More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.
Natick’s Memorial Day observances were held on Mon., May 29, and included a parade that started at Moran Park and ended at the Town Common, making stops along Pond Street to pay respects to veterans buried in Old Dell and St. Patrick’s cemeteries, and the Indian Burial Ground.
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By contributing reporter Christine Schell.
The Natick Historical Society (NHS) makes history this weekend with its much-anticipated museum reopening on Sunday, April 30, from 1-4pm, on the ground-floor of the Bacon Free Library. Featured artisan Ron Michael will demonstrate the arts of caning and basket weaving, and visitors can experiment with quill pen writing.
What’s there to get excited about? Well, plenty! A 2017 renovation resulted in the museum’s collection being housed in two different locations. When the pandemic hit and NHS closed its doors for almost three years, Director Niki Lefebvre was challenged to think “inside” the box—that is, how to reunite the NHS collection back into that jewel box of a room in the historic library. With deliberate consideration of the NHS mission (“Building community by inspiring connections to local history.”), along with the curator’s code that values professional preservation methods, and a historian’s canny sense for telling a rich story, Lefebvre and research manager Gail Coughlin ushered Natick’s history firmly into the 21st century. And they got everything under one roof.
Yesteryear’s display of stuffed exotic birds has flown the coop. Lefebvre notes that NHS’s special niche is, well, Natick history. “If you want to do local history in this space, all the tools and resources are here in one space,” she said. Lefebvre encourages folks to research their houses and families, explore artifacts from Natick’s past, and engage with her and Coughlin, who are both well-versed in the town’s past.
Due to the small space they’re working with, the NHS team is unable to display all the town’s artifacts at once. However, thoughtful integration of multi-media technology has allowed Lefebvre and Coughlin to make parts of the large NHS collection available visually. For example, next to the Natick High School display case is a video monitor that shows vintage high school football games.
Judicious use of QR codes makes some of the large collection accessible online, enhancing museum artifacts with virtual content. Also, the NHS website and its You Tube channel are chock-full of information on the archived collections, online catalog, and more. Lefebvre notes that “you don’t need to stop learning when you leave the museum. If you find something interesting, then when you get home, you can continue the conversation.”
Displayed artifacts of note include the Algonquin Bible translated into Algonquin languages by indigenous linguists and Rev. John Eliot in the late 1600s. (A digitized edition of another Algonquin Bible is available via a link on the NHS website.) Also, four land documents from the 18th century link by QR code to several more land documents, and in total trace the story of the gradual dispossession of indigenous land by recent arrivals.
Coughlin said that a few of her favorite artifacts are part of the Natick High School display case. A 1920s photo of the high school girls’ basketball team after an undefeated season “shows the legacy of athletic women who have accomplished things.” An 1878 copy of Bertha Valentine’s high school music reader sheds light on Natick’s educational interests and priorities from almost 150 years ago.
NHS staff invite the public to visit and explore the museum’s story of Natick. There’s seating for research, and plenty of natural light streams through six massive windows that offer scenic views of the Charles River basin, Eliot Church, and some of South Natick’s other historic buildings.
LOCATION: 58 Eliot St., Natick MA (ground floor of the Bacon Free Library)
GRAND REOPENING: Sunday, April 30, 1pm-4pm
REGULAR VISITING HOURS: Tuesday, 4pm-6:30; Thursday,10am-1pm; 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month, 1pm-4pm
VISIT BY APPOINTMENT: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 9am-5pm
PARKING: On-street parking on Eliot Street or Mill Lane. Additional parking in the lot behind 207 Union Street.
ACCESSIBILITY: The Museum is wheelchair-accessible through the garden door. There is no accessible restroom and no wheelchair access to the library on the upper level. Accessibility can be limited during the winter months. Please call ahead.
The Natick Select Board unanimously voted this week to reappoint Paul Carew for another 3 years as the town’s veterans’ services director, a position he began serving in back in 2010.
Carew’s work as veterans’ services director has included dozens of square dedications, mental health awareness efforts, helping many veterans claim benefits, and more. “I love the work I’m doing in the town of Natick,” Carew told the Select Board in making his bid for another contract.
Among his focus areas over the next few years will be putting together a training guide for whoever succeeds him.
Select Board member Bruce Evans called Carew “one of the most impactful employees in town.”
National Vietnam War Veterans Day will be observed in Framingham on March 29 from 9-9:30am at the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority hub at 15 Blandin Ave. All are welcome to attend.
More: Natick Veterans Oral History Project
Please send news tips, photos, ideas to natickreport@gmail.com
By Ella Stern, editor-in-chief, The Natick Nest
A 19th-century ballroom, gorgeous but decaying, rich with history, hidden in plain sight, and mortally threatened. It sounds like something out of a mystery novel or Victorian literature, but it is right here in Natick.
The ballroom, known as Concert Hall, is located on the third floor of Clark’s Block in Natick Center, above Lola’s and Baylee Bee. It has passed through many hands and been the site of many stories throughout the centuries, but now its tale may come to a close. Concert Hall’s current owners are threatening to demolish it, but Caroline Niedermeyer, Natick High School ’23, is determined to save the concert hall, its beauty, and its historical significance.
Concert Hall opened in 1875. It is located in Clark’s Block, a building in Natick Center that was built in 1872 and rebuilt in 1874 (after Natick’s Great Fire) by Nathaniel Clark. Clark wanted to give the people of Natick a place to gather for concerts, dances, meetings, and lectures. In addition to being a former social destination, the ballroom also has historical significance: Former Vice President Henry Wilson’s wake was held there in 1875.
But Concert Hall is no longer in its golden age. It was last used in the 1930s, and has been abandoned for the 90 years since. “It’s pretty sad inside, but if it’s restored, it could be so beautiful,” Niedermeyer said. The ballroom could also give back to Natick if it is saved. A video made in support of Concert Hall suggests that it could host ballroom dancing, chamber groups, musicals and plays, art shows, TED talks, graduation ceremonies, weddings, and more. The video also points out that the ballroom would draw more people to spend time in Natick, which would help local shops and restaurants.
However, the current owners want to demolish the gorgeous, historic ballroom and demote it to office space. They refuse to talk to Friends of Concert Hall, an organization trying to save the ballroom, or to Niedermeyer, a Natick High School senior whose National Honor Society lead project is raising awareness about saving Concert Hall.
Niedermeyer got interested in Natick’s history during quarantine, when she began walking around town, noticing interesting buildings, and researching their history. When she came across Clark’s Block, she was initially intrigued by its beauty and by the markings of past businesses on its exterior. She didn’t yet know about the ballroom within.
Niedermeyer’s motivation to save the ballroom stems in part from the hurt she, as an intern for the Natick Historical Society, feels at the knowledge that the ballroom’s current owners want to demolish it and the historical significance it carries for the town. “We’re tearing down all these old buildings when we could be restoring them and keeping Natick’s legacy. I think [Concert Hall] will bring a lot more life into the town, a lot more community,” she said. Niedermeyer is also inspired by Nathaniel Clark’s care for the ballroom. When he rebuilt Clark’s Block after the 1874 fire, he installed fireproof doors around Concert Hall to protect it. To Niedermeyer, this action exemplifies how important Concert Hall was to Clark. She wants to respect that memory by leading a project to save Concert Hall.
The first phase of Niedermeyer’s project is publicity. The concert hall’s third-floor location and locked doors make it so that the average Natick resident is unaware of its existence. As a result, it is difficult to fundraise, let alone to further mobilize people. Working alone, Niedermeyer has begun making posters and a website to raise awareness about Concert Hall. She hopes to assemble a group of students to help spread the word by putting up posters, editing the website, answering questions from the press, and, most importantly, talking to the people of Natick about saving Concert Hall.
After publicity, funding presents a major hurdle: it would cost around one million dollars to restore the ballroom. 20% of that price would come from the state government and another 20% would come from the town of Natick, but that still leaves about $600,000. Niedermeyer hopes that increased awareness of Concert Hall and its fate will help raise that money. Her lead project focuses on assembling a group to raise awareness, and she hopes that that group will take charge of fundraising (with her help) once she graduates.
Niedermeyer encourages Natick High School students to get involved in her project. She is looking for a group of 10–15 people, but would welcome anyone who wants to help. If you are interested, send her an email at caniedermeyer@students.natickps.org.
Just like Concert Hall itself, a band of students fighting against the powers that be to save a town landmark sounds like something out of a story, something that could never work in real life. However, Niedermeyer believes that Natick can pull it off. She says that Concert Hall presents “an opportunity for Natick to become unified and use this abandoned space for something beautiful, and it’s all in the power of the town…[I]f everyone is on the same page and comes together, I think we could save this concert hall.”
Natick Report has begun working with The Natick Nest, Natick High School’s official student-run school newspaper, to help bring the students’ work to a larger audience. We’ll be republishing some of their articles, and plan to coordinate with their staff on additional pieces.
Interested in sponsoring stipends for Natick Report interns? Let us know: natickreport@gmail.com
The Natick History Museum, located downstairs at the Bacon Free Library at 58 Eliot St., is slated to reopen in April after closing in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remaining closed for all but appointments during space renovation and collection refinement. The museum is operated by the Natick Historical Society, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.
The society began its museum renovation in 2017 and reopened in 2018 at 2 spaces—artifacts in the museum and archives at a temporary location across the street, says Niki Lefebvre, the society’s executive director.
“The pandemic only hastened our realization that maintaining both spaces on a permanent basis would be too challenging for a staff of two part-timers and too confusing to the public. So, we determined to keep our center in our historic home and to retrofit some of our space to better suit our needs,” Lefebvre says. “We’ve also done a great deal of work refining our collections so that we can devote time and resources to the historical materials that really make Natick’s history resonate.”
Lefebvre says she thinks interest in local history has grown in recent years.
“I believe part of that surge was fueled by pandemic boredom, but I also feel there is a growing recognition that local history is integral to how we steward communities and how we understand our neighbors,” she adds.
As for what to expect when the museum reopens, there won’t be any whiz-bang technology displays. But there will be new exhibits and easier access to archival resources. While it doesn’t sound as if the museum acquired any eye-popping new items during its closure, Lefebvre says some documents and other artifacts that haven’t been exhibited in years or decades will get their chance to shine.
The society has also been building its relationships with members of Natick’s Nipmuc communities to help center Indigenous people in its work.
You’ll be able to learn more about the society’s plans for the museum and its 150th anniversary celebration at its annual meeting, slated for Sunday, Feb. 26, 2-3pm (attend online).
