Monday, August 4, 2008

Massachusetts Governors fun facts

Last month, we finished fact checking a portion of a website about the Governors of Massachusetts for the National Governors Association.They list the governors of all fifty states on their website. Here are some fun facts about the Governors:

  • Governor George Dexter Robinson (1884-1887) was famous for defending Lizzie Borden.

  • There was a governor named John Quincy Adams Brackett (1890-1891), who was born in Bradford, NH.

  • Governor William Lewis Douglas (1905-1906) began the W.L. Douglas shoe company in Brockton. He set up a leper colony on PenikeseIsland, 12 miles Southwest of Woods Hole near Cape Cod.

  • Governor Francis Sargent, (1969-1975) asked Republican former Vice President Spiro Agnew to stay out of Massachusetts. (We did not confirm this fact.) Governor Sargent also was the keynote speaker for Earth Day and ordered the flags to half-mast in recognition of the student killings at Kent State. He sponsored legislation challenging the legality of the war in Vietnam.

-Naomi Allen, Reference Librarian