Founding year: Wikidata; Wikipedia’s history section gives the same year. First post office: 1824.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Georgetown’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Georgetown is more historic than 78% of U.S. towns, #234 of 283 in Massachusetts. Its age holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
A−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Georgetown’s overall grade.
Massachusetts towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Massachusetts town has 46.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Georgetown’s 4.7 sits below most of its state (21% of Massachusetts towns have fewer) while its 4 listings outnumber those of 68% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B− to A−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.9 points). Two sources give 1639.
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Georgetown’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Georgetown was originally settled in 1639 as a part of the town of Rowley by the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers. The town at the time stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Merrimack River, south of Newbury and north of Ipswich. Several farmers, finding suitable meadowlands in the western half of the settlement, began settling along the Penn Brook by the middle of the seventeenth century, creating Rowley's West Parish. Though not directly involved in King Philip's War, the village nonetheless did become a victim of Indian raids. The village, which became known as New Rowley, grew for many years, with small mills and eventually a shoe company opening up in the town. By 1838, the town was sufficiently large enough for its own incorporation, and was renamed Georgetown. Small industry continued, and today the town is mostly residential in nature, a distant suburb of Boston's North Shore.
Passages that mention Georgetown, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Essex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men1888 · page 800Read the page →
Read the text
In Humphrey Rainer, Thomas Mighill, Samuel and John Brocklebank, we have the pioneers who opened for settlement, the town of Georgetown. At about this time, the country west of the Pen Brook, including all that territory which in 1685 was incorporated as Boxford, was known as "Village lands." Not long before, in 1649, measures had been taken for a settlement, in that part of Rowley situated on the
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Essex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men1888 · page 794Read the page →
Read the text
The town of Georgetown, the twenty-seventh in the sisterhood of Essex County, and numbering three hundred and three in the line of date of incorpora tion of the towns then existing within the limits of the State, has for its natal day April 21, 1838. Two municipalities besides Georgetown were at that session of the General Court granted permission "to be."
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
Georgetown, decade by decade
2 decades in the archive, from the 1900s to the 1930s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
In 1639, according to Wikidata and Wikipedia’s history of the town. Georgetown’s post office opened in 1824, and the census of 1850 counted 2,052 people here.
How does Georgetown rank for history?
Georgetown is more historic than 78% of U.S. towns, #234 of 283 in Massachusetts. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Georgetown?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Adams-Clarke House (listed 1990, the first).
How old are the homes in Georgetown?
15% of Georgetown’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.9 points), against a typical 21% for a Massachusetts town; the median home was built in 1974.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1907–1915
1933
1933
