Colonial era, Revolution, Quakers, and abolition Colonial settlement eventually resulted in indigenous grievances and rebellion. Nipmuc joined the native uprising,
King Phillips War, which began near Bristol, and many died. After the war many indigenous people were sold into slavery, interned to
Deer Island (where half died), or isolated in the “praying Indian Villages”.
John Eliot had earlier started these
Nipmuc Praying Indian villages, viewed now by many indigenous people as a form of cultural genocide. Several praying Indian towns included Waentug/Wacentug(river bend, rich fishing waters) and “Rice City” (later settled as Mendon.) “Great John”, of Natick, sold Squimshepauk plantation to settlers in September 1663, "for 24 pound Ster".
John Adams' uncle,
Nathan Webb, was the first called minister of the colony's first new Congregational church in the
Great Awakening. The American
Taft family origins are intertwined with Uxbridge and Mendon.
Lydia Taft voted in the 1756 town meeting, considered as a first for colonial
women.
Seth and
Joseph Read and
Simeon Wheelock joined
Committees of Correspondence.
Baxter Hall was a Minuteman drummer. Seth Read fought at
Bunker Hill. Washington stopped at Reed's tavern, en route to command the
Continental Army.
Samuel Spring was one of the first
chaplains of the
American Revolution.
Deborah Sampson enlisted as "Robert Shurtlieff of Uxbridge".
Shays' Rebellion also began here, and Governor
John Hancock quelled Uxbridge riots.
Simeon Wheelock died protecting the
Springfield Armory.
Seth Reed was instrumental in adding "
E pluribus unum" to
U.S. coins.
Washington slept here on his
Inaugural tour while traveling the
Middle Post Road.
Quakers including
Richard Mowry migrated here from
Smithfield, Rhode Island, and built mills, railroads,
houses, tools and
Conestoga wagon wheels. Southwick's store housed the Social and Instructive Library.
Friends Meetinghouse, next to
Moses Farnum's farm, had prominent
abolitionists Abby Kelley Foster and
Effingham Capron as members.
Capron and his spouse led the 450 member local anti-slavery society. Brister Pierce, formerly a slave in Uxbridge, was a signer of an 1835 petition to
Congress demanding
abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the
District of Columbia. Local influences from the First and Second
Great Awakenings can be seen with the early
Congregational and
Quaker traditions. The anti-slavery movement locally had prominent early leadership from the
Unitarian and
Quaker communities and later from the
Congregational church.
Early transportation, education, public health and safety The Tafts built the
Middle Post Road's
Blackstone River bridge in 1709. "
Teamsters" drove horse "team" freight wagons on the Worcester-Providence stage route. The
Blackstone Canal brought horse-drawn barges to
Providence through Uxbridge for overnight stops. The "crossroads village" was a junction on the
Underground Railroad. was a forerunner of modern psychiatry, and ran the first hospital for mental illness in America. Uxbridge led Massachusetts in robberies for a quarter of the year in 1922, and the town voted to hire its first nighttime police patrolman. Peter Emerick summarized the history of policing in Uxbridge.
Industrial era: 19th century to late 20th century Bog iron and three iron forges marked the colonial era, with the inception of large-scale industries beginning around 1775. and
gristmills,
sawmills, distilleries, and large industries. Innovations included
power looms, vertical integration of wool to clothing,
cashmere wool-synthetic blends, "wash and wear", yarn spinning techniques, and latch hook kits. Villages included mills, shops, worker housing, and farms. Wm. Arnold's
Ironstone cotton mill, later made Kentucky Blue Jeans,
North Uxbridge housed Clapp's 1810 cotton mill, Chandler Taft's and
Richard Sayles'
Rivulet Mill, the granite quarry, and
Rogerson's village.
Crown and Eagle Mill was "a masterpiece of early industrial architecture". Charles A. Root, Edward Bachman, and
Harold Walter expanded
Bachman-Uxbridge, and exhibited leadership in women's fashion. The company manufactured
US Army uniforms for the
Civil War,
World War I,
World War II, the
nurse corps, and the first
Air Force dress uniforms, dubbed "Uxbridge Blue".
Time magazine covered Uxbridge Worsted's proposed buyout to be the top US woolen company.
The Great Gatsby (1974) and ''
Oliver's Story'' (1978) were filmed locally including at
Stanley Woolen Mill. The
Blackstone Valley National Historic Park contains the
Blackstone Canal Heritage State Park, of the
Blackstone River Greenway, the
Southern New England Trunkline Trail (which has the interesting SNETT stone chamber south of Lee pond),
West Hill Dam, a 567-acre
wildlife refuge, parcels of the Metacomet Land Trust, and
Cormier Woods. 60
Federalist homes
Capron's wooden mill survived a 2007 fire at the
Bernat Mill.
Stanley mill is being restored while
Waucantuck Mill was mostly razed. In 2013 multiple fires again affected the town, including a historic bank building and a Quaker home from the early 1800s. See
National historic sites. Five bands of the original indigenous Nipmuck people live in the Worcester County region today.
Recent Events In 2017, a new $9.25 million fire station was completed on Main Street next to Town Hall. Voters approved the 14,365 square-foot station in 2015. The station has five bays to accommodate modern fire trucks, a radio and server room for computer and phone servers. The McCluskey School parking lot and former Bernat Mill site were used for Netflix film crews setup in 2021. The Uxbridge High girls' field hockey team won its fifth straight state title in 2025. The Uxbridge High Spartans won the 2023 Division 7 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium with an undefeated record. The 2024 Spartans won their second Division 7 Super Bowl championship against Mashpee. In 2025 the Arthur R. Taft Memorial Trust provided funding for historical preservation of the Farnum House, now donated to the Uxbridge Historical Society. A fire museum was completed in the former
North Uxbridge fire station. In January 2026, Uxbridge Police Officer Stephen Laporta was killed in the line of duty while helping a motorist alongside an icy route 146 with multiple crashes. Flags were flown at half staff across the Commonwealth as the immediate family, police department and community grieved his loss. == Geography ==