Revolutionary War - Civil War

The years leading to the Civil War brought momentous change.  In 1803, a turnpike was built between Concord and Cambridge, forming what is today’s Route 2.  In 1844, the new Fitchburg railroad connected Lincoln with Boston, resulting in a rise in the number of new residents from the city and an increase in land values.  Remaining farmlands began to break up, to be divided into house lots.

In 1830, the town decided to separate “church and state.”  It would no longer pay its minister from town funds, reserving its meeting house for civic business.  A Unitarian sect elected to build its own “meeting house,” the present White Church, in 1842.  (St. Anne’s Episcopal Church followed in 1873 and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in 1904.)

A separate Town House, now the Old Town Hall, rose in 1848, supplanted in 1892 by Bemis Hall.  The building was gift from wealthy town resident George Bemis, and it became Lincoln’s “New Town Hall,” containing an auditorium and even a jail.

Education of its children has always been important in Lincoln.  Soon after the town was founded, it funded three one-room elementary schools located in various sections of town.  And in 1856, the town welcomed its first high schoolers.  By 1860, education topped Lincoln’s budget:  $800 for roads, $550 for support of the poor, $675 for other expenses, and $1,050 for its schools.