Editing Dunstable, Massachusetts (section)

== History ==
[[File:Map of old Dunstable 1846.png|thumb|left|Old map of Dunstable from 1846 showing the towns and the disputed state line with the original Dunstable tract line]]
Dunstable was first settled by Europeans in 1656 and was officially incorporated in 1673.  It is likely named after the town of [[Dunstable]] in [[Bedfordshire]], England, home of Edward Tyng, the town's first settler.  The original township of Dunstable, granted in 1661, consisted of two hundred square miles, including the Massachusetts towns of Dunstable, [[Pepperell, Massachusetts|Pepperell]], [[Townsend, Massachusetts|Townsend]] and [[Tyngsborough, Massachusetts|Tyngsborough]], the New Hampshire towns of [[Hudson, New Hampshire|Hudson]], [[Nashua, New Hampshire|Nashua]] and [[Hollis, New Hampshire|Hollis]], and parts of other towns as well.  Increases in population leading to subsections becoming independent towns and the delineation of the [[northern boundary of Massachusetts]] in 1740 placed the northern part of Dunstable (present day Nashua) in New Hampshire, so the southern part remains the Dunstable of today.

Today, Dunstable, in the face of [[urban sprawl]], has held onto a largely rural character.