Everything about Worcester Massachusetts totally explained
Worcester is a
city in the
state of
Massachusetts in the
United States of America. A 2006 estimate put the population at 175,898, making it the estimated second-largest city in
New England, after
Boston. It is also the second-largest city in Massachusetts, and the county seat of
Worcester County. The city marks the western periphery of the Boston-Worcester-Manchester (MA-RI-NH) U.S. Census
Combined Statistical Area (CSA). Located in Central Massachusetts, Worcester is known as the "Heart of the Commonwealth."
History
The Pakachoag tribe of the
Nipmuc nation of
Native Americans were the indigenous settlers of Quinsigamond, now known as Worcester. For the Pakachoag, Worcester's Lake Quinsigamond offered fine hunting and fishing grounds a short distance from their main village near a spring on Pakachoag Hill in is now
Auburn. Mt. Wachusett was their sacred space.
Worcester was first settled by the English in 1673, but the modest settlement of 6 or 7 houses was burned to the ground during
King Philip's War on
December 2,
1675 and the English settlers were either killed or driven off; it was subsequently resettled and was incorporated in 1684. On
September 10 of that year,
Daniel Gookin petitioned to have the town's name officially changed from "Quinsigamond" to "Worcester." However, its inhabitants were still vulnerable to attack, and some such as Samuel Lenorson Jr. were taken hostage by natives during the 1690s; and when Queen Anne's war started in 1702, the town was again abandoned by all its English inhabitants except for Diggory Sargent, who was later tomahawked, as was his wife who was too weak to make the journey on foot to Canada; their children were taken to Canada and survived.
In 1713 Worcester was re-settled for the third time, permanently, by Jonas Rice, whose farm was located atop Union Hill. Named after the historic city of
Worcester,
UK, Worcester [=War +
cester camp] was incorporated as a town in 1722 and chartered as a city in 1848. When the government of Worcester County was established on
April 2,
1731, Worcester was chosen as its shire town (later known as a
county seat). From that date until the dissolution of the county government on
July 1,
1998, it was the only county seat.
As political tensions rose in the months before the
American Revolution, Worcester served as a center of revolutionary activity. Because it was an important munitions depot, Worcester was targeted for attack by
Loyalist general
Thomas Gage. However, officers sent secretly to inspect the munitions depot were discovered by
Patriot Timothy Bigelow. General Gage then decided to move on to the second munitions depot, in
Lexington. In 1775 determining that Boston was too dangerous,
Isaiah Thomas moved his newspaper, the
Massachusetts Spy, to Worcester.
The Massachusetts Spy was one of the few papers published continuously during the Revolution. On
July 14,
1776, Isaiah Thomas, intercepting the packet from Philadelphia to Boston, performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence ever. In 1812, Thomas founded the
American Antiquarian Society, a research library holding nearly two thirds of the items known to have been printed in America from 1639, through 1820. The Society's holdings from 1821 to 1876 compare favorably with those of the Library of Congress and other major research libraries.
In 1778, a scandal unfolded in Worcester: 32-year-old Bathsheba Spooner arranged the murder of her husband by three Revolutionary soldiers. The first woman executed in the new American republic, Spooner was hanged by a community that was fearful of civil disorder. Trapped in an abusive marriage, she declared on the scaffold that she "justly died; that she hoped to see her Christian friends she left behind her, in Heaven, but that none of them might go there in the ignominious manner that she did." Her father,
Timothy Ruggles of Hardwick, arranged her unhappy marriage, and continues to be honored as a Revolutionary War hero.
Known for innovation in commerce, industry, education, and social thought, Worcester and the nearby
Blackstone Valley claim their historic role as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. Ichabod Washburn, an early industrialist, developed a process for extruding steel wire. His company, Washburn & Moen, founded in 1831, was "the company that 'barbed-wire fenced the American West,'" and held the battle lines during the First World War. In 1840, Loring Coes invented the monkey wrench. In the 1850s, George Crompton and LJ & FB Knowles founded companies that manufactured the textile looms that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Another Worcester innovator, physician Russel Howes, invented the first envelope folding machine in 1856. His machine could produce 25,000 envelopes in ten hours, using three operators.
Women found economic opportunity in Worcester. An early female entrepreneur, Esther Howland designed and manufactured the first American valentine cards in 1847. Women also found opportunity in The Royal Worcester Corset Factory, a company that provided employment opportunity for 1200 women; it was the largest employer of women in the United States in 1908.
An innovative form of affordable housing appeared in the nineteenth century: the
three decker. Hundreds of these houses were built, affording spacious, comfortable apartments for a homeowner and two tenants. Many extended families settled in these houses, developing strong, safe, and stable neighborhoods for the city's factory workers.
Several entrepreneurs brought growth to Worcester's economy during this period. John Jeppson, a skilled potter, emigrated from Hoganas, Sweden to Worcester in search of a better life. In Worcester he founded Norton Company, now the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of performance engineered abrasives for technical manufacturing and commercial applications as well as general household and automotive refinishing. Jeppson created economic opportunity for the thousands of his countrymen who followed him to Worcester and for others, as well.
Another innovator was George Fuller, an inventor and philanthropist, who developed a heat-treating process crucial to developing steel strong enough to be used in train couplings and the first automobile crankshafts. His company, Wyman-Gordon, has been a leading manufacturer of machine parts.
Charles Palmer, another innovator, received the first patent (1891) for a lunch wagon, or diner. He built his "fancy night cafes" and "night lunch wagons" in the Worcester area until 1901. After building a lunch wagon for himself in 1888, Thomas Buckley decided to manufacture lunch wagons in Worcester. Buckley was very successful and became known for his "White House Cafe" wagons. In 1906 Philip Duprey and Irving Stoddard established the
Worcester Lunch Car Company, which shipped 'diners' all over the Eastern Seaboard.
They were joined in early
automobile manufacture by
American Wheelock, which built compressed air-powered trucks at Worcester in 1904.
Many
Irish immigrants settled in Worcester during this period, as well. They helped build the railroad and the
Blackstone Canal, further driving Worcester's economic engine.
On
September 21,
1938, the city was hit by the brutal
New England Hurricane of 1938. Fifteen years later, Worcester was hit by a
tornado that killed 94 people. The deadliest tornado in New England history, it damaged a large part of the city and surrounding towns. It struck Assumption Preparatory School, now the site of
Quinsigamond Community College.
A human tragedy unfolded in December 1999 with the
Worcester Cold Storage Fire. Two homeless persons, deemed mentally disabled, accidentally knocked over a lit candle in an abandoned cold storage warehouse and fled the scene. Under the belief that the two were trapped inside, firefighters entered the building. Ultimately six of these firefighters lost their lives in one of the worst U.S. firefighting tragedies of the late 20th-century. The tragedy received national attention, with then- President
Bill Clinton, vice-president
Al Gore, and the area congressional and state political delegations attending services and a memorial program.
Geography
Worcester is located at (42.268843, -71.803774). According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 38.6
square miles (99.9
km²), of which, 37.6 square miles (97.3 km²) of it's land and 1.0 square miles (2.6 km²) of it (2.59%) is water. Worcester is bordered by the towns of
Auburn,
Grafton,
Holden,
Leicester,
Millbury,
Paxton,
Shrewsbury, and
West Boylston.
The
Blackstone River passes through Worcester, but is almost completely covered as it passes through. Water Street and the appearance of the river just south of the city are the only indications of its existence. There are seven very steep hills that distinguish its topography: Airport Hill, Bancroft Hill, Belmont Hill (Bell Hill),
Grafton Hill, Green Hill, Pakachoag Hill and Vernon Hill.
Lake Quinsigamond, on its eastern border, is frequently the site of
rowing competitions.
Worcester counts within its borders over 1,200 acres (5 km²) of publicly owned property. Elm Park, purchased in 1854 and laid out by
Frederick Law Olmsted, wasn't only the first public park in the city (after the 8 acre (32,000 m²) City Common from 1669) but also one of the first of its kind in the U.S. Both the City Common and Elm Park are listed in the
National Register of Historic Places. In 1903 the Green family donated the 549 acres (2.2 km²) of Green Hill area land to the city, making Green Hill Park the largest in the city. In June 2002, city and state leaders dedicated the state's Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Green Hill Park grounds.
Demographics
Further Information
Get more info on 'Worcester Massachusetts'.
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