George Clinton Ewing (March/April 1810[a] – July 16, 1888)[6][7][8] was an American salesman, wainwright, land agent, superintendent, assessor, selectman, state representative, and most notably one of the chief founders of Holyoke, Massachusetts; he is credited as having first brought the idea of building a dam and industrial city at Hadley Falls to investors in Boston, New York, Hartford, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1846.

[14] During his travels he had a chance to see the new dam and canals constructed at Lowell, and by 1846 had noticed that a 60-foot drop in the Connecticut River, at what would be Hadley Falls, would serve as an ideal location for a similar project.

Ewing, having personally known Erastus Fairbanks,[17] was able to convince him and a number of backers from Boston, Hartford, and New York to charter the company tasked with building a new planned industrial city.

[11] The one farmer who pushed back against the effort was one Sam Ely, who "declar[ed] that he would not sell to the 'cotton lords' of the Hadley [Falls] Company 'if they covered the entire field with gold dollars.'

When dam laborers were forced to work on Sundays, a strike broke out which was met with response from the state militia; it was not until a Catholic priest was brought from Springfield that the standoff was resolved.

[10] In Holyoke, Ewing remained an ardent advocate of not only the city's development but also for reform of its labor, seeking to "bridge the growing gulf between the established and working classes",[18]: 43  through such proposals as shorter hours for workers.

One of the reforms he proposed was a law that would use state funds to compensate families whose children were attending school for the wages they would have made from working during that time; the motion lacked any political support.

[29] Following Ewing's death the building was sold to the Highland Parish in 1895 and used as a rectory until the house was moved to its present location in 1925 with the construction of the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church.