Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s

Work

Farms, mills, bog iron

The base is still farming, but work also gathers at the river: a grist mill and saw mill¹ stand by the Nemasket, and the decade sees Fall Brook Furnace¹ begin about 1735. White farmers use land, stock, timber, and streams; Native families face a tightened economy as Muttock Hill is sold about 1739¹.

Faith

Meetinghouse at the center

The public religious building is the 36-by-30-foot meetinghouse¹ from about 1700. The church itself dates to December 26, 1694⁴, and in 1734 someone copies its oldest record, a sign of a community guarding its covenant memory.

Law & power

Town meeting country

Authority runs through the town, the church, the county, and the province: town meeting, selectmen, taxes, roads, militia duty, and courts shape daily obligation. In 1734 power also redraws the map when part of Middleborough is ceded to create Halifax¹.

In the air

Old faith, coming fractures

The 1730s are Congregational in public form, anchored by the church gathered in 1694⁴. The later Titicut split between “Old Faith” Congregationalists and Baptists has not yet happened, but scattered villages¹ make local loyalties and religious distance matter.

What people feared

War memory and hard land

The town lives in the long shadow of King Philip’s War, when the settlement had once been abandoned and burned. More immediate dangers are ordinary ones: worn-out land, shrinking game, water-powered works, and the hard use of streams, swamps, and bog iron ground¹.

Home & table

Plain timber houses

A typical house is likely a center-chimney cottage¹, not a mansion. Some houses carry gambrel roofs and end-wall overhangs¹, a regional style of southeastern Massachusetts.

Who lived here

English and Native neighbors

Middleborough is not only an English-descended farming town: it retains Native communities at Assawampsett and Titicut¹. The surviving figures are older and incomplete, but they show 80 Native residents in Assawampsett and Quittab and 40 adult Native residents in Titicut¹ in 1689.

Roads & news

Roads carry strangers

News and strangers move over old paths now functioning as highways, especially the Plymouth-to-Taunton route¹ through the Nemasket crossing. Broader reports come through Massachusetts channels such as Boston newspapers and official proclamations.

Year by year

1. 1732George Washington was born in Virginia, a fact that would later matter nationally but in the 1730s was distant colonial news at most. the country
2. 1733The Molasses Act imposed duties on foreign molasses entering British colonies, a trade issue that Massachusetts people could hear argued through Boston news. the country
3. 1734Part of Middleborough was ceded to form Halifax on July 4, 1734. here¹
4. 1734A copy of Middleborough First Church’s old record was made on March 8, 1734. here⁴
5. 1735Fall Brook Furnace was established about 1735 near Fall Brook and East Grove Street. here¹
6. 1737A smallpox epidemic struck Boston in 1737, close enough for inland towns to fear news from the port. nearby
7. 1739War of Jenkins’ Ear began between Britain and Spain, imperial news that would reach Massachusetts through newspapers, ports, and provincial authority. the world
8. 1739Native people at Muttock Hill sold the land about 1739 after overcultivation, deforestation, and a shortage of deer. here¹

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Middleborough was established as a town on June 1, 1669, Old Style. from the sources¹
• The town had been named Nemasket in 1661, then Middlebury, before becoming Middleborough. inferred²
• Middleborough lay on a main east-west corridor between Plymouth and Taunton, with the Nemasket ford as a critical crossing. from the sources¹
• The old Native name Nemasket was associated locally with a “fishing place,” and the modern town still notes spring herring runs on the Nemasket River. from the sources^2,3
• In the colonial period, Native settlement after King Philip’s War was concentrated chiefly at Assawampsett and Titicut. from the sources¹
• A contemporary account for 1689 reported 20 houses and 80 Native residents in Assawampsett and Quittab, and 40 adult Native residents in Titicut, though the figures were incomplete. from the sources¹
• The second Middleborough meetinghouse, built about 1700 and still standing in the 1730s, measured 36 by 30 by 16 feet and had an X-plan with intersecting gables. from the sources¹
• A church of Christ was gathered in Middleborough on December 26, 1694, with Samuel Fuller as teacher or pastor. inferred⁴
• On March 8, 1734, a copy was made of the First Church record, preserving its 1694 covenant and membership list. inferred⁴
• A grist mill and saw mill had been built shortly after 1677 at the junction of the Nemasket River and Nemasket Street. from the sources¹
• Eighteenth-century Middleborough’s mill and iron trades depended on bog iron, many streams, and the Nemasket River’s water power. from the sources¹
• Fall Brook Furnace was established about 1735 just east of the Fall Brook and East Grove Street junction. from the sources¹
• For colonial Middleborough houses, the Massachusetts Historical Commission describes the common form as a center-chimney cottage, often in a full five-bay plan. from the sources¹
• Gambrel roofs and end-wall overhangs were a distinctive southeastern Massachusetts house type that remained popular in Middleborough through the colonial period. from the sources¹
• Middleborough’s size and resources produced scattered semi-self-contained villages, including South Middleborough, Thomastown, Eddyville, the Soule neighborhood, and Titicut. from the sources¹
• South Middleborough’s early-to-mid eighteenth-century settlement was encouraged by potential farmland and extensive timber stands. from the sources¹
• Part of Middleborough was ceded to create Halifax on July 4, 1734. from the sources¹
• Native people occupying Muttock Hill sold the land about 1739 because it was overcultivated, deforested, and lacked enough deer. from the sources¹
• As across Massachusetts towns, local government centered on town meeting, elected selectmen, assessed taxes, church rates, roads, militia duties, and county courts. inferred
• As across rural Massachusetts, most ordinary white households combined grain, livestock, orchard, woodlot, textile work, and barter rather than living by cash wages alone. inferred
• Boston newspapers and official proclamations were the usual channels by which imperial news, laws, shipping reports, wars, and prices reached inland Massachusetts towns. inferred
• No detailed online description was found for Middleborough’s 1730s shops, school arrangements, food prices, or ordinary household interiors. not known

Sources

1. MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Middleborough. Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1981
2. History: Middleborough, Massachusetts. Town of Middleborough
3. Vital Records. Middleborough Public Library
4. Original Organization of the Church and Earliest Church Record. History of the First Church of Middleboro, 2010

Middleborough in other decades

Nearby, about the same time