Tewksbury

Discover the history of Tewksbury through historic photographs from the Tewksbury Historical Society.

In 1689, Chief Magistrate Waitstill Winthrop appointed Samuel Hunt II to build a blockhouse to guard against Mohawk-affiliated Indians from Canada seeking to cross the Merrimack River to harm the English settlers and the Praying Indians of Wamesit. The crossing Hunt guarded is now known as Hunts Falls. By 1734, on a second attempt, Hunt and 41 settlers from around his site petitioned the legislature and succeeded to incorporate Tewksbury as a separate town from Billerica. Beginning as an agricultural community, along with fishing in the Merrimack, Shawsheen, and Concord Rivers, industries such as dairies, tanneries, furniture making, sawmills, blacksmith shops, and even a soap factory prospered during the 1800s. Greenhouses began to spring up in the late 1800s. In the 1970s, Tewksbury was deemed the Carnation Capital of the World for its production and cultivation talents. In 1934, at the town’s 200th anniversary celebration, citizens celebrated its beginnings and growth with pride and patriotism. Today, public art includes figures from Tewksbury’s past by renowned resident sculptor Mico Kaufman.

Rev. Douglas W. Sears, JD, and Nancy Reed, president and vice president, respectively, of the Tewksbury Historical Society, are longtime residents who have served on several town boards. Reed serves as Tewksbury’s town historian. The images in this book are from the Tewksbury Historical Society’s collection and other sources as noted.