The New International Encyclopædia/Lancaster (Massachusetts)

LANCASTER. A town, including several villages, in Worcester County, Mass., 18 miles north by east of Worcester; on the Nashua River, and on the Boston and Maine Railroad (Map: ../Massachusetts/, D 3). It has the State Industrial School for Girls, and a public library. Though Lancaster is primarily a place of residence and a summer resort, it has dairy and farming interests, and manufactures of cotton goods, yarn, bricks, pumps, and soap. The government is administered by town meetings. The town owns and operates its water-works. Population, in 1890, 2201; in 1900, 2478. Lancaster, settled about 1651, by John Prescott, an ancestor of the historian, was incorporated as a town two years later. In 1676 Indians massacred forty of its citizens and laid the place in ruins. Consult Marvin, History of the Town of Lancaster (Lancaster, 1879). and The Early Records of Lancaster (Clinton, Mass., 1884).