Massachusetts Trivia & Tidbits - Page 6

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

Muskeget Island, a National Natural Landmark between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island, is the only known locale where the mouse-like rodent called the Muskeget vole is found.

first appeared: 11/20/2005

Capt. John Parker, commander of the Minute Men who faced the British on the Lexington green on April 19, 1775, during the first battle of the Revolutionary War, is buried in the Old Burying Ground in Lexington (pop. 30,355).

first appeared: 11/6/2005

The 900-acre Minute Men National Historical Park, in Concord (pop. 16,993), Lexington (pop. 30,355) and Lincoln (pop. 8,056), preserves the structures and landscapes associated with the opening battles of the Revolutionary War.

first appeared: 11/6/2005

In 1849, Ephraim Wales Bull’s 22,000 experiments with crossbreeding grape vines on his farm in Concord (pop. 16,993) resulted in a vine that produced a full-bodied variety that ripened before fall’s killing frosts. He named his discovery the Concord grape. Today, most juice and jelly in the United States is made from Concord grapes.

first appeared: 10/23/2005

In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society at the first church built by free blacks in America, the African Meeting House in Boston. The Museum of Afro-American History acquired the 1806 building in 1972.

first appeared: 10/9/2005

One of the nation’s largest natural concentrations of ferns can be found at Bartholomew’s Cobble in Ashley Falls near Sheffield (pop. 3,335). Containing 43 species of fern, the site is marked by outcroppings (or cobbles) of marble and granite.

first appeared: 9/25/2005

Boston’s Old Granary Burying Ground, established in 1660, contains the graves of patriots such as John Hancock, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and the victims of the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.

first appeared: 9/18/2005

About 30 or 40 patriots, armed with clubs, sticks, and snowballs, rose up against the British guards of the customs house during the Boston Massacre. The first to fall was Crispus Attucks, a fugitive slave who was working as a merchant seaman and laborer. Four others, in addition to Attucks, were killed when the British opened fire against the mob.

first appeared: 9/18/2005

Reported to be the oldest artist colony in the United States, Rocky Neck Art Colony in Gloucester (pop. 30,273) has lured artists and collectors to its shores for more than 200 years. Artists who have worked there include Winslow Homer, Fitz Hugh Lane and Childe Hassam.

first appeared: 9/11/2005

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) opened in 1999 in a 19th-century North Adams (pop. 14,681) factory that once housed Arnold Print Works (1860-1942) and Sprague Electric Co. (1942-1985).

first appeared: 8/28/2005

The Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham (pop. 59,226) showcases the industrial advances of previous eras, from steam engines, timepieces and generators to bicycles, automobiles and machine tools.

first appeared: 8/14/2005

The nation’s only remaining Coast Guard-manned light station is in Boston Harbor. The Global Positioning System (GPS) and other navigation technologies developed in the latter part of the 20th century made lighthouses obsolete, and many were decommissioned.

first appeared: 7/31/2005

When Capt. Andres Robinson launched a ship he designed in Gloucester (pop. 30,273) in 1713, a bystander reportedly observed, "See how she schoons!" (as a stone skips on water), hence the name schooner.

first appeared: 7/17/2005

A black immigrant from Dutch Guiana, Jan Ernst Matzeliger settled in Lynn in 1876 and became an apprentice in a shoe factory. In 1882, he invented the shoe-lasting machine, which pulled the shoe upper over the last, or wooden form, and stitched it to the shoe bottom. It could turn out 150 to 700 pairs of shoes a day, compared with 50 that could be completed by a skilled hand-laster.

first appeared: 6/19/2005

In the summer of 1786, Massachusetts farmers protested against property taxes, polling taxes and generally unsettled economic conditions. The rebels mobbed courthouses to prevent courts from convening and tried to capture the arsenal at Springfield. Named for its symbolic leader, Daniel Shays of Hopkinton (pop. 2,628), Shays’ Rebellion eventually was suppressed but was considered carefully by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 as they worked to strengthen the federal government and draft the Constitution.

first appeared: 6/5/2005

Poultry farmers in Fall River are credited with breeding the red color into the Rhode Island Red chicken. The bird, originally yellow in color and known as Tripp’s Yaller Fowl, was developed in Rhode Island in 1854 by crossing a red Asian cockerel with a barnyard chicken.

first appeared: 5/22/2005

In 1954, Dr. Joseph E. Murray, from Milford (pop. 24,230), performed the first successful human organ transplant operation. He transplanted a kidney of one identical twin into the other at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, a forerunner of today’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

first appeared: 5/8/2005

Although most people know Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), who moved to Boston in 1871, as the inventor of the telephone, he always referred to himself as simply a teacher of the deaf.

first appeared: 5/8/2005

The Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington (pop. 30,355) was Paul Revere’s destination on the night of April 18, 1775, as he rode from Boston to warn Colonial leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were guests of the Rev. Jonas Clarke, of the arrival of British troops.

first appeared: 4/24/2005

The wooden walkway leading to the lighthouse in Edgartown (pop. 3,779) Harbor was called the "Bridge of Sighs" because men would stroll there with their wives or girlfriends before departing on long whaling voyages.

first appeared: 4/10/2005

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