USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 15
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During the same period of time changes were made in the grades and in the high school. Among recent improve- ments in the lower schools were the introduction of a more detailed course of study, and better teaching of drawing and music. An evening school of industrial drawing was opened, and a training school in which graduates of the high school and others might be equipped to become teach- ers in the lower grades or to find other skilled employment. In the high school greater freedom was permitted in the choice of courses. Classical and general courses were arranged to cover a period of four years. The classical was designed as a preparation for college; the general course for those who did not expect to go beyond the high school. A three-years' course with a diploma was offered in the hope of encouraging more of the boys and girls to continue their education through the high school. Special teachers in French and German were provided. In 1877 military drill was introduced into the high school. In that year twenty girls and twelve boys graduated from the four-year course, and seven girls and twelve boys from the three-year course. This was a contrast to fifteen years earlier when the whole number in the graduating class was five girls and one boy. Next year two hundred seventy-six pupils were in attendance at the high school, and out of a graduat- ing class of thirty-six sixteen went on to college, seven of them to Harvard. Before Newton had become a city it
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was spending more than one hundred thirty thousand dol lars a year on its schools.
Private schools flourished in several of the villages. Riverside had academies for both boys and girls. The boys' school had a gymnasium in the yard where the ath- letic exercises of the pupils attracted much public atten- tion. The Allen School at West Newton and Lasell Semi- nary at Auburndale continued to draw attention to the city in which they were located. On the grounds of Lasell a chalybeate spring was discovered, and its water was adjudged by the state surveyor to be one of the best of tonic waters. This was a good advertisement for the school. About the time that Newton was taking on munic- ipal responsibilities Charles C. Bragdon became principal of the school, to continue in that position for a third of a century.
Neither the city nor its citizens forgot the needs of the public library. Made possible by a few public-spirited residents, it had become housed and equipped, and had received the collections of older village libraries. In 1875 the Library was adopted by the city with appropriate ceremonies, including addresses by the mayor, the super- intendent of the Library and donors. Seven trustees were placed in charge, two representing the city council and five appointed at large. The trustees appointed a superintend- ent and a librarian. The first to fill the office of superin- tendent was Frederick Jackson, with Hannah James as librarian and Caroline B. Jackson as assistant librarian. Two years later the city was asked to appropriate $7,800 for the maintenance of the Library, $2,600 of the sum for salaries, and $1,600 for books. The remainder was to be paid for such expenses as fuel and lights, reading room, cataloguing and binding. A fire broke out in the building and did considerable damage, necessitating closing it for two weeks, but most of the repairs were made in the sum-
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mer when books were in less demand. The librarian tried to make the Library more useful by seeking the coopera- tion of the school teachers in the guidance of pupils in the choice of books, and the teachers were given special privileges in borrowing books from the Library.
At that time Newton had the usual quota of profes- sional people. The Directory listed eighteen ministers, not including the members of the faculty of the Newton Theological Institution. There were only four lawyers and but one dentist; presumably Boston men had many Newton clients. But there were sixteen physicians, ten of them of the old school of allopathy, four homeopaths, one hydropathic, and one eclectic. Among these were several who became leaders in the community as well as practi- tioners. Dr. Henry M. Field had settled in Newton in 1867 after Civil War service and medical practice in New York for a few years. In Newton he had a large practice until his health broke down, and intermittently he lived in Cal- ifornia during the last years of his life. Dr. T. S. Keith was a homeopath, succeeding to the practice of Dr. Fred- erick N. Palmer in 1869 and continuing until 1888. Home- opaths were not fully trusted by the people until their suc- cess converted many to faith in them, but after 1875 they were welcomed to the city. Dr. Howard P. Bellows at Auburndale and Dr. S. A. Sylvester at Newton Centre were popular homeopathic physicians for many years. Dr. Edward P. Scales was a homeopath at Newton, who had a practice of more than thirty years.
Dr. Jesse F. Frisbie of the older school settled in the village of Newton in 1872, was a member of the city gov- ernment for a year, and of the board of health for a longer term. He was the moving spirit in the Newton Natural History Society and a writer on geology. Dr. David E. Baker, at first in Lower Falls but later residing at New- tonville, was a member of many Newton organizations.
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Dr. Daniel D. Slade lived at Chestnut Hill after 1863. In 1871 he became professor of agriculture and zoology in Bussey Institute. He was president of the Newton Horti- cultural Society about 1890, and wrote two papers for which he received prizes from the Massachusetts Horticul- tural Society. One of these was on the theme, "How to Improve and Beautify Newton." In spite of the adver- tised health quality of Newton these medical practitioners seemed to keep busy, and four undertakers were employed.
As Newton grew in prominence and attractiveness it became the home of persons who were widely known in circles of various kinds outside the Garden City. Such was F. J. Campbell of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, who later in life went to England and became the founder of the Royal Normal College and the Academy of Music for the Blind. Charles Barnard, founder of the evening schools in Boston, was another. Both of them resided in Newtonville. There, too, were Joseph W. Jenks, who had a working knowledge of thirty languages, the founder of the first agricultural paper in Ohio, and for a time a chap- lain in the United States Navy, and James Jeffrey Roche, secretary of the Papyrus Club and a popular poet.
Seth Davis and N. T. Allen kept up the intellectual reputation of West Newton. On Fuller Street, where gardens and orchards filled the landscape, lived Reverend N. P. Gilman, the editor of the Literary World and assist- ant editor of the Unitarian Review of Boston, yet he found time to study the developments of economics and wrote several books which took high rank as contributions to the solution of industrial problems. In Auburndale lived Wil- liam Crane, the actor, and Eben Tourgée, the head of the New England Conservatory of Music, Louise Imogen Guiney, the writer, and Reverend Samuel W. Dike, D.D., who was secretary of the National League for the Protec- tion of the Family. Reverend Francis E. Clark, D.D., who
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in 188 1 organized a local society of Christian Endeavor in his church in Portland, Maine, which was the pioneer in a world movement of Christian young people, was brought up in the home of his uncle in Auburndale, and in later days again made his residence in the village, when he was not globe-trotting in the interest of the organization of which he was the international president. Horatio W. Parker, the musician, was a child of Auburndale. His father was the architect of the Congregational Church and his mother was poet of her class at Lasell and for a time a teacher in the Seminary. She taught him to play the church organ when he was a small boy.
Newton people did not forget that Nathaniel Haw- thorne had lived for a time in West Newton and that Ralph Waldo Emerson had lived on Woodward Street after his return from a European visit.
The city was proud of Alexander H. Rice, who had been born at Lower Falls, and who went out from his native place to become in time the governor of the Com- monwealth. It was proud also of William Claflin. Though born in Milford, he became a resident of Newtonville in 1855, purchasing the estate so long distinguished as the home of Gen. William Hull. From that time the Claflin estate was one of the best known in the vicinity of Boston. Successful in business, Claflin became prominent in poli- tics also. He was president of the state senate in 1861, and was a delegate to several national conventions. The suf- frages of the citizens of the state made him governor in 1869. From 1876 to 1880 he represented his Massachu- setts district in Congress. He was a member of the board of trustees of Wellesley College, and president of the board of Boston University, to which he was especially loyal as a good Methodist. .
In the Claflin home were entertained persons as dif- ferent as Indian chiefs from the West and Englishmen like
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Henry Drummond and Principal Fairbairn of Manchester College, Oxford. Horace Greeley rested there from his editorial labors in New York, Henry Ward Beecher and Lyman Abbott on vacations from Plymouth Pulpit in Brooklyn. John G. Whittier and Lucy Larcom gathered inspiration from woodland walks and held gentle converse with other guests by the library fire. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a frequent visitor and played croquet with her brother, Henry Ward, even when lanterns were necessary on the lawn when the fireflies failed to illumine the grounds. On the twelfth of June, 1882, the literary celebrities of Boston and vicinity gathered to celebrate Mrs. Stowe's seventieth birthday. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Samuel F. Smith, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Louise Chandler Moulton, T. B. Aldrich and E. B. Whipple and James T. Fields were among the invited guests. A large tent on the ample lawn was the reception room. Men and women strolled about the grounds, recalled "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Oldtown Folks," chatted amiably about the author and the occasion, and enjoyed their strawberries and ice cream.
So many Newton men gave the bulk of their time to business enterprises in Boston that their record belongs there, but a number of them were prominent in Newton also. Edwin B. Haskell was one of these. A Maine boy, he came to Boston in his youth, where he rose from the position of a newspaper reporter to the editorial board of the Boston Herald. At the close of the Civil War he bought the paper, associating with himself Royal M. Pulsifer and Charles H. Andrews. Haskell edited the paper for twenty- one years from 1865 to 1887, making it well known through the country for its independent position in politics. He lived in Auburndale and took an active interest in public affairs. His particular contributions to municipal welfare were made as president of the Library, of the cemetery, and of the Jersey Stock Club.
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At Newton Centre the city found its second mayor, Alden Speare. He was a Vermont boy who came to Bos- ton to make his way in the world. With business suc- cess he came to Newton to make his home, living on a part of the old Homer estate on Centre Street. An active Meth- odist, he endowed a professorship in Boston University, and gave the land for the Methodist meetinghouse in New- ton Centre. He presented Newton with one thousand dol- lars for a book fund in the library. His neighbor was Thomas Nickerson, president of the Atchison Railroad, and promoter and president of the Mexican Central. Newton men had a large part in the construction and maintenance of that line. Levi C. Wade, who originally came to Newton to study theology, was one of the presi- dents of the Mexican Central and a speaker of the Massa- chusetts House of Representatives. As a Newton citizen he served as water commissioner, and he was a vice-presi- dent of the Newton Club. He occupied one of the best estates in the south part of the city on Dedham Road, where he owned two hundred and twenty-five acres.
The third mayor of the city was Capt. William B. Fowle, who lived at Tanglewood, an ample estate on the banks of the river at Auburndale. He held responsible positions in the Northern Army during the Civil War, and afterward settled in Auburndale. There he founded the Auburndale Watch Company, placed his factory in a retired spot along the river, and invited the patronage of the public, but without the success necessary for the prose- cution of the business. Watches gave way to thermometers near Norumbega, to tick more loudly farther down stream at Waltham. He occupied the mayor's chair for two terms. Col. Royal M. Pulsifer, Haskell's partner on the Herald, also lived in Auburndale, occupying a fine estate known as Islington, where the blue water of the Charles cooled the air on both sides of the house. The climax of his
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career, which in the end was marked by business failure, was his election to the mayoralty of Newton for the year 1880.
Still more intimately connected with the city of his residence was Edward J. Collins of Waban. His ancestor, Matthias Collins, had come there from Marblehead in 1778, and purchased one hundred acres adjoining the Woodward farm on the Sherborn Road. His son added nearly eighty acres more. One hundred years after the advent of the family Edward J. Collins succeeded to the occupancy of the estate. He was treasurer of Newton for many years. Active in banking circles, he was entrusted with the treasurership of the Newton Savings Bank for twenty years, and was a director of the Newton National Bank for twenty-nine years. Besides these responsible positions he represented his city in the Legislature several times, and for twelve years was a commissioner of Middle- sex County. The estate of two hundred acres which he left included most of the acreage which subsequently was divided into house lots and intersected with streets on the high land between Beacon Street and the Charles River.
Thomas Rice, Jr., paper manufacturer at Lower Falls, was for thirty years a member of the board of selectmen, and was chairman of the board at the time of his death in 1873. He had been active in patriotism during the Civil War, served his town as representative to the lower house of the Legislature, then in the Senate, and for two years as a member of the Executive Council.
It was under the leadership of such men as these that Newton entered upon its larger career as one of the cities of the Commonwealth. Its people were intelligent, industri- ous and progressive. Many of them were living in the cur- rent of near-by metropolitan life, and had a part in its social and philanthropic activities. That they were patri- otic was illustrated by their celebration of the centennial
THE TRANSITION FROM TOWN TO CITY 193
of national independence in 1876. Some of its citizens went to Philadelphia to the Centennial Exposition, and came back after seeing Independence Hall with a deeper sense of appreciation of American freedom.
The Centennial year 1876 seemed a fitting time to take note of the historic sites in town, and certain places were marked with inscriptions including some of the graves in the old cemetery. On the seventeenth of June Eliot Hall was decorated with flags and mottoes, and relics and por- traits were exhibited. Behind the platform was a picture of Bunker Hill and over it a motto which read: "New Town (Cambridge), 1631. Nonantum - Cambridge Vil- lage, 1654." "New Town - set off from Cambridge, 1688." "First public school about 1700." "Newton, 1776." The names of early settlers were intertwined in the bunting which festooned the front of the gallery. Representations in drawing and effigies depicted Revo- lutionary scenes. The citizens came together to observe the day, and received Gov. Alexander H. Rice and his escort. Descendants of the old settlers were dressed in the old style, and thirteen members of original families sang to the assembly. Four of them were great-grandchildren of Capt. John Woodward. Thirty-nine pupils of the high school represented the states of the Union.
Mayor Alden Speare made introductory remarks, and Governor Rice delivered an address in which he said: "These anniversary occasions are great teachers, standing like sentinels along the ages, speaking out to us, in those instinctive feelings we all possess, of reverence for our noble fathers, and love and patriotism for the country and liberty they gave us." The historical address was made by James F. C. Hyde, who but recently had completed his term of office as mayor. An historical poem was read by Reverend Increase N. Tarbox of West Newton. The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung, and a part of
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Whittier's "Centennial Hymn," a portrait of Col. Joseph Ward was presented to the city, and the exercises con- cluded with the singing of "America" and a benediction.
Perhaps the most effective benediction which rested upon the people as they dispersed were the last sentences of the historical address. "A hundred years have passed since our fathers met in their little town meeting, in the small meetinghouse (where now stands Dr. Furber's church), and consecrated themselves and their fortunes to the cause of freedom and their country. Then, a struggl- ing town, now, a considerable city; then, only a single church, now, more than twenty; then, here and there a highway, or rather, a lane, now, with its hundred and twenty or more miles of excellent streets; then, its small schoolhouses with short terms and rudimental teaching, now, schoolhouses of magnificent proportions, with schools almost without number, of all grades, to say nothing of the private academies and higher institutions of learning within our limits. Then, only a few farms with their quaint-looking farmhouses; now, beautiful villages, with stately blocks of buildings, palatial residences, well-kept villas and cosy cottages, showing taste and culture on every hand.
Then, the quiet almost of the forest, broken only by the song of birds and hum of insects, now, the rush and noise of heavy engines, and railroad trains whirling along with the speed of the wind. Then, no electric telegraph to flash its message from continent to continent, and thus 'put a girdle around about the earth in forty minutes'; no ocean steamers crossing the broad Atlantic and bringing the nations of the earth into more intimate relations; no missionaries on foreign shores, preaching Christ to dying men; no city library with its rich stores, gathered from all ages and nations. How great the change in a single cen- tury!"
VII THE URBAN PROCESS
THE experiment of a few years seemed to justify the action taken in 1873. Certain alterations in the charter appeared desirable, and they were made after a few years, but city government had been a success under the wise guidance of Mayor Hyde and his successors. Newton had several advantages over many cities. Its location was more than usually attractive, and the growth of popula- tion was accelerating. With the assurance of a steady cur- rent of population flowing out from Boston, was the satis- faction of knowing that the quality of the new residents was of a superior character. Wealth and refinement be- longed to most of those who were buying homes, and a quality of citizenship which reasonably assured a high type of civic life. Best of all, perhaps, were the village centres within the single municipality. They served as nuclei of growth, as nurseries of community consciousness and experiment stations in social culture, as centres of civic and institutional loyalty until the city as a whole could command such allegiance.
It was probable that the village centres would delay full appreciation of municipal unity, and perhaps multiply unnecessarily the number of public institutions, such as churches, clubs, and places of business, but the gravest lack in American cities has been just such neighborhood and ward centres, where people who live near together can get acquainted and exchange opinions and act together. One of the serious problems of the city has been the culti- vation of civic responsibility, where everyone is so im- mersed in his own affairs and so careless of the general
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HISTORY OF NEWTON
good. Sometimes it has seemed as if in Newton sectional spirit and village rivalry would prevent a needed sense of unity, but it is evident that such a realization is sure to come as villages grow together and a civic centre is attained where government appears respectable and where the lines of public activity converge. With the power house doubt- less will come the power to awaken a response in the minds of all citizens from Hunnewell Hill to the old "wading place" and from Norumbega to Kenrick Bridge.
During this period the population of Newton reached twenty thousand. More than one-fifth of the people were in the village of Newton, which already had been divided into two wards, One and Seven. Four thousand two hun- dred fifty-one persons were registered as belonging in that oldest part of the city. To these must be added 1,835 in Nonantum and 2,297 in Newtonville, nearly half of the population of the city within less than two miles of the spot where John Jackson set up his household gods. West Newton and Auburndale together numbered 5,149, Centre and Highlands 3,454, Upper and Lower Falls 2,057, while off on the fringes of the city Chestnut and Oak Hills boasted of 436. Some one about that time was interested enough to classify certain of the family names that recurred most frequently in the city directory. The Smiths led the list with 88, followed by the Sullivans with 60. Whether blacksmiths, silversmiths, or locksmiths were their ances- tors, and whether they sprang from English soil, was unmen- tioned, but it is reasonably certain that the families of the second name had settled later than the Puritan inva- sion. Allens, Browns, Whites, Davises, and Murphys were next in order, with 57, 51, 48, 47, 46, respectively. The name Clark accounted for 35, Jones for 34, Farrell for the same, and Thompson for 30. Then in the twenties came in order Rice, Adams, Cunningham, Carter and Coffin. Clearly Jacksons, Fullers, and Hydes no longer predomi-
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THE URBAN PROCESS
nated, and Newton could no longer be called Puritan, though its ecclesiastical strength was still Congregational. In 1880 the city clerk reported the vital statistics as 326 births, 152 marriages, and 227 deaths.
The political changes that had been made did not pro- duce serious differences of opinion. James F. C. Hyde had appeared unmistakably the proper person to be the first mayor. He was reëlected without opposition, but at the end of two terms he set the precedent of declining a fur- ther nomination. Alden Speare succeeded by unanimous election to a similar two terms. In 1878 the lines were drawn between Republicans and Democrats, but after William B. Fowle had won the election by a comfortable majority and had served his first term, he was unopposed for a second. The original harmony continued in the unani- mous election of Royal M. Pulsifer for 1880 and again for 1881, and of William P. Ellison for the next two years. As the time for the fall elections drew near a spirit of discord appeared. Many were in favor of a third term for Mayor Ellison, but the unwritten rule of two terms seemed better to many more. A contest developed with the organization of a Citizens' party to defeat the third term movement. Its standard bearer was J. Wesley Kimball, one of the alder- men of the city, who won by the close vote of 1, 182 to 1,068. By common consent he was given a second term, but the opposition was scandalized by the action of the Citizens' party in the fall of 1885 in presenting the anti- third term candidate for a third term himself. But Mayor Kimball broke the precedent by winning with two hundred votes to spare over a divided Republican party, and con- tinued in office through a fifth term.
By the terms of the charter two boards, the aldermen and the common council, constituted the legislative body of the municipal government. During the 'eighties the names of Dwight Chester, Charles C. Burr, James R.
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Deane, John Q. Henry, Benjamin S. Grant, James H. Nickerson, and George Pettee recur in the lists of alder- men, an indication that successful men of affairs were will- ing to give time and thought to the claims of the city with little return to themselves. Under the provisions of the charter as revised in 1881 the city officials who were appointed were on a basis of civil service reform, and were expected to continue in office as long as they served effi- ciently. An incident in the election of 1884 was the candi- dacy for membership on the school committee of George A. Walton and his wife, who had been assistant to Na- thaniel T. Allen in the model school at West Newton. In spite of her qualifications she was unable to defeat the head of the household.
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