Originally, Stoughton was a part of old Dorchester and the land set aside for the Punkapoag Indians. First settled by Colonial families from Dorchester, Braintree, and Dedham, the town has had many generations of descendants who have helped build this thriving community. Stoughton grew with the arrival of various industries, from home shoe shops on family farms and water-powered mills to emerging smokestacks of mammoth shoe and boot factories. At the close of the nineteenth century, both the old Yankee families and recent European immigrants in search of new opportunity called the town of Stoughton home. In Stoughton, many rare photographs from the archives of the