HUDSON, a town of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, 28m. W. of Boston; on the Assabet river and served by the Boston and Maine railroad. The population in 193o was 8,469. It has impor tant manufactures of boots and shoes, rubber footwear, lasts, shoe making machinery and accessories, worsted, webbing and knitted goods. The settlement here, dating from about 1699, was at first called Howe's Mills, and after i800 Feltonville. The shoe industry was established in 1816, and by 186o the place was known through out the east as a shoemaking centre.