WESTBORO  , a township of

Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 12 M . E. of Worcester . Pop . (189o) 5195; (1900) 5400 (1127 being foreign-born); (1905, state census) 5378; (1910) 5446 . Westboro is served by the Boston & Albany railway and by interurban electric lines . Area, about 22 sq. m . It has a public library, which has belonged to the township since 1857; and here are the Lyman School for Boys, a state industrial institution (opened in 1886 and succeeding a state reform school opened in 1846), and the Westboro Insane Hospital (homoeopathic, 1884), which is under the general supervision of the State Board of Insanity . There are manufactures of boots and shoes, straw and leather goods, carpets, &c . Westboro was the birthplace of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin . The first settlement here was made about 1659 in a part of Marlboro called Chauncy (because of a grant of 500 acres here to Charles Chauncy, president of Harvard College, made in 1659 and revoked in 166o by the General Court of Massachusetts) . In 1717 this part of Marlboro, with other lands, was erected into the township of Westboro, to which parts of Sutton (1728), Shrewsbury (1762 and 1793) and Upton (1763) were subsequently annexed, and from which Northboro was separated in 1766 .