In addition to what else has been posted:

A lot of townships had smaller built up areas with their own village names. Keep in mind a standard town is 6x6 miles so it could be a significant walk or ride. Most of these historical villages have since been built between causing them to be hard to locate, but on the coast, you still see a few around. The built up groups of houses were largely grouped into the village areas which might include a store, post office, school etc. Areas in between might have been used for agricultural, Woodlots, etc.

In addition to the railroads mentioned, there were extensive steamship routes on the coasts and rivers with daily or weekly service between many small towns and the larger cities including Boston.