Abington, MA

Abington's historic landscape is tied to both manufacturing and public gathering. The Plymouth County town, located about halfway between Boston and Plymouth, incorporated in 1712. Shoemaking became its first major industry in 1820 and continued into the 20th century; a former shoe factory on Railroad Street now houses the New England Art Factory. Island Grove carries a different history. Abolitionists met there before the Civil War, and its Memorial Arch and Bridge were built in 1912 to commemorate local soldiers and sailors. The town and the same-named census-designated place each recorded 17,062 residents in the 2020 census. Present-day community activity is distributed among the rail station, civic campus, and two contrasting recreation areas. Abington station is on the MBTA's Kingston Line, with trains running through Braintree, Quincy Center, JFK/UMass, and South Station. The municipal recreation department uses Island Grove as the base for its summer camp and sand-bottom pool, while the park remains a site for seasonal gatherings and historical interpretation.

On the other side of town, Ames Nowell State Park is open year-round for daytime use. Several miles of trails circle Cleveland Pond and cross surrounding woods, and the pond supports fishing and nonmotorized boating; the park also has a ballfield, pavilion, and picnic area. The Abington Public Library, at the town hall and school campus on Gliniewicz Way, includes dedicated children's and young-adult rooms, study rooms, a 90-person meeting room, local yearbooks and genealogy resources, and in-person and digital programming. As of December 2025, design of the proposed Green Wave Connector was 70 percent complete. The planned walking and bicycling path would link Broadmeadow Lane to the library and town hall complex and form one piece of a longer envisioned connection between the Hanover Rail Trail and Ames Nowell State Park.