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The Town of Bolton Massachusetts
is a residential and agricultural community on the uplands east of the
Nashua River Valley on an historic east-west corridor. Its geography greatly
shaped its history. Bolton has gently sloping hills but no major streams,
so the earliest sources of power for manufacturing were not present and
the town from its earliest years was primarily an agricultural community
with only a small percentage of industry.
But Bolton had rich forests and geological
deposits of lime which combined to supplement the farming economy. The
town had lime kilns and limestone quarries, and produced potash, lime and
bricks. The town was settled early by Europeans, in 1675.
It consisted then of prosperous dispersed
farms and its population increased very slowly after King Philip's wars.
Agricultural uses grew to include orchards and dairy farming by the 19th
century. Much of this rural landscape is still intact in a town that is
now primarily a residential suburb for surrounding industrial communities
and an exurb for the greater l-495 corridor.
Bolton Massachusetts is located Central
Massachusetts, bordered by Harvard on the north, Stow on the east, Berlin
and Hudson on the south, and Clinton and Lancaster on the west. Bolton
is 17 miles northeast of Worcester, 31 miles northwest of Boston. |