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Geography & Travel
Watertown
Massachusetts, United States
Watertown, city, Middlesex county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., on the Charles River, just west of Boston. One of the four earliest Massachusetts Bay settlements, it was founded by a group led by Sir Richard Saltonstall and was incorporated as a town in 1630; it was the first inland farming town. Its name may have derived from the fact that the area was well watered and abounded with fish. Construction of gristmills (1630s) and a cloth-fulling mill (1660s) were antecedents of a manufacturing economy. In 1632 the freemen of Watertown displayed an early independent spirit by refusing to pay a tax of ...(100 of 219 words)