Woburn, Massachusetts

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Woburn
Thompson's statue in front of the Woburn library
Thompson's statue in front of the Woburn library
Location in Massachusetts
Woburn, Massachusetts
Woburn
Woburn
Basic data
Foundation : 1640
State : United States
State : Massachusetts
County : Middlesex County
Coordinates : 42 ° 29 ′  N , 71 ° 9 ′  W Coordinates: 42 ° 29 ′  N , 71 ° 9 ′  W
Time zone : Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents : 37,010 (as of 2006)
Population density : 1,128.4 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 33.4 km 2  (approx. 13 mi 2 ) of
which 32.8 km 2  (approx. 13 mi 2 ) are land
Height : 30 m
Postcodes : 01801, 01888
Area code : +1 339, 781
FIPS : 25-81035
GNIS ID : 0612270
Website : www.cityofwoburn.com
Mayor : Thomas L. McLaughlin

Woburn is a location in Middlesex County , Massachusetts , USA . The place, which is only a few kilometers north of Boston, was founded in 1642. This city of around 40,000 inhabitants celebrated its 375th anniversary in 2017. Now in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, it is a growing suburb of Boston .

history

Founding years

The first settlers settled in 1640 near the Horn Pond, which releases an important source of the Mystic River . The place became an official municipality in 1642; at that time, the parish still included the present day parishes of Winchester , Burlington and parts of Stoneham and Wilmington . In 1730 Wilmingten separated from Woburn, and in 1799 also Burlington. Winchester did the same in 1850.

Woburn's name comes from the small town in England - Woburn (Bedfordshire) - which also has a famous castle . The first known ordination in Massachusetts took place in Woburn on November 22, 1642 . Reverend Thomas Carter was introduced to his ecclesiastical Puritan office in the presence of many well-known New England people, including John Cottons . Also there was Captain Edward Johnson , the co-founder of the Church and Woburn Settlement; Considered the "father of Woburn," he served as a parish clerk, represented the parish in the General Court of the Massachusetts Colony, drew the first map of the colony and wrote its first historical account.

The first official community meeting was held in 1644, in which the first city councilors or town selectmen were elected. Deacon Edward Covers was also a co-founder of Woburn. He was one of the first mayors and built the first house and the first mill in Woburn. He was very active in local politics because he was a large landowner, miller, and community overseer.

Important events in Woburn's history

  • Gershon Flagg Tannery was built in 1668 (this became an important trade for Woburn)
  • In 1803 the Middlesex Canal was opened, an important connection for tow ships to Boston.
  • Thompson founded a tannery in Cummingsville in 1823.
  • The local newspaper Woburn Sentinel was founded in 1839.
  • In 1867 the first telegraph started work.
  • In 1879 the first public library opened.
  • The telephone was introduced in 1882 and electric lighting in 1885
  • City status was granted on June 12, 1888.

Environmental scandal - groundwater contamination

In the recent past Woburn made a name for itself mainly through an environmental scandal.

In the 1970s, the number of people, especially children, with leukemia skyrocketed. Based on the population, five children with leukemia were to be expected; however, the number of children affected was twelve. In the 1990s, the number of children affected had risen to 21, four times the number of cases that could be expected for a place the size of Woburn. A region around Pine Street in east Woburn was particularly affected. As early as the 1980s, there were two studies on possible causes of this accumulation of diseases. However, the two studies had come to different conclusions. What was certain was that two out of eight wells used to obtain drinking water were contaminated with various carcinogenic chemicals. The difficulty, however, was in figuring out how much stress the Woburn residents had faced in the past. The city had a total of eight drinking water wells, and in the 1980s there seemed to be no way of determining which region of the city had received how much drinking water from which well in the 1960s and 1970s.

At the beginning of the 1980s, affected families took legal action against the companies Beatrice Foods and WR Grace and Company as the alleged perpetrators of the drinking water contamination. The attempt at a judicial clarification dragged on until 1990. Following a series of unfavorable decisions for the plaintiffs, they had to accept $ 8 million in damages.

A major breakthrough in the epidemiological clarification of the case only came in 1991, when Peter J. Murphy, a professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts , developed a computer model that based on documented facts the water supply from the eight wells for the individual districts simulated. With the help of the model, it was possible to determine when and to what extent 54 different parts of the city received drinking water from them in the 110 months in which the two contaminated wells were used. With the help of the model it was shown that there was no statistically significant difference between the children who drank this water and those who grew up in parts of the city that were not supplied with this water. In contrast, it has been shown that children whose mothers drank drinking water from these two contaminated wells during their pregnancy had an eight times higher risk of developing leukemia later than children of mothers who had lived in parts of the city during their pregnancy Received water from the other wells. For the first time in the history of epidemiology , it was possible to derive the probable cause of a residence-related accumulation of cancer.

The scandal served the author Jonathan Harr as a template for his novel Civil Trial (original title: A Civil Action ). In 1998 the novel was filmed with John Travolta and Robert Duvall in the leading roles .

population

In 2000 the population was 37,258, in 2010 the population was 38,120. In 2000, more than 90 percent of the population were white Americans, that is, according to the definition of the US Census, people whose origins belong to any original group in Europe Middle East or North Africa is declining.

Benjamin Thompson's birthplace in Woburn

sons and daughters of the town

literature

  • Samuel Sewall: The History of Woburn, Middlesex County, Mass. from the Grant of its Territory to Charlestown, in 1640, to the Year 1680. Wiggin and Lunt, Boston 1868. Digitized at the Internet Archive

Web links

Commons : Woburn, Massachusetts  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Single receipts

  1. ^ Dan Fagin : Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation . Bantam Books, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-345-53861-1 . P. 282.
  2. ^ Dan Fagin: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation . Bantam Books, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-345-53861-1 . P. 346.
  3. ^ A b Dan Fagin: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation . Bantam Books, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-345-53861-1 . P. 345.
  4. ^ Dan Fagin: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation . Bantam Books, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-345-53861-1 . P. 349.
  5. ^ A b Dan Fagin: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation . Bantam Books, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-345-53861-1 . P. 347.