Downtown Riverwalk & Heritage Trail

Elizabeth Poole or Pole, and her brother, William, came to this area in 1637. She settled on land that is now part of Massasoit State Park in East Taunton. Later in her life, she moved to the center of town, on today’s Main Street, and lived near the church she had helped to found on Church Green. In 1792, Dr. Foster Swift was expanding the cellar of a house that stood across the street from where you now stand. When digging, he accidentally exhumed the remains of Elizabeth Pole. She was reinterred in Plain Cemetery, where she rests today. A plaque marks where her home once stood at St. Pierre’s shoe store. 

In May 1860 the Union Block opened for business. Built in five sections by five different contractors, the Union Block replaced a number of wooden buildings destroyed by Main Street’s “Great Fire” of 1859. It’s modern design, which included the concept of semi-fireproof construction, marked the beginning of one of the most intense construction booms in the city’s history. The Union Block was financed by the cooperative effort of twelve Taunton businessmen, each of whom occupied a storefront, and demonstrated the practicality of the “business block” over small, independent, individual, commercial buildings. The Union Block has been home to many types of businesses including furniture, clothing and drug stores, photography studios, and, today, remains a cornerstone of downtown commerce.

Anchoring the east side of City Square (the official name of Taunton Green until 1917) was Knotty Walk, a business district named after its original pine sidewalk and awnings. In the 19th century, Knotty Walk included McWhorter’s tavern where Robert Treat Paine lived before he married Tauntonian Sally Cobb. Governor Marcus Morton also once had a home here, before building the mansion, which after his death, became Morton Hospital. The red brick commercial building you now see was built in 1889 and over the years has been home to Woolworth’s, Goldthwaite’s, the Enterprise Store, the Big Z, Robell’s, Taunton Savings Bank, and the New Bedford Institute for Savings. The building, now well into its second century, has long been a Taunton Green landmark and still has the unique bend along the road that can be seen in the image below from 1905.

Originally called North Street, present-day Broadway once ran across the Green toward Cohannet Street. On the corner to your left was the site of Jesse Smith’s stables, one of the busiest stagecoach lines in the region in the late 18th and early 19th century. “Uncle Jesse’s” stagecoaches were noticeable throughout Southeastern Massachusetts, with their scarlet and yellow paint and a portrait of Jesse himself painted on the doors. This site was later home to the Taunton Inn, one of the most prestigious hotels in New England. Prominent businessmen, famous travelers to Taunton, and even two presidents, Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, stayed here. On January 29, 1926, the Taunton Inn caught fire. Subzero temperatures and frozen hose lines meant there was little that could be done to slow the blaze. Four years later, the “new” Taunton Inn was built on Summer Street.

On the North side of Taunton Green is the Bristol County Superior Courthouse. It’s cornerstone was laid on June 30, 1892 after the Taunton Superior Courthouse (built in 1826) was moved on rollers around the corner. Designed by Taunton-born architect Frank Irving Cooper, the Superior Courthouse was built by Beattie & Wilcox of Fall River and completed in 1895. The building’s first roof was red Spanish tiles, though the tiles did not react well to New England weather, and within a year were covered with a thin layer of copper which has oxidized to the green color you see today. The building is made of granite which was quarried in Fall River, and is trimmed with additional stone from Barre, Vermont. The design for the landscape which surrounds the building was completed by the firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot, run by two sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, famed designer of New York City’s Central Park. In more recent years, the city's Korean War and World War II Memorials have been added to the lawn of the complex.

Neighborhoods often embody the history and culture of a city, and Church Green is no exception. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this area highlights the pivotal role it played in Taunton’s founding. Situated near downtown, it has long been home to prominent families whose historic residences still showcase significant architectural styles and stories today. 37 Church Green is the Anselm Bassett House, built around 1825 in the Federal Style, known for its simplicity and symmetry. 2 Dean Street is the George A. Crocker House, built in 1858. Designed by Richard Upjohn, it showcases the Second Empire style. Upjohn also designed the Old Colony History Museum and the Fairbanks-Williams House in this neighborhood. Built in 1851 by notable attorney C.J.H. Bassett, 20 Chestnut is one of the city's best examples of Gothic Revival architecture.