Massachusetts Tourist Attractions: Famous People & Their Places
Plymouth: The Pilgrims’ Progress means Squanto Doesn’t Get Squat
They may not have been the first Europeans to hit the “new” World, but the Pilgrims, who settled in Massachusetts in 1620, are the most famous. Each thanksgiving, they’re front and center as we teach another generation of children our beloved American Thanksgiving story with the pilgrims and Squanto, the corn-savvy Native American, and his tribe all joining hands around a great meal.
Today, the Pilgrims are further immortalized by Pilmouth Plantation, a live-action museum where you actors carry-on daily Pilgrim life. (www.plimoth.org.) A favorite trick: trying to get them to break character. They’re so hardcoreâÂ?¦). Plymouth Rock also actually exists on the lovely seacoast of the town by the same name. There’s also a wax museum. As for Squanto, the name of his chief, Massasoit, now graces one of southern Massachusetts’ best-known community colleges located in Brockton, MA. (www.massasoit.edu)
Salem: Son of a Witch!
We have seen the Salem, Massachusetts Witch Trials and their like dramatized so much, for instance in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, that we might forget how gruesome the Salem Witch Trials actually were. In the early 1690s, the accusations that some women were afflicting some girls with witchcraft-generated illnesses caused at least 20 people to be tried and executed. These events live on in the north shore town of Salem, Massachusetts where The Salem Witch Museum (www.salemwitchmuseum.com) is among many other witchy attractions. You can also find the House of Seven Gables in Salem. This itourist attraction is the home made famous in the 1850s novel of the same title by that noted barrel of laughs Nathaniel Hawthorne, a descendent of Puritan Salemites. (http://www.7gables.org/)
Boston: Kick-Off For The New England Patriots.
I don’t have the stats on this but I’d be willing to bet that Massachusetts – particularly the Boston-area – was home to more famous Revolutionary era people than just about anywhere else. Among the most famous: John Adams, Sam Adams, Abigail Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, they’re all still memorialized in and around Boston. The Adams home (www.nps.gov/adam) is a National Historical Site in nearby Quincy, MA (just think of their son, John Quincy AdamsâÂ?¦). Paul Revere’s home is preserved in Boston. Sam Adams, who organized most of Boston’s pre-war propaganda, has his face on beer bottles (www.samueladams.com – Boston Beerworks) and John Hancock lends his name to the city’s tallest building, which is owned by the insurance company that for some reason decided his name would be a good name for an insurance company.
In Boston you can also find the graves of many of these famous guys at the Old Granary Burial Ground. And you can
check out the site of the “Boston Massacre” wherein Crispus Attucks became the first African-American to die in the revolution. And don’t forget: though famously connected with Philadelphia, Ben Franklin was born in Boston.
Concord: Transcendental Central
Concord, Massachusetts was home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, considered one of the great thinkers and writers of his time, and Henry David Thoreau, considered an influence on Ghandi and Martin Luther King, as well as on the modern environmentalist movement. The home of civil disobedience, Walden, and transcendentalism. That’s a lot. If you don’t think that combo is enough to put the town on the map, consider it was also home at one point or another to Little Women author Lousia May Alcott and her slightly nutty dad, Bronson, to Nathaniel Hawthorne, to passers-through like William & Henry James.
Thankfully, they haven’t paved over Walden Pond yet, so you can still check out Thoreau’s old stomping ground (915 Walden St., Concord 978 369-3254). Hawthorne’s Old Manse is open for visitors. You can also see the graves of many of the above named dead famous people at Sleepy Hollow Cemetary. Geeze, even the graveyard is literary.
Amherst: The Belle Told
Nestled in the Berkshires (haven’t you always wanted to say thatâÂ?¦) Amherst, MA was home to Emily Dickinson, who, a virtual unknown in her time, is now considered one of America’s most influential poets. No word if she actually heard a buzz fly when she died in 1886 but you can find out the answers to your other Dickinsonian questions at her museum (www.emilydickinsonmuseum.com). While in the area, you may want to check out some of Amherst College founded by Dickinson’s grandfather. Among the famous dead Amherst grads: Henry Ward Beecher and President Calvin Coolidge.
Lowell: Beat Master
Lowell, MA was an old industrial town big into textiles. It’s most famous resident, though, is beat author Jack Keruoac who was born there in 1922. If you’re on the road and want to check it out, you can catch “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” which is an annual birthday festival. (http://lckorg.tripod.com/). If you’re looking for info on the famous Massachusetts born dead poets named Lowell – James Russell Lowell or Amy Lowell, they weren’t from the city of that name. James was born in Cambridge, Amy, in Boston. Though of different eras, both were members of the Boston Lowell family- considered one of the leading families of the city.
Various: The Museum, School, and Historical Site That Jack Built
Even though Massachusetts, particularly Boston, has historically been dominated by the “Brahmin” – old money, Puritan-bred families of old, there’s no doubt who Massachusetts’ real royal family is. And they ain’t English. The sprawling Kennedy family, source of a President, an Attorney General, a long-lasting senator, and scores of other public servants and scandal-magnets, has many historical places related to it, and named for it, in Massachusetts. These include President Kennedy’s Presidential Library on Columbia Point in Boston (http://www.jfklibrary.org/); the School of Government at his Alma Mater Harvard in Cambridge and the JFK Historical Site in Brookline, MA (pretty much Boston), where he was born. There’s the strip of downtown highway know as the Rose Kennedy (JFK’s Mom) Greenway. And there’s the Kennedy “compound” in Hyannisport. Not exactly open to the public.
If you’re interested in another K – MLK, Dr. Martin Luther King was a graduate of Boston University and some of his papers are collected there. Or at least they were, there was some controversy about that. Anyhow, BU is where King earned the “Dr” in Dr. Martin Luther King.
