Norton Center Historic District

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Norton Center Historic District
Norton Town Common.jpg
Norton Town Common
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Location Norton, Massachusetts
Coordinates 41°58′3″N71°11′10″W / 41.96750°N 71.18611°W / 41.96750; -71.18611 Coordinates: 41°58′3″N71°11′10″W / 41.96750°N 71.18611°W / 41.96750; -71.18611
Area 50 acres (20 ha)
Architect Multiple
Architectural style Colonial Revival, Greek Revival
NRHP reference # 77000170 [1]
Added to NRHP December 23, 1977

The Norton Center Historic District is a historic district encompassing the town center and adjacent Wheaton College campus in Norton, Massachusetts. It includes the town's major civic buildings, as well as its oldest surviving house, in a spacious New England town center organized around the town common at the junction of Massachusetts Routes 123 and 140. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. [1]

Wheaton College (Massachusetts) university

Wheaton College is a private liberal arts college in Norton, Massachusetts. Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a female seminary. The trustees officially changed the name of the institution to Wheaton College in 1912 after receiving a college charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It remained one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States until men began to be admitted in 1988. It enrolls approximately 1,750 students.

Norton, Massachusetts Town in Massachusetts, United States

Norton is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, and contains the village of Norton Center. The population was 19,031 at the 2010 census. Home of Wheaton College, Norton hosts the Dell Technologies Championship, a tournament of the PGA Tour held annually on the Labor Day holiday weekend at the TPC Boston golf club.

New England town Basic unit of local government in each of the six New England federated states of the United States

The New England town, generally referred to simply as a town in New England, is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in each of the six New England states and without a direct counterpart in most other U.S. states. New England towns overlay the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities in other states. New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting legislative body. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though they are prevalent elsewhere in the U.S. County government in New England states is typically weak at best, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island. Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. With few exceptions, counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems.

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Description and history

The town of Norton was settled in the 1660s, but did not incorporate until 1711. Colonial laws at the time required the town to build a residence for a minister as a condition of incorporation: the town's first parsonage, built in 1710 to enable incorporation, still stands facing the town common. Two churches, both originating in the town's first Congregationalist organization, also stand facing the common. The town library, built in 1888, was a gift from the locally prominent Wheaton family. The house of Laban Wheaton, its best-known member, now serves as the official residence of the president of Wheaton College. That school was founded in 1834 as a women's school, and was where pioneering female educator Mary Lyon taught before founding Mount Holyoke College. [2]

Laban Wheaton American politician

Laban Wheaton was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.

Mary Lyon American educator

Mary Mason Lyon was an American pioneer in women's education. She established the Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, in 1834. She then established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1837 and served as its first president for 12 years. Lyon's vision fused intellectual challenge and moral purpose. She valued socioeconomic diversity and endeavored to make the seminary affordable for students of modest means.

Mount Holyoke College Liberal arts college in Massachusetts, US

Mount Holyoke College is a private women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1837, it is the oldest institution within the Seven Sisters schools, an alliance of East Coast liberal arts colleges that was originally created to provide women with education equivalent to that provided in the then men-only Ivy League. Mount Holyoke is part of the region's Five College Consortium, along with Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The historic district's principal focal point is the triangular town common, bounded by East and West Main Street and Mansfield Street, with Taunton Street extending southward. The common is actually near the western end of the district, because the campus of Wheaton College extends to the east on the south side of East Main Street. The eastern end of the district is a cluster of buildings at the junction of East Main Street with Elm and Pine Streets. The district's modern intrusions include a post office building, and relatively non-descript college buildings, the latter of which generally do not intrude on the street view. [2]

See also

List of Registered Historic Places in Bristol County, Massachusetts:

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