Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

• Born in Boston
• Going to Boston
• Lost in Boston
• Massachusetts Moon
• Massachusetts Morning
• Nantucket Sleigh Ride
• Road to Boston

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 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
• Fruit: Cranberry
• Bean: Baked Navy Bean
• Muffin: Corn Muffin
• Cookie: Chocolate Chip Cookie
• Donut: Boston Cream Donut
• 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

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 were born here, others just lived a while 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 has the state coat of arms on a white background. The shield has an image of a Native American with bow and arrow. The arrow points 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 represent 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 fifteen 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 fifteen minutes.

Songs about Massachusetts

• Lights Went Out in Massachusetts, The - The Bee Gees (1967)
• Massachusetts - Greg Greenway (1991)
• Nantucket Sleigh Ride - Mountain (1971)

Songs about Boston

• Banned in Boston - The Sam the Sham Revue (1967)
• Big Wheel From Boston - Jumpin' Bill Carlisle (1970)
• Blue-Eyed Boston Boy - Dwight McCall (2007)
• Born in Boston - Smith (1969)
• Boston Boy - R. Skaggs, D. Grisman, and D. and R. McCoury (1999)
• Boston Fancy - Giselle MacKenzie (1955)
• Boston, My Home Town - Freddy 'Boom Boom' Cannon (1960)
• Boston Tea Party - Burnt By the Sun (2002)
• Going to Boston - The McLain Family Band (1986)
• Lost in Boston - Robin McNamara (1970)
• Please Come to Boston - David Allan Coe (1985)
• Road to Boston - Linda Russell (1984)

Songs about New England

• Homesick for New England - Roger Williams (1960)
• Weekend in New England - Barry Manilow (1976)
• When Fall Comes to New England - Cheryl Wheeler (1992)
• Whoever's in New England - Reba McEntire (1986)