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Hudson is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Before its incorporation as a town in 1866, Hudson was a neighborhood and unincorporated village within the town of Marlborough, Massachusetts, and was known as Feltonville, and before that, known as Eastborough. From around 1850 until the last shoe factory burned down in 1968,〔Halprin 2001: 7〕 Hudson was known as a "shoe town." At one point, the town had 17 shoe factories,〔〔Halprin 2008: 7–10〕 many of them powered by the Assabet River, which runs through town. Because of the many factories in Hudson, immigrants were attracted to the town. Today, most people are of either Portuguese or Irish descent, with a smaller percentage of people being of French, Italian, English, or Scots-Irish descent. Hudson is served by the Hudson Public Schools district. For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Hudson, please see the article Hudson (CDP), Massachusetts. ==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 the town of Marlborough and was known as Feltonville for part of that time, until its incorporation as a separate municipality in 1866. As early as June 1743〔〔 Hudson-area residents petitioned to break away from Marlborough and become a separate town, but this petition was denied by the Massachusetts General Court. Men from the present Hudson area fought with the Minutemen on April 19, 1775.〔〔 In the 1850s, Feltonville received its first railroads.〔〔 The town of Hudson had two train stations, originally operated by the Central Massachusetts Railroad Company and later by Boston & Maine, until both of them were closed in 1965. 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, as Massachusetts recruits fought during the Civil War for the Union, with twenty-five men dying doing so. Two houses, including the Goodale Homestead on Chestnut Street (Hudson's oldest building, dating from 1702) and the Curley home on Brigham Street (formerly known as the Rice Farm), have been cited as way-stations on the Underground Railroad.〔〔 In 1865, Hudson-area residents again 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 after Charles Hudson, who donated $500 to the new town for it to build a library, on the condition that the newly incorporated town be named after him.〔〔 Over the next twenty years, Hudson grew as several industries settled in town. 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.〔〔Halprin 2001: 8〕 The population hovered around 5,500 residents, most of whom lived in small houses with small backyard garden plots. The town maintained five volunteer fire companies, one of which manned the Eureka Hand Pump, a record-setting pump that could shoot a stream of water .〔〔 On July 4, 1894, a fire started by two boys playing with firecrackers disastrously burned down 40 buildings and of central Hudson. Nobody was hurt, but the damages were estimated at $400,000 (1894 dollars).〔〔 The town was substantially rebuilt within a year or two. By 1900, Hudson's population reached about 7,500 residents, and the town had built a power plant, so some houses 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 boarding houses near their places of employment. By 1928, 19 languages were spoken by the workers of the Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company. Today, the majority of Hudson residents are of Irish or Portuguese descent, with lesser populations of Italian, French, English, Scots-Irish, and Greek descent. About one-third of Hudson residents are Portuguese or are of Portuguese descent.〔 Most people of Portuguese descent in Hudson are from the Azorean island of Santa Maria, with a smaller amount from the island of São Miguel or from the Trás-os-Montes region of mainland Portugal. The Portuguese community in Hudson maintains the Hudson Portuguese Club,〔(Hudson Portuguese Club (web site) ),〕 which has recently rebuilt a state-of-the-art clubhouse. The Hudson Portuguese Club was established in the mid-1910s and has outlived several other ethnic clubs, such as the town's long-gone Italian Club. Recent immigrants to Hudson arrive mainly from Mexico, Central America, Brazil, and other South American countries, as well as Asia, and Europe.〔 Hudson's population remained about the same until after World War II, when developers purchased some farms that surrounded the town center. The new houses that were built on this land more than doubled Hudson's population.〔 Recently, high-technology companies have built plants, notably the semiconductor fabrication factory that Digital Equipment Corporation built (now owned by Intel). Although the population of Hudson is now about 20,000, the town continues traditional town meeting form of government.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hudson, Massachusetts」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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