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Somerville, Massachusetts

Somerville is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81,045 people. With an area of 4.12 sqmi, the city has a density of 19,671 PD/sqmi, making it the most densely populated municipality in New England and the 19th most densely populated incorporated municipality in the country. Somerville was established as a town in 1842, when it was separated from Charlestown. In 2006, the city was named the best-run city in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe. In 1972, 2009, and 2015, the city received the All-America City Award. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus along the Somerville and Medford border. Tufts, alongside Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes up one corner of the Brain Power Triangle, which thus includes the city of Somerville.

Early settlement
The territory now comprising the city of Somerville was first settled by Europeans in 1629 as part of Charlestown. In 1629, English surveyor Thomas Graves led a scouting party of 100 Puritans from the settlement of Salem to prepare the site for the Great Migration of Puritans from England. Graves was attracted to the narrow Mishawum Peninsula between the Charles and Mystic rivers, linked to the mainland at the present-day Sullivan Square. The area of earliest settlement was based at City Square on the peninsula, though the territory of Charlestown officially included all of what is now Somerville, as well as Medford, Everett, Malden, Stoneham, Melrose, Woburn, Burlington, and parts of Arlington and Cambridge. From that time until 1842, the area of present-day Somerville was referred to as "beyond the Neck" in reference to the thin spit of land, the Charlestown Neck, that connected it to the Charlestown Peninsula.

The first European settler in Somerville of whom there is any record was John Woolrich, an Indian trader who came from the Charlestown Peninsula in 1630, and settled near what is now Dane Street. Others soon followed Woolrich, locating in the vicinity of present-day Union Square. In 1639 colonists officially acquired the land in what is now Somerville from the Squaw Sachem of Mistick. The population continued to slowly increase, and by 1775 there were about 500 inhabitants scattered across the area. Otherwise, the area was mostly used as grazing and farmland. It was once known as the "Stinted Pasture" or "Cow Commons", as early settlers of Charlestown had the right to pasture a certain number of cows in the area.

John Winthrop, the first colonial governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was granted 600 acre of land in the area in 1631. Named for the ten small knolls located on the property, Ten Hills Farm extended from the Cradock Bridge in present-day Medford Square to Convent Hill in East Somerville. Winthrop lived, planted, and raised cattle on the farm. It is also where he launched the first ship in Massachusetts, the "Blessing of the Bay". Built for trading purposes in the early 1630s, it was soon armed for use as a patrol boat for the New England coast. It is seen as a precursor to the United States Navy. The "Ten Hills" neighborhood, located in the northeastern part of the city, has retained the name for over 300 years. New research has found that less than a decade after John Winthrop moved to the farm in 1631, there were enslaved Native American prisoners of war on the property. Each successive owner of Ten Hills Farm would depend upon slavery's profits until the 1780s, when Massachusetts abolished the practice.

In a short time, the settlers began laying out roads in all directions in search of more land for planting and trade with various Native American tribes in the area. Laid out as early as the mid-1630s, the earliest highway in Somerville was probably what is now Washington Street, and led from present-day Sullivan Square to Harvard Square. In its earliest days, Washington Street was known as the "Road to Newtowne" (renamed Cambridge in 1638). During the 1700s and early 1800s Somerville Avenue was "Milk Row," a route favored by Middlesex County dairy farmers as the best way to get to the markets of Charlestown and Boston.

Laid out in 1636, Broadway was likely the second highway built in the area. Originally called "Menotomie's Road", it ran from the Charlestown Neck to the settlement at Menotomy (present-day Arlington). Initially bordered by farmsteads, Broadway would come into its own as a commercial thoroughfare after horse-drawn trolleys were introduced to the highway in 1858.

Role in the Revolutionary War

Somerville was home to one of the first hostile acts of the American Revolutionary War. The removal of gunpowder by British soldiers from a powder magazine in 1774, and the massive popular reaction that ensued, are considered to be a turning point in the events leading up to war.

First built by settlers for use as a windmill in the early 1700s, the Old Powder House was sold to the colonial government of Massachusetts for use as a gunpowder magazine in 1747. Located at the intersection of Broadway and College Avenue in present-day Powder House Square, the Old Powder House held the largest supply of gunpowder in all of Massachusetts. General Thomas Gage, who had become the military governor of Massachusetts in May 1774, was charged with enforcement of the highly unpopular Intolerable Acts, which British Parliament had passed in response to the Boston Tea Party. Seeking to prevent the outbreak of war, he believed that the best way to accomplish this was by secretly removing military stores from storehouses and arsenals in New England.

Just after dawn on September 1, 1774, a force of roughly 260 British regulars from the 4th Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Maddison, were rowed in secrecy up the Mystic River from Boston to a landing point near Winter Hill. From there they marched about 1 mi to the Powder House, and after sunrise removed all of the gunpowder. Most of the regulars then returned to Boston the way they had come, but a small contingent marched on to Cambridge, seizing two field pieces from the Cambridge Common. The field pieces and powder were then taken from Boston to the British stronghold on Castle Island, then known as Castle William (renamed Fort Independence in 1779).

In response to the raid, amid rumors that blood had been shed, alarm spread through the countryside as far as Connecticut and beyond, and American Patriots sprang into action, fearing that war was at hand. Thousands of militiamen began streaming toward Boston and Cambridge, and mob action forced Loyalists and some government officials to flee to the protection of the British Army. This action provided a "dress rehearsal" for the Battles of Lexington and Concord seven months later in the famous "shot heard 'round the world", and inflamed already heated feelings on both sides, spurring actions by both British and American forces to remove powder and cannon to secure locations.

After the raid on the Powder House, the colonists took action to conceal arms and munitions of war in Concord. When General Gage found out, he was resolved to take the powder by force if necessary. The Americans learned that the British intended to start for Concord on April 18, 1775, and couriers Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on their famous ride to warn the farmers and militiamen in between Boston and Concord, including Sam Adams and John Hancock. That night, he set out from the North End through Charlestown towards East Somerville. In Revere's own written account of his ride, he mentions a specific location in Somerville (then part of Charlestown). The location was the site where the executed body of a local slave known as "Mark", owned by John Codman, was publicly gibbeted and displayed for several years after his execution. The location is probably near the site of the present day Holiday Inn on Washington Street. Revere wrote "nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree", which he then realized were two British officers stationed on Washington Street. They immediately pursued him, and Revere galloped up Broadway towards Winter Hill and eventually eluded them. His warning gave the militia enough time to prepare for battle, and launch the American Revolution.

Shortly after Paul Revere set out on his ride, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and 700 British Army regulars landed near Lechmere Square. As it was nearly high tide, East Cambridge was an island and the troops, skirting the marshes, were obliged to wade "thigh deep" to reach Somerville. They probably came through Prospect Street into Washington Street, and through Union Square.

Defeated and in retreat, the British army passed again through Somerville en route back to Boston. Upon reaching Union Square, the British marched down Washington Street as far as the base of Prospect Hill, where a skirmish took place. The handful of rebellious locals, having heard of the storied battles at Lexington and Concord earlier that day, caught an exhausted retreating British contingent off guard. As the story goes, 65-year-old minuteman James Miller lost his life in the scuffle while standing his ground against the British. He was shot thirteen times after famously telling a retreating colleague, "I am too old to run."

Somerville occupied a conspicuous position during the entire Siege of Boston, which lasted nine months, and Prospect Hill became the central position of the Continental Army's chain of emplacements north of Boston. Its height and commanding view of Boston and the harbor had tremendous strategic value and the fortress became known as the "Citadel". Originally occupied by just 400 men, Prospect Hill became a primary encampment for American forces after General Israel Putnam's retreat from the Battle of Bunker Hill. It is believed that on January 1, 1776, the Grand Union Flag flew for the first time at the Citadel, the first official raising of an American flag.

Independence, urbanization and rapid growth
With the Revolutionary War over, the residents of Somerville were able once again to devote their energies wholeheartedly to the business of making a living. From the 1780s until Somerville's separation from Charlestown in 1842, material progress was continuous, if a bit slow. As transportation infrastructure gradually transformed the area, new industries sprang up, such as brickmaking, quarrying and dairy farming.

Transportation improvements in the early to mid-1800s factored significantly in the growth of a more urban residential form and Somerville's incorporation as a City in 1872. These improvements included the opening of the Middlesex Canal through Somerville in 1803, various turnpikes such as Medford and Beacon streets, built during the 1810s and 1820s, and especially the introduction of rail lines. In 1841, the Fitchburg Railroad was built between Boston and Fresh Pond in Cambridge, paralleling the route of Somerville Avenue. This led to the establishment of industries along its path. Soon after, in 1843 the Fitchburg Railroad commenced passenger service and enabled residential development along the southern slopes of Prospect and Spring hills. By the early 1840s, the population of present-day Somerville topped 1,000 for the first time.

Despite the growth, however, discontent was growing steadily outside the "neck". The area's rural farmers paid taxes to the local government in Charlestown, but received little in return. By 1842, the area had no churches, few schools, no taverns, and suffered from poor and impassable roads. For many years after the Revolution the two parts of Charlestown styled "within" and "without the neck" were nearly equal in population; the former had by this time completely outstripped the latter. With this growth of population and trade came the need of city institutions, and consequently greater expenses were involved. Therefore, the rural part of Charlestown found itself contributing to the paving of the streets, the maintenance of a night watch, to the building of engine houses, and various other improvements from which they derived little benefit.

In 1828, a petition was presented to the Legislature asking that a part of Charlestown be set off as a separate town, to be known as Warren. This petition was subsequently withdrawn. The desire for a separate township continued to spread, and by 1841, becoming impatient at the neglect of the government to adequately provide for their needs, the inhabitants again agitated a division of the town, and a meeting in reference to the matter was held November 22 in the Prospect Hill school house.

A petition was accordingly drawn up and signed by Guy C. Hawkins and 151 others, and a committee deputed to further its passage through the Legislature, then in session. A bill incorporating a new town was signed by the governor on March 3, 1842. The original choice for the city's new name, after breaking away from Charlestown, was Walford, after the first settler of Charlestown, Thomas Walford. However, this name was not adopted by the separation committee. Charles Miller, a member of this committee, proposed the name "Somerville", which was ultimately chosen. It was not derived from any one person's name, and a report commissioned by the Somerville Historical Society found that Somerville was a "purely fanciful name".

Before Somerville became a township in 1842 the area was primarily populated by British farmers and brick makers who sold their wares in the markets of Boston, Cambridge and Charlestown. As the markets grew, the population of Somerville increased six-fold between the years of 1842 and 1870 to 14,685. With the sharp influx of immigrants to the Somerville area, industry boomed and brick manufacturing became the predominant trade. Before mechanical presses were invented, Somerville produced 1.3 million bricks a year. Thereafter, production increased rapidly to 5.5 million bricks a year, and the success of the brickyards began to attract numerous other industries. In 1851, American Tubes Works opened, followed by meat processing and packaging plants. Other Somerville factories came to produce steam engines, boilers, household appliances, glass, and iron.

Shortly thereafter Somerville incorporated as a city in 1872. The population growth was due in part to improvements in pre-existing transportation lines, as well as a new rail line, the Lexington and Arlington Railroad, introduced through Davis Square in 1870. At its height, Somerville was served by eight passenger rail stations. Somerville's buoyant economy during this period was tied to industries that tended to locate at the periphery of the residential core, near freight rail corridors. By the mid-1870s meat packing plants were the primary employers and profit centers of the community. The Late Industrial Period (1870–1915) was a time of phenomenal growth for Somerville in all spheres including civic and commercial ventures. Infrastructure such as rail, water lines, telegraph and electricity were established and connected to surrounding towns. The population soared from 15,000 to 90,000. While brickmaking had taken a hold in the area after the railroads first arrived in the 1830s, Somerville's brickyards boomed through 1870. Meatpacking soon displaced brickmaking as the primary industry in the city, dubbed "The Chicago of New England". Additionally, Somerville's location adjacent to Boston and proximity to rail and road transportation made it an ideal location for distribution facilities.

It was in this period that Irish immigrants moved to Somerville to work in the brickyards and on the railroad. At the same time, older residents of East Boston and Charlestown moved to Somerville to seek a more bucolic setting than that of more densely populated areas. They also worked to maintain political control over immigrant groups, using slogans such as "Keep Somerville Republican" and establishing a local branch of the anti-Catholic American Protective Association.

Between 1915 and 1930 population growth slowed slightly as Somerville's industries consolidated rather than expanded, and the period's most important enterprises were meat packing, dairy processing, ice and food distribution. In 1920, 73% of meatpacking in Massachusetts occurred in Somerville. Construction of the McGrath Highway in 1925 marked the turning point of Somerville as an industrial city, which accelerated when the Ford Motor Company built a plant in Assembly Square in 1926. In the years that followed, Somerville would see itself transformed into a major industrial center as automobile assembly surpassed meat packing as Somerville's most important industry.

By 1930, 70% of Somerville residents had either been born outside of the United States or had parents who were. The population was then estimated to be 60% Catholic.

Although Union Square and Davis Square continued to be the largest commercial areas during the first decades of the 20th century, smaller, less-developed squares grew as well. Ball Square, Magoun Square and Teele Square were developed with one- or two-story masonry commercial buildings, and the public green at Gilman Square was surrounded by multiple four-story commercial buildings. Retail development and banking facilities also spread. During this time of industrial prosperity, continuing through World War II, the city of Somerville reached its population apex at 105,883 residents in 1940. The building boom continued until the 1940s, creating the dense residential fabric the "city of homes" is known for.

Deindustrialization and decline
By mid-century, powerful social and economic forces precipitated a period of industrial and population decline that lasted into the 1980s. The postwar period was characterized by the ascent of the private automobile, which carried significant implications for Somerville. Streetcar lines that had crisscrossed the city since 1890 were systematically ripped out and commuter rail service was discontinued at the city's eight railway stations, one by one. Passenger rail service along the Fitchburg and Lowell lines had been declining for some time, and stations such as the Winter Hill station at Gilman Square were removed as early as the late 1940s. Passenger rail service stopped altogether by 1958.

The number of cars on Somerville's streets continued to rise, and road construction projects proliferated. The Alewife Brook Parkway, Mystic Valley Parkway and the Fells Connector Parkways, originally conceived in the 1890s as a means for city residents to reach the metropolitan parks, evolved into congested commuter routes for suburban drivers. Highway projects were advanced in the wake of the Federal Highway Aid Act (1956), in some instances displacing entire neighborhoods. The Brickbottom neighborhood was razed in 1950 to prepare for a proposed Inner Belt Expressway, and construction of Interstate 93 resulted in demolition of homes in The States neighborhood during the late 1960s.

In 1970, the state authorized rent control in municipalities with more than 50,000 residents. Somerville, Lynn, Brookline, and Cambridge subsequently adopted rent control. Rent control was repealed statewide in 1994 via ballot initiative. At the time, only Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline had rent control measures in place.

Industry slowly moved outward to the metropolitan fringes, encouraged by highway access and cheap, undeveloped land. The Ford Motor Plant in Assembly Square, which had been one of the region's largest employers, closed its doors in 1958 with severe consequences for the local economy. From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Finast Supermarkets used the building that had earlier housed the Ford assembly plant on Middlesex Avenue, but in 1976 it too closed its doors. By 1976, Assembly Square was becoming a ghost town: Finast Stores, the Boston and Maine Railroad, and Ford Motor Company, which had each paid the city over $1 million in annual taxes, were gone. By the late 1970s, Somerville was losing population, revenue and jobs.

Somerville also has a history of racial tension. It only hired its first black police officer, a person named Francis Moore, in 1974. Moore subsequently won a suit charging that the police department was "blatantly discriminatory" against him, including an episode in which he was told to patrol the East Somerville neighborhood of Glen Park at night without his issued firearm, night stick, Mace, or communication devices. Moore's name had been written on a barrel in the neighborhood and used for target practice by local youth.

Contemporary revitalization
In the last years of the 20th century, the situation in Somerville stabilized and growth returned—first to West Somerville, and then the rest of the city.

Almost thirty years after passenger rail service to Somerville was halted, the Red Line Northwest Extension reached Davis Square in 1984. The city and community used the creation of the new station as a catalyst for revitalizing the faded square, promoting new commercial development and sponsoring other physical and infrastructural improvements. However, when the new transit station opened, business around Davis Square did not immediately thrive. The number of retail stores in the area declined from 68 in 1977 to 56 in 1987.

However many non-retail uses, such as beauty salons and real estate offices, had already begun to fill the empty retail spaces. With the Boston area's emergence from its long recession, the area truly began to revive. Clearly, the community's vision of a rebirth of commercial and retail activity has, in the past few years, been fully realized. All benefit from their proximity to the MBTA station, with connections to Cambridge and Boston. Retail vacancy rates around the square were close to zero as of 2013.

The telecommunication and biotechnology booms of the mid-to-late 1990s significantly contributed to Somerville's revitalization. As with the housing boom a century earlier, the sudden increase in the number of jobs available in the cities of Somerville, Boston, and particularly Cambridge—as well as in the other communities immediately surrounding Somerville—led to a new surge in the demand for housing. Additionally, the end of rent control in Cambridge coincided with the economic recovery in 1995, increasing demand for Somerville's affordable housing options. The city also had a very high car theft rate, once being the car theft capital of the country, and its Assembly Square area was especially infamous for this.

However, after the gentrification period the city went through in the 1990s, and an influx of artists to the area, this name has mostly faded from use and the city has instead gained a reputation for its active arts community and effective government, including being named the best-run city in Massachusetts in 2006. Nowadays lobbying by grassroots organizations is attempting to revive and preserve Somerville's "small-town" neighborhood environments by supporting local business, public transit and gardens. For some Somerville residents, some of these efforts, such as the 2022 Green Line extensions into Somerville, present a challenge for balancing accessibility of public transit and the need for affordable housing.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, Somerville has a total area of 4.2 sqmi, of which 4.1 sqmi is land and 0.1 sqmi, or 2.61%, is water. Somerville is bordered by the cities of Cambridge, Medford, Everett, Arlington and the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. It is located on the west bank of the Mystic River.

Millennia ago, glaciation left a series of drumlins running west to east across the landscape of what would become Somerville. These ridges would later become known as the "Seven Hills" of Somerville (like many other cities claiming to be built on seven hills, following the seven hills of Rome):
 * 1) Central Hill
 * 2) Clarendon Hill
 * 3) Cobble Hill
 * 4) Ploughed Hill (or Mount Benedict)
 * 5) Prospect Hill (or Mount Pisgah)
 * 6) Spring Hill
 * 7) Winter Hill

These hills rise from the floodplain of the Mystic River, and generally run west to east, providing for beautiful vistas of Boston to the south and Medford/Everett to the north. Physical boundaries are also defined by prominent waterways: the Mystic River to the north, its tributary Alewife Brook to the west, and the Miller's River to the southeast.

Land in early Somerville was used primarily as grazing commons and small farms. After the proliferation of the railroads in the area during the mid-1800s, industrialization transformed the landscape. In the 1800s, the Millers River was used as a sewer and dumping ground for local industry and would be ordered filled by the Commonwealth before the end of the century, for health reasons. As a result of landfill and the elimination of former Cobble Hill, the Millers River marsh was turned into railyards, slaughterhouses and other large-scale land uses.

Squares and neighborhoods
Somerville's commercial property is not concentrated in a recognized downtown central business district but instead is spread over many different nodes or corridors of business activity. The difference in character ranges from the vibrant nightlife, live music and theaters of Davis Square to the large scale retail and highway access of Assembly Square. This spatial allocation is directly related to the early influence of rail and streetcar systems which caused economic activity to occur at stops. The other key factor in the creation of commercial squares is the area's topography. The numerous hills making up Somerville's landscape determined where road networks would allow neighborhood commercial development.

Somerville has a number of squares that are centers for business and entertainment, as well as a number of other neighborhoods:

 * Assembly Square
 * Ball Square
 * Brickbottom (north of McGrath Highway, south of Inner Belt District)
 * Clarendon Hill (near Broadway and Arlington border)
 * Davis Square (the Post Office here is called West Somerville, but Google Maps shows West Somerville as a narrow strip near Alewife Brook Parkway and Mystic Valley Parkway, northwest of Teele Square)
 * Duck Village (north of Beacon Street, just west of Union Square)
 * East Somerville (East of McGrath Highway, between Washington and Broadway Streets)
 * Gilman Square (at the junction of Medford Street, Pearl Street, and Marshall Street)
 * Inner Belt District
 * Magoun Square
 * Nunnery Grounds (Mount Benedict)
 * Powder House Square
 * Prospect Hill (part of Union Square)
 * Spring Hill
 * The Aves, occasionally known as "The States", or "The Nunnery Grounds" (streets named after U.S. states, between Broadway in East Somerville and I-93 near Assembly Square)
 * Teele Square
 * Ten Hills
 * Tufts
 * Union Square
 * Wilson Square (Elm Street and Somerville Avenue), known as Oak Square before 1920
 * Winter Hill

Demographics
Somerville has experienced dramatic growth since the Red Line of Boston's MBTA subway system was extended through Somerville in 1985, especially in the area between Harvard and Tufts. This was especially accelerated by the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, rising incomes, and concomitant rises in demand for urban housing. This growth did not, however, translate into an increase in the population of the city overall, as seen in the table.

Tensions between long-time residents/families and recent arrivals exist (often referred to as “yuppies”), with many of the former accusing the latter of ignoring problems such as drugs and gang violence. Incidents such as anti-"yuppie" graffiti, appearing around town in 2005, highlighting this rift. The economic and cultural clash between the city of Somerville and its neighboring cities of Boston and Cambridge has created an underlying tension between residents that has persisted for multiple generations.

Due to Somerville's proximity to various institutions of higher education, the city has a constant influx of college students and young professionals, who reside in sections near Cambridge where Harvard University, Lesley University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are located and near Tufts University, which straddles the Somerville-Medford city line. The city is inhabited by blue collar Irish American, Italian American, Greek American, and Portuguese American families, who are spread throughout the city.

In November 1997, the Utne Reader named Davis Square in Somerville one of the 15 hippest places to live in the U.S.

Somerville is home to a thriving arts community and boasts the second highest number of artists per capita in America.

2020 census
As of the 2020 census, there were 81,045 people and 34,523 households residing in the city. The population density was 19,656.8 PD/sqmi. The racial makeup of the city was 74.3% White, 5.0% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian or Alaska Native, 9.4% Asian, and 6.9% Two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.3% of the population, and White, non-Hispanic or Latino residents were 68.8%. The city regularly provides translation services and alerts into Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, and Nepali.

There were 34,523 households, out of which 15.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.9% were married couples living together, and 60.5% were non-families. 31.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.83.

The median income for a household in the city was $108,896 (in 2021 dollars), and the per capita income for the city was $58,437. About 10.4% of the residents were below the poverty line.

Economy
Somerville's industrial past left behind many legacies, including the invention of Marshmallow Fluff by Archibald Query. In 1914, the city became the home of the original Economy Grocery Store, which later grew into the Stop & Shop grocery chain. Two related food service chains, Steve's Ice Cream and Bertucci's, sprung from adjacent lots in Davis Square.

Companies based in Somerville today include Gentle Giant Moving Company, Formlabs and Candlewick Press.

In 2016, one of the Commonwealth's largest employers, the Mass General Brigham healthcare system moved its headquarters to the redeveloped Assembly Square location in the city. In the timeframe since, a growing number of other entities have placed purpose-built corporate offices both in Assembly Row and other developments in Union Square. Work is additionally being considered to extend development along the Amelia Earhart Dam to connect the nearby Everett with pedestrian bridges to allow more commuters to walk or cycle to the Assembly Row development from neighboring communities.

Top employers
According to Somerville's 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:

Arts and culture
Davis Square is home to the Somerville Theatre, which formerly housed the Museum of Bad Art and plays host to the Independent Film Festival of Boston each spring. Union Tavern and the Crystal Ballroom are live music venues in the city.

Somerville has been home to Porchfest, which is a citywide festival that features around 200 bands every May at residents' houses. It has been around since 2011.

Two major art studios, the Brickbottom Artists Building and the Joy Street Studios, are located in former industrial buildings in the Brickbottom district. The Brickbottom Artists Association has been hosting annual open studio events in the fall since 1987. Starlab Studios, a multimedia artist studio space and the host of Somerville's annual Starlabfest, opened in Union Square in 2009. Additionally, Artisan's Asylum on Tyler Street between Union and Porter squares is a hackerspace, where 150 members and 200 students have been participating in the maker culture since 2011.

The Somerville Public Library has three branches.

The Somerville Arts Council and Somerville Open Studios both host annual events involving the community in homegrown arts. The Boston chapter of the Dorkbot community meets in Somerville at the Willoughby & Baltic studio, in the Brickbottom district. Starting in 2006, an annual Fluff Festival has been held to celebrate the invention of Marshmallow Fluff in Somerville. "What the Fluff?" is produced by Union Square Main Streets and includes vendors, activities, entertainment and the crowning of the Pharaoh of Fluff. It has been described in food journal Gastronomica as an "orgiastic frenzy of all things fluffy--old-world village celebration meets American kitsch." Somerville mayor Joseph Curtatone attended in 2006 and declared, "My house always has been, and always will be, stocked with fluff."

The popular Halloween holiday song Monster Mash was written and sung by Somerville native Bobby "Boris" Pickett

Dilboy Stadium
George Dilboy Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose public stadium in city. It is known as the home of the Boston Renegades women's tackle football team. It was also the home field of the Boston Militia women's tackle football team from 2008 to 2014. The Boston Breakers women's soccer club made Dilboy Stadium their home in 2012 and 2013. The stadium is named after George Dilboy, who was awarded the Medal of Honor during World War I.

Historic places
Somerville has eighty-four sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. These places include various houses, libraries, parkways, churches, among other places, and have been declared landmarks within the city.

Somerville Museum
The Somerville Museum preserves memorabilia chronicling the city's roots, with historical and artistic exhibits. It is located at 1 Westwood Road, on the corner of Central Street.

Parks and recreation
The Somerville Community Path is a tree-lined rail trail that runs from Lowell Street to the Cambridge border near Davis Square. It connects with the Alewife Linear Park, which in turn connects with the Minuteman Bikeway and the Fitchburg Cutoff Path. Community activists hope to extend the path eastward to Lechmere Square, which would connect with the Charles River Bike Paths and the proposed East Coast Greenway. In May 2013, construction began on an extension of the path between Cedar and Lowell streets, which was completed in 2015. , the city has a total of 63 parks, playgrounds, playing fields, and community gardens.

With the establishment of the Playground Association of America in 1906, many cities, including Somerville, began to sponsor supervised playgrounds for the children of the city during the summer months. Though the Recreation Department was not formally established in Somerville until 1917, supervised play, sponsored in part by the city and the Playground Association of America, began in 1909.

The Recreation Department provides many recreational and play activities for residents of all ages, including Summertime Playgrounds, outdoor games and sports leagues, theater groups, and an active Senior Citizens Club.

City government
Somerville has a mayor-city council form of municipal government. The City Council (formerly a Board of Aldermen) consists of four at-large (citywide) positions and seven ward representatives, where each ward is a specific section of the city. The change from Aldermen to Council came in 2018 when gender equity was honored. As of January 3, 2022, the City Council compromised the following councilors:

The first Democratic mayor of the city was John J. Murphy in 1929. Every mayor prior, since 1872, had been unaffiliated with a party or Republican. Murphy succeeded on his seventh try by uniting the Irish, Italian, Greek, and Portuguese communities. There were candlelit processions with thousands marching in rallies in the middle of Union Square and other squares in the city. The current mayor of Somerville is Katjana Ballantyne.

In July 2020, the Somerville City Council voted to recognize polyamorous domestic partnerships in the city, becoming the first city in the United States to do so. This measure was passed in order to allow those in a polyamorous relationship easier access to their partners' health insurance.

Alongside these, Somerville boasts a large subsidized housing program with 1400 units and 4,328 people (5% of the population) living in them. There are 13 developments, the largest being the Mystic River Projects and Clarendon Hill Apartments.

 * Mystic River Development (Winter Hill – 240 units)
 * Clarendon Hill Apartments (Teele Square – 216 units)
 * Mystic View Development (Winter Hill – 215 units)
 * Bryant Towers (East Somerville – 134 units)
 * Properzi Manor (Union Square – 110 units)
 * Brady Towers (Inner Belt District – 84 units)
 * Weston Manor (Teele Square – 80 units)
 * Ciampa Manor (Davis Square – 53 units)
 * Highland Gardens (Winter Hill – 42 units)
 * Corbett Apartments (Winter Hill – 31 units)
 * Hagan Manor (Union Square – 24 units)
 * Waterworks Apartments (Alewife – 21 units)

Federal and state representation
Somerville is part of Massachusetts's 7th congressional district for purposes of elections to the United States House of Representatives. It is represented by Representative Ayanna Pressley.

For representation to the Massachusetts Senate, Somerville is entirely within the Second Middlesex district. For representation to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Somerville is part of the 26th, 27th and 34th Middlesex districts. The 26th Middlesex district includes East Somerville, Brickbottom, and a portion of the Union Square area, as well as portions of Cambridge, The 34th Middlesex district includes Winter Hill and Teele Square, as well as portions of Medford. The remainder of the city, just over half, comprises the 27th Middlesex district, which does not extend outside Somerville.

Education

The School Committee has seven independently elected officials as well as the Mayor and the President of the Board of Aldermen. The budget is approved by both the School Committee and the Board of Aldermen. The Chair is Adam Sweeting from Ward 3 and the Vice-Chair is Carrie Normand from Ward 7.

Also included in the school district is the Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences. The former Powder House Community School (which closed due to low enrollment in 2004) is being considered for redevelopment, either as a consolidated location for city offices if funding is obtained under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or as some other type of development.

Though formally listed as being located in Medford, Tufts University is also located in Somerville. The Somerville–Medford line runs through the Tufts campus, splitting the university's Tisch Library. The school employs many local residents and has many community service projects that benefit the city, especially those run through the Leonard Carmichael Society and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.

Somerville Public Schools
Somerville Public Schools (SPS) operates ten schools from pre-kindergarten to secondary schools. The majority of the schools in Somerville (with the exception of Somerville High School, Benjamin G. Brown School, Capuano Early Childhood Center, and Next Wave/Full Circle) are schools that go from kindergarten through 8th grade. There are 4,691 students enrolled in Somerville Public Schools.
 * Somerville High School
 * East Somerville Community School
 * Arthur D. Healey School
 * John F. Kennedy School
 * Benjamin G. Brown School (K–5)
 * West Somerville Neighborhood School
 * Albert F. Argenziano School
 * Winter Hill Innovation Community School
 * Michael E. Capuano Early Childhood Center (pre-kindergarten)
 * Next Wave/Full Circle (6–12 grades)
 * Edgerly Education Center

East Somerville Community School, which was temporarily closed after a fire in 2007, was demolished and reconstructed, reopening in fall 2013. During its closure students were transferred to the nearby Edgerly and Capuano schools.

Somerville High School underwent renovations after having been the oldest un-renovated high school in the nation. Its renovations lasted from early 2012 to January 2021.

Winter Hill was temporarily closed for the remainder of the 2022–2023 school year following an incident where a slab of concrete broke off onto the floor of a stairwell. Suffering from foundation weakening and lack of maintenance, the school was deemed unsafe for public use and is indefinitely closed. Students and staff have since relocated to the Edgerly building as of the 2023 school year. The fate of the building is undetermined.

Somerville High School
Somerville High School (SHS) is located right next to the Somerville City Hall at 81 Highland Avenue. It is in Winter Hill near the border of East Somerville and Union Square.

Somerville High School offers a vocational program (CTE) as well as musical programs and athletics programs. It hosts roughly 1,215 students throughout 4 grades. Its student proficiency in math and science is at 73% and its proficiency for English and history is at 83%. Its student to teacher ratio is 10:1. It is in the top 20% of the state's schools composite averages. It has a graduation rate of 89.9%.

The school demographics as of 2021 are 45% Hispanic or Latino, 32% White, 14% African American, 8% Asian and 1% other. 54.6% of students in the school do not have English as their first language. 48.1% of students are economically disadvantaged. 16.9% of students have a disability.

Dilboy Stadium is where the SHS soccer, football, lacrosse, tennis and track teams compete. It is located on 110 Alewife Brook Parkway, roughly 2+1/2 mi from the school itself. It is close to the Dilboy Pool (which is open solely in the summer), as well as the Clarendon Hill Towers and Clarendon Hill Projects (an installment of the Somerville Housing Authority). The SHS hockey team plays at Veterans Memorial Rink at 570 Somerville Avenue next to Conway Park and Playground.

Somerville High School is home to the student theatre group Highlander Theatre Company, which performs full-length and shorter productions every year.

The school is also home to the FIRST Robotics Competition team, FRC 6201 The Highlanders, who competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition every year.

In the spring of the 2022–2023 school year, the school's practice field was completed and the Somerville Memorialization Committee voted to dedicate the field to Phil Reavis. This field is the first public space dedicated to an African American in Somerville.

Higher education
Somerville is home to Tufts University. Lincoln Technical Institute also has a campus in the city.

Media

The city is served by a number of news sources, including:

 * Somerville Community Access Television
 * The Boston Globe
 * Somerville Journal (website)
 * The Somerville News Weekly (daily blog, despite name)
 * The Somerville Times (newspaper)
 * Scout Somerville (bimonthly magazine)

The public radio show Living on Earth is recorded in Davis Square. In addition, Candlewick Press, a major children's book printing company, is operated in Somerville.

Transportation

Somerville, originally built as a streetcar suburb of Boston, has a framework and layout ideal for public transit. Its traditionally designed neighborhoods, set among grid-like street networks, connect in a walkable, transit-friendly system. Transit systems shrunk and all but disappeared as automobiles became the primary mode of transportation, however, and streetcars left the city several decades ago. The City of Somerville is serviced by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) transit service.

Rail
Somerville is served by seven MBTA subway stations: Davis station on the Red Line, Assembly station on the Orange Line, and Green, East Somerville, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, and Ball Square on the Green Line. Davis opened in 1984, and Assembly in 2014. The Green Line stations opened in 2022 as part of the Green Line Extension, which the state was legally obligated to build since 1990. Both Porter Square station on the Red Line and Commuter Rail's Fitchburg Line in Cambridge and Sullivan Square station on the Orange Line in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood are located adjacent to Somerville along the border.

Road

Although only 43.6% of Somerville commuters drove alone to work in 2013, several major arteries pass through the city.

McGrath Highway is a major north–south route that represents the portion of Massachusetts Route 28 through the city of Somerville. McGrath is the continuation of Monsignor O'Brien Highway in Cambridge to the southeast and is known as the Fellsway north of the junction with Mystic Avenue and Interstate 93 in Medford. The highway has a long and complex history that hints to the changing nature of transportation throughout Somerville and the greater Boston metropolitan region. Originally constructed in 1928 to create a speedier connection for Route 28 between the Charles and Mystic Rivers, McGrath was elevated in the 1950s to further facilitate increased travel speed. The result was to cut off East Somerville and the Inner Belt District from Winter Hill and the rest of the city. When Route 28 was built, its primary purpose was to serve regional commuters traveling into Boston. However, it soon became clear that McGrath would need to be replaced by a larger and safer highway. The construction of the elevated Northern Expressway (Massachusetts), part of Interstate 93, was completed in the early 1970s and essentially rendered McGrath redundant. Today, the infrastructure of the two raised portions (the McCarthy Overpass, running from Somerville Avenue to Medford Street, and the Squires Bridge, running above the MBTA Fitchburg line near Twin City Plaza) are decaying and decrepit. In 2013, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation recommended that the McCarthy Overpass that crosses over several streets in Somerville be torn down, and proposed a boulevard-syle reconstruction with bike lanes and sidewalks for pedestrians. No date has been set for construction to begin.

Northern Expressway (Massachusetts) runs northwest and southeast through Somerville, separating Ten Hills and Assembly Square from the rest of the city. The massive elevated "Northern Expressway" was completed in the early 1970s and passes directly through Somerville running alongside and/or above Mystic Avenue (Massachusetts Route 38). Commonly referred to as the "upper and lower decks of 93", the Somerville-Charlestown section of the Northern Expressway carries three lanes of northbound traffic on the upper deck, and three lanes of southbound traffic on the lower deck. The highway also serves to cut off East Somerville from Charlestown.

As of 2010, snow removal from city streets and properties uses 42 pieces of equipment (including front-loaders and plows), about 10000 ST of salt imported from Egypt, and a budget of $500,000. When the mayor declares a snow emergency that puts special parking restrictions into effect, in addition to electronic media and a press release, a switch at DPW headquarters on Franey Road activates 16 blue lights at major intersections to alert the public. Two crews of four people (with help from school janitors) clear sidewalks at 33 city-owned buildings. Excess snow in major pedestrian squares is removed and dumped on a vacant lot on Winter Hill.

Walking and cycling
Somerville is considered to be a highly walkable and bikeable city. In 2013, 7.8% of all commutes were made by bicycle, ranking Somerville fifth among U.S. cities for its share of bicycling. In 2013, 49.8% of Somerville commuters either walked, biked or used public transit. Somerville launched its first Bluebikes (originally Hubway) stations during the summer of 2012 and now hosts 21 stations.

The Somerville Community Path is a mixed-use path that runs along the old Boston and Lowell Railroad right-of-way from Davis Square across Somerville to the Cambridge border near Lechmere Square. Roughly 0.8 mi of the path is finished and in use. The two finished segments feature pavement interspersed with brick and surrounded by grass, trees, pedestrian connections to nearby streets, and a community garden. The path is lit at night and snowplowed in the winter.

In 2013, the city broke ground on the first extension in almost twenty years that extended the path another 0.25 mi east from its then-terminus at Cedar Street to Lowell Street.

Bus
Somerville has among the highest bus ridership in the Boston metro area. Nearly 40,000 passengers board the buses that pass through Somerville each day, and 15 MBTA bus routes operate in Somerville.

Emergency services
Somerville is protected by the 152 paid, professional firefighters of the city of Somerville Fire Department (SFD). The Somerville Fire Department currently operates out of five firehouses, located throughout the city, and operates five engine companies, three ladder companies, and one rescue company, commanded by an on-duty district chief and deputy chief each shift. Emergency Medical Services have been provided by Cataldo Ambulance Service, a private ambulance company, since it was founded as Somerville Ambulance Service in 1977.

Waste
The city provides contracted trash, single-stream recycling, yard waste, and hazardous waste pickup for residents in buildings with six or fewer units, and textile recycling pickup for all residents. Single-stream recycling materials are sent to the Casella Waste Systems processing facility in neighboring Charlestown.

Notable people

 * James E. Barlow, civil engineer and city manager
 * Léone Boudreau-Nelson, phonetician
 * Robert A. Bruce, noted cardiologist and professor
 * Mike Capuano, member of the House of Representatives and mayor of Somerville
 * Richard Carle, actor
 * Gosder Cherilus, National Football League player
 * Neil Cicierega, musician, filmmaker, and animator
 * Hal Clement, author
 * Mildred Codding, medical illustrator
 * Mike Colman, Ice hockey player for the 1991–1992 San Jose Sharks
 * Hal Connolly, athlete, Olympic gold medalist in National Track and Field Hall of Fame
 * George Dilboy, Medal of Honor recipient
 * Henry F. Gilbert (1868–1928), music composer
 * Nick Gomez, film director and writer
 * Henry Kimball Hadley, composer and conductor
 * Henry Oliver Hansen, raised the first flag in the Battle of Iwo Jima
 * Hazel Heald, pulp fiction writer who collaborated on several stories with H.P. Lovecraft
 * Arthur Daniel Healey, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
 * Alan Hovhaness, composer
 * James "Hutch" Hutchinson, studio musician and longtime Bonnie Raitt bassist
 * Jake Kilrain, noted boxer
 * Howie Long, NFL Hall of Famer, actor and sports analyst
 * Martha Perry Lowe (1829–1902), poet, education activist
 * Peter Mamakos (1918–2008), American film and television actor
 * Patricia Head Minaldi, United States District Court judge
 * Connie Morella, member of the House of Representatives
 * Randall Munroe, cartoonist and writer
 * Jack Parker, head coach of the Boston University Terriers hockey team, 1973–2013
 * Bobby Pickett, composer of "Monster Mash"
 * Harry Nelson Pillsbury, chess champion
 * Alfred M. Pride, United States Navy admiral and pioneer naval aviator
 * Archibald Query, inventor of Fluff
 * Phil Reavis, competitor in the high jump at the 1956 Olympics
 * Charles Revson, founder of Revlon
 * Reverend Leonard Grimes, abolitionist
 * Alex Rocco, actor
 * Paul Ryan, born in Somerville; comic artist on Fantastic Four and The Phantom
 * Daniel Alfred Sanborn, a surveyor who founded the Sanborn Map Company was born in Somerville
 * John Shea, playwright
 * Paul Sorrento, former Major League Baseball first baseman for four teams over eleven seasons
 * Pie Traynor former Major League Baseball third baseman and member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame
 * Daniel Chapman Stillson, inventor of the modern adjustable pipe wrench
 * David Foster Wallace, author
 * Barbara Weeks, actress
 * Winter Hill Gang, noted crime group
 * Eliza Trask Hill, women's suffrage leader and prison reformer
 * Aline van Barentzen, classical pianist

Sister cities
Somerville's sister cities are:
 * 🇮🇹 Gaeta, Italy
 * Nordeste, Portugal
 * 🇲🇦 Tiznit, Morocco
 * 🇸🇻 Yucuaiquín, El Salvador

title: Somerville, Massachusetts


text:
Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust

For the June 2005 deletion debate on this article, see Votes for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust.

Archives: Archive 1

A new WikiProject about Jehovah's Witnesses
WikiProject Jehovah's Witnesses, aka WP:JW

george 03:20, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I invite all to sign in as a participants at the project page, add it to your watchlist, and participate in style, organization, and hierarchy discussions there. Tom Haws 05:04, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE NUMBER OF JWS INCARCERATED AND PERISHED FROM US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IS WRONG!!!
Don't add information that you have not doublechecked especially if the item is so much abused as the bold stand of JWs against Nazis.

I asked a question on the US Holocaust website, about the figures there, and the answer was that they were wrong.

Here's what I asked:

I am interested with the role Jehovah's Witnesses played in the fight against Nazism. I read contradictory info on the number of Jehovah's Witnesses' casualties. I want to know how firmly you stand behind the facts of this article:

http://www.ushmm.org/education/resource/jehovahs/jehovahsw.php?menu=/export/home/www/doc_root/education/foreducators/include/menu.txt&bgcolor=CD9544

According to which 2,500-5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died in Holocaust. How will you comment the figures of this article

http://watchtower.observer.org/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040314/JWANDHITLER3/40314008

Have you had the chance to verify the contents of the 1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 212.

Here's the answer

Detlef Garbe writes in Zwischen Widerstand und Martyrium [München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1993] that, of the estimated 25,000-30,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses living in Germany when the Nazis took power (1933), around 10,000 were imprisoned. Of the 10,000 imprisoned, over 2,000 were sent to concentration camps. Garbe estimates that the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses who died under the Nazi regime is approximately 1,200. He calculates that of the 1,200, around 800 were German nationals. Of the 800, around 250 were executed after being formally convicted of a crime in a military court trial. The crime was usually subversion defined by their refusal, on the basis of their religion, to serve in the armed forces.

In addition to the 2,000 German Jehovah’s Witnesses who were incarcerated in the concentration camps, Garbe estimates that the SS incarcerated around 1,000 non-German Witnesses in concentration camps, many of them Dutch and Belgian nationals. He estimates that about 400 of these non-German witnesses died in the camps. Hence, out of a total of approximately 3000 European Jehovah’s Witnesses in the concentration camps around 950 died there.

Detlef Garbe’s work on the Jehovah’s Witnesses is considered to be a reliable, scholarly work. In fact, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will co-publish the English translation, which is expected to be released in autumn 2005.

I have this reply in my inbox staying there from March 2004, and can forward it with email headers intact if someone doubts its authenticity.

 * OK, cool your jets. JW's make less about this than people who want to degrade them. You have only drawn more attention to the subject with your shouting. The general lack of editing this page recieves is proof of how little it interests people. Yes, Prof Garbe is a reliable source, he has been quoted by JW's and has been featured in at least one video documentary produced by them. If your information is accurate then great. You don't have to go around beating a drum.

 * See The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity, by Dr. Christine E. King.

 * Of the 10,000, about 2,500 never did go free, according to the above source—they died in Dachau, Belsen, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps.

 * So, as you see the number 2,500 was a number which came from a work by a respected historian.

 * As far as this subject being abused, I guess you should start complaining to all of the Universities and holocaust groups who are making such a fuss because JW's are doing less to promote this topic than they are. Only a very few (less than a half dozen) pages from a google search came from JW's or the WT website. The rest were either academic sites (overwhelmingly positive towards JW"s) or mudslingers wanting to find fault with JW's (who contradict nearly everything the academic sites conclude).

 * Will we ever be done with this garbage? George 21:39, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * PS SInce the USHMM and another source has estimated the number of JW's who dies as between 2,500 and 5,000 don't you think two sources are more reliable than one? Perhaps we should place the 2500-5000 comment from the USHMM?

 * Sorry for shouting, I don't want to degrade nobody, I just want to prevent inaccuracy.

 * You probably realize that one of the two sources you are quoting is the one I was trying to alert you for being not very precise.

 * There is a lot of BS taught in unis today [my opinion], but despite that you can't compare the website of JWs with the combined websites of all universities around the world. Of course if you make a search on google you will get far more results from uni websites than from the watchtower. This doesn't mean though that the watchtower is not publishing a lot of lies, and is not boasting with things it deserves no credit for.

 * In real life I have never been approached from a university scholar to convince me that thousands of JWs have died in the fight against Nazism, while one of their followers was trying to do exactly that.

 * The information from USHMM would be considered reliable as they have not changed it even since your letter to them. However, I did not remove or revert your edit. Since neither of us was there in the CC's to count the bodies we can only go on what we read. The information conflicts, not by any fault of JW's. you seem to want to blame them for the mistakes of historians.(?)

 * I agree that there is a lot of BS taught in universities. Take a religion class and they'll say that JW's are a "cult" (negative connotation). We did not compare the JW's website with "universities all around the world", although according to you they teach a lot of BS anyway, so what would be the point? The JW's website is using informatin backed up by scholarly sources whether you agree with them or not. Accusing them of dishonesty then is untrue. ALSO, Since all the hits you get from google come up with university citations more than JW's citations, well are they really boasting as much as you claim?

 * I find it strange that a JW would seek someone out just to talk about JW's in Nazi Germany unless there was some special reason, like an invitation.

 * Finally, you quote one source and claim everyone else is wrong. Your reasoning in either specious or circular. George 11:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * I was tempted to try to arrange how I can forward you the reply from Ursula Miniszewski, who works for the Division of the Senior Historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and who sent me the above answer. She had carbon copied that email to 3 other people from the ushmm.org domain, that I figured out were people who were supposed to fix the website, which never happened though.

 * The truth though is I don't want to disclose my email, and even if I forward you the email in question, this proves nothing, since Ms. Miniszewski could have been wrong, and other wise heads at USHMM could have decided that the website is fine the way it is.

 * The point of me bringing universities here was that there are a lot more universities in the world than the watchtower and JWs websites therefore in a web search you have more results from unisersity websites than from the watchtower. I don't mean to say that everything taught in unis is BS, of course there's a lot of good science there, but not all of it.

 * I've never claimed that everyone is wrong. I was just trying to alert people that the information from the USHMM website about the number of JWs incarcerated and perished is wrong. Now I came to the point of confessing that without forwarding the email I can't prove nothing, and since I don't want to forward it to someone I don't know, I admit that I can't prove the above shout of mine.

 * Maybe you should revert the numbers the way you believe is correct, that would be fine. I wouldn't have compained if you have done it earlier. I don't have the knowledge and desire to explore this subject further and to argue with you. I pretty much said what I wanted to say with my very first post. I gave information about Detlef Garbe's book, that I have never read, unfortunately, but if there're doubting minds reading this discussion, I hope I just gave them a lead.

Denounciation of the Bible
I thought that the 'Nazis' permitted Christianity as long as the Christians submitted to them (many of the 'Nazis' themselves were apparently Christians). What about the "German Christians" or "Protestant Reich Church?" Anglius
 * That's precisely the point here: Jehovah's Witnesses did not submit to Nazi authority because it involved denying tenets of their own faith and being forced to participate in patriotic, nationalistic, and military events.  Comparable to this are first century Christians who would not even sprinkle a pinch of incense on an altar dedicated to the Caesar.  They would have otherwise been allowed to exist if they had recognized the "deity" of the Caesar.  CobaltBlueTony 19:04, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, sir, but why would the Führer require them to discredit the Bible? Anglius
 * In a neutral point of view, I have to say that it was the JW interpretation of the Biblbe, which restricted their compliance to the Nazi regime, which incited Hitler's orders. Within the context of my faith, however, I have to say that Hitler was threatened by Scriptures that clearly denounced his behavior, which if allowed to stand as a direct challenge to his own inpterpreatations, could influence other "Christian" denominations to resist. CobaltBlueTony
 * I thank you, "CobaltBlueTony," for your information. Anglius

Is there a reason this became a redirect?
I noticed that turned this into a redirect to Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses. What's the argument against two articles? More specifically, are there any editors out there who would object to the following? This approach is commonly used throughout Wikipedia. It is particularly applicable here because a series of articles on The Holocaust exists, and that series has several places where a Holocaust-specific link would be more relevant. Of course section-specific links are an alternative, but it's been my experience that even with comments reminding people to look for section-specific references, over time, sections headings get renamed, breaking the context-specific linkage that having a separate article preserves.
 * 1) Copy the Persecution of JW in Nazi Germany section and paste it into Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust, replacing the redirect.
 * 2) Replace the Persecution of JW in Nazi Germany section with a short summary of what was there before, with a reference (using Template:Main) to Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust.
 * 3) Add introductory material, categories, external links, etc. to make Jehovah's Witnesses and the Holocaust stand alone.  This would include an early link to the broader topic of Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Normally I would be bold and just do what I described, but a scan of this and other related talk pages suggest that this area is sensitive enough that I thought I'd write this as a proposal instead.

I'll post a link to this thread at the talk pages for WikiProject Jehovah's Witnesses and User talk:Bhuck to raise awareness of this discussion. Thanks. 66.167.139.86 23:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I must say I don't really remember my motivations last summer for turning that into a redirect, though I could probably speculate on what they might have been. More to the point, though, would be to comment on your proposal here.  Frankly, I am not very comfortable with the term "Holocaust" being applied to persecution for reasons of ideology.  While I realize that the Holocaust article does use that term for ideological persecution, I don't think that is really correct, and even there it is in a more minor way and not the main focus of the article.  The term is related to death camps and genocide, and adherence to the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses is not a genetic trait any more than adherence to communism is.  If communists or Jehovah's Witnesses were to convincingly renounce their ideology, the desire to persecute them would vanish--this option was not available to Jews, who would be persecuted even if they renounced their religion and converted to Christianity, or tried to apply for membership in the Nazi party.--Bhuck 01:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

 * See also the discussion at Articles_for_deletion/Jehovah's_Witnesses_and_the_Holocaust.
 * I'd guess the redirect was meant as a temporary measure, until more material has accumulated (e.g. by translating from Zeugen Jehovas im Nationalsozialismus).
 * And I'd suggest moving to another page title.
 * Pjacobi 13:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Stow, Massachusetts

Stow is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 21 mi west of Boston, in the MetroWest region of Massachusetts. The population was 7,174 at the 2020 census. Stow was officially incorporated in 1683 with an area of approximately 40 sqmi.

Over centuries it gave up land as newer, smaller towns were created, ceding land to Harvard (1732), Shirley (1765), Boxborough (1783), Hudson (1866) and Maynard (1871). Stow now has an area of 18.1 sqmi. With the exception of factories at Assabet Village and Rock Bottom (later Maynard and Gleasondale), Stow was primarily sparsely settled farm and orchard land until the 1950s.

History
Previous to its incorporation in 1683, Stow was called Pompositticut Plantation. Stow was officially incorporated in 1683. The earliest Colonial settlers, c. 1660, were Matthew Boon and John Kettell, who settled the land of Tantamous (Jethro), a Native American, whose land was called "Pompocitticut." Boon settled by a pond (later bearing his name: Lake Boon) with a vast tract of land surrounding him. It is said that he traded all this for a single jackknife. A monument bearing his name is located on the plot of land where he formerly resided. John Kettell took up residence in a portion of land in the southwestern corner of Stow where another monument marks the alleged site of his farm. Both families were affected by King Philip's War, an attempt by Native Americans to drive out colonists. Boon and Kettell were killed. Their families had been moved to other locations, and survived. The area that was to become Stow was not resettled by colonists for several years.

The original development of Stow—a mile east of the current center, became known as Lower Village after a meeting hall, and later, churches, were built to the west. The old cemetery on Route 117/62 is officially Lower Village Cemetery. On October 28, 1774, Henry Gardner, a Stow resident, was elected Receiver-General of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the government of Massachusetts during the American Revolution. After the war, Gardner served as state treasurer. Gardner's grandson, also Henry Gardner, was the governor of Massachusetts from 1855 to 1857.

As with many colonial era Massachusetts towns, Stow started with a large area and gave up land as newer, smaller towns were created. Stow ceded land to Harvard (1732), Shirley (1765), Boxborough (1783), Hudson (1866) and Maynard (1871). Stow lost 1300 acres (5.3 km2) and close to half its population to the creation of Maynard. Prior to that, what became Maynard was known as "Assabet Village" but was legally still part of the towns of Stow and Sudbury. There were some exploratory town-founding efforts in 1870, followed by a petition to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, filed January 26, 1871. Both parent towns opposed this effort, but state approval was granted April 19, 1871. The population of the newly formed town—at 1,820—was larger than either of its parent towns. In return, the new town paid Sudbury and Stow about $23,600 and $8,000 respectively. Sudbury received more money because it owned shares in the railroad, the wool and paper mills were in Sudbury, and more land came from Sudbury.

In 1942 the U.S. Army seized about one-tenth of the town's land area, from the south side, to create a munitions storage facility. Land owners were evicted. The land remained military property for years. In 2005 it became part of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge.

The modern butternut squash was developed by Charles Leggett in Stow in 1944; the Leggett Woodlands in the town are named after his family, after his wife donated the land. The squash was developed in a field across from the woodland.

On New Year's Day, 1984, Kevin Walsh took off from Minute Man Air Field with 57 helium balloons tied to a lawn chair, later descending by parachute. He was cited with four violations of FAA regulations and fined $4,000 ($10,922.66 adjusted for inflation to 2022). He reached an altitude of 9,000 feet (2,700 m).

As of 2022, Stow is one of the only municipalities in Massachusetts not to have a Dunkin' Donuts, after the two in town closed down that year, for which the town received attention on social media.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 18.1 sqmi, of which 17.6 sqmi is land and 0.5 sqmi (2.60%) is water. It is located in eastern/central Massachusetts.

Major bodies of water are Assabet River, Elizabeth Brook, Lake Boon, White's Pond and Delaney Flood Control Project, in the northwest corner. The Assabet River flows through Stow from west to east, spanned by three bridges. Average flow in the river is 200 cubic feet per second. However, in summer months the average drops to under 100 cfs. The flood of March 2010 reached 2,500 cfs. Recent, monthly and annual riverflow data—measured in Maynard—is available from the U.S. Geological Service.

Gleasondale
The village of Gleasondale is in both Hudson and Stow. Gleasondale was originally known as Randall's Mills, and then later became known as Rock Bottom. The name "Rock Bottom" came about after a workman struck a solid rock while digging the mill's foundations and a coworker cried out, "You've struck rock bottom!" The name was changed to Gleasondale in 1898 after two of the original mill owners, Mr. Gleason and Mr. Dale. An 1856 map shows Assabet as a village on the eastern border – this became the center of the Town of Maynard in 1871.

Demographics
As of the census of 2018, there were 7,214 people, 2,575 households, and 2,090 families residing in the town. The population density was 380.6 PD/sqmi. There were 2,526 housing units at an average density of 143.5 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the town was 91.8% White, 2.7% African American, 0.2% Native American, 3.9% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.8% of the population.

There were 2,575 households, out of which 25.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.7% were married couples living together, 2.2% had a male householder with no wife present, 6.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 21.7% were non-families. The householder of 17.4% of all households were living alone and 16.7% was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.75 people and the average family size was 3.10 people.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 28.2% under the age of 20, 24.6% from 20 to 44, 34.5% from 45 to 64, and 12.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43.5 years. For every 100 males there were 103.1 females. For every 100 males age 18 and over, there were 106.8 females.

As of 2015, the median income for a household in the town was $137,551, and the median income for a family was $153,763. The per capita income for the town was $51,081. About 2.7% of families and 4.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.7% of those under age 18 and 3.1% of those age 65 or over.

Golf
Stow is known for its four golf courses (81 total holes). The best known of these is Stow Acres Country Club (36 holes), the site of the 1995 US Amateur Public Links Championship.

The south course, formerly known as Mapledale Country Club, hosted a nine-hole course that was the first course designed, operated, and managed by a Black man, Robert H. Hawkins. Hawkins bought the property in 1926, and it was home to the first three United States Colored Golf Association (USCGA) Opens from 1926-1928.

Apple orchards
Stow is also well known for its apple orchards (Carver Hill, Small Farm, Derby Ridge Farms, Honey Pot Hill, One Stack Farm and Shelburne Farms), which provide tourism for the town in the fall.

Town Center
The town center contains a memorial for the Stow soldiers lost in the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, both World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the various U.S. involvements in the Middle East. Townspeople gather at the site on Memorial Day.

Near the Randall Library (named after John Witt Randall ) is a trolley station from when the town was connected by trolley line to Boston and Waltham.

Assabet Wildlife Sanctuary
A significant portion of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge (opened in 2005) is located in Stow.

American Heritage Museum
A military history museum built in 2018 and located on the grounds of the Collings Foundation, with a large collection of tanks and other artifacts from World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Iraq War, the September 11 attacks and its ensuing War on Terrorism.

Pine Bluffs
Pine Bluffs is a 34-acre park and beach located off Sudbury Road on the northern shore of Lake Boone. It underwent renovations in 2017–2018 to have a pavilion, restrooms, and be more accessible. The forest nearby contains many trails including well as a dropoff for launching canoes and kayaks, and contains a tire swing overlooking the lake as well as a popular hill that locals have parties at.

Notable people

 * Matthew Tobin Anderson, known as M. T. Anderson, an author primarily of picture books for children and novels for young adults; he currently lives in Cambridge, MA
 * Ethan Anthony, attended public schools in Stow, architect
 * Tom Barrasso, former NHL goaltender, grew up in Stow, played high school hockey for Acton-Boxborough, and went directly from high school to NHL
 * Dan Duquette, former general manager of the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox and current general manager (2011–present) with the Baltimore Orioles
 * Chris Fleming, Stand-up comedian and YouTuber
 * Henry Gardner Sr., first receiver-general/state treasurer of Massachusetts from 1774 until his death in 1782. His grandson Henry J. Gardner served as governor from 1855 to 1858
 * Kate Hogan, Massachusetts State Representative for Third Middlesex District since January 2009
 * Grace Metalious, of "Peyton Place" fame. Her husband taught school in Stow after moving from Gilmanton, New Hampshire, where they had lived while she wrote her book; it is not clear whether she ever lived in Stow, as biographies state that they separated about the time the book was published
 * Lee H. Pappas, publisher of high-tech publications, including ANALOG Computing, PC Laptop, VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, and TurboPlay
 * Samuel Parris, Puritan minister who preached in Stow during the summer of 1685 and later played a role in the Salem witch trials
 * John Witt Randall, poet, naturalist, and art collector
 * Jeremy Reiner, chief meteorologist for WHDH (TV)
 * George P. Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State (1982–1989), lived in Stow when he was teaching at MIT
 * Patricia Walrath, former Massachusetts State Representative (1985–2009) for Third Middlesex District, before that a Stow Selectman
 * Austin Warren, literary critic, author, and professor of English

Government
Stow uses the Open Town Meeting form of town government popular in small to mid-sized Massachusetts towns. Anyone may attend a town meeting, but only registered voters may vote. Before the meeting, a warrant is distributed to households in Stow and posted on the town's website. Each article in the warrant is debated and voted on separately. Stow does not require a defined minimum of registered voters to hold a town meeting and vote on town business, i.e., zero quorum. Important budgetary issues approved at a town meeting must be passed by a subsequent ballot vote. Stow's elected officials are a five-member Board of Selectmen. Each member is elected to a three-year term. Also filled by election are the School Committee, Housing Authority, Randall Library Trustees and a Moderator to preside over the town meetings. Positions filled by appointment include the Town Administrator and other positions.

State and federal government
On the federal level, Stow is part of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district, represented by Lori Trahan. The state's senior (Class I) member of the United States Senate is Elizabeth Warren. The junior (Class II) senator is Ed Markey.

Schools
Stow is a member of the Nashoba Regional School District, also serving the towns of Lancaster and Bolton. Stow is home to The Center School (Pre-K–5) and Hale Middle School (6–8).

Stow also contains the "Stow West School", a one-room schoolhouse that was in operation from 1825–1903.

Pompositticut School (an elementary school, K–3) was converted into a community center in 2017.

Massachusetts Firefighting Academy
Stow is home to the headquarters of the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, which provides recruit and in-service training for Massachusetts firefighters.

Airports

 * Minute Man Air Field (6B6) is a privately owned, public-use airport
 * Crow Island Airport is a privately owned airfield for ultralights
 * The Collings Foundation has a small grass airstrip adjacent to their museum

title: Stow, Massachusetts


text:
Sudbury, Massachusetts

Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,934. The town, located in Greater Boston's MetroWest region, has a colonial history.

History
Incorporated in 1639, the boundaries of Sudbury included (by 1653) what is now  Wayland (which split off in 1780, initially as East Sudbury), and parts of present day Framingham, Marlborough, Stow and Maynard (the latter town splitting off in 1871). Nipmuc Indians lived in what is now Sudbury, including Tantamous, a medicine man, and his son Peter Jethro, who deeded a large parcel of land to Sudbury for settlement in 1684.

The original town center and meetinghouse were located near the Sudbury River at what is now known as Wayland's North Cemetery. For the residents on the west side of the river, it was a treacherous passage in the winter and attendance at both worship services and Town Meetings was compulsory. In 1723 the West Parish meetinghouse was built west of the river at an area known as Rocky Plains (presently the Town Center). It served as a place for both worship and Town Meetings. The church and town separated in 1836 and a new Town House was built in 1846. Since then, the Sudbury Center Historic District has changed little, with the exception of the Town Hall, built in 1932 to replace the Town House, which burnt down in 1930.

Sudbury also contributed the most militia during King Philip's War and was the site of the well-known attack on Sudbury. Ephraim Curtis was a successful leader of the militia of West Sudbury and would lend his name to the town's junior high school. Sudbury militia participated in the Battle of Lexington and Concord, in 1775, where Sudbury members sniped on British Red Coats returning to Boston.

One of Sudbury's historic landmarks, the Wayside Inn, claims to be the country's oldest operating inn, built and run by the Howe family for many generations. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote Tales of a Wayside Inn, a book of poems published in 1863. In the book, the poem The Landlord's Tale was the source of the immortal phrase "listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." Henry Ford bought the inn in 1923, restored it and donated it to a charitable foundation which continues to run it as an operating inn to this day. Ford also built a boys' school on the property, as well as a grist mill, and the Martha-Mary Chapel. He brought in the Redstone Schoolhouse from Sterling, which was reputed to be the school in Sarah Josepha Hale's nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. However, Giuseppi Cavicchio's refusal to sell his water rights scuttled Henry Ford's plans to build an auto parts factory at the site of Charles O. Parmenter's mill in South Sudbury.

In August 1925, a Sudbury farm was the scene of a riot between local members of the Ku Klux Klan and Irish-American youths from the area. Five people were wounded by gunshots, and the State Police arrested over 100 Klansmen. Massachusetts officials cracked down on the group's meetings thereafter, and the Klan died out in the area.

In the period after World War II, Sudbury experienced rapid growth in population and industry. Defense contractor Raytheon was a significant employer, operating a large research facility in Sudbury from 1958 until 2016. Another major employer in that period was Sperry Rand. In the 1970s, the town was home to many of the engineers working in the minicomputer revolution at Digital Equipment Corporation in nearby Maynard. Sudbury was also one of the largest carnation-growing towns, with many greenhouse operations.

From 1960–1969, Sudbury challenged and prevailed against a proposal by Boston Edison Company that would have installed overhead transmission lines through what is now Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Ultimately, the line was instead buried under streets to Maynard.

Residentially, Sudbury's 1 acre zoning bylaws helped the town maintain a more rural character through the 1970s and 1980s when developments of single-family Colonials and large Capes established it as an affluent location. Economic growth was restricted to the town's main thoroughfare, US Route 20. Significant tracts of open space—including much wetland—were preserved in the northern half of town and along the Hop Brook corridor flowing from the Wayside Inn Historic District in the southwest part of town through the King Philip Historic District (the site of a conflict in King Philip's War) and into the Sudbury River at the southeast border with Wayland. A significant portion of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge (opened in 2005) is located in Sudbury.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 24.6 sqmi, of which 24.4 sqmi is land and 0.3 sqmi, or 1.06%, is water. The highest point in Sudbury is on the north slope of Nobscot Hill, and the highest summit is Tippling Rock.

In 1650, the town included Sudbury as well as most of Wayland and Maynard.

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 16,841 people, 5,504 households, and 4,749 families residing in the town. The population density was 691.1 PD/sqmi. There were 5,590 housing units at an average density of 229.4 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the town was 94.23% White, 0.80% African American, 0.03% Native American, 3.72% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.23% from other races, and 0.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.24% of the population. An update in the town's census recorded the population at 18,192 as of October 6, 2015.

There were 5,504 households, out of which 51.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 78.5% were married couples living together, 6.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 13.7% were non-families. 11.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.02 and the average family size was 3.28.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 32.5% under the age of 18, 3.2% from 18 to 24, 27.3% from 25 to 44, 27.2% from 45 to 64, and 9.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $151,041, and the median income for a family was $222,008. Males had a median income of $148,593 versus $47,500 for females. The per capita income for the town was $75,865. About 2.1% of families and 2.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.9% of those under age 18 and 4.8% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture

The First Parish of Sudbury gathered in 1640 east of the Sudbury River (present day Wayland). "East parish" (now First Parish of Wayland) moved its present site and "West parish" moved to the present site, called Rocky Plains (now Sudbury town center), upon Rev. Israel Loring first preaching there May 6, 1722. The historic meeting house was built in 1797, replacing the original 1723 structure. First Parish became Unitarian in the local schism of 1837 and is now Unitarian Universalist.

State and federal government
On the federal level, Precincts 1A, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Sudbury are part of Massachusetts's 5th congressional district, represented by Katherine Clark. Precinct 1 is part of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district, represented by Lori Trahan. The state's senior (Class I) member of the United States Senate is Elizabeth Warren. The junior (Class II) senator is Ed Markey.

Education
Sudbury students in kindergarten through eighth grade attend Sudbury Public Schools, with high school students attending schools in the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School District, which was established in 1954, integrating the former Sudbury High School with that of the nearby town of Lincoln.

In June 2002, the towns of Lincoln and Sudbury began a $74 million project to build a new high school near the site of the original building. The shared Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS) is in Sudbury.

There are four elementary schools in Sudbury and one middle school. The four elementary schools are: The middle school is: Sudbury has two former elementary schools that were converted to other uses:
 * Josiah Haynes Elementary School
 * Israel Loring Elementary School
 * General John Nixon Elementary School
 * Peter Noyes Elementary School
 * Ephraim Curtis Middle School
 * Fairbank Elementary School is now a community center, and the central office for the school district.
 * Horse Pond Elementary School is now a Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory.

Notable people

 * Horace Abbott, iron manufacturer
 * George Hunt Barton, geologist, arctic explorer, and college professor. Founding president of the Boston Children's Museum
 * Edith Nason Buckingham, zoologist, dog breeder, chicken farmer
 * Anthony W. Case, astrophysicist
 * Sarah Cloyce, Salem witch trials survivor; relocated to Sudbury after permanently leaving Salem
 * Ralph Adams Cram, architect, resided in Sudbury on Concord Road and built his family a private chapel which is now owned and operated by Saint Elizabeth's Episcopal Church
 * Coco Crisp, lived here during some of his time with the Boston Red Sox
 * Matthew B. J. Delaney, author
 * Dennis Eckersley, baseball Hall of Famer, lived on Morse Road before his years with the Boston Red Sox and on Plympton Road during and after his years with the Red Sox
 * Chris Evans, actor
 * Scott Evans, actor
 * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, lived in Sudbury during parts of the 1920s and 1930s
 * Mike Gordon, bassist for Phish
 * Robert L. Gordon III, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
 * Michelle Gorgone, Olympic snowboarder
 * Edward Hallowell, psychiatrist, author, and specialist on ADD/ADHD
 * Eddie House, NBA champion with the Boston Celtics
 * Stephen Huneck, artist and writer
 * Tyler Jewell, Olympic snowboarder
 * Michael Kolowich, documentary filmmaker and technology entrepreneur
 * William K. Lietzau Director of the US Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency
 * Tony Massarotti, sports reporter for The Boston Globe
 * John Nixon, General in the Continental Army during the American Revolution
 * Shaquille O'Neal, four-time NBA champion, 2000 NBA MVP, fifteen-time NBA All-Star, rapper, actor, and current Inside the NBA analyst lived in Sudbury for a brief time
 * Samuel Parris, Salem Witch Trials judge and Puritan minister, later preached in Wayland, which was then a part of Sudbury
 * Paula Poundstone, comedian, grew up in Sudbury
 * Edmund Rice, co-founder and early resident of the town from 1638–1656
 * Ashley Richardson (also known as Ashley Montana), model
 * Babe Ruth, baseball Hall of Famer. While with the Red Sox, he and his wife rented a small house next to Willis Pond, Sudbury, for the 1917–1918 off-season
 * Matt Savage, musician
 * Simon Shnapir, Olympic medalist pair skater
 * Fred Smerlas, five-time NFL Pro Bowler
 * Jarrod Shoemaker, Olympian and Triathlete
 * Jeremy Strong, actor and Emmy winner for his role on Succession
 * Callie Thorne, actress (Rescue Me)

title: Sudbury, Massachusetts


text:
Tewksbury, Massachusetts

Tewksbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Its population was 31,342 as of the 2020 United States Census.

History
Tewksbury was first settled in 1637 and was officially incorporated on December 17, 1734, from Billerica. The act that made this was the act of ANNO Regni Regis GEORGII Secundi Octavo. It states residents were not close enough to middle of town so they broke apart. There is no evidence that the town was named after Tewkesbury, England. Still, Tewksbury, Massachusetts and Tewkesbury, England kept connected through a local committee called the Twinning Committee.

One of the oldest sections of town is the area around the Shawsheen River. This is where the Shawshin tribe settled, allowing them access to a food source through fishing in the river.

Tewksbury was also known for a historic visit by President Andrew Jackson, who stopped at local watering hole, Brown's Tavern.

On July 24, 1857, a powerful tornado swept through Tewksbury. The storm began at Round Pond as a small water spout, and traveled west and then southeast to the Shawsheen River. It dissipated at North Wilmington. Several corn fields and orchards were severely damaged, with one residence having its roof blown off. The tornado was powerful enough to flatten barns and sheds, pull up large trees by their roots, and sweep away and kill a team of oxen. Due to the sparse population, and homes located above the valley floor, no one was killed, and only a few people were injured.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 21.1 sqmi, of which 20.7 sqmi is land and 0.3 sqmi, or 1.61%, is water.

The Merrimack River forms part of the northern boundary of Tewksbury, and the Shawsheen River runs through the southern end of town as well.

Tewksbury is located within the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The town is located about 19 mi north-northwest of Boston along I-93 and I-495 (Boston's outer beltway). Tewksbury is bordered by the city of Lowell to the northwest, Dracut to the north (unreachable across the Merrimack), Andover to the northeast, Wilmington to the southeast, and Billerica to the southwest.

Tewksbury also borders the Concord River to the southwest, and the town of Chelmsford exists on the other side of this river.

Climate
In a typical year, Tewksbury, Massachusetts temperatures fall below 50 F for 195 days per year. Annual precipitation is typically 44.6 inches per year (high in the US) and snow covers the ground 62 days per year, or 17% of the year (high in the US). It may be helpful to understand the yearly precipitation by imagining nine straight days of moderate rain per year. The humidity is below 60% for approximately 25.4 days, or 7% of the year.

Transportation
The LRTA 12 bus connects Tewksbury to Lowell and Wilmington on the MBTA Commuter Rail Lowell Line. In July 2017, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and other Baker administration transportation officials visited a construction project in the city to highlight $2.8 billion spent during Baker's administration on highway construction projects and improvements to bridges, intersections, and sidewalks.

The former Tew-Mac Airport was located in the town before it was closed in 1997 and replaced with condominiums and a country club.

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 28,851 people, 9,964 households, and 7,692 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,392.3 PD/sqmi. There were 10,158 housing units at an average density of 490.2 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the town was 96.44% White, 0.67% African American, 0.12% Native American, 1.59% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.41% from other races, and 0.75% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 1.22% of the population.

There were 9,964 households, out of which 35.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.1% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.8% were non-families. Of all households 18.9% were made up of individuals, and 7.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.81 and the average family size was 3.24.

The town's population was spread out, with 25.0% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 32.8% from 25 to 44, 24.6% from 45 to 64, and 11.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.7 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $68,800, and the median income for a family was $76,443. Males had a median income of $50,296 versus $33,918 for females. The per capita income for the town was $27,031. About 1.9% of families and 3.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.4% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.

Government
Tewksbury, like most towns in Massachusetts, operates under a New England town form of government. Day-to-day management is led by a town manager, who reports to the town's five member board of selectmen. Every spring the town holds an open town meeting where the budget is submitted for approval by the town's citizens.

Tewksbury is located in the 6th Congressional District and thus represented in the House of Representatives by Seth Moulton of Salem. The town is represented in the Senate by Senators Ed Markey of Malden and Elizabeth Warren of Cambridge.

Tewksbury is one of the more Republican-leaning towns in the Commonwealth. It was one of the few communities which supported John McCain over Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. In the special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy, Tewksbury supported Scott Brown over Martha Coakley by a two-to-one margin.

Hospital
Tewksbury Hospital, a state-owned facility, is located here. Originally built as an almshouse in the mid-19th century, it includes over 900 acre of open space. The hospital is home to the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Health, and has many programs for addictive behavior and other health concerns.

Anne Sullivan ("Annie", Helen Keller's teacher) spent time at Tewksbury Hospital before Annie was sent to the Kellers, and suffered the loss of her younger brother, James, in his childhood before her departure.

Tewksbury Hospital and the Public Health Museum in the Old Administration building were featured in the Stephen King series Castle Rock, as was the Tewksbury Cemetery directly across the street.

The building houses murals done by artists during the Works Progress Administration program.

Education
The Tewksbury public schools district serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade by a high school, two junior high schools, one private school and four elementary schools, specifically:

 * Tewksbury Memorial High School (TMHS): grades 9–12
 * John W. Wynn Middle School: grades 7–8
 * John F. Ryan Elementary School: grades 5–6
 * Center Elementary School (CES): grades 2-4
 * St William's School: grades Pre-K–8

The four elementary schools in Tewksbury were redistricted in 2010. Before the switch, each school had its own district and served grades K–4. The two schools on each side of town were then grouped together and each was given specific grades for that school.

North Tewksbury:

 * Loella F. Dewing Elementary School: grades Pre-K–1

South Tewksbury:

 * Heath Brook Elementary School: grades K–1

High school students have the option to attend Shawsheen Valley Technical High School, which serves five area communities.

The nearest community college, Middlesex Community College, has two campuses in nearby Lowell and Bedford. The nearest state university is the University of Massachusetts Lowell, with several state colleges in Salem and Framingham. The nearest private college is Merrimack College in North Andover, with several others within an hour's drive in Boston.

Media
Tewksbury is served by the Boston television stations, and by newspapers such as the "Boston Herald" and the "Town Crier" (weekly).

Film and TV
Tewksbury Hospital was used in the opening scene of Adam Sandler's Hubie Halloween. It was also the setting of the fictional Juniper Hills Psychiatric Hospital in the Castle Rock (TV Series). The now closed Kmart located in the Stadium Plaza Shopping Center was used as the location for the Kmart scenes in Grown Ups 2.

Notable people

 * Adelbert Ames (1835–1933), Medal of Honor recipient; last surviving Civil War general
 * Mico Kaufman (1924–2016), sculptor, Presidential and Olympic medal designer, recipient of Saultus Award 1992
 * John James Nazarian (born 1952), celebrity private investigator
 * Scott Oberg (born 1990), professional baseball pitcher for the Colorado Rockies
 * Anne Sullivan (1866–1936), tutor and companion of Helen Keller
 * Paul Sullivan (1957–2007) former selectman, talk show host on WBZ radio, Boston
 * John Trull (1738–1797), captain of the Tewksbury Minutemen in the Revolutionary War
 * Brian Wolfe, Private detective from the Investigation Discovery show Cry Wolfe

title: Tewksbury, Massachusetts