A Historical Sketch of Norwood by Dr. Francis Tinker-Part I-This Day In Norwood History-October 24, 1898

NORWOOD’S HISTORY.

A hasty glance at the leading events in the progress of old South Dedham and its offspring.

“The town of Norwood was originally the south, or second, precinct of Dedham. The Neponset River forms its eastern boundary, and from it’s broad meadows the land gradually rises towards the west and northwest, forming a warm and sunny slope, which is decorated with tasteful and pleasant homes, with church spires and turrets from the more stately mansions rising above the leafy canopy, presenting to the eye of the beholder a panorama of quiet peace and beauty.”

It was thus that the late Dr. Francis Tinker of Norwood began a historical sketch of the town, published some eight years ago.

Dr. Tinker admitted that it was very hard to say who were actually Norwood’s first settlers. It is notable that the names of Kales and Fisher are among the earliest to be found in Dedham town records. The Batemans, another old family, came in somewhat later.

In a note to his history, Dr. Tinker mentions the following indications of who the early settlers of the southern part of Dedham really were: “Joshua Fisher was authorized to build a sawmill on the Neponset River, near the southern boundary of the town, and when Ezra Morse was deprived of his mill seat on Mother Brook, the town grunted him a privilege at the sawmill and some forty acres of land.”

Some few years ago the late Mr. Ward L. Gay, who belonged himself to a family which did much for the growth and development of Dedham and Norwood, wrote an interesting historical essay, which he read before the Norwood Literary Club, on the subject of “The Old Settlers of Norwood.” This essay was afterwards typewritten and bound, and is preserved in the Morrill Memorial Library.

Mr. Gay did not enter his researches much beyond the year 1700.

SOUTH DEDHAM’S ANTIQUITY.

Norwood as a town is but a little more than a quarter of a century old. Norwood as a community has a history which goes back to the days when America was not a Republic, and when Massachusetts was a loyal part of the British Empire. In fact, the beginnings of the old mother town of Dedham go back to the days when Richelieu was prime minister of France, and when Charles I of England still carried on his shoulders that elegant curly head which was never to prove of much benefit either to himself or to his oppressed subjects.

Dedham was the seventeenth town settled in Massachusetts, and its beginnings were, we believe, made about the year 1636. The old parish or precinct of South Dedham was formed at a period, considerably later, in fact nearly a century after the time when Dedham township was founded. The movement for building a meeting house and forming a parish in the south part of town seems to have first found shape in 1726, and in 1735, nine years later, the Orthodox society was formed, with Rev. Thomas Balch as its first pastor. Grants of land from Stoughton helped on the growth of the new precinct. Among names yet familiar which are found in the records of those days, are those of Everett, Dean, Draper, Ellis, Kingsbury, Sumner, and Morse. The Morse family seem to have entered South Dedham by way of Walpole, certain of their ancestral estates having been set off from that town and annexed to Dedham in 1738.

It is not our purpose to attempt at this time any elaborate detailed history cither of Norwood itself or of its beginnings as the South Dedham parish. Town histories are usually unsatisfactory to all old-timers with good memories, as well as to conscientious antiquarians and genealogists, and the town historian should have exceptional gifts and exceptional tastes for antiquarian research, as well as rare opportunities of access to old records and original authorities.

“The first grant of land,” says Ward Gay, “which I can determine to be certainly within the limits of Norwood, is a grant dated 1697, giving to Ezra Morse and Josiah Fisher fourteen acres in Purgatory Swamp, abutting upon the Dorchester line toward the south; the swamp and land of Nathaniel Bullard toward the north; the wasteland and swamp on fill other points ”

THE FIRST HOUSE.

“There is a tradition,” says Mr. Gay, “that the first house built within the present limits of Norwood was near where the house of Mr. George H. Morse now stands. It is certain, however, that a house, then very old and built by one of my ancestors, was built more than a hundred years ago. It stood near where Cephas Hour’s house stands.”

In earlier days that end of Norwood between East Walpole and what is now Winslow’s Station was largely owned by the Morses; Fuller, Guild, Dean, Sumner, and Hawes were other leading names in old South Dedham, as were also the names of Ellis and Fairbanks. The Ellis and Fairbanks families once owned a good part of the land in what is now the centre of town. The Fishers were another stalwart old New England family who had early located themselves here and in other parts of the country.

We may pass over the noble records of Dedham and South Dedham in the old

French War and the American Revolution, and say something of the town’s industrial progress. The tanning business is the oldest of Norwood’s mill industries, and the tanning of hides in this community is supposed to go back to the year 1776. The names of Guild and Smith were early connected with the industry.

Just when the village of South Dedham had its first real boom in growth and real estate activity it would be hard to say. In the earlier nineteenth century New England towns did not grow by sudden fits and starts, as towns in the newer western states do now. The old parish was largely a farming community, and enjoyed such prosperity as is connected with large landholding, fair crops and large families. It is too often the habit to sneer at those old days as a quiet, sleepy period, but in those kindly times when nearly everyone wits connected by birth or marriage, when honesty and neighborly dealings were the rule, when everyone had very strong and solid reasons for knowing and trusting everyone else, the foundations of much solid growth were laid by the old-fashioned honesty and economy of the plain people.

SOUTH DEDHAM’S EARLIER BOOMS.

Earlier South Dedham must have had its occasional periods of extra activity, even before the old Norfolk County Railroad was built, and even before the diversifying of manufacturing industries ehanged the early trend of the old farming community Tn the stage-coaching days some parts of town must have had periods of extra activity, and have found their ideas considerably brushed up occasionally by brisk travellers, who made certain parts of town their favorite stopping places. West Dedham, now Westwood, also helped on Norwood’s earlier growth. A number of the names of men who have made Norwood what is is are the names of men who came from Westwood. Besides this, Westwood at one period made South Dedham its market for produce, and did much to feed the people who lived here in those days.

Among the many Norwood names which are those of families coming originally from West Dedham are those of Thayer, Talbot, Colburn, Draper and Baker, and one of the best living representatives of this old West Dedham stock among those still in more or less active life is Mr. Tyler Thayer. It is a great mistake, however, to suppose that any one set of men are entitled to all the credit for building up a town. South Dedham was quite a thriving community before any West Dedham people came here, and Walpole, Stoughton, Canton and other places have from time to time done their share in helping to build up this community. The name Hartshorn, or Hartshorne, has a distinctively Wal-polcan sound. South Dedham had showed considerable activity even before the period of the “forties,” when the railroad came. The tannery, now Winslow Bros., started, we believe, about 1826 by the late George Winslow, Sr., and the late Lyman Smith, was one of tile earliest of Norwood’s industries. The mills at East Walpole kept a number of South Dedham people employed in teaming, while back in 1832 Isaac Ellis and Joseph Day had begun the manufacture of wrapping paper.

THE STATION CONTROVERSY.

It may be admitted, however, that the building of the railroad and the immigration of West Dedham people helped on South Dedham’s growth considerably. Much might be said, about both of the asperities and amenities of life in South Dedham in its “storm and stress,” or building period. Closely connected with this is the old historic “station” controversy, which was different in many ways from the Day Street station controversy of later years. In fact, the older station controversies had very earnest and real reasons for existence, if we may trust old timers. There were times when Everetts, the present Norwood Central Station, was the actual industrial centre of town. The Everetts were furniture manufacturers, or “cabinet makers,” to use the term which had vogue then. Their factory was burned in 1865. The lower Norwood Station had then the call in activity. The Everetts moved temporarily to one of the buildings now occupied by Smith’s tannery, which was also used by Haley, Morse & Boyden, engaged in the same business. Near it were the carpet works, established by E. Fisher Talbot, now deceased, the Norwood Iron Foundry, established in 1854 by Isaac Colburn and others, and the tannery, established a little earlier by Lyman Smith, and conducted by him and his sons, John and Charles L. To enter into the history of the various see-saw movements by which Norwood, the older station, became eclipsed by the newer Everetts, and how, in after years, there grew up various movements with the same two stations as centres of them, would be too long a task for a sketch of this kind.

That widely-known Norwood industry, one of the most profitable business enterprises in town, Morrill’s Ink Works, was founded in about 1856, by Dea. Samuel ‘Morrill, who had been a printer by trade, and who was the father of the present George H. Morrill, Sr. The Isaac Ellis paper mills went out of existence only a few years ago. Three large paper-making industries yet flourish in the nearby village of East Walpole.

Norwood’s churches are at present six in number. The histories of the large and flourishing St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic church, the Methodist church and the recently-dedicated Swedish Bethel all represent religious movements of a later growth than those connected with the foundation periods of the town. The Baptist Society was founded in 1858. The Universalist society is much older, its early history going back to 1827. The Baptist church has had some of Norwood’s most energetic and public-spirited citizens among its members, as has also the Universalist society. Rev. Edwin ‘Thompson, later of East Walpole, was pastor of the Universalist church in the j “forties,” and that church, under his leadership, had much to do with inaugurating the temperance movement in this community.

(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)