Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 1091 | 1091 | ||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 982 | 982 | ||||||
| 1940 | 1026 | |||||||
| 1950 | 1464 | |||||||
| 1960 | 1883 | 1879 | 4 | |||||
| 1970 | 2274 | 2269 | 3 | 2 | ||||
| 1980 | 2311 | 0 | ||||||
| 1990 | 2717 | 2703 | 6 | 8 | ||||
| 2000 | 2845 | 2826 | 8 | 6 | 20 | |||
| 2010 | 3074 | 2993 | 15 | 23 | 11 | 57 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 3193 | 3116 | 49 | 40 | 43 | 123 | 133 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
In 2023, the annual town meeting voted to approve the following article: “We, the townspeople of Ashby state that we are not a sundown or sunset town, and we are committed to welcoming all people to town to live, play, visit, or pass through. We affirm our desire to cooperatively create a community that accepts diversity, promotes equity, and strives for inclusion.”
In 1973, the annual town meeting voted 148 to 79 against inviting minority groups into town. See https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2020/07/02/revisiting-and-reckoning-with-a-massachusetts-towns-1973-vote-against-racial-inclusion
Email: 11/2013
No, Ashby is not a sundown town.
It is, instead, a poor working class rural town. It has no supper market, or much of anything else. One has to have a car to live there. Houses can be pretty isolated.