Belmont

City in northern central California, 31 km/19 mi southeast of San Francisco, on the San Mateo Peninsula; population (1990) 24,100. Founded in the 1850s, it developed as a residential suburb after 1950. Its products include precision instruments and electrical and electronic components. There are a number of mental and medical institutions.

Ralston Hall, converted by William C Ralston from a hillside villa to an 80-room Victorian mansion in 1866, is now the main building of the College of Notre Dame (for women, founded in 1851).

Belmont

Town in Middlesex County, eastern Massachusetts, 11 km/7 mi northwest of Boston; population (1998 est) 24,000. It is a largely residential suburb, built on high ground just west of Cambridge. The town's McLean Hospital is a noted psychiatric institution.

European settlement in the area dates back to 1630. Belmont was originally part of three towns but split from them to become incorporated as a town itself in 1859. The town is named after the estate of John Perkins Cushing, actually called Bellmont. Cushing was active in the incorporation process. The area was mainly agricultural until the 19th century, when transportation developments brought it within easy reach of Boston, and Belmont became and remains a wealthy suburb, known as ‘The Town of Houses’.

A local farm was the first to develop commercial hot houses, used to supply fruit and vegetables to Boston. The last farmland was used for construction in the 1950s.

Belmont

Hamlet in southeastern Missouri, on the Mississippi River and the Kentucky border. Cape Girardeau, 71 km/44 mi to the northwest, was the scene of an American Civil War battle in November 1861 in which Confederate troops under Leonidas Polk repulsed an attacking force led by Ulysses S Grant.

Belmont

City in southwestern North Carolina, 16 km/10 mi west of Charlotte, on the Catawba River; population (1990) 8,400. Its products include yarn, hosiery, and dyes. Belmont Abbey College (1876) is one of several Roman Catholic institutions in the city.