ABOUT

Quincy  is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States.

History
Prior to the settlement of the area by English colonists, a hill east of the mouth of the Neponset River near what is now called Squantum was the seat of the ruling Massachusett sachem, or Native American leader,Chickatawbut. Called Moswetuset Hummock, it was visited byPlymouth Colony commander Myles Standish and Squanto, a native guide, in 1621.Four years later, a party led by Captain Wollaston established a post on a low hill near the south shore of Quincy Bay east of present-day Black's Creek. The settlers found the area suitable for farming, as Chickatawbut and his group, who used the name Passonagessit ("Little Neck of Land") for the area, had cleared much of the land of trees. This settlement was named Mount Wollaston in honor of the leader, who soon after 1625 left the area bound forVirginia.The Wollaston neighborhood in Quincy still retains Captain Wollaston's name.Upon the departure of Wollaston, Thomas Morton took over leadership of the post, and the settlement proceeded to gain a reputation for debauchery with native women and drunkenness.Morton renamed the settlement Ma-re-Mount ("Hill by the Sea") and later wrote in reference to the conservative separatists of Plymouth Colony to the south who disapproved of his libertine practices that they were "threatening to make it a woefull mount and not a merry mount". In 1627 Morton was arrested by Standish for violating the code of conduct in a way harmful to the colony and was sent back to England, only to return and be arrested by Puritans the next year. The area of Quincy now called Merrymount is located on the site of the original English settlement of 1625 and takes its name from the punning name given by Morton.