USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Needham > History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711-1911 : including West Needham, now the town of Wellesley, to its separation from Needham in 1881, with some reference to its affairs to 1911 > Part 43
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Wellesley > History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711-1911 : including West Needham, now the town of Wellesley, to its separation from Needham in 1881, with some reference to its affairs to 1911 > Part 43
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and to be under proper regulations " "each Docter that shall attend said Hofpitals Should give a bond to the Town Treaft of Fifty pounds to be paid by them for each person they Shall Enoculate before each patient Sign a bond of Ten pounds To said Treaf! in Case either of them go out of the Limmits Set by the Selectmen and Said Committee round the Hofpitals they Refpectively belong to" "The Doctors Should have liberty to Enoculate till the First monday in October". Nathan Dewing, Moses Fisk, Colonel Alden, Cornet Joseph Mudg (as he wrote his name), Dr. Samuel Gould and Benjamin Slack were chosen to manage the hospitals. In 1806 the town was at some expense on account of the smallpox, and article 3 of the warrant for September 18, 1809, read "to see if the Town would wish to have the Kine Pock go through the Town", the select- men to "afsist any one if in their judgment they shall think proper". Thanks were voted to the Town of Milton "for their benevolent communication in regard to the Kine Pock", and the following April Drs. Gould and Morrill and David Ayers were chosen to superintend "the inocula- tion with the Cowe Pox". In 1811 Dr. Gould charged the town seventy-five cents for "Inonclating three persons with the kine Pock". On May 13, 1816, a committee, con- sisting of one from each school district, was chosen "to manage Communication Gen! Hospita!". At the annual meeting in 1833 the selectmen were chosen a committee "to attend to the Inoculation of the kine pox", and in 1836 Capt. Josiah Newell's old house was wanted as a "Hospital for the small Pox", and Dea. Jonathan Newell was induced to move out of it. This was probably the ancient Newell house that stood in the pasture between Charles H. W. Foster's and Central Avenue. This disease was prevalent in the State in 1872 and in 1873, and Needham did not escape, which resulted in the building of a pest-house on the poor- farm, and considerable expense in caring for the sick. Since 1874 this structure has been used for various purposes.
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
BOARD OF HEALTH
In 1877 the selectmen were chosen as the board of health, but in 1885 a separate board was elected. In 1891 the select- men again became the board of health, and Albert M. Miller, M.D., was appointed "Health Officer", and served four years. Dr. Miller had been a member of the board of health 1885-90.
Slabes
The institution of human slavery never flourished in Needham, but a few blacks were held in bondage here, as the Church records and inventories of estates testify. At the time of the War of the American Revolution Capt. William Faris, a Loyalist, and William Bowdoin, Esq., were the only slave holders in town, and were each taxed for one slave. In 1775 "two negro Child- Belonging to Cap" William Faris named Prince & Silvia" were baptized by the minister of the First Church. The late Horace Mann stated that he found the names of four slaves of Capt. Faris (Farris) :- Jack, who went to England in 1779, Sylvia, who was sold to Sir Henry Frankland, Terence, who died of the smallpox, and Phebe. Mr. Mann said that the Phebe included in his list was supported by the Farris family in her old age. If so, apparently there were two Phebes. In 1789 Eliab Moor was granted £3, 6s. for "Board- ing and Nurfing Phebe Farris a Black woman", David Hall £I, IOS. "for a Sheet and hankerchief that Said Phebe was buried in", David Bacon seven shillings for her coffin, and William Dunton three shillings for digging her grave. She died after a long illness during which she was attended by Dr. Morrill. Her child was also "on the town" in 1789, and in 1792 Phebe's son was boarded with Jethro Cato, a negro. About 1790 a "Malatto Girl" is referred to in the town records. It does not appear whether Elizabeth Zetor, "Mulatoe", had been a slave or not, but in 1771 the town bore the expense of her last illness and burial.
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
FREE NEGROES
In 1801 Boston Fude was a conspicuous negro, or half- breed, whose family is often mentioned in the records, and he ultimately came on the town. His daughter, wife of "prince Cook", got badly burned in 1802, but not fatally, and that year her child died, its coffin costing the town $1.33. Pomp Allen was in Needham as early as 1804, and Cato Boston in 1816, when the town attempted to rid him of pediculidae. In 1817 "Boston" was "in gaol", but it does not appear whether Boston Fude or Cato Boston was thus imprisoned. Late in 1816 Luther Smith, 2d, for many years the sexton of the West Precinct, buried "Rebeccah Jahaw who died at Primas Kings", and in 1817 the Sisco family was on the town, including the "wife of Sisco a person of color". Susan Kitteridge and Jenny Kitteridge were also assisted. Jethro Cato died about 1817, or 1818, and his widow Dinah, who lived just at the point where Charles River Street and Pine Street come together, was a ward of the town, and such items as $5 for "repairing Mrs. Dinah's house" are among the selectmen's orders. The old South school-house was east of her dwelling and nearer to it than the school building that was burned on August 18, 1899, and which had been used for social gatherings for some years. Owing to its proximity to Dinah's, this school was called the Dinah School, and after the lapse of a century this name is occasionally heard. It is not quite as serious an offence to speak of the Parker School as the Dinah School as it is to refer to Greendale by its ancient name of Pudding Point, a designation discontinued within thirty years. Dinah's little home finally came into the possession of the town, by authority of the General Court, and a part of the place was sold in 1831, and the remainder a few years later. Royal Woodward paid $15.25 for the "Dinah Barn" in 1835. The property is referred to in town warrants as the "Dinah Farm". The Coffee family long existed in
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
Needham, but by July, 1823, both Ishmael and his wife were dead. There was one Newport Green, who boarded colored people, and he may have been of mixed race. The Natick Indians, which included remnants of several tribes, had by 1750 a considerable infusion of negro blood, and it is probable that Oliver Cromwell, Jethro Cato, and others represented both races. The rather notorious Jupiter Coffee, who had been a slave, intermarried with an Indian, and a citizen of our town, than whom no man was better known twenty-five years ago, was said to be of Coffee and Indian descent.
On April 7, 1851, the town adopted a preamble and reso- lutions as to the Fugitive Slave Law, which was not accept- able to Needham, and three years later protested against the "admission of Slavery into territory now free".
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Physicians
Dr. Joshua Wheat came to Needham in 1729 and lived nearly opposite the northeast end of Longfellow's Pond, on the corner at the termination of Oakland Street. It does not appear that his practice became lucrative. He died March 2, 1762, at Jonathan Huntting's house. Dr. John Allen of Newton, previously referred to, attended the poor in Needham from about 1743 to 1756. In 1768 Dr. "Downna" was granted £1 "for his coming to one time
when he Broke his Bones the Laft year"; this presumably refers to Dr. Eliphalet Downer of Newton, who practiced here prior to the Revolution, as did Dr. Nathaniel Ames of Dedham and a Dr. Adams, all of whom were employed by the town. In fact the orders given for attendance upon the town's poor are about the only source of information avail- able as to the doctors who had patients in Needham before 1825. Dr. William Deming, who lived on the east side of what is now Washington Street, north of Wellesley Avenue, in a house which Robert Jennison finished in 1755, was our earliest resident physician with the exception of Dr. Wheat. Dr. Deming practiced in town about thirty-five years, until his death in 1789 at the age of sixty-two years. His grave- stone is in Woodlawn Cemetery, Wellesley. He died of the "great cold" or influenza, during an epidemic. It has been said that the old-school doctors left the care of children en- tirely to the women, and this is true to a great extent, but Dr. Deming was the recipient of quaint orders on account of "Sundry Vifets and Medicens applied" to children who were on the town. Dr. Nathaniel Tolman, whose family
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
were of Needham, ministered to the poor of the town before 1775, and from 1774 to 1792 Dr. Josiah Starr of Weston attended them at times. In 1781 Dr. William Ward, and in 1783 Dr. John King, the latter of "Newtown," were employed by the town. In May, 1791, Dr. Isaac Morrill of Natick, who became a citizen of Needham in 1797 by the change in the boundary, had been "Doctering" the town's poor for some years. He was one of our earliest resident doctors, and lived to be ninety-one years old, dying May 5, 1839. He presented to his successor, Dr. Noyes, some ancient and unpleasant-looking surgical instruments, samples of which have been presented to the Dover Historical Society by Mr. Ward N. Hunt. Dr. Morrill lived on Wash- ington Street in a house now owned by the Hunnewell family. Dr. Timothy Fuller was born in East Needham, and lived there, presumably practicing his profession, but he died January 12, 1799, at the early age of thirty-three years. There are selectmen's orders in his favor on account of attendance on the poor. He studied medicine with Dr. Samuel Willard of Uxbridge. In 1792 Dr. Peter Fisk of West Needham, who long practiced in Needham, was em- ployed by the town at £2, 2s. per year to treat the poor, but Daniel Breding, who does not have the title of Doctor in our records, was also paid for medical services. Dr. Fisk removed to Warwick and died there. Dr. Ebenezer Starr, a son of Dr. Josiah Starr, came to town in 1791, but removed to Newton Lower Falls, where he was in practice about forty years to his death August 24, 1830. He occa- sionally had a bill against the Town of Needham, and pre- sumably had patients there other than the poor. Dr. Samuel Adams, M.B. 1794, M.D. 1802, Harvard, is said to have settled in East Needham, but removed to Boston, and thence to Cincinnati, where he died in 1845, aged seventy-four years.
Dr. Samuel Gould came to town about 1800, and lived on the north corner of what is now Highland Avenue and Rosemary Street. He practiced medicine, and his name
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
occurs among those whose services were availed of by the town. Until into the nineteenth century bleeding was a favorite prescription, and Dr. Gould resorted to it after Dr. Noyes came to town in 1825. Dr. Gould removed to Dedham between May 1, 1828, and May, 1832. All of our earlier doctors were more or less in public office. Dr. Mor- rill served as a tythingman in 1811, '13, '15, '18, and as fence viewer in 1816. Dr. Gould appears to have been more prominent as a school-master and town officer than as a physician.
In addition to payments to doctors resident in towns as distant as Boston and Cambridge, for Needham was some- times responsible for persons who had removed from town, but had not acquired other settlements, there were orders from 1795 to 1820 in favor of the following physicians living in near by towns :- Drs. George Caryl of Dover, Jesse Wheaton of Dedham, Asa Adams, Aaron(?) Wight of Med- way? earlier of Medfield, Aaron Hill, Marshall(?) Spring of Watertown?, Benjamin Waterhouse of Cambridge, John Ball Kitteridge (Kittredge) of Framingham, William Stone, Daniel Swan of Medford, Alexander Thayer of Boston(?), Jeremy Stimson of Dedham and Samuel Flanders. From 1821 to 1850 the local doctors, particularly Dr. Noyes, at- tended the poor, but the names of the following out of town practitioners occur :- Drs. Moore, Stephen H. Spaulding of Newton Upper Falls 1841-3, Henry Starr, Simeon Burt Carpenter, successor of Dr. Ebenezer Starr at Newton Lower Falls, and later at Dedham many years, Ezra Nichols of Newton, who set a broken leg, E. L. Warren, surgeon, and Tappan Eustis Francis of Brookline, surgeon. Dr. Francis located at Newton Lower Falls in 1848, and was there about three years. Edward Warren was a physician at Newton Lower Falls from 1840 to 1857.
Dr. Josiah Noyes came to Needham in 1825 and practiced there till his death in 1871. A sketch of his life will be found later in this book.
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
Dr. Albert Dexter Kingsbury, M.D. Georgetown Uni- versity, D. C., 1869, succeeded Dr. Noyes, so far as East Needham was concerned, coming to town about the time of the latter's decease. Dr. Kingsbury has had an extensive practice, and has been prominent in the affairs of the town and of the Evangelical Congregational Church. He has been commander of Galen Orr Post G. A. R. Kingsbury Block bears his name, and he is the owner of other property in the business section. During the years 1894-9 he was away from town, and in 1894 and 1895 Dr. Frank P. Hudnut occupied his house, and in a measure had his practice. Dr. Osman H. Hubbard took Dr. Hudnut's place from 1895 to 1898, and remained in town a year or so after Dr. Kingsbury's return.
Dr. Henry Tucker Mansfield, M.D. Harvard 1869, has been a highly respected citizen of Needham, and an able and faithful physician in that town for nearly forty years. He has been the town doctor for many years, and is esteemed by all for his kindness of heart and genial manners. He also is a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the navy.
Dr. Albert Ebur Miller, M.D. University of Pennsyl- vania, acquired real estate interests here in the seventies, and became a citizen of this town in 1876, and for consider- ably more than thirty years has practiced medicine here, at the same time continuing his office in Boston. Dr. Miller is one of the most prominent residents of the town, and his wife, Mrs. Vesta Delphine Miller, was a greatly beloved physician, of whom some account will be found in the chap- ter devoted to Temperance. Dr. Albert Monroe Miller, M.D. Dartmouth 1882, is a nephew of Dr. A. E. Miller, and has practiced in this town and vicinity since his graduation, also serving as agent of the board of health, as a town physi- cian, and at the present time as a medical inspector of the schools.
Dr. James Henry Grant, M.D. Bowdoin 1856, was for many years a noted doctor at Newton Upper Falls, and came
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
to Needham to pass his declining years, but occasionally attended a patient, some of the older people preferring him. He was a doctor of the old school, a familiar figure on our streets, and recognized as a sturdy champion of good govern- ment. He impressed the writer as a rugged character, large in body and mind. He died December 24, 1900.
Dr. William Mitchell of Needham Heights, M.D. McGill College and University, came to town in 1898 or 1899, and is an able and successful physician. Dr. Charles Wood Pease, M.D. Dartmouth 1899, is one of the younger doctors in town, and practiced here for some time before removing to Merrimac. He returned to Needham in 1904, or early in 1905, and resumed his practice in this locality.
Since 1900 Dr. Merton K. Cole has practiced here as an osteopathic physician, and for a number of years lived in town. Dr. J. Walter Schirmer, a young homeopathic prac- titioner, located in Needham in 1909, or 1910, and is a fine musician in addition to professional accomplishments. He received the degree of M.D. from Boston University in 1908, and did post-graduate work at the University of Vienna in 1909. He is instructor in sanitary science at the Boston University School of Medicine, and assistant ortho- pædic surgeon at the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital.
Isaac Hills Hazelton, who was born May 17, 1838, ap- pears to have been the only physician resident in what is now Wellesley in the early seventies. He graduated at the Medical School of Harvard University in 1861. Under date of June 7, 1909, Dr. Hazelton wrote: "I came to Grantville (now Wellesley Hills) August, 1872. At that time Dr. Townsend, of South Natick, and Dr. Lord of Newton Lower Falls had the greater part of the practice in these parts. Dr. Townsend had been in S. Natick many years having the best of the work to do. Before Dr. Lord went to Newton Lower Falls there were two physicians there, Dr. Warren and Dr. Perkins, who must have been in practice in 1850." "I was an Assistant Surgeon in the
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
regular Navy 1861-5: think I served longer than any man in town, full four years." "Am Companion in the Loyal Legion." "The house I now live in was built before the Revolutionary War as two men lived here who went to Concord". The doctors referred to by Dr. Hazelton were Dr. George J. Townsend, who for years came to West Needham daily, often several times in a day, and Dr. Friend D. Lord, who died December 8, 1883, in his sixty-second year.
Uranus Owen Brackett Wingate, M.D. Dartmouth 1875, located in what is now the Town of Wellesley in 1875, and practiced there till 1886, when he went to Milwaukee, where he has been a professor in the Wisconsin College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, and a well-known writer on medical topics. When sixteen years old he entered the Union Army and was with General William T. Sherman. About 1876 Dr. George H. Hackett came to the West part of the town, but does not appear to have remained there more than a year or two ..
DOCTOR JOSIAH NOYES
Josiah Noyes was born in Acton, Mass., October 8, 1801, and in childhood removed with his family to Westmore- land, N. H. In 1825 he received the degree of M.D. from Dartmouth College, and that year went to Needham to visit his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Noyes, then minister of the West Church there. It was late in the evening when Josiah reached Needham Centre, and he accepted an in- vitation to pass the night at the house of Major Ebenezer McIntosh. This house had been built by the Major in 1822, and was purchased by Dr. Noyes in 1835, and was his home during the rest of his life. The estate consisted of two acres, with barn, ox-shed and other outbuildings, and joins the home of the writer, who was the Doctor's next neighbor on the north. Young Noyes was so favorably impressed with Needham that he decided to remain, teach-
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
ing school and practicing medicine. For some years he boarded at a house that stood close to the Charles River, on the easterly side of South Street, in Charles River Vil- lage. On November 12, 1834, he removed to the Centre of the town, and December 19, 1835, he was married to Eliza- beth, daughter of David and Nancy (Cutting) Hunt of Boylston. Mrs. Noyes was born in Boylston, September 5, 1815, and died in Needham, September 21, 1902. She came to Needham in 1831 to attend the private school, or academy, of the Rev. Daniel Kimball, and was highly re- spected by successive generations. Dr. Noyes was a founder of the Needham Temperance Society, and was active in the temperance cause throughout the County. He was no less prominent in the lyceums, and was well known as a lecturer on scientific topics. For sixteen years, 1828-34, '36-44, inclusive, he was a useful member of the Superin- tending School Committee. His interest in everything of a scientific character was unfailing, but in botany he ex- celled, and the manuscript volumes, which contain speci- mens with his notes, his "herbarium," as he called them, have been consulted in recent years by expert botanists, who say that the books are of great value.
It has been said that Dr. Noyes was invited to give twelve lectures on Comparative Botany in the Lowell In- stitute courses, and was to receive $1200 as compensation, a large sum in the eyes of a country doctor, but that he was too modest in estimating his own abilities, and declined the tempting offer. He had some skill as a surveyor, and assisted materially in the preparation of the 1831 map of the town. He played the violoncello in the Church, and had a small organ at his house, which afforded him much pleas- ure; he was also a singer. His diary, 1825-36, has been of service to local antiquaries, and his note-books show his scholarly interests, as do his astronomical and other charts, which were made with skill and much patient labor. He kept an elaborate record of the weather, of the coming of
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THE HISTORY OF NEEDHAM
the birds, of the appearance of the flowers, described his practice, and told of the journeys that he made to West- moreland, N. H., to visit his relatives. It is to be re- gretted that his journal subsequent to 1836 has not been preserved. He was prominent in the Masonic fraternity, a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Pil- grim Society, and doubtless of other organizations. In 1857 he and his wife were among the original members of the Evangelical Congregational Church in Needham. He was a strong Jeffersonian, and his support of President Jackson was offensive to some persons, including his wife's family. Dr. Noyes had a large practice, and was greatly beloved. He furnished the medicines, and until late in life his fee was fifty cents in the daytime, and seventy-five cents in the night, but his carelessness as a collector was proverbial, and he was sadly imposed upon. In many instances there was no disposition shown to pay him his modest bills, and his administrator could obtain only $1700 out of $7000 charged. Much of it was outlawed, and considerable sums were offset by fictitious claims; a familiar trick in the older Needham, when the creditor was dead.
Many anecdotes are still told of the Doctor, who was of the "old school", although in some respects ahead of his time, and the writer can recall the venerable white horse and the chaise that made their daily rounds. The Doctor died after a brief illness January 6, 1871, and his grave is marked by a monument erected by the people whom he served so faithfully for three generations. The picture of the Doctor's house was contributed by his brother-in-law, Mr. Ward Nicholas Hunt, but lacks the long shed on the east end of the dwelling, and the ox-barn, which was at right angles with the other barn, and between it and the well-curb. Both of these buildings were taken away within a few years of the Doctor's death.
Noyes Street is named in memory of Dr. Noyes.
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Fire Department
For many decades a fire involved the town in expense for "spirit and Sugar", or for rum, and our records mention the fires, such as that "in Needham woods May ye 5th 1826" in connection with liquor bills, and as incidental to them. In 1829, or early in 1830, there were fires at the Rev. Mr. Ritchie's house, now owned by Augustus W. Newell, at William A. Kingsbury's, at Nathan MeIntosh's and at Amraphel Smith's, all in East Needham, and these fires appear to have been quenched, in part, with liquor.
On April 3, 1838, the town voted to "exempt the Engine men from a Poll tax", and late in 1840 to "furnish a hose Carriage for the Use of the Engine Company at the Lower falls", the cost not to exceed $35. In 1843 the town ap- pointed a committee to raise money by subscription for a new engine for the Lower Falls, although the majority of the members of the fire-company there were Newton men, and the apparatus was kept on their side of the river. This committee, which consisted of Colonel Rice, William Flagg, Lyman Greenwood, Galen Orr, Elisha Lyon and Richard Boynton, was also to consider the question of fire protec- tion at the Upper Falls, where there was also an engine-com- pany. They reported, and in 1844 the town appropriated $150 for fire-engines: - Lower Falls $60, East Needham $60 and the Upper Falls $30. The town treasurer paid $35 for the Lower Falls hose-carriage to the "Treasurer of Engine Company Number I". It had been customary for the town to pay for the refreshments for local and out- of-town firemen when doing duty in Needham, and in 1840
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Francis Keyes was paid $1.50 for services in Engine Com- pany Number 2, Upper Falls, and in the forties $25 per year, or more, were regularly paid to Nathaniel Wales, Jr., and other members of Cataract Engine Company Number I, at the Lower Falls. In 1851 the town paid $70 to E. C. Jenkins, Francis Boyd, J. B. Martin, P. Frost, Jr., G. W. Moulton, Oliver Morse, Nathaniel Wales, Jr., Elijah Si- monds, Charles Rice, Jr., Willard Hurd, George K. Daniell, George Spring, John Appleton and John J. Ware for ser- vices in Cataract Engine Company for the year ending April 1, 1851. In 1850 $70 had been paid to Nathaniel Wales, Jr., and to others, not naming them, as enginemen of Number I.
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