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Incorporated in
1755 and located in the Commonwealth's south-central quadrant, the
Town of Charlton is 50 miles or less from five major New England
cities; Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford and Providence. The
town's history includes James Capen Adams (1807-1860), better known
as "Grizzly" Adams, one of the last of the mountain men.
When he headed west in 1852, Adams was a discontented 45-year-old
cobbler. During his eight years in the Rockies, he became a friend
and slayer of grizzly bears. He survived several hand-to-fang
encounters and did a successful tour with P.T. Barnum. He died with
his boots on and is buried in the Old Burying Ground in Charlton.
His headstone, a carved relief of the buckskin-clad
"Grizzly", was ordered by Barnum himself. The cemetery,
now known as the Bay Path Cemetery, also contains three photographic
stones, headstones with small glass-covered niches in which were
placed daguerreotypes of the deceased. Once the vogue, few of these
curious stones now remain. On Charlton Common is a memorial to Dr.
William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868), the man whose experiments
with ether first made anesthesia possible during surgical
operations. Working with a dentist, Dr. Morton made the first
extractions of the deep roots of teeth using ether in 1846 and one
month later performed a major operation at the Massachusetts General
Hospital with an etherized patient. Easy access to major highways
such as I-90, I-84, I-290 and I-395, as well as Charlton's abundant
available land, have changed the size and character of the town in
the last decade from wholly rural to rural/residential.
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