History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

churches, with Nobscott's Height and Hopkiiiton
(Mrs. Stowe's Cloud Land) in the near view, and
Wachusett and Monadnock on the distant horizon.
A truly New England landscape is presented in
Natick, — the church and school, the library and
HE history of Newton, in its
NEWTON. 203
NEWTON.
BY SAMUEL F. SMITH, D. D.
earliest stages, is intimately
( onnected with the history of
Boston, which was originally
a very contracted peninsula.
But though the territory of
Boston was small, hostile In-
dians were in the vicinity, and
the inliabitants of the penin-
sula, as well as of Charlestown,
Roxbury, Dorchester, Water-
town, and other places, felt it necessary to have a
fortified place to flee to in case of invasion. AVith
this view they commenced the town of Cambridge,
under the name of "NewTown," or "the new town!'
They undertook to surround this new town with a
stockade, as a defence from the savage foe. The
fortification was made, and a fosse dug around the
town enclosing upwards of one thousand acres.
The fence enclosing the place was about a mile and
a half in length.
This was the new town (Newtown). In 1638
the foundations of the college were laid in the new
town; and, in remembrance of the University in
England wliere several of the prominent settlers
had received their early education, the new settlement
took the name of Cambridge.
It was not long before the inhabitants of the
insignificant jDeninsula of Boston and the enclosed
settlement of Cambridge sought enlargement ; and
grants of land were made to individual settlers in
the remoter wilderness. Crossing Charles Eiver at
the point afterwards, covered by the Great Bridge,
so called, since Brighton Bridge, they began to
settle on the south side of the river. When the
north side of the river received the name of Cam-
bridge, the settlement on the south side was called
Cambridge Villaije, or New Cambridge; and, on
factory, the public hall and stores, the green-
house and the farm, the flying train and the tele-
graphic wires. What would Waban or John Eliot
himself say, to look upon the Xatick of to-day ?
the 8th of December, 1691, recurring to the old
designation, by authority of the legislature it became
Newtown, which was gradually and imper-
ceptibly, without any formal action, softened into
Newton.
The town of Newton, in its earliest history, em-
braced at one time a considerable part of Brigliton
and Brookline, also a small portion which at a
later date belonged to Watertown, and a slice
which was ceded in 1838 to Roxbury, and another,
in 1847, to Waltham. A portion of the territory
now belonging to Brookline was ceded by Boston
to the Rev. Mr. Hooker and his company when
they complained of lack of room, on the condi-
tion that they should continue to be citizens of the
town. Tliey rcTnained for a season, but soon grew
uneasy again ; and, making their way a hundred
miles through the untravelled wilderness with their
wives and children and cattle, subsisting during the
journey on the milk of their herds, they settled in
Connecticut, and the grant of land that had been
made for their benefit reverted to the tomi of
Boston.
The early settlers of Newton, properly so called,
numbered only twenty, or at most twenty-two.
Foremost among them is the name of Jackson, —
an honored name, which has mingled prominently
with its entire history. Other early names were
Fuller, Hyde, Park, Ward, Wiswall, Prentice, and
Trowbridge. Most of these names still linger,
either in the persons of tlieir descendants or in
connection with the lands and tenements which
belonged to them. The men bearing these names
exercised a leading influence in all the aff'airs of
the town. By their prudence, piety, enterprise,
patriotism, and virtue they impressed upon the
town a character which it is still proud to maintain,
and started it in a career which has led to prosper-