Uxbridge

Uxbridge is home to the Nation's first woman voter and was once a thriving commerce center along the Blackstone Canal. Its history is rich as a home to one of John Eliot's Nipmuc Praying Indian Villages in the mid 1600s and in later centuries, a center of manufacturing that produced the woolen uniforms for Civil War soldiers. Shays' Rebellion also began here and Governor John Hancock quelled Uxbridge riots. Uxbridge native, Seth Reed was instrumental in adding E pluribus unum to U.S. coins.  Washington slept here on his Inaugural tour. 

Its 18th century Quaker Meeting House still stands and represents the strong Quaker influence in early Uxbridge. Quakers, migrated here and built mills, railroads, houses, tools and Conestoga wagon wheels. Southwick's store housed the "Social and Instructive Library". Friends Meetinghouse, next to Moses Farnum's farm, had prominent abolitionists Abby Kelley Foster, and Effingham Capron as members. Capron led the 450 member local anti-slavery society. Brister Pierce, formerly a slave in Uxbridge, was a signer of an 1835 petition to Congress demanding abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.