General Description

Hudson is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States with a population of approximately 20,000 people.

The racial makeup of the town is 94.12% White, 0.91% Black or African American, 0.13% Native American, 1.40% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 1.40% from other races, and 1.98% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.06% of the population.

History
In 1650, the area that would become Hudson was part of the Indian Plantation for the Praying Indians. The Praying Indians were evicted from their plantation during King Philip's War, and most did not return even after the war ended. The first European settlement of the Hudson area occurred in 1699 when settler John Barnes, who had been granted an acre of the Ockookangansett Indian Plantation the year before, built a gristmill on the Assabet River on land that would one day be part of Hudson. By 1701, Barnes had also built a sawmill on the river and had built a bridge across it. Over the next century, Hudson grew slowly.

Hudson was part of Marlborough, and was known as Feltonville for part of that time, until its incorporation in 1866. Men from the present Hudson area fought with the minutemen on April 19, 1775. In 1859, Feltonville (as Hudson was then called), received its first railroads. This allowed the development of larger factories, some of the first in the country to use steam power and sewing machines. By 1860, Feltonville had 17 shoe and shoe-related factories, which attracted immigrants from Ireland and French Canada.

Feltonville residents fought during the Civil War for the Union. Many houses, including the Goodale House on Chestnut Street (Hudson's oldest building, dating from 1702) and the Curley home on Brigham Street (now known as the Rice Farm), were stations on the Underground Railroad. In 1865, Hudson-area residents petitioned for Feltonville to become a separate town. This petition was approved by the Massachusetts General Court on March 19, 1866. The new town was named Hudson in honor of childhood resident Charles Hudson, who donated $500 to the new town for it to build a library.

Over the next twenty years, Hudson grew exponentially. Two woolen mills, an elastic-webbing plant, a piano case factory, and a factory for waterproofing fabrics by rubber coating were built, as well as banks, five schools, a poor farm, and the town hall that is still in use today. The population hovered around 5,500 residents, most of whom lived in small homes with little backyard garden plots. By 1900, Hudson's population had reached about 7,500 residents, and the town had built its own power plant, so some homes were wired for electricity. Electric trolley lines were built that connected Hudson with the towns of Leominster, Concord, and Marlborough. The factories in town continued to grow, attracting immigrants from England, Germany, Portugal, Lithuania, Poland, Greece, Albania, and Italy. These immigrants usually lived in boardinghouses near their places of employment.

By 1928, 19 languages were spoken by the workers of the Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company. Today, the only major ethnic group left in Hudson (besides Irish) is the Portuguese. Hudson's population remained about the same until after World War II, when developers started to buy out some farms that rimmed and still do rim the town. The new houses that were built on this land more than doubled Hudson's population. Recently, high-technology companies have sprung up around Hudson. Although the population of Hudson is now about 20,000, the town still maintains the traditional town meeting form of government.