TvilleBadge | Newton MA News and Politics BlogAsk ten randomly selected Newtonian’s where the village of Thompsonville is and the answers are likely to go something like this:

3 will say “I’ve never heard of it”

2 will say” is that really a village”?

3 will tell you “its at the corner of Langley and Rt 9”

1 will say “I’m not sure but I think I may live there”

1 will say “I think it’s out near Worcester”

Ask ten people to name the 13 villages of Newton and they’ll either never come up with “Thompsonville” or it will be the last one on their list.

Adam Peller posted an item here, last year, about the boundaries of the village of Thompsonville.   From the comments, nobody seems to know nuthin’ about where T’ville begins and ends.

Until now, I assumed T’ville used to be a more prominent village and that over time, with Route 9 turning into a highway it sort of faded away. While perusing the 1889 Kings Handbook of Newton I noticed that they list ten “villages” and five other areas of note in Newton – none of which was Thompsonville.

There is a mention of “the hamlet of Thompsonville which straggles across the crossroad and is party occupied by German families, living in small and prosaic houses.”  That same paragraph also mentioned “Johnsonville”.

So how did Thompsonville ever become one of the officially recognized villages of Newton.  There wasn’t much to it 1898 and there’s not much to it today.  What happened during those 100 year?  How did the tiny hamlet make it to the big leagues of village’dom while it’s brethren hamlet Johnsonville faded into obscurity. When was Thompsonville first called a village by the city and how did that happen?  Inquiring minds want to know.