)
598l, including 1250 foreign-born; (1905, state census) 6879; (1910)
8066. The New York, New Haven & Hartford railway crosses the town and
has stations at its villages of Braintree, South Braintree and East
Braintree, which are also served by suburban electric railways. In South
Braintree are the Thayer Academy (co-educational; opened 1877) and the
Thayer public library, both founded by and named in honour of General
Sylvanus Thayer (1785-1872), a well-known military engineer born in
Braintree, who was superintendent of the United States Military Academy
in 1817-1833 and has been called the "father of West Point." There are
large shoe factories and other manufactories. Bog iron was early found
in Braintree, and iron-works, among the first in America, were
established here in 1644. Braintree was first incorporated in 1640 from
land belonging to Boston and called Mount Wollaston, and was named from
the town in England. At Merry Mount, in that part of Braintree which is
now Quincy, a settlement was established by Thomas Morton in 1625, but
the gay life of the settlers and their selling rum and firearms to the
Indians greatly offended the Pilgrims of Plymouth, who in 1627 arrested
Morton; soon afterward Governor John Endecott of Massachusetts Bay
visited Merry Mount, rebuked the inhabitants and cut down their Maypole.
Later the place was abandoned, and in 1634 a Puritan settlement was made
here. In 1708 the town was divided into the North Precinct and the South
Precinct, and it was in the former, now Quincy, that John Adams, John
Hancock and John Quincy Adams were born. Quincy was separated from
Braintree in 1792 (there were further additions to Quincy from Braintree
in 1856), and Randolph in 1793.

See D.M. Wilson, _Quincy, Old Braintree and Merry Mount_ (Boston,
1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Three Episodes of Massachusetts History_
(Boston, 1892 and 1896); W.S. Pattee, _History of Old Braintree and
Quincy_ (Quincy, 1878).

BRAKE, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Oldenburg, on the left
bank of the Weser, about halfway between Bremen and the mouth of the
river. Pop. 5000. It was for centuries the port of Bremen; and though,
since the founding of Bremerhaven, it no longer possesses a monopoly of
the river traffic as before, it still continues to flourish. Large docks
have been constructed, and the place has a considerable import trade in
English coal. Shipbuilding and weaving are carried on to some extent