INTRODUCTION Though Massachusetts is a small state it has a rich history and is diverse in both its landscape and its people Massachusetts is where 102 Pilgrims landed in 1620 and developed the first permanent colony in what became the United States Later many Bay Staters as residents of the state are called including Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams were leaders of revolutionary activity leading up to America’s war for independence In 1773 Massachusetts was the site of the Boston Tea Party in which colonists protested British taxes on tea by throwing hundreds of chests of tea into Boston Harbor In 1775 the first battles of the American Revolution were fought at Lexington and Concord and in 1776 Massachusetts native John Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence Workers at the Boston Harbor Tea Party Ship and Museum re-create the historic tax protest of 1773 4 MASSACHUSETTS The Massachusetts State House is located on Beacon Hill and overlooks Boston Common QUICK FACTS Massachusetts state motto is Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem a Latin phrase meaning By the sword we seek peace but peace only under liberty Massachusetts adopted the Boston cream pie as the state dessert in 1996 The dessert was first baked in the 1800s Boston Common is the oldest public park in the United States The 45-acre area was opened as a public space in 1634 Crane and Company headquartered in Dalton has produced most of the paper for U S currency since 1879
INTRODUCTION 5 Logan International Airport is so large that it has its own state police troop and fire department Massachusetts is part of an area of the northeastern United States known as New England which consists of six states near the Atlantic coast Four of the New England states border Massachusetts New Hampshire and Vermont lie to the north and Connecticut and Rhode Island are to the south Maine is the sole New England state with which Massachusetts does not share a border Massachusetts also borders New York to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east Boston the state capital is a transportation hub for New England Logan International Airport which is just a few miles from downtown Boston is among the country’s most important domestic and international gateways Several interstate highways and passenger railroads pass through the state Massachusetts Location Map Manchester VERMONT NEW HAMPSHIRE Deerfield R 91 91 R t u c i t c e n n o C Ware River Quabbin Res Chicopee Springfield Worcester 90 K R O WY E N Pittsfield R c i n o t a s u o H S L L I H E R I H S K R E B 90 CONNECTICUT Barkhamsted Res 91 91 291 East Hartford Hartford Bristol 84 84 Waterbury Meriden New Britain 91 91 C o n n e ctic ut R 95 95 L Candlewood 84 84 Danbury New Haven West Haven Stratford Bridgeport 95 95 Norwalk Stamford M e r r 93 93 Nashua i m a c k R Lowell 495 495 Lawrence 95 95 495 495 190 Concord R Medford Waltham 290 Framingham Brookline Charles R Lynn Malden Somerville Cambridge Boston Quincy 93 93 M a s s a B c a h y u 95 95 Weymouth Brockton 84 84 395 395 495 495 Scituate Res Providence Cranston 95 9595 Pawtucket East Providence Warwick Fall River New Bedford 195 195 s R e m a h T 395 395 RHODE ISLAND s e t t s CAPE COD NATʼL SEASHORE Cape Cod Bay Cape Cod Marthaʼs Vineyard Nantucket Atlantic Ocean Capital Boston Population 6,349,097 Interstate highways Size 8,262 square miles 0 0 15 24 30 48 Mi Km Scale Highest peak Mount Greylock 3,491 feet QUICK FACTS Norfolk County is known as the County of Presidents It was the birthplace of U S presidents John Adams John Quincy Adams John F Kennedy and George H W Bush The state bird adopted in 1941 is the black-capped chickadee It is among the most common of all North American birds On a map Cape Cod looks like an arm bent to make a muscle Logan International Airport is among the country’s 20 busiest It serves more than 9 million passengers each year
6 MASSACHUSETTS Harvard University was named for a Puritan minister John Harvard who left the college his books and half his estate when he died QUICK FACTS The name Massachusetts is derived from Algonquian Indian words meaning near the great mountain The mountain being referred to was the tallest of the Blue Hills a recreation area south of the town of Milton America’s first public library was founded in Boston in 1653 Although Massachusetts is the sixth smallest state in area it has the 13th largest population with more than 6 million people at the time of the 2000 census A thriving center of education culture and industry throughout its long history Massachusetts offers both residents and visitors alike a mix of the traditional and the modern In Boston for example a modern skyline exists alongside narrow streets that are hundreds of years old In Cambridge students walk the grounds of Harvard the country’s oldest university On the Atlantic coast vacationers enjoy all sorts of activities such as fishing sailing and hiking Boston is a thriving port city along the Atlantic Ocean
QUICK FACTS Massachusetts state song is All Hail to Massachusetts written by Arthur J Marsh The state flower is the mayflower which is endangered INTRODUCTION 7 For much of the 1780s Massachusetts and the rest of the country were governed by a constitution called the Articles of Confederation The government created by the Articles however was weak and mostly ineffective In western Massachusetts in 1786 Daniel Shays a captain during the American Revolution led a protest against high taxes and other economic problems of the emerging nation The event known as Shays’s Rebellion was one of several disturbances in different states that helped convince Americans that it was time to create a stronger government Soon the Articles were replaced by the U S Constitution which Massachusetts formally approved on Feb 6 1788 Residents of the state played a vital role in building the new country John Adams a Massachusetts native was the country’s second president John Quincy Adams his son was the sixth president In the 1800s Massachusetts was a center of the Industrial Revolution in North America Johnny Appleseed born John Chapman a Massachusetts native who planted apple trees across the Midwest was named the state hero in 1996 The state flag of Massachusetts contains a white field and a blue shield with the image of a Native American He holds a bow and arrow with the arrow pointing down to show peace The state tree is the American elm Adopted in 1941 it commemorates George Washington taking command of the Continental Army under an elm in Massachusetts in 1775 Massachusetts joined the Union on the condition that a bill of rights be added to the U S Constitution
