The Town of Millbury began when Boston proprietors bought an 8 square-mile plantation from the Indians in 1704. This tract contained both Sutton and Millbury and a piece of Auburn. Incorporated in 1813, the town is on the Blackstone River and contains its tributaries, the Singletary and Dorothy Brooks, which provided good water power. Millbury became a prosperous farming community with excellent grass crops, containing small villages of Nipmuck Indians.
The Blackstone was an important transportation corridor, with iron refinery, fulling and grist mills. There was an accelerated growth because the many industrial jobs attracted settlers. A powder mill and armory made guns for the Continental Army. Asa and Andrus Waters held a number of patents for important innovations in gun making.
The first paper factory in the county was established in 1770. Textiles were being made in town by 1825 and the Blackstone Canal was built in 1838 to connect Worcester and Providence. Nine locks had to be built to raise the water level. Millbury became the home of a strikingly diverse set of industries, including metal working, tanning and shoe making, textiles and dairying.
Millbury now has picturesque rural areas densely built commercial downtown and an industrial edge bordering Worcester.
