USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 29
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Meantime the oldest of all the associations, that of Newton Centre, was continuing its endless task of beauti- fying its own village. Late in 1906 it found that the un- sightly buildings at the corner of Beacon Street and Lang-
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ley Road were on the point of being sold privately. To make sure that the nuisance would not be perpetuated, ten thousand dollars was borrowed quickly from the New- ton Trust Company and private citizens, and the Asso- ciation took title. Later the necessary funds were raised by the Association and the Woman's Club, and the tri- angle was presented to the city, to be transformed in its turn into a park. During the same year a campaign was started by the Association against obnoxious billboards, with decided improvement in conditions as a result. A granite and limestone drinking fountain in the public square was supplied to the city. The Association main- tained a flagpole and a flag for holidays on the Common.
In 1914 it was the Improvement Association which raised enough money to remove the old building of Trinity Church to a place on the side of the playground where it would be convenient for its new use as athletic headquar- ters. Then came the World War when all thoughts were turned to the one objective, but later it was the Associa- tion which took the lead in the erection of a war memorial on the Common in the form of a flagstaff with a bronze tablet encircling it bearing the names of those who sacri- ficed themselves for the nation and democracy. Four years later the organization was actively engaged in raising funds for a branch library. Within two years it has obtained the greatly needed traffic tower in the Square, and origi- nated the project of securing twelve acres of land between Cypress Street and Langley Road from the Newton Theo- logical Institution for a city playground.
The Playground and Social Service League of Newton Centre was organized in 1902 to help the playground move- ment, and with the assistance of the municipal govern- ment new swings, sand boxes, and equipment for sports were provided for Newton Centre. The running track was repaired, fields were marked off for ball games, new walks
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and bridges were constructed, and numerous events were staged. An overseer was engaged to plan and carry out the schedule.
Early in the century the Newton Centre Improve- ment Association inaugurated an annual Village Night, when the members gathered in Bray Hall to dine together and listen to inspiring speeches about the civic needs of the village. These were especially popular when the depres- sion of the railroad tracks on the Circuit was under serious discussion. There were dangerous crossings at Langley Road, on Centre Street near the icehouse at Crystal Lake, and two or three at Newton Highlands. The de- pression of six to twelve feet which was proposed would cause certain engineering difficulties and would necessitate the adjustment of the railroad stations to the lower levels. Two crossings would be abolished at Newton Highlands. It was estimated that the cost would involve the city in an expense of more than seventy-five thousand dollars besides nearly one hundred and ninety thousand dollars for the state and almost a half million for the railroad. But it was only a question of time when the improvement must be made. The other parts of the city were taken care of and at length it was accomplished. The improvement came none too soon. Railroads were feeling the competition of the electric cars and revenues were falling off. Bitter com- plaint was made to the Boston and Albany Railroad be- cause the time schedule of the trains was undependable. There were long delays for commuters in getting out of Boston late in the afternoon. Some of the locomotives found it difficult to pull heavy trains up the grade at Brook- line Hills and Reservoir. But the Company after a time adopted the policy of putting on heavier engines and con- ditions improved.
The street railways were not yet much affected by the automobile. Improved service was given to Boston over
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Commonwealth Avenue when the Norumbega Park cars were routed into the city without change. An attempt was made to get permission to run a car line through Waban, but the request was denied. In 1901 five companies started a movement to consolidate their lines. In the same year a franchise was granted with careful restrictions to the Bos- ton and Worcester Street Railway Company, and a few years later an electric express service was inaugurated. An unfortunate accident occurred on the line about that time when several cars piled up together at the foot of a hill in Newton Centre and several passengers were carried to the hospital.
As automobiles increased in number the hospitals found more accident cases on their hands. The first ma- chines were undependable and the drivers were not used to them. Citizens complained that they were dangerous, and their owners got more work than pleasure out of them. When in motion they were shaky, and they were as balky as a mule on every possible occasion. Much of the time on an excursion might be spent under the car. Yet it was a social distinction to own a car, and people endured the dis- comforts. Some persons were afraid of explosions which never happened. It was more dangerous to live near the fireworks factory on Needham Street, where three men were killed on a March day. But the inner workings of a gasoline engine were a mystery to most people, and mys- teries were dangerous. And because certain people were careless or reckless about driving accidents occurred. They were recorded in the newspapers and the public forgot all about them while the victims languished on hospital cots.
Steadily the Newton Hospital improved its service. A fire burned out the contagious ward, and thirteen pa- tients sick with scarlet fever were carried out through the windows, but it was in June and no one was the worse for it. The city bore the expense of rebuilding. Another fire
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occurred a year later in the new Thayer men's ward soon after it was opened, but without serious consequences. For the benefit of the kitchen fund Capt. Albert C. Warren opened his estate on West Newton hill for a public pres- entation of the "Pied Piper," which was managed by the women of the whole city. Soon after the Newton Hospital Catholic Aid Society was organized to provide a number of free beds for the Hospital. They were for the poor with- out restriction of creed. The citizens of the whole city were glad to do what they could for an institution which any one of them might need at any moment. The wealthy made gifts from time to time to meet special needs.
In 1905 a new domestic building adjoining the admin- istration building was completed through the efforts of the Hospital Aid Association. It supplied diet kitchen, serving rooms, and store rooms. Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Day were the munificent donors of Ellison Hall, a substantial addi- tion to the Nurses' Home. More space was needed for surgical cases and for a maternity ward. This need was provided for in 1908 by Mellen Bray, who presented the Hospital with the Founders' Memorial Building com- pletely furnished at a total cost of sixty thousand dollars. The donor was unable to be present at the dedication and died the next week. He had come to Newton Centre in 1863, and had gained a fortune through his inventive ability. He had improved the village with Bray Block, and in the year of his death he had completed the erection of the first large apartment house in Newton Centre across the street from Bray Block.
The city was losing some of its most eminent citizens. During that same year died John T. Langford of Newton, a resident for thirty-four years, who was influential in the north side improvements. He had built the whole or part of the water works of forty towns and cities in the New England states. The city and Eliot Church met a severe
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loss in the death of Henry E. Cobb, the eleventh mayor of Newton, in whose administration the railroad tracks were depressed and Washington Street was widened. Two other prominent citizens were George A. Walton and his wife of West Newton. Within three years died Governor Claflin, James H. Nickerson, the West Newton banker, Lucius G. Pratt of the same village, who had been selectman, alder- man, and donor to the Hospital, George W. Morse, pro- moter of the electric railways and of the New England Light and Power Company, Edwin B. Haskell of the Bos- ton Herald, Major Seth A. Ranlett, city treasurer and col- lector for nine years, Dr. O. E. Hunt of Newtonville, the first chairman of the medical board at the Hospital, and Dr. James Utley of Newton, who was surgeon at the Hos- pital for thirteen years.
Two of the leading ministers of the city were entered in the necrology of the year. Dr. William H. Davis of the Eliot Church after a year of failing health died at Clifton Springs, New York. An impressive funeral in his own church testified to the affection of the people whom he had served for ten years. Dr. Everett C. Burr, until recently the pastor of the Newton Centre Baptist Church, was killed on the railroad. Two years earlier the venerable Dr. Hovey, so long president of the Newton Theological Insti- tution, passed on, and Nathaniel T. Allen, known and respected by everybody for his career in the Allen School. Reverend William Butler, Methodist pioneer in India and Mexico, died earlier in the decade, and a beautiful me- morial window was placed in the Methodist church at Newton Centre.
One by one the early mayors of the city dropped away : William B. Fowle, Alden Speare, and J. Wesley Kimball in the same year, and William Ellison a year later. Doctors F. L. Thayer of West Newton, J. R. Deane of Newton Highlands, D. W. Stearns of Nonantum, and Charles E.
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Dearborn of Newton were missed by men and women who had learned to depend on them. The assassination of President Mckinley brought sorrow to all the nation, and in Newton buildings were heavily draped and the people gathered in the churches to unite in memorial services.
In spite of the loss of many supporters the churches of the city were prosperous. Grace Church and Channing Church at Newton each celebrated its fiftieth anniversary early in the century. Reverend A. L. Hudson was the new pastor at Channing Church. The Eliot Church adopted the custom of Sunday afternoon vespers with special musi- cal programs in place of an evening service, and united with the Baptists in special evangelistic services for a time. Reverend H. Grant Person came to the pastorate of the church in 1906 to remain until his sudden death in Europe.
The Unitarian Club included the Unitarian churches of the city and served to unite them in a conscious fellow- ship. The Congregational Club was flourishing still, and it was able to report seven thriving churches of the denom- ination in the different villages. The Auburndale Congre- gational Church observed its fiftieth anniversary. At New- ton Highlands Reverend Charles E. Haven ended a min- istry of seven years, and was succeeded by Reverend George T. Smart, a scholarly preacher and respected citi- zen. Four years later the church was happy to move out of the wooden meetinghouse which it had occupied for thirty-three years into a new stone structure. Standing in a commanding position in the angle between two streets in the heart of the village, the new edifice was a noble addi- tion to village architecture, and its clock was everybody's timepiece. It was built of the popular seamless granite with limestone trimmings; a parish house of the same materials adjoined it, furnishing Sunday School headquar- ters, ladies' parlor and a large dining room and kitchen. The auditorium provided sittings for five hundred and
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twenty-five persons. With the growth of the church it became necessary later to enlarge the parish house sub- stantially until the church was equipped for thoroughly efficient service to the community.
The First Church in Newton Centre also acquired a new edifice during the decade. On the site of the old wooden meetinghouse a new structure was reared of the same materials as the church at Newton Highlands and after the Gothic style of the rural parish churches in Eng- land. Its sturdy tower gave it dignity and the large corner lot made a noble setting. An ample chapel adjoined the church in the rear extending towards Homer Street. The auditorium was designed to seat seven hundred and sixty- five persons, while the whole building measured one hun- dred and sixty-one by ninety-seven feet. Provision was made for the various needs of a modern church, including classrooms and social rooms. On completion of the build- ing memorial windows were set in place and a new font and a communion table were provided. The church had had only ten ministers in two hundred and forty years. One of these, the aged Dr. Furber, made the first subscription to the new edifice, a gift of ten thousand dollars. The church had hoped to build a meetinghouse in the colonial style, but the expense seemed prohibitive; as it was, the cost of the new building was in excess of one hundred thousand dollars.
For many years the Unitarian church at West New- ton had desired to build a stone structure, but there was difference of opinion over its location. The decision was in favor of remaining at the centre of the village rather than removing to the hill where many of the parishioners lived. The grounds of the old Allen School on the corner of Wash- ington and Highland Streets and an adjoining lot were pur- chased and in 1905 the cornerstone was laid. In a little more than a year the new edifice was completed. The
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church and parish house, built in the Perpendicular style, were grouped about an open court, and a beautiful tower rose above the portal leading into the courtyard. The church was of seam-faced granite, the chapel of brick, timber and plaster, on which ivy has found a place to cling. Gifts of windows, memorial tablets, clock and chimes were made by those who loved the church. Another modern structure testified to the perennial interest of New- ton people in religion.
The record of the decade introduces the names of in- coming ministers to whom the churches gave cordial wel- come. To them the people looked for religious guidance, for comfort in bereavement, for a sympathetic understand- ing and wise counsel in difficulties of many kinds. Some of them were called to larger opportunities of service before their usefulness declined in Newton. Some remained to enjoy the crown of a long ministry. No statistics could measure their achievements, no church records could do justice to their work. But to those who knew them the mere names recalled the prized friendships and enriched experiences of other years. Reverend John Goddard, D.D., commenced a long period of service to the Swedenborgian church in Newtonville in the first year of the century. In the same year Reverend Morgan Millar became minister to the Unitarians at Newton Centre. In 1902 Reverend L. H. Dorchester came to the pulpit of the Methodist church in the same village. In 1905 Reverend J. T. Stock- ing accepted the call to Newtonville. In 1907 Reverend Maurice A. Levy became pastor of the Baptist church in Newton Centre.
Among the incidents of church history was a visit of the Paulist Fathers to the Church of Our Lady, the cancel- ling of a mortgage of six thousand dollars by the Meth- odist church at Newtonville, the celebration of the seventy- third anniversary of the Methodist church at Upper Falls,
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and the gathering of the Massachusetts Sunday School Convention at Newton, the blessing of a new bell at the Catholic church, Lower Falls, the renovating of the interior of Channing and Immanuel churches at Newton, and the maintaining of the Ministers' Union, an organization which had been created to promote ministerial acquaint- ance and friendship, and to study the application of Chris- tianity to country and parish life, and which had Dr. Shinn of Grace Church as its competent president. St. John's Episcopal Church at Newtonville erected its granite build- ing to accommodate 200 people and a choir of 24 in the chancel. The chapel was a gift from an unnamed donor.
Not a few persons in Newton had become convinced of the value of Christian Science and were attending the Mother Church in Boston. It was of deep interest to them that Mrs. Eddy should decide to remove her residence from Concord, New Hampshire, to Newton. A large stone house of thirty-four rooms on Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, was secured for her, the necessary alterations were made for her comfort and for her large household, and on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of January, 1908, she made the journey to her new home. There she found a home for the remaining years of her life. She drove about frequently, but otherwise lived quietly at home. There she breathed her last in December, 1910.
A notable event of the year 1908 was a reception given to Father Wholey of the Newton Centre Catholic church by the Newton Centre Improvement Association on the occasion of his leaving town after a popular minis- try in the village. Several of the Protestant ministers expressed their cordial feelings, and the retiring priest and his successor, Father Reardon, spoke in similar terms of friendliness and appreciation.
Club life had its ups and downs during this period of local history. The enthusiasm of one year did not always
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last over a term of years. Sometimes a new organization partially deprived an older club of its customary support. The Newton Club was compelled to reorganize toward the end of the decade. In reorganizing plans were made to limit the number of members to one hundred and to make its membership more representative of all parts of the city. In recent years it had had brilliant anniversary dinners when congressmen were guests of the club, and it was believed confidently that renewed prosperity would fol- low reorganization. The Hunnewell Club had successful dramatics, parties and receptions; among them a recep- tion given by F. O. Stanley to the Katahdin Club with two hundred guests. At West Newton the Northgate Club of young men organized with seventy-two charter mem- bers, a number which was soon increased. Henry B. Day was one of its organizers and contributed munificently to the club house, which was built near the north end of Wal- tham Street. The house had the usual rooms and equip- ment, and extensive lawns, graded drives and walks and four tennis courts added to the attractiveness of the place, so that people from all parts of the city were glad to be included in the Club. It was formally opened in 1902 with a reception which was a conspicuous society event. The first president of the Club was Charles E. Hatfield, mayor of the city during the four years 1910-13.
In the same year the Waban Tennis Courts was started in that part of the city. It was an athletic organization specializing in tennis, but it was also proud of its skill in presenting dramatic entertainments.
Several church clubs were prominent occasionally, as when the Channing Unity Club rendered an especially delightful concert or the William H. Davis Club cele- brated its tenth anniversary with a dinner at the Wood- land Park Hotel. One of the most notable social events of the period was a bazaar prepared by the Newton Federa-
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tion of Women's Clubs in aid of the Claflin estate fund. The grounds were thrown open to the public and the ladies kept open house with sales and exhibits. On four succes- sive evenings special events succeeded one another: colo- nial reception and concert, dinner and dramatic entertain- ment, and governor's night, and on Saturday afternoon a child's entertainment was given. In special celebration of the occasion the Newtonville Women's Guild prepared a volume of one hundred and sixty-eight pages containing descriptions of various associations and clubs, churches, and other institutions of the city, a sketch of its history, and literary arts relating to persons or events connected with the city. The book was profusely illustrated with photographs and maps and well deserved its name of "Mirror of Newton, Past and Present."
Still another new club, a very modest one, was the Acquaintance Club of Auburndale. Early in 1909 seven women met to form a club which would help to establish friendliness among themselves and with newcomers in the village. In twenty years of existence the Club has met regularly once a month informally, sometimes with a speaker, again talking about current events and at times merely sewing. The members have worked much for the Hospital and have aided the Welfare Bureau. They have given emergency relief to needy families. During the World War they concentrated on work for the Red Cross. The membership has increased to twenty-eight.
The Newton Industrial Club of 1906 was the out- growth of two clubs of girls, one organized in 1904 by seven working girls, who called themselves the S. S. S., and the other a group of younger girls organized the next year. They met together for sociability and busied themselves with sewing, millinery and embroidery. They decided soon to combine forces and invited other working girls from all parts of the city to join them. Their meeting for
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reorganization drew together eighty-five girls. They de- cided upon a weekly social evening and at other times had classes of various kinds, which were taught by trained instructors without pay. In 1907 the Club joined the Massachusetts Association of Women Workers.
A far more ambitious organization was the Newton Catholic Club founded in the same year by Reverend Francis Cronin, curate of St. Bernard's Church. One hun- dred and sixty men became charter members. The objec- tive of the Club was to foster practical religious and social activities. The Club bought the Fuller estate at Washing- ton and Prospect Streets, West Newton, and adapted it to its needs for meetings, recreation, entertainments, and lectures. The growth of the Club required more space, and two years later a large hall was erected. This provided ample room for concerts, theatricals, debates, moving pic- tures, and entertainments of varied form. Six bowling alleys, billiard and pool tables, shower baths, and a small gymnasium were in the basement. Anniversary banquets brought eminent speakers to the hall, including Governor Coolidge, Senator Walsh, and the mayor of Newton. The World War called one-third of the members into service, but they came back to renew their loyalty to the Club and to enter again into its activities.
After 1923 under a new leader, Reverend W. T. A. O'Brien, the Club extended its work to include the care of the boys and girls in their recreation and in their educa- tion. The Knights of the Holy Cross Fife and Drum Corps was organized. A boys' high school course in Chris- tian doctrine was given in classes at the Club. The St. Bernard's School of Music and Public Speaking provided inexpensive instruction under skilled teachers. Dramatic entertainments by the boys and girls were staged at regu- lar intervals. The Club owes its permanence and progress to the faithfulness of the senior members in guiding the
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youth who renew continually the life blood of the organi- zation. Bowling tournaments, radio concerts, socials, plays, parties and musicales attract members and their friends, the Club assists the Hospital and other civic institutions, and it has helped to make its members better citizens and better Catholics.
The Good Idea Club was formed in Auburndale with- out any very definite aims except to provide a social good time for all who might join, and to be of mutual service. Two hundred persons joined in a short time and attended monthly meetings in Norumbega Hall. Presently talk was heard about a club house, and athletics, lectures, games and summer outings were planned.
While these organizations were taking shape the daily life of the people went on. Business men went to Boston daily, their wives met at the clubs and in less formal ways in the home and the church, the children spent weary hours in school and more delightful periods at play. One and then another of the citizens attained to leadership in financial, political, or educational circles. As forty New- ton citizens filled responsible positions in Boston banking circles, so several men were entrusted with political respon- sibilities. Seward W. Jones of Newton Highlands was hon- ored with a place on the governor's council. William F. Dana was chosen president of the Massachusetts Senate, not because he was a politician but as a fair-minded, pains- taking member of that body, and not a tool of any man or corporation. After two years of service he was appointed to the bench of the Superior Court. A few years later Marcus Morton of Newtonville was appointed to a similar position. Frank H. Hitchcock of Newton, who had been assistant postmaster general in the Roosevelt Administra- tion, was made chairman of the Republican National Com- mittee in the presidential campaign of 1908. Newton cast a majority vote for the Republican ticket as usual in
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