The towns of Rehoboth and Attleboro will celebrate their anniversaries in the month of October. The first will celebrate its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary on the third of October; and the latter, which was set off from the former, its two hundredth, on the eighteenth and nineteenth. Strictly speaking, Attleboro was not a part of Rehoboth, but under its jurisdiction. Certain inhabitants of Rehoboth owned the land, but it was not within the chartered limits of Rehoboth. The Plymouth court, under whose jurisdiction the land was purchased of the Indians by Thomas Willett, ordered "that the North-Purchase, so called, shall lie unto the town of Rehoboth, until it comes to be a township, and in the mean time to bear the seventh part of all the rates that shall be levied for the public charges of that town; and when the said Purchase shall become a township by itself, then the said township of Rehoboth to be eased in their rates." It was really a plantation of Rehoboth; but was so closely allied to it that it was practically, though not legally, a part of the town.

Both towns have had a very interesting past, and both to-day are prominent factors in the life of Bristol County, in Massachusetts, in which they are situated, and exercise an influence wherever the famous products of Attleboro go, or wherever the staunch men and women whom Rehoboth sends out into the world are found.

There is a peculiar value attached to the history of places which have reached such an age, because their history takes us back to the time of the first settlers and covers practically the whole period of the country’s history. A few hundred years are but a brief time compared with the vast stretch of years which have passed, but looked at from the standpoint of the student of American history, they are full of significance.