Walking Tour 290
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DIRECTIONS BLACKSTONE RIVER VALLEY NATIONAL HERITAGE CORRIDOR LEICESTER, MA From downtown Worcester, follow Park Avenue, 190 290 Route 9 west into Leicester. 495 Walking Tour 290 Alternately, from 146 N or S, WORCESTER 9 9 Leicester 122 follow Route 20 West for LEICESTER, MA 90 7.5 miles. Turn right onto Grafton 90 Upton Route 56. Continue 6 miles to Millbury 395 146 Leicester center at the junc- Sutton Northbridge Hopedale 16 495 tion of Route 9. Staying on Mendon Uxbridge Millville 16 Route 56, turn right at this 122 Blackstone B lac Douglas ksto ne Ri ver intersection, then turn at CONNECTICUT MASSACHUSETTS 395 RHODE ISLAND Woonsocket the first left. (Signs indicate 102 146 Cumberland Burrillville N. Smithfield Becker College.) At the town 295 Glocester 295 95 common, take the first right. Smithfield Lincoln 44 Central Falls Pawtucket There is free public parking 146 East 44 Providence 102 behind the Leicester Town PROVIDENCE Hall on the left-hand side. ALONG THE WAY ❑ Restrooms are available during business hours at the Leicester Town Hall. ❑ Tour the Becker College campus by picking up a free campus map at the Borger Academic Center at 9 Washburn Square (directly behind the Marsh Hall building). 508-791-9241. ❑ Learn more about Leicester’s industrial past. Worcester Historical Museum, 30 Elm Street, Worcester, MA. Admission fee for nonmembers. Tuesday-Saturday, 10AM-4PM, and Sunday, 1-4 PM. 508-753-8278. All it takes is a little “Common” sense to ❑ For information on events, restaurants and lodging in Leicester, call or visit the Worcester County Convention and Visitors Bureau, ground floor of parking enjoy Leicester’s historic town green. garage at corner of Thomas Street and 30 Worcester Center Blvd., Worcester, MA. 508-753-2920. ❑ Pick up more self-guided walking and driving tours. Maps and information about the National Heritage Corridor are free at the Visitors Center at Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 9AM-4PM, and Sunday, 12:30-4PM. Admission fee to trails and wildlife areas for nonmembers. Massachusetts Audubon Society, 414 Massasoit Road, Worcester, MA. 508-753-6087. ❑ Learn about the transition of life from farm to factory in the Blackstone Valley in the early 1800s. Visitors Center and the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park, 287 Oak Street, Uxbridge, MA. Free admission. Open seven days, year round. Hiking trails, picnic area, canoe launch, free parking. 508-278-7604. Congress established the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in 1986, recog- nizing the national significance of the region between Providence, RI and Worcester, MA – the Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor is an affiliated area of the National Park Service. This brochure was developed under the direction of the Worcester Historical Museum in partnership with the Heritage Corridor Commission. www.nps.gov/blac/home.htm Special thanks to Joe Lennerton, the Leicester Historical Commission, the Leicester Historical Society and the Leicester Public Library. 20: 09-03 LEICESTER Marauding Mohawks may have been the reason but efficient workshops, realizing that “mechanical the sachems of the Nipmuck tribe tolerated the initial business has for years been more profitable than agri- English interest in the land along the banks of Kettle culture” specialized in making hand cards – combing Brook. Hoping that a handful of white men might tools used to prepare raw fibers for spinning into offer them some protection from nearby warrior tribes, thread. By the late 1820s, its merchants claimed there the Nipmucks were friendly in their negotiations with is “scarcely a state in the union that is not, to some the eight men from Roxbury, MA who purchased nine extent, supplied with these [cards] from this town.” miles square in 1686. The price was 15 pounds, and it While Leicester’s seven villages prospered, many of the was a wise buy for the investors: at least three well-used town’s farms, which were once expertly cultivated, had Nipmuck trails criss-crossed at what would become become “little better than mere wastes, where briars Leicester center, and the land lay along a Boston Post and bushes were the only productions of the soil.” Road, now Route 9. When the pendulum In the Algonquin language, of industrialization in the region was called Towtaid. New England swung in The first English settlers, reverse in the mid-20th none of whom were the century Leicester’s prime original partners, built their industries, like thousands first meeting house in 1719, and incorporated as of others in the region, closed. Some mills and worker Leicester – for Leicester, England – in 1722. housing were lost to fires and floods. Suburbanization At the same time that tracts of farmlands were after World War II changed the landscape further. now being cleared on the town’s rolling hills, small streams that more than half of its area is reforested, the entire and brooks were being put to use to turn the waterwheels town reflects the character of its rural beginnings. at numerous sawmills, gristmills and fulling mills. While other early towns throughout the Blackstone The population of Leicester grew to 1100 inhabitants Valley boomed every time a canal basin was dug, or a by 1800 and there soon were more mill workers than train station opened, or a new highway exit was paved, farmers. This placed Leicester’s earliest businessmen Leicester seems to have somehow guarded what has squarely at the forefront of the new nation’s procession been a quieter, though no less industrious, way of life. from “farm to factory” during the textile boom in the On this short walk around the village green, first half of the 19th century. you’ll soon see why Leicester center so effortlessly At the start of the Industrial Revolution, Leicester retains the spirit of the past. already had an important role to play. The town’s small The ring of the green is a half-mile walk. Begin by walking into the Common on the walkway through the West side leading past the stone monument honoring Leicester’s Minute Men. Becker P College 23WASHBURN SQUARE WARREN AVE. PAXTON ST. (RT. 56) LEICESTER COMMON 1 1 Town life was well anchored around side view of the Becker College Leicester Common the village green long before the Administration building. 5 4 Revolution. Strollers on the Common in The unadorned gable-ended back ell of the late 18th century walked past their MAIN STREET the Hiram Knight house at 3 Paxton St. 6 To Cemetary favorite tavern on their way to the (Route 56) is most likely the oldest meetinghouse. Perhaps they stopped to building on the green. The house is chat on the steps of a store with a now used as the administration building friend. Continuing on, they came to a of Becker College. The ell most likely newly founded pri- dates from after 1767, and the newer vate school, part of the house dates from the 1840s. respectably housed in a former store Reuben Swan was the tenth individual UNITARIAN and past several to run a pub on this site, holding the CHURCH (1834) more stylish resi- license from 1781 to 1801. Swan is also 2 dences of the known as a founder of Leicester Continue on the North side of the town’s leading Academy. More like clubs, taverns Common. merchants and everywhere were cornerstones of colo- manufacturers. nial life for villagers and travelers alike. Leicester’s Unitarian Congregation gath- One D.A.R. historian colorfully described ered in 1833 and raised $4,000 for their By the 1880s, the another nearby establishment as “a new meeting house by selling shares. green was “much used in summer for miserable rum-hole at the time it was The church looks much as it always has. lawn tennis, croquet and baseball wiped out by fire in 1882” not hesitating A combination of three different ele- games,” and even then had “a pleasant to add, “no respectable person was ments – temple, tower and a traditional little grove on the East side.” sorry to see it go.” oblong meeting house – it nonetheless Cranking the clock forward to today, has a quiet confidence. It was spared a Continue along the North side of Leicester Center manages to exude an Victorian-era “remodeling” into some- the Common to the Federated inclusive sense of community even now. thing more ornate. Church and the Town Hall. The Common has that unmistakable In a democratic nation that had just aura of authenticity that the planners On a side wall of the Federated shunned the rule of monarchy forever, of America’s “new towns” attempt, but Church is a stone tablet with four Greek Revival-style buildings became more often fail, to duplicate. dates on it. Three are the dates of popular. Their precisely balanced forms construction of the earlier meet- From the walkway across the West seemed at the time to symbolize simple ing houses that stood on the corner of the Common, you have a good truths about equality and by association, Common. This church was freedom. dedicated in 1901. A tall- spired church built in the Take a moment 1860s might still proudly dominate the to look at the green to this day had it not been seal in the gable torched by a bolt of lightening in 1900. end of the Town Pliny Earle (1762-1832) opened his carding mill in Leicester in 1786. Workers glued a Hall. It reads calfskin panel pierced with rows of thousands of wire teeth onto one side of the thin “Incorporated 1722,” but A brochure for wooden paddles.