Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1970. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“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.”
Wikipedia article Moswetuset Hummock, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 249 National Register listings in Norfolk County · listed in 1970 · category: Site · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Norfolk County.
National Register reference number.70000094- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
151 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 151 fires within 5 miles of Moswetuset Hummock between
2015 and 2020, burning about 72 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Recreation and ceremony
108
Smoking
29
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
12
Debris and open burning
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 11,864 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Moswetuset Hummock between 1810 and
1975: 5,772 Plantae, 2,733 Animalia, 2,671 Fungi, 416 Chromista, 188 Protozoa, 54 Unrecorded, 30 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, A C Gibson and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
3 workings within 5 miles of Moswetuset Hummock: 2 producers, 1 past producer.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Quincy, the town this property stands in, in 29 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 10 thunderstorm wind, 8 flood, 5 flash flood, 3 hail.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Several streets in the area of Quincy, Braintree, and Milton were flooded with one to two feet of water. One car was stuck in flood waters at Granite and Chickatawbut Roads in Quincy.
In Quincy, a tree was down on a car at the intersection of Evans Street and West Squantum Street. A person was trapped and extricated, but fortunately was uninjured. Police report relayed by amateur radio.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,300 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Srpp - Moswetuset Munnock is a promontory lying east of East Squantum Road in the northern part of Quincy. This arrow-shaped mound is approached from the road across a short and narrow neck. The Hummock is bounded by the waters of Quincy Bay, where the Indians fished, and salt marshes which afforded them orotection. The begetation on the two acre site remains much the smae as when the Indians occupied the Hummock in the early seventeenth century (and before). Four stone bounds are sunk along the north, east and south edges of the Hummock on the south side is a monument placed there by the Squantum Women's Club. and SEEINSTRUCTIONS RECÊIVED 197 NATIONAL REGISTE 9 U - un
Statement of significance
Moswetuset Hummock is the only surviving memorial of the tribe of Indians from whom the Colony, Province and Commonwealth of Massachusetts derived their name; in the earlt 1600's, this small hill was the chief seat of Chicatabot, the Sachem of the Massachusetts Indians. Further Moswetuset Hummock is one of the few important Indian sites in New England that has re- mained unchanged since it was occupied by the Indians. The purely rustic form of the Hummock has not been altered by modern improvement. It is still bounded by the sea where the Indians fished, the marshes that protected them from their enemies and the original planting grounds of the tribe on land to the west. Neal's History of New England, published in 1747, explains the origin oi the name Massachusetts.
"The Sachem or Sagamore who governed the Indians in this part of the country when the English came hither, had his seat on a small hill, or hümmock, containing perhaps an acre and a half, about two leagues to the southward of Boston, which hill or hummock lies in the shape of an Indian's arrowhead, which arrow-heads are called in their language MOS, or MONS, with O nasal, and hill in their language is WETUSET; hence, this great Scahem's seat was called Moswetuset, which signifies a hill in the shape of an arrow's head, and his subjects, the Mos- wetuset Indians, form whence with a small variation of the word, the Province received the name MASSACHUSETTS." 112 RECEiVED NATIONAL REGISTER I9T 10.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 70000094, 14 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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