Acushnet Heights Historic District

Acushnet Heights is a compact, densely built neighborhood of about 20 acres in the North End of New Bedford, Massachusetts. It sits on a ridge above the Acushnet River and is anchored by Clasky Common Park, the city's original common, laid out in 1822. The district holds 566 buildings, of which 432 contribute to its character. Large estate houses and modest cottages appeared in the 1840s, but the area changed after the 1860s as immigrant mill workers, mainly French Canadian, English and Irish, settled here. At its center are the duplexes and six-family tenements the Wamsutta Mills Corporation built in 1868 for its employees. Triple deckers, two- and three-story wood-frame houses, five churches, three former schools, a fire station and brick commercial blocks on Purchase Street complete the neighborhood. Styles run from Greek Revival and Italianate to Queen Anne and Colonial Revival, mostly in vernacular form. The district records how a textile economy shaped an ethnically mixed working-class community.