Haverhill, Massachusetts
A Short History of Haverhill
From the Pentucket of the Pennacook people to the “Queen Slipper City” whose leading industry for 180 years was shoe manufacturing, Haverhill’s story runs through nearly every chapter of New England history.
Pentucket & the Pennacook
Long before any English settler arrived, the land along the bend of the river was Pentucket, the “place of the winding river,” and it belonged to the Pennacook people, led in the early colonial era by the sachem Passaconaway. The city’s own history records that Puritan settlers bought that land from Passaconaway in 1640 for several pounds. It is the moment a whole world changed hands.
Colonial Settlement (1640-1700s)
English Puritans settled here in 1640, when the place was still called Pentucket. This was a frontier, and life on it swung between fierce battles and calm trading with the Native peoples around it. In one raid, Hannah Duston was taken captive and escaped by canoe on the Merrimack River.
Shipbuilding & Early Industry
Through the 1700s and into the 1800s, Haverhill lived off the river: farming, fishing, shipping, and shipbuilding along the Merrimack, powered more and more by water-driven sawmills and gristmills. Tanneries and boat yards followed, laying the groundwork for the boom that would define the city.
The Queen Slipper City
The shoe industry took hold in the early 19th century, and after the Civil War the city’s shoe factories needed a large rise in population to keep running. Shoe manufacturing was Haverhill’s leading industry for 180 years, and the city took the nickname the “Queen Slipper City.” Immigrants came to work in the shoe and tannery trades, and their descendants are part of why the city looks the way it does today.
City Status & the Annexation of Bradford
Haverhill became a city in 1870, and in 1897 it absorbed the neighboring town of Bradford, on the south bank of the Merrimack. Bradford is still a Haverhill neighborhood, which is why people there will tell you they live in Bradford and in Haverhill both.
The 20th Century to Today
Haverhill remained a thriving industrial center until the severe depression of the 1930s, and after the Depression and World War II the shoe industry faded away. Through urban renewal and a long downtown revival, Haverhill has remade itself again as a diverse Merrimack Valley city, one that keeps its factory-town history in plain sight while building something new on top of it. The city you are reading about is the latest version, not the last.
Sources: City of Haverhill; Massachusetts Historical Commission reconnaissance report; U.S. Census Bureau; published histories of Haverhill and Essex County.
MassCivics last checked this page on October 24, 2026.
Sources
- City records: City of Haverhill, History and Heritage, as of 2026.
- City records: City of Haverhill, Open Space and Recreation Plan, July 2024 to July 2031, as of July 2024.
- City records: City of Haverhill, Trivia Contest, July 3, 2025, as of July 3, 2025.