Massachusetts

Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

Please Come to Boston
(song by Dave Loggins)
The Road to Boston

Massachusetts Symbols

Nicknames: The Bay State; The Baked Bean State; The Old Colony State; Old Bay State; The Pilgrim state
Slogan: We'd Love to Show You Around
Motto: By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty
Song: All Hail to Massachusetts (words and music by Arthur Marsh)
Polka Song: Say Hello to Someone in Massachusetts (by Lenny Gomulka)
Folk Song: Massachusetts
Patriotic Song: Massachusetts (Because of You Our Land is Free)
Ceremonial March: The Road to Boston
Folk Dance: Square Dance
Marine Mammal: Right Whale
Shell: New England Neptune
Cat: Tabby Cat
Dog: Boston Terrier
Horse: Morgan Horse
Bird: Black-capped Chickadee
Game Bird: Wild Turkey
Fish: Cod
Insect: Ladybug
Tree: American Elm
Flower: Mayflower
Fossil: Dinosaur Tracks
Gemstone: Rhodonite
Mineral: Babingtonite
Building and Monument Stone: Granite
Rock: Roxbury Puddingstone
Beverage: Cranberry Juice
Berry: Cranberry
Bean: Baked Navy Bean
Muffin: Corn Muffin
Cookie: Chocolate Chip Cookie
Dessert: Boston Cream Pie
Children's Author and Illustrator: Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
Children's Book: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Folk Hero: Johnny Appleseed
Heroine: Deborah Samson
Pro Sports Teams: Boston Celtics(basketball), New England Patriots(football), Boston Red Sox(baseball), Boston Bruins(hockey)

Facts About Massachusetts

Capital: Boston
Residents: Bay Staters
State Name Origin: named after the Massachusetts Indians, whose name means "large hill place"
Admitted to Statehood: 6 Feb 1788
Order of Admission: 6th state
Coastline/Shoreline: 192/1,519 miles
Length: 190 miles
Width: 50 miles
Area: 10,555 square miles
Size Rank: 44
Number of Counties: 14
Streams and Rivers: 8,229 miles
Geographic Center: at Rutland in Worcester Co.
Mean Elevation: 500 feet
Highest Point: Mt. Greylock, 3,491 feet
Lowest Point: Atlantic coast, sea level
Agricultural Products: cranberries, dairy products, poultry products, nursery and greenhouse produce, vegetables, fruit
Commercial Products: health care services, tourism, finance and insurance services, fish, industrial machinery, electronic equipment, printing and publishing, metal products
Average Annual Rainfall: 43.8 inches
Average Winter High Temperature: 32 degrees
Record Low Temperature: -35 degrees (12 Jan 1981 Chester)
Average Summer High Temperature: 80 degrees
Record High Temperature: 107 degrees (2 Aug 1975 New Bedford and Chester)
Official Language: English
More information about Massachusetts

Quotes

The heart of the world beats under the three hills of Boston. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. (Henry David Thoreau)
I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. (Daniel Webster)
The one thing the Pilgrims certainly didn't do was step ashore on Plymouth Rock. Quite apart from the consideration that it may have stood well above the high-water mark in 1620, no prudent mariner would try to bring a ship alongside a boulder in a heaving December sea when a sheltered inlet beckoned nearby. If the Pilgrims even noticed Plymouth Rock, there is no sign of it. (Bill Bryson)
We are by September and yet my flowers are bold as June. Amherst has gone to Eden. (Emily Dickinson)

Massachusetts From A - Z

This is a great ABC list about Massachusetts

Massachusetts State Ode

(Joseph Falzone)

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom
From the Freedom Trail in Boston
To the dome on Beacon Hill
To Framingham and Worcestor
And Springfield if you will
From Concord on to Lexington
No matter where you roam
There's a not so common Commonwealth
It's the place that I call home

You are the heart of New England
Old Ironsides and Bunker Hill
Where JFK once paved the way
To the day the world stood still
Your one by land and two by sea
Helped set our country free
You can't get better Massachusetts
You'll always be sweet home to me.
No, you can't get better Massachusetts
You'll always be sweet home to me.
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom

Items of Interest

The first American public library was founded in Boston in 1653
The African Meeting House on Joy Street in Boston was the first church built by free blacks, 1806.
Boston built the first subway system in the United States in 1897.
Volleyball was invented in Holyoke in 1895 by William G. Morgan.
Hingham's Derby Academy, founded in 1784, is the oldest co-educational school in the US.
Hingham's First Parish Old Ship Church is the oldest church structure in the US in continuous use as a place of worship.
The Fig Newton was named after Newton, Massachusetts.
Lowell was America's first planned industrial city.
Boston Common became the first public park in America in 1634.
The first basketball game was played in Springfield in 1891.
Quincy boasts the first Dunkin Donuts on Hancock Street and the first Howard Johnson's on Newport Ave.
The birth control pill was invented at Clark University in Worcester.
Harvard, the first college established in North America, was founded in 1636. Because of Harvard's size there is no universal mailing address that will work for every office at the University.
The Boston University Bridge on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
The Mather school was founded in Dorchester in 1639. It is the first public elementary school in the US.
Jamaica Plain was once the state headquarters of Greenpeace. The building still has a weather vane with a whale on it.
The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in Plymouth in 1621.
The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, by William Hill Brown, was published in Worcester in 1789.
Revere Beach was the first public beach in the United States.

Notable Natives

Some of these people were born here, others just lived a part of their life in the state.

John Adams(1735-1826) - 2nd U.S. president (Norfolk Co.)
John Quincy Adams(1767-1848) - 6th U.S. president (Norfolk Co.)
Samuel Adams (1722-1803) - Revolutionary War patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of MA (Boston)
Jack Albertson - actor (Malden)
Horatio Alger - author (Revere)
Susan B. Anthony - woman suffragist (Adams)
F. Lee Bailey - defense attorney (Waltham)
Clara Barton - founder of American red cross (Oxford)
Katharine L. Bates - author
Leonard Bernstein - conductor (Lawrence)
William Cullen Bryant - poet, editor (Cummington)
Luther Burbank - horticulturist (Lancaster)
George Herbert Walker Bush (1924- ) - 41st U.S. president (born in Norfolk Co.)
John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed - nurseryman (Leominster)
Calvin Coolidge - U.S. president
John Singleton Copley - painter (Boston)
e. e. cummings - poet (Cambridge)
Bette Davis - actress (Lowell)
Cecil B. DeMille - film director (Ashfield)
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) - poet (Amherst)
Ralph Waldo Emerson - philosopher, poet (Boston)
Brian Evans - singer (Haverhill)
Ann Smith Franklin - printer, almanac publisher (Boston)
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - printer, author, philosopher, diplomat, statesman, scientist, inventor (Boston)
Buckminster Fuller - architect, educator (Milton)
Charles Goodyear - first vulcanized rubber in 1839 in Woburn
John Hancock (1737-1793) - merchant, statesman, first signer of the Declaration of Independence, first governor of MA (Braintree)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) - author (Salem)
Oliver Wendell Holmes - poet (Cambridge)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. - supreme court justice (Boston)
Winslow Homer - painter (Boston)
Elias Howe - invented the first sewing machine in 1845 (Spencer)
Robert Hutchings Goddard - inventor of the first liquid fueled rocket (Worcester)
Helen Hunt Jackson - writer (Amherst)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy(1917-1963) - 35th U.S. president
Jack Lemon - actor
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)- poet
Amy Lowell - poet, Brookline)
Percival Lowell - astronomer (Boston)
James Russell Lowell - poet (Cambridge)
Robert Lowell - poet (Boston)
Horace Mann - educator (Franklin)
Cotton Mather - clergyman (Boston)
Sharon Christa McAuliffe - teacher, astronaut (Framingham)
Jo Dee Messina - country singer (Holliston)
Samuel Finley B. Morse - inventor (Charlestown)
Leonard Nemoy - actor (Boston)
George Peabody - merchant, philanthropist
Albert Pike - pioneer teacher, lawyer (Boston)
Edgar Allan Poe - poet (Boston)
Ella Raines - actress (Snoquaimie)
Paul Revere (1735-1818) - silversmith, patriot (Boston)
Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) - author, illustrator (Springfield)
Lucy Stone - woman suffragist(West Brookfield)
Louis Henry Sullivan - architect (Boston)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) - essayist, naturalist, philosopher (Concord)
James Whistler - artist (Lowell)
Eli Whitney - inventor (Westborough)
John Greenleaf Whittier - poet (Haverhill)

The State Flag
The flag depicts the state coat of arms on a white background. The shield has an image of a Native American with a bow and arrow. The arrow it pointed down to represent peace. Other symbols on the flag are: blue (for the Blue Hills); a white star (represents MA as one of the original thirteen colonies); a shield and sword representing the state motto (By the Sword We Seek Peace, but Peace Only Under Liberty).

You know you are from Massachusetts if...

You think crosswalks are for wimps
Khakis are something you start the car with
You think if someone's nice to you, they either want something or they are from out of town and probably lost
You know how to cross four lanes of traffic in five seconds
Anything past Worcester is "the middle of nowhere"
You think it's not actually tailgating unless your bumper is touching the car in front of you
You know that a yellow light means at least five more cars can get through...and that a red light means two more can.
A Crown Victoria = undercover cop
The transportation system is know as the "T"...Subway is a fast food place
You could own a small town in Iowa for the cost of your house
There are 24 Dunkin Donuts Shops within 15 minutes of your house
When people talk about the "curse of the Bambino," you know what they are talking about, and you believe in it, too.
You think of Rhode Island as the "Deep South"
You believe using a turn signal gives away your plan to the enemy
If you stay on the same road long enough, it will eventually have at least three different names
Someone has honked at you because you didn't peel out the second the light turned green
You've honked at someone because they didn't peel out the second the light turned green
Potholes just add excitement to your driving experience
Stop signs mean slow down a little... if you feel like it
Six inches of snow is considered a "dusting"
Three days of 90+ degrees is considered a "heat wave"
$15 to park is a bargain
You cringe every time you hear some actor/actress imitate the "Boston accent" on TV or in a movie. If you don't have it, you're never going to get it right....even if your were born here
You can go from one side of your hometown to the other in less than 15 minutes