About the District

Auburn, Charlton (Precinct 4), Millbury, Oxford (Precincts 2,3, 4A) Rochdale/Leicester (Precinct 3)

Comprised of the beautiful towns of Auburn, Millbury, Charlton, Oxford and Leicester, the 7th Worcester District is packed with history, small businesses and a community. 

The district represents approximately 44,000 hard working people as of 2020. The 7th Worcester District is steeped in American innovation and New England's industrial legacy. Auburn, settled in 1714 and named for Revolutionary War General Artemas Ward, is celebrated as the birthplace of modern rocketry where Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926 from his aunt's farm, now commemorated at Goddard Memorial Park and the Pakachoag Golf Course. Millbury, incorporated in 1813, thrived as a mill town along the Blackstone and Singletary rivers where Thomas Blanchard invented the eccentric lathe and Asa Waters pioneered water-powered gun manufacturing, with the historic Lapham Woolen Mill and the elegant 1832 Asa Waters Mansion standing as testaments to its industrial prosperity. Oxford, founded by French Huguenots in 1687 who built a fort during King William's War, is the birthplace of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton and diabetes research pioneer Dr. Elliot P. Joslin, with the Clara Barton Birthplace Museum preserving this humanitarian legacy. Charlton, established in 1755 and incorporated during the Revolutionary War in 1775, is where William T.G. Morton first demonstrated ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846, and today hosts the renowned Tree House Brewing Company alongside traditional farming operations. Leicester, incorporated in 1713 and originally called Towtaid by the Nipmuc people, holds a pivotal place in American history as the birthplace of the term "Minuteman"—coined in 1774 by Colonel William Henshaw and as an industrial powerhouse where Pliny Earle helped Samuel Slater build America's first carding machine, sparking the Industrial Revolution. The town's mills produced one-third of all American hand cards by the 1780s. Leicester also housed the first medical school in Massachusetts through Dr. Samuel Green's training of physicians.