/year

Massachusetts Bay Colony

English possession in North America between 1628 and 1684

35 dated entries naming Massachusetts Bay Colony, drawn from 23 separate years between 1605 CE and 1764 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

JSONWikipedia articleWikidata Q1191350

17th century

  • 1605April 16 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his first wife (of 4), Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.source
  • 1615December 6 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his second wife (of four), Thomasine Clopton, daughter of William Clopton of Castleins, near Groton, Suffolk.source
  • 1628September 6 – Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1629August 26 – The Cambridge Agreement is signed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America, providing for the colony to be under the control of stockholders who actually emigrate to New England.source
  • 1629August 29 – As a result of the Cambridge Agreement, the Massachusetts Bay Colony becomes a self-governing entity.source
  • 1629February 11 – Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640): Around 350 English Puritans on six ships, led by Francis Higginson in the Lyon's Whelp, sail from Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, heading to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. They arrive on June 19.source
  • 1629June 19 – Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640): The six ships of Puritans, led by Francis Higginson in the Lyon's Whelp, arrive in America at Salem, to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1629March 4 – Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a royal charter, and the colony is the first to be created in what will become the United States 150 years later, covering almost all of what will be the U.S. state of Massachusetts.source
  • 1630April 8 – Puritan migration to New England (1620-1640): Winthrop Fleet – The ship Arbella and three others set sail from the Solent in England, with 400 passengers under the leadership of John Winthrop, headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America; seven more, with another 300 aboard, follow in the next few weeks.source
  • 1630July 30 – John Winthrop helps in founding a church in Massachusetts, which will later become known as First Church in Boston.source
  • 1630July 6 – The Success, last ship of the Winthrop Fleet, lands safely at Salem harbor, Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1630June 12 – Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded, with John Winthrop as governor.source
  • 1630September 17 (September 7 Old Style) – The settlement of Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded.source
  • 1635October 9 – Rhode Island founder Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident, after speaking out against punishments for religious offenses, and giving away Native American land.source
  • 1636August 25 (August 15 Old Style) – The covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony is first signed.source
  • 1636December 23 (December 13 Old Style) – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.source
  • 1636May 14 – William Pynchon and his men establish the settlement of Agawam Plantation (now Springfield, Massachusetts) in territory controlled by the Agawam people, a subset of the Algonquian peoples, and negotiate for its purchase for Britain's Connecticut Colony. The Agawams deed the land to Connecticut on July 15, and the area is later deeded by Connecticut to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1636September 18 (September 8 Old Style) – A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes New College (Harvard University), as the first college founded in the United States.source
  • 1638March 22 – Anne Hutchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy and goes to Rhode Island.source
  • 1641The Massachusetts Bay Colony adopts a law making witchcraft a capital crime.source
  • 1643May 19 – The New England Confederation is formed as a military alliance between Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Saybrook Colony (Connecticut), and New Haven Colony.source
  • 1646November 4 – Massachusetts Bay Colony enacts the death penalty as punishment for denying Biblical inspiration.source
  • 1650The town of Sharon, Massachusetts is founded.source
  • 1653Stephen Bachiler, a clergyman and early advocate for the separation of church and state returns to England after having spent more than 20 years overseas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1660June 1 – Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1663Publication at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God), which becomes the first complete Bible published in the Americas, a translation by English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible, from English into the Massachusett language (Natic or Wômpanâak) variety of the Algonquian languages.source
  • 1675June 26 – The Wampanoag warriors begin a three-day assault on English colonial towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America, with an assault on the villages of Rehoboth and Taunton. At the same time, Massachusetts troops march to Swansea, to join the Plymouth Colony troops. The warriors elude colonial troops and leave Mount Hope for Pocasset, Massachusetts. The Mohegan tribe travels to Boston, in order to assist the English colonists against the Wampanoags.source
  • 1676August 28 – The Irish Donation of 1676 is shipped from Dublin, to relieve Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1677William Dummer, acting Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (d. 1761)source
  • 1679September 18 – The Province of New Hampshire is separated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
  • 1690May 16 – The Battle of Port Royal takes place in Nova Scotia after an invasion by a militia of 446 soldiers and 226 sailors from the Massachusetts Bay Colony on seven warships. With only 90 French colonial soldiers to defend Port-Royal, Acadian Governor Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Menneval surrenders before the end of the day.source
  • 1691February 13 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony issues the first paper money in North America, in lieu of coins, two months after a December 20 law authorizing the printing. The oldest known specimen, for 20 Massachusetts shillings bears the date "Feb. 3, 1690" based on the British old style calendar in use at the time.source
  • 1691October 17 (October 7 O.S.) – In New England, the two separate colonies of Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony are united into a single entity by an act of the King and Queen of England.source
  • 1692March 1 – The Salem witch trials begin in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony, with the charging of 3 women with witchcraft. Tituba, a slave owned by Samuel Parris, is the first to be arrested, and she implicates Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, who are arrested later in the day.source

18th century

  • 1764July 20 – King George, on advice of the Privy Council, issues the Royal Determination of the disputed boundary between the colonial provinces of New York and New Hampshire. The King-in-Council "doth hereby order and declare the western banks of the river Connecticut from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the 45th degree of north latitude to be the boundary line between the two provinces of New Hampshire and New York."source

Named in the same entries