Weymouth Town

Norfolk County, Massachusetts

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Weymouth Town Hall is located at 75 Middle Street, Weymouth MA 02189.
Phone: 781‑335‑2000.

The town was founded in 1622 as Wessagusset and renamed Weymouth in 1635.

Beginnings [1]

For nearly two hundred years Weymouth, the second settlement in Massachusetts, was a fishing and agricultural community with productive farms and celebrated dairies. Gradually mills polluted the waters and prevented the fish from ascending to the ponds; there was no more fishing; the source of fertilizer was cut off, and this had a deleterious effect upon the farms.

As early as 1697 a tannery was established. In 1853 James Sylvester Clapp founded the Clapp Shoe Company, which for four generations has remained in the same family. Clapp's native shrewdness brought about the transition from outmoded processes and materials to the then recently developed use of French kid and patent kid in the manufacture of shoes; and his organization was a pioneer in the replacement of steam power by electricity. Later came the Stetson Shoe Company, an additional source of civic prosperity.

In 1771 iron ore was found in the ponds of the town, and the manufacture of iron commodities, especially nails, was begun. Weymouth also possessed a hammock factory, a fireworks factory, established in 1850, and a heel factory. Today, next to shoemaking, granite-quarrying and electric power production are most important.

  1. Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for Massachusetts, Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People, American Guide Series, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1937.

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