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Watertown, Massachusetts
City
Watertown’s Main Street, facing westward
Flag Seal
Motto:  In pace condita (Latin) “Founded in peace”
Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts
Watertown Show map of Greater Boston area Watertown Show map of Massachusetts Watertown Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 42°22′15″N 71°11′00″W / 42.37083°N 71.18333°W / 42.37083; -71.18333
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Middlesex
Settled	July 1630
Incorporated	September 7, 1630
Government
• Type	Council-manager
• City Manager	George Proakis
Area
• Total	4.12 sq mi (10.68 km)
• Land	4.00 sq mi (10.35 km)
• Water	0.13 sq mi (0.33 km)
Elevation	36 ft (11 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	35,329
• Density	8,840.7/sq mi (3,413.41/km)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (Eastern)
ZIP Code	02472
Area code	617/857
FIPS code	25-73440
GNIS feature ID	0612401
Website	www.watertown-ma.gov

Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End.

Watertown was one of the first Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements organized by Puritan settlers in 1630. The city is home to the Perkins School for the Blind, the Armenian Library and Museum of America, and the historic Watertown Arsenal, which produced military armaments from 1816 through World War II.

Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before colonization. At the time of the earliest European reports in the 1600s, there were at least two important settlements of Massachusett people along the river later known as the Charles: Nonantum in present day Newton, and Pequossette or Peguusset, “where the narrows open out” near modern day Watertown Square. A contemporary English source lists “Pigsgusset” as the native name of “Water towne.” Massachusett people built a fishing weir at Pequossette to trap herring at the site of the current Watertown Dam. The annual fish migration, as both alewife and blueback herring swim upstream from their adult home in the sea to spawn in the fresh water where they were hatched, still occurs every spring.

Watertown, first known to settlers as Saltonstall Plantation, was one of the earliest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements. Founded in early 1630 by a group of settlers led by Richard Saltonstall and George Phillips, it was officially incorporated that same year. The alternate spelling “Waterton” is seen in some early documents.

The first buildings were upon land now included within the limits of Cambridge known as Gerry’s Landing. For its first quarter century Watertown ranked next to Boston in population and area. Since then its limits have been greatly reduced. Thrice portions have been added to Cambridge, and it has contributed territory to form the new towns of Weston (1712), Waltham (1738), Lincoln (1754) and Belmont (1859). In 1632 the residents of Watertown protested against being compelled to pay a tax for the erection of a stockade fort at Cambridge; this was the first protest in America against taxation without representation and led to the establishment of representative democracy in the colony. As early as the close of the 17th century, Watertown was the chief horse and cattle market in New England and was known for its fertile gardens and fine estates. Here about 1632 was erected the first gristmill in the colony, and in 1662 one of the first woolen mills in America was built here. The first burying ground, on Arlington Street, was established in the 1660s. It contains a monument to Joseph Coolidge, the only Watertown resident killed during the British retreat from Concord in April 1775.

Much excitement was generated in Watertown towards the start of the American Revolutionary War period. In 1773, many of its citizens were engaged with the Sons of Liberty in another tax protest, this time against the British Tea Tax which resulted in the famous Boston Tea Party protest.

Then later (April 1775), some 134 Watertown minutemen responded to the alarm from Lexington to rout the British soldiers from their march to Concord. Thereafter many of these citizen soldiers were part of the first battle line formed at the Siege of Boston. Another Watertown citizen, Israel Bissel, was the first rider to take the news of the British attack and rode all the way to Connecticut, New York and Philadelphia.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress, after adjournment from Concord, met from April to July 1775 in the First Parish Church, the site of which is marked by a monument. On July 3, George Washington was greeted in Watertown; the following day he took command of the Army in Cambridge. The Massachusetts General Court held its sessions here from 1775 to 1778. Committees met in the nearby Edmund Fowle House. Boston town meetings were held here during the siege of Boston, when many Boston families made their homes in the neighborhood. For several months early in the American Revolution the committees of safety and committee of correspondence made Watertown their headquarters and it was from here that General Joseph Warren set out for Bunker Hill.

The Treaty of Watertown, the first treaty signed between the newly formed United States of America and a foreign power, the St. John’s and Mi’kmaq First Nations of Nova Scotia, was signed in this house.

The Coolidge Tavern, built in 1742, was frequented by minutemen during the war. Here, Washington was entertained on his New England tour in 1789. The tavern was demolished in 1918 to make way for a trolley terminal.

From 1832 to 1834, Theodore Parker conducted a private school and his name is still preserved in the Parker School, though the building no longer operates as a public school.

Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831, creating the first garden cemetery in the United States. The landscape of Mount Auburn provided inspiration for the nation’s first public parks and picturesque suburbs designed by the early generations of American landscape architects. Mount Auburn has been recognized as one of the most significant designed landscapes in the country. Although perceived as a Cambridge institution, almost all of the cemetery is actually in Watertown.