MASSACHUSETTS.

The “Bay State,” so named from the deep encroachments of the sea on her eastern border, was settled in 1620, at Plymouth, by English Puritans; a class of sternly pious men, who abandoned England to find freedom of worship in the savage wilds of America. They were men of great resolution and intelligence, and succeeded in imbuing the new colony with a fair degree of their own virtue. They suffered much, at first, from deprivation of the comforts they had left in England, and from the hostility of the Indians. They were too much in earnest to be tolerant, and persecutions of pretended witches, of Quakers and Baptists, have given them an unenviable notoriety.

This State was a leading one among the original thirteen, and the first to take up arms and to be invaded by the British forces at the commencement of the War of the Revolution. Her influence on the national character has been great.

This State is the first in the Union for cotton and woolen manufactures, its cotton mills alone employing about twenty-five thousand hands. In extent of all its manufactures it is third in the Union. The soil is sterile in great part, but the energy of the people finds abundant other sources of wealth. Commerce and fisheries receive much attention, and produce much wealth.

Education is carefully attended to, and its public school system a model for other States. She has an area of 7,800 square miles. Her population in 1870 was 1,457,351, and entitles her to eleven Members of Congress. It is in the first judicial circuit, and forms one judicial district. There are fourteen ports of entry, and twenty-five ports of delivery in this State.

Boston is the Capital, the metropolis of New England, and an important center of intellectual and business energy. The Legislature meets on the first Wednesday in January, and the State elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in January.

The enacting clause is: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:”

UNITED STATES SENATORS.
Tristram Dalton,from1789to1791.
Caleb Strong,”1789”1796.
George Cabot,”1791”1796.
Theo. Sedgewick,”1796”1799.
Benj. Goodhue,”1796”1800.
Samuel Dexter,”1799”1800.
Dwight Foster,”1800”1803.
Jonathan Mason,”1800”1803.
John Q. Adams,”1803”1808.
Timothy Pickering,”1803”1811.
James Lloyd,”{1808”1813.
1822”1826.
Joseph B. Varnum,”1811”1817.
Christopher Gore,”1813”1816.
Eli P. Ashmun,”1816”1818.
Harrison Gray Otis,”1817”1822.
Prentiss Mellen,”1818”1820.
Elijah H. Mills,”1820”1827.
Nathaniel Silsbee,”1826”1835.
Daniel Webster,”{1827”1841.
1845”1850.
Rufus Choate,”1841”1845.
John Davis,”{1835”1841.
1845”1853.
Isaac C. Bates,”1841”1845.
Robert C. Winthrop,”1850”1851.
Robert Rantoul,”1851”1851.
Edward Everett,”1853”1854.
Julius Rockwell,”1854”1855.
[2]Henry Wilson,”1855”1873.
Charles Sumner,”1851”1874.
George S. Boutwell,”1873”1877.
William Washburn,”1874”1875.
Henry L. Dawes,”1875”1881.