Middlesex County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and the 22nd most populous county in the United States. Middlesex County is one of two U.S. counties to be amongst the top 25 counties with the highest household income and the 25 most populated counties. It is included in the Census Bureau's Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metropolitan Statistical Area. As part of the 2020 United States census, the Commonwealth's mean center of population for that year was geo-centered in Middlesex County, in the town of Natick.
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately 7 miles (11 km) west of downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages without a city center. It is home to the Charles River, Crystal Lake, and Heartbreak Hill, among other landmarks. It is served by several streets and highways, as well as the Green Line D branch run by the MBTA.
Littleton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,141 at the 2020 census.
Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,793 at the 2020 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the late 20th century after the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike. It is part of the Worcester metropolitan area.
Natick is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. 10 miles (16 km) west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. Massachusetts's center of population was in Natick at the censuses of 2000–2020, most recently in the vicinity of Hunters Lane.
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End.
The Charles River, sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an 80-mile-long (129 km) river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles back on itself several times and travels through 23 cities and towns before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The indigenous Massachusett named it Quinobequin, meaning "meandering" or "meandering still water".
Framingham is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers 25 square miles (65 km2) with a population of 72,362 in 2020, making it the 14th most populous municipality in Massachusetts. Residents voted in favor of adopting a charter to transition from a representative town meeting system to a mayor–council government in April 2017, and the municipality transitioned to city status on January 1, 2018. Before it transitioned, it had been the largest town by population in Massachusetts.
John Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians who some called "the apostle to the Indians" and the founder of Roxbury Latin School in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1645. In 1660 he completed the enormous task of translating the Eliot Indian Bible into the Massachusett Indian language, producing more than two thousand completed copies.
Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. Milton was ranked by Money as the 2nd, 7th, 8th, and 17th best place to live in the United States in 2011, 2009, 2019, 2021, and 2022 respectively.
The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four Wampanoag communities. The language is also known as Natick or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), and historically as Pokanoket, Indian or Nonantum.
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills overlooking Boston Harbor from the south.
Chestnut Hill is a wealthy New England village located six miles (10 km) west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is best known for being home to Boston College and a section of the Boston Marathon route. Like all Massachusetts villages, Chestnut Hill is not an incorporated municipal entity. It is located partially in Brookline in Norfolk County; partially in the city of Boston in Suffolk County, and partially in the city of Newton in Middlesex County. Chestnut Hill's borders are defined by the 02467 ZIP Code. The name refers to several small hills that overlook the 135-acre Chestnut Hill Reservoir rather than one particular hill.
Praying Indian is a 17th-century term referring to Native Americans of New England, New York, Ontario, and Quebec who converted to Christianity either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many groups are referred to by the term, but it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages. The villages were known as praying towns and were established by missionaries such as the Puritan leader John Eliot and Jesuit missionaries who established the St. Regis and Kahnawake and the missions among the Huron in western Ontario.
The Nipmuc or Nipmuck people are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who historically spoke an Eastern Algonquian language. Their historic territory Nippenet, meaning 'the freshwater pond place', is in central Massachusetts and nearby parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
West Newton is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States.
Waban was a Native American of the Nipmuc group and was thought to be the first Native American convert to Christianity in Massachusetts.
Praying towns were settlements established by English colonial governments in New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert local Native Americans to Christianity.
Massachusett writing systems describes the historic and modern systems used for writing Massachusett, an indigenous Algonquian language of the Algic language family. At the time Europeans colonized the region, Massachusett was the primary language of several peoples of New England, including the Massachusett in the area roughly corresponding to Boston, Massachusetts, including much of the Metrowest and South Shore areas just to the west and south of the city; the Wampanoag, who still inhabit Cape Cod and the Islands, most of Plymouth and Bristol counties and south-eastern Rhode Island, including some of the small islands in Narragansett Bay; the Nauset, who may have rather been an isolated Wampanoag sub-group, inhabited the extreme ends of Cape Cod; the Coweset of northern Rhode Island; and the Pawtucket which covered most of northeastern Massachusetts and the lower tributaries of the Merrimack River and coast of New Hampshire, and the extreme southernmost point of Maine. Massachusett was also used as a common second language of peoples throughout New England and Long Island, particularly in a simplified pidgin form.
