Michigander in Mass

Quincy, Massachusetts, our first home in Massachusetts, is not only the birthplace of Dunkin' Donuts and Howard Johnson's (our very first apartment on Southern Avenue near Quincy Point was not too far from the first Dunkin' D's, and our apartment in Wollaston sat right across from the MBTA parking lot that was the original home of HoJo's). It was also the home of three (yes, that's right, *three*) American presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and John Hanckock of the signature fame. Wait, you might say, I might not still be able to remember all the state capitals, and please don't ask me who came first, Grover Cleveland or Benjamin Harrison, but I'm pretty sure John Hancock wasn't president of the U.S. You'd be right. But he was president of the Continental Congress which pretty much ran the place before Washington came around. There's a great history of Quincy online.

When we first moved to Massachusetts, we began getting someone else's mail. Despite the stark difference in Zip Codes (02169 versus 49082), for a short amount of time Mr. and Mrs. Van Hoosear of Quincy, Michigan and Mr. and Mrs. Van Hoosear of Quincy, Massachusetts struck up a correspondence to compensate. We are distantly related, and we able to trace our common ancestry fairly accurately thanks to some great research done at the turn of the 20th century by a David Van Hoosear, as I recall (and additional research that my "Grandma Van" did).

Quincy, Michigan was indeed named for Quincy, Mass. A Dr. Hiram Allen suggested the name Quincy, after his home town in Massachusetts, when settlers in the areas broke away from the surrounding Coldwater Township.

But there's another Quincy of import in Michigan: The Quincy Mining Company was founded in 1846 to dig for native copper deposits on property near Hancock, Michigan. History is unclear as to where the name came from (there's a lake in the area that goes by that name).