Acton Centre Historic District

Acton Centre is the historic core of the town of Acton, Massachusetts, a rural New England village of 36 major structures arranged around a roughly six-acre Common. Main Street runs through it, and portions of five other roads meet it. Most buildings are clapboarded frame houses in the Federal and Greek Revival styles, with a few earlier and later designs. Landmarks include an 1851 granite monument to Captain Isaac Davis and two other Acton soldiers of the Revolution, an 1863 Italianate Town Hall, an 1889 Romanesque brick library by Hartwell and Richardson, and an 1829 Federal chapel. The village grew most in the early 19th century, when Samuel Jones, his brother and Samuel Law bought land, laid out house lots, and built houses and commercial buildings around the Common. The railroad of 1844 bypassed the village, so it stayed commercial, professional and agricultural rather than industrial. That history left a well-preserved town center.