CLINTON, a town of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Nashua river, 15m. N.N.E. of Worcester. It is served by the Boston and Maine and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railways. The population in 1920 was 12,979 foreign-born white) ; in 1930 (Federal census) 12,817.
The town contains 7sq.m. of varied and picturesque hilly country, with charming scenery along the river. In its south-west corner, on the southern branch of the Nashua river, is part of the Wachusett dam and reservoir of the water-supply system of the Boston metropolitan area. There are extensive manufactures, with an output in 1925 valued at $19,966,936. In 1813 cotton cloth was produced there under the factory system, but the first modern textile mill was established in 1838, for making coach-lace. The industrial importance of the town is due largely to Erastus Brigham Bigelow (1814-79), inventor of power-looms which revo lutionized the manufacture of figured fabrics, and of a loom for weaving wire-cloth. In 1843, with his brother Horatio M. Bigelow, he established in Clinton the Lancaster Mills for the manufacture of ginghams, and about ten years later, the Bigelow Carpet Mills. The Roubaix Mills also (making fine velours) are located here.
Clinton was settled in 1645, and was separated from Lancaster as an independent town in 185o.