A Short History of Massachusetts Place Names: The Indians

Native Indians in the 17^th Century

Massachusetts abounds with Indian names of the Algonquin dialect. Our State is named after the “massa-wachusett” tribe living “by the range of hills” in the Blue Hills of Milton and Canton.

It is short of miraculous that a native people who inhabited this region for as long as 7,500 years left names we speak today in a language they would understand. These are ancient names.

The Massachuset tribe was estimated at 3,000 in 1614, but when the Winthrop fleet arrived to plant the flag of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, only 500 remained.  

The rest had perished mostly from Smallpox so devastating that in some villages none were left to bury their dead.

The "countrie of the Massachusits" stretched from the Charles River north to Salem, Lynn, and Marblehead, west to Concord and south to Braintree. Its tribal chief or “sachem” was Chickatawbut who lived in the area of the Neponset, the “river that flows through meadows” on the shores of Quincy Bay. His name is still found on various streets, hills and parkways around Boston and the Blue Hills of Canton and Milton.

They set up fishing weirs on the Charles River, lived along the coasts to fish during summer and moved inland to hunt in the winters. They grew corn, squash and beans together, the “Three Sisters”, and taught it to the Pilgrims. Corn stalks provided poles for the beans to climb, bean vines anchored the stalks against the wind and low-lying squash leaves shaded and kept the soil moist in summer. Combined, they provided vitamins, protein and carbohydrates as well as mulch in the autumn to replenish the soil.

The Massachuset were a settled, intelligent agricultural people friendly to the Boston pilgrims, partly as military allies against less peaceful tribes. Continued excursions upon Indian lands and conflicts led to their being resettled into “Praying Villages” of Christian converts, organized by missionary Rev. John Elliot’s (1604-90).  Most were at the “place of many hills” called Natick. Elliot spent ten years translating the King James Bible into Algonquin and it was the first complete Bible published in America, 120 years before an English edition.

Metacom’s Rebellion (or King Phillip’s War) led to the forced removal of Indians to Deer Island, Winthrop and Long Island in Boston Harbor in the winter of 1675-6. Despite conversion to Christianity and subjection to English law, hundreds died from starvation on those desolate islands during a brutally cold winter. Others were kidnapped en route and sold as slaves in Barbados and Jamaica. 

Joseph Tuckapewillin, a member of the Nipmucs who survived, met with Elliot in Boston before his internment at Deer Island and said, “I thought within myself it is better to die than to fight the church of Christ.” Today, members of the Nipmuc Nation return to Deer Island each October to remember the dead. The public is invited.

Many of the original Indian names were replaced by English settlers in the 17^th century. What survives is often in the name of lakes, rivers, streams, mountains and other natural landscape features immune to ownership. Some towns retained their original Indian names, but it seems fitting that Indian names remain unchanged at the natural places where their spirit might live on.  

Up north, the mighty Merrimack “at the deep place or swift waters” flows from the confluence of the Pemigewasset “where entering current is“ and the “beautiful water in a high place“ at Winnipesauke down into the Atlantic at Newburyport.  Annisquam by the River is “on top of the rock” in Gloucester and old Ipswich was Agawam through most of the 17^th century. Nahant is “almost an island” and the “place of red rocks” is Swampscott or “M’sqiompsk”. Saugus is “an outlet” and the “great tidal stream” emptying into the Charles is the Misticke River.

To the west, the “violent waters” of Chicopee lie on the “place of the long river“ of the Connecticut,  Before Lake Cochituate was dammed, it was “the place of rushing water” that supplied the water for Boston. The reservoirs at “the great hill” of Wachusett and the “land of many waters” at Quabbin filled replaced that need in 1939.  Little Agawam across the river from Springfield was a “fish curing place” owing to its Falls.

To the south, Mattapan is at the “end of portage”, Cohasset is a “long rocky place” and at Mattapoisett a “resting place” could be found. Nantasket is a “low tide place” while Natick is “the place I seek” and for “a good fall or easy canoeing” it is Neponset. Mashpee is a “place near a great cove”, while Scituate is “the cold spring or brook”. And, “in the midst of waters” lays Nantucket while at the “land amid the streams” of Noepe we find Martha’s Vineyard.