Yes, I’m, getting a bit carried away with the 1889 Kings’s Handbook of Newton. If the Chamber of Commerce is looking for a writer, Mr King’s your man.
Is this your village?
This village of Newton, covering perhaps four square miles, is by nature the fairest of all her districts, and the most abundant in the varied charms of hill and glen, upland and meadow, long and placid river-reaches, and high arched forests. It’s comparative remoteness has retarded the inflowing of population. The inhabitants are mainly devoted to agriculture, as in the old days of the Stuart dynasty.
The infrequent roads that wind picturesquely over and around the hills lead by low and broad-based old farmhouses, with their clusters of weather-stained barns, overarched by tree of venerable age and majestic size.
Here are gnarled and bent orchards, looking as ancient as the olive trees around Jerusalem; broad fields smiling with abundant crops; and grassy pasture-lands, slanting towards the sun, and bounded by picturesque walls of field-stone. It is a land of brooding peace, in which it always seems afternoon; and the roar of the great metropolis of New England, within a long cannon-shot, is as unheard and unrealized as if it were as far away as Bombay or Buenos Ayres. And for two hundred and fifty years past, nothing but the Gospel of Peace has been known here, and generation after generation of industrious yeoman has tilled the fields without alarm.
Waban or Upper Falls?
Auburndale?
The clue was
It’s Oak Hill – which borders Boston.
Here’s another one, that includes a little sociological reporting:
In terms of demographics and drinking proclivity I’d say Upper Falls
Only at that time in terms of drinking proclivity. Upper Falls has now become that “model” village.
That one was a surprise for me – Nonantum . I’ve always known the Lake (Nonantum) as an Italian neighborhood but apparently the Italian population had not yet arrived in 1889 when the Kings Handbook was written.
Jerry, if you notice some of the street names in Nonantum (Murphy Court, Shamrock Street, etc.) you will realize the Irish were there before the Italians. It was the Irish that built the railroad through Newton, and in their spare time they built Our Lady Help of Christians near their homes.
@Patrick. I should have known that because my Aunt Minnie once told me about some of the family living in Nonantum for a short while before moving to Brighton. My grandfather on my father’s side helped build that railroad and he and my grandmother were married at Our Lady’s sometime in the 1870’s. I know it sounds strange for anyone living to have grandparents who were born in Ireland before our Civil War, but it was a very Irish thing where family arrangements can have uncles that are younger than their nephews and I’m a product of one of those arrangements.
We’re trying to raise money to rebuild our neighborhood playground (Emerson). So I’ve just decided to reprint Kings Handbook of Newton as a fundraiser to help out. I should have some print copies ready for sale in a few weeks for those of you who like paper and ink.
@Jerry and @Patrick – I remember hearing some time ago that much of the Italian community of Nonatum was transplanted directly from a neighborhood in Boston due to redevelopment. Is there anyone we can find to add detail to this legend or (just as likely) correct it?
@Chris – would this have been from the West End?
@mgwa – I’m not certain. I’ve got the sinking feeling of suspecting there’s an interesting story out there and not knowing the details.
Chis, as a kid growing up in Newtonville, many of my friends from Nonantum were 2nd and 3rd generation from Italy (mostly from San Donato). I was not really into history back then (except for doing my required homework) so I did not spend time researching family trees.
If there was a major transplanting from Boston, I would think it predated the Central Artery construction through the North End in the 1950’s. I would assume that Joe DeNucci could enlighten us on how his ancestors arrived in Newton.
@Patrick – Agreed. We need the input of someone who actually knows what they’re talking about on this.
Chris Steele, What does transplanted mean is what you’re describing?
I’ve had a number of students who spoke of connections to San Donato. Jerry, did you identify the village in question or were you speculating? It sounded a lot like Auburndale/Nonatum to me.
It not likely to have been the West End. The West End was only destroyed in the late 1950’s and I think most of the Italian migration to Nonantum had happened by then.
Plus the West End of Boston was primarily Jewish. In fact, the North End had a large Jewish Italians came to the North End after the Jewish immigrant populations too at the turn of the 20th century.
Folks- again I say that I’m looking to be corrected on this, and I believe I have been. My guess is that the person who was telling me the story had convoluted several stories into one.
The more independent research I do into this, the more I’m finding the same info – Lots of families coming directly to Nonantum from San Donato. The more I think about this however, the more fascinating – I’d love to hear some family histories of how the word spread that this was the right place in Massachusetts to settle!