In-Home Drug Testing Middleborough, MA

Local Area Info: Middleborough, Massachusetts

The town was first settled by Europeans in 1661 as Nemasket, later changed to Middlebury, and officially incorporated as Middleborough in 1669. The name Nemasket came from a Native American settlement along the small river that now bears the same name. Nemasket may have meant "place of fish", due to the large amount of herring that migrate up the river each spring. There are no contemporary records that indicate the name Middlebury was taken from a place in England. The names Middlebury and Middleborough were actually derived from the city of Middelburg, Zeeland, the westernmost province of the Netherlands. Middelburg was an international intellectual center and economic powerhouse. The English religious dissenters called the Brownists developed their governing institutions in Middelburg before emigrating on the Mayflower, and were the earliest settlers of Middleborough, where their town and church governance ethics were continued.

During King Philip's War (1675–76), the town's entire populace took shelter within the confines of a fort constructed along the Nemasket River. The site is located behind the old Memorial High School (now a kindergarten), and is marked by a state historical commission marker along Route 105. Before long, the fort was abandoned and the population withdrew to the greater shelter of the Plymouth Colony. In their absence, the entire village was burned to the ground, and it would be several years before the town would be refounded. Western Middleborough broke away on May 13, 1853 and formed the town of Lakeville, taking with it the main access to the large freshwater lakes there, including Assawompset Pond.

Middleborough was once a large producer of shoes and is still home to the Alden Shoe Company, one of the last remaining shoe manufacturers in America. The local Maxim Motors manufactured fire engines from 1914-1989. Middleborough has since become the cranberry capital of the world, hosting the corporate headquarters of Ocean Spray Cranberries. Notable sights include the 1870s Victorian-style town hall and the Beaux Arts-style town library (1903). In the spring, the Nemasket River alewife and blueback herring run upstream to the Assawompset Ponds complex to spawn.