Massachusetts

Hudson, Massachusetts ~ 150th Celebration 1866—2016

This area was also known as Indian Plantation, Cow Commons, The Mills, New City and Feltonville

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The three defining moments in time for Hudson are:

• 1699 The laying out of the first road at the dam from Marlborough across the Assabet River (where Washington Street now crosses)

• 1866 The incorporation of the town

• 1894 The Great Fire that cleared all the buildings around the rotary and eastward almost to the Town Hall. These fires seemed to plague most towns in the 19th and 20th centuries

 

Selected dates in Hudson’s History

• 1660         Marlboro becomes a Town

• 1674         Marlboro has 10 families

• 1698         John Barnes builds grist mill, north bank of Assabet River (now at Washington St)

• 1700         Joseph Howe owns mill Marlboro builds first road to mill at dam

• 1711          John Barstow owns mill

• 1723         Robert Barnard owns mill

• 1790         First store, “old red house” (Lewis Block site, ODD fellows building)

• 1794         Joel Cranston store & tavern at ODD Fellows site

• 1799         Silas Felton & Joel Cranston in business Tannery begins on Tannery Brook

• 1800        Feltonville (now Hudson), 13 dwellings & 100 inhabitants

• 1816         Daniel Stratton begins shoe factory

• 1820         14 dwellings, 1 public house, grist, cotton & cloth mills

• 1841         Jedidiah Wood’s son builds at Wood Square

• 1843         Brigham starts shoe ‘factory’ on Main Street

•                    Stephen Pope buys land at Market & South Streets area, develops Tannery

• 1848         Marlboro Branch, Fitchburg Railroad reaches Hudson

• 1857         Brigham builds Factory at dam

• 1860         Feltonville (now Hudson) has 1,000 residents

• 1860s       Civil War era—Company I, 5th Regiment with 49 men formed Agitation for new town begins, to be split from Marlborough

•                    South Street tenements built

•                    Great demand for shoes, Hudson factories develop & expand

• 1865         Trowbridge builds at Wood Square

• 1866         Hudson incorporates; population at 1800

• 1868         Population 2,600, part of Bolton annexed

• 1872          Town Hall built; Japanese delegation visits shoe factories

• 1875          Population of Hudson reaches 3,493

• 1880         Joseph Bradley shoe factory, Main & Tannery Brook site

• 1881          Central Mass Railroad reaches Hudson

• 1882          Larkin Lumber begins

• 1885          Goodyear Gossamer (later Goodyear Rubber established at the dam

• 1894         The Great Fire on July 4th destroying much of the downtown

• 1895         New buildings were rebuilt in brick

•                    Town buys Solon Wood’s land and it becomes the Rotary

•                    First trolley arrives

• 1900         Hudson had 7500 residents

•                    Fire Station No. 1 built at Wood Square

• 1900-23   Concord, Maynard & Hudson trolley line operates

• 1904         Present Library built

• 1910         Armory built on site of Marshall Wood’s home (Washington & Park)

• 1911          Methodist Church (site of Hudson Pawnbroker-Main & South St) burns

• 1916          Hudson celebrates 50th Anniversary and Hudson

•                    Historical Society forms.

• 1920         Hudson Movie theater opens on Pope Street

• 1935         Chase Block burns

• 1951         Jeft’s Block (Murphy Insurance on Main Street) suffers major fire

• 1966        Hudson celebrates 100th Anniversary