Place:Hudson, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States

Watchers


NameHudson
Alt namesFeltonvillesource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS25004095
TypeTown
Coordinates42.383°N 71.567°W
Located inMiddlesex, Massachusetts, United States
Contained Places
Cemetery
Saint Michael Cemetery
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Hudson is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, with a total population of 20,092 as of the 2020 census. Before its incorporation as a town in 1866, Hudson was a neighborhood and unincorporated village of Marlborough, Massachusetts, and was known as Feltonville. From around 1850 until the last shoe factory burned down in 1968, Hudson was a mill town specializing in the production of shoes and related products. At one point the town had 17 shoe factories,[1] many of them powered by the Assabet River, which runs through town. The many factories in Hudson attracted immigrants from Canada and Europe. Today most residents are of either Portuguese or Irish descent, with a smaller percentage being of French, Italian, English, or Scotch-Irish descent. While some manufacturing remains in Hudson, the town is now primarily residential. Hudson is served by the Hudson Public Schools district.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Pre-European and colonial

Indigenous people lived in what became central Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European settlement. Indigenous oral histories, archaeological evidence, and European settler documents attest to historic settlements of the Nipmuc people in present-day Hudson and the surrounding area.[2] Nipmuc settlements along the Assabet River intersected with the territories of three other related Algonquian-speaking peoples: the Massachusett, Pennacook, and Wampanoag.

In 1650, the area that would become Hudson and Marlborough was part of the Ockookangansett Indian Plantation for the Praying Indians. During King Philip's War, English settlers forcibly evicted the Indians from their plantation, imprisoning and killing many of them; most survivors did not return after the conflict.[3][4] The first recorded European settlement of the Hudson area occurred in 1698 or 1699 when settler John Barnes was granted of Indian lands straddling both banks of the Assabet River.[2] Barnes built a gristmill on the Assabet River's north bank on land that would one day be part of Hudson.[1][5] In 1699 or 1700 Barnes sold his gristmill to Joseph Howe, who built a sawmill and bridge across the Assabet.[5] Other early settlers include Jeremiah Barstow, who built a house near today's Wood Square in central Hudson, and Robert Barnard, who purchased the house from Barstow.[5] The area became known as Howe's Mills, Barnard's Mills, or simply The Mills throughout the 1700s.[2][5]

The settlement was originally part of the town of Marlborough.[5] In June 1743, area residents Samuel Witt, John Hapgood, and others petitioned to break away from Marlborough and become a separate town, claiming the journey to attend Marlborough's town meeting was "vastly fatiguing."[1][3] Their petition was denied by the Massachusetts General Court. Samuel Witt later served on committees of correspondence during the 1760s.[2] At least nine men[2] from the area fought with the Minutemen on April 19, 1775, as they harassed British troops along the route to Boston.[1][3]

18th century

The area established itself as an early industrial center. Business partners Phineas Sawyer and Jedediah Wood built a sawmill on Tannery Brook, a tributary stream of the Assabet River today crossed by Main Street, in the mid-1700s.[5] This was followed by another mill on the Assabet in 1788 and a blacksmith's forge in 1790.[5] Joel Cranston opened a pub and general store—the settlement's first—in 1794.[5] Silas Felton (1776–1828) arrived in the settlement in 1799, joining Cranston in business: it was not long before the area became known as Feltonville.[5]

19th century

Feltonville's—and later Hudson's—significant role in the shoe industry may trace its origins to Daniel Stratton. A shoemaker, Stratton opened his Feltonville shop in 1816, expanding it to a small factory on Washington Street in 1821.[5]

In the 1850s, Feltonville received its first railroads.[1][3] There were two Feltonville train stations, originally operated by the Central Massachusetts Railroad Company and later by Boston & Maine, until both were closed in 1965. Railroads allowed the development of larger factories, some of the first in the country to use steam power and sewing machines. By 1860, Feltonville had 17 shoe and shoe-related factories, which attracted Irish and French Canadian immigrants.[2]

Feltonville residents fought for the Union during the American Civil War.[5] Twenty-five of those men died doing so. Two existing houses—the Goodale Homestead on Chestnut Street (Hudson's oldest building, dating from 1702) and the Curley home on Brigham Street (formerly known as the Rice Farm)—have been cited as waystations on the Underground Railroad.[3][6]

On May 16, 1865, Feltonville residents once again petitioned to become a separate town.[5] They cited the difficulty of attending town meeting,[5] as their predecessors had in 1743, and also noted that Marlborough's high school was too far for most Feltonville children to practicably attend. This petition was approved by the Massachusetts General Court on March 16, 1866.[5] A committee suggested naming the new town Hudson after Congressman Charles Hudson, who was born and raised in the Feltonville neighborhood.[3][6] By his own account, in response to this honor, Charles Hudson offered to donate $500 towards establishing a free public library. Town citizens gratefully voted to accept Congressman Hudson's gift.


Over the next twenty years, Hudson grew as several industries settled in town. Two woolen mills, an elastic-webbing plant, a piano case factory, and a factory for waterproofing fabrics by rubber coating were constructed. Private banks, five schools, a poor farm, and the current town hall were also built during this time.[3] The population hovered around 4,000 residents, most of whom lived in modest houses with small backyard gardens. Some of Hudson's wealthier citizens built elaborate Queen Anne Victorian mansions, and many of them still exist. One of the finest is the 1895 Colonel Adelbert Mossman House on Park Street, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.


The town maintained five volunteer fire companies during the 1880s and 1890s, one of which manned the Eureka Hand Pump, a record-setting pump that could shoot a stream of water .[3][5][6] Despite this glut of fire companies, on July 4, 1894, two boys playing with firecrackers started a fire that burned down 40 buildings and of central Hudson.[5] Nobody was hurt, but the damages were estimated at $400,000 in 1894 (the equivalent of approximately $11.1 million in 2018).[3][6] The town was substantially rebuilt within a year or two.

20th century

By 1900, Hudson's population reached about 5,500 residents and the town had built a power plant on Cherry Street.[5] Many houses were wired for electricity, and to this day Hudson produces its own power under the auspices of the Hudson Light and Power Department, a non-profit municipal utility owned by the town. The brick Hudson Armory building accommodating local Massachusetts militia, and later units of the Massachusetts National Guard, opened in 1910. Electric trolley lines were built connecting Hudson with the towns of Leominster, Concord, and Marlborough, though these only remained in existence until the late 1920s.[3][6] The factories in town continued to grow, attracting immigrants from England, Germany, Portugal, Lithuania, Poland, Greece, Albania, and Italy. By 1928 nineteen languages were spoken by the workers of the Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company.[1] These immigrants usually lived in boarding houses near their places of employment. In 1926 Hudson industrialists Thomas Taylor and Frank Taylor donated the Taylor Memorial Bridge to the town, connecting the public Wood Park and Apsley Park across the Assabet River.


Today, the majority of Hudson residents are of Irish or Portuguese descent, with lesser populations of Brazilian, Italian, French, French Canadian, English, Scotch-Irish, Greek, and Polish descent. About one-third of Hudson residents are of Portuguese descent or birth.[3] Most people of Portuguese descent in Hudson are from the Azorean island of Santa Maria, with a smaller amount from the island of São Miguel, the Madeira islands, or from the Trás-os-Montes region of mainland Portugal.[3] The Portuguese community in Hudson maintains the Hudson Portuguese Club, which was established in 1919. It has outlived Hudson's other ethnic clubs, including the Buonovia Club (Italian American), the Lithuanian Citizens' Club, a Polish American club, and other Portuguese American clubs.[3] In 2003 the Hudson Portuguese Club replaced its original Port Street clubhouse with a function hall and restaurant built on the same site.

The Portuguese American community in Hudson traces its history to at least 1886, when a certain José Maria Tavares arrived in town.[3] José's brothers João "John" and Manuel joined him the following year.[3][7] In 1888 three more Portuguese immigrants reached Hudson: eighteen-year-old José "Joseph" Braga, and António Chaves and his sister Maria. In 1889 the six-person Garcia family arrived.[3][7] The 1890s saw the addition of the Bairos, Camara, Correia, and Luz families.[3][7] In 1900 Mr. and Mrs. José "Joseph" Almada and Mrs. Almada's brother Manuel Silva settled in Hudson.[3] By 1910 eleven more Portuguese families resided in Hudson: the Coito, Costa, Furtado, Grillo, Mello, Pereira, Pimentel, Rainha, Resendes, Ribeiro, and Sousa families.[3][7] This initial group of Portuguese immigrants all hailed from the Azorean islands of Santa Maria or São Miguel.[3]

By 1916 immigrants from mainland Portugal reached Hudson, including a certain João "John" Rio and family.[3] As early as the 1920s, Hudson's Portuguese population exceeded 1000 individuals—more than 10% of Hudson's total population at the time.[3] Some were employed as factory workers, though many also owned small businesses.[3]

Hudson also welcomed a small but well-documented Lithuanian American community. This community originated in 1897, when Anthony Markunas arrived in Hudson.[3] Another early Lithuanian immigrant was Michael Rimkus, who owned and operated a grocery store on the corner of Loring and Broad streets from 1908 to 1950.[3] It appears Lithuanians came to Hudson from larger communities located in Nashua, Worcester, and Boston.[3] Apparently Hudson's Lithuanians were known for their herb gardens—where they grew rue, chamomile, and mint—and beekeeping.[3] For many years Mr. Karol Baranowski maintained on apiary on Lois Street (now Mason Street).[3] His next-door neighbor Dominic Janciauskas, a fellow Lithuanian American, operated a silver fox farm.[3] The community was large and active enough to support the social and recreational Lithuanian Citizens' Club, located on School Street from 1926 to 1960.[3]

Hudson's population hovered around 8,000 from the 1920s to the 1950s, when developers purchased some farms surrounding the town center. The new houses built on this land helped double Hudson's population to 16,000 by 1970.[6]

During the 1990s high-technology companies built plants in Hudson, most notably the semiconductor factory built by Digital Equipment Corporation. Just before Digital folded in 1998, Intel bought this facility. Under Intel's ownership, the plant continued producing silicon chips and wafers.

21st century

At the height of the Great Recession in the late 2000s, Hudson lost many local businesses. Particularly affected were the downtown commercial district and industrial establishments. Further bad news came in 2013 when Intel, Hudson's largest employer and charitable donor, announced it would close its Hudson semiconductor factory and layoff 700 employees by 2014. Initially Intel tried to find a buyer for the facility, but when none came forward by 2015, Intel announced it would demolish the plant. However, Intel's campus in Hudson includes an 850-person microprocessor research and development facility that did not close, and remains operational as of 2020.[8]

Since the mid-2010s Hudson's commercial downtown has witnessed an economic revitalization, with previously empty storefronts finding tenants. This is partly thanks to the town's increasing role as a regional culinary destination, including for craft beer. Hudson's craft beer scene arguably began in 1980 when the Horseshoe Pub & Restaurant opened. Horseshoe established itself as a beer lovers' haven with an 80-beer tap line and Oktoberfest celebrations. In 2012, the Hudson Rotary Club, Horseshoe Pub, and other local businesses organized the first Spirit of Hudson Food and Brewfest to showcase local restaurants and breweries. Since then, the event has evolved into a large food and beer fest featuring dozens of restaurants and breweries, from tiny local producers to internationally known craft beer stalwarts such as Harpoon and Stone Brewing. The first microbrewery in Hudson, Medusa Brewing Company, opened downtown in 2015.[9] A second—Ground Effect Brewing Company—followed in 2018.

Although Hudson's population is now about 20,000, the town maintains the traditional town meeting form of government.[3] Some light manufacturing and agricultural uses remain in the eastern end of town, a vestige of Hudson's dual agrarian and industrial history. However, today Hudson is a mostly suburban bedroom community with many residents commuting to Boston or Worcester.

Former names

Before becoming a separate incorporated town in 1866, Hudson was a neighborhood and unincorporated village within the town —now city—of Marlborough, and had various names during that time.

From 1656 until 1700, present-day Hudson and the surrounding area was known as the Indian Plantation or the Cow Commons. From 1700 to 1800,[2] the settlement was known as Howe's Mills, Barnard's Mills, or The Mills, evidencing its early industrial history.[3][5] From 1800 to 1828,[2] the settlement was called New City, for reasons not entirely clear but perhaps related to increased population and industrialization. From 1828 until incorporation in 1866,[2] the village was called Feltonville. The name Feltonville derives from that of Silas Felton, who operated a dry goods store in the hamlet from 1799 onward and served many years as a Marlborough selectman, town clerk, town assessor, and postmaster.[3][6] Today, Felton remains immortalized in the Silas Felton Hudson Historic District and two Hudson street names: Felton Street and Feltonville Road.

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