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Natick history: The Charles River

April 25, 2022 by Admin Leave a Comment

Special to Natick Report from the Natick Historical Society

Some stretches of the Charles River in South Natick still look much the way they did when the “Praying Indians” and Rev. John Eliot did their first walk-around at the site and decided to build a town in 1651.

This waterway was a source of food for the Algonquian Indians, and they quickly built a bridge (now the Pleasant Street bridge) to connect their farms on either shore. The river was a well-traveled route to Boston and other towns along its 80-mile course. In time the mills of Thomas Sawin (1657-1727) and other water-powered enterprises were built along the northern bank.

Two iconic features of the river are visible to motorists on Eliot Street (Route 16) and, of course, to hardy river travelers in kayaks and canoes. A stunning red Japanese-style footbridge crosses the Charles on private property upstream from the Pleasant Street bridge, and a picturesque white statue of the Virgin Mary stands on a rock on the south shore a short distance upstream from the footbridge. We have Daniel Sargent and his wife, Louise Coolidge Sargent, to thank for both of them.

south natick red bridge

 

Daniel Sargent (1890-1987), the uncle of former Massachusetts Gov. Francis Sargent, was a World War I veteran who taught history and the history of English literature at Harvard. He and Louise bought riverfront property in South Natick for a summer home (it became their permanent home), and later purchased land directly across the river. To connect their two properties, they built the private footbridge on the foundations of a dam that Thomas Sawin had dismantled in 1723.

Near the bridge, on a rocky formation at the water’s edge, the statute of the Virgin Mary in prayer keeps watch over the Charles. It was Louise Sargent’s idea to erect the statue there in 1929. The Sargents believed it symbolizes “the desire to overcome evil, with the snake beneath her feet.” The statue was carved from Indiana limestone by John Howard Benson (1901-1956) of Rhode Island, whose other projects included many notable works in the early 1900s.

The words carved at the base of the statue are “Apparverunt in terra nostra flores.” This can be translated as “flowers shall appear on our earth.” Sargent planted several varieties of rhododendron along the river bank, just upstream from the footbridge. These bloom at different times in different colors, so that the floral display continues throughout the late spring and early summer in an annual celebration of the statue’s inscription.

MaryStatue_NatickHistSoc

 

The historic Charles River in South Natick has always been a distinctive part of the local landscape. The native trees and bushes on its banks in Natick are not particularly unusual, but without question they looked about the same 365 years ago, especially along the sector of the Charles where both banks lie within the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary.


Story and image courtesy of the Natick Historical Society

Natick History Museum: 58 Eliot Street (Route 16), Natick

(508) 647-4841


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Filed Under: History, Outdoors

Natick Town Seal Review Committee learning from other communities

March 14, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Natick’s Town Seal Review Committee has learned a lot through historic research in its efforts to propose a new town seal, and is gathering even more perspective by reviewing approaches taken by other communities.

“The big takeaway for me personally is how little awareness there was about town seals, though I think that’s changing,” Natick Committee Chair Mia Kheyfetz says.

“Several communities in Massachusetts (as well as the Commonwealth itself) are in the process of examining these very public symbols and what they portray about our history and how we understand that history as 21st century citizens,” Kheyfetz says.  “Mashpee is in the process of approving a new seal, Newton has just released a report on their seal, Andover, Yarmouth and Westborough are in the process and a few years back Framingham redid their seal.”

Natick  has been helped by advice from members of the Framingham Seal Development Committee and Historic Newton.

“In reality though, there is no clearly defined path forward for how to reassess and redesign town seals. Each town has tackled this project in their own unique way,” Kheyfetz says.

The Natick committee was created following 2020 Fall Town Meeting approval, and charged with “reviewing the history of town seals in Natick [and] proposing a new town seal after a public process.”

The public process has included regular open meetings, and a forthcoming survey will ask about things like what themes you’d like to see on a new town seal, what best represents Natick’s history, and what best represents its future.

“The committee is focused on making sure people’s voices are heard and that the finished product is something we can all be proud of,” Kheyfetz says.

The town’s current seal includes an image designed in 1951 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Natick’s founding as a Christian mission for Indigenous people. The image was adopted for the town’s seal in 1980, but has since questioned for depicting an inaccurate understanding of Natick’s early history.

town seal

Town Meeting this past fall via Article 36 got an update on the committee’s work and approved the appropriation of $11K to be used for design services related to a new seal. The request for quotations for such services was among the committee’s March agenda items, and Kheyfetz says the goal is to hire a designer “who can help translate public input into design concepts.”

Once a design is settled upon, it would need to be approved by Town Meeting as the town’s official seal, as was last done in 1980.

The Natick Town Seal Review Committee next meets on March 21 at 730pm.


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Filed Under: Embracing diversity, History

Bomb Squad defuses Civil War artillery shell found at Natick History Museum

March 7, 2022 by Bob Brown 2 Comments

The Natick Historical Society has been uncovering all sorts of treasures as it preps for its museum’s eventual reopening in the basement of Bacon Free Library. The discovery late last week of a Civil War artillery shell in its collection called for some special attention.

The Bomb Squad, a State Police unit assigned to the State Fire Marshal’s office, paid a visit to the Natick History Museum on Monday to determine whether or not the shell was dangerous.

They X-rayed the item and found that while it didn’t contain gunpowder, it did have an igniter that needed to be diffused. The Bomb Squad took it to nearby Hunnewell Field, where they took care of business. (MetroWest Daily News took some nice photos.)

“Now it’s perfectly safe,” says Mike Pojman, president of the society’s board. “We’ll determine what to do with it, we didn’t know we had it.”

The shell has been tentatively identified as a Hotchkiss projectile, according to the Historical Society.

The paper trail for older collection pieces isn’t always strong or even existent, and Pojman says the shell was of unknown provenance. He credits Board Member Kenneth Van Blarcom with doing the sleuthing to determine it was a Civil War relic. “It would be wonderful to know if there’s some Natick connection,” Pojman said.

natick historical museum society

The society, which has been operating out of both the museum and space across the street, is consolidating in the renovated museum. Society staff and volunteers have been working their way through the collection to determine what should find a home in the museum’s displays and cabinets. When the shell was discovered, NHS leadership “out of an abundance of caution” set about contacting authorities, starting with the Natick Police Department.

A spokesman for the State Department of Fire Services said “older military ordinances turn up more often than one might think (or hope)… The Bomb Squad… is regularly called out when relatives cleaning out a veteran’s house find ammunition or ‘souvenirs’ from military service, or when fishing vessels dredge these items up in a net.  Sometimes these items are live, sometimes inert, sometimes they may have a little bit of powder left in them as part of firing mechanism, and sometimes one cannot tell. For this reason, we recommend that anyone who finds such a device treat it as live and dangerous.  Leave it in place and call the local fire department, which will notify the Bomb Squad.”

Whether the shell has earned a place of prominence at the museum…we’ll just have to wait and see when the grand reopening takes place at a date to be determined.


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Filed Under: History, Police & crime

Happy Presidents Day, Natick

February 21, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

We’re not suggesting all (or even many) of these Natick street names derive from the last names of U.S. Presidents, but we found quite a few street names in common with presidents’ names, so what the heck:

Happy Presidents Day, whether you live on one of these streets, or not:

  • Adams Street
  • Arthur
  • Coolidge Avenue (local Coolidge family, Coolidge Gardens, etc.)
  • Eisenhower Avenue (part of the “Generals” neighborhood in East Natick, alongside MacArthur, Marshall, etc.)
  • Garfield Street
  • Grant Street
  • Harrison Street
  • Hayes Street
  • Jackson Court
  • Jefferson Street
  • Lincoln Circle
  • Lincoln Place
  • Lincoln Street
  • Lincoln Street Extension
  • South Lincoln Street
  • Madison Street
  • Taylor Avenue
  • Tyler Street
  • Washington Avenue
  • Washington Street
  • Wilson Street (yeah, we know, not Woodrow, this street in between Lincoln and Grant is for Grant VP and one-time Natick resident Henry Wilson)

Washington Street

Not quite here…(yes, this would seem to be for Admiral Dewey, not Thomas Dewey, who was upset by Harry Truman in 1948)

Dewey St


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Filed Under: History, Holidays

Happy birthday to Natick’s own Henry Wilson, 20th vice president of the United States

February 16, 2022 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Happy birthday to one of Natick’s historical figures, Henry Wilson, U.S. Vice President from 1873-1875. VP for the Ulysses S. Grant administration, Wilson served until his death from a stroke on Nov. 22, 1875.

Henry Wilson house

Wilson was born in New Hampshire in 1812 and came to Natick as a young man. Here, he learned to make shoes, and from such humble beginnings rose to become first a U.S. Senator, where he was known among his colleagues as “the Natick Cobbler,” and then ascended to the vice presidency.

bell at Henry Wilson House

A memorial site in town at the busy corner of West Central and Mill Streets includes a “10-footer,” a type of shed once common in the area as a shoe-making workshop. There’s also a bell from the original Henry Wilson School.

Wilson is buried in Old Dell Park Cemetery on Pond St.

henry wilson grave marker dell park


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Filed Under: History

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