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The Widening of Beacon Street in THIS ISSUE Town of Brookline Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations

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The Widening of Beacon Street in THIS ISSUE Town of Brookline Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations Spring Program of the Brookline Historical Society Published by the Brookline Life & Legacy of John Wilson Historical Society Brookline, MA Sunday, March 24, 2019 at 2:00 pm EDITOR Hunneman Hall, Brookline Public Library, 361 Washington Street Ken Liss Edmund Barry Gaither, Executive Director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro- CONTRIBUTORS BROOKLINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS American Artists and special consultant at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will speak Ken Liss about the life and legacy of world-renowned Brookline artist John Wilson. Larry Barbaras WINTER 2019 This BHS event is co-sponsored by the Committee to Commemorate John Wilson and the The Widening of Beacon Street IN THIS ISSUE Town of Brookline Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations. DESIGNER by Larry Barbaras Please note: All are invited to the dedication of John Wilson’s sculpture of Martin Luther Kenneth Dumas THE WIDENING OF King, Jr. to be held in the lobby of Town Hall on Sunday, January 27, 2019, at 3 p.m. BEACON STREET CONTACT THE BHS Page 1 By Email: THE LONG HISTORY OF SIDEWALKS IN BROOKLINE brooklinehistory@ Page 5 gmail.com NEW CARETAKER FOR By Phone: WIDOW HARRIS HOUSE & 617-566-5747 PUTTERHAM SCHOOL Page 7 Or US Mail John Wilson, Self- John Wilson circa LIFE & LEGACY OF JOHN Portrait, courtesy 1940, courtesy WILSON Martha Richardson Martha Richardson Page 8 The Brookline Historical Society The heretofore unnoticed and still mysterious “Waldo of 1887” is revealed in this magnified area of a newly-digitized is dedicated to the version from the end-to-end series of Beacon St. photos taken just prior to the widening. This is the house of Francis documentation and Hunnewell on the north side of Beacon Street, just west of Washington Square. (Digital Commonwealth (CC BY-NC- interpretation of Brookline’s ND). Brookline Photograph Collection published by the Public Library of Brookline.) Brookline Historical Society diverse history, to collecting, 347 Harvard Street preserving, and maintaining The transformation of Which brings us to our Waldo. New York. After his father’s Brookline, MA 02446 artifacts of Brookline’s past, Brookline’s Beacon Street He has most likely remained death in 1878, Henry Whitney and to sharing the story of the from country road to grand unseen and unknown for left the house on Pleasant town and its people with European-style promenade over 130 years, little more St., moving to the corner of residents and visitors alike. was undertaken in 1887. than a smudge on the photos Chestnut & Walnut streets The widening project published in books. He has as he took over the reins of The Society’s headquarters are located in the heart of Coolidge incorporated a then radical now been detected in six of the business. The son was a Corner at the Edward Devotion electric trolley system that is the photos centered in the risk-taking entrepreneur who House, one of Brookline’s now the oldest continuously- Washington Square area (see saw great untapped potential oldest Colonial Period running system in the these on our web site under in sleepy North Brookline’s structures. country. As a prelude to this Photos / Beacon St., 1887 strategic location just south newsletter, the Historical Series, Before the Widening). of Cambridge and just west The Society also maintains the Society has curated and To date, we do not know his of Boston. He had surely circa 1780 Widow Harris House organized in geographical identity nor at whose behest imagined the possibilities as well as the Putterham School order the remarkable set of the 1887 photographs were for Beacon Street as he located in Larz Anderson Park. photographs documenting taken. looked out the windows of The Society’s extensive 1887 Beacon Street from his family’s Pleasant St. collection of historic end to end (http:// We begin the first chapter in house. Harvard Street had information, photographs, brooklinehistoricalsociety. the 1870s with Henry Melville been a primary north-south postcards, and atlases can be org/1887). With the ability Whitney who lived with transportation route from viewed on our website to correct imbalances in his family at the corner of Cambridge since 1662(!). BrooklineHistoricalSociety.org contrast and brightness and Pleasant Street and Beacon, Beacon Street, constructed to magnify areas of detail, steps from Coolidge Corner. in 1850-51 (the section west Our membership program is the digitized versions of these His father, James Whitney, of Washington Square in 1850 active and volunteers are historic photos are bringing headed the Metropolitan always welcome. Membership renewal form included new information to light. Steamship Company which (continued next page) ran ships between Boston and News items like these about Brookline’s wooden sidewalks appeared in newspapers across the country in 1942 and 1943. Clockwise from top left: Cullman Banner, Cullman, Alabama; Harrisburg Telegraph, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Boston Globe; and Poughkeepsie Journal, Poughkeepsie, New York. (Digital Commonwealth (CC BY-NC-ND). Brookline Photograph Collection published by the Public Library of Brookline.) Close-up views of some of the old plank sidewalks of Brookline and the section east of Washington surely been aware of all this: he was Beacon Street who would be required Square in 1851) was a straight shot west buying up land along Beacon Street. to give up frontage and, in some cases, from downtown Boston. And yet, in the In 1886, Whitney formed a syndicate even lose their houses. Additionally, New Caretaker for Widow Harris House & 1880s, it hosted but one business. The called the West End Land Company to other transit system operators, like Coolidge & Brother store was located increase his purchases, as a gateway to the Metropolitan Street Railway in at the nexus of the two roads and realizing his vision of Beacon Street as Boston, wanted in on the action. But Putterham School Beacon Street itself remained a narrow a grand European-style boulevard. Such Whitney had several gambits to deal them to Sturbridge Village often, dirt country road bordered by just a a transformation would bring with it, of with these problems. First, he would and her daughter had the incredible smattering of single-family houses. course, a big climb in real estate values propose donating all West End’s Beacon experience of attending school in and Whitney’s syndicate soon owned Street frontage to the project. Second, a one room schoolhouse dressed in Early references to the idea of widening roughly half the acreage that would be he would contribute $150,000 to the period costume for a day in Rehoboth, Beacon Street appeared in 1884 involved in a widening. project. And the competing operators? MA. when a “Petition of Citizens” for the He formed another syndicate, the widening was submitted to the County Whitney engaged the firm of noted West End Street Railway Company, and Lauren is pleased to have the Commissioners. In September of that landscape architect Frederick Law bought them all out. opportunity to share the Putterham year, a hearing of the petition was held Olmsted to draw up plans and, by late School with other children and adults in Brookline Town Hall but so many 1886, he was ready to bring a formal An Electric Gamble alike. She has volunteered at an obstacles and objections were put forth proposal to the Brookline Selectmen. As part of the original plan, tracks organic farm running the Children’s at that time that the idea was placed His proposal would certainly generate would be laid down the center of Garden, been a peer educator, a on the back burner. Whitney was a opposition: from town residents, and the new street for the only feasible mentor at a vocational/technical high Brookline park commissioner and had especially from land owners along technologies at the time: either school, an art director at a camp, and has given many educational talks. Lauren Johnston Lauren has previously worked at a The Historical Society is very pleased sledding down the large hill as a child. small graduate library, as an assistant to welcome Lauren Johnston as the So, when the opportunity was presented manager of an herbal pharmacy, and new caretaker of the Widow Harris to care for these properties, it felt like has owned her own business with a House and the Putterham School at Larz coming home again. background in Acupuncture and herbal Anderson Park. Lauren moved into the Lauren enjoys history, stories, photos, medicine. After being home with her 18th century Widow Harris House in collections, and visiting old properties. two children, Lauren has enjoyed September. She presents tours of the Walking in the footsteps of others from working part-time with college-level Putterham School and help out with days gone by is an instrumental way students once again at Massachusetts other activities of the Society. to learn, and she has been able to Bay Community College in the Lauren was raised around the corner experience history firsthand throughout Academic Achievement Center. She from Larz Anderson Park and spent the United States, parts of Canada, the has both undergraduate and graduate countless hours playing in the British and Emerald Isles, Europe East degrees, and she looks forward to playground, walking the beautiful and West, the Middle East, and Asia. Coolidge and Brother store, 1887. Henry Whitney’s house is just off screen to the right. Beacon St. going west is to the left and Harvard St. looking north is embarking on her next career after mid right. (Digital Commonwealth (CC BY-NC-ND). Brookline Photograph Collection published by the Public Library of Brookline.) grounds, skating on the ice, and When her children were young, she took her children graduate high school.
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