Stoughton Town

Stoughton Town Hall is located at 10 Pearl Street, Stoughton, MA 02072; phone: 781-341-1300.

Beginnings [1]

First settled about 1713, Stoughton was incorporated in 1743. It was named for William Stoughton, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts (1694-1791), whose father, Colonel Israel Stoughton, commander of the Colonial forces during the Pequot War of 1636, was large landholder in Dorchester, of which Stoughton was originally a part. During the American Revolution, Stoughton was the supply center for Colonial forces in the area, though there was little industrial development before 1800. By 1830, shoe manufacturing had begun; but the Civil War, depriving the town of its large Southern markets, threatened the prosperity of the factories for a time.

1. Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for Massachusetts, Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People, American Guide Series, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1937.