Town Name Changes

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Name And Boundary Changes Of Massachusetts Towns

Author: John Chandler Version: 1996-02-03

If you've ever looked into early MA history, the town names can be daunting, confusing and downright impossible as they wander through a myriad of name changes, territory parsing, etc. through the years. Hopefully you will find this a welcome resource if you run into some of these difficulties.

Name and boundary changes of cities and towns.

(Note: in New England,a "town" is a political subdivision of a county, not merely a populated place.)

Each entry in this file has a date, two names, and a "transaction". The latter is a code for the type of event and comes in two flavors, according to which name is given first.

Each event is entered twice, once with each name listed first. Some entries have remarks further explaining the locality. The entries within each county are listed alphabetically by the first name. The entries have
the following patterns.

	New was Old (change of name, or foundation if "Old" is "---")
	Old became New
	Donor part to Donee (land transferred from one town to another)
	Donee part fr Donor
	New came fr Old (new town created from part of another)
	Old part as New
	Little joined Big (town merged into another, or to another state)
	Big annexed Little
	Little got fr State
	Town1 bound Town2 (exchanging land)
	Old gone (town abolished)

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