Moswetuset Hummock is a wooded historic place in Quincy, Massachusetts

Quincy, Massachusetts

Quincy is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Its nicknames are "City of Presidents", "City of Legends", and "Birthplace of the American Dream". As a major part of Metropolitan Boston, Quincy is a member of Boston's Inner Core Committee for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council...

. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

The site is located at the northern end of Wollaston Beach

Wollaston Beach

Wollaston Beach is a public beach located along Quincy Shore Drive in the Wollaston, section of Quincy, Massachusetts. It is located on Quincy Bay, part of Boston Harbor. It is cared for by the Friends of Wollaston Beach , and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation . At its...

 along Quincy Bay

Quincy Bay

Quincy Bay is the largest of the three small bays of southern Boston Harbor, part of Massachusetts Bay and forming much of the shoreline of the city of Quincy, Massachusetts. Locally in the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy it is known as Wollaston Bay...

 on East Squantum Street near the junction with Quincy Shore Drive

Quincy Shore Drive

Quincy Shore Drive is a historic road in Quincy, Massachusetts.It was built in 1903 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.-References:...

. It was the seat of the ruling American Indian

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 chief Chickatawbut

Chickatawbut

Chickatawbut was the sachem, or leader, of a large group of indigenous people of what is now eastern Massachusetts, United States known as the Massachusett tribe, during the initial period of English settlement in the region in the early seventeenth century. Chickatawbut maintained a base at a...

, who was visited by Plymouth Colony

Plymouth Colony

Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...

 commander Myles Standish

Myles Standish

Myles Standish was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims as military advisor for Plymouth Colony. One of the Mayflower passengers, Standish played a leading role in the administration and defense of Plymouth Colony from its inception...

 and Squanto

Squanto

Tisquantum was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy.-Biography:Squanto's exact date of birth is unknown but many historians...

, a native guide, in 1621. Moswetuset means "shaped like an arrowhead". In his 1747 volume A History of New-England historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 Daniel Neal

Daniel Neal

Daniel Neal was an English historian.Born in London, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden...

 described Moswetuset Hummock as the origin of the name of the indigenous Massachusett

Massachusett

The Massachusett are a tribe of Native Americans who lived in areas surrounding Massachusetts Bay in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in particular present-day Greater Boston; they spoke the Massachusett language...

 tribe, and thus the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

The Sachem or Sagamore who governed the Indians in this part of the country when the English came hither, had his seat on a small hill, or hummock, containing perhaps an acre and a half, about two leagues to the southward of Boston, which hill or hummock lies in the shape of an Indian's arrowhead, which arrow-heads are called in their language MOS, or MONS, with O nasal, and hill in their language is WETUSET hence, this great sachem's seat was called Moswetuset, which signifies a hill in the shape of an arrow's head, and his subjects, the Moswetuset Indians, from whence with a small variation of the word, the Province received the name MASSACHUSETTS.

Hummock

Hummock

A hummock is a boss or rounded knoll of ice rising above the general level of an ice-field, making sledge travelling in the Arctic and Antarctic region extremely difficult and unpleasant....

 is a geological term for a small knoll or mound.

External links

• Discover Quincy: Attractions
• Quincy Shores Reservation (Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation)