USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 23
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Less pretentious but more generally useful to the people was the proposed playground at Newton Centre. This proposition had the aid of the public-spirited citizens and organizations of the village who from 1888 saw the opportunity to secure for the children of Newton a large tract of land near the centre of the village lying between Tyler Terrace and the Aqueduct. The aid of the city was enlisted to the extent of a ten thousand dollar appropria- tion and the people of Newton Centre contributed the re- mainder. Tennis courts and baseball grounds were laid out, while provision was made for the entertainment of young children with swings and sand piles. Appropriate exercises were held to celebrate the completion of the undertaking.
The newspapers of Newton supplied a cross section of Newton life week by week. The issue of the Newton Graphic for April 26, 1889 contained an editorial on play- grounds which were then in the public mind. The editor spoke for the community regarding its loss in the death of John C. Park, who had come to Newton in 1873, and was made judge of the police court in the new city government.
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He was active in local politics. He was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and was the commander of two of the crack regiments of militia in Boston for twenty-five years. It lamented also the death of Reverend Bradford K. Peirce, D.D., who had served on the school board of Newton and in charge for a time of the Newton Library. He was prominent in Methodist circles, serving as editor of Zion's Herald for sixteen years, and at another time of Sunday school publications, and he was the author of religious books. It was partly through his efforts that the Lancaster School for girls was started.
Among the prominent items of news was an announce- ment of the last meeting of the Monday Club for the sea- son with the observance of ladies' night, a report of the defeat in Newton of the proposed prohibitory amendment to the Constitution, and statements about the Tariff Reform Club and the Civil Service Reform Association. There was news of the city government, the school com- mittee, and the annual meeting of the Newton Centre Improvement Association. A list of the recent additions to the Newton Library was recorded.
Local news occupied a prominent place in the columns of the paper, and a large proportion of these referred to the churches of the villages. Twelve events recorded as occur- ring in the village of Newton were connected with the churches, personal notes accounted for eight items, and six had reference to club meetings. Three of the news items recorded accidents. Two couples were married during the week, and the weather was important enough to receive at- tention. In Newtonville there were five reports of building operations. Church news as compared with club happenings was in proportion of eight to one, while personals required twelve different items. At West Newton four different entertainments had occurred in the village, which were all grist for the reporter, church news supplied five items, and
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lodge news one. Auburndale reports were similar to those from Newtonville. Building operations were active, the churches were all advertised, two items were about the schools, and personals were numerous.
The south side of the city was not neglected. New- ton Centre supplied more personal references than any other section of the city, and had its entertainments and news of churches and lodges. Newton Highlands furnished three instances of club meetings and two entertainments, and recorded one accident besides the usual ecclesiastical grist and a wedding. Upper Falls had five accidents to report and a fire during the week, an indication perhaps of its industrial character, while Lower Falls reported another fire, an athletic event, and a number of items of miscel- laneous interest. Evidently human interest was not lack- ing in the Garden City, and if the ramification of its human contacts could have been recorded, reaching as they did to the near-by metropolis and out along the lines of transit and travel and business communication, a volume might have been written about the life of this active New Eng- land community. It was only a leaf out of current history, an ordinary week in a small American city, but it was a bit of color in the complexity of the American kaleidoscope. The south side of the city supplied a new news sheet in the Newton Circuit, which at first was of tabloid size, but ambitiously proclaimed its purpose to be an organ of the social clubs and churches of the city. Its first number was issued December 17, 1892. Eleven years later John Temperley gave it a rival in the Town Crier. Already its quaint title had given it welcome as a means of publicity for the printing business, but after 1903 it grew in size and popularity. Its publisher continued to issue the paper for twenty-five years, when he sold it.
The New England village was primarily concerned, of course, with the events that happened in its own homes
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and its community life. History does not penetrate into family affairs, except as they affect the community. The village was interested in marriages, births and deaths, not as vital statistics but as matters of human interest, and it liked to be well represented at weddings, christenings and funerals, especially if those involved were prominent in the community, as when Frank A. Day married the daugh- ter of the former Mayor Ellison, the first wedding in the new Eliot Church. The whole city delighted to share in the celebration of the one hundredth birthday of Seth Davis, a man respected and beloved during the decades of his activities in Newton, and it paused with one mind to mark his passing a few months later. Newton joined with friends in Boston and surrounding towns to give honor to Reverend and Mrs. A. B. Earle, when they observed their golden wedding and received their friends in the Meionaon in Boston. West Newton regretted the death of George E. Allen, one of the teachers in the Allen School, and the city joined in that feeling because he was known as president of the Newton Horticultural Society, and the West Newton Athenaeum, a member of several branches of the city government at different times, and secretary and treasurer of the West Newton Unitarian church for fifteen years.
Probably the best known citizen of Newton was Rev- erend Samuel Francis Smith. As the author of the national hymn "America," his name was familiar to school children throughout the land. In school and church, on patriotic occasions in public halls and out-of-doors, the nation had sung "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty," as the expression of its united feeling. The author had heard it sung even in a subterranean cave in Colorado. Although its "rocks and rills, its woods and templed hills," reflected the New England setting with which the author was familiar, the sentiment of loyalty to country was a
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universal one, and even new Americans but recently own- ing allegiance to a foreign flag learned to sing it from their hearts.
My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring.
My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love. I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills Like that above.
Let music swell the breeze And ring from all the trees Sweet freedom's song: Let mortal tongues awake; Let all that breathe partake; Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong.
Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To thee we sing: Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by thy might, Great God our King.
Dr. and Mrs. Smith had observed their sixtieth wed- ding anniversary in 1894. When S. F. Smith had rounded out more than eighty-six years of age, it seemed to his friends that a public testimonial was due him for his con -.
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tribution to the patriotic literature of America. The Bos- ton Post suggested it, and it was promptly adopted. The movement received the hearty approval of Governor Greenhalge and other state leaders. Harvard College was interested because Smith was an alumnus. A mass meet- ing was planned to be held in Music Hall in Boston, at which the Governor would present the author to the audi- ence. It was hoped that the United States Marine Band might furnish patriotic music. The Columbian bell was to ring in Washington, and school children all over the land were to sing "America" at the stroke of twelve o'clock. The Grand Army of the Republic was to participate in the public exercises.
The great gathering came together in Boston on Wednesday, the third of April, 1895. In the afternoon a chorus of two hundred school children sang, and an enter- tainment was provided for them. In the evening the audi- ence greeted Dr. Smith, heard from his lips how the hymn came to be written, and listened to addresses from former Gov. John D. Long, Col. A. A. Pope, and Dr. Alvah Hovey of Newton. The Harvard Glee Club sang, and the Handel and Haydn Society rendered the Hallelujah Chorus. The exercises closed with the singing of "America." The net proceeds of the occasion were two thousand dollars, which was presented to the author. Peixotto, the artist, painted his portrait in oils, to be hung in the halls of his alma mater at Cambridge. Before the year had closed Dr. Smith died at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried from the Baptist church at Newton Centre, of which he had at one time been pastor. A simple tablet marks his home in Newton Centre.
To be a fellow citizen of the author of "America" was good reason for being nationally minded. Newton citizens had their share of Mugwump criticism in the discussion of national affairs, and participated in the election of Novem- ber, 1884, when the issue between James G. Blaine and
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Grover Cleveland was balanced so evenly. As usual the city went Republican, giving Blaine 1,596 votes, Cleveland 1,161, Butler, the People's candidate, 124, and St. John, Prohibitionist, 135, but the country at large reversed the decision, electing Cleveland by a very small majority. The election occasioned much excitement, but after the American fashion local interests soon absorbed popular attention. Although many Republicans were satisfied with the first Cleveland administration, Newton voters could not bring themselves to give him a majority in 1888, and the vote was recorded as 2,087 for Harrison and only 1,403 for the President. But four years later a reversal of public opinion had taken place. Business conditions were unsettling, the period of Cleveland's presidency looked good in comparison with recent years, and when the presi- dential vote was counted it was 2,416 for Cleveland and only 1,673 for Harrison.
It was a time of widespread interest in certain reforms. Certain citizens of Newton were concerned deeply over the practice, which had been sanctioned since the days of President Jackson, of a wholesale change of personnel in government positions whenever the opposite party won an election. They had organized the Newton Civil Service Reform Association for the agitation of reform. Cleveland had shown himself in its favor, and much was hoped from his second administration. He was opposed, too, to radi- calism of any sort, and sympathetic with the point of view of the Eastern business man.
A group of persons in Newton looked with favor on the unconventional plan of a single tax. Henry George championed the single tax idea in a New York City mayor- alty campaign, and he had many sympathizers all over the country. In Newton a Single Tax Club was active in 1896, holding meetings and reporting them at length in the col- umns of the local press.
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No person with an interest in public affairs could live through the Cleveland administration and not have a decided opinion on the subject of tariff reform. The Re- publican party, with the national policies of the Civil War period as its background, had been a high tariff party. Discussions of theory and practice constituted much of the political stock in trade. Cleveland's principle of tariff for revenue only appealed to many minds as economically and politically sound. A Tariff Reform Club was organized early in 1889 in Newton, with E. B. Haskell as president. Like the other organizations of one purpose which then existed in the city this Club held public meetings and thor- oughly aired the question, while those who liked to do such things argued the subjects over their signatures in the columns of the newspapers.
Not a few residents of Newton were stockholders in industrial corporations, and certain individuals had a con- trolling voice in the business policies of such organizations, and the books of N. P. Gilman appealed to their intelli- gence and good judgment whether or not they accepted his arguments. Newton was to become known throughout the country for the contributions to economic research and discussion of certain of her citizens. The city was becom- ing the chosen home of men who were on college faculties and editorial boards. Men eminent in their professions were listened to with respect when they spoke on national platforms or wrote articles for the press, and the same men contributed to spirited discussions in the select circles of local clubs where only the few could listen and admire. Auburndale and Newton Centre might playfully be called Saints' Rest, but there was no rest for the minds of Newton people who were in the current of intellectual discussion.
Nor were Newton people so intellectually keen that they did not yield to the witchery of imagination. Art had its votaries, and music its critics. Popular audiences gathered
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to listen to a college glee club, or to applaud a play of the Harvard Pi Eta Society, but such entertainments were more realistic than imaginative. Local dramatic produc- tions, like those of the Newton Players, drew interested audiences, and less pretentious musicales had their popu- lar constituencies. It was relatively the few who cared to go to Boston for the choicer concerts and dramas. But Newton people contributed more than their share to the appreciative audiences which listened to Booth and Bar- rett, Sothern and Marlowe, who heard Patti sing, and encouraged the efforts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to practise the finest artistry.
Newton people patronized the art clubs and attended the art exhibitions in Boston. Occasionally Newton had an exhibition of its own. Back in 1888, for instance, the Channing Art Exhibition brought out works by thirty- nine exhibitors in oils, sixteen in water colors, and others in pastel, china and pottery painting. Henry Orne Ryder after four years of study in Europe returned to his Auburn- dale home with paintings that had caught the reflections of sky and sea in Brittany. Louis K. Harlow busied himself in his Beacon Street studio and in Waban with his water colors, and gained a reputation as an illustrator. W. L. Challoner of Newtonville annually exhibited his water color paintings in Springfield and was congratulated heartily by the Springfield Republican. W. N. Barthol- omew was a Newton Centre artist, and Charles Copeland was noted as an illustrator of national songs as well as a painter of pictures. In 1895 the Newton Club staged an art exhibit of Boston and New York artists which was declared to be "the most remarkable ever held east of New York." Those who could not compete with the talented few re- sorted to the camera and acquired photographic skill. An exhibition of amateur photography enlisted thirty-seven exhibitors who displayed their achievements on the walls
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of Eliot Lower Hall at Newton. The Newton Camera Club was organized in 1892. At its third annual exhibition it had more than eight hundred photographs on display for several evenings in Eliot Hall. The Club enjoyed a club house in Newtonville. No one knew how widely ad- vertised was the city on the upper Charles until he began to realize the wealth and variety of talent which the com- munity possessed, or picked up, for example, a copy of Harper's Bazaar and read a story by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert Ward telling how a Chestnut Hill lady, on her way home from Boston from a meeting to help the Cherokees through the influence of Browning, while waiting in the Boston railroad station overhead a plot of a Newton Centre couple who were planning to commit murder. The Wards were residents of Newton Highlands for a time and then made their home on Dudley Street in the Oak Hill section. In 1897 Oak Hill people were dis- satisfied because they felt that they were not getting their share of attention from the city government, and they requested Herbert Ward to make representations to the city in their behalf.
Now and then the weather supplied mild excitement, and was unusually satisfactory as a topic of conversation. The last of February in 1893 brought a record-breaking snowstorm which tied up the street cars, delayed railroad trains, and left eight-foot drifts in the south part of the city. The ninth of November in the next year contributed a blizzard which levelled the telegraph poles on three of the four tracks of the Boston and Albany Railroad, played havoc with train schedules, and put electric cars out of commission. It severed telegraph connection and put out street lights, and did heavy damage to fruit and shade trees. The summer brought disaster in July, 1888, when a small cyclone coming from Waltham struck the city, lifted roofs, uprooted large trees, and blew in windows.
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The city was stirred pleasurablen Dwight L. Moody came to town and spoke at Eliot Church at an inspirational convention. He had won more than national fame as an evangelist, and people were glad of an oppor- tunity to see and hear him. They were emotionally aroused by Sam Small when he put in the "rousements" at a Pro- hibition rally in Newton Centre. Some of them were dis- turbed greatly when the noisy Salvation Army petitioned for a license to build barracks on Washington Street in West Newton. One opponent to the petition found fault because when the Army first came and occupied Good Templars Hall the members did not take care of the prem- ises and were compelled to vacate the building. Near by residents complained that the noise of the Army meetings attracted the hoodlums of the neighborhood. Church and lodge people said that the parades disturbed their meet- ings. It was charged that if barracks were permitted them Good Templars Hall would be made useless because of the disturbance. Some urged that their parades should be forbidden and the Army removed from the village.
Less exciting but more enjoyable was the Grand Army carnival in the winter of 1892 when the Post brought together six hundred war relics and held a fair. In the autumn of the next year the Grand Army celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its organization in Masonic Hall in Newtonville, when fifteen hundred people gathered to listen to the addresses and music. On two other occa- sions the Grand Army held receptions, one to Governor Greenhalge and the other to the young ladies battalion of Lasell Seminary. Another occasion which drew the crowd was the first exhibit of the Newton Fanciers' Club for three days in Armory Hall. It was a novelty in Newton, and the promise of more than a thousand poultry, besides pigeons, rabbits and guinea pigs, with the offer of generous prizes, attracted exhibitors and the public.
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The autumn of 1896 was marked by the observance of the two hundredth anniversary of John Eliot's preach- ing to the Indians on Nonantum Hill. On Sunday fore- noon, October twenty-fifth, a commemorative service was held in the Eliot Church, at which Dr. Ezra H. Byington, author of a recent book on the Pilgrims, gave an historical address. In the evening a popular service with several speakers took place in the same church. A civic celebra- tion was held on November II, the anniversary of the second meeting with the Indians, for which public invita- tions were issued which read: "The Mayor and City Council of the City of Newton invite your attendance at the public exercises celebrating the two hundred and fif- tieth anniversary of the founding of Nonantum and the beginning of the public work of Reverend John Eliot in civilizing and Christianizing the Indians of North America. Oration by William Everett at Eliot Church, Newton, Wednesday evening, November eleventh, at seven forty- five o'clock, by order of the City Council of the City of Newton. Henry E. Cobb, Mayor. J. F. Kingsbury, City Clerk." On that occasion addresses were made also by the Mayor and William Carver Bates.
The people of the community responded heartily and attended the various exercises in large numbers. Sixteen hundred persons were said to be present at Eliot Church on Sunday. The ministers did not fail to share in the observance. Reverend F. B. Hornbrooke spoke on The Roxbury Pastorate, Reverend George E. Merrill, D.D., on The Indian Question Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago, Reverend Dillon Bronson on Some Traits of Character, and Reverend William H. Davis on The Key to the Lock of John Eliot's Life.
Nor did the schools neglect the occasion to teach his- tory. Prizes were offered for the best essays on Eliot's life and labors. A first prize, Class A, was awarded to Alice
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Frost of the Claflin School, aged ten, and another, Class B, to Charlotte B. DeForest, aged seventeen. On the day of the civic celebration exercises were held in the hall of the high school with addresses by Reverend W. H. Davis, D.D., of the Eliot Church, Reverend B. F. McDaniel of the Newton Centre Unitarian Society, and Dr. John T. Prince.
The most permanent commemoration of the event of 1646 was the memorial monument erected on the slope of Nonantum Hill in 1879. The money was raised by a vol- untary group of persons formed into the Eliot Memorial Association three years earlier. A piece of land was trans- ferred from the Kenrick family on which a monument might be placed. It was decided to make the memorial in the form of a terrace, and on the stone structure was cut an inscription prepared by President Eliot of Harvard which read: "Here at Nonantum, October 28, 1646, in Waban's wigwam, near this spot, John Eliot began to preach the Gospel to the Indians. Here was founded the first Chris- tian community of Indians within the English colonies." Elsewhere were carved the names of the missionary's associates, Heath, Shepard, Gookin, Waban. Three hun- dred dollars of the money raised remained unexpended, and it was kept as the Eliot Fund from which school prizes were to be paid annually. The Eliot Terrace and the Eliot Fund were conveyed to the city on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1896. They remain as a continual reminder of Indian and colonial history.
HEFTH
THE ELIOT MEMORIAL, ERECTED ON NONANTUM HILL IN 1879
X A CROSS SECTION OF THE CITY IN THE NINETIES
IF the wayfarer who rambled about the cluster of hamlets which comprised the town of Newton early in the nineteenth century had wakened to life, and, like Rip Van Winkle, had perambulated once more over the same ground in the closing years of the century, he would have rubbed his eyes in surprise.
Gone are the old landmarks at Newton Corner with few exceptions. Unfamiliar are the stores which line the sides of the Square and the ornate stone bank building at the junction of Washington and Centre Streets. On the Watertown side of the Square houses and commercial buildings crowd upon the river. On the Brighton side the river bank has been improved. Up Hunnewell Hill houses cluster thickly where once was open country. Standing in the Square, he is astonished to see a large conveyance move swiftly along parallel tracks and come to a stop to discharge its passengers. Without visible means of transit it seems to move at the will of its uniformed guards, while a rod with a small wheel attached maintains connection with an overhead wire. Shades of the old oxcart, a trolley car! And as he looks another and still another arrive from different directions.
To avoid this bewitched broomstick train the way- farer starts in the direction of Newton Centre, where the car tracks do not run. But a few rods bring him to a bridge, and scarcely has he set foot upon it when he is startled out of his wits by a shriek and a roar beneath his feet as a rail- road train sweeps to a stop at the station. If the electric
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car was a surprise, the steam railroad is a terror. The broad concourse of four tracks, the astounding speed of the train, the strange iron horse with its clanging bell and hiss- ing steam, the huge many-windowed cars which look like houses on wheels, and the swift vanishing of the train as it speeds on its way, seem a marvel and a menace.
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