Interior House Painter Grafton MA

Grafton, Massachusetts
Town
Grafton center in 2006
Seal
Location in Worcester County and the state of Massachusetts.
Coordinates: 42°12′25″N 71°41′10″W / 42.20694°N 71.68611°W / 42.20694; -71.68611Coordinates: 42°12′25″N 71°41′10″W / 42.20694°N 71.68611°W / 42.20694; -71.68611
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Worcester
Settled	1718
Incorporated	1735
Government
• Type	Open town meeting
• Town    Administrator	Evan Brassard
• Select Board	Peter Carlson Colleen Roy Mat Often Ray Mead Doreen DeFazio
• Town Moderator	Dawn Anderson
Area
• Total	23.3 sq mi (60.3 km)
• Land	22.7 sq mi (58.9 km2)
• Water	0.5 sq mi (1.4 km)
Elevation	425 ft (130 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	19,664
• Density	840/sq mi (330/km2)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (Eastern)
ZIP Code	01519, 01536, 01560
Area code	508/774
FIPS code	25-26430
GNIS feature ID	0619480
Website	www.grafton-ma.gov

Grafton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,664 as of the 2020 census. The town consists of the North Grafton, Grafton, and South Grafton geographic areas, each with a separate ZIP Code. Incorporated in 1735, the town is home to a Nipmuc village known as Hassanamisco Reservation, the Willard House and Clock Museum, Community Harvest Project, and the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Grafton operates the state’s largest on-call fire department, with 74 members.^{[citation needed]}

History

Bands of the Nipmuc tribe are the indigenous inhabitants, and maintain a state-recognized reservation known as Hassanamesit, or Hassanamisco, which was formerly a Praying Indian village from 1647 when the Reverend John Eliot came and converted the Hassanamiscos to Christianity . in 1727 the Hassanamesit reservation of 8,000 acres was divided into 7,500 acres to 40 English proprietors and 500 acres to 7 Nipmuc proprietors. This became Grafton, officially incorporated in 1735.

Grafton stands tall in the industrialization of the Blackstone Valley. Its Northeast Village was once known as “New England Village”. The following is an excerpt from the Blackstone Daily about the history of the town:

The town is named for Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, a title created for the illegitimate son of King Charles II of England. Ethan Allen ran a gun factory in Grafton in the early 19th century. In the 1930s, a movie, Ah, Wilderness!, was filmed in the town. The moviemakers built a bandstand on the town common, which still stands there today. Grafton Common has many historic homes, churches and buildings and is considered the most quintessential common in the Blackstone Valley. The town is part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, the oldest industrialized region in the U.S.

North Grafton is the home of the Wyman Gordon Company. In 1955, the United States Air Force installed a 50,000-ton metal forge in North Grafton as part of its Heavy Press Program in a plant operated by Wyman-Gordon. It was the largest metal forge, and indeed the largest machine, in the world at the time it was built. This forge is used to form strategic metals used in commercial and military aircraft for turbine disks, shafts, and blades, landing struts and other aircraft parts where light weight and extreme strength are needed. The entire undercarriage of the Space Shuttles was forged in Grafton of magnesium.

From 1901 to 1973, North Grafton was home to the Grafton State Hospital. Originally an offshoot of the Worcester State Hospital, Grafton State Hospital served as a “farm colony” where chronically insane patients could live and work in somewhat normal surroundings. The campus was made up of several clusters of buildings and eventually encompassed 1,200 acres (490 ha) in Grafton, Shrewsbury, and Westborough. The hospital was closed in 1973, and the campus, including many of the original buildings, was taken over by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (part of Tufts University) and the Grafton Job Corps center.

One hundred ninety acres of the Hassanamessit Woods, believed to contain the remains of the praying village were under agreement for development for more than 100 homes. This property has significant cultural importance to the Nipmuc Tribal Nation because it is thought to contain the meetinghouse and the center of the old praying village. However, The Trust for Public Land, the town of Grafton, the Grafton Land Trust, the Nipmuc Nation and the state of Massachusetts intervened. The Trust for Public Land purchased the property and kept it off the market until 2004, after sufficient funding was procured to permanently protect the property. The property also has ecological significance as it is adjacent to 187 acres of Grafton owned land as well as 63 acres owned by the Grafton Land Trust. These properties will provide numerous recreational benefits to the public as well as play a role in protecting the water quality of local watersheds.

Transportation

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Commuter rail service from Boston’s South Station is provided by the MBTA with the Grafton station on its Framingham/Worcester Line.