History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 5

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 5

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and Col. Ephraim Williams were among the most prominent. The Robinson farm, of 200 acres, cov- ered what is now Auburndale, reaching to the river. Here also was the Bourne house, Nathaniel Whitte- more's tavern, in 1724, and John Pigeon, that sterling patriot of the Revolution. Capt. Isaac Williamy was the ancestor of all of that name whom Newton delights to honor, who shone in the pulpit and the field, as scholars, statesnien and soldiers. Here also lived, till 1739, Col. Ephraim Williams, whose will, estab- lishing Williams College, has perpetuated his name and fame. Two or three roads were laid out through the Williams land, which are still among the most

important highways of the town. Dr. Samuel Wheat, the village physician, in and after 1733, bought fifty- five acres of this farm. In 1767, a hundred and three years after the formation of the First Church in Newton, Jonathan Williams and others petitioned the town that money might be granted from the town treasury to support preaching in the meeting-house in the west part of the town in winter. The petition was not granied; bnt in 1778, eleven years later, by order of the General Court, in October, a line was drawn establishing and defining the West Parish. This implies that the people had already quietly built a church for their accommodation, in faith that their reasonable request would at some future time be granted. The action of the Court gave the inhabit- ants liberty to elect to which parish they would be- long. For the erection of this new parish was not without opposition. The parish covered a wide ter- ritory, and numbered not more than thirty-five or forty families, and from fifty to sixty dwellings. The first church built here, of very modest dimensions, and afterwards enlarged, was, after a time, removed, and became first the Town Hall, and when Newton grew into a city, was again variously enlarged and improved, and is now the City Hall. The three elm- trees in front of what was the Greenough estate were planted by fond parishioners. John Barbour kept the hotel and set out the great elm before it. The salary of Parson Greenough, the first minister in West Newton, was £80 and fifteen cords of wood an- nually. All the ministers of his day on public occa- sions wore powdered wigs. Rev. Mr. Greenough held on to the last to small clothes, knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, and to the cocked hat, until the boys followed him when he walked in the streets of Boston.

As the settlement of Newton (Newton Corner) was the beginning of Cambridge Village (Newton), its growth in population and wealth has wonderfully extended. The earliest station of the Boston and Albany Railroad at this point, and until 1845-50, was a small room partitioned off from the westerly end of a harness-maker's shop. The village naturally extended southerly towards Newton Centre, where the meeting-house has stood since 1721, and onwards toward Newton Highlands and Oak Hill, and later in

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

every other direction. Farlow Park was the generous gift of a citizen, Mr. J. P. Fariow, given on condition that the ground should be graded and adorned by the city authorities. The first important streets in Cam- bridge Village were made in this part of Newton,- the road from Brighton westward (Washington Street) and the Dedham Road (Centre Street). Non- antum Hill, overlooking the village, was the home of Waban, and here, among the wigwams, near the Eliot monument, the apostle to the Indians first preached to them the Gospel. Farther south, on Waverly Avenue, was the home of Mr. John Kenrick, Jr., the first to embark in the nursery business in the vicinity of Boston, and the lydes, in the same business on Centre Street, both descendants of the first settlers. Mr. Kenrick was a man of substance, the first president of the first Anti-Slavery Society in the United States, and a liberal contributor to its funds; also, an efficient helper of the temperance reformation, and a friend of the poor and unfortu- nate in his native town. He left a fund, still exist- ing, to be loaned to enterprising young mechanies just starting in business. In his vicinity lived Dr. James Freeman, grandfather of Dr. James Freeman Clarke. He was once pastor of King's Chapel, Boston, eand under his lead that ancient church passed from the Episcopal faith to the Unitarian. Indian Lane (Sargent Street) was probably a path otten troddeu by the aborigines, and hence its name. Cotton Street, on the south side of the first cemetery, was one of the great streets of the town, accommodating all who came from " the east part," either to church on the Sabbath or to Lieut. John Spring's mill, on Mill Street.

NEWTONVILLE was chiefly known, in early times, as the Fuller farm, the residence of Judge Fuller (whose houseoccupied the same site now owned by ex-Gover- nor Claflin), and afterwards of his son-in-law, Gen. William Hull. This land was part of the farm pur- chased in 1638 of Thomas Mayhew, by Governor Simon Bradstreet. Newtonville in 1842 was only a flag-station of the Boston and Albany Railroad. A store- house for the Miller Bullough's grain stood near the track on Walnut Street, and an occasional traveler, wishing the cars to stop for him, was obliged to raise the flag. The establishment of the mixed high school here, and, later, the high school for the whole town, have given it importance.

NEWTON HIGHLANDS was chiefly known as the site of Mitchell's Tavern, kept in later times by Nancy Thornton, at the corner of Centre and Boylston Streets, and Bacon's Tavern, afterwards the estate of Dea. Asa Cook, wheelwright and undertaker, at the junction of Boylston and Elliott Streets. These two hotels caught the patronage of an extensive travel before the days of railroading, and were also the scene of convivial gatherings. A stone shop, for the blacksmith's craft, at the corner of Woodward Street, completed the conveniences of village life.

The railroad depot, of pink granite, was built by the Boston and Albany Railroad Corporation in 1886. The station has been fated to wear various names. The first was Oak Hill, though there was never a more level plain, and the heights of Oak Hill were far to the southeast; then it became Newton Dale and finally Newtou Highlands ; but the high land is a considerable distance away, to the southeast, south- west aud west. In this vicinity reside the twin brothers Cobb, Darins and Cyrus, artists; they were born in Malden, where their father, Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, was settled as a Universalist minister, and first saw the light of this world in the same house and the same chamber with the celebrated missionary to Burmah, the Rev. Adoniram Judson.

AUBURNDALE anciently was best kuown as the home of the fervent patriot of the Revolution, John Pigeon. His house afterwards became, for several years, the Newton Almshouse. In 1800, within the present limits of Auburndale, extending to the Weston Bridge, there were only seven houses. The old Whittemore tavern stood near the bridge, at Woodlaud Avenue, and was known as a house of entertainment in 1724. The starting of the village is due to a casual conver- sation in Newton Centre between Rev. Messrs. Gilbert, of West Newton, and Rev. Chas. du Marisque Pigeon, a scion of the John Pigeon household, in reference to Hull's Crossing, as the possible site of a future village, and a good place for the profitable investment of funds. Lasell Seminary has been one of the chief elements of its prosperity. The Rev. Mr. Pigeon and Rev. Messrs. Woodbridge and Partridge, his neigh- bors, in this so-called "Saints' Rest," after protracted consultation, agreed, in memory of the line,

" Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,"

on the uame Auburndale, which it has ever since en- joyed.

The three new stations ou the Newton Circuit Rail- road, lying between Newton Highlands and River- side, are just becoming the nucleus of new villages in Newton,

ELIOT, near Elliott Street, and near the old toll- house, still standing, on the former Worcester Turn- pike, seems, from its spelling, to be designed as a memorial of Rev. John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians. Very near it is the house of the renowned General Cheney, and the home of the Ellis family, the birthplace of two distinguished Unitarian clergymen of Boston, Rev. Messrs. George E. and Rufus Eilis. The plain north of Eliot is said by geologists to have once been an extensive lake, whose dark ooze is turned up twenty or thirty feet below the surface. Singular hollows exist, of funnel shape, at various points, at the bottom of which large trees are growing.

CHESTNUT HILL, now a lovely and cultivated swell of land, adorned with tasteful dwellings and evergreen shrubbery, was for many years a dry and breezy ex- I panse of pasture. On Beacon Street, on the northern

NEWTON.

side of the hill, still stands the old Hammond house, built in 1730, an ancient unpainted structure with its rear facing the street, and the roof descending almost to the ground. The ancient Kingsbury house was the home of John Parker, who came from Hingham in 1650. Its huge chimney and broad, uncomely barns near the house, and mighty overhanging elm, proclaim its age. In 1700 part of the estate passed into the hands of Hon. Ebenezer Stone. The Dr. Slade house, corner of Beacon and Hammond Streets, was honored by the reception of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, when he visited the United States in 1876 .. The house of Judge Lowell was built by one of the Hanımonds in 1773, and remained in the family over eighty years. It came to the Lowells after 1850. Hammond's Pond covers about twenty acres. Thomas, after whom it was named, was one of the three richest colonists of Newton, the other two being John and Edward Jackson. Another settler in this vicinity was Vincent Druce, who built the house on the Denny place, about 1695. Before the war of King Philip Thomas Greenwood, the weaver and town clerk, lived in this vicinity. Up to 1850 all Chestnut Hill, except the forests and pasture lands, was occupied as market gardens by Messrs. Kingsbury, Woodward and the Stones.

Up to that time the streets were grassy lanes, bordered by weeds and brush. In about 1850 an arti- ficial channel was dug from Hammond's Pond, by which the overflow was to be conducted into Smelt Brook, thns increasing the power of the mill on Mill Street, formerly Lieutenant John Spring's. The grounds near the railroad station were laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead, and the station itself is a gem of architecture by the late H. H. Richardson, of Brookline. The more recent inhabitants have been sometimes called "the Essex Colony," because its chief families originated in Essex County, Mass .; the Saltonstalls and Lees being from Salem, and the Lowells from Newbury.

WABAN is said to have been a favorite hunting- ground of Waban, the chief of the Nonantum Indians, where he encamped spring and fall with parties of his people, to hunt and fish along the banks of the Quinobequin (Charles River). He was Eliot's first convert, and it is fitting that these two villages, side by side, should be a memorial of their relations, as Gospel teacher and catechumen. The region now constituting Waban was the farm of John Staples, the first schoolmaster of Newton. The farm has passed through several hands since his time, as Moses Craft, 1729; Joseph Craft, 1753; William Wiswall, 1788; David Kinmouth, merchant of Boston, and William C. Strong, whose extensive nurseries are everywhere celebrated. Moffatt Hill, on this estate, was so called after the name of a resident on it for a brief period. When the new streets of Wahan were built to its summit, the name was changed to Beacon Hill, because for several years the beacon of the

United States Coast Survey and of the State Survey of Massachusetts was its most striking featurc.

WOODLAND STATION is chiefly interesting, thus far. as the seat of the Woodland Park Hotel and the Newton Cottage Hospital. Near the former is the site of the old Stimson place, so called, well known by residents of a hundred or more years ago. It owes its importance to the station built here on the Newton Circuit Railroad. Being continnous with Auburn- dale, of which it is really only a suburb, the pleasant scenery and palatial homes of that village are justly claimed as belonging to both villages alike.

RIVERSIDE .- This station, the seat of Miss Smith's Home and Day School, is the point between Wood- land and Auburndale, where the Charles River, just below the tracks of the railroad, furnishes a delight- ful naval station. Here the Boston and Albany Rail- road sends off a branch from the main road to the Lower Falls, and on the opposite side the circnit road comes in from Newton Centre. The club-house of the Newton Boat Club, and the romantic boat-build- ers' shop on the river below, are the main features. The club was organized in 1875, having now about 200 members. The boating-ground is about five miles long, from Waltham to the rapids, near County Rock. An annual gala day festival is held in the antnmn, when sometimes four hundred boats are in linc.

THE NORTH VILLAGE, or NONANTUM, was on both sides of Charles River, and for many years known as Bemis' Factory. All the land on the Newton side of the river, from near the Watertown line to the north end of Fox Island, for a century or more from the first settlement belonged to Richard Park and John Fuller and their heirs. This tract now belongs, by cession of Newton, to Waltham. John Fuller had seven sons. With some or all of them he went out once upon a time to explore the surrounding wilder- ness. At noon-day, hungry and weary, they sat down to refresh themselves on the banks of a brook with cheese and cake; and the stream hence acquired the name of Cheesecake Brook. Previous to 1764 David Bemis bought sixty-four acres of land on the Water- town side, embracing all the land now covered by the village on that side of the river. In 1778, in connec- tion with Dr. Enos Sumner, who owned the land on the Newton side, he built the original dam across the river. A paper-mill was erected in 1779, and the Bemises, father and son, carried on this business, alone or in association with others, till 1821, when the water-power was sold to Seth Bemis. Captain Luke Bemis is regarded as the first successful paper manu- facturer in Massachusetts. He had to overcome great difficulties, and to import many of his workmen and most of his machinery from Europe. But so important was the manufacture to the interests of the country, that when his works were destroyed by fire, the Leg- islature of Massachusetts voted a special grant to en- able him to rebuild his mill.

While David Bemis and his son Luke were manu-

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

facturing paper on the Newton side of the river, the foriner built a grist-mill and snuff-mill on the Water- town side, which was inherited by his sons Luke and Feth. The latter carried on successfully the manu- facture of chocolate, dye-woods and medicinal roots till 1803, and then turned his attention to cotton ma- chinery. The profits derived from his cotton-warp were said to be alnost fabulous. With the aid of foreign weavers, in 1808 or 1809, Mr. Bemis began the manufacture of sheeting, shirting, bed-ticking, satinet and cotton-duck, Mr. Bemis being the first manu- facturer of the latter article in the United States. In 1812 Mr. Bemis built a gas-house in connection with his works. This is said to have been the first attempt in the United States to manufacture coal-gas. Thus carburetted hydrogen for illuminating purposes gleamed out over the water of Charles River from the windows of the Bemis factory and irradiated the in- tervales of Newton two years before it was in use in England.

For the first eighteen or twenty years the em- ployees in this busy village were summoned to their work by the blast of a horn. This led to the ludi- erous name of " Tin Horn," long afterwards applied to the village. From the original purchase in 1753 this property was in the Bemis family a full century and a quarter on the Watertown side, and nearly a cen- tury on the Newton side. A bridge, which was pri- vate property, was built across the river by the Be- mises between 1790 and 1796. For ten or twelve yards it was without railing. In 1807 the Watertown end was carried away by a freshet, and only a foot- bridge took its place for two or three years. A new bridge was built for teams, but in 1818 the same end was again carried away. The road leading across the bridge was laid out as a public highway in 1816, and in later times received the name of California Street.

CEMETERIES .- The first cemetery in Newton was that on the east side of Centre Street, opposite the estate of the late Gardner Colby. An acre of land was given by Deacon John Jackson " for a meeting- hou-e and for a burying-place." The first church was in the centre of the cemetery. The place was afterwards enlarged by another acre, given by his son, Abraham Jackson; but no deed of this acre being recorded, and a later heir setting up a claim to it, the town, in 1765, relinquished the piece on the southwest corner, bounded on Cotton and Centre Streets, and voted " to settle the bounds and fence the burying-place, meas- uring one acre and three-quarters and twenty rods." An addition on the cast side was purchased in 1834, making the whole arca nearly three acres. The twenty-nere lot east of the cemetery was anciently called Chestnut Hill. The first tenant of the ceme- tery was the wife of John Eliot, Jr., the young pas- tor. She was the daughter of Thomas Willett, the first mayor of New York City, and died April 13, 1665. It is a singular coincidence that the wife of the apostle Eliot, father of this John, is said to have been

the first tenant of the Eustis Street Cemetery in Rox- bury, where the Indian apostle also is buried. The second is supposed to have been the young pastor himself. On a mound not far from the entrance of the cemetery, the two later pastors, Homer and Graf- ton, who labored together side by side, the one a pas- tor more than half a century and the other not much less, sleep under fitting monuments. Near the grave of General William Hull is a spreading willow, raised from a slip of a willow which grew on the resting- place of Napoleon on the island of St. Helena. From the time when the ceremony of Decoration day began to be kept, Mr. Seth Davis, of West Newton, then a nonagenarian, took pains, annually and alone, to travel two miles from his home to lay his tribute on the grave of General Hull. He was a friend of the general, and thought he had been treated unjustly. In 1823 the town erected a monument to the memory of John Eliot, Jr., with a suitable inscription. The descendants of the families of the first settlers erected a conspicuous but modest monument in the centre of this ancient cemetery in the year 1852, designed to perpetuate the memory of their early ancestors. It is a plain obelisk or pillar, having recorded on it the names of the first twenty settlers of Newton, with the dates of their settlement and death, and ages at the time of their death. The inscriptions on the other three sides of the monument are as follows : Thomas Wiswall, ordained Ruling Elder July 20, 1664. His son, Enoch, of Dorchester, died November 28, 1706, aged seventy-three. Rev. Icbabod, minister of Dux- bury thirty years, agent of Plymouth Colony in Eng- land, 1690. Died July 23, 1700, aged sixty-three. Captain Noah, of Newton, an officer in the expedition against Canada, killed in battle with the French and Indians, July 6, 1690, aged fifty, leaving a son Thomas. Ebenezer, of Newton, died June 21, 1691, aged forty-five.

Rev. Jobn Eliot, Jr., first pastor of the First Church, ordained July 20, 1664. His widow married Edmund Quincy, of Braintree, and died in 1700. Ilis only daughter married John Bowles, Esq., of Roxbury, and died May 23, 1687. His only son, John, settled in Windsor, Connecticut, where he died in 1733, leaving a son John, a student in Yale Col- lege.

Deacon John Jackson gave one acre of land for this burial-place and First Church, which was erected upon this spot in 1660. Abraham Jackson, son of Deacon John, gave one acre, which two acres form the old part of this cemetery. Edward Jackson gave twenty acres for the parsonage in 1660, and thirty-one acres for the ministerial wood-lot in 1681. His widow, Elizabeth, died September, 1809, aged ninety-two.

On a green mound, not far from the entrance, stand two white monuments, similar in form, dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Ilomer and Rev. Mr. Grafton, pastors for about half a century each over the neighboring Congregational and Baptist Churches. They lived

NEWTON.

and labored side by side, in harmony, as faithful shepherds, and in death they are not divided. These monuments were erected by subscriptions of $1.00 each, through the energy of Mr. Thomas Edmunds. A multitude were glad in this way to honor their be- loved pastors.

Colonel Nathan Fuller gave to the West Parish for a cemetery an acre and a half of land, in September, 1781, about the time of the settlement of the first pas- tor, Rev. William Greenough. It lies about sixty rods north of the meeting-house. The first tenant of the cemetery was a young woman seventeen years of age, who died of the small-pox. The first man buried here is John Barbour, who kept the tavern near the meeting-house, and set out the great elm in front of it on Washington Street in 1767. His widow mar- ried Samuel Jenks, father of Rev. Dr. William Jenks, of Boston.

The South Burial-ground, near the corner of Cen- tre and Needham Streets, was laid out in 1802. A committee of the inhabitants of the south part of the town bought three-quarters of an acre of land of Captain David Richardson for a cemetery. Part of the ground was laid out in equal family lots for the original subscribers. About 1833 Mr. Amasa Win- chester gave to the town three-quarters of an acre ad- joining, and the town purchased the cemetery of the proprietors. This shaded nook was used for many years for the convenience of families living in and near Oak Hill and the Upper Falls. The residents of the Upper Falls had no other burying-place.

St. Mary's Parish, Lower Falls, was incorporated by the General Court in 1813, and about the same date two acres of land were presented to the corpora- tion for the church and cemetery by Mr. Samuel Brown, of Boston. One of the most interesting of the memorials of the silent sleepers in this cemetery is that of Zibeon Hooker, a drummer in the Revolu- tionary War, who died aged eighty. His bass-drum was perforated by a British bullet in the battle of Bunker Hill.

The older cemeteries being small and crowded, and the spirit of the times demanding an improvement in the matter of the buriat of the dead, the beautiful ceme- tery on Walnut Street, near the centre of Newton, was commenced in 1855. At first, thirty acres of land were purchased, admirably adapted to such a use, and later, thirty-five acres additional, extending from Beacon Street nearly to Homer Street. Dr. Henry Bigelow was the first president of the Board of Trus- tees. Mr. Henry Ross was appointed superintendent in 1861. The cemetery was dedicated by public ex- ercises June 10, 1857 : prayer by Rev. D. L. Furber ; address by Prof. F. D. Huntington, of Harvard Col- lege. The gateway was completed in 1871. The Sol- diers' Monument, near the entrance, was dedicated by prayer and eloquent addresses July 23, 1864. The oration was by Rev. Prof. H. B. Hackett, of the Newton Theological Institution. It was one of the first

memorials, if not the first, erected in honor of the patriots who fell in the Civil War. Hon. J. Wiley Edmands headed the subscriptions for the monument by a pledge of $1000. Nearly $1200 were raised by pledges of one dollar each by the citizens of Newton ; more than 1100 children of the public schools gave one dime each. The monument and surroundings cost $5220.50 ; the land constituting the soldiers' lot was given by the city. The entablature records the names of 59 Newton men who sacrificed their lives for their country. The chapel, built at an expense of $20,000, was a gift of the city by J. S. Farlow, Esq. One of the lots in this cemetery, called "the Mission- ary Lot," belongs to the American Baptist Mission- ary Union, where veteran missionaries, returning to this vicinity and dying at home, may be buried, unless their friends direct otherwise. The first to be laid here was Rev. Benj. C. Thomas, 1869, for twenty years a missionary in Burmah ; the second, Mrs. Ash- more, missionary in China.

THE REVOLUTION .- Newton has been distinguish- ed from the beginning by its patriotic and military . spirit. The Common at Newton Centre was given to the town for a training-field forever, nearly two-thirds by Jonathan Hyde and one-third by Elder Wiswall. No deed of the gift remains, but it is known to have been in possession of the town since 1711. In 1799 a powder-house was built on it, on the east side, near where Lyman Street begins, and stood about fifty years. A second training-field, measuring 186 rods, and bounded on all sides by townways, was laid out at Newtonville in 1735, by Capt. Joseph Fuller, and given "to the military foot company forever." But after the Revolutionary War was ended, and the gov- ernment established, this field was discontinued and returned to the legal heirs. A large number of New- ton's citizens bore military titles. In a register ex- tending to the year 1800 there are two generals, nine colonels, three majors, forty-one captains, twenty-one lieutenants and eight ensigns. In the events preced- ing and accompanying the Revolution, " the inhah- itants of Newton, almost to a man," says Mr. Jackson, " made the most heroic and vigorous efforts to sustain the common cause of the country, from the first hour to the last." Oct. 21, 1765, ten days before the Stamp Act was to go into operation, the town recorded its first patriotic and revolutionary action in the form of in- structions to Capt. Abraham Fuller, their representa- tive to the General Court. The instructions closed with these heroic words : "Voted that the foregoing instructions be the instructions to the Representative of this town, and that he is now enjoined firmly to adhere to the same; also, that the same be recorded in the Town Book, that posterity may see and know the great concern the people of this day had for their invaluable rights and privileges and liberties."

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 5

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278