Millbury: Where the Blackstone River Went to Work

First settled in seventeen sixteen as the northern parish of Sutton, this stretch of the Blackstone River valley incorporated as Millbury in eighteen thirteen, and the name was honest advertising. The Blackstone and Singletary rivers powered mills here that turned out flour, lumber, paper, textiles, and firearms. Around seventeen fifty-three, John Singletary built a spinning mill that still runs today, one of the oldest continuously operating mills in the United States.

The Waters family, sons of a firearms maker, built armories along the Blackstone that produced muskets, scythes, and sawmill blades. Millbury was part of the Blackstone River valley, where water-powered mills helped launch American industry. The town split from Sutton because residents grew tired of traveling across the county for town meetings. The mills were the reason anyone was there at all.