A residential community in Plymouth County, East Bridgewater has many of the signatures of a Southeastern Massachusetts Town, with cranberry bogs and dairy and fruit farms. In 1649, Sachem Rock in East Bridgewater was the site of a meeting between the settlers from the Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit. The land around this …
A residential western suburb of Boston, Weston is loved for its rural character, with more than 2,000 acres set aside as conservation land and public parks. The town’s civic center grew up in the 18th century on the Boston Post Road, with businesses providing services to travelers. One of these, the Golden Ball Tavern has …
East of Fitchburg in Worcester County, Lunenburg is a town of 12,000 with a distinct rural character and huge swaths of conservation land to discover. The town was incorporated in 1728, and was largely untouched by the Industrial Revolution, depending on agrarian farming until well into the 20th century. If you’re wondering about the name, …
Across the harbor from the old whaling port of New Bedford, Fairhaven is a seaside town with an assortment of grand turn-of-the-century public buildings. These landmarks, including schools, the Town Hall and the Millicent Library, were donated in a fit of generosity by the industrialist Henry H. Rogers. He was an executive at Standard Oil, …
On the South Shore, about 25 miles south of Boston, Pembroke is a town on the North River, abounding with water, at marshes, brooks and a patchwork of large natural ponds. Every spring, alewife herring migrate through the town, from Massachusetts Bay, along the North River, and up those smaller watercourses to their spawning grounds …
An upscale community on the South Shore, Duxbury’s is a town that made a name for itself at the end of the Age of Sail in the early 19th century. Duxbury has a stunning public beach park, on a long crescent of sand that curves out into Cape Cod Bay for six miles. Behind the …
This South Shore town was incorporated some 300 years ago, and has a sedate old center with a house built by one of the town’s first European families. Now, the Stetson House (c. 1700) is a museum owned by the Hanover Historical Society, and paints an intriguing picture of town life in the 18th and …
In the first half of the 19th century, this town in the Blackstone Valley was the overnight stopping point on the Blackstone Canal. That waterway was completed in 1824 and provided a crucial shipping highway between Worcester and Providence, kickstarting industry along the Blackstone Valley. As a textile center, Uxbridge was at the vanguard of …
Close to Lexington and Concord, this small town in Greater Boston participated in the first exchanges of the American Revolutionary War on April 19 1775. Bedford is at the terminus of the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway, a 10-mile rail trail that roughly tallies with the route of Paul Revere’s legendary Midnight Ride. The trailhead is at …
Thirty miles off the coast of Massachusetts, Nantucket is an island that conjures many associations, from affluence to shipwrecks. For decades up to the mid-19th century, this was the whaling capital of the world, an industry driven by the demand for the brightly burning and almost odorless wax extracted from the head-case of sperm whales. …