Sports in New England Sports in New England Two popular American sports were invented in New England. Basketball was invented by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. Volleyball was invented by William G. Morgan in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895. Also, the first organized ice hockey game in the United States is widely believed to have been played in Concord, New Hampshire in 1883. The region is famous for its passion for baseball and the Boston Red Sox, as well as for the intense rivalry between the Red Sox and the New York Yankees. On November 1, 1924, the Boston Bruins of the National
Peter G. Morgan (politician) Peter G. Morgan (politician) Peter G. Morgan (October 21, 1817 – March 15, 1890), born enslaved, after the American Civil War became a nineteenth-century African-American politician from Virginia. Of mixed race, Morgan was born a slave in Nottoway County, Virginia, and learned to work with leather. A self-taught shoemaker and saddler, he was allowed to hire himself out. While still a farm hand and while teaching slaves to read was illegal in the commonwealth, he was known to attach a blue-backed speller to his plow and apply himself to lessons as he worked. As an adult, Morgan made enough money