Massachusetts-bay meaning

He was a descendant of Francis Higginson (1588-1630), who emigrated from Leicestershire to the colony of Massachusetts Bay and was a minister of the church of Salem, Mass., in 1629-1630; and a grandson of Stephen Higginson (1743-1828), a Boston merchant, who was a member of the Continental Congress in 1783, took an active part in suppressing Shay's Rebellion, was the author of the "Laco" letters (1789), and rendered valuable services to the United States government as navy agent from the 11th of May to the 22nd of June 1798.

At Merry Mount, in that part of Braintree which is now Quincy, a settlement was established by Thomas Morton in 1625, but the gay life of the settlers and their selling rum and firearms to the Indians greatly offended the Pilgrims of Plymouth, who in 1627 arrested Morton; soon afterward Governor John Endecott of Massachusetts Bay visited Merry Mount, rebuked the inhabitants and cut down their Maypole.

Watertown was one of the earliest of the Massachusetts Bay settlements, having been begun early in 1630 by a group of settlers led by Sir Richard Saltonstall and the Rev. George Phillips.

He was descended from Edmond Sherman, who emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634.

But all attempts to procure a royal charter for Plymouth Colony were unsuccessful, and in 1691 it was annexed to the Colony of Massachusetts Bay under what is termed the Provincial Charter.