Endecott experienced some trouble with the previous settlers and with Thomas Morton's settlement at "Merry Mount" (Mount Wollaston, now Quincy), where, in accordance with his strict Puritanical tenets, he cut down the maypole and dispersed the merry makers.
The third pitch was ascended using the maypole and a rawlbolt fitted at the top.
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.
The pleasant scenery of the neighbourhood, which attracts large numbers both of visitors and of residents from London, is described in Dickens's novel, Barnaby Rudge, and the King's Head Inn, Dickens's "Maypole," still stands.
At one time, every village of any size had a permanent maypole.