Lincoln, Massachusetts

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Lincoln is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,014 according to the 2020 United States census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base who live within town limits. The town, located in the MetroWest region of Boston's suburbs, has a large amount of colonial history and a sizeable amount of public conservation land.

History

Lincoln was settled by Europeans in 1654, as a part of Concord. The majority of Lincoln was formed by splitting off a substantial piece of southeast Concord and incorporated as a separate town in 1754. Due to their "difficulties and inconveniences by reason of their distance from the places of Public Worship in their respective Towns," local inhabitants petitioned the General Court to be set apart as a separate town. Because the new town was composed of parts "nipped" off from the adjacent towns of Concord, Weston (which itself had been part of Watertown) and Lexington (which itself had been part of Cambridge), it was sometimes referred to as "Niptown."<ref>https://archive.org/details/accountofcelebra00lincrich p.27 (p.63 of the PDF)</ref>

Chambers Russell, a Representative in the Court in Boston, was influential in the town's creation. In gratitude, Russell was asked to name the new town. He chose Lincoln, after his family home in Lincolnshire, England. His homestead in Lincoln was later known as the Codman House property, which was occupied after his death by his relatives, the Codman family.

Lincoln is one of the few towns in America named after Lincolnshire, England<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (and not the Revolutionary War Major General, Benjamin Lincoln or President Abraham Lincoln),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> although Lincoln, New Hampshire, was named for the 9th Earl of Lincoln, an English nobleman and incorporated in 1764, 45 years before Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Paul Revere was captured by British soldiers in Lincoln on the night of April 18, 1775. Minutemen from Lincoln were the first to arrive to reinforce the colonists protecting American stores of ammunition and arms in Concord. Colonel Abijah Pierce of Lincoln led his troops, armed with a cane. He upgraded his weapon to a British musket after the battle. Five British soldiers who fell in Lincoln are buried in the town cemetery. A substantial portion of the first battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, was fought in Lincoln.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reverend Charles Stearns (1753–1826), a Harvard-trained minister, served the Congregational Church in Lincoln from late 1781 until his death. Only a handful of his sermons were printed, most in the early 19th century. In addition, Stearns was principal of the Liberal School, a relatively progressive and coeducational institution that opened in early 1793. While at the school, Stearns wrote and published a number of education-related works, including Dramatic Dialogues for Use in Schools (1798), a collection of 30 original plays that were performed by the students. After the school closed in 1808, Stearns continued to tutor students privately. Among his pupils were Nathan Brooks, a Concord lawyer, and George Russell, a Lincoln physician. Stearns's published works can be accessed at Early American Imprints, a microform and digital collection produced by the American Antiquarian Society. A summary article that surveys Stearns as a producer of children's drama is "The Dramatic Dialogues of Charles Stearns: An Appreciation" by Jonathan Levy, in Spotlight on the Child: Studies in the History of American Children's Theatre, ed. Roger L. Bedard and C. John Tolch (New York: Greenwood, 1989): 5–24.

Education

The Lincoln School District operates elementary and middle schools, while the zoned high school is Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, in Sudbury, of the school district of that name.<ref>Template:Cite web - Text list Template:Webarchive</ref>

Lincoln's non-base area is home to one public K–8 school, the Lincoln School. In December 2018, voters in Lincoln approved the construction of a new K–8 school building and a Proposition Template:Frac property tax override to pay for the school.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> To date $80 million financing has been raised via bond issuance for a $93.9 million renovation project at Lincoln School.<ref>Financial Section and Warrant for the 2022 Annual Town Meeting Lincoln, Massachusetts https://www.lincolntown.org/1307/2022-Annual-Town-Meeting</ref>

The on-post K-8 school Hanscom School of Hanscom Air Force Base, a base which is partially in Lincoln, is operated the Lincoln School District.<ref>Template:Cite web - This is a .mil site.</ref> Dependents of active duty military living on the base are sent to Bedford High School of the Bedford School District. High school students living on the base who are not dependents of active duty military personnel are sent to Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The private school The Carroll School maintains its middle school in Lincoln.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Geography

Lincoln has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert is water, representing 4.26% of the town's total area. (Source: United States Census Bureau.)

Demographics

Template:See also Template:Historical populations At the 2020 census,<ref name="GR2">Template:Cite web</ref> there were 7,014 people residing in the town. The racial makeup of the town was 76.2% White, 3.2% African American, 0.2% Native American, 6.4% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 1.0% from other races, and 5.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.3% of the population. The 21.03% drop in population between the 2010 and 2000 censuses was the largest of any municipality in Massachusetts. Diversity in the public schools is higher due to the METCO program.

The majority of the land in the town is zoned for residential and agricultural use.

Points of interest

Transportation

Commuter rail service from Boston's North Station is provided by the MBTA with a stop in Lincoln on its Fitchburg Line.<ref>MBTA website.mbta.com. Accessed August 31, 2007.</ref> Lincoln was previously home to a second railroad station, Baker Bridge station, which was the site of a deadly 1905 train wreck.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Notable people

See also

References

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Further reading

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