Boynton Park is Worcester’s most enigmatic park – in the sense that it is a Worcester city park that is located in Paxton. It’s also Worcester’s second largest park at just over 114 acres.

Boynton Park was given to the city as a gift through the will of Charles D. Boynton. Boynton deeded the space to the city for one dollar, under the intentions that it would be used as a park, hospital or sanitarium for the people of Worcester and Paxton. The city actually debated whether or not to accept the gift, as it was thought that it was too far removed from the population to be much use (this is despite the fact that the trolley stop was located 100 yards away from the park entrance).

Boynton Park is unique, forested, public resource that it abuts or is connected by trail to several other municipal parks (Cascades Park) and publicly accessible yet privately owned green space (Cascades West, Cascades East, Cascading Waters, Cooks Pond), to which large maps at Boynton refer to as Worcester’s Northwest Parklands.

Boynton Park features hiking trails and a large former ball field that is used as the city’s unsanctioned dog park. The remnants of a swing set and basketball court are still visible, but not useable enough to be considered amenities.

There is also an old legend about the land that is now Boynton Park – ‘the Romance of Silver Springs’ of which Charles Boynton wrote about for the Society of Antiquity in 1879 in which he claimed an ancient settlement was located on his land, although there were no records of such settlement. According to a former property owner, the settlers had committed some crime and had escaped here from a foreign country to save their lives.

Many thanks to the Greater Worcester Land Trust for preserving, making publicly accessible, and maintaining much of the land around the two city parks in this area.