Living in Northborough, MA

About Northborough

Northborough was the north part of Westborough until January 23, 1766, when it became a separate district; it became a town on August 23, 1775, and in 1807 annexed part of Marlborough. Its first meetinghouse went up in 1746 near the Post Road, where Cold Harbor and Howard Brooks meet. The Assabet River and the brooks powered grist mills, a fulling mill by 1749 and, from 1814, textile mills at Woodside; manufacturing began at Chapinville in 1832. Boots and shoes peaked in the 1860s, and comb and button making, begun in the late 1830s, was the leading industry by 1855. A railroad to Framingham opened through town in 1855 and was extended to Fitchburg in 1866.

Main Street is the old Upper Boston Post Road, and Milestone 33, at 143 East Main Street, is still engraved '33 Miles to Boston.' After the railroad arrived, the center spread southeast with a bank organized in 1854 (later the Northborough National Bank), a Second Empire town hall completed in 1868 and the Italianate First Baptist Church of 1860 at 52 Main Street, the address of the Northborough Historical Society. The Boston-Worcester Turnpike across the southern tip of town was rebuilt as four-lane Route 9 in 1930 and 1931, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission describes the 1930 Route 9 and Route 20 interchange as one of the earliest cloverleafs in the state. To the north, the Wachusett Aqueduct, built from 1897 to 1905, crosses the Assabet on its way to Marlborough, and Mount Pisgah rises to 715 feet, the highest point in town.

Suburban building after the Second World War followed the construction of I-290, which the Commission's 1983 survey saw as a pressure on the remaining orchards of Ball Hill and the farmsteads on South Street. As an MBTA adjacent community, Northborough must zone a district of at least 50 acres where multifamily housing is allowed at 15 units per acre. The 2024 Annual Town Meeting warrant carried a Multifamily Development Overlay District with two sub-districts, Southwest Connector and Downtown (about 47.94 and 11.29 acres on nine parcels in the Planning Board's February 2024 presentation), and a new Highway Business Southwest district for the area around Avalon of Northborough and Northborough Crossing. On December 10, 2024, the state's Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities found the 59.2-acre district, with an estimated capacity of 886 multi-family units, compliant with the law, and the state's compliance list (as of October 21, 2026) includes Northborough.

Homes in Northborough

The Massachusetts Historical Commission's 1983 survey found seven surviving colonial two-story central-chimney houses, including the 1743 Samuel Gamwell house, and seven Federal double-chimney houses, from the period when brick came into use. Greek Revival two-story sidehall houses followed from 1830 to 1870, then Queen Anne and Colonial Revival frame houses, and post-war subdivisions came with I-290.