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A Short History of Newton
From a Puritan farming village on the Charles to a city of thirteen villages, a stop on the Underground Railroad, and one of the most educated communities in the country.
Before the City
The land along this stretch of the Charles River was home to the Massachusett people long before English settlers arrived. In the 1630s the area became part of Cambridge, known as Cambridge Village, then Newtown, and finally Newton. In 1688 it broke away from Cambridge to govern itself as a separate town. For its first two centuries Newton was farm country, a scatter of villages connected by mill streams and meeting houses.
Mills, Rails, and Villages
The Charles River powered early industry at Newton Upper Falls and Newton Lower Falls, where mills turned out paper, nails, and textiles. In the 19th century the railroad changed everything: commuter lines let people live in Newton and work in Boston, and distinct villages grew up around the stations. Newton Centre, Newtonville, West Newton, Auburndale, Waban, and the others each became their own small downtown, a pattern you can still feel today.
A Stop on the Road to Freedom
In the decades before the Civil War, the Jackson family farm in Newton was a station on the Underground Railroad, sheltering people escaping slavery. The Jackson Homestead is now a museum run by Historic Newton, one of the few Underground Railroad sites in the region that the public can visit and one of the reasons Newton takes its own history seriously.
Becoming a City
By 1873 Newton had grown enough that voters traded the old town meeting for a city government with a mayor and aldermen. The decades that followed brought streetcars, parks, and grand homes, along with Boston College, which moved to its Chestnut Hill campus on the Newton line in 1913. The city earned the nickname the Garden City for its tree-lined streets and planned greenery.
The Modern Garden City
Through the 20th and into the 21st century, Newton became known above all for its public schools, drawing families willing to pay a premium to enroll their children. It is consistently ranked among the safest and most educated cities in the country. Today the same questions animate Newton’s politics that face many successful suburbs: how to build enough housing for teachers and young families, how to keep the schools strong, and how to stay open to newcomers in a city that has become expensive to call home.
Sources: City of Newton; Historic Newton; U.S. Census Bureau.