Quincy (pronounced ) is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Its nicknames are'The City of Presidents'','City of Legends'', and'Birthplace of the American Dream'. As a major part of Metropolitan Boston, Quincy is a member of Boston's Inner Core Committee for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Its name, which comes from that of Colonel John Quincy (maternal grandfather of Abigail Adams after whom John Quincy Adams was also named), >http://books.google.com/booksid=gVMYAAAAIAAJ-pg=PT50-dq=%22mount+wollaston%22-lr=-as_brr=3#PPT50,M1 and John Quincy Adams, as well as statesman John Hancock. The population was 88,025 at the...

Quincy (pronounced ) is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Its nicknames are'The City of Presidents'','City of Legends'', and'Birthplace of the American Dream'. As a major part of Metropolitan Boston, Quincy is a member of Boston's Inner Core Committee for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Its name, which comes from that of Colonel John Quincy (maternal grandfather of Abigail Adams after whom John Quincy Adams was also named), >http://books.google.com/booksid=gVMYAAAAIAAJ-pg=PT50-dq=%22mount+wollaston%22-lr=-as_brr=3#PPT50,M1 and John Quincy Adams, as well as statesman John Hancock. The population was 88,025 at the United States Census, 2000.

History
The Wollaston, Massachusetts neighborhood is the oldest part of Quincy, first settled by English people immigrants in 1625 as Mount Wollaston and renamed Merrymount. Quincy itself later became part of Braintree, Massachusetts, was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1792, and was made a city in 1888.

Among the city's several firsts was the Granite Railway, the first commercial railroad in the United States. It was constructed in 1826 to carry granite from a Quincy Quarries Reservation to the Neponset River in Milton, Massachusetts so that the stone could then be taken by boat to erect the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Quincy granite became famous throughout the nation, and stonemasonry became the city's principal economic activity. Quincy was also home to the first iron furnace in the United States, the John Winthrop, Jr. (or Braintree) Iron Furnace, from 1644 to 1653.

Quincy was additionally important as a shipbuilding center. Sailing ships were built in Quincy for many years, including the only seven-masted schooner ever built, Thomas W. Lawson (ship). The Weymouth Fore River area became a shipbuilding center in the 1880s-originally owned by Thomas A. Watson of telephone fame-and many famous warships were built at the Fore River Shipyard, including the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2); the battleships USS Massachusetts (BB-59), now preserved as a museum ship at Battleship Cove in Massachusetts, and USS Nevada (BB-36); and the USS Salem (CA-139), the world's last all-gun heavy warship, which is still preserved at Fore River as the main exhibit of the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum. John J. Kilroy, the originator of the famous Kilroy Was Here graffiti, was a welding inspector at Fore River.

Quincy was also an aviation pioneer. Dennison Field in the Squantum section of town was one of the world's first airports and was partially developed by Amelia Earhart. In 1910, it was the site of the Harvard Aero Meet, the second air show in America. It was later leased to the United States Navy for an airfield, and served as a reserve Squantum Naval Air Station into the 1950s.