Bourne, Massachusetts

Where was the first private commercial business establishment in the United States?

You've just found it here in Bourne, Massachusetts.

   Aptucxet Trading Post was established in what is now the Town of Bourne in 1626. Aptucxet means "little trap by the river." Eight individuals formed a partnership to collectively assume the debt of the Plymouth Colonists, and thus freed them from indentured servitude and made them the first landowners of the Plimouth Colony claimed by England in 1620. Aptucxet is ground zero of the American Free Enterprise system.

   A large part of its success was based on good business sense: Location. Aptucxet is situated at the northern end of the navigable waters of Buzzards Bay on what was then known as the Manamet River, where traders could carry their wares just a few miles to the Scusset River, saving them from a very risky circumnavigation of Cape Cod. It served as a point of trade between the Native Americans, the English colonists of Plymouth, and the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam, now known as New York. The Manamet River has since become the western end of the Cape Cod Canal.

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