Norfolk County ( ) is a county located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. At the 2020 census, the population was around 725,981. Its county seat is Dedham. The county was named after the English county of the same name.Thomas Cox, Anthony Hall, Robert Morden, Magna Britannia Antiqua & Nova: Or, A New, Exact, and Comprehensive Survey of the Ancient and Present State of Great Britain, Volume 5, (Caesar Ward and Richard Chandler: London, 1738), pg. 171 (accessed on Google Book Search, June 22, 2008) Two towns, Cohasset and Brookline, are exclaves. Norfolk County is included in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area. Norfolk County is the 24th highest-income county in the United States with a median household income of $107,361. It is the wealthiest county in Massachusetts.
History One of the original counties of the Massachusetts Bay Colony created on May 10, 1643, was called Norfolk, and is unrelated to the current Norfolk County. It covered territory in what is now New Hampshire, and was abolished on September 18, 1679, when King Charles II separated the Colony of New Hampshire from Massachusetts.Massachusetts : Individual County Chronologies
Shortly after the Constitution of Massachusetts was adopted on October 25, 1780, a number of towns in Suffolk County, of which Dedham was then a part, elected delegates to a convention to decide upon some policy relative to the division of the county. The convention met at Gay's Tavern in Dedham on December 12, 1780, and adopted a resolution to the effect that the towns of Bellingham, Dedham, Foxborough, Franklin, Medfield, Medway, Needham, Stoughton, Stoughtonham, Walpole, and Wrentham, along with the Middlesex County towns of Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, and Sherborn ought to be formed into a new county with Medfield as the shiretown. The Great and General Court did not look favorably upon the resolution, however, and no new county was then created.
Norfolk County, Massachusetts was created on June 20, 1793. Legislation passed in March which separated off all the towns in Suffolk County except Boston and Chelsea (which at the time included what are now Revere and Winthrop). Dedham was designated as the "shire town".Massachusetts General Court, Acts of 1792 Chapter 72, page 111 (also indexed as Acts of 1973 (January Session), chapter 43). Approved March 26, 1793, by Governor John Hancock. Hingham and Hull petitioned to remain in Suffolk County and on the day the law was to take effect, their removal to Norfolk County was repealed, making Cohasset an exclave.Massachusetts General Court, Acts of 1793, Chapter 8, page 353. Also listed as 1793 May session, chapter 9. Approved June 20, 1793. In 1803, they were moved into Plymouth County, Massachusetts.
On June 22, 1797, the town of Natick was given to Middlesex County, and the town of Needham was transferred from Middlesex to Norfolk. The towns of Dorchester and Roxbury were part of Norfolk County when it was created but, as Boston annexed each town in stages from 1804 to 1912, they became part of Suffolk County again, leaving Brookline separated from the rest of Norfolk County. No other changes have been made to the territory of Norfolk County, other than new municipalities being created within its boundaries, and minor border adjustments.
Norfolk County is the birthplace of four Presidents of the United States (John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, and George H. W. Bush), resulting in the moniker "County of Presidents."The County of Norfolk, Massachusetts. Last accessed December 21, 2006.
Jails Following the creation of the county, Gay's Tavern was the site of a Court of General Sessions on August 25, 1794. They ordered that the committee on buildings proceed with collecting materials for building a jail. On the last day of September following this order, the court accepted from Timothy Gay the gift of a parallelogram lot of land to erect the Norfolk County Jail next to his tavern.
It was replaced by a new Norfolk County Jail in 1817. The two-story stone building was built in 1817 and was 33' square. Part of the jail was torn down in 1851 to erect a central, octagonal portion and two wings. It resulted in a building with the shape of a Latin cross, and featured Gothic Revival windows. The three tiers of cells radiated out like spokes from the central guardroom. There were two hangings in the central rotunda: George C. Hersey on August 8, 1862, and James H. Costley on June 25, 1875.
Inmates were housed in the jail until 1992 when the Norfolk County Correctional Center was opened in 1992. A court forced the closure after 13 inmates escaped in 1989. There were at least 27 break outs during the prison's history.
The current Norfolk County Correctional Center is located on the median of Route 128 in Dedham. The facility has 502 beds and opened in 1992.
Courthouses After the creation of the county, the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of General Sessions of the Peace first met in Dedham's meetinghouse. Nathaniel Ames was chosen as the clerk of both and they met for the first time on September 23.
When the court met on January 7, 1794, it was so cold in the building, which lacked any sort of heating, that they moved to the Woodward Tavern across the street. The Anglican Church in town had also offered their building, but it was in such a state of disrepair that the offer was not accepted. The First Church and Parish in Dedham then offered a piece of land on their Little Common, and a new courthouse was ordered to be constructed. Construction was sluggish, however, and the delays frustrated Ames.
The court was still sitting in the meetinghouse in 1794 but the new courthouse was completed in 1795. It was found to be too small, however, and the ceilings were so low as to stifle people in the courtrooms. Charles Bulfinch was hired in 1795 to design a turret for the building and Paul Revere was commissioned to cast a bell.
When it became apparent that the Courthouse was out of date, the County Commissioners ordered a new one to be built. They originally were seeking a utilitarian building that would be fireproof and safe to store important documents. Local boosters, however, wanted a building that aligned with the town's rapidly improving self-image.
The land for the courthouse, across the street from the existing one, was purchased from Frances Ames for $1,200. Ames later refused to sell the lot to the east at an asking price of $400, however. Masonic ceremonies, bell ringing and cannon fire accompanied the laying of the cornerstone on July 4, 1825. In 1827, the old courthouse was sold at public auction.
The new building was designed by Solomon Willard and was dedicated on February 20, 1827. It was a basic rectangular granite-walled structure, 48' by 98' and two stories tall, with Greek-temple porticoes at either end. Each 10' portico was supported by four Doric pillars. A bell made by Paul Revere was moved from the old courthouse to the new north portico, where it was tolled to announce court sessions.
The interior had a hall running through the center paved with brick. On the eastern side were the offices of the Country Treasurer and the Clerk of Courts. On the western side were the Registry of Deeds and Probate Court. The courtroom was upstairs and featured an arched ceiling. The high sheriff had a desk in the room.
From the outside it was an attractive building, but it was not a comfortable place to work. The only water was provided by a well on Court Street, and it did not have an adequate heating system. One employee complained that it was "barren and destitute of every convenience, demanded for health, comfort and decency." In 1846, an iron fence was installed around the perimeter.
Registry of Deeds
The Registry was originally housed in one of the first floor rooms of the home of Eliphalet Pond, the first registrar, at 963 Washington Street in Dedham. A sign was nailed to a tree out front informing the public of its location. It then moved to the original Norfolk County Courthouse and remained there for about three decades. When the new Norfolk County Courthouse was built in 1827, the middle office on the west side of the lower level was used by the Registry. When the population of the county grew and the number of real estate transactions increased apace, a new building was constructed for the Registry across the street at 649 High Street. The Boston firm Peabody & Stearns was hired to design the current Registry of Deeds, built in 1905. The main section of the building measures 52 feet by 186 feet, is two stories high with a copper hipped roof, and is built of Indiana limestone with details made of granite from Deer Isle, Maine.
Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (11%) is water. It is the third-smallest county in Massachusetts by total area. The county is not completely contiguous; the towns of Brookline and Cohasset are each part of Norfolk County but are separated from the majority of Norfolk County (and each other) by either water or other counties. At the county's formation, Hingham and Hull were to be part of it, but joined Plymouth County instead, leaving Cohasset as the initial exclave of Norfolk County and an enclave of Plymouth County. Brookline became the second exclave of Norfolk County in 1873 when the neighboring town of West Roxbury was annexed by Boston (thus leaving Norfolk County to join Suffolk County) and Brookline refused to be annexed by Boston after the Brookline-Boston annexation debate of 1873.
Adjacent counties Middlesex County (northwest) Suffolk County (north) Plymouth County (southeast) Bristol County (south) Providence County, Rhode Island (southwest) Worcester County (west)
National protected areas Adams National Historical Park Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (part) Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site
Major highways
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 725,981. Of the residents, 20.5% were under the age of 18 and 17.7% were 65 years of age or older; the median age was 41.2 years. For every 100 females there were 92.3 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 89.4 males. 98.0% of residents lived in urban areas and 2.0% lived in rural areas.
The racial makeup of the county was 71.6% White, 7.1% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 12.2% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 2.6% from some other race, and 6.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 5.2% of the population.
There were 278,326 households in the county, of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 27.5% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 26.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 291,489 housing units, of which 4.5% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 66.3% were owner-occupied and 33.7% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.8% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%.
Racial and ethnic composition