|
If you are interested in joining Genealogy Trails as the host of any of our county websites,
view our Volunteer Page for all the ins and
outs of becoming a host.
(Enough knowledge to make a basic webpage and a desire to transcribe data is required)
Regretfully, we do not have time to do research for anybody.
All data we come across will be added to these sites.
We thank you for visiting and hope you'll come
back again to view the updates we make to our sites.
STATE FACTS AND HISTORY
The Most Populous of the New England States
Settlement of Massachusetts began when the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower and landed in 1620 at a point they
named Plymouth (after their port of embarkation in England). Their first governor, John Carver, died the next year,
but under his successor, William Bradford, the Plymouth Colony took firm hold.
Other Englishmen soon established fishing and trading posts nearby
Andrew Weston (1622) at Wessagusset (now Weym outh) and Thomas Wollaston (1625) at Mt. Wollaston, which was renamed
Merry Mount (now Quincy) when Thomas Morton took charge. The fishing post established (1623) on Cape Ann by Roger
Conant failed, but in 1626 he founded Naumkeag (Salem), which in 1628 became the nucleus of a Puritan colony led
by John Endecott of the New England Company and chartered by the private Council for New England.
In 1629 the New England Company was reorganized as the Massachusetts
Bay Company after receiving a more secure patent from the crown. In 1630 John Winthrop led the first large Puritan
migration from England, which consisted of 900 settlers on eleven ships.
The early Puritans were primarily agricultural people, although a merchant class soon formed. Most of the inhabitants
lived in villages, beyond which lay their privately owned fields.
Native American resentment of the Puritan presence resulted in the Pequot War of 1637, after which the four Puritan
colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven) formed the New England Confederation, the first
voluntary union of American colonies. In 1675-76, the confederation broke the power of the Native Americans of
southern New England in King Philip's War. In the course of the French and Indian Wars, however, frontier settlements
such as Deerfield were devastated.
Boston replaced Salem as capital of the colony.
[Source: The Columbia Electr onic Encyclopedia, 6th ed; 2002]
Massachusetts was admitted to statehood February 6, 1788
Join our Genealogy Trails Northeastern Coastal States
Mailing List
to get email notices when our county sites are updated.
For the Northeastern States of :
 New
Hampshire Massachusetts
Rhode
Island
Connecticut
New
Jersey Delaware
Maryland
Maine
Washington
D.C.
You never know who you might meet and what family data they may share with you
-- it could start a whole new branch of the family!
We also use the mailing lists to announce our website updates.
|
