Roxbury

Town in Litchfield County, west Connecticut; population (1990) 1,800. It is situated on the Shepaug River, 22 km/14 mi west of Waterbury, in an agricultural area. It produces dairy products and is an exurb. In the 18th and 19th centuries, iron was mined here. Roxbury was home in the 18th century to military leader Ethan Allen and in the 20th century to artist Alexander Calder.

Roxbury

Section of south-central Boston, Massachusetts. Situated on high ground, it was connected with the original Boston (the Shawmut Peninsula) by a narrow neck of land sometimes called Roxbury Neck. Settled in 1630, and originally agricultural, it became increasingly suburban from the 1820s. It was incorporated as a city in 1846, before being annexed by Boston in 1868. It remains largely residential, with various light industries and commercial neighbourhoods.

Roxbury's location made it a strategic site in the American Revolution, and the colonists established a fort here in 1775. In the 19th century, Roxbury was an upper- and middle-class district. It became home to groups in transition from the inner city, among them Jews from the North End. By the 1930s it had become the centre of Boston's black community. Roxbury has been subject to much urban regeneration after having become run down in the 1960s and 1970s.

Roxbury

Town in Delaware County, south New York; population (1990) 2,400. It is situated in the Catskill Mountains, on the east (Pepacton) branch of the Delaware River, 60 km/37 mi west of Catskill. It lies in a popular resort area. Roxbury was the birthplace of naturalist and writer John Burroughs and of railroad tycoon Jay Gould, who together attended grammar school here.