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Gloucester is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a popular summer destination, Gloucester consists of an urban core on the north side of the harbor and the outlying neighborhoods of Annisquam, Bay View, Lanesville, Folly Cove, Magnolia, Riverdale, East Gloucester, and West Gloucester.

History

The boundaries of Gloucester originally included the town of Rockport, in an area dubbed "Sandy Bay". That village separated formally on February 27, 1840. In 1873, Gloucester was reincorporated as a city.

Contact period

Native Americans inhabited what would become northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas. At the time of contact, the area was inhabited by Agawam people under sachem Masconomet. Evidence of a village exists on Pole's Hill, in the current Riverdale neighborhood.

In 1606 Samuel de Champlain explored the harbor, and produced the first known map of Gloucester harbor titling it 'le Beau port'. This map suggests substantial Native American settlement on the shores of the harbor. In 1614 John Smith again explored the area, identifying the indigenous inhabitants as Aggawom . In 1623 men from the Dorchester Company established a permanent fishing outpost in the area.

At the Cape Ann settlement a legal form of government was established, and from that Massachusetts Bay Colony sprung. Roger Conant was the governor under the Cape Ann patent, and as such, has been called the first governor of Massachusetts.

Life in this first settlement was harsh and it was short-lived. Around 1626 the place was abandoned, and the people removed themselves to Naumkeag (what is now called Salem, Massachusetts), where more fertile soil for planting was to be found. The meetinghouse and governor's house were even disassembled and relocated to the new place of settlement.

Second English Settlement

At some point in the following years—though no record exists—the area was slowly resettled by English colonists. The town was formally incorporated in 1642. It is at this time that the name "Gloucester" first appears on tax rolls, although in various spellings. The town took its name from the city of Gloucester in southwest England, perhaps from where many of its new occupants originated but more likely because Gloucester, England, was a Parliamentarian stronghold, successfully defended with the aid of the Earl of Essex against the King in the Siege of Gloucester of 1643.

This new permanent settlement focused on the Town Green area, an inlet in the marshes at a bend in the Annisquam River. This area is now the site of Grant Circle, a large traffic rotary at which Massachusetts Route 128 mingles with a major city street (Washington Street/Rt 127). Here the first permanent settlers built a meeting house and therefore focused the nexus of their settlement on the "Island" for nearly 100 years. Unlike other early coastal towns in New England, development in Gloucester was not focused around the harbor as it is today, rather it was inland that people settled first. This is evidenced by the placement of the Town Green nearly two miles from the harbor-front.

The Town Green is also where the settlers built the first school. By Massachusetts Bay Colony Law, any town with 100 families or more had to provide a public schoolhouse. This requirement was met in 1698, with Thomas Riggs standing as the town's first schoolmaster.

In 1700, the selectmen of Gloucester recognized the claim of Samuel English, grandson of Agawam sachem Masconomet, to the land of the town, and paid him seven pounds for the quitclaim.

The White-Ellery House was erected in 1710 upon the Town Green. It was built at the edge of a marsh for Gloucester's first settled minister, the Reverend John White (1677–1760).

Early industry included subsistence farming and logging. Because of the poor soil and rocky hills, Cape Ann was not well suited for farming on a large scale. Small family farms and livestock provided the bulk of the sustenance to the population. Fishing, for which the town is known today, was limited to close-to-shore, with families subsisting on small catches as opposed to the great bounties yielded in later years. The fishermen of Gloucester did not command the Grand Banks until the mid-18th century. Historian Christine Heyrman, examining the town's society between 1690 and 1750, finds that at the beginning community sensibility was