Cape Ann, Massachusetts
| Cape Ann | |
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| Region of Massachusetts | |
May 2008 aerial view of Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Gloucester and its harbor are visible to the right.
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| Etymology: Anne of Denmark | |
 Cape Ann
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| Coordinates: 42°38′58.3″N 70°35′35.5″W / 42.649528°N 70.593194°W | |
| Country |
 United States
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| State |
 Massachusetts
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Cape Ann is a rocky cape in northeastern Massachusetts, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 30 miles northeast of Boston and marks the northern limit of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester and the towns of Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Rockport.
Cape Ann was first mapped by the explorer John Smith. He had given it the name Cape Tragabigzanda, after his mistress in Istanbul. He had been taken as a prisoner of war and enslaved in the Ottoman Empire. His mistress had fallen in love with him, but Smith later escaped in Russia.
When Smith presented his map to Charles I, he suggested that Charles should feel free to change any of the "barbarous names" (meaning the many Native American place names he had adopted) into English ones. The king made many such changes, but only four survive today. One was Cape Ann, which Charles named in honor of his mother Anne of Denmark.
The English colony at Cape Ann was first founded in 1623. It was the fourth colonizing effort in New England after Popham Colony, Plymouth Colony and Nantasket Beach. Two ships of the Dorchester Company brought 32 in number with John Tylly and Thomas Gardner as overseers of a fishing operation and the plantation, respectively. This colony predated Massachusetts Bay charter and colony. For that reason, members of the colony were referred to as "old planters". The first Great House in New England was built on Cape Ann by the planters. This house was dismantled on the orders of John Endecott in 1628 and moved to Salem to serve as his "governor's" house. When Higginson arrived in Salem, he wrote that "we found a faire house newly built for the Governor" which was remarkable for being two stories high.
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