History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

254 HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
While Boston and many other cities and towns
lingered in the work of rearing a fitting memorial
to the patriotic dead, Newton was one of the earliest
towns in the commonwealth to erect a monument
to the memory of her brave soldiers. It
stands near the entrance of the cemetery in the cen-
tre of the town, and was dedicated July 23, ISGi,
more than a year before the close of the war.
On the 31st of December, 1873, the town government
was brought to a close, after a duration
of one hundred and ninety-four years, and the
city government was inaugurated January 1, 1874.
The first mayor of the city, Hon. J. F. C. Hyde, is
a native of the town, and his genealogy reaches
back in regular succession to its earliest records.
In a history reaching through nearly two hun-
dred and fifty years many names have attained
prominence.
Oakes Angier (born 1698, died 1783) kept a
public-house near the location of tlie Nonantum
House. From him that part of the town was for
many years named Angler's Corner, until the sta-
tion on the Boston and Albany Kailroad displaced
the old designation.
John Barber kept a public-house at West New-
ton, and set out the great elm-tree which stands in
front of it, in 1767. It was so small that he
brought it from the woods on Ins shoulder. He
was the second tenant, and the first mak- tenant of
the West Parish Cemetery.
Frederic Barden (died 1877) was proprietor of
the rolling-mills at Newton Upper Falls, on Boyl-
ston Street. He was representative to the General
Court two sessions, and a prominent member of
the Chauning Church.
Dr. Henry Bigelow (died 1866) was a prominent
physician at Newton Cdnicr. Fur fifteen years he
was at the head dl tlir illt,ll>t^ ol' ((luralion in the
town, and to him, as cliiiiniinii nf tlie school com-
mittee, more tlian to any oIIht pcrsuii, Newton is
indebted for the noble condilinu dl' its public
schools. He was foremost in selecting, arranging,
and adorning the beautiful cemetery in the centre of
Newton, and the first president of the corporation.
Gardner Colby (died 1879) was born in Bowdoinham,
Maine, September 3, 1810, and removed
to Newton in 184G, making his residence here
equal to a generation of men. Tii caily life lie wo.s
a clerk for two years in a store in Charlcslown,
then in a dry-goods house in Boston, and at the
age of twenty-two he commenced business for hiiu-
sell, beginning witli a capital of »5()(), wliieh he
borrowed. He was afterwards engaged in the dry-
goods importing business, and in 1848 retired
with a handsome competency. In 1850 he em-
barked in the manufacture of woollens, being associated
with Mr. J. Wiley Edmands in the Mav-
erick Mills in East Dedham; and, having large
contracts with the government during the War
of the Rebellion, he accumulated rapidly new re-
sources. He retired a second time from business
in 1863, and in 1870 undertook the building of the
Wisconsin Central Railroad, a road three hundred
and forty miles long, constructed through a wild
and rough country ; he lived to see the road com-
pleted. He was a public-spirited citizen, inter-
ested in all the improvements of Newton, and a
liberal giver. He was treasurer of Newton Theological
Institution twenty-seven years, and a mu-
nificent patron of that institution, as well as of
Brown University, and Colby University at Water-
ville, Maine, which bears his name in honor of his
munificent donation of $50,000 at one time to the
funds of the college, followed afterwards by gifts
of thousands. In the published list of subscribers
for the support of Newton Institution, his name
appears at one time for $3,000, at another for
$11,000, and at a third for $ 18,000.
Captain Phineas Cooke (died 1784) was a direct
descendant of Gregory Cooke, one of the first settlers
of Newton. He was captain of a company
of minute-men raised in 1773, commanded on the
memorable day of Concord and Lexington by
Colonel Michael Jackson. His house was at Newton
Corner, near the line of Watertown, — the same
house which, after the war, was owned and occu-
pied by General William Hull.
]\lrs. Mary Davis (died 1752) lived to the great-
est age of any person in Newton, being one hundred
and seventeen years and one hundred and fifteen
days old at the date of her death. She lived at
the south part of the town (Oak Hill), and cultivated
the ground in her extreme age with her own
hands. At the age of one hundred and four she
could do a good day's work at shelling corn, and
at one hundred and ten she sat at her spiiming-
wheel. There is a portrait of her in the rooms of
tlie Massachusetts Historical Society, painted by
request of Governor Belcher.
Edward Durant (died 178:2), son of Captain
Edward Durant, was a man of wealth, inherited
from his father. He was moderator of the town-
meetings of Newton from 1765 to 1775, — that
exciting jKU-iod which drew on the Revolution, —