FOUNDINGS, 1881: WELLESLEY, DANA HALL, AND THE
CREATION OF A SUPERIOR SPHERE
Time: 1 Day
Author: Eric Goodson
Unit: 1880s
Course: Making History
Materials:
• Chapter 7 in Five Pounds Currency
OVERVIEW: Wellesley split from Needham in 1881, the same year Dana Hall was founded.
How are these two events related? Needham split apart for many reasons. Geographical
divisions between the two communities made it hard for west Needham to attend the
Meeting House/parish house in east Needham. They developed two different
congregations, and as religion was the central social and political institution of colonial
America, this divided the two communities. As the Turnpike in 1812 and later the railroad
in 1834 came through the western portion of the town, west Needham grew in wealth
rapidly in the 19th c., becoming a summer destination for the wealthy industrialists and
bankers of Boston. Finally, the cultural identity of west Needham was cemented by the
Hunnewell estates gardens and Wellesley College’s commitment to education. The seal of
the town illustrates what the founders felt was at the core of the town: Native land, Wellesley
College, and the Hunnewell estates. Born in the Gilded Age, it was a town born when the
wealthy and the culturally elite wanted to distinguish themselves from the poorer parts of
town (similar to larger highbrow/lowbrow cultural debates raging at the time.) Also a town
populated with wealthy men of vision, who sought to affect the world around them with
their wealth and the institutions they built. So Dana was founded at a moment when the
town was cementing its identity as an educational, cultural and in some ways, highbrow,
Mecca.
--(Based largely on: Five Pounds Currency, Three Pounds of Corn. Wellesley Historical Society, 1981.)
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OBJECTIVES
To answer the question: What impact did the incorporation
of the town of Wellesley have on the establishment of Dana
Hall, since they both occurred in 1881?
What was the character of the town at Dana’s inception, and
how might that have affected the character of the school?
PRE-TEACHING:
• Students read chapter 7 in Five Pounds Currency.
PROCEDURE:
• John Elliot
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Born in England in 1604
Puritan upbringing
Puritans in England still persecuted.
His uncle was imprisoned in the Tower of London
John and his brothers and sisters came to Americas in 1631 to avoid
persecution.
Settled in Roxbury, pastor.
Pushed for education, and helped to found Roxbury Latin School.
Testified against Anne Hutchinson when she confronted the religious leaders
of the Mass Bay Colony. Gave him a good reputation within the
establishment.
Was moved to help the native peoples.
 He felt “pity” for the “savage” race he thought was “lost.”1
 Felt calling of Massachusetts, with the seal (see slideshow)
He learned Algonquin and wrote a translation of the Bible.
Established 14 “Praying Towns”, including one in South Natick around his
parish.
 Praying towns were planned communities, where natives could live as
Christians and thus rule themselves (and hopefully not be
dispossessed of their land)
 He eventually wrote a book that argued for Theocracy as the proper
form of government, a book that was banned by the Massachusetts
colony as a challenge to British rule.
 Built a mill at the falls in South Natick.
 It was in the swampy area above the falls that the French and Indian
War began, when a white settler named Zachary Scott was found
murdered near the mill.
French and Indian War tensions came to South Natick.
 Indians accused of burning a barn and 200 were arrested and sent to
Deer Island in Boston harbor. No shelters, already winter, most died
or were killed or sent to the Caribbean as slaves.
 When those who survivied returned to Lake Waban found their town
destroyed, the mill burned, the survivors scatterd, and the land
cleared for farming by white settlers.
 Eliot died in 1690, living long enough to see the decimation of his
people.
English settlers had been moving into Wellesley and Needham when they
were granted land south of the Charles river “five miles square.”
Feeling a sense of puritan duty to be fair, they paid William Nahaton, or
“Nehoiden” for his land, which became Needham and part of Wellesley.
John Magos, one of Eliot’s native teachers, a prisoner on Deer Island and a
christian Indian who fought against heathen indians in the French and Indian
War, said the land that would become Wellesley was his.2
Five Pounds Currency 4
Five Pounds Currency 9.
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Paid five pounds of currency and three pounds of corn for his land,
which became the bulk of Wellesley, from Maugus Hill to South
Natick.
Needham and Wellesley tensions.
o Needham was broken into really two communities, east and west (which
would become Wellesley). Divided by geography and later income.
o The meeting house (where they attended church) was a point of contention.
Earlier, Needham had separated from Dedham because the central meeting
house/parish house was too far away. Now Needam had its own internal
strife over the same issue.
o Located in East Needham, it was hard to get to for those in west Needham
(later Wellesley.) As early as 1732 those in east asked to be free of tax
obligations to support a building they could not easily get to.
o 1773, the meeting house (parish house) burned to the ground, and the people
of east Needham quickly decided that arson was the cause, and the people of
west Needham were to blame.
 No one was ever arrested (gunpowerder was storred in the eves!)
 Debate broke out as to where to build the new one. The Westerners
wanted it in their part, the easterners wanted it in the old location.
 The east parish decided just to rebuild it without a legal agreement, in
the original location.
 West parishiners decided to show up early and prevent the raising,
but the east parishiners anticapted trouble and came even earlier, 5:30
am. By the time the west parishiners arived, it was too late. The
frame was up.
 So the west parishiners went home and started building their own
meeting house.
Revolution!
o Needham never center of Patriot rebellion, and voted not to end
representatives to the Tea Party.
o Too distant from Boston.
o Still, had militia by 1775.
o 3 companies, including one of Minutemen (better trained) set out on April
19, 1775 when news of Concord came. Nearly all of the Minutemen were
from west Needham. The other two companies were from each side of
town.
o 300 of the 1000 residents would serve in the war.
The New Republic
o Second Great Awakening, 1820s and 30s
o Ideal of Domesticity and the separation of the spheres
o Women recast as moral rudder of society
Civil War
o As Abolitionism gains in North, Women find out they are not welcome
o During the war they took roles outside the home but ones that still
supported traditional gender roles
 Aid Societies, Nurses, and Spies
Reconstruction
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o Eyes of the nation focused on question of Race, not Gender.
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Transportation and transformation
o The major corridors of transportation went through west, not east,
Needham.
o Turnpike first connected Needham to Boston and New York, around the
war of 1812. Lots of army supplies went up and down that toll road.
o Then, the Boston and Worcester Railroad went though, with the first train
reaching west Needham in 1834.
o This new era of transportation made west Needham much wealthier than
east Needham.
o Wealthy bankers and businessmen made West Needham their summer home.
o West Needham became a place for convalescence and a place for the rich of
the gilded age to spend wild sums of money on their properties.
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Industrialization following Civil War
o Dr. William Morton built a gabled, gingerbread-like house near where the
town hall stands now.
 He pioneered the use of ether in surgery, first etherizing a chicken,
then his dog, then himself, all under a large oak on his property.
 First publically demonstrated at Mass General, see painting.
 He was not the first to use ether in this way.
o William Emerson Baker
• Married, 2 children
• Wife very proper, and did not approve of his eccentric
personality.
 Made a lot of money, in the millions, in sewing machine manufacture.
• First with Civil War and need for clothing for the army.
• Following the war, with urbanization, growth of off the rack
clothing and department stores, the need for clothing for new
immigrant waves,
 Bought a number of farms in 1868
 Created, as one called it Baker’s “Circus, Amusement Park or
Fairyland of the Beautiful and Bizarre.” (Crumbaker 1)
 Planned and supervised construction of
• 2 lakes, stocked with bass and trout
• huge estate, 755 acres
• animal collections and bear pits
• artificial caves
• large art collection
• conservatories and greenhouses
• a saloon
• a bowling alley
• a private chapel
• Threw large parties celebrating, the “Naming of a New-Born
Heifer, the Funeral of Leander, a pet Swan, and the funeral of
Billy Bruin, a Bear.” (Crumbaker, 1)
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Bought the “Great American Restaurant” building from the
Philadelphia Centennial celebration in 1877, had it carted up
to Massachusetts in pieces, and erected it on his property.
Became the Hotel Wellesley, which burned down in 1891.
About 150 rooms, a dining room that seated 600, two
bowling alleys, a large gymnasium, etc….
• Brought in many children and Sunday school groups and
their pastors, housed them at the hotel.
• Each week a new group of underprivileged children from
Boston came and stayed at the hotel and enjoyed the estate.
Public admitted two days pr. week during the summer at no charge,
unless they wanted to go in the buildings or underground caverns.
“The ‘Farms’ now has more the characteristics of an educational
park; it curiously combines art with nature, quaint history and
comical amusements.” (Crumbaker, 1)
Some saw him as an eccentric, rich screwball who threw away more
money than the Honnewells.
Others saw him as an entertainer who gave away his services to all
kinds of people, people who many times abused the farms, stole
towels, tore up flowers, injured animals, and challenged him to fist
fights.
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o Horatio Hollis Hunnewell completed his mansion on the shores of Lake
Waban in 1852.
 Italian terraced garden, known as one of the best collections of plant
specimens around.
o Henry Fowle Durant, born in 1822, came to summer in West Needham and
would have a profound impact on the area
 Harry died in 1863 at age eight of diphtheria
 Pauline had regretted all her life that she had not been able to go to
college.
 College literally founded on the bible, with Pauline laying a bible in
the cornerstone.
 Residents could hardly believe what grew on the shores of the lake.
 College Hall, the main building, was more than an eighth of a mile
long, made of 7million bricks, 20 miles of steam water and gas pipes.
 Decorated with marble, walnut, windows, first gas lamps in town.
 350 rooms for students, chapel, library of 10,000 books, art gallery,
physics experimentation laboratory second only to MIT.
o Wellesley Independence.
 Read chapter 7, p45-48.
 Class divisions.
o Dana Hall established in the same year as Wellesley was incorporated as a
town.
 Charles P. Dana made his money in the East India Trade.
o First golf course in MA created on Hunnewell estate.
 Golf as a new sport of the gilded age.
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 Brookline Country Club would be the first gold club in the country.
o And in 1882 a football game was played between Wellesley and Needham
that launched what one author described as the “oldest schoolboy rivalry in
the country.”3
Thus Dana is born in a town, and with a town, that was rooted in several realities.
Populated by men with money and vision, elites who sought to use their wealth to
improve the world. Dana was born in a sort of superior sphere, replete with fantastic
wealth, botanical gardens and fairytale farms, and women’s education and religion.
Thus, among other remnants of this time, we see:
• The tree specimens around Dana’s campus are remarkable.
• Students would pay tennis and golf, the sports of the Gilded Age, right from
the start.
WHAT’S NEXT?
REFERENCES
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Five Pounds Currency 56.
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