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Somerville MA

Somerville, Massachusetts
City
Davis Square, Somerville
Seal
Motto(s):  “Municipal Freedom Gives National Strength”
Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts
Somerville Location in the United States Show map of Massachusetts Somerville Somerville (the United States) Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 42°23′15″N 71°06′00″W / 42.38750°N 71.10000°W / 42.38750; -71.10000Coordinates: 42°23′15″N 71°06′00″W / 42.38750°N 71.10000°W / 42.38750; -71.10000
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Middlesex
Region	New England
Settled	1629
Purchased	1639
Incorporated (town)	1842
Incorporated (city)	1872
Government
• Type	Mayor–council
• Mayor	Joseph Curtatone (D)
Area
• Total	4.22 sq mi (10.94 km2)
• Land	4.12 sq mi (10.68 km2)
• Water	0.10 sq mi (0.26 km2)
Elevation	12 ft (4 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	81,045
• Density	19,671.12/sq mi (7,619.77/km2)
Demonym(s)	Somervillian, Villen
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (Eastern)
ZIP codes	02143, 02144, 02145
Area code(s)	617 / 857
FIPS code	25-62535
GNIS ID	0612815
Website	somervillema.gov

Somerville ( SUM-ər-vil) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81,045 people. With an area of 4.12 square miles, the city has a density of 19,671 people per square mile, making it the most densely populated municipality in New England, and the 16th most densely populated incorporated municipality in the country. Somerville was established as a town in 1842, when it was separated from Charlestown. In 2006, the city was named the best-run city in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe. In 1972, 2009, and 2015, the city received the All-America City Award. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus along the Somerville and Medford border.

History

Early settlement

The territory now comprising the city of Somerville was first settled by Europeans in 1629 as part of Charlestown. In 1629, English surveyor Thomas Graves led a scouting party of 100 Puritans from the settlement of Salem to prepare the site for the Great Migration of Puritans from England. Graves was attracted to the narrow Mishawum Peninsula between the Charles River and the Mystic River, linked to the mainland at the present-day Sullivan Square. The area of earliest settlement was based at City Square on the peninsula, though the territory of Charlestown officially included all of what is now Somerville, as well as Medford, Everett, Malden, Stoneham, Melrose, Woburn, Burlington, and parts of Arlington and Cambridge. From that time until 1842, the area of present-day Somerville was referred to as “beyond the Neck” in reference to the thin spit of land, the Charlestown Neck, that connected it to the Charlestown Peninsula.

The first European settler in Somerville of whom there is any record was John Woolrich, an Indian trader who came from the Charlestown Peninsula in 1630, and settled near what is now Dane Street. Others soon followed Woolrich, locating in the vicinity of present-day Union Square. In 1639 colonists officially acquired the land in what is now Somerville from the Squaw Sachem of Mistick. The population continued to slowly increase, and by 1775 there were about 500 inhabitants scattered across the area. Otherwise, the area was mostly used as grazing and farmland. It was once known as the “Stinted Pasture” or “Cow Commons”, as early settlers of Charlestown had the right to pasture a certain number of cows in the area.

John Winthrop, the first colonial governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was granted 600 acres (2.4 km²) of land in the area in 1631. Named for the ten small knolls located on the property, Ten Hills Farm extended from the Craddock Bridge in present-day Medford Center to Convent Hill in East Somerville. Winthrop lived, planted, and raised cattle on the farm. It is also where he launched the first ship in Massachusetts, the “Blessing of the Bay”. Built for trading purposes in the early 1630s, it was soon armed for use as a patrol boat for the New England coast. It is seen as a precursor to the United States Navy. The neighborhood Ten Hills, located in the northeastern part of the city, has retained the name for over 300 years. New research has found that less than a decade after John Winthrop moved to the farm in 1631, there were enslaved Native American prisoners of war on the property. Each successive owner of Ten Hills Farm would depend upon slavery’s profits until the 1780s, when Massachusetts abolished the practice.

In a short time, the settlers began laying out roads in all directions in search of more land for planting and trade with various Native American tribes in the area. Laid out as early as the mid-1630s, the earliest highway in Somerville was probably what is now Washington Street, and led from present-day Sullivan Square to Harvard Square. In its earliest days, Washington Street was known as the “Road to Newtowne” (renamed Cambridge in 1638). During the 1700s and early 1800s, Washington Street, together with Somerville Avenue, comprised “Milk Row”, a route favored by Middlesex County dairy farmers as the best way to get to the markets of Charlestown and Boston.

Laid out in 1636, Broadway was likely the second highway built in the area. Originally called “Menotomie’s Road”, it ran from the Charlestown Neck to the settlement at Menotomy (present-day Arlington). Initially bordered by farmsteads, Broadway would come into its own as a commercial thoroughfare after horse-drawn trolleys were
introduced to the highway in 1858.

Role in the Revolutionary War

Somerville was home to one of the first hostile acts of the American Revolutionary War. The theft of colonial gunpowder by British soldiers, and the massive popular reaction that ensued, are considered to be a turning point in the events leading up to war.

First built by settlers for use as a windmill in the early 1700s, the Old Powder House was sold to the colonial government of Massachusetts for use as a gunpowder magazine in 1747. Located at the intersection of Broadway and College Avenue in present-day Powder House Square, the Old Powder House held the largest supply of gunpowder in all of Massachusetts. General Thomas Gage, who had become the military governor of Massachusetts in May 1774, was charged with enforcement of the highly unpopular Intolerable Acts, which British Parliament had passed in response to the Boston Tea Party. Seeking to prevent the outbreak of war, he believed that the best way to accomplish this was by secretly removing military stores from storehouses and arsenals in New England.