Native Americans inhabited what is now northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas.

Twain often visited Boston.  The Lyceum lecture bureau of James Redpath; his publisher James R, Osgood; and his friend W.D. Howells, his friend and editor of the Atlantic Monthly were all there.  Rasmussen remarks that Twain selected Hartford, Connecticut in 1871 for a home because it was midway between New York and Boston, with easy train connections to both. "Over the next 35 years he spoke frequently in Boston and met most of New England's leading literary figures there."

This place was called "Wantastiquet"[10] by the Abenaki people, which meant "lost river", "river that leads to the west", or "river of the lonely way".