Timeline of Settlement
See also: List of municipalities in Massachusetts- This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
- Weymouth (Wessagusset) - 1622 as part of Plymouth Colony; part of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630
- Gloucester - 1623 (Dorchester Company)
- Chelsea - 1624
- Quincy - 1625
- Naumkeag (later Salem) - 1626 (Dorchester Company)
- Beverly - 1626 (originally a part of Salem, incorporated separately in 1668)
- Charlestown - 1628 (first capital, now part of Boston)
- Lynn - 1629
- Saugus - 1629
- Manchester-by-the-Sea (Jeffery's Creek) - 1629
- Marblehead - 1629 (Settled as a plantation of Salem, incorporated separately in 1639)
- Boston - 1630 (from Shawmut and Trimountaine)
- Medford - 1630
- Mystic (now part of Malden) - 1630
- Everett - 1630 (settlement)
- Watertown - 1630 (on land now part of Cambridge)
- Newtowne (now Cambridge) - 1630 (near Harvard Square)
- Roxbury - 1630 (now part of Boston)
- Dorchester - 1630 (now part of Boston)
- Newton - 1630
- Chelmsford - 1633
- Ipswich - 1633
- Milton - 1634
- Attleboro - 1634
- Braintree - 1634
- Agawam - 1635
- Concord - 1635
- Hingham - 1635
- Newbury - 1635
- Dedham - 1635 (Settled as Contentment, renamed Dedham and incorporated in 1636)
- Winthrop - 1635
- Menotomy (now Arlington, then part of Newtowne) - 1635
- Andover - 1636 (Split into Andover and North Andover in 1856)
- Springfield - 1636 (Settled as Agawam Plantation, renamed Springfield in 1640)
- Brookline - 1638 (Settled as Muddy River, considered part of Boston until it was renamed Brookline and incorporated in 1705)
- Rowley - 1638
- Salisbury - 1638
- Reading - 1639 (Lynn Village, renamed and incorporated as Reading in 1644)
- Sudbury - 1639
- Winchester - 1640 (Founded as part of Charlestown, incorporated as Waterfield in 1640, incorporated 1850)
- Chicopee - 1640 (Settled as Nayasett)
- Haverhilll - 1640
- Braintree - 1640
- Malden - 1640 (Founded as part of Charlestown, incorporated separately in 1649)
- Woburn - 1640
- Methuen - 1642
- Longmeadow - 1644
- Andover - 1646 (original settlement is now in North Andover)
- Framingham - 1647
- Natick - 1651
- Eastham - 1651
- Medfield - 1651
- Billerica - 1653 (Founded as Shawshin)
- Lowell - 1653 (Founded as East Chelmsford, was formally incorporated in 1826)
- Groton - 1655
- Dunstable - 1656
- Hadley - 1659
- Middleton - 1659
- Marlborough - 1660
- Westfield - 1660
- West Springfield - 1660
- Milford - 1662
- Mendon - 1667
- Middleborough - 1669
- Worcester - 1673
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts Bay Colony, Geography
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)