Canton (Massachusetts)

Canton (Massachusetts), town in eastern Massachusetts, in Norfolk County, on the north bank of the Neponset River, 23 km (14 mi) south of Boston. Canton includes the majority of a 2430-hectare (6000-acre) tract of land that was bequeathed to a group of Native Americans, later known as the Ponkapoag Indians. The community was incorporated as Canton in 1797 when it split from Stoughton, which had separated from Dorchester (settled in 1630) in 1726. Canton’s name was chosen when a prominent citizen estimated the city to be exactly on the opposite side of the earth from Canton, China. Canton is the site of a foundry that belonged to patriot and silversmith Paul Revere. It was the first copper-rolling mill in the country, where the copper for the dome of the state house in Boston was rolled, as well as the copper for the first steamboat made by American inventor and engineer Robert Fulton. The copper, as well as the wooden masts, for the USS Constitution also came from Canton. Revere's powder mill, which operated during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the War of 1812, was also located in the community. American clergyman John Eliot preached to Native Americans at the foot of Blue Hill in Canton. The Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, owned by the Metropolitan District Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is on the border of the towns of Canton and Milton. Population 20,775 (2000); 21,571 (2005 estimate).