History
Weymouth was settled in 1622 as the Wessagusset colony, making it the second-oldest English settlement in Massachusetts after Plymouth. The town's twin harbors — Fore River to the north and the Back River to the south — sustained a working waterfront for four centuries: cod fishermen in the colonial era, then shoemakers, then the great Fore River Shipyard whose ways launched USS Lexington, USS Wasp, and USS Enterprise. Today the shipyard is largely demolished, but Webb Memorial State Park, Wessagusset Beach, and the Great Esker Park glacial ridges still mark the long arc of Weymouth's relationship with the sea.