But in its earliest history, Somerville served as the grazing lands for the residents of Charlestown with only a few scattered permanent settlements. Among them was Governor Winthrop's estate at Ten Hills, the location of the first ship built in the colonies, the Blessing of the Bay, in 1631. Somerville's location, close to Boston and Charlestown, assured early development of markets for the city's agriculture and dairying products as well as well as for pottery, bricks and slate. Establishment of the area as a town in 1842 stimulated growth and in eight years the community's population more than tripled. In each of the next decades, until 1870, the population doubled.

Many of the new settlers, including a large number of Irish immigrants, worked in the various brickyards of Somerville, producing as many as 1.3 million bricks a year by hand or 5.5 million with a new patent press. In 1851, the American Tube Works was opened and began manufacturing the first seamless brass tubes in the U.S. using an English patent. This marked the entrance of heavy industry into Somerville, and was soon followed by rolling and slitting mills, iron works and manufacturers of steam engines and boilers.

Somerville Massachusetts is located in Southeastern Massachusetts, bordered by Dighton on the north, the Taunton River and Fall River on the east, Mount Hope Bay on the south, and Swansea on the west. Somerset is 4 miles west of Fall River; 44 miles south of Boston.