# Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s

> A large inland farming town on old paths and rivers, with mills, bog iron, Native neighbors, and Congregational rule.

- Place: Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts (41.895, -70.926)
- Years: 1730 to 1739
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/middleborough-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Middleborough%2C%20Plymouth%20County%2C%20Massachusetts%2C%20United%20States&at=41.8946,-70.9262&year=1735

## Looking around

You stand near the Green, where the town’s civic and church life gathers around a meetinghouse built about 1700[1]. Roads run out from here in several directions, following older ways toward Plymouth and Taunton[1], Titicut, South Middleborough, and the ponds. Down by the Nemasket, a grist mill and saw mill[1] work at the old mill site near Nemasket Street. Farms lie dispersed rather than crowded, with settlements at Titicut, Eddyville, South Middleborough, Thomastown, and the Soule neighborhood[1]. Houses are mostly plain center-chimney cottages[1], with a few gambrel roofs and end-wall overhangs. The land is cut by streams, the Nemasket River, cedar swamps, and bog-iron ground[1]. Native families remain at Assawampsett and Titicut[1], but their hunting and planting ground has narrowed. In the western part of town, the land soon to be Halifax is being separated from Middleborough.

## Work: Farms, mills, bog iron

The base is still farming, but work also gathers at the river: a grist mill and saw mill[1] stand by the Nemasket, and the decade sees Fall Brook Furnace[1] begin about 1735. White farmers use land, stock, timber, and streams; Native families face a tightened economy as Muttock Hill is sold about 1739[1].

## Faith: Meetinghouse at the center

The public religious building is the 36-by-30-foot meetinghouse[1] from about 1700. The church itself dates to December 26, 1694[4], 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 Halifax[1].

## In the air: Old faith, coming fractures

The 1730s are Congregational in public form, anchored by the church gathered in 1694[4]. The later Titicut split between “Old Faith” Congregationalists and Baptists has not yet happened, but scattered villages[1] 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 ground[1].

## Home & table: Plain timber houses

A typical house is likely a center-chimney cottage[1], not a mansion. Some houses carry gambrel roofs and end-wall overhangs[1], 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 Titicut[1]. The surviving figures are older and incomplete, but they show 80 Native residents in Assawampsett and Quittab and 40 adult Native residents in Titicut[1] in 1689.

## Roads & news: Roads carry strangers

News and strangers move over old paths now functioning as highways, especially the Plymouth-to-Taunton route[1] through the Nemasket crossing. Broader reports come through Massachusetts channels such as Boston newspapers and official proclamations.

## Year by year

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

## What the sources say

- Middleborough was established as a town on June 1, 1669, Old Style. (from the sources)[1]
- The town had been named Nemasket in 1661, then Middlebury, before becoming Middleborough. (inferred)[2]
- Middleborough lay on a main east-west corridor between Plymouth and Taunton, with the Nemasket ford as a critical crossing. (from the sources)[1]
- 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 sources)[1]
- 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 sources)[1]
- 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 sources)[1]
- A church of Christ was gathered in Middleborough on December 26, 1694, with Samuel Fuller as teacher or pastor. (inferred)[4]
- On March 8, 1734, a copy was made of the First Church record, preserving its 1694 covenant and membership list. (inferred)[4]
- A grist mill and saw mill had been built shortly after 1677 at the junction of the Nemasket River and Nemasket Street. (from the sources)[1]
- Eighteenth-century Middleborough’s mill and iron trades depended on bog iron, many streams, and the Nemasket River’s water power. (from the sources)[1]
- Fall Brook Furnace was established about 1735 just east of the Fall Brook and East Grove Street junction. (from the sources)[1]
- 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 sources)[1]
- Gambrel roofs and end-wall overhangs were a distinctive southeastern Massachusetts house type that remained popular in Middleborough through the colonial period. (from the sources)[1]
- Middleborough’s size and resources produced scattered semi-self-contained villages, including South Middleborough, Thomastown, Eddyville, the Soule neighborhood, and Titicut. (from the sources)[1]
- South Middleborough’s early-to-mid eighteenth-century settlement was encouraged by potential farmland and extensive timber stands. (from the sources)[1]
- Part of Middleborough was ceded to create Halifax on July 4, 1734. (from the sources)[1]
- Native people occupying Muttock Hill sold the land about 1739 because it was overcultivated, deforested, and lacked enough deer. (from the sources)[1]
- 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. https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/mhc/preservation/survey/town-reports/archives/mid.pdf
2. History: Middleborough, Massachusetts. Town of Middleborough. https://www.middleboroughma.gov/304/History/1000
3. Vital Records. Middleborough Public Library. https://www.midlib.org/vital-records
4. Original Organization of the Church and Earliest Church Record. History of the First Church of Middleboro, 2010. https://middleborofirstchurch.blogspot.com/2010/10/original-organization-of-church-and.html

## The same place in other decades

- [Middleborough in the 1770s](https://yorehistory.com/place/middleborough-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1770s/md)

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Plympton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1710s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plympton-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1710s/md) (11 km)
- [Plymouth in the 1750s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plymouth-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1750s/md) (23 km)
- [Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s/md) (27 km)
- [Londonderry, Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/londonderry-rockingham-county-new-hampshire/1730s/md) (114 km)
- [Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1730s/md) (131 km)
- [Goffstown, New Hampshire in the 1760s](https://yorehistory.com/place/goffstown-new-hampshire/1760s/md) (137 km)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-12 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s", https://yorehistory.com/place/middleborough-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s