Randolph, Massachusetts
A Short History of Randolph
From a parish of colonial Braintree, to a boot-and-shoe manufacturing town, to one of the most diverse communities in Massachusetts.
Part of Braintree
Randolph began as the southern reach of Braintree, the sprawling colonial town that also gave rise to Quincy. In 1793 that southern parish was set off as its own town and named for Peyton Randolph of Virginia, the first president of the Continental Congress. The new town took in the land along the Cochato River, the waterway that still forms part of the Randolph and Braintree border and that carries the name of the Cochato people who lived in the region long before any English parish existed.
The Boot and Shoe Town
Through the nineteenth century Randolph became a center of boot and shoe manufacturing, one of the trades that powered industrial Massachusetts. The work pulled families into town and built the neighborhoods and main streets that still shape Randolph today. As the shoe industry faded, the town shifted toward commerce and commuting, tied by road to Boston a short drive north.
The Belcher House and the First Library
One of the town’s oldest landmarks still stands at 360 North Main Street: the Jonathan Belcher House, a Federal-style home built in 1806 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It once served as Randolph’s first library, a reminder that the town valued public reading long before the Turner Free Library opened its doors in 1874. Today the Belcher House is home to the Randolph Women’s Club.
The Cochato River and a Superfund Cleanup
Randolph’s environmental history carries a hard chapter. For decades the Baird and McGuire chemical plant in neighboring Holbrook dumped contamination that polluted the Cochato River, which feeds the area’s water supply. The site became one of the federal government’s Superfund cleanups, a years-long effort to remove the poison from the soil and water. It is a blunt lesson in why environmental rules and the people who enforce them matter to a town’s drinking water.
A Global Town
Over recent decades Randolph transformed more completely than almost any town in the state. Once overwhelmingly white, it became home to large Black communities, including many Haitian and Cape Verdean families, and to a growing Asian population that includes a significant Vietnamese community. Today more residents are Black than any other group, more than a third of the town was born abroad, and the streets carry the languages and food of a dozen homelands. Randolph is now a case study in what a welcoming American suburb can become.
Sources: Town of Randolph; National Register of Historic Places; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; U.S. Census Bureau.