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is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,435 at the 2000 census.
For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Clinton, please see the article Clinton (CDP), Massachusetts.
Clinton was first settled in 1654 as a part of Lancaster. It was officially incorporated as a separate town on March 14, 1850, and named after DeWitt Clinton.
Clinton became a small industrialized mill town, using the Nashua River as a source for water power. Railroads came to the town to serve this industry, including the Boston, Clinton, Fitchburg and New Bedford Railroad (Fitchburg Branch of the Old Colony Railroad), the Central Massachusetts Railroad, and Worcester, Nashua and Rochester Railroad (the last two later merged into the Boston and Maine Corporation). By 1890, Clinton was noted for its manufacturing of carpets and woven wire.
In 1897, construction began on the Wachusett Dam, culminating in the filling of the Wachusett Reservoir in 1908. This flooded a substantial portion of Clinton and neighboring towns, which had to be relocated. Part of the Central Massachusetts Railroad line abandoned in 1958 includes a tunnel near Clamshell Road.