page_title: Dunstable, Massachusetts
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Dunstable, Massachusetts / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of old Dunstable, 1846. Page 14-15 of book History of the old township of Dunstable: including Nashua, Nashville, Hollis, Hudson, Litchfield, and Merrimac, N.H.; Dunstable and Tyngsborough, Mass. by Charles James Fox, 1846 on Google books
context_page_description: Dunstable is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,179 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: Dunstable was first settled in 1656 and was officially incorporated in 1673.  It is likely named after the town of Dunstable in Bedfordshire, England, home of Edward Tyng, the town's first settler.  The original township of Dunstable, granted in 1661, consisted of two hundred square miles, including the Massachusetts towns of Dunstable, Pepperell, Townsend and Tyngsborough, the New Hampshire towns of Hudson, Nashua and Hollis, and parts of other towns as well.  Increases in population leading to subsections becoming independent towns and the delineation of the northern boundary of Massachusetts in 1740 placed the northern part of Dunstable (present day Nashua) in New Hampshire, so the southern part remains the Dunstable of today.
  Today, Dunstable, in the face of urban sprawl, has held onto a largely rural character.
caption: Old map of Dunstable from 1846 showing the towns and the disputed state line with the original Dunstable tract line
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