The north-central Pioneer Valley in South Deerfield, Mass.
— Photo by Tom Walsh
“Massachusetts! A word surrounded with an aura of hope! A state with a soul! There is gathered up into her name the brilliant program of a new world.’’
— Wallace Nutting, in Massachusetts Beautiful (1923)
Built in 1681, the Old Ship Church, in Hingham, Mass., is the oldest church in America in continuous ecclesiastical use. Massachusetts has since become one of the most irreligious states in the U.S. It was built by Puritans, then was Congregational and now is Unitarian-Universalist.
