History of Acton, Massachusetts facts for kids
Acton, Massachusetts, is a town located west of Boston. People have lived in this area for about 7,000 years! Acton citizens played a big part in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which was the start of the American Revolutionary War. Acton's story shows how local events connect to bigger changes in Massachusetts, New England, the United States, and the world.
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Early Settlers
Thousands of years ago, Native Americans used the rivers in Acton as they traveled during different seasons. In 1999, an old Native American site was found in Acton. It showed that people lived there 7,000 years ago! This site is called Pine Hawk and is one of the oldest places like it in New England.
Before English colonists arrived, the Massachuset tribe of the Algonquin people lived in eastern Massachusetts. The group in the Acton area was part of the Pawtucket people. They used a farming method called swidden agriculture, also known as slash-and-burn farming. This meant they would use a field for a few years until the soil wasn't fertile anymore, then they would move to a new field.
Around 1615, a terrible sickness spread and killed almost 90% of the Native Americans in eastern Massachusetts. Historians believe it was a disease like viral hepatitis, brought by European traders. It had a huge impact because the native people had no natural protection against these new diseases. Another sickness, smallpox, spread in 1633 and caused even more harm.
Colonial Acton
The first English settlement nearby was Concord, which became an official town in 1635. Concord was the first town started inland by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It included what are now Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle. Concord is where the Assabet and Sudbury rivers meet to form the Concord River.
Farmers from Concord used the land that is now Acton to graze their animals. The first people to live permanently in Acton settled there in 1639. They built their homes near the pastures along the Nashoba Brook. These farmers needed to be close to their grazing fields. They called this part of town Concord Village.
In the mid-1600s, colonists started trying to convert Native Americans to Christianity. These converted Native Americans lived in special towns called 'Praying Indian Towns'. One of these towns, Nashobah, was located around Fort Pond and Nagog Pond. Part of Nashobah was on the border between Acton and Littleton.
During King Philip's War (1675–1676), the colonists became suspicious of the Praying Indians. In October 1675, the government in Boston ordered all Praying Indians to be moved from their towns to Deer Island in Boston Harbor. They were allowed to return in 1677 after the war ended.
People in the Massachusetts Bay Colony had to go to church every Sunday and pay taxes to support the official religion, Congregationalism. Traveling on colonial roads was difficult, so going to church became a problem for the people who lived in what would become Acton. They asked the colony's government, the Massachusetts General Court, for permission to have their own church and minister.
With the government's approval, Acton officially became an independent town on July 3, 1735. Acton has held Town Meetings every year since 1735. Records of these meetings are kept at Acton's Memorial Library.
American Revolution
Before the American Revolutionary War started, relations between the colonists and Great Britain became very tense. In May 1774, the British Parliament passed a law making it illegal for colonists to hold Town Meetings and make their own laws.
Defying this law, the town of Acton held several Town Meetings. They elected a representative to the illegal Provincial Congress and began to form a local militia. Acton sent a list of complaints to King George III on October 3, 1774. The anniversary of this day is celebrated in Acton as Crown Resistance Day.
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Isaac Davis' birth house in Acton, Massachusetts in 1905 (left) and 2015 (right)
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On April 19, 1775, at the start of the American Revolutionary War, a group of Minutemen from Acton answered the call to arms. This call was spread by Paul Revere and other riders. The Acton minutemen fought at the North Bridge in Concord as part of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
The Acton minutemen were led by Captain Isaac Davis. When a company was needed to lead the attack on the bridge, which was defended by British soldiers, Captain Davis famously said, "I haven't a man who is afraid to go."
The colonists moved forward toward the bridge. The men from Acton were in the front lines because they were the only company fully equipped with bayonettes (knives attached to muskets). During the exchange of gunfire, Captain Isaac Davis and Private James Hayward were killed. Abner Hosmer, also from Acton, was badly wounded and later died. Isaac Davis was the first officer to die in the American Revolutionary War.
Every year on Patriots' Day (the third 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 a historic landmark. Since the 1960s, a group called The Scouters of the Isaac Davis Trail has organized an annual campout and march on this trail.
The 1800s: Industry and Civil War
After the Revolutionary War, Acton's population continued to grow. By the mid-1800s, Acton was a center for making barrels. There were also three grist mills (for grinding grain) and four sawmills in town. Some of these mills were on Fort Pond Brook in South Acton, while others were on Nashoba Brook in North and East Acton. A mill at Mill Corner was one of the first large factories in the country to make woolen cloth. Gunpowder mills (from 1835-1940) were located along the Assabet River in southern Acton. This company became known as American Powder Mills.
The towns of Acton and Concord also helped develop the modern pencil industry. William Munroe from Concord is known for being the first to make wooden pencils in the United States in 1812. Ebenezer Wood, an Acton resident, thought Munroe's methods were too slow. He decided to make the process faster at his mill in North Acton.
Wood was the first to use a circular saw to cut the wood faster. He also developed a gluing process that could make 144 pencils at once. His improvements created pencils in hexagonal or octagonal shapes, which are now standard. Wood never patented his invention and shared his ideas with others, including Eberhardt Faber of New York. Faber later became the country's leading pencil maker. In the later 1800s, Acton's industry continued to grow with a cigar factory and a piano stool factory.
In 1843, the railroad came to Acton. The Fitchburg Railroad went through South and West Acton to serve the mills. South Acton became a busy business center when the Marlborough Branch Railroad was built. This branch ran from South Acton through Maynard, Stow, and Hudson to Marlborough. The increased train traffic led to more businesses, like the Tuttle Store and Exchange Hall. The Tuttle Store was an early type of department store.
Besides the Fitchburg Railroad, two other railroads crossed Acton: the Framingham and Lowell, and the Nashua, Acton & Boston. These two railroads shared a double track along Nashoba Brook to North Acton. The Framingham and Lowell line is now being turned into the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail.
In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. In response, Acton's Town Meeting passed resolutions against the Act. The governor of Massachusetts, John C. Andrew, told all towns to prepare their militia units for the coming war. On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began.
Acton played an important role: "On April 15, President Lincoln asked for 75,000 volunteers. By 7:30 the next morning, Captain Tuttle and his 52 men reported to Lowell, fully ready for duty. Company E of Acton, part of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, was the first company of the first Union Army regiment to arrive in Washington after the President's call." Also, Acton reservists were among the troops at Fort Sumter when the first shots of the war were fired.
In 1874, Acton's population was almost 1,700. The town started its first newspaper, The Acton Patriot. Residents of West Acton formed the first library, The Citizen's Library. In 1890, the Memorial Library was finished. William A. Wilde gave it to the town to honor Acton soldiers who fought in the Civil War.
The 1900s: Growth of Suburban Acton
At the start of the 1900s, Acton had about 2,120 residents. The main business in town was farming. The 20th century brought big growth and changes to Acton.
In 1912, after much discussion, a Water District was created. It first provided water to West Acton and South Acton. At this time, each of Acton's five villages had its own fire department. On July 22, 1913, a very serious fire happened in West Acton. It destroyed homes, barns, businesses, and factories. The whole village might have burned if not for the new water system. After the fire, the Town Meeting voted to create a town-wide volunteer fire department.
Acton had excellent roads thanks to a gift from a former resident, Alvin Nothrop. He grew up in Acton before moving to Washington, D.C., where he became a successful merchant. He donated money to Acton to buy a stone crusher for improving local roads. Because of this, Acton had good quality paved roads (macadam highways) long before its neighbors. With the invention of the automobile, the railroads serving East and North Acton became less important. The Nashua and Acton line was completely closed in the mid-1920s. Passenger service stopped on the Framingham and Lowell line in the 1930s. This line has also been officially closed. The Framingham and Lowell line is now being turned into a rail trail.
The Board of Health was started in 1901. Its first job was to give the smallpox vaccine to children in local schools.
Each village in Acton had its own elementary school. However, the town struggled to provide a high school education for its students. For most of the early 1900s (until 1925), Acton students went to Concord's high school. In 1925, Acton's population was large enough to have its own high school. It was built on Massachusetts Avenue near Main Street. The building is still there today. It was later used as an elementary school, and in 2012, it was turned into apartments.
The last half of the 20th century saw huge growth and change in Acton. In 1950, the town had 3,500 people, which grew to 17,000 by 1974. This was mostly due to the growth of industries in suburban areas, helped by the building of Route 128. Acton didn't attract many large factories because of its limited water supply.
Instead, Acton became a "bedroom community." This means people lived in Acton but often worked in other towns. Acton's farmland started to become housing developments. In 1954, the town created a Planning Board. This board made rules for building new neighborhoods. The first large neighborhood was Indian Village in West Acton in 1955. Other well-known neighborhoods include Patriots Hill, Minuteman Ridge, Flagg Hill, and The Arbors.
Acton's growth was driven by its available land and its closeness to the high-tech industry. This industry was growing in office parks along Route 128/I95 from the 1960s to the 1980s, and then along Interstate 495 later on. When Digital Equipment Corporation opened in the Maynard Mills, Acton became an attractive place to live. This led to the building of apartment buildings and condominiums in town. Between 1965 and 1975, all the truck farms along Route 2A were replaced by shopping centers and apartment buildings. Nagog Office Park (1974) further sped up the development of the Route 2A area for stores and offices.
The town's population doubled between 1950 and 1960 (from 3,500 to 7,000). It doubled again in the next ten years.
In 1953, new schools were built to handle the growing number of students. In 1957, Acton and Boxborough created a regional school district for grades 7-12. The Merriam School was built 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 large addition was added to this building, and it became the high school (the junior high moved to the old high school building). In the 1990s, it was clear that both the Merriam and McCarthy Towne buildings were old and needed replacing. In 1998, the town built a single new building, called the Parker Damon Building, to house both schools. The schools run separate programs but share a gym and cafeteria.
The Blanchard foundation gave Acton money to build Blanchard Auditorium for the town's High School. This building has since been converted to the R. J. Grey Jr High School. The Auditorium, which also serves as a gym, was used for Town Meetings until the new (current) High School Auditorium was built.
In the last part of the 20th century, protecting nature also became very important in Acton's development. A desire to protect existing open spaces, combined with the need for more recreation areas, led the town to buy and set aside over 1,650 acres (6.7 km2) for conservation. This included the development of the North Acton Recreation Area (NARA) in the late 1990s. NARA gave the town its first outdoor beach and swimming area, as well as a large space for playing fields and an outdoor amphitheater. In 2011, NARA was renamed after Nathaniel Allen, an Acton resident who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Civil War.
2000s: Continued Growth
In the early 21st century, Acton's population continued to grow. This included the Canterbury Hill development, which has over 90 houses. After that, 153 homes were built on part of the Quail Ridge Country Club. These new developments show that there isn't much open land left in Acton for building.
In 2012, the towns of Acton and Boxborough started looking into fully combining their school systems by including Boxborough's Blanchard Elementary school.
Images for kids
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Isaac Davis' birth house in Acton, Massachusetts in 1905
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Isaac Davis' house in 2015
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A marker showing the route of the Acton Minutemen
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The Isaac Davis Monument in Acton
