Paul Boothroyd and his family are pleased to announce the publication of a multi-decade project to tell the stories of the families displaced by the taking of land in Maynard, Sudbury, Stow, and Hudson at the beginning of World War II.    We know this today as the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, but the land itself has many tales to tell.

As of Nov 2023, Paul’s book is available on Amazon (we will update this with other sources)

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

What if you received a knock on your door tonight and were told you had to leave? You had no more than a month to do so, and you could only take what was not nailed down? Eighty Massachusetts families faced that predicament on March 25, 1942. This book tells their story.

At the breakout of World War II, 1942, the U.S. Government required four square miles to create an ammunition depot. Explosives would be staged in 50 bunkers before shipping via Boston to Europe for the war against the Third Reich. Eminent domain was ordered, and the land taken, forever.

However, that’s only the surface of the tale…

Explore the who, how, and why. Learn about the close-knit families in Maynard, Stow, Sudbury, and Hudson, Massachusetts, who lost their farms, their livelihoods. Upended, they not only had to find new places to live and to work – if they could – they had to deal with the loss of all they had built. Their heritage was taken.

The land’s history will be detailed from the earliest days of settlement to what happened during and after World War II. A silver lining is a new, promising future of the land with the creation of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. By the end, you’ll have delved deep into an area simply called by many as The Ammo Dump.