Bolton, Massachusetts
A Short History of Bolton
From Nashaway planting grounds along the Still River, to a farming town carved out of Lancaster in 1738, to a landmark stone library the whole town paid to enlarge, Bolton has spent nearly three centuries making its decisions the same way: in the open, by vote.
Before the Town
Long before there was a town here, this land belonged to the Nashaway people, who fished and farmed along the Still River and the ponds nearby. In 1643 Thomas King of Watertown purchased a large tract of this country from Sholan, the sachem of the Nashaway, and English families began settling the hills and meadows that would one day become Bolton. The river the Nashaway lived along is the same one that still marks the town’s western edge.
1738: A Town of Its Own
Bolton began as the eastern precinct of Lancaster. As more families settled the higher ground east of the Still River, the distance to Lancaster’s meetinghouse became a burden, and the precinct asked to govern itself. On June 24, 1738, the General Court incorporated Bolton as a separate town, named for the Duke of Bolton. From that day its voters have met to raise their own taxes, choose their own officers, and settle their own business, which is exactly what a Bolton Town Meeting still does today.
A General from Bolton
When the Revolution came, Bolton sent one of its own to lead. John Whitcomb, a Bolton farmer and veteran of the earlier colonial wars, was chosen the first Major-General of the Massachusetts Army in 1775, and Bolton men marched with the minutemen toward Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. For a small farming town, it was an outsized part in the founding of the Commonwealth.
Lime, Apples, and a County Fair
After the Revolution Bolton stayed a town of farms and small industry. Lime was burned from local stone at the Bolton Lime Kiln and Quarry, and the town’s orchards made it apple country, a character it still keeps. In 1874 residents founded the Bolton Fair as an agricultural fair, a yearly gathering of livestock, produce and craft that grew so large it eventually moved to neighboring Lancaster in 2004.
The Library the Town Built
In 1904 Bolton built its public library, a fieldstone building in the Tudor Revival style, with oak woodwork and stone fireplaces inside. More than a century later, in 2010, the town enlarged it by ten thousand square feet. That project is a small lesson in how Bolton works: neighbors raised a million dollars privately, the work won a state grant, and then Town Meeting voted the town’s own money to finish it. Three separate acts of decision, and the last one belonged to the voters in the room.
Still Deciding in the Open
Bolton has never traded its open Town Meeting for a council or a mayor. The government has changed in small ways: in 2021, at the Annual Town Meeting, voters adopted an article renaming the Board of Selectmen the Select Board. But the essential shape is the one the town has had since 1738. The budget is still voted by whoever walks into the hall, which is the same right a Bolton farmer had in the year the town was born.
Sources: Wikipedia, Bolton, Massachusetts; the Town of Bolton (bolton-ma.gov); U.S. Census Bureau.