Merrymount Colony | |||||||||
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1624–1630 | |||||||||
Status | Colony of England | ||||||||
Historical era | British colonization of the Americas | ||||||||
• Established as Mount Wollaston | 1624 | ||||||||
• Renamed Merrymount | 1626 | ||||||||
• Destroyed by John Endicott | 1630 | ||||||||
Population | |||||||||
• Estimate | 8 (1628) | ||||||||
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The Merrymount Colony, originally Mount Wollaston, was a short-lived English colony in New England founded by Richard Wollaston on the present site of Quincy, Massachusetts. After Wollaston died on a trip to Virginia, Thomas Morton led a rebellion, taking over the colony with the promise to share the profits equally. It was founded in 1624 and lasted six years until its destruction by the Puritans of the neighboring Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony.[1]