Maynard, located on the Assabet River, was first settled in 1638 and was officially incorporated in 1871. Maynard, originally part of the towns of Stow and Sudbury,
was named after Amory Maynard.
Amory Maynard was born in the northeast part of Marlborough on February 12, 1804, son of Isaac and Lydia (Howe) Maynard. He left school at the age of fourteen to begin work in the sawmill owned by his father. When his father died Amory took charge of the business and expand it to building and contracting, and within a short time was employing sixty men.
On January 26, 1826 he married Mary P. Priest, daughter of Benjamin and Phebe Priest of Marlorough. In 1873 Amory built a fine residence on Beechmont Ave. Amory and his partner William H. Knight were also owners of the mill. They dammed up the Assabet River and diverted water into a mill pond to provide power for a new mill, which was opened in 1847, producing carpets and carpet yarn.
Amory Maynard’s carpet firm failed in the business panic 1857. The Civil War allowed the Assabet Manufacturing to prosper by producing woolens, flannels and blankets for the army. The best known feature of the mill is the clock donated by Amory’s son Lorenzo in 1892
Amory died in 1890, and his remains together with those of his wife lie in the family tomb, which was erected in the Elmwood Cemetery. His son and grandson still held high positions in the mills management. The family’s popularity plummeted when in 1898 the Assabet Manufacturing Company failed. Workers lost nearly half of their savings which they deposited with the company, since there were no banks in town.
Prosperity returned in 1899 when the American Woolen Company bought the Assabet Mills and began to expand. As the mill grew so did the town. The nearly 2,000 people who became Maynard’s first citizens outnumbered the people in both Sudbury and Stow. Maynard’s population almost doubled between 1895 and 1905.
Most of the original mill workers were local Yankees and Iris immigrants. But by the early 1900’s the Assayed Mills were employing large numbers of newcomers from Finland, Italy, Russian and Poland. The immigrants made Maynard a bustling, multi ethnic community.
As in most Northern Mill towns, labor relations were often troubled. In 1911 the company used Poles to break the strike of Finnish workers. When no longer able to play one nationality off against another, management took advantage of rivalries between different labor unions. The Great Depression hit the town and the company hard. In 1934 the company sold all the houses it owned and New Deal labor laws encouraged the workers to form a single industrial union, which joined the C.I.O.
World War II brought a few final years of good times to the woolen industry. The mill in Maynard operated around the clock with over two thousand employees producing blankets and cloth for overcoats for the armed forces. But when peace returned the long term trends resumed their downward drift and in 1950 the American Woolen Company shut down its Assabet Mills entirely.
As a one- industry town, Maynard was in economic trouble. However, in 1953 ten businessmen from Worcester bought the mill and began leasing space to tenants. One of the companies which found the low cost of Maynard’s Industries space appealing was Digital Equipment Corporation, which started operations in 1957 and in 1974 purchased the entire Mill complex. The company eventually made Maynard it worldwide headquarters making Maynard the “Mini Computer Capital of the World”
In 1990 “The Mill” was renovated as Clock Tower Place and houses many business, including the worldwide headquarters of Monster.com. The mill complex is also home to the oldest working hand wound clock in the country.
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