With its white picket fences, historic tree-lined streets, clapboard colonials and ever-present sense of the sea, Norwell, Massachusetts is a quintessential New England town.

Originally settled around 1628, the area was a part of Old Scituate, which included most of Hanover and what is today known as Cohasset, Marshfield, Pembroke, and Hanson.

At that time, a forest canopy soared to 200 feet in the vast woodlands, providing a ready supply of pine and oak to support a burgeoning ship building business. Wood had become scarce in Britain so the cost of building a ship in New England was half that of constructing one at home. Increasingly, the British Navy began to order merchant vessels from Norwell’s shipyards. Most of the ships built here were small working coastal boats but larger ones such as the Columbia, and the 464-ton Mount Vernon were constructed on the banks of the North River as well. More than 1,000 sailing vessels were built in shipyards along this river, but as time went on, merchants were demanding larger ships that drew more water than the river could accommodate, and the industry faded.

Massachusetts was 90% pastureland by 1790, and almost everyone had a farm to grow crops and livestock. Much of this agrarian history is still evident in the open field around town. Marsh grass also provided good fodder for cattle, and much of it was hauled upriver in flat-bottomed boats called Gundalows, until the infamous Portland gale of 1898 altered the coastline and moved the mouth of the North River a mile north.

In 1849 Norwell and Scituate separated and in 1888 the town adopted its name after Henry Norwell, a wealthy merchant from Boston who provided financing to build the town roads.

Located in historic Plymouth County, Norwell is ideally situated in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metro area, yet enjoys a peaceful natural suburban environment.

Washington Woods offers the best of all worlds, with the ocean just seven miles away, pristine natural habitats to explore, and commuter boats and trains to Boston, just 22 miles up the road.