Welcome to Hubbardston, MA!

Hey there! Let me paint you a picture of my little corner of Central Massachusetts. 🌄🏡

I’m Hubbardston—yep, talking in the first‑person here—perched in the hill country about 19 miles northwest of Worcester (and roughly 56 miles from Boston if you’re up for a longer drive). 🛣️ My neighbors? Phillipston and Templeton wave from the northwest, Gardner and Westminster high‑five me to the northeast, Princeton and Rutland hug my southeast flank, and Barre props me up on the southwest. 🗺️🤝

Back in colonial days, I was just the “Northeast Quarter” of Rutland, but in 1767, I struck out on my own and took the name of Thomas Hubbard, one of the original proprietors. 📜 The first European settlers showed up in 1737—hard‑working folks who carved farms from rocky soil. Early on I was a bit on the poor side—picture scattered homesteads, sawmills buzzing 🪵, potash boiling 🧪, and villagers weaving palm‑leaf hats 🎩, crafting chairs 🪑 and cabinets, stitching shoes 👞, and even sewing horse blankets 🐴.

By the 1800s, I’d found my groove: dairy cows mooed across rolling pastures 🐄, berry fields burst with color 🍓, and tidy market gardens fed the region 🥕. Newcomers from Ireland 🇮🇪, French Canada 🇨🇦, England 🇬🇧, Sweden 🇸🇪, and Finland 🇫🇮 settled in, bringing fresh energy to my fields and small workshops. Chairs, boots, and shoes rolled out of town right alongside crates of produce. 🚛

Today I spread out over about 42 square miles—plenty of room for hiking, paddling, snowshoeing, and leaf‑peeping 🚶‍♀️🛶❄️🍂, with just over 2 percent water sparkling across my ponds and brooks. I’m proud of a nifty claim to fame, too: in July 1947, Vaino J. Holopainen (“Waino”) and Roy E. Handy Jr. invented the first backhoe swing frame right here, launching the Wain‑Roy legacy. 🚜💡

Life here is still classic small‑town New England. I run on an open‑town‑meeting form of government 🏛️ (five‑member Board of Selectmen), maintain about 88 miles of roads 🛤️, and kept my FY 2020 tax rate at $14.82 💰. My operating budget that year? A hair over $9.3 million. As of 2016, I counted 4,439 friendly faces 😊—3,098 of them registered voters—and I cheer on 474 kiddos at Center School 🏫 plus 1,366 teens at Quabbin Regional Middle/High 🎓.

My biggest challenge—and greatest joy—is welcoming new residents while hanging on to the easygoing vibe that makes people fall in love with me in the first place. 💖 Whether you’re just stopping by or planning to stay, dive into my story, share your talents, and help keep Hubbardston the warm, inviting place it’s always been. See you around town! ✨👋