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Belmont, Massachusetts

Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a western suburb of Boston and is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, its population was 27,295, an increase of 10.4% from 2010.

History
Belmont was established on March 18, 1859, by former citizens of, and on land from the bordering towns of, Watertown, to the south; Waltham, to the west; and Arlington, then known as West Cambridge, to the north. The founders desired a dry township (alcohol is now legal to purchase in Belmont). The town was named after Bellmont, the 200 acre estate of the largest donor to its creation, John Perkins Cushing, after which Cushing Square is named. After Cushing's estate nearly burned to the ground, it was converted to a Belmont Public Library branch. The easternmost section of the town, including the western portion of Fresh Pond, was annexed by Cambridge in 1880. The annexation was the result of a dispute over a slaughterhouse licensed in 1878 and situated next to Fresh Pond; Cambridge wished to protect Fresh Pond (part of its water supply network) by removing neighboring buildings.

Before its incorporation, Belmont was an agrarian town, with several large farms servicing Boston for produce and livestock. It remained largely agrarian until the turn of the 20th century, when trolley service was introduced and roads were improved, making it more attractive as a residential area, most notably for the building of large estates. Belmont's population grew by over 70 percent during the 1920s.

Other commercial enterprises in Belmont included clay mining and waste management. The reclamation of a large dump and quarry off Concord Avenue into sites for the Belmont High School and the Clay Pit Pond is a lasting example of environmental planning. With the introduction of automobiles and highways, Belmont continued its transition to a commuter-based suburb throughout the 20th century.

The John Birch Society was headquartered in Belmont from its founding in 1958 until its relocation to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1989. The building at 395 Concord Avenue later became the headquarters of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), which is expanding and renovating its facility.

Railroad history
Belmont was once served by two railroads, the Fitchburg Railroad and the Central Massachusetts Railroad, both of which later became part of the Boston & Maine Railroad system. Originally the two railroads each had their own separate trackage through town, but in 1952 the Central Mass tracks were removed between Hill's Crossing and Clematis Brook (Waltham), and rail traffic was rerouted over the Fitchburg line.

Presently, the MBTA operates the Fitchburg Line through Belmont as part of its MBTA commuter rail service. Passenger service on the line terminates at Wachusett station in Fitchburg.

The station stops at Belmont Center and Waverley were once level crossings, and pedestrian and vehicle traffic had to cross directly over rails on public roads. In 1907, a stone arch bridge, elevated embankment, and station building were constructed such that the track runs over the road. At Waverley, the grade was lowered so that the tracks ran under Trapelo Road, though the platform did not have an enclosed structure there.

A second historic railroad station building exists in Belmont, though it is not obvious. The one-room Wellington Hill Station was built in the 1840s as a private school, not far from its current location in Belmont Center. It was then used by the Fitchburg Railroad from 1852 to 1879. When the railroad decided to replace the station with a larger structure, the building was moved to the Underwood Estate and used as a summer house. In 1974, the station was donated to the Belmont Historical Society. It was restored and moved to its current location in 1980.

As of 2024, plans are underway to construct a rail trail across Belmont, using the abandoned Central Massachusetts Railroad right-of-way along the existing Fitchburg Line tracks. When completed this trail will be part of the Mass Central Rail Trail.

Present day
Belmont remains a primarily residential suburb, with little population growth since the 1950s. It is best known for the mansion-filled Belmont Hill neighborhood, although most residents live in more densely settled, low-lying areas around the Hill. There are three major commercial centers in the town: Belmont Center in the center, Cushing Square in the south, and Waverley Square in the west. Town Hall and other civic buildings are in Belmont Center. Large tracts of land from former farms and greenhouse estates form public or publicly accessible areas such as Rock Meadow, Habitat, portions of the McLean Hospital tract and various town fields.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 4.7 square miles (12.2 km2), of which 4.7 square miles (12.1 km2) is land and less than 0.1 square miles (0.1 km2), or 1.06%, is water.

Belmont is bordered by Cambridge on the east, Arlington on the north, Lexington on the northwest, Waltham on the west, and Watertown on the south.

Environmental concerns
In 2002, Middlesex County was ranked in the worst 10% of polluted counties in the United States in terms of air and water pollution. Two companies that ranked in the top 10 for polluters in the county were Polaroid Corporation in Waltham and the Cambridge Plating Company in Belmont, which is several hundred feet from Belmont High School. The Environmental Protection Agency fined Cambridge Plating Company, now operated by Purecoat North LLC, in 2002 following various violations and in 2004 after a fire that led to an accumulation of toxic wastewater.

The chemicals released were trichloroethylene and dichloromethane, both of which have been shown to cause cancer. These chemicals are released into the air so it is difficult to trace them and to determine the source, as there are also several other industries in the area that release the same pollutants.

Climate
In a typical year, Belmont, Massachusetts temperatures fall below 50 F for 195 days per year. Annual precipitation in Belmont is typically 45.2 inches per year (high in the US) and snow covers the ground 52 days per year, or 14.2% of the year (high for the US). The humidity is below 60% for approximately 25.4 days, or 7% of the year.

Demographics
, there were 27,295 residents of the Town of Belmont, and in 2021 there were 17,640 registered voters. In 2020, the racial make up of the town was 69.6% White, 1.9% Black or African American, 0.05% Native American, 18.5% Asian, and 4.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.7% of the population. Pending the release of the 2020 Census results, in 2010 6.3% of the population were under the age of five, 24.6% were under the age of eighteen, and 15.8% were 65 years of age or older; 53% were female. The median household income was $114,141.

The 2000 census listed 9,732 households, out of which 31.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.9% were married couples living together, 8.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.7% were non-families. 25.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.01.

In 2010, 20% of the residents of Belmont were born outside of the United States. In 2000 this percentage was 15%.

Belmont has been referred to as a "Mormon enclave" due to the location of the Boston Massachusetts Temple of the LDS Church at the highest elevation in the town. The prominent gold statue of the Angel Moroni atop the Temple was originally designed by Cyrus Dallin in nearby Arlington, Massachusetts.

Points of interest

 * Redtop, home of William Dean Howells
 * Edwin O. Reischauer Memorial House
 * Boston & Maine Railroad Station, now known as the MBTA Commuter Rail Belmont stop, now owned by the Lions Club
 * Boston Massachusetts Temple of the LDS Church
 * William Flagg Homer House

Government
The executive branch of the town government consists of a three-person Select Board elected by the residents. The Select Board appoints a Town Administrator who is in charge of daily operations.

The legislative branch is a representative town meeting, with eight districts each electing 36 representatives, plus ex-officio members and a Town Moderator to run the annual meeting.

Belmont is part of the 24th Middlesex District (for the Massachusetts House of Representatives), the 2nd Middlesex and Suffolk District (for the Massachusetts Senate), and Massachusetts's 5th congressional district (for the United States House of Representatives).

Education
Belmont is served by the Belmont Public Schools, governed by an independently elected school committee.

There are four public elementary schools in Belmont: the Mary Lee Burbank, Daniel Butler, Winn Brook, and Roger Wellington schools. The Mary Lee Burbank School was founded in 1931. Two other public elementary schools, Payson Park and Kendall, were closed in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. The former closed after being destroyed by fire, the latter closed due to population shifts and was converted to an arts center, which was later also destroyed by fire. There is one public Upper Elementary School, the Winthrop L. Chenery Upper Elementary School, which was rebuilt on the same location after an electrical fire damaged the auditorium in 1995, and one Middle School, located near the High School, called Belmont Middle, and one public high school, Belmont High School. On May 28, 2019, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of a new middle and high school which will be co-located on the same site.

Belmont High is noted for its college placement, strong athletics, academics, music, and theater arts; a typical class size of about 320 students. Belmont High regularly feeds 5-10 students into Harvard University on an average given year. , U.S. News & World Report gave Belmont High School a gold medal and named it the 100th best public high school in the United States and the second best in the state of Massachusetts (after Boston Latin School).

Belmont Hill School is a private, non-sectarian high school, grades 7–12. Belmont Day School is a private, non-sectarian Pre-K–8 school. There are several smaller private schools.

Media
The Belmont Citizen-Herald is a weekly newspaper covering Belmont, and published on Thursdays, and is available online, as well. The Citizen-Herald was formed in 1988 by merging the Belmont Citizen (founded in 1920) and the Belmont Herald (founded in 1930). The Boston Globe and Boston.com publish a Belmont Your Town website that provides local news and information. The Belmontonian is an independently operated hyper-local news website. Belmont Patch also provides online local news.

The Belmont Media Center (BMC) was founded in 2005 as a local non-profit, public-educational & government access TV station mandated to provide and make available to Belmont residents a variety of media production & editing classes, locally produced TV programming, and video/TV equipment, studios and facilities. In 2017, BMC programs are available to Belmont subscribers of Comcast and Verizon, and BMC also carries live programming. and on-demand programs

Roads
Major roads in the town are Concord Avenue, which bisects the town from east to west; Common Street and Pleasant Street (Route 60) which travel north-south through Belmont; and Trapelo Road and Belmont Street, which run along the southern edge of the town.

Belmont is served directly by two state route designated highways. Running close to the middle of town is Route 60, locally known as Pleasant Street. On the northern border, Route 2 generally outlines Belmont's boundary with the neighboring town of Arlington. Despite the small size of the town, Belmont has 5 signed exits on Route 2. Nearby major highways include I-95/MA-Route 128, Route 16, Route 3, and Route 20.

Public transit
Belmont is served by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Fitchburg Commuter Rail line, and its bus and trackless trolley lines.

Two MBTA Commuter Rail rail stations, Waverley and Belmont Center, are located in the town. Belmont is roughly 16 minutes away from the rail line's terminus at North Station, Boston.

Nearby in Cambridge lies Alewife Station, the western terminus of the Red Line; providing a connection to Boston and the entire metropolitan rapid transit system.

Health care
McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital and research center located in Belmont. It is the setting of the novel Girl, Interrupted, which was made into a 1999 movie.

Notable people
Due to its proximity to Harvard and MIT universities, amongst others, Belmont has had several Nobel Prize winners in residence at one time or another. Notable past and present residents include people in the following categories:

Business

 * John Perkins Cushing, China trader
 * Stephen P. Mugar, founder of the Star Market chain, philanthropist

Politics and government

 * John Deutch, former Director of Central Intelligence
 * Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
 * Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
 * Empress Masako, of Japan
 * Mitt Romney, and his wife Ann Romney – former Governor of Massachusetts, 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Senator from Utah
 * Dorothy Stoneman, activist, founder of YouthBuild USA

Arts and music

 * Winslow Homer (1836–1910), painter
 * Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect
 * Walter Piston, composer
 * Phil Wilson, jazz trombonist and arranger

Media

 * Sebastian Junger (born 1962), author, journalist, documentary filmmaker
 * David E. Kelley, TV producer and writer
 * Leo Monahan (1926–2013), American sports journalist
 * Addison Powell, actor
 * Jean Rogers, actress

Sports

 * Emily Cook, American freestyle skier
 * William Chandler Haskins, competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics
 * Maxie Long, gold medalist in athletics at 1900 Olympic Games
 * Paul Mara, New York Rangers defenseman
 * Becca Pizzi, American marathon runner
 * Patrick Rissmiller, New York Rangers hockey forward
 * Patty Shea, Olympian in field hockey
 * Wilbur Wood, Major League pitcher–Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago White Sox

Literature

 * Gerald Warner Brace, author and educator
 * Leah Hager Cohen, author
 * William Dean Howells, author
 * Talene Monahon, playwright/actress
 * Tom Perrotta, author

Academics

 * Bernard Bailyn (1922-2020), American historian and professor
 * William P. Alford (born 1948), American professor and legal scholar
 * VA Shiva Ayyadurai (born 1963), MIT systems scientist and entrepreneur
 * Vannevar Bush (1890–1974), MIT Dean of Engineering, helped create the National Science Foundation
 * Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author
 * Thomas Vose Daily, Roman Catholic bishop
 * Bernard Davis (1916–1994), biologist, lived and died in Belmont
 * Wolfgang Ketterle, MIT physics professor (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2001)
 * Richard Marius, Reformationist scholar and novelist
 * Susan K. Martin, librarian
 * Franco Modigliani, MIT economics professor (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1985)
 * Egon Orowan, MIT physicist and metallurgist
 * Edwin O. Reischauer, Harvard professor, East Asia scholar, and Ambassador to Japan
 * Paul A. Samuelson, MIT economics professor (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1970)
 * Dirk Jan Struik, HUAC victim and MIT mathematician
 * Steven C. Wheelwright, Harvard Business School professor and president of BYU-Hawaii
 * Fred Lawrence Whipple, astronomer
 * Norbert Wiener, mathematician
 * Robert Burns Woodward, organic chemist (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1965)

title: Belmont, Massachusetts


text:
Burlington, Massachusetts

Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 census.

History
It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but this has never been confirmed. It was first settled in 1641, and was officially incorporated on February 28, 1799; several of the early homesteads are still standing, such as the Francis Wyman House, dating from 1666. The town is sited on the watersheds of the Ipswich, Mystic, and Shawsheen rivers. In colonial times up through the late 19th century, there was an industry in the mills along Vine Brook, which runs from Lexington to Bedford and then empties into the Shawsheen River.

Burlington is now a suburban industrial town at the junction of the Boston-Merrimack corridor, but for most of its history, it was almost entirely agricultural, selling hops and rye to Boston and supplementing that income with small shoe-making shops. Early railroad expansion passed the town by (although the town was serviced by the Middlesex Turnpike), limiting its early development, and Burlington continued to cure hams for the Boston market and produce milk, fruit, and vegetables.

This picture changed drastically, however, as soon as Route 128 was built. The highway kicked off an enormous expansion, and between 1955 and 1965 Burlington was the fastest growing town in the state. In one five-year period, its population tripled as residential and commercial retail development exploded creating the town's present character. It is currently a residential and professional hub.

Geography
Located in the Greater Boston Area of eastern Massachusetts, Burlington is bordered by Bedford on the west, Billerica on the north, Wilmington on the northeast, Woburn on the southeast, and Lexington on the south. Burlington is 12 mi south of Lowell, 12 mi northwest of Boston, 36 mi southeast of Fitchburg, and 224 mi from New York City. Its highest point is Greenleaf Mountain (290 ft above sea level), and its lowest point is the Great Meadow 150 ft above sea level. The elevation at Town Hall is 220 ft above sea level. The largest body of water is the 500 e6USgal Mill Pond Reservoir in the eastern part of the town.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 11.9 sqmi, of which 11.8 sqmi is land and 0.1 sqmi, or 0.59%, is water. There are different area codes in Burlington: 781, 617, and 339.

Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 24,498 people, 9,668 households, and 6,374 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,936.4 PD/sqmi. There were 8,445 housing units at an average density of 2,087.7 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the town was 79.2% White, 3.3% Black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 13.4% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.32% from other races, and 0.86% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.4% of the population.

There were 8,289 households, out of which 32.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.2% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.1% were non-families. Of all households, 19.1% were made up of individuals, and 7.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.76 and the average family size was 3.18.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 23.6% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 31.1% from 25 to 44, 25.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.7 males.

In 2014, the median household income of the town stood at $95,465. The per capita income was $41,849 and 4.7% of the population lived below the poverty line. According to an earlier estimate from 2007, the median income for a household in the town was $86,052, and the median income for a family was $99,123. Males had a median income of $55,635 versus $36,486 for females. About 1.3% of families and 1.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.8% of those under age 18 and 1.8% of those age 65 or over.

Foreign-born population
, 23.8% of the residents of Burlington were born outside of the United States.

Points of interest

 * The Burlington Town Common and Simonds Park area is in the center of town and there are multiple parks and public recreation facilities throughout town which have basketball courts, tennis courts, baseball fields, soccer fields, gymnasia, and an indoor skating rink (Burlington Ice Palace) and a skatepark.
 * The Burlington Public Library is on Sears Street adjoining the Town Common.
 * The Burlington Historical Museum, open during the Summer is located on Bedford Street at the intersection of Cambridge Street.
 * The Meeting House of the Second Parish in Woburn is on Lexington Street, just off of the Town Common.
 * The Burlington Sculpture Park is located between the town’s police station and the Grandview Tavern, across from the Common. It features a collection of sculptures from artists from around the globe along with a picnic area.
 * The Mill Pond Conservation Area is in the eastern part of town bordering Woburn and Wilmington. The largest conservation area in Burlington, the Mill Pond Conservation Area includes over 140 acre of rolling and steep terrain. Numerous marked and unmarked trails cross through the conservation area which allow for hiking or bicycle riding. The land has numerous access points, including the corner of Winter and Chestnut Streets, through a gate at the end of Hansen Avenue, and through a gate at the end of the offshoot from Town Line Road.
 * The Mill Pond is located within the Mill Pond Conservation Area. Fishing is allowed with a special permit. The pond is feeding one of the two water treatment plants in Burlington. The Mill Pond Water Treatment Plant was upgraded in 2007 and has the capacity to treat up to 6 e6USgal of water per day. On the pond's island there is a rope swing, an attraction for many locals.
 * The Burlington Landlocked Forest, also known as the Burlington Landlocked Parcel, consists of 270 acre spanning the borders of Burlington, Bedford, and Lexington, and contains 12 mi of hiking-mountain biking trails, vernal pools, abundant wildlife, historic stone walls and other structures, meadows, and old-growth forest. The majority of the land is owned by the Town of Burlington, which has kept it as open space since acquiring it by eminent domain in 1985. It borders Route 3 in Burlington to the east, Route 62 in Bedford to the north, conservation land in Lexington to the west, and Route 128 to the South. The main trailhead to the Forest is located at the intersection of Routes 3 and 62 in Bedford. A secondary trailhead can be found on Turning Mill Road in Lexington, under the power lines at the site of the future West Lexington Greenway. At the time of its purchase, the Landlocked Parcel was not protected land. There were discussions in 2008 between the Town of Burlington and Patriot Partners to sell the land to the developer who would develop part of the forest to build a large biotechnology complex. A citizen group, Friends of the Burlington Landlocked Forest, was organized to prevent this sale and to make the Forest designated conservation land. In 2017, the Burlington Town Meeting voted to rezone the land as open space.
 * Mary Cummings Park was envisioned as one of the great public parks of Greater Boston, but it fell into great neglect. This 216 acre public park on the Burlington-Woburn border was created by Mary P.C. Cummings in 1927 and was entrusted to the City of Boston to be kept forever open as a recreational park. In recent years, the City of Boston has tried to discourage public access and has investigated selling the park to fund the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Burlington RC Flyers maintain a field in the park. The park is now managed by the Trustees of Reservation.
 * The Kevin James movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop was filmed in the Burlington Mall, and scenes from the Ben Affleck movie The Company Men were filmed in an office building off of Wall Street, near Route 128.

Government
Burlington is governed by a 126-member representative Town Meeting (18 representatives elected per precinct) and a five-member executive Select Board.

Burlington Cable Access Television (BCAT) is a non-profit Public-access television cable TV facility that was formed in 1987. BCAT operates three: Public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV channels. Town meetings and events can also be seen on demand on BCAT's website.

Burlington Police Department
The Burlington Police Department (BPD) has the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation in the town of Burlington. The Burlington Police Department has 64 sworn officers who are commanded by Chief Thomas Browne. There are several Divisions within the BPD, including Patrol, Detectives, Domestic Violence, Traffic, Community Service, School Resource, Crime Analysis, Records, K-9, and the Bike Unit. The Burlington Police Department is also one of 54 law enforcement agencies that comprise the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC). The Burlington Police Department is located at 45 Center Street in Burlington.

Route 128/I-95 and Route 3 traverse through Burlington and motor vehicle laws are enforced primarily by the Massachusetts State Police on these roadways.

Burlington Fire Department
The Burlington Fire Department has a force of 41 firefighters and 16 officers who are commanded by Chief Michael Patterson. Three engines, one tower, and one BLS and one ALS rescue/ambulance respond from two fire stations and average over 3,200 runs annually. Burlington also operates a hazardous materials/cascade unit and a brush unit. The Burlington Fire Department Headquarters is located at 21 Center Street in Burlington. The Burlington Fire Department Station Two is located at 114 Terrace Hall Avenue in Burlington.

Education
Burlington has six public schools (four elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school) which comprise the Burlington Public School District. The elementary schools are Fox Hill, Francis Wyman, Memorial, and Pine Glen. The middle school is Marshall Simonds, and one of the town parks is named after Marshall Simonds. The high school is Burlington High School. Burlington is also served by the Shawsheen Valley Technical High School. In addition, it is home to several private schools.

The town operates a Before and After School Program and offers an integrated preschool program.

Burlington is also the home to a satellite campus of Northeastern University.

Economy
Companies based in Burlington include:
 * Avid Technology
 * Desktop Metal
 * Endurance International Group
 * Greylock Partners,
 * Keurig Dr Pepper
 * Lahey Hospital & Medical Center
 * Nuance Communications.

Transportation
Routes 128 (I-95), 3, 3A and, 62 passes through Burlington. MBTA bus routes 350, 351, 352 and 354 operated by the MBTA run through the town, as do Lowell Regional Transit Authority, Lexpress (Lexington), and B-Line (Burlington) buses. The closest MBTA 'T' subway stations are Alewife, Cambridge, 9 mi to the south-east (the station has a large parking garage) and Wellington Station, Medford, on the Orange Line, roughly 10 mi to the east (also has large parking garage). MBTA Commuter Rail and Logan Express services are available at the Anderson Regional Transportation Center in neighboring Woburn, about 3 mi to the east.

Notable people

 * James MacGregor Burns, Pulitzer Prize winning historian and political scientist
 * Peter Carruthers and Kitty Carruthers, silver medalists, 1984 Winter Olympics, Pairs Figure Skating
 * Roger Cook, head landscaper, This Old House
 * Martha E. Sewall Curtis (1858–1915), suffragist, writer
 * Jeremy Dooley, author, internet personality on Roosterteeth.com and YouTube
 * Kali Flanagan, 2018 Winter Olympics, ice hockey
 * Mark Fusco and Scott Fusco, 1984 Winter Olympics, US Olympic hockey team
 * David Lovering, drummer of the alternative rock band Pixies
 * Roderick MacKinnon, co-recipient, 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
 * Stephen P. Mugar, founder of the Star Market chain of supermarkets and philanthropist
 * Jay Pandolfo, NHL forward, primarily with the New Jersey Devils and assistant coach of the Boston Bruins
 * Amy Poehler, actress and comedian, Saturday Night Live, Parks and Recreation
 * Steve Strachan, NFL running back, Los Angeles Raiders
 * James Walker, president, Harvard University, 1853–1860
 * Steven Wright, actor, comedian

General sources

 * Robert J. Costa (August 11, 2001). Burlington. Images of America). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-0902-0.

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

title: Burlington, Massachusetts


text:
Framingham, Massachusetts

Framingham is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,  United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers 25 mi2 with a population of 72,362 in 2020, making it the 14th most populous municipality in Massachusetts. Residents voted in favor of adopting a charter to transition from a representative town meeting system to a mayor–council government in April 2017, and the municipality transitioned to city status on January 1, 2018. Before it transitioned, it had been the largest town by population in Massachusetts.

The city has one of the largest Brazilian American populations in the United States, with a considerable Brazilian presence since the 1980s.

History
Prior to European colonization, the region around Framingham was inhabited by the indigenous Nipmuc. They lived in settlements established alongside the Washakamaug ("eel fishing place") or what is today called Farm Pond. The Nipmuc people used game management techniques through the hunting of deer and beaver, fishing in ponds and streams, as well as established growing areas for the Three Sisters (squash, corn, beans) in the nearby hills. The ancient Native trail later known as the Old Connecticut Path also ran through this area. During the initial period of colonization of the region by Puritan settlers, the Nipmuc suffered a rapid decline in population due to the introduction of foreign infectious diseases to which they had no immunity and violence related to settler colonialism. Many of the Nipmuc people were forced into praying towns including nearby Natick.

The first European settler in the area was John Stone who established a farm on the west bank of the Sudbury River in 1647. In 1660, Thomas Danforth, an official of the Bay Colony received a grant of land at "Danforth's Farms" and began to accumulate over 15000 acre.

Between 1675 and 1676, King Philip's War created great tensions between English settlers and the Nipmuc people in the area. During this time, Nipmuc leader Tantamous, who lived on Nobscot Hill and who resisted Christianization by the English, was arrested with his family members and other Nipmuc men by the colonial government in 1676 for what the colony deemed treason and they were incarcerated on Deer Island. He would escape, be recaptured, and later hung on Boston Common. In January 1676, a group of Nipmuc men went to the Eames family homestead to demand that they return a stolen corn harvest. Although the historical record is unclear as to the exact details, this would result in an outbreak of violence between the Nipmuc men and the Eames family, where Mary Eames and five children were killed.

As more settlers moved to the town, it would be named Framlingham after Thomas Danforth's hometown in England. Over time, Thomas Danforth strenuously resisted petitions for incorporation of the town, which was officially incorporated in 1700, following his death the previous year. Why the "L" was dropped from the new town's name is not known. The first church was organized in 1701, the first teacher was hired in 1706, and the first permanent schoolhouse was built in 1716.

On February 22, 1775, the British general Thomas Gage sent two officers and an enlisted man out of Boston to survey the route to Worcester, Massachusetts. In Framingham, those spies stopped at Buckminster's Tavern. They watched the town militia muster outside the building, impressed with the men's numbers but not their discipline. Though "the whole company" came into the tavern after their drill, the officers remained undetected and continued on their mission the next day. Gage did not order a march along that route, instead ordering troops to Concord, Massachusetts, on April 18–19. Framingham sent two militia companies totaling about 130 men into the Battles of Lexington and Concord that followed; one of those men was wounded.

In the years before the American Civil War, Framingham was an annual gathering-spot for members of the abolitionist movement. Each Independence Day from 1854 to 1865, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society held a rally in a picnic area called Harmony Grove on Farm Pond near what is now downtown Framingham. At the 1854 rally, William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, judicial decisions enforcing it, and the United States Constitution. Other prominent abolitionists present that day included William Cooper Nell, Sojourner Truth, Wendell Phillips, Lucy Stone, and Henry David Thoreau.

During the post-World War II baby boom, Framingham, like many other suburban areas, experienced a large increase in population and housing. Much of the housing constructed during that time consisted of split-level and ranch-style houses.

Framingham is known for the Framingham Heart Study, as well as for the Dennison Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1844 as a jewelry and watch box manufacturing company by Aaron Lufkin Dennison, who became the pioneer of the American System of Watch Manufacturing at the nearby Waltham Watch Company. His brother Eliphalet Whorf Dennison developed the company into a sizable industrial complex which merged in 1990 into Avery Dennison, with headquarters in Pasadena, California, and active corporate offices in the town.

In 2000, Framingham celebrated its Tercentennial. Framingham soon rose to become the largest town in Massachusetts, commonly referred to by the people of Framingham as "The largest town in the country." Framingham had attempted to become a city on three prior occasions 1993, 1997, and 2013, all of which were rejected by the people of Framingham. However, on January 1, 2018, Framingham became a city and Yvonne M. Spicer was inaugurated as its first mayor, thus becoming the first popularly elected African-American female mayor in Massachusetts.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 26.4 square miles (68.5 km$2$), of which 25.1 square miles (65.1 km$2$) is land and 1.3 square miles (3.4 km$2$)  (4.99%) is water.

Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 68,318 people, 26,173 households, and 16,535 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,732.7 PD/sqmi. There were 27,529 housing units, of which 1,356, or 4.9%, were vacant. The racial makeup of the city was 71.9% White, 5.8% Black, 0.3% Native American, 6.3% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 10.9% from some other race, and 4.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 13.4% of the population (4.7% Puerto Rican, 1.8% Guatemalan, 1.5% Salvadoran, 1.1% Dominican, 0.9% Mexican, 0.6% Colombian, 0.3% Peruvian). (Source: 2010 Census Quickfacts)

Of the 26,173 households, 31.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.2% were headed by married couples living together, 10.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.8% were non-families. 28.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.0% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47, and the average family size was 3.03.

As of 2010, 20.9% of the population were under the age of 18, 9.8% were from 18 to 24, 30.0% were from 25 to 44, 25.8% were from 45 to 64, and 13.6% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.8 males.

In 2017, the estimated median income for a household in the city was $84,050, and the median income for a family was $101,078. Male full-time workers had a median income of $61,659, versus $54,714 for females. The per capita income for the city was $38,917. About 7.5% of families and 11.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.7% of those under age 18 and 9.4% of those age 65 or over.

Brazilian immigrants have a major presence in Framingham. Since the 1980s, a large segment of the Brazilian population has come from the single city of Governador Valadares.

Government and politics
Framingham's Home Rule Charter was approved by voters on April 4, 2017, and took effect on January 1, 2018. On that date, Yvonne M. Spicer was inaugurated as Framingham's first mayor.

Elections are held in November of odd-numbered years, to elect a full-time mayor serving a four-year term, and an 11-member city council comprising nine district members serving two-year terms, and two at-large members serving four-year terms. The mayor replaced the Board of Selectmen as the chief executive, and the City Council replaced Representative Town Meeting as the legislative body. The Mayor and at-large-councilors are limited to a maximum of three consecutive terms in office and district councilors are limited to six consecutive terms in office.

The School Committee has ten members: one elected from each of the nine districts, serving two-year terms, and the mayor, who serves as a tenth member and may only vote to break a tie.

The Board of Library Trustees and the Board of Cemetery Trustees have also elected positions serving for four-year terms, with half the membership elected at alternating municipal elections.

The Charter provides for an automatic review of the Charter five years after its adoption and periodically thereafter.

The city maintains a police department.

Education
The Framingham School Department can trace its roots back to 1706, when the town hired its first schoolmaster, Deacon Joshua Hemenway. Although Framingham had its first schoolmaster, it did not get its own public school building until 1716. The first high school, the Framingham Academy, opened its doors in 1792; however, this school was eventually closed due to financing issues and the legality of the town providing funds for a private school. The first town-operated high school opened in 1852, and has been in operation continuously in numerous locations throughout the town.

Framingham has 14 public schools which are part of the Framingham Public School District. These includes Framingham High School, three middle schools (Walsh, Fuller, and Cameron), nine elementary schools (Barbieri, Brophy, Dunning, Hemenway, King, McCarthy, Potter Road, Stapleton, Harmony Grove), and the Blocks Pre-School. The school district's main offices are located in the Fuller Administration Building on Flagg Drive with additional offices at the King School on Water Street. The city also has a regional vocational high school and one regional charter school. Framingham is also home to several private schools, including Summit Montessori School, the Sudbury Valley School, one parochial school, one Jewish day school, and several specialty schools.

Since 1998, when Framingham began upgrading its schools, it has performed major renovations to Cameron, Wilson, McCarthy, Fuller and Framingham High School. Two public school buildings that were mothballed due to financial issues or population drops have been leased to the Metrowest Jewish Day School (at the former Juniper Hill Elementary) and Mass Bay Community College (at the former Farley Middle school). Several schools that were no longer being used were sold off, including Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington.

Framingham has three colleges, including Framingham State University and Massachusetts Bay Community College's Framingham Campus.

Transportation
Framingham is approximately halfway between Worcester, the commercial center of Central Massachusetts, and Boston, New England's leading port and metropolitan area. Rail and highway facilities connect these major centers and other communities in the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area.

Air
The closest airport with scheduled international passenger traffic is Boston's Logan International Airport, 25 mi from Framingham. Worcester Regional Airport, about 27 mi away, began scheduled flights to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in November 2013.

Major highways
Framingham is served by one Interstate and four state highways:

Rail

 * Direct rail service to Boston and Chicago via Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited, as well as to all other points on the Amtrak network via a connection in another city.
 * MBTA commuter rail service is available to South Station and Back Bay Station, Boston, via the MBTA's Framingham/Worcester Line, which connects South Station in Boston and Union Station in Worcester. Travel time to Back Bay Station is 42–45 minutes. It was called the Framingham Commuter Rail Line, as Framingham was the end of the line, until rail traffic was expanded to Worcester in 1996. The line also serves Newton, Wellesley, Natick, Ashland, Southborough, Westborough, and Grafton.
 * CSX provides freight rail service in Framingham.

Bus

 * MassPort operates the Logan Express bus service seven days per week providing a direct connection to Logan Airport. The bus terminal and paid parking facility are on the Shoppers' World Mall property, off the Massachusetts Turnpike exit 13, between Route 9 and Route 30.
 * Peter Pan Bus Lines provides service to Worcester, New York, and Boston.
 * The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), provides THE RIDE, a paratransit service for the elderly and disabled.
 * The MetroWest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA) operates a regional bus service which provides service to other local routes connecting the various regions of town and fixed route public bus lines servicing multiple communities in the MetroWest region, including the towns of Ashland, Holliston, Hopkinton, Milford, Marlborough, Sudbury, Sherborn, Natick, and Weston.

Commuter services
Park and ride services:
 * MassDOT operates a free park and ride facility at the parking lot at the intersection of Flutie Pass and East Road on the south side of Shoppers' World Mall.
 * MassDOT also operates a free park and ride facility at a parking lot adjacent to exit 12 of the Massachusetts Turnpike, across from California Avenue on the west side of Framingham.

Economy
Framingham's economy is predominantly derived from retail and office complexes. There are scatterings of small manufacturing facilities and commercial services such as plumbing, mechanical and electrical expected to be found in communities of its size. Framingham has three major business districts within the city, The "Golden Triangle", Downtown/South Framingham, and West Framingham. Additionally, there are several smaller business hubs in the villages of Framingham Center, Saxonville, Nobscot, and along the Route 9 corridor.

Golden Triangle
The Golden Triangle was originally a three square mile district on the eastern side of Framingham, bordered by Worcester Rd. (Route 9), Cochituate Rd. (Route 30), and Speen Street in Natick. In 1993, the area began to expand beyond the borders of the triangle with construction of a BJ's Wholesale Club and a Super Stop & Shop just north of Route 30. It now includes the original area plus parts of Old Connecticut Path., Concord St. (Route 126), and Speen St. north of Route 30. Because of the size and complexity of this area, Framingham and Natick cooperatively operate it as a single distinct district with similar zoning. The area is one of the largest shopping districts in New England.

The area was formed with the construction of Shoppers World in 1951. Shoppers' World was a large open air shopping mall, the second in the US and the first east of the Mississippi River. The mall drew many other retail construction projects to the area, including Marshalls (1961, rebuilt as Bed Bath & Beyond 1997), Caldor (1966, Rebuilt as Wal-Mart in 2002), Bradlees (1960s, rebuilt as Kohl's in 2002), the Route 30 Mall (1970), an AMC Framingham 15, the Framingham Mall (1978, rebuilt 2000), and Lowe's (formerly the Verizon Building, 2006). Complementary developments in Natick include the Natick Mall (1966, rebuilt in 1991, expanded 2007 & renamed Natick Collection), Sherwood Plaza (1960), Cloverleaf Marketplace (1978), and the Home Depot. In 1994, Shoppers' World was demolished and replaced with a strip mall named Shoppers World. There are also seven hotels and two car dealerships located within the Triangle.

In addition to retail properties, there are large office developments in the area including several companies headquartered in the triangle; the world headquarters of TJX is at the junction of Route 30 and Speen St, as is the main office of IDG and IDC. The American Cancer Society has an office in Framingham. A Carling Brewery began operations in 1956, ending in 1975. Their buildings later housed Prime Computer and Boston Scientific before demolition in 2018 for a new MathWorks facility. Sealtest had a manufacturing facility in Framingham which was used by Breyers from 1964 to 2011

Downtown and South Framingham

The downtown area is between Memorial Square, formed by the intersection of Concord St. and Union Ave., to the north, and its mirror intersection at the junction of Irving St. and Hollis St. on the south end. The area is bisected by Waverly St. (Route 135) and the MBTA Commuter Rail tracks. The anchoring structure of Downtown is the city hall, The Memorial Building. From 2015 to 2016, the whole area underwent a multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the intersection of Union Ave. and Concord St. that replaced the traffic circle with a signal-controlled intersection. Additional lights were installed at the Irving St./Hollis St. intersection, while older signals in the area were upgraded. All sidewalks in the area were to be replaced, lighting upgraded, and new amenities such as seating and bicycle racks were also installed. The project was scheduled to begin in 2012 but has been delayed to 2014–2015. Further delays pushed the project into 2015 due to needed electrical utility upgrades and replacement.

South Framingham became the commercial center of the town with the advent of the railroad in the 1880s. It eventually came to house Dennison Manufacturing and the former General Motors Framingham Assembly plant, but the area underwent a financial downturn after the closure of these facilities during the late 1980s. An influx of Hispanic and Brazilian immigrants helped to revitalize the district starting in the early 2000s. Along with Brazilian and Spanish oriented retail shops, there are restaurants, legal and financial services, the city offices and library, police headquarters, a performing arts center, and the local branch of the Social Security Administration. Several Asian and Indian stores and restaurants add to the rich ethnic flavor of the area, and many small businesses, restaurants and automotive-oriented shops line Waverly St. from Natick in east to Winter St. in the west.

In 2006, the Fitts Market & Hemenway buildings façades underwent a restoration project; these newly renovated structures received a 2006 Massachusetts Historical Commission Preservation Award in the Restoration and Rehabilitation Category. In addition, several retail and housing projects involving the Arcade Building and the former Dennison Building Complex are in the planning stages or under construction.

West Framingham
The business section on the West Side of Framingham runs primarily along Route 9, starting at Temple St., and is dominated by two large office/industrial parks: the Framingham Industrial Park on the north side of Route 9 and another park on the south side, both on the Framingham/Ashland/Southborough border. Bose, Staples and Applause have their world headquarters in these parks, as does convenience store chain Cumberland Farms; in addition, Netezza, Genzyme, Capital One, CA Technologies, ITT Tech and the local paper, The MetroWest Daily News, all have major facilities there. Two of Framingham's seven major auto dealerships are also in West Framingham.

The large tracts of multi-story apartment and condominium complexes line both sides of Route 9 from Temple St. to the industrial parks. These buildings represent the majority of Framingham's multi-family dwellings, and along with the business complexes, helped create a large network of support services on the West Side: a supermarket, dozens of restaurants and pubs, hotels and a large day-care facility all are in the two-mile (3 km) section of Route 9 from Temple St. to Ashland.

Villages and Route 9

The Framingham Centre Common Historic District is the city's physical and historic center. Formed at the junctions of Worcester Rd. (Route 9), Pleasant St. (Route 30), High St., Main St. and Edgell Rd. the dominating presence is Framingham State University. The school has several thousand students, about one third of whom live on campus. In the late 1960s, MassHighway replaced the intersection with an overpass, depressing Route 9 below the local roads, and destroying the south half of the old Center retail district. The remaining half houses several small stores, restaurants, realtors and legal offices. The old Boston and Worcester Street Railway depot, on the east side of the center, was converted into a strip mall in the early 1980s and houses the Center Postal Station (01703) and several small stores. The center is rounded out by One and Two Edgell Rd. (two small retail/office buildings), the historic village hall, the Jonathan Maynard Building (a former school, now a part of the Framingham State University campus which houses the Danforth Art Museum ), the Framingham History Center (formerly the Framingham Historical Society and Museum), several banks, a Chinese restaurant, the American Medical Response paramedic station and McCarthy Office Building.

The village of Nobscot, at the intersection of Water St., Edmands Rd. and Edgell Rd. near Nobscot Hill, and the Pinefield/Saxonville villages, located where Concord St., Water St., and Central St. intersect, are home to several small office buildings, strip malls and gas stations. in 2016, the town moved its satellite branch of the public library named for Christa McAuliffe from Saxonville to a new facility across from the Hemenway School in Nobscot. Saxonville is the home of the former Roxbury Carpet Company mill complex buildings (originally powered by the adjoining Sudbury River), now an industrial park, and is one of the city's historical districts.

Healthcare
Framingham is served by MetroWest Medical Center (formerly Framingham Union Hospital, which also includes Leonard Morse Hospital campus in Natick)

Newspapers and websites
The City of Framingham is served by:
 * Framingham Source, a local news website.
 * Framingham Online News, a local news and community information website.
 * The MetroWest Daily News, a daily broadsheet.
 * The Framingham Tab, a weekly local current events tabloid.
 * The Boston Globe provides a regional edition called Globe West that covers Framingham and the MetroWest area.
 * Boston.com has a Your Town website that covers Framingham.
 * A Semana, a weekly, Brazilian-Portuguese language local current events tabloid.
 * The Gatepost, a weekly student run newspaper published by Framingham State University.

Television and cable
Framingham has a public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV channel and local origination television station called Access Framingham (formerly FPAC-TV), that airs on Channel 9 Comcast, Channel 3 RCN and Channel 43 Verizon. Residents can create and produce their own television programs that reflect the personality of the community, and have them cablecast on the public-access television cable TV channels.

Framingham High School has a student-run television station, FHS-TV, that broadcasts locally; "Flyer News", its morning news program, has won 11 National High School Emmy Awards.

The City of Framingham operates the Government Channel shown on Comcast channel 99, RCN 13/HD613, and Verizon 42. The Government Channel operation provides programming sponsored by or for the City of Framingham. Commission meetings are cablecast live to inform residents and encourage participation in local government. Some of the programming provided, keeps residents abreast of road closings, construction updates, recycling efforts, public safety information, and special events in the community. The Government Channel is committed to making local government more accessible to all residents.

Radio

 * WXKS (AM 1200) is an AM broadcasting station featuring talk radio and religious programming. Owned by iHeartMedia and licensed to Newton, Massachusetts with studios on 99 Revere Beach Parkway in Medford, Massachusetts;
 * WSRO (AM 650) is an AM broadcasting station featuring Portuguese-language programming that leases studio and tower space from WXKS. Owned by the Langer Broadcasting Group, LLC and licensed to Natick, Massachusetts with studios on 100 Mount Wayte Ave in Framingham;
 * WQOM (AM 1060) is an AM broadcasting station featuring business talk radio programming that leases studio and tower space from WXKS. Owned by the Langer Broadcasting Group, LLC and licensed to Ashland, Massachusetts with studios on 100 Mount Wayte Ave in Framingham;
 * WDJM-FM (91.3 FM) is Framingham State University's FM broadcasting station that features an open format with progressive rock, hip-hop, metal and electronic music. It is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is licensed to Framingham, Massachusetts with studios at 100 State St. in Framingham;
 * Framingham Amateur Radio Association is the local amateur radio enthusiasts group.

Film
In the spring of 2016, the town of Framingham was one of the settings for the film Patriots Day about the Boston Marathon bombing, starring Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan, Alex Wolff, Melissa Benoist and a cameo appearance by former athlete David Ortiz. In spring 2009, Framingham was also used for the film The Company Men, starring Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Large parts of the film Don't Look Up, directed by Worcester, Massachusetts native Adam McKay and starring Academy Award winners Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep, were shot in Framingham.

Points of interest
Framingham features dozens of athletic fields and civic facilities spread throughout the city in schools and public parks. Many of the recreational facilities were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the New Deal.

Culture

 * Amazing Things Arts Center
 * Buckminster Square- site of the Revolutionary War statue depicting a Blacksmith preparing for the march up Battle Road in 1775.
 * Framingham Community Theater
 * Framingham History Center (formerly the Framingham Historical Society and Museum)
 * Danforth Museum
 * Metrowest Youth Symphony Orchestra
 * Pike Haven Homestead was built in 1693 by Jeremiah Pike. He and his descendants were town and militia officers, yeomen, and makers of spinning wheels in the colonial period. This house had been occupied by the same family for eight generations.

Parks

 * Bowditch Field is Framingham's main athletic facility. It is on Union Avenue midway between Downtown and Framingham Center and was the main athletic facility for the town. It houses a large multi-purpose football stadium that included permanent bleachers on both sides of the field. There is still a baseball field, tennis courts, a track and field practice area, and the headquarters of the city Parks Department. Bowditch, along with Butterworth and Winch Parks, were all built during the Great Depression of the 1930s as WPA projects. It underwent a complete renovation/reconstruction in 2010. It is also the current site of Framingham High's graduation ceremony.
 * Butterworth Park is at the corner of Grant St and Arthur St. The park occupies a square block near downtown. The park has a baseball stadium that includes permanent bleachers on one side of the field, a basketball court and a tennis court. There is street parking on three sides. The bleachers have since been taken down.
 * Winch Park is the sister park to Butterworth and is in Saxonville next to the Framingham High School. It includes a baseball stadium that includes permanent bleachers on one side of the field, a basketball court, tennis courts and two large practice fields used for football, soccer and lacrosse. There are two additional multi-use fields on the other side of the high school's gymnasium building.
 * Callahan State Park is a large state park run by the DCR located in North Framingham in the city's northwest corner.
 * Cochituate State Park on Lake Cochituate has a small section in Framingham where Saxonville Beach is on the north western shore of the lake.
 * Danforth Park on Danforth Street, not far from the Wayland town line. The small park has playground with a half basketball court and a small baseball/kickball field.
 * Framingham Common is in Framingham Center in front of the old Town Hall along Edgell Road and Vernon Street. It features an outdoor stage for concerts and other fair weather events. It is a favorite of the students of Framingham State University, and the site of their annual graduation ceremonies.
 * Cushing Park on the South Side is a passive recreational area. The Framingham Peace and 9/11 Memorials are within the park across the street from Farm Pond, along with the Cushing Chapel. During World War II, the United States War Department constructed the Cushing General Hospital (named for Dr. Harvey Cushing) on this site; the chapel was part of the hospital complex. After the Korean War the hospital was sold to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for use as a geriatric hospital. After the hospital was closed in 1991, the land was converted into a 57-acre public park.
 * Long Athletic Complex On the south side of Framingham, near downtown the complex is the host of three little league baseball diamonds (Carter, Tusconi, Merloni), two Babe Ruth baseball fields (one being Long field), a softball field, outdoor basketball court, and two concession stands. The complex is surrounded by Keefe Tech High School, Loring Arena, and Barbari Elementary School. All of the fields have lights, and they host almost all of Framingham's Little League games. Long field is the host of JV high school games as well as most Framingham Babe Ruth games. The concession stands are both non-profit and all the money goes to the Framingham baseball league.

Conservation land

 * Framingham has about 400 acre of land that has been placed into public conservation.
 * The Wittenborg Woods was donated to the town in 1999 by Harriet Wittenborg. The properties were originally purchased from Henry Ford in the 1940s. Henry Ford owned all of the land around the Wayside Inn in nearby Sudbury, and Harriet (and her husband) were required to interview with Mr. Ford to determine if they would be good stewards of the land.
 * The Morency Woods is a parcel of land that is physically located in Natick, Massachusetts on the Framingham border, but which is owned by the City of Framingham. This forested land was used as a sewer bed up until the mid-1940s and was placed into conservation in 2001.
 * The Sudbury Valley Trustees has approximately 200 acre of land in North Framingham and along the Sudbury River in a private conservation trust.

Recreation

 * Garden in the Woods, operated by the New England Wild Flower Society, is a botanical garden that features the largest landscaped collection of native wildflowers in New England. It is in Nobscot, off of Hemenway Road.
 * Framingham Country Club, along Salem End Road on the South Side, is a private club that features an 18-hole course with 6580 yd of golf from the longest tees for a par of 72.
 * Nobscot Scout Reservation is a private facility owned by the Knox Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America and is open to the public during most of the year.
 * The city has several public beaches including Saxonville beach on Lake Cochituate, Washakum Beach on Lake Washakum, and the beach at Learned Pond.
 * The former Cushing hospital grounds serve as walking, biking, rollerblading, and picnic areas.
 * Farm Pond in South Framingham once used to host Fourth of July Fireworks, now is a picnic area.
 * Edward F. Loring Skating Arena, near Farm Pond at the corner of Fountain and Dudley Roads, is a municipal skating arena for area groups on a rental basis and public skating and stick time is available September through April.
 * The Cochituate Rail Trail is a 3.7 mile, multi-use trail for walkers, joggers and bikers that runs from the Village of Saxonville in Framingham to Natick Center. While the Framingham section opened in 2015, the entire length of the trail opened to the public in 2021.

Politics

 * Crispus Attucks, killed in the Boston Massacre
 * Deborah D. Blumer, Massachusetts State Representative for Framingham (2001–2006)
 * Mary Beth Cahill, campaign manager for John Kerry's bid for presidency
 * Josephine Collins, Suffragist; member of the National Woman's Party
 * Jack Patrick Lewis, Massachusetts State Representative for 7th Middlesex District (2017–present)
 * Robert Owens, Massachusetts State Representative and businessman
 * Maria Robinson, Massachusetts State Representative for 6th Middlesex District (2019–present)
 * Adam Schiff, U.S. Representative for California
 * Yvonne M. Spicer, first black Mayor of Framingham and the first African-American woman to be popularly elected mayor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
 * Josiah Trowbridge, former Mayor of Buffalo, New York

Sports

 * Carmelo Hayes, pro wrestler
 * Blake Bellefeuille, NHL forward
 * David Blatt (born 1959), Israeli-American basketball player and coach (most recently, for the Cleveland Cavaliers)
 * R. J. Brewer, pro wrestler
 * Ron Burton, former NFL running back for the Boston Patriots, 1960 to 1965
 * Carl Corazzini, NHL Hockey Player, Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers
 * Rich Gedman, former Major League Baseball catcher for the Boston Red Sox, 1980 to 1990
 * Toby Kimball, NBA player for the Boston Celtics, San Diego Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Kansas City Kings, Philadelphia 76ers, and the New Orleans Jazz
 * C. J. McLaughlin, racing driver
 * Lou Merloni, Major League Baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, 1998 to 2003
 * Kevin Nee, professional Strongman, youngest man ever to become professional Strongman
 * Danny O'Connor, American professional boxer in the Light Welterweight division
 * Tal Smith, baseball executive, former General Manager of the Houston Astros
 * Mark Sweeney, Major League Baseball player
 * Pie Traynor, former Major League Baseball player, now in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame

Arts and sciences

 * Dave Amato, current guitarist for REO Speedwagon
 * Ezra Ames (1768–1836), portrait painter in the 18th–19th centuries
 * Anthony Barbieri, comedy writer
 * Daniel Belknap (1771–1815), composer
 * Michael J. Clouse, songwriter, music producer
 * Nancy Dowd, Academy Award winning screenwriter for Coming Home (1978)
 * Alexander Rice Esty (1826–1881), architect
 * Ginger Fish, member of Marilyn Manson
 * Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, pioneering African-American in the field of psychology and Alzheimer's disease
 * Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, prominent African-American sculptor and artist from the 1920s
 * Greg F. Gifune, Novelist, Editor, Film Producer, born in Framingham
 * Leila Goldkuhl, fashion model
 * David Hayes, music director of The Philadelphia Singers, Director of Orchestral and Conducting Studies at Mannes College The New School for Music
 * Esther A. Hopkins, chemist, environmental attorney, and Framingham selectwoman
 * Amy Leventer, marine biologist, micropaleontologist, Antarctic researcher
 * Og Mandino (1923–1996), author
 * Joe Maneri (1927–2009), noted classical composer and jazz improviser
 * Christa McAuliffe, teacher, astronaut killed in the Challenger disaster
 * Jo Dee Messina, country music singer
 * Gordon Mumma, composer
 * Edward Lewis Sturtevant, botanist, scientist, author
 * Nancy Travis, actress
 * Rob Urbinati, stage director, playwright
 * Sir Hubert Wilkins, Australian soldier, pilot, ornithologist, photographer and polar explorer; died in Framingham in 1958

Media

 * Tom Caron, New England Sports Network baseball analyst
 * Katie Nolan, ESPN
 * Jordan Rich, WBZ (AM) radio host
 * Mike Reiss, ESPN Patriots Analyst

Military

 * Richard W. Higgins, pilot in the USAF
 * Donald K. Muchow, Chief of Chaplains of the U.S. Navy
 * John Nixon, General in the Continental Army during the American Revolution
 * Peter Salem, Revolutionary War soldier

Religious

 * Gerald Fitzgerald, Roman Catholic priest
 * Paul S. Loverde, Retired Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Arlington
 * Charles Henry Parkhurst, clergyman and social reformer who broke Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall Democratic party political machine
 * William A. Rice, Roman Catholic bishop in Belize

Sister cities

 * Lomonosov, Russia
 * Governador Valadares, Brazil

title: Framingham, Massachusetts


text:
Maynard, Massachusetts

Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 22 miles west of Boston, in the MetroWest and Greater Boston region of Massachusetts and borders Acton, Concord, Stow and Sudbury. The town's population was 10,746 as of the 2020 United States Census.

Maynard is located on the Assabet River, a tributary of the Concord River. A large part of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge is located within the town, and the Assabet River Rail Trail connects the Refuge and downtown Maynard to the South Acton commuter rail station. Historic downtown Maynard is home to many shops, restaurants, galleries, a movie theater, and the former Assabet Woolen Mill, which produced wool fabrics from 1846 to 1950, including cloth for Union Army uniforms during the Civil War. Maynard was the headquarters for Digital Equipment Corporation from 1957 to 1998. Owners of the former mill complex currently lease space to office and light-industry businesses.

History

Maynard, located on the Assabet River, was first settled as a farming community by Puritan colonists in the 1600s who acquired the land comprising modern-day Maynard from local Native American tribe members who referred to the area as Pompositicut or Assabet. In 1651 Tantamous ("Old Jethro") transferred land in what is now Maynard to Herman Garrett by defaulting on a mortgaged mare and colt, and in 1684 Tantamous' son Peter Jethro, a praying Indian, and Jehojakim and ten others transferred further land in the area to the settlers. In 1676 during King Philip's War, Native Americans gathered on Pompasitticut Hill (later known as Summer Hill) to plan an attack on Sudbury. There is a story, unconfirmed by any evidence, that pirates briefly stayed at the Thomas Smith farm on Great Road, circa 1720, buried treasure nearby, and departed, never to return.

Residents of what is now Maynard fought in the Revolutionary War, including Luke Brooks of Summer Street who was in the Stow militia company which marched to Concord on April 19, 1775. In 1851 transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau wrote about his walk through the area in his famous journal. and he published a poem about Old Marlboro Road, part of which runs through Maynard. During the American Civil War, at least thirty-six residents of Assabet Village fought for the Union.

The area now known as Maynard was originally known as "Assabet Village" and was then part of the towns of Stow and Sudbury. The Town of Maynard was incorporated as an independent municipality in 1871. There were some exploratory town-founding rumblings in 1870, followed by a petition to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, filed January 26, 1871. State approval was granted April 19, 1871. In return, the new town paid Sudbury and Stow about $23,600 and $8,000 respectively. Sudbury received more money because more land came from Sudbury and Sudbury owned shares in the railroad, and the wool mill and paper mill were located in Sudbury. The population of the newly formed town—at 1,820—was larger than either of its parent towns.

Formation of new towns carved out of older ones was not unique to Maynard. Nearby Hudson, with its cluster of leather processing and shoe-making mills, seceded from Marlborough and Stow in 1866. In fact, the originally much larger Stow formed in 1683 lost land to Harvard, Shirley, Boxborough, Hudson and Maynard. The usual reason to petition the State's Committee on Towns was that a fast-growing population cluster—typically centered around mills—was too far from the schools, churches and Meeting Hall of the parent town.

The community was named after Amory Maynard, the man who, with William Knight, had bought water-rights to the Assabet River, installed a dam and built a large carpet mill in 1846–1847. The community grew along with the Assabet Woolen Mill and made wool cloth for U.S. military uniforms for the Civil War. Further downstream along the Assabet, the American Powder Mills complex manufactured gunpowder from 1835 to 1940. The woolen mill went bankrupt in 1898; it was purchased in 1899 by the American Woolen Company, a multi-state corporation, which greatly modernized and expanded the mill complex from 1900 through 1919.

There was an attempt in 1902 to change the town's name from "Maynard" to "Assabet". Some townspeople were upset that Amory Maynard had not left the town a gift before he died in 1890, and more were upset that Lorenzo Maynard, Amory's son, had withdrawn his own money from the Mill before it went bankrupt in 1898. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided to keep the name as "Maynard" without allowing the topic to come to a vote by the residents.

In the early twentieth century, the village of Maynard was more modern and urbanized than many of the surrounding areas, and people would visit Maynard to shop, including Babe Ruth who lived in nearby Sudbury during the baseball off-season, and would visit Maynard to buy cigars and play pool at pool halls on Main Street. The town had a train station, an electric trolley, hotels and movie halls.

In 1942 the U.S. Army seized one-fifth 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.

After the woolen mill finally shut down in 1950, a Worcester-based group of businessmen bought the property in July 1953 and began leasing it as office or manufacturing space. Major tenants included Raytheon and Dennison Manufacturing Company. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) moved into the complex in 1957, initially renting only 8680 ft2 for $300/month. The company grew and grew until it bought the entire complex in 1974, which led to Maynard's nickname "Mini Computer Capital of the World". DEC remained in Maynard until 1998 when it was purchased by Compaq, which was itself later bought out by Hewlett-Packard in 2002.

"The Mill", as locals call it, was renovated in the late 1990s and renamed "Clock Tower Place" (2000–2015), and then renamed "Mill & Main Place" by new owners in 2016. The site houses many businesses, including the headquarters of Powell Flutes. The mill complex is also home to the oldest, still-working, hand-wound clock in the country (see image). The clock tower was constructed in 1892 by Lorenzo Maynard as a gift to the town. The weights that power the E. Howard & Co. tower clock and bell-ringing mechanisms are wound up once a week – more than 6,000 times since the clock was installed. The process takes one to two hours. The four clock faces have always been illuminated by electric lights. For three months a year the Mill parking lot adjacent to Main Street is used on Saturdays for the Maynard Community Farmers' Market.

Glenwood Cemetery (incorporated 1871), located south of downtown Maynard, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. This still-active cemetery is the site of approximately 7,000 burials. On its east side it abuts St. Bridget's Cemetery, also in Maynard.

The Maynard family

John Maynard, born 1598, emigrated from England with his wife Elizabeth (Ashton) Maynard around 1635. Five generations later, Isaac Maynard was operating a mill in Marlborough. When he died in 1820 at age 41 his teenage son, Amory Maynard, took over the family business. The City of Boston bought Amory's water rights to Fort Meadow Pond in 1846. He partnered with William Knight to start up a woolen mill operation on the Assabet River. Amory and his wife Mary (Priest) Maynard had three sons: Lorenzo (1829–1904), William (1833–1906) and Harlan (1843–1861). Amory managed the mill from 1847 to 1885 (Knight retired in 1852). Lorenzo took over from 1885 to 1898. William had less to do with the family business—he lived in Boston a while, then Maynard again, then off to Pasadena, California, in 1885 for reasons of ill health (possibly tuberculosis). He recovered and moved back east to Worcester in 1888 for the remainder of his life. Harlan died at age 18.

Lorenzo married Lucy Davidson and had five children, but all of them died without issue—the four daughters passing away before their parents. William married Mary Adams and had seven children. Descendants of two—Harlan James and Lessie Louise—are alive today, but not living locally. William's granddaughter, Mary Augusta Sanderson, who died in 1947, was the last descendant to live in Maynard.

The Maynard Crypt is a prominent feature on the north side of Glenwood Cemetery, within sight of passers-by on Route 27. It is an imposing earth-covered mound with a granite facade facing the road. The mound is 90 ft across and about 12 ft tall. The stonework facade is approximately 30 ft across. The ceiling of the crypt has a glass skylight surmounted by an exterior cone of iron grillwork. The granite lintel above the door reads "MAYNARD." Chiseled above the lintel are the year 1880 and the Greek letters Alpha and Omega entwined with a Fleur-de-lis Cross. Amory Maynard, his wife, Mary, and twenty-one of their descendants or spouses thereof are interred in the crypt. At one point in time Amory's first son, Lorenzo, along with Lorenzo's wife and their four daughters, were also in the crypt, but in October 1904 Lorenzo's son arranged to have his six family members moved to a newly constructed mausoleum in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lorenzo had contracted for the mausoleum while still alive but died before it was completed. William, Amory's second son, was buried in the Hope Cemetery, Worcester, along with his wife and four of their seven children.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, Maynard has a total area of 5.4 square miles (13.9 km$2$), of which 5.2 square miles (13.6 km$2$) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.3 km$2$), or 2.42%, is water. Average elevation is roughly 200 ft above sea level; the highest point is Summer Hill, elevation 358 ft; the lowest is the Maynard/Acton border next to the Assabet River, at 145 ft.

The Assabet River flows through Maynard from west to east, spanned by seven road bridges and one foot bridge. The river's vertical drop from the Stow border to the Acton border is 30 ft. Initially, this was sufficient to hydropower the wool and paper mills, but both later added coal-powered steam engines. Average flow in the river is 200 cuft/s. However, in summer months the average drops to under 100 cuft/s, in drought conditions as low as 10 cuft/s The flood of March 2010 reached 2,500 cuft/s. Recent, monthly and annual riverflow data is available from the U.S. Geological Service.

Average precipitation, long-term, is 43 in per year, which includes 44 in of snow. (The snow-to-water conversion is roughly eight inches of snow melts to one inch of water.) However, there has been a trend over the past 100 years of increasing precipitation, so the more recent average is closer to 50 in/yr, and six of the snowiest winters on record have been since 1992–93.

Maynard borders the towns of Acton, Sudbury and Stow. The town owns water rights to White Pond, located about three miles south of Maynard, in Stow and Hudson.

Transportation
The nearest rail station is in South Acton on the MBTA Commuter Rail Fitchburg Line, which is 1 mi from the Maynard town line. The express commuter rail is approximately 30 minutes to Porter Square in Cambridge and 45 minutes to North Station in Boston. By driving, the connection to Route 2 is 4 mi from downtown Maynard. Connections to I-95 in the east and I-495 in the west are both 8 mi from downtown Maynard.

Construction of a 3.4 mi portion of the Assabet River Rail Trail was completed in September 2018. It runs from the South Acton train station at the north end, though the center of Maynard and along the Assabet River to the Maynard:Stow border, where, via White Pond Road, there is access to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. ARRT is open to pedestrians and non-motorized transportation (skateboards, bicycles, rollerblades, etc.).

Demographics (2010 and 2020 data)
The 2020 census put the population at 10,746 residents, a 6.3% increase from the 10,106 reported for 2010. There were 4,262 households and 2.52 people per household. The population density was 1,938 PD/sqmi. Agewise, the population was 7.6% under the age of 5 years, 21.6% under the age of 18 years, and 15.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median income for a household in the town was $105,254. The median income per capita was $50,946. Percent of persons in poverty was 3.8%. The racial makeup of the town was 92.4% White, 1.3% Black or African American, 0.0% Native American, 1.7% Asian and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.4% of the population.

From 2010 census results: The average household size was 2.38. For the households, 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.4% were married couples living together, 9.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.5% were non-families. 30.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The population distribution was 24.2% under the age of 19, 32.0% from 20 to 44, 30.9% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41.3 years. By per capita income, Maynard ranked 113 out of 351 Massachusetts towns and cities, at $39,447. The median income for a household in the town was $77,622, and the median income for a family was $104,398. About 5.6% of the population were below the poverty line.

Education
Maynard has three public schools on adjoining campuses off Route 117. There is also an adult education program. One private school offers a classical Christian education program for grades K through 8.

 * Green Meadow School: grades Pre-K through 3; 2015–2016 enrollment: 509 students; building opened for start of 1956–1957 school year; major expansion 1988.
 * Fowler School: grades 4 through 8; 2015–2016 enrollment: 427 students; building opened January 2001.
 * Maynard High School: grades 9 through 12; 2015–2016 enrollment: 485 students; Building opened for start of 2013–2014 school year.
 * Hudson Maynard Adult Learning Center offers free adult literacy classes: English Spoken with Other Languages (ESOL) and GED preparation classes.
 * The Imago School teaches grades K through 8; enrollment: 90 students; classical Christian education program; opened in 1980.

Government
Maynard 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 Maynard and posted on the town's website. Each article in the warrant is debated and voted on separately. A minimum of 75 registered voters is required as a quorum to hold a town meeting and vote on town business. The quorum requirement was reduced from 100 in 2009 because at times, meetings were failing to achieve a quorum. Important budgetary issues approved at a town meeting must be passed by a subsequent ballot vote. Maynard'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, Maynard Public Library Trustees and a Moderator to preside over the town meetings. Positions filled by appointment include the Town Administrator and other positions. Details of government are in the Maynard Town Charter and Town of Maynard Bylaws.

State and federal government
In the Massachusetts General Court, Maynard is represented by Rep. Kate Hogan and Sen. Jamie Eldridge. In the United States Congress, Maynard is represented by Rep. Katherine Clark in the House of Representatives. The state's senior (Class I) member of the United States Senate is Elizabeth Warren. The junior (Class II) senator is Ed Markey.

Places of worship

 * Baha'i Faith Devotional Meetings.
 * First Bible Baptist Church.
 * Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church; services started 1915; church built 1916
 * Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses; hall built 1967.
 * New Hope Fellowship Church of the Nazarene
 * St. Bridget Roman Catholic Church; services started 1865 in a church on Main Street; cornerstone for current church laid 1881 and church dedicated September 21, 1884
 * St. Mary's Indian Orthodox Church; consecrated 2003; building had been St. Casimir Roman Catholic Church (1928–1999), and before that the power station for the Concord, Maynard and Hudson electric trolley (1901–1923)
 * St. Stephen's Knanaya Church; building originally built as Finnish Temperance Society ("Alku") in 1910.

History of former places of worship

 * Congregation Rodoff Shalom 1921–1980; Acton Street, building status: private residence
 * Mission Evangelical Congregational Church 1906–2019; Walnut Street, Services started 1906; church built 1913 building status: private residence.
 * St. John's Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church 1907–1967; Glendale Street, building status: private residence
 * St. Casimir Roman Catholic Church 1928–1999; Parish established 1912, holding services at St. Bridget until moving to own building in 1928, building status: St. Mary's Indian Orthodox Church since 2003
 * St. George's Episcopal Church 1895–2006; Summer Street, building status: two private residences
 * United Methodist Church of Maynard 1895–2014; Main Street, Parish established 1867, church built 1895, closed May 2014, building status: empty
 * Union Congregational Church 1852–2017; Main Street. Church built 1853, closed June 2017, building status: privately owned, rented for events, named "The Sanctuary"

Sites of interest

 * Acme Theater Productions: Established in 1992. Acme is a non-profit community theater company. Its tenancy in the ArtSpace building ended December 31, 2023, with the future undetermined.
 * Fine Arts Theatre Place: Established in 1949 by Burton Coughlan, on land that had been a horse stable and livery (later an auto repair shop) started by his father in 1897. Restored in 2007. Three screens. Shows first run movies and classics.
 * Glenwood Cemetery: Established in 1871. Of the approximately 7,000 burials, about two dozen pre-date the official creation of the cemetery. Contains the Maynard family crypt. The Town of Maynard has a self-guided walking tour of the cemetery.
 * Maynard Public Library, Established in 1881. Was located in building next to Town Hall 1962–2006. Moved to current location at 77 Nason Street in 2006.
 * Presidential district/New Village: A housing project for mill workers built 1902–1903 for employees of the American Woolen Company. The American Woolen Company (owner/operator of the mill) initially built 206 houses for workers, on new streets on the south side of town, on farmland purchased from the Reardon and Mahoney families. Added 50 more dwellings in 1918. The district later came to be referred to as the Presidential district because the streets were named after eight post-Civil War Presidents: Arthur, Cleveland, Garfield, Grant, Harrison, Hayes, McKinley and Roosevelt. These were all originally rented housing, but in August 1934 the woolen mill put 101 houses and 49 two-family dwellings up for auction.

Recreation

 * Alumni Field: provides tennis courts and a 400-meter all-weather rubberized track around the perimeter of the football field. Open to the public. The parcel of land had been the town's Poor Farm. The field was in place for the 1928 high school football season. From 1931 to 1935 the federal New Deal agencies Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the field house, bleachers, tennis courts, running track and a hockey rink.
 * Assabet River Rail Trail: Maynard section paved 2017. As planned, the entire trail will follow the 12.4 mi route of the South Acton-to-Marlborough railroad line, which had been an active railroad from the 1850s to 1960s. The Maynard section is 2.3 mi long, from the Acton border in the north to the Stow border in the south. The Trail continues in Acton another 1.1 mi to the South Acton train station. At the south end there is access to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. There is no trail connection to the southern part in Hudson and Marlborough that was completed ~2005. Starting in the fall of 2018, a project named "Trail of Flowers" was initiated with the goal of planting thousands of blooming bulbs plus perennial flowering plants, bushes and trees along the trail. The cost of plants is paid for by donations and the plantings conducted by volunteers.
 * Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge: Established in 2000 but not opened to the public until 2005. In 1942 during World War II the U.S. Army had seized land in Maynard, Hudson, Stow and Sudbury from private owners and operated a munitions transportation complex. After the war the land was designated as the Fort Devens-Sudbury Training Annex associated with Natick Laboratories into the 1980s, then a Superfund clean-up site from 1990 to 2000, prior to the creation of the Refuge. The Refuge, 2230 acre, offers hunting, fishing and 15 mi of trails, half of which are open to bicycling. No motorized vehicles, no boating on the ponds, no fires, no camping, no dogs, no horses. The Friends of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge is a non-profit organization of dedicated and conservation-minded volunteers who work to protect and enhance the refuge's flora and fauna.
 * Boating and fishing: The Assabet River upstream from the Ben Smith Dam offers miles of still water for fishing, canoeing and kayaking. There is a kayak/canoe launch dock at Ice House Landing, Winter Street, and an area at White Pond Road suitable to put boats into the water. This part of the river has a warm water, Class B, "fishable and swimmable" water quality classification. The mill pond adjacent to Main Street is the property of Mill & Main Place, owners of the mill building complex. Inflow is from the Assabet River and outflow same. Both are controlled by Mill & Main Place. Fishing is allowed but no swimming, boating or ice skating.
 * Crowe Park: Baseball and recreational field on Route 117. The park was named John A. Crowe Park in 1915. Six acres of land had been purchased by the town in 1901. Reverend Crowe was pastor of St. Bridget's Church 1895–1905. He was responsible in getting the town to buy the land, and was the first superintendent of the park.
 * Maynard Dog Park: Located at the southwest edge of the Maynard solar field on Waltham Street. It is open to residents of Maynard and the surrounding area, free of charge, and provides a fenced area where dogs can be off the leash.
 * Hiking trails and open spaces: The Maynard Conservation Commission provides on-line maps of the town's open spaces and public trails, including on Summer Hill.
 * Historic Walking Tours: The Town of Maynard has established six self-guided walking tours of Maynard. PDFs can be downloaded from the town's website.
 * Maynard Golf Course: Nine hole golf course, 2,601 to 3,013 yards depending on choice of tees, established in 1921 as Maynard Country Club. Purchased by Town of Maynard in 2012. Managed by Sterling Golf Management, Inc. The former country club building is the headquarters for the Maynard Senior Center, a service of the Maynard Council on Aging.
 * Maynard Rod and Gun Club: Had its beginnings as Maynard Gun Club in 1902. Moved to current location off Old Mill Road in 1946. Owns 93 acres in Maynard and Sudbury. Offers two lighted skeet fields, two trap ranges, a 100-yard outdoor rifle range, one outdoor pistol range, an indoor pistol range, archery range, fishing pond, sports fields and a function hall.

Notable people

 * Julie Berry, author of ten children's and young adults books; currently living in California
 * Luke Brooks (1731–1817) Revolutionary War minuteman at the Battle of Lexington
 * Elizabeth Updike Cobblah, artist, daughter of John Updike
 * John "Red" Flaherty (1917–1999), born in Maynard, American League baseball umpire 1953–1973
 * Michael Goulian, airshow performer and RedBull Air Race pilot
 * Herb Greene, noted photographer of the Grateful Dead, moved to Maynard in 1999
 * Waino Kauppi, child prodigy cornet player who later went on to be featured with several New York bands
 * Amory Maynard (1804–1890), started woolen mill in 1846; alive when Assabet Village became Town of Maynard
 * Leo Mullin, CEO of Delta Airlines (1997–2003), born and grew up in Maynard
 * Frank Murray (1885–1951), born in Maynard, college football coach Marquette University and University of Virginia; College Football Hall of Fame
 * Ken Olsen (1926–2011), founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation (1957-92); worked in but did not live in Maynard
 * Hermon Hosmer Scott (1909–1975), was founder of H.H. Scott, Inc., a Hi-fi company located in Maynard from 1957–1975
 * Jarrod Shoemaker, professional triathlete; currently living in Florida
 * Tantamous (Old Jethro), (c. 1580–1676), Native American leader in colonial Massachusetts; forced by colonial court to surrender land that later became part of Maynard, executed during King Philip's War
 * William G. Tapply (1940–2009), born in Waltham, Massachusetts, lived in Maynard, author of fiction and non-fiction books

Cultural events

 * Maynard Fest, every fall since 1992.
 * Maynard Christmas Parade, since 1966.
 * Maynard Farmers Market, on Main Street adjacent to the Mill on Saturdays from June to October, since 1996.

Further reading and information

 * Boothroyd, Paul and Lewis Halprin (1999). Maynard Massachusetts, Images of America. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-0074-7
 * Boothroyd, Paul and Lewis Halprin (1999). Assabet Mills, Images of America. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-0262-6
 * Boothroyd, Paul and Lewis Halprin. (2005) Maynard, Postcard History Series. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-3946-5
 * Brown, Peggy Jo (2005). Hometown Soldiers: Civil War Veterans of Assabet Village and Maynard Massachusetts. Maynard, MA: Flying Heron Press.
 * Cummings, O.R. (1967). Concord, Maynard & Hudson Street Railway. Warehouse Point, CN: National Railway Historical Society.
 * Earls, Alan R. (2004) Digital Equipment Corporation. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-3587-6
 * Fuller, Ralph. (2009). Stow Things. Stow Historical Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-9825429-1-0
 * Gutteridge, William H. (1921). A Brief History of the Town of Maynard, Massachusetts. Maynard, MA: Town of Maynard. Available at Maynard Historical Society as 19 MB pdf: http://collection.maynardhistory.org/archive/files/maynard-1921-gutteridge-web_5bacc350d3.pdf
 * Mark, David A. (2011). Maynard: History and Life Outdoors. Charleston, SC: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-60949-303-5
 * Mark, David A. (2014). Hidden History of Maynard. Charleston, SC: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-62619-541-7
 * Mullin, John R. "Development of the Assabet Mills in 19th Century Maynard", Faculty Publication Series, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1992.
 * Schein, Edgar H. (2003). DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishing. ISBN 978-1-57675-305-7
 * Sheridan, Ralph (1971). A History of Maynard 1871–1971. Town of Maynard Historical Committee. Available at Maynard Historic Society as a 95 MB pdf: http://collection.maynardhistory.org/archive/files/maynard-1871-1971-web_4226f59f9f.pdf
 * Town of Maynard (2020). Maynard Massachusetts: a Brief History. Town of Maynard Sesquicentennial Steering Committee. Charles ton, SC: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-46714-474-2
 * Voogd, Jan (2007). Maynard Massachusetts, A House in the Village. Charleston, SC: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-205-5

title: Maynard, Massachusetts