The Conquest of a Continent; or, The Expansion of Races in America. Grant Madison

      V THE PURITANS IN NEW ENGLAND

       Table of Contents

      Taking up the settlement of the colonies more in detail, we may commence with New England. The first inhabitants of Massachusetts were pre-dominantly from the eastern half of England. This contains the counties in which Nordic influence had probably been the strongest, and the early settlement of Massachusetts was by an overwhelmingly Nordic stock, judging alike by place of origin and by family and personal names. A study of the origin of the pioneers of Plymouth, Watertown, and Dedham shows that two-thirds of them came from a region along the English coast between London and the Wash and mostly from the southern part of that stretch of territory.