Quincy Motor Tour--Introduction
Oops! I totally forgot that I drafted an introduction to that tour. Because I wrote it, you know, months ago. Anyway, everything you always wanted to know about Quincy, Massachusetts:
All of the cities in the 1937 book are given a pithy subtitle that is supposed to summarize them. Quincy’s is: “Iron Ships and Great Men.”
Here’s what you need to know about Quincy, Massachusetts. Vital stats: Altitude of 42 (arctacuda: “This state is so flat”). It was settled in 1625, incorporated as a town in 1792, and became a city in 1888. In 1937 its population was 76,909. It had “six hotels at reasonable rates,” “swimming and bathing” at Wollaston Beach, and yachting at two yacht clubs, by invitation only.
To prep you for the sights you are about to see: Quincy was known for its granite quarries, shipbuilding, machinery, and radio-transmitting stations. It “owes much to the Italians, Jews, Finns, Scots, Greeks, and Syrians.” Also, the King family left Quincy a bunch of money “to aid the breaking down of religious prejudice [in the belief] that a better understanding of the religious faith of one another is one of the most important movements in the world.” This is a lovely sentiment, and Quincy boats 32 churches because of the King fund.
Apparently, Quincy used to be called Merrymount, and it was despised by Bostonians because it celebrated May Day. It was founded by a guy named Thomas Morton, whom Governor Bradford apparently “contemptuously called” the “pettifogger of Furnival’s Inn.” The book does not explain what that means or why it’s contemptuous. What the book does say is that Bostonians apparently feared Merrymount would become “a refuge for lawbreakers,” and so Bradford sent Miles Standish and eight other men out to Merrymount, and it seems that some people wanted to execute Morton. Instead, they sent him back to England. For reasons unknown, except he’s apparently just a troublemaker, Morton came back eighteen months later. He was arrested, his house was burnt down, and he was again sent back to England, this time as a prisoner. Nevertheless, in 1637 he published “Newe English Canaan,” which “gave excellent descriptions of New England scenery and bird and animal life, and scathingly exposed what he claimed to be the hypocritical pretenses to morality of the Pilgrims and Puritans.”
John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, both grew up in Quincy but at the time it was still just the northern part of the settlement known as Braintree. However, “when men with whom they had played as children were making history, Quincy’s inhabitants felt it was high time to assert their right to an individual existence.” Here, as an afterthought, the book tells us that Quincy was named for Colonel John Quincy. So I don’t really know what the whole tangent about Merrymount was about.
And then the book tells this strange story about Quincy’s granite: “In 1752 King’s Chapel in Boston was built with Quincy granite. This sudden demand frightened the town fathers. Fearful of the supply of rock giving out, they passed an ordinance prohibiting the use of granite boulders for outside purposes.” Apparently that ordinance was ignored, though, as the book then says that Quincy became internationally famous for its granite.
Later, during World War I, which, at the time, was just “the world war,” 36 destroyers were built in Quincy. In 1937, Quincy apparently had one of the best shipyards in the world, “having built every conceivable type of vessel from the seven-mastered schooner ‘Thomas W. Lawson’ to the giant airplane carrier ‘Lexington.’”
Now you know everything you need to know about Quincy! Next time: the 14-mile motor tour!