Section 3. Community Setting
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SECTION 3. COMMUNITY SETTING 3A. REGIONAL CONTEXT Shirley is located at the western edge of rapidly growing Middlesex County in northeastern Massachusetts. It has an area of approximately 10,175 acres or 15.9 square miles. Neighboring towns are Townsend on the northwest; Groton, Ayer, and Harvard to the east; Lancaster to the south; and Lunenburg to the west (Map 1). Shirley is 42 miles northwest of Boston, 25 miles northeast of Worcester, and 2 miles east of Leominster. MassAudubon’s Losing Ground evaluation of land use change and spread of development in Massachusetts places Shirley at the leading edge of the “sprawl frontier” of development moving west beyond I-495. As people continue to move westward, and as employment increases along Routes I-495 and I-190 and at Devens, Shirley, like its neighbors, faces increasing pressure on its open space. The town lies within the Nashua River watershed, and the river and its tributaries are important landscape features and historic economic drivers. The Squannacook and Nashua Rivers form a natural winding twenty-mile boundary along the town’s entire eastern edge. Four major sub- basins within the town contribute flow to the Nashua or Squannacook. The town’s rivers, streams, and aquifers connect it to its neighbors. Many of Shirley’s streams originate in adjoining towns, and the high- and medium-yield aquifers that supply the Shirley Water District also supply wells in those towns. Shirley has almost 2,800 acres of protected open space set aside under public and private ownership, and more than 1,500 acres of unprotected intact forests, fields, and wetlands that are managed by their owners for a variety of conservation purposes and may in future become available for protection. Public services that all of these lands provide include wildlife habitat and corridors, water supply protection, storage of atmospheric carbon (as wood, peat, and soil humus), temperature moderation, air-quality enhancement, and public health benefits; in addition, some provide recreational opportunities, agricultural crops, and/or forest products. Some of the town’s forests and recreational trails cross town boundaries and connect Shirley to its neighbors. Trails on the Lunenburg-Shirley border connect with trails on The Trustees of Reservations’ Farandnear Reservation, on the town’s Ronchetti and Holden Road Conservation Areas, in the private Valley Farm Conservation Area Trail Network, and on the Birchwood Hills private subdivision conservation land. Hunting Hill and Squannacook River trails lie within town conservation areas and MA DFG Wildlife Management Areas of the same name and are shared with Lunenburg, Townsend and Groton. Shirley also shares conservation land with Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge (shared by Devens, Harvard, and Ayer). Roadways and commuter rail also provide connections to the greater region. Route 2 is about two miles south of Shirley Village. Massachusetts State Routes 2A and 225 run through the 9 northern portions of the town. Interstate Route I-495 is located 10.5 miles east of Shirley Village, and Route I-190, a direct link with Worcester, is located approximately 3 miles west on Massachusetts State Route 2. Commuter rail service on the MBTA purple line, via the Shirley station, provides exceptional access from beyond Fitchburg into Cambridge and Boston, where many of Shirley’s residents work. Shirley is located approximately equidistant from Logan and Manchester Regional airports, and also from Worcester Airport (which currently has few commercial flights). Residents have commented that rerouting of commercial air traffic over Shirley Village has adversely affected the town’s rural character. The former Shirley Airport on Lancaster Road was used during the latter half of the 20th century by small private planes and ultralight aircraft. Between 2001 and 2006, the north end of the runway was developed for a variety of commercial businesses, and by 2015, the south end of the runway (in Lancaster) had been converted to solar arrays; Shirley Airport is no longer functioning as an airport, although the FAA still lists it as active. 3B. HISTORY OF THE COMMUNITY Today, Shirley presents a varied mix of land covers and uses (Map 2). Shirley Village and the southeastern part of town support dense residential/commercial/industrial/municipal/institutional development. In Shirley Center, centuries-old structures ring the historic Common. Elsewhere, old and new houses are scattered along the main east-west and north-south roads among large, intact forest blocks, meadows, marshes, wooded wetlands, and a few remnant farm fields (Map 3). Here and there, new, modern suburban housing subdivisions penetrate old farmlands and forests. This diverse landscape reflects the town’s history over the past three centuries. Before European Settlement According to the Shirley Reconnaissance Report (MADCR 2006), Shirley’s Native American history dates back to the Late Archaic Period (6,000-3,000 B.P.) with confirmed sites from this period and the Woodland Period (3,000-450 B.P.). Evidence of settlements has been obtained from uplands near the confluence of the Squannacook, Mulpus Brook, and Nashua River. Archaeological evidence of settlements from the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge east of the Nashua near MCI-Shirley suggests that other sites may exist on the Shirley side of the river. Information from elsewhere in southern New England suggests that Shirley too may have been a place of ancient settlement from as far back as the Paleo-Indian Period (12,000-9,000 B.P.). Colonization Shirley’s European settlement began when Dean Winthrop received a land grant from the English crown in 1655. The first settlers probably arrived around 1720. Originally part of Groton, Shirley became a separate district in 1753. A small meeting house was built in 1754 on Green Lane (off Parker Road). It was replaced by a new meeting house on the Common in 1773. 10 Economic Development, 1700s and 1800s Agriculture was the mainstay of the economy in the eighteenth century. Shirley Center was the focus of farming and civic activity, with the Meeting House, burial ground, Town Pound, and common. Early roads radiated from this center. Mills were built early on to meet settlers’ needs, including a clothier mill on the Squannacook River in ca. 1739, saw and grist mills on Catacunemaug Brook in ca. 1748, and grist and sawmills and a forge on the Mulpus Brook from the mid-to late eighteenth century. As mills were built, roads followed the waterways, connecting the mill sites with other parts of the territory. Indeed, funding for roads represented a major topic of discussion at early Town Meetings. Squannacook Road followed the meandering Squannacook River; Great Road followed the course of Mulpus Brook. Leominster Road followed the Catacunemaug Brook through the southern part of town and connected Ayer to the east with Leominster to the west. The Shakers established their own community in the southern portion of town in 1793. This religious community built many fine houses and communal buildings that now are within MCI- Shirley, a state correctional facility. In 1849 the Shakers constructed the Phoenix Mill and Pond, a cotton factory on the Catacunemaug Brook in Shirley Village. By the time that the Shaker cotton mill Old postcard view of the Shirley Shaker Village in the late 1800s or early 1900s. A few of the buildings remain as part was built, and with the advent of the of MCI-Shirley. Boston-to-Fitchburg Railroad in 1845, industrial activity had begun to soar in Shirley Village. Catacunemaug Brook would eventually power seven cotton mills, in addition to a shoddy mill and sawmills. Many of the mills were damaged or destroyed by a flood in 1856, when the dam failed at the Shirley Reservoir (Lake Shirley) upstream in Lunenburg, but they were quickly rebuilt and improved. The construction of the Boston-to-Fitchburg railroad brought immigrants, particularly Irish, to Shirley, many of whom stayed to work in the mills. The railroad also fostered growth of local farms by providing ready transport of milk and other agricultural products to Boston. By 1855 nearly 1,500 people lived in Shirley, predominantly in the valley of the Catacunemaug Brook. That area, which came to be known as Shirley Village, became the most densely developed part of town, supporting most of the population and businesses. A wide range of shops and other commercial establishments lined the village streets, selling everything from ladies’ hats to feed grain and farm tools. In the late nineteenth century the Phoenix Mill became Samson Cordage. At about the same time, the Charles A. Edgarton Company opened its factory, which was substantially expanded in 1896. It too was located on the Catacunemaug, on the western side of the village. 11 By this time, there were networks of new roads connecting to Shirley Village. An electric trolley route led from Ayer to Leominster, traveling along Front and Main Streets to Leominster Road. With the rise of the automobile, the original Route 2 (now Route 2A), aka The Great Road, was improved as an important east-west roadway. The Great Road and the Leominster-Ayer Road were primary routes while north-south roads remained secondary routes. Phoenix Pond and the historic Phoenix/Sampson At the end of the nineteenth century, French Cordage Mill, now Phoenix Park, with the water Canadians came to work at the Samson Cordage tower for the Water District’s old Sampson well (old Phoenix Mills), most settling in Shirley Village near the railroad and the mills. Moderate growth continued as factories expanded, and in the early twentieth century immigrants arrived from Poland, Russia, and Lithuania to work in Shirley’s factories. The Shirley Historical Society has documented how, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, wealthy businessmen and intellectuals from the Boston area, who wanted to escape the city for the summer, bought some of the old Yankee houses on the lovely country hillside at Shirley Center.