On Packachoag Hill or Mt. St James (690 ft.) is the Jesuit college of the Holy Cross, with a preparatory school, founded in 1843 by Benedict J. Fenwick, bishop of Boston, and chartered in 1865; in 1910 it had 30 instructors and 450 students. There is a State Normal School (1874), and connected with it a kindergarten training school (1910).
The city library (175,000 vols.), founded in 1859, was one of the first in the country to be open on Sunday. There are four daily newspapers, one printed in French. From 1773 to 1848 was published here the weekly edition of the Worcester Spy, established by Isaiah Thomas in 1770 in Boston as the Massachusetts Spy and removed by him to Worcester at the outbreak of the War of Independence; a daily edition was published from 1845 to 1904. Early in the 19th century the city was an important publishing centre.
Worcester is one of the most important manufacturing centres in New England: in 1905 the value of the factory product was $52,144,965, ranking the city third among the cities of the state. Manufacturers of hardware and tools at an early date laid the foundation for the present steel and other metal industries, in which 42·8% of all the workers were employed in 1905. A large proportion are employed in the wire and wire-working industries, one plant, that of the American Steel and Wire Company, employing about 5000 hands; in 1905 the total value of wire-work was $1,726,088, and of foundry and machine shop products $7,327,095.
The first grant of land in this part of the Blackstone Valley was made in 1657, and the town, Quansigamond (or Quinsigamond) Plantation, was laid out in October 1668. In 1675, on the outbreak of King Philip’s War, it was temporarily abandoned. In 1684 it was settled again and its name was changed to Worcester because several leaders in the settlement were natives of Worcester, England. In 1713 the vicinity was opened up to settlement, a tavern and a mill were constructed, and a turnpike road was built to Boston. Worcester was incorporated as a town in 1722. In 1755 a small colony of the exiled Acadians settled here. At the outbreak of the War of Independence Worcester was little more than a country market town. During Shays’s Rebellion it was taken by the rebels and the courts were closed. The first real impetus to its growth came in 1835 with the construction of the Boston & Worcester railway, and it received a city charter in 1848. The strong anti-slavery sentiment of the city led in 1854 to a serious riot, owing to an apparent attempt to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. In Worcester, or within a radius of a dozen miles of it, were the homes of Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine; Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin; Erastus Bigelow (1814–1879), inventor of the carpet weaving machine; Dr Russell L. Hawes, inventor of an envelope machine; Thomas Blanchard (1788–1864), inventor of the machine for turning irregular forms; Samuel Crompton (1753–1827) and Lucius James Knowles (1819–1884), the perfectors of the modern loom; and Draper Ruggles, Joel Nourse and J. C. Mason, perfectors of the modern plough and originators of many inventions in agricultural machinery.
See F. E. Blake, Incidents of the First and Second Settlements of Worcester (Worcester, 1884); Wm. Lincoln, History of Worcester to 1836 (Worcester, 1837); also same extended to 1862 by Charles Mersey (Worcester, 1862); D. H. Hurd, History of Worcester County (Worcester, 2 vols., 1889); I. N. Metcalf, Illustrated Business Guide to City of Worcester (Worcester, 1880); C. F. Jewett, History of Worcester County (2 vols., Worcester, 1879); the Collections and Proceedings (1881 sqq.) of the Worcester Society of Antiquity (instituted in 1877).
WORCESTERSHIRE, a midland county of England, bounded N. by Staffordshire, E. by Warwickshire, S. by Gloucestershire, W. by Herefordshire, and N.W. by Shropshire. The area is 751 sq. m. It covers a portion of the rich valleys of the Severn and Avon, with their tributary valleys and the hills separating them. The Severn runs through the county from N. at Bewdley to S. near Tewkesbury, traversing the Vale of Worcester. Following this direction it receives from the E. the Stour at Stourport, the Salwarpe above Worcester, and the Avon, whose point of junction is just outside the county. The Avon valley is known in this county as the Vale of Evesham, and is devoted to orchards and market gardening. The Cotteswold Hills rise sharply from it on the S.E., of which Bredon Hill, within this county, is a conspicuous spur. The Avon forms the county boundary with Gloucestershire for a short distance above its mouth. The Teme joins the Severn from the W. below Worcester, and forms short stretches of the W. boundary. Salmon and lampreys are taken in the Severn; trout and grayling abound in the Teme and its feeders. Besides the Cotteswolds, the most important hills are the Malvern and the Lickey or Hagley ranges. The Malverns rise abruptly from the flat Vale of Worcester on the W. boundary, being partly in Herefordshire, and reach a height of 1395 ft. in the Worcester Beacon, and 1114 in the Hereford Beacon. They are divided by the Teme from a lower N. continuation, the Abberley Hills. The Lickey Hills cross the N.E. corner of the county, rarely exceeding 1000 ft. Their N. part is called the Clent Hills. Partly within the county are the sites of two ancient forests. That of Wyre, bordering the Severn on the W. in the N. of Worcestershire and in Shropshire, retains to some extent its ancient character; but Malvern Chase, which clothed the slopes of the Malvern Hills, is hardly recognizable.
Geology.—Archean gneisses and schists (Malvernian) and volcanic rocks (Uriconian) form the core of the Malvern Hills; being the most durable rocks in the district, they form the highest ground. Similarly tuffs and volcanic grits (Barnt Green rocks) crop out in the Lickey Hills near Bromsgrove. They are succeeded by the Cambrian rocks (Hollybush Sandstone and Malvern Shales), which are well developed at the S. end of the Malvern Hills, where in places the Archean rocks have been thrust over them. The Lickey Quartzite, probably of the same age as the Hollybush Sandstone, is extensively quarried for roadstone. Strata of Ordovician age being absent in Worcestershire, the Silurian rocks rest unconformably on the earlier formations; they include the Upper Llandovery, Wenlock and Ludlow series. These dip steeply W. from the Malvern and Abberley axis and plunge under the Old Red Sandstone; some of the lower beds are represented at the Lickey, while the Wenlock Limestone forms some sharp anticlines at Dudley. The Silurian strata are rich in marine fossils, and the included limestones (Woolhope, Wenlock and Ayniestry) are all represented in the Malvern district. The Old Red Sandstone succeeds the Silurian on the W. borders of the county. The Carboniferous Limestone and Millstone Grit were not deposited, so that the Coal Measures rest unconformably on the older rocks. These are represented in the Wyre Forest coalfield near Bewdley and in the S. end of the S. Staffordshire coalfield near Halesowen; they contain rich seams of coal and ironstone and several intrusions, of basalt (dhustone, Rowley-rag). The so-called Permian red rocks are now grouped with the Coal Measures; some intercalated breccias cap the Clent Hills (1036 ft.). The Triassic red rocks—unconformable to all below—cover the centre of the county, and on the W. are faulted against the older, rocks of the Malverns; they include the Bunter sandstones and pebble-beds, and the Keuper sandstones and marls, the beds of rock-salt in the latter yielding brine-springs (Droitwich, Stoke Prior). A narrow and seldom-exposed outcrop of Rhaetic beds introduces the marine Liassic formation which occupies most of the S.E. of the county; the Lower Lias consists of blue clays and limestones; the latter are burnt for lime and yield abundant ammonites. The sands and limestones of the Middle Lias and the clays of the Upper Lias are present in the lower slopes of Bredon Hill and of the Cotteswolds, and are succeeded by the sands and oolitic limestones of the Inferior Oolite. Glacial deposits—boulder-clay, isolated boulders, sand and gravel—are met with in many parts of the county, while later valley-gravels have yielded remains of mammoth, rhinoceros, &c. Coal, ironstone, salt, limestone and road stone are the chief mineral products.
Climate and Agriculture.—The climate is generally equable and healthy, and is very favourable to the cultivation of fruit, vegetables and hops, for which Worcestershire has long held a high reputation, the red marls and the rich loams being good both for market gardens and tillage. About five-sixths of the area of the county is under cultivation, and of this about five-eighths is in permanent pasture. Orchards are extensive, and there are large tracts of woodland. Wheat and oats are the principal grain crops. Turnips are grown on about one-third of the green crop acreage, and potatoes on about one-fourth. There is a considerable acreage under beans. In the neighbourhood of Worcester there are large nurseries.
Industries.—In the N. Worcester includes a portion of the Black Country, one of the most active industrial districts in England. Dudley, Netherton and Brierley Hill, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Oldbury and the S. and W. suburbs of Birmingham, have a vast population engaged in iron-working in all its branches, from engineering works to nail-making, in the founding and conversion, galvanizing, finishing and extracting of metals, in chemical and glass works. Worcester is famous for porcelain, Kidderminster for carpets and
