Famous Firsts in Massachusetts

Selected from Citizens Information Service of Massachusetts at
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis

162 The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Plymouth.
1634 Boston Common became the first public park in America.
1635 The first American public secondary school, Boston Latin Grammar School, was founded in Boston.
1636 Harvard, the first American university, was founded in Newtowne (now Cambridge).
1638 The first American printing press was set up in Cambridge by Stephen Daye.
1639 The first free American public school, the Mather school, was founded in Dorchester, a neighborhood of Boston. Also, the first post office in America was Richard Fairbanks tavern in Boston.
1653 The first American public library was founded in Boston.
1704 The first regularly issued American newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, was published in Boston.
1716 The first American lighthouse was built in Boston Harbor.
1775 The first battle of the Revolution was fought in Lexington and Concord, and the first ship of the U.S. Navy, the schooner Hannah , was commissioned in Beverly.
1789 The first American novel, William Hill Brown s The Power of Sympathy, was published in Worcester.
1806 The first church built by free blacks in America, the African Meeting House, opened on Joy Street in Boston.
1826 The first American railroad was built in Quincy.
1837 Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph based on Morse Code, a simple pattern of dots and dashes.
1839 Rubber was first vulcanized by Charles Goodyear in Woburn.
1840 The typewriter was invented by Charles Thurber in Worcester.
1845 The first sewing machine was made by Elias Howe in Boston.
1850 The first National Women s Right Convention convenes in Worcester.
1875 The first American Christmas card was printed by Louis Prang in Boston.
1876 The first telephone was demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell in Boston.
1877 Helen Magill White becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D in the U.S. at Boston University.
1888 The first electric trolley in the state runs from Lynn.
1891 The first basketball game was played in Springfield. Also, Kennedy Biscuit Workers (later Nabisco) used a machine invented by James Henry Mitchell to mass-produce the first Fig Newton Cookies and named them for Newton, MA.
1893 The first successful gasoline-powered auto was perfected by Charles and Frank Duryeain in Springfield.
1895 The first volleyball game was played in Holyoke.
1897 April 19,1897 was the first Boston Marathon. The race was run from Boston to Ashland and the starting field was 15 runners. John J. McDermott was the winner.
1898 The first American subway system was opened in Boston.