Pepperell began as a booming mill town and farming community and has grown into a thriving town of more than 12,000 residents. Two paper mills and a braiding factory are still in operation in the east village section. As a rural community with three 200-acre farms, residents enjoy the large, wide-open spaces and unspoiled land.
The Squannacook River offers a myriad of water-oriented recreational opportunities, Willard Brook State Park features areas for picnicking and swimming and the Townsend State Forest has excellent trails for hiking and cross-country skiing.
The North Middlesex Regional School District serves the towns of Ashby, Pepperell and Townsend. The district is comprised of four schools: Spaulding Memorial serves preschool through second grade, Squannacook Elementary serves grades three through five, students in grades six through eight attend Hawthorne Brook Middle School. The North Middlesex Regional High School covers grades nine through 12. A number of prestigious universities are within a short drive including a state college in nearby Fitchburg and the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. Prestigious Harvard University is located in the city of Boston.
This history of the community dates back nearly three hundred years when early settlements in Groton began to spread to Pepperell in the 1720s and 1730s. The area was identified as Groton West Parish in 1742. Pepperell became a district in 1753 and a town in 1775.
The town center was a place reserved for religious and governmental activity, while the eastern section of the community prospered with the developments of paper and shoe factories along the Nashua River in the 1830s. The grandson of Rev. Joseph Emerson established a paper mill at Main Street and the Nashua River around 1834. With the help of H. M. Clark, the S. D. Warren Company, and the Fairchild Paper Company, the mill grew significantly. As a result of the development of the factories and the building of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad in 1848, the town rapidly grew and by 1857 extended into the boundaries of Groton.
The 1830s introduced the shoe industry; beginning with small shops or "ten footers" and by the late 1800s the town housed three large factories. The industry began with an employment base of 70 and grew to more than 700. This development sparked Pepperell’s growth as a city until the post-World War II years.
The Pepperell Center Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1994. The district encompasses the area immediately surrounding the Pepperell Town Hall, and includes both historic houses, mostly from the nineteenth century, and a number of important public buildings including the Lawrence Library, the Community Church, and the Prescott Grange, as well as the town’s oldest cemetery and war monuments.