Franklin municipal offices are located at 355 East Central Street, Franklin, MA 02038.
Phone: 508‑520‑4949.
Photo: First Congregational Church of Franklin, circa 1737. Located in the Franklin Commons Historic District which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Photo by wikipedia username:John Phelan, 2010, creative commons, [cc 3.0], accessed September, 2025.
Neighborhoods
Franklin's [1] past is rich in industrial history. Once a thriving manufacturing community during the industrial revolution, Franklin's landscape was covered with mill buildings and prospered as a manufacturer of textiles and straw hats, the oldest industrial operation in Franklin. While the mill buildings of Franklin's history are landmarks of an era past, today, Franklin's two large industrial parks, Franklin Industrial Park and Forge Park, house millions of square feet of manufacturing, industrial, warehousing and office space combined with several smaller office and industrial parks along the Grove Street Corridor and elsewhere. Predominately a manufacturing town, Franklin is home to dozens of research and development and manufacturing companies and has attracted innovative technology companies in a wide range of industries: nanotechnology, data storage, specialty materials, life sciences - biotechnology, and medical devices.
Residents supported promoting and preserving culture in Franklin by protecting historic homes and buildings, supporting the Franklin Cultural District, and encouraging public engagement through events like walking tours and farmers' markets. Most residents cited the Town's website, franklinma.gov, as their primary source of news about open spaces and cultural resources.
Franklin as described in 1937 [2]
First settled around 1660, Franklin was incorporated in 1778.
In 1660 10 men left the colony at Dedham to break ground in Wollomonopoag, as the region was then called. Serious financial difficulties, however, were encountered in bargaining with the Wampanoag Indians for the purchase of the land. Finally, Captain Thomas Willett, a noted tactician in Indian affairs, lent his able efforts and secured a purchase price of about £35.
When the time came for incorporation, the town decided at first on the name of Exeter, but this choice was dropped in favor of Franklin, in honor of the great statesman, scholar and humanist. Mr. Franklin was not insensible of the honor, and, after wavering for some time between presenting a church bell or a collection of books to his municipal namesake, he decided in favor of the latter, because it is said he "considered sense more essential than sound."
Industrial history began in 1713 when the falls of Mine Brook were utilized for a saw mill. Asa and Davis Thayer, 99 years later, started Franklin's first factory, and by 1865 seven local factories were turning out more than a million hats and bonnets a year.
By 1937 the mill area was the industrial core of the town, surrounded by workers homes, mostly owned by themselves, small single houses with neat dooryards and gardens, lacking the drab monotony of the usual mill homes. Greenhouses, vineyards and well-cultivated farms were plentiful in the southwest section of Franklin.
Nearby Towns: Medway Town • Norfolk Town • North Attleborough Town • Wrentham Town •