Happy Birthday Norwood Massachusetts!

By George Curtis, Norwood Historical Society

Early History

Indigenous peoples who lived near the Great Blue Hill often frequented the area near the Neponset River for hunting and fishing. When European settlers arrived, they too found abundant hunting grounds there.

In 1600, European settlers purchased a vast tract of land from the Indian Sachem Chickalawbut, stretching southward toward the Rhode Island border. Over time, this land has been divided into sixteen separate towns.

Initially, relations between the indigenous peoples and settlers were relatively peaceful. However, in June of 1675, reports surfaced in Boston of two men found scalped near Swansea, and colonists blamed the Indian leader King Philip and his warriors. In response, colonial forces were dispatched down the Country Road, marking the onset of the infamous King Philip’s War.

The Indian Mortars Of Tiot-This Day in Norwood History-September 25, 1934

On the evening of June 26, 1675, colonial troops neared King’s Bridge, where present-day Pleasant Street crosses the Neponset River. A lunar eclipse occurred, which they interpreted as a dire omen. The troops halted their march and only resumed their journey southward after it had passed.

Ezra Morse’s Mill

Following the Indian Wars, Dedham Village adopted “Contentment” as its motto, though discontent often prevailed. Disputes were settled in town council meetings, sometimes convened as early as six in the morning to avoid interfering with farmers’ chores, with fines levied on absentees.

Ezra Morse and Josiah Fisher were the first known settlers to live in what is now Norwood. Dedham farmers had complained about Ezra Morse’s grist mill on Mother Brook, claiming it hindered water flow crucial for their meadows and crops. The mill was useful and badly needed, so in response, the town of Dedham granted Morse 10 acres of wilderness in the Purgatory Swamp of South Dedham, where he established a sawmill in 1697.

This initial industry, adjacent to Hawes Brook, laid the foundation for the village that would become Norwood. The mill was near present-day Morse Street, between Pleasant and Washington Streets. It was likely close to the rear of the present-day Norwood Space Center and the Certainteed plant on Water St near the East Walpole line.

As the sawmill commenced operations, other families settled in the area, utilizing its timber to construct their homes. The settlement that started around Hawes Brook eventually became known as TIOT. According to Norwood historian Win Everett, “Tyot (or “Tiot”, pronounced TIE-OT) was the Indian name for the territory which became Norwood, Massachusetts. It meant ‘place-surrounded-by-waters'”.

Ezra Morse built the first house in Norwood in 1678, a typical saltbox-style dwelling for the time, on the nearby hill that became known as Morse Hill. In 1868, 4 years before Norwood became a town, his descendant George H. Morse built a new house on the same property, then tore Ezra’s house down. The George H. Morse House still stands at 1285 Washington St, overlooking South Norwood.

Growth

The population of South Dedham grew and by 1717, the settlers were tired of traveling into Dedham Village to attend services at the Church of Christ. They petitioned to start their own Parish in South Dedham. West Dedham (now Westwood) also made the same request. The loss of so many parishioners would mean a large tax decrease for the Church, and Dedham steadfastly refused the petitions several times. South Dedham parishioners solved the problem by holding services in private homes starting in 1722.  With fewer and fewer South Dedham parishioners making the trip to Dedham Village, Dedham finally agreed to the petition request in 1728, and on October 18, 1730, the General Court incorporated the area as the South Parish of Dedham.

West Dedham and South Dedham could not agree on the location for a new combined meetinghouse, so West Dedham parishioners returned to the Dedham Christ Church. South Dedham erected its first meetinghouse in 1736 near the present-day Morrill Memorial Library. Chosen as the pastorate of the new Congregational Church was Reverend Thomas Balch of Salem, a Harvard graduate. The town records state “he was deservedly highly esteemed for he was a man of talents and intellectual attainments. He was orthodox and highly regarded as a preacher.” The Balch school in South Norwood is named in his memory.

Two years later, in 1738, South Dedham requested a schoolhouse and in 1740 the first school in South Dedham was constructed near the site of the present-day Cornelius Callahan Elementary School. South Dedham finally had a school, but the situation was far from perfect. Teachers had to travel from Dedham each day, class sessions were short and only boys were allowed at school, but it was a start. South Dedham hired its first schoolmaster in 1754 and 4 years later allowed girls to attend the school. This school was closed in 1788.

For more information on Norwood’s early schoolmasters, click here.

Tales of Tyot-Birth And Babyhood of Tiot

Now with a meetinghouse and school, South Dedham continued its growth.

A burial ground was needed for this growing population, and the Old Parish Cemetery was established in 1741. This served as South Dedham’s only burial ground until 1880 when Highland Cemetery was created.

In 2018, Norwood historian Patrica Fanning helped to found the Old Parish Preservation Volunteers (OPPV) of Norwood, an organization dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the Old Parish Cemetery in Norwood. The group has meticulously cleaned, repaired, and reset numerous gravestones, published blog posts about those interred in the cemetery, and hosted a range of activities. These include thematic tours, a production of Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ an art installation, a musical performance, and the annual Reading Frederick Douglass event each Fourth of July.

In 2021, OPPV worked with the Town of Norwood to create a Master Plan for the Old parish cemetery. In 2023, Norwood Town Meeting members approved $530,000 in Community Preservation Funds to implement the plan, which will replace perimeter fencing around the centuries-old cemetery, install entrance gates at the two points of access and undertake additional landscape improvement (most notably in the area dedicated to veterans).

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South Dedham still had no commercial center, so residents had to travel 5 miles over bumpy, muddy, unpaved roads into Dedham village to purchase dry goods or other supplies. And even though they were now establishing their own services, and no longer benefited from improvements in the village, they continued to pay taxes to Dedham. Resentment grew over the following decades.

Independence

Two events in 1870 and 1871 finally led to the break between Dedham and South Dedham.

South Dedham had constructed two more schoolhouses to replace the original 1740 building. Schoolhouse Number 6 was located near present Lenox and Cross Street. Schoolhouse Number 7, also known as the “Little Red Brick Schoolhouse”, stood on the corner of Pleasant and Sumner streets until 2009 when it was moved and meticulously rebuilt on the grounds of the George H Morse house.

Replica of Little Red Brick School House Opens-This Day In Norwood History-October 22, 2013

These schools were sufficient for the lower grades, but South Dedham still didn’t have a High School. In 1870, Frank O. Winslow (of the Winslow Brothers tannery) petitioned Dedham to allow a High School to be built in South Dedham. When the vote failed to pass, talk of secession from Dedham began.

South Dedham also had two fire companies. Washington Number 7, near present-day St Catherine’s Hall, and America Number 10 near present-day Walnut Ave and Washington St. Very low-tech operations, their tools consisted of mainly tubs of water with bucket brigades, and later hand pumps carried via a horse carriage. More than just an emergency service, the firehouses served as social halls, and the men were a proud band of brothers. Washington Number 7 had a long tradition of ringing the firehouse bell on the Fourth of July to celebrate the holiday. Dedham Selectmen voted to ban the bell ringing in 1871, and fire Company steward George E. Metcalf defiantly rang the bell anyway.

For many South Dedham residents, the bad feelings over these two events were strong enough to request a break from Dedham. On December 22, 1871 a meeting was called in Village Hall and a committee was selected to petition the State to allow for the formation of a new town. made up of South Dedham and small portion of Walpole. Eighty percent of the village signed the petition.

On February 10th, 1872, the following Bill was presented to the State Senate (you can click here for a PDF or scroll below)

The Bill was approved by the General Court and signed by Massachusetts Governor William B. Washburn on February 23, 1872, 153 years ago today.