The History of
Newton Corner
Earliest History:
Pre-1600–1765
Pre-1600:
The earliest confirmed settlements of indigenous peoples in what is known as the Naumkeag territory date to 2,000 years ago. The Charles River was an important source of fish and shellfish for native inhabitants.
1614:
English explorer John Smith included Naumkeag among the “countries” of the New England coast.
1616–1619:
Lacking immunological defense to European infectious diseases, indigenous peoples suffered epidemics and high rates of death after their initial contact with Europeans.
1639:
Squaw Sachem, the widow of Nanepashemet, the sachem of the Pawtucket confederation of indigenous tribes, deeded large tracks of land in eastern Massachusetts to early colonial settlers. The general area was referred to in the colonial land grant as Newtowne. That same year, Deacon John Jackson, the first white settler, built a house on Washington Street near Waverley Avenue.
https://bclawlibrary.blogspot.com/2020/10/newtons-hidden-indigenous-history.html
1646:
John Eliot converted Waban, the son-in-law of the Pennacook high chief, to Christianity. Upon becoming the first indigenous convert to Christianity in Massachusetts, Waban established a new settlement along the Charles River, which he called Nonantum, meaning Place of Rejoicing.
http://www.wabanimprovement.org/oldsite/waban%20early%20days/wabanwind.html
1688:
Bacon’s Corner, named after Daniel Bacon, a tailor who had settled here in the 1660s, was officially incorporated as a separate town. About 300 people lived in or around Bacon’s Corner—a total of 50 families.
For the next 50 years, the village consisted of farms and a few factories. A small cluster of homes and shops at the intersection of Centre and Washington Streets provided service to produce-laden farm wagons and stagecoaches going into Boston. This increase in traffic brought a new name to the area: Angier’s Corner (after its popular tavern keeper, Oakes Angier). While it also had a post office, Angier’s Corner remained essentially a rural way station.
By 1765, the population had only grown to 1,300 people. Even in 1830, Newton could only claim 1,850 residents. Surviving homes from this period include the Durant-Kenrick house, built in 1732, and the Jackson Homestead, built in 1760—both now serving as historical museums.
Railroad Era:
1834–1900
1834:
The arrival of the Boston and Worcester Railroad (later sold to the Boston and Albany Railroad) marked the beginning of a new era for Newton Corner. The Meteor and the Rocket were the first regularly scheduled passenger trains in the Northeast, offering four trains to Boston each day for a roundtrip fare of 75 cents and traveling at (then astonishing) speeds of 25 to 30 miles per hour. The railroad company named the stop Newton Corner but residents, feeling the name did not adequately describe their prestigious community, petitioned to have the depot renamed Newton.
1840:
While prosperous Bostonians had previously built homes in Newton to take advantage of the (presumed) healthier country air, most were summer places. The railroads enabled families to live in Newton year-round. Newton Corner also became a popular summer resort for Boston families.
1845–1875:
This was a period of significant growth for Newton Corner. The population began to spread southward to Church Street and Richardson Street, along Centre Street, and directly north of Washington Street. The train depot, built on the south side of Washington Street near the Centre Street intersection, was among the most lucrative in the railway system. It collected 26,000 fares in 1866 alone.
After the Civil War, new homes were built across the southern and eastern sections of the village. The construction of the Newton Free Library by Alexander Rice Esty in 1865 marked the importance of this area. Most of the village’s churches and Farlow Park were also built within the next 20 years. These included:
1845: Eliot Congregational Church (the first of four buildings on this site)
1872: Grace Episcopal Church (designed by Alexander Rice Esty)
1881: Channing Unitarian Church (designed by George F. Meacham); now the Newton Presbyterian Church
1885: Immanuel Baptist Church (designed by H. H. Richardson); now the Newton Corner Worship Center
1897: Newton Corner Methodist Episcopal Church (designed by Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue); now condominiums at 515 Centre Street
1900–Present
1890s–1910:
As the suburban dream extended to the middle class, numerous single-family homes were built, often in Queen Anne and Italianate styles, on what had once been large estates and farmlands. It is acknowledged that “The housing that survives from this period comprises one of Newton’s most important concentrations of Victorian-era architecture.”
https://www.newtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/41369/637411402986770000”
By the 1880s, Newton Corner had over 4,000 residents; this was one-fourth of the city’s population. After 1910, as available land became more scarce, home and lot sizes decreased.
1900–1920: The introduction of streetcar lines made Newton Corner more accessible and brought the final influx of new residents and another style of housing: the repetitive rows of one- or two-family homes on or near streets with central streetcar tracks.
The 1960s–1980s: Newton Corner’s village center and entire residential neighborhoods along Hunnewell Hill and Mount Ida were destroyed by the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike in the 1960s. This trench, dug through the middle of the village along the right of way for the Boston and Albany Railroad, paved over two-thirds of the commercially zoned space and cut the village in two. The cost in terms of lost homes and businesses was enormous. The building of the interchange 127 rotary—known locally as the “Circle of Death”—which permits 100,000 motor vehicles a day to pass through the village, and the replacement of the Nonantum Block by the Cahners Building (now One Newton Place) in 1982, completed the devastation.
What had once been a thriving village center, a destination to go to, is now an intersection to go through.