Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Winthrop

(Encyclopedia)Winthrop, residential town (1990 pop. 18,127), Suffolk co., E Mass., on a peninsula extending into Boston Bay; settled 1635, set off from North Chelsea and inc. 1852. Several houses of historical inte...

Plymouth Colony

(Encyclopedia)Plymouth Colony, settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. After several years the colonists could no longer be restrained from settling on the more productive land to t...

Winthrop, John, 1714–79, American scientist

(Encyclopedia)Winthrop, John, 1714–79, American scientist, b. Boston, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1732. Because of his study of earthquakes, he is sometimes called the founder of seismology. He made scientific observat...

Bay Psalm Book

(Encyclopedia)Bay Psalm Book, common hymnal of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Written by Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld, it was published in 1640 at Cambridge as The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Tran...

Cotton, John

(Encyclopedia)Cotton, John, 1584–1652, Puritan clergyman in England and Massachusetts, b. Derbyshire, educated at Cambridge. Imbued with Puritan doctrines, he won many followers during his 20 years as vicar of th...

Massachusetts, University of

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts, University of, main campus at Amherst; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1863, opened 1867 as Massachusetts Agricultural College. It was called Massachusetts Stat...

colony

(Encyclopedia)colony, any nonself-governing territory subject to the jurisdiction of a usually distant country. The term is also applied to a group of nationals who settle in a foreign country or territory but reta...

Pynchon, John

(Encyclopedia)Pynchon, John pĭnˈchən [key], c.1626–1703, American colonist and merchant, b. England; son of William Pynchon. He emigrated to Massachusetts Bay colony with his father in 1630. When his father re...

White, John, English colonizer

(Encyclopedia)White, John, 1575–1648, English colonizer. An Anglican priest of moderate Puritan belief, White wished to establish a colony for Puritans. He helped form (1628) the New England Company, which later ...

Browse by Subject