Haverhill, Massachusetts: From Town to City

Local author Patricia Trainor O'Malley captures the exuberance and vitality of Haverhill's Golden Age with more than 200 photographs from the Haverhill Public Library Special Collections.

In 1850, Haverhill, Massachusetts, was a small mercantile and farming town with slightly fewer than6,000 residents. One half-century later, six times that many people called Haverhill home, and it had become an industrial center ranked as one of the top five shoe producers in the nation. The bustling downtown area featured buildings of uniform red-brick construction; elegant Victorian-style houses and new municipal buildings were erected; and civic pride was very evident. This was Haverhill's Golden Age. Included in this fascinating portrait are some of the oldest-known images of downtown Haverhill from the 1850s and 1860s.