USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > Historical sketches of Watertown, Massachusetts > Part 2
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for a large piece on the south, and Cambridge has bardly recovered from her surfeit of grave-yards on the east, one can hardly know what our children's children will find to which the honored name of Watertown can legally be affixed.
Let us look a little more closely into this process of division, and follow the geographical changes in boundaries as they were made.
As to the manner of dividing the lands among the freemen of the town, we will speak later. The bounds of the town were hardly fixed before they began to settle the outermost portions in systematic manner. On October 14, 1638, it was "Ordered that the farmes granted shall begin at the nearest meddow to Dedham line, beyond the line runneth at the end of ye great dividents, parallel to the line at the end of the Towne bounds, and so to go on successively from Ded- ham Bounds." etc. The earliest map preserved in the archives of the State is a map of a portion of the extreme southwest corner of the town, next to the Dedham line,giving the location of lines running east and north near "Nonesuch Pond," which lies partly in Sudbury.
This ancient map, bearing the date of 1687, gives the lines in position with reference to this Nonesuch Pond. and their direction by the compass, thus de- termining the boundary line between Watertown and Dedham, afterwards Needham, and later still, the line between Weston and Wellesley on the south, while on the west the line in position and direction between Watertown and Sudbury, now between Weston and Wayland. By continuing this line in a northerly direction until we meet the six miles square of Concor1, we have the early western boundary. Of course this was fixed after many measurements and surveys by committees appointed by the towns, but this remains substantially the boundary between Weston and Wayland to this day.
The boundary on the east, between Cambridge and Watertown, has been changed several times, always at the expense of territory for Watertown. At first, as reported to the General Court in 1635, it was near what is now Sparks Street and Vassal Lane thence across Fresh Pond to a certain poplar tree on the northwest side; thence by a straight line northwest by west, eight miles into the country, till it meet the west line between Sudbury and Watertown,or rather would have met it at an angle beyond and above Walden Pond, had not that portion been cut off by the grant to Concord of six miles square.
Frequently during a period of many years after the apportionment of lands to the 114 townsmen, in 1637, the division of the lands at the West Farms was a source of disagreement and contention at the regular and at irregularly called meetings of the town. The historian of Weston will doubtless show how delight- ful those fields were, and what objects of contention among all the townsmen, who had naturally equal right to some possession among them ; how many pro-
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minent men were drawn away from the older settle- ment to gain by occupancy these farms; of the remote -. ness from church privileges, and from schools ; of the injustice of church rates and other taxes, which were spent where they conld not easily profit by them, till finally, March 13, 1682-83, it was voted in town-meet- ing that "those who dwell on west of Stony Brook be freed from school tax;" and November 10, 1685, it was "voted that the farmers' petition should be suspended as to an answer to it until it pleaseth God to settle a minister among us." In 1692 a town-meeting was held to decide upon a site for a new meeting-house, but there was so great excitement and such differences of opinion among the people, that the Governor and Council were called in to decide the matter. The Governor and Council were unable to please either the people on the "Farms" or the people in the east part of the town. In 1694, at a town-meeting, the east bonnds of the West Farms Precinct were fixed at Beaver Brook, but the General Conrt, in 1699, fixed them at Stony Brook. At the May session of the General Court the petition praying for leave "To set up the public worship of God amongst theinhabitants of the west end of Watertown" was granted, the farmers having been exempted from ministerial rates the preceding year. After long and vexations con- tention the act for the incorporation of Weston was passed, on the 1st of Jannary, 1713. Thus there was cut off from the territory of the old town nearly half of its area.
The next rednetion of area came with the incor- poration of Waltham in 1738, which took about six- tenths of the lands left to her. Before Weston was incorporated that part was called the West Precinct (Weston), this the Middle Precinct (Waltham) and the eastern portion the East Precinct. With the in- corporation of Weston, the part now Waltham be- came the West Precinct. The incorporation of Wes- ton took away about 10,372 acres, of Waltham about 8891 acres and left the old town only 3833 acres ; this was less than a sixth of the area of the three precincts together.
In April, 1754, a portion of the eastern part of the town was joined to Cambridge-all that part between the most northern bend of the river, near where Sparks Street now runs and along Vassal Lane to Mt. Anburn Cemetery. This took away, probably, most of the lands owned by Sir Richard Saltonstall and his early associates, the cluster of dwellings called " the town." The town of Watertown still re- tained its right to the wharf and landing on the river for a century longer.
In 1859 all that part of the town north of Belmont Street was set off to Belmont, so-called. This was the result of a long struggle and a fierce contest like each other excision of territory and loss of inhabitants. By this act, 1446 acres were taken from the town.
In 1704-5 a committee was appointed to find out the line between Watertown and Newton on the 21-iii
south side of Charles River. The committee reported in 1705 the line nearly as at present represented on the map on the south side, giving by estimation about 88 acres. They have at different times been increas- ed, till at present, including Water, Boyd and Cook's Ponds, they include one hundred and fifty acres.1
The last excision of territory was arranged amica- bly with Cambridge, she buying the lands of the owners and paying the town of Watertown $15,000 for loss of taxable property for lands taken between Mt. Auburn Cemetery and the river for the Cambridge Cemetery, and authorized by act of the General Court, which transferred the Winchester estate to Cam- bridge ; also the road passing between Mt. Auburn and Cambridge Cemeteries.
There now remain within the bounds of the town including Charles River, the marshes, the ponds, Mt. Auburn and Catholic Cemeteries, according to the surveys of Henry Crafts, 2668.25 acres, of about 4} square miles. The number of acres taxed in 1890, is 2027.
PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE LANDS WITHIN THE ANCIENT BOUNDARIES .- The whole town, even in its greatest extension, lies mostly along the north banks of the Charles River, which finds its way irregularly over the drift, the broad deposits of sands and clays which fill the broad valley between Arling- ton Heights and Prospect Hill on the north and west and the somewhat elevated lands of Newton on the south. Beyond the southernmost limits of the old town, say in what was old Dedham (now Needham and Wellesley) the river gradually descends from its course through a higher plain, elevated say about one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, to the level above Waltham, which is thirty or forty feet only above the sea, and then by gentle falls here and at the Bleachery, at Bemis, and finally at the paper- mill in Watertown village, to mingle with the brack- ish waters of our higher tides from Boston harbor. The rocks which underlie this region seem to be slates and conglomerates-ancient rocks belonging to the lower strata of the earth's crust, from above which, in the progress of the geologic ages, all later fossil-bearing rocks have been removed by the process of plowing by the glaciers, whose traces, well marked in direction are now and then brought to view, as on the slate ledges on Morse's field. The hills and plains as well, as the geologists inform us, are but slight in- equalities in the general plain once smoothed off by a sheet of ice a mile in thickness. The depressions in the general level, like our ponds, perhaps mark the position of some stranded portion of ice when the advancing heat gradually drove the ice-field back towards the North, around which the currents drifted the sands and gravels which form their banks. By boring we know that the level of the bed-rocks dip below the sea here in our town, although their harder
1 For a full treatment of the south side bounds see Mr. Ensign's paper.
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portions in some places come near the surface. Back on the western bounds of the old town, among the hills of Weston and the western part of Waltham, the general level is one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet higher. There are fine specimens of deposits in ridges of ancient glaciers, moraines, in various portions of the town, as at the Waverly Oaks, while the rounded hills of hard clay and gravel deposits are seen in White's Hill, in Strawberry Hill between Mt. Auburn and Belmont Streets, and in other places. Thus we find with considerable variation in level and in that irregularity of form due to the unequal wear- ing away of materials of unequal hardness, as well as the irregular deposits of morains, a sufficient variety of surface to produce that picturesque effect always noted from the time of the earliest visitors to the pres- ent, when city denizens swarm out prospecting for convenient country homes. The soil of Watertown, says Dr. Francis, "is remarkably good." The sub- stratum of clay, even when mingled with sand and gravel to some extent, make the hill-sides rieh, moist, productive. This under-structure of the soil accounts for the abundance of fine spring-, which elaimed the attention of the early colonists, and which, according to a tradition, helped give' name to the town, Water- town it was written. It will be remembered that they suffered for water at Charlestown. The hills, the river-banks, the lowlands must have been covered with heavy forests when first visited, although one would think from the early accounts that the plains east of Mount Auburn, if not also west of it along the river near the Arsenal, over the plains west of Lexing- ton Street and over the Waltham plains, were lands destitute of forests and so easily plowed and desirable for tillage.
We can form little idea of the size of the brooks, or of the abundance of springs found by the early set- tlers, from the fact that the forests have been strip- ped from their fastnesses, and the surface has been cultivated like a garden ; and, if the water-courses have not been entirely dried up, as in old Palestine, we owe it to the nearness to the sea, and the tenacity of the clay soils for the water, which they give up slowly.
The hill on which the tower was built, in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, is 125 feet above the river ; while Strawberry Hill is somewhat more than 250 feet high. This was afterwards called School-House Hill, and after the church was erected there, Meeting-House Hill, and is the hill now marked by the beautiful half- briek residence of Gilbert R. Payson, which is visible from all the hill-tops, and many of the housetops within ten miles of Boston.
The hill nearer the village formerly called Whit- ney's Hill,1 from the faet that John Whitney's, Sr., and his sons were supposed to have owned the north
and west sides of the hill, more recently called White's Hill, over which Palfrey Street is now ex- tended, is quite prominent from the fact that it is nearer the main street, nearer the railroad, and so is more frequently visited. This is a little over 200 feet above the sea, or fifty feet lower than Meeting-Hlouse Hill. The stand-pipe of the water-works is placed here. This is high enough to secure a flow of water to all parts of the town, except to the higher portions of Meeting-House or Payson's Hill.
Prospect Hill, beyond the plain of Waltham, the Middle Precinct of the old town, irregular in shape, rising in its highest portion 482 feet above the sea, is the most elevated point of the old town, probably the most elevated portion of the county. This point is seen first by sailors approaching the harbor of Bos- ton, after the Blue IIills, of course, and gives from its broad slopes extended and most beautiful views of the surrounding country, including the city and harbor of Boston, ten miles distant. Mount Feake is the first eminence of the town named in history. If the name is now attached to the hill to which Win- throp assigned it, it must have lost much of its former prominence, or Winthrop and his party must have been in merry mood, as there is little to suggest the name mount in the present site of Mount Feake Ceme- tery. As this account from the letters of Governor Winthrop is the oldest we have of the physical feat- nres of the town, its insertion here may help to a closer comparison. It bears date January 27, 1631-2. "The governor, and some company with him, went up by Charles River, about eight miles above Watertown, and named the first brook on the north side of the river (being a fair stream, and coming from a pond a mile from the river) Beaver Brook, because the beavers had shorn down divers great trees there, and made divers dams across the brook. Thence they went to a great roek, upon which stood a high stone, eleft in sunder, that four men might go through, which they called Adam's Chair, because the young- est of their company was Adam Winthrop. Thence they came to another brook, greater than the former, which they called Masters' Brook, because the eldest of their party was one John Masters. Thenee they came to another high pointed rock, having a fair as- cend on the west side, which they called Mount Feake, from one Robert Feake, who had married the governor's daughter-in-law. On the west side of Mount Feake they went up a very high rock, from whence they might see all over Neipnett, and a very high hill due west, about forty miles off (Wachusett Mountain), and to the northwest the high hills (per- haps Monadnock Mountain) by Merrimack, about sixty miles off."
The Beaver Brook is now well-known by this name. Adam's Chair is not now to be found, having prob- ably been destroyed by the building of the Fitchburg Railroad. Masters' Brook, now greatly diminished in size by change of surface and by filling, enters the
1 " Whitney's Hill " is thought by some to be the highland over which Lexington Street now passes.
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river near the watch-factory bridge. Mount Feake, within the cemetery of that name, affords the fine view to the west, it is said, which is mentioned in Winthrop's account.
The Charles River, of course, is the principal body of water in the old town. Whether the fall spoken of by the earliest settlers was due to a dam erected by the Norsemen, as Professor Horsford claims, or was merely a series of rapids, as it would seem necessary to suppose it would be if the dam were removed, we have not sufficient historical data to determine. It may not be proper in this place, for lack of direct testimony, to enter into an argument to prove, from the testimo- ny of Clap's party to finding near three hundred Indians fishing about the fall, that there must have been greater hindrance to the free, upward movement of the fish to their spawning-grounds than a series of gentle rapids, in order to make this such good fishing- grounds. No direct statements, accounts or allu- sions have as yet been found to the building of the dam by our early settlers, while the construction of the fish-weirs are named again and again.
The dam as it exists at the present time raises the water above it, so as to present very pleasant water spaces to vary and enliven the appearance of this part of the town ; and above, at Bemis, at the Bleach- ery and at Waltham, many beautiful lake-like ex- panses of water, with their irregular succession of. tree-covered or grassy slopes, often with intervening islands, delight the eye of the observer and combine to make this river the pride of the poet and the painter, the constant and ever-present benefactor and delight of the people who dwell along its banks or are led by the needs of business, or are attracted by the charms of travel, to visit its winding course.
It is a matter of history that poets have been nursed on its banks. Although Longfellow lived just across the line, in Cambridge, and ever loved to look on the
" River that in silence windest Through the meadows, bright and free,"
Lowell was born and lived near the ancient land- ing of Saltonstall and Phillips, in what, for more than a hundred years, was a part of this town.
Fresh Pond, in the eastern part, now entirely gained by Cambridge; Lake Walden, in the north- western part, now within the bounds of Concord ; San- dy Pond, now in Lincoln; Nonesuch Pond, now in Weston ; Beaver Pond, and Sherman's Pond, recently Mead's Pond, now in Waltham, all belong to the old town of Watertown, and help to diversify the sur- face and enliven the landscape.
The trees about Waverly, notably some large but- tonwoods, an immense elm, and "The Oaks," many centuries old, are frequently visited. It has been estimated that the oaks are from four to nine hundred years old. It is said that over seven hundred con- centric rings have been counted in the stem of a fal- len oak of the group standing on the beautiful
moraine beyond the Waverly Station, on the banks of Beaver Brook. The writer counted over four hun- dred in a large branch. These oaks might have been standing when Lief and Thorfinn visited Vineland the Good, and if the Charles River is "the river which flowed through a lake into the sea," Gudrid, the wife of Thorfinn, may have rested under the branches of these very trees. At all events, poetry, the vague, indefinable influences of popular tradition, science, a praiseworthy regard for the instruction and the health of future generations, unite in asking that these ancient specimens of trees and terminal moraines may be preserved by making a park of the fields con- taining them. If Waltham does not feel moved to purchase and preserve this border portion of her ter- ritory, the State of Massachusetts certainly should, before the "monarchs of the forest" fall before the venal axe.
AGRICULTURAL CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE .- From what we know of the formation of the surface of the country in this vicinity, of the character of the soil, of the situation of the town in the immediate vicinity of the best harbor on the coast, and yet just enough removed to prevent active participation in commerce, and yet without sufficient water-power for extensive manufactures, we can see that if its people became active among the productive agencies of the Colony, or afterward in developing the resources of the young State that arose out of the fires of the Rev- olution in which it took a prominent part, if, in other words, it had seen intelligently its advantages and set actively and courageously at work to do what it was best fitted to do, it would have done exactly what it did do-namely, apply itself chiefly to agriculture. Watertown was soon the garden of Massachusetts Bay.
If we include what originally belonged to her, she is largely the garden for the production of a large part of the vegetable food of Boston to-day. She need not deny to Arlington, the daughter of her danghter Cambridge, all praise for her accomplish- ments in this direction. Blessed in like manner, she too has improved her advantages. And having poorer facilities for manufacturing industries, being more re- stricted in her range of employments, it would not be strange if her gardens outstripped her older neigh- bor's in productiveness.
Sir Richard Saltonstall made no mistake when he selected this valley for his home. Winthrop's party, of whom he was one of the chiefs, left Salem to ex- plore every nook and cranny of the shores of Massa- chusetts Bay. The traders and commercial adventur- ers who formed a large part of the party had in a measure taken possession of Charlestown slopes and Boston heights, so near an excellent land-locked har- bor and the mouths of two considerable rivers. Salt- onstall explored particularly the Massachusetts River, called by John Smith, whom all since have followed, the Charles, and had the wit to see the advantages of
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position and soils, and water and forests for a new set- tlement, such as he would most enjoy to see.1
Sir Richard had been a man of considerable landed possessions in Yorkshire, on which he must have made great sacrifices to come with three of his sons and two daughters, with many servants and "some store of cattle," to seek a new home and greater inde- pendence in a new country. It was with an eye to the natural advantages of position that he landed his stores and set down for the winter in that part of Watertown now within the municipal bounds of Cambridge.
There was no thought of other towns or cities then between Charlestown-or Charlton, as it was first called-and the place of his choice. We may not be able to fix upon the exact location of his house, but it was not far from midway between the homes of Longfellow and ot Lowell, if we mention names of men whom the world knows and honors, and who, long before they were so widely known, knew and loved every natural feature of their surroundings; or,- if we name localities marked by walls of stone and brick, albeit erected by the spirit of charity itself,-a little to the north and east of the present Cambridge Hospital. In the little cove in the bend of the river, below the cemetery and near the hospital, was the landing-place alike of Saltonstall, with his belongings, and of Phillips, the sturdy defender of independence in church and in state, with the several score of others who have become the progenitors of many a family now scattered over our broad country.
The lands immediately about the landing were well adapted for tillage, and being undulating and well drained on one slope by the river and on the north slope into the basin of Fresh Pond, were fortunately chosen for the homestalls of the colonists.
There was little waste or forest land in the vieinity- the first of which is seen by the fact of its being divided up into homesteads, or, as they are called in early records, homestalls, within a very few years among the first settlers and their immediate followers, and the lands ont several miles from their first lots were soon divided up for tillage and pasturage ; the second is seen by the frequent mention of orders passed to preserve the trees, and as if they were com- paratively few, and by the price placed on their use or destruction.
What we have mentioned and what we know con- cerning the character of the region justifies the first choice of Watertown by an agriculturist of the wealth and eminence of Sir Richard. That he did not long continue to make it his home or for the rest of his life, I fear we must read between the lines of the recorded history what is supplied without great diffi- culty. His servants and some of the people who
were attracted by him, and chosen with reference to their helpfulness, were agricultural in their training, rural in their spirit and their knowledge. He must have been a man of force of character, and might have been impatient in the short-comings of some whose attention was diverted by the strangeness of their surroundings from their master's interests. It is recorded November 20, 1630, that "Sir Richard Salt- onstall is fyned V. for whipping 2 several persons without the presence of another assistant, contrary to an act of Court formerly made," while before that he "is fyned 4 bushells of malte, for his absence from this Court."
It seems that long afterwards, some years after he had returned to his native England, where he contin- ued to show his kindly feelings for the Colony by many and delicate services which he then was enabled to perform, and atter he had shown his wise moderation hy his counsel against persecution for mere opinion's sake, that, by vote of the General Court of September 6, 1638, the Court did discharge the £5 fine, and the fine of "4 bushell- of mault." Mere feathers these : unmentionable littlenesses which may show some movements in the social or religious atmosphere which disappointed Sir Richard in his hope of freedom and independence. There is no disputing the fact that Watertown had the benefit of his good judgment at the start, of his choice of a religious leader and teacher, and of his continued friendship after he had returned to his native land ; but Watertown lost that influence at the seat of government that allowed con- tinued protection to her territories, which soon began to be and which continue to this day to be the envy of others and the constant prey of more powerful communities, as well as of divisions within herself, the Great and General Court always standing as judges. Whether the small territory left to bear the name of Watertowu be allowed to remain much longer undivided, or not wholly swallowed up by some more powerful municipality, or not, there ean never be denied her the privilege of looking over all the lands extending as far into the country as eight miles from the meeting-house, as the home of her founders. In view of the fact that the children of ancient Watertown now dwell in almost every part of the country, and that some of them have served in every war to protect her most extended interests, and the life of the Union itself, a little local family pride may be allowed them as they look back to their ancestral acres and in imagination recall the undivided interests of larger territories, when broad fields and extended slopes were their ancestors' possessions.
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