Forge Village Historic District, Historic district in Westford, Massachusetts, United States.
Forge Village Historic District is a mill and residential area in Westford, Massachusetts, stretching across a large property at the intersection of Prescott and Pleasant Streets. The area includes Colonial and Federal-style buildings, among them the former mill complex, worker housing, and structures from different periods of industrial development.
The area started as a small blacksmith operation but became a major textile manufacturing center in the early 1800s, especially after the Abbot Worsted Company built its facility there. The changes show how craft workshops in the region gradually gave way to larger industrial factories.
The neighborhood displays worker houses and factory buildings that reflect the lives of people in a 19th-century textile village. The way structures cluster around the mills shows how closely work and home life were connected in that era.
The grounds are walkable and main buildings are within walking distance around Prescott and Pleasant Streets. Visitors should allow time to take in the various structures and how they are arranged, since the site's story is reflected in its spatial layout.
The site contains remnants of fulling mills from the 1700s, which predate the later textile factories of the 1800s. These layers of different industrial periods allow visitors to trace the shift from craft production to factory-based manufacturing.
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