USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 30
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HISTORY OF NEWTON
that year, giving Taft 4,054 votes as against 1,470 for Bryan.
Two residents of the city were entrusted with respon- sible educational positions. Reverend William E. Hunt- ington, D.D., who at one time was the minister of the Methodist church at Newton, and who subsequently was dean of the College of Liberal Arts in Boston University, was elected president of that institution upon the retire- ment of Dr. William F. Warren in 1903. He was given a reception and banquet by his neighbors in Newton Centre where he resided, and in October, 1904, he was duly installed with public exercises in Tremont Temple, when Governor Bates, Mayor Collins, President Eliot of Har- vard, and others gave addresses of congratulation. Rev- erend George E. Horr, D.D., who for six years had been a member of the faculty of the Newton Theological Institu- tion, in 1908 succeeded Pres. Nathan E. Wood, D.D., who had followed Dr. Alvah Hovey in 1899.
A few years after the Spanish War, when the exploits of those days were in the public mind, Newton was glad to welcome Richmond P. Hobson on Patriots' Day. After being entertained and driven about the city, including a visit to the grave of Dr. S. F. Smith in the Newton Ceme- tery and to Lasell Seminary, he dined at the Newton Club and in the evening delivered an address in Temple Hall, Newtonville. The year before the military spirit of the city had an opportunity to express itself at the thirtieth anniversary of the Claflin Guard. The occasion was cele- brated with the annual prize drill and a dance at which five hundred people were present. An event in sporting circles was the lowering of the world's record in auto racing at Ormond, Florida, by Louis F. Ross of Newtonville. The expert racer became the maker of the Ross steam car. Newton Centre had its own auto races on a rough quarter- mile course on the Cedar Street grounds as a part of the
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celebration of the Fourth of July. Twenty cars were en- tered, but after several laps had been covered the racers were called off because of the danger of accidents.
While distinction was coming to these men in the prime of their lives others were passing from the scenes where they had played their part. Edward L. Pickard, who had been mayor in 1901 and a resident of Auburndale since 1872, died in 1908. The next year death claimed Judge Robert R. Bishop, who had been a gubernatorial candidate versus Benjamin F. Butler as well as serving the city in both branches of the state legislature, and Gorham D. Gilman, long consul for New England for Hawaii, and prominent in local church, Y. M. C. A., and G. A. R. circles. About the same time died Reverend H. J. Pat- rick, D.D., of West Newton, and Bertrand E. Taylor, prominent architect and lodge member of Newton Centre. A year later died Benjamin F. Otis, for thirty-four years auditor of the city, and Edwin M. Fowle, who was in the charity department of the city for seventeen years.
The decade brought changes in street railway trans- portation. At first the trolley lines had been liberal, giv- ing transfers in all directions. They had sought extensions to places that hardly promised profit. When the rolling stock began to deteriorate and revenues did not pay ex- penses and dividends their managers tried to find ways to retrench. They proposed to reduce transfer privileges and to consolidate lines. Seventy miles of track were consoli- dated under the title of the Boston Suburban Electric Company. Three years later the Newton Street Railway Company purchased the Commonwealth Avenue and the Wellesley and Boston companies. There was much public discussion for weeks about the poor financial condition of the street railway companies at the same time that criti- cism was rife because of the technical delays in abolishing the railroad grade crossings on the south side.
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The growing popularity of the auto, which was to give the final blow to the street railway system, was compelling the consideration of better highways. Commonwealth Avenue, which was likely to be the principal thoroughfare through the city, was treated by the street department with a number of experiments. Various preparations were tried, but the most satisfactory seemed to be a preparation of tar with the moisture distilled from it, which was known in the market as tarvia. It was adopted on the stretch of avenue passing through Auburndale and proved so satis- factory that it was adopted later for general use.
Newton had suffered for several seasons from gypsy and browntail moths, which had infested this part of the country, and to eradicate the pest and at the same time to take over the care of the one hundred and seventy-three acres of city parks the Forestry Commission was created in 1903. All tree work was entrusted to it and the care of cemeteries.
The street lighting of the city improved with the de- signing of better lamps and service. The Newton Electric Light and Power Company had been organized in 1885 and furnished electric lights to the city, which gradually displaced gas and kerosene lamps. The Newton and Water- town Gas Light Company bought the Power Company four years later, but in turn sold its business to the Edison Company. In 1906 a new power plant with a building of reinforced concrete was constructed on Homer Street near the cemetery. It was capable of providing for two hundred and fifty arc and twenty thousand incandescent lamps, and could produce two hundred horse power for manufac- turing purposes. This was ample for lighting purposes as the city was using only about twelve hundred incandes- cent lamps and less than two hundred arc lamps. Among highway improvements was the construction of a cement bridge over the river on Concord Street, Lower Falls, to
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replace an old wooden structure. There was much com- plaint about the narrow Weston bridge.
Business did not develop rapidly during the decade, but at Newtonville several concerns were conspicuous for their prosperity in the field of building construction. The H. F. Ross Company, established in the seventies, occu- pied two acres with its mills and yards, and was one of the large building companies in this part of the country. It had lumber sheds and drying kilns, a planing mill, cabinet shop, and power house. M. Frank Lucas built up his business after 1884. He owned a lumber yard and planing mill, employed fifty men and advertised to supply lumber, builder's finish, and greenhouse stock. The Wentworth- Lister Company had similar equipment on Crafts Street, and the Burnham Brothers were increasing their capacity at Newton Centre. The Clark Manufacturing Company at West Newton made harnesses, wagon cushions, and whips, in a two-story building with forty thousand square feet of floor space, employing twenty men, with little ink- ling of the fate which was in store for its line of business. Within the next few years livery stables flourished, though they, too, were fated to give way, along with blacksmith shops, to the future garages. More stable was such a busi- ness as that of Albert Brackett and Son who owned the largest and oldest coal and wood yards in the city, with yards at Newton, Newtonville and Brighton. The founder died in 1905, a few years before Luther Paul, well-known coal dealer and farmer in Newton Centre.
Banks reflected prosperity in business and the growth of population. The Newton National Bank had been organized as a state bank as early as 1848. It had deposits of $450,000. Newton and West Newton banks repre- sented a capital of $300,000. But trust companies were becoming popular as freer from certain restrictions, and in 1894 the Newton Trust Company was organized with a
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capital stock of $100,000, with John W. Weeks as its first president, and in the same year the Newton Centre Trust Company was organized similarly. By 1907 it had more than one million dollars in deposits. The Newton Centre Savings Bank had been organized in 1896. The three sav- ings banks of the city had twenty-three thousand deposi- tors with a total of eight and one-quarter million dollars. Newtonville also had its trust company. An important event in banking circles occurred in 1908, when the New- ton National Bank liquidated its business and consoli- dated with the Newton Centre Trust Company. It took the name of the Newton Trust Company, with banking quarters in the bank building at Newton and in Newton Centre where the old trust company had been. Dwight Chester was made president and Frank L. Richardson treasurer. In the spring of 1910 a cooperative bank was opened.
Incidents that aroused passing interest were a freight wreck near Riverside in which one freight ran into the rear end of another, telescoping six cars and destroying autos, chairs, pipes, and grain, en route to Boston; a fire on the lower floor of Lasell Seminary main building which drove out all the students on a February evening, though the building was saved; the removal of trolley tracks from Homer Street in Newton Centre; the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the building of the Jackson Homestead on Washington Street, when more than one hundred persons were present from near and far; and the arrest of gypsies who had robbed a merchant of one hun- dred dollars. Thompsonville had its permanent gypsy camp of the Stanleys, where the family had bought land, but these were travelling through.
Of special interest in lodge circles were the Odd Fel- lows fair which was held for three days in 1901 in the Club building at Newton Highlands, and the occasion in 1903
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when the Knights Templars entertained their out-of-town comrades at the clubs, at Woodland Park, and at Nor- umbega. The Braeburn Club enlarged its building and improved its grounds in 1909. The Newton Historical Society was incorporated in 1902, with Henry E. Cobb as president and Frank A. Mason as secretary. The turn of the century was a reminder that Newton had made his- tory, and that in the new age the childhood of the century had been left behind, new times were bringing new duties, and a new community life was in the making.
XII UNDER THE SWAY OF A MOTOR AGE
IN the second decade of the twentieth century the people of Newton were definitely leaving behind the vil- lage life which had been characteristic of the nineteenth century, and entering upon a period when life was geared differently. In place of the leisure of the front veranda, the soft light of the fireside, the comfort of the hot air furnace, the neighborly call, and the afternoon drive behind a matched pair of horses, had come the restlessly ranging automobile, and the correspondingly deserted front porch, the telephone conversation which saved time and energy, the radiator, the electric light, and the moving picture. Life was dynamic. People walked less, and turned swiftly from one interest to another. Not only in business but in home and community occupations and appointments time- saving inventions were multiplying the possibilities that could be crowded into every twenty-four hours. The range of ordinary life was widened for thousands of automobile owners who were familiar with their own neighborhood and the railroad route to Boston, but knew nothing of the countryside about them. By 1916 nearly two thousand automobiles were assessed in the city, with Ward Six boasting the largest number. The total valuation was esti- mated at one and a half million dollars.
Motoring for pleasure took people away from home in the daytime and on Sundays, when the commuters were free from business obligations; church congregations dwindled and highways became crowded. The moving picture theatres with their novel appeal to ordinary folk, even of slender purse, emptied the homes in the evening.
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For a time it was necessary to go out of town to the pic- tures, but the opening of the Newton Opera House in 1912 on the site of the old Coffin house near Nonantum Square, with moving pictures and vaudeville for ten or fifteen cents, provided an opportunity nearer home. It was a brick building constructed with large expectations of patronage. It was made fireproof with good ventilation, and it was supplied with chairs for nine hundred and fifty people.
Improvements in electric lighting went far to make beautiful the exhibitions of theatre and picture hall, and various electrical appliances lightened labor in the home. So rapidly were the vacuum cleaner, the electric iron, the electric toaster, and similar articles lending their aid to the housekeeper that the Edison Electric Company erected a portable building at Newton Centre, in which were demonstrated the conveniences of those modern inven- tions. Within six months five thousand persons took the trouble to visit the "House of Edison Light," curious to see and to learn how to use the new devices. The broom was banished to the cellar or the garage, the flatiron to the lower oven in the kitchen stove. The old ice house at Crystal Lake went up in smoke, and though it was replaced with a modern building, some of its patronage went to the Purity Ice Company, which erected a plant near Beacon Street and offered its artificial ice for sale. Presently the old ice company was making the new ice in competition. The electric pad was better for rheumatism than the old soapstone, and the feather bed was no longer needed when every bedroom had its hot water radiator. It was easier to turn a switch or push a button than to trim and fill the old kerosene lamps. Aladdin had rubbed his lamp to some purpose.
Gas stoves began to oust the coal range from the kitchen, but electricity was more and more supplanting
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gas for street lighting. The electric car still clattered through the streets, but fewer fares were rung in as the rubber-tired flivvers increased in numbers, for the me- chanic and tradesman were buying cars as well as the people who formerly owned carriages, and even the ple- beian felt it beneath him to patronize the public convey- ance. The time was coming fast when the carpenter and the bricklayer would drive to work in the morning, and the building contractor would collect his laborers into a truck and pack them off home at half-past four or five in the afternoon.
The increase in the number of telephone subscribers necessitated new and larger telephone exchanges. People were finding the telephone a necessity rather than a lux- ury. In 1914, when the new exchange was built at New- ton Centre, there were one thousand and eighty-five sub- scribers in the Centre Newton district, and fifteen thou- sand calls were handled every day. Two years later a new exchange became necessary for the Newton North district.
Building was stimulated by a demand for homes from an increasing number of people who wished to live under these modern arrangements in the Garden City. With all the changes and all the building the city preserved the beauty of its streets and parks, trees were kept to shade the houses, and shrubbery and gardens tastefully deco- rated well-kept grounds. Old landmarks gave way to modern structures, like the old tavern at the corner of Boylston and Eliot Streets, Newton Highlands, which was replaced by a business block. New and reconstructed mer- cantile buildings supplied better living quarters for people who wished to live in inexpensive apartments, as in White's Block at Newton Centre. New buildings were needed for old organizations. The cemetery was being cared for assiduously by H. Wilson Ross, who succeeded his father
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as superintendent in 1916, after Charles W. Ross had served the city in that capacity. But there was need of an administrative building, and this was built of the popular granite and limestone to provide official quarters. Every year was adding to the beauty and attractiveness of the grounds until the cemetery became recognized as among the most beautiful in Greater Boston.
Local business was prosperous in the villages, as re- flected by the banks. The West Newton Savings Bank reached the two-million mark in deposits after twenty- eight years of existence, and built a fireproof building of brick and limestone in the heart of the village. About the same time the Newton Savings Bank had six millions in deposits and the Newton Centre Savings Bank was ap- proaching one million. The Newton Trust Company as early as 1912 could boast of two and a half millions, and the Newton Cooperative Bank at Newtonville had assets of seven hundred fifty-eight thousand dollars as early as 1910. Altogether the banks of the city had resources of at least fifteen million dollars, but this was only an indication of the rapid gains that were on the way.
The manufacturing interests of the city did not keep pace with gains in real estate and banking. The United States Census of Manufactures taken in 1914 showed a decline of Newton industries. This appeared in a smaller capital and a falling off in the value of goods produced. When the war came four years later nearly twenty-five hundred wage earners were employed in the factories with an annual payroll of one million six hundred thousand dol- lars. The largest number, seven hundred, was at the Saco- Lowell Works at Upper Falls, where a strike had occurred two years earlier over a question of wages. Six hundred employees were at work in the Saxony Worsted Mills at Nonantum, three hundred and fifty at the Gamewell plant at Upper Falls, and the same number found employment
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with the Stanley Motor Carriage Company. Besides these were smaller forces at the Newton Mills, the Silver Lake Cordage Company, the Martin Manufacturing Company at West Newton, and smaller industries, like the building construction plants. The Holtzer-Cabot Electric Com- pany of Newton bought land at Newton Highlands, intend- ing to build a plant and manufacture electrical apparatus, but such enterprises were exceptional. Newton was essen- tially a city of homes, not of factories, and the business of the people centred more and more in Boston. This was demonstrated by the election of forty prominent residents of Newton to offices and boards of Boston banks in a single year. In 1915 Louis A. Liggett of Chestnut Hill was elected president and Henry I. Harriman of Newton was made vice-president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce.
An interesting revival of older methods of doing busi- ness was the attempt to bring the producing farmer and the city consumer together by opening public markets at Newtonville and Newton Centre in the public squares. The city encouraged the scheme by establishing a bureau of public markets and approved two thousand dollars for its maintenance. The Newton Centre Woman's Club gave it backing. For a few weeks thrifty housekeepers were glad to get fresh produce in the early mornings, but the enthusiasm soon spent itself, trading conditions were un- satisfactory, and the enterprise languished. People returned to the indoor markets and more convenient hours of doing business, and the farmers found it more profitable to go elsewhere. Motorists on the road improved the oppor- tunity to get fresh vegetables by patronizing roadside stands, and the farmers learned to display their goods so as to attract such custom.
It was to the interest of the street railways to make their service as good as possible if they were to compete successfully with the automobile and the railroad. The
t
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consolidation of lines into the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway was in the interest of economy in the operation of one hundred and twenty-seven miles of track. The inau- guration of through service between Newton Highlands and Boston was attractive to the public, but it was not continued permanently. Within a few years the price of labor was mounting, with the shift in values which accom- panied the World War, and it became necessary for the Company to ask permission to raise fares, from five to six and seven cents and eventually to ten.
The city was losing some of its long-time citizens by death. Benjamin F. Bacon, connected with Newton banks for sixty-three years, Adolphus J. Blanchard, twenty years treasurer of the Newton Savings Bank, Dwight Chester, prominent in banking and insurance circles and at one time president of the board of aldermen, were missed from many organizations with which they were connected. Men who had been active in the city government left their places to others, including Joseph D. Wellington, for many years the popular city messenger, Charles L. Berry, for twenty-two years assistant superintendent of streets, Edwin O. Childs, city clerk for seven years and an alder- man and assessor, Winfield S. Slocum, city solicitor, Capt. S. Edward Howard, chairman of the school committee, Judge John C. Kennedy, for twenty-eight years judge of the Newton Police Court, and the former mayor, Hermon E. Hibbard. Well-known residents, like John Ward of market fame, William C. Strong, the nurseryman of Waban, Charles W. Ross, cemetery superintendent, and Henry F. Ross, Newtonville contractor; physicians of the different villages, including Dr. Henry P. Perkins, who had practised for twenty-one years in West Newton and was the senior surgeon of the Newton Hospital; Dr. James F. Bothfeld in Newton for eighteen years, and Dr. Jesse F. Frisbie in the village of Newton; such prominent clergy-
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men as Dr. George W. Shinn, so long minister of Grace Church, Dr. Willard F. Mallalieu of Auburndale, bishop of the Methodist church for twenty-seven years. Dr. Samuel W. Dike of the same village, national secretary of the National League for the Protection of the Family, Dr. E. E. Strong, editor of the Missionary Herald of the Con- gregationalists, Reverend Theron Brown, veteran editor of the Youth's Companion, and Father Dolan, the oldest Catholic priest in the city, were seen no more.
Charles E. Ranlett, one of the old-time captains of clipper ships, survived after half a century of residence to celebrate his one hundredth birthday, but he died within a year. Mrs. Clementina Butler, after many years of mis- sionary service which made history, died at her home in Newton Centre; Mrs. Alvin R. Bailey was missed from patriotic and club circles in which she was even a national figure; Miss Susannah M. Duncklee of Newton ended a long career during which she demonstrated that a woman could be a successful treasurer; and Mrs. Mary R. Martin of Newtonville laid down a long life, for twenty-three years given in service as secretary of the Associated Charities, nine years on the school board of the city, and twenty-five years the efficient secretary of the Newtonville Women's Guild. Many other men and women were missed from important organizations in Boston as well as in the home city. Perhaps the loss of no one was felt so keenly as that of Frank Ashley Day, who spent his boyhood in Newton, was educated in the city schools, and made his mark as a Boston financier. A leader in the Eliot Church, of which he was benefactor, generous in his contributions to the firm establishment of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, a loyal citizen, personally becoming the responsible holder of part of the Claflin estate until the city could take it over, supporter of the Nonantum Industrial School until the city was ready to assume that responsibility, he
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was always ready to serve his fellowmen. His death in 1914 seemed an irreparable loss.
Certain individuals there were who were honored with positions of responsibility which distinguished them among their friends and fellow citizens. Ernest M. Hopkins, a resident of Newton while engaged in public utility corpora- tions as an expert adviser in human relations in organized industry, was elected president of Dartmouth College, of which he was an alumnus. Miss Katharine R. A. Flood of Newton was chosen national president of the Daughters of Veterans. Samuel L. Powers of Newton, Frederick L. Anderson of Newton Centre, Guy M. Winslow of Auburn- dale, James A. Lowell of Chestnut Hill, and James P. Richardson of Newtonville were selected as delegates to the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts which met in 1917. Congressman John W. Weeks received the suffrages of his fellow citizens for the responsible office of senator from Massachusetts, and thus occupied a higher place of dignity at Washington.
The citizens of Newton cast a heavy vote against woman suffrage, but a vigorous Roosevelt Club was organ- ized to support that champion of all worthy reforms for a third term as president. In the city government Charles W. Hatfield served acceptably as mayor for four years beginning in 1910. The mayor's term had been extended to two years in 1904. Edwin O. Childs, Jr. won the elec- tion in 1913 over Allston Burr, commencing an incumbency of sixteen years in the mayor's chair. He was a product of a home in which civil service was honored, of the educa- tional system of the Newton schools, and of Harvard Uni- versity and Boston University Law School. As a young man he interested himself in church and civic responsibil- ities, and for seventeen years before his election had been the popular leader of the Nonantum Boys Club, and was active in the Young Men's Christian Association. He was
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