie south of Cape Cod; Nantucket, once the world's whaling capital, is the port from which the Pequod sails in Moby-Dick.

Which Massachusetts poet published only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems during her lifetime?

Emily Dickinson lived almost her whole life in Amherst, where her sister Lavinia found some 1,800 poems in her room after her death in 1886.

Thoreau's Walden describes two years in a cabin near which Massachusetts town?

Thoreau built his cabin in 1845 on Walden Pond, just south of Concord village, on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Which children's author, born Theodor Geisel, came from Massachusetts?

Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield in 1904; the city's Mulberry Street gave his first book its title, and a sculpture garden there honours him.

Which global doughnut chain was founded in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1950?

Bill Rosenberg opened the Open Kettle in Quincy in 1948 and renamed it Dunkin' Donuts in 1950; the chain shortened its name to Dunkin' in 2019.

The chocolate chip cookie is generally credited to which Massachusetts hotelier?

Ruth Graves Wakefield ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, where around 1938 she added chopped Nestle chocolate to butter-drop cookies, creating the Toll House cookie.

The state's official dessert, a custard-filled cake, is credited to which hotel's chef?

Boston cream pie, named the official state dessert in 1996, was created at the Parker House hotel soon after it opened in 1855: sponge cake layered with custard and glazed with chocolate.

Which Worcester native introduced the yellow smiley face in 1963?

Harvey Ball, a Worcester graphic artist, drew the yellow smiley in 1963 for State Mutual Life Assurance's employee-morale campaign and never trademarked it.

The city of Lowell was founded in the 1820s as a planned centre for which industry?

Its young female mill workers were known as the Mill Girls.

What is the largest ancestry group in Massachusetts, at nearly 20% of the population?

Irish immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the 1840s.

Roughly what share of Massachusetts is covered by forest?

About 62% of Massachusetts, some three million acres, is forest that regrew on farmland abandoned after 1850; moose and black bears have returned to the western counties.

The Kennedy family's Ted Kennedy served as a US senator from Massachusetts for how long?

Ted Kennedy held the seat from 1962 until 2009, winning a November 1962 special election and serving until his death on August 25, 2009, nearly 47 years.

Which Speaker of the House from the state held the longest continuous tenure in that job?

Tip O'Neill of Cambridge was Speaker from January 1977 to January 1987, ten straight years, the longest unbroken run in the chair's history.

Which Boston silversmith was authorised in 1652 to mint the colony's own shillings and sixpences?

John Hull, with partner Robert Sanderson, ran the Boston mint from 1652, striking the pine tree shillings; the colony had run on barter and a jumble of foreign and counterfeit coins.

Who was the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay after the 1691 charter?

Sir William Phips arrived with the new charter in May 1692 and, as first royal governor, set up the Court of Oyer and Terminer that tried the Salem accused.

Which 1647 law first required towns to appoint a teacher or open a grammar school?

Nicknamed for its opening line about 'that old deluder, Satan', the Massachusetts Bay law made the colony the first in North America to require schooling; Horace Mann's reforms later built universal public schooling on it.

Who in 1974 became the first openly lesbian or gay candidate elected to any US state legislature?

Elaine Noble won a Massachusetts House seat from Boston's Fenway-Back Bay district in November 1974, serving two terms as the first openly lesbian or gay state legislator in the country.

What is the Massachusetts state legislature formally called?

The Massachusetts General Court, a name kept from the 1629 colonial charter, has a 160-member House and a 40-member Senate and meets in the State House on Beacon Hill.

Whose 1952 Senate loss to John F. Kennedy marked the state's turn toward the Democrats?

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a Republican senator since 1937 apart from war service, lost to the 35-year-old Kennedy by about 70,000 votes in 1952 even as Eisenhower carried the state.

How many counties does Massachusetts have, though most county governments were abolished from 1997?

Massachusetts has fourteen counties, from Berkshire in the west to Barnstable on Cape Cod; most, including Middlesex, the most populous, lost their governments between 1997 and 2000.

What share of Massachusetts's 10,555 square miles is water?

Water covers 25.7% of Massachusetts, about 2,715 of its 10,555 square miles, counting Massachusetts Bay, Cape Cod Bay, Buzzards Bay and inland waters such as the Quabbin Reservoir.

Which Berkshire town is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum?

Stockbridge was Norman Rockwell's home for his last 25 years; the Norman Rockwell Museum opened its present building there in 1993 and preserves his studio on its grounds.

Which Abenaki sagamore strode into Plymouth in March 1621 and announced 'Welcome, Englishmen!'?

Samoset, a sagamore from Pemaquid far to the north-east, had picked up English from visiting fishermen; days later he returned with Squanto, who became the colonists' interpreter.

How many Mayflower passengers died during the first winter at Plymouth?

About 45 of the passengers died that first winter, mostly of disease, and were buried on Cole's Hill; Governor John Carver died in April 1621 and William Bradford succeeded him.

How many Wampanoag men joined the 53 surviving Pilgrims at the 1621 harvest feast?

Edward Winslow's 1621 letter records the Wampanoag sachem arriving with some 90 men for the three-day feast, which was labelled 'the First Thanksgiving' only in the 19th century.

In which Dutch city had the Pilgrims' congregation lived before sailing to America?

The separatists settled in Leiden in 1609 after a year in Amsterdam, working in its cloth trades; fearing their children were becoming Dutch, they left for America in 1620.