Local History Collection
The Library maintains a collection of print and microfilm materials related to the history of the town of Uxbridge and the surrounding Blackstone Valley. It encompasses the region’s colonial, industrial, and modern history and its ethnic, religious, and cultural heritage, including the following:
- Books and documents relating to the history of Uxbridge, especially it's industrial/textile mill history
- Materials that focus on the history and preservation of historic homes, buildings, and cemeteries within the town
- Maps and atlases of the area
- Personal manuscripts, genealogies, and other materials that record the history, experiences, and ancestry of Uxbridge individuals and families
- Bound copies of the Blackstone Valley Tribune
- Scrapbooks of local newspapers
- Uxbridge Annual Reports, Town Meeting Warrants, and Street Lists
- Vital statistics to 1850: births, deaths, and marriages
- Uxbridge High School yearbooks (1933. 1946, 1964-1968, 1971, 1973-1987, 1990-1993, 2000-2001, 2014- 2022)
- Local newspapers on microfilm:
- Douglas Herald 1868-1873
- Whitinsville Compendium 1870-1873
- Worcester South Compendium 1873-1882
- Uxbridge Compendium 1883-1913
- Whitinsville Transcript 1904-1905
- Uxbridge & Whitinsville Transcript 1906-1918
- Uxbridge Booster 1916-1917
- Blackstone Valley News 1917-1923
- Uxbridge Times 1929-1956
- Whitinsville Times 1946-1956
- Blackstone Valley News Tribune 1957-1975, 1985-2007
- Blackstone Valley Tribune Advertiser 1970-1990
- Free Black woman Nancy Adams’s original tombstone and other information about the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement in Uxbridge
Viewing the Collection
The collection is located on the top floor of the library in the Beatrice Sprague Map Room (up the stairs and to the left) and the locked Local History Room (up the stairs and straight ahead). If you would like to view anything in the Local History Room, please ask a staff member on the main floor for help. These rooms can be accessed during the Library’s normal operating hours. Materials do not circulate; however, temporary loans of materials for exhibition may be permitted at the discretion of the Library Director.
If you have specific questions or research inquiries, please contact Library Director Chris Powloka by email at cpowloka@cwmars.org.
Select Titles from the Collection
- Uxbridge Past by Carolynne Cotton
- The Heart of the Commonwealth: Society and Political Culture in Worcester County, Massachusetts, 1713-1861 by John L. Brooke
- Images of America: Uxbridge by B. Mae Edwards Wrona
- Uxbridge Year by Year compiled by Beatrice Putnam Sprague
- Vital Records of Uxbridge, MA to 1850
- “Address delivered at the Unitarian church, in Uxbridge, Mass., in 1864…” by Henry Chapin
- Taft family gathering. Proceedings of the meeting of the Taft family, at Uxbridge, Mass., August 12, 1874
Online resources
- Digital Commonwealth
- Mass Historical Society
- Uxbridge Historical Society
- USGenWeb
- Ancestry.com (in-library use only)
- Newsbank (issues of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, incomplete coverage from 1982-1988, all issues from 1989 through present day)
- Anti-Slavery Collection in the Boston Public Library (This collection contains several editions of the Liberator and personal correspondence to and from Uxbridge residents involved in abolition)
