Charlton, MA
Mass
Communities
Charlton
About
Description
Description of Charlton, Massachusetts
Incorporated in 1755 and located in the Commonwealth's south-central quadrant, the Town of Charlton is 50 miles or less from five major New England cities; Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford and Providence.
The town's history includes James Capen Adams (1807-1860), better known as "Grizzly" Adams, one of the last of the mountain men. When he headed west in 1852, Adams was a discontented 45-year-old cobbler. During his eight years in the Rockies, he became a friend and slayer of grizzly bears. He survived several hand-to-fang encounters and did a successful tour with P.T. Barnum. He died with his boots on and is buried in the Old Burying Ground in Charlton. His headstone, a carved relief of the buckskin-clad "Grizzly", was ordered by Barnum himself. The cemetery, now known as the Bay Path Cemetery, also contains three photographic stones, headstones with small glass-covered niches in which were placed daguerreotypes of the deceased. Once the vogue, few of these curious stones now remain.
On Charlton Common is a memorial to Dr. William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868), the man whose experiments with ether first made anesthesia possible during surgical operations. Working with a dentist, Dr. Morton made the first extractions of the deep roots of teeth using ether in 1846 and one month later performed a major operation at the Massachusetts General Hospital with an etherized patient.
Easy access to major highways such as I-90, I-84, I-290 and I-395, as well as Charlton's abundant available land, have changed the size and character of the town in the last decade from wholly rural to rural/residential.
South central Massachusetts, bordered by Spencer on the north, Leicester on the northeast, Oxford on the east, Dudley and Southbridge on the south, Sturbridge on the west, and East Brookfield on the northwest. Charlton is 17 miles southwest of Worcester, 40 miles southwest of Boston, 36 miles east of Springfield, and 165 miles from New York City.
Narrative compiled by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (
DHCD
).
