Reasons why Massachusetts was founded. People in England ran away to Holland in 1608, they went to America to keep safe so they can build homes for themselves in the colony. They traveled by the Mayflower; the Pilgrims aboarded the Mayflower created the Mayflower Compact. They named the spot they landed at Plymouth, after the port they left behind in England. The main reason the Putians founded Massachusetts was for religious freedom and to seperate from the Angelic Church. In 1628 a number of wealthy Puritans bought the territory from the Council of Plymouth, and, receiving a charter the following year from Charles I, sent small colonies across the Atlantic.