Dale-Bacon Street Area

Background to the Development of the Dale/Bacon Street Area

Morton S. Isaacson

1/31/21

In 1847, Oel Farnsworth purchased 60 acres of land from John Clark on the west side of Bacon Street (MLR 535/246). This lot included most of the land along today's Dale Street, stretching from Bacon Street to Prospect Hill (see map below). Farnsworth was the estate manager and caretaker for the large estate owned by Francis Cabot Lowell, Jr. on River Street, starting around 1834. Lowell was the son of Francis Cabot Lowell, Sr., the founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company. The estate was formerly owned by Dr. James Jackson, brother of Patrick Tracy Jackson. Patrick Tracy Jackson was Francis Cabot Lowell Senior's brother-in-law, a co-founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company, and its first resident managing agent. James Jackson was an eminent physician in Boston and one of the founders of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The Jackson/Lowell estate stretched from the river to Grove Street and from Newton Street to Willow Street. The estate house still stands, today, at 45 Clark Street; and the house Farnsworth probably occupied still stands at 110 Clark Street. Oel Farnsworth continued to live on the Jackson-Lowell Estate for a total of 40 years, until Lowell's death in 1874, at which time he moved to be near the land he already owned on Dale Street, about 1878. In that year Farnsworth bought and moved into the Edson house at 167-169 Dale Street. Farnsworth was also an initial stock holder in the Waltham National Bank, and a town selectman for many years (Waltham Rediscovered). He died in 1892.

John Clark's ancestor, Hugh Clarke, first came to Watertown from England sometime before 1641. John Clark's Grandfather, Captain John Clark of Newton, married Hannah Cutting, of Waltham, and the couple moved to Waltham about 1760, when her father, John Cutting, died. She inherited the Cutting farm which stretched from today's Main Street up to Piety corner, with the homestead located on Main Street where the Waltham Public Library now stands. The Cutting's ancestors came to Watertown in 1634. John Clark, who sold Farnsworth the lot, married Lydia Sanderson, and their children Calvin, Alice (who married Thomas Worcester), and Lydia (who married Nathanial Hobart), were all active in establishing the Church of the New Jerusalem, a Swedenborgian congregation, in Piety Corner. According to the Waltham Direct Tax Roll of 1798, John Clark owned 143 acres in Waltham, with part of that a lot of 59 acres. This was probably the woodlot he sold to Oel Farnsworth in 1847.

According to an undated article by Thomas Armstrong in the Waltham Historical Society archive on land development in Waltham, Oel Farnsworth bought John Clark's wood lot on the west side of Bacon Street in 1845, cut the wood, laid out West Dale Street, and subdivided the land. This probably related to the deed (MLR 535/246) from Clark to Farnsworth, in 1847, for about 60 acres of land, stretching 180 rods (about 3000 ft) west from old Bacon Street (about where today's Hazel and Farnsworth Streets meet) to the original boudary of Prospect Hill Park, and, in the western part of the lot, 60 rods (about 1,000 ft) north from the land of Ephraim Allen, Leonard Smith and C. Fiske. This southern boundary appears to have been the southern boundary of the Great Dividends land grants of 1636, about the location of present day Farnsworth Street and parallel to but just north of Summit Street; and the northern boundary appears to have been along the northern ends of present day Willard, Woodlawn, Galen, and Bradford Streets (see map below). West Dale Street, as it was then called, was built by Farnsworth as a private road along the northern edge of his 1847 land purchase, in the eastern one-quarter of it, and in the middle of his property, in the western three-quarters. The part of Dale Street lying east of Farnsworth's land, between Lexington and Bacon Streets, was laid out about the same time. The western part was shown on the 1852 map, but not the eastern part. However, the eastern part was shown on the 1854 map, but not the western part. The boundaries of Farnsworth's lot, as well as the layout of Dale Street, appear to align with the lot lines from the Great Dividends land grants of 1636. Clark's 60 acre woodlot appears to correspond to the southern ends of Great Dividends Lots 18-1, 19-1, 20-1 and 21-1 on the map in Sanderson's history of Waltham. Also, according to Sanderson, Cutting acquired all of Lot 20-1 by 1714 and the southern part of Lot 19-1 by 1724 (see map below).

In 1848, Oel Farnsworth bought two other large lots in the area, which were adjacent to his lot from 1847 and stretched his land holdings all the way from Prospect Hill to Bacon Street. On June 17, 1848, Calvin Clark sold Luke Smith 3 and 3/8 acres of land on the west side of today's Bacon Street for $421.87 (MLR 539/149). The deed specified the northern boundary was along a "drain" (i.e. a stream) with "Bacon Street" on the west, with a "stone culverted bridge" over the brook, and the "new highway established last May" on the east, with a "covered drain" over the brook. On the south the lot was bounded by land of Stearns and Crehore. Curiously, perhaps due to an accident with a time machine, earlier on June 12, 1848, Luke Smith had sold this same lot of land to Oel Farnsworth for $421.87½ (MLR 539/149). The deed specified the lot was bounded by Calvin Clark on the north for 83 feet, Stearns and Crehore on the south for 281 feet, an "old town way" on the west for 809 feet, and a "new town way" on the east for 928 feet. These must be the same lots, with today's Bacon Street being the "new town way", and the former route of Bacon Street (known in colonial times as "the way to the school house", and later "Skunk Lane", and lying partly along what is today's Hazel Street) the "old town way". It looks like Luke Smith made a one half cent profit on the transaction. However, the deed to Smith said nothing about buildings, while the deed from Smith said "with buildings", so maybe the buildings cost one half cent.

There is a small, unnamed brook crossing today's Bacon Street just a bit north of No. 258 Bacon Street and the distance specified south on Bacon Street in the deed corresponds to about 260 feet south of today's Dale Street. At this point, it is about 281 feet along property lines from Bacon across to Hazel Street, and completing the quadrilateral gives an area of about 3 and 3/8 acres. The path of the unnamed brook can be followed on the current Waltham GIS parcel map by the irregular lot boundaries along it. It drains a marshy area between Kendall Park and Greenwood Lane to the west and empties into West Chester Brook in the wetlands just north of the Public Storage building on Lexington Street, behind 308 Lexington Street, opposite Beaver Street. This brook can be thought of as the dividing line between the Piety Corner area to the north and the Dale Street/Waltham Highlands area to the south.

Between the lot Farnsworth bought from Smith in 1848, along Bacon Street, and the 60 acre wood lot he bought from John Clark in 1847, to the west, was another lot acquired by Oel Farnsworth about this same time. Farnsworth bought this lot from Jacob Farwell also in 1848 (MLR 534/119 and 528/439). This lot stretched about 750 feet west from "old" Bacon Street and about 500 feet along it. It's not clear how Farwell obtained the lot, but it is referred to as "formerly Simeon Brown, now Jacob Farwell" in a deed from 1847 (MLR 535/246), and Simeon W. Brown obtained it from Lewis Bemis in 1829 (MLR 349/389, see also MLR 395/120). The deed specified that Bemis could harvest both trees and peat from the lot for a period of time. Lewis Bemis had bought the estate of Abner Sanderson, who had built his dwelling house in 1819 at what was later No. 380 Lexington Street, which stood at the intersection of Lexington Street and Totten Pond Road, until the City of Waltham demolished it in 2019 to improve the intersection. The Sanderson family had owned the land since the 1600s.

Oel Farsworth did not subdivide all his land for house lots, himself, but sold off most of it in a few large lots to others (see map below). He did, however, subdivide and sell off directly a number of smaller house lots, where houses were built before or around 1900, in the southeast portion of his land. This included lots along the south side of Dale Street, and on Caughey and Murray Streets. He, or his heirs, also sold off a number of lots along Lord Street and the far northern end of Hammond and Leonard Streets, even though these streets did not connect directly to Dale Street.

In 1866, Benjamin Worcester bought a large chunk of Farnsworth's land in the northeast part of it (see map below). Worcester, in turn, sold off much of it to J. Herbert Shedd, who then sold off smaller lots. The rest of it, was later sold off by Worcester's heirs.

Between 1855 and 1864, the Totten family purchased from Farnsworth most of the southwest corner of his holdings (see map below). Most of this land would remain without houses for the time period of interest.

In 1875, the Wentworth family purchased a large lot of former Farnsworth land on the south side of Dale Street (see map below). The lot straddled what would become Galen Street, and a number of houses were built along the south side of Dale Street before or around 1900.

In 1888, Alfred Tomlin acquired the former Farnsworth land that straddled what would become Woodlawn Avenue, north of Dale Street, and Tomlin Street, south of Dale Street (see map below). Tomlin was responsible for a number of houses along Dale Street in the area, as well as the development of Woodlawn Avenue and Tomlin Street.