State 28 of 50  

 

 

    Massachusetts

 

Capital: Boston

Population: 6,350,000 (ranked 14th of 50 states)

Area: 27,000 kmē (ranked 44th of 50 states)

 

 

 

 

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Ride Report

This state: 183 kms     Journey to date: 17,864 kms

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

 

 

Ride Report

Massachusetts could well have been just another drag down the inter-state but there were two essential detours I needed to do. The first was to visit another shrine in Sterling. The second was to visit the longest place name in America. You had to do it. Therefore the motley photo collection below does not give you any idea of what Massachusetts is like but then again I was in and out in 4 hours.

Here is the shrine to Mary Had A Little Lamb. In Sterling is the birthplace of the lamb's owner, Mary Elizabeth Sawyer. Here's what happened. In 1815 Mary Sawyer was followed to school by her pet lamb. A classmate, John Roulston, wrote the poem. Meantime Newport, New Hampshire, reckons that noted poetess Sarah Hale, funnily enough of Newport, who invented the lamb story from her imagination. Sterling say that Hale "lifted" the stanzas from their kids. The two towns are Lamb rivals but it is Sterling who have erected the statue and thus gets my vote.