Forge Village Historic District

Forge Village is a mill village on Stony Brook in Westford, Massachusetts, built around the Abbot Worsted Mill. The district holds 274 historic buildings, one site and five structures, mostly single and multiple-unit houses built for factory workers. The Prescott family used the site for a grist mill and iron-making in the Colonial period. The Stony Brook Railroad arrived in 1848, and the Westford Forge Company began making axles and machined iron in 1853. Abbot Worsted took over the forge in 1879 and replaced it with the current brick mill in 1910. From about 1885 the company built worker housing, starting on Bradford Street, and recruited workers from Ireland, Scotland, Russia and other countries. It offered inexpensive homes, night classes, libraries, athletic fields and steady wages, and the mills had no strikes. Styles range from Colonial and Federal houses to Victorian Eclectic duplexes. The dense streets of company housing and the industrial streetscape on Pleasant Street give the village its character.