They came from Lowell and the Berkshires, from Dorchester and Cambridge. They carried fanny packs and sparkly purses and paper bags from Dunkin' Donuts. They wore mink coats and down parkas and studded leather jackets.
They waited in a line that snaked around the second floor of the State House, where, for more than an hour and a half yesterday afternoon, Governor Deval Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray stood on a patch of blue carpet before the Grand Staircase, greeting their new constituents.
"Can I give you a hug?" asked Erin Hoffman , 27, of Woburn, beaming when Patrick obliged. As she left the receiving line, she said the experience was "amazing."
"He's just the same as you see him on TV," said her mother, Peg , 57, of Easton, declaring the 90-minute wait well worth it. "He's full of hope. That's just what we need."
"Patrick seemed to delight in the crowd, pulling strangers in for hugs, bending down to ask a child's name, clapping old friends on the shoulder. His aides tried to keep the well-wishers moving along quickly, but, as cameras flashed and boom microphones dangled overhead, Patrick posed for pictures and signed autographs for almost everyone who asked.
There wasn't much time for small talk, but the new governor squeezed some in. When Beatrice Achu , 46 , of Somerville told Patrick she was originally from Cameroon, Patrick exclaimed, "I lived in West Africa for a while!" He asked her what city she was from and mentioned the region's thriving banana crop.
By the second hour, it seemed almost a feat of endurance; an aide handed Patrick a water bottle, and he drank from it greedily.
"How did you know I needed that right now?" he asked.
Some of those in line told Patrick they had even higher ambitions for him.
"This isn't just a great day for the Commonwealth; this is a great day for the nation," Pauline Jean , 61, a nurse from Lowell, told Patrick. She said she planned to "pray for him all the way to the White House."
"Easy, now!" Patrick said.
Others came bearing requests. Shirley Kressel, a vocal community activist from the Back Bay, handed Patrick "a little to-do list" on an index card.
"It said three things: to introduce legislation to make the Legislature subject to the Open Meeting Law and public records law; number two, to create an economic justice commission to guide economic development, and number three, to appoint me to it," she said. "Because who would be better than me?"
Patrick tucked the card into his jacket pocket, and Kressel declared her day a success.
Others were old friends, like Aubrey Smith Carter, who taught Spanish to Patrick when he was a student at Milton Academy.
"Your talk was beautiful," she said, clutching him into the folds of her red cape. "Good luck."
Joseph Cooper , a Harvard classmate of Patrick's who lives in Watertown , gave the governor a hug, too.
"This is one of the greatest days in my entire life," Cooper said. "I'm so proud of you."
Still others decided to join the receiving line on the spur of the moment, like Juliette Nicholas, 68, a Trinidad native who lives in Dorchester and is a retired school cafeteria worker. She watched the inaugural speech on television and decided to get on a bus and head downtown.
"I said, I want to see this man," she said.
Many more were volunteers on the Patrick campaign, such as Shelley Fortier , 44 , of Hull , who began helping out after Patrick spoke at the 2005 Democratic State Convention. Parwez Wahid , chairman of the Framingham Democratic Town Committee, gave Patrick his credentials from June's Democratic State Convention. Steve Smith , 43 , vice chairman of the Ward 20 Democratic Committee, got Patrick to sign a baseball for him.
"Someday I'll tell my nephew and niece that I met the governor and the lieutenant governor at the State House on the day they came into office," he said.
Patrick stayed until he had greeted each of the well-wishers, who by the estimate of the governor's aides numbered more than 1,200. When it was over, he seemed exhausted.
"What I'm trying to get back now is the feeling in my knees," he said as aides whisked him off to his next obligation.