First settled in 1625, Quincy was briefly part ofDorchester before becoming the North Precinct ofBraintree in 1640. In 1792, Quincy was split off fromthe Town of Braintree and wasincorporated separately as the Town of Quincy; the new town was named after ColonelJohn Quincy, maternal grandfather ofAbigail Adams and after whom John Quincy Adams was also named.[4] Quincy became a city in 1888.
For over a century, Quincy was home to a thrivinggranitequarrying industry; the city was also the site of theGranite Railway, the United States' first commercial railroad. Shipbuilding at theFore River Shipyard was another key contributor to the city's economy. In the 20th century, bothHoward Johnson's andDunkin' Donuts were founded in the city. Today, Quincy has developed into both a vibrant immigrant destination and a suburban business hub, and is considered attractive due to its safety, relatively large housing stock, and extensive connections to Boston.
View of Mount Wollaston as it appeared in 1840, virtually unchanged from the time of initial English settlement in 1625. The central part of this sketch was adopted as the seal of Quincy.
The road that eventually became the Old Coast Road from Boston toPlymouth, going through Quincy and Braintree, started out as a Native American trail.[5]
Four years later, a party led by CaptainRichard Wollaston establisheda post on a low hill near the south shore ofQuincy Bay east of present-day Black's Creek. The settlers found the area suitable for farming, as Chickatawbut and his group had cleared much of the land of trees. (The Indians used the name Passonagessit ("Little Neck of Land") for the area.[8]) This settlement was named Mount Wollaston in honor of the leader, who left the area soon after 1625, bound forVirginia.[9]
TheWollaston neighborhood in Quincy still retains Captain Wollaston's name. Upon the departure of Wollaston,Thomas Morton took over leadership of the post. Morton's history of conflict with the Plymouth settlement and his free-thinking ideals antagonized the Plymouth settlement, who maligned the colony and accused it ofdebauchery with Indian women anddrunkenness.[9] Morton renamed the settlement Ma-re-Mount ("Hill by the Sea") and later wrote that the conservativeseparatists ofPlymouth Colony to the south were "threatening to make it a woefull mount and not a merry mount", in reference to the fact that they disapproved of hislibertine practices.[10] In 1627, Morton was arrested by Standish for violating the code of conduct in a way harmful to the colony. He was sent back to England, only to return and be arrested byPuritans the next year.[9] The area of Quincy now calledMerrymount is located on the site of the original English settlement of 1625 and takes its name from the punning name given by Morton.[11]
The area was first incorporated as part ofDorchester in 1630; it was briefly annexed by Boston in 1634.[12] The area becameBraintree in 1640,[13] bordered along the coast of Massachusetts Bay by Dorchester[14] to the north andWeymouth[15] to the east. Beginning in 1708, the modern border of Quincy first took shape as the North Precinct of Braintree.[13]
Following theAmerican Revolution, in 1792, Quincy was officially incorporated as a separate town from Braintree, named for Col.John Quincy, the grandfather of Abigail Adams.[16] It was made a city in 1888.[17] Quincy, Massachusetts, is the only one of the 17 U.S. cities named "Quincy" whose residents pronounce the name as "KWIN-zee" rather than "KWIN-see". In 1845, theOld Colony Railroad opened; theMassachusetts Historical Commission stated that the railroad was "the beginning of a trend towardsuburbanization." Quincy became as accessible toBoston as wasCharlestown. The first suburban land company, Bellevue Land Co., had been organized in northern Quincy in 1870.[18] Quincy's population grew by over 50 percent during the 1920s.[19]
Among the city's several firsts was theGranite Railway, the first commercial railroad in the United States. It was constructed in 1826 to carrygranite from aQuincy quarry to theNeponset River inMilton so that the stone could then be taken by boat to erect theBunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Quincy granite became famous throughout the nation, andstonecutting became the city's principal economic activity. Quincy was also home to the firstiron furnace in the United States, theJohn Winthrop Jr. Iron Furnace Site (also known as Braintree Furnace), from 1644 to 1653.
Quincy, Massachusetts, oil on canvas,Childe Hassam, 1892
In the 1870s, the city gave its name to theQuincy Method, an influential approach to education developed byFrancis W. Parker while he served as Quincy'ssuperintendent of schools. Parker, an early proponent ofprogressive education, put his ideas into practice in the city's underperforming schools; four years later, a state survey found that Quincy's students were excelling.[20] Many of Quincy's teachers were recruited by districts in other states, spreading the Quincy method beyond Massachusetts to New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Florida, Minnesota, and other places.[21]
Quincy was also anaviation pioneer thanks to Dennison Field. Located inSquantum, it was one of the world's first airports and was partially developed byAmelia Earhart. In 1910, it was the site of theHarvard Aero Meet, the second air show in America. It was later leased to theNavy for an airfield, and served as a reserveSquantum Naval Air Station into the 1950s. TheArmy has also long maintained a presence in the city, with theMassachusetts Army National Guard occupying the Kelley Armory in Wollaston; from 1971 to 1976 it served as headquarters for the187th Infantry Brigade.
TheHoward Johnson's andDunkin' Donuts restaurant chains were both founded in Quincy.Celtic punk bandDropkick Murphys got its start in the city'sWollaston neighborhood in 1996. Quincy is also home to the United States' longest-runningFlag Day parade, a tradition that began in 1952 under Richard Koch, a former director of City Parks and Recreation, who started the "Koch Club" sports organization for kids and held an annual parade with flags.[23]
Quincy and surrounding area showing elevations and features
Quincy shares borders withBoston to the north (separated by theNeponset River),Milton to the west,Randolph andBraintree to the south, andWeymouth (separated by theFore River) andHull (maritime border betweenQuincy Bay andHingham Bay) to the east. Historically, before incorporation when it was called "Mount Wollaston" and later as the "North Precinct" of Braintree, Quincy roughly began at the Neponset River in the north and ended at the Fore River in the south.
According to theUnited States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 26.9 square miles (70 km2), of which 16.8 square miles (44 km2) is land and 10.1 square miles (26 km2) is water. The total area is 37.60% water.
Although Quincy is primarily urban, 2,485 acres (3.9 sq mi; 10.1 km2)[26] or fully 23 percent of its land area lies within the uninhabitedBlue Hills Reservation, a state park managed by theMassachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. This undeveloped natural area encompasses the southwestern portion of Quincy and includes the city's highest point, 517-foot (158 m) Chickatawbut Hill. Other hills within Quincy include Forbes Hill in Wollaston, Presidents Hill in Quincy Center and Penns Hill in South Quincy.[27]
Quincy, Massachusetts – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
As of the2020 United States census,[47] there were 101,636 people and 46,789 households, making it the eighth-largest city in the state. The population density was 6,137.6 inhabitants per square mile (2,369.7/km2). There were 51,156 housing units.
Of the city's 46,789 households, approximately 56.6% were married couples living together, 12.5% had a female householder with no spouse present, 5.2% were male householders with no spouse present, and 25.8% were non-families. 50.1% of Quincy's population was male, and 49.9% female. The average household size was 2.2 people, and most people (84.3%) were in the same house a year ago.[47][49]
In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 14% under the age of 18, 66.2% from 18 to 64, and 19.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.8 years.[49]
The median income for a household in the city was $90,668. Males had a median income of 1.31 times greater than females ($97,905 compared to $74,737 for females). Theper capita income for the city was $53,082. About 7.3% of families and 9.8% of the population were below thepoverty line, including 15.2% of those under age 18 and 11.1% of those age 65 or over.[47][49]
As of 2010, Quincy has the highest per capita concentration of persons of Asian origin in Massachusetts.[50] As of 2003 about 66% of the Asians in Quincy areethnic Chinese,[51] giving the city one of the largest Chinese populations in the state.[52] There is also a community of personsof East Indian origins, with most of them working ininformation technology and other skilled professions.[51] A growing number of people withVietnamese origins live in the area as well and make up the second largest Asian American group in Quincy; it is estimated that nearly 4,000 Vietnamese people live in the city.
In 1980, there were 750 persons of Asian origin in Quincy. Most of the Asian immigrants coming in the 1980s originated from Hong Kong and Taiwan.[53] In 1990, Quincy had 5,577 persons of Asian origin,[50] with 143 of them being of East Indian origin.[51] The number of Asians increased to 13,546 in 2000,[50] with about 9,000 of them being ethnic Chinese,[52] and 1,127 of them being ethnic East Indian. The latter group grew by 688%, making it the fastest-growing Asian subgroup in Quincy.[51] Around 2003, most Asian immigrants were coming fromFujian instead ofHong Kong andTaiwan.[53] At that time, Quincy had a higher Asian population than the Boston Chinatown.[54] The overall Asian population increased by 64% in the following decade, to 22,174 in 2010.[50] Quincy's Chinese population increased by 60% during that time period.[55]
Historically, Quincy's Asian residents traveled to shops inChinatown, Boston.[54] In 2003, New York City-basedKam Man Food opened one of its supermarkets in Quincy.[56] In February 2017, City Councilor Nina Liang presented a motion to designate Quincy as a "Sanctuary City".[57] This motion was voted down by the City Council. Quincy has an estimated 8,000 undocumented residents and has the 11th-highest concentration of immigrants in Massachusetts overall.[58]
As of 2000, about 50% of Asians in Quincy own their own houses; many who rent do so while saving money for down payments for their houses.[53] Sixty-five percent of the Chinese were homeowners, while only 10% of the East Indians were homeowners.[51] As of 2003, slightly more than 2,500 Asian Americans in Quincy were registered to vote, making up almost 25% of Asians in the city who were eligible to vote.[59]
In the 1980s, the city experienced unrest due to racial tensions and violence directed toward Southeast Asian and Chinese residents.[60] At this time, the Quincy Police Department did not employ anyAAPI police officers, which led to a lack of trust within theAsian-American community.[61] The City gradually increased its outreach to its Asian-American communities and developed multicultural programming showcasing immigrant cultures to help familiarize the larger community with its new neighbors and promote community integration. Racial tensions gradually diminished, and by 2003,[60] the Quincy Police Department had prioritized the diversification of their force, employing multiple Asian-American officers .[61]
In 2003, Quincy Asian Resources Inc. planned to establish a newsletter for Asian residents.[59] In 2011, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Inc. (BCNC;波士頓華埠社區中心) began offering services in Quincy.[55]
Germantown is the site of a former planned manufacturing community begun in the 1750s to encourageGermanimmigration, it is now a densely populated residential neighborhood featuring several public housing developments.
Houghs Neck is a northeastern peninsular community named for Atherton Hough, who was granted the land in 1636 for use as a farm andorchard. Hough's Neck has a substantial Irish-American population.
Merrymount is a primarily residential neighborhood and the site of Quincy's initial settlement.
Montclair is the northwestern section of the city along West Squantum Street, bordering the town ofMilton.
North Quincy is a residential and commercial neighborhood along Hancock Street and Quincy Shore Drive that is home to a substantialAsian-American population, the community is regionally notable for its culturally diverse small business sector, and it is the location of the city's largest high school,North Quincy High School.
Quincy Point is a densely populated residential area east of Quincy Center, with commercial areas along Quincy Avenue andSouthern Artery, it is also the site of theFore River Shipyard.
South Quincy is a residential and commercial area bordering the town ofBraintree that includes Crown Colony office park and Faxon Park, a wooded 66-acre (0.27 km2) protected space.
Squantum is apeninsular area and the northernmost region of Quincy, once-popular as a summer seaside resort destination, it is now a year-round residential area known for its tight-knit community and its recreational offerings, including several municipal beaches andSquantum Point Park, which is on the site of the formerNaval Air Station Squantum. Squantum has a significant Irish-American population.
Wollaston, named for Captain Richard Wollaston, the leader of Quincy's original settlers, was an early rail-accessed commuter home for Boston workers, it is now a densely populated residential and commercial area that includes the formerEastern Nazarene College campus.
Headquarters building ofStop & Shop supermarket chain in Quincy Center
During its history, Quincy has been known as a manufacturing and heavy industry center, withgranitequarrying dominating employment in the 19th century andshipbuilding at the Fore River Shipyard and Squantum Victory Yard rising to prominence in the 20th century. The recent decades have seen a shift in focus to several large employers in the professional and service sector of the economy.[63] Quincy is the location of the corporate headquarters of several firms, includingBoston Financial Data Services,[64] theStop & Shopsupermarket chain,[65]Arbella Insurance Group[66] andThe Patriot Ledger, the publisher of theSouth Shore's largest regional newspaper.[67]
Quincy has astrong mayor government. The incumbent mayor,Thomas P. Koch, has served since 2008; he is the33rd mayor of the city. Mayors in the city were elected to two-year terms. In 2013, the city's voters opted to extend the mayoral term to four years, beginning after the 2015 election.[75]
In addition to the mayor, the city has a nine-member city council, with Ian Cain serving as president as of 2025.[76] One councilor is elected to represent each of the city's six wards, and three are elected at large. Councilors serve two-year terms. The city also has a school committee with seven members—the mayor and six members elected to staggered four-year terms.[77]
In the fall of 2024, responding to public pressure, Mayor Thomas Koch and nine members of the Quincy City Council announced they would defer sizable raises passed in June until after the 2028 election cycle.[78]
The Quincy Police Department was formed in 1888, currently headquartered at the originalQuincy Police Station which was built in 1925 as the city's first purpose-builtpolice station and added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1990. In 2010, the city of Quincy was the first in the US to have its police department carry the nasal sprayNarcan (Nalaxone) to combat the overdose outbreak associated with theopioid epidemic in the US.[79] When the program first began, the city's officers were reviving an overdose victim every four to five days. By 2014, police officers had administered the opioid antagonist over 300 times. Other cities and police departments throughout the US developed their own Narcan-dispensing programs based on the model pioneered by the Quincy PD.[80] In 2017, overdose deaths in the city and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had declined, it was thought, due to the use of naloxone by the police and others. The state legislature, in 2018, required all pharmacies to keep Narcan in stock and available to anyone, without a prescription.[81]
Fire emergencies are handled by the Quincy Fire Department, which was founded in 1889 and includes theCentral Fire Station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is still active as of 2023.[82] The city'sEmergency Medical Services are privately contracted, with ambulance response being handled by Brewster Ambulance Service since 2015.[83]
Munro Hall on the Eastern Nazarene College main campus
Quincy is home to various educational institutions, public and private, including aMontessori school, aCatholic academy, and one independentcollege-preparatory school.Eastern Nazarene College, a private liberal arts and sciences college that is currently in the process of closing after the 24–25 school year,[86] andQuincy College, a public community college, two publichigh schools, five publicmiddle schools, and 12 publicelementary schools. In the 19th century, the city became an innovator in progressive public education with theQuincy Method, developed byFrancis W. Parker while he served as Quincy'ssuperintendent of schools. Four years after its implementation, a state survey found that Quincy students excelled at reading, writing, and spelling, and ranked fourth in their county in math.[20]
The city is home toEastern Nazarene College, a former college of the liberal arts and sciences located inWollaston Park. The college relocated to the area in 1919 from its original location inSaratoga Springs, New York, where it was established as a "holiness college" in 1900. In June 2024, The Board of Trustees ofEastern Nazarene College announced that the institution was preparing a plan to take steps toward closure, with the goal of closing the college at the end of the 2024–2025 school year.[87][86] The future of its campus is uncertain as of November 2024.
Quincy College, acommunity college inQuincy Center, operates under the auspices of the City of Quincy. The college is unusual in this respect, as it is the only one of Massachusetts' 16 community colleges to be run by a city rather than by thestate.[88] It is one of only two colleges in the United States organized this way.[89]
Public education at theprimary andsecondary levels is managed byQuincy Public Schools, a system that includes one early childhood center, eleven elementary schools, five middle schools and two high schools.[90]
Private and alternative education institutions for children in preschool through 8th grade include Quincy's three Catholic parochial schools — Sacred Heart, St. Ann, and St. Mary.[91][92][93] TheArchdiocese of Boston decided to merge these three schools to form the Quincy Catholic Academy, which opened in 2010 on the site of the former Sacred Heart school.[94]
Several Chinese community organizations in Quincy have offered after-school and weekend instruction inMandarin andCantonese to local youth over the years. The Quincy Chinese Language School and The Chung Yee School are no longer in operation. In 2016, The South Shore Chinese Language School began offering popular weekend classes in Mandarin and Cantonese to children ages 5 and up at the Quincy YMCA.[97]
Interstate 93 andU.S. Route 1 travel south to north concurrently through Quincy beginning in the southwest, where the Quincy–Randolph border bisects the median between the northern and southern halves of the Exit 5 cloverleaf at Massachusetts Route 28. Following a route around the southern extent of theBlue Hills Reservation, this I-93 and US 1 alignment is along the former southern section ofRoute 128. The highway travels along a wooded wetland region of the Reservation, entering Quincy completely just beyond Exit 5 and then crossing into Braintree as it approaches theBraintree Split, the junction withMassachusetts Route 3. Weekday traffic volume averages 250,000 to 275,000 vehicles per day at this intersection, the gateway from Boston and its inner core to theSouth Shore andCape Cod.[98]
As Route 3 joins I-93 and US 1 at the Braintree Split, the three travel north together toward Boston around the eastern extent of the Blue Hills Reservation, enteringWest Quincy as theSoutheast Expressway. The expressway provides access to West Quincy at Exit 8—Furnace Brook Parkway and Exit 9—Bryant Avenue/Adams Street before entering Milton. The Furnace Brook Parkway exit also provides access to Ricciuti Drive and theQuincy Quarries Reservation as well as the eastern entrance to theBlue Hills Reservation Parkways.
Principal numbered state highways traveling within Quincy include:Route 3A south to north from Weymouth via Washington Street,Southern Artery, Merrymount Parkway and Hancock Street to the Neponset River Bridge and theDorchester section of Boston;Route 28, which travels south to north from Randolph to Milton along Randolph Avenue in Quincy through a remote section of the Blue Hills Reservation; andRoute 53, which enters traveling south to north from Braintree as Quincy Avenue, turning right to form the beginning of Southern Artery inQuincy Point before ending at the intersection with Washington Street/Route 3A.
Quincy Center as seen from the intersection of Adams Street and Hancock Street
As for Quincy's other important city streets, Hancock Street begins at the southern extent of Quincy Center as a continuation of Quincy Avenue and travels north to Dorchester as a main commercial thoroughfare of Quincy Center, Wollaston and North Quincy. Washington Street enters the city at Fore River Rotary after crossingWeymouth Fore River via theFore River Bridge and continues to Quincy Center, ending at Hancock Street. Along with Quincy Avenue and Southern Artery, other heavily traveled streets include Newport Avenue, which parallels Hancock Street to the west on the opposite side of the MBTA railway, Adams Street heading west from Quincy Center to Milton, and West and East Squantum Streets in theMontclair and North Quincy neighborhoods. Other streets are discussed in several of the neighborhood articles listed above.
Subway service is available on theRed Line of the MBTA from four stations in Quincy:North Quincy,Wollaston,Quincy Center, andQuincy Adams. Commuter rail service operates out of Quincy Center. Both services serveSouth Station in Boston with connections toMBTA Commuter Rail andAmtrak intercity lines. Buses are also available for transportation in Quincy, including private bus lines and several lines provided by the MBTA. Most of the MBTA routes funnel through the Quincy Center station, which is the principal hub south of Boston for all MBTA bus lines. The southern bus garage for the MBTA system is adjacent to the Quincy Armory on Hancock Street.
Fore River Shipyard inQuincy Point was formerly a terminal for theMBTA ferry system.[99] Service ended in October 2013 after a water main break damaged the sea wall and wharf. Temporary repairs would have cost $15 million; permanent repairs $50 million. In 2014, the MBTA made the decision to permanently end the service and sell the land.[100]
Quincy has had brief flirtations with professional sports. The Quincy Chiefs of the minor league Eastern Basketball Association (the predecessor to the defunctContinental Basketball Association) played a single season in 1977–1978, and were coached and managed by formerBoston Celtics executiveLeo Papile. The Chiefs finished 12–19 in third place, and lost in the playoffs to eventual league championWilkes-Barre. Quincy's professional baseball team, the Shipbuilders, competed in theNew England League in 1933, recording a 12–6 record before moving toNashua midseason; a revival of the team played in the NEL from 1941 through to 1944. The final season of theBoston Minutemen of theNorth American Soccer League was played atVeterans Memorial Stadium, in 1976, finishing 7–17.
Quincy has had severalfootball teams in the semi-pro Eastern Football League over the years. The current club, the Quincy Militia, played its inaugural season in the EFL in 2009.[101] Founded in 2009 by long-time Quincy resident Vaughn Driscoll, new owners came into the team picture in 2013. Militia games are played July to October with home games at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Saturday nights. An earlier team, the Quincy Giants, played in the minor leagueAtlantic Coast Football League between 1969 and 1971.
Quincy's high school sports programs are in the Patriot League:[102] the D-III Fisher Division "Raiders" ofNorth Quincy High School and the DIIA Keenan Division "Presidents" ofQuincy High School, who are rivals. Quincy also hosted the youth baseballBabe Ruth League World Series in 2003, 2005 and 2008. High school baseball and Babe Ruth League games are played at Adams Field. High school football is played atVeterans Memorial Stadium
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Core cities are metropolitan core cities of at least a million people. The other areas are urban areas of cities that have an urban area of 150,000+ or of a metropolitan area of at least 250,000+. Satellite cities are in italics.
