What is it like to live in East Bridgewater?
East Bridgewater is a midsized town that boasted farms and manufacturing in its early days, but now regards itself as a bedroom community.
East Bridgewater native Darleen Nilson switched sides, but her loyalties have not changed.
Nilson grew up on Belmont Street on the West Bridgewater/Brockton side of town but now makes her home on the Halifax end, near Robbins Pond.
have been in my house since 1978,’’ said Nilson, a mother of two and grandmother of six. “It was built in 1911 as a cottage. Robbins Wood started out as a . . . community where people would come to summer near the ponds and pines.’’
Though less renowned for its history than the Pilgrim shoreline or Puritan Boston, East Bridgewater was the site of a key event in American history — the 1649 agreement between Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and English settlers that gave the Bridgewaters and parts of surrounding towns to the Colonists. Today that site is Sachem Rock Farm, a town park on the National Register of Historic Places. East Bridgewater paid the price later in King Philip’s War (1675), when nine of the 10 dwellings here were destroyed.
The community rebuilt and in fine fashion. “We have a real center,’’ Nilson said, pointing to the historic district that includes the town common, painstakingly maintained homes, and handsome churches. The town offices are housed in a stylish 19th-century estate. The most significant development followed World War II. Nilson remembers when dairy farms became neighborhoods. Agriculture still makes its presence known, however; C.N. Smith Farm sells produce on South Street.
East Bridgewater (population 13,966) is a midsized town that boasted farms and manufacturing in its early days, but now regards itself as a bedroom community where the Satucket, Matfield, and other rivers flow.
“They call it Bridgewater because there’s a lot of water here,’’ Nilson said.
Take note: East Bridgewater residents do not like it when their town is confused with one of the other “Bridgewaters’’ — Bridgewater and West Bridgewater.
“We get very touchy about that,’’ Nilson said. “They’re all separate.’’
BY THE NUMBERS
4
The number of over-55 communities in town: White Pines Village, Rivers Edge, Harmony Crossing, and Meadowbrook Estates
10
The number of yards of cotton the Wampanoag were paid for the Bridgewaters in 1649. They also received seven coats, nine hatchets, eight hoes, 20 knives, and four moose skins.
1970
The year native Tom Everett Scott, who starred in the film “That Thing You Do’’ and played Detective Russell Clarke on TV’s “Southland,’’ was born
5,051
The number of households
PROS & CONS
Pro
Infrastructure
The town recently built a $65 million junior/senior high school and a community and senior center.
Con
Tax base
Most of the tax burden (88.5 percent) falls on residential property.
Pro
Transportation
Commuter rail service is roughly 5 miles or less away at stations in neighboring towns — Hanson, Whitman, and Bridgewater.
Pro & Con
‘Bridgewater Triangle’
A slice of town is located in an infamous area that has inspired legends of disappearances, alien abductions, giant snakes, and a large grab bag of occult sightings and other tales that flout reason
Robert Knox can be reached at [email protected].
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