Westborough, Massachusetts
A Short History of Westborough
The hundredth town in Massachusetts, a turnpike and a railroad that rebuilt it twice, the birthplace of the man who invented the cotton gin, and a town that keeps rewriting its own charter.
1717, and the Hundredth Town
Westborough began as somebody else’s western edge. By late 1675 a few families had settled near Lake Chauncy in what Marlborough called its west borough, far enough out that running their own affairs made more sense than sending word back. On November 18, 1717, the General Court incorporated them as the hundredth town in Massachusetts, twenty-seven families strong. Then the pattern repeated: in 1775 the northern end of Westborough split off in turn and became Northborough, exactly as Westborough had split from Marlborough 58 years before. That is how most of eastern Massachusetts got its map. A town is usually a piece of an older town that got big enough to want its own vote.
The Boy Who Grew Up Here
Eli Whitney was born in Westborough on December 8, 1765. He was educated at Yale, invented the cotton gin in 1793, and in 1798 opened an arms works in New Haven that is usually credited with introducing interchangeable parts and mass production to the United States. Both inventions changed the country far beyond this town. The cotton gin is the harder one to tell honestly: by making upland short cotton a profitable crop it strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged the institution. That is what the record says, and it belongs beside the plaque.
The Road, Then the Rail
Twice in fifty years, transportation redrew this town. In 1810 the route from Boston to Worcester was straightened and improved into a turnpike, the road you now know as Route 9, and the taverns and stores along it prospered. Then in 1824 the steam train reached the centre of town and the centre of commerce moved downtown to meet it. Over the century that followed, Westborough factories shipped boots and shoes, straw hats, sleighs, textiles, bicycles and abrasives across the country, and its dairies and greenhouses shipped milk and carnations to the cities. The Turnpike, Route 495 and Route 9 still cross here, which is why the town’s economy went from straw hats to technology without ever changing its address.
The Institutions on the Hill
In 1848 the State Reform School for Boys opened on Lake Chauncy, the first publicly funded reform school in the United States. It ran until 1884, when the newly established Westborough State Hospital took over the property and the school moved to Chauncy Street as the Lyman School for Boys. Both are on the National Register of Historic Places now, along with the Nathan Fisher House, the Joseph Lothrop House, the Jonah Warren House, Maples Cottage and two whole historic districts, the West Main Street district and Vintonville. Eight Westborough places in all. State institutions like these shaped the town for more than a century, and the buildings are still there to be walked past.
Even the Name Changed, and Changed Back
The town’s official name was Westborough until 1894, when it was shortened to Westboro. It stayed Westboro for 77 years and reverted to Westborough in 1971. The longer spelling is the official one today, and the shorter one is still on road signs and business names, including the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s.
The Town Keeps Rewriting Its Own Rules
Here is the piece of Westborough history that most directly affects you, and it is still going. Westborough governs itself under a home rule charter that its own section 1-2 names the Westborough Home Rule Charter, and the town has amended it repeatedly, most recently in 2022. The charter decides which offices you get to vote on, which ones the Select Board fills, and which ones the Town Manager fills, and every one of those lines was written by a Town Meeting vote and can be moved by another one.
The most recent example is money. In 2021 a Community Preservation Act Exploratory Committee of two town officials and five residents reported to the Select Board. On March 19, 2022, Town Meeting accepted the Community Preservation Act under Article 23. On November 8, 2022, the ballot approved it, and in FY2024 a 0.5 percent surcharge started appearing on Westborough property bills to fund open space, historic preservation, recreation and affordable housing. Three separate rooms had to agree, and the first one was open to every registered voter in town.
Sources: Town of Westborough, Community Preservation Committee (westboroughma.gov/960) and Open Space Preservation Committee (westboroughma.gov/485); Westborough Town Charter as amended 2022 (westboroughma.gov DocumentCenter 1746); Wikipedia, Westborough, Massachusetts, with its cited sources for the 1717 incorporation, the 1810 turnpike, the 1824 railroad, the 1848 reform school and the 1894 and 1971 name changes; Wikipedia, Eli Whitney, for his birth date, the 1793 cotton gin and its effect on slavery; National Register of Historic Places listings; U.S. Census Bureau.