Freetown's position at the head of a tidewater made it the closest port to the iron-producing towns of Middleborough and Lakeville, encouraging iron foundries and nails works as well as shipyards. The shipyards built sloops and schooners, some of which probably then worked the coastal or foreign trade routes and brought their cargoes back to the busy wharves of Freetown. By the 19th century, iron ore came up the Assonet and into Freetown's wharves primarily from New Jersey.

From the wharves the iron went to the factories in town making machine castings for textile machinery, a significant component of Freetown's industrial product at that time. The last ship was launched in Freetown in 1848, when the demand for larger ships outgrew the depth of the Assonet River and the extension of the railroads killed off coastal freighting. Residents of the town turned to small market gardening, dairy production and lumbering and by the end of the century, much of the land that had been farmed was returning to forest as Freetown regained some of its pre-Colonial rural landscape.

Freetown Massachusetts is located in Located in Southeastern Massachusetts, bordered by Berkley and Lakeville on the north; Rochester on the east; Acushnet, New Bedford, and Dartmouth on the south; and Fall River on the southwest. Freetown is about 12 miles northeast of Fall River; 37 miles south of Boston; and 23 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island.

We will not knowingly permit or accept any advertising for  property that violates the law. All users are hereby informed that all advertised dwellings are available on an equal opportunity basis. 

Complaints alleging housing discrimination may be filed with the nearest office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), or by calling HUD's toll free number, 1-800-697-6967 (voice), or 1-800-543-8294 (TDD). HUD may also be contacted on the Internet at www.hud.gov/fhe/fheo.html.