Editing Methuen, Massachusetts (section)

==History==
Methuen was first settled in 1642 and was officially incorporated in 1726. Methuen was originally part of [[Haverhill, Massachusetts]]. In 1724 Stephen Barker and others in the western part of that town petitioned the [[Massachusetts General Court|General Court]] to grant them permission to form a new town above Hawke's Meadow Brook. Although opposed by their fellow townsmen, the petition was approved the following year (December 8, 1725), and the General Court gave them an act of incorporation under the name of Methuen. The town was named for [[Paul Methuen (diplomat)|Sir Paul Methuen]], a member of the King's Privy Council and friend of acting Provincial Governor [[William Dummer]].  The first [[town meeting]] was held on March 9, 1726, in the home of a resident. The land was set aside for a meetinghouse, which was erected later in 1726 on what is now [[Daddy Frye's Hill Cemetery|Meetinghouse Hill Cemetery]].<ref name="Gilbert 1907">Gilbert's History of Salem, N.H. (1907)</ref>

The residents in the northern part of the new town of Methuen soon petitioned to have their own meetinghouse (a combination of town hall and puritan church), and in 1736 the north parish was set off.  Land for a meetinghouse was donated by descendants of the original proprietors of Haverhill, and in 1738 the second Methuen meetinghouse was raised.  The structure survives to this day, as the Salem N.H. Historical Society building. In 1741, with the fixing of the [[Northern boundary of Massachusetts]], most of this new north parish was removed from Methuen and placed in New Hampshire. It was incorporated as [[Salem, New Hampshire]] in 1750.<ref name="Gilbert 1907"/>

Industrial growth in the 1800s influenced Methuen's development.  Construction of the Methuen Cotton Mills at the [[Spicket River]] falls in the 1820s and the increased manufacture of hats and shoes in small factories along the Spicket spurred the centralization of Methuen's economic, residential and cultural activities within the area around Osgood, Broadway, Hampshire and Pleasant streets. Three wealthy and prominent families—the Nevins, the Tenneys and the Searles—played a significant role in Methuen's history and development.  These families were instrumental in the founding of many of Methuen's landmarks, including the Nevins Memorial Library, the Searles building, Tenney Gatehouse, Nevins Home, Spicket Falls, and the Civil War monument between Pleasant and Charles streets.<ref>{{cite web |title=City of Methuen, Massachusetts Profile |url=http://www.ci.methuen.ma.us/Documents/MAYOR/PROFILE1510.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=September 15, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810070910/http://www.ci.methuen.ma.us/Documents/MAYOR/PROFILE1510.pdf |archive-date=August 10, 2014 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

In 1922, it was affected by the [[1922 New England Textile Strike]], shutting down the mills in the city over an attempted wage cut.<ref name=":122">{{Cite book |last1=Foner |first1=Philip Sheldon |title=History of the labor movement in the United States. 9: The T.U.E.L. to the end of the Gompers era / by Philip S. Foner |last2=Foner |first2=Philip Sheldon |date= 1991 |publisher=Intl Publ |isbn=978-0-7178-0674-4 |location=New York |pages=19–31}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=E. Tilden |first=Leonard |date=1923 |title=New England Textile Strike |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41828627 |journal=Monthly Labor Review |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=13–36 |jstor=41828627 }}</ref>