History of Acton, Massachusetts

Acton, Massachusetts is a small town west of Boston in an area that has records of human habitation which stretch back 7000 years. Acton citizens had a significant role in the battle of Battle of Lexington and Concord, the prelude to the American Revolution. Acton's history reflects the major events that were occurring in Massachusetts, New England, the United States and the world.

Early settlement

The rivers that run through Acton were used by Native Americans as part of their annual migration patterns thousand of years ago. A Native American archeological site was discovered in Acton in 1999 which produced evidence of habitation dating back 7000 years. This site has been named the Pine Hawk site and is one of the oldest archeological sites in New England ( [http://www.actonmemoriallibrary.org/pinehawk/home.html] ).

Before the English colonists settled in this area, the Massachuset tribe of the Algonquins lived in eastern Massachusetts. The group who lived in the Acton area were members of the Pawtucket people. They practiced swidden agriculture where they would use a field for several years until soil fertility dropped and then move to another field.

Around 1615, an epidemic killed almost 90% of the Indians in eastern Massachusetts. The description of the symptoms lead current historians to believe that this disease was viral hepatitis introduced by European traders and sailors. [Mann, Charles C. (2005, December) "Native Intelligence". Smithsonian Magazine, p. 102.] The epidemic had such a huge impact because the native residents had no resistance to European diseases. A smallpox epidemic swept through in 1633 and further devastated the region. [Acton Historical Society: "A Brief History of Acton", page 53. Beacon Publishing Company, 1974. ]

Colonial Acton

The first colonial settlement in this area was Concord which was incorporated in 1635. Concord, which was the first inland settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, encompassing the present day towns of Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle. Concord sits at the junction where the Assabet and Sudbury rivers combine to form the Concord River. Concord farmers used the land which is now Acton as grazing fields for their animals. The first permanent residents of Acton settled there in 1639. They were farmers who needed to be closer to the grazing fields for their animals. They called this section of town Concord Village.

In the mid-1600s, colonists began a program of converting Native Americans to Christianity. The converted Indians were settled into towns which were known as 'Praying Indian Towns'. One of these towns (Nashobah) was located on Nagog Pond which is now on the border between Acton and Littleton. [http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/praying.html]

When King Philip's War (1675 - 1676) broke out, the Praying Indians were considered with suspicion by the colonists. In October, 1675, the General Council in Boston ordered that all Praying Indians be removed from their towns and taken to Deer Island in Boston Harbor. They were released in 1677 when King Philip's War was over.

Residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were required to attend Sunday Services and to support through taxation the colony's official religion: Congregationalism. With travel along colonial roads difficult, the Sunday attendance requirement became a burden for the residents of what would become Acton. These residents petitioned the Colony's legislature, the General Court, for the right to have their own meeting house (aka Church) and hire their own minister. With the approval of the General Court, Acton was incorporated as an independent town on July 3rd, 1735. Acton has held Annual Town Meetings since 1735 and the records of those Town Meetings are held at Acton's Memorial Library ( [http://www.actonmemoriallibrary.org/histcoll.htm] ).

American Revolution

In the period before the outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain that eventually led to the American Revolution, the relations between colonists and Great Britain grew increasingly strained. In May 1774, the British Parliament passed a law which made it illegal for colonists to hold Town Meetings and to legislate their own affairs. In defiance of this law, the Town of Acton held a series of Town Meetings where they elected a representative to the illegal Provincial Congress and began to raise a local militia unit. The Town of Acton sent a list of grievances to King George III on October 3 1774. The anniversary of this day is celebrated in Acton as Crown Resistance Day ( [http://users.rcn.com/greenela/id62.htm#acton_s_crown_resistance_day_] ).

At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, on April 19 1775, a company of minutemen from Acton responded to the call to arms initiated by Paul Revere (who rode with other riders, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, with Prescott the only one of the three who was able reach Acton itself) and fought at the North Bridge in Concord as part of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Acton minutemen were led by Captain Isaac Davis. When a company was needed to lead the advance on the bridge which was defended by the British regulars, Captain Davis was heard to reply, "I haven't a man who is afraid to go."

The colonists advanced on the bridge; in the exchange of musket fire that followed, Captain Isaac Davis and Private James Hayward were killed and Abner Hosmer, also of Acton, was mortally wounded. Thus Isaac Davis was the first officer to die in the American Revolutionary War. In Acton they refer to "the battle of Lexington, fought in Concord, by men of Acton."Fact|date=July 2008

Each year on Patriot's Day (the 3rd Monday in April), the Acton Minutemen lead a march from Acton Center to the Old North Bridge in Concord. This route is known as 'The Isaac Davis Trail' and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since the 1960s, The Scouters of the Isaac Davis Trail have organized an annual Patriot's Day campout and march on the Isaac Davis Trail.

Industrialization and Civil War

After the Revolutionary War, Acton continued to grow in population. By the mid-1800s, Acton was an industrial center for the production of barrels (cooperage). There were also three grist mills and four saw mills in town. While several of these mills were sited on Fort Pond Brook in South Acton, several of them were sited on Nashoba Brook in the North and East Acton areas of town. The fulling mill at Mill Corner was one of the first large-scale manufacturers of woollen cloth in the country. In addition, gun power mills were located in the area which is now South Acton. [Acton Historical Society: "A Brief History of Acton", page 33. Beacon Publishing Company, 1974. ] .

The towns of Acton and Concord were also instrumental in the development of the modern day pencil industry. Concordian William Munroe is credited with being the first to manufacture wooden pencils in the United States in 1812. Acton resident Ebenezer Wood found Munroe's manufacturing methods painstakingly slow and set out to automate the process at his mill on in North Acton, along the old Davis Road. Wood became the first to use a circular saw to speed the cutting and a gluing process that could make 144 pencils at once. His process improvements created pencils in either hexagonal or octagonal shapes. These shapes have become standard. Wood never patented his invention and shared his improvements with others, including Eberhardt Faber of New York. Faber became the country's leading manufacturer of pencils. [ Acton Conversation Commission, Early American Pencils, Kiosk at Pencil Mill Site ]

In 1843, the railroad came to Acton. The Fitchburg Railroad was routed through South and West Acton so that it could serve the mills. South Acton became a busy commerce center due to the further railroad development with the construction of the Marlborough Branch Railroad. The branch ran from South Acton through Maynard, Stow and Hudson to reach its terminus in the city of Marlborough. The increased traffic led to further commercial development in the area such as the establishment of the Tuttle Store and the construction of Exchange Hall. The Tuttle store was a precursor to modern day department stores.

In addition to the Fitchburg Railroad, two other railroads bisected Acton: The Framingham and Lowell and the Nashua & Acton. The Framingham and Lowell was part of the Northern Division of the Old Colony Railroad which was part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail Road (a.k.a. The New Haven Railroad). The Nashua & Acton ran from Concord Junction (aka West Concord) to Nashua through Westford and Dunstable. These two railroads shared a double track right-of-way that along Nashoba Brook to North Acton where they diverged at the North Acton Station, located at the intersection of Main St and Ledgerock Way.

In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. In response, Acton Town Meeting passed a set of resolutions condemning the Act. The governor of Massachusetts, John C. Andrew, urged all towns to prepare their militia units for the threatening war. On April 12 1861 the Civil War Began.

"On April 15, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers. By 7:30 the next morning, Captain Tuttle with his entire command of 52 men reported to Lowell, fully equipped and ready for duty. Company E of Acton of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment was to be the first company of the first regiment of the Union Army to arrive in Washington in response to the President's call." [Acton Historical Society: "A Brief History of Acton", page 35. Beacon Publishing Company, 1974. ]

After the Civil War, industry continued to grow in Acton with the establishment of a cigar factory, a piano stool factory and a pencil factory. The pencil factory, cited on Nashoba Brook and Davis Road in North Acton, pioneered methods for the mass manufacture of pencils.

In 1874, the population of the town was almost 1700. The town established its first newspaper "The Acton Patriot" and the residents of West Acton formed the first library "The Citizen's Library". In 1890, the Memorial Library was completed and given to the town by William A. Wilde as a memorial to the Acton soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

20th century

At the beginning on the 20th century, Acton had approximately 2120 residents. The primary business of the town was agriculture. The 20th century saw substantial growth and change in the town.

In 1912, after prolonged debate, a Water District was established which provided water initially to the West Acton and South Acton villages. At this time, each of the five villages had its own fire department. On July 22 1913, there was a very serious fire in West Acton. It destroyed houses, barns, businesses and factories. The whole village could have burned if it was not for the newly installed water system. After the fire, Town Meeting voted to establish a town-wide fire department.

Acton had excellent roads due to a contribution from a former Acton resident - Alvin Nothrop. He had grown up in Acton before moving to Washington D.C. and becoming a successful merchant. He donated money to the town of Acton to purchase a stone crusher for improving local roads. Because of this contribution, Acton had water-bound macadam highways long before its neighbors. [Acton Historical Society: "A Brief History of Acton", page 42. Beacon Publishing Company, 1974. ] With the advent of the Automobile, the railroads serving East and North Acton fell into decline. The Nashua and Acton was completely abandoned in the mid 1920s while passenger service ceased on the Framingham and Lowell in the 1930 with the last vestages of service on the line occurring to North Acton lumberyards in the early 1990s. This line too, has been formally abandoned.

The Board of Health was instituted in 1901 and its first task was to administer the smallpox vaccine to the children in the local schools.

Each village in Acton had its own grade school but the town struggled with how to provide a high school education for its students. For most of the early twentieth century (until 1925), Acton students were sent to Concord's high school.

The last half of the twentieth century saw enormous growth and change in Acton. In 1950, the town had a population of 3,500 which grew to 17,000 by 1974. This was largely caused by the growth in industry in suburban areas - facilitated by the construction of Route 128. Acton did not attract a large number of industrial cites because of the limited water supply.

Instead, Acton became a bedroom community. Acton's farmland began to turn into housing developments. In 1954, the Town established a Planning Board which developed regulations regarding the development of subdivisions. The first large subdivision was Indian Village (built on the southern slope of Fort Pond Hill - bisected by Route 2 in 1952 - and the adjacent flatland) in West Acton in 1955. Other notable subdivisions include Patriots Hill, Minuteman Ridge, and Flagg Hill.

Driving Acton's growth was its available land and access to the high tech that was expanding in office parks along Rt 128/I95 in the 1960s through 1980s and then along Interstate 495 in late 1980s till present. Digital Equipment Corporation's establishment in the Maynard Mills made Acton an attractive place live and drove development of the apartment buildigs and condominiums in town. Between 1965 and 1975, all the truck farms along 2A were replaced by shopping centers and apartment buildings. Nagog Office Park (1974) further hastened the development of the Rt 2A corridor as a retail and office building location.

The population in the town doubled between 1950 and 1960 (from 3500 to 7000). It doubled again in the next decade.

In 1953, new schools were constructed to accommodate the growth in the student population. In 1957, Acton and Boxborough created a regional school district for grades 7 -12 (Littleton pulled out of the planned regional district halfway through the planning process). The Merriam School was constructed in 1958. Other schools quickly followed (Douglas (1966), Gates (1968), and Conant (1971)). In 1967 a building was constructed for the Junior High. In 1973 a huge addition was added to this building and it became the high school (the junior high moved to the old high school building).

The Blanchard foundation gave the town the money to construct Blanchard Auditorium which was used to hold Town Meeting in addition to providing a gymnasium for the schools.

References

*cite book| author= Acton Historical Society | title=A Brief History of Acton | publisher=Beacon Publishing Company | year=1974
*cite book| author= Acton Historical Society | title=Acton: A Second Look | year=1985
*cite book| author= William A. Klauer | title=Images of America: Acton | publisher=Arcadia Publishing | year=2001 | id=ISBN 2-00-109304-7

Notes

External links

* [http://www.acton-ma.gov/ Official Town Website]
* [http://www.actonmemoriallibrary.org/ Acton Memorial Library]
* [http://users.rcn.com/greenela/id62.htm/ Early Acton History]