Early frontier settlement The area surrounding modern-day Groton has, for thousands of years, been the territory of various cultures of
indigenous peoples. They settled along the rivers, which they used for domestic tasks, fishing and transportation. Historic tribes were the
Algonquian-speaking
Nipmuc and
Nashaway Indians, who established trails connecting the area to
Massachusetts Bay. The European presence in the era began when John Tinker established a
trading post with the Nashaway tribe at the confluence of Nod Brook and the
Nashua River. The Nashaway called the area
Petapawag, meaning "swampy land." Over the years, more European settlers moved to the area, as it was productive for
fishing and
farming. Called
The Plantation of Groton, it included all of present-day Groton and
Ayer, almost all of
Pepperell and
Shirley, large parts of
Dunstable,
Littleton, and
Tyngsborough, smaller parts of
Harvard and
Westford, and the New Hampshire towns of
Nashua and
Hollis. Among those killed was John Nutting, a Groton
Selectman. Survivors fled to
Concord and other safe havens. Two years later, many returned to rebuild. In 1694, Abenaki warriors attacked the town again during the
Raid on Groton (during
King William's War).
Lydia Longley and two of her siblings were taken captive; the rest of their family was killed. Lydia was taken to
Montreal where she was ransomed, converted to Catholicism, and joined the
Congregation of Notre Dame, a non-cloistered order. In 1704, during
Queen Anne's War, an Abenaki raiding party kidnapped
Matthias Farnsworth III from his home and brought him to Montreal. In June 1707,
Abenaki warriors abducted three children of the large family of Thomas Tarbell and his wife Elizabeth (Wood), cousins to the Longleys who were abducted in 1694. The raiders took them overland and by water to the
Mohawk mission village of
Kahnawake (also spelled Caughnawaga) south of
Montreal. The two Tarbell boys, John and Zachariah, were adopted by Mohawk families and became fully assimilated. They later each married chiefs' daughters, had families, and became respected chiefs themselves. They were among the founders in the 1750s of
Akwesasne, after moving up the St. Lawrence River from Kahnawake to escape the ill effects of traders. The brothers' older sister Sarah Tarbell was ransomed by a French family, and converted to Catholicism. Renamed as Marguerite, she followed Lydia Longley in joining the
Congregation of Notre Dame, and served with them for the rest of her life. In the late nineteenth century, a plaque was installed about the Tarbell children at the site of the family's former farm in Groton. Descendants with the Tarbell surname are among the Mohawk living at Kahnewake and Akwesasne in the 21st century.
Revolutionary era and early republic The townsfolk of Groton supported the
Patriot cause in the
American Revolutionary War. Following the
Boston Tea Party, the town passed a resolution thanking Boston "for their wise, prudent and spirited conduct at this alarming crisis," and resolved to boycott the tea industry until duties on tea were lifted. In 1775, local
minutemen assembled on the
common in front of the First Parish Church of Groton before marching to the
Battles of Lexington and Concord. Groton sent 101 men to the battle, but they arrived too late to participate. The American commander at the
Battle of Bunker Hill,
William Prescott, was born in Groton, and Groton lost 10 or 12 men at the battle, more than any other town. This patriotic feeling did not last very long, and a majority of Groton residents aligned with the rebels during
Shays' Rebellion.
Job Shattuck, a former
Continental Army officer and Groton's largest landowner, organized an early tax revolt in 1782. He escaped with a fine, but rose up again in 1786 and led a mob that shut down the Middlesex County Courthouse in
Concord, Massachusetts. He was sentenced to death but pardoned by Governor
John Hancock. In the early 1800s, the Hollingsworth family (
Hollingsworth & Vose) acquired a paper mill in West Groton. In 1828, miners discovered a large soapstone quarry; Groton eventually hosted the nation's largest
soapstone factory, which exported products as far away as China. South Groton (Groton Junction, now
Ayer) was connected to railroad lines in the 1840s. One line survives as the
MBTA Fitchburg Line, the town's present-day commuter rail link to Boston. African-Americans have lived in the area since at least the 1750s, when Primus Lew (father of
Barzillai Lew) bought a farm in the area. Private Pomp Phillis was called up to fight at Lexington and Concord. Historian
Jeremy Belknap wrote that "a negro man belonging to Groton" fired the shot that killed Major
John Pitcairn at the
Battle of Bunker Hill. Starting in the 1840s,
Catholic immigrants (mainly
Irish, but also some
French Canadians) began moving to the
Nashoba Valley in large numbers. St. Mary's Catholic Church was established in 1858 to serve the Catholic residents of Ayer. Ayer split off from Groton in 1871, and in 1904, one of the local private schools donated Sacred Heart Church for the use of the Catholics who stayed in Groton proper.
Economic decline and social unrest Groton's economic growth slowed in the second half of the nineteenth century. The soapstone quarry shut down in 1868. In the 19th century and early part of the 20th century, Groton's population was largely white and Christian; people have debated whether it was a
sundown town. Local schoolmaster
Endicott Peabody summarized the movement as follows: "There is an astonishing tendency among some of the respectable people in this part of the world to justify [the Klan's] existence on the ground that the Jews and Roman Catholics are taking possession of the country." of Groton from 1886 by
L.R. Burleigh with list of landmarksThe Klan held a rally in Groton in September 1924. In October 1926, a group of 400 Klansmen were meeting in a field in the town when they were fired upon with
guns used by a group of approximately 100 people opposed to the Klan; the police reported that over 100 gunshots were exchanged between the two groups, but no casualties were reported. The Klan appears to have peaked as an organized force in the area by 1931, when Klan head
Hiram Wesley Evans visited
West Townsend to implore the remaining Klansmen to rebuild the local chapters. The rate of inter-confessional marriages, which decreased significantly from 1924 to 1928, began rising again starting in 1929. In 2020, Groton unanimously approved a measure denouncing racial bigotry and advocating equality in recognition of earlier violence and the contemporary social justice movement.
Economic revival Starting in the 1950s, the town of Groton enjoyed an economic revival as Boston's high-tech sector expanded along the
Route 128 beltway. Although Groton does not lie on Route 128, the gravity of the suburban beltway pulled exurban towns like Groton into Boston's economic orbit. The town attracted professional workers, and the population expanded rapidly, nearly quadrupling since 1950. (A group led by
Marion Stoddart, the wife of one such technology worker, sponsored the cleanup of the Nashua River; previously, the river was so polluted with sludge that on some days, animals could run across it.) In 2021, Groton's per capita income
ranked 32nd out of 341 towns and cities in Massachusetts. In addition, as of 2015, 31 Groton residents reported incomes over $1 million. Town representatives describe Groton as a "
bedroom community" and "a relatively affluent town" where "[m]ost residents are well-educated and hold high-paying professional, managerial, or other office jobs." In the 21st century, the town has sought to preserve its rural character and to slow population growth; as of 2017, 42% of the town's 32.5 square miles of land was permanently protected from development. In the 2000s,
Geotel Communications founder Steven Webber purchased the 338-acre Gibbet Hill Farm to prevent residential development on the site; the town meeting reportedly greeted his intervention with a standing ovation. Town representatives state that they welcome tourists and seek to encourage "a constant trickle rather than a deluge of visitors." In 2017, the nation's largest
Shirdi Sai Baba temple opened in Groton; it cost approximately $11 million to build. The 126,000-square-foot Groton Hill Music Center opened in 2022 and includes a 1,000-seat (expandable to 2,300) concert hall, a 300-seat secondary performance hall, a professional orchestra, and a community music school; it was the gift of an anonymous donor, posthumously revealed to be
Sterilite owner
Albert Stone. The
Groton-Dunstable Regional School District is currently building a new $88.4 million campus for its elementary school, which is scheduled to open in 2024. However, the annual per-pupil expenditures in the 2022–23 school year were $19,392.35, just below the state average of $20,133.67, and in April 2024, voters rejected a proposed $7.6 million/3 year tax increase for the school district by a 3-to-2 margin. ==Geography==