History of Holden, Massachusetts, USA

Holden, Massachusetts
Worcester county. This town is finely watered by branches of Blackstone and Nashua rivers. It has a valuable water power on Quinipoxet river. It has some good meadow land on the borders of the streams. There are 5 cotton and 2 woolen mills in the town, and manufactures of leather, boots, shoes, straw bonnets, and palm-leaf hats; total amount of the manufactures for the year ending April 1, 1837, $201,960. Holden is 48 miles W. from Boston and 6 N.W. from Worcester. Incorporated, 1740.—Population, 1837, 1,789.

Holden was separated from Worcester, and named in honor of an English gentleman, whose family were benefactors of Harvard College, and of the colony.

Branches of the Nashua and Blackstone water the town.

The manufactures consist of cotton and woollen goods, boots and shoes.

Distance from Worcester, 7 miles ; from Boston, 48.

This town was taken wholly from the town of Worcester, being included in their original grants, and was the north-westerly part thereof. It was incorporated in 1740, by the name of Holden, in commemoration of the Hon. Samuel Holden, Esq., one of the directors of the Bank of England, who was a generous benefactor to the literary and religious interests of the country. This worthy man transmitted to New England for charitable purposes, in books and bills of exchange, to the amount of £4,847, New England currency. After his decease, his widow and daughters sent over in value, for the same noble and pious uses, the sum of £5,585. With part of this latter sum Holden Chapel, in the University of Cambridge, Mass., was erected, in the year 1745.

The first church was organized in 1742, and Rev. Joseph Davis was ordained their pastor. He was dismissed in 1772, and succeeded by Rev. Joseph Avery. Rev. Horatio Bardwell, the next pastor, was installed in 1823, and was succeeded by Rev. William...

Holden, a post-township of Worcester co., Massachusetts, 50 miles W. of Boston. Population, 1933.

Worcester, Mass., June 11. - A sweeping tornado passed through the towns of Paxton, Holden and West Boyleston this afternoon at 4 1/ 2 o'clock, demolishing every building in its track and tearing up trees by the roots. The first account of it received here was of its appearance in the town of Paxton, where it demolished the barn of L. N. PARKHURST, and blew off one gable of his house. From there it went in a north-easterly direction and blew down the buildings of MR. BIGELOW, on the old town farm. From thence it went through the woods, sweeping all before it, and striking the house and barn of LEWIS MARTIN, in Holden, entirely demolishing both. The village of Holden was next in its destructive march, and here five barns, three houses and one carpenter shop were blown down. Three persons were injured, one, CHARLES BURRETT, seriously. A strip of heavy stone wall, some twenty rods long, was completely blown over, and large trees were blown thirty rods with upward of a ton of earth upon...

Holden is a large town occupying high ground near the centre of Worcester County. Its form is nearly that of a diamond, having its greatest length north and south. Sterling and Royalston lie on the east, Worcester on the southeast, and Paxton, Rutland and Princeton on the southwest, west and northwest. Its assessed area is 22,133 acres.

In the north Barrett Hill is the highest elevation; close at the west of the centre, Davis Hill stands solitary; while the southern part is occupied by a group of hills, of which the highest in the town is Stonehouse Hill, with Asnebumsket Hill, 1,107 feet high, just outside the bounds. The northern central part of the town is mainly a broad valley into which gather streams from every part; on all of which are saw and grist mills, or the sites where they once were. Through the northeastern section flows eastward the Quinnepoxet River, gathering all these streams into its own rapid volume, which, in its course through the town, falls 380 feet. In the ...