Plainville, Massachusetts

A jewelry village of Wrentham, once called Slackville, that became a town in 1905, put the colonial Angle Tree Stone on its seal, and once claimed the largest maker of ladies' mesh bags in the world.

Norfolk County · Record checked October 12, 2026

9,945Population2020 census¹

1905Became a townset off from Wrentham on April 4²

1790The Angle Tree Stonethe old colony line marker, on the town seal³

500Mesh bag makerspeople at the Whiting and Davis plant in 1928⁴

1National Registerplace, still standing, shared with North Attleborough⁵

Then and now

The same town 139 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

1887

The hand drawn view of 1887

By George E. Norris

Plainville drawn as a bird's eye view by George E. Norris of Brockton, with a guide to homes and buildings including the Grand Army Hall, the Plainville Grammar School and a number of jewelers and jewelry makers.⁶

See the 1887 print More about this map

2026

Plainville today

By KNOWOL

Shaded land from Lake Mirimichi and Turnpike Lake to Fuller Pond, Cargill Pond and Red Brush Hill, with Washington Street, South Street, East Bacon Street and the rest of the town's roads.⁷

See the 2026 print More about this map

The story of Plainville

From Slack's mill to the jewelry shops

Before there was a Plainville there was Slackville, named for a family called Slack. Their small stone mill was almost the only thing a traveler saw on the road between the wharf in Wrentham and the old Hatch Tavern in Attleborough. Before 1843 George W. Shepardson was at work inside it making buttons for vests and pantaloons, and the county history of 1884 names him as the first to bring jewelry making to Wrentham. Joseph T. Bacon later tore the mill down and built a jewelry factory on the same spot, and the firm of Bacon, Hodges & Co., started in 1844, and the firms that followed it kept working there for decades. By 1884 the village's workshops had room for five hundred hands.⁸⁹¹⁰

The errand boy and the mesh bag

In 1876 six partners put in $500 apiece and opened Wade, Davis and Company in what a 1928 history calls the little hamlet of Plainville, making plated bar pins, earrings, bracelets and stick pins. Four years later they took on Charles A. Whiting as errand boy, at nine cents an hour. He made the firm's first mesh bag himself in 1892 and became a partner in 1896, when it took the name Whiting and Davis. Mesh had always been made by hand until A. C. Pratt built machines for the company in 1909, and in April 1910 the machines moved into the Plainville plant. By 1918 the town claimed the largest maker of ladies' mesh bags in the world, and by 1928 the plant employed five hundred people.¹¹⁴¹²

A new town picks its seal

Plainville was set off from Wrentham on April 4, 1905, and its voters met for the first time eight days later in the Methodist Episcopal Church. They chose officers and voted to borrow $15,000 for a new schoolhouse. That November a committee offered a seal with the new school at its center. The town clerk, James H. Shannon, had another idea: the Angle Tree monument on the North Attleboro line, standing where commissioners from Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay marked a tree in 1664. When that tree was gone, the state paid Lemuel Kollock £21 2s 6d in 1791 for the stone that replaced it. The meeting chose Shannon's design by a decisive majority, and the stone is still on the town seal today.²¹³³

Through the years

23 moments from 1649 to today.

1649With grass short in Dedham, people go out to the meadows of Wollomonopoag to cut hay.¹⁴
1661Dedham votes to set up a plantation at Wollomonopoag, the start of settlement here.¹⁴
1664Commissioners from Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay mark the Angle Tree on the line between the colonies.¹³
1673The land becomes part of the new town of Wrentham.¹
1674Matchinamook, a Wampanoag man, receives a few acres at the head of the Ten Mile River.¹
1790A slate monument replaces the vanished Angle Tree.³
1843George W. Shepardson is making vest and trouser buttons in Slack's old stone mill, the start of jewelry making in Wrentham.⁸
1844Bacon, Hodges & Co. begin making jewelry on the old mill site.⁹
1856A post office opens and the village takes the name Plainville.¹
1876Six partners put in $500 each and start Wade, Davis and Company.¹¹
1880Charles A. Whiting joins the firm as errand boy at nine cents an hour.⁴
1884The village's jewelry workshops have room for five hundred hands.¹⁰
1887George E. Norris draws his bird's eye view of Plainville.⁶
1892Whiting makes the firm's first mesh bag.¹¹
1903The Woman's Relief Corps dedicates a granite Civil War monument in the cemetery on October 14.¹⁵
1905Plainville becomes a town on April 4 and holds its first town meeting on April 12 in the Methodist Episcopal Church.²
1905On November 6 the town adopts town clerk James H. Shannon's seal showing the Angle Tree monument.¹³
1910Whiting and Davis move their new mesh making machines into the Plainville plant in April.¹¹
1918The town claims the largest manufactory of ladies' mesh bags in the world.¹²
1999Plainridge opens as a harness racing track.¹⁶
2015The track takes its present name, Plainridge Park Casino.¹⁶
2015Jeff Kinney, creator of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and his wife Julie open the bookstore An Unlikely Story in town.¹⁷
2019A new municipal complex opens with the town hall, fire and police stations beside the library on South Street.¹

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Plainville today.

Angle Tree StoneNorth Attleborough line. The old colony line marker of 1790.
Lake MirimichiFoxborough line. Once also called Shepard's Pond.
Turnpike LakePlainville. One of the town's larger ponds.
Fuller PondPlainville. A pond printed on the 2026 map.
Cargill PondPlainville. A pond printed on the 2026 map.
Red Brush HillPlainville. A named hill on the 2026 map.
Wilkins Four CornersPlainville. A crossroads village of the town.
ShepardvillePlainville. A village listed in 1894 as Wrentham's.
Plainridge Park CasinoPlainville. Harness racing track, opened in 1999.

On the National Register

All 1 places in Plainville on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.⁵

Angle Tree Stone

Built 1790 · Listed 1976 · West of North Attleborough off High St.

A slate monument of 1790 that replaced the Angle Tree, the tree commissioners marked in 1664 on the line between Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay. It still marks the turn in the line between Bristol and Norfolk counties, and Plainville put it at the center of its town seal in 1905.³

In their words

“Plainville has grown into considerable prominence through the enterprise of those who have built up this peculiar interest.”

Inland Massachusetts illustrated, 1891, on the village's jewelry makers⁹

“It was a small mill, but to the passer on the highway it was a conspicuous object”

History of Norfolk County, 1884, on Slack's mill⁸

“It stands in the cemetery, and is a fine tribute, not only to the heroic dead, but to the devotion and industry of the women, who are ever helping.”

Monuments, tablets and other memorials erected in Massachusetts, 1910, on the 1903 Civil War monument¹⁵