Merry Mount

or Merry·mount

noun

, American History.

a settlement in Mt. Wollaston (Quincy), Mass., c1625–28, noted for its rejection of Puritan standards of behavior.

Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire,” wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in his story “The May-Pole of Merry Mount.

He changed the name of the village to Merry Mount; was chosen leader of the company there, and made of the place a perfect Sodom.

Yes, with the setting sun the last day of mirth had passed from Merry Mount.

Bright were the days at Merry Mount when the Maypole was the banner-staff of that gay colony.

Who but the fiend, and his bond slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus disturbed them?

But what chiefly characterized the colonists of Merry Mount was their veneration for the Maypole.

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