history

By Don Hafner

(Editor’s note: Brown’s Wood was designated as Lincoln’s newest Historic District in 2018 to recognize its many examples of Modern architecture.)

Did you know… that Lincoln has a neighborhood originally built as a utopian vision?

That neighborhood is Brown’s Wood, built on a woodlot once owned by Deacon Benjamin Brown (1681-1753). Brown’s Wood began in 1953 as a utopian, cooperative community envisioned by Ranny and Ann Gras, along with a few MIT colleagues and others attracted by MIT bulletin‑board notices and FM radio ads. They invested $3,000 each for the common expenses of buying the raw, rocky woodland and for initial development and infrastructure of the subdivision along the new roads named Laurel Drive and Moccasin Hill Road.

Two lots were initially designated as common land, intended for community recreation. The first 23 houses were designed, built, and financed by each family under the general supervision of the group, which also collectively oversaw the road construction and town approvals. The group agreed that all the houses would be contemporary style. Traditional colonials, capes, or ranches were not permitted. A few residents tackled interior work themselves, and many of the houses’ interiors were not completely finished for years.

Decisions in the Brown’s Wood community were made by consensus, such as naming the roads after local wildflowers, rejecting a proposal for bulk‑buying of staples like toilet paper or milk, and rejecting a swimming pool and tennis court for the community land. At one point, to avoid the mounting expenses for snowplowing and road maintenance, the residents agreed to sell one of the common lots to finance enough improvements in the roads so the town would accept them as town streets. The general sense of sharing and cooperation continued, including regular meetings to discuss neighborhood concerns, common ownership of chainsaws and other equipment, and a baby-sitting cooperative.

There were lots of kids in the neighborhood. One year, an entire school bus was filled with the Brown’s Wood elementary school children who waited at the intersection of the two roads.

In 1964, the other common lot was sold to purchase shares in the Valley Pond, which were then legally tied to each of the house lots. The pond was a separate project created by the efforts of several Brown’s Wood families (a story for another time). Although the formal Brown’s Wood organization was then dissolved, many residents had strong community spirit and went on to participate actively in the town government and League of Women Voters.

Current and former residents celebrated Brown’s Wood’s 35th anniversary in 1988, and commemorated it with a group memoir and a pear tree planted at the intersection of the two roads to honor Ann and Ranny Gras. Today, many of the houses look much as they did when built, although some have been enlarged. Meandering paths still lead to the shores of Valley Pond, and Brown’s Wood is still a great place to raise children.

This article is based on an earlier history of Brown’s Wood written by one of the original “settlers,” Ruth Johnstone Wales (1927-2018). It has been edited and updated by Esther and Peter Braun, also early “settlers.” Esther Braun taught in the Lincoln public schools, and her son Peter was one of the kids in the Brown’s Wood neighborhood and babysat for the Wales family.

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“Lincoln’s History” is a biweekly column about aspects of Lincoln’s past by members of the Lincoln Historical Society.

By Craig Donaldson, Lincoln Historical Society

(Editor’s note: this piece was first published in LincolnTalk in December 2020 and is republished here as part of the “Lincoln’s History” series.) 

Did you know there’s a Lincoln neighborhood known as “Fertile Valley”?

You won’t find Fertile Valley marked on a map, but you can walk its borders on a pleasant afternoon and smile at a bit of Lincoln history. From the Five Corners watering trough, it extends north on Bedford Road to Bemis Hall, northeast along Old Lexington Road and Lexington Road to the Flint farm, east along Trapelo Road to the DeNormandie farm, and down Weston Road to the Pierce House.

Fertile Valley was the site of two dairy farms and productive backyard gardens, but it earned its reputation (with a wink and a smirk) in the late 1940s and 1950s for its crop of kids.

After World War II, many young families moved to the Valley to raise children, joining the older Lincoln families in long-established houses of the Historic District. The Paul Norton family topped the list with seven children, and the families of Jim DeNormandie, Fred Taylor, and Gordon Donaldson had five apiece. Every household had at least one youngster.

Typical of American neighborhoods in the post-war era, kids of all ages were raised together by parents in cahoots. Mothers were at home, volunteering their talents to town, school, and church, while their husbands commuted to jobs outside of Lincoln. School was an easy walk or bike ride, first to the Center School (now the Town Office Building) and as the kids grew older, to the new Smith School. Every season in Fertile Valley was tailored to family activities—tobogganing and skating, horse riding, Sunday baseball in the back field, and July 4th parades. 

The entire Valley was open to free range kids. They romped through fields and over fences, teaching one another how to ride bikes, ski and sled, blow bubble gum, and catch pollywogs. Parents were confident that the big kids would keep the little kids out of trouble and that, sooner or later, everyone would re-emerge for meals, as indeed they did!

Lifelong friendships, values, and lessons endured as Valley kids went forth into the wider world.

Times have changed, and the Valley is now home to only a few children. Yet some of the old gang still live in the Valley, a few in the houses where they grew up — two each of DeNormandies, Donaldsons, and Flints, plus a Bergen, a Browne, a Jevon, and a MacLean.

And of course, with each springtime, there are still pollywogs to be caught.

Do you have stories and photos to share about your neighborhood, or do you know more about the people in this photo? Email lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com and join us in exploring the histories of Lincoln’s neighborhoods. 

By Donald L. Hafner

Imagine doing your errands on a Saturday in 1920, at the bustling center of business in South Lincoln near the railroad station. Perhaps you brought a tool to be mended at the blacksmith shop of Daniel MacAskill, an immigrant from Nova Scotia. Ahead of you in line, picking up an iron brake shoe for a wagon, is Manuel Silva from Portugal. Behind him with a harrow blade to be repaired is Paul Rickert from Germany.

Then off you go to get groceries at Henry Grimwood’s (England). Martin Sharkan (Russia) has just delivered fresh milk from his small dairy farm in north Lincoln. You chat a bit with Grace Danner (England), whose husband John (Estonia) is a U.S. Navy officer and away at sea. Outside, two horsemen from Henry Higginson’s estate are having a good-humored argument — except that Peter Nelsen (Denmark) occasionally has a puzzled look as he tries to understand Joseph Ragske (Poland). Nearby, three servant women—Bertha Dahlstrom (Sweden), Anna Poulson (Norway), and Felisata Margenelli (Italy) — are swapping gossip about their wealthy employers.

You used to hear Philip Harris’s wonderful Jamaican accent as he waited for the train to Boston. But Philip and his wife Ida Tyler moved away after all their children died in that horrible house fire. You miss chatting with Michael and Amelia Carraso (Italy), but with the anti-Italian prejudices stirred up by the Sacco-Vanzetti trial in Bridgewater, the Carrasos now keep to themselves.

Your last errand is at Marion L. Snelling’s Coal and Wood “near the Depot,” to schedule a delivery of fuel for your stove. Marion (England) doesn’t have the best prices, which is why the town buys from the Waltham Coal Company. But her shop is convenient. No need to get lamp oil from Marion, however, now that Lincoln has finally joined the 20th century, and Edison Electric is stringing wires for electricity in homes.

On your shopping trip, you might have heard the languages and accents of Lincoln residents from eighteen different countries. In 1920, foreign-born residents made up a third of Lincoln’s adult population. The largest number were from England, Scotland, and Ireland. But among them were also immigrants from places as remote as Chile, Croatia, and Lithuania. Add in the children of these immigrants, and the number of bilingual residents of Lincoln was impressive — all mingling and working together. The language rainbow was even more colorful on the days when immigrant craftsmen and laborers flowed into town for jobs at R.D. Donaldson’s construction firm or to work the fields and milk the cows on Lincoln’s farms.

Each of these new Americans had found a place in the economic life of Lincoln. Their children seemed to do well academically in school, although the school superintendent repeatedly expressed alarm that so many of Lincoln’s elementary students “had teeth in need of a dentist’s attention.” Yet in other ways, these new Americans lived lives apart in Lincoln. They had arrived in two waves of immigration around the turn of the century. Half of them arrived in the 1880s and 1890s, mostly from the British Isles. If they wished, they could become naturalized U.S. citizens within five years, yet almost half of them never applied.

The hundred-plus immigrants who arrived in Lincoln after 1900 were mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, and they were even less likely to become citizens. By 1920, virtually all of them had been in the country long enough to qualify for citizenship, yet only one in five had applied. One reason may be clear: alarmed by this wave of non-Anglo immigrants, Congress had tightened the citizenship requirements. Applicants had to be able to answer questions in English about U.S. history, culture, and government. But there were no standard questions they could study in advance. It fell to the whim of whatever the examining judge decided to ask.

Lincoln’s newest Americans in 1920 brought economic and cultural vitality to the town, yet many failed to find a comparable place in Lincoln’s civic life. Year after year, those elected to Lincoln’ multitude of public offices—from Selectman to The Measurer of Wood and Bark—all had family names drawn from the British Isles. Finally, in 1921, Fritz Cunnert was elected to the Cemetery Commission. Cunnert was a first-generation American, with parents born in Germany. There would not be another non-Anglo name in the list of Lincoln’s elected town officers until Albert Amiel Schaal (born in Wisconsin to American parents) became a Selectman in 1943.

Civic participation is not a natural instinct. Like any good habit, civic participation grows strong when it is rewarded. The best reward, of course, is being offered a chair at the table by those who already hold civic authority. Recall that when Lincoln’s women were first allowed to vote for President in 1920, a third of them stayed home. It took half a century before Lincoln elected the first woman to the town’s Select Board. Perhaps it was not coincidence that it was also half a century before the portion of women who voted matched that of men.

Throughout its history, Lincoln’s vitality has depended upon its ability to absorb new participants into its economic, cultural, and civic life. There is much to be pondered and learned from that history.

For more on Lincoln’s rich immigrant history, turn to Jack MacLean’s A Rich Harvest, especially chapter 16, and to the charming reminiscences of Lincoln in the early 20th century in Ruth Moulton Ragan’s Voiceprints of Lincoln: Memories of an Old Massachusetts Town. Both books are available from the Lincoln Historical Society.

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“Lincoln’s History” is a biweekly column about aspects of Lincoln’s past by members of the Lincoln Historical Society.

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a new series called “Lincoln’s History” written by the Lincoln Historical Society.

By Don Hafner

Black History Month is a time to reflect upon stories of Lincoln’s own history of slavery. Here is one such story.

Against all odds, Violet Thayer of Lincoln was a successful businesswoman. When she died in 1813, she was in her seventies and had never married. Violet’s mother was still alive, but she was blind and incapable of managing her late daughter’s affairs, so John Hartwell, proprietor of the Hartwell tavern, handled Violet’s estate.

The probate inventory of Violet’s property included what we might expect of a successful seamstress — two calico gowns, one cambric gown, four short gowns, twenty yards of shirting fabric, thimbles, yarn. In all, the estate was valued at $114. Three more items showed Violet’s success and savvy as a businesswoman. She had $30 in cash, as well as two loans she had made that paid her interest—one to Bulkley Adams for $20 and the other to Samuel Hartwell for $27.

During the seven weeks of Violet’s terminal illness, she was cared for by John and Hepzibah Hartwell. John Hartwell claimed a third of Violet’s estate for his expenses in boarding her during these weeks, but that still left something for her aged and blind mother.

Violet Thayer’s success did not come easily. She had been born into slavery and had been enslaved “from infancy” in the households of Ephraim and Elizabeth Hartwell and then John and Hepzibah Hartwell. Yet by the time of her death, Violet had earned enough money on her own to make loans to two of Lincoln’s prominent citizens. Quite likely, these “loans” were Violet’s shrewd equivalent of a savings account that paid interest at a time when Lincoln had no banks.

Also against the odds, the Hartwells attempted to hold Violet in bondage even after the state Supreme Judicial Court pronounced in 1783 that the court was “fully of the opinion that perpetual servitude can no longer be tolerated in our government.” Essentially, the court gave every “servant for life” in Massachusetts the opportunity to simply walk away from their owners, including the dozen or so slave owners in Lincoln. Yet five years later, when Ephraim Hartwell made out his will in 1788, he included this clause: “I give unto Elizabeth Hartwell my beloved wife … my Negro woman, named Violet for her own service & disposal.”

Ephraim Hartwell died in 1793, and the probate inventory of his estate did not include any mention of Violet among his “property.” Perhaps she had challenged her enslavement; perhaps she had simply been released by the Hartwells. Either way, when freedom finally came to her, Violet Thayer made her own path in the world—and quite successfully.

For more on slavery in Lincoln, see A Rich Harvest by John C. MacLean, especially pages 216-221. Copies of are available from the Lincoln Historical Society.

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Addendum (March 1, 2021):

Did you know that the end of slavery in Massachusetts was complicated, and there was not a single action or case that ended it. Although in the 1790 census no individuals within Massachusetts were identified as slaves, Hartwell’s ongoing treatment of Violet as a slave two years earlier was not unique and not illegal.

In 1781 there were two important lower-court cases brought by slaves Mum Bett and Quock Walker that resulted in their being declared free. Walker had been owned by Nathaniel Jennison, and other charges developed out of the original case. One was Commonwealth v. Jennison, which related to an incident where Jennison had beaten Walker. In 1783 it had gone to the Supreme Judicial Court, and Jennison was found guilty and fined forty shillings.

Chief Justice William Cushing argued the view that based upon language in the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution (an issue earlier argued in the Mum Bett case), Cushing was “fully of the opinion that perpetual servitude can no longer be tolerated in our government.”

Although highly suggestive, those statements were not part of the formal decision of the court, which was dealing with a narrower issue of assault and battery—so slavery legally continued (including with the Hartwells), but it now became clear that the SJC would not uphold it.

For those interested in research into Massachusetts slavery, a general article I wrote some time back for the New England Historic Genealogical Society includes Lincoln references and is available here.

Jack MacLean
Lincoln Town Historian