Community

One hundred years before the first Armenians arrived in Whitinsville in the late 1800’s, this small farm village had evolved from its Native American roots within the Nipmuc Indian Country of Masconsapong into the largest of the villages within the town of Northbridge, Massachusetts. Manufacturing and mills – especially the Whitin Machine Works established in 1831 -- brought development, growth and prosperity to Whitinsville and the many other towns that populate the corridor along the Blackstone River from Worcester to Providence, Rhode Island.

In this section, we share the memories of the Armenians who traveled through, worked, lived, and bult their new American lives in Whitinsville over the last 130 years. The community transformed them, and they, in turn, transformed the community. These images and stories testify to their resilience, sacrifice, perseverance, service, and love of life, family, home and God.

As the great Armenian American author William Saroyan once wrote: “….Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their homes and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world…. Go ahead, try to destroy them. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia”.