Natick Report

Since 2020: More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.

Sneak peek: We tour the Natick Historical Society museum before its grand reopening

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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.

Bacon Free Library, South Natick
The Natick Historical Society, located on the ground floor of the Bacon Free Library, will reopen its museum on Sunday, April 30

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.

Natick Historical Society
Executive Director Niki Lefebvre hanging a “broadside” from The Natick Theatre. Photo by Christine Schell

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.

Natick Historical Society
Vintage NHS football clips on the new video monitor. Photo by Christine Schell

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.

Natick Historical Society
Land document. Photo by Christine Schell

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.

Natick Historical Society
Cabinet of Curiosities shows local interests from the past. Photo by Christine Schell

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.

Natick Historical Society

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.

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We toured Natick’s historic Walnut Hill neighborhood

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We joined Natick Historical Society volunteer and local tour guide Vincent Vittoria for a walking tour of Natick’s Walnut Hill neighborhood earlier this fall when the foliage set off the beautiful homes of the historic area.

Vittoria, a Walnut Hill resident, gave a group of about 15 an engaging 90-minute walk and talk (and some gossipy tidbits) that covered the people, historic mansions, street names, and more that brought the history 19-century times to life. We heard of a former golf course, a carriage house on the move, the old baseball factory, and the Bacon School, which had a tube through which kids would slide out for fire drills (the school was located at what’s now the Loker Park playground).

By looking at the current state of Walnut Hill vs. old photos, we could see how free of construction the hill once was, and how many steeples used to be below.

Our tour started at the war memorial park near the railroad pedestrian bridge and coursed through Walnut, Winnemay (named after a couple of horses?), Highland, Florence, Shattuck, and others.

Here are some pics:

Walnut Hill, Natick, octagonal house
The Gilbert W. Underwood Octagon House (circa 1870) at 23 Walnut Street. The octagon style is a rare style with no more than a few thousand constructed, mostly in New York, Massachusetts and the Midwest. The residence is locally significant as the only octagonal dwelling in Natick and is one of a few constructed in Middlesex County. If the owners happen to read this, know that our tour guide Vincent would LOVE to check out the inside of your house…

 

Walnut Hill, Natick
Walnut Hill, Natick

 

Walnut Hill, Natick
John W. Walcott House at 24 Grove St.(1893) Architecturally, the property is a well-preserved example of an early twentieth century Colonial Revival residence that maintains a high degree of architectural integrity. The property is also significant for its association with local business man, John W. Walcott, the owner of the J.W. Walcott Shoe Company and who is credited with inventing the modern baseball.

 

Walnut Hill, Natick
Walnut Hill School was founded as an all-girls educational institution in 1893 by Wellesley College graduates Florence Bigelow and Charlotte Conant, educating young women in a traditional boarding-school setting for over 80 years. In the 1970s Walnut Hill became a coeducational school for the arts and has been offering excellent artistic training and academic classroom experiences ever since for boarding and day students.

 

Walnut Hill, Natick
Walnut Hill, Natick. Said to be the home of Olive Augusta Alger Cheney. She was well known in the 1870s and 1880s not only in Natick, but statewide and nationally as a champion of the temperance movement and women’s suffrage. Her brother, author Horatio Alger, is said to have died in this house.

 

Walnut Hill history tour
The tour

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It’s all about soldier readiness and safety at Natick Soldier Systems Center (aka Natick Army Labs)

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We’d always been curious about the Natick Soldier Systems Center, often referred to around town as the Natick Army Labs, so when the opportunity came up to attend a Zoom meeting to learn more about the only active Army installation in New England, we jumped at the chance. Hosted by the Natick Historical Society, NHS director Niki Lefebvre introduced Col. Frank Moore of DEVCOM Soldier Center, one of Natick Lab’s research and technology collaborators. Lefebvre welcomed Moore and asked the occasional clarifying question as he led over 70 participants through a fascinating Power Point presentation about the 174-acre site that includes 459k square feet of lab space and 75 family housing units for active military personnel.

Moore provided an overview of the 15 tenant organizations operating at the Systems Center, all of which are dedicated to one goal: working together to optimize soldier readiness and safety. About 1,500 people are employed at the facility including 1,188 civilians, 90 military personnel, and 220 contractors. The Systems Center takes great pride in the brainpower concentrated in that small corner of Natick—it’s a smart bunch that collectively holds over 1,231 college and university degrees.

A large part of what happens at the Systems Center involves clothing. Both the US Navy and the Coast Guard run research and development on clothing design and textiles. Some other partner organizations work on soldier protective equipment including combat equipment and weaponry systems.

natick army labs soldier systems center

The conversation focused on the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (DEVCOM), where Moore works. The stated mission of DEVCOM, the national and international leader in warfighter science and technology development, is to “provide the Army with innovative science and technology solutions to optimize the performance of our soldiers” by “ensuring dominance through superior scientific and engineering expertise.”

That group’s 903 employees, made up of a combination of military and civilians, work on parachute design and parachutist safety; military nutrition; fiber and textile science such as camouflage concealment and ballistic protection; optimizing and enhancing soldier performance; soldier protection through enhanced equipment design, environmental protection; chemical biological protection; and Army training tech that includes live training exercises.

Moore says DEVCOM is known as “the soldier’s research center”, meaning that everything done there focuses on keeping soldiers safe and optimizing their performance.

Durning the Q & A period, several residents fondly remembered back when the Army Labs opened up to the pubic for tours and asked if that would be repeated in the future. Moore said due to COVID that’s not possible for now, but hoped that is something that could happen in the future.

Moore did seem confident that a ribbon-cutting ceremony could take place in 2023, when an under-construction $50 million dollar 4-story facility is slated to be completed. This new building will house the Soldier and Squad Performance Research Institute, a research lab the Army says is,  “designed to inform and optimize soldier and squad lethality and combat readiness.”

Until then, Moore said the Systems Center is always looking for qualified candidates to fill a host of jobs. A quick google search showed they are in search of a textile technologist; a general engineer; an architect; a warehouse/inventory control specialist; and more.

Watch Col. Moore’s presentation on youtube at this link.

Next up on the Natick Historical Society’s calendar: a presentation by Boston University American Studies PhD candidate Mariah Gruner titled, Ten Thousand Digital Absurdities: the Power of the Needlework in 19th Century America.

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Natick invited to Race Amity Zoom presentation

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Natick Race Amity

The Natick Historical Society and the Bacon Free Library will co-host a Zoom presentation of WGBH’s powerful documentary series American Stories: Race Amity and The Other Tradition on Tue., Feb. 2, 6:30pm – 8pm. This presentation will include a brief introduction to the film by Dr. William H. Smith (creator, executive producer, and writer of the series), a reading from the book Race Amity: A Primer on America’s Other Tradition, a viewing of the film Race Amity: America’s Other Tradition, a commentary by Dr. Smith, and a Q&A Session.

WHS Media Productions LLC created this documentary for the promotion of cross-racial and cross-cultural understanding.

This event is FREE and open to the public. Advanced registration is required to access the Zoom link. Please register using the link here, and allow 3-5 days for a confirmation email with the link from the Natick Historical Society.

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Natick Historical Society & Bacon Free Library upcoming events

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Everyone is welcome to join a virtual discussion of The Nightingale (2018) by Kristin Hannah on

The Nightingale

This program is co-sponsored with the Bacon Free Library. It is FREE and open to the public.

If you are interested in joining this virtual book discussion, email: director@natickhistoricalsociety.org.

About The Nightingale

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Save the date for Race Amity presentation

Natick Race Amity

The Natick Historical Society and the Bacon Free Library will co-host a Zoom presentation of WGBH’s powerful documentary series American Stories: Race Amity and The Other Tradition on Tue., Feb. 2, 6:30pm – 8pm. This presentation will include a brief introduction to the film by Dr. William H. Smith (creator, executive producer, and writer of the series), a reading from the book Race Amity: A Primer on America’s Other Tradition, a viewing of the film Race Amity: America’s Other Tradition, a commentary by Dr. Smith, and a Q&A Session.

WHS Media Productions LLC created this documentary for the promotion of cross-racial and cross-cultural understanding.

This event is FREE and open to the public. Advanced registration is required to access the Zoom link. Please register using the link here, and allow 3-5 days for a confirmation email with the link from the Natick Historical Society.

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