History of Littleton, Massachusetts, USA

Littleton, Massachusetts
Middlesex county. The Indians called this town Nashabah [Nashoba]. It is 27 miles W.N.W. from Boston and 10 N.W. from Concord. Incorporated, 1715. Population, 1837, 876. There are several beautiful ponds in the town, and limestone. The soil is tolerably good, and adapted for the growth of rye and hops. There are some manufactures of boots, shoes, and straw bonnets.

This town, which had previously been an Indian settlement, called Nashoba, was named in honor of Lord Lyttleton, an English statesman, who is said to have sent the town a Bell, which it never received, in consequence of being misdirected to Littleton instead of Lyttleton.

Littleton is an agricultural town, and contains several fine ponds.

Distance from Concord, 10 miles ; from Boston, 27.

This town was formerly a gore of land not included in any of the adjoining towns: it remained in this state many years after they were incorporated. It was but thinly inhabited by some English people, together with Indians living on their ancient settlements, and was known by the name of Nishoba. In 1715, upon the petition of one Whitcomb and Powers, this place was incorporated into a town, by the name of Littleton. It was so called after the name of the Hon. George Lyttleton, Esq., member of Parliament, and one of the commissioners of the treasury. In return for the honor done to his name, the noble gentleman presented this town with a church bell; but, on account of an error in spelling the name, caused by substituting the i for the y. which formed the word Littleton, the valuable present miscarried, and was finally withheld, under the pretence that no such town as Lyttileton, to which the bell was to be presented, could anywhere be found. It is stated, that the same bell is now in...

Littleton, a post-township of Middlesex co., Mass., on the Fitchburg railroad, 31 miles W. N. W. from Boston. Population, 987.

Littleton is a handsome farming town situated in the northwestern part of Middlesex County, and bounded on the northeast by Westford, on the southeast by Acton, on the southwest by Boxborough, on the west by Harvard, and on the northwest by Ayer. The Littleton depot on the Fitchburg Railroad, somewhat west of the centre of the town, is 32 miles from Boston. The Stony Brook Branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad and the Nashua and Acton Railroad have stations, the first on the northern, the latter on the eastern border. The assessed area in 1888 was 10,534 acres, including 3,592 acres of woodland.

The surface of the town is pleasantly varied by hill, valley, plain and upland. There are areas specially hilly in the south, west, east and a little north of the centre. The most noted eminence is Nashoba Hill, on the eastern border. From this, since first settlement, a rumbling noise is sometimes heard, which is locally called "the shooting of Nashoba Hill." The principal stream is...

Littleton, a post-village and township of Middlesex co., Mass., on the Fitchburg Railroad, and on the Nashua, Acton & Boston Railroad, 31 miles W.N.W. of Boston. It contains 3 churches. Pop. 950.