USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 6
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Near the site of the Catholic Church of Our Lady at the corner of Washington and Adams Streets were several shops. William Jackson, whose life spanned the period between the Revolution and the close of the Civil War and who was a scion of the old Jackson stock, had learned the soap and candle business in his youth, and early in the cen- tury he undertook in a small way to carry on a manufac- turing business of his own. He met with varying fortune but kept at it intermittently, busying himself also with farming and serving as a representative to the national Congress. He was the leading citizen of Newton in middle life. He was president of the first bank and the first to operate in real estate on a considerable scale, when he set off some of his land and sold house lots at Walnut Park. He was shrewd in foreseeing the value of the railroads, wrote and delivered lectures about them, and was influ- ential in getting the first railroad to run through Newton. He was superintendent of construction of that railroad and was connected with others. He was a social reformer, opposing Freemasonry and slavery, and he was so im-
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placable a foe to liquor that he paid extra wages to his workmen rather than allow them to have the grog to which laborers were accustomed between meals. In reli- gion he was a Congregationalist, promoted the organiza- tion of the Eliot Church, and was the president of the American Missionary Association.
Near Jackson's factory was a small plant for making calico, also a large laundry building and a mill pond. A chocolate factory had stood there for some years. East- erly from the Corner near the Brighton line Thomas Small- wood, an Englishman by birth, employed sixty men in the manufacture of haircloth and plush furniture, and became prominent in that industry. John and Ebenezer Bilson made church organs, building the first instrument that was used in the Baptist Church at Newton Centre.
From Nonantum Square the Dedham Road beckoned the wayfarer up over the slope of Mount Ida to the old cemetery and beyond to Newton Centre. Conveniently near on the westerly side of the road, lived Nathaniel Brackett, town butcher. Beyond his house, near the cor- ner of Cabot Street, a log blockhouse had been built by the early colonists as a place of refuge in Indian attack, but peace had prevailed, and the blockhouse had fallen into ruins. Across the road was the Hyde estate, which had continued in the family from the first generation. The most pretentious house in all Newton was the Blake place, which had been built in 1798, known for a time as the Sargent place, but more famous forty years later as the home of Mary Shannon, a woman of unusual personality and benefactress of many humbler folk. The Shannon estate was a part of the large Mayhew tract which Edward Jackson had bought. It was a portion of the thirty acres which were transferred as dowry to Reverend Nehemiah Hobart when he married Sarah Jackson. There in his day stood the manse, while the meetinghouse was near the
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cemetery. Twice the building was burned, destroying the records of the church. The ministerial homestead was pur- chased by Charles Pelham, a pedagogue from Medford, who kept a private school until 1793.
Near the cemetery and opposite Mill Lane on the Dedham Road lived Dr. Samuel Clarke about the year 1814. He was a native of Boston, and after an apprentice- ship in business he lived for a short time in the easterly part of Newton. But before long he was studying medi- cine in Dartmouth College, although he had married, and there in Hanover his son, James Freeman Clarke, was born. The son was to become as eminent a minister as his Unitarian grandfather, Reverend James Freeman of King's Chapel, Boston. Once properly trained, the new physician returned with his family to Newton and there practised medicine in the country round about. After living for a time in the east part of town he made his home on Dedham Road. Most families at that time would have felt that they must stay settled for a few decades, but two years later Dr. Clarke sold the property to Joshua Loring in order to engage in the drug business in Boston. Not long before his death he returned once more to Newton and made his home on Homer Street. His wife had in- herited a large tract of land south of Bullough's Pond, and there he built a chemical factory and manufactured calomel and other medicines in use at that time. He lived but a short time to enjoy the fruits of his industry. Subse- quently his widow sold a part of her tract for the new cemetery.
Continuing south from Mill Street along the Ded- ham Road one came to the home of Reverend Jonathan Homer, D.D., who was to round out more than half a century of ministerial service to the old First Church. His property was within the limits of the original farm of Jonathan Hyde. Here he wrote his "Description and
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History of Newton," which was given mostly to a descrip- tion of Eliot's mission to the Indians. Here he was guilty of those ludicrous mistakes and absent-mindedness of which his friends delighted to tell. Here he lived neigh- bor to "Father" Joseph Grafton, minister of the Baptist Church.
The pastorate of Dr. Homer lasted from the closing days of the Revolution until the nation was coming under the shadow of the controversy over the Union, which rent the American federation in two and produced the Civil War. Those fifty-seven years were comparatively unevent- ful years in the history of the town and the church. The minister was conscientious, as was evident from his accept- ance of a call to the weak rural parish in Newton when he was invited to be the pastor of the South Church in Boston on Church Green. He felt that he could not go there because it was a halfway covenant church, and he could not consent to a wide-open entrance into the church. He was painstaking in scholarship, delighting to spend hours in the study of the various translations of the Bible into English, and he knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish. He was kindly, receiving into his home for temporary care more than thirty children who were orphans or homeless. He was liberal and tolerant in outlook, not leading his church into the Unitarian exodus, as many Congrega- tional ministers of eastern Massachusetts did, but sym- pathetic with their unconventional point of view. He was queer in some of his ways, amusingly absent-minded, liv- ing daily in the grooves in which his life and mind had been set, but "there is no man among us," said Reverend William Greenough of West Newton, "who carries with him the spirit of the gospel from Monday morning to Sat- urday night better than he."
The church in Newton Centre could not be called a New Light church and Dr. Homer was not a revivalist,
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but when nineteen years had passed with only seventy-one additions to membership, the deacons took the responsibil- ity of holding special cottage meetings and secured the evangelistic assistance of other ministers, with the result that seventy-one persons were admitted to church mem- bership in the year 1827. Deacon William Jackson was the leader of the undertaking. He took the stranger preachers with him to the homes of the people, opened his own house for meetings, and exhorted and even preached to his friends and neighbors. Deacons Elijah F. Wood- ward and Asa Cook and Increase S. Davis were equally zealous in their devotion to the revival. Revivals con- tinued during the leadership of Reverend James Bates, who was a colleague from 1827 to 1839.
The homestead of Dr. Grafton stood on the triangle of land bounded by Centre, Homer and Grafton Streets. The Baptist Church had called young Grafton, ordained him, and agreed to pay him fifty-five pounds for a salary. They promised to give him more if necessary to relieve him "from worldly care and anxiety." The promise was redeemed with an addition of five pounds to his salary and eight cords of wood. Father Grafton, as he was called affectionately, is described as a small, bright-eyed man, wearing a brown wig and old-fashioned short breeches and knee buckles. He lived a simple life, cultivating his land between Sundays, driving about his parish in his chaise, and occasionally pulling up at the general store at Upper Falls to replenish his spirits. His sermons were biblical, sometimes humorous, rather tedious as he grew older. He was a leader in his denomination, and in town he was liked so well that thirty votes were cast for him as a delegate to the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1820.
During the forty-eight years of Father Grafton's pastorate, from 1788 to 1836, five hundred and fifty per- sons were received into church membership, most of them
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as a result of revivals. Many persons came to Newton Centre from surrounding towns to worship, as Baptist churches were relatively few. The local church more than once dismissed members to form churches in other towns. These included Cambridge, Arlington, Roxbury, Lowell, Brookline, Watertown and Upper Falls. Fifty-two persons withdrew in 1835 to constitute the Baptist Church in Upper Falls, a discouraging loss. The aged pastor died the next year, and the church languished for several years under temporary leaders.
Close by the Grafton manse was the First Parish Church, on the corner of Homer Street. That street extended westward towards the farther limits of the town, and gave access to the meetinghouse for people living in that direction. In the year 1805 the parish built its fourth meetinghouse fronting on Centre Street. There were three doors for entrance and three aisles of approach to the pews. The high pulpit was at the farther end with a sounding- board above it. The building contained sixty-six pews which were sold to parishioners, who paid a premium for choice. The proceeds from the sale nearly paid the cost of the building, which was a little more than eight thousand dollars. The north gallery had seats reserved for the boys of the Rice school and the girls of the Newton Female Academy, which were near by. There were negro quarters high up in the southeast corner. The east end of the meet- inghouse was occupied by the choir, which in later years was led by Deacon Elijah F. Woodward for a long period of time.
Here the people gathered from all directions, Jack- sons and Stones and Woodwards, Hydes and Trowbridges and Wards, Bacons and Kingsburys and Whites. New names mingled with those of the old families, for the town was no longer colonial. Rogers, Murdock, and Parker owned the best pews. The deacons, who no longer occu-
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pied seats by themselves, were Samuel Murdock, Jere- miah Wiswall, Elijah F. Woodward, Asa Cook, Ebenezer White, William Jackson, Joel Fuller and Luther Paul. Here they listened respectfully to Dr. Homer decade after decade.
Nearly opposite the church on a bank above the road stood a large mansion built by Henry Gibbs of Boston. When Reverend John Cotton was minister in Newton, Gibbs, who was his brother-in-law, purchased the old estate formerly owned by the Prentice brothers, in order that the two families might be near one another. The house contained twenty rooms with a huge chimney in the centre. It was painted white with green blinds, and had a sweeping drive as an approach. The house was a social centre for the best people, and after the death of Gibbs his widow dispensed free medicines to the poor people of the town until her death in 1783.
Forty years passed and the estate became the prop- erty of Marshall S. Rice, who for a quarter of a century was clerk of the town. He beautified the street in front of his house by planting a long row of trees, giving the im- pulse for the founding of the Newton Centre Tree Club, which in its turn furnished one of the suggestions for the organization of the Newton Centre Improvement Asso- ciation. Marshall Rice made his principal contribution as master of a boys' school, which he opened in his big house. The location of the school was attractive to the boys, because on either side was a fish pond where they could angle for hornpouts without the necessity of playing truant. The school was intended to train boys and girls for teaching or for business, and it became recognized as one of the best schools of its kind. The year was long, divided into four terms of twelve weeks each. During the twenty-two years of the existence of the school about one thousand pupils were in attendance. The master had effective methods of discipline, and his wife mothered the
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pupils, and together they met the needs of those in their charge. Master Rice was an earnest champion of temper- ance, and on one occasion taught his pupils the worthless- ness of liquor by emptying the contents of his cellar as the best way to get rid of temptation.
Farther along the road on rising ground stood a brick powder house near where the memorial flagpole stands. At the other end of the Common was the town pound on the corner of Pound Lane, now Cypress Street. Sloping back from the Common was Institution Hill. On its side Joseph Bartlett had had his farm. His son David was one of the constituent members of the Baptist Church, but the church excluded him because he was opposed to a salary for the minister and the method of raising it. About the end of the century John Peck of Boston bought most of the hill and commenced the building of a house which he planned to make the most notable in the vicinity of Bos- ton. He beautified the grounds with a generous assort- ment of shrubs and trees, and constructed a winding avenue to the top of the hill where the mansion was located. During the War of 1812, when wool was especially valu- able, five hundred sheep roamed the hill pasture. But Peck's fortunes changed, he moved to the West, and the farm was in the hands of tenants until it was purchased in 1825 for the Newton Theological Institution.
At the corner of Pound Lane was the home of Dr. John King. The house had been occupied a half century earlier by John Cotton, M.D., son of the third parish minister. Dr. King was not only a physician but also dabbled in politics. A selectman and moderator of town meetings, he was appointed one of the town committee of correspondence in 1774, was one of Newton's soldiers to guard Burgoyne's army after the surrender, represented the town in the Legislature, and was a delegate to the con- stitutional convention in 1779.
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HAMMOND HOUSE, BUILT IN 1730
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Beyond these estates on the way to Newton High- lands, before the railroad had marred the beauty of the lake, stretched the acres of Capt. Noah Wiswall, great- grandson of the first elder of the parish church. He had deserted the church of his ancestors and joined the Bap- tists, and had given them land for their first meetinghouse across the road from his house. It was he who at the age of seventy-six had gone with his boys to the battle of Lexington, and had come home with a bullet hole through his hand.
The Dedham Road led on past the Baptist Church and the Wiswall house to Newton Highlands. No village was there, but the Worcester Turnpike in 1808 made the corner of Centre Street a suitable location for a tavern. At that point Thornton's, and not far away Bacon's Tavern on the corner of Elliot Street, became popular hostelries. Near by was a convenient blacksmith shop. A short way beyond the crossroads the highway forked, the right hand way leading to Upper Falls and the Ded- ham Road swinging to the left over Oak Hill, where were scattered farmsteads and a schoolhouse. Thomas Prentice was a pioneer at Oak Hill, inheriting one hundred acres of Baldpate meadow left to him by his father-in-law, Edward Jackson. In 1724 John Stone built a house, and twenty- five years later Capt. Jeremiah Wiswall, son of Noah, settled there. Other families were less prominent than these of the early colonial stock.
To the eastward from Newton Centre were scattered farms with a few notable homesteads. At the present junction of Beacon and Hammond Streets the old Ham- mond house was built in 1730. Over near Waban Hill lay the John Ward estate, and there the old garrison house was erected for a fortification as early as 1650. To the northwest not far away was the home of Col. Joseph Ward, aide-de-camp to General Artemas Ward. Master of a
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grammar school which he had started in Boston, he left it when he heard the guns that ushered in the Revolution, was present at Bunker Hill, and in time was appointed commissary general of musters by the Continental Con- gress. After suffering six months' imprisonment in Long Island he was exchanged and resumed his position in the army until the office was abolished. After the war was over Colonel Ward went into business in Boston and acquired a fortune of $72,000. In 1792 he retired to New- ton, his ancestral home, and bought a farm on what was then called Chestnut Hill. He erected a mansion with colonnaded portico on a site commanding a wide view. Unfortunate investments and misplaced trust in a friend for whom he signed many notes reduced his fortune so that he was compelled to give up his home and engage again in business in Boston. He was a man of tranquil and trusting disposition, capable but unfortunate, re- spected by his fellow townsmen and honored by the state and nation which he had served.
At the corner of Ward Street and Waverley Avenue stood a house built in 1760 on the site of the earlier home of the fighting Capt. Thomas Prentice. It became the home of Thomas Harbach in 1805. Opposite the Harbach homestead was an old house owned by Captain Hammond where the first classes of the Newton Theological Institu- tion were held. On Waverley Avenue was born Roger Sherman, who as a representative from Connecticut signed the Declaration of Independence.
In the same section several houses were built early in the nineteenth century. Obadiah Curtis owned more than one hundred acres with a homestead. He had been a par- ticipant in the Boston Tea Party. He gave a part of his property to his daughter Martha who married Reverend James Freeman, minister of King's Chapel, Boston. Dr. Freeman liked the countryside and was fond of experiment-
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ing with flowers and vegetables, and was the first to raise tomatoes in Massachusetts about 1830. He was an advo- cate of temperance and so disliked the custom of knocking off farm work twice a day for grog that, like William Jackson, he paid his farm hands extra money, if they would forego the privilege.
In the year 1807 two Boston men, Haven and Wiggin, bought seventy acres of land from Gen. William Hull, and on the ridge of Nonantum Hill erected two houses which were among the best houses of Newton.
This east part of town won a reputation for its nurs- eries. The nursery of John Kenrick was a pioneer in the trade. It was in 1790 that he planted a large number of peach stones and raised trees from them, and later added other fruit trees and eventually shade trees, specializing in the popular lombardy poplar. The business grew with foreign importations until it was the leading business of its kind in New England. John Kenrick was the first presi- dent of the first anti-slavery society in the United States. The Kenrick house on Waverley Avenue was Dutch colonial in style, built about the time George Washington was born. It was the country home of Capt. Edward Durant of Boston and then of his son, a vociferous patriot during the Revolution. It was sold in 1775 to John Ken- rick. He was a descendant of the original John Kenrick, who acquired his two hundred and eighty acres on the back side of town in 1688 when Newton was separating from Cambridge. William Kenrick, son of the founder of the nursery, was in partnership with his father and pub- lished a manual called the "New American Orchardist." He experimented in silk culture, raised thousands of mul- berry trees for his silkworms, and wrote a second book called the "American Silk Growers Guide." Another son, John A. Kenrick, was proprietor of the Nonantum Nurs- ery. Samuel Hyde also maintained a nursery, which he
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had started from a chance collection of forty cherry stones in his pocket.
Returning to Angier's Corner the wayfarer of the year 1800 might have visited the north side of the town as far as Lower Falls. As the Dedham Road connected the Corner with the Centre and Upper Falls, so the Natick Road, or Washington Street, connected it with the hamlets to the west. Not a single house was located at that time on the south side of the road between the Corner and Squash End. Halfway to Newtonville, beside the crossing of Coldspring Brook, near the present Church of Our Lady, was the site of the oldest house in Newton, known as the Mayhew house and occupied by the first Edward Jackson. A second house built forty years later was the home of Sebas Jackson, the son of Edward. After it had passed to Joseph, the "quack lawyer," and to Lieutenant Timothy, a soldier in the French and Indian War, it was inherited by Major Timothy of the fifth generation, the father of William Jackson, the manufacturer and congressman. The Major had had thrilling experiences as a soldier in the Revolution and afterward as a traveller, and when he was ready to settle down at home in 1809 he demolished the old house and built the substantial homestead known as the Jackson estate near Walnut Park. There he lived among his townsmen, accepting various offices from schoolmaster to deputy sheriff. Near by was the home of Gen. Michael Jackson, the most illustrious of the many military Jacksons.
The name of Gen. William Hull is associated with two estates in Newton. He had resided at Newton Corner before he went West, and later in life he found a home on the Fuller estate in Newtonville. When the second war with Great Britain broke out in 1812 Hull was governor of Michigan Territory, and was appointed to the com- mand of the Army of the Northwest for the invasion of Canada. The responsibility which rested upon him was a
JACKSON HOUSE, NEWTON
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heavy one because of the lack of the necessary military supports and the danger of a British attack upon Detroit. He failed to use his army effectively and ignominiously surrendered. The result was a court martial which con- demned him to death, but he was reprieved because of his earlier gallantry. The people of Newton were interested in General Hull because he had married the daughter of Judge Fuller, and they were inclined to find sufficient excuse for his conduct. Hull returned to Newton and made his home in Newtonville on a portion of the old Ful- ler estate. The house in which he lived had been built in 1776, and Hull added six rooms. It became a centre of hospitality where Mrs. Hull graciously presided, a woman who had accompanied her husband through the strenuous campaigns of the Revolution, had given a son to his coun- try in the War of 1812, and lived on into the second half of the nineteenth century. After her death the property passed into the possession of William Claflin, at one time the governor of Massachusetts. General Hull's name was perpetuated for a time in the name of Hull's Crossing, used by the railroad to designate the Newtonville station in the early days of improved transportation.
A mile north of Newtonville the farms of John Fuller and Richard Park lay along the river in colonial times. Together they included about thirteen hundred and fifty acres. On that farm land grew up eventually the village of Nonantum. Its prosperity was insured when David Bemis undertook paper manufacturing during the Revolu- tion. After his death in 1790 his three sons carried on suc- cessfully a variety of manufacturing. The brothers Luke and Isaac conservatively followed the policy of their father until Isaac died, when Luke associated with himself Caleb Eddy, his brother-in-law. Already a bridge had been built over the river, and the family interests shortly expanded on both the Newton and Watertown sides.
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The third brother, Seth Bemis, was fond of experi- menting with more than one line of business. It was in 1821 that he bought the paper mill from his brother Luke. For some years he had been engaged in business of his own on the Watertown side. His father had operated a grist- mill and snuff mill there, and Seth bought out his brother Luke's interest in it as early as 1796, when their father had been dead six years. He tried the manufacture of chocolate, and found profitable the preparation of popu- lar medicines and dyewoods. After 1803 he added space to the old mill and undertook spinning cotton. Cotton mills were still in the experimental stage. In the United States almost all cotton was manufactured by hand at the homes of the people. But Bemis found very profitable the manufacture of a cotton warp which was in great demand as a saving of labor in the home where the woof, or filling, was finished. He also improved the carding of raw mater- ial. Five years after he had started the spinning of cot- ton, Bemis began to employ foreign weavers in the manu- facture of various kinds of cotton goods, including the first cotton duck made in America. For this material he made use of prison labor until he had installed power looms, another innovation. The owner of these improvements was so fond of novelties that he constructed a gas plant and by that means lighted his mill with illuminating gas, which brought visitors from near and far away to see the phenomenon. As if all these enterprises were not enough, Bemis eventually added glass grinding and the prepara- tion of lights for maritime purposes to his other achieve- ments, anticipating the modern department store in his department factory. The curious custom of summoning the operatives to work by blowing a tin horn gave the ludicrous nickname of Tin Horn for a time to the village of Nonantum.
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