Page:Canton.djvu/9



were included in the Town of Stoughton then incorporated. The precinct of Stoughtonham was created in 1765; but in 1797 and because the settlements of Stoughton were separated so widely, Canton was made a distinct and duly incorporated town.

Extending from the morning shadow of the Blue Hills to the line of Stoughton and of Sharon on the south, Canton occupies an area of a little over nineteen square miles in Norfolk County. Its population has grown from about one thousand at the time of its incorporation to about five thousand with one thousand or so legal voters. The assessed valuation for 1909 amounted to a little over four million dollars.

Canton Junction is the most important of the railroad stations within the town and here in addition to the main line and branch lines there are sidings, freight yards and whatever is necessary to make transportation facilities adequate and excellent. This station is fifteen miles by rail from Boston on the Providence Division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. There are seventeen trains daily in each direction and eleven on Sundays. The single fare is thirty cents; five rides cost $1.25; twelve rides cost $1.80 and the average running time is thirty-two minutes. On the Old Colony Division which here leaves the other line and beyond Canton Junction are stations at Canton and Springdale. The electric line of the Blue Hill Street Railway Company runs six miles through the main street of the town connecting with the Boston Elevated System at Mattapan, also making connections Rh