Avon, Massachusetts
A Short History of Avon
From a blacksmith’s corner in a corner of Stoughton, to a town that voted itself into being in 1888 and named itself for the river that runs through Shakespeare’s home town.
Curtis Corners
Around 1720 a blacksmith named Moses Curtis came up from Braintree and settled the ground that is now Avon. His children built nearby, and by 1749 the neighborhood was known as Curtis Corners. For most of the next century and a half this was not a town at all: it was the eastern edge of Stoughton, a farming settlement that shared its schools, its meetinghouse, and its taxes with a larger town whose center was miles away.
1888, a Town of Its Own
On February 21, 1888, the eastern part of Stoughton separated and became the Town of Avon. That is the whole story of how a lot of Massachusetts towns are born: a settlement grows large enough and distinct enough that it wants to run its own schools and roads and vote its own budget, so it petitions the state legislature to set it off as a town. When Avon did, it gained exactly the machinery you still use today, an open Town Meeting where every registered voter has a say.
Why Avon?
The new town needed a name, and it reached across the Atlantic for one. Avon is named for Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and the choice is written right into the town’s identity: the Avon town seal carries a portrait of Shakespeare himself. It is one of the few municipal seals in Massachusetts to feature a playwright, and it is a small, deliberate reminder that a town gets to decide what it stands for.
Small Town, Big Border
Avon is compact, about 4.6 square miles, roughly 17 miles south of Boston, and it is hemmed in on every side by larger neighbors: Brockton to the south, Stoughton to the west, Randolph to the northeast, and Holbrook to the east. Being small and central turned out to matter. A town this size, sitting where several highways meet, was well placed for what came next.
The Industrial Park
Much of modern Avon’s story is written along Route 24. The Avon Industrial Park covers roughly 500 acres and holds about 127 firms that employ more than 3,600 people, including distribution operations for companies like HelloFresh and Taylor Communications. That is a striking number for a town of fewer than 5,000 residents: far more people work in Avon than live in it, which is one reason the town budget, and the Town Meeting that votes it, matters well beyond the town line.
Sources: Wikipedia, Avon, Massachusetts (incorporation, name, settlement, geography and industry), citing the U.S. Census Bureau; the Town of Avon (avon-ma.gov).