Editing Boylston, Massachusetts (section)

==History==
Boylston was first settled by Europeans around 1706 in the northern part of the present-day town, most notably by the Sawyer family after [[Nashaway]] sachems [[Sholan]] and [[George Tahanto]] deeded the land.<ref>''The Story of Colonial Lancaster,'' p. 3, 60, 61 https://ia601009.us.archive.org/31/items/storyofcoloniall00saff/storyofcoloniall00saff.pdf (accessed 3/30/24)</ref> In 1697, the residents petitioned to form a local town and government, but the British colonial Governor of Massachusetts denied their request since he wanted to keep the number of towns to a minimum and to restrict popular representation.<ref name="Rice">Rice, Franklin P., (compiler), [https://archive.org/details/vitalrecordstow00ricegoog ''Vital records of the town of Boylston, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1850''], Worcester : Franklin P. Rice, 1900.</ref>

A meeting house was built in 1743, and the Reverend Ebenezer Morse, ordained in October 1743, was the first minister in charge of the church.

The town was made up of a large part of land from [[Shrewsbury, Massachusetts|Shrewsbury]] and the remainder from [[Lancaster, Massachusetts|Lancaster]]<ref name="Rice"/> and was known as the North Parish of Shrewsbury from 1742 until 1786, when it was incorporated as Boylston.<ref name="BC1886">[https://books.google.com/books?id=brwUAAAAYAAJ "Centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Boylston, Massachusetts : August 18, 1886"], Worcester, Mass. : Press of Stanford & Davis, 1887.</ref>

Boylston was named after [[Ward Nicholas Boylston]] (1747–1828),<ref name="MHS1921">Bentinck-Smith, William, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25080886 "Nicholas Boylston and His Harvard Chair"], ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society'', Third Series, Vol. 93, (1981), pp. 17-39</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jy_QAAAAMAAJ "A Letter from Nicholas Boylston (1771?-1839)"], ''Bulletin of the Public library of the city of Boston'', The Trustees, 1921. Cf.pp.307-309.</ref> a benefactor of the town. The fund he set up in 1797 finally accumulated $1,450, which was used to build the town hall and school building.<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Henry M|title=Centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Boylston|year=1887|publisher=Press of Stanford & Davis|pages=[https://archive.org/details/centennialcelebr00boylston/page/32 32]–33|url=https://archive.org/details/centennialcelebr00boylston|access-date=October 27, 2010|chapter=Historical Address}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.boylstonhistory.org/museum1.htm | title = The Boylston Historical Society Museum | access-date = October 24, 2010}}</ref><ref name=annual>{{citation | url = http://www.boylston-ma.gov/Pages/BoylstonMA_WebDocs/annrpt09.pdf | author = Town of Boylston | title = 2009 Annual Report | year = 2009 | page = 4 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110708134831/http://www.boylston-ma.gov/Pages/BoylstonMA_WebDocs/annrpt09.pdf | archive-date = July 8, 2011 }}</ref>

The residents formerly made a living from agriculture, and erected mills on the [[Nashua River]], until the construction of [[Wachusett Reservoir]] terminated their operation.<ref name= annual />