Most importantly, the sense of identity which "West Needham" had always felt began to assert itself. There was the first newspaper, bank and telephone, with new churches and homes. Suddenly modern life was descending from all sides. He named the college to honor his next-door neighbor, Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, a wealthy businessman and town benefactor whose mansion was named "Wellesley" in commemoration of his wife, whose maiden name was Welles.īy 1880 the pace of life in town was quickening. One of the businessmen attracted to this pretty, restful place was Henry Durant, who in 1875 startled the countryside by founding Wellesley College, a college for women which has become one of the most respected colleges in the country, on its beautiful lakeside campus. Then, in the 1830s, the railroad came to town, bringing Boston businessmen and the most modern way of life, forever changing the face of the quiet town. In the 1820s farmers drove their produce to Faneuil Hall Market in Boston, and returned home to the popular clubs of the day: the "Newton, Needham and Natick Society for Apprehending Horse Thieves," and the Temperance Society. Men from West Needham joined their neighbors to fight and die at the beginning of the Revolutionary War at Concord on April 18, 1775, and at Gettysburg less than a century later. The western part of this new town, the part which was to become Wellesley, was called West Needham, and spent most of the 18th and 19th centuries as a small, quiet farming town. The land was good and within 75 years enough families were living in a section of Dedham so that a new town split off, named Needham. At the time, it made up part of a larger town, named Dedham. It learned that in the 1630s, after negotiations with Indian Chiefs Nehoiden and Maugus (whose names are still seen in town today), the first nineteen hardy pioneers paid five pounds of currency and three pounds of corn for the land which would become Wellesley. Through a history book, two multi-media shows, a time capsule, a historical play starring current elected officials as Wellesley's founding fathers, town-wide parties and birthday cakes, and skits for schools and summer camps, Wellesley spent a year learning about its past.
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