Lincoln, Massachusetts
Encyclopedia
Lincoln is a town in the historic area of Middlesex County
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge* Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge* Longfellow National Historic Site* Lowell National Historical Park* Minute Man National Historical Park* Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, United States. The population was 6,362 at the 2010 census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base
Hanscom Air Force Base
Hanscom Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately south-southwest of Bedford, Massachusetts. The facility is a joint use civil airport/military base with Hanscom Field which provides general aviation and charter service.The host unit at Hanscom is the non-flying...

 that live within town limits. Without the base, which is largely self-contained, Lincoln is home to 5,152 people, according to the 2000 census.

History

Lincoln was settled in 1654 as part of neighboring Concord
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...

. It was incorporated as a separate town in 1754. Due to their "difficulties and inconveniences by reason of their distance from the places of Public Worship in their respective Towns," local inhabitants petitioned the General Court to be set apart as a separate town. Comprising parts "nipped" off from the adjacent towns of Concord
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...

, Weston
Weston, Massachusetts
Weston is a suburb of Boston located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States in the Boston metro area. The population of Weston, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, is 11,261....

 and Lexington
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...

, it was sometimes referred to as "Niptown."

Chambers Russell, a Representative in the Court in Boston, was influential in the town's creation. In gratitude, Russell was asked to name the new town. He chose Lincoln, after his family home in Lincolnshire, England. His homestead in Lincoln was the Codman House
Codman House
Codman House is a historic house set on a estate at 36 Codman Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Thanks to a gift by Dorothy Codman, it has been owned by Historic New England since 1969 and is open to the public June 1–October 15 on the first and third Saturdays of the month...

 property, which was occupied after his death by his relatives, the Coodman family.

Lincoln is reportedly the only town in America named after Lincoln, England (and not President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

), although Lincoln, New Hampshire
Lincoln, New Hampshire
Lincoln is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the second-largest town by area in New Hampshire. The population was 1,662 at the 2010 census. The town is home to the New Hampshire Highland Games and to a portion of Franconia Notch State Park. Set in the White Mountains,...

 was named for the 9th Earl of Lincoln, an English nobleman and founded long before Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Paul Revere
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...

 was captured by British soldiers in Lincoln on the night of April 18, 1775. Minutemen from Lincoln were the first to arrive to reinforce the colonists protecting American stores in Concord. Col Abijah Pierce of Lincoln led his troops armed with a cane. He upgraded his weapon to a British musket after the battle. Several British soldiers who fell in Lincoln are buried in the town cemetery.

Reverend Charles Stearns (1753–1826), a Harvard-trained minister, served the Congregational Church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

 in Lincoln from late 1781 until his death. Only a handful of his sermons were printed, most in the early 19th century. In addition, Stearns was principal of the Liberal School, a relatively progressive and coeducational institution that opened in early 1793. While at the school, Stearns wrote and published a number of education-related works, including Dramatic Dialogues for Use in Schools (1798), a collection of 30 original plays that were performed by the students. After the school closed in 1808, Stearns continued to tutor students privately. Among his pupils were Nathan Brooks, a Concord lawyer, and George Russell, a Lincoln physician. Stearns' published works can be accessed at Early American Imprints
Early American Imprints
Early American Imprints is a microopaque card collection produced by Readex Microprint. It is based on Evan's American Bibliography and on Shaw-Shoemaker's American Bibliography and contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in the United States from...

, a microform and digital collection produced by the American Antiquarian Society
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society , located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and national research library of pre-twentieth century American History and culture. Its main building, known also as Antiquarian Hall, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark...

. A summary article that looks at Stearns as a producer of children's drama is The Dramatic Dialogues of Charles Stearns: An Appreciation by Jonathan Levy, in Spotlight on the Child: Studies in the History of American Children’s Theatre, ed. Roger L. Bedard and C. John Tolch (New York: Greenwood, 1989): 5-24.

Geography

Lincoln has a total area of 15 square miles (38.8 km²), of which 14.4 square miles (37.3 km²) is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km²) is water, representing 4.26% of the town's total area. (Source: United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

).

Police and fire department

The Lincoln Police and Fire Department building was upgraded recently. The Police Department is staffed with 13 full-time officers, broken down as follows: one chief, one lieutenant, three sergeants, one inspector, seven patrol officers and one traffic enforcement officer. Ten part-time special officers supplement the full-time officers in filling details and special events request for the department.

The Fire Department employs a full-time chief, four full-time lieutenants, nine full-time firefighter/E.M.T.s, and ten call firefighter/E.M.T.s. The department staffs a minimum of four firefighters per shift at all times. Due to budget shortfalls this year the fire department is only staffing two profesional full-time firefighters on night shifts and weekends.

Demographics

At the 2000 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

, there were 8,056 people, 2,790 households and 2,254 families residing in the town. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 560.7 per square mile (216.5/km²). There were 2,911 housing units at an average density of 202.6 per square mile (78.2/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 87.16% White, 4.84% African American, 0.38% Native American, 4.17% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.33% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...

, and 2.09% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.97% of the population. The 21% drop in population between the 2010 and 2000 censuses was the largest of any municipality in Massachusetts.

There were 2,790 households of which 45.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 5.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.2% were non-families. 15.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.18.

Age distribution was 30.7% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 31.2% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 94.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.7 males.

The median household income
Median household income
The median household income is commonly used to generate data about geographic areas and divides households into two equal segments with the first half of households earning less than the median household income and the other half earning more...

 was $110,844, and median family income was $176,433. Males had a median income of $52,788 versus $31,786 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the town was $62,279. About 0.3% of families and 0.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 0.2% of those under age 18 and 2.4% of those age 65 or over. Voting patterns in recent decades indicate that Lincoln is among the wealthiest towns in the United States.

While the majority of the land in the town is zoned for residential and agricultural use a large parcel on state route 2 is designated for commercial use.

Points of interest

  • Bemis Hall
    Bemis Hall
    Bemis Hall is the home of the Bemis Lecture Series and the offices of the Lincoln Council on Aging, and is located in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts. It was dedicated in May, 1892 as part of the will of George Bemis...

  • Codman House
    Codman House
    Codman House is a historic house set on a estate at 36 Codman Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Thanks to a gift by Dorothy Codman, it has been owned by Historic New England since 1969 and is open to the public June 1–October 15 on the first and third Saturdays of the month...

  • DeCordova Museum
    DeCordova Museum
    The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and art museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts focused on modern and contemporary art, and holds a collection focused on work in all media, especially works by artists with connections to New England...

     and Sculpture Park
  • The Food Project
    The Food Project
    The Food Project is a non-profit organization that employs teenagers on farms in Lincoln, Roxbury and the North Shore of Massachusetts. It focuses on community improvement and outreach, and education about health, leadership, charity, and sustainable agriculture...

  • Gropius House
    Gropius House
    The Gropius House was the family residence of noted architect Walter Gropius at 68 Baker Bridge Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. It is now owned by Historic New England and is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday The Gropius House was the family residence of noted architect Walter Gropius at 68...

  • Hanscom Field
    Hanscom Field
    Hanscom Field , also known by its full name Laurence G. Hanscom Field, is a public airport located in Bedford, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority....

     and Hanscom Air Force Base
    Hanscom Air Force Base
    Hanscom Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately south-southwest of Bedford, Massachusetts. The facility is a joint use civil airport/military base with Hanscom Field which provides general aviation and charter service.The host unit at Hanscom is the non-flying...

  • Lincoln Center Historic District
    Lincoln Center Historic District
    Lincoln Center Historic District is a historic district on Bedford, Lincoln, Old Lexington, Sandy Pond, Trapelo & Weston Roads in Lincoln, Massachusetts.The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985....

  • nearby Walden Pond
    Walden Pond
    Walden Pond is a 31-metre-deep lake in Massachusetts . It is in area and around, located in Concord, Massachusetts, in the United States...


Transportation

Commuter rail
Regional rail
Commuter rail, also called suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates between a city center, and the middle to outer suburbs beyond 15km and commuter towns or other locations that draw large numbers of commuters—people who travel on a daily basis...

 service from Boston's North Station is provided by the MBTA
MBTA Commuter Rail
The MBTA Commuter Rail serves as the regional rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, in the United States. It is operated under contract by the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company a joint partnership of Veolia Transportation, Bombardier Transportation and Alternate...

 with a stop in Lincoln on its Fitchburg Line
Fitchburg Line
The Fitchburg Line is an MBTA line that runs from Boston's North Station to Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The line is along the tracks of the former Fitchburg Railroad, which was a railroad line across northern Massachusetts, United States, leading to and through the Hoosac Tunnel. It is one of the...

.

Notable residents

As a town of decidedly rural character and layout but quite close to the academic and intellectual centers of Cambridge and Boston, Lincoln has had such notable past residents as architect Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....

, An Wang
An Wang
Dr. An Wang was a Chinese American computer engineer and inventor, and co-founder of computer company Wang Laboratories.-Early life and career:...

 of Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...

, Ken Olsen
Ken Olsen
Kenneth Harry Olsen was an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson.-Background:...

 of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

, Thomas Winship of the Boston Globe, Richard Bolt
Richard Bolt
Richard Henry Bolt Ph.D., better known as Richard Bolt or Dick Bolt, was a physics professor at MIT with an interest in acoustics...

 and Robert Newman of BBN (now BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...

), humpback-song recorder Roger Payne
Roger Payne
Roger Searle Payne is a biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery of Whale song among Humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to end commercial whaling.Payne studied at Harvard University and Cornell...

, and opera impresario/conductor Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell was a notable American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director of opera.- Life :Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old...

. Other currently noteworthy people who grew up or live in Lincoln include Julia Glass
Julia Glass
Julia Glass is an American novelist. Her debut novel, Three Junes, won the National Book Award in 2002. Glass followed this with a second novel, The Whole World Over, in 2006, which was also set in the Bank Street, Greenwich Village universe with three interwoven stories featuring several...

, author of Three Junes
Three Junes
Three Junes is Julia Glass' debut novel. It won the National Book Award in 2002.- Plot summary :Three Junes follows the McLeods, a Scottish family, throughout their lives and relationships. Its members are Paul and Maureen, and their sons: Fenno, and twins David and Dennis...

, Greg Hawkes
Greg Hawkes
Greg Hawkes is a musician best known as the keyboardist for the Rock band The Cars.Hawkes, a native of Fulton, Maryland, attended Atholton High School where he played in a band called Teeth. He then attended Berklee College of Music for two years, majoring in composition and flute...

 (former keyboardist for the Cars
The Cars
The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...

), Jasper White, owner of the Summer Shack restaurant line, author Jane Langton
Jane Langton
Jane Gillson Langton is an American mystery writer and author of children's literature.-Biography:Langton was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She studied astronomy at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1944. She received an M.A. in art history from...

, her son the artificial-life biologist Christopher Langton
Christopher Langton
Christopher Langton is an American computer scientist and one of the founders of the field of artificial life. He coined the term in the late 1980s when he organized the first "Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1987.Langton made...

, radio personality and sometime columnist Mike Barnicle
Mike Barnicle
Michael "Mike" Barnicle is an award-winning American print and broadcast journalist as well as a social and political commentator. He is a frequent contributor and occasional guest host on MSNBC's Morning Joe and Hardball with Chris Matthews and is frequently seen on NBC's Today Show with...

 (despite Barnicle's earlier sniping at Lincoln for its liberal leanings and large number of bumper stickers per car), Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks
Rodney Allen Brooks is the former Panasonic professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1986 he has authored a series of highly influential papers which have inaugurated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence research...

, founder of iRobot
IRobot
iRobot Corporation is an American advanced technology company founded in 1990 and incorporated in Delaware in 2000, the iRobot Corporation designs robots such as an autonomous home vacuum cleaner , the Scooba that scrubs and cleans hard floors, and military and police robots, such as the PackBot...

 and director MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...

, former Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...

 great Cam Neely
Cam Neely
Cameron Michael Neely is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player. He played right wing for the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League from 1983 to 1996. He currently serves as the president of the Boston Bruins.-Playing career:Cam Neely was born in Comox,...

, Karen Smyers
Karen Smyers
Karen Smyers is a triathlete from the United States. She was inducted into the Triathlon Hall of Fame in January 2009.-External links:*...

, former world champion triathlete, and many others. Lincoln was home to many academic luminaries including Lester Thurow
Lester Thurow
Lester Carl Thurow is a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of books on economic topics. Thurow was born in Livingston, Montana.-Education:...

, former dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and historian David Herbert Donald
David Herbert Donald
- Career :Majoring in history and sociology, Donald earned his bachelor degree from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. He earned his PhD in 1946 under the eminent, leading Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall at the University of Illinois...

. The "two Johns" of the band They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...

, John Flansburgh
John Flansburgh
John Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the longstanding Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, for which he writes, sings and plays rhythm guitar...

 and John Linnell
John Linnell
John Sidney Linnell is an American musician, is known primarily as one half of Brooklyn, New York alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants...

, named their second album Lincoln
Lincoln (album)
Lincoln is the second album by the band They Might Be Giants. It was released in 1988 . The album is named after John Linnell and John Flansburgh's boyhood home of Lincoln, Massachusetts. The two men pictured are Linnell's great-grandfather, Lewis T...

after their hometown. The President of the Blackstone Group
Blackstone Group
The Blackstone Group L.P. is an American-based alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, real estate, and credit and marketable alternative investment strategies, as well as financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions ,...

, Hamilton James grew up in Lincoln. George Kistiakowsky
George Kistiakowsky
George Bogdan Kistiakowsky was a Ukrainian-American chemistry professor at Harvard who participated in the Manhattan Project and later served as President Eisenhower's Science Advisor...

, who worked on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

 also lived there, as did the winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 Dudley R. Herschbach
Dudley R. Herschbach
Dudley Robert Herschbach is an American chemist at Harvard University. He won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C...

. The influential economist Charles P. Kindleberger
Charles P. Kindleberger
Charles Poor "Charlie" Kindleberger was a historical economist and author of over 30 books. His 1978 book Manias, Panics, and Crashes, about speculative stock market bubbles, was reprinted in 2000 after the dot-com bubble. He is well known for hegemonic stability theory.-Life:Kindleberger was born...

was also a resident.

Further reading


External links

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