Massachusetts Trivia & Tidbits - Page 4

Looking for Massachusetts trivia? Try our list Massachusetts little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—Since the 1870s, Swan Boats have provided visitors with tours of the Boston Public Garden’s lagoon and views of surrounding flowerbeds. The pedal-powered boats are made of two pontoons with six rows of benches and a large fiberglass swan covering a paddlewheel at the stern. The boats operate from mid-April through mid-September.

first appeared: 4/22/2007

—Motorists traveling the “turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston,” immortalized in the James Taylor song “Sweet Baby James,” may not realize that signs along the Massachusetts Pike saying “X miles to Boston” actually refer to the distance from that point to the gold dome of the statehouse.

first appeared: 4/8/2007

—The New England Kitchen, an experimental Boston restaurant geared toward improving the diets of the poor in the 1890s, drew the attention of reformers and philanthropists searching for ways to provide proper nutrition to indigents.

first appeared: 3/25/2007

—Patriot’s Day, com-memorating the start of the Revolutionary War on April 19, 1775, is observed on the third Monday in April in Massachusetts. The state holiday is celebrated with re-enactments in Lexington (pop. 30,355), Concord (pop. 16,993) and Minute Man National Historical Park, and with other events during the three-day weekend.

first appeared: 3/11/2007

—The chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield of Whitman (pop. 13,882), who ran the Toll House Restaurant. A happy accident, the cookie was created when Wakefield substituted chopped up semisweet chocolate for baker’s chocolate, assuming the chunks would melt. Instead they kept their form.

first appeared: 2/27/2007

—Boston’s Parker House Hotel, now called the Omni Parker House, reportedly was the first to serve Boston cream pie and did so at its opening in 1856. The dessert, which actually is a cake, originally was called Parker House chocolate cream pie.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

—Samuel Gragg, an early American furniture maker who made his living in the early 1800s in Boston, designed the “elastic” chair, now known as the bentwood chair. He was awarded a patent for his chair in 1808.

first appeared: 1/28/2007

Mary Lincoln, born in Attleboro (pop. 42,068), authored the 1884 Boston Cook Book, which is considered one of the most innovative cookbooks of all time and served as a precursor to the enduring American cookbook, Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook.

first appeared: 1/14/2007

—Robbie Ftorek of Needham (pop. 28,911) is considered by some as the state’s best-ever high school hockey player. He broke state scoring records three years in a row, brought home a silver medal as a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, and was both a player and coach in the National Hockey League.

first appeared: 12/17/2006

—Although they fled from religious persecution in Europe, the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans were themselves intolerant of their Quaker neighbors. In the mid-17th century, Quakers were forbidden from meeting and were even whipped, imprisoned and banished from the colony.

first appeared: 12/3/2006

—Robert Goddard (1882-1945), inventor of the first liquid-fueled rocket and a leading researcher in the field, was honored in 1959 with a congressional gold medal. He lived much of his life in Worcester and launched his first rocket from the neighboring town of Auburn (pop. 15,901) in 1926.

first appeared: 11/19/2006

—Marshmallow Fluff originated in 1917 in the kitchen of Somerville resident Archibald Query, who sold his confection door-to-door until wartime shortages forced him to stop. Query later sold the formula for $500 to a company that initially named the concoction “Toot Sweet Marshmallow Fluff.”

first appeared: 11/5/2006

—The oldest-known recipe for fish chowder was printed in the Boston Evening Post on Sept. 23, 1751, according to Chef Jasper White’s cookbook, 50 Chowders. Newspapers and magazines printed recipes long before cookbooks were published in the United States.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

—Louisa May Alcott, who is best known as the author of Little Women, spent her childhood in Boston and Concord (pop. 16,993). She wrote the novel at the Orchard House, the family home in Concord.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

—Wild turkeys, common during Colonial times, dwindled in numbers until the last one was spotted in the Bay State in 1851. Restoration efforts over the last 30 years produced a population large enough to allow the state to establish a wild turkey hunting season in 1980.

first appeared: 10/8/2006

The Opera House in Boston, a venue for theatrical and musical performances, was built in 1928. American theater architect Thomas Lamb designed the building in a combination of French and Italian styles for vaudeville shows. Considered a hallmark in theater architecture when originally constructed, the theater fell into disrepair in the 1990s, was restored to its original design, and reopened in 2004.

first appeared: 9/24/2006

The Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth includes among its collection the cradle of Peregrine White, the first baby born to the Pilgrims in the New World; a Bible that belonged to William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony; and the earliest sampler made in America.

first appeared: 9/10/2006

Francis Ouimet of Brookline (pop. 57,107) was the first amateur golfer to win the U.S. Open, a feat he accomplished in 1913 at the age of 20. A year later and again in 1931, he won the U.S. Amateur championship. Ouimet was a self-taught golfer and never turned professional.

first appeared: 8/27/2006

Burying Point, the oldest cemetery in Salem (pop. 40,407), contains the graves of a Mayflower pilgrim and witchcraft trial judge John Hathorne, the ancestor of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who added the "w" to his name. The cemetery is located near the Witchcraft Trial Memorial and is open from dawn to dusk.

first appeared: 8/13/2006

The Children's Museum in Boston displays a giant milk bottle on the wharf beside the museum. The 40-foot-high landmark serves as an ice cream stand and snack bar during summer months.

first appeared: 7/30/2006

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