“ The desertion of farms was an inevitable result of the opening of the great cereal regions of the west, but it is by no means characteristic of Massachusetts alone. The Berkshire district affords an excellent example of the interrelations of topography, soil and population. Many hill towns once thriving have long since become abandoned, desolate and comparatively inaccessible; though with the development of the summer resident’s interests many will probably eventually regain prosperity. ”

“ Boston Harbor (originally known as Massachusetts Bay, a name which now has a much broader signification) is the finest roadstead on the coast. The extreme hook of the Cape Cod Peninsula forms Provincetown Harbor, which is an excellent and capacious port of refuge for vessels approaching Boston. Salem Harbor is the most considerable other haven on Massachusetts Bay; on Buzzard’s Bay New Bedford has a good harbour, and on the Atlantic coast are the excellent harbours of Gloucester and Marblehead, both frequented by summer residents. ”

“ His reforms, which reached every part of the school system, were fortunately introduced just at the beginning of railway and city growth. Since 1850 truant and compulsory attendance laws (the first compulsory education law was passed in 1642) have been enforced in conjunction with laws against child labour. In 1900 the average period of schooling per inhabitant for the United States was 4.3 years, for Massachusetts 7 years. (The same year the ratio of wealth productivity was as 66 to 37.) Massachusetts stands “foremost in the Union in the universality of its provision for secondary education.” ”

“ No statement of the influence which Massachusetts has exerted upon the American people, through intellectual activity, and even through vagary, is complete without an enumeration of the names which, to Americans at least, are the signs of this influence and activity. ”

“ Generally several villages have grown up in the same “town,” and some of the more populous “towns,” usually those in which manufacturing has become more important than farming, have been incorporated as “cities”; thus either a town or a city may now include a farming country and various small villages. Although the tendency in Massachusetts is towards chartering as cities “towns” which have a population of 12,000 or more, the democratic institution of the town-meeting persists in many large municipalities which are still technically towns. ”

“ After more than half a century of struggle, the crown finally annulled the charter of the colony in 1684, though not until 1686 was the old government actually supplanted on the arrival of Joseph Dudley, a native of the colony, as president of a provisional council; later, Sir Edmund Andros was sent over with a commission to unite New York and New England under his rule. The colonists had been for many years almost independent; they made their own laws, the Crown appointed natives as officials, and the colonial interpretation of the old charter had in general been allowed to stand. ”

“ For many years Massachusetts controlled a vast lumber trade, drawing upon the forests of Maine, but the growth of the west changed the old channels of trade, and Boston carpenters came to make use of western timber. It was between 1840 and 1850 that the cotton manufactures of Massachusetts began to assume large proportions; and about the same time the manufacture of boots and shoes centred there. Medford ships began to be famous shortly after the beginning of the 19th century, and by 1845 that town employed one quarter of all the shipwrights in the state.
Fishing is an important industry. ”

“ Cereals [3] have been for many years declining, although Indian corn is a valuable subsidiary to the dairy interest, which is the most thriving farm industry. The value of farms on which dairying was the chief source of income in 1900 was 46% of the total farm value of the state; the corresponding percentages for livestock, vegetables, hay and grain, flowers and plants, fruit and tobacco, being respectively 14.6, 10.2, 8.0, 4.2, 3.2, and 1.8%. The shrinkage of cereal crops has been mainly responsible for the idea that Massachusetts is agriculturally decadent. ”

“ In the case of all quasi-public corporations rigid laws exist prohibiting the issue of stock or bonds unless the par value is first paid in; prohibiting the declaration of any stock or scrip dividend, and requiring that new stock shall be offered to stockholders at not less than its market value, to be determined by the proper state officials, any shares not so subscribed for to be sold by public auction. ”

“ Agriculture.—The soil, except in some of the valleys, is not naturally fertile; and sandy wastes are common in the south-east parts. High cultivation, however, has produced valuable market-gardens about Boston and the larger towns; and industry has made tillage remunerative in most other parts. The gross value of agricultural products is not great compared with that of other industries, but they are of great importance in the economy of the state. The total value of farm property in 1900 was $182,646,704, including livestock valued at $15,798,464. ”

“ Since 1865 (at least) various parts of Cape Cod have shrunk greatly in population, agriculture and manufactures, and even in fishing interests; this reconstruction of industrial and social interests being, apparently, simply part of the general urban movement—a movement toward better opportunities. What prosperity or stability remains in various Cape Cod communities is largely due to foreign immigrants—especially British-Americans and Portuguese from the Azores; although the population remains, to a degree exceptional in northern states, of native stock. ”

“ Formerly farmers’ daughters of native stock were much employed in factories; but since operatives of foreign birth or parentage have in great part taken their places, they have sought other occupations, largely in the manufacture of small wares in the cities, and particularly in departments of trade where skilled labour is essential. Household service is seldom now done, as it formerly was, by women of native stock. The federal census of 1900 showed that of every 100 persons employed for gain only 37.5% were of native descent (that is, had a native-born father) . ”

“ Vulcanized rubber is a Massachusetts invention. Most of the imitation jewelry of the United States is produced at Attleboro and North Attleboro, and in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1905 Boston produced 16.4% of all the manufactures of the state, and Lynn, the second city, which had been fifth in 1900, 4.9%. Some industries which have since become dead or of relatively slight magnitude were once of much greater significance, economically or socially: such as the rum-distilling connected with the colonial slave trade, and various interests concerned with shipbuilding and navigation. ”

“ The Boston public library, exceeded in size in the United States by the library of Congress at Washington—and probably first, because of the large number of duplicates in the library of Congress—and the largest free municipal library in the world; the library of Harvard, extremely well chosen and valuable for research; the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1791) ; the Boston Athenaeum (1807) ; the State Library (1826) ; the New England Historic Genealogical Society (1845) ; the Congregational Library; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1780) ”

“ Flora and Fauna.—Massachusetts lies entirely in the humid area of the Transition life-zone, with the exception of the extreme north-western corner of the state, which lies in the Boreal zone. Thus the original native trees and plants were those common to New England and northern New York. The presence of a dense population has driven out some, and brought in others, including some noxious weeds. The larger wild animals have disappeared, excepting an occasional black bear or deer. ”

“ A limited suffrage was conferred upon women in 1879. Every female citizen having the qualifications of a male voter may vote in the city and town elections for members of the school committee.
A householder with a family may, by recording the proper declaration in a registry of deeds, hold exempt from attachment, levy on execution, and sale for the payment of debts thereafter contracted an estate of homestead, not exceeding $800 in value, in a farm or lot with buildings thereon which he lawfully possesses by lease or otherwise and occupies as his residence. ”

“ Other institutions receiving state aid, each governed by trustees appointed by the governor, are the Massachusetts general hospital at Boston, the Massachusetts charitable eye and ear infirmary at Boston, the Massachusetts homoeopathic hospital at Boston, the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts school for the blind at South Boston and the soldiers’ home in Massachusetts at Boston. The Horace Mann school in Boston, a public day school for the deaf, the New England industrial school for deaf mutes at Beverly and the Clarke school for the deaf at Northampton are maintained in part by the state. ”

“ The governors put in office at this time by the crown were not of conciliatory temperaments, and the measures instituted in parliament (see United States) served to increase bitterness of feeling. Royal troops sent to Boston (several regiments, 1768) irritated the populace, who were highly excited at the time, until in an outbreak on the 5th of March 1770 a file of garrison troops shot down in self-defence a few citizens in a crowd which assailed them. This is known as the “Boston Massacre.” The merchants combined to prevent the importation of goods which by law would yield the crown a revenue ”

“ The first grain elevator built in Boston, and one of the first in the world, was erected in 1843, when Massachusetts sent Indian corn to Ireland. When the Civil War and steam navigation put an end to the supremacy of Massachusetts wooden sailing ships, much of the capital which had been employed in navigation was turned into developing railway facilities and coasting steamship lines. ”

“ Since the close of the war Massachusetts has remained generally steadfast in adherence to the principles of the Republican party, and has continued to develop its resources. Navigation, which was formerly the distinctive feature of its business prosperity, has under the pressure of laws and circumstances given place to manufactures, and the development of carrying facilities on the land rather than on the sea. ”

“ In the case of corporations realty and machinery are taxed generally by the local authorities, and stock values by the commonwealth. The Boston stock exchange is the second of the country in the extent of the securities in which it deals. The proportion of holders of U.S. bonds among the total population is higher than that in any other state.
History.—It is possible that the coasts of Massachusetts were visited by the Northmen, and by the earliest navigators who followed Cabot, but this is only conjecture. ”

“ Gold has been found in small quantities in Middlesex, Norfolk and Plymouth counties.
Manufactures.—Though only four states of the Union are smaller, only three exceeded Massachusetts in 1905 in the value of manufactured products (six exceeding it in population) ; and this despite very scant native resources of raw materials and a very limited home market. Historical priority of development, exceptionally extensive and well utilized water-power, and good transportation facilities are largely responsible for the exceptional rank of Massachusetts as a manufacturing state. ”

“ An unusual density of urban settlement, furnishing excellent home markets and transportation facilities, are the main props of this new interest. Worcester and Middlesex counties are agriculturally foremost. Tobacco, which has been cultivated since colonial times, especially since the Civil War, is grown exclusively in the Connecticut Valley or on its borders. ”

“ Most of the families of the highest social position were averse to extreme measures; a large number were not won over and became expatriated loyalists. The popular agitators, headed by Samuel Adams—with whom John Hancock, an opulent merchant and one of the few of the richer people who deserted the crown, leagued himself—forced on the movement, which became war in April 1775, when Gage sent an expedition to Concord and Lexington to destroy military stores accumulated by the patriots and to capture Adams and Hancock, temporarily staying at Lexington. ”

“ Of the increase in total population from 1856–1895 only a third could be attributed to the excess of births over deaths; two-thirds being due to immigration from other states or from abroad. Boston is the second immigrant port of the country. A large part of the transatlantic immigrants pass speedily to permanent homes in the west, but by far the greater part of the Canadian influx remains.
According to the census of 1910 there were 32 incorporated cities [9] in Massachusetts, of which 6 had between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants ”

“ In 1881 a local option law was passed, by which the granting of licences for the sale of liquor was confined to cities and towns voting at the annual election to authorize their issue. In 1888 the number of licences to be granted in municipalities voting in favour of their issue was limited to one for each 1000 inhabitants, except in Boston, where one licence may be issued for every 500 inhabitants. ”

“ But this form of pure democracy was in various cases long since inevitably abandoned: by Boston reluctantly in 1822, and subsequently by many other townships or cities, as growing population made action in town meeting unbearably cumbersome. In modern times state activity has encroached on the cities. Especially has the commonwealth undertaken certain noteworthy enterprises as the agent of the several municipalities in the immediate vicinity of Boston, constituting what is known as the Metropolitan District ”