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Local History Collection

Hiltz Room Local History Collection

Looking to make family discoveries? Want to get to know Norton a little better? Norton Public Library’s Local History Room holds various physical resources for genealogical research including Massachusetts vital records, military records, and records of early New England settlers. The room also offers many materials relating to Norton and Massachusetts history.

Available in the Hiltz Room

  • Genealogical sourcebooks to help you start your search
  • Local historical documents
  • Vital records for Norton and other MA cities and towns
  • Family genealogies
  • Norton High School Yearbooks
  • Norton Street Listings
  • Norton Town Reports
  • Mayflower Families
  • Military Records from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars

Genealogy Guides

Available to use in the Local History Room

These materials are only available to use in the Local History Room by request to a librarian.

Genealogy Resources

  • American Passenger Arrival Records by Michael Tepper
  • The Babson Genealogy 1637–1977 by Catherine Finley MacDougal
  • Berkley, Massachusetts Cemetery Inscriptions by Gail E. Terry
  • Blandin Family Records
  • Cyndi’s List: A Comprehensive List of 70,000 Genealogy Sites on the Internet (Vol. 1–2) by Cyndi Howells
  • Descendants of William Wetherell VII & Electa Crossman, researched by Marilyn & Ronnie Benaski
  • Genealogist’s Handbook for New England Research (5th Edition) by the New England Historic Genealogical Society
  • Genealogy of the Makepeace Families in the U.S. by William Makepeace
  • The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620–1633 (Vol. 1–3)
  • The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634, A–S (Vol. 1–6)
  • A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries (2nd Edition) by David Allen Lambert
  • Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Massachusetts
  • History and Genealogy of the Witherell / Wetherell / Witherill Family of New England
  • Immigrant Ancestor: A List of 2,500 Immigrants to America Before 1750
  • In Search of Your European Roots (3rd Edition) by Angus Baxter
  • The John Steere Family Album
  • Leaves from a Family Tree, compiled by Louise Diman
  • Marriages Recorded in the Town Reports of Norton, Massachusetts (1850–1950)
  • Martha W. Bowers Prayer Book (1855)
  • Massachusetts Census Index A–Z (1800–1810)
  • Compiled by Audrey Newcomb, Wheaton College ’26
  • Mayflower Births & Deaths (Vol. 1 & 2) by Susan E. Roser
  • Mayflower Families (Vol. 1–19)
  • New England Families: Genealogical and Memorial by the American Historical Society
  • New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (A–Z) by Clarence Almon Torrey
  • The Norton Patriot (1976–1980)
  • The Norton Mirror (1987–2011)
  • Our Heritage: The Family of Russell Sidney White and Edith Marion Nowers
  • The Perry Family of Norton and the Nine Gardners by Frances Dudley Shepard
  • Rogers Family to Jonas Family 1510–2010 by Karl Robert Jonas (Thomas Edward Rogers)
  • Steere Genealogy (1890) by James Pierce Root
  • The Stone Family: Descendants of John Stone of Beverly, Massachusetts (1635–1985) by James Blaine Stone II
  • Vital Records from Various Massachusetts Towns to 1850

Local History

  • Fiftieth Anniversary of Wheaton Female Seminary
  • History of the Town of Norton by George Faber Clark
  • In Death Remember: 18th Century Gravestone Carvers of the Taunton River Basin, Massachusetts by Vincent F. Luti
  • The Old Bay Road: Its History and Glory for a Thousand Years to 1940 by Channing Howard
  • Wheaton College 1834–1957: A Massachusetts Family Affair by Paul C. Helmreich
  • Wheaton College 1834–1912: The Seminary Years by Paul C. Helmreich
  • Wheaton Seminary: A Semi-Centennial Sketch by Lucy Larcom
  • Wheaton Through the Years 1835–1960 by Carolyn M. Clewes
  • The Whitesmiths of Taunton: A History of Reed & Barton 1824–1943 by George Sweet Gibb, M.B.A.

Massachusetts History

  • Atlas of Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey Topographic Maps
  • A Guide to Massachusetts Public Records, Parishes, Towns, and Counties by Carroll D. Wright
  • Highway to the Past: The Archaeology of Boston’s Big Dig
  • History of Amesbury, Massachusetts by Sarah Locke Redford
  • Compiled by Audrey Newcomb, Wheaton College ’26
  • History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, 1637–1888 (Vol. 1–4)
  • The Laws of New England to the Year 1700
  • Maps of Early Massachusetts: Pre-history Through the Seventeenth Century by Lincoln A. Dexter
  • Massachusetts Records Handbook by Richard LeBaron Bowen
  • The Old Boston Post Road by Stephen Jenkins
  • The Pioneers of Massachusetts by Charles Henry Pope
  • Plymouth Colony Records (Vol. 1–17, 1620–1691)
  • Souvenir: Twenty-Fourth National Encampment, Grand Army of the Republic, Boston (1890)
  • Treasures of Massachusetts: Special Selection for the Boston Globe’s 100th Anniversary

Military Records

  • Massachusetts 1890 Veterans Census Index
  • Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (Vol. 1–17)
  • Multiple Volumes of the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
  • Record of the Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861–1865 (Vol. 1 & 2)
  • U.S. Military Records by James C. Neagles
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Ancestry Library

Please note Ancestry Library is only available on the library’s computers and wifi. Use the
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Digital Archives

Explore Norton High School Yearbooks dating back to 1925! Experience Norton through historical documents including
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Other

  • Book of Common Prayer
  • Early History of Brown University by Reuben Aldridge Guild
  • Fidelissima by Samuel V. Cole
  • Memories of Childhood by Donald Carr O’Brien
  • New Horizons by John Edgar Park
  • The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (2nd Edition) by Henry Gannett
  • Almon D. Hodges and His Neighbors by Almon D. Hodges
  • A Good Samaritan: The Life of Samuel Hopkins Emery by Samuel Hopkins and Ralph Davol
  • Harvard Diary of Pitt Clarke
  • The Lady of Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Krüdener by Ernest John Knapton
  • Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix by Francis Tiffany
  • The Life of Eliza Baylies Wheaton by Harriet E. Paine
  • Massachusetts’ Deborah Sampson by Pauline Moody
  • Memoir, Autobiography and Confession of Faith of Rev. Pitt Clarke
  • Oakes Ames: A Memoir
  • Oakes Ames: Jottings of a Harvard Botanist

Yearbooks

  • Norton High School Yearbooks: 1925, 1937, 1943, 1948–1950, 1952–1988, 1990–1999, 2001–2024
  • The House in the Pines: 1961–1966
  • Wheaton Yearbook 191
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Norton Public Library

  • 68 East Main Street, Norton, Massachusetts 02766
  • (508) 285-0265
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