# Interesting info about Massachusetts.



## MARINECOP (Dec 23, 2003)

Found this interesting. There was a lot more info, but it was to much to post.

1621 The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Plymouth.

1634 Boston Common became the first public park in America.

1636 Harvard, the first American university, was founded.

1716 The first American lighthouse was built in Boston Harbor.

1775 The first battle of the Revolution was fought in Lexington and Concord.

1806 The first church built by free blacks in America, The African Meeting House, opened in Boston.

1826 The first American railroad was built in Quincy.

1839 Rubber was first vulcanized by Charles Goodyear in Woburn

1845 The first sewing machine was made by Elias Howe in Boston.

1875 The first American Christmas card was printed in Boston.

1876 The first telephone was demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell in Boston.

1926 The first successful liquid fuel rocket was launched by Dr. Robert Goddard in Auburn.

*Inventions and Innovations*

1891 Basketball was invented by James Naismith in Springfield

1895 Volleyball was invented by William Morgan in Holyoke

1925 Frozen food invented by Clarence Birdseye in Gloucester

1928 First computer was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge

1930 Chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookies invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield. Wakefield named her new cookie invention after the Toll House Inn, which she ran in Whitman, Massachusetts.

1855 Boston cream pie, Parker House rolls and Boston Scrod were all invented at the Omni Parker House in Boston.

1914 Fried clams invented by Lawrence "Chubby" Woodman in Essex

1957 Pink flamingo lawn ornaments invented by Don Featherstone in Leominster

*Famous Native Sons and Daughters*

AuthorsHoratio Alger (Revere)

Louisa May Alcott (Boston/Concord)

Edward Bellamy (Chicopee Falls)

Robert Benchley (Worcester)

E.E. Cummings (Cambridge)

Emily Dickinson (Amherst)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (Salem)

Oliver Wendell Holmes (Salem)

Jack Kerouac (Lowell)

Edgar Alan Poe (Boston)

Henry David Thoreau (Concord)

Painters Winslow Homer (Boston)

Norman Rockwell (Stockbridge)

James McNeil Whistler (Lowell)

Journalists Barbara WaIters (Boston)

InventorsAlexander Graham Bell (Salem)

Samuel Morse (Charlestown)

Eli Whitney (Westborough)

Performing Artists

Aerosmith (Boston)

Ben Affleck (Cambridge)

Jane Alexander (Boston)

Leonard Bernstein (Lawrence)

Chick Corea (Chelsea)

Jane Curtin (Cambridge)

Matt Damon (Cambridge)

Bette Davis (Lowell)

Geena Davis (Ware)

Olympia Dukakis (Boston)

Paul Michael Glaser (Newton)

Madeleine Kahn (Boston)

Jack Lemmon (Boston)

Jay Leno (Andover)

Leonard Nimoy (Boston)

Conan O'Brien (Cambridge)

Kurt Russell (Springfield)

Donna Summer (Boston)

James Taylor (Boston) 
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Page 3 
Page 3 Famous Films and TV Shows Set in Massachusetts 2003 Mona Lisa Smile (Wellesley) 2003 Mystic River (Boston) 2002 The Human Stain (Williamstown)2001 Moonlight Mile (Gloucester) 2001 The Retreat (Boston, Falmouth) 2000 Legally Blonde (Cambridge, Boston) 1999 The Perfect Storm (Gloucester) 1998 The Cider House Rules (Northampton) 1998 The Love Letter (Rockport, Gloucester) 1997 Amistad (Ipswich, Cape Ann) 1995 Sabrina (Martha's Vineyard) 1994 Little Women (Deerfield) 1994 Getting Away with Murder (Boston) 1993 Blown Away (Boston, Gloucester) 1993 The Firm (Boston) 1993 The River Wild (Boston, Cambridge ) 1992 Hocus Pocus (Salem) 1989 Glory (Boston, Sturbridge ) 1988 Field of Dreams (Boston, Fenway Park) 1987 Witches of Eastwick (Ipswich) 1974 Jaws (Martha's Vineyard) 1970 The Out-of-Towners (Boston) 1969 Alice's Restaurant (Great Barrington) 1967 The Thomas Crown Affair (Boston, Beverly, Ipswich) 1966 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Northampton) TV ShowsDawson's Creek (Beauty shots of Boston) Crossing Jordan (Boston) Ally McBeal (Boston) Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (Boston) The Practice (Boston) Boston Public (Boston) Wings (Nantucket) St. Elsewhere (Boston) Spencer for Hire (Boston) Cheers (Boston)


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## screamineagle (Jul 11, 2005)

Marinecop correction: Geena Davis was from Wareham.


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## Killjoy (Jun 23, 2003)

1777 - Springfield Armory founded in Springfield, Mass. First (and last) national armory in the United States.

Nice post, Marinecop!


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## SOT (Jul 30, 2004)

Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge, killed a girl, and has never gotten in trouble for it.


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2007)

What about 'Mary had a little lamb' + Sterling? Are you keeping secrets bro?


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## KozmoKramer (Apr 25, 2004)

SOT said:


> Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge, killed a girl, and has never gotten in trouble for it.


Oh man... thats awesome... :L:


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## justanotherparatrooper (Aug 27, 2006)

dont forget Mass was the first to pass gay marriage,lol


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## SOT (Jul 30, 2004)

MA was the fist "state"/ locality to burn people at the stake for witchcraft.


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## Rock (Mar 20, 2005)

*Ether first used at Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846.*

(my addition to the history lesson)


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## Barbrady (Aug 5, 2004)

Another famous son: Neal McDonough(Barnstable)


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## screamineagle (Jul 11, 2005)

dont forget Dennis Leary (Worcester).


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## Crvtte65 (May 19, 2002)

Very neat, where did you get it?

And Jack Albertson (Grandpa from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) was from Malden


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## Barbrady (Aug 5, 2004)

*Wizard of Oz* -Scarecrow played by Ray Bolger - Tin Man by Jack Haley(both from Boston)


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## Guest (Aug 16, 2007)

Mark Goddard (Lost in Space) - Born in Lowell, now lives in East Bridgewater.

And of course;

President John Adams

President John Quincy Adams

John Hancock

Paul Revere

The list could go on and on......


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## screamineagle (Jul 11, 2005)

Jerry Azumah ( cornerback, chicago bears) - Worcester I think
Howie Long- Charlestown


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## Inspector (Nov 13, 2006)

TV's "Commissioner Gordon", Neil Hamilton from the Batman series was born in Lynn but spent much of his youth in Lowell and was a graduate of Lowell High School as was TV's Ed McMahon, who was born in Detroit but raised by grandparents in Lowell and started his broadcasting career at a Lowell radio station.


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## Barbrady (Aug 5, 2004)

Delta784 said:


> The list could go on and on......


It really could. I keep remembering more like Boxer John L. Sullivan (Boston retired to Abington)


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## KozmoKramer (Apr 25, 2004)

What about Massachusetts phraseology.
Do kids in school still drink out of the "bubbler"? Was that a Mass thing? I haven't heard that term used in years.
How about "wicked" and "pissah" which led to the venerable "wicked pissah!"
The "packy" and "Jimmies", and taking out your trash so the "ashmen" can pick it up.
Do many other states have rotaries? NH doesn't have many that I know of, other than the one in Derry.


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## Guest (Aug 16, 2007)

KozmoKramer said:


> Do many other states have rotaries? NH doesn't have many that I know of, other than the one in Derry.


The only places I know that have rotaries are New England and Great Britain/British Colonies (which call them roundabouts).

Also...candlepin bowling is unique to New England.


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## Inspector (Nov 13, 2006)

C'Mon Koz, Ya Got a rotary in Lee, another in Epsom and probably a few others I can't remember. Yeah we Mass transplants did drink out of bubblers, had Jimmies on our ice cream, and got coal down the chute into the coal bin. Oh yeah...I think we put the brooms and mops in the dust bin.


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## Barbrady (Aug 5, 2004)

Delta784 said:


> and Great Britain/British Colonies (which call them roundabouts).


There are a few that I have seen in NC and they are also called roundabouts here. One big difference though, people in NC actually yield to traffic in the rotaries allowing right of way unlike in NE where you must yield when traveling in the rotary..



KozmoKramer said:


> What about Massachusetts phraseology.
> Do kids in school still drink out of the "bubbler"? Was that a Mass thing? I haven't heard that term used in years.
> How about "wicked" and "pissah" which led to the venerable "wicked pissah!"
> The "packy" and "Jimmies", and taking out your trash so the "ashmen" can pick it up.
> Do many other states have rotaries? NH doesn't have many that I know of, other than the one in Derry.


Ha, Lol Koz. Those are some of the few I have been called out on by the locals since moving to NC.

Also, little things like calling a rubber band an "elastic". I'll try to think of some more Mass. specific one's. Funny, though.



Delta784 said:


> Also...candlepin bowling is unique to New England.


Very true. People down here seemed confused when I explained what that was. A palm sized ball that has no holes? Whats the point? ******** mind you....********.


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## KozmoKramer (Apr 25, 2004)

Bar - If they were that perplexed when you explained candlepin to them, wait until you try and explain Duckpin! 
_ Well, the ball is still smaller than 10-pin, but bigger and heavier than candlepin, and still no holes, and the pins kinda look like Rosie O'Donnell; short with a big fat bottom,
and oh yeah; no deadwood like 10pin, and when the ball strikes them they fly all over the place, kinda like Jim Carrey on meth..._


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## Inspector (Nov 13, 2006)

Hey Koz how to .'splain to those Mass residents that we leave our cars in the "Door yard"

Oh Yeah and that they are "flatlanders"


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Yup "Door yard" is one I could never understand, Yup Yesir can't get there from here.


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## Barbrady (Aug 5, 2004)

KozmoKramer said:


> Bar - If they were that perplexed when you explained candlepin to them, wait until you try and explain Duckpin!
> _Well, the ball is still smaller than 10-pin, but bigger and heavier than candlepin, and still no holes, and the pins kinda look like Rosie O'Donnell; short with a big fat bottom,_
> _and oh yeah; no deadwood like 10pin, and when the ball strikes them they fly all over the place, kinda like Jim Carrey on meth..._


:L: These are the type of guys who's only use for bowling pins is for target practice.

How about calling soda....tonic.


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## IrishCop69 (Jan 25, 2007)

President Taft grew up in Millbury and swam in the Blackstone River.


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## tazoez (Dec 9, 2005)

KozmoKramer said:


> What about Massachusetts phraseology.
> Do kids in school still drink out of the "bubbler"? Was that a Mass thing? I haven't heard that term used in years.
> How about "wicked" and "pissah" which led to the venerable "wicked pissah!"
> The "packy" and "Jimmies", and taking out your trash so the "ashmen" can pick it up.
> Do many other states have rotaries? NH doesn't have many that I know of, other than the one in Derry.


LOL, you forgot the most Massachusetts phraseology that I haven't heard when I've traveled to other states.

State Trooper = STATIE


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## Simple (Oct 25, 2004)

There has never been a witch burned at the stake in Massachusetts they were either drowned or rocks were put on their chests and the were "pressed" to death.

.


SOT said:


> MA was the fist "state"/ locality to burn people at the stake for witchcraft.


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