USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Winchester > History of Winchester, Massachusetts > Part 24
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sewing and cooking classes in the lower schools a little earlier, and the systematic instruction in physical training which began in 1905. Another useful addition to the service which the schools can give to the town was the appointment of a school physician and medical inspector in 1907. Dr. Ralph Putnam was the first to fill this impor- tant post, and the excellent work he did in detecting and correcting physical defects among the children, in controlling epidemics of children's diseases, and in improving the standard of health among the pupils of our schools has been ably carried on by those who have succeeded him. Dental examination followed as a matter of course, and has proved equally valuable as a means of safeguarding the comfort and health of our young people.
The first kindergarten, as I have said, was started in 1893 in the Rumford School. Others were soon added in the Chapin and Gifford buildings. This was so radical an experiment in education in the eyes of many that it had a good deal of prejudice to over- come. Kindergartens appeared now in one school and now in another, and sometimes had to be given up on account of a lack of cooperation among parents who were not convinced of the value of what seemed to them mere folderol. But the School Committee persisted; at least one or two kindergartens were continuously maintained; and the "experiment" gradually made its way until all opposition melted before it. At the present time there are well- equipped kindergartens in all the primary school buildings, except at the Highland School where there is no room for one.
The growth of Winchester has been continuous, and at times rapid, ever since its incorporation. As a result the town has been constantly adding to its school buildings or erecting new ones, only to find after a few years that the pupils were again overflowing the accommodations prepared for them. In 1886 the little Wyman School had to be replaced by another much larger building, which was erected on a lot more centrally located on Church Street at Oxford Street. At this time the schoolhouse on Andrews Hill was finally abandoned, and arrangements made to transport what chil- dren still attended it to the new Wyman School. The Hill School had always been very small. It began in 1850 with only twenty pupils and the number had steadily declined until its enrollment was only four or five, and at many sessions no more than two or
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three scholars presented themselves. It was a manifest waste of money and of a teacher's time to continue such a dying school.
In 1890 the Gifford School on Main Street was replaced by a new four-room building, which continued to bear the old name. In 1892 a new Rumford School was built at a cost of some $10,000. Two years later the new Washington School followed. It was built on a lot on Cross Street adjoining that on which the old school stood. In 1900 the Mystic School on Bacon Street disappeared to make way for a new but not much larger building.
For a time this took care of the elementary schools; but the pressure on the high and grammar schools continued, until some- thing simply had to be done about them both. At the town meeting of March 12, 1900 the town voted to issue bonds amounting to $36,000 and to build with the money on the lot occupied by the Wadleigh School an eight-room grammar school building.1 The building committee consisted of Rev. John W. Suter, William B. French, Samuel S. Symmes, Charles E. Corey, Bodwell S. Briggs, Daniel B. Badger and H. T. Dickson. The building was completed in the following year, school being held in the town hall while con- struction was going on. It was a substantial and attractive building of yellow brick, which served the town well until the erection of the junior high school. Vacant now (1936), it is still a useful piece of property, which may again be available for school purposes.
On June 9, 1902, just as the new Wadleigh School was finished, the town voted to raise $110,000 to build a new high school. The site chosen was the land along the Mystic Valley Parkway between Main and Washington streets which Mrs. Nancy Symmes Howe had some years before bequeathed to the town with the expecta- tion that it would be used for a public library building. The land was, according to tradition, that on which Edward Converse had planted his orchard; it was a sightly piece of ground rising high above the street and overlooking the Mill Pond and the buildings of the center. The town meeting in its wisdom decided that this lot was needed for a high school far more than for a library, and named as the committee to build the school Lewis Parkhurst, Daniel B. Badger, C. F. A. Currier, Charles E. Corey and Edwin N. Lovering. The building which shortly rose on this site, and was
1 Town Records, Vol. IV, page 240.
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1
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
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built within the appropriation, to the surprise of most Winchester citizens, is the dignified structure of gray brick and stone with which all Winchester is familiar. It contained ten classrooms, besides a gymnasium, large assembly hall, laboratories, offices, a room for art students, a lunch room and other appurtenances of a modern school. It was ample in size when built, but the school has continued relentlessly to grow ever since, and in 1932 by means of alterations within the old building and an addition of considerable size, which contains among other rooms a fine large assembly room and a well-equipped gymnasium, its capacity was very largely increased. Even so, with more than seven hundred pupils, the building begins to be crowded again.
By 1920 Winchester was again faced with another expensive school-building programme. This time it was the elementary schools, which were crowding the old buildings. The buildings were all of frame construction and unsafe from the modern point of view. A movement, begun by the School Committee, for the replacement of all these antiquated houses by larger, more sub- stantial and more attractive buildings gained ground rapidly. There was opposition of course, for the plan was seen to be costly, and not all the voters could be convinced that it was necessary. The first step was taken at the town meeting of June 23, 1921, when a committee was appointed to present a comprehensive school- building programme to the town. Marcus B. May, James W. Blackham, Richard B. Derby, Arthur A. Kidder, Frederic S. Snyder, Mrs. Charles F. Dutch and Mrs. Alfred S. Higgins formed this committee. Their report called for the purchase or taking of land for the erection of four new elementary school buildings to take the place of the Wyman, Mystic, Gifford, Chapin, Rumford and Prince schools. At the meeting of April 23, 1902 the town voted 547 to 223 to enter on this ambitious plan. Land for the four buildings was purchased, for none of the new houses was to stand on land already occupied by a school. The Wyman School was to be placed farther down Church Street on the Shattuck estate nearly opposite Norwood Street. The Mystic-Gifford house was to stand on the land at the corner of Main Street and Madison Avenue. The new Rumford was to be located between Canal and Hemingway streets, and the Lincoln School, planned to supersede
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
the Chapin, was to be built on land between Chester and Florence streets, a little way from Washington Street. The Building Com- mittee to have charge of the erection of all these houses was named by the moderator, F. Manley Ives. It consisted of James S. Allen, the chairman, Edward H. Kenerson, Ralph T. Hale, Harry C. Sanborn, and Mrs. George H. Root from the School Committee. Mrs. Root was succeeded in 1924 by Mrs. Maurice C. Tompkins.
The undertaking was so costly that the town was obliged to get from the legislature authority to borrow money beyond its debt limit. When the Building Committee made its final report on the completion of the programme in 1925 it placed the costs of land and buildings at $554,764.38 - only $11,000 above the origi- nal estimates made by the Planning Committee.1 The town thus came into possession of four thoroughly modern elementary school buildings, attractive in design, substantial in construction, excel- lent in plan.2 A year later the problem of the Washington Highland district was taken up and another first-rate building was added to the system. The old Washington School on Cross Street was abandoned and the new school was placed on Highland Avenue at the corner of Appalachian Road. The committee in charge of its erection was composed of James S. Allen, Walter H. Balcke, Charles R. Main, Ralph S. Vinal and John R. Maddocks. It was intended to abandon the little Highland School at the same time, but the School Committee, yielding to the protests of the people of the neighborhood, reconsidered their decision and the little school remains in use, the only surviving relic of the earlier group of schoolhouses.
Before the completion of the school in the Rumford district the town voted to give the new building the name of William J. Noonan, a native of Winchester and the son of Patrick Noonan, long in business in the town as a manufacturer of felt. This young man, of great attractiveness and promise, enlisted in the Marine Corps at the beginning of the war in 1917, served gallantly in France and died on the field during the battle of the Argonne October 9, 1918. At the dedication of the school in his honor on September 7,
1 Report of Building Committee, Town Report of 1924, page 250.
2 The architects were: Wyman School, Kilham, Hopkins and Greeley; Lincoln and Mystic Schools, Richie, Parsons and Taylor; William J. Noonan School, C. G. Loring. Derby and Robinson were the architects of the Washington School.
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1924 the address was delivered by General Charles H. Cole, U.S.A.
One more enlargement of the school system was necessary, and in 1931 the town voted to undertake the construction of a new junior high school and an addition to the high school which had become sadly overcrowded. Room for the addition was made by the purchase of three house lots in the rear of the old building. The junior high school was placed on Main Street, nearly opposite the high school, on land occupied by the Congregational parsonage and one or two adjacent lots. The land ran through to the Mystic Valley Parkway and the part bordering that boulevard had to be bought from the Commonwealth or from the estate of Harrison Parker.
Construction of both buildings went on in 1931 and 1932 and was completed in time for the opening of the school term in Sep- tember. The committee in charge included Robert M. Stone, Frank W. Howard, Mrs. Caroline S. Fitts, Frank W. Jones, James C. McCormick, Edward A. Tucker, and Harold V. Farnsworth. The entire cost for land and buildings was $547,000.1 It is unneces- sary to speak of the beauty of the junior high school building which offers itself daily to the admiration of the people of Winchester. Ralph H. Doane was the architect, R. Clipston Sturgis designed the addition to the high school.
Winchester possesses today a highly efficient and well-admin- istered school system. From its original dimensions -7 teachers, about 300 pupils and school buildings valued at less than $10,000- it has expanded steadily and healthily, until in 1935 there were 107 teachers or supervisors, a pupil enrollment of 2,572 children and buildings and equipment valued at $1,200,000. The town has had few apologies to make for its schools, and every reason to take pride in them.
A list of citizens who have given faithful and generous service to the town as members of the School Committee during the last forty years would be so long that it cannot be printed here; but especial mention is due to Professor Charles F. A. Currier, who bore a chief part in the enlargement of the curriculum and the modernization of teaching methods in the schools in the early years of this century. Professor Currier was one of the faculty of
'Report of Building Committee, Town Reports of 1932, page 262.
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an authority on educa- tion, and a devoted laborer for the improvement of the Winchester schools. Others who gave long and capable service on the com- mittee are Dr. Daniel March, Jr., Dr. Albert F. Blaisdell, George C. Coit, Marcus B. May, Frank F. Carpenter, Robert F. Guild, Edward A. Tucker, Dunbar F. Carpenter, Robert M. Stone, Joseph W. Butler, Arthur S. Harris, Mrs. George H. Root, Mrs. Maurice C. Tompkins, Mrs. Henry K. Spencer and Mrs. Harold V. Farnsworth.
This is perhaps an appropriate place to speak of the Mothers Association, which has performed a useful service in bringing together the mothers of children from all parts of Winchester and encouraging a spirit of friendliness and cooperation between them and the teachers in the elementary schools. The germ of this insti- tution was a Mothers Club formed forty years ago among the women of the Congregational Church. Early in the present century Mrs. Harrison Parker 2d became president of this club and began, with clear vision and characteristic energy, to expand it into some- thing wider and more serviceable. Mrs. Parker (who was Miss Fanny Fletcher) had always been interested in education. When she came with her mother from their home in Maine to live in Winchester, she kept for several years an excellent private school. After her marriage to Mr. Parker in 1875 that had to be abandoned, but she never failed to find time among her household duties and family cares to be active in the religious, charitable and educational affairs of the town. The flag pole on the playing field of the Junior High School was given to the school in her memory.
Mrs. Parker caused the Mothers Association to embrace women from every end of the town, conducted its affairs with tact and enthusiasm and opened her home ("Red Roof," as it was called) to all sorts of meetings of the organization. It came to be indispensable in its way, and even after the formation of a Parent- Teacher Association in Winchester in 1921, the Mothers Associa- tion continued to flourish and retain its individuality. Since Mrs. Parker's death in 1929 it has come to an agreement with the Parent- Teacher group by which remains the link between the mothers and the teachers in the grade schools, while the other organization per- forms a similar service for the High School and the Junior High. The Mothers Association now sponsors an annual scholarship
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SCHOOLS IN WINCHESTER
awarded to some promising graduate of the High School, who needs help in obtaining a college education. It was first awarded in 1933-to Richard K. Barksdale.
The Parent-Teacher Association in Winchester owes its incep- tion to the efforts of Mrs. Edward C. Mason, who has long been prominent in the affairs of the national organization as editor of its official journal. Like the Mothers Association it has served a highly useful purpose in bringing together the parents of the school children and the teachers also share with them the responsibility of their development into worthy citizens of the future.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE STORY OF WINCHESTER'S PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
FOR more than two hundred years, as I have several times pointed out, what is now the town of Winchester was a thoroughly rural community growing up at haphazard, with no attempt at planning or at beautification. It had no village green, that charm- ing characteristic of so many New England towns, even for many years after its incorporation. Yet today it is notable among Mas- sachusetts towns for the extent and attractiveness of its public parks and playgrounds - surely a tribute to the vision and the energy of the men who have been responsible for the change.
The first step was taken in 1867, when the land for the Common was acquired by the town. The land was part of the old Converse farm - the cornfield, by tradition. In the early days there were three Converse houses, the original one by the dam across the Aberjona, and two others, located, as nearly as we can tell, at the corner of Main and Church streets, and on Church Street just south of the spot where the Winchester Trust Company stands. Dying, Edward Converse left "all the land that lyeth common between the houses" to "ly common in perpetuity." He meant it to be "common" among his heirs, not common for the whole com- munity; but a considerable part of it did, by the hand of fate, become Common in the fullest sense of the word.
Eventually this land passed out of the hands of the Converses. Some of it, in course of time, was built upon; the Boston and Lowell laid its tracks through the middle of it; but a part still remained open and unused except as a piece of grazing ground for an occasional horse or cow, or a playground for the children - especially those who went to school at No. 5, directly across Church Street.
In 1867 the ownership of this plot lay between Stephen Cutter and S. S. Richardson. Its presence in the very heart of the town and its suitability for use as a village green led the selectmen of
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PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
the day - O. R. Clark, S. W. Twombly and John T. Manny - to put an article in the town warrant for the purchase of "the land lying between the railroad tracks and Church Street, and the laying out of the same as a public square." The meeting was held August 6, 1867, and the proposal was hotly discussed. Many who might have favored it otherwise, objected because the price that was to be paid for the land - $7,000 - seemed to them exorbitant. The sentiment was so closely divided, and the matter was taken so seriously that the check list of voters was used when it came to a decision. The town voted 88 to 62 to buy the land.1
The Common, thus acquired, suffered neglect for some years. It remained unfenced and largely uncared for, useful mainly as a place for the boys to play ball. When the new railway station was built, pieces were cut from the east and south sides of the Common to make streets that gave access to the station - the present right- angled Common Street. Improvement of the green began in 1873, when the selectmen built a bandstand upon it (if that can be called an improvement). The local band performed there at irreg- ular intervals for ten years or more, until on one Fourth of July eve the stand went up in flames; the undisciplined youth of the town were blamed for that, but the stand was not rebuilt.
In March 1875 the town voted $750 to improve the Common;2 it was graded, fresh loam was spread upon it, some planting done, and a granite curbing set in place around the plot. The cost of the work exceeded the appropriation, and private contributions from Mr. Skillings, Mr. Herrick and others made up the deficit. A year later $1500 was voted for the same purpose3 and spent. The details are lacking - unless the money went for the rebuilding of Common Street, which was undertaken during the year.
In 1882 the Winchester Village Improvement Association was. formed, and began at once to interest itself in the care and beauti -. fication of the town - the Common of course included. Mr. Abijah Thompson, 3d was the first president of the association, but Mr. S. W. Twombly, who became its president in 1884, was perhaps the most active spirit in its membership, unless he can
1 Town Records, Vol. I, page 513.
2 Town Records, Vol. II, page 268.
3 Town Records, Vol. II, page 3.
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be said to have shared that distinction with Mr. Charles F. Lunt. The influence of the association was seen at the very next town meeting (1883) when the town voted to establish a Committee on the Common, and gave it $700 to spend. The committee (S. W. Twombly, C. F. Lunt, D. N. Skillings, Jr., George D. Rand and Henry C. Miller) regraded the land, laid the original concrete walks across it, planted a variety of trees and shrubs and built a fountain supplied with a jet of water and basin of concrete. Three years later a more pretentious fountain took the place of the water jet. Mr. Lunt was instrumental in procuring this embellishment to the Common. It was paid for wholly by private subscription (mostly by members of the Village Improvement Association). The foun- tain, which sustained some severe local criticism, has disappeared in its original form; anyone who is curious to see the stone cherubs which were its most conspicuous feature will find them set up on the lawn of the house of Mr. Dotten, the superintendent of the water works beside the north reservoir.
The Improvement Association was helpful in influencing the town to take charge of certain small triangular plots at the junc- tion of certain streets - at Wildwood and Fletcher streets, at Church and Dix streets and at Main and Washington streets (the Johnson plot). The latter piece of ground was, until 1886, occupied by an old and rather dilapidated house (once belonging to Deacon N. B. Johnson) and was something of an eyesore. The money to buy the old house was subscribed through the efforts of the asso- ciation; it was pulled down and the plot turned over to the town. Properly curbed and trimmed, the little triangle is now as attrac- tive as it was formerly unsightly. To the efforts of the association also we owe the establishment of a tradition of well-cared for lawns and private grounds, which has made Winchester one of the most attractive towns in the state, and the encouragement of tree- planting both by citizens and by the town itself. The Tree Com- mittee of the town dates from 1884, and in 1896 the office of Tree Warden was created. Since the earlier date a great many thousand trees have been set out along the streets and in the public parks of the town with results that are apparent to all. The Improvement Association existed for some fifteen years, when, its work accom- plished, it passed away.
FORREST C. MANCHESTER
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PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
The development of a park system in Winchester began in 1893 in connection with the establishment of the metropolitan park system, of which Charles Eliot was the inspiration and the first architect, and Charles Francis Adams the active motivating force. It was at this time that the Middlesex Fells, north of Boston, and the Blue Hills Reservation to the south of the city were acquired by the commission to be permanent open spaces, for the use and recreation of the people of the metropolitan area. It was part of the plan to connect these splendid natural parks by a chain of boulevards or parkways encircling Boston. The Middlesex Fells lay at the very door of Winchester, and one of the first parkways to be undertaken was the Mystic Valley Parkway from Massa- chusetts Avenue in Cambridge, along the shores of the Mystic River and Lakes, to Winchester and the Fells.
There happened to be living in Winchester at the time a man whose imagination was fired by the designs of Charles Eliot, and who had the vision to see how they could be expanded to the perma- nent beautification of Winchester. This man was Forrest C. Man- chester. He was a young man - only thirty-four in 1893 - and he had not been very long a resident of the town. Born in Ran- dolph, Vermont, he studied law and became a successful lawyer in Boston. From his first appearance in Winchester he became a man of influence, conspicuous for his interest in all the affairs of the town, and for a certain dynamic quality which impressed all who knew him.
The plans of the Metropolitan District Commission called for the construction of the Mystic Valley Parkway beside the course of the Aberjona River, much as it runs today. Between it and the railway tracks there was a wide extent of level land, open and tree- grown toward the south (though inclined to be marshy) but cov- ered with unsightly constructions at the end nearest the center of the town. The railway freight yard was there, and the old Thomp- son tannery, now sold to and operated by Mr. Philip Waldmyer. There were coal pockets there belonging to Mr. Henry A. Emerson, and Mr. Cutting's lumber yards, as well as a row of tenement houses which Mr. Cutting owned. Looking at the collection of grimy buildings Mr. Manchester in his mind's eye saw them all swept away and a verdant and beautiful park and playground
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where they stood, an emerald jewel pendant to the string of a com- pleted parkway.
He was perhaps not the first to entertain this dream. There is extant a letter written by Mr. Edwin Ginn in 18881 in which he suggests the possibility of a park stretching from the railway sta- tion at Winchester to that at Wedgemere. But Mr. Manchester was certainly the first to take steps to realize the dream. He talked to everyone about it, on every occasion. He was persuasive in his enthusiasm, though many doubted his ability to bring his project to pass. He was in continual conference with the newly appointed Metropolitan Park Commission,2 infecting its mem- bers with some of his absorbing interest in the plan, and he dealt also with the city government of Boston, for Boston had inherited from Charlestown, which it had annexed, water rights along the Aberjona, acquired when Charlestown began to take water from the Mystic Lakes. It was still doing so in 1893,3 though the water was already somewhat polluted, and Mr. Manchester presented his scheme as useful in removing one source of contamination.
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