Mendon, Worcester County, Massachusetts Genealogy

United States

Massachusetts

Worcester

Mendon

Modern town borders of Mendon in Worcester County, Massachusetts.

Town Hall

20 Main Street
Mendon, MA

Town Clerk

20 Main St, PO Box 54
Mendon, MA 01756
Phone: 508-473-1085
Fax: 508-478-8241
Email: townclerk@mendonma.gov
Website

History

In the mid 1600's a group of inhabitants from Braintree and Weymouth petitioned the General Court (Massachusetts' legislative body) for permission to settle a new town. On May 28, 1659 the General Court granted the petitioners permission to seek out a place and present their desires to the General Court along with the names of those who were to do the work. In 1660, the group was granted a plantation of 8 miles square to begin their society.

(see more of the article at Town Hall's site)

Mendon is historically a rural, agrarian community located in the Blackstone Valley. Mendon is the second oldest town in Worcester County, and the community has one of the best-preserved Federal/Greek Revival hilltop village centers in the state, adjacent to large tracts of open space. Much of the remaining town is undeveloped land, and there is also a large lake of over 90 acres. Most of the town's streams and rivers are part of the Blackstone River's drainage basin. At a community level, the above atmosphere acts as a backdrop for large, regional activities like the annual Country Fair which brought 14,000 visitors, the Strawberry Festival which drew 4,000 participants and the 325th Anniversary Celebration in 1992 which involved the whole town. (Town of Mendon)

Resources

Biography

• Biographical sketches of the ministers of the First Church, Mendon, Massachusetts, up to 1897
  George Faber Clark, microreproduction of manuscript
  

Celebrations

• An Address and other proceedings in commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Mendon, Massachusetts.
  Printed by C. Hamilton, Palladium Office, 1868, Worcester, Massachusetts

Cemeteries

• Friends Cemetery
  • USGS GNIS
  • Hometown Locator
  • Google map
• George Cemetery
• Old Cemetery

Church Records

• Records of the Evangelical Church of North Mendon, 1828-1859
• Records of the First Congregational Church in Mendon, 1785-1866
• Society of Friends of Uxbridge, Monthly meeting records, 1783-1898, covers Mendon and surrounding towns and villages
  

Civil Registration

• Annals of the town of Mendon, from 1659 to 1800, compiled by John G. Metcalf, M.D
  

Genealogy

• Mendon Families, not published, manuscript on microfilm
  
• The Wheelocks of Mendon, pub. 2004
• Taft talk : newsletter of the Taft Family Association

Town History

Go to Archive.org to find published materials for this town.

Maps

• satellite Google map for Mendon
• USGS GNIS map for Mendon
• Hometown Locator map for Mendon

Family Reunions

• National Aldrich Association holds its annual reunion in or very near Mendon. The descendants of George Aldrich, one of the earliest settlers meets on 3rd Saturday of July. Once in a while the reunion will be out of state (occurred only twice in more than 35 years of the association.) Notable descendants include William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States, Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, the U.S. Senator from Rhode Island (1881-1911), Robert Alphonso Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio, Chester Hardy Aldrich, 19th Governor of Nebraska, plus a host of state and national politicans.

Vital Records and Indexes

The town of Mendon kept annual town reports. These reports often contained birth, marriage, and death information. Below is a list of years when Mendon kept town reports. (NOTE: Occasionally, these town reports missed vital statistic information from the end of the year. If you don't find your ancestor's vital information, check the following year's town report to see if your ancestor's information was recorded later.)

1879 1880 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886a 1886b 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893a 1893b 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904a 1904b 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914

1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952

1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991

• Vital Records of Mendon, Massachusetts to the end of the Year 1850

References

Adjacent towns: Worcester Co.: Blackstone | Hopedale | Millville | Northbridge | Upton | Uxbridge | Norfolk Co.: Bellingham