Quick History Stops: Hudson, MA
After my visit to the nearby American Heritage Museum, I walked around downtown Hudson, MA to see a series of quick history stops. I used the Hudson Walking Tour to guide me down Main Street, along with visiting the riverwalk and Assabet Rail Trail.
In 1861, local parishioners constructed the Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson as a traditional whitewashed clapboard building with the added flair of a mansard roof and a fancy clock tower over the front entrance. The building cost $4,500 to construct, about $160,000 today. Several years later, in 1910, the state built an armory for $4,000, about $131,500 today. The Hudson Armory looks a lot like the Salem Armory, now the headquarters of Salem Maritime National Historical Site, which I last visited in October 2022. However, this building is still owned by the state and serves as a National Guard recruitment center.
The Savings Bank, now a branch of Avidia Bank, was constructed in 1895, the year after the Great Fire of 1894 destroyed much of downtown Hudson. Just down the street is Hudson Town Hall, built in 1872 for $50,000 ($1.28 million today) in addition to the $10,000 ($256,000 today) to purchase the lot. The four-story red brick building was constructed in Second Empire style, an eclectic combination of architectural elements from across Europe popularized by Napoleon III. The building has served many uses since the mid Victorian era, including the original home of Hudson National Bank, an auditorium, and a police station.
The little Downtown Riverwalk beside the Assabet River hosts a pair of signs about the history and ecology of the area. The history sign summarizes the town’s story, which is similar to other New England towns. The area is home to Algonquian-speaking Native Americans. Early European colonialists brought livestock and altered the land for farming, especially after King Philip’s War. The Industrial Revolution brought water-powered mills to the area. Hudson specialized in tanning leather and manufacturing shoes. Railways built through the region brought goods to and from Boston, along with other major cities and towns. Besides the fire in 1894, a fire in 1971 destroyed shoe factories and polluted the river.
The Assabet River Rail Trail (ARRT) was once the Marlborough Branch of the Fitchburg Railroad, incorporated in 1842 to connect Boston to Fitchburg. In 1900, after 58 years as an independent railroad, the company was leased to the larger Boston and Maine Railroad, then merged 19 years later in 1919 to become the Fitchburg Division. The tracks were eventually abandoned, and the project to turn the railbed into a paved trail began in 1992. The current trail is about twelve and a half miles long. Signage on the trail shows travelers what infrastructure used to be. Stone masonry abutments on either side of the path once held up Brigham’s Bridge, a Boston and Maine Railroad bridge built sometime between 1852 and 1855. The bridge was abandoned in 1980. The Assabet River Railroad Bridge built in 1887 uses a special steel pin-connected trestle design found nowhere else in Massachusetts. The bridge was restored with a wooden overlay so bikes and pedestrians can cross safely.