Shrewsbury Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also PINE MEADOWS
About 1720, Worcester settlers named part of the east side Pine Meadows. It covered about a mile of low ground between Chandler Hill to the north and Oak Hill to the south, east of Washington square.
Shrewsbury street runs through the center of the “Meadow.” Old-timers still call it that.
Before its present name, Shrewsbury street was Pine street. It first appears as Shrewsbury street in “The Worcester Almanac Directory and Business Advertiser for 1860.”
It was a poor excuse for a street for many more years than it has been paved.
It had no sidewalks; it was narrow; dusty in Summer; slushy in the Spring and Fall; wildly rutted in Winter.
In the early days they also had that horrible period of Worcester weather when the snow melts, the mud softens and the rain falls. And the overshoe was still to be invented!
This section of Worcester is rich in local history and the memory of nationalities that have made the city great.
At the corner of Shrewsbury and East Worcester street was located the burial ground of 1828. It covered eight acres, 500 feet of which fronted on Pine street.
Here were buried, among others, Capt. Peter Slater, who tossed tea into Boston Harbor, and Capt. Reuben Sikes, a rooting-tooting stage-coach driver of near-legendary fame. The bodies were removed in 1877 and reburied, but two skulls were pick-axed into light by workmen in 1906.
The Oak Hill area was settled by the Irish. They called the height Dungarven Hill. Later, as numerous French-Canadians settled here, it was often called French Hill. When the Shrewsbury section was developed, the Italians settled there.
The Belmont street entrance of the Turnpike, begun in 1806, was never popular because of its roller-coaster dips. The result was that Shrewsbury street began to take more and more traffic. There was much agitation for improvement.
The city fathers began a tremendous job in 1906; completed it in 1912 at a cost of $464,779.18. What the 18 cents was for was never revealed.
But Shrewsbury street was made a double street with an island in the center covering street railway tracks. Belmont street was also widened to the same 100-foot width from the junction with Shrewsbury street to Lake avenue.
Why Shrewsbury street? It was so named because it is near the town line.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
