Moswetuset Hummock
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Moswetuset Hummock
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Moswetuset Hummock as seen from Quincy Shore Drive
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| Location | E. Squantum Street, near jct. with Quincy Shore Drive, Quincy, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°17′22″N 71°1′18″W / 42.28944°N 71.02167°WCoordinates: 42°17′22″N 71°1′18″W / 42.28944°N 71.02167°W |
| Built | 1600 |
| NRHP reference # | 70000094 |
| Added to NRHP | July 01, 1970 |
Moswetuset Hummock is a wooded historic place in Quincy, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
The site is located at the northern end of Wollaston Beach along Quincy Bay on East Squantum Street near the junction with Quincy Shore Drive. It was the seat of the ruling Massachusett chief Chickatawbut, who was visited in 1621 by Plymouth Colony commander Myles Standish and Tisquantum (Squanto), a Patuxet guide. Moswetuset means "shaped like an arrowhead".
In his 1747 volume A History of New-England historian Daniel Neal described Moswetuset Hummock as the origin of the name of the indigenous Massachusett 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 is a geological term for a small knoll or mound.
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