The City of Presidents on Quincy Bay, where Captain Wollaston's party landed in 1625, John Adams, John Quincy Adams and John Hancock were born, and West Quincy granite rode the Granite Railway toward Bunker Hill.

Norfolk County · Record checked October 12, 2026

101,636Population2020 census1
1792Became a townfrom Braintree's North Precinct; a city in 18881
1625First settledCaptain Wollaston's post at Mount Wollaston1
1826Granite Railwaybuilt to haul stone for Bunker Hill1
99National Registerplaces, all still standing2

Then and now

The same town 149 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

Bird's-eye view of Quincy, Massachusetts from 1877 by Edwin Whitefield, restored by KNOWOL

1877

The bird's-eye view of 1877

By Edwin Whitefield

Quincy drawn as if from the sky, with its street names and landmarks including Adams Academy, the town hall, the Unitarian church, the Coddington Street School, the Robinson House, the Adams School and the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams.3

See the 1877 printMore about this map
Map of Quincy, Massachusetts in 2026, with Hancock Street, Houghs Neck and the Blue Hills Reservation

2026

Quincy today

By KNOWOL

Hancock Street, Washington Street, Quincy Avenue, Randolph Avenue, Falls Boulevard and Bower Road across the city, with Houghs Neck, Merrymount, Germantown, Cranberry Pond and the Blue Hills Reservation.4

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Quincy

When the old meetinghouse came down

For ninety-six years the wooden meetinghouse of 1732 stood on the training field in the middle of town. Its seats were hinged, lifted when people stood to pray and dropped afterward with such a bang that young Mrs. Josiah Quincy, on her first Sunday, feared the church was falling. In 1822 John Adams left the town granite quarries, asking that a stone temple be built from them. The new church rose right beside the old one, so close that the old tower had to go. In March 1828 it sold at auction to John Spear for seventy dollars. Henry Wood paid three dollars and twenty-five cents for the vane and ball and set them on his barn, and on April 14 the cupola came down with a loud crash.5678

The Farms, the Woods and the Old Fields

Before Quincy filled in with houses, its corners had plainer names. When Thomas Crane was a boy, around 1800, Atlantic was the Farms, Wollaston was a cow pasture, West Quincy was a wilderness called the Woods, and Quincy Point, the Old Fields, had no road through it until 1812. Earlier still, the Massachusetts Fields, the planting grounds of the Native people, covered today's Atlantic and Norfolk Downs. In spring the streams ran so thick with alewives that the first settlers said you could cross on their backs dry-shod. At a cove in Squantum an archaeologist later found a freshwater spring, a big shell heap and many tools, and placed the sachem's home there. Along the shore, salt works ran for more than two hundred years.91011

Granite and ships

Quincy's stone and its shipyards carried the town's name a long way. In 1826 the Granite Railway was built to haul stone from a Quincy quarry to the Neponset River, bound for the Bunker Hill Monument, and it's often called the first commercial railroad in the country. By the 1890s there were 140 Quincy firms making granite monuments. Shipbuilding came even earlier. The first vessels were built at Ship Cove on Quincy Neck, mostly for fishing, and in 1789 the ship Massachusetts, which an 1890 gazetteer calls the largest in the country at the time, was built at Germantown. A century later the Fore River Shipyard built the carrier Lexington and the battleship Massachusetts, and the Thomas W. Lawson, the only seven-masted schooner ever built, came from Quincy too.1121314

Through the years

25 moments from 1625 to today.

  1. 1625Captain Richard Wollaston's party sets up a trading post at Passonagessit and names it Mount Wollaston.1
  2. 1627Myles Standish arrests Thomas Morton, who had renamed the post Ma-re-Mount.1
  3. 1636Atherton Hough is granted the neck that still carries his name, for a farm and orchard.4
  4. 1640The land becomes part of the new town of Braintree.1
  5. 1644John Winthrop Jr.'s iron furnace begins work in what is now West Quincy.15
  6. 1665Wampatuck, son of the sachem Chickatawbut, deeds the land here to Samuel Bass, Thomas Faxon and others.16
  7. 1686Edmund Quincy II builds the first house of what is now the Dorothy Quincy Homestead.17
  8. 1708The North Precinct of Braintree is set off, roughly today's Quincy.1
  9. 1735John Adams is born in the saltbox house on Franklin Street.18
  10. 1738Braintree's town meeting refuses Col. John Quincy's request to excuse his son Norton from serving as constable.19
  11. 1767John Quincy Adams is born in the house next door.20
  12. 1770Col. Josiah Quincy builds his country house overlooking Quincy Bay.21
  13. 1778John Adams sails for France from Houghs Neck to avoid the British.4
  14. 1789The ship Massachusetts, called the largest in the country, is built at Germantown.14
  15. 1792Quincy becomes a town, named for Col. John Quincy of Mount Wollaston.1
  16. 1812Quincy Point, known as the Old Fields, finally gets a road through it.9
  17. 1826The Granite Railway is built to carry Quincy granite for the Bunker Hill Monument.1
  18. 1828The stone church is finished, and the old meetinghouse tower sells at auction for seventy dollars.7
  19. 1844The granite town hall goes up in Quincy Center.22
  20. 1865A National Sailors' Home for aged and disabled Navy sailors is built north of Mount Wollaston.23
  21. 1877Edwin Whitefield publishes his bird's-eye view of Quincy.3
  22. 1882H. H. Richardson's Thomas Crane Public Library is dedicated.24
  23. 1888Quincy becomes a city.1
  24. 1893The Metropolitan Parks Commission buys the Blue Hills lands for public recreation.4
  25. 1952Richard Koch starts the Flag Day parade, now the longest-running in the country.1

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Quincy today.

  • United First Parish ChurchQuincy Center. The Old Stone Church of 1828.Visit their website
  • Thomas Crane Public LibraryQuincy Center. H. H. Richardson's library of 1882.Visit their website
  • City HallQuincy Center. The granite town hall of 1844.
  • Fore River ShipyardQuincy Point. Where the Lexington was built.
  • United States Naval Shipbuilding MuseumFore River. Home of the warship USS Salem.Visit their website
  • Quincy Quarries ReservationWest Quincy. The old granite quarries, now parkland.Visit their website
  • Blue Hills ReservationSouth and west. Close to a quarter of Quincy's land.Visit their website
  • Chickatawbut HillBlue Hills. The city's high point, 517 feet.
  • Houghs NeckQuincy Bay. Where John Adams sailed for France.
  • MerrymountQuincy Bay shore. Site of the 1625 settlement.

On the National Register

20 of the 99 places in Quincy on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters. See the full list of National Register places in Quincy.2

  • Quincy Homestead

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1686 · Listed 1970 · 34 Butler Road

    Edmund Quincy II built the first house here in 1686 on a large family property. The Dorothy Quincy Homestead is now a museum, open occasionally to the public.17

  • United First Parish Church (Unitarian) of Quincy

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1828 · Listed 1970 · 1266 Hancock St.

    The congregation was gathered in 1639, and its granite church was built in 1828 by stonecutter Abner Joy to designs by Alexander Parris. John Adams, John Quincy Adams and their wives lie in its crypt.8

    Visit their website

  • Quincy Town Hall

    Built 1844 · Listed 1980 · 1305 Hancock St.

    The granite town hall of 1844 in Quincy Center, still the seat of the city's government.22

  • Adams National Historic Site

    Listed 1966 · 135 Adams St.

    Adams National Historical Park preserves the homes of five generations of the Adams family, from 1720 to 1927, including Peacefield and the Stone Library, built in 1870 to hold John Quincy Adams's books.25

    Visit their website

  • Salem Lutheran Church

    Built 1894 · Listed 1989 · 199 Granite St.

    The church was built in 1894 to serve a growing congregation of Scandinavians who had come to Quincy to work in its granite quarries. The stones for this granite Gothic Revival church building were hauled and dressed by members of the congregation.26

  • Fore River Club House

    Built 1917 · Listed 1989 · Follett and Beechwood Sts.

    It is a long 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, with rectilinear eyebrow dormers on the water-facing roof. The Shingle-style clubhouse was built in 1917 by the Fore River Shipyard as a recreation center for its employees.27

  • John Quincy Adams Birthplace

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1966 · 141 Franklin St.

    The saltbox house where John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, was born in 1767. His parents lived here while John Adams worked on the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution.20

    Visit their website

  • John Adams Birthplace

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1966 · 133 Franklin St.

    The saltbox house where John Adams, the second president, was born in 1735. It stands on the same property as his son's birthplace and is part of Adams National Historical Park.18

    Visit their website

  • Moswetuset Hummock

    Listed 1970 · Squantum St. near its junction with Morrissey Rd.

    Moswetuset Hummock is a Native American site and the original name of the tribe (Mosetuset) in the region named Massachusetts after them. The wooded hummock in Squantum, Massachusetts, is formally recognized as historic by descendants of the Ponkapoag people.28

  • Thomas Crane Public Library

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1882 · Listed 1972 · 40 Washington St.

    H. H. Richardson's Romanesque library of 1882, paid for by the Crane family in memory of Thomas Crane, a stone contractor who got his start in the Quincy quarries. Richardson counted it among his most successful civic buildings.24

    Visit their website

  • Quincy Granite Railway

    Built 1826 · Listed 1973 · Bunker Hill Lane

    A surviving stretch of the Granite Railway, built to carry Quincy granite to a dock on the Neponset River for the Bunker Hill Monument. It is popularly called the first commercial railroad in the United States.29

  • Quincy Granite Railway Incline

    Built 1826 · Listed 1973 · Mullin Ave.

    The incline on Mullin Avenue is part of the Granite Railway, built to carry Quincy granite to the Neponset River for the Bunker Hill Monument. The old quarries around it are now the Quincy Quarries Reservation.30

  • Adams Academy

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1974 · 8 Adams St.

    John Adams provided in an 1822 deed of trust for a school on the site of John Hancock's birthplace. The boys' academy opened in 1872 and closed in 1908, and its Ware and Van Brunt building has long been home to the Quincy Historical Society.31

    Visit their website

  • Josiah Quincy House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1770 · Listed 1976 · 20 Muirhead St.

    Col. Josiah Quincy's country house on the family's Lower Farm, with the oldest known surviving hipped monitor roof in the former colonies. During the Revolution he watched the British fleet in Boston Harbor from its attic windows.21

    Visit their website

  • John Winthrop, Jr. Iron Furnace Site

    Listed 1977 · 61 Crescent St.

    The site of the first iron blast furnace in what became the United States, run by John Winthrop Jr. from 1644 to 1653. West Quincy was then part of Braintree, so old books call it Braintree Furnace.15

  • Lyon's Turning Mill

    Built 1893 · Listed 1980 · Ricciuti Dr.

    James Lyon's mill of 1893 to 1894 turned granite into columns and spheres on giant lathes and employed about 80 workers until 1907. The quarry on the site dates to about 1825.32

  • Hancock Cemetery

    Listed 1982 · Hancock St. in Quincy Sq.

    Founded about 1640, it is the only tangible remainder of the area's early settlement. John Adams, John Quincy Adams and their wives were buried here before they were moved to the crypt of the United First Parish Church.33

  • Christ Church

    Built 1874 · Listed 1989 · 14 Quincy St.

    The parish first met in 1689 and is believed to be the oldest continuously active Episcopal parish in Massachusetts. Its church of 1874 replaced two earlier churches lost to fire.34

  • House at 92 Willard Street

    Listed 1989 · 92 Willard St.

    The House at 92 Willard Street in Quincy, Massachusetts, is believed to be the only granite house ever built in the city, which is well known for its granite quarries. The house is located in West Quincy, near its famous granite quarries, and was built in the 1830s.35

  • Woodward Institute

    Listed 1989 · 1098 Hancock St.

    Dr. Ebenezer Woodward's will of 1869 set up a girls' school to match the Adams Academy. It opened in 1894 in this Queen Anne building and is still the Woodward School for Girls.36

In their words

“The fame of Quincy granite is world-wide. Quincy to-day is a bright star in the galaxy of Massachusetts municipalities.”

Massachusetts of today, 189237

“Quincy was to him always a haven of rest and refreshment.”

Charles Francis Adams Jr. on Thomas Crane, at the dedication of the Crane Memorial Hall, 18829

“No ship could come in without being seen from thence.”

History of Norfolk County, 1884, on Mount Wollaston38

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Quincy, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
  2. National Register of Historic Places listings in Quincy, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
  3. Historic bird's eye view of Quincy, MA from 1877, restored by KNOWOL
  4. Map of Quincy, Massachusetts in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  5. History of Braintree, Massachusetts (1639-1708), the north precinct of Braintree (1708-1792) and the town of Quincy (1792-1889) (1891), Internet Archive
  6. Three episodes of Massachusetts history (1892), Internet Archive
  7. Historical sketch of the Old Church, Quincy, Mass. (1864), Internet Archive
  8. United First Parish Church (Unitarian) of Quincy, Wikipedia
  9. Address of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and proceedings at the dedication of the Crane Memorial Hall, at Quincy, Mass., May 30, 1882 (1883), Internet Archive
  10. Quincy, Massachusetts: historical information with route map (1921), Internet Archive
  11. History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts (1884), on Squantum and the first settlers, Internet Archive
  12. History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts (1928), Internet Archive
  13. A history of old Braintree and Quincy, with a sketch of Randolph and Holbrook (1878), Internet Archive
  14. A gazetteer of the state of Massachusetts, with numerous illustrations (1890), on Germantown, Internet Archive
  15. John Winthrop, Jr. Iron Furnace Site, Wikipedia
  16. A gazetteer of the state of Massachusetts, with numerous illustrations (1890), on Mount Wollaston and the 1665 deed, Internet Archive
  17. Quincy Homestead, Wikipedia
  18. John Adams Birthplace, Wikipedia
  19. History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts (1884), on Norton Quincy, Internet Archive
  20. John Quincy Adams Birthplace, Wikipedia
  21. Josiah Quincy House, Wikipedia
  22. Quincy Town Hall, Wikipedia
  23. King's handbook of Boston harbor (1888), Internet Archive
  24. Thomas Crane Public Library, Wikipedia
  25. Adams National Historic Site, Wikipedia
  26. Salem Lutheran Church, Wikipedia
  27. Fore River Club House, Wikipedia
  28. Moswetuset Hummock, Wikipedia
  29. Quincy Granite Railway, Wikipedia
  30. Quincy Granite Railway Incline, Wikipedia
  31. Adams Academy, Wikipedia
  32. Lyon's Turning Mill, Wikipedia
  33. Hancock Cemetery, Wikipedia
  34. Christ Church, Wikipedia
  35. House at 92 Willard Street, Wikipedia
  36. Woodward Institute, Wikipedia
  37. Massachusetts of today, a memorial of the state, historical and biographical (1892), Internet Archive
  38. History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts (1884), on Mount Wollaston, Internet Archive