Below are some of the more prominent collections and publications of papers related to the colonial and early national history of Massachusetts. The colonial list is quite voluminous, revealing the interest of Massachusetts to early Americanists, and perhaps the colony’s undue influence over early American historiography. Many of the printed sources for colonial Massachusetts blend with neighboring colonies such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, and also include published sources concerning both Massachusetts Bay and the Plymouth Colony. Various printed sources related to Massachusetts can also be found in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Historical Collections of the Essex Institute. The Colonial Society offers free digital access to its Publications. For help locating any of the volumes listed below, consult our Finding Published Sources page.

Colonial Massachusetts

A Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony from 1630 to 1686, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston, 1890)

Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 21 vols. (Boston, 1869-1922)

A Documentary History of Chelsea including the Boston Precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624 – 1824, ed. Mellen Chamberlain, 2 vols. (Boston, 1908)

An Inventory of the Records of the Particular (Congregational) Churches Gathered, 1620 – 1805, ed. Harold F. Worthley (Cambridge, 1970)

Annals of the Town of Dorchester, ed. James Blake (Boston, 1846)

Annals of the Town of Mendon from 1659 – 1880, ed. John George Metcalf (Providence, 1880)

Annals of the Town of Warren, eds. Cyrus Eaton and Emily Eaton (1851)

The Antinomian Controversy, 1636 - 1638: A Documentary History, ed. David D. Hall (Durham, 1990)

A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston…, 9 vols. (Boston, 1881-1893)

The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts, ed. Thomas G.. Barnes (San Marino, 1975)

The British in Boston, being the Dairy of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774, to May 31, 1776, ed. Elizabeth Ellery Dana (Cambridge, 1924)

Captive Histories: English, French, and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid, eds. Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney (Amherst, 2006)

Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1846)

Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, ed. Alexander Young (Boston, 1841)

Collection of Original Papers Relative to the History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, ed. Thomas Hutchinson (Boston, 1769)

Colonial Justice in Western Massachusetts, 1639 - 1702: The Pynchon Court Record, ed. Joseph H. Smith (Cambridge, 1961)

“Communication of Original Papers Relating the Trial of Captain Thomas Preston and the Soldiers Concerned in the Riot of the Fifth of March, 1770,” ed. john Noble, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications 5 (1897-1898): 58-77

Correspondence of William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts and Military Commander in America 1731 - 1760, ed. Charles Henry Lincoln, 2 vols. (New York, 1912)

The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and Benjamin Lynde, Jr., ed. Fitch Edward Oliver (Boston, 1880)

Diaries of John Hull, Mint-master and Treasurer of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1857)

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1961)

The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq…, ed. Peter Orlando Hutchinson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1884-1886)

Diary of Cotton Mather, 1681 - 1709, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, 2 vols. (New York, 1911)

Diary of King Philip’s War, 1675 - 76, Benjamin Church (Boston, 1716; reprint, Chester, 1975)

The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth, 1653 - 1657: The Conscience of a Puritan, ed. Edmund S. Morgan (Gloucester, 1970)

The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674 - 1729, ed. M. Halsey Thomas, 2 vols. (New York, 1973)

The Diary of William Pynchon of Salem. A Picture of Salem Life, Social and Political, a Century Ago, ed. Fitch edward Oliver (Boston, 1890)

“Documents Relating to the Massachusetts Royal Council, 1774-1776,” ed. Albert Mathews, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications 32 (1937)

Dorchester Town Records (Boston, 1896)

Early English and French Voyages, ed. Henry S. Burrage (New York, 1906)

Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, eds. Don Gleason Hill, et al., 7 vols. (Dedham, 1886-1968)

The Early Records of the Town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1643 – 1725, ed. Henry S. Nourse (Lancaster, 1884)

The Early Records of the Town of Lunenberg, Massachusetts, ed. Walter A. Davis (Fitchburg, 1896)

The Early Records of the Town of Rowley, Massachusetts, 1639 – 1672, eds. Benjamin P. Mighill and George B. Blodgette (Rowley, 1894)

God’s Plot: Being the Autobiography & Journal of Thomas Shepard, ed. Michael McGiffert (Amherst, 1972)

Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial Church, ed. William Stevens Perry, 5 vols. (Hartford, 1870-1878)

Isacc Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754 – 1789, ed. William McLoughlin (Cambridge, 1968)

The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775…with the Proceedings of the County Conventions, ed. William Lincoln (Boston, 1838)

Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 50 vols. (Boston, 1919-1990)

The Journal of Mrs. John Amory (Katherine Greene) 1775 - 1777, with Letters from her father, Rufus Greene, 1759 - 1777, Katharine Amory (Boston, 1923)

Legal Papers of John Adams, eds. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel (Cambridge, 1965)

Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759 - 62, 1764 - 1779, ed. Anne R. Cunningham (Boston, 1903)

Letters from New England: The Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629 - 1638, ed. Everett Emerson (Amherst, 1976)

Letters of a Loyalist Lady, Being the Letters of Ann Hulton, Sister of Henry Hulton, Commissioner of the Customs at Boston, 1767 - 1776i, Ann Hulton (Cambridge, 1927)

The Letters of Roger Williams, ed. John R. Bartlett (Providence, 1874)

Letters to the Ministry from Governor Bernard, General Gage, and Commodore Hood (Boston, 1769)

The Life of Elbridge Gerry. With Contemporary Letters. To the Close of the Revolution, ed. James t. Austin, 2 vols. (Boston, 1828-1829)

Living with Whales: Documents and Oral Histories of Native New England Whaling History, ed. Nancy Shoemaker (Amherst, 2014)

Louisbourg Journals, 1745, ed. L. E. de Forest (New York, 1932)

The Massachusetts Civil List for the Colonial and Provincial Periods, 1630 – 1774, ed. William H. Whitmore (Albany, 1870)

The Massachusetts Tax Valuation List of 1771, ed. Bettye H. Pruit (Boston, 1978)

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, eds. Margaret A. Hogan, et al. (Cambridge, 2010)

Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648 - 1706, ed. Geroge Lincoln Burr (New York, 1914)

Note-Book Kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq., Lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638 to July 29, 1641, eds. Edward E. Hale, et al. (Cambridge, 1885)

The Notebook fo The Reverend John Fiske, 1644 - 1675, ed. Robert G. Pope (Salem, 1974)

Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1952)

Plympton, Massachusetts Town Records, ed. Charles H. Bricknell, 5 vols. (Plympton, 1973)

The Papers of Francis Bernard: Governor of Colonial Massachusetts, 1760 – 1769, ed. Colin Nicolson, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Collections 73 (2007)

The Papers of John Adams, eds. L. H. Butterfield, et al., 20 vols. (Cambridge, 1961-)

The Papers of Robert Treat Paine, eds. Stephen T. Riley and Edward W. Hanson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1992)

The Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1635 – 1681, ed. George F. Dow, 3 vols. (Salem, 1916-1920)

The Proprietors’ Records of the Town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, including Fitchburg and a Portion of Ashby, ed. Walter A. Davis (Fitchburg, 1897)

The Proprietors’ Records of the Town of Mendon, Massachusetts (Mendon, 1899)

The Puritans, eds. Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, 2 vols. (New York, 1963)

Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, eds. Geroge Francis Dow and Mary G. Thresher, 9 vols. (Salem, 1911-1975)

Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 12 vols. (Boston, 1855-1861)

Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Laws, 1623 - 1682, ed. David Pulsifer (Boston, 1861)

Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1630 - 1692, 3 vols. (Boston, 1901-1928)

Records of the First church at Dorchester in New England, 1636 - 1734 (Boston, 1891)

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 5 vols. (Boston, 1853-1853)

Records of the Proprietors of Worcester, Massachusetts, ed. Franklin P. Rice, Worcester Society of Antiquity, Collections, III (Worcester, 1881)

Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640 - 1793, ed. Samuel Bates (Randolph, 1886)

The Records of the Town of Cambridge (Formerly Newtowne) Massachusetts, 1630 – 1703… (Cambridge, 1901)

Records of the Town of Plymouth, 3 vols. (Plymouth, 1889-1903)

Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, 39 vols. (Boston, 1876-1909)

Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay between 1761 and 1772, ed. Samuel M. Quincy (Boston, 1865)

Sailors Narratives of Voyages along the New England Coast, 1524 - 1624 (Boston, 1905)

Select Letters on the Trade and Government of America; and the Principles of Law and Polity, Applied to the American Colonies, ed. Francis Bernard, 2nd ed. (London, 1774)

Some Political Writings of James Otis, ed. Charles F. Mullett, 2 vols. (Columbia, 1929)

Speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts, from 1765 to 1775; and the Answers of the House of Representatives to the Samee; with Their Resoluitons and Addresses for That Period, ed. Alden Bradford (Boston, 1818)

Suffolk County Wills: Abstracts of the Earliest Wills Upon Record in the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts (Baltimore, 1984)

Suffolk Deeds, 14 vols. (Boston, 1880-1906)

Thomas Shepard’s Confessions, eds. George Selement and Bruce C. Wooley (Boston, 1981)

Three Visitors to Early Plymouth: Letters about the Pilgrim Settlement in New England during Its First Seven Years, ed. Sydney V. James (Plymouth, 1963)

Town Records of Brookline, Massachusetts, 3 vols. (Brookline, 1888-1892)

Town Records of Dudley, Massachusetts, 2 vols. (Pawtucket, 1893-1894)

Town Records of Manchester, from the Earliest Grants of Land, 1636, when a Portion of Salem, until 1736 (Salem, 1889)

Town Records of Salem, Massachusetts, eds. Sidney Perley and Marth O. Howes, 3 vols. (Salem, 1868)

Town Records of Topsfield, Massachusetts, 1659 – 1778, ed. George Francis Dow, 2 vols. (1917-1920)

Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, ed. Edward Arber (Edinburgh, 1910)

Verbatim Transcriptions of the Records of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1636 – 1694, ed. Archie N. Frost, 57 vols. (Salem, 1939)

The Voyages of Giovanni de Verrazzano, 1524 – 1528, ed. L. C. Wroth (New Haven, 1970)

Watertown Records, Comprising the First and Second Books of Town Proceedings with the Lands, Grants, and Possessions, 5 vols. (Watertown, 1894)

The Winthrop Papers, eds. Allyn B. Forbes et al., 6 vols. (Boston, 1929-1992)

Winthrop’s Journal, John Winthrop, ed. James K. Hosmer (New York, 1908)

“Worcester Town Records, 1772-1753,” Collections of Worcester Society of Antiquities 2 (1888): 11-25

The Works of Samuel de Champlain, ed. H. P. Biggar, 6 vols. (Toronto, 1922-1936)

The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing, 4 vols. (New York, 1904-1908)

Early National Massachusetts

A Documentary History of Chelsea including the Boston Precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624 – 1824, ed. Mellen Chamberlain, 2 vols. (Boston, 1908)

“Correspondence between John Adams and Mercy Warren Relating to Her ‘History of the American Revolution,’ July-August, 1807,” in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 5th ser., IV, pt. III, 315-511.

Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Held in the Year 1788, eds. Bradford K. Pierce, et al. (Boston, 1856)

The Diary of William Pynchon of Salem. A Picture of Salem Life, Social and Political, a Century Ago, ed. Fitch edward Oliver (Boston, 1890)

Extracts from the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies of Ezra Stiles, D.D., L.L.D., 1775 - 1794, with a Selection from His Correspondence, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter (New Haven, 1916)

The Hollingworth Letters: Technical Change in the Textile Industry, 1826 – 1837, ed. Thomas W. Leavitt (Cambridge, 1969)

Journal of the Convention for Framing a Constitution of Government for the State of Massachusetts Bay…, eds. A. H. Everett, et al. (Boston, 1832)

Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 50 vols. (Boston, 1919-1990)

The Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1801)

Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759 - 62, 1764 - 1779, ed. Anne R. Cunningham (Boston, 1903)

The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King, 6 vols. (New York, 1894-1900)

Life and Letters of Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States…, ed. William Wetmore Story, 2 vols. (Boston, 1851)

Living with Whales: Documents and Oral Histories of Native New England Whaling History, ed. Nancy Shoemaker (Amherst, 2014)

The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence, ed. Rowena Buell (Boston, 1903)

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, eds. Margaret A. Hogan, et al. (Cambridge, 2010)

New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788 - 1801, ed. Stewart Mitchell (Boston, 1947)

On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot, ed. Barry O’Connell (Amherst, 1992)

The Papers of Daniel Webster, ed. Charles M. Wiltse, 14 vols. (Hanover, 1974-)

The Papers of John Adams, eds. L. H. Butterfield, et al., 20 vols. (Cambridge, 1961-)

The Popular Sources of Political Authority: Documents on the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, eds. Oscar Handlin and Mary F. Handlin (Cambridge, 1966)

Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, 39 vols. (Boston, 1876-1909)

The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, ed. James W. McIntyre, 18 vols. (New York, 1903)

The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing, 4 vols. (New York, 1904-1908)

Reference Works

Harvard Graduates: Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College, Clifford K. Shipton (Cambridge, 1968)

List of Freemen of Massachusetts, 1630 - 1691, ed. Lucius R. Paige (Boston, 1849; reprint, Baltimore, 1978)