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Haverhill, Massachusetts
A Short History of Haverhill
From the Pentucket of the Pennacook people to the “Queen Slipper City” that once made a tenth of America’s shoes, Haverhill’s story runs through nearly every chapter of New England history.
Pentucket & the Pennacook
Long before European settlement, the land along the bend of the Merrimack River was known as Pentucket, “place of the winding river”, and was home to the Pennacook people, led in the early colonial era by the sachem Passaconaway. In 1642, settlers recorded a purchase of the land from local figures named Passaquo and Saggahew, said to act with Passaconaway’s permission, for three pounds and ten shillings.
Colonial Settlement (1640–1700s)
English Puritans from nearby Newbury settled the area in 1640, and the town was incorporated in 1641. It was renamed Haverhill after the English hometown of its first minister, the Rev. John Ward. The frontier town saw violence during King Philip’s War (1675) and the French and Indian Wars. In a famous 1697 raid, Hannah Duston was taken captive and later escaped, she is memorialized by a downtown statue, one of the first in the United States to honor a woman. Haverhill’s Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall is also remembered for his role in the era of the Salem witch trials.
Shipbuilding & Early Industry
Through the 18th and into the 19th century, Haverhill’s economy rested on agriculture, fishing, shipping, and shipbuilding along the Merrimack, powered increasingly by water-driven sawmills and gristmills. The town developed woolen mills and tanneries, setting the stage for the manufacturing boom to come.
The Queen Slipper City
Beginning in the 1830s, boosted by the arrival of the Boston & Maine Railroad, Haverhill became one of the nation’s great shoe-making centers. The population exploded from about 3,000 in 1820 to 30,000 by 1892, and in 1893 the city’s Board of Trade proclaimed Haverhill “the largest shoe and boot town in the world.” By 1913, roughly one in ten shoes made in America came from Haverhill, earning it the nickname the “Queen Slipper City.” Waves of Irish, Italian, French-Canadian, and other immigrants arrived to work in the factories.
City Status & the Annexation of Bradford
Haverhill was incorporated as a city in 1870, the same year it annexed the neighboring town of Bradford, on the south bank of the Merrimack, which remains a Haverhill neighborhood today.
The 20th Century to Today
The shoe industry began a long decline after World War I. The arrival of Western Electric in the 1950s brought new jobs before that plant, too, eventually left. Through urban renewal and downtown revitalization, Haverhill has reinvented itself as a diverse Merrimack Valley city, one that honors its industrial heritage while growing as a place to live, work, and visit.
Sources: City of Haverhill; Massachusetts Historical Commission reconnaissance report; U.S. Census Bureau; published histories of Haverhill and Essex County.