Groton, Massachusetts
A Short History of Groton
One of the older inland towns in Massachusetts, incorporated in 1655, burned to the ground on the colonial frontier and rebuilt, home to two schools older than the country, and the town that decided in 1909 to own its own electricity, and still does.
1655, on the Frontier
Groton was settled and incorporated in 1655, which makes it one of the older inland towns in the Commonwealth, older than the county road system and older than most of its neighbors. The selectmen who set it up included Deane Winthrop, a son of Governor John Winthrop, and the town took its name from Groton in Suffolk, England, the Winthrop family’s home village. In 1655 this was the edge of English settlement, a farming outpost on the Nashua River miles beyond the safety of the older coastal towns, and that location shaped everything that happened next.
Burned, and Rebuilt
Being on the frontier had a cost. On March 13, 1676, during King Philip’s War, the settlement was raided and nearly every building in it was burned except four fortified garrison houses. The survivors left, and then came back and rebuilt the town on the same ground. Groton was attacked again in 1694, during a later frontier war, when a young resident named Lydia Longley was taken captive to Canada. These are hard chapters, and the town does not hide them. They are also why Groton kept building: a community that rebuilds twice has decided it intends to stay.
Two Schools and a Soldier
For a town its size, Groton has an outsized place in American education. Lawrence Academy was founded here in 1793, when it was still called Groton Academy, and Groton School followed in 1884. Both are still in town. And the town’s most famous son was a soldier: William Prescott, born in Groton, commanded the American forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. The order held at that fight, to wait until the enemy was close, is part of the country’s founding memory, and the man who gave it grew up on Groton ground.
The Town That Bought Its Own Light
Here is a piece of Groton history you can still act on. In 1908 a Town Meeting appointed residents to study how to light the town’s streets, and rather than buy the power from a private company, the town voted to build the plant itself. It was authorized on July 22, 1909 for a little under $18,000, and on November 20 of that year, at 4:30 in the afternoon, 184 electric street lights came on at once. More than a century later the Groton Electric Light Department is still owned by the town and its customers, and its three Light Commissioners are still elected by Groton voters every spring. Public ownership of the power is not a museum piece here. It is on the ballot.
A Charter the Voters Keep Amending
Groton governs itself under a home-rule charter, and the voters have revised it more than once, most recently in a consolidated 2022 version. One of those revisions is worth knowing, because it changed what is on your ballot. In 2022 the voters accepted an act of the Legislature, Chapter 41 of the Acts of 2022, that changed the Town Clerk from an elected office into one the Select Board appoints. A charter can be amended the same way it was adopted, by a vote of the people, which means the shape of Groton’s own government is one more thing Town Meeting and the ballot can decide.
Sources: Wikipedia, Groton, Massachusetts (History); Groton Electric Light Department, History (grotonelectric.org/about-geld/history); Groton home-rule charter, Chapter C of the Groton Code, and Chapter 41 of the Acts of 2022 (malegislature.gov); U.S. Census Bureau.