Wollaston, Massachusetts

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Wollaston, Massachusetts, is a neighborhood in the City of Quincy, Massachusetts. It is bordered by North Quincy to the north, Quincy Center to the south,[1] and Quincy Bay, at Wollaston Beach, to the east. Wollaston has its own zip code, 02170, and is served by the Wollaston Station on the Red Line of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

The early name of Mount Wollaston is now given to a cemetery adjacent to the neighborhood and the alternative early name Merrymount designates a separate Quincy neighborhood.

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[edit] Early history

In 1624, Thomas Morton emigrated from England to the Plymouth Colony, in the company of a Captain Wollaston. Unable to get along with the Pilgrim authorities in Plymouth Colony, Wollaston and Morton left the colony in 1625 with a company of 30 or 40 colonists. They cleared the land and built log-huts on the seaward slopes of the hills in what is now Wollaston.

[edit] Mare Mount

In 1626, the captain and most members of the community departed for Virginia. Thomas Morton remained, renamed the village Mare Mount (sometimes thought to be a contraction of Merry Mount but more likely referring to the seaside location — "mare" meaning hill by the sea), and proceeded to outrage the Puritans. As Morton himself wrote in The New England Canaan (Book III, Chapter 14): "The Inhabitants of ... Mare Mount ... did devise amongst themselves ... Revels and merriment after the old English custome; (they) prepared to sett up a Maypole upon the festivall day ... and therefore brewed a barrell of excellent beare ... to be spent, with other good cheare, for all commers of that day. And ... they had prepared a song fitting to the time and present occasion. And upon May day they brought the Maypole to the place appointed, with drumes, gunnes, pistols and other fitting instruments, for the purpose; and there erected it with the help of Salvages, that came thether to see the manner of our Revels. A goodly pine tree of 80 foot longe was reared up, with a peare of buckshorns nayled one somewhat neare unto the top of it: where it stood, as a faire sea mark for directions how to finde out the way to mine Hoste of Mare Mount." See also Nathaniel Hawthorne's account in the fictionalized retelling, The Maypole of Merry Mount.

In 1628, Plymouth authorities dispatched Miles Standish to restore order. He promptly cut down the Maypole and took Morton into custody. Morton and associates were too drunk to resist; they were exiled to a small nearby island to await transportation back to England. There Morton was supplied with provisions by sympathetic Indians, escaped, and returned to England on his own. However, he reappeared in Plymouth the following year; once again, his property was confiscated and he was again sent home. In 1642, Morton returned to Massachusetts yet again and was promptly imprisoned in Boston. Following his release, he was exiled to Maine, where he remained for the rest of his life.

[edit] Other colonial figures

Wollaston was the home of William and Anne Hutchinson following their emigration from England in 1636. It was in Wollaston where Anne began her career as a pioneering female preacher in colonial America. William and Eunice Cole first settled in Mount Wollaston upon their arrival from England and were granted two acres of land on February 20, 1637, though they left for Exeter, New Hampshire before the year was out. Today Eunice Cole is better known as Goody Cole and was convicted of witchcraft in Hampton, New Hampshire in 1656: The only woman to ever have been convicted of such charges in New Hampshire.

[edit] The Quincy family

Edmund Quincy, progenitor of an illustrious line of Quincy men after whom Quincy Market in Boston and the City of Quincy are named, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1633. On December 14, 1635, he received a grant of land, approximately 400 acres. Four generations later, Josiah Quincy I built a mansion, the Josiah Quincy House, on a 200-acre site known as the "Lower Farm." The house still stands on Muirhead Street in Wollaston. In 1848, the fourth Josiah Quincy built another, the "Josiah Quincy Mansion," as his summer home.

The Quincy family land in Wollaston, which bordered on Adams family land, was developed in the 1870s and 1880s as a fine residential neighborhood: one of the area's first commuter neighborhoods. Residents were given a one year free pass on the Old Colony Railroad from Wollaston Station to downtown Boston. Wollaston MBTA station occupies the same site as the old station. In 1896, the Quincy estate was subdivided into "prestigious building lots" called Wollaston Park, and the Josiah Quincy Mansion became part of the 12-acre campus of the Quincy Mansion School for Girls.

In 1919, Wollaston became home to Eastern Nazarene College, which moved onto the old Quincy Mansion School property. The Mansion stood as part of the college until 1969. Angell Hall is now in the spot on campus where the Mansion once stood.[2]

[edit] 20th century

The first Howard Johnson's restaurant was established in Wollaston in 1925. The city of Quincy has placed a stone marker next to the Wollaston MBTA station parking lot designating that location as the original site of the first Howard Johnson's. This building was torn down before the opening of the new Wollaston station in 1971. The original Howard Johnson offices were located a short distance up the street, on the corner of Beale Street and Newport Avenue. The initials "HJ" can be seen in tiles on the walkway in front of the Beale Street entrance. The circa 1925 restaurant/pharmacy building can be seen here in its early days.

The basement of what is now a Japanese restaurant at the corner of Hancock Street and Bass Street is rumored to have served as the original rehearsal room for the Dropkick Murphys when the popular Irish-influenced punk band was starting out in the mid-'90s.[citation needed] However, the band quickly developed a following and the original practice space was abandoned when too many teenagers began hanging around in front of the building while the band was rehearsing. Another rumor maintains that the Dropkick Murphy's practice space was in the basement of Sean's Barbershop on Hancock Street which is now a mobile phone store across the street from Papa Gino's restaurant.[citation needed]

Both actress Ruth Gordon and author John Cheever were born on Winthrop Avenue on Wollaston Hill.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Quincy Neighborhoods
  2. ^ James R. Cameron. The Spirit Makes the Difference: The History of Eastern Nazarene College, Part II, 1950-2000, ENC Press (2000).

[edit] See also


Coordinates: 42°15′50″N 71°01′18″W / 42.26389, -71.02167