The City Hall is a very imposing building with 6 windows on the first floor and 7 across the 2nd floor. There is a center tower which is quite elaborate with a 4 sided clock, which is working. The building is made of a light colored stone. Photographing is difficult due to its size and the narrow Main St which it is located.
John Howe had come to the area in 1656 as a fur trader and built a house at the intersection of two Indian trails, Nashua Trail and Connecticut path. He could speak the language of the Algonquin Indians though the local tribe referred to themselves as the Pennacooks. The settlers were welcomed by the Indians because they protected them from other tribes they were at war with. In the 1650s, several families left the nearby town of Sudbury, 18 miles west of Boston, to start a new town. The village was named after Marlborough, the market town in Wiltshire, England. It was first settled in 1657 by 14 men led by Edmund Rice; in 1656 Rice petitioned the Massachusetts General Court to create the city of Marlborough and it was officially incorporated in 1660. Rice was elected a Selectman at Marlborough in 1657. Sumner Chilton Powell wrote, in Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes."
City Hall (1905) by Allen, Collins & Berry The Reverend William Brimstead was the first minister of the Puritan church and Johnathan Johnson was the first blacksmith.
Marlborough was one of the seven "Praying Indian Towns" because they were converted to Christianity by the Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury. In 1674 a deed was drawn up dividing the land between the settlers and the natives. This is the only record of names of the natives. The document was signed by:
Old Nequenit
Robin (Robin Hill in Marlborough is named after him)
Benjamin Wuttanamitt
Great James
Mary, the widow of Peter Naskonit, on behalf of her child David Moses
Assoake, the widow of James Norwell "On behalf of my children"
Sarah Conomy, sole executrix of my late husband Oomonog
Elizebeth, the only daughter and sole heir of Solomon, deceased. (Solomon Pond in Northborough is named after him and hence Solomon Pond Mall)
James Spence on behalf of his wife.
The settlement was almost destroyed by Native Americans in 1676 during King Philip's War.
In 1711 Marlborough's territory included Northborough, Southborough, Westborough and Hudson. As population, business, and travel grew in the colonies, Marlborough became a favored rest stop on the Boston Post Road. Many travelers stopped at its inns and taverns, including George Washington, who visited the Williams Tavern (see citation below) soon after his inauguration in 1789.
In 1836, Samuel Boyd, known as the "father of the city," and his brother Joseph, opened the first shoe manufacturing business - an act that would change the community forever. By 1890, with a population of 14,000, Marlborough had become a major shoe manufacturing center, producing boots for Union soldiers, as well as footwear for the civilian population. Marlborough became so well known for its shoes that its official seal was decorated with a factory, a shoe box, and a pair of boots when it was incorporated as a city in 1890.
The Civil War resulted in the creation of one of the region's most unusual monuments. Legend has it that a company from Marlborough, assigned to Harpers Ferry, appropriated the bell from the firehouse where John Brown last battled for the emancipation of the slaves. The company left the bell in the hands of one Mrs. Elizabeth Snyder for 30 years, returning in 1892 to bring it back to Marlborough. The bell now hangs in a tower at the corner of Route 85 and Main Street.
Around that time, Marlborough is believed to have been the first community in the country to receive a charter for a streetcar system, edging out Baltimore by a few months. The system, designed primarily for passenger use, provided access to Milford to the south, and Concord to the north. As a growing industrialized community, Marlborough began attracting skilled craftsmen from Quebec, Ireland, Italy, and Greece.
Shoe manufacturing continued in Marlborough long after the industry had fled many other New England communities. Famous Frye boots were manufactured here through the 1970s, and The Rockport Company, founded in Marlborough in 1971, continues to maintain an outlet store in the city. In 1990, when Marlborough celebrated its centennial as a city, the festivities included the construction of a park in acknowledgment of the shoe industry, featuring statues by the sculptor David Kapenteopolous.
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