Lakeville is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 11,523 at the 2020 census.

History

Native Americans inhabited southern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas, and Lakeville is a site with significant indigenous history.

Soewampset is listed as a noted habitation in a 1634 list of settlements in New England, suggesting that Assawompset Pond may take its name from a former Wampanoag settlement on its banks. The Wampanoag Royal Cemetery is located in modern-day Lakeville on a peninsula between Little and Great Quittacas Pond.

King Philip’s War

In 1675, the body of John Sassamon, advisor to Governor Josiah Winslow, was discovered beneath the ice of Assawompset Pond. He was believed to have been murdered, and three Native Americans were arrested. On the testimony of only one witness (contrary to English law, which required the testimony of at least two witnesses in a murder trial), the three were sentenced to death by hanging. When the sentence was carried out, Tobias, senior counselor to the Pokanoket sachem King Philip, and a second supposed accomplice died. When the attempt was made to carry out the sentence on the third “accomplice”—Tobias’s son – the rope broke and he was imprisoned, having first confessed to the killings. His confession is widely believed to have been coerced.

The death of John Sassamon and the subsequent trial and execution of the Wampanoag men convicted of his murder is broadly acknowledged as the trigger for King Philip’s War, though tensions between English colonists and indigenous groups had been building for decades. During part of the war, Metacomet and his forces sheltered in Lakeville at Assawompset Pond, prior to Metacomet’s capture in Bristol, Rhode Island.

The Wampanoag settlement at Assawompset Pond persisted until at least the early 1800s, as attested by burials in the Wampanoag Royal Cemetery, and the biography of Benjamin Simonds.

18th century to present

The first recorded non-native settlement of Lakeville was in 1705 by a man named Peirce, ‘whose descendants are very numerous.’ Lakeville was settled on a larger scale in 1717 as a western parish of Middleborough. It was incorporated as a separate town in 1853. One notable resident from Lakeville who fought in the American Revolution was a Wampanoag man named Benjamin Simonds, who was an aide-de-camp to George Washington at Valley Forge, who died in either 1831 or 1836. He was likely a part of one of the two militias from Lakeville, the Pond Militia Company or the Beech Woods Company of Minutemen. They were combined into Middleborough’s Fourth Company of Foot, in which he served. He ended up becoming a local celebrity, both because of his service and because he was the last fully Wampanoag person to live on Assawompset Pond.

Ninety-one men from Lakeville served in the American Civil War, eighty-five in the army and six in the navy. Three churches have been built in the town, the first in 1725, the second in 1751 and the third one in 1835.Ocean Spray is headquartered in Lakeville.

Education

Since 1959, Lakeville has shared its school department with Freetown, creating the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District. Lakeville operates several schools for its school aged population. Assawompset Elementary School is operated jointly with Freetown for grades K–3. The George R. Austin Intermediate School is operated jointly with Freetown for grade 4 and 5. Freetown-Lakeville Middle School is operated jointly with Freetown for grades 6–8, and Apponequet Regional High School is jointly operated with Freetown for grades 9–12. Apponequet’s colors are navy, white, and red, their nickname is the “Lakers,” and their mascot was a Wampanoag brave, but after a sensitivity issue among the faculty at Apponequet, it was changed to an “A”. The school, like several others in the region, used to use the spear logo made famous by Florida State University and the Washington Redskins for its athletics marks, but this was deemed to promote violence, so it was replaced with the “A”. Their teams compete in the South Coast Conference, and their chief rival is Old Rochester Regional High School in Mattapoisett.

Demographics

As of the census of 2022, there were 11,895 people and 4,162 households residing in the town. The population density was 329.14 inhabitants per square mile (127.08/km²). In 2000, there were 3,662 housing units at an average density of 122.5 per square mile (47.3/km²). More recent estimates are not available. As of 2022, the racial makeup of the town was 92.8% White, 1.8% African American, 0.1% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, and 2.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.0% of the population.

The most common ancestries in Lakeville are: Irish (23.2%), English (20.1%), French (12.9%), Italian (11.9%), Portuguese (11.4%) and French Canadian (10.1%). 3.8% of Lakeville’s residents are foreign-born.

There were 3,292 households, out of which 40.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.7% were married couples living together, 8.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.2% were non-families. 14.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.91 and the average family size was 3.24.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 27.4% under the age of 18, 5.7% from 18 to 24, 31.1% from 25 to 44, 24.4% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.1 males. Of the population 25 years and older in Lakeville, 87.2% have a high school degree or higher. 32.7% of this demographic group has a bachelor’s degree or higher. 11% of Lakeville residents 25 years or older have a graduate or professional degree. The average person’s commute to work is 33.8 minutes and 2.6% of the town’s population above the age of 25 is unemployed.

The median income for a household in the town was $70,495, and the median income for a family was $75,838. Males had a median income of $51,321 versus $31,374 for females. The per capita income for the town was $26,046. About 1.9% of families and 3.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.8% of those under age 18 and 8.5% of those age 65 or over.

Lakeville’s median household income and the median house value are above the Massachusetts state average.