Boston, the oldest village in Summit County, was first settled by surveyor James Stanford in 1806. The village's first mill was built in 1821, and the Ohio & Erie Canal's arrival in 1827 expanded opportunities for commerce and industry. Many boat builders and canal boatment lived in Boston. By 1850 Boston grew into a town with a broom factory, brewery, brickyard, gristmill, sawmill, numerous stores, and several boat building yards.
With the decline of canal traffic in the 1860s, Boston slumbered until the arrival of the Valley Railway in 1880. The town boomed in 1900 when the [Cleveland] Akron Bag Company started operations here on the Cuyahoga, hired many Polish immigrants, and built company houses along Main Street. Since the early 1900s, Boston's size and street pattern have changed very little, allowing it to retain the feeling of a small canal and mill town.
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